The History of Education / Educational Practice and Progress Considered as a Phase of the Development and Spread of Western Civilization

by Ellwood Patterson Cubberley

III. EFFECT OF THESE CHANGES ON EDUCATION

GENERAL RESULT OF THESE CHANGES. The general result of the vast and far- reaching changes which we have just described is that the intellectual and political horizon of the working classes has been tremendously broadened; the home has been completely altered; children now have much leisure and do little labor; and the common man at last is rapidly coming into his own. Still more, the common man seems destined to be the dominant force in government in the future. To this end he and his children must be educated, his wife and children cared for, his home protected, and governments must do for him the things which satisfy his needs and advance his welfare. The days of the rule of a small intellectual class and of government in the interests of such a class have largely passed, and the political equality which the Athenian Greeks first in the western world gave to the "citizens" of little Athens, the Industrial Revolution has forced modern and enlightened governments to give to all their people. In consequence, real democracy in government, education, justice, and social welfare is now in process of being attained generally, for the first time in the history of the world.

The effect of all these changes in the mode of living of peoples is written large on the national life. The political and industrial revolutions which have marked the ushering-in of the modern age have been far-reaching in their consequences. The old home life and home industries of an earlier period are passing, or have passed, never to return. Peoples in all advanced nations are rapidly swinging into the stream of a new and vastly more complex world civilization, which brings them into contact and competition with the best brains of all mankind. At the same time a great and ever-increasing specialization of human effort is taking place on all sides, and with new and ever more difficult social, political, educational, industrial, commercial, and human-life problems constantly presenting themselves for solution. The world has become both larger and smaller than it used to be, and even its remote parts are now being linked up, to a degree that a century ago would not have been deemed possible, with the future welfare of the nations which so long bore the brunt of the struggle for the preservation and advancement of civilization.

THESE CHANGES AND THE SCHOOL. It is these vast and far-reaching political, industrial, and social changes which have been the great actuating forces behind the evolution and expansion of the state school systems which we have so far described. The American and French political revolutions, with their new philosophy of political equality and state control of education, clearly inaugurated the movement for taking over the school from the Church and the making of it an important instrument of the State. The extension of the suffrage to new classes gave a clear political motive for the school, and to train young people to read and write and know the constitutional bases of liberty became a political necessity. The industrial revolution which followed, bringing in its train such extensive changes in labor and in the conditions surrounding home and child life, has since completely altered the face of the earlier educational problem. What was simple once has since become complex, and the complexity has increased with time. Once the ability to read and write and cipher distinguished the educated man from the uneducated; to-day the man or woman who knows only these simple arts is an uneducated person, hardly fit to cope with the struggle for existence in a modern world, and certainly not fitted to participate in the complex political and industrial life of which, in all advanced nations, he or she [23] to-day forms a part.

It is the attempt to remould the school and to make of it a more potent instrument of the State for promoting national consciousness (R. 340) and political, social, and industrial welfare that has been behind the many changes and expansions and extensions of education which have marked the past half-century in all the leading world nations, and which underlie the most pressing problems in educational readjustment to-day. These changes and expansions and problems we shall consider more in detail in the chapters which follow. Suffice it here to say that from mere teaching institutions, engaged in imparting a little religious instruction and some knowledge of the tools of learning, the school, in all the leading nations, has to-day been transformed into an institution for advancing national welfare. The leading purpose now is to train for political and social efficiency in the more democratic types of governments being instituted among peoples, and to impart to the young those industrial and social experiences once taught in the home, the trades, and on the farm, but which the coming of the factory system and city life have deprived them otherwise of knowing.

NEW PROBLEMS TO BE MET BY EDUCATION. As participation in the political life of nations has been extended to larger and larger groups of the people, and as the problems of government have become more and more complex, the schools have found it necessary to add instruction in geography, history, government, and national ideals and culture to the earlier instruction. In the less democratic nations which have evolved national school systems, this new instruction has often been utilized to give strength to the type of government and social conditions which the ruling class desired to have perpetuated. This has been the evident purpose in Japan (R. 334), though the government of Imperial Germany formed perhaps the best illustration of such perversion. This was seen and pointed out long ago by Horace Mann (R. 281). There the idea of nationality through education (R. 342) was carried to such an extreme as made the government oppressive to subject peoples and a menace to neighboring States. [24] On the other hand, the French have used their schools for national ends (R. 341) in a manner that has been highly commendable.

As the social life of nations has become broader and more complex, a longer period of guidance has become necessary to prepare the future citizens of the State for intelligent participation in it. As a result, child life everywhere has and is still experiencing a new lengthening of the period of dependence and training, and all national interests now indicate that the period devoted to preparing for life's work will need to be further lengthened. All recent thinking and legislation, as well as the interests of organized labor and the public welfare, have in recent decades set strongly against child labor. Economically unprofitable under modern industrial conditions, and morally indefensible, it has at last come to be accepted as a principle, by progressive nations, that it is better for children and for society that they remain under some form of instruction until they are at least sixteen years of age. To this end the common primary school has been continued upward, part-time continuation schools of various types have been organized for those who must go to labor earlier, and people's high schools or middle schools have been added (see Figure 210, p. 713) to give the equivalent of a high-school education to the children of the classes not patronizing the exclusive and limited tuition secondary school.

As large numbers of immigrants from distant lands have entered some of the leading nations, notably England and the United States, and particularly immigrants from less advanced nations where general education is not as yet common, and where far different political, social, judicial, and hygienic conditions prevail, a new duty has been thrust upon the school of giving to such incoming peoples, and their children, some conception of the meaning and method and purpose of the national life of the people they have come among. The national schools have accordingly been compelled to give attention to the needs of these new elements in the population, and to direct their attention less exclusively to satisfying the needs of the well-to-do classes of society. Educational systems have in consequence tended more and more to become democratic in character, and to serve in part as instruments for the assimilation of the stranger within the nation's gates and for the perpetuation and improvement of the national life.

EDUCATION A CONSTRUCTIVE NATIONAL TOOL. One result of the many political, social, and industrial changes of a century has been to evolve education into the great constructive tool of modern political society. For ages a church and private affair, and of no great importance for more than a few, it has to-day become the prime essential to good government and national progress, and is so recognized by the leading nations of the world. As people are freed from autocratic rule and take upon themselves the functions of government, and as they break loose from their age-old political, social, and industrial moorings and swing out into the current of the stream of modern world-civilization, the need for the education of the masses to enable them to steer safely their ship of state, and take their places among the stable governments of a modern world, becomes painfully evident. In the hands of an uneducated people a democratic form of government is a dangerous instrument, while the proper development of natural resources and the utilization of trade opportunities by backward peoples, without being exploited, is almost impossible. In Russia, Mexico, and the Central American "republics" we see the results of a democracy in the hands of an uneducated people. There, too often, the revolver instead of the ballot box is used to settle public issues, and instead of orderly government under law we find injustice and anarchy. A general system of education that will teach the fundamental principles of constitutional liberty, and apply science to production in agriculture and manufacturing, is almost the only solution for such conditions. By contrast with the surrounding "republics" one finds in Guatemala [25] a country that has used education intelligently as a tool to advance the interests of its people.

[Illustration: FIG. 223. THE PHILIPPINE SCHOOL SYSTEM A teacher-training course is given as one of the vocational courses in the Intermediate School, and the Normal School at Manila represents one of the secondary school courses. The University, besides the combined five-year college course, has eight professional courses of from three to five years in length.]