Part 1 (2/2)
In a significant degree the present is the heritage of the past, and any critical appraisenizance of the influence of the past That there are weak places in our present civilization, no one will deny; nor will it be denied that the sources of soood authority that ”the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge” Had the eating of sour grapes in the past been eneration would stand less in need of dentistry When we take an inventory of the people of the present who are defective in body, in mind, or in spirit, it seerapes, in the past, randfather was tainted, it is probable that the blood of the grandchild is impure
The defects of the present would seeainst the educational agencies of the past These agencies are not confined to the school but include law, enics, ho Had all these phases of education done their perfect work in the past, the present would be in better case It seereat pity that it required a world war to render us conscious of many of the defects of society The draft board made discoveries of facts that seem to have eluded the home, the school, the family physician, and the boards of health Many of these discoveries areand reflect unfavorably upon some of the educational practices of the past The many cases of physical unfitness and the fewer cases of athletic hearts seem to have escaped the attention of physical directors and athletic coaches, not tothat one fourth of our young men have been pronounced physically unsound, it behooves us to turn our gaze toward the past to determine, if possible, wherein our educational processes have been at fault
The thoughtful person who stands on the street-corner watching the pro a careful appraisement of their physical, mental, and spiritual qualities, will not find the experience particularly edifying He will note e and inspire In the throng he will seeand old, who, as specimens of physical manhood and wo in years but who are old in looks and physical bearing They creep or shuffle along as if bowed doith the weight of years, lacking the graces of buoyancy and abounding youth They are bent, gnarled, shriveled, faded, weak, and wizened Their faces reveal the absence of the looks that betoken hope, courage, aspiration, and high purpose Their lineahastly forlornness that excites pity and despair They seem the veriest derelicts, tossed to and fro by the currents of life without hope of redeuid, morbid, misanthropic, and nerveless They seem ill-nourished as well as mentally and spiritually starved They seem the victims of inherited or acquired weaknesses that sta the physically unfit If the fare of unfitness and imperfection, he would reach the conclusion at once that so and would iht-out plans to rectify the situation But, seeing that these derelicts are hus and not farm stock, we bestow upon them a sneer, or possibly a pittance by way of al upon the imperfect passersby, the observer is reminded of the tens of thousands of children who are defective in e upon the resources of the state
Such a setting forth of the less agreeable side of present conditions would seem out of place, if not actually inosis eon knows full well that there will be pain, but he is comforted by the reflection that restoration to health will succeed the pain We need to look squarely at the facts as they are in order to determine what must be done to avert a repetition in the future We have seen the sins of the fathers visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation and still retained our co ht living on their part will randchildren We exhibit our thoroughbred live stock at our fairs and plume ourselves upon our ability to produce stock of such quality In the case of live stock we know that the present is the product of the past, but see human animals We may know that our ancestors planted thorns and yet we seerapes, and ould fain gather figs fro of thistles But thisof our ancestors, and, with equal certainty, if we eat sour grapes the teeth of our descendants will surely be put on edge
If we are to reconstruct our educational processes we must make a critical survey of the entire situation that we nitude of the problem to which we are to address ourselves We may not blink the facts but et on We may take unction to ourselves for our philanthropic zeal in caring for our unfortunates in penal and eleemosynary institutions, but that will not suffice We must frankly consider by what means the number of these unfortunates may be reduced If we fail to do this we convict ourselves of cowardice or is for the insane, the feeble-minded, the vicious, the epileptic, and plume ourselves upon our munificence But if all these unfortunates could be redeemed from their thralldom, and these countless millions turned back into the channels of trade, civilization would take on a newHere is one of the problems that calls aloud to education for a solution and will not be denied
One of the avowed purposes of education is to lift society to a higher plane of thinking and acting, and it is always and altogether pertinent to make an inventory to discover if this laudable purpose is being accomplished Such an inventory can be ated either to a pessimist or to an opti or receding, the analyst oftendiscoveries
It must be admitted by the most devoted and patriotic American that our civilization includes many elements that can truly be denominated frivolous, superficial, artificial, and inconsequential As a people, we seek to be entertained, but fail to make a nice distinction between entertainment and amusement War, it is true, has caused us to think audy, and the superficial stillappeal to us We are quite happy to wear paste dia have we been substituting the fictitious for the genuine that we have contracted the habit of loose, fictitious thinking So much does the show element appeal to us that we incline to parade even our troubles Simplicity and sincerity, whether in dress, in speech, or in conduct, have so long been foreign to our daily living and thinking that we incline to style these qualities as old-fogyish
A hundred ormen came to a certain city to enlist for the war
As they h the railway station they rent the air hooping and yells and otherfellows old, but their real manhood was overlaid with a veneer of rudeness that could not commend them to the admiration of cultivated persons Inside the station was another group of young nified, and decorous The contrast between the two groups was , and the bystanders were led to wonder whether it requires a world-war to teach our young men manners and whether the schools and ho of deportood land we nified; for decoruenuine culture
As a nation, we have been prodigal of our resources and, especially, of our tiard our leisure hours as a liability but, like the lotus eaters, have dallied in the realone on our pleasure-seeking ways all heedless of the clock, and, whenand e in the work of production
In soe us toward the fields and gardens We have shown ourselves a wasteful people, and in the wake of our wastefulness have followed a diser, and many another forality as we may, the effects abide to reality, and conservation of leisure Nor can we hope to avert a repetition of this crisis unless education coain, we have been wont to estimate ard as of value only such things as are quoted in the markets Wall Street takes precedence over the university and to the millionaire we accord the front seat even in some of our churches We accept the 's ive money prizes for work in our schools and thus strive to cos of the mind and of the spirit We have laid waste our forests, impoverished our fields, and defiled our landscapes to sti-houses Like Jason of old, we have wandered far in quest of the golden fleece We welcoold at its end We seek to scale the heights of Oly the conceit that, once we have scaled these heights, we shall be equal to the Gods
To indulge in even such a brief review of soreeable task, but diagnosis must necessarily precede the application of remedies If we are to reconstruct education in order to effect a reconstruction of society we must know our problem in advance, that we may proceed in a rational way Reconstruction cannot be made permanently effective by haphazard methods We must visualize clearly the objectives of our endeavors in order to obviate wrong methods and futility We must have the whole et on in the work of reconstruction It were reeable to dwell upon our achievements, and they are many, but the process of reconstruction has to do with the affected parts These ery and the arts of healing We need to become acutely conscious that the present will become the past and that there will be a new present which will take on the same qualities that now characterize our present We need to feel that the future will look back to our present and coeneration And the only way to ht present
CHAPTER THREE
THE FUTURE AS RELATED TO THE PRESENT
In planning a journey the one constant is the destination All the other elements are variable, and, therefore, subordinate So, also, in planning a course of study The qualities to be developed through the educational processes are the constants, while the agencies by which these qualities are to be attained are subject to change The course of study provides for the school activities for the child for a period of twelve years, and it is altogether pertinent to inquire what qualities we hope to develop by means of these school activities To do this effectively we es from the school period and ask ourselves what qualities we hope to have him possess at the close of this period If we decide upon such qualities as ie, loyalty, reverence, a sense of responsibility, integrity, and serenity, we have discovered some of the constants tohich all the work of the twelve yearsa course of study toward these constants we do not restrict the scope of the pupil's activities; quite the reverse We thus enlarge the concept of education both for himself and his teachers and emphasize the fact that education is a continuous process and rades or subjects For the teachers we establish goals of school endeavor and thus unify and articulate all their efforts We focus their attention upon the pupil as they would all wish to see him when he completes the work of the school
If children are asked why they go to school, nine out of ten, perhaps, will reply that they go to school to learn arith purpose is in teaching, probably three out of five teachers will answer that they are actuated by a desire to cause their pupils to know arithraphy, and history
One of the other five teachersout of her past accu for citizenshi+p, and the fifth will say quite frankly that she is groping about, all the while, searching for the answer to that very question It would be futile to ask the children why they desire knowledge of these subjects and therethe same question to the three teachers
They teach arithmetic because it is in the course of study; it is in the course of study because the superintendent put it there; and the superintendent put it there because some other superintendent has it in his course of study
Now ariths a child can study; but the child takes it because the teacher prescribes it, and the teacher takes it on faith because the superintendent takes it on faith and she cannot go counter to the dictum of the superintendent Besides, it is far easier to teach arithht of this subject to a place in the course of study ToThey have been contracting this habit through all the years since the beginning of their school experience, until now it seems as inevitable as any other habitual affair It is quite asIf there were no arithue subconsciously, there could be no school; for arithain, let it be said that there is no thought here of inveighing against arithmetic or any other subject of the curriculum Not arithmetic in itself, but the arithmetic habit constitutes the incubus, the evil spirit that needs to be exorcised
This arithin, doubtless, in the traditional concept of knowledge as power An adage is not easily controverted or eradicated The copy-books of the fathers proclaie is power, and the children accepted the dictue is power, the procedure of the schools and the course of conduct of the teachers during all these years would have ample justification The entire process would seee we should have power--and power is altogether desirable The trouble is that we have been confusing knowledge and wisdoe and wisdo one, have ofttiht us that e are relatively impotent for the reason that they have not learned how to use their knowledge in the way of generating power Gasoline is an inert substance, but, under well-understood conditions, it affords power Water is not power, but e is convenient and serviceable, but its greatest utility lies in the fact that it can be e power