Part 6 (1/2)

They are willing to drift with the gale

Many of the advocates of the second point of view--many of the people who hold to the old line, pure-science teaching--are, on the other hand, animated by a spirit of irrational conservatism ”Doith radicaliss that are hard and dry are goodThey can reat h for us”

Now these one to the other extreme They have confused custom and tradition with fundaht that, just because a thing is old, it is good, just as their antagonists have thought that just because a thing is new it is good

In both cases, obviously, the scientific spirit is lacking The most fundamental of all principles is the principle of truth And yet these men who are teachers of science are--both classes of the their place in secondary education The rich proo has not been fulfilled Within the last decade, the enrollment in the science courses has not increased in proportion to the total enrollo was about to be cast upon the educational scrap heap) has grown by leaps and bounds

Now this is a type of a great many controversies in education We talk and theorize, but very seldom do we try to find out the actual facts in the case by any adequate tests

It was the lack of such tests that led us at the University of Illinois to enter upon a series of iations to see whether we could not take some of these mooted questions out of the realm of eternal controversy, and provide so others this controversy between the econoh-school class and divided it into two sections We tried to place in each section an equal nuht and mediocre and dull pupils, so that the conditions would be equalized

Then we chose an excellent teacher, a man who could approach the proble the present year he has been teaching these parallel sections In one section he has eht the class upon the customary pure-science basis He has kept a careful record of his work, and at stated intervals he has given both sections the saation year after year with different classes, different teachers, and in different schools We are not in a hurry to reach conclusions

Now I said that the safeguard in all work of this sort is to keep our grip firm and fast on the eternal truths In this work that Ito prove that either pure science or applied science interests our pupils theimmediate economic situations We do not propose to measure the success of eitherpower of the pupil What we believe that science teaching should insure, is a grip on the scientific ht into the forces of nature, and we are si to see whether the econorip firht clearer or more obscure I trust that this point is plain, for it illustrates what I have just said regarding the danger of following a popular demand We need no experiment to prove that economic science is more useful in the narrow sense than is pure science What ish to determine is whether a judiciouswill or will not enable us to realize this rich cultural value much more effectively than a traditional purely cultural course

Now that illustrates what I think is the real and important application of the scientific spirit to the solution of educational problems You will readily see that it does not do away necessarily with our ideals

It is not necessarily materialistic It is not necessarily idealistic

Either side may utilize it It is a quite impersonal factor But it does promise to take some of our educational problems out of the field of useless and wasteful controversy, and it does proether,--for, in the case that I have just cited, if we prove that the right admixture of methods may enable us to realize both a cultural and a utilitarian value, there is no reason why the culturists and the utilitarians should not get together, cease their quarreling, take off their coats, and go to work Few people will deny that bread and butter is a rather essential thing in this life of ours; very feill deny that ood for all of us; and very few also will deny that far more fundamental than bread and butter--far reat fundaht out of his experience and which are most effectively crystallized in the creations of pure art, the masterpieces of pure literature, and the discoveries of pure science

Certainly if we of the twentieth century can agree upon any one thing, it is this: That life without toil is a crime, and that any one who enjoys leisure and co the price of toil is a social parasite I believe that it is an ieneration the highest ideals of living as well as the arts that are essential to the ainst the doctrine that these two factors stand over against one another as the positive and negative poles of huainst the notion, that the study of the practical everyday problems of human life is without e are pleased to call a culture value,--that in the proper study of those problems one is not able to see the operation of fundaree that there is always a grave danger that the trivial and temporary objects of everyday life may be viewed and studied without reference to these fundareater than that the permanent and eternal truths be studied without reference to the actual, concrete, workaday world in which we live I have seen exercises inthat had for their purpose the perfection of the pupil in some little art of joinery for which he would, in all probability, have not the slightest use in his later life But even if he should find use for it, the process was not being taught in the proper way He was being , and no part of his instruction was directed toward the much more important, funda may be perfect, but that perfection itself is not a little thing”

I say that I have witnessed such an exercise in the very practical field of h several such exercises ust that always recurs to me when I am told that every boy will respond to the stimulus of the hammer and the jack plane But I should hasten to add that I have also seen e call the hued from the of disgust at the petty and trivial problems of human life which every one ht as to leave their students not with the high purpose to h ideals that art and literature represent, not the firliness of the world where they found it ugly, or to do what they could to ennoble life when they found it vile; but rather with an attitude of caled to the delights of aesthetic enjoyery

I have seen the principles of agriculture so taught as to leave with the student the ihbor and sell it at a higher price if he mastered the principles of nitrification; and all without one single reference to the basic principle of conservation upon which the welfare of the human race for all tile reference to the norance But I have also seen men who have mastered the scientific method,--the method of controlled observation, and unprejudiced induction and inference,--in the laboratories of pure science; and who have gained so overweening and hypertrophied a regard for this method that they have considered it too holy to be contaminated by application to practical problems,--who have sneered contemptuously when some adventurer has proposed, for exa of science itself to the searchlight of scientific method

I trust that these examples have h If vocational education means simply that the arts and skills of industrial life are to be transeneration, a minimum of educational machinery is all that is necessary, and we do not need to worry much about it If vocational education means simply this, it need not trouble us much; for economic conditions will sooner or later provide for an effective means of transmission, just as econoh a blind and empirical process of eliriculture, as in the case of China and other overpopulated nations of the Orient

But I take it that wemore than this, just as wee, history, pure science, and the fine arts In the former case, the practical problems of life are to be lifted to the plane of fundamental principles; in the latter case, fundaht down to the plane of present, everyday life I can see no discrepancy here To my mind there is no cultural subject that has not its practical outcome, and there is no practical subject that has not its huo to some pains to seek it out I do not object to a subject of instruction that promises to put dollars into the pockets of those that study it I do object to thethat subject which fails to use this effective econolimpse of the broader vision I do not object to the subject that appeals to the pupil's curiosity because it informs him of the wonderful deeds that men have done in the past I do object to thatthis subject which simply arouses interest in a spectacular deed, and then fails to use this interest in the interpretation of present problems I do not contend that in either case thereof lessons But I do contend that the teacher who is in charge of the process should always have this purpose in the forefront of his consciousness, and--now by direct couide his pupils to the goal desired

I hope that through careful tests, we shall soood and valuable on both sides of every controverted educational question After all, in this co to which you and I are devoting our lives, there is too matic,--to permit us for a moment to hold ourselves in any other attitude save one of openness and reception to the truth when the truth shall have been demonstrated Neither your ideas noror dead, are ih to stand in the way of the best possible accoreat task to which we have set our hands

IV

But I did not propose thisto talk to you about science as a part of our educational curriculum, but rather about the scientific spirit and the scientific method as effective instruments for the solution of our own peculiar educational proble that an adoption of this policy does not necessarily commit us to materialism or to a narrowly economic point of view I have attempted to show that the scientific method may be applied to the solution of our problems while we still retain our faith in ideals; and that, unless we do retain that faith, our investigations will be without point or

This problem of vocational education to which I have just referred is one that is likely to reation of its factors in the light of scientific method Some people profess not to be worried by the difficulty of finding time in our elementary and secondary schools for the introduction of the newer subjectsfor increased vocational efficiency They would cut the Gordian knot with one single operation by elih of the older subjects to make room for the new I confess that this solution does not appeal to me Fundamentally the core of the elementary curriculum must, I believe, always be the arts that are essential to every one who lives the social life In other words, the language arts and the number arts are, and always must be, the fundamentals of elementary education I do not believe that specialized vocational education should ever be introduced at the expense of thorough training in the subjects that already hold their place in the curriculum And yet we are confronted by the econo in some way this vocational problem How are we to do it?

It is here that the scientific method may perhaps come to our aid The obvious avenue of attack upon this probley, not by the drastic operation of eli our technique of teaching, so that the waste iven to these new subjects that are so vociferously de ad spelling has been subjected to a rigid scientific treatht to-day vastly better than ever before and with a y It has been due, very largely, to the application of a feell-known principles which the science of psychology has furnished

Now that is vastly better than saying that spelling is a subject that takes too ht forthwith to be elih time is undoubtedly wasted to provide ahly in some vocation if ish to vocationalize him, and I do not think that this would hurt him, even if he does not follow the vocation in later life

To-day we are atte to detect these sources of waste in technique

The proble are already well on the way to solution Careful tests have shown the value of doingby unit wholes rather than by fragments, for example Experith of ti, and penmanshi+p, and the fundamental tables of arithmetic It is already clearly demonstrated that brief periods of intense concentration arewhich the s the er work effectively We are also beginning to see fro such a proble of the tables will dothat it is extremely profitable to instruct children in the technique of learning,--to start theht way by careful exay that was formerly dissipated, estion, also, that in the average school, the vast possibilities of the child's latent energy are only imperfectly realized A friend ofa new roups or strearessed the fastest was ed 85 per cent and over in their work A ed between 75 per cent and 85 per cent in their work, and a third, slow group was ed below 75 per cent At the end of the first month, he found that a certain proportion of his pupils, who had fore ahead Many of them easily went into the fastest strea for that group In other words, whether we like to adirls are content with the passing grades, both in school and in life So common is the phenomenon that we think of the matter fatalistically But supply a stimulus, raise the standard, and you will find so up to the next level