rHE CURRICULUM 
 
 <N 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANKLIN BOBBITT 
 
 professor of Educational Administration 
 The University of Chicago 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 
 
w^^ 
 
 ^'\& 
 
 &><• 
 
 COPYRIGHT, I918, BY FRANKLIN BODBITT 
 ALL RIGHTS RKSERVKD 
 
 CAMBKIOGB . MASSACHUSETTS 
 U . S . A 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Since the opening of the twentieth century, the evolu- 
 tion of our social order has been proceeding with great and 
 ever-accelerating rapidity. Simple conditions have been 
 growing complex. Small institutions have been growing 
 large. Increased specialization has been multiplying human 
 interdependencies and the consequent need of coordinating 
 effort. Democracy is increasing within the Nation; and 
 growing throughout the world. All classes are aspiring to a 
 full human opportunity. Never before have civihzation and 
 humanization advanced so swiftly. 
 
 As the world presses eagerly forward toward the accom- 
 plishment of new things, education also must advance no less 
 swiftly. It must provide the intelligence and the aspirations 
 necessary for the advance; and for stability and consistency 
 in holding the gains. Education must take a pace set, not by 
 itself, but by social progress. 
 
 The present program of public education was mainly for- 
 mulated during the simpler conditions of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury. In details it has been improved. In fundamentals it is 
 not greatly different. A program never designed for the 
 present day has been inherited. 
 
 Any inherited system, good for its time, when held to, 
 after its day, hampers social progress. It is not enough that 
 the system, fundamentally unchanged in plan and purpose, 
 be improved in details. In education this has been done in 
 conspicuous degree. Our schools to-day are better than ever 
 before. Teachers are better trained. Supervision is more ade- 
 quate. Buildings and equipment are enormously improved. 
 Effective methods are being introduced, and time is being 
 
iv PREFACE 
 
 economized. Improvements are visible on every hand. And 
 yet to do the nineteenth-century task better than it was then 
 done is not necessarily to do the twentieth-century task. 
 
 New duties lie before us. And these require new methods, 
 new materials, new vision. The old education, except as it 
 conferred the tools of knowledge, was mainly devoted to 
 filling the memory with facts. The new age is more in need 
 of facts than the old; and of more facts; and it must find 
 more effective methods of teaching them. But there are 
 now other functions. Education is now to develop a typds 
 of wisdom that can grow only out of participation in the/ 
 living experiences of men, and never out of mere memorizay 
 tion of verbal statements of facts. It must, thereforCv-tokl 
 though t and judgment in connection with actual life- 
 situations, a task distinctly different from the cloistral ac- 
 tivities of the past. It is also to develop the good-will, the 
 spirit of service, the social valuations, sympathies, and atti- 
 tudes of mind necessary for effective group-action where 
 specialization has created endless interdependency. It has 
 the function of training every citizen, man or woman, not 
 for knowledge about citizenship, but for proficiency in 
 citizenship; not for knowledge about hygiene, but for pro- 
 ficiency in maintaining robust health; not for a mere knowl- 
 edge of abstract science, but for proficiency in the use of 
 ideas in the control of practical situations. Most of these 
 are new tasks. In connection with each, much is now be- 
 ing done in all progressive school systems; but most of 
 them yet are but partially developed. We have been de- 
 veloping knowledge, not function; the power to reproduce 
 facts, rather than the powers to think and feel and will and 
 act in vital relation to the world's life. Now we must look to 
 these latter things as well. 
 
 Our task in this volume is tp point out some of the new 
 duties. We are to show why education must now under- 
 
PREFACE V 
 
 ] take tasks that until recently were not considered needful; 
 
 / why new methods, new materials, and new types of experi- 
 
 I ence must be employed. We here try to develop a point of 
 view that seems to be needed by practical school men and 
 women as they make the educational adjustments now de- 
 manded by social conditions; and needed also by scientific 
 workers who are seeking to define with accuracy the ob- 
 jectives of education. It is the feeling of the writer that in 
 the social reconstructions of the post-war years that lie 
 just ahead of us, education is to be called upon to liear a 
 hitherto undreamed-of burden of responsibility; an4 t» 
 undertake unaccustomed labors. To present some of the 
 theory needed for the curriculum labors of this new age 
 has been the task herein attempted. 
 
 This is a first book in a field that until recently has been 
 too little cultivated. For a long time, we have been develop)- 
 ing the theory of educational method, both general and 
 special; and we have required teachers and supervisors to 
 be thoroughly cognizant of it. Recently, however, we have 
 discerned that there is a theory of curriculum-formulation 
 that is no less extensive and involved than that of method; 
 and that it is just as much needed by teachers and super- 
 visors. To know what to do is as important as to know how 
 to do it. This volume, therefore, is designed for teacher- 
 training institutions as an introductory textbook in the 
 
 I theory of the curriculum; and for reading circles in the train- 
 ing of teachers in service. It is hoped also that it may 
 assist the general reader who is interested in noting recent 
 educational tendencies. 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Arcinive 
 
 in 2007 witii funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 littp://www.arcliive.org/details/curriculumOObobbricli 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I. ENDS AND PROCESSES 
 
 I. Two Levels of Educational Experience . . 3 
 
 n. Educational Experience upon the Play-Level . 8 
 
 ni. Educational Experience upon the Work-Level » 18 
 
 IV. The Place of Ideas in Work-Experience . . 26 
 
 ^ V. Where Education can be accomplished ... 34 
 
 *-^ VI. Scientific Method m Curriculum-Making . .41' 
 
 PART II. TRAINING FOR OCCUPATI ONAL EFFICIENCY 
 
 Vn. Purposes of Vocational Training , . , . 55 
 
 VIII. Specialized Technical Training 71 
 
 IX. The Specialized Training of Group- Workers . 76 
 
 X. Social Aspects of Occupational Training . . 87 
 ♦ 
 
 PART m. EDUCATION FOR CITimJSHIP 
 
 XL The Nature of the Good Citizen .... 117 
 
 ^ XII. The Development of Enlightened Large-Group 
 
 Consciousness 131 
 
 XIII. Moral and Religious Education 163 
 
 PART IV. EDUCATION FOR PHYSICAL EFFICIENCY 
 
 XIV. The Fundamental Task of Physical Training . 171 
 XV. Physical Traininq 180 
 
 XVI. The Socla.l Factors of Physical Efficiency . . 189 
 
viu CONTENTS ^ 
 
 PART V. EDUCATION FOR LEISURE OCCUPATIONS 
 
 XVn. The Function of Play in Human Life . . . 207 
 y XVni. Reading as a Leisure Occupation .... 227 
 
 PART VI. EDUCATION FOR SOCIAL 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION 
 
 ^ XIX. The Motheh-Tongue 247 
 
 y] XX. Training in Foreign Languages 255 
 
 XXI. Some Concluding Considerations .... 282 
 
 Index . . . . "• 291 
 
THE CURRICULUM 
 
 PART I 
 ENDS AND PROCESSES 
 
THE CUEEICULUM 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 TWO LEVELS OF EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE 
 
 Current discussion of education reveals the presence in 
 the field of two antagonistic schools of educational thought. 
 On the one hand are those who look primarily to the sub- 
 jective results : the enriched mind, quickened appreciations, 
 refined sensibihties, discipline, culture. To them the end 
 of education is the ability to live rather than the practical i^ 
 ability to produce. For them most of education is to be mo- 
 tivated by interest in the educational experiences themselves, — 
 without particular solicitude at the moment as to the prac- 
 tical use or uselessness of those experiences. If they expand I 
 and unfold the potential nature of the individual, therein-^ 
 lies their justification. The full unfoldment of one's powers ' 
 is the primordial preparation for practical life. ^ 
 
 On the other hand there are those who hold that educa- 
 tion is to look primarily and consciously to efficient prac- 
 tical action in a practical world. i.The individual is edu- 
 cated who can perform efficiently the labors of his calUng; 
 4^ho can effectively cooperate with his fellows in social and 
 civic affairs jwho can keep his bodily powers at a high level 
 of efficiency^ho is prepared to participate in proper range 
 of desirable leisure occupations ;iiwho can effectively bring 
 his children to full-orbed manhood and womanhood J^and - 
 who can carry on all his social relations with his fellows in 
 an agreeable and effective manner. Education is consciously 
 to prepare for these things. 
 
4r . . TH3S OURRICDLUM 
 
 The controversy involves practically ev^^field of train- 
 ing. For example, the advocates of culture would have 
 science studied because it is a rich and vitalizing field of hu- 
 man thought. They would have the student Kve abundantly 
 within the wide fields of his chemistry or biology or physics 
 without at the time any great regard for the practical use or 
 uselessness of the particular facts met with. If the experience 
 is vivifying, if it satisfies intellectual cravings, therein is to 
 be found its suflicient excuse. They assume that enough of 
 the scientific facts, principles, and habits of mind acquired 
 will be of use afterwards to justify the teaching from a purely 
 utilitarian point of view. In fact, they assert that these things 
 can be better mastered when studied as "science for science* 
 sake " than when narrowed down to practical science for the 
 work's sake. 
 
 The utilitarians, on the other hand, would have science 
 studied in order that the facts may be put to work by farm- 
 ers in their farming, by mechanics in their shops, and va- 
 riously in the fields of manufacturing, mining, choking, san- ^ 
 itation, etc. They would have an accurate survey made of ' 
 the science-needs of each social class; and to each they would 
 teach only the facts needed; only those that are to be put 
 to work. In an age of efficiency and economy they would 
 seek definitely to ehminate the useless and the wasteful. 
 To cover the broad fields of the sciences without regard to 
 the functioning value of the particular facts is a blunder- 
 buss method in an age that demands the accuracy of the 
 rifle. It is to waste time and energy and money that are 
 needed elsewhere. It is to force upon unwilling students 
 things that can be justified upon no practical grounds. 
 
 A social study like history or literature the culture-advo- 
 cates conceive to be chiefly a means of lifting the curtain 
 upon human experience in all lands and ages. It gives the 
 pupil an opportunity to view and to mingle vicariously in 
 
TWO LEVELS OF EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE 5 
 
 the age-long va^ed pageant of world-wide human life. The 
 pupil's busing is simply to look upon this pageant as he 
 would view a play at the theater. The experience is in itself 
 a satisfying mode of Hving, enriching his consciousness, ex- 
 panding the fields of his imagination, refining his apprecia- 
 tions. When in his reading he beholds the "glory that was 
 Greece and the splendour that was Rome," the epics of 
 Homer or the dramas of Shakespeare, he need not concern 
 himself with the appUcation of that experience in the per- 
 formance of his practical duties. On the other hand, the 
 utihtarians tell us that we would better eliminate ancient 
 history and the older literatures. These deal with a world 
 that is dead, a civilization that is mouldered, with govern- 
 ments that are now obsolete, with manners and customs and 
 languages that are altogether impracticable in this modern 
 age. In their judgment, in so far as we need history at all, it 
 should be modern history drawn for the purpose of throwing 
 light upon current practical problems of industry, commerce, 
 and citizenship. The facts should be gathered in definite re- 
 lation to the problems and not be mere blunderbuss history 
 that aims at nothing in particular. And as for literature, they 
 say, it would best be that which reveals the world of to-day: 
 the present natures of men and women; present-day social 
 problems and human reactions; current modes of thought; 
 existing conditions in the fields of commerce, industry, 
 sanitation, civic relationships, and recreational life; not 
 classics, but current literature. 
 
 The controversy is particularly marked in the matter of 
 foreign languages. Ancient languages do not function in 
 the Hves of men, say the utilitarians: therefore they should 
 be cast out. For the vast majority, even the modem lan- 
 guages do not function. What does not appear in the lives 
 of the people has no reason to appear in the education of the 
 people. The argument is plausible, convincing; and yet the 
 
6 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 foreign-language advocate is not convinced. He asserts 
 that important matters are lost sight of; that there are more 
 things in human life than practical action, however efficient; 
 that living itself is worth while ; that it is the end of education ; 
 and that the various utilities are but to provide the means. 
 
 e looks to a self-realization, to a humanism, to a world of 
 satisfactions that lie above and beyond the mere means to 
 be used in attaining those high ends. He accuses our prac- 
 tical age of aiming at a life for man that is too narrow, 
 barren, mechanical, materialistic. 
 
 Now, which side is right? Doubtless both are right. It is 
 like asking the question, "Which shall the tree produce, the 
 flower or the fruit? " It must produce both or it will not 
 perform its full function. We have here simply to do with 
 two levels of functioning, two levels of educational expe- 
 riences, both of which are essential to fullness of growth, 
 efficiency of action, and completeness of character. Both are 
 good, both are necessary; one precedes the other. One is ex- 
 perience upon the play-level : the other experience upon the 
 work-level. One is action driven by spontaneous interest: 
 the other, by derived interest. One is the luxuri^tion of the 
 subjective life which has a value for objective experience 
 even though one be not conscious of the values at the time. 
 The other looks to the conscious shaping and control of the 
 objective world; but requires for maximum effectiveness the 
 background of subjective life provided by the otherj 
 
 The culture-people are not wrong in demanding an edu^ 
 cation that looks to the widening of vision, the deepening 
 of the general understanding, the actualizing of one's poten- 
 tial powers, the full-orbed expansion and maintenance of 
 the personality, the harnessing-up of native interests, the 
 development of enthusiasms and ideals; or briefly, the full 
 humanization of the individual. They cannot too miich 
 insist. 
 
TWO LEVELS OF EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE 7 
 
 The practical-minded people are not wrong in affirming 
 that man's life consists, and must consist, largely in the 
 performance of responsible duties; that these are to be ca- 
 pably performed; that responsibilities are to be efficiently 
 absolved; that there is need of technical accuracy, depend- 
 ableness, industry, persistence, right habits, skill, practical 
 knowledge, physical and moral fiber, and adherence to duty 
 whether it be pleasant or painful; and that these results are 
 not to be sufficiently achieved without education of the 
 practical work-type. Upon these things they cannot too 
 much insist. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE UPON THE PLAY-LEVEL 
 
 Recent psychology tells us that man has a long period of 
 childhood and youth in order that he may play. He plays, 
 not because he is young, but he is long yoimg in order that 
 he may play; and thus through active experience secure his 
 , education. Play is Nature's active mode of education. 
 Shall a boy unfold his physical powers so that he can 
 run with speed and endurance, or throw accurately or fight 
 with strength and skill, or exert himself long hours without 
 undue fatigue? Nature provides that in his play he shall run 
 and throw and fight and otherwise exert himself; and thus 
 make actual his potential powers. Physical play is Nature's^ 
 physical education. Shall the boy develop the social abilities 
 necessary for full cooperation with the members of his social 
 group? Nature provides instinctive tendency to participate 
 in group-plays, social games, conversation, etc., which de- 
 velop his social nature, fix his social habits, and cement so- 
 cial soHdarity. gocial play is Nature's active method of »^ 
 social education. Shall the boy possess an unspecialized 
 mechanical ability of a type that is even more needful to- 
 day than in the age when man's nature was shaped? Fortu- 
 nately, here again we find the strong' constructive and oper- 
 ative play-instincts which drive boys to make and operate 
 things. Give a normal-minded boy a rich opportunity to 
 make things and to '*make them go," — and one has then 
 only to leave him alone with his opportunity. Nature's 
 method of education will do the rest. Shall he be observant 
 of men and affairs about him? Shall he fill his mind concern- 
 ing the things with which he is to be concerned throughout 
 
THE PLAY-LEVEL 9 
 
 life? Shall he acquire and maintain masses of knowledge 
 through the possession of an inquiring disposition? Again 
 Nature has provided the deep-lying and powerful mental- 
 pla y instinct of cur ir^sity, tV»p intellpotiifll appfititp, the desire 
 to know. The boy is made watchful of everything that 
 goes on about him, especially the actions of men. Thus he 
 learns and thus he continues to leam throughout life. 
 Mental play is Nature's active method of filling the mind ^ 
 with information. 
 
 Since^ducatiQiLisjsa4argely-ar^ matt e r of l o ami ag^JJiings, 
 let us first take up this topic of mental play as the basis of ^ 
 intellectual education. One observes men and their affairs, 
 the things of one's environment, and the natural phenomena 
 by which one is surrounded, simply as a mode of living. 
 Through such observation he is continuously gathering facts 
 through all of his wakmgliours; and without question as to 
 the use or uselessness of the information. He makes no 
 attempt to observe merely the things that can be of practical 
 service in his personal affairs. He lives most fully who keeps i 
 himself awake to everything before him and who sees all 
 in due relation and proportion even though most of it has I 
 no visible relation to his practical affairs. ^ 
 
 Not only does he observe directly, but he listens with 
 consuming interest to the stories of things which he has 
 not seen. Most of the gossip of the daily papers relates to 
 things with which, he has no immediate concern. And yet 
 he reads and learns, and feels that if he does not do so he 
 does not fully live. The avidity with which he absorbs the 
 news or the eager curiosity with which gossips delve into 
 the affairs of the neighborhood show the universality and 
 the intensity of this hunger after knowledge, even of useless ^ 
 type. One drinks endlessly at this fountain without ever 
 so much as raising the question whether the knowledge so 
 obtained is or can ever be of any use. Like breathing, one 
 
/ 
 
 10 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 feels it to be a natural portion of living which requires no 
 justification. 
 
 Learning things because of curiosity without reference to 
 the use of that knowledge is really one of the largest normal 
 activities of man. Knowledge-getting because of curiosity 
 is analogous to food-getting because of hunger. One wants 
 the food when hungry whether he knows anything about 
 its functional value or not. The himger is Nature's way of •^ 
 ascribing value to things that the man needs. Equally, the 
 healthy mind wants to know the things that appeal to the 
 mental appetite without care at the time as to their prac- 
 tical application. /This knowledge-hunger is Nature's • 
 method of ascribing value to the things that the man needs 
 — when he is too immature or too stupid to know what he 
 \ needs. Such strong and continuing instincts impel only to 
 1 things that are on the whole useful and necessary. 
 
 It is play; but it has its values. Although most things 
 observed have no visible relation to his immediate affairs, 
 yet everything in the community is related to everything 
 else in subtle, intangible, and usually unknown ways. Each 
 individual is the center of a vortex of influences. He needs 
 an understanding of the total life of the community in order 
 that he may adjust his actions to the factors of the situation 
 as a whole. His current information concerning appar- 
 ently useless things really gives him fullness of vision of the 
 total pageant of community life of which he forms a part. 
 This fullness of vision is necessary for understanding; for 
 valuations; and right social attitudes. 
 
 While traveling to my work in the Orient, some years ago, 
 I had occasion to observe a portion of the educational ex- 
 periences of two boys about twelve years of age. The ship 
 CD which we Were traveling stopped for a day or two at each 
 of a number of ports: Hongkong, Shanghai, Nagasaki, Kobe, 
 Yokohama, etc. Scarcely had the ship come to anchor when 
 
THE PLAY-LEVEL 11 
 
 the boys were off and away on an exploring expedition. For 
 them it was a region strange and new. There was no assign- 
 ment of anything for them to leam; they were not sent; 
 they were not going ashore to get information so that they 
 might recite upon it at night; it was not a thing upon which 
 they were later to be examined. Simply a rich field of experi- 
 ence opened before them and they eagerly embraced their 
 opportunities and went forth to partake to the full. It was 
 simply play-experience resulting from their intellectual 
 hungers. During the day they visited as many different 
 portions of the city as their time and their means of loco- 
 motion would permit. They looked into the residences of 
 rich and poor, into the shops, amusement places, religious 
 temples, soldiers' barracks, streets and alleys, the condi- 
 tions of Hfe among the well-to-do and among the poor, etc. 
 They came back to the ship at night with rich stores of 
 experience and full to overflowing with information. It 
 required no effort on the part of the adult members of their 
 party to secure extended and enthusiastic verbal reports. 
 13ie-boy&-w^^4iving. They werg jiot simply memori2LLag 
 facts. It was all upon the play-level; and yet they were se- 
 curing the best possible type of education. Had it been made 
 a work-task for them with definite program and time allot- 
 ments, with reports that had to be put up in specified form 
 and with examinations to see that nothing had been over- 
 looked, — would they have left the ship? And in what mood? 
 This experience of the two boys seems to indicate the kind 
 of intellectual play-experience needed throughout the fields 
 of education. In the same way, impelled only by curiosity J 
 and the play-motive, following the leadings of interest. ^ 
 children and youth should, it appears, wander through 
 every important field of human knowledge and human 
 experience. Without any particular consciousness of the se- 
 rious values or purposes of the learning, they should thus 
 
12 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 lay a wide and secure foundation of understanding of all 
 important aspects of reality. So far as possible, this should 
 be by observation. But one's horizon is narrow, and most 
 of this world lies beyond, and stretches backward through 
 history. Most is to be explored vicariously in imagination 
 on the basis of the reports of others. For this, pupils need/ 
 books that vividly reconstruct the experiences of others. 
 
 There is a great wealth of geographical readings, espe- 
 cially travels, which present a vivid reconstruction of life in 
 other lands. As children travel, for example, in their read- 
 ings with Peary to the North Pole, or with Amundsen and 
 Scott to the South Pole, their experiences will bring them 
 to appreciate the nature of the polar regions almost as clearly 
 as if they had been there in the flesh. Let them travel in 
 spirit with Livingstone and Stanley and Roosevelt into the 
 heart of Africa and they will have an appreciation of the 
 nature of Central Africa that they can obtain in no other 
 way. Let them travel with Captain Cook and Darwin and 
 Stevenson through the South Seas, with Dana in his voyage 
 around the "Horn," with Tyndall and Jordan in the Alps, 
 with John Muir and Enos Mills in the Rockies, with George 
 Kennan in Siberia, etc., — let them thus travel vicariously 
 through the various lands and regions of the earth, and they 
 will come to have a full appreciation of the nature of the 
 world. In the reading of literature with geographical back- 
 ground like Captains Courageous, Heidiy Kim, The Iron 
 Trail, The Lumberman, etc., children are permitted further 
 to relive the lives of peoples in various lands and under 
 various conditions; and thus through living acquire under- 
 standing. These geographical readings should aim, not at 
 information, but at experience. Like the two boys roaming 
 through the cities merely as a mode of living, the children 
 in our schools should roam through the wide earth in the 
 pages of their reading merely as a satisfying mode of living. 
 
THE PLAY-LEVEL IS 
 
 The more unsophisticated, the less they are conscious of 
 the serious values, the more they simply follow interest, 
 probably the better will be the experience for education. 
 
 History presents another rich and endless field for explo- 
 ration upon the play-level. This children should read for 
 the sake of their interest in the human story, in the anec- 
 dotes, the biographies, the struggles, the adventures, and 
 all of the other things that appeal to childhood and youth. 
 Thus they should become acquainted with all the family 
 of nations. They should participate in the historical experi- 
 ences of all important countries for the same type of delight 
 that actuated the boys in exploring the foreign cities. They 
 need not know at the time the values of this experience in 
 developing large-group consciousness, national and plane- 
 tary sympathies and understandings, the bases of civic 
 judgment, or the solid foundations of any "Federation of 
 the World " which we may ever produce. 
 
 The teacher must see the serious ends in order to adjust . 
 conditions, to control motives, and to guide. But children 
 should not be greatly conscious of the growth-ends of play- 
 experience. The play-spirit is a skittish thing that tends to 
 take flight when it sees itself harnessed up and set to pro- 
 saic productive labors. On this level it is enough for the 
 children that the historical reconstructions be true, vivid, 
 interesting, voluminous, and rapidly read; that the experi- 
 ence be a satisfying mode of living, like going to a play, or 
 reading an exciting story. On this level it should not be con- 
 scious learning of facts, — for the reason that we want more 
 learning than can be accomplished that way; and other things 
 equally valuable that cannot be accomplished that way at all. 
 
 One has a natural interest, not only in the affairs of men, 
 but also in the things and forces with which men are sur- 
 rounded and with which they must deal : the phenomena of 
 nature, the fields of science. Give healthy-minded children 
 
14 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 a full opportunity to indulge in the playful manipulation of 
 toys, tools, machines, appliances, and materials that involve 
 mechanical principles; the making and operation of electrical 
 devices; the manipulation of sound-producing apparatus and 
 instruments; of lenses; projection apparatus; photographic 
 apparatus; experimentation with the chemical elements; 
 exploring geological formations; keeping pets; visiting the 
 Zoo, the Aviary, the Aquarium, or the plant conserva- 
 tory; observing plants and animals in their native haunts 
 and habitats; — give the unspoiled child proper oppor- 
 tunities at these things and he asks no better fun. He 
 brings to them the same eager intellectual desires to know 
 that inspire the trained scientist who delights in scientific 
 "knowledge for its own sake." Let the child, therefore,! 
 explore the world of reality as widely and deeply as he can) 
 be enabled to get at it; and when he has reached the limita- 
 tions imposed by conditions, let him read the stories of 
 insect life, of flowers, birds, bees, rocks, stars, animals wild 
 and tame, electricity and its applications, chemistry and its 
 wonders, mechanics and inventions, light and sound and 
 heat, and all the rest. Naturally he will explore according 
 to his maturity. Much of this can be accomplished in the 
 elementary schools — more than school people have usually 
 thought possible. Still more of it should come in the high 
 school. Probably the scientific interest is no stronger in the 
 high school than in the elementary; simply pupils are capable 
 of seeing wider and deeper relations. It is probable that the 
 science experience of the elementary level should cover a 
 wide range. Then upon the high -school level they will 
 simply go into greater detail and attain the higher levels of 
 generahty. After one is familiar with the concrete details, 
 the tracing-out of general relationships and discovering the 
 natural organization of the field are among the normal 
 intellectual delights. 
 
THE PLAY-LEVEL 15 
 
 Neither the laboratory nor reading experiences upon this 
 level need be functional in the consciousness of the children 
 any more than the daily newspaper or one's observations 
 out of a car window. The experience is not to be so sys- 
 tematized that the spontaneous' play-spirit is destroyed. 
 There is not to be too much teaching. What_the_childreii 
 crave and need is experience. The school's main task is to 
 supply opportunities that are so varied and attractive that, 
 like the two boys when they arrived at a port, pupils will 
 want to plunge in and to enjoy the opportunities that are 
 placed before them. 
 
 All of these prehminary studies or experiences, whether 
 geographical, historical, literary, or scientific, like children's 
 play in general need to be rich in details, full of human 
 color, infinitely varied, touched Hghtly and then left behind, 
 taken up as prompted by interest not by logic, superficial, 
 repetitious, and loosely organized. There is need of move- 
 ment, irregularity, caprice, variety, and incessant interplay 
 of all the factors that compose the human spirit. For such 
 are the ways of childhood; and even of youth and adulthood 
 in the hours of their freedom. 
 
 Enough has been said to illustrate the nature of educa- 
 tional experience upon the play-level in fields that involve 
 a large intellectual element: but there are other kinds of^ 
 play. The usual manual training shop is a play-shop, and 
 the kitchen a play-kitchen.( The experiences in the main are 
 but a liberation of the constructive and operative play- 
 instinctsA And upon the early or preliminary levels of one's 
 education this is as it should be. For where the equipment 
 is such as to permit diversity of experience with tools, 
 machines, materials, and processes, there is nothing so 
 good as play-experience for laying the solid foundations for 
 the later industrial studies. 
 I It is generally conceded nowadays that the best type of 
 
16 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 physical training is the (liberation of the physical play- 
 impulses of childrenj Systematic gymnastics and calisthen- 
 ics are being discarded and in their stead we are introducing 
 a great variety of indoor and outdoor games, sports, 
 rhythmic dances, folk-dances, hiking expeditions, etc., of 
 the types in which well-trained children and youth indulge 
 in the hours of their freedom. We are making this change, 
 not because it is easier to manage or less expensive or more 
 economical of time, for it is none of these things; but rather 
 because physical experience upon the play-level is a more 
 effective kind of physical education than spiritless mechan- 
 ized physical exercises at word of command from which the 
 play-spirit is absent. 
 
 The social training likewise that we are introducing into 
 our schools is mainly upon the play-level. It is accomplished 
 in connection with the plays and games, the social clubs, 
 the dancing, the civic leagues, the Boy Scouts and the 
 Camp-Fire Girls movements, and the general social life of 
 the school. The greater the spontaneity, other things equal, 
 / the greater the values. 
 
 To say that portions of serious education are to be on the 
 order of play no longer shocks a practical-minded people 
 as it once did. Our biology, psychology, and sociology have 
 recently shown us the serious values of play and the vital 
 function it has always performed and must perform in hu- 
 man life. For whatever the field of man's activity, it is this 
 that lays the foundation for the serious, sj>ecialized matters 
 that are to come later. It is man's basic training, and in the 
 present world of infinite complexity, demanding world-wide 
 vision and sympathies, it needs to be full, rich, and extensive. 
 
 We are also coming to recognize the value of harnessing 
 
 up the play-motive when we wish strenuous exertion. It does 
 
 not mean lack of effort; rather intensification of effort. A 
 
 / boy will play till he drops from fatigue, and do it all volun- 
 
THE PLAY-LEVEL 17 
 
 tarily for the love of the cause. He will not voluntarily do 
 that in his work, where the play-spirit is omitted. It is the 
 boys or girls who enter with the greatest zest into the ac- 
 tions of men as reconstructed in their histories, who take 
 sides in the struggles, and who are warmed by their sympa- 
 thetic and vicarious participation in the historical actions, 
 who have most historical experience and get the greatest 
 good from their history. It is the boy who wants to win in 
 the spelling match who will manfully master the entire spell- 
 ing book as a part of the game. The pupil who sees his mathe- 
 matics as a series of interesting puzzles and games, is the one 
 who will come nearest to conquering every difficulty that 
 shows its head. The thing that one enjoys is the thing at 
 which one will strain every nerve. Given a healthy play- 
 motive and the right opportunity, it is like a high-power 
 engine and a straight track ahead. 
 
 We find here a partial answer to the contention that edu-) 
 cation on the basis of interest results in softness and flabbi-| 
 ness. Really it is the one who finds his educational pre- 
 scriptions pieces of drudgery who most tries to evade them, 
 consciously or unconsciously; and who consequently suf- 
 fers from softness and flabbiness. The boys on the ath- 
 letic fields who most enjoy their opportunities are the ones 
 who most often over-develop physically; and later suffer 
 therefrom. Interest-driven exercise is not only efficacious 
 for developing fiber, but it must even be guarded against 
 because of its over-efficacy where conditions are specially - 
 favorable. It is no less true in the intellectual realm. Find 
 the student in mathematics or physics or Latin who has the 
 best general command over the subject, who sees relations 
 in clearest perspective, who has least intellectual flabbiness, 
 — it is always one who delights in his studies in that field; 
 one who loves the subject "for its own sake." It is never the^ 
 one for whom the experience is drudgery. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE UPON THE WORK-LEVEL 
 
 Although play has its place in the process, education 
 aims at preparation for the serious duties of life: one*s calling, 
 the care of one*s health, civic cooperations and regulation, 
 bringing up one's children, keeping one's language in good 
 form, etc. Educational experience upon the work-level is 
 intended to prepare consciously for the efficient performance 
 of these and all other serious duties. By work in this chapter 
 we refer not merely to one's calling, but to all of one's 
 responsible activities. 
 
 Even one's play has ends that are as serious as those of 
 one's work, for they are the same ends; but the relations are 
 different. Although one may be unconscious at the time of 
 the serious values of his play. Nature is thereby aiming 
 definitely at his physical upbuilding, his mental expansion, 
 and his social development. Neither the play-instincts nor 
 the pleasures thereby occasioned are given as purposeless 
 luxuries. The pleasm'e is noL§3i,end; itjs a lure. It is a prim- 
 itive method of impelling serious developmental activities 
 where the intellect cannot be depended upon to direct the 
 work. It is serious activity impelled by instinct; whereas 
 work is serious activity impelled by ideas. The play is short- 
 sighted; even blind in the face of modern conditions. Work 
 when fully developed is far-sighted, clear-sighted, fully con- 
 scious of ends and means. The accompanying diagram may 
 assist in showing the identity of play and work ends, and 
 also the differences in relationships. 
 
 The figure shows four things, A, B, C, and D, all obviously 
 involved in the preparation for, and performance of, re- 
 
THE WORK-LEVEL 
 
 19 
 
 sponsible activities. Play is conscious of only the first; but 
 this really looks to the second; the second is involved in the 
 third; and the third then produces the fourth. As indicated 
 
 PLAY 
 
 WORK 
 
 General Exercise 
 of Powers 
 
 (UsuaHy 
 
 ple&surable) 
 
 Developmental 
 
 Results - Power 
 
 to Think. Feel 
 
 and Act 
 
 Putting One's 
 
 Powers to Work : 
 
 Work -Activities 
 
 (Feeling element 
 
 disregarded) 
 
 The Fruits 
 
 of 
 
 Labor 
 
 A B C D 
 
 Fig. 1. To represent the relations of play-activities and work-activities 
 
 to education and to each other. 
 
 ivlduars 
 
 by following the arrows, the play, mthout the indiviauai s 
 knowing it, is leading him toward the fruits of serious labors. 
 But since he does not see the ends, there is no feeUng of *- 
 responsibiUty. 
 
 Work-activity differs in that it looks consciously to all of 
 the factors. It is conscious primarily of the fruits of the 
 labors. Here is where the fundamental interest lies. This 
 casts a derived interest back over the other factors since they 
 are prerequisites. The worker, while in training, has a 
 double interest in the work-activities : the primary one is due 
 to the fact that they produce the fruits that he is after; the 
 secondary, that they further develop his powers to act, 
 lifting them to higher levels of efficiency. He is then inter- 
 ested in the general exercise of the play-level, not because 
 of the pleasures thereby derived, but because of its value ^ 
 in developing the powers to think and act. 
 
 The diagram shows the place in the total scheme of the 
 two levels of educational experience. A represents experi- 
 ences of the play-level; C those of the work-level. Both are 
 factors in developing the individual's work-powers. A comes 
 
J 
 
 go THE CURRICULUM 
 
 earlier and lays the foundations; and may continue through- 
 out life alongside or mingled with the work for maintaining 
 the foundations. C comes only after one has come to feel 
 actual responsibility for serious results. It is not to he some- 
 thing like work; it must he actual work. 
 
 It must be observed that the work-level actually differen- 
 tiates into two, because of the two types of fruits to be 
 derived from the work-experiences. One may perform the 
 work-activities (C) for the sake of the ultimate results (D) 
 without consciousness of the educational effects (B). On the 
 other hand, one may, from felt responsibility for final re- 
 sults and consciousness of inferiority of his powers, p)erform 
 the work-activities for the sake of the developmental re- 
 sults (B) alone. These are as genuinely the fruits of the 
 labors as the ultimate objective results. There cannot be 
 felt responsibility, however, for these developmental work- 
 results except as it is derived from a f eehng of responsibility 
 for securing the ultimate results. 
 
 Whether the work-experiences, therefore, look toward sub- 
 jective or objective fruits, hoth interests and responsibilities 
 relate primarily to the objective; and only in derived form to the 
 subjective. The strength of the derived interests and responsi- 
 bilities is determined by the strength of the primary ones. Even 
 when the developmental results are the things primarily sought 
 by teachers in directing education, the students must be aiming 
 primarily at the objective results, and only secondarily at the 
 prerequisite developmental ones. 
 
 An awakening education is everywhere coming to reahze 
 the need of work-activities as the only possible normal method 
 of preparing for the work of the world. In the occupational 
 field, we are developing schools and courses for trades, 
 commerce, household occupations, agriculture, mining, etc., 
 in special schools, continuation schools, and in general high 
 schools. In the more progressive of these, there is every- 
 
THE WORK-LEVEL «1 
 
 where attempt to perform a real portion of the world's work 
 as the means of training. This may be accomplished by 
 transferring a portion of the community's occupational 
 activities to the schools and having the work done there; 
 or by distributing the students throughout the community 
 where they can find their work-exi>eriences in those situa- 
 tions provided by the work-activities of the adult world* 
 
 Both plans are used. On the one hand, vocational activ- 
 ities are being transferred to the schools, and the work done 
 there under regular shop conditions involving genuine 
 responsibility. Thus the boys in the shops, instead of the 
 old-type manual training exercises, are engaged in manufac- 
 turing school equipment, furniture, farming implements, 
 playground apparatus, articles needed for Red Cross work 
 and for community poor-relief, laboratory apparatus, electri- 
 cal appliances for home use, etc. They are also in places 
 doing actual community printing, milk-testing, seed-testing, 
 repair-work on furniture, tools, machines and automobiles, 
 cement construction, building portable houses, garages, . 
 gymnasiums, playground pavilions, etc. The girls, instead ^ 
 of formal cooking exercises, are nowadays more and more 
 put to preparation of the daily school luncheon, home can- 
 ning and preserving, sometimes doing baking for home use, 
 or even for the general market. And their sewing is the mak- 
 ing of actual garments. 
 
 Since it is often difficult to transfer actual work-activities to 
 the schools, another method is for the students to go out into ^ 
 the community where the work is being carried on by the 
 adult world and there to share in the labors for training 
 purposes. Although difficult enough to arrange and man- 
 age, this is often the easier method of the two because of the 
 frequent practical impossibility of transferring the actual 
 responsibility to the schools. As a result of this recognition 
 we are substituting home gardening for training purposes 
 
/ 
 
 22 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 for the old ineffective school gardening; the home-project 
 type of agriculture for the school farm; and part-time work 
 in shops, stores, offices, etc., for mere drill exercises in school 
 shops and commercial rooms. 
 
 In training for citizenship, also, practical activities are 
 being introduced. Pupils are helping to make the city clean, 
 sanitary, and beautiful; to care for the city's trees and shrub- 
 bery; to prevent flies and mosquitoes; to protect the birds 
 and to destroy noxious insects. They are engaged in making 
 things for school or community use. Boy Scouts at times 
 patrol dangerous street-crossings morning and afternoon to 
 protect the little children going to and from school. School 
 civic organizations are making local surveys of community 
 conditions for responsible report to the authorities or to 
 adult civic organizations. 
 
 For practical hygienic training, pupils are often made re- 
 sponsible for some portion of the school ventilation, building 
 cleanliness and sanitation, the regulation of temperature, 
 humidity, and sunlight. Through the school medical depart- 
 ment and through giving credit for home work, children are 
 stimulated to outside practical hygienic activities: home 
 ventilation and sanitation, cleansing the teeth, rational 
 choice of foods, regulation of sleeping conditions and hours, 
 adjustment of exercise to needs, care of the eyes, etc. 
 
 In the pupiFs language, also, we are introducing the work- 
 motive of felt responsibility. Pupils are brought to aim at 
 social results that for attainment require a correct and ef- 
 fective type of language. This compels them to see their 
 language as a work-activity employed for getting results. 
 Responsibility for ends then impels them to watchfulness and 
 effort in organizing their thought, in paragraph and sen- 
 tence construction, in choice of words, pronunciation, spell- 
 ing, handwriting, etc. They are given the opportunities in 
 problem-solving, oral reports, written reports, letters, news 
 
THE WORK-LEVEL 23 
 
 items, communications to civic organizations, applications 
 for position, debates, social-club activities, etc. 
 
 But after enumerating all of these things we must con- 
 fess that professional vision is far in advance of professional 
 practice. For really, except for the language field, taking 
 schools the country over, there is not much training experi- 
 ence of genuine work-type, the criterion being felt respon- 
 sibility for serious results. Even trade-school experiences are 
 most often exercises in isolation from the world's actual work. 
 Far more is this the case with courses bearing vocational 
 names in the general schools; and with training for citizen- 
 ship, hygiene, and sanitation. The list of things being done 
 somewhere in the country is very long; but it is a rare school 
 system that has found a way so to share in community work- 
 responsibility as to secure a sufficient portion of actual work- 
 experience for training purposes. 
 
 There is insufficient realization of the need or the legit- 
 imacy for public education of actual work-experiences. 
 Even yet our schools appear to be well-named from the old 
 Greek word schoUy meaning leisure. Li the main, education 
 in grammar grades, high school, and college of liberal arts 
 
 — we except the mastery of the school arts in the elementary 
 school and the training in professional and technical schools 
 
 — is yet a life of leisure. Teachers are often able to prevent 
 students' enjoying it; but that does not make the activity 
 an organic portion tA^e world's work, which is set aside for 
 training youth in the processes of that work. 
 
 In technological and professional schools we have long 
 recognized the need of work-activities. Young physicians 
 in training are helpers in hospitals; engineering students have 
 field and shop work; agricultural students, work on the 
 school farm; but even in these schools the amount of work- 
 experience is usually felt to be inadequate. This is revealed 
 by such a movement as that in the University of Cincinnati, 
 
84 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 where the students in mechanical engineering have been given 
 opportunity to work half-time in manufacturing establish- 
 ments of the city, bearing actual responsibilities and receiv- 
 ing wages for their work. This is to provide work-experience 
 J that is genuine in character and adequate in quantity. 
 
 The need of work for training has long been understood 
 by the skilled trades. The apprenticeship system trained 
 through experiences of the work-type. The recent agita- 
 tion for vocational training in public schools is due, not to a 
 new need, but to new conditions. The apprenticeship sys- 
 tem, never very efficient, has broken down in the face of 
 complicated conditions. Public education is coming to the 
 rescue. But even though we organize schools for the purpose, 
 we must no less than in the old days include actual work- 
 experience. Indeed, we must now have a greater quantity 
 of responsible work than was provided by the old apprentice- 
 ship system, because of the greater present complexity 
 of work and of the higher levels of efficiency to be reached. 
 And it must be not less real than the old. 
 
 Finding work-experience for training presented no diffi- 
 culty to the apprenticeship system. It had little else to pro- 
 vide. But that is just the thing that has been most absent 
 from public education. Schools have been places of leisure 
 occupations; not places where the world's work is being per- 
 formed. They can provide any amount of experience on the 
 play-level. But they are not in command of the world's 
 work-activities, whether production, distribution, civic regu- 
 lation, community sanitation, or other. In their traditional 
 form they are therefore not in a position to provide much 
 training on the work-level. Hence, education requires a pro- 
 found transformation before it is able to take adequate care 
 of work-experience as training for work. Schools must be- 
 come sharers in the world's work of every kind by way of 
 finding the only possible training opportunities. 
 
THE WORK-LEVEL 25 
 
 Experiences of the work-type may well begin in a small 
 way even in kindergarten and primary grades. The expan- 
 sion of the pupils' understanding of ends and means will be 
 gradual up through the grades. It ought to be fairly full by 
 the later years of the high school — in spite of present usual 
 practices to the contrary. It is not unreasonable to sup- 
 pose that it should be dominant on the college level — again 
 in spite of current contrary practices. The academic tend- 
 ency has been to delay educational activities of the work- 
 type. They have been withheld from college students until 
 the professional schools have been reached; and from most 
 high-school students until they reach technical schools, or 
 the school of the world's work. This is the way of ease and 
 economy; but the world is rapidly coming to think it a 
 mistake. 
 
/ 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE PLACE OF IDEAS IN WORK-EXPERIENCE 
 
 Even the crude activities of the past were directed by 
 ideas. The fanner in his fields, the machinist at his lathe, 
 the housewife at her cooking, the citizen in arriving at judg- 
 ments of public affairs, or in staving off disease, — all con- 
 sidered the conditions before them, and applied the means 
 and processes that appeared to them the most rational. But 
 they lacked accurate scientific knowledge of the factors in- 
 volved. The ideas that they put to work were crude; and 
 that is why. their labors were crude and inefficient. The 
 thought or subjective part of the work is the work essen- 
 tially. One indispensable thing for making work efficient is 
 a full supply of accurate scientific information concerning 
 all the factors. The second thing is a correct performance of 
 the ideational portion of the practical work. Let us begin 
 with the latter and call it 
 
 The antecedent performance 
 
 The practical performance of any task divides itself natu- 
 rally into two parts. First, there is the planning of the 
 work: making decisions as to exact objectives and as to the 
 specific materials and processes ^to be employed. This task 
 involves performance in imagination of the entirfe labor from 
 incipiency to finished product. It involves marshaling all 
 of one*s science relative to both objectives and processes; 
 and drawing plans as dictated by the science. One must also 
 test out in imagination each step in the series to see that 
 everything fits into everything else, and that there is no 
 contradictioij, interference, or other obstacle. 
 
 Any complete task will serve to illustrate. Let us take 
 
PLACE OF IDEAS IN WORK-EXPERIENCE 27 
 
 the case of the boy in the machine-shop who sets out to con- 
 struct a gas-engine. He first constructs it in his imagination. 
 This antecedent construction involves all of the parts, sizes, 
 designs, and relations. In this way, without any risk or 
 waste of materials, he may construct it over and over again, 
 to see that there are no mistakes, no interference of parts, 
 and no insurmountable diflSculties. He may construct it in 
 many ways, using different designs, sizes of parts, or pro- 
 portions; and he may test out each design in order to deter- 
 mine the working plan that seems best. For these antece- 
 dent labors, he must mobilize all of his science and put it 
 to work both in the planning and the testing. His thought 
 may be concentrated into a few hours or distributed over 
 months. But when this antecedent construction and testing 
 are satisfactorily accomplished and decision made, the more 
 fundamental portion of the work is done. There remains 
 the objectification of his plans. This is not mere mechan- 
 ical registration of his decisions. Back of his hands, his 
 thought is still busy directing, guiding, and supervising. 
 His hands are the tools of his intellect. Such manual labors, ^ 
 
 before being mechanized into habit, — a later process, ^ 
 
 are essentially intellectual labors. 
 
 This must be emphasized because of the frequent tend- \ 
 ency in the training to commit one or the other of two \ 
 fundamental errors. One is to leave out a large portion of ^ 
 the ideational element, by giving ready-made plans to the | 
 students which they are simply to follow: shoj)-manuals, \^ 
 books of recipes, blue-print plans, ready-made patterns, 
 detailed directions. In such case pupils may get practically 
 no vision of the controlling science, and are not even put- 
 ting second-hand ideas to work. They may get nothing 
 more than ideas of mechanical manipulation without any 
 insight into the reasons for the processes. As training 
 experience, it is barren and ineffective. 
 
38 THE CUEBICULUM 
 
 / 
 
 The opposite error is the attempt to teach the science 
 without any relation to the work-situations. This no more 
 than the other is putting ideas to work; it is therefore not 
 intellectual work-experience. It may accomplish much as 
 intellectual play. Practical experience proves that it lays a 
 good foundation for later actual work-training, — as where 
 the man trained in "pure" science goes into practical in- 
 dustry, and rapidly gets his next level of training. We do 
 not deny that the play-level provides an excellent founda- 
 tion for training of the work-type; we have everywhere 
 affirmed it. But it is not training on the work-level. And 
 in the degree in which the latter is necessary, the experience 
 is incomplete, inefficient, unfocused, fails to provide work- 
 valuations, work-habits, attitudes, and sense of responsi- 
 bility. As a method of training for serious duties, it too is 
 ineffective. 
 
 We must point out an important difference between the 
 antecedent or subjective performance of the act and the 
 later objective performance. In the former, one draws on 
 all his ideas that are in any way related to the task in hand. 
 If he has abundant ideas and a fertile imagination, he may 
 be brought into contact with about every important thing 
 in the field. He comes to know the science and properly to 
 value it, as he thus chooses the things that can serve his 
 purposes and rejects those that are of no service. The plan- 
 ning, the antecedent performance of the task, is, therefore, 
 from an educational point of view, the most important 
 part of it. But it cannot have vitality for education unless 
 it is really antecedent to intended action; unless it is an 
 organic portion of a total act of which the outward perform- 
 ance is but the culminating portion. 
 
 On the other hand, after decisions are made, plans drawn, 
 and only execution remaining, then one's mental life is 
 much narrowed. It is concerned intensively with the one 
 
PLACE OF IDEAS IN WORK-EXPERIENCE 29 
 
 design that has been decided upon, the one set of materials 
 and methods. This culminating activity has many educa- • 
 tional values : it gives motive and substantiality to the whole^ 
 process; it gives depth to one's understanding and appreci- 
 ations; it confers operative skill. But it cannot be compared 
 with the antecedent labors for giving width of intellectual 
 vision. 
 
 The jmpil musty therefore, not be robbed of the antecedent 
 performance by having the finished plans prescribed by the 
 teacher or by a class manual. 
 
 The antecedent performance possesses another important 
 value. Novic es-jvi ll not acquire a sense of responsibihty 
 unless they an^m^^ to take the initiative, to make plans 
 and decisioij^for themselves, and to bear the responsibility 
 of making me plans successful. But with novices, this in- 
 mispkes, waste of materials, and losses. Since pen- 
 Ln enforce responsibility, and since loss is the 
 lalty of mistakes, serious waste appears to be the 
 price of initiative and responsibility, — if they are to be 
 real, and not merely make-believe. 
 
 We have a way out of the diflSculty as we distinguish be- 
 tween antecedent and culminating performance; and as we 
 develop educational technique appropriate to the two. 
 Full and complete initiative can be given students for the ante- 
 cedent performance of the action. Then, before the steps 
 planned are actually taken, they can be reviewed, step by 
 step, as frequently as necessary by the student by way of 
 seeing that no mistake is involved. Plans can be taken up 
 in class discussion, and tried out in the critical testing imagi- 
 nation of teacher and pupils. Serious defects will thus be 
 discovered. Mistakes can be seen before they are made 
 actual. Losses can be realized, and the penalty enforced in 
 imagination sufficiently to restrain wrong action. As a 
 matter of fact, this is the way Nature enforces her penalties 
 
/ 
 
 80 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 most of the time in the case of the successful man. He is 
 successful because he anticipates mistakes and corrects 
 them before they are made. The unsuccessful man is the 
 one of narrower vision and duller imagination who does 
 not see his mistakes until he is injured or crushed beneath 
 them. "Experience is the best teacher." But experience in 
 anticipating mistakes and correcting them before they are 
 made is a better teacher than loss and injury. The plan 
 demands full development of the technique of antecedent 
 performance. 
 
 The technical information . 
 
 On the work-level, the task to be performed is central; 
 and the science is organized about it. A boy, for example, 
 in the school shop wishes to construct and operate a tele- 
 graphic apparatus. This ambition will serve as the center 
 of the science training. He will be motivate<y|^fl^^M^ 
 information concerning batteries, wiring, elect^HUBB^ 
 making and breaking of circuits, etc. He will learn just the 
 things that he needs for the task in hand; and nothing more 
 at the time. Through using his ideas in the planning and in 
 the actual construction he comes to realize the full signifi- 
 cance of the various facts. The derived interest aroused is 
 for most individuals more potent than the native interest 
 in the abstract science facts and principles. For this reason 
 the knowledge is more effectively driven home and remem- 
 bered. 
 
 , There is a strong drift in public education toward this 
 project-method of organization. The school corn clubs, for 
 example, assemble all possible information relative to the 
 growth of com and use it for the control of practical pro- 
 cedure. Children engaged in an anti-mosquito campaign 
 assemble just the entomological, bacteriological, and other 
 ioformatioQ needed in their labors, rejecting for the moment 
 
PLACE OF IDEAS IN WORK-EXPERIENCE SI 
 
 all irrelevant scientific information. The tree-protecting 
 league gathers all p)ossible facts concerning the species of 
 trees attacked by insects, fungi, etc., together with the 
 scientific information needed for combating the destructive 
 influences. They reject for the time all botanical or ento- 
 mological information that has no bearing on the problem 
 in hand. In weeding out the grammatical mistakes made 
 by children in their speech, the grammatical information is 
 assembled that relates to the specific mistakes found; all 
 other grammatical facts are passed by as irrelevant. In 
 brief, one learns the things needed for directing action in 
 connection with the situations in which the action is to take 
 place, and just previous to the drawing-up of the plans. 
 Only under such circumstances can knowledge properly 
 reveal its significance, be rightly focused upon human 
 affairs, or be normally assimilated. Knowing and doing 
 should grow up together. 
 
 In spite of these virtues, the project-method as a mode of 
 teaching science is not always in good repute. This is not 
 due to any inherent defect in the method — when it is 
 complete. It is by far the most complicated method; and 
 differs most from familiar traditional ones. It is not, there- 
 fore, surprising that teachers often develop an incomplete 
 and ineffective form of the method. Whenever a training 
 task involves practical performance, this is so visible, 
 tangible, and solid to sense that it often comes to be con- 
 ceived as being the whole thing. The teacher attempts to 
 get the pupils in the mest economical and expeditious way 
 to perform the practical actions by way of securing the re- 
 sults. The teachers, therefore, often do the thinking, draw 
 up the plans, and prescribe procedure for the students. This 
 is exceedingly common in sewing-rooms, kitchens, and shops. 
 So far as the pupils' experience is concerned, the intellectual 
 element is largely dropped out. In such case the pupils do 
 
 ^y 
 
/ 
 
 82 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 not themselves perform the most vital portion of the work. 
 The part given over to them does not require that they 
 master the science involved for the sake of planning and 
 self-guidance. ** 
 
 The technique of the project-method requires that in the 
 teaching the major attention be given to what we have 
 called the antecedent performance rather than to the 
 objective or culminating performance. It also requires that 
 the antecedent activities be performed by the students. 
 
 In the use of this method the necessary ideas are to be 
 got from at least three places. To make the matters clear 
 let us resume our illustration of the gas-engine : — 
 
 1. In the first place, the boy, motivated by intention to 
 make the engine, will observe such engines in as great vari- 
 ety as available. For fullness of understanding, he should 
 operate them, and see the workings of the parts. He should 
 take them to pieces, and reassemble them. This experience 
 brings him into direct contact with all the science realities 
 involved — the first vital step in learning science. After he 
 has thus experienced the realities, he is prepared to isolate 
 them, verbalize them, and appreciate quantitative rela- 
 tions. The situation does not contain all that he needs for 
 these latter purposes, and certainly not enough for full 
 scientific generalizations; but the things it contains he needs 
 as part of the total process. 
 
 2. In the second place, he will read descriptions, pictures, 
 drawings, and diagrams of engines that he has not seen, by 
 way of extending his vision of possibility. If he can have 
 direct access to two or three types of actual engines, he will 
 have an apperception-alphabet that will enable him easily 
 and quickly through reading to examine another ten or 
 twenty types. It would be well in such case to begin with 
 the historically earliest and simplest types, noting both the 
 structures and the science involved; then to trace the 
 
PLACE OF IDEAS IN WORK-EXPERIENCE , S3 
 
 changes that have been made by way of improvement and 
 of adaptation to special needs, and reasons for these changes. 
 When this experience is added, he is provided with a better 
 basis for generalizations. But probably even this is not 
 enough. . / 
 
 3. For illustrating the third step, let us isolate the single 
 feature of the ignition system. Instead of further widening 
 his understanding of the electrical science involved by look- 
 ing to still more engines, — there is a limit beyond which 
 little or nothing new appears, — he might look off and view 
 the wide field of electricity in general and its applications 
 in general. He is still motivated, let us say, by his project 
 of developing an improved type of ignition system. He 
 reads a full treatise on electricity and its applications. Where 
 his apperception is defective, he tries things out in the labo- 
 ratory. But, though taking a full survey of the "pure" 
 science, he is only sorting over the possibilities of the field, 
 locating suggestions, trying to find the ideas that he can 
 put to work. This pure-science overview is the ultimate 
 level of project-science experience. 
 
 While in a sense this is "pure " science, it is very different 
 from the usual non-functional type. Here the primary 
 thing in the student's consciousness is the project, the piece 
 of work to be done; not the satisfaction of intellectual inter- 
 ests. He examines every fact and principle in relation to 
 his practical problem, and not merely as a field of intel- 
 lectual sight-seeing. The two types of experience differ as 
 play differs from work. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 WHERE EDUCATION CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED 
 
 Educational experiences must take place where they 
 can be normal. Frequently this is not at the schools. 
 
 The nature of the problem can be made clear by illustra- 
 tions of varying character. Let us take first the case of the 
 training of girls in sewing. The practical activities will 
 transfer to the schools with ease. The continuing need of 
 garments and other household necessities involving needle- 
 work gives rise to the normal responsibilities. While the 
 activities may take place in the individual homes, the 
 teacher going about from home to home to supervise it, the 
 plan is not administratively economical. The schools can 
 easily provide the simple appliances needed. The materials 
 can be carried to the schools as easily as books, and the 
 practical labors performed there as normally as at home. 
 When tasks can be so transferred without loss of normal 
 responsibility, this is administratively desirable. 
 
 The training in home cooking will not transfer with any 
 such ease. Food materials are bulky, and not easily carried 
 to the school for the work, nor easily returned to the homes. 
 They are perishable, easily subject to contamination in 
 transit, and often should be served as soon as preparation 
 is complete. Most of the practical activities therefore must 
 take place in the home kitchen, not in the school kitchen. 
 For supervising it, teachers need to be in intimate contact 
 with the homes. A few such cooking tasks can be trans- 
 ferred to the schools at times, as for example, certain special 
 baking, a portion of the canning, preserving, jelly-making, 
 etc. These can occasionally be performed at the school and 
 the product then returned to the homes of the girls. 
 
y 
 
 WHERE EDUCATION CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED 35 
 
 Owing to the diflSculty of providing normal responsibili- 
 ties, and therefore normal training conditions, many 
 schools at present are using a substitute. The preparation 
 of the school luncheon is used to provide responsible train- 
 ing conditions. The girls in relays provide daily one or two 
 dishes for the luncheon. In other cases they prepare lunch- 
 eons for the teachers, regularly or occasionally. In a few 
 schools they even go so far as to provide an entire noonday 
 meal each day including a dozen or more dishes, served 
 cafeteria-fashion for several hundred students. When a 
 needed activity will not transfer, it is thus possible occa- 
 sionally to find a sufficient substitute that is not mere make- 
 beUeve. 
 
 Recognition of the necessity of normal responsibility as 
 a factor of educational situations is a relatively recent devel- 
 opment. Not many years ago it was felt, for example, that 
 training in gardening could be given in our little school 
 gardens. Recently it has been discovered that in so far as 
 the school garden omits normal responsibility for securing 
 actual results that are to be used in serious ways, it is but a 
 play-garden. As such it is of value for preliminary training 
 of the play-type. It can introduce the subject and give 
 some beginning ideas as to gardening; and it can serve for 
 demonstration and experimental procedure; but it is in- 
 sufficient for serious training. It is being discovered that 
 gardening responsibility transfers to the school only with 
 great difficulty, and that therefore the training should take 
 place in the home gardens with the teacher going about 
 from home to home to supervise the work. The training 
 needs to be taken care of where the work can be normal, not^ 
 where it may be most convenient for teachers. 
 
 Formerly we thought we could train machinists and car- 
 penters in our high-school manual-training shops. Now we 
 see that our shops of the usual type provide play-situations. 
 
86 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 not work-situations. The constructive instinct is strong in 
 boys, and whether in school or not their play inclines them 
 to constructive activities. The usual school shop offers 
 these instincts a favorable outlet. This is of large value. 
 Constructive play, distributed from kindergarten to high 
 school, is a highly profitable training of the preliminary 
 type. It introduces novices to the field of serious mechanical 
 occupations. It can carry them but a portion of the way, 
 however. After such introduction the thing needed is re- 
 sponsible work, where the boy can participate in serious 
 mechanical activities, under actual working conditions. 
 The practical responsible aspects of shop training will 
 transfer to the schools under present conditions only with 
 great difficulty. It is scarcely possible to organize in any 
 sufficient way at our schools actual machine-shop produc- 
 tion or the actual building of houses. At the school only 
 preliminary, laboratory, and demonstration portions can 
 be taken care of. The culminating portions of the educative 
 process are to be found out in the world of responsible in- 
 dustry. To that must the students be sent for the later 
 levels of their mechanical training. 
 
 Our schools have tried to train for health by imparting 
 textbook and lecture information concerning matters of 
 anatomy, physiology, and hygiene. If the children got the 
 facts in mind well enough to recite and pass the examina- 
 tions, they were considered educated. Application of the 
 information has been looked upon as a thing to be done by 
 the pupils only aftef the examination has attested the com- 
 pleteness of their education. The application has been looked 
 upon as being in no sense a part of the training process; 
 certainly not a part of the school's responsibility. Recently 
 we are becoming better informed. We are discovering that 
 the application of the information is the culminating process 
 of education; that without the processes in which the knowl- 
 
WHERE EDUCATION CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED 37 
 
 • 
 
 edge is put to work, education is only half done. We are 
 coming to see that education in hygiene is accomplished, 
 not in the moments of acquiring the preliminary technical 
 information at the school, but in the moments of using that ^ 
 information in the control of conduct; and in the recurring 
 moments of such actual use of knowledge while health habits are 
 being fixed. The training is accomplished as one puts his 
 ideas to work in the ventilation of his sleeping-room ; in his 
 choice of food; in caring for his teeth; in keeping up his mus- 
 cular strength and tone, in work and play; in evading 
 bacterial infection; and in the countless other matters in ^ 
 which he is called upon _<o act 
 
 Most of these hygienic training activities will not transfer 
 to the school. The training has to be accomplished where 
 the activity can take place normally. The school can give 
 necessary antecedent information; it can aid students in 
 forming judgments as to what to do; it can through teachers 
 and school nurses cooperate with parents in stimulating 
 and supervising the activities of the students; but in most 
 cases the self -directed activities that round out and fix the 
 training cannot be transferred to the schools. The home- 
 visiting health-nurse in continual contact with the home 
 situations in which the pupils live is the one ideally situated 
 for supervising the culminating aspects of the training. 
 
 When in later chapters we look at the responsible activi- 
 ties involved in training for citizenship, for leisure occupa- 
 tions, for parenthood, for religion, for social intercommuni- 
 cation, etc., we shall discover that in most fields of training 
 there are some of the culminating activities that transfer 
 to the schools with entire ease; that there are others which 
 transfer with difficulty; and that there are still others which 
 will not transfer at all. It will be found, too, that the rela- 
 tive value of any aspect of training is in no wise related to 
 the place where it has to be carried on. Very many activi- 
 
38 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 ties most urgently needed can be transferred to the schools 
 only with great difficulty, or not at all. Education is no less 
 imp>erative, however, simply because of this difficulty or 
 impossibility of transfer. Our profession must find ways of 
 going out to the activities that cannot be brought to the 
 schools. This is now being done in part-time work, in giving 
 credit for home activities, and in school-club work of various 
 kinds. 
 
 A good example comes from Iowa. The bulletin of the 
 Iowa Home- Work School-Credit Club enumerates three 
 hundred and thirty home activities of wide diversity for 
 which credit is given. It is unfortunate that space precludes 
 the presentation of the entire list; but the following table 
 shows the number of activities of each class for which credit 
 is given: — 
 
 Number of 
 activities 
 Agricultural activities: — 
 
 Plants 45 
 
 Animals 18 
 
 Agricultural construction and farm economics .... 21 
 Home economics: — 
 
 Sewing 23 
 
 Cooking 29 
 
 Laundry 17 
 
 Housekeeping 18 
 
 General construction, repairs, and other work with 
 
 tools 59 
 
 Home duties of boys and girls 9 
 
 Health activities 20 
 
 Self-culture (home reading, music, etc.) 16 
 
 Helping the aged, the weak, the ill, etc 11 
 
 Business practice 6 
 
 Thrift activities 4 
 
 Civic activities 10 
 
 Club projects 24 
 
 Total ! 330 
 
WHERE EDUCATION CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED 39 
 
 Naturally such non-transferable activities require direc- 
 tion and supervision. Much of this is to be taken care of at 
 the school building in the antecedent planning for the activi- 
 ties. This involves the previous mastery of the necessary 
 information. So far as possible the children will do their 
 own planning and thus know what they are about. If the 
 antecedent portions of the activity are fully taken care of, 
 the need of personal supervision is greatly diminished. But 
 pupils need leadership and encouragement. While parents 
 here have a part to perform, the major responsibility rests 
 upon the teachers. It demands that they mingle in the 
 community life and come into contact with their pupils 
 while the latter are securing their educative experiences. 
 As teachers educate for efficient performance of hfe's affairs, 
 they must be a portion of the active world of affairs. In the 
 degree in which the experience itself cannot be transferred 
 to the classroom, in this degree the teacher himself cannot 
 be placed within a classroom for directing the work. 
 
 The part-time school or course is another practical recog- 
 nition of the fact that, where normal experience cannot be^ 
 transferred to the school, the children must be sent to the 
 places where such normal experience can be had. In such 
 well-known examples as those of Cincinnati or Fitchburg, 
 the boys in the shop courses spend one half of the school 
 year in the classes, laboratories, and shoj>s of the high schools 
 and the other half of the school year in the shops of the 
 city, doing real work for wages under shop foremen. The 
 plan is worked out by having two boys assigned to one job 
 in the shop. Each boy works a week in the shop and a week 
 in the school alternately. When one is in the shop the 
 other is in the school; both are in the shop on Saturdays. 
 
 This part-time activity can be indefinitely extended; and 
 the extension is at present being actually and rapidly made. 
 The young men in the shops of high schools and industrial 
 
40 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 schools are being used by the educational authorities of 
 certain cities in taking care of the repairs upon school build- 
 ings and school equipment, under the direction of responsi- 
 ble repair foremen. In a technical high school recently vis- 
 ited, the boys in the agricultural class had contracted with 
 the fruit-growers of the region roundabout to care for the 
 orchards for a certain price per year. They went out Satur- 
 days, holidays, vacations, and did the spraying, pruning, 
 cultivation, harvesting, etc., under the conditions of normal 
 responsibility. Arrangements are being made in many 
 places whereby students in typewriting, bookkeeping, sales- 
 manship, advertising, window-dressing, etc., work for a few 
 hours per week or certain weeks during the year on part- 
 time work within commercial establishments. 
 
 We discover here a further administrative reason for 
 
 /making clear distinction between the antecedent portion 
 
 / and the objective portion of practical action. The planning 
 
 I and all the preparation incident thereto can in practically 
 
 I all cases be most economically and effectively taken care 
 
 of at the schools. The actual putting of ideas to work under 
 
 responsible conditions must be accomplished in the diverse 
 
 and scattered situations where those conditions obtain. 
 
 Administratively this actual accomplishment often presents 
 
 difficult problems. In the degree, however, in which the 
 
 antecedent portion has been adequately performed, these 
 
 difficulties are minimized. The novices when they go out 
 
 find themselves prepared to put the right ideas to work; 
 
 to do the things with confidence; to do them correctly; and 
 
 with little supervision. The world knows how to use that 
 
 kind of ability. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 SCIENTIFIC METHOD IN CURRICULUM-MAKING . 
 
 The technique of curriculum-making along scientific lines 
 has been but Uttle developed. The controlling purposes of 
 education have not been sufficiently particularized. We 
 have aimed at a vague culture, an ill-defined discipline^ a 
 nebulous harmonious development of the individual, an 
 indefinite moral character-building, an unparticularized 
 social efficiency, or, often enough nothing more than escape 
 from a life of work. Often there are no controlling purposes; 
 the momentum of the educational machine keeps it running. 
 So long as objectives are but vague guesses, or not even 
 that, there can be no demand for anything but vague v 
 guesses as to means and procedure. But the era of content-^ 
 ment with large, undefined purposes is rapidly passing. An 
 age of science is demanding exactness and particularity. 
 
 The technique of scientific meth od is at present being 
 developed for every important aspect of education. Experi- 
 mental laboratories and schools are discovering accurate 
 methods of measuring and evaluating different tvpe s of 
 ^di]^T^tinnal^ j)rocess es. Bureaus of educational measure- 
 ment are discovering scientific methods of analyzing results, 
 of diagnosing specific situations, and of prescribing remedies. 
 Scientific method is being applied to the fields of b udget ^___ 
 maj^jjg, c hild-accouiitin g, s ystems of gr^di^ ^ and^yomo- 
 ^iwia^tc. 
 
 The curriculum, however, is a primordial factor. If it is 
 wrongly drawn up on the basis merely of giiess and personal 
 opinion, all of the science in the world applied to the factors 
 above enumerated will not make the work efficient. The 
 scientific task preceding all others is the determination of 
 
42 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 the curriculum. For this we need a scientific technique. At 
 pr^^ent this is being rapidly developed in connection with 
 various fields of training. 
 ^ The central theory is simple. Human life, however varied, 
 ^ consists in the performance of sp)ecific activities. Education 
 that prepares for life is one that prepares definitely and 
 adequately for these specific activities. However numerous 
 and diverse they may be for any social class, they can be dis- 
 covered. This requires only that one go out into the world 
 of affairs and discover the particulars of which these affairs 
 consist. These will show the abilities, a ttitudes , h abits. 
 f appreciations, and f orms of _k Tl0^^^^g(L Jhat men need. 
 TPhese'wiirbe the objectives of the curriculum. They wilF 
 be numerous, definite, and particularized. The curriculum 
 will then be that series of experiences which children and 
 youth must have by way of attaining those objectives. 
 
 The word curriculum is Latin for a race-course^ or the race 
 itself, — a place of deeds, or a series of deeds. As applied 
 to education, it is that series of things which children and 
 youth must do and experience by way of developing abilities 
 
 I to do the things well that make up the affairs of adult life; 
 
 'Land to be in all respects what adults should be. 
 
 The develop mental ex perience^ exist upon two levels. On 
 the one hand, there is the general experience of living the 
 community life, without thought of the training values. In 
 this way, through participation, one gets much of his edu- 
 cation for participation in community life. In many things 
 this provides most of the training; and in all essential things, 
 much of it. But in all fields, this incidental or undirected 
 developmental experience leaves the training imperfect. It 
 is necessary, therefore, to supplement it with the conscious 
 directed training of systematized education. The first level 
 we shall call undirected training; and the second, directed 
 training. 
 
CURRICULUM-MAKING 
 
 43 
 
 The cur riculum ma y, therefore, be defined in two ways: 
 (1) itis^ theen tire range of eYpeneno eSj l>othjimdir e£t£d^j 
 in uni'oldmg? jEe abiUties of the indi- 
 
 v3ual; or (£) jLisJth fi. series of consciSTisIy directed trainin g 
 experiences that the schools u se for co ipp^ti ng am " 
 fecting the unToMme ni. Our prot'ession uses the term usu- 
 aliy*m the "fatter sense. But as education is coming more 
 and more to be seen as a thing of experiences, and as the 
 work- and play-experiences of the general community life 
 are being more and more utilized, the line of demarcation 
 between directed and imdirected training experience is 
 rapidly disappearing. Education must be concerned with 
 both, even though it does not direct both. 
 
 When the curriculum is defined as including both di- 
 rected and undirected experiences, then its objectives are 
 the total range of human abilities, habits, systems of knowl- 
 edge, etc., that one should possess. These will be discovered 
 by analytic survey. The curriculum-discoverer will first be 
 an analyst of human nature and of human afi^airs. His 
 task at this point is not at all concerned Vith " the studies," 
 — later he will draw up appropriate studies as means, but 
 he will not analyze the tools to be used in a piece of work 
 as a mode of discovering the objectives of that work. His 
 first task rather, in ascertaining the education appropriate 
 for any special class, is to discover the total range of habits, 
 skills, abilities, forms of thought, valuations, ambitions, 
 etc., that its members need for the effective performance 
 of their vocational labors; likewise, the total range needed 
 for their civic activities; their health activities; their recrea- 
 tions; their language; their parental, religious, and general 
 social activities. The program of analysis will be no narrow 
 one. It will be wide as life itself. As it thus finds all the 
 things that make up the mosaic of full-formed human life, 
 it discovers the full range of educational objectives. 
 
44 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 Notwithstanding the fact that many of these objectives 
 are attained without conscious effort, the curriculum-dis- 
 coverer must have all of them before him for his labors. 
 Even though the scholastic curriculum will not find it 
 necessary to aim at all of them, it is the function of educa- 
 tion to see that all of them are attained. Only as he looks 
 to the entire series can he discover the ones that require 
 conscious effort. He will be content to let as much as pos- 
 sible be taken care of through undirected experiences. In- 
 deed he will strive for such conditions that a maximum 
 amount of the training can be so taken care of. 
 
 The curriculum of the schools vyill aim at those objectives 
 that are not sufficiently attained as a result of the general un- 
 directed experience. This is to recognize that the total range 
 of specific educational objectives breaks up into two sets: 
 one, those arrived at through one's general experiences 
 without his taking thought as to the training; the other, 
 those that are imperfectly or not at all attained through 
 such general experience. The latter are revealed, and dis- 
 tinguished from the former, by the presence of imperfec- 
 tions, errors, short-comings. Like the symptoms of disease, 
 these point unerringly to those objectives that require the 
 systematized labors of directed training. Deficiencies point 
 to the ends of conscious education. As the specific objec- 
 tives upon which education is to be focused are thus pointed 
 out, we are shown where the curriculum of the directed 
 training is to be developed. 
 
 Let us illustrate. One of the most important things in 
 which one is to be trained is the effective use of the mother- 
 tongue. It is possible to analyze one's language activities 
 and find all of the things one must do in effectively and 
 correctly using it. Each of these things then becomes an 
 objective of the training. But it is not necessary consciously 
 to train for each of them. Let an individual grow up in a 
 
CURRICULUM-MAKING 45 
 
 cultivated language-atmosphere, and he will learn to do, 
 and be sufficiently practiced in doing, most of them, without 
 any directed training. Here and there he will make mis- 
 takes. Each mistake is a call for directed training. w 
 
 The curriculum of the directed training is to he discovered in 
 the shortcomings of individuals after they have had all that can 
 be given by the undirected training. 
 
 This principle is recognized in the recent work of many 
 investigators as to the curriculum of grammar. One of the 
 earliest studies was that of Professor Charters.^ Under his 
 direction, the teachers of Kansas City undertook to dis- 
 cover the errors made by pupils in their oral and written 
 language. For the oral errors the teachers carried notebooks 
 for five days of one week and jotted down every grammatical 
 error which they heard made by any pupil at any time dur- 
 ing the day. For the errors in writing they examined the 
 written work ctf the pupils for a period of three weeks. They 
 discovered twenty-one types of errors in the oral speech 
 and twenty-seven types in the written. The oral errors 
 in the order of their frequency were as follows: — 
 
 Per cent 
 
 1. Confusion of past tense and past participle 24 
 
 2. Failure of verb to agree with its subject in number 
 
 and person 14 
 
 3. Wrong verb 12 
 
 4. Double negative 11 
 
 5. Syntactical redundance 10 • 
 
 6. Wrong sentence form 5 
 
 7. Confusion of adjectives and adverbs 4 
 
 8. Subject of verb not in nominative case 4 
 
 9. Confusion of demonstrative adjective with per- 
 
 sonal pronoun 3 
 
 10. Predicate nominative not in nominative case. ... 2 
 
 11. First personal pronoun standing first in a series . 2 
 
 * Charters, W. W., and Miller, Edith. A Course of Study in Grammar 
 hosed upon the Grammatical Errors of School Children in Kansas Cityt 
 Missouri. University of Missouri, Education Bulletin, no. 9. 
 
46 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 12. Wrong form of noun or pronoun 2 
 
 13. Confusion of past and present tenses 2 
 
 14. Object of verb or preposition not in the objective 
 
 case 1 
 
 15. Wrong part of speech due to a similarity of sound 1 
 
 16. Incorrect comparison of adjectives 1 
 
 17. Failure of the pronoun to agree with its antecedent . S 
 
 18. Incorrect use of mood 0.3 
 
 19. Misplaced modifier 0.3 
 
 20. Confusion of preposition and conjunction 0.2 
 
 21. Confusion of comparatives and superlatives 0.1 
 
 Each error discovered is a symptom of grammatical igno- 
 rance, wrong habit, imperfect valuation, or careless attitude 
 toward one's language. The nature of the deficiency points 
 to the abilities and dispositions that are to be developed in 
 the child by way of bringing about the use of the correct 
 forms. Each grammatical shortcoming discovered, there- 
 fore, points to a needed objective of education. It points 
 to a development of knowledge or attitude which the gen- 
 eral undirected language experience has not sufficiently 
 accomplished; and which must therefore be consciously 
 undertaken by the schools. 
 
 Scientific method must consider both levels of the gram - 
 mar curriculum.^ One task is to provide at the schooPas 
 much as possible of a cultivated language-atmosphere in 
 which the children can live and receive unconscious train- 
 ing. This is really thejtask_5f_^ajorJmport5Ji^ and pro- 
 vides the typei^"experience that should^ccompKsh an ever- 
 increasing proportion of the training. The other task is to 
 make children conscious of their errors, to teach the gram- 
 mar needed for correction or prevention, and to bring the 
 children to put their grammatical knowledge to work in 
 eliminating the errors. In proportion as the other type of 
 experience is increased, this conscious training will play a 
 diminishing idle. 
 
CURRICULUM-MAKING 47 
 
 In the spfilliijg field, Ayres, Jones, Cook and O'Shea, and 
 others have been tabulating the words that children and 
 adults use in writing letters, reports, compositions, etc. In 
 this way they have been discovering the particularized 
 objectives of training in spelling. But words are of unequal 
 difficulty. Most are learned in the course of the reading and 
 writing experience of the children without much conscious 
 attention to the spelling. But here and there are words 
 that are not so learned. Investigations, therefore, lay sjje- 
 cial emphasis upon the words that are misspelled. Each 
 misspelled word reveals a directed-curriculum task. Here, 
 as in the grammar, error is the symptom of training need; 
 and the complete error-list points unerringly to the curricu- 
 lum of conscious training. 
 
 In the YCCatiiiii^l -field, and on the technical side only, 
 Indianapolis has provided an excellent example of method 
 of discovering the objectives of training. Investigators, 
 without pre-suppositions as to content of vocational curricu- 
 lum, set out to discover the major occupations of the city, 
 the processes to be performed in each, and the knowledge, 
 habits and skills needed for effective work. They talked 
 with expert workmen; and observed the work-processes. 
 In their report, for each occupation, they present: (1) a list 
 of tools and machines with which a workman must be skill- 
 ful; (2) a list of the materials used in the work with which 
 workers need to be familiar; (3) a list of items of general 
 knowledge needed concerning jobs and processes; (4) the 
 kinds of mathematical operations actually employed in the 
 work; (5) th6 items or portions of science needed for control 
 of processes; (6) the elements of drawing and design actu- 
 ally used in the work; (7) the characteristics of the English 
 needed where language is vitally involved in one's work, as 
 in commercial occupations; (8) elements of hygiene needed 
 for keeping one's self up to the physical standards demanded 
 by the work; and (9) the needed facts of economics. 
 
48 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 Many of the things Hsted in such a survey are learned 
 through incidental experience. Others cannot be sufficiently 
 learned in this way. It is by putting the workers to work, 
 whether adolescent or adult, and by noting the kinds of 
 shortcomings and mistak es that show themselves when 
 traini ng is absent or deficient, that we can-discoi^fc!£r_ihfi 
 / 'IS^jcul um tasks for Hirpnf pd ynf^at innal education./ 
 \ TrEeobjectives of education are not to be discovered within 
 just any kind or quality of human affairs. Occupational, 
 civic, sanitary, or other activity may be poorly performed 
 and productive of only meager results. At the other end of 
 the scale are types of activity that are as well performed as 
 it is in human nature to perform them, and which are abun- 
 dantly fruitful in good results. Education is estabhshed 
 upon the presumption that human activities exist upon 
 different levels of quaUty or efficiency; that performance of 
 low character is not good; that it can be eUminated through 
 training; and that only the best or at least the best attain- 
 lable is good enough. Whether in agriculture, building- 
 trades, housekeeping, commerce, civic regulation, sanitation, 
 or any other, education presumes that the best that is prac- 
 ticable is what ought to be. Education is to keep its feet 
 squarely upon the earth; but this does not require that it 
 aim lower than the highest that is practicable. 
 
 Let us take a concrete illustration. The curriculum- 
 discoverer wishes, for example, to draw up a course of train- 
 ing in agriculture. He will go out into the practical world of 
 agriculture as the only place that can reveal the objectives 
 J. of agricultural education. He will start out without pre- 
 judgment as to the specific objectives. All that he needs for 
 the work is pencil, notebook, and a discerning inteUigence. 
 He will observe the work of farmers; he will talk with them 
 about all aspects of their work; and he will read reliable 
 accounts which give insight into their activities. From these 
 
CURRICULUM -MAKING 4d 
 
 sources he will discover the particular things that the 
 farmers do in carrying on each piece of work; the specific 
 knowledge which the farmers employ in planning and per- 
 forming each sp)ecific task; the kinds of judgments at which 
 they must arrive; the types of problems they must solve; 
 the habits and skills demanded by the tasks; the attitudes 
 of mind, appreciations, valuations, ambitions, and desires, 
 which motivate and exercise general control. 
 
 Facts upon all of these matters can be obtained from a 
 survey of any agricultural region, however primitive or 
 backward. But primitive agriculture is the thing which 
 exists without any education. It is the thing education is 
 to eliminate. The curriculum-discoverer, therefore, will not 
 investigate just any agricultural situation. He will go to the 
 farms that are most productive and most successful from 
 every legitimate point of view. These will often be experi- 
 mental or demonstration farms which represent what is 
 practicable for the community, but which may not be 
 typical of actual practices in that commimity. Where such , 
 general practices are inferior, agricultural education is to 
 aim not at what is but at what ought to be . 
 
 "When the farming practices are already upon a high plane, 
 education has but a single function: it is to hand over these 
 practices unchanged to the members of the new generation. 
 
 Where the practices of a region are primitive or back- 
 ward, education has a double fimction to perform. It is not 
 only to hand over to the new generation a proficiency that 
 is equal to that of their fathers, but it is also to lift the pro- 
 ficiency of the sons to a height much beyond that of their 
 fathers. Within such a region, therefore, agricultural edu- 
 cation has the additional function of serving as the funda- 
 mental social agency of agricultural progress. 
 
 What we have said concerning agriculture is generally 
 applicable throughout the occupational world. For discov- 
 
50 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 ering the objectives for a training cx)urse in bricklaying one 
 will analyze not the activities of bricklayers in general, but 
 those where bricklaying has been carried to its highest 
 practicable level of efficiency, — as this efficiency is judged 
 on the basis of all legitimate standards. Education will aim, 
 not at average bricklayers, but at the best types of brick- 
 layers. 
 
 When stated in broad outline, the general principle is 
 obvious. In practical application, it presents difficulties. 
 Men do not agree as to the characteristics of the most desir- 
 able types of work. The employers of the bricklayers will 
 be inclined to use maximum productiveness as the criterion 
 of superior work; and unquestioning obedience to orders 
 and contentment with any kind of hours, wages, and work- 
 ing conditions as proper mental attitudes. The employees 
 will judge otherwise as to some of the factors. The employ- 
 ers will invite the curriculum-discoverer to investigate situa- 
 tions where productiveness in proportion to costs is greatest; 
 the employees, where the total welfare of the worker is con- 
 sidered alongside of the factor of productiveness. Both sides 
 will agree that education should aim at the best and that 
 scientific investigations as to objectives should seek to 
 discover the characteristics of only the best. They disagree 
 as to what is the best, and therefore where the investigations 
 are to be made. 
 
 The general principle of finding the scholastic curriculum 
 in the shortcomings of children and men is quite obvious 
 and entirely familiar to teachers in its application to the 
 curriculum of spelling, grammar, and other subjects that 
 result in objective performance, such as pronunciation, 
 drawing, music, computation, etc. It is not so clear in con- 
 nection with the highly complex subjects of history, litera- 
 ture, geography, etc. What are the social shortcomings 
 that are to be eliminated through a study of these social 
 
CURRICULUM-MAKING 51 
 
 subjects? Our ideas are yet so vague, in most cases, that 
 we can scarcely be said to have objectives. The first task' 
 of the scientific curriculum-maker is the discovery of those 
 social deficiencies that result from a lack of historical, liter- 
 ary, and geographical experiences. Each deficiency found is 
 a call for directed training; it points to an objective that is 
 to be set up for the conscious training. The nature of the! 
 objectives will point to the ciuriculum materials to be se- 
 lected for these subjects. A major obstacle is lack of agree- 
 ment as to what constitutes social deficiency. There is how- 
 ever no justification for scholastic training of any kind except 
 as a gap exists between the training of general experience 
 and the training that ought to be accomplished. 
 
 Society agrees sufficiently well as to many social short- 
 comings. Education needs to assemble them in as accurate 
 and particularized a form as possible. They can then be 
 used as the social symptoms which point to the objectives 
 of history, literature, geography, economics, and other social 
 studies. Society will disagree as to many suggested deficien- 
 cies. A program can be scientific, however, without being 
 complete, ^e thousand spelling words presented by Mr. 
 Ayres is a good list notwithstanding the fact that it presents 
 not more than a quarter of the words needed. It is a secure 
 beginning that can be completed by further studies. In the 
 same way in our social training, we shall do very well if we 
 can set up a quarter of the desirable objectives. That would 
 be a great advance over none at all, as at presenf; and would 
 provide the nucleus, the technique, and the vision of possi- 
 bilities, necessary for gradually rounding out the list. 
 
 The principleinvolves us in similar difficulties in its appli- 
 cation to civic, moral, vocational, sanitational, recreational, 
 and parental education. It is 'equally valid, however, in 
 connection with each of these. Only as we agree upon what 
 ought to be in each of these difficult fields, can we know at 
 
52 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 what the training should aim. Only as we list the errors and 
 shortcomings of human performance in each of the fields 
 can we know what to include and to emphasize in the 
 directed curriculum of the schools. 
 
PARTH 
 TRAINmG FOR OCCUPATIONAL EFFICIENCY 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 PURPOSES OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING 
 
 With only occasional exceptions, each of the twenty 
 million children now in the public schools of America will in 
 time be obliged to earn his Hving. The schools should, 
 therefore, deal with every normal child and youth on the 
 theory that, when adulthood is reached, he must earn his 
 living. Each is to be a producer to the extent that he con- 
 sumes. - ' - 
 
 In any survey of civilized conditions the most obvious 
 thing is that men and women must work; that to their call- 
 ings they must devote a major portion of their time and 
 energy. They find Nature very parsimonious with her sup- 
 plies of^food, clothing, fuel, shelter; more ilhberal still in 
 supplying books, pianos, theaters, railroad and steamship 
 tickets, church pews, and college courses. Nature supplies 
 only the crudest raw materials. The rest must be created 
 by human labor. 
 
 Were man content with what Nature supplies, he would 
 not be man, but only an exceptionally intelligent animal 
 species. But he has not been content. He has manfully 
 taken raw Nature in hand and through heavy labor con- 
 trolled it and shaped it to his high human purposes. Thus 
 he has laid the foundations of his civilization; won his 
 measure of freedom from stem biological necessity; and 
 thus alone can he hold his gains. Through productive toil 
 he has won his leisure, his surplus energies, and the means 
 for his art, his literature, sports, travel, science, religion. 
 
 Occupational labors clearly represent the basic service to 
 humanity, the most fundamental social service. In a day 
 
/ 
 
 56 THE Curriculum 
 
 when the watchword of the world's humanitarian religion 
 is "social service," it is well to note that the most solid 
 and never-relaxing portions of this service are the labors 
 of farmer and merchant, plumber and carpenter, housewife 
 and seamstress, miner and engineer, physician, teacher, and 
 journalist, and the rest of the vahant anny of men and 
 women who labor. 
 
 Those who object to vocational education in public schools 
 because manual labor is sordid and unclean, should note 
 that its frequent unloveliness is due, not to the fact that men 
 work, but to the conditions of their labor. Insanitary shops, 
 factories, and mines sap the physical vitality of the workers. 
 Their inertia, ignorance, and inefficiency result in too long 
 a work-day and a too-extended deadly mechanical monot- 
 ony. They Uve usually within a narrow mental and social 
 horizon. There is a great dearth of humanizing influences, 
 companionships, and associations; and owing to this absence 
 of uplifting influences and opportunities, they all too often 
 tend to vicious and destructive animal pleasures. Too often 
 they are compelled to live in crowded, unwholesome houses; 
 are too often ill-fed, ill-clad, and uncleanly of habit; and 
 have wages that permit little better even if they should 
 desire and attempt a higher standard of Hving. The frequent 
 ugliness of labor conditions is sufficiently evident. 
 
 The undesirable conditions are debasing, even destruc- 
 tive. Their malign influence year after year does degrade or 
 even destroy the laborer. After long exposure to them, his 
 character cannot usually be of socially desirable type. Men 
 should, however, clear the scales from their eyes, and see 
 that while the maleficent influences may be the usual con- 
 comitants of labor, they are not necessary concomitants. 
 Each is really a foe to right labor; a demonstrable obstacle 
 to efficiency. 
 
 The purpose of occupational education is the removal through 
 
PURPOSES OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING 57 
 
 general enlightenment of the injurious or destructive labor 
 conditions. To admit that much of labor is debased and 
 debasing is not an excuse for faltering before the task of voca- 
 tional training. It is the very reason for manfully imdertak- 
 ing it. It is the prrfence of imperfections in the labor field 
 that justify the ameliorative labors of education. As in the 
 field of language, where there are no imperfections, there is 
 no reason for. training in grammar. The more mistakes there 
 are, the more the reasons for education. In the same way 
 in the labor field, the greater the number of imperfections, 
 the greater is the need of vigorous occupational education. 
 
 In objection to the social-service doctrine of labor, it may 
 be urged that vocations are and ought to be individualistic. 
 It must be admitted, however, that there are some voca- 
 tional classes upon whom does rest the moral obligations of 
 social service. The physician, for example, supported by a 
 given community is expected to serve that community to 
 the best of his ability. He will respond to calls for service 
 at any hour and under all conditions. Not his convenience, 
 but theirs, is to be served. He must respond to the call of 
 the poor who cannot pay with the same promptness and 
 good-will that he extends to the call of the well-to-do. He 
 must keep inviolate all information professionally confided 
 to his care. In these matters the ethics of the medical voca- 
 tion is clearly social. The work is recognized as social serv- 
 ice. The physician's measure of honor is the greater because 
 it is so. 
 
 Most professional service is of analogous type. And it is y 
 these social-service vocations that we regard as the highest.^ 
 Men of the largest intelligence and ambitions regard them 
 as the ones most desirable. To develop an ethics of social f 
 service about a calling does not deprive it of honor or desir- L 
 ability. On the contrary, it is thereby exalted. 
 
 These professional labors are not the only ones about 
 
58 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 which public opinion is weaving systems of social ethics. 
 We hear much nowadays of "public-service" corporations. 
 The phrase is one of recent coinage. Until within a few 
 years corporations were expected to serve the stockholders 
 and directors. Now we have faced them the other way. 
 They are to serve the pubHc. A railroad company, for 
 example, can no longer fix the qualities, rates, or conditions 
 of service in ways dictated solely by self-interest. These 
 are fixed in the interests of efficient public service. Manu- 
 facturers of foodstuffs and of clothing are no longer wholly 
 free to follow the dictates of individual self-interest in the 
 choice of the raw materials, the labeling of the product, the 
 labor conditions under which produced, or, in extreme cases, 
 even prices, when self-interest runs counter to community 
 welfare. Where the two interests conflict, the public interest 
 is coming to be dominant. The old plan was to "charge all 
 that the traffic would bear." In other words, there was to 
 be a maximum of social extortion for a minimum of social 
 service. The new situation reverses the terms. Its aim is a 
 
 L maximum of social service for a minimum of social exjjen- 
 ^ture. 
 
 This weaving of a social ethics about vocational groups 
 proceeds with almost disconcerting rapidity. Many are 
 finding it difficult to readjust their systems of ideas fast 
 enough to keep pace with social changes. But the move- 
 ment appears to be the irresistible movement of civilization. 
 Many vocations, hitherto self-centered and materialistic, 
 are being humanized, socialized, and lifted into a purer 
 atmosphere. Bankers, manufacturers, and railroad officials, 
 for example, in recognizing and absolving their recently dis- 
 cerned social responsibilities, are taking places in social 
 esteem formerly reserved only for the few so-called " learned " 
 professions. 
 
 Far less clear is this movement of the public conscious- 
 
PURPOSES OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING 59 
 
 ness as regards the work of the farmer, the small merchant, 
 the housekeeper, the artisan, the factory-worker, and the 
 unskilled laborer. It is easy to see that these classes serve 
 the general welfare as fully and as fundamentally as the 
 other classes mentioned above; but their labors are not yet 
 so fully recognized as community service. Their labors are 
 looked upon as simply self-seeking modes of making a liv- 
 ing. The difference in the social-service situation is not a 
 difference of reality, but only one of social understanding 
 and recognition. The farmer, for example, perfonns an 
 indispensable community service in supplying the original 
 elements of food and clothing. His service is not less high 
 than that of the physician simply because he ministers to 
 the bodily side of man. The physician also ministers to the 
 bodily welfare; and in a less fundamental way. We can do 
 without the labors of the physician most of the time; but 
 the services of the farmer extend to every day of our lives. 
 His labors are fully as strenuous, involve as long hours, and 
 require as great disregard of physical discomforts. 
 
 Recognition of the social-service position of the farmer] 
 although inadequate as yet, is developing visibly and rapJ 
 idly. The general public is coming to see that many of its^ 
 ills are due to inadequate service received at the hands of 
 the men on the farms. The public is coming to scrutinize 
 the service of the farmer, and to point out, through public 
 opinion and legislation, ways in which he may better serve 
 the general welfare; as in the handling of milk, the tuber- 
 culin test of cattle, etc. Only a few regulations of this type 
 have yet been extended to the farmer's work. In general his 
 social responsibilities are yet unrecognized. Whether the 
 soil socially entrusted to his care shall bring forth twenty or 
 one hundred bushels to the acre is altogether an affair of his 
 own, and in no wise an affair of the rest of the men and 
 women whom that land must feed. He is in the position of 
 
60 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 the street-car company that runs cars or not just as the 
 company pleases without regard to the general welfare; or 
 of the physician who responds or not to a call for help 
 according to his own personal desires. The countless sug- 
 gestions made nowadays by bankers, merchants, packing- 
 house directors, grain-dealers, ultimate consumers, etc., to 
 "educate " the farmer so as to bring about better and bigger 
 crops of all kinds, to keep him and his family healthy, happy, 
 and eflficient, and to keep the sons upon the farm, are indi- 
 cations of a growing recognition of the indispensable social- 
 service aspect of the farmer's work. In spite of any desires 
 on his part, a social ethics is being woven about the farmer's 
 work in the public consciousness. 
 ^^'^ Responsibility is not all on one side, however. In serving 
 all other groups efficiently, the farmer puts upon all of them 
 the responsibility of serving his interests equally in return. 
 He must have opportunities for himself and family for self- 
 realization as full as those accorded to the groups which he 
 serves. Current discussions of rural education, churches, 
 social opportunities, rural surveys, etc., indicate a rapidly 
 growing realization of these return social responsibilities. 
 In developing this recognition of mutual obligation, the 
 farmer loses nothing: he gains much. It means improved 
 material conditions, a widened mental and social horizon, 
 more numerous social contacts and opportunities, and 
 heightened social esteem. His measure of honor and of 
 reward must be in proportion to the general consciousness 
 of his measure of service. 
 
 It should be mentioned here that the development of a 
 social ethics about any vocation is perhaps always done 
 hy those who receive the service, not hy those who perform it. 
 Food manufacturers are not the ones who pointed out the 
 community-service aspect of their labors, and the result- 
 ing obUgations of purity, honesty of label, and full weight. 
 
PURPOSES OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING 61 
 
 Recognition of their obligations had to be forced upon them 
 by those to whom they owed their responsibihties. This is 
 equally true of railroads and municipal-service corp)orations, 
 of journalists and Congressmen, of teachers and clergymen, 
 judges and physicians. An occupational class does not of 
 itself develop its own social ethics. This must be done by 
 the general public, and i>erhaps always in the face of oppK)- 
 sition from the class that is being socially assimilated. The 
 superintendent of schools in a large city recently stated that 
 after fifty years of service within the city as teacher, princi- 
 pal, and superintendent, he had never known a progres- 
 sive educational movement to be proposed that was not op>- 
 posed in the beginning by the majority of the teachers. If 
 such is the case with an occuimtional group already so en- 
 lightened as teachers, and already so imbued with the spirit 
 and traditions of service, much more may initial oppositions 
 be expected of social groups which are in less close contact 
 with enlightenment, and which have not yet the social 
 momentum of tradition. 
 
 Social service does not mean self-renunciation. Self- 
 interest cannot be eliminated. It is the steam that runs the 
 whole machine. It has always been and must always be the 
 mainspring of human action. It must be noted, however, 
 that, on the one hand, there is a narrow, ignorant, materi- 
 alistic seM-interest; and on the other, an enlightened, hu- 
 manistic self-interest characterized by wide social vision, 
 which recognizes that individual welfare at its highest comes 
 only through general community welfare at its highest. 
 
 The growing zeal for the vocational education of all 
 classes, shown by clear-sighted men and women whose 
 primary interest is general human welfare, is closely related 
 to this changed and still rapidly changing attitude toward 
 all useful vocations. They see that every useful calling is 
 not only in itself social service, but that it is coming to be so 
 
62 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 recognized; and that it is being more and more given its 
 proper measure of social reward and honor. 
 
 This is solving a problem hitherto insoluble, although our 
 schools pretended to solve it by an impossible method. A 
 , certain few occupations, the professional and the mana- 
 'j gerial, have been looked upon as possessing an ethical su- 
 ' periority to commercial, mechanical, agricultural, or house- 
 \ hold occupations. It has been felt that in the professions 
 men can live honorable, worthy social lives, while in the other 
 ■ caUings men are of necessity sordid-minded, self-seeking, and 
 generally more or less debased. It has been felt that edu- 
 cation must close the gates of full opportunity to no child. 
 The only gates of full opportunity are those that open 
 ' toward the professions. These are the ones, therefore, that 
 are to be held open to every child — these and no others. 
 To start him toward anything else is to deprive him irrevoca- 
 bly and forever of the opportunity of f uU-statured, socially- 
 honored manhood. The result has been that we have of- 
 fered pre-professional training to all pupils. And we have 
 refrained from recommending to students that they prepare 
 for the so-called "lower" occupations. In this attitude 
 teachers have been honest and high-minded. They have 
 felt that only the best was good enough for their pupils. 
 Their highest service, they have felt, has been to help their 
 pupils to the highest. 
 
 While honest and well-intentioned, the plan is incredibly 
 shortsighted. The doors of opportunity are not opened to 
 our twenty milHon children and youth in any such easy way. 
 If all of them should take advantage of the opportunities 
 and fit themselves to enter upon professional or managerial 
 labors, they would find, when they reached the world of 
 affairs, that there are positions of this type for less than 
 ten per cent of them. More than ninety per cent would 
 after fruitless preparation be compelled to enter the ranks 
 
rURPtSES tF VtCATI#NAL TRAIHINC^ 63 
 
 of tradesmen, merchants, miners, farmers, factory opera^ 
 tives, etc. Nearly all would be turned back into the so- 
 called "lower " vocations. Our people must be given credit 
 for seeing the fallacy of the plan. The withdrawal of pupils 
 of adolescent grades, of which we hear so much lament, 
 appears to be indicative of a certain amount of common 
 sense. Men see that the plan only pretends to offer high 
 opportunity to all; it does not really do so. If every man and 
 woman were a college graduate, the useful labors of the 
 world would still have to be performed. Productive labor 
 is not to be escaped by shunting everybody into the pro- 
 fessions. 
 
 So long as equally useful vocations have been so unequally 
 honored and rewarded, and so long as labor conditions 
 have offered such unequal opportunities for self-realization, 
 this educational problem has been insoluble. The solution is 
 coming, not through the impossible plan of lifting all 
 people into the professions, but through lifting all vocations 
 to the social level of the professions. The process is making 
 the door to any useful vocation a door of opportunity. 
 
 The objectives of occupational training 
 
 In the imperfections of the occupational world, one finds 
 the call for directed vocational training. 
 
 If all occupational affairs were efficiently and harmoniously 
 conducted by the present adult generation, education would 
 have but a simple task to perform. It would be nothing 
 more than to hand over to the members of the rising genera- 
 tion the fully developed occupational heritage of the pres- 
 ent generation. Educators would make a survey of actual 
 occupational conditions by way of finding the particular 
 objectives for which the young people are to be trained. 
 It would be easy to discover demonstrable objectives ac- 
 cepted by everybody, because they would be already actual 
 in the world of affairs. 
 
 \ 
 
64 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 Unfortunately, the present world of occupation is not of 
 the type described. Affairs in general are managed neither 
 efficiently nor harmoniously. As a matter of fact, the ad- 
 vocates of most vocational training are often chiefly inter- 
 ested in raising the labors of agriculture, mechanical trades, 
 commerce, etc., to higher levels of efficiency. They are in- 
 terested not so much in the education of youth as in the 
 improvement of the work in the world of practical affairs. 
 The improved education of the worker is simply a means of 
 bringing about this result. 
 
 Education under the circumstances has, therefore, a 
 double task to perform: (1) to act as a primary agency of 
 social progress, lifting the occupational world to a higher 
 and more desirable level; (2) to do this by educating the 
 rising generation so that they will perform their occupational 
 functions in a manner greatly superior to that of their 
 fathers. The task is to develop in the rising generation, not 
 merely the degree of proficiency found in the world about 
 them, but to carry them much beyond; to look, not merely 
 to the actual practices, but rather to those that ought to be. 
 It is so to train them that the occupational mistakes, weak- 
 nesses, imperfections, maladjustments, etc., that now appear 
 so numerously in the occupational situations of their fathers 
 shall be as fully as practicable ehminated in that more har- 
 monious and more efficient occupational regime that they 
 are to establish and maintain. 
 
 Since the training is for the purpose of eliminating the 
 various undesirable weaknesses, obviously one of the first 
 tasks of education is to discover what these are. This at 
 present is a baffling and in part an impossible task because 
 of the vagueness of our knowledge as to what ought to he. 
 Large portions of the occupational realm have not yet been 
 sufficiently explored by scientific investigators. These un- 
 explored regions constitute fields of great disagreement on 
 
PURPOSES OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING 65 
 
 the part of differently situated interested parties. A list of 
 occupational weaknesses drawn up by an employers' asso- 
 ciation will differ in essential particulars from one drawn 
 up by a labor organization. A group of social or civic 
 workers will prepare a list that will differ in important 
 respects from either. 
 
 Educators meet here with a grave difficulty. The correction 
 of grammatical or spelling errors, for example, has no impor- 
 tant economic results. Property distributions are not af- 
 fected. Men do not, therefore, greatly care what the list 
 of grammatical or spelling weaknesses may be that are to 
 be corrected by the training in our schools. They give Httle 
 heed to our lists, however complete they may be. But in the 
 occupational field, property is affected. An undesirable oc- 
 cupational condition very frequently gives increased profits 
 to one group and does harm to a second. It is, therefore, 
 considered good and desirable by one and evil by the other. 
 Each side develops a special economic theory. One justifies, 
 the other condemns. Public education, however, must train 
 the individuals of both groups for the occupational and eco- 
 nomic things that ought to be. We cannot employ two sys- 
 tems of thought in the drawing-up of the training; and each 
 side forbids our using that of the other. And in the face 
 of such a blocked situation, each side demands of the schools 
 that something adequate be done. 
 
 Apparently the only practicable thing for the present is 
 to assemble that quite considerable list of occupational de- 
 ficiencies upon which all sides can now agree sufficiently for 
 getting a program under way. This can be only a partial 
 program; but it can provide a common ground of under- 
 standing which can be gradually extended until in time it 
 embraces the whole field. 
 
 A long list of occupational deficiencies can be obtained 
 from the Report of the United States Commission on In- 
 
ee THE CURBICULUM 
 
 dustrial Relations. This commission visited all portions of 
 the country and secured testimony from representatives of 
 eighty-two labor organizations; thirty-six employers' asso- 
 ciations; one hundred and thirteen firms and corporations; 
 thirty-eight civil organizations; and fifty public institu- 
 tions. Naturally witnesses of different types did not agree 
 as to occupational maladjustments, or remedial measures. 
 But education cannot wait till the world has settled all its 
 differences. We must secure a list of deficiencies that can 
 be agreed upon by at least a majority of citizens. In the 
 following brief list we present a mingled sample of occu- 
 pational deficiencies and maladjustments as reported to the 
 commission by employers, employees, and social workers; 
 or as implied in their testimony.^ 
 
 Occupational deficiencies 
 
 1. Inefficiency of workers. 
 
 2. Inefficiency of managerial officials in organization, admin- 
 istration, and direction of work. 
 
 5. Dearth of high ideals and standards of workmanship. 
 
 4. The misunderstanding and misvaluation on the part of each 
 other of both labor and capital; the lack of mutual confidence; 
 the class prejudices. 
 ^ 6, The failure of workmen to appreciate the superior power of 
 intelligence over force in the correction of social and eco- 
 nomic difficulties. 
 
 6. Inaccessibility of facts concerning the various occupational 
 fields to many or most interested parties. 
 
 7. Violence in labor troubles: lockouts, strikes, black lists, 
 boycotts, use of provokers, spies, and gunmen, sabotage, 
 "soldiering," etc. 
 
 8. A lack of industrial democracy; the presence of industrial 
 feudalism. 
 
 9. The presence of opposing special interests which make neces- 
 
 * Mainly taken from a summary of the Report of the Commission, 
 published in The Survey, December 12, 1914. 
 
PURPOSES OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING 67 
 
 sary opposing organizations and the resulting inevitable 
 class warfare. 
 
 10. Employers and employees both largely lacking in the social- 
 service point of view, and in social conscience. 
 
 11. The deadening effect of long mechanical monotony in highly 
 specialized industry. 
 
 12. Insanitary and dangerous conditions in many industries. The 
 prevalence of occupational diseases. 
 
 13. The insecurity which the wage-earner feels at all times. Un- 
 employment. 
 
 14. The lack of a voice on the part of workers in the regulation of 
 the conditions under which they labor. 
 
 15. The loss of the feeling of individual responsibility, as men 
 are swallowed up in large factories or other corporate organi- 
 zations. 
 
 16. The lack of the scientific attitude of mind, in the considera- 
 tion of the conditions of workmen, wages, relations of em- 
 ployers and employees, relation of the vocational group to 
 the general public, etc. 
 
 17. Lack of principles or accepted standards of judgment for 
 fixing wages or just income for the various social classes. 
 
 18. A general ignorance on the part of occupational groups as 
 to the social relationships of their labors; their rights, and 
 their responsibilities. 
 
 19. A highly fragmentary and inadequate knowledge of the 
 occupational situation on the part of the general public. 
 
 20. Public indifference to the welfare and general success of occu- 
 pational groups. 
 
 21. The unawareness on the part of the general public of the 
 ways in which facts can be used in the settlement of occu- 
 pational difficulties. 
 
 22. The different ethical levels to which equally useful occupa- 
 tions are assigned in the public consciousness. 
 
 23. The decay of old ideas of honesty and thrift. 
 
 24. The lack of standards of judgment as to where one's individual 
 economic rights end; laxity in the search for any such limiting 
 standards. 
 
 25. Square pegs in round holes, and vice versa. 
 
 26. Low standards of living; and the undesirable living conditions 
 that are made necessary by low wages. 
 
 27. Inertia, indolence, laziness, — usually symptoms. 
 
68 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 28. Inability to meet new labor conditions eflPectively. 
 
 29. The mechanization of men through years of automatic labor, 
 who are then thrown upon the scrap-heap because of the 
 general atrophy of their powers, and their inability to turn 
 to new types of labor. 
 
 When we examine reports of vocational surveys to see 
 to what extent they have discovered the serious occupational 
 diflSculties that are to be met by better occupational edu- 
 cation, we are disappointed in finding that many of them 
 have discovered little beyond the technical ineflSciency of 
 the worker. The program of training which they recom- 
 mend, therefore, is too often but training for technical 
 eflficiency. This cannot be too much emphasized. But tech- 
 nical inefficiency is but one of many shortcomings; and from 
 an educational point of view, it presents the simpler prob- 
 lems. Some of those on the wider social level are education- 
 ally more baffling and will require more extended and elab- 
 orate educational treatment. 
 
 In such a list of occupational weaknesses we can dis- 
 cover the objectives of occupational education. The pur- 
 pose is so to train men and women that the weaknesses will 
 not appear. Occupational education will seek to develop 
 those abilities, dispositions, bodies of knowledge, types of 
 skill, social attitudes and valuations, etc., the possession of 
 which negative or prevent these and other technical and 
 social deficiencies. 
 
 , More and more schools are recognized as the agencies of 
 social progress. Where deficiencies are discovered in any 
 aspect of social life, schools are being called upon to over- 
 come and prevent. For example, let agricultural production 
 fall short of needs and of what experiment stations show to 
 be easily possible, and business men. Congressmen, and all 
 others interested set up a great clamor for agricultural edu- 
 cation. Millions of dollars are then voted and agricultural 
 
PURPOSES OF VOCATIONAL TRAINING 69 
 
 courses introduced into land-grant colleges, high schools, 
 continuation schools, extension systems, etc. There is pro- 
 vision for long courses, short courses, and brief institute 
 opportunities. County agents are appointed to lead and 
 supervise. The practical men are very much convinced that 
 education is the way to bring social progress. Let factory; | 
 production be inefficient, and business men call in no un-* 
 certain tones for industrial education. Where commercial 
 and clerical work is not well done, the call is for commercial^ '''^ 
 and clerical education. When figures show the extent of 
 physical defects, illness, and premature deaths, there is a i 
 demand for efficient health training in our schools. When 
 our young men in large numbers are found to be physically 
 unfit for military duty, there is widespread demand for 
 military training in our high schools that will prevent our_^ 
 being caught unprepared. When traffic accidents grow com- ^ 
 mon on our crowded streets, the cry goes up for "Safety- 
 First " training in our schools. When a generation appears 
 that seems insufficiently to value money and tends to squan- (^ 
 der it, the call is for teaching " Thrift " in our schools. And 
 so it goes. Practical business men are the first to call on the 
 aid of the schools, and thus to recognize their fundamental 
 position as agencies of social progress. 
 
 As agencies of social progress, schools should give efficient • 
 service. And efficient service, we are nowadays coming to \ 
 know, is service directed, not by guess or whim or special 
 self-interest, but by science. To be efficient, schools are not 
 to wait till somebody guesses that a certain type of social 
 progress is desirable, or until it is prompted by desires of 
 larger personal profits, or of avoidance of paying damages. 
 Scientific management demands prevision — accurate pre- 
 vision. It demands understanding that sees all factors in 
 true and balanced relation without any distortion due to 
 claims or oppositions of special interests. This means that 
 
70 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 scientific survey and analysis of human needs must be the 
 method of discovering the objectives of the training that is 
 demanded, not by individuals, but by the conditions of 
 society. Such surveys will demand only what is practicable. 
 But they will look to human conditions from no partial 
 angle. In a democracy they will look impartially to all 
 things that promote the total human welfare. They will be 
 disproportionately interested in no special class, whether 
 high or low, rich or poor, cultured or uncultured; but with- 
 out prejudice or partiaHty will look equally to all. 
 
CHAPTER Vin 
 
 SPECIALIZED TECHNICAL TRAINING 
 
 Specialized technical training aims at a productiveness 
 far beyond that of a pre-scientific generation. The efficient 
 farmer, for example, in terms of proved standards, is one 
 that raises, not one hmidred bushels of potatoes to the acre, 
 which is about the average, but rather two hundred to five 
 hundred bushels. The efficient cotton-planter raises, not 
 the average three eighths of a bale to the acre, but one full 
 bale. The efficient bricklayer lays three hundred and fifty 
 bricks per hour, instead of the usual one hundred and fifty. 
 The efficient machinist in cutting steel turns out, not, as in 
 the recent past, his ten units of product per day, but rather 
 his forty, sixty, or one himdred imits. 
 
 This setting forward the standards of accomplishment is 
 not chimerical. Scientific industry has proved its entire 
 feasibility. It is to be done through the application of science 
 to labor. It is the next step in the increase of productive- 
 ness. Labor-saving machinery has been able to double, 
 quadruple, or even at times to multiply the product a 
 hundred-fold without increasing human labor. We are now 
 being told that through the application of science to indus- 
 try an equal further gain may be made. 
 
 Each occupation is to be analyzed into the tasks that make 
 it up; each task into the factors that require control. The 
 science needed for the regulation of each factor is then to be 
 assembled, and placed in secure control of every work- 
 situation. The science is in control when it dominates the 
 consciousness of the worker. He must think each factor in 
 terms of the science of that factor. His planning consists of 
 
72 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 putting his science-ideas to work. Thus he predetermines 
 and foresees maximum results before a stroke of the work 
 is done. 
 
 Along with the primary matter of technical intelligence 
 there is the secondary matter of operative skill. In some 
 occupations, as, for example, stenography or telegraphy, 
 the amount of practice needed for skill is large; and requires 
 more time and effort than the technical information. But 
 in general the large educational tasks relate to developing 
 understanding rather than operative skill. 
 
 The work of the farmer affords a good illustration. Rais- 
 ing a crop of com, for example, presents the problem of 
 controlling a large number of independently variable fac- 
 tors : soil ingredients, hme, nitrates, phosphates, sand, clay, 
 moisture, soil oxygen, weeds, quality of seeds, temperature, 
 light, plant parasites, and a number of others. For each 
 factor in a given situation there is one optimum degree of 
 strength; if its influence is either too weak or too strong, the 
 crop is lessened. He must see each factor in its separate 
 working in order to control it. Most of them are invisible 
 or indistinguishable to the eye of sense; they are to be seen 
 only by the inner eye of technical agricultural science. The 
 trained farmer has this inner light and this inner vision. 
 He can see and control the factors so as to secure his sixty 
 or one hundred bushels per acre, while his unseeing rule-of- 
 thumb neighbor secures only his twenty-five or forty 
 bushels. The difference is not mainly due to a greater amount 
 of manual labor or of operative skill; but to the ability to 
 see the conditions requiring control and a knowledge of the 
 adjustments that are best under the conditions. 
 
 After the trained farmer has examined all the factors that 
 enter into a given situation, and has drawn up his plans, 
 naturally he must have the operative skill for p>erforming 
 the processes: the ploughing, harrowing, cultivation, har- 
 
SPECIALIZED TECHNICAL TRAINING 73 
 
 vesting, storing, etc. Some practice is required; but this 
 presents no large problem. 
 
 We have not been sufficiently accustomed to think of 
 science as the source of maximum occupational productive- 
 ness. We have, for example, ordinarily thought of efficiency 
 on the part of a machinist or a plumber as mainly a matter 
 of general intelligence and manual dexterity. There must 
 be skill of eye and hand, as we have phrased it. There must 
 be operative skill. We have given insufficient thought to 
 the intellectual elements. 
 
 Technical efficiency in a surgeon is very differently con- 
 ceived. He, too, must possess great operative skill. Hand 
 and eye must be as thoroughly trained as in the case of the 
 mechanic — even more so. But back of the hand and guid- 
 ing it, and back of the eye giving it vision, there must be 
 fullness of technical knowledge. With the surgeon, skill of 
 hand and eye is mainly a matter of intellectual discernment. 
 
 The case of the surgeon exhibits the two factors of tech- 
 nical efficiency in proper balance and relation. The mechanic, 
 as popularly conceived, represents an incomplete stage in 
 the development of technical efficiency. Trained to strength 
 and dexterity on the operative side, and this alone, he has 
 had but one side of the training he needs, and the less funda- 
 mental side. He lacks the thought-materials in terms of 
 which to think the factors of his work-situations. Without 
 this he lacks power to see his work on anything but a rule- 
 of -thumb level, or to know that there can be any other level. 
 His great need also is a knowledge of technical science back 
 of the hand for guiding it, and back of the eye for giving it 
 vision. For the tradesman as well as the surgeon, effective 
 operative performance must in the long run be mainly a 
 matter of scientific discernment. 
 
 In all parts of the occupational world to-day, rapid change 
 is the rule. Workmen everywhere are being confronted 
 
74 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 with new tasks and new conditions. In the presence of a new 
 and strange work-situation, the technically untrained work- 
 man does one of three things: (1) he blindly applies his rule- 
 of-thumb procedure, trusting that it will work well enough. 
 Generally it is ineflScient, and sometimes wholly unwork- 
 able. (2) He guesses at an adaptation that will meet the 
 new conditions. Scientific studies have proved that there 
 are incalculably more ways of going wrong than right. 
 He therefore usually guesses wrong; and the work is in- 
 efficient, or a failure. (3) He is nonplussed by the situation. 
 He cannot make even a plausible guess. 
 
 Not one of the three things that he can do is usually the 
 right thing. And for him in his intellectual blindness there 
 is no fourth possibility. He finds himseK caught hopelessly 
 unprepared. He can act only as directed by others; and 
 usually only inefficiently. The condition of feudal servitude 
 in which he works is the necessary result of his ignorance. 
 And in his rewards he can reap only the fruits of ignorance 
 and inefficiency. In his work he can never have any proper 
 human opp>ortunity; never possess the full-grown man's 
 independent outlook and abiHty. And what is more, out- 
 side of his work, because of his inefficiency, he never can 
 have any full human opportunity. In general, — and the 
 conception is becoming more accurately defined each year, 
 — one can have only in proportion as one earns. Unfitted 
 to produce the means required f cwr life upon a proper human- 
 istic level, he never can attain it. His ignorance largely shuts 
 him out both from work and from life. 
 
 On the other hand, the technically trained individual is 
 not perplexed by new occupational situations. He does not 
 have to guess. He does not mechanically apply blind habit. 
 And the reason is simple. The new situations that he meets 
 are not new in the elements that compose them. He sees 
 within them the same familiar factors, only differently bal- 
 
SPECIALIZED TECHNICAL TRAINING 75 
 
 anced and arranged, with which he has been deaHng all the 
 time. He simply takes the measure of the factors in their 
 new forms and goes on applying the same science. In his 
 work he can feel himself a full-grown man; and with the 
 fruits of his efficient labors, he can provide for himself and 
 his family a full human opportunity. 
 
 There is another closely related matter. The education 
 which comes in youth must consider the technical intelli- 
 gence needed for a lifetime. But a large proportion of the 
 science needed in most fields is yet undiscovered. And natu- 
 rally this portion of it cannot be now taught. But many of 
 the things needed by those now entering upon their work 
 will be discovered within a few years. If they are not to be 
 left behind and cast upon the scrap-heap at an untimely 
 age, they must keep abreast of discoveries and inventions 
 relative to their specialty. For the technically untrained 
 individual such progress is impossible. Lacking the main 
 body of science, he has no apperceptive basis for appre- 
 hending new developments, nor any vital interest in them. 
 Inferior position or the scrap-heap is his inevitable portion. 
 The technically trained individual is prepared to make the 
 additions, the emendations, and otherwise to keep abreast 
 of his science. He alone can value it. He will keep up with 
 it as it appears in his technical journals; assimilate it with- 
 out effort; and put it to practical use. While the schools 
 cannot teach the undiscovered, yet they can provide the 
 conditions that later will automatically take care of the 
 mattero 
 
 The technical training is here treated briefly because 
 many of its aspects were presented in chapters iii-v. 
 
 I 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE SPECIALIZED TRAINING OF GROUP- WORKERS 
 
 The day of independent tradesmen and of other disasso- 
 ciated workers is past or rapidly passing. In their places 
 we have great factories, department stores, public-service 
 corporations, railroad systems, school systems, hospitals, 
 ecclesiastical organizations, building-construction com- 
 panies, mining companies, etc. The productive capacity of 
 specialized individuals in a coop)erative labor-group is much 
 greater than that of the same individuals working independ- 
 ently. They turn out a larger product, a better product, 
 and at a reduced cost. Because of the greater efficiency it is 
 probable that the movement will continue until it embraces 
 most occupational fields. Education's larger problem of 
 technical training relates, therefore, not to the training of 
 the independent specialist, but rather to the specialized 
 training of associated workers. 
 
 We can make the educational problem clear with an illus- 
 tration or two. In the old days a shoemaker was master of 
 his entire craft. He took the original order, prepared the 
 leather, designed the shoe and each of its parts, cut each 
 piece, did the sewing, the finishing, and finally the selling. 
 For efficiency he had to have a command over all of the 
 technical factors. At the present time, however, one man 
 cuts out the sole; a second cuts the parts for the upper; a 
 third, the lining; a fourth man sews the top to the vamp; a 
 fifth sews on the toe-cap; a sixth gashes the insole prepara- 
 tory to sewing it to the vamp; and so the process continues, 
 the shoe passing down the line of several dozen workmen 
 before it reaches the last one who places the finished shoes 
 in the box ready for shipment. 
 
SPECIALIZED TRAINING OF GROUP-WORKERS 77 
 
 In this factory situation it is the manager who controls 
 everything. Like the old-time shoemaker he has command 
 of the technical information, makes all the necessary judg- 
 ments, and operates his man-and-steel machine in such a 
 way as to perform all the processes. The one difference is 
 that he uses a more elaborate set of tools and has devised a 
 complicated machine that uses all of them at once. The men 
 along the line are but fingers and wheels and levers in one 
 large shoemaking machine. So far as their function is con- 
 cerned, they are scarcely men at all. Had the manager all 
 the inventions that he would like, he would have a machine 
 into which he could feed the leather at one end, and out of 
 which he could receive the finished product, ready boxed 
 for shipment at the other, — about such an arrangement 
 as we already have in the production of our large newspapers. 
 As a matter of fact, he has just that kind of a machine, 
 though not yet perfected. The men scattered along the line 
 are there temporarily to supply flexible fingers of flesh until 
 cheaper and more skillful fingers of steel can be invented 
 to fill the gaps, and the machine thereby completed. 
 
 Lest it be thought that all tendency to mechanization of 
 the workers is to be found only in the field of material pro- 
 duction, let us note a case upon the professional level : that 
 of teachers. One finds in a large city building a line of highly 
 specialized teachers, each performing, as in the factory, a 
 small portion of the total task. The first teacher in line 
 receives the original raw material in the kindergarten and 
 performs the first process. It is then taken by the I-B pri- 
 mary teacher for a half-year. She passes it on to the I-A 
 primary teacher, who gives to it her half-year of effort. 
 And so the product in more and more finished form is passed 
 down the long line of specialists. In the later years of de- 
 partmental teaching, the tasks are more minutely specialized 
 and the material passes through many hands. 
 
78 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 Now, here, as in the shoe factory, the things aimed at are 
 the finished products, and the labors from beginning to end 
 must all aim at the same products. But since each teacher 
 performs but a fragment of the total process, the results of 
 which usually do not greatly resemble the ultimate objec- 
 tives, it follows that somebody whose vision is single for the 
 final product and who sees all the steps to be taken must 
 think for the whole organization and direct the steps. Super- 
 intendent and principal, therefore, lay out the courses of 
 study, choose the books, supplies, and equipment, and direct 
 the methods. The supervisory brain, so to speak, does the 
 thinking for the whole organization; the teachers are but 
 hands and voices to this brain. 
 
 This feudal theory tends at present to be strong wherever 
 organization develops — whether in factory or school, rail- 
 road or hospital, department store or ecclesiastical organ- 
 ization. It appears to demand specialized technical training 
 for the five or ten per cent who lead and think and plan; 
 but for the vast majority only such little training as they 
 need for skill in routine labor. The less they trouble their 
 superiors by thinking and insisting upon being heard, the 
 better for all. 
 
 This feudal theory is being supplanted rather rapidly by 
 a democratic theory. Let us resume our two illustrations 
 by way of explaining its basic conceptions. Instead of its 
 being the manager of the shoe factory who takes the place of 
 the original independent tradesmen, it is the total group who 
 takes his place. In the school field, it is not the superintend- 
 ent or principal who takes the place of the general teacher 
 of a century ago, but it is the total group. It is not the mana- 
 ger, the superintendent, or other head of an organization 
 who is to do the thinking that goes into the work; it is rather 
 the entire associated group. Managers and superintendents 
 are those who have specialized in leadership. They are gen- 
 
SPECIALIZED TRAINING OF GROUP-WORKERS 79 
 
 eralists; while the individual workers are specialists. Where 
 all are made intelligent as to the group-labors, the sum of 
 the knowledge of the specialists added to that of the gener- 
 alists is greater than that of the generahsts alone; and this 
 aggregate is a more effective directive agency. And as work- 
 ers are changed from industrial serfs to freemen with minds 
 and rights to think and with responsibility resting upon them 
 for thought and suggestions, they are filled with a new 
 spirit. Recognized as men, they become men; act like men; 
 and the curve of their operative efficiency mounts rapidly 
 upward. 
 
 The accompanying diagram will show the relations within 
 the school organization; and is typical of right relations in 
 
 EDUCATIONAL 
 
 SCIENCE 
 
 History Geography Science Literature 
 
 Teacher of History 
 
 : C 
 
 3 C 
 
 Teacher of Geography C 
 Teacher of Science C 
 
 : C 
 
 1 C 
 
 : c 
 
 Teacher of Literature CZ 
 
 Principal IW^ t^?^^ ^^ ^^ 
 
 Fig. 2. To represent the relations of specialists, generalists, and the 
 controlling science in the management of group-labors. 
 
 all organizations. Over all the group, specialists as well as 
 generalists, is the science that should control in taking every 
 step. Both must read it. But it is not to be read in books 
 
80 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 of abstractions; however valuable they may be as helps. It 
 is to be read within the practical situations where they work; 
 and by those in contact with the actualities in their details. 
 Some things can be seen most clearly by the generalist; 
 other things most clearly by the specialist. As indicated 
 by the width of the bars, the generalist will see everything 
 equally in balanced relation, his function being interpreter 
 and coordinator for the whole. But every part of the work 
 is vitally related to every other part. The specialist cannot 
 see his duties if he looks to them alone without regarding the 
 labors of the whole organization. He can rightly see any 
 task only as he sees it as a part of the whole organization- 
 task. As shown by the width of the bars, he will have a fuller 
 understanding than the principal in his special field; but he 
 must also have an understanding of the whole field that is 
 much like that of the principal, except as to its complete- 
 ness. Each teacher is, so far as possible, to be his own co- 
 ordinator. Otherwise there can be no efficiency in organi- 
 zation labors. The principal cannot be always at the elbow 
 of every teacher dictating every coordinating adjustment* 
 It is educational science that must preside at every teacher's 
 desk and do the dictating. The teacher is, therefore, to ho 
 a specialist in one thing and a generalist in all. Having op)er- 
 ative skill in one thing, he needs nothing more than the gen- 
 eralist's skill in the others. He needs to think all, but not to 
 do all. For his thinking he needs to he trained in the work of 
 the entire organization; for operative skill, he needs to be 
 drilled and practiced only in the special tasks required of him. 
 An orchestra provides us with a perfect illustration. The 
 conductor is a generalist; but every individual player must 
 also be a generalist, or he cannot be a perfect specialist. He 
 must think the whole piece, his consciousness must move as 
 the full current of the total music, in order rightly to place 
 Im si)ecial part. The kettle-drummer, for example, must 
 
SPECIALIZED TRAINING OF GROUP-WORKERS 81 
 
 strike at exactly the right instant, with the right degree of 
 loudness, and with his instrument properly attuned. Con- 
 ductor and music-score are necessary helps to his thinking; 
 but they alone cannot determine any one of the three 
 enumerated elements with exactness. He needs to be trained 
 on the conscious side to the whole of the music rightly to play 
 his part. But on the operative side he may be skillful with 
 but the one instrument. 
 
 The two illustrations are taken from fields where it is 
 admitted that the specialized workers must be generalists 
 in thought in order efficiently to coordinate their speci- 
 alties. Not so obvious is the need in the case of factory, rail- 
 road, or large department store. Recently, however, in all 
 these types of organization, schools are being voluntarily 
 established in which speciaUsts are not only trained for 
 their specialties, but also to an understanding of the whole 
 in order rightly to understand each specialty. This move- 
 ment shows promise of abundant growth. Industrial and 
 commercial organizations are becoming conscious of the 
 interdependencies of all the parts, and of the subtle and in- 
 finitely numerous ways in which inefficiency or maladapta- 
 tion in one portion affects all the rest. They are realizing the 
 consequent need on the part of each to see and continually 
 to think the whole in order rightly to think one's own part. 
 As the science is developed in terms of which to do all the 
 necessary thinking, what is now obvious in the case of the 
 school or the orchestra will become equally obvious in the 
 case of all group-labors. 
 
 Enough has been said to indicate the curriculum solu- 
 tion. On the thought side, workers are to be taught as 
 though they were to work in all parts of the organization. 
 This will mean not only full intellectual studies relating to 
 all aspects of the work, and systematic observation of all; 
 but also some opportunity to work in all portions of the field. 
 
82 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 To work means to bear participative responsibility of some 
 kind, which will differ according to the nature of the work. 
 Sometimes he will work at a thing quickly learned on the 
 operative side, or one requiring no special op)erative skill; 
 in such case he may well bear full responsibility. In other 
 cases, involving specialized skill which requires long prep- 
 aration, he may serve as a helper to the skilled operative so 
 as to bear enough responsibility for acquiring the generaUst*s 
 necessary insight and appreciation. 
 
 So far as public education takes care of this training, it 
 may leave the individual on the semi-specialized level, — a 
 generalist within some broad occupational field. Carried 
 thus far his training is practically complete. Usually the 
 final specialization will be left until the individual is em- 
 ployed in the occupation itself. Understanding the whole, 
 he will quickly master his specialty. But it cannot usually 
 take place in any school. It usually must take place in the 
 occupational situation where he is to work, as directed by 
 technical specialists employed for the purpose. 
 
 Occupational education must concern itself largely with 
 the preparation of workmen and managers ^(yr right mental 
 attitudes toward the work. The general technical intelligence 
 referred to must constitute much of the basis for these right 
 mental attitudes. The manager as a generalist among 
 trained specialists actually does but a small portion of the 
 total group-task. But seeing the whole and thinking the 
 whole, as he does his small part, he feels himseK doing the 
 whole. Just so it is with the fully enlightened specialized 
 worker. Let him as he works at his minute task have a clear 
 intellectual vision of the total group-task. With his discern- 
 ment of interdependencies, and of the way his labor is con- 
 cerned in and supports all the rest, he too feels his power and 
 his responsibility to extend outwards to the farthest Hmits 
 of the group-labors. In his consciousness, the specialist may 
 
SPECIALIZED TRAINING OF GROUP-WORKERS 83 
 
 feel himself a master about as fully as the generalist. The main 
 difference between the laggard specialist as a slave and the 
 vigorous specialist as a master is in having or not having the 
 intellectual vision of the work as a whole. The one feels his 
 personality and his responsibility to be as small as his petty 
 task. To the other, both are greatly magnified since his 
 vision of the group-labors becomes his vision of his own 
 labors. 
 
 At Beverly, Massachusetts, in their part-time shop school, 
 where they are training machinists for the United Shoe 
 Machinery Company, they have equipped a small shop with 
 all the kinds of machines used in the large factory. As the 
 boys are trained, they pass from machine to machine so as 
 to become proficient in the entire range of labor to be found 
 within the large factory. In both school and factory, they 
 are bringing each of the workmen to a full understanding of 
 all of the labors performed in the shop. This same width of 
 industrial training is attempted in all well-developed in- 
 dustrial schools. Apprenticeship contracts usually specify 
 that the boy shall be moved about from one kind of work to 
 another so as to have an opportunity to master all of the 
 processes. 
 
 Under the so-called "Taylor System " of scientific manage- 
 ment, all the thinking is done by specialized officials in the 
 "planning-room." Decisions are there made as to what is to 
 be done every hour dm-ing the day by every man in the 
 shop. Instructions are typ>ewritten, and sent out to the 
 workmen. The latter are not expected to do any thinking or 
 judging or deciding; this is all done for them; they are only 
 to obey orders. 
 
 This system is looked upon by many factory managers 
 as the most perfect that has yet been devised. It puts science 
 in the saddle. Yet the system is not popular. Where it is 
 tried, it is frequently abandoned. It usually breaks down, 
 
84 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 we are told, because most labors are so complicated that 
 the planning-room cannot foresee all contingencies; and 
 therefore cannot make provision for all necessary coordina- 
 tions. It takes responsibility for thought and initiative off 
 the men. When instructions are deficient or obscure, work 
 has to stop until further orders are received. Where instruc- 
 tions to different workmen are contradictory, the plan gives 
 them no power to adjust matters. The relative failure of the 
 Taylor System seems to result from insufficient attempt to 
 enlist the intelligence and initiative of the men. The system 
 claims that both managers and men are working under the 
 control of science; yet, as a matter of fact, this science is 
 mostly visible only to the management; and is little or not 
 at all visible to the men. They see only the orders. The sys- 
 tem represents a halfway step, however, toward actual and 
 inevitable scientific management. Science rules in the 
 planning-room; it must also rule in the consciousnesses of 
 the workmen. 
 
 The human element 
 
 Recently there has been an awakening qn the part of 
 leaders of organized industry as to the far-reaching signifi- 
 cance of the human element. The independent tradesman 
 did not have to manage men; he had no such problem. It 
 has arisen with organization, where men work in groups, 
 and where the generalist must be in part the director — 
 at least the leader — of the specialists ; where he must play 
 upon them and through them as does the conductor of an 
 orchestra. 
 
 Of large occupational organizations, it is education that 
 has most fully recognized the need of taking into account 
 the human element. In a school system, for example, the 
 pupils are the ultimate workers. Using the terminology of 
 the factory, the teachers rank as foremen. It is their busi- 
 
SPECIALIZED TRAINING OF GROUP-WORKERS 85 
 
 ness not to do the work that educates, but to get it done by 
 the pupils. In doing this, they must know the pupils: know 
 their varying mental capacities, their interests, their apti- 
 tudes and abilities, their states of health, and their social 
 milieu. They must know how to arouse interest; how to 
 motivate them from within; how to adjust the conditions 
 of the work to child-nature; how to keep up an abundant 
 physical vitality in the children; and how to employ com- 
 munity influences for vital stimulation of the pupils. 
 
 Now come the leaders of scientific management in industry 
 and commerce and proclaim their recognition of the human 
 factor as a great and revolutionizing discovery. Superin- 
 tendents and foremen in factories must know their men, 
 their psychology, aptitudes, interests, motivating influ- 
 ences, etc., so as to be able to stimulate them to the greatest 
 desirable degree of productivity. It has been found that 
 arbitrary driving will not work with men any more than 
 with pupils. The driving force must lie within the vxill of the 
 worker. The foreman must adjust conditions of work, wages, 
 factory sanitation and comforts, opportunities of promo- 
 tion, of social recognition, etc., so that this inner driving 
 force will awaken naturally and of itself within the worker. 
 The foreman must be able to read the nature and needs of his 
 men as fully as the teacher reads his pupils. He needs to be 
 proficient in practical psychology, practical sociology, 
 industrial hygiene and sanitation, and other human studies 
 that are at the same time technical studies for him. 
 
 In the relations of foremen, managers, etc., to their men, 
 the greatest single source of coordination is a large ground of 
 common understanding, community of thought, and mutual 
 confidence in the motives actuating both sides. Where all 
 are informed as to the controlling science, where all have 
 access to all the facts relative to the economic and other vital 
 affairs of the group, in ways otherwhere specified, these 
 
86 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 grounds of mutual confidence and understanding are se- 
 curely laid. In the bitter antagonisms of labor and capital, 
 the need is being voiced by both sides. One of our well- 
 known captains of industry is reported recently to have said: 
 
 If capital and labor do not get together in the right spirit, the 
 future of America is doomed. If they do not come to see that the 
 interests of each are inseparably bound up with the interests of 
 the other, and that each must be mutually recognized and re- 
 spected, then capital's resources are doomed, just as the workers* 
 prosperity is doomed. 
 
 One cannot exist without the cooperation of the other. To drive 
 this stupendous fact home to each of these two forces, to make 
 each know that it is but the complementary force of the other, and 
 not an antagonistic force, is the most vital problem before the 
 United States to-day. 
 
 Let the officers of this company understand that there is never 
 to be another strike in our company, that every man is to be 
 treated as a partner and not as an enemy or an underling. . . . 
 
 Now, to be partners, to cooperate intelligently and effec- 
 tively, to be able mutually to recognize and respect the inter- 
 dependent interests of the other, etc., — these things imply 
 that all must have access to the same body of facts; and that 
 all have the trained powers of mind necessary for rightly 
 interpreting and judging of those facts. As yet, taking the 
 industrial world in general, neither of these things has been 
 provided for. And so long as this is the case, industrial 
 antagonisms, occasionally flaring forth into actual warfare, 
 will and must continue. But just as the industrial leaders 
 are now calling on the schools for remedying technical 
 weaknesses on the side of labor processes, so they must like- 
 wise depend upon the schools to provide much of the train- 
 ing needed for those other weaknesses on the side of the 
 human factor. Neither side is now consciously trained for 
 mutual understanding. Both sides are equally in need of ex- 
 tended training^ that has community of thought, and outlook, 
 and valuations, as its conscious purpose. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 SOCIAL ASPECTS OF OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 
 
 One hears much nowadays concerning "occupational 
 efficiency." But the term may refer to either of two widely 
 different conceptions. One may take the short and narrow 
 view, and conceive the term as meaning only "high material 
 productiveness." The degree of efficiency in such case is to 
 be measured by the amount of economic product. Beyond 
 this, it does not go. It leaves the product in the hands of 
 the producer without further inquiry. 
 
 On the other hand, the term may refer to "high efficiency 
 in the promotion of the general human welfare." The degree 
 of efficiency is to be measured by the quantity of human 
 service. Whereas the narrow view looks at the material 
 product as the finished product, this humanistic view sees 
 the finished product only within those human results that 
 arise from the use of the economic product. The latter is a 
 means; not an end. Not unnaturally this is the view that is 
 coming to be preferred by the world at large. Even though 
 labor because of great technical knowledge and skill may 
 turn out a large product, if that product falls into only a 
 few hands where it is selfishly misused so as to produce or 
 to permit continuing human ill-fare instead of welfare, then 
 the occupation cannot be looked upon as efficient in any 
 desirable way. In terms of human service, it is inefficient. 
 
 Efficient management of the social factors is as vital as 
 technical efficiency. The economic mechanism is to be 
 operated by society in general for the sake of maximum 
 human service. This task is immeasurably more compli- 
 cated than operating a lathe or a locomotive or raising a crop 
 
88 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 of com. If technical training is needed for the latter, cer- 
 tainly then technical training of all people for the effective 
 operation of our vast economic mechanism is much more 
 needed. 
 
 Division of labor has created the problem. To see this, 
 let one first think of our country civilized as at present and 
 producing as much as possible of the things used to-day — 
 but without any division of labor. Within such a situation 
 vocational education would be highly desirable. But it 
 would be only for technical information and skill. There 
 would be no need for training in the social aspects of occu- 
 pation because there would be no social aspects. Production 
 would be wholly individualistic; and distribution non- 
 existent. Each worker would receive in proportion as he 
 produced — neither more nor less. Each would have in pro- 
 portion as he earned. There would be no economic mechan- 
 ism to be operated by society; and consequently no need of 
 community training in the technique of operation. 
 
 But specialization of labor has introduced social inter- 
 dependency. Each produces one thing; and this not for 
 himself alone, but for all the group. In return each receives 
 from the others that portion of their product which they 
 have produced for him. The obverse side of division of labor 
 is the organic interdependence of the group. The individu- 
 alistic situation disappears in proportion as speciahzation 
 appears. In the degree in which the group is divided for the 
 performance of specialized labors, it must be united for any 
 effective cooperative distribution of the fruits of those labors. 
 Without the latter, the purpose of the divided labor is 
 defeated. 
 
 This cooperation of specialists demands general under- 
 standing on the part of all as to the common ends; of the 
 means of attaining them; and a disposition to obey the 
 social dictates. It seems that each member of society needs 
 
OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 89 
 
 to be informed as to the total occupational situation: the 
 working conditions that are supplied to all classes of special- 
 ized workers; the relation of these to right standards; the 
 productivity of the various occupations; the distribution of 
 the products; the nature and mode of operation of the eco- 
 nomic mechanism necessary for accomplishing all of the 
 social purposes. And along with information, he also needs 
 social attitudes and valuations. The social studies of our 
 schools, the history, geography, literature, economics, etc., 
 have the large and inadequately recognized task of develop- 
 ing both information and attitudes. The ends demand a 
 program of large proportions that has been mostly unrecog- 
 nized and unattempted. 
 
 The conception that the labors of an industry are to be 
 supervised by those who are served is really as old as indus- 
 try itself. It was formerly done by the consumer's accept- 
 ance or rejection of the product. If it did not suit him, he 
 went elsewhere. This plan is operative still. But industries 
 have grown large and complex. Competition is eliminated 
 through price agreements, or division of the field. Often 
 one cannot now go elsewhere for supplying his needs. Proc- 
 esses and products have grown so complicated that he can 
 no longer judge of quahty of commodities or justice of 
 prices. He cannot know whether he ought to go elsewhere 
 or not. Should he do so, being unable to distinguish the 
 better from the worse, he still cannot know whether he is 
 improving matters. Men are coming to see that a kind of 
 intelligence and a mode of supervision of the services of 
 others that worked well in a simpler economic age can no 
 longer serve our purposes. New conditions demand new 
 methods. 
 
 Public-service labors are coming to be supervised by the 
 public through public-service commissioners, committees 
 of city councils, the United States Interstate Commerce 
 
90 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 Commission, etc. These representatives of the public keep 
 a continuous oversight over quality, quantity, costs of serv- 
 ice, etc. Year by year this commimity supervision is aug- 
 mented and strengthened; and freedom to serve or not as 
 dictated by self-interest is diminished. Each year sees the 
 extension of this supervision to hitherto imsupervised occu- 
 pational fields. For some time it has been accepted as a 
 matter of course, in the case of railroads, express companies, 
 telegraph and telephone companies, city traction, gas, and 
 electrical supply companies, the work of plumbers as regards 
 sanitation, of carpenters and electricians as regards fire 
 protection, etc. More recently the supervision is being 
 extended to food and drug manufacture and distribution, 
 the milk-supply, packing-house industries, the handling of 
 perishable foods, etc. 
 
 But all useful specialized labors are public-service labors. 
 It becomes ever more difficult to draw any line of division 
 between industries that are to be socially sup>ervised and 
 those that are to be left only to the control of individual 
 self-interest. The logical end of the process is the extension 
 of social supervision to all that serve and the suppression 
 of all that do not serve. And all social movements set 
 strongly in that direction. Where done wisely and justly, 
 its influence is salutary both to industry and general com- 
 munity. 
 
 Whether the supervision does good or harm to the occu- 
 pations, and thus to the community itself, depends upon the 
 quantity of sjmapathetic occupational enlightenment em- 
 ployed by the public in the supervision. Where present in 
 sufficient degree, a community can maintain a high charac- 
 ter of service while keeping costs on a level that is just to all 
 concerned. On the other hand, ignorant or mercenary super- 
 vision can diminish or destroy the power of an industry for 
 service, and thus do harm both to industry and community. 
 
OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 91 
 
 To require of a railroad, for example, a high character of 
 service, but at the same time to keep the rates so low that 
 necessary expenses cannot be met, may injure or destroy 
 the service that the supervision is intended to improve. 
 
 The supervision at bottom must be performed by the men 
 and women of the general community. They may delegate 
 legislative and executive action so far as these are required. 
 But they must first know what they want their representa- 
 tives to accomplish before they can delegate the responsibiU- 
 ties; or check up the work to see that the right things are 
 done. There must be informed public opinion and right 
 community attitudes and valuations. While this community 
 mind may partly control through governmental mechanism, 
 in the main it doubtless must act difectly in influencing the 
 acts of its specialized members. When all members of an 
 industry know what is expected of it, and when they know 
 that the public knows, and that the public will be instantly 
 aware of any missteps that they may make, — this is the 
 situation that crystallizes into "social conscience." It is 
 this that will supervise and exercise social control. One can 
 appreciate the relations by noting the analogous "grammar 
 conscience." It is not necessary to employ legal machinery 
 for enforcing the laws of grammar. To know what is right 
 usage, and to know that one's associates will instantly 
 detect and silently condemn any deviations therefrom, is 
 enough to hold the well-informed individual pretty close 
 to the straight and narrow paths of grammar. In the same 
 way it is public knowledge of an occupation that through 
 public opinion must directly and indirectly supervise that 
 occupation. And education must confer the necessary en- 
 lightenment, social attitudes, and occupational conscience. 
 
 The acceptance-rejection method of supervision of early 
 days was of a democratic type. Everybody knew products, 
 processes, and social relationships sufficiently to supervise; 
 
92 t/^ THE CURRICULUM 
 
 and on the basis of this knowledge, through accepting or 
 rejecting the products everybody was continually engaged 
 in the task of supervision. Each did it for himself, however. 
 Special training was not needed. Cooperative and system- 
 atic methods of diffusing the necessary intelligence were 
 not needed. In one fundamental aspect that was a day of 
 industrial democracy. Except as labor was purely individual, 
 each served all, and all supervised each. The present is 
 asking nothing more. It is asking only for new methods 
 that can be as effective for present-day conditions as the 
 older methods were for the old days. One of the major 
 differences must be in the mode of diffusing the necessary 
 enlightenment. As much as in the old days, all need now to 
 understand products, processes, and occupational relation- 
 ships. But the knowledge cannot be picked up incidentally. 
 What could formerly be well enough done without the help 
 of the schools can no longer be accomplished in any such 
 unsystematic and incidental way. A school task always 
 arises when the incidental method breaks down in the face 
 of complicated conditions. The economic revolution of the 
 past few decades has in this manner created an educational 
 task of gigantic proportions. 
 
 One has but to examine the newer courses of study and 
 textbooks to note the growing realization of this task. 
 Industrial Studies of the United States, Commercial Geography y 
 Industrial History, Makers of Many Things, Wheat-Growing 
 in Canada, United States, and the Argentine, How the World 
 is Fed, Clothed, and Housed, Diggers in the Earth, The Farmer 
 and his Friends, The Book of Wheat, Book of Cotton, Book of 
 Corn, The Story of Sugar, Story of Oil, Leather Manufacture, 
 — such occupational books are rapidly finding place in 
 schools everywhere. The movement indicates a realization 
 of the need of enlightenment as the basis of occupational 
 adjustment in a democracy. 
 
OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 93 
 
 One finds a complete list of occupations in the reports of 
 the Census. They are classified into nine major fields as 
 shown in the accompanying table : — 
 
 ' Men Women 
 
 1. Agriculture, forestry and 
 
 animal husbandry 10,851,702 1,807,501 
 
 2. Manufacturing and me- 
 chanical industries 8,837,901 1,820,980 
 
 S. Trade 3,146,582 408,088 
 
 4. Transportation 2,531,075 106,596 
 
 5. Domestic and personal 
 
 service 1,241,328 (25,000,000) 
 
 6. Clerical occupations 1,143,829 593,224 
 
 *t. Extraction of minerals . . . 963,730 1,094 
 
 8. Professional service 929,684 735,885 
 
 9. Public service (not else- 
 where classified) 445,733 13,558 
 
 Geography divides the world up into a few grand divi- 
 sions; these grand divisions into several score countries and 
 states; and then presents the situation in each country one 
 after the other. In the same way, in acquiring an under- 
 standing of the world of occupations, we may well divide 
 it into nine grand divisions; divide the latter into several 
 score occupational fields; and then present studies of the 
 important ones. As in the geography, it is possible to group 
 related divisions, and study many cognate occupations at 
 one time. Much can be done on the basis of type-studies, 
 where a single occupation studied intensively can be used 
 to reveal the situation in several similar fields. It is also 
 possible to view and study the whole occupational realm at 
 once by considering single aspects one after the other; as 
 for example, wages, hours of labor, seasonal fluctuations, 
 profits, desirability of different vocations from a hygienic 
 point of view, social desirability of different occupations, 
 etc. When these methods of attacking the problem are 
 
94 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 considered, it is not so formidable as may at first sight 
 appear. 
 
 What are the things that i>eople need to know for supjer- 
 vision of occupational groups? Let us here mention seven 
 things : — 
 
 1. They need definite knowledge of the human needs that 
 are to be ministered to by the different occupations. 
 
 2. They must know definitely the character of occupa- 
 tional service required for meeting the needs fully and 
 without waste. 
 
 S. They must know the extent to which any occupational 
 group is actually delivering the required character of 
 service. 
 
 4. They must know what material and other facilities are 
 needed by each occupation for performing service of 
 the kind required. 
 
 5. They need to know the extent to which the community 
 is actually providing the needed facilities. 
 
 6. They need a knowledge of technical processes only suf- 
 ficient for understanding the findings of inspectorial 
 experts concerning the eflBciency, economy, and general 
 social effectiveness of occupational services. 
 
 7. They need full appreciation and imderstanding of 
 the dependence of group up>on group. It is this vision 
 of interdependence, of common membership within 
 a common group, which creates those sympathetic 
 attitudes necessary for considerateness in the super- 
 vision. 
 
 Naturally it is not meant that memories shall be stored 
 with great masses of recallable facts relative to all of these 
 things; or that the educational task is any such memoriza- 
 tion. Man has no such memory-capacity. And more seri- 
 ous educational malpractice can scarcely be imagined. 
 
 The things which the public needs to know about each 
 
OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 95 
 
 occupation has a counterpart in the things that the spe- 
 ciaKzed workers need to know for willing and intelligent ac- 
 quiescence in the supervision. This represents a vital por- 
 tion of specialized vocational training, treatment of which 
 was deferred because of its intimate relation to the super- 
 visory problem. 
 
 The specialized workers need a more detailed knowledge 
 than society in general concerning their own occupation 
 along the seven following lines : — 
 
 1. Full knowledge of the human needs which their occu- 
 pation is to serve. 
 
 2. Specialized knowledge of the character of service which 
 they are to render. 
 
 3. The extent to which they are actually rendering such 
 service. 
 
 4. Accurate knowledge of what they must demand from 
 the general public in order that they may have the 
 facilities needed for effective service. 
 
 5. Accurate knowledge of the extent to which they are 
 being supplied with the needed facilities. 
 
 6. Such full knowledge of technical processes and of 
 results secured by their group that they can adjudge 
 the justice of the findings of community inspectorial 
 experts; and accept them when just, and correct them 
 when unjust. 
 
 7. Full and specialized understanding of the dependence 
 of their group upon the social whole; and of the total 
 community upon their group. This consciousness of 
 sharing a common lot, and of requiring reciprocal sup- 
 port, lies at the root of willing submission to the gen- 
 eral mandates and of willing service on the part of those 
 supervised. It is this which shows the specialized work- 
 ers that the road of self-interest and the road of service 
 are one and the same. 
 
96 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 When both general public and occupational specialists 
 have these types of information, the intelligence-basis will 
 be laid for effective social control in this difficult field. Each 
 side has rights; and each has duties. The knowledge re- 
 ferred to permits a clear definition of both rights and duties 
 by all interested parties. It also lays a broad foundation 
 of common understanding upon which all can meet in the 
 current adjustment of conflicting claims. For it must be kept 
 in mind, as we shall hereafter discuss, that the push and pull 
 of specialized groups, in which each tends to exaggerate 
 its services and its rights, are inevitable. Social tensions and 
 strains, requiring constant and ever-renewed adjustment, 
 are inherent in the nature of the life-process, whether phy- 
 siological, biological, or social. Intelligence cannot obliter- 
 ate them but it can control. The stronger they are, the 
 greater is the indication of life and of power. But also the 
 greater is the need of social education. 
 
 Enlightenment alone can bring genuine industrial democ- 
 racy. An examination of the factors shows the futility of 
 much of the controversy as to the best type of economic 
 mechanism. We have public ownership and cooperative 
 management in some of our occupational fields, such as pub- 
 lic education, letter and parcel transportation, fire pro- 
 tection, street and road construction and maintenance, etc. 
 We leave to private ownership and volunteer management 
 most of our industries, believing that on the whole this is 
 best. But as a matter of fact whether the labors are of one 
 type or of the other, the thing needed and wanted is sendee. 
 The kinds of enlightenment needed for social supervision of 
 both types are exactly the same. Where society is intro- 
 ducing and developing effective supervision, the methods 
 are scarcely affected by the question whether the indus- 
 try is publicly or privately owned, — i.e., whether by a few 
 stockholders, or by the many stockholders of a total com- 
 
OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 07 
 
 miinity. Either plan is good or bad according to the way it 
 is managed. With enlightened social supervision, effective 
 service can be secured under either plan. But without en- 
 lightened supervision, effective service can result from 
 neither. Not the mechanism, but the intelligence, is the prin- 
 cipal thing. 
 
 Before education can proceed, it must have the facts con- 
 cerning the various occupations. At present many of the 
 necessary facts are inaccessible. Secrecy in the interest of 
 individual ends rather than publicity in the interest of 
 the public weal is the rule, not the exception. As a nation 
 we have not yet come to value enlightenment as the basis 
 of democracy. But the light is nowadays being turned into 
 all sorts of places. Occupational surveys are being made. 
 Official public-service bodies are accumulating facts for 
 their purposes, to many of which publicity is being per- 
 mitted. In proportion as an industry is performing actual 
 public service, it is always glad to have it known; and since 
 the quantity increases year by year, the quantity of volun- 
 tary publicity increases also. When an industrial group is 
 particularly anxious to prevent publicity, more and more 
 the public is coming to suspect that there is exactly where 
 publicity is needed. 
 
 Enlightened business men are coming to understand the 
 publicity implications of social interdependence. The salu- 
 tary attitude of the business world was recently well ex- 
 pressed by Mr. E. H. Gary, chairman of the United States 
 Steel Corporation, in an address before a business conven- 
 tion, for which he took as a theme the Biblical quotation: 
 "For none of us hveth to himself, and no man dieth to 
 himself." Among other things he said: "In the last decade 
 there has been a pronounced change in the attitude of large 
 business interests concerning the disclosure of facts and 
 figures to the general public. Many now voluntarily and 
 
98 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 without the requirement of law make regular and complete 
 reports so that any one interested may know the results 
 of the business and the general policy of the company.'* Mr. 
 Gary suggested a publicity tribunal which would serve the 
 interests both of the business world and of the general pub- 
 lic. "There is abundant evidence," he continued, "that at 
 present the great general public is willing to meet halfway 
 the individual or corporation in the consideration of all 
 questions that affect private or public interests." The move- 
 ment is unmistakable. Facts are becoming accessible. The 
 use of such facts for the development of general enlighten- 
 ment is becoming possible. 
 
 Surveys may discover the facts. But the organization of 
 the materials for teaching purposes presents educational 
 problems of great complexity. The direct fact-learning and 
 recitation method, with which our profession is so familiar, 
 is too primitive and inefficient for so large a task. Let us 
 indicate some of the better ways that are being introduced 
 into progressive school systems. 
 
 Each occupation is to be seen and vitally understood as 
 a group of men at work. One learns the labors of a group by 
 entering into their labors; by performing them actually; 
 by performing them in play; by entering into them sympa- 
 thetically through observation; by imaginative participa- 
 tion as they are reconstructed in well- written history, geog- 
 raphy, literature, biography, etc. It is not by learning 
 abstract verbal facts about a group, but rather by doing 
 in one way or another what that group does that one comes 
 really to understand it. The doing lays the interest-basis 
 necessary for fact-accumulation and assimilation; and for 
 right valuations and attitudes. Education must proceed 
 by the active route not because we are aiming at fewer facts 
 than formerly but because we must aim at far more; and 
 must therefore employ effective methods. 
 
OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 99 
 
 1. Concrete occupational activities 
 
 Professor James, in his delightful essay, On a Certain 
 Blindness in Human Beings, makes clear that one can un- 
 derstand and realize the experiences that make up the lives 
 of others only as one has participated actually or sympa- 
 thetically in those experiences. The detached and unmoved 
 onlooker remains blind to the actual significance of life 
 about him. Life must be lived in order to be known. "The 
 right way of seeing each other's work" requires that we en- 
 ter sympathetically and vividly into the occupational ex- 
 perience of others. The first step is to do the kind of work 
 that they do. 
 
 Boys are given courses in woodworking in our schools, 
 not because they are to become cabinet-makers or car- 
 penters, but because they need an understanding of the hard 
 and imyielding nature of the materials used in woodworking 
 vocations; and a feeling of the arduous and monotonous toil 
 necessary for shaping the materials into finished products. 
 The woodworking is to give him the alphabet of experience 
 in one wide field of human vocation. Its purpose is to open 
 an experiential window out upon the world through which 
 he can rightly see its labors. 
 
 For the same reason we give many practical activities: 
 metal-working, leather-work, printing, bookbinding, arts 
 and crafts, cooking, sewing, embroidery, millinery, school 
 gardening, weaving, rug-making, dyeing, painting, varnish- 
 ing, pattern-making, pottery work, poultry care, laundry 
 work, banking, buying and selling, practical accounting, 
 and others. These activities give to boys and girls a sense 
 of reality as to the nature of labor and of the materials used 
 in the labor. The development of this sense of reality is one 
 of the most urgent of necessities, especially for boys and 
 girls who grow up in our cities. When our population was 
 
100 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 mostly agricultural, the boy on the farm with hoe and rake 
 and plough cultivated the fields; with axe and saw, he pro- 
 vided fuel for the family, built and mended fences, bins, 
 barns, and other farm structures. He pitched the hay, husked 
 the corn, cut the feed, milked the cows, in all weathers, heat 
 and cold and storm. Thus he secured his necessary sense 
 of reality; his understanding of the hard and unyielding na- 
 ture of the material world that lies at the basis of economic 
 industry. The girl in sewing, cooking, mending, washing 
 dishes, laundry, general housekeeping, canning and pre- 
 serving, in helping with the poultry, the gardening, etc., wr- 
 equally favored. They were well-trained in the Great 
 School. 
 
 But to-day in our towns and cities the boy has no spade 
 or hoe, no axe or saw, no coal-hod, nor any other oppor- 
 tunity for performing a portion of the world's labor, and 
 thereby acquiring a sanifying sense of reality. Except for his 
 sports, perhaps, there is no call for him ever really to exert 
 himself in any strenuous manner. The world moves visually 
 before him; but on the vocational side, it is largely but a 
 picture world like the motion picture on the screen. He sees 
 men digging on our streets, but unless he has himself wielded 
 the heavy tools of labor, and felt the burden that such men 
 bear, he has not the experiential alphabet for understand- 
 ing or appreciating the things that pass before his eyes. 
 The deeper things of the situation are to be seen, not with 
 the eyes, but with the sympathetic vision that has grown 
 up out of like experience. Without this he may see the ex- 
 ternals; he cannot, however, see the labor itself. Like one 
 born blind who cannot know color, he is doomed to remain 
 blind to the nature of actual realities. 
 
 Since the purpose of the practical activities is the opening 
 of experiential windows out over the diverse occupational 
 fields, obviously the range of activities should be as wide as 
 conditions permit. 
 
OCCUPATIONAL TRAmiNG , ; ^ H>1 
 
 There should be work with wood — pine, oak, poplar, 
 spruce, fir, hemlock, birch, maple, walnut, ash, cedar, ma- 
 hogany, seasoned and unseasoned, straight and crooked, 
 hard and soft, sapwood and heartwood, large rough work 
 and fine accurate work. In connection with this naturally 
 comes work with paints, oils, varnishes, stains, shellacs, 
 alcohols, pumice, sandpaper, and other finishing materials. 
 
 There should be work with metals — iron, steel, copper, 
 brass, tin, aluminum, nickel, silver, alloys, wire, sheet metal, 
 forgings, castings. Pupils should become acquainted with 
 metals in the form of ores and compounds. They should 
 have an opportunity to reduce them, to refine them, to 
 mould them in the foundry, and to shape them in the mak- 
 ing of practical things. 
 
 - There should be work involving the application of elec- 
 tricity to practical affairs — electric bells, wiring, toasters, 
 cookers, irons, electric lighting, the telephone, the telegraph, 
 clock controls, electro-plating, cells, dynamos, motors, with 
 construction of these things. 
 
 There should be work in printing, composition, typeset- 
 ting, presswork, copper-plate-making, appHed art and de- 
 sign, bookbinding, cover-ornamentation, printing of bills, 
 accounts, recipes, programs, invitations, supplementary 
 material for classes, and the like. Closely related to this 
 is cardboard construction, box-making, blotter-pads, desk- 
 pads, etc. 
 
 There should also be work involving leather — the mak- 
 ing of bags, purses, portfolios, bill-books, coverings of many 
 kinds of balls, belts, satchels, suit-cases, trunks, handles, 
 harness, upholstery, etc. All important kinds of leather 
 should be used, as well as imitation leathers. Various kinds 
 of dressings, finishings, preservatives should be employed. 
 
 There should be work with clay and allied earth products, 
 plaster of paris, cement, porcelain, glass; the actual making 
 
102 , . . ^ . . . , TH?: CURRICULUM 
 
 of brick aiidi tile, of lime and cement, from the original 
 materials; pottery-making, cement-block construction, the 
 making and mending of cement walks, bricklaying, tile- 
 laying. The maintenance of the school plant affords excel- 
 lent opportunities for practical labors of these types. 
 
 A large field is that of textiles — wool, cotton, linen, silk, 
 hemp, jute, Manila fiber, etc. So far as possible, the pupils 
 should come into contact with the fibers in their original 
 raw state; and understand through exp)erience the kinds of 
 labor involved in bringing them to finished form. With 
 wool it should include the original washing, combing, card- 
 ing, spinning, dyeing, weaving, fulling, shearing, shrinking, 
 and pressing. Flax can be grown in the school garden, the 
 fiber can be separated by the children themselves, spun, 
 woven, and bleached. Other work is sewing and garment-* 
 making of every sort, with every usual kind of cloth — 
 garment-design, garment-fitting, embroidery, millinery, 
 laces, curtains, hangings, carpets, rugs, etc. 
 
 Closely related to this is work with straw, raffia, cane, 
 rattan, etc., in the making of mats, hats, baskets, trays, 
 cases of various kinds, chair-seats, chair-backs, and cane 
 furniture. 
 
 There should be work with foods. This should involve 
 cooking of all common kinds, canning, preserving, starch- 
 making, sugar-making, oil manufacture, pickling, butter- 
 making, cheese manufacture, condensed-milk manufacture. 
 Closely connected with this is the making of soaps, and 
 other cleansing agents. 
 
 Not only should one have experiential opportunities in 
 these fields of manufacture or transformation, but also in 
 the production of the original raw materials in farm and 
 garden. He should have an opportunity to raise corn, pota- 
 toes, vegetables, fruits, etc., in sufficient quantity and vari- 
 ety to learn the nature of the labors. He should have work 
 
OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 103 
 
 involving soil preparation, fertilizing, seed-testing, planting, 
 cultivating, protection from insects, drainage, irrigation, 
 adaptation to seasonal conditions, harvesting, storing, mar- 
 keting. He should have an opportunity likewise to work 
 with poultry, live-stock, dairy cattle, bees, and with such 
 other agricultural matters as the administrative Hmitations 
 will permit. 
 
 One's education also requires some partfbipation in the 
 activities of the commercial world, buying and selling, com- 
 petition, salesmanship, bookkeeping, accounting, the han- 
 dling of money, banking, savings banks, insurance, etc. The 
 school buys much; it ought to buy more in order to take 
 care of the wide range of activities here indicated. The 
 school at present sells little; it ought to sell very much more. 
 These activities will require much bookkeeping and careful 
 accounting. They will require banking and the handling of 
 money. So far as it is administratively possible, conditions 
 should be so devised that students can participate in these 
 serious commercial activities. This is now being done in 
 many schools where the pupils of the domestic science 
 classes conduct the lunch-room, the supply-store, or where 
 they do contract work in the shops. 
 
 "All of these things?" the appalled teacher asks. In 
 inclining toward the affirmative, let us point to the fact that 
 practically every one of the occupations involved is already 
 treated in our geographies. Now, what is the purpose of the 
 book-study concerning occupations and products in the 
 geography? Apparently it is an attempt to develop an 
 understanding of the diversified human occupations. But 
 how can this be developed through book-study if the chil- 
 dren have not that alphabet of experience necessary for 
 giving meaning to the words of the text? How can they 
 appreciate the great cotton industry of the South, for ex- 
 ample, as they read of it in their geographies, if they have 
 
104 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 never seen or handled or cultivated a cotton plant? How 
 can they appreciate the process of ginning, as they read of 
 it, if they have never had the experience of actually sepa- 
 rating the fiber from the seeds? How can they appreciate 
 the manufacture of cotton-seed oil, cotton-seed cake, etc., 
 if they have never come into experiential contact with the 
 cotton seed, and do not know whether it most resembles a 
 mustard seed ot a walnut? How appreciate the great cotton 
 textile industries if they have never had anything to do 
 with carding and spinning, weaving and dyeing? Without 
 concrete experience with the occupational materials and 
 processes, the students as they read the geographical treat- 
 ment of occupations, but tread a hazy realm of verbal vague- 
 ness, lit here and there with chance flashes from their inci- 
 dental daily experience, but in general obscure and dimly 
 visioned. 
 
 Manual training throughout the elementary school and 
 largely in the high school should have for a primary aim, 
 not skill, not the production of a salable product, but an 
 appreciation of the materials, processes, and products of a 
 wide range of adult occupations. It is the most concrete 
 portion of the home-geography of occupations. Combined 
 with observation of neighborhood labors and products, we 
 have the whole of home-geography on the occupational side. 
 
 The major portion of the concrete activities at all stages 
 of maturity will be on the order of play — constructive, 
 operative, and participative. It seems that some of them, 
 however, as training continues, should be raised to the plane 
 of work. Without actual work in an atmosphere of work, 
 with the spirit of work alive within the participants, they 
 do not sufficiently enter into work-experience. Their activi- 
 ties may have a commendable width and variety, but will 
 be lacking in depth. In the later stages of the training, some- 
 thing more is required than manual training in a play-shop. 
 
OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 105 
 
 Since the end of the training is an understanding of the 
 World of Work, this serious level must therefore be reached 
 and explored in some degree. It is this that makes necessary 
 a certain amount of skill; the production of a salable eco- 
 nomic product; and a genuine shop-atmosphere. The work- 
 level will be most fully reached by the student in the things 
 in which he is specializing; and generally through part-time 
 cooperative arrangements. ^ 
 
 2. Observation 
 
 Having mastered the alphabet of experience, it is possi- 
 ble for a student to enter into the world's experience in 
 more expeditious ways. The concrete experience gives the 
 imagery and apperception materials; and the interests. The 
 student is then equipped for understanding occupations 
 through visit and observation. In cities opportunities are 
 numerous. Many can be visited and viewed by young 
 people in the course of their individual experience. Where 
 inaccessible to incidental observation, in most cases man- 
 agers are glad to arrange for systematic observation by 
 classes or groups. 
 
 Observation of occupations must be a portion of the 
 preparation for the reading experiences. It must provide a 
 portion of the imagery, the apperceptions-mass, and the 
 interest. In the school shops, students can secure basic 
 experience with materials, processes, and products; but the 
 world of occupation there developed is diminutive, primi- 
 tive, fragmentary, and sometimes a very artificial and dis- 
 torted representation of the actual industry itself. To revert 
 to our cotton-study illustration, students in the textile room 
 can get pretty accurate ideas of fibers, dyes, the basic ele- 
 ments of spinning and weaving machinery, and the nature 
 of certain simple types of fabric. But the school shop as a 
 whole bears little resemblance to a large textile mill with its 
 
THE CURRICULUM 
 
 'gresii engines, its huge dyeing-vats and drying facilities, its 
 countless spinning-machines and power-looms, and the 
 bustle and whir of busy production. If for one's reading one 
 has only the meager imagery supplied by the school shop, 
 then one has but poor preparation for it. We find here the 
 justification for the ever-increasing use of motion-pictures 
 for greatly extending one's visual observation of concrete 
 processes anAonditions. 
 
 Observation of an occupation is greatly quickened if the 
 observer can be a participant and carry a portion of the 
 responsibility. There is nothing like responsibility for giv- 
 ing eyes to an individual; and especially eyes for values and 
 relations. It is of immeasurably greater value for a boy to 
 work for a season on a farm or in a store than it is merely 
 to visit idly about the place. The observation through visit 
 alone by classes or groups, and that for but a brief time, can 
 give much valuable apperceptive imagery; but its limita- 
 tions must be noted; and provision made, as far as possible, 
 for actual participation in the labors of occupational groups. 
 The pedagogy which sanctions the demand is simple and 
 clear. The difficulty arises in connection with the adminis- 
 tration of new activities that will not easily transfer to the 
 schools. Present part-time arrangements are made only for 
 specialized training. In time we may see our way clear for 
 similar arrangements for some of the general training. 
 Promise of this is to be found in the auspicious movement 
 for promoting outside activities through giving credit for 
 home work. 
 
 One important type of observation relates to the study 
 of the products of industry. Social supervision of industries 
 is designed, among other things, to secure from the special- 
 ized groups a type of product that fully meets human needs. 
 In general an industry will be left free to use whatever 
 materials and processes that it chooses — on condition that 
 
OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 107 
 
 they result in the right type of product. Of occupations in 
 general, therefore, the pubHc will need no detailed technical 
 understanding of materials and processes. They need, how- 
 ever, as consumers to he competent judges of the products of 
 industry. Boys and girls coming out of our manual-training 
 courses need not so much to be skilled in making furniture, 
 tools, electrical appliances, garments, curtains, etc., as to be 
 skilled in judging the quality of such things as they are 
 offered in the market. Their shop-training is valuable for 
 developing judgment. But if their ideas are limited to what 
 they meet in the school shops in making things, then their 
 ideas will be too primitive, crude, and meager for adequate 
 judgment of the products upon the market. The latter are 
 immeasurably more complicated in countless subtle ways. 
 
 One full department of training should, therefore, be the 
 systematic and adequate study of the finished products of 
 industry. Along with shop experience in making chairs, 
 boys need to examine and discuss many types of chairs. 
 They will be viewed in the light of principles of construc- 
 tion, of utiHty, of aesthetic design, and of economic costs. 
 AJong with the practical activities of girls in making cur- 
 tains, for example, they need to refine and complete their 
 powers of judgment through examination and study of 
 many types of curtains in the light of general principles. 
 
 Carried to its logical limits, this means that in many 
 fields we need a continuous exhibit of products which reveal 
 all types of excellence and defect. Though startling at first 
 glance, the conclusion is inevitable. We discover here 
 another need that once was simple enough not to require 
 the work of the schools, which has grown so complex that 
 it can be adequately taken care of in no other way. Recog- 
 nition of the educational task is really appearing a long time 
 after the work should have been undertaken. As a people 
 we have been deceived long enough by those who have been 
 
108 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 in a position to profit by ignorance of materials, qualities, 
 and prices. Just as occupational inefficiency needs to he over- 
 come in the field of 'production, so also it needs to be overcome in 
 the field of the consumer's judgment. 
 
 But how can the schools have all the expensive things 
 needed for such an exhibit of economic products? Where 
 can they be stored? How is deterioration to be prevented? 
 How are perishable products to be taken care of? How 
 meet the problem of ever-changing styles, and of current 
 improvements? Would not much of the exhibit be obso- 
 lete almost as soon as arranged? And how are obsolete 
 but expensive things to be disposed of? 
 
 Such questions grow out of a type of educational thought 
 that, let us hope, will rapidly grow obsolete, — a type that 
 assumes that everything needed in education must be found 
 at the school plant. As a matter of fact, economic products 
 must be observed where they can be observed effectively 
 and economically. This is generally where they are manu- 
 factured, stored for distribution, exhibited for sale; or where 
 they are being used in home and street, in field and shop, 
 and in the other places of the community. This constitutes 
 a continuous community exhibit of the things. It permits 
 them to be seen in their natural settings and relationships, 
 taken out of which they lose half their significance. 
 
 3. Occupational readings 
 
 Occupations are to be seen in their nation-wide and 
 world-wide distribution. The means must be mainly read- 
 ing. This will be largely narrative in character. As one 
 reads concerning any occupation, the aim will be the re- 
 construction in the imagination of the reader of an inner 
 world of occupational experiences in which, lost to sense" 
 of time and place, he can participate, as a shadow- 
 member of the group, so to speak; and thus enter sympa- 
 
OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 109 
 
 thetically Into the experiences with an intellectual and 
 emotional vividness not greatly dissimilar to that which 
 accompanies actual objective observation and participation. 
 As one reads Captains CourageoiLs, for example, one is for 
 the time, so far as his consciousness is concerned, a fisher- 
 man off the banks of Newfoundland, almost as completely 
 as if he were there in the flesh. Then as one reads The 
 Lumberman, one's habitation is shifted to the wilds of Michi- 
 gan in its early days, and one becomes an active and inter- 
 ested participant in the logging industry along the rivers. 
 Let him again at another time read a spirited history of 
 transportation in our country from colonial times to the 
 present. One becomes for a time an early colonist, and 
 travels and transports his goods in the primitive ways. 
 Later he is a shadow-member of the group about Robert 
 Fulton as he labors with the problem of applying steam to 
 river navigation. A little later he joins the other group and 
 participates in the experiment of applying steam to over- 
 land transportation. And thus the history, if concrete and 
 vivid and full, reconstructs experience and permits him to 
 be one with group after group and to participate in its 
 affairs from early days down to the present. In the recon- 
 structions of stirring narrative, one's experience can be as 
 much wider than observation as the latter is wider than the 
 circle of one's individual labors. 
 
 The readings concerning occupations will be of a varied 
 character: history, geography, literature, biography, travels, 
 current events, stories of inventions, etc. 
 
 Historical readings will be among the most vital for the 
 purpose. It is true that the practical thing desired is a knowl- 
 edge of the occupation in its present status. But history 
 is one of the best methods of showing the nature of the 
 present. It reveals the constituents of a situation by show- 
 ing the influences that have produced it; and which are 
 
110 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 continuing within it. It is impossible to understand the 
 railroad situation at present, for example, without a fairly 
 extensive understanding of the influences of former years 
 that have made it what it now is. The same is true of the 
 steel industry, the lumber industry, the relations between 
 capital and labor, the growth of labor unions, etc. Not only 
 does history reveal the facts, but if the human element is 
 kept foremost, it reveals them in assimilable ways. One can 
 enter sympathetically into the labors of the human groups 
 the story of which is being read. Such imaginative partici- 
 pation contains many of the factors of real participation, 
 and more*nearly approximates the nature of the latter than 
 commonly supposed. 
 
 Public education has scarcely yet recognized the legiti- 
 macy of the purposes treated in this chapter. It is not sur- 
 prising, therefore, that history is not used in our schools as 
 a mode of revealing the growth and present nature of oc- 
 cupations. The little given in our historical textbooks is 
 so minute, fragmentary, general, and vague, that it cannot 
 be intended by the writers for the purposes mentioned. 
 For example, taking a dozen textbooks in United States 
 history commonly used in the elementary schools, and eight 
 texts commonly used in the high schools, it was found that 
 the average number of pages devoted to occupational topics 
 was so small as to be negligible for training. The number of 
 pages is shown in the following table ; — 
 
 Inventions 
 
 Tariff and free trade , 
 
 Railroads 
 
 Canals 
 
 Manufacturing 
 
 Foreign commerce . . 
 Mining 
 
 Elementary High-school 
 
 texts 
 
 texts 
 
 5.3 
 
 3.3 
 
 3,7 
 
 8.9 
 
 2.7 
 
 5.2 
 
 2.5 
 
 2.7 
 
 2.5 
 
 2.0 
 
 2.3 
 
 1.6 
 
 2.3 
 
 .5 
 
OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 111 
 
 Banks and banking 2.0 4.8 
 
 Relations of capital and labor 1.8 4.1 
 
 Agriculture 1.4 1.6 
 
 Roads and road transportation 1.2 ".7 
 
 Telegraph 1.1 ,3 
 
 Domestic commerce 1.0 2.4 
 
 Labor organizations .6 1.9 
 
 Savings banks .6 .2 
 
 Newspapers and magazines .5 .7 
 
 Postal service .5 1.6 
 
 Fisheries .4 .4 
 
 Telephone .4 .2 
 
 Wages 2 1.0 
 
 Patents and copyrights .0 .0 
 
 Child labor / .0 .3 
 
 Women in industry .0 .2 
 
 Unemplojmaent .0 .3 
 
 Cost of living :.. .0 .2 
 
 If any one believes the average treatment of these topics 
 to be sufficient, he can easily test the matter. Let him send 
 the five pages on banks and banking to a list of prominent 
 bankers requesting their judgment whether it presents an 
 adequate revelation of the growth of banking in our coun- 
 try, and as its outcome, an adequate picture of its present 
 status. Let him send the three or five pages on railroad 
 development to prominent leaders of the railroad world with 
 a similar request. Let him inquire of labor unions if the two 
 or three pages devoted to them present a satisfactory ac- 
 coimt of the development of their present status and rela- 
 tions. It is not difficult to predict the character of the replies. 
 
 For each of these topics, and for many others, there is 
 demonstrable need of a full historical treatment. Justice is 
 not to be done to the railroad situation, for example, short 
 of two hundred or five hundred pages. This should present 
 in concrete, vivid narrative a reconstruction of experiences 
 involved in the development of railroads, beginning with 
 
112 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 the early inventions and experiments, and tracing the 
 expansion of Hnes and systems down to the present. The 
 story should fully present the personal experiences of rail- 
 road leaders and groups: only as the "human element " is 
 central in the story can the reader actually relive the experi- 
 ences. But at the same time it should reveal fundamental 
 processes and relationships of all kinds : the social influences 
 that called railroads into being; kinds and amounts of serv- 
 ice rendered to different regions; modes of organization, 
 financing, regulation, wages, conditions of work, etc. The 
 story should be so written that the reader can see and appre- 
 ciate the valiant national service that the railroads have 
 rendered in pushing back the frontiers and opening up the 
 wilderness for civilization; in carrying the means of civiUzed 
 life to every corner of our land; in breaking down isolation, 
 provincialism, and sectionalism; and in promoting the gen- 
 eral intra-national welfare. The story should be presented 
 so vividly and sympathetically that the reader can enter 
 whole-heartedly into the action. This provides right condi- 
 tions for leaving large residues of information acquired 
 through living rather than memorizing; and the materials 
 and experiences out of which the abstract general principles 
 are to be distilled. 
 
 Each vocation is also to be seen geographically in its 
 nation-wide and world-wide distribution. One is interested 
 in those portions that touch one's own afl^airs; but world- 
 wide interdependency makes this the whole of the world's 
 industry. The price of wheat, for example, in any com- 
 munity is determined, not by the amount raised in that 
 community, but by the world-situation as regards wheat. 
 Rightly to understand it one must read a long chapter on 
 the geography of wheat — a chapter that changes from 
 year to year. Likewise he must read similar chapters on all 
 of the important occupations. Recent books are providing 
 excellent materials for the purpose. 
 
OCCUPATIONAL TRAINING 118 
 
 Lack of space forbids discussion here of the occupational 
 illumination to be provided by literature, travels, biography, 
 current events, popular technology, stories of inventions. 
 Each has a large function to perform; and should find large 
 place in the curriculum of occupational training. 
 
 4. Generalization 
 
 In the foregoing we have stressed concrete exi)eriences. 
 But each provides materials for discussion, problem-solving, 
 abstraction of elements and relations, and generalizations. 
 The work in the shops, sewing-rooms, kitchens, gardens, 
 etc., will provide basic materials for generalized understand- 
 ing of design, physical science, biological science, mathemat- 
 ics, economic relationships, etc. The history, geography, 
 travels, current events, etc., will not confine themselves 
 merely to a concrete construction of life in other ages and 
 lands. These experiences are preparatory to generalizations. 
 Pupils are to see the broad lines of influence that operate 
 in human affairs; to see how some of them may promote 
 human welfare, and how others may prevent or destroy; 
 and to see how the influences haVe been and may be con- 
 trolled for human good. It is in^this connection that un- 
 derstanding of most of the economic and social principles 
 required for effective social supervision is to be developed. 
 
PART III 
 EDUCATION FOR CITIZENSHIP 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE NATURE OF THE GOOD CITIZEN 
 
 Education cannot take the first step in training for citi- 
 zenship until it has particularized the characteristics of the 
 good citizen. The training task is to develop those charac- 
 teristics. It is not enough to aim at "good citizenship '* in 
 a vague general way. As well aim at "medicine " in a large 
 vague way in the training of a physician. 
 
 The citizen has functions to perform. We are to develop 
 ability to perform those functions.' But first we must know 
 with particularity what they are. He must have certain 
 social attitudes, valuations, criteria of judgment. We can- 
 not effectively train for these, except as we have rather 
 accurately defined them. He must have knowledge; but 
 we must know how and where he is to use it before we can 
 know what to give; or how much; or how to focus it. 
 
 The need of definite objectives is obvious. It will l>e a 
 long time, however, before our profession can have any 
 reasonably complete list upon which to base a system of 
 training. And the reason is, citizens are not suflSciently 
 agreed among themselves as to the characteristics of the 
 good citizen, or his modes of thought and action. They 
 agree so long as they talk mere vagueness; they disagree 
 the moment they begin to particularize. And education 
 must be built upon the particulars. 
 
 The 'primitive good citizen 
 
 We can best indicate the essential nature of the good citi- 
 zen by first noting the situation in the small primitive tribes 
 of our ancestors before the growth of complex institutions 
 
118 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 obscured the relationships. In those early times, the human 
 race was broken up into innumerable small tribes. Each 
 had little or no connection with its neighbors. Owing to the 
 severe limitations upon the food-supply and other necessi- 
 ties, and to the tendency within tribes to expand, each tribe 
 was usually hostile to neighboring tribes. There was always 
 a state of active or slumbering war. 
 
 Continuing existence of the tribe demanded considerable 
 social solidarity. In the common struggles with the enemy 
 and with the hostile forces of Nature, each member of the 
 tribe was expected to cooperate fully with the other members. 
 He must deal fairiy and honestly with his own people. He 
 must lend assistance to those in need of it. He must be 
 loyal to the group, and obedient to constituted authority. 
 He must restrain his anti-social passions, and adjust his 
 efforts to promote the tribal welfare. Without this solidar- 
 ity, the group disintegrated and was destroyed by better- 
 organized neighbors. So indispensable was group-cohesion 
 and social virtues that man was endowed with powerful 
 social instincts. Nature made sure of this type of social 
 service. 
 
 On the other hand, for the tribe to survive under those 
 hard conditions of primitive struggle, each individual had 
 to be prepared to fight alien tribes. The rightful attitude of 
 an individual toward members of alien groups was therefore 
 anti-social, hostile, destructive. Toward the alien he was 
 expected to exercise deceit, stratagem, treachery, and vio- 
 lence. He must despoil them of their property, enslave 
 them, or destroy them. This exercise of anti-social attitudes 
 toward the alien was as necessary and as virtuous as the 
 exercise of the social attitudes toward the members of his 
 own group. The tribe that would not fight was destroyed, 
 root and branch. This resistance to the enemy was so im- 
 portant that Nature gave to man a fuU array of fighting 
 
THE NATURE OF THE GOOD CITIZEN 119 
 
 instincts. In this manner, she set her seal of approval upon 
 anti-social attitudes and action. She made sure also of this 
 second type of social service to one's own group. 
 
 In his relations to other individuals, conditions forced 
 upon primitive man two standards of conduct, two sets of 
 attitudes, two sets of virtues. (The good citizen of the tribe 
 was the one who most vigorously exercised the social virtues 
 toward the members of his tribe, and who most vahantly 
 exercised the anti-social virtues toward members of the 
 alien tribes. The bad citizen was the one who exercised the 
 hostile virtues toward his fellow-tribesmen and the friendly 
 virtues toward the aliens. 
 
 Intra-gronp virtues Extra-group virtues 
 
 Mutual aid; social service Injury; destruction 
 
 Fair-dealing Double-dealing; treachery 
 
 Truthfulness; honesty Deceit; stratagem 
 
 Loyalty; obedience Hostility; opposition 
 
 Modesty; humility Arrogance 
 
 Submission to group opinion Defiance; antagonism 
 
 Courtesy Incivility 
 
 Self-restraint Unbridled freedom 
 
 Gentleness; mercy Ruthlessness 
 
 In the table the two opposite sets of virtues are placed 
 over against each other. The good citizen of the primitive 
 tribe had to be active in the exercise of both. But he must 
 exercise each toward its rightful object of reference. He 
 must not reverse them. In so doing, he became guilty of 
 the two sets of crimes. To exercise anti-social attitudes 
 toward the members of his own group was to select the 
 wrong objects for their reference and therefore to commit 
 crime. On the other hand, to exercise the social virtues 
 toward members of alien groups was to be guilty of render- 
 ing aid to one's enemies, the capital crime of treason. 
 Whether an act toward another human being or group of 
 
120 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 human beings was virtuous or vicious depended not upon 
 the nature of the act itself, but upon the object of reference. 
 To kill women and children, for example, in that day was 
 virtuous conduct, if they belonged to alien tribes; it was 
 criminal conduct, if they were of one's own tribe. Any kind 
 of human conduct toward another was good, or any kind 
 was bad; it all depended upon the person toward whom it 
 was exercised. Virtue or vice lay not in the act itself; but 
 in the right social placing of the act^ Virtues and vices were 
 relative things, not absolutes. 
 
 The modern situation ' 
 
 As a result of the long-continued group-struggle of primi- 
 tive days, the weaker tribes disappeared and the stronger 
 tribes grew fewer in number and larger in population and 
 territorial area. This absorption or destruction of the weak 
 by the strong has continued down to the present day until 
 there now exists over the habitable globe only some forty 
 or fifty independent national groups. The situation with 
 respect to the two sets of social attitudes, however, does not 
 change with the size of the group. It cannot change so long 
 as wholly independent competing nations exist. Within 
 the large nation, no less than in primitive days, there still 
 remains the need of inner sohdarity and the exercise of the 
 social virtues. Toward the alien nations, however, in the 
 degree that they are felt to be alien, one is still expected 
 to employ the anti-social attitudes. Between these larger 
 nations there is, as of old, a constant hostility. This is not 
 always on the surface. With war so expensive and destruc- 
 tive now, nations live mostly in a state of truce, — simply 
 because anything else is suicidal in the end, and not because 
 the world has developed the fundamental basis of peace. 
 
 The slumbering presence of extra-group hostility is re- 
 vealed by the ease with which it flares forth at the slightest 
 
THE NATURE OF THE GOOD CITIZEN 121 
 
 provocation, and the ease with which it bursts into the 
 flames of war even in the case of nations that we have been 
 accustomed to call civilized. The independent national 
 groups still cling to the two standards of conduct and regard 
 both as wholly justifiable, legitimate, and virtuous, if only 
 exercised toward the right objects of reference. In times of 
 international stress, when both intra-group and extra-group 
 standards of conduct are fully aroused, and when the grow- 
 ing but yet feeble sentiment of membership in a world 
 group is stilled in the strife, then the anti-social dictates 
 become clear and unconfused. To kill the man who is not 
 a member of one's own nation becomes a matter of entire 
 virtue. It is not a crime. It is not a matter for reproach. It 
 calls for decorations of honor. At the present moment it is 
 the largest, the most expensively equipped and the most 
 completely organized business in the world. 
 
 The nations have institutionalized their anti-social tend- 
 encies. They have developed laws, traditions, public opin- 
 ion, military technique, organization, training, weapons, 
 and other appliances for destroying aliens. And through 
 newspapers, schools, churches, and public proclamations, 
 they have arranged to make and to keep all people fully 
 conscious of their anti-social duties, powers, and possibilities. 
 /in relation to the wholly alien nation, then, who is the 
 /good citizen? It is the one who is ready and eager to fight 
 ^the alien the instant called upon; who is ready to shed his 
 blood to the last drop in service to his countrymen. It is 
 ithe one whose thought and feeling and action are most 
 completely anti-social — with these turned squarely against 
 tne hostile alien. 
 
 We may deprecate a world-situation which makes murder 
 and destruction an inescapable part of social service; and 
 therefore a necessary function of the good citizen. The situ- 
 ation is what it is, however; and not what we may wish it 
 
122 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 to be. The world is still young and in the green; and yet far 
 from organized and civilized. An undesirable form of social 
 service is not to be escaped by blinking it; but by so chang- 
 ing the world-situation that the noxious type of service is 
 no longer necessary to continuing national existence and 
 welfare. 
 
 Patriotism we say is a characteristic of the good citizen. 
 But in our present state of world-division, there are two 
 types of patriotism, wholly different, and both indispen- 
 sable for national welfare. We are here referring to one 
 of the types, the one that is built upon the anti-alien rela- 
 tions. It is the desire to serve one's own national group by 
 restraining or injuring, or even if necessary destroying, 
 alien groups. It is the aroused anti-social spirit. It is a state 
 of mind that in the nature of things must persist so long as 
 this whirling planet holds mankind-in-division. 
 
 But let us turn to the other and more agreeable side of 
 the picture. The national groups not only institutionalize 
 the spirit of world-division for their outside relations; but 
 also build ponderous and stable national institutions upon 
 the intra-social impulses of mankind-in-cooperation. For 
 promoting the welfare of the group within, the more ad- 
 vanced nations — even though their hands now are reeking 
 with the blood of alien human-kind — have been providing 
 and developing the humanitarian institutions necessary to a 
 superb state of civilization. They have been building schools 
 and churches; and fostering within their boundaries the 
 reign of intelligence and good-will. They have been pro- 
 viding hospitals for the sick, systematic state care for the 
 weak, pensions for the aged and the incapacitated, work- 
 men's compensation for the injured in industry, protection 
 of women and children from industrial exploitation, eight- 
 hour laws for workmen, the enforcement of sanitary living 
 and work conditions; and a host of other human- welfare 
 
THE NATUKE OF THE GOOD CITIZEN 123 
 
 measures. And they have zealously promoted in a thousand 
 ways those social institutions which perform for a people 
 the basic intra-group services: industry, commerce, trans- 
 portation, mining, agriculture, professional service, etc. 
 Thus institutions growing out of the social virtues flourish 
 profusely in nations that show no abhorrence to the most 
 inhuman brutalities when exercised toward alien peoples. 
 And press and schools and churches diligently foster this 
 internal socialization; and the awakening of a sensitive 
 social conscience that is keenly cognizant of intra-group 
 obHgation. 
 
 This brings us to the other type of patriotism — the aroused 
 spirit of intra-group service. It is the desire to serve one's 
 national group by promoting in every possible way those in- 
 ternal social adjustments and actions that make in maxi- 
 mum degree for the general national welfare. Instead of its 
 being hatred of the enemy as in the other type, it is love of 
 one's people, and of all of one's people; and positive. This 
 type of patriotism is in need of greater emphasis since it is not 
 so clearly conceived. It is coordinate with the other. But 
 to most men the term refers only to the anti-social type. 
 Men take great pride in self-sacrifice, and are willing to lay 
 down even life itself, to promote the welfare of their people, 
 so long as it is the anti-alien type of social service. Why 
 should there not be equal willingness for self-sacrifice in the 
 service of those same people when the service is social? 
 And why should not the intra-group service be equally hon- 
 ored? Civic training should complete our ideas of patriot- 
 ism; and develop attitudes of both types — so long as both 
 are needed. 
 
 Functional differentiation 
 
 As social groups grow large territorially, they break up 
 along functional lines into small groups again: commercial. 
 
124 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 manufacturing, agricultural, religious, political, professional, 
 and others. The lower limit in size is the specialized individ- 
 ual standing alone. 
 
 With the appearance of the functional small groups, there 
 arise naturally and inevitably the two standards of social 
 conduct. Human nature is so made that without thought 
 we adopt the social attitudes toward members of our own 
 social group : our own political party, our own church, com- 
 mercial organization, political ring, fraternity, club, trade- 
 union, employers' union, school, college, or other organi- 
 zation to which we may belong. In the same natural way, 
 without taking thought, we adopt the extra-group attitudes 
 toward those who belong to outside or competing groups: 
 the opposite political party, other financial, commercial, or 
 manufacturing organizations, the churches of the other 
 groups, the rival college, the close-fisted employers' associ- 
 ation, or the striking labor-union. 
 
 One belongs to many overlapping groups and over all he 
 belongs to the city, state, and national groups which include 
 all of these. He has a conception of his membership in each 
 of them. This complicated consciousness tends to soften and 
 partially inhibit the workings of the anti-social attitudes 
 in connection with one's small-group activities. Leaving 
 aside this qualification, we must notice that as one's con- 
 sciousness of membership within the small group becomes 
 intense, he adopts the two standards of conduct and looks 
 upon both as equally ^^rtuous. They have been so re- 
 garded by mankind from the beginning of the world. Both 
 are powerfully supported by instincts; back of each are 
 powerful traditions. As a result both are considered equally 
 right and necessary if only the one is exercised toward 
 one's friends and the other toward outsiders. 
 
 A labor-union offers a good example. The members of the 
 union extend mutual aid to all within the group. They aid 
 
THE NATURE OF THE GOOD CITIZEN 125 
 
 in securing employment; in holding their positions; in the 
 regulation of hours, wages, factory protection, sanitary 
 conditions, etc. In times of sickness or loss of place, the 
 necessary material assistance is extended. Toward each 
 other within the union, after excepting the occasional wolf 
 in sheep's clothing that preys upon ignorance, there is, on 
 the whole, fair-dealing, honesty, truthfulness, loyalty, obe- 
 dience, and submission to whatever regulations are neces- 
 sary for the welfare of the union. However rough and igno- 
 rant the men may be, these social virtues grow up within 
 the group in their relations toward each other about as luxu- 
 riantly as among the individuals of any social class. On 
 the other hand, the union holds just as strictly to the extra- 
 group, anti-social standard of conduct in their relations to 
 the opposing employers' groups. Industry exists in division. 
 Hence there is constant hostility. While active warfare 
 flames forth only occasionally, the usual situation is one of 
 truce, not of peace. The union stands ready to over-reach 
 employers when opportunity offers. They combine to limit 
 the output of each man. They tend to "soldier," to mis- 
 manage, to delay progress so as to extend the work. It is in 
 times of acute trouble, however, that the extra-group at- 
 titudes reveal themselves most clearly. The union often 
 strives to wreck or destroy the machinery and the mate- 
 rials belonging to the hostile employers. The labor strike is 
 often a state of actual armed warfare. They will not work 
 until their demands are granted, and others shall not work. 
 Where persuasion will not serve, force must be employed. 
 The unions justify the use of force by saying that it is class 
 war. They use the term in its literal sense, not in a figura- 
 tive one. It is a struggle for the group that grows out of ad- 
 herence to the world-old extra-group standard of conduct. 
 It has exactly the same kind of justification as any other 
 kind of war. We shall not make headway in understand- 
 
126 , THE CURRICULUM 
 
 ing the civic factors that enter into the situation unless we 
 grant the warring union entire sincerity of conviction as to 
 the rightfulness of adhering to both standards of conduct. 
 They are acting as the race has always acted from the begin- 
 ning of the world when divided into opposing and hostile 
 small groups. To dispense with either of the standards so 
 long as industry exists in division can result in but injury 
 or destruction for their group. Even though they may wish 
 to dispense with the extra-group attitudes, the condition of 
 social division will not permit. 
 
 It is not that the men are vicious. It is the state of indus- 
 try-in-division that is vicious. To say that the men are in- 
 herently ill-disposed and that they destroy simply for the 
 love of destruction is to miss the whole secret of the matter. 
 .They are usually more rough and ignorant than their ac- 
 cusers, because they have had fewer educational oppor- 
 tunities; but they are not less honest nor less sincere; nor 
 less virtuous when measured by the dual standard of virtue 
 forced upon them by the presence of social division. They 
 are using the same standards of conduct as their opponents. 
 For it must be kept in mind that there are always at least 
 two parties to a fight; and that when the fighting is fierce 
 upon the one side it is no less fierce upon the other. The visi- 
 ble struggle of the labor-unions is proof of an equally stren- 
 uous opposition upon the part of the employing groups. 
 
 Let us reverse the illustration. The employers' groups have 
 their same two standards of social ethics; and they live up 
 to the standards forced upon them by conditions in the same 
 vigorous and manly way. In their conduct toward each 
 other, one sees revealed all of the social virtues at their 
 best. They stand together and support each other in the pro- 
 motion of measures designed to further the welfare of their 
 groups, and in resisting injurious measures. They keep each 
 other's counsels. They place opportunities in each other's 
 
THE NATURE OF THE GOOD CITIZEN 127 
 
 way. They pass on information which can be used. They 
 extend credit to each other on a more generous basis than 
 that granted to outsiders. They fix prices, ehminate com- 
 petition, make "gentlemen's" trade agreements, — and to 
 each other their word is their bond. As a matter of fact, it is 
 in the business world where one will find the highest ex- 
 amples of consistent and tenacious adherence to the social 
 standards of group ethics. When one seeks an example of 
 honesty that is unshakable, of fidelity to trust that is free 
 from the breath of every suspicion, one will find it most 
 frequently among the responsible leaders in the business 
 world. This is, however, to refer to but one side of their dual 
 ethical system. Opposed to them is the labor group and the 
 great body of consumers. These are alien groups; and in 
 proportion as they are conceived to be alien, the anti-social 
 predatory standard rises strong and becomes the rule of 
 action. Until recently they have had little care as to how 
 much they injure or destroy the laborer. They have refused 
 to install protective devices or to make factories sanitary 
 until they are compelled to do so. They have refused to cut 
 down hours and have been willing to work men in twelve- 
 or even sixteen-hour shifts without care as to the effects upon 
 them. They have given out false statements as to capitali- 
 zation, costs, expenses of production, profits, and in other 
 ways have sought to prevent the opposing labor organi- 
 zations from obtaining their rights. They have circulated 
 blacklists to keep out of their shops those who are especially 
 strenuous in fighting the battles of labor. They have placed 
 'provocateurs in the labor camps to discredit labor in the 
 eyes of the public. But in thus holding to one social standard 
 in their conduct toward each other, and to a wholly differ- 
 ent standard toward the laboring men, the employing class 
 is doing what is in the nature of the situation forced upon 
 them. Where such group oppositions exist, the rise of the 
 
128 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 two standards is inevitable. We must see the anti-social 
 opposition to labor's welfare as a sincere and honest adher- 
 ence to a dual ethical standard that the world has always 
 accepted; and which it yet accepts. It is human nature in 
 the face of social division. 
 
 Let the managerial groups lay down their oppositions un- 
 der present social conditions, and grant all that opposing la- 
 bor and consumer groups may demand, — and they but com- 
 mit economic suicide. "Big business," no more than labor, 
 is vicious or criminal. Our social problem is not a matter of 
 dealing with "malefactors of great wealth," but rather with 
 the maleficent results of society-in-division. The dwided- 
 ness is the malefactor. 
 
 Illustrations are as numerous as small groups. Take the 
 case of the corrupt political ring. Within such a group of 
 gray wolves there is a tremendous social solidarity. One 
 finds the social virtues blossoming as luxuriantly as they 
 can be found anywhere. There is loyalty and obedience to 
 the chief. Group secrets are kept inviolate. There is mu- 
 tual service within the group in the getting of offices, polit- 
 ical jobs, political contracts, access to the public crib, etc. 
 One hears endless praises of the leaders because of their help)- 
 fulness and never-ending kindness toward the individuals 
 of their class. In carrying forward these activities it matters 
 not to them how much they injure the welfare of the other 
 social groups. These are alien; and therefore legitimate prey. 
 
 In proportion as one's social vision and social conscious- 
 ness are limited to one's membership in the small group, 
 with ignorance of large-group existences and relationships, 
 one will hold to the primitive dual standard of conduct. 
 Though good to his friends, he is the undesirable citizen. 
 
 In proportion as one's social vision and social conscious- 
 ness are widened so that one comes to have a vivid con- 
 ception of one's membership in the large group, then the 
 
THE NATURE OF THE GOOD CITIZEN 129 
 
 anti-social attitudes and standards tend to fade and dis- 
 appear and to leave as the rule of conduct only the social 
 ethics of civilized humanity. Of this type is the good citizen 
 in a state of civilization. 
 
 Let one continue this line of thought and note the special 
 attitudes and antagonisms among business groups, political 
 parties, ecclesiastical organizations, medical and healing 
 groups, etc., each with its own special dual system of ethics, 
 and one can realize that in educating for citizenship we are 
 to prepare to deal with some very obdurate aspects of hu- 
 man nature; and with intractable institutionalized small- 
 group attitudes and traditions. If the training is to be vital, 
 not merely some remote hearsay affair, students need to be 
 brought into experiential contact with the realities them- 
 selves. That the training problems bristle with difficulties 
 is easily evident. Every one of these small groups stands 
 over against other small groups and equally against the 
 large group. Its ethics not only demands that it fight com- 
 petitor small groups, but that it also fight the large group 
 when the latter refuses to let it pursue its group-ends with- 
 out molestation. It therefore follows the dictates of virtue 
 when it fights education for large-group valuations. And 
 its blows have the vigor and persistence of sincerity; and 
 equally the underhandedness that is fully sanctioned as a 
 major virtue of the extra-group type. 
 
 Interdependence of specialized groups 
 
 We now come to the fourth level of our genetic story. 
 The differentiation of the national group into small func- 
 tional groups has as its obverse side the interdependence of 
 the small groups. This again welds the small groups into 
 a new and higher form of large-group solidarity. Each be- 
 comes dependent upon all the others; and the others depend- 
 ent upon it. The oneness of the specialized groups becomes 
 
130 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 as clear as the oneness of the bodily organism with its special- 
 ized members. As this recognition rises clear, consciousness 
 of membership within the large group becomes dominant 
 in the members of all of the specialized groups and the 
 extra-group attitudes of antagonism between constituent 
 classes disappear. All come to accept the intra-group stand- 
 ards as the rules of civic conduct; the extra-group standards 
 disappear; and good citizenship on the part of all is achieved. 
 This level of social evolution, this subjective good citizen- 
 ship which alone can bring the actual, has been but partially 
 reached. The climb is yet a toilsome one. But the speed that 
 we have recently been making, and the ease with which we 
 have been responding to newly recognized social obligation 
 promise great civic achievement in the years just ahead of 
 us. And since the problem at bottom is one of creating sub- 
 jective attitudes and valuations, it is mainly a problem for 
 the educational profession. And the first problem — a 
 most baffling one — is to draw up a curriculum that will 
 with certainty forge an enduring and vitalized large-group 
 consciousness. -• 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENLIGHTENED LARGE-GROUP 
 CONSCIOUSNESS 
 
 JThe problem of civic training is par excellence the develop)- A 
 ^ent of large-group consciousness. If men understand the 
 large-group social relations, and have right attitudes toward 
 each other and toward the social whole, these automatically 
 impel toward right action. Educatjoj ucdll develop the emo- 
 tional aspects of large-group consciousness for the sake of 
 propelling power; and the intellectual aspects for the sake 
 of guidance. 
 
 Let us first ask, How does one develop a genmne feeling of 
 membership in a social group, whether large or small .f^ There 
 seems to be but one method and that is, To think and feel and 
 ACT with t he group as a yart of it as it performs its activities 
 and strives to attain its ends. Individuals are fused into 
 coherent small groups, discordant small groups are fused 
 into the large internally-coop>erating group, when they act 
 together for common ends, with common vision, and with 
 united judgment. 
 
 Let us take for illustration that group-consciousness 
 called "college spirit." The high-school youth who has not 
 yet chosen his college is likely to have little or no interest 
 in the success or failure of any particular college athletic 
 team to which he sees reference in the daily press. But after 
 he has entered a particular college, and has come to partici- 
 pate in its affairs, then the situation is altogether changed. 
 His sympathies are with one group and with its team; and 
 the more strenuously he exerts himself in promoting its 
 welfare, the more keenly does he realize his common mem- 
 bership in the group, and the more willing does he become 
 
132 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 to sink personar self-interest for the welfare of his college 
 group. "College spirit'* is the flower and fruit of action. 
 This action may be of other types than athletic; but action 
 for common ends there must be or there is no healthy growth 
 of the sentiment of solidarity. 
 
 Merely to find one's self a passive member of a group is 
 not enough. The member of the college who does not 
 participate actively in its affairs remains cold, aloof, un- 
 sympathetic. He does not fuse with the group. College 
 spirit does not and cannot grow in such soil. And the prin- 
 ciple is of universal application. The man who is passively 
 made a member of a church or political organization, but 
 who never does anything by way of promoting the common 
 purposes of the group, will never attain any vital conscious- 
 ness of membership in the organization. Like a piece of 
 cold iron that cannot be welded, he remains detached, sepa- 
 rate, apart. Man finds his normal social life only in action; 
 and he attains a realization of his normal relationships only 
 through, action. 
 
 One of the arguments in favor of nayonal wars is that 
 more than anything else they cement national solidarity. 
 This is because they represent group-action of the most 
 strenuous and the most fully emotionalized type: actions 
 and emotions that lie close to elemental instincts. The sub- 
 stitute for war that civilization is to find must have as its 
 major ingredient group-action that is strenuous and emo- 
 tionalized. Wanting this, there can be no effective and 
 abiding national solidarity. The substitute need not equal 
 war in its momentary power; for what it lacks in power may 
 be made up in continuity of action. 
 
 Reconstruction of experience through language 
 
 The political groups of which one is a member are State- 
 wide, Nation-wide. One's occupational or rehgious group is 
 
LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 133 
 
 no less widely distributed. Clearly one can never observe 
 his whole group directly; nor in his participation come into 
 contact with more than a tiny fragment of the total-group 
 labors. For width of vision and of contacts, therefore, one 
 needs methods that are not so much limited by space and 
 time relations. Hence, we must note the place of indirect 
 or vicarious observation and participation through reading. 
 
 To resume our example, a college student may develop 
 a large degree of college spirit and yet actually see and in 
 the flesh perform but a very small portion of the common 
 action. Kept away from it by other duties or by enforced 
 absence, he may enter into it all through participative imag- 
 ination as he reads the current happenings in the college 
 paper. During such reading, he is lost to actual time and 
 place, and for the moment dwells in the midst of the group- 
 action. As a shadow-member of the group, he participates 
 in all that is going on. He wishes and wills and hopes and 
 feels and becomes emotionally heated like those actually in 
 the fray — especially if he can also talk to somebody about 
 it, and thus actively and socially stir the inner fires. By 
 such means, his spirit is warmed and shaped, — his group)- 
 attitudes, valuations, and sense of soHdarity. 
 
 Now, as a matter of fact, in a large institution most col- 
 lege students do not actually see or enter into much of the 
 activity. They only hear about it through conversation and 
 reading. In the case of one's national political party, or of 
 the rehgious denomination to which one belongs, this re- 
 moteness of the individual and his dependence upon report 
 is much more pronounced. And still more so is it in the case 
 of the all-embracing national group. The normal mode of 
 participation in the affairs of the very large group involves 
 the doing of but a tiny fragment of the labors of the whole, 
 and of seeing but little more with the eyes of sense. But 
 as one sees and does the little, with his inner vision he sees 
 
134 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 the whole as he reads, and feels himself a member of the total 
 group and performing a part of its action. 
 
 We must carry this thought one step farther. One*s 
 participation in the group-activity instead of being one per 
 cent objective and ninety-nine per cent subjective, may, 
 without noticeable change of character, be one hundred 
 per cent subjective. Let one take, for example, a good nar- 
 rative account of the Persian wars of the Greeks. This 
 reconstructs subjectively the experience of the armies of 
 Miltiades and Leonidas just as clearly as our current press 
 reconstructs for our subjective participation the action of 
 yesterday of our political party, our church, or our own 
 national group. We can enter into the action with the same 
 completeness and abandon. Language reconstructs the dis- 
 tant past with the same ease and clearness as the past of 
 but an hour ago; action on the other side of the earth, as 
 easily as that on the next street. 
 
 Language is preeminently the organ of social vision. With 
 the eyes of sense one sees but a little way, and sees but frag- 
 ments of group-action; even within one's own town. But 
 language lifts the curtain upon all the earth. It enables 
 one to see and know and relive all typ)es of human experience. 
 If the record is everywhere equally complete, the things are 
 seen without the distortion of visual perspective which 
 makes near things large and far things small. Civic educa- 
 tion must, therefore, make large us e of reading t hat is con- 
 crete enough to permit vicaiioiiS42artiei2ative' experience. 
 
 The creation of a large-group consciousness 
 
 Now, how do citizens act together in large-group ways? 
 And how can children and youth participate in such action, 
 so as to become fused in consciousness with the large group .'^ 
 
 Let us begin with the national group, since the problems 
 are in many respects simpler than in the case of the munici- 
 
LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 135 
 
 pal or other local group. Our national group for some gen- 
 erations has had its separate identity in the always quarrel- 
 some family of nations. For the maintenance of its political 
 existence it has had to hold itself at least reasonably united 
 against foreign aggression. Occasionally it has had to act. 
 At the present moment the Nation is engaged in such a life- 
 and-death struggle. For the promotion of its material wel- 
 fare, it has had as a national group to compete with other 
 aggressive commercial nations in the markets of the earth. 
 For preventing schism and internal disintegration it has 
 often had to array itself actively against States and special- 
 ized groups and to force them to subordinate their special 
 interests to the greater good of the whole. It has had cease- 
 lessly to keep a strong hand up>on the activities of powerful 
 special groups, always actively or potentially predatory; 
 and in the nature of the case this must always continue. It 
 has long fought, and is always fighting, at the gateways of 
 our land, with the things that cause disease in man and 
 beast and plant; and this warfare grows in intensity, and 
 can never cease. In regions of flood, aridity, and obstructed 
 navigation, upon dangerous reefs and shores, in the national 
 forests, and otherwhere and in many ways, we are as a 
 national group making war against the adverse forces of 
 Nature. Within recent years our national group is seen to 
 be girding itself for war upon national ignorance, national 
 weakness, national inefficiency of many kinds. 
 
 When teachers are asked how to improve the teaching 
 of our national history they frequently say, " Omit or abbre- 
 viate the wars.*' But in the above enumeration, it will be 
 observed that most acftion can be expressed in terms of con- 
 flict. Life, whether individual or national, especially the 
 serious part of it, is largely made up of overcoming obstacles, 
 Man's serious life is mainly a battle with opposing forces. 
 These may be men or animals, disease or ignorance, winter 
 
 i 
 
136 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 or famine, or powerful forces of Nature. But fight them he 
 must; and he lives mainly in the fight, — so far as his seri- 
 ous moments are concerned. And even his best play is the 
 mock-fight. 
 
 To participate actively in the wars of the national group 
 is to act with it when its action is most strenuous and when 
 its solidarity is most conscious. Let youth, therefore, mingle 
 with the group at such times and they will then rapidly and 
 effectively take on a vitalized nationalistic consciousness. 
 For this reason, let youth continue to refight the colonial 
 wars, the Revolutionary War, and the later wars with Eng- 
 land, Spain, Mexico, and the Indian tribes. Let the accounts 
 of these fights be so presented that youth can refight them 
 in that spirited, intense, and whole-hearted way that is^ 
 congenial to its hot blood; and which is necessary for firing 
 the enthusiasms of youth and for indissolubly fusing the 
 individual into conscious and acquiescent membership in 
 the national group. The "man without a country" is the 
 man who has never fought with his group for his group. 
 Since the historical account is to be used primarily as a 
 means of reconstructing the group experience, the reading 
 must not be simply an abstract sociological and political 
 analysis of conditions, of causes and effects, etc.; and dull 
 chronological record of happenings. The purpose should be 
 living; and learning through living. If the group-life of those 
 stirring times is relived in the right way, there will be no 
 dearth of proper learning. 
 
 This reconstruction of experience requires that the whole 
 national fight be presented from the point of view of the 
 participants upon one side. When one relives the fight, he 
 has to be on one side or the other. If he is neutral, then he 
 is not reliving the fight. He is an idle bystander. He will not 
 be warmed by vicarious participation. His consciousness 
 will not be effectively nationahzed. He will remain a man 
 
LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 137 
 
 without a country. This need of taking the point of view of 
 the participants on one side or the other is intuitively 
 recognized by the writers of our textbooks and by teachers 
 in their discussion. Its purpose must be seen and the method 
 made conscious, however, because of the demand often 
 voiced that historical presentation, on even the concrete 
 levels, be coldly scientific, and look at the actions of all sides 
 equally and without sympathy. Our apparently contrary 
 suggestion does not imply any deviation from exact his- 
 torical truth in the presentation. It is only to recognize the 
 principle of perspective; and the local and partial nature of 
 all active experience. The participants on one side in a bat- 
 tle, let us say, may see the whole action truly, — from their 
 side, — and yet have a different vision, different object- 
 ives and emotional experiences from those of their oppo- 
 nents. It is true, in entering sympathetically into the ex- 
 periences of one side and not that of both at the same 
 time, the experience is partial. But no method has yet 
 been found of entering into the experiences of both sides 
 at once. 
 
 As a matter of fact, if the reconstruction of the actual 
 experience of the participants in the action is to be vera- 
 cious, then it must be partial. The incomplete vision dis- 
 torted by perspective, the sympathies for the one side and 
 the antipathies for the other were just as much realities of 
 the period as the objective action. Their revelation must be 
 as adequate in the reconstructed experience or it will not 
 accurately reproduce the original conditions. 
 
 The preventive of exaggerated and intolerant nationalism 
 which might result from a disproportionate amount of 
 sympathetic experience upon the one side is not at bottom 
 to look with cold, impersonal scientific eye uj>on the nations; 
 but rather at different times to relive the experiences as 
 presented from both points of view. That is to say, let stu- 
 
138 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 dents relive the experiences of the Revolutionary War as 
 accurately presented from the British point of view; im- 
 aginatively traveling and associating with the British armies 
 and unconsciously taking on its valuations and aspirations 
 and seeing everything from its side. This was just as much 
 a part of the actual experience of the times. Let the student 
 read the history of the Mexican War as a shadow-member of 
 the army of Santa Ana, and thus see the war through 
 Mexican eyes. This is just as true a view of it as the one 
 from the American side. 
 
 Not only can a sound nationalism be developed experi- 
 entially, but also the corrective to exaggeration can be ex- 
 perientially developed. And in the two processes the expe- 
 riential foundation is laid for a tolerant social consciousness 
 that is wider than the national; and which can look equally 
 and impersonally upon all sides. 
 
 Let the program of conflict, however, be no narrow one of 
 military wars alone. Let there be far fuller experience on the 
 part of youth in the Nation's economic struggle for the 
 world's markets. This is going on at the present time. It has 
 been going on these hundred years or more. Let youth read 
 a spirited history of our American merchant marine; of the 
 contest we have made in the markets of South America, 
 China, Russia, Australia, the Philippines, etc.; and of our 
 struggle to keep our home markets for our home producers 
 as against foreign competition. Let the present aspects of 
 this economic struggle be made to stand out clear by giving 
 full space to the last decade or two. Naturally the student's 
 participative experience in this economic struggle must come 
 later in the course than the military struggles. 
 
 The corrective to vision so as to prevent distorted social 
 perspective is to read also vivid accounts of British com- 
 merce from their point of view; of French commerce from 
 their angle of vision; of Japanese commerce, etc. 
 
LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 139 
 
 A still larger program of experience should relate to the 
 large-group conflict involved in its control of powerful in- 
 ternal interests: railroad corporations, manufacturing, 
 mining, and commercial organizations, financial classes, 
 capitalist and labor groups, poKtical spoilsmen, etc. Stu- 
 dents, perhaps on the high-school level, need to read, for 
 example, the history of railroad regulation. This should 
 reveal the self-seeking character in the past of those power- 
 ful organizations. It should present an extended story of 
 the concrete ways in which they have tried, often success- 
 fully, to over-reach the public; and of the fight made by the 
 public by way of resisting such powerful predatory attacks. 
 Like all the rest, this, too, should be no dull sociological 
 chronology and analysis, but a living reconstruction of 
 spirited group-conflict. And it needs to be seen with the 
 perspective of the large-group point of view. The purpose 
 being the development of the wider community conscious- 
 ness as opposed to that of the specialized group, this wider 
 consciousness that made the fight originally must be re- 
 constructed and reexperienced in the youthful fighter. He 
 will be thereby shaped for that continuing general commu- 
 nity consciousness that must continue the fight in whatever 
 form it may nowadays arise. Having thus fought the rail- 
 roads in the past, he thus takes on the racial experience, so 
 to speak, in the community handling of them. 
 
 "But the railroads perform indisj>ensable services; and 
 they have rights proportioned to those services," one says. 
 "Therefore these matters should not be seen from just one 
 side." This is all very true. And in chapter X we presented 
 a part of the plan of training men to do full justice; namely, 
 reading a sympathetic presentation of the history of rail- 
 road development and labors written from their point of 
 view. Each type of account is then a corrective for the 
 special perspective of the other. In either case the student 
 
140 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 is called upon to take sides. But not to take a side is not to 
 enter the action; and therefore not to have experience — 
 neither large-group nor small-group. To attain the large- 
 group attitudes and valuations and understanding, he must 
 fight the large-group battle, from its point of view; and stren- 
 uously. But to correct the distortion of perspective, he must 
 at another time, in this vicarious way, also fight the small- 
 group battle against the large-group; and with the same vigor 
 and single-mindedness. The two sides are to be known, not 
 by sitting on the fence and disinterestedly observing both, 
 but by plunging in, first on one side and then on the other, 
 and learning each side by experiencing it. 
 
 The problem is closely analogous to that of visual per- 
 spective. As one looks out on the landscape his image is a 
 distortion. He sees near things large and clear and solid; 
 and far things small and dim and unreal. The corrective 
 is change of position. Let him go to the far things and re- 
 new his observations. He sees the things reversed. Observ- 
 ing from both points of view he arrives at true valuations as 
 to all the things. An omniscient eye might see all things 
 truly and without distortion from a single point of view. But 
 human eyes cannot. Man's view is always partial view, to 
 be corrected by change in the position from which he makes 
 observation. We do not say a painting is untrue because it 
 involves the visual illusion of persp>ective. Quite the reverse, 
 it is untrue when it neglects perspective. 
 
 In arguing that the partiality of actual experience shall ex- 
 ist in reconstructed educational experience, the ends in view 
 are justice and fairness and the balanced judgment. We 
 are to recognize that we are dealing with two forms of bias, 
 both inherently necessary, the maleficent results of which 
 are to be avoided by developing both in the same minds 
 in ways that permit each to correct the other. The experi- 
 ence also lays the foundation of concreteness needed for the 
 
LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 141 
 
 problem-solving and scientific generalizations that involve 
 seeing all sides clearly and impartially. Only those who 
 have experienced all sides are provided with the materials 
 necessary for sound generalizations. This alone can bring 
 them into vital contacts with essential realities without 
 which problem-solving is impossible and generalizations but 
 empty verbalities. It gives them the substance and mate- 
 rials of thought before they are called upon to think. 
 
 Finally, there is another inspiring type of national con- 
 flict, namely, the ceaseless and ever-strenuous warfare with 
 the hostile or reluctant forces of Nature. This is a battle 
 that takes place mainly through the speciaHzed activities of 
 occupational groups. But the national story can be written 
 so as to show these specialized groups as arms of the large 
 group. Many things also have been undertaken in a na- 
 tional way: lighthouse and life-saving service, national 
 forest service, the weather bureau, quarantine and health 
 service, the flood control, river navigation, the fight upon 
 noxious insects, etc. Let students read the full story of these 
 important national undertakings, and they are further ex- 
 perienced in taking the national point of view. And the 
 greater the width and intensity of this experience, the more 
 intense becomes their national-group consciousness. 
 
 Large-group munidpal consciousness 
 
 In one's city, for example, the good citizen is one who 
 habitually looks to the general municipal good. He has a 
 municipal consciousness, so to speak, instead of a special 
 partisan one. 
 
 Now, education must use the same general formula for de- 
 veloping this type of mind. Particip ative experience ^ must 
 be the basisjif it^l. Yout h must ad as a member of the 
 lafge^unicipal group. As he sees its ends from the large- 
 group point oi view, and helps in the fight against the oppos- 
 
142 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 ing forces, he takes on the lar^ 
 understanding. 
 
 Our first question must naturally relate to the things that 
 a well-trained adult generation is supposed to be doing in 
 uts municipal civic capacity. Youth's best civic education 
 [then must come from particip ation along with ad ults in these 
 activities. In the following unclassified list we have pre- 
 sented a few of the matters for which the entire body of 
 citizens, old and young, adult and adolescent, are respon- 
 sible: — 
 
 1. Keeping the city clean. 
 
 2. Making the city sanitary. 
 
 3. Making the city beantiful. 
 
 4. Care of the city's trees, shrubbery, and grass-plots. 
 
 5. Preventing the smoke evil. 
 
 6. Prevention of flies and mosquitoes. 
 
 7. Destruction of tree- and plant-destroying insects. 
 
 8. Care of insect-destroying birds. 
 
 9. Disposal of sewage, ashes, rubbish, etc. 
 
 10. Providing a clean and pure water-supply. 
 
 11. Providing suitable paving for all streets and alleys. 
 
 12. Cleaning and lighting all streets and alleys. 
 
 13. Providing for safe and rapid transportation about the city. 
 
 14. Regulating street traffic. 
 
 15. Providing play-opportunities for the children. 
 
 16. Providing adult recreational facilities. 
 
 17. Providing and maintaining a school plant. 
 
 18. Educating the children. 
 
 19. Providing for a sanitary milk-supply. 
 
 20. Seeing that all food production and distribution is sanitary. 
 
 21. Protecting the city from fire. 
 
 22. Protecting life and property. 
 
 23. Care of the incapacitated. 
 
 24. Regulation for the public weal of all public utilit^v corpora- 
 tions, markets, factories, stores, trades, amusem(;nts agen- 
 cies, etc. 
 
 25. Getting these and all other like cociperative actiA ities done 
 at a proper cost. 
 
LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 148 
 
 26. Securing from each a proper character of service. 
 
 27. Currently inspecting the conditions of each type of service. 
 
 28. Currently inspecting the results obtained. 
 
 29. Currently seeing that justice is done each specialized group: 
 that it is supplied with all its needs, — not more and not less. 
 
 30. Current inspection of municipal or general community needs 
 — so as to keep service always adjusted to actual needs. 
 
 The list is not exhaustive. It intends only to present types 
 of cooperative tasks tl^at the civic community is, or ought 
 to be, currently performing. Some of the tasks are performed 
 by all citizens. Some are delegated to specialized individuals 
 and groups, the citizen's current duty being to supervise 
 the labors; to make and to keep them effective. In some of 
 the cases the citizen performs part, and he delegates part. 
 
 But whether he directly performs the functions or dele- 
 gates them, he has his community inspectorial function to 
 perform. It must be confessed that the technique of the 
 citizen's civic functions has not yet been well developed. 
 Citizens are actually doing all of the things mentioned; but 
 often doing them badly, because they have never been taught 
 or practiced in better ways. Much we hear nowadays con- 
 cerning the technical inefficiency of workmen; but the 
 technical inefficiency of the citizen in the performance of his 
 civic functions is immeasurably greater. The workman 
 knows what he is after, and has a good deal of technical 
 knowledge as to what to do, even though but nile-of -thumb. 
 But as a citizen, his ideas are very vague as to what he is 
 after; and technical knowledge as to what constitutes effi- 
 cient civic service and as to methods of holding his fellow 
 citizens and their agents responsible for efficient performance 
 is very small indeed. 
 
 Youth and adulthood need to act together in the per- 
 formance of these functions — for the secure training of 
 youth. But the problem is greatly complicated for educa- 
 
144 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 tion by the fact that adulthood is almost as much in need 
 of training as youth itself. Part-time activity is a super- 
 lative training device in the occupational world; we need an 
 exactly analogous training method, in the larger civic field. 
 But when we look about to find men acting together con- 
 sciously in performing their cooperative activities effectively 
 in ways in which youth may be permitted to mingle, except 
 for an occasional voting to-day, it is difficult to locate any- 
 thing but haphazard and miscellany. Men seem to have 
 got the impression, and women, too, that the primitive art 
 of voting unintelligently is the major function of the citizen. 
 Naturally it is not advisable to organize part-time activity 
 in voting unintelligently. 
 
 The National Education Association Committee on the 
 Teaching of Community Civics expresses clearly the need 
 of participative or part-time civic activity on the part of 
 youth. The committee writes: — 
 
 / The pupil as a young citizen is a real factor in community af- 
 / fairs. His cooperation in many phases of community life is quite 
 / as important as that of the adult. He may help in forming public 
 I opinion, not only among his mates, but in the home and in the 
 \ community at large. 
 
 I Therefore it is a task of the teacher to cultivate in the pupil a 
 / sense of his responsibility, present as well as future. 
 
 If a citizen has an interest in civic matters and a sense of his 
 personal responsibility, he will want to act. 
 
 Therefore the teacher must help the pupil to express his con- 
 victions in word and deed. He must be given an opportunity, as 
 far as possible, to live his civics both in the school and m the com- 
 munity outside. 
 
 It will be necessary for school people among others to 
 take the lead in developing the technique and the practice 
 of civic p)erformance in our cities and other local commu- 
 nities. Just as it has been our educational institutions that 
 have taken the lead in improving both the theory and the 
 
LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 145 
 
 practice of agriculture and of many other occupations, so 
 must they also point, and in practice show, the way to civic 
 effectiveness. It is needed for the education of all the peo- 
 ple, adolescent and adult. 
 
 To begin with, citizens of a given city must know what 
 ^hey need. Do they need street paving that is twenty, forty, 
 or sixty feet wide? Or do they need one width in one portion 
 of the city and another width in another portion? And if 
 so, what widths, and where? Do they need one thousand 
 candle-power to the mile of street-lighting? or five thousand? 
 or twenty thousand? Should the city water system supply a 
 daily twenty-five gallons per capita? Or should it be one 
 hundred gallons, or three hundred gallons? In the play- 
 grounds fiu*nished their children, should there be twenty 
 square feet per child, or fifty, or one hundred? In the city 
 health service, do they need twenty-five cents' worth each 
 year per capitay or a dollar's worth, or five dollars' worth? 
 In the maintenance of the fire department or the police 
 department, do they need the services of one man for each 
 five hundred people? or one for each one thousand, two 
 thousand, or five thousand people? If a large number is 
 needed, what are the reasons? If a small number, why is 
 the city so fortunate? Does the city need one high-school 
 teacher for each fifteen pupils, or each twenty-five, or each 
 thirty-five? How many food inspectors does the city need 
 per thousand places that require inspection? How many 
 school medical examiners and school nurses per thousand 
 pupils? For an effective performance of civic inspectorial 
 functions how many civic centers are needed for each ten 
 thousand population, and how many hours of regularly 
 scheduled community meetings are desirable? In the mat- 
 ter of public hospital facilities, does the city need one bed 
 per five hundred population? Or should it be one for each 
 thousand, or twenty-five hundred? A city cannot perform 
 
146 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 any civic function effectively and economically until it 
 knows what it needs, — and in definite terms. 
 
 Is it possible to find out what people need in these and all 
 the other things? It is easily possible to arrive at approx- 
 imations that can serve until more accurate standards are 
 available. Take the matter of the water-supply. The ac- 
 companying table shows the number of gallons per capita 
 used daily in a number of large cities in 1912. 
 
 Per capita daily use of water in certain cities of Europe and 
 America, 1912 
 
 No 
 gallons 
 
 Buffalo 310 
 
 Chicago 225 
 
 Pittsburgh 218 
 
 Philadelphia 208 
 
 Boston 130 
 
 Baltimore 115 
 
 St. Louis 107 
 
 Cleveland. 102 
 
 New York 100 
 
 Paris 63 
 
 Hamburg 42 
 
 London 40 
 
 Liverpool 38 
 
 Amsterdam 35 
 
 Copenhagen 27 
 
 Dresden 25 
 
 Berlin 20 
 
 There is nothing for beginning this type of study that 
 is quite comparable in value to an array of facts. The table 
 does not show conclusively just the amount of water-supply 
 needed. But it gives one a few ideas to start with. All of 
 
LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 147 
 
 these cities are reasonably clean and sanitary — on the 
 basis of 1912 standards. But it will be noticed that New York 
 does as well on a hundred gallons per capita as Philadelphia 
 on two hundred, or Buffalo on three hundred. When one 
 notes that New York's figures are corroborated by those of 
 other large cities like Cleveland and St. Louis, it appears 
 at least probable that a hundred gallons per capita is enough 
 to meet human needs in large American cities, and that there 
 was large waste in the four cities at the top of the list. 
 
 After a city has determined the amoimts of things needed, 
 the next question for the learning citizen, adult or adoles- 
 cent, is : What price should he paid ? 
 
 To take a specific case from another field, What price per 
 thousand cubic feet should be paid for illuminating and 
 fuel gas in our cities? The following table presents one type 
 of facts needed: — 
 
 Price to families of gas per 1000 cubic feet, 1912 
 
 Jacksonville $1 . 25 
 
 Charleston, South Caroliaa 1 .20 
 
 Reading 1.10 
 
 Harrisburgh 1 . 10 
 
 Philadelphia 1.00 
 
 Omaha 1 .00 
 
 Buffalo 1.00 
 
 Rochester 05 
 
 Richmond 90 
 
 Washington 85 
 
 Pittsburgh 85 
 
 New York 80 
 
 Chicago 80 
 
 Boston 80 
 
 Cleveland 75 
 
 Duluth 75 
 
148 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 Toledo 70 
 
 St. Louis 60 
 
 Milwaukee 60 
 
 Grand Rapids 50 
 
 Detroit 50 
 
 A civic group, juvenile or adult, with such a table before 
 them, will probably conclude that there is something that 
 needs looking into. Conditions in different cities are differ- 
 ent, and costs should be correspondingly different; but it is 
 highly improbable that conditions demand such variety of 
 prices as here exhibited. If Detroit is properly supplied, 
 and the price just, at fifty cents, why must Buffalo pay 
 twice as much? If sixty cents is correct for a city some- 
 what remote from the coal-supply like Milwaukee, why 
 must a city in the coal region like Reading pay almost twice 
 as much? 
 
 With such a table as a starting-point, those studying the 
 problem in each city will get such facts as the following for 
 their own city, and for each of the other cities that are 
 used for comparison : — 
 
 1. The amount of investment in the plant per unit of gas de- 
 livered. 
 
 2. Interest, dividends, and taxes, paid per unit of output. 
 S. Cost of maintenance of the plant per unit of output. 
 
 4. Cost of operation per unit. , ' 
 
 5. Percentage of cost returned from the by-products. 
 
 6. Price made to the large consumers. 
 
 7. Price made to the small consumers. 
 
 Some inkling can now be had of our meaning when we 
 said that educational people need to lead in the performance 
 of civic functions. In a representative democracy like ours 
 the major function of the people as citizens is the per- 
 formance of the inspectorial function. Most of their coop- 
 erative labors they will delegate ,to speciaHzed employees. 
 
LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 149 
 
 But they can never delegate to anybody the function of ex- 
 amining the labors thus performed for them and pronounc- 
 ing final judgment as to whether satisfactory. This they 
 must do for themselves. But generally they have not the 
 facts. They do not know where or how to get them. And 
 not knowing the need oi facts as the basis of all government, 
 they have not even asked for them; and do not yet greatly 
 appreciate their values, even when set before them. One 
 never knows the value of a thing till he has tried it. 
 
 Citizens need to have such arrays of facts set before them 
 in civic meetings, in bulletins, and in the public press. 
 Their agents who are responsible for the labors need thus 
 to render accounts of their stewardship. However presented 
 the matters need to be taken up in civic meetings for 
 discussion, comparison, explanation, justification, etc. Out 
 of such discussion, clarified and enlightened public opinion 
 grows; and this it is that lies at the basis of all effective 
 performance of the inspectorial function. 
 
 Adults at present are not much more capable of dis- 
 cussing many of these matters than the young people in 
 grammar grades and high school. They have less leisure for 
 the purpose. And they lack the trained and paid intellectual 
 and social leadership that is supplied the young people in 
 their teachers. But adults are just as much in need of sys- 
 tem, organization, and leadership for their thinking. Until 
 society has evolved a profession of inspectorial leadership, 
 — now in the making, as revealed in our bureaus of muni- 
 cipal research, etc., — this task falls naturally to the two 
 professions of education and journalism. And in large part 
 at least, perhaps chiefly, it must always remain with them. 
 
 Now, in ways which we shall explain more fully as we pro- 
 ceed, it is possible for teachers to interest the young people 
 in these civic problems; to use them as fact-gatherers and 
 fact-organizers for the total commimity; and to have them 
 
150 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 present the facts in the community meetings made up of 
 both adults and young people. These students can search the 
 reports of their own and other cities and draw up the tables 
 of comparative and other facts. They can prepare charts, 
 maps, diagrams, exhibits, etc., that will reveal a wide range 
 of well-organized facts for the topic under discussion. They 
 can make systematic surveys of their own town by way of 
 bringing a wealth of concrete facts to the discussion. They 
 can make surveys of sanitary conditions, street-cleaning, 
 street-paving, garbage disposal, breeding-places of flies, the 
 city's trees, billboards, smoke, fire protection, distribu- 
 tion of police over the city, distribution of public recreational 
 opportunities, the milk-supply, water-supply, etc. 
 
 In connection with such surveys no finer practical task 
 can be devised than the making of survey maps — each one 
 carrying its information and its lesson to the public-spirited 
 citizen. They can make health maps, recreation maps, 
 street-paving maps, street-cleaning maps, street-lighting 
 maps, crime maps, tree maps, maps showing breeding-places 
 of flies and mosquitoes, etc. Along with the map-making 
 they can make exhibits, models, diagrams, pictures, statis- 
 tical charts, etc. 
 
 They can do it all for the practical purpose of rightly 
 forming and influencing public opinion on the basis of ob- 
 jective evidence. This is the most fundamental and prac- 
 tical civic task involved in the citizen's major function of 
 inspectorial supervision. In doing this the young people 
 are engaged in civic part-time work. They are dealing with 
 actual things. The motivation is not make-believe. It is 
 that of real life. They are bearing responsibility for actual 
 labors that they can see need to be performed. They are 
 working in conjunction with adults, under their leader- 
 ship and direction. It is real work. It is not play-civics of 
 the. mock-court, mock-congress type. The motives are the 
 
LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 151 
 
 same as those that control adults — in the fact-gathering, 
 the fact-presentation, and in the judgments arrived at. 
 
 But the facts are inaccessible? Often they are; specialized 
 groups like to keep them hidden because they know the 
 bludgeoning power of facts when applied to the inspec- 
 torial supervision of themselves. But at the present time 
 there are huge quantities of accessible facts that are not being 
 utilized. But they lack significance, we are then told, unless 
 we have similar facts from other cities for tables of compari- 
 son. And they say that while school people may get the 
 facts relative to their own city, they cannot secure them 
 from other cities. The objection is but the voice of inertia. 
 Let a wide-awake body of teachers in each of fifty cities 
 gather pertinent facts for their own city. Let them send 
 these facts to each of the other forty-nine cities. Then all 
 will have the facts for the fifty cities. Most of the actual work 
 of collecting the facts can be performed by the students 
 themselves. They can do the sending, the receiving, and 
 draw up the comparative tables. Better educational ex- 
 perience for them cannot be devised. It is a continuing task 
 to be done year after year. 
 
 Civic training in the schools can be healthy and virile 
 only as it involves the things that are being striven for by 
 the community. It must be an_ OTganic part of the tptal 
 civic striving of the community. In proportion as the school 
 isolates itself from the community and finds mere textbook 
 matters of study that are in no wise related to the condi- 
 tions within the city, the school work drifts from its proper 
 moorings and loses its educational effectiveness. 
 
 In addition to the ways mentioned, another method of 
 keeping the school civic work grounded in reality is to make 
 the schools, as fully as possible, the civic forums of the city 
 — especially the high school. For example, when the topic 
 of street-paving is being considered in the high-school civics 
 
152 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 class, the chairman of the committee of the city comicil 
 which has charge of this particular work, the commissioner 
 of streets, or the chief of the bureau of public works, should 
 be invited to discuss the situation before the high school. 
 When the subject of taxes is taken up, the chairman of the 
 finance committee of the city council, the tax collector, or 
 the chairman of the finance committee of the school board, 
 should be invited to discuss the problems of taxation. 
 When the topic is community sanitation, then it is the board 
 of health and its inspectors who have an opportunity of dis- 
 seminating the necessary sanitary information. Nearly 
 all civic functions are delegated. The man to whom any 
 function is delegated is the one who should feel responsible 
 for keeping the public enlightened as to his work. It is nec- 
 essary for his own effectiveness, and for the success of his 
 labors in the community. 
 
 This plan is incomplete if the report is to be made only 
 to the high-school students. The information that these 
 men have should be for the whole community. Yet here 
 within the school we have segregated only the children and 
 youth of the community. Those to whom the information 
 should primarily be given, namely, the adult leaders of 
 the community, are not present. The officials are report- 
 ing, not to the men who hold them responsible, but only 
 to the children; and in a comparatively artificial situation. 
 They cannot talk to the youth of the city in normal fashion 
 if they are talking only to youth in isolation. They can talk 
 normally only as they are addressing the adult leaders of 
 the city, their peers, tho^e to whom they owe their respon- 
 sibility. The children can then hear and learn in normal 
 fashion. Youth must learn in large measure, not from being 
 addressed directly, but from listening to adulthood talking 
 to adulthood. It is for youth one of the normal modes of 
 participation in adult affairs. 
 
LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 153 
 
 It may be objected that youth has a right to its own life 
 at this age, and ought not to be caught up in the wheels of 
 serious adult responsibilities; that it has a right to a long 
 season of rosy-hued irresponsibility before being condemned 
 to these things that belong to the somber gray of the adult 
 world. In reply, let us say that it is in mingling in the full 
 life of the world as made up of childhood, youth, maturity, 
 and old age, in which youth finds its fullest and best life. 
 They have not only the right, but the duty, of play of an 
 abundant and varied character. This we emphasize fully 
 in other portions of our discussion. But youthful partici- 
 pation in adult activities from infancy onward is really one 
 of the most satisfying and most beneficent forms of play. 
 They do not give up life in having something in it besides 
 the purposeless. Rather do they find it. 
 
 Other concrete civic activities 
 
 \l The chief part-time civic work of youth will be participa- 
 [tion in inspectorial activities; because this is also the adult's 
 major civic activity. But there are certain other community 
 activities not yet placed entirely in specialized hands. And 
 of those so specialized, there are certain ones in which 
 youthful participation is possible. 
 
 Children can aid in tree-planting and in tree-care — an 
 extension of the Arbor-Day spirit to three hundred and sixty- 
 five days in the year. They can study intensively the kinds 
 j/of trees and shrubbery best suited to the city's needs and 
 conditions in its various portions — modes of securing them, 
 of planting them, and of protecting them from drought, 
 insects, and other enemies. They can be organized to carry 
 out the various steps of the labor in both the planting and 
 the year-long protection. 
 
 ** Clean-up week," like Arbor Day, is being institution- 
 alized for the training of children. While this annual spring 
 
154 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 renovation is an excellent civic opportunity and should be 
 vigorously carried on, even better training comes from year- 
 long interest and attention to the need, by way of prevent- 
 ing a goodly portion of the accumulated rubbish. 
 
 As conditions change, as work becomes specialized, and 
 as groups grow large, this "community chore-service" is 
 coming to take the place of a portion, at least, of the family 
 chore-service performed by children in past generations. In 
 our professional literature nowadays we read of a consider- 
 able variety of possible community activities : — 
 
 1. City beautification. 
 
 2. Care and protection of birds. 
 
 3. Anti-fly campaigns. 
 
 4. Anti-mosquito campaigns. 
 
 5. The fight on weeds. 
 
 6. Cleaning up vacant lots. 
 
 7. Patrolling railroad and street-car crossings at the hours when 
 kindergarten and primary children are going to and from 
 school. 
 
 8. Constructing community property: ice-boxes for poor-relief; 
 tables, cabinets, book-cases, work-benches, desks, stage 
 scenery, printed helps, textbooks, etc., for the school; bird- 
 houses for parks and streets; rubbish -receptacles for streets; 
 playground equipment and apparatus for school and park 
 systems; etc. 
 
 9. Making minor repairs on public property. 
 
 10. Fighting fires in villages where there is no specialized fire 
 department. 
 
 11. Raising and delivering flowers to the sick and the aged. 
 
 12. Looking after the sanitary aspects of schoolrooms, recrea- 
 tive places, etc. 
 
 13. Decoration of school-buildings. 
 
 14. The community labors of Boy Scouts, Camp-Fire Girls, 
 Juvenile Civic Leagues, etc. 
 
 15. Clearing the snow from sidewalks and paths; and sprinkling 
 sand or ashes on icy sidewalks. 
 
 By way of showing the practical man*s attitude toward 
 
LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 155 
 
 this problem we quote the following words from an editorial 
 in one of our metropolitan newspap>ers, entitled "Citizen- 
 ship and the Schools " : — 
 
 The public school has been less effective than it might and 
 should have been. It has laid most of its emphasis on information, 
 little or none on will and moral relations. In short, the public 
 school needs drastic modernization to make it a practical and eflS- 
 cient instrument of at least rudimentary good citizenship. ... It 
 must take upon its broad shoulders a large burden. It rrrnst make 
 itself rather a civic gymnasiumy a social drill-yard for soldiers of peace 
 who march forward. 
 
 These civi c labors of youth, like the inspectorial ones 
 previously mentioned, must not b e things detaqhy i and 
 isolated from the life^ofjthe generaf communityli^^^e chil- 
 dren must see and feel their labors to be but a delegated 
 part of a serious community responsibility of which the 
 adults are carrying l:he major portion of thejoad. Other- 
 wise their efforts will be but irresponsible make-believe; and 
 soon degenerate or disappear. If the civic responsibilities 
 are such that they are conceived to rest only upon children, 
 then they rest upon nobody; since they are not real com- 
 munity responsibilities V 
 
 But this is only local participation by way of developing 
 municipal-mindedness. Can the plan be extended for train- 
 ing purposes to practical state and national service? Under 
 present conditions of war it is being done: both by those 
 students who have entered active military, naval, aerial, 
 Red Cross, or other service; and by those at home who are 
 striving along with adults to augment production and to 
 facilitate just and economical distribution and consumption. 
 The consciousness of solidarity and the spirit of service 
 thereby engendered is one our Nation cannot afford to lose 
 in time of peace. It can be kept, however, only if there is 
 actual and genuine and necessary service to be rendered. 
 
156 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 Make-believe service will not accomplish the purposes^ The 
 largest field of active peace-time service is that of the 
 specialized occupations. As industries grow, this service 
 tends more and more to be national. A major social problem 
 is not to make it service, — it is already that, — but to 
 make it seen as service. The educational problem here is 
 largely so to train occupationally that the workers can 
 realize the social implications and relations of their labors; 
 so that they will see their peace-service to the nation on a 
 plane no less high than their war-service to the same nation. 
 Professor James was of the opinion that this should be 
 prepared for by some years of general occupational service 
 He writes : ^ — 
 
 If now — and this is my idea — there were, instead of military 
 conscription, a conscription of the whole youthful population to 
 form for a certain number of years a part of the army enlisted 
 against Nature, injustice would tend to be evened up, and numer- 
 ous benefits to the commonwealth would follow. The military 
 ideals of hardihood and discipline would be wrought into the 
 growing fiber of the people; no one would remain blind, as the 
 luxurious classes now are blind, to man's real relations to the globe 
 he lives on, and to the permanently solid and hard foundations of 
 his higher life. To coal- and iron-mines, to freight-trains, to fishing- 
 fleets in December, to dish-washing, clothes-washing, and window- 
 washing, to road-building and tunnel-making, to foundries and 
 stoke-holes, and to the frames of sky-scrapers, would our gilded 
 youths be drafted off, according to their choice, to get the child- 
 ishness knocked out of them, and to come back into society with 
 healthier sympathies and soberer ideas. They would have paid 
 their blood-tax, done their part in the immemorial human warfare 
 against Nature; they would tread the earth more proudly; the 
 women would value them more highly; they would be better 
 fathers and teachers of the following generation. 
 
 Such a conscription, with the state of public opinion that would 
 have required it, and the moral fruits it would bear, would pre- 
 
 » "The Moral Equivalent of War." By William James. In McClure's, 
 August, 1910. 
 
LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 157 
 
 serve in the midst of a pacific civilization the manly virtues which 
 the military party is so afraid of seeing disappear in peace. We 
 should get toughness without callousness, authority with as little 
 cruelty as possible, and painful work done cheerily because the 
 duty is temporary. ... I spoke of the "moral equivalent" of war. 
 So far, war has been the only force that can discipline a whole 
 community, and, until an equivalent discipline is organized, I 
 believe that war must have its way. But I have no serious doubt 
 that the ordinary prides and shames of social man, once developed 
 to a certain intensity, are capable of organizing such a moral equiv- 
 alent as I have sketched, or some other just as effective for pre- 
 serving manliness of type. Though an infinitely remote Utopia 
 just now, in the end it is but a question of time, of skillful propa- 
 gandism and of opinion-making men seizing historic opportuni- 
 ties. 
 
 Whether any of the features of this proposal are practi- 
 cable or not, it reveals a real educational problem of large 
 proportions and complexity. Upon our profession rests 
 responsibility for proposing and effecting a practicable 
 solution. 
 
 The international situaiion 
 
 Thus far we have discussed local and national civic prob- 
 lems. In the knitting-up of the world's social fabric polit- 
 ically, the national group is practically the ultimate group. 
 In the world of productive industry, however, whether 
 agriculture, manufacture, mining, or other, it is clear that 
 the peoples of the world are interdependent; that on the 
 side of production we are really a world-community, each 
 region producing for all. When this is the case, naturally 
 in the distribution and consumption of commodities we are 
 a world-community. Whatever the political situation may 
 be, it is clear that we have already largely achieved economic 
 cosmopolitanism. On the side of art also we are a world- 
 community; and also in the fields of hterature, and science, 
 and technology, and invention, etc. 
 
158 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 I But in our social-group or political consciousness, we have 
 1 — until the last few years — scarcely even looked beyond 
 the boundaries of nationalism. To look upon other peoples 
 as members of a world-family, to look with friendly eye 
 upon other nations as equal neighbors having rights similar 
 to and equal to our own, even to contemplate common 
 action with such neighbors in the cooperative promotion of 
 world-welfare, — such attitudes we had felt to border dan- 
 gerously upon mild treason to our country. PoHtically we 
 have been essentially parochial-minded. 
 
 The present World- War is revealing the interdependen- 
 cies of peoples. We now see that no nation can live to itself. 
 We are coming to realize that just as the States of our Union 
 form one national family, each of which is necessary to the 
 highest welfare of all, so the various countries of the world 
 are members of a planetary family and each necessary to 
 the highest welfare of the others. We see that nations have 
 rights equal to our own; that nations have duties also to the 
 'Others that are proportioned to their rights. It has been 
 (demonstrated that unbridled nationalism is a peril to the 
 (World. In our previous discussion we have tried to show the 
 inevitability of the ethics of aggression as a component part 
 of the nationalistic consciousness. In proportion as nation- 
 alism is strong, the dual standard of social conduct arises. 
 In such case the nation sees its own rights large and sees 
 its duties small. In mind and heart, in ambition and in 
 action, such a nation becomes parasitic upon the rest. 
 When not held in check by a cosmopolitan consciousness, 
 such a nation, if it feels strong enough, goes ruthlessly 
 abroad to rob and plunder the others. Of this we have 
 sufficient practical demonstration. In the present World- 
 War we are but reaping the natural and inevitable fruits of 
 exaggerated nationalism. 
 
 We are not here condemning nationahsm. We have al- 
 
LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 159 
 
 ready said that the large-group consciousness exists upon 
 different levels. A wide and generous municipal conscious- 
 ness is the cure for the evils that result from the petty 
 consciousness of self-interested small-groups within the city. 
 A county or congressional district or state consciousness 
 that looks to the welfare of the total group specified is that 
 which for that region eliminates the parasitism and other 
 evils resulting from the small-group consciousness. Rising 
 to the next level, it is then a broad, generous, and vitalized 
 national consciousness which alone can provide a spirit of 
 mutual service on the part of all of the constituent portions 
 of the nation. Within the nation this national conscious- 
 ness is in all respects most beneficent. Without it the nation 
 disintegrates into internal warring and parasitic groups, 
 bringing all the evils of social chaos in their train. Because 
 of its intra-national aspect, we must emphasize the fullest 
 practicable development of the national consciousness. 
 I In insisting that we also develop^ an mternational eons. 
 Isciousness we are lDut arriving at the next and inevitable 
 \logical step of the same argument. The national conscious- 
 ness at the present time needs to be huge in order to take 
 care of the difficult intra-national problems; but if it is not 
 tempered by a large-group consciousness that takes in all 
 of the rest of the world, the extra-national attitudes thereby 
 developed threaten the rest of the nations; and in reaction, 
 the nation itself. The cosmopolitan consciousness alone 
 can bring about that wise cooperation of the varionsi na- 
 tions of the earth for the more adequate promotion (^ the 
 general world welfare. Just as nationaHsm will tempe.ii the 
 spirit of strife that tends to arise within the i^atjon, sq will 
 internationalism temper the analogous spirit of strif^ that 
 tends to arise among the members of the planetary group. 
 
 We are not here referring to an international pqlitical 
 organization. That has not yet come into being. If \% ev^f 
 
160 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 arrives, it will grow out of a widely diffused cosmopolitan 
 consciousness. This is prerequisite to, and must precede, 
 any organization. Our educational problem relates only to 
 the development of this cosmopolitan consciousness. The 
 state papers of our President have recently breathed the 
 spirit of this high consciousness which is rapidly transfusing 
 the minds of all peoples. 
 
 Turning now to the educational problem, How are we to 
 develop this cosmopolitan consciousness? We have already 
 referred to the place of action, observation, participation 
 with a group, as a mode of developing an understanding of 
 that group and sympathies with its purposes and its labors. 
 We referred to the large place of reading for the sake of 
 vicarious action in the case of the large groups. What is 
 true of reading in the case of the nationalistic spirit is even 
 more true of reading in the development of the cosmopolitan 
 spirit. There is needed for the world as a whole, and of the 
 separate nations that make it up, readings that will permit 
 children and youth sympathetically to enter into the actions 
 of men in the various regions of the earth. Let one in his 
 reading live imaginatively with a nation for a sufficient 
 length of time and he will come to feel himself one with it, 
 in much the same way as though he dwelt among them for 
 a time. 
 
 The readings for the purpose will be history, biography, 
 travels, geography, and literature. With any of these the 
 primary aim will be the reconstruction of life within the 
 various lands; so that the reader can relive it. In proportion 
 as it is vivid and stirring so that the reader can become 
 warmed, can lose himself to actual time and place, can 
 become enveloped in the action of which he reads, it will be 
 effective for the purpose. 
 
 The ends in view demand catholicity in the choice of the 
 readings. Schools need to gather of each type readings that 
 
LARGE-GROUP CONSCIOUSNESS 161 
 
 reveal all important present-day nations and peoples; 
 Canada, America, Mexico, Central America, West Indies, 
 Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, 
 China, India, Turkey, Russia, the Balkans, the Central 
 Empires, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, France, Belgium, Neth- 
 erlands, Scandinavia, England, Ireland, Scotland, North 
 Africa, Egypt, Central Africa, and South Africa; at least 
 these. This is to choose the history of grammar grades 
 and high schools on a basis that has not hitherto been em- 
 ployed; and the literature; and the biography. This basis 
 has been employed, however, in the case of geography which 
 actually does reveal in some degree all of the nations of the 
 earth. The principle that is applicable to geography appears 
 to be equally applicable to history and literature, 
 s Another type of social reading belongs, then, on the later 
 levels of education. After developing understanding and 
 sympathetic attitudes toward the various individual na- 
 tions, students are prepared to read, not the particular his- 
 tories of nations, but world-history: that which looks in a 
 unitary way to the entire world-situation. Thus the student 
 will read the history of worid-commerce; history of world- 
 industry; history of transportation; history of agriculture; 
 history of pohtical institutions; history of finance; sanita- 
 tion; recreational activities; municipal government; etc. In 
 each case the history of the last decade or two should 
 probably be as voluminous as that of all of the previous cen- 
 turies combined. This will then introduce all of the needed 
 geographical and economic elements. Through problem- 
 solving, discussions, etc., students can be brought to an 
 understanding of the general principles involved. 
 
 The thing demanded is not a new program. It is rather a 
 definition of social purposes on the basis of which present 
 programs can be rectified and further developed. As a 
 matter of fact, in our supplementary readings, especially in 
 the elementary school, we are tending more and more to 
 
162 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 give width of world-understanding both historical and 
 geographical. High schools and colleges of liberal arts have 
 been more enmeshed in tradition, and in the task of training 
 specialists. On the levels, therefore, where most of this 
 training should be accomplished, it has scarcely been begun. 
 But in their recent inclusions of industrial history, commer- 
 cial history, industrial and commercial geography, history 
 of civiUzation, a fuller emphasis upon modern problems, etc., 
 we discern the ferment at work upon these levels also. 
 
 "The program is impossibly large," it is objected. "An 
 impossible task cannot be the right solution." The objection 
 shows the need of referring to the methods to be employed. 
 It will be noted we have nowhere said that these histories 
 are to be learned. We have only said that students need 
 experiences of certain kinds; and that these experiences are 
 to be had in part by reading vivid historical accounts. The 
 history of a nation is to be read rapidly. This is necessary 
 for warming the personality and making one for the time a 
 member of the group. If a four-hundred-page book is not 
 devoured in ten or fifteen days the experience is likely to be 
 anaemic and relatively ineffective. If the experience is vivid 
 and stirring, it will leave its normal residues in memory. 
 
 It must be kept in mind in considering methods that 
 knowledge is not the most fundamental thing aimed at; but 
 rather social attitudes and valuations. For these, it is hving 
 experience, not memorizing experience, that is the all- 
 important thing. And even in the matter of knowledge it is 
 not a remembrance of specific facts that is desired; but 
 rather a knowledge of general social principles. Let the 
 reading experience be of the type suggested, and the proper 
 materials are provided for problem-solving and generaliza- 
 tion. Right accomplishment of these latter requires not 
 merely batches of pale facts, but all the emotionalized 
 attitudes and valuations that can arise only out of emotion- 
 alized experience. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 
 
 Moral education has always been and must always be 
 looked upon as fundamental in the training of youth. In 
 our^chools~we^havelittempte31f through direct and indi- 
 rect methods; in our churches through direct teaching, per- 
 suasion, and the fear-motive. It is probable that most 
 actual training has been accomplished within the Great 
 School of practical social action and reaction. 
 
 Those who live as members of the small social group, and 
 from year's end to year's end breathe its social atmosphere; 
 naturally and inevitably take on its attitudes, valuations, 
 and dual standard of ethics. Direct ethical instruction by 
 school or church seems relatively ineffectual in the face of 
 these powerful experiential influences. On the other hand, 
 those who grow up in vital contact, direct and indirect, with 
 the large social group, and who breathe its humanizing 
 atmosphere, naturally and inevitably take on the large- 
 group attitudes, valuations, and tendencies lo social reac- 
 tion. In such case, church and school may well reinforce 
 the process by giving supplementary training. Their efforts 
 are Ukely to be efficacious, however, not in proportion to 
 their direct teaching or persuasion, but rather in proportion 
 as they are actually able to provide the conditions of large- 
 group living experience. 
 
 A frequent conception of moral training is well expressed 
 in the report of the National Council Committee on Moral 
 Education : — 
 
 If we would have strong and beautiful characters in adult life, 
 certain elemental virtues must be inculcated in childhood and 
 youth. These the teachers should have as definitely in mind as 
 
164 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 they do the nouns and verbs in grammar or fractions in arithme- 
 tic. They must know, not only what virtues they would implant, 
 but how they would develop them. Among these elemental vir- 
 tues we would include those which are generally accepted as form- 
 ing the very basis of character, such as obedience, kindness, honor, 
 truthfulness, cleanliness, cheerfulness, honesty, respect for self- 
 and for others, helpfulness, industry, economy, power of initiative, 
 justice, usefulness, patriotism, courage, self-control, prudence, 
 benevolence, system, neatness, politeness, fortitude, heroism, per- 
 severance, sympathy, consecration to duty, unselfishness, comrade- 
 ship, patience, temperance, hopefulness, determination, and fi- 
 delity. Pupils should not only have some idea of the meaning of 
 these virtues, but they should be trained in the practice of them 
 until they become fixed habits. 
 
 According to this widespread conception, the task is to 
 give information concerning the abstract virtues and to 
 drill the pupils in action that involves them. They are 
 assumed always to be virtues. This, however, is far from 
 being the case. Take, for example, perseverance. This may 
 characterize the conduct of a statesman, burglar, mechanic, 
 farmer, housewife, political grafter, assassin, or anybody 
 else engaged in any kind of action good or bad. Clearly this 
 abstract aspect of human action is not a virtue in itself. 
 Quite true, where it is exercised in right directions it pro- 
 duces increased human good and is then an aspect of virtu- 
 ous conduct. It is equally true, however, that where it is 
 exercised in wrong directions it may produce the most 
 disastrous human results; and is then an aspect of vicious 
 conduct. Obviously the virtue or the vice is not in the per- 
 severance itself. 
 
 It is urged that while the perseverance itself is always a 
 virtue, it may be a virtue of either good or bad conduct. 
 This is but a verbal quibble. Perseverance may be a char- 
 acteristic of either good or bad conduct. But its character- 
 izing bad conduct does not make the latter good; it only 
 makes it worse. And what increases evil is evil at the time. 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 165 
 
 It, DOW, we look at obedience, courage, industry, loyalty, 
 and most of the others, we can see that they may be 
 characteristics of conduct within any kind of social group. 
 They are sometimes characteristics of virtuous conduct; 
 and sometimes of vicious. 
 
 Obviously these so-called "virtues" are not the moral 
 jltimates. They are but aspects of human conduct which 
 must be judged good or bad on quite other standards. Good 
 moral conduct is that which increases the total sum of 
 human welfare. The more efficacious it is in producing 
 beneficent results, the higher is the type of morality. It 
 springs from an intelligence that discerns equally the fEmgs 
 which promote human welfare and the things that are 
 injurious. It is rooted in large-group syinpathies, love of 
 human-kind, large-group vision, attitudes, valuations, and 
 tendencies to behavior. Whatever will produce and inten- 
 sify large-group consciousness and expand social intelli- 
 gence wiU develop high moral character. 
 
 Bad moral conduct is that which increases the total sum 
 of human woe. One of its basic conditions is an ignorance 
 of the things required for human welfare. A second is small- 
 group consciousness. Members of small groups hold to the 
 dual standard of conduct. Virtuous action for them is that 
 which promotes welfare of their httle group through (1) the 
 exercise of the social virtues toward each other, and (2) the 
 exercise of the anti-social virtues toward society in general. 
 Since such action tends usually to be parasitic rather than 
 efficiently productive, they force others not only to carry 
 /their own share of the total load, but also the share that 
 should be properly borne by the parasitic group. Their 
 actioti resultfe in social injury in the degree in which they 
 are actually parasitic; and in the degree in which they em- 
 ploy anti-social action in effecting their parasitism. The 
 problem of education is to develop within them the large- 
 
166 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 group consciousness, valuations, and sympathies; and a 
 clear intellectual appreciation of the forces and influences 
 that are to be controlled in the interests of all. The problem 
 of moral education is not to develop within them the vanous 
 virtues of industry, obedience, courage, loyalty, etc. These 
 exist within those possessing small-group consciousness as 
 abundantly as in those having the large-group conscious- 
 ness. Simply they are wrongly directed. The central train- 
 ing task is a transformation of their group-consciousness. 
 
 Quite clearly the central problem of moral education is 
 identical with that of civic education. The humanizing and 
 socializing training discussed in various chapters, in so far 
 as it can be made to promote width of social vision, and 
 breadth and intensity of social sympathies, will provide the 
 taproot of morality. And there can be no substitute that 
 will accomplish this training. It is not done by giving infor- 
 mation about the virtues, as in ethics; not even by drilling 
 in the practice of the specific virtues. It grows from deeper 
 roots. And it must grow; not be grafted. 
 
 If the foregoing statements are true, why is there so much 
 insistence upon religion as the necessary sanction and suj>- 
 port of morality.'^ In reply we must say that it is because 
 j religion is the taproot of morality. The religious vision is 
 i but a further widening of the large-group civic vision. The 
 religious sympathies are but further widening of the social 
 sympathies. We are not to stop with a mere present-day 
 planetary consciousness. We are to go on to that wider 
 cosmic consciousness. of man as a member of a universal 
 order that is not limited in time or space. It is to conceive 
 one's membership within an order that includes all things 
 that are, and all beings that are. It is to see one's self as a 
 member of a social group that is not only as wide as the 
 municipal or national or world-group of to-day, but which 
 is also wide enough to include the members of the genera- 
 
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 167 
 
 tions that have preceded us, and those that are to come after; 
 and which includes all benevolent and beneficent non- 
 earthly beings so far as we can know of them or reasonably 
 conceive them. Individuals differ as to many things that 
 lie beyond the realm of sense; but the essentially religious- 
 minded seem to agree upon the central conception as here 
 stated. What social science calls interdependency, coopera- 
 tion, community of origin, and group-consciousness, reli- 
 gion calls the brotherhood of man. 
 
 It is often said that our public schools cannot train for 
 religious thought and springs of action. If what we are 
 saying is true, the highest function of our public schools is 
 the development of the social attitudes and valuations and 
 knowledge that are equally central in conceptions of social 
 interdependency and of human brotherhood. Naturally in 
 our schools we shall hold to the terminology of social science; 
 to the non-controversial and therefore fundamental portion 
 of the field. This is not to attempt the whole; but it is to 
 assist in laying the solid foundation for the whole; without 
 which little else worth while can be done. The churches 
 need such solid ground as the starting-point for the exten- 
 sions that they would rear into the infinite. 
 
PART IV 
 EDUCATION FOR PHYSICAL EFFICIENCY 
 
CHAPTER XIV -^^^ 
 
 THE FUNDAMENTAL TASK OF PHYSICAL TRAINING 
 
 The human organism may be conceived as a reservoir of 
 energy, which is continually emptying itself through various 
 channels of expenditure, and which is being continually 
 refilled through other channels of inflow. The analogy is an 
 old one, used by Descartes; but in the light of modem 
 science there is none more exact nor more fruitful. 
 
 The outflow of energy is through many channels, accom- 
 plishing many types of result. One portion is consumed in 
 the production of bodily heat; another in secretion and the 
 involuntary muscular actions of respipation, digestion, cir- 
 culation, etc.; a third portion is consumed in the elimination 
 and neutrahzation of poisons generated in the system; a 
 large amount, in voluntary activity; and finally, there is the 
 portion that flows out through the nerve-channels under- 
 lying thought and feeling and emotional excitement. The 
 expenditure is unceasing; but in amount it varies according 
 to conditions of temperature, of work and play, etc. One's 
 waking hours constitute mainly a season of outflow. 
 
 The inflow of energy is through the channels of nutri- 
 tion. The process is continuous, occurring at all times, but 
 proceeding unequally. The chief season of inflow is during 
 the hours of sleep. Without this restoration of supply, the 
 level of the reservoir is rapidly lowered. 
 
 In an individual of invariably robust health, living under 
 normal conditions, the level of the reservoir is high, — in 
 the neighborhood of one hundred per cent of potential. 
 The daily income of energy just about equals the daily out- 
 go. If he is doing light work with light expenditure, the in- 
 
172 
 
 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 flow will be light. If the daily expenditure is heavy, — but 
 not abnormally so, — the return inflow is correspondingly 
 abundant. Thus, barring accident, he may go through life 
 near one hundred per cent physically eflSicient. His condi- 
 tion in this respect may be roughly represented by A in the 
 accompanying figure. 
 
 100^ 
 
 Fig. 3. To represent different possible levels in the reservoir of one's vitality 
 
 If, however, the daily expenditure through channels of 
 work, play, worry, struggle with body-poisons, mental ex- 
 citement, etc., is greater than the daily income, the level 
 is lowered. His energy-supply may come to be such as rep- 
 resented by B or C in the figure. The level of his vitality 
 may stand at seventy per cent or fifty per cent of potential 
 instead of at the normal one hundred per cent. The lower 
 the level, the nearer he approaches the danger Hne, 
 
 An equilibrium may be established at one of these lower 
 levels. Daily income and daily outgo may again be equal. 
 In this case, the level of vitality does not sink lower; 
 neither does it rise. Such a devitalized individual may go 
 through life with his vital reserves at fifty per cent of what 
 they ought to be. The original causes of the lowered vitality 
 may continue, physiological habits may become established, 
 and the individual is held down permanently. If, however. 
 
TASK OF PHYSICAL TRAINING 173 
 
 he can discover and remove the original causes, and care- 
 fully regulate income and expenditures, he may — usually 
 slowly, if habits have been formed — raise the level of his 
 reserve vitality again to something near its old level. 
 
 Relation to vocational efficiency 
 
 It makes a large difference whether the level of vitality 
 is maintained at fifty per cent of potential, or at one hun- 
 dred per cent. The vocational demand for efficiency when 
 reduced to specifics is a demand for forcefulness, for ac- 
 curacy, for speed, for endurance, and for consistency or 
 uniformity of good work. And these are all fruits of a full 
 vitality. While the nervous, under-vitalized individual may 
 present a great show of energy and may in fact put forth 
 large effort for a short time, he cannot be consistently force- 
 ful, day after day, and month after month. He lacks re- 
 siliency. When expenditure is large, it is not restored suffi- 
 ciently rapidly. The daily oscillation must not be large, if he 
 is to be consistent. On the other hand, the fully vitalized 
 individual may make large effort and large expenditure day 
 after day over long periods of time. The return surge is 
 equally prompt and vigorous. Even after strenuous exer- 
 tion, each new day finds the level of the reservoir at its 
 previous high level. With him the daily oscillation may be 
 wide. He alone is prepared for forcefulness, endurance, speed, 
 and consistency of work. He also is accurate. His nerves 
 are sound, his movements under secure control, his inhi- 
 bitions prompt and certain. The devitahzed individual is 
 nervous, incoordinated, uncertain in his movements and 
 inhibitions. The range of his mental life is narrowed. He 
 does not see so many things at one time, and his failure to 
 observe all of the things related to his work involves him in 
 mistakes and accidents. He is the type of man that indus- 
 try nowadays is trying to eliminate. 
 
174 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 There is the further need of joy in one's work. The force- 
 ful, well-poised individual does his work with ease, with con- 
 fidence, with accuracy; and without taxing himself, obtains 
 the results that he desires. He does not *'live upon his 
 nerves." He does not drive himself to his work. He is not 
 in that state of nervous irritability which makes steadiness 
 and accuracy so constraining as to be maddening. 
 
 Training for a high level of physical vitality is thus one 
 of the most fundamental aspects of training for vocational 
 efficiency. 
 
 Relation to morality 
 
 The physical condition of an individual or of a nation is 
 intimately related to the moral and civic character. On the 
 positive side, morality in our complicated age is rooted in 
 width and clearness of vision of human affairs in community, 
 nation, and world; and in permanent sympathetic attitudes 
 toward all individuals and social groups; and in the dispo- 
 sition so to act as to promote without mistake or accident 
 the general welfare. On the negative side, morality consists 
 of inhibitions which restrain tendencies to anti-social or 
 other injurious conduct. 
 
 The state of one's vitality is intimately related to both 
 the positive and negative sides. Psychologists tell us that 
 when we examine a state of momentary consciousness, it 
 is found to consist of two portions: the focal idea to which 
 attention is being for the moment given, and which occupies 
 the center of consciousness; and the marginal ideas, sensa- 
 tions, etc., many in number, of which we are at the mo- 
 ment aware, but to which we are not giving attention. Now 
 in individuals of different degrees of vitality, the focal idea 
 may be about equally clear to all. The difference is in the 
 character of the marginal consciousness. In the man of 
 full vitaUty, there is a width and richness of marginal life. 
 
TASK OF PHYSICAL TRAINING 175 
 
 He holds manyj|Lings in mind at once. Consequently he is 
 the man of \yiae mental horizon, and of far vision. Since 
 the subtler and more complicated social relations are those 
 that involve seeing many things at once and in wide per- 
 spective, he alone is in a position cleariy to see and appre- 
 ciate the existing social relations and demands in our 
 modem society. Seeing the relations, he is in a position to 
 act wisely and justly and for the best interests of all con- 
 cerned. He is morally responsible. 
 
 In the case of the semi-vitalized individual the marginal 
 life is much narrowed. He holds fewer things in mind at once; 
 and therefore less adequately sees the relations; especially 
 the subtle compHcated ones. These he must see if he is to 
 visuahze modem society, his place therein, and his rights 
 and responsibiUties. But his physical condition shuts out 
 much of the needed vision. Morally he is but semi-respon- 
 sible. Even though he be richly endowed with good-will, he 
 cannot hold to action of the highest moral type because he 
 cannot see what it is. 
 
 For the man of a very low level of vitality, the curtains 
 are still further drawn. There is little margin to his con- 
 sciousness. His stream of thought is Httle more than a suc- 
 cession of focal ideas. He has but little power to hold the 
 many things in mind at once that are needed for seeing com- 
 plex social relations. As a consequence, he is morally in- 
 capacitated, irresponsible. He misses the road largely be- 
 cause he cannot see where it Ues. He falls back upon the 
 guidance of instinct, passion, and other crude impulsions. 
 He may be entirely well-meaning, and yet thoroughly 
 criminal in his conduct. His irresponsibility, however, is 
 but a symptom of illness. Even if criminal, the treatment 
 he most needs is the hospital. 
 
 In the preceding discussion we have been noting the posi- 
 tive propulsions to right moral conduct. There is also the 
 
176 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 matter of inhibitions. In the man of full vital reserves, these 
 are full and strong and certain in their action. In proportion 
 as reserves are depleted, and the marginal life narrowed, the 
 inhibitions grow weak and uncertain. The same thoughts 
 of possible action may pass through the minds of the robust 
 and the devitalized. Some of these are anti-social, and refer 
 to acts that are undesirable, or even criminal. In the case 
 of the man of full vitality, however, when the idea of the 
 harmful act arises, even though prompted by strong instinct, 
 the marginal ideas of the results arise at the same time. 
 He sees the undesirability and dismisses it without effort. 
 With the man of low reserves the same idea may arise with 
 the same degree of clearness and with no greater instinctive 
 propulsion. But there does not arise the same wealth of 
 marginal ideas as to the consequences. He does not see 
 the harm of it. He has little or nothing to restrain him. 
 The anti-social idea, therefore, discharges itself into action, 
 and he commits the criminal deed. In original nature and 
 training the two men may be of identical disposition. The 
 difference in their acts is due simply to a difference in the 
 levels of their physical vitahty. 
 
 Needed Jot civic control 
 
 A state of democratic government is one in which each 
 individual is largely free to shape his conduct according to 
 the dictates of his best judgment. And yet the democracy of 
 to-day is such a concatenation of mutual interdependencies 
 that if we have both democracy and organization, the dic- 
 tates of judgment on the part of all must largely be identical. 
 Each must, therefore, see the whole of the social mechan- 
 ism, and his individual part within the coordinated labors of 
 the whole. No other plan can possibly bring community of 
 judgment. But the plan requires that the citizens have the 
 power to hold a large number of things in mind at once so 
 
TASK OF PHYSICAL TRAINING 177 
 
 as to see the innumerable and complex relations. This is 
 possible only to a citizenry of large vitality. A wise, vigorous, 
 and beneficent democracy on the part of devitalized indi- 
 viduals is impossible. The uncertainties of our inchoate and 
 wobbly democracy are due, not entirely to ignorance and 
 small-group consciousness, but in some degree also to a gen- 
 eral depletion of physical vitality with its consequent nerv- 
 ous irritability, narrow vision, and lack of inner restraints. 
 There can be little question but that the instability of demo- 
 cratic governments in certain tropical states is partially 
 due — the degree none can say — to the lowered vitality of 
 a European population in tropical countries. 
 
 A problem of first magnitude in training our population 
 for efficient citizenship is the training at the same time for 
 the indispensable basis of physical efficiency. 
 
 Needed for leisure occupations 
 
 In other chapters we have tried to indicate the large place 
 rightly occupied in human life by leisure occupations. For 
 a number of reasons we need to develop appreciations of 
 art, literature, music, science, philosophy, and religion. We 
 feel that these are necessary for a stable and continuing 
 form of civilization. But in a world where there are so many 
 serious things to do, we cannot have them unless there is 
 a surplus of leisure time and Hberated energy that can be 
 used for the purpose. But if physical efficiency is low, then 
 productive efficiency is also low; and there are the further 
 wastes of time and energy in correcting mistakes, in fighting, 
 and in dissipation. There is no surplus for the humanistic 
 activities. And further, things like literature, or science, 
 or religion, on their high levels, are not to be appreciated 
 without the richly irrigating streams of consciousness char- 
 acterized by the wide margins; the types of those with the 
 high physical reserves. The individual of narrow conscious- 
 
178 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 ness can have but restricted glimpses of these wider fields; 
 fails to see things in proportion and relation; finds them 
 meaningless and therefore uninteresting or wearisome; or 
 perplexing, bajffling, irritating. He leaves them and goes to 
 pleasures of simpler and lower nature. A high humanistic 
 civilization is not to be built on foundations of physical in- 
 validity. 
 
 One asi>ect of humanistic education must be the develop- 
 ment of that degree of physical efficiency without which 
 such education lacks a fundamental condition of success. 
 
 Need for ^^ keeping well " 
 
 One's major health ambition usually is to "keep well"; 
 that is to say, to avoid acute illness or physical collapse. 
 One can, however, keep well in this negative sense with his 
 reserves of vitality at a low level. Through regularity he 
 keeps out of the sick-bed and goes about his work. He be- 
 comes used to the conditions, physiological habits are formed, 
 and he does not know that the volume of his life might be 
 doubled. Standards of vitality are lacking; modes of meas- 
 uring have not been developed or applied. Everybody else 
 is in much the same condition. Neither industry nor citizen- 
 ship has accurately defined the standards of physical effi- 
 ciency necessary for consistent success. One therefore 
 "keeps well " upon a low level: but is not physically efficient. 
 
 The result is that he is easily susceptible to attacks of 
 acute diseases, Hke colds, grippe, bronchitis, tonsillitis, 
 pneumonia, rheumatism, and a host of others. On the other 
 hand, the man of large physical reserves, who almost of 
 necessity has good physiological habits, finds himself, bar- 
 ring accidents, practically immune from most of these 
 troubles, and relatively immune from all. 
 
 The latter is equally fortunate also in his physiological 
 inhibitions. The nervous individual of depleted vitality 
 
TASK OF PHYSICAL TRAINING 179 
 
 often presents a great show of energy because of the multi- 
 tude of excess movements, of emotional excitement, and 
 of other needless wastes of energy. The man of high reserves, 
 however, tends to be calm, poised, direct, and accurate. He 
 does not waste himself in useless ways. He therefore re- 
 tains himself upon his level with greater ease than one re- 
 tains his position ujkju one of the lower levels. 
 
 And there is also the latitude of resiliency. The man of 
 large reserves may, in case of stress and strain, greatly in- 
 crease his daily task through weeks or months without under- 
 mining himself. Though work is unusually strenuous, the 
 daily restoration is unusually large. On the lower level, 
 however, lacking this same resiliency, a man cannot go far 
 below his normal without finding himself the prey of acute 
 illness, and of tedious recuperation. 
 
 Training, therefore, for the ideal of keeping well, if it I 
 is to be done at its best, involves training for high levels of ( 
 reserve vitaUty. It presents a positive program, not a mere 
 negative one. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 PHYSICAL TRAINING 
 
 Perfect physical training for child or adult is that which 
 brings him to the one hundred per cent level of possible 
 vitality and which holds him there. Since perfection is 
 scarcely attainable, education will aim at the highest prac- 
 ticable levels. This definition appears desirable because of 
 the frequent limitation of the term to muscular exercise. 
 Naturally physical training must always include a generous 
 amount of muscular exercise; but there are other things just 
 as important, such as proper sleep, food and food habits, 
 air, temperatures, sunlight, balance of all physical expendi- 
 tures, protection from micro-organisms, the elimination of 
 wastes, healthful mental states,. etc. 
 
 Physical training has long been on the school program. 
 One has, however, only to glance over the statistics of 
 physical deficiency among school children, army recruits, 
 or the population in general, to realize how lamentably 
 this physical training has failed to accomplish the essen- 
 tial purposes of abundant vitality and freedom from 
 physical imperfection. Our physical training has relatively 
 failed because it has lost sight of most of the vital factors for 
 such a program. There has been and still persists the con- 
 ception that education is a classroom affair; that only what 
 can be taken care of at the school-building is to be done; 
 that educational specialists are not to lead or direct or be 
 otherwise concerned with experiences which must be had in 
 other places within the community. The present topic more 
 than any other discussed in this volume reveals the limita- 
 tions of such primitive educational thought and practice. 
 
PHYSICAL TRAINING 181 
 
 Good physical training, can result but from one thing; 
 naTJiely yjnghi_Jmrig. One must actively do the things that 
 enhance vitality and actively avoid those that waste it. 
 Learning the facts of a book will not accomplish it; nor good 
 recitations; nor good marks upon examination. Nothing 
 will serve but right living twenty-four hours in the day, 
 seven days in the week, and all of the weeks in the year. 
 Naturally pupils must have preliminary ideas as to what 
 to do. These they will secure from books, teachers, nurses, 
 physicians, physical trainers and personal observation; but 
 getting such ideas constitutes only the preliminary step in 
 the series of activities that constitute the physical training. 
 I It is not even the preliminary step unless there is the con- 
 scious intention on the part of those securing the ideas to 
 put them to work. Let a student have any quantity of ideas 
 as to what constitutes right living, if he does not put them 
 into operation they do not acquire vitality nor result in 
 physical training. The curriculum must be living — with 
 learning only one of several steps. 
 
 Since muscular exercise is the part that has been most 
 completely institutionalized, let us begin with that. The 
 first thing to be noted is that it is mainly taken care of in 
 the general out-of-school experience. Pedometers on six- 
 year-old boys not in school have shown that they travel 
 more than ten miles a day in their play; and the other por- 
 tions of their play are probably the muscular equivalent 
 of another ten miles. Since children have four waking 
 hours per day out of school for every one in school counting 
 all of the days of the year, if equally active in the two 
 cases, they will be getting four fifths of their muscular 
 experience outside of the schools. In general, however, the 
 out-of-school experience is the more active; so that most of 
 the developing experience is not directed by teachers. 
 
 There are two general types of training. One is system- 
 
182 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 atized gymnastics, variously called calisthenics, Swedish 
 gymnastics, German gymnastics, etc. It is usually taken 
 indoors. It involves wands, Indian clubs, dumb-bells, etc. 
 Usually there is no spontaneity in the exercise, but it is all 
 done at the arbitrary word of command. It is not play 
 because the children are not actuated by the play-motive 
 and it is not performed in the play-spirit. So far as it is 
 work it is of the unhealthy taskmaster type. The fear is 
 often expressed when "supervised play" is recommended 
 that the supervision will injure the play by depriving it of 
 its spontaneity. The formal gymnastics, however, repre- 
 sent a type of systematization and supervision that has 
 been carried to such an extreme that the play-spirit has 
 completely departed, and not even a memory of it remains. 
 It is the antithesis of normal Uving. It therefore cannot 
 adequately serve for education. 
 
 The other type of physical training is an institutionaliza- 
 tion of children's play which retains the play-spirit. The 
 leaders of the movement have been assembling a great 
 repertory of plays and games for indoors and outdoors, for 
 boys and girls, and for all ages and stages of development. 
 These include ball-games, running-games, catching-games, 
 athletics for all, rhythmic dances with and without music, 
 folk-games and dances, — as pleasurable as they are effec- 
 tive for training. They represent real child-Ufe at its best 
 transferred to the schools with as little change as practicable. 
 It is the type to which schools are turning. 
 
 To these play-activities must be added an increasingly 
 active type of general school life. Experiential education 
 is introducing more activities of the laboratory, the shop, 
 the kitchen, the school garden, community observation and 
 survey, active participation in practical community affairs, 
 chorus singing, playing of musical instruments, field work 
 in the country, etc. In normalizing education in general, 
 excellent physical training is also provided for. 
 
PHYSICAL TRAINING 183 
 
 Perhaps it should be mentioned that where one is abnor- 
 mal and is in need of corrective orthopedic exercises, like 
 medicines for the sick, systematized gymnastics may often 
 have a legitimate place. But it has no more place in the 
 normal muscular development of normal children than have 
 medicines for the well. 
 
 Perhaps chiefly because of tradition, teachers seem to pre- 
 fer the formal gymnastics. The writer had occasion to ask 
 a group of elementary teachers as to the type of physical 
 exercises which seemed to them most beneficial for their 
 pupils. Out of sixty-eight teachers who replied, forty-eight 
 preferred the formal gymnastics; twenty, the plays and 
 games, especially when outdoors. When asked which type 
 the children preferred, they were all agreed that the children 
 preferred the games. The majority of the teachers, there- 
 fore, said that in their judgment the instincts of the children 
 placed there by Nature are wrong; that the children's nor- 
 mal appetites in the matter of physical exercise are unsafe 
 guides; and that a type of muscular experience so foreign 
 to human nature that children never indulge in it in their 
 spontaneous play is the thing needed for proper develop- 
 ment of their physical natures. It is safe to presume that 
 instincts are safe guides until the contrary is proven. 
 
 In the elementary schools, especially, the calisthenics is 
 urged because of the relief it brings to pupils after an hour 
 or so of concentrated mental work. The children need re- 
 laxation of attention and lowering of nervous strains. The 
 need is real; but the method is not very effective. While 
 five minutes of vigorous exercise in a classroom with the 
 windows open may be made to serve the purpose, yet it is 
 certain that the same amount of time devoted to running 
 around the block would be worth immeasurably more. The 
 run is a normal type of exercise. It possesses a social aspectl 
 and permits a degree of spontaneity lacking in the calis-l 
 
184 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 thenics. It is vigorous. The slackness characteristic of 
 calisthenics is impossible. Children return with flushed 
 faces, deep breathing, and circulation vigorously irrigating 
 the tissues. It gives ^ them real relief from concentrated 
 attention; and real exercise. 
 
 With this compare the calisthenics, where every move- 
 ment is at word of command. To quote one of the manuals: 
 " Strict attention is very essential. The commands must be 
 given in a commanding spirit, with expression of voice such 
 as to convince pupils that they must obey and move 
 promptly. The quality and the value of the exercise de- 
 pends almost entirely on its execution at the command. 
 The latter is the signal to perform and must clearly indicate 
 that we expect accuracy and promptness." In other words, 
 this exercise is not intended to afford relief from concen- 
 trated attention. Quite the reverse, they insist that atten- 
 tion be absolute. 
 
 And what is more, relief is not given through the vigor of 
 the muscular exercise. Too often it is but a series of formal 
 posturings, perfunctory and lifeless. One manual quaintly 
 remarks : " It should be work in the garments of quiet pleas- 
 ure and tranquil delight." But when pupils are to be given 
 relief from mental tensions, the negative things of quietude 
 and tranquillity are not the most effective. They need a 
 type of exercise that will permit the vigorous discharge or 
 even explosion of pent-up energies. But spontaneous out- 
 bursts of activity are the last things desired in the formal 
 gymnastics. "Pupils should stand still during position and 
 while exercising; laughing, smiling, whispering are acts and 
 motions not favorable to good work." They are tranquilly 
 to go through with their posturings with the faces and mien 
 of wooden men. Those who know children know that their 
 iplay cannot be normal, and that they cannot obtain proper 
 'relief from their study-tensions without laughing, shouting. 
 
PHYSICAL TRAINING 185 
 
 and running about as whim impels. Such physical-training 
 instructions as those quoted read Hke an educational fan- 
 tasy instead of being things actually prescribed in many 
 systems of training devised for the second decade of the 
 twentieth century. 
 
 A major advantage of the play-exercise is that it can fix 
 habits for life. Adults in a sedentary age need physical 
 exercises as much as children and adolescents. The training 
 should prepare them for this. But adults in their recrea- 
 tions refuse the taskmaster and all his ways. They will have 
 spontaneity or nothing. If their training has given them 
 command over a variety of sports, games, and athletics, 
 and has developed appreciations and habits, they are pre- 
 pared for types of exercise that they will gladly continue. 
 But they will not continue formal gymnastics. Even though 
 it may have accomplished the development of youth, it 
 fails to meet the continuing needs of adulthood. We are 
 prone to forget that education is for adult life; and that it 
 cannot be accomplished once for all time, but must be a 
 lifelong continuing affair. 
 
 Let us tuin now to other factors concerned in any ade- 
 quate program of physical training. In bringing children 
 and youth as nearly as practicable to the one hundred per 
 cent level of physical vitality and in keeping them there 
 throughout school-Ufe, food, air, sleep, etc., are just as vital 
 as muscular exercise. And for the self-directed activities of 
 adulthood for which education is to prepare, proper food 
 habits, ventilation habits, sleep habits, etc., are just as 
 important as lifelong habits of physical exercise. Education 
 has institutionalized the factor which will easily transfer 
 to the schools. It has not institutionalized the factors which 
 will not so transfer. Yet food violations and wrong food 
 habits are just as frequent and deleterious as wrong mus- 
 cular habits. And there are also violations in ventilation. 
 
186 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 sleep, the elimination of wastes, mental states, etc. The 
 physical-training inefficiency with which education is often 
 charged and which is substantiated by facts is mainly due 
 to the woeful incompleteness of its program. 
 
 Most of these activities cannot be transferred to the 
 school-buildings. Food-activities under normal conditions, 
 except possibly for the noonday luncheon in high schools, 
 will not and ought not to be transferred. Sleep-activities 
 will not transfer in any degree. Ventilation-activities must 
 be taken care of fully at the school plant, — and this should 
 be done by pupils for the sake of their training, — diu-ing 
 the hours of their presence there; but it is to be taken care 
 of elsewhere during their out-of-school hours. Experience 
 in protection from micro-organisms can be had at the school 
 during school hours, but it is an experience that is to con- 
 tinue during the rest of the twenty-four hours at home and 
 throughout the general community. The regulation of tem- 
 perature by means of clothing and the heating of rooms can 
 be only partially transferred to the school, the major por- 
 tion of the experience taking place outside. The experiences 
 involved in the elimination of wastes and in bodily cleanli- 
 ness are only partially transferable; the training should 
 mainly be the general living experience. 
 
 In some things, as, for example, the bath for cleanliness, 
 there is occasional tendency in congested poverty sections 
 of our cities to introduce at the schools bathing opportuni- 
 ties actually needed in the homes, but which are not to be 
 found there. This is in obedience to the educational prin- 
 ciple that where community experience is seriously inferior, 
 substitutionary opportunity should be provided at the 
 schools. Under present conditions, therefore, we shall occa- 
 sionally institutionalize types of experience which normally 
 ought to be taken care of in the homes. This should be but 
 a temporary educational expedient to be dispensed with as 
 
PHYSICAL TRAINING 187 
 
 quickly as improved community conditions will permit. In 
 introducing substitutionary opportunities, the schools are 
 conscious agents of community progress. In proportion as 
 they are successful, they reduce their portion of the task 
 and turn it back where it belongs. 
 
 We appear here to be confronted with a startling addition 
 to our professional responsibilities. Progressive school sys- 
 tems, however, have for some time been working on the 
 program. The first step is the accurate determination by 
 physicians, school nurses, and physical trainers of the 
 physical condition and habits of each pupil; to find wherein 
 his physique and habits are already good, and training not 
 required; but more particularly wherein he is physically 
 deficient, and given to wrong habits. The training problem 
 is to make him and his parents conscious of his shortcom- 
 ings; to give him the information needed for self -guidance; 
 to assist him in the antecedent planning for the right activi- 
 ties; to encourage and stimulate and see that the oppor- 
 tunities are provided in the homes and the community. The 
 pupils are then to be trained through self -directed but super- 
 vised experience in putting their ideas to work. 
 
 Full and right performance of these activities on the part 
 of the children requires the example and leadership of the 
 adult generation: parents, associates, teachers, mu*ses, and 
 physical trainers. These specialists need to be as fully in 
 contact with the community experience of the children as 
 they are in contact with the school portion. Educationists 
 can no more perform their services long-range than can 
 physicians or farmers or blacksmiths. They must be in 
 contact with the material which is being shaped during the 
 time of its shaping. Naturally this statement must be inter- 
 preted in the light of the fact that both teachers and chil- 
 dren have memories; and that this p>ermits influences to be 
 continuous without continuity of contacts. 
 
188 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 The program requires that teachers and other trainers of 
 youth be primarily members of the adult community, asso- 
 ciated with the parents and leaders of that community. It 
 is to get them out of the schoolroom into the larger life of 
 affairs. It is to give their schoolroom labor its proper place 
 in the total scheme of community ajffairs. It is to bring 
 them to see education as living; and to see learning in its true 
 relation to living. It is to make men and women of a pro- 
 fession that has all too often been dwarfed through living 
 primarily within a child-world. Those who are to lead chil- 
 dren to the high levels of adult performance, who are to 
 confer the wide outlook of the adult world upon the new 
 generation, are to be those whose associations are primarily 
 with the mature members of the community; and whose 
 outlook and valuations thus remain those of the adult world. 
 Naturally teachers long accustomed to the easy grooves of 
 academic tradition and the cloistral isolation in which they 
 have been spared from grappling with the knotty problems 
 of the full-grown world will be fearful of any such emanci- 
 pation and increase of responsibilities. But the present is 
 an age of swift change. We emerge into a new and human- 
 istic world. Our profession is being called upon to bear a 
 large responsibility in making the adjustments. Along with 
 all the world, as fully and perhaps more so, our profession 
 must readjust its ideas and its practices. The things are 
 not to be feared; but welcomed. It is the new day of our 
 professional opportunity. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE SOCIAL FACTORS OF PHYSICAL EFFICIENCY 
 
 In an age of multiple interdependencies and contacts, one 
 cannot alone determine the conditions upon which physical 
 welfare depends. These are determined by the social whole. 
 His food-supply, for example, comes to him from a thousand 
 hands and through a thousand channels. Properly to serve 
 its purposes it must be genuine, not an adulteration or imi- 
 tation. To be pure and wholesome, both sources and chan- 
 nels of transit must be uncontaminated. Care of the food- 
 supply is not merely a matter of personal hygiene; but a 
 coop>erative task of the entire community. For this, social 
 training with definite objectives is imperative. 
 
 There is the same dependence of each upon all in the man- 
 agement of the water supply; sewage disposal; the ventila- 
 tion of street and railway cars and public buildings; the 
 provision of pure air in cities, not contaminated by excess 
 smoke, dust, and gases; the prevention and destruction of 
 harmful micro-organisms; the prevention of flies, mosqui- 
 toes, and other carriers of disease; protection against acci- 
 dents in factories, mines, non-fireproof buildings, and street 
 traffic; the hours and sanitary conditions of labor; provision 
 of community play-facilities; elimination of noises; the social 
 control of the liquor, drug, and proprietary-medicine traffic; 
 the sanitation of schools, hotels, restaurants, stores, thea- 
 ters, churches, hospitals, jails, public institutions; arrang- 
 ing right community relations with the medical profession; 
 the suppression of public nuisances; the promotion of the 
 social, economic, and political relationships that are condu- 
 cive to mental serenity; adequate support of the health 
 
190 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 department; the gathering, presentation, and use of health 
 facts; the elimination of poverty as a potent, widely ramify- 
 ing cause of physical invalidity; setting up of standards of 
 living which recognize the physical-efficiency factor; and 
 finally, the general diffusion of the knowledge, attitudes, 
 and valuations needed for the cooperative performance of 
 these things. 
 
 The training is to be for practical performance. It is 
 therefore to use the technique of training upon the work- 
 level, in which training for action is to be accomplished 
 through action; in which knowledge, habits, and valuations 
 are to guide, impel, and facilitate right action. 
 
 It is difficult to arrange for practical training except in 
 the Great School of community affairs. Pupils must, there- 
 fore, under the guidance of teachers mingle with the adult 
 world in their performance of the cooperative activities. 
 They will look on; serve as helpers; in places bear a little 
 responsibility; in other places, larger responsibility; and 
 they will talk with those performing the responsible labors. 
 They will also look out upon a wider world of health rela- 
 tionships through varied reading; and discuss the problems 
 in their classes in health-science and civics, and with school 
 physicians, nurses, and physical-training directors. Along 
 with these they will antecedently plan; and with the stimu- 
 lation of the adult leadership, they will perform the part 
 that can legitimately be given to youth for their social 
 education. 
 
 Cooperative provision of play-facilities 
 
 We can best explain by illustration. Let us take first the 
 cooj>erative task of providing and maintaining adequate 
 physical play-facilities for children and adults. One's first 
 reaction is that this task does not require training. All that 
 adults have to do is to vote the money and have their offi- 
 
SOCIAL FACTORS OF PHYSICAL EFFICIENCY 191 
 
 cials purchase and maintain the facilities. This is true. But 
 it is like saying that one does not have to be trained for 
 spelling because it is only the simple task of putting the 
 letters in the right order. However simple this task, men 
 cannot do it until they value it, want to do it, and know the 
 right order of the letters; and all admit that these require 
 training. Now, voting money for sufl5cient purchases and 
 for adequate maintenance, delegating the authority wisely, 
 and holding agents responsible for effective service, — these 
 more complex things require that men value physical play 
 for themselves and for their children, that they want it, 
 and that they know how to get .the things done with cer- 
 tainty, effectiveness, and economy. They need training 
 first, for valuations, appreciations, attitudes of mind; and 
 second, for knowledge of means and processes. Of the two 
 the first is the more vital. It is prerequisite to the second. 
 It requires that men know play in its essences; know the 
 soul of play through having long experienced it. It requires 
 also that education aim definitely at something deep>er than 
 knowledge — an unaccustomed task. With the soil thus 
 prepared, the knowledge factor can be taken care of with 
 ease. 
 
 The valuations can be developed only where children and 
 adolescents have an opportunity to live the necessary play- 
 experiences — tennis, baseball, skating, basket-ball, foot- 
 ball, running-games, folk-games, and dances, and all the 
 rest — for all of the pupils. To read books about the topic, 
 to present reports in class, and to listen to talks by the 
 teacher, however fervent, is not to know play in its essences, 
 not to arrive at the valuations; and therefore never to attain 
 these ends of the training. 
 
 But participation alone is not enough for the social valu- 
 ations. The experiences of any individual are limited and 
 partial. He needs also to observe widely; and to read for 
 
192 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 width of social vision. In this way he should view the recre- 
 ational life not only of his own region, but usually indirectly 
 that of various cities and regions of our country, and of 
 other lands and ages. One does not realize the fundamental 
 place of play in human affairs until one observes the large 
 place that it has always occupied and still occupies in the 
 lives of peoples over the entire earth. Pupils need, there- 
 fore, to read an adequate history of human recreation 
 which will reveal concretely the large place of physical (and 
 at the same time usually social) play among primitive 
 peoples both ancient and recent; to read the history of play 
 in Greece, Rome, Persia, mediaeval Europe, Spain, England, 
 Germany, Japan, America, etc. In each case the chapter 
 dealing with recent history should be full. 
 
 As the participation, observations, and readings develop 
 valuations, it is easy to introduce the knowledge aspects: 
 the physiology of play, the simple concrete psychology, and 
 the social and economic aspects. 
 
 The cooperative fight on disease 
 
 A second cooperative task requiring practical social train- 
 ing relates to the prevention or limitation of diseases. This 
 problem is considera'bly more difficult for education. There 
 is not the same strength of propelling instinct. The tasks, 
 therefore, are less congenial. The problem is rendered more 
 difficult since pupils are iiot often to be brought into direct 
 contact with diseases and disease-producing conditions be- 
 cause of the dangers. In the vocational or civic education, 
 one aims to bring children into as vital contact with the 
 realities as possible; but here the demands of the usual peda- 
 gogy are reversed by the conditions. Pupils come to appre- 
 ciate work by working, and play by playing; but we do not 
 think they should become acquainted with the nature of 
 disease through having the diseases. This brings forward 
 
SOCIAL FACTORS OF PHYSICAL EFFICIENCY 193 
 
 the educational problem of how to develop understand- 
 ing without the direct experiences. As in history or foreign 
 geography, it is simply to fall back upon the indirect experi- 
 ence of concrete reading and lectures, making these full and 
 vivid enough to serve in lieu of direct experiences. It is to 
 use the language-avenue of contact with essential realities 
 when the direct avenue of sense-contact is barred by dis- 
 tance or lapse of time or danger. 
 
 The reading should be largely historical. This can reveal 
 the nature, seriousness, and gigantic proportions of the 
 human struggle with disease and disease-producing condi- 
 tions. To illustrate, the accompanying Figure 4 shows 
 
 Fig. 4. Death-rate from pulmonary tuberculosis in England and Wales 
 per 10,000 population, 1838-1894. 
 
 graphically the mortality in England from pulmonary tuber- 
 culosis from 1838 to 1894. The amount was great at the 
 beginning of the period; at the end, much diminished. The 
 decline shows a winning fight; and suggests the possibility 
 of making further gains. 
 
194 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 Along with the chart there should be concrete vivid read- 
 ing which reveals the action of the factors concerned in the 
 struggle. The story should present biographical materials 
 from the lives of men and women who were leaders in the 
 movement. These should show the nature of the things 
 upon which attacks were made, the modes of attack, and the 
 degrees of success. The story should reveal the attack upon 
 bad housing conditions, uncleanliness, bad ventilation, and 
 the lack of sunlight; the rise in the general standard of liv- 
 ing; the changes in wage-standards that permitted better 
 sanitation and higher standards of living; improvements in 
 the care of the milk-supply; improved methods of treatment; 
 segregation of the sick; improvements in the general sani- 
 tation of cities; and the labors of local and general boards 
 of health. 
 
 Similar charts and readings are needed for showing the 
 progress of the fight in other lands. These are especially 
 needed for our own country and for one's local community. 
 As pupils thus visualize the experiences, they come to realize 
 the nature and seriousness of the struggle, their sympathies 
 are awakened, and they are impelled toward active partici- 
 pation. Along with the concrete readings, there should be 
 discussion, problem-solving, and more general readings by 
 way of generalizing their information as to the factors. As 
 these social interests awake, — and they must precede, — 
 it will be possible to awaken interests in the more technical 
 matters involved in the causation of tuberculosis; the nature 
 of the bacilli, modes of transmission, methods of infection, 
 physiological conditions conducive to infection, physiolog- 
 ical and anatomical results of infection, etc. The tech- 
 nical science can largely be presented through reading and 
 the lectures of physicians, nurses, and science teachers; and 
 through the use of well-prepared anatomical and bacterio- 
 logical charts and diagrams. At some point in the course 
 
SOCIAL FACTORS OF PHYSICAL EFFICIENCY 195 
 
 the microscope and bacteriological laboratory will reveal 
 certain of the factors as concretely as practicable. Children 
 must be given the concrete imagery needed for substantiality 
 in their thinking. This is a primary condition of sanity of 
 thought in this field. 
 
 Other social studies of a comparative character for stu 
 dents of high school and later levels should reveal the geo- 
 graphical, occupational, social, and other distributions of 
 tuberculosis. The studies will be largely statistical and 
 graphical with interpretative discussion of causes and rela- 
 tionships. These studies will reveal the differences in differ- 
 ent portions of the earth; the differing immunities to the 
 disease on the part of different races; differences due to 
 higher and lower standards of living; to different occupa- 
 tions; and to variations in any of the other major factors. 
 
 If the early levels of study in this general field are con- 
 crete and experiential, it can be made as interesting to child- 
 hood and youth, as any other. The human interest in a 
 fight is perennial and universal. The fight upon disease is 
 likewise perennial and universal; a never-ending struggle 
 with hostile forces. It is in literal fact a more sanguinary 
 conflict than any military war ever waged: the major num- 
 ber of all human beings are killed or seriously injured long 
 before their allotted years are run. If the readings can be 
 so drawn that one can visualize and realize a struggle which 
 is so largely invisible to the eyes, it can be given an educa- 
 tional vitality hitherto little realized. 
 
 Figure 5 shows in general outline the history of diphtheria 
 in Chicago from 1875 down to 1916. Injection of antitoxin 
 was instituted in 1896. The figure shows the fight to have 
 been a winning one before that time; but that since then, 
 through the use of this new weap>on, the battle is largely 
 won. Let young people read a well-written history of the 
 movement in this and other cities and countries. Let them 
 
196 
 
 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 
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 understand the physiological and bacteriological causes and 
 conditions. Let them understand the technology of the an- 
 titoxin. Let them have the charts showing the historical 
 trend, — and with these things before them they cannot 
 fail to see the whole situation and its factors in perspective 
 and with perfect sanity. The major cause of the great 
 abundance of irrational thinking in this field is that indi- 
 viduals have never been supplied with the necessary mate- 
 rials of thought. 
 
 Not every fight has been a winning one. Figure 6 shows 
 the history of cancer in Chicago from 1871 to 1910. It has 
 increased steadily and apparently irresistibly. Other mala- 
 dies like Bright's disease, heart disease, pneumonia, etc., 
 have been increasing in the same way. With them the 
 fight has been a losing one. This is the case in our coun- 
 
SOCIAL FACTORS OF PHYSICAL EFFICIENCY 197 
 
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 (From Report of the Chicago Department of Health, 1911.) 
 
 try at large and in all civilized countries. These foes of 
 human welfare appear to be gaining an upper hand. In con- 
 nection with such matters as these, where the fight is being 
 lost, it is even more important that there be fullness of 
 reading, fullness of direct observation so far as practicable, 
 and fullness of related scientific studies by way of devel- 
 oping an understanding and realization of the causes and 
 conditions of these more deadly enemies. 
 
 The history to be used is not always that of one's own 
 country; but rather that of any country where effective 
 V^^ork has been done. Figure 7 shows the history in graphical 
 form of smallpox in Germany since 1846. It shows that 
 previous to the Franco-Prussian War, when there was no 
 compulsory vaccination, the average annual death-rate per 
 100,000 of population was above 24. During the disorgani- 
 zation of the Franco-Prussian War, the rate rose to 262, 
 
198 
 
 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 or more than ten times the normal average. This brought 
 compulsory vaccination. The result was that the average 
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 1886. Courtesy of W. B. Saunders & Co. 
 
 rate has been less than 1, or less than one twenty-fifth what 
 it was during the years previous to compulsory vaccination. 
 It is possible to discuss the pros and cons of vaccination with 
 the negationists without accomplishing any great result. 
 This is a normal mental phenomenon, and not mere intel- 
 lectual perverseness. The individual negationists are not to 
 blame; but rather an education that failed to give them the 
 materials of thought. Let youths have an adequate history 
 of smallpox; comparative figures such as shown in this 
 chart; the technical information relative to the disease; the 
 
SOCIAL FACTORS OF PHYSICAL EFFICIENCY 199 
 
 theory of the vaccine, the mode of preparation, the theory 
 of its action within the human system, etc. Having this 
 information they cannot be negationists, even if they wish, 
 since the conditions requisite for mental negation have been 
 removed. 
 
 For the entire health field, nothing is so much needed as 
 incontestable historical evidence as to the past ravages of 
 diseases, and as to the beneficent effects of modern sanitary 
 and medical procedure. It is now a field of much vague 
 and often bizarre thinking. Let men have the genuine ma- 
 terials of thought, and they can come to think sanely. 
 
 Because of past neglect, before leaving these topics we 
 wish a little further to urge the need of vivifying reading. A 
 spectacular engulfing of human life, like a CoUinwood School 
 or Iroquois Theater fire, an Eastland or Titanic disaster, 
 under normal world-conditions, catches our attention and 
 fills us with horror for days and weeks. But herein the city 
 of Chicago where these words are written, to take a near 
 illustration, at the present rate the lives of 12,000 children 
 now in the schools of the city will be snuffed out unneces- 
 sarily before their school days are over because of evil and 
 uncorrected health conditions. This is the equivalent of 
 more than sixty CoUinwood School fires, — and but few 
 take notice. It is equivalent to twenty Iroquois Theater 
 fires, — ^-but not even the city, much less the Nation, is 
 aroused. It is equivalent to six or eight Eastland or Titanic 
 disasters, — and we let it pass unheeded. No spectacular 
 oflicial investigations are begun. Unlike the catastrophic 
 engulfing of human life, although they were small as com- 
 pared to this, it does not fire legislatures, city councils, and 
 school boards the country over to zealous correction of 
 dangerous conditions. The causes are so omnipresent, dis- 
 ease and death so diffused, everything so undefined, it is so 
 distributed over the whole community, over the entire year. 
 
200 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 it is so much behind closed doors, the foe so invisible, the 
 fight so secret and insidious, and men are so used to it all, 
 that they simply accept it as a portion of the inescapable 
 human lot. The ignorant are apathetic and their imagina- 
 tions are dull. They lack the apperceptive ideas for reali- 
 zation of such chronic, non-striking conditions. They lack 
 the imagery necessary for conjuring up the horrors that in- 
 visibly surround them. Fullness and vividness of reading 
 experience which effectively reconstructs and reveals the 
 situation, is the remedy for such indifference to needless 
 suffering and premature destruction. 
 
 Readings should present a history of the human struggle 
 with micro-organisms: the history of the fight with small- 
 pox, yellow fever, Asiatic cholera, bubonic plague, typhoid, 
 tuberculosis, diphtheria, pneumonia, malaria, and the others 
 of the list. It should present a history of city sanitation, the 
 sanitation of dwellings, schools, theaters, street and railway 
 cars, etc. It should show what history usually does not 
 show, namely, the large place that disease has played as a 
 factor in human history, as in the disappearance of the vir- 
 ile Greek and Roman races; the obliteration of the Vandal 
 Kingdom in Africa and Italy; the disappearance of every 
 German army that during the period of the Holy Roman 
 Empire descended into Italy; the disappearance of the 
 American Indians of North America, not before the guns, 
 but before the diseases of the white invaders; the retarda- 
 tion of the civilization of the tropical regions, etc. Pupils 
 should read vivid accounts of the history of sanitation in 
 Panama under both French and Americans; the story of 
 Gorgas in his sanitation of Cuba and in his clearing-up of 
 the typhus epidemic in Serbia; the story of the obliteration 
 of Asiatic cholera in the Philippines; of the fight of the Jap- 
 anese upon disease before and during the Russo-Japanese 
 War; and so on through an extended list. It is most remark- 
 
SOCIAL FACTORS OF PHYSICAL EFFICIENCY 201 
 
 able that the historians in drawing up lists of influences 
 that have controlled the mutations of human affairs should, 
 except in occasional instances, have overlooked the funda- 
 mental influence of this biological factor. 
 
 As a profession we have not yet come sufficiently to value 
 reading as a mode of experience. We have valued it for 
 securing systematized information which can be recited 
 and examined upon. We have not, however, sufficiently 
 looked upon it as formative experience which flows through 
 the consciousness, leaving its effects in the general mental 
 cast, in perspective, in valuations and attitudes, and in a 
 rich background of conscious mental life. Most of such 
 experience is forgotten and should be forgotten in the sense 
 that most details are not recallable. Forgetting is as normal 
 a mental function as remembering. The human mind can 
 hold only a limited quantity of menaories in recallable form. 
 In order that this little be of the right sort, it must be the 
 residuum from a wealth of mostly forgotten experience. This 
 residuum is largely a texture of generalizations from one's 
 concrete experience in which are intermingled concrete 
 memories of some of the more striking, more frequently 
 repeated, or more recent experiences. These remembered 
 concretes are usually partially digested matters that have 
 not yet lost their identity in their assimilation into the 
 general. 
 
 W^e are not recommending readings that are to be learned 
 or memorized any more than those of the morning news- 
 paper. If the experiences are of the right sorts, if they have 
 depth and warmth and emotional potency, the foundation 
 will have been laid for the desirable generalizations. These 
 latter are the things that most need to be remembered; and 
 fortunately nature has provided for them in the process of 
 generalization through natural assimilation of the concrete 
 details. They need not be memorized after the plan of the 
 
202 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 old-fashioned textbook method. They are the natural fruits 
 of experience if it can be made normal and full. And there 
 are also the other fruits of this experience: right attitudes 
 of mind, standards of judgment, valuations, emotional sym- 
 pathies, dynamic tendencies of the will, etc. These latter 
 are just as important as the intellectual generalizations. 
 They are, however, practically neglected in their entirety 
 where education consists of textbook fact-memorization. 
 
 Practical activities 
 
 What can young people do by way of putting their social 
 health-ideas to work, and their attitudes, valuations, and 
 social sympathies? To begin with, there are certain non- 
 specialized labors related to the public health which they 
 can perform. They can engage in anti-fly campaigns. They 
 can make accurate surveys of every city block by way of 
 locating and mapping every fly-breeding spot. In places 
 where they can have control, they can eliminate the fly- 
 breeding conditions. They can make effective public report 
 on places where they have no control. They can continue 
 these processes until the community is sufficiently awakened 
 for cooperative regulation of places inaccessible to the young 
 people. Within recent years Cleveland has shown what can 
 be accomplished where there is zealous and enlightened 
 leadership. Along with the activities referred to, pupils 
 can cooperatively undertake the destruction of the flies 
 themselves through the placing of traps, fly-paper, etc. They 
 can carry their surveys still further and show upon another 
 map the distribution of fly-infested food-supplies and fly- 
 protected food-supplies; upon a third, disease-breeding places 
 to which fly carriers have access and from which they may 
 carry diseases. Most of the facts will relate to things over 
 which pupils have no power of direct correction. They will 
 simply be gathering inspectorial facts for the community. 
 
SOCIAL FACTORS OF PHYSICAL EFFICIENCY 203 
 
 But this is as practical a task as the actual obliteration 
 of the harmful conditions. It is really more important for 
 their civic education, since the things which they can them- 
 selves do with their own hands are comparatively few; but 
 the number of things which they are to do cooperatively on 
 the basis of a general community understanding are numer- 
 ous. The inspectorial labors provide both intellectual and 
 social training for these cooperative labors. 
 
 To be fruitful for community life or for education, there 
 must be joint responsibility of adults and children with 
 adults supplying leadership and delegating responsibility 
 to the children. A child campaign alone is a social abnormal- 
 ity, good neither for practical results nor for education. 
 
 Other types of incompletely specialized activities in which 
 the students can participate are anti-mosquito campaigns, 
 city clean-up campaigns, current thoughtfulness and care 
 for the cleanliness of streets, back yards, etc., cooperative 
 participation in the ventilation of public places, destruction 
 of vermin and pests of other sorts than those enumerated, 
 etc. These and others of similar type can be carried through 
 oh plans analogous to those described in the case of the anti- 
 fly activities. Pupils also have an opportunity to cooperate 
 practically with the labors of specialists of many kinds as 
 these touch the various homes; for example, in the garbage 
 disposal, the smoke nuisance, sewage disposal, the drainage 
 of city lots, quarantine, protection of the water-supply, and 
 elimination of nuisances. After all is said, however, cooper- 
 ative health activities will largely be taken care of by spe- 
 cialized civic departments : the board of health, city food 
 inspectors, market inspectors, milk inspectors, the city 
 water department, the garbage and waste disposal depart- 
 ment, the sewage disposal department, the playground 
 department, the city smoke inspectors, building inspectors, 
 the factory inspection service, etc. The inteUigent city. 
 
204 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 village, or rural region of the future will see that part-time 
 work is provided mature pupils for training purposes in 
 connection with these several cooperative activities. The 
 quantity of responsibility placed upon them probably need 
 not be large. That they be in contact with the realities is 
 the principal thing. 
 
 While such part-time participation is needed for substan- 
 tiality, the major portion of their practical labors in con- 
 nection with all of these things will necessarily be the 
 gathering of facts, the making of surveys, the preparation 
 of publicity charts, diagrams, statistical tables, reports that 
 are to be used in the inspectorial labors of the total com- 
 munity. This has been suflBciently discussed in a previous 
 chapter. The methods employed will be the same for the 
 social aspects of health care as for any other cooperative 
 group task. 
 
PART V 
 EDUCATION FOR LEISURE OCCUPATIONS 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE FUNCTION OF PLAY IN HUMAN LIFE 
 
 All of our discussion, whether of play or work, assumes 
 that education is preparation for the affairs of the mature 
 world. This is not to lose sight of the fact that the educa- 
 tion of the nine-year-old child is to prepare for the life of 
 the ten-year-old; and this in turn for that of the eleven-year- 
 old. But at the same time and in the same way, education 
 during the formative stages of childhood and youth is to 
 prepare for the long stage of maturity. 
 
 xlttention is called to this, since we are not here primarily 
 concerned with the plays of children for their own sake, but 
 with play-experience as preparation for the leisure occu- 
 pations of adult men and women. We are discussing train- 
 ing for adult life as fully as in the chapters on vocational or 
 civic education. It is true that play is a large factor in the 
 lives of youth, since it is man's fundamental education; but 
 it is no less one of the largest factors in normal adult life. 
 Dr. Woods Hutchinson has a lecture entitled "Which is 
 the life of man — his work or his play?" His answer is, "It 
 is his play." Play is both end and process. 
 
 "Man is a whole man only when he plays," goes the old 
 proverb. As worded by Schiller: "Man plays only when 
 he is a human being in the fullest sense of the word, and he 
 has reached full humanity only when he plays. This propo- 
 sition will acquire great and deep significance when we shall 
 learn to refer to it the doubly serious ideas of duty and 
 destiny. It will then sustain the entire superstructure of 
 aesthetic art and of the yet more diflficult art of life." 
 
 Leisure occupations are physical, intellectual, social, and 
 
208 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 sesthetic: conversation, observation of men and things, con- 
 struction and operation of things, hobbies, sports, games, 
 athletics, reading, travel, music, painting; scientific experi- 
 mentation prompted by interest in science; the reading of 
 history, economics, philosophy, science, foreign languages, 
 mathematics, and technology, when prompted by love of the 
 subject and delight in the intellectual experience; religious 
 meditations and philosophic contemplation. The field is 
 wide. 
 
 Men and women have considerable leisure time. A week 
 consists of one hundred and sixty-eight hours. After allow- 
 ing twelve hours a day for sleep and meals, there remain 
 eighty-four hours per week. With an eight-hour day and 
 Saturday half-holiday, the work-week is forty-four hours 
 and the leisure-week, forty hours. With a labor-week that 
 meets general approval, a man has almost as much time for 
 his leisure as for his work. 
 
 There is more opportunity than the figures show. Recre- 
 ational activities are mingled with work-activities. One's 
 eyes, one's attention, one's thoughts are, while he works, 
 continually roving over the things of his environment for 
 no serious purpose. Very much of this watchfulness and 
 thought as to things going on about him is not an essential 
 portion of his immediate task. It is a leisure occupation as 
 completely as his observations out of a car window. Then 
 there is conversation with his associates concerning things 
 unrelated to his work. Where conversation is not possible, 
 there is meditation, reminiscence, day-dreaming, planning 
 of social activities, and the consideration of one's current 
 problems. The mechanization of industry often provides 
 favorable conditions for this quiet intellectual leisure occu- 
 pation. The man performs his work with no more mind 
 upon it than if he were a machine. His hands perform the 
 labors, but he himself is out in the wide fields of imaginative 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PLAY IN HUMAN LIFE 209 
 
 experience. Although working eight or ten hours a day at 
 a mechanical trade, many of these may really be hours in 
 which his consciousness is mainly devoted to leisure occupa- 
 tion. Such a man's play-life even during the hours of his 
 work may be larger than his work-life. 
 
 And even beyond this, there is opportunity. It consists in 
 transfusing the work-activities with the play-spirit. For 
 example, Mr. Edison is reported to have said, "I think I 
 have never done a day's work in my life." Although devot- 
 ing ten to twenty hours a day to laboratories and shops, the 
 labors have been so fully vivified by the quickening spirit 
 of play that sense of drudgery and bondage to conditions 
 have been eliminated. When a man thus attains his free- 
 dom, when he feels himself master over his work rather than 
 the servant of his work, he has made it one of his large fields 
 of recreational experience. Since work of this transfigured 
 tyj>e is really so much more accurate, proficient, and pro- 
 ductive of material results, one of the ends of vocational 
 education must be this transfiguration. 
 
 Education must take note of the disparities of human 
 character. Even within the same race, men often seem so 
 different as scarcely to belong to the same species. Com- 
 pare, for example, a group of bankers, bishops, or judges 
 with the hard-handed laborers upon our streets or in our 
 mines and factories. The professional men ,stand poised, 
 erect, full-statured, physically flexible, buoyant with energy. 
 Intellectually, they are rich in stores of the world's wisdom 
 and their mental horizon and outlook are as wide as the 
 world itself. Their social presence is stimulating, exhila- 
 rating, contagiously uplifting. They seem to be a revela- 
 tion of the nature of complete manhood. On the other 
 hand, the members of the hard-handed army of unskilled 
 labor, especially if they have reached middle life, in large 
 portion present a different picture. Physically they all too 
 
glO THE CURRICULUM 
 
 often appear worn, hard, and misshapen. Heavy, impassive 
 features reveal an all too frequent sluggishness and vacancy 
 of mental life. Too often they have little information be- 
 yond that picked up at random in the course of a meager 
 and sordid experience. Their mental life too often has but 
 a narrow horizon, and but little sky. Their pleasures too 
 often are upon a sensuous level. With exteriors so hard and 
 impassive, with conversation so crude and materialistic, 
 with minds so circumscribed or vacant, their social presence 
 is often wanting in many desirable factors. One feels in- 
 stinctively that these do not represent the norms of person- 
 ality. Both high and low turn instinctively to the other 
 type as the norms of what men might and should be. 
 
 The differences are largely due, not to heredity, but to 
 differing developmental conditions. The large place of play 
 in the process is well stated by. Professor James in one of his 
 striking paragraphs: — 
 
 Compare the accomplished gentleman with the poor artisan or 
 tradesman of a city: during the adolescence of the former, objects 
 appropriate to his growing interests, bodily and mental, were 
 offered as fast as the interests awoke, and, as a consequence, he is 
 armed and equipped at every angle to meet the world. Sport came 
 to the rescue and completed his education where real things were 
 lacking. He has tasted of the essence of every side of human life, 
 being sailor, hunter, athlete, scholar, fighter, talker, dandy, man 
 of affairs, etc., all in one. Over the city poor boy's youth no such 
 golden opportunities were hung, and in his manhood no desire for 
 most of them exist. Fortunate it is for him if gaps are the only 
 anomalies his instinctive life presents; perversions are too often 
 the fruit of his unnatural bringing up. 
 
 "Sport came to the rescue." Play is Nature's method of 
 building out those aspects of personality that are left fallow 
 by an otherwise incomplete and barren experience. Play is 
 Nature's normalizer. 
 
 Defects of personality may be due, not merely to lack of 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PLAY IN HUMAN LIFE 211 
 
 developmental opportunity, but also to failure to maintain 
 gains that have previously been made. The classical illus- 
 tration is presented in Darwin's autobiography: — 
 
 Up to the age of thirty or beyond it, poetry of many kinds gave 
 me great pleasure; and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight 
 in Shakespeare, especially in the historical plays. I have also said 
 that pictures formerly gave me considerable, and music very great, 
 delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of 
 poetry. I have tried lately to read Shakespeare and found it so 
 intolerably duU that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost my 
 taste for pictures or music. . . . My mind seems to have become a 
 kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections 
 of facts; but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part 
 of the brain alone on which the higher tastes depend, I cannot con- 
 ceive. ... If I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule 
 to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every 
 week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus 
 have been kept alive through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss 
 of happiness and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and 
 more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional 
 parts of our nature. 
 
 If this dying away of certain of the higher portions of the 
 personality should be so marked in the case of a studious, 
 scholarly man like Darwin, who had traveled widely, read 
 widely, and who was in constant association with the leaders 
 of science, it is reasonable to suppose that in the case of that 
 great majority of men and women of lesser opportunity 
 in whom the original developments were less complete, the 
 atrophy of the higher powers might well be much more 
 marked. Thus the large gains during school-days are lost, 
 soon or late, if there is not continuing exercise for mainte- 
 nance. Things must be earned before one can possess them; 
 but they must be re-earned continually in order that posses- 
 sion may continue. One's work-activities are usually too 
 narrow and specialized to provide for the necessary protec- 
 tion against the decays of disuse; and the conditions grow 
 
212 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 worse as specialization increases. Interest-driven leisure oc- 
 cupations alone can provide the necessary counteracting in- 
 fluences. In the face of the maleficent influence of special- 
 ization upon personality, play is again Nature's normalizer. 
 It maintains the personality against decay. 
 
 Play is as normal for adulthood as for childhood. During \ 
 childhood it is to unfold the potential powers and make 
 them actual; and at each level to maintain the gains of 
 earlier levels. During adulthood it is to maintain for a life- 
 time all of the awakened and expanded aspects of person- 
 ality so as to prevent withering and disappearance. 
 
 It is probable that in the newer schools of the oncoming 
 humanistic age, education for leisure occupations will be 
 recognized as one of the most serious educational tasks — if 
 not the largest and most vital of all. Vocational education is 
 receiving enthusiastic and liberal support because it prom- 
 ises increased production of corn and cotton, of machinery 
 and clothing, and the other material means of Hfe. Leisure 
 occupations relate to the production not of the means of 
 life, but of life itself; of fully rounded character; and the 
 continuing maintenance of that character. If we are to 
 educate for eflBciency in producing the means of life, we 
 should also educate eflficiently for the production of life 
 itself. 
 
 In order to develop sufficiently the educational implica- 
 tions, we must introduce a little of the physiology and psy- 
 chology of play. The first thing to be noted is the relation 
 of exercise to the development and maintenance of structures 
 and functions. Everybody knows that muscles require 
 exercise for normal development of both structure and 
 function; and for maintenance. It is not so well known, but 
 just as true, that exercise is necessary for mental function- 
 ing, social functioning, assthetic activities, religious and 
 philosophic contemplation, appreciations of science and lit- 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PLAY IN HUMAN LIFE 213 
 
 erature and art, sympathies and emotions in general; and 
 for maintenance of the power to fmiction. 
 
 A second thing to be noted is the instability of growth- 
 results. Structures and functions disappear when unused: 
 and relative to man's needs, the atrophy is rapid. It would 
 be a fine thing indeed and make enormously for economy 
 if structures and powers once developed remained perma- 
 nent and constant. Our educational problem would then 
 be to bring the muscles to their proper level of development 
 and then simply leave them there with a constant strength 
 and power, whether used or unused, for an entire lifetime. 
 The task would further be to develop one's mental powers 
 in desirable measure and then- to leave them with unchanged 
 strength during the rest of one's days, whether used much 
 or little, regularly or irregularly. It would be a beautiful 
 arrangement; and it sometimes appears that educational 
 practices presuppose that such conditions exist. But un- 
 fortunately man is not so constituted. The moment he 
 relaxes his normal exercise of muscles, heat-producing ap- 
 paratus, and nerve-structures, or his mental, social, sesthetic, 
 and other activities, whether he be child or adult, that mo- 
 ment the structures begin to atrophy and the powers to 
 decline; and the loss is more rapid than generally realized. 
 
 Relative to the abruptness of frequent need, tJie upbuilding 
 or re-upbuilding is slow. This is well illustrated in the pres- 
 ent training of our national army. It was predicted that 
 should ever national danger arise, an efficient army would 
 spring into existence overnight. The need came with 
 suddenness; but the men in general were found to be in- 
 sufficiently developed in muscular strength, endurance, and 
 resistance to climatic conditions. In part they represent 
 incomplete physical development; in part atrophy due to 
 sedentary life. They may assemble under the colors in a 
 few days, but they cannot so quickly call into existence the 
 necessary powers. 
 
gl4 
 
 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 A further principle is that heredity 'provides the possibility 
 of a much fuller development than demanded by the conditions 
 of civilization; and play must make up the deficit. Rightly to 
 appreciate this we must look first to the place of play in pre- 
 civilized life. 
 
 WW7-£-/q 
 
 Sa^r-re^ 
 
 /=(^7U/^/V ,^ 
 
 /^^TViR/Vo^ 
 
 WA^ or 
 
 /=>Sy^C£- or 
 
 ^a/rj:> 
 
 ^.^y 
 
 r^A/^'/^s 
 
 A^^'^T-y 
 
 CO^O/TYO/VS 
 
 CO '^a/TTOAKT 
 
 
 ■.r iyi--.-. 
 
 ■JJ llljjjilllll , 
 
 
 Fig. 8. The varying degrees of intensity in man's primitive biological 
 struggle. Represented by the height of the vertical lines. 
 
 Figure 8 is designed to represent crudely the varying 
 intensity in the demands of the primitive biological struggle 
 over a period of time. In those early ages the winter was 
 often a period of scarcity, of famine, of struggle with cli- 
 matic elements and with competing hostile tribes. Condi- 
 tions often demanded the expansion and exercise of one's 
 full potential powers. The demand for effort is represented 
 by the distance between the horizontal lines. With the 
 coming of summer, the increase in the food-supply, the 
 decrease in the competition with hostile tribes, and the 
 temporary disappearance of the climate struggle, the de- 
 mands for strenuous exertion were relaxed. This was so 
 complete that there was no need of the men's doing any- 
 thing for months at a time. But the seasons brought recur- 
 rence of the struggle. The figure indicates that conditions 
 may precipitate the struggle very suddenly; and thus after 
 months of inactivity call for instant functioning of the indi- 
 vidual's full powers. 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PLAY IN HUMAN LIFE 215 
 
 Let us for a moment suppose that there were under such 
 conditions no instinctive tendencies to play. Then in pro- 
 portion as the demands of the struggle relaxed, the indi- 
 vidual would grow correspondingly quiescent in muscular 
 ejffort, in observation, in thought, in invention, in conver- 
 sation and development of ideas in conversation, and in 
 other social activities. As exercise thus relaxed, the powers 
 would atrophy in proportion to the degree of disuse. Figure 
 8, therefore, shows what the rise and fall of the actual 
 powers of the individual under such conditions would be, — • 
 provided the atrophy of unused powers was as rapid as the 
 diminution in the demands of the struggle, and the recovery 
 of those same powers could be as rapid as the onset of the 
 sti*uggle where it is relatively sudden. 
 
 Unfortunately the latter supposition is not true. Recovery 
 of atrophied powers is relatively slaw; yet the need of rapid 
 recovery under primitive conditions was frequent. War 
 came unexpectedly; famine also. Men had always, there- 
 fore, to be in a state of preparedness to meet the sudden 
 onsets. Nature could not permit man's exercise, therefore, 
 to diminish in proportion as the struggle grew relaxed. The 
 loss of powers would make the individual the prey of any 
 sudden and unexpected attack. If caught unprepared he 
 would find himself in the condition of an army that has not 
 kept up its drill and which when called to sudden and un- 
 expected war finds itself weak, flabby, and lacking in endur- 
 ance. Such a condition would not only invite, but under the 
 circumstances would result, in destruction. The man, there- 
 fore, during those days had to be kept drilled during the 
 period of relaxation in the biological struggle in order that 
 he should be ready for the times of stress. He must not be 
 caught unprepared. 
 
 The level of needed preparedness is roughly represented 
 by Figure 9. The segments of the vertical lines below the 
 
«16 
 
 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 I I ! ! 
 
 PT 
 
 T^ 
 
 mr 
 
 I!'! 
 
 1 1 
 
 TTT 
 I ' ' 
 
 M 
 
 J I 
 
 Itii 
 
 / 
 
 'r^/vjiE 
 
 Fig. 9. The relatively constant degree of preparedness needed for the 
 inconstant conditions of primitive life. Needed preparedness represented 
 by the total vertical lines. The portion above the curved line AB to be 
 provided through play-activities. 
 
 curved line AB represent the portion of his preparedness 
 provided for by his serious activities. The segments above 
 the line AB represent the portions of his preparedness that 
 could not be taken care of by his serious activities and which 
 therefore had to be otherwise provided for. So far as the 
 struggle of the moment was concerned, this surplus of powers 
 was mere luxury. Primitive man was not intelligent enough 
 to know that during periods of biological relaxation he must 
 keep his body and mind in a. continual state of preparedness 
 and that continuing functioning ,was necessary for the pur- 
 pose. He was notoriously lacking in foresight; and what is 
 more, his knowledge of educational processes was not suffi- 
 cient to enable him wisely to choose the best means. When 
 enlightened twentieth-century individuals are so lacking in 
 these things, obviously it could not be expected that prim- 
 itive man would be continually looking forward to the re- 
 newal of the struggle and consciously keeping up his gym- 
 nastic exercises of mind and body in order that he be always 
 prepared. And yet the great variety of exercises had to 
 continue. For this reason Nature provided man with his 
 wealth of play tendencies. He was impelled to play at 
 fighting when real fighting was no longer necessary; to hunt 
 and fish for pleasure when not required for the food-supply; 
 to travel about over the region; to move among his fellows; 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PLAY IN HUMAN LIFE 217 
 
 to converse concerning the tribal experiences; to observe 
 the actions of men and animals and the elements; and all 
 for the mere pleasure of the activities. Although not de- 
 manded by the struggle, he ran and jumped, swam and 
 climbed, shouted and danced, in obedience to the prompt- 
 ings of Nature that he exercise and thus keep himself ever 
 ready for serious action when it came. The pleasure was 
 not the end; but it seemed to him to be the end. It was the 
 lure. The man who did not so exercise in play by way of 
 maintaining the necessary surplus of powers was cut down 
 in the next onset of the struggle; and his heredity was cut 
 down with him. Only those endowed with strong play- 
 tendencies were preserved; and to their sons were trans- 
 mitted the same play-tendencies. In those days as well, play 
 was Nature's normalizer, disciplining individuals whose 
 intelligence — likewise hereditary — was too frail to direct 
 the process. 
 
 In those early ages children were differently situated. In 
 periods of greatest hardship, the burden fell first and most 
 heavily upon them. More than with the adults, they had 
 ever to be as completely prepared as possible. With them, 
 therefore, the play-tendencies were urgent and incessant. 
 Not only was there for them this purpose of vigilant main- 
 tenance of all of the gains, but there was also the original 
 unfoldment of their abilities. For both purposes the in- 
 stincts needed to be certain in their action and strongly im- 
 pelling. Seen biologically, children's play was — and is — • 
 the most serious function of childhood. It was then — and 
 to-day should be — the largest factor in the child's educa- 
 tion. We refer here, of course, to play in its wider sense, as 
 it includes social, intellectual, and aesthetic activities as well 
 as the physical. 
 
 This discussion of the primitive situation is for the pur- 
 pose of bringing home to us a reaUzation of the present sit- 
 
818 
 
 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 uation and the nature of our educational problems. The 
 potentialities of man developed during those early ages have 
 been handed down to om* own generation in heredity. The 
 possible degree of unfoldment of our powers was largely 
 determined for men of the present within those early days. 
 We are but the living portion of the same series of genera- 
 tions. The types of activities which they needed to perform 
 for their full unfoldment, we yet need to perform, — though 
 with modifications to meet artificial conditions. The im- 
 pelling tendencies which actuated them are also the only 
 ones given to us to-day. 
 
 Although man's original nature has not greatly changed, 
 his external environment and the conditions of the struggle 
 have been greatly transformed. Figure 10 roughly indicates 
 
 vAwriryi 
 
 VV/yV^ir/^ 
 
 gi/^^/^t^ 
 
 Fig. 10. The relaxed and relatively unchanging intensity in man's 
 present-day biological struggle. 
 
 certain changes in the struggle. The distance between the 
 two horizontal lines is intended to represent schematically 
 the magnitude of man's hereditary potential powers; the 
 vertical lines, the quantity of energy to be expended in 
 the twentieth-century type of biological struggle. In large 
 measure, the struggle has been evened over the year. The 
 labors of factories and mines, commerce and transportation, 
 etc., are now much the same from year's end to year's end. 
 In our abundant provision of clothing, fuel, and shelter, we 
 have mostly banished winter and evened the climatic strug- 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PLAY IN HUMAN LIFE 219 
 
 gle. In developing a world agricultural community, systems 
 of transportation and storage, we have banished famine. 
 In spite of the present atavistic European outbreak, we 
 think that we have done most of the things necessary for 
 banishing war. In the invention of labor-saving machinery, 
 in the specialization of industry, and in organization under 
 trained direction, we seem to have banished the necessity 
 for thought, judgment, observation, accurate and detailed 
 information, and comprehensiveness of understanding of 
 things about us, for the great majority of men. Primitive 
 man had to be watchful, alert, and thoughtful as to the sig- 
 nificance of a host of things within his environment. He 
 had to keep informed as to what other people around him 
 were thinking and doing. He had to be kept alive in his 
 social sympathies so as instantly to rally to the support of 
 his fellow tribesmen in sudden emergency. Civilization has 
 diminished the need for these things. A man can now be 
 little — in body, in mind, in social responsiveness, in moral 
 responsibility — and yet survive in the relaxed conditions 
 of the modern struggle. Specialization can hold us in such 
 narrow grooves and provide us with such meager opportuni- 
 ties for experiences that we can pass through life in a state 
 of littleness. It is to live but half a life — or less. 
 
 Such a state of half-life means, not merely half -realization 
 alone, but also subnormality or abnormality of even that 
 which is realized. It is not good physically to have powers 
 only half-developed. It means flabbiness, incoordination, 
 inaccuracy, lowered physiological inhibitions, susceptibility 
 to disease, lowered reserves of vitality, and a consequent 
 imperfect foundation for one's mental, social, aesthetic, and 
 moral life. 
 
 Intellectual half-life or quarter-life is not good for one 
 mentally, even though under another's direction he perform 
 the tasks that fall to his lot. It means intellectual flabbiness, 
 
220 
 
 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 a leaning upon others, uncertainty, inaccuracy, lack of con- 
 fidence, depleted stores of information, an unobserving 
 mind, lack of initiative and inventiveness, inadaptibility, 
 inertia, and most other intellectual weaknesses. Such an 
 individual lives within a petty environment and fails even 
 to see the things within that environment. He lacks out- 
 look upon the wide world, upon the past, and imagination 
 as to the possibilities of the future. Such a man is not of the 
 type demanded by twentieth-century conditions. 
 
 In the same way the half-exercise and half-realization of 
 one's social powers results equally in social ill-health: social 
 disintegration, enfeebled social sympathies, incoordination 
 of individuals within the group except as enforced by exter- 
 nal authority, social unresponsiveness, lack of consideration 
 for others, lack of tact, social irresponsibility, and other 
 social ills. 
 
 TO 
 
 I llijil'i > 
 
 I I I I I I 
 • ' ■ • I I 
 
 I 11 
 
 >!illi 
 
 I I I ! i I I I i It 
 I I III I I I I I I I I I I 
 
 I I I 
 
 II » 
 
 w//vr;5"/^ 
 
 SO^^/^£^ 
 
 Su/^f^£'^* 
 
 FiQ. 11. To represent the portion of man's potential development that in 
 our present civilized state is dependent upon continuing play-activities. 
 
 Figure 11 is designed to represent schematically the pos- 
 sible and desirable additional expansion of one's powers. The 
 unbroken segments of the vertical lines below AB represent 
 the fraction of one's possible powers that is sustained by 
 one's serious activities; the broken segments above AB^ the 
 fractional portion that is to be added and sustained through 
 play — or not at all. Herein lies man's opportunity to live 
 above and beyond the ineluctable dictates of stern natural 
 necessity. 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PLAY IN HUMAN LIFE 221 
 
 The vocational, civic, and hygienic education already dis- 
 cussed seek to lower the level ABy and thus still further to 
 reduce the call for serious activity; and to increase both the 
 opportunity and the necessity for leisure occupations. 
 
 Just as in early days, this further expansion is to be 
 effected through activities of the play type. Now as then 
 it is to be at the prompting of normal play-instincts — 
 though the artificial conditions of modern life will make a 
 large amount of conscious guidance necessary. No less than 
 then, the pleasure-motive — under guidance — must be the 
 impelling force in childhood and adulthood; even though 
 this pleasure be now, as then, but a lure and not the end. 
 It is unhealthy to be too conscious of the nature of the ends. 
 The play should long be unsophisticated. It should be 
 largely so throughout life. 
 
 Rightly to appreciate the place of play in adult life, one 
 has to examine the activities of men among those social 
 classes where from childhood into adulthood the play- 
 impulses have had full opportunity to function; where they 
 have not been Stifled by adverse conditions and barren 
 opportunity. It is best revealed by men and women of the 
 leisure classes and of independent means. They have all 
 they need, and there is therefore no call for them to act. 
 The general social machinery protects them in their idleness. 
 They might sit at home in year-long undisturbed quietude 
 without thought or care. But they do not; and they cannot. 
 They are most miserable if they are not doing something 
 most of the time, and filling life to the brim. They must 
 travel, or attend the opera, play bridge, speculate on the 
 stock exchange, attend dinners, dances, and other social 
 functions, deck themselves in gorgeous plumage, read the 
 latest novels, go cruising in their private yachts, motoring 
 from coast to coast and beyond the seas, hunting in the 
 Adirondacks, fishing in the wilds of Canada, lion-hunting in 
 
222 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 Africa, climbing the Alps, placing their money at Monte 
 Carlo, or traveling in the war-zone to get the thrills. In 
 their restlessness is revealed the driving power of the play- 
 tendency in adult life. The results are beneficent. This is 
 particularly true if they have been wise enough to select a 
 balanced assortment of experiences; and if there has been 
 intermingled enough of serious effort to give them ballast. 
 They are instantly recognized to be larger men and women 
 than those who have been held within the narrow grooves 
 of serious vocational, civic, and family duty. They are felt 
 most nearly to approximate the full desirable stature of 
 manhood and womanhood. They may be social parasites, 
 consuming in their play what others have earned in sweat 
 and blood. Nature's rewards on the side of personality are 
 not in proportion to one's economic usefulness and produc- 
 tiveness; but rather to the volume and variety of one's 
 experiences. It is not the conscientious individual who tries 
 to do nothing except what is demonstrably useful who most 
 fully realizes himself. 
 
 Professor Groos's volume on The Play of Man shows that 
 man is a many-sided creature with plays of great number 
 and diversity, involving all levels of his being. There is, in 
 fact, a hierarchy of plays ranging from the gratification of 
 physical appetites and the pleasures of simple sensation at 
 one end of the scale up to the highest forms of intellectual 
 play as foimd in science and philosophy. At the lower end 
 of the scale, one finds such activities as eating, drinking, 
 smoking, sex-activities, and crude sensations of brightness, 
 warmth, etc. Somewhat higher are physical sports like 
 wrestling, boxing, athletics, tennis, football, and other 
 games of physical contest. Somewhere about this level pos- 
 sibly we should classify social dancing. Somewhat farther 
 along the scale are the folk-dance, marches, processions, pag- 
 eantry, and the like. A thing that has to be variously classi- 
 
THE FUNCTION OF PLAY IN HUMAN LIFE 223 
 
 fied as to level is conversation, since it is high or low accord- 
 ing to theme and character. Rather high on the scale are 
 purely intellectual games, such as chess, whist, etc. Still 
 higher are the fine arts, music, literature, drama, opera, etc. 
 Naturally the level of these is determined by theme and 
 artistic character. They may deal with the lowest activities 
 of man and be near the bottom of the scale, or with man's 
 most transcendent activities and be near the top. At the 
 highest end of the scale, most removed from the sensuous, 
 are the rarefied austere leisure occupations of intellectual 
 character: history, science, mathematics, philosophy, and 
 the contemplations of a developed religion. 
 
 The levels of this hierarchy are very differently supported 
 by instincts. The physical activities at the bottom are 
 prompted by the most powerful and permanent instincts. 
 These are so compelling that if full opportunities for satis- 
 faction are given, and strong inhibitions do not exist, the 
 lower activities are almost certain to be carried to excess. 
 In a state of nature the physical and herd instincts had to 
 be strong in order that the race might survive. Civilized 
 men have inherited them in their original strength and often 
 they seem stronger than needful. Even if not so, they seem 
 to be disproportionate. Civilized man needs more powerful 
 and permanent instinctive propulsions for the higher activi- 
 ties. But the instincts prompting to high intellectual en- 
 deavor, to large-grpup consciousness, and to humanizing 
 art are relatively feeble, flickering, and transitory. Man's 
 original nature, shaped by primitive conditions, is fitted 
 for simple materialistic small-group conditions; and is not 
 rightly balanced for the new conditions of civilization. 
 This makes the task of education for civilization enormously 
 difficult. 
 
 Activities on all of the levels have a rightful place; but 
 owing to the inequalities of inner propulsion, the amounts 
 
224 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 of educational effort required for the different levels are 
 vastly different. Given right living conditions as the en- 
 vironment of youth, the activities on the lower levels are 
 so fully prompted and guided by instincts that the Great 
 School of experience will largely take care of them without 
 much attention from educationists. Those of the higher 
 levels, however, will demand not only a right stimulating 
 community environment but also the greatest possible 
 expert stimulation, . encouragement, and leadership from 
 teachers. For the lower levels the curriculum problems on 
 the positive side are small; for the higher, they are the 
 most subtle, complex, and difficult presented to the pro- 
 fession. They involve the development of a twentieth- 
 century democratic type of humanism; one that in an age 
 of efficiency can be made efficiently to humanize all noB^ 
 mal individuals. The curriculum-inaker has an inspiring 
 task that in large part is new. 
 
 Let us now note the relation of this humanistic training 
 to certain problems. There is, for example, the question 
 raised by the arrest of development caused by specialized 
 industry: How are workers, men or women, to keep young 
 and plastic in a specialized age which everywhere demands, 
 youth and plasticity and which tends to throw specialized 
 individuals above forty upon the scrap-heap? It is not 
 really a matter of years, but of mentality. Some are old 
 at thirty; others are plastic and adaptable at seventy. We 
 have factories at present where each workman is auto- 
 matically discharged when he reaches the age of forty. By 
 that age it is felt that the withering results of specialization 
 have so cut down a man's effectiveness that he must yield 
 to those not yet so crippled. In the beginning, the hot 
 blood of youth, its spontaneity and its enthusiasms, lead 
 to such initial expansion of character, outlook, and vigor of 
 action as to give one the efficiency demanded. But continu- 
 
^ THE FUNCTION OF PLAY IN HUMAN LIFE 225 
 
 ing life within the grooves and the dwindhng of those as- 
 pects of personality not exercised by this mechanized exis- 
 tence result inevitably in dwarfing the individual in body 
 and mind and social responsiveness. It means the loss of 
 the vitality required for spontaneity and plasticity; and 
 of ideas, outlook, and enthusiasms. If the individual has 
 not during the blossoming season of youth developed wide 
 ranges of awakened interests, quickened appreciations, 
 habits of participation in an extensive series of leisure occu- 
 pations upon all levels, including the intellectual, old age 
 is reasonably certain to set in early and bring about an 
 incapacity that is real; and which is recognized by the 
 practical leaders of industry. It is a frequent and tragic 
 misfortune that is unnecessary and due simply to a narrow, 
 incomplete type of education that has not suflSciently es- 
 tabhshed its objectives. 
 
 There is a related problem. We have referred to the 
 necessity within a democracy of mutual respect on the part 
 of the members of the various social classes. This doctrine 
 we have long tried to preach into men; but without no- 
 ticeable success. Here as everywhere it is reality and not 
 sentimentality, however well-intentioned, that in the long 
 run determines. We respect a man according to the char- 
 acter of his personality. We withhold respect in the pro- 
 portion in which the man falls short of what we consider 
 the desirable stature of full manhood and womanhood. In 
 the long run, therefore, the esteem in which different social 
 classes are held will depend upon the characters of the men 
 and women who make up those classes. The use or use- 
 lessness of their labors will have relatively little to do di- 
 rectly with the amount of respect accorded. A man is re- 
 spected for what he is, not for his economic productiveness. 
 
 The deficient esteem accorded labor is not, as often 
 thought, because their clothes and hands are soiled and 
 
226 THE CURRICULUM A, ^ 
 
 their faces covered with the dust of industry. The profes- 
 sional man at his golf, his hobbies in home-shop or garden, 
 or on hunting or fishing expeditions, may be no better 
 dressed and carry as great a quantity of dust and grime. 
 In their case, as in all cases, " The man's the man for a' 
 that." The lack of respect accorded heavy-handed labor 
 has enormously deeper roots than mere external appear- 
 ance. It is the disfigurement of the man's personality 
 mainly due to the lack of humanistic opportunity. It is 
 not the fault of the man, but of the conditions under which 
 his nature was unfolded; of his education Industrial 
 education designed to increase productive emciency will 
 not alone solve the problem. It requires the twentieth- 
 century type of humanism, glimpses of which we have tried 
 to present in this volume. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 READING AS A LEISURE OCCUPATION 
 
 Primitive man had a considerable variety of leisure oc- 
 cupations. But it appears that the one to which he gave 
 the greatest amount of time and attention was observation 
 of the men and things that made up the restricted world 
 in which he lived and moved. As he went about through 
 the Kttle community he kept watch upon his associates, 
 their actions, dress, property, living conditions, habits, 
 manners and customs: also upon animals, plants, climatic 
 conditions, natural phenomena, the heavenly bodies, etc. 
 As he acted upon and reacted to many of them, his k^owl- / 
 edge was further increased through various sense-channels. 
 
 What he could not observe directly, he observed through 
 the medium of language. Listening to another's report is f c 
 one kind of seeing. When the constitutents of situations 
 are familiar, it makes relatively little difference in under- 
 standing, whether one observes directly through the eyes 
 of sense or indirectly through the eyes of language. 
 
 Primitive man was motivated to this direct and indirect 
 observation in part by his serious purposes; but in large 
 part simply by his interest in things in general. In the 
 latter there was no conscious purpose of putting his knowl- 
 edge to practical use. In fact, he could not judge the value 
 of the information until he had apprehended it. It was 
 mainly a leisure activity; and leaving aside the purely 
 physical, it was probably by far his most important leisure 
 occupation. 
 
 Nature's purpose in providing so adequately for this f 
 leisure occupation is clear. The man had to move and act 
 
228 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 within this circle of things and forces and influences, and 
 to shape his conduct to them all. In the unexpected muta- 
 tions of human affairs he never could know with which of 
 the many things he was to be concerned. He had to be 
 watchful of the whole pageant of community affairs in order 
 to be prepared for the specific adjustments that conditions 
 should demand. Interrelations and interdependencies were 
 innumerable. Rightly to know any part required that one 
 know the whole, and through this all its parts. The most 
 useful thing was an adequate vision of the total pageant of 
 community life and of the conditioning setting or back- 
 ground. 
 
 Our interest is in twentieth-century civilized life. We 
 began with primitive life because of the obviousness of the 
 relations. For modern life also this observation of human 
 affairs is certainly the most important non-physical leisure 
 occupation; but for our time it has an enormously larger 
 function to perform. Instead of our being the denizens of 
 a community covering only a few square miles, we are citi- 
 zens of a world-community. To move with understanding 
 to-day and to see adequately all of the things with which 
 one has vital relation and responsibility, one needs ade- 
 quate and continuous vision of the whole world-pageant. 
 I Were man*s youth sufficiently long and the facilities of 
 travel sufficiently cheap and abundant, he might travel 
 through the world and familiarize himseK with it as did 
 primitive youth in his smaller community. For effective- 
 ness of education he needs to come into contact with essen- 
 tial realities the world over. And the most vital contact 
 is the direct. Were it possible, he should visit all parts of 
 the world and observe men and women in all of their affairs. 
 He should participate in all types of activities : in the voca- 
 tions, the recreations, the social and civic affairs, etc. And 
 he should talk with all social classes concerning their affairs. 
 
READING AS A LEISURE OCCUPATION 229 
 
 More than anything else, this experience would give him 
 much-needed world-understanding and sympathies. 
 
 But the physical limitations are insuperable. Only a 
 small fragment of such experience is possible even for indi- 
 viduals most favored: whether for the original observations 
 of youth or for the continuing observations of adulthood. 
 Even could they travel as widely they could see only the 
 present; not the past. And they need nowadays to see 
 both, rightly to see the present; for we are a part of the 
 whole interlinked series of generations. They must there- 
 fore do most of their seeing of things past and distant 
 through language, mainly reading.. * 
 
 Our discussion thus far is designed to indicate what man 
 should read. Obviously it is that which will present to 
 him a full and adequate revelation of the vast human 
 drama in which he plays his part; and of the stage upon 
 which it is enacted and by which conditioned. It is to en- 
 able him to "see life steadily and see it whole." 
 
 The general program is the same for childhood, youth, 
 and adulthood, differing only in so far as demanded by the 
 differing stages of maturity. Just as within the primitive 
 community the child of ten viewed, so far as his maturity 
 would permit, the totality of community affairs, so within 
 the life of to-day the child of ten will, in his readings, so 
 far as his maturity permits, view the affairs of his immeas- 
 urably wider community. As the fifteen-year-old or twenty- 
 one-year-old youth of that day continued to look upon the 
 same community affairs acquiring greater depth of un- 
 derstanding, greater knowledge of details, increased in- 
 sight into relationships and values, so through reading will 
 the fifteen- and twenty-one-year-old youth of our day sim- 
 ply continue his observations of the world-situation for 
 greater depth and generality of understanding. Adulthood 
 will push on farther, continuing the same theme. 
 
2S0 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 In that early day, learning was experiential. Men were 
 not consciously learning or memorizing facts. They lived; 
 and the mind was filled with memories, the normal residua 
 of experience. And generalized understanding like the 
 trunk and branches of a tree simply grew up imperceptibly 
 and unconsciously so as to constitute the relatively un- 
 changing fundamentals of their mental life, while the decid- 
 uous foliage of their transient experiences came and went. 
 
 In our day, original human nature is relatively unchanged. 
 We have no reason to think that there is possible any new 
 form of education that can be an improvement upon the 
 experiential education of the past. New conditions demand 
 adaptations, adjustment of proportions, the use of new 
 and improved instruments, etc.; but at bottom as indi- 
 cated by all of our progressive recent movements in edu- 
 cation, it is still felt that experiential education constitutes 
 the best training for the individual. If the principle holds, 
 then the purpose of the reading is the reconstruction of ex- 
 perience. It is to be a mode of living. It is not to be a didac- 
 tic verbal presentation of unrooted facts and generaliza- 
 tions to be memorized, recited upon, examined upon, and 
 then in due process forgotten; leaving little more than the 
 unwholesome residua of disagreeable learning experience. 
 
 If the purposes are to be accomplished as fully for civi- 
 lized man in the midst of civilized conditions as they were 
 for primitive man among primitive conditions, then the 
 readings from the beginning to the end of the course, to the 
 end of life itself, need to be as wide and varied as earthly 
 life and to give an adequate revelation of all major types 
 of human experience, in all portions of the world, and with 
 such historical perspective as is needed for each of the va- 
 rious regions. And what is more, it must look not merely 
 to the tangible and easily apprehended things of sense, but 
 also to the intangible forces, influences, and relations with- 
 
READING AS A LEISURE OCCUPATION 231 
 
 out a vision of which the more tangible things are often 
 meaningless. The intangibles are also portions of reality. 
 
 We can now particularize the reading program. First it 
 will present a revelation of man in his present dispersion 
 over a diversified planet. Such readings we classify as trav- 
 els, geography, ethnology, descriptive sociology, anthro- 
 pology, etc. A second series of readings will reconstruct 
 the historical background. These will include biography, 
 travels (during past ages), history, memoirs, evolution- 
 ary sociology, etc. Coming under both of the classes men- 
 tioned there will be such sub-classes as industrial read- 
 ings, commercial readings, civic and sanitary readings, 
 etc. A third type of readings will reveal the essential na- 
 tures and relations of things: science readings, mathe- 
 matical, physical, biological, sociological, technological, etc. 
 All of the fundamental sciences need to be read, — natu- 
 rally in connection with direct contacts, — as modes of 
 viewing the nature of the world in which we are called upon 
 to act. A fourth type of reading is literature, in the nar- 
 rower sense. It aims to present anything that happens 
 to be chosen as its theme. This may be a single historical 
 incident, a whole historical movement, a single human 
 relation, an interconnected series of relations, the biog- 
 raphy of an animal, an aspect of the inorganic world, the 
 nature of immortality, or anything else, tangible or intan- 
 gible, near or remote, real or mythical, that may enter into 
 human experience. Clearly literature is not coordinate with 
 the others. It cannot be separated from them. Good lit- 
 erature in its narrower sense appears simply to be the ade- 
 quate presentation of any of them. 
 
 Let us note some of the more detailed implications, be- 
 ginning with the geography. In the primary and inter- 
 mediate grades in addition to the widest practicable direct 
 observations, there will be stories about things that make 
 
 I 
 
232 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 up the world in general. Much must be oral; but beyond 
 the first grades most of the stories will be read. The book- 
 trade is rapidly providing suitable books. Here are a few ^ 
 titles taken at random: Little Folks of Many Lands, Eskimo 
 Stories, Around the World, The Wide World, Big and Little ( 
 People in Other Lands, The Dutch Twins, The Japanese j 
 Twins, Little Journeys to China and Japan, Travels in Scoty 
 land, Gerda in Sweden, etc. The more literary the stories 
 can be, in the sense of presenting a true and clear and in- 
 teresting reconstruction of life and its background in the 
 various regions, the better for the educational experience. 
 The readings offered at present have largely been devel- 
 oped in an educational age of didacticism and fact-memori- 
 zation, and are often so freighted with information that they 
 do not reconstruct life so that it can be visualized, and re- 
 lived in imagination. Many books, however, particularly 
 the more recent, have avoided the pitfalls and fallacies of 
 didacticism. They simply present interesting stories that 
 comply with literary canons. They give no appearance of 
 an attempt to be "informing." They are presented upon 
 the sane theory that if children are permitted to enter 
 vividly into the life of a country and view conditions 
 as they are, they will have intelligence enough to see the 
 things that are there, and to carry away a sufficient resid- 
 uum of memories. 
 
 These readings upon the earlier levels should reveal the 
 fundamental aspects of life over the earth. A reconstruc- 
 tion of Eskimo life, for example, should permit the children 
 to see the nature of the houses, the furniture, the mode of 
 heating and lighting, the nature of the clothing, the food- 
 supply, the occupations of the people, the recreations, the 
 religion, the nature of their villages, their transportation, 
 the thrilling adventures at times met with, the climate, 
 land and water forms, lengths of day and night, the aurora 
 
READING AS A LEISURE CKICUPATION 233 
 
 borealis, plant and animal life, the nature of family life, the 
 education of the children, etc. The reading should not call 
 attention to these things specifically and consciously. As 
 a drama upon the stage, it should simply present the re- 
 constructed life and let the children do their own seeing and 
 understanding. This will be superficial for some of the 
 things; and this is normal for little children. As they look 
 at corresponding things in their own commimity, they see 
 them with the same superficiality and incompleteness of 
 understanding. One of the most mischievous superstitions 
 of education has been that when a thing is presented it 
 must be completely understood. Really normality of ex- 
 perience upon all levels results in a full-knowledge of some 
 things, a half-knowledge of other things, a quarter-knowl- 
 edge of still other things, and the merest fragmentary im- 
 pressions of still other things. Experiential training expects 
 these normal dijfferences; is suspicious of the normality of 
 the experience if they are absent. 
 
 For the grammar grades, it is the same world-pageant 
 that is to be observed by way of further deepening and 
 extending their understanding and sympathies. They too 
 will read accounts that permit them adequately to visual- 
 ize life in its totality in the various lands. These are to be 
 selected for their more mature understanding, however, 
 and should reveal a wealth of details and relationships not 
 possible on the earlier levels. The stories require for ef- 
 fectiveness in the reconstructions the same types of literary 
 merit; and absence of didacticism. If children do not ac- 
 quire this habit of world-wiHe observation of human affairs 
 during school days when the instincts are most fully awake 
 as a healthy and satisfying leisure occupation, they are 
 not likely to continue it during the years of adulthood. 
 It is this continuance at which education should princi- 
 pally aim. This is immeasurably more important at this 
 
234 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 period than the memorization of deciduous information. 
 But it will take care of the information, — and on the 
 sound presumption that most of it normally is deciduous. 
 Let them develop their appreciations and their habit of 
 world-observation as a satisfying leisure occupation, and 
 the amount of genuine information they will have on tap 
 will be enormously increased. And when they need other 
 information they know how to acquire it expeditiously. 
 But let them during grammar grades simply be dosed with 
 didactic facts, then when adulthood is reached, they will 
 neither have the facts remembered, — except where the 
 learning was accidentally experiential, — nor those habits 
 of observation of world-wide affairs which should consti- 
 tute the most important non-physical leisure occupation 
 of adulthood. 
 
 Unfortunately the major portion of the books supplied 
 for grammar-grade levels are heavily didactic and imper- 
 fectly fitted for experiential education. But there is now a 
 clear movement away from the verbal-fact-learning method. 
 Whereas a few years ago in progressive school systems, the 
 textbook was the basis of the training with the so-called 
 supplementary books merely inessential collateral read- 
 ings, at the present time the geographical readers are com- 
 ing to be the basis of the training with the standard text- 
 book relegated to the position of reference-book or atlas. 
 The more recent geographical readers make a more ade- 
 quate attempt to reconstruct living experiences within the 
 various lands and less to presenting merely strings of facts. 
 More and more there is revealed a tendency to read vivid 
 narratives of travel such as the Cruise of the Cachalot, Two 
 Years before the Mast, Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle, Lost 
 in the Jungle, The Land of the Long Night, The Peeps at 
 Many Lands Series, Adventures of Two Youths in Ceylon and 
 India, Boy Travellers in Australia, Around the World in the 
 
READING AS A LEISURE OCCUPATION 235 
 
 Sloop Spray, How I Found Livingstone, Through the Dark 
 Continent, etc. A still further step is the increasing use of 
 readings that are ostensibly literary with no didactic pur- 
 pose, but which at the same time present illiuninating re- 
 constructions of some region or important life-situation; 
 such as Heidi, Lizheth Longfrock, The Young Ice-Whalers, 
 etc. 
 
 The best basis for that geographical problem-solving 
 which we are coming to think should constitute a very 
 large portion of the training experience of the children in 
 this field, is effective contact with essential realities. The 
 more vital the contacts, the better the foundation laid for 
 the problem-solving. It may appear at first glance that 
 in urging reading experiences of the type herein described 
 and in introducing interest and vividness of concrete 
 impressions, we are falling into the error against which we 
 are so often cautioned of making educational experience 
 too soft and easy. As a matter of fact we are urging the 
 kind of experience required by the demands of those 
 hard-headed practical men who insist that education shall 
 result from the most vital contact possible with essential 
 realities. They are very clear as to what these contacts 
 must be within one's local environment: direct observa- 
 tion, practical participation, and the like. We are here 
 only saying that that portion of the world which lies 
 beyond the horizon is also to be given the greatest possible 
 degree of reality in the minds of the children. Abstract 
 didacticism does not give them this sense of reality. A half- 
 page exposition of the cod-fishing industry, for example, 
 off the banks of Newfoundland gives the children no es- 
 sential realization of the nature of that industry. Let them, 
 however, read Kipling's Captains Courageous, and thus in- 
 directly participate in the various activities and experi- 
 ences of the fishing fleet off Newfoundland, and they will 
 
236 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 have come into contact with that type of human experi- 
 ence almost as eflBcaciously as if they had been actually 
 upon the waters. Let them in the same vivid way travel 
 in spirit across the wide plains of Russia, up the rivers of 
 China, through the jungles of Africa or Brazil, across the 
 Polar ice-fields, with the ore-fleets of the United States 
 Steel Corporation, live upon the cotton plantations of the 
 South, the great wheat farms of the Northwest, in the timber 
 regions of Georgia and Oregon, etc., — let them thus know 
 realities from vital contacts with them and only then are 
 they prepared for the geographical problem-solving which 
 should develop an understanding of the more general in- 
 fluences, forces, and relationships. Experiential educa- 
 tion aims at the greatest possible educational efficiency, 
 substantiality, and practicality of result. It employs in- 
 terest for the sake of vividness and massiveness of experi- 
 ence; not for the sake of pleasantness. It iises pleasantness 
 as a means; not as an end. 
 
 The story does not end with the grammar grades. The 
 geographical program of the past has aimed so little at this 
 adult leisure occupation, that it has tended to stop at the 
 end of the seventh grade. But looked at from the point of 
 view of purposes, it seems clear that this type of experience 
 should continue throughout one's entire training. It is not 
 possible to develop habits and appreciations needed for 
 adulthood in the first seven grades, and then leave them in 
 storage unused for years until taken by up the adult. They 
 will not be there. The only practicable way is for high 
 school and college to continue this indirect observational 
 experience through readings appropriate to their higher 
 levels of mental maturity. There will be increased atten- 
 tion to forces, the subtler relations, and general principles. 
 But mere verbal didacticism apart from essential contacts 
 with reaHty is no more appropriate for these levels than 
 
READING AS A LEISURE OCCUPATION 237 
 
 for the lower; and will no more lead to the adult habits 
 desired. A habit is to be acquired in the way it is later to 
 be exercised. If life-long observation of the practical reali- 
 ties of the world is lo be the habit, then during adolescent 
 years it is a continuing observation of concrete realities 
 that will develop the habit. The thing that is to be con- 
 tinuous throughout life should obviously be continuous 
 throughout education. 
 
 The limitations of space forbid discussion here of the 
 reading programs of history and of science. But for both, 
 there is the same major purpose, and controlling principles. 
 The present ferment in both fields presages far-reaching 
 changes. The studies have not been organized as conscious 
 means of training for this intellectual leisure occupation. 
 The purpose itself is yet scarcely recognized as legitimate. 
 
 Let us now turn to literature, . in the narrower sense. 
 Since we are here dealing with the leisure occupation of 
 world-observation through reading, good literature for the 
 purpose is obviously that which presents adequate and 
 effective vicarious opportunity. To be complete it is to 
 provide not only for effective visualization but also for 
 emotional reactions in the reader like those of the original 
 observer and writer. The canons of literary discourse aim 
 simply at effectiveness in the indirect or language-obser- 
 vation method of viewing and experiencing reality. 
 
 Now for developing the leisure occupation here dis- 
 cussed, the literature to be selected is that which will give 
 the widest and fullest and most effective possible revela- 
 tion of the world as a whole in its multifarious divisions 
 and aspects. Any selection will be chosen not upon the 
 basis of literary form or structure; or nationality of the 
 writer; or language in which he originally wrote; or of the 
 age in which he lived; or recency of the selection; or fame 
 of the author. It is simply a question of whether it presents 
 
238 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 a clear window through which one can look out upon ex- 
 istence. If it does not, then it matters not how famous the 
 author, or how difficult the selection, or what the wealth 
 of footnotes, it cannot be good for the purpose here de- 
 fined. 
 
 This has profound significance for the curriculum. In 
 the past we have tended to be provincial in our selec- 
 tions. The usual course of study in grammar grades and 
 high school tends to include only the literature of English 
 and American writers and to reveal little more than Eng- 
 land, Scotland, and America; and little that is recent. The 
 traditional courses have not, and have not consciously at- 
 tempted, to present any adequate revelation of Russia, 
 Switzerland, Norway, Japan, Brazil, and most of the other 
 regions of the earth. The purpose has been not so much 
 to reveal human life the world over as it has been to reveal 
 types and technical characteristics of literature. When 
 special teachers of the subject are asked. What is the fun- 
 damental purpose in the teaching of literature? the most 
 frequent reply is. The appreciation of literature. Almost 
 never do they say that it is an understanding and appre- 
 ciation of human-kind and human affairs and the general 
 setting of the great human drama. 
 
 Acceptance of this latter purpose must work profound 
 transformation in both spirit and content of the literature 
 curriculum. Selections will be chosen for their content- 
 value. They will aim at the greatest possible width of vision, 
 historical perspective, and depth of insight. The curriculum 
 will draw upon the literatures of all lands. For the purpose 
 here stated, good translations are on par with English and 
 American selections. The books of Homer, Virgil, the Old 
 Testament, Dante, Balzac, Maeterlinck, Bjornsen, Freytag, 
 Fabre, Sienkiewicz, and Tolstoy must be considered por- 
 tions of the total revelation that are just as vital and essen- 
 
READING AS A LEISURE OCCUPATION 239 
 
 tial as those of Shakespeare, Scott, Dickens, Tennyson, 
 Stevenson, or Joseph Conrad. 
 
 The purpose demands catholicity of theme. The Htera- 
 ture should reveal war, personal adventure, love, brigandage, 
 philanthropy, religion, travels, poverty, family life, com- 
 merce, agriculture, industry, transportation, government, 
 the struggle with nature and with disease, conflicting social 
 classes, the labors of science and technology; and the other 
 major ingredients of human existence. As literature rings 
 the changes upon these things for different historical 
 periods and in different portions of the world, its field is 
 interminable and presents material for a rich and satisfying 
 lifelong leisure occupation. It is the business of early edu- 
 cation to start youth upon this inspiring program; to bring 
 him to love it as he loves the simpler visual drama upon the 
 stage or screen; to develop habits in this field that are satis- 
 fying and permanent for the intellectual illumination of a 
 life-time. 
 
 For the purposes mentioned, men need to use literature 
 of different types and structures; but this does not require 
 understanding of the technique of literary types and struc- 
 tures. A man can use a watch for the human purposes of 
 telling time without knowing the technique of the mechan- 
 ism. In the same way, he can use literature for securing the 
 revelation to which we have referred without knowing how 
 it is made. 
 
 The reading should be like witnessing a play at the the- 
 ater. The play presents an illusion of human life. All that 
 the spectator wants is this illusion. The more complete the 
 illusion, the more successful the play. The man need know 
 nothing about the various devices that were employed ^by 
 the playwright in producing the effects. As a matter of 
 fact, the more he knows about the tecfhnique of se.curing 
 effects and the more he sees the stage machinery, the less is 
 
240 !THE CURRICULUM 
 
 the play a real illusion of life. It becomes but a tissue of 
 technical devices. The knowledge of the technique not only 
 does not further the fundamental purpose of the play, it 
 actually interferes and prevents. In the same way, an undue ^ 
 consciousness on the part of the reader as to technical liter- 
 ary machinery not only does not further the fundamental 
 purposes of the reading, but may actually hinder. 
 
 Should the literary selections used for educational pur- 
 poses be diflScult? No, else clearness and vividness and im- 
 mediacy of impression were not literary virtues. The more 
 the literature facilitates the vision itself and the less it calls 
 attention to itself the more suitable it is for the purposes. 
 It is simply to say that a window of such clear glass that the 
 glass itself is not seen is better for the purposes of vision than 
 one which calls attention to itself. Or to resume our other 
 illustration, the play upon the stage should be so written 
 and presented as to involve no difficulty, no confusion, few 
 or no allusions to things not generally known by the audi- 
 ence. The witnesses must be able to take in the action as 
 rapidly as it is presented. The play that fails is one that is 
 obscure, confused, makes allusions to things that are not 
 understood, or presents other types of difficulty. It is ob- 
 vious that the literature which is used for inducing experi- 
 ence in the reader should be of the same clear character. 
 
 As a matter of fact, reading should be easy, rapid, inter- 
 esting, so that much ground will be covered within the avail- 
 able time and also so that it can be done chiefly because of 
 inner motive. We cannot expect adults, even trained adults, 
 to read things as leisure occupations which require constant 
 or even frequent references to dictionaries, handbooks, or 
 notes at the end of the volume. Children's natures are even 
 less adapted to any such machine-method of grinding 
 through a piece of literature. In proportion as the thing 
 is difficult and the reading slow, the pupil gets less of the 
 
READING AS A LEISURE OCCUPATION 241 
 
 vision of things he ought to see. It fails to accomplish its 
 purpose. And what is more, it fails to develop within him the 
 much more permanent and fundamental things of apprecia- 
 tions, and right attitudes of mind toward his reading, and 
 right habits of using reading as a richly fructifying Ufe-long 
 leisure occupation. 
 
 The way to make reading easy and rapid and pleasant is 
 to have much reading from the first grade onward; an ever 
 increasing quantity from grade to grade. Any selection that 
 is so diflScult as greatly to impede progress thereby proves 
 that it belongs on a later level, and is to be prepared for by 
 readings that grade upward to its degree of difficulty. There 
 is evidence of insufficient preparatory reading if pupils have 
 to refer frequently to dictionaries, handbooks, or literary 
 notes. As a matter of fact, if the readings are properly 
 chosen, and if they are sufficiently abundant, such growth 
 of vocabulary should result that pupils should rarely have to 
 refer to dictionaries in their reading. If they have difficulty 
 with mythological and historical allusions, it means that 
 they have not had that wealth of mythological and historical 
 reading experiences which should precede and be considered 
 a prerequisite to the readings that involve allusions to those 
 things. A mythological handbook does not and cannot give 
 one the true flavor of mythology and therefore the true 
 spirit and significance of a mythological allusion; nor can a 
 historical reference book do any better by the historical 
 allusions. These things rightly to be known must be met 
 with in their proper settings and relationships. 
 
 In concluding this section let us summarize. For the 
 generality of men, literature is primarily a thing to be 
 experienced, not a thing to be studied; to be used, not to 
 be analyzed; to be pleasurable experience motivated from 
 within, and not tasks arbitrarily imposed from without. 
 The Uterature need not be old; neither need it be new. It 
 
242 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 need not be by authors who are dead; neither is there reason 
 for holding mainly to authors who are living. It is not pri- 
 marily to reveal literary types; nor the characteristics of 
 literary epochs. It need not be only by authors who have 
 already become famous. It should be easy, rapidly read, 
 and voluminous in amount. It should provide for lifting 
 the reader to the higher levels of intellectual and aestheti c 
 experience. It should begin with fullness in the primary 
 grades and continue with increasing fullness during gram- 
 mar grades, high school, and college; and so provide for 
 proper fullness during the continuing education of ma- 
 turity. It should present world-literature, not merely that 
 of the English tongue. It should be all-inclusive in its 
 revelation, so far as human finitude and fragmentariness 
 will permit, rather than a revelation of scant and partial 
 aspects. It should present the full human drama and the 
 stage upon which it is enacted. 
 
 Along with the provision of a rich and appropriate read- 
 ing opportunity, there is the equally vital problem of pro- 
 viding a teacher who can rightly lead and guide this 
 reading experience. The qualified teacher is one who loves 
 reading, and who daily uses it in the renewal of his own vi- 
 sion; who has world-outlook, world-sympathies, a quickened 
 interest in the varied affairs of mankind; who values ex- 
 perience as a trainer of youth over and above memorization 
 of facts; who is a condition-setter and an influence rather 
 than a memorization-task-master; who knows the tastes 
 and interests and loves of the child's unfolding spirit at 
 each level of maturation so well that he can divine the 
 reading experiences most effective for awakening and exer- 
 cising and shaping the child; who can withhold his hand 
 in patience until the time is ripe, and then can subtly and 
 unsuspectedly crowd the experiences needed for the child's 
 unfoldment as the flood-tide, of awakening interest reaches 
 
READING AS A LEISURE OCCUPATION 243 
 
 its crest and before the ebb has set in; who feels that his 
 responsibility is to the children, — and to the unfolding 
 men and women within the children, — rather than to 
 syllabi and programs and textbooks and time-schedules; 
 who knows how to use system and organization for effec- 
 tiveness and economy, and yet keep the elements of spon- 
 taneity and freedom of choice as to kinds and places and 
 amounts of experience; who knows a better way of manag- 
 ing child-experience than those who say arbitrarily to the 
 children that at 9.00 o'clock to-morrow you shall experi- 
 ence thus and so, at 9.30 to-morrow you shall experience 
 such and such a second thing, at 10.00 to-morrow your 
 experience shall be of this third type, and who thus me- 
 chanically grinds out child-experiences through days and 
 weeks and months of dreary drudgery. 
 
 So long has our profession taught that we think the only 
 way to educate is to teach. We have not sufficiently known 
 that to live will also educate. We have been busy providing 
 the conditions for teaching. Only recently are we coming 
 to know how to provide the conditions for living. Both 
 have a place; and the main thing is living. 
 
PART VI 
 
 EDUCATION FOR SOCIAL 
 INTERCOMMUNICATION 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE MOTHER-TONGUE 
 
 Leaving aside the physical, man's activities are primarily 
 social ; and the mother-tongue is man's primary instrument 
 of social intercourse and intercommunication. It is also the 
 principal vehicle of his thought. It may be said that he 
 needs to use it just well enough to get on with his fellows. 
 If he can understand and make himself understood, and if 
 he can do his thinking well enough in whatever quahty of 
 language he may have developed, then nothing els^^eatly 
 matters. It would appear, however, that an instrument 
 which is used almost continuously throughout one's waking 
 hours for thought and communication, and throughout one's 
 entire lifetime, should be a good instrument for the purpose, 
 not a crude cheap one; and that it should be well understood 
 and appreciated in order that it be carefully and intelli- 
 gently used. The motor-car that one uses for recreation one 
 prefers to be of good design, clean, properly finished, quiet, 
 smooth-running. One is not satisfied with just anything 
 that will run. One's clothing we feel should be of good design 
 and color, clean and not displeasing to others; not just any- 
 thing, regardless of others, that will keep one warm. In the 
 same way, one's language which is more intimately related 
 to one's life than either of these things and which is a perma- 
 nent possession, not one that is changed frequently, should 
 also be of good design, correct, polished, accurate and 
 socially pleasing; not just anything that will crudely express 
 crude thought. 
 
 It is generally recognized that the major training in the 
 mother-tongue is obtained in one's general social and Ian- 
 
248 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 guage experience. In listening, talking, thinking, reading 
 and writing, one uses the mother-tongue of the social class 
 in which one moves; and thereby masters it. In the main he 
 will rise without teaching to the standard of correctness 
 that is set by the language of his social group. Here and 
 there he may need a little help in the grammar and compo- 
 sition, and somewhat more help in his start in the artificial 
 language forms involved in reading, writing and spelling. 
 But if he is to be educated «nly for the language-life of the 
 group in which he moves, this additional curriculum of 
 conscious training usually need net be large. ^^ 
 
 We feel however that the language-life of moist social 
 groups is on a lower plane than it should be; that the lan- 
 guage abilities are inadequate for the language activities 
 demanded by the thought and action of a thoroughly human- 
 ized democracy. It is felt that the intelligence demanded 
 requires a type of language fitted to higher, more subtle and 
 more complicated types ©f thought; and that the social 
 agreeableness and mutual understanding of all classes 
 within a democracy «lemands a moie or less uniform level 
 of language excellence ®n the part of all people. This does 
 not mean imiformity ©f type; but uniform elimination of 
 crudeness, or what we may term language-ineflSciency. 
 
 Since the language-efficiency of all is to be raised to a 
 level above that of most, education is clearly here to be an 
 agency of social progress. It is not only to eliminate the 
 language weaknesses found in children as these are meas- 
 ured in terms of their adult group, but as measured by a 
 standard above that of their group. 
 
 Scientific curriculum-making has probably been more 
 fully developed in this field than in any other; though as 
 yet only in its beginnings. Grammar investigators in many 
 cities have been discovering the actual grammatical short- 
 comings; and on the basis of these, drawing up studies and 
 
THE MOTHER-TONGUE 249 
 
 other experiences for the purpose of eliminating the gram- 
 matical deficiencies. Throughout the country, investigators 
 are drawing up lists of words commonly misspelled or mis- 
 pronounced; the types of composition weakness; kinds of 
 errors commonly made in handwriting, oral and silent read- 
 ing, etc. These are diagnoses of conditions by way of dis- 
 covering the particular objectives of conscious training. 
 
 Beyond this point of locating the objectives, scientific 
 investigations have not yet gone far. The series of pupil- 
 experiences that are prescribed for attaining the objectives 
 are usually based upon nothing better than the current edu- 
 cational hypotheses that have grown up out of practice. 
 
 It is probable that actual procedure often looks too ex^ 
 clusively to the particular errors to be prevented or corJ 
 rected, and insufficiently to the deeper roots of those errors! 
 In correcting or preventing grammatical errors, it is more 
 important that one ardently desire to use correct English 
 than that he memorize all the necessary technical informa- 
 tion or have all of his errors pointed out to him. Unless edijt- 
 cation can first develop this desire, all other more du 
 efforts must remain futile. Education^re must therefon 
 aim primarily at fundamental valuations, appreciations ol 
 good language, a critical attitude toward and watchfulnc 
 over one's language, a social ambition to use language that^ 
 is both effective and agreeable, a general social sensitiveness 
 to linguistic errors and weaknesses of types that are to be 
 eliminated, etc. These are particularized objectives just as 
 fully as a list of commonly misspelled words; and far more 
 fundamental. But for attaining these deeper objectives, 
 both educational thought and technique are yet very un- 
 certain. In the discussion that follows, unfortunately brief 
 and general because of lack of space, we can present prob- 
 abilities more frequently than certainties. 
 
 1. The first educational task is to provide each child and 
 
250 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 youth with a rich and full language-life of the type desired. 
 Let him hear as fuUylispossiBre the language of the kind he 
 is to use, and the undesirable kinds as Uttle as possible. Let 
 him live abundantly in the rich fields of rgadiog experience 
 with language of desired types flowing through his conscious- 
 ness and unconsciously moulding vocabulary, sentence- 
 forms, and language thought-structures. Let him have 
 M diversified experience with realities through dixe.ct,contacts, 
 }JY participation in action, observation, reading, etc., and at 
 k-vt/^ the same time the experience of verbalizing his experiences 
 y^jj-v in conversation, discussion, oral and writtgiLJCfi^ort, both 
 jT^ informal and formal. Give variety, reality, responsibility 
 and substantiality to the non-linguistic experiences that 
 make up his life; and provide the opportunities for the nor- 
 mal language accompaniment. Make clear and adequate 
 thought as to realities the central feature of his intellectual 
 life; and language an adequate vehicle of this thought* The 
 education that can provide these experiences will take care 
 of practically all needed training in English. 
 
 Children and youths mainly need opportJinitieS-toJire 
 their language under rightly impelling conditions and cir- 
 cumstances. There has been too^^uch_En^lish i^ac^m^ ; 
 not enough English living. Even the overworked English 
 teachers themselves admit that after having obtained the 
 lion's share of the curriculum for the English, their teach- 
 ing is far from successful. And their remedy: We must 
 have still more time. Give it to them, and they will soon be 
 asking for yet more. They have command over the ma- 
 chinery of teaching; but over most of the conditions of a full 
 language-life, they have no more command than other de- 
 partments. Language-teaching is a matter of adjusting the 
 whole range of educational experiences, and paralleling them 
 with the verbal element. The ordinary English teaching 
 relates to only partial aspects of this total experience. 
 
THE MOTHER-TONGUE 951 
 
 2. The major training that comes from Hving a language- 
 life that parallels and verbalizes one's other experiences will 
 fall short at many points when not supplemented by con- 
 scious training. Let an individual have the richest language- 
 experience, he will be foimd making certain kinds of gram- 
 matical errors, misspelling and mispronoimcing certain 
 words, and making other types of linguistic error. The cur- 
 riculum of co nscious traini ng for each individual will have 
 as its end the elimination of these errors. This means that 
 for one pupil the curriculum will be long; for another, short; 
 all depending on the length of the list of his errors. It means 
 that the conscious curriculum in English will not be the 
 same for any two pupils in .the same class; that a uniform 
 EngHsh curriculum is unthinkable. There is no more sanity 
 in it than in a uniform treatment of all cases that enter a 
 hospital. 
 
 A variety of agencies may be enlisted in discovering the 
 curriculum objectives for each pupil. Fairly early in the 
 course the pupil himself can be set at the task of drawing 
 up his own error-lists for spelling, pronunciation,~"c5Sbord, 
 verb-formsT^andwriting, sentence-structure, composition- 
 structure, etc. His labors here need to be brought to the 
 work-level as speedily and completely as possible. This 
 requires that he be conscious of the ends to be reached. His 
 own effort in defining those ends is a necessary portion of 
 the process of developing this understanding and sense of 
 responsibility. 
 
 P upil-com ^ n iittees for each subject will serve in relays in 
 keeping tab upon all English errors of every type made by 
 each individual of the class; and make contributions to the 
 individual error-lists of each pupil. Watchfulness over the 
 speech of others is a more objective process than the sub- 
 jective watchfulness over one's own speech; it is therefore 
 a good preparation for self-watchfulness. It is easier to 
 
252 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 develop a critical attitude toward errors when they are seen 
 in others than when seen in one's self; this can then be gen- 
 eralized and made to apply to one's own errors. Such pupil- 
 committee work can be wholly unobtrusive, and yet effec- 
 tive for a variety of purposes. It is a necessary ingredient of 
 training the pupils who do it; not merely a means of re- 
 lieving the teacher of diagnostic labors. 
 
 Where pupil-errors go undiscovered by both the pupil 
 himself and the committees, the teacher will extend the lists 
 by adding any others that he may have noted. 
 
 3. After the pupil has his list of errors, and his knowl- 
 edge of the right forms to be substituted, the next thing is 
 that he want to make the substitutions. The pupil is the 
 only individual that can do this. His will must therefore be 
 awakened. This is not a thing that can be normally accom- 
 plished through preaching, persuasion, threats, coercion, or 
 setting of lessons and drill exercises. Language is a social 
 process; the ajja^jiing is to be secured through thoje social 
 stimulations that normally incite one to watchfulness^ver 
 his language, and which produce chagrin or mortification 
 when his language goes astray. It is a sensitive linguistic 
 conscience, one type of social conscience, that will hold 
 him in the paths of rectitude and prick him to effort at 
 return to grace when he finds himself fallen into trans- 
 gression. 
 
 To assert that such linguistic conscience is beyend chil- 
 dren is but to confess that one does not know children. The 
 boy who is chagrined when his teacher makes him use "big 
 words" and bookish English, is simply reacting td the lin- 
 guistic conscience which at the moment happens to rule 
 within the boy-group of which he is a member. He hates te 
 be laughed at — that is to say, condemned — -by his fellows 
 for using a form of English not sanctioned by the conscience 
 of his group. 
 
THE MOTHER-TONGUE 253 
 
 The problem of making a boy want to use good English is, 
 therefore, a problem of making his fellows exyect him to use 
 good English, and condemn him if he does not. The problem j 
 of training the boy is one of training those to whom he | 
 reacts. It is to reach him indirectly. The task is to make the 
 society of which he is a part genuinely critical of his lan- 
 guage. This is not to say that they must be vocal, and rudely 
 point out to him his errors. This will but awaken contrary 
 reactions in him. It is his consciousness of their unspoken 
 condemnation of his faiHngs that is most effective, and 
 which should be the usual thing, — his own consciousness 
 voicing the social conscience and the social condenmation. 
 This does not excite contrary reactions in him, but rather 
 fires him to purge his language of its faults. 
 
 The problem, therefore, is how to bring the whole class sin- 
 cerely to condemn improper English in any of its forms of 
 impropriety. The task appears to have both positive and 
 negative aspects. Noting the latter first, pupils are to be 
 made critical of improper EngUsh in others. The pupil- 
 committee tasks of drawing up lists of pupil-errors in current 
 oral and written expression is an effective method of doing 
 this. One who has had extended experience in proof-reading, 
 or in reading student-papers, can appreciate the critical 
 linguistic conscience thereby developed. 
 
 On the positive side, there is the problem of developing 
 clarity, accuracy, and orderliness of thinking; and the con- 
 sequent parallel qualities of language. One so trained tends 
 to condemn slovenliness and obscurity of thought and ex- 
 pression. This positive program is a matter to be taken 
 care of by all teachers who have to do with thought as an 
 aspect of the training; and this means practically all depart- 
 ments. 
 
 Thus far we have discussed mainly the expression side of 
 the English. This leaves the problem of the receptive side 
 
254 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 of language — listening and re a ding . Listening is so com- 
 pletely instinctive that it does not have to be taught. The 
 way to learn to listen is simply to Hsten. Reading is the 
 visual analogue of listening. In the purely visual part of it, 
 it is not impelled by instinct, and requires careful setting of 
 conditions and stimulations by teachers. But at bottom the 
 method is the same as for listening. One learns to read by 
 reading. Children will listen and easily learn to listen when 
 the things appeal to them; equally, after once getting a little 
 start, they will read and thereby learn to read, when pre- 
 sented with things that appeal to them. The problem of 
 curriculum-making for the single purpose of mastering the 
 mechanics of reading is mainly the provision of an abun- 
 dance of interesting reading matter for each grade, adapted 
 to the maturity of the pupils, and graded upward by such 
 easy stages that the pupil can do abundant and rapid read- 
 ing, usually silent, without being slowed down by difficulty 
 of language or thought. Every pupil of the first grade should 
 have easy and continuous access to not fewer than two or 
 three dozen appealing books; and each grade beyond, an 
 ever-increasing number. Teachers will then find ways of 
 awakening interests, stimulating enthusiasms, getting the 
 pupils started into books; and then leave the children to 
 enter normally, and to lose themselves normally, in the 
 living experiences of reading. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES ^j^ 
 
 What are the specific mistakes or shortcomings or forms 
 of arrested development that result in our country from a 
 lack of knowledge of foreign languages? 
 
 If there ar.e no important deficiencies that result from 
 failiu-e to master one or more foreign languages, then there 
 is no need for including them at public expense in the cur- 
 riculum. If, on the other hand, there are serious resulting 
 defects, then the nature of the deficiencies will point to the 
 foreign language training that will prevent such undesirable 
 results. 
 
 In order to avoid the pitfalls into which both the protag- 
 onists and the antagonists of foreign languages are prone 
 to fall, we must particularize the problems. What are the 
 deficiencies in one's performance of the labors of his calling 
 that result from lack of knowledge of foreign languages? 
 This question has to be separately put for each occupational 
 class and for each grade of labor from the simplesrroutine 
 levels up to the most complicated professional levels. Then 
 the questions continue through other fields. What are the 
 defects in ciyic performance that are due to an inadequate 
 understanding of foreign languages? What are the defi- 
 ciencies of personal hygiene and community sanitation that 
 result from a lack of knowledge of foreign languages? What 
 are the aspects of family life that are generally or frequently 
 suffering because of the inadequacy of training in foreign 
 languages? What are the shortcomings in the m pral and 
 rel igious life that are due to an insufficient knowledge of 
 foreign languages? What desirable leisure occupations are 
 
256 • THE CURRICULUM 
 
 faulty or seriously insufficient because of a lack of knowl- 
 edge of foreign languages? What are the specific defects in 4 
 our use of our mother-tongue which result chiefly or largely J 
 from ignorance of foreign languages and which can be cor- 
 rected most effectively and economically through the mas- 
 tery of such languages? 
 
 The problems need to be particularized in another direc- 
 tion. Are men to be trained for a spe4t;ing oronly a reading 
 knowledge of the language? The curriculum foT~EEe~ latter 
 purpose alone will be fundamentally different from the one 
 demanded by the first. While reading will be a large element 
 in the first case, the principal element must be speaking. 
 Classes must be small, meetings frequent, and much time 
 and labor given to grammar and composition. In the second 
 case there need be only a little speaking in the beginning for 
 giving pronunciation and certain language-imagery. The 
 chief need will be an abundant supply of fascinating reading 
 materials, so graded in degree of difficulty that after a start 
 has been made, the gradient of vocabulary, word-forms, 
 sentence-forms, etc., is so imperceptible that through full- 
 ness of reading without much help from teachers or diction- 
 aries or grammars the individual can attain reading pro- 
 ficiency. In this latter case classes may well be large and 
 class meetings infrequent. 
 
 Languages needed for occupational efficiency 
 
 The problems suggested are so numerous and complex 
 that we can here touch upon only a few of the more funda- 
 mental. Let us look first to the occupational values of the 
 foreign languages. The occupational argument is the one 
 most urged by our colleges in the case of modern languages; 
 and the college influences the lower schools. The argument 
 takes several forms. Qne is that all college men and women 
 must read the technicalliterature of their specialties in the 
 
TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 257 
 
 foreign languages in sufficient degree to justify the expend- 
 iture of some years of preparatory language-training for the 
 purpose. Since the high srhnolg do not know which of their - 
 students are going on to college, they proceed to require 
 the foreign languages of everybody; and so far as this voca- 
 tional argument is dominant, they encourage the modern 
 languages. The second occupational argument is commer- ^ 
 cial and clerical. 'Business houses need clerks, correspond- 
 ents and agents for foreign fields who are thoroughly convers- 
 ant with the foreign languages involved. In other cases it is ^ 
 urged that foreign languages should be taught for the pro- 
 motion of the business interests of immigrant communities. 
 
 For the occupational argument, let us make the matter 
 concrete by taking the case of the teaching profession. There 
 are upwards of six hundred thousand elementary and sec- 
 ondary teachers. As completely as any other profession, 
 theirs requires fullness of knowledge, width of outlook, and 
 ability to handle complex problems. Now what are the short- 
 comings in teaching ability that are due mainly to a lack of 
 knowledge of foreign languages .f* When one goes for answer 
 directly to the teacher's work or to the testimony of special- 
 ists, one finds enumerated many kinds of teaching defi- 
 ciency; but not one of them appears to be strictly and inevit- 
 ably due to a lack of knowledge of modern languages. As 
 one reads the judgments of superintendents, principals, 
 normal-school presidents and training-school directors as 
 to the causes of teaching deficiency, one does not find them 
 mentioning ignorance of modern languages as one of the 
 causes. If it were a major source of weakness, or even mod- 
 erately important, it would be discovered by some of them. 
 
 In a former chapter we discussed the need of the workers 
 in any field keeping abreast of progressive technical dis- 
 coveries and developments anywhere throughout the world. 
 Education is a field of the widest kind of experimentation in 
 
258 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 all progressive countries. The teacher therefore should 
 obtain ideas concerning any important advance in educa- 
 tional thought or technique wherever it is being made, 
 whether in the United States, in Canada, in Great Britain, 
 France, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzer- 
 land, Italy, Russia, Japan, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Aus- 
 tralia or New Zealand — to mention countries where prog- 
 ress is being made. Also the teacher needs the professional 
 stimulation and width of outlook that comes from feeling 
 himself a membpi;»^of the world-wide professional group. 
 This can result onlyfroiE vital~c6ntacts, mainly through 
 socializing reading, with the profession throughout the 
 world. 
 
 Another equally valid statement is that they should em- 
 ploy economical methods in securing this technical and 
 socializing information. Time and money at present are 
 needed for so many things that they must not be wasted 
 where more economical methods can be found. And what 
 is more, the technical and social needs require that the 
 things be carried through effectively and not in a perfunc- 
 tory and slip-shod manner. With these generally admitted 
 presumptions in mind, let us look at the situation. 
 
 There are two conceivable ways of accomplishing this 
 aspect of teacher-training. One method is to teach the lan- 
 guages of all of the countries enumerated — about ten lan- 
 guages in all — then to expect the teachers in training, in 
 colleges and normal schools, to get their technical and 
 socializing information from the reading of the original 
 literature in the various languages; and further to expect 
 them in some yet undiscovered way to secure the current 
 literature of these various lands in the towns where they 
 teach and look through it in order to find the portions that 
 can be helpful for the purposes enumerated. The other pos- 
 sible plan is that which for some years has been developing 
 
TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 259 
 
 in the United States Bureau of Education, namely, the issu- 
 ance of specially prepared bulletins which present in English 
 the selected aspects of educational developments in the 
 various countries of the world. A few of the titles are illus- 
 trative: — 
 
 1. Some suggestive features of the Swiss School System. 
 
 2. Educational system of rural Denmark, 
 
 3. The folk high schools of Denmark. 
 
 4. The Montessori system of education. 
 
 5. German Industrial Education and its lessons for the United 
 States. 
 
 6. Educational system of China as recently reconstructed. 
 
 7. Latin-Americaa universities and special schools. 
 
 8. The training of teachers in England, Scotland and Germany. 
 
 9. The auxiliary schools of Germany. 
 
 10. Secondary Schools of Central America, South America, and 
 the West Indies. 
 
 11. Some foreign educational surveys. 
 
 12. Demand for vocatioual education in the countries at war. 
 
 While this work of the Bureau is not yet sufficiently devel- 
 oped, it already goes much beyond the demands of the pro- 
 fession in general for the technical and socializing informa- 
 tion. Let there be a widespread and clearly- voiced demand 
 for a still more adequate bulletin literature, and the Bureau 
 can soon supply all professional needs. It will be necessary 
 to employ a few specialists each of whom has a thorough 
 knowledge of the needs of teachers in our own coimtry and 
 an equally thorough knowledge of the educational condi- 
 tions in the foreign land upon which he is to report. The 
 knowledge of the foreign language, the foreign education, 
 and its professional literature, needs largely to be acquired 
 by these specialists upon the grounds. It is by living within 
 a foreign land at least half the time and as a life-long 
 vocation that such workers will be enabled to give effective 
 examination to all of the work that is to be reported upon; 
 
260 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 and to make effective choice of just the things that American 
 teachers need. Only through vital contacts with both sides 
 can investigators make rational selection of technical facts; 
 or prepare effective socializing readings. 
 
 The foreign language method is highly expensive in time 
 and money. And for the two professional purposes men- 
 tioned, except in the case of a few specialists, it is wholly 
 ineffective. To teachers in general the foreign literature is 
 inaccessible; it is not written from the point of view of their 
 needs; it is voluminous, discursive, fragmentary, confused. 
 Teachers have not time to read a tenth of our own over- 
 discursive professional literature, much less that of foreign 
 lands. They scarcely have time to read the latter when it is 
 carefully selected and organized for them by specialists 
 familiar with their needs, and put into English. 
 
 This is not to deny the necessity of the foreign languages 
 for a few hundred professional research workers. Quite ob- 
 viously those engaged in searching through the literature of 
 foreign countries for the sake of finding the technical or 
 other information needed for immediate application or for 
 dissemination through our own country must have the lan- 
 guages of the countries from which the facts are drawn. This 
 justifies the foreign languages for strictly professional pur- 
 poses for perhaps one in a thousand. It is too expensive a 
 method to require the same of the other 999 in order that 
 the one be accommodated. 
 
 In discussing the situation of teachers at such length it 
 has been our intention to reveal the nature of the modern 
 language situation as regards all of the professions. Let one 
 examine medicine, engineering, finance, law, divinity, archi- 
 tecture, music, art, journalism, politics, and the profes- 
 sional levels of commerce, banking, transportation, agri- 
 culture, mining, etc. He will find that the members of £nese 
 professions also need technical and socializing information 
 
TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 261 
 
 from all progressive countries of the world. But they too 
 need to use effective and economical methods. Each needs a i 
 few highly specialized research workers who know the for- J 
 eign languages and who can bring to them in English thef 
 valuable things from all lands. 
 
 Let one calculate the relative costs in either money or 
 time of the two plans, and the one suggested will be found 
 the more economical in a ratio of probably not less than a * 
 hundred to one. In degree of effectiveness for the profession 
 as a whole its relative advantages must be even greater. 
 
 When one looks to the rank and file of farmers, mechanics, 
 miners, housewives, milliners, and all others below the pro- 
 fessional level, one can discover reasons for vital contacts 
 with their occupational confreres throughout the world. 
 We are coming to be, and we think we ought to be, cosmo- 
 politan-minded on all social levels. Men and women there- 
 fore of all ranks and classes should read; but it is obvious 
 that for effectiveness and economy the reading should be 
 in the mother-tongue. It will be a hard enough task to get 
 it done even through that easy medium. Unless specially 
 situated, therefore, there seems to be no occupational 
 reason for foreign languages for the millions of workers 
 below the professional levels. 
 
 It will be argued that commerce has international rela- 
 tionships which involve other occupational needs than those 
 mentioned. The large business houses having contact with 
 foreign lands need correspondents, agents, and clerical 
 workers who have a thorough familiarity with the language 
 of the country with which the house is dealing. When they 
 deal with Brazil their specialized employees must know 
 Portuguese; when with Japan and China, it is Japanese and 
 Chinese; with Russia, Russian, etc. 
 
 In large measure the foreign agents, clerks, and corre- 
 spondents will be native to the country itself. So far as 
 
262 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 native — and the degree is an increasing one — there is no 
 training problem for our schools. It is necessary, however, 
 we are told, to have a certain percentage of native Americans 
 for this work, especially as leaders. They need to be thor- 
 oughly trained for the purpose. They need a high degree 
 of proficiency in understanding, speaking, and writing the 
 foreign tongue. To be effective they must know the turns 
 of phrase, the subtleties of expression, the idioms and every- 
 thing that is effective in making appeal to intellect and emo- 
 tion within the country. They must both think and speak 
 in the language, not translate, hesitate, and talk like a book 
 — or worse. Such proficiency is to be attained only by liv- 
 ing in the land where the language is native. 
 
 Quite clearly this is but a minute field of specialized voca- 
 tional training. In proportion as a field calls for but few 
 workers, especially if the training must be intensive and 
 thorough, vocational guidance should see that but few are 
 trained. It is possible to urge that since one in each thou- 
 I sand high-school students will go into positions requiring 
 Spanish, and since we do not usually know which is to be 
 that one, we should therefore permit or encourage all to 
 take the Spanish. To train the hundreds who do not need 
 it merely to meet the needs of the one that does is a highly 
 uneconomical method of meeting the needs of the one. And 
 it loses sight of the needs of the hundreds. After public 
 education has provided adequate vocational training for the 
 /millions who do not go into this narrowly specialized voca- 
 iS tional field, then it will be time to undertake the specialized 
 "^ I training of the few hundreds who do. 
 
 Language needed for civic activities 
 
 What are the defects in civic performance in our country 
 that are demonstrably due to a lack of knowledge of foreign 
 languages on the part of the citizens? Social leaders, polit- 
 
TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 263 
 
 ical parties, and newspapers are busy, each from its own 
 point of view, in pointing out numerous social deficiencies 
 and their causes. They do not, however, point to ignorance 
 of foreign languages as one of the important sources of gen- 
 erally admitted civic inefficiency. When so many thousands 
 of eyes are scanning the field, and when they are so often 
 rendered acute by self-interest, it is not probable that any 
 really fundamental cause of civic shortcoming can escape 
 all eyes. 
 
 In other chapters we have referred to readings necessary 
 for developing national and municipal large-group conscious- 
 ness. It is certain that the mother-tongue is most effective 
 for giving understanding; for arousing emotional responses; 
 and for developing sympathetic attitudes of mind. But 
 when we look to the international situation, the problem is 
 different. Man needs also to read for world-democratic sym- 
 pathies and understandings. Is the English the only lan- 
 guage that we need for the purpose? 
 
 There are two conceivable ways of entering into world- 
 experience. The foreign language advocates present one of 
 these. We do not, they say, rightly enter into the experi- 
 ences of other peoples unless we think their experience in 
 the same language-terms in which they think that expe- 
 rience. Rarely or never do they carry out their argu- 
 ment to its logical conclusion. It contains the implication 
 that we should learn the languages of the nations through- 
 out the earth. Naturally the deprovincialization would be 
 most effectively brought about through learning those of 
 the largest nations in case only a portion could be covered. 
 The most important languages, therefore, for the purpose 
 would be Russian, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, Hindu- 
 stani, German, and French. These with English would per- 
 haps sufficiently cover the earth. It must be observed that 
 the thing wanted is a planetary consciousness, not a mere 
 
264 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 French one from learning French, or German one from 
 learning German, or Roman one from learning Latin. If 
 /foreign languages are the necessary means for this purpose, 
 [clearly the ends cannot be reached through the study of 
 just one foreign language, or even two. 
 
 The alternative method is reading the history of nations 
 in the English tongue and the literature of nations in good 
 English translations. As a matter of fact, human experience 
 in its fundamentals is much the same the world over, differ- 
 ing only in details and proportions. It can be expressed 
 about equally well by any of the world's developed lan- 
 guages. The basic thing is not the language but the experi- 
 ence in the mind of the writer upon the one hand, and the 
 reconstructed experience in the mind of the reader upon 
 the other. It matters little what system of symbols is em- 
 ployed in the transmission of this experience from the one 
 to the other; or whether it starts in one language and through 
 translation arrives in another. The only thing that counts 
 is adequacy of reconstruction of the experience. Emerson 
 once said: "I should as soon think of swimming across the 
 Charles River when I wish to go to Boston as of reading all 
 my books in the original when I have them rendered for me 
 in my mother-tongue." 
 
 Foreign languages needed for family life 
 
 It is obvious that under normal conditions the mother- 
 tongue is all that is needed for family life. 
 
 We have a serious problem, however, in the case of immi- 
 grant populations, the adults of which bring a foreign tongue 
 to our country, while the children grow up within an Eng- 
 lish language atmosphere. The i mmigr ants, in most in- 
 stances, are laborers. They often use a corrupt variety of 
 their native tongue. They are not greatly familiar with the 
 literature of their own land. Their social status often causes 
 
TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 265 
 
 them to be looked down upon by the native population; and 
 their language also. Children growing up within an Ameri- 
 can atmosphere unconsciously adopt the American attitude 
 toward their ignorant parents. They lose respect for their 
 parents and for the parental tongue. They drift prematurely 
 away from the parental influences. This family disintegra- 
 tion is often highly disastrous to the children; and destruc- 
 tive of cherished parental hopes. 
 
 The disintegration is due to many factors. But language 
 being our major social bond, one of them certainly is the 
 lack of a common language. Children decline to use a 
 despised language; and the parents are not sufficiently 
 plastic to take on that of their children. A partial allevia- 
 tion could be produced by bringing the children to respect 
 the parental tongue. This could best be accomplished by 
 having the children read the stimulating literature of that 
 tongue. While the basic language of all American schools 
 should be English, in an ItaHan community the children 
 might well be brought also to read the interesting literature 
 of Italy; in a Polish community, that of Poland; in a Hun- 
 garian community, the literature of Hungary. The children 
 will come to respect the language which the school respects 
 and which the literature reveals to them as a high and hon- 
 orable tongue. 
 
 If education here will look accurately to the social results 
 to be aimed at and include nothing not demanded by such 
 results, the task ought not to be a difficult one, nor to con- 
 sume any large amount of time. A reading knowledge is 
 all that the school need concern itself with. The children 
 will get their speaking practice in their homes. The latter 
 may not be grammatically accurate. But training must 
 always be related to purposes. In this case the children are 
 to be brought to respect the language of their parents. If, 
 therefore, the parents speak a rather ignorant type of the 
 
266 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 language, the less the attention of the children is called to 
 this, the better for all concerned. This will eliminate the 
 necessity of teaching the grammar, composition, and the 
 other things that require time. 
 
 The schools will only take care of the reading. They 
 need an abundance of the most fascinating stories obtain- 
 able in the language; and so well graded that the gradient 
 is imperceptible. As children master the mechanics of read- 
 ing English, it will be easy to master the mechanics of read- 
 ing their parental tongue. There need not be much class- 
 work — only enough to introduce the social motives and 
 stimulations. Their textbooks and supplementary reading 
 books in history, geography, literature, etc., might occasion- 
 ally be in part in their parental language. 
 
 All of the other purposes of the training of these children 
 are to be kept in mind at the same time so that this one 
 shall not be exaggerated and receive an undue proportion 
 of time or energy. Harmonious family life is but one end 
 of many for which these children are to be trained. The 
 reason disappears in the second generation. Educational 
 inertia can then be no justification for retention of the lan- 
 guage. 
 
 Foreign languages and leisure occupations 
 
 All admit that the reading of good literature is a healthy 
 and desirable leisure occupation. This literature exists in 
 a few ancient and in several modern languages. It is gen- 
 erally accepted that except for those forms of poetry where 
 the effects are so largely dependent upon rhythm and other 
 sensuous elements, a translation properly done is practi- 
 cally as good as the original. It maybe better. But among 
 the essences of leisure occupations are variety, novelty, 
 and freshness of experience. Stale experiences do not 
 satisfy. In music, for example, one likes to hear selections 
 
TRA.INING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 267 
 
 produced through different media; orchestra, band, piano, 
 organ, voice, chorus, opera, etc. This employment of dif- 
 ferent media greatly widens and diversifies the musical ex- 
 periences and increases the sum total of enjoyment. In 
 literature likewise, one enjoys different media. Literature 
 in the foreign tongue often brings a tingling of new and 
 eager interests that is less evident when the same litera- 
 ture is received through the routine grooves of vernacular 
 habit. 
 
 This appears to be a higher or less sensuous form of 
 spiritual recreation than music. It cannot then represent 
 a less justifiable type of leisure occupation. It is not im- 
 probable that for some, who can really use it as a satisfying 
 leisure occupation, it is even more justifiable and more 
 fruitful. The chief question that arises is. Is it not too high 
 and rarefied a type of recreation for people in general? 
 Clearly it can be justifiable only in the case of those in 
 whom it will actually function as a leisure occupation. 
 This end cannot in any degree justify forcing the language 
 upon the unwilling. The literature probably can have 
 humanizing effectiveness, can expand and enrich the per- 
 sonality, only when it is read with fully aroused emotional 
 reverberations. If it is read as a prescribed task, laboriously *^ 
 and without zest, little of value can come of it. It is not / 
 good as a training experience; it will not lead to the desired/ 
 recreational habits. 
 
 A thing that is to function as a Idsufe occupation must be 
 got as a leisure occupation. When this is the dominant pur- 
 "pose of learning a foreign language it seems certain that 
 the learning should be of the play or interest-driven type. 
 The teacher's business will be to provide favorable condi- 
 tions, to lead, to stimulate, to encourage, to supply the 
 contagions of enthusiasm. On the side of actual teaching, 
 the teacher must give the pupils a start in vocabulai-y, pro- 
 
«68 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 nunciation, fundamental grammatical forms, etc.; but the 
 novelty of beginning a new language, if the teacher is com- 
 petent in finding the springs of pupil-interest, fills this ini- 
 tial learning with the play-spirit. The ^ tart havin g been 
 made, then th ejess^ teaching the better — just as upon the 
 play-field, the less play-supervision the better. Since the 
 end is reading and not speech or writing, the pupils' ex- 
 perience will be mainly reading — at the dictates of inter- 
 est. The teacher will see that the necessary abundance of 
 attractive readings are at hand, and so well graded that 
 pupils can mainly be emancipated from grammars and dic- 
 tionaries, and learn to read by reading. 
 
 When the training is mainly through an abundance of 
 easy and interesting reading, the pedagogy relates mainly 
 to leadership and control of motives. There is no longer 
 justification for that perverse practice on the part of lan- 
 guage teachers of pouncing upon the hard spots, the un- 
 familiar words, the difficult and irregular grammatical 
 forms and relationships; and thus demanding explanations 
 of just the things which the pupil has not got; ought not 
 to have got at his stage of learning; and ought not to be 
 required to explain. 
 
 We find here another example of the fallacy that a thing 
 must be fully known in order to be known at all. As a 
 matter of fact, little children listen to the speech of their 
 parents and understand the general drift of thought with- 
 out fully understanding the meaning of every word; and 
 without being able to explain any of tj&e grammar. As they 
 grow older and have fuller texperience both with things 
 and language, the difficulties disappear without thought or 
 effort. In the same way, one can rfead the easy literature 
 of a foreign language, and move in the full current of 
 the story without knowing the meaning of all words met 
 with, and with little knowledge of the grammar. Let this 
 
TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 269 
 
 experience continue, week after week, month after month, 
 and year after year, and the meaning of the unfamiUar 
 words will gradually unfold without effort. 
 
 The present technique of education is largely an elabo- 
 rate technique of prematurity. It is attempt to teach pre- 
 maturely what later would develop natiu-ally through the 
 normal processes of living. 
 
 This reading plan of recreational training does not re- 
 quire society to invest so much money and time in the 
 teaching of foreign languages as at present. Only those 
 who like the languages will take them. When a pupil's in- 
 terest so slackens that he will not under normal stimula- 
 tion continue his reading, clearly he should drop the study. 
 This will leave only those who are moving imder their own 
 power. A great amount of teacher-effort will not then be 
 required. Classes may be large and need not meet fre- 
 quently; or if small may have pupil-leaders. And there is 
 the saving of most of the energy now given to grammar 
 and composition and vexation of spirit. 
 
 Let these conditions be brought about, and it is the pre- 
 diction of the writer that there will be a considerable pro- 
 portion of our population who will take advantage of this 
 recreational opportunity, and effectively go through with 
 it; and who will reap the good harvest that must come 
 from such non-sensuous type of recreational experien-ce. 
 
 The arguments for this type of leisure occupation are 
 not strong until we become a reading people, and read our 
 own rich English literature. This is the largest of the world's 
 literatures. It is the most diversified of all, owing to the 
 Anglo-Saxon dispersion. It is the most cosmopolitan. It 
 alone will de-provincialize one. It contains most of the 
 best of all literatures ancient and modern in good transla- 
 tion. Within itself, it employs many media of expression. 
 It is a thing of infinite moods. Compare the military-band 
 
270 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 style of Kipling with the symphony orchestra style of 
 Shakespeare, the "big bow-wow style" of Scott, as he 
 himself termed it, with the "fine cameo style" of Jane Aus- 
 ten. Let one note the acid of Dean Swift, the geniality of 
 Chaucer or Charles Lamb, the thunders of Carlyle, the 
 varied music of Tennyson and Byron and Milton, the virile 
 grace of Stevenson and Joseph Conrad, and the varying 
 moods of Uncle Remus and Mark Twain and O. Henry. 
 Let one note the diversified wealth of lyric, epic, idyl, 
 drama, novel, essay, humor, oration, and religious or phil- 
 osophical meditation. Let one then look into the diversi- 
 fied media and moods provided in translations: the English 
 Bible, Homer, Virgil, Plato, Cervantes, Dante, Dumas, 
 Balzac, Tolstoy, Om*r Khayyam, Bjornsen, Ibsen, Freitag, 
 Maeterlinck, and Tagore. 
 
 / There are moods and media enough in the literature of 
 the English tongue to satisfy the present recreational lit- 
 erary cravings of most of our population — most even of 
 those who go through the high schools. In large measure 
 it is now unutilized opportunity. We believe that men and 
 women should be trained for foreign-language recreational 
 reading if they will actually take sufficient advantage of 
 their opportunities; but it is absurd beyond expression to 
 train them for any such opportunities when they do not 
 even take advantage of the infinitely rich and diversified 
 literature of their own tongue. Beyond the conventional 
 two or three books of each, few people, even those who have 
 gone through high school and college, have read Scott, 
 I Stevenson, or Conrad; or in translation, Bjornsen, Tol- 
 stoy, Balzac, or Ibsen. Much less do those same high-school 
 and college individuals who have had to take foreign lan- 
 guages for some undefined purpose, use them for recrea- 
 tional reading. 
 
 Suppose a foreign language is to be offered in high schools 
 
TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 271 
 
 for leisure reading, which is to be chosen? Quite evi- 
 dently it is the one which contains the largest and best lit- 
 erature. In order to ascertain this the writer took the more 
 than seven hundred volumes of "Everyman's Library" 
 which aims to bring together the best of all of the world's 
 literatures in English translation. Since it is a commercial 
 enterprise, producing books at low price which will appeal 
 to the reading tastes of the population in general, its se- 
 lections ought to reveal the literatures which have the 
 largest number of books of general appeal. Omitting those 
 of English-speaking peoples, the number of volumes from 
 each of the world's most important Hteratures are shown 
 in the accompanying table: — 
 
 French ^ .^. 52 
 
 Greek ; 23 
 
 Russian and Polish 14 
 
 Latin 11 
 
 German 11 
 
 Scandinavian 10 
 
 Italian 8 
 
 Oriental nations 5 
 
 Spanish 3 
 
 Other book-lists afford confirmation of these figures. 
 Among modern literatures, there can be no doubt that the 
 literature of France stands head and shoulders over every 
 other literature except the English. If only one language 
 is to be studied for the purpose here discussed, it should 
 doubtless be French. 
 
 If one wants a second language for this purpose it looks 
 as though it might as well be Greek, Russian, Scandinavian, 
 German or Italian. It is unfortunate that this purpose does 
 not point more clearly to Spanish. This justification is 
 really needed to support other valid reasons for studying 
 Spanish, which in themselves, without this one, are scarcely 
 sufficient, except in special instances. 
 
272 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 Foreign languages needed for proficiency in English 
 
 Few urge modern languages as aids to training in Eng- 
 lish. There is, however, a co mmon presumption amon g 
 teac hers that the large place accorded Latin is just^ ed 
 on this basis. But the scientific curriculum-discoverer 
 cannot proceed upon il l-defined presumption s. He must 
 know with definiteness and particularity just what the 
 serious deficiencies in our use of English are that are de- 
 monstrably due to inability to read, translate, and explain 
 the grammar of Latin; and which have no other sufficient 
 remedy. 
 
 Let us locate these if they exist, by a method of elimina- 
 tion. I n the first place in the English training the most 
 fundamental things to be developed are: ge nuine desire to 
 u ge good English , right valuations or appreciations of good 
 English, and habits of watchfulness against errors of all 
 kinds. These attitudes obviously result mainly from social 
 stimulations and contagions. They are developed mainly 
 by living within a language atmosphere in which good Eng- 
 lish is spoken and read and valued. Language valuations 
 are almost wholly social matters, obtained from one's asso- 
 ciates chiefly through unconscious imitation. Latin ha s 
 A4^t4' little or nothing to do with the matte r. 
 
 English training further aims at the development of the 
 habits, skills, and technical knowledge involved in pro- 
 nunciation, choice of words, construction of sentences, use 
 of English inflections and concord, construction of the 
 larger forms of discourse, oral and written presentation of 
 thought, reading, spelling, and handwriting. If one has 
 right valuations, and can do all of these things well, he 
 will have a pretty secure control over his English. In each 
 of the things, deficiencies are common. But examine them 
 one by one, and in most cases there is not even a remote 
 
TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 273 
 
 probability that the deficiencies are due to inability to read 
 and explain Latin. 
 
 Latin has a slight value for spelling; though on the whole 
 it is the Saxon words that give most trouble; and if one 
 cannot remember the English spelling, how can he with 
 greater assurance remember the Latin? 
 J It is urged for sentence-construction and concord, 
 through aiding in one's knowledge of English grammar. 
 Doubtless it will help; but it is a tremendously expensive 
 way to get the little grammar really needed for correcting 
 some twenty-five kinds of English errors. Those whose 
 English is so seriously defective that they need Latin for 
 the purpose generally do not get it; and those who get it 
 generally grow up in such a cultivated language-atmos- 
 phere that they do not greatly need it for the purpose men- 
 tioned. 
 
 The argument simmers down to vocabulary-develop- 
 ment. One needs Latin, French, and Anglo-Saxon for 
 the etymology of the five thousand words that one uses; 
 and for the fifteen thousand that one reads. The presump- 
 tions are two: (1) the etymology gives understanding of 
 meanings; (2) one should learn the languages from which 
 English comes to understand the etymology. There is 
 some truth in both; and more error. 
 
 One must note the psychology of vocabulary-building. 
 The simplest and usual condition of vocabulary-learning 
 is v/here one meets with some new thing, action, quality, 
 or relation; and at the same time gets the word that ex- 
 presses it. In the presence of any new aspect of reality one 
 is not easy in mind till one has the necessary word in terms 
 of which to think it. The presence of the reality calls for 
 the word. When brought together they associate so closely 
 as to fuse into a single conception. The basic condition of 
 vocabulary-building is contact with the realities. If one is 
 
274 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 to have a wide and varied vocabulary then the first condi- 
 tion is that he come into vital contact with numerous 
 and varied aspects of reality; verbalizing his experience. 
 If, for example, one would require the vocabulary of the 
 motor-car — limousine, chassis, carburetor, commutator, 
 differential, magneto, mujffler, transmission, etc. — let him 
 operate the car, repair it, make adjustments, consult hand- 
 books for the necessary information, talk over matters with 
 others, etc.; and the full vocabulary will grow up so easily 
 and naturally that one does not notice how or when he 
 acquired it. Make experience central and the vocabulary will 
 take care of itself. If one would acquire the vocabulary of a 
 farm, a steel-mill, a hospital, the game of golf, a science, 
 a religion, or anything else, material or immaterial, the 
 principle holds. L et one study Latin till he is gray, he 
 will find that for vocabulary-building it is a poor and pale 
 su bstitute for real ity. 
 
 The older plan was to use simple well-known English 
 words for explaining the meaning of the Latin vocabulary; 
 and then to use that Latin vocabulary to explain the mean- 
 ing of other English words. It was a matter of pouring 
 meanings from English into Latin, and then back again. 
 It was to use a small body of meanings got from a little 
 contact with reality to produce a large body of substantial 
 meanings without any further contacts with realities. It 
 rfeinds one of the street-fakir who from an ounce of soap 
 produces three barrels of foam. There is increased iri- 
 descence; and one is impressed; but no increase of sub- 
 stance. The schools of the past were places of words not 
 realities. It is not therefore surprising that this primitive 
 faith in verbal methods should linger. 
 
 And yet etymology has legitimate functions to perform. 
 Let us illustrate some of them. We have in English some 
 twenty or thirty commonly-used prefixes borrowed from 
 
TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 275 
 
 the Latin, such as bi-, circum-, contra-, semi-, post-, trans-, 
 uni-, etc. We have another twenty or thirty more or less 
 common prefixes imported from the Greek: anti-, mon-, 
 mono-, pan-, penta-, poly-, iri-, hemi-, iso-, etc. We have 
 also some sixty or eighty suffixes variously derived from 
 Latin, Greek, Old French, and Anglo-Saxon: -fy, -ed, -hood, 
 -tion, -don, -ise, -ize, -less, -ish, -ie, -kin, -ling, -ness, -able, 
 -ly, etc. 
 
 Now, it does not really matter from what languages these 
 have been imported. They are essential portions of the 
 English tongue. They have become completely natural- 
 ized and they are as much a portion of the living English 
 as its Saxon element. It is no more necessary to study the 
 Latin in order to get the significance of a hundred and 
 fifty English affixes than it is to study the ancient Aryan, 
 which preceded the Latin in order to understand the terms 
 which the Latin borrowed from it. 
 
 Given favorable conditions their mastery involves prac- 
 tically no problem. Bring the children into contact with 
 the actual realities in relation to which the prefixes and 
 suffixes have significance, call attention to this significance, 
 in so far as pupils need to be made conscious of it, and the 
 work is done without effort. For example, in the mathe- 
 matics let the children know that hi- means two, as they 
 come into contact with bi-nominals, bisections, etc.; that 
 tri- means three, as they come into contact with triangles, 
 tri-sections, tri-nominals, etc. Let children meet with semi- 
 weekly, semi-annual, semi-circle, etc., as verbaHzed reali- 
 ties, and it does not require a great deal of effort on the 
 part of teachers to make them conscious of the signifi- 
 cance of semi-. Let them come into contact with both 
 reahties and diminutives like doggie, lambkin, duckling, 
 hillock, eaglet, etc., and the understanding is acquired 
 without thought or effort. This is but to apply the cen- 
 
276 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 1 principle of reality-teaching rather than verbal-teach- 
 ing to the vocabulary-building. 
 
 The roots or stems of many English words have also 
 been imported and naturalized; as, for example, dico or 
 dido in dictioriy dictionary^ dictate^ dicturriy abdicatey contra- 
 dicty predicty edicty interdicty verdict, dictatoTy etc. Of these 
 root-terms there are several score in common use that prob- 
 ably should be generally known; and even a few hundred 
 that may be known with profit by those who would acquire 
 a finished knowledge and appreciation of English. Most of 
 the root-terms have been naturalized and are now as much 
 parts of the English as they ever were of the Anglo-Saxon, 
 Latin, or Greek. They are the common possessions of any 
 language that cares to adopt them. The meanings are 
 mainly read into the root-terms by associating them with 
 the realities to which they refer. These terms can be broken 
 out of their English matrix, the generalized meaning re- 
 vealed, and then used in the study of families of English 
 derivatives that employ the root-terms. One can thus study 
 the etymology of English without studying Latin, French, 
 or Anglo-Saxon. Most of us who have not studied Greek 
 appreciate the etymology of such words as 'psychology, 
 theologyy pantheony biographyy biologyy hibliographyy phi- 
 losophy y pJionography etc., about as completely as we appre- 
 ciate the words from the Latin which we have studied. 
 And we can use the roots borrowed from the Greek just as 
 efficiently in analyzing derivatives. 
 
 In general, it is not through etymological associations 
 that one acquires the meanings of words. Take, for ex- 
 ample, the derivatives servCy serfy servanty servitory service, 
 servitudey serviceable y serviUy subservienty etc. All come from 
 a single root. A dictionary knowledge of the meaning of 
 this root will not give one any inkling of the finer nuances 
 of meanings. The root-term, for example, does not reveal 
 
TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 277 
 
 the subtle differences of meaning in servant, serf, and ser- 
 vitor; or between service and servitude. One gets these deli- 
 cate but vital differences through contacts with the reali- 
 ties themselves, either immediate or imaginative. One who 
 reads and observes widely and accurately but who has 
 never noted the etymology of these words will acquire the 
 finer shades of meaning as completely as one who is familiar 
 with the etymology. And if he can get the subtler flavors 
 of words in this way, surely he can thus also get the crass 
 meanings of the root-terms. 
 
 A further question relates to the technical terminology 
 of specialists: biologists, physiologists, physicians, etc. 
 The basic thing needed for making them specialists is full, 
 varied and intimate contacts with the realities of their 
 specialized fields. At bottom they need to know things, not 
 words. But adequate knowledge of things involves the 
 use of words — the improved vehicles of human thought. 
 But the reality-method of getting at the things makes the 
 language aspect easy. The presence of the thing calls for 
 the language necessary for thinking it. Let the young phy- 
 sician once learn, for example, that hoema means blood; and 
 then let his daily experiences involve such terms as hoema- 
 chrome, hoemabarometer, hccmacytometer, hcemaphobus, hcema- 
 tozoa, hemorrhage, hemoglobin, hemoperitoneum, hemophobia, 
 hemoscope, hemotropic, etc., — he will very easily learn the 
 value and significance of harnia- as a root word for his tech- 
 nical field. Let him read Greek literature for twenty 
 years, and he can never thereby acquire any better under- 
 standing of this word. And he can learn his other techni- 
 cal terms in the same way. Rare terms he will have to look 
 up in a dictionary — like ordinary people. There is always 
 a fringe of little-used words that require the use of the dic- 
 tionary. 
 
 It must be kept in mind that we are here discussing but 
 
278 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 a single phase of the problem. To assert that a mastery 
 of Latin grammar and literatm-e is not necessary for a thor- 
 ough understanding and appreciation of English is not 
 equivalent to saying that Latin should not be studied for 
 this purpose by those who are willing to employ this 
 method. Many of those who appreciate linguistic study 
 as recreational experience will be justified in taking Latin 
 for immediate and subsequent recreational uses. As it 
 then gives them a goodly portion of their etymological 
 background, it will have accomplished a double purpose. 
 It cannot serve as a substitute for the reality-method; but 
 it can substantially reinforce it. Latin will then be taken 
 only by those of linguistic appreciation, with the students 
 mainly moving under their own power. The Latinists 
 should then supply them with the wealth of interesting 
 readings needed for the imperceptible gradient of experi- 
 ence that will permit them to learn to read the language by 
 reading it. Under such circumstances those who want the 
 Latin can get all that they want without requiring too 
 much effort and expense on the part of teachers and school 
 systems. Under present teaching conditions, the cost, 
 especially in time and loss of other more important things, 
 is usually disproportionate to the returns. 
 
 Foreign languages needed for humanistic experience 
 
 It is generally supposed that there is an intimate, even 
 indissoluble, relation between the classical languages and 
 humanism. Before one can rightly note the relation, how- 
 ever, one must first define humanistic experiences in terms 
 of twentieth-century life; and in their particularized forms. 
 This we have tried to do in some measure in previous chap-j 
 ters. To look with wide and sympathetic vision over alJ 
 human affairs, near and remote, recent and ancient; td 
 enter freely and sympathetically into all worthy kinds of 
 
TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 279 
 
 human experience, directly through participation and ob- 
 servation, and indirectly through conversation and lecture 
 and wide reading; to range with quickened mind through 
 the rich and inspiring fields of science and art and phi- 
 losophy and religion; to feel a oneness with one's race, and 
 to be fired with its highest aspirations; to act with one's 
 fellows vigorously, joyously and whole-heartedly in the 
 cooperative provision of a full and rich life-opportunity 
 for every human being, — such as these are humanistic 
 experiences. Those experiences in which man realizes his 
 full humanity constitute the substance of humanism. 
 
 This is not to give a new definition to humanism. It is 
 but to rescue its original one; and to state it in terms of 
 twentieth-century thought and life. It is to see that hu- 
 manism is not a thing of language alone; but rather of the 
 full texture of life. Any language in which one can Uve and 
 think can be the language of humanism. 
 
 In the day of the Renaissance, the classics provided 
 the languages and much of the thought of the wider hu- 
 manistic experience. But vernacular literatures have since 
 arisen which can not only provide the same experiences, but 
 the far wider ones of modern life; and which also can 
 serve the humanistic needs of all, a democratic require- 
 ment, and not merely those of a small leisure class. 
 
 The classicists of to-day are much concerned because of 
 an alleged attack upon humanism. As a matter of fact, 
 there is little discernible attack upon actual humanism. 
 The attack is only upon the conception that only the an- 
 cient languages can serve in a democratic age as the ve- 
 hicles of humanistic experience. One has but to look aboub^-^ 
 him to see that, in spite of the apparent contradictions of / 
 war, the world grows more humanistic in its conceptions, / 
 aspirations and practices. More and more we would bring 
 to all social classes the varied and essential humanistic 
 
280 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 experiences that have hitherto fallen only to the lot of the 
 intellectual and social aristocratic few. To all we would 
 give fullness of vital contacts with men, with nature, with 
 literature and history and art and high religion. To all so 
 far as possible we would give the far vision outward and 
 backward and upward. There are aristocrats and Philis- 
 tines who are indifferent to this wide diffusion of human- 
 istic experience, or who are skeptical of its possibility. But 
 in general they are making no active attack upon it. 
 
 It is under the circumstances unfortunate that classicists 
 should have the erroneous idea that humanistic experiences 
 require the ancient vehicles of thought; that the world is a 
 decadent affair in which modern languages are so wretchedly 
 weak and shabby as not to be able to carry the ancient 
 experiences; and even that modern human experience is 
 inferior to that of the peoples of old. ^ There is attack and 
 justifiable attack upon such pessimism and puerility. The 
 attack however is not because of hostility to humanistic 
 experience. It is brought by the optimistic, forward-looking 
 friends of twentieth-century humanism. To them humane- 
 ness and richness and nobility of spirit seem so good for the 
 world that they would have these things for all men and 
 women; and therefore they would employ for the purpose 
 the language of our democracy rather than the ancient out- 
 worn languages of the intellectual aristocracy. 
 
 The classicists have not defined humanism in terms of the 
 essential reahties. They have defined it only in terms of the 
 symbols of thought: of the verbal associates of the older 
 humanistic experience of centuries ago. 
 
 As a matter of fact, reading the ancient literatures in the 
 originals is not an essential factor in developing humane- 
 ness, or gentleness, or richness and elevation and nobility 
 of thought and feeling, or high appreciation of aesthetic art, 
 or of any of the other essentials of high charactCT. The 
 
TRAINING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES 281 
 
 cynical disbelief on the part of the classicists of the possibil- 
 ity or desirability of democratic diffusion of humanistic 
 experience to all makes them unsafe defenders of actual 
 humanism in our democratic age. Their major effort is not 
 to find means of the greatest possible amount of such diffu- 
 sion; but rather to retain an impossible vehicle of diffusion. 
 It is the social-minded men and women of to-day who 
 are the real leaders of modern humanism. A few are lin- 
 guists; most are not. Some are in the educational profes- 
 sion; most are in other fields of labor. But it is those whose 
 primary interest is in their fellow-men rather than in lan- 
 guages, and whose fundamental faith is in mankind rather 
 than in symbols, who are to-day leading and guiding hu- 
 manity toward fullness of self-realization. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 SOME CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS 
 
 In this volume *we have tried to look at the curriculum 
 problems from the point of view of social needs; and there- 
 by to develop, in some measure at least, the social point 
 of view as regards education. In a single volume, one can 
 present but glimpses of a limited number of the detailed 
 tasks. Others of similar type stretch out apparently end- 
 lessly before us. Our profession is confronted with the huge 
 practical task of defining innumerable specific objectives; 
 and then of determining the countless pupil-experiences 
 that must be induced by way of bringing the children to 
 attain the objectives. We have lacked space for discussion 
 here of the administrative problems. But let us refer briefly 
 to a few of them. 
 
 The first necessary thing is for our whole educational 
 profession to acqtiire a social, rather than a merely academic, 
 point of view. The writer fully appreciates the diflficulties 
 in the way, as may be illustrated by a personal reference. 
 Soon after the American occupation of the Philippine Islands, 
 the writer was a member of a committee of seven appointed 
 to draw up an elementary-school curriculum for the islands. 
 The members had all taught or supervised within the islands 
 for two or three years and were reasonably familiar with 
 their peculiar conditions. It was a virgin field in which we 
 were free to recommend almost anything by way of meeting 
 the needs of the population. We had an opportunity to do 
 a magnificent and original constructive piece of work. 
 
 And what did we do? We assembled upon a table in the 
 committee-room copies of the American textbooks in read- 
 
SOME CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS 283 
 
 ing, arithmetic, geography, United States history, and the 
 other subjects with which we had been famiHar in American 
 schools. We also assembled such American courses of study 
 as we could find; and without being conscious of it, we mo- 
 bilized our American prejudices and preconceptions as to 
 what an elementary-school course ought to be. On the basis 
 of these things we made out a course of study for the tra- 
 ditional eight elementary-school grades. We provided the 
 traditional amount of each subject for each grade, distrib- 
 uted them as in American schools, and recommended Ameri- 
 can textbooks for the work. 
 
 The thing was not adapted to the conditions within the 
 islands. As a matter of fact, we did not try to adapt it to " 
 those conditions — though we honestly thought that we were 
 doing the thing needed. The difficulty was that our minds 
 ran so completely in the grooves of traditional thought 
 that we did not reaHze the possibility of anything else. We 
 greatly needed something to shatter our self-complacency 
 and bring us to see education in terms of the society that 
 was to be educated. We needed principles of curriculum- 
 making. We did not know that we should first determine 
 objectives from a study of social needs. We supposed that 
 education consisted only of teaching the familiar subjects. 
 We had not come to see that it is essentially a process of 
 unfolding the potential abilities of a population, and in 
 particularized relation to the social conditions. We had 
 not learned that studies are means, not ends. We did not 
 realize that any instrument or experience which is effective 
 in such unfoldment is the right instrument and right experi- 
 ence; and that anything which is not effective is wrong, 
 however time-honored and widely used it may be. Fortu- 
 nately for the people, the Director of Education was better 
 able to look at essential realities; he cut the course down to 
 six grades, unceremoniously threw out irrelevant materials. 
 
284 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 and without regard for the time-hallowed sanctities brought 
 bodily into the course a number of things then far more than 
 now regarded as superficial and plebeian, such as shop- 
 work, cooking, sewing, weaving, rug-making, etc. We were 
 properly horrified. 
 
 We needed something that would shake us out of the 
 grooves and which at the same time was violent enough to 
 obliterate them, and set thought free. Attention is called 
 to this personal experience because of a belief that it is an 
 example of a wide-spread obstructive influence in American 
 education to-day. A large portion of our profession appears 
 to need something that will lift them out of the grooves 
 of routine traditional thinking — or rather out of an imita- 
 tion that is not thought — and which will so obhterate the 
 grooves that their minds will be free to think out new prob- 
 lems. For in the field of the curriculum, the whole world 
 to-day is presented with a magnificent opportunity for origi- 
 nal constructive work. The present social debdcle demon- 
 strates the inadequacy of types of education upon which we 
 have relied in the past. 
 
 Some of the things necessary for the liberation of thought 
 have been attempted in these chapters. They are written 
 with the assumption that we must establish fundamental 
 principles and employ scientific methods in formulating 
 systems of training. All of the advance in the curriculum 
 field at present — and there is much in all progressive school 
 systems — is pioneer, experimental, suggestive. In these 
 chapters we have tried to formulate some of the curriculum- 
 thought that is in a state of ferment throughout the field. 
 There is nothing recommended here but what is actually 
 being done somewhere and in some measure by practical and 
 progressive school men and women. 
 
 At the present stage of developing courses of training it 
 is more important that our profession agree upon a method 
 
SOME CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS 285 
 
 of curriculum-discovery than that we agree upon the de- 
 tails of curriculum-content. 'The writer has been chiefly- 
 interested in this volume in suggesting a method, and fun- 
 damental points of view. The reader may or may not agree 
 with the conclusions. That is of little consequence. The 
 main thing at present is that each find scientific principles -^ 
 and methods of curriculum-formulation which he can him- 
 self accept; and which will make thought the basis of cur- 
 riculum-making rather than imitation. Without such prin- 
 ciples at the present moment, one is like a ship in the wide 
 seas without chart, compass, or stars. 
 * Our professional vision must be greatly in advance of our 
 practice. We shall move forward only step by step with feet 
 on solid earth; but we must be able to see far beyond our 
 immediate next steps in order that they be taken in the 
 right direction. The work of our profession, more than that 
 of any other, requires foresight and far sight. For this rea- 
 son, in our discussion of ends and means, we have not looked 
 merely to what is practicable next year, or even five years 
 hence. Often we have discussed matters that are to be de- 
 veloped only through a slow-moving program covering a 
 long series of years. 
 
 A superintendent who recently listened to the suggestions 
 made in this volume presented this question: "What should 
 a superintendent actually do by way of improving the cur- 
 riculum in his schools?" 
 
 To begin with, he should accept the situation in his city 
 as it is. He should look upon it as the normal, and therefore 
 proper, result of the institutional growth-influences that 
 have been operative in that city. He should therefore ac- 
 cept the conditions as right and good in the sense that they 
 represent a growth-stage, conditions being what they are, 
 through which the city must pass before it can arrive at its 
 next normal stage of healthy growth. He should expect the 
 
286 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 curriculum to change and grow from year to year, rapidly 
 or slowly. Naturally he would like to have rapid growth; but 
 he would have to accept conditions as they are. The only 
 normal thing is for the growth to continue with a rapidity 
 that is determined by the conditions within the city. This 
 would mean in one city rapid growth; in another, slow — 
 at least until this could be normally accelerated. 
 
 Even if given a free hand, he should attempt no abrupt 
 reorganization of the work, nor any sudden reformulation 
 of the studies. In other words, he should not attempt to 
 accelerate the growth beyond that which can be normal and 
 healthy; and permanent after it is once accomplished. The 
 details of the work have to be carried out by teachers who 
 have been trained both in their academic courses and in 
 their professional experience to certain types of work. He 
 could expect teachers to assimilate only those suggestions 
 for improvement which do not mean radical departure from 
 what they have been accustomed to. But after having taken 
 these first steps, he could expect them then to be prepared 
 to go a little farther; and then later, to take other steps in 
 advance. The readjustments in the teacher's thought and 
 practice must be gradual. This is true also of school board 
 and community. They are not prepared for any type of re- 
 organization that greatly differs from that with which they 
 are familiar. Like the teachers they can shift only gradually. 
 'All must be a growth-process. And what is more, the super- 
 intendent would find that his own ideas were insufficiently 
 worked out in detail for directing reformulative procedure 
 which broke in any sudden manner from the old. He would 
 have to think out innumerable details and try them out in 
 practice. While this was being done, he would want the 
 best that has been accumulated in the years past to continue 
 until he was reasonably certain as to the exact details of the 
 next steps that are to be taken. If he is to make mistakes, it 
 
SOME CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS 287 
 
 is better for him to continue the old mistakes than to in- 
 vent a new series. 
 
 The superintendent will remember that inertia is as much 
 a factor in the general human economy as dynamic forces; 
 that the conservation of gains is as important as making 
 fiu-ther gains. He will be content with neither without the 
 other. 
 
 Along with principals and teachers on the one hand and 
 school board and community upon the other — for he should 
 insist not only upon democracy of opportunity, but also of 
 responsibility — he should look over the work in every sub- 
 ject within the system, elementary school and high school, in 
 the attempt to find those places where further growth is 
 demanded by community needs; especially those where 
 teachers, school board, and community are prepared to take 
 the natural next steps of progress; and where they are in a 
 mood to accept leadership in that direction. 
 
 For example, he will find manual activities going on as a 
 portion of the course. He will try to find the dozen or so 
 relatively small ways in which the work can be improved; 
 and he will try to get those relatively small things done. In 
 locating them, he will consider the educational principles 
 relative to making work real, making it pleasurable, intellec- 
 tuaHzing it through mathematics, science, and design; social- 
 izing the activities by introducing the history, geography, 
 and economics of the field; the introduction of observational 
 activities, practical participation, reading for vision and so- 
 cial appreciations. Making no changes except where there is 
 a clear guiding principle, moving by short steps, trying out 
 everything before going far, it is possible to make progress 
 that is relatively sure in direction and relatively certain to 
 be permanent. This small amount of progress accomplished, 
 the stage is set for taking another short step. This step can 
 lead to a third; and so the process may continue indefinitely. 
 
/ 
 
 288 THE CURRICULUM 
 
 He will then turn to another subject, history, let us say. 
 He will find many good results being secured. But he can 
 find, on the basis of curriculum principles, a dozen ways or 
 more in which it may in some measure be improved without 
 confusing the thought or practice of teachers or community. 
 He doubtless can take some reasonably long steps in advance 
 provided he can secure the necessary reading materials. 
 
 In the same way through making a multitude of little 
 changes in each subject he can with assurance arrive by 
 the stages of normal growth and with reasonable speed at 
 a curriculum that is better adapted to social needs. By 
 enlisting the active cooperation of all concerned, all can 
 move forward together. 
 
 To keep from getting lost among the innumerable de- 
 tails of many subjects, distributed over many grades, super- 
 intendent and staff should cooperatively draw up a con- 
 cise summary of the curriculum principles to be kept in 
 mind in connection with each subject. In some of the sub- 
 jects there should probably be different lists for different 
 grade levels. These should be printed so that they could be 
 continually used in checking and rechecking the situation 
 as regards each subject. They, too, should be subjected 
 to continual revision. 
 
 The superintendent will not try to advance more rapidly 
 than teachers, school board, and community are prepared 
 for. He will consider his position to be not educator Jor 
 the community; but rather only a specialized leader of the 
 community in its labors of educating its children. In other 
 words, he will conceive the responsibihty of education to be 
 not his primarily, but rather one that rests squarely upon the 
 total community. He is but a specialized helper and leader 
 in the work. If he goes faster than they can or will go and 
 leaves them behind, by so doing he abdicates the responsi- 
 bility that they have delegated to him. As a leader he must 
 
SOME CONCLUDING CONSIDERATIONS 289 
 
 take the community with him; or he is no longer its leader. 
 If they are backward and slow, his pace must be determined 
 by their pace; except as he can normally accelerate it. If 
 they are awake and progressive and eager and able to pro- 
 ceed rapidly, he must lead in progress of that character. 
 It is not inconceivable that his task of seeing that work is 
 substantial and permanent may sometimes require restraint 
 upon an over-eager community. 
 
 He will assume that not all progress is to be made in this 
 generation; that something is to be left for those that come 
 after us. And yet, he will attempt all of the progress for 
 which conditions are ripe, and for which he can without 
 forcing make them ripe. 
 
INDEX 
 
INDEX 
 
 Aims of education, in general, 3-7, 
 41-52; vocational, 56-57, 63-70, 
 71, 87-88, 94-95; civic, 117, 130, 
 131, 160; moral, 163-64, 166; 
 health, 173-79, 185, 189-90; rec- 
 reational, 209, 212, 224-26, 229; 
 language, 255-56; double-aim of 
 work-activities, 20; vague aims of 
 the past, 41; need of specific aims, 
 43. 
 
 Antecedent aspects of work-experi- 
 ence, in general, 26-33; relation to 
 extra-mural activities, 39; admin- 
 istrative aspect, 40. 
 
 Apprenticeship training, 24. 
 
 Capital and labor, education for mu- 
 tual understanding, 76-86. 
 
 Citizenship training, general, 117- 
 62; major objective, 117-30; 
 training for large-group conscious- 
 ness, 131-62; on play-level, 13; on 
 work-level, 22, 37; relation of 
 physical education to, 176; foreign 
 languages needed for, 262-64. 
 
 Civics. See Citizenship training. 
 Social studies. 
 
 Classics, the, 5, 272-81. 
 
 Concrete experience. See Shop- 
 work, Observation, Reading, Prac- 
 tical activities. 
 
 Cooking, introduction of responsi- 
 bility, 34-35; as general training, 
 102. 
 
 CoSperative part-time work, 21-24, 
 39^0. 83, 144, 155, 190, 202-04. 
 
 Culture advocates vs. utilitarians, 
 3-7. 
 
 Curiosity, as educational motive, 
 9-11. 
 
 Deficiency as symptom of training 
 need, 44-46, 50-52, 56-57; in occu- 
 pational matters, 63-70; English, 
 
 248^9; foreign languages, 255- 
 66, 272-73. 
 Double aim of work-activities in 
 schools, 20. 
 
 English language training, general 
 discussion, 247-54; motivation of 
 responsibility, 22-23; assistance 
 of foreign languages, 272-78. See 
 Reading, Grammar, Composition, 
 Literature. 
 
 Exercise in relation to function, 212- 
 13. 
 
 Extra-mural activities necessary for 
 finding responsibility, 20-22; gen- 
 eral theory, 34-40; occupational, 
 21-24, 105-08; civic, 149-57; sani- 
 tational, 185-88, 202-04. 
 
 Foreign languages, general discus- 
 sion, 255-81; utility vs. culture, 
 5-€; method of discovering pur- 
 poses, i55-56; needed for occupa- 
 tional efliciency, 256-62; needed 
 for citizenship, 262-64; for family 
 life, 264-66; for leisure occupa- 
 tions, 266-71; for proficiency in 
 English, 272-78; for humanisni, 
 278-81. 
 
 French, 271. 
 
 Gardening, 34, 35, 102. 
 
 Generalist, education of the, 78- 
 82. 
 
 Geography, reading, 12, 231-37; 
 occupational, 112; for civic pur- 
 poses, 146-48, 160. ^ 
 
 Grammar, errors as indices of train- 
 ing needs, 45-46, 248-49; motiva- 
 tion of training, 249; general dis- 
 cussion, 247-54. 
 
 Health training, in general, 171-204; 
 major purpose, 171-79; physical 
 
S94 
 
 INDEX 
 
 up-building, 180-88; social aspects, 
 189-204; through responsible ac- 
 tivities, 22, 37; through play, 8, 
 15-16, 181-85, 212-13, 219. 
 
 History, utility vs. culture, 4-5; 
 readings, 13, 231; occupational 
 history, 109-12; for nationalistic 
 training, 134-41; for international 
 attitudes, 160-62; of sanitation, 
 193-201. 
 
 Household occupations, on play- 
 level, 15; on work-level, 21, 34-35; 
 as general training, 102. 
 
 Hygiene. See Health training. 
 
 Ideational aspects of work-activity, 
 26-33, 36, 40, 71-75. 
 
 Industrial education. See Occupa- 
 tional training. 
 
 Interest, as motive, 9-10, 17, 20, 195, 
 208-09, 221-22, 227-29, 267. 
 
 Large-group consciousness, the devel- 
 opment of, 13, 128-30, 131-67. 
 
 Latin, 271, 272-78. 
 
 Leisure occupations, general discus- 
 sion, 207-43; function of, 207-26; 
 8-9; reading as leisure occupation, 
 227-43; foreign languages as lei- 
 sure occupation, 266-71. 
 
 Levels of educational experience, 
 two, 3-7. 
 
 Liberalizing studies, 3-6, 11-16, 
 208, 224, 229-31. See Readmg, 
 History, Science, Leisure occupa- 
 tions. 
 
 Literature, utility vs. culture, 4-5; 
 as intellectual play, 12, 231, 238- 
 43; English vs. foreign literatures, 
 269-70. 
 
 Manual training. See Shop-work. 
 Moral training, in general, 163-67; 
 
 relation of physical education to, 
 
 174-76; and recreational training, 
 
 222-24. 
 Mother tongue, 247-54, 272-78. ^ 
 Motivation of educational activities, 
 
 play or interest motive, 16-17; 
 
 work-motive, 18-22. 
 
 Municipal consciousness, develop- 
 ment of, 141-57. 
 
 National consciousness, developing, 
 134-41. 
 
 Objectives of training. See Aims of 
 education. 
 
 Observation, in occupational field, 
 105-08; in civic field, 149-50; in 
 health training, 190, 191, 202- 
 04; purposes and place of, 227- 
 30. 
 
 Occupational training, in general, 
 55-113; objectives, 55-70; tech- 
 nical training of independent 
 specialists, 71-75; of group spe- 
 cialists, 76-86; social aspects, 87- 
 113; relation of physical training 
 to, 173-74; relation of recreational 
 training to, 224-26; foreign lan- 
 guages concerned in, 256-62. 
 
 Participation in responsible activi- 
 ties. See Practical activities. 
 
 Physical training, definition, 180; 
 general discussion, 180-88; through 
 play, 15-16, 212-21. 
 
 Place of educational experiences, gen- 
 eral treatment, 34-40; household 
 occupations, 34-35; gardening, 35; 
 training of mechanics, 35-36; 
 health training, 36-37, 185-88; 
 occupational, 105, 108. 
 
 Plasticity as educational objective, 
 224-25. 
 
 Play, educational values, 8-9; func- 
 tion in human life, 207-26; rela- 
 tion to work, 18-20. 
 
 Play-level of education, defined, 6; 
 general treatment, 8-17. See Lei- 
 sure occupations. 
 
 Practical activities, recognition of 
 need, 20-25; occupations, 99-105; 
 civic, 141-57; health, 181, 185-86. 
 202, 204. 
 
 Project-method, 30-33. See Prac- 
 tical activities. School credit for 
 home work. 
 
 Psychology of play. 212-24. 
 
INDEX 
 
 295 
 
 Purposes of education. See Aims of 
 education. 
 
 Reading, historical, 13, 108-12, 
 134-41, 160-62, 193-94, 231, 237; 
 geographical, 12, 231-37, 112, 194; 
 occupational, 92, 108-13; science, 
 14, 194, 231, 237; literature, 12, 
 231, 237^3; as substitute for di- 
 rect experience, 108-09, 132-34, 
 199-202, 227-43; need of abun- 
 dance, 238-41, 254, 268, 278. 
 
 Recreational training. See Leisure 
 occupations. Play, Aims of edu- 
 cation. 
 
 Religious training, 166-67. 
 
 Responsibility as factor in education, 
 place of, 19-21, 82, 150, 155, 203; 
 difficulty of introducing, 23-25. 
 
 Sanitation. See Health training. 
 
 School and community. See School 
 credit for home work. Cooperative 
 part-time work. Practical activi- 
 ties. 
 
 School credit for home work, 21-22, 
 38-39, 106, 149-50. 185-88, 202- 
 04. 
 
 Schools, places of leisure, 23-25. 
 
 Science, utility vs. culture, 4; on 
 play-level, 13-14,231, 237; "pure" 
 science, 28, S3; relation to prac- 
 tical life, 26-33, 71-75; hygiene 
 and sanitation, 194-95. 
 
 Scientific management, 78-86. 
 
 Scientific method in curriculum mak- 
 ing, in general, 41-52; in voca- 
 tional field, 63-70; in civic field, 
 117. 
 
 Sewing, 34, 102. 
 
 Shop-work, on play-level, 15; on 
 work-level, 20-22, 35-36; range of 
 activities, 99-105. 
 
 Social progress, education as agency 
 of, 49, 68-70. 
 
 Social service aspect of occupations. 
 55-61, 87-91. 
 
 Social studies. See History, Geog- 
 raphy, Citizenship training. Oc- 
 cupational training. Health train- 
 ing. 
 
 Social supervision of occupational 
 world, 87-98. 
 
 Social training through play, 8, 16. 
 
 Spanish. 262, 271. 
 
 Spelling, discovering the objectives, 
 47, 249; error-lists, 251. 
 
 Survey as method of discovering 
 educational objectives, in general, 
 42-44; in grammar, 45-46; in 
 spelling, 47; in occupational field, 
 47, 68; in agriculture, 48-49. 
 
 Technical training, 26-33, 71-86. 
 Training of group-workers, 76-86. 
 
 Vocabulary-building, through foreign 
 languages, 273-78; reality-method, 
 241, 250, 274; verbal methods. 
 240-41, 275. 
 
 Vocational education. See Occupa- 
 tional training. 
 
 Work-level of educational experi- 
 ence, defined, 6; general treat- 
 ment, 18-33; for high school and 
 college, 25. See Practical activi- 
 ties. 
 
 World-consciousness, development 
 of. 157-62. 
 
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