LB /03/ STATE NORMAL SCHOOL AT SAN FRANCISCO * MONOGRAPH SERIES A UC-NRLF 17 D33 Lock- Step Schooling and a Remedy The Fundamental Evils and Handicaps of Class Instruction; and a]^Report of Progress in the Construction of an Individual System FRIEND WM. RICHARDSON, SUPERINTENDENT OF STATE PRINTING SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA 1913 GIFT OF $i-^a-Smk~--^ -T--^"-"- -" ? *^ o- PREFACE. During the present generation the efficiency of our schooling, even in the best schools, has been repeatedly called in question. There is a widespread conviction that the results of our schooling are pain- fully disproportionate to what is expected of it and to the tremendous amount of energy put into the cause. In many localities and institu- tions no expense of money, energy and sincerity of purpose have been spared, yet no appreciable improvement has been made. Unquestion- ably something must be fundamentally and radically wrong. Natu- rally, suspicion has often turned upon the teaching staff upon the honesty and integrity of their purposes and upon the efficiency of the administrative machinery. But those most intimately acquainted with facts have generally become very thoroughly convinced, that aside from sporadic instances, the fidelity of operators of the school system is its strongest asset. In the most recent years the cry has gone up that the schools can be improved only by injecting into the course of study a broader and richer curriculum. Many new studies have been suggested and intro- duced. But this proceeding, as a remedy, shows itself shortsighted, for if the schools are inefficient in the teaching of the subjects which for generations they have been attempting to teach, efficiency is not to be won by adding new and different subjects. The fundamental cause of inefficiency in the process must still remain. Further, however desirable and necessary it may be to introduce certain new material, it would seem certain that the same fate of inefficiency must befall the teaching of the new subjects as now besets the teaching of the old. It is no remedy for a disordered stomach to load it with more and richer foods. But there is one source of possible cause that has been overlooked. It has been overlooked because it is so manifest and so fundamental that it would seem idle to suspect it. This is the essential structure of the system itself. In the following report I have laid bare certain impossible asumptions which are imbedded in the foundation of the school system by class instruction. These are appalling facts which do not easily admit dispute, and which, once admitted, no longer justify further wonder that our schooling should be inefficient. I also outline the plan of remedy which the faculty of the school has been working out by experience during the past year. We are keeping accurate records, and at a subsequent date, as time and trial justify, we shall make other reports showing in a quantitative way the measure of the efficiency of the remedy proposed. "333309 FREDERIC BURK. (l) LOCK-STEP SCHOOLING AND ONE REMEDY. Over one half the children in the public schools in the United States leave between the ages of thirteen and fifteen years inclusive. Just how much more than one half is not agreed upon by experts. The United States Bureau of Education in 1911 ventured the apologetic estimate that it is "considerably more." Some maintain that the number of young people between the ages of fourteen and eighteen years who are not in school is nearer to ninety than to fifty per cent. According to estimates of the National Committee on Child Labor, there are working in occupations in the United States one million children, one half of American parentage. Yet the report concludes that all the girls and nine tenths of the boys who enter upon bread- winning under sixteen years of age find employment only in low-wage industries and remain unskilled workers throughout their lives. If schooling approximates, in a practical way, the astonishing values which the American people have theoretically placed upon it, then it is sufficiently deplorable that the number out of school, at . any school age, should be even ten per cent. That it is "considerably more" than fifty per cent is appalling and justifies a special session of Congress, provided such procedure could offer any prospect of remedy. The Cause. As to cause, there is palpably much wool-gathering. Some say poverty. Others ascribe the premature development of the American lust for money-making. Still others, very critical people, assert that the cause lies in the failure of the schools to succeed in teaching very much of anything, aside from reading and writing, which has effective bearing upon breadwinning, civic or social life. This indictment has become^ very generally admitted. Some apprehensive schoolmasters who, knowing in a personal and practical way very little about bread- winning, citizenship or social conditions, are nervously scurrying about, offering to make the schools teach any and all new nostrums from schoolmarm-taught agriculture to folk dancing, and from raffia weav- ing to ancient pottery making and first-aid to the injured. The schools are now harvesting the fall crop from these good intentions, but it requires a plumber in pedagogy to connect, in appropriate terminology, the breadwinning, civic or social purpose of these nostrums with the harvested products, and it requires an exceedingly feeble and attenu- ated intellect to perceive this connection. World efficiency seems to be seedless at least so far as professional pedagogues have discerned to the contrary. (3) But whatever the remote cause of this school desertion, the imme- diate cause, simple-thinking people agree, lies in the fact that the pupils do not succeed well in school. Very few people, big or little, readily stick to a thing at which they are not reasonably successful. The statistics of the United States Bureau of Education show that in a large number of typical cities (rural school data is not available) that from one third to one half of all the pupils, now remaining in the schools, are over age, i. e., they have taken one, two, three, or four years more than they should in order to reach their present grades. Significance of Over-age Conditions. By ' ' over-age ' ' is meant that a pupil is above the age which is normal for his grade. "We may assume, as the United States Bureau of Educa- tion has done, that a pupil who is six or seven years of age and in the first grade is "normal/' but if he is over seven years and in the first grade he is "over-age." Similarly a pupil in the second grade and over eight years, in the third grade and over nine years, in the fourth grade and over ten years, in the fifth grade and over eleven years, and so on, is "over-age." He may be one, two, three or more years "over- age" in any given grade. To be over-age indicates, as a rule, that a pupil does not do well in school he has been held over at some time in a grade. The school system has set the rate of one grade per year as a reason- able expectation of its own efficiency. Yet the school, upon its own standard, fails by nearly 50 per cent among the survivors, now remain- ing in the schools. If we should include the pupils who already have left school, lecause they were over-age, the percentage, we may safely conjecture, would be far higher. Consequently, the over-age condi- tions, based as they are upon a standard set by the school itself as reasonable, is a most deplorable self-confessed indictment of school inefficiency. Over-age Not a Characteristic of Poorer Schools. Let us not suppose that these over-age figures come from schools which, compared with other schools, are poorly taught and inefficiently managed. Let us take the records of five California cities, which any one familiar with facts will agree now represent, and for twenty years have represented, the very best teaching and the very best administra- tive management of any schools in California, if not also in the United States Los Angeles, Pasadena, Alameda, Fresno, Stockton. This table shows the percentage of the pupils in the eight elementary grades who are over-age. Boys Girls !Los Angeles 41.6 34.8 Pasadena 43.8 35.0 Alameda ' _ _ 47.2 42.0 Fresno 53.4 44.5 Stockton _. 39.0 30.7 (4) Or, we may take other cities of the United States as follows: Percentages in Elementary School "Over-age." Boys Girls Chicago 356 298 Kansas City 53.1 489 Detroit _ _____ _____ 37.6 33.1 Minneapolis _ _ _ _ _ _ 44.0 37.9 Elmira, N. Y. 388 345 Philadelphia _ _ _____ 44.2 40.3 Salt Lake City __ 54.1 40.5 Seattle . 49.4 45.2 The degree of "over-age" is illustrated by the following table; the first column shows the percentage of pupils who are one year over-age, the second column the percentage who are two years over-age, and so on : The Degree of Over-age. 1 year 2 years 3 years 4 years or more Los Angei Alameda Fresno es Boys _ _ 22.7 21.0 25.6 24.5 23.8 22.2 22.1 20.4 20.3 18.5 19.9 18.1 21.0 19.8 21.9 21.1 21.3 23.0 25.7 26.5 11.9 9.3 13.8 12.1 14.4 12.1 13.2 9.9 11.6 9.0 9.7 7.6 10.7 9.0 12.5 11.7 15.6 12.2 14.4 12.6 4.4 3.1 4.6 3.4 7.8 5.6 5.6 5.1 5.0 2.6 3.8 2.7 4.0 3.2 6.2 5.0 10.7 4.2 5.9 4.5 2.6 1.4 . 3.2 2.) 7.4 4.6 4.6 2.4 2.1 .6 2.2 1.4 1.9 1.1 3.6 2.5 6.5 1.1 3.4 1.6 Girls Boys Girls . _Boys Pasadena Stockton Chicago Girls _ - _ _ Boys _ _ Girls _ _ _Boys Girls _ _ Boys Detroit Girls _ Boys _ _ Philadelp Salt Lake Seattle __ Girls hia _Boys _______ Girls __ _ Boys __ _ Girls __ Boys Girls It is a poor system in which the rules do not work both ways. Let us compare the percentage of those over-age with that of those "under- age." If there is means to fall behind there should be means to go ahead. Here are the figures for the California cities which represent (5) very fairly the best conditions in the United States as revealed by the statistics of the United States Bureau: Over-age ; Under-age Los Angeles _Boys 41.6 19 Girls 34.8 1.4 Pasadena _ __Boys --_ _ _ - _ _ _ - 43.8 2.6 Girls 350 33 Alameda Boys 472 15 Girls - 420 21 Fresno Boys - _ _ _ 53.4 .9 Girls 44.5 1.4 Stockton Boys _ 39.0 3.9 Girls 30.7 3.9 The impossibility of gaining ground in the school system is therefore made clear. The number of pupils who are capable to advance appre- ciably faster than the average we know to be a fairly large proportion probably in the vicinity of thirty to forty per cent. But the number who actually do so is, as shown, a negligible quantity the essential principle of the class system forbids it. Among the 39,739 pupils in the California cities cited only 850 have gained one year and only thirty have gained more than one year. If the quick-witted pupils can not gain ground it is quite clear that the slower pupils, who have not been able even to maintain the ' ' average, ' ' can never regain ground once lost. Our system, therefore, compels laggardism and permits no individual advance or recovery by any means except accident. The Cause of Over-age. Since these facts of over-age, as shown, seemingly are not affected by the accepted standards of efficiency in teachers and administration, it follows that the cause of over-age must lie in some common condition of all schools, which no effort has yet been made to displace. We have a condition that fulfills just these conditions common to all school systems, and which clearly predetermines just the results which statistics have laid bare. THIS IS THE GRADED CLASS SYSTEM ITSELF, WITH ITS LOCK-STEP OF PROGRESS AND PROMOTION. (6) THE MILLSTONE THAT HANGS ABOUT THE NECK OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEM. Our school system represents the abiding faith of the people that it is upon the efficiency of the schooling the State must depend for the quality of its citizenship, for the integrity of its social institutions and for the material prosperity of individuals. In this faith the people set apart, more than one half their revenues derived by direct tax- ation, and they do so freely, cheerfully and confidently. The best energies of their intelligence have been spent in devising and shaping ultimate goals of this schooling, an earnest body of teachers rendering the service of the soul to make this school system harvest what the people hope and believe should be the products. Yet, despite the faith, despite the magnificent equipment and administration and despite the fidelity of the workers, an inexplicable canker of inefficiency, as shown by foregoing figures, somewhere and somehow prevents the full and legitimate fruiting of our school system. We have neglected to scruti- nize what has been handed down to us by the dead hand of tradition. We are using as the chief operating tool a mechanism that makes any reasonable degree of success impossible. The results show it. The class system has been modeled upon the military system. It is constructed upon the assumption that a group of minds can be mar- shaled and controlled in growth in exactly the same manner that a military officer marshals and directs the bodily movements of a company of soldiers. In solid unbreakable phalanx the class is supposed to move through the grades, keeping in locked step. This locked step is set by the "average" pupil an algebraic myth born of inanimate figures and an "addled pedagogy. Under this fundamental assumption the follow- ing conditions necessarily must be forced: I. That all pupils in a given class shall be assigned, and shall master with even thoroughness, exactly the same length of lesson each day. Otherwise there would be no class. Unless the length of daily lesson is fixed, and even thoroughness of comprehension is assumed, the pupils would string out tandem and instruction would necessarily become individual. In actual experience the requirement is impossible, and uniformity is a threadbare semblance. While some pupils do prepare the lessons to the exacted length, others do not do so, and, under any conditions, a uniform comprehension is always a mirage of stupid assumption. The class system has no remedy for this state of affairs. All that the teacher can do is to carry the class along over the established route, somehow, upon schedule time, and at the end of the year, or half year, sort them out. Some are sent on, and others, who have stumbled and lost step, must be sent back to do the work of the year or half year over again. Such is the chief cause of over-age. It is quite obvious that the failures, (7) under these conditions, are not due to faults that pupils themselves can overcome, or the teachers avoid, but they are due to the false and impossible assumptions of the system itself. The school has no right to assume what is manifestly impossible that all pupils of a class, despite physical and mental differences, despite accidents and other exigencies which life constantly entails, can or will daily learn the same length of lessons with even comprehension. A debilitating by-product of measuring out of uniform lessons is the establishment, early in the child's plastic mind, that the thing to do in life is to do what is measured out for one to do never any more, under any circumstances, and as much less as possible, under all cir- cumstances. This soul-withering dogma, hammered by the class system into the growing mind, becomes the life doctrine which is largely accountable for prevailing inefficiency and failures in life work. It is recognized that this schoolbred falsity is a very general and notice- able characteristic of the school and college graduate upon entering life occupations. II. The graded system assumes that all pupils, during the school exercise, shall pay exactly the same degree of attention, and shall reach comprehension by exactly the same mental process, and shall reach it simultaneously. We all remember that the first thing our first teacher said at the beginning of the first day we ever went to school, was, ' ' Class ! Atten- tion!" She and her successors kept right on saying the same thing, many times every hour of every day, during all the years we ever went to school. Literally translated, this saying means: "Now, sit up, straight, stringent and still. Stiffen your muscles heads to the front. Fix your eyes on me all of you. Think about the one thing I tell you to think about, in just the way I tell you to think about it, and keep right on thinking about it for as long a time as I, acting in obedience to the school program, feel you ought to think about it. Then I will look at the program and tell you what next to think about." To force one pupil to give attention to a prescribed topic is a task worthy of any pedagogic steel. But reflect a moment upon the assump- tion of the system that a teacher can and shall force forty pupils to put themselves in this unnatural state, simultaneously, and maintain it for ten to forty minutes at a stretch, day in and day out. To main- tain forced attention for more than a few seconds is impossible. What our minds really do is to slip and rest and then take a fresh grip to bring the state back again. Learning in classes under this requirement of forced attention is one continual body-wriggling, brain-fagging, nerve-frazzling and soul-soddening struggle to yield a juiceless atten- tion, to fight against distractions with yielding steps, and to suffer a racking fatigue that knows no to-morrow. There is no escape except into the restful stupidity of chronic inattention. I have not overdrawn the picture. We are simply accustomed to the spectacle. We have become numb to it. The worst consideration is to (8) come. If out of this tremendous school effort to force simultaneous class attention there were results, then might we balance profits and find mitigating circumstances. But when we reflect upon the aston- ishing littleness of what the school teaches in its long years of attend- ance, compared with what boys and girls learn under free and natural attention out of school in short periods, we are brought face to face with the realization that the withered tree has in truth yielded withered fruit. It is just what we should expect. The effort to force and hold the mind in that state of vacuous attention preliminary to actual learn- ing uses probably 80 to 95 per cent of the total physical and mental fncrgy of an individual. This leaves only 5 to 20 per cent of energy ivith which to learn the lesson the teacher has started out to teach. The most strenuous and dutiful of pupils, wriggle physically and mentally as they will, can not and do not pay attention in a class recitation except intermittently. The knitted sequence of argument the teacher may have carefully prepared is grasped only here and there. Let us realize that never at any one time, in the most dutiful of classes, are more than one third to one half the pupils paying their feeble but best attention. Years of trained experience in simulating the appearance of attention has made most of them past masters of the art. Our entire school system, from kindergarten through the university, both inclusive, is therefore operated with fearful waste of energy, and its undertakings are ever under the tremendous handicap of low-power and intermittent attention. These conditions necessarily mean slow and foggy learning and corresponding ease of forgetting. Nor, under the class system, is there any means whatever of remedying the situa- tion. As long as we persist in a system which lays the condition as necessary that forty pupils must pay simultaneous, even, and continu- ous attention to an imposed subject of study we must content ourselves with a degree of attention of such low power that invention, orginality and reasoning are impossible. All that we can ever get out of this system is just what we always have gotten a feeble ability to memorize words and texts and a corresponding evanescence of memory of them. Is there any teacher in the land who will gainsay this truth ? Yet, outside the unnatural conditions of the school, in life itself, there is another kind of attention, of high-power intensity, and by which, frequently, wide reaches of comprehension are spanned as by a light- ning flash. It is by this kind of attention that inventions and dis- coveries are made, conquests won, new trails of civilization blazed and memory made intelligent and indellible. This may be called dynamic thinking. But the flickering, low-power attention which the forced conditions of the lock-step class at best can produce never approaches this dynamic state. By forced attention, galley slaves worked, and the muscle labor of erecting the pyramids was goaded. By forced attention the pyramids were not conceived; nor by it was poem ever written, invention or discovery ever made, wrong ever righted or soul ever saved. As long as the school remains content with the glowworm degree of attention, which is the best the lock-step system has ever (9) given or can ever hope to give, so long must pupils work in the school room at a snail's pace and with glowworm degree of mentality. III. The graded class system assumes that all pupils shall make exactly the same rate of progress and promotion, despite absences, despite illnesses, despite all variations in physical and mental condi- tions, despite all differences in ambition, in temperament, and in degrees of resulting application. The class system, by its fundamental dogmas, is forced to ignore and deny the existence of these varying contingencies and to assume, in practice, the obvious absurdity that no pupil in the class will ever be absent, sick, or vary from the standard of application. The class system has no devices to meet any contingency. There is no alternative except to wait until the end of the term or year and turn the misfits back over the work with resultant over-age. IV. Measuring one pupil according to the abilities of other pupils. Under the class system the pupil is marked and rated by comparison with the mythical average pupil. Under this assumption a certain number necessarily must always be above this average, and another group, by the same necessity, must ever be below this average. Other- wise, there would be no average. It is obvious that if the general diligence and quality of each member of the class should be raised, however much, this comparative basis would require that the "aver- age" should also be raised and a certain number would still be rated as inferior. Laggardism is therefore a condition necessarily created by the system itself, for if we establish an ' ' average ' ' it at once means that nearly one half the class must ever be rated as inferior. The terms "excellent," "fair," poor" upon the report cards mean not what the pupil has done, measured by his own abilities, but what he has done measured by other persons' abilities. What little Billy needs to know is how he measures up with the talents God has given little Billy, and it is quite immaterial and irrelevant to him how little Billy measures up to the standard of the talents God has given Tommy or Mary. This system serves no educational purpose whatever. It makes representations which are grossly deceiving to teacher, parent and to the pupil himself. This comparative rating is beyond the con- trol of any individual. In practice we find that pupils, once discour- aged, tend to sink to the lower levels in every class. This false stamp of inferiority is constantly hammered into them, by the class markings, for years. Can we estimate the effects of this false, irrelevant, com- parative rating upon subsequent life character, confidence and life success ? ., V. The class system does permanent violence to all types of pupils. (1) It does injury to the rapid and quick-thinking pupils, because these must shackle their stride to keep pace with the rate of the myth- ical average. They do so, usually, at the price of interest in their work. Their energy is directed into illegitimate activities with the result that (10) in the intermediate grades a large portion of them fall into the class of uninterested, inattentive, rebellious, and unmanageable pupils. (2) The class system does a greater injury to the large number who make progress slower than the rate of the mythical average pupil. Necessarily they are carried off their feet by the momentum of the mass. They may struggle along, with greater or less pretense, but eventually they are discovered and put back into the next lower class. The standard of progress should be set, not by the average, but at what the slowest pupil can do in the given school time, and provide that those who by diligence or more rapid progress can profit by these qualities shall advance accordingly. By setting the pace of a mathe- matical average, education for nearly one half the class is made impos- sible. They are foredoomed to failure before they begin. They are foredoomed not because of any factor within their control, but because the standard having been set in the middle of the class, nearly one half necessarily fall below it. The figures show the result one third to one half the pupils remaining in the schools are over-age not counting "considerably more" than fifty per cent who have left largely because of over-age. The class system has no right to set a pace which necessarily a large percentage, or for that matter any percentage, can not possibly maintain. This policy is of course as inhuman as it is stupid. The Unmeasured Evils of the Class System. We have viewed the evils of the locked-step class system from the standpoint of statistics and some of its measurable results. While those facts are in themselves appalling, they are, in all probability, far from the worst features. We have not considered what must be the effects upon character, upon ambition, upon legitimate self-pride, upon all the motives that make for -success and individuality in later life. We have not tried to estimate what it must mean to subsequent life and character to shamble through the school course, as all pupils must, in lock-step with a mythical average to walk, moreover, with no inspiration from individual motives or goals, but ever goaded and restrained only by the juiceless requirement to keep the step. We have not attempted to realize the effects upon personal ambition of those who "repeat," who know themselves over-age, and feel that the eye of contempt from their fellows is ever upon them. Can we picture to ourselves the state of mind of the little people who are turned back to rotravel for a half or whole year the road over which they have already stumbled, and what scars upon character this bitter experience must leave ? After fifty per cent of the pupils in the school system have been exterminated by the time they have reached the sixth grade, twenty per cent to twenty-five per cent of the survivors know they should be in the seventh grade, ten per cent to fifteen per cent know they should be in the eighth, and five to eight per cent know they should be in the high school grades. And the ratios grow worse with each succeeding grade. Still worse, these pupils know there is no power of individual effort which can help their situation. Can we feel the scalding humil- (11) iation of these little children, who, under the rules of the system, are hourly and daily measured by the lock-step with a mythical average pupil? They are regarded as stupid, hopeless, and fit only to be diggers of earth and bearers of water. They themselves are forced by the marks to disbelieve in themselves, to feel that they are inferior, to conclude there is something out of gear in their thinking apparatus. In most cases we may safely say they have been grossly misrepresented by the class system. Like distorted reflections one sees of himself in an imperfect mirror, the error is in the mirror, not in the person. The class system is such an imperfect mirror, and thousands of young people yearly start life with pictures of themselves which are the grossest caricatures of truth, and thus, without belief or confidence, are foredoomed as life failures. Are Not These Things True? Could any system be more stupid in its assumptions, more impossible in its conditions, and more juggernautic in its operation? Every one of its premises is palpably false ; every one of its requirements is impos- sible and every one of its effects is inefficient and brutal. Nevertheless this system has endured and has been endured for centuries. The Defense of the Lock-step Dogma. The only defenses ever offered for the failures and brutalities of the class system resolve themselves into pitiable pleas that no substitute has ever been established, and that it is an easy system for administra- tive bookkeeping. If little Billy falls into the system's discard, it is a simpler bookkeeping to enter Billy as a failure than to enter the system as a failure, and to consign Billy, rather than the system, to the ash heap. The system is not constructed upon sound principles, to teach children. It is a crude and primitive machine which falsely measures and cruelly maims the victims of its own impossibilities. Its existence is a fearful indictment of us who are in charge of education of our intelligence, of our honesty, of our sense of personal responsi- bility. The Origin of the System. The system was framed upon the Lacedemonian doctrine of the survival only of the strong. It was perfected in the Middle Ages when the insane and feeble-minded were chained and caged, and when criminals were fiendishly tortured and when the lash was the only means used for moral and mental training. But, to its credit, under the Lacedemonian system, the weak were exposed upon the mountains and thereby mercifully put to death outright, while in our modern world those maimed by the locked-step class system of our schools are stunted in world life to become its social, civil and moral problems. The dogmas upon which the class system are built have long since been uprooted in other fields. In the treatment of the insane, feeble-minded, and criminals, modern systems have taken their places, but in the education of our normal healthy children we traditionally retain this relic of ancient ignorance and barbarity. (12) The Lost Mainspring. Let us remember that it is only recently the schoolmasters lost, or rather were forced by civilization's demands to throw away, the only tool by which the system has been even fairly operated. This tool was the lash. Without the free use of the lash which the schoolmaster under the old conditions employed it is impossible to maintain even a reasonable degree of class attention, to goad the slow, to stimulate the lazy, and to keep the rapid marking time without rebellion. The lash is to the lock-step system what the mainspring is to a steel clock. When modern humanity wrested the lash from the schoolmaster, the class system became as dead and as unusuable junk as a clock without a mainspring. The lock-step system can not be operated by moral suasion or by any of the other soft sibilants which a modern maudlin pedagogy has sought to substitute. The experience of the past fifty years and the black figures of statistics demonstrate this fact beyond question or cavil. As well might we attempt to operate a steel clock by means of a putty mainspring. Two Obvious Alternatives. If we are to make the class system even tolerably effective, if we expect to secure any modicum of attention, energy and order, then we must permit the schoolmaster again to draw forth his lash, for it was under the axiomatic assumption of its thorough use that the class lock-step system was invented and perfected. The only other alterna- tive is to construct a new schooling system especially designed to be operated by machinery entirely different from that of the old type. The Conditions of Any Reform. I wish to make it quite clear that this issue of the class system is fundamental. Within the past few years there have been put forward to relieve the admitted moribundity of the school system many pro- posed reforms by means of new subjects and materials to prepare for world efficiency. Some of these are probably sound and others of course are mere dreams. But whatever their virtues in theory, their final efficiency in practice depends upon an efficient system of school instruction. If they must rest upon the class system then they are foredoomed in practice. Whatever rejuvenation there may be in voca- tional teaching, agriculture, modern current affairs, civic and social betterment, there can be no satisfactory results in any of these if they are hampered by the deadening effects of the class method of instruc- tion. And already the spindling results of "class" vocational teach- ing, "class" agriculture, "class" nature study and science, etc., are before us. Whatever virtue there may be in these subjects themselves does not maintain itself when run through the mill of the lock-step system. The first step in education must be to provide a working system of instruction that will make it possible for right movements to succeed. (13) A SUBSTITUTE FOR THE CLASS LOCK-STEP. "Well, then, what are we to do about it? The facts presented are self-evident. The black figures of over-age are a measure of the results. If we are honest, if we are responsible, we no longer can maintain the deceptive semblances of education under assumptions that are false and impossible. The alternative is to establish and find means of oper- ating a system of schooling which rests upon the truths that no two pupils are alike physically and mentally, that no two can learn at the same rate, that the teacher does well who can direct the attention of one pupil instead of forty simultaneosuly. But the moment we cease forcing the lock-step and permit varying rates of progress, the pupils string out tandem. The class has disintegrated and the class methods also disintegrate. We are then confronted by the problem of how to instruct, efficiently, forty or more pupils directed by one teacher under the condition that no two pupils are identical physically or mentally, that each probably learns by processes and by virtue of motives peculiarly his own and at a different rate. It is this situation the faculty of the Normal School last year decided to face in the operation of our elementary department. We had no ready-made plan of reconstruction. We needed none. We decided to deal with each new problem as it presented itself; not to turn aside, constrict and probably destroy the natural currents of human learning, as the lock-step ever seeks to do, but to accept the human mind as we find it, to yield to the pressure of these currents, to cut away frictional obstructions in texts, methods and system and to assist further by devising and shaping similar conditions. We are pursuing this alterna- tive course to its logical consequences. We are astonished at our imme- diate results in changed school spirit, in reawakened young ambitions and energy, in rapidity of pupils' progress and in our own enthusiasm. We have not framed a philosophy of the course we are following. We do not know altogether the final end or its significance. But it is quite clear, let me frankly and earnestly say, that these results are not so much the products of our constructive work as to the simple fact that the burden of the evils arising from the impossibilities of the lock-step has been lifted from the pupils. We would present what we have done as a suggestion. We do not in any sejase present these outlines as finished. We do not believe that it is the only solution or remedy for the evils of the lock-step. Nor is our concern to establish the particular form of substitute our experi- ence has built up. But we are concerned that some efficient system should replace the existing inefficient system, be it ours or any other that may be devised. New Type of Texts Necessary. Our first difficulty has been in the matter of texts. The carrent type of school texts is framed in language which is not comprehended by (14) pupils, and, as a result, the words of it merely are more or less mem- orized and the meaning is largely missed. The second chief defect is that these texts are constructed upon the false assumption that all pupils can acquire a given principle by studying lessons of exactly the same length. Thirdly, the current texts, in no adequate way, provide an efficient system of reviews. Finally, the current texts are chiefly made up of facts and definitions to be memorized. In the subjects of language, arithmetic, writing, composition and other formal subjects the object to be reached is the ability to do certain things. It matters little that a pupil has learned the definition of a sentence if he can not write one, and it matters less that he can recite the multipli- cation tables, if he makes errors in the use of them. Therefore in the construction of exercise books we have supplanted these memorizing tasks by exercises in the use of processes learned. Reconstruction of Texts. Members of the faculty therefore set to work to construct texts, or exercise books, in the several subjects which could be profitably and efficiently used by pupils in a way to provide elasticity in the number of exercises which impress a given principle, to place large premiums upon accuracy of work and steady application, to permit variable rates of progress and to include many other features not easily explained in brief space. In this matter we have been considerably assisted by our bulletin exercise books published by this Normal School in past years, and which lent themselves readily to adaptation. The begin- ning of the new adjustment was made with a few higher grammar grade classes in November, 1912. The work was carried on in imper- fect form, owing to lack of proper texts and mechanism of administra- tion, throughout the year. In February, 1913, a few lower classes were included in the new adjustment. With the beginning of the present year we are in much better position to carry forward the new work. We have prepared, in mimeograph form and in adapted exercise books, materials for nearly all grades and classes in arithmetic, language, grammar, writing, primary reading, formal geography, and to some degree in history. These materials will be subject to constant correc- tion as practical experience directs, and later will be published as parts of our Normal School bulletin series. Principles in Text Reconstruction. The main principles of construction of these text exercises may be stated in general as follows: I. Absence of Abstract Explanations. In the first stages, principles are learned, not from abstract explana- tions either of text or teachers, but by imitating and doing like exer- cises. After a fund of these facts and habits are acquired, explanations, in extreme simplicity of language, follow. The steps leading up to each principle are graded and simple so that the pupil can master the problem by his own independent effort, without, as a rule, help from (15) the teacher. Nothing is more important than to train the pupil to be helpful to himself, and to this end the first stages are made extremely easy that he may not be discouraged. II. One New Difficulty at a Time. Each lesson contains no more than one new thing to be learned. All other material is familiar and in review. The attention is there- fore concentrated, without confusion, upon the new thing. Each new thing, process or principle, once introduced, is reviewed by a cumula- tive and automatic system covering a period of months or even years. III. Elasticity in the Length of Lessons. The lessons to teach new principles or processes are constructed upon an elastic plan. There are duplicate exercises and generally many more of them than most pupils will need to work. If a pupil w r orks accurately certain of these exercises he skips many of the dupli- cates and passes on to the next lesson. About sixty per cent of any given course is made up of these duplicates which by accurate work may be skipped. A tremendous premium is thereby offered for accuracy. The pupils of slower grasp do as many of the duplicates, under an automatic system, as may be necessary to secure accuracy in efficient degree. By this device of an elastic length of lessons the text is made to fit the individual needs of the different pupils and no pupil proceeds until he has laid a safe foundation. On the other hand, pupils do no more than is necessary for the purpose. IV. Automatic Reviews. Subsequent reviews, embodied in the regular lessons, take care of the retention of what is once learned and the system of elasticity is made to apply also to these reviews in a definite automatic way. Instead of testing pupils' thoroughness of comprehension at intervals of a year or six months, these automatic tests are inserted at extremely short intervals, and if a pupil needs more drill it is given immediately, before he meets greater difficulties. It is far more economical in time to see that each brick of the foundation is firm rather than to wait until the whole foundation is laid w T ith the possibility of being obliged to com- mence all over again. These review tests generally are worked into the body of the lessons so that the pupil does not recognize them as such. The tests are followed by corrective exercises ; those pupils who do the test without error skip the corrective exercises while only those who need corrective work are given it. The Individual Schoolroom in Operation. There are few recitations, either by class or by individuals, in the the subjects for which we have constructed exercise books, except the Socratic discussion hereafter to be explained. The pupils work at their desks upon different lessons, it may be, and often in different subjects. These exercise books are constructed so as to present the subject that the pupil may work out for himself the lessons ; and also, by a different type of lesson, they serve as a substitute for most forms of the recita- tion. Under the class system only one pupil here and there is called (16) upon, and only for a small part of the lesson. Under the individual plan every pupil is called upon, through his exercise look, for every essential item of the lesson. The principal function of the teacher in the individual school is to get acquainted with her pupils in a personal way, to learn what each is capable of doing and the motives which impel them, to keep herself accurately familiar with the progress each is making and to stimulate by deserved commendation, suggestion and by other devices her inge- nuity may invent. We started out with the assumption that the teacher should pass from pupil to pupil dispensing help. But experience has very forcibly brought home the realization that this is the one thing the teacher should not do. Nothing is more debilitating to the independent thinking of the pupil. In the long run the teacher's help of this kind retards the pupil's progress, because substantial learning can only be secured by putting one's own mind through the given process. In nine cases out of ten both teacher and pupil are deceived to believe that teacher-thinking is pupil-thinking. When the same difficulty recurs the pupil is as badly off as before, and, besides, he is acquiring a habit of dependence when difficulties are met. Yet on the other hand the difficulties must not be so great and so perpendicular that pupils become discouraged. The remedy for this situation lies in the construction of the text. The present type of texts is merely a memory press. To the end of solving this difficulty, our exercise books arrange, grade and lead the pupil by imitation at first. When the pupil has acquired a fund of experience he is given types of examples which exercise con- structive thinking upon his own part. The teacher must keep in touch with the pupil's efforts, but only interfere as a measure of last resort, and then only by suggestive questioning. Under the class system the teacher too often does not become inti- mately acquainted with her pupils in a useful way. She knows them in terms of their school discipline and this knowledge is generally dis- torted by the unnatural conditions which the class system imposes. Or, she knows them in the distorted image of comparison with others in school markings. What a revelation it is to teachers to become acquainted humanly with their pupils under the natural conditions out of school. Frequently they do not seem the same children. The relation of pupil and teacher under the individual system is much like that out of school. The teacher's work has shifted from the class composite to various individuals. The tenseness of the disciplinary relationship has greatly lessened and she can be in reality what she should be a helper. This is an important difference. The Spirit of the Schoolroom. A schoolroom of pupils working under the individual plan is very noticeable, even in a superficial way, for its virtues. Our visitors are invariably struck with the spirit of earnestness and personal absorp- tion of each pupil in his work. The ancient problems of discipline have to a very large extent disappeared. Teachers are not forever calling "attention" nor admonishing William "to get to work," and (17) * ' turn around in your seat ! ' ' The rooms are quiet, and the tenseness of relation between a teacher in doubtful command, and pupils under questionable control, has given way to cordiality. The teacher has little to excite her nerves and each pupil feels he has too much to do worth his doing to waste any time in idleness or mischief. The inatten- tive, the mischievous and the idle are greatly reduced in number because the cause of these diseases the uselessness of individual effort, the purposelessness of ambition, and sundry other by-products of the class lock-step have been removed. The spirit of personal ambition in most pupils is very tense. I do not know that pupils have become more ambitious, but under the lock-step there is not much use worry- ing about advancement, for this is a class affair, not clearly a personal issue, as under the individual system it wholly is. Still, I do not wish to convey the idea that the individual system, in the degree and form we at present have introduced it, has reached the ideal. There remains with us a certain residuum. But if the working spirit of the pupils further improves with the perfecting of the texts and of administration, then there is every reason to believe that a very high degree of school efficiency is entirely within reach. The Course of Study and Promotions. We are now engaged in adjusting a course of study for the elemen- tary school of eight years. The time and allotment of material of each subject in each grade must be determined by what the slowest pupils reasonably can cover in one year, allowing some time also for absences. Pupils who can finish the work in less time simply pass on to the next grade at any time. This provision corrects the error of the class system by which the standard is set for the average pupil, or in practice above the average, thereby requiring one half the class at least to pass over the work too hurriedly and foredooming a large percentage to repeat the grade. Under our plan the division points of the grade and half grades in each subject are clearly fixed and definitely known by the pupils in advance. Each knows and sees these half grade posts ahead of him. When he reaches one he is handed t\ certificate of promotion in this subject, .for example, as follows: ELEMENTARY DEPARTMENT SAN FRANCISCO STATE NORMAL SCHOOL CERTIFICATE OF PROMOTION This certifies that Frank Smith is promoted to the high fourth grade in arithmetic. October 12, 1913. SAMUEL BROWN, Supervisor. (18) The pupil does not necessarily change his room by being promoted. He continues his work in the new grade and remains until the classes are reorganized at the end of the half year. He will then be placed in a group of pupils who are approximately together. This promotion in arithmetic does not affect nor is affected by progress or lack of progress in other subjects at this time. Elasticity in the Number of Lessons per Week. At the end of the half year an inventory is taken of the standing of each pupil in the several subjects pursued by him. If he is advancing more rapidly in a certain subject than in the others, then the number of periods he can work upon this subject is lessened and the time given to those in which he is not so far advanced. In this way the pupil is kept balanced as to grade and transfer to other schools is made possible. The device by which pupils can take a variable number of lessons per week is very simple under an individual system. Since each pupil in the schoolroom is working individually it makes little difference that some should be working upon different subjects from others. Some can have eight periods a week in arithmetic if advisable and others only three. We hope to use this device to assist pupils who are already over-age. Usually the over-age condition was brought about by defi- ciency in some one subject, probably arithmetic. It is quite possible under the device of elasticity in the number of lessons per week that a pupil can take double the number of periods and thereby regain lost ground. Some pupils may do the work of a half grade in two or three months, as many are doing, or it may be some pupils will require the full half year. If by any accident a pupil should take longer than a half year in any one subject then he would be given a larger number of periods in this subject and other means probably taken to enable him to recover lost ground. Rates of Progress. A certain number of pupils, probably twenty-five to thirty per cent, are moving in most subjects very much faster than the usual class rate. In some extreme cases the rate would indicate that they will cover two or even three years' work in one. This rapid type does not appear to be made up exclusively of the excessively ' c bright ' ' pupils, but quite a few of them have heretofore been regarded as " indifferent " or even slow pupils. Some of them seem to have awakened to new interest in their school work, and some of them, though plodders, are now rating as rapid by reason of their accuracy, which enables them to skip dupli- cate exercises. A certain number of pupils, probably ten to twenty per cent, are making slower progress than would appear under the class system. I use the word "appear" advisedly, for in the course of two or three years they will probably be much further advanced, actually, than under the class system. While their rate of learning, in a comparative (19) way, is slower, they belong to the type who usually repeat grades. Under the individual system there can be no repetition of grades. Whatever progress a pupil makes is solid progress based upon compre- hension and ability. Therefore while the pupil moves more slowly than the usual class moves, yet at the end of the year he will still move on, and will not be dropped back a year in time. Consequently the individual system, while compelling in some cases a slower daily rate, reaches final goals sooner. No Repetition of Grades. Under the present plan we are operating there can be no repetition of grades and therefore one chief cause of over-age is elided. It is practically impossible under our system of exercise books, when per- fected, for a pupil to pass over any principle which he does not under- stand, or to forget what he has once learned. Under the class system he may have been absent during a critical period, or he may have been inattentive at the time the teacher was explaining the principle, or due to any one of a variety of conditions he may not have grasped the point. Nevertheless, by class momentum he was carried over without having made the principle his own. Under the individual system none of these contingencies are possible. He does his own thinking at every step. By the system of duplicate exercises for each lesson he can not pass from one lesson involving a given principle or fact until he shows by his accuracy that he has mastered this principle or fact. If he is absent he takes up his work when he returns exactly where he left off. By the system of automatic reviews worked into the body of every lesson it is difficult to forget any principle, process or fact. To be tripped up by one of these past facts means the pupil must do duplicate exercises involving this fact until it is learned. Pupils who do not make an error skip such duplicates. Therefore there can be no occasion for repetition of grades. Any weakness is attended to at once by the elasticity in the length of lessons and in the number of lessons per week. Pupil Correction of Exercises. The crux of any real difficulty in the operation of the individual system, as we are developing it, lies in the correction of the exercise books. The system itself calls for more written work than the class system and most pupils cover a great deal more ground. Aside from the fact that the correction of so much written work would be a burden upon the teacher, the principle is sound that as a means of learning in most subjects there is no exercise quite so productive and thorough as the correction of errors. Under natural incentives of premiums upon accuracy of correction, few exercises, our experience goes to show, offer such intense and effective attention. The dogma of the old pedagogy that a pupil should never see or know errors is as false as a doctrine that for moral training we should never read the ten com- mandments. However, we have not yet worked this principle out with sufficient finality of detail to justify accurate statement; but we have (20) gone far enough to reach the thorough conviction that most of the correction of papers in all subjects, except possibly arithmetic, can be done with profit by pupils. The Socratic Discussion. There is one form of the class plan which is not subject to the usual weakness of class instruction, and in my judgment should be retained in any form of school instruction. I refer to what is sometimes known as the Socratic discussion, by which the pupils in a class forum express judgments and opinions in matters upon which they have previously informed themselves as to facts. This Socratic discussion must not be confused with the common recitation by which the teacher tests how much they have memorized from some text. The Socratic discussion is usable only when the underlying facts are acquired and ready at hand, and has for its purpose the development of personal judgments and broad intelligence based upon facts previously learned. Under the individual plan this type of school exercise should not be abandoned, nor need it be. When the progress of a group of pupils has passed beyond some epoch of history, some geographical area, some problem of modern industry, or other complete topic in any field, they may be gathered together for a class discussion as described. Such exercise is as possible under the individual as under the class plan. The weekly program should provide regular periods for this exercise in each sub- ject suitable to it. The Number of Pupils to One Teacher and the Work of the Teacher. The superficial judgment of most offhand critics to whom the idea of individual teaching is for the first time presented is that such a plan can be operated only with a small number of pupils in the schoolroom. They are naturally thinking of the individual help which teachers under the class system sometimes manage to sandwich in while they are operating the class system. In the Pueblo plan of Superintendent Search some years ago, also, the teacher heard each pupil recite indi- vidually just as she conducted a class recitation. Such a system would be necessary if we retained the existing type of texts. But in the plan we are organizing we go much further and do away with the oral recitation which tests what a pupil memorizes from a text, and we measure only the output of application. Teacher-help is also discarded to an almost exclusive extent. So there is really very little remaining of the teacher's duties of the class system. In fact the only duty of serious consideration is that of the correction of pupils' exercise books, and this amount of work is greatly increased. But, as already stated, we are making pupil correction an essential feature of the plan, not so much for the purpose of relieving the teacher of labor, but as a most profitable device for fixing knowledge by intense attention and as a method of review. We feel assurance in saying, therefore, that under this individual plan one teacher can handle effectively at least as many pupils as are now assigned to one teacher under the class system; and (21) that the labor will be no greater, not so exacting and with far nervous strain, petty vexations, and daily fatigue. There is little that is wearying and nerve- wearing either tc teacher or pupil. Short Lesson Periods and Intensity of Application. We are arranging the daily program to dispose of the time in such short periods that fatigue is reduced to a minimum. The morning from 9 to 12 is divided into two school periods of seventy minutes each, separated by a recess of full thirty minutes upon the playgrounds. In the afternoon, for grammar grades, there is a seventy-minute period, followed by a recess of thirty minutes, and then another school period of thirty-five minutes. The primary grades are dismissed at the end of the first seventy minutes. In grammar grades the longest lesson period is twenty minutes. The work period of seventy minutes is distributed in short periods to avoid fatigue and ennui. In the primary grades no subject can occupy more than ten minutes. In the fourth grade, for example, there are daily six separate periods of ten minutes each of arithmetic and reading and geography, fifteen minutes daily in five-minute periods of writing, spelling and music, and forty minutes in composition and thirty minutes in drawing per week, in ten-minute periods. This is normal allotment, but the interchange of subjects permitted for elas- ticity in the number of periods per week for individuals materially modifies this number. We have no hesitation in asserting that in our six periods of arithmetic, in periods of ten minutes each, the pupil accomplishes at least twice as much, if not more, than in one period of sixty minutes. Numerical work is so fatiguing that after the first fifteen minutes brain fag usually sets in and the attention sinks to so low an ebb that there is little mental power. The work becomes inaccurate and comprehension dulled. Study under such a condition is really a waste of time as well as a physical menace. Long school periods are doubtless largely explanatory of the valuelessness of school time. Our short-period system, we believe, is fully as productive a factor in rapidity of progress as the individual feature. Home Study. Our plan as it has worked out has elided home study. We find decidedly better progress is made by confining the pupil's school work within the school. By defining the amount of time per week the pupil can put upon a given study, and whetting his incentives for advance- ment, we secure a higher power and intensity of attention while he does work. He gets to work promptly, uses his time while he works, and haggles for the last minute. This condition of mental activity is one that cuts through difficulties and makes for indellible memory. Dawdled school work is never much more than a waste of time at best. In adult life many princes of business manage huge enterprises effectively in much less time than their offspring daily dawdle away in school. Finally, the offspring go home with a load of books over which again to dawdle for an hour or more and all with slight (22) results. The school has ample time, and if it will use it economically and wisely it will accomplish several times what it now accomplishes. It is vigor and motive, not duration of time, which accomplishes results in mental work. Application to Rural Schools. Whatever may be difficulties, real and imagined, of supplanting in the city schools the present class system by an individual system, there are no obstacles in an immediate modification in this direction in rural schools. The best results can not be obtained without an improve- ment in texts, but there is no reason whatever that great improvement can not be made immediately by the simple device of doing away with the effort to maintain the lock-step in rural schools which have less than twenty-five pupils in attendance. The large majority of rural schools belong to this classification, and one teacher can attend to this number under any system. The following changes can be made immediately: First Cease prescribing the length of lessons. Second Map out the work of each grade or half grade in each sub- ject and make clear to pupils just what ground they must cover in order to enroll in the next grade at any time they may finish. Third Give such individual help as may be necessary to keep pupils from discouragement, but do all possible to establish self -confidence and to stimulate ambition. Fourth Do not attempt, in reading, arithmetic, language and other formal subjects to keep pupils together, but on the contrary encourage individual progress. In the so-called "culture" subjects the teacher must, until a new type of text is invented, use her wise direction as to how far she may abandon the class system. It would not be too much to anticipate that these modifications would increase the general promotion rate fifty per cent and enable a large proportion of pupils, who for a variety of reasons, have become over- age, to regain lost ground. There never was any occasion for the rural school to employ the locked step graded plan. It has come about merely by aping the city school system. Fifty years ago the rural school permitted individual progress much more than at present and its great success was due to this fact. Application to City Schools. In city schools having forty or fifty pupils to the teacher some modi- fications might be made, despite undesirable texts, provided in any given school teachers and principal were in hearty accord with the principle that the evils of the locked step must be destroyed. Even with the unelastic texts we now have, arithmetic, the chief stumbling block of progress, could be handled upon the individual plan which has been indicated. There is really no justification for prescribing the length of lesson, and in arithmetic, in any class, pupils could make their progress individually. It would also be possible without much difficulty to use the device of an elastic number of lessons per week. (23) These two modifications alone would put an end to forcing pupils hastily over ground they do not comprehend and permit each to make progress in proportion to his ability, regularity of attendance and per- sonal diligence. Eemoval of these common stumbling blocks to pro- gress would probably increase the general promotion rate very materially. In Conclusion. We have undertaken the problem I have outlined in order to find a system that would eliminate the appalling conditions of over-age now manifest as the product of the class system. From what has been said there is slight occasion for a pupil becoming over-age, under the plan operated, except by reason of prolonged absence or other similar accident. 1. The standard of progress is fixed so that the slowest type of pupils can cover the eight grades in eight years, and any individual can go as rapidly as his abilities and diligence justify without hampering restraint of any kind. 2. Repetition of grades is made unnecessary and practically impos- sible. 3. If a pupil from any accident does fall behind in certain subjects, the elasticity in the number of lessons per week, aside from any extra energy he may exert, will enable him to recover his standing. 4. The increased ambition and zeal manifested by at least 90 per cent of pupils guarantee that their rates of progress will be very materially faster than the best administration of the class system has ever accom- plished for the best pupils. 5. Whatever power and knowledge is acquired is retained and is substantial. Therefore, I sincerely believe that the road is open to the realization of a remedy for the appalling evils of the over-age results of the class system, and in so far as over-age is a cause of leaving school prema- turely, the road of reform seems to continue through this problem as well. But in this matter of school desertion I believe there are other important factors as well as over-age, and these must be met by a reorganization of the subjects and materials which the schools attempt to teach in order to reach world efficiency. But as an administrative measure for teaching any subject or materials of world efficiency we must first eliminate the impossibilities and brutalities of the class system, and whether this end is reached by a system such as we are perfecting, or some entirely different system that accomplishes this elimination, is immaterial and irrelevant. Nor do I believe that what we are offering is more than the lowest layer of the foundation of a schooling system. It simply offers a basis upon which substantial building may proceed. The class lock-step is unnatural and false to human nature at every point. It is part and parcel of the old dogmas which assumed that every human motive and impulse is wrong and bad, that the duty (24) of education as well as moral training; is to run counter to these impulses, to compel right and wisdom by force in its most repulsive forms. All that we have this far attempted is to eliminate these impossible features of the force system and to use some of the more natural and simple human motives for accomplishing results. We do not pretend that we have even tapped the reservoir of "dynamic" attention and thinking. "We have lessened the tension of "forced" attention by cutting out the requirement that forty pupils shall be forced to give attention to the same thing simultaneously, but the motives for learning must be excited more or less by the ambition to get through with tasks, to be promoted, to be proud of accomplish- ments, etc. We have not reached the point which the Montesorri people say they have reached, when the thing studied, in itself, seizes the mind by the impulses of invention and brings it to the white heat of dynamic thinking. This stage can only be reached when things, not books, are the texts, and the materials which the world uses in its workshops have been kneaded into the school course of study. This step can never be taken while the class lock-step hangs as a millstone about the neck of the schools. We hope we shall escape, at the outset, the misunderstanding that we have undertaken this work to promote individual instruction. The issue is not individual instruction, but to find some substitute for the lock-step. It merely happens that we ourselves, in searching for some substitute, have come upon individual instruction. We ask no one to follow us, provided he finds some other adequate solution of lock- step evils. The issue is not whether the substitute we have outlined is sound or not. If it is not, another substitute must be found. But no amount of attack upon our substitute in any way bolsters up the lock-step system. Its impossiblities remain in as black type as ever. We are not essentially concerned in making converts to our particular sub- stitute. We are concerned in arousing the energy to establish some efficient substitute to replace the existing inefficiency of the lock-step. We will support any movement that accomplishes this end, whether this movement uses our plan or any other as good. We have placed emphasis upon our solution because it is a habit of human nature, or superficial forms of it, to shriek down as "destructive criticism" any attack upon an established custom or institution, however iniquitous, and to demand a constructive remedy. We therefore have forestalled this form of defense, but wish it clearly remembered that the issue is the existing evil and not the proposed remedy. (25) NC THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW HOME USE CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT MAIN LIBRARY This book is due on the last date stamped below. 1 -month loans may be renewed by calling 642-3405. 6-month loans may be recharged by bringing books to Circulation Desk. Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date. ALL BOOKS ARE SUBJECT TO RECALL 7 DAYS DAIfeAHECKED OUT. 1NTERLIBRARY LOAN MAY 2 7 1Q7R UNIV OP i ^ A 1 f r* f^ - m~t . -. ~ALIF. t BERK. [K& 8% JJls 78 .TERL: .: r LUAR i SENtONILL OCT 2 5 1995 V ....-. LD21 A-40m-8,'75 (S7737L) General Library University of California Berkeley UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY