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rHE CURRICULUM

FRANKLIN BOBBITT

professor of Educational Administration
The University of Chicago

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO

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CAMBKIOGB . MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A

PREFACE

Since the opening of the twentieth century, the evolu-
tion of our social order has been proceeding with great and
ever-accelerating rapidity. Simple conditions have been
growing complex. Small institutions have been growing
large. Increased specialization has been multiplying human
interdependencies and the consequent need of coordinating
effort. Democracy is increasing within the Nation; and
growing throughout the world. All classes are aspiring to a
full human opportunity. Never before have civihzation and
humanization advanced so swiftly.

As the world presses eagerly forward toward the accom-
plishment of new things, education also must advance no less
swiftly. It must provide the intelligence and the aspirations
necessary for the advance; and for stability and consistency
in holding the gains. Education must take a pace set, not by
itself, but by social progress.

The present program of public education was mainly for-
mulated during the simpler conditions of the nineteenth cen-
tury. In details it has been improved. In fundamentals it is
not greatly different. A program never designed for the
present day has been inherited.

Any inherited system, good for its time, when held to,
after its day, hampers social progress. It is not enough that
the system, fundamentally unchanged in plan and purpose,
be improved in details. In education this has been done in
conspicuous degree. Our schools to-day are better than ever
before. Teachers are better trained. Supervision is more ade-
quate. Buildings and equipment are enormously improved.
Effective methods are being introduced, and time is being

iv PREFACE

economized. Improvements are visible on every hand. And
yet to do the nineteenth-century task better than it was then
done is not necessarily to do the twentieth-century task.

New duties lie before us. And these require new methods,
new materials, new vision. The old education, except as it
conferred the tools of knowledge, was mainly devoted to
filling the memory with facts. The new age is more in need
of facts than the old; and of more facts; and it must find
more effective methods of teaching them. But there are
now other functions. Education is now to develop a typds
of wisdom that can grow only out of participation in the/
living experiences of men, and never out of mere memorizay
tion of verbal statements of facts. It must, thereforCv-tokl
thought and judgment in connection with actual life-
situations, a task distinctly different from the cloistral ac-
tivities of the past. It is also to develop the good-will, the
spirit of service, the social valuations, sympathies, and atti-
tudes of mind necessary for effective group-action where
specialization has created endless interdependency. It has
the function of training every citizen, man or woman, not
for knowledge about citizenship, but for proficiency in
citizenship; not for knowledge about hygiene, but for pro-
ficiency in maintaining robust health; not for a mere knowl-
edge of abstract science, but for proficiency in the use of
ideas in the control of practical situations. Most of these
are new tasks. In connection with each, much is now be-
ing done in all progressive school systems; but most of
them yet are but partially developed. We have been de-
veloping knowledge, not function; the power to reproduce
facts, rather than the powers to think and feel and will and
act in vital relation to the world's life. Now we must look to
these latter things as well.

Our task in this volume is tp point out some of the new
duties. We are to show why education must now under-

PREFACE V

] take tasks that until recently were not considered needful;

/ why new methods, new materials, and new types of experi-

I ence must be employed. We here try to develop a point of
view that seems to be needed by practical school men and
women as they make the educational adjustments now de-
manded by social conditions; and needed also by scientific
workers who are seeking to define with accuracy the ob-
jectives of education. It is the feeling of the writer that in
the social reconstructions of the post-war years that lie
just ahead of us, education is to be called upon to liear a
hitherto undreamed-of burden of responsibility; an4 t»
undertake unaccustomed labors. To present some of the
theory needed for the curriculum labors of this new age
has been the task herein attempted.

This is a first book in a field that until recently has been
too little cultivated. For a long time, we have been develop)-
ing the theory of educational method, both general and
special; and we have required teachers and supervisors to
be thoroughly cognizant of it. Recently, however, we have
discerned that there is a theory of curriculum-formulation
that is no less extensive and involved than that of method;
and that it is just as much needed by teachers and super-
visors. To know what to do is as important as to know how
to do it. This volume, therefore, is designed for teacher-
training institutions as an introductory textbook in the

I theory of the curriculum; and for reading circles in the train-
ing of teachers in service. It is hoped also that it may
assist the general reader who is interested in noting recent
educational tendencies.

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in 2007 witii funding from

IVIicrosoft Corporation

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CONTENTS

PART I. ENDS AND PROCESSES

I. Two Levels of Educational Experience . . 3

n. Educational Experience upon the Play-Level . 8

ni. Educational Experience upon the Work-Level » 18

IV. The Place of Ideas in Work-Experience . . 26

^ V. Where Education can be accomplished ... 34

*-^ VI. Scientific Method m Curriculum-Making . .41'

PART II. TRAINING FOR OCCUPATIONAL EFFICIENCY

Vn. Purposes of Vocational Training , . , . 55

VIII. Specialized Technical Training 71

IX. The Specialized Training of Group- Workers . 76

X. Social Aspects of Occupational Training . . 87
♦

PART m. EDUCATION FOR CITimJSHIP

XL The Nature of the Good Citizen .... 117

^ XII. The Development of Enlightened Large-Group

Consciousness 131

XIII. Moral and Religious Education 163

PART IV. EDUCATION FOR PHYSICAL EFFICIENCY

XIV. The Fundamental Task of Physical Training . 171
XV. Physical Traininq 180

XVI. The Socla.l Factors of Physical Efficiency . . 189

viu CONTENTS ^

PART V. EDUCATION FOR LEISURE OCCUPATIONS

XVn. The Function of Play in Human Life . . . 207
y XVni. Reading as a Leisure Occupation .... 227

PART VI. EDUCATION FOR SOCIAL
INTERCOMMUNICATION

^ XIX. The Motheh-Tongue 247

y] XX. Training in Foreign Languages 255

XXI. Some Concluding Considerations .... 282

Index . . . . "• 291

THE CURRICULUM

PART I
ENDS AND PROCESSES

THE CUEEICULUM

CHAPTER I

TWO LEVELS OF EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE

Current discussion of education reveals the presence in
the field of two antagonistic schools of educational thought.
On the one hand are those who look primarily to the sub-
jective results : the enriched mind, quickened appreciations,
refined sensibihties, discipline, culture. To them the end
of education is the ability to live rather than the practical i^
ability to produce. For them most of education is to be mo-
tivated by interest in the educational experiences themselves, —
without particular solicitude at the moment as to the prac-
tical use or uselessness of those experiences. If they expand I
and unfold the potential nature of the individual, therein-^
lies their justification. The full unfoldment of one's powers '
is the primordial preparation for practical life. ^

On the other hand there are those who hold that educa-
tion is to look primarily and consciously to efficient prac-
tical action in a practical world. i.The individual is edu-
cated who can perform efficiently the labors of his calUng;
4^ho can effectively cooperate with his fellows in social and
civic affairs jwho can keep his bodily powers at a high level
of efficiency^ho is prepared to participate in proper range
of desirable leisure occupations ;iiwho can effectively bring
his children to full-orbed manhood and womanhood J^and -
who can carry on all his social relations with his fellows in
an agreeable and effective manner. Education is consciously
to prepare for these things.

4r . . TH3S OURRICDLUM

The controversy involves practically ev^^field of train-
ing. For example, the advocates of culture would have
science studied because it is a rich and vitalizing field of hu-
man thought. They would have the student Kve abundantly
within the wide fields of his chemistry or biology or physics
without at the time any great regard for the practical use or
uselessness of the particular facts met with. If the experience
is vivifying, if it satisfies intellectual cravings, therein is to
be found its suflicient excuse. They assume that enough of
the scientific facts, principles, and habits of mind acquired
will be of use afterwards to justify the teaching from a purely
utilitarian point of view. In fact, they assert that these things
can be better mastered when studied as "science for science*
sake " than when narrowed down to practical science for the
work's sake.

The utilitarians, on the other hand, would have science
studied in order that the facts may be put to work by farm-
ers in their farming, by mechanics in their shops, and va-
riously in the fields of manufacturing, mining, choking, san- ^
itation, etc. They would have an accurate survey made of '
the science-needs of each social class; and to each they would
teach only the facts needed; only those that are to be put
to work. In an age of efficiency and economy they would
seek definitely to ehminate the useless and the wasteful.
To cover the broad fields of the sciences without regard to
the functioning value of the particular facts is a blunder-
buss method in an age that demands the accuracy of the
rifle. It is to waste time and energy and money that are
needed elsewhere. It is to force upon unwilling students
things that can be justified upon no practical grounds.

A social study like history or literature the culture-advo-
cates conceive to be chiefly a means of lifting the curtain
upon human experience in all lands and ages. It gives the
pupil an opportunity to view and to mingle vicariously in

TWO LEVELS OF EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE 5

the age-long va^ed pageant of world-wide human life. The
pupil's busing is simply to look upon this pageant as he
would view a play at the theater. The experience is in itself
a satisfying mode of Hving, enriching his consciousness, ex-
panding the fields of his imagination, refining his apprecia-
tions. When in his reading he beholds the "glory that was
Greece and the splendour that was Rome," the epics of
Homer or the dramas of Shakespeare, he need not concern
himself with the appUcation of that experience in the per-
formance of his practical duties. On the other hand, the
utihtarians tell us that we would better eliminate ancient
history and the older literatures. These deal with a world
that is dead, a civilization that is mouldered, with govern-
ments that are now obsolete, with manners and customs and
languages that are altogether impracticable in this modern
age. In their judgment, in so far as we need history at all, it
should be modern history drawn for the purpose of throwing
light upon current practical problems of industry, commerce,
and citizenship. The facts should be gathered in definite re-
lation to the problems and not be mere blunderbuss history
that aims at nothing in particular. And as for literature, they
say, it would best be that which reveals the world of to-day:
the present natures of men and women; present-day social
problems and human reactions; current modes of thought;
existing conditions in the fields of commerce, industry,
sanitation, civic relationships, and recreational life; not
classics, but current literature.

The controversy is particularly marked in the matter of
foreign languages. Ancient languages do not function in
the Hves of men, say the utilitarians: therefore they should
be cast out. For the vast majority, even the modem lan-
guages do not function. What does not appear in the lives
of the people has no reason to appear in the education of the
people. The argument is plausible, convincing; and yet the

6 THE CURRICULUM

foreign-language advocate is not convinced. He asserts
that important matters are lost sight of; that there are more
things in human life than practical action, however efficient;
that living itself is worth while ; that it is the end of education ;
and that the various utilities are but to provide the means.

e looks to a self-realization, to a humanism, to a world of
satisfactions that lie above and beyond the mere means to
be used in attaining those high ends. He accuses our prac-
tical age of aiming at a life for man that is too narrow,
barren, mechanical, materialistic.

Now, which side is right? Doubtless both are right. It is
like asking the question, "Which shall the tree produce, the
flower or the fruit? " It must produce both or it will not
perform its full function. We have here simply to do with
two levels of functioning, two levels of educational expe-
riences, both of which are essential to fullness of growth,
efficiency of action, and completeness of character. Both are
good, both are necessary; one precedes the other. One is ex-
perience upon the play-level : the other experience upon the
work-level. One is action driven by spontaneous interest:
the other, by derived interest. One is the luxuri^tion of the
subjective life which has a value for objective experience
even though one be not conscious of the values at the time.
The other looks to the conscious shaping and control of the
objective world; but requires for maximum effectiveness the
background of subjective life provided by the otherj

The culture-people are not wrong in demanding an edu^
cation that looks to the widening of vision, the deepening
of the general understanding, the actualizing of one's poten-
tial powers, the full-orbed expansion and maintenance of
the personality, the harnessing-up of native interests, the
development of enthusiasms and ideals; or briefly, the full
humanization of the individual. They cannot too miich
insist.

TWO LEVELS OF EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE 7

The practical-minded people are not wrong in affirming
that man's life consists, and must consist, largely in the
performance of responsible duties; that these are to be ca-
pably performed; that responsibilities are to be efficiently
absolved; that there is need of technical accuracy, depend-
ableness, industry, persistence, right habits, skill, practical
knowledge, physical and moral fiber, and adherence to duty
whether it be pleasant or painful; and that these results are
not to be sufficiently achieved without education of the
practical work-type. Upon these things they cannot too
much insist.

CHAPTER II

EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE UPON THE PLAY-LEVEL

Recent psychology tells us that man has a long period of
childhood and youth in order that he may play. He plays,
not because he is young, but he is long yoimg in order that
he may play; and thus through active experience secure his
, education. Play is Nature's active mode of education.
Shall a boy unfold his physical powers so that he can
run with speed and endurance, or throw accurately or fight
with strength and skill, or exert himself long hours without
undue fatigue? Nature provides that in his play he shall run
and throw and fight and otherwise exert himself; and thus
make actual his potential powers. Physical play is Nature's^
physical education. Shall the boy develop the social abilities
necessary for full cooperation with the members of his social
group? Nature provides instinctive tendency to participate
in group-plays, social games, conversation, etc., which de-
velop his social nature, fix his social habits, and cement so-
cial soHdarity. gocial play is Nature's active method of »^
social education. Shall the boy possess an unspecialized
mechanical ability of a type that is even more needful to-
day than in the age when man's nature was shaped? Fortu-
nately, here again we find the strong' constructive and oper-
ative play-instincts which drive boys to make and operate
things. Give a normal-minded boy a rich opportunity to
make things and to '*make them go," — and one has then
only to leave him alone with his opportunity. Nature's
method of education will do the rest. Shall he be observant
of men and affairs about him? Shall he fill his mind concern-
ing the things with which he is to be concerned throughout

THE PLAY-LEVEL 9

life? Shall he acquire and maintain masses of knowledge
through the possession of an inquiring disposition? Again
Nature has provided the deep-lying and powerful mental-
play instinct of curir^sity, tV»p intellpotiifll appfititp, the desire
to know. The boy is made watchful of everything that
goes on about him, especially the actions of men. Thus he
learns and thus he continues to leam throughout life.
Mental play is Nature's active method of filling the mind ^
with information.

Since^ducatiQiLisjsa4argely-ar^ matter of loamiag^JJiings,
let us first take up this topic of mental play as the basis of ^
intellectual education. One observes men and their affairs,
the things of one's environment, and the natural phenomena
by which one is surrounded, simply as a mode of living.
Through such observation he is continuously gathering facts
through all of his wakmgliours; and without question as to
the use or uselessness of the information. He makes no
attempt to observe merely the things that can be of practical
service in his personal affairs. He lives most fully who keeps i
himself awake to everything before him and who sees all
in due relation and proportion even though most of it has I
no visible relation to his practical affairs. ^

Not only does he observe directly, but he listens with
consuming interest to the stories of things which he has
not seen. Most of the gossip of the daily papers relates to
things with which, he has no immediate concern. And yet
he reads and learns, and feels that if he does not do so he
does not fully live. The avidity with which he absorbs the
news or the eager curiosity with which gossips delve into
the affairs of the neighborhood show the universality and
the intensity of this hunger after knowledge, even of useless ^
type. One drinks endlessly at this fountain without ever
so much as raising the question whether the knowledge so
obtained is or can ever be of any use. Like breathing, one

10 THE CURRICULUM

feels it to be a natural portion of living which requires no
justification.

Learning things because of curiosity without reference to
the use of that knowledge is really one of the largest normal
activities of man. Knowledge-getting because of curiosity
is analogous to food-getting because of hunger. One wants
the food when hungry whether he knows anything about
its functional value or not. The himger is Nature's way of •^
ascribing value to things that the man needs. Equally, the
healthy mind wants to know the things that appeal to the
mental appetite without care at the time as to their prac-
tical application. /This knowledge-hunger is Nature's •
method of ascribing value to the things that the man needs
— when he is too immature or too stupid to know what he
\ needs. Such strong and continuing instincts impel only to
1 things that are on the whole useful and necessary.

It is play; but it has its values. Although most things
observed have no visible relation to his immediate affairs,
yet everything in the community is related to everything
else in subtle, intangible, and usually unknown ways. Each
individual is the center of a vortex of influences. He needs
an understanding of the total life of the community in order
that he may adjust his actions to the factors of the situation
as a whole. His current information concerning appar-
ently useless things really gives him fullness of vision of the
total pageant of community life of which he forms a part.
This fullness of vision is necessary for understanding; for
valuations; and right social attitudes.

While traveling to my work in the Orient, some years ago,
I had occasion to observe a portion of the educational ex-
periences of two boys about twelve years of age. The ship
CD which we Were traveling stopped for a day or two at each
of a number of ports: Hongkong, Shanghai, Nagasaki, Kobe,
Yokohama, etc. Scarcely had the ship come to anchor when

THE PLAY-LEVEL 11

the boys were off and away on an exploring expedition. For
them it was a region strange and new. There was no assign-
ment of anything for them to leam; they were not sent;
they were not going ashore to get information so that they
might recite upon it at night; it was not a thing upon which
they were later to be examined. Simply a rich field of experi-
ence opened before them and they eagerly embraced their
opportunities and went forth to partake to the full. It was
simply play-experience resulting from their intellectual
hungers. During the day they visited as many different
portions of the city as their time and their means of loco-
motion would permit. They looked into the residences of
rich and poor, into the shops, amusement places, religious
temples, soldiers' barracks, streets and alleys, the condi-
tions of Hfe among the well-to-do and among the poor, etc.
They came back to the ship at night with rich stores of
experience and full to overflowing with information. It
required no effort on the part of the adult members of their
party to secure extended and enthusiastic verbal reports.
13ie-boy&-w^^4iving. They werg jiot simply memori2LLag
facts. It was all upon the play-level; and yet they were se-
curing the best possible type of education. Had it been made
a work-task for them with definite program and time allot-
ments, with reports that had to be put up in specified form
and with examinations to see that nothing had been over-
looked,— would they have left the ship? And in what mood?
This experience of the two boys seems to indicate the kind
of intellectual play-experience needed throughout the fields
of education. In the same way, impelled only by curiosity J
and the play-motive, following the leadings of interest. ^
children and youth should, it appears, wander through
every important field of human knowledge and human
experience. Without any particular consciousness of the se-
rious values or purposes of the learning, they should thus

12 THE CURRICULUM

lay a wide and secure foundation of understanding of all
important aspects of reality. So far as possible, this should
be by observation. But one's horizon is narrow, and most
of this world lies beyond, and stretches backward through
history. Most is to be explored vicariously in imagination
on the basis of the reports of others. For this, pupils need/
books that vividly reconstruct the experiences of others.

There is a great wealth of geographical readings, espe-
cially travels, which present a vivid reconstruction of life in
other lands. As children travel, for example, in their read-
ings with Peary to the North Pole, or with Amundsen and
Scott to the South Pole, their experiences will bring them
to appreciate the nature of the polar regions almost as clearly
as if they had been there in the flesh. Let them travel in
spirit with Livingstone and Stanley and Roosevelt into the
heart of Africa and they will have an appreciation of the
nature of Central Africa that they can obtain in no other
way. Let them travel with Captain Cook and Darwin and
Stevenson through the South Seas, with Dana in his voyage
around the "Horn," with Tyndall and Jordan in the Alps,
with John Muir and Enos Mills in the Rockies, with George
Kennan in Siberia, etc., — let them thus travel vicariously
through the various lands and regions of the earth, and they
will come to have a full appreciation of the nature of the
world. In the reading of literature with geographical back-
ground like Captains Courageous, Heidiy Kim, The Iron
Trail, The Lumberman, etc., children are permitted further
to relive the lives of peoples in various lands and under
various conditions; and thus through living acquire under-
standing. These geographical readings should aim, not at
information, but at experience. Like the two boys roaming
through the cities merely as a mode of living, the children
in our schools should roam through the wide earth in the
pages of their reading merely as a satisfying mode of living.

THE PLAY-LEVEL IS

The more unsophisticated, the less they are conscious of
the serious values, the more they simply follow interest,
probably the better will be the experience for education.

History presents another rich and endless field for explo-
ration upon the play-level. This children should read for
the sake of their interest in the human story, in the anec-
dotes, the biographies, the struggles, the adventures, and
all of the other things that appeal to childhood and youth.
Thus they should become acquainted with all the family
of nations. They should participate in the historical experi-
ences of all important countries for the same type of delight
that actuated the boys in exploring the foreign cities. They
need not know at the time the values of this experience in
developing large-group consciousness, national and plane-
tary sympathies and understandings, the bases of civic
judgment, or the solid foundations of any "Federation of
the World " which we may ever produce.

The teacher must see the serious ends in order to adjust .
conditions, to control motives, and to guide. But children
should not be greatly conscious of the growth-ends of play-
experience. The play-spirit is a skittish thing that tends to
take flight when it sees itself harnessed up and set to pro-
saic productive labors. On this level it is enough for the
children that the historical reconstructions be true, vivid,
interesting, voluminous, and rapidly read; that the experi-
ence be a satisfying mode of living, like going to a play, or
reading an exciting story. On this level it should not be con-
scious learning of facts, — for the reason that we want more
learning than can be accomplished that way; and other things
equally valuable that cannot be accomplished that way at all.

One has a natural interest, not only in the affairs of men,
but also in the things and forces with which men are sur-
rounded and with which they must deal : the phenomena of
nature, the fields of science. Give healthy-minded children

14 THE CURRICULUM

a full opportunity to indulge in the playful manipulation of
toys, tools, machines, appliances, and materials that involve
mechanical principles; the making and operation of electrical
devices; the manipulation of sound-producing apparatus and
instruments; of lenses; projection apparatus; photographic
apparatus; experimentation with the chemical elements;
exploring geological formations; keeping pets; visiting the
Zoo, the Aviary, the Aquarium, or the plant conserva-
tory; observing plants and animals in their native haunts
and habitats; — give the unspoiled child proper oppor-
tunities at these things and he asks no better fun. He
brings to them the same eager intellectual desires to know
that inspire the trained scientist who delights in scientific
"knowledge for its own sake." Let the child, therefore,!
explore the world of reality as widely and deeply as he can)
be enabled to get at it; and when he has reached the limita-
tions imposed by conditions, let him read the stories of
insect life, of flowers, birds, bees, rocks, stars, animals wild
and tame, electricity and its applications, chemistry and its
wonders, mechanics and inventions, light and sound and
heat, and all the rest. Naturally he will explore according
to his maturity. Much of this can be accomplished in the
elementary schools — more than school people have usually
thought possible. Still more of it should come in the high
school. Probably the scientific interest is no stronger in the
high school than in the elementary; simply pupils are capable
of seeing wider and deeper relations. It is probable that the
science experience of the elementary level should cover a
wide range. Then upon the high -school level they will
simply go into greater detail and attain the higher levels of
generahty. After one is familiar with the concrete details,
the tracing-out of general relationships and discovering the
natural organization of the field are among the normal
intellectual delights.

THE PLAY-LEVEL 15

Neither the laboratory nor reading experiences upon this
level need be functional in the consciousness of the children
any more than the daily newspaper or one's observations
out of a car window. The experience is not to be so sys-
tematized that the spontaneous' play-spirit is destroyed.
There is not to be too much teaching. What_the_childreii
crave and need is experience. The school's main task is to
supply opportunities that are so varied and attractive that,
like the two boys when they arrived at a port, pupils will
want to plunge in and to enjoy the opportunities that are
placed before them.

All of these prehminary studies or experiences, whether
geographical, historical, literary, or scientific, like children's
play in general need to be rich in details, full of human
color, infinitely varied, touched Hghtly and then left behind,
taken up as prompted by interest not by logic, superficial,
repetitious, and loosely organized. There is need of move-
ment, irregularity, caprice, variety, and incessant interplay
of all the factors that compose the human spirit. For such
are the ways of childhood; and even of youth and adulthood
in the hours of their freedom.

Enough has been said to illustrate the nature of educa-
tional experience upon the play-level in fields that involve
a large intellectual element: but there are other kinds of^
play. The usual manual training shop is a play-shop, and
the kitchen a play-kitchen.( The experiences in the main are
but a liberation of the constructive and operative play-
instinctsA And upon the early or preliminary levels of one's
education this is as it should be. For where the equipment
is such as to permit diversity of experience with tools,
machines, materials, and processes, there is nothing so
good as play-experience for laying the solid foundations for
the later industrial studies.
I It is generally conceded nowadays that the best type of

16 THE CURRICULUM

physical training is the (liberation of the physical play-
impulses of childrenj Systematic gymnastics and calisthen-
ics are being discarded and in their stead we are introducing
a great variety of indoor and outdoor games, sports,
rhythmic dances, folk-dances, hiking expeditions, etc., of
the types in which well-trained children and youth indulge
in the hours of their freedom. We are making this change,
not because it is easier to manage or less expensive or more
economical of time, for it is none of these things; but rather
because physical experience upon the play-level is a more
effective kind of physical education than spiritless mechan-
ized physical exercises at word of command from which the
play-spirit is absent.

The social training likewise that we are introducing into
our schools is mainly upon the play-level. It is accomplished
in connection with the plays and games, the social clubs,
the dancing, the civic leagues, the Boy Scouts and the
Camp-Fire Girls movements, and the general social life of
the school. The greater the spontaneity, other things equal,
/ the greater the values.

To say that portions of serious education are to be on the
order of play no longer shocks a practical-minded people
as it once did. Our biology, psychology, and sociology have
recently shown us the serious values of play and the vital
function it has always performed and must perform in hu-
man life. For whatever the field of man's activity, it is this
that lays the foundation for the serious, sj>ecialized matters
that are to come later. It is man's basic training, and in the
present world of infinite complexity, demanding world-wide
vision and sympathies, it needs to be full, rich, and extensive.

We are also coming to recognize the value of harnessing

up the play-motive when we wish strenuous exertion. It does

not mean lack of effort; rather intensification of effort. A

/ boy will play till he drops from fatigue, and do it all volun-

THE PLAY-LEVEL 17

tarily for the love of the cause. He will not voluntarily do
that in his work, where the play-spirit is omitted. It is the
boys or girls who enter with the greatest zest into the ac-
tions of men as reconstructed in their histories, who take
sides in the struggles, and who are warmed by their sympa-
thetic and vicarious participation in the historical actions,
who have most historical experience and get the greatest
good from their history. It is the boy who wants to win in
the spelling match who will manfully master the entire spell-
ing book as a part of the game. The pupil who sees his mathe-
matics as a series of interesting puzzles and games, is the one
who will come nearest to conquering every difficulty that
shows its head. The thing that one enjoys is the thing at
which one will strain every nerve. Given a healthy play-
motive and the right opportunity, it is like a high-power
engine and a straight track ahead.

We find here a partial answer to the contention that edu-)
cation on the basis of interest results in softness and flabbi-|
ness. Really it is the one who finds his educational pre-
scriptions pieces of drudgery who most tries to evade them,
consciously or unconsciously; and who consequently suf-
fers from softness and flabbiness. The boys on the ath-
letic fields who most enjoy their opportunities are the ones
who most often over-develop physically; and later suffer
therefrom. Interest-driven exercise is not only efficacious
for developing fiber, but it must even be guarded against
because of its over-efficacy where conditions are specially -
favorable. It is no less true in the intellectual realm. Find
the student in mathematics or physics or Latin who has the
best general command over the subject, who sees relations
in clearest perspective, who has least intellectual flabbiness,
— it is always one who delights in his studies in that field;
one who loves the subject "for its own sake." It is never the^
one for whom the experience is drudgery.

CHAPTER III

EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE UPON THE WORK-LEVEL

Although play has its place in the process, education
aims at preparation for the serious duties of life: one*s calling,
the care of one*s health, civic cooperations and regulation,
bringing up one's children, keeping one's language in good
form, etc. Educational experience upon the work-level is
intended to prepare consciously for the efficient performance
of these and all other serious duties. By work in this chapter
we refer not merely to one's calling, but to all of one's
responsible activities.

Even one's play has ends that are as serious as those of
one's work, for they are the same ends; but the relations are
different. Although one may be unconscious at the time of
the serious values of his play. Nature is thereby aiming
definitely at his physical upbuilding, his mental expansion,
and his social development. Neither the play-instincts nor
the pleasures thereby occasioned are given as purposeless
luxuries. The pleasm'e is noL§3i,end; itjs a lure. It is a prim-
itive method of impelling serious developmental activities
where the intellect cannot be depended upon to direct the
work. It is serious activity impelled by instinct; whereas
work is serious activity impelled by ideas. The play is short-
sighted; even blind in the face of modern conditions. Work
when fully developed is far-sighted, clear-sighted, fully con-
scious of ends and means. The accompanying diagram may
assist in showing the identity of play and work ends, and
also the differences in relationships.

The figure shows four things, A, B, C, and D, all obviously
involved in the preparation for, and performance of, re-

THE WORK-LEVEL

sponsible activities. Play is conscious of only the first; but
this really looks to the second; the second is involved in the
third; and the third then produces the fourth. As indicated

PLAY

WORK

General Exercise
of Powers

(UsuaHy

ple&surable)

Developmental

Results - Power

to Think. Feel

and Act

Putting One's

Powers to Work :

Work -Activities

(Feeling element

disregarded)

The Fruits

Labor

A B C D

Fig. 1. To represent the relations of play-activities and work-activities

to education and to each other.

ivlduars

by following the arrows, the play, mthout the indiviauai s
knowing it, is leading him toward the fruits of serious labors.
But since he does not see the ends, there is no feeUng of *-
responsibiUty.

Work-activity differs in that it looks consciously to all of
the factors. It is conscious primarily of the fruits of the
labors. Here is where the fundamental interest lies. This
casts a derived interest back over the other factors since they
are prerequisites. The worker, while in training, has a
double interest in the work-activities : the primary one is due
to the fact that they produce the fruits that he is after; the
secondary, that they further develop his powers to act,
lifting them to higher levels of efficiency. He is then inter-
ested in the general exercise of the play-level, not because
of the pleasures thereby derived, but because of its value ^
in developing the powers to think and act.

The diagram shows the place in the total scheme of the
two levels of educational experience. A represents experi-
ences of the play-level; C those of the work-level. Both are
factors in developing the individual's work-powers. A comes

go THE CURRICULUM

earlier and lays the foundations; and may continue through-
out life alongside or mingled with the work for maintaining
the foundations. C comes only after one has come to feel
actual responsibility for serious results. It is not to he some-
thing like work; it must he actual work.

It must be observed that the work-level actually differen-
tiates into two, because of the two types of fruits to be
derived from the work-experiences. One may perform the
work-activities (C) for the sake of the ultimate results (D)
without consciousness of the educational effects (B). On the
other hand, one may, from felt responsibility for final re-
sults and consciousness of inferiority of his powers, p)erform
the work-activities for the sake of the developmental re-
sults (B) alone. These are as genuinely the fruits of the
labors as the ultimate objective results. There cannot be
felt responsibility, however, for these developmental work-
results except as it is derived from a f eehng of responsibility
for securing the ultimate results.

Whether the work-experiences, therefore, look toward sub-
jective or objective fruits, hoth interests and responsibilities
relate primarily to the objective; and only in derived form to the
subjective. The strength of the derived interests and responsi-
bilities is determined by the strength of the primary ones. Even
when the developmental results are the things primarily sought
by teachers in directing education, the students must be aiming
primarily at the objective results, and only secondarily at the
prerequisite developmental ones.

An awakening education is everywhere coming to reahze
the need of work-activities as the only possible normal method
of preparing for the work of the world. In the occupational
field, we are developing schools and courses for trades,
commerce, household occupations, agriculture, mining, etc.,
in special schools, continuation schools, and in general high
schools. In the more progressive of these, there is every-

THE WORK-LEVEL «1

where attempt to perform a real portion of the world's work
as the means of training. This may be accomplished by
transferring a portion of the community's occupational
activities to the schools and having the work done there;
or by distributing the students throughout the community
where they can find their work-exi>eriences in those situa-
tions provided by the work-activities of the adult world*

Both plans are used. On the one hand, vocational activ-
ities are being transferred to the schools, and the work done
there under regular shop conditions involving genuine
responsibility. Thus the boys in the shops, instead of the
old-type manual training exercises, are engaged in manufac-
turing school equipment, furniture, farming implements,
playground apparatus, articles needed for Red Cross work
and for community poor-relief, laboratory apparatus, electri-
cal appliances for home use, etc. They are also in places
doing actual community printing, milk-testing, seed-testing,
repair-work on furniture, tools, machines and automobiles,
cement construction, building portable houses, garages, .
gymnasiums, playground pavilions, etc. The girls, instead ^
of formal cooking exercises, are nowadays more and more
put to preparation of the daily school luncheon, home can-
ning and preserving, sometimes doing baking for home use,
or even for the general market. And their sewing is the mak-
ing of actual garments.

Since it is often difficult to transfer actual work-activities to
the schools, another method is for the students to go out into ^
the community where the work is being carried on by the
adult world and there to share in the labors for training
purposes. Although difficult enough to arrange and man-
age, this is often the easier method of the two because of the
frequent practical impossibility of transferring the actual
responsibility to the schools. As a result of this recognition
we are substituting home gardening for training purposes

22 THE CURRICULUM

for the old ineffective school gardening; the home-project
type of agriculture for the school farm; and part-time work
in shops, stores, offices, etc., for mere drill exercises in school
shops and commercial rooms.

In training for citizenship, also, practical activities are
being introduced. Pupils are helping to make the city clean,
sanitary, and beautiful; to care for the city's trees and shrub-
bery; to prevent flies and mosquitoes; to protect the birds
and to destroy noxious insects. They are engaged in making
things for school or community use. Boy Scouts at times
patrol dangerous street-crossings morning and afternoon to
protect the little children going to and from school. School
civic organizations are making local surveys of community
conditions for responsible report to the authorities or to
adult civic organizations.

For practical hygienic training, pupils are often made re-
sponsible for some portion of the school ventilation, building
cleanliness and sanitation, the regulation of temperature,
humidity, and sunlight. Through the school medical depart-
ment and through giving credit for home work, children are
stimulated to outside practical hygienic activities: home
ventilation and sanitation, cleansing the teeth, rational
choice of foods, regulation of sleeping conditions and hours,
adjustment of exercise to needs, care of the eyes, etc.

In the pupiFs language, also, we are introducing the work-
motive of felt responsibility. Pupils are brought to aim at
social results that for attainment require a correct and ef-
fective type of language. This compels them to see their
language as a work-activity employed for getting results.
Responsibility for ends then impels them to watchfulness and
effort in organizing their thought, in paragraph and sen-
tence construction, in choice of words, pronunciation, spell-
ing, handwriting, etc. They are given the opportunities in
problem-solving, oral reports, written reports, letters, news

THE WORK-LEVEL 23

items, communications to civic organizations, applications
for position, debates, social-club activities, etc.

But after enumerating all of these things we must con-
fess that professional vision is far in advance of professional
practice. For really, except for the language field, taking
schools the country over, there is not much training experi-
ence of genuine work-type, the criterion being felt respon-
sibility for serious results. Even trade-school experiences are
most often exercises in isolation from the world's actual work.
Far more is this the case with courses bearing vocational
names in the general schools; and with training for citizen-
ship, hygiene, and sanitation. The list of things being done
somewhere in the country is very long; but it is a rare school
system that has found a way so to share in community work-
responsibility as to secure a sufficient portion of actual work-
experience for training purposes.

There is insufficient realization of the need or the legit-
imacy for public education of actual work-experiences.
Even yet our schools appear to be well-named from the old
Greek word schoUy meaning leisure. Li the main, education
in grammar grades, high school, and college of liberal arts

— we except the mastery of the school arts in the elementary
school and the training in professional and technical schools

— is yet a life of leisure. Teachers are often able to prevent
students' enjoying it; but that does not make the activity
an organic portion tA^e world's work, which is set aside for
training youth in the processes of that work.

In technological and professional schools we have long
recognized the need of work-activities. Young physicians
in training are helpers in hospitals; engineering students have
field and shop work; agricultural students, work on the
school farm; but even in these schools the amount of work-
experience is usually felt to be inadequate. This is revealed
by such a movement as that in the University of Cincinnati,

84 THE CURRICULUM

where the students in mechanical engineering have been given
opportunity to work half-time in manufacturing establish-
ments of the city, bearing actual responsibilities and receiv-
ing wages for their work. This is to provide work-experience
J that is genuine in character and adequate in quantity.

The need of work for training has long been understood
by the skilled trades. The apprenticeship system trained
through experiences of the work-type. The recent agita-
tion for vocational training in public schools is due, not to a
new need, but to new conditions. The apprenticeship sys-
tem, never very efficient, has broken down in the face of
complicated conditions. Public education is coming to the
rescue. But even though we organize schools for the purpose,
we must no less than in the old days include actual work-
experience. Indeed, we must now have a greater quantity
of responsible work than was provided by the old apprentice-
ship system, because of the greater present complexity
of work and of the higher levels of efficiency to be reached.
And it must be not less real than the old.

Finding work-experience for training presented no diffi-
culty to the apprenticeship system. It had little else to pro-
vide. But that is just the thing that has been most absent
from public education. Schools have been places of leisure
occupations; not places where the world's work is being per-
formed. They can provide any amount of experience on the
play-level. But they are not in command of the world's
work-activities, whether production, distribution, civic regu-
lation, community sanitation, or other. In their traditional
form they are therefore not in a position to provide much
training on the work-level. Hence, education requires a pro-
found transformation before it is able to take adequate care
of work-experience as training for work. Schools must be-
come sharers in the world's work of every kind by way of
finding the only possible training opportunities.

THE WORK-LEVEL 25

Experiences of the work-type may well begin in a small
way even in kindergarten and primary grades. The expan-
sion of the pupils' understanding of ends and means will be
gradual up through the grades. It ought to be fairly full by
the later years of the high school — in spite of present usual
practices to the contrary. It is not unreasonable to sup-
pose that it should be dominant on the college level — again
in spite of current contrary practices. The academic tend-
ency has been to delay educational activities of the work-
type. They have been withheld from college students until
the professional schools have been reached; and from most
high-school students until they reach technical schools, or
the school of the world's work. This is the way of ease and
economy; but the world is rapidly coming to think it a
mistake.

CHAPTER IV

THE PLACE OF IDEAS IN WORK-EXPERIENCE

Even the crude activities of the past were directed by
ideas. The fanner in his fields, the machinist at his lathe,
the housewife at her cooking, the citizen in arriving at judg-
ments of public affairs, or in staving off disease, — all con-
sidered the conditions before them, and applied the means
and processes that appeared to them the most rational. But
they lacked accurate scientific knowledge of the factors in-
volved. The ideas that they put to work were crude; and
that is why. their labors were crude and inefficient. The
thought or subjective part of the work is the work essen-
tially. One indispensable thing for making work efficient is
a full supply of accurate scientific information concerning
all the factors. The second thing is a correct performance of
the ideational portion of the practical work. Let us begin
with the latter and call it

The antecedent performance

The practical performance of any task divides itself natu-
rally into two parts. First, there is the planning of the
work: making decisions as to exact objectives and as to the
specific materials and processes ^to be employed. This task
involves performance in imagination of the entirfe labor from
incipiency to finished product. It involves marshaling all
of one*s science relative to both objectives and processes;
and drawing plans as dictated by the science. One must also
test out in imagination each step in the series to see that
everything fits into everything else, and that there is no
contradictioij, interference, or other obstacle.

Any complete task will serve to illustrate. Let us take

PLACE OF IDEAS IN WORK-EXPERIENCE 27

the case of the boy in the machine-shop who sets out to con-
struct a gas-engine. He first constructs it in his imagination.
This antecedent construction involves all of the parts, sizes,
designs, and relations. In this way, without any risk or
waste of materials, he may construct it over and over again,
to see that there are no mistakes, no interference of parts,
and no insurmountable diflSculties. He may construct it in
many ways, using different designs, sizes of parts, or pro-
portions; and he may test out each design in order to deter-
mine the working plan that seems best. For these antece-
dent labors, he must mobilize all of his science and put it
to work both in the planning and the testing. His thought
may be concentrated into a few hours or distributed over
months. But when this antecedent construction and testing
are satisfactorily accomplished and decision made, the more
fundamental portion of the work is done. There remains
the objectification of his plans. This is not mere mechan-
ical registration of his decisions. Back of his hands, his
thought is still busy directing, guiding, and supervising.
His hands are the tools of his intellect. Such manual labors, ^

before being mechanized into habit, — a later process, ^

are essentially intellectual labors.

This must be emphasized because of the frequent tend- \
ency in the training to commit one or the other of two \
fundamental errors. One is to leave out a large portion of ^
the ideational element, by giving ready-made plans to the |
students which they are simply to follow: shoj)-manuals, \^
books of recipes, blue-print plans, ready-made patterns,
detailed directions. In such case pupils may get practically
no vision of the controlling science, and are not even put-
ting second-hand ideas to work. They may get nothing
more than ideas of mechanical manipulation without any
insight into the reasons for the processes. As training
experience, it is barren and ineffective.

38 THE CUEBICULUM

The opposite error is the attempt to teach the science
without any relation to the work-situations. This no more
than the other is putting ideas to work; it is therefore not
intellectual work-experience. It may accomplish much as
intellectual play. Practical experience proves that it lays a
good foundation for later actual work-training, — as where
the man trained in "pure" science goes into practical in-
dustry, and rapidly gets his next level of training. We do
not deny that the play-level provides an excellent founda-
tion for training of the work-type; we have everywhere
affirmed it. But it is not training on the work-level. And
in the degree in which the latter is necessary, the experience
is incomplete, inefficient, unfocused, fails to provide work-
valuations, work-habits, attitudes, and sense of responsi-
bility. As a method of training for serious duties, it too is
ineffective.

We must point out an important difference between the
antecedent or subjective performance of the act and the
later objective performance. In the former, one draws on
all his ideas that are in any way related to the task in hand.
If he has abundant ideas and a fertile imagination, he may
be brought into contact with about every important thing
in the field. He comes to know the science and properly to
value it, as he thus chooses the things that can serve his
purposes and rejects those that are of no service. The plan-
ning, the antecedent performance of the task, is, therefore,
from an educational point of view, the most important
part of it. But it cannot have vitality for education unless
it is really antecedent to intended action; unless it is an
organic portion of a total act of which the outward perform-
ance is but the culminating portion.

On the other hand, after decisions are made, plans drawn,
and only execution remaining, then one's mental life is
much narrowed. It is concerned intensively with the one

PLACE OF IDEAS IN WORK-EXPERIENCE 29

design that has been decided upon, the one set of materials
and methods. This culminating activity has many educa- •
tional values : it gives motive and substantiality to the whole^
process; it gives depth to one's understanding and appreci-
ations; it confers operative skill. But it cannot be compared
with the antecedent labors for giving width of intellectual
vision.

The jmpil musty therefore, not be robbed of the antecedent
performance by having the finished plans prescribed by the
teacher or by a class manual.

The antecedent performance possesses another important
value. Novices-jvill not acquire a sense of responsibihty
unless they an^m^^ to take the initiative, to make plans
and decisioij^for themselves, and to bear the responsibility
of making me plans successful. But with novices, this in-
mispkes, waste of materials, and losses. Since pen-
Ln enforce responsibility, and since loss is the
lalty of mistakes, serious waste appears to be the
price of initiative and responsibility, — if they are to be
real, and not merely make-believe.

We have a way out of the diflSculty as we distinguish be-
tween antecedent and culminating performance; and as we
develop educational technique appropriate to the two.
Full and complete initiative can be given students for the ante-
cedent performance of the action. Then, before the steps
planned are actually taken, they can be reviewed, step by
step, as frequently as necessary by the student by way of
seeing that no mistake is involved. Plans can be taken up
in class discussion, and tried out in the critical testing imagi-
nation of teacher and pupils. Serious defects will thus be
discovered. Mistakes can be seen before they are made
actual. Losses can be realized, and the penalty enforced in
imagination sufficiently to restrain wrong action. As a
matter of fact, this is the way Nature enforces her penalties

80 THE CURRICULUM

most of the time in the case of the successful man. He is
successful because he anticipates mistakes and corrects
them before they are made. The unsuccessful man is the
one of narrower vision and duller imagination who does
not see his mistakes until he is injured or crushed beneath
them. "Experience is the best teacher." But experience in
anticipating mistakes and correcting them before they are
made is a better teacher than loss and injury. The plan
demands full development of the technique of antecedent
performance.

The technical information .

On the work-level, the task to be performed is central;
and the science is organized about it. A boy, for example,
in the school shop wishes to construct and operate a tele-
graphic apparatus. This ambition will serve as the center
of the science training. He will be motivate<y|^fl^^M^
information concerning batteries, wiring, elect^HUBB^
making and breaking of circuits, etc. He will learn just the
things that he needs for the task in hand; and nothing more
at the time. Through using his ideas in the planning and in
the actual construction he comes to realize the full signifi-
cance of the various facts. The derived interest aroused is
for most individuals more potent than the native interest
in the abstract science facts and principles. For this reason
the knowledge is more effectively driven home and remem-
bered.

, There is a strong drift in public education toward this
project-method of organization. The school corn clubs, for
example, assemble all possible information relative to the
growth of com and use it for the control of practical pro-
cedure. Children engaged in an anti-mosquito campaign
assemble just the entomological, bacteriological, and other
ioformatioQ needed in their labors, rejecting for the moment

PLACE OF IDEAS IN WORK-EXPERIENCE SI

all irrelevant scientific information. The tree-protecting
league gathers all p)ossible facts concerning the species of
trees attacked by insects, fungi, etc., together with the
scientific information needed for combating the destructive
influences. They reject for the time all botanical or ento-
mological information that has no bearing on the problem
in hand. In weeding out the grammatical mistakes made
by children in their speech, the grammatical information is
assembled that relates to the specific mistakes found; all
other grammatical facts are passed by as irrelevant. In
brief, one learns the things needed for directing action in
connection with the situations in which the action is to take
place, and just previous to the drawing-up of the plans.
Only under such circumstances can knowledge properly
reveal its significance, be rightly focused upon human
affairs, or be normally assimilated. Knowing and doing
should grow up together.

In spite of these virtues, the project-method as a mode of
teaching science is not always in good repute. This is not
due to any inherent defect in the method — when it is
complete. It is by far the most complicated method; and
differs most from familiar traditional ones. It is not, there-
fore, surprising that teachers often develop an incomplete
and ineffective form of the method. Whenever a training
task involves practical performance, this is so visible,
tangible, and solid to sense that it often comes to be con-
ceived as being the whole thing. The teacher attempts to
get the pupils in the mest economical and expeditious way
to perform the practical actions by way of securing the re-
sults. The teachers, therefore, often do the thinking, draw
up the plans, and prescribe procedure for the students. This
is exceedingly common in sewing-rooms, kitchens, and shops.
So far as the pupils' experience is concerned, the intellectual
element is largely dropped out. In such case the pupils do

82 THE CURRICULUM

not themselves perform the most vital portion of the work.
The part given over to them does not require that they
master the science involved for the sake of planning and
self-guidance. **

The technique of the project-method requires that in the
teaching the major attention be given to what we have
called the antecedent performance rather than to the
objective or culminating performance. It also requires that
the antecedent activities be performed by the students.

In the use of this method the necessary ideas are to be
got from at least three places. To make the matters clear
let us resume our illustration of the gas-engine : —

1. In the first place, the boy, motivated by intention to
make the engine, will observe such engines in as great vari-
ety as available. For fullness of understanding, he should
operate them, and see the workings of the parts. He should
take them to pieces, and reassemble them. This experience
brings him into direct contact with all the science realities
involved — the first vital step in learning science. After he
has thus experienced the realities, he is prepared to isolate
them, verbalize them, and appreciate quantitative rela-
tions. The situation does not contain all that he needs for
these latter purposes, and certainly not enough for full
scientific generalizations; but the things it contains he needs
as part of the total process.

2. In the second place, he will read descriptions, pictures,
drawings, and diagrams of engines that he has not seen, by
way of extending his vision of possibility. If he can have
direct access to two or three types of actual engines, he will
have an apperception-alphabet that will enable him easily
and quickly through reading to examine another ten or
twenty types. It would be well in such case to begin with
the historically earliest and simplest types, noting both the
structures and the science involved; then to trace the

PLACE OF IDEAS IN WORK-EXPERIENCE , S3

changes that have been made by way of improvement and
of adaptation to special needs, and reasons for these changes.
When this experience is added, he is provided with a better
basis for generalizations. But probably even this is not
enough. . /

3. For illustrating the third step, let us isolate the single
feature of the ignition system. Instead of further widening
his understanding of the electrical science involved by look-
ing to still more engines, — there is a limit beyond which
little or nothing new appears, — he might look off and view
the wide field of electricity in general and its applications
in general. He is still motivated, let us say, by his project
of developing an improved type of ignition system. He
reads a full treatise on electricity and its applications. Where
his apperception is defective, he tries things out in the labo-
ratory. But, though taking a full survey of the "pure"
science, he is only sorting over the possibilities of the field,
locating suggestions, trying to find the ideas that he can
put to work. This pure-science overview is the ultimate
level of project-science experience.

While in a sense this is "pure " science, it is very different
from the usual non-functional type. Here the primary
thing in the student's consciousness is the project, the piece
of work to be done; not the satisfaction of intellectual inter-
ests. He examines every fact and principle in relation to
his practical problem, and not merely as a field of intel-
lectual sight-seeing. The two types of experience differ as
play differs from work.

CHAPTER V

WHERE EDUCATION CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED

Educational experiences must take place where they
can be normal. Frequently this is not at the schools.

The nature of the problem can be made clear by illustra-
tions of varying character. Let us take first the case of the
training of girls in sewing. The practical activities will
transfer to the schools with ease. The continuing need of
garments and other household necessities involving needle-
work gives rise to the normal responsibilities. While the
activities may take place in the individual homes, the
teacher going about from home to home to supervise it, the
plan is not administratively economical. The schools can
easily provide the simple appliances needed. The materials
can be carried to the schools as easily as books, and the
practical labors performed there as normally as at home.
When tasks can be so transferred without loss of normal
responsibility, this is administratively desirable.

The training in home cooking will not transfer with any
such ease. Food materials are bulky, and not easily carried
to the school for the work, nor easily returned to the homes.
They are perishable, easily subject to contamination in
transit, and often should be served as soon as preparation
is complete. Most of the practical activities therefore must
take place in the home kitchen, not in the school kitchen.
For supervising it, teachers need to be in intimate contact
with the homes. A few such cooking tasks can be trans-
ferred to the schools at times, as for example, certain special
baking, a portion of the canning, preserving, jelly-making,
etc. These can occasionally be performed at the school and
the product then returned to the homes of the girls.

WHERE EDUCATION CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED 35

Owing to the diflSculty of providing normal responsibili-
ties, and therefore normal training conditions, many
schools at present are using a substitute. The preparation
of the school luncheon is used to provide responsible train-
ing conditions. The girls in relays provide daily one or two
dishes for the luncheon. In other cases they prepare lunch-
eons for the teachers, regularly or occasionally. In a few
schools they even go so far as to provide an entire noonday
meal each day including a dozen or more dishes, served
cafeteria-fashion for several hundred students. When a
needed activity will not transfer, it is thus possible occa-
sionally to find a sufficient substitute that is not mere make-
beUeve.

Recognition of the necessity of normal responsibility as
a factor of educational situations is a relatively recent devel-
opment. Not many years ago it was felt, for example, that
training in gardening could be given in our little school
gardens. Recently it has been discovered that in so far as
the school garden omits normal responsibility for securing
actual results that are to be used in serious ways, it is but a
play-garden. As such it is of value for preliminary training
of the play-type. It can introduce the subject and give
some beginning ideas as to gardening; and it can serve for
demonstration and experimental procedure; but it is in-
sufficient for serious training. It is being discovered that
gardening responsibility transfers to the school only with
great difficulty, and that therefore the training should take
place in the home gardens with the teacher going about
from home to home to supervise the work. The training
needs to be taken care of where the work can be normal, not^
where it may be most convenient for teachers.

Formerly we thought we could train machinists and car-
penters in our high-school manual-training shops. Now we
see that our shops of the usual type provide play-situations.

86 THE CURRICULUM

not work-situations. The constructive instinct is strong in
boys, and whether in school or not their play inclines them
to constructive activities. The usual school shop offers
these instincts a favorable outlet. This is of large value.
Constructive play, distributed from kindergarten to high
school, is a highly profitable training of the preliminary
type. It introduces novices to the field of serious mechanical
occupations. It can carry them but a portion of the way,
however. After such introduction the thing needed is re-
sponsible work, where the boy can participate in serious
mechanical activities, under actual working conditions.
The practical responsible aspects of shop training will
transfer to the schools under present conditions only with
great difficulty. It is scarcely possible to organize in any
sufficient way at our schools actual machine-shop produc-
tion or the actual building of houses. At the school only
preliminary, laboratory, and demonstration portions can
be taken care of. The culminating portions of the educative
process are to be found out in the world of responsible in-
dustry. To that must the students be sent for the later
levels of their mechanical training.

Our schools have tried to train for health by imparting
textbook and lecture information concerning matters of
anatomy, physiology, and hygiene. If the children got the
facts in mind well enough to recite and pass the examina-
tions, they were considered educated. Application of the
information has been looked upon as a thing to be done by
the pupils only aftef the examination has attested the com-
pleteness of their education. The application has been looked
upon as being in no sense a part of the training process;
certainly not a part of the school's responsibility. Recently
we are becoming better informed. We are discovering that
the application of the information is the culminating process
of education; that without the processes in which the knowl-

WHERE EDUCATION CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED 37

•

edge is put to work, education is only half done. We are
coming to see that education in hygiene is accomplished,
not in the moments of acquiring the preliminary technical
information at the school, but in the moments of using that ^
information in the control of conduct; and in the recurring
moments of such actual use of knowledge while health habits are
being fixed. The training is accomplished as one puts his
ideas to work in the ventilation of his sleeping-room ; in his
choice of food; in caring for his teeth; in keeping up his mus-
cular strength and tone, in work and play; in evading
bacterial infection; and in the countless other matters in ^
which he is called upon_<o act

Most of these hygienic training activities will not transfer
to the school. The training has to be accomplished where
the activity can take place normally. The school can give
necessary antecedent information; it can aid students in
forming judgments as to what to do; it can through teachers
and school nurses cooperate with parents in stimulating
and supervising the activities of the students; but in most
cases the self -directed activities that round out and fix the
training cannot be transferred to the schools. The home-
visiting health-nurse in continual contact with the home
situations in which the pupils live is the one ideally situated
for supervising the culminating aspects of the training.

When in later chapters we look at the responsible activi-
ties involved in training for citizenship, for leisure occupa-
tions, for parenthood, for religion, for social intercommuni-
cation, etc., we shall discover that in most fields of training
there are some of the culminating activities that transfer
to the schools with entire ease; that there are others which
transfer with difficulty; and that there are still others which
will not transfer at all. It will be found, too, that the rela-
tive value of any aspect of training is in no wise related to
the place where it has to be carried on. Very many activi-

38 THE CURRICULUM

ties most urgently needed can be transferred to the schools
only with great difficulty, or not at all. Education is no less
imp>erative, however, simply because of this difficulty or
impossibility of transfer. Our profession must find ways of
going out to the activities that cannot be brought to the
schools. This is now being done in part-time work, in giving
credit for home activities, and in school-club work of various
kinds.

A good example comes from Iowa. The bulletin of the
Iowa Home- Work School-Credit Club enumerates three
hundred and thirty home activities of wide diversity for
which credit is given. It is unfortunate that space precludes
the presentation of the entire list; but the following table
shows the number of activities of each class for which credit
is given: —

Number of
activities
Agricultural activities: —

Plants 45

Animals 18

Agricultural construction and farm economics .... 21
Home economics: —

Sewing 23

Cooking 29

Laundry 17

Housekeeping 18

General construction, repairs, and other work with

tools 59

Home duties of boys and girls 9

Health activities 20

Self-culture (home reading, music, etc.) 16

Helping the aged, the weak, the ill, etc 11

Business practice 6

Thrift activities 4

Civic activities 10

Club projects 24

Total ! 330

WHERE EDUCATION CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED 39

Naturally such non-transferable activities require direc-
tion and supervision. Much of this is to be taken care of at
the school building in the antecedent planning for the activi-
ties. This involves the previous mastery of the necessary
information. So far as possible the children will do their
own planning and thus know what they are about. If the
antecedent portions of the activity are fully taken care of,
the need of personal supervision is greatly diminished. But
pupils need leadership and encouragement. While parents
here have a part to perform, the major responsibility rests
upon the teachers. It demands that they mingle in the
community life and come into contact with their pupils
while the latter are securing their educative experiences.
As teachers educate for efficient performance of hfe's affairs,
they must be a portion of the active world of affairs. In the
degree in which the experience itself cannot be transferred
to the classroom, in this degree the teacher himself cannot
be placed within a classroom for directing the work.

The part-time school or course is another practical recog-
nition of the fact that, where normal experience cannot be^
transferred to the school, the children must be sent to the
places where such normal experience can be had. In such
well-known examples as those of Cincinnati or Fitchburg,
the boys in the shop courses spend one half of the school
year in the classes, laboratories, and shoj>s of the high schools
and the other half of the school year in the shops of the
city, doing real work for wages under shop foremen. The
plan is worked out by having two boys assigned to one job
in the shop. Each boy works a week in the shop and a week
in the school alternately. When one is in the shop the
other is in the school; both are in the shop on Saturdays.

This part-time activity can be indefinitely extended; and
the extension is at present being actually and rapidly made.
The young men in the shops of high schools and industrial

40 THE CURRICULUM

schools are being used by the educational authorities of
certain cities in taking care of the repairs upon school build-
ings and school equipment, under the direction of responsi-
ble repair foremen. In a technical high school recently vis-
ited, the boys in the agricultural class had contracted with
the fruit-growers of the region roundabout to care for the
orchards for a certain price per year. They went out Satur-
days, holidays, vacations, and did the spraying, pruning,
cultivation, harvesting, etc., under the conditions of normal
responsibility. Arrangements are being made in many
places whereby students in typewriting, bookkeeping, sales-
manship, advertising, window-dressing, etc., work for a few
hours per week or certain weeks during the year on part-
time work within commercial establishments.

We discover here a further administrative reason for

/making clear distinction between the antecedent portion

/ and the objective portion of practical action. The planning

I and all the preparation incident thereto can in practically

I all cases be most economically and effectively taken care

of at the schools. The actual putting of ideas to work under

responsible conditions must be accomplished in the diverse

and scattered situations where those conditions obtain.

Administratively this actual accomplishment often presents

difficult problems. In the degree, however, in which the

antecedent portion has been adequately performed, these

difficulties are minimized. The novices when they go out

find themselves prepared to put the right ideas to work;

to do the things with confidence; to do them correctly; and

with little supervision. The world knows how to use that

kind of ability.

CHAPTER VI

SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN CURRICULUM-MAKING .

The technique of curriculum-making along scientific lines
has been but Uttle developed. The controlling purposes of
education have not been sufficiently particularized. We
have aimed at a vague culture, an ill-defined discipline^ a
nebulous harmonious development of the individual, an
indefinite moral character-building, an unparticularized
social efficiency, or, often enough nothing more than escape
from a life of work. Often there are no controlling purposes;
the momentum of the educational machine keeps it running.
So long as objectives are but vague guesses, or not even
that, there can be no demand for anything but vague v
guesses as to means and procedure. But the era of content-^
ment with large, undefined purposes is rapidly passing. An
age of science is demanding exactness and particularity.

The technique of scientific method is at present being
developed for every important aspect of education. Experi-
mental laboratories and schools are discovering accurate
methods of measuring and evaluating different tvpes of
^di]^T^tinnal^j)rocesses. Bureaus of educational measure-
ment are discovering scientific methods of analyzing results,
of diagnosing specific situations, and of prescribing remedies.
Scientific method is being applied to the fields of budget^___
maj^jjg, child-accouiiting, systems of gr^di^^ and^yomo-
^iwia^tc.

The curriculum, however, is a primordial factor. If it is
wrongly drawn up on the basis merely of giiess and personal
opinion, all of the science in the world applied to the factors
above enumerated will not make the work efficient. The
scientific task preceding all others is the determination of

42 THE CURRICULUM

the curriculum. For this we need a scientific technique. At
pr^^ent this is being rapidly developed in connection with
various fields of training.
^ The central theory is simple. Human life, however varied,
^ consists in the performance of sp)ecific activities. Education
that prepares for life is one that prepares definitely and
adequately for these specific activities. However numerous
and diverse they may be for any social class, they can be dis-
covered. This requires only that one go out into the world
of affairs and discover the particulars of which these affairs
consist. These will show the abilities, attitudes, habits.
f appreciations, and forms of _kTl0^^^^g(LJhat men need.
TPhese'wiirbe the objectives of the curriculum. They wilF
be numerous, definite, and particularized. The curriculum
will then be that series of experiences which children and
youth must have by way of attaining those objectives.

The word curriculum is Latin for a race-course^ or the race
itself, — a place of deeds, or a series of deeds. As applied
to education, it is that series of things which children and
youth must do and experience by way of developing abilities

I to do the things well that make up the affairs of adult life;

'Land to be in all respects what adults should be.

The developmental experience^ exist upon two levels. On
the one hand, there is the general experience of living the
community life, without thought of the training values. In
this way, through participation, one gets much of his edu-
cation for participation in community life. In many things
this provides most of the training; and in all essential things,
much of it. But in all fields, this incidental or undirected
developmental experience leaves the training imperfect. It
is necessary, therefore, to supplement it with the conscious
directed training of systematized education. The first level
we shall call undirected training; and the second, directed
training.

CURRICULUM-MAKING

The curriculum may, therefore, be defined in two ways:
(1) itis^theentire range of eYpenenoeSj l>othjimdire£t£d^j
in uni'oldmg? jEe abiUties of the indi-

v3ual; or (£) jLisJthfi. series of consciSTisIy directed training
experiences that the schools use for coipp^ting am"
fecting the unToMmeni. Our prot'ession uses the term usu-
aliy*m the "fatter sense. But as education is coming more
and more to be seen as a thing of experiences, and as the
work- and play-experiences of the general community life
are being more and more utilized, the line of demarcation
between directed and imdirected training experience is
rapidly disappearing. Education must be concerned with
both, even though it does not direct both.

When the curriculum is defined as including both di-
rected and undirected experiences, then its objectives are
the total range of human abilities, habits, systems of knowl-
edge, etc., that one should possess. These will be discovered
by analytic survey. The curriculum-discoverer will first be
an analyst of human nature and of human afi^airs. His
task at this point is not at all concerned Vith " the studies,"
— later he will draw up appropriate studies as means, but
he will not analyze the tools to be used in a piece of work
as a mode of discovering the objectives of that work. His
first task rather, in ascertaining the education appropriate
for any special class, is to discover the total range of habits,
skills, abilities, forms of thought, valuations, ambitions,
etc., that its members need for the effective performance
of their vocational labors; likewise, the total range needed
for their civic activities; their health activities; their recrea-
tions; their language; their parental, religious, and general
social activities. The program of analysis will be no narrow
one. It will be wide as life itself. As it thus finds all the
things that make up the mosaic of full-formed human life,
it discovers the full range of educational objectives.

44 THE CURRICULUM

Notwithstanding the fact that many of these objectives
are attained without conscious effort, the curriculum-dis-
coverer must have all of them before him for his labors.
Even though the scholastic curriculum will not find it
necessary to aim at all of them, it is the function of educa-
tion to see that all of them are attained. Only as he looks
to the entire series can he discover the ones that require
conscious effort. He will be content to let as much as pos-
sible be taken care of through undirected experiences. In-
deed he will strive for such conditions that a maximum
amount of the training can be so taken care of.

The curriculum of the schools vyill aim at those objectives
that are not sufficiently attained as a result of the general un-
directed experience. This is to recognize that the total range
of specific educational objectives breaks up into two sets:
one, those arrived at through one's general experiences
without his taking thought as to the training; the other,
those that are imperfectly or not at all attained through
such general experience. The latter are revealed, and dis-
tinguished from the former, by the presence of imperfec-
tions, errors, short-comings. Like the symptoms of disease,
these point unerringly to those objectives that require the
systematized labors of directed training. Deficiencies point
to the ends of conscious education. As the specific objec-
tives upon which education is to be focused are thus pointed
out, we are shown where the curriculum of the directed
training is to be developed.

Let us illustrate. One of the most important things in
which one is to be trained is the effective use of the mother-
tongue. It is possible to analyze one's language activities
and find all of the things one must do in effectively and
correctly using it. Each of these things then becomes an
objective of the training. But it is not necessary consciously
to train for each of them. Let an individual grow up in a

CURRICULUM-MAKING 45

cultivated language-atmosphere, and he will learn to do,
and be sufficiently practiced in doing, most of them, without
any directed training. Here and there he will make mis-
takes. Each mistake is a call for directed training. w

The curriculum of the directed training is to he discovered in
the shortcomings of individuals after they have had all that can
be given by the undirected training.

This principle is recognized in the recent work of many
investigators as to the curriculum of grammar. One of the
earliest studies was that of Professor Charters.^ Under his
direction, the teachers of Kansas City undertook to dis-
cover the errors made by pupils in their oral and written
language. For the oral errors the teachers carried notebooks
for five days of one week and jotted down every grammatical
error which they heard made by any pupil at any time dur-
ing the day. For the errors in writing they examined the
written work ctf the pupils for a period of three weeks. They
discovered twenty-one types of errors in the oral speech
and twenty-seven types in the written. The oral errors
in the order of their frequency were as follows: —

Per cent

1. Confusion of past tense and past participle 24

2. Failure of verb to agree with its subject in number

and person 14

3. Wrong verb 12

4. Double negative 11

5. Syntactical redundance 10 •

6. Wrong sentence form 5

7. Confusion of adjectives and adverbs 4

8. Subject of verb not in nominative case 4

9. Confusion of demonstrative adjective with per-

sonal pronoun 3

10. Predicate nominative not in nominative case. ... 2

11. First personal pronoun standing first in a series . 2

* Charters, W. W., and Miller, Edith. A Course of Study in Grammar
hosed upon the Grammatical Errors of School Children in Kansas Cityt
Missouri. University of Missouri, Education Bulletin, no. 9.

46 THE CURRICULUM

12. Wrong form of noun or pronoun 2

13. Confusion of past and present tenses 2

14. Object of verb or preposition not in the objective

case 1

15. Wrong part of speech due to a similarity of sound 1

16. Incorrect comparison of adjectives 1

17. Failure of the pronoun to agree with its antecedent 0 . S

18. Incorrect use of mood 0.3

19. Misplaced modifier 0.3

20. Confusion of preposition and conjunction 0.2

21. Confusion of comparatives and superlatives 0.1

Each error discovered is a symptom of grammatical igno-
rance, wrong habit, imperfect valuation, or careless attitude
toward one's language. The nature of the deficiency points
to the abilities and dispositions that are to be developed in
the child by way of bringing about the use of the correct
forms. Each grammatical shortcoming discovered, there-
fore, points to a needed objective of education. It points
to a development of knowledge or attitude which the gen-
eral undirected language experience has not sufficiently
accomplished; and which must therefore be consciously
undertaken by the schools.

Scientific method must consider both levels of thegram-
mar curriculum.^ One task is to provide at the schooPas
much as possible of a cultivated language-atmosphere in
which the children can live and receive unconscious train-
ing. This is really thejtask_5f_^ajorJmport5Ji^ and pro-
vides the typei^"experience that should^ccompKsh an ever-
increasing proportion of the training. The other task is to
make children conscious of their errors, to teach the gram-
mar needed for correction or prevention, and to bring the
children to put their grammatical knowledge to work in
eliminating the errors. In proportion as the other type of
experience is increased, this conscious training will play a
diminishing idle.

CURRICULUM-MAKING 47

In the spfilliijg field, Ayres, Jones, Cook and O'Shea, and
others have been tabulating the words that children and
adults use in writing letters, reports, compositions, etc. In
this way they have been discovering the particularized
objectives of training in spelling. But words are of unequal
difficulty. Most are learned in the course of the reading and
writing experience of the children without much conscious
attention to the spelling. But here and there are words
that are not so learned. Investigations, therefore, lay sjje-
cial emphasis upon the words that are misspelled. Each
misspelled word reveals a directed-curriculum task. Here,
as in the grammar, error is the symptom of training need;
and the complete error-list points unerringly to the curricu-
lum of conscious training.

In the YCCatiiiii^l -field, and on the technical side only,
Indianapolis has provided an excellent example of method
of discovering the objectives of training. Investigators,
without pre-suppositions as to content of vocational curricu-
lum, set out to discover the major occupations of the city,
the processes to be performed in each, and the knowledge,
habits and skills needed for effective work. They talked
with expert workmen; and observed the work-processes.
In their report, for each occupation, they present: (1) a list
of tools and machines with which a workman must be skill-
ful; (2) a list of the materials used in the work with which
workers need to be familiar; (3) a list of items of general
knowledge needed concerning jobs and processes; (4) the
kinds of mathematical operations actually employed in the
work; (5) th6 items or portions of science needed for control
of processes; (6) the elements of drawing and design actu-
ally used in the work; (7) the characteristics of the English
needed where language is vitally involved in one's work, as
in commercial occupations; (8) elements of hygiene needed
for keeping one's self up to the physical standards demanded
by the work; and (9) the needed facts of economics.

48 THE CURRICULUM

Many of the things Hsted in such a survey are learned
through incidental experience. Others cannot be sufficiently
learned in this way. It is by putting the workers to work,
whether adolescent or adult, and by noting the kinds of
shortcomings and mistakes that show themselves when
training is absent or deficient, that we can-discoi^fc!£r_ihfi
/ 'IS^jculum tasks for Hirpnfpd ynf^atinnal education./
\ TrEeobjectives of education are not to be discovered within
just any kind or quality of human affairs. Occupational,
civic, sanitary, or other activity may be poorly performed
and productive of only meager results. At the other end of
the scale are types of activity that are as well performed as
it is in human nature to perform them, and which are abun-
dantly fruitful in good results. Education is estabhshed
upon the presumption that human activities exist upon
different levels of quaUty or efficiency; that performance of
low character is not good; that it can be eUminated through
training; and that only the best or at least the best attain-
lable is good enough. Whether in agriculture, building-
trades, housekeeping, commerce, civic regulation, sanitation,
or any other, education presumes that the best that is prac-
ticable is what ought to be. Education is to keep its feet
squarely upon the earth; but this does not require that it
aim lower than the highest that is practicable.

Let us take a concrete illustration. The curriculum-
discoverer wishes, for example, to draw up a course of train-
ing in agriculture. He will go out into the practical world of
agriculture as the only place that can reveal the objectives
J. of agricultural education. He will start out without pre-
judgment as to the specific objectives. All that he needs for
the work is pencil, notebook, and a discerning inteUigence.
He will observe the work of farmers; he will talk with them
about all aspects of their work; and he will read reliable
accounts which give insight into their activities. From these

CURRICULUM -MAKING 4d

sources he will discover the particular things that the
farmers do in carrying on each piece of work; the specific
knowledge which the farmers employ in planning and per-
forming each sp)ecific task; the kinds of judgments at which
they must arrive; the types of problems they must solve;
the habits and skills demanded by the tasks; the attitudes
of mind, appreciations, valuations, ambitions, and desires,
which motivate and exercise general control.

Facts upon all of these matters can be obtained from a
survey of any agricultural region, however primitive or
backward. But primitive agriculture is the thing which
exists without any education. It is the thing education is
to eliminate. The curriculum-discoverer, therefore, will not
investigate just any agricultural situation. He will go to the
farms that are most productive and most successful from
every legitimate point of view. These will often be experi-
mental or demonstration farms which represent what is
practicable for the community, but which may not be
typical of actual practices in that commimity. Where such ,
general practices are inferior, agricultural education is to
aim not at what is but at what ought to be.

"When the farming practices are already upon a high plane,
education has but a single function: it is to hand over these
practices unchanged to the members of the new generation.

Where the practices of a region are primitive or back-
ward, education has a double fimction to perform. It is not
only to hand over to the new generation a proficiency that
is equal to that of their fathers, but it is also to lift the pro-
ficiency of the sons to a height much beyond that of their
fathers. Within such a region, therefore, agricultural edu-
cation has the additional function of serving as the funda-
mental social agency of agricultural progress.

What we have said concerning agriculture is generally
applicable throughout the occupational world. For discov-

50 THE CURRICULUM

ering the objectives for a training cx)urse in bricklaying one
will analyze not the activities of bricklayers in general, but
those where bricklaying has been carried to its highest
practicable level of efficiency, — as this efficiency is judged
on the basis of all legitimate standards. Education will aim,
not at average bricklayers, but at the best types of brick-
layers.

When stated in broad outline, the general principle is
obvious. In practical application, it presents difficulties.
Men do not agree as to the characteristics of the most desir-
able types of work. The employers of the bricklayers will
be inclined to use maximum productiveness as the criterion
of superior work; and unquestioning obedience to orders
and contentment with any kind of hours, wages, and work-
ing conditions as proper mental attitudes. The employees
will judge otherwise as to some of the factors. The employ-
ers will invite the curriculum-discoverer to investigate situa-
tions where productiveness in proportion to costs is greatest;
the employees, where the total welfare of the worker is con-
sidered alongside of the factor of productiveness. Both sides
will agree that education should aim at the best and that
scientific investigations as to objectives should seek to
discover the characteristics of only the best. They disagree
as to what is the best, and therefore where the investigations
are to be made.

The general principle of finding the scholastic curriculum
in the shortcomings of children and men is quite obvious
and entirely familiar to teachers in its application to the
curriculum of spelling, grammar, and other subjects that
result in objective performance, such as pronunciation,
drawing, music, computation, etc. It is not so clear in con-
nection with the highly complex subjects of history, litera-
ture, geography, etc. What are the social shortcomings
that are to be eliminated through a study of these social

CURRICULUM-MAKING 51

subjects? Our ideas are yet so vague, in most cases, that
we can scarcely be said to have objectives. The first task'
of the scientific curriculum-maker is the discovery of those
social deficiencies that result from a lack of historical, liter-
ary, and geographical experiences. Each deficiency found is
a call for directed training; it points to an objective that is
to be set up for the conscious training. The nature of the!
objectives will point to the ciuriculum materials to be se-
lected for these subjects. A major obstacle is lack of agree-
ment as to what constitutes social deficiency. There is how-
ever no justification for scholastic training of any kind except
as a gap exists between the training of general experience
and the training that ought to be accomplished.

Society agrees sufficiently well as to many social short-
comings. Education needs to assemble them in as accurate
and particularized a form as possible. They can then be
used as the social symptoms which point to the objectives
of history, literature, geography, economics, and other social
studies. Society will disagree as to many suggested deficien-
cies. A program can be scientific, however, without being
complete, ^e thousand spelling words presented by Mr.
Ayres is a good list notwithstanding the fact that it presents
not more than a quarter of the words needed. It is a secure
beginning that can be completed by further studies. In the
same way in our social training, we shall do very well if we
can set up a quarter of the desirable objectives. That would
be a great advance over none at all, as at presenf; and would
provide the nucleus, the technique, and the vision of possi-
bilities, necessary for gradually rounding out the list.

The principleinvolves us in similar difficulties in its appli-
cation to civic, moral, vocational, sanitational, recreational,
and parental education. It is 'equally valid, however, in
connection with each of these. Only as we agree upon what
ought to be in each of these difficult fields, can we know at

52 THE CURRICULUM

what the training should aim. Only as we list the errors and
shortcomings of human performance in each of the fields
can we know what to include and to emphasize in the
directed curriculum of the schools.

PARTH
TRAINmG FOR OCCUPATIONAL EFFICIENCY

CHAPTER VII

PURPOSES OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING

With only occasional exceptions, each of the twenty
million children now in the public schools of America will in
time be obliged to earn his Hving. The schools should,
therefore, deal with every normal child and youth on the
theory that, when adulthood is reached, he must earn his
living. Each is to be a producer to the extent that he con-
sumes. - ' -

In any survey of civilized conditions the most obvious
thing is that men and women must work; that to their call-
ings they must devote a major portion of their time and
energy. They find Nature very parsimonious with her sup-
plies of^food, clothing, fuel, shelter; more ilhberal still in
supplying books, pianos, theaters, railroad and steamship
tickets, church pews, and college courses. Nature supplies
only the crudest raw materials. The rest must be created
by human labor.

Were man content with what Nature supplies, he would
not be man, but only an exceptionally intelligent animal
species. But he has not been content. He has manfully
taken raw Nature in hand and through heavy labor con-
trolled it and shaped it to his high human purposes. Thus
he has laid the foundations of his civilization; won his
measure of freedom from stem biological necessity; and
thus alone can he hold his gains. Through productive toil
he has won his leisure, his surplus energies, and the means
for his art, his literature, sports, travel, science, religion.

Occupational labors clearly represent the basic service to
humanity, the most fundamental social service. In a day

56 THE Curriculum

when the watchword of the world's humanitarian religion
is "social service," it is well to note that the most solid
and never-relaxing portions of this service are the labors
of farmer and merchant, plumber and carpenter, housewife
and seamstress, miner and engineer, physician, teacher, and
journalist, and the rest of the vahant anny of men and
women who labor.

Those who object to vocational education in public schools
because manual labor is sordid and unclean, should note
that its frequent unloveliness is due, not to the fact that men
work, but to the conditions of their labor. Insanitary shops,
factories, and mines sap the physical vitality of the workers.
Their inertia, ignorance, and inefficiency result in too long
a work-day and a too-extended deadly mechanical monot-
ony. They Uve usually within a narrow mental and social
horizon. There is a great dearth of humanizing influences,
companionships, and associations; and owing to this absence
of uplifting influences and opportunities, they all too often
tend to vicious and destructive animal pleasures. Too often
they are compelled to live in crowded, unwholesome houses;
are too often ill-fed, ill-clad, and uncleanly of habit; and
have wages that permit little better even if they should
desire and attempt a higher standard of Hving. The frequent
ugliness of labor conditions is sufficiently evident.

The undesirable conditions are debasing, even destruc-
tive. Their malign influence year after year does degrade or
even destroy the laborer. After long exposure to them, his
character cannot usually be of socially desirable type. Men
should, however, clear the scales from their eyes, and see
that while the maleficent influences may be the usual con-
comitants of labor, they are not necessary concomitants.
Each is really a foe to right labor; a demonstrable obstacle
to efficiency.

The purpose of occupational education is the removal through

PURPOSES OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING 57

general enlightenment of the injurious or destructive labor
conditions. To admit that much of labor is debased and
debasing is not an excuse for faltering before the task of voca-
tional training. It is the very reason for manfully imdertak-
ing it. It is the prrfence of imperfections in the labor field
that justify the ameliorative labors of education. As in the
field of language, where there are no imperfections, there is
no reason for. training in grammar. The more mistakes there
are, the more the reasons for education. In the same way
in the labor field, the greater the number of imperfections,
the greater is the need of vigorous occupational education.

In objection to the social-service doctrine of labor, it may
be urged that vocations are and ought to be individualistic.
It must be admitted, however, that there are some voca-
tional classes upon whom does rest the moral obligations of
social service. The physician, for example, supported by a
given community is expected to serve that community to
the best of his ability. He will respond to calls for service
at any hour and under all conditions. Not his convenience,
but theirs, is to be served. He must respond to the call of
the poor who cannot pay with the same promptness and
good-will that he extends to the call of the well-to-do. He
must keep inviolate all information professionally confided
to his care. In these matters the ethics of the medical voca-
tion is clearly social. The work is recognized as social serv-
ice. The physician's measure of honor is the greater because
it is so.

Most professional service is of analogous type. And it is y
these social-service vocations that we regard as the highest.^
Men of the largest intelligence and ambitions regard them
as the ones most desirable. To develop an ethics of social f
service about a calling does not deprive it of honor or desir- L
ability. On the contrary, it is thereby exalted.

These professional labors are not the only ones about

58 THE CURRICULUM

which public opinion is weaving systems of social ethics.
We hear much nowadays of "public-service" corporations.
The phrase is one of recent coinage. Until within a few
years corporations were expected to serve the stockholders
and directors. Now we have faced them the other way.
They are to serve the pubHc. A railroad company, for
example, can no longer fix the qualities, rates, or conditions
of service in ways dictated solely by self-interest. These
are fixed in the interests of efficient public service. Manu-
facturers of foodstuffs and of clothing are no longer wholly
free to follow the dictates of individual self-interest in the
choice of the raw materials, the labeling of the product, the
labor conditions under which produced, or, in extreme cases,
even prices, when self-interest runs counter to community
welfare. Where the two interests conflict, the public interest
is coming to be dominant. The old plan was to "charge all
that the traffic would bear." In other words, there was to
be a maximum of social extortion for a minimum of social
service. The new situation reverses the terms. Its aim is a

L maximum of social service for a minimum of social exjjen-
^ture.

This weaving of a social ethics about vocational groups
proceeds with almost disconcerting rapidity. Many are
finding it difficult to readjust their systems of ideas fast
enough to keep pace with social changes. But the move-
ment appears to be the irresistible movement of civilization.
Many vocations, hitherto self-centered and materialistic,
are being humanized, socialized, and lifted into a purer
atmosphere. Bankers, manufacturers, and railroad officials,
for example, in recognizing and absolving their recently dis-
cerned social responsibilities, are taking places in social
esteem formerly reserved only for the few so-called " learned "
professions.

Far less clear is this movement of the public conscious-

PURPOSES OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING 59

ness as regards the work of the farmer, the small merchant,
the housekeeper, the artisan, the factory-worker, and the
unskilled laborer. It is easy to see that these classes serve
the general welfare as fully and as fundamentally as the
other classes mentioned above; but their labors are not yet
so fully recognized as community service. Their labors are
looked upon as simply self-seeking modes of making a liv-
ing. The difference in the social-service situation is not a
difference of reality, but only one of social understanding
and recognition. The farmer, for example, perfonns an
indispensable community service in supplying the original
elements of food and clothing. His service is not less high
than that of the physician simply because he ministers to
the bodily side of man. The physician also ministers to the
bodily welfare; and in a less fundamental way. We can do
without the labors of the physician most of the time; but
the services of the farmer extend to every day of our lives.
His labors are fully as strenuous, involve as long hours, and
require as great disregard of physical discomforts.

Recognition of the social-service position of the farmer]
although inadequate as yet, is developing visibly and rapJ
idly. The general public is coming to see that many of its^
ills are due to inadequate service received at the hands of
the men on the farms. The public is coming to scrutinize
the service of the farmer, and to point out, through public
opinion and legislation, ways in which he may better serve
the general welfare; as in the handling of milk, the tuber-
culin test of cattle, etc. Only a few regulations of this type
have yet been extended to the farmer's work. In general his
social responsibilities are yet unrecognized. Whether the
soil socially entrusted to his care shall bring forth twenty or
one hundred bushels to the acre is altogether an affair of his
own, and in no wise an affair of the rest of the men and
women whom that land must feed. He is in the position of

60 THE CURRICULUM

the street-car company that runs cars or not just as the
company pleases without regard to the general welfare; or
of the physician who responds or not to a call for help
according to his own personal desires. The countless sug-
gestions made nowadays by bankers, merchants, packing-
house directors, grain-dealers, ultimate consumers, etc., to
"educate " the farmer so as to bring about better and bigger
crops of all kinds, to keep him and his family healthy, happy,
and eflficient, and to keep the sons upon the farm, are indi-
cations of a growing recognition of the indispensable social-
service aspect of the farmer's work. In spite of any desires
on his part, a social ethics is being woven about the farmer's
work in the public consciousness.
^^'^ Responsibility is not all on one side, however. In serving
all other groups efficiently, the farmer puts upon all of them
the responsibility of serving his interests equally in return.
He must have opportunities for himself and family for self-
realization as full as those accorded to the groups which he
serves. Current discussions of rural education, churches,
social opportunities, rural surveys, etc., indicate a rapidly
growing realization of these return social responsibilities.
In developing this recognition of mutual obligation, the
farmer loses nothing: he gains much. It means improved
material conditions, a widened mental and social horizon,
more numerous social contacts and opportunities, and
heightened social esteem. His measure of honor and of
reward must be in proportion to the general consciousness
of his measure of service.

It should be mentioned here that the development of a
social ethics about any vocation is perhaps always done
hy those who receive the service, not hy those who perform it.
Food manufacturers are not the ones who pointed out the
community-service aspect of their labors, and the result-
ing obUgations of purity, honesty of label, and full weight.

PURPOSES OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING 61

Recognition of their obligations had to be forced upon them
by those to whom they owed their responsibihties. This is
equally true of railroads and municipal-service corp)orations,
of journalists and Congressmen, of teachers and clergymen,
judges and physicians. An occupational class does not of
itself develop its own social ethics. This must be done by
the general public, and i>erhaps always in the face of oppK)-
sition from the class that is being socially assimilated. The
superintendent of schools in a large city recently stated that
after fifty years of service within the city as teacher, princi-
pal, and superintendent, he had never known a progres-
sive educational movement to be proposed that was not op>-
posed in the beginning by the majority of the teachers. If
such is the case with an occuimtional group already so en-
lightened as teachers, and already so imbued with the spirit
and traditions of service, much more may initial oppositions
be expected of social groups which are in less close contact
with enlightenment, and which have not yet the social
momentum of tradition.

Social service does not mean self-renunciation. Self-
interest cannot be eliminated. It is the steam that runs the
whole machine. It has always been and must always be the
mainspring of human action. It must be noted, however,
that, on the one hand, there is a narrow, ignorant, materi-
alistic seM-interest; and on the other, an enlightened, hu-
manistic self-interest characterized by wide social vision,
which recognizes that individual welfare at its highest comes
only through general community welfare at its highest.

The growing zeal for the vocational education of all
classes, shown by clear-sighted men and women whose
primary interest is general human welfare, is closely related
to this changed and still rapidly changing attitude toward
all useful vocations. They see that every useful calling is
not only in itself social service, but that it is coming to be so

62 THE CURRICULUM

recognized; and that it is being more and more given its
proper measure of social reward and honor.

This is solving a problem hitherto insoluble, although our
schools pretended to solve it by an impossible method. A
, certain few occupations, the professional and the mana-
'j gerial, have been looked upon as possessing an ethical su-
' periority to commercial, mechanical, agricultural, or house-
\ hold occupations. It has been felt that in the professions
men can live honorable, worthy social lives, while in the other
■ caUings men are of necessity sordid-minded, self-seeking, and
generally more or less debased. It has been felt that edu-
cation must close the gates of full opportunity to no child.
The only gates of full opportunity are those that open
' toward the professions. These are the ones, therefore, that
are to be held open to every child — these and no others.
To start him toward anything else is to deprive him irrevoca-
bly and forever of the opportunity of f uU-statured, socially-
honored manhood. The result has been that we have of-
fered pre-professional training to all pupils. And we have
refrained from recommending to students that they prepare
for the so-called "lower" occupations. In this attitude
teachers have been honest and high-minded. They have
felt that only the best was good enough for their pupils.
Their highest service, they have felt, has been to help their
pupils to the highest.

While honest and well-intentioned, the plan is incredibly
shortsighted. The doors of opportunity are not opened to
our twenty milHon children and youth in any such easy way.
If all of them should take advantage of the opportunities
and fit themselves to enter upon professional or managerial
labors, they would find, when they reached the world of
affairs, that there are positions of this type for less than
ten per cent of them. More than ninety per cent would
after fruitless preparation be compelled to enter the ranks

rURPtSES tF VtCATI#NAL TRAIHINC^ 63

of tradesmen, merchants, miners, farmers, factory opera^
tives, etc. Nearly all would be turned back into the so-
called "lower " vocations. Our people must be given credit
for seeing the fallacy of the plan. The withdrawal of pupils
of adolescent grades, of which we hear so much lament,
appears to be indicative of a certain amount of common
sense. Men see that the plan only pretends to offer high
opportunity to all; it does not really do so. If every man and
woman were a college graduate, the useful labors of the
world would still have to be performed. Productive labor
is not to be escaped by shunting everybody into the pro-
fessions.

So long as equally useful vocations have been so unequally
honored and rewarded, and so long as labor conditions
have offered such unequal opportunities for self-realization,
this educational problem has been insoluble. The solution is
coming, not through the impossible plan of lifting all
people into the professions, but through lifting all vocations
to the social level of the professions. The process is making
the door to any useful vocation a door of opportunity.

The objectives of occupational training

In the imperfections of the occupational world, one finds
the call for directed vocational training.

If all occupational affairs were efficiently and harmoniously
conducted by the present adult generation, education would
have but a simple task to perform. It would be nothing
more than to hand over to the members of the rising genera-
tion the fully developed occupational heritage of the pres-
ent generation. Educators would make a survey of actual
occupational conditions by way of finding the particular
objectives for which the young people are to be trained.
It would be easy to discover demonstrable objectives ac-
cepted by everybody, because they would be already actual
in the world of affairs.

64 THE CURRICULUM

Unfortunately, the present world of occupation is not of
the type described. Affairs in general are managed neither
efficiently nor harmoniously. As a matter of fact, the ad-
vocates of most vocational training are often chiefly inter-
ested in raising the labors of agriculture, mechanical trades,
commerce, etc., to higher levels of efficiency. They are in-
terested not so much in the education of youth as in the
improvement of the work in the world of practical affairs.
The improved education of the worker is simply a means of
bringing about this result.

Education under the circumstances has, therefore, a
double task to perform: (1) to act as a primary agency of
social progress, lifting the occupational world to a higher
and more desirable level; (2) to do this by educating the
rising generation so that they will perform their occupational
functions in a manner greatly superior to that of their
fathers. The task is to develop in the rising generation, not
merely the degree of proficiency found in the world about
them, but to carry them much beyond; to look, not merely
to the actual practices, but rather to those that ought to be.
It is so to train them that the occupational mistakes, weak-
nesses, imperfections, maladjustments, etc., that now appear
so numerously in the occupational situations of their fathers
shall be as fully as practicable ehminated in that more har-
monious and more efficient occupational regime that they
are to establish and maintain.

Since the training is for the purpose of eliminating the
various undesirable weaknesses, obviously one of the first
tasks of education is to discover what these are. This at
present is a baffling and in part an impossible task because
of the vagueness of our knowledge as to what ought to he.
Large portions of the occupational realm have not yet been
sufficiently explored by scientific investigators. These un-
explored regions constitute fields of great disagreement on

PURPOSES OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING 65

the part of differently situated interested parties. A list of
occupational weaknesses drawn up by an employers' asso-
ciation will differ in essential particulars from one drawn
up by a labor organization. A group of social or civic
workers will prepare a list that will differ in important
respects from either.

Educators meet here with a grave difficulty. The correction
of grammatical or spelling errors, for example, has no impor-
tant economic results. Property distributions are not af-
fected. Men do not, therefore, greatly care what the list
of grammatical or spelling weaknesses may be that are to
be corrected by the training in our schools. They give Httle
heed to our lists, however complete they may be. But in the
occupational field, property is affected. An undesirable oc-
cupational condition very frequently gives increased profits
to one group and does harm to a second. It is, therefore,
considered good and desirable by one and evil by the other.
Each side develops a special economic theory. One justifies,
the other condemns. Public education, however, must train
the individuals of both groups for the occupational and eco-
nomic things that ought to be. We cannot employ two sys-
tems of thought in the drawing-up of the training; and each
side forbids our using that of the other. And in the face
of such a blocked situation, each side demands of the schools
that something adequate be done.

Apparently the only practicable thing for the present is
to assemble that quite considerable list of occupational de-
ficiencies upon which all sides can now agree sufficiently for
getting a program under way. This can be only a partial
program; but it can provide a common ground of under-
standing which can be gradually extended until in time it
embraces the whole field.

A long list of occupational deficiencies can be obtained
from the Report of the United States Commission on In-

ee THE CURBICULUM

dustrial Relations. This commission visited all portions of
the country and secured testimony from representatives of
eighty-two labor organizations; thirty-six employers' asso-
ciations; one hundred and thirteen firms and corporations;
thirty-eight civil organizations; and fifty public institu-
tions. Naturally witnesses of different types did not agree
as to occupational maladjustments, or remedial measures.
But education cannot wait till the world has settled all its
differences. We must secure a list of deficiencies that can
be agreed upon by at least a majority of citizens. In the
following brief list we present a mingled sample of occu-
pational deficiencies and maladjustments as reported to the
commission by employers, employees, and social workers;
or as implied in their testimony.^

Occupational deficiencies

1. Inefficiency of workers.

2. Inefficiency of managerial officials in organization, admin-
istration, and direction of work.

5. Dearth of high ideals and standards of workmanship.

4. The misunderstanding and misvaluation on the part of each
other of both labor and capital; the lack of mutual confidence;
the class prejudices.
^ 6, The failure of workmen to appreciate the superior power of
intelligence over force in the correction of social and eco-
nomic difficulties.

6. Inaccessibility of facts concerning the various occupational
fields to many or most interested parties.

7. Violence in labor troubles: lockouts, strikes, black lists,
boycotts, use of provokers, spies, and gunmen, sabotage,
"soldiering," etc.

8. A lack of industrial democracy; the presence of industrial
feudalism.

9. The presence of opposing special interests which make neces-

* Mainly taken from a summary of the Report of the Commission,
published in The Survey, December 12, 1914.

PURPOSES OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING 67

sary opposing organizations and the resulting inevitable
class warfare.

10. Employers and employees both largely lacking in the social-
service point of view, and in social conscience.

11. The deadening effect of long mechanical monotony in highly
specialized industry.

12. Insanitary and dangerous conditions in many industries. The
prevalence of occupational diseases.

13. The insecurity which the wage-earner feels at all times. Un-
employment.

14. The lack of a voice on the part of workers in the regulation of
the conditions under which they labor.

15. The loss of the feeling of individual responsibility, as men
are swallowed up in large factories or other corporate organi-
zations.

16. The lack of the scientific attitude of mind, in the considera-
tion of the conditions of workmen, wages, relations of em-
ployers and employees, relation of the vocational group to
the general public, etc.

17. Lack of principles or accepted standards of judgment for
fixing wages or just income for the various social classes.

18. A general ignorance on the part of occupational groups as
to the social relationships of their labors; their rights, and
their responsibilities.

19. A highly fragmentary and inadequate knowledge of the
occupational situation on the part of the general public.

20. Public indifference to the welfare and general success of occu-
pational groups.

21. The unawareness on the part of the general public of the
ways in which facts can be used in the settlement of occu-
pational difficulties.

22. The different ethical levels to which equally useful occupa-
tions are assigned in the public consciousness.

23. The decay of old ideas of honesty and thrift.

24. The lack of standards of judgment as to where one's individual
economic rights end; laxity in the search for any such limiting
standards.

25. Square pegs in round holes, and vice versa.

26. Low standards of living; and the undesirable living conditions
that are made necessary by low wages.

27. Inertia, indolence, laziness, — usually symptoms.

68 THE CURRICULUM

28. Inability to meet new labor conditions eflPectively.

29. The mechanization of men through years of automatic labor,
who are then thrown upon the scrap-heap because of the
general atrophy of their powers, and their inability to turn
to new types of labor.

When we examine reports of vocational surveys to see
to what extent they have discovered the serious occupational
diflSculties that are to be met by better occupational edu-
cation, we are disappointed in finding that many of them
have discovered little beyond the technical ineflSciency of
the worker. The program of training which they recom-
mend, therefore, is too often but training for technical
eflficiency. This cannot be too much emphasized. But tech-
nical inefficiency is but one of many shortcomings; and from
an educational point of view, it presents the simpler prob-
lems. Some of those on the wider social level are education-
ally more baffling and will require more extended and elab-
orate educational treatment.

In such a list of occupational weaknesses we can dis-
cover the objectives of occupational education. The pur-
pose is so to train men and women that the weaknesses will
not appear. Occupational education will seek to develop
those abilities, dispositions, bodies of knowledge, types of
skill, social attitudes and valuations, etc., the possession of
which negative or prevent these and other technical and
social deficiencies.

, More and more schools are recognized as the agencies of
social progress. Where deficiencies are discovered in any
aspect of social life, schools are being called upon to over-
come and prevent. For example, let agricultural production
fall short of needs and of what experiment stations show to
be easily possible, and business men. Congressmen, and all
others interested set up a great clamor for agricultural edu-
cation. Millions of dollars are then voted and agricultural

PURPOSES OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING 69

courses introduced into land-grant colleges, high schools,
continuation schools, extension systems, etc. There is pro-
vision for long courses, short courses, and brief institute
opportunities. County agents are appointed to lead and
supervise. The practical men are very much convinced that
education is the way to bring social progress. Let factory; |
production be inefficient, and business men call in no un-*
certain tones for industrial education. Where commercial
and clerical work is not well done, the call is for commercial^ '''^
and clerical education. When figures show the extent of
physical defects, illness, and premature deaths, there is a i
demand for efficient health training in our schools. When
our young men in large numbers are found to be physically
unfit for military duty, there is widespread demand for
military training in our high schools that will prevent our_^
being caught unprepared. When traffic accidents grow com- ^
mon on our crowded streets, the cry goes up for "Safety-
First " training in our schools. When a generation appears
that seems insufficiently to value money and tends to squan- (^
der it, the call is for teaching " Thrift " in our schools. And
so it goes. Practical business men are the first to call on the
aid of the schools, and thus to recognize their fundamental
position as agencies of social progress.

As agencies of social progress, schools should give efficient •
service. And efficient service, we are nowadays coming to \
know, is service directed, not by guess or whim or special
self-interest, but by science. To be efficient, schools are not
to wait till somebody guesses that a certain type of social
progress is desirable, or until it is prompted by desires of
larger personal profits, or of avoidance of paying damages.
Scientific management demands prevision — accurate pre-
vision. It demands understanding that sees all factors in
true and balanced relation without any distortion due to
claims or oppositions of special interests. This means that

70 THE CURRICULUM

scientific survey and analysis of human needs must be the
method of discovering the objectives of the training that is
demanded, not by individuals, but by the conditions of
society. Such surveys will demand only what is practicable.
But they will look to human conditions from no partial
angle. In a democracy they will look impartially to all
things that promote the total human welfare. They will be
disproportionately interested in no special class, whether
high or low, rich or poor, cultured or uncultured; but with-
out prejudice or partiaHty will look equally to all.

CHAPTER Vin

SPECIALIZED TECHNICAL TRAINING

Specialized technical training aims at a productiveness
far beyond that of a pre-scientific generation. The efficient
farmer, for example, in terms of proved standards, is one
that raises, not one hmidred bushels of potatoes to the acre,
which is about the average, but rather two hundred to five
hundred bushels. The efficient cotton-planter raises, not
the average three eighths of a bale to the acre, but one full
bale. The efficient bricklayer lays three hundred and fifty
bricks per hour, instead of the usual one hundred and fifty.
The efficient machinist in cutting steel turns out, not, as in
the recent past, his ten units of product per day, but rather
his forty, sixty, or one himdred imits.

This setting forward the standards of accomplishment is
not chimerical. Scientific industry has proved its entire
feasibility. It is to be done through the application of science
to labor. It is the next step in the increase of productive-
ness. Labor-saving machinery has been able to double,
quadruple, or even at times to multiply the product a
hundred-fold without increasing human labor. We are now
being told that through the application of science to indus-
try an equal further gain may be made.

Each occupation is to be analyzed into the tasks that make
it up; each task into the factors that require control. The
science needed for the regulation of each factor is then to be
assembled, and placed in secure control of every work-
situation. The science is in control when it dominates the
consciousness of the worker. He must think each factor in
terms of the science of that factor. His planning consists of

72 THE CURRICULUM

putting his science-ideas to work. Thus he predetermines
and foresees maximum results before a stroke of the work
is done.

Along with the primary matter of technical intelligence
there is the secondary matter of operative skill. In some
occupations, as, for example, stenography or telegraphy,
the amount of practice needed for skill is large; and requires
more time and effort than the technical information. But
in general the large educational tasks relate to developing
understanding rather than operative skill.

The work of the farmer affords a good illustration. Rais-
ing a crop of com, for example, presents the problem of
controlling a large number of independently variable fac-
tors : soil ingredients, hme, nitrates, phosphates, sand, clay,
moisture, soil oxygen, weeds, quality of seeds, temperature,
light, plant parasites, and a number of others. For each
factor in a given situation there is one optimum degree of
strength; if its influence is either too weak or too strong, the
crop is lessened. He must see each factor in its separate
working in order to control it. Most of them are invisible
or indistinguishable to the eye of sense; they are to be seen
only by the inner eye of technical agricultural science. The
trained farmer has this inner light and this inner vision.
He can see and control the factors so as to secure his sixty
or one hundred bushels per acre, while his unseeing rule-of-
thumb neighbor secures only his twenty-five or forty
bushels. The difference is not mainly due to a greater amount
of manual labor or of operative skill; but to the ability to
see the conditions requiring control and a knowledge of the
adjustments that are best under the conditions.

After the trained farmer has examined all the factors that
enter into a given situation, and has drawn up his plans,
naturally he must have the operative skill for p>erforming
the processes: the ploughing, harrowing, cultivation, har-

SPECIALIZED TECHNICAL TRAINING 73

vesting, storing, etc. Some practice is required; but this
presents no large problem.

We have not been sufficiently accustomed to think of
science as the source of maximum occupational productive-
ness. We have, for example, ordinarily thought of efficiency
on the part of a machinist or a plumber as mainly a matter
of general intelligence and manual dexterity. There must
be skill of eye and hand, as we have phrased it. There must
be operative skill. We have given insufficient thought to
the intellectual elements.

Technical efficiency in a surgeon is very differently con-
ceived. He, too, must possess great operative skill. Hand
and eye must be as thoroughly trained as in the case of the
mechanic — even more so. But back of the hand and guid-
ing it, and back of the eye giving it vision, there must be
fullness of technical knowledge. With the surgeon, skill of
hand and eye is mainly a matter of intellectual discernment.

The case of the surgeon exhibits the two factors of tech-
nical efficiency in proper balance and relation. The mechanic,
as popularly conceived, represents an incomplete stage in
the development of technical efficiency. Trained to strength
and dexterity on the operative side, and this alone, he has
had but one side of the training he needs, and the less funda-
mental side. He lacks the thought-materials in terms of
which to think the factors of his work-situations. Without
this he lacks power to see his work on anything but a rule-
of -thumb level, or to know that there can be any other level.
His great need also is a knowledge of technical science back
of the hand for guiding it, and back of the eye for giving it
vision. For the tradesman as well as the surgeon, effective
operative performance must in the long run be mainly a
matter of scientific discernment.

In all parts of the occupational world to-day, rapid change
is the rule. Workmen everywhere are being confronted

74 THE CURRICULUM

with new tasks and new conditions. In the presence of a new
and strange work-situation, the technically untrained work-
man does one of three things: (1) he blindly applies his rule-
of-thumb procedure, trusting that it will work well enough.
Generally it is ineflScient, and sometimes wholly unwork-
able. (2) He guesses at an adaptation that will meet the
new conditions. Scientific studies have proved that there
are incalculably more ways of going wrong than right.
He therefore usually guesses wrong; and the work is in-
efficient, or a failure. (3) He is nonplussed by the situation.
He cannot make even a plausible guess.

Not one of the three things that he can do is usually the
right thing. And for him in his intellectual blindness there
is no fourth possibility. He finds himseK caught hopelessly
unprepared. He can act only as directed by others; and
usually only inefficiently. The condition of feudal servitude
in which he works is the necessary result of his ignorance.
And in his rewards he can reap only the fruits of ignorance
and inefficiency. In his work he can never have any proper
human opp>ortunity; never possess the full-grown man's
independent outlook and abiHty. And what is more, out-
side of his work, because of his inefficiency, he never can
have any full human opportunity. In general, — and the
conception is becoming more accurately defined each year,
— one can have only in proportion as one earns. Unfitted
to produce the means required f cwr life upon a proper human-
istic level, he never can attain it. His ignorance largely shuts
him out both from work and from life.

On the other hand, the technically trained individual is
not perplexed by new occupational situations. He does not
have to guess. He does not mechanically apply blind habit.
And the reason is simple. The new situations that he meets
are not new in the elements that compose them. He sees
within them the same familiar factors, only differently bal-

SPECIALIZED TECHNICAL TRAINING 75

anced and arranged, with which he has been deaHng all the
time. He simply takes the measure of the factors in their
new forms and goes on applying the same science. In his
work he can feel himself a full-grown man; and with the
fruits of his efficient labors, he can provide for himself and
his family a full human opportunity.

There is another closely related matter. The education
which comes in youth must consider the technical intelli-
gence needed for a lifetime. But a large proportion of the
science needed in most fields is yet undiscovered. And natu-
rally this portion of it cannot be now taught. But many of
the things needed by those now entering upon their work
will be discovered within a few years. If they are not to be
left behind and cast upon the scrap-heap at an untimely
age, they must keep abreast of discoveries and inventions
relative to their specialty. For the technically untrained
individual such progress is impossible. Lacking the main
body of science, he has no apperceptive basis for appre-
hending new developments, nor any vital interest in them.
Inferior position or the scrap-heap is his inevitable portion.
The technically trained individual is prepared to make the
additions, the emendations, and otherwise to keep abreast
of his science. He alone can value it. He will keep up with
it as it appears in his technical journals; assimilate it with-
out effort; and put it to practical use. While the schools
cannot teach the undiscovered, yet they can provide the
conditions that later will automatically take care of the
mattero

The technical training is here treated briefly because
many of its aspects were presented in chapters iii-v.

CHAPTER IX

THE SPECIALIZED TRAINING OF GROUP- WORKERS

The day of independent tradesmen and of other disasso-
ciated workers is past or rapidly passing. In their places
we have great factories, department stores, public-service
corporations, railroad systems, school systems, hospitals,
ecclesiastical organizations, building-construction com-
panies, mining companies, etc. The productive capacity of
specialized individuals in a coop)erative labor-group is much
greater than that of the same individuals working independ-
ently. They turn out a larger product, a better product,
and at a reduced cost. Because of the greater efficiency it is
probable that the movement will continue until it embraces
most occupational fields. Education's larger problem of
technical training relates, therefore, not to the training of
the independent specialist, but rather to the specialized
training of associated workers.

We can make the educational problem clear with an illus-
tration or two. In the old days a shoemaker was master of
his entire craft. He took the original order, prepared the
leather, designed the shoe and each of its parts, cut each
piece, did the sewing, the finishing, and finally the selling.
For efficiency he had to have a command over all of the
technical factors. At the present time, however, one man
cuts out the sole; a second cuts the parts for the upper; a
third, the lining; a fourth man sews the top to the vamp; a
fifth sews on the toe-cap; a sixth gashes the insole prepara-
tory to sewing it to the vamp; and so the process continues,
the shoe passing down the line of several dozen workmen
before it reaches the last one who places the finished shoes
in the box ready for shipment.

SPECIALIZED TRAINING OF GROUP-WORKERS 77

In this factory situation it is the manager who controls
everything. Like the old-time shoemaker he has command
of the technical information, makes all the necessary judg-
ments, and operates his man-and-steel machine in such a
way as to perform all the processes. The one difference is
that he uses a more elaborate set of tools and has devised a
complicated machine that uses all of them at once. The men
along the line are but fingers and wheels and levers in one
large shoemaking machine. So far as their function is con-
cerned, they are scarcely men at all. Had the manager all
the inventions that he would like, he would have a machine
into which he could feed the leather at one end, and out of
which he could receive the finished product, ready boxed
for shipment at the other, — about such an arrangement
as we already have in the production of our large newspapers.
As a matter of fact, he has just that kind of a machine,
though not yet perfected. The men scattered along the line
are there temporarily to supply flexible fingers of flesh until
cheaper and more skillful fingers of steel can be invented
to fill the gaps, and the machine thereby completed.

Lest it be thought that all tendency to mechanization of
the workers is to be found only in the field of material pro-
duction, let us note a case upon the professional level : that
of teachers. One finds in a large city building a line of highly
specialized teachers, each performing, as in the factory, a
small portion of the total task. The first teacher in line
receives the original raw material in the kindergarten and
performs the first process. It is then taken by the I-B pri-
mary teacher for a half-year. She passes it on to the I-A
primary teacher, who gives to it her half-year of effort.
And so the product in more and more finished form is passed
down the long line of specialists. In the later years of de-
partmental teaching, the tasks are more minutely specialized
and the material passes through many hands.

78 THE CURRICULUM

Now, here, as in the shoe factory, the things aimed at are
the finished products, and the labors from beginning to end
must all aim at the same products. But since each teacher
performs but a fragment of the total process, the results of
which usually do not greatly resemble the ultimate objec-
tives, it follows that somebody whose vision is single for the
final product and who sees all the steps to be taken must
think for the whole organization and direct the steps. Super-
intendent and principal, therefore, lay out the courses of
study, choose the books, supplies, and equipment, and direct
the methods. The supervisory brain, so to speak, does the
thinking for the whole organization; the teachers are but
hands and voices to this brain.

This feudal theory tends at present to be strong wherever
organization develops — whether in factory or school, rail-
road or hospital, department store or ecclesiastical organ-
ization. It appears to demand specialized technical training
for the five or ten per cent who lead and think and plan;
but for the vast majority only such little training as they
need for skill in routine labor. The less they trouble their
superiors by thinking and insisting upon being heard, the
better for all.

This feudal theory is being supplanted rather rapidly by
a democratic theory. Let us resume our two illustrations
by way of explaining its basic conceptions. Instead of its
being the manager of the shoe factory who takes the place of
the original independent tradesmen, it is the total group who
takes his place. In the school field, it is not the superintend-
ent or principal who takes the place of the general teacher
of a century ago, but it is the total group. It is not the mana-
ger, the superintendent, or other head of an organization
who is to do the thinking that goes into the work; it is rather
the entire associated group. Managers and superintendents
are those who have specialized in leadership. They are gen-

SPECIALIZED TRAINING OF GROUP-WORKERS 79

eralists; while the individual workers are specialists. Where
all are made intelligent as to the group-labors, the sum of
the knowledge of the specialists added to that of the gener-
alists is greater than that of the generahsts alone; and this
aggregate is a more effective directive agency. And as work-
ers are changed from industrial serfs to freemen with minds
and rights to think and with responsibility resting upon them
for thought and suggestions, they are filled with a new
spirit. Recognized as men, they become men; act like men;
and the curve of their operative efficiency mounts rapidly
upward.

The accompanying diagram will show the relations within
the school organization; and is typical of right relations in

EDUCATIONAL

SCIENCE

History Geography Science Literature

Teacher of History

: C

3 C

Teacher of Geography C
Teacher of Science C

: C

1 C

: c

Teacher of Literature CZ

Principal IW^ t^?^^ ^^ ^^

Fig. 2. To represent the relations of specialists, generalists, and the
controlling science in the management of group-labors.

all organizations. Over all the group, specialists as well as
generalists, is the science that should control in taking every
step. Both must read it. But it is not to be read in books

80 THE CURRICULUM

of abstractions; however valuable they may be as helps. It
is to be read within the practical situations where they work;
and by those in contact with the actualities in their details.
Some things can be seen most clearly by the generalist;
other things most clearly by the specialist. As indicated
by the width of the bars, the generalist will see everything
equally in balanced relation, his function being interpreter
and coordinator for the whole. But every part of the work
is vitally related to every other part. The specialist cannot
see his duties if he looks to them alone without regarding the
labors of the whole organization. He can rightly see any
task only as he sees it as a part of the whole organization-
task. As shown by the width of the bars, he will have a fuller
understanding than the principal in his special field; but he
must also have an understanding of the whole field that is
much like that of the principal, except as to its complete-
ness. Each teacher is, so far as possible, to be his own co-
ordinator. Otherwise there can be no efficiency in organi-
zation labors. The principal cannot be always at the elbow
of every teacher dictating every coordinating adjustment*
It is educational science that must preside at every teacher's
desk and do the dictating. The teacher is, therefore, to ho
a specialist in one thing and a generalist in all. Having op)er-
ative skill in one thing, he needs nothing more than the gen-
eralist's skill in the others. He needs to think all, but not to
do all. For his thinking he needs to he trained in the work of
the entire organization; for operative skill, he needs to be
drilled and practiced only in the special tasks required of him.
An orchestra provides us with a perfect illustration. The
conductor is a generalist; but every individual player must
also be a generalist, or he cannot be a perfect specialist. He
must think the whole piece, his consciousness must move as
the full current of the total music, in order rightly to place
Im si)ecial part. The kettle-drummer, for example, must

SPECIALIZED TRAINING OF GROUP-WORKERS 81

strike at exactly the right instant, with the right degree of
loudness, and with his instrument properly attuned. Con-
ductor and music-score are necessary helps to his thinking;
but they alone cannot determine any one of the three
enumerated elements with exactness. He needs to be trained
on the conscious side to the whole of the music rightly to play
his part. But on the operative side he may be skillful with
but the one instrument.

The two illustrations are taken from fields where it is
admitted that the specialized workers must be generalists
in thought in order efficiently to coordinate their speci-
alties. Not so obvious is the need in the case of factory, rail-
road, or large department store. Recently, however, in all
these types of organization, schools are being voluntarily
established in which speciaUsts are not only trained for
their specialties, but also to an understanding of the whole
in order rightly to understand each specialty. This move-
ment shows promise of abundant growth. Industrial and
commercial organizations are becoming conscious of the
interdependencies of all the parts, and of the subtle and in-
finitely numerous ways in which inefficiency or maladapta-
tion in one portion affects all the rest. They are realizing the
consequent need on the part of each to see and continually
to think the whole in order rightly to think one's own part.
As the science is developed in terms of which to do all the
necessary thinking, what is now obvious in the case of the
school or the orchestra will become equally obvious in the
case of all group-labors.

Enough has been said to indicate the curriculum solu-
tion. On the thought side, workers are to be taught as
though they were to work in all parts of the organization.
This will mean not only full intellectual studies relating to
all aspects of the work, and systematic observation of all;
but also some opportunity to work in all portions of the field.

82 THE CURRICULUM

To work means to bear participative responsibility of some
kind, which will differ according to the nature of the work.
Sometimes he will work at a thing quickly learned on the
operative side, or one requiring no special op)erative skill;
in such case he may well bear full responsibility. In other
cases, involving specialized skill which requires long prep-
aration, he may serve as a helper to the skilled operative so
as to bear enough responsibility for acquiring the generaUst*s
necessary insight and appreciation.

So far as public education takes care of this training, it
may leave the individual on the semi-specialized level, — a
generalist within some broad occupational field. Carried
thus far his training is practically complete. Usually the
final specialization will be left until the individual is em-
ployed in the occupation itself. Understanding the whole,
he will quickly master his specialty. But it cannot usually
take place in any school. It usually must take place in the
occupational situation where he is to work, as directed by
technical specialists employed for the purpose.

Occupational education must concern itself largely with
the preparation of workmen and managers ^(yr right mental
attitudes toward the work. The general technical intelligence
referred to must constitute much of the basis for these right
mental attitudes. The manager as a generalist among
trained specialists actually does but a small portion of the
total group-task. But seeing the whole and thinking the
whole, as he does his small part, he feels himseK doing the
whole. Just so it is with the fully enlightened specialized
worker. Let him as he works at his minute task have a clear
intellectual vision of the total group-task. With his discern-
ment of interdependencies, and of the way his labor is con-
cerned in and supports all the rest, he too feels his power and
his responsibility to extend outwards to the farthest Hmits
of the group-labors. In his consciousness, the specialist may

SPECIALIZED TRAINING OF GROUP-WORKERS 83

feel himself a master about as fully as the generalist. The main
difference between the laggard specialist as a slave and the
vigorous specialist as a master is in having or not having the
intellectual vision of the work as a whole. The one feels his
personality and his responsibility to be as small as his petty
task. To the other, both are greatly magnified since his
vision of the group-labors becomes his vision of his own
labors.

At Beverly, Massachusetts, in their part-time shop school,
where they are training machinists for the United Shoe
Machinery Company, they have equipped a small shop with
all the kinds of machines used in the large factory. As the
boys are trained, they pass from machine to machine so as
to become proficient in the entire range of labor to be found
within the large factory. In both school and factory, they
are bringing each of the workmen to a full understanding of
all of the labors performed in the shop. This same width of
industrial training is attempted in all well-developed in-
dustrial schools. Apprenticeship contracts usually specify
that the boy shall be moved about from one kind of work to
another so as to have an opportunity to master all of the
processes.

Under the so-called "Taylor System " of scientific manage-
ment, all the thinking is done by specialized officials in the
"planning-room." Decisions are there made as to what is to
be done every hour dm-ing the day by every man in the
shop. Instructions are typ>ewritten, and sent out to the
workmen. The latter are not expected to do any thinking or
judging or deciding; this is all done for them; they are only
to obey orders.

This system is looked upon by many factory managers
as the most perfect that has yet been devised. It puts science
in the saddle. Yet the system is not popular. Where it is
tried, it is frequently abandoned. It usually breaks down,

84 THE CURRICULUM

we are told, because most labors are so complicated that
the planning-room cannot foresee all contingencies; and
therefore cannot make provision for all necessary coordina-
tions. It takes responsibility for thought and initiative off
the men. When instructions are deficient or obscure, work
has to stop until further orders are received. Where instruc-
tions to different workmen are contradictory, the plan gives
them no power to adjust matters. The relative failure of the
Taylor System seems to result from insufficient attempt to
enlist the intelligence and initiative of the men. The system
claims that both managers and men are working under the
control of science; yet, as a matter of fact, this science is
mostly visible only to the management; and is little or not
at all visible to the men. They see only the orders. The sys-
tem represents a halfway step, however, toward actual and
inevitable scientific management. Science rules in the
planning-room; it must also rule in the consciousnesses of
the workmen.

The human element

Recently there has been an awakening qn the part of
leaders of organized industry as to the far-reaching signifi-
cance of the human element. The independent tradesman
did not have to manage men; he had no such problem. It
has arisen with organization, where men work in groups,
and where the generalist must be in part the director —
at least the leader — of the specialists ; where he must play
upon them and through them as does the conductor of an
orchestra.

Of large occupational organizations, it is education that
has most fully recognized the need of taking into account
the human element. In a school system, for example, the
pupils are the ultimate workers. Using the terminology of
the factory, the teachers rank as foremen. It is their busi-

SPECIALIZED TRAINING OF GROUP-WORKERS 85

ness not to do the work that educates, but to get it done by
the pupils. In doing this, they must know the pupils: know
their varying mental capacities, their interests, their apti-
tudes and abilities, their states of health, and their social
milieu. They must know how to arouse interest; how to
motivate them from within; how to adjust the conditions
of the work to child-nature; how to keep up an abundant
physical vitality in the children; and how to employ com-
munity influences for vital stimulation of the pupils.

Now come the leaders of scientific management in industry
and commerce and proclaim their recognition of the human
factor as a great and revolutionizing discovery. Superin-
tendents and foremen in factories must know their men,
their psychology, aptitudes, interests, motivating influ-
ences, etc., so as to be able to stimulate them to the greatest
desirable degree of productivity. It has been found that
arbitrary driving will not work with men any more than
with pupils. The driving force must lie within the vxill of the
worker. The foreman must adjust conditions of work, wages,
factory sanitation and comforts, opportunities of promo-
tion, of social recognition, etc., so that this inner driving
force will awaken naturally and of itself within the worker.
The foreman must be able to read the nature and needs of his
men as fully as the teacher reads his pupils. He needs to be
proficient in practical psychology, practical sociology,
industrial hygiene and sanitation, and other human studies
that are at the same time technical studies for him.

In the relations of foremen, managers, etc., to their men,
the greatest single source of coordination is a large ground of
common understanding, community of thought, and mutual
confidence in the motives actuating both sides. Where all
are informed as to the controlling science, where all have
access to all the facts relative to the economic and other vital
affairs of the group, in ways otherwhere specified, these

86 THE CURRICULUM

grounds of mutual confidence and understanding are se-
curely laid. In the bitter antagonisms of labor and capital,
the need is being voiced by both sides. One of our well-
known captains of industry is reported recently to have said:

If capital and labor do not get together in the right spirit, the
future of America is doomed. If they do not come to see that the
interests of each are inseparably bound up with the interests of
the other, and that each must be mutually recognized and re-
spected, then capital's resources are doomed, just as the workers*
prosperity is doomed.

One cannot exist without the cooperation of the other. To drive
this stupendous fact home to each of these two forces, to make
each know that it is but the complementary force of the other, and
not an antagonistic force, is the most vital problem before the
United States to-day.

Let the officers of this company understand that there is never
to be another strike in our company, that every man is to be
treated as a partner and not as an enemy or an underling. . . .

Now, to be partners, to cooperate intelligently and effec-
tively, to be able mutually to recognize and respect the inter-
dependent interests of the other, etc., — these things imply
that all must have access to the same body of facts; and that
all have the trained powers of mind necessary for rightly
interpreting and judging of those facts. As yet, taking the
industrial world in general, neither of these things has been
provided for. And so long as this is the case, industrial
antagonisms, occasionally flaring forth into actual warfare,
will and must continue. But just as the industrial leaders
are now calling on the schools for remedying technical
weaknesses on the side of labor processes, so they must like-
wise depend upon the schools to provide much of the train-
ing needed for those other weaknesses on the side of the
human factor. Neither side is now consciously trained for
mutual understanding. Both sides are equally in need of ex-
tended training^ that has community of thought, and outlook,
and valuations, as its conscious purpose.

CHAPTER X

SOCIAL ASPECTS OF OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING

One hears much nowadays concerning "occupational
efficiency." But the term may refer to either of two widely
different conceptions. One may take the short and narrow
view, and conceive the term as meaning only "high material
productiveness." The degree of efficiency in such case is to
be measured by the amount of economic product. Beyond
this, it does not go. It leaves the product in the hands of
the producer without further inquiry.

On the other hand, the term may refer to "high efficiency
in the promotion of the general human welfare." The degree
of efficiency is to be measured by the quantity of human
service. Whereas the narrow view looks at the material
product as the finished product, this humanistic view sees
the finished product only within those human results that
arise from the use of the economic product. The latter is a
means; not an end. Not unnaturally this is the view that is
coming to be preferred by the world at large. Even though
labor because of great technical knowledge and skill may
turn out a large product, if that product falls into only a
few hands where it is selfishly misused so as to produce or
to permit continuing human ill-fare instead of welfare, then
the occupation cannot be looked upon as efficient in any
desirable way. In terms of human service, it is inefficient.

Efficient management of the social factors is as vital as
technical efficiency. The economic mechanism is to be
operated by society in general for the sake of maximum
human service. This task is immeasurably more compli-
cated than operating a lathe or a locomotive or raising a crop

88 THE CURRICULUM

of com. If technical training is needed for the latter, cer-
tainly then technical training of all people for the effective
operation of our vast economic mechanism is much more
needed.

Division of labor has created the problem. To see this,
let one first think of our country civilized as at present and
producing as much as possible of the things used to-day —
but without any division of labor. Within such a situation
vocational education would be highly desirable. But it
would be only for technical information and skill. There
would be no need for training in the social aspects of occu-
pation because there would be no social aspects. Production
would be wholly individualistic; and distribution non-
existent. Each worker would receive in proportion as he
produced — neither more nor less. Each would have in pro-
portion as he earned. There would be no economic mechan-
ism to be operated by society; and consequently no need of
community training in the technique of operation.

But specialization of labor has introduced social inter-
dependency. Each produces one thing; and this not for
himself alone, but for all the group. In return each receives
from the others that portion of their product which they
have produced for him. The obverse side of division of labor
is the organic interdependence of the group. The individu-
alistic situation disappears in proportion as speciahzation
appears. In the degree in which the group is divided for the
performance of specialized labors, it must be united for any
effective cooperative distribution of the fruits of those labors.
Without the latter, the purpose of the divided labor is
defeated.

This cooperation of specialists demands general under-
standing on the part of all as to the common ends; of the
means of attaining them; and a disposition to obey the
social dictates. It seems that each member of society needs

OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 89

to be informed as to the total occupational situation: the
working conditions that are supplied to all classes of special-
ized workers; the relation of these to right standards; the
productivity of the various occupations; the distribution of
the products; the nature and mode of operation of the eco-
nomic mechanism necessary for accomplishing all of the
social purposes. And along with information, he also needs
social attitudes and valuations. The social studies of our
schools, the history, geography, literature, economics, etc.,
have the large and inadequately recognized task of develop-
ing both information and attitudes. The ends demand a
program of large proportions that has been mostly unrecog-
nized and unattempted.

The conception that the labors of an industry are to be
supervised by those who are served is really as old as indus-
try itself. It was formerly done by the consumer's accept-
ance or rejection of the product. If it did not suit him, he
went elsewhere. This plan is operative still. But industries
have grown large and complex. Competition is eliminated
through price agreements, or division of the field. Often
one cannot now go elsewhere for supplying his needs. Proc-
esses and products have grown so complicated that he can
no longer judge of quahty of commodities or justice of
prices. He cannot know whether he ought to go elsewhere
or not. Should he do so, being unable to distinguish the
better from the worse, he still cannot know whether he is
improving matters. Men are coming to see that a kind of
intelligence and a mode of supervision of the services of
others that worked well in a simpler economic age can no
longer serve our purposes. New conditions demand new
methods.

Public-service labors are coming to be supervised by the
public through public-service commissioners, committees
of city councils, the United States Interstate Commerce

90 THE CURRICULUM

Commission, etc. These representatives of the public keep
a continuous oversight over quality, quantity, costs of serv-
ice, etc. Year by year this commimity supervision is aug-
mented and strengthened; and freedom to serve or not as
dictated by self-interest is diminished. Each year sees the
extension of this supervision to hitherto imsupervised occu-
pational fields. For some time it has been accepted as a
matter of course, in the case of railroads, express companies,
telegraph and telephone companies, city traction, gas, and
electrical supply companies, the work of plumbers as regards
sanitation, of carpenters and electricians as regards fire
protection, etc. More recently the supervision is being
extended to food and drug manufacture and distribution,
the milk-supply, packing-house industries, the handling of
perishable foods, etc.

But all useful specialized labors are public-service labors.
It becomes ever more difficult to draw any line of division
between industries that are to be socially sup>ervised and
those that are to be left only to the control of individual
self-interest. The logical end of the process is the extension
of social supervision to all that serve and the suppression
of all that do not serve. And all social movements set
strongly in that direction. Where done wisely and justly,
its influence is salutary both to industry and general com-
munity.

Whether the supervision does good or harm to the occu-
pations, and thus to the community itself, depends upon the
quantity of sjmapathetic occupational enlightenment em-
ployed by the public in the supervision. Where present in
sufficient degree, a community can maintain a high charac-
ter of service while keeping costs on a level that is just to all
concerned. On the other hand, ignorant or mercenary super-
vision can diminish or destroy the power of an industry for
service, and thus do harm both to industry and community.

OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 91

To require of a railroad, for example, a high character of
service, but at the same time to keep the rates so low that
necessary expenses cannot be met, may injure or destroy
the service that the supervision is intended to improve.

The supervision at bottom must be performed by the men
and women of the general community. They may delegate
legislative and executive action so far as these are required.
But they must first know what they want their representa-
tives to accomplish before they can delegate the responsibiU-
ties; or check up the work to see that the right things are
done. There must be informed public opinion and right
community attitudes and valuations. While this community
mind may partly control through governmental mechanism,
in the main it doubtless must act difectly in influencing the
acts of its specialized members. When all members of an
industry know what is expected of it, and when they know
that the public knows, and that the public will be instantly
aware of any missteps that they may make, — this is the
situation that crystallizes into "social conscience." It is
this that will supervise and exercise social control. One can
appreciate the relations by noting the analogous "grammar
conscience." It is not necessary to employ legal machinery
for enforcing the laws of grammar. To know what is right
usage, and to know that one's associates will instantly
detect and silently condemn any deviations therefrom, is
enough to hold the well-informed individual pretty close
to the straight and narrow paths of grammar. In the same
way it is public knowledge of an occupation that through
public opinion must directly and indirectly supervise that
occupation. And education must confer the necessary en-
lightenment, social attitudes, and occupational conscience.

The acceptance-rejection method of supervision of early
days was of a democratic type. Everybody knew products,
processes, and social relationships sufficiently to supervise;

92 t/^ THE CURRICULUM

and on the basis of this knowledge, through accepting or
rejecting the products everybody was continually engaged
in the task of supervision. Each did it for himself, however.
Special training was not needed. Cooperative and system-
atic methods of diffusing the necessary intelligence were
not needed. In one fundamental aspect that was a day of
industrial democracy. Except as labor was purely individual,
each served all, and all supervised each. The present is
asking nothing more. It is asking only for new methods
that can be as effective for present-day conditions as the
older methods were for the old days. One of the major
differences must be in the mode of diffusing the necessary
enlightenment. As much as in the old days, all need now to
understand products, processes, and occupational relation-
ships. But the knowledge cannot be picked up incidentally.
What could formerly be well enough done without the help
of the schools can no longer be accomplished in any such
unsystematic and incidental way. A school task always
arises when the incidental method breaks down in the face
of complicated conditions. The economic revolution of the
past few decades has in this manner created an educational
task of gigantic proportions.

One has but to examine the newer courses of study and
textbooks to note the growing realization of this task.
Industrial Studies of the United States, Commercial Geography y
Industrial History, Makers of Many Things, Wheat-Growing
in Canada, United States, and the Argentine, How the World
is Fed, Clothed, and Housed, Diggers in the Earth, The Farmer
and his Friends, The Book of Wheat, Book of Cotton, Book of
Corn, The Story of Sugar, Story of Oil, Leather Manufacture,
— such occupational books are rapidly finding place in
schools everywhere. The movement indicates a realization
of the need of enlightenment as the basis of occupational
adjustment in a democracy.

OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 93

One finds a complete list of occupations in the reports of
the Census. They are classified into nine major fields as
shown in the accompanying table : —

' Men Women

1. Agriculture, forestry and

animal husbandry 10,851,702 1,807,501

2. Manufacturing and me-
chanical industries 8,837,901 1,820,980

S. Trade 3,146,582 408,088

4. Transportation 2,531,075 106,596

5. Domestic and personal

service 1,241,328 (25,000,000)

6. Clerical occupations 1,143,829 593,224

*t. Extraction of minerals . . . 963,730 1,094

8. Professional service 929,684 735,885

9. Public service (not else-
where classified) 445,733 13,558

Geography divides the world up into a few grand divi-
sions; these grand divisions into several score countries and
states; and then presents the situation in each country one
after the other. In the same way, in acquiring an under-
standing of the world of occupations, we may well divide
it into nine grand divisions; divide the latter into several
score occupational fields; and then present studies of the
important ones. As in the geography, it is possible to group
related divisions, and study many cognate occupations at
one time. Much can be done on the basis of type-studies,
where a single occupation studied intensively can be used
to reveal the situation in several similar fields. It is also
possible to view and study the whole occupational realm at
once by considering single aspects one after the other; as
for example, wages, hours of labor, seasonal fluctuations,
profits, desirability of different vocations from a hygienic
point of view, social desirability of different occupations,
etc. When these methods of attacking the problem are

94 THE CURRICULUM

considered, it is not so formidable as may at first sight
appear.

What are the things that i>eople need to know for supjer-
vision of occupational groups? Let us here mention seven
things : —

1. They need definite knowledge of the human needs that
are to be ministered to by the different occupations.

2. They must know definitely the character of occupa-
tional service required for meeting the needs fully and
without waste.

S. They must know the extent to which any occupational
group is actually delivering the required character of
service.

4. They must know what material and other facilities are
needed by each occupation for performing service of
the kind required.

5. They need to know the extent to which the community
is actually providing the needed facilities.

6. They need a knowledge of technical processes only suf-
ficient for understanding the findings of inspectorial
experts concerning the eflBciency, economy, and general
social effectiveness of occupational services.

7. They need full appreciation and imderstanding of
the dependence of group up>on group. It is this vision
of interdependence, of common membership within
a common group, which creates those sympathetic
attitudes necessary for considerateness in the super-
vision.

Naturally it is not meant that memories shall be stored
with great masses of recallable facts relative to all of these
things; or that the educational task is any such memoriza-
tion. Man has no such memory-capacity. And more seri-
ous educational malpractice can scarcely be imagined.

The things which the public needs to know about each

OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 95

occupation has a counterpart in the things that the spe-
ciaKzed workers need to know for willing and intelligent ac-
quiescence in the supervision. This represents a vital por-
tion of specialized vocational training, treatment of which
was deferred because of its intimate relation to the super-
visory problem.

The specialized workers need a more detailed knowledge
than society in general concerning their own occupation
along the seven following lines : —

1. Full knowledge of the human needs which their occu-
pation is to serve.

2. Specialized knowledge of the character of service which
they are to render.

3. The extent to which they are actually rendering such
service.

4. Accurate knowledge of what they must demand from
the general public in order that they may have the
facilities needed for effective service.

5. Accurate knowledge of the extent to which they are
being supplied with the needed facilities.

6. Such full knowledge of technical processes and of
results secured by their group that they can adjudge
the justice of the findings of community inspectorial
experts; and accept them when just, and correct them
when unjust.

7. Full and specialized understanding of the dependence
of their group upon the social whole; and of the total
community upon their group. This consciousness of
sharing a common lot, and of requiring reciprocal sup-
port, lies at the root of willing submission to the gen-
eral mandates and of willing service on the part of those
supervised. It is this which shows the specialized work-
ers that the road of self-interest and the road of service
are one and the same.

96 THE CURRICULUM

When both general public and occupational specialists
have these types of information, the intelligence-basis will
be laid for effective social control in this difficult field. Each
side has rights; and each has duties. The knowledge re-
ferred to permits a clear definition of both rights and duties
by all interested parties. It also lays a broad foundation
of common understanding upon which all can meet in the
current adjustment of conflicting claims. For it must be kept
in mind, as we shall hereafter discuss, that the push and pull
of specialized groups, in which each tends to exaggerate
its services and its rights, are inevitable. Social tensions and
strains, requiring constant and ever-renewed adjustment,
are inherent in the nature of the life-process, whether phy-
siological, biological, or social. Intelligence cannot obliter-
ate them but it can control. The stronger they are, the
greater is the indication of life and of power. But also the
greater is the need of social education.

Enlightenment alone can bring genuine industrial democ-
racy. An examination of the factors shows the futility of
much of the controversy as to the best type of economic
mechanism. We have public ownership and cooperative
management in some of our occupational fields, such as pub-
lic education, letter and parcel transportation, fire pro-
tection, street and road construction and maintenance, etc.
We leave to private ownership and volunteer management
most of our industries, believing that on the whole this is
best. But as a matter of fact whether the labors are of one
type or of the other, the thing needed and wanted is sendee.
The kinds of enlightenment needed for social supervision of
both types are exactly the same. Where society is intro-
ducing and developing effective supervision, the methods
are scarcely affected by the question whether the indus-
try is publicly or privately owned, — i.e., whether by a few
stockholders, or by the many stockholders of a total com-

OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 07

miinity. Either plan is good or bad according to the way it
is managed. With enlightened social supervision, effective
service can be secured under either plan. But without en-
lightened supervision, effective service can result from
neither. Not the mechanism, but the intelligence, is the prin-
cipal thing.

Before education can proceed, it must have the facts con-
cerning the various occupations. At present many of the
necessary facts are inaccessible. Secrecy in the interest of
individual ends rather than publicity in the interest of
the public weal is the rule, not the exception. As a nation
we have not yet come to value enlightenment as the basis
of democracy. But the light is nowadays being turned into
all sorts of places. Occupational surveys are being made.
Official public-service bodies are accumulating facts for
their purposes, to many of which publicity is being per-
mitted. In proportion as an industry is performing actual
public service, it is always glad to have it known; and since
the quantity increases year by year, the quantity of volun-
tary publicity increases also. When an industrial group is
particularly anxious to prevent publicity, more and more
the public is coming to suspect that there is exactly where
publicity is needed.

Enlightened business men are coming to understand the
publicity implications of social interdependence. The salu-
tary attitude of the business world was recently well ex-
pressed by Mr. E. H. Gary, chairman of the United States
Steel Corporation, in an address before a business conven-
tion, for which he took as a theme the Biblical quotation:
"For none of us hveth to himself, and no man dieth to
himself." Among other things he said: "In the last decade
there has been a pronounced change in the attitude of large
business interests concerning the disclosure of facts and
figures to the general public. Many now voluntarily and

98 THE CURRICULUM

without the requirement of law make regular and complete
reports so that any one interested may know the results
of the business and the general policy of the company.'* Mr.
Gary suggested a publicity tribunal which would serve the
interests both of the business world and of the general pub-
lic. "There is abundant evidence," he continued, "that at
present the great general public is willing to meet halfway
the individual or corporation in the consideration of all
questions that affect private or public interests." The move-
ment is unmistakable. Facts are becoming accessible. The
use of such facts for the development of general enlighten-
ment is becoming possible.

Surveys may discover the facts. But the organization of
the materials for teaching purposes presents educational
problems of great complexity. The direct fact-learning and
recitation method, with which our profession is so familiar,
is too primitive and inefficient for so large a task. Let us
indicate some of the better ways that are being introduced
into progressive school systems.

Each occupation is to be seen and vitally understood as
a group of men at work. One learns the labors of a group by
entering into their labors; by performing them actually;
by performing them in play; by entering into them sympa-
thetically through observation; by imaginative participa-
tion as they are reconstructed in well- written history, geog-
raphy, literature, biography, etc. It is not by learning
abstract verbal facts about a group, but rather by doing
in one way or another what that group does that one comes
really to understand it. The doing lays the interest-basis
necessary for fact-accumulation and assimilation; and for
right valuations and attitudes. Education must proceed
by the active route not because we are aiming at fewer facts
than formerly but because we must aim at far more; and
must therefore employ effective methods.

OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 99

1. Concrete occupational activities

Professor James, in his delightful essay, On a Certain
Blindness in Human Beings, makes clear that one can un-
derstand and realize the experiences that make up the lives
of others only as one has participated actually or sympa-
thetically in those experiences. The detached and unmoved
onlooker remains blind to the actual significance of life
about him. Life must be lived in order to be known. "The
right way of seeing each other's work" requires that we en-
ter sympathetically and vividly into the occupational ex-
perience of others. The first step is to do the kind of work
that they do.

Boys are given courses in woodworking in our schools,
not because they are to become cabinet-makers or car-
penters, but because they need an understanding of the hard
and imyielding nature of the materials used in woodworking
vocations; and a feeling of the arduous and monotonous toil
necessary for shaping the materials into finished products.
The woodworking is to give him the alphabet of experience
in one wide field of human vocation. Its purpose is to open
an experiential window out upon the world through which
he can rightly see its labors.

For the same reason we give many practical activities:
metal-working, leather-work, printing, bookbinding, arts
and crafts, cooking, sewing, embroidery, millinery, school
gardening, weaving, rug-making, dyeing, painting, varnish-
ing, pattern-making, pottery work, poultry care, laundry
work, banking, buying and selling, practical accounting,
and others. These activities give to boys and girls a sense
of reality as to the nature of labor and of the materials used
in the labor. The development of this sense of reality is one
of the most urgent of necessities, especially for boys and
girls who grow up in our cities. When our population was

100 THE CURRICULUM

mostly agricultural, the boy on the farm with hoe and rake
and plough cultivated the fields; with axe and saw, he pro-
vided fuel for the family, built and mended fences, bins,
barns, and other farm structures. He pitched the hay, husked
the corn, cut the feed, milked the cows, in all weathers, heat
and cold and storm. Thus he secured his necessary sense
of reality; his understanding of the hard and unyielding na-
ture of the material world that lies at the basis of economic
industry. The girl in sewing, cooking, mending, washing
dishes, laundry, general housekeeping, canning and pre-
serving, in helping with the poultry, the gardening, etc., wr-
equally favored. They were well-trained in the Great
School.

But to-day in our towns and cities the boy has no spade
or hoe, no axe or saw, no coal-hod, nor any other oppor-
tunity for performing a portion of the world's labor, and
thereby acquiring a sanifying sense of reality. Except for his
sports, perhaps, there is no call for him ever really to exert
himself in any strenuous manner. The world moves visually
before him; but on the vocational side, it is largely but a
picture world like the motion picture on the screen. He sees
men digging on our streets, but unless he has himself wielded
the heavy tools of labor, and felt the burden that such men
bear, he has not the experiential alphabet for understand-
ing or appreciating the things that pass before his eyes.
The deeper things of the situation are to be seen, not with
the eyes, but with the sympathetic vision that has grown
up out of like experience. Without this he may see the ex-
ternals; he cannot, however, see the labor itself. Like one
born blind who cannot know color, he is doomed to remain
blind to the nature of actual realities.

Since the purpose of the practical activities is the opening
of experiential windows out over the diverse occupational
fields, obviously the range of activities should be as wide as
conditions permit.

OCCUPATIONAL TRAmiNG , ; ^ H>1

There should be work with wood — pine, oak, poplar,
spruce, fir, hemlock, birch, maple, walnut, ash, cedar, ma-
hogany, seasoned and unseasoned, straight and crooked,
hard and soft, sapwood and heartwood, large rough work
and fine accurate work. In connection with this naturally
comes work with paints, oils, varnishes, stains, shellacs,
alcohols, pumice, sandpaper, and other finishing materials.

There should be work with metals — iron, steel, copper,
brass, tin, aluminum, nickel, silver, alloys, wire, sheet metal,
forgings, castings. Pupils should become acquainted with
metals in the form of ores and compounds. They should
have an opportunity to reduce them, to refine them, to
mould them in the foundry, and to shape them in the mak-
ing of practical things.

- There should be work involving the application of elec-
tricity to practical affairs — electric bells, wiring, toasters,
cookers, irons, electric lighting, the telephone, the telegraph,
clock controls, electro-plating, cells, dynamos, motors, with
construction of these things.

There should be work in printing, composition, typeset-
ting, presswork, copper-plate-making, appHed art and de-
sign, bookbinding, cover-ornamentation, printing of bills,
accounts, recipes, programs, invitations, supplementary
material for classes, and the like. Closely related to this
is cardboard construction, box-making, blotter-pads, desk-
pads, etc.

There should also be work involving leather — the mak-
ing of bags, purses, portfolios, bill-books, coverings of many
kinds of balls, belts, satchels, suit-cases, trunks, handles,
harness, upholstery, etc. All important kinds of leather
should be used, as well as imitation leathers. Various kinds
of dressings, finishings, preservatives should be employed.

There should be work with clay and allied earth products,
plaster of paris, cement, porcelain, glass; the actual making

102 , . . ^ . . . , TH?: CURRICULUM

of brick aiidi tile, of lime and cement, from the original
materials; pottery-making, cement-block construction, the
making and mending of cement walks, bricklaying, tile-
laying. The maintenance of the school plant affords excel-
lent opportunities for practical labors of these types.

A large field is that of textiles — wool, cotton, linen, silk,
hemp, jute, Manila fiber, etc. So far as possible, the pupils
should come into contact with the fibers in their original
raw state; and understand through exp)erience the kinds of
labor involved in bringing them to finished form. With
wool it should include the original washing, combing, card-
ing, spinning, dyeing, weaving, fulling, shearing, shrinking,
and pressing. Flax can be grown in the school garden, the
fiber can be separated by the children themselves, spun,
woven, and bleached. Other work is sewing and garment-*
making of every sort, with every usual kind of cloth —
garment-design, garment-fitting, embroidery, millinery,
laces, curtains, hangings, carpets, rugs, etc.

Closely related to this is work with straw, raffia, cane,
rattan, etc., in the making of mats, hats, baskets, trays,
cases of various kinds, chair-seats, chair-backs, and cane
furniture.

There should be work with foods. This should involve
cooking of all common kinds, canning, preserving, starch-
making, sugar-making, oil manufacture, pickling, butter-
making, cheese manufacture, condensed-milk manufacture.
Closely connected with this is the making of soaps, and
other cleansing agents.

Not only should one have experiential opportunities in
these fields of manufacture or transformation, but also in
the production of the original raw materials in farm and
garden. He should have an opportunity to raise corn, pota-
toes, vegetables, fruits, etc., in sufficient quantity and vari-
ety to learn the nature of the labors. He should have work

OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 103

involving soil preparation, fertilizing, seed-testing, planting,
cultivating, protection from insects, drainage, irrigation,
adaptation to seasonal conditions, harvesting, storing, mar-
keting. He should have an opportunity likewise to work
with poultry, live-stock, dairy cattle, bees, and with such
other agricultural matters as the administrative Hmitations
will permit.

One's education also requires some partfbipation in the
activities of the commercial world, buying and selling, com-
petition, salesmanship, bookkeeping, accounting, the han-
dling of money, banking, savings banks, insurance, etc. The
school buys much; it ought to buy more in order to take
care of the wide range of activities here indicated. The
school at present sells little; it ought to sell very much more.
These activities will require much bookkeeping and careful
accounting. They will require banking and the handling of
money. So far as it is administratively possible, conditions
should be so devised that students can participate in these
serious commercial activities. This is now being done in
many schools where the pupils of the domestic science
classes conduct the lunch-room, the supply-store, or where
they do contract work in the shops.

"All of these things?" the appalled teacher asks. In
inclining toward the affirmative, let us point to the fact that
practically every one of the occupations involved is already
treated in our geographies. Now, what is the purpose of the
book-study concerning occupations and products in the
geography? Apparently it is an attempt to develop an
understanding of the diversified human occupations. But
how can this be developed through book-study if the chil-
dren have not that alphabet of experience necessary for
giving meaning to the words of the text? How can they
appreciate the great cotton industry of the South, for ex-
ample, as they read of it in their geographies, if they have

104 THE CURRICULUM

never seen or handled or cultivated a cotton plant? How
can they appreciate the process of ginning, as they read of
it, if they have never had the experience of actually sepa-
rating the fiber from the seeds? How can they appreciate
the manufacture of cotton-seed oil, cotton-seed cake, etc.,
if they have never come into experiential contact with the
cotton seed, and do not know whether it most resembles a
mustard seed ot a walnut? How appreciate the great cotton
textile industries if they have never had anything to do
with carding and spinning, weaving and dyeing? Without
concrete experience with the occupational materials and
processes, the students as they read the geographical treat-
ment of occupations, but tread a hazy realm of verbal vague-
ness, lit here and there with chance flashes from their inci-
dental daily experience, but in general obscure and dimly
visioned.

Manual training throughout the elementary school and
largely in the high school should have for a primary aim,
not skill, not the production of a salable product, but an
appreciation of the materials, processes, and products of a
wide range of adult occupations. It is the most concrete
portion of the home-geography of occupations. Combined
with observation of neighborhood labors and products, we
have the whole of home-geography on the occupational side.

The major portion of the concrete activities at all stages
of maturity will be on the order of play — constructive,
operative, and participative. It seems that some of them,
however, as training continues, should be raised to the plane
of work. Without actual work in an atmosphere of work,
with the spirit of work alive within the participants, they
do not sufficiently enter into work-experience. Their activi-
ties may have a commendable width and variety, but will
be lacking in depth. In the later stages of the training, some-
thing more is required than manual training in a play-shop.

OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 105

Since the end of the training is an understanding of the
World of Work, this serious level must therefore be reached
and explored in some degree. It is this that makes necessary
a certain amount of skill; the production of a salable eco-
nomic product; and a genuine shop-atmosphere. The work-
level will be most fully reached by the student in the things
in which he is specializing; and generally through part-time
cooperative arrangements. ^

2. Observation

Having mastered the alphabet of experience, it is possi-
ble for a student to enter into the world's experience in
more expeditious ways. The concrete experience gives the
imagery and apperception materials; and the interests. The
student is then equipped for understanding occupations
through visit and observation. In cities opportunities are
numerous. Many can be visited and viewed by young
people in the course of their individual experience. Where
inaccessible to incidental observation, in most cases man-
agers are glad to arrange for systematic observation by
classes or groups.

Observation of occupations must be a portion of the
preparation for the reading experiences. It must provide a
portion of the imagery, the apperceptions-mass, and the
interest. In the school shops, students can secure basic
experience with materials, processes, and products; but the
world of occupation there developed is diminutive, primi-
tive, fragmentary, and sometimes a very artificial and dis-
torted representation of the actual industry itself. To revert
to our cotton-study illustration, students in the textile room
can get pretty accurate ideas of fibers, dyes, the basic ele-
ments of spinning and weaving machinery, and the nature
of certain simple types of fabric. But the school shop as a
whole bears little resemblance to a large textile mill with its

THE CURRICULUM

'gresii engines, its huge dyeing-vats and drying facilities, its
countless spinning-machines and power-looms, and the
bustle and whir of busy production. If for one's reading one
has only the meager imagery supplied by the school shop,
then one has but poor preparation for it. We find here the
justification for the ever-increasing use of motion-pictures
for greatly extending one's visual observation of concrete
processes anAonditions.

Observation of an occupation is greatly quickened if the
observer can be a participant and carry a portion of the
responsibility. There is nothing like responsibility for giv-
ing eyes to an individual; and especially eyes for values and
relations. It is of immeasurably greater value for a boy to
work for a season on a farm or in a store than it is merely
to visit idly about the place. The observation through visit
alone by classes or groups, and that for but a brief time, can
give much valuable apperceptive imagery; but its limita-
tions must be noted; and provision made, as far as possible,
for actual participation in the labors of occupational groups.
The pedagogy which sanctions the demand is simple and
clear. The difficulty arises in connection with the adminis-
tration of new activities that will not easily transfer to the
schools. Present part-time arrangements are made only for
specialized training. In time we may see our way clear for
similar arrangements for some of the general training.
Promise of this is to be found in the auspicious movement
for promoting outside activities through giving credit for
home work.

One important type of observation relates to the study
of the products of industry. Social supervision of industries
is designed, among other things, to secure from the special-
ized groups a type of product that fully meets human needs.
In general an industry will be left free to use whatever
materials and processes that it chooses — on condition that

OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 107

they result in the right type of product. Of occupations in
general, therefore, the pubHc will need no detailed technical
understanding of materials and processes. They need, how-
ever, as consumers to he competent judges of the products of
industry. Boys and girls coming out of our manual-training
courses need not so much to be skilled in making furniture,
tools, electrical appliances, garments, curtains, etc., as to be
skilled in judging the quality of such things as they are
offered in the market. Their shop-training is valuable for
developing judgment. But if their ideas are limited to what
they meet in the school shops in making things, then their
ideas will be too primitive, crude, and meager for adequate
judgment of the products upon the market. The latter are
immeasurably more complicated in countless subtle ways.

One full department of training should, therefore, be the
systematic and adequate study of the finished products of
industry. Along with shop experience in making chairs,
boys need to examine and discuss many types of chairs.
They will be viewed in the light of principles of construc-
tion, of utiHty, of aesthetic design, and of economic costs.
AJong with the practical activities of girls in making cur-
tains, for example, they need to refine and complete their
powers of judgment through examination and study of
many types of curtains in the light of general principles.

Carried to its logical limits, this means that in many
fields we need a continuous exhibit of products which reveal
all types of excellence and defect. Though startling at first
glance, the conclusion is inevitable. We discover here
another need that once was simple enough not to require
the work of the schools, which has grown so complex that
it can be adequately taken care of in no other way. Recog-
nition of the educational task is really appearing a long time
after the work should have been undertaken. As a people
we have been deceived long enough by those who have been

108 THE CURRICULUM

in a position to profit by ignorance of materials, qualities,
and prices. Just as occupational inefficiency needs to he over-
come in the field of 'production, so also it needs to be overcome in
the field of the consumer's judgment.

But how can the schools have all the expensive things
needed for such an exhibit of economic products? Where
can they be stored? How is deterioration to be prevented?
How are perishable products to be taken care of? How
meet the problem of ever-changing styles, and of current
improvements? Would not much of the exhibit be obso-
lete almost as soon as arranged? And how are obsolete
but expensive things to be disposed of?

Such questions grow out of a type of educational thought
that, let us hope, will rapidly grow obsolete, — a type that
assumes that everything needed in education must be found
at the school plant. As a matter of fact, economic products
must be observed where they can be observed effectively
and economically. This is generally where they are manu-
factured, stored for distribution, exhibited for sale; or where
they are being used in home and street, in field and shop,
and in the other places of the community. This constitutes
a continuous community exhibit of the things. It permits
them to be seen in their natural settings and relationships,
taken out of which they lose half their significance.

3. Occupational readings

Occupations are to be seen in their nation-wide and
world-wide distribution. The means must be mainly read-
ing. This will be largely narrative in character. As one
reads concerning any occupation, the aim will be the re-
construction in the imagination of the reader of an inner
world of occupational experiences in which, lost to sense"
of time and place, he can participate, as a shadow-
member of the group, so to speak; and thus enter sympa-

OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 109

thetically Into the experiences with an intellectual and
emotional vividness not greatly dissimilar to that which
accompanies actual objective observation and participation.
As one reads Captains CourageoiLs, for example, one is for
the time, so far as his consciousness is concerned, a fisher-
man off the banks of Newfoundland, almost as completely
as if he were there in the flesh. Then as one reads The
Lumberman, one's habitation is shifted to the wilds of Michi-
gan in its early days, and one becomes an active and inter-
ested participant in the logging industry along the rivers.
Let him again at another time read a spirited history of
transportation in our country from colonial times to the
present. One becomes for a time an early colonist, and
travels and transports his goods in the primitive ways.
Later he is a shadow-member of the group about Robert
Fulton as he labors with the problem of applying steam to
river navigation. A little later he joins the other group and
participates in the experiment of applying steam to over-
land transportation. And thus the history, if concrete and
vivid and full, reconstructs experience and permits him to
be one with group after group and to participate in its
affairs from early days down to the present. In the recon-
structions of stirring narrative, one's experience can be as
much wider than observation as the latter is wider than the
circle of one's individual labors.

The readings concerning occupations will be of a varied
character: history, geography, literature, biography, travels,
current events, stories of inventions, etc.

Historical readings will be among the most vital for the
purpose. It is true that the practical thing desired is a knowl-
edge of the occupation in its present status. But history
is one of the best methods of showing the nature of the
present. It reveals the constituents of a situation by show-
ing the influences that have produced it; and which are

110 THE CURRICULUM

continuing within it. It is impossible to understand the
railroad situation at present, for example, without a fairly
extensive understanding of the influences of former years
that have made it what it now is. The same is true of the
steel industry, the lumber industry, the relations between
capital and labor, the growth of labor unions, etc. Not only
does history reveal the facts, but if the human element is
kept foremost, it reveals them in assimilable ways. One can
enter sympathetically into the labors of the human groups
the story of which is being read. Such imaginative partici-
pation contains many of the factors of real participation,
and more*nearly approximates the nature of the latter than
commonly supposed.

Public education has scarcely yet recognized the legiti-
macy of the purposes treated in this chapter. It is not sur-
prising, therefore, that history is not used in our schools as
a mode of revealing the growth and present nature of oc-
cupations. The little given in our historical textbooks is
so minute, fragmentary, general, and vague, that it cannot
be intended by the writers for the purposes mentioned.
For example, taking a dozen textbooks in United States
history commonly used in the elementary schools, and eight
texts commonly used in the high schools, it was found that
the average number of pages devoted to occupational topics
was so small as to be negligible for training. The number of
pages is shown in the following table ; —

Inventions

Tariff and free trade ,

Railroads

Canals

Manufacturing

Foreign commerce . .
Mining

Elementary High-school

texts

5.3

3.3

3,7

8.9

2.7

5.2

2.5

2.7

2.5

2.0

2.3

1.6

2.3

OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 111

Banks and banking 2.0 4.8

Relations of capital and labor 1.8 4.1

Agriculture 1.4 1.6

Roads and road transportation 1.2 ".7

Telegraph 1.1 ,3

Domestic commerce 1.0 2.4

Labor organizations .6 1.9

Savings banks .6 .2

Newspapers and magazines .5 .7

Postal service .5 1.6

Fisheries .4 .4

Telephone .4 .2

Wages 2 1.0

Patents and copyrights .0 .0

Child labor / .0 .3

Women in industry .0 .2

Unemplojmaent .0 .3

Cost of living :.. .0 .2

If any one believes the average treatment of these topics
to be sufficient, he can easily test the matter. Let him send
the five pages on banks and banking to a list of prominent
bankers requesting their judgment whether it presents an
adequate revelation of the growth of banking in our coun-
try, and as its outcome, an adequate picture of its present
status. Let him send the three or five pages on railroad
development to prominent leaders of the railroad world with
a similar request. Let him inquire of labor unions if the two
or three pages devoted to them present a satisfactory ac-
coimt of the development of their present status and rela-
tions. It is not difficult to predict the character of the replies.

For each of these topics, and for many others, there is
demonstrable need of a full historical treatment. Justice is
not to be done to the railroad situation, for example, short
of two hundred or five hundred pages. This should present
in concrete, vivid narrative a reconstruction of experiences
involved in the development of railroads, beginning with

112 THE CURRICULUM

the early inventions and experiments, and tracing the
expansion of Hnes and systems down to the present. The
story should fully present the personal experiences of rail-
road leaders and groups: only as the "human element " is
central in the story can the reader actually relive the experi-
ences. But at the same time it should reveal fundamental
processes and relationships of all kinds : the social influences
that called railroads into being; kinds and amounts of serv-
ice rendered to different regions; modes of organization,
financing, regulation, wages, conditions of work, etc. The
story should be so written that the reader can see and appre-
ciate the valiant national service that the railroads have
rendered in pushing back the frontiers and opening up the
wilderness for civilization; in carrying the means of civiUzed
life to every corner of our land; in breaking down isolation,
provincialism, and sectionalism; and in promoting the gen-
eral intra-national welfare. The story should be presented
so vividly and sympathetically that the reader can enter
whole-heartedly into the action. This provides right condi-
tions for leaving large residues of information acquired
through living rather than memorizing; and the materials
and experiences out of which the abstract general principles
are to be distilled.

Each vocation is also to be seen geographically in its
nation-wide and world-wide distribution. One is interested
in those portions that touch one's own afl^airs; but world-
wide interdependency makes this the whole of the world's
industry. The price of wheat, for example, in any com-
munity is determined, not by the amount raised in that
community, but by the world-situation as regards wheat.
Rightly to understand it one must read a long chapter on
the geography of wheat — a chapter that changes from
year to year. Likewise he must read similar chapters on all
of the important occupations. Recent books are providing
excellent materials for the purpose.

OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 118

Lack of space forbids discussion here of the occupational
illumination to be provided by literature, travels, biography,
current events, popular technology, stories of inventions.
Each has a large function to perform; and should find large
place in the curriculum of occupational training.

4. Generalization

In the foregoing we have stressed concrete exi)eriences.
But each provides materials for discussion, problem-solving,
abstraction of elements and relations, and generalizations.
The work in the shops, sewing-rooms, kitchens, gardens,
etc., will provide basic materials for generalized understand-
ing of design, physical science, biological science, mathemat-
ics, economic relationships, etc. The history, geography,
travels, current events, etc., will not confine themselves
merely to a concrete construction of life in other ages and
lands. These experiences are preparatory to generalizations.
Pupils are to see the broad lines of influence that operate
in human affairs; to see how some of them may promote
human welfare, and how others may prevent or destroy;
and to see how the influences haVe been and may be con-
trolled for human good. It is in^this connection that un-
derstanding of most of the economic and social principles
required for effective social supervision is to be developed.

PART III
EDUCATION FOR CITIZENSHIP

CHAPTER XI

THE NATURE OF THE GOOD CITIZEN

Education cannot take the first step in training for citi-
zenship until it has particularized the characteristics of the
good citizen. The training task is to develop those charac-
teristics. It is not enough to aim at "good citizenship '* in
a vague general way. As well aim at "medicine " in a large
vague way in the training of a physician.

The citizen has functions to perform. We are to develop
ability to perform those functions.' But first we must know
with particularity what they are. He must have certain
social attitudes, valuations, criteria of judgment. We can-
not effectively train for these, except as we have rather
accurately defined them. He must have knowledge; but
we must know how and where he is to use it before we can
know what to give; or how much; or how to focus it.

The need of definite objectives is obvious. It will l>e a
long time, however, before our profession can have any
reasonably complete list upon which to base a system of
training. And the reason is, citizens are not suflSciently
agreed among themselves as to the characteristics of the
good citizen, or his modes of thought and action. They
agree so long as they talk mere vagueness; they disagree
the moment they begin to particularize. And education
must be built upon the particulars.

The 'primitive good citizen

We can best indicate the essential nature of the good citi-
zen by first noting the situation in the small primitive tribes
of our ancestors before the growth of complex institutions

118 THE CURRICULUM

obscured the relationships. In those early times, the human
race was broken up into innumerable small tribes. Each
had little or no connection with its neighbors. Owing to the
severe limitations upon the food-supply and other necessi-
ties, and to the tendency within tribes to expand, each tribe
was usually hostile to neighboring tribes. There was always
a state of active or slumbering war.

Continuing existence of the tribe demanded considerable
social solidarity. In the common struggles with the enemy
and with the hostile forces of Nature, each member of the
tribe was expected to cooperate fully with the other members.
He must deal fairiy and honestly with his own people. He
must lend assistance to those in need of it. He must be
loyal to the group, and obedient to constituted authority.
He must restrain his anti-social passions, and adjust his
efforts to promote the tribal welfare. Without this solidar-
ity, the group disintegrated and was destroyed by better-
organized neighbors. So indispensable was group-cohesion
and social virtues that man was endowed with powerful
social instincts. Nature made sure of this type of social
service.

On the other hand, for the tribe to survive under those
hard conditions of primitive struggle, each individual had
to be prepared to fight alien tribes. The rightful attitude of
an individual toward members of alien groups was therefore
anti-social, hostile, destructive. Toward the alien he was
expected to exercise deceit, stratagem, treachery, and vio-
lence. He must despoil them of their property, enslave
them, or destroy them. This exercise of anti-social attitudes
toward the alien was as necessary and as virtuous as the
exercise of the social attitudes toward the members of his
own group. The tribe that would not fight was destroyed,
root and branch. This resistance to the enemy was so im-
portant that Nature gave to man a fuU array of fighting

THE NATURE OF THE GOOD CITIZEN 119

instincts. In this manner, she set her seal of approval upon
anti-social attitudes and action. She made sure also of this
second type of social service to one's own group.

In his relations to other individuals, conditions forced
upon primitive man two standards of conduct, two sets of
attitudes, two sets of virtues. (The good citizen of the tribe
was the one who most vigorously exercised the social virtues
toward the members of his tribe, and who most vahantly
exercised the anti-social virtues toward members of the
alien tribes. The bad citizen was the one who exercised the
hostile virtues toward his fellow-tribesmen and the friendly
virtues toward the aliens.

Intra-gronp virtues Extra-group virtues

Mutual aid; social service Injury; destruction

Fair-dealing Double-dealing; treachery

Truthfulness; honesty Deceit; stratagem

Loyalty; obedience Hostility; opposition

Modesty; humility Arrogance

Submission to group opinion Defiance; antagonism

Courtesy Incivility

Self-restraint Unbridled freedom

Gentleness; mercy Ruthlessness

In the table the two opposite sets of virtues are placed
over against each other. The good citizen of the primitive
tribe had to be active in the exercise of both. But he must
exercise each toward its rightful object of reference. He
must not reverse them. In so doing, he became guilty of
the two sets of crimes. To exercise anti-social attitudes
toward the members of his own group was to select the
wrong objects for their reference and therefore to commit
crime. On the other hand, to exercise the social virtues
toward members of alien groups was to be guilty of render-
ing aid to one's enemies, the capital crime of treason.
Whether an act toward another human being or group of

120 THE CURRICULUM

human beings was virtuous or vicious depended not upon
the nature of the act itself, but upon the object of reference.
To kill women and children, for example, in that day was
virtuous conduct, if they belonged to alien tribes; it was
criminal conduct, if they were of one's own tribe. Any kind
of human conduct toward another was good, or any kind
was bad; it all depended upon the person toward whom it
was exercised. Virtue or vice lay not in the act itself; but
in the right social placing of the act^ Virtues and vices were
relative things, not absolutes.

The modern situation '

As a result of the long-continued group-struggle of primi-
tive days, the weaker tribes disappeared and the stronger
tribes grew fewer in number and larger in population and
territorial area. This absorption or destruction of the weak
by the strong has continued down to the present day until
there now exists over the habitable globe only some forty
or fifty independent national groups. The situation with
respect to the two sets of social attitudes, however, does not
change with the size of the group. It cannot change so long
as wholly independent competing nations exist. Within
the large nation, no less than in primitive days, there still
remains the need of inner sohdarity and the exercise of the
social virtues. Toward the alien nations, however, in the
degree that they are felt to be alien, one is still expected
to employ the anti-social attitudes. Between these larger
nations there is, as of old, a constant hostility. This is not
always on the surface. With war so expensive and destruc-
tive now, nations live mostly in a state of truce, — simply
because anything else is suicidal in the end, and not because
the world has developed the fundamental basis of peace.

The slumbering presence of extra-group hostility is re-
vealed by the ease with which it flares forth at the slightest

THE NATURE OF THE GOOD CITIZEN 121

provocation, and the ease with which it bursts into the
flames of war even in the case of nations that we have been
accustomed to call civilized. The independent national
groups still cling to the two standards of conduct and regard
both as wholly justifiable, legitimate, and virtuous, if only
exercised toward the right objects of reference. In times of
international stress, when both intra-group and extra-group
standards of conduct are fully aroused, and when the grow-
ing but yet feeble sentiment of membership in a world
group is stilled in the strife, then the anti-social dictates
become clear and unconfused. To kill the man who is not
a member of one's own nation becomes a matter of entire
virtue. It is not a crime. It is not a matter for reproach. It
calls for decorations of honor. At the present moment it is
the largest, the most expensively equipped and the most
completely organized business in the world.

The nations have institutionalized their anti-social tend-
encies. They have developed laws, traditions, public opin-
ion, military technique, organization, training, weapons,
and other appliances for destroying aliens. And through
newspapers, schools, churches, and public proclamations,
they have arranged to make and to keep all people fully
conscious of their anti-social duties, powers, and possibilities.
/in relation to the wholly alien nation, then, who is the
/good citizen? It is the one who is ready and eager to fight
^the alien the instant called upon; who is ready to shed his
blood to the last drop in service to his countrymen. It is
ithe one whose thought and feeling and action are most
completely anti-social — with these turned squarely against
tne hostile alien.

We may deprecate a world-situation which makes murder
and destruction an inescapable part of social service; and
therefore a necessary function of the good citizen. The situ-
ation is what it is, however; and not what we may wish it

122 THE CURRICULUM

to be. The world is still young and in the green; and yet far
from organized and civilized. An undesirable form of social
service is not to be escaped by blinking it; but by so chang-
ing the world-situation that the noxious type of service is
no longer necessary to continuing national existence and
welfare.

Patriotism we say is a characteristic of the good citizen.
But in our present state of world-division, there are two
types of patriotism, wholly different, and both indispen-
sable for national welfare. We are here referring to one
of the types, the one that is built upon the anti-alien rela-
tions. It is the desire to serve one's own national group by
restraining or injuring, or even if necessary destroying,
alien groups. It is the aroused anti-social spirit. It is a state
of mind that in the nature of things must persist so long as
this whirling planet holds mankind-in-division.

But let us turn to the other and more agreeable side of
the picture. The national groups not only institutionalize
the spirit of world-division for their outside relations; but
also build ponderous and stable national institutions upon
the intra-social impulses of mankind-in-cooperation. For
promoting the welfare of the group within, the more ad-
vanced nations — even though their hands now are reeking
with the blood of alien human-kind — have been providing
and developing the humanitarian institutions necessary to a
superb state of civilization. They have been building schools
and churches; and fostering within their boundaries the
reign of intelligence and good-will. They have been pro-
viding hospitals for the sick, systematic state care for the
weak, pensions for the aged and the incapacitated, work-
men's compensation for the injured in industry, protection
of women and children from industrial exploitation, eight-
hour laws for workmen, the enforcement of sanitary living
and work conditions; and a host of other human- welfare

THE NATUKE OF THE GOOD CITIZEN 123

measures. And they have zealously promoted in a thousand
ways those social institutions which perform for a people
the basic intra-group services: industry, commerce, trans-
portation, mining, agriculture, professional service, etc.
Thus institutions growing out of the social virtues flourish
profusely in nations that show no abhorrence to the most
inhuman brutalities when exercised toward alien peoples.
And press and schools and churches diligently foster this
internal socialization; and the awakening of a sensitive
social conscience that is keenly cognizant of intra-group
obHgation.

This brings us to the other type of patriotism — the aroused
spirit of intra-group service. It is the desire to serve one's
national group by promoting in every possible way those in-
ternal social adjustments and actions that make in maxi-
mum degree for the general national welfare. Instead of its
being hatred of the enemy as in the other type, it is love of
one's people, and of all of one's people; and positive. This
type of patriotism is in need of greater emphasis since it is not
so clearly conceived. It is coordinate with the other. But
to most men the term refers only to the anti-social type.
Men take great pride in self-sacrifice, and are willing to lay
down even life itself, to promote the welfare of their people,
so long as it is the anti-alien type of social service. Why
should there not be equal willingness for self-sacrifice in the
service of those same people when the service is social?
And why should not the intra-group service be equally hon-
ored? Civic training should complete our ideas of patriot-
ism; and develop attitudes of both types — so long as both
are needed.

Functional differentiation

As social groups grow large territorially, they break up
along functional lines into small groups again: commercial.

124 THE CURRICULUM

manufacturing, agricultural, religious, political, professional,
and others. The lower limit in size is the specialized individ-
ual standing alone.

With the appearance of the functional small groups, there
arise naturally and inevitably the two standards of social
conduct. Human nature is so made that without thought
we adopt the social attitudes toward members of our own
social group : our own political party, our own church, com-
mercial organization, political ring, fraternity, club, trade-
union, employers' union, school, college, or other organi-
zation to which we may belong. In the same natural way,
without taking thought, we adopt the extra-group attitudes
toward those who belong to outside or competing groups:
the opposite political party, other financial, commercial, or
manufacturing organizations, the churches of the other
groups, the rival college, the close-fisted employers' associ-
ation, or the striking labor-union.

One belongs to many overlapping groups and over all he
belongs to the city, state, and national groups which include
all of these. He has a conception of his membership in each
of them. This complicated consciousness tends to soften and
partially inhibit the workings of the anti-social attitudes
in connection with one's small-group activities. Leaving
aside this qualification, we must notice that as one's con-
sciousness of membership within the small group becomes
intense, he adopts the two standards of conduct and looks
upon both as equally ^^rtuous. They have been so re-
garded by mankind from the beginning of the world. Both
are powerfully supported by instincts; back of each are
powerful traditions. As a result both are considered equally
right and necessary if only the one is exercised toward
one's friends and the other toward outsiders.

A labor-union offers a good example. The members of the
union extend mutual aid to all within the group. They aid

THE NATURE OF THE GOOD CITIZEN 125

in securing employment; in holding their positions; in the
regulation of hours, wages, factory protection, sanitary
conditions, etc. In times of sickness or loss of place, the
necessary material assistance is extended. Toward each
other within the union, after excepting the occasional wolf
in sheep's clothing that preys upon ignorance, there is, on
the whole, fair-dealing, honesty, truthfulness, loyalty, obe-
dience, and submission to whatever regulations are neces-
sary for the welfare of the union. However rough and igno-
rant the men may be, these social virtues grow up within
the group in their relations toward each other about as luxu-
riantly as among the individuals of any social class. On
the other hand, the union holds just as strictly to the extra-
group, anti-social standard of conduct in their relations to
the opposing employers' groups. Industry exists in division.
Hence there is constant hostility. While active warfare
flames forth only occasionally, the usual situation is one of
truce, not of peace. The union stands ready to over-reach
employers when opportunity offers. They combine to limit
the output of each man. They tend to "soldier," to mis-
manage, to delay progress so as to extend the work. It is in
times of acute trouble, however, that the extra-group at-
titudes reveal themselves most clearly. The union often
strives to wreck or destroy the machinery and the mate-
rials belonging to the hostile employers. The labor strike is
often a state of actual armed warfare. They will not work
until their demands are granted, and others shall not work.
Where persuasion will not serve, force must be employed.
The unions justify the use of force by saying that it is class
war. They use the term in its literal sense, not in a figura-
tive one. It is a struggle for the group that grows out of ad-
herence to the world-old extra-group standard of conduct.
It has exactly the same kind of justification as any other
kind of war. We shall not make headway in understand-

126 , THE CURRICULUM

ing the civic factors that enter into the situation unless we
grant the warring union entire sincerity of conviction as to
the rightfulness of adhering to both standards of conduct.
They are acting as the race has always acted from the begin-
ning of the world when divided into opposing and hostile
small groups. To dispense with either of the standards so
long as industry exists in division can result in but injury
or destruction for their group. Even though they may wish
to dispense with the extra-group attitudes, the condition of
social division will not permit.

It is not that the men are vicious. It is the state of indus-
try-in-division that is vicious. To say that the men are in-
herently ill-disposed and that they destroy simply for the
love of destruction is to miss the whole secret of the matter.
.They are usually more rough and ignorant than their ac-
cusers, because they have had fewer educational oppor-
tunities; but they are not less honest nor less sincere; nor
less virtuous when measured by the dual standard of virtue
forced upon them by the presence of social division. They
are using the same standards of conduct as their opponents.
For it must be kept in mind that there are always at least
two parties to a fight; and that when the fighting is fierce
upon the one side it is no less fierce upon the other. The visi-
ble struggle of the labor-unions is proof of an equally stren-
uous opposition upon the part of the employing groups.

Let us reverse the illustration. The employers' groups have
their same two standards of social ethics; and they live up
to the standards forced upon them by conditions in the same
vigorous and manly way. In their conduct toward each
other, one sees revealed all of the social virtues at their
best. They stand together and support each other in the pro-
motion of measures designed to further the welfare of their
groups, and in resisting injurious measures. They keep each
other's counsels. They place opportunities in each other's

THE NATURE OF THE GOOD CITIZEN 127

way. They pass on information which can be used. They
extend credit to each other on a more generous basis than
that granted to outsiders. They fix prices, ehminate com-
petition, make "gentlemen's" trade agreements, — and to
each other their word is their bond. As a matter of fact, it is
in the business world where one will find the highest ex-
amples of consistent and tenacious adherence to the social
standards of group ethics. When one seeks an example of
honesty that is unshakable, of fidelity to trust that is free
from the breath of every suspicion, one will find it most
frequently among the responsible leaders in the business
world. This is, however, to refer to but one side of their dual
ethical system. Opposed to them is the labor group and the
great body of consumers. These are alien groups; and in
proportion as they are conceived to be alien, the anti-social
predatory standard rises strong and becomes the rule of
action. Until recently they have had little care as to how
much they injure or destroy the laborer. They have refused
to install protective devices or to make factories sanitary
until they are compelled to do so. They have refused to cut
down hours and have been willing to work men in twelve-
or even sixteen-hour shifts without care as to the effects upon
them. They have given out false statements as to capitali-
zation, costs, expenses of production, profits, and in other
ways have sought to prevent the opposing labor organi-
zations from obtaining their rights. They have circulated
blacklists to keep out of their shops those who are especially
strenuous in fighting the battles of labor. They have placed
'provocateurs in the labor camps to discredit labor in the
eyes of the public. But in thus holding to one social standard
in their conduct toward each other, and to a wholly differ-
ent standard toward the laboring men, the employing class
is doing what is in the nature of the situation forced upon
them. Where such group oppositions exist, the rise of the

128 THE CURRICULUM

two standards is inevitable. We must see the anti-social
opposition to labor's welfare as a sincere and honest adher-
ence to a dual ethical standard that the world has always
accepted; and which it yet accepts. It is human nature in
the face of social division.

Let the managerial groups lay down their oppositions un-
der present social conditions, and grant all that opposing la-
bor and consumer groups may demand, — and they but com-
mit economic suicide. "Big business," no more than labor,
is vicious or criminal. Our social problem is not a matter of
dealing with "malefactors of great wealth," but rather with
the maleficent results of society-in-division. The dwided-
ness is the malefactor.

Illustrations are as numerous as small groups. Take the
case of the corrupt political ring. Within such a group of
gray wolves there is a tremendous social solidarity. One
finds the social virtues blossoming as luxuriantly as they
can be found anywhere. There is loyalty and obedience to
the chief. Group secrets are kept inviolate. There is mu-
tual service within the group in the getting of offices, polit-
ical jobs, political contracts, access to the public crib, etc.
One hears endless praises of the leaders because of their help)-
fulness and never-ending kindness toward the individuals
of their class. In carrying forward these activities it matters
not to them how much they injure the welfare of the other
social groups. These are alien; and therefore legitimate prey.

In proportion as one's social vision and social conscious-
ness are limited to one's membership in the small group,
with ignorance of large-group existences and relationships,
one will hold to the primitive dual standard of conduct.
Though good to his friends, he is the undesirable citizen.

In proportion as one's social vision and social conscious-
ness are widened so that one comes to have a vivid con-
ception of one's membership in the large group, then the

THE NATURE OF THE GOOD CITIZEN 129

anti-social attitudes and standards tend to fade and dis-
appear and to leave as the rule of conduct only the social
ethics of civilized humanity. Of this type is the good citizen
in a state of civilization.

Let one continue this line of thought and note the special
attitudes and antagonisms among business groups, political
parties, ecclesiastical organizations, medical and healing
groups, etc., each with its own special dual system of ethics,
and one can realize that in educating for citizenship we are
to prepare to deal with some very obdurate aspects of hu-
man nature; and with intractable institutionalized small-
group attitudes and traditions. If the training is to be vital,
not merely some remote hearsay affair, students need to be
brought into experiential contact with the realities them-
selves. That the training problems bristle with difficulties
is easily evident. Every one of these small groups stands
over against other small groups and equally against the
large group. Its ethics not only demands that it fight com-
petitor small groups, but that it also fight the large group
when the latter refuses to let it pursue its group-ends with-
out molestation. It therefore follows the dictates of virtue
when it fights education for large-group valuations. And
its blows have the vigor and persistence of sincerity; and
equally the underhandedness that is fully sanctioned as a
major virtue of the extra-group type.

Interdependence of specialized groups

We now come to the fourth level of our genetic story.
The differentiation of the national group into small func-
tional groups has as its obverse side the interdependence of
the small groups. This again welds the small groups into
a new and higher form of large-group solidarity. Each be-
comes dependent upon all the others; and the others depend-
ent upon it. The oneness of the specialized groups becomes

130 THE CURRICULUM

as clear as the oneness of the bodily organism with its special-
ized members. As this recognition rises clear, consciousness
of membership within the large group becomes dominant
in the members of all of the specialized groups and the
extra-group attitudes of antagonism between constituent
classes disappear. All come to accept the intra-group stand-
ards as the rules of civic conduct; the extra-group standards
disappear; and good citizenship on the part of all is achieved.
This level of social evolution, this subjective good citizen-
ship which alone can bring the actual, has been but partially
reached. The climb is yet a toilsome one. But the speed that
we have recently been making, and the ease with which we
have been responding to newly recognized social obligation
promise great civic achievement in the years just ahead of
us. And since the problem at bottom is one of creating sub-
jective attitudes and valuations, it is mainly a problem for
the educational profession. And the first problem — a
most baffling one — is to draw up a curriculum that will
with certainty forge an enduring and vitalized large-group
consciousness. -•

CHAPTER XII

THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENLIGHTENED LARGE-GROUP
CONSCIOUSNESS

JThe problem of civic training is par excellence the develop)- A
^ent of large-group consciousness. If men understand the
large-group social relations, and have right attitudes toward
each other and toward the social whole, these automatically
impel toward right action. Educatjojucdll develop the emo-
tional aspects of large-group consciousness for the sake of
propelling power; and the intellectual aspects for the sake
of guidance.

Let us first ask, How does one develop a genmne feeling of
membership in a social group, whether large or small .f^ There
seems to be but one method and that is, To think and feel and
ACT with the group as a yart of it as it performs its activities
and strives to attain its ends. Individuals are fused into
coherent small groups, discordant small groups are fused
into the large internally-coop>erating group, when they act
together for common ends, with common vision, and with
united judgment.

Let us take for illustration that group-consciousness
called "college spirit." The high-school youth who has not
yet chosen his college is likely to have little or no interest
in the success or failure of any particular college athletic
team to which he sees reference in the daily press. But after
he has entered a particular college, and has come to partici-
pate in its affairs, then the situation is altogether changed.
His sympathies are with one group and with its team; and
the more strenuously he exerts himself in promoting its
welfare, the more keenly does he realize his common mem-
bership in the group, and the more willing does he become

132 THE CURRICULUM

to sink personar self-interest for the welfare of his college
group. "College spirit'* is the flower and fruit of action.
This action may be of other types than athletic; but action
for common ends there must be or there is no healthy growth
of the sentiment of solidarity.

Merely to find one's self a passive member of a group is
not enough. The member of the college who does not
participate actively in its affairs remains cold, aloof, un-
sympathetic. He does not fuse with the group. College
spirit does not and cannot grow in such soil. And the prin-
ciple is of universal application. The man who is passively
made a member of a church or political organization, but
who never does anything by way of promoting the common
purposes of the group, will never attain any vital conscious-
ness of membership in the organization. Like a piece of
cold iron that cannot be welded, he remains detached, sepa-
rate, apart. Man finds his normal social life only in action;
and he attains a realization of his normal relationships only
through, action.

One of the arguments in favor of nayonal wars is that
more than anything else they cement national solidarity.
This is because they represent group-action of the most
strenuous and the most fully emotionalized type: actions
and emotions that lie close to elemental instincts. The sub-
stitute for war that civilization is to find must have as its
major ingredient group-action that is strenuous and emo-
tionalized. Wanting this, there can be no effective and
abiding national solidarity. The substitute need not equal
war in its momentary power; for what it lacks in power may
be made up in continuity of action.

Reconstruction of experience through language

The political groups of which one is a member are State-
wide, Nation-wide. One's occupational or rehgious group is

LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 133

no less widely distributed. Clearly one can never observe
his whole group directly; nor in his participation come into
contact with more than a tiny fragment of the total-group
labors. For width of vision and of contacts, therefore, one
needs methods that are not so much limited by space and
time relations. Hence, we must note the place of indirect
or vicarious observation and participation through reading.

To resume our example, a college student may develop
a large degree of college spirit and yet actually see and in
the flesh perform but a very small portion of the common
action. Kept away from it by other duties or by enforced
absence, he may enter into it all through participative imag-
ination as he reads the current happenings in the college
paper. During such reading, he is lost to actual time and
place, and for the moment dwells in the midst of the group-
action. As a shadow-member of the group, he participates
in all that is going on. He wishes and wills and hopes and
feels and becomes emotionally heated like those actually in
the fray — especially if he can also talk to somebody about
it, and thus actively and socially stir the inner fires. By
such means, his spirit is warmed and shaped, — his group)-
attitudes, valuations, and sense of soHdarity.

Now, as a matter of fact, in a large institution most col-
lege students do not actually see or enter into much of the
activity. They only hear about it through conversation and
reading. In the case of one's national political party, or of
the rehgious denomination to which one belongs, this re-
moteness of the individual and his dependence upon report
is much more pronounced. And still more so is it in the case
of the all-embracing national group. The normal mode of
participation in the affairs of the very large group involves
the doing of but a tiny fragment of the labors of the whole,
and of seeing but little more with the eyes of sense. But
as one sees and does the little, with his inner vision he sees

134 THE CURRICULUM

the whole as he reads, and feels himself a member of the total
group and performing a part of its action.

We must carry this thought one step farther. One*s
participation in the group-activity instead of being one per
cent objective and ninety-nine per cent subjective, may,
without noticeable change of character, be one hundred
per cent subjective. Let one take, for example, a good nar-
rative account of the Persian wars of the Greeks. This
reconstructs subjectively the experience of the armies of
Miltiades and Leonidas just as clearly as our current press
reconstructs for our subjective participation the action of
yesterday of our political party, our church, or our own
national group. We can enter into the action with the same
completeness and abandon. Language reconstructs the dis-
tant past with the same ease and clearness as the past of
but an hour ago; action on the other side of the earth, as
easily as that on the next street.

Language is preeminently the organ of social vision. With
the eyes of sense one sees but a little way, and sees but frag-
ments of group-action; even within one's own town. But
language lifts the curtain upon all the earth. It enables
one to see and know and relive all typ)es of human experience.
If the record is everywhere equally complete, the things are
seen without the distortion of visual perspective which
makes near things large and far things small. Civic educa-
tion must, therefore, make large use of reading that is con-
crete enough to permit vicaiioiiS42artiei2ative' experience.

The creation of a large-group consciousness

Now, how do citizens act together in large-group ways?
And how can children and youth participate in such action,
so as to become fused in consciousness with the large group .'^

Let us begin with the national group, since the problems
are in many respects simpler than in the case of the munici-

LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 135

pal or other local group. Our national group for some gen-
erations has had its separate identity in the always quarrel-
some family of nations. For the maintenance of its political
existence it has had to hold itself at least reasonably united
against foreign aggression. Occasionally it has had to act.
At the present moment the Nation is engaged in such a life-
and-death struggle. For the promotion of its material wel-
fare, it has had as a national group to compete with other
aggressive commercial nations in the markets of the earth.
For preventing schism and internal disintegration it has
often had to array itself actively against States and special-
ized groups and to force them to subordinate their special
interests to the greater good of the whole. It has had cease-
lessly to keep a strong hand up>on the activities of powerful
special groups, always actively or potentially predatory;
and in the nature of the case this must always continue. It
has long fought, and is always fighting, at the gateways of
our land, with the things that cause disease in man and
beast and plant; and this warfare grows in intensity, and
can never cease. In regions of flood, aridity, and obstructed
navigation, upon dangerous reefs and shores, in the national
forests, and otherwhere and in many ways, we are as a
national group making war against the adverse forces of
Nature. Within recent years our national group is seen to
be girding itself for war upon national ignorance, national
weakness, national inefficiency of many kinds.

When teachers are asked how to improve the teaching
of our national history they frequently say, " Omit or abbre-
viate the wars.*' But in the above enumeration, it will be
observed that most acftion can be expressed in terms of con-
flict. Life, whether individual or national, especially the
serious part of it, is largely made up of overcoming obstacles,
Man's serious life is mainly a battle with opposing forces.
These may be men or animals, disease or ignorance, winter

136 THE CURRICULUM

or famine, or powerful forces of Nature. But fight them he
must; and he lives mainly in the fight, — so far as his seri-
ous moments are concerned. And even his best play is the
mock-fight.

To participate actively in the wars of the national group
is to act with it when its action is most strenuous and when
its solidarity is most conscious. Let youth, therefore, mingle
with the group at such times and they will then rapidly and
effectively take on a vitalized nationalistic consciousness.
For this reason, let youth continue to refight the colonial
wars, the Revolutionary War, and the later wars with Eng-
land, Spain, Mexico, and the Indian tribes. Let the accounts
of these fights be so presented that youth can refight them
in that spirited, intense, and whole-hearted way that is^
congenial to its hot blood; and which is necessary for firing
the enthusiasms of youth and for indissolubly fusing the
individual into conscious and acquiescent membership in
the national group. The "man without a country" is the
man who has never fought with his group for his group.
Since the historical account is to be used primarily as a
means of reconstructing the group experience, the reading
must not be simply an abstract sociological and political
analysis of conditions, of causes and effects, etc.; and dull
chronological record of happenings. The purpose should be
living; and learning through living. If the group-life of those
stirring times is relived in the right way, there will be no
dearth of proper learning.

This reconstruction of experience requires that the whole
national fight be presented from the point of view of the
participants upon one side. When one relives the fight, he
has to be on one side or the other. If he is neutral, then he
is not reliving the fight. He is an idle bystander. He will not
be warmed by vicarious participation. His consciousness
will not be effectively nationahzed. He will remain a man

LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 137

without a country. This need of taking the point of view of
the participants on one side or the other is intuitively
recognized by the writers of our textbooks and by teachers
in their discussion. Its purpose must be seen and the method
made conscious, however, because of the demand often
voiced that historical presentation, on even the concrete
levels, be coldly scientific, and look at the actions of all sides
equally and without sympathy. Our apparently contrary
suggestion does not imply any deviation from exact his-
torical truth in the presentation. It is only to recognize the
principle of perspective; and the local and partial nature of
all active experience. The participants on one side in a bat-
tle, let us say, may see the whole action truly, — from their
side, — and yet have a different vision, different object-
ives and emotional experiences from those of their oppo-
nents. It is true, in entering sympathetically into the ex-
periences of one side and not that of both at the same
time, the experience is partial. But no method has yet
been found of entering into the experiences of both sides
at once.

As a matter of fact, if the reconstruction of the actual
experience of the participants in the action is to be vera-
cious, then it must be partial. The incomplete vision dis-
torted by perspective, the sympathies for the one side and
the antipathies for the other were just as much realities of
the period as the objective action. Their revelation must be
as adequate in the reconstructed experience or it will not
accurately reproduce the original conditions.

The preventive of exaggerated and intolerant nationalism
which might result from a disproportionate amount of
sympathetic experience upon the one side is not at bottom
to look with cold, impersonal scientific eye uj>on the nations;
but rather at different times to relive the experiences as
presented from both points of view. That is to say, let stu-

138 THE CURRICULUM

dents relive the experiences of the Revolutionary War as
accurately presented from the British point of view; im-
aginatively traveling and associating with the British armies
and unconsciously taking on its valuations and aspirations
and seeing everything from its side. This was just as much
a part of the actual experience of the times. Let the student
read the history of the Mexican War as a shadow-member of
the army of Santa Ana, and thus see the war through
Mexican eyes. This is just as true a view of it as the one
from the American side.

Not only can a sound nationalism be developed experi-
entially, but also the corrective to exaggeration can be ex-
perientially developed. And in the two processes the expe-
riential foundation is laid for a tolerant social consciousness
that is wider than the national; and which can look equally
and impersonally upon all sides.

Let the program of conflict, however, be no narrow one of
military wars alone. Let there be far fuller experience on the
part of youth in the Nation's economic struggle for the
world's markets. This is going on at the present time. It has
been going on these hundred years or more. Let youth read
a spirited history of our American merchant marine; of the
contest we have made in the markets of South America,
China, Russia, Australia, the Philippines, etc.; and of our
struggle to keep our home markets for our home producers
as against foreign competition. Let the present aspects of
this economic struggle be made to stand out clear by giving
full space to the last decade or two. Naturally the student's
participative experience in this economic struggle must come
later in the course than the military struggles.

The corrective to vision so as to prevent distorted social
perspective is to read also vivid accounts of British com-
merce from their point of view; of French commerce from
their angle of vision; of Japanese commerce, etc.

LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 139

A still larger program of experience should relate to the
large-group conflict involved in its control of powerful in-
ternal interests: railroad corporations, manufacturing,
mining, and commercial organizations, financial classes,
capitalist and labor groups, poKtical spoilsmen, etc. Stu-
dents, perhaps on the high-school level, need to read, for
example, the history of railroad regulation. This should
reveal the self-seeking character in the past of those power-
ful organizations. It should present an extended story of
the concrete ways in which they have tried, often success-
fully, to over-reach the public; and of the fight made by the
public by way of resisting such powerful predatory attacks.
Like all the rest, this, too, should be no dull sociological
chronology and analysis, but a living reconstruction of
spirited group-conflict. And it needs to be seen with the
perspective of the large-group point of view. The purpose
being the development of the wider community conscious-
ness as opposed to that of the specialized group, this wider
consciousness that made the fight originally must be re-
constructed and reexperienced in the youthful fighter. He
will be thereby shaped for that continuing general commu-
nity consciousness that must continue the fight in whatever
form it may nowadays arise. Having thus fought the rail-
roads in the past, he thus takes on the racial experience, so
to speak, in the community handling of them.

"But the railroads perform indisj>ensable services; and
they have rights proportioned to those services," one says.
"Therefore these matters should not be seen from just one
side." This is all very true. And in chapter X we presented
a part of the plan of training men to do full justice; namely,
reading a sympathetic presentation of the history of rail-
road development and labors written from their point of
view. Each type of account is then a corrective for the
special perspective of the other. In either case the student

140 THE CURRICULUM

is called upon to take sides. But not to take a side is not to
enter the action; and therefore not to have experience —
neither large-group nor small-group. To attain the large-
group attitudes and valuations and understanding, he must
fight the large-group battle, from its point of view; and stren-
uously. But to correct the distortion of perspective, he must
at another time, in this vicarious way, also fight the small-
group battle against the large-group; and with the same vigor
and single-mindedness. The two sides are to be known, not
by sitting on the fence and disinterestedly observing both,
but by plunging in, first on one side and then on the other,
and learning each side by experiencing it.

The problem is closely analogous to that of visual per-
spective. As one looks out on the landscape his image is a
distortion. He sees near things large and clear and solid;
and far things small and dim and unreal. The corrective
is change of position. Let him go to the far things and re-
new his observations. He sees the things reversed. Observ-
ing from both points of view he arrives at true valuations as
to all the things. An omniscient eye might see all things
truly and without distortion from a single point of view. But
human eyes cannot. Man's view is always partial view, to
be corrected by change in the position from which he makes
observation. We do not say a painting is untrue because it
involves the visual illusion of persp>ective. Quite the reverse,
it is untrue when it neglects perspective.

In arguing that the partiality of actual experience shall ex-
ist in reconstructed educational experience, the ends in view
are justice and fairness and the balanced judgment. We
are to recognize that we are dealing with two forms of bias,
both inherently necessary, the maleficent results of which
are to be avoided by developing both in the same minds
in ways that permit each to correct the other. The experi-
ence also lays the foundation of concreteness needed for the

LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 141

problem-solving and scientific generalizations that involve
seeing all sides clearly and impartially. Only those who
have experienced all sides are provided with the materials
necessary for sound generalizations. This alone can bring
them into vital contacts with essential realities without
which problem-solving is impossible and generalizations but
empty verbalities. It gives them the substance and mate-
rials of thought before they are called upon to think.

Finally, there is another inspiring type of national con-
flict, namely, the ceaseless and ever-strenuous warfare with
the hostile or reluctant forces of Nature. This is a battle
that takes place mainly through the speciaHzed activities of
occupational groups. But the national story can be written
so as to show these specialized groups as arms of the large
group. Many things also have been undertaken in a na-
tional way: lighthouse and life-saving service, national
forest service, the weather bureau, quarantine and health
service, the flood control, river navigation, the fight upon
noxious insects, etc. Let students read the full story of these
important national undertakings, and they are further ex-
perienced in taking the national point of view. And the
greater the width and intensity of this experience, the more
intense becomes their national-group consciousness.

Large-group munidpal consciousness

In one's city, for example, the good citizen is one who
habitually looks to the general municipal good. He has a
municipal consciousness, so to speak, instead of a special
partisan one.

Now, education must use the same general formula for de-
veloping this type of mind. Participative experience^ must
be the basisjif it^l. Youth must ad as a member of the
lafge^unicipal group. As he sees its ends from the large-
group point oi view, and helps in the fight against the oppos-

142 THE CURRICULUM

ing forces, he takes on the lar^
understanding.

Our first question must naturally relate to the things that
a well-trained adult generation is supposed to be doing in
uts municipal civic capacity. Youth's best civic education
[then must come from participation along with adults in these
activities. In the following unclassified list we have pre-
sented a few of the matters for which the entire body of
citizens, old and young, adult and adolescent, are respon-
sible:—

1. Keeping the city clean.

2. Making the city sanitary.

3. Making the city beantiful.

4. Care of the city's trees, shrubbery, and grass-plots.

5. Preventing the smoke evil.

6. Prevention of flies and mosquitoes.

7. Destruction of tree- and plant-destroying insects.

8. Care of insect-destroying birds.

9. Disposal of sewage, ashes, rubbish, etc.

10. Providing a clean and pure water-supply.

11. Providing suitable paving for all streets and alleys.

12. Cleaning and lighting all streets and alleys.

13. Providing for safe and rapid transportation about the city.

14. Regulating street traffic.

15. Providing play-opportunities for the children.

16. Providing adult recreational facilities.

17. Providing and maintaining a school plant.

18. Educating the children.

19. Providing for a sanitary milk-supply.

20. Seeing that all food production and distribution is sanitary.

21. Protecting the city from fire.

22. Protecting life and property.

23. Care of the incapacitated.

24. Regulation for the public weal of all public utilit^v corpora-
tions, markets, factories, stores, trades, amusem(;nts agen-
cies, etc.

25. Getting these and all other like cociperative actiA ities done
at a proper cost.

LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 148

26. Securing from each a proper character of service.

27. Currently inspecting the conditions of each type of service.

28. Currently inspecting the results obtained.

29. Currently seeing that justice is done each specialized group:
that it is supplied with all its needs, — not more and not less.

30. Current inspection of municipal or general community needs
— so as to keep service always adjusted to actual needs.

The list is not exhaustive. It intends only to present types
of cooperative tasks tl^at the civic community is, or ought
to be, currently performing. Some of the tasks are performed
by all citizens. Some are delegated to specialized individuals
and groups, the citizen's current duty being to supervise
the labors; to make and to keep them effective. In some of
the cases the citizen performs part, and he delegates part.

But whether he directly performs the functions or dele-
gates them, he has his community inspectorial function to
perform. It must be confessed that the technique of the
citizen's civic functions has not yet been well developed.
Citizens are actually doing all of the things mentioned; but
often doing them badly, because they have never been taught
or practiced in better ways. Much we hear nowadays con-
cerning the technical inefficiency of workmen; but the
technical inefficiency of the citizen in the performance of his
civic functions is immeasurably greater. The workman
knows what he is after, and has a good deal of technical
knowledge as to what to do, even though but nile-of -thumb.
But as a citizen, his ideas are very vague as to what he is
after; and technical knowledge as to what constitutes effi-
cient civic service and as to methods of holding his fellow
citizens and their agents responsible for efficient performance
is very small indeed.

Youth and adulthood need to act together in the per-
formance of these functions — for the secure training of
youth. But the problem is greatly complicated for educa-

144 THE CURRICULUM

tion by the fact that adulthood is almost as much in need
of training as youth itself. Part-time activity is a super-
lative training device in the occupational world; we need an
exactly analogous training method, in the larger civic field.
But when we look about to find men acting together con-
sciously in performing their cooperative activities effectively
in ways in which youth may be permitted to mingle, except
for an occasional voting to-day, it is difficult to locate any-
thing but haphazard and miscellany. Men seem to have
got the impression, and women, too, that the primitive art
of voting unintelligently is the major function of the citizen.
Naturally it is not advisable to organize part-time activity
in voting unintelligently.

The National Education Association Committee on the
Teaching of Community Civics expresses clearly the need
of participative or part-time civic activity on the part of
youth. The committee writes: —

/ The pupil as a young citizen is a real factor in community af-
/ fairs. His cooperation in many phases of community life is quite
/ as important as that of the adult. He may help in forming public
I opinion, not only among his mates, but in the home and in the
\ community at large.

I Therefore it is a task of the teacher to cultivate in the pupil a
/ sense of his responsibility, present as well as future.

If a citizen has an interest in civic matters and a sense of his
personal responsibility, he will want to act.

Therefore the teacher must help the pupil to express his con-
victions in word and deed. He must be given an opportunity, as
far as possible, to live his civics both in the school and m the com-
munity outside.

It will be necessary for school people among others to
take the lead in developing the technique and the practice
of civic p)erformance in our cities and other local commu-
nities. Just as it has been our educational institutions that
have taken the lead in improving both the theory and the

LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 145

practice of agriculture and of many other occupations, so
must they also point, and in practice show, the way to civic
effectiveness. It is needed for the education of all the peo-
ple, adolescent and adult.

To begin with, citizens of a given city must know what
^hey need. Do they need street paving that is twenty, forty,
or sixty feet wide? Or do they need one width in one portion
of the city and another width in another portion? And if
so, what widths, and where? Do they need one thousand
candle-power to the mile of street-lighting? or five thousand?
or twenty thousand? Should the city water system supply a
daily twenty-five gallons per capita? Or should it be one
hundred gallons, or three hundred gallons? In the play-
grounds fiu*nished their children, should there be twenty
square feet per child, or fifty, or one hundred? In the city
health service, do they need twenty-five cents' worth each
year per capitay or a dollar's worth, or five dollars' worth?
In the maintenance of the fire department or the police
department, do they need the services of one man for each
five hundred people? or one for each one thousand, two
thousand, or five thousand people? If a large number is
needed, what are the reasons? If a small number, why is
the city so fortunate? Does the city need one high-school
teacher for each fifteen pupils, or each twenty-five, or each
thirty-five? How many food inspectors does the city need
per thousand places that require inspection? How many
school medical examiners and school nurses per thousand
pupils? For an effective performance of civic inspectorial
functions how many civic centers are needed for each ten
thousand population, and how many hours of regularly
scheduled community meetings are desirable? In the mat-
ter of public hospital facilities, does the city need one bed
per five hundred population? Or should it be one for each
thousand, or twenty-five hundred? A city cannot perform

146 THE CURRICULUM

any civic function effectively and economically until it
knows what it needs, — and in definite terms.

Is it possible to find out what people need in these and all
the other things? It is easily possible to arrive at approx-
imations that can serve until more accurate standards are
available. Take the matter of the water-supply. The ac-
companying table shows the number of gallons per capita
used daily in a number of large cities in 1912.

Per capita daily use of water in certain cities of Europe and
America, 1912

No
gallons

Buffalo 310

Chicago 225

Pittsburgh 218

Philadelphia 208

Boston 130

Baltimore 115

St. Louis 107

Cleveland. 102

New York 100

Paris 63

Hamburg 42

London 40

Liverpool 38

Amsterdam 35

Copenhagen 27

Dresden 25

Berlin 20

There is nothing for beginning this type of study that
is quite comparable in value to an array of facts. The table
does not show conclusively just the amount of water-supply
needed. But it gives one a few ideas to start with. All of

LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 147

these cities are reasonably clean and sanitary — on the
basis of 1912 standards. But it will be noticed that New York
does as well on a hundred gallons per capita as Philadelphia
on two hundred, or Buffalo on three hundred. When one
notes that New York's figures are corroborated by those of
other large cities like Cleveland and St. Louis, it appears
at least probable that a hundred gallons per capita is enough
to meet human needs in large American cities, and that there
was large waste in the four cities at the top of the list.

After a city has determined the amoimts of things needed,
the next question for the learning citizen, adult or adoles-
cent, is : What price should he paid ?

To take a specific case from another field, What price per
thousand cubic feet should be paid for illuminating and
fuel gas in our cities? The following table presents one type
of facts needed: —

Price to families of gas per 1000 cubic feet, 1912

Jacksonville $1 . 25

Charleston, South Caroliaa 1 .20

Reading 1.10

Harrisburgh 1 . 10

Philadelphia 1.00

Omaha 1 .00

Buffalo 1.00

Rochester 05

Richmond 90

Washington 85

Pittsburgh 85

New York 80

Chicago 80

Boston 80

Cleveland 75

Duluth 75

148 THE CURRICULUM

Toledo 70

St. Louis 60

Milwaukee 60

Grand Rapids 50

Detroit 50

A civic group, juvenile or adult, with such a table before
them, will probably conclude that there is something that
needs looking into. Conditions in different cities are differ-
ent, and costs should be correspondingly different; but it is
highly improbable that conditions demand such variety of
prices as here exhibited. If Detroit is properly supplied,
and the price just, at fifty cents, why must Buffalo pay
twice as much? If sixty cents is correct for a city some-
what remote from the coal-supply like Milwaukee, why
must a city in the coal region like Reading pay almost twice
as much?

With such a table as a starting-point, those studying the
problem in each city will get such facts as the following for
their own city, and for each of the other cities that are
used for comparison : —

1. The amount of investment in the plant per unit of gas de-
livered.

2. Interest, dividends, and taxes, paid per unit of output.
S. Cost of maintenance of the plant per unit of output.

4. Cost of operation per unit. , '

5. Percentage of cost returned from the by-products.

6. Price made to the large consumers.

7. Price made to the small consumers.

Some inkling can now be had of our meaning when we
said that educational people need to lead in the performance
of civic functions. In a representative democracy like ours
the major function of the people as citizens is the per-
formance of the inspectorial function. Most of their coop-
erative labors they will delegate ,to speciaHzed employees.

LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 149

But they can never delegate to anybody the function of ex-
amining the labors thus performed for them and pronounc-
ing final judgment as to whether satisfactory. This they
must do for themselves. But generally they have not the
facts. They do not know where or how to get them. And
not knowing the need oi facts as the basis of all government,
they have not even asked for them; and do not yet greatly
appreciate their values, even when set before them. One
never knows the value of a thing till he has tried it.

Citizens need to have such arrays of facts set before them
in civic meetings, in bulletins, and in the public press.
Their agents who are responsible for the labors need thus
to render accounts of their stewardship. However presented
the matters need to be taken up in civic meetings for
discussion, comparison, explanation, justification, etc. Out
of such discussion, clarified and enlightened public opinion
grows; and this it is that lies at the basis of all effective
performance of the inspectorial function.

Adults at present are not much more capable of dis-
cussing many of these matters than the young people in
grammar grades and high school. They have less leisure for
the purpose. And they lack the trained and paid intellectual
and social leadership that is supplied the young people in
their teachers. But adults are just as much in need of sys-
tem, organization, and leadership for their thinking. Until
society has evolved a profession of inspectorial leadership,
— now in the making, as revealed in our bureaus of muni-
cipal research, etc., — this task falls naturally to the two
professions of education and journalism. And in large part
at least, perhaps chiefly, it must always remain with them.

Now, in ways which we shall explain more fully as we pro-
ceed, it is possible for teachers to interest the young people
in these civic problems; to use them as fact-gatherers and
fact-organizers for the total commimity; and to have them

150 THE CURRICULUM

present the facts in the community meetings made up of
both adults and young people. These students can search the
reports of their own and other cities and draw up the tables
of comparative and other facts. They can prepare charts,
maps, diagrams, exhibits, etc., that will reveal a wide range
of well-organized facts for the topic under discussion. They
can make systematic surveys of their own town by way of
bringing a wealth of concrete facts to the discussion. They
can make surveys of sanitary conditions, street-cleaning,
street-paving, garbage disposal, breeding-places of flies, the
city's trees, billboards, smoke, fire protection, distribu-
tion of police over the city, distribution of public recreational
opportunities, the milk-supply, water-supply, etc.

In connection with such surveys no finer practical task
can be devised than the making of survey maps — each one
carrying its information and its lesson to the public-spirited
citizen. They can make health maps, recreation maps,
street-paving maps, street-cleaning maps, street-lighting
maps, crime maps, tree maps, maps showing breeding-places
of flies and mosquitoes, etc. Along with the map-making
they can make exhibits, models, diagrams, pictures, statis-
tical charts, etc.

They can do it all for the practical purpose of rightly
forming and influencing public opinion on the basis of ob-
jective evidence. This is the most fundamental and prac-
tical civic task involved in the citizen's major function of
inspectorial supervision. In doing this the young people
are engaged in civic part-time work. They are dealing with
actual things. The motivation is not make-believe. It is
that of real life. They are bearing responsibility for actual
labors that they can see need to be performed. They are
working in conjunction with adults, under their leader-
ship and direction. It is real work. It is not play-civics of
the. mock-court, mock-congress type. The motives are the

LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 151

same as those that control adults — in the fact-gathering,
the fact-presentation, and in the judgments arrived at.

But the facts are inaccessible? Often they are; specialized
groups like to keep them hidden because they know the
bludgeoning power of facts when applied to the inspec-
torial supervision of themselves. But at the present time
there are huge quantities of accessible facts that are not being
utilized. But they lack significance, we are then told, unless
we have similar facts from other cities for tables of compari-
son. And they say that while school people may get the
facts relative to their own city, they cannot secure them
from other cities. The objection is but the voice of inertia.
Let a wide-awake body of teachers in each of fifty cities
gather pertinent facts for their own city. Let them send
these facts to each of the other forty-nine cities. Then all
will have the facts for the fifty cities. Most of the actual work
of collecting the facts can be performed by the students
themselves. They can do the sending, the receiving, and
draw up the comparative tables. Better educational ex-
perience for them cannot be devised. It is a continuing task
to be done year after year.

Civic training in the schools can be healthy and virile
only as it involves the things that are being striven for by
the community. It must be an_OTganic part of the tptal
civic striving of the community. In proportion as the school
isolates itself from the community and finds mere textbook
matters of study that are in no wise related to the condi-
tions within the city, the school work drifts from its proper
moorings and loses its educational effectiveness.

In addition to the ways mentioned, another method of
keeping the school civic work grounded in reality is to make
the schools, as fully as possible, the civic forums of the city
— especially the high school. For example, when the topic
of street-paving is being considered in the high-school civics

152 THE CURRICULUM

class, the chairman of the committee of the city comicil
which has charge of this particular work, the commissioner
of streets, or the chief of the bureau of public works, should
be invited to discuss the situation before the high school.
When the subject of taxes is taken up, the chairman of the
finance committee of the city council, the tax collector, or
the chairman of the finance committee of the school board,
should be invited to discuss the problems of taxation.
When the topic is community sanitation, then it is the board
of health and its inspectors who have an opportunity of dis-
seminating the necessary sanitary information. Nearly
all civic functions are delegated. The man to whom any
function is delegated is the one who should feel responsible
for keeping the public enlightened as to his work. It is nec-
essary for his own effectiveness, and for the success of his
labors in the community.

This plan is incomplete if the report is to be made only
to the high-school students. The information that these
men have should be for the whole community. Yet here
within the school we have segregated only the children and
youth of the community. Those to whom the information
should primarily be given, namely, the adult leaders of
the community, are not present. The officials are report-
ing, not to the men who hold them responsible, but only
to the children; and in a comparatively artificial situation.
They cannot talk to the youth of the city in normal fashion
if they are talking only to youth in isolation. They can talk
normally only as they are addressing the adult leaders of
the city, their peers, tho^e to whom they owe their respon-
sibility. The children can then hear and learn in normal
fashion. Youth must learn in large measure, not from being
addressed directly, but from listening to adulthood talking
to adulthood. It is for youth one of the normal modes of
participation in adult affairs.

LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 153

It may be objected that youth has a right to its own life
at this age, and ought not to be caught up in the wheels of
serious adult responsibilities; that it has a right to a long
season of rosy-hued irresponsibility before being condemned
to these things that belong to the somber gray of the adult
world. In reply, let us say that it is in mingling in the full
life of the world as made up of childhood, youth, maturity,
and old age, in which youth finds its fullest and best life.
They have not only the right, but the duty, of play of an
abundant and varied character. This we emphasize fully
in other portions of our discussion. But youthful partici-
pation in adult activities from infancy onward is really one
of the most satisfying and most beneficent forms of play.
They do not give up life in having something in it besides
the purposeless. Rather do they find it.

Other concrete civic activities

\l The chief part-time civic work of youth will be participa-
[tion in inspectorial activities; because this is also the adult's
major civic activity. But there are certain other community
activities not yet placed entirely in specialized hands. And
of those so specialized, there are certain ones in which
youthful participation is possible.

Children can aid in tree-planting and in tree-care — an
extension of the Arbor-Day spirit to three hundred and sixty-
five days in the year. They can study intensively the kinds
j/of trees and shrubbery best suited to the city's needs and
conditions in its various portions — modes of securing them,
of planting them, and of protecting them from drought,
insects, and other enemies. They can be organized to carry
out the various steps of the labor in both the planting and
the year-long protection.

** Clean-up week," like Arbor Day, is being institution-
alized for the training of children. While this annual spring

154 THE CURRICULUM

renovation is an excellent civic opportunity and should be
vigorously carried on, even better training comes from year-
long interest and attention to the need, by way of prevent-
ing a goodly portion of the accumulated rubbish.

As conditions change, as work becomes specialized, and
as groups grow large, this "community chore-service" is
coming to take the place of a portion, at least, of the family
chore-service performed by children in past generations. In
our professional literature nowadays we read of a consider-
able variety of possible community activities : —

1. City beautification.

2. Care and protection of birds.

3. Anti-fly campaigns.

4. Anti-mosquito campaigns.

5. The fight on weeds.

6. Cleaning up vacant lots.

7. Patrolling railroad and street-car crossings at the hours when
kindergarten and primary children are going to and from
school.

8. Constructing community property: ice-boxes for poor-relief;
tables, cabinets, book-cases, work-benches, desks, stage
scenery, printed helps, textbooks, etc., for the school; bird-
houses for parks and streets; rubbish -receptacles for streets;
playground equipment and apparatus for school and park
systems; etc.

9. Making minor repairs on public property.

10. Fighting fires in villages where there is no specialized fire
department.

11. Raising and delivering flowers to the sick and the aged.

12. Looking after the sanitary aspects of schoolrooms, recrea-
tive places, etc.

13. Decoration of school-buildings.

14. The community labors of Boy Scouts, Camp-Fire Girls,
Juvenile Civic Leagues, etc.

15. Clearing the snow from sidewalks and paths; and sprinkling
sand or ashes on icy sidewalks.

By way of showing the practical man*s attitude toward

LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 155

this problem we quote the following words from an editorial
in one of our metropolitan newspap>ers, entitled "Citizen-
ship and the Schools " : —

The public school has been less effective than it might and
should have been. It has laid most of its emphasis on information,
little or none on will and moral relations. In short, the public
school needs drastic modernization to make it a practical and eflS-
cient instrument of at least rudimentary good citizenship. ... It
must take upon its broad shoulders a large burden. It rrrnst make
itself rather a civic gymnasiumy a social drill-yard for soldiers of peace
who march forward.

These civic labors of youth, like the inspectorial ones
previously mentioned, must not be things detaqhyi and
isolated from the life^ofjthe generaf communityli^^^e chil-
dren must see and feel their labors to be but a delegated
part of a serious community responsibility of which the
adults are carrying l:he major portion of thejoad. Other-
wise their efforts will be but irresponsible make-believe; and
soon degenerate or disappear. If the civic responsibilities
are such that they are conceived to rest only upon children,
then they rest upon nobody; since they are not real com-
munity responsibilities V

But this is only local participation by way of developing
municipal-mindedness. Can the plan be extended for train-
ing purposes to practical state and national service? Under
present conditions of war it is being done: both by those
students who have entered active military, naval, aerial,
Red Cross, or other service; and by those at home who are
striving along with adults to augment production and to
facilitate just and economical distribution and consumption.
The consciousness of solidarity and the spirit of service
thereby engendered is one our Nation cannot afford to lose
in time of peace. It can be kept, however, only if there is
actual and genuine and necessary service to be rendered.

156 THE CURRICULUM

Make-believe service will not accomplish the purposes^ The
largest field of active peace-time service is that of the
specialized occupations. As industries grow, this service
tends more and more to be national. A major social problem
is not to make it service, — it is already that, — but to
make it seen as service. The educational problem here is
largely so to train occupationally that the workers can
realize the social implications and relations of their labors;
so that they will see their peace-service to the nation on a
plane no less high than their war-service to the same nation.
Professor James was of the opinion that this should be
prepared for by some years of general occupational service
He writes : ^ —

If now — and this is my idea — there were, instead of military
conscription, a conscription of the whole youthful population to
form for a certain number of years a part of the army enlisted
against Nature, injustice would tend to be evened up, and numer-
ous benefits to the commonwealth would follow. The military
ideals of hardihood and discipline would be wrought into the
growing fiber of the people; no one would remain blind, as the
luxurious classes now are blind, to man's real relations to the globe
he lives on, and to the permanently solid and hard foundations of
his higher life. To coal- and iron-mines, to freight-trains, to fishing-
fleets in December, to dish-washing, clothes-washing, and window-
washing, to road-building and tunnel-making, to foundries and
stoke-holes, and to the frames of sky-scrapers, would our gilded
youths be drafted off, according to their choice, to get the child-
ishness knocked out of them, and to come back into society with
healthier sympathies and soberer ideas. They would have paid
their blood-tax, done their part in the immemorial human warfare
against Nature; they would tread the earth more proudly; the
women would value them more highly; they would be better
fathers and teachers of the following generation.

Such a conscription, with the state of public opinion that would
have required it, and the moral fruits it would bear, would pre-

» "The Moral Equivalent of War." By William James. In McClure's,
August, 1910.

LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 157

serve in the midst of a pacific civilization the manly virtues which
the military party is so afraid of seeing disappear in peace. We
should get toughness without callousness, authority with as little
cruelty as possible, and painful work done cheerily because the
duty is temporary. ... I spoke of the "moral equivalent" of war.
So far, war has been the only force that can discipline a whole
community, and, until an equivalent discipline is organized, I
believe that war must have its way. But I have no serious doubt
that the ordinary prides and shames of social man, once developed
to a certain intensity, are capable of organizing such a moral equiv-
alent as I have sketched, or some other just as effective for pre-
serving manliness of type. Though an infinitely remote Utopia
just now, in the end it is but a question of time, of skillful propa-
gandism and of opinion-making men seizing historic opportuni-
ties.

Whether any of the features of this proposal are practi-
cable or not, it reveals a real educational problem of large
proportions and complexity. Upon our profession rests
responsibility for proposing and effecting a practicable
solution.

The international situaiion

Thus far we have discussed local and national civic prob-
lems. In the knitting-up of the world's social fabric polit-
ically, the national group is practically the ultimate group.
In the world of productive industry, however, whether
agriculture, manufacture, mining, or other, it is clear that
the peoples of the world are interdependent; that on the
side of production we are really a world-community, each
region producing for all. When this is the case, naturally
in the distribution and consumption of commodities we are
a world-community. Whatever the political situation may
be, it is clear that we have already largely achieved economic
cosmopolitanism. On the side of art also we are a world-
community; and also in the fields of hterature, and science,
and technology, and invention, etc.

158 THE CURRICULUM

I But in our social-group or political consciousness, we have
1 — until the last few years — scarcely even looked beyond
the boundaries of nationalism. To look upon other peoples
as members of a world-family, to look with friendly eye
upon other nations as equal neighbors having rights similar
to and equal to our own, even to contemplate common
action with such neighbors in the cooperative promotion of
world-welfare, — such attitudes we had felt to border dan-
gerously upon mild treason to our country. PoHtically we
have been essentially parochial-minded.

The present World- War is revealing the interdependen-
cies of peoples. We now see that no nation can live to itself.
We are coming to realize that just as the States of our Union
form one national family, each of which is necessary to the
highest welfare of all, so the various countries of the world
are members of a planetary family and each necessary to
the highest welfare of the others. We see that nations have
rights equal to our own; that nations have duties also to the
'Others that are proportioned to their rights. It has been
(demonstrated that unbridled nationalism is a peril to the
(World. In our previous discussion we have tried to show the
inevitability of the ethics of aggression as a component part
of the nationalistic consciousness. In proportion as nation-
alism is strong, the dual standard of social conduct arises.
In such case the nation sees its own rights large and sees
its duties small. In mind and heart, in ambition and in
action, such a nation becomes parasitic upon the rest.
When not held in check by a cosmopolitan consciousness,
such a nation, if it feels strong enough, goes ruthlessly
abroad to rob and plunder the others. Of this we have
sufficient practical demonstration. In the present World-
War we are but reaping the natural and inevitable fruits of
exaggerated nationalism.

We are not here condemning nationahsm. We have al-

LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 159

ready said that the large-group consciousness exists upon
different levels. A wide and generous municipal conscious-
ness is the cure for the evils that result from the petty
consciousness of self-interested small-groups within the city.
A county or congressional district or state consciousness
that looks to the welfare of the total group specified is that
which for that region eliminates the parasitism and other
evils resulting from the small-group consciousness. Rising
to the next level, it is then a broad, generous, and vitalized
national consciousness which alone can provide a spirit of
mutual service on the part of all of the constituent portions
of the nation. Within the nation this national conscious-
ness is in all respects most beneficent. Without it the nation
disintegrates into internal warring and parasitic groups,
bringing all the evils of social chaos in their train. Because
of its intra-national aspect, we must emphasize the fullest
practicable development of the national consciousness.
I In insisting that we also develop^ an mternational eons.
Isciousness we are lDut arriving at the next and inevitable
\logical step of the same argument. The national conscious-
ness at the present time needs to be huge in order to take
care of the difficult intra-national problems; but if it is not
tempered by a large-group consciousness that takes in all
of the rest of the world, the extra-national attitudes thereby
developed threaten the rest of the nations; and in reaction,
the nation itself. The cosmopolitan consciousness alone
can bring about that wise cooperation of the varionsi na-
tions of the earth for the more adequate promotion (^ the
general world welfare. Just as nationaHsm will tempe.ii the
spirit of strife that tends to arise within the i^atjon, sq will
internationalism temper the analogous spirit of strif^ that
tends to arise among the members of the planetary group.

We are not here referring to an international pqlitical
organization. That has not yet come into being. If \% ev^f

160 THE CURRICULUM

arrives, it will grow out of a widely diffused cosmopolitan
consciousness. This is prerequisite to, and must precede,
any organization. Our educational problem relates only to
the development of this cosmopolitan consciousness. The
state papers of our President have recently breathed the
spirit of this high consciousness which is rapidly transfusing
the minds of all peoples.

Turning now to the educational problem, How are we to
develop this cosmopolitan consciousness? We have already
referred to the place of action, observation, participation
with a group, as a mode of developing an understanding of
that group and sympathies with its purposes and its labors.
We referred to the large place of reading for the sake of
vicarious action in the case of the large groups. What is
true of reading in the case of the nationalistic spirit is even
more true of reading in the development of the cosmopolitan
spirit. There is needed for the world as a whole, and of the
separate nations that make it up, readings that will permit
children and youth sympathetically to enter into the actions
of men in the various regions of the earth. Let one in his
reading live imaginatively with a nation for a sufficient
length of time and he will come to feel himself one with it,
in much the same way as though he dwelt among them for
a time.

The readings for the purpose will be history, biography,
travels, geography, and literature. With any of these the
primary aim will be the reconstruction of life within the
various lands; so that the reader can relive it. In proportion
as it is vivid and stirring so that the reader can become
warmed, can lose himself to actual time and place, can
become enveloped in the action of which he reads, it will be
effective for the purpose.

The ends in view demand catholicity in the choice of the
readings. Schools need to gather of each type readings that

LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 161

reveal all important present-day nations and peoples;
Canada, America, Mexico, Central America, West Indies,
Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, Japan,
China, India, Turkey, Russia, the Balkans, the Central
Empires, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, France, Belgium, Neth-
erlands, Scandinavia, England, Ireland, Scotland, North
Africa, Egypt, Central Africa, and South Africa; at least
these. This is to choose the history of grammar grades
and high schools on a basis that has not hitherto been em-
ployed; and the literature; and the biography. This basis
has been employed, however, in the case of geography which
actually does reveal in some degree all of the nations of the
earth. The principle that is applicable to geography appears
to be equally applicable to history and literature,
s Another type of social reading belongs, then, on the later
levels of education. After developing understanding and
sympathetic attitudes toward the various individual na-
tions, students are prepared to read, not the particular his-
tories of nations, but world-history: that which looks in a
unitary way to the entire world-situation. Thus the student
will read the history of worid-commerce; history of world-
industry; history of transportation; history of agriculture;
history of pohtical institutions; history of finance; sanita-
tion; recreational activities; municipal government; etc. In
each case the history of the last decade or two should
probably be as voluminous as that of all of the previous cen-
turies combined. This will then introduce all of the needed
geographical and economic elements. Through problem-
solving, discussions, etc., students can be brought to an
understanding of the general principles involved.

The thing demanded is not a new program. It is rather a
definition of social purposes on the basis of which present
programs can be rectified and further developed. As a
matter of fact, in our supplementary readings, especially in
the elementary school, we are tending more and more to

162 THE CURRICULUM

give width of world-understanding both historical and
geographical. High schools and colleges of liberal arts have
been more enmeshed in tradition, and in the task of training
specialists. On the levels, therefore, where most of this
training should be accomplished, it has scarcely been begun.
But in their recent inclusions of industrial history, commer-
cial history, industrial and commercial geography, history
of civiUzation, a fuller emphasis upon modern problems, etc.,
we discern the ferment at work upon these levels also.

"The program is impossibly large," it is objected. "An
impossible task cannot be the right solution." The objection
shows the need of referring to the methods to be employed.
It will be noted we have nowhere said that these histories
are to be learned. We have only said that students need
experiences of certain kinds; and that these experiences are
to be had in part by reading vivid historical accounts. The
history of a nation is to be read rapidly. This is necessary
for warming the personality and making one for the time a
member of the group. If a four-hundred-page book is not
devoured in ten or fifteen days the experience is likely to be
anaemic and relatively ineffective. If the experience is vivid
and stirring, it will leave its normal residues in memory.

It must be kept in mind in considering methods that
knowledge is not the most fundamental thing aimed at; but
rather social attitudes and valuations. For these, it is hving
experience, not memorizing experience, that is the all-
important thing. And even in the matter of knowledge it is
not a remembrance of specific facts that is desired; but
rather a knowledge of general social principles. Let the
reading experience be of the type suggested, and the proper
materials are provided for problem-solving and generaliza-
tion. Right accomplishment of these latter requires not
merely batches of pale facts, but all the emotionalized
attitudes and valuations that can arise only out of emotion-
alized experience.

CHAPTER XIII

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Moral education has always been and must always be
looked upon as fundamental in the training of youth. In
our^chools~we^havelittempte31f through direct and indi-
rect methods; in our churches through direct teaching, per-
suasion, and the fear-motive. It is probable that most
actual training has been accomplished within the Great
School of practical social action and reaction.

Those who live as members of the small social group, and
from year's end to year's end breathe its social atmosphere;
naturally and inevitably take on its attitudes, valuations,
and dual standard of ethics. Direct ethical instruction by
school or church seems relatively ineffectual in the face of
these powerful experiential influences. On the other hand,
those who grow up in vital contact, direct and indirect, with
the large social group, and who breathe its humanizing
atmosphere, naturally and inevitably take on the large-
group attitudes, valuations, and tendencies lo social reac-
tion. In such case, church and school may well reinforce
the process by giving supplementary training. Their efforts
are Ukely to be efficacious, however, not in proportion to
their direct teaching or persuasion, but rather in proportion
as they are actually able to provide the conditions of large-
group living experience.

A frequent conception of moral training is well expressed
in the report of the National Council Committee on Moral
Education : —

If we would have strong and beautiful characters in adult life,
certain elemental virtues must be inculcated in childhood and
youth. These the teachers should have as definitely in mind as

164 THE CURRICULUM

they do the nouns and verbs in grammar or fractions in arithme-
tic. They must know, not only what virtues they would implant,
but how they would develop them. Among these elemental vir-
tues we would include those which are generally accepted as form-
ing the very basis of character, such as obedience, kindness, honor,
truthfulness, cleanliness, cheerfulness, honesty, respect for self-
and for others, helpfulness, industry, economy, power of initiative,
justice, usefulness, patriotism, courage, self-control, prudence,
benevolence, system, neatness, politeness, fortitude, heroism, per-
severance, sympathy, consecration to duty, unselfishness, comrade-
ship, patience, temperance, hopefulness, determination, and fi-
delity. Pupils should not only have some idea of the meaning of
these virtues, but they should be trained in the practice of them
until they become fixed habits.

According to this widespread conception, the task is to
give information concerning the abstract virtues and to
drill the pupils in action that involves them. They are
assumed always to be virtues. This, however, is far from
being the case. Take, for example, perseverance. This may
characterize the conduct of a statesman, burglar, mechanic,
farmer, housewife, political grafter, assassin, or anybody
else engaged in any kind of action good or bad. Clearly this
abstract aspect of human action is not a virtue in itself.
Quite true, where it is exercised in right directions it pro-
duces increased human good and is then an aspect of virtu-
ous conduct. It is equally true, however, that where it is
exercised in wrong directions it may produce the most
disastrous human results; and is then an aspect of vicious
conduct. Obviously the virtue or the vice is not in the per-
severance itself.

It is urged that while the perseverance itself is always a
virtue, it may be a virtue of either good or bad conduct.
This is but a verbal quibble. Perseverance may be a char-
acteristic of either good or bad conduct. But its character-
izing bad conduct does not make the latter good; it only
makes it worse. And what increases evil is evil at the time.

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 165

It, DOW, we look at obedience, courage, industry, loyalty,
and most of the others, we can see that they may be
characteristics of conduct within any kind of social group.
They are sometimes characteristics of virtuous conduct;
and sometimes of vicious.

Obviously these so-called "virtues" are not the moral
jltimates. They are but aspects of human conduct which
must be judged good or bad on quite other standards. Good
moral conduct is that which increases the total sum of
human welfare. The more efficacious it is in producing
beneficent results, the higher is the type of morality. It
springs from an intelligence that discerns equally the fEmgs
which promote human welfare and the things that are
injurious. It is rooted in large-group syinpathies, love of
human-kind, large-group vision, attitudes, valuations, and
tendencies to behavior. Whatever will produce and inten-
sify large-group consciousness and expand social intelli-
gence wiU develop high moral character.

Bad moral conduct is that which increases the total sum
of human woe. One of its basic conditions is an ignorance
of the things required for human welfare. A second is small-
group consciousness. Members of small groups hold to the
dual standard of conduct. Virtuous action for them is that
which promotes welfare of their httle group through (1) the
exercise of the social virtues toward each other, and (2) the
exercise of the anti-social virtues toward society in general.
Since such action tends usually to be parasitic rather than
efficiently productive, they force others not only to carry
/their own share of the total load, but also the share that
should be properly borne by the parasitic group. Their
actioti resultfe in social injury in the degree in which they
are actually parasitic; and in the degree in which they em-
ploy anti-social action in effecting their parasitism. The
problem of education is to develop within them the large-

166 THE CURRICULUM

group consciousness, valuations, and sympathies; and a
clear intellectual appreciation of the forces and influences
that are to be controlled in the interests of all. The problem
of moral education is not to develop within them the vanous
virtues of industry, obedience, courage, loyalty, etc. These
exist within those possessing small-group consciousness as
abundantly as in those having the large-group conscious-
ness. Simply they are wrongly directed. The central train-
ing task is a transformation of their group-consciousness.

Quite clearly the central problem of moral education is
identical with that of civic education. The humanizing and
socializing training discussed in various chapters, in so far
as it can be made to promote width of social vision, and
breadth and intensity of social sympathies, will provide the
taproot of morality. And there can be no substitute that
will accomplish this training. It is not done by giving infor-
mation about the virtues, as in ethics; not even by drilling
in the practice of the specific virtues. It grows from deeper
roots. And it must grow; not be grafted.

If the foregoing statements are true, why is there so much
insistence upon religion as the necessary sanction and suj>-
port of morality.'^ In reply we must say that it is because
j religion is the taproot of morality. The religious vision is
i but a further widening of the large-group civic vision. The
religious sympathies are but further widening of the social
sympathies. We are not to stop with a mere present-day
planetary consciousness. We are to go on to that wider
cosmic consciousness. of man as a member of a universal
order that is not limited in time or space. It is to conceive
one's membership within an order that includes all things
that are, and all beings that are. It is to see one's self as a
member of a social group that is not only as wide as the
municipal or national or world-group of to-day, but which
is also wide enough to include the members of the genera-

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 167

tions that have preceded us, and those that are to come after;
and which includes all benevolent and beneficent non-
earthly beings so far as we can know of them or reasonably
conceive them. Individuals differ as to many things that
lie beyond the realm of sense; but the essentially religious-
minded seem to agree upon the central conception as here
stated. What social science calls interdependency, coopera-
tion, community of origin, and group-consciousness, reli-
gion calls the brotherhood of man.

It is often said that our public schools cannot train for
religious thought and springs of action. If what we are
saying is true, the highest function of our public schools is
the development of the social attitudes and valuations and
knowledge that are equally central in conceptions of social
interdependency and of human brotherhood. Naturally in
our schools we shall hold to the terminology of social science;
to the non-controversial and therefore fundamental portion
of the field. This is not to attempt the whole; but it is to
assist in laying the solid foundation for the whole; without
which little else worth while can be done. The churches
need such solid ground as the starting-point for the exten-
sions that they would rear into the infinite.

PART IV
EDUCATION FOR PHYSICAL EFFICIENCY

CHAPTER XIV -^^^

THE FUNDAMENTAL TASK OF PHYSICAL TRAINING

The human organism may be conceived as a reservoir of
energy, which is continually emptying itself through various
channels of expenditure, and which is being continually
refilled through other channels of inflow. The analogy is an
old one, used by Descartes; but in the light of modem
science there is none more exact nor more fruitful.

The outflow of energy is through many channels, accom-
plishing many types of result. One portion is consumed in
the production of bodily heat; another in secretion and the
involuntary muscular actions of respipation, digestion, cir-
culation, etc.; a third portion is consumed in the elimination
and neutrahzation of poisons generated in the system; a
large amount, in voluntary activity; and finally, there is the
portion that flows out through the nerve-channels under-
lying thought and feeling and emotional excitement. The
expenditure is unceasing; but in amount it varies according
to conditions of temperature, of work and play, etc. One's
waking hours constitute mainly a season of outflow.

The inflow of energy is through the channels of nutri-
tion. The process is continuous, occurring at all times, but
proceeding unequally. The chief season of inflow is during
the hours of sleep. Without this restoration of supply, the
level of the reservoir is rapidly lowered.

In an individual of invariably robust health, living under
normal conditions, the level of the reservoir is high, — in
the neighborhood of one hundred per cent of potential.
The daily income of energy just about equals the daily out-
go. If he is doing light work with light expenditure, the in-

172

THE CURRICULUM

flow will be light. If the daily expenditure is heavy, — but
not abnormally so, — the return inflow is correspondingly
abundant. Thus, barring accident, he may go through life
near one hundred per cent physically eflSicient. His condi-
tion in this respect may be roughly represented by A in the
accompanying figure.

100^

Fig. 3. To represent different possible levels in the reservoir of one's vitality

If, however, the daily expenditure through channels of
work, play, worry, struggle with body-poisons, mental ex-
citement, etc., is greater than the daily income, the level
is lowered. His energy-supply may come to be such as rep-
resented by B or C in the figure. The level of his vitality
may stand at seventy per cent or fifty per cent of potential
instead of at the normal one hundred per cent. The lower
the level, the nearer he approaches the danger Hne,

An equilibrium may be established at one of these lower
levels. Daily income and daily outgo may again be equal.
In this case, the level of vitality does not sink lower;
neither does it rise. Such a devitalized individual may go
through life with his vital reserves at fifty per cent of what
they ought to be. The original causes of the lowered vitality
may continue, physiological habits may become established,
and the individual is held down permanently. If, however.

TASK OF PHYSICAL TRAINING 173

he can discover and remove the original causes, and care-
fully regulate income and expenditures, he may — usually
slowly, if habits have been formed — raise the level of his
reserve vitality again to something near its old level.

Relation to vocational efficiency

It makes a large difference whether the level of vitality
is maintained at fifty per cent of potential, or at one hun-
dred per cent. The vocational demand for efficiency when
reduced to specifics is a demand for forcefulness, for ac-
curacy, for speed, for endurance, and for consistency or
uniformity of good work. And these are all fruits of a full
vitality. While the nervous, under-vitalized individual may
present a great show of energy and may in fact put forth
large effort for a short time, he cannot be consistently force-
ful, day after day, and month after month. He lacks re-
siliency. When expenditure is large, it is not restored suffi-
ciently rapidly. The daily oscillation must not be large, if he
is to be consistent. On the other hand, the fully vitalized
individual may make large effort and large expenditure day
after day over long periods of time. The return surge is
equally prompt and vigorous. Even after strenuous exer-
tion, each new day finds the level of the reservoir at its
previous high level. With him the daily oscillation may be
wide. He alone is prepared for forcefulness, endurance, speed,
and consistency of work. He also is accurate. His nerves
are sound, his movements under secure control, his inhi-
bitions prompt and certain. The devitahzed individual is
nervous, incoordinated, uncertain in his movements and
inhibitions. The range of his mental life is narrowed. He
does not see so many things at one time, and his failure to
observe all of the things related to his work involves him in
mistakes and accidents. He is the type of man that indus-
try nowadays is trying to eliminate.

174 THE CURRICULUM

There is the further need of joy in one's work. The force-
ful, well-poised individual does his work with ease, with con-
fidence, with accuracy; and without taxing himself, obtains
the results that he desires. He does not *'live upon his
nerves." He does not drive himself to his work. He is not
in that state of nervous irritability which makes steadiness
and accuracy so constraining as to be maddening.

Training for a high level of physical vitality is thus one
of the most fundamental aspects of training for vocational
efficiency.

Relation to morality

The physical condition of an individual or of a nation is
intimately related to the moral and civic character. On the
positive side, morality in our complicated age is rooted in
width and clearness of vision of human affairs in community,
nation, and world; and in permanent sympathetic attitudes
toward all individuals and social groups; and in the dispo-
sition so to act as to promote without mistake or accident
the general welfare. On the negative side, morality consists
of inhibitions which restrain tendencies to anti-social or
other injurious conduct.

The state of one's vitality is intimately related to both
the positive and negative sides. Psychologists tell us that
when we examine a state of momentary consciousness, it
is found to consist of two portions: the focal idea to which
attention is being for the moment given, and which occupies
the center of consciousness; and the marginal ideas, sensa-
tions, etc., many in number, of which we are at the mo-
ment aware, but to which we are not giving attention. Now
in individuals of different degrees of vitality, the focal idea
may be about equally clear to all. The difference is in the
character of the marginal consciousness. In the man of
full vitaUty, there is a width and richness of marginal life.

TASK OF PHYSICAL TRAINING 175

He holds manyj|Lings in mind at once. Consequently he is
the man of \yiae mental horizon, and of far vision. Since
the subtler and more complicated social relations are those
that involve seeing many things at once and in wide per-
spective, he alone is in a position cleariy to see and appre-
ciate the existing social relations and demands in our
modem society. Seeing the relations, he is in a position to
act wisely and justly and for the best interests of all con-
cerned. He is morally responsible.

In the case of the semi-vitalized individual the marginal
life is much narrowed. He holds fewer things in mind at once;
and therefore less adequately sees the relations; especially
the subtle compHcated ones. These he must see if he is to
visuahze modem society, his place therein, and his rights
and responsibiUties. But his physical condition shuts out
much of the needed vision. Morally he is but semi-respon-
sible. Even though he be richly endowed with good-will, he
cannot hold to action of the highest moral type because he
cannot see what it is.

For the man of a very low level of vitality, the curtains
are still further drawn. There is little margin to his con-
sciousness. His stream of thought is Httle more than a suc-
cession of focal ideas. He has but little power to hold the
many things in mind at once that are needed for seeing com-
plex social relations. As a consequence, he is morally in-
capacitated, irresponsible. He misses the road largely be-
cause he cannot see where it Ues. He falls back upon the
guidance of instinct, passion, and other crude impulsions.
He may be entirely well-meaning, and yet thoroughly
criminal in his conduct. His irresponsibility, however, is
but a symptom of illness. Even if criminal, the treatment
he most needs is the hospital.

In the preceding discussion we have been noting the posi-
tive propulsions to right moral conduct. There is also the

176 THE CURRICULUM

matter of inhibitions. In the man of full vital reserves, these
are full and strong and certain in their action. In proportion
as reserves are depleted, and the marginal life narrowed, the
inhibitions grow weak and uncertain. The same thoughts
of possible action may pass through the minds of the robust
and the devitalized. Some of these are anti-social, and refer
to acts that are undesirable, or even criminal. In the case
of the man of full vitality, however, when the idea of the
harmful act arises, even though prompted by strong instinct,
the marginal ideas of the results arise at the same time.
He sees the undesirability and dismisses it without effort.
With the man of low reserves the same idea may arise with
the same degree of clearness and with no greater instinctive
propulsion. But there does not arise the same wealth of
marginal ideas as to the consequences. He does not see
the harm of it. He has little or nothing to restrain him.
The anti-social idea, therefore, discharges itself into action,
and he commits the criminal deed. In original nature and
training the two men may be of identical disposition. The
difference in their acts is due simply to a difference in the
levels of their physical vitahty.

Needed Jot civic control

A state of democratic government is one in which each
individual is largely free to shape his conduct according to
the dictates of his best judgment. And yet the democracy of
to-day is such a concatenation of mutual interdependencies
that if we have both democracy and organization, the dic-
tates of judgment on the part of all must largely be identical.
Each must, therefore, see the whole of the social mechan-
ism, and his individual part within the coordinated labors of
the whole. No other plan can possibly bring community of
judgment. But the plan requires that the citizens have the
power to hold a large number of things in mind at once so

TASK OF PHYSICAL TRAINING 177

as to see the innumerable and complex relations. This is
possible only to a citizenry of large vitality. A wise, vigorous,
and beneficent democracy on the part of devitalized indi-
viduals is impossible. The uncertainties of our inchoate and
wobbly democracy are due, not entirely to ignorance and
small-group consciousness, but in some degree also to a gen-
eral depletion of physical vitality with its consequent nerv-
ous irritability, narrow vision, and lack of inner restraints.
There can be little question but that the instability of demo-
cratic governments in certain tropical states is partially
due — the degree none can say — to the lowered vitality of
a European population in tropical countries.

A problem of first magnitude in training our population
for efficient citizenship is the training at the same time for
the indispensable basis of physical efficiency.

Needed for leisure occupations

In other chapters we have tried to indicate the large place
rightly occupied in human life by leisure occupations. For
a number of reasons we need to develop appreciations of
art, literature, music, science, philosophy, and religion. We
feel that these are necessary for a stable and continuing
form of civilization. But in a world where there are so many
serious things to do, we cannot have them unless there is
a surplus of leisure time and Hberated energy that can be
used for the purpose. But if physical efficiency is low, then
productive efficiency is also low; and there are the further
wastes of time and energy in correcting mistakes, in fighting,
and in dissipation. There is no surplus for the humanistic
activities. And further, things like literature, or science,
or religion, on their high levels, are not to be appreciated
without the richly irrigating streams of consciousness char-
acterized by the wide margins; the types of those with the
high physical reserves. The individual of narrow conscious-

178 THE CURRICULUM

ness can have but restricted glimpses of these wider fields;
fails to see things in proportion and relation; finds them
meaningless and therefore uninteresting or wearisome; or
perplexing, bajffling, irritating. He leaves them and goes to
pleasures of simpler and lower nature. A high humanistic
civilization is not to be built on foundations of physical in-
validity.

One asi>ect of humanistic education must be the develop-
ment of that degree of physical efficiency without which
such education lacks a fundamental condition of success.

Need for ^^ keeping well "

One's major health ambition usually is to "keep well";
that is to say, to avoid acute illness or physical collapse.
One can, however, keep well in this negative sense with his
reserves of vitality at a low level. Through regularity he
keeps out of the sick-bed and goes about his work. He be-
comes used to the conditions, physiological habits are formed,
and he does not know that the volume of his life might be
doubled. Standards of vitality are lacking; modes of meas-
uring have not been developed or applied. Everybody else
is in much the same condition. Neither industry nor citizen-
ship has accurately defined the standards of physical effi-
ciency necessary for consistent success. One therefore
"keeps well " upon a low level: but is not physically efficient.

The result is that he is easily susceptible to attacks of
acute diseases, Hke colds, grippe, bronchitis, tonsillitis,
pneumonia, rheumatism, and a host of others. On the other
hand, the man of large physical reserves, who almost of
necessity has good physiological habits, finds himself, bar-
ring accidents, practically immune from most of these
troubles, and relatively immune from all.

The latter is equally fortunate also in his physiological
inhibitions. The nervous individual of depleted vitality

TASK OF PHYSICAL TRAINING 179

often presents a great show of energy because of the multi-
tude of excess movements, of emotional excitement, and
of other needless wastes of energy. The man of high reserves,
however, tends to be calm, poised, direct, and accurate. He
does not waste himself in useless ways. He therefore re-
tains himself upon his level with greater ease than one re-
tains his position ujkju one of the lower levels.

And there is also the latitude of resiliency. The man of
large reserves may, in case of stress and strain, greatly in-
crease his daily task through weeks or months without under-
mining himself. Though work is unusually strenuous, the
daily restoration is unusually large. On the lower level,
however, lacking this same resiliency, a man cannot go far
below his normal without finding himself the prey of acute
illness, and of tedious recuperation.

Training, therefore, for the ideal of keeping well, if it I
is to be done at its best, involves training for high levels of (
reserve vitaUty. It presents a positive program, not a mere
negative one.

CHAPTER XV

PHYSICAL TRAINING

Perfect physical training for child or adult is that which
brings him to the one hundred per cent level of possible
vitality and which holds him there. Since perfection is
scarcely attainable, education will aim at the highest prac-
ticable levels. This definition appears desirable because of
the frequent limitation of the term to muscular exercise.
Naturally physical training must always include a generous
amount of muscular exercise; but there are other things just
as important, such as proper sleep, food and food habits,
air, temperatures, sunlight, balance of all physical expendi-
tures, protection from micro-organisms, the elimination of
wastes, healthful mental states,. etc.

Physical training has long been on the school program.
One has, however, only to glance over the statistics of
physical deficiency among school children, army recruits,
or the population in general, to realize how lamentably
this physical training has failed to accomplish the essen-
tial purposes of abundant vitality and freedom from
physical imperfection. Our physical training has relatively
failed because it has lost sight of most of the vital factors for
such a program. There has been and still persists the con-
ception that education is a classroom affair; that only what
can be taken care of at the school-building is to be done;
that educational specialists are not to lead or direct or be
otherwise concerned with experiences which must be had in
other places within the community. The present topic more
than any other discussed in this volume reveals the limita-
tions of such primitive educational thought and practice.

PHYSICAL TRAINING 181

Good physical training, can result but from one thing;
naTJiely yjnghi_Jmrig. One must actively do the things that
enhance vitality and actively avoid those that waste it.
Learning the facts of a book will not accomplish it; nor good
recitations; nor good marks upon examination. Nothing
will serve but right living twenty-four hours in the day,
seven days in the week, and all of the weeks in the year.
Naturally pupils must have preliminary ideas as to what
to do. These they will secure from books, teachers, nurses,
physicians, physical trainers and personal observation; but
getting such ideas constitutes only the preliminary step in
the series of activities that constitute the physical training.
I It is not even the preliminary step unless there is the con-
scious intention on the part of those securing the ideas to
put them to work. Let a student have any quantity of ideas
as to what constitutes right living, if he does not put them
into operation they do not acquire vitality nor result in
physical training. The curriculum must be living — with
learning only one of several steps.

Since muscular exercise is the part that has been most
completely institutionalized, let us begin with that. The
first thing to be noted is that it is mainly taken care of in
the general out-of-school experience. Pedometers on six-
year-old boys not in school have shown that they travel
more than ten miles a day in their play; and the other por-
tions of their play are probably the muscular equivalent
of another ten miles. Since children have four waking
hours per day out of school for every one in school counting
all of the days of the year, if equally active in the two
cases, they will be getting four fifths of their muscular
experience outside of the schools. In general, however, the
out-of-school experience is the more active; so that most of
the developing experience is not directed by teachers.

There are two general types of training. One is system-

182 THE CURRICULUM

atized gymnastics, variously called calisthenics, Swedish
gymnastics, German gymnastics, etc. It is usually taken
indoors. It involves wands, Indian clubs, dumb-bells, etc.
Usually there is no spontaneity in the exercise, but it is all
done at the arbitrary word of command. It is not play
because the children are not actuated by the play-motive
and it is not performed in the play-spirit. So far as it is
work it is of the unhealthy taskmaster type. The fear is
often expressed when "supervised play" is recommended
that the supervision will injure the play by depriving it of
its spontaneity. The formal gymnastics, however, repre-
sent a type of systematization and supervision that has
been carried to such an extreme that the play-spirit has
completely departed, and not even a memory of it remains.
It is the antithesis of normal Uving. It therefore cannot
adequately serve for education.

The other type of physical training is an institutionaliza-
tion of children's play which retains the play-spirit. The
leaders of the movement have been assembling a great
repertory of plays and games for indoors and outdoors, for
boys and girls, and for all ages and stages of development.
These include ball-games, running-games, catching-games,
athletics for all, rhythmic dances with and without music,
folk-games and dances, — as pleasurable as they are effec-
tive for training. They represent real child-Ufe at its best
transferred to the schools with as little change as practicable.
It is the type to which schools are turning.

To these play-activities must be added an increasingly
active type of general school life. Experiential education
is introducing more activities of the laboratory, the shop,
the kitchen, the school garden, community observation and
survey, active participation in practical community affairs,
chorus singing, playing of musical instruments, field work
in the country, etc. In normalizing education in general,
excellent physical training is also provided for.

PHYSICAL TRAINING 183

Perhaps it should be mentioned that where one is abnor-
mal and is in need of corrective orthopedic exercises, like
medicines for the sick, systematized gymnastics may often
have a legitimate place. But it has no more place in the
normal muscular development of normal children than have
medicines for the well.

Perhaps chiefly because of tradition, teachers seem to pre-
fer the formal gymnastics. The writer had occasion to ask
a group of elementary teachers as to the type of physical
exercises which seemed to them most beneficial for their
pupils. Out of sixty-eight teachers who replied, forty-eight
preferred the formal gymnastics; twenty, the plays and
games, especially when outdoors. When asked which type
the children preferred, they were all agreed that the children
preferred the games. The majority of the teachers, there-
fore, said that in their judgment the instincts of the children
placed there by Nature are wrong; that the children's nor-
mal appetites in the matter of physical exercise are unsafe
guides; and that a type of muscular experience so foreign
to human nature that children never indulge in it in their
spontaneous play is the thing needed for proper develop-
ment of their physical natures. It is safe to presume that
instincts are safe guides until the contrary is proven.

In the elementary schools, especially, the calisthenics is
urged because of the relief it brings to pupils after an hour
or so of concentrated mental work. The children need re-
laxation of attention and lowering of nervous strains. The
need is real; but the method is not very effective. While
five minutes of vigorous exercise in a classroom with the
windows open may be made to serve the purpose, yet it is
certain that the same amount of time devoted to running
around the block would be worth immeasurably more. The
run is a normal type of exercise. It possesses a social aspectl
and permits a degree of spontaneity lacking in the calis-l

184 THE CURRICULUM

thenics. It is vigorous. The slackness characteristic of
calisthenics is impossible. Children return with flushed
faces, deep breathing, and circulation vigorously irrigating
the tissues. It gives ^ them real relief from concentrated
attention; and real exercise.

With this compare the calisthenics, where every move-
ment is at word of command. To quote one of the manuals:
" Strict attention is very essential. The commands must be
given in a commanding spirit, with expression of voice such
as to convince pupils that they must obey and move
promptly. The quality and the value of the exercise de-
pends almost entirely on its execution at the command.
The latter is the signal to perform and must clearly indicate
that we expect accuracy and promptness." In other words,
this exercise is not intended to afford relief from concen-
trated attention. Quite the reverse, they insist that atten-
tion be absolute.

And what is more, relief is not given through the vigor of
the muscular exercise. Too often it is but a series of formal
posturings, perfunctory and lifeless. One manual quaintly
remarks : " It should be work in the garments of quiet pleas-
ure and tranquil delight." But when pupils are to be given
relief from mental tensions, the negative things of quietude
and tranquillity are not the most effective. They need a
type of exercise that will permit the vigorous discharge or
even explosion of pent-up energies. But spontaneous out-
bursts of activity are the last things desired in the formal
gymnastics. "Pupils should stand still during position and
while exercising; laughing, smiling, whispering are acts and
motions not favorable to good work." They are tranquilly
to go through with their posturings with the faces and mien
of wooden men. Those who know children know that their
iplay cannot be normal, and that they cannot obtain proper
'relief from their study-tensions without laughing, shouting.

PHYSICAL TRAINING 185

and running about as whim impels. Such physical-training
instructions as those quoted read Hke an educational fan-
tasy instead of being things actually prescribed in many
systems of training devised for the second decade of the
twentieth century.

A major advantage of the play-exercise is that it can fix
habits for life. Adults in a sedentary age need physical
exercises as much as children and adolescents. The training
should prepare them for this. But adults in their recrea-
tions refuse the taskmaster and all his ways. They will have
spontaneity or nothing. If their training has given them
command over a variety of sports, games, and athletics,
and has developed appreciations and habits, they are pre-
pared for types of exercise that they will gladly continue.
But they will not continue formal gymnastics. Even though
it may have accomplished the development of youth, it
fails to meet the continuing needs of adulthood. We are
prone to forget that education is for adult life; and that it
cannot be accomplished once for all time, but must be a
lifelong continuing affair.

Let us tuin now to other factors concerned in any ade-
quate program of physical training. In bringing children
and youth as nearly as practicable to the one hundred per
cent level of physical vitality and in keeping them there
throughout school-Ufe, food, air, sleep, etc., are just as vital
as muscular exercise. And for the self-directed activities of
adulthood for which education is to prepare, proper food
habits, ventilation habits, sleep habits, etc., are just as
important as lifelong habits of physical exercise. Education
has institutionalized the factor which will easily transfer
to the schools. It has not institutionalized the factors which
will not so transfer. Yet food violations and wrong food
habits are just as frequent and deleterious as wrong mus-
cular habits. And there are also violations in ventilation.

186 THE CURRICULUM

sleep, the elimination of wastes, mental states, etc. The
physical-training inefficiency with which education is often
charged and which is substantiated by facts is mainly due
to the woeful incompleteness of its program.

Most of these activities cannot be transferred to the
school-buildings. Food-activities under normal conditions,
except possibly for the noonday luncheon in high schools,
will not and ought not to be transferred. Sleep-activities
will not transfer in any degree. Ventilation-activities must
be taken care of fully at the school plant, — and this should
be done by pupils for the sake of their training, — diu-ing
the hours of their presence there; but it is to be taken care
of elsewhere during their out-of-school hours. Experience
in protection from micro-organisms can be had at the school
during school hours, but it is an experience that is to con-
tinue during the rest of the twenty-four hours at home and
throughout the general community. The regulation of tem-
perature by means of clothing and the heating of rooms can
be only partially transferred to the school, the major por-
tion of the experience taking place outside. The experiences
involved in the elimination of wastes and in bodily cleanli-
ness are only partially transferable; the training should
mainly be the general living experience.

In some things, as, for example, the bath for cleanliness,
there is occasional tendency in congested poverty sections
of our cities to introduce at the schools bathing opportuni-
ties actually needed in the homes, but which are not to be
found there. This is in obedience to the educational prin-
ciple that where community experience is seriously inferior,
substitutionary opportunity should be provided at the
schools. Under present conditions, therefore, we shall occa-
sionally institutionalize types of experience which normally
ought to be taken care of in the homes. This should be but
a temporary educational expedient to be dispensed with as

PHYSICAL TRAINING 187

quickly as improved community conditions will permit. In
introducing substitutionary opportunities, the schools are
conscious agents of community progress. In proportion as
they are successful, they reduce their portion of the task
and turn it back where it belongs.

We appear here to be confronted with a startling addition
to our professional responsibilities. Progressive school sys-
tems, however, have for some time been working on the
program. The first step is the accurate determination by
physicians, school nurses, and physical trainers of the
physical condition and habits of each pupil; to find wherein
his physique and habits are already good, and training not
required; but more particularly wherein he is physically
deficient, and given to wrong habits. The training problem
is to make him and his parents conscious of his shortcom-
ings; to give him the information needed for self -guidance;
to assist him in the antecedent planning for the right activi-
ties; to encourage and stimulate and see that the oppor-
tunities are provided in the homes and the community. The
pupils are then to be trained through self -directed but super-
vised experience in putting their ideas to work.

Full and right performance of these activities on the part
of the children requires the example and leadership of the
adult generation: parents, associates, teachers, mu*ses, and
physical trainers. These specialists need to be as fully in
contact with the community experience of the children as
they are in contact with the school portion. Educationists
can no more perform their services long-range than can
physicians or farmers or blacksmiths. They must be in
contact with the material which is being shaped during the
time of its shaping. Naturally this statement must be inter-
preted in the light of the fact that both teachers and chil-
dren have memories; and that this p>ermits influences to be
continuous without continuity of contacts.

188 THE CURRICULUM

The program requires that teachers and other trainers of
youth be primarily members of the adult community, asso-
ciated with the parents and leaders of that community. It
is to get them out of the schoolroom into the larger life of
affairs. It is to give their schoolroom labor its proper place
in the total scheme of community ajffairs. It is to bring
them to see education as living; and to see learning in its true
relation to living. It is to make men and women of a pro-
fession that has all too often been dwarfed through living
primarily within a child-world. Those who are to lead chil-
dren to the high levels of adult performance, who are to
confer the wide outlook of the adult world upon the new
generation, are to be those whose associations are primarily
with the mature members of the community; and whose
outlook and valuations thus remain those of the adult world.
Naturally teachers long accustomed to the easy grooves of
academic tradition and the cloistral isolation in which they
have been spared from grappling with the knotty problems
of the full-grown world will be fearful of any such emanci-
pation and increase of responsibilities. But the present is
an age of swift change. We emerge into a new and human-
istic world. Our profession is being called upon to bear a
large responsibility in making the adjustments. Along with
all the world, as fully and perhaps more so, our profession
must readjust its ideas and its practices. The things are
not to be feared; but welcomed. It is the new day of our
professional opportunity.

CHAPTER XVI

THE SOCIAL FACTORS OF PHYSICAL EFFICIENCY

In an age of multiple interdependencies and contacts, one
cannot alone determine the conditions upon which physical
welfare depends. These are determined by the social whole.
His food-supply, for example, comes to him from a thousand
hands and through a thousand channels. Properly to serve
its purposes it must be genuine, not an adulteration or imi-
tation. To be pure and wholesome, both sources and chan-
nels of transit must be uncontaminated. Care of the food-
supply is not merely a matter of personal hygiene; but a
coop>erative task of the entire community. For this, social
training with definite objectives is imperative.

There is the same dependence of each upon all in the man-
agement of the water supply; sewage disposal; the ventila-
tion of street and railway cars and public buildings; the
provision of pure air in cities, not contaminated by excess
smoke, dust, and gases; the prevention and destruction of
harmful micro-organisms; the prevention of flies, mosqui-
toes, and other carriers of disease; protection against acci-
dents in factories, mines, non-fireproof buildings, and street
traffic; the hours and sanitary conditions of labor; provision
of community play-facilities; elimination of noises; the social
control of the liquor, drug, and proprietary-medicine traffic;
the sanitation of schools, hotels, restaurants, stores, thea-
ters, churches, hospitals, jails, public institutions; arrang-
ing right community relations with the medical profession;
the suppression of public nuisances; the promotion of the
social, economic, and political relationships that are condu-
cive to mental serenity; adequate support of the health

190 THE CURRICULUM

department; the gathering, presentation, and use of health
facts; the elimination of poverty as a potent, widely ramify-
ing cause of physical invalidity; setting up of standards of
living which recognize the physical-efficiency factor; and
finally, the general diffusion of the knowledge, attitudes,
and valuations needed for the cooperative performance of
these things.

The training is to be for practical performance. It is
therefore to use the technique of training upon the work-
level, in which training for action is to be accomplished
through action; in which knowledge, habits, and valuations
are to guide, impel, and facilitate right action.

It is difficult to arrange for practical training except in
the Great School of community affairs. Pupils must, there-
fore, under the guidance of teachers mingle with the adult
world in their performance of the cooperative activities.
They will look on; serve as helpers; in places bear a little
responsibility; in other places, larger responsibility; and
they will talk with those performing the responsible labors.
They will also look out upon a wider world of health rela-
tionships through varied reading; and discuss the problems
in their classes in health-science and civics, and with school
physicians, nurses, and physical-training directors. Along
with these they will antecedently plan; and with the stimu-
lation of the adult leadership, they will perform the part
that can legitimately be given to youth for their social
education.

Cooperative provision of play-facilities

We can best explain by illustration. Let us take first the
cooj>erative task of providing and maintaining adequate
physical play-facilities for children and adults. One's first
reaction is that this task does not require training. All that
adults have to do is to vote the money and have their offi-

SOCIAL FACTORS OF PHYSICAL EFFICIENCY 191

cials purchase and maintain the facilities. This is true. But
it is like saying that one does not have to be trained for
spelling because it is only the simple task of putting the
letters in the right order. However simple this task, men
cannot do it until they value it, want to do it, and know the
right order of the letters; and all admit that these require
training. Now, voting money for sufl5cient purchases and
for adequate maintenance, delegating the authority wisely,
and holding agents responsible for effective service, — these
more complex things require that men value physical play
for themselves and for their children, that they want it,
and that they know how to get .the things done with cer-
tainty, effectiveness, and economy. They need training
first, for valuations, appreciations, attitudes of mind; and
second, for knowledge of means and processes. Of the two
the first is the more vital. It is prerequisite to the second.
It requires that men know play in its essences; know the
soul of play through having long experienced it. It requires
also that education aim definitely at something deep>er than
knowledge — an unaccustomed task. With the soil thus
prepared, the knowledge factor can be taken care of with
ease.

The valuations can be developed only where children and
adolescents have an opportunity to live the necessary play-
experiences — tennis, baseball, skating, basket-ball, foot-
ball, running-games, folk-games, and dances, and all the
rest — for all of the pupils. To read books about the topic,
to present reports in class, and to listen to talks by the
teacher, however fervent, is not to know play in its essences,
not to arrive at the valuations; and therefore never to attain
these ends of the training.

But participation alone is not enough for the social valu-
ations. The experiences of any individual are limited and
partial. He needs also to observe widely; and to read for

192 THE CURRICULUM

width of social vision. In this way he should view the recre-
ational life not only of his own region, but usually indirectly
that of various cities and regions of our country, and of
other lands and ages. One does not realize the fundamental
place of play in human affairs until one observes the large
place that it has always occupied and still occupies in the
lives of peoples over the entire earth. Pupils need, there-
fore, to read an adequate history of human recreation
which will reveal concretely the large place of physical (and
at the same time usually social) play among primitive
peoples both ancient and recent; to read the history of play
in Greece, Rome, Persia, mediaeval Europe, Spain, England,
Germany, Japan, America, etc. In each case the chapter
dealing with recent history should be full.

As the participation, observations, and readings develop
valuations, it is easy to introduce the knowledge aspects:
the physiology of play, the simple concrete psychology, and
the social and economic aspects.

The cooperative fight on disease

A second cooperative task requiring practical social train-
ing relates to the prevention or limitation of diseases. This
problem is considera'bly more difficult for education. There
is not the same strength of propelling instinct. The tasks,
therefore, are less congenial. The problem is rendered more
difficult since pupils are iiot often to be brought into direct
contact with diseases and disease-producing conditions be-
cause of the dangers. In the vocational or civic education,
one aims to bring children into as vital contact with the
realities as possible; but here the demands of the usual peda-
gogy are reversed by the conditions. Pupils come to appre-
ciate work by working, and play by playing; but we do not
think they should become acquainted with the nature of
disease through having the diseases. This brings forward

SOCIAL FACTORS OF PHYSICAL EFFICIENCY 193

the educational problem of how to develop understand-
ing without the direct experiences. As in history or foreign
geography, it is simply to fall back upon the indirect experi-
ence of concrete reading and lectures, making these full and
vivid enough to serve in lieu of direct experiences. It is to
use the language-avenue of contact with essential realities
when the direct avenue of sense-contact is barred by dis-
tance or lapse of time or danger.

The reading should be largely historical. This can reveal
the nature, seriousness, and gigantic proportions of the
human struggle with disease and disease-producing condi-
tions. To illustrate, the accompanying Figure 4 shows

Fig. 4. Death-rate from pulmonary tuberculosis in England and Wales
per 10,000 population, 1838-1894.

graphically the mortality in England from pulmonary tuber-
culosis from 1838 to 1894. The amount was great at the
beginning of the period; at the end, much diminished. The
decline shows a winning fight; and suggests the possibility
of making further gains.

194 THE CURRICULUM

Along with the chart there should be concrete vivid read-
ing which reveals the action of the factors concerned in the
struggle. The story should present biographical materials
from the lives of men and women who were leaders in the
movement. These should show the nature of the things
upon which attacks were made, the modes of attack, and the
degrees of success. The story should reveal the attack upon
bad housing conditions, uncleanliness, bad ventilation, and
the lack of sunlight; the rise in the general standard of liv-
ing; the changes in wage-standards that permitted better
sanitation and higher standards of living; improvements in
the care of the milk-supply; improved methods of treatment;
segregation of the sick; improvements in the general sani-
tation of cities; and the labors of local and general boards
of health.

Similar charts and readings are needed for showing the
progress of the fight in other lands. These are especially
needed for our own country and for one's local community.
As pupils thus visualize the experiences, they come to realize
the nature and seriousness of the struggle, their sympathies
are awakened, and they are impelled toward active partici-
pation. Along with the concrete readings, there should be
discussion, problem-solving, and more general readings by
way of generalizing their information as to the factors. As
these social interests awake, — and they must precede, —
it will be possible to awaken interests in the more technical
matters involved in the causation of tuberculosis; the nature
of the bacilli, modes of transmission, methods of infection,
physiological conditions conducive to infection, physiolog-
ical and anatomical results of infection, etc. The tech-
nical science can largely be presented through reading and
the lectures of physicians, nurses, and science teachers; and
through the use of well-prepared anatomical and bacterio-
logical charts and diagrams. At some point in the course

SOCIAL FACTORS OF PHYSICAL EFFICIENCY 195

the microscope and bacteriological laboratory will reveal
certain of the factors as concretely as practicable. Children
must be given the concrete imagery needed for substantiality
in their thinking. This is a primary condition of sanity of
thought in this field.

Other social studies of a comparative character for stu
dents of high school and later levels should reveal the geo-
graphical, occupational, social, and other distributions of
tuberculosis. The studies will be largely statistical and
graphical with interpretative discussion of causes and rela-
tionships. These studies will reveal the differences in differ-
ent portions of the earth; the differing immunities to the
disease on the part of different races; differences due to
higher and lower standards of living; to different occupa-
tions; and to variations in any of the other major factors.

If the early levels of study in this general field are con-
crete and experiential, it can be made as interesting to child-
hood and youth, as any other. The human interest in a
fight is perennial and universal. The fight upon disease is
likewise perennial and universal; a never-ending struggle
with hostile forces. It is in literal fact a more sanguinary
conflict than any military war ever waged: the major num-
ber of all human beings are killed or seriously injured long
before their allotted years are run. If the readings can be
so drawn that one can visualize and realize a struggle which
is so largely invisible to the eyes, it can be given an educa-
tional vitality hitherto little realized.

Figure 5 shows in general outline the history of diphtheria
in Chicago from 1875 down to 1916. Injection of antitoxin
was instituted in 1896. The figure shows the fight to have
been a winning one before that time; but that since then,
through the use of this new weap>on, the battle is largely
won. Let young people read a well-written history of the
movement in this and other cities and countries. Let them

196

THE CURRICULUM

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understand the physiological and bacteriological causes and
conditions. Let them understand the technology of the an-
titoxin. Let them have the charts showing the historical
trend, — and with these things before them they cannot
fail to see the whole situation and its factors in perspective
and with perfect sanity. The major cause of the great
abundance of irrational thinking in this field is that indi-
viduals have never been supplied with the necessary mate-
rials of thought.

Not every fight has been a winning one. Figure 6 shows
the history of cancer in Chicago from 1871 to 1910. It has
increased steadily and apparently irresistibly. Other mala-
dies like Bright's disease, heart disease, pneumonia, etc.,
have been increasing in the same way. With them the
fight has been a losing one. This is the case in our coun-

SOCIAL FACTORS OF PHYSICAL EFFICIENCY 197

fan /a?4 jBTe /sra /s&o mt as* /sse ms 'sso /ase /sh m^ms /soo /soz m*fSoi/ooe /919

Fig. 6. Deaths from cancer per 10,000 population from 1872 to 1910.
(From Report of the Chicago Department of Health, 1911.)

try at large and in all civilized countries. These foes of
human welfare appear to be gaining an upper hand. In con-
nection with such matters as these, where the fight is being
lost, it is even more important that there be fullness of
reading, fullness of direct observation so far as practicable,
and fullness of related scientific studies by way of devel-
oping an understanding and realization of the causes and
conditions of these more deadly enemies.

The history to be used is not always that of one's own
country; but rather that of any country where effective
V^^ork has been done. Figure 7 shows the history in graphical
form of smallpox in Germany since 1846. It shows that
previous to the Franco-Prussian War, when there was no
compulsory vaccination, the average annual death-rate per
100,000 of population was above 24. During the disorgani-
zation of the Franco-Prussian War, the rate rose to 262,

198

THE CURRICULUM

or more than ten times the normal average. This brought
compulsory vaccination. The result was that the average
mortality from 1875 to 1886 was only 1.5. Since 1886 the

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ment of general vaccination. Death-rate per 100,000 population, 1846-
1886. Courtesy of W. B. Saunders & Co.

rate has been less than 1, or less than one twenty-fifth what
it was during the years previous to compulsory vaccination.
It is possible to discuss the pros and cons of vaccination with
the negationists without accomplishing any great result.
This is a normal mental phenomenon, and not mere intel-
lectual perverseness. The individual negationists are not to
blame; but rather an education that failed to give them the
materials of thought. Let youths have an adequate history
of smallpox; comparative figures such as shown in this
chart; the technical information relative to the disease; the

SOCIAL FACTORS OF PHYSICAL EFFICIENCY 199

theory of the vaccine, the mode of preparation, the theory
of its action within the human system, etc. Having this
information they cannot be negationists, even if they wish,
since the conditions requisite for mental negation have been
removed.

For the entire health field, nothing is so much needed as
incontestable historical evidence as to the past ravages of
diseases, and as to the beneficent effects of modern sanitary
and medical procedure. It is now a field of much vague
and often bizarre thinking. Let men have the genuine ma-
terials of thought, and they can come to think sanely.

Because of past neglect, before leaving these topics we
wish a little further to urge the need of vivifying reading. A
spectacular engulfing of human life, like a CoUinwood School
or Iroquois Theater fire, an Eastland or Titanic disaster,
under normal world-conditions, catches our attention and
fills us with horror for days and weeks. But herein the city
of Chicago where these words are written, to take a near
illustration, at the present rate the lives of 12,000 children
now in the schools of the city will be snuffed out unneces-
sarily before their school days are over because of evil and
uncorrected health conditions. This is the equivalent of
more than sixty CoUinwood School fires, — and but few
take notice. It is equivalent to twenty Iroquois Theater
fires, — ^-but not even the city, much less the Nation, is
aroused. It is equivalent to six or eight Eastland or Titanic
disasters, — and we let it pass unheeded. No spectacular
oflicial investigations are begun. Unlike the catastrophic
engulfing of human life, although they were small as com-
pared to this, it does not fire legislatures, city councils, and
school boards the country over to zealous correction of
dangerous conditions. The causes are so omnipresent, dis-
ease and death so diffused, everything so undefined, it is so
distributed over the whole community, over the entire year.

200 THE CURRICULUM

it is so much behind closed doors, the foe so invisible, the
fight so secret and insidious, and men are so used to it all,
that they simply accept it as a portion of the inescapable
human lot. The ignorant are apathetic and their imagina-
tions are dull. They lack the apperceptive ideas for reali-
zation of such chronic, non-striking conditions. They lack
the imagery necessary for conjuring up the horrors that in-
visibly surround them. Fullness and vividness of reading
experience which effectively reconstructs and reveals the
situation, is the remedy for such indifference to needless
suffering and premature destruction.

Readings should present a history of the human struggle
with micro-organisms: the history of the fight with small-
pox, yellow fever, Asiatic cholera, bubonic plague, typhoid,
tuberculosis, diphtheria, pneumonia, malaria, and the others
of the list. It should present a history of city sanitation, the
sanitation of dwellings, schools, theaters, street and railway
cars, etc. It should show what history usually does not
show, namely, the large place that disease has played as a
factor in human history, as in the disappearance of the vir-
ile Greek and Roman races; the obliteration of the Vandal
Kingdom in Africa and Italy; the disappearance of every
German army that during the period of the Holy Roman
Empire descended into Italy; the disappearance of the
American Indians of North America, not before the guns,
but before the diseases of the white invaders; the retarda-
tion of the civilization of the tropical regions, etc. Pupils
should read vivid accounts of the history of sanitation in
Panama under both French and Americans; the story of
Gorgas in his sanitation of Cuba and in his clearing-up of
the typhus epidemic in Serbia; the story of the obliteration
of Asiatic cholera in the Philippines; of the fight of the Jap-
anese upon disease before and during the Russo-Japanese
War; and so on through an extended list. It is most remark-

SOCIAL FACTORS OF PHYSICAL EFFICIENCY 201

able that the historians in drawing up lists of influences
that have controlled the mutations of human affairs should,
except in occasional instances, have overlooked the funda-
mental influence of this biological factor.

As a profession we have not yet come sufficiently to value
reading as a mode of experience. We have valued it for
securing systematized information which can be recited
and examined upon. We have not, however, sufficiently
looked upon it as formative experience which flows through
the consciousness, leaving its effects in the general mental
cast, in perspective, in valuations and attitudes, and in a
rich background of conscious mental life. Most of such
experience is forgotten and should be forgotten in the sense
that most details are not recallable. Forgetting is as normal
a mental function as remembering. The human mind can
hold only a limited quantity of menaories in recallable form.
In order that this little be of the right sort, it must be the
residuum from a wealth of mostly forgotten experience. This
residuum is largely a texture of generalizations from one's
concrete experience in which are intermingled concrete
memories of some of the more striking, more frequently
repeated, or more recent experiences. These remembered
concretes are usually partially digested matters that have
not yet lost their identity in their assimilation into the
general.

W^e are not recommending readings that are to be learned
or memorized any more than those of the morning news-
paper. If the experiences are of the right sorts, if they have
depth and warmth and emotional potency, the foundation
will have been laid for the desirable generalizations. These
latter are the things that most need to be remembered; and
fortunately nature has provided for them in the process of
generalization through natural assimilation of the concrete
details. They need not be memorized after the plan of the

202 THE CURRICULUM

old-fashioned textbook method. They are the natural fruits
of experience if it can be made normal and full. And there
are also the other fruits of this experience: right attitudes
of mind, standards of judgment, valuations, emotional sym-
pathies, dynamic tendencies of the will, etc. These latter
are just as important as the intellectual generalizations.
They are, however, practically neglected in their entirety
where education consists of textbook fact-memorization.

Practical activities

What can young people do by way of putting their social
health-ideas to work, and their attitudes, valuations, and
social sympathies? To begin with, there are certain non-
specialized labors related to the public health which they
can perform. They can engage in anti-fly campaigns. They
can make accurate surveys of every city block by way of
locating and mapping every fly-breeding spot. In places
where they can have control, they can eliminate the fly-
breeding conditions. They can make effective public report
on places where they have no control. They can continue
these processes until the community is sufficiently awakened
for cooperative regulation of places inaccessible to the young
people. Within recent years Cleveland has shown what can
be accomplished where there is zealous and enlightened
leadership. Along with the activities referred to, pupils
can cooperatively undertake the destruction of the flies
themselves through the placing of traps, fly-paper, etc. They
can carry their surveys still further and show upon another
map the distribution of fly-infested food-supplies and fly-
protected food-supplies; upon a third, disease-breeding places
to which fly carriers have access and from which they may
carry diseases. Most of the facts will relate to things over
which pupils have no power of direct correction. They will
simply be gathering inspectorial facts for the community.

SOCIAL FACTORS OF PHYSICAL EFFICIENCY 203

But this is as practical a task as the actual obliteration
of the harmful conditions. It is really more important for
their civic education, since the things which they can them-
selves do with their own hands are comparatively few; but
the number of things which they are to do cooperatively on
the basis of a general community understanding are numer-
ous. The inspectorial labors provide both intellectual and
social training for these cooperative labors.

To be fruitful for community life or for education, there
must be joint responsibility of adults and children with
adults supplying leadership and delegating responsibility
to the children. A child campaign alone is a social abnormal-
ity, good neither for practical results nor for education.

Other types of incompletely specialized activities in which
the students can participate are anti-mosquito campaigns,
city clean-up campaigns, current thoughtfulness and care
for the cleanliness of streets, back yards, etc., cooperative
participation in the ventilation of public places, destruction
of vermin and pests of other sorts than those enumerated,
etc. These and others of similar type can be carried through
oh plans analogous to those described in the case of the anti-
fly activities. Pupils also have an opportunity to cooperate
practically with the labors of specialists of many kinds as
these touch the various homes; for example, in the garbage
disposal, the smoke nuisance, sewage disposal, the drainage
of city lots, quarantine, protection of the water-supply, and
elimination of nuisances. After all is said, however, cooper-
ative health activities will largely be taken care of by spe-
cialized civic departments : the board of health, city food
inspectors, market inspectors, milk inspectors, the city
water department, the garbage and waste disposal depart-
ment, the sewage disposal department, the playground
department, the city smoke inspectors, building inspectors,
the factory inspection service, etc. The inteUigent city.

204 THE CURRICULUM

village, or rural region of the future will see that part-time
work is provided mature pupils for training purposes in
connection with these several cooperative activities. The
quantity of responsibility placed upon them probably need
not be large. That they be in contact with the realities is
the principal thing.

While such part-time participation is needed for substan-
tiality, the major portion of their practical labors in con-
nection with all of these things will necessarily be the
gathering of facts, the making of surveys, the preparation
of publicity charts, diagrams, statistical tables, reports that
are to be used in the inspectorial labors of the total com-
munity. This has been suflBciently discussed in a previous
chapter. The methods employed will be the same for the
social aspects of health care as for any other cooperative
group task.

PART V
EDUCATION FOR LEISURE OCCUPATIONS

CHAPTER XVII

THE FUNCTION OF PLAY IN HUMAN LIFE

All of our discussion, whether of play or work, assumes
that education is preparation for the affairs of the mature
world. This is not to lose sight of the fact that the educa-
tion of the nine-year-old child is to prepare for the life of
the ten-year-old; and this in turn for that of the eleven-year-
old. But at the same time and in the same way, education
during the formative stages of childhood and youth is to
prepare for the long stage of maturity.

xlttention is called to this, since we are not here primarily
concerned with the plays of children for their own sake, but
with play-experience as preparation for the leisure occu-
pations of adult men and women. We are discussing train-
ing for adult life as fully as in the chapters on vocational or
civic education. It is true that play is a large factor in the
lives of youth, since it is man's fundamental education; but
it is no less one of the largest factors in normal adult life.
Dr. Woods Hutchinson has a lecture entitled "Which is
the life of man — his work or his play?" His answer is, "It
is his play." Play is both end and process.

"Man is a whole man only when he plays," goes the old
proverb. As worded by Schiller: "Man plays only when
he is a human being in the fullest sense of the word, and he
has reached full humanity only when he plays. This propo-
sition will acquire great and deep significance when we shall
learn to refer to it the doubly serious ideas of duty and
destiny. It will then sustain the entire superstructure of
aesthetic art and of the yet more diflficult art of life."

Leisure occupations are physical, intellectual, social, and

208 THE CURRICULUM

sesthetic: conversation, observation of men and things, con-
struction and operation of things, hobbies, sports, games,
athletics, reading, travel, music, painting; scientific experi-
mentation prompted by interest in science; the reading of
history, economics, philosophy, science, foreign languages,
mathematics, and technology, when prompted by love of the
subject and delight in the intellectual experience; religious
meditations and philosophic contemplation. The field is
wide.

Men and women have considerable leisure time. A week
consists of one hundred and sixty-eight hours. After allow-
ing twelve hours a day for sleep and meals, there remain
eighty-four hours per week. With an eight-hour day and
Saturday half-holiday, the work-week is forty-four hours
and the leisure-week, forty hours. With a labor-week that
meets general approval, a man has almost as much time for
his leisure as for his work.

There is more opportunity than the figures show. Recre-
ational activities are mingled with work-activities. One's
eyes, one's attention, one's thoughts are, while he works,
continually roving over the things of his environment for
no serious purpose. Very much of this watchfulness and
thought as to things going on about him is not an essential
portion of his immediate task. It is a leisure occupation as
completely as his observations out of a car window. Then
there is conversation with his associates concerning things
unrelated to his work. Where conversation is not possible,
there is meditation, reminiscence, day-dreaming, planning
of social activities, and the consideration of one's current
problems. The mechanization of industry often provides
favorable conditions for this quiet intellectual leisure occu-
pation. The man performs his work with no more mind
upon it than if he were a machine. His hands perform the
labors, but he himself is out in the wide fields of imaginative

THE FUNCTION OF PLAY IN HUMAN LIFE 209

experience. Although working eight or ten hours a day at
a mechanical trade, many of these may really be hours in
which his consciousness is mainly devoted to leisure occupa-
tion. Such a man's play-life even during the hours of his
work may be larger than his work-life.

And even beyond this, there is opportunity. It consists in
transfusing the work-activities with the play-spirit. For
example, Mr. Edison is reported to have said, "I think I
have never done a day's work in my life." Although devot-
ing ten to twenty hours a day to laboratories and shops, the
labors have been so fully vivified by the quickening spirit
of play that sense of drudgery and bondage to conditions
have been eliminated. When a man thus attains his free-
dom, when he feels himself master over his work rather than
the servant of his work, he has made it one of his large fields
of recreational experience. Since work of this transfigured
tyj>e is really so much more accurate, proficient, and pro-
ductive of material results, one of the ends of vocational
education must be this transfiguration.

Education must take note of the disparities of human
character. Even within the same race, men often seem so
different as scarcely to belong to the same species. Com-
pare, for example, a group of bankers, bishops, or judges
with the hard-handed laborers upon our streets or in our
mines and factories. The professional men ,stand poised,
erect, full-statured, physically flexible, buoyant with energy.
Intellectually, they are rich in stores of the world's wisdom
and their mental horizon and outlook are as wide as the
world itself. Their social presence is stimulating, exhila-
rating, contagiously uplifting. They seem to be a revela-
tion of the nature of complete manhood. On the other
hand, the members of the hard-handed army of unskilled
labor, especially if they have reached middle life, in large
portion present a different picture. Physically they all too

glO THE CURRICULUM

often appear worn, hard, and misshapen. Heavy, impassive
features reveal an all too frequent sluggishness and vacancy
of mental life. Too often they have little information be-
yond that picked up at random in the course of a meager
and sordid experience. Their mental life too often has but
a narrow horizon, and but little sky. Their pleasures too
often are upon a sensuous level. With exteriors so hard and
impassive, with conversation so crude and materialistic,
with minds so circumscribed or vacant, their social presence
is often wanting in many desirable factors. One feels in-
stinctively that these do not represent the norms of person-
ality. Both high and low turn instinctively to the other
type as the norms of what men might and should be.

The differences are largely due, not to heredity, but to
differing developmental conditions. The large place of play
in the process is well stated by. Professor James in one of his
striking paragraphs: —

Compare the accomplished gentleman with the poor artisan or
tradesman of a city: during the adolescence of the former, objects
appropriate to his growing interests, bodily and mental, were
offered as fast as the interests awoke, and, as a consequence, he is
armed and equipped at every angle to meet the world. Sport came
to the rescue and completed his education where real things were
lacking. He has tasted of the essence of every side of human life,
being sailor, hunter, athlete, scholar, fighter, talker, dandy, man
of affairs, etc., all in one. Over the city poor boy's youth no such
golden opportunities were hung, and in his manhood no desire for
most of them exist. Fortunate it is for him if gaps are the only
anomalies his instinctive life presents; perversions are too often
the fruit of his unnatural bringing up.

"Sport came to the rescue." Play is Nature's method of
building out those aspects of personality that are left fallow
by an otherwise incomplete and barren experience. Play is
Nature's normalizer.

Defects of personality may be due, not merely to lack of

THE FUNCTION OF PLAY IN HUMAN LIFE 211

developmental opportunity, but also to failure to maintain
gains that have previously been made. The classical illus-
tration is presented in Darwin's autobiography: —

Up to the age of thirty or beyond it, poetry of many kinds gave
me great pleasure; and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight
in Shakespeare, especially in the historical plays. I have also said
that pictures formerly gave me considerable, and music very great,
delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of
poetry. I have tried lately to read Shakespeare and found it so
intolerably duU that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost my
taste for pictures or music. . . . My mind seems to have become a
kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections
of facts; but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part
of the brain alone on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot con-
ceive. ... If I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule
to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every
week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus
have been kept alive through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss
of happiness and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and
more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional
parts of our nature.

If this dying away of certain of the higher portions of the
personality should be so marked in the case of a studious,
scholarly man like Darwin, who had traveled widely, read
widely, and who was in constant association with the leaders
of science, it is reasonable to suppose that in the case of that
great majority of men and women of lesser opportunity
in whom the original developments were less complete, the
atrophy of the higher powers might well be much more
marked. Thus the large gains during school-days are lost,
soon or late, if there is not continuing exercise for mainte-
nance. Things must be earned before one can possess them;
but they must be re-earned continually in order that posses-
sion may continue. One's work-activities are usually too
narrow and specialized to provide for the necessary protec-
tion against the decays of disuse; and the conditions grow

212 THE CURRICULUM

worse as specialization increases. Interest-driven leisure oc-
cupations alone can provide the necessary counteracting in-
fluences. In the face of the maleficent influence of special-
ization upon personality, play is again Nature's normalizer.
It maintains the personality against decay.

Play is as normal for adulthood as for childhood. During \
childhood it is to unfold the potential powers and make
them actual; and at each level to maintain the gains of
earlier levels. During adulthood it is to maintain for a life-
time all of the awakened and expanded aspects of person-
ality so as to prevent withering and disappearance.

It is probable that in the newer schools of the oncoming
humanistic age, education for leisure occupations will be
recognized as one of the most serious educational tasks — if
not the largest and most vital of all. Vocational education is
receiving enthusiastic and liberal support because it prom-
ises increased production of corn and cotton, of machinery
and clothing, and the other material means of Hfe. Leisure
occupations relate to the production not of the means of
life, but of life itself; of fully rounded character; and the
continuing maintenance of that character. If we are to
educate for eflBciency in producing the means of life, we
should also educate eflficiently for the production of life
itself.

In order to develop sufficiently the educational implica-
tions, we must introduce a little of the physiology and psy-
chology of play. The first thing to be noted is the relation
of exercise to the development and maintenance of structures
and functions. Everybody knows that muscles require
exercise for normal development of both structure and
function; and for maintenance. It is not so well known, but
just as true, that exercise is necessary for mental function-
ing, social functioning, assthetic activities, religious and
philosophic contemplation, appreciations of science and lit-

THE FUNCTION OF PLAY IN HUMAN LIFE 213

erature and art, sympathies and emotions in general; and
for maintenance of the power to fmiction.

A second thing to be noted is the instability of growth-
results. Structures and functions disappear when unused:
and relative to man's needs, the atrophy is rapid. It would
be a fine thing indeed and make enormously for economy
if structures and powers once developed remained perma-
nent and constant. Our educational problem would then
be to bring the muscles to their proper level of development
and then simply leave them there with a constant strength
and power, whether used or unused, for an entire lifetime.
The task would further be to develop one's mental powers
in desirable measure and then- to leave them with unchanged
strength during the rest of one's days, whether used much
or little, regularly or irregularly. It would be a beautiful
arrangement; and it sometimes appears that educational
practices presuppose that such conditions exist. But un-
fortunately man is not so constituted. The moment he
relaxes his normal exercise of muscles, heat-producing ap-
paratus, and nerve-structures, or his mental, social, sesthetic,
and other activities, whether he be child or adult, that mo-
ment the structures begin to atrophy and the powers to
decline; and the loss is more rapid than generally realized.

Relative to the abruptness of frequent need, tJie upbuilding
or re-upbuilding is slow. This is well illustrated in the pres-
ent training of our national army. It was predicted that
should ever national danger arise, an efficient army would
spring into existence overnight. The need came with
suddenness; but the men in general were found to be in-
sufficiently developed in muscular strength, endurance, and
resistance to climatic conditions. In part they represent
incomplete physical development; in part atrophy due to
sedentary life. They may assemble under the colors in a
few days, but they cannot so quickly call into existence the
necessary powers.

gl4

THE CURRICULUM

A further principle is that heredity 'provides the possibility
of a much fuller development than demanded by the conditions
of civilization; and play must make up the deficit. Rightly to
appreciate this we must look first to the place of play in pre-
civilized life.

WW7-£-/q

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Fig. 8. The varying degrees of intensity in man's primitive biological
struggle. Represented by the height of the vertical lines.

Figure 8 is designed to represent crudely the varying
intensity in the demands of the primitive biological struggle
over a period of time. In those early ages the winter was
often a period of scarcity, of famine, of struggle with cli-
matic elements and with competing hostile tribes. Condi-
tions often demanded the expansion and exercise of one's
full potential powers. The demand for effort is represented
by the distance between the horizontal lines. With the
coming of summer, the increase in the food-supply, the
decrease in the competition with hostile tribes, and the
temporary disappearance of the climate struggle, the de-
mands for strenuous exertion were relaxed. This was so
complete that there was no need of the men's doing any-
thing for months at a time. But the seasons brought recur-
rence of the struggle. The figure indicates that conditions
may precipitate the struggle very suddenly; and thus after
months of inactivity call for instant functioning of the indi-
vidual's full powers.

THE FUNCTION OF PLAY IN HUMAN LIFE 215

Let us for a moment suppose that there were under such
conditions no instinctive tendencies to play. Then in pro-
portion as the demands of the struggle relaxed, the indi-
vidual would grow correspondingly quiescent in muscular
ejffort, in observation, in thought, in invention, in conver-
sation and development of ideas in conversation, and in
other social activities. As exercise thus relaxed, the powers
would atrophy in proportion to the degree of disuse. Figure
8, therefore, shows what the rise and fall of the actual
powers of the individual under such conditions would be, — •
provided the atrophy of unused powers was as rapid as the
diminution in the demands of the struggle, and the recovery
of those same powers could be as rapid as the onset of the
sti*uggle where it is relatively sudden.

Unfortunately the latter supposition is not true. Recovery
of atrophied powers is relatively slaw; yet the need of rapid
recovery under primitive conditions was frequent. War
came unexpectedly; famine also. Men had always, there-
fore, to be in a state of preparedness to meet the sudden
onsets. Nature could not permit man's exercise, therefore,
to diminish in proportion as the struggle grew relaxed. The
loss of powers would make the individual the prey of any
sudden and unexpected attack. If caught unprepared he
would find himself in the condition of an army that has not
kept up its drill and which when called to sudden and un-
expected war finds itself weak, flabby, and lacking in endur-
ance. Such a condition would not only invite, but under the
circumstances would result, in destruction. The man, there-
fore, during those days had to be kept drilled during the
period of relaxation in the biological struggle in order that
he should be ready for the times of stress. He must not be
caught unprepared.

The level of needed preparedness is roughly represented
by Figure 9. The segments of the vertical lines below the

«16

THE CURRICULUM

I I ! !

I!'!

1 1

TTT
I ' '

J I

Itii

'r^/vjiE

Fig. 9. The relatively constant degree of preparedness needed for the
inconstant conditions of primitive life. Needed preparedness represented
by the total vertical lines. The portion above the curved line AB to be
provided through play-activities.

curved line AB represent the portion of his preparedness
provided for by his serious activities. The segments above
the line AB represent the portions of his preparedness that
could not be taken care of by his serious activities and which
therefore had to be otherwise provided for. So far as the
struggle of the moment was concerned, this surplus of powers
was mere luxury. Primitive man was not intelligent enough
to know that during periods of biological relaxation he must
keep his body and mind in a. continual state of preparedness
and that continuing functioning ,was necessary for the pur-
pose. He was notoriously lacking in foresight; and what is
more, his knowledge of educational processes was not suffi-
cient to enable him wisely to choose the best means. When
enlightened twentieth-century individuals are so lacking in
these things, obviously it could not be expected that prim-
itive man would be continually looking forward to the re-
newal of the struggle and consciously keeping up his gym-
nastic exercises of mind and body in order that he be always
prepared. And yet the great variety of exercises had to
continue. For this reason Nature provided man with his
wealth of play tendencies. He was impelled to play at
fighting when real fighting was no longer necessary; to hunt
and fish for pleasure when not required for the food-supply;
to travel about over the region; to move among his fellows;

THE FUNCTION OF PLAY IN HUMAN LIFE 217

to converse concerning the tribal experiences; to observe
the actions of men and animals and the elements; and all
for the mere pleasure of the activities. Although not de-
manded by the struggle, he ran and jumped, swam and
climbed, shouted and danced, in obedience to the prompt-
ings of Nature that he exercise and thus keep himself ever
ready for serious action when it came. The pleasure was
not the end; but it seemed to him to be the end. It was the
lure. The man who did not so exercise in play by way of
maintaining the necessary surplus of powers was cut down
in the next onset of the struggle; and his heredity was cut
down with him. Only those endowed with strong play-
tendencies were preserved; and to their sons were trans-
mitted the same play-tendencies. In those days as well, play
was Nature's normalizer, disciplining individuals whose
intelligence — likewise hereditary — was too frail to direct
the process.

In those early ages children were differently situated. In
periods of greatest hardship, the burden fell first and most
heavily upon them. More than with the adults, they had
ever to be as completely prepared as possible. With them,
therefore, the play-tendencies were urgent and incessant.
Not only was there for them this purpose of vigilant main-
tenance of all of the gains, but there was also the original
unfoldment of their abilities. For both purposes the in-
stincts needed to be certain in their action and strongly im-
pelling. Seen biologically, children's play was — and is — •
the most serious function of childhood. It was then — and
to-day should be — the largest factor in the child's educa-
tion. We refer here, of course, to play in its wider sense, as
it includes social, intellectual, and aesthetic activities as well
as the physical.

This discussion of the primitive situation is for the pur-
pose of bringing home to us a reaUzation of the present sit-

818

THE CURRICULUM

uation and the nature of our educational problems. The
potentialities of man developed during those early ages have
been handed down to om* own generation in heredity. The
possible degree of unfoldment of our powers was largely
determined for men of the present within those early days.
We are but the living portion of the same series of genera-
tions. The types of activities which they needed to perform
for their full unfoldment, we yet need to perform, — though
with modifications to meet artificial conditions. The im-
pelling tendencies which actuated them are also the only
ones given to us to-day.

Although man's original nature has not greatly changed,
his external environment and the conditions of the struggle
have been greatly transformed. Figure 10 roughly indicates

vAwriryi

VV/yV^ir/^

gi/^^/^t^

Fig. 10. The relaxed and relatively unchanging intensity in man's
present-day biological struggle.

certain changes in the struggle. The distance between the
two horizontal lines is intended to represent schematically
the magnitude of man's hereditary potential powers; the
vertical lines, the quantity of energy to be expended in
the twentieth-century type of biological struggle. In large
measure, the struggle has been evened over the year. The
labors of factories and mines, commerce and transportation,
etc., are now much the same from year's end to year's end.
In our abundant provision of clothing, fuel, and shelter, we
have mostly banished winter and evened the climatic strug-

THE FUNCTION OF PLAY IN HUMAN LIFE 219

gle. In developing a world agricultural community, systems
of transportation and storage, we have banished famine.
In spite of the present atavistic European outbreak, we
think that we have done most of the things necessary for
banishing war. In the invention of labor-saving machinery,
in the specialization of industry, and in organization under
trained direction, we seem to have banished the necessity
for thought, judgment, observation, accurate and detailed
information, and comprehensiveness of understanding of
things about us, for the great majority of men. Primitive
man had to be watchful, alert, and thoughtful as to the sig-
nificance of a host of things within his environment. He
had to keep informed as to what other people around him
were thinking and doing. He had to be kept alive in his
social sympathies so as instantly to rally to the support of
his fellow tribesmen in sudden emergency. Civilization has
diminished the need for these things. A man can now be
little — in body, in mind, in social responsiveness, in moral
responsibility — and yet survive in the relaxed conditions
of the modern struggle. Specialization can hold us in such
narrow grooves and provide us with such meager opportuni-
ties for experiences that we can pass through life in a state
of littleness. It is to live but half a life — or less.

Such a state of half-life means, not merely half -realization
alone, but also subnormality or abnormality of even that
which is realized. It is not good physically to have powers
only half-developed. It means flabbiness, incoordination,
inaccuracy, lowered physiological inhibitions, susceptibility
to disease, lowered reserves of vitality, and a consequent
imperfect foundation for one's mental, social, aesthetic, and
moral life.

Intellectual half-life or quarter-life is not good for one
mentally, even though under another's direction he perform
the tasks that fall to his lot. It means intellectual flabbiness,

220

THE CURRICULUM

a leaning upon others, uncertainty, inaccuracy, lack of con-
fidence, depleted stores of information, an unobserving
mind, lack of initiative and inventiveness, inadaptibility,
inertia, and most other intellectual weaknesses. Such an
individual lives within a petty environment and fails even
to see the things within that environment. He lacks out-
look upon the wide world, upon the past, and imagination
as to the possibilities of the future. Such a man is not of the
type demanded by twentieth-century conditions.

In the same way the half-exercise and half-realization of
one's social powers results equally in social ill-health: social
disintegration, enfeebled social sympathies, incoordination
of individuals within the group except as enforced by exter-
nal authority, social unresponsiveness, lack of consideration
for others, lack of tact, social irresponsibility, and other
social ills.

I llijil'i >

I I I I I I
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I 11

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I I III I I I I I I I I I I

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Su/^f^£'^*

FiQ. 11. To represent the portion of man's potential development that in
our present civilized state is dependent upon continuing play-activities.

Figure 11 is designed to represent schematically the pos-
sible and desirable additional expansion of one's powers. The
unbroken segments of the vertical lines below AB represent
the fraction of one's possible powers that is sustained by
one's serious activities; the broken segments above AB^ the
fractional portion that is to be added and sustained through
play — or not at all. Herein lies man's opportunity to live
above and beyond the ineluctable dictates of stern natural
necessity.

THE FUNCTION OF PLAY IN HUMAN LIFE 221

The vocational, civic, and hygienic education already dis-
cussed seek to lower the level ABy and thus still further to
reduce the call for serious activity; and to increase both the
opportunity and the necessity for leisure occupations.

Just as in early days, this further expansion is to be
effected through activities of the play type. Now as then
it is to be at the prompting of normal play-instincts —
though the artificial conditions of modern life will make a
large amount of conscious guidance necessary. No less than
then, the pleasure-motive — under guidance — must be the
impelling force in childhood and adulthood; even though
this pleasure be now, as then, but a lure and not the end.
It is unhealthy to be too conscious of the nature of the ends.
The play should long be unsophisticated. It should be
largely so throughout life.

Rightly to appreciate the place of play in adult life, one
has to examine the activities of men among those social
classes where from childhood into adulthood the play-
impulses have had full opportunity to function; where they
have not been Stifled by adverse conditions and barren
opportunity. It is best revealed by men and women of the
leisure classes and of independent means. They have all
they need, and there is therefore no call for them to act.
The general social machinery protects them in their idleness.
They might sit at home in year-long undisturbed quietude
without thought or care. But they do not; and they cannot.
They are most miserable if they are not doing something
most of the time, and filling life to the brim. They must
travel, or attend the opera, play bridge, speculate on the
stock exchange, attend dinners, dances, and other social
functions, deck themselves in gorgeous plumage, read the
latest novels, go cruising in their private yachts, motoring
from coast to coast and beyond the seas, hunting in the
Adirondacks, fishing in the wilds of Canada, lion-hunting in

222 THE CURRICULUM

Africa, climbing the Alps, placing their money at Monte
Carlo, or traveling in the war-zone to get the thrills. In
their restlessness is revealed the driving power of the play-
tendency in adult life. The results are beneficent. This is
particularly true if they have been wise enough to select a
balanced assortment of experiences; and if there has been
intermingled enough of serious effort to give them ballast.
They are instantly recognized to be larger men and women
than those who have been held within the narrow grooves
of serious vocational, civic, and family duty. They are felt
most nearly to approximate the full desirable stature of
manhood and womanhood. They may be social parasites,
consuming in their play what others have earned in sweat
and blood. Nature's rewards on the side of personality are
not in proportion to one's economic usefulness and produc-
tiveness; but rather to the volume and variety of one's
experiences. It is not the conscientious individual who tries
to do nothing except what is demonstrably useful who most
fully realizes himself.

Professor Groos's volume on The Play of Man shows that
man is a many-sided creature with plays of great number
and diversity, involving all levels of his being. There is, in
fact, a hierarchy of plays ranging from the gratification of
physical appetites and the pleasures of simple sensation at
one end of the scale up to the highest forms of intellectual
play as foimd in science and philosophy. At the lower end
of the scale, one finds such activities as eating, drinking,
smoking, sex-activities, and crude sensations of brightness,
warmth, etc. Somewhat higher are physical sports like
wrestling, boxing, athletics, tennis, football, and other
games of physical contest. Somewhere about this level pos-
sibly we should classify social dancing. Somewhat farther
along the scale are the folk-dance, marches, processions, pag-
eantry, and the like. A thing that has to be variously classi-

THE FUNCTION OF PLAY IN HUMAN LIFE 223

fied as to level is conversation, since it is high or low accord-
ing to theme and character. Rather high on the scale are
purely intellectual games, such as chess, whist, etc. Still
higher are the fine arts, music, literature, drama, opera, etc.
Naturally the level of these is determined by theme and
artistic character. They may deal with the lowest activities
of man and be near the bottom of the scale, or with man's
most transcendent activities and be near the top. At the
highest end of the scale, most removed from the sensuous,
are the rarefied austere leisure occupations of intellectual
character: history, science, mathematics, philosophy, and
the contemplations of a developed religion.

The levels of this hierarchy are very differently supported
by instincts. The physical activities at the bottom are
prompted by the most powerful and permanent instincts.
These are so compelling that if full opportunities for satis-
faction are given, and strong inhibitions do not exist, the
lower activities are almost certain to be carried to excess.
In a state of nature the physical and herd instincts had to
be strong in order that the race might survive. Civilized
men have inherited them in their original strength and often
they seem stronger than needful. Even if not so, they seem
to be disproportionate. Civilized man needs more powerful
and permanent instinctive propulsions for the higher activi-
ties. But the instincts prompting to high intellectual en-
deavor, to large-grpup consciousness, and to humanizing
art are relatively feeble, flickering, and transitory. Man's
original nature, shaped by primitive conditions, is fitted
for simple materialistic small-group conditions; and is not
rightly balanced for the new conditions of civilization.
This makes the task of education for civilization enormously
difficult.

Activities on all of the levels have a rightful place; but
owing to the inequalities of inner propulsion, the amounts

224 THE CURRICULUM

of educational effort required for the different levels are
vastly different. Given right living conditions as the en-
vironment of youth, the activities on the lower levels are
so fully prompted and guided by instincts that the Great
School of experience will largely take care of them without
much attention from educationists. Those of the higher
levels, however, will demand not only a right stimulating
community environment but also the greatest possible
expert stimulation, . encouragement, and leadership from
teachers. For the lower levels the curriculum problems on
the positive side are small; for the higher, they are the
most subtle, complex, and difficult presented to the pro-
fession. They involve the development of a twentieth-
century democratic type of humanism; one that in an age
of efficiency can be made efficiently to humanize all noB^
mal individuals. The curriculum-inaker has an inspiring
task that in large part is new.

Let us now note the relation of this humanistic training
to certain problems. There is, for example, the question
raised by the arrest of development caused by specialized
industry: How are workers, men or women, to keep young
and plastic in a specialized age which everywhere demands,
youth and plasticity and which tends to throw specialized
individuals above forty upon the scrap-heap? It is not
really a matter of years, but of mentality. Some are old
at thirty; others are plastic and adaptable at seventy. We
have factories at present where each workman is auto-
matically discharged when he reaches the age of forty. By
that age it is felt that the withering results of specialization
have so cut down a man's effectiveness that he must yield
to those not yet so crippled. In the beginning, the hot
blood of youth, its spontaneity and its enthusiasms, lead
to such initial expansion of character, outlook, and vigor of
action as to give one the efficiency demanded. But continu-

^ THE FUNCTION OF PLAY IN HUMAN LIFE 225

ing life within the grooves and the dwindhng of those as-
pects of personality not exercised by this mechanized exis-
tence result inevitably in dwarfing the individual in body
and mind and social responsiveness. It means the loss of
the vitality required for spontaneity and plasticity; and
of ideas, outlook, and enthusiasms. If the individual has
not during the blossoming season of youth developed wide
ranges of awakened interests, quickened appreciations,
habits of participation in an extensive series of leisure occu-
pations upon all levels, including the intellectual, old age
is reasonably certain to set in early and bring about an
incapacity that is real; and which is recognized by the
practical leaders of industry. It is a frequent and tragic
misfortune that is unnecessary and due simply to a narrow,
incomplete type of education that has not suflSciently es-
tabhshed its objectives.

There is a related problem. We have referred to the
necessity within a democracy of mutual respect on the part
of the members of the various social classes. This doctrine
we have long tried to preach into men; but without no-
ticeable success. Here as everywhere it is reality and not
sentimentality, however well-intentioned, that in the long
run determines. We respect a man according to the char-
acter of his personality. We withhold respect in the pro-
portion in which the man falls short of what we consider
the desirable stature of full manhood and womanhood. In
the long run, therefore, the esteem in which different social
classes are held will depend upon the characters of the men
and women who make up those classes. The use or use-
lessness of their labors will have relatively little to do di-
rectly with the amount of respect accorded. A man is re-
spected for what he is, not for his economic productiveness.

The deficient esteem accorded labor is not, as often
thought, because their clothes and hands are soiled and

226 THE CURRICULUM A, ^

their faces covered with the dust of industry. The profes-
sional man at his golf, his hobbies in home-shop or garden,
or on hunting or fishing expeditions, may be no better
dressed and carry as great a quantity of dust and grime.
In their case, as in all cases, " The man's the man for a'
that." The lack of respect accorded heavy-handed labor
has enormously deeper roots than mere external appear-
ance. It is the disfigurement of the man's personality
mainly due to the lack of humanistic opportunity. It is
not the fault of the man, but of the conditions under which
his nature was unfolded; of his education Industrial
education designed to increase productive emciency will
not alone solve the problem. It requires the twentieth-
century type of humanism, glimpses of which we have tried
to present in this volume.

CHAPTER XVIII

READING AS A LEISURE OCCUPATION

Primitive man had a considerable variety of leisure oc-
cupations. But it appears that the one to which he gave
the greatest amount of time and attention was observation
of the men and things that made up the restricted world
in which he lived and moved. As he went about through
the Kttle community he kept watch upon his associates,
their actions, dress, property, living conditions, habits,
manners and customs: also upon animals, plants, climatic
conditions, natural phenomena, the heavenly bodies, etc.
As he acted upon and reacted to many of them, his k^owl- /
edge was further increased through various sense-channels.

What he could not observe directly, he observed through
the medium of language. Listening to another's report is f c
one kind of seeing. When the constitutents of situations
are familiar, it makes relatively little difference in under-
standing, whether one observes directly through the eyes
of sense or indirectly through the eyes of language.

Primitive man was motivated to this direct and indirect
observation in part by his serious purposes; but in large
part simply by his interest in things in general. In the
latter there was no conscious purpose of putting his knowl-
edge to practical use. In fact, he could not judge the value
of the information until he had apprehended it. It was
mainly a leisure activity; and leaving aside the purely
physical, it was probably by far his most important leisure
occupation.

Nature's purpose in providing so adequately for this f
leisure occupation is clear. The man had to move and act

228 THE CURRICULUM

within this circle of things and forces and influences, and
to shape his conduct to them all. In the unexpected muta-
tions of human affairs he never could know with which of
the many things he was to be concerned. He had to be
watchful of the whole pageant of community affairs in order
to be prepared for the specific adjustments that conditions
should demand. Interrelations and interdependencies were
innumerable. Rightly to know any part required that one
know the whole, and through this all its parts. The most
useful thing was an adequate vision of the total pageant of
community life and of the conditioning setting or back-
ground.

Our interest is in twentieth-century civilized life. We
began with primitive life because of the obviousness of the
relations. For modern life also this observation of human
affairs is certainly the most important non-physical leisure
occupation; but for our time it has an enormously larger
function to perform. Instead of our being the denizens of
a community covering only a few square miles, we are citi-
zens of a world-community. To move with understanding
to-day and to see adequately all of the things with which
one has vital relation and responsibility, one needs ade-
quate and continuous vision of the whole world-pageant.
I Were man*s youth sufficiently long and the facilities of
travel sufficiently cheap and abundant, he might travel
through the world and familiarize himseK with it as did
primitive youth in his smaller community. For effective-
ness of education he needs to come into contact with essen-
tial realities the world over. And the most vital contact
is the direct. Were it possible, he should visit all parts of
the world and observe men and women in all of their affairs.
He should participate in all types of activities : in the voca-
tions, the recreations, the social and civic affairs, etc. And
he should talk with all social classes concerning their affairs.

READING AS A LEISURE OCCUPATION 229

More than anything else, this experience would give him
much-needed world-understanding and sympathies.

But the physical limitations are insuperable. Only a
small fragment of such experience is possible even for indi-
viduals most favored: whether for the original observations
of youth or for the continuing observations of adulthood.
Even could they travel as widely they could see only the
present; not the past. And they need nowadays to see
both, rightly to see the present; for we are a part of the
whole interlinked series of generations. They must there-
fore do most of their seeing of things past and distant
through language, mainly reading.. *

Our discussion thus far is designed to indicate what man
should read. Obviously it is that which will present to
him a full and adequate revelation of the vast human
drama in which he plays his part; and of the stage upon
which it is enacted and by which conditioned. It is to en-
able him to "see life steadily and see it whole."

The general program is the same for childhood, youth,
and adulthood, differing only in so far as demanded by the
differing stages of maturity. Just as within the primitive
community the child of ten viewed, so far as his maturity
would permit, the totality of community affairs, so within
the life of to-day the child of ten will, in his readings, so
far as his maturity permits, view the affairs of his immeas-
urably wider community. As the fifteen-year-old or twenty-
one-year-old youth of that day continued to look upon the
same community affairs acquiring greater depth of un-
derstanding, greater knowledge of details, increased in-
sight into relationships and values, so through reading will
the fifteen- and twenty-one-year-old youth of our day sim-
ply continue his observations of the world-situation for
greater depth and generality of understanding. Adulthood
will push on farther, continuing the same theme.

2S0 THE CURRICULUM

In that early day, learning was experiential. Men were
not consciously learning or memorizing facts. They lived;
and the mind was filled with memories, the normal residua
of experience. And generalized understanding like the
trunk and branches of a tree simply grew up imperceptibly
and unconsciously so as to constitute the relatively un-
changing fundamentals of their mental life, while the decid-
uous foliage of their transient experiences came and went.

In our day, original human nature is relatively unchanged.
We have no reason to think that there is possible any new
form of education that can be an improvement upon the
experiential education of the past. New conditions demand
adaptations, adjustment of proportions, the use of new
and improved instruments, etc.; but at bottom as indi-
cated by all of our progressive recent movements in edu-
cation, it is still felt that experiential education constitutes
the best training for the individual. If the principle holds,
then the purpose of the reading is the reconstruction of ex-
perience. It is to be a mode of living. It is not to be a didac-
tic verbal presentation of unrooted facts and generaliza-
tions to be memorized, recited upon, examined upon, and
then in due process forgotten; leaving little more than the
unwholesome residua of disagreeable learning experience.

If the purposes are to be accomplished as fully for civi-
lized man in the midst of civilized conditions as they were
for primitive man among primitive conditions, then the
readings from the beginning to the end of the course, to the
end of life itself, need to be as wide and varied as earthly
life and to give an adequate revelation of all major types
of human experience, in all portions of the world, and with
such historical perspective as is needed for each of the va-
rious regions. And what is more, it must look not merely
to the tangible and easily apprehended things of sense, but
also to the intangible forces, influences, and relations with-

READING AS A LEISURE OCCUPATION 231

out a vision of which the more tangible things are often
meaningless. The intangibles are also portions of reality.

We can now particularize the reading program. First it
will present a revelation of man in his present dispersion
over a diversified planet. Such readings we classify as trav-
els, geography, ethnology, descriptive sociology, anthro-
pology, etc. A second series of readings will reconstruct
the historical background. These will include biography,
travels (during past ages), history, memoirs, evolution-
ary sociology, etc. Coming under both of the classes men-
tioned there will be such sub-classes as industrial read-
ings, commercial readings, civic and sanitary readings,
etc. A third type of readings will reveal the essential na-
tures and relations of things: science readings, mathe-
matical, physical, biological, sociological, technological, etc.
All of the fundamental sciences need to be read, — natu-
rally in connection with direct contacts, — as modes of
viewing the nature of the world in which we are called upon
to act. A fourth type of reading is literature, in the nar-
rower sense. It aims to present anything that happens
to be chosen as its theme. This may be a single historical
incident, a whole historical movement, a single human
relation, an interconnected series of relations, the biog-
raphy of an animal, an aspect of the inorganic world, the
nature of immortality, or anything else, tangible or intan-
gible, near or remote, real or mythical, that may enter into
human experience. Clearly literature is not coordinate with
the others. It cannot be separated from them. Good lit-
erature in its narrower sense appears simply to be the ade-
quate presentation of any of them.

Let us note some of the more detailed implications, be-
ginning with the geography. In the primary and inter-
mediate grades in addition to the widest practicable direct
observations, there will be stories about things that make

232 THE CURRICULUM

up the world in general. Much must be oral; but beyond
the first grades most of the stories will be read. The book-
trade is rapidly providing suitable books. Here are a few ^
titles taken at random: Little Folks of Many Lands, Eskimo
Stories, Around the World, The Wide World, Big and Little (
People in Other Lands, The Dutch Twins, The Japanese j
Twins, Little Journeys to China and Japan, Travels in Scoty
land, Gerda in Sweden, etc. The more literary the stories
can be, in the sense of presenting a true and clear and in-
teresting reconstruction of life and its background in the
various regions, the better for the educational experience.
The readings offered at present have largely been devel-
oped in an educational age of didacticism and fact-memori-
zation, and are often so freighted with information that they
do not reconstruct life so that it can be visualized, and re-
lived in imagination. Many books, however, particularly
the more recent, have avoided the pitfalls and fallacies of
didacticism. They simply present interesting stories that
comply with literary canons. They give no appearance of
an attempt to be "informing." They are presented upon
the sane theory that if children are permitted to enter
vividly into the life of a country and view conditions
as they are, they will have intelligence enough to see the
things that are there, and to carry away a sufficient resid-
uum of memories.

These readings upon the earlier levels should reveal the
fundamental aspects of life over the earth. A reconstruc-
tion of Eskimo life, for example, should permit the children
to see the nature of the houses, the furniture, the mode of
heating and lighting, the nature of the clothing, the food-
supply, the occupations of the people, the recreations, the
religion, the nature of their villages, their transportation,
the thrilling adventures at times met with, the climate,
land and water forms, lengths of day and night, the aurora

READING AS A LEISURE CKICUPATION 233

borealis, plant and animal life, the nature of family life, the
education of the children, etc. The reading should not call
attention to these things specifically and consciously. As
a drama upon the stage, it should simply present the re-
constructed life and let the children do their own seeing and
understanding. This will be superficial for some of the
things; and this is normal for little children. As they look
at corresponding things in their own commimity, they see
them with the same superficiality and incompleteness of
understanding. One of the most mischievous superstitions
of education has been that when a thing is presented it
must be completely understood. Really normality of ex-
perience upon all levels results in a full-knowledge of some
things, a half-knowledge of other things, a quarter-knowl-
edge of still other things, and the merest fragmentary im-
pressions of still other things. Experiential training expects
these normal dijfferences; is suspicious of the normality of
the experience if they are absent.

For the grammar grades, it is the same world-pageant
that is to be observed by way of further deepening and
extending their understanding and sympathies. They too
will read accounts that permit them adequately to visual-
ize life in its totality in the various lands. These are to be
selected for their more mature understanding, however,
and should reveal a wealth of details and relationships not
possible on the earlier levels. The stories require for ef-
fectiveness in the reconstructions the same types of literary
merit; and absence of didacticism. If children do not ac-
quire this habit of world-wiHe observation of human affairs
during school days when the instincts are most fully awake
as a healthy and satisfying leisure occupation, they are
not likely to continue it during the years of adulthood.
It is this continuance at which education should princi-
pally aim. This is immeasurably more important at this

234 THE CURRICULUM

period than the memorization of deciduous information.
But it will take care of the information, — and on the
sound presumption that most of it normally is deciduous.
Let them develop their appreciations and their habit of
world-observation as a satisfying leisure occupation, and
the amount of genuine information they will have on tap
will be enormously increased. And when they need other
information they know how to acquire it expeditiously.
But let them during grammar grades simply be dosed with
didactic facts, then when adulthood is reached, they will
neither have the facts remembered, — except where the
learning was accidentally experiential, — nor those habits
of observation of world-wide affairs which should consti-
tute the most important non-physical leisure occupation
of adulthood.

Unfortunately the major portion of the books supplied
for grammar-grade levels are heavily didactic and imper-
fectly fitted for experiential education. But there is now a
clear movement away from the verbal-fact-learning method.
Whereas a few years ago in progressive school systems, the
textbook was the basis of the training with the so-called
supplementary books merely inessential collateral read-
ings, at the present time the geographical readers are com-
ing to be the basis of the training with the standard text-
book relegated to the position of reference-book or atlas.
The more recent geographical readers make a more ade-
quate attempt to reconstruct living experiences within the
various lands and less to presenting merely strings of facts.
More and more there is revealed a tendency to read vivid
narratives of travel such as the Cruise of the Cachalot, Two
Years before the Mast, Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle, Lost
in the Jungle, The Land of the Long Night, The Peeps at
Many Lands Series, Adventures of Two Youths in Ceylon and
India, Boy Travellers in Australia, Around the World in the

READING AS A LEISURE OCCUPATION 235

Sloop Spray, How I Found Livingstone, Through the Dark
Continent, etc. A still further step is the increasing use of
readings that are ostensibly literary with no didactic pur-
pose, but which at the same time present illiuninating re-
constructions of some region or important life-situation;
such as Heidi, Lizheth Longfrock, The Young Ice-Whalers,
etc.

The best basis for that geographical problem-solving
which we are coming to think should constitute a very
large portion of the training experience of the children in
this field, is effective contact with essential realities. The
more vital the contacts, the better the foundation laid for
the problem-solving. It may appear at first glance that
in urging reading experiences of the type herein described
and in introducing interest and vividness of concrete
impressions, we are falling into the error against which we
are so often cautioned of making educational experience
too soft and easy. As a matter of fact we are urging the
kind of experience required by the demands of those
hard-headed practical men who insist that education shall
result from the most vital contact possible with essential
realities. They are very clear as to what these contacts
must be within one's local environment: direct observa-
tion, practical participation, and the like. We are here
only saying that that portion of the world which lies
beyond the horizon is also to be given the greatest possible
degree of reality in the minds of the children. Abstract
didacticism does not give them this sense of reality. A half-
page exposition of the cod-fishing industry, for example,
off the banks of Newfoundland gives the children no es-
sential realization of the nature of that industry. Let them,
however, read Kipling's Captains Courageous, and thus in-
directly participate in the various activities and experi-
ences of the fishing fleet off Newfoundland, and they will

236 THE CURRICULUM

have come into contact with that type of human experi-
ence almost as eflBcaciously as if they had been actually
upon the waters. Let them in the same vivid way travel
in spirit across the wide plains of Russia, up the rivers of
China, through the jungles of Africa or Brazil, across the
Polar ice-fields, with the ore-fleets of the United States
Steel Corporation, live upon the cotton plantations of the
South, the great wheat farms of the Northwest, in the timber
regions of Georgia and Oregon, etc., — let them thus know
realities from vital contacts with them and only then are
they prepared for the geographical problem-solving which
should develop an understanding of the more general in-
fluences, forces, and relationships. Experiential educa-
tion aims at the greatest possible educational efficiency,
substantiality, and practicality of result. It employs in-
terest for the sake of vividness and massiveness of experi-
ence; not for the sake of pleasantness. It iises pleasantness
as a means; not as an end.

The story does not end with the grammar grades. The
geographical program of the past has aimed so little at this
adult leisure occupation, that it has tended to stop at the
end of the seventh grade. But looked at from the point of
view of purposes, it seems clear that this type of experience
should continue throughout one's entire training. It is not
possible to develop habits and appreciations needed for
adulthood in the first seven grades, and then leave them in
storage unused for years until taken by up the adult. They
will not be there. The only practicable way is for high
school and college to continue this indirect observational
experience through readings appropriate to their higher
levels of mental maturity. There will be increased atten-
tion to forces, the subtler relations, and general principles.
But mere verbal didacticism apart from essential contacts
with reaHty is no more appropriate for these levels than

READING AS A LEISURE OCCUPATION 237

for the lower; and will no more lead to the adult habits
desired. A habit is to be acquired in the way it is later to
be exercised. If life-long observation of the practical reali-
ties of the world is lo be the habit, then during adolescent
years it is a continuing observation of concrete realities
that will develop the habit. The thing that is to be con-
tinuous throughout life should obviously be continuous
throughout education.

The limitations of space forbid discussion here of the
reading programs of history and of science. But for both,
there is the same major purpose, and controlling principles.
The present ferment in both fields presages far-reaching
changes. The studies have not been organized as conscious
means of training for this intellectual leisure occupation.
The purpose itself is yet scarcely recognized as legitimate.

Let us now turn to literature, . in the narrower sense.
Since we are here dealing with the leisure occupation of
world-observation through reading, good literature for the
purpose is obviously that which presents adequate and
effective vicarious opportunity. To be complete it is to
provide not only for effective visualization but also for
emotional reactions in the reader like those of the original
observer and writer. The canons of literary discourse aim
simply at effectiveness in the indirect or language-obser-
vation method of viewing and experiencing reality.

Now for developing the leisure occupation here dis-
cussed, the literature to be selected is that which will give
the widest and fullest and most effective possible revela-
tion of the world as a whole in its multifarious divisions
and aspects. Any selection will be chosen not upon the
basis of literary form or structure; or nationality of the
writer; or language in which he originally wrote; or of the
age in which he lived; or recency of the selection; or fame
of the author. It is simply a question of whether it presents

238 THE CURRICULUM

a clear window through which one can look out upon ex-
istence. If it does not, then it matters not how famous the
author, or how difficult the selection, or what the wealth
of footnotes, it cannot be good for the purpose here de-
fined.

This has profound significance for the curriculum. In
the past we have tended to be provincial in our selec-
tions. The usual course of study in grammar grades and
high school tends to include only the literature of English
and American writers and to reveal little more than Eng-
land, Scotland, and America; and little that is recent. The
traditional courses have not, and have not consciously at-
tempted, to present any adequate revelation of Russia,
Switzerland, Norway, Japan, Brazil, and most of the other
regions of the earth. The purpose has been not so much
to reveal human life the world over as it has been to reveal
types and technical characteristics of literature. When
special teachers of the subject are asked. What is the fun-
damental purpose in the teaching of literature? the most
frequent reply is. The appreciation of literature. Almost
never do they say that it is an understanding and appre-
ciation of human-kind and human affairs and the general
setting of the great human drama.

Acceptance of this latter purpose must work profound
transformation in both spirit and content of the literature
curriculum. Selections will be chosen for their content-
value. They will aim at the greatest possible width of vision,
historical perspective, and depth of insight. The curriculum
will draw upon the literatures of all lands. For the purpose
here stated, good translations are on par with English and
American selections. The books of Homer, Virgil, the Old
Testament, Dante, Balzac, Maeterlinck, Bjornsen, Freytag,
Fabre, Sienkiewicz, and Tolstoy must be considered por-
tions of the total revelation that are just as vital and essen-

READING AS A LEISURE OCCUPATION 239

tial as those of Shakespeare, Scott, Dickens, Tennyson,
Stevenson, or Joseph Conrad.

The purpose demands catholicity of theme. The Htera-
ture should reveal war, personal adventure, love, brigandage,
philanthropy, religion, travels, poverty, family life, com-
merce, agriculture, industry, transportation, government,
the struggle with nature and with disease, conflicting social
classes, the labors of science and technology; and the other
major ingredients of human existence. As literature rings
the changes upon these things for different historical
periods and in different portions of the world, its field is
interminable and presents material for a rich and satisfying
lifelong leisure occupation. It is the business of early edu-
cation to start youth upon this inspiring program; to bring
him to love it as he loves the simpler visual drama upon the
stage or screen; to develop habits in this field that are satis-
fying and permanent for the intellectual illumination of a
life-time.

For the purposes mentioned, men need to use literature
of different types and structures; but this does not require
understanding of the technique of literary types and struc-
tures. A man can use a watch for the human purposes of
telling time without knowing the technique of the mechan-
ism. In the same way, he can use literature for securing the
revelation to which we have referred without knowing how
it is made.

The reading should be like witnessing a play at the the-
ater. The play presents an illusion of human life. All that
the spectator wants is this illusion. The more complete the
illusion, the more successful the play. The man need know
nothing about the various devices that were employed ^by
the playwright in producing the effects. As a matter of
fact, the more he knows about the tecfhnique of se.curing
effects and the more he sees the stage machinery, the less is

240 !THE CURRICULUM

the play a real illusion of life. It becomes but a tissue of
technical devices. The knowledge of the technique not only
does not further the fundamental purpose of the play, it
actually interferes and prevents. In the same way, an undue ^
consciousness on the part of the reader as to technical liter-
ary machinery not only does not further the fundamental
purposes of the reading, but may actually hinder.

Should the literary selections used for educational pur-
poses be diflScult? No, else clearness and vividness and im-
mediacy of impression were not literary virtues. The more
the literature facilitates the vision itself and the less it calls
attention to itself the more suitable it is for the purposes.
It is simply to say that a window of such clear glass that the
glass itself is not seen is better for the purposes of vision than
one which calls attention to itself. Or to resume our other
illustration, the play upon the stage should be so written
and presented as to involve no difficulty, no confusion, few
or no allusions to things not generally known by the audi-
ence. The witnesses must be able to take in the action as
rapidly as it is presented. The play that fails is one that is
obscure, confused, makes allusions to things that are not
understood, or presents other types of difficulty. It is ob-
vious that the literature which is used for inducing experi-
ence in the reader should be of the same clear character.

As a matter of fact, reading should be easy, rapid, inter-
esting, so that much ground will be covered within the avail-
able time and also so that it can be done chiefly because of
inner motive. We cannot expect adults, even trained adults,
to read things as leisure occupations which require constant
or even frequent references to dictionaries, handbooks, or
notes at the end of the volume. Children's natures are even
less adapted to any such machine-method of grinding
through a piece of literature. In proportion as the thing
is difficult and the reading slow, the pupil gets less of the

READING AS A LEISURE OCCUPATION 241

vision of things he ought to see. It fails to accomplish its
purpose. And what is more, it fails to develop within him the
much more permanent and fundamental things of apprecia-
tions, and right attitudes of mind toward his reading, and
right habits of using reading as a richly fructifying Ufe-long
leisure occupation.

The way to make reading easy and rapid and pleasant is
to have much reading from the first grade onward; an ever
increasing quantity from grade to grade. Any selection that
is so diflScult as greatly to impede progress thereby proves
that it belongs on a later level, and is to be prepared for by
readings that grade upward to its degree of difficulty. There
is evidence of insufficient preparatory reading if pupils have
to refer frequently to dictionaries, handbooks, or literary
notes. As a matter of fact, if the readings are properly
chosen, and if they are sufficiently abundant, such growth
of vocabulary should result that pupils should rarely have to
refer to dictionaries in their reading. If they have difficulty
with mythological and historical allusions, it means that
they have not had that wealth of mythological and historical
reading experiences which should precede and be considered
a prerequisite to the readings that involve allusions to those
things. A mythological handbook does not and cannot give
one the true flavor of mythology and therefore the true
spirit and significance of a mythological allusion; nor can a
historical reference book do any better by the historical
allusions. These things rightly to be known must be met
with in their proper settings and relationships.

In concluding this section let us summarize. For the
generality of men, literature is primarily a thing to be
experienced, not a thing to be studied; to be used, not to
be analyzed; to be pleasurable experience motivated from
within, and not tasks arbitrarily imposed from without.
The Uterature need not be old; neither need it be new. It

242 THE CURRICULUM

need not be by authors who are dead; neither is there reason
for holding mainly to authors who are living. It is not pri-
marily to reveal literary types; nor the characteristics of
literary epochs. It need not be only by authors who have
already become famous. It should be easy, rapidly read,
and voluminous in amount. It should provide for lifting
the reader to the higher levels of intellectual and aesthetic
experience. It should begin with fullness in the primary
grades and continue with increasing fullness during gram-
mar grades, high school, and college; and so provide for
proper fullness during the continuing education of ma-
turity. It should present world-literature, not merely that
of the English tongue. It should be all-inclusive in its
revelation, so far as human finitude and fragmentariness
will permit, rather than a revelation of scant and partial
aspects. It should present the full human drama and the
stage upon which it is enacted.

Along with the provision of a rich and appropriate read-
ing opportunity, there is the equally vital problem of pro-
viding a teacher who can rightly lead and guide this
reading experience. The qualified teacher is one who loves
reading, and who daily uses it in the renewal of his own vi-
sion; who has world-outlook, world-sympathies, a quickened
interest in the varied affairs of mankind; who values ex-
perience as a trainer of youth over and above memorization
of facts; who is a condition-setter and an influence rather
than a memorization-task-master; who knows the tastes
and interests and loves of the child's unfolding spirit at
each level of maturation so well that he can divine the
reading experiences most effective for awakening and exer-
cising and shaping the child; who can withhold his hand
in patience until the time is ripe, and then can subtly and
unsuspectedly crowd the experiences needed for the child's
unfoldment as the flood-tide, of awakening interest reaches

READING AS A LEISURE OCCUPATION 243

its crest and before the ebb has set in; who feels that his
responsibility is to the children, — and to the unfolding
men and women within the children, — rather than to
syllabi and programs and textbooks and time-schedules;
who knows how to use system and organization for effec-
tiveness and economy, and yet keep the elements of spon-
taneity and freedom of choice as to kinds and places and
amounts of experience; who knows a better way of manag-
ing child-experience than those who say arbitrarily to the
children that at 9.00 o'clock to-morrow you shall experi-
ence thus and so, at 9.30 to-morrow you shall experience
such and such a second thing, at 10.00 to-morrow your
experience shall be of this third type, and who thus me-
chanically grinds out child-experiences through days and
weeks and months of dreary drudgery.

So long has our profession taught that we think the only
way to educate is to teach. We have not sufficiently known
that to live will also educate. We have been busy providing
the conditions for teaching. Only recently are we coming
to know how to provide the conditions for living. Both
have a place; and the main thing is living.

PART VI

EDUCATION FOR SOCIAL
INTERCOMMUNICATION

CHAPTER XIX

THE MOTHER-TONGUE

Leaving aside the physical, man's activities are primarily
social ; and the mother-tongue is man's primary instrument
of social intercourse and intercommunication. It is also the
principal vehicle of his thought. It may be said that he
needs to use it just well enough to get on with his fellows.
If he can understand and make himself understood, and if
he can do his thinking well enough in whatever quahty of
language he may have developed, then nothing els^^eatly
matters. It would appear, however, that an instrument
which is used almost continuously throughout one's waking
hours for thought and communication, and throughout one's
entire lifetime, should be a good instrument for the purpose,
not a crude cheap one; and that it should be well understood
and appreciated in order that it be carefully and intelli-
gently used. The motor-car that one uses for recreation one
prefers to be of good design, clean, properly finished, quiet,
smooth-running. One is not satisfied with just anything
that will run. One's clothing we feel should be of good design
and color, clean and not displeasing to others; not just any-
thing, regardless of others, that will keep one warm. In the
same way, one's language which is more intimately related
to one's life than either of these things and which is a perma-
nent possession, not one that is changed frequently, should
also be of good design, correct, polished, accurate and
socially pleasing; not just anything that will crudely express
crude thought.

It is generally recognized that the major training in the
mother-tongue is obtained in one's general social and Ian-

248 THE CURRICULUM

guage experience. In listening, talking, thinking, reading
and writing, one uses the mother-tongue of the social class
in which one moves; and thereby masters it. In the main he
will rise without teaching to the standard of correctness
that is set by the language of his social group. Here and
there he may need a little help in the grammar and compo-
sition, and somewhat more help in his start in the artificial
language forms involved in reading, writing and spelling.
But if he is to be educated «nly for the language-life of the
group in which he moves, this additional curriculum of
conscious training usually need net be large. ^^

We feel however that the language-life of moist social
groups is on a lower plane than it should be; that the lan-
guage abilities are inadequate for the language activities
demanded by the thought and action of a thoroughly human-
ized democracy. It is felt that the intelligence demanded
requires a type of language fitted to higher, more subtle and
more complicated types ©f thought; and that the social
agreeableness and mutual understanding of all classes
within a democracy «lemands a moie or less uniform level
of language excellence ®n the part of all people. This does
not mean imiformity ©f type; but uniform elimination of
crudeness, or what we may term language-ineflSciency.

Since the language-efficiency of all is to be raised to a
level above that of most, education is clearly here to be an
agency of social progress. It is not only to eliminate the
language weaknesses found in children as these are meas-
ured in terms of their adult group, but as measured by a
standard above that of their group.

Scientific curriculum-making has probably been more
fully developed in this field than in any other; though as
yet only in its beginnings. Grammar investigators in many
cities have been discovering the actual grammatical short-
comings; and on the basis of these, drawing up studies and

THE MOTHER-TONGUE 249

other experiences for the purpose of eliminating the gram-
matical deficiencies. Throughout the country, investigators
are drawing up lists of words commonly misspelled or mis-
pronounced; the types of composition weakness; kinds of
errors commonly made in handwriting, oral and silent read-
ing, etc. These are diagnoses of conditions by way of dis-
covering the particular objectives of conscious training.

Beyond this point of locating the objectives, scientific
investigations have not yet gone far. The series of pupil-
experiences that are prescribed for attaining the objectives
are usually based upon nothing better than the current edu-
cational hypotheses that have grown up out of practice.

It is probable that actual procedure often looks too ex^
clusively to the particular errors to be prevented or corJ
rected, and insufficiently to the deeper roots of those errors!
In correcting or preventing grammatical errors, it is more
important that one ardently desire to use correct English
than that he memorize all the necessary technical informa-
tion or have all of his errors pointed out to him. Unless edijt-
cation can first develop this desire, all other more du
efforts must remain futile. Education^re must therefon
aim primarily at fundamental valuations, appreciations ol
good language, a critical attitude toward and watchfulnc
over one's language, a social ambition to use language that^
is both effective and agreeable, a general social sensitiveness
to linguistic errors and weaknesses of types that are to be
eliminated, etc. These are particularized objectives just as
fully as a list of commonly misspelled words; and far more
fundamental. But for attaining these deeper objectives,
both educational thought and technique are yet very un-
certain. In the discussion that follows, unfortunately brief
and general because of lack of space, we can present prob-
abilities more frequently than certainties.

1. The first educational task is to provide each child and

250 THE CURRICULUM

youth with a rich and full language-life of the type desired.
Let him hear as fuUylispossiBre the language of the kind he
is to use, and the undesirable kinds as Uttle as possible. Let
him live abundantly in the rich fields of rgadiog experience
with language of desired types flowing through his conscious-
ness and unconsciously moulding vocabulary, sentence-
forms, and language thought-structures. Let him have
M diversified experience with realities through dixe.ct,contacts,
}JY participation in action, observation, reading, etc., and at
k-vt/^ the same time the experience of verbalizing his experiences
y^jj-v in conversation, discussion, oral and writtgiLJCfi^ort, both
jT^ informal and formal. Give variety, reality, responsibility
and substantiality to the non-linguistic experiences that
make up his life; and provide the opportunities for the nor-
mal language accompaniment. Make clear and adequate
thought as to realities the central feature of his intellectual
life; and language an adequate vehicle of this thought* The
education that can provide these experiences will take care
of practically all needed training in English.

Children and youths mainly need opportJinitieS-toJire
their language under rightly impelling conditions and cir-
cumstances. There has been too^^uch_En^lish i^ac^m^ ;
not enough English living. Even the overworked English
teachers themselves admit that after having obtained the
lion's share of the curriculum for the English, their teach-
ing is far from successful. And their remedy: We must
have still more time. Give it to them, and they will soon be
asking for yet more. They have command over the ma-
chinery of teaching; but over most of the conditions of a full
language-life, they have no more command than other de-
partments. Language-teaching is a matter of adjusting the
whole range of educational experiences, and paralleling them
with the verbal element. The ordinary English teaching
relates to only partial aspects of this total experience.

THE MOTHER-TONGUE 951

2. The major training that comes from Hving a language-
life that parallels and verbalizes one's other experiences will
fall short at many points when not supplemented by con-
scious training. Let an individual have the richest language-
experience, he will be foimd making certain kinds of gram-
matical errors, misspelling and mispronoimcing certain
words, and making other types of linguistic error. The cur-
riculum of conscious training for each individual will have
as its end the elimination of these errors. This means that
for one pupil the curriculum will be long; for another, short;
all depending on the length of the list of his errors. It means
that the conscious curriculum in English will not be the
same for any two pupils in .the same class; that a uniform
EngHsh curriculum is unthinkable. There is no more sanity
in it than in a uniform treatment of all cases that enter a
hospital.

A variety of agencies may be enlisted in discovering the
curriculum objectives for each pupil. Fairly early in the
course the pupil himself can be set at the task of drawing
up his own error-lists for spelling, pronunciation,~"c5Sbord,
verb-formsT^andwriting, sentence-structure, composition-
structure, etc. His labors here need to be brought to the
work-level as speedily and completely as possible. This
requires that he be conscious of the ends to be reached. His
own effort in defining those ends is a necessary portion of
the process of developing this understanding and sense of
responsibility.

Pupil-com^niittees for each subject will serve in relays in
keeping tab upon all English errors of every type made by
each individual of the class; and make contributions to the
individual error-lists of each pupil. Watchfulness over the
speech of others is a more objective process than the sub-
jective watchfulness over one's own speech; it is therefore
a good preparation for self-watchfulness. It is easier to

252 THE CURRICULUM

develop a critical attitude toward errors when they are seen
in others than when seen in one's self; this can then be gen-
eralized and made to apply to one's own errors. Such pupil-
committee work can be wholly unobtrusive, and yet effec-
tive for a variety of purposes. It is a necessary ingredient of
training the pupils who do it; not merely a means of re-
lieving the teacher of diagnostic labors.

Where pupil-errors go undiscovered by both the pupil
himself and the committees, the teacher will extend the lists
by adding any others that he may have noted.

3. After the pupil has his list of errors, and his knowl-
edge of the right forms to be substituted, the next thing is
that he want to make the substitutions. The pupil is the
only individual that can do this. His will must therefore be
awakened. This is not a thing that can be normally accom-
plished through preaching, persuasion, threats, coercion, or
setting of lessons and drill exercises. Language is a social
process; the ajja^jiing is to be secured through thoje social
stimulations that normally incite one to watchfulness^ver
his language, and which produce chagrin or mortification
when his language goes astray. It is a sensitive linguistic
conscience, one type of social conscience, that will hold
him in the paths of rectitude and prick him to effort at
return to grace when he finds himself fallen into trans-
gression.

To assert that such linguistic conscience is beyend chil-
dren is but to confess that one does not know children. The
boy who is chagrined when his teacher makes him use "big
words" and bookish English, is simply reacting td the lin-
guistic conscience which at the moment happens to rule
within the boy-group of which he is a member. He hates te
be laughed at — that is to say, condemned — -by his fellows
for using a form of English not sanctioned by the conscience
of his group.

THE MOTHER-TONGUE 253

The problem of making a boy want to use good English is,
therefore, a problem of making his fellows exyect him to use
good English, and condemn him if he does not. The problem j
of training the boy is one of training those to whom he |
reacts. It is to reach him indirectly. The task is to make the
society of which he is a part genuinely critical of his lan-
guage. This is not to say that they must be vocal, and rudely
point out to him his errors. This will but awaken contrary
reactions in him. It is his consciousness of their unspoken
condemnation of his faiHngs that is most effective, and
which should be the usual thing, — his own consciousness
voicing the social conscience and the social condenmation.
This does not excite contrary reactions in him, but rather
fires him to purge his language of its faults.

The problem, therefore, is how to bring the whole class sin-
cerely to condemn improper English in any of its forms of
impropriety. The task appears to have both positive and
negative aspects. Noting the latter first, pupils are to be
made critical of improper EngUsh in others. The pupil-
committee tasks of drawing up lists of pupil-errors in current
oral and written expression is an effective method of doing
this. One who has had extended experience in proof-reading,
or in reading student-papers, can appreciate the critical
linguistic conscience thereby developed.

On the positive side, there is the problem of developing
clarity, accuracy, and orderliness of thinking; and the con-
sequent parallel qualities of language. One so trained tends
to condemn slovenliness and obscurity of thought and ex-
pression. This positive program is a matter to be taken
care of by all teachers who have to do with thought as an
aspect of the training; and this means practically all depart-
ments.

Thus far we have discussed mainly the expression side of
the English. This leaves the problem of the receptive side

254 THE CURRICULUM

of language — listening and reading. Listening is so com-
pletely instinctive that it does not have to be taught. The
way to learn to listen is simply to Hsten. Reading is the
visual analogue of listening. In the purely visual part of it,
it is not impelled by instinct, and requires careful setting of
conditions and stimulations by teachers. But at bottom the
method is the same as for listening. One learns to read by
reading. Children will listen and easily learn to listen when
the things appeal to them; equally, after once getting a little
start, they will read and thereby learn to read, when pre-
sented with things that appeal to them. The problem of
curriculum-making for the single purpose of mastering the
mechanics of reading is mainly the provision of an abun-
dance of interesting reading matter for each grade, adapted
to the maturity of the pupils, and graded upward by such
easy stages that the pupil can do abundant and rapid read-
ing, usually silent, without being slowed down by difficulty
of language or thought. Every pupil of the first grade should
have easy and continuous access to not fewer than two or
three dozen appealing books; and each grade beyond, an
ever-increasing number. Teachers will then find ways of
awakening interests, stimulating enthusiasms, getting the
pupils started into books; and then leave the children to
enter normally, and to lose themselves normally, in the
living experiences of reading.

CHAPTER XX

TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES ^j^

What are the specific mistakes or shortcomings or forms
of arrested development that result in our country from a
lack of knowledge of foreign languages?

If there ar.e no important deficiencies that result from
failiu-e to master one or more foreign languages, then there
is no need for including them at public expense in the cur-
riculum. If, on the other hand, there are serious resulting
defects, then the nature of the deficiencies will point to the
foreign language training that will prevent such undesirable
results.

In order to avoid the pitfalls into which both the protag-
onists and the antagonists of foreign languages are prone
to fall, we must particularize the problems. What are the
deficiencies in one's performance of the labors of his calling
that result from lack of knowledge of foreign languages?
This question has to be separately put for each occupational
class and for each grade of labor from the simplesrroutine
levels up to the most complicated professional levels. Then
the questions continue through other fields. What are the
defects in ciyic performance that are due to an inadequate
understanding of foreign languages? What are the defi-
ciencies of personal hygiene and community sanitation that
result from a lack of knowledge of foreign languages? What
are the aspects of family life that are generally or frequently
suffering because of the inadequacy of training in foreign
languages? What are the shortcomings in the mpral and
religious life that are due to an insufficient knowledge of
foreign languages? What desirable leisure occupations are

256 • THE CURRICULUM

faulty or seriously insufficient because of a lack of knowl-
edge of foreign languages? What are the specific defects in 4
our use of our mother-tongue which result chiefly or largely J
from ignorance of foreign languages and which can be cor-
rected most effectively and economically through the mas-
tery of such languages?

The problems need to be particularized in another direc-
tion. Are men to be trained for a spe4t;ing oronly a reading
knowledge of the language? The curriculum foT~EEe~ latter
purpose alone will be fundamentally different from the one
demanded by the first. While reading will be a large element
in the first case, the principal element must be speaking.
Classes must be small, meetings frequent, and much time
and labor given to grammar and composition. In the second
case there need be only a little speaking in the beginning for
giving pronunciation and certain language-imagery. The
chief need will be an abundant supply of fascinating reading
materials, so graded in degree of difficulty that after a start
has been made, the gradient of vocabulary, word-forms,
sentence-forms, etc., is so imperceptible that through full-
ness of reading without much help from teachers or diction-
aries or grammars the individual can attain reading pro-
ficiency. In this latter case classes may well be large and
class meetings infrequent.

Languages needed for occupational efficiency

The problems suggested are so numerous and complex
that we can here touch upon only a few of the more funda-
mental. Let us look first to the occupational values of the
foreign languages. The occupational argument is the one
most urged by our colleges in the case of modern languages;
and the college influences the lower schools. The argument
takes several forms. Qne is that all college men and women
must read the technicalliterature of their specialties in the

TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 257

foreign languages in sufficient degree to justify the expend-
iture of some years of preparatory language-training for the
purpose. Since the high srhnolg do not know which of their -
students are going on to college, they proceed to require
the foreign languages of everybody; and so far as this voca-
tional argument is dominant, they encourage the modern
languages. The second occupational argument is commer- ^
cial and clerical. 'Business houses need clerks, correspond-
ents and agents for foreign fields who are thoroughly convers-
ant with the foreign languages involved. In other cases it is ^
urged that foreign languages should be taught for the pro-
motion of the business interests of immigrant communities.

For the occupational argument, let us make the matter
concrete by taking the case of the teaching profession. There
are upwards of six hundred thousand elementary and sec-
ondary teachers. As completely as any other profession,
theirs requires fullness of knowledge, width of outlook, and
ability to handle complex problems. Now what are the short-
comings in teaching ability that are due mainly to a lack of
knowledge of foreign languages .f* When one goes for answer
directly to the teacher's work or to the testimony of special-
ists, one finds enumerated many kinds of teaching defi-
ciency; but not one of them appears to be strictly and inevit-
ably due to a lack of knowledge of modern languages. As
one reads the judgments of superintendents, principals,
normal-school presidents and training-school directors as
to the causes of teaching deficiency, one does not find them
mentioning ignorance of modern languages as one of the
causes. If it were a major source of weakness, or even mod-
erately important, it would be discovered by some of them.

In a former chapter we discussed the need of the workers
in any field keeping abreast of progressive technical dis-
coveries and developments anywhere throughout the world.
Education is a field of the widest kind of experimentation in

258 THE CURRICULUM

all progressive countries. The teacher therefore should
obtain ideas concerning any important advance in educa-
tional thought or technique wherever it is being made,
whether in the United States, in Canada, in Great Britain,
France, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzer-
land, Italy, Russia, Japan, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Aus-
tralia or New Zealand — to mention countries where prog-
ress is being made. Also the teacher needs the professional
stimulation and width of outlook that comes from feeling
himself a membpi;»^of the world-wide professional group.
This can result onlyfroiE vital~c6ntacts, mainly through
socializing reading, with the profession throughout the
world.

Another equally valid statement is that they should em-
ploy economical methods in securing this technical and
socializing information. Time and money at present are
needed for so many things that they must not be wasted
where more economical methods can be found. And what
is more, the technical and social needs require that the
things be carried through effectively and not in a perfunc-
tory and slip-shod manner. With these generally admitted
presumptions in mind, let us look at the situation.

There are two conceivable ways of accomplishing this
aspect of teacher-training. One method is to teach the lan-
guages of all of the countries enumerated — about ten lan-
guages in all — then to expect the teachers in training, in
colleges and normal schools, to get their technical and
socializing information from the reading of the original
literature in the various languages; and further to expect
them in some yet undiscovered way to secure the current
literature of these various lands in the towns where they
teach and look through it in order to find the portions that
can be helpful for the purposes enumerated. The other pos-
sible plan is that which for some years has been developing

TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 259

in the United States Bureau of Education, namely, the issu-
ance of specially prepared bulletins which present in English
the selected aspects of educational developments in the
various countries of the world. A few of the titles are illus-
trative:—

1. Some suggestive features of the Swiss School System.

2. Educational system of rural Denmark,

3. The folk high schools of Denmark.

4. The Montessori system of education.

5. German Industrial Education and its lessons for the United
States.

6. Educational system of China as recently reconstructed.

7. Latin-Americaa universities and special schools.

8. The training of teachers in England, Scotland and Germany.

9. The auxiliary schools of Germany.

10. Secondary Schools of Central America, South America, and
the West Indies.

11. Some foreign educational surveys.

12. Demand for vocatioual education in the countries at war.

While this work of the Bureau is not yet sufficiently devel-
oped, it already goes much beyond the demands of the pro-
fession in general for the technical and socializing informa-
tion. Let there be a widespread and clearly- voiced demand
for a still more adequate bulletin literature, and the Bureau
can soon supply all professional needs. It will be necessary
to employ a few specialists each of whom has a thorough
knowledge of the needs of teachers in our own coimtry and
an equally thorough knowledge of the educational condi-
tions in the foreign land upon which he is to report. The
knowledge of the foreign language, the foreign education,
and its professional literature, needs largely to be acquired
by these specialists upon the grounds. It is by living within
a foreign land at least half the time and as a life-long
vocation that such workers will be enabled to give effective
examination to all of the work that is to be reported upon;

260 THE CURRICULUM

and to make effective choice of just the things that American
teachers need. Only through vital contacts with both sides
can investigators make rational selection of technical facts;
or prepare effective socializing readings.

The foreign language method is highly expensive in time
and money. And for the two professional purposes men-
tioned, except in the case of a few specialists, it is wholly
ineffective. To teachers in general the foreign literature is
inaccessible; it is not written from the point of view of their
needs; it is voluminous, discursive, fragmentary, confused.
Teachers have not time to read a tenth of our own over-
discursive professional literature, much less that of foreign
lands. They scarcely have time to read the latter when it is
carefully selected and organized for them by specialists
familiar with their needs, and put into English.

This is not to deny the necessity of the foreign languages
for a few hundred professional research workers. Quite ob-
viously those engaged in searching through the literature of
foreign countries for the sake of finding the technical or
other information needed for immediate application or for
dissemination through our own country must have the lan-
guages of the countries from which the facts are drawn. This
justifies the foreign languages for strictly professional pur-
poses for perhaps one in a thousand. It is too expensive a
method to require the same of the other 999 in order that
the one be accommodated.

In discussing the situation of teachers at such length it
has been our intention to reveal the nature of the modern
language situation as regards all of the professions. Let one
examine medicine, engineering, finance, law, divinity, archi-
tecture, music, art, journalism, politics, and the profes-
sional levels of commerce, banking, transportation, agri-
culture, mining, etc. He will find that the members of £nese
professions also need technical and socializing information

TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 261

from all progressive countries of the world. But they too
need to use effective and economical methods. Each needs a i
few highly specialized research workers who know the for- J
eign languages and who can bring to them in English thef
valuable things from all lands.

Let one calculate the relative costs in either money or
time of the two plans, and the one suggested will be found
the more economical in a ratio of probably not less than a *
hundred to one. In degree of effectiveness for the profession
as a whole its relative advantages must be even greater.

When one looks to the rank and file of farmers, mechanics,
miners, housewives, milliners, and all others below the pro-
fessional level, one can discover reasons for vital contacts
with their occupational confreres throughout the world.
We are coming to be, and we think we ought to be, cosmo-
politan-minded on all social levels. Men and women there-
fore of all ranks and classes should read; but it is obvious
that for effectiveness and economy the reading should be
in the mother-tongue. It will be a hard enough task to get
it done even through that easy medium. Unless specially
situated, therefore, there seems to be no occupational
reason for foreign languages for the millions of workers
below the professional levels.

It will be argued that commerce has international rela-
tionships which involve other occupational needs than those
mentioned. The large business houses having contact with
foreign lands need correspondents, agents, and clerical
workers who have a thorough familiarity with the language
of the country with which the house is dealing. When they
deal with Brazil their specialized employees must know
Portuguese; when with Japan and China, it is Japanese and
Chinese; with Russia, Russian, etc.

In large measure the foreign agents, clerks, and corre-
spondents will be native to the country itself. So far as

262 THE CURRICULUM

native — and the degree is an increasing one — there is no
training problem for our schools. It is necessary, however,
we are told, to have a certain percentage of native Americans
for this work, especially as leaders. They need to be thor-
oughly trained for the purpose. They need a high degree
of proficiency in understanding, speaking, and writing the
foreign tongue. To be effective they must know the turns
of phrase, the subtleties of expression, the idioms and every-
thing that is effective in making appeal to intellect and emo-
tion within the country. They must both think and speak
in the language, not translate, hesitate, and talk like a book
— or worse. Such proficiency is to be attained only by liv-
ing in the land where the language is native.

Quite clearly this is but a minute field of specialized voca-
tional training. In proportion as a field calls for but few
workers, especially if the training must be intensive and
thorough, vocational guidance should see that but few are
trained. It is possible to urge that since one in each thou-
I sand high-school students will go into positions requiring
Spanish, and since we do not usually know which is to be
that one, we should therefore permit or encourage all to
take the Spanish. To train the hundreds who do not need
it merely to meet the needs of the one that does is a highly
uneconomical method of meeting the needs of the one. And
it loses sight of the needs of the hundreds. After public
education has provided adequate vocational training for the
/millions who do not go into this narrowly specialized voca-
iS tional field, then it will be time to undertake the specialized
"^ I training of the few hundreds who do.

Language needed for civic activities

What are the defects in civic performance in our country
that are demonstrably due to a lack of knowledge of foreign
languages on the part of the citizens? Social leaders, polit-

TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 263

ical parties, and newspapers are busy, each from its own
point of view, in pointing out numerous social deficiencies
and their causes. They do not, however, point to ignorance
of foreign languages as one of the important sources of gen-
erally admitted civic inefficiency. When so many thousands
of eyes are scanning the field, and when they are so often
rendered acute by self-interest, it is not probable that any
really fundamental cause of civic shortcoming can escape
all eyes.

In other chapters we have referred to readings necessary
for developing national and municipal large-group conscious-
ness. It is certain that the mother-tongue is most effective
for giving understanding; for arousing emotional responses;
and for developing sympathetic attitudes of mind. But
when we look to the international situation, the problem is
different. Man needs also to read for world-democratic sym-
pathies and understandings. Is the English the only lan-
guage that we need for the purpose?

There are two conceivable ways of entering into world-
experience. The foreign language advocates present one of
these. We do not, they say, rightly enter into the experi-
ences of other peoples unless we think their experience in
the same language-terms in which they think that expe-
rience. Rarely or never do they carry out their argu-
ment to its logical conclusion. It contains the implication
that we should learn the languages of the nations through-
out the earth. Naturally the deprovincialization would be
most effectively brought about through learning those of
the largest nations in case only a portion could be covered.
The most important languages, therefore, for the purpose
would be Russian, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, Hindu-
stani, German, and French. These with English would per-
haps sufficiently cover the earth. It must be observed that
the thing wanted is a planetary consciousness, not a mere

264 THE CURRICULUM

French one from learning French, or German one from
learning German, or Roman one from learning Latin. If
/foreign languages are the necessary means for this purpose,
[clearly the ends cannot be reached through the study of
just one foreign language, or even two.

The alternative method is reading the history of nations
in the English tongue and the literature of nations in good
English translations. As a matter of fact, human experience
in its fundamentals is much the same the world over, differ-
ing only in details and proportions. It can be expressed
about equally well by any of the world's developed lan-
guages. The basic thing is not the language but the experi-
ence in the mind of the writer upon the one hand, and the
reconstructed experience in the mind of the reader upon
the other. It matters little what system of symbols is em-
ployed in the transmission of this experience from the one
to the other; or whether it starts in one language and through
translation arrives in another. The only thing that counts
is adequacy of reconstruction of the experience. Emerson
once said: "I should as soon think of swimming across the
Charles River when I wish to go to Boston as of reading all
my books in the original when I have them rendered for me
in my mother-tongue."

Foreign languages needed for family life

It is obvious that under normal conditions the mother-
tongue is all that is needed for family life.

We have a serious problem, however, in the case of immi-
grant populations, the adults of which bring a foreign tongue
to our country, while the children grow up within an Eng-
lish language atmosphere. The immigrants, in most in-
stances, are laborers. They often use a corrupt variety of
their native tongue. They are not greatly familiar with the
literature of their own land. Their social status often causes

TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 265

them to be looked down upon by the native population; and
their language also. Children growing up within an Ameri-
can atmosphere unconsciously adopt the American attitude
toward their ignorant parents. They lose respect for their
parents and for the parental tongue. They drift prematurely
away from the parental influences. This family disintegra-
tion is often highly disastrous to the children; and destruc-
tive of cherished parental hopes.

The disintegration is due to many factors. But language
being our major social bond, one of them certainly is the
lack of a common language. Children decline to use a
despised language; and the parents are not sufficiently
plastic to take on that of their children. A partial allevia-
tion could be produced by bringing the children to respect
the parental tongue. This could best be accomplished by
having the children read the stimulating literature of that
tongue. While the basic language of all American schools
should be English, in an ItaHan community the children
might well be brought also to read the interesting literature
of Italy; in a Polish community, that of Poland; in a Hun-
garian community, the literature of Hungary. The children
will come to respect the language which the school respects
and which the literature reveals to them as a high and hon-
orable tongue.

If education here will look accurately to the social results
to be aimed at and include nothing not demanded by such
results, the task ought not to be a difficult one, nor to con-
sume any large amount of time. A reading knowledge is
all that the school need concern itself with. The children
will get their speaking practice in their homes. The latter
may not be grammatically accurate. But training must
always be related to purposes. In this case the children are
to be brought to respect the language of their parents. If,
therefore, the parents speak a rather ignorant type of the

266 THE CURRICULUM

language, the less the attention of the children is called to
this, the better for all concerned. This will eliminate the
necessity of teaching the grammar, composition, and the
other things that require time.

The schools will only take care of the reading. They
need an abundance of the most fascinating stories obtain-
able in the language; and so well graded that the gradient
is imperceptible. As children master the mechanics of read-
ing English, it will be easy to master the mechanics of read-
ing their parental tongue. There need not be much class-
work — only enough to introduce the social motives and
stimulations. Their textbooks and supplementary reading
books in history, geography, literature, etc., might occasion-
ally be in part in their parental language.

All of the other purposes of the training of these children
are to be kept in mind at the same time so that this one
shall not be exaggerated and receive an undue proportion
of time or energy. Harmonious family life is but one end
of many for which these children are to be trained. The
reason disappears in the second generation. Educational
inertia can then be no justification for retention of the lan-
guage.

Foreign languages and leisure occupations

All admit that the reading of good literature is a healthy
and desirable leisure occupation. This literature exists in
a few ancient and in several modern languages. It is gen-
erally accepted that except for those forms of poetry where
the effects are so largely dependent upon rhythm and other
sensuous elements, a translation properly done is practi-
cally as good as the original. It maybe better. But among
the essences of leisure occupations are variety, novelty,
and freshness of experience. Stale experiences do not
satisfy. In music, for example, one likes to hear selections

TRA.INING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 267

produced through different media; orchestra, band, piano,
organ, voice, chorus, opera, etc. This employment of dif-
ferent media greatly widens and diversifies the musical ex-
periences and increases the sum total of enjoyment. In
literature likewise, one enjoys different media. Literature
in the foreign tongue often brings a tingling of new and
eager interests that is less evident when the same litera-
ture is received through the routine grooves of vernacular
habit.

This appears to be a higher or less sensuous form of
spiritual recreation than music. It cannot then represent
a less justifiable type of leisure occupation. It is not im-
probable that for some, who can really use it as a satisfying
leisure occupation, it is even more justifiable and more
fruitful. The chief question that arises is. Is it not too high
and rarefied a type of recreation for people in general?
Clearly it can be justifiable only in the case of those in
whom it will actually function as a leisure occupation.
This end cannot in any degree justify forcing the language
upon the unwilling. The literature probably can have
humanizing effectiveness, can expand and enrich the per-
sonality, only when it is read with fully aroused emotional
reverberations. If it is read as a prescribed task, laboriously *^
and without zest, little of value can come of it. It is not /
good as a training experience; it will not lead to the desired/
recreational habits.

A thing that is to function as a Idsufe occupation must be
got as a leisure occupation. When this is the dominant pur-
"pose of learning a foreign language it seems certain that
the learning should be of the play or interest-driven type.
The teacher's business will be to provide favorable condi-
tions, to lead, to stimulate, to encourage, to supply the
contagions of enthusiasm. On the side of actual teaching,
the teacher must give the pupils a start in vocabulai-y, pro-

«68 THE CURRICULUM

nunciation, fundamental grammatical forms, etc.; but the
novelty of beginning a new language, if the teacher is com-
petent in finding the springs of pupil-interest, fills this ini-
tial learning with the play-spirit. The ^tart having been
made, then thejess^ teaching the better — just as upon the
play-field, the less play-supervision the better. Since the
end is reading and not speech or writing, the pupils' ex-
perience will be mainly reading — at the dictates of inter-
est. The teacher will see that the necessary abundance of
attractive readings are at hand, and so well graded that
pupils can mainly be emancipated from grammars and dic-
tionaries, and learn to read by reading.

When the training is mainly through an abundance of
easy and interesting reading, the pedagogy relates mainly
to leadership and control of motives. There is no longer
justification for that perverse practice on the part of lan-
guage teachers of pouncing upon the hard spots, the un-
familiar words, the difficult and irregular grammatical
forms and relationships; and thus demanding explanations
of just the things which the pupil has not got; ought not
to have got at his stage of learning; and ought not to be
required to explain.

We find here another example of the fallacy that a thing
must be fully known in order to be known at all. As a
matter of fact, little children listen to the speech of their
parents and understand the general drift of thought with-
out fully understanding the meaning of every word; and
without being able to explain any of tj&e grammar. As they
grow older and have fuller texperience both with things
and language, the difficulties disappear without thought or
effort. In the same way, one can rfead the easy literature
of a foreign language, and move in the full current of
the story without knowing the meaning of all words met
with, and with little knowledge of the grammar. Let this

TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 269

experience continue, week after week, month after month,
and year after year, and the meaning of the unfamiUar
words will gradually unfold without effort.

The present technique of education is largely an elabo-
rate technique of prematurity. It is attempt to teach pre-
maturely what later would develop natiu-ally through the
normal processes of living.

This reading plan of recreational training does not re-
quire society to invest so much money and time in the
teaching of foreign languages as at present. Only those
who like the languages will take them. When a pupil's in-
terest so slackens that he will not under normal stimula-
tion continue his reading, clearly he should drop the study.
This will leave only those who are moving imder their own
power. A great amount of teacher-effort will not then be
required. Classes may be large and need not meet fre-
quently; or if small may have pupil-leaders. And there is
the saving of most of the energy now given to grammar
and composition and vexation of spirit.

Let these conditions be brought about, and it is the pre-
diction of the writer that there will be a considerable pro-
portion of our population who will take advantage of this
recreational opportunity, and effectively go through with
it; and who will reap the good harvest that must come
from such non-sensuous type of recreational experien-ce.

The arguments for this type of leisure occupation are
not strong until we become a reading people, and read our
own rich English literature. This is the largest of the world's
literatures. It is the most diversified of all, owing to the
Anglo-Saxon dispersion. It is the most cosmopolitan. It
alone will de-provincialize one. It contains most of the
best of all literatures ancient and modern in good transla-
tion. Within itself, it employs many media of expression.
It is a thing of infinite moods. Compare the military-band

270 THE CURRICULUM

style of Kipling with the symphony orchestra style of
Shakespeare, the "big bow-wow style" of Scott, as he
himself termed it, with the "fine cameo style" of Jane Aus-
ten. Let one note the acid of Dean Swift, the geniality of
Chaucer or Charles Lamb, the thunders of Carlyle, the
varied music of Tennyson and Byron and Milton, the virile
grace of Stevenson and Joseph Conrad, and the varying
moods of Uncle Remus and Mark Twain and O. Henry.
Let one note the diversified wealth of lyric, epic, idyl,
drama, novel, essay, humor, oration, and religious or phil-
osophical meditation. Let one then look into the diversi-
fied media and moods provided in translations: the English
Bible, Homer, Virgil, Plato, Cervantes, Dante, Dumas,
Balzac, Tolstoy, Om*r Khayyam, Bjornsen, Ibsen, Freitag,
Maeterlinck, and Tagore.

/ There are moods and media enough in the literature of
the English tongue to satisfy the present recreational lit-
erary cravings of most of our population — most even of
those who go through the high schools. In large measure
it is now unutilized opportunity. We believe that men and
women should be trained for foreign-language recreational
reading if they will actually take sufficient advantage of
their opportunities; but it is absurd beyond expression to
train them for any such opportunities when they do not
even take advantage of the infinitely rich and diversified
literature of their own tongue. Beyond the conventional
two or three books of each, few people, even those who have
gone through high school and college, have read Scott,
I Stevenson, or Conrad; or in translation, Bjornsen, Tol-
stoy, Balzac, or Ibsen. Much less do those same high-school
and college individuals who have had to take foreign lan-
guages for some undefined purpose, use them for recrea-
tional reading.

Suppose a foreign language is to be offered in high schools

TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 271

for leisure reading, which is to be chosen? Quite evi-
dently it is the one which contains the largest and best lit-
erature. In order to ascertain this the writer took the more
than seven hundred volumes of "Everyman's Library"
which aims to bring together the best of all of the world's
literatures in English translation. Since it is a commercial
enterprise, producing books at low price which will appeal
to the reading tastes of the population in general, its se-
lections ought to reveal the literatures which have the
largest number of books of general appeal. Omitting those
of English-speaking peoples, the number of volumes from
each of the world's most important Hteratures are shown
in the accompanying table: —

French ^ .^. 52

Greek ; 23

Russian and Polish 14

Latin 11

German 11

Scandinavian 10

Italian 8

Oriental nations 5

Spanish 3

Other book-lists afford confirmation of these figures.
Among modern literatures, there can be no doubt that the
literature of France stands head and shoulders over every
other literature except the English. If only one language
is to be studied for the purpose here discussed, it should
doubtless be French.

If one wants a second language for this purpose it looks
as though it might as well be Greek, Russian, Scandinavian,
German or Italian. It is unfortunate that this purpose does
not point more clearly to Spanish. This justification is
really needed to support other valid reasons for studying
Spanish, which in themselves, without this one, are scarcely
sufficient, except in special instances.

272 THE CURRICULUM

Foreign languages needed for proficiency in English

Few urge modern languages as aids to training in Eng-
lish. There is, however, a common presumption among
teachers that the large place accorded Latin is just^ed
on this basis. But the scientific curriculum-discoverer
cannot proceed upon ill-defined presumptions. He must
know with definiteness and particularity just what the
serious deficiencies in our use of English are that are de-
monstrably due to inability to read, translate, and explain
the grammar of Latin; and which have no other sufficient
remedy.

Let us locate these if they exist, by a method of elimina-
tion. In the first place in the English training the most
fundamental things to be developed are: genuine desire to
uge good English, right valuations or appreciations of good
English, and habits of watchfulness against errors of all
kinds. These attitudes obviously result mainly from social
stimulations and contagions. They are developed mainly
by living within a language atmosphere in which good Eng-
lish is spoken and read and valued. Language valuations
are almost wholly social matters, obtained from one's asso-
ciates chiefly through unconscious imitation. Latin has
A4^t4' little or nothing to do with the matter.

English training further aims at the development of the
habits, skills, and technical knowledge involved in pro-
nunciation, choice of words, construction of sentences, use
of English inflections and concord, construction of the
larger forms of discourse, oral and written presentation of
thought, reading, spelling, and handwriting. If one has
right valuations, and can do all of these things well, he
will have a pretty secure control over his English. In each
of the things, deficiencies are common. But examine them
one by one, and in most cases there is not even a remote

TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 273

probability that the deficiencies are due to inability to read
and explain Latin.

Latin has a slight value for spelling; though on the whole
it is the Saxon words that give most trouble; and if one
cannot remember the English spelling, how can he with
greater assurance remember the Latin?
J It is urged for sentence-construction and concord,
through aiding in one's knowledge of English grammar.
Doubtless it will help; but it is a tremendously expensive
way to get the little grammar really needed for correcting
some twenty-five kinds of English errors. Those whose
English is so seriously defective that they need Latin for
the purpose generally do not get it; and those who get it
generally grow up in such a cultivated language-atmos-
phere that they do not greatly need it for the purpose men-
tioned.

The argument simmers down to vocabulary-develop-
ment. One needs Latin, French, and Anglo-Saxon for
the etymology of the five thousand words that one uses;
and for the fifteen thousand that one reads. The presump-
tions are two: (1) the etymology gives understanding of
meanings; (2) one should learn the languages from which
English comes to understand the etymology. There is
some truth in both; and more error.

One must note the psychology of vocabulary-building.
The simplest and usual condition of vocabulary-learning
is v/here one meets with some new thing, action, quality,
or relation; and at the same time gets the word that ex-
presses it. In the presence of any new aspect of reality one
is not easy in mind till one has the necessary word in terms
of which to think it. The presence of the reality calls for
the word. When brought together they associate so closely
as to fuse into a single conception. The basic condition of
vocabulary-building is contact with the realities. If one is

274 THE CURRICULUM

to have a wide and varied vocabulary then the first condi-
tion is that he come into vital contact with numerous
and varied aspects of reality; verbalizing his experience.
If, for example, one would require the vocabulary of the
motor-car — limousine, chassis, carburetor, commutator,
differential, magneto, mujffler, transmission, etc. — let him
operate the car, repair it, make adjustments, consult hand-
books for the necessary information, talk over matters with
others, etc.; and the full vocabulary will grow up so easily
and naturally that one does not notice how or when he
acquired it. Make experience central and the vocabulary will
take care of itself. If one would acquire the vocabulary of a
farm, a steel-mill, a hospital, the game of golf, a science,
a religion, or anything else, material or immaterial, the
principle holds. Let one study Latin till he is gray, he
will find that for vocabulary-building it is a poor and pale
substitute for reality.

The older plan was to use simple well-known English
words for explaining the meaning of the Latin vocabulary;
and then to use that Latin vocabulary to explain the mean-
ing of other English words. It was a matter of pouring
meanings from English into Latin, and then back again.
It was to use a small body of meanings got from a little
contact with reality to produce a large body of substantial
meanings without any further contacts with realities. It
rfeinds one of the street-fakir who from an ounce of soap
produces three barrels of foam. There is increased iri-
descence; and one is impressed; but no increase of sub-
stance. The schools of the past were places of words not
realities. It is not therefore surprising that this primitive
faith in verbal methods should linger.

And yet etymology has legitimate functions to perform.
Let us illustrate some of them. We have in English some
twenty or thirty commonly-used prefixes borrowed from

TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 275

the Latin, such as bi-, circum-, contra-, semi-, post-, trans-,
uni-, etc. We have another twenty or thirty more or less
common prefixes imported from the Greek: anti-, mon-,
mono-, pan-, penta-, poly-, iri-, hemi-, iso-, etc. We have
also some sixty or eighty suffixes variously derived from
Latin, Greek, Old French, and Anglo-Saxon: -fy, -ed, -hood,
-tion, -don, -ise, -ize, -less, -ish, -ie, -kin, -ling, -ness, -able,
-ly, etc.

Now, it does not really matter from what languages these
have been imported. They are essential portions of the
English tongue. They have become completely natural-
ized and they are as much a portion of the living English
as its Saxon element. It is no more necessary to study the
Latin in order to get the significance of a hundred and
fifty English affixes than it is to study the ancient Aryan,
which preceded the Latin in order to understand the terms
which the Latin borrowed from it.

Given favorable conditions their mastery involves prac-
tically no problem. Bring the children into contact with
the actual realities in relation to which the prefixes and
suffixes have significance, call attention to this significance,
in so far as pupils need to be made conscious of it, and the
work is done without effort. For example, in the mathe-
matics let the children know that hi- means two, as they
come into contact with bi-nominals, bisections, etc.; that
tri- means three, as they come into contact with triangles,
tri-sections, tri-nominals, etc. Let children meet with semi-
weekly, semi-annual, semi-circle, etc., as verbaHzed reali-
ties, and it does not require a great deal of effort on the
part of teachers to make them conscious of the signifi-
cance of semi-. Let them come into contact with both
reahties and diminutives like doggie, lambkin, duckling,
hillock, eaglet, etc., and the understanding is acquired
without thought or effort. This is but to apply the cen-

276 THE CURRICULUM

1 principle of reality-teaching rather than verbal-teach-
ing to the vocabulary-building.

The roots or stems of many English words have also
been imported and naturalized; as, for example, dico or
dido in dictioriy dictionary^ dictate^ dicturriy abdicatey contra-
dicty predicty edicty interdicty verdict, dictatoTy etc. Of these
root-terms there are several score in common use that prob-
ably should be generally known; and even a few hundred
that may be known with profit by those who would acquire
a finished knowledge and appreciation of English. Most of
the root-terms have been naturalized and are now as much
parts of the English as they ever were of the Anglo-Saxon,
Latin, or Greek. They are the common possessions of any
language that cares to adopt them. The meanings are
mainly read into the root-terms by associating them with
the realities to which they refer. These terms can be broken
out of their English matrix, the generalized meaning re-
vealed, and then used in the study of families of English
derivatives that employ the root-terms. One can thus study
the etymology of English without studying Latin, French,
or Anglo-Saxon. Most of us who have not studied Greek
appreciate the etymology of such words as 'psychology,
theologyy pantheony biographyy biologyy hibliographyy phi-
losophy y pJionography etc., about as completely as we appre-
ciate the words from the Latin which we have studied.
And we can use the roots borrowed from the Greek just as
efficiently in analyzing derivatives.

In general, it is not through etymological associations
that one acquires the meanings of words. Take, for ex-
ample, the derivatives servCy serfy servanty servitory service,
servitudey serviceable y serviUy subservienty etc. All come from
a single root. A dictionary knowledge of the meaning of
this root will not give one any inkling of the finer nuances
of meanings. The root-term, for example, does not reveal

TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 277

the subtle differences of meaning in servant, serf, and ser-
vitor; or between service and servitude. One gets these deli-
cate but vital differences through contacts with the reali-
ties themselves, either immediate or imaginative. One who
reads and observes widely and accurately but who has
never noted the etymology of these words will acquire the
finer shades of meaning as completely as one who is familiar
with the etymology. And if he can get the subtler flavors
of words in this way, surely he can thus also get the crass
meanings of the root-terms.

A further question relates to the technical terminology
of specialists: biologists, physiologists, physicians, etc.
The basic thing needed for making them specialists is full,
varied and intimate contacts with the realities of their
specialized fields. At bottom they need to know things, not
words. But adequate knowledge of things involves the
use of words — the improved vehicles of human thought.
But the reality-method of getting at the things makes the
language aspect easy. The presence of the thing calls for
the language necessary for thinking it. Let the young phy-
sician once learn, for example, that hoema means blood; and
then let his daily experiences involve such terms as hoema-
chrome, hoemabarometer, hccmacytometer, hcemaphobus, hcema-
tozoa, hemorrhage, hemoglobin, hemoperitoneum, hemophobia,
hemoscope, hemotropic, etc., — he will very easily learn the
value and significance of harnia- as a root word for his tech-
nical field. Let him read Greek literature for twenty
years, and he can never thereby acquire any better under-
standing of this word. And he can learn his other techni-
cal terms in the same way. Rare terms he will have to look
up in a dictionary — like ordinary people. There is always
a fringe of little-used words that require the use of the dic-
tionary.

It must be kept in mind that we are here discussing but

278 THE CURRICULUM

a single phase of the problem. To assert that a mastery
of Latin grammar and literatm-e is not necessary for a thor-
ough understanding and appreciation of English is not
equivalent to saying that Latin should not be studied for
this purpose by those who are willing to employ this
method. Many of those who appreciate linguistic study
as recreational experience will be justified in taking Latin
for immediate and subsequent recreational uses. As it
then gives them a goodly portion of their etymological
background, it will have accomplished a double purpose.
It cannot serve as a substitute for the reality-method; but
it can substantially reinforce it. Latin will then be taken
only by those of linguistic appreciation, with the students
mainly moving under their own power. The Latinists
should then supply them with the wealth of interesting
readings needed for the imperceptible gradient of experi-
ence that will permit them to learn to read the language by
reading it. Under such circumstances those who want the
Latin can get all that they want without requiring too
much effort and expense on the part of teachers and school
systems. Under present teaching conditions, the cost,
especially in time and loss of other more important things,
is usually disproportionate to the returns.

Foreign languages needed for humanistic experience

It is generally supposed that there is an intimate, even
indissoluble, relation between the classical languages and
humanism. Before one can rightly note the relation, how-
ever, one must first define humanistic experiences in terms
of twentieth-century life; and in their particularized forms.
This we have tried to do in some measure in previous chap-j
ters. To look with wide and sympathetic vision over alJ
human affairs, near and remote, recent and ancient; td
enter freely and sympathetically into all worthy kinds of

TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 279

human experience, directly through participation and ob-
servation, and indirectly through conversation and lecture
and wide reading; to range with quickened mind through
the rich and inspiring fields of science and art and phi-
losophy and religion; to feel a oneness with one's race, and
to be fired with its highest aspirations; to act with one's
fellows vigorously, joyously and whole-heartedly in the
cooperative provision of a full and rich life-opportunity
for every human being, — such as these are humanistic
experiences. Those experiences in which man realizes his
full humanity constitute the substance of humanism.

This is not to give a new definition to humanism. It is
but to rescue its original one; and to state it in terms of
twentieth-century thought and life. It is to see that hu-
manism is not a thing of language alone; but rather of the
full texture of life. Any language in which one can Uve and
think can be the language of humanism.

In the day of the Renaissance, the classics provided
the languages and much of the thought of the wider hu-
manistic experience. But vernacular literatures have since
arisen which can not only provide the same experiences, but
the far wider ones of modern life; and which also can
serve the humanistic needs of all, a democratic require-
ment, and not merely those of a small leisure class.

The classicists of to-day are much concerned because of
an alleged attack upon humanism. As a matter of fact,
there is little discernible attack upon actual humanism.
The attack is only upon the conception that only the an-
cient languages can serve in a democratic age as the ve-
hicles of humanistic experience. One has but to look aboub^-^
him to see that, in spite of the apparent contradictions of /
war, the world grows more humanistic in its conceptions, /
aspirations and practices. More and more we would bring
to all social classes the varied and essential humanistic

280 THE CURRICULUM

experiences that have hitherto fallen only to the lot of the
intellectual and social aristocratic few. To all we would
give fullness of vital contacts with men, with nature, with
literature and history and art and high religion. To all so
far as possible we would give the far vision outward and
backward and upward. There are aristocrats and Philis-
tines who are indifferent to this wide diffusion of human-
istic experience, or who are skeptical of its possibility. But
in general they are making no active attack upon it.

It is under the circumstances unfortunate that classicists
should have the erroneous idea that humanistic experiences
require the ancient vehicles of thought; that the world is a
decadent affair in which modern languages are so wretchedly
weak and shabby as not to be able to carry the ancient
experiences; and even that modern human experience is
inferior to that of the peoples of old. ^ There is attack and
justifiable attack upon such pessimism and puerility. The
attack however is not because of hostility to humanistic
experience. It is brought by the optimistic, forward-looking
friends of twentieth-century humanism. To them humane-
ness and richness and nobility of spirit seem so good for the
world that they would have these things for all men and
women; and therefore they would employ for the purpose
the language of our democracy rather than the ancient out-
worn languages of the intellectual aristocracy.

The classicists have not defined humanism in terms of the
essential reahties. They have defined it only in terms of the
symbols of thought: of the verbal associates of the older
humanistic experience of centuries ago.

As a matter of fact, reading the ancient literatures in the
originals is not an essential factor in developing humane-
ness, or gentleness, or richness and elevation and nobility
of thought and feeling, or high appreciation of aesthetic art,
or of any of the other essentials of high charactCT. The

TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 281

cynical disbelief on the part of the classicists of the possibil-
ity or desirability of democratic diffusion of humanistic
experience to all makes them unsafe defenders of actual
humanism in our democratic age. Their major effort is not
to find means of the greatest possible amount of such diffu-
sion; but rather to retain an impossible vehicle of diffusion.
It is the social-minded men and women of to-day who
are the real leaders of modern humanism. A few are lin-
guists; most are not. Some are in the educational profes-
sion; most are in other fields of labor. But it is those whose
primary interest is in their fellow-men rather than in lan-
guages, and whose fundamental faith is in mankind rather
than in symbols, who are to-day leading and guiding hu-
manity toward fullness of self-realization.

CHAPTER XXI

SOME CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS

In this volume *we have tried to look at the curriculum
problems from the point of view of social needs; and there-
by to develop, in some measure at least, the social point
of view as regards education. In a single volume, one can
present but glimpses of a limited number of the detailed
tasks. Others of similar type stretch out apparently end-
lessly before us. Our profession is confronted with the huge
practical task of defining innumerable specific objectives;
and then of determining the countless pupil-experiences
that must be induced by way of bringing the children to
attain the objectives. We have lacked space for discussion
here of the administrative problems. But let us refer briefly
to a few of them.

The first necessary thing is for our whole educational
profession to acqtiire a social, rather than a merely academic,
point of view. The writer fully appreciates the diflficulties
in the way, as may be illustrated by a personal reference.
Soon after the American occupation of the Philippine Islands,
the writer was a member of a committee of seven appointed
to draw up an elementary-school curriculum for the islands.
The members had all taught or supervised within the islands
for two or three years and were reasonably familiar with
their peculiar conditions. It was a virgin field in which we
were free to recommend almost anything by way of meeting
the needs of the population. We had an opportunity to do
a magnificent and original constructive piece of work.

And what did we do? We assembled upon a table in the
committee-room copies of the American textbooks in read-

SOME CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS 283

ing, arithmetic, geography, United States history, and the
other subjects with which we had been famiHar in American
schools. We also assembled such American courses of study
as we could find; and without being conscious of it, we mo-
bilized our American prejudices and preconceptions as to
what an elementary-school course ought to be. On the basis
of these things we made out a course of study for the tra-
ditional eight elementary-school grades. We provided the
traditional amount of each subject for each grade, distrib-
uted them as in American schools, and recommended Ameri-
can textbooks for the work.

The thing was not adapted to the conditions within the
islands. As a matter of fact, we did not try to adapt it to "
those conditions — though we honestly thought that we were
doing the thing needed. The difficulty was that our minds
ran so completely in the grooves of traditional thought
that we did not reaHze the possibility of anything else. We
greatly needed something to shatter our self-complacency
and bring us to see education in terms of the society that
was to be educated. We needed principles of curriculum-
making. We did not know that we should first determine
objectives from a study of social needs. We supposed that
education consisted only of teaching the familiar subjects.
We had not come to see that it is essentially a process of
unfolding the potential abilities of a population, and in
particularized relation to the social conditions. We had
not learned that studies are means, not ends. We did not
realize that any instrument or experience which is effective
in such unfoldment is the right instrument and right experi-
ence; and that anything which is not effective is wrong,
however time-honored and widely used it may be. Fortu-
nately for the people, the Director of Education was better
able to look at essential realities; he cut the course down to
six grades, unceremoniously threw out irrelevant materials.

284 THE CURRICULUM

and without regard for the time-hallowed sanctities brought
bodily into the course a number of things then far more than
now regarded as superficial and plebeian, such as shop-
work, cooking, sewing, weaving, rug-making, etc. We were
properly horrified.

We needed something that would shake us out of the
grooves and which at the same time was violent enough to
obliterate them, and set thought free. Attention is called
to this personal experience because of a belief that it is an
example of a wide-spread obstructive influence in American
education to-day. A large portion of our profession appears
to need something that will lift them out of the grooves
of routine traditional thinking — or rather out of an imita-
tion that is not thought — and which will so obhterate the
grooves that their minds will be free to think out new prob-
lems. For in the field of the curriculum, the whole world
to-day is presented with a magnificent opportunity for origi-
nal constructive work. The present social debdcle demon-
strates the inadequacy of types of education upon which we
have relied in the past.

Some of the things necessary for the liberation of thought
have been attempted in these chapters. They are written
with the assumption that we must establish fundamental
principles and employ scientific methods in formulating
systems of training. All of the advance in the curriculum
field at present — and there is much in all progressive school
systems — is pioneer, experimental, suggestive. In these
chapters we have tried to formulate some of the curriculum-
thought that is in a state of ferment throughout the field.
There is nothing recommended here but what is actually
being done somewhere and in some measure by practical and
progressive school men and women.

At the present stage of developing courses of training it
is more important that our profession agree upon a method

SOME CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS 285

of curriculum-discovery than that we agree upon the de-
tails of curriculum-content. 'The writer has been chiefly-
interested in this volume in suggesting a method, and fun-
damental points of view. The reader may or may not agree
with the conclusions. That is of little consequence. The
main thing at present is that each find scientific principles -^
and methods of curriculum-formulation which he can him-
self accept; and which will make thought the basis of cur-
riculum-making rather than imitation. Without such prin-
ciples at the present moment, one is like a ship in the wide
seas without chart, compass, or stars.
* Our professional vision must be greatly in advance of our
practice. We shall move forward only step by step with feet
on solid earth; but we must be able to see far beyond our
immediate next steps in order that they be taken in the
right direction. The work of our profession, more than that
of any other, requires foresight and far sight. For this rea-
son, in our discussion of ends and means, we have not looked
merely to what is practicable next year, or even five years
hence. Often we have discussed matters that are to be de-
veloped only through a slow-moving program covering a
long series of years.

A superintendent who recently listened to the suggestions
made in this volume presented this question: "What should
a superintendent actually do by way of improving the cur-
riculum in his schools?"

To begin with, he should accept the situation in his city
as it is. He should look upon it as the normal, and therefore
proper, result of the institutional growth-influences that
have been operative in that city. He should therefore ac-
cept the conditions as right and good in the sense that they
represent a growth-stage, conditions being what they are,
through which the city must pass before it can arrive at its
next normal stage of healthy growth. He should expect the

286 THE CURRICULUM

curriculum to change and grow from year to year, rapidly
or slowly. Naturally he would like to have rapid growth; but
he would have to accept conditions as they are. The only
normal thing is for the growth to continue with a rapidity
that is determined by the conditions within the city. This
would mean in one city rapid growth; in another, slow —
at least until this could be normally accelerated.

Even if given a free hand, he should attempt no abrupt
reorganization of the work, nor any sudden reformulation
of the studies. In other words, he should not attempt to
accelerate the growth beyond that which can be normal and
healthy; and permanent after it is once accomplished. The
details of the work have to be carried out by teachers who
have been trained both in their academic courses and in
their professional experience to certain types of work. He
could expect teachers to assimilate only those suggestions
for improvement which do not mean radical departure from
what they have been accustomed to. But after having taken
these first steps, he could expect them then to be prepared
to go a little farther; and then later, to take other steps in
advance. The readjustments in the teacher's thought and
practice must be gradual. This is true also of school board
and community. They are not prepared for any type of re-
organization that greatly differs from that with which they
are familiar. Like the teachers they can shift only gradually.
'All must be a growth-process. And what is more, the super-
intendent would find that his own ideas were insufficiently
worked out in detail for directing reformulative procedure
which broke in any sudden manner from the old. He would
have to think out innumerable details and try them out in
practice. While this was being done, he would want the
best that has been accumulated in the years past to continue
until he was reasonably certain as to the exact details of the
next steps that are to be taken. If he is to make mistakes, it

SOME CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS 287

is better for him to continue the old mistakes than to in-
vent a new series.

The superintendent will remember that inertia is as much
a factor in the general human economy as dynamic forces;
that the conservation of gains is as important as making
fiu-ther gains. He will be content with neither without the
other.

Along with principals and teachers on the one hand and
school board and community upon the other — for he should
insist not only upon democracy of opportunity, but also of
responsibility — he should look over the work in every sub-
ject within the system, elementary school and high school, in
the attempt to find those places where further growth is
demanded by community needs; especially those where
teachers, school board, and community are prepared to take
the natural next steps of progress; and where they are in a
mood to accept leadership in that direction.

For example, he will find manual activities going on as a
portion of the course. He will try to find the dozen or so
relatively small ways in which the work can be improved;
and he will try to get those relatively small things done. In
locating them, he will consider the educational principles
relative to making work real, making it pleasurable, intellec-
tuaHzing it through mathematics, science, and design; social-
izing the activities by introducing the history, geography,
and economics of the field; the introduction of observational
activities, practical participation, reading for vision and so-
cial appreciations. Making no changes except where there is
a clear guiding principle, moving by short steps, trying out
everything before going far, it is possible to make progress
that is relatively sure in direction and relatively certain to
be permanent. This small amount of progress accomplished,
the stage is set for taking another short step. This step can
lead to a third; and so the process may continue indefinitely.

288 THE CURRICULUM

He will then turn to another subject, history, let us say.
He will find many good results being secured. But he can
find, on the basis of curriculum principles, a dozen ways or
more in which it may in some measure be improved without
confusing the thought or practice of teachers or community.
He doubtless can take some reasonably long steps in advance
provided he can secure the necessary reading materials.

In the same way through making a multitude of little
changes in each subject he can with assurance arrive by
the stages of normal growth and with reasonable speed at
a curriculum that is better adapted to social needs. By
enlisting the active cooperation of all concerned, all can
move forward together.

To keep from getting lost among the innumerable de-
tails of many subjects, distributed over many grades, super-
intendent and staff should cooperatively draw up a con-
cise summary of the curriculum principles to be kept in
mind in connection with each subject. In some of the sub-
jects there should probably be different lists for different
grade levels. These should be printed so that they could be
continually used in checking and rechecking the situation
as regards each subject. They, too, should be subjected
to continual revision.

The superintendent will not try to advance more rapidly
than teachers, school board, and community are prepared
for. He will consider his position to be not educator Jor
the community; but rather only a specialized leader of the
community in its labors of educating its children. In other
words, he will conceive the responsibihty of education to be
not his primarily, but rather one that rests squarely upon the
total community. He is but a specialized helper and leader
in the work. If he goes faster than they can or will go and
leaves them behind, by so doing he abdicates the responsi-
bility that they have delegated to him. As a leader he must

SOME CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS 289

take the community with him; or he is no longer its leader.
If they are backward and slow, his pace must be determined
by their pace; except as he can normally accelerate it. If
they are awake and progressive and eager and able to pro-
ceed rapidly, he must lead in progress of that character.
It is not inconceivable that his task of seeing that work is
substantial and permanent may sometimes require restraint
upon an over-eager community.

He will assume that not all progress is to be made in this
generation; that something is to be left for those that come
after us. And yet, he will attempt all of the progress for
which conditions are ripe, and for which he can without
forcing make them ripe.

INDEX

Aims of education, in general, 3-7,
41-52; vocational, 56-57, 63-70,
71, 87-88, 94-95; civic, 117, 130,
131, 160; moral, 163-64, 166;
health, 173-79, 185, 189-90; rec-
reational, 209, 212, 224-26, 229;
language, 255-56; double-aim of
work-activities, 20; vague aims of
the past, 41; need of specific aims,
43.

Antecedent aspects of work-experi-
ence, in general, 26-33; relation to
extra-mural activities, 39; admin-
istrative aspect, 40.

Apprenticeship training, 24.

Capital and labor, education for mu-
tual understanding, 76-86.

Citizenship training, general, 117-
62; major objective, 117-30;
training for large-group conscious-
ness, 131-62; on play-level, 13; on
work-level, 22, 37; relation of
physical education to, 176; foreign
languages needed for, 262-64.

Civics. See Citizenship training.
Social studies.

Classics, the, 5, 272-81.

Concrete experience. See Shop-
work, Observation, Reading, Prac-
tical activities.

Cooking, introduction of responsi-
bility, 34-35; as general training,
102.

CoSperative part-time work, 21-24,
39^0. 83, 144, 155, 190, 202-04.

Culture advocates vs. utilitarians,
3-7.

Curiosity, as educational motive,
9-11.

Deficiency as symptom of training
need, 44-46, 50-52, 56-57; in occu-
pational matters, 63-70; English,

248^9; foreign languages, 255-
66, 272-73.
Double aim of work-activities in
schools, 20.

English language training, general
discussion, 247-54; motivation of
responsibility, 22-23; assistance
of foreign languages, 272-78. See
Reading, Grammar, Composition,
Literature.

Exercise in relation to function, 212-
13.

Extra-mural activities necessary for
finding responsibility, 20-22; gen-
eral theory, 34-40; occupational,
21-24, 105-08; civic, 149-57; sani-
tational, 185-88, 202-04.

Foreign languages, general discus-
sion, 255-81; utility vs. culture,
5-€; method of discovering pur-
poses, i55-56; needed for occupa-
tional efliciency, 256-62; needed
for citizenship, 262-64; for family
life, 264-66; for leisure occupa-
tions, 266-71; for proficiency in
English, 272-78; for humanisni,
278-81.

French, 271.

Gardening, 34, 35, 102.

Generalist, education of the, 78-
82.

Geography, reading, 12, 231-37;
occupational, 112; for civic pur-
poses, 146-48, 160. ^

Grammar, errors as indices of train-
ing needs, 45-46, 248-49; motiva-
tion of training, 249; general dis-
cussion, 247-54.

Health training, in general, 171-204;
major purpose, 171-79; physical

S94

INDEX

up-building, 180-88; social aspects,
189-204; through responsible ac-
tivities, 22, 37; through play, 8,
15-16, 181-85, 212-13, 219.

History, utility vs. culture, 4-5;
readings, 13, 231; occupational
history, 109-12; for nationalistic
training, 134-41; for international
attitudes, 160-62; of sanitation,
193-201.

Household occupations, on play-
level, 15; on work-level, 21, 34-35;
as general training, 102.

Hygiene. See Health training.

Ideational aspects of work-activity,
26-33, 36, 40, 71-75.

Industrial education. See Occupa-
tional training.

Interest, as motive, 9-10, 17, 20, 195,
208-09, 221-22, 227-29, 267.

Large-group consciousness, the devel-
opment of, 13, 128-30, 131-67.

Latin, 271, 272-78.

Leisure occupations, general discus-
sion, 207-43; function of, 207-26;
8-9; reading as leisure occupation,
227-43; foreign languages as lei-
sure occupation, 266-71.

Levels of educational experience,
two, 3-7.

Liberalizing studies, 3-6, 11-16,
208, 224, 229-31. See Readmg,
History, Science, Leisure occupa-
tions.

Literature, utility vs. culture, 4-5;
as intellectual play, 12, 231, 238-
43; English vs. foreign literatures,
269-70.

Manual training. See Shop-work.
Moral training, in general, 163-67;

relation of physical education to,

174-76; and recreational training,

222-24.
Mother tongue, 247-54, 272-78. ^
Motivation of educational activities,

play or interest motive, 16-17;

work-motive, 18-22.

Municipal consciousness, develop-
ment of, 141-57.

National consciousness, developing,
134-41.

Objectives of training. See Aims of
education.

Observation, in occupational field,
105-08; in civic field, 149-50; in
health training, 190, 191, 202-
04; purposes and place of, 227-
30.

Occupational training, in general,
55-113; objectives, 55-70; tech-
nical training of independent
specialists, 71-75; of group spe-
cialists, 76-86; social aspects, 87-
113; relation of physical training
to, 173-74; relation of recreational
training to, 224-26; foreign lan-
guages concerned in, 256-62.

Participation in responsible activi-
ties. See Practical activities.

Physical training, definition, 180;
general discussion, 180-88; through
play, 15-16, 212-21.

Place of educational experiences, gen-
eral treatment, 34-40; household
occupations, 34-35; gardening, 35;
training of mechanics, 35-36;
health training, 36-37, 185-88;
occupational, 105, 108.

Plasticity as educational objective,
224-25.

Play, educational values, 8-9; func-
tion in human life, 207-26; rela-
tion to work, 18-20.

Play-level of education, defined, 6;
general treatment, 8-17. See Lei-
sure occupations.

Practical activities, recognition of
need, 20-25; occupations, 99-105;
civic, 141-57; health, 181, 185-86.
202, 204.

Project-method, 30-33. See Prac-
tical activities. School credit for
home work.

Psychology of play. 212-24.

INDEX

295

Purposes of education. See Aims of
education.

Reading, historical, 13, 108-12,
134-41, 160-62, 193-94, 231, 237;
geographical, 12, 231-37, 112, 194;
occupational, 92, 108-13; science,
14, 194, 231, 237; literature, 12,
231, 237^3; as substitute for di-
rect experience, 108-09, 132-34,
199-202, 227-43; need of abun-
dance, 238-41, 254, 268, 278.

Recreational training. See Leisure
occupations. Play, Aims of edu-
cation.

Religious training, 166-67.

Responsibility as factor in education,
place of, 19-21, 82, 150, 155, 203;
difficulty of introducing, 23-25.

Sanitation. See Health training.

School and community. See School
credit for home work. Cooperative
part-time work. Practical activi-
ties.

School credit for home work, 21-22,
38-39, 106, 149-50. 185-88, 202-
04.

Schools, places of leisure, 23-25.

Science, utility vs. culture, 4; on
play-level, 13-14,231, 237; "pure"
science, 28, S3; relation to prac-
tical life, 26-33, 71-75; hygiene
and sanitation, 194-95.

Scientific management, 78-86.

Scientific method in curriculum mak-
ing, in general, 41-52; in voca-
tional field, 63-70; in civic field,
117.

Sewing, 34, 102.

Shop-work, on play-level, 15; on
work-level, 20-22, 35-36; range of
activities, 99-105.

Social progress, education as agency
of, 49, 68-70.

Social service aspect of occupations.
55-61, 87-91.

Social studies. See History, Geog-
raphy, Citizenship training. Oc-
cupational training. Health train-
ing.

Social supervision of occupational
world, 87-98.

Social training through play, 8, 16.

Spanish. 262, 271.

Spelling, discovering the objectives,
47, 249; error-lists, 251.

Survey as method of discovering
educational objectives, in general,
42-44; in grammar, 45-46; in
spelling, 47; in occupational field,
47, 68; in agriculture, 48-49.

Technical training, 26-33, 71-86.
Training of group-workers, 76-86.

Vocabulary-building, through foreign
languages, 273-78; reality-method,
241, 250, 274; verbal methods.
240-41, 275.

Vocational education. See Occupa-
tional training.

Work-level of educational experi-
ence, defined, 6; general treat-
ment, 18-33; for high school and
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