Natural Education and Recognition of Individual Differences
The advocacy of a natural education takes a different turn when it drops the word “freedom” and emphasizes the fact that individuals differ radically in their native capacities. Some pupils have an aptitude for one kind of work, others for other types. The school is to-day committed to a recognition of these differences and to a study of their meaning. There is a movement known as the vocational-guidance movement which is making progress in the direction of the discovery of methods for finding out what studies can properly be undertaken by students in view of their varying natural endowments. The individual’s natural bent being discovered, his educational training can be directed to the highest possible cultivation of his powers. Nature is thus recognized but is not made the dominant fact. The vocational end is the controlling factor in the situation. The attainment of this end may require the most rigid disciplining of one’s powers. The direction of this disciplining is dictated by nature, but not the particular steps of education. As a result of such a discussion it begins to appear that there is no fundamental reason for the abandonment of the idea of discipline even if there is a complete recognition of natural individual differences.
In concrete cases the opposition to the doctrine of discipline may, however, be acute. The pupil may say that he has absolutely no natural capacity for algebra or spelling. The teacher may answer that these are universal requirements and that there is no escape from these necessary studies because of individual differences. In such a dispute, tradition, on the one hand, and the wider opportunities of the modern curriculum, on the other hand, are likely to be arrayed against each other. Algebra as the conservative subject is likely to defend the view that discipline is necessary, whereas manual training and domestic science are likely to emphasize the natural attractiveness of the practical training which they offer. Thus it has come to pass that certain subjects, especially the older subjects in the curriculum, have come to be regarded as the defenders of the doctrine of discipline, while the newer subjects have often been regarded as opposed by their very character to the doctrine.