Two generations ago school was supplemented by endless opportunity for play, and children had to work about the house and farm more and more as they grew to maturity. Play and work were in those days as plentiful as sunshine and air, and it is no wonder that educational ideals were developed taking no account of them. But we cling to these old ideals at the present time when children have no opportunity to play, when there is an almost complete absence of old fashioned chores about the home, when boys never see their fathers at work, and when the only opportunity for boys and girls to work outside the home is to face the certainty of reckless exploitation! What a piece of stupidity! Our entire educational system, primary and secondary, collegiate and technical, is sick with inconsequential bookishness, and school work has become the most inefficient of all the organized efforts of men.
Yes but we have our Manual Training Schools and our college courses in Shop Work and Shop Inspection. Away with such scholastic shams! The beginnings of manual training must indeed be provided for in school; paper cutting, sewing and whittling. But from the absurdity of an Academic Epitome of Industry may the good Lord deliver us! And he will deliver us, never fear, for the law of economy is His law too.
The greatest educational problem of our time is how to make use of commercial and industrial establishments as schools to the extent that they are schools.
The first object of all work is indeed to get food and clothes and lodging and fuel, but the essence of work is a human discipline as kindly and beneficent as the sunshine and the rain, and the greatest need of our time is that the discipline of work come again to its own in our entire system of education.
This book is dedicated to the kind of education that is proving itself at the University of Cincinnati.
To face page 60
and whittling. But from the absurdity of an Academic Epitome of Industry may the good Lord deliver us! And he will deliver us, never fear, for the law of economy is His law too.
The greatest educational problem of our time is how to make use of commercial and industrial establishments as schools to the extent that they are schools.
The first object of all work is indeed to get food and clothes and lodging and fuel, but the essence of work is a human discipline as kindly and beneficent as the sunshine and the rain, and the greatest need of our time is that the discipline of work come again to its own in our entire system of education.
This book is dedicated to the kind of education that is proving itself at the University of Cincinnati.