CHAPTER XV.

DISCUSSIONS OF EDUCATIONAL QUESTIONS.

I-Civic instruction. II.-Compulsory attendance. III.-Courses of study-Adjustment of school programmes. IV.-Education. V.-Higher education. VI.-Kindergartens. VII.-Manual and industrial training. VIII.—Methods of instruction. IX.-Physical training. X.-Private and parochial schools. XI.-Public schools. XII.-Reading and literature. XIII.-Religious and moral training. XIV.-School management and discipline. XV.-Secondary education. XVI.-Teachers. XVII.-Text-books.

I. CIVIC INSTRUCTION.

The truer meaning of patriotism.-Hon. William A. Poste, New York civil-service commissioner: Patriotism, as an impulse, like all the enthusiasms, counts for nothing in the every-day life unless its deep and truer meaning is fully perceived. The ideal of citizenship can not rise higher than the moral nature. The flag may wave from every school-house, and the boy may know on how many battle fields it led the way to glory, but unless behind all is the thought that a man is as much bounden to his country to vote thoughtfully as to fight for the flag if the country calls, that flag to him is indeed but striped bunting. Unless he can understand that for a man to sell his vote * * * is moral treason, what boots it to him that in every age men have gone to their deaths for truth, for fatherland, and that their babes might breathe free air.

Beliefs that are individual and inherent.-Hon. William A. Poste: The beliefs that men live by and die for are not to be drilled into the boy like the rule for long division. The genesis and growth and persistence of political opinions are often beyond analysis and, to the theorist, unscientific, illogical. It is well that this is so. These convictions are matters very largely of personal dispositions, intangible but persistent as the traits of race. If they are individual and inherent, they are of more positive personal force throughout the multitude than any dogma nurtured in the schools. Let the boy come to his political faith as Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Abraham Lincoln came to the principles that made and saved the State. It is out of the clashing of such individualisms, spear against shield, that the will of the people works. Its voice is heard above them. The voice is not always the voice of God, but in times of trial, in hours when great and solemn questions are asked and answered, the thunder of Sinai is in it.

"Patriots' Day" proposed.-Superintendent J. R. Preston, Mississippi: One school day should be set apart every year as Patriots' Day. Planting trees and flowers to adorn school premises-an engaging practice now in vogue in most of the States-is undoubtedly a potent means of establishing attractive associations and of endearing the school, and through it the State, to the hearts of future citizens. If this be a laudable practice, how much more worthy and significant to utilize a day to implant in their natures the seeds of genuine patriotism. Just as ground is prepared to nourish tree and flower, so may hearts and intellects be quickened to cherish high resolve.

So let us have Patriots' Day dedicated as a national holiday, on which to focalize the light and grandeur of our country and photograph its glory upon the hearts of the children. Let parents and the community at large congregate at the school, and in song and recitation and patriotic speeches revive their love of country and deepen their spirit of fidelity to its principles.

The highest patriotism.-W. D. Atkinson: True patriotism is the endeavor to elevate my country's standard of honor up to that which is right and true, and I should love my country for that in her which is devoted to righteousness. I should love the truth and righteousness which God has given us, and seek to bring my country up to it. I am not to make patriotism, therefore, the end, but rather the means by which I may hope to bring the nation to a love of righteousness. I do not think the observance of any patriots' day. will ever attain that result. The time wasted or spent in that could be better spent in educating the young men in these moral truths and principles which will make the citi zens seek that which will be for his country's highest good; hence it is not patriotism itself we are striving to attain, but it is love of truth, of right, and righteousness. Patriotism is nothing more than this; that is the highest patriotism.

A great difference.-Principal George M. Grant, Queen's University (Ontario): The school should teach patriotism, and let us not forget that there is as great a difference between patriotism and the blatant, arrogant spread-eagleismwhich in Europe is called Chauvinism-as there is between enthusiasm and fanaticism. The one is healthy and full of generous inspirations and the other unhealthy and the destroyer of true patriotism and morality. The one teaches us to love our own land and race first, because it is ours, and we believe that it has done and that it promises to do most for man and for that which is best in man, especially for the good old cause of liberty, peace, and righteousness. The other teaches us to hate men for the love of God or the love of country.

II. COMPULSORY ATTENDANCE.

Compulsory education in Ontario.-Hon. George W. Ross, minister of education: By an act of last session the police commissioners of every city, town, and incorporated village are required to appoint truant officers. This act came into effect on the 1st of this month [July, 1891]. It may take a year or two to acquaint the people of the province with its requirements. It may also take sɔme time to train the truant officers to the proper discharge of their duties. As the schools of Ontario have been free for over twenty years, there is no doubt the people will gladly accept their natural complement, compulsory education, as indispensable.

The most effective agency for securing school attendance.-Report of Committee of National Council of Education, D. L. Kiehle, chairman: Everyone, and very cer tainly every educator, will place the first stress upon the natural, self-commanding, and assimilating power of a public free-school system, and will agree that this should be perfected to meet every demand of the highest standard of physical, intellectual, and moral training; that it should be protected from every corrupting influence and every political or religious entanglement, and that its true value by every means should be impressed upon the public mind.

Next, as to the necessity and practicability of applying the compulsory feature for the general enforcement of attendance, there will be various opinions, according to points and circumstances of observation.

In some large cities, and especially in manufacturing districts where children are at the mercy of soulless corporations, the State has successfully enforced a compulsory law; but in the State at large, and especially in agricultural districts, your committee are not aware of any enforcement of a compulsory law, which proves that it can be made an effective part of our educational system.

Our system ought to be extended by educational methods.-Superintendent D. L Kiehle (Minnesota): The Government ought to look to the limitation and improvement of its citizenship, and we as educators ought to put more stress upon the improvement and extension of our educational system by educational methods. Our system ought to be perfected. We ought to do more for our young people. We ought to make our system less objectionable. We ought to introduce the moral element as perfectly as possible, to meet the demands of that class of people who have been accustomed to associate religious instruction with secular instruction. Now, coming to the legislative part, theoretically your committee has no doubt that it is perfectly legitimate that men be required to do these things; but practically it questions whether it is not better to enforce the compulsory law in our towns and cities moderately, watching the development of circumstances, and not relying on the law to effect very much at present in agricultural districts or over the country at large, but at all times holding it as a subordinate feature of our educational system.

The labor unions approve it.-Hon. B. G. Northrop (Clinton, Conn.): It is a significant fact that the labor unions in this country and in Europe approve obligatory education. Both political parties favor it. So far as I know, no suggestion for the repeal of our rigid law has been made in the legislature, nor in any caucus or public meeting in the State (Connecticut).

III.-COURSES OF STUDY-ADJUSTMENT OF SCHOOL PROGRAMMES.

On the necessity of colleges to supplement high schools.-W. T. Harris (from an address delivered before the Ohio Teachers' Association, June, 1888): The course of study preparatory for college omits for the most part those branches of study which bear the name of “moderns." Modern civilization has developed three great increments and added them to the inherited wisdom of the race. These increments are modern natural science, modern literature, modern history. These three moderns had no well-recognized existence in schools of higher education a century ago. A knowledge of them was not demanded or expected from the educated man, unless he was a specialist. The condition of things has changed so materially through the influence of the newspaper and periodical within the past fifty years that no man can pass for educated without more or less minute acquaintance with these three phases of modern activity. They have become recognized as conventionalities of intelligence. This is the all-sufficient reason for introducing the rudiments of these things into the most elementary schools and for continuing their study in all grades of higher schools. Nothing can mak up for the student, who shall receive a higher education, the deficit in his culture caused by a neglect of the study of the three “moderns " in early life. They ought to exist in his mind through the period of his primary education as well as in his secondary and higher education. Without these the disciplinary effect of classical study must necessarily be weakened through the want of modern facts to explain, for the classic lore is related to these moderns as embryonic presupposition, and this is why it helps to understand ourselves.

If this be true, the modifications that have been made in the course of study pursued in college in recent times (say in the last twenty years) are not for the most part based upon a correct insight into the difficulty to be met. The management of college education in this country has answered the objection which charges it with neglect of the three "modern" branches until the last two years of the college course, by raising the standard of admission sufficiently to cover the work of the first two years of the former college course, and thereupon it exhibits a programme in which the three moderns are represented throughout the course either as "required" or "elective" studies.

The question in dispute did not concern the length of time devoted to higher education, but the early introduction of the moderns into the course of study, so that these moderns stand side by side with the disciplinary studies through the whole course. If four years of preparation and two years of college work, or six years in all, were devoted to the exclusive study of the classics and mathematics, with an almost entire neglect of moderns, the case would not be altered if these six years should be relegated entirely to the preparatory school. In order to meet the difficulty discussed here, the college should have changed the conditions required for admission, and thus have compelled the preparatory school to introduce the moderns in a proper manner side by side with the classical studies. Of course the elevation of the standard of the collage can be justified on its own grounds. It obliterates the mischievous distinction that existed between the standards of American and English colleges. But this is not so important as the readjustment demanded of the college in order to bring it into harmony with primary education, founded on a true appreciation of the demand of modern studies in education. As is usual in the discussion of political and social reforms, the parties to the dispute are busied, each, with bringing forward his own partisan view of the case. There is little that is judicial and impartial, going to the root of the question and confirming and establishing what is of permanent worth on either side. The advocates of the "moderns" wish to dispense entirely with classical study while the defenders of the college system refuse to yield place for the "moderns."

In the colleges of the Northwestern States, led by the State universities, there has been some substantial progress made towards a modification that will recognize the received high-school course of study as a preparation. But such modification only makes these colleges a separate phase of education, differing more and more widely from the standard college of the Atlantic States. To reach the high standard of admission required by the Eastern colleges the

public high school ought to add two years to its course. This would make the course of study in the common-school system fourteen years instead of twelve, as at present, and is impracticable. The average age of the high-school graduate at present being eighteen and a half years, it would manifestly be unwise to demand six years instead of four years to complete his college course. The colleges that have raised their standards of admission, therefore, have done much to widen the breach between high-school and college education.

In the signs of the times I do not discover any promise of the reform of this state of things on the part of the management of colleges. Even the cloud "no bigger than a man's hand" in the Northwest does not indicate so much true appreciation of the necessity of moderns in primary and secondary education as it indicates a wise insight into the desirability of connecting the college with the public school as it is. It surrenders its convictions in behalf of the old régime, and lowers its standard in order to adapt itself to unpropitious circumstances. In better times it hopes a reform in the public school that will devote more attention to the classics and mathematics at the expense of the "moderns." Meanwhile, the influence of the college is felt in the building up of preparatory courses within the high school, fastening upon the public-school system a recognition of the necessity of private, separate, and distinct secondary education in order to fit for a college education.

What is the remedy?

One must turn to the teachers of public high schools and to superintendents of public instruction for the adoption of the only means of relief. Unusual efforts must be made on the part of public high schools to induce their pupils to complete their education in colleges. The personal influence of the teachers, in one year's time, will avail to double the number of high-school graduates who seek a college training. The greater maturity of mind which comes from a well-balanced preparatory course will furnish a prevailing argument in favor of a more symmetrical system. Within a few years, when the colleges have come to derive a large majority of their pupils from public high schools, this question will receive its due consideration for reasons of private interest, if for no other. The numerical strength of high-school graduates who have subsequently received a college education will assist in the solution of this question.

But no solution will be more than a makeshift if it does not secure the recognition of "moderns" as an essential portion of the course of study in all elementary and preparatory schools and a like recognition of the necessity of classic study in all secondary and higher education.

In the "moderns" one finds the expression of his present civilization; in the classics, its embryonic forms and evolution.

After the presentation of these special discussions of the elements of our problem we may draw the following conclusions:

1. If the universities and colleges of the country shall more and more depend on special preparatory schools for their students, then it will follow that college graduates are less likely to be in sympathy with the system of common schools. 2. If the high-school teachers, on the other hand, continue to be lukewarm toward college education, and perhaps go so far as to discourage their pupils from completing their education in colleges after graduating from the high school, it will follow that the men of amplest directive power, the leaders in literature and the molders of public opinion, especially on the subject of education, will not be furnished by the common-school system.

It will follow, too, that the numbers who resort to college will not increase in proportion to our population. These dangers, in brief, I hold in this paper, may be averted by earnest personal endeavor on the part of high-school teachers and the superintendents of city schools to influence high-school pupils to present themselves in large numbers for admission to college. Extra efforts will double and treble the high-school quota in college, even under the present disadvantages of course of study.

This first step being taken, it will become possible, then, to secure the desirable changes in the higher course of study.

The gap between the elementary schools and colleges.-President Eliot, of Harvard University: Only nine Massachusetts high schools send pupils to Harvard College every year. In 1889, out of 352 persons who were admitted to Harvard College as candidates for the degree of bachelor of arts, 97, or 27 per cent, were prepared at free public schools; but these schools were only 30 in number from the whole country, 23 of them being New England schools. The plain fact is that not one-tenth of the schools called high in Massachusetts habitually maintain a course of study which enables the pupil to prepare himself for admission

to Harvard College, or to any other college in the State which enforces its requirements for admission as stated in its catalogue.

If this is the condition of things in what may be called an urban State, what must it be in a rural? If a patriot were compelled to choose between two alternatives, one that the less intelligent half of his countrymen should be completelly illiterate, the other that half of the select children capable of receiving the highest instruction should be cut off from that instruction, which would he choose? He would find the decision a dreadful one to make; for either alternative would entail an incalculable loss upon his country. Yet in the present condition of secondary education one-half of the most capable children in the United States, at a moderate estimate, have really no open road to colleges and universities. I rehearse these well-known facts that we may appreciate the gravity of the problems presented by the subject. * Recognizing the plain fact

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of to-day that secondary schools are sufficient in number and defective in quality, what can colleges do, under these adverse circumstances, to make themselves as useful as possible to the population while awaiting a better organization of secondary education? Is it not their plain duty to maintain two schedules of requirements, one for the degree of bachelor of arts, the other for the degree of bachelor of science (or some equivalent), the latter demanding much less preparatory study than the former? The American colleges have been severely criticized for offering to receive students of confessedly inferior preparation to that required of candidates for the degree of bachelor of arts; but even the oldest and strongest of them have done this, and from a genuine desire, as I believe, to be serviceable to as large a proportion as possible of American youth. One lower grade of admission examination, leading to a distinct degree, is an expedient concession to the feeble condition of secondary education throughout the country. That grade of secondary schools which can not prepare pupils for the bachelor of arts course, but can prepare them for the bachelor of science course, will so be brought into serviceable connection with the colleges.

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I venture to think that some colleges have gone unnecessarily far in offering different courses with descending requirements for admission and different degrees. They seem to say if a candidate can not get into our classical course, perhaps he can enter the literary course; if not the literary, then the scientific; if not the scientific, at any rate the agricultural. The value of all degrees seems to me to be diminished by this unnecessary multiplicity of titles and conditions, and the standards of good secondary schools must needs be unfavorably affected by a long sliding scale of admission requirements to the several courses offered by a single institution.

Turning now from the consideration of the palliatives which colleges may resort to in the present feeble and distracted condition of secondary education, I pass to the more attractive study of the remedies for existing evils and defects. To improve secondary education in the United States two things are necessary: (1) More schools are needed, and (2) the existing schools need to be brought to common and higher standards, so that the colleges may find in the school courses a firm, broad, and reasonably homogeneous foundation for their higher work.

1. More schools.-Secondary schools are either day schools or boarding schools, the urban school being primarily a day school and the rural a boarding school. The public secondary school is now urban almost exclusively, and it must be admitted that it is likely to continue so, for no promising suggestion has as yet been made of a rural area of support for a highly organized secondary school. It is admitted that neither a rural township nor a union of contiguous rural dis tricts can support such a school. The county has been suggested as a possible area of support, but there is no sufficient evidence that a rural county, apart from its town or towns of dense population, could support a good high school. To increase the present number of secondary schools which can really fit pupils for college, what are the most hopeful lines of action? In the first place every effort should be made by school authorities, the press, and all leaders of public opinion to promote the establishment of secondary urban day schools, both public and private, and to adapt the programmes of existing schools to the admission requirements of some college course which leads to a degree. It is noticeable that in the older cities, and to some extent in the younger also, the best private schools exist right beside the best public schools. The causes which produce one class of schools simultaneously produce the other. Secondly, rural communities ought to be authorized by suitable legislation to contribute to the establishment (including in that term the provision of building) and annual support of urban secondary schools which are conveniently situated for their use.