Football: a sport for gentlemen and a moral agent, 525 Reviews Schmucker's Study of nature, 530-Notes on new books, 532 Notes and news 493 William T. Harris, 534-Meddlesome legislation, 535-Secondary education in agriculture, 538-Where is the American public school? 538 EDUCATIONAL REVIEW PUBLISHING COMPANY Vol. 38 AGENTS PARIS: F. ALCAN BERLIN: MAYER & MÜLLER LONDON: THE AMERICAN SCHOOL AND COLLEGE TEXT-BOOK AGENCY No. 5 Whole No. 190 Entered at the Post-office at Rahway, N. J., as Second-class Matter Among the articles to appear in forthcoming issues are: William Torrey Harris: An appreciation, by Frank A. Fitzpatrick of Boston, Mass. Educational tendencies in America, by Professor David Snedden of Teachers College, Columbia University. Teachers and the religious lesson, by Professor Michael E. Sadler of Weybridge, England. College athletics and physical education, by Joseph F. Daniels of the Fort Collins (Colo.) State Agricultural College. A series of Contributions to the history of American teaching, begun in the September issue, will include personal reminiscences as to teachers, textbooks, courses of study, school discipline, and other interesting details not to be found in official records or publications. Among early contributors to this novel and interesting series will be Charles W. Eliot, Rt. Rev. William Croswell Doane, Professor B. L. Gildersleeve, Superintendent J. M. Greenwood, Professor John H. Hewitt, Professor George H. Howison, and Professor Charles H. Super. Manuscripts intended for publication should be addrest to The Editor of the EDUCATIONAL REVIEW, Columbia University, New York. Correspondence relating to reprints, special editions, advertising, and subscriptions, and all remittances, should be sent to the EDUCATIONAL REVIEW, Columbia University, New York. $3 A 1436d. A Year (10 Nos., none being issued for July or August.) s. 8d. Copy 35c. S EDUCATIONAL REVIEW PUBLISHING CO., NEW YORK EDUCATIONAL REVIEW DECEMBER, 1909 I THE SCHOOL AND INDUSTRIAL LIFE The American school is under fire-it is always under fire. Just now it is said that its curriculum is overloaded with fads and frills which burden the child and hamper his training in subjects essential to his success in life. Public opinion is critical of a system which makes easy the advancement of a few to positions of commanding influence, but which provides no vocational training for the many who can not afford to remain in school beyond the elementary grades. The demand is for equality of opportunity in education without regard to social rank or wealth or any special privilege, that kind of equality which enables one to become a good American citizen, and which, as I understand it, is established on the ability to earn a decent livelihood and the determination to make one's life worth the living. The instruction given in our public schools is chiefly of two kinds: (1) humanistic, including language and literature, history and civics, and the fine arts; and (2) scientific, including mathematics, geography, physics, chemistry, and biology. Our schools also provide for training in the practical arts which are required in the study of these subjects, preeminently the arts of reading, writing, singing, and drawing. Of late years the attention iven to hygiene has begotten systematic training in gymnastics and athletic games. Our school work, however, is bookish, a term of reproach with some, but properly understood it stands above criticism. That which is worth knowing about human progress is for the most part contained in books. The scientific studies, as well as the humanistic, have been recorded in books; indeed, it would hardly be creditable to our civilization if the achievements of one generation were not made available for the generations that follow after. And what form more enduring, what form more available, than in writing which may be read by all who are willing to master the conventional arts confirmed by use and tradition! If our schools are culpably bookish, it is because our teachers misuse the book and confound methods of teaching with the acquisition of knowledge. Given something to learn, whether contained in a book or not, it is the teacher's business to see that the learner approaches his task in such a way as to make his progress certain and the results secure. If motor expression will help ease the way or better define the end, the good teacher will surely use it. And one should know that reading, writing, and singing are as truly means of motor expression as drawing or dancing or handiwork. In so far, therefore, as the aim of learning is to acquire knowledge, there is no good reason for spending an hour in manipulation when the fact may be as well taught without it in a minute. On the other hand, the fact which calls for motor expression and the process which demands technical skill, may never be acquired in their completeness without persistent drill. But drill for the sake of technical skill is one thing; motor expression for the sake of clarifying, strengthening, and assimilating knowledge is another thing. To learn by doing is well enough, if there is no better way; to do, without learning from it, is to drop to the level of the brute, a travesty on pedagogical insight. The significance of motor expression in the learning process came to consciousness in our schools only a generation ago; indeed, we are only now becoming alive to its place and possibilities. Some got the notion at first that there was a magical charm in the training of hand and eye. Manual training was heralded as the remedy for all defects of vision, mental and physical, and the claim was made that in whittling paper-knives out of wood the boy was really shaping his own character. To follow exactly the specifications of a blue print drawing was thought to be the surest way of bringing home the lessons of honesty, sobriety, and truthfulness. Until within ten years, manual training was defended by its overzealous advocates on the grounds of its value as a mental and moral discipline. It is difficult for us to see, even after the lapse of so few years, why so great worth was imputed to manual dexterity and so little value attached to good reading or legible writing or correct translation. It is past our comprehension even now how any one could have supposed that mere doing could rank in educational value with the doing of something worth while. The fact is, of course, that no one really thought, regardless of what may have been said, that making nothing and making something were one and the same. The early projects in manual training may seem to us trivial, but their value is not to be reckoned in terms of accomplishment, but rather in terms of effort. They represent an effort to secure at any cost the motor expression demanded by child nature. If the teacher of the humanities and the sciences would not employ it intelligently, here was a group of enthusiasts who would use it anyway, unintelligently if necessary. Public opinion, not always a safe pedagogical guide, supported them, and the result is a place in the curriculum for a subject which few know how to teach and which perhaps no one should teach in the way at first proposed. In supporting the demand for manual training in the industrial and household arts, public opinion outran the educational theorists. Fathers and mothers care relatively little for formal discipline of any kind. They want tangible results. They want their children to be able to read, write, and reckon. Some go so far as to ask for an appreciation of good literature and the fine arts, and a working knowledge of history, civics, and the sciences, but such are always in the minority. The one thing that every parent wants, the one thing that gives him most anxious thought, is how best to make his child selfsupporting. In manual training he sees a chance to develop that skill of hand required by the craftsman; in the technical processes he discovers a likeness to the processes with which he is acquainted in the home or in the industrial world. The |
