The Children: Some Educational Problems Part 8

Partly to this erroneous conception of the real function of the elementary arts, and partly to another cause which we shall mention later, may be attributed the poor results which our Elementary School system has attained in the establishment of interests of moral and social worth. If, moreover, we realise how large a proportion of the children left and still do leave school at an early age, before such interests can be permanently established, and in some cases with anything but an adequate knowledge of the elementary arts necessary for all further progress, we may rather be astonished that so much has been done than so little.

But in the reaction against the narrowness and formalism of our early aims in elementary education, there is a tendency--a strong tendency--at the present time to go to the opposite extreme, and to make the elementary instrumental arts the vehicles for the fostering of real interests at too early a stage. This manifests itself on the one hand in the desire to make all instruction interesting to the child, and on the other to introduce the child prematurely to a knowledge of the real conditions of life, before he can have any intelligent understanding of these conditions. From the barrenness and formalism of the earlier period, we now have the demand made that the school should throughout take into account the real and practical necessities of life.

The former tendency--the tendency to make everything interesting to the child by lessening or minimising the mechanical difficulties and by endeavouring in every way to incite the child to become interested in the content of the lesson--is best exemplified by the character of the school books which we now place in the hands of our children. The latter tendency--the tendency to the premature use of the elementary arts--is exemplified by the craving to make our teaching of arithmetic practical and real from the very beginning.

In the former case, instead of endeavouring to make the process of language construction interesting in itself, we divert the child's attention from the acquiring and organising of the system of language forms to the premature acquirement of the content of language. What results is obvious: the main interest being in the content, the interest in the mechanical construction of the form suffers, and as a consequence the child never attains a full mastery over the instrumental art.

In the latter case we attempt to do two things at the same time in our teaching of arithmetic. In every concrete application of arithmetic there are two interests involved: in the first place, there is the number interest--the interest in the a.n.a.lysing and recombining of a group, undertaken for the sake of the reconstruction itself; in the second place, there is the business or real interest, which the number interest indeed subserves, but the two interests are in no case identical. If we attempt to teach the two together, we as a rule teach both badly. The pupil will have but a hazy idea of the business relation, and will run the risk of imperfectly organising the pure number system. Hence all kinds of impossible problems may be given to the child without raising any suspicion of error in his mind, and such cases furnish certain evidence that the business relation does not really concern him, but that his whole attention is engaged with the purely constructive aspect of number. Another example of the same error of confounding two separate things is the "blind mixture we make of arithmetic and measuring." Because arithmetic is involved in all measuring we a.s.sume that when the child can add together feet and inches, therefore he has a complete knowledge of these spatial magnitudes. But manifestly, if spatial magnitude is to be taught intelligently, it must at first be taught independently of the number relation, which is a general system instrumental in the realisation of many concrete interests.

From these considerations, certain general results follow. On the one hand, the earlier conception of the aim of the Primary School as being mainly concerned with the acquirement and organisation of the three elementary arts as ends in themselves must be condemned. Language and number systems are means to the realisation of certain concrete ends of after-life, and the school during the later stages of education must endeavour to lead the child to perceive how these systems may be utilised in the furtherance of these real concrete interests. On the other hand, the attempt to combine prematurely these two aims will result in the imperfect attainment of both. During the earlier stages of education the main interest must be in the construction for its own sake of the language system or the number system, and while the real interest may be introduced it must always be kept subsidiary to the main interest--must first of all be taught for its own sake, and the instrumental art only used for its furtherance in so far as the acquirement of the former is not obstructed. _E.g._, the placing of geography and history Readers in the hands of the child while he is still struggling with the difficulties of language construction can only result in the history and geography being imperfectly understood and the organisation of the language system being delayed and hindered.

Once the elementary and subsidiary systems have been fairly well organised and established, their function as means for the furtherance of real interests should occupy a larger share of the child's attention and of the time of the school. These real interests, however, must in every case and at every stage be taught at first for their own sake, and thereafter their relation to the instrumental art explained and applied.

Gradually, as they become better organised and more firmly established, the elementary arts occupy a smaller and smaller share of attention, until finally they function automatically, and the whole attention can be directed to the furtherance of the real interests to which the elementary arts are the indispensable means.

Hence we note three stages in the elementary education of the child--the stage preceding the formal instruction in the elementary arts; the stage in which the formal instruction should predominate and receive the greater share of the child's attention; the stage in which the elementary systems having been in great measure organised and established, they may be utilised as means to the furtherance of the real interests. The first stage corresponds to the Infant or Kindergarten age: here the main object is to build up in the mind of the child systems of ideas about the things of his environment; to extend, by conversation and by reading to the child, the vocabulary of his own language; to give him practice in the combining and recombining of concrete groups of things, and to introduce him to a knowledge of the various language forms in a concrete shape.

In the second stage, and here the work of the Primary School begins, the main emphasis at the beginning must be laid on the acquirement and establishment of the language and number systems for their own sake. If right methods are followed, the child can be interested in these processes of construction without the need of calling into use at every point some real interest. In the concluding stage the use of these instruments as means to the realisation of the simpler practical ends of life should receive more attention.

One reason, then, for the poor moral and social results effected in the past by our Elementary School system has been the undue emphasis placed upon the acquisition of the merely formal arts to the neglect of the real interests to which the former are but the means. Another cause, however, has been operative in producing this negative result. In the Elementary Schools, in the past, little attention has been paid to the individuality of the child, and little heed given to the differences between children as regards their different rates of intellectual growth and their differing apt.i.tudes for various branches of study. Under a system of cla.s.sification which compelled each individual, whether intellectually well or moderately or poorly equipped, to advance at an equal rate, attention to the individual with any other aim than to raise the weak to the standard of the average child in acquiring the three R's was impossible. Again, our huge city schools, partly on account of their vast size, partly on the ground that they are unable to organise school games, partly on account of their lack of any common school interests, do not and cannot foster any sense of a corporate life, any feeling of a common social spirit. Where our English Public School system is strong, our Elementary and sometimes even our Day Secondary School systems are weak. If the home fails to foster these qualities, and the school does not or cannot fill the gap, then as a rule we turn out our boys and girls poorly equipped to fulfil their duties in after-life as members of a corporate community and as citizens of a State. Mere teaching of history or of civics in our schools will do little to attain this end, unless by some method or other we can foster by means of the school-life the real civic spirit. It is, of course, easy to point out the nature of the disease; it is more difficult to prescribe a remedy. But much might be done to strengthen and increase the moral influence of the school by a better system of cla.s.sification, which took into account the differences in intellectual capacity and in natural apt.i.tude, and which as a consequence, in the education of the child, paid more attention to each child's individuality. This would involve much smaller cla.s.ses than exist at present, and would further involve that the children should be under the care of one teacher for a longer time than is now the rule. At the present time, in many cases, the teacher is employed in teaching the same subjects, at the same stage, year after year, to a yearly fresh batch of sixty or seventy children. Consequently he learns to look upon his pupils as mere subjects to whom must be imparted the required measure of instruction. Of the children in themselves, of their home-life, of their interests outside school, he knows nothing, and as a rule cares less.

If in addition to this we ceased erecting barracks for the instruction of children and erected schools for their education, we should make even a further advance in this direction. If it is impossible for other reasons to lessen the size of our city Elementary Schools, then the remedy lies in the division of the schools into departments in which the Head should be entrusted with the supervision of the education of the children during several years. In this way it would be possible for the teacher to get to know each child individually, to direct his education in accordance with his apt.i.tudes, and to exert an influence over him.

Thus, by giving more attention to the organised games of the school and by the creation of school interests, much might be done to remedy the defects of the school on the side of moral and social education. At best, however, when the home fails, the Elementary School can do little, and we must put our trust in the ethical agencies of society to a.s.sist and promote the efforts of the school in the furthering of a right social spirit and in the creation of a common corporate feeling.

FOOTNOTES:

[39] _E.g._, in 1861 it was calculated that only 6 per cent. of the children of the poor in England were receiving a satisfactory elementary education. Cf. Balfour Graham's _Educational System of Great Britain and Ireland_, p. 14.

[40] _E.g._, in 1872 in Scotland school places were provided for only 8.3 per cent. of the population. In 1905 places were provided for 21.22 of the population. Cf. _Report on Scotch Education_, 1905, p. 6.

CHAPTER XII

THE AIM OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL

We have seen that on its intellectual side the Primary School has two main functions to perform in the education of the child. In the first place, the school must endeavour to secure that the elementary arts of reading, writing, and arithmetic are well organised and well established in the mind of the child. The more effectively the language and number systems are organised and established the more efficiently will they function in the performance of future action. Moreover, it is only when they have become so organised as to function automatically that they reach their highest efficiency as instruments for the further extension of knowledge or of practice.

In the second place, the Primary School must train the pupil to the use of these systems as instruments for the realisation of other and concrete ends or interests. _E.g._, the number system may be used in the furtherance of the measuring interest, the weighing interest, and so on.

The two dangers we have to avoid are on the one hand the barren formalism of treating the acquisition of these arts as ends in themselves, and on the other of supposing that the real interests can be intelligently understood merely through the instrumentality of the elementary arts and that they do not require independent treatment of themselves.

If the child is destined to go no farther than the Elementary School stage, then at least the concluding year of the school should be mainly devoted to training him to the use of the primary instrumental arts in the establishment of systems of knowledge necessary for the realisation of the simpler practical ends of life.

If, however, the child is selected for a course of higher education, the educative process becomes different in nature. In the first-named case we are content to give the child practice in the application of an already established system to concrete problems. In the second case we endeavour, using the elementary systems as means, to establish other systems of knowledge as means to the attainment of still further ends.

We may, _e.g._, on the basis of the vernacular language build up a foreign language system as a means either to commercial intercourse or to literary culture. In short, the aim of the Secondary School is, using the elementary systems as the basal means, to organise and establish other systems of means for the attainment of the more complex interests of after-life, practical and theoretical. The object of establishing a system of knowledge is not to pa.s.s examinations,--this is the schoolmaster's error,--but to render future action more efficient, to further in after-life some complex interest of a practical or theoretical nature. To the few, indeed, the establishment and systematisation of knowledge may be an end in itself. To the many, the systematisation and establishment is and ought to be undertaken as a means to the more efficient furtherance of some practical end. Further, the only justification for the seeking of knowledge for its own sake is that thereby it may be better understood, better established and better systematised, and so become better fitted to make practice more efficient.

Hence the question as regards secondary education resolves itself into the question as to the nature of the systems of knowledge which we should endeavour to establish systematically in the mind of the child, and before we can answer this question we must know the length of time which the child can afford to spend at the Higher School and his possible vocation in after-life. For if education is the process by which the child is led to acquire and organise experiences so as to render future action more efficient, we must know something of the nature of this action, something of the nature of the future social services for which his education is to train him, and the school period must be of sufficient length to enable the required systems to be established permanently and thoroughly.

Neglect of these two obvious considerations has led in the past and even in the present leads to two errors in our organisation of the means of secondary education. In the first place, until quite recently, we have been too much inclined to the opinion that secondary education was all of one type, and even where this error has been recognised, as in Germany, the tendency still exists to emphasise unduly the particular type of education which has as its main ingredients the ancient cla.s.sical languages. We spend years in the attempt to reconstruct and establish in the mind of the youth a knowledge of these language systems, and in a large number of cases we fail to attain adequately even this end. We build up laboriously systems of means which in after-life function _directly_ in the attainment of no end, and as a consequence, in many cases, the dissolution of the system is as rapid as its acquisition was slow. At the time of the Renascence and when first introduced into the curriculum of the Secondary School, these languages, and especially Latin, did then possess a high functional value, since they were the indispensable means to the furtherance of knowledge and to social intercourse. To-day they possess little functional value, and their claim for admission into the school curriculum is chiefly based upon their so-called training and disciplinary values.

Let us consider this for a moment: in the reconstruction of, say, the Latin language, the pupil is being trained in the reconstruction and re-establishment of a language system whose methods and rules of construction are much more complex and intricate than those of any living language, and whose forms are so designed as to bring out exactly varied shades of meaning. Hence, in its acquisition the pupil receives practice in the exact discrimination of the meaning of words, and in their accurate placing and reconstruction within the sentence--the unit of expression--in order to bring out the exact interpretation of the thought or statement of fact intended by the writer.

Further, we may train the pupil during the school period to self-apply the language system in the further interpretation of relatively unknown pa.s.sages. In short, we can train him in the processes of language construction and of language application. Moreover, in considering this question, we must take into account that during the school period the main interest must necessarily be directed to the acquisition and establishment of the system itself, that little attention can be directed towards the content for its own sake, and that the establishment of the system so that it shall function automatically in the interpretation of the content is a stage which is attained in comparatively few cases, and then only after many years of study.

If we then take into account, and we must take into account, the fact that the chief value of the ancient languages as Secondary School subjects lies in their use as training and disciplinary instruments--that in after-life they function directly in the attainment of no practical end, and only indirectly in so far as the habits acquired of the exact weighing of the meaning of words and of the accurate placing of words are carried over for the attainment of practical ends in which these qualities of exact interpretation and exact expression of language are the chief requisites--we shall understand that while they may be of value in securing the efficient after-performance of certain social services, they play but a small part in the furthering of any service which requires an exact knowledge of the qualities of things and an accurate knowledge of the laws governing the operations of nature.

In the second place, neglect of the fact that the aim of education is to establish systems of means for the efficient after-performance of actions has led us to neglect the fact that in the acquisition and establishment of systems of knowledge we require to limit the scope of our aims and to carry on the process of education during a period sufficiently extended to admit of the stable establishment of the systems. If, _e.g._, we attempt to establish too many systems, then as a result we often stably establish none, with the further result that after the school period has pa.s.sed the knowledge gained soon disappears.

If, again, we attempt in too limited a time to establish an elaborate and complex system of knowledge, as _e.g._ that of the Latin language, then we never reach the stage when it can be self-applied intelligently in the furtherance of any end. Hence, if a boy leaves the Elementary School and enters upon a High School course with the intention of leaving at the age of fifteen or sixteen and entering upon some employment, the systems of knowledge which can be established during the school period must be different from those of the boy whose education is intended to be extended until twenty-one. If, then, a national system of education is to make adequate provision for the efficient after-performance of the various social services which the nation requires at the hands of its adult members; if, in short, it is to be organic to the life of the State as a whole, then there must be not one type of higher education but several; for it is to her Higher Schools that a nation must princ.i.p.ally look for the preparation of citizens who in after-life will discharge the more important services of the community. This truth has already been realised in other countries, notably Germany. We are only beginning to realise it, and to take measures to carry it into practice.

Moreover, in a national system of education we shall need not one system of advancing means but several; not merely an educational ladder that may carry the boy to the University, but also educational steps by which the individual may mount to the Technical or the Commercial or the Art College.

Hence our aims in the higher education of the youth, and as a consequence the nature of the systems of knowledge which we should endeavour to organise and to establish in their minds, will vary in accordance with the nature of the service which in adult life the boy is likely to perform. Now, these services may be divided into four main cla.s.ses.

In the first place, every nation requires an army of efficient industrial workers. Partly, in some cases, owing to the decline of the apprenticeship system, partly owing to the fact that where apprentices are still employed no systematic measures are taken to instruct the youth in the principles underlying his particular art, it is becoming increasingly necessary that the school should supply and supplement the knowledge required for the efficient after-performance of the industrial and technical arts. Hence one kind of Higher School urgently required is the Trade or Technical School. In a large number of cases this need could be supplied by Evening Continuation Schools. At present, however, our Evening Schools are too predominantly commercial and literary, and do not make adequate provision for the trade and technical needs of the community. Further, we must endeavour to secure that the boy or girl enters the Evening Continuation School as soon after he leaves the Elementary School as possible. For in many cases at the present time the boy after leaving the Primary School loafs at night about the streets, and in a short time through disuse forgets much of what he learned at school, and often in addition acquires habits which tend to unfit him for any future strenuous effort. When, therefore, he feels the need for more knowledge in order to advance in his trade, the Evening School has too frequently to begin by doing over again the work of the Elementary School before it can enter upon the work of establishing the higher system of knowledge.

In the second place, a nation such as ours requires a trained body of servants for the efficient carrying on of her commerce. Preparation for the simpler forms of service could be furnished by the commercial cla.s.ses of the Evening Continuation Schools. For preparation for the higher services, we require a type of school which beginning after the Elementary School stage has been completed, carries on the boy's education until the fifteenth or sixteenth year, whose chief aim should be to lay a sound basis in the acquisition and organisation of one or two modern languages and in the acquirement of the arts instrumental for the carrying on of commercial transactions. Further means of advance in these studies should be provided by the day or evening Commercial College.

In the third place, every modern nation requires a trained body of scientific workers for the after carrying on of her industrial and technical arts. Hence we need a type of school which by making the physical sciences their chief object of study prepare the way for the future training of the student in the application of scientific knowledge to the furtherance of the industrial and technical arts.

Lastly, we require a type of secondary education which shall prepare the boy for the efficient discharge of the duties which the State requires at the hands of her physicians, her theologians, her jurists.

Thus, since all education is the acquisition of experiences that will render future action more efficient, the nature of the secondary education given must depend on the nature of the services to which the systems of knowledge are the means. A cla.s.sical education may be a good preparation for the after-discharge of the duties of the theologian or the jurist; it certainly will not do much for the efficient discharge of the duties of the mechanical engineer and the practical chemist.

But one error must be avoided. Whilst the various types of Secondary School must fashion their curricula according to the nature of the services for which they prepare, we must not forget that the school has other duties to perform than the mere preparation for the social services by which a man hereafter earns his living. It must in every case endeavour to organise and establish those systems of means necessary for the after-discharge of the civic duties of life and instrumental for the right use of leisure.

Practically we need three types of Higher School--one in which modern languages form the basal subjects of the curriculum; one in which the physical sciences are the main systems organised and established; one in which the cla.s.sical languages form the main staple of education.

CHAPTER XIII

THE AIM OF THE UNIVERSITY

"All public inst.i.tutions of learning are called into existence by social needs, and first of all by technical practical necessities. Theoretical interests may lead to the founding of private a.s.sociations such as the Greek philosophers' schools; public schools owe their origin to the social need for professional training. Thus during the Middle Ages the first schools were called into being by the need of professional training for ecclesiastics, the first learned profession, and a calling whose importance seemed to demand such training. Essentially the same necessity called into being the Universities of the Parisian type, with their artistic and theological faculties. The two other types of professional schools, the law school and the medical school, which were first developed in Italy, then united with the former. The Universities therefore originated as a union of 'technical' schools for ecclesiastics, jurists, and physicians, to which division the faculty of Arts was related as a general preparatory school, until during the nineteenth century it also a.s.sumed something of the character of a professional inst.i.tution for the training of teachers for the Secondary School."[41]

Thus the early aim of the University was, as it still continues to be, to provide the training for the after-supply of those services which the State requires at the hands of her theologians, her jurists, and her physicians. In Germany, and to some extent even in our own country, the Arts faculty of the University is ceasing to perform the function of a General Preparatory School to the professional schools, and is becoming an independent school, having for its aim the preparation of teachers for the Intermediate and Secondary Schools of the country. In Scotland, indeed, it serves at the present time as a Preparatory School mainly to the theological faculty. As the Secondary Schools of the country become more efficient, better differentiated, and better organised, the need of a Preparatory School within our Universities will gradually become less, and the University will be able to devote more of her energies to the training of students preparing for some one or other of the above-named professions. With this change the philosophical studies of the Arts faculty will become increasingly important, and the method of teaching the linguistic and scientific studies receive a larger share of attention than they do at present.

But the other and perhaps the more important function of the University is to carry on and to extend the work of scientific and literary research for its own sake. This is the dominant note of the German and American Universities of to-day. The emphasis is laid not so much upon their function as schools for the supply of certain professional services, but upon them as great national laboratories for the extension of knowledge and the betterment of practice. In Great Britain, and especially in Scotland, this conception of the function of the University has not received the same prominence as, _e.g._, in Germany, where the intimate union of scientific investigation and professional instruction gives the German Universities their peculiar character.

Indeed, in the latter country the tendency at the present time is rather to over-emphasise the function of the Universities in furthering scientific and literary research to the neglect of the other and no less important aim. Two dangers must be avoided. In the first place, whenever the chief emphasis is laid upon the Universities as mainly schools for professional training, the teaching tends to become narrow and dogmatic.

The teacher ceasing to be an investigator, gradually loses touch with the spirit of the age, and as a consequence he fails adequately to perform the duty of efficiently training his students for their after life-work. In the second place, when the emphasis is laid strongly upon the function of the University as an inst.i.tution for the carrying on of scientific and literary research there is the danger of again lapsing into the old fallacy that knowledge for knowledge' sake is an end in itself, that the object of education is to acquire and organise systems of means which function in the attainment of no practical end, and that the acquisition of knowledge is valuable for the culture of the individual mind apart from any social purpose which the knowledge subserves.

The University must therefore ever keep in view the two aims, of advancing knowledge not for its own sake but in order that future action may be rendered more efficient, and of adequately training for professional services.

But to the older professions for which the University prepares there have been added during the past century other vocations or professions which need and demand an education no less important and no less thorough than the education for the well established recognised professions. The need for the higher training of the future leaders of industry and the future captains of commerce has been provided by the organisation and establishment of technological schools and colleges.

The establishment and organisation of the "Technical University" has been more thorough in Germany than in this country. There we find established newer inst.i.tutions, of which the Charlottenburg College is the best known and most important, for the higher education of those intended in after-life to perform the more important industrial services of the community. These inst.i.tutions both in their organisation and instruction are constantly approximating in type to the older Universities.