The Future as Related to the Present
In planning a journey the one constant is the destination. All the other elements are variable, and, therefore, subordinate. So, also, in planning a course of study. The qualities to be developed through the educational processes are the constants, while the agencies by which these qualities are to be attained are subject to change. The course of study provides for the school activities for the child for a period of twelve years, and it is altogether pertinent to inquire what qualities we hope to develop by means of these school activities. To do this effectively we must visualize the pupil when he emerges from the school period and ask ourselves what qualities we hope to have him possess at the close of this period. If we decide upon such qualities as imagination, initiative, aspiration, appreciation, courage, loyalty, reverence, a sense of responsibility, integrity, and serenity, we have discovered some of the constants toward which all the work of the twelve years must be directed. In planning a course of study toward these constants we do not restrict the scope of the pupil’s activities; quite the reverse. We thus enlarge the concept of education both for himself and his teachers and emphasize the fact that education is a continuous process and may not be marked by grades or subjects. For the teachers we establish goals of school endeavor and thus unify and articulate all their efforts. We focus their attention upon the pupil as they would all wish to see him when he completes the work of the school.
If children are asked why they go to school, nine out of ten, perhaps, will reply that they go to school to learn arithmetic, grammar, geography, and history. Asked what their big purpose is in teaching, probably three out of five teachers will answer that they are actuated by a desire to cause their pupils to know arithmetic, grammar, geography, and history. One of the other five teachers may echo something out of her past accumulations to the effect that her work is the training for citizenship, and the fifth will say quite frankly that she is groping about, all the while, searching for the answer to that very question. It would be futile to ask the children why they desire knowledge of these subjects and there might be hazard in propounding the same question to the three teachers. They teach arithmetic because it is in the course of study; it is in the course of study because the superintendent put it there; and the superintendent put it there because some other superintendent has it in his course of study.
Now arithmetic may, in reality, be one of the best things a child can study; but the child takes it because the teacher prescribes it, and the teacher takes it on faith because the superintendent takes it on faith and she cannot go counter to the dictum of the superintendent. Besides, it is far easier to teach arithmetic than it would be to challenge the right of this subject to a place in the course of study. To most people, including many teachers, arithmetic is but a habit of thinking. They have been contracting this habit through all the years since the beginning of their school experience, until now it seems as inevitable as any other habitual affair. It is quite as much a habit of their thinking as eating, sleeping, or walking. If there were no arithmetic, they argue subconsciously, there could be no school; for arithmetic and school are synonymous. Again, let it be said that there is no thought here of inveighing against arithmetic or any other subject of the curriculum. Not arithmetic in itself, but the arithmetic habit constitutes the incubus, the evil spirit that needs to be exorcised.
This arithmetic habit had its origin, doubtless, in the traditional concept of knowledge as power. An adage is not easily controverted or eradicated. The copy-books of the fathers proclaimed boldly that knowledge is power, and the children accepted the dictum as inviolable. If it were true that knowledge is power, the procedure of the schools and the course of conduct of the teachers during all these years would have ample justification. The entire process would seem simplicity itself. So soon as we acquire knowledge we should have power—and power is altogether desirable. The trouble is that we have been confusing knowledge and wisdom in the face of the poet’s declaration that “Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, have ofttimes no connection.” Our experience should have taught us that many people who have much knowledge are relatively impotent for the reason that they have not learned how to use their knowledge in the way of generating power. Gasoline is an inert substance, but, under well-understood conditions, it affords power. Water is not power, but man has learned how to use it in generating power. Knowledge is convenient and serviceable, but its greatest utility lies in the fact that it can be employed in producing power.
We are prone to take our judgments ready-made and have been relying upon the copy-books of the fathers rather than our own reasoning powers. If we had only learned in childhood the distinction between knowledge and wisdom; if we had learned that knowledge is not power but merely potential; and if we had learned that knowledge is but the means to an end and not the end itself, we should have been spared many a delusion and our educational sky would not now be so overcast with clouds. We have been proceeding upon the agreeable assumption that arithmetic, geography, and history are the goals of every school endeavor, the Ultima Thule of every educational quest. The child studies arithmetic, is subjected to an examination that may represent the bent or caprice of the teacher, manages to struggle through seventy per cent of the answers, is promoted to the next higher grade, and, thereupon, starts on his journey around another circle. And we call this education. These processes constitute the mechanics of education, but, in and of themselves, they are not education. One of the big problems of the school today is to emancipate both teachers and pupils from the erroneous notion that they are.
The child does not go to school to learn arithmetic and spelling and grammar. The goal to be attained is far higher and better than either of these or all combined. The study of arithmetic may prove a highly profitable means, never the end to be gained. This statement will be boldly challenged by the traditional teacher, but it is so strongly intrenched in logic and sound pedagogy that it is impregnable. The goal might, possibly, be reached without the aid of arithmetic, but, if a knowledge of this subject will facilitate the process, then, of course, it becomes of value and should be used. Let us assume, for the moment, that the teacher decides to set up thoroughness as one of the large objectives of her teaching. While she may be able to reach this goal sooner by means of arithmetic, no one will contend that arithmetic is indispensable. Nor, indeed, will any one contend that arithmetic is comparable to thoroughness as a goal to be attained. If the teacher’s constant aim is thoroughness, she will achieve even better results in the arithmetic and will inculcate habits in her pupils that serve them in good stead throughout life. For the quality of thoroughness is desirable in every activity of life, and we do well to emphasize every study and every activity of the school that helps in the development of this quality.
If the superintendent were challenged to adduce a satisfactory reason why he has not written thoroughness into his course of study he might be hard put to it to justify the omission. He hopes, of course, that the quality of thoroughness will issue somehow from the study of arithmetic and science, but he lacks the courage, apparently, to proclaim this hope in print. He says that education is a spiritual process, while his course of study proves that he is striving to produce mental acrobats, relegating the spiritual qualities to the rank of by-products. His course of study shows conclusively that he thinks that knowledge is power. Once disillusion him on this point and his course of study will cease to be to him the sacrosanct affair it has always appeared and he will no longer look upon it as a sort of sacrilege to inject into this course of study some elements that seem to violate the sanctities of tradition.
Advancing another brief step, we may try to imagine the superintendent’s suggesting to the teachers at the opening of the school year that they devote the year to inculcating in their pupils the qualities of thoroughness, self-control, courage, and reverence. The faces of the teachers, at such a proposal, would undoubtedly afford opportunity for an interesting study and the linguistic reactions of some of them would be forcible to the point of picturesqueness. The traditional teachers would demand to know by what right he presumed to impose upon them such an unheard-of program. Others might welcome the suggestion as a means of relief from irritating and devastating drudgery. In their quaint innocence and guilelessness their souls would revel in rainbow dreams of preachments, homilies, and wise counsel that would cause the qualities of self-control and reverence to spring into being full-grown even as Minerva from the head of Jove.
But their beatific visions would dissolve upon hearing the superintendent name certain teachers to act as a committee to determine and report upon the studies that would best serve the purpose of generating reverence, and another committee to select the studies that would most effectively stimulate and develop self-control, and so on through the list. It is here that we find the crux of the whole matter. Here the program collides with tradition and with stereotyped habits of thinking. Many superintendents and teachers will contend that such a problem is impossible of solution because no one has ever essayed such a task. No one, they argue, has ever determined what subjects will effectually generate the specific qualities self-control or reverence, no one has ever discovered what school studies will function in given spiritual qualities. According to their course of reasoning nothing is possible that has not already been done. However, there are some progressive, dynamic superintendents and teachers who will welcome the opportunity to test their resourcefulness in seeking the solution of a problem that is both new and big. To these dynamic ones we must look for results and when this solution is evolved, the work of reconstruction will move on apace.
Reverting, for the moment, to the subject of thoroughness: it must be clear that this quality is worthy a place in the course of study because it is worthy the best efforts of the pupil. Furthermore, it is worthy the best efforts of the pupil because it is an important element of civilization. These statements all need reiteration and emphasis to the end that they may become thoroughly enmeshed in the social consciousness. If we can cause people to think toward thoroughness rather than toward arithmetic or other school studies, we shall win the feeling that we are making progress. Thoroughness must be distinguished, of course, from a smattering knowledge of details that have no value. In the right sense thoroughness must be interpreted as the habit of mastery. We may well indulge the hope that the time will come when parents will invoke the aid of the schools to assist their children in acquiring this habit of mastery. When that time comes the schools will be working toward larger and higher objectives and education will have become a spiritual process in reality.
It will be readily conceded that the habit of mastery is a desirable quality in every vocation and in every avocation. It is a very real asset on the farm, in the factory, in legislative halls, in the offices of lawyer and physician, in the study, in the shop, and in the home. When mastery becomes habitual with people in all these activities society will thrill with the pulsations of new life and civilization will rise to a higher level. But how may the child acquire this habit of mastery? On what meat shall this our pupil feed that he may become master of himself, master of all his powers, and master of every situation in which he finds himself? How shall he win that mastery that will enable him to interpret every obstacle as a new challenge to his powers, and to translate temporary defeat into ultimate victory? How may he enter into such complete sense of mastery that he will not quail in the presence of difficulties, that he will never display the white flag or the white feather, that he will ever show forth the spirit of Henley’s Invictus, and that nothing short of death may avail to absolve him from his obligations to his high standards?
These questions are referred, with all proper respect, to the superintendent, the principal, and the teachers, whose province it is to vouchsafe satisfactory answers. If they tell us that arithmetic will be of assistance in the way of inculcating this habit of mastery, then we shall hail arithmetic with joyous acclaim and accord it a place of honor in the school regime,—but only as an auxiliary, only as a means to the great end of mastery. If they assure us that science will be equally serviceable in our enterprise of developing mastery, then we shall give to science an equally hearty welcome. However, we shall emphasize the right to stipulate that, in the course of study, the capitals shall be reserved for the big objective thoroughness, of the habit of mastery, and that the means be given in small letters and as sub-heads.
We may indulge in the conceit that a flag floats at the summit of a lofty and more or less rugged elevation. The youth who essays the task of reaching that flag will need to reinforce his strength at supply stations along the way. If we style one of these stations arithmetic, it will be evident, at once, that this station is a subsidiary element in the enterprise and not the goal, for that is the flag at the top. These supply stations are useful in helping the youth to reach his goal. We may conceive of many of these stations, such as algebra, or history, or Greek, or Chinese. Whatever their names, they are all but means to an end and when that end has been attained the youth can afford to forget them, in large part, save only in gratitude for their help in enabling him to win the goal of thoroughness.
The child eats beefsteak because it is palatable; the mother prescribes beefsteak and prepares it carefully with the child’s health as the goal of her interests. Moreover, she has a more vital interest in beefsteak because she is thinking of health as the goal. For another child, she may prescribe eggs and, for still another, milk or oatmeal, according to each one’s needs. Health is the big goal and these foods are the supply stations along the way. The physician must assist in determining what articles of food will best serve the purpose and to this end he must cooperate with the mother in knowing his patients. He must have knowledge of foods and must know how to adapt means to ends, never losing sight of the real goal. The inference is altogether obvious. A superintendent must write the prescription in the form of a course of study and he may not with impunity mistake a supply station for the goal. He must have knowledge of the pupils and know their individual needs and native interests. Having gained this knowledge, he will supply abundant electives in order to assist each child in the best possible way toward the goal.
If, then, the relation between major ends and minor means has been made clear, we are ready for the statement that these major ends may be made the common goals of endeavor in the schools of all lands. Thoroughness is quite as necessary in the rice fields of China as in the wheat fields of America, as necessary in the banks of Rome as in the banks of New York, quite as essential to mercantile transactions in Cape Town as in Chicago, and quite as essential to home life in Tokyo as in San Francisco. If these big objectives are set up in the schools of all countries pupils, teachers, and people will come to think in unison and thus their ways will converge and they will come to act in unison. The same high purposes will actuate and animate society as a whole and this, in turn, will make for a higher type of civilization and accelerate progress toward unity in school procedure.