Among educators as well as among members of the general public a spirit of educational unrest has developed. Everywhere there is an ill-defined feeling of dissatisfaction with the work of the schools; everywhere an earnest desire to see the schools do more effectively the school work which is regarded, on every hand, as imperative.
The facts of school failure are more generally known than the facts of school success; yet there are successful schools. Indeed, some of the school systems of the United States are doing remarkably effective work. Emphasis has been lavished on the failure side of the educational problem, until public opinion is fairly alive to the necessity of some action. The time is, therefore, ripe for a positive statement of educational policy. Many schools have succeeded. Let us read the story of the good work. Efficient educational systems are in operation. Let us model the less successful experiments on those more successful ones.
Circumstances force people to live in one place, to see one set of surroundings and meet one kind of folks, until they are led to believe, almost inevitably, that their kind is the kind. Schools are the victims of just such provincialism. Although the school superintendents and principals, and some of the school teachers meet their co-workers from other cities, the people whose children attend the schools almost never have an opportunity to learn intelligently what other schools are doing. This city develops one educational idea, and that city develops another idea. Although both ideas may deserve widespread consideration, and perhaps universal adoption, they will fail to measure up to the full stature of their value unless the people in all communities learn about them intelligently.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “American Education,” Andrew S. Draper, Boston; Houghton Mifflin Co., 1909, pp. 281-83.
[2] Ibid., p. 275.
[3] Ibid., p. 281.
[4] Idem.
[5] The Responsibility of the School, E. E. Brown, U. S. Commissioner of Education. A pamphlet privately printed in Philadelphia, 1908, containing a series of addresses.
[6] Report on the Programme of Studies in the Public Schools of Montclair, N. J., Paul H. Hanus, Cambridge, Mass., pp. 7 and 8.