The Spirit of America

by Henry Van Dyke

The school furniture is of the latest and most approved pattern. The old idea of the adjustable child who could be fitted to any kind of a seat or desk, has given way to the new idea of the adjustable seat and desk which can be fitted to any kind of a child. School doctors are employed to make a physical examination of the children. In a few cities there are school nurses to attend to the pupils who are slightly ailing.

Physical culture, in the form of calisthenics, military drill, gymnastics, is introduced. Athletic organizations, foot-ball clubs, base-ball clubs, are encouraged among the boys. In every way the effort is apparent to make school life attractive, more comfortable, more healthful.

Some critics say that the effort is excessive, that it spoils and softens the children, that it has distracted their attention from the serious business of hard study. I do not know. It is difficult for a man to remember just how serious he was when he was a boy. Perhaps the modern common-school pupil is less Spartan and resolute than his father used to be. Perhaps not. Pictures on the wall and flowers in the window, gymnastics and music, may not really distract the attention more than uncomfortable seats and bad ventilation.

Another marked tendency in the American common school, at least in the large towns and cities, is the warm, one might almost say feverish, interest in new courses and methods of study. In the primary schools this shows itself chiefly in the introduction of new ways of learning to spell and to cipher. The alphabet and the multiplication table are no longer regarded as necessities. The phonetic pupil is almost in danger of supposing that reading, writing, and arithmetic are literally “the three r’s.” Hours are given to nature-study, object-lessons, hygiene. Children of tender years are instructed in the mysteries of the digestive system. The range of mental effort is immensely diversified.

In the high schools the increase of educational novelties is even more apparent. The courses are multiplied and divided. Elective studies are offered in large quantity. I take an example from the programme of a Western high school. The studies required of all pupils are: English, history, algebra, plane geometry, biology, physics, and Shakespeare. The studies offered for a choice are: psychology, ethics, commercial law, civics, economics, arithmetic, book-keeping, higher algebra, solid geometry, trigonometry, penmanship, phonography, drawing and the history of art, chemistry, Latin, German, French, Spanish, and Greek. This is quite a rich intellectual bill of fare for boys and girls between fourteen and eighteen years old. It seems almost encyclopædic,—though I miss a few subjects like Sanskrit, Egyptology, photography, and comparative religions.

The fact is that in the American high schools, as in the French lycées the effort to enlarge and vary the curriculum by introducing studies which are said to be “urgently required by modern conditions” has led to considerable confusion of educational ideals. But with us, while the extremes are worse, owing to the lack of the central control, the disorder is less universal, because the conservative schools have been free to adhere to a simpler programme. It is a good thing, no doubt, that the rigidity of the old system, which made every pupil go through the same course of classics and mathematics, has been relaxed. But our danger now lies in the direction of using our schools to fit boys and girls to make a living, rather than to train them in a sound and vigorous intellectual life. For this latter purpose it is not true that all branches of study are of equal value. Some are immensely superior. We want not the widest range, but the best selection.

There are some points in which the public schools of America, so far as one can judge from the general reports, are inferior to those of France. One of these points, naturally, is in the smooth working that comes from uniformity and coördination. Another point, strangely enough, is in the careful provision for moral instruction in the primary schools. At least in the programmes of the French schools, much more time and attention are given to this than in the American programmes.

Another point of inferiority in the United States is in the requirement of proper preparation and certification of all teachers; and still another is in the security of their tenure of office and the length of their service in the profession. The teaching force of the American schools is a noble army; but it would be more efficient if the regular element were larger in proportion to the volunteers. The personnel changes too often.

One reason for this, no doubt, is the fact that the women outnumber the men by three to one. Not that the women are poorer teachers. Often, especially in primary work, they are the best. But their average term of professional service is not over four years. They are interrupted by that great accident, matrimony, which invites a woman to stop teaching, and a man to continue.

The shortage of male teachers, which exists in so many countries, is felt in extreme form in the United States. Efforts are made to remedy it by the increase of normal schools and teachers’ colleges, and by a closer connection between the universities and the public-school system.