On the Firing Line in Education

nnual Banquet of the Fortnightly Club,

ion. But when worked out and ready to be put into operation, the plan is taken forward and activities begin. Supplies are gotten ready, men stationed, guns loaded, the firing line is formed. Here is where the battle is to be fough

out, out in the open. A firing line has to be formed, a place where new things are to be done different from the regular conventional activities. The humdrum, prosaic, traditional, everyday work go

campaign upon which we have entered, the goal before us at the present time, and then take up a few of the relatively new and typical positions being taken by leaders of educational thought

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ducation of children we keep them in mind as future members of society, acting with one another and all working together for the common good and for the bette

ties, thus enabling him to realize his own personality. The great French educator, Rousseau, living in the eighteenth century, was responsible for this movement and it was a notable advance beyond the haphazard and aimless practise of the time. Pestalozzi

se distinguished followers of Rousseau, even tho carrying out his program in the main, were likewise inaugurating the new sociological movement. But yet it was not sufficiently clear to dominate even in their own minds. The ind

and develop harmoniously all his powers. True, in that environment and doing all that, the child is going to learn the relationships of society, and thus the school might become a means for social progress as well as the instrument of individual development. But this was incidental. The development of the inner life was the goal. Fashioned in the quiet, in the study, away from the haunts of man, this became the program and the rallying cry, and out

stitution in which children could learn how to get ahead of the rest of the community, and education as merely another weapon to use in making society contribute more to purse and pleasure. And on the firing line, formed by these noisy agitators, mistaken by many as educational leaders, these were the things striven for. But this aberration was only temporary. The real educational leaders, in

e finds himself, to understand his share in it and to perform it because, after all, unless people learn to adapt themselves to other individ

ciency is the present-day motive in education. And the definition of education takes on a different color. Not merely the development of inner life but in conjunction with that or in addition to it, the development in the individual of the power of adjustment to an ever changing social environment. And likewise the school beco

s of the same shield but the fact remains that there are two sides. There is a difference and the change came as suggested. And the change has modified conditions on the firing line. Ever since Mr. Spencer asked his suggestive question, "what knowledge is of most worth," the question of educational values has b

l forces now commanding at the front, John Dewey of Columbia University, has suggested a modification which brings it up to date and gives the key-note of explanation to the tactics now in vogue out there in the front ranks. He says that instead of being the preparation for life, education is life itself. Some without trying to probe deeply into the thought back of the trenchant expression, have said that this was a mere play upon words. But Dewey is not a man who plays with words. What he m

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Pestalozzi. Advanced educational thought has that prominently in mind-the discovery of the child's latent powers-his possibilities-his tastes-his "bent" and the development of the same. But while with them that was the goal, the end in view, and a so

first place, the individual child whose tastes and aptitudes we must discover and, on the basis of discovery, whose fullest development, consistent with the rights of others, we must seek. And the reason for this, you know, is that only as this is done and he is prepared to do that kind of wor

they have meaning for him. What the high schools are trying to do is to teach the relatively few who survive this grade program, in addition to these elementary tradition-directed facts of knowledge, a lot more of meaningless matter prescribed by the colleges and listed under that alluring title, "entrance requirements." And as a result of these programs the schools

can she direct that development aright. (That's a sensible point of view, isn't it? And yet it is only on the firing line in educational practise that we find it recognized. Without that factor of equipment, the teacher is teaching subjects, not boys and girls.) In many normal schools child study is one of the required subjects-no one may graduate or be recommended for a teaching position who has

hought that in order to deal effectively with these young people the high school teacher should understand those marvelous changes-physical, mental, and moral-thru which they are passing. How else can one know how to check where checking is needed (and it usually is needed somewhere along the line); to guide where the pathway is obscu

attitude of high school teachers toward the adolescent. But, you may ask, why unsympathetic? Because they regard them as fickle, unstable, and irrational, and so have but little patience with them. I'll admit that the adolescent seems all that at times, but that is only on the surface. The developmental changes-physical and moral-thru which he is passing often make the life during this period one of turmoil. From fourteen to eighteen-the normal high school period-is frequently called the "storm and stress period" of life. Not having made a study of the situation, high school teachers, in the main, do not know the fundamental scientific facts, and therefore can not account for actions, points of view, signs of waywardness, lack of appreciation, poor lessons, etc., etc., that sometimes characterize the youth while a student in the high school. They often lay to an unclean mind what springs from a perfectly normal development of the sex function; they are sure that moral perversity is the basis of actions that are more correctly explained by reference to a moral nature merely i

w of the adolescent-tho not so chargeable to the individual class teacher as to the school system as a whole, local, state, and national, pretty nearly cover the ground. The other cause to which I refer is the course of study and program of activities that are so ill-adap

d has given instruction in child study to nearly one hundred young men and women who are looking forward to teaching in the grades, and I have had a group of some thirty-five or forty prospective high school teachers and superintendents who have been making a careful study of adolescence. I guarantee that these people will not make the crude and unfeeling blunders that I have mentioned as too common among high school teachers

ty $25,000 a year for the purpose of financing what is called a "child-welfare" campaign. The plan is to make an exhaustive scientific study of the child from

ational matters and ere long rectify our blunders as to subjects of study and general school activities and thus result in sending the children out efficient workmen in suitable fields. I refer to addresses an

k it moves very slowly, but yet it "do move." Tho we can't

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up; it would also include the school nurse and the visiting nurse, and, as well, free public clinics for ear, eye, nose, throat, and tooth difficulties. It would also include, for mental and mora

hese activities merely on the firing lines and not a part of the regular program? Because ignorance, and prejudice, and selfishness, and stubbornness, and penuriousness are still keeping many people in the trenches. But they will be dislodged. Just as sure as fate they will be driven from cover. They are fighting a losing battle. They are standing in the way of an irresistible movement that i

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aching and supervision, course of study, etc. Outside experts are brought in for various reasons: known to have no personal interest in the outcome, their reports are likely to be received with greater respect; and, too, a local committee, thru nearness and very familiarity, would fail to notice features, good as well as bad, that might at once attract the attention of strangers. Many cities, ranging from 2500 to half a million people, have already availed themselves of the survey with, in the main, very gratifying results. Not only have cities used the survey, but other units of educational administration. There have been a few very significant and interesting rural school surveys by counties in several states. A similar study has been made of several State universities, Wisconsin, Iowa

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nd lowest-paid work. They have argued strenuously and sometimes logically for better things. To this program the objection has been raised that children in these early years are not yet ready to choose their work of life; that they do not yet sufficiently know themselves-their own tastes and capacities for such serious choice; it has also been urged that to place before children such attractive objective features would result in swerving many from the normal pathway of their development and c

give the subject matter definite meaning in the early years, and, later on, when vocations begin to attract, the guiding may be intelligent and the final choice a suitable one. From the beginning of the adolescent period there should be opportunities furnished by the school or thru its co-operative effort for children to test themselves in various lines-academic lines, vocational lines. They should, in a word, be vocationally tempted in as many different directions as possible so as to come to know themselves so well that the final settling will not be haphazard. In these ways they should be guided into their vocations, definite ones, just as early in life as they can be adequately prepared for them. For example:-if his tastes and capacities fit a certain boy for merely a mechanical purs

our towns. For out in the front ranks the high school is no longer regarded chiefly as a preparatory for college. Out there it is seen to possess a much larger function-assisting the child-every child-to form its own acquaintance and to begin the planning of its future. In other words, the thought on the firing line is that the high school i

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be considered in such a treatment as this, I shall close with a very brief mention

uage of the schools. The more the matter was investigated, the more serious was it seen to be. Investigation has gone on until at last carefully gathered statistics tell us that almost, if not quite, one-half of all the children in the schools fail to progress thru the grades at the expected rate. For some reason, or for some combination of reasons, they are retarded from one to three years.

n order to function adequately in the new or advanced environment. But usually no such relationship could be traced. It was but another illustration of no present meaning connected with the work of the school. A remedy was sought, and is being sought, in trying to substitute for the information test a test of intelligence. It is generally admitted that neither one is an adequate mesure of the other. A child may have a very high grade of intelli

ment is The Measurement of Intelligence by Professor Terman of Leland Stanford

ned above. And out on our firing lines the educational psychologist is being looked upon as a necessity in any system looking forward to real efficiency. It is thought that thru the saving he could effect in the two directions cited his regular employment would be a matter of economic foresight. A few years a

movement. Thus I discust briefly the great child-study movement having for its goal knowledge of the individual child as a basis for its educational treatment. Following this I spoke of physical education-its beginning in many places and the great need for extension. Another activity named was the educational survey by means of which a community may have its own educational activity tested by impartial experts that its real efficiency may be known. Then