Beginnings of the Science of Education
During recent years the demand for a thorough and comprehensive study of schools by scientific methods has led to a number of investigations which can be offered as an optimistic beginning of a science of education. It would, indeed, be far beyond the truth to assert that science has settled all the problems of teaching and of school organization. There is, however, a very respectable body of fact which has been clearly enough defined so that it can in no wise be set aside. In certain details the requirements of a scientifically valid educational scheme are known and can be described. The method of studying schools can safely be said to be established. It is the work of the future to take up, now this problem, now that, and by progressive stages to work out a complete science of school management and classroom organization.
It will be the purpose of subsequent chapters to define fully certain of the leading problems with which the science of education deals. The remainder of this chapter will be devoted to a brief statement of certain typical studies, which will make more concrete and definite the contention that the pupil’s view of schools is narrow and that the teacher’s view must be extended, as must also that of the community at large, if educational conditions are to be improved.
Effectiveness of Studies of Retardation
First, we may refer to investigations which have been made of the rate of promotion of pupils through the grades.
Whenever a pupil fails to complete the work of a grade in the appointed time, it is evident that there is some kind of maladjustment. The pupil may be incompetent to do the work required of him because he is mentally deficient. On the other hand, it may be that the work is ill chosen and in need of revision. The following statement from one of the leading students of education in the United States describes with clearness the problem and the progress made in meeting it.
Just ten years ago the distinguished superintendent of schools of New York called attention to the fact that 39 per cent of the children in the schools of that city were above the normal ages for their grades. This aroused widespread investigation, which showed that similar conditions obtained in other cities throughout the country. Soon studies of this phase of educational efficiency showed that the same conditions which resulted in our schools being crowded with retarded children also prevented a large proportion of these children from ever completing the elementary grades.
About seven years ago this became one of the most widely studied problems of educational administration, and in the past four it has been one of the prominent parts of the school surveys. During the entire period hundreds of superintendents throughout the country have been readjusting their schools to better the conditions disclosed.
In these seven years the number of children graduating each year from the elementary schools of America has doubled. The number now is three quarters of a million greater annually than it was then. The only great organized industry in America that has increased the output of its finished product as rapidly as the public schools during the past seven years is the automobile industry.
It is probable that no other one thing so fundamentally important to the future of America as this accomplishment of our public schools has taken place in recent years. There is every evidence that this is the direct result of applying measurements to education. If the school survey movement now under way can produce other results at all comparable with this one, we need have no fear for the outcome.[3]
The quotation does not tell us how the reform has been worked out. That is a long story. In some cities better teachers were needed and have been employed. In a great number of cases the course of study has been revised. Sometimes smaller classes have been provided. So on through a long list of details, one might enumerate the reforms which have resulted from a careful study of the one fact that pupils in the schools were older than they normally should be.
A Study of High-School Courses
A second type of study can be borrowed from the reports of the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. This Association has as its practical purpose the inspection of the secondary schools and colleges of the northern states from Ohio to Colorado. The inspectors of high schools in seventeen states brought together in the report of 1916 a number of exact statistics regarding 1128 approved schools.[4] One set of these facts may be selected for special comment.