The Vitalized School

by Francis B. Pearson

Environment.—In what measure is a man the product of his environment? To what extent is a man able to influence his environment? These questions start us on a line of inquiry that leads toward the realm of, at least, a hypothetical solution of the problem of behavior. After we have reached the conclusion, by means of concrete examples, that many men have influenced their environment, it becomes pertinent, at once, to inquire still further whence these men derived the power thus to modify their environment. We may not be able to reach final or satisfactory answers to these questions, but it will, none the less, prove a profitable exercise. We need not trench upon the theological doctrine of predestination, but we may, with impunity, speculate upon the possibility of a doctrine of educational predestination.

Queries.—Was Mr. George Goethals predestined to become the engineer of the Panama Canal from the foundation of the world, or might he have become a farmer, a physician, or a poet? Could Julius Cæsar have turned back from the Rubicon and refrained from saying, “The die is cast”? Could Abraham Lincoln have withheld his pen from the Emancipation Proclamation and permitted the negro race to continue in slavery? Could any influence have deterred Walter Scott from writing “Kenilworth”? Was Robert Fulton’s invention of the steamboat inevitable? Could Christopher Columbus possibly have done otherwise than discover America? Does education have anything whatever to do in determining what a man will or will not do?

Antecedent causes.—Here sits a man, let us say, who is writing a musical selection. He works in a veritable frenzy, and all else seems negligible for the time. He well-nigh disdains food and sleep in the intensity of his interest. Is this particular episode in his life merely happening, or does some causative influence lie back of this event somewhere in the years? Did some influence of home, or school, or playground give him an impulse and an impetus toward this event? Or, in other words, are the activities of his earlier life functioning on the bit of paper before him? If this is an effect, what and where was the cause? In the case of any type of human behavior can we postulate antecedent causes? If a hundred musicians were writing musical compositions at the same moment, would they offer similar explanations of their behavior?

Leadership.—As a working hypothesis, it may be averred that ability to influence environment betokens leadership. With such a measuring-rod in hand we may go out into the community and determine, with some degree of accuracy, who are leaders and who are mere followers. Then we should need to go further and discover degrees of leadership, whether small or large, and, also, the quality of the leadership, whether good or bad, wise or foolish, selfish or altruistic, noisy or serene, and all the many other variations. Having done all this, we are still only on the threshold of our study, for we must reason back from our accumulated facts to their antecedent causes. If we score one man’s leadership fifty and another’s eighty, have we any possible warrant for concluding that the influences in their early life that tend to generate leadership were approximately as five to eight?

Restricted concepts.—This question is certain to encounter incredulity, just as it is certain to raise other questions. Both results will be gratifying as showing an awakening of interest, which is the most and the best that the present discussion can possibly hope to accomplish. Very many, perhaps most, teachers in the traditional school do their teaching with reference to the next examination. They remind their pupils daily of the on-coming examination and remind them of the dire consequences following their failure to attain the passing grade of seventy. They ask what answer the pupil would give to a certain question if it should appear in the examination. If they can somehow get their pupils to surmount that barrier of seventy at promotion time, they seem quite willing to turn their backs upon them and let the teacher in the next grade make what she can of such unprofitable baggage.

Each lesson a prophecy.—And we still call this education. It isn’t education at all, but the merest hack work, and the tragedy of it is that the child is the one to suffer. The teacher goes on her complacent way happy in the consciousness that her pupils were promoted and, therefore, she will retain her place on the pay roll. It were more logical to have the same teacher continue with the pupil during his entire school life of twelve years, for, in that case, her interest in him would be continuous rather than temporary and spasmodic. But the present plan of changing teachers would be even better than that if only every teacher’s work could be made to project itself not only to graduation day, but to the days of mature manhood and womanhood. If only every teacher were able to make each lesson a vital prophecy of what the pupil is to be and to do twenty years hence, then that lesson would become a condition precedent to the pupil’s future behavior.

Outlook.—Groping about in the twilight of possibilities we speculate in a mild and superficial way as to the extent to which heredity, environment, and education either singly or in combination are determining factors in human behavior. But when no definite answer is forthcoming we lose interest in the subject and have recourse to the traditional methods of our grandfathers. We lose sight of the fact that in our quest for the solution of this problem we are coming nearer and nearer to the answer to the perennial question, What is education? Hence, neither the time nor the effort is wasted that we devote to this study. We may not understand heredity; we may find ourselves bewildered by environment; we may not apprehend what education is; but by keeping all these closely associated with behavior in our thinking we shall be the gainers.

Long division ramified.—We are admonished so to organize the activities of the school that they may function in behavior. That is an admonition of stupendous import as we discover when we attempt to compass the content of behavior. One of the activities of the school is Long Division. This is relatively simple, but the possible behavior in which it may function is far less simple. In the past, this same Long Division has functioned in the Brooklyn Bridge, in the Hoosac Tunnel, and Washington Monument, in the Simplon Pass, and in Eiffel Tower. It has helped us to travel up the mountain side on funicular railways, underneath rivers and cities by means of subways, under the ocean in submarines, and in the air by means of aircraft, and over the tops of cities on elevated railways. Only the prophet would have the temerity to predict what further achievements the future holds in store. But all that has been done and all that will yet be done are only a part of the behavior in which this activity functions.

Behavior amplified.—Human behavior runs the entire gamut, from the bestial to the sublime, with all the gradations between. It has to do with the mean thief who pilfers the petty treasures of the little child, and with the high-minded philanthropist who walks and works in obedience to the behests of altruism. It includes the frowzy slattern who offends the sight and also the high-born lady of quality whose presence exhales and, therefore, inspires to, refinement and grace. It has to do with the coarse boor who defiles with his person and his speech and the courtly, cultured gentleman who becomes the exemplar of those who come under his influence. It touches the depraved gamin of the alley and the celebrated scholar whose pen and voice shed light and comfort. It concerns itself with the dark lurking places of the prowlers of the night who prey upon innocence, virtue, and prosperity and with the cultured home whose members make and glorify civilization.

Its scope.—It swings through the mighty arc, from the anarchist plotting devastation and death up to Socrates inciting his friends to good courage as he drinks the hemlock. It takes cognizance of the slave in his cabin no less than of Lincoln in his act of setting the slaves free. It touches the extremes in Mrs. Grundy and Clara Barton. It concerns itself with Medea scattering the limbs of her murdered brother along the way to delay her pursuers and with Antigone performing the rites of burial over the body of her brother that his soul might live forever. It has to do with Circe, who transformed men into pigs, and with Frances Willard, who sought to restore lost manhood. It includes all that pertains to Lucrezia Borgia and Mary Magdalene; Nero and Phillips Brooks; John Wilkes Booth and Nathan Hale; Becky Sharp and Evangeline; Goneril and Cordelia; and Benedict Arnold and George Washington.