Ai Ai Oi 0! 1 i 41 51 4j 9! 1 : 6 = lHIIIIIUI!|!|tHlH ^— -( 1 ATIO OF OUR. SCHOOL I 1 1 lUlllii lilill ill 1 FREDERIC W.SANDERS !l|l!)l ;i;i!i.;i!' r Sanders - Southern Branch of the University of California Los Angeles Form L I This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 5 192ft JUL 1 S ib2i APR 1 8 1929 '^'A^ 17 J929 JUL : DEC U ^9^^ NOV 6 1958 -15»n-8,'24 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS SOME EDUCATIONAL POSTULATES AND PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS AS TO THE ORGANIZATION OF SCHOOLS BY FREDERIC W. SANDERS, A. M. (Harvard), Ph. D. (Chicago) Sometime Member of the Territorial Board of Education of New Mexico, President of the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, Principal of the Lincoln (Neb.) High School, Assistant Professor of Pedagogy in West Virginia University, Lecturer on Social Economics and Education for the University of Chicago, Honorary Fellow at Clark University, University Fellow in Sociology at Columbia University, etc. THE PALMER COMPANY BOSTON 66060 Copyright 1915 BY The Palmer Company Newcomb & Gauss, Printers, Salem, Mass. 30.\ \ THE AUTHOR'S FELLOW WORKERS IN EDUCATION but especially to JOHN DEWEY a social philosopher with the scientist's (leterniination to test his theories; in whose Chicago Elementary School the author first saw what interest could do for cultural development and practical efficiency^ G. STANLEY HALL genetic psychologist tvhose great idea, richly stored ynind, and fecund imagina- tion have made him the most inspiring and sug- gestive of teachers and JOHN H. FRANCIS practical idealist with the vision of the school as a microcosm in which the child shall find the man he should be, and with the determination to realize that vision ^t)t0 Boofc 10 SDedtcateti PREFACE If the author has read aright the signs of the times, as they appear in educational conferences and in popular discussions, there is now a really urgent demand for practical and reasonably definite sug- gestions as to the reorganization of our schools. There is especial need for a definite plan that shall show how to retain that luhich is essential to the general education of every future man and woman, at the same time that a place is found for the. vari- ous forms of special, technical or other vocational training that may he necessary for the individual hoy or girl. A year spent in studying not merely the schools, but the economic, political and social conditions underlying and overlying the school system of Ger- many has convinced the author that Europe at its best has not found a solution for the most pressing of our educational problems. The first problem for our educators to solve is that suggested at the close of the preceding paragraph; a problem that is all the more serious because the ardent advocates of general culture, on the one hand, and of practical efficiency, on the other, alike refuse to face it, while the practical schoolmen of our own country, fol- lowing the lead of Europe, seem generally to think that they have disposed of the difficulty when they VI PEEFACE can say that their schools are prepared to give either general culture or technical training, or, in some cases, will give a mixture of both in such proportions as the pupil or his parents may elect, — thus reliev- ing the educator of his special duty to society and to youth, by unloading his most weighty responsibility on to the shoulders of the ignorant boy or girl or of a parent that may be no less ignorant. Deeply impressed by this social problem of the educator, and hardly less so by the psychological problem of how to plan the ivorh of the school to meet and make the most of the several stages of the young being's physical and mental development as he passes from early childhood to late adolescence, the author, on his return from Europe, sought to with- draw wholly from the field of "higher" and "normal" education, and to obtain a position in which he could work directly at the problems of elementary and secondary education. During four years as principal of the high school of l^ebraska's capital and educational center he was enabled to put to the test much of that which is suggested in the following pages for the "secondary transition" (or intermedi- ate) department and for the "adolescent" depart- ment (or high school proper). He has not yet been able to make the same rigorous test, under his own direction, of the whole of that which relates to the play school, primary transition department, and the elementary department (or "grammar school", as it is called in many of our cities), although much of PKEFACE Vll this he has observed in successful operation in one school or another in America or Europe. A great part of what is here suggested has been presented to bodies of teachers and school administrators in dif- ferent parts of the United States, and practically all of it has been presented in the form of lectures to the summer school of the University of N^ebraska and to the pedagogical department of Clark Univer- sity. The reception accorded it in the limited fields indicated and the comments of able, practical educa- tors has encouraged the writer to believe that the time is ripe for the publication of this essay in educa- tional organization. While the purpose of the author's work is prima- rily practical, yet he is unwilling to put it forth without a brief presentation of the educational phi- losophy underlying it, and he trusts that the eight postulates preceding the plan of organization will not be thought to detract from the practical nature of the work. While a few ultra-practical school- men might be better pleased if this introduction were omitted, the author is reasonably confident that the greater number of school administrators and teachers will feel that the preliminary theses add to the value of the work, and of course they will make it more available as a basis for reading-circle work and normal-school discussion. F. W. S. Los Angeles, California. SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS Postulates I. Purpose of education to enable members of society to attain highest possible development page 1 Corollaries la page 1 & page 1 2 page 1 Remarks in elucidation of postulate page 2 II. The human being a psycho-physical unit page 6 Eemarks page 6 III. Three stages of individual development and two transitional periods, of great significance for the organ- ization of education page 7 Remarks page 9 IV. Correspondence between development of race and of individual significant for education page 10 Remarks page 10 V. Education should be influenced, but not dominated, by the inherent tendencies of developing youth, page 11 Eemarks page 13 VI. In education the policy of the open door should be maintained page 16 Eemarks page 16 VII. The best education is the most economical, page 17 Remarks page 17 VIII. Now is the time for practical reforms in the school page 18 Remarks page 18 Practical Suggestions I. General Plan of Organizing Schools, with the psycho- physical development as the basis of classification, with constant opportunity for readjustment, with a mini- mum of work for the less gifted, with much individual work within the classes, and with the possibility for outside w^ork in cultivation of a special interest through- out the school course page 19 X SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS §1. In general V^ge 19 §2. Economy of this Plan Compared with the Plan Usually Followed page 22 §3. Enfranchisement and Stimulation of the Elemen- tary School Teacher, not bound to an iron schedule for an arbitrary period, with uniform results for all pupils, but entrusted with the guidance of the devel- opment of a group of children throughout a natural period of their psycho-physical development, page 25 §4. Benefits to Different Classes of Pupils page 30 §5. No Exceptional Demands upon Teacher, expert supervision being assumed page 37 §6. Plan to be considered with reference to the con- tent of the curriculum, etc., of the several depart- ments of the school page 43 IT. Scope of the Several Departments of the School §1. The Play School page 43 §2. The Primary Transition Department page 52 §3. The Elementary Department A. General view page 53 B. Curriculum 1. Beckoning and Mathematics page 54 2. Language page 56 3. Economic and cultural development of man- kind, or History page 58 4. Geography (connecting 3 and 5) page 59 5. Nature Study, or Elementary Science, page 60 6. (a) Art and (6) Manual Training page 60 7. Physical Culture page 61 C. Usual Daily Program : Discussion page 61 Table page 68 §4. Secondary Transition Department A. General View page 69 B. Curriculum 1. Required Courses a. Science pa-ge 75 6. History (and Government) pa^ge 81 SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS XI e. Literature and Esthetics page 84 d. Physical Culture page 90 e. Art page 90 2. Elective Courses (either practical or cultural) page 91 3. Optional Course page 91 C. Daily Program page 91 S5. Secondary Department, or Adolescent Depart- ment A. General View page 93 B. First Year's Work 1. English page 94 2. History page 94 3. Laboratory Course in Science page 95 4 and 5. Physical Culture and Art page 96 6. Elective Work (vocational or cultural) page 96 page 96 C. After the First Year page 99 ITI. Adaptation of Plan to Several Classes of Young Peo- ple §1, Girls page 104 §2. The Normal Child In the Play School page 107 In the Primary Transition Department page 107 In the Elementary Department page 110 In the Secondary Transition Department page 110 In the Adolescent Department page 110 §3. The Child of Slow Development page 113 §4. The Precocious Child page 115 §5. The Young Person Who Enters School Very Late page 116 §6. The Industrial Worker and the Evening School page 119 The Reorganization of Our Schools POSTULATES I. The purpose of education is to assist the indi- vidual to make the most of himself, and thus do most for others; to enable him to grow into the largest life possible for one having so rich an en- dowment as that with which he is provided at birth. C orollaries of this truth are : la. The child himself must be studied in order that education may fit his needs and adapt it- self to his several stages of development, b. Since, at any given stage of its development, the being that is, is the outcome of the develop- ment of an earlier stage of life, and as long as its development is incomplete its present condi- tion must be considered with reference to the later stages through which it is to pass, it fol- lows that, to interpret aright the life of the in- dividual child of today, we must study his past and that of the ancestral forms of life out of which his has developed, and we must consider also all that is known of the later stages of de- velopment of similar beings. 2. Information, carefully prepared, must be given to the child, in addition to whatever else 2 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS may be done for him in the effort to provide him with a suitable environment for such a de- velopment of all the nascent powers of mind and body as will most enlarge his life. Because as far as possible every individual of each suc- ceeding generation should be given the vantage ground afforded by a general knowledge of what has so far been achieved by any of the human race, a very important part of the business of the educator is to summarize what men have so far learned in art and science and philosophy, and to impart a knowledge of the principal results of these achievemejits of mankind to the indi- viduals of the rising generation, even though it may be impossible to explain to the greater number of the latter how these facts and truths were first brought to light. Remarks in elucidation of the postulate: — To speak somewhat more in detail, although it may be difficult to make the necessary distinctions as clearly as they ought to be made, we should, I think, recog- nize that the purpose of education is neither, on the one hand, to make the individual life an ideal one, in the sense of bringing it into conformity with an a priori ideal having a definite content, nor, on the other hand, to fit the individual to play a prescribed part in that particular organization of society into which he happens to be born. Such educational ideals are too static. The one assumes that we al- ready know the content of perfection of life; the THE EEORGAXIZATIOX OF OUR SCHOOLS 6 other, that the present organization of society is a final form to which not alone the present life of the individual, but that of all future individuals, must be conformed. It does not seem to me safe to assume that fitness for one's immediately present environment is the norm by which to judge of human progress or of height and completeness of development in general. The degenerate, sightless and limbless parasite prob- ably has such fitness in the highest degTee ; but with this perfect adaptation to its narrow special environ- ment the power of adaptation to a larger and more varied environment is gone. The educator's work should no more be determined by a narrow interpre- tation of the theory of evolution by natural selection than it should be prescribed by a traditional or a purely metaphysical ideal of a perfect life. "What seems to be desirable is whf.t might be called a rational opportmiis n, the application of enlightened common sense to the preservation of a sort of mov- ing equilibrium. Xot less truly a part of man's nature than his inherited instincts is the highly de- veloped reason by which he is enabled not alone to adapt his conduct to quite new experiences, but also to learn things not immediately necessary for his next step in life ; and, as a result of this, to modify his immediate environment or to pass from it into one that his cultivated insight leads him to believe will make possible for him a larger life, i. e., one that may be less in harmony with that immediate 4 THE REOKGANIZATIOX OF OUE SCHOOLS environment in wliich lie was born, but that will be in more perfect harmony with the universal and ap- parently unalterable habits of the Universe at large, so far as he has learned them, and that will thus, by reason of a more perfect unity between his individual life and the universal existence, give him the largest, the most divine life possible for man. Studying the phenomena of life in the full light of instinctive and rational experience, we cannot but learn much as to the conditions of a satisfactory life ; and each one of us, whether as private individ- ual or as teacher, is answerable to society as well as to his own conscience for the application of what he thus learns. To me personally, it seems that such a study of life, of nature, human and non-human, makes it evident that human happiness is the ideal for human effort, and that the greatest happiness, quantitatively considered (if that conception be legit- imate), not alone for the race at large, but also tor the individual, is also the highest happiness, ethical- ly considered ; that, in other words, our happiness is measured by the largeness of our love, and this means the breadth of our sympathies, which in turn is de- pendent upon the widest possible extent of knowl- edge, requiring the fullest possible symmetrical development of the potentialities of our natiirc, psychical and physical. The largest possible devel- opment of our nature does not mean the fullest pos- sible development of each individual tendency that exists in a human being, each trait being considerevi THE KEORGAXIZATIOX OF OUR SCHOOLS 5 by itself; for the greatest possible development of any one trait, either physical or mental, would doubtless mean a corresponding suppression of many others: but the largest possible development of the whole nature requires the maintenance of a certain symmetry and proportion in the cultivation of our special instincts and abilities. Only so great a de- velopment of each of these is normally desirable, as is consistent with the largest possible development of the iL'hoIe nature. It seems to me that this principle, administered in the light of experience and reason, is quite satisfactory. It is true that the recognition of this principle makes restraint as well as encour- agement a part of the work of education, and leaves it to the educator's discretion, in the light of his whole experience, emotional, instinctive and rational, to determine when and where to apply the brake and when and where to encotirage the child's im- pulses. But, that science or philosophy should be expected to give us an unerring rule providing specifically for every detail, and informing us in advance just exactly to what extent we should en- courage and to what extent restrain the several nat- ural tendencies of each individual, seems to me as childish as to demand the moon for a plaything. He who expects from the study of nature, of evolution, of the spontaneotis activity of the universe, to derive such a formula, has profited very little from the hard won knowledge man has so far gained of the consti- tution of the universe: for that knowledge points to G THE REORGANIZATIOX OF OUE SCHOOLS the truth that "eternal vigilance is the price of lib- erty," or, in other words, that in the evolution of humanity man's reason as well as his instincts have been developed, and that he must use the former continually, as well as the latter, to adjust his own adult life and the life of his offspring to, and to keep them in adjustment with, the environment formed by the complex universal existence of which these individual human lives are a part. II. The human being is a psycho-physical unit in which the association of mind with body is so intimate, the connection so close, that neither can be acted upon independently of the other : physical changes involve mental changes ; physical culture involves the cultivation of certain mental states ; and mental, moral and spiritual development or?, possible only through the exercise of physical powers. Remarks: — ^^Vhile it is true that one may culti- vate certain physical powers to an extent prejudicial to certain of the higher psychical powers, or' certain psychical powers in such a way as to neglect and in- jure many physical powers, — just as one may culti- vate one physical power to the prejudice of another physical power, or one kind of psychical activity to the prejudices of other kinds of psychical activity, — yet in general the highest human development is dependent upon the symmetrical development of mind and body, a high degree of perfection in the former being dependent upon the most perfect and THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 7 symmetrical development of the latter ; so that even if the development of our bodily powers, if physical culture were not in and for itself a highly desirable end of education (which, however, it is), it would still be the necessary concern of the educator as a sine qua non for the best mental deA'elopment. In this connection it is pertinent to quote two statements that have been forcefully put by Mr. Cephas Guillet in his article on "Recapitulation and Education" in volume VII of the Pedagogical Sem- inary. The first is certainly suggestive even if its truth has not yet been perfectly established ; and the second seems to me, at least, to be as certain as any truth can be that is neither given us by intuition (as is the fact of self-existence) nor capable of a mathe- matical demonstration. On page 429 jMr. Guillet says that "Biology teaches us that it is the over- specialized species that have always succumbed in the struggle. ]\[an owes his preeminence to the fact that he is born an immature and generalized form and long retains this condition of plasticity." The other statement (on page 433) is that "Every part of the living body is also in effect part of the soul, and the atrophy of any part of the body involves the partial paralysis of the soul." III. It is of great significance in education that the study of human beings at different stages of de- velopment has made evident not only that (a) individuals differ greatly in various psychic and physical particulars and capacities, but that 8 THE KEOECJANIZATIOX OF OUR SCHOOLS (h) the same individual differs greatly at dif- ferent stages of natural development, and that (c) notwithstanding the individual peculiarities there is a general likeness in the mental and bodily powers of all normal members of the same race at corresponding stages of develop- ment, and that, finally, tJie?'e are at least three fairly ivell marked stages of ysyclio- physical development falling ivitJiin the com- monly recognized periods of systematic school education, separated hy two transition periods, which stages of development are so distinct as to suggest that they should he made the bases of the organization and grading of our school system. These stages of psycho-phvsical development are : — A. The period of quite rapid growth prior to the "second dentition" and the approximate com- pletion of the growth of the brain in bulk — which might be designated as the period of childhood proper, a. The transition period of retarded growth and comparative delicacy, at the time of the "second dentition", most marked generally in American children about the eighth year. B. The period of slow but steady growth, follow- ing the establishment of a new equilibrium after the completion of the transition period just mentioned, and lasting until puberty. Thia appears to be a period especially favor- THE EEORGAlSriZATIOX OF OUR SCHOOLS 9 able to the establishment of useful automa- tisms, and might be designated as the period of boyhood and girlhood proper. h. The critical transition period of pubescence, said to come generally in the United States in the case of girls about the fourteenth year, and in the case of boys about a year later. C. The period of adolescence proper. Remarks: It would perhaps be well for the edu- cator to regard the year in which puberty is actually attained and the year or two immediately following as constituting a special stage of development, differ- ing considerably from that of later adolescence, as well as differing radically from that of boyhood or girlhood preceding it. This stage is unquestionably the most critical stage of human development with which the teacher has to deal. It seems hardly necessary to add that no one maintains that these periods are marked off by per- fectly sharp lines ; it is not maintained, for example, that the general state of mind and body of a girl during the few months immediately preceding her first menstrual discharge is less like the mental and physical state of the same girl three months after the first catamenia than it is like her psycho-physical condition on her tenth birthday. Nevertheless, al- though the boundaries are not sharp, the stages are fairly distinct and of great significance ; and it is well to notice that under our present system of pub- lic school organization in the United States the three 10 THE EEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS stages of development above referred to as (1) cliildhood proper, (2) boyhood and girlhood proper, and (3) adolescence, correspond roughly to the pri- mary school, the ''grammar", or intermediate school, and the high school. But unfortunately the corre- spondence is only roughly approximated, and to say nothing of the lack of any clear line of distinction in method between the instruction in the kindergarten and primary school, on the one hand, and that in the upper, or "grammar school'' grades, on the other (the division in fact coming rather between the kinder- garten, where there is one, on the one hand, and the primary and gi'ammar grades together, on the other), it is a patent (and I think a very unfortunate) fact that the higher grammar-school grades deal chiefly with adolescents, IV. The comparative study of the mental and phys- ical development of men and of sub-human animals, of races and of individuals, in the light of the doctrine of evolution, has sug- gested certain interesting truths as to the meanings of mental and physical phenomena, which it is foolish to ignore, even though it be granted that these suggested probabilities have not yet been demonstrated to be true. RemarJcs: It is not only unwise to ignore the possibility that there may be great significance in some of the correspondences hetvjeen the develop- ment of the race and that of the individual, but it is silly to assume (as has been assumed by one or more THE KEORGANIZATIOX OF OUR SCHOOLS 11 writers) that if these correspondences be significant it is incumbent upon us to read them in only one way, and to interpret the development of the race in the light of that of the individual, but not the de- velopment of the individual in the light of that of the race. If the correspondences are significant, we can not only learn something as to the development of the race from that of the individual, but also something as to the development of the individual from our (admittedly imperfect) knowledge of the development of the race. Even though an enthusias- tic student of genetic psychology may sometimes ask us to go W'itli him a little too fast and too far, tee must, nevertheless, if we are open-minded seekers for light, reckon with genetic psycliology in looking for solutions of educational problems. Although the "recapitulation" theory* may be unproven and the "culture epoch" theoryf may have been assumed with too much definiteness by some enthusiasts, and although the existence of "nascent stages" t may be less satisfactorily established than the law of gravity, yet the educator that ignores these theories is turn- ing his back upon a possible (to speak very conserv- atively) source of light, and in doing so is unfaith- ful to the duty his vocation lays upon him. V. The acceptance of postulates III and IV docs not at all require the educator to follow slavis^hlv * See Cephas Giiillet on "Recapitulation and Education" in the Pedag-oarical Seminary, vol. VII. tSee the writiners of the American Herhartians penerallv, sucb as De Garmo's "Herbart and the Herba.rtlans" (Scribners) t See the WTltlngs of Dr. G. Stanley Hall. 12 THE EEOKGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS the tastes, inclinations and impulses showing themselves in the child at a given stage of de- velopment, but it does require that the educa- tor should carefully study these tendencies, in order to avail himself of the light thus gained to take the line of least resistence in assisting the child to such a development of the potential- ities of his nature as shall make possible for him a large, rich, beautiful, serviceable and happy life ; that is to say, in order to give the child such an education as shall enable him to so far harmonize his life with things as they are, physical and social, as to be capable of advan- cing freely, along the line of development sug- gested by his individual genius, into the largest life possible for a being having the endowments of humanity. RemarJis: This means that the possibly cruel and savage impulses of a child at a given stage of devel- opment, while they should not be encouraged,* are yet to be considered by those whose duty it is to giiide the child's development; these and all other instincts and natural inclinations of the child being itsed in his education, sometimes as suggesting methods of approach to valuable knowledge and * Calling to mind President G. Stanley Hall's well known tad- pole illustration, it may be suggested that biology has taught us in the case of certain batrachians that where the condi- tions are too favorable to the exercise of the organs adapted to the creature's early, water-inhabiting stage of development, it may never fully mature into the land-living stage of develop- ment characteristic of the genus to which it belongs, but may- carry gills to the day of its death. THE EEOEGANIZATIO>"^ OF OUR SCHOOLS 13 achievement, at other times as affording points of departure for training in self-control, balance and poise of life. The work of the teacher is perhaps best indicated by the term guidance. While the teacher's fnnction, most assnredly, is not to drive the pupils along a beaten educational highway, and probably it would be a mistake to conceive of the function of the teach- er even as that of one who should lead the young to follow in his own footsteps, yet the teacher's business is to GUIDE, to accompany the young in their voyages of discovery into the by them as yet unexplored uni- verse which lies all about them, to give them the benefit of his previous partial exploration of that which is to them wholly ten^a incognita, and to point out to them the shortest path to those points of van- tage giving broad vistas from which the young ex- ])lorer can most intelligently plan his ova\ future excursions. It might naturally be supposed that the scion of the most highly evolved genus of living beings of which we have any knowledge, the marvelous com- plexity of whose organism surpasses the most won- derful miracle of which the poetic imagination of man has ever conceived, would be provided at birth with a nervous system so moulded by the experiences of the stock from which his life buds forth, that the successive instincts that find expression as his life develops to maturity would of themselves go far to make his life a satisfactorv one, even in the absence 14 THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS of any consciously directed education on the part of his elders. But we should remember that in the economy of nature it is quite possible that the j)aren- ial instincts of the adult may be substituted for in- stincts of self-direction in a being whose infancy is to be long continued ; so that, freed from the care and strain of self-preservation and self -protection, the immature being may long retain that high de- gree of plasticity and educability through which alone it can gain the benefit of the many and impor- tant new experiences of different individual mem- bers of the highly evolved and very delicately and complexly organized race to which it belongs — ex- periences that may have been too recently gained and too rapidly accumulated to have made a defi- nitely heritable impress upon the nervous system. In the light of this reflection it would seem that to leave the child to be wholly guided by his own indi- vidual instincts would be to force what from the stand- point of civilization must be regarded as a precocious maturity upon him, and thus to deprive him of the present enjoyment and future benefit of the pro- longed youth for which nature has made such ample provision, the result of which deprivation must be a stunted human product, whose psychic growth would be greatly diminished, if not wholly arrested on a low plane of development. In such a mistaken application of the idea of loyalty to nature, in thus trusting the child's development wholly to his own instincts at every stage of development, we should Till-: iJKOilGANIZATIOX OF OUK SCHOOLS 15 really be ac'tin<>; in disre£2:ard of and in opposition to the method of nature, which has made large pro- vision for the development of humanity through the ■parental instinct of (juidance and by means of the power of mental abstraction that mankind has ac- quired, which makes it possible to conmiunicate a great part of the results of recent individual human experiences to those who have not themselves had these particular ex]:)eriences, who may never have them, but who may nevertheless be benefitted by the knowledge that has been gained through them. We too often forget that civilization is itself a natural product of human development, although one com- municable rather by tradition, by education, than by inheritance. An admirable illustration of the pedagogical value of the instincts and inclinations in the child that appear to repeat those of an earlier stage of adult human development, is offered by the use that may be made of this similarity between the development of the race and of the individual, to teach the child, (almost unconsciously to himself, but in the most real and vital and convincing manner) the history of the development of the human race to its present stage of culture, by presenting to the child, by de- scription and illustration, the successive stages of the development of the human race towards its pres- ent grade of civilization, at those stages of his ovnx individual development from infancy to maturity, at which he is best fitted to sympathize with, imitate. 16 THE EEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS and enter into the spirit of the several grades of social development portrayed. Much can be done in this way; and the youth who has thus learned history, who has thus learned step by step, at the right time, in such a way as to feel the naturalness of it, the genesis of our present culture — of our in- stitutions and ideas, our material and mental devel- opment — has a vital knowledge of history which many a professor might envy, a knowledge that has the great practical value of protecting him from the extravagance and inconsiderate impatience of the Utopian idealist and the revolutionary reformer, and of leading him to be at the same time and in the best sense conservative and progressive, saving him at once from the despair and cynicism of the pessi- mist, and from the blind fatuity of the optimist, and giving him instead the poise and sanity of the hopeful, thoughtful and energetic meliorist. VI. In education the policy of the open door should be maintained as far as possible. Remarks: This requires not alone that we should (\o all that we can to have the young person's life rich and beautiful at any given stage of develop- ment, but that we should so do this as to keep the possibility open for him to proceed to the highest round of the educational ladder with the least loss of time and effort, in case he should later be able to carry his systematic education farther than may at an early stage seem probable; that his education shall be so carefully and broadly planned that what THE REOKGAXIZATIOX OF OUK SCHOOLS 17 he learns at any early stage of his development, whether in adolescence, boyhood, or childhood, shall not shut him np to just one line of development in the future. VII. The hest education that can possibly be af- forded, is the most economical, both for the community at large that provides it for its rising generation and for the individual families that offer it to their children. Beinarls: All the investigations of economists, publicists and statesmen point to the fact that the richest and most productive communities are those in which the people, the workers, are most intelli- gent and efficient, — that is, best educated (although not necessarily most schooled, or book learned). So that, even from the standpoint of tlie community or of the family that desires nothing higher than that its memhcrs shall he most largely possessed of the material goods of life, the development and improve- ment of education should he the chief interest. This would be true even if the life were not more than meat, and the body than raiment, even if the best education (in the true sense) were not of su- preme value from the standpoint of ability to live a large, rich, beautiful human life,- — to enable our young people to enter into their inheritance as the heirs of the ages and to enjoy the richness and beauty of this wonderful universe that is so largely a closed book to the narrow minds and undeveloped physical natures of the uneducated. 18 THE KEOEGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS VIII. Now is (always) the time for practical re- form in the school (as everywhere else). Remarks: There is no more insidious fallacy — ■ nothing so perfectly calculated to paralyze practical w^ork for the amelioration of human institutions — than the notion that our present business is simply to gather facts and submit hypotheses to laboratory tests, until we shall have a fairly complete body of scientifically established knowledge upon which to base practical action. Our knowledge will never be complete — at least until the need for the amelio- ration of human conditions shall have passed away ! — and it is always our duty to apply with the one hand the little insight that we have already gained, while with the other hand we are reaching out toward larger knowledge. Experience would seem to suggest that the greater our achievements in sci- ence, the more we shall be impressed by our igiio- rance, the vaster our conception of the unknown ly- ing before us, and hence the less ready we shall be to regard our knowledge as fairly complete. If we were to wait for that consummation, we should never take the first step toward improving the practical conditions of life. PRACTICAL SUGGESTIOiJ^S. I. As to the General Plan of Organizing the Schools. Section 1. The practical recognition of the pos- tulates hereinbefore set forth and the realization of the truth contained in them may best be attained, I believe, by such a flexible organization of the school system as is indicated below, in which the psycho- physical stages of development above referred to shall be taken as the bases of classification and grad- ing, in which there shall be ample opportunity for readjustment, and in which there shall be much in- dividual instruction without foregoing the benefiis of class work. Each school period corresponding to the stages of psycho-physical development mentioned above should be treated as one continuous class (whether lasting one year or four), in which class the core of the work should consist of a minimum curriculum for all, such as can be followed by the slowest and dull- est pupil that is not so far below the normal plane as to require education in a special school for de- fectives. Furthermore, in planning the school work, provision should be made for the pursuit by every child of some special, individual interest not em- braced in the prescribed curriculum — such as learn- ing to play upon a musical instrument, cultivating a special talent for drawing or painting, learning a foreign language not provided for in the curricu- 20 THE KEOKGANIZATIOX OF OUR SCHOOLS lum, etc.* In addition to this the plan of daily work must be so flexible that the children having special aptitudes in any one, in several, or in all directions can be given extra work therein. More diflficult problems or a greater number of problems illustrating the principles of which the whole class is endeavoring to gain a working knowledge, may be given to those showing mathematical talent ; more elaborate or a greater number of observations and reports in nature study may be called for from those whose ability lies in this direction ; while in the case of others the surplus ability and energy may find its natural outlet in more reading along certain lines, in more elegant or in a greater number of manual achievements, etc. Further than this, the ability and energy of the more fortunately endowed chil- dren, wherever practicable (and that it is generally ])racticable many teachers have testified), should be employed to some extent in helping their less ad- vanced classmates. This is desirable not alone for the moral culture incidental to this kind of co-opera- tion, nor merely because a child can sometimes learn l)etter from his fellows a little in advance of him than from adults, but also because we learn so much by teaching, that, aside from the moral benefit com- ing to the child teacher from this cultivation of the spirit of helpfulness, his measure of mastery of the * One of the most serious defects in the present organization of education is that it condemns the especially talented either to forego the proper early cultivation of their talent or else to rive up such a general education as all men and women need in order to enable them to live large, useful, happy, human lives. THE EEOKGAIflZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 21 special kind of work in which he excels his fellows will usually be much increased by this kind of exer- cise of his powers. But however else provision should be made for meeting the needs of the brighter members of the class, a part of their surplus energy and quickness to learn should be taken advantage of to give them more leisure for healthful, out-of-door exercise and recreation, lest they suffer from some of the forms of ill health, especially nervous dis- orders, to which the child of precocious mental de- velopment so often falls victim. It is evident that the kind of procedure here pro- posed, in the conduct of the school, involves a large amount of individual work, but the mistake must not be made of supposing that it would favor the abolition of class work. Far from it. A large part of the work of the school would be class work; not only would much of the original exposition and later explanation by the teacher be given to the class as a whole, but much of the "recitation", or response of the pupils, would be given to the class as a whole or to a large group thereof. Indeed, the experience of those who have worked along the lines indicated seems to confirm what might naturally be expected — that the attention of the other members of the class, and the liveliness and excellence of the contribution of the individual pupil will be all the gTeater if, for example, the latter has been observing or doing some- thing in nature study with which his classmates are not equally familiar, or if he is readinc; somethine: 22 THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUB SCHOOLS which the whole class has not been engaged in read- ing for a length of time determined by the size of the class and the slowness of the poorest reader it may contain ! Section 2. As large classes could be successfully conducted by a single teacher under the plan pro- posed as could be successfully conducted by a single teacher under any existing system. Under this sys- tem there would naturally be considerable group work within the class ; but these groups would be flexible and constantly changing, and the child would not be working with group A in reading, although unskillful in that kind of activity, just because he might happen to be quick at figures and expert in manual work ; the group would not be fixed for the term or for just so many weeks upon the b'asis of the child's apparent brightness or backwardness in gen- eral, but groups would form themselves, as it were, in every hind of scJiool occupation, in accordance with what the different children might be doing in the several lines of school activity. One of the great- est benefits of this would be that the children would not be prejudiced, and their self-confidence unduly discouraged or encouraged, as the case might be, by an artificial estimate of their rank among their fel- lows; but greater mutual respect, a healthier self- confidence, and therefore more pleasure in life and greater zest and success for eveiy individual, would arise out of the recognition of the fact that in school children do not necessarily belong in one of the two THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 23 opposite classes, the "bright" and the "dull", but that child A may be able to do this thing better than C and D, while D may be able to do the next thing better than A and not so well as B, and so on.* Although it would doubtless be well, under any system, to have small classes, containing not more than two dozen children, I would emphasize the fact that this system would lend itself quite as well as any other to economy in the number of teachers, for with the help of one or more assistant teachers or normal training school cadets in each school, who might divide their time between several different classes, — one of them assisting teacher A in one room the first part of the forenoon, and working in teacher B's class in another room later in the day, — class teachers could work successfully with large classes, and thus the expense for teachers' salaries need not be great. The especial function of the cadets or assistant teachers should generally be to help the children individually or in small groups ; and the class teacher might well assign the conduct of the extra work of the brighter or more advanced pupils to the assistant, giving her own especial atten- tion more largely to the less able children, because * For an especially interesting account of successful indi- vidual work in classes of average size, see Mrs. Adelia R. Hornbrook's "Laboratory Method of Teaching Mathematics in Secondary Schools", American Educational Bulletin No. VI, American Book Co., 1895. See also the lecture and bibliography on "Individual Instruction" in the valuable syllabus of Cornell Univer.sity Course of Fi-iday Lectures on High School M'ork and Administration, and the elaborate presentation of the results of this method in the case of a foreign language class given in Preston W. Search's "Ideal School" (Appleton, New York). 2-1 THE REOKGANIZATIOX OF OUE SCirOOLS to help bright children skill in teaching is relatively less important than knowledge of the subject (in which the cadet, fresh from her studies, is generally not much, if at all, inferior to the experienced teach- er), whereas the duller children need all the peda- gogical skill that the experienced teacher can bring to their assistance.* It should be borne in mind that under the system herein proposed, in which the same class-teacher would have charge of a class throughout the whole of a given school period corresponding to one of the stages of psycho-physical development referred to in Postulate III, the number of classes in a given school could most readily, and in a manner so flex- ible as to be almost automatic, be adapted to the siz3 and wealth of the community. While a comparative- ly small community might not have more than three or four classes in its elementary department (or school of boyhood and girlhood proper), starting one each year, a larger community with its correspond- ingly larger school fund, might start classes not only semi-annually but quarterly, bi-monthly, or even of- tener, so that any child in this stage of psycho- physical development could, at any time throughout the school year, find some class that ivould he almost * For a discussion of the economy of making: use of assistant teacliers to work in the same room with tlie teachers of large classes, see especially the syllabus (with bibliogi-aphy) of a lec- ture by Superintendent Kennedy of Batav-ia. N. Y., given on page 53 of the Cornell University Course of Friday Lectures on High School "Work and Administration; and see also Mr. Kennedy's presentation of the subject on page 295 of the National Educational Association's Preceedings for 1901. THE EEOKGAXIZATIOX OF OUR SCHOOLS 25 perfecihj adapted to his exact stage of advancement ; and in snch large schools, while it wonld doubtless generally be advisable for a child to continue in the same class, under the same teacher, throughout the whole school period in question (a period roughly estimated at from three to four years in length in the case of the elementary department), it would be possible at any time to transfer from one class to an- other a child whose mental and physical growth was especially rapid or especially slow, or who by reason of the peculiarity of his own or his teacher's dispo- sition, should not be getting on well in the class in which he happened at the time to be. In such a large school, having a number of classes started at nearly the same time some of the classes might be proceed- ing quite rapidly while others were progi-essing very slowly, the teacher of class A might be able to get most of her class very rapidly over the ground in its study of elementary mathematics but might have to go very slow with them in English, while class B might be making especially rapid progi'ess in Eng- lish but be slower than other classes in mathematics or in the acquisition of manual dexterity. It would be easy under such conditions to transfer pupils from one class to another so as to gi'oup the children in such a manner that they could work together most successfully and harmoniously. Section 3. While the matters already referred to are important, the greatest benefit, perhaps, that would come from the adoption of the proposed sys- 26 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS tern of reorganizing our schools, is to be found in the change it would make in the relation of the teacher to her work, — the inspiring freedom it would give her when she should be released from the treadmill grind of a machine operative engaged upon a part of a part of something with the ultimate form of which she has nothing to do, and thus deprived of the stim- ulus and reward of the artist-worker, who has, and must have if he or she is to continue to be an artist, the satisfaction of carrying a piece of work to its nat- ural completion. No longer tryannized over by the ne- cessity of bringing every class and the whole class — the bright and the dull, the sanguine and the phleg- matic, those favored by a cultured and prosperous home and those handicapped by a home environment of poverty, ignorance and indifference, those well and those ill prepared — no longer kept in a constant state of nervous strain by the necessity of bringing each rapidly succeeding class, as a whole, to a pre- ordained point in the curriculum within a certain number of weeks so as to make connection with an- other equally short-lived class at a fixed date twelve, six or three months from the time she first looks her little company of individuals in the face, the teacher, transformed from a factory-hand into one whose work is dig-nified and rendered interesting by the fact that it covers the whole of a natural period of child life, instead of an arhitrary section of such a unit, may well feel the inspiration of the artist, find- ing continual delight in a noble work freely pursued. THE REOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 3t She conld then proceed serenely without undue haste, to do her best to help the children in her charge to the most perfect development individually possible for each one of them within the psycho-physical period of development constituting her field of work. Her duty would no longer be to impart to all of her pupils, regardless of their various idiosyncrasies, exactly the same amount of information in just so many subjects, and to train them all to exactly the same degree of proficiency in certain prescribed ac- tivities. But whenever any individual of her class should appear to have completed the period of psycho- physical development to which her department of the school was designed to minister, it would be her duty (after consultation with her principal and with the parents of the young person) to transfer the lat- ter to the next department of the school, even though the estimated time for the completion of the stage of development represented by her o^vn department had not elapsed and she should not be ready to pass her class as a whole over to the teacher in charge of the next higher department, and even though the young person in question, although more mature, should not be more, but should even be less proficient in the work of this department of tlie school than most of the classmates he would leave behind him. If, on the other hand, it should happen that the develop- ment of one or more of the children under the care of an elementary department teacher, for instance, should be so much more backward than that of the 28 THE KEORGAXIZATIOX OF OUE SCHOOLS average, that such child or children should not he mature enough to go on with the rest of the class, it would he the duty of the teacher of this' class, A, let us say, to transfer such children to the teacher of class B of the same department, — not necessarily to remain in class B until the B teacher should pro- mote her class as a whole to the secondary transition department and start again with a class of young- sters coming from the primary transition depart- ment, but each one of these children should remain until the teacher and the supervising authority should feel satisfied that he was mentally and phys- ically mature enough to enter upon the next stage of school life. When her pupils should have about reached the completion of the stage of boyhood and girlhood proper, as contradistinguished from the stage of pubescence, the elementary department teacher's work with her class would be done, and she would pass the young people on to the teachers of the secondary transition department, regardless of whether each and all of them could tell the year and day of the battle of Antietam, could work so many problems in percentage in so many minutes, could extract the cube root of a number, or even whether one or more of them were deficient in some pretty simple matter that the normal child might well be expected to master in the elementary department. The teacher's duty would be discharged when she had done her best for each child under her care ; uni- formity of result would not be required, she would THE EEOKGAXIZATIOX OF OUR SCHOOLS 29 be judged in a large "way, not by minute tests. The supervising officer would visit her class from time to time (not at fixed periods), would observe her work, and would find out how the children were getting on under her care; the supervisor would also know what was being done in the other classes, and how well, on the average, the children trained by the teacher under consideration were conducting them- selves and doing their work in the next stage of school life. Further than this, records of the char- acteristics, the physical and mental peculiarities of each child would be kept throughout its school life. With such means at hand for estimating the value of a teacher's work, she could under the proposed plan be given a very large freedom to reach results in her own way. She could vary the usual daily program by taking the children into the fields or woods in order to study nature, or to visit some industrial establishment in order to become acquainted with manual and mechanical processes and some business methods, whenever it might seem wise for her to do so. Supervising officers, courses of study, text books, school programs — all these would still be at hand to help the teacher in her work, but she would no longer be in bondage to them. Last, but by no means least, in this connection let it be emphasized that under the organization of the schools proposed it would not only be possible for the teacher to learn to know her children well, to know each member of her class throughout n fairlv Ions: 30 THE EEORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS period,* one of the most natural results of which would be to develop a strong sympathy between teach- ers and pupils (for, as Henry Ware has very beauti- fully said in his novel "Zenobia", to love each other we chiefly need to know each other, it is ignorance that begets suspicion and dislike), but, as a result of this full knowledge of a large number of young persons during the wliole of a natural period of psycho-physical development, the teacher would come to understand this stage of human development as no teacher can be expected to understand any stage of development under our present system of grading. In a word, the teacher would be enabled to do a large work in a large way. The educational factory operative of today, always under a nervous strain to complete a stint (and an impossible one!) within a fixed time, could then (and I believe that in most cases she would then) become a joyous artist, en- gaged in one of the most begjitiful and fascinating, as well as one of the noblest occupations that life af- fords. Section 4. Turning now from the teacher to the * Many schools have come to appreciate the importance ol this, and in tlie German gymnasium it is customary for the ordinarius (the teacher who gives instruction to the class in at least one of its principal studies and who is especially in charge of it as a class teacher, although under the departmental system even the lowest class has several teachers) of the lowest class (sexta), composed of boys of nine or ten, to continue as ordi- narius and principal instructor of this group of taoys while they are passing through the next two annual classes (quinta and quarta). That is to say. there will be in the gymnasium three teachers, every one of whom in turn will take charge of the lowest class and carry the group of boys through the first three years of the gymnasium. THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 31 pupil, it is to be said that one of the chief reasons for proposing the plan under consideration is, that in the case of a dull child, whose interest his teacher has been unable to awaken sufficiently to lead him to a mastery of the subject of instruction, it is an in- jury, rather than a benefit, to keep him droning over the same subject-matter twice the normal length of time. If the child's failure to make the minimum of normal progress is due to some temporary cause, as illness, a protracted absence, or the like, it will ordi- narily no doubt be advisable to transfer him (not at the expiration of some arbitrarily fixed period for the continuation of a class, but at once) to a class which is not so far advanced as that with which he had pre- viously been working ; but if the failure to make nor- mal progress is due to a more permanent condition, — to general mental incapacity (not sufficient to in- dicate that he should be in a special school for the feeble-minded, and not the result of some particular sense defect or other cause that can be determined and given special treatment), to mental lethargy, to a lack of interest in school matters, even to continu- ous irregularity of attendance or chronic ill health, — the child (if not removed from the common school, for the benefit of his physical, mental and moral health) should be kept moving forward, at a slow pace, it may be, but at a pace no slower than the general rate of his psycho-physical development, and in association with children whose stage of psycho- physical development corresponds in a general way 32 THE ee6kc4axization of oue schools with his own. I do not mean that it will never be found wholesome to try the plan of having him go over, with a different teacher and a younger set of children, a part of the work he has previously been over. These changed conditions may occasionally af- ford the needed stimulus and help the child to better results — the change of teacher may be especially help- ful. But to repeat this process again and again, and insist that he shall make a certain, fixed, minimal response to definite tests of attainment before being allowed to advance, and thus make it impossible for him to get out of the primary department before he is twelve years old, or to leave the elementary depart- ment until he is an adolescent of sixteen or more — this is a futile waste of the child's time, is almost certain to have a pernicious effect upon his moral and mental, and even upon his physical development, and is likely to make him a failure in life from every point of view. When it has become apparent that he will not keep pace with any group of pupils, what benefit is to come from demoting him from that group with which his general development most nearly corresponds, putting him into a strange envi- ronment, and disheartening him by associating him with younger pupils into whose company he comes under the disadvantage, not alone of being a stranger and in a different stage of development, but of being one who is known to have failed to hold his ovsm with his previous associates ! Let us have common sense enouo-h to reco2:nize that there is a considerable num- THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 33 ber of children who are not likely to get a great amount of benefit from any kind of systematic, in- tellectual training. In such cases, so long as they are in the stages of childhood and boyhood and girl- hood proper (as distinguished from adolescence), let the school do what it can for them ; let them advance through the school with their fellows and get what they can absorb from the school atmosphere and the class work as they go along. They may then, and very probably will, find something in some part of the curriculum to which they will respond with some zest and success. But whether they do so or not, let them leave the elementary school as soon as they have passed beyond the stage of boyhood and girl- hood proper, the prepubescent stage ; and if nothing can be done to make good in the secondary transi- tion department their previous deficiencies, and if nothing in the school for adolescents seems to call forth any response in them, let them leave school and go to work after a year or so in the special transition class for those who are passing from boyhood or girl- hood into adolescence. Let them at least, at each stage in their development, have the chance for edu- cation (in the large sense of that term) that is given by a suitable environment for the given stage of de- velopment, instead of holding them prisoners in an outgro^^^l environment designed for those at a lower stage of maturity. Some day, it is to be hoped, school authorities will understand that it is the busi- ness of the school as a social institution to afford the 34 THE EEOKGANIZATIOiSr OF OUE SCHOOLS most favorable opportunities for the development of the young person, hut that it is not its business to insist upon making him master of a certain definite quantum of fact and facility. The failure to recognize the importance of adapt- ing the school work to the stage of the pupil's general development, which has made the school a place of torment, often a place of hopeless discouragement to so many pupils in the past, has another side than that referred to in the last paragraph, I refer to the grave injury that come^.from allowing mentally precocious children to go as fast as their mental power, and especially their mental acquisitiveness, may render possible, regardless of their physical de- velopment. The only safe method is to plan the cur- riculum with reference to the general development of the being to be educated; and in case the mental development, on the one hand, and the general phys- ical development on the other, seem to correspond ill,* let the general physical development be given first consideration. This method of procedure, un- fortunately, has not yet gained the approval it de- serves, although it is long since it was first suggested. In answer to the suggestion made by Superintendent Harrington, of JSTew Bedford, in 18T4, that instead of keeping dull children a great length of time on an * A case that is always exceptional, although every teacher of large experience has probably known some young person or per- sons in whom the divergence was sufficient to be troublesome, although not sufficient to constitute the person In question monstrous and so make ordinary methods of education entirely inapplicable. THE EEOEGANIZATIOX OF OUK SCHOOLS 35 inelastic curriculum, a minimum core of work should be provided for these, which could be indefinitely ex- panded for the brighter children, Superintendent Hervey,* of Auburn, X. Y., after commending cer- tain aspects of the plan, said: ''It has the disadvan- tage ... of not providing for the more rapid advancement through the gTades of those who, with- out detriment to themselves, could cover the ground in a shorter time." At the bottom of this criticism there seems to me to lie a very serious misconception. There are doubtless exceptional human beings whom no general plan of education would fit ; but it cannot be too emphatically insisted that, speaking generally, the rapid advancement through the grades of a phys- ically immature person having an unusually quick and vigorous intellect, is not a desideratum, but a grave evil. The contrary notion has arisen from the fact that the school has so long been considered — and has, alas ! so largely been — merely an institution for imparting information, or at best as a place for mental training; it has not yet come to be generally recognized as that which modern pedagogy is mak- ing it, an organized instrumentality to assist the im- mature being to the highest development possible for his luliole nature, physical and moral, no less than intellectual. The human being, let it be repeated, is a psycho-physical unit ; and least of all in the case of the child, the immature being, can one part of his *At the time he wrote the criticism. Superintendent of Schools for Pawtucket, R. I. See Rhode Island School Report for 1899, page 116. 36 THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS nature be properly cultivated in disregard of the rest. The plan which I advocate provides for the promo- tion of the pupil from one department into another as soon as he shall have completed the psycho-physical period of development to which the former depart- ment is adapted, whether he has gained much Or little information, much or little physical, psychical or moral training, in the class covering the previous period; and this, I confidently maintain (and cite the whole literature of child study in support of my contention), is the only advancement through the grades that can he had "without detriment to the pupil." The prepubescent child of twelve should not be put in harness with the adolescent of sixteen, notwithstanding that the former's mental brightness and familiarity with literature, science and history may be even superior to the latter's. Let the child pursue his subjects of study according to the general method adapted to his stage of development (al- though he may do more extensive or more elaborate work within the given fields than most of his class- mates), and let him put his surplus energy into the physical exercise that may protect him from the del- icacy and ill health to which precocious children are so often subject. My contention does not mean that a child is to be in a given class just because his tale of years is of a given length, nor that he is to be kept in it just so many years, months, or days. If, as sometimes hap- pens, the child of twelve is physically as well as THE REORGANIZATIOX OF OUR SCHOOLS 37 mentally mature as the average child of fourteen or fifteen by all means put him with the latter, and do this whether or not he has acquired as much informa- tion and discipline as the average child at the com- pletion of the elementary school period. If he has not, it is imfortunate ; but we shall not mend matters by treating him as a hoy after he has become a youth. If the elementary or boyhood department of school has done little for him, we must look to the adoles- cent school in the hope that it may do more for him. Section 5. To carry out the plan of organization of school work herein proposed, especially in the matter of determining when children have completed a certain stage of psycho-physical development, it is desirable, of course, that in every city school system there should be an expert physician, who has made a special study of childhood in all its phases, to act as physical examiner and sanitary expert. Such an expert is, however, very much needed under existing systems of school administration, to look after the health of the children and save those defective in some one or more particulars from the burden of unsuitable requirements. Nevertheless, in the absence of such a thoroughly qualified physician toi examine the children from time to time and consult with the class teacher and principals as to the advisability of transferring pupils from one department of the school to another, a competent superintendent in the smaller school communities and the superintendent and principal or other supervising officers in large C S S 38 THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS school systems could do quite well all that the class teacher with a fair normal school training might not reasonably be expected to do. When in accordance with educational and physiological expert advice, based upon careful observation and experiment, the normal average number of years for the duration of the play school and the elementary school classes had once been determined, there would as a rule be no special call for watchfulness on the part of any but the transition-class teachers ; and indeed, inasmuch as the relation of the secondary transition class to the work of the high school proper or adolescent school that follows it, is such that any youth could with advantage enter upon the work of the latter as soon as he had received the required instruction in the former, whether that should take one or two years, the only position that would regularly call for any special competence in judging when to advance a pupil from one class to another, would be that of the primary-transition class teacher. By observing a wise conservatism and not promoting the children to the elementary department until it should seem quite beyond a reasonable doubt that they were physically fit to undertake the work of the elementary depart- ment, the primary-transition teacher could discharge her task without great difficulty; her experience would soon make her expert, and meanwhile (and always) she could refer any doubtful case to the supervising authority, the principal or superintend- ent, and she and they could always consult with the THE KEOEGANIZATIO:^ OF OUR SCHOOLS 39 parents and family physician in case of exceptional difficulty. As regards these transfers, the proper plan might be to make the normal period for the com- pletion of the work of the play school and the ele- mentary school somewhat shorter than the time which the average child takes to pass through the corre- sponding stages of psycho-physical development, so that the children would be regularly passed into the transition classes at a date that would be so early in the case of the normal child as to ensure that he was not being kept under educational influences that he had outgTown. As regards the primary transition class, its spirit and in large measure its method would be so similar to that of the play school — differ- ing onlv in allowing a little more freedom to individ- ual idiosyncrasy and a little more relaxation — that neither the exceptionally forward nor the ex- ceptionally backward child would be harmed by being transferred to it at the same time with the average child. The latter would remain there a longer, the former, a shorter time; that would be all. As re- gards transfers from the elementary department to the secondary transition class, restiveness and un- satisfactory response to the method of the elementary department would be a sufficient indication for an early transfer in the case of a physically precocious child ; a slightly backward child would not be harmed by being transferred when the rest of his classmates are, and the case of an exceptionally backward child, 40 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS who should be kept longer in the elementary depart- ment, would be sufficiently patent to give no intelli- gent teacher or supervising officer any difficulty. A little consideration, I think, will make evident that, instead of increasing the burden of responsibility upon teachers, the proposed system would (except in the case of the primary transition class teachers) relieve them of a great part of the responsibility that now rests upon them. The play school teacher would work with her class for, say, two years, do all that she could for the healthy development of every one of her pupils within that time, and then send them all to the primary transition class, without hav- ing to bother her head to determine whether every individual in the class had attained a "promotion grade." Similarly the elementary department teach- er would teach her class for four year (if that should be the period determined upon by the school authori- ties) and then transfer to the secondary transition class all but the very exceptionally immature (who would ordinarily be transferred to the elementary class next below hers, leaving her free to take a new class from the primary transition department). And normally the secondary-transition teachers also would simply give their instruction for a year and then let the young people pass on to the adolescent de- partment or high school. The primary transition class teacher alone would always have to use judgment in determining when to advance her children to the next class; and in case of marked backwardness in THE EEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 41 development or special delicacy the chief secondary transition teacher would have to determine whether to keep the young person longer than a year in her department. It is true, as indicated above, that the elementary department teacher may have to deal with excep- tional cases. She may find it well to advance a rapid- ly maturing child into the secondary transition class before the completion of the term of years established for the continuance of her class, or to transfer him to another class of the elementary department, in ad- vance of her own ; and in the case of an especially slowly developing child, she may find it well to ad- vise that he be put into the next elementary class below hers, instead of proceeding with the rest of her class. But it must be remembered that these ex- ceptional cases exist and need special treatment just as much (more, in my opinion) under any other sys- tem of school organization as they would under that proposed ; and if teachers (making a special exception of the primary transition teacher) are not compe- tent to deal with the system proposed, they must (in view of their inferior opportunities) be even less competent to meet satisfactorily the difficulties of the prevailing system of organization. And finally it may be well to call attention again to the fact that it would be the especial business of the principals and other supervising officers to be on the lookout for these exceptional cases and to advise the class teach- ers regarding them, and that it would be the duty of 42 THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS the principal or superintendent to take the chief bur- den of determining transfers from the primary tran- sition class in case such a class should have to be entrusted to an inexperienced teacher (which should not ordinarily be the case). As to the details of the organization of supervision, whether there should be a principal for each of the school departments (play school, primary transition department, elementary department, secondary transition department, and adolescent department, or high school) or whether two or more of these should be under the same principal, this would have to be determined by local conditions, the size of the schools and of the school system, etc., and in some measure by the personal equation. The superintendent should have as many assistants, principals or head teachers to help him in the supervision of the schools as he may find necessary. But it may be said in general that it would be advisable to associate the play school and the primary transition department especially closely, and that the most competent and experienced teacher working in any one department of the school might be recognized as a sort of head teacher for that department, to whom the other teachers could look for counsel and who Avould be entitled to give such counsel on her own initiative. As regards the sec- ondary transition department, the instruction in the several regular courses should be given by specialists, who might also be instructors in the high school prop- er ; but there should be one principal teacher for the THE REOEGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 43 secondary transition department, who should have general charge of the class, and who might well be the teacher who would be immediately charged with the especial work of the more backward members of the class. Section 6. A number of the special questions that may be suggested by the foregoing discussion can only be answered intelligently after a somewhat par- ticular consideration of the scope of the several de- partments, or periods of school life corresponding to the several normal stages of psycho-physical develop- ment referred to in Postulate III. To such a partic- ular consideration the reader's attention is now invited. 11. As to the Scope of the Several Departments of the School. Section 1. The Play School. First of all comes the play school, in Avhich the child should normally begin his school career and in which he should remain during the first stage of psycho-physical development with which the school is concerned, which we have designated as the stage of childhood proper, as distinguished from the preceed- ing stage of infancy and the later stage of boyhood 44 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS or girlhood proper. It is hardly necessary to state that the stage or stages of infancy prior to the third year of life, need not be taken into account by us in considering the organization of school education, for the consensus of opinion is practically unanimous that, under the social conditions that prevail in the civilized world today, the home is the most suitable place for the education of the little being that has not yet passed out of the stage of infancy. With regard to the fairly well marked stage of childhood, for which the play school is designed, I shall not repeat here what competent observers and students have set forth in regard to it, but will con- tent myself with a reference to the article in the Pedagogical Seminary for 1900 (volume 7) entitled "Nascent Stages and their Pedagogical Significance," by Mr. E. B. Bryan, at one time Superintendent of Education in the Philippines, an article that from the standpoint of pedagogy gives the best summary of the several stages of human development with which I am familiar. I shall, however, recall to my readers' minds that this is a stage of fairly steady growth in height and weight and a period of great mental activity, but one in which, "owing to a lack of devel- opment of the peripheral muscles and the nerves that . control them," the movements of the child "are un- coordinated, so that he is not effective as a producer, and activity is its own excuse for being" ; and I would also recall that this stage of development, beginning normally about the completion of the second year of THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 45 post-natal life, seems to end about the eightli year in the case of most American children, when "the brain has approximated its full weight and is chang- ing in its development from increase in size to in- crease of function" ; and I would finally remind my readers that in addition to this brain change there is also, at the time of completion of this stage of devel- opment, "a change in the rate of bodily grpwth, so that the annual increase will be greater at the begin- ning of this [new or transition'] stage than it has been through the stage of childhood. The child is losing his first teeth and the permanent ones are com- ing. This more objective and superficial change seen in the case of the teeth has many physical and mental counterparts," so that ''the child is not quite at its best either physically or mentally." The play school should be primarily devoted to healthy development and the cultivation — or let us rather say, the encouragemeni: — of wide interests, not to instilling into the child's mind a definite quantum of exact information, nor to constant drill in the use of the ''three R's," the elementary tools of scholarly acquisition and expression. As everyone knows, the child at this period is an animated interrogation point (that is, until his great natural "curiosity" — perhaps his divinest gift — has been dulled by the un- responsiveness and continued snubbing of those about him), and desires to know about everything, to imitate every activity, and in general to do every- thing that is suggested to him bv his environment 46 THE KEOEGAXIZATIOX OF OUK SCHOOLS and by the development of his physical and mental powers; and it is of the utmost importance for his future development, even more than for his present richness of life, that this catholicity of interest and high-hearted readiness to try his powers upon everything should be cultivated. Incidental to the cultivation of this inclination to find interest in all that is, in every department of human knowledge and human activity, it should be as easy as it is desirable to lead the child before the expiration of this period of his, development, to the perception that the ability to measure and to count and the ability to understand and to use written as well as oral language will contribute much to his happiness, by enabling him to do things that he al- ready wishes to do, and to find out things for him- self. If this much be accomplished at this time, it will be found that when he reaches the age for systematic training in the three R's he will take up his work in arithmetic and in reading and writing with the zest that comes from understanding the pur- pose, and having a present appreciation of the value of these studies, instead of regarding them as a more or less mysterious drudgery to which children are subjected by grown-ups on the assumption that when the children themselves become grown-ups they will have a use for it all. As regards the other studies to be systematically pursued as special subjects in later school life, such as history, geography, and physical, chemical and THE EEOEGANIZATIOX OF OUR SCHOOLS 47 biological science, a proper interest in them will be aroused by the nature study, by the observation and imitation of living things and of the simpler and more readily comprehensible and imitable forms of adult human occupation, and by the plays and the stories that should take up the time and constitute the play-work of this period of school life. It is through the play-impulse and the delight in discovery that the child's mind and body should be developed at this period ; but with reference to play, it is well to remember that elaborately organized "plays" are not suited to the child at this time and are really hard work for him. The children should be given large opportunity for free play, play that will not only be spontaneous, but that must in large measure be individual. Very simple joint plays, either ring plays, in which all or a moiety of the children do the same thing at the same time, or plays of the follow-my-leader type, in which the children successively do the same thing (provided plays of the latter type be of short duration) or, on the other hand, very loosely organized plays in which the par- ticipants are at liberty to carry on their several parts very much in their o^vn way, will doubtless be good ; but much "team work," as that term is now generally understood in the field of sport — that is to say, elaborate cooperative plays in which the individual members perform different functions in the perform- ance of which the player must subordinate his play to the interest of a fijial end to be attained by the 48 THE REORGANIZATION OP OUR SCHOOLS group as a group, — would be serious work for a child, and would constitute a strain upon his physical powers of cooperation that would probably be as injurious to his healthy development as physical exercises that should demand accurate coordi- nation of the finer muscles. There should not be expected or even permitted at this time any functioning of mind or body so elaborate as to draw largely upon the vital energy, which in childhood must be primarily devoted to increase in bulk and organization of the brain and nervous system and of the muscular system and the rest of the body. In so far as the child's occupation is free play, carried on for the delight of doing it and given up by each child the moment he wearies of it, he may be allowed great range; but, bearing in mind that the object of WORK "is a definite product, physical or mental", the worlc of the play school should be lim- ited to those kinds of activity for which the child has a fair degree of capacity, those in which he can work with facility; and in occupations of this sort he should of course be encouraged to do as well as he can. While the occupations of the play school should, I think, be mainly play, some work should be de- manded of the child for the sake of his moral develop- ment, lest his nascent power of self-control should become somewhat atrophied from disuse and his spiritual nature be arrested in that pre-moral stage of egoism perfectly natural to the young child. As regards the content of the instruction given to THE EEOKGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 49 the child at this time, let me speak first of the tradi- tional three K's. It seems to me that arithmetic, reading and writing, should only be taught to the ex- tent that is found thoroughly enjoyable by the child at this age, and only for periods in any given day so brief that the children's attention may be readily held throughout them. Board work in reading and writing should precede the use of books or paper. At the end of this period the child may have learned to read from the board and from large-print books very short and simple compositions, — stories, descrip- tions and songs, — and he may also be able to work very simple "mental" arithmetical problems in count- ing, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing, and be able to read and write the digits and to under- stand the place of units, tens and hundreds. But with little regard to the extent of the acquirements gained here, I think that arithmetic should be taken up sys- tematically in the elementary department in such a way that the child who had failed to get any idea of number work in the play school or the primary transition department might make a fresh start in this later school period. Nature study and the imitation of simple forms of adult occupation ; descriptions of early stages of human society, and stories from early periods of his- tory illustrated by pictures and simple reconstruct- tions, cave and wigwam making, weaving, sand and clay modeling, simple gardening and cooking ; myths ; healthy free play and exercises that do not strain the 50 THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS undeveloped psychic powers of cooperation or the un- developed physical powers of accurate coordination ; such loving little services for relatives and friends as are quite within the child's powers, — these should constitute the bulk of the curriculum of the play school. As regards myths, generally associated as they are with the phenomena of nature or with phenomena of moral consciousness, it should be said in passing that they should never be given as pure stories quite with- out explanation or introduction, nor should they be elaborately analyzed and the allegory set forth with great circumstantiality. They should rather be pre- sented as stories coming down from early times, either representing a belief of that time as to some- thing of interest to human life, or else being a man- ner of representing that something which gave pleas- ure to those from whom we got the myth, and which may give pleasure to the children. Whether they should be accompanied or followed by a more scien- tific representation of the matter in question would depend entirely upon the special circumstances of the case and upon the imaginative development, the ma- turity and the curiosity of the child or children to whom the myth is told. But care should always be taken to present the myth (whether heathen or Bib- lical) in such a way that, when the child should later acquire a more scientific notion of the thing in ques- tion, he should not feel that an untruthful represen- tation had been made to him by his early teacher. THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 51 As regards moral education in the play school, the whole conduct of the school should give it ; and right conduct upon the part of the child should be taught by example and suggestion, by timely, concrete pre- cept, by warm approval of serviceableness and sympa- thy and~"consideration for others and of cleanliness and orderliness, and also by telling interesting stories that the children will love for their ovm sake, for their action and imagery, and that w^ll at the same time nTiake.virtue appear beautiful, — stories in which truthfulness and simplicity, generosity and courtesy and respect for the counsel and instructions of those who are older and wiser than the hero or heroine or upon whom he or she is dependent, shall characterize the said hero or heroine. We should avoid trying to teach by terrible example. The less suggestion of evil, by the presentation of the misadventures of the lazy, the filthy, the discourteous, the disobedient, the unkind, and the cruel, the better. In special cases, or where lightly and incidentally suggested, this may do no harm and may occasionally do good ; but the less of it the better. Avoid especially giving the bad character the center of the field' or using a bad per- son as a foil to bring out the excellences of another. Stories of this kind tend to give a false idea of life (for* in real life we do not find sheep and goats, per- fect heroes and perfectly wricked villains, but only more or less lovable human beings with varying kinds and degrees of faultiness) and are quite certain to cultivate priggishness even if they do not encourage 52 THE BEOEGANIZATION OF OTJE SCHOOLS the despicable and soul-destroying tendency to be ever on the lookout for inferiority and unrighteousness with which to compare one's self or one's heroes, in- stead of seeking to make one's life beautiful by doing beautiful things without thought of unbeautiful con- duct or persons. "We should guard also against the common disposition to make a myth or Bible story or popular anecdote serve a definite moral purpose, when if undoctored it might have a quite different ef- fect. Above all, in dealing with heroes of history or legend, we should never whitewash their conduct in a questionable matter ; this is the most dangerous form of teaching immorality hy suggestion. In conclusion I would say that morality is to be encouraged in the play school (as everywhere else) chiefly by accustoming the child to moral habits. But obedience must, in case of need, be insisted upon, even though the child does not understand why he is compelled to do the particular thing in question; for the child must learn that his general well-being is dependent upon submission to his guardians and to the various instrumentalities of control established by society, and he should learn early the important lesson of life, that one cannot, and should not expect to, have one's own way in all things. Section 2. The Primary Transition Class. What needs to be said about this stage of school life, in addition to what has already been said under the heading of The Play School, will for the sake of THE KEOEGANIZATIOX OF OUR SCHOOLS 53 brevity and convenience, be stated in connection with the discussion of the Adaptability of the Curriculum to Various Classes of Young Persons, in III infra. Section 3. The Elementary Depart:ment, or School of Boyhood and Girlhood Proper. A. General View. In this department of school life all the required work should be done during school hours, except a limited amount of gathering material and of individual observation in nature study and perhaps also in the study of human occu- pations and institutions. There may, however, be a considerable amount of optional reading and compo- sition work, and once or twice a year in the later years of the course the teacher might require the preparation of a composition out of school. Speaking of this period — the period of boyhood and girlhood proper, as distinguished from the pre- ceding stage of childhood — Bryan in the work pre- viously cited says : "The child is not simply his form- er self gro-wn larger, but is in many ways an alto- gether different being." "This is the period of en- durance and of coordination mental and physical, and mental with physical, the time for the storing up of reserve power and the esiablishment of automa- tisms' [Italics mine]. The students of this period of development generally agree that it is a period of fair strength and coordination and exceptional plas- 54 THE BEOEGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS ticity of tissue, muscular and neural. Hence it is the time for mental drill and practise, and for physi- cal drill and practise so far as the resultant physical development and training will not be lost by reason of the very considerable muscular and neural changes taking place at and after pubescence. Bryan does well to remind us that attention brings interest as truly as interest brings attention, and therefore he advises that the attention of boys and girls at this stage of development be directed to "those things which serve as the alphabets of formal school work" [I should prefer to say, the alphabets of the universal (i. e., universally needed) arts of civilization], even though at times their interest in some lines must be induced by attention to them. As to the ease with which this attention may be gained and held, he wisely says that "if the time given to reading before the child was seven years of age were given to real things in which he has a lively interest it would bring such a fund of information and interest to the reading work at nine years of age that the problem of method in teaching reading would practically solve itself." B. Curriculum. In this stage of school life there should be a fairly systematic study of : — 1. Reckoning, or "Mathematics". — The bulk of the work in mathematics should doubtless be what is designated as arithmetic proper, but in connection with this and with the manual training, drawing and geography, the elements of concrete geometry THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS 55 would be learned, and I incline to the belief that be- fore the expiration of this period of school life there should be at least so much algebra introduced as to give the boy or girl the idea of dealing with general- ized qiiantities, or, in other words, with literal sym- bols.* It is not necessary that this should be taught under the name of "algebra" ; it may well be pre- sented simply as one aspect of elementary mathe- matics. To maintain such an elasticity throughout the whole school system as to make it adaptable to the needs of all classes of school children, however irreg- ular special circumstances may compel them to be in their attendance ; to make it possible for any boy at any given stage in his boyhood to find his proper place in the school without primary reference to certain definite attainments in school lore, and to enable him to leave the school at any time that he may be com- pelled to do so, with an education relatively complete in reference to his then stage of development, and fitting him to make the most of life with the equip- ment thus far attained, — it seems to me very desir- able that the arithmetic should be taught in what is sometimes called the "concentric circle" man- ner,f the fundamental principles being early learned in and through their simplest applications and re- * This is done in Germany; and in a number of the best schools, where mathematics, rather than "arithmetic", is the subject of study, the elements of arithmetic, geometry and al- gebra are all acquired simply and naturally in the lower grades. t Frank Hall's School Arithmetic is one in which the subject is presented in this way. 56 THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS peated again and again with increasingly difficult ap- plications. It has been shown in the better primary schools that the principles of fractions may be used in their application to simple concrete cases long be- fore the pupil has learned the symbols for fractions or knows that he knows anything about fractions. Does not all work in division, indeed, when intelli- gently done and not worked merely in accordance with a rule learned by rote, constitute work in frac- tions ? Finally, let it be said that just so much of mathe- matics should be learned by each individual pupil, within this period of school life, as he can learn without undue effort. There should he no fixed re- quirement of hnowledge for graduation from this de- partment of the school, and no driving or overwork for slow or dull 'pupils. 2. Language (Oral speech and its written and printed symbols). — Writing should of course be sys- tematically practised, and the use of the vernacular — oral and written composition, reading and spelling — should be a constant part of the work in this school. In spelling a select list of a few hundred difficult or especially irregular words belonging to the everyday^' vocabulary of life should be learned, in addition to the incidental learning of spelling in con- nection with reading and writing. In the latter part * Why should the child spend his time learning to spell such words as phthysic? In forty years of a somewhat wide expe- rience of life, as teacher, lawyer, journalist, etc., I have never had any occasion to use the word except as I am using it now. THE EEORGANIZATIOX OF OUE SCHOOLS 57 of the course the elements* of grammar should be brought to the consciousness of the boy and girl (in which work the study of another modern language than the vernacular would assist) ; and I am inclined to think that some notion of comparative philology might be given either by the foreign-language teacher or by the class-teacher in connection with the work in history and English, but this is doubtful. There should of course be systematic development in the language work, and the cultivation of a knowledge of and love for literature should be a conscious aim on the part of the teacher. Yet, throughout, the lan- guage work should be coordinated with, and by the teacher consciously made a part of, the history, geog- raphy and nature study, as indeed of every study in the school. This is the golden age for the practical acquire- ment of a foreign language, and wherever possible at least one modern language should be pursued by the conversational method throughout this department of the school. In the case of pupils who are later to study several foreign languages, I should prefer French,-}- both because the difficulties in its pronun- ciation are best mastered at this age and because th(> simplicity of its grammar would make its mastery easier than that of a more elaborately inflected lan- ♦ It seems to me highly unwise to trouble the child with minutiae, to set him, for instance, to distinguish nicely between adverbial and adjective modifiers in cases as to which it is often difficult for specialists in grammar to agree. t Today, in a gi-eat number of American communities, Span- ish would be the most advisable foreig-n language for the public schools. 58 THE EEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS guage, and would thus bring to the boy or girl the stimuhis of success and give him greater confidence in himself generally and especially in his ability to learn a foreign language. 3. The Economic and Cultural Development of ManMnd, or '"History" — The history of the elemen- tary department should not treat merely of the life and institutions of the aborigines of America and of so much of the recent development of Anglo-Saxon civilization as happened to be transferred a few gen- erations ago to the American continent, but should treat of the general development of human society and culture, and especially of economic development, which would make the most natural center of interest from which to gain some intelligent information as to the development of art and science and the accom- panying changes in social, political and religious in- stitutions that have taken place as men have risen from savagery and barbarism to civilization. In other words, the conventional study of history should in the elementary department be replaced by such a study of the social life of man — economic, political, religious and esthetic — as shall tend to make the com- plex machinery of modern civilization comprehensible to the boy and girl by reference to the simpler life of a lower stage of human development out of which all modern civilization (of which whole our American civilization is but one of the parts) has developed. The natural sympathy of the pre-adolescent child of civilization for the manner of life of less highly de- THE EEOEGANIZATIOX OF OUE SCHOOLS 59 veloped human societies, suggests the best and most effective way of giving the child an insight into the real significance of history, inasmuch as it affords a way of approaching the subject that is full of inter- est for him, and even of delight, in proportion as he is encouraged to act out and live again in some meas- ure the history of the race.* In connection with the study of geography the story of the formation of the principal modern na- tional states might be given to the boys and girls in a very few words, and of course the story of the United States and of the boys and girls' home com- munity would be treated more fully than other parts of history. The work in history would naturally bring about an interest in civics. Throughout the elementary study of history, biog- raphy might well play a large part, but it certainly should not be the exclusive method of approaching the subject. Geography and the various arts of ex- pression — modeling in sand and clay, basket work and weaving, wood and perhaps a little metal work, brush and pencil work, and of course literature — should all make their contribution to the study of human development (which I take to be the meaning of history) as should also individual and class excur- sions. 4. Geography (physical, political and commer- • The elementary school forming a part of the Universitv of Chicago's School of Education has given the most successful Illustration of this method of teaching history that is known to nie. 60 THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS cial), — never losing sight of the close connection of this subject with nature study in general, on the one hand, and with human economics, or history, on the other. 5. Nature Study, or Elementary Science, — in which it would be well to keep in mind the associa- tions of the subject with geography, as well as to do what can be done to lead the child to the gradual realization that all human civilization so far attained rests upon the partial understanding of nature and the application of natural forces. After saying this, I need hardly say that, notwithstanding the advocacy of the opposite view by such a competent guide to nature study as Professor Hodges of Clark Univer- sity, I have the strongest conviction that the elemen- tary facts of physics and chemistry, and not merely the study of plants and animals, should constitute a part of the nature study of the elementary depart- ment. 6. Art and Manual Training. — Modeling in sand and clay, brush work (with and without color) and pencil work, wood work, weaving or basket work, and vocal music should be pursued by all; and to these other manual arts might be added if convenient, while in the latter part of the course elementary metal work for boys might, and training in the do- mestic arts (housekeeping, cooking and sewing) for the girls, should be provided. It is to be remembered that the arts of writing; and reading have already been mentioned under the head- THE KEOEGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 01 ing Language, and that the boys and girls would gain an introduction to a number of the practical arts of life through their study of social economics, or "his- tory," and their nature study (I have in mind such arts as gardening and simple cookery). But I have made a special heading of art and manual training because there should be a special time set apart for systematic training of the hand and eye in coopera- tion, and for similar training in singing and the ele- ments of music. Last, but by no means least, — 7. Physical Culture should constitute a regular part of the work of the school; and in connection with this branch especially, which should if possible be under the supervision of a skilled physician trained for the work of a physical director and health officer, every effort should be made to study the in- dividual needs of the boys and girls and to train them in healthful and cleanly habits. C. Usual Daily Pkogeam. I shall finish this section by suggesting a daily program for the elemen- tary department. Those who advocate for the ele- mentary school manual training, physical culture, nature study and the study of the fundamental arts and institutions of human society, — what the Ger- mans call the Realien, or subjects of actual human interest, and what the conservatives call the fads, — are continually being asked how these things can be taught without crowding out the all-important three R's; and while a partial answer to this is that the 62 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS modern educator is constantly giving the child train- ins; in lanariaffe and number work incidental to his study of the things that are of interest to him in na- ture and human society, it is desirable to show, in ad- dition to this, that ample time can be set aside for specific drill in the three K's, the alphabet of scholar- ship, without excluding the subjects of actual human interest and the training of the mind and body for a ready response to the demands of a large, free, beauti- ful life. Another reason for suggesting a daily pro- gram is to show how conveniently the work of the gen- eral class teacher and that of special teachers for mu- sic and other forms of art, manual training, physical culture and foreign language can be arranged, so that, in the case of a fairly large and well-to-do school com- munity that can afford to have these special branches taught by special teachers, all the work of the gen- eral class teacher could be done in the morning, leav- ing the children the afternoon for work with the special teachers. If, however, the school authorities should feel that they could not afford to pay teachers for but half a day's work, the program I have sug- gested is so far reversible that class-teacher X might carry out with class A the progi'am as proposed herein for the morning session, and then in the afternoon re- peat with Class B the program set forth for the morn- ing, of course with the omission of the opening exer- cises ; class B having taken in the forenoon with the special teachers the work which class A will do, ac- cording to the program set forth, in the afternoon. Of THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 63 course the order of the subjects in the session taught by special teachers would naturally be changed for the different classes — class A, for instance, taking the pro- gram as set forth, while the next class might give the first period to French, take the second period for phys- ical culture, etc. — so as to enable the same teacher to take three or four classes in turn. But on the other hand the order of exercises for the session taught by the general class teacher (the "morning session," as it appears below) should preferably be followed by all classes throughout the whole school, so that, in case any pupil should in some particular subject be very much behind or ahead of his classmates, he could take that subject with a class below or above that in which the rest of his work were done. The conven- ience of a uniform program throughout the school system for such a case as I have mentioned and for others which may occur to the reader, is obvious, but this program should not become a straight-jacket for the teacher, to be followed to the letter at any cost ; it should merely be the usual thing. Freedom on the part of the teacher in the execution of the general purpose of the school should be encouraged, and she might not infrequently find it advantageous to give all or the greater part of the session to an excursion into the woods or fields, or to a visit to some indus- trial establishment, or to work in the school garden, or indeed she might find that with a certain class more time should be given to reading and less to arithme- tic than the program provided for. In all such cases 64 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS she should be free to use her own judgment, of course consulting her principal or other supervisor with re- gard to any considerable variation from the standard program and of course being responsible for the re- sults of such changes as she might introduce. In general it may be said that the program, as well as the curriculum itself, should not be an iron-bound groove, or track, within which the teacher must travel without a hair's breadth turn to right or left, but it should rather be a cleared path along which she would generally be helped by moving. It should exist, not to cabin, crib, confine teachers and chil- dren, but to help them. It will be observed that all the work of the school except the art work, manual training, physical cul- ture, foreign language, and elective work, can be given in the morning session ; but I think that an afternoon session having a maximum length of two hours and a half is not at all too much, especially when it is borne in mind that the plan contemplates no required home work. For boys and girls between eight or nine and thirteen, five hours and a half a day of in- teresting school work is not too much ; and I am in- clined to think that much less would be a serious loss to them. It must be remembered that of this five hours and a half, only two hours and twenty minutes in the morning session and thirty-five minutes in the afternoon are given to mental, as distinct from physi- cal and manual training ; the rest of the time is taken up by recess and intermissions, physical culture, man- THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 65 ual training and art work. As to the nearly three hours a day given to mental training and instruction, the class teacher might not give much more than half the time to class or group recitation from the same group of children ; the rest of the time being devoted to study, either by the class as a whole or by that part of it which spent the other moiety of the time in recitation. Of course I do not mean by thus dis- tinguishing study and recitation that the class exer- cise or recitation should be a mere examination by the teacher of the boys and girls' acquisition ; it should be primarily, I am inclined to think, the op- portunity for the teacher to help the children to a proper appreciation of the matter in hand. If in a given subject the teacher had not divided the children into groups for recitation, she could spend that part of the time not used for a class exercise in individual work with different pupils, the others meanwhile studying. If the class were large she would probably have with her, part of the time at least, an assistant teacher, or training-school cadet, who would be doing individual work with members of those groups not at the time engaged in a class or group recitation. I have suggested a noon recess of two hours, and I think that this would normally be best for both pupils and teachers; especially when it is remembered that the school is not to be (as in the past it has too largely been) a place in which the child is to receive drill in the three R's and acquire a limited amount of in- formation as to geography and a few other facts; 66 THE KEOEGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS but that it is the child's opportunity, his most favor- able opportunity, for preparing himself to play an intelligent, a useful and happy part in the natural and social environment in which his life exists. He should do this in a somewhat leisurely way, without undue haste, and should "live by the way," "Keep- ing in" should be strictly prohibited at noon, and should only be allowed in the afternoon, if it should play any part at all in school life, in such exceptional cases as deliberate refusal on the part of the pupil to make any attempt to do his work at the proper time, or as a punishment for malicious interference with the work of the school. In such cases, the teach- ers of the different classes could take turns in stay- ing after school with pupils, so that no teacher would have to remain often. Of course the length of the noon recess would have to be determined by local conditions, but the initial prejudice of teachers and pupils in favor of a short recess, so as to make the free part of the afternoon longer, should not be given too much weight. A long, quiet noon recess, making a real break in the day, would be of more value than forty-five minutes gained in the afternoon by rushing through the day. Attention should perhaps be called to the fact that, although the system proposed has so far assumed that there would be special teachers for all of the subjects assigned to the afternoon session, yet all of the work but the foreign language could be given by the class teacher if properly trained in a good, modern nor- THE EEOKGANIZATIOX OF OUE SCHOOLS 67 mal school. In case there were no special teachers (as would probably be the case in most of our smaller communities) the modern language would doubtless be omitted from the school curriculum and the time set apart for it might be devoted to study by the class and individual assistance by the teacher. In practice it would probably be well to dismiss most of the children at the end of the third afternoon period ; for any additional work that might be elected — whether in music, a second foreign language, danc- ing, drawing or painting, manual training or what- ever else it might be — would be more likely in most communities to be taken privately than in school. Provision for such outside work seems to me to be a matter of great importance ; one of the most serious defects of our school system today being that it so fills up the time of the child as to leave no opportunity for the cultivation of a special talent. As a result of this the musically or otherwise artistically gifted child is too often driven to forfeit a general education for the sake of properly cultivating his talent. To return to the use to be made in school of the fourth afternoon period, I would suggest that it would be well to divide the class into several groups, each one of which would remain in school the fourth afternoon period at least once a week, to receive individual help from the teacher or to study under her supervision. Turning now to the program itself, I would explain that where the subject is not repeated five times a week the figure in parenthesis after the name of the 68 THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS subject indicates the number of times a week it ap- pears in the daily order of exercises. Where two or more subjects are grouped together, a -]- sign indi- cates the desirability of devoting to the subject at least the number of hours stated and perhaps more, while a — sign indicates that the number of hours stated is a maximum, which might be lessened. Daily Pkogkam foe Elemeisttaey Depaetment Morning Session, 9 — 12 A. M. A. M. Minutes 9.00 Opening Exercises and Singing, 15 9.15 Reckoning and Mathematics, 35* 9.50 Intermission (brief), 5* 9.55 Writing (3) and Spelling (2), 35 10.30 Intermission (longer) 15 10.45 Development of Civilization, or History (3 — ) and Geography and !N^a- ture Study (2 + ) 35 11.20 Intermission (brief), 5 11.25 Reading (4 at first, 2 later), Composi- tion (1 + ) and Grammar (last two years, 2), 35 Afternoon Session, 2 — 4.30 P. M. 2.00 Manual Training (2), Drawing (2), and Music (1), 35 2.35 Intermission (brief), 5 • Or 30-mlnute class periods and correspondingly longer in- termissions. THE EEOKGANIZATION^ OF OUE SCHOOLS 69 2.40 Manual Training, cont'd (2), A Modern language or period for study and individual help from teacher (3), _ 35 3.15 Intermission (brief), 5 3.20 Physical Culture, 35 3.55 Intermission (brief), 5 4.00 Optional Elective (4 — ) and Period for individual help from teacher (1+) 30 Note. — It may seem unnecessary, if not absurd, to have the usual five-minute intermission before and after the period for physical culture but, aside from every other consideration, it is to be remembered that where there are special teachers the program as above set forth can only be that of one of the classes ; the second class must take the afternoon subjects in a different order ; the third in a still different order ; hence the necessity for arranging the program so that a brief intermission shall follow every class period. Of course in case the subjects scheduled for the morn- ing session are given in the afternoon, the necessity for the five-minute intermission at the end of every period but the last becomes still more evident. Section 4. The Secoxdaey Tkaxsitiox Depaet- MEXT^ OE the School fob Pubescents. A. Ix Geneeal : — Between the stage of develop- ment characterized as boyhood and girlhood proper, 70 THE EEORGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS the stage for which our elementary department (cor- responding roughly to what in American schools is sometimes designated as the intermediate department or the grammar school) is provided, and the stage of adolescence proper, for which the secondary depart- ment, or school for adolescents, or high school is de- signed, comes the transition stage of pubescence ; and important practical economic reasons combine with theoretical pedagogical principles drawn from the study of genetic psychology, to make? it advisable to plan a special curriculum for that critical year in the life of the young person in which he or she passes from boyhood or girlhood proper into adolescence. Such a curriculum for the secondary transition de- partment of the school will now be proposed. I fore- see that no part of this little work is likely to be more severely criticised than this curriculum for a secondary transition year; and yet I am inclined to think it doubtful whether any suggestion contained in this essay is of greater practical value than what is here proposed for that year of school life whicli may be regarded either as the finishing year of the elementary school or as the introductory year of the high school or secondary course of study, but which, however regarded, is the most critical year in the life of the young person and the one to which it is of the utmost importance that his education should be properly adapted. The work of this transition department is planned for a single year, not from any such theoretical con- sideration as the supposition that a twelvemonth (or THE KEOEGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 71 more accurately, nine months), best measures the time during which the young person may properly be regarded as pubescent rather than adolescent, but be- cause of practical considerations. It is probably true that the intensity of the desire to get a birdseye view of things, to comprehend, to understand things, to see things in their larger general relations, rather than to manipulate things, is even stronger as adolescence advances than at the moment of its ocjaception; yet it is especially to answer this need, which the mind of the young person passing from boyhood into youth feels, that the curriculum of the secondary transi- tion department is adapted. The important practical considerations that point to a year as the normal length for the secondary transition curriculum, are that the law, in accordance with the wishes of a great part of our population, generally permits parents to take their children out of school and set them at work at fourteen years of age, and that, as regards a very large part of our population, both children and pa- rents are eager to avail themselves of the privilege of finishing the child's school life at this time. The completion of the Secondary Transition Department course, if only a year long, might be made the con- dition of granting a license to work.* * At the time this study was planned few American school authorities would make room at all for what I have called a Secondary Transition department and what some cities (as Los Angeles) call an Intermediate school and others (as Worcester) call a. Preparatory school. At the time this essay on the Organi- zation of Education took its final form I had succeeded with difficulty in getting a modification of my Secondary Transition department substituted for the usual first year of high school In a western city, and later pushed down into the "grammar 72 THE EEOKGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS As regards the young person himself, it is probably true that the restiveness under the school life that so generally shows itself at this age, the impatience of the school routine and school discipline and the eager- ness to get out of school and go to work or even re- main at home and help in the work of the household, is largely the result of a badly constructed course of study and faulty methods, which fail to recognize the important difference between boyhood and girlhood proper, on the one hand, and pubescence on the other, and fatuously endeavor to feed the expanding mind of the pubescent with a mental pabulum that has been primarily designed for younger children and that is generally too one-sided and scholastic even to be quite palatable for the more pliant and less self- assertive and independent age of boyhood and girl- hood proper. Were the school curriculum more wisely planned, it is unquestionable that many more chil- dren would be desirous of continuing their education beyond the elementary school; yet we should not shut our eyes to the fact that the evolution of a great part of our composite population has not carried them far enough along to make the higher education de- sirable or even possible for them. A condition, not a theory, confronts us in America, as elsewhere, to- day ; and that condition is that for thousands of our school" period of school life. I was influenced by such practical considerations as these to treat this transition department as a short course to be substituted for the usual eighth grade. At the present time I rejoice to know that the conservative pres- entation I have given to the subject is no longer necessary, and that a number of progressive cities (including my present home, Los Angeles) have adopted a three-year transition de- partment beginning as low as the seventh grade. THE KEOKGANIZATIOX OF OUK SCHOOLS 73 Toung people the advent of adolescence marks the period at which (exclusive) school life and theoretical education should end, simply because they are intel- lectually unfit for farther systematic advance along any but the most practical lines. The year's curriculum for the secondary transition department is designed to meet the needs of that large number whose school life, by reason either of material or of intellectual poverty must end at the beginning of adolescence; and at the same time to be no less serviceable to those more fortunate young persons who are to continue their systematic education through- out a large part of the adolescent period. This two- fold purpose is to be accomplished by giving to all young people at the advent of adolescence a sum- mary and conspectus of the fundamental facts of science, history, and economics, — that is to say, what man has learned about the world of which he is a part and what mankind has accomplished for social welfare, — and by giving them at the same time a taste of literature, a little training in some practical or fine art, an opportunity for a year's consecutive work in a self-chosen line of study or practice, and throughout the year the most careful physical train- ing. This will help those whose school life is to end at this point, to go to work w^ith such an intelligent outlook upon their physical and social environment as must be of advantage to them, both materially and spiritually, in the struggle of life ; while those who are to continue their education in the school for ado- lescents will thus be provided with a rough chart of 74 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS the scope and extent of human art and science, which will enable them to elect their future studies with the greater intelligence; and even should they specialize quite narrowly in their future studies they will be protected by this birdseye view of the breadth and extent of human interests and this brief summary of human achievements, from that narrow ignorance of and indiiference to whatever lies outside one's own field of study and effort which today so often charac- terizes the highly trained specialist in science, art and literature. What I have suggested and now purpose to outline with somewhat more of detail, may seem at first glance to constitute a pretty heavy program for a single year ; but in reality the course is light, rather than heavy, for only the elective course and the course in literature require any outside preparation. As to these two courses it may be added that, should the elective course be one in some line of manual training, there would be little or no work in it outside of school hours, and in the literature course, while outside reading is to be encouraged, only a minimum of such reading and little or no outside writing is to be re- quired from any one who does not enjoy the work enough to be personally desirous of doing the read- ing and reporting thereon for his own pleasure and entertainment. Physical culture is really to be cen- tral this year, and all the work should be subject to a competent physician's judgment as to the pupil's fitness for it. While it might sometimes happen THE EEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS Y5 that an exceptionally delicate and nervous young person could not take the whole curriculum in a single year, yet the curriculum is deliberately planned so that, in case the great physical changes and the rapid and unsymmetrical growth that char- acterize pubescence should unfit for much systematic intellectual or physical work, a minimum of ejfort and yet a maximum of inspiring and entertaining occupation will be at hand.* B. The Cureigulum for the Secondary Transi- tion Department should consist of: — 1. Required Courses: a. Science. A course designed to give a general notion of the fundamental truths of nature thus far established or regarded as highly probable by the students of natural science. This should be, in the main, a lecture and demon- stration course; there should be no required home work, no formal recitations; and, from the nature of the course and its wide scope, there could be little opportunity for individual laboratory experimenta- tion on the part of the pupils ; but the instructor might with advantage spend the first part of each period enlisting the pupils' assistance in reviewing the progress so far made in the course, thus testing * With the omission of the physical culture (for which the crowded buildings and insufficient appropriations made (alas!) no provision) the course herein outlined for the Secondary Transition Department, was given substantially in the ninth grade or introductory year of the high school at I^incoln (Neb.), during the four years that the author was in charge of that institution. 76 THE EEOKGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS their understanding of what he had endeavored to make clear to them, and taking this opportunity to ehicidate the matter still further where that should appear to be necessary. The subjects following should be embraced in this summary of contemporary science: physics, say the first month, carried far enough to make it possible to take up chemistry intelligently the second month. After physics, chemistry, astronomy, geology, phys- ical geography and meteorology ; then biology (first botany, then zoology), which should be completed by the presentation of the elements of human phyi- ology and hygiene. The course in biology should acquaint the pupils with the general structure, life history and habits of typical living beings, vegetable and animal, from the lowest to the highest, and should point out the correspondences found in the embryonic development of different species and the resemblance to lower adult forms seen in the early stages of embryonic and extra-uterine development of higher species. This introduction to biology, and especially the attention given to the structure and functions of human brings, should make evident that thought, as well as emotion and sensation, is a part of the life activity of the higher animals, and should thus lay a foundation for the presentation (in the last month of the school year) of the simplest elements of psychology. This should consist in showing, first, that there is a correspondence between the emotion and thought of man and animals, on the THE EEOEGANIZATIO]!^ OF OUR SCHOOLS Y7 one hand, and the activity of their nerves and brains on the other ; that bodily actions and habits of action affect our thought and feeling, and that our thought and feeling also affect our body; and hence, inci- dentally, that the formation of good, wholesome habits is of the utmost importance for us: secondly, that it is easy to err by misinterpreting our sensa- tions of sight, hearing, touch, etc., any one of which may mislead us if not compared with our other sen- sations — ^thus making evident that sanity and wis- dom are dependent upon the correlation and com- parison of all our sources of knowledge and the ac- ceptance as true of that alone which is consistent with all our means of judging of reality, Finally, the pupils' attention should be brought to the fact that all that we know (whether our knowledge relates to "science" or to "history," as some philosophers contrast those concepts), the whole of each man's or boy's knowledge of the universe, is only what he himself feels and thinks, — either what he is directly conscious of in his sensations, emotions, and thoughts, or what he is indirectly conscious of by hearing and reading what others say as to what other people have seen, heard, tasted, smelt, felt, thought, or, in a word, been conscious of. In this way the young people may be led to appreciate the fundamental distinction between the objective consideration of the things with which man concerns himself — the considera- tion of them as parts of a great universe of reality of which he himself is but a small part (this being 78 THE EEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS the way in whicli the boy or girl has previously been in the habit of considering everything) — and the suhjedive consideration of everything as a part of the consciousness of him, who is feeling these things or thinking about them. I feel confident that a competent instructor, by properly leading up to the subject, can present even this crucial distinction of psycholog}^ to normally intelligent young people standing at the threshold of adolescence; but, whether or not the pubescent can thus be led to pierce to the heart of psychology, all the rest that I have treated under this heading can and should be pre- sented to the pubescent in a few simple talks illus- trated by interesting but simple experiments. As introductory to each division of natural sci- ence treated of in this year's work, or at the conclu- sion of the presentation of the special science in question, or else, less desirably, at the end of the whole year's work, during the last fortnight of the school year, a few hours should be devoted to a brief sketch of the progress of the science, calling atten- tion to the biographies of some of those whose names have been most closely associated with these con- quests of nature. These courses should be somewhat similar to the better and more systematic popular science courses offered to unlearned adults. Throughout, the hy- pothetical character of scientific theories should not be blinked, but the test of legitimacy in theory should be insisted upon, — to wit, consistency with all THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS < !J observed facts, and "workability", or effectiveness in rendering the universe comprehensible. Text or guide books of the several subjects, physics, chemistry, phys- iology, etc., might be put into the hands of the pupils as the several subjects are taken up (provided suit- able books can be found), to help the student to a fuller insight into the subject, if inclined to further study; the pupils should be encouraged to keep note books, and should be referred to the best books avail- able to give them a larger knowledge of the subject; a syllabus of the instructor's course might be put into the pupils' hands, if nothing else were; but in all cases the use of these aids should be left optional with the pupil, his attendance at the lectures, or tail's, and participation in the class discussion being all that should be required of him. While every effort should be made to interest the young people, while the subject should be so pre- sented as to give to reasonably attentive pupils a fair knowledge of the most far-reaching results of the science in question, and while the information-con- tent of the instruction should be as large as the limited time and, on the part of the pupil, the limited experience, the immaturity and the ignorance of auxiliary subjects would make possible, yet care should be taken throughout to whet, rather than to sate, the interest and intellectual appetite of the young people ; interesting vistas not followed out should be opened from time to time, and every ef- fort made to show to these young people at this im- 80 THE EEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS pressionable age how vast and interesting are the fields of science, of which they are given a birdseye view. When possible, occasional popular lectures by distinguished specialists may be made a part of the year's program. The means by which the knowledge presented has been reached, should be indicated, and the satisfac- tion of being able to discover such things for one's self strongly suggested. The necessity for a consid- erable knowledge of mathematics for any extended, first-hand knowledge of physics, astronomy, etc. should be made very clear ; and the like necessity for this mathematical knowledge in order to apply the laws of physics to the practical problems of life, as met by the mechanician and the engineer, should be driven home. In short, while a sincere effort should be made throughout the work of this year to give to the young person a fairly systematic and comprehen- sive idea of the true nature of the ivorld lie lives in, of the operation of the forces that affect his life and welfare, and of his own nature, he should through- out be impressed by the vastness of it all and should be made wise by becoming conscious of the extent of his ignorance, so that the desire for larger, deeper, first-hand knowledge may be aroused. In summing up the history of the development of each of the several sciences, advantage should be taken of the opportunity to call attention to the most pressing problems still awaiting solution, and to indicate the points at which the students of the science in ques- THE KEOKGANIZATIOX OF OUR SCHOOLS 81 tion feel their ignorance most keenly. In a word, the young people should be made to understand clear- ly that at the end of this year they have but reached the threshold of the world of science. b. A course in the History of human develop- ment, preceded by such a picture of primitive man as anthropology suggests to us, and picturing savage and barbarous life before passing to the historic na- tions; giving the probable reasons for the early development of a fairly high civilization in the great sub-tropic river valleys of Africa and Asia minor; and then proceeding to show how the present eco- nomic, political and religious institutions of the United States are indebted to those early civiliza- tions ; showing how the torch of civilization has been passed on from one people to another, variously mod- ified in the transition, imtil today the descendants of the barbarous hordes that inhabited central Europe in the first century of the Christian era have achieved in Europe, America and Australasia, the highest civilization the world has yet attained ; showing that the aH of each people and each period reflects, as it is the expression of, the feeling of (the dominant element of) the people of that time, and that progress in science is progress in the (intellectual) interpreta- tion of the habits of the universe, or, as we usually say, of the laws of nature ; showing then how art and science have reacted on the moral ideas of people and changed their political and religious usages as well as their industrial system. At the conclusion of the 82 THE EEOKGANIZATIOI^ OF OUE SCHOOLS course there should be an attempt to sum up the re- sults of the moral insight gained by us at the end of these centuries of progressive civilization, so that a high and yet a sane and serviceable ideal of the true, the good and the beautiful may uplift the hearts of the young people. The meaning and importance of the social sciences — of economics, political sciences, ethics, esthetics and philosophy — should be indicated at least. This course should be given by lectures and auxil- iary conversations; or rather, throughout by talks. Good books of reference, as well as charts and maps, should be at hand and should be referred to by the teacher, and pupils should be encouraged to make use of them. As regards books to be read in connec- tion with the course, such works as West's Ancient World and Davis's or Webster's Readings in Ancient History would probably be more attractive and use- ful than such a brief compendium as Myers's Gen- eral History, on the one hand, or very elaborate Special studies, on the other. Mrs. Sheldon-Barnes's General History is full of valuable suggestions for one conducting such a course as is here proposed. Historical novels should be recommended to make the course vivid ; and if it should be necessary, as a means of interesting the pupils in them, a few hours in the year might be devoted to readings by the instructor from the best passages of some of these novels. At- tention should be directed to the literary monuments, and good translations of these should be at hand. THE EEOKGAXIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS 83 There should be occasioual readings from such writ- ers as Homer, Thucydides, Livy, Commines, Frois- sart, from Feuelou's Telemache, from Chaucer, Swift, Bunyan, aud the balhid literature, as well as from the less literary remains of an earlier day, such as the monkish chronicles (and the early writ- ings of Egypt and Babylonia-Assyria should be sim- ilarly used) . The poems and romances of early times should be given some attention. Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville might be compared with Munchau- sen on the one hand, and with Livingston and Stan- ley on the other. The course should be so arranged that the gTound could be covered in four days a week, leaving every fifth day for exercises of an auxiliary character, — readings and discussions, perhaps debates on histori- cal questions, plays, recitations, etc. But in the dis- cussions and debates care should be taken that the standards of today be not unfairly aj)plied to a diff- erent stage of culture, with different conditions, pos- sibilities and needs. Debate should be used, not to intensify prejudice against this or that people, per- son or line of conduct, but rather to awaken sympa- thy with different phases of life and with unaccus- tomed points of view. Pupils should be encouraged in a friendly rivalry to see who could bring to the class from the library the most interesting illustra- tive matter; they might hand in to the teacher a brief statement of what they had foimd, bearing on the history of the people or period then under discussion ; 84 THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS and the best of these (or occasionally those which showed the most effort) might be presented to the class. Excursions, visits to museums and monu- ments, etc., would also occasionally have their place, so far as these would not interfere with the work in the other departments of study pursued by the pupils. But all the outside reading, preparation for discus- sion, etc. should be optional. c. A course in Literature and esthetics, which in most schools would necessarily be almost exclusively a course in literature. One hour a week might be given to grammar, com- position and elocutionary training, and in connection with this work the a-b-c of comparative philology might possibly be presented to the class; and one hour each week might be devoted to the most interest- ing literary and artistic creations of the world in chronological order, thus making a valuable contri- bution to the study of history while giving the young people a glimpse of the great world classics ; but the greater part of the time — say, three hours a week — should be devoted to a flexible course in the literature that would be most attractive and most beneficial to early youth and most likely to give the young people a love for reading. At the beginning of the course the pupils should be asked to tell (either orally or in writing) what they have read that they have most enjoyed. At the end of the first week let them write out a statement of all the works they have read that they can remember, tell why they like this that they THE REOKGANIZATION OF OTJK SCHOOLS 85 have read and do not care for that, and state what kind of reading they generally prefer. This should be done in class unless the pupil prefers to do it more elaborately outside of school hours. These statements should be carefully studied by the instruc- tor, who should work from them in preparing future work for the class and in guiding the individual reading of the pupils. , The pupils should under- stand that these written statements are prepared by them so that the instructor may remember what they tell him or her as to their previous reading and pres- ent preferences ; here, as every^vhere, the pupil should think of his work, not as a formal composition, but as something having an immediate purpose. The oral and written statements of the pupil, the first month or so, should hardly ever be criticised from the stand- point of form (unless an individual pupil is especially desirous of getting such criticism), if they can be un- derstood ; barring such cases as those in which a kind- ly explanatory correction by the instructor would check a laugh on the part of the blunderer's fellow pupils. Everything possible should be done to make this course a thoroughly enjoyable one for the young people. "Working in the light of the data obtained from the pupils' statements the first week of the school year, reading lists should be carefully pre- pared, and some notion of the contents of these lists at once given to the pupils, partly by the explana- tory commentary of the instructor and partly by turning the young people into the library to thumb 86 THE KEOEGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS the book themselves. Each pupil should be required to read a few of these books and poems, but the se- lection should be largely his own. !N'ot intense, analytic study, but enjoyment of literature should be cultivated. At this stage of growth there is strong reason to believe that a love for reading will be better cultivated by a wide, than by a thorough, knowledge of books. The library should be large and have nnich variety, and there should be many copies of the books most likely to make a general appeal to early adolescence. The pupils should be read to, and en- couraged to bring to the class the best that they have severally read — that is, the things that appeal most to them. The more different the reading of the individ- ual pupils, the more interesting this exercise might be made and the better the opportunity to cultivate expressive reading aloud on the part of the pupils. Of course if A is especially interested in B's account of what he has read or in his extract therefrom, A will be likely to get a copy of the book for his o^vn home reading. A part of the reading should be in common, selected with prayer and trembling by the instructor to appeal to the largest number and yet enlarge and uplift their minds. Such of the ac- knowledged classics as can be used with satisfaction to the pupils should be made use of; but a classic should not be forced upon them merely because the judgment of adults has declared it to be a classic. In the last third of the year I think it will be found that the work read in common can safely be chosen for its THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 87 beauty and strength (as cultivated adults judge such matters), and that almost all of the pupils will enjoy it. Biography will have its place in the literature read by the youth of this department of the school. The Bible should afford a part of the field for selec- tion. I would suggest that beautiful selections there- from be presented to the pupils without expressly stating to them the source of the selections. When the pupils show a sincere appreciation of the excel- lence of these selections, the book and chapter from which the selection was taken may be stated to the pupils. It should never he forgotten that the great function of literature is, not to improve the style or the taste of those who peruse it, but to enlarge the self by a knowledge of and sympathy with the life and thought and feeling of those differently circum- stanced from ourselves yet sharing with us the funda- mental traits of human nature. As regards the choice of literature for this stage of school life, it may be added that the instructor need not fear to introduce a little of that which makes the greatest appeal to himself, of that which he himself enjoys most, inasmmuch as his own enthusiasm may general- ly be depended upon to awaken some response on the part of the pupils ; but in the main what is to be read must be determined by the preference of the pupil, and the point of departure should be the best of what the pupil already enjoys, or, at farthest, something really good that yet has kinship with or likeness to the pernicious reading matter for which the pupil 88 THE EEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS may unfortunately have acquired a taste. Those of the pupils who take to reading should be encouraged to read much, reporting title and author, and making oral — and occasional written — reports of the plot and of the charm, as it appeals to them, of the works they read. Should two readers of the same Avork express opposite opinions, let them sometimes try in oral debate to convince the class of the validity of their Respective judgments.* This sort of thing may lead to written persuasive discourse later. As the year passes the instructor may be more and more critical of the oral and written language of the pupils, bringing them to feel its defects in compari- son with the beauty and perfection of what they read, and thus awakening their esthetic feeling in regard to their own utterances, yet always making clearness the chief consideration and leaving elegance and forc- ibleness in the secondary position, being assured that the growing esthetic judgment of youth will in time care for these things. If a pupil is markedly disinclined toward reading, a minimum of outside reading should be assigned to him — say, from one to three books or selections in the course of the year — but redoubled effort should be made to learn his tastes and to get something for him that will appeal to him. With some young people one may have to begin with what is not prop- erly literature at all, but perhaps descriptions of * This seems to me to be much more wholesome than the usual school debating upon questions as to which an artificial enthu- siasm for one side or the other is worked up. THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 89 physical and mechanical constructions, in which a certain class of practical minds seem j^reatly inter- ested. Perhaps the minds of some can be cultivated and enlarged by architecture, where literature seems to fail ; but in such cases such literature as Ruskin's may later be enjoyed, and thus the door opened into the realm of true literature. While throughout the year as much as one hour a week might well be devoted to the work common to the whole class, the greater part of the work should be adapted to the individual needs and tastes of the pupil. So far as possible pictorial and plastic art should be used to reinforce the esthetic impression produced by literature, and it would be well indeed if there could also be, as part of the year's work in literature and esthetics, a series of music recitals with simple explanatory introductions. The work in literature and esthetics must be main- ly literature, not merely because it constitutes a broader avenue of culture, and because those who leave school at the end of this year can most readily follow up this line of culture, but also because it is easier and less expensive to get literature properly taught in the average community than it is to have other departments of esthetic culture properly pre- sented; but music, painting, sculpture and architec- ture may all play their part in the gi'eat city high schools, and the secondary transition departments should have the same facilities as the high school proper, or school for adolescents. 90 THE REOKGANIZATION OF OTJK SCHOOLS It goes without saying that while it may be possi- ble for large classes in science and history to be met by single instructors in the secondary transition de- partment, the class in literature, if large, should be divided into small sections; yet if the divisions are not formed until the first fortnight has elapsed, the tastes, acquirements and dispositions of the pupils may be so far taken account of as to group together fairly large sections in which there will be consider- able homogeneity. Too great likeness among the pupils of a given section is of course undesirable. d. A Course in Physical Culture. This should be alloted a period a day, or three ]:)eriods a week at least, should be directed by a thoroughly competent physical director, and should be individually adapted to the several needs of the different pupils, although as far as possible there should be work in which all the boys could take part together (and similarly for the girls). Part of this training might be by means of games ; but the great purpose of physical development for all should not be subordinated to grouping the boys for those games for which at the outset they might be respec- tively best fitted. The great endeavor should be to get the young people started in good physical habits of life and to build up for them strong and healthy bodies, trained to a ready and effective response to the will. e. A Course in Free-Hand Drawing, Music or some other kind of Art-Work to be pursued at least THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 91 twice a week, if an art course is not tahen as the elective. 2. Elective Course. One exercise a day or at least four a week should be devoted to a subject chosen by the pupil himself in consultation with his parents. To this subject he should devote himself earnestly, giving as much time to it, in school or out, as the nature of the subject might demand. This subject might be a foreign lan- guage, or mathematics, or some such branch of fine art as music or painting, or some practical art or gTOup of arts such as commercial arithmetic, book- keeping, typewriting, shorthand, or two or more of these, cooking, sewing, turning, carpentry, iron work, etc. 3. Optional Course. An optional elective might be added to the required one, to be pursued in school or out, by such students as might have exceptional strength and robust health. C. A Program for this year's work might be ar- ranged as follows: — 8.30 — 9.00 Morning Exercises. 9.00 — 9.45 Science Course. 9.50—11.10 Elective Course. 11.15—12.00 History Course. 2.00 — 2.45 Literature & Esthetics Course. 2.50 — 4.00 Systematic Physical Culture, 3 times a week. Art (Drawing, Painting or Music), etc. 2 times a week. 92 THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS This program allows two hours intermission in the middle of the day, and then makes the school day (including the last hour for physical culture) last until about four o'clock. It will be noticed, how- ever, that nearly an hour and a half is provided for the elective subject so that there w^ould be little need for much home work in the subject, and no need for it in any of the other subjects, except the outside reading in the literature course (most of which would be optional). In winter, when the days are short, the middle of the day, thus left free, is the most de- sirable time for freedom to be out of doors, and in the early fall there would be plenty of daylight after four. The plan provides that practically all the work be done in school, except an indefinite amount of reading for the evening, which would provide an in- teresting and enjoyable way of spending the evening leisure. When the absence of home preparation is considered, it will be seen that the school day should not be regarded as a long one ; especially when the long noon recess, the long period for physical culture (only a part of which would be given to prescribed physical drill), and the intermission periods are considered. One reason for concentrating the work at the school is that the high grade of qualification required of those giving the instruction, in the synop- tic courses in science and history especially, would make it improbable that small villages could provide the instruction. This would tend toward the estab- lishment of these secondary transition schools only in THE eeoeganizatio:n' of oue schools 93 the larger towns, to which the youth might come from outlying districts miles away. In such cases they should be kept occupied while in school, their school work should take five or six hours a day, but they should not have it to attend to when at home, except for an hour or so in the evening, after the chores, the home duties, were disposed of. In industrial cities and wherever the demand for them exists, the courses offered in the secondary tran- sition department should also be given in the evening. SECTioiir 5. The High School, Secondaet De- partment^ OR School for Adolescents. A. General View. "When the high school, or school for adolescents, has been reached, the work should be arranged according to the annual, semi- annual or quarterly classes or terms, that are now usual throughout the whole school period. The ad- vancement of the student in each subject should be independent of his success or failure in other studies, and the one test of promotion should be ability to get greater benefit in the advanced class than he could get from remaining in the lower class. In order that the youth may get the greatest advantage from so much schooling as he may be able to get, wherever he may stop, and may have the widest pos- sible field of study and activity before him at all times, there must be both system and elasticity; and after the first year of the high school it should be 94 THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS possible for him either to devote himself primarily to the acquisition of the necessary means for the broad- est and most thorough culture — in which case his curriculum might correspond in large measure to the college preparatory courses in a few of the best acad- emies, high schools and fitting schools of today — or to devote himself primarily to some one of the practical arts of life — in which case his curriculum might be similar to some one of the courses of study given in technological, commercial, manual training, or even in one of the best trade schools. The extent to which elective courses should be offered by any given high school would of course depend upon the wealth and size of the community to which it might minister and by which it might be supported and upon local conditions generally, such as the predominant indus- tries and the habits of life and the nativity of the principal elements in the population. The completion of the work of the secondary transition department or its approximate equivalent in scope of work should be a prerequisite for admis- sion to the high school proper. B. The FIRST YEAii^s work in the school for ado- lescents should consist of — 1. English for three periods a week. At least one period a week should be devoted to composition. In addition to this there should be some study of literary masterpieces. 2. History for two or three periods a week. The THE KEOEGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS 95 work iu history should consist of a careful study of some one period or institution, according to scientific method, so that the students might not only learn much of some one topic in history, but might also gain a general acquaintance with the sources of his- torical knowledge and the methods of historical re- search, and thus be liberated, on the one hand, from the credulity that accepts anything that is recorded in print or handed down by tradition and, on the other, from the injudicious, unenlightened, "cheap*' skepticism that condemns all history and tradition as wholly unreliable and characterizes it as a lying farrago of imagination and superstition. For this purpose and with a special view to the benefit of those who would never have any further formal study of history, a selection from the field of English or Grecian history might be found most advisable, but the selection should depend chiefly, I am inclined to think, upon that in which the teacher is best equipped, whether it be the reconstruction period of American history or the age of Assurbanipal. In a large school where considerable work in history can be offered, the student might choose his subject in history, but his choice should be enlightened by the advice of the school officers. Whenever a single period or institution is taken up for study, the teacher should not fail to devote one or more lectures to setting forth the relation of the special topic to the general course of human development, 3. A laboratory study in some one science pur- 96 THE EEOKGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS sued for four or five periods a week. This laboratory work should be supplemented by the presentation of a general outline of the science of which it should be a part. What laboratory science should be thus stud- ied would depend, first, upon the resources of the school, and, secondly, upon the practical or scholastic career which the student expected to pursue. 4 and 5. Physical Culture (three times a week) and Ai't (twice a week). The physical culture should be adapted to the special needs of the individ- ual, ascertained by a careful examination made by a competent physical director. The art might take the form of drawing, painting, modeling, carving, music, or any other art which the taste and aptitude and life purpose of the youth and the resources of the school might render possible; or the student might comply with this requirement by the private pursuit of some artistic line of endeavor not provided by the school. 6. Elective work to an amount not less than four nor more than ten hours a week, in the case of a normal youth, should complete the work of the first year of the adolescent department. In the case of a student looking forward to a technological, profes- sional or university career, and generally in the case of all not compelled by economic necessity to devote these elective hours to special preparation for an im- mediate calling, by the study of bookkeeping, type- writing, carpentry or some other commercial or tech- nical subject, the first elective studv should be math- THE KEOEGAJflZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 97 ematics (four periods a week) and the next should normally be a foreign language.* Inasmuch as the student would presumably have studied one modern language throughout the four years or so of the intermediate or elementary depart- ment (the "school for boyhood and girlhood proper"), and would thus have acquired a considerable degree of proficiency in it, I think that the student desiring a broad culture should be advised to make Latin the language choice of this year (devoting four periods a week to it and perhaps one to the continuation of the modern language he has studied in the elementary school). I recommend Latin, not because of its lit- erary value, which seems to me markedly inferior to Greek and to the modern languages of the leading culture nations of our own day, nor because it is nec- cessary for the acquirement of a notion of classical culture (which can be acquired in other ways, and in respect to which I would observe that the earnest student of history, literature and art whose studies are carried on through the medium of his vernacular, may be greatly the superior of the man who has studied Latin and Greek six or more years), nor yet because of Latin's supposed peculiar fitness to impart mental discipline (in which respect I fail to see any marked superiority over German), but because this • It would be dlfBcult to overestimate the cultural value of the study of the language and literature of one or more foreign peoples, In enabling one to look at life from a somewhat differ- ent emotional and Intellectual standpoint from that of our own (Anglo-Saxon) civilization — its value, that Is, in giving one a method of triangulatlon that will enable him to estimate more truly the magnitude and the meaning of life. 98 THE EEORGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS language is at present a necessary tool for original research into the history of almost every institution of civilization and of every art and science that is not of very recent birth, and because as the source of a great percentage of English words and as a language from which words and phrases are much quoted in the literature of our own and of all other modem lan- guages, and as the basis of many important modem languages, including French, Italian and Spanish, and finally as a highly inflected language the gram- mar of which has been very carefully worked out and the structure of which is continually used for the illustration of philological and linguistic studies — it has a great many practical claims upon the present- day scholar, and its total neglect would seriously limit his efficiency as a student and investigator and the fulness of his enjoyment as a man of culture. Once taken up, I think the study of Latin should preferably be pursued for three or four years (at least four periods a week), taking up Virgil the last half of the third year. I do not think a longer period than three years necessary for one who does not in- tend to devote himself especially to classical literature or to philology, and I believe that shorter period of study — two years, or even one year, would not be without value. Whenever a second language is taken up, it would be well to give not more than four periods a week to it, so as to leave one period a week for the continu- ance of the foreign language previously studied, if THE REOKGANIZATION OF OUK SCHOOLS 99 the latter would otherwise be discontinued. We need in America to get away from the mechanical notion that all school studies should be taken five times a week. During the first year of the school for adolescents^ at least, provision should be made for study under the direct supervision of the teacher, either by means of "double periods" (the students spending part of the period in a class exercise and the other part in preparation for the next day's class exercise under the eye of the teacher, thus giving the latter an oppor- tunity to help individually those who need to learn how to study or who have special difficulty with the assigned task) or by means of a special hour with the teacher, to be assigned for those students who do not seem to prepare properly for the class exercise. C. After This First Year of the school for ad- olescents all hut from six to ten hours, for physical culture, art and English, might he elective; election of course, being subject to the fact that a certain order of studies is prescribed by common sense and ordinary convenience when it has once been deter- mined that given studies are to be pursued, and sub- ject to the further fact that any intelligent education would naturally take the form of group electives rather than miscellaneous individual elections. Toward the end of the secondary course, however, all students should have a term's work in psychology, in political and economic science, and in the history of philosophy, if not a philosophic review of the history 100 THE REOEGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS of civilization. Although the study of English should be pursued throughout the high school course, the time formally devoted to it might in the later years be limited to one period a week. In addition, however, to the special study of English literature, all the work of the high school, or school for adoles- cents, should contribute to the study of English, and all written work of the student, in whatever depart- ment of study, should be carefully examined and per- sistently (but not hypercritically) criticised from the standpoint of straightforward, simple and forcible English. It would be well to have English teachers whose class work would be light enough to enable them to devote a large part of their time to the exami- nation and criticism of the oral and written work of the students in classes other than English. Oral discourse, narrative, descriptive, expository and ar- gumentative, and oral reading, as well as written composition and the appreciation of literature, should be carefully cultivated. The work in history and in foreign languages especially, should be made to con- tribute to a mastery of English expression. ITo electives should be chosen until after con- sultation with the pupil's special adviser upon the faculty, and with the principal, who would naturally learn something of the student's bent and ability from the teachers under whom he had previously worked, and who, if fit for his important position, should have a breadth of view sufficient to enable him to counsel wisely in view of all the conditions confronting the THE REORGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 101 youth. This advice, indeed, should be no mere tri- fling incident of the principal's position, but should be recognized as one of his most important functions and one for which he should prepare himself by a careful study of the conditions of life and the indi- vidual strength and weakness of his pupils. In a large school for adolescents, in a rich and populous community, it should be perfectly feasible for a student to pursue the so-called cultural and vo- cational studies side by side for an indefinite num- ber of years. By arranging both morning and after- noon sessions so that two youths might work their way through school by being employed in the same indus- trial establishment, the one working in the morning and the other in the afternoon, attending their school classes in the reverse order, school managers could in an industrial community make it possible for every youth to get the full benefit of all the education- al facilities given by the school, however long and elaborate the courses, without cost to the parent ; for I have the assurance of competent and experienced employers of labor that the average youth of sixteen can easily support himself by five hours labor a day at work which can readily be learned in a few weeks. In the larger cities the high school might well melt into and coalesce with the polytechnic institute and the college, and it should fit its pupils to enter at once upon professional or true university studies without the intervention of any college baccalaureate course. Our present system of four vears of high 102 THE KEOEGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS school followed by four college years as preliminary to professional or advanced university courses is merely an accident of history, is not logical, not nec- essary, not even desirable, and is rapidly coming to be recognized as an anachronism. The broad foun- dation of general culture should be laid in the en- larged secondary school, or school for adolescents, so as to leave the student free to specialize as closely as he may desire to do upon passing to the university or professional school. The "Junior College" movement is a wholesome step in the right direction ; but instead of regarding the junior college as constituted by a definite two years' course of study superimposed upon an equally definite four-year high-school course and leading to the junior year of the American baccalaureate course, it would be well for us to look upon the junior col- lege simply as the enriched upper high school, or school for adolescentsj([following upon the Secondary Transition Department, "Intermediate School," "Preparatory Department," or "Junior High School," as the school for pubescents is variously callech, and giving one, in a course of study that could be covered in from three to five years, either the preparation necessary to enable one to profit by university studies or a basis of general culture and practical efiiciency that would enable one to enter the industrial world fairly well equipped to play one's part as a good citi- zen, and a useful man or woman. The logical distinction between the schools of sec- THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 103 ondary grade (with which we are now concerned) and the university, together with such professional schools as belong to it (wherein are studied medicine, advanced engineering, advanced agricultural science, advanced political science, advanced history and mathematics and physics and chemistry and biology and philology etc.), lies in the fact that the primary function of the secondary schools is simply to impart a knowledge of such of the facts and theories of inter- est to human life as are generally admitted to be true and useful, such of the arts and sciences, that is, aa have reached the positive stage ; the function of these schools is to enable the student to attain such a famil- iarity with accepted truth as will enable him, not as a specialist, but as a member of the present genera- tion, to make use in the ordinary affairs of life of what has been achieved by an earlier human effort; while the function of the university '_(and of profes- sional and technological schools of university rank) is to give the specialist's mastery and to so use the known as to advance into the realm of the undiscov- ered. To this end the university carefully preserves all that has been learned in the past, regardless of whether any practical application for the knowledge has yet been found, disseminates the most recent dis- coveries and hypotheses, trains promising young men in methods favorable to original research, and with their assistance projects itself into what had previ- ously been terra incognita. 104 THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS III. As TO THE Adaptation of the Plan of Oegani- ZATION TO THE VaRIOUS ClASSES OF YoUNG PeOPLE. Although most of what is to follow has been implied if not explicitly stated, in what precedes, it would seem to be worth while, for the sake of clearness, to complete this exposition of the proposed system of grading, by setting forth with some particularity how it would apply in the case of different classes of young people. Section 1. As to Gikls. As to girls I have but a few words to say at this time. The course I have outlined seems to me to be equally applicable to boys and girls, although it was planned with boys chiefly in mind. I think we may take for granted that the work of the Play School and the Primary Transition Department should be the same for boys and girls, and that the classes in these first two departments of the school should consist of boys and girls together. A certain amount of train- ing in the fundamental industrial arts would be a part of the curriculum in the first three departments for boys and girls alike, but it might also be well in the latter part of the curriculum of the Elementary Department to make the manual training work for boys and for girls somewhat different, initiating the girls more fully into the arts of homekeeping. Except so far as this difference in the work should make sepa- THE EEOROANIZATION OF ODE SCHOOLS 105 ration necessary, I think it would be well to keep the boys and girls in common classes throughout the El- ementary School period. I confess that I have not yet given suflScient consideration to female education as such to speak with much positiveness about the ed- ucation of girls after this period. It seems to me, however, that the curriculum hereinbefore set forth for the Secondary Transition Department and sug- gested for the Adolescent Department is equally ap- plicable for youths and maidens, except, of course, that different electives would normally be advisable and that a course in home economics should be pre- scribed for girls in the first year or two of the Ado- lescent Department, if not also in the Secondary Transition Department. In view of the fact that continuous individual progress from year to year throughout the whole period of years during which the subject is studied,* rather than certain definitely prescribed attainments as the conditions of promotion from one annual or semi-annual class to another, is the method I would have followed in the study of foreign language and mathematics in the Adolescent Department of the school, I do not feel that the dif- ferences in the rate of growth and in physical and intellectual vigor in adolescent males and females make separate classes in these subjects necessary. The instruction in these subjects, in history and "the humanities" generally, and in physical, as distinct * Compare Search's "Ideal School" and Hornbrook's "Labora- tory Method of Teaching Mathemathlcs in Secondary Schools" for somewliat detailed expositions of the method to be employed. 106 THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS from biological sciences, might well be given in com- mon classes ; but tbe instruction in human physiology and preferably all that in biology, should be given in separate classes, as well as the (prescribed) work in physical training and perhaps some of the advanced reading courses in the several languages. It seems to me eminently desirable, for the sake of that larger education for life which is of so much more impor- tance than "book-learning," that youths and maidens should have a part of their education in common classes; but such common classes should be so con- ducted that the girls should be subject to no serious disadvantage and to no embarrassment by reason of such irregularity in attendance as is physiologically desirable for them. Further than this, whether in mixed classes or in classes wholly composed of girls, the latter should be subject to no penalty for not taking review examinations or subjecting themselves to formal tests at fixed dates* (provided, of course, * I would not have it understood that I regard examinations as useless or pernicious, as some extremists maintain, yet, as they are usiially conducted, I regret to say that I believe they are more harmful than helpful to girls. The nervous strain is frequently very injurious, and the thought of a coming examination too frequently encourages an illiberal, literal method of study, to which in our present stage of culture, girls seem somewhat more inclined than young men. On the other hand, the mental training that the review examination gives, which is so valuable for the man of affairs, the lawyer, the publicist, is generally less necessary for girls than for boys, unless the girls are preparing for the teaching profession. Yet it is for this mental training that examinations are primarily valuable. They are to be regarded more as a means of education than as a test of knowledge. Properly planned and conducted they are of great value in encouraging one to review, reorganize and summarize — and thus make one's own — the facts and the underlying principles that have constituted the subject matter of one's study for a considerable period of time. And in addi- tion to this, it should not be forgotten that even "cramming" TUB KEORGAXIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 107 that their daily work shows that they are fairly atten- tive to their class duties*). So far as such exercises may be necessary, they should be arranged for at the convenience of the girls individually. If these mat- ters could not be arranged satisfactorily in common classes, the classes for youths and for girls should be separate. But in most cases I am of the opinion that they could be satisfactorily arranged. Section 2. The I^ormally Developing Child OF Average Ability. The normal child might well enter The Play School (or Primary Department) at four or five years of age, and spend not less than two years there under the same teacher with a class most of whom would have begim their school life at the same time he did. At the end of two or threef years, his teacher would start with another class of beginners, and at the same time he and those of his classmates who had not already been transferred would pass into The Primary Transition Department, where he would normally spend from one to two years under his sec- for an examination, although the knowledge thus gathered to- gether and held in the mind for a few hours, or days (I. e. until the examination is passed) is then almost wholly for- gotten, is by no means a valueless exercise. This power of gath- ering together in a short time, and holding in mind for a brief period, a large body of facts, is of great value to the lawyer, the statesman, the public speaker of any kind; and not onlv to the lecturer, but hardly less so to the reviewer and " tlie journalist. • In which case they might be given a B grade without an examination. t W^hether two or three or three and a half years would be the normal term for the Play School must be determined by experi- ment. 108 THE EEOKGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS end teacher, continuing the occupations of the Play School, or a part of them, under the same gen- eral methods. As far as mental training and moral development are concerned, it might generally be possible for the child to take up the work of the Elementary Depart- ment, the school of boyhood and girlhood proper (cor- responding in a general way to what in our American public schools is often called the intermediate de- partment or grammar school, — the Play School and the Primary Transition Department together corre- sponding to the kindergarten and primary depart- ments of the present school system), after one year in the Primary Transition Department, or even immediately upon passing from the Play School. The object of keeping a child in the Primary Transition Department as long as two years (or longer) would simply be to make sure that he had completely passed through what is sometimes called the crisis of second dentition, the period of lessened vitality that often, if not always, marks that stage in the develop- ment of a child when his brain has approximately at- tained its full bulk and he is rapidly losing his first and gaining his second teeth. When this period of development has been safely passed through, and not until then, whether it be after one, two, two and a half, or three years in the Primary Transition De- partment, and when the child has entered upon that period, generally marked by sturdiness and steady growth, described above as characteristic of boyhood THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 100 or girlhood proper, as distinguished from childhood on the one hand and adolescence on the other, then the boy or girl should be advanced into the Elemen- tary or Intermediate Department. The subject matter and the method of instruction and training in the Primary Transition Department and the Play School, would be so similar that they might be conducted as one continuous class were it not for the necessity of meeting the various needs of children maturing at different rates of development and entering school at different ages, and were it not that in the Primary Transition Department the health of the child should be the primary consideration even more than in the Play School. In consequence of these considerations the treatment of the children in the Primary Transition Department would be more largely individual that at any other stage of the child's life prior to adolescence ; and this department is especially designed to give to the curriculum as a whole the elasticity it should have, and with this end in view it affords the opportunity for considerable interruptions of the routine of school life in case such interruptions should seem desirable for any child. In the case of an especially delicate child the time covered by this stage of development could be spent in out-of-door life wholly outside the school, and the child of rich parents might be out of school at this time acquiring a foreign language by the nat- ural, conversational method. During the two or three years of the Play School the normal course of 110 THE EEOEGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS development and unfolding of the child's mind should be carefully ministered to according to the best knowledge attainable in the light of child study and comparative psychology and physiology, and here the teacher's procedure would exhibit its method in a fairly regular and uniform progression. In the Pri- mary Transition Department, however, while the ef- fort should be made to keep the child from losing what it might have gained in moral training in the Play School, and to keep its mind open to the beauty and interest of the myriad phases of life, and to encourage the gTadual perception of the orderly development of all that is, yet a larger freedom of individual treat- ment of the children would be possible and desirable here, and a systematic line of development would be less necessary. The Elementary Department would be entered by the normal child whose course we have been follow- ing, in his ninth or tenth year, and here he would usually spend about four years under the same teacher, who would conduct him through the whole elementary school curriculum, with the assistance, in the larger cities, of special teachers for manual train- ing, physical culture, and foreign language, and for music, drawing, etc. The Secondary Transition Department would then be entered by our normal child in his thirteenth or fourteenth year, and its course would ordinarily be completed in a year. The Adolescent Department, Secondary Depart- THE REOEGAXIZATIOX OF OUK SCHOOLS 111 ment, or High School would be entered by tbe young person who bad spent but a year in the Secondary Transition Department, in bis fourteenth or fifteenth year; and here be might remain from one to five years or longer, according to bis plans for life, taking such a course as might suit him. Every effort should be made by the public and school authorities, as well as by the parents, to give the youth or maiden, at least the first year of the Ad- olescent Department, or High School course, before allowing him or her to leave school. If the law should provide that admission to the Secondary Transition Department should be granted to every child who had attained the age of thirteen at tbe beginning of the school year, in case the parent should demand it (regardless of the young person's definite attain- ments in scholarship at that time), and should pro- vide further that, after attending for a year the classes provided for in the Secondary Transition De- partment, the youth should be granted admission to the first year classes of the Adolescent Department, it would be perfectly feasible to make one year's work in the high school, or Adolescent Department, the minimum limit of compulsory education for all young persons not excused therefrom by reason of physical or mental inferiority as determined by a competent physician's certificate. (In any case the completion of the Secondary Transition year should be required.) Let me add that I do not shrink from any necessary corollary of what I have just proposed, 112 THE KEORGANIZATION OF OTTB SCHOOLS such as providing at public expense the necessary food or clothing or shelter for orphans or the children of parents too poor to keep their children at school until the completion of their fifteenth year. The poverty or illiberality of parents should not be al- lov7ed to deprive the men and women of tomorrow of a sufficient introduction to the rudiments of art and science to make them capable workers and intelligent citizens of the world. I am sure that a careful statis- tical investigation of the subject will convince the most skeptical that the state that allowed no person of normal (physical or mental) health to enter upon his or her life work with less education than I have suggested as a minimum, would from the economic standpoint find itself amply compensated for the re- quisite outlay by reason of the increased wealth and tax-paying power of the community as a whole and of the individual citizens. I would add, however, with reference to the ques- tion of expense, that a little intelligent co-operation between the school authorities and employers of labor in a given community would make it possible to re- lieve the parents (as well as the piihlic) of all ex- pense for the support of their children after they had completed the Secondary Transition year (at about fourteen years of age) and yet enable the latter to carry their seco7idary education as far as they might wish to carry it. This would simply require, on the one hand, both morning and afternoon sessions of classes of the same grade in the Adolescent Depart- THE! EEORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 113 ineut of the scliools, and ou the other hand that em- ployers of labor who eonld make use of the services of adolescents should, instead of employing one per- son for eight or ten hours a day, employ two persons for four or five hours a day each. The employers would probably get more work done for the same out- lay of time and money, by thus making use of two sets of workers, than they could get from one set of persons Avorking all day long at the same job and more or less worn out during the latter part of the day. A ten-hour industrial day, would, in this way, work less hardship) upon the individuals doing the labor than now results from an eight-hour day. It goes without saying, of course, that the pupil thus working his way through high school should not go so fast, take so many studies a day, as the youth who has nothing but his school and a few light home duties; but the former could probably complete the same course in a period one-third longer than would be taken by the rich man's son, although it is doubtful if the latter would have as valuable a preparation for life as the schoolmate who had meanwhile been learn- ing to take care of himself. Section 3. The Child of Slow Developmeivt. He might begin school a year or two later than the normal child. If he should begin before six he would still be able to spend two years in the Play School before entering the Primary Transition class, where he might remain until he were nine or even 114 THE REORGAlSriZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS ten if his physical development were very slow. He would then normally spend four years in the Elemen- tary Department, at the expiration of which time he would have attained his fourteenth year at least. At this time, although he might have achieved much less in this department of the school than most of his classmates (notwithstanding that they would general- ly be a year or two younger than he), it would nor- mally he desirable for him to pass into the Secondary Transition class. If his health were good and he were now in the pubescent stage he might complete the work of this department of the school in a year, and might if necessary spend the five periods a week set apart for an elective study, in working up, with the assistance of a teacher who should give him indi- vidual instruction, those of the Elementary Depart- ment studies, such as English and arithmetic, in which he might be especially backward. The English work forming a regular part of the curriculum of the Secondary Transition Department would also be such as could be especially adapted to the mental imma- turity of one who should need that it should be so adapted. Upon completing the work of the Second- ary Transition Department the youth in question would take the prescribed work of the first year of the Adolescent Department or High School, and as much more as might be good for him ; and after that he could go as far in his studies and at as rapid or as slow a pace as might suit him. If, however, after four years spent in the Elemen- THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 115 tary Department he should still be more immature physically than his classmates, he might pass into the next Elementary class below his own, to remain an- other year or so in the Elementary Department; or he might give two years to the Secondary Transition Department, devoting, during the first year at least, the period a day set apart for elective work to any elementary work in which he were especially back- ward, if any such there were, and, while taking the physical training and art work both years, following only the science course and the English course the first year, leaving the course in history together with such elective work as might be desired and further work in English for the second year. He would then complete the prescribed work of the first year of the high school and take as much more work as might be good for him. Section 4. The Child of Exceptionally Kapid Growth and Early Maturity of Mind or Body. Such a child, who might enter school at three or four years of age, would also spend at least two years in the Play School, and, even though he should have passed the crisis of second dentition before complet- ing his seventh year, he would still spend about a year in the Primary Transition Department; then in his eighth year he might enter the Elementary Depart- ment. Four years later (no earlier, however preco- cious he might be, unless his physical development should be as rapid as his mental) he would enter the Secondary Transition Department ; and if at the com- 116 THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS pletion of a year in the Secondary Transition De- partment, in liis thirteenth year, he had arrived at puberty, he might enter upon his high school course at once. Even though he were not as mature physi- cally as mentally, however, he might nevertheless take up some of the studies of the Adolescent Department, if physically robust; but it might be preferable, es- pecially if he were delicate, for him to spend more than a year in the Secondary Transition Department, devoting himself primarily to physical culture and art and going on with the English work of the depart- ment, but also doing some special work both in contin- uance of his Elementary Department studies and in new lines. It might be best of all for a precocious but delicate child to spend a year or so out of school until he were physically mature enough to enter the Adolescent Department. Section 5. The Yottng Person Who Has Been Kept Out of School by Illness, Lack of Op- portunity, OR Other Special Cause. If a mentally normal child should not begin his school life until seven years of age, he might be put at once into the Primary Transition Department, to remain for two years or less according to his degree of maturity ; after which he might enter the Elemen- tary Department and proceed according to the regular course. If he were already unquestionably past the stage of "childhood proper," the stage for the Play School, THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR SCHOOLS 117 or Primary Department, — say nine or ten years of age, — when first sent to school, the boy (or girl) might still be put into the Primary Transition De- partment for a few months for special instruction, if it were not the beginning of the school year, and be there given the rudiments of reading and of number work (if he had not already absorbed them at home), or he might enter the Elementary Department at once if he should begin school at the beginning of the school year. Although his mind would probably be less well developed than the minds of his class- mates, who would generally have spent about four years in the Play School and Primary Transition Department together, yet the work of the Elementary Department would be so largely independent of what precedes and follows it that any normal child at the stage of growth corresponding to this department of the school would be able to pursue the curriculum of the department satisfactorily even though this were the beginning of school life for him, and would be able to leave this department for the Secondary Tran- sition Department when he should reach the stage of puberty, even though the lack of early opportunity would probably prevent the education of one who had thus begiui school in the Elementary Department from being as thoroughly good as that of his more fortunate classmates. Let us now consider the case of a boy (or girl) who for some special reason, as ill health in childhood or a life spent in the backwoods, were eleven or more 118 THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS years old when first brought to school, at which time we may suppose him to be wholly ignorant of "the three R's." In this case, if it were not the time at which a class of the Elementary Department were beginning, the boy might spend the intervening months in the Primary Transition Department, but as soon as an Elementary Department class should begin I would put him into it. Further than this, if he should mature early, should enter upon adolescence at thirteen, say, and should be restless and dissatis- fied to be working with younger or less mature chil- dren, I would then put him into the Secondary Tran- sition Department, even though he had spent less than three years in all in school, and though he were manifestly inferior in his knowledge of arithmetic, English, etc. to the classmates who remained in the Elementary Department when he was taken out of it. ^ Finally, if a youth should have had no opportunity for schooling before adolescence, and at fifteen (or, for that matter at twenty), should come to school un- able to read and write, I would not only not have him begin in the Primary Department, I would not have begin in the Elementary Department, but would put him at once into the Secondary Transition Depart- ment, having him devote to special coaching in read- ing, writing and arithmetic, the time spent by his classmates in elective work, and in the English read- ing course. In two years at most, I am confident, — judging not alone, by the light of psychology, but also by that of history and biography, — the normally THE EEOKGANIZATION OF OUE SCHOOLS 119 endowed youth, thongli ignorant as a savage at the start, would be able to enter upon the curriculum of the adolescent, or Secondary Department with profit. Of course he would not be as thoroughly educated as his fellows, who had had the advantage of school in each of the lower stages of their development ; he would be at an unquestionable disadvantage ; his work would as a matter of course be harder for him and would seem more uncouth to his fellows; but nevertheless he would be able to enter upon and pur- sue a secondary education, — and should be set at that, not at primary or at elementary school work, — be- cause he would be in the stage of development for secondary education. Section 6. As to Industrial Workers axd Evening Schools. To the young person whose parents are unable to support him while getting an education, the proposed school organization is exceptionally advantageous, lending itself readily to cooperation with such an or- ganization of industry as would permit the employ- ment of two persons at the same job. one working in the morning and the other in the afternoon ; by spend- ing only the forenoon or the afternoon, as the case might be, in school, a youth might support himself while pursuing an education, and might carry that education on as many years as he should care to give to it. If, furthermore, he should come to a city having such an organization of schools at the age of sixteen, 120 THE KEOKGANIZATION OF OUIi SCHOOLS or at a greater age, still ignorant of the rudiments of education, he could be put in a special class in the Secondary Transition Department, until he should gain a tolerable command of the three R's, and could then proceed with the regular and elective work of the Secondary Transition Department and of the school for adolescents at his own gait. As already suggested, so far as the size and re- sources of the community render it possible, all courses in the Secondary Transition Department and in the School for Adolescents should have morning, afternoon and evening classes. The evening school will long be a necessity for adolescents and will prob- ably always be desirable for adults; and the ideal evening school would include all the courses of the Secondary Transition Department and of the high school proper, in addition to courses for which there might be no demand during the day. But much of its work as a continuation school could be done in the day time if employers could be brought to employ two young persons for four (or five) hours each, in- stead of one for eight (or ten) hours. There would probably be some inconveniences experienced from hav- ing two persons fill the same job, especially at first ; but these would doubtless be completely offset — so far as the employer is concerned, at least — by the greater efficiency of the labor of one whose freshness, vigor, and good spirits had not been worn out by eight or ten hours of the same kind of labor. THE END. UCLA-Young Research Library LB3011 .S21 y L 009 593 168 9