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Democracy + in + Education ; 


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Vor. 


GREETING. 

SEVERAL TEACHERS of the public schools 
of New York City have formally agreed 
to “‘ co-operate in the establishment of a 
journal devoted to the examination of 
school conditions, and to publishing in- 
formation and discussions calculated to 
improve the professional and _ social 
status of the teachers and the work of 
the schools.” 

Although the editors of THE AMERI- 
CAN TEACHER are the official subordin- 
ates of those in charge of a great educa- 
tional system, they desire to work with 
their official superiors in a public way, on 
the basis of mutual interest in the ulti- 
mate welfare of the children. In the 
common endeavor of all the workers, 
members of the Board of Education, 
superintendents, principals and teachers 
alike, who are giving their time, energy 
and spirit to the social obligation of edu- 
cating the young, a large portion of the 
constructive ideas presented for general 
consideration should come from the 
teachers themselves The public has the 
right to expect this, because the teachers 
come in direct contact with the facts of 
teaching. Their experience ought to sup- 
ply the material for ideas that should 
be no less useful than the ideas yielded 
by,administrative experience. 

THE AMERICAN TEACHER is taking the 
initial steps in this city in bringing to 
official and to public notice the usable 
experience of teachers here and else- 
where. If one result of the undertaking 
is the stimulation of teachers to think 
more and more of their experience, not 
the least of the ideals of the editors 
will have become effective. 

THE Epirors. 






Hl 


ENTS A \ YBAR 


Education § for’ Bemocrac 





TEACHERS’ MOVEMENTS ABROAD. 
P. R. RaposaviyevicH, Pu.D., Pp.D. 
New York UNIVERSITY. 

THERE IS NO profession, no field of human 
thought and endeavor, in which the expres- 
sion of half-baked opinion is more prevalent 
and at the same time more disastrous than in 
the field of pedagogy. It is extremely difficult 
to find any statements of fact, theories, hypo- 
theses, or conclusions, either in the science or 
art of pedagogy, that have been scientifically 
established. Instead of scientifically deter- 
mined conclusions, we find surmises, conjec- 
tures and assumptions that are—or are not— 
confirmed by adroit reasoning. Of late we 
find a few desultory, ill-considered, inconclu- 
oe Ca experiments. But that 
is a 

The absence of logical faculty, the lack of 
concentrated thought, the want of scientific 
insight are glaringly apparent throughout our 
work. The teacher who can satisfactorily de- 
fend his method of teaching is very uncom- 
mon. What is even worse, he is not expected 
to do so. If he can quote some psychological, 
ethical, logical, sociological, anthropological or 
philosophical authority, who knows even less 
about teaching than he does, all is well. 

Educational autonomy and teachers’ inde- 
pendence can come only as the result of in- 
cessant fighting for the betterment of our 
profession. The fact that so many of the pro- 
gressive teachers are continually abandoning 
the authority of related sciences for the light 
and guidance of the new experimental 
pedagogy is an omen of a brighter future. 

What is the result of this new professional 
movement in Europe? 

First, politics, religion, cast and schools of 
thought no longer hold their former grip on 
the teaching profession. This alone is a hope- 
ful symptom pointing to a favorable prognosis. 
To doubt is to think; to think is to investigate; 
to investigate is to look for truth ; truth makes 
men free. 

Second, the profession is beginning to 
progress on the basis of scientific evolution. 
Pedagogic studies are made by trained experi- 
mentalists and trained teachers in experimental 
schools, school clinics, free schools, out-door 
schools, etc., etc. All of this will eventually 
build up an independent science of pedagogy. 

Third, a new conception of teachers’ train- 
ing, social and economic status, and profes- 
sional organization is at hand. This is the 
most fundamental prerequisite for professional 








tw 


THE 


advancement. In this respect the teachers in 
Kurope are far ahead of us. All teachers’ 
organizations are federated into one large rep- 
resentative union, which includes about 500,000 
members. This is called “ Bureau Interna- 
tional des Fédérations d’Instituteur.” Some of 
the associations that are affiliated with the 
central federation are: 


National Union of Teachers (Eng- 


ES ht innit in a eee Rene ae 68,000 members 


Fédération des Amicales (France). 65,000 
Deutscher Lehrerverein (Germany) 120,000 
Deutsch-ésterreichischer Lehre r- 
verein (Austria).........++++-- 20,000 
Fédération générale des instituteurs 
DD ¢scecucceetiaceons.e« 7,000 
Schweizerischer Lehrer verein 
SEED oc vcccevsesecesece 7,000 
Zemsky Ustredni Spolek (Bohemia) 8,000 ” 
<a Loereforening (Den- 
SEED ckrevayseaeegesees sexes 8,000 - 
Waledamdesk Onderwijzers (Hol- 
7 eee 9,000 = 
Bond van Nederlandsche Onder- 
Se Tee 8,000 ” 
Vereinigung van Hoofden van 
Scholen (Holland)............. 2,000 
Sverges Loererforening (Sweden). 12,000 
Norges Loererforening (Norway). 10,000 


Asociation Nacional (Spain)...... 15,000 - 
Sindicato dos Professores Primarios 
(Portugal) ‘ 


4,000 - 
Union des Institeurs (Bulgaria)... 1. 


4,000 


—as well as the new teachers’ associations of 
Hungary, Italy, Croatia, Finland, Servia, 
Montenegro, Greece, etc. 

The aim of the Bureau International is to 
propogate advancement in education and 
teaching as well as to improve the material 
and social conditions of the teachers. The 
members are bound by the new professional 
spirit and mutual friendship and solidarity. 

Some of the means of reaching these aims 
ar: 1. Yearly meetings of delegates. y a 
Or, anization of international congresses every 
fifth year. 3. Publication of material dealing 
with school and teachers’ organizations. 4. 
Publication of a year book. 5. Exchange of 
publications from various federations. 6. Or- 
ganization of international excursions. 

The President of the Bureau is chosen 
yearly. Each association pays 40 francs and 2 
francs additional for every thousand members 
yearly. Discussion is allowed in all lan- 
guages, with the exception that resolutions, 
etc., must be written either in French, German 
or English. The next general congress will 
be held in Amsterdam, August, 1912. 

In Belgium there is an international month] 
magazine, called “ North and South,” which 
treats of new movements in modern education 
in general, and at the same time devotes a 
good deal of space to political, economic and 
religious movements affecting teachers and 
teaching. 

Recently the editors of various pedagogical! 
periodicals united into a federation with head- 
quarters at Breslau, Germany. The aim of 
this new organization is to fight openly for 
the improvement of schools and of the teach- 
ing profession. 

These are a few of the results of the pro- 
fessional struggle of thinking European teach- 


AMERICAN 


\\ 46 


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TEACHER’ ¥ 


ers. In addition they have succeeded in estab- 
lishing their own sanatoria, summer colonies, 


teachers’ libraries, teachers’ homes, labora- 
tories, etc., etc. These will be treated in later 
articles. 


All of this shows a strong tendency to dis- 
regard the old pedagogy of books and author- 
ity in favor of professional and scientific peda- 
gogical experimentation. The teachers of 
Europe are awake to the situation and are try- 
ing to make the best of it. 


EFFICIENCY IN EDUCATION. 
BENJAMIN C. GRUENBERG. 


At THE DEcEMBER meeting of the High 
School Teachers’ Association of New York 
City, Mr. Harrington Emerson, the well- 
known efficiency expert, spoke on the general 
principles of efficient management. He be- 
lieves these general principles to be of uni- 
versal application to all kinds of processes, 
including the management of personal and 
domestic affairs. Because no extensive appli- 
cation of these principles to the educational 
problems of a large public school system has 
as yet been attempted, it may be worth while 
to present to teachers a brief statement o1 
what the principles are, and to point out the 
lines along which they may be applied. 

Mr. Emerson began by telling what effi- 
ciency is not. It is not the same as strenuous- 
ness; that is the attaining of a slightly greater 
result with the expenditure of a much greater 
effort. Strenuousness he would probably) 
identify with excessive exertion beyond the 
point of diminishing returns. In place of Mr. 
Emerson’s examples we may take illustra- 
tions from school work. A teacher who stays 
long hours after school, gets insufficient resi 
and perhaps no recreation, throwing all her 
energy into the work with deep earnestness. 
is leading a strenuous life; she may be also 
efficient, but if she is it is in spite of her 
strenuousness, not because of it. 

Another thing that is not synonymous with 
efficiency is system. Orderliness is essential 
to efficiency, but system must be subordinated 
to the purpose in hand. Too much red tape 
interferes with efficiency. In the school sys- 
tems this may show itself in various ways. If 
a requisition is made out on a pink blank 
instead of a yellow one, it may delay the de- 
livery of supplies long enough to interfere 
with the proper operation of the plant. If 
there is a general rule, for example, that 
teachers may be excused to visit other schools 
only on Mondays, the strict observance of the 
rule will simplify the keeping of records for 
some clerk in the auditor’s department, but it 
will also frequently defeat the very purpose of 
the by-law which permits teachers to absent 
themselves from school in order to visit other 
schools. Your absence on Monday may cause 
the greatest inconvenience in your particular 
school; the program of Wednesday may be 











5 


a 
N 


x 

»the most instructive for you, in the school 

“that you wish to visit. 

* A third thing that is not efficiency is mate- 
=rial. That is, efficiency does not confine itself 

wto terms that have a material limitation, it 

&sces in the industrial processes more than 
land, labor and capital—it is concerned with 
ideas and ideals and imagination. The phil- 
osophy of efficiency seeks to accomplish maxi- 
mum results with least waste, through the 
application of intensive thinking. Teaching 
that depends upon strenuousness, system and 
material equipment cannot be efficient. It may 
be that for certain ends special equipment is 
necessary, but the strenuous, systematic ener- 
izing of the equipment is not sufficient; there 
must be ideals and hard thinking as well. 
Thus no teacher may be considered efficient 
who mechanically follows the instructions of 
the syllabus or the directions for executing a 
scientific demonstration, no matter how sys- 
tematic and how strenuous she may be. 

There are four essentials to every efficient 
plant : 

The aims or ideals must be definite and 
clear, but not strenuously systematic or mate- 
rialistic. From the great variety of criticism 
directed against school work of the present 
day, the teacher is often inclined to conclude 
that the critics do not know what they are 
talking about; one critic commends what an- 
other condemns. The difficulty may really be 
that the teachers and the supervisors are all 
strenuously and systematically working at 
cross-purposes. Many are actuated by tradi- 
tional ideals of imparting culture; some have 
in mind the training of pupils through the 
formal processes of the school “ discipline ” ; 
others think they are preparing pupils to be- 
come better wage-earners and loyal servants 
of employers ; a certain number are intent 
upon making “good citizens” and preventing 
the outcropping of natural depravity, and per- 
haps there are teachers who have no ideal 
beyond being approved as satisfactory and 
getting an increase of salary. At any rate. 
there can be no doubt about the failure of 
our school systems in this regard: The aims 
or purposes of the school plant are not definite 
and they are not clearly formulated for the 
guidance of the workers. 

2. The organization must be adequate. The 
rapid development of our industries and in- 
stitutions during the past fifty or sixty years 
has left many an organization completely 
swamped by the demands made upon it. 
School organizations, among others, have not 
been flexible enough to readjust themselves to 
the new demands made upon them. Leaders 


44a 


of educational thought he~ — »atized the neces- 
sity for introducing tyr : york vo: which 
the older teachers kne » Suedy nothing. 
The systems have gro, rrani2. tion 
either by adding new functiw.... . departments 


already overworked, or by adaing new de- 
partments without correlating them closely 
with what had gone before. The crying need 
for school action in the matter of luncheons 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 3 


and in the matter of health inspection has been 
met not by rearranging the functions of dif- 
ferent departments to make room for a new 
department; it has either been ignored or it 
has been arbitrarily assigned to members of 
the school system not especially prepared for 
the new activities, or new officials have been 
placed in charge of the work who are not in 
sympathetic relations with the rest of the sys- 
tem. In the past our organization has grown 
in the same haphazard manner and efficiency 
has suffered. The organization must be one 
specially calculated to maintain and to further 
| ideals of the system. 

The equipment must be such as_ will 
a... the organization to attain and to main- 
tain its ideals. Except in communities where 
the growth of population has been very rapid, 
the equipment of our school systems has been 
on the whole fairly adequate. Where we try 
to teach “ manual training "—according to the 
syllabus—without workshops and tools, or 
where we try to teach sewing and science 
without anything but books and stationery. 
the equipment is obviously lacking, and the de- 
ficiency should be made good as soon as 
possible. It is necessary to inquire whether 
the ventilation and the lighting, the desks and 
the hallways, the text books and the ink 
bottle are the best that may be obtained, or the 
most effective in each particular case. 

4. The supreme need is for a strong and 
able executive to carry out the ideals of the 
system by means of the organization and the 
equipment. Many cities in this country have 
at the head of the school system strong and 
able executives. In many of these the schools 
are nevertheless inefficient, because of the 
weakness at one or more of the other points. 
That is, there may be a magnificient plant, a 
splendid organization of enthusiastic workers, 
but a haziness or diffusion of purpose; there 
may be a strong and able superintendent at 
the head of a fine organization imbued with a 
common ideal, but not supported adequately 
by the “taxpayer.” Or the failing may be in 
the character of the teachers. 

The four essentials of any plant or system, 
namely, ideals, organization, equipment and 
executive, must all be subjected to the test 
of twelve principles of efficiency. It should be 
sufficient to enumerate the twelve principles 
with little or no comment, since the terms are 
almost self-explanatory. These twelve prin- 
ciples are: 

1. The ideals must be high. This is, of 
course, purely relative. The efficiency of your 
achievement must in any case be measured by 
your ideals, but low ideals are such as are not 
in harmony with the more lasting forces at 
work in nature and in society and must event- 
ually fail of realization no matter how well 
equipped you may be. Thus a school system 
that seeks merely to produce efficient workers 
must eventually disintegrate because a society 
composed of men who understand no more 
than their work cannot endure. A _ teacher 
whose ideals do not extend heyond keeping 











4 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


her work at a minimum and raising her salary 
to a maximum, to take an extreme case, can- 
not succeed; she has in this purpose insur- 
mountable obstacles to overcome. On the 
other hand, a school system, a single school, 
or a class-room that is actuated by high ideals 
has the co-operation of numberless agencies 
that must sooner or later come to its assist- 
ance, and it is working in harmony with the 
general trend of events. This is but another 
way of saying that wisdom is but a higher 
form of prudence, yet those who are actuated 
by prudence rather than by the high ideals 
will fall short when it comes to the test. 


2. Common sense or good judgment must be 
observed. This hardly calls for comment. No 
matter how high the ideals, how good the will, 
how accurate the instrument, judgment is es- 
sential to every process. 


3. Competent counsel must be obtained. 
This is a corollary and extension of the pre- 
ceding. As our life becomes more complex it 
becomes increasingly difficult, and eventually 
impossible for any ind‘viduality to command 
sufficient knowledge of the problems involved 
in any undertaking to judge adequately of all 
the factors in the processes that call for judg- 
ment. It is therefore incumbent upon those 
who are seeking to achieve efficiently any high 
end, to make use of the points of view and ex- 
perience and training of others. In a school 
system, every large undertaking should first be 
well considered not only by those who have 
the immediate responsibility for execution: 
they should make use also of the counsel of 
any and all who are competent to furnish 
valuable judgment. Too frequently those in 
charge of the administration of schools, or of 
school systems, make the mistake of ignoring 
entirely the counsel of the persons who have, 
perhaps, the most valuable experience on cer- 
tain problems, namely, the class-room teachers. 
On the other hand, many a teacher could re- 
ceive valuable help in the solution of her 
special problems if she consulted older teach- 
ers, or principals or superintendents; here we 
make the mistake of not encouraging the 
teacher to make use of this counsel. Super- 
intendents take counsel of one another, and 
so do principals, and so do many teachers: 
we have an elaborate hierarchy in which the 
individuals have intercourse only with those 
of their own rank. We do not sufficiently 
utilize the resources of the adjacent layers 


4. There must be discipline and order. 
That is, there must be the larger discipline 
which means the welfare of society, not the 
narrow discipline, which is concerned merely 
with punishments and regulations. 


5. The system must be compatible with the 
fair deal. This principle might preclude ends 
and means that would involve the exploitation 
of some individuals for the benefit of others, 
or it would preclude operations that were sub- 
versive of democratic ideals. 

6. Records must be immediate, reliable and 
accurate. Most teachers are in general well 


aware of the importance of records. There 
are, however, many principals and superintend- 
ents who do not know the relative value of 
records, or who do not make provision for 
adequate records. The making of records in- 
volves work which is for the’ most part cler- 
ical; where this work devolves upon teachers 
and principals who feel that they are already 
overburdened, this part of the machinery is 
likely to be weak. 


7. There must be planning. That is, the 
work should be conscious. In most schools 
teachers are required to keep “ plan-books,” 
but very few principals or superintendents 
could show on short notice what their plans 
are for the immedate future. It is not suffi- 
cient to have a program and a syllabus; the 
details must be arranged for the purposes of 
economizing time and energy, and for in- 
suring results—in other words, for efficiency. 


8. There must be schedules. Our work must 
be open, subject to inspection, so that one may 
compare what we are doing with what we 
claim we are trying to do. A principal should 
be able to find out what supplies he may count 
on for the next year’s work. It should not 
be necessary for a person in line for promo- 
tion to “see” a commissioner or an alderman. 
Now this openness and certainty of operation 
in a system can be obtained only if the opera- 
tions and processes are duly charted where all 
who are concerned may read and know. In 
some cities this principle is carried much 
farther than it is in others, and there is a 
corresponding difference in the efficiency of 
the work, in the satisfaction of the teaching 
force, and in its confidence in and respect for 
the administrative force. 


9. There must be standardized conditions. 
This implies a definition of the lowest condi- 
tions of work that may be tolerated. It also 
means that where conditions are not uniform, 
as of necessity they cannot be in any large 
school system, there should be a carefully 
calculated method of weighting the different 
variable factors in making estimates of re- 
sults. For example, it is not fair to rate 
teachers on the basis of percentage of pupils 
promoted, if attention is not at the same time 
given to the fact that the ventilation in some 
schools is atrocious, while in others there is 
none at all; some teachers have to deal with 
pupils to whom English is a foreign language. 
while others have pupils from homes in which 
the art of expression is naturally cultivated 
by the daily routine. Some teachers have full- 
blooded joyous children to teach; others have 
miserable, under fed anemics who spend all of 
their “free” time assisting in the family in- 
come, etc. Not only are these heterogeneous 
conditions unfair to the teacher; they are 
cruelly unfair to the pupils, but above all, their 
neglect serves to defeat the very purposes of 
education in a democracy. 


(To be continued) 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER 5 


American Teacher 


Democracy in Education; Education for Democracy 








Published monthly, except July and August, by Tue 
oops PustisHinc CoMPany. 
ALEXANDER ALEXANDER, Acting President, 
Atrrep B. Kurtner, Secretary, 
B. Russert Herts, Vice-President and Treasurer. 





Address all manuscripts and other communica- 
tions to THe AMERICAN TEACHER, 
20 East 42d Street, New York. 


Subscription price, 50 cents for the calendar 
year. 








Copyright, 1912, by Tue Moops Pustisuinc Company. 


iinet 


Vor. I. JANUARY, 1912 No. 1. 


THE AMERICAN TEACHER AND 
DEMOCRACY. 

THE NAME AMERICA has stood for nearly 
a hundred and forty years as the symbol of 
Democracy. To be sure, it has also stood for 
raw culture, for the spirit of brag, for graft 
and for dollars. But to millions abroad, as 
well as to millions here, it has meant Dem- 
ocracy. 

THe TEACHER has been the chief instru- 
ment for converting the children of darkness 
and the children of Europe into men and 
women of the kind needed by a democratic 
society. The original purpose and still a 
main purpose of the public school has been to 
serve our Democracy; and the teacher has 
been the chief agent, the chief worker. 

The American teacher is expected to teach 
Democracy, but the relations of this teacher 
to his fellow worker, his relations to those 
above him and his relations to those below 
him are not such as naturally cultivate the 
spirit and the virtues of Democracy. Under 
the circumstances the American teacher can 
teach: these things only formally. He can 
teach what Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin 
Franklin and Patrick Henry said; he can 
teach phrases from Washington and Lincoln: 
he can teach whole passages from the Declara- 
tion of Independence and from the Federal 
Constitution. He can teach something about 
the machinery by which we select our officials 
and the rule for finding the date of the next 
election. But under the circumstances he can- 
not impart the spirit and the virtues of Dem- 
ocracy. 

On the contrary. In the midst of an elab- 
orate machinery devised for the avowed pur- 
pose of securing to each person the opportuni- 
ties of personality; in spite of a formulary 
that affirms the fundamental worth of in- 
dividuality; within the sound of the endless 
iteration of our freedom and equality, the 














teacher and the pupil, the principal and the 
superintendent find themselves enmeshed in 
a system that restricts initiative, stratifies in- 
tercourse, suppresses individuality, frowns 
upon originality, cultivates servility and penal- 
izes sincerity. 

Yet no one is to blame for this. These con- 
ditions are the natural fruit of a policy that 
for four generations has made a fetich of 
the doctrine that what is everybody’s business 
is nobody’s business. And education is pre- 
eminently everybody’s business. The concrete 
causes have been many and their interactions 
have been complex. There have been at work 
political factors, social factors, economic fac- 
tors as well as educational and philosophical 
and scientific. But here we are. This is the 
situation. What is the way out? 

Society depends upon its educators to lead 
the way, but our teachers have not been lead- 
ers. They have been readers, rather, follow- 
ers, loyal, devoted, self-sacrificing; bearers of 
messages, but not givers of directions; con- 
scientious for the most part, but not conscious. 
When the teachers of this country become 
conscious of the glaring discrepancy between 
the actual status of their profession and the 
ideal conditions essential for democratic living 
and social progress, we may expect the educa- 
tors to lead the way. 

To bring together those who feel the need 
for this educational rebirth, and to arouse 
those engaged in education who are still asleep 
are among the purposes of this magazine. 
Are you with us? 





CRITICISM. 

IN OUR EDUCATIONAL systems the necessity 
for criticism is constant, and its exercise con- 
stantly gives rise to heart-burnings and bitter 
resentment. It must be admitted that very 
many teachers, in criticising their pupils, do 
not take the trouble to find out about the cause 
of tardiness, or the greasy note book, or the 
unprepared lesson. Imagine yourself selling 
a Frenchman ten yards of cloth, which you 
measure off conscientiously, and then your 
mortification and resentment when he scur- 
rilously announces that you are a cheat, since 
you gave him only nine and a half. There is 
much ill-feeling and heart-breaking and re- 
crimination; in the end it appears that he used 
his old meter-stick to measure ‘his purchase. 
It is all a matter of standards. It should be 
worth while for human beings who have many 
dealings together to agree upon a set of stand- 
ards; then our judgments about one another 
may have value. 

It was Matthew Arnold, I believe, who de- 
fined criticism as “a disinterested endeavor to 
learn and propagate the best that is known 
and thought in the world.” This is not in 
exact accord with the prevailing notion that 
attaches to the word “criticism.” As used 
vulgarly to-day, criticism is of two kinds, 
namely, “muck-raking” and “constructive.” 
And muck-racking criticism is deprecated by 





6 THE AMERICAN TEACHER 


many good people because they proceed upon 
the theory that ignorance is bliss; they say, 
“Let sleeping dogs lie,” and think thereby tc 
have argued away all reasonable excuse for 
“destructive” criticism. On the other hand, 
these same people mean by “ constructive criti- 
cism” the utterance of all the favorable judg- 
ments that a smooth tongue and a ductile 
conscience can concoct. 

It was Benjamin Disraeli who said that “ the 
critics are the men who have failed in litera- 
ture and art.” By which he merely gave vent 
to his feelings, incidentally lending the weight 
of his authority to the foolish superstition that 
the critic is a fault-finder, and that he is a 
fault-finder because he is a failure. This is 
on a par with the logic that would discredit 
the peace-advocate by calling him a “ molly- 
coddie.” The critic does indeed frequently 
find fault, and much fault there is to find on 
every side, but that is only a part of the 
process of appraisement. It is the critic’s 
business also to discover and point out merit, 
and of that too there is much on every side. 
That he finds more to deplore than to ap- 
plaud may be due to his disposition or to his 
liver, but it may also be due to the fact that 
we have not reached perfection as yet. At 
any rate, there are those who undertake to 
formulate just judgments about contemporary 
thought and institutions and conduct and men. 
The value of criticism is in proportion to its 
justness, and not in proportion to its “de- 
structiveness ” or “constructiveness.” It is a 
mark of undeveloped intelligence to reply to 
the critic, “Could you do any better?” If 
we do not agree with him the best we can say 
is, “ You don’t understand.” 

For the essence of criticism is understand- 
ing. It is for this reason that the first prin- 
ciple of criticism is to judge from the point 
of view of the person criticised, and not from 
some personal or arbitrary extraneous point 
of view. If I say that I do not like your 
latest novel, I am not criticising it; I am 
simply classifying my own taste. If I do not 
take into consideration the novelist’s purpose, 
my observations can never pass beyond the 
stage of description, they can never be criti- 
cism. It is for this reason that much of the 
complaint and much of the muck-raking of 
to-day fall short of being useful criticism. 
The would-be critics fail to adopt the point of 
view of the persons or the institutions they 
attempt to judge. And it must be said, in 
defense of the critic, that one of the weak 
spots in our modern thought and in our con- 
temporary systems and institutions and lead- 
ers is the very vagueness and indefiniteness of 
their aims. I cannot tell how well vou are 
succeeding if I do not know what you are try- 
ing to accomplish. One visitor says that your 
discipline is too strict, but he does not ask 
whether your ideas of discipline are military; 
another says that he observed a good language 
lesson, not knowing that you were at the time 
trving to teach elementary science. 


Criticism is essential to progress, and is 
never feared by an honest man. THe AMERI- 
CAN TEACHER will try to criticise according to 
the ostensible aims of those it criticises, but 
it will also criticise aims according to society’s 
major purposes. 


A CONFUSION OF IDEALS. 

Dr. JAMES SULLIVAN, Principal of the Boys’ 
High School of Brooklyn, recently made an 
impromptu address before the pupils of the 
Jamaica High School. ‘ 


He said that only millionaires and tramps 
can do what they like. Few of us can be 
millionaires, and none of us wish to be tramps. 
We must therefore be content in doing what 
we don’t like. In fact, the speaker said, it is 
the common lot of us all between the extremes 
of economic standing mentioned, to be con- 
stantly doing with the best grace possible 
whatever work we may have to do. Dr. Sulli- 
van believes that only those people of the 
middle class are really content who have 
reached the age of about sixty-five; and then 
they seem satisfied merely as the result of 
the habit of trying to appear so. 


The temptation is strong within us to point 
out a few of the fundamental errors in this 
philosophy. For the time being we shall con- 
tent ourselves with the reflection that in spite 
of what Dr. Sullivan implied, he is a young 
man, cheerful, interested in his pupils’ success, 
and is telling the truth when he conveys the 
impression that he stands for good citizenship 
and sound scholarship. Either he likes these 
ideals or he does not. He does, of course. 


NEWSPAPER REPUTATIONS. 

“To establish rational work standards for men re- 
quires indeed motion and time studies of all opera- 
tions, but it requires in addition all the skill of the 
planning manager, all the skill of the physician, of the 
humanitarian, of the physiologist; it requires infinite 
knowledge, directed, guided and restrained by pepe, 
faith and compassion. The promise partly fulfilled 
and clearly held out as to the future is that greater 
and greater results shall follow constantly diminishing 
effort.” 

Harrincton Emerson, 
in The Engineering Magazine. 

THE ABOVE was written by a man who has 
gained a newspaper reputation as an efficiency 
expert. To the average “man-in-the-street ” 
he has been pictured as a hard, calculating 
materialist who has placed himself at the 
service of employers seeking to grind out 
profits from the overworked and_ under- 
nourished servants. The fact that Mr. Emer- 
son is an idealist of the highest kind, that his 
aims are concerned with increasing human 
happiness rather than with increasing divi- 
dends may come to many, as it came to the 
writer, as a happy disillusionment. This may 
only indicate, however, how incompetent is the 
American press, on the whole, to deal with 
ideals and idealists. 





THE AMERICAN TEACHER 7 


TEACHING SOCIAL SCIENCE 
THROUGH NEWSPAPERS. 
Mark HorrMan. 


PupPILS ARE GRADUATED from our schools 
to-day with no sense of the social unrest. 
Such problems practically do not exist for 
them. The history that they have memorized 
gives them no glimpse of society in its throes 
of improvement and progress. Their minds 
are wholly taken up with petty and personal 
things. We send them out “finished” and 
they believe that they have no other work in 
this world than to pounce upon their fellow 
human beings and get a bigger share of the 
world’s goods. 

Should our pupils be given some insight into 
the workings of the social organism? Does 
the study of the subject occupy men’s minds 
to-day? If it does, and we believe that men 
to-day are more intensely interested in this 
than in any other subject, then it should find 
some place in our curriculum. What nobler 
ideal can we instill into the boy and girl than 
to make them believe that their task has just 
“commenced” and that they are to go out 
into the world and help make it better? Our 
“commencement” preachers tell the boys to 
have noble ideals, but they do not tell them 
what is wrong. 

If we are agreed that the subject should find 
some place in the curriculum (probably under 
History), then a most vital question presents 
itself to us. How is the subject to be ap- 
proached and studied? In what way could 
it be made to appeal to the young mind? The 
most effective way of killing interest in this 
subject would be to hand a boy a text book 
(even a so-called elementary text book), to 
set him daily tasks and to examine him at the 
end of the term. This would be the tradi- 
tional method of approaching a new subject 
and it would be a failure at its very inception. 
We believe that the subject should be begun 
in the most natural, matter-of-fact way; not 
through a text book with predigested theories 
of social reform, but through the columns of 
our daily newspapers—the reputable ones to 
be preferred. News about Trust Busting, The 
Indianapolis Mayor Selling Potatoes at Cost 
Price, Hunger Riots in France, Strikes and 
Dynamite Outrages, Commission Form of 
Government would make a boy think harder 
than all the bookish theories. Many boys 
know much about these matters to-day; nearly 

all our pupils know about the minor and 
transient events of the times. Can we get all 
of them interested in those events which mean 
ultimate social reconstruction or betterment? 
We believe that this can be done even with 
the same newspaper in which the boy reads 
the sporting news and the tales of horrible 
crime. 

In this work the teacher must beware of 
committing himself to any propaganda. The 
pupil’s mind must be open and the thought 
must be made to go as far as it will. In an 


experiment of this sort, tried in one of our 
high schools, the most disagreeable feature of 
the work was the necessity for repressing 
those callow youths already committed to some 
social philosophy which they did not under- 
stand and which they had taken on hearsay 
or on a few specious arguments. The primary 
object of this work should be to arouse the 
young mind to thinking on these subjects, and 
not to paste on them social labels of any kind. 


We believe that only the most sympathetic 
teachers and those who know best the adol- 
escent mind can properly conduct work of 
this kind. It would be a failure in the hands 
of the teacher who has no social outlook, 
sympathies or ideals, and with such a teacher 
it would degenerate into mere news gossip. 
Pupils could never be made to see the general 
in the particular, if the teacher had no social 
perspective. With a sympathetic study of this 
kind, the news of the day would mean more 
to the future citizen than a mere string of 
disparate facts. He would be made to study 
causes and he would not be thrown off his 
mental balance and unhinged by this common- 
place atrocity or that vulgar crime. The 
future citizen would learn to discern the 
stream of tendency and he could be of real 
help in the improvement of society. With 
thoughtful men and women, society might 
learn to solve all its problems. 


A NEW PROPHET. 
ApeL—E MILN LINVILLE. 


In McCrure’s Macazine for May and for 
December, 1911, appear two valuable articles 
on the career and the methods of a new 
worker in the kindergarten. 

Not only has Madam Montessori started the 
revolution of the educational system of Italy, 
but her theories and methods are being dis- 
cussed by educators in every civilized country. 
Already Switzerland has passed a law estab- 
lishing the Montessori system in its public 
schools. Paris has two Montessori model 
schools. Similar schools are to be started this 
year in England, India, China, Mexico, Corea, 
Argentine and in Hawaii. In the United 
States we have Montessori schools in New 
York and in Boston. These remarkable in- 
roads into old school systems have been made, 
notwithstanding the fact that it is but four 
years since Madam Montessori started her 
first kindergarten school in Rome, and began 
to demonstrate the value of her educational 
theories. 


In 1898 Madam Montessori was director in 
a school for feeble-minded children in Rome. 
The work she did there was indeed remark- 
able, for her children were able to pass exam- 
inations that normal children of the same age 
were required to pass in the regular schools. 
She says: 








8 THE 


‘While everyone was admiring the progress of my 

ts I was meditating on the reasons that could keep 
_ happy and healthy children on so low a level that 
my unhappy pupils were able to stand beside them. 
It was that the boys from the asylum had followed a 
different path from that pursued in the public schools. 
They had been aided in their psychic development, 
while the normal children had been hampered and 
depressed. I thought that if one day the special educa- 
tion which had thus marvelously developed the idiots 
could be applied to the development of the normal 
children, the miracle would vanish and the gulf be- 
tween the inferior and the normal mentality would 
reappear, never again to be bridged.” 

In 1906 the opportunity came for Madam 
Montessori to try her methods on normal 
children. She was given entire charge of 
some infant schools to be started in Rome. 
These schools were called Case dei Bambini, 
or “ Houses of Childhood.” They were estab- 
lished for children under seven years of age. 
So successful has this great teacher been with 
very young children that there is now under 
way a movement in Rome to establish under 
her supervision schools in which the children 
will be taught in the kindergarten grade as 
well as in the higher grades though the 
adolescent period. 

The first thought of Madam Montessori in 
founding a school is to see that the school 
environment shall be one that will permit the 
child to be unrestrained. Self-activity is the 
keynote of all her work. She insists that the 
child shall be free to express his own in- 
dividuality, and yet so trained as to be able to 
carry himself with ease and grace through his 
material surroundings. He is trained to re- 
spect the rights of others, and to conform to 
the laws of good breeding. The teacher feels 
that the environment of her school and the 
manner of approaching the children accom- 
plish this end. Her children have remarkable 
grace of carriage. They are trained to know 
how to use their bodies as well as their minds. 

The furniture of the school is made light 
so as to be easily carried about, thus giving 
the child plenty of opportunity to learn how 
to carry things from place to place, as well 
as to be self-dependent. All the furniture 
has been made especially for Madam Mon- 
tessori, and has been thought out adaptively 
to meet the needs of the children at every 
point. 

Madam Montessori has arranged for the care 
of many animals in her schools, thus enabling 
the children to care for and to study them. 
When it is not convenient to have certain 
animals as inmates of the institution, toy re- 
productions are installed there instead. 

Not only has Madam Montessori placed in 
her schools the kinds of toys known to the 
craft, but she has added many of her own in- 
vention. Arrangements are now being made 
to have her teaching materials put on sale in 
New York, with books of instruction explain- 
ing their uses. 

An account of Madam Montessori’s edu- 
cational methods will be given in some detail 
in the next number of THE AMERICAN 
TEACHER. 


AMERICAN TEACHER 


{The Federation for Child Study has arranged for a 
course of three lectures on the methods of Madam 
Montessori, by Miss Grace George, who studied with 
the great teacher in Rome. he lectures will be 
iven in the afternoons of three Wednesdays in 
March, the 7th, 14th and 21st. Further particulars 
may be obtained from the Secretary of the Federa- 
tion, Mrs. Thomas Seltzer, 219 West 100th Street, 
New York.] 


‘ There are, it is true, insolent school- 
masters, Mr. School Commissioner, and 
there are submissive schoolmasters; of 
both more than enough; I am striving to 
increase, by one, the number of self- 
respecting schoolmasters.”—Flachsman 
als Erzieher, Otto Ernst. Translated by 
H. M. Beatty. 





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