Present Day Tendencies in Education

specialized training. The very leisure that the industrial classes have acquired compels attention to the problem of its wise direction.

No complete conspectus of our social situation has been formulated. The reason is obvious. In the first place, the expansion of social needs is occurring so fast as to make such an exhibit obsolete in a very short time. In the second place, the task presents almost limitless divisions, subdivisions, and correlations. Albion W. Small has probably been most successful in this undertaking. In his General Sociology he has attempted to formulate the entire scope of social achievements as follows:1

1. Achievement in Promoting Health.

2. Achievement in Producing Wealth.

3. Achievement in Harmonizing Human Relations.

4. Achievement in Discovery and Spread of Knowledge.
5. Achievement in the Fine Arts.

6. Achievement in Religion.

Professor Small goes further and attempts to fill in some of the details under each of these grand divisions, but he recognizes that it is far from complete. The student of social problems can at a glance see the necessity for adding many other details in this program, most of which have appeared since Professor Small wrote his book. The topics in many of Small's classifications suggest the importance of social technology.

THE PLACE OF AVOCATIONAL EDUCATION IN OUR SCHOOL

SYSTEM

The recognition of the rightful place of this type of education is the surest way to secure the complete socialization of educational aims.

1 General Sociology, p. 718.

John Dewey says:

All the educational reformers following Rousseau have looked to education as the best means of regenerating society. They have been fighting against the feudal and pioneer notion that the reason for a good education was to enable your children and mine to get ahead of the rest of the community, to give individuals another weapon to use in making society contribute more to their purse and pleasure. They have believed that the real reason for developing the best possible education was to prevent just this, by developing methods which would give a harmonious development of all the powers. This can be done by socializing education, by making schools a real part of active life, not by allowing them to go their own way, shutting off all outside influences, and isolating themselves.1

This process of "socializing education" by merely incorporating industrial subjects in the curricula of the public schools fails to recognize all the factors in the problem. The socializing process will be incomplete until three changes are effected: first, the subject matter must be altered and extended to give a social point of view; second, the teacher must constantly present the subject matter from the standpoint of its functioning values; third, the student must be made to realize more clearly the ends to be accomplished by the knowledge he acquires.

Is the aim of all this discussion a plea for the addition of other subjects to the already overcrowded curriculum of our schools? This is a question that naturally arises at this point. For almost a generation we have heard of this problem, but a place has been found for industrial subjects in home economics. The colleges and universities have been compelled to recognize the right of the secondary schools to adjust their course of study to meet local needs. The domination of the high schools of the 1 Schools of Tomorrow, p. 173.

country by the higher institutions of learning through inelastic and arbitrary collegiate entrance requirements is rapidly passing away. The pragmatic test is being applied, and the subject that fails to meet this test is assured of a place in the dump-heap. The people who support the secondary schools are now demanding that their courses of study function with reference to local needs as well as prepare young men and women for collegiate training.

The training for social effort in the local communities is now being recognized to be as worthy of recognition in the high school as industrial training. It should be recognized that the complementary nature of these activities tends to preserve, to coördinate, and to unify the elements of the curriculum rather than needlessly to extend and to burden the curriculum.

The professional classes are in need of avocational training to meet the social demands that will be placed upon them. Ministers need a technical knowledge of the application of social justice to industrial relations. Lawyers need to understand the principles of social legislation, and the conditions that make it necessary. Physicians are often called upon to serve on sanitary boards and to act as health officers-positions which require a knowledge of sociological principles and public health methods. Teachers are called upon to perform all kinds of social service, including religious work, civic improvement, and the direction of recreational activities. Most of these activities lie beyond the scope of the professional curricula. The men and women who desire to serve best must include in their educational training courses that relate to their professional careers. But a much larger recognition must be given to the problem than that of merely recognizing the social responsibilities

of the professional classes. Practically every man is now expected to render a more or less direct service to his community. Therefore the high school must recognize its relation to this problem and prepare to meet it. Of course the demands will vary somewhat in different communities. The wise school officer will attempt to catalog the social activities of the community in which he serves, and he should attempt to formulate his high-school curriculum to meet the social requirements. Every community has its religious work, its civic welfare organizations, its public boards of control, and its literary and aesthetic activities. In the larger communities these activities are greatly extended and multiplied. Courses in economics, political science, including civics and sociology, should find a place in every curriculum where these social needs are to be met. The influence of particular organizations almost demands that the course of study provide a place for parliamentary procedure. Based upon these fundamental courses, such special courses should be provided as the community needs may suggest. "Never before," says Dewey, "did the work of one individual affect the welfare of others on such a wide scale as at present." "1

This is the thesis that this discussion attempts to present and it is hoped that the argument presented will result in its recognition and acceptance.

TOPICS FOR REPORT AND INVESTIGATION

1. The recognition of Intermediate subjects as a basis for avocational high-school courses.

2. The place of social science in the high-school curriculum. 3. Methods of determining community demands for avocational

courses.

1 Op. cit., p. 244.

4. The principle that determines the limits of special courses to meet avocational needs.

5. The responsibility of the school for socialized efficiency.

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