Wider Use of the Schools.—Under ordinary conditions, how many hours of use does a community obtain from its school buildings in the course of a year? Five hours per day, five days per week for about forty weeks in the year. That makes a total of about a thousand hours—a year contains more than eight times as many. When used for school purposes only, school buildings are empty seven-eighths of the time. But the cost of maintenance (interest, care, etc.) goes on all the time just the same. These buildings are admirably suited for many after-school purposes; they are centrally-located, well heated and ventilated, clean and commodious. Why not make use of them outside of school hours? The answer to this query is that many cities are now making use of them for evening classes, for public meetings, and neighborhood recreation. The high schools in many cities have become evening social centers for the section in which they are located. This means that the classrooms, assembly hall, and gymnasium are opened for lectures, entertainments, games, and dances, all under the supervision of officials (usually teachers) who are appointed and paid by the school board. The complaint is sometimes made that this wider use of the school plant is not education in the customary sense, but recreation or amusement, and that the taxpayers should not be required to pay for adult amusement under color of supporting a public school system. There is some force in this contention, but so long as the work is of value to the community, and worth what it costs, the particular heading under which the money is expended does not matter a great deal. These evening activities are placed in charge of the school authorities as a matter of convenience and not because they are exclusively of an educational character.
The Gary System.—Do we make sufficient use of the school facilities within the available school hours of the day? The usual school program does not cover more than five hours, although there are eight hours between eight in the morning and four in the afternoon. |Schools on an eight-hour basis.| In Gary, Indiana, a few years ago the school authorities decided that schooling, like labor, should be put upon an eight-hours-a-day basis. Pupils were therefore kept at school from eight until four, spending half their time in the classrooms and the other half at vocational work or at organized play. In this way the classrooms were made to accommodate twice the customary number of pupils. The Gary plan was based on the idea that even as regards their play the school can be of service to pupils and that time spent in learning something useful should be substituted for time spent in roaming the streets. Especial emphasis is placed by the Gary plan upon letting each pupil follow his own line of interests both in the classroom and in the vocational work. But the system has not, on the whole, proved popular elsewhere with either parents or pupils. The labor organizations also dislike it, suspecting that the plan is a capitalist scheme for getting the children of the worker more rapidly into the shops and factories.
The old curriculum.
Vocational Education.—The foregoing topics do not exhaust the list of things which educators are earnestly considering today. There is also the important question as to what should be taught in the schools and how it should be taught. For some years the whole curriculum of the public schools has been in process of change. The training of the old-time American school was in large measure literary and intellectual, without any direct relation to the present or future interests of pupils. It came to us from a past generation, when education was the prerogative of the well-to-do alone, the privilege of the leisure class, designed to give culture and erudition. But inasmuch as nearly ninety per cent of all the pupils in the public school go directly into some form of industrial or mercantile employment (not into the learned professions) it can readily be seen that a school program of strictly cultural studies does not satisfy the real needs of the community. Hence the demand for vocational education, for such study and practice as will connect the pupil directly with his future life work.[[248]]
The new curriculum.
In response to the demand for vocational studies the old school curriculum has undergone a striking change. Today it is the disposition of educators to challenge every subject to demonstrate its value. A subject which cannot demonstrate that it helps to fulfil some one of the recognized purposes of education is given a subordinate place in the curriculum or taken out altogether. In keeping with this attitude the vocational studies have come into great prominence during the past twenty years or more, for they are regarded as connecting the pupil with his future life-work. Shopwork, millinery, sewing, cooking, stenography, mechanical drawing, and a dozen other branches of vocational work have been brought into the school program. They are crowding the older high school studies, particularly the classical languages, into the background. Special schools of commerce and industry have been provided in many of the large cities, and special schools of agriculture in the rural districts.[[249]]
No sensible person should regret that the schools have moved in this new direction; the only question is how far they ought to go. If the only purpose of education were to teach the art of earning a living it would be another matter; but do purely vocational studies afford sufficient scope for the attainment of the other educational purposes? Man does not live by bread alone. The cultural studies have their value although this is often overlooked because it does not appear in plain sight to the naked eye. Even in the vocational school there should be a proper balance between the definitely vocational studies and the so-called cultural subjects.
The Newer Methods of School Instruction.—Forty or fifty years ago all American education, in schools and colleges, was on a prescribed basis. Definite subjects were laid down to be studied and everybody studied them. But the plan of allowing students to choose some or all of their studies was adopted by the colleges and in due course this elective system worked its way down into the schools.
The elective system.
There is a good deal to be said in favor of the elective system; it permits a choice of work in accordance with individual interests and capacities. After all, the school is created for the pupil, not the pupil for the school. The pupil is the true unit of instruction, not the subject. On the other hand the elective system may be carried to extremes; in some colleges that was the case and it has now been found necessary to put restrictions on the plan. A system of free and unguided electives leads to a patchwork education, desultory in character and without depth. It is all right to know a little about everything; but it is even more important to know some one thing well. Certain subjects form the groundwork of knowledge, and to go ahead with others before first mastering them is like building the roof of a house before you have dug the foundation or erected the walls. Without a grounding in the great languages, the English language particularly, and a fair proficiency in mathematics, history, and the elements of science no one is entitled to call himself an educated man.