Schooling

“ Coming back now from these general propositions about books and teaching to our mass of young people about fifteen years old, our adolescent nation, who have accomplished their Schooling and are ready for the College phase, we have to consider what subjects they are to be taught, and how far they are to go with these subjects. ”

“ Before teaching can safely enter upon conveying facts and ideas through the media of signs, schooling must provide genuine situations in which personal participation brings home the import of the material and the problems which it conveys. From the standpoint of the pupil, the resulting experiences are worth while on their own account; from the standpoint of the teacher they are also means of supplying subject matter required for understanding instruction involving signs, and of evoking attitudes of open-mindedness and concern as to the material symbolically conveyed. ”

“ To him and to all of us, the expressly appointed schoolmasters and schoolings we get are as nothing, compared with the unappointed incidental and continual ones, whose school-hours are all the days and nights of our existence, and whose lessons, noticed or unnoticed, stream in upon us with every breath we draw. ”

“ Under the phrase, 'Education is a life,' I have tried to show how necessary it is to sustain the intellectual life upon ideas, and, as a corollary, that a school-book should be a medium for ideas, and not merely a receptacle for facts. That normal children have a natural desire for, and a right of admission to, all fitting knowledge, appears to me to be suggested by the phrase, 'Education is the science of relations.'
These considerations clear the ground towards that of a curriculum. ”

“ What can be done in the way of introducing subject-matter in history and science and art, that shall have a positive value and real significance in the child's own life; that shall represent, even to the youngest children, something worthy of attainment in skill or knowledge; as much so to the little pupil as are the studies of the high-school or college student to him? You know what the traditional curriculum of the first few years is, even though many modifications have been made. ”

“ THE SCHOOL AND SOCIAL PROGRESS We are apt to look at the school from an individualistic standpoint, as something between teacher and pupil, or between teacher and parent. That which interests us most is naturally the progress made by the individual child of our acquaintance, his normal physical development, his advance in ability to read, write, and figure, his growth in the knowledge of geography and history, improvement in manners, habits of promptness, order, and industry—it is from such standards as these that we judge the work of the school. ”

“ What, then, are the faculties which education is supposed to train? In my attempt to answer this question I will confine myself to the elementary school,—the only school which I can pretend to know well. A glance at the time-table of an ordinary elementary school might suggest to us that there were two chief groups of faculties to be trained—those which perceive and those which express, those which take in and those which give out. When such subjects as History, Geography, or Science are being taught, the child's perceptive faculties are being trained. ”

“ Do you see system in the arrangement of the school, in the method of instruction, in the library department, and in the general discipline of the school? You will be orderly and correct in your deportment.
Eld. B. As I am almost old enough to be a teacher, and desire to take a class as soon as I am wanted, I should like to know the best way to make my scholars interested in their studies, so that they will attend and be correct with their lessons.
Teach. It is often the case that children feel no interest or pleasure in the school, because they do not understand its object. ”

“ Education. No school? You have visited the hardest school in the world, the school ruled by the sternest teacher in the world—the School of Experience. Fortunate are they who learn from the experience of the past and the experience of others.
As Education speaks, her light is cast for a moment on the tax paper. Any City glances at the paper and tries to conceal it. With a beckoning gesture Education leads him again behind the curtain. ”

“ There it is first sought to develop the child's intellectual faculties, prepare it for school, inculcate habits of cleanliness and morality, and instruct it in the rudiments of reading and writing. Between the ages of six and fourteen children are admitted into the schools, and, nominally at least, go through the plan of study drawn up by the board of primary education, and which is as follows: Reading, writing, geography, spelling, arithmetic, compendium of sacred and French history, linear drawing, singing, the rudiments of physics, geometry and natural history, and calligraphy. ”

“ Consider finally the literature treating of study. Certainly there has never been a period when there was a more general interest in education than during the last twenty years, and the progress that has been made in that time is remarkable. Our study of the social view- point, of child nature, of apperception, interest, induction, deduction, correlation, etc., has been rapidly revolutionizing the school, securing a much more sympathetic government of young people, a new curriculum, and far more effective methods of instruction. ”

“ When we have learned the environment of a people, we are ready to study their elementary education. This takes us into the schoolroom, introduces us to the place where the school is held, indicates the course of study pursued, the discipline, methods of instruction, spirit and training of the teacher, as well as the results obtained. After this we are ready to consider the higher education, which completes the system and measures its efficiency. ”

“ If we sum up in one word the most pervading, constant, and obvious characteristic of our schools, and of the teaching and the learning in them to this day, that word must be, immethodical. Although admitting that the education of the young should distinctly embrace the four departments of a training, physical, intellectual, moral, and social, yet, for the sake of clearness in our discussion and its results, not less than through the necessities of a restricted space, we shall here confine our remarks wholly to education in its intellectual aspect. ”

“ Your best plea for the education of their children must be that the elementary education we impart to them will not be confined to the three R's, but will gradually include a knowledge of the things they should know for the intelligent and progressive use of their art, the cultivation of the eye, the dexterity of the hand,—that in the school must be laid the basis of special knowledge, on which the efficiency of the individual worker can best be cultivated. ”

“ In a public school, therefore, when all classes of the community are to be taught, the truths and exercises should be selected in such a manner, that they shall, if possible, be equally useful to all; leaving the navigator and the agriculturist, the surgeon and the lawyer, to supplement their general education, by the study of those special branches of learning which their several professions require. ”

“ This problem will be treated in considerable detail when we come to consider the study lesson.
Pupils at work forming habits of thought, feeling, and action; acquiring knowledge of nature and of society; forming ideals which make for social well-being; and learning in all of this work to act independently, to function in the society of which they are a part: this is education, and these are the goals which we should strive to achieve every day and every hour that we teach. ”

“ In the narrower sense, education may be confined to instruction, the imparting of definite information on various subjects, because such information, in and for itself, is useful in daily life. Elementary education—reading, writing, and arithmetic—is almost wholly of this kind. But instruction, necessary as it is, does not per se constitute education in the sense in which I wish to consider it. ”

“ Education has in the past been pointed, from the very beginning in the kindergarten toward the high school and the college and ultimately the professional school in which lawyers, physicians, ministers, and teachers were to be prepared. The child who by nature was not inclined toward the consideration of abstract ideas and theories soon found that the schools were not well adapted to his interests. ”

“ The school, for its intellectual function, causes the pupil to learn certain arts, such as reading and writing, which make possible communication with one's fellow-men, and impart certain rudimentary insights or general elementary ideas with which practical thinking may be done, and the pupil be set on the way to comprehend his environment of nature, and of humanity and history. ”

“ We believe that a critical examination of rational courses of study in the schools would show that little of the work could well be omitted; that nearly all contributes toward the end of a well-rounded education, indeed is necessary to that end; and that the training of faculty is only well begun at the end of the high-school course. Even the study of the classics, besides other incidental advantages, trains the critical powers, refines the taste, and is in an important sense a subjective study. ”

“ The present widespread agitation for a more purposeful curriculum is fully recognized by this work on practical pedagogy. It discusses modern elementary education in a helpful manner, setting forth its acknowledged defects of standard, and presenting suggestions for the introduction of more industrial training. The book is broad in the best sense, and every problem affecting the school and its relation to the outside world is dealt with so simply and convincingly as to be clear to everybody, whether teachers or parents. Only the great issues of education are considered. ”

“ Now seeing this difference, how much education is there in school or college? In the classrooms there is none. All that is given in classes is instruction, which may be useful or detrimental inasmuch as it helps personality or not. ”

“ Again, schools and education, technically so called, are not the antecedent but the consequent of progress. The men who have been most successful in penetrating the secrets of Nature and solving the problems of society have been in advance of any school. The education of these men has not been for mental discipline; they have studied to find the truth, and an incident of that study has been discipline. Whence came that discipline which rendered schools possible? ”

“ I am anxious to bring a quite successful educational experiment before the public at a moment when we are told on authority that “Education must be ... an appeal to the spirit if it is to be made interesting.” Here is Education which is as interesting and fascinating as a fine art to parents, children and teachers.
During the last thirty years thousands of children educated on these lines have grown up in love with Knowledge and manifesting a ‘right judgment in all things’ so far as a pretty wide curriculum gives them data. ”

“ For these teachers there is little need for preparation. The course of study and the textbooks have solved the problems of teaching. Let us inquire just what the curriculum of our schools stands for before attempting to decide just what relation the teacher bears to it.
A course of study is not so much knowledge to be poured in. Rather it represents possible experiences for which children may have need, experiences which will aid them in the solution of their problems and make possible for them the realization of their purposes. ”

“ Hear what one teacher, both sane and experienced, has to say concerning the riot of facts and theories, of art and nature, of science and sentiment, which the school is expected to reduce into an orderly, consistent, and practical system of education. ”

“ Moreover, if the school is related as a whole to life as a whole, its various aims and ideals—culture, discipline, information, utility—cease to be variants, for one of which we must select one study and for another another. ”

“ They grow out of the truth, constitutive of the school, and this truth is made up of the relations subsisting among the members of the school. There are teachers, whose duty it is to control and to instruct. There are children, whose duty it is to learn and obey. The school is an institution, the object of which is to lead young minds into a knowledge of the earth, its continents, seas, rivers, and mountains; into a knowledge of language, its structure, uses, and the meaning of its terms; into a knowledge of [231] humanity, its races, governments, and religions. ”

“ Finally, I shall discuss intellectual education, its aims, its curriculum, and its possibilities, from the first lessons in reading and writing to the end of the university years. The further education which men and women derive from life and the world I shall regard as lying outside my scope; but to make men and women capable of learning from experience should be one of the aims which early education should keep most prominently in view. ”

“ What is commonly and technically called education—the development and instruction of the faculties of children, is only preparatory; the scholastic education of the boy is but introductory to the practical education of the man. It is only this preparatory education of the children of the people that is the work of the schoolmasters. ”