A student's history of education

by Frank Pierrepont Graves

The Montessori Method.—But probably the most spectacular development in educational procedure is that originating with Maria Montessori at Rome. Yet the Montessori method, except for some elements adapted from Seguin (see p. 426), is largely a combination of several of the concepts found in Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Froebel, and fails to grasp the larger vision of education that appears in present-day theory, such as Dewey’s. Like Rousseau and Froebel, Montessori holds fundamentally to the rightness of child nature and consequently ‘Liberty of the pupil;’ to the liberty of the pupil, but she does not, like Dewey, realize that education is itself life and that the activities of real life should be utilized in training. Moreover, the sense training, which Montessori herself considers the most distinctive feature of her system, is neither original nor psychologically sound. Montessori Seguin’s apparatus. began as a teacher of defectives, and her ‘didactic apparatus’ and methods are largely borrowed from Seguin. Exercises of this sort are of great value in training defectives, but the assumption of their usefulness in the education of normal children is more doubtful. They are intended to train the senses to general powers and discriminations, and seem to be defended simply upon the basis of faculty psychology and the outworn theory of ‘formal discipline’ (see p. 182 f.).

Writing,

The feature of the Montessori method, however, that has attracted most attention is its apparent success with the formal elementary studies, especially the facility, enthusiasm, and speed with which it has enabled the pupils to learn to write. Montessori has carefully analyzed the process of writing and devised three exercises by which this art is unconsciously learned by three or four year old children in Italy. If this training can be reading, and arithmetic. applied to unphonetic languages, like the English, it may possibly be regarded as a contribution. It is evident, however, that Montessori lays too much stress upon the acquisition of the formal studies and starts them at too early an age. In this she fails to appreciate Froebel’s great contribution of a school without books, and certainly does not realize, with Dewey, that the main purpose of education is to give a child some control of his social environment and that for this there are activities of more importance to child life than the school arts. Within a few years it will probably be difficult to understand the furore that has been created by the Montessori methods.

The Statistical Method and Mental Measurements Technique of the physical sciences applied to education. in Education.—One of the most significant of the present day movements is the application, especially in the United States, of scientific, statistical methods to problems of education. Statistics have long been used, though often without clearness or accuracy, in reports of school administration, but it remained for this century to apply to the various phases of education the same general technique and approximately the same precision as that long demanded by the physical and biological sciences. Quantitative, unambiguous statements are now sought and secured not only for the phenomena of attendance, retardation, expenditures, and the like, but also for the relative and absolute amounts of knowledge. As a consequence, emphasis has been placed upon the results of education rather than upon the declaration of intentions.

Probably the first scholar to apply the scientific principles of statistics to education was Edward L. Thorndike’s advocacy of a quantitative description and of scales, and the application to achievement in school subjects. Thorndike of Columbia University. In his Educational Psychology he illustrates how a quantitative description of individual differences and of the factors that condition them is necessary to throw real light upon educational theory and practice, and in his Mental and Social Measurements he presents the details of the method. Subsequently he maintained, in the face of much opposition, that scales, as objective and as impersonal as possible, should and could be devised for measuring variations in ability and changes that take place as a result of natural growth and instruction. Such scales, beginning at an ascertained zero and progressing by regular steps to a point near perfection, are, because of the complexity of their elements, difficult to construct, but they have been set forth more or less tentatively by various investigators for the measurement of achievement in handwriting ([Fig. 57]), arithmetic, English composition, spelling, drawing, freehand lettering, and reading respectively. Other scales to measure ability in the several high school subjects may be expected soon.

Measurement of the quantitative significance of factors in method.

Studies are also being made in several universities to determine the relative importance of the numerous factors in methods of teaching. This is done by conducting experiments with hundreds or thousands of children to find out by the most accurate measurement yet devised the amount of progress in learning that is wholly due to the presence of some one factor of method in the technique of class-room exercises. Educational psychology has revealed the qualitative significance of many of the single elements in the very complex procedure that we have called a ‘method of teaching,’ and this new type of research aims to determine the quantitative significance of each of these several elements of method as factors in the production of abilities. A. Duncan Yocum of the University of Pennsylvania has formulated a considerable number of tests, and, by preliminary experimentation, has determined the conditions under which they may with a high degree of accuracy be given to groups of students engaged in actual school work under ordinary class-room conditions. His students have made a number of tentative, but suggestive studies, which have not yet been published. Milo B. Hillegas of Columbia University and others are engaged on certain aspects of this general type of research. There is reason, therefore, to believe that we may sometime be able to measure with as much accuracy the efficiency of well-defined educational processes as we are now able to measure educational products. If this can be attained, the technique of class-room teaching and of educational supervision will begin to rest on a really scientific basis.

Fig. 56.—Indian house constructed in Dewey’s experimental school by children between seven and eight years of age, while studying the development of primitive life.

(Reproduced from the Elementary School Record by permission of the University of Chicago Press.)