VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
BY
JOHN M. GILLETTE
it
PROFHSSOR OP SOCIOLOGY IN THB STATB UNIVERSITY OP NORTH DAKOTA
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY
NEW YORK .-. CINCINNATI .-. CHICAGO
COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY
JOHN M. GILLETTE
Entered at Stationers' Hall, London
Gillette's Vocational Education
W. P. 6
deot.
PREFACE
THE following chapters were outlined in 1905, while I
was teaching history and social science in the State Normal
School of Valley City, North Dakota. The circumstances
occasioning their development may be of interest. Inci-
dental to the work of instruction in history methods, the
task of outlining a series of talks on the subject was under-
taken. In deliberating on the aim of history study it was
discovered that this could be settled only when the object
of education had been determined.
During the time I was seeking to formulate the end of
education, having in mind no educational preconceptions
sufficiently ingrained to act as a limitation to free organize
tion of thoughts about the matter of training, and being
accustomed to view individuals as products and phases of
the age-long historic process, the objective grounds of
education were naturally evolved.
Such principles as this volume espouses were then de-
veloped. Some reorganization and addition of matter have
since been made. While the form which the material
assumes is not entirely satisfactory to me, I feel justified
in issuing the work now. During the past two years it
has been delivered as a regular course of lectures to the
students in the College of Education in the University of
North Dakota, and has elicited their hearty response and
approval.
The essential ideas of this volume have been presented in
Ui
306894
IV PREFACE
talks before educational meetings, from time to time, and
have been favorably received. The manuscript is known
to the chairman and other members of the Committee of
Seven, appointed by the State Educational Association of
North Dakota. It has their approval, and they have
urged its publication. For these reasons, and because
the time is ripe for such a work, I venture to place it before
the public, trusting that the worth may exceed the defects.
The field of education contemplated is that of the elemen-
tary public schools. While the principles of social adjust-
ment might very well govern all grades of educational
effort, and while sometimes, in the course of discussing some
phase of the general subject of training, the higher grades
have been touched on, it must be borne in mind that only the
schools below the secondary schools are explicitly involved.
JOHN M. GILLETTE.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PACE
INTRODUCTION vii
PART I. THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE.
CHAPTER I. THE VOCATIONAL MOVEMENT AND CONCEPT ......... i
I. The movement for socialization ......................... I
II. Vocationalization ...................................... y
CHAPTER II. SOME ACCOMPLISHED RESULTS ................... 14
I. The case of Germany ................................. 15
II. The case of the South ................................ 23
III. Effect on remuneration ............................... 33
CHAPTER III. REACTION ON EDUCATION AND THE SCHOOL ....... 35
I. On education and educators ........................... 35
II. On school attendance ................................. 41
PART II. SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION.
CHAPTER IV. SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL ................... 52
I. The r61e of the social environment ....................... 52
II. Specializing character of society ......................... 63
CHAPTER V. DEMOCRACY AND ITS IMPERATIVES ................. 75
I. The significance of democracy .......................... 78
II. Specific requirements of democracy on education .......... 83
CHAPTER VI. IMPORTANCE or THE ECONOMIC INTEREST IN SOCIETY
AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE FOR EDUCATION ................. 104
I. General sociological significance ......................... 104
II. Importance and intensification of production .............. 109
III. Economics of consumption ............................. 121
v
VI TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER VII. PATHOLOGICAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION ......... 129
I. General causes of social diseases ........................ 133
II. Defective education and social diseases ........... ....... 138
III. The remedy prevention ................................ 146
VIII. THE SOCIAL END OF EDUCATION AND OTHER ENDS. 161
I. Perfection ............................................ 161
II. Discipline ............................................ 166
III. Culture .............................................. 175
CHAPTER IX. STATE EDUCATION AND RELIGION ................. 186
L Religion and morality ................................. 187
IL Present practical difficulties ............................ 191
III. The church responsible for religion ...................... 198
IV. Historical confirmation of separation .................... 202
PART in. METHODS OF SOCIALIZATION.
CHAPTER X. CRITERION OF SOCIALIZATION ..................... 211
CHAPTER XI. SOCIALIZATION OF THE PROGRAMME OF STUDIES. . . . 223
I. The tools of learning .................................. 225
IL Information .................................. /7 ...... 227
III. Moralization .......................................... 235
IV. Utilization ............................................ 239
V. Appreciation .......................................... 246
VI. Articulation of training factors .......................... 247
CHAPTER XII. SOCIALIZATION OF SUBJECTS ..................... 253
L General consideration of criteria and methods ............ 253
II. The socialization of arithmetic ............ ' .............. 255
III. The socialization of history ............................ 262
IV. The socialization of other subjects ....................... 274
CHAPTER XIII. SOME SOCIALIZED PROGRAMMES ................. 289
INDEX ..................................................... 297
INTRODUCTION
w IT is clear that enlightened public opinion is making new
demands upon the teaching profession, and that the lead-
ing spirits in this profession are eagerly looking for the
best wa There is too much waste of life of child and
youth; the real interests of pupils are not discovered, or
they are trampled upon; and the school which might be
the paradise of childhood is often its purgatory.
The writer of these chapters has endeavored to discover
the requirements of the worldj in which we live and has
called upon his fellow teachers to respond to the call. He
makes very much of vocational education; possibly he has
laid relatively too much emphasis on this factor, but he
has at least forced recognition of the moral necessity of
earning an honest dollar. To the gleanings from wide
reading the author has added some results of his own
experiments. As he has written carefully a direct study of
an industrial community in a great city and has also become
acquainted with the moral situation in several sections of
the United States, he has some peculiar qualifications for
his enterprise. A person well trained in psychology and
educational science may prepare an excellent work on the
vii
Vlll INTRODUCTION
fundamental principles of teaching, but one must live widely
also among the people of the country to understand their
particular problems.
There are many propositions in these chapters which
cannot be altogether approved without further and critical
consideration; but the survey is broad, the issues are liv-
ing, and the contact with reality is beyond question.
CHARLES RICHMOND HENDERSON.
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.
PART I
THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
CHAPTER I. THE VOCATIONAL MOVEMENT
AND CONCEPT
I. THE MOVEMENT FOR SOCIALIZATION
Recognition of the need of educational transformation. —
One of the most impressive and unmistakable of the move-
ments which are taking place in America, and which mark
the age as a critical one, is that of educational transforma-
tion. While it is true that we are prone to behold things
which our previous experience prepares and commands us to
see, and while we may be somewhat subject to exaggeration,
even to illusions at times, on this account, yet those who
know what is happening in educational channels will hardly
be able to characterize as an illusion or an exaggeration the
assertion that there is on foot an educational movement
almost amounting to a revolution.
The facts indicating the volume and profundity of the
movement are eloquent witness to the truth of the state-
ment. The files of the United States Educational Reports,
those of the proceedings of the National Education Asso-
ciation, those of the various educational and other periodi-
cals, the daily press, practical experiments conducted by
teachers* training institutions, books on education, and the
economic and industrial spirit of the age, — all alike testify
to and voice the existence of the demand for transformation.
i
2 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
Current writings bearing on the general subjects of waste
in education, and on the existence of useless material con-
tained in our school curricula, are multitudinous, and ex-
press one of the chief phases of educational thought.
Organized educational forces are moving in the direction
of making our school system more practical. Among the
eastern states, Massachusetts and Connecticut have formu-
lated legislation looking toward putting vocational training
into the public school system. New York has legalized in-
dustrial education throughout the commonwealth. Farther
west, the State Educational Association and the legislature
of Illinois are cooperating in providing funds to send a com-
mission abroad to study industrial education, looking toward
working it into the schools of Illinois. Still farther west,
in North Dakota, the State Teachers' Association devoted
almost the entire annual session of 1908 to the consideration
of vocational education, and appointed a Committee of Seven
to work on the problem, how to reconstruct the schools of the
state on more practical lines. The committee presented its
report, outlining and recommending a vocational course of
study for the rural schools of the state, to the Association
of 1909. Its report was adopted and recommended to the
State Department of Public Instruction. Hardly a teachers'
meeting occurs nowadays which does not struggle over the
problem of practical education. Special national industrial
education congresses have been called into existence for its
consideration.
This agitation for reform is not in the nature of a "fad."
It is of too fundamental a character. There are those who
have dubbed this movement for practical education a fad,
insisting that it will pass like others of the "fads and frills"
THE VOCATIONAL MOVEMENT 3
which have got into the schools through agitation and the
efforts of "reformers." But these people as little perceive
the depth and portent of the matter as do those who refer
to present political and economic reforms as phases of
popular emotionalism. In the case of these social reforms,
including the educational movement, the philosophy of
the fundamental interests and organizations of society is
involved; their very purpose and methods are in question;
and the reformers see this too profoundly to be pacified
into quiescence with a few superficial concessions. It is
immaterial to the lasting welfare of humanity whether fads
come in or get out of the schools; but the question of voca-
tional education involves its permanent institutions and
interests.
The place of change in securing progress. — The facts
enumerated in the preceding section indicate that there is a
deep-seated change taking place in the educational organ-
ization. Such a transformation will be welcome or not,
according to our educational ideals, and also accordingly
as we do or do not recognize the service which change
performs in the general scheme of development. Let us
denote this service.
If we were to take a scientific view of the creation of the
world, of life on the earth, and of human society, we should
at once recognize that the celestial systems and bodies, the
geological formations of the earth, the various forms of
plant and animal life, and the multitude of social institu-
tions or organizations, have not always been as they are,
but have developed into their present shapes and order out
of preceding different ones. The astronomers, geologists,
botanists, zoologists, psychologists, sociologists, as scien-
4 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
tists, each in his sphere, try to trace the series of developing
forms and systems, from the simplest up to the most com-
plex. To do this is to get their history, to learn their true
nature through their origin, and thus to come to understand
them.
All this study might be done out of curiosity and wonder,
just to satisfy a desire for knowledge. But it goes farther
than that. It gives an understanding of the nature of the
whole process of development. We see that there has been
a real evolution; that things have grown not only bigger
but better. Brain development has brought intelligence
and wisdom. Perfected eyes have secured distant, minute,
and easily adapted vision. Developed industry, inventions,
education, government, and so on, have brought wealth and
happiness to mankind.
Now, when it is seen that none of these greater benefits
could have come to us without change, without transforming
the old into the new, we are able to appreciate the service
and sometime desirability of change. Evidently it is appro-
priate that we do not ruthlessly oppose movements which
possibly may alter our educational system. We should not
welcome changes just because they are changes, but should
stand ready to welcome those which promise benefits, and
ready to study and to understand them.
Causes of changing educational perceptions. — The
movement for educational reform has arisen out of several
perceptions. One of these is derived from investigations
into school attendance and the interest of the pupils of
elementary grades. It is found throughout the country that
after the fourth or fifth grade, there is a rapid passing out
of school. A minority of the children are left to complete
THE VOCATIONAL MOVEMENT 5
the eighth grade. Upon a search for the cause of this large
departure it is found in the feeling of both parents and chil-
dren that the schools do not give the training that is needed.
Conspicuously, the boys lack interest in the academic train-
ing alone. Investigations in various cities, and the recent
one made by the Massachusetts Commission on Industrial
and Technical Education, amply bear this out.
Another perception comes from the growing sense of
the importance of the economic factor in life, and of the
need of training for it. A great many influences have con-
spired to make the economic relatively more important than
other phases of life. The comparative exhaustion of the
supply of free public land, the growth of cities with their
economic problems, the increasing dominance of industry
and commerce, a knowledge of the significance of voca-
tional education in the development of Germany, the
international competition for the markets of the world,
with the obvious necessity for improved production at
home, and an altogether better grasp by the public of the
relation of economic conditions to society generally, are some
of the important ones. The natural effect on education of
this accumulating stress is to strengthen the belief in indus-
trial and vocational training, all along the line.
Still another perception has come as a result of better
knowledge of the individual in relation to organized
society. The social sciences have thrown light on the
individual, in view of his social origin, nature and destiny.
He is seen to be a social animal, preeminently; and a mere
individualistic pedagogy, and a system of education which
seeks to train the child as if he were "going it alone"
through life without regard to his fellows and to the organ-
6 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
ized social world of which he has to make use, are found to
be inadequate.
When biological science has so long recognized the im-
portance of the social environment in the genesis of the
individual, as may be seen by inspecting literature on sex-
relation, struggle for existence, rivalry, community life,
gregariousness, division of labor, protective resemblance,
mimicry, etc., which plentifully exists on these subjects,
it is time that educational philosophy should incorporate
into itself material which is demanded not only to make
it truly scientific but also to make it thoroughly effective.
Subtract the social matter from biology, and there is left
an emasculated collection of data, which alone could not
account for the genesis and nature of animal life. The
psychology taught in our colleges and normal schools
is almost wholly emasculated of the needed and legiti-
mate social content and social context. One of the most
needed reforms in the professional training of teachers
is the adoption of certain phases of the social sciences,
especially social psychology and sociology, into the training
courses.
Meaning of socialization. — By socialization, in general,
is meant the process by which an individual or institution is
brought into conformity and cooperation with human society
in its dominant interests and fundamental nature. The
socialization of the individual is perhaps best exemplified
in the development of the child under the influence of the
home. By imitation and assimilation in the hourly contact
with parents, brothers, and sisters, he follows the example
set; realizes in himself the copies exhibited; drinks in the
spirit and ideals of the home; and consequently develops
THE VOCATIONAL MOVEMENT 7
into almost exactly the same sort of person as are the
elders. His average, his type, is that of the particular home
in which he is reared.
Where home life is preserved, each home is a type
somewhat different in its outlook and practices from sur-
rounding homes. Were there not a continuous expanding,
socializing process in the give-and-take of the neighbor-
hood and of the larger community life, the type of
social beings produced by the various homes would be
so diverse that, in case the individuals met outside the
homes without this previous preparation, they must almost
necessarily come into conflict, because of differing ideas and
habits.
It is by means of this socializing of the child through
larger and larger areas or circles of the organized life of
society, that individuals become like the preceding genera-
tion of men, and carry on the essential things of common
life. It is also by this that society continues. It is funda-
mentally important for both the individual and society.
Taking over this thought for education, the socialization
of education would consist in bringing the schools of a
given society into essential accord with its fundamental
spirit, interests, and organization. Since education itself
is a social institution, it is susceptible of voluntary and
immediate control on the part of society. The socializa-
tion of the individual must take place by a slow process
of development. But education, as social organization, can
be investigated and studied with reference to society; and
if it is found to be out of harmony with the deepest interests
and needs of the times, it can be somewhat abruptly reor-
ganized and readjusted to the demands.
8 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
II. VOCATIONALIZATION
Meaning of vocational education. — Vocational education
is a phrase which is rapidly coming into use. It is conse-
quently desirable that its signification shall be made plain.
The phrase is a later one than "industrial education,"
which was used almost exclusively in the beginning of the
movement to reorganize education on practical lines. Per-
haps it is still the dominant expression, and probably
the mass of people use it to describe the movement in
question. But a little reflection will be sufficient to prove
that "industrial education" is too narrow to express all
that is contemplated by this agitation and movement to
socialize schools. The phrase "vocational education" is
broad enough in meaning to cover all the training courses
which are needed to meet the practical demands of life.
It will be demonstrated in another place that vocational
education is the logical demand of organized society. This,
it will be shown, is true, because society is an organization
of special structures. These structures arose out of voca-
tional activities. In order to operate successfully through
society we must be made able to use these structures by a
mastery of their technique. But to come into possession
of this technique, is to be vocationalized. To learn a
trade, an occupation, or a profession, is to become possessed
of a technique belonging to a specialized social structure
or division of labor. To train for this elaborately, is to be
broadly vocationalized. To train for it meagerly, is to
be narrowly vocationalized.
To socialize education completely, would be to vocation-
alize it. To vocationalize it, would be so to reconstruct it
THE VOCATIONAL MOVEMENT 9
and to readjust it that it would harmonize with the exact
constitution of society. But society is an organization
of vocational structures. It is highly specialized. Educa-
tion, then, must be as specialized as society. It must be
vocational, because society demands specialized members
to serve it successfully.
Vocational education also has regard to the constitution,
inclination, or ability of the individual to be trained. It
recognizes that there are fitnesses and aptitudes in life; that
not all persons can do one thing equally well. In voca-
tionalizing the schools, therefore, it is contemplated that
ultimately every one will be able to find suitable training
for his niche in life. Certainly if the child is worth edu-
cating, in himself and for human society, one of the greatest
problems is to find where he can make the most of himself,
and in what line he can prove himself most productive to
society.
Society is already establishing agencies for ascertaining
what the young human is most fitted to do in life. I have
thought for many years that, with all our boasted science,
we should be able to use laboratory methods in examining
the child, in order to locate his inclinations, aptitudes, and
qualifications. During the past two years this idea has
been put in practice. By means of an endowment for the
purpose, the late Frank Parsons established and conducted a
vocational bureau in Boston. His account of its work is one
of the most interesting and suggestive narratives in recent
times. (See his account in the Arena, August and Sep-
tember, 1908.) Similar bureaus are being used in England.
Vocational education, moreover, views the individual as a
member of the larger social order. While it insists that
10 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
he shall be vocationalized, it as emphatically insists that he
shall be essentially cultured, and fundamentally moral-
ized. To be essentially cultured is, for him, to have the
information about himself, nature, and society, which is
most immediate to his wants and safety. This is far differ-
ent from culture as a preparation for polite society. To be
fundamentally moralized, is to have instilled the habits,
reactions, and outlook of good citizenship. Good citizen-
ship consists in viewing conduct as related to social welfare,
and as measured by it. To train for this, is broadly dis-
tinct from training into formal and traditional morals.
Vocationalization as the dominant educational end. —
Thus vocational education is a practical and direct con-
ception of the method of making young human beings fit
for life.
As an end of education it is both an end or conception of
training among other ends, and a dominant end to which
all other ends are subordinate and contributive. Probably,
so far, the great majority of educators think of it in the
former light, as one among other ends. They recognize
that education is preparation for life. It is a process of
getting the various factors ingrained which the children,
become adults, will need. Thus, they would say, to be fit
to live, the child must have the skill of reading, writing, and
arithmetic, he must have culture, such as is given in history,
literature, geography, etc., he must have some moral train-
ing, probably connected with religion in most minds, and
he must have a trade. In their minds it is a matter of
simple addition. Add all the elements together and you
have the school programme or course of study constituted.
An educational schedule is made by externally juxtaposing
THE VOCATIONAL MOVEMENT II
so many elements demanded by so many ends. But in a
chemical combination the elements come together in definite
proportions. Moreover a certain temperature is required
that they may be organically fused. So in education this
fusing process must take place.
In my view vocational education is the only logical and
legitimate training. I justify this statement by my social
philosophy. This position is demanded by the scientific
conception of human society. There is not the individual
and society, but the individual as a social product and
in view of society. If the very constitution of this social
world which environs him demands that the individual
shall be specialized in terms of its nature, which in my
estimation is the case, then the specializing of the child
to meet the terms society imposes is the dominant thing.
This is the great goal of education. All the phases or
elements of education must be organized about vocation
as the central thought and with a view to a particular
kind of life. The cultural element must be selected with
the vocation in mind, and must be focused on it. The
reading and arithmetic, in their subject-matter, should be
made contributive in a large measure to this future position
in the world. And even certain phases of moral ization
might be gained from it.
It is the thought of his place in society that governs the
educational factors, their relation to each other, and that
fuses them into an organization. Thus no subordinate
end or purpose should intrude, and set itself up as the chief
object of education, in defiance of all the demands which
organized life is going to make on the child, as has been the
case so generally in the past. A principle would always
12 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
be present as a test and criterion of what to put into the
course of study, and as a measure of how much.
"Vocational" and "industrial" education. — As has
already been remarked, there are two terms in use which
express the practical kind of education. It may be worth
while to indicate why industrial training is not broad enough
to cover the demands of education in America.
First, the public school system, in its various stages,
should be made expansive enough to represent all essential
lines of social activity. Evidently there are callings and
occupations which are not industrial. The right of teachers,
lawyers, doctors, farmers, and merchants, for example, to
have a fitting for their spheres of work, is indisputable.
Merely to put industrial training into the schools would
not be sufficient to answer all the demands of adjustment.
Only a fraction of our population is strictly industrial. If
the school system is to be transformed so as to recognize the
needs of all lines of life, it must be vocationalized, rather
than industrialized. We want the great agricultural, com-
mercial, and professional populations of our non-industrial
regions represented in the transformation.
Second, the form which is taken by the introduction of the
vocational factor into the schools is important to consider.
In the older and more industrialized portions of our nation,
the movement, so far, has chiefly consisted in preparing
to establish, and in establishing, separate institutions or
schools in which the vocational training is to be given. This
has been the case notably in Massachusetts and in New
York. Communities and neighborhoods may create special
schools for industrial training.
Now, however fit this method is for such communities, — •
THE VOCATIONAL MOVEMENT 13
and I believe there are signs that it will be abandoned in the
smaller and simpler communities, — to very large areas of
our country it is not appropriate. It is an unnecessary and
wasteful method of attacking the problem of adjustment.
It is wasteful because in order to do the work it founds a
series of new plants which are quite likely to drive the
former plants out of existence. At any rate, it requires the
expense of creating and maintaining two sets of plants,
whereas one set might suffice.
It is unnecessary in most cases, because our present
schools may be readjusted in what they teach and do,
so as to furnish the vocational — the practical — training
desired, while at the same time they preserve the informa-
tional, the cultural, and the disciplinary features which they
possess. It seems much better, and much more economical,
to conserve the unity of our school system while we introduce
the needed diversity. The gradual transformation of our
present institutions should recommend itself to our Ameri-
can educators.
CHAPTER II. SOME ACCOMPLISHED RESULTS OF
PRACTICAL EDUCATION
EVERY movement that bids for public approval must do so
by means of results. These results may be those which
have already been obtained. In this case their enumera-
tion and exposition are all the normal and unprejudiced
mind will demand, in order to be convinced of the efficacy
and worthiness of the movement in question. In the early
days of a transforming process, as in the childhood or youth
of a man, the effects and results are necessarily limited and
prophetic. Yet there are many lines of social effort we
approve merely because the principles they embody are full
of promise. We believe in them just as heartily as if they
had matured in fruitful results.
In the case of the educational renaissance, which now
sets forward so impetuously, we have certain results which
have been wrought out in the case of communities which
have proceeded farthest in the direction of educational
readjustment. While the business of this work is to state
principles, demands, and methods, chiefly, and thus to
furnish the grounds on which hopes of success may reason-
ably rest, it may not be amiss to indicate some actual
results gained by schools conducted on more practical
lines; and to point out others which might be presumed
to follow upon the reorganization of our educational system
14
RESULTS OF PRACTICAL EDUCATION 15
in general. Not all the valuable results are noted here.
Others which are quite as valuable will become apparent in
subsequent chapters.
I. THE CASE OF GERMANY
Perhaps the greatest object lesson in the direction of
vocationalizing the schools for the masses exists in Germany.
It is worth while to consider what has been done there in
that respect, to note leading opinion as to its effect, and its
consequent reaction on other nations.
Vocational education in Germany. — Germany is poor
in resources, as compared with the United States, yet she
has put herself in the forefront of the nations by concentrat-
ing on those she possesses in an intelligent manner.
"Well established politically, Germany began to apply her
centralized power to the development of industry. This
expressed itself in many ways; in protective tariffs, bounties
and subsidies, but in no way with more energy than in
industrial education, which was pursued with the inherited
characteristic of thoroughness to which we have called
attention. Students of industry became the advisers of the
government; the scientists in the laboratories of the univer-
sities gave their services to agriculture and manufacturing;
geographers and travelers studied with minuteness the
physical characteristics of foreign countries; trade schools
were established for the development of skilled factory labor
and schools of commerce for the training of salesmen.
Every resource of a paternalistic government was brought
to bear to create efficiency, — efficiency in producing and
efficiency in selling." (Person, Industrial Education, pp. 7, 8.)
As an illustration of how Germany is bending its energy
l6 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
and wisdom to develop vocational education, Prof. Paul H,
Hanus's report on what just one city is doing is quoted :
"Since 1900 the city of Munich has gradually been trans-
forming its 'continuation schools' for elementary-school
graduates (corresponding to our grammar-school graduates)
into elementary technical schools for apprentices in the
trades and in business. The city now maintains thirty-
eight different kinds of these schools, as follows: In 1900
were opened schools for butchers, bakers, shoemakers,
chimney-sweeps and barbers; in 1901, for wood-turners,
glaziers, gardeners, confectioners, wagon-makers, and black-
smiths, tailors, photographers, interior decorators, painters'
materials; in 1902, for hotel and restaurant waiters, coach-
men, painters and paperhangers, bookbinders, potters, and
stove-setters, watch makers and clock makers, and jewelers,
goldsmiths and silversmiths; in 1903, for foundrymen,
pewterers, coppersmiths, tinsmiths, and plumbers, stucco
workers and marble cutters, wood carvers, 'Schaffler,' sad-
dlers and leather workers; and in 1905, for business appren-
tices, printers and typesetters, lithographers and engravers,
building-iron and ornamental-iron-workers, machine mak-
ers, mechanics, cabinet-makers, masons and stone cutters,
carpenters."
These are the chief industries of the city save that of
beer, for the manufacture of which only higher instruction
is given. A great many of these schools are not evening
schools. "As continuation-school education is compul-
sory for three, sometimes four, years in Bavaria for all
elementary-school graduates, the law requires employers to
give their employes the necessary time — six to ten hours
per week, depending on the school — to attend the continu-
RESULTS OF PRACTICAL EDUCATION 17
ation school" for the trade or business in view. ("Tech-
nical Continuation Schools of Munich," School Review,
Vol. 13, p. 678.)
Other illustrations may be seen in the case of Saxony, a
diminutive state, which supports about 115 technical insti-
tutes; in that of Baden, which, with 1,600,000 people,
spends $280,000 yearly on technical schools; in that of
Hesse, which, with 1,000,000 people, supports 83 schools of
design, 43 of manufacturing industries, and many others
for artisans of various trades. Prussia alone has over 3,000
industrial, trade, commercial, and agricultural schools with
an attendance of over 200,000 students. In the city of
Berlin there are over 40,000 students in supplementary
trade, industrial, and commercial schools.
Germany has also recognized that the woman toiler, as
the product of social and economic conditions, should be
trained in accordance with these demands. Mr. Meyer, the
United States deputy consul at Chemnitz, reports the pro-
visions for training women. Private commercial schools
for women founded in 1860 were soon followed by broader
industrial schools known as the Lette-Verein. In these
may be obtained knowledge of photography, and such
callings as machine sewing, tailoring, linen sewing, milli-
nery, washing, ironing, cooking, nursing, serving, domestic
economy, embroidery, ornamental drawing, etc.
Other schools and industrial organizations followed in
the wake of the great success of the former. Saxony, the
greatest seat of German industry, employing the greatest
percentage of women in proportion to population, had twenty-
four special trade schools and fourteen general industrial
schools for girls in 1899. Schools of domestic science, to
l8 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
train for cooking and home duties, were also founded to
check the tremendous tide of young women toward the
workshops and factories; and their remarkably rapid
growth attests their success.
It is interesting to notice the way American business
and educational conditions are regarded by the Germans.
The German investigators who attended the St. Louis
Fair spoke "warmly of our natural resources, of our mechan-
ical skill and progressive spirit. But 'they conclude that
on the whole the American danger has been greatly exag-
gerated, and that a steadfast adherence by Germany to
the educational system and commercial methods now in
practice will leave the Fatherland little to fear in future
competition with American manufactured goods.'" These
critics "find us too self-satisfied, for one thing. We send
trade agents abroad without preparation and without even
knowing the languages they should use. Our higher schools
turn out a few expert chemists, dyers and engineers. Our
'commercial colleges,' with their three months' courses,
seem to the German visitors ' little better than a farce ' as a
substitute for a thorough business training. High wages,
high express charges and the general heavy cost of handling
business are other things held to be unfavorable to us in
competition." "It is national foolishness to imagine that
an American can pick up in a few weeks at work the knowl-
edge his German rival has taken ten years to learn by well-
directed study; or that a community overstocked with
doctors and lawyers and understocked with trained captains
of industry is well prepared to battle for world commerce."
(The Weekly World, New York, March 16, 1905; Hailmann,
German Views of American Education, p. 22.)
RESULTS OF PRACTICAL EDUCATION 19
Leading opinions about Germany's advance. — There is
now almost uniform agreement that Germany's great
industrial and commercial development has been produced
by that nation's systematic and wholesale encouragement
and establishment of technical and commercial schools.
Said President E. J. James a few years ago in an address
at St. Louis:
"Other countries have not neglected this field so entirely
as the United States. Few phenomena in the field of
national and international trade have been more striking
than the relatively rapid growth of Germany in the field of
industry and commerce in the last thirty years. It is the
opinion of all careful students of German history during
the last generation that this result is to be attributed, more
than anything else, to the clear perception on the part of
the Germans that only the efficient and thoroughgoing
education, general and special, of all classes in the com-
munity would enable it to overcome the serious disadvan-
tages which distinguished its position as compared with that
of England, for example."
Ernest L. Harris, United States Commercial Agent to
Eibenstock, Germany, wrote in 1903: "Ten years' resi-
dence and study in Germany has led me to the belief that
this Empire's greatest capital is its intelligence. A process
of rigid training has not only enabled Germany to overcome
the disadvantages of her geographical position, but the
merchants and manufacturers of England find themselves
face to face with the fact that German commerce has much
more rapidly increased than their own, and that many
markets in different parts of the world are being lost to
their German competitors.
20 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
"One result of the neglect of commercial education in
England is the inability of English commercial travelers
and agents properly to represent the trade interests of their
country. As a rule, these vital interests are in the hands
of foreigners, who have received special commercial training
in some of the many excellent commercial schools on the
continent. It would be difficult to estimate how many
young Germans are managing the correspondence in large
English business houses. The advent of Germany upon
the scene, as one of^ier keenest competitors, has caused
some anxiety in England, and the cause which has brought
about this result is now generally and correctly conceded
to be the superior technical and commercial training
accorded to the German youth." (U. S. Education Report,
1903, p. 654.)
Referring to the marvelous expansion of German trade
the London Daily Mail of June 22, 1903, said: "It is, of
course, impossible to locate with certainty the actual effects
of any given cause, but there can be but little doubt that the
growth of many immense industries is traceable to the sys-
tem of education that has directed all the available powers
of scientific knowledge and research upon industrial prob-
lems." (U. S. Education Report, 1903, p. 633.)
Similarly, Lord Rosebery recognized German superior-
ity, and acknowledged its cause to be special training, when
he addressed the London County Council, submitting a plan
and offering a liberal contribution for a technical university
which he urged that body to establish.
Says Howard, "In studying the educational methods and
systems of Germany, therefore, we are dealing with one
of the most fundamental causes of her recent industrial
RESULTS OF PRACTICAL EDUCATION 21
progress. There is no doubt that it is his splendid indus-
trial training which has enabled the German to overcome
many obstacles in reaching his present industrial position;
and to cope with the difficulties which other peoples have
not had to meet; i.e. 'widespread poverty/ poor soil, and
conservatism on the part of the people." (Howard, Recent
Industrial Progress of Germany, p. 96.)
England's educational response. — England's movement
towards establishing universities of a new type bespeaks
her consciousness of the real problem confronting her.
Civic universities in Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool,
Sheffield, and Leeds have been established within the last
six years, and that of London has been reorganized and put
on a working basis. Says Douglas Hall: "To the Briton
of the future the early years of the twentieth century will be
significant, not for the Boer wars or the fiscal campaigns
which absorbed public attention in their day, but for the
unobtrusive coming into being of these five great new
centers of light and leading. The movement testifies to the
revival of interest in educational matters apparent on all
sides in England. America's commercial invasion, Ger-
many's utilization of science in industry, Japan's new birth
through education, have led to much searching of heart in
Britain, and to a conviction that the educational system
must be thoroughly overhauled. Hence the present fierce
controversy over the elementary school provisions of the
new Education Bill, the commissions of inquiry into second-
ary schools, and, finally, the doubling of the nation's univer-
sity facilities at a stroke." (The Outlook, New York, Vol. 83,
p. 979.)
"Not only are these universities strongly technological,
22 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
but they each and all lay stress on the branches of science
of most useful local application. Leeds is the center of
England's textile industry, and accordingly we find in its
university a School of Textile Industries and a School of
Dyeing and Color Chemistry, which are doing excellent
work. Had such a faculty as the latter been established
twenty years ago, England would not now be galled by the
spectacle of her one time supremacy in the chemical and
coloring industries wrested from her by researchful Germany.
At Sheffield, appropriately, the Schools of Metallurgy and
Mining are predominant. Liverpool, perhaps, is most
famous for its School of Tropical Medicine, under Major
Ronald Ross, famous for his discovery of the connection
between the mosquito and malaria." This is because a
founder works the coast of Africa, a region where tropical
sanitation is needed. " The departments of marine biology
and fisheries, of electrotechnics and physical chemistry,
are also specially strong here. In Birmingham metallurgy
and mining are prominent, and in Manchester much
excellent research work has been done in chemistry and
physics and their application to the Cotton City's indus-
tries." (The Outlook, New York, Vol. 83, pp. 983-4.)
The Japanese. — It would be interesting to learn what
the Japanese are doing. It is pretty certain that those
astute students and enterprisers are not letting lessons
from the educational field escape them. Having referred
to the effect of industrial education on Germany's advance,
Person remarks: "The same may be said of the Japanese.
Their development has been not less remarkable, and is to
be attributed not less to technical education. For some
years the Japanese have been sending young men abroad to
RESULTS OF PRACTICAL EDUCATION 23
secure training in the military, naval, and industrial arts.
We have just witnessed the remarkable results of such
training for war; the results of the similar training for
industry are not forced by circumstances into so high a
light, but they are no less significant " (p. 28).
II. THE CASE OF THE SOUTH
The race problem. — In taking up a consideration of
the South several interesting points appear. One is the
recognition by the newer leadership in the South of the
real causes which brought on the Civil War and created
the difference in advancement between that section of
the Union and the North. Another is the recognition of the
need of coupling the education of the region on to the
economic interests, in order that the region may recover
its place of industrial equality with the North and the rest
of the civilized world. Still another is the bearing indus-
trial training promises to have on the future of the black
race in its relation to the white race and to the rest of the
nation.
On this last point it may be said that industrial training
holds out more promise, in the way of establishing cordial
and sympathetic connections between the two races in the
South, than anything else. From a very careful study of
the "race problem," I am firmly convinced that such a
settlement as social equality is out of the question, since
social equality means the right to intermarry under social
approval, — a suggestion that brings a protest from all
quarters. Political equality seems almost as far removed.
At least it is conditioned on attainments along some other
lines.
24 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
But there is an economic equality which is readily granted
by the whites and which causes little or no friction. Blacks
and whites meet and do business without friction, each
race being accorded its place and rights. Both races line
up at the Post Office for the delivery of the mail, or take their
turn shopping at counters, in peace and order. It is only
in connections where the question of ascendency of race
obtrudes that trouble arises. If the mass of negroes could
be made valuable economic factors, intelligently efficient
by industrial training, theyjsvould find economic recogni-
tion. On this basis, which must come before all else,
political equality might be insured.
The backwardness of the South. — It is commonly under-
stood that the South is exceedingly backward in point of
industrial, commercial, and educational conditions as com-
pared with the North. A trip through that portion of
the country will convince anyone that agriculture is almost
a generation behind agriculture in the North, and that
manufacture and commerce lag. Also a cursory or careful
examination of the diagrams of the amount of various
manufactured products turned out by states, to be found
in the United States Census Report of 1900, will demonr
strate the leadership of the North.
Of course this backwardness of the South is due to the
previous existence of slavery. History has shown that the
economic system built up in the South, on the basis of
slave labor, determined its political, religious, and educa-
tional institutions.* Slave labor, because of the low order
of intelligence and specialization with respect to skilled
* J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States, Vol. I, Chap. 4; Coman, In-
dustrial Hist, of the U. S., p. 246; Bogart, Economic Hist, of the U. S., p. 430.
RESULTS OF PRACTICAL EDUCATION 25
employment, was fit only for the lower order of industrial-
ism, — the agricultural stage. But slave labor, suddenly
become free, was as backward in skill and intelligence as
previously, and much less likely to lead a strenuous life of
industry. Consequently the South has remained an agricul-
tural region, with an unintelligent and shifty labor supply,
and its other institutions have remained largely undeveloped.
Education and Industrialization the remedies. — The
leading spirits of the southern states recognize the difference
existing between the two sections, understand the nature
of the causes which have led to southern stagnation, and
consequently are able to prescribe the remedy for the evils.
The traveler in the southern states in conversation with
prominent and intelligent farmers, merchants, manufac-
turers, educators, and professional men, soon discovers
that educational reform is held to be the panacea and
regenerator. More education, better education, and, espe-
cially, industrial education, is demanded. A few typical
expressions of this sentiment will be given by way of illus-
tration.
"The long and bitter struggle between the North and the
South, although waged apparently in courts of justice and
halls of Congress, in pulpits and dining rooms, on decks of
ships and fields of battle, was not political, nor legal, nor
social, nor military, but educational and industrial. It was
a struggle between the educated Yankee mechanic, astride
the steam engine, and the educated southern planter, car-
rying on his shoulders the negro slave. . . . There was
no need of Gettysburg or Appomattox. The contest had
already been settled by mills and factories, the railways
and steamships, the power looms and spinning jennies,
26 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
the reaper, binders, threshers, and other machinery of a
people leading the world in mechanical invention, in use
of machinery, in industrial progress, and in public educa-
tion. . . .
"The South is now in touch with the world. She is ed-
ucating her own. children and the children of the recent
slaves. . . . The problem is not political but purely in-
dustrial." With respect to that of the negro it is that of
existence. " For this generation and many yet to come, there
is need of radical change in negro education. His colleges
of law, of medicine, of theology, and of literature, science,
and art should be turned into schools for industrial training.
Hampton Institute and Tuskegee should be duplicated in
every southern state — if possible in each congressional
district."
And concerning the whites: "The necessity of industrial
education is almost as great for southern whites as for the
negro. The industrial life of the New South must be based
on education. The education of the New South must lead
to industrial life. The southern schoolboy dream of states-
manship must yield to desire for workmanship. . . . The
weavers of Asia are still using hand power. When they rise
to steam and power looms the South must move up further
or else be ruined. Industrial education is our only hope."
("Industrial Education in the New South," George T.
Winston, President of the North Carolina College of
Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, U. S. Education Report,
1903, Vol. I, p. 509.)
"Having made provision for the elementary education
of the people on this broad plan, we may wisely turn our
attention to the technical education. . . . The acquisition
RESULTS OF PRACTICAL EDUCATION 27
of wealth must precede the cultivation of science. Tech-
nical skill is needed to utilize the raw material to the best
advantage. The time comes, however, in the history of
every nation when it must educate its people in science
and train them in manufactures and industries or it will go
down. This higher scientific education is the forerunner
of higher prosperity, and the nation which fails to develop
the intellectual faculty for production must degenerate, for
it cannot stand still." ("Education and Production,"
Charles W. Dabney, President of the University of Tennes-
see, U. S. Education Report, 1903, p. 513.)
"It seems to me that for many years to come the educa-
tion of the negro should be of a very practical character,
such as given, for instance, at Hampton and Tuskegee. The
prevalence and increase of crime throughout our country
may well cause us to suspect that our system of education
for the white people might also be improved by introducing
more of the practical and industrial into our public schools."
("Negro Education in the South," Julius D. Dreher,
President Roanoke College, U. S. Education Report, 1903,
P- 523-)
Mrs. May Wood Simons writes, that there are three
industrial or economic changes in the South which have a
bearing on education. First, a growth in the cotton industry,
from 1 80 factories in 1880 to 663 in 1900, which chiefly make
coarser goods but are turning to finer grades for which
skilled labor is demanded. Hence the birth of textile
schools in that section. Second, the development of the
iron industry with consequent demand for schools of mining
and of engineering. Third, the growing consciousness of
the need of better and more scientific methods of farming,
28 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
with consequent establishment of and demand for agricul-
tural schools.
She indicates thus the sentiment in the South for indus-
trial training: "To state that its importance is recognized
is to describe the c6ndition mildly. It is the demand of
the hour. Unique conditions have met in the South.
Passing suddenly from the eighteenth century social organi-
zation to modern industrial life, the problem arose of fitting
her people to utilize her raw products. . . . The attitude of
the southern public may be thus summed up, that it desires
to give men industrial training that they may become more
profitable economic producers, and thus increase the wealth
of that section of country." ("Education in the South,"
Amer. Jour. Sociology, Nov., 1904.)
View of Booker T. Washington on negro problem. — No
doubt among the most valuable, if not the most valuable,
opinions on the proper training of the negroes are those
of the eminent educators of that race, since they have more
intimate knowledge and experience of the race difficulties,
a warmer sympathy with the feelings and ambitions of the
race, and a more certain instinct and apprehension of the
agencies and remedies by which race progress is to come.
Mr. Booker T. Washington, as a conspicuous example,
looks to the practical and economic basis of education,
believing the negroes will succeed best by making themselves
useful in the various lines of economic service which the
South demands. He would, first of all, train for industrial
competency, believing that this will bring desired levels of
progress. " At Tuskegee," he says, " we emphasize two lines
of work: first, normal teaching; second, industrial training.
By the latter we purpose to send out young men and
RESULTS OF PRACTICAL EDUCATION 2p
women skilled in all these lines of industrial, agricultural,
and domestic science and in the mechanic arts. We do
not do this without a purpose, nor without thinking. We
do it because we have studied the conditions of the ten
million, in round numbers', of our people in the country.
Unless this generation can be wise enough and brave enough,
can be strong enough to put intelligent brains into these
occupations, and thus lay the foundation deeply for the
generations that are to come, it is impossible that we have
a successful race in this country. Without the courage and
patience necessary to the laying of this foundation, we shall
find ourselves in the same condition as the unfortunate
people of the three countries of which I have spoken." *
In an article entitled by him, "The Negro in the New
Century," Mr. Washington wrote: "In the present condi-
tion of the race it is most important that, whether we give
the negro youth classical education, common school e<f ucation
or industrial education, in some way we urge a large pro-
portion of these individuals to bring to bear the force, the
power of their education upon the common everyday, funda-
mental occupations that are at the door of each man in the
community where he lives.
"There is no longer any question as to the ability of the
negro to absorb knowledge or to perform all the processes of
mental gymnastics that the white man performs, but the main
problem is to teach him to apply his mental equipment, to
harness it to the material things at his door that need to be
done. If the negro student is to reside in an agricultural
district, teach him to excel in all forms of agriculture. If
* From a Sunday Evening Talk to Tuskegce students.
30 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
mechanics is the main industry in his community, teach him
that. If poultry-raising is in demand in the neighborhood in
which the negro girl resides, teach her to raise poultry in an
intelligent, scientific manner. In doing this you may miss
giving her a classical education, but you will help lay the
foundation so that her children and grandchildren can secure
what the world calls the highest mental culture. . . .
" We must keep in mind — and this is the lesson that we con-
stantly emphasize at Tuskegee — that thrift, economy, skill,
property, intelligence, and Christian character are the funda-
mental things for the race to secure. In a large degree the
negro is of an agricultural race, and we should seek through
education to teach him to remain on the farm. We can do
this by teaching him to put skill, brains, and science into
agricultural pursuits."
Visible results of industrial and moral training. — In
so far as vocational education, along with proper moral
influence, has obtained in the South, the results are most
gratifying and indicate larger beneficent consequences in
future. There is no thought of slighting or disparaging the
other parent schools of a vocational nature in this large
reference to Tuskegee. What it is doing may be taken as
typical of the work of Hampton and others.
In an able address at the Hampton Institute meeting in
New York, reported by the Tribune, Mr. Washington said:
" Not a single graduate of the Hampton Institute or of the
Tuskegee Institute can be found to-day in any jail or state
penitentiary. After making careful inquiry, I cannot find a
half dozen cases of a man or woman who has completed a full
course of education in any of our reputable institutions like
RESULTS OF PRACTICAL EDUCATION 31
Hampton, Tuskegee, Fish, or Atlanta who are in prisons.
The records of the South show that 90 per cent of the colored
people in prison are without knowledge of trades and 61
per cent are illiterate. This statement alone disproves the
assertion that the negro grows in crime as education increases.
If the negro at the North is more criminal than his brother
at the South, it is because the North withholds from him
the opportunity for employment which the South gives. It
is not the educated negro who has been guilty of or even
charged with crime in the South; it is, as a rule, the one who
has a mere smattering of education or is in total ignorance."
Rev. R. C. Bedford, of Beloit, Wis., travels about con-
tinuously looking after the graduates of Tuskegee. His
record contains over 5,003 names. He estimates that less
than 10 per cent are failures in their professions and occupa-
tions. Such schools as Tuskegee receive large recognition
at home and abroad, and the demands for their products
are greater than the outputs in graduates. Here are illus-
trations from Tuskegee: "Of 525 young men who left
the institute for the summer vacation, practically all were
engaged for some kind of employment many days before
the school term closed. One firm in Mississippi employed
25 students for the summer and sent tickets for their railway
passage. In other cases agents representing various indus-
trial plants came in person to urge students to enter their
employment. Still others solicited students by mail and
telegraph." And, says Mr. Washington, "those seeking the
labor of our students were practically all southern whites. In
the majority of cases the students were sought for labor which
required not only skill but a high degree of intelligence."
Upon the recommendations of Secretary Wilson of the
32 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
Agricultural Department at Washington, three graduates
of Tuskegee went to Africa in 1900 to teach cotton raising to
the natives of the German provinces. At the end of the
second year the officials were so well satisfied with their
services that they sent for three other students and last
year a hundred bales of cotton were shipped from Toga,
Africa, to Berlin — the first notable invoice. From this
time on the product will rapidly increase. Both the English
and Belgian governments have also employed Tuskegee
graduates to introduce cotton raising into their African
colonies, and the government of Hayti has recently made
propositions to a similar purpose. It has sent a number
of young men to Tuskegee to be trained in farming. The
government of Porto Rico maintains eighteen students at
public expense.
The influence of Tuskegee on the negroes of Alabama is
thus stated by W. E. Curtis:
"Not more than half of the work of the institute is done
on the campus or in the auxiliary schools that are taught
by its students. Two agents from the faculty are constantly
traveling in Alabama, teaching the colored farmers how to
live, how to work, how to make the most of their labor, how
to improve their farms and make gardens, how to care
for stock, how to raise vegetables, how to whitewash their
houses, and handle their implements. They are continu-
ally holding local conferences in different neighborhoods,
bringing the farmers together, and talking to them on
practical subjects. Seventy or eighty farmers meet at
Tuskegee every month for a conference and are taught by
the members of the agricultural faculty, while an annual
conference brings together several hundred every year. The
RESULTS OF PRACTICAL EDUCATION 33
conference for 1905 has just adjourned. It was the most
encouraging ever held, showing that the colored farmers
of Alabama during the last year made more progress than
ever before in history. More of them are buying homes
and farms of their own, and working on contracts less.
They are saving their money so that they do not have to
mortgage their cotton in advance. They are getting better
tools and better seed so they can make better crops. They
are abandoning the one-room cabin, which is the curse of
the South, and are building two, three, and four roomed
houses. They are educating their children and extending
the terms of the country schools by private subscriptions.
The state keeps the schools open only three months, but by
chipping in a few dollars each, the farmers in the neighbor-
hood are able to extend the term to five or six months. The
churches are making great improvements; they are getting
rid of immoral preachers and driving them out of the com-
munities. All this is largely due to Tuskegee influence. "
There are seventeen like schools in various parts of the
South founded, managed, and taught by Tuskegee gradu-
ates, none with less than 60 students, some with several
hundred, altogether with not less than 4,000 men and
women. Over two hundred graduates of Tuskegee Institute
are engaged in yet other industrial schools.
III. EFFECT ON REMUNERATION
Industrial training and wages. — It was previously ob-
served by Mr. Washington that the worth of Tuskegee
graduates in terms of wages was increased threefold.
Wages ought to coincide with productive capacity, other
things being equal.
34 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
James M. Dodge, president of the American Society of
Mechanical Engineers, sets forth the value of a trade school
education. Mr. Dodge argues that an untrained boy of
sixteen, in good health, represents a potential value oi
$3,000 on entering a trade school or shop — that is, he is
worth to his employer 5 per cent of $3,000, or $150 a year;
that the shop-taught lad in nine years has increased this
potential value at the rate of $1,300 per annum, while the
trade-school man's investment in himself has been at the
rate of $2,100 per annum. The untrained lad will earn
$15 per week at 24 years of age (and only 5 per cent of this
class ever earn any more), while the graduate of the trade
school reaches^ this earning capacity between 20 and 21,
and is getting $20 a week before he is 24, with unlimited
possibilities for the future. Mr. Dodge urges, backing
his arguments by facts and figures, that the best investment
any boy can make is to "invest himself" by increasing his
own potential value. This result, Mr. Dodge points out,
is gained most thoroughly and effectively by training.
("The Money Value of Training," St. Nicholas, Nov.,
1904.)
The Massachusetts Commission on Industrial and Techni-
cal Education confirms this line of statement. It shows that
those entering shops at 14, at the age of 25 receive $12.00 or
$13.00 per week, as much as they ever receive; and that
those who have technical school training, entering industrial
work at about 18, at the age of 25 receive as much as $30
per week, and have successive advancement ahead of them.
(Report, p. 67. See Person, Industrial Edmation, Chap. 6,
for an extended treatment.)
CHAPTER III. REACTION ON EDUCATION AND
THE SCHOOL
THE previous chapter has indicated some benefits which
are becoming apparent as a result of the better articulation
of the schools with life, in certain world communities; and
future chapters will imply certain benefits which society
should receive if the social demands on education are met.
It may not be amiss to indicate briefly how education itself
and the schools might hope to reap profit were this move-
ment to be consummated. We might expect numerous
effects of a beneficial character to ensue from the vocation-
alization of education. Some of these benefits we may
consider to be the following:
I. EFFECT ON EDUCATION AND EDUCATORS
On the educational system. — One of the most desirable
results of socializing the schools would be seen in education
itself. As the means and method by which the young
individual is made fit to live in society, and to bear the
responsibility of its continuance and direction, its part of
the cultural activities is as important as the task it executes.
And the children it trains are the chief objects of social
effort "The sociological importance of children extends
beyond the mere idea of perpetuating the race. They
form the center of social activity and cause intense effort in
their rearing and culture. Nor does this influence decline
in the progress of civilization, but grows greater, generation
35
36 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
after generation, until to-day the child dwells at the center
of civilization. For him we work and save, for him we
sacrifice and live that he may be better developed than his
ancestors, and be brought into a better environment."
(Blackmar, Elements of Sociology, p. 221.) We might
regard with delight, therefore, whatever promises to develop
education.
There are two notable benefits which might be conceived
to accrue to education from recognizing larger needs. The
first is that education would evolve by becoming more
differentiated. Differentiation is one of the essential marks
of progress, and is necessary to growth. Growth of all
kinds of organisms takes place as the structures become
more specialized. Increasing heterogeneity, when accom-
panied by integration of parts, produces a higher and finer
form of animal organism or of social organization. Mere
multiplication of duplicate parts might give size but would
not add quality to educational organization. Advance in
quality can alone come by diversification of parts having
differing needs to meet.
Of course, the general public is not directly interested in
this line of thought, except in its practical bearing. The
practical consequences would come in the shape of greater
efficiency of the schools, by reason of their better adjust-
ment to diversification of needs both individual and com-
munal, and in the resulting greater efficiency society would
have because its potential ability had been better discovered,
trained, and distributed to the various callings of life. This
would give a better balance to the social system and secure
more frequent and rapid changes in the direction of progress.
A beneficial result would come to education in its scien-
EDUCATION AND THE SCHOOL 37
tific and philosophic aspects. Educational philosophy has
commonly been based on a foundation that has been too
narrow and abstract. It has very often assumed the end
which education is to meet. Or, if it has proceeded scientif-
ically at all, it has not covered the whole ground relative
to the individual, in that it has not treated the practical
needs of life as exhibited in a study of his social articulations.
But a fully developed vocational philosophy of education
would have to be exceedingly concrete and consequently
diversified. On the vocational basis, there is not just one
education but many kinds of training. They abound and
will still more abound. The educational philosopher must
know the nature of these vocations, and be able to state the
principles which govern them, in order to be able to pro-
nounce on what would be an adequate training in a given
case. He must know the science of community life as well
as that of psychology. Sociology would be competent to
pronounce on the principles covering the relative values
of courses, and psychology would say how and when the
subject matter is to be imparted. Thus the science of
education would look toward becoming an applied science,
or at least to containing that feature.
Were the schools completely socialized by being vocation-
alized, certain desirable results would be gained by teachers.
Appreciation. — The .first would doubtless be a better
appreciation by the larger community. That educators are
not the most influential and highly regarded members of
the community in America needs no special proof. Per-
haps in no other great nation do they stand so low in public
esteem. In Germany, at least, the teacher is looked up to
as the community's most respected personage. No doubt
38 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
a part of the regard comes by reason of his greater educa-
tional qualifications. Not every candidate with a minimum
of training can be certificated to teach. Much of the regard
comes as a consequence of the high value the Germans set
on education. Under the old forms of education the Ger-
mans taught the teachers of the nations. Under the new
forms it is assuming they are, to date, the schoolmasters
of the world. They have stood for thorough training, what-
ever the form their training takes, and have respected their
educators.
The Americans are practical people and are prepared to
appreciate whatever appeals to them in this way. As fast
as schools have been made to articulate with common
needs they have gained the people's hearty support, and
the instructors have risen in the estimation of the com-
munity. A closer concord of schools with people's interests,
together with higher requirements for teachers, will do much
to raise the standing of the latter.
Better economic compensation. — The economic standing
of teachers would probably be improved. This would
result from creating more positions and lines of work,
from raising standards of ability and training so that the
inefficient would be weeded out, and from rendering the
work of the teachers in an economic way more productive
to the community. It will perhaps prove profitable to
expand the economic phase.
It would be true, as a general statement, to say that the
scale of remuneration expresses the economic significance
which society attaches to men's services. Small pay indi-
cates that the work is not viewed as vitally productive. If
a man can demonstrate that his services are directly produc-
EDUCATION AND THE SCHOOL 39
tive of social well-being, of economic benefit, his remunera-
tion will be liberal.
It is safe to say that no other line of educated men can
show returns in emolument such as those of the graduates
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. On the
other hand, no other line receives such low pay as educators.
Some comparison between educational workers, both in
higher and lower branches, may be profitably made to elu-
cidate this point.
In higher education a very few heads of departments or
rare specialists in a very few heavily endowed schools
may receive $7,000 or $8,000 yearly. "Columbia Univer-
sity has a maximum salary of $8,000, but an average sal-
ary for full professors of $4,289." The maximum in the
University of Chicago for a department head is $7,000; that
for a professor is $4,500. (Bulletin Two, Carnegie Founda-
tion, "The Financial Status of the Professor in America and
in Germany," p. 27.) But the teaching work is chiefly done
by lower rank men in these institutions. Average salaries of
associate and assistant professors, instructor, and assistant
instructor, in these two institutions, are as follows: Columbia
University (no associate), $2,201, $1,800, $500; University
of Chicago, $2,800, $2,200, $1,450, $666. (Same, pp. 10-11.)
Of the 470 in America, "it cannot be doubted that the
degree-giving institutions vary from an average provision
for the full professors of from less than $500 a year up to
$4,788. Ninety-seven institutions pay an average of $2,000
or over; only 20 pay an average of $3,000 or over, and, as
noted before, only 9 pay an average of $3,500 or over."
(Same, p. 29.) Those teachers under the rank of full pro-
\ fessors receive much less.
40 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
It is found in the study of the salaries of full professors
that men reach the position at the average age of 34, and
receive an average salary of $2,500. At the same age men
in law, medicine, and scientific operations receive as much
or more. But the teacher has reached his maximum salary,
on the average. "The successful professional man, on the
other hand, is just beginning to reap the substantial rewards
of his ability and training — (and) rises steadily in the
large cities to $10,000, $20,000, and $30,000 a year, and in
smaller towns to incomes not so large actually, but rela-
tively large in proportion to the scale of living." (Same,
pp. 23-24.)
Should we turn to lower ranges of educational work, we
find, for the United States, " that in no section does the man
teacher receive so much as 70 per cent of the average wage
of all workers in other occupations than that of teacher;
and that in the country as a whole, even on the untenable
assumption that the average school year is nine months,
the man teacher receives only 57 per cent as high yearly
wage as that of the average employee in all other occupa-
tions. As a matter of fact, Commissioner Harris's report
for 1900 (Vol. I, 717) gives $342.36 as the average annual
salary of men teachers in the United States for 1900. Using
this as a basis, we find the average yearly salary of men
teachers in this country is only 41.7 per cent of the average
yearly wage of blacksmiths, carpenters, foremen in machine
shops, machinists, and painters." (Report of Committee
on Salaries and Social Status of Teachers, North Dakota
State Educational Association, 1904, Bulletin No. 6, Dept.
of Public Instruction, N. Dak., p. 8.)
One cannot predict just what benefit a better organized
EDUCATION AND THE SCHOOL 41
system of education would have on teachers' wages. There
are of course other factors working to keep low compensa-
tion, besides the one mentioned. Custom is certainly a
very great cause of low salaries in universities and in other
kinds of higher institutions. It probably is a powerful
factor in the elementary schools likewise. A saner and
juster point of view must be established in society relative
to the teachers' remuneration.
In the lower kinds of public schools the predominance
of women has a decidedly debasing effect on salaries. In
industrial work it is found that in those lines recently
entered by women in large numbers, the wages have fallen
50 per cent on the average. There, as in teaching, women
do not expect to remain in the work long, do not have
the professional pride nor the vital self-interest as a con-
sequence, and are hence willing to accept a bare living
wage.
We thus see that the subject of wages is a complicated
matter. Yet on the analogy of other kinds of service, more
productive work should tend in the direction of better
financial reward.
IL ON SCHOOL ATTENDANCE
Elimination of pupils. — The second benefit education
would derive from transformation into training for voca-
tional ends /would come in the shape of increased appre-
ciation of the schools, and consequently an increase of
attendance. There seems to be growing among the people
the opinion that the public schools are not really vital agen-
cies. There is great questioning of their serviceability, in
many directions. It is believed by an increasing number of
42 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
parents that their children do not learn what they most
need. Education and schools, consequently, are placed
in the attitude of sufferance. Because of the lack of full
appreciation, they want that dignity or standing they should
have to be thoroughly effective. It is indefensible that the
most important means of socialization should be so scouted.
Could the schools be transformed so as to meet differing
community needs, confidence would be restored, and educa-
tional effort would be rendered more efficient.
The studies which have been made of the elimination of
children from the schools show that relatively few get any-
thing like a modicum of education. Prof. C. M. Woodward
made a study of elimination in St. Louis. His numerical
diagram is reproduced on the following page and is self-
explanatory.
The letters and figures at the top of the diagram indicate
the various school grades. The Arabic numbers, located
at the points along the tracing line, indicate the enrollment
in the various years.
The facts presented in this diagram are approximately typi-
cal of other places in and of the whole of the United States.
This study approximately shows that 50 per cent of the
children left school by the beginning of the 5th grade, 75 per
cent by the end of the 5th, 85 per cent by the 7th, and 88 per
cent by the 8th grade. Some other cities, such as Chicago,
New York, and Boston, were more successful in retaining
the children in their schools. This report also apparently
shows that but 5.6 per cent of the children of the first ele-
mentary grade entered the High School, and less than one
half of this number remained in the second year of the High
School. The number of children entering High School for
EDUCATION AND THE SCHOOL
43
both city and country is probably far less than 10 per cent.
(Ed. Rev., Vol. 28, p. 191.)
Corrections in the above report would have to be made
to allow for growth of population during the history of a
Kg. 1 Gr. 2 Gr. 3 Gr. 4 Gr. 5 Gf. 6 Gr. 7 Gr. 8 Or. 1 H.S. 2 H.S.3 H.S. 4 M.S.
13!
J 2 970
1238
0089
9134
7000
>922
5677
3012
2143
468
(C. M. Woodward, U. S. Ed. Rep., 1901, p. 1367.)
given set of pupils in their school career, for deaths, passages
to and from private schools, etc. The percentages would
be measurably smaller.
The cartogram on p. 45, of the attendance in the New
York City schools, with the per cent of decrease from year
44 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
to year is self-explanatory. It is noteworthy that over 50 per
cent of the number of pupils of the second grade is in the
seventh. (From "A Suggested Readjustment of the Year
of Study of the Public Schools of New York City," City
Club of New York, 1908, p. 4.)
Professor Thorndike has made an exceedingly cautious
and scientific investigation of elimination, and embodied it
in a report for the United States Bureau of Education.
("The Elimination of Pupils from School/' E. L. Thorndike,
Washington, Government Printing Office, 1908.) His conclu-
sions for the country as a whole are as follows: "At least 25
out of i oo children of the white population of our country who
enter school stay only long enough to learn to read simple
English, write such words as they commonly use, and per-
form the four operations for integers without serious errors.
A fifth of the children (white) entering city schools stay only
to the fifth grade." (p. 9.) "I estimate that the general
tendency of American cities of 25,000 and over is, or was at
about 1900, to keep in school out of 100 entering pupils
90 till grade 4, 81 till grade 5, 68 till grade 6, 54 till grade
7, 40 till the last grammar grade (usually the eighth, but
sometimes the ninth, and rarely the seventh), 27 till the first
high school grade, 17 till the second, 12 till the third, and 8
till the fourth .... It will be remembered that the figures
for public schools in the country as a whole are probably
much lower than this." (Same, p. n.)
Cause of elimination. — We must notice the causes of this
elimination. Thorndike says, " One main cause of elimina-
tion is incapacity for, and lack of interest in, the sort of
intellectual work demanded by present courses of study."
(Same, p. 10.) He further mentions poverty, without meas-
EDUCATION AND THE SCHOOL
45
ELEMENTARY
1EJN-
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 ^ 1 2 3 4
in
7:
70
65
eo
55
5C
45
40
35
33
29
M
15
10
s
j L
J L
3^ 7* 17* 24* 35^ 57^ 45* 44* 50* j
PERCENTAGE OF YEARLY DECREASE
46 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
uring its influence, and the character of the population sur-
rounding the school, which evidently includes a multiplic-
ity of causes. He couples age with incapacity and interest.
"Of the sixth or seventh grade population in Connecticut,
the 14-year-olds are over one and a third times as likely to
progress two grades farther as are the 15- and 1 6-year-olds.
A child who does not get beyond the fourth grade by 14 has
in Connecticut less than i chance in 30 of progressing to
the eighth grade as against 20 out of 30 in the case of his
brighter or more fortunate fellow who at the same age has
reached the seventh grade." (Same, p. 14.)
The reasons Professor Woodward gives for the falling off in
attendance are as follows: "First, a lack of interest on the
part of pupils, a lack on the part of the parents of a just
appreciation of the education now offered, and a dissatis-
faction that we do not offer instruction and training of a
more practical character." He goes on to say that boys
and girls in the energetic period of 12 or 15 years of age
find their controlling interests in doing things. "Their con-
trolling interests are not in committing to memory the
printed page; not even the arithmetic serves to reconcile
them to school hours and school duties. They long to grasp
things with their own hands; they burn to test the strength
of materials and the magnitude of forces, to match their
cunning with the cunning of nature and of practical men."
The price of textbooks, after the fourth grade, is a great
obstacle to the parent who wants to keep his child in
school.
Professor Woodward would therefore find a remedy for
the non-attendance, first of all, in making the schools mean
something practical for life; and secondly in the introduction
EDUCATION AND THE SCHOOL 47
of the free textbook system, at least in the elementary
grades.
Prof. C. R. Henderson, writing of the causes of crime,
says: "It is almost certain that the custom of confining
growing boys to the mere conning of book lessons frequently
irritates and maddens them, excites disgust for studies which
seem to have no relations with their lives, and gives their
muscles nothing to do. One thing shines out clearly from
the record thus far studied: that the lack of instruction in
manual and trade processes and of personal, moral, and
spiritual influences must be charged with much of the ten-
dency to crime." (Dependents, Defectives, and Delinquents ,
p. 250.)
The commission appointed by the Governor of Massa-
chusetts to "investigate the needs for education in the
different grades of skill and responsibility in the various
industries of the Commonwealth," and "how far the needs
are met," held twenty public hearings in all parts of the
state. "The homes of children between fourteen and six-
teen years of age, now at work, and the industries which
they enter, were investigated — the study embracing a
total of nearly 5,500 children in over 3,000 homes, and over
350 separate establishments, representing 55 industries.
The salient features of the commissioners' conclusions are
that the first years of the employment of those children who
commence work at 14 and 15 are often waste years; that
the children leave school because neither they nor their
parents see any practical value in remaining there, but that
a large majority of the parents could afford to keep their
children in school for a year or two longer, and would do
so if they had the opportunity of securing a training which
48 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
would make for industrial efficiency. This latter conclu-
sion is of course based on an analysis of the income of
the families, their intelligence and thrift." (The Outlook,
May 19, 1906. Report of the Commission on Industrial
and Technical Education, Boston, 1906, p. 18, especially
pp 86 ff.)
The importance of interest. — Professor John Dewey, in
his work on education, locates the chief defect of the school
in its inability to furnish the conditions which bring out in
children the needed motive. He says: "A society is a
number of people held together because they are working
along common lines, in a common spirit, and with reference
to common aims. The common needs and aims demand
a growing interchange of thought and growing unity of
sympathetic feeling. The radical reason that the present
school cannot organize itself as a natural social unit is
because just this element of common and productive activ-
ity is absent. Upon the playground, in game and sport,
social organization takes place spontaneously and inevi-
tably. There is something to do, some activity to be car-
ried on, requiring natural divisions of labor, selection of
leaders and followers, mutual cooperation and emulation.
In the schoolroom the motive and the cement are alike
wanting. Upon the ethical side, the tragical weakness of
the present school is that it endeavors to prepare future
members of the social order in a medium in which the
conditions of the social spirit are eminently wanting."
(School and Society, pp. 27-8.)
Quotations and opinions supporting the proposition that
mere academic studies are insufficient to secure the inter-
est and attendance of growing, vigorous children could be
EDUCATION AND THE SCHOOL 49
multiplied. The above are regarded as competent and
illustrative. The evident task of the teacher and educator
consists in establishing those conditions which inherently
arouse the interest and consequently hold the pupils in
school during a sufficiently educative period. It is believed,
upon theoretical and experimental grounds, that the introduc-
tion of the practical motor element into school work largely
supplies the vitalizing conditions. No doubt the simplifi-
cation and rationalizing of the academic subject-matter
would be of wonderful assistance in securing those condi-
tions. Also, the utilizing of the group sentiment and
cooperative tendency would be valuable agencies to accom-
plish this end.
The last two points will receive extended treatment later
in this work. Let us here note a few facts bearing on the
first point, that of practical activities.
Speaking of the benefits of the school garden, the princi-
pal of the Carp (Ontario, Canada) public school writes as
follows:
"It is impossible to overestimate the value of school gar-
dening on our boys and girls. Instead of being detrimental
(as at first supposed) to their advancement in the other
branches of learning, it has had the opposite effect. Since
engaging in the work my boys and girls have been first in
all examinations, competing with children from other
schools, including city schools. The whole tone of the
school has been improved morally, socially, and aesthetically.
Our boys and girls have now a reverence for life unknown
before, and it has awakened in them, as nothing else could
do, a deeper interest in all life around them. It has helped
to make school life a pleasure. Now the boys make the
50 THE EDUCATIONAL RENAISSANCE
excuse to get to school instead of the excuse to remain at
home. It has aroused the interest of the entire community.
The parents take a pride 'in our boys and girls in the
school garden,' and never fail to bring their visitors to see
the work that is being done there. The pupils learn practi-
cal gardening, and already their advice and assistance are
often sought by parents and others interested in the cultiva-
tion of plants. Its influence is seen also in the homes of the
pupils. Every home has its collection of house plants inside
and its plot and flower borders outside. Our school board
has come to realize the value of this work and is anxious to
have it continued." (National Education Association Rep.,
1907, p. 423.)
Actual experience with industrial education in the schools
of Menominee, Wisconsin, evidences the drawing power
of vocational training. The superintendent of schools, Presi-
dent Harvey of the National Educational Association, states
in an address, that since the institution of industrial work
there, the attendance in the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades has
doubled; that of the High School has increased 50 per cent;
and that the High School graduating class has become over
50 per cent males.
The great interest of the masses in practical education is
seen in response to vacation schools in the cities. For
instance, in Chicago in 1904 eight vacation schools opened
with over five thousand pupils. Several thousand children
were turned away. In the Ghetto district admission
tickets were passed on from child to child among the
families, in order that all might be able to gain admission.
The popularity of these schools is based not on their so-
called nature as "play-schools," for they do more real
EDUCATION AND THE SCHOOL 51
work than regular schools. Housekeeping, sewing, cook-
ing, pottery-molding and baking, gardening, laundering, and
manual training are taught. It is this productive nature
of child and parents which is appealed to. (Editorial,
Chicago Record-Herald, June 8, 1904.) The Chicago
Inter-Ocean says of these vacation schools, "It is safe to
say that more was never done in the same length of time
toward the making of good citizens." The schools all
testify that little discipline is necessary. The unruly child
finds his salvation in work.
PART II
SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
CHAPTER IV. SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL*
I. THE R6LE OF THE SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT
IT is evident, to the sociologist at least, that the social
environment is the dominant factor for determining what
educational training shall be. Hardly any builders of
educational systems at any time have wholly disregarded
the world the educated being is to live in. At best, however,
the close dependence of the person on the nature of the
social world has been seldom appreciated. Pestalozzi saw
it vividly, viewing education as he did, as a means of
reforming human society; but the accretions of formal
pedagogy later buried his insight. More recently, the
psychology of the individual has offered the basis and
determining factor. But general or individual psychology
gives as false a view of the person as the geocentric theory
gave of the solar system.
Before we proceed to the specializing character of the
social environment relative to individuals, it will be well
to view the general bearing of society on the lives of men.
Only those factors or phases which have been historically
* The larger part of this chapter appeared in the Amer. Jour, of Soci-
ology, September, 1908, under the title, " The Sociological Warrant for
Vocational Education."
52
SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 53
*\
operated in determining what men should be, as men, will
come in for consideration for most part. Some others,
which perhaps might be considered quite as important,
receive treatment later in the volume, because their appear-
ance in the later connections seemed to be demanded.
While much emphasis is placed on the specializing character
of society, as bearing on education, it is not intended that
conclusions for education from the general force of the
social environment should not be made. If the social
environment is so profoundly important in determining
the constitution and destiny of individuals, it should cer-
tainly be accorded a large place in the philosophy of educa-
tion. It also follows that the study of society in the schools
is deserving of greater emphasis.
Ethnological aspects. — Those who make the science of
human society their business, and who are familiar with the
beginnings of institutions, and with the development of
collective life, agree that man as we know him, man as a
highly personalized being, is the creation of associational
existence. The class of scientists whom we know as ethnol-
ogists are able to trace the existence of human beings far
beyond the period of recorded history into the Quaternary
geological period. (Kean, Ethnology, p. 55.) The earliest
cultural stage existed then. Man used the rudest stone
implements. He was scarcely more than brute. Beyond
that time it is believed he was developing out of the plane
of brute existence. Thus there have been ages upon ages
in which the personality and achievements of what we
know as modern or civilized man could develop.
Professor Giddings (Principles of Sociology, pp. 221-229)
has marked out in a most illuminating manner how it is
54 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
that man became a thinking animal. In his estimation
the power to think, the power which elevates man so far
above brute existence, grew in connection with the formation
of language. Brutes have the beginnings of language, but
have not developed it into symbols which may be used to
express ideas freely. It was left to man to develop sym-
bols. As fast as he did so he was empowered to think,
and was stimulated to further intellectual endeavor. His
mind grew with and as fast as his language structure and
vocabulary.
The primitive man has few words and consequently few
ideas. The average man to-day possesses a vocabulary
of many thousands of words, and consequently has a
greater advantage in ideation and expression. But it is to
be remembered that both of these wonderful acquisitions
came about through association. Men living together had
to communicate in order to cooperate. Signs and symbols
sprang up to enable them to communicate. Ideas and
refinements of thoughts ensued. Hence, one may truly
say that the mental powers and the communicating system
are social products.
Professor W. I. Thomas makes an interesting contribu-
tion to the position that the social environment is the es-
sential determining factor. He has conclusively shown
(Forum, December, 1904, and Source Book for Social Origins,
p. 171 ff) that the difference in attainment between the
white race and more or less backward peoples of the world
is not accounted for on the supposition that the white brain
has developed either in size, weight, or constitutional ar-
rangement; for Chinese and Japanese brains are as large,
and individuals of inferior races, when trained and drilled
SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 55
as thoroughly as whites, show equally advanced powers
of skill, perception, inhibition, mentality, interest, etc.
The difference is really the result of differing social condi-
tions, the "social inheritance" of Professor Baldwin. That is
to say, it is this social inheritance which has been thousands
of years in building, — incrementing a little each generation
until it has become an entirely different environment for
the civilized from that which the uncivilized inherit and are
reared in; it is this medium of knowledge, ideas, methods,
inventions, etc., which is brought to bear on the white child
in his education and experience that makes him seem so
much superior, mentally, to the savage or semicivilized.
"The fundamental explanation of the difference in the
mental life of the two groups is not that the capacity of the
brain to do work is different, but that the attention is not
in the two cases stimulated and engaged along the same
lines. Wherever society furnishes copies and stimulations
of certain kinds, a body of knowledge and a technique,
practically all its members are able to work on the plan and
scale in vogue there, and members of an alien race who
become acquainted in a real sense with the system can work
under it. But when society does not furnish the stimula-
tions, or when it has preconceptions which tend to inhibit
the sum of attention in given lines, then the individual shows
no intelligence in these lines." This may be illustrated
in the lines of scientific and artistic interest.
Among the Hebrews a religious inhibition — " Thou
shalt not make unto thee any graven images" — was suffi-
cient to prevent anything like the sculpture of the Greeks;
and the doctrine of the resurrection of the body in the early
Christian Church, and the teaching that man was made
56 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
in the image of God, formed an almost insuperable obstacle
to the study of human anatomy. This prejudice and
preconception, on the part of the early Church Fathers,
inclined the most of them to proscribe the reading of pagan
literature, the best in the world, and hence inhibited the
production of literature and development of education
among primitive Christians. The modern Mohammedan
hostility toward scientific inquiry comes out of the precon-
ception that belief in God is all that is needed in life. So
a disciple writes to a westerner, "Thou art learned in the
things I care not for, and as for that which thou hast seen,
I spit upon it. Will much knowledge create thee a double
belly, or wilt thou seek paradise with thine eyes?"
"The Chinese are a people of great intelligence and the
greatest size of brain of all races, yet all that equipment has
been deflected because of the preconception that the dead
past contains the sum of wisdom. They study long and
intensely, but to the neglect of occidental science. They
spend years in copying the poetry of the L'ang Dynasty, in
order to learn the Chinese characters, and in the end cannot
write the language correctly, because many modern charac-
ters are not represented in the ancient poetry. Their atten-
tion to Chinese history is great, as befits their reverence for
the past; but they do not organize their knowledge, they
have no adequate textbooks or apparatus for study, and
they make no clear distinction between fact and fiction."
Multitudes of their scholars are ignorant of the meaning
of the history they read. All their higher learning is devoted
to writing essays forever on their classics. No better
illustration could be given to show how little acquaintance
with ancient knowledge and ideals fits the individual so
SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 57
engaged and engrossed with the business of the present.
In fact there is ample evidence to establish the position that
instead it really unfits him.
Social constitution of man. — A further consideration
would demonstrate that the same social environment is the
depository of the influences which determine the peculiar
personal nature of the individual, and that it mediates to
him, in the same manner as it does the material, the finer or
spiritual goods of life. Prof. J. M. Baldwin has shown
(Social and Ethical Interpretation} in detail how human per-
sonality is built up out of the material resident in the social
group, through the interplay of the child with his colleagues.
Let us notice some of the facts which indicate this social
nature.*
i. As a physical being no one is a mere individual. The
molecular vibrations of the external world, which constitute
motion, beat and play upon an organism whose strings and
keys come down from unnumbered ancestral lines. The
body is a product of thousands of crossings, of countless
interbreed ings of near and remote progenitors. This may
be brought home to us by considering how rapidly ancestors
multiply as we recede into the past. You, for instance, have
two parents, four great-parents, eight great-great parents,
sixteen great-great-great parents, etc. Or the fourth genera-
tion removed, your line includes sixteen stocks of people,
perhaps, or, it may be, one half as many races or even
nations. The past physical individuals and races focus
in you. You are a composite of all the past races and
people in so far as they have intermingled.
* Professor Baldwin is only partly responsible for these points which
follow. But his work referred to should be read by all educators.
58 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
2. In like manner, the individual partakes of the social
cosmos in his mental constitution, by inheritance. The
instincts and impulses even revert so far into the past as to
relate him to the sub-human animals. So far as we are
able to discover, the qualities of temperament, disposition,
inclination, talents, and even genius arise out of and partake
of the mental constitution of ancestral individuals. It is
second nature to us when the child is born to begin to figure
out, not only the physical similarities to the parent stocks,
but, as the child grows, to attempt to account for peculiarities
of character by identifying them with characteristics of
relatives. What all do so naively the scientist does more
systematically, until nothing is better established in biologi-
cal and psychological scientific belief.
3. Also our social inheritance, given us through customs
and manners, and which we imbibe in family and race life, —
our morals, — likewise runs back, and radiates laterally as
well, into the past races of the earth. These mores which we
have thus come by and which exist in us to-day are the prod-
ucts of erosion, selection, and survival. Past social groups,
with their customs peculiar to themselves, collided with each
other in their wanderings. The process which followed
upon this collision makes a large chapter in the sociology of
conflicts. The fighting which took place is the least inter-
esting thing. The long struggle of conquered and con-
queror, of inferior and superior, as the races dwelt together,
was bitter and profound. It was in this enduring period
of race friction and amalgamation that the sets of customs,
ideas, religion, and other characteristics underwent a
transformation. The entire supply of neither party sur-
vived. It was a matter of selection and survival. Its
SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 59
result was a total sum of group culture, considerably larger
and more differentiated than that of either of the com-
pounding groups. And if we reflect that this warfare and
amalgamation between differing groups have been taking
place time after time during the succeeding ages down to the
present, we may conclude that our social inheritance, now, is
a fabric composed of multitudes of group-culture strands.
As a consequence, we are compelled to admit that since
the individual is built up out of these threads of influence,
as they are given him by his parents and teachers through
language, ideas, example, etc., personality is largely a
social product. The quality of personality is the outcome
of the inherited physical strain, worked upon by the
cultural or social inheritance influences, from the very
moment the child is born. Race, physical features, and
possibly temperament, tendency to ailments, potential brain
power, and quality of determination are some of the factors
inborn to be molded into shape.
Probably none of these factors can be greatly changed.
But without the molding and stimulating force of the social
environment they would develop into a brutish animal only.
The content, the intelligence, the mind and soul matter
are grafted on or poured in by the influences of society.
Hence personality rises as high as the grade of culture of
the group to which the individual belongs. It also varies
according to the type of culture of the group.
Society as opportunity. — The most thorough and scien-
tific account of the force of the environment has recently
been given by Prof. Lester F. Ward in his Applied Sociology.
It has commonly been held that heredity is the chief
factor in the production of men of genius, and that genius
60 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
surmounts all obstacles. Of course, in so far as it ac-
counts for genius it will likewise account for all other
grades of ability. In order to test the assertion that genius
may rise superior to all obstacles, Ward makes a thorough-
going study of the environment relative to men of merit,
talent, and genius. He separates the environment into
seven groups, physical, ethnological, religious, local, eco-
nomic, social, and educational, determining the force of each
of these in the production of men of merit in France and
contiguous French regions from 1300 to 1825.
By tables, maps, diagrams, and analyses, which approach
the matter from every conceivable direction and leave no
way of escape from the conclusions, it is demonstrated that
the cultural factor in the environment, — the opportunity
of the individual to come into contact with the achievements
of mankind in an appropriate manner, — is the prime
condition to bring forward merit, talent, or genius. Urban
regions are about thirteen times more prolific, on the average,
in producing the meritorious, than rural regions.
But it is not the mere density of population which ex-
plains the difference, because many large cities are infertile
of merit, while some small places, and the chateaux, have
been more fertile than many large cities. "The result is
that if France had the same relative fecundity in men of
letters as Paris, it would have produced 53,640, instead
of 6,382; if it had the same fecundity as the other chief
cities, it would have produced 22,060; but if it had only
the same fecundity as the rural districts, the total output
would have been 1,522." (Lester F. Ward, Applied Sociol-
ogy, p. 188.)
The explanation of this difference is due to a "group of
SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 6l
properties" possessed by the fecund cities: "(i) Usually
these cities have been centers of political, ecclesiastical, or
judiciary administration, which confirms what we have
previously stated relative to the influence exerted by the
political and administrative environment. (2) These cities
have furnished particularly numerous opportunities for
cultivating the acquaintance of intelligent and scholarly
men, owing to the presence of writers, savants, distinguished
artists, a numerous educated clergy, a wealthy nobility
devoted to letters, etc. (3) They have afforded important
intellectual resources, such as higher institutions of learn-
ing, libraries, museums, book stores, publishing-houses, etc.
(4) Finally they have presented, relatively to other cities,
a larger amount of wealth or at least a greater proportion of
wealthy or well-to-do families." (Same, p. 193.)
As to wealth, its influence consists in the fact that it
bestows leisure for self-improvement, without which ability
would not be manifest.
Material welfare dependent on social agencies. — It may
be worth while to indicate the close relationship between
the individual and his environment, and how the social
apparatus is the mediating agency between him and the ends
of all his wants and activities, even conditioning his dealing
with the physical environment.
A little reflection shows us that man's most immediate
dependence for realizing the satisfaction of his wants is on
social agencies rather than on physical conditions. It is true
that, ultimately, the raw materials of food, clothing, shel-
ter, permanent forms of wealth, etc., have to be extracted
from nature. But two things, at least, are to be observed
here.
62 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
First, social evolution has consisted in building up a net-
work of agencies, structures, on the basis of division of
labor and of occupation, which have rendered individual
man the more independent of particular local and physical
conditions, the farther civilization has proceeded. Three
fifths of the population of the advanced civilizations, such
as England and Germany, live in cities; and even one half
of the population of a new country like the United States
dwells in urban communities of two thousand or more
inhabitants. The poorest of these inhabitants consume
hundreds of kinds of articles they do not and cannot pro-
duce. They actually produce nothing directly from physical
nature. All they have are social products borne to them and
retailed to them by social agencies.
Even the atmosphere and climate, the freest of nature's
goods outside of meteorological conditions, are affected by
social agencies. Therefore, to get at the original supply
of materials for life purposes which nature furnishes, man
depends on and gets the use of a vast array of intermediary
social machinery. Social organizations of all sorts exist to
cut him off from and to connect him with nature. He can
no longer exploit nature as a free individual. Political
organizations in the shape of government exist to limit his
attack. Originally "free goods" have become "property."
Police courts and jails testify to this. Only supreme ex-
ploiters, talented and lucky individuals, may now make
onslaughts on mines, forests, and lands, and this is done by
getting control of great social organizations. Individuals
independent of social agencies do not exist in society.
Second, the dominance of the social factor is seen in the
fact that by means of social agencies, — improvements in
SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 63
the way of inventions and technique, — the actual supply
of material products in given areas to support life has been
increased. The economic stages of society, such as the
"hunting and fishing," the "pastoral," "agricultural,"
"commercial," "industrial," are only names to denote
improved social means of getting a greater abundance of
food from the earth. The "industrial revolution," together
with the opening up of America, almost doubled the popu-
lation of Europe in the nineteenth century. England's
inhabitants increased from 12 to 18 per cent each decade
or from 8,000,000 in 1800 to 30,000,000 in 1900 (Fetter,
Principles of Economics, p. 194). There is no visible limit
to population. When raising food by agriculture fails of
further increase, direct and rapid production by chemical
processes promises to continue.
II. SPECIALIZING CHARACTER OF SOCIETY
Social structures and human interests. — If it is true that
the individual is absolutely dependent on the social organi-
zation for the satisfaction of his material interests, and that
his personality is likewise dependent for its character on
the spirit and reason resident in the fundamental technique
of society, it becomes evident that education is unscientific
and incomplete, in so far as it is not organized in view of
the exact nature and pointings of society.
In order to get at the exact place education should hold
relative to society, it will be necessary to discover the essen-
tial relation of the individual to organized social life. I
shall seek to show that the individual's chief business is to
participate in the process total society carries on, by means
of functioning, in a more or less specialized way, dependent
64 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
on his ability and training, through the specialized agencies
of society; and that the cue to this life-functioning is the
line of his dominant or life-interest in terms of the social
structure. I shall use interest in the objective social sense so
admirably designated by Professor Small (Amer. Jour. Soci-
ology, 6, pp. 64-5 ; General Sociology, Chap. XIV) , and shall
think of the special organization of society as the outcome of
interest at work, as he does (General Sociology, p. 233).
It appears to me that the best way to get the correct
idea of the relation of the individual to organized society
is to fall back on the historical aspect. A review of the
development of human society impresses on us the valuable
perception that present social structures are, in origin,
occupation groups, and fundamentally so in fact; groups
which have grown up out of the persistent attempts of men
to adjust themselves to each other, for the purpose of satisfy-
ing diverging human wants, and primarily to realize their
own life-necessities.
When we trace the development of society from a sim-
ple group or groups into a great social organization, we see
that it has occurred by the growing differentiation of one
group into diverse parts through division of functions; or
by the consolidation of various natural groups, primarily,
and then the differentiation of the consolidated mass into
separate parts, classes, or businesses. We perceive that
all of this, however brought about, has been established in
order that the life and welfare of one and all might be better
realized. With primitive men there were few wants, and
hence few vocations. The matter of adjustment was simple.
To follow custom and tradition was the essential. But in
developing to higher stages, wants multiplied and no one
SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 65
individual could obtain the skill or facilities for supplying all
of his wants; hence, separate vocations arose, in which one
set of individuals prosecuted one line of business, another,
another line, and so on. Persons of each vocation disposed
of their surplus goods to others of other vocations that they
might obtain the things not longer made by themselves.
Classes likewise arose to supply functions and activities
not productive of material goods, but needful to serving,
regulating, and inspiring producers.
These groups or divisions of businesses, each almost
infinitely differentiated to-day, constitute the social structures.
They form the framework of society. They are the social
organization. They are interdependent groups, because no
one is complete in itself any more than the nerves or muscles
of a physical organism can exist as independent entities.
Each individual who has a function to perform for society
must use some one or various of these structures in order
so to function.
A necessary perception comes, by observing the growing
differentiation of dominant interests of individuals, to keep
pace with the evolving structures of society, and the
reciprocal dependence of these interests and structures on
each other. In savage society all members had about
the same interests in about the same intensity. Both
knowledge and economic activities were little divided and
developed. Later, with the refinement of social functions,
the vocational interests emerged. There appeared leaders
and governors; men to control the spirits and to be the
custodians of group traditions; those who should provide
food and those who should fight. In time there emerged
the fundamental lines of human interests, namely, the
66 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
political, the religious, the cultural, the economic, the
domestic, and the sociability.
Relation of individuals to structures. — In this develop-
ment lie two important transformations. First, interests,
with their corresponding occupation, become distinctly
separated, so that certain persons express their dominant
interests in a definite specialized vocation or profession, and
by it they minister to the general social necessities or
interests in this direction.
Second, when society has expanded into national scope,
and modern science and methods of industry have been
introduced, each fundamental line of organization becomes
so differentiated under the push of new demands that in-
dividual interests may realize themselves vocationally in
any one of its many phases; and hence there are many
kinds of specialized servitors ministering to each of the
dominant lines of wants of a national society. While we
have the fundamental human interests still, and each interest
expresses itself by means of special institutions or organiza-
tions society has developed for that purpose, yet each kind
of institution is constituted of subordinate organizations.
Thus to-day we may say that every one in society is inter-
ested in political activities; some more, some less. To
meet the social interest and demands of this type, there
exist the political institutions and organizations. They are
a group, not merely one. They are complex, not simple
as formerly. In this group we have all the complicated
machinery of governmental administration, legislation, and
justice; political parties with their complicated organizations
and agencies; constitutions, codes, and customs of law.
Some men are fundamentally interested in political insti-
SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 67
tutions, and devote themselves to some phase of political
life, vocationally. All members of our society are interested
in our political institutions, secondarily, in that a certain
and definite range of their social needs finds satisfaction
through them, and their wants are ministered to by the
professionals in politics.
In the same manner, the economic line of activities has
become highly diversified. It is no longer merely food-
getting and preparation, and that immediately. It is now
extraction from soil, forests, mines, and waters of not only
foods, but of all sorts of material to be worked up into
thousands of forms to meet man's expanded diversification
of wants. It is the skilled and specialized preparation of
all this raw material, in multitudes of varieties of factories
and manufactories, for final economic consumption. It is
the transportation of all this raw and formed material to
and from mine and farm and factory and forest and thence
to wholesalers and retailers. It is the wholesaling and
retailing of this produce, raw and formed, to all buyers and
consumers. It is the clerical, the financial, and the mana-
gerial activities which go along with these various lines of
business and make them possible. Anyone who makes a
business of life in any phase of this complicated industrial
field and labors to produce to the satisfaction of the eco-
nomic wants of the rest of society is professionalized, spe-
cialized, and vocationally economic. All other members of
society are secondarily interested in his vocation, to the
extent that their wants are to be satisfied through him.
The cultural line of activities to-day is no longer simple, as
it was in traditionary times. It comprises, in its organized
scope, not only all systematic educative endeavors, but
68
SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
also all informational agencies represented in press and
platform, clubs, societies, Chautauquas, etc., and all
aesthetic agencies. The religious phase is likewise differen-
tiated into ecclesiastical denominations and sects, societies,
organizations, and clubs. The sociability line expresses
itself by means of many kinds of societies, clubs, etc.
The domestic institutions alone remain essentially simple.
In order that it may be clear what is the relation of the
individual to the whole of society, by means of these groups
of social organizations, the accompanying diagram is
presented.
SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 69
Let the circle represent the circumference which incloses
the total society. A is an individual so placed that he is
shown to be in relation to each institutional area. The
spaces between the parallel lines, B ending in B'y C ending
in C', D ending in D'y etc., represent the great groups of
organizations through which the dominant interests are
realized. A has his vocationally dominant interest in B B',
and works through it chiefly. But at times he acts or may
act through the others, his relation to them and his use of
them being subordinate to the relation and use of his voca-
tional line.
In a more concrete way, it is possible to illustrate this
differentiation of structures, and the setting aside of indi-
viduals to represent them as specialized agents. This
differentiation has proceeded more rapidly during the
last 150 years, since the age of invention introduced the
"Machine age."
Nearly all of our machinery has come into existence, has
been invented during that time. The steam engine only
goes back of it a little. Now, every important machine
invented has called into existence a special set of workers,
adding to the economic structure a new group. Perhaps it
may create many new sets of special workers. Thus the
invention of the locomotive brought in our great railway
transportation system, with hundreds of kinds of specialized
workers. It created locomotive engineers, brakemen, fire-
men, conductors, section hands, station agents, car builders
with a host of specialists, locomotive builders, with many
classes of skilled workers, etc.
Every great invention has proceeded in a similar manner.
Think of the hundreds of thousands of patents the Patent
70 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
Office has issued. Many of them cover some great machine
or utility which issues in a new calling. At the beginning
of our nation none were issued. Hardly any inventions
were then made. Now our government issues some 35,000
patents per year.
The accompanying diagram illustrates the growing spe-
cialization of social structure. Most of the development seen
c i v i
z E D
%
S O/C I E T Y
PRIMITIVE
SOCIETY
in the modern age is relatively recent. Just enough lines
are drawn to indicate types of development. Thus, manu-
facture breaks up into lines, each of these into skilled trades.
The same would be true of the other economic phases.
The same holds of the other fundamental structures.
SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 71
The administrative branch of government, for instance,
breaks up into departments and each of these contains a
multitude of special kinds of work, or functions.
Generalizations. — Several things are apparent at this
point. First, society is a unity of specialized structures, each
with a particular line of functions to perform which is neces-
sary to its integral life, that is to say, the life of all the par-
ticipative members. The perfection of this organic body,
this unity of interdependent, cooperating structures, de-
pends on the completeness and validity of each of the
fundamental structures and subordinate groups. Should
any one line become defective, or too large or too small
relative to the other lines of activities, the equilibrium of the
whole would be disturbed and its life impaired. This
means the impairment of all the other structures, and this
in turn means the impairment of the lines of the individuals
constituting these structures.
Second, the trend of society is toward more vocations.
Society is a very definite affair instead of being, as many
suppose, a great hazy, inchoate, lumbering lump of human
protoplasm, which may be butted into and attacked in any
ill-considered and unspecialized manner. The significance
of social evolution is that society becomes more and more
specialized, breaks up into more vocations and divisions of
labor, demands an increasing number of specialists to
perform its functions. And looking to the future we must
expect that this tendency is to continue, and even to become
more intense as scientific and business methods and organi-
zation expand and penetrate the mass.
Third, in order to be able to adjust himself, that is, to be
efficient, the individual must be specialized. Since society
72 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
has developed into a great organization of specialties, it
insists that its members shall be specialized that they may
take part in the integral social process. Just as the physical
organism finds no use for the cell which is not specialized
to act as muscle, nerve, blood, or tissue cell, but attempts to
rid itself of non-specialized cells when they appear in it; so
society demands that each of its constituent members shall
be skilled and trained into fruitful contributors in some
group of its special structures. The least specialized, such
as unskilled laborers, tramps, hoboes, and idle rich, are
either not prepared to participate in the vital processes of
society by reason of being little specialized or else refuse
to take part according to their training. Ability to adjust
oneself means just the possession of the technique of a cer-
tain structure or certain structures. These we have seen
are occupational lines. Of course this does not mean that
every one must be a social philosopher or scientist or entre-
preneur. Specialization means skill and technical ability
in a given line. To have a trade or a profession is to be
in possession of this specialization.
Education a specializing process. — The bearing of the
foregoing on education must have become apparent. If
education as a process is training for society, then we know
what it should be and do. For we have shown that training
for society can have no other meaning than fitting to par-
ticipate in the actual social process. And this participating
in the social process means the social adjustment of the
individual through and by means of the actual agencies and
structures society has developed. Only those possessing
the technique of vocational lines are fitted to make this
adjustment.
SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL 73
The assumption of state education is that its training is
necessary for citizenship, that is, to be a valid member of
society. But since one can be such only as he is able to
function in society, that is, work in society, according to its
fundamental nature, and since society is essentially special-
ized and vocational in constitution, it follows, that to make
citizens in the best sense is to vocationalize them, make
them able to further some dominant social interest. To be
unspecialized is really to be socially functionless, to be with-
out a serviceable articulating position in the social organi-
zation. Logically, all ranks of those trained at the hands
of the state are imperatively adjured so to fit themselves.
Otherwise the state taxes those functioning, those who are pro-
ductive socially, to give a general education, which means an
unspecializing, decentralizing, distracting period of diffused
cultivation to those who consequently will be floaters and
parasites, until by experience or further training they obtain
a real working connection with society. When nine out of
every ten children in the common schools of the United
States are leaving school before the close of the elementary
grades because of a lack of practical interest in the work
now offered, it is high time that means for the betterment
of the schools should be considered.
If this view of education, as an undertaking by the social
body itself to fit an individual to carry on smoothly in
conjunction with others the work necessary for the highest
and fullest life of all, is correct, the further idea at once
comes, that since society is progressive, since social demands
change from time to time, since each generation and age
has its own spirit and ideals to realize, education cannot be
a static, changeless scheme or system. It must be elastic
74 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
and progressive to be always effective. It must keep in
harmony with the age. It must plant itself securely in
the center of the social process and there abide in order to
minister adequately to the demands of its master, society.
It may be said that it is the business of leaders of society,
and therefore a part of the duty and work of educators
and educational systems, to act as regulators and conservers.
There might be a measure of justification for such a
view. Education has commonly held the position of a
brake to social progress. Possibly the service is at times
needed, yet seldom has evolution of society gone danger-
ously fast. All the virtue there is in conservatism is just
in keeping things from going too fast.
But could we discover how education may be put to the
real service of regulating and correcting the ills of collective
life, and then could we prove ourselves skillful enough to
actually make it work effectively, the event would mark
a milestone in human progress. In no case must the attempt
be made to direct social currents far out of their predisposed
and historically natural channels, however. This would
be to defeat the laws of development.
Thus to-day we are in a position to see that Rousseau's
proposal to educate the individual apart from society so as
to give him a natural training, to make him a natural
individual, would be quite an unnatural and preposterous
method. We now see that we need to find how really to
educate the child into collective, cooperative life of the
modern sort, and that our danger now is in preserving a
formal process that defeats this object.
CHAPTER V. DEMOCRACY AND ITS IMPERATIVES
UNDER the development of the demands which democ-
racy makes on education to-day, will be discussed several
topics, such as cooperation and culture, which might be
expected to appear in separate chapters. Yet as they are
involved in the thought of democracy, their consideration
here is justified.
It will be discovered that both culture and the demands
for vocationalizing individuals have been treated in other
connections. Their treatment here is not an oversight.
The idea of democracy touches both subjects on new sides.
Here the emphasis is placed on rights. The demands of
democracy grow in the measure to which rights of the
people are developed. The masses have more rights than
ever before. There is more democracy. This democracy
demands more things for the masses. In a democratic
society and age, education must be viewed, therefore, in
relation to the rights of the people to have their fundamental
needs met.
Non -democratic features in education. — It would be
unworthy of a lover of our public school system to fail to
recognize the great influence there is in it, working for de-
mocracy, from kindergarten to university. "It takes the
child from infancy, brings him into contact with his fellows,
induces, inspires, controls, educes him, until the age when
he can cooperate with adults in the working world. It is
the most reliable socializing institution of a public nature.
75
76 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
Raw material is thrown into this great hopper from all races
and nations, and ground into an essentially common grist.
It is the testimony of principals who have been in South
Chicago for from fifteen to twenty years, that children of all
the nations, with foreign tongue and strange manners and
customs when they enter, go out from the eighth grade or
the high school, the peers of their American associates in
language and manners; essentially Americanized; even
looking with contempt on their parentage and mother
tongue.
" This is the secret of our ability to assimilate great foreign
populations with safety. " ( J. M. Gillette, Culture Agencies
in South Chicago, p. 47.)
There are several non-democratic features in our educa-
tional system. The aim here is to point out the more
important ones.
First, retention of the traditional element prevents the
adjustment of education to community interests and
individual needs. Our ideals and matter are largely tradi-
tional. We carry a lot of effete matter in the subjects
taught in our schools, as will be shown in Part III. Our
supposition has been that there is just one training, one
culture or discipline, to be given to all. This has been
imposed on all communities and all individuals alike. We
have tried to fashion all according to one pattern. Evolution
comes by introducing variation. We have tried to make
all alike. If society becomes more and more specialized,
and if education is to fit for society, our supposition has been
false. We can be democratic and can realize the needs of
persons and society only by readjusting matter and method
of education to actual needs.
DEMOCRACY AND ITS IMPERATIVES 77
Our educational system can be regarded as democratic
only when and in so far as all lines of knowledge and training
are placed on a basis of equality of rating; so that individ-
uals and communities may be able to select that training
which their interests seem to demand, without being blinded
and prohibited by purely traditional estimates in favor
of some end or subject At present we are far from this
ideal. We are intensely conservative all up and down the
educational gamut. Second, in so far as the higher insti-
tutions make preparatory schools of the lower, they regulate
the courses of the lower in their own interests and according
to their preconceived opinions of education. It is coming to
be widely felt by high schools that they have been sacrificed
by universities and colleges. A true university would have
a continuation course for every kind of training course of
the next lower school. Its only business should consist in
satisfying itself that the work of the lower school was worthy
of credit. It should then admit to the appropriate course
graduates from the accredited high school. The more
liberal universities are coming to this position. Unfor-
tunately, the majority are very conservative.
In like manner, the high schools are slow to recognize
that anything but traditional elementary courses are admis-
sible to secondary educational credit Generally they
would stand aghast at the thought of admitting pupils
vocationally trained. Unquestionably they should be ready
to receive those with a good vocational training, provided
the tools of learning are in hand.
So long, however, as high schools can dictate the courses
of the lower, and this dictation rests on a narrow, traditional
and inelastic basis, our varied interests will not be able to
78 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
realize themselves through training in the elementary
schools. Agricultural, mining, industrial, and commercial
communities are prohibited from training their youth directly
in their own community schools for their own community
interests.
Third, in so far as the sexes have different functions in life
by reason of sex differences, and yet are given identical
training, our schools are undemocratic. This will find
more extended treatment in a separate section.
Fourth, monarchical control of the schools on the part of
the teachers, along with the examples it sets and the suppres-
sion it involves, is undemocratic. This also is treated later.
I. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DEMOCRACY
If there were anything in democracy for the schools,
educators should know it. The exposition of the principle
or principles of democracy will show us whether or not our
schools are doing all they should to instill its spirit and aims.
Some attention must be given to finding the central ideal
of democracy. The historical perspective will best reveal
what its central idea is.
The present democratic movement. — We are witnessing
a revival or a rebirth of democracy. Many are the indi-
cations of its regeneration. The term "democracy" is so
often used that we might easily guess it serves as the tocsin
of the age.
There is growing up a vast literature devoted to the
discussion of the subject in its many phases. The books
written on it are becoming numerous, and the space devoted
to it in our periodical literature is enormous. Speeches in
the political arena and legislative assemblies abound with
DEMOCRACY AND ITS IMPERATIVES 79
references to democracy and appeals in its behalf. Teachers
in schools and colleges are expounding its principles and
holding up its ideals to their students. Pastors and lecturers
vie with them in its advocacy.
Certainly, in our own land, there never has been a time
when the subject of democracy received so much attention
on the part of the mass of people. At the time of the War
for Independence some of the principles of democracy
were clearly recognized by certain of the foremost leaders.
But they thought of it as chiefly political in its nature, and
most of the leaders then mistrusted the ability of the common
people to participate in and conduct government. Our
forefathers were bound by prevailing aristocratic views.
Our country has moved far along the road toward democ-
racy since then. The states in the "West" filled up after
the Revolution. The people settled there as equals because
all could get independence in ownership of land. Hence
the state constitutions recognized their equality and gave
all adult males equal rights. This forced most of the Atlan-
tic states to liberalize their constitutions in order to hold their
people against migrating westward. While our national
constitution has not changed, except relative to the negroes,
our state and local governments have grown constantly more
democratic.
The people have tested their power to conduct their af-
fairs. They have succeeded and demonstrated their ability.
They believe in themselves and believe that their safety
lies in self-government. In the present period of great
issues and grave abuses, the great leaders of the people
are seeking to bring about a change in government, by
which the masses may have still larger control of state
8o SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
matters; and the people are responding. Democracy is thus
receiving a fresh impetus.
It could be shown how many other nations are awaking in
a similar manner to the call of democracy. The great
nations of Europe, although most of them are monarchical
in form, are democratic in fact, and are passing decade
by decade further into the hands of the common people.
Russia has had its revolution, and is slowly emerging into
a constitutional rule. Turkey has just had its revolution,
and is on a constitutional basis. Persia seems to be making
the passage. China has a commission at work studying
the governments of Europe and America, and instructed
to draw up a constitution for that nation. New Zealand
and South Australia have surpassed all the other states of
the world in making the government serve the needs of the
citizens. It would be difficult to find any convincing proof
that this world-wide tendency to democratize governments
is likely to be reversed.
Much which might be said in this part will be found in
various portions of Part III. Especially what is said in
that later connection on moralization and on the socializa-
tion of history expresses some of the most pressing and
practical demands of the present time. Much of the matter
included under those two topics might very well have been
organized into a separate chapter under this present part,
and designated, "Civic Demands."
The broader meaning of democracy. — A survey of his-
tory, from ancient to modern times, shows that the develop-
ment of human society has been in the direction of more and
more democracy. There may be several prominent his*
torical ends. It depends on what we have in mind as to what
DEMOCRACY AND ITS IMPERATIVES 8l
goal we actually see. Hegel saw history working out free-
dom; Paul found it in righteousness; Christ in the brother-
hood of man. All these conceptions are more or less inclu-
sive of one another. The other ends mentioned would not
exclude democracy. In fact they all implicate it. On the
other hand it involves them. I believe that complete right-
eousness, or freedom, or brotherhood would in all essen-
tials mean complete democracy.
The broader significance of democracy may be seen by
the enumeration of some of the gains in democracy. First,
politically, the masses of people have grown steadily into
larger control of governmental matters. Athenian democ-
racy, democracy's highest form in ancient times, would stand
in a poor light to-day, if compared with that of even such
modern monarchical nations as Great Britain and Germany.
The Athenian democracy was a very limited affair. Only
those of Greek descent could vote and hold office. A large
portion of people were slaves, and of course not possessed
of either civil or political rights. Moreover, foreigners who
dwelt in Athens, and who chiefly composed the wealthy
commercial class, could not vote, hold office, nor appear for
themselves in court.
To-day only the semicivilized and reactionary nations
withhold political rights. Everywhere there are tendencies
at work for universalizing political and civil rights; whereas
in ancient times, quite uniformly, people were slaves, abso-
lute subjects, or possessed of but limited governmental
power. The growing ideal in enlightened states to-day is
that government is and ought to be the agency for obtaining
exact justice between men, and that to be this the people
must have complete control of it. Thus we see direct
82 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
legislation in the initiative, the referendum, and the right of
recall, spreading widely, especially in the United States.
Second, democracy relating to material goods has in-
creased. The evolution of society through slavery and
serfdom is enough proof of this. That is, men themselves
were once owned by others, or held as part of the estate.
Men are now free. They may own property. All wage
earners have property, in their wages at least, and can
legally secure them.
Moreover, the masses of people participate in the enjoy-
ment of more material goods than ever before. Average
laborers are better housed, fed and clothed than the nobility
of a few centuries ago. Just now, it is true, there is the
menace of corporations and concentration of wealth; but
even this menace has brought discussion and agitation which
have cleared the air. A vision of a more equitable division
of the social income is appearing as the result. No doubt
the people intend to secure their rights to the product of
their toil, which means a better democracy in material goods.
Third, there has been an extension of knowledge to larger
and larger areas of humanity. Learning was once monop-
olized. Priests and scribes were depositories of learning.
They were the real aristocracy of intellect. The masses of
people were profoundly ignorant, and of course were preyed
upon as a consequence. With the invention of the phonetic
alphabet there was some extension of learning. With the
invention of printing and the cheapening of printed matter
the way was opened for a far wider extension. Later came
public education, telegraph and news-gathering agencies,
newspapers, libraries, etc. These are the agencies for
universalizing knowledge.
DEMOCRACY AND ITS IMPERATIVES 83
Now education is becoming compulsory. There are few
bars to literacy. Enlightenment is viewed as the foundation
of democracy, political and economic. There are premoni-
tions that the state may so extend compulsory education
that the children of the indigent may be supported in order
to assure their proper schooling.
The growth of democracy might be followed in other
lines of social development, but these suggestions will be
sufficient to illustrate the kernel of democracy. It might be
said that complete democracy would be tlie people's parti-
cipation in all the essential satisfactions of life and their
control of all fundamental social agencies by which those
satisfactions are distributed. In brief, democracy is the V
people's control of their own interests, and the making
all social institutions meet their needs. Thus it is broader
than the government, it extends to other phases of life than
holding office, voting, and being sued in the courts. It is
the principle of equalization of opportunity working in 'all
important matters.
IL SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS OF DEMOCRACY ON
EDUCATION
With the thought above developed in mind, let us pass
on to a consideration of some of the more important requisi-
tions democracy necessarily makes on education.
Essentials of knowledge, physical environment. — There
are some items which must be regarded as fundamental
to a progressive, healthy life to-day. One phase of this
knowledge deals with physical nature, and the other with
social matters. Both constitute man's total environment
84 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
All his adjustments must be made in these two direc-
tions. All his problems meet him there. Certainly only the
general and essential principles of these two great realms
could be crowded into childhood. Even to contemplate
this raises such a vast problem that many might be skeptical
about its accomplishment. Another necessary line of
information is a knowledge of the self which must adjust
itself to those environments. The more extended notice
of this item will occur in Chapter XII.
Society has accumulated a vast fund of achievement,
during the course of its existence, which it holds in its
storehouses as an inheritance from the past. It belongs to
no individual nor set of individuals as an estate, but to
society as a whole, because no individual nor set of indi-
viduals has created the achievements, much less have they
conserved them. Therefore this treasure, far more pre-
cious than the traditional Nibelungen treasure, belongs to
all and is for all; and the fate of all, and of society itself, is
dependent on its disposal.
Lester F. Ward, in his application of sociology to educa-
tion, makes social progress depend on the universalization
of the achievements of the world. All other problems in
their ultimate solution are dependent on this universaliza-
tion; for men can act independently, that is, rationally,
on any given matter, only when they understand it in its
conditions. If men knew enough about economics, politics,
etc., they would soon be masters of the situation in their
ranges of life. Sets and cliques and special interests could
not juggle them out of their just deserts.
In his Applied Sociology he establishes the fact that
there are many more geniuses and talented than ever
DEMOCRACY AND ITS IMPERATIVES 85
come to light; that these can mature and have matured
only as they are brought in contact with the rich heritage
of the past; that social progress depends on their discovery;
and therefore that it is the business of education to bring
the essentials, the principles of this practical world-knowledge,
to the doors of every one.
I agree with him in this fundamental position. To me
the problejiLthen becomes one as to the method^of realization.
To attain it, we should need to revise our standards of edu-
cation vastly. I think we should have to extend compulsory
education to cover secondary schooling, at least. I think
this should be our ideal to work up to. We spend about a
billion dollars a year for national government expenses, two
thirds of which is for military matters present and past. Yet
we claim to be a great civilized and peaceful nation. Dare
anyone face these facts and say we are too poor to give every
child a high-school education? I believe, then, that we
should advance our standards of education to that degree
as rapidly as possible.
As to the physical range of knowledge, we must readily
admit that every one needs the chief ideas of nature. The
striking difference between the ideas of savages and the
enlightened members of humanity, now, is sufficient to
demonstrate this. The savage knew nothing about the
properties of objects, in the sense that they made up the
very nature of objects. Whatever qualities they perceived
in things belonged to the spirits which moved through them.
Certain plants poisoned animals and men, not because
poison was an inherent essential attribute, but because those
plants were good instruments for the spirits to use to penalize
the victims. Some plants were curative in diseases, but
86 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
not of themselves; only because the spirits chose to work
through them.
So, not understanding the properties of objects, they could
not conceive of nature, of a world, of a universe which
existed because of the properties and relations of all objects.
Hence, primitive men were the prey of superstition, and were
haunted by unnumbered and unbounded terrors. Some
conception of the concatenation of things, of their inter-
dependence and cooperation in the production of phenomena,
of the reign of law in nature, and of the dominance of cause
and effect throughout, is necessary to prevent superstition
and to give the outlook which is so essential to the grasping
of modern scientific thought.
When we consider the more directly and immediately
useful, the principles of natural science are found to be
necessary to the various great fields of achievement. Those
of chemistry are at the bottom of steel manufacture, of
sugar and oil refining, of knowledge of soils, of foods, etc.
Those of biology are the basis of plant and animal culture
in all of their many forms, of medicine, hygiene, health,
and so on. Physics enters into the construction of all
machinery, of architecture and bridge building, of civil
engineering undertakings, and many of the phases of agri-
culture, manufacture, and commerce.
We can hardly conceive that anyone could be much
above the unskilled class of labor, or, as a skilled worker, be
pliable and constructive in his occupation, without having a
good grasp of at least the principles of the science or sciences
which underlie his special line of work. And the more of
the principles of all the sciences he has obtained, other things
being equal, the more progressive and efficient he will be.
DEMOCRACY AND ITS IMPERATIVES 87
The essentials of knowledge, social environment. —
There cannot be too much insistence on the proposition
that our general social safety depends on establishing and
maintaining a high level of intelligence about social matters.
Some have taught that democracy depends on complete
equality; others that it hangs on equality of opportunity;
others that it must come by equalizing opportunity in the
shape of information. I believe it is now possible to realize
the equalization of certain social knowledge which is essen-
tial to realizing and preserving democracy in the state.
The universalization of political and economic knowledge
involved in our present issues and problems I am sure
should obtain for the following reasons.
In every age the rights of man are imperiled, whatever
rights have been worked out up to that time for the masses
of men. Each age presents perils in new forms. It is
incumbent on the people at the time to obtain information
of the conditions which surround them, to understand the
tendencies which manifest themselves, if they are to discover
the nature of the impending dangers. Suppose it is a
matter of corporations. Railroads, for example, consoli-
date; eliminate competition; regulate rates at will. All pro-
ducers and consumers use the roads. The rates are in
nature a tax on their goods. In so far as roads are abso-
lute, they might ultimately take away the property of all
patrons as rate tribute. Unless people are generally intel-
ligent on railroad matters they will not be able to protect
themselves. It is conceivable that one gigantic railway
trust might form, which should not only dispossess the
masses of their property, but reduce them to a form of serf-
dom. (See Ghent, Benevolent Feudalism; and London's
88 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
Iron Heel.) So economic equality would perish from the
earth.
Likewise people must be informed on matters of govern-
ment to preserve their political democracy. Thus, some
time ago, they awoke to the fact that the nomination system
placed government in the hands of bosses. Before they
awoke they had been long misgoverned; with due informa-
tion they moved for reform. The primary nomination
system which is coming into use is the result. Now we are
discovering that the United States Senate, the congressional
committee system, our judicial system, and so on, need
reforming. The abuses have existed before the discovery.
In so far our political rights were withheld. Justice waits on
adequate knowledge. Thomas Jefferson was well advised
in asserting that democracy in the state could not be main-
tained with popular ignorance.
One task of education is to put the essentials of political
and economic knowledge before the citizens of the future
if they are to be capable of sustaining their political and
economic progress.
Significance and importance of moralization. — Moraliza-
tion is that phase of socialization which brings the individual
into conformity with the ethical ideals and needs of his
society. We can conceive that a man might be cosmo-
politan in knowledge, and yet use his vast information to
promote his mere individual interests, so sacrificing the
interests of others. Indeed, such individuals are not rare.
If information is necessary to make the individual master
of the situation for life- and work-purposes, ethical quality
is just as essential to keep him from usurping the rights of
other persons who are involved in the same situation.
DEMOCRACY AND ITS IMPERATIVES 89
The importance of giving this element a place in the
programme of training is generally conceded. The reasons
may be briefly stated. First, many believe that character is
the dominant end of education and that life is chiefly a
school in which moral will is developed. Consequently
society and all else exist for the sake of moral achieve-
ment. There could be no doubt that those who support
this view would give moralization a large place in the
schools.
Second, there is a side to social evolution which empha-
sizes the ethical, or certain ethical relations as the goal.
Historically viewed, as we have seen, progress has consisted
in realizing a larger democracy. The great struggles have
been for personal rights and equal opportunities. Progress
may be measured in terms of material goods and the latter
may condition rights and opportunities; but the end of
development is the greatest satisfaction, of all sorts, for the
mass of humanity. In line with this view a part of the work
of education should be to further the work of humanity by
giving a perception of and enthusiasm for these ideals of
progress.
Third, society depends on moralized people for its con-
servation and protection. Immorality is anti-social and
therefore destructive of that medium which is necessary to
carry on the interests and life of the many. It is a matter of
indifference here, whether character is viewed as an end in
itself, or as a means to the preservation of society, chiefly.
In either case, society depends on it for its continuity.
These considerations are particularly pertinent now.
Insurance graft, railroad speculation, bank wrecking,
monopoly building by rebating, etc., are terrible object
90 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
lessons of the need of that morality which is built on a rever-
ence for the rights of man, or the regard for the social
welfare.
Social rather than individualistic moralization needed. —
The science of ethics is being socialized. It is coming to be
seen that the content of the imperative should be made up
out of social relations and processes. The inner voice, in
the nature of its promptings, may be right, but it needs
rectification in the light of the actual situation. Riotous
individualism comes out of a lack of moral disciplining of
this sort, and finds its license in partial and formal ethical
codes. A reconciling and authoritative ethical ideal has
been lacking.
Teaching is needed which gives the habit of looking at
individual conduct, not as a realization of stationary types of
either individuals or society, but as related to a progressing
community. "Whether we are aware of it or not, whether
we approve of it or not, the human race is visibly gravitat-
ing toward application of the criterion which the process-
conception of life indicates." (Small, General Sociology,
p. 674.) "All the systems of ethics and all the codes of
morals have been men's groping toward ability to express
this basic judgment: That is good for me, or for the world
around me, which promotes the on-going of the social proc-
ess. That is bad for me, or for the world around me,
which retards the on-going of the social process." (Same,
p. 676.) "Our judgment of conduct in association always
tends to appraisal of it as good or bad according to its
assumed effects upon the largest range of associations that
we can take into account. " (Same, p. 682.)
Baldwin demonstrates, in tracing the genesis of the child's
DEMOCRACY AND ITS IMPERATIVES 9!
social and ethical personality, that his ethical judgments
and ideals arise out of his adjustments to the social proc-
esses of larger and larger groups which he comes to live in.
(Social and Ethical Interpretation, Chap. I.)
The social view bases good conduct, right, duty, not on a
fiat, a decree, a maxim externally imposed, but on the
relation of the act to the thought of progress; that is, to its
furthering or injuring the interests of those bound up with
the actor in an interdependent group. Therefore a good
man is one who does not injure the interests of others in
his society but advances them by his transactions. His
ideal arises out of his ideal of the well-being of the masses;
and his action is weighed as to its effect on the largest
social situation he can conceive. We may regard self-
government and cooperation also as important phases of
moralization.
Moralization — training for self-government and co-
operation. — Attention has been called to the long and
broad movement of human society toward the realization
of the larger welfare of an increasing proportion of the
population. The conduct of government has passed over
from the hands of the one or the few to that of the many.
The undertaking of the many to regulate and carry on their
affairs through government grows ever more elaborate.
The consequence of this developing control of society,
organized as the state, is that the masses assume greater
responsibility. We have seen that the protection of their
interests demands that the people must have a larger social
intelligence. But they must have a training also in the
exercise of their judgment about the decision of matters
and the administration of affairs. The schools can give
92 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
a larger and closer knowledge about business and politics.
They should also contribute to exercising the duties and
responsibilities of government.
A recognition of the great work the public schools have
wrought need not blind us to the defects in the system. It
might logically be inferred that a democratic people living
under a republican government would not permit monarchy,
even in form, to show itself in those institutions which are
nearest to them and from which they should expect to come
the greatest stimulus toward more liberal government.
Yet it is true that in the average class room the teacher
is wholly the legislator, judge, and administrator. There
is little perception on her part that if the pupils are to
become citizens in a democracy where self-control and
self-direction are foundation elements, such citizenship can-
not be produced by subordinating them to one will during
one half of their minority; by securing order through pas-
sive obedience; and by altogether withholding from them the
burdens and responsibilities of their own government. Over
the whole land there has been little attempt made so to order
the school, so to lead, help, and inspire it as to enable the
pupils to participate in their own control.
Quite as important as self-government is the ability to
cooperate. The growth of society has been a growth of
cooperation of a certain kind. Primitive men early dis-
covered the value of working together. Several men could
overcome a large animal, thus protecting themselves or
gaining an abundance of food, whereas one man would be
powerless. A combination of strength would lift greater
burdens, draw heavier loads, accomplish more work, than
that of single individuals. On this principle, larger groups
DEMOCRACY AND ITS IMPERATIVES 93
of people could dwell together, armies could be put into the
field, finally cities and states could be maintained.
In modern times all great undertakings rest on the
cooperative ability of multitudes of men. Intelligence to
comprehend common plans and to carry them out is in-
volved. Untrained savages could not take the place of
civilized men here. Every train which carries passengers
depends on the cooperative ability of engineer, brakeman,
fireman, conductor, station agents, switchmen, train dis-
patcher, as well as on many others indirectly. Should one
fail to do his duty, many deaths and injuries would likely
result. The very existence, as well as the further advance-
ment, of society is being determined by this kind of talent.
But in a new and special sense, wrapped up with growing
democracy in human affairs, is the need of placing emphasis
on cooperative training. Democracy means cooperation
of a very high order. Self-government means the power to
create and judge the worth of plans and laws of human
action, in addition to the qualification to carry out the
orders of an overlord or master. The development of the
government of the people, by the people, and for the people
can but partly come to be a fact so long as the great mass
of people can only blindly follow plans and laws made by
the few.
Democracy in business is a growing fact and is furnishing
a motive for better preparation. In the sphere of business
undertakings there has taken place a vast evolution into
out-and-out cooperative enterprises. In the United States
multitudes of cooperative stores, creameries and dairies,
elevators, industrial establishments, and insurance institu-
tions exist. Many are brought into existence each month.
94 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
Not all succeed, to be sure, but the fact that the volume
grows testifies to the profundity of the movement in that
direction. Cooperative distribution in England does a
business each year of something like $500,000,000. The
value of cooperative business in Germany and other Euro-
pean countries is immense and steadily increasing.
State enterprise also is entering the field of business;
and the success of such undertakings is dependent on
the intelligence and talent of the citizens for conducting
cooperative enterprises. Various nations and states own
and conduct railroads, telegraphs, postal systems, banking
systems, forestry domains, and so on. Municipalities own
and manage waterworks, lighting plants, street railways,
parks, libraries, schools, etc. The profits and advantages
of these state undertakings are distributed to all the citizens,
and advance the good of all. The cooperative spirit is
needed to conduct the businesses already taken up, and
those which will doubtless yet accrue.
Cooperation demands intelligent insight into the nature
of the enterprise and the complexities of its working; a
sympathy with the purpose, which is to distribute the ad-
vantages and profits to those contributing their efforts as
equitably as human wisdom can devise; and a discipline
and self-restraint which enables those who give their
strength and talent to the maintenance of the undertaking
to sacrifice the present for the larger good of the future.
A love of mankind, of justice, of the common good, in fact,
altruism of the highest type is required for successful
cooperative effort.
Right of vocational training. — Every individual should
have the right to qualify himself to make his way in organ-
DEMOCRACY AND ITS IMPERATIVES 95
ized society, to profit by its achievements, and to render it
service according to the prescriptions of society itself and
of his own nature. In full view of the facts of pauperism,
poverty, and crime which abound and which sociologists
have to consider, and also of the necessary importance
of the industrial and commercial factors in modern society,
I have no hesitancy in declaring that the first and foremost
duty of society, through the agency of the schools, is to make
every boy and girl fit to make a living by means of some
special knowledge or skill which society has need of. This
is called the "bread-and-butter" view of education by its
enemies. They claim to think the adherents of this view
see nothing ahead but the question of bread and butter.
But no one would more insist than its exponents that other
things should be considered as given in and along with a
bread-and-butter training, such as information, moraliza-
tion, appreciation, etc.
I shall seek to show, in other chapters in this part, how
fundamental the economic is in society, and, hence, for the
life of the average man; and how the facts of crime and
pauperism should lead us to a more practical training.
And I have already tried to demonstrate that growing
specialization in society demands a corresponding special-
ization in the equipment of its members. All I shall do here
is to accentuate the nature and force of these overwhelming
demands society is making.
We have no right to say "criminal," "pauper," "tramp,"
until we know whether or not the training system which
society puts the child through has been competent to equip
him for life. Before condemning individuals we should
consider if they are not products and victims of a system.
96
SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
If the system he works in is against him, if it does not give
him an adequate equipment, it is withholding some of his
fundamental rights; especially in view of the fact that it
holds him responsible for his failures and deficiencies.
Democracy in education insists that every valid interest
in human society shall be recognized in the school system.
The accompanying cartogram reveals the various occupa-
tional groups in the United States, as given by the census of
MILLIONS
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4
5
6
7
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10
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WOMEN IN THE HOUSE — -AGES 10-75 (EXCLUSIVE OF (4))
Vocational Groups in the United States.
1900, with the number of persons following each group
line. The lower group is not given in the census report as
one of the vocational groups, but I have added it, after
estimating the number so engaged from census figures.
An inspection of the cartogram, with the thought of special
training in mind, impresses upon us the fact that the top
group, the smallest in number of all, is the only one for which
society, acting collectively, self-consciously, and deliberately,
hasvmade provisions at all; or in any degree commensurate
DEMOCRACY AND ITS IMPERATIVES 97
with the dignity and demands of the service the group per-
forms for society.
We had about 30,000,000 workers as given by the census
of 1900; one third were agriculturists, and we have per-
mitted hardly a smell of the farm to get into the rural schools.
There are over 7,000,000 manufacturing and mechanical
workers, and we have given them hardly any recognition.
We may say that nearly all of our workers have to depend
on some form of the apprenticeship system to fit themselves
for their social service.
It is a matter of astonishment that society can get on at
all, leaving these fundamental occupations to be recruited
and enterprised in such an unscientific and slipshod manner.
The case will not be satisfied until agricultural, industrial,
commercial, and domestic workers (including mothers and
girls in the homes in this latter class) have recognition in
the educational system of the nation in the measure of their
importance, and are given a preparation for the life society
assigns them in itself which is commensurate with the im-
portance and place of their calling.
About the women in the homes, the 25,000,000 females
between the ages of 10 and 75, something will be said in the
next section.
Training for women. — There is a portion of the commu-
nity, which, in its psychological constitution, and in its eco-
nomic division of labor, differs profoundly from the other
portion. This part of the population is the female sex. A
study of sex-psychology indicates a difference, in certain
respects, between the psychical natures of men and women.
Woman's nature and constitution are woman's and not man's.
She has interests, in fact he^ dominant interests, which are
98 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
not those of man, and which rest back upon her physiological
structure and function. Maternal instincts and interests
arise out of sex physical equipment, and never can be de-
stroyed, however much they may be perverted and outraged.
In the economic division of labor which society imposes
on the home institution there is the same discrimination
between sex. The work and duties of man and woman in
sustaining the home do not lie in the same direction and are
dissimilar in form. Woman's work for the home is home-
keeping, food-preparation, and child-culture. Man's fun-
damental work is beyond the walls of the home in procuring
its adequate support. In so far as homes are necessary to
their supporters and to society, these offices cannot be
exchanged or disregarded. Unless social evolution proceeds
far more rapidly than there is present indication of its
doing, so that the present home as an institution is sup-
planted by some other which will set woman free from
specialized domestic demands, we must expect that the
majority of women in future will become wives and mothers,
whose dominant privilege and duty it will be to perform or
superintend the business of home-making and home-keeping.
With the cartogram presented on page 96 before us,
let us ask ourselves the question, "What are the public
schools of America doing of a practical nature for those
more than 25,000,000 home-makers and home-keepers to
qualify them for their work?" This is a question we must
face and for which we must begin to find some adequate
answer. It is fundamental to national life.
National economy is dispensed in the home more than in
any other quarter. The home-keepers are the spenders of
family incomes. They are the purchasers of foods, clothing,
DEMOCRACY AND ITS IMPERATIVES 99
furnishings. On their judgment and administration of
finance household economy and happiness depend.
If the wife does not know food values, worth of cloth,
furniture, etc., if she is ignorant of accounts, and of the
social laws of supply and demand, she is likely to be wasteful
and extravagant. It is too much to ask of our women that
they shall be wise economists and administrators, when
their only training is that handed down by tradition through
the homes. There is great work here for the teacher of
economics and chemistry in giving practical lessons in the
social and chemical values of consumptive goods.
But family health, as well as economy, depends on the
administration of affairs in the home. When it is remem-
bered that the health of the family, the amount of energy,
and the quality of mental effort its members have to expend,
and the disposition and temper with which they meet the
world, and which make up the enjoyment and contentment
of life, depend on the selection, preparation, and preserva-
tion of foods, and on the sanitation of the home, and that
these things are in the hands of women, the importance
of domestic economy may begin to be seen.
And there is child culture and nurture which are even
more important. What a place child study in its large
and practical bearing should have in the schools; and all
that is given is a little physiology, hygiene, and perhaps
formal psychology in a few schools. The physical ability
of our citizenship is established in early years. The care of
the body, the choice of foods, the clothing, the little ailments,
often decidedly vital, are made important because they
condition life and mind.
When we remember that one third of all deaths occur in
100 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
the first years of life, as many as in the next nineteen years,
and that all the early years are perilous by reason of diseases;
and that the large number of infant deaths occur because of
the ignorance of the parents, as is seen from the fact that the
more ignorant populations sustain the greater disease and
death-rate; the significance of knowledge in the physical
phases of child culture is apparent.
But the mind, disposition, and character, in their establish-
ment, are even more important. Few women understand
child psychology save in a superficial sense. The order and
periods of mental growth, the demands of the mental nature
in the various periods, the appropriate treatment and control
to exercise in each period are commonly unperceived and
ignored. We do not give half enough attention in schools
to the science of calf culture, to be sure. We give none to
child culture, in the way of making wise and responsible
mothers.
Child raising, like cooking and home-keeping in general,
is about what it was generations ago. Yet child psychology
and domestic economy are to-day actual sciences. And yet,
too, we give our women, our mothers and home-keepers,
o training in either. What enlightened and progressive
people we educators really are! Our chief credential is the
stamp of antiquity and tradition. We make our environ-
ment an obstacle, rather than an aid, to fitting for life.
Vocational education and the talented. — The objection
has actually been made, against this democracy of training,
that it does not provide for the genius or the person of
talent; that education should be so general that it will fit any
sort of genius or talented child for higher reaches.
In making reply to this objection it is first necessary to call
DEMOCRACY AND ITS IMPERATIVES tol
to mind the nature of genius and talent. Let us use the
word talent for brevity. I believe psychologists and soci-
ologists are settling down to the idea that talent is more
likely to be the outcome of balanced judgment and persis-
tent will, working or concentrating in some given direction,
than an idiosyncrasy of birth so that by natural abnormality
or onesidedness the individual is fit to do but one thing.
Galton's idea, in his Hereditary Genius, is that genius
surmounts all obstacles, that it is bound to find a way. If
that were so one course of study would do quite as well as
another, because, notwithstanding the course being against
his idiosyncrasy, the person would surmount and go on to
glory. So, a vocational course, such as we propose in this
work, would be a mere bagatelle, as a matter of obstacle.
And if talent were simply a larger higher level of mind-
power, judgment, and determination, as most students of
talent now hold, and our vocational course were in the way,
it would be so small an obstacle, in Galton's view, as to be
unworthy of mention.
But Odin and Ward, in their more recent and more thor-
oughly scientific attempts to discover what the factors are
which produce talent, reject the idea that talent shows itself
in spite of all obstacles. In fact, they demonstrate that
talent is dependent on environmental factors for its fertili-
zation and revelation to the world. I have given the results
under the section, "Society as opportunity " (p. 59), and
refer the reader to that passage. "The woods are full"
of potential geniuses, one for about every 300 persons,
according to Ward's findings. Our final conception of
talent, then, must be that it is the normal mind raised to a
greater power, and concentrating in some given direction;
102 SOCIAL DEMAIfDS ON EDUCATION
and that it is dependent on the existence of cultural factors
in the environment for bringing it out as does average mind.
A second consideration would be the nature of the course
of study itself, as to whether or not it would be obstructive;
if it were true that talent could be obstructed. In connec-
tion with this topic I invite the reader to consider Chapter II,
which deals with the school programme, to see if the broad
groundwork in the informational, moralization, and appre-
ciation elements is not a guarantee of a comparatively full
cultural process; about as full, with the additional advantage
of being organized and directed on principle so as to be more
than ordinarily effective, as the level of work would afford;
also to look over the proposed programmes in the last
chapter of this volume (pp. 289-296) with the same purpose.
In my estimation, a well-organized agricultural community
course, for example, not only does not offer obstacles to the
individual who desires to go to the educational top, but
actually affords advantages in the way of a better and
richer selection of cultural material; and a better organiza-
tion principle, and consequent organization, than our present
common course. The better cultural matter consists in sub-
jects and matter which are more pertinent to the age and
larger community life. Organization, of course, is the
very soul of meaning. Chaos and lack of articulation are
real obstacles. Education directed towards a well-defined
end, and organized according to principle, is, in the highest
measure, fitted to bestow meaning, significance, the soul of
efficiency.
But Ward shows that it is the utter lack of any sort of
cultural element that is the obstacle to the discovery and
the maturing of talent. Given any sort of an outlet, any
DEMOCRACY AND ITS IMPERATIVES 103
approximation of or connection with the great reservoir of
the world's achievements, which constitute culture, and
talent finds its way into the currents of the world's history,
matures, becomes fruitful. And certainly vocational courses
of all sorts afford such connections and outlets.
CHAPTER VI. IMPORTANCE OF THE ECONOMIC
INTEREST IN SOCIETY AND ITS SIGNIFI-
CANCE FOR EDUCATION
I. GENERAL SOCIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE
IN Chapter IV it was shown that economic activities
constitute one of the great lines of achievement of organ-
ized society. Something of the place and meaning of this
line of interests was indicated. Some attention was paid
to the importance of the economic, relative to other social
structures, and the consequent significance for the end oi
education.
In this chapter we want to expand this last thought.
The attempt will be made to show that the economic inter-
ests are the dominant ones to-day, and that the tendencies
at work will make those interests still more powerful relative
to others. This is developed as a basis for the conclusion
that the economic should have large recognition in the
educational system.
Economics deals with wealth. We usually think of only
material goods as wealth. But economists assert that
anything is wealth which can be bought and sold. Hence
not only material articles but services of men may be
considered in economics. Anything that can be pro-
duced or consumed and put on the market is therefore
included.
I shall exceed this meaning somewhat in this chapter,
particularly in the last section, but for convenience I shall
104
IMPORTANCE OF ECONOMIC INTEREST IN SOCIETY 105
put even the matter of increasing the satisfaction of life under
the caption of the economic.
It determines motives. — The economic of course has
always been a determining influence in society, whether
men recognized it or not. It has been the power by which
changes in human affairs have been consciously or uncon-
sciously determined. Every student of history knows that
transformations in society come about by reason of the
inherent automatic, unreflecting forces, more than by rea-
son of the highly conscious cooperative effort of communi-
ties. Men shape their affairs, oftentimes, under the sway of
factors whose real determining effect on their owa minds,
as they seek to decide matters, they do not perceive.
The well-known case of the " ministerial call " might be
taken to illustrate this. It so happens that duty oftenest
lies, or seems, to those deciding, to lie in the direction of the
larger church and salary. We have to grant that ministers
conscientiously weigh their calls. The fact that the out-
come is as it is, merely indicates that the factors of larger
salary and charge are really the determining factors in the
recognition of a call to duty. So in matters of history,
whatever motives and reasons men have assigned for trans-
formations, careful consideration exhibits economic forces
as at least largely producing the changes.
Economic changes determinative of other social changes. —
Society has, as its foundation, the satisfaction of physical
wants. All other wants are built up on this and cannot be
satisfied until these so-called lower wants are met. More-
over, the higher employ material things with which to ap-
pease their hunger.
The amount of population a region has depends on the
106 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
resources of the section. The locality must either directly
supply necessary subsistence, or else must furnish resources
of another kind which may be bartered for means of life.
Thus England does not produce all the food it needs, but
its mines and position are the basis of manufacture and
commerce, by which the necessities of life are gained.
The quality of a population is determined by the character
of its economic activities. Industrial, mining, commercial,
agricultural communities have aims, spirit, traits peculiar
to themselves. The character and demands of the people
depend on their vocational organization. Civilization awaits
economic development. Spain has made more progress
in the short time since her people began to be moved by
industrialism than during several times the period in pre-
vious times.
Government is very largely the agent and register of
business. The organized state, politically, stands for cer-
tain and secure interchange of goods. An unjust govern-
ment favors economic exploitation of the people by the
favored few. A just government seeks to secure equality
in the distribution of wealth. Legislation is the outcome
of struggling economic forces. Laws register the wishes of
the factor in political power with reference to wealth reg-
ulation.
What, in history, is called the " industrial revolution "
may be taken as an illustration of how changes in economic
conditions bring changes in other phases of society. It is
only a larger and more striking case of what is constantly
occurring. Perhaps no other event in history has made
such vast changes in the trend and structure of society
as has the introduction of the factory system and in general
IMPORTANCE OF ECONOMIC INTEREST IN SOCIETY 107
the machine age. Wherever it has been established, it has
overthrown the old order and has put into operation forces
and tendencies which keep on working unforeseen results.
This " revolution " began with the invention of a few
simple devices a hundred and forty years ago. Since then
industrial evolution has expanded and intensified the spirit
and method then established. All around and everywhere
the world of science, discovery, invention, and business is
intensively and extensively developing the economic. We
are bound to expect that in future there will be more of it
rather than less of it.
The industrial revolution made a new order of things. It
changed men's social and economic relations. It accen-
tuated industry as never before. It gave birth to trans-
porting and communicating agencies that easily and quickly
bound all nations together; and all parts of the earth were
laid under tribute by a real world-commerce. It gave
basis for enterprises which have grown world-wide and as
powerful as states. It gave birth also to labor organizations
as large and powerful as the opposing combinations of
capital. Everything to-day converges toward, radiates
from, is based upon, and is dominated by these changed
economic conditions.
Every calling rests on an economic basis. — Another
consideration shows that the basis of every calling is eco-
nomic. Even if we should take the theological conception
involved in the Westminster catechism, we should find this
to be true. It asks the question, " What is the chief end of
man ? " The answer is given, " Man's chief end is to
glorify God and to enjoy him forever." With this high
end of life in view, still the basis of realizing it in an active,
108 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
full, fruitful life, is a measure of wealth and leisure for self-
improvement and for helpful service for others. Thus,
ministers, lawyers, artists, physicians, teachers, officers have
to " work for a living," whatever else they may work for;
and their living depends on their value to society which is
rated in wages, fees, or salary.
Mr. Ward demonstrates that wealth has been the founda-
tion of success among French-speaking people from noo to
1825. Thousands of talented men and women within
those centuries are studied. It is found that until approxi-
mately the i Qth century is reached, the wealthy classes,
particularly the nobility, furnish about all men of talent.
This is not because potential talent is confined to that class,
but because the rest of mankind had to work so incessantly
to make a living that they had no time or opportunity for
culture.
The same is held by sociologists to be true of all races and
people until relatively recently. In Greece it was the leisure
class, and that means the wealthy class, who owned slaves
to make their living, which furnished the artists, the men of
literature, the philosophers, and the statesmen. In Rome the
same was largely true, although the situation was qualified
by the fact that Rome made slaves of many of the cultured
Grecians who made intellectual contributions in that nation.
Since the beginning of the ipth century, leisure or the
opportunity to study, to improve oneself, and to become
intellectually productive has become more widely distrib-
uted; and hence all the social classes are contributing to
human achievement. This has come about because hours
of labor have been shortened, the relative wages of the
workers have increased; and free public education brings
IMPORTANCE OF ECONOMIC INTEREST IN SOCIETY 109
the tools of learning to all, so that an able worker may
improve himself.
It is his power to make his living and to garner some
leisure time which is the foundation of his literary, artistic,
scientific, inventive, or other kind of productive work. And
the more efficient he is in his calling, the better his training
and skill, the greater will be his emolument and his power to
command the time and circumstances necessary for the
prosecution of his " higher " aim. This holds, as well, of
those who desire to carry on benevolent and altruistic work
of any sort Such persons must be economically independ-
ent, must be wealthy so that they may undertake the de-
sired activity or must earn enough in some way to give
themselves the time and the means to execute their plans.
II. IMPORTANCE AND INTENSIFICATION OF PRODUCTION
Importance. — Production consumes most of the social
energy. — Production is the chief phase of economics. At
least, it gets the most attention in the texts. It covers all
the processes of wealth, from the time an article begins to
be made until it gets to the consumers or users. Goods are
really not completely produced till the users get them. So
the transfer, the transportation, and the marketing of goods
are included in production; as well as the making or grow-
ing or mining of them.
This work of production of goods and services consumes
most of the energy or force of human society. Society, like
the human body, has just so much energy to spend in the
way of effort. A man has so much power to spend in each
of his tasks during a day or a year. Thus a farmer plows
ten hours a day, chores two, prays a few minutes, and eats
110 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
an hour or two. He finds about this proportion of time is
the most economical and necessary. Most of his energy
goes to production.
We may view society as a big organism, having just so
much energy at its disposal, and so many tasks to perform.
Like the farmer the most of its force goes to creating things
to use. This distribution of its time and effort among its
various tasks it finds necessary and the most economical.
This actual fact of distribution may be seen from the
following data. The occupation groups show us in what
way the social energy is spent.
OCCUPATIONAL GROUPS IN THE UNITED STATES, 1900
Occupational Groups. Number.
Agricultural pursuits 10,438,219
Professional service 1,264,737
Domestic and personal service 5,691,746
Trade and transportation 4,778,233
Manufacturing and mechanical pursuits 7,112,987
Total 29,285,922
Of all these workers we are surprised to find how few,
comparatively, are engaged in cultural and spiritual social
services. This further analysis indicates this:
Actors 34,923
Artists and teachers of art 24,902
Authors and scientists 6,058
Clergymen 111,942
Journalists 30,098
Musicians and teachers of music 92,264
Physicians and surgeons 140,415
Teachers and professors in college 446,797
Officers, local, state, national 90,290
Total 977,689
If we do not number among the workers the females from
ten to seventy-five years of age who are at home, those we
IMPORTANCE OF ECONOMIC INTEREST IN SOCIETY III
have grouped as cultural workers equal about one thirtieth
of all workers. If we include the former, the latter drops
to a ratio of about one fifty-fifth.
The total number of those who render " service," as dis-
tinct from the workers who are directly engaged in the
production of material things, is found in the sum of the
second and third groups of the first of the above tables,
a total of 6,956,483 persons.
There is little reason, however, to make the above qualifi-
cation. Most of the workers are performing services on
which those directly engaged in material production depend,
and without which many would not be able to be material
producers. Actors and musicians inspire and rejuvenate
tired workers, so that they are able to keep to their work.
Preachers, authors, and journalists give the stamina and
character which enable them to bear heavier strains and
responsibilities. Physicians keep them well or restore them
to working strength. Teachers and professors train the
intelligence which makes possible the great complex under-
takings of modern society. Those engaged in most of the
domestic and personal service activities perform functions
which the worker might have to assume otherwise, and
are thus contributors. Officials carry out government, so
necessary to providing services and preserving that social
order on which all productive enterprises depend.
We should likewise take account of the 25,000,000 females
who do the home-keeping for all the workers engaged in
the more obvious and public work of the world. Food,
refreshment, rest, the inspiration and strength which come
from sympathy and affection, consolation, encouragement,
all these things which are such vital factors in keeping up the
112 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
working machinery of humanity, are some of the services
which these unrecognized aids to production contribute.
We perhaps should say that 95 per cent, probably more,
of the social energy is used up in productive work. That
means it is vocational. Making a circle to represent the
total social energy, the consumption of the latter would
appear as in the accompanying diagram:
Intensification, the motive of the age. — Having seen
something of the importance of economic production in
society at large, let us turn to view its intensification. Evi-
dently an activity which consumes some 95 per cent of the
energy at the disposal of collective man is important enough
to demand special training of our schools. If we can further
show that economic activities are becoming intensified, that
they are receiving more rather than less stress, that they
are making greater demands on the workers in the way of
specialization and skill, the lesson for education is obvious.
If an investigator or visitor from an outside world should
visit the earth to-day, and should seek to find what is the
IMPORTANCE OF ECONOMIC INTEREST IN SOCIETY 113
prevalent motive of the age, he could hardly escape the
conclusion that the dominant spirit of occidental civilization,
at least, is industrial and hence commercial. It is true that
not all western nations are equally well equipped or ad-
vanced to respond to this ideal; but it is equally true that
even the most backward are feeling the impulse and stirring
with life to move into industrialism.
Whatever form the spirit of civilization may have taken
in the past, it now garbs itself as commercial expansion and
dominance. If to-day a nation colonizes, or if the nations
seek to partition China among themselves, it is in order that
in the colonies or in the " sphere of influence " falling to
each, they shall be dominant in trade; or if a nation stands
for the " open door," it is that she desires to gain equally
free access, at least, for her commerce with the other
nations. Whereas, formerly, inferior people were exploited
by repression, restriction, and outright robbery on the part
of superiors, now they are cultured, cultivated, encouraged,
peradventure, in order that the greater productive output
may flow into the commercial channels of the dominant
superior.
Most of this is good. It builds up the waste places of
the earth, civilizes and enriches all peoples, makes for
world peace, and rapidly draws together, by various inter-
national bonds, all the parts of the world into a compact
interdependent federation. (Reinsch, Colonial Government,
Chap. I.)
In 1905 Baron Kaneko of Japan, special plenipotentiary
to this nation to secure an economic and commercial alii,
ance between Japan and America, after the peace treaty
had been signed at Portsmouth between Japan and Russia,
114 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
said in an interview: " Japan and the United States will
be strong friends. Wars are fought for commerce, peace is
made for commerce. A commercial alliance is the strongest
of all alliances." (Chicago Record-Herald, Sept. n, 1905.)
Pressure of population on resources. — The subsistence
of the human family depends on two things — • the total
amount of arable land, and the intensiveness of cultivation.
The population of the earth has pushed ahead, until within
the older nations extra land is no longer available; and
between the nations there is severe competition to secure and
to exploit the less occupied lands. Intensive cultivation
in the older regions has been crowded severely. It offers
large increase, yet cannot be indefinitely elastic and expan-
sive. The law of diminishing returns holds ultimately.
There is decreasing natural wealth. For instance, the
forests of the world are receding rapidly. We are engaged
in cutting timber at the rate of 25,000 acres per day, or
40,000,000,000 feet board measure per year. In three years
following 1900, the wood worked up into paper pulp in-
creased almost 300 per cent. And it takes thirty years for
a spruce tree to grow to serve as paper pulp.
Timber for railroad use has become so scarce as to make a
problem for railways. One great system is in course of
putting out hundreds of thousands of acres of young trees,
with a view to raising its future supply. The forests of the
northern states being practically exhausted, the mills are
removing, and locating in the forests of the southern states.
The Bureau of Forestry predicts the end of our forest supply
in 20 years, unless we conserve the forests.
We now take from the Lake Superior region 24,000,000
tons of the best iron ore per year. Formerly ore with less
IMPORTANCE OF ECONOMIC INTEREST IN SOCIETY 115
than sixty per cent of iron was thrown away, now with less
than forty-eight. Much the same may be affirmed of the
precious metals. It is true that new deposits of gold have
been found in Alaska and in Africa in recent years, so aj
greatly to increase the supply relative to silver. But that
there is need of economy in mining is shown by the fact
that the material from the mines once worked over is now
being worked over again by improved processes to extract
the remaining metal. Recent estimates state that our iron
supply will be exhausted in from 50 to 100 years.
Even in respect to land, which has been so free and plenti-
ful in the United States hitherto, we are in sight of the time
when all will be occupied. Free land in the West to be had
almost for the taking has been the explanation of high
wages and prosperity. Now, as we begin to feel its scarcity
we see appearing the old world problems, which arise from
crowding population on means of subsistence.
Evolution of new nations into industrial order. — Another
large reason for this economic dominance is that, beside
the pushing of the population on land and food supply, the
various parts of the civilized world have been put in close
dependence on each other, made economically an organic
unity, by reason of quick transportation and communicating
agencies. It is impossible for a nation to remain localized
and provincial, independent economically, and remain civil-
ized. Let commerce into a nation inferior in point of
civilization, as in the case of Japan, and the demand for the
various goods of civilized nations arises; they are imported
at first, then plants are set up after the pattern of those of
advanced nations to provide the same goods at home, and
soon the nation is competing with other nations for the
Il6 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
trade of the world, alive with revolutionized industrialism
at home and training her growing citizens on these new lines.
To-day Russia, Turkey, and China are taking these more
or less initial steps of industrialization. Hence as a world
movement there is an evolution of a larger and larger
populous area into the industrial order.
Evolution of larger national areas into the industrial order.
— Likewise within any given nation there is an evolution of
larger areas of population into the industrial order. The
growth of cities in the last century, particularly in the last
few decades, in the leading nations of the world is sufficient
evidence of the truth of this statement. For instance, the
urban population of the United States has expanded within
a century from 3.3 per cent in 1790 to 33.1 per cent in 1900.
In 1840 it constituted but 8.5 per cent of the total population
and less than 21 per cent in 1870. This growth of cities
from six in 1790 to 44 in 1840, 226 in 1870, and 545 in
1900, each with over 8,000 inhabitants, is coincident with
the industrial and commercial expansion of the nation. Its
greatest growth has been coincident with the establishment
of transportation facilities and the development of industries.
(U. S. Statistical Atlas, 1900, p. 440.)
Similar industrial changes in Europe have caused an
equally rapid growth of cities. The table on the following
page shows the population in 1900 and the percentage of
growth of chief cities between 1890 and 1900.
According to the United States census of 1900, out of a
total population of 75,994,575, only 45,411,164 persons live
in the country and villages of less than 2,500 inhabitants.
Nor is there any prospect that a return tendency towards
the country will set in. On the contrary, it is almost certain
IMPORTANCE OF ECONOMIC INTEREST IN SOCIETY 117
that cities all over the world will multiply in population and
numbers. Many intelligent writers voice this outlook.
Mr. Howe, for instance, makes a startling analysis of
tendencies at work which are sure to build larger urban
populations. In a trenchant chapter entitled " The New
Civilization," he says: " It has been suggested by Mr. H. G.
Wells, in his Anticipations, that in time, London, St. Peters-
burg, and Berlin will exceed 20,000,000 in population,
while New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago will proba-
bly contain twice this number of people. In so far as New
York and Chicago are concerned this is probably no fanci-
ful estimate."
City
Popula-
tion
%
City
Popula-
tion
%
Greater New York
3,477 ,202
31
Berlin
1,884 34 c
IO
Chicago
I.6OO.C7C
T08
Hamburg
704,660
no
Philadelphia
1,203,687
24
Munich
408, co 3
2
46
St Louis .
57C 2^8
28
Leiosicr
ACC I2O
CA
Cleveland . . .
381 768
63
Breslau .
422 41 C
*6
Buffalo
3C2.2IQ
6c
Dresden . ...
3QC.34Q
43
Cincinnati
32C.QO2
16
Cologne . ...
OVO'J^V
37O,68«;
31
Pittsburg
&9rr**
321,616
•53
Frankfort
''n n 3
287,8l3
£
New Orleans
287 IO4
12
Nuremberg
260 743
83
Milwaukee
285.315
77
Hanover
234,986
44
(James and Sanford, Government in State and Nation, p. 43.)
With a uniform population density which some of its
areas now contain, Manhattan Island would hold nearly two
hundred million people. New York will be the commercial
center of the world and much more dominant as such than
London now is. " On a smaller scale, and in a sense
tributary to New York, the cities of Boston, Philadelphia,
New Orleans, San Francisco, and Seattle will expand by
the same forces. . . . Chicago and St. Louis will perform
for the central regions of America what New York now does
for the eastern seaboard." The Panama canal and deep
Il8 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
waterways will place them in close touch with all parts of the
world. "At no distant day, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit,
Buffalo, and Duluth will be seaboard towns, for the opening
of deep waterway connections to the sea is an insignificant
engineering achievement in comparison with what has already
been done." (The City the Hope of Democracy, Chap. I.)
Growing competition in agriculture. — It must not be
thought that it is alone in the so-called industrial field that
intensification obtains. We find it entering the field of the
farmer as well. We have adverted to the fact that in our
country the supply of free land is becoming exhausted.
The time is at hand when the extravagant methods of exten-
sive farming will have to cease. Our wheat farms, for
instance, are coming under severer competition with other
wheat producers of the world.
If rich lands of South America are developed and raise
large yields of wheat, that commodity is likely to fall in price
in the markets of the world. Or if Germany improves wheat
culture so as to increase her yield, the world- price feels the
effect. Farmers in America have to sell at market prices.
Thus, competing with wheat raisers aH over the world, they
must be prepared to raise it as cheaply as the others.
Again agriculture is absorbing more science and machin-
ery. It needs both to increase its output of crops. From
the point of view that industrialism consists in the use of
machinery, agriculture is an industrial pursuit, because
modern farming takes much complex machinery. On the
basis of being conducted on scientific principles, it is also
coming to recognition as an industrial pursuit
Economic tendencies of science. — The progress and
development of the world wait on the discoveries of science,
IMPORTANCE OF ECONOMIC INTEREST IN SOCIETY 1 19
and on the application of these new truths to useful ends.
First, because science is a specializing process, it is its
nature to become more and more cumulative in its effects.
The earth, air, processes of nature, are observed, picked to
pieces, understood; and their economic values established.
In the field of inventions we find that machines have
multiplied more rapidly in the last generation than in all the
rest of the history of mankind. Wallace gave to the nine-
teenth century the preeminence in great discoveries and
perhaps the greatest have been mechanical. The differen-
tiation of machinery may be judged by the United States
Patent records. The number of patents and certificates of
registration issued in 1901 was 25,558; in 1902 it was 27,136;
and in 1903 it was 31,046.
Secondly, science has become the handmaid of manu-
facture and commerce. Almost every new discovery has
been at first a wonder and a toy. We are able to recall how
the Roentgen ray was for a long time the sport and play-
thing of the civilized world. Yet now it is the useful serv-
ant of medicine. So radium was at first a mere curiosity
but even now is put to stern economic use. Likewise wire-
less telegraphy has found its place in the communicating
system of to-day and promises much for the future. Chem-
ists are acknowledged forerunners and adjuncts of manu-
facturing processes. Biologists, like Burbank, for example,
are confessedly commercial in their aims, that is, desire their
work to be commercially valuable to mankind.
Inventors as well as scientists have been industrialized
and commercialized by great corporations and made directly
to contribute to wealth production processes. The great
steel mills of South Chicago employ a corps of some 45
120 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
chemists, who not only test the qualities of materials turned
out, but work towards improving the iron and steel manu-
facturing processes. In like manner the General Electric
Company of Schenectady, New York, spends about $2,500,-
ooo a year to develop inventions pertinent to its business.
A part of the work of its 50 engineers, at the head of the
departments, is to develop improvements in their respective
departments. In a recent year 1412 ideas were reported by
300 men. Of that number 615 were developed and patents
on them filed at Washington by the company. The patent
business of the company alone requires twelve lawyers and
twenty-eight assistants to look after it. (Amer. Jour.
Sociology, Vol. 7, p. 113; and The World's Work, June,
1905, p. 6296.)
The economic the vehicle of progress. — Industrialism
must be the trend affairs shall take in the United States, if
it is to retain its place, and is to make the advance that cur-
rent civilization demands. Its battles will be commercial
without, based upon industrial competence within. To-
day among the nations the ancient saying is true: "To him
that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall
be taken away even that which he hath." As the North
was victorious over the South forty years ago, because it
had developed a more productive industrialism on the basis
of free labor, and as to-day Japan repels Russia because it
has become industrialized far beyond its opponent, so in
the future, more than ever, the road to success and power
lies in this direction.
It is a mistake to think that the very best culture and
character cannot come through material growth. The
spirit of every age expresses itself and builds up the life of
IMPORTANCE OF ECONOMIC INTEREST IN SOCIETY 121
that time through means suitable to and harmonious with
that age. Moreover, civilization grows by means of the
multiplication of material things through which and in
which it expresses and actualizes the life of its people.
Measured in economic terms, civilization or life is developed
in proportion to the multiplication of wants and to the
corresponding ability to satisfy them. The invention and
discovery of new things, devices, utilities are demanded
to create new wants in humanity. Industrial life produces
them in abundance, and commerce universalizes them.
Hence it is that, economically, civilization waits on this
process and uses it as an agent of development of its spirit,
and of the welfare and satisfaction of its people. All other
wants, intellectual, ethical, religious, rest on and develop
on the basis of these material utilities as agents fit to serve
them. Their richness demands the development of these.
They thrive most where these abound.
From this it may be seen how imperative it is that a state,
a nation, which undertakes to train its citizens shall make
them efficient in the knowledge, manipulation and produc-
tion of the cars which bear the wealth of the civilization-
How imperative that the great masses of men who are to
make, produce, transport, sell, participate in the relations
imposed by this multifarious activity, and have to meet
the problems and duties thereof, should be made intimately
acquainted by this state culture with the essential economic
factors.
HI. ECONOMICS OF CONSUMPTION
Need of economy in consumption. — We have just seen
one side of the shield, which reveals the need for more
intelligence and skill in the direction of producing the utili-
122 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
ties of life. We have now to view the other side. We
find there the expression of the necessity for bringing more
intelligence and training to the task of consuming the
goods produced.
Many of the reasons developed to demonstrate the neces-
sity of greater insight and capability in the processes of
production are also reasons for gaining the ability to prac-
tice economy in the use of utilities in the satisfaction of
our wants. If increased population presses on the supply
of subsistence, so that better methods of production are
required to supply the added wants, a consequent pressure
is felt in the direction of a demand for practicing rigid
economy by the people who use up the materials after they
get them from the markets. If the using up of our natural
resources in the shape of mine products, forests, and fertility
of the soil brings a menace and speaks to us impressively
that we should conserve these resources and improve our
processes so that we may utilize a larger per cent of the
materials in working them up into goods, it also admon-
ishes us to exercise greater care in the use of the goods
when they come to us.
If we take the item of farm machinery by way of illus-
tration, we may discover with what wastefulness we Ameri-
cans proceed in our business. One of the commonest scenes
in North Dakota, for example, is the yard of the house and
barn of the farmer littered with farm machinery in all stages
of degeneracy, from the new implements to the disintegrated
parts of old implements lying about, all standing out and
taking the full shock of climatic exposure. Within a year
I stopped at the home of one of our most prominent men.
He owns several thousand acres, has a large house and
IMPORTANCE OF ECONOMIC INTEREST IN SOCIETY 123
barns, and some forty acres devoted to grounds in connec-
tion with the buildings. Practically the entire forty acres
was covered and littered with farm machinery. There were
at least a dozen wagons, many hay frames, eight or ten
harvesters, several hay rakes, mowers, drills, etc., etc.; some
new, some partly worn, others broken down, and many
widely scattered fragments. A great many thousand
dollars' worth of implements were thus displayed and had
never been housed. Lack of care was evident in all this,
as also in that of the out-buildings. Lack of paint and
repairs was all too visible.
Moreover, manure from hundreds of head of stock and
from rotting hay and straw stacks was lying about in im-
mense quantities. There were some small lakes near by
which furnished water for the animals. The water of these
ponds was colored yellow by the drainage from the manure.
It must have been menacing to the health of the stock. To
add to this, I discovered several dead animals lying near the
edge of the small lakes in the lots and pastures, wholly
uncovered, and polluting both water and air. I have never
seen a more impressive demonstration than there of our
wastefulness and heedlessness of economics in our busi-
nesses. What occurred on that large farm, in a large and
possibly exaggerated form, pretty generally occurs on our
small farms.
Now when we remember that the implements used on our
farms are made of wood from the forests and of steel from
the mines, and that the machines and the furnaces required
in the making of the implements are fired by coal from the
mines, we can see that to permit the useless destruction of
the farm or other kinds of implements is to be wasteful of
124 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
our natural resources, and at the same time it wastes our
money directly invested in the implements.
We could take up the subject of soil, and find that our
farmers have been sapping the fertility of the earth unduly
by ignorance of the right methods of farming. Or we could
go into the matter of housekeeping and discover that our
food expenses are higher than they would be if we knew
more about foods, and about the relative sustaining values
of the various kinds of foods found in our markets. The
same would be found to be true of clothes, furnishings, and
decorations of our houses, of the stores and fuels, etc. On
every hand we should discover that if we really knew more
about the articles we use in life and depend on for our well-
being, we should get more out of our material utilities,
expend less of our income in so doing, and use up less of the
world's ultimate supply. And this knowledge as certainly
awaits upon educational emphasis and attention as does
information about numbers, geography, or history.
Were the majority of our citizens wealthy, we might disre-
gard this lesson, in so far as it concerns individual well-being.
But the majority of our American inhabitants are practi-
cally without property. The bulk of. wealth in the United
States is owned by a very few people. The greater part
of the remaining wealth is possessed by far less than half of
the population. The masses of the people are dependent
on wages and salaries for their support. It could be shown
that the average income of the workers on which to support
a family does not exceed $400 or $450 per year. These
facts demonstrate that the workers, the great masses of the
American people, have a need to understand the principles
of economy in consumption.
IMPORTANCE OF ECONOMIC INTEREST IN SOCIETY
Spiritual necessity of training along consumptive lines.—
We have the very highest grounds for asserting that attention
should be paid to the matter of giving insight in methods
and principles of consumption. For all goods of all sorts,
whether they are material or spiritual, whether something
to delight the palate or to charm the soul, are produced to
be consumed; and that means to satisfy a want, a desire,
a feeling. In other words, all goods and services are to
produce satisfaction; to create happiness and contentment
in life; to contribute to non- material ends.
Now, there are two ways we may conceive by means of
which the satisfaction in life might be enlarged and enriched.
One is by increasing the number of human desires and
wants; and consequently, the number of utilities or kinds
of goods to appease them. This is secured by means of
production. The other way is by training the feelings and
capacity of human beings to enjoy. There is a very large
field for educational effort in this direction, just how large we
do not exactly know, as yet. At any rate we are coming to
appreciate that there is a large and rich development ahead
of the human race which may be assisted by taking the
improvement of consumption under intelligent direction.
As recent writers have pointed out, we have largely lived
under a scheme of prohibitions and penalties in the past.
Our commandments have been those of the "do not"
sort. We have been shown what not to do more than what
to do. We have been taught to suppress our feelings and
inclinations, rather than instructed how to guide them in
directions where they may be fruitfully exercised and
enlarged. In certain respects great gains have been made
toward a larger view.
126 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
Not so long ago all our passions and instincts were
regarded as inherently bad and hence they were to be
suppressed like reptiles and vermin. Now our "new
psychology" builds our mental and moral nature on those
basic factors. Our mental structure is made possible by,
and begins with, our instinctive and impulsive nature with
which we start life. Our moral-will arises out of years
of practice in coordinating and perfecting our impulsive
actions. Looking at individual life as a development, we
do not see how there could be a mature, comprehensive,
" higher" life without the existence of this "lower" life.
All the time we are dependent on the play and presence of
these factors and forces of the so-called "lower" life. In
fact, all our higher tastes and enjoyments rest on them and
are made out of their very materials.
That there are possibilities of getting more enjoyment out
of the things we consume, of rising to greater heights of
satisfaction in making use of what comes to our lot, is in a
measure indicated by some of the gains which have been
made and in certain facts coming to light.
In the matter of enjoying the food we live by, there has
been great gain made in the course of evolution. Most
of the lower animals bestow very little attention upon the
process of masticating and swallowing, indicating that the
satisfaction gained by means of tasting what they eat is
very small. The dog is a good example of this. He rushes
upon his food, grabs it with his mouth, and swallows it with
hardly a pause for the act of chewing.
In the case of men, the satisfaction connected with mas-
tication is relative to the stage of civilization. Primitive
people love to eat, but it is not for the sake of the eating
IMPORTANCE OF ECONOMIC INTEREST IN SOCIETY 127
process, but for the sake of the food. Their chief aim is
to get the food into the stomach. Not much time is spent
on mastication. I have eaten with a group of Indians who
formerly were " blanket " Indians. The meal they fur-
nished was chiefly meat. It was boiled and served in the
rough. To me it looked uninviting in the extreme, but to my
primitive companions it was appetizing. While I was get-
ting my chunk of the flesh cut into smaller pieces, and was
getting under headway in properly grinding them, my
associates had thrown the large chunks into their mouths,
and with hardly any attempt at mastication, had swallowed
them.
Time spent on food preparation and eating is a fairly good
measure of civilization and culture. We spend much time
now on preparation of a great variety of foods; on in vent-
ing new and different methods of preparing the same
article for the table; on seasoning and enhancing the
flavors; on trimming and decorating the tables and dining
parlors; on devising delicate and beautiful designs of
silverware and pottery for table use. All this is a symptom
of the high estimate we place on the process of partaking
of food as a means of giving immediate satisfaction. In
other words, it has high aesthetic value to us, and is likely
to have more.
Now Mr. Fletcher advises us that we must chew each
morsel of food we take into our mouths until its taste
changes or ceases altogether; that by so doing we get the
largest amount of pleasure out of eating, economize in
food, and aid digestion. There are many authorities on
foods who support him. Anyway, we are likely to develop
away from the delight of gormandizing of primitive and
128 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
uncultured people to a fine and more differentiated enjoy-
ment in food consumption.
What has been said about food may serve to typify the
increase of satisfaction we might hope to gain in connection
with the other modes of consumption. Perhaps no other
process can yield quite so intense satisfaction as the con-
sumption of food, because the latter is the direct support
of life. But we can increase our enjoyment of transportation
and travel; of building our houses for beauty and appear-
ance as well as for convenience; of decorating our houses
and grounds; of using clothing and appliances; of books,
music, etc. If we have teachers who have the appreciation,
and are trained in the economies of enjoyment, the children
will imitate and the scope and intensity of our all-around
satisfaction and well-being will be enlarged. The genuine
spiritual advance of society will be furthered.
CHAPTER VII. PATHOLOGICAL DEMANDS ON
EDUCATION
IN considering this subject it is not deemed necessary for
our purpose to attempt to point out all the ills of society,
to indicate their causes, and to show how the educational
system might seek to remedy the situation. If a few, even
one or two, typical cases of defects can be located, and if it
can be shown how training for life might be conducted to
strengthen society there, a sufficient purpose will be real-
ized. The legitimate inference will then be that other lines
of social pathology could be influenced by education in a
similar beneficial manner.
Magnitude of pathological conditions makes consideration
imperative. — If it were possible, in short space, to portray
the colossal magnitude which pauperism and criminality
assume in modern society, its statistical measurement, the
horrors and misery, the waste and sacrifice, the needlessness
and heedlessness of their existence in a rational society, the
inherent fascination of the matter might attract educators.
This must be left to such men as Hunter and Riis in their
effective works. Our hope here is to show their vast pro-
portions, to indicate the consequent menace, and to suggest
how educators or education may be of help.
The economic loss sustained by our nation by reason of
these classes is enormous. There is no national report
which adequately enumerates the amount of crime and
pauperism. Private estimates for pauperism vary greatly.
129
130 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
Hunter, for instance, believes there are 10,000,000 persons
in the United States who lack things needful for physical
validity. He sums up his statements relative to poverty in
the following way :
" There are probably in fairly prosperous years no less
than 10,000,000 persons in poverty; that is to say, underfed,
underclothed and poorly housed. Of these about 4,000,000
persons are public paupers. Over 2,000,000 working men
are unemployed for four to six months in the year. About
500,000 male immigrants arrive yearly and seek work in
the very districts where unemployment is greatest. Nearly
half of the females in the country are propertyless. Over
1,700,000 little children are forced to become wage earn-
ers, when they should be in school. About 5,000,000
women find it necessary to work and about 2,000,000 are
employed in factories, mills, etc. Probably no less than
1,000,000 workers are injured or killed each year while do-
ing their work. About 10,000,000 of the persons now living
will, if the present ratio is kept up, die of the preventable
disease, tuberculosis." (Poverty, p. 337.)
Professor Bushnell, after considering state reports of
Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania,
Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and California, specifically,
says: " The total reported public expenses for the mainte-
nance of the dependent, delinquent classes (chiefly in state
institutions) in these eight states alone as discussed above
was this: for one year $48,135,392.51. For seven of these
states (excluding California) the total number of abnormal
public dependents was 609,895, or one forty-second of the
total population of those states. The population of these
states was about one third of the country as a whole.
PATHOLOGICAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION 131
" If the same proportion of public dependents were main-
tained for the other states of the Union, the total number
in the country would be more than 1,800,000 in receipt
of public relief. But in all probability the proportion of
dependents is not high in other states." (Why, the author
does not state. One does not on the surface see why Indiana
or Oregon should not have as large a percentage of paupers
as neighboring states reckoned among the eight.) " How-
ever, the total number of private and public abnormal
dependents in the United States must not be far from 3,000,-
ooo, or one twenty- fifth of the total population of the coun-
try, at an annual expense of nearly $200,000,000, or one tenth
of the total wage income of all the manufacturing establish-
ments of the country."
With respect to crime alone the same author says: " Mr.
Eugene Smith estimates that there are in the United States
about 250,000 who make their living, at least in some
degree, by the practice of crime. Their annual income,
he thinks, is $1,600, each, or an aggregate income of $400,-
000,000 annually. Taxation caused by crime is set at $200,-
000,000." (Henderson, Modern Methods of Charity, pp.
385-390-)
" Mr. Charles D. Kellogg has estimated that three mil-
lions of people in the United States were wholly or par-
tially supported by alms, during a recent year, and that the
support received by this number was equal to the total
support of half a million paupers during the entire year."
(Encyclopedia of Social Reform — article, Pauperism.)
To the uninformed person these figures seem exaggerated.
Yet the same conditions prevail in other countries. Over
one third of the population of London and other English
132 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
cities are impoverished, and the British government has
been forced to take cognizance of the deplorable situation
and to begin relief considerations. Our own government
publications, naturally conservative, constantly divulge the
woeful status.
One certainly is conservative in saying that in the United
States there are 500,000 persons entirely supported by
society and some 2,000,000 persons partly supported. The
productive power withheld from society will certainly
average $400 per year. For the half million productive
all the time this means $200,000,000. The loss to society
from the others partly unproductive will almost or quite
equal this amount. The criminal class, as Mr. Smith
estimates, extracts $400,000,000 annually. Beyond this
all these persons consume the products of society about
equal in value to their productive power withheld, let us say
something like $400,000,000. Further they require insti-
tutions of various sorts for their detention or care, super-
intendents, attendants and agents by the thousands who are
therefore taken from productive enterprises and further
must be supported by society; courts, government officials,
processes of law, medical relief, etc., probably equaling in
money terms all the foregoing sums.
If we should thus roughly estimate the cost, in terms of
wealth, to our society annually imposed by this element,
$1,500,000,000 would be conservative.* But if we further
rate it in terms of positive misery, negative and atrophied
character, swamped and mutilated ideals, putrid and malig-
* Rev. J. J. Munro, chaplain of the Prison Evangelistic Society of New
York, estimates the annual direct and indirect cost of crime alone in the
United States for 1906 at $1,075,000,000 (same, new edition, p. 335).
PATHOLOGICAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION 133
nant social conditions, or by means of any spiritual standard
whatsoever, the loss appears astounding. The system which
perpetuates the formation of such unprofitable masses seems
self -condemned and must be weak if it cannot find and
apply a remedy. In so far as the educational system is
accountable, it cannot be rated as highly scientific, expe-
dient or effective under its record.
I. GENERAL CAUSES OF SOCIAL DISEASES
In considering the causes of poverty and crime, we shall
have to refrain from indulging in minute details. It will be
obvious, in a glance at the table of causes of poverty, that
a great variety of causal conditions exist. The same would
appear were a similar chart made for crime. We shall
confine our attention to just those essential facts and typical
causes which denote the connection between the social dis-
eases and education.
Defective social structures. — The really most ultimate
and general cause or set of causal conditions of crime and
poverty exists in the shape of defective social structures.
Social structures or organizations in their relation to the
individual may be working poorly. An organization or
institution is intended to serve and satisfy social members
in its given line. If it fails to do this, so that the individual's
wants are not met, there is so much social disease. Thus
it may be that the economic organizations are not properly
working. Wages may be too low, hours too short, neces-
sary goods too high. Individuals' wants which should be
satisfied through such structures are stinted* or unmet.
Hence, poverty, pauperism, crime, as the result perhaps.
Or it may be that the family institution has been impaired
134 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
so that the children's moral training is neglected and the
issue for society is likely to be criminal.
The conclusion seems to be that defective social struc-
tures or organizations mean social disease; and that we
locate the disease by its effect on social beings. Defective
individuals are the sign of inefficient organizations. A
perfect society would have a full quota of efficient organi-
zations, ably and actually satisfying all the wants of its
individuals, which individuals would have been perfectly
formed and trained under its institutional guidance. Those
persons would be completely socialized.
Heredity. — It has been said that if you desire to secure a
good man you must go back to the grandparents and see
that they are fit. While it is true that the factor of heredity
is likely to be much overrated in its power to produce good
or bad men, it is nevertheless a forceful one for good or ill.
The truth may be put in the form of a general statement,
namely, that our minds and lives rest on physiological con-
ditions, the condition of validity or invalidity of our bodies,
and that it is pretty difficult to get good results Out of poor
conditions. If we are born with weakened bodies, we are
less able to compete in physical and mental work with those
who have their physiques well developed.
If we inherit disease or a tendency to disease, we are
likely to be greatly handicapped in the struggle of life.
Disposition, temperament, tastes, and probably traits of
character are handed down from parent to child. A weak-
ness or affliction may not be passed on in its exact form, but
is likely to * inflict a weakness in some form. Alcoholism
may result in offspring who are maniacs, epileptics, vicious
in character or subjects of lingering diseases. Children
PATHOLOGICAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION 135
may inherit the characteristics of ancestors several genera-
tions removed. (See Henderson, Dependents, Defectives, and
Delinquents, pp. 14-16.) The marriage of close relatives
may prove unfortunate in offspring, particularly if either
party is physically weak.
It is possible that good raising and care of offspring may
overcome some of the defects of inheritance, but how much
better were there none to overcome. Anyway, the millions
of those who are at birth physically handicapped and who
have not proper nutrition, hygienic attention, and good
home raising are just so many candidates for almshouses,
reformatories, prisons, and kindred institutions. The lag-
gards in school and the laggards in life are those who, in
many cases, did not get the " square deal " at birth. Phys-
ical deficiency by birth is likely to act as a predisposition
to social deficiency in the absence of excellent training.
Poor homes. — A recent national convention of charity
workers was unanimous in pointing to the home as a lead-
ing factor in ruining or saving the child. The National
Educational Association of 1909 likewise devoted large atten-
tion to the duty of the parent, and laid heavy emphasis on
the function of the home. It is a commonplace in sociology
that the home is a unique and fundamental social institution
with duties to perform which cannot be readily assumed by
any other; among the most important of which is the moral
training of children.
A poor home is one which is short in any way that is
necessary to the right development of children. It may be
short in shelter, food, and clothing, so that children may
not have the strength and health for the growth and duties
of childhood. It may be lacking in its spiritual setting,
136 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
without books, papers, pictures, enlightening and elevating
conversation, as a consequence of which children are dull
and backward mentally. The cause of dullness of some of
the so-called " dull children " who enter school is just
such paralyzing home conditions. Lastly, a poor home is
one which allows the child to do as it pleases, to run wild in
all sorts of associations, and wields no influence in shaping
the character for good. And, sad to say, some homes of this
type go further, even actually polluting the lives of the
children.
Neighborhood associations. — The child's earlier days
are spent exclusively in the home. But from about the
third year on, its life widens out to take the influences of the
neighborhood. The great majority of children pass a very
large part of their time in the play associations of the im-
mediate community. Even if the home is doing its duty,
internally, toward the child, it cannot deprive it of the
association with children without stunting and dwarfing its
nature. Play is as essential to the proper development of
the young as atmosphere and food. Moreover, the major-
ity of mothers cannot hire help, and have the sole charge
of the children of the home. It is next to impossible that
they should keep the young under their supervision all the
time. There follows, naturally, just as the facts denote,
the indulgence in promiscuous neighborhood associations.
The imitative nature of the child makes these associations
very powerful. Children imitate children more readily
than they imitate elder people. Good habits formed within
the home may be torn down and displaced by bad ones, in
short order. This makes bad associations of all sorts de-
structive. We remarked on the. purity of our child's Ian-
PATHOLOGICAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION 137
guage until she mixed with other children. Then a rapid
change set in. Other children of the region used poor
grammar, and some rough words. Our child responded
and her chaste English immediately faded. We could not
counteract the example of the other children. Because of
plasticity, extreme suggestibility, and imitative responsive-
ness on the part of the young, degrading and immoral asso-
ciations and influences in the neighborhood are rendered
unduly pernicious and dangerous. They are extremely
active and forceful in establishing habits of shiftlessness
and criminality.
Poverty. — Poverty is a pathological social condition in
itself. When it becomes pauperism it certainly is, and
some contend that all poverty is so. Poverty occurs when-
ever the income is not sufficient to maintain physical effi-
ciency. Good service cannot be given, nor good health and
morals maintained, wherever this is the case.
But poverty begets more of its kind, and also brings in a
crop of other social ills in the form of crime, ill health from
poor food and bad sanitary conditions, and a general low
tone of life. Floods of ills overtake those who have not
the means to build or rent warm houses, purchase sufficient
fuel to warm them, provide plenty of nourishing food so
that the workers and the children are kept strong, secure
drainage and sewage disposal, ice for the preservation of
foods in hot weather, medicine and medical attention in
cases of sickness, and means of intelligence, — the books
and papers. Inheritance steps in to perpetuate weakened
bodies, and constitutions undermined by overwork, under-
feeding, exposure, and disease. Ignorance and need may
furnish the conditions of temptation and immorality, and
138 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
the second generation may be criminal in tendency because
of deteriorated constitution and minds, for such are prone to
criminal tendencies by reason of weakened wills.
Lack of skill. — It is becoming increasingly apparent
to students of social diseases and of the backward classes
that the lack of skill constitutes a very large factor in their
production. As an extended notice of this subject is given
later in the chapter, we shall defer its consideration to that
place.
II. DEFECTIVE EDUCATION AND SOCIAL DISEASES
Having enumerated the chief causes of pathologic social
conditions, and explained the nature of each as far as our
space would permit, let us now consider whether defective
education could enter as a cause in the case of any of
them.
Heredity and poor homes. — In the case of inherited
physical conditions, it might seem far fetched to hold the
schools responsible. From one viewpoint, the connection
is remote. Considering that little attention has been paid
in the education of the young, to the practical phases of
physiology and its articulation with social matters, we have
little right to reprove education. Having in mind, how-
ever, as was said above under the heading of Heredity,
that poor food, unsanitary living, exposure, intermarriages
of kin, etc., are likely to entail weakened constitutions upon
the second generation; that these enfeebled persons consti-
tute the class which is predisposed to furnishing victims of
poverty and criminality; and that these things should be
known; we may regard the omission of this knowledge by
the schools as an indictment. We may say, with reason,
PATHOLOGICAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION 139
that in so far as enlightened teaching would prevent heredi-
table tendencies, in that far education is defective.
In the case of poor homes, perhaps much the same kind
of statement would have to be made. In so far as the
educational system is responsible for withholding from the
growing generation the necessary knowledge relative to
the nature and functions of the home in human society
and to the responsibilities and duties of parents as respects
their children in their development into citizenship; and
in as far as the larger social situation does not so press upon
the parents that they are withheld from exercising their
parental duties; to that degree education is indictable and
defective. But in saying this we should be mindful that, as
yet, the mass of people are ignorant of the fullness and im-
portance of parental duties; that trained social workers are
just beginning to appreciate something of the situation; that
advanced educators are but now catching sight of the large-
ness of the problem; and that no one and every one is to
blame.
Hiatus between school and home. — We have already
given attention to the home as a cause of pathological
social conditions, in permitting the children to play in all
sorts of associations, and in imposing on them its own low
standards in many cases. Let the reader refer to that
former passage for the treatment of that phase of the
subject.
This does not appear to indict the school. If it is the sin
or omission of the home it cannot be that of the school.
Maybe we shall not be able to prove the connection between
education and the situation. We do not want to strain the
case, but it appears like this, to-day.
140 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
Whether right or wrong, the development has actually
taken place in society, and is going on, that the homes have
contracted in the exercise of their functions while the schools
have expanded in theirs. The schools have come to exer-
cise a larger and larger influence on, and control of, the time
of the children. How far this tendency is to proceed is not
determinable. It is apparent that the homes have contracted
farther than the schools have expanded. It is not at all
certain or very probable, in the multitude of cases in the
cities, that the homes will ever again expand and retake
their old functions. There is a great hiatus between the
home and the school, the great play period time, where
supervision of child life is imperative, but where none is
now provided. During this large and important space of
the day and of the year no one stands sponsor in society;
and it is in this time that contaminating associations are
contracted and anti-social undertakings engaged in which
pervert and spoil the life-habits and character. It is the
opinion of practically all eminent juvenile court judges that
idleness and bad associations are the great agents in pro-
ducing criminal offenders.
Want of vocation as a cause of poverty. — We owe to
charity workers, in the great cities of the world, the collec-
tion of reliable information of the specific causes of poverty.
As an illustration of these findings, the table prepared by
Professor S. M. Lindsay is given. (National Conference
of Charities and Correction, 1899, p. 370.) It agrees very
closely with the causes collected from investigators in the
chief European and American cities. Baltimore, New York,
New Haven, and Boston are the four cities which furnish its
facts.
PATHOLOGICAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
141
In the table given here only the per cents of average for
the four cities appear, as being sufficient for our purpose.
CAUSES OF POVERTY.
Baltimore,
New York,
New Haven,
Boston
Totals
Causes indicating misconduct:
Drink..
l< 28
Immorality
.4-1
Shiftlessness and inefficiency
7. ei
Crime and dishonesty .
68
Roving disposition . .
I IQ
Causes indicating misfortune:
Lack of normal support:
Imprisonment of breadwinner
.76
25.10
Orphans and abandoned
•IA
Neglect by relatives
•o**
OI
No male support
Matters of employment:
Lack of employment
•3U
at 16
6-31
Insufficient employment
651
Poorly paid employment
i 81
Unhealthy or dangerous employment
oo
Matters of personal capacity:
.41
Jt-S/
Accident . .
2 86
Sickness or death in family
22.27
Physical defects
?.6o
Insanity .
8<
Old age. .
400
Not classified
2.85
34.08
Of these various causes, it will be seen that those indicating
misfortune amount to almost 72 per cent, while those indicat-
ing misconduct equal only a little over 25 per cent. The
chief group of causes is " matters of personal capacity."
Lack of employment is the largest single factor, while
142 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
" matters of employment " amount to nearly one third of all
causes. Drink, so often taken to be the almost exclusive
cause of poverty, is seen to account for only about 15 per
cent.
An inspection of the causes of poverty, given above, shows
there is plenty of opportunity to connect poverty with the
unskilled condition of the individual. Under the heading
" causes indicating misconduct," there is large scope for lack
of skill to operate as a cause. Hardly one of the subhead-
ings could be exempted from the charge that back of it as a
condition which accounts for it as a fact in the life of the
individual is the want of special, technical ability to get and
keep work; and the lack of a character of sterling worth,
due to the fact that the individual has not had his life
organized and disciplined through the definite and constant
demands special training imposes.
I should claim that " shiftlessness and inefficiency,"
for instance, are the result of the want of definite training.
It is a habit of life ensuing upon persistent idleness per-
mitted in youth. Observation of life and psychical studies
have made it clear that the normal state of children is one
of activity. They love to expend energy in accomplishing
things, not only in play but in suitable tasks. Proper
training would utilize the love of action and of making effort,
in childhood and youth, directing it in specific channels and
organizing it into a life habit. Love of idleness would not
result. Thus laziness is merely a sign of a lack of training
and skill, a lack of organized activity through which the
individual finds satisfaction in expressing himself.
In the same manner we might go back of the other items
under this first general heading.
PATHOLOGICAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION 143
Under "causes indicating misfortune," there is smaller
possibility of tracing the causes back to a more conditioning
one, such as lack of definite skill. Yet it is apparent that
several items might yield to the treatment. Lack of skill
might be a factor under " lack of normal support," in
the first three under " matters of employment; " and pos-
sibly in the third and sixth under " matters of personal
capacity."
It would be safe to say, then, that a very large percentage
of poverty is caused, directly or in the second stage removed,
by a lack of useful training. We should not be warranted
in attempting to state it as a definite percentage. To estab-
lish the fact that there is a connection between much of the
existing poverty and the untrained, unskilled condition of the
impoverished persons, is all we might hope to do.
A study of the industrial situation would appear to force
the opinion on us that a considerable proportion of the work-
less people do not have work, either because work in general
is not sufficient at the time for them or because it is not to
be found in their particular locality. We are also made
aware of the existence of a considerable residuum, the
members of which are unable to compete successfully in
the labor market with the more skillful members of society.
Just what per cent of the idle class this residuum is in the
United States, it would be difficult to say. Mr. Charles
Booth, the thorough and scientific investigator into social
conditions of London, shows that over 30 per cent of that
great city's population is below the poverty line, and is
made up of the occasional, casual, irregular workers, all
unskilled. (Labor and Life of tlie People of London,
Vol. 2, pp. 20-21.)
144 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
Want of vocation as cause of crime. — In considering the
cause of crime, we must put the economic conditions as the
first and greatest, since want among the poor and greed
among the rich and influential alike lead thereto. Carroll
D. Wright says: " Certainly hunger leads to more crime
of a petty nature, perhaps, than any other one cause."
" Labor, properly renumerated, is an effective guarantee
against the commission of crime." " In a state in which
labor had all its rights there would be, of course, little
pauperism and little crime. On the other hand, the undue
subjection of the laboring man must tend to make paupers
and criminals." (Encyclopedia of Social Reform, First
Edition, pp. 423-4.)
Mr. Wright then shows that a lack of proper training has
a large share in producing criminals. "It is statistically
true that enough of knowledge to be of value in increasing
the amount and quality of work done, to give character, to
some extent at least, to a person's tastes and aspirations,
is a better safeguard against the inroads of crime than any
code of criminal laws." " The kind of labor which requires
the most skill on the part of the workman to perform insures
him most perfectly against want and crime, as a rule.
" This statement is fortified by such statistics as are avail-
able. Of 4,340 convicts, at one time, in the State of Massa-
chusetts, 2,991, or 68 per cent, were returned as having no
occupation. The adult convicts numbered at that time
3,971. Of these 464 were illiterate; of 220 sentenced dur-
ing the year, 147 were without a trade or any regular means
of earning a living. In Pennsylvania, during a recent
year, nearly 88 per cent of the penitentiary convicts had
never been apprenticed to any trade or occupation; and
PATHOLOGICAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
this was also true of 68J per cent of the convicts sentenced
to county jails and workhouses in the same state during
the same year. In Mr. Frederick Wines's recent report on
homicide in the United States, in 1890, it is shown that of
6,958 men, 5,175, or more than 74 per cent of the whole,
were said to have no trade."
Prof. R. P. Falkner, on the basis of statistics collected by
the Wardens' Association of the United States and Canada,
gives the following table comparing the occupations of
prisoners with those of the people.
Occupation
Population
1880,
Per cent
Prisoners,
Per cent
Agriculture
A A I I
IS 27
Personal and professional
27.42
72.OO
Trading and transportation
IO.4I
3. 17
Mining, manufacturing and mechanical
22.O6
, '
6.cc
No occupation .
2 7O
Criminal pursuits
27
IOO.
IOO.
The " personal and professional " include common laborers.
Thus the higher the grade of labor, the less the liability to
crime. " Prisoners as a rule are accustomed to the rudest
kind of labor. In the main they are unskilled, and probably
also irregularly employed." (Encyclopedia of Social Reform,
pp. 403-4). Morrison of England states that 77 per cent
of juvenile offenders had not been apprenticed to any trade,
and that about 75 per cent of adult prison population were
without definite vocation. In the general community
laborers of all kinds amounted to only 20 per cent of the
population over 15 years of age. " Therefore, according
146 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
to the most moderate calculations, the class of low-skilled
workmen is between three and four times more numerous in
the prison population than in the general community. . . .
The principal cause undoubtedly is that the ranks of the
general laborer are recruited, as a rule, from the most back-
ward, the most impoverished, the least self-respecting class
in the community." (Juvenile Offenders, pp. 166-70.)
Thus he couples both criminal and poverty subjects with
lack of skill and trade. Booker T. Washington in a
passage previously quoted states that "90 per cent of the
colored people in prison are without knowledge of trades
and 61 per cent are illiterate."
III. THE REMEDY PREVENTION
The doctrine of prevention. — Now we have reached the
place where the treatment must be made to contribute to
education. We want to know whether or not education
can reach the causes of crime and pauperism. At once it
becomes evident that certain of the causes are outside the
immediate influence of training. Criminal and pauper pre-
dispositions, if they are ever actually and absolutely inher-
ited, certainly cannot be eradicated.
Recent studies of poverty in the United States and Great
Britian emphasize the lack of employment as one of the
greatest causes. Thus the New York Labor Bulletin for
September, 1903, indicates that in portions of the year from
20 to 30 per cent of the people are in enforced idleness. In
Chicago a Federal report (Ninth Special Report, p. 29)
puts the percentage of unemployed at 56.97. The United
States census of 1900 (Vol. Occupations, p. 226) shows
that for the whole country over 22 per cent of the popu-
PATHOLOGICAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION 147
lation were in enforced idleness during a part of the year,
the largest number being in manufacturing, mechanic,
domestic and personal pursuits. " The Charity Organiza-
tion Society of New York shows that from 43 to 52 per cent
of all applicants need work rather than relief. It applies
equally well to Chicago and some other cities. The thing
most evident in these facts is that poverty, due to indus-
trial derangement, is not a problem which charitable organ-
izations are fitted to solve." (Hunter, Poverty, p. 75.)
Our presumption with reference to the unsocialized is that
the remainder of the environment, that is, the associational
and cultural influences, are stronger than the hereditary
element. There does not seem to be any weighty argument
against this position. The plain facts are in favor of it,
save those relating to congenital cases. Prof. Richard T.
Ely states that the comparative weight of environment and
heredity in producing anti-social individuals is as nine to
one in favor of the former. (The Outlook, September 16,
1893.) He cites, as evidence, the practice of taking children
from city slums and of the worst parents and placing them in
good homes. Had they remained in the slums they were
destined to become prostitutes, paupers and criminals. In
good environment the vast majority grow into good citizens.
C. Loring Brace testifies that in forty years the Children's
Aid Society of New York has placed 84,000 children in
homes, " and it is our experience that no matter what
the parents may be, if the child is taken away at an age so
early that it has not yet understood the wickedness iabout,
if placed in the country home with kind and judicious
adopted parents, it is almost certain to do well."
Modern charity work, in its care of children, is based on
148 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
the recognition of the dominance of environment. Thus in
Denmark " great care is exercised in selecting the foster
parents. Ordinarily children are placed in the country
with particular persons instead of in care of asylum wards.
This is accomplished through the benevolent assistance of
pastors, teachers, physicians, etc., who become responsible
for the control of the children." (J. M. Gillette, in Hen-
derson's Modern Methods of Charity, p. 375.)
Among the many methods of treating dependent children
in England, " the boarding-out system has the obvious
advantage over any other form of institutional care, that it
furnishes a natural instead of a more or less artificial life
for the child. It makes possible that individual care and
those personal attachments without which the normal
development of the child cannot take place. Moreover, it
effectually removes it from the atmosphere of pauperism
and puts it into a normal relation with its social environ-
ment." (Chas. A. Ellwood, in Henderson's Modern Methods
of Charity, p. 208.)
The practice of parents, educators, churches, juvenile
courts, etc., is and has been to teach the power of good
wholesome surroundings to make and keep character and
life. (See Chapter IV, Role of the Social Environment.)
Since prevention is coming to be regarded as the funda-
mental method in various remedial lines education must be
expected to find its contribution to the solution of these
social problems to lie in the same kind of procedure.
It is coming to be held by thoughtful medical practi-
tioners that the larger work of the physician is to be that
of preventive practice. It is reported that Lankaster, in a
scientific address recently, took this position. " Coming
PATHOLOGICAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION 149
down from the regions of academic thinking, he made a
timely plea for more public encouragement of the study of
preventable diseases. Fifty million dollars he thought not
too much to spend every year in Great Britain alone for that
purpose, in order to save the thousands that needlessly die
every year. It is an idea that is attractive to the public
and one that is more and more appealing to the progressive
medical men, that the function of the physician should be
largely one of preventing diseases instead of curing them
when neglect has permitted their inroads. In the United
States, as he pointed out, there is a distinct tendency of rich
men to give large sums of money for the equipment and the
expenses of research in this and other scientific fields.'7
(World's Work, September, 1906, p. 7931.)
Up to the present generation the treatment accorded pau-
perism and crime has been little fitted to render a perma-
nent social cure. Criminal treatment has evolved from the
method of inflicting revenge to penalty as reformation; then
to prison procedure in the nature of employment and train-
ing, as at present, intended to reform and to make criminals
over into real valid citizens. None of these methods have
lessened the number of criminals much, if at all. Society
goes on producing them as prolifically as ever.
Likewise with reference to pauperism, paupers were one
time punished as criminals, later helped, with no effort to
make them self-supporting; and now the best charity
methods seek so to administer help, as not only not to
make them more dependent but to restore them to inde-
pendence and self-sustenance. Yet pauperism continues.
Paupers are becoming more numerous. Charity methods
do not cure the evil.
150 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
The truth may be put in a sentence, that society will not
get rid of these evils until their production is prevented.
Make both impossible by making every social member
really social and productive. One method of course will
be by means of vocational training. This will produce such
a reorganization of education that no one can get out of
school until he has been trained for citizenship and given
a vocation.
Thomas Moore in his Utopia, centuries ago, said that
crime and pauperism were not curable by punishment and
such methods as society then used. He then pointed out
that idleness and lack of skill were accountable for these
phenomena. Hence the cure would be training to work
and for doing useful things.
The world is just now catching up with his wise sugges-
tions. Penology, as a science, does not view criminals, for
instance, as innately and intrinsically vicious. It views
criminality as the result, largely, of untrained and mis-
directed energy. Hence prison life is becoming a process
of training and education into something definitely useful.
We have seen that, in the production of both pauperism and
crime, character and work-ability had a great deal to do
as causes. Statistics were given from state prisons to show
that the inmates were untrained and irregular workers
before entering prison life. Facts taken from Ely, Wines,
Faulkner, Washington, and Booth indicated that the lack
of ability and skill, which special training would give,
largely accounts for the existence of adult criminals and
paupers. We also found Morrison showing that juvenile
offenders are made out of the unskilled vocationless class
of youths. It would seem, therefore, that educators have a
PATHOLOGICAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION 151
very strong clew to the solution of the educational problem,
so far as it is related to these phases of life.
Vacation schools. Another method of preventing poverty
and criminality is to bridge over the gulf existing between
the home and the school. Not all schools have remained
inactive, relative to this important matter. In some of our
larger cities, and in fact in many outposts throughout
the country, attempts are being made to cover a part of the
out-of-home period of child life. The vacation school is a
very successful attempt to provide activity and supervision
of the larger part of the long vacation. During half of each
day vocational work, along with some academic studies, is
provided under the direction of competent teachers. The
vacation schools are located in those portions of the cities
where the population is most congested, wholesome play-
grounds non-existent, and bad associations most rampant.
Previous reference (Chapter III) has indicated the popularity
and the service of the work done. Students of juvenile
delinquency hope much from this attempt.
Playgrounds. Another attempt in the same direction is the
playground association movement. It began back as far as
1826, and was confined to Europe in its earlier stages. It is
a recognition of the value of play, and of the necessity of
providing a place in congested quarters of cities under wise
direction. The scope of playgrounds is usually this: sand
piles for little children — to be renewed frequently so as to
keep them clean and wholesome; gymnasium, running tracks,
basket-ball grounds, etc., for boys; and seesaws, swings,
etc., for girls. Special exercises should be provided for both
sexes during adolescence, such as dumb-bells and staffs in
the open air.
152 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
" Seward Park, in New York city, is a type of the best
playground and a brief description will give the best idea of
the function of this institution. It cost the city $1,800,000
and is located in the Ghetto, a very crowded down-town
district. At one end a complete outdoor gymnasium sur-
rounded with a running-track; at the other, swings, seesaws
etc., for girls; in the middle, sand piles, tents, etc., for the
little ones. The mothers are encouraged to be present with
their little ones, and provision is made that milk and
crackers can be bought on the premises. New York city
has set aside $300,000 per annum for the purchase of play-
grounds."
A national playground association now exists, with
Theodore Roosevelt as honorary president, and Dr. Luther
Gulick of New York city as president. Over twenty impor-
tant cities in America are supporting playgrounds. In
some the movement is new, in others reports of attendance
are not made. New York city has the largest attendance,
about 25,000 in attendance; Chicago, 15,000; St. Paul,
8,000; etc. The cities either entirely or partly support the
playgrounds out of special funds.
Some attention has already been paid (see chapter on
Democracy) to the demands of the home on the schools, and
nothing more important can be added now. As to what the
schools could do to make life fitter through inheritance,
some bare suggestions were made in Section II of this
chapter. What might be developed out of those sugges-
tions would likely be mere theory. We should do better to
devote our attention to that which is more apparent and
certain.
Since our central thought is the value of organizing
PATHOLOGICAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION 153
education about the vocational factor, let us observe the
effect of this kind of education in the direction of the recla-
mation of the anti-social. Along with this vocational fea-
ture go the restraining, the guarding, and the cultural, as
accompaniments; and they might be said to be centered
about it.
Reclamation of children by special training. The
thought of those who attempt to reclaim wayward children
is steadily turning toward giving them a training for self-
support, as perhaps the best means of bestowing that civic
virtue which is necessary in life. Not only are wayward
children so cared for but also indigent or dependent children.
Thus, it is noted that for one purpose or the other industrial
schools exist in America, England, Ireland, Scotland, and no
doubt in other countries, and are supported by the Jews in
various lands. It is difficult to find an account which
deals with these schools in the aspect we need here. We
must make a few cases serve to illustrate our point.
England has for some time been making the attempt to
reclaim wayward children by means of industrial schools.
In 1900 these schools numbered 142, with an attendance of
24,718 children. They were established by voluntary
agencies, but now are largely supported by government
funds. Children who are vagrant, beg, are indigent, are
refractory against parents, guardians, or are in a Poor Law
School; who are truant, associate with criminals or prosti-
tutes, or who, being under twelve, have been convicted for the
first time of an offense punishable by imprisonment, may
be committed.
" The industrial training given in the industrial schools
has been much improved in the last few years. Now the
154 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
best schools employ competent teachers who give technical
instruction of a high grade, both theoretical and practical.
The efficiency of the schools is, however, greatly injured by
lack of classification, especially classification according to
age. Usually children of all ages from 7 to 16, and of very
different characters, are found together in one school,
without much attempt at classification. In spite of this
and other drawbacks, the industrial schools seem fairly
successful in their work of reclaiming wayward children.
It is estimated that about 80 per cent of the boys who pass
through these schools, do well in after life." (Ellwood, in
Henderson's Modern Methods of Charity, pp. 211-212.)
Besides the above schools, England supports day indus-
trial schools for wayward children as well as for truants.
From these schools they return to their homes after school
hours. " They are said to be very successful." (Same,
P- 213.)
The work in America may be illustrated by some Chicago
institutions. The John Worthy School takes boy criminals
and gives them academic schooling and manual training.
" In the manual training department practice in wire and
iron work, and in bench and lathe work in wood, is given to
all of the older boys for one period each day. The younger
boys work in raffia paper and cardboard. The work done
by the boys in the shop is surprisingly good, and the interest
aroused extends to the academic studies, such as arithmetic;
for in manual training work they see its practical impor-
tance."
In 1901 a printing department was established, and since
that time many boys have learned the printing trade. All the
printing of the school is done by it. Mr. Sloan, the former
PATHOLOGICAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION 155
superintendent, stated in one of his reports, that " few of the
boys who learned the printer's trade, while in school, were
ever recommitted." He said that judging success of the
institution by percentages, it benefited the great majority
of its inmates, since they were not recommitted. (H. B.
Chamberlain in the Chicago Record-Herald, April, 1906.)
The Parental, or truant, school, of the same city, embodies
about the same viewpoint. It is not a penal institution,
nor a reform school, but attempts to be a corrective for bad
environments. Judge R. S. Tuthill, one of its promoters,
whose work is with juvenile delinquents, says that truancy
is the first step towards juvenile criminality; and its friends
assert that " as prevention is better than cure, it is better
for the city to spend money on a school for training boys in
ways leading to an honest, upright manhood, than it is to
let these same boys drift along until open defiance of law
and authority forces society, in self-defense, to maintain
them in expensive penal institutions."
All boys are strictly superintended in play as well as in
work. Besides the regular work of public schools, military
drill and gymnasium, manual training in various forms is
a large part of the training. In summer it is practical farm
work. Each boy tills his own piece of ground and learns to
get results. Corporal punishment is forbidden. Depriva-
tion of privileges, enforced physical exercise, and solitary
confinement are disciplinary means.
As in Elmira, new recruits are placed in the second of
three classes, and their conduct decides whether they shall be
promoted or degraded. Larger privileges and deserts as
well as shortening the time of detention go with promotion.
The converse is true of degradation. Good conduct and good
156 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
work result in parole for a boy, under which he returns
home and remains, provided he attends school.
" The average time of detention at the school is about
eight and a half months, the average age of the boys a little
over eleven years. During the four years of its existence
there have been 881 commitments to the school and 113
returns. During the past year 47 out of 376 paroled boys,
or about 12^ per cent, have been recommitted, and in these
instances Superintendent McQueary feels that the children
had been paroled too soon." (Same, April 4, 1906.)
An object lesson from penology. — We have seen in a few
cases of the application of vocational training, together
with careful discipline, to wayward and truant children, its
efficiency in reclaiming them for society. An even greater
object lesson pointing in the same direction is found in the
field of penology. The work done at Elmira and other
similar reformatories is full of significance for thoughtful
educators. It may be well to consider Elmira somewhat in
detail to see what the suggestion for education is.
The Elmira Reformatory takes convicts between the
ages of 1 6 and 30. It was established in 1869 by New York
state and received its first inmates in 1876; and it first
incorporated the indeterminate sentence in 1877. The
dominant thought of the institution is to make men fit for
citizenship, rather than to inflict revenge or punishment.
Qualities of manhood and citizenship being the object,
enforced residence in the institution longer than necessary
to produce these results would be illogical. Hence, sen-
tences are indeterminate; that is, there is a maximum sen-
tence period beyond which an inmate may not be kept, but
proof of complete reformation will lessen the term of service.
PATHOLOGICAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION 157
Though the sentence be 40 years, if the man conducts him-
self aright, he may be paroled outside in a year and entirely
free in another six months. Longer retention and incarcera-
tion than are necessary to make the convict over into a good
useful citizen would be irrational and criminal, since refor-
mation and restoration are the ends.
The pedagogical aim of the institution is to make charac-
ter by establishing " the habits of quick and accurate adjust-
ment to good environment, and the habit of forethought."
These are qualities, which being absent in the individual,
crime is likely to ensue. The love of liberty is seized on as
the motive most powerful to secure these results. Most
prisoners will reorganize their habits and establish new
and better ones for this motive. A considerable minority,
however, require more immediate wants, those which can
then and there be satisfied, to impel them to make the
effort.
The first want, that of liberty, can be satisfied by a year's
good conduct and a half year's parole. The second set
of wants find satisfaction through a system of grading and
marking. All phases of the life and work of each prisoner
are graded. For instance, there are five character grades:
i. Paroled men; 2. Upper first grade; 3. Lower first grade;
4. Second grade; 5. Third grade. On entrance the convict
enters the lower first and is given a brown suit. If he
shows progress in behavior, school, and trade, he is pro-
moted to the upper first in six months and given a blue suit.
With six months more of progress he is paroled and estab-
lished in free society. If his conduct and industry remain
good he is freed in another six months.
But on entering the lower first grade, if behavior and
158 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
work are bad, the prisoner goes down to second and wears
a red suit. If he continues down to third grade he receives
cell life and total isolation. The higher the grade the
greater the physical comforts, the better the furnishings,
food, service, etc. The reverse is true the lower the grade.
These are the immediate satisfactions of the wants which
appeal so strongly and help establish hearty activities,
habits, and character necessary for eventual freedom.
The agencies used in reclamation, character, and voca-
tion building are essentially three; namely, industrial, intel-
lectual and moral training. Thirty-six trades are taught.
Kindergarten (for feeble-minded), primary, intermediate
and academic instruction is maintained. Religion and
ethics are taught on Sundays. For defectives, to help
them get self-control, manual training is supported. Athlet-
ics, military drill, and massage bathing are applied and
used on needy cases.
The chief instruction is, however, industrial, and, in many
workshops with scores or hundreds of workers, both teach-
ers and guards are wholly convicts. In locating new-
comers in a trade advantage is taken of ancestral trades as
a possible basis of inclination and aptitude; of callings of
relatives living, with whom the reformed convict might find
a place; and of industries in his home community. Wage-
earning and fines have been adopted to further stimulate
effort and to inhibit sloth and backwardness.
Conclusion for education. — The results at Elmira are
satisfactory and wonderful. Up to 1895 there had been
6641 indeterminate convicts. Of these 4369 were paroled,
of which 83 per cent were reported as reformed and 15.7
per cent as probably returned to criminal practice. In the
PATHOLOGICAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION 159
year ending September 30, 1906, 1016 had been paroled.
Of these 348 had served well and earned absolute release, and
530 were serving well, their time of parole having not yet
expired, indicating a probable reformation of 86.4 per cent.
Institutions in France, Germany, Spain, and Ireland report
like remarkable results. Japan has introduced the system
of prison reformation.
Over 80 per cent of reclaimed citizens is a remarkable
result. It means a sweeter and more satisfactory life for
those reclaimed, a lessened expense to the state, and produc-
tive ability added to society.
The point of the treatment is that the chief agent used
in this reformation is industrial training, although other
good agencies are employed. " In all trades there are
definite courses of study, the mastery of which is carefully
insisted upon. In this way about 700 hours, or n months,
is the average time required to learn a trade." This quick
mastery is due to the systematic and strenuous instruction
given. Well-regulated industrial habits are thus secured
which we have seen are lacking in paupers and criminals.
The lesson for education is obvious. " The corner stone
of the reformative system is industrial training. . . . To
effect a rounded development, intellectual and moral edu-
cation is an essential accompaniment of industrial train-
ing, and schools of trades must be supplemented by schools
of letters." (Eugene Smith, Amer. Jour. Sociology, Vol. XI,
pp. 94-95.) "I confess that I myself feel that in the
century before us our public schools will make it possible
for all children to be properly educated, not only in the three
R's, but also in the three H's, without first being sent to
prison. Why society does not erect similar institutions to
160 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
keep our boys and girls out of jail, instead of waiting until
they are in prison, I do not explain, for I cannot. There
is no school worth while to-day which does not aim, as does
this Reformatory, to relate mental and manual endeavor
in a happy homogeneity. . . . Education which prevents
crime is the education to be desired." (Supt. A. D. Call, Edu-
cation, Vol. 22, pp. 586-603.)
CHAPTER VIII. THE SOCIAL END OF EDUCATION,
AND OTHER ENDS
WE have now proceeded far enough to make it plain
that the end of education is determined by objective social
conditions, rather than by subjective analysis. Before proceed-
ing to a treatment of the methods of socializing education,
it may be of interest and advantage to set in compari-
son and to harmonize, as far as possible, the social end of
education presented in this volume, and the other ends of
education which have been held, and some of which so
largely obtain to-day.
The ends of education which have been held at various
times and places in western civilization may be denoted as
approximately four. One is perfection, or the harmonious
development of all the essential attributes of the individual,
as expressed in ideal character. Another is discipline, or
training of the powers or faculties of the individual, so that
he may be a generally potent, all-round citizen. Culture
may be designated as the third type, in the sense of a built-
up stock of information largely without reference to appli-
cation in any particular sphere of experience. The fourth
type of purpose has been vocational or wholly practical.
Its meaning is apparent. It is pointedly utilitarian.
I. PERFECTION
The idea of perfection. — It will be necessary to examine
these various educational aims to discover their strength and
weakness relative to the social end. We will deal first with
161
1 62 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
perfection of the individual. Behind the idea of perfection
have been some great names and great schools of thought.
It would seem congruous to find such philosophers as Plato
and Kant, with their idealistic conceptions, behind the
view; but we should not expect to find such utilitarians as
John Mill and Herbert Spencer lending it support. Of
course, they all differed as to what constituted the perfect
individual; yet the idea of perfection, in a general way, was
to constitute the goal.
For instance, Mill would make it the general end of edu-
cation. All influences of every sort, leading to the per-
fection of our natures, constitute education. But, since this
is very broad and general, he restated it as "the culture
which each generation properly gives to those who are to be
successors, in order to qualify them for at least keeping up
and if possible for raising the improvement which has been
made." He really falls back on the culture theory with a
tincture of utilitarianism.
Herbert Spencer held that satisfactory or complete liv-
ing is the great problem of life. "The general problem
which comprehends every special problem is — the right
ruling of conduct in all directions under all circumstances.
In what way to treat the body; in what way to treat the
mind; in what way to manage our affairs; in what way to
bring up a family; in what way to behave as a citizen; in
what way to utilize all those sources of happiness which
nature supplies; how to use all our faculties to the greatest
advantage to ourselves and others; how to live completely?
And this being the great needful for us to learn, it is, by
consequence, the great thing which education has to teach."
(Education, p. 30.) In other words, the perfect man is the
THE SOCIAL END OF EDUCATION 163
man able to live completely. However, the ideal individual
is made in conformity to practical social demands. He
is to live in a well-known, definite, actual world. Educa-
tion is the process of shaping or moulding youth like unto
this ideal. A rigid censoring of knowledge and subjects of
curricula will fit education to accomplish this end.
Kant's perfect individual would be a monstrosity. With
all his acumen he seems to have missed the importance of
the social in the development of personality. His perfect
individual is one possessed of perfect will. A perfect will
is one with a reverence for a bare principle of duty. All
inclination, feelings, desires, are emasculated. Only such
an individual is fit for the kingdom of ends. So education
must not train children to meet success in present society,
but " in view of a better state, possible in the future, and
according to an ideal conception of humanity and of its
complete destination."
The idea criticised. — No doubt ideals of perfection must
have a large function in all formulas of education. We
shall always find an ideally perfect man of our way of
thinking, hovering high up, or in the background of our
thought. Yet the system or teacher who states the pur-
pose of education for life in those terms is open to valid
criticism.
In the first place, it is too general and abstract to meet
most useful and fundamental purposes of life. Mill felt this
and limited his conception for practical purposes to culture.
Spencer, with all his love for the concrete and actual, was
nevertheless so much an individualist in his social philosophy,
that he generalized his individual and elevated him to be
the goal of education. Regarding the perfect man of Kant,
164 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
one able to obey the mere principle of duty from profound
reverence, even the philosopher himself was skeptical as to
whether he would ever materialize.
Perfection is relative. Ideas of perfection are products of
particular epochs, classes, nations, and civilizations. The
perfect man of Greece and of Rome differed as much from
each other as that of the mediaeval church, in its monastic
bias, differs from the ideally perfect man of America, Eng-
land, Japan, or any modern European nation. The idea of
perfection which is projected high above the earth, defies
the demands of relativity, and attempts to serve for Japan,
Europe and America, equally well, is fit only for a museum
of intellectual monstrosities or to serve for a goal of leisure
class education.
In the second place, a practical difficulty has always
arisen, when such a general end is accepted, in constructing
a program of studies to realize it. It is the historical problem
of the " what " and " when " of curriculum. Every
educational objective presents a problematical wilderness
here. Nevertheless, every such general end doubles the
difficulty by pouring a flood into the wilderness. For the
idea of perfection has usually been obtained by generaliza-
tion upon generalization, forming a way which is unattain-
able or impossible to the plain man. It has been hard to
get up to that eminence, even in its logical establishment.
But when a series of subjects have to be found, measured,
criticised, which are the best of all possible subjects and just
the very proper ones to be pursued by the individual to
elevate him to this sublime height; and all others are to be
rejected because they do not contain the magic virtues, there
is a task before which even that of Hercules seems trivial.
THE SOCIAL END OF EDUCATION 165
Financing a billion dollar trust or refunding a national
debt is a slight mental task in comparison.
But the notion of perfection as an educational ideal posses-
ses elements of value. However, it must be established in
terms of real society, that is, made to obtain its content from
an inductive study of the actual world. In doing this, we
would probably first conceive an ideal society; that is, a
society consisting of all its parts working harmoniously
together, so that all persons in all the parts are justly served.
But, second, since society is diversified, possessed of many
functions, and since these functions are exercised by struc-
tures, set aside for just those purposes, individuals are
classified into working groups, each group possessing a
knowledge and skill peculiar to its structural function.
When we come to form our ideal for the individual, there-
fore, it is for A functioning as banker; B functioning as
farmer; C functioning as bricklayer; D functioning as
printer, etc. Each one's knowledge, character, citizenship,
are wrapped up with his vocational function.
The banker cannot be a perfect man nor approximate the
perfect man if he is a poor or a dishonest banker. The
same statement can be made of every other calling. All
may and do have some things in common, for which a com-
mon ideal training could be provided. But a great part of
their training must be different to meet their special callings.
Consequently we have ideals and ends, when we come to
educate them, rather than just one ideal and end. This
seems to me to be the part perfection, as an idea, would
play in educational philosophy; just to furnish quite special-
ized ideals or copies of men who are to work in the various
walks of life.
1 66 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
II. DISCIPLINE
Meaning of discipline as end. — Discipline as an end of
education is apt to be only less general, abstract, and
socially unfit than perfection. Special discipline, or dis-
cipline for specific ends, is always legitimate and valuable.
When such objective has been maintained it has generally
been industrial or professional.
It is the idea of general discipline which is here considered.
This is assumed to be the proper goal of all training and the
program is made up of subjects which are supposed to be
particularly well qualified to have a place because of their
disciplinary value. It is assumed that general characteris-
tics are a fit and full equipment for particular conditions of
life, that there is power in general and universal ability for
adjustment purposes. This kind of individual consists of
certain essential qualities or powers. Moral probity,
intellectual acumen, logical power, stability, and more,
have been held to be some of the essential elements in this
educational aim. Many have talked of a good general
education to be followed by a special training as the com-
plete educational arrangement. The first develops the
general, and the second gives the specific.
Possibility of general discipline. — Perhaps no one who
has reflected much about this matter would affirm that
there is not a rather general ability and power developed
under the sway of experience. A great many people have
great practical wisdom and are able to turn their hands to a
number of things as a consequence of having had experience
in the several lines. Men of great education, who have
been long in student life and have covered several groups
THE SOCIAL END OF EDUCATION 167
of subjects in a quite special manner, are possessed of
ability to work fruitfully in any one of several lines. They
also may have, and should have, developed a body of prin-
ciples which would enable them to enter some department
of business management and in a relatively short time
prove measurably efficient there. Such a person would
have developed a power to grasp situations, to construct
imaginatively conditions in advance, and to respond elas-
tically to mental requirements. But it would require long
experience to develop the needed feeling of familiarity in the
business which is the note of confidence and success in a
large way; and a person too long in assimilative vocations,
as so general a student would have to be, would quite likely
have passed the age when that initiative, so needful to
practical success, could be generated.
The genius is about the only other individual who could
be generally potent; and the nature of genius is to defy
special programmes of study, to absorb that which suits its
bent and ignore the rest. Perhaps the leisure class might
be made available for the general encf of training. Their
financial sufficiency would render them independent of the
stern necessity to be immediately useful; and their abun-
dance of time would make possible that length and breadth
of study by which general ability might be reservoired.
However, when we contemplate an educational system,
programme or process for community purposes, we cannot
consider these special cases. We have to deal with the
conditions of the masses, as to their needs and possibilities.
It is with this factor in plain view that we speak.
General discipline psychologically untrue. — There is little
or no psychological justification for the assertion that the
l68 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
average child may receive a general discipline by school train-
ing. If some of the contributions of modern psychology
are called into requisition and render their testimony, they
will assert with almost the force of mathematical: demon-
stration that we know nothing of mind in general. Con-
sciousness is always particular in its functioning. It has
no general powers but is built up and is constituted of
specific abilities.
The illuminating apperceptive theory of conscious growth
evidences that we build up new knowledge, make all our
further acquisitions by means of the old. The categories of
knowledge are viewed as apperceptive groups in conscious-
ness. The mind, in development, in order to expand and
grow, becomes organized in various directions. Each kind
of knowledge, or line of development, constitutes an apper-
ceptive group. In order to expand more and to develop
further, the expansion and development must take place
in and by means of these groups. The old knowledge
forms the basis of apprehending the new. But the old is
made of a special line of facts; and this special line deter-
mines what the new shall be and how it is lodged.
All biases, prejudices and specialties are lodged here.
An Old Two-seed-in-the-Spirit-Predestinarian Baptist can-
not drink at the fountain of Unitarianism. A conservative
Republican or Democrat is unable, perforce, to sympathize
with or to apprehend developing socialistic doctrines and
programs. A man who has been trained, specialized for
years, in natural science, and who then invades the realm
of subjective sciences to write or speak with authority,
usually provokes to action the risibility of those who are
versed in the latter. He does not know because he does
THE SOCIAL END OF EDUCATION 169
not comprehend the nature of the knowledge in the new
field.
Or should we draw upon the doctrine of memory types
we should reach the same conclusion: that functions and
knowledges are specific and specialized; that we have no
power developed which is equally strong and serviceable all
around. The dominant memory types are named for the
special senses, whose images constitute the reproductive
process. Undoubtedly the majority of persons are visual-
izers, because the eyes, of all the sense organs, are the most
responsively adjustable to demands. We use them most,
and at length come to convert other sense impressions into
sight images for reproductive purposes. Yet there are
auditory types of memory, in those who reproduce their
experiences by means of sound images; and motor types
in those who reproduce in muscle images.
In part, of course, the type may be determined by heredity.
Natively, one is constituted so as to be more responsive to
one kind of reproduction and builds on that basis. This
would likely be true of a musical genius who is able to hear
over again an entire orchestral programme; or of a painter
who holds, in mind form, perspective, location, shades,
blendings, etc., of the various great pictures and landscapes
he has seen.
But most of the types are formed and built up by use,
in special directions, by perpetually calling on one kind of
function for service. Thus, the mail clerk can " throw" any
box or bag in the dark; the ticket agent at once reaches
the ticket, among thousands, that will carry you to Three
Rivers or San Jose, and can state the fare instantly; the
wine taster immediately names the exact brand of vintage
170 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
of each of hundreds of kinds of wine by the special shade of
flavor. Each has trained his particular kind of function
and the consequent reproduction is in line with it.
Dr. W. C. Bagley reviews the experiments made by
various psychologists to ascertain if there is such an effect as
general discipline, and concludes: "The very decided
trend of all the experimental evidence seems to indicate
that the theoretical impossibility of a generalized habit —
either 'marginal' or subconscious — is thoroughly sub-
stantiated by accurate tests. There still remains, however,
the widespread notion that formal training is generalized;
and whatever cases may be adduced stand against the
evidence from experiment."
Professor Thorndike disposes of such cases in three ways :
(i) Where specific training is thought to spread out and
effect other functions, it may simply mean that the individ-
ual in whom this tendency seems to be evinced is really
inherently more capable than the average; therefore, if he
shows particular aptitude for the study of Latin, he may
later excel in Greek, not because the pursuit of Latin has
necessarily improved the functions that operate in the
study of Greek, but because the individual is "bound" to
excel in anything. (2) Certain effects commonly attributed
to discipline are really due to " mere inner growth and matur-
ity-" (3) Educators tend to judge all children on the
basis of their own childhood, a fallacious procedure,
because educators are likely to be gifted individuals who
could as boys and girls readily acquire and apply general
ideas and habits. (The Educative Process, pp. 208-9).
In practical matters there appears to be no common
memory. We all work in grooves. A man has ever so
THE SOCIAL END OF EDUCATION 171
good a memory for his line of facts, — say it is historical
facts for his teaching work, — and yet immediately forgets
the name of the person to whom he is introduced. He is
able to recall historical names, but does not remember the
names of his last term's classes. The grocery man knows
all his goods and prices, but forgets what his wife ordered
him to send for dinner. The entrepreneur assimilates all
sorts of prices, events and movements which affect his busi-
ness; but his mind is not retentive of facts which have no
perceptible relation to his line of work. Almost all teachers
have commented on many students who have good abilities
in one line but poor in another. That is, reproductive
forms were specialized for them.
Professor Bolton writes that James and other psycholo-
gists have shown "that long practice in memorizing things
of one kind in no way aids memory for to tally different things.
Even long attention to memorizing poetic writing does not
assist much if any in the memorizing of prose. Still less
would the poetry assist in the memorizing of chemical names
and geological specimens." (School Review, XII, 170.)
Disadvantage of traditional education. — All this means
that the subject matter of training is of great consequence
in this way. We remember, so as to reproduce for use for
the best results, those things which are in line with our
interests; or, in other words, facts which are so organized
and related within themselves and to our mental inclinations,
that our heartiest attention and efforts are elicited. Our
reproductive ability, or skill to use, which constitutes our
working capital, or our "power" in future, depends on
this specialization. If a line of study is pursued which
absorbs the interest and which is organized within itself
172 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
and in relation to the self, and yet which is not organically
related to the world in which the individual is to work, the
individual so trained is at a double disadvantage. He is
compelled to wrench his interests, so as to turn them in a
new direction, which is psychically a difficult and sometimes
impossible thing to do; and, again, he is compelled to
become acquainted with a new body of facts, the ones which
he is to use in his business of life, and this is practically
an exceedingly difficult undertaking. Such an unnatural
training would be one which was dominantly classical and
mathematical.
A comprehensive scientific consideration of the modern
situation must demonstrate how fundamentally anachronis-
tic is the retention of the traditional culture studies, as fully
preparatory to life in the present age. We have developed
the thought of the specialized nature of the world on its
social organization side. We have given evidence in previ-
ous pages of the economic and scientific spirit of our times.
Just here we may be permitted to supplement that previous
treatment, regarding the scientific essence of civilization, in
the way of a quotation from Professor Veblin.
Our civilization has its apex in its capability of " an im-
personal, dispassionate insight into the material facts with
which man has to deal. . . . Compared with this trait the
rest of what is comprised in the cultural scheme is adventi-
tious, or at the best it is a by-product of this hard-headed
apprehension of facts."
" A civilization which is dominated by this matter-of-fact
insight must prevail against any cultural scheme that lacks
this element. This characteristic of western civilization
comes to a head in modern science, and it finds its highest
THE SOCIAL END OF EDUCATION 173
material expression in the technology of the machine
industry. In these things modern culture is creative and
self-reliant; and these being given, the rest of what may
seem characteristic in western civilization follows by easy
consequences. The cultural structure clusters about this
body of matter-of-fact knowledge as its substantial core.
Whatever is not consonant with these opaque creations of
science is an intrusive feature in the modern scheme,
borrowed or standing over from the barbarian past."
(T. Veblin, " The Place of Science in Modern Civilization,"
Amer. Jour. Sociology, March, 1906, p. 585.)
If, therefore, discipline must have some sort of a regard for
the useful in life, in order to qualify as discipline, if studies
and training must seek to get at the gist, the essential
nature, of the things that are uppermost now, in order to
be accounted truly disciplinary, it would appear that
purely traditional culture should have a minor place in
education.
The demands of the social theory of education. — The
insistence of the social theory of education would be upon
particular disciplines. It seeks to show that the educa-
tional programme should be made to meet the demands of
the world as it is now constituted. It believes in character,
power, etc., and also thinks that discipline is the fit means
to produce them.
But there can be no superiority of one kind of programme,
as begetting discipline and power, over another. One line
of study, and any line that is far enough developed to be
organized as a science, contains equally good details and
organizing principles with every other for disciplinary
purposes. One set of facts, so long as interest is present,
174 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
is equal to any other as a field in which to exercise observa-
tion, comparison and critical discrimination. To pursue
subjects which are both disciplinary and useful is to get
double value over following those which are alone disciplin-
ary. If two curricula were supposed, one merely disci-
plinary, that is, a power generator in general, and the other
both disciplinary and specializing in nature, and the two
were nearly balanced in respect to their disciplinary powers,
then one should choose the curriculum which offered dis-
cipline plus special knowledge of present things, since he
would be obtaining double value for his time, as compared
with the other course.
Education needs to get rid of the aristocratic notion of dis-
cipline, that a certain set of studies is more fit than others.
Bain tried hard to show that language, natural science,
and mathematics alone possessed true disciplinary value.
The practical studies, economics, ethics, politics, etc., he
discounted, because not exact enough sciences. On the
same basis, one should have to deny disciplinary virtue to
life experiences and world affairs, because life and business
are not exact sciences. Most subjects formerly got into our
courses of study because of their use for specific ends.
Later on, when the contingent ends had passed away, they
were retained on the plea of greater disciplinary value.
Latin, for example, was the language of the civilized and
scholarly world when it was placed in the schools of Europe,
but it has long since been displaced in that capacity.
Really, they have been retained for the same reason that
the Chinese have for centuries, until recently, made civil
service candidates pass examination in their mythical
literature, exclusively.
THE SOCIAL END OF EDUCATION 175
III. CULTURE
Meaning of culture. — Culture has been closely associated
with discipline as an educational view. What was said
under discipline will hold of culture, in so far as the two
sets of ideas are identified. For purposes of clearness it
will be advantageous to treat culture separately.
^There are a number of meanings of the term. In social
evolution it stands for a grade of civilization. The various
stages of civilization are said to be culture stages. Thus we
have the savage, the barbarous, the semi-civilized and the
civilized. Here it means all the institutions, ideas, customs,
inventions, etc., peculiar to a given social grade.
The Germans make culture a social matter. It is " a
condition or achievement possessed by society. It is not
individual." It is not the same as civilization. "Civiliza-
tion is the ennobling, the increased control of the elementary
human impulses by society. Culture, on the other hand, is
Jhe control of nature by science and art." (Small, General
Sociology, p. 59.)
In America, there is a use which identifies culture with
the total spiritual content of a community or nation, leaving
out the agencies by means of which it is carried on or secured.
For example, following this usage, I once published an
investigation entitled " Culture Agencies of a Typical Manu-
facturing Group," in which I treated schools, churches,
libraries, newspapers, social and study clubs, recreational
agencies, and so on; in fact everything which seemed to make
for spiritual improvement.
It is well to have these meanings before us in discussing
culture as an educational end. The latter throws the
emphasis on culture as an individual matter. It dissociates,
176 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
or largely so, the intellectual stock of the one educated from
the idea of the need of articulation with the world.
In current usage there are clearly two meanings of culture
education. One set of people think of culture as polite
information. As in mediaeval Italy learning was esteemed
as a note of class standing, because it gave advantageous
status, so many persons to-day think of the schools as places
where reputable information may be obtained. With them
education is a social badge. It is the conference of the
memory of names, mythologies, dates, books, and so on,
which all supposedly educated people must have or be
classed as vulgar. For instance, classical education in the
southern states, even until quite recently, was held to be a
gentleman's course. Practical studies were looked upon as
degrading. Many of our classical schools are still under
this bias. And Booker T. Washington tells that the negroes,
who come to Tuskegee, are prone to desire to pursue the
study of Latin and Greek so they will not have to work.
The other meaning given culture in education is broader.
Ht is the idea of general information. Education should
yield universal knowledge. The schools should turn out
people who " know something about everything." There
is little attention bestowed on the fitness of knowledge,
because, evidently, it would be out of place where general
information was to be secured.
But this view is not so broad as it seems. What has
really been done is to supplant a traditional subject or
two with one or two more modern. Students cannot take
everything. So they follow custom in selecting the things
they do take. Instead of discovering what their function in
society will be, and organizing their studies so as to yield
THE SOCIAL END OF EDUCATION 177
the best equipment with the time at their disposal, they " go
it blind." This is the situation of the bulk of boys and
girls in ty'gh schools and colleges.
^In either case culture is a state of mind which the individ-
ual is to get into. It is the possession of a stock of knowledge.
It is individualistic and without a social bearing. If it is a
preparation for something, they know not what.
Place of culture or intelligence in race evolution. — In
order to examine this theory we must fall back on race
history, must have recourse to our biological and psycho-
logical sciences in their genetic aspects, that we may dis-
cover what function intelligence or culture has exercised
for the individual in the evolutionary process.
There we find that what we call life has been a functioning
in a totality of conditions; or a series of adjustments or
adaptations to a concrete, varying, and more or less varied
environment. We are not concerned with what life may
be ultimately. Biologically, the total life of any being,
human or sub-human, seems to be about what Spencer
called it — a series of adjustments of the internal to the
external.
In order to sustain the validity, integrity and welfare of the
organism, let us say, the structure must adapt itself to the
conditions which exist in any given place and time. As life
has emerged from being localized, tied down to one mere
spot with relatively changeless conditions, and has become
locomotive, it has met a wider circle of elements and there-
fore become subject to certain changing, variable factors
which have to be met. Again, as life has developed into
a social existence, where cooperation and long distance rela-
tions are sustained, the number of elements have multiplied
i;b SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
rapidly; and the variableness and uncertainty of circum-
stances have consequently likewise increased.
Now, it is conceivable that life could meet these changing
conditions in either of two ways. By transforming the phys-
ical organism, on the one hand, as rapidly as the external
conditions changed in order to fit into them. Evidently
this would be impossible and destructive to the integrity
of the physical mechanism. On the other hand, it would be
possible to invent ways of meeting or circumventing the
kaleidoscopic variability impinging and threatening the
integrity of the organism.
This was the method followed. The permanent factors
in the environment were picked out, and automatic machin-
ery provided to meet them, as they occurred. All the
automatisms and reflexes of the motor system met the per-
manent and comparatively changeless demands of life. But
new things arising, new conditions entering, were met by a
growing complexity of brain, on the physical side; by an
ever heightening consciousness or rational nature, on the
side of mentality. Thus was developed the factor of pre-
science, or anticipation, in behalf of life adjustments. The
most fit are those beings which are able to see what will
next " turn up " in the world, and be ready to meet it.
Hence the function of intelligence is that of adaptation of life
interests to conditions as they arise. It has its greatest work
in approximating what the total conditions will be from
time to time, what is the trend of affairs, what the great
social stream is going to demand next; and setting to work
to fit its human individual for the anticipated conditions.
This has double bearing. It bears on the function of
intelligence, or culture; and likewise en the kind of knowl-
THE SOCIAL END OF EDUCATION 179
edge which should enter in to constitute this culture. It
shows that to set up culture, as an end, is the reverse of
the demand which the development process has hitherto
placed upon it. It has demanded it should be a means to
an end. Life is the end. Intelligence is a fit instrument to
subserve that end. As a state to get into, consequently, it is
valueless in and for itself.
Culture must therefore wear a special aspect and look
towards some life service. Since this is true we have the
quality or kind of knowledge prescribed for us which should
chiefly enter into the make-up of culture. It will be a
knowledge of matters which most directly bear on life
adjustments, or we may say, present actual social adjust-
ments. Those things should be obtained first in training
which most directly furnish this accommodating ability.
About that as a nucleus or core of education would be
arranged other less and less direct elements in widening
concentric circles.
Non-traditional education meets the essentials of culture.
-If we could catch society at the task of making an
educational system when it was closest to the natural and
least conscious of the artificial and conventional, we should
find that the scheme of training thus worked out was framed
to meet the essential points of that society's culture-stage.
We notice how true this is of natural peoples. " The
aborigines of North America had their own system of edu-
cation, through which the young were instructed in their
coming labors and obligations, embracing not only the
whole round of economic pursuits — hunting, fishing,
handicraft, agriculture, and household work — but speech,
fine art, customs, etiquette,- social obligations, and tribal
l8o SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
lore. By unconscious absorption and by constant inculca-
tion, the boy and girl became the accomplished man and
woman. Motives of pride and shame, the stimulus of
flattery or disparagement, wrought constantly upon the
child, male or female, who was the charge, not of the parents
and grandparents alone, but of the whole tribe. . . . The
Eskimos were most careful in teaching their girls and boys,
setting them difficult problems in canoeing, sledding, and
hunting, showing them how to solve them, and asking boys
how they would meet a given emergency. Everywhere there
was the closest association, for education, of parents with
children, who learned the names and uses of things in nature.
At a tender age they played at serious business, girls attend-
ing to household duties, boys following men's pursuits.
Children were furnished with appropriate toys; they became
little basket makers, weavers, potters, water carriers, cooks,
archers, stone workers, watchers of crops and flocks, the
range of instruction being limited only by tribal custom.
Personal responsibilities were laid on them, and they were
stimulated by the tribal law of personal property, which
was inviolable. . . .
"The Apache boy had for pedagogues his father and
grandfather, who began early to 'teach him counting, to run
on level ground, then up and down hill, to break branches
from trees, to jump into cold water, and to race, the whole
training tending to make him skillful, strong and fearless.
The girl was trained in part by her grandmother, the disci-
pline beginning as soon as the child could control its move-
ments, but never becoming regular or severe. It consisted
in rising early, carrying water, helping about the home,
cooking and minding the children. At six the little girl
THE SOCIAL END OF EDUCATION l8l
took her lessons in basketry with yucca leaves. Later on
decorated baskets, saddle-bags, bead-work, and dress were
her care." (Handbook of American Indians, U. S. Bureau
Ethnology, Vol. I, pp. 414-415.)
Sparta is an example, in ancient times, of a primitive
group of the military type whose culture consisted in beliefs,
customs, and the practical arts of war and government.
The training of the youths followed rigidly the lines of its
peculiar type of culture, consisting almost exclusively in
the severe discipline of the military camp and imposing the
predatory virtues of conquerors and plunderers.
Athens presented quite a different type. While resting
on the economic basis of slavery, it was much more of an
industrial and commercial people than Sparta. There was
a larger need of intelligence for the supervision of business
than in the case of Sparta. Slavery furnished leisure for the
Athenians. Commerce enriched the city and furnished
the means of creating the monuments of architecture and
art which made it famous. To satisfy and fill in the leisure
of the ruling class, amusements, recreation, theaters,
schools, were established. The males were educated to
carry on the government, to speak and write the language
so as to enjoy its intellectual life, were given arithmetic for
business purposes, and athletics for health and for partici-
pation in competitive games. The training was adapted to
the extant culture and to fit a leisure class race for its govern-
ing place.
The distinctive society of feudal times likewise exempli-
fies the coupling and articulating of the training given the
youth with the kind of culture which the ruling group appre-
ciated and dealt in. The training did not attempt to give
182 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
all the culture of the times, but the essential phases which
were entwined with the peculiar life of the ruling class.
The central feature of the life of the ruling class was chiv-
alry, standing as it did for the whole institution of knight-
hood. Every consequential feudal lord was surrounded by
a social court. This court was made up of his chief vassals.
The schooling of the sons of the vassals took place in this
court. They were to become knights, to further knight-
hood, and their training was directed to this end. In the
first stage the boy led the life of a page. His chief attention
was given to instruction by the mistress of the castle, who
taught him obedience, courtesy, and the duties of knights
to ladies and religion. Besides this, he received instruction
in the use of light arms. After fourteen, he was promoted
to being a squire. In this period of six years he served the
lord of the castle, attended him in a personal way, arming
him for battle, going with him to war, and looking after his
safety and welfare. At about twenty, he was knighted
with imposing ceremonies and thus was graduated into
knighthood.
In all these cases, it will be noticed that the essential
functions and services which the life conditions of the group
imposed on its members were singled out and made points
of attack in the scheme of training. Not merely the tradi-
tional ideas were involved, but much more the practical
arts and utilities of the group, in its struggle for existence,
were grounded in the developing members.
The practical lesson for us in these allusions to more
primitive groups consists in the principle of their procedure:
that of keeping in mind the specific services and labors the
young were to assume and centering their training on
THE SOCIAL END OF EDUCATION 183
those objects. That schooling was not merely mental, it
was functional. It was not only moralizing, but specializing
in view of the needs of the simple life.
This lesson has its application for us. With our big,
many-sided life and complicated social mechanism, it is
not so easy as in primitive society to locate the essential
traits of our grade of culture. The whole sum of our
culture is enormous. No one mind can comprehend it in
its details and fullness, were a whole life set aside to the
task. Much more, it is seen to be absurd that our common
schools should attempt to convey it.
But there is evidently the possibility of discovering the
principle or principles on which the mechanism which
differentiates our age from preceding ages rests, and of
embodying those principles as the common basis of our
educational system. Beyond these principles, we must
look to the callings and the vocations which the boys and
girls are to adopt, and must fit our training scheme to give
preparation for them. Both phases represent essential
culture elements, essential to our peculiar kind of civiliza-
tion. The principles of science rest under our industrial
mechanism, and its further progress depends on the wide
diffusion of science. The industrial and professional call-
ings offer the technical elements which must be possessed
before the individual is ready to actually articulate with
working conditions and function productively in society.
The kind of culture needed in education has already been
developed in the chapter on democracy.
General culture impracticable for the masses. — If we
have in mind the high and broad meaning of culture, —
knowledge about everything, — it is evidently impracticable
184 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
to attempt to make the schools bestow it upon the great
common people. It has previously been remarked that
the contents and subject matter of our present civilization
are too vast for even an able individual to absorb in a life-
time of study. Were it possible for a man to attain it, it
would require years and years of schooling which only a
few favored individuals could afford to give. The ninety
and nine of our population have to make their own way, and
their schooling is necessarily brief. Moreover, as we have
seen, 50 per cent or more of our children actually leave
school before they reach the sixth grade. Probably no more
than 10 to 20 per cent finish the elementary schools. Cer-
tainly in view of this situation, the bestowal of anything like
culture upon the masses is out of the question, at least so
long as conditions remain as they are. As was suggested
before, a high-school training, at least, would be requisite
for gaining even the general principles of the more needed
sciences.
Further, culture for the sake of culture has historically
yielded little. When the classics were at their height the
world was fullest of bigotry and superstition. The Renais-
sance was the establishment of the rational, the breaking
away from form to matter. Also, classical culture at pres-
ent seems to be negative in value. Professor Thorndike
investigated how much culture students of classics possess.
The results showed surprising ignorance of the simplest
historical facts which might be expected would be gained.
He concluded that the average high-school student was
liable to be misinformed rather than instructed.
On the emptiness and vanity of mere culture for culture's
sake, Dr. J. B. Angell, President of Michigan University,
THE SOCIAL END OF EDUCATION 185
has pithily spoken in his baccalaureate address, 1904.
"The world is full of learned fools. There is an endless
variety of them. Some are vain and chattering pedants,
who fill the world with noisy clamor like a company of
crows over their quidities and odds and ends of knowledge.
I recall men of capacious memories, who with the utmost
ease and complacency swallowed all the learning which
could be fed out to them by a whole college faculty, but
the learning never got out through their nerves, or their
tongues, or even through their muscles to touch and stir the
world."
There is now no room for intellectual jugglers or mental
gymnasts, as those for the most part are who pursue science
for science's sake or seek culture because of culture in itself.
Professor Cattell recently wrote that he doubts if interests
in pure science should precede interests in practical or
applied science. He even indicated that if he thought
his work as psychologist was on the basis of the former, he
should feel more akin to the sword swallower and sleight-of-
hand performer than to the business man.
In a speech before Princeton men in Chicago a short time
ago, President Wilson, of Princeton University, depreciated
mere learning for learning's sake. "We want," he said,
"useful men, not men who have learning for learning's
sake, and who think they are better than others because
they have something in their heads which is useless. . . .
I do not believe that the natural carnal man was meant
to sit down and read a book. I myself would rather see
things than find them out from a printed book."
CHAPTER IX. STATE EDUCATION AND RELIGION
IT would be very difficult to conceive of a treatment of
the educational programme, in anything like a large way,
without some attention being given the subject of religion.
The reasons which could be found for bestowing this notice
upon it would certainly be very numerous. It is not neces-
sary to catalogue them.
The motive of this chapter is not to depreciate the good
which ecclesiastical institutions have wrought, nor to forget
the good which religious forces and sanctions legitimately
used may do. But it is logically possible to esteem the place
and service of religion, to hold in regard the ecclesiastical
institutions as agencies in social control, and yet to main-
tain that there are certain other institutions which shall be
kept free and inviolate from direct religious teaching and
ecclesiastical interference. Some of the reasons for this
position will be developed in this chapter.
I do not feel called upon to discuss extensively the ulti-
mate nature of religion, its origin, or how it comes to be a
part of the life of the average man. Undoubtedly such a
broad discussion would have its value for educational pur-
poses, but the questions it would raise would demand
entirely too extensive a treatment in order to be effective.
It seems advisable that our treatment should center on two
points, first, a discrimination between morality and religion,
as necessary to a fair conception of the problem of placing
religion in the schools; and second, the question of expedi-
ency as seen in the historic connections of state and church.
1 86
STATE EDUCATION AND RELIGION 187
I. RELIGION AND MORALITY
Distinction between religion and morals. — In my estima-
tion the largest source of difference of opinion, among people,
as to whether religion should or should not be taught in the
schools, lies in confusing two sets of facts in our lives, which,
scientifically, at least, are separable and distinct in origin
and nature. It is common to identify morals and religion,
in using one or the other term, making the term used
cover both sets of facts. It is found that quite generally,
when religion is mentioned, morality is in the mind of the
speaker.
I have in mind a very recent illustration of this. A group
of six educators, as a state committee, were considering
what subjects should enter into the course of study in the
schools. There was fair unanimity until the subject of
religion arose. At once the group split evenly. A warm
discussion ensued. Finally, the suggestion was made that
the term be defined. It was found that but two, possibly
three, conceived morality and religion as distinct phenomena.
It was also found that those who did not so distinguish
were thinking of morality under the term religion, save in
one case. The exception alone would have religion, as
distinct from morality, placed in the schools; and he ulti-
mately abandoned his position in favor of the argument of
expediency.
I shall proceed to the attempt to distinguish between
morality and religion. Perhaps the best way to clear up
the difference between them is to make a brief sketch of
their origin and early development.
Men who devote themselves to the study of primitive
society are in the habit of making the distinction and of
l88 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
drawing it clearly. It is their business to give us a scientific
account of the origin and development of ideas and institu-
tions. The consensus of the opinions of these men is that
in developing into human beings social groups were formed.
Original man had to evolve all his ideas, language, customs,
institutions. In the beginning he was without religious
ideas as he was without other ideas. Thus, living in groups,
ways of associating grew up. These forms became cus-
tomary. This was the beginning of the social order. It
was also the beginning of the moral order. It was safety
to hold together as a group. It was social safety to refrain
from certain acts like theft, murder, etc. Such acts would
destroy society. Hence they were wrong. To promote
social welfare was right. Hence custom grew into a moral
order.
As men grew in intelligence, they began to explain things,
or try to. They began to be struck with certain occurrences,
such as shadows which come and go, reflections of themselves
and objects in the water, dreams in which they went to
distant places and had strange experiences, echoes which
duplicated their voices, etc. Knowing no science they came
to believe all these things were evidences of another self, a
self that could come and go. And they came to think this
was the self that made this body do things, the active agent.
By extension, all the actions of nature, such as storms,
lightning, earthquakes, diseases, poisons, etc., had their
explanation in the same manner. Everything was dual.
Objects were filled with unseen agents or demons which
worked through them, or only at times used them as tools.
It was natural and logical, when this stage was reached,
that men should try to appease the demons which might
STATE EDUCATION AND RELIGION 189
injure them. We know that primitive man lived in constant
fear of the gods. It takes him a long time to elevate the
gods into objects to be adored and worshipped. A set of
specialists, at first medicine men or necromancers, later
priests, were developed to control the spirits. It was their
business. They were the mediators. They were supposed
to know the way of the gods and to be able to pacify them.
This was religion. It was the way religion began, the way
the ideas and practices took root.
In the ordinary unfolding of things the medicine men and
the priests discovered that they could use their positions
as powerful means for controlling the conduct of men.
To have the gods condemn or approve certain lines of social
relations or conduct was a sure way to secure the kind of
action desired. Hence it became common to designate
moral actions as sanctioned by the gods; and immoral and
anti-social, as disapproved. Thus it is seen that religious
sanctions came to be used to reinforce formerly moral or
social sanctions. This makes plain why the two came to be
identified so closely. When the higher religions emerged,
built as they were on the lower, they naturally continued
the practice of identification. But by tracing the origin
and development of both the moral and religious orders in
the early stages of society, we are able to distinguish between
them quite clearly. It also helps us to perceive that the
very center of religion is a sense of consciousness of super-
human agencies.
In so far as morality is identified with religion, the scope
of religion is widened and its influence in human society
is thereby made greater. But we must remember, in this
case, that we are confusing two things which we are able to
190 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
separate intellectually; and that we are imputing to one of
these sets of phenomena attributes and characteristics which
belong to the other only. So Benjamin Kid could claim
that altruistic actions in society could have no rational
sanction, since, in his conception, the human individual is
rational when he is completely selfish, and that hence
moral actions must be impelled by ultra-rational sanctions,
that is, religious sanctions. But his conception of the psy-
chology of man and organized society was a grotesque
caricature, having no standing whatever among scientists.
It is confusing to couple morality and religion and label
them religion. We can account for the moral attributes
of men and for their ethical actions without having
recourse to religious explanations. What psychologists,
moral philosophers, sociologists, and historians of religion
do as scientific necessity should be our guide when we come
to consider religion in its relation to education.
Hence it is one thing to teach religion and another thing to
teach morality. Religious teaching is bound up with a
peculiar conception of the universe, and of man's relation
to that universe and to the infinite personality working in it.
Moral teaching is based on social conduct, on relations
between men; and morality flows naturally out of ideals
of actions which we think should be realized among men.
Jesus was a religious teacher in so far as he gave his
philosophy of life, of the world, in relation to God. He
was an ethical teacher when he discoursed on the relation,
rights and duties of man to man. His ethical teachings '
are not true just because he stated them. He stated '
certain things because they were true in the nature of things.
fThey had been said before by Jewish teachers. t They had
STATE EDUCATION AND RELIGION 191
been evolved out of social strivings and experiments. They
have been evolved by other social groups in widely separated
places, and have been stated by other teachers entirely
independent of Jewish influences.
The conclusion is, therefore, that it is possible to teach
morality, to make children moral, without having recourse
to the teaching of religion in the schools. Under the treat-
ment of moralization will be found some suggestions about
how this work of moralization may be done. Our schools
are constantly moralizing the young without direct religious
teaching. And the marvelous results attained by such
experiments as Miss Brownlee's demonstrate how much
more could be accomplished if only our teachers were
enlightened as to true methods of teaching. (See Brown-
lee, Method of Child's Training, Holden, Springfield, Mass.,
a pamphlet for 10 cents, explaining the system.) Whether
or not religion shall be taught in the public schools must
be settled on grounds of expediency and justice.
H. PRESENT PRACTICAL DIFFICULTIES
Views on relation of school and religion. — There are
three clearly definable views on the relation of public schools
to religious teaching. One is that the province of the state,
organized as government, is entirely secular. Since it is
to serve all individuals of all shades of belief it must main-
tain absolute neutrality towards all forms of belief and
unbelief. If it teaches a particular form of belief, it
discriminates against other forms and, hence, is unjust to
those classes of its citizens which hold them.
A second view is that entertained popularly by Christians,
that the safety of the state depends on moral education, and
IQ2 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
that this cannot be inculcated apart from religion. Thus
Judge Story wrote: "Why does the state take money from
your pocket to educate my child ? Not on the ground that
education is a good thing for him, but on the ground that
his ignorance would be dangerous to the state. In like
manner the state must teach in its schools fundamental
religious truths; not because the child should know them
in preparation for a future existence — the state is not
concerned with the eternal welfare of its citizens — but
because immorality is perilous to the state, and popular
morality cannot be secured without the sanctions of reli-
gion." (Commentaries on the Constitution of the United
States, Boston, 1883, p. 680.)
A third position is that of Roman Catholics, some
Anglicans, Lutherans, and others. It holds that while, of
course, morality is necessary to the safety of the state,
morality cannot be taught except by giving the definite
religious teaching of their respective churches. Pope
Pius IX said it is an error that " This system of instructing
youths (the public school) which consists in separating it
from the Catholic Church and from the power of the Church
. . . may be approved by the Catholics." A Catholic
bishop said in Boston, " The state has no right to educate,
and when the state undertakes the work of education it is
usurping the powers of the Church." In the encyclical of
1908 the Pope permits Catholics to send their children to
public schools but puts a ban on "modernism."
Naturally, with such diverse positions, compromises have
been made. Sometimes representatives of the various
faiths have been allowed to teach the children of their
communion in the public schools. None of these com-
STATE EDUCATION AND RELIGION 193
promises are satisfactory. Deep and bitter feeling exists
and often breaks out; as in the case of the A. P. A. of the
United States, the religious education trouble in Manitoba,
and the rebellion of the non-comformists of England
against the Balfour Education Bill passed by Parliament.
Generally, in the United States, the parochial schools
system is resorted to by those who do not believe in state
education. The following remarks on this plan are worth
reproducing.
" But even if the verdict be that they are so, the question
still remains whether the church, by devoting the same
energy and resources entirely to religious teaching, leaving
instruction on ordinary branches to the public schools, might
not have accomplished as much for the children now in
parochial schools, and, in addition, have reached also the
greater number of its children still in the public schools whom
the parochial school does not reach; and whether it might
not at the same time have lowered instead of raising those
barriers of prejudice for which the Catholic people are not
wholly responsible, but which it is their duty, as well as that
of all other good citizens, to remove. The expenditure
which has established and maintained these schools would,
in the same communities, have built and manned a chapel
in the vicinity of every considerable public school. The
same number of instructors that can teach a thousand
children five hours a day could teach five thousand one
hour a day/' (School Review, Vol. XIII, p. 673.)
Religious organizations could not agree on teaching. —
The decision could not be made certain or definite, if the
question of what to put in the schools in matters of religion
were left to the churches or ecclesiastical organizations.
194 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
There is in America a diversity of religions in the first place.
Not only it is Jew and Gentile, but of the Gentiles the faiths
are diverse.
Of the Christians there are diverse bodies of believers
holding the old historic faith, and not a few a new: such
as Christian Scientists, Zionists, Flying Rollers, etc. Old
line Christianity is severely divided and broken; not only are
there Catholic and Protestant, but of the latter there are
many different denominations with differing doctrinal bases;
and the great denominations are broken into multitudinous
sects, some having as many as a dozen or more such sects.
As far as Catholics and Protestants are concerned there
never has been, and seemingly will not soon be, any agree-
ment in theological views so as to permit of doctrinal instruc-
tion. Moreover, their views with reference to the use which
should be made of the Bible in popular instruction are so
divergent that there is little hope of finding unanimity.
First, doctrinal instruction is barred out by this disagree-
ment. Second, Catholics would withhold the Bible from
use in schools where any but teachers of their faith could
regulate its reading and possible interpretation.
But if the Bible is not to be interpreted to the average
public school pupil, exceedingly little of the meaning will
be gained, and little or no interest and attention given to
the public reading. I tested this at various times in my
own classes in institutions where the Bible was read, but
usually not interpreted. I have asked classes, whose mem-
bers numbered from fifteen to forty pupils, for the Bible
passage of that morning's reading. Seldom have any
known the subject, and several times not one could suggest
an idea or phrase read on that day. And many of these
STATE EDUCATION AND RELIGION 195
students were of college rank, were intelligent, and most of
them were church members. They readily acknowledged
that they seldom, if ever, paid any active attention to the
Bible readings.
To make Scripture reading of practical importance, the
passage should be interpreted. But interpretation bears
the bias of the interpreter as molded by some ecclesiastical
viewpoint. Hence it verges on doctrine which is disputed
territory.
If we should take up the case as between Mormons and
Christians the possibility of common ground is still more
remote. The Book of Mormon contains so much that is at
variance with Christian teaching that neither side could
tolerate the teaching of the other. And the same is true of
Jew and Christian quite largely. Both religious parties
might unite on the reading of the Old Testament but not
on the New. Neither could they agree on the interpretation
of many passages of the Old Testament.
Among denominations of Protestant Christians the greater
unity and convergence would be found. Probably all
could consent to Scripture readings. Perhaps the majority
might stand for interpretation of the majority of passages
which are only of ethical import. And, no doubt, after a
further sifting of religious sentiments, this will be found to
be the largest possible basis of religion in the schools, with
reference to Protestant Christians.
Religion a private matter. — The nature of positive
religion makes it a private affair. Christianity in its nature
is a positive religion, because its fundamental conception
and doctrines are gained from historic documents. These
documents, like all other records, have to be tested as to
196 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
their authenticity or otherwise by literary and historical
criticism. The evidence is such that, while many accept
it as sufficient, either after consideration or on faith, others
do not find it convincing.
The positive character of Christianity may be seen by
two considerations. First, in being based on a miraculous
intervention on the part of God; second, in being mediated
through an authoritative church, the latter position being
maintained in addition to the other by the Catholic wing of
Christianity. The great majority of Protestants hold to
the former. The believers who make religion a natural
evolution, and who view Christianity as the upper stage of a
natural, rational unfolding, are very few and are considered
heterodox by the great mass of believers.
The following definitions of religion, by representative
theologians, will indicate how Christians identify it with or
hold it as dependent on revelation. " Religion, in its most
general sense, is the sum of the relations which man sustains
to God, and comprises the truths, the experiences, actions
and institutions which correspond to or grow out of those
relations. The Christian religion is that body of truths,
experiences, actions, and institutions which are determined
by the revelation supernaturally presented in the Christian
Scriptures." (A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology, p. 15.)
"Christianity is the revelation of God through Jesus
Christ whereby reconciliation and a new spiritual life in
fellowship with himself are brought to mankind. The
religion of Christ is inseparable from the life and character
of its Founder and from his personal relations to the race
and to the community of his followers." (George P.
Fisher, History of Christian Doctrine, p. c.)
STATE EDUCATION AND RELIGION 197
" Religion is the union of man with God, of the finite with
the infinite, expressed in conscious love and reverence."
The Christian religion is " that which rests in the conscious-
ness of the redemption of the world, through Christ as our
personal Saviour." (H. B. Smith, Introduction to Christian
Theology, pp. 52-53.)
"Religion and Revelation are correlative terms; that is,
the relation in which man places himself to God in religion
presupposes the relation in which God has placed himself
to man in revelation; without revelation there can be no
religion." (Article, Religion, by Koestlin in the Schaff-
Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge.)
Since the very center of Christian doctrine is individual
salvation through an act or life of faith in the historic person
Christ, it becomes at once apparent that the acceptance or
rejection of this doctrine must rest on voluntary grounds.
Any agency is perverted which seeks to employ force upon
individual or individuals to make it accepted. Teaching of
the doctrine must be heard optionally. To say that the
state or government in the person of its schools shall make
compulsory the maintenance of and attendance upon
exercises and instruction, embodying the above or other like
documentally evidenced doctrine, is to propose a contradic-
tion. Much better is it to leave the whole function of reli-
gious teaching and exercise to that social organization, which
is not only highly specialized and adapted to render that
service, but is so situated that it offers its teaching to all
who will accept it of their own accord, and compels none.
The injustice of compulsory religious exercises and
instruction is further seen when we have regard to the
irreligious and non-religious portions of our population.
198 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
The day is past, fortunately, when these people may be
arrogantly lumped off as pagans and treated as having
no rights. For much over one half of the people of this
nation are nominally non-religious, that is, they do not
have enough interest in religious matters to connect them-
selves with organizations whose sole purpose or business it
is to promote religious matters. To a large part of this
non-religious element, some sort of religious exercise would
not be objectionable, although it would not command its
attention. To another very large element, however, such
exercise would prove highly objectionable. It is this ele-
ment whose rights in the schools must be considered. It is
the business of the church, as a purely voluntary organiza-
tion, to take religion to these people. It is not the business
of the political organization, known as the government, to
force religion upon them in any form.
HI. THE CHURCH RESPONSIBLE FOR RELIGION
Division of labor among institutions. — In considering
where religious teaching should be given, several items
appear before us. The first is the relation of social institu-
tions to each other and their division of labor. In a pre-
vious chapter, the point was made that society has devel-
oped institutions which are specialized agencies for the
satisfaction of the several fundamental interests. It will
be sufficient here to refer briefly to that treatment. (See
Chapter IV, second division.) It was shown that because of
its specialization, in order to satisfy a given line of interests,
a given kind of institutions, such as the religious, can attend
to the business better than any other agency. It would be
a waste of social energy, uneconomical, to permit another
STATE EDUCATION AND RELIGION 199
agency to step in to do the special work. And, if another
agency can do the work better than the institutions special-
ized for that purpose, it is a sign that the institution to
which the social work belongs is incapable and needs reor-
ganization. Thus, it is the function of the ecclesiastical
organizations to satisfy the religious demands and interests
of the individual. It has been growing more and more
specialized for this particular kind of service for many
centuries. It is irrational to suppose that any other agency
can do the work half so well, because other organization
groups emphasize other interests and are built specially to
meet them and not the religious.
Now, it is a mark of social evolution to have these divisions
of labor clearly distinguished. In political matters, the
various departments of government have become clearly
differentiated within the last few centuries. It is conceded
to be an advance over the situations where there was a
medley of functions. Trouble ensues whenever any de-
partment oversteps its bounds so as to encroach on the
others. Likewise, in business management, various depart-
ments have grown up within an enterprise, each with its
own particular function. Railroad systems, the steel
trust, and other enterprises are made up of such distinct
departments. There is no mixing of duties. Responsibil-
ity must be definitely located.
The church responsible for religious training. — The
same must hold, and must more and more hold, true of our
social organizations. It is true that at one time the church
was the chief instructor. It established and kept schools.
Yet in them its chief emphasis was religion. We have
evolved beyond that position and are in the presence of
200 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
other great evolutions. Other organizations have been
founded and specialized for the work of instruction, — •
the public schools. They emphasize the intellectual and
the vocational side of training, and the further they develop
the more this is true. They have taken over this intellectual
and vocational training function, because they can do it
better than the church, because they can emphasize the
things society in general needs; while the church is bound
to emphasize the things which are for its interests and will
preserve its power. It has developed that the interests of
society have been broader than those of the church; and
hence to leave the work of training individuals for general
social interests in the hands of a social organization whose
interests are special and partial is felt to be illogical and
unsafe.
There are those who are seeking to place religion in the
public schools who do not see the diverse nature of the duty
and function of church and school. A writer on religious
psychology goes so far as to demand that religion shall be
put into the schools as a subject to be taught; that teachers
shall be examined by school boards on religion; and that
no one shall be permitted to teach who cannot stand the
rigid test. Were this possible it would take us back toward
mediaeval conditions more than a hundred years.
Professor Coe also patronizes those who have not evolved
beyond what he calls the " pre-biologic " attitude of mind
so as to see things as he does. The biologic view sees life as
an adjustment to an environment. He holds that the
adjustment is to the total environment and that preparation
for life consists in getting ready to respond to all that is in
the environment. Hence, since religion has always been
STATE EDUCATION AND RELIGION 2OI
in the social environment, and is at the present time
(think of the unchurched masses), education can only be
complete which trains religiously. (School Review, Vol.
XIII, p. 581.)
If this position were met in the spirit of the writer just
cited, we should have to regard it as the symptom of the
" pre-sociologic " attitude of mind. For the sociological
conception of adjustment to the environment has supple-
mented the biologic by indicating that the factor of intelligent
selection has become dominant in social adjustments; and
that to accept all in a situation, just because it is there and
has always been there, is quite irrational. Social adjustment
of the higher order is based on selective discrimination.
It is well to note the statement of Dr. Harris, who
(although he may have been in the " pre-biologic " stage)
finely indicates the fitness of the church as a special institu-
tion to carry on religious instruction. " The principle of
religious instruction is authority; that of secular instruction
is demonstration and verification. It is obvious that these
two principles should not be brought into the same school,
but separated as widely as possible. Religious truth is
revealed in allegoric and symbolic form, and is to be appre-
hended not merely by the intellect, but by the imagina-
tion and the heart. ... In religious lessons, wherein the
divine is taught as revealed to the human race, it is right that
the raw, immature intellect of youth shall not be called
upon to exercise a critical judgment, for at his best he can-
not grasp the rationality of the dogmas which contain the
deepest insights of the religious consciousness of the race."
" The church has through long ages learned the proper
method of religious instruction. It elevates sense-perception
202 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
through solemn music addressed to the ear and works of
art which represent to the eye the divine self-sacrifice for the
salvation of man. It clothes its doctrine in the language of
the Bible, a book sacredly kept apart from other literature,
and held in such exceptional reverence that it is taken
entirely out of the natural order of experience. The sym-
bolic language of the psalms, the prophets and the gospels
has come to possess a maximum power of suggestiveness,
powerful to induce what is called the religious frame of
mind. The highest wisdom of the race is expounded before
the people of the congregation in such language and such
significant acts of worship as to touch the hearts of young and
old with like effect.
" We must conclude, therefore, that the prerogative of
religious instruction is in the church, and that it must
remain in the church, and that in the nature of things it
cannot be farmed out to the secular school without degen-
erating into a mere deism without a living Providence, or
else changing the school into a parochial school and de-
stroying the efficiency of secular instruction." (Proceed-
ings of the N. E. A. 1903, p. 353.)
IV. HISTORICAL CONFIRMATION OF SEPARATION
Evils of ecclesiastical supremacy. — The baneful effects
on progress of an intrenched religion are shown by Botsford,
in the case of ancient Egypt. The Egyptians insisted on
preserving the customs and the wisdom of the past until they
refused to learn anything new. " By the end of the Hyksos
period all progress had ceased. The priests had reduced
the details of worship to fixed forms, from which no one
dared depart. As the books now prescribed what they,
STATE EDUCATION AND RELIGION 203
the king, and the high magistrates should do at every hour
in the day, the upper class became the slaves of ceremony.
In the same way they regulated the arts and sciences, so
that the future artists merely imitated existing models, and
physicians were strictly held to the written word. Mean-
time the wealth of the people had gone to the gods, supersti-
tion had robbed their sound moral precepts of all meaning,
their intellectual life had come to a standstill. . . . Egypt
was a mummy." (Botsford, Ancient History, p. 14.) Pre-
viously the Egyptians had made rapid progress along
scientific and industrial lines. We owe to them the begin-
nings of many arts and sciences. Had their progress not
been throttled by priestcraft and ecclesiastical formalism
much of modern advancement would doubtless have been
made then.
A few sentences from Seebohm concerning the influence
of the church system, when it was supreme in Europe, will
bear on this point. "The ecclesiastics held in their hands
the keys, as it were, not only of heaven but of earth. They
alone baptized; they alone married people (though unmar-
ried themselves); they alone could grant a divorce. They
had the charge of men on their death-beds; they alone
buried, and could refuse Christian burial in the church-
yards. They alone had the disposition of the goods of
deceased persons. When a man made a will, it had to be
proved in their ecclesiastical courts. If men disputed their
claims, doubted their teaching, or rebelled from their
doctrines, they virtually condemned them to the stake, by
handing them over to the civil power, which acted in sub-
mission to their dictates. ... As Latin was the language
of learning, so Rome was the capital of the learned world.
204 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
Thus the learned world was closely connected with the
ecclesiastical system. Learned people were looked upon
as belonging to the clergy; and the Pope had long claimed
them as subjects of his ecclesiastical empire. . . . Knowl-
edge was tied down by scholastic rules which had grown up
in times when the ecclesiastics were the only educated
people. . . . The schoolman . . . looked at everything with
ecclesiastical eyes. . . . Matters of science, e.g., whether
the earth moved round the sun or the sun around the earth,
were settled by texts from the Bible, instead of by examining
into the facts. So there was no freedom of inquiry even in
scientific matters. . . . Thus the scholastic system neces-
sarily kept both science and religion the property of a clerical
class, and out of the hands of the common people, to whom
Latin was a dead language; while at the same time it kept the
learning even of the learned world shackled by scholastic
rules." (Seebohm, Era of the Protestant Revolution, Chap. 2.)
Evils of fusion of church and state. — The evils of mixed
relation of church and state, as begun in Nicene and post-
Nicene times, are set forth as follows by Schaff: " An
inevitable consequence of the union of church and state
was restriction of religious freedom in faith and worship, and
the civil punishment of departure from the doctrine and
discipline of the established church. ... In the first three
centuries, the church, with all her external lowliness and
oppression, enjoyed the greater liberty within, in the develop-
ment of her doctrines and institutions, by reason of her
entire separation from the state. After the Nicene age all
departures from the reigning state-church faith were not only
abhorred and excommunicated as religious errors, but were
treated also as crimes against the Christian state, and hence
STATE EDUCATION AND RELIGION 205
were punished as civil penalties; at first with deposition,
banishment, confiscation, and, after Theodosius, even with
death.
" This persecution of heretics was a natural consequence
of the union of religious and civil duties and rights, the
confusion of the civil and the ecclesiastical, the judicial
and the moral, which came to pass since Constantine."
(Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. Ill, section 27.)
Although in theory the church in this period adhered to the
principle that she should impose only spiritual penalties,
excommunication in extreme cases, yet, because of her
union with the civil power, she practically confounded the
relation of law and gospel, in theory approved civil punish-
ment of heretics, and not seldom urged the state to such
measures.
Even Augustine, one of the greatest and sweetest of church
fathers, who started with the belief that heretics and
schismatics should be approached only by instruction and
conviction, later recanted and advocated for them state
punishment. This he based on his views on and the actual
relation of church and state. If the state may not punish
heresy, neither should it be allowed to punish murder or
adultery. Soon after him Leo the Great advocated even
the penalty of death for heresy. It was this theory and
initiative practice that led eventually to spiritual despotism,
persecution, and the fearful Court of the Inquisition.
The Reformation proved that Christianity and external
organization are not identical, yet a real revolution in
thought was not accomplished in regard to religious tolera-
tion until the eighteenth century. After the Reformation,
many acts of intolerance and bigotry took place, even in
206 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
England, the most progressive of European countries, by
reason of the fusion of the ecclesiastical and political organi-
zations. Sometimes it was Catholic against Puritan and
sometimes it was Puritan against Catholic. In colonial
America, wherever there was a state church, intolerance
of differing religious and non-religious views was the rule.
Suffrage rights were based on ecclesiastical standing and re-
ligious belief. Heretics were dealt violently with. Quakers,
the best of immigrants, were persecuted in Massachusetts.
Dissenting Puritans were expelled, as were Roger Williams
and Anne Hutchinson. Intolerance drove Hooker and his
flock to the Connecticut valley. In Virginia, the Puritans
were ejected, when the royalist and established church
adherents of Charles I came over in large numbers.
The American system the remedy. — America has given
to the world a great idea in its method of adjusting the
church and state to each other. The germs of all our
representative political institutions are to be found some-
where in earlier civilized attempts. American colonies
found their political rights already stated in various English
constitutional documents, from the great Charter down.
Particularly, the " Agreement of the People," drawn up
in 1648-9, contains the distinctive political germs later
developed and realized in America.
But in the Rhode Island agreement entered into between
Roger Williams and his associates is contained the first con-
stitutional separation of church and state known to history.
" Williams founded his settlement on the basis of absolute
civil equality and of absolute freedom in religious affairs.
There was religious freedom in the earlier settlement of
Maryland, but it was not the same liberty that prevailed
STATE EDUCATION AND RELIGION 207
in Providence. The former was rather in the nature of
toleration, the latter was adopted as a principle of govern-
ment. It is to Roger Williams and to the settlers of Provi-
dence that the student must look for the origin of one of
the most important principles underlying the American
form of government, — the separation of church and state,
which necessarily implies absolute religious freedom. For
this Williams deserves a place beside the most prominent
statesmen of the revolutionary and constitutional periods."
(Chznmng, Student's History of the United States, p. 87.)
At the time of the formation of the Constitution of the
United States, this idea was permanently embodied in that
document in the following statements: " Congress shall
make no law respecting an establishment of religion or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof. " " No religious test
shall ever be required as a qualification to any office of
public trust under the United States."
The preceding pages have set forth the evils which arise
under confounding the two sides. The American system
has afforded a large amount of peace and toleration in the
United States. James Bryce has called it the " greatest
contribution" America has made to the history of the
world. The arrangement has proved so successful that
other nations are imitating it as far as circumstances will
permit. The tendencies in Europe are toward separation.
Within the year 1905, France consummated its task of
divorcing state and church, and of placing its schools on a
non-ecclesiastical basis, and freed from direct religious inter-
ference. England's educational system is about bankrupt,
due to state-church control.
The present Liberal Parliament has made various attempts
208 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
to remedy the educational legislation which was passed un-
der Premier Balfour. The aristocratic House of Lords, the
support of privilege, has thus far successfully mutilated
proposed secularizing bills sent up by the Commons. The
reformed churches in England are fighting for justice, and
many of their members have refused to pay taxes levied
under the Balfour law to support the schools. Feeling has
been intense. The liberal ministry has threatened to make
an end of the House of Lords because of its opposition to
educational and other reforms. There has been an equal
or greater strain in France over secularizing the schools,
for which the papacy at present entertains a decidedly
hostile feeling towards that nation.
In Germany there is much secret dissatisfaction with the
religious requirements in the schools. There is a strong
belief that religious instruction as carried on there does more
harm than good. Says Professor Hanus: " After studying
it about two years ago, and its effects, as viewed by many of
the teachers with whom I talked on the subject, and as
revealed in the growing apathy to religion among the
people, I strongly feel that it does not serve its purpose,
but is subversive of it. I quote a memorandum or two from
my notebook. A state inspector of schools said to me,
' The domination of the church is our greatest obstacle in
the path of educational progress.' And the principal of a
large city high school said, after I had told him we had no
instruction in religion in our public schools: ' You are quite
right. Never permit it. It is subversive of the very ends
for which it is maintained in our schools.' And a ' gymna-
sium ' teacher of prominence summed the whole matter up
admirably, to my mind, when he said at the end of an earnest
STATE EDUCATION AND RELIGION 209
conversation on the subject : ' In the lower grades it is
without effect, and in the upper grades it breeds hypocrisy.' '
(Beginnings in Industrial Education, p. 150.)
The state certainly has no business teaching religion for
the sake of religion. But if it had, there is evidence to show
that Christianity has made greater gains in the colleges of
America under separation than under ecclesiastical control.
Thus under that regime in the last of the i8th century and
the first of the iQth, professors of religion in our colleges
ranged from 12 to 5 per cent of the attendance. By 1825
it was 25 per cent, by 1858 it was 40, 45 in 1860, and over
50 per cent in 1900. This period of growth is coincident
with the secularization of the schools and the rise of the
public school system. " Religion, like patriotism, thrives
under freedom. The gains to religion sketched above have
all taken place, I repeat, under a system of free public
elementary schools, free public high schools, and free state
universities, all without explicit or formal instruction in
religion." (Hanus, Beginnings in Industrial Education,
pp. 163-5.)
It is my firm conviction that morality can be taught in
the schools without religious teaching. We have never
had a finer display of ethical sentiment in the history of
our country or of the world than is taking place now. The
foundation of that sentiment is in the rational understanding
of the problems which confront us, according to the light
of the teachings and writings of great social reformers in
and outside of universities, on the platform, in the pulpit
and in legislatures. The appeal has not been religious but
to the social and ethical interests of men. Perceptions of
just and fair relations come out of a development of the
210 SOCIAL DEMANDS ON EDUCATION
intellectual nature of man. In developing his intelligence
to understand the system of society in which he is placed
the schools have their greatest warrant, along with the
development of the sense of responsibility, justice and
service through their work and organization.
At least it is amply shown that for purposes of expediency,
for reasons of safety to the state and of freedom to the
church to carry on its special work for society, it is imperative
that the American system of relating church and state be
maintained.
PART III
METHODS OF SOCIALIZING
EDUCATION
CHAPTER X. CRITERION OF SOCIALIZATION
The problem. — We have reached the point where some
attention must be paid the problem of how to bring about
the socialization of education. It would be in vain to talk
so much about the theoretical and practical grounds and
needs for a thoroughgoing readjustment of the schools to
meet the modern conditions, if some way could not be laid
out, or better some principles laid down, which would lead
to the end, or be regulative in reaching it.
As I see the situation confronting educators to-day there
are two essential things which must be done. One of these
tasks is the development of a regulating principle which
shall serve as the criterion in all educational phases and
grades for the selection of the content or subject matter
of training. By the use of such a test, if one can be found,
a teacher having to settle the question of what to admit
into the school and what to reject would be placed in a
commanding position. Where now are darkness and be-
wilderment there would be light and direction. One of the
most pitiable features of the present situation, and yet one
of the most hopeful, is to observe the general groping about
211
212 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
of educators in search of some guide of what is just the most
important of all educational content to put into courses of
study.
The other essential task, which must be performed before
our schools will be completely readjusted, is the appli-
cation of the principle or criterion to every programme, to
every subject, and to every subject in each of its successive
stages of development throughout the grades from the
lower to the higher. This really will require a double proc-
ess. By means of the criterion the appropriate subject
matter will be located and admitted. Then it becomes the
business of the child psychologist to graduate this material,
assigning what shall be presented in each of the school
grades. The criterion will decide the what. Psychologists
will decide the when and the how.
It is not the purpose of this book to undertake the work
of the psychologist. Rather, the work undertaken is to
develop the justification of the criterion which should be
used, to show in a general way what kind of matter it would
demand in constructing a school programme, — a course of
study as a whole; and the effect it would have on some
particular subjects which are found in the schools, if ap-
plied to them. In other words, I am concerned with prin-
ciples rather than with the application of principles to all
details. With the establishment of principles, educators
will quickly work out the application. In fact, forthcoming
textbooks indicate that a principle is sighted, and that the
details are being worked out in several lines.
Summary of previous conclusions. — Before taking up
the work of this part, it may be of use to the reader to sum-
marize the points developed in former parts of this work,
CRITERION OF SOCIALIZATION 213
for the purpose of exhibiting our conclusions till now and of
concentrating them on the problem now confronting us.
1. The end of education is to secure the power of adjust-
ment to the social environment in order to control it or to
make use of it.
2. Since the social environment is specialized into voca-
tions, under pressure of the division of labor, education
must be likewise specialized to meet specific situations.
3. Traditional and formal methods of training, which
rest on the supposition that there is a general discipline, do
not qualify for modern actual diversity. Specialized insti-
tutions and occupations demand special disciplines.
4. In order to decide what educational phases should be
emphasized, present social demands must be consulted.
It is seen that the economic, particularly the commercial
and industrial, demands are most pressing. Hence indus-
trial and commercial training must receive a very much
larger recognition.
5. In order to meet the world-wide economic demands of
organized society, varieties of community interests or com-
munities with different interests have arisen; such as com-
munity A, dominant interest agriculture; community B,
dominant interest commerce; community C, dominant
interest manufacture; community D, dominant interest
mining, etc. The demands of democracy, in its all around
life, and the necessary tendency of a progressive society to
become more differentiated in structure, and, consequently,
more integrated and interdependent, insist on education for
community interests.
6. Pathological social conditions are related to education.
Education of the right sort may not be able to cure all the
214 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
ills of society. But it is proved, for instance, that pauperism
and crime, to a considerable extent, come out of a lack of
vocational training and definite occupation.
Education must, therefore, seek to prevent the production
of paupers and criminals, by fitting individuals to do some-
thing in particular and thus to be socially valuable. In so
far as the race problem is pathological, it too demands
vocational training in order to make the negro race economi-
cally independent, first of all, as necessary to other lines of
development.
7. The demands of sex difference must be met with ap-
propriate training to answer to the division of labor based
on sex callings. The domestic sciences must be introduced
for women to prepare them adequately for home-making
and housekeeping.
8. Ethical training of the individual must be attended to
in school life. Direct teaching, but mostly social training
in school and class conduct, are to be the means of this.
9. The demands of evolving democracy must be met by
seeking to secure in the young cooperative efficiency, the
ability to conduct community affairs, and such essentials of
culture as insure the safety and perpetuity of social welfare.
10. Negatively, religious training should not be a part
of the state school system, because there is a more specialized
institution to conduct religious culture, because of inter-
denominational strife, because positive and documentary
religion is a matter of private judgment, and because expe-
diency dictates complete separation of state and church.
Reconstruction the only valid method of socialization. — -
Various methods of bringing school and society together
have been proposed and put into use. There is the attempt
CRITERION OF SOCIALIZATION 215
to infuse the ideals of the school into the community. In so
far as the schools are really effective and sufficient this is
a worthy attempt. In so far, however, as the schools are
backward and defective the result is negative.
Another method is that of " exploiting " the community
to bring its life and ideals into the school in order to trans-
form the latter. Pupils and students are sent out to study
local institutions and other phenomena of society. The
observations are worked over in class. The actual world is
thus introduced.
This is most valuable for university work to preserve the
students from abstractions, and as contributive to informa-
tion. Even in elementary schools it can be made a valuable
part of training. But it can only partly serve to bring the
schools into accord with the larger interests of the world
without. It is neither radical nor extensive enough for the
task before us. The supplementary matter realized by
this procedure is short of vocational demands. Further,
it only partially serves to eliminate the effete and empty
matter now intrinsic to both the curricula and individual
subjects of the schools.
The valid method of socialization is revealed in the
answers to these three questions: What shall education
dominantly accomplish ? What programme of studies and
training shall be established to accomplish it ? How shall
we dispose of our present training matter to permit the
construction of a programme that will accomplish it ? The
answers are, vocational training of the individual; reor-
ganization of present programmes so as to vocationalize the
individual in terms of the dominant or some one of the
dominant interests of his community; elimination of such
2l6 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
subjects and parts of subjects now in our schools as do not
lead pretty directly to the desired end.
The need of reconstruction depends on criterion. — •
Whether or not there is a necessity for transforming the
subjects taught in the schools, of course depends on our
idea of the criterion to be used in education. If we hold
to the culture idea of education, that all knowledge is useful,
since all facts are found in the universe and it is the business
of the individual to know as much as possible about the
cosmology, then perhaps we shall not find much to criticise
in what is now taught. Still, even those of this view would
discriminate between what is first most accessible and most
important and what is more remote and less consequential,
and would use this distinction as a criterion of what to put
into texts. Only fools would advocate dumping the whole
world of knowledge upon a schoolroom of children. Hence
some criterion would be in demand.
If we were exponents of the discipline theory of education,
that general discipline is the end of training, that some
subjects are more qualified to furnish this discipline than
others and that the training of the powers of the child is the
chief thing to be accomplished, not much fault could be
found with what is now taught, save, perhaps, that there is
too much that is useful creeping into the schools. Still,
this class of people have a criterion of fit subject matter;
for, as they first discover certain total subjects which are
better than other subjects for disciplining purposes, so when
the chosen subjects are taken up, since every subject ramifies
almost infinitely into knowledge around, some way must be
found to select the essentials. To find the essentials a
criterion of value is required.
CRITERION OF SOCIALIZATION 217
And the same ultimate requirement faces us, no matter
tvhat may be our educational view.
Where these schools of educational theory would differ
from the social-adjustment theory is not in affirming that
no criterion is needed, as against its rigid insistence on
applying the test of values, but in holding that, after making
due allowance in choice of matter out of respect to finite
limits of human understanding, it is a matter, of indifference,
within that prescribed field, whether tweedledee or tweedle-
dum be emphasized; it is all good. We then teach knowl-
edge for the sake of knowledge, science for the sake of science,
disciplinary matter for the sake of discipline, etc. Then
usefulness and social value cannot avail because they are
not the end.
On the contrary, in social philosophy as applied to educa-
tion, the end of life is social competency and the end of
education is preparation for that qualification. Since the
individual is to depend on society, is to use its machinery and
its values, he must be educated in terms of those organiza-
tions of the total machine he is most likely to serve in
vocationally; and must be given the instinct of their values
if possible. Hence for every particular community pro-
gramme of training, for every particular training subject,
there must exist a social criterion of value. Moreover, the
criterion must be as rigidly applied as the military authority
applies his scissors or pencil in censoring the news in war
times.
Location of the criterion. — Hence, in reorganizing the
educational programme some criterion must be found which
will be a test of the fitness for entrance of elements of train-
ing. This takes us into the realm of values. This attempt
2l8 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
is built on the doctrine of social values. It runs somewhat
as follows. Educate the individual to be able to adjust
himself in the social situation he is most likely to meet as a
life situation. In the various ranges of content to which
he is to be subject select just that content which will
throw most light on, and which leads towards, that particular
environment. In so far as a vocational element is introduced
choose the line of training which the individual will be most
likely to follow. Some of the details of this choice will be
developed later.
Here we have to find the clew to what the situation is
likely to be in which the individual will dominantly function.
This clew is found in the idea of the community and of the
community interest or business. First, it is probable that
the mass of persons will live in the community in which
they will grow up. Second, if they do migrate it is cer-
tain that vastly the greater majority will seek and locate in
the kind of community they left. Thus working men will
migrate to manufacturing, agriculturists to agricultural,
commercial people to commercial districts, etc.
In this way the community becomes the key to the
vocational element which should be placed in any given
school, and to the determination of what informational
areas or phases of the various subjects shall be taught.
To demonstrate that this conception of the relation of
the individual to the community is not mere assumption the
following facts are presented.
First, the population of the United States, as measured
by interstate migration, is quite stable. " The total native
born population in 1900 was 65,767,451 (including Alaska
and Hawaii, but excluding 75,851 native born enumerated
CRITERION OF SOCIALIZATION 2 19
in military and naval stations abroad). Of this number
51,979,651, or 79 per cent, were born in the state or territory
in which they were found by the census enumerators. The
remaining 13,787,800, constituting 21 per cent of the entire
native born element, had migrated from the state or territory
in which they were born and were found in the other states
and territories. The proportion living in the state or
territory of birth was slightly larger in 1900 than it was in
1890." (U. S. Statistical Atlas, 1900, p. 43.) We must
expect it will be very much larger in future, due to the
exhaustion of new land in the West. With reference to the
kind of communities the migrants settle in, that is, the 21 per
cent, anyone familiar with the history of settling the West
and who has lived in various parts of the West knows that
easterners move West and that they are mostly from rural
regions. That is, farmers take up the new farming lands
of the West more largely than any other class. This
principle holds for other classes and other sections of the
nation as well.
Second, the growth of cities touches the stability of the
population relatively lightly and is largely accounted for
by immigration. The growth of urban relative to rural
population was only about 12 per cent in a generation, or
from 20.9 per cent to 33.1 per cent between 1870 and 1000.
(Same, p. 40.) The largest increase is in commercial and
industrial regions. Massachusetts has increased its urban
population from 56 to 76 per cent; Illinois from 32 to 47
per cent; Kansas from 12 to 28 percent from 1870 to 1900.
Southern and newer western states and territories have
increased their city inhabitants, relative to rural, little in
that time. (Same, plate 20.)
220 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
Immigrants from abroad throng the cities and largely
make their excess growth. There are living in cities of
25,000 inhabitants and over, about 75 per cent of Russians;
63 per cent each of Poles, Italians, and Irish; nearly 60 per
cent each of Bohemians, Austrians, and Hungarians. These,
except the Irish, are the foreign races which now most
come to America. (Same, plate 73.) A large part of those
and other races settle in smaller industrial communities.
Germans and Scandinavians mostly congregate in the
northwesterly states as agriculturists and will likely remain
such. (Same, plates 65 and 69.)
On the basis of these facts it is safe to state that probably
somewhere near 80 per cent of our citizens will remain in
the original community, and that those who migrate will
go to a social group with interests similar to the old. The
environment will be essentially unchanged. It would be
safe to say that very much less than five per cent of the
population change their callings.
It is taken as a valid argument in education to-day that,
since over 90 per cent of our youth will not remain in school
beyond the elementary grades, our education in those
grades should be made more vocational in nature. It would
seem to be an equally valid argument to hold that, since we
can locate the future vocational interest of even a larger
portion of the youth, the dominant interests of any com-
munity should serve as the guide in the kind of training the
children of that community should have. This interest or
the interests will determine the vocational element to place
in the center of the training programme; the phases of the
informational studies which are most needed for illuminants
and supports of the vocational; and, in connection with the
CRITERION OF SOCIALIZATION 221
ethical demands arising out of every community, will form
the cue to the kind of work to be done.
It may be said that this criterion of the community or
locality is now becoming accepted and used. We have pre-
viously seen an illustration of this principle in the case of
England creating new universities to meet regional needs.
And the following case may be taken as a frank acceptance
of its validity in the public schools of the United States.
" I may probably best indicate by illustration what I
deem to be wise operation of the law that the special charac-
ter of the business life of a city should affect the forms of
industrial education in its schools. My own city (Hartford)
is known throughout the business world as a banking,
insurance, and manufacturing center. We employ thou-
sands of clerks, accountants, copyists, bookkeepers, typists,
and stenographers in these offices of our banks, insurance
companies, and manufactures. The factories are devoted
largely to the production of high-grade metal manufactures.
Our guns and automobiles, our tires and bicycles, our
typewriters and automatic machinery, go into every quarter
of the world where efficiency is prized. In their produc-
tion we employ thousands of machinists, pattern makers,
draftsmen, smiths, and other high-grade mechanics. The
ranks of all these must be recruited from the boys trained
in our public schools.
" We recognize, accordingly, that penmanship has in our
schools a place which it is not generally accorded or entitled
to in many other cities. We deliberately teach it as an
important manual art all through the nine grades of the
grammar schools, and in the high school as well. Similarly,
work in wood and iron is begun as low as the fifth grade of
222 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
the grammar schools and carried through the high school.
Drawing and design begin in the kindergarten, and are
available through every year to the end of the high school
course. Typewriting, stenography, and bookkeeping are
taught in our high school. Our work in pattern making,
mechanical drawing, and machine-shop practice is more
extended than might be justified in a city of different com-
mercial life. Our evening high school has not hesitated to
undertake the training in its shops and drafting rooms of
ambitious young men from the factories. Without con-
scious formulation of the doctrine that the schools of the
community should teach whatever the business of the com-
munity demands in a large way, we have accepted it in
practice." (Supt. C. H. Keyes, N. E. A. Kept., 1906,
pp. 204-5.)
CHAPTER XI. SOCIALIZATION OF THE PROGRAMME
OF STUDIES
Problem and aim of treatment. — In considering the
methods of socialization it is not easy to see just where to
begin. If the various subjects now taught are to be over-
hauled, they may become larger or smaller, according as
contraction by eliminating material or expansion by incor-
porating new matter exceeds. As to their extent after recon-
struction has taken place we are in the dark. Looking at
the matter in this way it would seem that the various sub-
jects demand attention first. But since no one man is likely
to be intimately enough acquainted in a teaching way with
all the various fields of work, the results of changing the
subjects cannot be definitely known for a long time. Many
collaborators will be required to complete the task. Thus
a complete programme of school work must await the
accomplishment of this task.
Looking at the problem in another way it appears that
the curriculum should be worked over first. How can we
determine the form of any part until the whole structure
is known ? Perhaps the very part will be eliminated entirely
or else given a quite subordinate place, as compared with
that it previously occupied. It would be of no use, for
instance, to work over formal grammar if that subject, as
such, is to be dispensed with; or if it is to be reduced in
prominence, this should be known by those who under-
take to recast it.
224 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
The whole task of socialization really promises to be, as it
now is, a matter of cut and fit, of experimenting and of
selecting the fruitful results. However, something may be
gained by attacking the task in a preliminary way, thus
offering the suggestions to be improved on. For the
reason above given the programme will receive considera-
tion first.
The aim, then, of this chapter is to consider the curricu-
lum, as a whole, for the sake of discovering of what it should
consist. As the criticism of each subject and line of work
decides what teaching matter they shall contain, so, the
criticism of a total programme determines what lines of
training shall confront the pupils.
Subordinate ends of education and training groups. —
While there is no general course of training possible, there
are general principles, or minor ends of education, which
should govern the training of every individual. Thus we
may demand that the individual shall have command of
the devices of communication and computation; and, as we
saw in Part II, that he shall be fitted to carry a good
degree of intelligence into his particular niche in life; that
he shall be habituated to fulfill his social duties; that he shall
be a useful, productive citizen; and, we may add, that he
shall have developed a taste for some of the finer goods of
life.
If we were to think of the process the individual goes
through in securing the last four qualities or acquisitions,
we might term the process in each successive case informa-
tion, moralization, utilization, and appreciation.
SOCIALIZATION OF THE PROGRAMME OF STUDIES 225
I. THE TOOLS OF LEARNING
Their importance. — The first group of elements the
school must contain is made up of the so-called " tools of
learning." In a measure the phrase, " tools of learning," is
good. It covers a part of the work of these lines of study
as they relate to mere school routine. It expresses the
truth that without reading, writing, and numbers advance
in school knowledge would be severely crippled. And
without the acquisition of these technical means, outside
knowledge and continued culture, as it is to be obtained in
printed matter, would be impossible.
There are three social services the possession of reading,
writing, and mathematics performs for the individual.
First, they make it possible for him to come into larger and
larger fields of information. As has been said, this service
is performed in the school. The texts and the library are
opened to the child by ability to read. Beyond the school,
with the possession of ambition and leisure, all the mines of
the world's experience may be explored.
Second, they facilitate and enlarge the power of communi-
cation. Since life is so largely a matter of social dependence
and intercourse, communication is of primary importance.
It is desirable that a person should be able to give and take
ideas with ease and pleasure. Reading will render conver-
sation easier in giving ideas and language power. Writing
enlarges the area of communication for purposes of friend-
ship and business. Not to be able to write would reduce
the individual to a position of dependence on others for the
performance of these functions.
Third, arithmetic, or numbers, bestows the power of
computation. Civilization moves on the wings of numbers
226 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
more than we are apt to think. The average person
reckons many times daily. The man of business is abso-
lutely dependent on the business of counting. Even the
society butterfly must figure up the prices of dainty fabrics,
beautiful floral purchases, cab-fares, etc., and measure
them in terms of her purse. The one who could not reckon
would be at the mercy of dishonest people and would have
to depend on honest and dishonest fellow men alike to do
his counting for him. Of course, life and all vocations
involving business considerations would be closed to him.
We must therefore conclude that the agents of informa-
tion, communication, and computation are essentials of
individual equipment to-day and must be included in the
school schedule.
Method of teaching the three R's. — A further considera-
tion, hardly legitimate in this work, would relate to the
method to be used in teaching them. It has long been the
custom to consider the three R's as the chief things to be
given in the lower reaches of education. It is common to see
the training process start with them. We even find a very
large part of the first six or seven grades taken up with the
acquisition of reading, writing, arithmetic, and grammar.
Apparently this is wrong and no doubt the order will be
reversed in a measure in the future.
The fundamental task and viewpoint of the school is to
give familiarity and skill in their use in the briefest time,
and to teach them as means to greater ends rather than as
ends in themselves. Moreover, while they are being gained
by the pupils so as to be in some degree usable, other lines
of training should proceed. These agents will be more
quickly obtained by relating them to useful school duties
SOCIALIZATION OF THE PROGRAMME OF STUDIES 227
and to life activities. When the children perceive that
numbers are the measure of real things, that reading is the
way to get information about products or instruments or
customs of the people the teacher is making them acquainted
with in social studies, and that writing will carry their ideas
to parents and friends, the concrete and lively relation will
bring added interest and secure speedier apprehension.
Here is an example of the advantage of this method.
In a report on the University Elementary School the
University Record (January, 1898) says: " Statistics show
that, in our existing school system, from 60 to 80 per cent
of the time of the first two or three years of school life is spent
upon mastery of the technical forms of knowledge, learn-
ing to make and recognize written and printed forms and
manipulate number symbols." In that school they are
taught as above indicated. The report continues, " So far
as experience goes, it demonstrates that the relative loss
in the amount gone over in the first two or three years is
much more than made up for in ability to use intelligently
what is got, to say nothing of the inestimable advantage of
substitution of intrinsically valuable facts and ideas for the
trivialities of ordinary reading and writing lessons, etc."
H. INFORMATION
Importance of the knowledge groups. — The second
group of elements indicated is included in that line of school
activities which has for its distinct and conscious purpose
the acquisition of information. Evolution means a growth
in organic complexity. Advance in civilization means
social evolution. The civilized child is bora into the
midst of an intricate, complex system of physical and soda*
228 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
environments. It would not be safe to affirm that the man
who knows most is the one who best succeeds in life,
because he might be totally ignorant of the principles and
means of social control and social realization. To do is
equally important with to know. But it is certainly true
that the average man must know a great many things so
that he may be able to do and to perform. In the rational
realm accurate knowledge goes before fruitful action and
is its sure base.
We have previously seen that there are two ranges of
knowledge which open up to every individual as being of
great consequence to him. We shall add a third to the two
given in Part II and briefly summarize the reasons for
their selection. These three directions of thought are the
individual himself as individual, the social environment as
it concerns him, and the physical environment as it is related
to him. We have to pronounce these ranges of knowledge
fundamentally necessary, because without considerable in-
formation of each success would be crippled. We are to
look for those elements in each range on which individual
and social welfare most vitally rest. This will be a means of
determining value of facts for purposes of selection and of
steering us clear of attempting to exhaust the full scientific
and philosophical reaches in setting up studies.
Relative worth of the knowledge areas. — It would be a
fit field for discussion as to which of these fields should bear
the greater emphasis. We have already considered the
relative importance of physical and social conditions for
individuals in civilized society. (Chap. V, pp. 83-88.)
We saw that the average man is immediately dependent on
the social organization and mediately upon physical nature
SOCIALIZATION OF THE PROGRAMME OF STUDIES 22Q
to supply his wants. As the sociologists would put it,
the physical conditions the social; in a measure determines
the direction and height of its attainment. We draw on the
ultimate supplies of material things deposited in nature and
obtain them through social channels in order that our
individual wants may be satisfied. We are affected by
climate, altitude, and other physical conditions, and temper
the direct blasts of nature's forces by inventions which
are the product of social experience.
So each term is seen to be important and necessary.
First, there is the individual with his wants to be satisfied.
These wants are social products. They have their birth in
human associations which become possessed of the utilities
which any given grade of society bears. The wants of
the individual, in range and number, are expressed by the
standard of living of his society. The savage has few, the
barbarian more, and the civilized many, as many as his
standard of living implies.
Second, these wants are supplied by a society organized
into structures, or organizations, to provide things and
services. To cut the average individual off from connection
with these agencies would be to starve him, so few there
are who produce their own supplies directly from nature.
Third, only the raw material for the satisfaction of all
wants, save those supplied by services, is found in physical
nature. Only a few people, relatively, wrest these crass
things from her bosom. We have said that to-day three
scientific farmers could raise food sufficient to feed one
thousand people. There are only about a half million
miners and quarrymen in this country who mine for this
nation and a large part of the world besides. Most of the
230 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
workers, outside of agriculture, are engaged in working up
raw material into various consumptive forms, in transporting
it to and fro, in clerical and professional work, or in personal
service.
From this brief survey of the field we might conclude as
follows. First, none of these ranges of information can be
left out or neglected. For purposes of society all are mutu-
ally involved. Second, since each person directly depends
on social organizations and agencies to get his wants sup-
plied, social studies should find a larger place in the curricu-
lum than they now have, and deserve to have a place along
with the nature studies. Third, since each field is so vast
in its details, careful attention should be given to selecting
the most pertinent so that time shall not be wasted on the
relatively useless.
Criterion for selection of information matter. — Because
each area is so complex, information relative to the individ-
ual as such, for instance, breaking up into numerous lines
or sciences, a correct standard of value must be commanded
by which to test matter for admission to school. In Part II
some discussion was given of the relative value of knowledge
areas and the decision obtained that our public schools, at
least, which are to serve the majority, should offer the
training which seeks to fit the young to meet particular
social situations. Articulation in society is the demand.
Knowledge or training which most directly leads to that is
the best. Therefore out of the abundance of information
in existence, in each of the three information areas, only
just that should be chosen which looks to social adaptations.
Knowledge of self. — The knowledge of the self should
be a .practical knowledge of the physical self, in order to
SOCIALIZATION OF THE PROGRAMME OF STUDIES 23!
know how to use and care for the body which is the agent of
realization. This has been so repeatedly set forth in edu-
cational treatises that little remains to be added in the
way of information. Health, strength, and self-control are
the indispensable conditions of happiness, attainment, and
serviceability. If a knowledge and control of the machine
he uses in his work are necessary to the artisan in order to
make him efficient and his employment permanent, how
much more imperative is it that every one should understand
the nature, the strength, and the laws of the physical mechan-
ism whose defect or failure means suffering, inefficiency,
dependence, or death.
If we were to approach the task of selecting the informa-
tion about self from the side of teaching, we could say that
good teaching would consist in presenting just the knowledge
needed in the most direct way. The knowledge to be given
in each case would be selected in view of the social needs of
the individual. Thus to teach how to care for the body is
most important, because a healthy condition is the prime
necessity for work in the world. Intricacies of physiology
and memorizing the names of hundreds of bones, muscles,
and nerves should be subordinated to explaining the depend-
ence of health on ventilation, sanitation, bathing, food,
etc. Rules and maxims of health might well be taught first,
to be followed by scientific explanations only so far as will
serve to give rational comprehension. (See pp. 286-288.)
Knowledge of nature. — The knowledge of the physical
conditions of life should be that which the individual is
most apt to need rather than incidental facts of science.
Whether nature study relates to physical facts or to biologi-
cal forms, the phenomena should be selected with reference
232 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
to the thought of service to man. Man's use and needs of
the object studied will determine what facts and points
should receive attention.
Thus in studying animals it is not the aim to make
technical scientists of children. The purpose should be to
teach them the place and use of the animal in question;
something of its nature and traits, so as to know how it is
to be trained and cared for, or if it is to be exterminated.
If the cat were the object, it would be a perversion to dissect
the cat, or to study its structure relative to other forms of
life, in the main. Those methods might be employed and
the facts they bring be needed in higher scientific reaches;
but what the average person needs to know is the use the
cat serves, how it is to be reared and trained so as to make
it best fill its place; its food and care in order to make it
the best possible cat for its purpose. And so on for the
whole range of animals, birds, insects, and plants studied.
But the useful before all else. If the pupils stay in school
long enough they can get the scientific frills, if there are any.
Naturally, the community interests and pursuits will
dominate the selection of the objects and conditions to be
studied. In the rural regions, the agricultural uses of the
physical conditions, plants, and animals will point out which
of their phases shall receive consideration; and show the
point of connection in the social situation. A study of the
soil of the region in its bearing on crop culture would be
more important than a study of the reasons for the change
of seasons. An understanding of animal culture should
have precedence over casual information about animals of
the jungle.
For those who are to go into industrial life, a line of study
SOCIALIZATION OF THE PROGRAMME OF STUDIES 233
involving the physical or the chemical qualities of matter
should be given. Laws of matter and of chemical elements,
in general, are not thought of because too much that is
irrelevant and remotely valuable would creep in. The
point of the matter is to select just those realms which will
be most used and depended on in their future vocation.
The skilled teacher would be the one to make the adjust-
ment of the subject on the basis of the criterion of future
usefulness, and so would pick out the most useful parts for
grade work. As the grade of work progressed, the area of
material to be chosen would naturally expand until it would
attain to the rank of physics and chemistry in secondary
work, should the individual stay in school so long.
Knowledge of society. — Since the individual, as we have
seen, must get his standing and success in society by making
use of the agencies and institutions which social evolution
has ordained, and without the use of which no one can
live the civilized life, it would seem quite as essential that he
should understand the social machine he works with as that
he should understand the framework and laws of nature.
But as the average individual, leaving school as early as he
does, cannot master anything like a full science of physical
nature, but must be brought to understand the objects he is
most likely to meet in the light of their human use, so the
science of society is too large and complex to be undertaken
in its fullness, and only those concrete portions can be
appropriated which lie nearest the life of the average man.
Certainly the local social institutions and organizations,
studied in the light of their use and purpose, would be the
place to begin. In the case of every one studied, it should
be made clear that men use them and how men use them to
234 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
get work done or useful service performed. If this point
is always directly attacked details and mazes of mere facts
will not overwhelm. It is no more necessary to study all the
facts and institutions of society, in order to understand
social interdependence of individuals through institutions
and organizations, than it is to know all the facts and laws
of nature inorder to perceive the reign of law in the universe.
As understanding one human being takes us a long way
towards the comprehension of all men, so, to see the use and
bearing of a few local agencies of society will go far towards
establishing an intelligent apprehension of other and
larger structures. Or, as Dr. Charles McMurry would
have it done, the local community can be made the type of
such communities the world over, and so the pupil will
come to an understanding of the world in that aspect.*
The social group information should be connected with
the thought of vocation. Those lines of facts which bear
on and involve the dominant interests of the community
or the class of interests represented by the special school
should be mastered. One set of facts deals with the eco-
nomic content and relations of the vocation to be followed.
If one is to go into business for himself, he wants to know
the economic forces and laws which pertain particularly to
his field. If one is to be a mechanic, the economic signifi-
cance of his work and products should be the central theme.
Only the facts which have the largest bearing on his chosen
life work would be given.
* For a valuable treatment of a social science outlined for Elementary
Schools, see article by J. S. Welch, Elementary School Teacher, May, 1906,
p. 441; also same for December, 1906. Also Gillette's " Outline of Social
Studies," Report of the Committee of Seven, N. Dakota Educational Associa-
tion, 1909.
SOCIALIZATION OF THE PROGRAMME OF STUDIES 235
With the higher reaches of education, the lines of social
study begun below would be further developed and such
other lines added as the case would warrant. Here, as
before, the proper facts would be those which most closely
bear on the context of the individual's future; but, as would
be expected, would expand and differentiate in content
appropriately with the increased intellectual powers of the
pupils.
m. MORALIZATION
In considering the demands which the thought of democ-
racy makes on education, attention was given to the sub-
ject of moralizing the pupils in the schools. Both the
nature and the necessity of moralization were there set forth.
We have here to treat the methods which should be used in
the work of rendering the young ethical. We will proceed
to the consideration of the two most important methods,
didactic and practical moralization.
Didactic moralization. -- This is the teaching effort which
concerns itself with a more or less direct attempt to build
ethical persons. One phase of this is to impress ethical
qualities by precept. This will likely be most resorted to
with the younger pupils, in the way of impressing the bene-
fits or evils which come to individual actors as a consequence
of their conduct.
With pupils old enough to have developed the power of
taking in the relation of individuals to larger situations, a
less direct method is available and probably advisable.
As has been said, democracy in all ranges of social activity,
that is, equality of rights and opportunity among all men, is
the great end towards which social evolution moves. The
greatest dramas of history, many of the masterpieces of
236 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
literature, and the mighty movements of the present reflect
the tendency to realize the larger rights of men.
Such being the ethical goal of social evolution, and such
being the nature of much of the subject matter which is
available for teaching purposes, it would follow logically
that, first, it is the duty of the teacher to inspire the pupil
with a love for human rights in every valid way, and, second,
that at least a part of the information material should be
selected and presented with this end specifically in view.
From my own experience as a student and as a teacher, I am
persuaded that moral enthusiasm and love of humanity
can better be secured by presenting informational matter
in the proper way than by formal ethical teaching; and that
an individual in whom the love for humanity has once
been established in this way will be most sensitive to social
welfare. Its superiority comes in that it develops ethical
attitudes in relation to situations. It makes citizens who
are ethical dynamically. It breeds a moral enthusiasm of
an independent rational order, creates persons who are able
to take reasoned attitudes with reference to new conditions.
This kind of citizen is necessary to secure social progress.
Character which merely conserves does not guarantee a
changing order.
Practical moralization. — But beyond the formally didac-
tic and the sermonic element in training, perhaps the most
forceful means for moralization will be found in the actual
social organization of the pupils in school; directed toward
arousing a spirit of " fair play," a hearty appreciation of
the value of their fellows for cooperative purposes, and some
practical skill in forming and using group action.
Particularly in the earlier years of school life, the possibili-
SOCIALIZATION OF THE PROGRAMME OF STUDIES 237
ties in these lines are exceedingly great and only the more
advanced teachers and schools are adequately testing them.
Life then is most plastic and formative, and hence the work
is more effective and basic. Again, children are more
susceptible to control and suggestion. Later, if not previ-
ously moralized, the wayward and refractory might require
force. Further, there is a time advantage, in that elements
of control laid early will have all the longer term in school
for further strengthening.
If enlightened self-government is the ideal and end of
a democracy, certainly it is preposterous and contradictory
for the fundamental agencies in the direct preparation for
citizenship to withhold from the individuals in tutelage all
instruction, training, and participation in the processes of
organizing themselves, and of feeling the responsibility for
the functions of citizenship.
To make the pupils conscious of group life, to be loyal
to and considerate of the collectivity, to see and appreciate
the dependence on and cooperative helpfulness of social
fellows, to grasp the value and sanctity of personality and of
its rights in its social settings, to give self-control under
authority and self-restraint and devotion under responsibil-
ity, is to moralize the individual. And of course the full
agencies of group life in school, the school as a group, the
class as a group, are to be used as concrete and immediate
instruments of social disciplining.
The very best way to prepare children to become morally
responsible is to create the machinery in, or in connection
with school, which will cultivate moral attitudes and
judgment ideals. The agencies which will secure " emo-
tional attitudes," as Professor Bagley suggests, are the
238 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
most useful and effective. Such an adjunct as the school
garden, which gives each pupil the sense of property right
and property relations to others, is an admirable means of
securing this, as Baldwin at Hyannis has demonstrated.
By means of the garden plots, care of tools, etc., he was
enabled to develop an alert and working sense of community
responsibility which oceans of talk could not have done.
Actual life situations were obtained which called out life
attitudes of adjustment. The interest in the situation was
real. Efforts to correct abuses of privileges were genuine,
and organic, therefore, because the situations were real
ones, and the interests were natural and not assumed under
external pressure of authority. Precisely the sense and kind
of ethical judgment were provoked which are needed on the
part of grown people in society. The advantage was in
favor of the children because they had the leadership
of a wise instructor who could help them to come to just and
fair decisions.
Another means of securing actual moral training is to
be found in self-government undertakings in the school.
Recognition is obtaining, that it is desirable to have students
participate in the conduct of the school, in so far as student
control goes. In an introductory note to " Student Partici-
pation in School Government " (issued by W. R. Ward at
New Palz, N. Y.), President Charles W. Eliot, of Harvard,
mentions three fundamental objects of education. First,
as to development of character, "to cultivate in the child a
capacity for self-government, not a habit of submission to
an overwhelming, arbitrary, external power, but a habit of
obeying dictates of honor and duty as enforced by active
will-power within the child." " The second is that in child-
SOCIALIZATION OF THE PROGRAMME OF STUDIES 239
hood and youth it is of the utmost importance to appeal
steadily, and almost exclusively, to motives which will be
operative in after life." The third " is Froebel's doctrine
that children are best developed through productive activi-
ties, that is, through positive, visible achievement in doing,
making or producing something."
The first and second objects are admirably secured by the
School City and other self-government devices.
If actual self-government interests and motives can be
called out and trained, when the student gets out of school
he is experienced for actual and practical civic matters.
He has the practical experience, the habitual emotional
attitude so necessary to character, as well as the ideals of
what is just and right in government.
(See Bagley's article, " The School's Responsibility for
Developing the Controls of Conduct," Elementary School
Teacher, March, 1908; Ray's Democratic Government of
Schools; Ward's Student Participation in School Govern-
ment; articles on Vacation Schools, etc.)
IV. UTILIZATION
Need of utilization. — This term covers the educative
processes which have as their specific aim the enabling of
the individual to make use of his knowledge, skill, and
powers, so as to bring them to bear on actual situations of
life in the most immediate and effective way. The motive
of the public school system should be so to train the indi-
vidual that all elements held within the personality shall
be organized and cooperative, that in the time and place of
action all the powers shall spring to work at once to accom-
plish the given undertaking.
240 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
More specifically, utilization enables the person to become
productive. Whatever else education should accomplish,
it should not leave unaccomplished the training of the
coming citizens for complete self-support. Outside of poor
distribution of population and industrial crises, as causes of
poverty and criminality, lack of technical training, of skill
in vocation, is by far the largest contributing cause.
As a causal agency this lack of vocational training works
in two ways. First, under work conditions the individual
cannot keep employment for long, and may not secure it
even, because of lack of special skill; and in times of emer-
gency he is the first to go and the last to find a place again.
Second, the growth of the child, under conditions which
do not furnish vocational training, has a negative influence
on the development in other lines. That is, action is inher-
ent to childhood. Work is more natural than its omission.
Play is a device, in part, to take its place. The happiest
and the best developed child is the one given a due portion
of tasks in early life to work out. Particularly in urban
communities this element is lacking. Mere manual training
would be justified, as an educational device, to give the child
control of himself in mind and will through body discipline.
This could well be made a factor of moralization.
Some of the important elements in this process of utili-
zation are organizing principles, vocational technique, and
initiative.
Vocational technique. — The technique is the vertebral
column of the vocation. It is possible to have a great deal
of knowledge about a vocation without being able to com-
mand the vocation. One may know how a blacksmith
shoes a horse, welds two pieces of iron or sets a tire, so well,
SOCIALIZATION OF THE PROGRAMME OF STUDIES 241
indeed, that he could make the processes quite intelligible
to another in an explanatory way and yet be unable to do
any of these things. The skill, the exact ways of doing
things, or of carrying on a series of processes, the methods
of procedure as distinguishing peculiarities of lines of work
constitute the technique. It is inconceivable that anyone
should make a success of his chosen pursuit without master-
ing these detailed methods of procedure. The greater the
mastery, the informational factor being granted, the greater
the success.
The regulative ideal as to what should be introduced in
any given place may be represented in the thought of local
autonomy, that the economic interests of a locality or group
shall decide what phase or phases of training for vocation
shall be emphasized in the school. Agricultural regions
would logically emphasize agriculture, with attention to ele-
mentary and practical mechanics, and to domestic science,
to fit for farm life. The consolidated schools are the
only schools in rural regions which could properly develop
this ideal.
Communities which maintain schools, with possibilities of
differentiation in education, could carry or emphasize the
lines of technique leading into various industrial interests,
and in the academic work group the subjects so as to con-
centrate toward commercial or professional interests. Thus,
those who expect to pursue industrial life will lay stress on
industrial training in their given line; and will take such
academic studies as throw most light on and support the
industrial matters. Those who have commercial or pro-
fessional aims will choose their group of academic studies
leading in the chosen direction, and lay stress on those
242 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
educative lines. Such persons would probably take some
industrial work for physical health and motor control.
Organizing principles. — In whatever line an individual
trains himself there should be given, to lie behind the mere
technical details, as large a fund of guiding principles per-
taining to the trade, the vocation, or profession, as the
stage of mental development will entertain. In other words,
the rationale of the line of achievement to be prepared for
should be given.
In the higher commercial courses of universities the
programme of studies is so arranged that along with those
subjects which give the detailed and technical training
goes a group of more general sociological subjects, let us
say, which afford the more general principles and guiding
lines for managerial direction and responsibility. Some-
thing of this same arrangement needs to be extended down-
ward. The one looking to a commercial career needs more
than the so-called business training. A good knowledge
of economics, government, industrial history, and other
cognate subjects will give a social perspective and grasp of
principles of collective life which are necessary to give
outlook and save from mere clerical narrowness.
The same attempt should be made with reference to the
industrial training. A disadvantage of making every one a
skilled artisan, merely, perhaps would be the narrowing
results, that is, lack of ability to adjust to changed industrial
conditions, such as are brought in by the introduction of new
machinery which might eliminate the old line of work.
Such a narrow training would be better than none at all,
as is now true in most cases of training in public schools.
But it is more important, where possible, to develop the
SOCIALIZATION OF THE PROGRAMME OF STUDIES 243
reasonable groundwork of the trade or technological line
with less of the mere skill in one line, than the reverse.
This point is disputed. President M. P. Higgins of the
Norton Emery Wheel Company, Worcester, Massachusetts,
criticises all lines of trade and technical schools, from lowest
to highest, because they have failed to produce really skilled
workmen. " Any education for the trades, in order to meet
the reasonable needs and demands of the manufacturer
(Proceedings of the N. E. A., 1903, p. 597 et seq.)} must
make skill the central part of the enterprise. The educa-
tional system must start from the shop, and all other
elements of the school must radiate from the shop, because
the power and success of the pupil's life are to depend upon
his shop knowledge and dexterity." He says, however,
that manufacturers have come to understand "that we
cannot have the skill of the order and grade we demand
unless science and general discipline are the basis of the
skill and the accompaniment of the skill," p. 603. Principal
A. H. Chamberlain of the Throop Polytechnic Institute of
Pasadena, California, holds that what we need to do is to
educationalize the trade school by " injecting into it the
thought element to a greater extent." Qualities of initia-
tive, guidance, and leadership are demanded of trade school
graduates.
Some such thought as this is embodied in the work of such
institutions as Clemsen College, South Carolina, an industrial
school, North Carolina College of Agriculture, and others.
The president of the Board of Trustees of the former, in an
address, said that it had for its object to "educate their
minds, broaden their intellects and teach them all the
fundamental principles together with the practice in all the
244 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
different departments of work. When they get through they
have such an experience and knowledge of these matters
that any man with the knowledge that we furnish him can
make a man of himself in any department of life." Mr.
Beaty, director of the textile department, states that the
main purpose of their combination of academic and indus-
trial training is to make the student able to reason for
himself, to make it possible for him to " do his own reason-
ing and thinking as well as to handle tools and instruments if
necessary." (Amer. Jour. Sociology, Vol. 10, pp. 396-7.)
Wherever time limit prevents the higher educational de-
velopment necessary for the acquisition of these principles,
as the short period of schooling now unfortunately imposes,
the trade, vocational, and mechanical side is the one which
should be emphasized, so as to make sure of a basis of self-
support. Thus Prof. Thomas Balliet advocates forming
trade schools for boys of fourteen years of age and over
who cannot go to High School.
This training should begin at the end of the sixth or
seventh year and continue for some four years with aca-
demic work, so Dr. Balliet advocates. " Statistics show that
a large majority of men engaged in the wood- working and
iron- working trades have never attended high school. Quite
a fair percentage of them have never completed a grammar
school course." (Proceedings N. E. A., 1903, p. 598.)
Initiative. — Much that has been said under the last point
is also necessary in training to give the power of initiative
and execution. It would be gratuitous to enlarge on the
need of training to secure this, or at least of so educating as
not to stifle that degree of initiative with which the individ-
ual is born. Two things are certainly necessary to arouse
SOCIALIZATION OF THE PROGRAMME OF STUDIES 24$
and encourage initiative. One is giving the individual
some glimpse of the variety of vocations existing in the
world to-day, emphasizing the possibility and desirability
of attainment. The other is developing the motor side of
getting knowledge in the getting. The first seeks to make
the world of possibilities alluring to the youth; the second,
so to give elements of knowledge that they are deposited
in the individual as dynamic. The second is quite as impor-
tant as the first, probably more important, for knowledge
through experience is most apt to be a working force.
We need to say, here, that not everyone can be expected to
gain great initiative in forming and executing large plans.
Yet the concrete touch with definite special tasks will enable
those of low mental grade to prosecute the mechanical
tasks and vocations with fair competency and will afford
those of higher endowments opportunity and practice in
building up the original impulses into self-directing and
effective realizing agencies.
Education as expression. — Looked at in the light of expres-
sion, education may as legitimately be directed towards
motor ends as towards sensory. The common opinion
views only mind effort as truly educational. If educa-
tion is expression, then training the individual to express
himself along any line or in any valid form of activ-
ity, is truly educational. Probably the average individual
is better for both sensory and motor training, as well as
capable of it. There are certain individuals who are capable
of taking very little mental training, and work at great
disadvantage under what they do take. In some line of
motor expression they are found to be very capable. If we
maintained the right viewpoint, we should place them where
246 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
they belong, and give them that form of education to which
they are adapted. A painting, a statue, a monument, a
building, a machine, a piece of furniture is a product of
motor expression, and it took true training in the case of
each to produce it. The world needs such educated agents
quite as much as the majority of individuals need such
education.
V. APPRECIATION
Appreciation. — This element in education might be
characterized as the taste and ability to recognize and select
those features in nature, knowledge, and art which lend to the
charm and contentment of life. In taking these up, as
cultural lines, the beauties of nature and the training to
enjoy them should evidently stand first, because the book
of nature is open to every one. The need is that, having
eyes to see, all may be enabled to see with them the glory
and ideals of nature. Description of scenic phenomena,
books of travel, and nature study are valuable adjuncts to
immediate contact with nature itself.
Perhaps the next most accessible element after nature
culture is that of reading. The taste for the beautiful in
literature and the habit of reading for pleasure, as well as
for profit, are reliable means to give satisfaction in life.
They can be developed in connection with all departments
of academic work, especially along with English studies.
Books to-day are almost as plentiful as beauties of nature.
Public libraries have brought them within the reach
of all.
Measured in terms of accessibility, or availability, per-
haps music would follow on reading. In many cases it
SOCIALIZATION OF THE PROGRAMME OF STUDIES 247
might seem even more available. When possessed as an
acquisition it is certainly the source of great satisfaction, and
one of the likeliest agencies to provide entertainment, charm
and solace. Singing is within the reach of all who have
the ear and voice for it, and once developed is completely
transportable.
To the average person, painting and sculpture are least
possible of attainment, the least accessible, since their
passive enjoyment depends so largely on great art collec-
tions, and since they are the most remote from the springs
of modern life. Save as roads to nature, one could hardly
justify the expenditure of much time on them in the average
school. A few lessons on how to appreciate whatever there
is of beauty in paintings would be of greater value than
training to reproduce nature or life.
VI. ARTICULATION OF TRAINING FACTORS
The ideal. — The ideal plan of articulating the several
elements which have been treated would be to group and
fuse all the various factors about the thought of vocation
which would serve as center or core of the school programme.
At least a large part of the informational matter could be
made to bear on the future calling, and to illuminate it in a
cognate and cooperative manner. It is almost impossible
to plan for communities in general. Without the actual
community before us, it is almost useless to declare just
how this or that should relate itself to all the rest. Per-
haps a few principles may be stated instead.
i. Of course the locality will determine what or which
vocational lines shall be emphasized. This training,
whether agricultural, industrial, commercial, or professional,
248 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
should hold the center of the course in every case. The
time to be spent on it will depend on whether the school
programme has been thoroughly socialized, in whole and in
subjects, or whether the vocational factor is merely added,
ab extra. In the latter case, probably one half the time
should be given to it after it is introduced.
2. As between the general and special in vocational
training it may be said that the lower down in the course of
study, the greater the attention which should be given the
special; while the higher the stage, the larger the amount
of the general or contiguous work which may be introduced;
although this probably should not exceed the proportion of
one to two relative to the special.
This holds for industrial as well as for other lines of work,
and is based on the laws of mental development as well
as on the relative importance of the general and special, in
view of the possibility of the individual dropping out along
the line. That is, low down the general can be little given,
while the concrete special is more attainable and more
liable to be of use.
3. The groups of information should be begun as early in
the course as possible. For instance, the factors of society,
of collective life, are as available for teaching purposes in
the lower grades of work as are those of the physical environ-
ment. As has been said, the latter, in the shape of nature
study, now leads up to and is eventually differentiated into
the various natural sciences of later grades of work. So,
the simple and descriptive facts of human associations and
pursuits may be begun early, and be carried on until social
sfudy breaks up into various social sciences above. The
same may be said of the study of self. The physical and
SOCIALIZATION OF THE PROGRAMME OF STUDIES 249
social lines of information, in a somewhat differentiated form,
could be carried on in the eighth or ninth grade. If one is
to become a commercial or professional man in life the
social studies should receive relatively more and more em-
phasis; while if he is to follow an industrial calling the
natural science studies should receive the stress.
4. Those who will evidently leave school early, say at the
end of the eighth* grade, and who take industrial training,
along with academic work, should give such proportion of
time to each that each shall be attained to that reasonable
degree the time will permit. As has been stated, about
one half the time should be given to the industrial line to
secure the skill an apprentice needs to enter upon work.
This is the proportion of time given in certain trade schools.
Much of the social information may be obtained in direct
connection with the vocational work.
5. Recent experiments seem to indicate that the mere
instruments of learning and business may be obtained while
the information process is going on and in a subordinate
relation thereto. That is, they should be obtained in con-
nection with knowledge-getting, and gradually develop out
of concrete knowledge situations. As rapidly as they are
controlled they should be put to use, and the skill to use
them should be further developed by making them agents
of acquisition.
6. Since moralization is to take place, not so much by
discussion of abstract situations as through group activities,
the whole range of school associations should be used to
convey high ideals in social relationships, and to secure
deeply habitual right social adjustments. Class time is not
too precious to consume for this end whenever an appropri-
250 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
ate situation arises, and situations should be made. Every
class-group, and the school as a total group, should be
vested with self-government responsibilities as rapidly as
they are able to carry them, be helped to make their
rules of collective conduct, in administering them with
fairness and dispatch, and in treating offenses justly and
firmly. It will thus be seen that no specific time relation
can be set for this educative process.
7. Wherever a pupil expects to make a life vocation in
any aesthetic line, his time should be allotted thereto as in
any other vocational undertaking. For the average pupil
in school the time spent in aesthetic work should be a
minimum relative to the vocational and other lines of train-
ing, since the aesthetic elements lie in the perimeter rather
than in the center of the educational circle of work. The
fundamental must have allotted space. The trimmings of
life must be adjusted to them.
Illustration from technical lines. — A typical way to artic-
ulate the technical element with the other training factors
may be seen in Ella Flagg Young's development of the rela-
tionship in strictly technical education. " At the age of
10 or ii years, children should begin a substantial line of
work in physics. Such work should have as its object the
starting of children's activity along the line of scientific
inquiry. Instead of being an incidental subject taken up
once or twice a week, it should be in the foreground daily.
A prominent feature of the work should be experimentation
with the lever, the wheel and axle, and the pulley, using simple
apparatus constructed by the children; but the experimen-
tation would fail of its possibilities if it did not lead to a
discovery of the mechanical advantage involved and to a
SOCIALIZATION OF THE PROGRAMME OF STUDIES 251
recognition of this advantage in machines of all sorts that
fall within the observation of the children.
" Another line of work — that leading to technical analysis-
should be of a practical nature in connection with foods,
plant fibers, and other useful plant products. In the fol-
lowing year this scientific study should be extended to
experimental work on the effects of heat and cold on solids,
liquids, and gases, and a recognition of the effects in a
variety of things; a study of the gases of the atmosphere
and of atmospheric pressure, involving hydraulic pressure,
with a number of applications; a study of ventilation;
practical work on the preservation of foods. In the eighth
grade there should be a study of the electric battery, current
electricity and its application in simple electric devices; a
study of the eye, some work with lenses and the problem of
lighting.
" This programme would give boys and girls between the
ages of 10 or 1 1 and 14 or 15 years a good experimental basis
in physics, chemistry, and biology, and in the practical or
industrial arts. The method of handling would, in large
measure, limit the young minds to the mechanical point
of view, or stimulate those penetrative and constructive
tendencies that underlie one of the richest modes of mental
activity — the scientific imagination. If the method be
the one commonly followed in the elementary science teach-
ing, that of demonstration by the teacher, the capital that
was gained in primary construction or handwork is not
invested by children of average mental ability; motor
images are not integrated in the experience; that experience
is one-sided, sensory only. If the generalizations under-
lying that recognition of principles which is essential to
252 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
scientific thinking are derived in considerable part from
the leadings or hints of the demonstrator, there is for the
members of the class slight or no deepening of the moments
of experience. The impulse to handle, to shift, and to
adjust the bar, the rope, or cord; the power to estimate the
pressure which the fiber withstands, the amount of heat,
the quality of the electric current, and to appraise the value
of the experience that comes almost imperceptibly by way
of the adjustments of the body — much of this impulse and
this power is lost out of the work in science when the teacher
adopts the method of demonstration. It may seem that
too much time and space are here devoted to the educational
phase of elementary science. I think not. If technical
training is to be articulated in the elementary -school course,
it must be jointed in, not tagged on." (AT". E. A. Kept.,
1907, pp. 1038-9; see also socialization of the various sub
jects, especially arithmetic and history.) •
CHAPTER XII. SOCIALIZATION OF SUBJECTS
I. GENERAL CONSIDERATION OF CRITERIA AND
METHODS
Meaning of socialization of subjects. — In a previous
chapter, the reconstruction of textbook subject-matter
was denoted as one of the means or methods of socializing
the schools.
By socializing a subject is meant (i) the process of
bringing to bear on it some social criterion, some adequate
test of value; (2) the elimination of the more useless and
irrelevant portions as measured by the criterion; (3) the
supplementing of this subject-matter by such useful addi-
tions as seem necessary under the test; (4) the reorganiza-
tion of the material which results into a new body of teach-
ing knowledge.
It will be evident that this undertaking stands in close
kinship to the other method of socialization proposed as the
accompaniment of this one, namely, the reorganization of
the training programme so as more closely to express the
present social situation. The relation of the two was dis-
cussed in the preceding chapter.
Criteria of various subjects not identical. — It might
readily be conceived, without considerable deliberation, that
if the criterion, social value, is assigned as the proper one to
apply to subjects seeking admission to the school programme,
the whole problem is ended, the only thing left to do is to
apply the test and admit or reject the subject; likewise with
253
254 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
reference to the content of the various subjects admitted,
that the same criterion of value will apply to all subjects
alike. The first part of the supposition is correct. The
only question about admitting any certain subject to the
school is, does it possess greater socializing power than
some other? Is it more usable in actual life?
But when we have admitted, let us say, language study,
history, arithmetic or number study, nature study, social
study, etc., and we have then to decide what and how
much of each, we do not have an identical criterion to apply
immediately. Each subject has a particular test of its own.
Each one has a specific social result to accomplish, which
differentiates it from the others in the family of training
factors. While all alike look to the general end of prepar-
ing for social adjustment, each one has a subordinate end to
subserve which is peculiar to itself.
Thus, the subordinate end of American history study is
not merely to get acquainted with a developing society,
but to get a thorough grounding in those portions of Ameri-
can development which bear on the present with especial
emphasis, and also which bear on the vocational situation
the pupil is to prepare for. The immediate end of number
study is not to become conversant with the manipulation
of quantity symbols in all their phases, but it is to control
those forms of number computation the particular pupil is
most likely to have to use in his business relations. The
subordinate end of language study is not to become familiar
with all the possible technical grammatical forms, or to
become practiced in parsing with mathematical precision
and lightning rapidity the most obscure poetical and oratori-
cal passages; it is rather to obtain an accurate and facile use
SOCIALIZATION OF SUBJECTS 255
of English expression, both for oral and for written commu-
nication. The social purpose of nature study is likewise
special, namely, to obtain a knowledge of those portions of
nature lying or likely to be nearest our pathway, with special
reference to understanding their control for use. And so on
for the other subjects.
No doubt the very best way to convey my meaning about
socialization is by way of illustration. In order to empha-
size the social point of view, with reference to the various
individual lines of study, several subjects will be considered
for the purpose of indicating what kind of changes are desir-
able. A comprehensive treatment cannot be accorded any
one subject. To do that would be to write a method of
each on the basis of this viewpoint.
In my estimation, the complete reconstruction of school
studies must be done by actual teachers of those subjects
who have had a thorough grounding in them, and who,
in addition, grasp the principles and criterion of the social
view of education so fundamentally that they will serve in all
parts of their fields to separate the valuable from the worth-
less. It is the teaching sense, in relation to each of the
various subjects, which is needed for the accomplishment
of the task and which any one person lacks who seeks to
orient the social view for all. Hence there is need of a
corps of collaborators.
H. THE SOCIALIZATION OF ARITHMETIC
Elimination made by teachers of mathematics. — In
getting arithmetic on the most practical and available basis,
there must be kept in mind its social function as in the case
of other studies. In a previous place its social service was
256 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
indicated. The primary use of numbers is the quantitative
measure of property values in buying and selling economic
goods. It is to apportion quantities of anything in order to
its just distribution relative to individuals.
So far as undifferentiated schools are concerned, those in
which the masses are being educated, at present the prob-
lem is how little of mathematics may be taught, what is
the least possible amount of the same which may be given
in school, and yet which will serve the purposes of life
adequately.
Professor Burgess Shank holds that disciplinary and cul-
tural aims of mathematics are subordinate and incidental
to the utilitarian. " The science of number and art of
computation have been and will continue to be studied
chiefly and primarily because of their use in the struggle for
existence. The above statement applies more fully and
powerfully to each succeeding generation than to the past.
The more intelligent society becomes, the more complete
the social structure, the more specialized the functions of the
individual, the greater the need for that precisely quantita-
tive application of scientific knowledge which is the chief
social use of mathematics. Therefore, arithmetic and other
branches of elementary mathematics will play a continually
more important part, and hence require to be better learned
and better taught in the twentieth century than ever in the
past.
" But it evidently does not follow that arithmetic or ele-
mentary mathematics requires a larger part in the school
curriculum than heretofore. Recent improvements in
teaching in this country have shown that children can be
taught many more things and much more of each than was
SOCIALIZATION OF SUBJECTS 257
possible in the poor schools of the past." (Catalogue of
Stale Normal School, Valley City, N. Dak., 1904-1905, p.i5.)
Prof. D. E. Smith of Teachers College, New York, states
that if we place arithmetic on the utility basis, we must
conclude that the general impression that a very great
amount of time should be spent on it because of its exceed-
ing usefulness, cannot be justified.
" While accuracy and speed in simple fundamental proc-
esses have been underestimated, the value of presenting
numerous and varied themes in pure arithmetic, and of
pressing each to great and difficult lengths, has been seriously
overrated. For the ordinary purposes of non-technical
daily life we need little of pure arithmetic beyond (i) count-
ing, the knowledge of numbers and their representation to
billions (the English thousand millions), (2) addition and
multiplication of integers, of decimal fractions, with not
more than three decimal places, and of simple common
fractions, (3) subtraction of integers and decimal fractions,
and (4) a little of division.
" Of applied arithmetic we need to know (i) a few denomi-
nate numbers, (2) the simple problems in reduction of such
numbers, as from pounds to ounces, (3) a slight amount
concerning addition and multiplication of such numbers,
(4) some simple numerical geometry, including the mensu-
ration of rectangles and parallelepipeds, and (5) enough
of percentage to compute a commercial discount and the
simple interest on a note. "
The table of troy weight, the tables of apothecaries' meas-
ures and equation of payments are needed by but a few in
very special lines. Few save engineers and scientists ever
need cube and square root and then use tables instead
258 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
of rules. Alligation (still taught in Germany), compound
interest as taught, " compound (and even simple) propor-
tion, greatest common divisor, complex fractions, and
various other chapters likely might be omitted. These
subjects, which are the ones which consume most of the time
in the arithmetic classes of the grades after the fourth, are
so rarely used in business that the ordinary tradesman or
professional man almost forgets their meaning within a few
months after leaving school." Little is needed of compound
numbers, on which a year of time is now spent. The
metric system would displace them and save much time.
On the utility basis this author thinks the child should
have (i) " a good working knowledge of the fundamental
processes " set forth above, (2) " accuracy and reasonable
rapidity," and (3) " a knowledge of the ordinary problems
of daily life. Were arithmetic taught for the utilities alone,
all this could be accomplished in about a third of the time
now given to the subject." (The Teaching of Elementary
Mathematics, pp. 20-23.)
It may be predicted that as time goes on there will be
a differentiation of arithmetic to meet the various lines of
activity, and that while the theory of numbers will offer a
common basis for all, with perhaps a few practical applica-
tions for common social purposes, beyond that point the
mathematics taught in the schools will pertain to the voca-
tion in which the individual is to work.
This is the tendency and largely the practice in the Ger-
man continuation schools. For instance, the continuation
school for business apprentices given in Chapter XIII takes
its arithmetical problems from the actual business in which
the pupils of a given group or class are engaged.
SOCIALIZATION OF SUBJECTS 259
Localizing arithmetic. — The following suggestions by
Principal G. R. Davies, on arithmetic for North Dakota,
indicate how it might be adjusted to an agricultural region.
(The Extension, Agricultural College, Fargo, N. Dak.,
December, 1908.)
44 The predominant agricultural interests of the community
open a wide field for applied arithmetic. The teacher who
has some knowledge of scientific agriculture — as every
teacher should — will continually take illustrative material
from farm surroundings. Appropriate to the autumn sea-
son would be problems involving total yield and rate of
yield of various crops, cost of threshing, capacity of bins,
rate of plowing, cost of labor, etc. In connection with such
problems items of knowledge learned in other classes may
often be recalled and thus reviewed. Questions involving
price give an opportunity to fix the important social law of
supply and demand.
44 Problems may be invented, or made from data furnished
by the children, involving cost of raising stock, profit or
loss on the same, live weight and dressed weight of meat,
cost of fodder, nutritive ration and balanced ration, per-
centage of butter fat in milk, and so on indefinitely. It is
not expected, of course, that such problems would constitute
the whole course of study, but rather that they would be
thrown in as mental or written work when occasion offers.
A live teacher necessarily uses much material that he must
invent to fill some particular need, and there is no reason why
such material should not be taken from the farm environ-
ment. Several books are published that are helpful in this
direction." Among these may be mentioned Hall's Prac-
tical Arithmetic, published by American Book Company.
260 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
" Government statistical reports, such as the abstract of
the census or the report of the Bureau of Statistics, though
they take the pupil more widely afield, afford much useful
data for problems. A class in need of practice in comput-
ing percentages may well be referred to such sources. The
material may be obtained by application to the various
departments at Washington, or through one of the congress-
men. Some of the subjects that may be taken up are
changes in population of county, state, or nation; compari-
son of cities; crop yields by states; output of industries;
savings-bank deposits; rate of railroad accidents; cost of liv-
ing as compared with former years. In connection with the
latter subject, opportunity may well be taken to notice
the relation of the rise in price level to wages, salaries, and
the earnings of capital. The simple economic laws involved
are not beyond the comprehension of a seventh or eighth
grade pupil, and will be of assistance in developing an
insight into the complexities of modern life.
" Outdoor measurements may be conducted by an entire
class working together under the direction of the teacher,
or by smaller groups if the class is large. A fourth or fifth
grade will enjoy measuring the school yard and making
accurate maps of it. This work will come in connection
with the home geography. Later, areas may be meas-
ured and computed in acres. A real knowledge of the
foot, yard, rod, and acre will thus be developed. In the
highest grades some interesting illustrative work may be
done with the triangles. By setting stakes to mark the
corners of two similar vertical right triangles in such a way
that the apex of one triangle is some stone or post on the
opposite shore of a pond or stream, it is possible by proper-
SOCIALIZATION OF SUBJECTS 261
tion to compute the distance across the water by measure-
ments taken on the one shore. Last spring I sent the boys
of my geometry class to a neighboring stream to measure
its width in this way. They were surprised to find that
they could complete the measurement entirely from the one
bank. The experiment enabled them to comprehend how
the surveyor triangles across a valley. By the use of the
same principle they computed the height of the flag-pole on
the schoolhouse and of a near-by tree.
" Local industries and civil organizations may be drawn
on for data. The size of the elevator will furnish a problem
in computing capacity. Use may be made of data concern-
ing shipments of wheat, — cost, car capacity, destination,
etc. When the class is studying taxes get the township or
school clerk to inform you as to the valuation of the town-
ship or district; let the class estimate the tax levy, and com-
pute the rate. They may then extend the total tax for
various imaginary or real individuals. When my eighth
grade was studying the subject last year, I obtained data
from the tax receipts of the gentlemen who had property in
several localities. The class found and compared the rates.
" Proportion and some other subjects are well illustrated
by the physical laws of the pulley, lever, wheel, and inclined
plane. The laws of motion and the principles of mechanics
are thus introduced. They ought to be taught more than
they are in the common school. Just recently I heard a
supposedly intelligent person expressing wonder at the
strength of a horse because it was moving a house. The
block and tackle were overlooked. A person so ignorant
of mechanical laws is not in a position to understand this
machine age.
262 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
" It is essential in illustrating arithmetic that the teacher
should be continually on the watch for material. Perhaps a
mason will be setting stakes and strings to mark out the
position of a foundation. You may see him measure from
where two strings cross, eight feet on one string and six feet
on the other. He then measures diagonally across to test his
right angle. Call the attention of the eighth grade to the
measurements — perhaps even have them reproduce them — •
and you will have thrown considerable light on the rule
relating to the square on the hypotenuse. The teacher who
is interested in his environment and is alive to the world of
industry about him will soon bring arithmetic into touch
with real life."
m. THE SOCIALIZATION OF HISTORY*
What history should do for students. — In considering
this subject no attempt is made to mark out the work and
function of the historian in his original, specializing capacity
as historian; but attention is called to some things which
the educational situation seems to demand from histories.
The sooner we can banish the polite information idea
from our history study, the better off we shall be. We must
substitute for it the idea that history gives information that
is useful because it helps to throw light on the problems
of our times, or is a study of those problems directly. We
want men and women who can tell where our chariot of
state is going, by knowing the meaning of the tendencies of
the times. We want them to know how to vote in a national
campaign on the tariff question because they understand
* This treatment of history is the larger part of an article by the author
entitled, " Reconstruction of History for Teaching Purposes," which
appeared in the School Review, October, 1909.
SOCIALIZATION OF SUBJECTS 263
what the relation of the tariff to themselves and the national
life is. We want them to understand the political system
under which they live, in spirit and machinery, well enough
to be able to decide whether their rights among men are
being subserved or subverted; and if subverted, to have
some notion of remedies. We want them to get larger
visions of social equality and social justice, as against
industrial exploitation and political deception; to burn
with enthusiasm for the rights of man; t6 have ideals of a
better society and faith in social progress. Since history
holds such a large place in the schools, it must be held
accountable for using this extensive and expensive time in the
life of the child to secure directly practical results. It is a
case of history or nothing, for history is about the only study
now in the schools which extensively occupies this field.
Bad conditions in history work. — Any criticism which
might be made of the existing condition in history work of
our schools must come from facts. We have results which
stare us in the face as to what has not been accomplished
in the past. We have an ignorant citizenship, ignorant of
the meaning of the issues confronting us now and liable to
be misled in their actions and attitudes relative to these
problems. As a social fact we know that things are little
understood. As teachers, we know what the results are
along these lines. In several years' experience as a teacher
of history in secondary and college grades of work I found a
deplorable ignorance of vital things relative to our national
life, students in our elementary schools who had never dis-
covered that there was such a thing as necessary sequence
and as interdependence in human society. In other words,
society as an organic thing did not exist for them. It was
264 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
not that they were not capable or that they were too imma-
ture. They were generally mature, and they soon showed
they were capable of grasping those easiest of all things in
the range of history to teach.
Second, there was a deplorable dislike of history and an
aversion to contemplating the thought of further history
work. Yet these students grew to like this field of study
when they found that there were law and order in the
historical field, and that it was not a matter of memory work
but of appreciation and understanding. Once, as an experi-
ment, I took a class of some sixty students, and as a part of
their work studied with them dry-looking tables of immigra-
tion and population, getting an idea of the laws of increase,
and finding the causes of the variations in rates of increase
in races and regions. The interest the class manifested in
what, on the face of it, would seem very dry material for
students of that grade of work, was a revelation as to what
might be done in rationalizing valuable historical matter.
The record runs that more teachers fail in their history
examinations than in any other subject and in such an
overwhelming manner as to create a problem. The nature
of the subject, when adapted to the ages of the pupils, should
not be so much more difficult than other subjects as to make
this difference in resulting scholarship.
Poor text and poor teaching. — The poor results above
noted are no doubt due in part to poor teaching but mainly
to poor texts. The first defect lies in the kind of content
or subject-matter selected and embodied in the texts; for
the writers have had little perception of the comparative
value of the material for cause and effect purposes. Instead
of testing their material by the criterion, what is most
SOCIALIZATION OF SUBJECTS 265
determining? and what are the really greatest episodes?
matter has been placed in the books because it has been the
fashion of previous history writers to put such and such
topics in. In other words, our history for schools has been
on a traditional basis rather than on a rational. It has
been chiefly military and political only, and it has handled
these things in a lifeless, merely enumerative manner. And
while, recently, some considerable social material of another
kind has been put in, it has remained aloof from the other
as a kind of outside spectator. As a criterion to serve as
a guide for history purposes in general, I should say this:
Emphasize only such episodes and conditions as have had
a very perceptible influence in determining our present
institutions and organizations.
There is also a great defect in the texts, in that they
devote too much time to events remote in time and too
little to those which are near. Our histories have commonly
proceeded after the spirit of the statement the philosopher
Hegel made relative to the Chinese: A Chinaman is first
good for something when he is dead. So our textbook
makers have supposed that only dead history is good history,
and the deader the history the better. If it was a matter
of general history, they would spend most of the time on
ancient history; and if either modern or ancient were to be
omitted it would be the modern. If it was a case of Ameri-
can history, the colonial would get the benefit of the greater
time as compared with the national; and some authors have
seemed to think that this present end of our national history
is hardly worth mentioning. Both kinds of procedure are
wrong. The present is the only time worth anything for
the average man, and the past should be given him only in so
266 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
far as it is made to bear a vital relation to the social situation
now confronting him. The average man gets only a little
time to give to the study of social matters, and he should be
led to those which are important to him as directly as
possible.
The third defect of texts is in the matter of organization.
Most of our histories show a sad lack of organizing principle.
Many texts are mere jumbles of things. Many texts written
for secondary schools by reputed historians are mere
epitomes of all the incidents that have in any way got con-
nected with our national career. They present good
illustrations of the original chaos of matter. They contain
many hundreds of topics, which, in their arrangement, have
little relation to each other, as a general thing. They are
strung together as they are just because their events
happened in that order. They are mere chronologies, not
history. They have not been rationalized.
Process of reconstruction. — Reconstruction of history
for better teaching purposes would naturally fall along the
lines of the criticisms which are made. This reconstruction
must be made either by the teachers of history as they take
up the work with the classes, or it must be made by the
text writers. And, since we teach mostly by texts, we have
to think that the writers will have to do the reconstructing.
First, the merely traditional matter should be eliminated.
According to the criterion, anything is in the merely tradi-
tional class which has not quite visibly affected our current
of development. By this standard there should be relegated
to the rubbish heap much of the matter relative to discoveries
and explorations; about all that relates to the record of single
colonies; much under the head of colonial wars and Indian
SOCIALIZATION OF SUBJECTS 267
wars; many of the events leading up to the Revolutionary
War. In the national period we might cut out much that
has been put in relative to national presidential campaigns,
election accounts and administrative events; a large part
of the military records in the way of detailing single bat-
tles and unimportant campaigns; all the so-called literary
history, because we have literature in the schools apart from
history; much that has been introduced of an intricate
nature under foreign affairs in the period following the
beginning of our present constitutional government; and
much of the merely political reconstruction chronicle. By
means of eliminating this material, which is inherently
worthless and uninteresting, and for our national develop-
ment, in the light of our present institutions, is inconse-
quential, we should gain much needed time for either better
historical matter or for the introduction of the vocational
lines into our schools. Other subjects besides history
must undergo a like surgical operation for the same reasons.
The second process in reconstruction is the incorporation
of material of a more vital nature in the place of that
eliminated. To demonstrate what this would be and how it
should be worked out, would be to write a text. All that
can be done here is to indicate some of the more important
things commonly omitted or left undeveloped. In the
pre-national period there should be a larger development of
the economic causes of the discovery of America and of the
so-called Revolutionary War. The latter, in particular, is
still undeveloped in the best of our school histories. The
only place where there is adequate treatment of this phase
of the struggle for separation is in industrial and economic
histories. Another colonial matter not enough developed is
268 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
the development of religious toleration and the beginnings
and growth of our American system of entire separation
of church and state. Anyone who cares for freedom of
thought must be sensible of the advantages of the American
system over the old system of state religion, and this is
emphasized by the fact that the biggest struggles for human
emancipation right now are going on in Europe to put those
states on the American basis.
Colonial history should include a treatment of the forma-
tion of our national life, which is entirely omitted from our
histories. No one thinks it worth while to explain that our
Union was made possible only because the thirteen colonies
had more things in common, had more similarities, than
they had differences. Yet there is no historical instance of
so many as thirteen states which were unlike in race, lan-
guage, political and social institutions, and in literature,
religion and traditions, ever getting together and forming a
perpetual union, even under the stress of a common enemy.
This is the fundamental set of facts in explanation of the
formation of the nation; the Union cannot be rationally
explained without them; yet they are hardly mentioned,
much less developed, in our texts.
In the race for the possession and control of America,
there should be some development given to the consequent
significance of the outcome for civilization, and especially
for American civilization. Fiske called the capture of
Quebec the turning point in modern history.
A more adequate treatment of the industrial and political
system which prevailed at the time of the struggle for
independence than is now given should be made. A good
all-around study of existing society at that time would be
SOCIALIZATION OF SUBJECTS 269
far more valuable than the attempt to detail the successive
events in all the various colonies. Particularly I think the
home and domestic system of production which then
prevailed, in its significance for labor, consumption, and
possibilities and restrictions of life, should have an extended
treatment. A vivid description of the productive processes
which were carried on on the plantations under slave life,
on the small farms in New England by men and women
under their primitive division of labor; of nail making, shoe
making, cloth making and garment making, etc., would go
far to make the life of that period real, and to give a grasp
of the dependence of the various divisions of labor on each
other.
In our national period, our histories are deplorably weak
in their development of the economic background of our
national life, and in showing the rational significance of that
part of the economic matter which is introduced. It is a
stupendously significant thing that our young people can
and do get out of from one to four years in history study
without knowing there has been an industrial revolution,
and without knowing its vast significance for human life.
Yet, who could explain, in any scientific way, the factory
system, along with our present system of production in
factories and on farms, and the consequent difference
it makes for life to-day as compared with life before as
seen in colonial times and on the frontiers; the appearance
of new transportation and communication agencies; of the
great daily, weekly and periodical press; of great cities on
every hand; of the appearance of gigantic organizations
of labor and of capital, with their consequent conflicts and
problems, and of many other phenomena, without taking
270 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
up in an expansive and systematic manner the industrial
revolution? It has made a new order of things, and you
can give no history during the last hundred years in any
advanced nation without dealing with this subject; for it
was truly revolutionary, in that it transformed society in
spirit and organization in fundamental ways; and there is
not a phase of life that has not been and is not now affected
by it.
It is the machine age we are in, the age of inventions.
This distinguishes our age from all preceding ages, even more
than do our political peculiarities; not only in the fact that
it exempts men from doing much of the drudgery connected
with production by their own muscular power, but in the
fact that it has specialized and differentiated society more in
a century than had been done in all preceding ages by all the
agencies men had previously devised; and further in the
fact that the special forms our problems of society take
to-day have their explanation in the appearance of these
revolutionizing inventions.
Another indication of the short treatment of economic
matters in our histories is the fact that our students have
little conception of the causes, nature, and importance of a
great social phenomenon which has occurred every ten or
twenty years in our national life, and that each time it
occurs shakes our social fabric to its foundations — what we
call panics and depressions. It is an educational misfortune,
that we should spend from one to four years in studying,
or studying about, human society, and yet turn out people
for citizenship who do not know the common causes of one
of the most ordinary and important events. Why not write
a chapter on panics in the text, describe and treat all our
SOCIALIZATION OF SUBJECTS 271
important panics in such manner that the similarities and
consequent explanations would appear, so that the man and
woman would be in sight of giving a scientific account of
them and could help to shape human affairs for their con-
trol ? Is it because the text makers do not understand the
subject or because it might destroy the artistic symmetry of
the book? But if history is of any use it must give such an
account of affairs that we may understand and so be able to
control them. Our histories, if they are going to occupy the
field, must do the necessary things.
In the same manner, we should need to give an adequate
economic account of the rise of monopolies, of their signifi-
cance for life, of their causes in the peculiarities of the times,
of their extension into the various lines of transportation,
manufacture, distribution. We should need to show the
connection between modern business life and government, so
that the citizen might see the exact place and function of
government in organized society. I venture to say that
most of our people have no sort of notion as to what the
legitimate function of government is, and, consequently,
are all at sea as to where government should begin and end
in relation to businesses of all sorts.
A great uncultivated gap in our political history exists
relative to our political parties. I have found few pupils,
who have come to me from the schools, who have had an
idea of the meaning of parties in our history. They are
just things to study about but they do not mean anything to
them. I think it is easy to maintain that the place to begin
to study our government is with the parties, and that we
cannot know much about why our political history takes the
course it does without seeing that those organizations
272 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
which control the avenue to governmental positions control
the government and government policies. In other words,
we have to get down to a study of party organization by
means of which they control nominations and elections.
This is more indispensable as a matter of understanding our
government now than a study of the Constitution of the
United States.
Organization of history material. — As to the matter of
organization of history material into textbook shape a
great deal ought to be said. Of course, the average teacher
can do little more than reproduce the matter of the text in
just the shape in which it is placed in the text. The chop-
feed method of treatment of our histories in general, there-
fore, is a bad method of class presentation. The logic of
events is lost because of the hop-skip-and-jump procedure
from the political to the industrial, then to the religious,
to the literary, etc., and this every ten years. There is a
discontinuity that is bewildering. History is shot full of
gaps. Neither teacher nor pupil puts things together in a
causal way.
Our texts would do better if they should pursue the con-
tinuous-development method of presenting matters, that is,
take up one line of interests or activities and carry it through
the course of a whole epoch or period without interjecting
between its parts in the course of the period other kinds of
interests and activities. I have tried this and found it
works in an admirable fashion. To illustrate, I will name
the topics I carried through continuously from 1789 to the
Civil War, or such as extended through the whole of the
period: Organization of government and parties; struggle
for commerical independence; westward expansion of
SOCIALIZATION OF SUBJECTS 273
territory; development of population and transportation
facilities; revolutionizing inventions and processes; political
parties and doctrines; establishment and growth of protec-
tive tariff; some problems in finance and banking; develop-
ment of the slavery issue; chief international problems.
And when we reflect, we find that this continuous develop-
ment of a single series of events or interests is just the sort
of knowledge the citizen needs. He needs to know the
tariff history in itself, the financial history in itself, party
history in itself, and so on. He must know it this way in
order to understand it. If it is not developed that way for
him in school he is likely never to develop it.
The briefest kind of sketch of this matter deserves that
some attention should be paid to adaption of history to the
different ages or educational stages. Mainly, I think, the
adjustment should consist in pedagogical devices rather
than in the matter; although T am aware that the exponents
of the concentric-circle view have been led to admit that in
covering the circles of history, each time in a more exhaust-
ive manner, really new material is given. Yet I maintain
that the object is the same for all ages, namely, to give as
good a knowledge of the working of the child's own society
as the stage of mental development will permit. Essentially
the same matter of community life must be given in order
to secure this object, although the form which the material
takes will vary widely. A knowledge, in the larger aspects
and in the social relatedness, of our social processes, for
instance, can be given quite young children so that they can
see the work and significance of mills, railroads, telegraph,
farmers, schools, government, and so on, for our lives. The
same material later on is more systematized and put under
274 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
the reign of principles. But in each stage we should avoid
wasting time on mere frills under the mistaken idea that
the child cannot grasp vital social facts.
IV. THE SOCIALIZATION OF OTHER SUBJECTS
To undertake to deal adequately with all the subjects in
the schools, in order to show the method and results of
socializing them, would require more space, and certainly
more ability and insight, than may validly be claimed. A
few suggestions, however, may not appear inappropriate.
Language study. — The function of language, on the
associational side, is to act as a medium of communication
of ideas between members of the same society; on the
individual side, it is to serve as a means of getting informa-
tion from records in which the knowledge is embodied. The
one thing essential to the individual, in order to be able to
accomplish either of these two things, is the possession of
and the ability to use the language which is the vehicle
of the ideas to be obtained or communicated. Whatever
factors of instruction and elements in subject-matter are
essential for the attainment of quick apprehension and clear
accurate expression, by means of language, should be
found in the schools. Whatever does not directly give
aid to this end, in a very fundamental way, should be
eliminated.
As language is in the nature of a social device, it is to
be held in much the same regard as any other human
agency with which to get work done. In taking up the use
of tools and machines, the design is to get the largest facility
and skill in their use in the shortest possible time. Expedi-
ents are not set up with a view to prolonging the period of
SOCIALIZATION OF SUBJECTS 275
apprenticeship. Doubtless this would be the reasonable
criterion to accept as the criterion of language.
The above remarks would lead us to say that our method
employed in the acquisition of words for use, either in the
way of speaking or writing, should be that which will bear us
to the desired end in the shortest time. If a short cut can
be devised, so much to be thankful for, as individuals are
saved time to put in on something else. If some one could
devise a way by which to learn to talk and write in half the
time now required, what true educator would not rejoice?
Two chief methods are employed to secure language
ability, along with discipline, culture, and other ends. The
first has been an extensive study of grammar, formal
grammar. Whatever may be the efficiency of grammar in
gaining for pupils the other ends, it possesses little in secur-
ing language skill. " It is now generally admitted by
scholars that the chief reason for the study of technical
grammar is not its practical and direct bearing upon
expression, but the insight it gives into the logic of language.
Prof. W. D. Whitney voices the general sentiment among
scholars when he says that the leading object of technical
grammar is not to teach the correct use of English, but that
grammar is the reflective study of language." (L. E. Wolf,
"English in the Elementary Schools," Ed. Rev., 28, 162.)
Formal grammar is to the practical acquisition of lan-
guage what formal logic is to the establishment of our
common thought processes. Both are witnesses after the
fact. Almost all is over when they appear on the scene, and
they can influence the case but little.
The other method used to attain efficiency in language
is constructive language work. This is the really legitimate
276 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
and effective means of the accomplishment. Expression of
the learner's own ideas is the very core of this method,
expression of his thoughts according to the rules and forms
of good usage. Along with this comes another valuable fact
that observation and expression of things and processes
lying in the immediate social and physical context are
far more serviceable in creating or cultivating ability to
communicate ideas directly and accurately than the usual
slavish imitation of masterpieces. Masterpieces of litera-
ture are valuable stimulants for the imagination, when
rightly used; they are appropriate to serve as models of
usage and form, but, incessantly followed, they mold the
mind to their form and repress individual self-expression.
When the average person, if writing an essay, will choose
such abstract subjects as war, peace, ambition, etc., rather
than some phase of nature or life which touches him every
day; or in conversation has not the power to talk interest-
ingly one minute about the objects and conditions which
surround him; it is evident that constructive language
training has before it a vast field and rich possibilities in
opening up the field of critical observation of near-by
phenomena and of their analytical and descriptive expres-
sion. It may thus become a means not only of securing a
command of direct clear English, but also of developing the
powers of observation, and of accumulating a fund of most
useful information, for our most useful facts lie within our
own horizon.
In the light of our criterion, therefore, we need to insist
on emphasizing the constructive and self-expressive side
at the expense of merely formal grammar. We should not
go so far as to say that the latter should be abolished from
SOCiALIZATION OF SUBJECTS 277
the schools, but that it should be used in the process of
getting pure speech established as a habit, that is, subor-
dinated to constructive language work, and as much as is
needed, for that purpose, incorporated in the constructive
language process. Most of our courses of study follow this
plan, but then take two years at the close of the elementary
period largely to be devoted to formal grammar. This puts
it on the disciplinary basis, views it as an end in itself, rather
than as a contributive aid in securing the vehicle of expres-
sion in the speediest manner.
By a careful selection of just the essential principles of
grammar to aid in constructive language getting, and a
scientific subordination, a great deal of time will be saved for
the needed training matter which is knocking for admission.
Here is a place certainly where much time can be gained.
Spelling. — If so much can be admitted, as within reason,
when the method which is to be brought to bear on language,
for its acquisition, is under consideration, shall not as much
be conceded when the nature of the language to be taught
is in question? In the phrase " nature of the language "
is meant its power of resistance, or the inherent difficulty
of control. Of the various modern languages, it may be
said that they differ greatly in their power to resist the
learner. These differences very largely arise out of the
arrangement of the words in the sentence, pronunciation,
and especially the amount and nature of inflection to
which they are subject. The English language, which most
closely interests American educators, is relatively simple
in the last of these particulars, and as Professor Brander
Matthews writes, it is thereby peculiarly fitted to become
the world-language.
278 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
But, in another particular, it is exceedingly difficult of
attainment. A multitude of words are subject to a spelling
which is anything but rational. Many letters are contained
which represent no sound, and which a learner would
never guess were present from hearing the words which
contain them pronounced. Our language, therefore, not
only subjects the foreigner taking it up to incalculable
work, but requires of our own children a prodigious amount
of memory effort, which is superfluous, because it is irra-
tional. An industrial community which keeps in use pat-
terns of machines which have been greatly improved on by
later models or have been entirely replaced by newer
inventions, would be termed unprogressive and industrially
wasteful. Municipal transportation companies have been
known to displace one system of motor power for another,
notwithstanding the former was in good condition, because
the latter had strong marks of superiority. Manufacturers
are willing to cast out old machines for new when time-
killing features have been removed. Economy is a funda-
mental law in business enterprise. Waste in time and
material are to be eliminated whenever detected.
One of the greatest benefits which could be conferred on
the schools would ensue if spelling could be put on a really
rational basis. The ideal is of course that all words should
be spelled just as they sound. This would reduce spelling
to an exact system of phonetics. Spelling would be a simple
and easy matter if sound values were preserved as the mark
of correctness. As a machine or tool to get control of as
quickly as possible, it would be thought that all rational
persons would at once agree that language work should
speedily be put on this foundation. Such is the conservatism
SOCIALIZATION OF SUBJECTS 279
of the English race, however, that many otherwise intelli-
gent people oppose the suggestion. The proposal has been
made time after time only to die still-born. It will be a long
time ere the race will move up to that plane where such a
sweeping reform may be made. Gradual introduction of
spelling reform is the most which can be hoped for.
The Simplified Spelling Board, operating under the
Carnegie endowment, takes advantage of the well-known
facts in the history of the English language, that the
present illogical and inconvenient forms of words were
fastened on the language, in the early days of printing, by
the typesetters and proof readers, who found it easier to
spell by some sort of system than entirely arbitrarily, but
who did not feel at liberty to spell by sound or to use the
letters which most clearly produced the words. Later, the
lexicographers came to the aid of the proof readers in fixing
the form. Particularly, Dr. Johnson exerted a superior
influence in this respect. He followed the proof readers'
method of spelling, and simply settled many disputes among
them by choosing the one which was oldest and worst. In
effecting this, Dr. Lounsbury says that " propriety was
disregarded, etymology perverted, and every principle of
orthography denied; and that men of culture blindly
followed in the wake of a movement which they had not
the power and probably not the knowledge to direct."
Accompanying a list of three hundred words which the
Simplified Spelling Board has sent out, to which simpler
spelling may be applied, is this statement, which seems to
contain the principles to guide in the work of reform:
" The rules and analogies which underlie English spelling
can, however, be ascertained and stated, and the exceptions
280 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
can then be clearly seen. The next thing is to reduce or
abolish the exceptions. The process has worked well with
many words. Why not continue it with other words?
The matter is really very simple. When the rules and the
analogies are understood, any intelligent person can see for
himself when a particular spelling deviates from them.
Thus, anyone can see that binn, bunn, butt, are out of
accord with the rule established by the innumerable words
like pin, pun, cut; that centre, metre, fibre, etc., are out of
accord with the rule established by canter, number, timber,
diameter, etc.; and that favour, honour, etc., are out of
accord with the rule established by error, terror, minor,
major, editor, senator, etc. So likewise dript, dropt, snapt,
drest, prest, etc., tho now actually less common than
dripped, dropped, snapped, crossed, dressed, are more in
accord with the prevailing analogy of p or 5 before a /-sound,
which appears in apt, host, boast, best, nest, rust, etc.; and
in the old spelling, still retained, of some preterits and
participles, as crept, lost, swept, etc., as well as dreamt,
leapt, etc." (Circular No. 2, March, 21, 1906.)
The spellers and the spelling process in the schools need
simplification. The constitution of the spelling-books has
been greatly improved in recent years, but improvement
might still be made towards reducing the list of words not
frequently used, or hardly ever used, replacing them with
those nearer to the average child's environment. There
is a good work for some one with great patience and wisdom
in the construction of a real child's dictionary.
One way to bring the spelling lessons near the child's
actual vocabulary is by a larger use of the readers and
texts as sources of words to be spelled. This is a very
SOCIALIZATION OF SUBJECTS 281
practical source, for the words spelled are obtained in their
contextual relations, so that the meanings are attached to
them. The child is not spelling an abstraction, then, but
something which he is using. The association is valuable
as a memory aid. Perhaps an alternate use of the spellers
and other schoolbooks, in spelling exercises, might act as a
corrective of spelling-books. Throwing words into cognate
groups, such as farming terms, mining terms, geographical
terms, etc., might prove serviceable in offering the associa-
tional factor.
Geography. — Geography, as it has been constituted, and
is at present, for the most part, could be described aptly as the
conglomeration of everything and the unification of nothing.
It has certainly stood in need of the application of a rational
criterion. It may be that when our studies get properly
differentiated as nature study, social study, language study,
number study, etc., we shall discover either that geography
has no place at all because its facts have been absorbed by
the others, or that there is a very definite sphere of valuable
knowledge left to be taught.
Geography is a study which, without the social criterion
as a measuring-rod of value to apply to matter coming up
for inclusion in it, is liable to be pretty much all one thing
or another, or a jumble of both. A geography teacher in a
Normal School asked me recently if I did not think that
geography should be just a study of geology. This expresses
the tendency to make it all a certain thing. Another teacher
of long experience in Normal School work made a hodge-
podge of it. Her pupils rushed desperately and blindly
after forms of government of past nations, religious doc-
trines of obscure people, polygamous practices of the
282 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
Innuits, etc. They had no notion of what they were doing.
They were just doing work for mysterious reasons. It is
conceivable that some one else should rush to the extreme
of making geography almost wholly a social study and
merely exploit the various phases of society as such. This
would be as bad as to make it all geology.
In my estimation, geography should have as its founda-
tion the idea that community life is to be explained by its
physical settings. It should bind the physical environments
with the social groupings. It should show how a given
community is related to its material surroundings, that is,
the community is likely to be what it is because the natural
environment is what it is.
An illustration or two may explain this meaning.
Chicago is the product of a particular region. It is the
expression of the physical possibilities of that area centering
in itself. Its location in that area explains it. It is at the
point of the lake system and at the mouth of a river that
formerly connected it by portage with the interior river
system. By reason of this it became a fur market, then a
grain market and distributing point; after the railroads
entered, a livestock market, a manufacturing and whole-
saling center, etc.
It was made by its natural transportation possibilities in
the beginning. Then when railroads arose, they centered
there because it had become a large point and because
freight vessels from all northern points cleared there, making
it thus serve as a depot and distributing place of a still
larger region than when dependent on rivers and lakes
alone. So now Chicago is what it is because its splendid
transportation system enables it to exploit the various
SOCIALIZATION OF SUBJECTS 283
sources of wealth of a wonderfully large and rich contiguous
region. The geography of Chicago would consist in tak-
ing up its dependence on the environment, and its chief
interests; to show how they reach out into the surrounding
region, draw in products from that region, and in exchange
send back other goods.
Or take the case of New York. Its relation to larger and
larger areas, as the transportation connections developed,
explains it. Naturally it had one of the best locations on
the eastern coast. The ocean connected it commercially
with Europe, while it had access to the interior by way of the
Hudson River and Lake Champlain leading to Canada, and
by way of the Mohawk River valley leading to the West. In
course of time these things would have made it the pre-
eminent city of the East. The Erie canal more speedily
made it the leading city commercially. Cheap freight
rates were established to the West by water, and New York
became the chief commercial connecting link with Europe.
As in the case of every city, large or small, the numerous
lines of businesses established there were merely central gan-
glia, connecting by transporting ways with the raw material
resources throughout the contiguous region. To explain
New York would be to trace the origin of these various kinds
of business there, in answer to some demand of the region
about.
A complete geography would be the exposition of com-
munity after community in the light of the above sugges-
tion. Evidently this would be impossible in the time at the
disposal of the average individual. It would be of question-
able value anyway, perhaps, as compared with the valuable
things which must be done. But the idea is desirable and
284 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
imperative as securing the very fruit which the child needs
as the result of the study of geography. It should know
those things. The method unifies the matter which is to
be studied.
Now, the results may be obtained in either of two ways.
Types of communities might be worked out until the world
were fairly well understood. That is, a succession of
typical communities could be studied which would afford
the essentials of the world's geography.
As an alternative to this a world geography, or as much less
than that as may be demanded by the circumstances, might
be developed by beginning with the local community, and
from that ascending through a series of larger and larger
areas until the total world were involved. Some such line
of procedure as that indicated below would serve to furnish
the valuable knowledge the child needs, and also, at the
same time, to secure a progressive and systematic subject.
1. The study of a small local area, such as a farm, to get
the ideas of space relations established and of human beings
in relation to the soil on the one hand and to society in the
shape of markets on the other.
2. The study of the nearest community centered about
a trading point in its various phases.
(1) What natural advantages caused people to locate
there and enable them to sustain themselves.
(2) The occupations of the people based on the natural
advantages and resources.
(3) Other occupations which have grown up on the basis
of advantage of the location in relation to the larger world.
(4) The kind of people as to nationality and race in so
far as these things affect the community life.
SOCIALIZATION OF SUBJECTS 285
(5) Transportation facilities, natural and artificial, as
connecting the community with other communities and as
affording the advantages of markets for products and of
sources of supplies.
(6) The effect of the occupations of the community on
the people, their habits, customs, education, government,
religion, cultural activities, etc.
3. The study of the smallest distinct physical division of
the state or nation, that is, where physical features, climatic
conditions and resources and products are similar and the
whole may be unified on the basis of the causal conditions.
Of course this region should be the nearest one. Some of
the leading considerations would be as follows:
(1) The topography in its area, configuration, altitude,
and water courses, showing how each of these bears on the
distribution of population.
(2) Climatic conditions in temperature, length of seasons,
and amount of moisture precipitation with reference to
farming and other occupations, their conditioning of kinds
of occupations, products, etc.
(3) Soil and natural resources, such as forests, fish,
mines, and waterfalls, in their significance for farming,
lumbering, fishing, mining and manufacturing industries.
The kinds of soil and the fertility of the soil would further
differentiate occupations.
(4) Populations, races and nationalities as to origins
and characteristics, only in so far as they are necessary to
explain differences which retard or promote the regional
well-being and in so far as they illustrate the larger world.
(5) Industries, in their bearing on the location and
distribution of people, their reasons for particular locations,
286 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
their relation to the life of the region, and their conditioning
influences in the establishment and maintenance of com-
merical relations with the larger world.
(6) Transportation and communicating facilities, in their
bearing on the prosperity and satisfactions of the region and
their influence on locating larger collective populations for
commerce and manufacturing. In connection with these
last two points much supplementary reading might be done.
This is a good place to get out into the larger world by
following the threads of communication and transportation
to see how they really relate and unify the region with others.
(7) Influence of the pursuits and occupations on the life
of the people of the region in the way of customs, habita-
tions, dress, education, religion, culture and government.
4. The study of one or more regions, either contiguous to
or remote from the preceding, in the various aspects indicated
above, for purposes of expansion and comparison of ideas.
5. A physiographical study of the United States, calling
attention to the similarities to and differences from the
regions studied, and showing the larger unity through iden-
tity of interests and transporting systems.
6. An expansive study, by means of physiographical
maps, of the various continents, indicating their connections
with America by commercial routes, the chief products they
interchange with us, the bearing of atmospheric and oceanic
currents in so far as they affect trade and communication.
To the degree to which the individuals in training recog-
nize a vocational object before them their geographical work
would naturally emphasize those aspects which lie most in
line with their future interests.
Physiology. — Much deserves to be written on this sub-
SOCIALIZATION OF SUBJECTS 287
ject. Hardly anything touches the vitals of life and society
more closely than the things which should be taught here.
Our textbook writers have been chiefly interested in giving
a scientific account of the human organism, and secondarily
concerned with the relation of that mechanism to the
environment. It would evidently be a great advantage to
develop the latter phase, even at the expense of the former,
if necessary.
If we stop to reflect that the health of our municipalities
depends on pure water supplies, good sewer and drainage
systems, properly constructed houses relative to heat and
ventilation, clean streets and market places, air free of
smoke, pure food and milk, etc., and that its maintenance
depends on the intelligent interest and cooperation of all the
people, it becomes apparent that specific information along
these lines, as well as on others, is imperatively demanded.
Half of our population is now living in compact groups.
Soon a far greater portion will dwell in cities. For the sake
of the health of all, it behooves our schools to open up this
practical side of physiology and hygiene.
It is also becoming apparent that many of these topics are
of concern to rural regions. So long as farmers empty
slops and sewage about the wells which contain their drink-
ing water, dig wells in barnyards to be used alike by man
and beast, maintain outdoor closets so vile and filthy as
to stifle those patronizing them, leave dead animals to rot
unburied near dwellings, encourage conditions which breed
germ-transmitting flies by the millions, defy laws of air
space and ventilation in homes and school buildings alike,
there is ample confirmation of the assertion that our rural
schools should see a like extension of these subjects.
288 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
It would seem that a very practical and highly interesting
book for use in the schools could be written which should
devote at least one half of its space to depicting the impor-
tance of maintaining sanitary conditions and of describing
in graphic detail the various devices in use to secure them.
Here, for example, would be a very practical way to
combine the physiological and the sanitary side, relative to
circulation of the blood and the lungs: i. The circulating
system, and what the blood does for the body. 2. The
lungs as the purifier of the blood, and the necessity for pure
air. 3. External conditions which pollute the air. 4. De-
vices, mechanical and social, by which good conditions are
to be maintained. A chapter could be given to each heading,
or at least quite an expansive treatment, thus affording the
necessary knowledge of facts and their relations.
Or a good treatment could be given the subject of
foods and digestion, such as is suggested in this series of
topics: i. The stomach as a chemical laboratory. 2. Di-
gestion and its relation to other bodily processes, such as
circulation, etc. 3. The chemistry of foods, their choice,
preparation, preservation, as bearing on the chemistry of
the digestive processes and on health. 4. Sanitary condi-
tions and surroundings of food: cleanliness, disinfection,
flies as food polluters, and methods of exterminating them
by controlling the conditions which breed them, etc.
Other bodily processes which are essential to health and
service could be treated in the same practical manner.
CHAPTER XIII. SOME SOCIALIZED PROGRAMMES
Difficulty of constructing programmes- — It does not seem
advisable, for various reasons, to attempt to construct courses
of studies for the schools. First, because there is such a
great diversity of communities, each with its dominant inter-
est, which would make it imperative to construct as many
programmes of study as there are varieties of community
interests. I believe this volume furnishes the principles for
constructing a course of study for any community, but I
certainly do not possess the detailed and technical informa-
tion involved in each of these regions to enable me to work
out a suitable schedule for each one. Second, a thoroughly
worked out schedule would await the socialization of the
several subjects now taught in the schools. Since this has
but just begun, a complete programme is at present evi-
dently impossible. Conservatism, lack of means, etc., on the
part of schools and communities would constitute barriers
to the adoption of ready-made courses, however good.
I shall content myself, consequently, with suggesting a
possible course for agricultural regions, with presenting
one proposed for manufacturing communities, and two
German continuation school courses. The latter are ex-
hibited for the purpose of showing how the various ele-
ments are combined in the courses, and how some of the
subjects are socialized and pointed toward the vocation
involved, not to suggest that they are to be adopted. It
will be seen also that they provide for only eight or ten
hours per week.
289
2QO
METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
German continuation school courses. — The following
two courses are those in use in the continuation schools of
Munich, Germany, as reported by Professor Hanus (School
Review, 13, pp. 681-2). Relative to the item of religion,
Professor Hanus remarks that it is taught perfunctorily
by the priests or pastors of neighboring churches and, in
his estimation, the instruction could be given much more
effectively in the churches.
" CONTINUATION SCHOOL FOR CARPENTERS AND CABINET MAKERS.
Subjects of Study
Hours per Week
Winter
Half
Year
Summer
Half
Year
Classes
I to III
Class
IV
Classes
I to III
Religion . .
I
I
I*
I*
I
Arithmetic and bookkeeping (i)
I
I
Reading and business composition
Studies in life and citizenship
I
6
3
2
2
I
6
6
Drawing,
(a) Carpenters
(b) Cabinet makers
Practical Technology (2).
(a) Carpenters
(b) Cabinet makers ...
2
Total,
(a) Carpenters
12
9
8
8
3
9
(b) Cabinet makers ....
* Alternately.
(1) As before, the work in arithmetic consists of the
actual problems of the trade concerned, here the problems
actually to be solved by carpenters and cabinet makers.
(2) Study of woods, tools, machines, and their care and
use.
Shop work."
SOME SOCIALIZED PROGRAMMES
CONTINUATION SCHOOL FOR BUSINESS APPRENTICES.
Hours p
er Weel
Studies
Pre-
para-
tory
First
Year
Second
Year
Third
Year
Religion
I
I
Arithmetic (i)
2
2
j
Blinking End exchange
Business correspondence and reading (a) ...
Commercial geography and study of mate-
rials (3)
3
i
2
I
I
2
Studies in life and citizenship (4)
I
I
Ste nography
2
2
Writing
i
Total
8
IO
IO
g
(1) All the problems are taken from the actual business
in which the pupils of a given group or class are engaged.
(2) Reading in general, but much of it pertains to business
careers and to the particular business in which the pupils are
engaged.
(3) The raw materials and also the manufactured prod-
ucts are studied. One group, instead of this, received
instruction in money, banking, and finance.
(4) Personal and public hygiene: duties, rights, and
opportunities of the apprentice; decorum; development of
trade; transportation and communication in Germany;
trade organizations; capital and labor; chamber of com-
merce, and industrial exchange; civics, made as concrete
as possible."
Vocational schedule for elementary schools. — The follow-
ing is a syllabus of a vocational course for elementary schools,
as proposed by J. P. Haney (Ed. Rev., Nov., 1907, Vol. 34,
P- 343)-
292 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
" ENGLISH.
6th year. Composition: Oral and written.
Reproduction: Reports and descriptions; business letters.
Penmanship: Exercises to secure speed and legibility; business
forms and copy.
Reading: From readers and other books.
Spelling: Selected words; use of the dictionary.
7th year. As above.
8th year. As above.
GEOGRAPHY.
6th year. United States and other countries of North and South America;
reviewed with particular reference to resources, industries, and
occupations, products, commerce, and means of transportation.
7th year. Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceanica. Countries and chief cities,
with particular emphasis on industries and occupations,
products, commerce, and means of transportation.
HISTORY.
6th year. American history from the discovery of America to the Civil
War, with particular emphasis on the industrial development
of the country, on inventions and their results.
ARITHMETIC.
6th year. Common and decimal fractions and their per cent equivalents;
problems involving the mathematics of shop operations.
7th year. Percentage and its application; simple interest; problems in
mensuration and others involving shop operations.
8th year. Ratio and simple proportion; problems in inventional geometry,
and other problems involving shop operations.
FREE-HAND DRAWING.
6th year. Drawing familiar objects in outline; study of simple foreshortened
faces, and quick sketches to give practice in judging proportions.
7th year. Elementary principles of perspective practically developed;
sketching foreshortened cylindrical and prismatic forms in
outline, with practical applications in drawing from simple
machine parts.
8th year. Perspective drawings from various details of construction; frames,
doors, etc. Many quick sketches of familiar objects followed
by memory drawing of the forms in different positions.
SOME SOCIALIZED PROGRAMMES
MECHANICAL DRAWING.
6th year. Elementary principles of constructive drawing; simple working
sketches, lettering, and dimensioning.
7th year. Working sketches and mechanical drawing; use of instruments;
scale drawing; lettering and dimensioning. Perspective draw-
ings developed from plans.
8th year. Mechanical drawings from simple pieces of machinery; working
sketches; ink drawings. Perspective drawings from plans.
Various practical problems, especially in the making of well-
made free-hand working sketches.
WORKSHOP PRACTICE.
6th year. Principles of elementary wood working. Practical exercises in
joinery; simple useful models, with particular emphasis on
accuracy of construction. Elementary exercises on the lathe.
Use and reading of working drawings.
yth year. Simple problems, — pattern making, involving the use of the lathe.
Special emphasis on careand sharpening of tools, and on methods
of shop-work procedure. Study of simple specifications. Visits
to shops in operation. Use and reading of working drawings.
8th year. Joinery and pattern making, involving use of the lathe. Simple
exercises in metal-turning and in chipping and filing. Study of
working drawings, and simple specifications. Lessons in care
of tools, and the elementary principles of shop economics and
discipline. Visits to workshops in operation.
PHYSICS.
6th year. Properties of matter; forces and states of matter; study of
mechanical powers, particularly in relation to industrial work.
Mechanics of liquids and gases, illustrated with practical
experiments.
7th year. Study of heat and of the elementary principles of construction of
the steam engine and of the gas engine. Sound, laws of its pro-
duction and propagation. Different types of telephones. Light,
source and propagation. Photographs, their nature and making.
8th year. Electricity and magnetism: Nature of fundamental electrical
apparatus used in the arts; cells, electro-magnets, dynamos, etc.
The chemistry of combustion; destructive distillation; manufac-
ture of gases; slow and rapid form of combustion as in rust and
explosive compounds. Power and its transmission. All princi-
ples to be developed in direct relation to industrial problems.
294
METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
NATURE STUDY.
6th year. Study of tree growth, and uses of wood. Special emphasis on
employment of wood in art and industry. Other plant prod-
ucts useful to man — cotton, linen, etc.; their methods of
preparation and manufacture.
7th year. Further study of principal natural materials used in art and
industry; wool, coal, oil, clay, and principal building stones.
8th year. Metals; their source of preparation. Nature of steel, methods of
tempering and preserving; alloys, their composition and use;
brass, Babbitt metal, pewter, etc.
BUSINESS LAW.
7th year Elements of business law; nature of contract; relation of employee
and employer.
8th year. Partnership; legal forms; nature of lien, etc.
PHYSICAL TRAINING.
6th year. Gymnastic exercises and games; elementary lessons in hygiene;
effects of alcohol and narcotics.
7th and 8th years: as in 6th year."
It is suggested that the course be organized as indicated
in the following time schedule, which contemplates seven
hours' instruction each school day.
Minutes per Week
Sixth
Year
Seventh
Year
Eighth
Year
Opening exercises
75
70
320
75
60
60
1 80
200
180
520
1 20
120
75
70
260
75
70
I2O
Physical training
English ... ..........
Penmanship
Geography. .
60
60
120
200
180
520
I2O
180
120
135
History
Arithmetic
I2O
2OO
22O
740
120
180
120
135
Drawing, free-hand .
Drawing, mechanical
Shop work
Physics ...
Nature study .... ...
Business law
Unassigned
120
2100
2100
2100
SOME SOCIALIZED PROGRAMMES 295
I present this suggested programme as a sample of the ear-
nest efforts being put forth to better our present schools
by the introduction of the vocational element. It appears
to be a very valuable contribution towards reconstructing
the programme. Two remarks may be made about it : First,
it is suited chiefly to industrial regions, making little or no
provision for commercial, agricultural, or other non-indus-
trial elements of the population. It is a vocational course
of the industrial kind. Second, some of the informational
subjects which accompany the vocational element and in
content are directed toward it would have to be filled with
a somewhat different subject-matter, were any other than an
industrial community contemplated.
Course of study for rural schools. — The following out-
line may be taken as suggestive of what socialized education
would be for agricultural communities. Only the chief
topics are included, since the purpose is to indicate broadly
what elements should enter, not to enumerate in a detailed
manner all that should be given. It would be the business of
instructors to choose out of the various sciences only those
portions which would be necessary to impart the essentials
in each given item.
I. Tools of knowledge. To be made agents as soon as
possible in actual attainment of information.
II. Vocational knowledge of the agricultural sort.
(1) Chemistry of the soil — especially for boys.
(2) Chemistry of foods — especially for girls.
(3) Mechanical principles and care of tools. Principles
of levers, pulleys, etc., involved in farm machinery. Simple
carpentry, cabinet making, and blacksmithing for purposes
of building and repairing. For boys.
296 METHODS OF SOCIALIZING EDUCATION
(4) Domestic economy, housekeeping and floriculture.
For girls.
(5) Plant culture and horticulture; for boys chiefly.
(6) Animal culture.
(7) Use of products and by-products.
(8) Relation to markets, use of market reports, etc.
(9) Methods of cooperating with government agricultural
department. Use of government reports.
(10) Drainage and sanitation of rural regions.
III. Socialized geography as developed in this volume,
page 281.
IV. Social studies.
(1) Brief history of the development of our industrial and
political institutions, with emphasis on present conditions.
(2) Elementary civics, with emphasis on concrete local
government, to show the rights and duties of citizenship.
Practical ethics developed by means of school and class
relationships.
(3) Chief rural community conditions and problems
looking towards betterment.
V. Physiology and hygiene of the practical kind previously
indicated.
VI. Vocal music ; some drawing, looking toward develop-
ing ability to lay out plans of buildings, of fields, grounds,
machinery, etc.
INDEX
/Esthetics, 246
Agriculture
competition in, 118
education for, 295
Angell, Pres. J. B., 184
Appreciation, 246
of educators, 37
Arithmetic
socialization of, 255
elimination in, 255
localizing, 259
Association, neighborhood
as cause of social disease, 136
Articulation of training factors, 247
Augustine, St., 205
B.
Bagley, W. C., 170, 237, 239
Baldwin, 238
Baldwin, Prof. J. M., 57, 91
BalUet, Prof., 244
Bedford, Rev. R. C.
on graduates of Tuskegee, 31
Blackmar, 35
Bolton, Prof., 171
Booth, Charles, 143
Botsford, Prof., 203
Brace, C. Loring, 147
Brownlee, Miss, 191
Bryce, James, 207
Bushnell, Prof., 130
C.
Call, Supt. A. D., 160
Carnegie Foundation
bulletin on wages, 39
Carp, Principal, 49
Cattell, Prof., 185
Chamberlain, A. H., 243
Chamberlain, H. B., 155
Channing, Prof., 207
Children, wayward
reclamation of by special train-
ing. JS3
Church, the
responsible for religious train-
ing, 199
evils of supremacy, 202
evils of fusion with state, 204
American plan of separation,
206
Cities
population of, 1 16, 2x9
Coe, Prof., 200
Community interest
as criterion in education, 217-
222
Compensation of teachers, 38
Consumption
economics of, 121
education for, 121-128
and spiritual necessity of train-
ing for, 125
Continuation schools, 290
297
298
INDEX
Cooperation,
training for, 91
Crime
want of vocation as cause, 144
Criterion
consideration of, 253-255
of subjects not identical, 253
Criterion, in education
location of, 217
for information, 230
Culture
meaning of, 175
place of in race evolution, 177
general, impracticable for mass-
es, 183
a non-traditional education, 179
Curtis, W. E.
on influence of Tuskegee, 32
D.
Dabney, Pres. Charles W.
on education in South, 27
Davies, G. R., 259
Democracy
demands of on education, Chap.
5, 78 ff
significance of, 78
meaning, 80
specific requirements of on edu-
cation, 83 ff.
growth of, 79, 80, 83
Dewey, Prof. John, 48
Discipline
meaning of as an end, 166
general discipline, 167
general discipline psychologic-
ally untrue, 167
and social theory, 173
Dodge, James M.
on industrial training, 34
Dreber, Pres. J. D.
on negro education in South, 27
E.
Economic interests
and education, 104-128
sociological significance, 104
determine motives, 105
determine other social changes,
105
basis of callings, 107
vehicle of progress, 120
tendencies of science, 118
Economy
need of in consumption, 121
Education
and social structures, 8
reaction on, 35
and democracy, 78 ff
non-democratic, 75
of women, 97
right to vocational, 94
for production, 104
in consumption, 121
pathological demands on, 129-
160
to prevent social diseases, 146
the social end and other ends, 161
traditional disadvantageous, 171
social theory of, demands, 173
among primitive peoples, 179
Spartan, 181
Athenian, 181
feudal, 182
state, and religion, 186 ff
criterion in, 211-222
subordinate ends of, 224
as expression, 245
conclusions for from social
pathology, 258
INDEX
299
Educational transformation
need of, i
cause of, 4
Educational progress, and change, 3
Elimination of pupils from schools,
41 ff
Eliot, Pres. Chas. W., 238
Elmira Reformatory, 156
Elwood, Chas. A., 148, 154
Ely,R.T.,i47
England
educational progress, 21
Environment, social
power of, 52
as opportunity, 59
Evolution,
race and culture, 172
F.
Falkner, Prof. R. P., 145
Fetter, Prof., 63
Fisher, Prof. Geo. P., 196
Fiske, John, 268
Fletcher, 127
G.
Galton, 101
Genius, 101
Germans
on American education, 16
German school courses, 290
Germany
vocational education in, 15
opinion of advance, 19 ff
Geography
socialization of, 281
Ghent, 87
Giddings, Prof., 53
Gillette, Prof. J. M., 76, 148
Gulick, Dr. Luther, 153
Haney, J. P., 291
Hanus, Prof. Paul H., 208
on schools of Munich, 16, 290
Hall, Douglas,
on English Universities, 21
Harris, E. L.,
on German advance, 19
Harris, Dr. W. T., 201
Harvey, 50
Henderson, Prof. C. R., 47, 131, 135,
148, 154
Heredity
as cause of social disease, 134
and defective education, 138
Higgins, M. P., 243
History
socialization of, 262
what it should do, 262
bad conditions in, 263
poor texts and teaching, 264
reconstruction process, 266
organization of material, 272
Hodge, A. A., 196
Homes, poor,
cause of social diseases, 135
and school, hiatus between, 139
Howard,
Germany's progress, 20
Howe, 117
Hunter, Robert, 130, 147
Individual, the,
society and, 53 ff
social constitution of, 57
Industrial education
too narrow for whole school
system, 12
and wages, 33
300
INDEX
Industrial order,
evolution of new nations into,
US
evolution of larger areas into,
116
Information, 227
Initiative, 244
Institutions, social,
division of labor among, 198
Intelligence
function in race evolution, 178
Interest and school attendance, 48
Inventions
being commercialized, 119
J-
James, and Sanford, 116
James, Pres. E. J.
on German education, 19
James, Prof. Wm., 171
Japanese, the
development and education, 22
K.
Kaneko, Baron, 113
Kant, Emanuel, 162, 163
Kean, Prof., 53
Kellogg, C. D., 131
Keyes, Supt. C. H., 222
Knowledge
essentials of, 83
physical, 83
social, 87
Knowledge groups
importance of, 227
relative worth of, 228
Knowledge of
self, 230
nature, 231
society, 233
Koestlin, 197
Language
socialization of, 274
Lankaster, Ray, 148
Lindsay, Prof. S. M., 140
London, Jack, 87
Lounsbury, Dr., 279
M.
Mass. Commission on Industrial and
Technical Education, 34
Mass. Institute of Technology
wages of graduates, 39
McMurrey, Dr. Charles, 234
McQueary, Supt., 156
Mathews, Prof. Brander, 277
Mill, John, 162
Morality and religion, 187
Moralization, 88 ff
social rather than individual
needed, 90
training for self-government
and co-operation, 91
didactic, 235
practical, 236
Morals
education into without religion,
191, 209
Moore, Thomas, 150
Morrison, 145
Munro, Rev. J. J., 132
N.
Nature
knowledge of necessary, 86, 231
Neighborhood associations, 136
North Dakota
bulletin of State Educational
Association on teachers' wages,
40
INDEX
301
O.
Occupational groups, no
and crime, 145
Odin, 101
Opportunity in society, 59, 101
Organizing principles, 242
P.
Parsons, Frank, 9
Pathological social conditions, 129-
160
magnitude of, 129
Perfection
as end of education, 161
criticism of, 163
Penology
as object lesson in education,
IS*
Person, 15, 22, 34
Pestalozzi, 52
Physiology
socialization of, 280
Plato, 162
Playgrounds, 151
Pope Pius IX., 192
Pope Leo I., 205
Population and resources, 114
of cities, 116
stability of, 218
Poverty
table of causes, 141
and social disease, 137
and want of vocation, 140
Prevention
as remedy of social disease, 146
the doctrine of, 146
playground schools as, 151
vacation schools as, 151
vocational education as, 153
Production
education for, 109-121
importance of, 109
intensification of, 112
Programmes of study,
method of socializing, 211
socialized, 289
difficulty of construction, 289
Progress and economic interests, 120
R.
Race problem, 23
B. T. Washington, on, 28
Ray, 239
Reconstruction
the method, 214
need of depends on criterion, 216
Reinsch, 43
Religion
evolution of, 188
church responsible for, 198
distinction between religion and
morality, 187
relation of school and, 191
a private matter, 195
state education and, 186-210
Religious organizations could not
agree, 193
Renaissance, educational, i
Roosevelt, Theodore, 152
Rural schools
course of study for, 295
Sanford, 116
Schaff, Philip, 204
School attendance, 41 ff
Schools, vacation, 151
vocational, schedules for, 291,
295
INDEX
Science
and modern civilization, 172
economic tendencies of, 118
Seebohm, 204
Self-government, training for, 91
Shank, Prof. Burgess, 256
Simons, Maywood
education in South, 27
Skill, lack of and social disease, 138
Sloan, Supt., 154
Small, Prof. A. W., 64, 90
Smith, Prof. D. E., 257
Smith, Engene, 131, 159, 175
Smith, H. B., 197
Social demands on education, Part 2,
53 «
Society and individual, 53 ff
as opportunity, 59
Society
knowledge of necessary, 233
Social diseases
magnitude of, 129
causes of, 133
defective social structure, 133
Social environment
r61e of, 53 ff
Socialization
movement for, i
meaning of, 6
problem of, 211
summary of principles, 212
of programme of studies, 223-
252
of subjects, meaning of, 253
of arithmetic, 255
of history, 262
of other subjects, 274
Socialization of education
methods, 211-298
reconstruction as method, 214
Social structure
and individuals, 66
and human interests, 63
and material welfare, 59
defective and social disease,
133
South, the
care of, 23 ff
backwardness of, 24
education and industrialization
of, 25
Specialization
in society, 63 ff
in education, 72
Spencer, H., 162, 177
State
and church, separation, 202
evils of fusion with church,
204
American plan of, relating to
church, 206
Story, Judge, 192
Summary
of principle of social demands
on education, 212
T.
Teaching
method of for three R's, 226
Thomas, Prof. W. I., 54
Thorndike, E. L., 44, 170, 184
Tools of learning
their importance, 225
method of teaching, 226
Training factors
articulation of, 247
ideal plan of articulation, 247
illustration of plan, 250
Training groups, 224
Tuthill, Judge R. S., 155
INDEX
303
U.
Utilization, 239
need of, 259
as vocational technique, 240
as organizing principles, 242
as initiative, 244
V.
Vacation schools, 151
Veblin, Prof. T., 172
Vocation
want of cause of poverty, 140
want of cause of crime, 144
Vocationalization, 7
as dominant educational end, 10
Vocational bureaus, 9
Vocational education
meaning of, 7
and industrial education, n
some accomplished results, 14 S
in Germany, 15
results in South, 30
right to, 94
and the talented, 100
Vocational movement and concept, i
Vocational schedules
for elementary schools, 291
course for rural schools 295
Vocational technique, 240
W.
Ward, Prof. L. F., 59, 84, 101, 108
Ward, W. R., 238, 339
Washington, Booker T., 146, 176
on negro problem, 28
Waste
in consumption, 122
Welch, J. S., 234
Wells, H. G., 117
Whitney, Prof. W. D., 275
Williams, Roger 206
Wilson, Pres. Woodrow, 185
Wines, Frederick, 145
Winston, Pres. Geo. T., on educa
tion in South, 25
Wolff, L. E., 275
Woodward, Prof. C. M., 42
Wright, C. D., 144
Y.
Young, Supt. Ella Flagg, 250
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education, courses of study, and the distinctive work of
the different schools. The latest movements in the econom-
ical correlation of the home, libraries, museums, and art
galleries with the school are taken up at some length.
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY
A SYSTEM OF PEDAGOGY
By EMERSON E. WHITE, A.M., LL.D.
Elements of Pedagogy Ji.oo
School Management and Moral Training i.oo
Art of Teaching I . oo
BY the safe path of experience and in the light of modern
psychology the ELEMENTS OF PEDAGOGY
points out the limitations of the ordinary systems of
school education and shows how their methods may be har-
monized and coordinated. The fundamental principles of
teaching are expounded in a manner which is both logical
and convincing, and such a variety and wealth of pedagogical
principles are presented as are seldom to be found in a single
text-book.
«|[ SCHOOL MANAGEMENT discusses school govern-
ment and moral training from the standpoint of experience,
observation, and study. Avoiding dogmatism, the author
carefully states the grounds of his views and suggestions, and
freely uses the fundamental facts of mental and moral science.
So practical are the applications of principles, and so apt are
the concrete illustrations that the book can not fail to be of
interest and profit to all teachers, whether experienced or
inexperienced.
^f In the ART OF TEACHING the fundamental princi-
ples are presented in a clear and helpful manner, and after-
wards applied in methods of teaching that are generic and
comprehensive. Great pains has been taken to show the
true functions of special methods and to point out their limita-
tions, with a view to prevent teachers from accepting them
as general methods and making them hobbies. The book
throws a clear light, not only on fundamental methods and
processes, but also on oral illustrations, book study, class
instruction and management, written examinations and pro-
motions of pupils, and other problems of great importance.
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY
(*»)
NEW BOOKS FOR TEACHERS
GREAT PEDAGOGICAL ESSAYS .... #1.25
By F. V. N. PAINTER, A.M., D.D., Professor of
Modern Languages, Roanoke College
IN this compilation are selections from the writings of
twenty-six of the world's most prominent educators,
illustrating every period from Plato to Herbert Spencer.
Each author is taken up separately, and introduced by a
brief biographical sketch, which is intended to throw light
upon the selections. Following this are carefully chosen
representative extracts, which aim to help the student to a
correct critical estimate of each author* s views and works.
ECONOMY IN EDUCATION Ji.oo
By RURIC N. ROARK, Ph.D., Dean of the Depart-
ment of Pedagogy, State College of Kentucky
THIS volume discusses the applications of the principles
of economy to the work of the school and other educa-
tional factors. It deals with the problems confronting
the individual teacher in the successful administration of his
school, and also with the larger problems of the school as a
part of the institutional life and growth of modern society.
^[ The first part presents in new form all that was best in the
old books on school management, and adds much that is new
and helpful. In the second part the problems of the adminis-
tration of school systems are dealt with, and such matters as
taxation, boards of education, courses of study, and the dis-
tinctive work of the different schools — elementary, secondary,
and higher — are discussed. In the third part are described
the latest movements in the economical correlation of all
the other educational forces of the community — the home,
libraries, museums, art galleries, etc. — with the school.
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY
THE ART OF STUDY
By B. A. HINSDALE, Ph.D., LL.D., late Professor
of the Science and the Art of Teaching, University
of Michigan.
$1.00
THIS book for teachers aims at a definite end : To teach
pupils how to study rather than to store their minds
with any particular stock of knowledge,
^f It demonstrates in a clear and logical manner the true
relations which should exist between the teacher and the
pupil in the schoolroom, and presents practical methods by
which such relations may be established and maintained.
As learning is the primary act, and teaching but secondary,
it proposes a partial readjustment of the existing relations
between the teacher and the pupil, by which fhe pupil will
become the distinct and proper center of the school system,
and everything else — teacher, studies, and aooaratus — sub-
ordinate to him.
*[[ The art of study is much misunderstood and neglected,
and there are current today in schools many conditions which
result in serious defects and weaknesses among pupils.
Many pupils fail in their studies, due chiefly, first to their
ignorance of how properly to attack a lesson; and, secondly,
to their inability to sustain the attack when once begun. It
too often happens that teachers and pupils do not work
together in the true spirit; that pupils make too little effort to
learn, while teachers try, apparently, to save them that
trouble. To overcome these errors and attain the end sought,
the author demonstrates the proper relations that should exist
between them, and then presents methods in establishing and
maintaining these relations. In illustration of these ideas, a
series of typical study-recitations is given in the book.
^f The book is rich in practical suggestions for the guidance
of the teacher, and devotes several chapters to rules and hints
which will be of great assistance to the pupil as well.
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY
HISTORY OF EDUCATION
By LEVI SEELEY, Ph.D., Professor of Pedagogy
New Jersey State Normal School
$1.25
SEELEY'S History of Education is a working book, clear,
comprehensive, and accurate, and sufficient in itself to
furnish all the material on the subject that is required by
any examining board, or that may be demanded in a normal
or college course.
^[ Each educational system that has influenced the world is
taken up and summarized in turn, its development shown,
and its important lesson pointed out. The fullest information
obtainable is presented in simple form and expressed in con-
cise language. The topics are arranged on a well defined
plan, everything being practical, useful, and directly to the
point.
^[ In addition, the book includes biographical sketches of the
great educators with an illuminating account of their systems
of pedagogy. It also provides a general outline of the
educational history of ancient countries, and affords com-
parisons of the educational systems of the leading countries
down to the present time. In short, the volume gives the
student an accurate view in perspective of the educational
progress of the world. Extensive bibliographies of works for
reference are provided.
^j The work presents for study many of the great pedagogical
problems that have interested thoughtful men in every age.
It shows how some of these have been solved in the past and
points out the way to the solution of others of no less
importance in the near future.
^| It should form an indispensable volume in every teacher's
Horary, for it not only is inspiring, but furnishes valuable
information. Every well informed teacher must know how
the past has taught in order to cope intelligently with the
educational problems of today.
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY
(202)
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