Can the exact absolute and relative value of each line of study be determined? No; but we may make approximate estimates through philosophical study of the relation of the mind to the world, through the history of education and the experience of practical teachers. Every position is tentative and subject to constant readjustment, with a closer approach to truth. A reinvestigation of many problems through careful observation of children will doubtless make an important contribution to knowledge of values, if the experiments are conducted with a wisdom that takes them out of the realm of fads, and if the greatest thinkers are not given a seat too far back. Important as this kind of investigation is, extreme advocates may undervalue the store of educational philosophy that has become common property. From Cain and Abel down, the child has always been the observed of all observers; the adult man recognizes the nature of the child in his own nature, and has recollections of many of his first conscious experiences. From the time of the early philosophers, the data have been sufficient to discover universal truths. Child study serves, not so much to establish principles, as to bring the teacher’s mind in close sympathy with the life of the child, in order to observe carefully facts for the application of principles.
In an ideal course of general training, can there be, in any exact meaning, an equivalence of studies? As well ask whether one sense can do the work of another sense in revealing the world to the mind. To be sure, the fundamental conceptions of the material world can be obtained through the sense of touch alone; but we also attach importance to the revelations of sight and hearing, and these revelations have a different quality. He who lacks these other senses is defective in sources of soul development. So he who neglects important fields of knowledge lacks something that is peculiar to them. Each study helps every other, and before special training begins each is to be used, up to the time when the student becomes conscious of its meaning. By contact with nature and society, the child, before the school period, gets an all-around education. He distinguishes numerically, observes natural phenomena, notes the deeds of his fellows, gains the thoughts of others, and begins to perceive the qualities of beauty and right. The kindergarten promotes all lines of growth; the primary school continues them. Shall the secondary school be open to broad election? At a time when some educators of strong influence are proclaiming the formal theory of education, that power, without reference to content, is the aim of study, and some universities encourage a wide choice of equivalents in preparation for admission, and the homes yield to the solicitation of pupils to omit difficult subjects, it is important to answer the question in the light of the previous analysis. And we say no, for the simple reasons that not until the secondary period can the meaning of the various departments of knowledge be brought within the conscious understanding, not until then are the various powers developed to a considerable degree of conscious strength, not until then has the natural bent of the student been fairly tested. In this period one would hardly advocate the exclusive study, for instance, of history to the entire neglect of mathematics and physics; nor would he advocate the choice of mathematics to the entire neglect of history and literature.
The question of college electives is to an extent an open one. But it is clear that when general education ends, special education should begin, and that indiscriminate choice of studies without purpose is no substitute, either for a fixed curriculum or for group election in a special line. We may fully approve the freedom of modern university education, but not its license. Its freedom gives the opportunity to choose special and fitting lines of work for a definite purpose; its license leads to evasion and dilettanteism. We hear of a senior who took for his electives Spanish, French, and lectures in music and art, not because they were strong courses in the line of his tastes and tendencies, but because they were the lines of least resistance. There appears to be a reactionary tendency toward a more careful guarding of college electives, together with a shortening of the college course, in order that genuine university work may begin sooner. If this tendency prevails, it will become possible to build all professional and other university courses upon a substantial foundation, and we shall no longer see law and medical students entering for a degree upon the basis of a grammar-school preparation.
The opportunity to specialize, which is the real value of college election, is necessary even for general education. To know all subjects one must know one subject. The deepening of one kind of knowledge deepens all knowledge. The strengthening of power in one direction strengthens the whole man. An education is not complete until one is fairly master of some one subject, which he may employ for enjoyment, for instruction, and for use in the world of practical activity. Here we reach the ultimate consideration on the intellectual side in estimating educational values.
We who are sometimes called conservative know that we have before us new problems or a reconsideration of old problems. We believe the trend of educational thought is right, however some may for a time wander in strange paths. We know that mental capacity, health, time, money, home obligations, proposed occupation, and even deviation from the normal type are all to be considered in planning the education of a pupil. But the deviations from ideal courses and standards should be made with ideals in view, a different proposition from denying the existence or possibility of ideals. We know that the mind is a unit-being and a self-activity, that it develops as a whole, that there are no entities called faculties. But suppose the various psychical activities had never been classified, as they now are, in accordance with the facts of consciousness, the usage of language and literature, and the convenience of psychology, what a herald of fresh progress would he be who would first present mental science in clear groupings! We may call the world one, but it has many phases; the mind is one, but it has many phases; these are more or less correlated, and our theory of educational values stands. We know that interest is the sine qua non of success in education, and nothing is more beneficent than the emphasis given this fact to-day. We also know that pleasure is not the only, not even the most valuable, interest; and that the disagreeable character of a study is not always a criterion for its rejection. The pleasure theory will hardly overcome the importance of a symmetrical education.
In regard to some things, however, some of us must be permitted to move slowly. We must use the principle of “apperception,” and interpret the new in the light of that which has for a long time been familiar—attach it to the “apperception mass”; we must be indulged in our right to use the “culture-epoch” theory and advance by degrees from the barbaric stage to that of deeper insight; we must “concentrate” (concentre) with established doctrines other doctrines that present large claims, and learn their “correlations” and “coördinations.”
A new object or idea must be related to and explained by the knowledge already in mind; it must be so placed and known, or it is not an idea for us. If “apperception” means the act of explaining a new idea by the whole conscious content of the child’s mind, then it is the recognized process of all mental growth. In a given study, topics must be arranged in logical order, facts must be so organized as to constitute a consistent whole; important relations with other studies must be noted, and one subject must be made to help another as opportunity arises. If “correlation” means to unite and make clear parts of subjects and subjects by discovery of valuable mutual relations, then it is a vital principle of all good teaching. Studies, while preserving their integrity, must be adjusted to each other in time and sequence so that a harmonious result may be produced. If “coördination” means the harmonious adjustment of the independent functions of departments of study, we recognize it as an old acquaintance.
If the theory of “culture-epochs” finds a parallel, in order of development, between race and individual, and throws light upon the selection of material for each stage of the child’s growth, then let the theory be used for all it is worth. Its place, however, will be a subordinate one. Here are the world and the present civilization by means of which the child is to be educated, to which he is to be adjusted. Select subjects with reference to nature as known by modern science, with reference to modern civilization, and the hereditary accumulation of power in the child to acquire modern conceptions.