Examples of Views on Formal Training
The dispute which is introduced by these opposing statements is one of the bitterest in modern educational writings. Let us borrow two quotations which will present the case in detail. Frank M. McMurry has given in his report on the schools of New York City a striking example of the advocacy of direct and constant attention to social needs. In giving the quotation from this author it is possible to include incidentally his description of an earlier view of the curriculum which emphasizes general training or methods of thought rather than special content.
PROMINENCE OF CURRICULUM IN DETERMINING QUALITY OF INSTRUCTION
Thirty years ago the belief was often expressed that it made little difference what one studied, but all the difference in the world with whom one studied. That belief made almost any curriculum acceptable, and directed attention to the personality of the teacher and to method as the principal factors determining the effectiveness of instruction.
That belief, however, has been greatly modified. While no one will deny the importance of the teacher’s personality, most persons will admit that the proper expression of personality and skill in method are both greatly dependent upon the subject matter of the curriculum. Carefully selected subject matter is prerequisite to skill in method of presentation. Without a good curriculum there is bound to be great waste.
BASES FOR JUDGING CURRICULUM AND SYLLABI
1. By Relation of Subject Matter to Children’s Purposes
In harmony with the previous discussion of standards for judging the quality of instruction, as a whole, the quality of the curriculum in particular is to be determined partly by its tendency to influence the tastes, purposes, and hopes of children. Any curriculum for the elementary school should have its content selected from among those experiences of mankind that have seemed most valuable. That is to be presupposed. But this selection can be indifferent to the tendencies, interests, and capacities of children in general, and of certain ages in particular, and aim only at present storage of facts and ideas that may count in a dim future, i.e., in adult life. Or it may be made with constant reference to the abilities, tastes, and needs of children at the present time. In the former case, motive on the part of children is overlooked; in the latter case, the extent of provision for it is accepted as one of the standards by which the curriculum is to be judged. We represent the latter point of view.[54]
The group of thinkers to whom McMurry refers with disfavor as absorbed in methods rather than content has never been more ably represented than by President Hadley, extracts from whose statement are as follows:
Greek is an intellectual game where the umpires know the rules better than they know the rules in the game of French, for instance, or history, or botany. A man’s rating in an examination on any one of these last three subjects is largely the result of accident unless the examiner is quite unusually skillful. A man’s rating in Greek, on the other hand, means something. There never were intellectual competitions keener than the classical competitions at Oxford in the days when the best men in England wanted their sons to learn that particular game.
Unfortunately, a large number of the strongest men, both in England and in the United States, have decided that this game takes more time than it is worth. Personally, I believe that this change of mind is in many respects a misfortune; that in trying to get more practical results in the way of knowledge or culture a great many American college boys have lost the training which the Greek would have given them and gained nothing of equal value in its place....
It was a mistake for the advocates of the old curriculum to think that all the students required the same treatment. It is, I believe, an equal mistake for the advocates of the elective system to think that each student requires a different treatment. For while there is a very large number of subjects of interest to study, and an almost infinite variety of occupations which the students are going to follow afterwards, there is a comparatively small number of types of mind with which we have to deal. If we can have four or five honor courses, something like those of the English universities, where the studies are grouped and the examinations arranged to meet the needs of these different types, we can, I think, realize the chief advantages of the elective system or the group system without subjecting ourselves to their evils. I am confident that we can secure a degree of collective intellectual interest which is now absent from most of our colleges, and can establish competitions which will be recognized not only in college but in the world as places where the best men can show what is in them.
It may be objected that any such arrangement would render it difficult for a boy to study the particular things that he was going to use in after life. I regard this as its cardinal advantage. The ideal college education seems to me to be one where a student learns things that he is not going to use in after life, by methods that he is going to use. The former element gives the breadth, the latter element gives the training.[55]