I can find no fault with the use of the word selected by the Committee, but I do complain that they have not treated the problem, whatever name they choose to give to it, that we asked them to solve. Instead of that, they have given us a splendid and learned discussion of educational values, an analysis of the history of the school curriculum, and an elaborate defence of the status quo. It is apparent to me, therefore, that this report faces backward and forward. I Bay this despite the fact that it suggests and argues for more than one important innovation in the curriculum.
For one hundred years, ever since the time of Pestalozzi, we have been trying to extract the curriculum from a philosophical discussion of this sort, but we have not succeeded in satisfying ourselves wholly. We have made great advance, and for that advance we in America are indebted more largely to Dr. Harris than to any other single person, living or dead. He has taught us to understand why certain specific branches of knowledge are selected for a place in the curriculum, and now we ask him to tell us how they are to be correlated, or coördinated, or concentrated, in practice, to meet the new demands that are made upon the school, and we get no answer in this report.
The curriculum that this report recommends to us, and the methods that it outlines, are arrived by an analysis made from the adult point of view. Are we, then, to understand that child study is to be given no hearing? Are we shut up to formal analysis as the sole method in evolving a practical school plan? The newer education answers this question directly in the negative. It is putting the child in the place of honor and asking him to tell us what his nature demands and in what order it demands it. Dr. White has said that the legitimate result of this newer movement is individualism in teaching. I agree with him absolutely. We hope that the time will come when the individuality of every child will be respected. We want to rescue each child from the thraldom to which the formalism of the schoolroom has subjected him. For the sake of system we are reducing fifty, sixty, or seventy individual children in a schoolroom to a common denominator. It is true that there is no universal educational method, and that the Herbartians are as little likely as the Hegelians to provide us with a rule that shall know so exception. But in the point of view that they take, based upon the doctrine of apperception and upon the doctrine oi interest, they are absolutely right, and it is not what we expected from a committee of this kind to find this entire movement turned out of court without a hearing. Personally I am a slavish adherent of no school of thought and wear the badge of none, but I do say that we should not be prevented from giving to this great Herbartian movement prolonged and sympathetic examination. Why is it that we find the question of the correlation or the concentration of studies forced upon us at all? Certainly the normal child-mind sees the world about it as a correlated and concentrated whole. It is the adults and philosophers who have made the analysis that has resulted in separating what to the child is connected; so that, after all, the advocates of correlation are simply endeavoring to put the subjects of study back where they found them and to treat the curriculum from the child’s point of view. The adult is able to distinguish a physical fact from a chemical fact, a geographical fact from an historical fact, an arithmetical fact from an algebraical fact, but the child is not. He views them all simply as facts, and originally they are all on the same plane with regard to his intelligence. We must, therefore, seek the real unity that underlies the curriculum, and not proceed by making first an artificial separation of studies, and then a doubly artificial synthesis of them.
A preceding speaker has sharply criticised the psychology of Herbart. It is undoubtedly true that we cannot accept Herbart’s psychology as a satisfactory explanation of mental life. But it is not necessary that we should do so in order to secure the benefit of the educational theory and the educational practice that bears Herbart’s name.
Superintendent S. T. Dutton, Brookline, Mass.: About all has been said that needs to be said now. It seems to me that the question takes this form—the same God that made the child made the world about him. The purpose of those who mean to work out something better is to find how the child should be taught. My friends, we do not recognize the value of this report. Dr. Harris said very distinctly that the course of study in point should include the whole round of human knowledge. Now, there are two things that have helped me in this matter. My view is singularly different from Dr. White’s. If correlation makes the kindergarten what it is, it seems to me that it should go on. It seems to me that, in a certain way, this is true in the first year, in the second, etc.
This cross section brings in so many things we find imposed upon the schools that certain confusion and certain difficulties have been found in working out the Herbartian plan. The only way is the working out of these principles. If that is not done, we shall have reaction. I am not afraid that this work shall be retarded because of this report. Every teacher ought to understand this discussion of educational values. It ought to help us; it will help us. If this report is not complete, it will be completed in the good works of teachers in all this country. [The chair here announced that Colonel Parker and Dr. Harris would be asked to close the debate.]
Colonel Parker: Shall we study this question with open and unprejudiced minds? I am not a Herbartian. I simply ask the most careful study of all these questions and systems. There was a time when method seemed to be incarnated. Now, in regard to this report and the eminent philosopher who wrote it, I would not say one word except of the most profound respect. I am never going even to make a pun before a teachers’ meeting hereafter. When Dr. Harris says I do not believe in grammar, he should say that I do not believe in certain methods. I respect butterflies and grubs, but I respect language. When Dr. White says that certain things are plain by concentration, he says what I know nothing about. Herbart said of Pestalozzi that his great merit did not consist in his method and his means, but in his sublime zeal. He who faces this question of education faces infinity. I protest against unfair statement as to discipleship, following leader, and so forth, I acknowledge that I make such statements myself, but I hope to do better. When Dr. White speaks of the great giants, we have but to look at him and know it is true. But do we ever question what has been lost? We are facing the great problems of the twentieth century, and the present methods of teaching are not equal to their solution. Under God, let us find the truth and follow it. Let us have the means of knowing what each teacher and each superintendent is doing for the child. Let us not lay down a great educational doctrine and say that it is sufficient. The Sermon on the Mount is sufficient for nineteen centuries; but what we want is an application of Hegel, of Herbart, and of the wisdom of all other philosophers to the problems of the future. All hail the future!