Failure to know the facts concerning the distribution of mental traits, the organization of intellect, and the laws of heredity and variation, leads to much wasted effort on the part of all who deal by profession with people. The most frequent error is that of demanding that others adopt one’s own religious beliefs, standard of living, reaction time, or politics—usually with the idea that they will be greatly benefited thereby. Another common error of theory is that general happiness would be increased if some force could be established great enough to hold all down to the same plane of work, leisure, and reward. In education it has been assumed that justice would be well served by prescribing the same curriculum, at the same rate, at the same time, for every child.
If the uniformity of thought and action, to which these theories and practices tend, could be secured, the result would be deadening. Such uniformity cannot, however, be achieved, because of the biological forces of heredity and variation. The formulæ governing the interplay of these forces are little known, and they therefore lie outside of human control.
Many thinkers believe that nothing would be lost and much be gained for human welfare, by cutting off the variants who fall low in intellect and stability, and by increasing the number of those who fall highest, on the curve of distribution. However, it is possible to take, and perhaps to defend, the view that this would be meddlesome rather than helpful. Civilization becomes complex through the discoveries and inventions of superior deviates. It was they who invented wheel and lever, clock and calendar, court and statute book. They discovered the use of electricity, gravity, and steam. When moral life and industrial life become very complicated, great numbers of men are unable to meet the situations devised, and perish mentally, morally, and physically. Law may become so intricate that only the steadiest can suffer its restrictions. Mechanical and chemical contrivances may grow so numerous and complex that typical human nature cannot cope with them. Would it be better, then, to end invention at its source, by eliminating superior deviates? Or would mankind thereby lose other gifts, wholly benign for all, which only the superior deviate can bestow? In the absence of the highly endowed, would there not be a return to barbarism? And, if so, would the greatest good of the greatest number be thus promoted? Or should the welfare of the majority give way as a social ideal to the welfare of the best—the most capable, the most upright, the most enduring? Is it possible to evolve a social order in which the greatest good of all can be well served, since biological inequalities are so very great? These are questions for social and educational philosophy.
Men of science labor to acquire the knowledge that would give power to alter, at will, the shape of the curve of distribution for mental capacities. Such knowledge might work more changes in the world than have been wrought by knowledge of chemical formulæ or of electricity, but its right use would call for a wisdom and philosophical foresight which men at present probably do not have. The conditions and the theories that confront us in education call on us at present, as a matter of fact, to provide for the whole enormous range of capacities, general and special.
II. COMPULSORY EDUCATION
It is useful to recall that for centuries after mankind reached a point where prolonged formal education was available, attendance upon instruction was voluntary. Those who wished to learn what could be taught of the arts and sciences, hired tutors. It is true that the public ceremonies may, perhaps, be considered to have represented compulsory education, even in primitive times. However, education in the sense of several years of devotion to learning what men have previously done, thought, and devised, was formerly a private matter. The educated, who could communicate by writing, calculate in large numbers, see the present to some extent in the light of the past, and engage in even more complicated intellectual work, formed a small and highly selected group. They were individuals who loved learning, and their median IQ was doubtless far above 100.
As the white peoples of the earth, in parts of Europe and America, accumulated wealth, and more and more of those who cared to do so could buy education, political power began to be decentralized. Generous men of high intelligence conceived the idea that government should be representative. Political democracy with manhood suffrage was established in the United States. It was then seen that political democracy cannot be sustained on the basis of private education, and public money was appropriated to establish public schools.
Merely to establish free schools did not, however, solve the problem of education for a democracy. The leaders of thought and action found that not only must opportunity be provided, but many must be forced to take advantage of it. Compulsory education laws were therefore passed in many of our states, and they stand upon their statute books to-day. Truant officers became a part of the regular school staff, their duty being to apprehend all children between statutory ages, and bring them forcibly to school. The City of New York, for instance, now supports 308 truant officers, who are constantly kept busy by future citizens who wish to avoid education.
Why do they wish to avoid education? The reasons are various. Some of them avoid school because they have not enough clothing to wear; some because their parents need their earnings; some because they are ill; some because they are temperamentally unsuited to school discipline. The most important single cause of truancy is, however, that the curriculum does not provide for individual differences.
The curriculum upon which all children are now required by law to attend, is that which was formulated when only a few selected children were educated. Our schools are reading schools, and they teach abstract subject matter to a very great extent, much of which has no tangible relation to the life of many children. Children of IQ over 120 take pleasure in the abstract subject matter of grammar, mathematics, geography, and history. Children of IQ under 80 are made miserable thereby.