Educational system

“ EXPANSION OF THE EDUCATIONAL IDEA. In all lands to-day where there is an intelligent government, the education of the people through a system of state-controlled schools is regarded as of the first importance in moulding and shaping the destinies of the nation and promoting the country's welfare. ”

“ The school system and its relations to local authorities, on the one hand, and to the general government, on the other, form a vast and difficult subject involving not merely pedagogical principles, but also such aims as the maintenance of higher learning, the dissemination of useful information, and the practice of indispensable arts. In university lectures a few words on such topics suffice, since young men who accept a school position assume, at the same time, obligations which for a long time to come prescribe for them the path they must follow. ”

“ Our educational system helps to increase the confusion. Starting out with the intention of making the schools of the country the foundation of a substantial education in the elementary branches, our educators have allowed themselves to be carried away—through sheer enthusiasm, no doubt—from that simple and substantial basis of operation ”

“ Equally without justification is the boast of great learning among the people. They have had no educational system and their children have had to rely upon private schools, a few families getting together and hiring a teacher. Even then the main purpose of their higher education was to obtain a government position. ”

“ But more classrooms and more teachers are not enough. We must seek an educational system which grows in excellence as it grows in size. This means better training for our teachers. It means preparing youth to enjoy their hours of leisure as well as their hours of labor. It means exploring new techniques of teaching, to find new ways to stimulate the love of learning and the capacity for creation.
These are three of the central issues of the Great Society. ”

“ There are some who seem to think that our educational system is as good as possible, and that the only remaining points of importance are the number of schools and scholars, the question of fees, the relation of voluntary and board schools, etc. ”

“ The newly developed educational system gave to the common man another significant opportunity, since teaching candidates were drawn in large numbers from the middle and lower classes, and were given at public expense the training necessary to fit them for permanent positions in the various types of schools. ”

“ The organized body of materials of instruction constitutes one of the most important factors which enter into the life of the school system. Along with the board of education, with the grading system, and with the staff of teachers and supervisory officers stands the curriculum as a kind of dominating personality always exercising a leading influence in the determination of every educational policy. ”

“ And, as [Pg 364] thoroughly educated men, lecturers, journals, and books of a proper character, cannot be furnished without the aid of scientific schools and thorough culture, the farmers, as a body, are interested in the establishment of all institutions of learning which promise to advance any number of men, however small, in the mysteries of the profession; but, when we design a system of education for a class, common wisdom requires us to contemplate its influence upon each individual. ”

“ Educational Progress.—One of the landmarks of the present century of progress will be the perfecting of educational systems. Education is no longer for the exclusive few, developing an aristocracy of learning for the elevation of a single class; it has become universal. The large number of universities throughout the world, well endowed and well equipped, the multitudes of secondary schools, and the universality of the primary schools, now render it possible for every individual to become intelligent and enlightened. ”

“ Yet, in general, the educational policy, matters touching the curriculum, and all the discipline of the student body, as almost a matter of divine right, whether or not by custom or by statute, belong to the men whose craft and experience is in lines of education. ”

“ As such history is academic in character, and furnishes information concerning the educational systems, methods, theories, and practices of the past, it should be placed early in the professional pedagogical course, to serve as the foundation for an improved educational science which profits by the experience of mankind. The history of education presents many of the great problems that have interested thoughtful men, shows how some of these have been solved, and points the way to the solution of others. ”

“ Public education shall be organically developed. The foundation school, which shall be common to all, shall lead on to the secondary and higher school system. This organisation shall keep in view the variation of vocations ”

“ If we grant the economic ability to support good schools, then the curriculum offered by any type of school, the scope of subject-matter given the pupils to master, is a measure of the educational ideals of those maintaining and using the schools. If the curriculum is broad, and representative of the various great fields of human culture; if it relates itself to the life and needs of its patrons; if it is adapted to the interests and activities of its pupils, it may be said that the people believe in education as a right of the individual and as a preparation for successful living. ”

“ Educational reform, which has succeeded in reorienting the curriculum to the requirements of economic development, placing emphasis on vocational and technological skills in high school and science and engineering in college ”

“ The struggle should be perpetual and in the right direction. First, elevate your common schools so that the education there may be a sufficient basis for a course of training here. If the Normal School and the public schools shall each and all do their duty, candidates for admission will be so well qualified in the branches required, that the art of teaching will be the only art taught here. ”

“ The plan is to afford these boys the advantages of our best educational institutions — academies, colleges, and, to some extent, professional schools — to assign them, by and by, as they shall develop aptitude, to various special courses of study and training in the physical, mechanical and military sciences, in political history and economy, international law, the principles and practice of civil administration and in all departments and branches of knowledge, skill in which is useful for public government service in these modern times. ”

“ The state then must satisfy itself that the means of education are placed within the reach of all, in grades adapted to the varying degrees of intelligence and educational opportunity to be found among a community upon the majority of whose members is imposed the necessity of entering upon the practical business of life at a more or less early age. ”

“ We are also of opinion, that admission to places of instruction, which, like the medical and engineering colleges, are maintained by the State, for the purpose of educating persons for special employments under Government, might be made the rewards of industry and ability, and thus supply a practical encouragement to general education, similar to that which will be afforded by the educational service. ”

“ It seemed to me that we teachers had unconsciously elaborated a system which should secure the discipline of the schools and the eagerness of the scholars,—by means of marks, prizes, and the like,—and yet eliminate that knowledge-hunger, itself the quite sufficient incentive to education. ”

“ It would be exceedingly desirable if all citizens would take general courses in education, and would come to understand the meaning of educational processes and past and present practices in educational procedure. If all parents and members of school boards could have a few modern courses in educational theory and organization, the work of school teachers would be very much simplified. ”

“ In short, it means that the school-system should be adapted to the boy and not the boy to the system, and, further, that education authorities should regard it as part of their function to guide into proper channels the special abilities which the teachers have reared. ”

“ A good example is given by education. The American colleges and universities founded in the 18th and early 19th centuries attempted to follow the traditional model of learning for its own sake; that is, moral and intellectual improvement through study of the age-old classics. This lasted until various interest groups, in particular businessmen, questioned the validity of an educational program that had little or no pragmatic value. ”

“ It may be granted that the progress of learning is made possible or at least accentuated by educational institutions; but the fact remains 77 that the school is founded on pre-existing knowledge. Science, arts, customs must exist before they can be taught to others, and they do exist, but not in the spirit of the one who is to acquire them, who must appropriate them as they are in themselves. ”

“ The problem of how to produce as effective and as thorough education for leadership with a one-class school system as with a two- class; the opening-up of opportunity for youth of brains in any social class to rise and be trained for service; the selection and proper training of those of superior intelligence; the elimination of barriers to the advancement of children of large intellectual endowment ”

“ A broad educational philosophy has combined with administrative skill to produce a type of school which represents a fundamental reorganization of the public school to meet changing social and industrial conditions. ”

“ The teacher in charge of the class must ultimately have at hand various devices, some intended to give play to individual differences, some intended to promote social coöperation. Then, while administrative necessity dictates a uniform period for the class exercise, the educational needs of the students can be met by variations in the content and method of instruction. ”

“ In some countries the entire control of all forms of education, primary, secondary, and technical, has come under the guidance of the State, and in our own country elementary education is now largely under the control of the State authorities, and the other forms of education tend increasingly to come under this control. ”

“ These are words of insight and wisdom, but let us not therefore despair as though the end of all things were at hand. The truth is, we are in the throes of an educational revolution; we are emerging from chaos rather than about to plunge into it; we are beginning to recognise that education is the applied science of life, and that we really have existing material in the philosophy of the ages and the science of the day to formulate an educational code whereby we may order the lives of our children and regulate our own. ”

“ Our educational institutions, beginning with the primary common schools and culminating in the great universities of the land, are the instrumentalities by which the future citizens of this country are to be trained in the principles of morality and in the intellectual culture which [394] will fit them to maintain, develop, and perpetuate what their fathers have begun. ”

“ The purpose of the readjustment of education to existing social conditions is not to substitute the acquiring of money or of bread and butter for the acquiring of information249 as an educational aim. It is to supply men and women who as they go forth, from school shall be intelligent in the pursuit of the activities in which they engage. ”

“ There is first the need of public educational machinery, and by education I mean not simply elementary education, but the equally vital need for great colleges not only to teach and study technical arts and useful sciences, but also to enlarge learning and sustain philosophical and literary work. ”

“ An efficient system of vocational education requires different methods of administration, different courses of study, different qualifications of teachers, different equipment, different ways of meeting the needs of pupils and much greater flexibility in adapting means to ends than is possible under the ordinary system of public school administration. ”

“ The first reduces the merely natural to a tool which mind shall use for its own ends; the second guides the intelligence, by ways conformable to its nature, to the necessary method of the act of teaching and learning, which finally branches out into an objective national life, into a system of mutually dependent school organizations. ”

“ The rise of modern state school systems, the variations in types found to-day in different lands, the new conceptions of the educational purpose, the rise of science study, the new functions which the school has recently assumed, the world- wide sweep of modern educational ideas, the rise of many entirely new types of schools and training within the past century—these and many other features of modern educational practice in progressive nations are better understood if viewed in the light of their proper historical setting. ”

“ With free schools, abler teachers, consecrated to their calling, and better courses of instruction; with a people generous in expenditures for educational purposes, a coöperation of parents and teachers, and a willingness to learn from other nations; with the many educational periodicals, the pedagogical books, and teachers' institutes to broaden and stimulate the teacher,—the friends of education in America may labor on, assured that the present century will give abundant fruitage to the work which has so marvelously prospered in the past. ”

“ The provision of education for all, with facilities for children of every class to pass on to higher grades of work, is essential if the latent powers in all, whatever they may be, are to be developed to the utmost. ”