The scientific methods of studying school problems, which were illustrated in the last chapter, can be supported and supplemented by a comparison of the schools of the present with the institutions of earlier times, and by a comparison of the schools of different countries with one another. Such comparisons seldom serve as an adequate basis for the reorganization of school practices, because the conditions in one generation and in one country are so unlike those of others that direct transfer of methods of procedure is dangerous. Comparison serves, however, to set in clear perspective the characteristics which distinguish each situation from every other. If an American wishes to see the school system with which he is familiar from a new point of view, the comparative method furnishes a kind of outside station from which he may look back and see facts which were by no means clear in their meaning when viewed from near at hand.
The American Textbook Method of Teaching
One very impressive difference between the schools of the United States and the schools of Europe is to be found in the fact that class exercises in our schools are commonly based on assignments in textbooks, while in Europe the chief method of instruction is oral exposition by the teacher. The word “recitation,” which is often employed in describing a classroom exercise, is an American term. It originated at the period when devotion to the textbook was even greater than it is now,—when the pupil was expected to repeat verbatim the passage from the text. In British books on education the word “recitation” appears only when referring to American practices, and usually takes the form “the American recitation.” In the German educational vocabulary the word has no equivalent.
The unique American method of reciting lessons learned out of a book can be contrasted with the European method by taking a concrete case. If one goes into a geography class in a German school, one finds in the hands of the pupils no book, except that in the schools for the richer classes there may be an atlas; commonly the wall map serves. The teacher lectures on some section of the country, and follows the lecture by questions which the pupils answer. The advantages of the European method are that the pupils become trained, attentive listeners, and are able in answering questions to talk coherently for long periods, imitating the continuous discourse of the teacher. The disadvantages are that the information supplied is limited by the individual teacher’s training, and the pupils cultivate little or no independence in the collection and sifting of information. The influence of the teacher is always dominant—often oppressively so.
Independence of Thought based on Reading
The contrast here pointed out is one of fundamental importance. It can be adequately understood by a study of the history of American schools. When the colonists came to New England they were bent on securing for every individual independent personal contact with the truth. They had left their European homes because there dominating authority always stood between the individual and the sources of truth. One of the first acts of the colonists, therefore, was to provide for the training of every boy and girl in that power which would make him or her independent, especially in religion. The early legislation shows unequivocally this motive. Thus in 1650 Connecticut passed a law which had a preamble very much like that of the Massachusetts law of 1647. The preamble is as follows:
It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from a knowledge of the Scriptures, as in former times, keeping them in an unknown tongue, so in these latter times, by persuading them from the use of tongues, so that at least, the true sense and meaning of the original might be clouded by false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers; and that learning may not be buried in the grave of our forefathers [the court decreed that whenever a township increased to fifty householders they should employ someone] to teach all such children as shall resort to him, to write and read.
So strictly did the early schools devote themselves to reading that arithmetic and, in some cases, even writing were neglected in the exclusive cultivation of the one art of reading. Later generations of American teachers and pupils have experienced a great expansion of the content of the course of study, but the method of instruction has always been predominantly the reading method. The large number of supplementary readers used in history, in geography, and in nature study keep up the traditions of a school which was from the first a reading school.
The social consequences of this emphasis on reading can be seen in the fact that public opinion in America is controlled largely by an appeal to the people through reading matter. The importance of this kind of public opinion can hardly be overemphasized. In a democracy there must be ability to form independent opinions, and this is possible only where there is the widest training in reading.