The Reconstructed School

by Francis B. Pearson

In every individual the inward quality determines the outward conduct in all its ramifications, whether in his speech, in his actions, or in his attitude toward other individuals. It is quite as true in a pedagogical sense as in the scriptural sense that “Men do not gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles,” and, also, that “By their fruits ye shall know them.” The stream does not rise higher than the source. What a man is doing and how he is doing it tells us what he is. When we would appraise a man’s character we take note of his habits, his daily walk and conversation in all his relations to his fellows. If we find a blemish in his conduct, we arrive at the judgment that his character is not without blemish. In short, his habitual acts and speech, in the marts of trade, in the office, in the field, in the home, and in the forum betoken the presence or absence of integrity. It follows, then, as a corollary that, if we hope to have in the stream of life that we call society the elements that make for a high type of civilization we must have integrity at the source; and with this quality at the source these elements will inevitably issue forth into the life currents. This being true, we have clear warrant for the affirmation that integrity is a worthy goal toward which we do well to direct the activities of the school.

Integrity in its large import implies physical soundness, mental soundness, and moral soundness. In time we may come to realize that physical soundness and mental soundness are but sequences of moral soundness, or, in other words, that a sound body and a sound mind are manifestations of a right spirit. But, for the present, we may waive this consideration and think of the three phases of integrity—physical, mental and moral. If, at the age of eighteen years, the boy or girl emerges from school experience sound in body, in mind, and in spirit, society will affirm that education has been effective. To develop young persons of this type is a work that is worthy the best efforts of the home, the school, the church and society, nor can any one of these agencies shift or shirk responsibility. The school has a large share of this responsibility, and those whose duty it is to formulate a course of study may well ask themselves what procedure of the school will best assist the child to attain integrity by means of the school activities.

In our efforts to generate this quality of integrity, or, indeed, any quality, it must be kept clearly in mind every day and every hour of the day that the children with whom we have to do are not all alike. On the contrary, they differ, and often differ widely, in respect of mental ability, environment, inheritances, and native disposition. If they were all alike, it would be most unfortunate, but we could treat them all alike in our teaching and so fix and perpetuate their likeness to one another. Some teachers have heard and read a hundred times that our teaching should attach itself to the native tendencies of the child; yet, in spite of this, the teacher proceeds as if all children were alike and all possessed the same native tendencies. Herein lies a part of the tragedy of our traditional, stereotyped, race-track teaching. We assume that children are all alike, that they are standardized children, and so we prescribe for them a standardized diet and serve it by standardized methods. If we were producing bricks instead of embryo men and women our procedure would be laudable, for, in the making of bricks, uniformity is a prime necessity. Each brick must be exactly like every other brick, and, in consequence, we use for each one ingredients of the same quality and in like amount, and then subject them all to precisely the same treatment.

This procedure is well enough in the case of inanimate bricks, but it is far from well enough in the case of animate, sentient human beings. It would be a calamity to have duplicate human beings, and yet the traditional school seems to be doing its utmost to produce duplicates. The native tendencies of one boy impel him toward the realms of nature, but, all heedless of this big fact, we bind him hard and fast to some academic post with traditional bonds of rules and regulations and then strive to coerce him into partaking of our traditional pabulum. His inevitable rebellion against this regime we style incorrigibility, or stupidity, and then by main strength and authority strive to reduce him to submission and, failing in this, we banish him from the school branded for life. Our treatment of this boy is due to the fact that another boy in the school is endowed with other native tendencies and the teacher is striving to fashion both boys in the same mold.

In striving to inculcate the quality of integrity, wholeness, soundness, rectitude in Sam Brown our aim is to develop this specific boy into the best Sam Brown possible and not to try to make of him another Harry Smith. We need one best Sam Brown and one best Harry Smith but not two Harry Smiths. If we try to make our Sam Brown into a second Harry Smith, society is certain to be the loser to the value of Sam Brown. We want to see Sam Brown realize all his possibilities to the utmost, for only so will he win integrity. Better a complete Sam Brown, though only half the size of Harry Smith, than an incomplete Sam Brown of any size. If the native tendencies of Sam Brown lead toward nature, certain it is that by denying him the stimulus of nature study, we shall restrict his growth and render him less than complete. If we would produce a complete Sam Brown, if we would have him attain integrity, we must see to it that the process of teaching engages all his powers and does not permit some of these powers to lie fallow.

If Sam Brown is a nature boy, no amount of coercion can transform him into a mathematics boy. True he may, in time, gain proficiency in mathematics, but only if he is led into the field of mathematics through the gateway of nature. He may ultimately achieve distinction as a writer, but not unless his pen becomes facile in depicting nature. Unless his native interests are taken fully into account and all his powers are enlisted in the enterprise of education toward integrity, he will never become the Sam Brown he might have been and the teacher cannot win special comfort in the reflection that she has helped to produce a cripple. We can better afford to depart from the beaten path, and even do violence to the sanctity of the course of study, than to lose or deform Sam Brown. If his soul yearns for green fields and budding trees, it is cruel if not criminal to fail to cater to this yearning. And only by cultivating and ministering to this native disposition can we hope to be of service in aiding him to achieve integrity.

It needs to be emphasized that integrity signifies one hundred per cent, nothing less, and that such a goal is quite worth working toward. On the physical side, the problem looms large before us. Since we can produce thoroughbred live stock that scores one hundred per cent, we ought to produce one hundred per cent men and women. In a great university, physical examinations covering a period of seventeen years discovered one physically perfect young woman and not one physically perfect young man. Our live stock records make a better showing than this. For years we have been quoting “a sound mind in a sound body” in various languages but have failed in a large degree to achieve sound bodies. Nor, indeed, may we hope to win this goal until we become aroused to the importance of physical training in its widest import for all young people and not merely for the already physically fit, who constitute the ball teams. If the child is physically sound at the age of six, he ought to be no less so at the age of eighteen. If he is not so, there must have been some blundering in the course of his school life, either on the part of the school itself or of the home. When we set up physical soundness as the goal of our endeavors and this ideal becomes enmeshed in the consciousness of all citizens, then activities toward this end will inevitably ensue. Physical training will be made an integral part of the course of study, medical and dental inspection will obtain both in the school and in the home, insanitary conditions will no longer be tolerated, intemperance in every form will disappear, and every child will receive the same careful nurture that we now bestow upon the prize winners at our live-stock exhibition. The thinking of people will be intent toward the one hundred per cent standard and, in consequence, they will strive in unison to achieve this goal.

The large amount of incompleteness that is to be found among the products of our schools may be traced, in a large measure, to our irrational and fictitious procedure in the matter of grading. We must keep records, of course, but it will be recalled that in the parable of the talents men were commended or condemned according to the use they made of the talents they had and were not graded according to a fixed standard. Seeing that seventy-five per cent will win him promotion, the boy devotes only so much of himself to the enterprise as will enable him to attain the goal and directs the remainder of himself to adventures along the line of his native tendencies. The only way by which we can develop a complete Sam Brown is so to arrange matters that the whole of Sam Brown is enlisted in the work. Otherwise we shall have one part of the boy working in one direction and another part in another direction, and that plan does not make for completeness. We must enlist the whole boy or we shall fail to develop a complete boy. If we can find some study to which he will devote himself unreservedly, then we may well rejoice and can afford to let the traditional subjects of the course of study wait. We are interested in Sam Brown just now and he is far more important than some man-made course of study. We are interested, too, in one hundred per cent of Sam Brown, and not in three fourths of him. If arithmetic will not enlist all of this boy and nature will enlist all of him, then arithmetic must be held in abeyance in the interest of the whole boy.

The seventy-five per cent standard is repudiated by the world of affairs even though it is emphasized by the school. Seventy-five per cent of accuracy will not do in the transactions of the bank. The accounts must balance to the penny. The figures are right or else they are wrong. There is no middle ground. In the school the boy solves three problems but fails with the fourth. None the less he wins the goal of promotion. Not so at the bank. He is denied admission because of his failure with the fourth problem. Seventy-five will not do in joining the spans of the great bridge across the river. We must have absolute accuracy if we would avoid a wreck with its attendant horrors. The druggist must not fall below one hundred per cent in compounding the prescription unless he would face a charge of criminal negligence. The wireless operator must transcribe the message with absolute accuracy or dire consequences may ensue. The railway crew must read the order without a mistake if they would save life and property from disaster.

But, in the school, the teachers rejoice and congratulate one another when their pupils achieve a grade of seventy-five. It matters nothing, apparently, that this grade of seventy-five is a fictitious thing with no basis in logic or reason, in short a mere habit that has no justification save in tradition, and that, in very truth, it is a concession to inaccuracy and ignorance. When we promote the boy for solving three out of four problems we virtually say to him that the fourth problem is negligible and he may as well forget all about it. Sometimes a teacher grieves over a grade of seventy-three, never realizing that another teacher might have given to that same paper a grade of eighty-three. We proclaim education to be a spiritual process, and then, in some instances, employ mechanics to administer this process. By what process of reasoning the superintendent or the teacher arrives at the judgment that seventy-five is good enough is yet to be explained. Our zeal for grades and credits indicates a greater interest in the label than in the contents of the package.