On the Firing Line in Education Part 4

The second of my three topics, "The University Teacher in His Cla.s.sroom," is an even more intimate one than the one just treated. It is so intimate that perhaps discretion would be the better part of valor, but since I am at a considerable distance from the people and the inst.i.tutions I am discussing, I feel that I can proceed with comparative safety.

There is abroad at the present time considerable hostile criticism of our higher education. Our graduates, it is said, are not able "to connect up"; "it takes them two or three years after they get out to find themselves"; "they first have to get rid of a lot of theoretical notions that have been given them before they can learn the practical things of life." President Foster of Reed College, Oregon, puts it thus: "It is possible to graduate from almost any college without an idea in one's head." Professor Wenley, Head of the Department of Philosophy in Michigan University, had about the same thought when he gave me his original definition of an American college as "A so-called inst.i.tution of higher learning whose chief accomplishment is the inoculation of innocent youth against education." Or shall we put it in the words of our friend Mr. Dooley: "Nowadays when a lad goes to college, the prisidint takes him into a Turkish room, gives him a cigareet an' says: Me dear boy, what special branch iv larnin wud ye like to have studied f'r ye be our compitint perfessors?"

Such are some of the caustic remarks that we occasionally hear. Of course the situation is always exaggerated in such criticisms; but, as the old saw puts it, "Where there's so much smoke, there must be some fire." Where does the trouble lie? All sorts of guesses have been made, and some careful investigations entered into in an effort to discover the cause. The outcome of all such consideration, so far as I am able to learn, throws the responsibility upon the teacher rather than upon the inst.i.tution as a whole, and upon his teaching ability rather than upon any lack of knowledge. We cannot teach, it is said. In spite of the knowledge that we possess, we do not know how to present that knowledge so that another can gain it. Nicholas Murray Butler, the brainy President of Columbia University, says, "The teaching of many very famous men [in colleges and universities] is distinctly poor; sometimes it is even worse."

These are rather interesting statements and worthy of thought. What is meant by teaching, anyway? Teaching involves a double process and two persons, both active upon the same matter. Both must be successful for either to be. Teaching is causing to learn, and when there is no learning, there can have been no teaching. "Learning is not merely the correlative idea of teaching, but is one of its const.i.tuent elements."

No matter how much an instructor may know, no matter how much he may say nor what he may do, if he doesn't cause the student to put forth those mental activities that result in learning, he doesn't teach. And it is claimed that, in many cases, our university instructors do not know how to do this. He knows but he does not know how to cause another to know, is a common criticism.

I suppose it is true, tho loyalty makes me rather dislike to admit it, that with us the poorest teaching in our entire educational system is done in colleges and universities. My own observation both as a student and as a teacher all along the line leads me to say that, in the main, our best teaching is done in the elementary grades, second best in the high schools, and poorest in the higher inst.i.tutions. Another puts it thus: "We have excellent teaching in the lower primary grades and in the graduate schools, but between these two extremes, we can call it teaching only by courtesy." Another, the president of a State University, is reported to have said, "I have resolved never again to turn my undergraduates over to young Ph. D.'s. It takes five years to make a commonsense teacher of a raw doctor fresh from three years of graduate work."

If these statements are true, and I am afraid that there's much of truth in them, the situation is rather serious. Still, it isn't at all surprising when one takes the whole matter into consideration. For relatively few university instructors have given any attention to the matter of teaching itself. They have studied the subject matter with which they are to deal. They have become proficient so far as knowledge is concerned. No fault can be found with them touching the matter of erudition. But they have not given any reflective thought to the art of teaching. They have not made a study of the human mind in its development in order to know how it receives knowledge as mental nourishment, and to understand the a.s.similative process; they have not given themselves to a systematic and scientific study of human life so as to know how to handle it in its various moods and characteristics.

How differently these good people would have planned if they had expected to practise Law, or Medicine or to enter the Ministry! In every such case they would have made professional preparation for their work.

Isn't it strange that any one should think that this profession--the most important--could be practised with success in its higher realms, by people who have never given its practise one moment's attention?

President Butler, in giving reasons for poor college teaching, says, "Too few instructors are interested in education."

I am reminded of Socrates' shrewd parody of a supposed speech of Euthydemus who, totally ignorant of statecraft, desired election to an important position in the government of the city of Athens. It is suggestive here: "I, O man of Athens, have never learned the medical art from any one, nor have been desirous that any physician should be my instructor; for I have constantly been on my guard, not only against learning anything of the art from any one, but even against appearing to have learned anything; nevertheless confer on me this medical appointment, for I will endeavor to learn by making experiments upon you." Comment is unnecessary.

There are three kinds of knowledge that every teacher should possess, that every successful teacher does possess: first, knowledge of the subject matter with which he deals; second, knowledge of the human mind which he is trying to stimulate; and third, knowledge of the way to bring these two together in a helpful manner. Of the three, I am afraid that university instructors have, in the main, but the first. At any rate, all they know of the other two is of an empirical character and what they have picked up incidentally. There are exceptions, to be sure.

Every worthy inst.i.tution has them, striking exceptions, too, some of them are. A few of our older men have become good teachers thru practise and experiment, and an occasional young man now comes with professional preparation. But yet, as in so many other matters, the exceptions merely prove the rule.

Thus equipt, or rather with this serious lack of equipment, the young university instructor begins his work. If he is, to use the words of the university president just quoted, "a raw doctor fresh from three years of graduate work," he probably begins by copying the methods of procedure of his own recent instructors. He tries to set these immature boys and girls at research problems and, in cla.s.sroom, tries to impart information by the lecture method.

How well I remember such an instance in my own freshman days. I fell into the hands of such an instructor in Greek. We were reading that most charming of Greek stories--_The Odyssey_. Textual criticism was this man's hobby, and we were put to work trying to compare texts, to delve into the intricacies of form and structure--trying to improve upon Homer! Such information as we could not find he gave us, in the formal lecture, day after day. But when we got it, we did not want it because we did not know what to do with it. Now, I am not quarreling with textual criticism. It would have been all right for that young doctor (he was younger than I was at that time) to deal with the facts of textual criticism, with some people, at some time, but it was all wrong for him to attempt to give those facts to us in our freshman year in the College of Arts. They were not adapted to our intellectual needs. They did not fit into our mental stomachs. We could not keep them down, or in, or something. But the pathetic fact was that the instructor did not know that they did not fit. I, being older than many in the cla.s.s and thus appreciating better the barrenness of the Greek pasture in which we were trying to graze, finally managed, by a little skilful maneuver, to escape and to join another group that happened to be in the care of a real teacher who knew not only Homer but, as well, freshman boys and girls, the reasons for teaching Homer to freshmen boys and girls, and how to do it. He was acquainted with both the science and the art of teaching. Oh, how green was the pasture here, and how abundant and how nutritious the food! In all my university experience I recall nothing more delightful.

But this is ancient history? Yes, I know it is. But yet, I am sorry to say, history repeats itself. Those three great mistakes that that young doctor made in my Greek cla.s.s some twenty or more years ago are being made this very year by young doctors and by old doctors and by many who are not doctors at all, in one subject or another, in well-nigh every college or university in the United States. Our instructors do not know well enough how to adapt knowledge to human needs; they have the erroneous notion that the chief function of an educational inst.i.tution is to impart information; and, too, many of them are afflicted with the lecture craze.

Touching these three mistakes, let me say, briefly: first, as to the adaptation of knowledge: the word _education_ is derived from the Latin _educo_, _educare_, and means _to nourish_, and nourishment, physical, mental, or moral, is never secured save as the food is adapted to the organism. And just as much care as our scientific diet.i.tians give to our dining-room service, our university instructors should give to the mental and moral pabulum that they serve to their students, especially the lower cla.s.ses if not the entire body of undergraduates. They should know this knowledge as mental nourishment; they should know the condition of the mind, and they should know how to select and prepare this food for digestion and a.s.similation.

As to the second mistake, the undue emphasis upon the mere imparting of knowledge: let me quote a few words from President Wilson, uttered when President of Princeton University: "We should remember," said he, "that information is not education. The greater part of the work that we are doing in our colleges to-day is to impart information." I am afraid that he is correct. I am very much afraid that that is mainly what we are doing. But it is wrong. The greater part of our work should not be to impart knowledge. It should be to a.s.sist in interpreting the knowledge that the student himself gets--to fit it to his own life needs and to help him learn how to study and how to think for himself. In other words, this information in which we deal should not be an end in itself, but a _means_ to an end. And that end should be development, mental power, point of view--character. To be sure, we must deal in knowledge facts (do not, I beg of you, misunderstand me) but not for the mere possession of those facts.

And lastly the lecture craze, under the domination of which otherwise sensible people get into the habit of supplying information to students who already know how to read instead of telling them where to find it and then discussing it with them. How common it is! But why? Simply because it is easy. How much easier it is than to conduct a real live recitation in which there is the give and take, the action and reaction, of eager vigorous young minds, where the instructor is the agency of interpretation and the inspiration! To conduct such an exercise with from thirty to fifty bright college students and keep them on the alert is no lazy man's task. It requires brains and skill, whereas anybody can do the other thing! President Foster is correct in saying, "There should be fewer lectures ... the easiest of all methods of instruction."

Again let me give an ill.u.s.tration drawn from my own sad experience, just to show what at least some of this lecturing is. This, you see, is getting to be a confession as well as an exposition. I was taking a course in the History of Philosophy. It was given by a man well known in the educational world, then and now. He was well thought of both as a teacher and a man. He read his lectures from ma.n.u.script. We were supposed to put into our note books every golden word that dropt from his inspired lips. And the most of us tried to do so, and in the effort got down some that were not golden. I did as the rest did till one day, fresh from the lecture, I went into the library and chanced upon a copy of Burt's "History of Greek Philosophy." I opened it and shortly found the very discussion, and some of the very sentences, word for word, that I had just copied with so much labor into my note book. And they were in print, too, so much easier to read than my note book writing! I at once sent to the publisher for a copy of the book and took no more notes in that course. Nor did I take any more courses under that instructor.

And so it was in a course in history--only there the kind old professor was nave enough to tell us the name of the book from which he got his lectures. And again, let me say that history repeats itself. Am I wrong in my criticism? Let me quote from one whose words carry more weight than do mine--Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University--(Ed. Rev. Apr., 1915, p. 399): "To use--or rather to abuse--the academic lecture by making it a medium for the conveyance of mere information is to shut one's eyes to the fact that the art of printing has been discovered. The proper use of the lecture is the critical interpretation by the older scholar of the information which the younger has gained for himself. Its object is to inspire and to guide and by no means merely to inform."

I do not mean to condemn the lecture method absolutely. There are certain lines of work in which it is quite necessary. This is true in some advanced courses, especially in the sciences, where an instructor is doing both lines of university work--carrying on research and giving his advanced students the results of his findings. Of course these have not yet been embodied in a text or other printed form and cannot be thus given.

And this same justification can be urged for some of the work in our professional schools where both the material used and the end sought are different. In still another line of work the lecture is permissible--if it deal with a relatively new subject or with new phases of an old subject not yet covered by a satisfactory text. But here it need not continue long because some enterprising instructor will soon satisfy the need. The formal lecture has therefore no place in the earlier and but slight place in the later years of undergraduate work. Its place should be taken by the text and reference book and the cla.s.s discussion. One of the finest accomplishments that we can help our students to gain is the ability to master the book.

Then, in conclusion, touching the matter of teaching, fidelity to truth compels me to admit, tho reluctantly, that much of it is very poor. It satisfies the external demands and that is about all. It is not of a character to kindle enthusiasm nor to develop high ideals of scholarship. Much of it, I said, not all. Every inst.i.tution has some good teachers, some very excellent ones, but no inst.i.tution is overstockt with species of that genus. The great majority of our undergraduates are poorly taught. That examination mortality is not greater than it is is due to two fine qualities, one in the student body and the other in the instructors. It speaks eloquently of the initiative of the students, and demonstrates that instructors can be fair even if they can't teach. Many times we know that we are to blame for the poor work of the student and, knowing it, will not visit the penalty upon the unoffending head.

The reason for this lamentable situation can be traced to two practises: In the first place, up to the present time, as said before, very few prospective college teachers have made any professional preparation for their work as teachers. In the second place, it is the almost universal custom to place the freshmen and soph.o.m.ores, by all means our largest cla.s.ses and the ones in greatest need of skilled teachers, in the hands of young instructors who have not yet learned how to teach. Relief will come thru two changes; first, when either the State or the governing board of the college shall demand professional preparation of every one allowed to occupy a teaching position, just as we do now for positions in the elementary and secondary schools. And if any one should raise a question as to the value of such preparation, my only but all-sufficient answer is to point to the universally recognized improvement in the character of teaching in those parts of our educational system since that requirement was put into effect. And the second needed change is this--for Presidents seeking teachers to ask candidates two questions instead of one as heretofore: first, of course, the question should be, "What do you know?" Satisfied as to that, let the second come clear and strong, "Can you teach?" And until an affirmative answer is demonstrated, let the appointment be withheld. It might be salutary, too, in dealing with the forces on the ground, to follow President Foster's suggestion given in these words: "It would be well if more teachers were dismissed because they fail to stimulate thinking of any kind."

I come now to the last of my three sub-topics,

THE UNIVERSITY'S ATt.i.tUDE TOWARD THE PREPARATION OF TEACHERS FOR THE SCHOOLS OF THE STATE

Fortunately, its discussion need not detain us long. What should be that att.i.tude? If you will a.n.a.lyze the relationship existing between the teachers of a state and that state's progress and development, and then recall my brief discussion of the function of a State University--to provide leaders--the answer to the question is at once apparent. The logic of the situation is clear. For what other body of people in a state are so clearly the state's leaders as the teachers? Always intellectually and, for the most part, in these days, morally and physically, the teachers in our schools mold the coming generation and guide it into paths of progress and accomplishment. This is true of the teachers of a state more than of any other group of people within its borders not excepting the ministry.

We have, in the States, a system of State Normal Schools maintained for the purpose of preparing teachers for the elementary schools. Each state of the Union has from one to a dozen of these inst.i.tutions. North Dakota has three. The course of study covers from one to two years' work in advance of a four-year high school course. In the East it is usually two years, in the West, one. This work is partly academic and partly professional and is always supposed to include a certain amount of practise teaching under expert supervision.

The elementary teachers thus provided for by the normal schools, there are left for preparation at the university teachers for the secondary schools, for city superintendencies, special teachers of various kinds, and teachers for college and university positions. And this latter is a work, it seems to me, the State University must perform. They are already doing this, to quite an extent, for the high schools; a few are doing it well and the rest are working in that direction. A few, too, are taking up the more advanced phases of the work and are competent to prepare for college teaching. The movement is strongly on.

It may not be uninteresting for me to trace this movement briefly as it has developed with us. For it has been a development. Our system of education was not planned at the beginning from a careful theoretical study of our present or prospective educational needs, but has grown up, little by little, step by step, to meet and satisfy from time to time present and pressing needs.

The movement for the professional preparation of teachers began in the first quarter of the nineteenth century in Ma.s.sachusetts. That state, with others, was suffering from an educational declension that had been going on for a long time. Matters were getting serious. Finally, a few clear-headed, far-seeing leaders made an a.n.a.lysis of the situation hoping to bring about a betterment of conditions. They quickly put the finger upon the sore spot--the poor quality of teaching being done in the schools. A remedy was sought. It was found in the European Normal Schools, an inst.i.tution devoted to the professional preparation of teachers for the elementary schools. An agitation was begun for its establishment on this side of the water. After many weary years the efforts were crowned with success when, in 1838, the State Legislature of Ma.s.sachusetts planned for the equipment of three. Thru their work the character of the teaching in the elementary schools was at once improved. Other states followed the example and this new inst.i.tution soon began its westward sweep, following the development of the country.

This early work, however, had in mind the improvement of teachers for only the common schools, rural and urban. Indeed, at that time no one even suggested that any other teacher needs special preparation. But when, after the Civil War, the high schools began to develop so markedly, the problem of teachers became a pressing one. Since teachers with normal school preparation were everywhere being recognized as superior to all others in the elementary schools, it was the most natural thing in the world for those in charge of the new high schools to demand professional preparation of their teachers.

But where could it be obtained? Not in the normal schools, because it should be of different character than that planned for elementary teachers. To make a long story short, the universities and colleges took the matter up and provided the professional work thought necessary by adding Departments of Education. Michigan University was the first to act when, in 1878, the Regents established a chair called the "Theory and Art of Teaching." The example was followed by others, and, tho limited in scope and experimental in character, it was at once seen to be justified in the improved character of high school teaching.

Improvements were sure to follow. The next step was the expansion of the department of education into the Teachers College, or School of Education, as it is getting to be called, which is now recognized as a professional school of equal rank with the School of Law or the School of Medicine. An essential element of its equipment is a high school for observation and practise under expert supervision, just as an elementary practise school is an essential part of a well equipt normal school.

New York University, in the city of New York, was the first to move in this direction. This was in 1890. For fifteen years progress was slow and halting and confined to private inst.i.tutions. But it was justifying itself. In 1905 the University of North Dakota effected the larger organization, the first of the State universities to do so. During the last five or six years, however, several others have fallen into line including such inst.i.tutions as Missouri, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The inst.i.tutions that have not yet effected this change and thus organized schools of education still maintain their Departments of Education and thus try to satisfy the need. The University of North Dakota was also one of the very first to make use of the high school for observation and practise, and in all lines of development has been recognized as occupying an advanced position. Other inst.i.tutions, older and larger, contemplating a change, have frequently advised with us. If this mention seems borne of inst.i.tutional pride, I trust that it will also be regarded as pardonable.

Thus the movement--not the result of a theoretical formulation, but a situation forced upon us by the logic of events. It is as logical, however, and as irrevocable, as tho produced by deductive reasoning. An explanation of a statement made earlier in the paper as to the relative teaching abilities of elementary, secondary, and higher teachers, can now be seen in the periods of development of the corresponding professional schools.

What should be the att.i.tude of the university toward the education of teachers? Let us follow the development a little farther.

During the last few years another very interesting phase of the movement has begun to show itself. You will recall that as soon as professional preparation demonstrated its usefulness in improving the character of elementary teaching, it was demanded for teachers in the secondary schools. And now that it has proved efficient in that field, it is being demanded in the field next higher--the colleges and universities.

And this demand, like the others, is no longer confined to professional schools or educational journals--to the people from the inside. It is being taken up by laymen, even the daily papers, and prest with some vigor. To give the point of view, I give a single quotation from an editorial in a recent issue of the Minneapolis _Journal_: "None of our graduate schools require any course in education or teaching methods, or any previous experience in teaching work for a Ph. D. degree, except, of course, in the field of education, where theory is cultivated, if not practised. May it not be found that the best method to increase the teaching efficiency of the undergraduate instruction in colleges and universities will be to provide every graduate student with definite and detailed instruction in teaching methods for his chosen subject?"

This demand, thus clearly voiced, and coming from many sides, will continue until granted as has been the case with each of the others. And as a result the teaching of our undergraduates will be improved. To do this added work, however, will not require another inst.i.tution. The present universities, thru their Schools of Education, amplified and strengthened, will supply the need.

Just as the University, thru its Medical School, provides its community with skilled physicians and public health officers to secure and preserve public health, and thru its Law School performs a similar service in sending out men who become competent lawyers and judges to secure the administration of justice, and thru its College of Engineering, its engineers to safeguard property, public welfare and life itself, so, thru its School of Education, it must provide its teachers for all these and other advanced fields. And all this service must be performed not that individual citizens may be better prepared to make a living, ama.s.s a fortune, or achieve fame, but that the community may be served.

So the School of Education, now given equal rank with other professional schools of the university, must ere long be recognized, by virtue of the work thus forced upon it, as, in a very definite way, superior to them all in opportunity and responsibility.

IV

THE EYE PROBLEM IN THE SCHOOLS

_A Paper read before the 1914 meeting of the North Dakota State a.s.sociation of Opticians. It was printed in the May, 1914, issue of "The Optical Journal and Review," also in the same issue of "The Keystone"_

I do not know how fully people appreciate the importance of the eye as an agent, or factor, of human cultivation. Judging from the amount of work it is being made to do in our schools and in nearly all our processes of education, we might perhaps be led to feel that its importance is fully appreciated, indeed, that it is being looked upon as the sole factor, or agent. But, on the other hand, this very excessive use, especially in the early school years, leading, as it does in such a large percentage of cases, to serious impairment of vision, almost tells us that its great value is not appreciated. If it were, should we be likely to abuse it as we do in these early years and thus render it incapable of performing its larger, fuller use later on? The att.i.tude seems rather to be that its conservation is not thought to be necessary.

That, however, springs from ignorance rather than from studied disregard.

But let us look for a moment at the processes of education and note where the eye comes in. If there is anything upon which leading educators are now practically agreed, or upon which they tend to agree, it is that education as a process is a matter of development rather than the learning of knowledge facts. Now, that development is a.n.a.logous to the growth and development of the plant, that is, it is brought about thru nourishment. In the plant this nourishment is taken in thru the roots, becomes absorbed and a.s.similated and thus ministers to growth and development. In the child, looking at it from the physical point of view and having in mind psychical, not physical, nourishment, the sense organs serve this purpose. Did you ever stop to think that the sense organs form the only connecting link between the great outside world, which serves as raw material for the nourishment, and the inner life of the child, the development of which we are seeking? Did you ever stop to think that these sense organs, the eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, and the surface of the body as the organ of touch, form the only possible avenue of approach to that inner life? Cut off, or close up, these avenues and no development of this inner life would be possible in the slightest degree. Thus considered, these same sense organs, simple as they seem to be, leap into importance that almost staggers one's thought. The most priceless possession of any child, I often say to my cla.s.ses in education, is made up of their eyes, their ears, their noses, their tongues, and their finger tips--simply because thru them is poured the nourishment that sustains psychic life and ministers to the development of the same.

Of these five sense organs, the eye is, par excellence, the one of value. More psychic nourishment is poured into the laboratory of psychic life thru this one channel alone than thru all others combined. Indeed, one of our most eminent scientific psychologists after making most careful investigation of the matter, estimates that the eye's contribution is about 74% as against the other 26% that comes thru all the other sources. If this relative value of the eye be even approximately correct, how eminently important it is that it be studied with close scientific accuracy, that it be guarded with the utmost and intelligent jealousy, and that it be cared for with the most scrupulous fidelity!

But what is the situation? The Optician and the Oculist have made the most careful, scientific study of the eye. They know it thoroly, both its possibilities of service and its limitations. And they have told the rest of us all about it. But let us see how intelligent we are in the use of the knowledge they have given us. They tell us that the eye of the child is undeveloped and that in the undeveloped state it should not be much used on small or close work. In other words, the child's eye is far-sighted. But at the age of six years we place the child in the school room, put a book in its hands, and compel its use, eyes or no eyes, as long as the child remains in any inst.i.tution of learning. Why, gentlemen, we have gone mad on this book proposition. We act as tho we think that it is only in the book that knowledge can be found. We act as tho we think that it is only thru the printed page that psychic nourishment can reach the inner life of the child, whereas, as a matter of fact, both the knowledge and the nourishment that are appropriate to the child in all its early years are better obtained thru direct contact with the great outside world itself and by direct communication from the lips of the teacher. If this fact were fully appreciated and acted upon, we should, in two very definite ways, conserve this very important organ; for we should use the eyes upon objects at a greater distance thus preventing unnecessary strain, and allow other organs of sense to share with the eye in the work of gathering information and of appropriating mental nourishment.

Please do not misunderstand me. I am not underestimating the place and value of books, nor decrying their use. They are the storehouse of knowledge and the source of inspiration, but not for children. Our young children in school and out of school read too much--are too much tied to the book. Thru this prolonged and close use of the eye upon small and nearby objects for which, in its undeveloped condition, it is not fitted, the organ is permanently weakened and rendered incapable of its legitimate use later in life when the book is a necessity. And again, this excessive use of the eye causes an atrophy of the other organs that is really serious.