Fig. 14. Average quality and average speed of handwriting of pupils of the four upper grades in ten schools[75]
Before giving examples of standardization in fields other than penmanship, it will be well to indicate the full meaning of the foregoing paragraphs.
Standards, Personal and Impersonal
First, it will be seen that measurements are here substituted for purely personal judgments. It was the universal practice before this movement began, and it is the common practice to-day, for a supervisor to go from school to school, passing on the excellence and speed of handwriting. The supervisor has arrived at a personal standard through his experience. He expects a certain result in the fifth grade. He has in his mind a more or less clearly defined requirement and regards it as his duty to impose this on pupils and teachers. In the same way the teacher has a personal standard which is imposed on the pupils. It would be a mistake to describe these personal standards as arbitrary or unintelligent. The experienced teacher is usually approximately right in his expectations, and the supervisor usually does a great deal to raise and unify the level of work with which he comes in contact. But it is not possible in a complex social situation to rely on personal standards. Personal life and professional activity are too transient. How many schools have changed standards, to the great disadvantage of the penmanship, with each change of supervisors? Furthermore, personal standards are vague when one tries to transmit them to others. This is a serious matter when it is remembered that a very large proportion of teachers in each school are changing each year. If a supervisor is to systematize the work of his schools, he must constantly be bringing into agreement with his standards the standards of a large number of new teachers. For the sake of coöperation it is advantageous to turn a personal standard into one which can be described and defined. Finally, a personal standard grows up out of all the accidents of a personal career. The person of narrow experience may not have incorporated into his standards valuable elements which he would have accepted had he come in contact with them. The person of strong personal likes and dislikes may often be prejudiced. The person of broad experience may be inexact when it comes to details. To demand of all who teach handwriting that they rise above purely personal standards is not unlike the demand that the central government rather than the states mint our coins.
Social Standards versus Imposed Standards
Second, the standards set up are derived from the work actually going on in schools. There is no dictation from purely theoretical and arbitrary sources. It is quite impossible to close one’s eyes to the fact that in the past there has been a tendency to assume that the only standard of action is the perfect standard. Many a child has been taught penmanship from perfect copy and has been urged to imitate this copy at whatever cost of time and pains. The slow, painful effort to draw letters like those in the copy book is not an unfamiliar exhibition in the penmanship class. A standard derived from the school work itself is a social standard; it is based on what pupils really do. One need not be satisfied with present performances, but one starts from solid ground. Furthermore, out of actual measurements will come a clear idea of the range of variation. One of the most astonishing facts which have come out in the course of the study of standards is the fact that there are very wide variations in the same grade. There is, therefore, an easy possibility of finding for each grade high standards. These high standards have the further advantage of being standards actually realized by pupils. We are justified in describing the standards thus set up as natural standards. They do not limit the progress of any grade or aim at mechanical uniformity as do the arbitrary standards based on personal judgments.
Comparison through Exact Measurement
Third, standards measured and expressed in definite terms can be compared and can be made the basis of studies which are quite impossible so long as standards are not expressed in common terms. For example, when the speed of handwriting in a certain school is deliberately changed, what is the effect produced on quality? Heretofore it has been almost impossible to answer such a question. Every school reform has been enthusiastically hailed by its friends as accomplishing much. In the second generation most of these reforms are checked, if not actually dropped, because it is found that the good accomplished in one line is entirely lost in some other. To-day reforms are in a position to measure their effects in all directions. A change in the speed of handwriting may or may not be advantageous; it is the duty of measurement to so state results that some light will be thrown on this matter.
A concrete example will serve to show how studies of this kind may be carried out. Fig. 15 shows the relative speeds and qualities of handwriting found in various grades in a miscellaneous group of cities and the corresponding facts for St. Louis and Grand Rapids. It is seen that both of these school systems are ahead at all points in speed and behind at first in quality. Both cities have made a conscious effort to get away from the slow drawing of letters in the lower grades. In doing this quality has been sacrificed. It is not the purpose of this discussion to decide what methods of teaching handwriting are best; the value of this example is that it shows quality and speed reduced to terms where the two can be studied together and with a high degree of exactness.