ILLINO I S UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN PRODUCTION NOTE University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library Brittle Books Project, 2013. COPYRIGHT NOTIFICATION,. In Public Domain. Published prior to 1923. This digital copy was made from the printed version held by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It was made in compliance with copyright law. Prepared for the Brittle Books Project, Main Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign by Northern Micrographics Brookhaven Bindery La Crosse, Wisconsin 2013 57 1. a-4 Ssatton i tbe cboo Wiaj " i , i .. , . , \ . - .... UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS -20M S. M .: : . ' LIBRARY Class M i 0-20 M r Book Volrm ne , / CONTRIBUTIONS TO NUMBER I. EDUCATION THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO FOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER CONTRIBUTIONS TO EDUCATION NUMBER I ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL BY ELLA FLAGG YOUNG SOMETIME PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION PRINCIPAL, IN THE UNIVERSITY CHICAGO NORMAL SCHOOL CHICAGO THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 19o6 OF CHICAGO COPYRIGHT 1901 BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO Published December 1901 Second Impression July 1906 Composed and Printed by The University of Chicago Press Chicago, Illinois, U. S. A. ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL INTRODUCTION. state and territory in the United States has a system of free schools. The attitude of the American people toward education is evidenced by this general establishment of schools and the liberal provision for their support. The influence of this attitude on education itself has been twofold: its function and scope have been enlarged; its intrinsic value The and prestige have been questioned. inadequacy of the old conception of education to meet the demands and the doubts has become such a prolific source of disquietude and dissatisfaction that ere long a new one must needs The new standard, with its be constructed. adaptation to social and economic conditions, bids fair to be the dominant factor in the social product of the future. There are many phases to the problem of evolving a highly organized social institution which shall have that ease in adjustment and that adaptation to ends which characterize To some the thought in its free activity. application of the biological conception of an organism to the school, both in its structure and workings, is very attractive. There is one EVERY 8 Isolation in the School serious, almost insuperable, objection to the application of this conception to the school. Take, for example, the human organism. The heart, the lungs, and the stomach have each the same general end in view, the nourishment of the body; yet time will not readjust the functions of these different organs so that their specific aims will be materially changed, and in some respects interchanged, in securing a higher degree of digestion and assimilation of food. On the other hand, as the interrelation between the various parts of the school becomes more effective, it will be evident that the particular stress now laid upon one part may be transferred advantageously to another. If the conception of the school and the specific duties of its parts has been cast in the crystallized form of an organism, it will be most difficult, if not impossible, to transfer emphasis of function and aim. Indeed, the question may be raised right here whether the opposition today, in the pedagogical as well as the general mind, to a revison of the special aims and methods of the different schools does not rest mainly on the rhetorical figure of this inflexible organism. Herbert Spencer, in enlarging upon the conditions which led him to observe the analogy between society and living things, naturally starts with the "cell theory." His argument Isolation in the School 9 only intensifies the objection herein raised, for nowhere does he consider the necessity for transfer of function. He considers development, not transfer. The western peoples have found themselves in the nineteenth century confronted with such puzzling questions regarding the life of modern society that a new department of investigation has come to be recognized. As the method of the student of social conditions has advanced from the collection and classification of data to the search for those laws which permeate the social world, it has become evident that the school also must be subjected to examination from new and many points of view. Influences which are hostile to its best development must be counteracted; not by wordy condemnations, but by making their opposites active. This essay endeavors to contribute something toward the illumination of some of those phases of the life of the school in which are made manifest the difficulties involved in the maintenance of a continuous intellectual and moral advance throughout the system because of the influence of isolation. The trend of the argument will be in accord with this general statement: the level of power in the educational system is determined by the degree in which the principle of cooperation is made Io Isolation in the School incarnate in developing and realizing the aim of the school. The questions involved will be discussed in three divisions : (I) the various parts of this social institution ; (2) some recent constructions of psychological, ethical, and logical modes that must be recognized in a rational conduct of the school; (3) the function of the school in a democracy. CHICAGO, March, 9goo, ISOLATION IN THE SCHOOL. I. THE PARTS OF THIS SOCIAL INSTITUTION. No MORE remarkable chapter can be found in the history of the upward march of the human race than the one bearing on education. Though the avowed aim of the school has been the protection of its wards from the dangers of ignorance, yet so limited has been the conception of the means of protection that acquaintance with the values of the past has been construed as an efficient and all-sufficient engine for defensive and offensive operations in the struggle of life. The material with which the scholars have worked being traditional, and often that which has been discarded from the life in the world outside, the spur to intellectual activity which comes from the unsolved problems in science, art, and ethics has been lacking. As the information acquired rested largely on the verbal memory, a method which should bring into play the elements of strength peculiar to each individual was not indispensable. Reformers differed merely as to where the emphasis on tradition, or where the stress of activity in the mind, should be 12 Isolation in the School laid. In these conditions, briefly outlined, lies the explanation of that strange chapter on education extending from the days of Plato and Aristotle to a point in time less than one hundred and fifty years back. Modern pedagogy did not begin to live until Rousseau, the faithless father, urged that education make human welfare its active principle. For the understanding to accept human welfare as the aim of the evolution of human power is only the first step in securing a thoroughgoing comprehension of what is involved. So pressing is the solution of the problem presented by the single question of gaining a livelihood, to say nothing about a competency, that the consideration of the well-being of humanity begins with Herbert Spencer's weighing of the claims of egoism and altruism, with a marked preponderance on the side of the former. With interest in selfpreservation highly developed on one side only, the non-rational, it was but natural that modern theory and practice should halt long on the plane where education was viewed as that discipline which enables the members of the human family to make the ascent independently and alone. Slowly is the general mind beginning to grasp the idea of the unity Isolation in the School I3 whose factors are egoism and altruism, individualism and organization. The effort which the American people are making to secure a clearer comprehension of conditions involved in the construction of the new ideal has necessitated a focusing of attention on the recognized instrument -the school. Chief among the defects discovered by this focusing is the separation of the school into schools-kindergarten, elementary, secondary, college, university-each based upon a theory and method which in itself is original and final. These sharp divisions are not the results of differentiation within a recognized unity; on the contrary, they are the legitimate outcome of the manner in which the idea of the school has come to include all the various departments mentioned. The parts have been brought together mechanically, thus making the accepted conception of this great social institution that of an aggregation of independent units, rather than that of an organization whose successful operation depends upon a clearly recognized interrelation, as well as distinction, between its various members and their particular duties. One of the striking signs of the unrest resulting from the influence of isolation throughout the school is the widespread dissatisfaction with the loss of time and the ineffective work 14 Isolation in the School which are often attendant upon the entrance of the child or youth into the next higher department above that whose course has been completed. Some think they have discovered a principle underlying the sharp differentiation when they suggest the insertion of a connecting class between the kindergarten and the elementary department ; or when they advocate the establishment of special schools to act as "feeders" from the high schools to secondary institutions, which in their turn will overlap the college course. The introduction of these links, which are not recognized parts of the great system, suggests the existence of two conditions : (I) The failure on the part of each school to secure a working knowledge of the method and aim of the other. Shocking as is the conduct of those selfish parents in James's What Maizie Knew, it is no more so than that of the members of teaching corps or faculties, who wrap themselves in their togas pedagogical and know little of the conditions from which their pupils have come and into which they will go, except through information obtained by quizzing the shrewd child or youth. (2) The maintenance by the higher school of the traditional qualifications for admission to its membership, without reference to the changes which psychologic study may have Isolation in the School IS5 introduced in the theory and method of the lower schools. Although it holds true that the instructors in a given subject should be competent to state the conditions upon which one can assume the work required by them, yet it is equally true that, with occasional exceptions, the nearer a faculty stands to long-established educational institutions, the more authoritative will be the voice of tradition within its fold. On the other hand, the successful issue of the efforts of intermediary classes and schools points to the necessity for an investigation into and determination of sound pedagogic method for the different states in the unfolding life of the child, the youth, the young man, and the young woman. It is not a transition period that should command attention, for if there'be such, then it is a distinct period of itself; but it is the two consecutive states which should be understood, each with its positive methods and interests, yet evolving so gradually out of, or into, the other, that the line of demarcation is imperceptible. How can there be clear insight into conditions lying beyond one's sphere of activity, if there be not co6peration between the members in the different spheres ? Here and there the educational world gives evidence of an awakening on the subject of the need for the involution of co6peration, as well as differ- 16 Isolation in the School entiation, in the effort to make the welfare of humanity its goal. The awakenings are only sporadic, and often take on the form of an exchange of grievances rather than the interchange of suggestive, impersonal criticism. This is the result of long-continued activity which, because isolated and complete in itself, restricts the field of its operations and the power of its initiative. When there is an interplay of educational thought between the kindergarten and the elementary teachers, between the highschool and the college faculties, and all along the line, sentimentalism and dogmatism will give way to scientific method in the study of a true correlation of forces which are but slightly organized at the present time. That mobility of spirit which characterizes an interplay of thought between different groups is the basis of true co6peration, for each mind in each group must exercise its powers of origination and execution. It would be interesting to investigate the historical conditions under which the various departments of the school have arisen and been gradually incorporated in the general scheme of education, but this inquiry is analytic of present, not historic, conditions. That which first attracts one's attention in the consideration of the individual parts into which this loose organization resolves itself is Isolation in the School 17 the composition of the teaching corps or faculty. Until the establishment of state universities, all college and university communities regulated their inner policy independent of public control, and as a result their faculties were known through a few prominent members only. It is within a comparatively recent period that these faculties have been subjected to comparison and criticism by the public at large. Doubtless the manner in which they have stepped out of the college halls and have taught and debated in the open court has done more to break down the traditions, which made a broad chasm between them and the world at large, than has the founding of universities by the different state governments. It is not surprising that the modern spirit, which interests itself in all classes and conditions of humanity, should be measuring the power of those whose special work is the most advanced with the attainments, culture, and method of those whose work lies with the great mass, only an infinitesimal part of which ever reaches the college. Hence there are two factors, the faculties themselves and the modern spirit, which are breaking down the divinity that has hedged the college and university method. Not to be a distinct body receiving students from the lower schools, but to become a part T8 Isolation in the School of the great corps which is molding the race, is one of the duties in the future of the college faculties. Between the prevailing conditions, which are beginning to change, and the necessary conditions, which will bring knowledge of the aims and methods in the earlier departments of the school, are many steps. Teachers in the academy and high school have, until recent date, been beyond the pale of public and general criticism. Professional life, spent in a limited field of traditional reproduction, has been very like that in the college faculties. Upon turning to the public elementary school we find a teaching corps which is ever under the search-light of the public gaze. Here may a comprehensive survey be made of the influence of isolation. Starting with the theory that the public schools are inherently opposed to change, adverse critics, upon assuming the aggressive, demand a radical change in their theory and practice. To most of the dissatisfied and the critical this demand, coupled with an enumeration of some petty customs still retained, seems a satisfactory explanation of the cause of, as well as a prescription of an efficacious remedy for, the weakness and mechanism deplored most deeply by the teaching corps Isolation in the School 19 itself. When reform stands for change chiefly, its outcome will have little or no intrinsic value. The saying, "As is the teacher so is the school," was for many years the expression of the teacher's responsibility. In the course of time it was made more incisive : "The teacher is the school." From this it was but a short cut to charging the "inherent opposition to change" upon the teachers. Nothing could be more perplexing, more amazing, to the accused than this charge. They do not find it necessary to appeal to the written documents to refute this accusation. Memory furnishes ample data. The older teachers, through their experience as teachers, and the younger, through their experience as pupils, can rapidly summon evidence on every topic included under "The Theory and Practice of Teaching." Each of these topics might be outlined in three parts : the conditions in the early stage, the time of the beginnings of school systems; the conditions during the period of organization and perfection of mechanism, the period of retrogression; the conditions at the present time, which to the careless observer seem a return to the first, though they are not, for iin that which has been evolved there are implicit new and vital principles. The following will illustrate this development: 20 Isolation in the School a) b) c) Loose classification of pupils and subject-matter. Narrow and uniform grading of each. Elasticity in promotion of pupils and expansion of subject-matter. a) Close adherence to text-book, indiscriminate verbal memorizing. Oral method, disappearance of verbal memorizing. Combination of text- and reference-books, some memoritor work. b) c) a) b) c) a) b) c) The three R's + general-culture lectures. Rigid limitation to three R's + "useful" branches only. Teacher and pupil carrying from five to ten different subjects. Twenty-minute out-of-door recesses in forenoon and afternoon session. Sessions from two and a half to three hours long, without any physical exercise, recreation, or relaxation. Calisthenics, games, whispering recesses in every session, with out-of-door recesses in the long session added. As teachers recall the glowing ardo r of superintendent and principal, as well as the vigorous efforts and heroic struggles of the teachers in these various movements, all unite in saying, the advance of the public school like "the emigrant's way o'er the Western desert is marked by Campfires long consumed, and bones that bleach in the sunshine." Isolation in the School 2I Change has been written large over every theory and method of instruction and management, attempted in the brief school life of those who now constitute the public school teaching corps; and yet, opposition to change, the conservatism of the teaching force, is said to be the cause of the prevalence of theories and methods not in harmony with the time spirit of the last decade of the nineteenth century. What is the influence of the many changes made in a way that is hostile to the spirit by which the highest type of character is developed in rational beings ? It is doubtless true that, as a rule, teachers are not commanded to make changes in their educational theory and method, but when they know what changes are desired, a feeling of loyalty to the originator as a superior officer, or the ambition to rank high in the estimation of that official, or the love of something novel, makes the majority prompt in adopting the new, without previous thought as to its desirability, without activity of the intellectual conscience. What, on the other hand, is the influence on the superintendent or the principal of habitually performing the function of originating and changing ideals for others ? It certainly does not make for the highest type of character. 22 Isolation in the School It tends toward the creation of fixed ideals to be described for realization by others. Eventually the originator finds established in the school a lifeless model, with a few of the features of the original, rigidly set in altorilievo, making a caricature of what was to its author an ideal permeated with a great principle of mental life. Pessimism and iconoclasm often follow in the train of such a discovery. Much has been said recently regarding the examination and certification of teachers. Superintendents of city schools have indorsed the statement in the Report of the Committee of Fifteen that "the superintendent should have power to appoint from an eligible list all assistants and teachers authorized by the board of education, and have unlimited power to assign them to their respective positions, and reassign them, or remove them from the force at his discretion." Sufficient emphasis has not been laid on two facts. These two are: (I) in six of the ten largest cities the eligible list is made up from the results of an examination given by the superintendent; (2) the uncultured and non-progressive principals and teachers now in service in the schools must, at some former period of time, have been in the judgment of the superintendent, among the best Isolation in the School 23 applicants for certificates. Stress is laid upon these, not for the purpose of entering into a discussion of the rights and duties which should inhere in the office of superintendent, but to indicate the absence of that interaction between the workers and their work which should exist, and which would keep alive the mental process in the individuals of the educational force, so that many of the best among the applicants for certificates would not become inefficient while actually engaged in teaching. The teaching corps in any system of schools will attain a high degree of efficiency only when it is unified by a unity in aim. At first glance, the usual statement of the corps-"Our aim is to educate the children, to make good citizens of them, to fit them to be useful members of society"-seems to indicate a singleness of aim on the part of teachers, principals and superintendents that is encouraging. An interpretation of this statement shows great diversity of opinion as to its meaning. The aim settles down to the carrying out of the course of study. As the superintendent makes the course, the end secured is satisfactory in the degree in which it harmonizes with the superintendent's ideal as projected in the outline. The unity of aim in the three parts of the teaching corps lacks the 24 Isolation in the School -- essential of unity in origin. The more the aim is defined by the superintendent or the principal, the less unity will characterize it in the teaching force. Two objections will be urged against the implication that all should be active, not only in realizing, but in setting, the aim of the school. (I) The school cannot have so many different aims as there are teachers connected with it. If active participation in originating and cooperating means diversity, then this objection is well grounded. (2) Teachers are satisfied with the present method. The relations are pleasant in the system. No one feels downtrodden. Consideration must be shown; teachers are too busy to have the duty of assisting in planning the course of study added to their labors. Anyway, they have no ideals to set up. The problems connected with the development of the individuality of the teacher, and the unification of the aim in the large schools in the cities, were early presented to the minds of some in charge of systems of schools. Various solutions have been suggested. Often the solutions suggested have reminded one of that presented by children in some classes in arithmetic, in which they begin to work for the answer before all the conditions have been Isolation in the Shool 25 considered. One reason why the work in elementary schools has so much dead sameness was brought out some years ago by Superintendent E. E. White, of Cincinnati. The extract is long, but it presents none too fully conditions which still obtain in many schools: "Another problem in graded-school management touches the freedom of the teacher, and may be thus stated: How to subject a corps of teachers to efficient supervision and not reduce them to operatives. "The adoption of a definite course of study, with subdivisions corresponding to the number of classes, all following each other in natural order, necessitates the mastery of each of the successive portions as a preparation for the next higher. When the pupils in the lower grades or classes are sufficiently numerous to occupy several schoolrooms under different teachers, the progress of attainments of the several sections of each grade or class must be sufficiently uniform to enable them to come together in the upper grades or classes. This necessitates a degree of uniformity of instruction, and it is just here that the mechanism of the graded system touches its very life, as the experience of too many of the larger cities plainly shows. To secure this uniformity of instruction the course is mapped out in minute 26 Isolation in the School details, and the time to be devoted to each part, the order in which the steps are to be taken, and even the methods of teaching, are definitely and authoritatively prescribed. As a result the teacher is not free to teach according to his 'conscience and power,' but his high office is degraded to the grinding of prescribed grists, in prescribed quantities, and with prescribed fineness-to the turning of the crank of a revolving mechanism." A large majority of the teachers in every city system are its own graduates. It necessitates a period of five years only, after the establishment of a secondary and a normal school, for a system to begin recruiting its teaching force from those who have never known any other method of education than the one in that particular system. The introduction of teachers from the village and country schools does not advance the standard, as they carry with them neither better scholarship nor greater breadth of experience than that in the corps. The normal schools have exalted method above culture, and so their graduates have been under the sway of the uniform normal method. The spirit of consecration to the work has been a distinguishing characteristic of their graduates. Had the ideal of the work contained more of a "definite, Isolation in the School 27 coherent heterogeneity," the normal school would have conquered the elementary-school world. Naturally there was evolved an extensive "business of supervision," because of the effort to have uniformity in teachers and methods; because of the introduction of subjects which, though not familiar to those trained within the public school, the social life outside of the school made a necessary part of the curriculum; because of the desire of the strong administrative character to guide others rather than to be in the treadmill. In course of time the man at the top began realizing that the specialists and assistants in the work of supervision were trespassing upon his prerogatives. In one city the superintendent maintained that there was a tendency to excessive supervision, and therefore that no title conferred on any other member of the teaching corps should include the term "superintendent," no matter how modified. That city had supervisors of many subjects and supervising principals, thus indicating that the attention of the chief was centered on the form side of the organization; that the fundamental cause of his difficulties had not come to the surface with sufficient distinctness for him to observe it. Superintendent W. H. Maxwell, of New 28 Isolation in the School York city, when at the head of the public schools in Brooklyn, concentrated his attention upon the influence of the theory of supervision, and presented at some length the objections as they appeared to him : "Principals and heads of departments do not teach classes. They are supposed to spend their whole time in supervision. There is one supervisor who does not teach for every eleven classes. In my judgment the number of nonteaching supervisors is unnecessarily large. The excessive development of supervision has resulted in several clearly defined evils in our schools. "First, it has withdrawn from the work of class teaching many of our best teachers, and has thus lessened the efficiency of the teaching force as a whole. "Second, it has created the feeling that office work and making out examination questions are more honorable than the active work of teaching. If teachers are to have a due moral influence on their pupils, their office should be held in highest honor. "Third, the struggle for the prizes that are held up before the eyes of our teachers in the shape of head-of-department places, involving as they do, in most cases, considerably less work and considerably better pay, has resulted Isolation in the School 29 in much unseemly wire-pulling and intrigue, an evil always to be deprecated in the administration of a public-school system. "Fourth, the multiplication of superfluous heads of departments has resulted in division of responsibility in school management, in petty jealousy, and in much harmful interference with the work of class teachers. "Fifth, the unnecessary increase in the number of heads of departments has led to much of the excessive examination of pupils, with its attendant evils of cramming and nervous prostration, that, though now much less than in former years, still hurts our school work. "Sixth, the cost of this supervision, not merely in the salaries of heads of departments, but in the fitting up of elaborate offices with expensive furniture, is withdrawing each year a vast amount of money that is sadly needed for necessary work and material. "A close estimate would show that not less that $30,oo00 per annum is expended on superfluous heads of departments. Surely a better use might be found for this money. " From such facts as are here set forth it appears that in some places general supervision has been carried to too great an extreme, and the only question that remains to be settled is where to draw the line." 30 Isolation in the School These conclusions represent fairly the conditions existing in large systems into which have been introduced subjects under the care of special supervisors. Without criticising the superintendent who has fearlessly set forth the above facts, it becomes necessary to indicate the way in which some of the objectionable conditions originate in the general method of the system. The petty jealousy referred to in the fourth section, whether found in a system or in a single institution, is always evidence that the highest ranking officer is a person in power rather than a person of power. A chief executive devoid of petty jealousy, and refusing to use it as a spur for his subordinates, will find the possibilities of a solidarity among the members of the corps, or faculty, which does not exist in any other calling. Love of knowledge and faith in the future of humanity are in varying degrees peculiar to the minds that elect to teach the young. If the superior officer really consults with heads of departments in open meeting, they will rise from personal considerations to the question of relative values, and will appreciate the various claims as intelligently presented. If, however, authority of position dominates the discussions, or claims are presented and passed upon privately, petty jealousy will sorely per- Isolation in the School 31 plex the head of the system, or school. The first, second, third, and fifth sections are different views of the same topic -- the strong tendency at the present time to get away from the active work of teaching children. Some of the causes of this condition will be discussed later. The sixth section suggests rivalry as to creature comforts and display all along the entire line, and is a natural outcome of the withdrawal from the duties of direct teaching. When the teachers in a single school system are numbered by thousands, and the territory occupied covers many square miles, it is not strange that the size of the army and the spaces between its posts attract more attention than the observance, or non-observance, of those delicate laws which make for souldevelopment in that great social body. Upon a cursory survey of the situation it is natural to conclude that it is impossible to recognize for all teachers the ethical law of change for intelligent and responsible beings. This conclusion, though seemingly of great weight, is valueless. In the first place, the laws governing the development of the soul are not subject to conditions arising in a crudely developed social organization. The laws may be ignored, and the organization may continue, 32 Isolation in the School but at a sacrifice beyond estimation. Daily one sees teachers trying to hold a class to some statement in the text-book that is without content for the pupils, or to a chain of reasoning that is but a form to them, and then, after creating conditions foreign to those under which thought plays freely, say with much You must think. fervor: "Think! Think! Why don't you think ?" How much difference is there between this method of the teachers and that of principals and superintendents who announce their conclusions in theory and their ideals in practice, and then say to the teachers, " Take these thoughts of mine and be original in using them " ? With the stress, the motion, the change, originated always in one part of the organization, and then conveyed to the other in mandatory form, a peculiar reactionary movement has set in. There are few spots where this reactionary movement has such strength that the teachers aim to restrict the function of the school principal to sitting in the office; scolding the tardy, the indolent, and the turbulent; calming the angry parents; keeping the records; examining written work; and filling out blanks and orders for school supplies. Such is the irony of fate that what has been treated as a subordinate part, there claims to be the only part that Isolation in the School 33 functions for the true end of the school. It is the only part that deals directly and constantly with the pupils; the only part that teaches; or, in its own phraseology, "the only part that works." In cities where the teaching corps has become aroused to the evils ensuing from a differentiation that means isolation, there are greater possibilities of a healthful readjustment in the organization than in those where the tension is not definitely recognized, for the members are reaching that point of view from which they see that it is not liberty in carrying out, it is freedom and responsibility in origination also, that will make the whole corps a force, a To predicate freedom for power in itself. teachers in the superintendent's position, or for teachers in the principal's or the supervisor's position, is not sufficient to establish freedom as an essential; it must be predicated for all teachers. To prove that some cannot teach unless they possess freedom is not enough; it must be predicated that freedom belongs to that form of activity which characterizes the teacher. The schools will be purged of the uncultured, non-progressive element, the fetters that bind the thoughtful and progressive will be stricken off, when the work is based on an intelligent understanding of the truth that 34 Isolation in the School freedom is an essential of that form of activity known as the teacher. To formulate a theory for that rational conduct which shall necessitate an interaction between the various parts of the school, and an interplay of thought between the members of each part, is not a difficult task; but when the great body of pupils and students is brought into the foreground, the practical problem seems too intricate to admit of comprehension under any theoretical statement. That the same laws are active in the early and late stages of the development of personality is the fundamental upon which the theory and practice of education must be constructed. The inherited customs which transfigured the teacher, upon entering the class room, into a superior being, omnipotent and all-wise, though abandoned by the understanding, are still active in the practical situation. The conserving influence of forms has been nowhere more marked than in the intercourse between the teacher and the pupils. The oldtime attitude of subserviency, or respect as it was then termed, which the New England child was wont to assume in the presence of the dominie is referred to smilingly in the history recitation ; and yet many years elapsed after the smile had begun, before there dawned Isolation in the School 35 upon the educational horizon the recognition of that social equality which with its customs had long marked the intercourse of the professor and the student, the teacher and the pupil, when outside of the precincts. This single instance of the slow progress of the school in discerning the spirit of those refining movements in the social world which make for a considerate, gracious personality may help to the formation of a faint conception of the retarding influences, which will delay long in the school the application of those laws which permeate the higher forms of social organization and conventions. If mind develops in proportion to the degree in which it operates in accord with its inherent tendency to investigate and apply the results of investigation, then is the conception of education which isolates the pupil from investigation, which should be the basis of application, most faulty. Some years ago the Forum published a series of articles entitled "How I was Educated." The writers were college presidents and well-known literary men. In only one case was commendatory reference made to the school life below the academy. Those dreary years of so-called discipline, destitute of opportunity for activity in accordance with the mental bias, lacking 36 Isolation in the School the stimulus of cooperative work which makes the pupil an organic part of the school, had developed the view which is common to many who have enjoyed the higher education, namely, that the elementary training has no The theory of elementary intrinsic value. education has been greatly modified since the boyhood days of those men. We still halt, however, on the threshold of that world in which each member would be a co-partner in its activities. As the universities bid fair to become the source from which the teaching corps will come largely, the question of its method, of its perpetuation of the influence of isolation, of the degree to which it recognizes the principles underlying that complicated mechanism, civil society, of its manner of presentation and investigation of subject-matter, is a vital one. Does it adopt the kindergarten method, or the high-school method ? Does it perpetuate the method of the university of the Renaissance, or does it seek to objectify the method which experience and science have demonstrated to be based on the modern movement ? The separation of the interests of the student from the life of the world outside attracted attention some years ago, and in course of time it was not uncommon to hear it stated that the Isolation in the School 37 kindergarten method should obtain in the universities. As the kindergartner isolates the kindergarten field from the adjoining one, loses interest in education which has passed the paper-folding and pasting stage, the inquiry as to what the statement meant is germane to the subject under consideration. It must have meant that the universities, realizing the flaw in their great inheritance which tends to isolate them from the concrete life of the race, would adopt the method which would guarantee to all within their walls the exercise of the inherent right to the initiative in thought and action; and this they understand to be the kindergarten method. The school does not stand unsupported, unrecognized, in .the community or the state. Upon a cursory view of the relation existing between these organizations, there appear for the school two aims which are in apparent conflict. Its avowed object is the training of the individuals intrusted to its care and direction. The higher, the more nearly perfect, that training, the deeper the recognition of the right, and the more pronounced the effort to make valid the right of each soul to a development of the inborn power of self-determination. On the other hand, as an institution of society, it must have for its object the direct 38 Isolation in the School contribution of elements of strength to that organization of which it is a component part. Those elements must be the individuals that it helps attain higher degrees of self-determination. These two aims are not in opposition; they are the two phases of the same unity. Neither can be seen in its entirety without a recognition of the other. With the school closely bound by the reason for its existence, to the social world, the logical inference of that relationship would be that in the content of its course of study and the method of its treatment, the life on the outside would be typified. Instead of this, much of the course of study is effete matter, which was long ago rejected as having been made useless by modern thought and invention; and many of the methods of manipulation and application of subject-matter have been rejected by the busy workers outside as cumbersome and needlessly wearisome. The results of isolation from the life that now is may be seen in the kindergarten, which in its inception made a marked advance by the introduction of the social occupations of everyday life into the material of the school. But by the insistence upon the continuation in every country of those forms of activity which were effective in Germany half a century ago, Isolation in the School 39 the kindergarten stands isolated with the tradition that has no culture or experiential value. In the changes in the course of study in the elementary schools is given a striking illustration of a great social institution upon which depended the progress of the people, held back and finally criticised and minimized because its leaders persisted through many years in treating existing conditions as fixed, determined, and new conditions as hostile to the true idea of universal education. As special schools of instruction or technology demonstrated the value of material not included in, or modes of procedure foreign to, the old, the new was taken on as additional, not vital. The increase in the demands upon teachers in preparation for teaching many subjects not related, and in examining papers to make certain that no incidentals had escaped the memories of their pupils, developed a high degree of drudgery throughout. This subjection to drudgery was compensated for by the introduction of the terms "faithful" and "conscientious" as applicable to those who devoted themselves to perfecting the dull routine. What was the influence of this magnification of drudgery upon the personnel of the teaching corps ? This question brings forward the sub- 40 Isolation in the School ject of the remarkable decrease in the number of men teachers, and corresponding increase in the number of women teachers, in city elementary schools. Undoubtedly many causes operated to produce the change, but this was the most potent in affecting the personnel of both the number and type. In a course of lectures on The Development of Reflective Thought, Professor George H. Mead gives an historical setting to this subject of drudgery in method : " In the ancient world the workman wrought under dictation as to method. Freeman and slave sat side by side, using the tools as custom of religion dictated. The great change begun in the mediaeval period consisted in man's becoming free as to method. As industrial conditions expanded and competition made necessary progress in invention and advance in the manner of production, the first requisite of success was individual freedom for the worker in his method. From that assertion of the individual as to his method, the idea that he owned his spirit, himself, gradually developed into a new conception of freedom, a conception of the natural Woman is far behind man in rights of man." conception as applied to woman, and in this so far as she is deficient in a conception of the inherent right of a soul to its right to in- Isolation in the School 41 dividuality in method of expression in work done under supervision, in that degree is she more easily subordinated to carrying out directions involving method. The Civil War diverted some men from the schools, though before that there were city systems in which not a man taught in elementary schools in a position below that of principal; the possibilities of financial success in the professions of law and medicine, as well as in mercantile life, have tended to draw men away from the elementary schoolroom; yet these influences have not been more potent in keeping men out of the schools than have the mechanism, drudgery, and loss of individuality which the method of organization and administration has tended to make characteristic of the graded school. Although natural gifts, the equality of the sexes in many American homes, a strong individuality, the pursuance of intellectual work outside of the school, all combined to keep a large percentage of women teachers and principals free, yet a number large enough to be conspicuous has never attained that conception of freedom which makes demands upon the powers of origination in each individual. It is these undeveloped teachers, principals, and members of the supervising force who exercise 42 Isolation in the School the right of dictation of method thus elevating it far above material, who constitute the nonprogressive section of the teaching force in the city school systems. It is this non-progressive element which fills the places into which many desirable young men and women refuse to enter. With the broader education of woman and the opening of other fields to her, she is attaining a conception of freedom as to method; a conception of the natural rights of the soul; and so we find the young woman of parts from the high school, the college, or the university unwilling to enter upon the life of the elementary school teacher. The young men who look toward the schools wish to undertake some new line of work, not of instruction, but of investigation; to measure and weigh the little ones with machines. The young women of parts wish to be special teachers - to teach the teachers, not the children. So closely associated with drudgery is the. ideal of teaching the young, that trained minds and cultivated personalities shrink from entrance into the direct work. The stress of conditions has become so great both within and without the precincts that relief must come soon. The active cause of this problematic condition has not come to the surface. The isolation between the theory of the school and the theory of life is so great solation in the School 43 that the general consensus of opinion advocates the retention in the school of subject-matter and forms of work which it will not tolerate in the commercial world or home. So foreign is the school life to the interests of the parents that they rarely enter its doors on other than gala days. And yet the large numbers that throng its halls on those days evidence the tendency in human nature to cooperate in making the life of the young a unity, in which the school and the home shall be interactive. The difference in origin, subject-matter, and aim of the course of study in the public high school and the private preparatory school was brought out very distinctly by Dr. William T. Harris, Commissioner of Education, in a paper on "Secondary School Studies": "There is no doubt that the high-school course laid out by the school committees is more rational than the secondary course of the private preparatory schools prescribed for them by the colleges. And yet the college course was the conscious product of the highest educated minds of the community. The unconscious evolution by 'natural selection' in the minds of school committees elected by the people was wiser, on the whole. Individual members of city school boards are always found who oppose classical studies altogether. But the pressure 44 Isolation in the School of popular demand always prevails to secure in the public schools what is needed." With the early introduction of specialization in student life, it is impossible to place the college in its present relation to the social world. Such new forms and subjects of investigation have been taken up that society seems the subject-matter of the higher schools. Whether Mr. Bosanquet's prediction to the effect that the distinguishing characteristic of our times will be the "dimming of the timehonored belief in the virtues of the poor " will prove true is a question that cannot now be settled. But that mere statement by such a student of social conditions arouses the mind to investigate and determine whether the old form of separation that so long dominated the universities is still effective in the new field, or whether there be a new construction active in defining society and the laws underlying it. Isolation in any social organization means more than separation in space. It means deprivation of the exercise of inherent powers, both originative and constructive - negation. Co6peration means more than spontaneity in following another's lead; evolution of potential powers through a reaction, initiated by the self and terminating in creative intelligence, is always involved in its operation. II. SOME RECENT CONSTRUCTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGIC, ETHIC, AND LOGICAL MODES THAT MUST BE RECOGNIZED THE IN A RATIONAL CONDUCT OF SCHOOL. psychologist of today is laying stress on modes of action that received little attention from the student of mental science in the past. That almost total neglect was somewhat remarkable, for fhe reason that the nonscientific of high and low grade of culture recognized them and held definite opinions regarding their signification. The value of those opinions is enhanced in our estimation by the fact that the old terminology is in the main retained by the scientific investigators, who are gathering and organizing data as, to the origin and function of imitation, habit, and attention; and, in so doing, are not only modifying and enlarging popular theory as to these modes of action, but are also constructing scientific theory. One of the earliest and fullest studies of imitation was made by Aristotle in The Poetic. In that work he bases his theory of the drama and kindred arts on imitation. The school of THE 46 Isolation in the School modern artists and litterateurs which regards the function of art to be the exact reproduction of the model is small, though the number of persons who accept the two causes of imitation as given by Aristotle is very large. Even when the psychologist began to look upon this activity as one which fell within his province, he accepted the delight of man in imitation, and his enjoyment of successful imitations, as sufficient explanation of its origin or cause. Certain modifications were noted as affecting the degree to which the attempt to copy is carried; as, for example, an energetic child is said to be more imitative than is a lethargic child, though the question as to the ratio of imitated acts to the whole activity in the different classes was neither raised nor answered. The influence of environment on these two types of children was not considered, though it would have furnished suggestive material as to the causes of the types. Another factor which was taken into account was the emotional temperament which had very early attracted the attention of the student of abnormal tendencies. The tendency of the less independent and the non-assertive child to copy unconsciously the absurdities of others, and the general use of mimicry as a means of Isolation in the Schnool 47 ridicule, have been the cause of the unexpressed opinion that the imitator takes the objectionable for a model. Aristotle treats this from a somewhat different standpoint. He says, since imitators imitate, then it necessarily follows that they imitate those who are better than, or worse than, or like unto, themselves, and urges the presentation of the best possible as model for the imitator. Had he been writing in the present analytic age, he would have suggested the probability that the copy taken indicated the moral motif of the imitator. The most important outcome of these various popular studies was the setting up of an antithesis with originality and invention on one side, and imitation on the other. This antithesis has long been, and still is, the basis of popular educational theory, which would devote the years of elementary training of children to the making of careful reproductions of the copy set by the teacher, and then would advance to higher forms of intellectual work, forms requiring power in individual origination and invention, those who had sufficient strength to rise above the influence of the practice of the theory under which they had been trained. Very different is the method of approach 48 Isolation in the School to this subject made by Baldwin in Mental Development. Making use of investigations of the biologists he says : " The effect of imitation is to make the brain a 'repeating organ,' i. e., to secure the repetitions which on all biological theories the organ must have if it is to develop;" and from this he brings out the point that "a child under limitations of heredity makes up its personality by imitation, out of the copy set in the actions, tempers, emotions, of the persons who build around him the social inclosure of his childhood." Here is met the question about the influence of environment in imitation which was so completely ignored by the earlier investigators. Satisfactory as is the recognition of this factor, one cannot help wishing that the analysis had gone deeper so that the spontaneous activity at the beginning of the process would have been brought out more clearly. The treatment of stimulation is such that, inferentially, imitation begins with a reaction on the stimulus in the environment, rather than in the original impulse which selects and then reacts. The summary of the results of neurological research brings out very distinctly this point of origin: "Wherever there is life there is spontaneous selection of stimuli and Isolation in the School 49 the motor adaptations necessary to it." This is in the section on Organic Imitation; but in the section on " How to Observe Children's Imitations" the uncertainty of origin again becomes evident. There is a return to that form of speech which, like Spencer's, makes the environment an all-powerful influence, and seems to forget the persisting traits in the individual which are the basis of native reactions. He says "In Leibnitz's phrase, the boy or girl is a social monad, a little world, which reflects the whole system of influences, coming to stir its sensibility," and then emphasizes it by adding: "Just in so far as his sensibilities are stirred he imitates." All of this, however does not minimize the value of his study in demonstrating the truth that there is no antithesis between originality and imitation, but that invention is an outgrowth of imitation. Three elements are involved in the development of the original out of the imitative : "the new ways" in which one imitates; "the combinations he hits upon" when imitating freely; "the growth of self" through the consciousness of power discovered in varying the copy. To come more definitely at the gain accruing from this recent analysis of imitation and its development into invention, there must be borne in mind the general 50 Isolation in the School attitude toward this mode of action. The question of imitation was viewed largely as one of temperament and will, hence, if a good copy was set, then the more closely it was imitated, the nearer the result approached the desired aim, and the better the worker as an imitator. The independent, self-assertive person did not imitate anything or anybody. This division into imitators and non-imitators ignored the elements involved in the evolution of originality and inventive power. The independent individual, it was assumed, did nothing which he saw others doing. Hence it was as necessary for him to deny imitation as it was to claim invention. The transfiguring power of the self and the dependence of the individual upon others were lost to view. The modern psychologist has thus shown the growth of mental power, even in so primary an activity as imitation, to depend upon the modification which the mind of the imitator originates. Instead of striving to develop mind in a field isolated from that which would furnish opportunity for the native mental powers to exercise their natural sphere, the latest formulation of thought would make it the right of the opening mind to an environment which not only furnishes the better standards for imitation, but also affords opportunity for free play Isolation in the .School 51 to that tendency to give the individual touch to the product. This will work disaster to the idea that a new method must be devised for doing all things when the transition is made from the lower school to the higher, or to the Greater than that, it will world outside. recognize the individuality which is embodied in the developing personality; it will recognize that something which, if it have an opportunity to expand, makes each soul conscious of its kinship with the eternal. With the appearance of Dr. William B. Carpenter's work on Mental Physiology, in I874, there was given a setting to the relation between mind and body which, he hoped, would stimulate some other investigator to develop "that science of human nature which has yet to be built-up on a much broader basis than any philosopher has hitherto taken as his foundation." In a most valuable chapter on habit he opened the subject by calling attention to the well-known laws underlying the construction and rejuvenation of the vegetable and animal organism in the process of nutrition. Probably no reader of that succinct statement found in it anything which was before unknown; and yet, after the application of those familiar facts and principles to the activity of the nervous system of man, a new point of view 52 Isolation in the School was held from which to consider habit in the mental life, and particularly in the formative period of childhood and youth. Within the last quarter of a century the subject has been discussed by English, French, German, and American writers, from the same standpoint as that taken by Dr. Carpenter. From the position that repetition makes modes of action easier, and often automatic, there was an advance step made when the scientist raised the question: Why does the nerve current traverse a certain path the first time ? The answers first offered were not satisfactory. The failure lay in the attempt to base the explanation on a conception that limited habit to a purely physiological basis. James raises the question in his well-known chapter on "Habit" and concludes his answer with the following comment: "All this is vague to the last degree, and amounts to little more than saying that a new path may be formed by the sort of chances that in nervous material are likely to occur. But vague as it is, it is really the last word of our wisdom in the matter." The question raised did not interest his readers to any great extent. The chapter contained enough that was definite. Like Dr. Carpenter, after presenting the subject from the physiological side, he uses all the force of that pres- Isolation in the School 53 entation to arouse his readers to the ethical nature of the habitual mode of activity. The necessity for establishing automatism in control of the petty details and the daily duties of life is painted in vivid colors. The chapters written by these two brilliant men are decided contributions to psychological and ethical theory; and yet, in neither does the writer rise to that command of the subject which shows that the initiative and the habit, the cause that makes the nerve-current traverse a certain path the first time and the repetition of the act, are the two aspects of a unity. The common failure of long-continued dictated repetition to set up a habit, gave no light in regard to this process. Dr. Carpenter speaks of "the strength of the organic tendency which produces the persistence," just missing the explanation of the point involved, the origin of the organic tendency. The investigations of biology have been pushed a step beyond the advance position attained by Dr. Carpenter when he concluded that "there was strong reason for attributing inherent motility to some kinds of muscular tissue," to the position which makes that inherent motility, that tendency to movement for the maintenance of life, a characteristic of life. To the non-scientific mind this statement of that which in the light of to- 54 Isolation in the School day is involved in the conclusions of the scientist of yesterday seems a mere play upon words. It is, however, in restatements of truths with a transfer of emphasis that new meanings are given the old, and the doors to the worlds of nature and of thought are opened wider, giving to humanity a broader view of the structure and mechanism of the universe. Following some principles of current biology and psychology to their logical outcome, Baldwin in Mental Development has taken up the question, "What made the current traverse the path the first time ?" and has worked out a very definite, not vague, answer : "' Habit expresses the tendency of the organism to secure and to retain its vital stimulations. On this view, a habit begins before the movement which illustrates it actually takes place; the organism is endowed with a habit, if that be not considered a contradiction. Its life-process involves just the tendency which habit goes on to confirm and to extend. The process of habit, having as its end the maintenance of a condition of stimulation, is set in train by the initial stimulus. And the discharge of it in the path which again 'hits' the stimulus is the function of this stimulus rather than another, and reflects, exactly and Isolation in the School 55 alone, the fact that then and there is a stimulus whose influence upon the vital processes is good." Here we have a rational explanation of the conditions underlying the formation of habits. Not by chance, not by the imposition of an external command, does the first movement along the nerve structure take this or that direction. Here we find an explanation of the frequent failure to make a mode of action habitual by repetition. The same criticism which was made on a lapse into uncertainty regarding the beginnings of imitation applies to the study of habit, in Social and Ethical Interpretations in Mental Development, especially in the discussion of the moral sense. If "we do right by habitually imitating a larger self whose injunctions run counter to the tendencies of our partial selves," then is there a begging of the analogy between the development of the organism as taught by biology, and the development of mind as taught by psychology. It is hoped that upon making his next essay into the fields to which he has let down the bars, this versatile student of mental development will think the conclusions of his general statements into, and through, the particular activities to which they apply in education and ethics. And yet, in the main, he establishes the analogy from which we de- 56 Isolation in the School duce the principle: whether it be largely physical or largely mental, the same law holds in regard to an individual mode of action becoming habitual; within the being -the individual -must originate the tendency to acquire control, to make automatic the easy carriage, the clean-cut enunciation, the gentle manner, the careful observation, the accurate statement, the magnanimous judgment. The habit unconsciously acquired is often to its possessor (if he would know himself), or to the intelligent observer, an indication -sometimes a revelation-of hitherto undreamed-of potentiality; its antagonist, the habit which will not form, is equally valuable as a revealer of conditions. The recognition of the origin of habit in the tendency leads to the construction of a new conception of the method of change of habit. The idea that objectionable habits are to be " broken " develops into a new one, that the individual trait which persists, together with control gained by exercise of the old habit, must be reorganized for the attainment of the new end, set by the individual. This new conception, instead of presenting destruction as the outcome of reformation, strengthens the self-respect by the requirement to search for the elements of power, and then utilize them in the new mode. The dull Isolation in the School 57 routine of trying to form habits by wearisome repetitions, the discouraging process of trying to overcome the enemy, the old habit, only to find it upon the first lapse of vigilance reinstated in full sway, must give way to a higher type of activity. The individual must, under the stimulus of interest in a consciously originated and defined end, utilize inherited and acquired tendencies and powers in organizing and reorganizing for its attainment. The satisfaction that comes with exercise along lines that are peculiar to the individual will be secured by everyone, in greater or less degree, through automatic action. But whether this shall reduce the life to a narrow mechanism that stifles and dwarfs, or shall expand the life into a developing process that inspires and enlarges, depends upon the origination and construction of the end or aim by which the tendency is called into action. A third subject on which there has been excellent work done in modern psychology is attention. Parents and pedagogues have from time immemorial called upon the child with the wandering gaze or listless attitude to pay attention. The physical signs have been so easily interpreted that from those alone the inattentive mind was detected. And yet the adult has often been amazed to find, at a later 58 Isolation in the School period, that the amount retained by the seemingly attentive was little in comparison with that controlled by the inattentive. The English school of psychology, from Locke down to Carpenter, did not think the subject a profitable one for investigation. The only object in referring to their failure to recognize this activity is to emphasize the prevalence and influence of their attitude at this late day. If the general consensus of opinion as to the relation between mind-wandering and attention were taken, it would be found to embody the idea that in trying to follow oral discourse the mind of the listener can often be kept from wandering by the mechanical repetition of the words of the speaker. Here, in a nutshell, is the perversity of the theory which often makes dullards of the young. What value is it to keep the mind from wandering if it is tethered to words, not intelligence ? The failure to distinguish sharply between the discriminating alertness of attention and the undistinguishing passivity of the mere repetition of words is due, probably, to the non-recognition of the activity of feeling, as well as of intellect, in the process of attention. This over-emphasizing the function of the intellect, and ignoring that of feeling, must have taken its rise in the philosophy of the Stoics. The characteristics Isolation in the School 59 of the ideal of attention it involves are isolation of the individual attending from the content of that to which he attends. Placing the origin of the generally accepted theory of attention in that system of thought, we have an easy explanation of that attitude toward the process of attention which omits the feeling aspect. In the reaction against this generally accepted idea of attention there have developed different modes of viewing the activity. Among the different theories advanced is one which bases attention on interest. The keen obse'rver of people uses various expressions in which attention and interest are associated. "They will not give attention because they have lost interest;" "Because he cannot get them interested they will not attend ;" " It is evident that they are losing interest, for they are giving attention by fits and starts." These expressions raise the question whether interest is the base upon which attention rests, or is the emotional, or feeling, aspect of attention. Whether it be base or aspect, it certainly is not merely a forerunner whose activity ceases when that of attention begins. In a recent article on "Reflective Attention,"' intrinsic interest is made the basis of spontaneous attention, and a ' DEWEY, in the Elementary School Record. 60 . Isolation in the School query or doubt the basis of voluntary or reflective attention. It is a new presentation of the origin and process of this activity. The part of this article which specially conterns the study herein made is in regard to the origination of voluntary attention: "The problem is one's own; hence also the impetus, the stimulus to attention, is one's own; hence also the training secured is one's own-it is discipline, or gain in power of control." Here again is a process familiar to unscientific thought, stated on its functional side by science; and that function is self-development, growth, not through the effort to achieve an end which was dictated by another, but through the effort to secure an end which the self has determined. In these three modes of activity which have been briefly reviewed, it is evident that in the most modern point of view regarding the development of the individual the first essential is the recognition of teleological aspect in every form of mental activity. In this recognition there is necessitated that play of the mental powers which is according to nature, and which, therefore, makes the individual attain to the highest degree of strength possible for him. This free play of thought cannot 'go on if the individual is isolated from Isolation in the School 6I the consideration of the ends for which his life is spent. A co6peration in determining the ends for which life is spent is necessary to the evolution of mind. James has expressed the theory of teleological functioning so well that I quote his remarks at some length: "The reflex theory of the mind commits physiologists to regarding the mind as an I mean essentially teleological mechanism. by this that the conceiving or theorizing faculty -- the mind's middle departmentfunctions exclusively for the sake of ends that do not exist at all in the world of impressions we receive by way of our senses, but are set by our emotional and practical subjectivity altogether. It is a transformation of the world of our impressions into a totally different world, the world of our conception; and the transformation is effected in the interests of our volitional nature, and for no other purpose whatever. . . . We easily delude ourselves about this middle stage. Sometimes we think it final, and sometimes we fail to see amid the monstrous diversity in the length and complication of the cogitations which may fill it that it can have but one essential function-the function of defining the direction which our activity, immediate or remote, shall take." 62 Isolation in the School "'Receiving impressions' to all eternity would never result in developing what we call The active response, the forthputting 'mind.' of the mind's own powers according to its own constitution, is the prominent and the really impressive thing for the psychologist." It is a commonplace that on each new step in the progress of humanity are found certain words which are ever afterward identified with the particular period in which they were brought forward. One of those characteristic terms in psychologic and ethic theory of today is activity. For a time we had the compound "self-activity," but the "self" has gradually been eliminated from this distinguishing word, which is used with varying degrees of looseness and definiteness. Mr. Bradley, in a chapter devoted to activity, lays stress upon the time-sequence involved, which, he very justly says, is necessary if the use of the term retains sense. "The element in its meaning, which comes to light at once, is succession and change. In all activity something clearly "Activity seems becomes something else." to be self-caused change. A transition that begins with and comes out of the thing itself is the process where we feel that it is activity. But the thing cannot act unless the act is occasioned; then the transition, so far, is Isolation in the School 63 imported into it by something outside. If we look at the process as the coming out of its nature, the process is its activity." Although Mr. Bradley does not seem satisfied with this analysis of the term, yet it presents fairly or suggests the answer to the question : What is the nature of activity, a process which transfigures a cause into something different? So easily is a term formulated and its essential principle so soon obscured that it seemed best at this point to call attention directly to this distinguishing idea of the present day, in order that the recognition of its vital element be assured. Dealing, as psychology does, with the mechanism by which we come to know the world in its material and spiritual aspects, it forms the basis of our knowledge of mind in its development. Its problems, however, are less difficult than those of ethics; the conditions of the first lie in the individual only, while those of the second underlie the relations of individuals. The adult, sustaining the relation of teacher or parent, in using his knowledge of psychology as an instrument in the process of the education of others, occupies an intermediate ground which might be called the ethico-psychological. Some questions rising in that territory have been considered generally in the discussion of the 64 Isolation in the School Further study will be made term "activity." in the domain of social ethics only. The tenor of all that is here offered will be in accord with Thomas Hill Green's Prolegomena to Ethics, a book from which I have received much stimulus for thought on this subject. No attempt will be made to enter into a discussion of all questions that may be subsumed under this subject. Only three will be considered : the nature of a free cause in the intellectual and moral life; the motives of change; the relations between individuals engaged in setting and realizing a common aim. One of the benefits which must ensue ere long from the introduction of scientific method into the way which man approaches the problems, not only in the physical world, but in the moral also, will be a removal of the chains which more or less closely bind him to a belief in fixed mechanism. As generally understood, the relation of cause and effect, as applied to man, means that a uniformly antecedent event (or cause) determines a uniformly This make him consequent event (or effect). a mere link in a chain. Analysis shows that the manner of the origin of the cause determines the vitality of the movement. If "the cause or motive is constituted by an act of Isolation in the School 65 self-consciousness which is not a natural event, an act in which the agent presents to himself a certain idea of himself-of himself doing or himself enjoying-as an idea of which the realization forms for the time his good," the whole movement will be removed from the sphere of a fixed and narrow mechanism, the individual will not be a link in a chain, or a cog in a wheel. Though in the main we indorse Shakespeare's theory of the continuity of cause and effect in humanity-"There is a history in all men's lives Figuring the nature of the times deceased : The which observed, a man may prophesy With a near aim, of the main chance of things As yet not come to life, which in their seeds And weak beginnings lie intreasurdd. Such things become the hatch and brood of time." yet there is one possibility unexpressed by the poet, and that is the activity of the human being as a free cause. A new but potent "occasion" may be of so powerful a nature as to rouse in the resulting activity elements which were latent, and the actor may give to himself, and hence to his acts, a different and undreamed-of character. Now, this new trait in things not yet come to life comes, not from the man's or woman's cutting aloof from the "determined world as a whole," but "from his acting 66 Isolation in the School absolutely from himself in the action through By and through the which that world is." man's action as a " free cause" the character of those things which in their seeds lie intreasurdd, as well as the character of the man, is Not to effect the given a new determination. acts and the self is to be a mechanical cause. It seems hardly necessary to say that in the case where the man acts as a free cause not only is there a different quality of hatch and brood of time, but man himself is a different man. The dull routine that becomes a part of life when the human being is a cause not distingished from the determined world in which it acts, simply stifles the potentialities which lie dormant in that soul. Instead of being an organic part of the community of life to which the man should belong, he is isolated as a part of its mechanism. The motives underlying a change are closely interwoven with those of free cause and the setting of the common aim, but they may be profitably analyzed. There are three widely different motives, leading to a change in the mode of thought and its expression. Either one of these, acting alone, may apparently induce the same result that would follow from one of the others. The lowest of the three is that fear which denies to a soul the right to its Isolation in the School 67 own ideals, and makes the self set up the ideals of another for realization. A second motive leading some to change their theory and practice, is the love of novelty. The soul, having no ideals of its own to realize, lacks that guiding star which would draw it ever upward, and so looks now here, now there for a new object to pursue. It is not uncommon for lovers of novelty to attempt the most radical changes upon a few hours' notice. The third and highest motive inducing change in thought and action is that based on a conviction that the present is barren, and a better is attainable. The germs of progress are sown in this soil. The conception of a better may at first be dim, but it will become more and more clearly defined as the soul searches for that which it desires. Whether the result of a change shall be a copy, lacking permanent individual, vitalizing force; or shall be an erratic offshoot, leading to nothing; or shall be an outward expression of a persistent, individual, developing ideal, depends upon the motivation of the change; whether it be fear or subserviency, the love of novelty, or conviction and desire. The relapse from a seeming high plane of living and thinking to a former low plane is the reaction from a change that was determined by one of the 68 Isolation in the School lower forms of motives. The individual may inhibit tendencies and habits for a long time, but mere inhibition neither points the way nor leads to higher realms. It is unnecessary to appeal further to experience as regards the influence of the motive for change on the character of the result, and on the character of the individual. The next topic-the relation of individuals in setting a common aim-is a continuation of the question of cause and free cause. Character and conduct stand to each other in the relation of the theory and practice of life. If they are divorced, that is, if the idea which is the motive of conduct is not a construction of the reason and feelings, is instead a photographic reproduction of another's construction, the conduct which eventuates is not the second part of a unity, the expression of the originating and constructing activity of the soul. The reproduction will serve as an occasion for action, but not for that action, that conduct, which is the objectification of " man's consciousness of himself as an end to himself." The conduct will not be an index of the animating principle of the man. To lose sight of the necessary integration of the two is to lose sight of the process which makes for (or against) life itself. This process is essentially Isolation in the School 6c the same for all, the weak as well as the strong. The "absolutely desirable" for man taken from its individual or particularistic setting becomes the universal called the good. The good has a dual character: as an ideal it is an impelling force, urging from within that it must realize itself; as a motive it is a drawing power, urging from without that spirit enter into and take possession of that to which it gave original determination. In this action, as an internal and as an external power, the end of the good is recognized by the will as a subjective construction and as an independent object. Or, to express it differently, the practical activity of the idea has to deal with an object which it knows has not existence; it likewise knows the determined end to be in the mind; and the object to be something external to the self. To the individuals making up a community in which for each the " absolutely desirable" is the character behind the conduct, the effort of each to better himself would make absolutely necessary a social life in which the life-process would have its fullest opportunity, for the ideal always tends to realize itself in action. An ideal is not, as is generally assumed, an ethereal something which has no connection with the practical 7o Isolation in the School side of life. It is the ideal which is behind every act of the will, and which by its insistence upon realization gives color and tone to our whole mental life. On the other hand, to the individuals making up a community in which the " absolutely desirable" of an assertive man or woman is the animating spirit of the conduct of all, the social requirement would not be a necessity, for the life-process in character and conduct would not exist; the assertively selfish would be more selfish, the timidly weak would be made weaker. What is true of the influence of that type of mind which revels in seeing its aims set up as the aim of the members of a social community whose occupations differ, and hence who have other stimuli of thought and action, is true in a much greater degree when the members belong to an organization, working within prescribed limits. The stated object of the organization, and the acceptance of that statement, in a measure commits all the members to a common creed; and in just so far as the many phrase their theories and beliefs as they have been phrased for them will there be a weakening of the individual effort to read new elements into the This does not theory upon which they act. necessitate an abandonment of the institutions Isolation in the School 71 of society, neither does it imply a lack of personal freedom because of the institutions. It does, however, emphasize the need for conditions in all institutions and organizations which shall call into action the intellectual power, as well as the spontaneity of feeling, in every member, from the least responsible to the executive at the top. Neither egoism nor altruism is the principle which makes the lifeprocess. The two are but the different phases which, combined, make for that order of society which strengthens both the weak and the strong. As John Stuart Mill expresses it: "The very corner stone of an education intended to form great minds must be the recognition of the principle that the object is to call forth the greatest possible quantity of intellectual power, and to inspire the intensest love of truth; and this without a particle of regard to the results to which the exercise of that power may lead, even though it should conduct the pupil to opinions diametrically opposite to those of his teachers. We say this, not because we think opinions unimportant, but because of the immense importance which we attach to them; for in proportion to the degree of intellectual power and love of truth which we succeed in creating is the certainty that (whatever may happen in any one partic- 72 Isolation in the School ular instance) in the aggregate of instances true opinions will be the result; and intellectual power and practical love of truth are alike impossible where the reasoner is shown his conclusions and informed beforehand that he is expected to arrive at them." It is necessary to keep in view this element of intellectual activity because of the generally accepted idea of morality, and of obedience to its established laws or rules, which are often merely specific directions. It is the independent play of the intellect (the logical process) which makes order a necessity in what sometimes seems like a world of chaos; and yet to the great majority the terms "free activity," " freedom," imply anarchy. The discussion of these terms will be carried on many years before they will be understood in their true significance. It is with " freedom" as with the "state of nature," which was long a favorite term with writers on Neither, correctly interpolitical topics. preted, means that humanity has only to be removed from the restrictions of social organizations to become perfect. Each recognizes the potentialities of the soul, and the tendency toward orderliness which persists in its general movement; each has in view the possibility of freedom -a higher type of self-control than has yet been Isolation in the School 73 seen in any civil community. True freedom regards the social law as something which, permeating the whole social fabric, lays upon each member obligations to high thinking and right living, and also guarantees the exercise of the individual's right to determine himself. The divine law is the universal toward which freedom tends. The aim and end of education should be the development of intellectual power that makes for order, not through skepticism and anarchy, but through faith and freedom according to the law of being. In reviewing the attitude of modern thought toward the subject of activity, we must make one venture into the domain of logic. From the formulation of the doctrine of the syllogism by Aristotle until the early part of the present century, a scientific statement, a judgment, was not considered fully established unless it could be proved that it conformed to the syllogistic process. At the present day the syllogism is not held in high repute. Modern logic is presented as a study of the way in which mind reasons, infers, judges, abstracts, and generalizes; it insists upon two things as necessary: the mind must have concepts, ideas, and must use these ideas so that they will develop in the act of judging. An account of the steps by which the logician, 74 Isolation in the School after discerning the errors in ancient and mediaeval theory, has reached this position in a struggle of fifty years, would demonstrate the need for patience in surveying the rate at which the race progresses toward the attainment of truth. While the nineteenth-century logicians have been evolving theory based on these two essentials, popular opinion has clung to scholastic logic with its finished concepts, and its manipulation of these for the purpose of comparison and classification. The origination and the process of judging have not been considered as necessarily concerned with the evolution of mental power. According to popular theory, the initiative in the formal act has its rise in the obedient will, rather than in a state of tension induced in the mind by a doubt as to the unity of a simple fact, or complex of facts, and an explanatory comprehensive idea under which the facts, apparently, seem to gather. While it is true that the doubt may be occasioned by hearing another state the doubt as existing in his mind, yet it is not a doubt for the first person before his thoughtmovement is arrested by the question suggested. But having the tension made conscious, there is still not the act of judging if the doubt is disposed of by reference to a fixed Isolation in the School 75 idea. According to the lectures' upon which the following is based, when the idea is used unconsciously and without examination, we get simple apprehension only. Simple apprehension must be recognized as a mode of activity, but too long has it been confounded with the act of judgment. The trouble is, particularly in institutional life, that, these processes being treated as identical, the subordinate individual is in a state of arrested development. He believes that he passes judgment on the inception of affairs and their conduct which are vital to the object for which the institution exists, when he merely refers new questions to a fixed idea for subsumption. The one in command is in a different state of arrested development; one resulting from the lack of stimuli originating in judging the judgments of others which may be opposed to his own. The tyranny of an intellectual superiority is immeasurably severer than that of social class superiority. Co6peration in the realm of mind is of much slower growth than cooperation in the world of labor. The trained intellect isolated from the less formally trained fears the approach of an "intellectual democracy." The first step in enlarging the mental power 'DEWEY, Unpublished Lectures on Logic. 76 Isolation in the School of the mass of people living in civilization must be the change of this fear to faith in the latent tendency of the human mind to develop in accord with the divine mind. Instead of an acceptance of simple apprehension as the type of judgment best suited for those not gifted with the strong individualistic tendencies which make for social right-living, the great must make themselves greater through urging forward to the exercise of judgment those who through youth or subordination may tend to accept an ideal of the superior in age or position as the unvarying standard. The educated men and women who are accomplishing something, who are making the world more wholesome, never screen themselves behind an intellectual sentimentalism which fears a day when the poor in their hours of labor, as well as of rest from the struggle for life, will enjoy the things of the mind, because of a sturdy mentality. It is not the fact that the less strong distinguish between the fixed and fluid ideas that makes a part of the race decadent; it is that the supposedly strong cannot so distinguish when brought face to face with life in the institutions of society. Leaving the topic of simple apprehension, the question arises: What is the process of judging as analyzed by modern thought ? It Isolation in the School 77 originates, as does simple apprehension, in doubt, but instead of fitting new things to an old idea, it sets up an interaction. The subject of the judgment is not a something given, as the subject by a process outside of the judgment. Its given quality is something that judgment itself gives it. It is that which is taken as the basis for further investigation. This does not mean that the given will not be transformed by the process. It will be transformed. The given is data in scientific sense. Here we have, not a something carefully described by another, and this description, without analysis, set up as the subject of a judgment, but the very thing given assuming a functional activity when the process of judging begins. It is not laid in a form prescribed by the old school of logicians, to be pressed under another. It arouses the intellect to an activity somewhat like attention in the psychologic process. The traits in the subject that bear on the doubt are selected as material for the new experience which will come out of the whole act. This subject is made more definite as its place in the whole situation becomes plainer. A point in moral or educational theory cannot form the subject of a judgment if it is kept isolated from the practical situation that obtains, and is treated as unrelated to the 78 Isolation in the School past and present. It must make evident a reality which is to be placed in a system. But where is the interaction, between what ? Between the subject, the question, the statement that has raised the doubt, and the predicate, the fluid idea. The subject is not mere existence, and the predicate, idea, or meaning set over against existence. Such a distinction is misleading; it seems to indicate that the two, existence and meaning, are separated, and the problem is how to unite them. They, the subject and predicate, represent the same reality or experience, the same system. They are a distinction of aspects, not of portions or elements. They are not distinguished before the act of judging begins, but it having begun, then the points of identity are established by the comparison of similar qualities in the presentation and the conception; the points of difference are established in the same way. That comparison shall result in clear distinction, the mind must consciously set for itself the problem of determining the relative values of a certain definite phase of the unity involved in the subject and predicate. The activity in deciding what the uncertainty is, and then using and rejecting necessary and unnecessary elements which the mind marshals before itself, and finally gather- Isolation in the School 79 ing the results into one unity, is that functioning of the judgment which is in the natural process of the evolution of mental power. In this process the individual adds to his mental content by the classification always of the present capital, and by the demands made often upon that which was not previously known to him. In judgment, as treated by the latest scientific study, the two factors, individuality, and action and reaction, that is cooperation, are made indispensable; the individuality lies largely in the origination; the cooperation is the interchange between the situation as it is presented and the full, fuller, knowledge of the objective realm in which the elements which aroused doubtful condition have their free play. Each of the various processes herein discussed originates in an activity which is the natural mode of expression of the individual, and is the positive influence in the continued evolution of the native powers until their decline sets in through disease or senility. Each may have its motif in an activity which is a quasi-natural mode of expression of the individual, and a quasi-positive influence in a development which is arrested before the native powers have reached maturity. Habits formed through the effort of the self to acquire 80 Isolation in the School control of the impulses which seek for expression; attention trained through the effort to bring under control in the focus of vision images which press forward ; judgment developed through the effort to identify and to differentiate qualities in two widely different aspects of a unity, are evolutionary. In such formation of habits, training of attention, and development of judgment, the self directs every part of the organization, physical and mental, concerned in securing an end which is at first dimly suggested by the impulses, the interests, the doubts. As the activity goes on seemingly inharmonious tendencies gradually reinforce each other, inhibit opposing elements, and finally cooperate in a unified movement. These processes, so developed, constitute, from the beginning of life, the instrumentalities by which we advance to a more highly organized and, hence, simplified technic in all affairs, personal, economic, social, and political. They are the means by which we change, from time to time, our modes of work, of recreation, of thought; transferring the stress so that we do not find ourselves left behind, able to manufacture old wares only-wares which are no longer in demand; do not find it easier to wear out in the old groove than to rest by change of interest; do not find our judgment depre- Isolation in the School 8I ciated by others because it persists in dealing with the concepts formed long ago; depreciated because its decisions before rendered are familiar to the listeners. These last conditions in which men and women behold themselves cut off from the onward movement of the world about them, isolated from the fullness of life which gives healthful occupation for the body and the mind, are the results of that quasi-natural mode of activity which over-exercises certain muscles, or centers, or mental powers, in the attempt, through drill, to secure ends originated by others; and of that quasi-positive influence which, for a time, often gives exact duplicates of those external aims; but at last, in the words of Dr. Harris, 'so arrest the development of the soul in a mechanical method of thinking as to prevent further growth into spiritual insight." In this method of training the self does not gain that control of its impulses which makes for unification, so that potentialities may be adapted to new environment; it has acquired the power to do specific things in a specified place, and these isolated acts often prove handicaps in new surroundings with new demands, so that incapacity results from the non-recognition of the maleficent influence of isolation, where there should be unification 82 Isolation in the School resulting from the natural and positive activity of the soul. The same holds true in regard to knowledge which has been acquired because someone has decided that such facts are useful. Knowledge, isolated from the cause which makes it a necessity to the learner, and from the effect which makes it valuable to him, is mere information which is rarely at command when called for. It would be a difficult undertaking to find a person who has the temerity to deny the existence of a life-process in every vegetable and animal organism. That variations as to power in this or that part of the process are found in species and in individuals would be readily conceded, and that the process has its characteristic stages would be recognized. But, when the mental life-process is brought up for discussion, it becomes evident that people do not so generally and thoroughly believe in it as in the life-process of a physical organism. That mind develops through functioning is an article in the creeds of most people; but that it functions in obedience to law is an article which would be rejected from most of those creeds. The accumulation of statements of the observations and conclusions of others, the ability to recount in their order the steps taken by those others in making observations Isolation in the School 83 and arriving at conclusions, would answer the general conception of mind-activity. According to that general conception, those progressive modifications of the individual and society that mark an advance in power do not come because of the functioning of all minds. They have come as the product of the action of the thinking few, who are called thinkers because their mental life-process is carried on in accord with the law underlying it. Were faith in this law more common, fewer would conceive of good habits as something drilled in, in many a hard-fought battle; of attention as a kind of struggle in manipulating images, a struggle during which is frequently heard from the lips of the one trying to set the aim of the activity, the exhortation: " Do stop guessing and pay attention ;" of jidgment -but here in the purely intellectual realms of activity we find nothing comparable to those drills and exhortations, because the mind refuses to judge under direction. It may make a sycophantic pretense of agreement, but neither superior nor subordinate is deceived thereby. This breakdown in the realms of pure thought has given rise to the opinion that many naturally have no judgment, or at best only poor judgment; that of the seething mass of humanity only a small fractional part is capa- 84 Isolation in the School ble of any development beyond that secured in accord with the method that arrests growth. All through infancy and childhood, all through life until the time of decline, there are periods and seasons when certain activities are predominant. If in those different stages the dominant impulse or interest be given its natural free play, there will result those tastes and powers which make each soul know its peculiar talents. Every soul may not have sufficient individual energy to command recognition as being talented, but there are inherent in each those tendencies which, with their infinitesimal variations in grouping, make a being different from others-a being peculiarly itself. If these varied tendencies, elements of strength, be developed in accord with the mental life-process, then will each human being know the joy of living in accord with its better, its true, nature. We revel in the beauties of forest and field, pouring forth our admiration over the modest violet and the stalwart oak, differing so widely, and yet each illustrative of the unity which pervades life. Only a brief survey is necessary in order that we may know how successfully either is carrying on the function of nutrition by which the plant maintains itself, and what stage it has reached in the reproductive function. Isolation in the School 85 Our wonder and reverence do not terminate with the recognition of these two functions, which together make the life-process of every plant; as we look at violets and oaks, the infinitesimal variations are such that no two violets, no two oaks, are indistinguishable; with the same antecedents, both structural and functional, there is in each violet and each oak that spontaneity which makes for a distinctive life. Herbert Spencer concludes his search for the cause of variation in individuals and species with this dictum: "We must say in all cases, adaptive change of function is the primary and ever-acting cause of that change of structure which constitutes variation, and that the variation which appears to be 'spontaneous' is derivative and secondary;" yet he has missed the main question at issue. It is this: Why does one organism adapt itself to a change of function, while another heeds not the "unequal and evervarying actions of the incident forces on its different parts"? The spontaneous action upon that for which its individual nature seeks is the cause of the " adaptive change of function." Professor Coulter' says: "It is evident that there must be rivalry among plants in occupying an area, and that those plants z COULTER, Plant Relations. 86 Isolation in the School which can most nearly utilize identical conditions will be the most intense rivals. For example, a great many young oaks may start up over an area, and it is evident that the individuals must come into sharp competition with one another, and that but few of them succeed in establishing themselves permanently." Now, if all of this activity, this rivalry, of the young oaks is mere reaction on the environment, why do they not all react alike, and so all live or die together with the same adaptations to the peculiarities of the surrounding, stimulating conditions ? It is in the spontaneity of the successful individual oaks that the adaptations originate. Popular theory has made for humanity an advance upon, "All evils result from non-adaptation of constitutions to conditions," by saying: "Man must conquer his environment." Without further discussion of individuality in the vegetable world, this question may be raised: If each and every plant has its distinguishing traits, which originate spontaneously and give it individuality throughout life, how dare we deny to any soul the evolution of its peculiar traits, which, spontaneously initiated; make for individuality; become its talents, its genius? In the quotation from Professor Coulter there is a suggestion of that Isolation in the School 87 competition which is comprehended in the "survival of the fittest," and so, on first thought, one would infer that development of individual traits would only increase the strife between the members of any human society, that individualism would rend all social organizations. Competition between myriads of human beings, all trained to a set end, is the result of the non-recognition of the lifeprocess with its minute differentiations which make the special talents; is the result of the isolation of the individual from the exercise of his right, in the beginnings of what should be an unfolding of all his potentialities. With the development which recognizes the essence of personality to be what the individual makes of his original equipment, a larger world will be open as the field of operations, and so each can more nearly approach the realization of possibilities which must forever lie dormant if each soul does not acquire throughout the voyage of life, more and more strength because of a unified control of its variant powers. David Starr Jordan sums up environment and activity in a few telling sentences: "The pressure of environment gives only pain in itself. Ennui is chronic pain, nature's warning against the dry-rot of functional inactivity. To enjoy life man or animal must be doing-working, 88 Isolation in the School thinking, fighting, loving--something positive. And no thought or feeling of the mind is complete till it has somehow brought itself into action." The greatest question before civilized nations today is whether the law of the mental life-process shall be recognized in education as original in all minds, or as peculiar to certain types only. Or, to put it in another way, shall the mental powers of the few be exercised according to law, and those of the many be isolated from that which evolves power-the initiative in action or shall all be active as organic parts of the thinking world ? Rude self-assertion and hopeless self-renunciation are the attendants upon an abnormal mental restraint, as disease and weakness are the attendants upon physical inaction. As a high degree of energy and reasonable powers of endurance are the result of a regimen in accord with the law underlying the life-process of the physical organism, so a well-poised self-assertion and a judicious self-renunciation are the results of an activity in harmony with the law underlying the mental life-process. III. THE FUNCTION OF A SCHOOL IN A DEMOCRACY. close upon this question of activity in the mental life as presented by modern theory is that pertaining to the function of the school in this government. In its general aim the function of the private and the public school is the same, but, because the latter is directly dependent upon the state for its life, it has been subjected to a closer scrutiny both as to methods and results. Critics of democracy and critics of the public schools unite in making essentially the same criticism on our form of government and on our schools, though they express themselves differently. The first, the critics of democracy, say that its tendency is to breed many commonplace, average men upon whom the responsibilities of the state will fall, instead of a few great men who might easily assume the duties of statesmanship Critics of the public school say that it is dominated by the theory of uniformity, and they ask why teachers who help to make the school a mere mill, grinding uniform grists, are retained. The obverse of this is found among the teachers. An energetic and thoughtful FOLLOWING 90 Isolation in the School part of the corps is strenuously decrying that form of systematism of the schools which tends to make automatons of the teachers. This opposition began before criticism of the method of the schools was well defined in the minds of those on the outside. Here we have a curious condition of affairs. The objects of the critics and the teachers seem widely different. The first aim to purge the schools of the present type of teacher; the second aim to displace the mechanical action of the school. Investigation will show their ultimate aims to be identical. With truth, the schools are frequently pointed out as the greatest unifying agent extant in this land, whose people represent all European peoples, and yet who have a common faith in the integral principles of the constitution of its national and state organizations. How varied are the races that have come from Europe! Though of the Aryan stock, the branches have each their marked peculiarities. Not alone the differences in the Celtic, the Romanic, the Germanic, the Slavonic, and the Graeco-Italian blend, but the differences growing out of the social customs of the many nations into which long ago the races had divided have been brought into the public school to be minimized, obliterated, harmon- Isolation in the School 91 ized in the process of unification. A survey of the past two hundred years shows the children of the poor and the rich, of the English-speaking and the non-English-speaking races, of the various religious faiths, all meeting on a common ground and with a common interest-the mastery of the printed page. As the young have striven side by side in the common school, they have learned, not from the printed page, but through experience, that the soul is not classified according to its worldly possessions, the particular language spoken in the home, or the faith in which it is reared. Differences in race customs might have been so intensified by the segregation of immigrants of different nationalities that open hostility would have been the prevailing attitude of different settlements toward each other. So potent has been the public school in creating a sentiment favorable to oneness, to Americanism, that sectional antagonism based on racial characteristics maintained in their original forms is unknown. In childhood, millions of America's citizens have learned something of the fundamentals in the unity of the human race. The comradeship in experience developed by the democratic spirit pervading the methods in instruction and discipline, is a more positive factor in the 92 Isolation in the School sympathetic appreciation existing between members of different religious and social organizations than the association in private or denominational schools can ever be. It is the free public school that has made the child of foreign parentage strive to take on the habits of dress, speech, and thought that would identify him with the people whose ancestors were merged into this social and political society at an earlier date than were his. Now, unification is concerned more with the spirit, the general aim, than it is with the reduction of the many elements to an unvarying form. The highest type of unification would be that which would send out into the world from the school boys and girls, young men and women, trained to clear thinking, active in their belief in a personal responsibility for the realization of the humanitarian idea underlying the form of government in which the American state is embodied. So rapid, however, has been the unexpected development of problem after problem that the school has begun to lose ground in this its greatest work. Unification was confounded with uniformity by the leaders, reformers, and organizers in their efforts to make that systematic which was to a considerable degree Isolation in the School 93 93 Isolation in the School chaotic. The human mind, the most delicate, the most sensitive, the most complex of all organizations, loses power, is arrested in its development, if its efforts are directed toward establishing unvarying conditions in its own environment and in that of others also. Mind must continue to enlarge its environment, and increase its ability to cope with the forces that would restrict, or repress, its native powers and modes of action. For teachers and pupils to become parts of an "incoherent homogeneity" is for them to lose in their school life that individuality which is the inherent right of every soul. An inspection of the courses of study, with their elaborate explanations of the method and scope in the presentation of the merely incidental, which followed the adoption of the plan of graded schools, would furnish abundant proof of the narrowing influence of the attempts to organize through the establishment of uniformity in the minutest details of method. That the American people, who are so deeply imbued with the possibility of political self-government for all peoples, could have become infatuated with this idea of inflexible methods in training their children can be explained only on the ground of seclusion, isolation, from the great movements in the world. The consecration of their life as a 94 Isolation in the School people to the idea of self-direction, self-control, made them magnify that which had been accomplished, as the permanent result of high thinking and acting which would be a standard for all time to come. In the reaction against the exactitude and exactions of the narrow definiteness of uniformity, indefiniteness is the predominant characteristic. Within and without the school are opposing parties; one advocating a return to the old theory and practice which limited education by the state to acquaintance with reading and writing-the key to knowledge; the other insisting that the theory upon which a democracy rests, places upon every man and woman rights and obligations which cannot be intelligently comprehended by that part of the members having such slight preparation as the first party would give it. Whatever may be the attitude of the advocate of a narrow and superficial education, that openness and flexibility of mind which would prepare a people to cope with the changes that will come "through that irresistible force, the modern spirit," is the one which should characterize the mental attitude of all within the precincts of the school. Without this, the school will do little in adding to the grandeur of the future of America. A narrow provin- Isolation in the School 95 cialism will merely groove deeper the ideas which once sufficed for a state whose people were laying the foundations for material necessities. Already have those ideas proved themselves unequal to the demands upon them. It is this dominance of provincialism, with its limited ideas, not expanded to a comprehension of what makes a state, which today makes much of the confusion regarding the relation of the state and school. The inadequacy of a theory of public education which recognizes past conditions only, and ignores those formative influences that are shaping the future, is becoming manifest. It is difficult to base a theory of public education on a conception of the meaning of human society and its organization that will guarantee to each individual the full exercise of his powers in preparing to help solve the problem of government by the people. The rapid development of natural science and its differentiation into many departments; the opening out of the artistic world before an aesthetically starved people; the recognition of the power, as well as the culture, that comes through linguistic and literary attainments; all of these have been potent forces in awakening the American people to the many aspects of knowledge and training. With the enlargement of the national 96 Isolation in the School appreciation of the possibilities of culture and strength in the realms of science, art, and literature, there has been a tendency to attempt making all of these the possession of the young. One good resulted from this overloading of the course of study: in the attempt to retain all subjects, attention was drawn to the isolation of each, and for a brief period the opposite of isolation, i. e., correlation, was the watchword of the day. There is as yet but slight change in the opinion of the two opposing parties on the subject of state education, yet each is influencing the other and bringing the subject of the course of study of the schools into the field of social inquiry. This opposition presents the extremes of educational theory and practice, which have ever been present in ancient and modern life. On the one hand, the narrowness and forcefulness of the past are extolled, while the indefiniteness and superficiality of the present furnish ominous signs of decadence; on the other hand, the wealth and variety of the present are regarded as indications of an enrichment of life, while the meagerness and formalism of the past are condemned. The settlement of these views by the state will materially influence its own character in the future. If the school must oscillate between extremes, much Isolation in the Scool 97 of its value as an institution of civil life must be lost, as in extremes there are evils that overwhelm much of the good in the theories which they represent. No fixed theory of education, as in China, is possible or desirable, but it should be possible to reduce the wide difference between the view of conservatives and of liberals in education as in politics, so that sound attainments and the modern spirit may always characterize the ideal of the public school. Although the private schools and universities are not directly responsible to the state, yet there can be no evasion of their immediate relation to society and its welfare. The higher institutions are forging along, in the endeavor to command recognition as active factors in the forward movement of the nation. The lower private schools as a class are isolated, and yet they meet the approval of a portion of the many communities, because they are not bewildered by attempts to meet all the demands of modern utilitarian and culture theories. Nothing is more remarkable than the reversal of attitude by the public elementary and secondary schools, and the private school and academy, in connection with the number of subjects in which instruction is given. The former is endeavoring to function 98 Isolation in the School as an institution of the social world; the latter is limiting itself to a definite task, that of meeting the requirements for admission to college. As a result, the one is attempting to leave no field of learning neglected, while the other is cultivating prescribed fields only. Several questions present themselves here. Are the public kindergarten, elementary, and scondary schools organic parts of a unity, cooperating with each other, or are they practically isolated so that each in a measure duplicates the other? Are they more nearly in touch with the spirit of American life than the private schools which are so closely connected with the colleges ? A careful comparison of the aims and method of public and private schools would be valuable. The broad experience and range of work in the one would be suggestive in the light of the more limited and yet more intensive activity of the other; the stress on power, rather than facts, in the one, and in the other the emphasis on the mastery of the foundations, are two phases of the educational life that should be weighed carefully. Interest in the problems of society and of government is leading inquiring students of the philosophy of right to turn to the school and ask what it is doing toward training for citi- Isolation in the School 99 zenship. In return, the schools are experimenting with the forms by which the machinery of political parties is operated. There are different methods in the schools, though the general object is the same: to familiarize the future citizens with the theory and method of the state of which they are to be a part. This is not the place to discuss the advisability of beginning with the technique of civil organization, carrying on elections, running for office, etc. Bishop Spalding's words, written without reference to this method, express one side of this question : " Do not our young men lack noble ambition? Are they not satisfied with low aims ? To be a legislator; to be a governor; to be talked about ; to live in a marble house--seems to them to be a thing to be desired. Unhappy youths from whom the power and goodness of life are hidden, who, standing in the presence of the unseen, infinite world of truth and beauty, can only dream some aldermanic nightmare." Whether the emphasis on forms in our government will give a development other than on the mechanical side, whether it will- illuminate the underlying theory, whether it will develop great personalities are questions of paramount interest. Every boy and girl before going out from the schools of America 100 Isolation in the School " should be educated into a self-consciousness of the essential equality and freedom of all men, so that he shall recognize and acknowledge himself in each and all; " and though the transfer of monitorial powers and duties to the young may make the few appreciate the cares of the teachers in securing orderly conduct, yet it cannot be effective in preparing a nation for self-government. Throughout the life of the public and private elementary schools the history of this country as described by its wars has been the subject of many an hour's excited discussion by children ranging from twelve to fifteen years of age. With glowing hearts have they described the marches and the battles of the brave who have sunk to rest, blessed by their country. Eagerly have they searched for evidence of the courage and honor of their heroes. Today, as the people of the North and the South endeavor to knit closer the bonds that make them a single nation, the children of one section are reciting the triumphs of the blue over the gray, and in the other the triumphs of the gray over the blue. This continued development of the hostile spirit between the young of the two sections brings into the foreground the question of the function of the school. Should the history of the blot on our name be Isolation in the School IOI omitted? Certainly not. But the story of a wrong wiped out and the fanning of the flames of sectionalism, are very different things to a patriot. The boys and girls trained to view the people of another part of this country as enemies are isolated from the influence of the great wave of brotherhood which is making the nation a unity. Has the concentration upon the objectionable conduct of our enemies tended to make the traveling host of Americans doubt the teaching of the schools, when the enemy has been met in foreign lands ? A good illustration of the effect of mistaken teal in emphasizing the excellence of our own deeds, or those of our ancestors, was the appearance before a school' superintendent, of a delegation of mothers, descendants of the slaves of the old slave-holding South, to protest against the continual reference in classstudy of our Civil War to "the slaves, the poor slaves whom we freed." That protest suggested the need of a study, not of the ethics of war, but of the ethics of peace resulting from a war A little reflection will satisfy one that in the study of history the young are not trained to a high type of citizenship by aggrandizement through the spontaneous identification of self with a masterful past. A broad knowledge of history and a fair degree IO2 Isolation its the School of familiarity with jurisprudence should be the least equipment of one who teaches the national history to boys and girls, if that study is to be effectual in advancing public morality. Political clubs that aim to develop public virtues by mere sensational orations before the history classes in the elementary schools, will find eventually that they have built on a quicksand. Unconsciously the American people have undertaken to solve the problem of laying in the home, the foundation for citizenship in a self-governing state. Necessarily their mistakes have been many, and a few serious defects bid fair to become permanent. With all the mistakes, a careful observer must recognize the moral character of the advanced method that prevails in the intercourse between parents and children. While the parent retains the right of final decision, yet the children are not treated as being in a state of merely potential freedom in all things. The exercise of the right of choice in regard to conduct pertaining to affairs comprehended within their circle of thought and action will train their judgment so that in the larger circles with the increased complexity of life, while the youth or adult will find more conditions to consider, there will not be new Isolation in the School 103 problems wholly foreign to past experience. It is generally conceded that the children whose conduct is directed and controlled so that they are isolated from active origination of the same are the least prepared for the struggle in the world when they pass from the state of tutelage. In the recognition of the freedom of the human mind in its successive stages of development there are three ways in which teachers and parents may accord it: a) Children may be humored as if they were in a world of pretense, a world isolated from the real. Observation shows the results of this method to be the same that would be produced with human beings of any age. The results are pettishness toward the obstacles that confront them and suspicion of the intention underneath the declared attitude of those having power to determine the general course of the opposing conditions. Much of the irritability and capriciousness of American children is due to the tendency of parents to play with a freedom which is not potential, but is a right. b) Children may be given freedom in all matters as if they were in the adult stage, many of whose impulses and interests should be foreign to the young. They have a claim 10o4 Isolation in the School upon their parents for support and education, but during the continuance of the state in which that claim is in force there should be a distinction as to freedom in deciding upon matters connected with those conditions in which it is potential and those in which it is actual. c) Children may be justly treated by having them exercise freedom in origination and in realization of lines of conduct which are within the range of their reason and personality. Only upon reflection can parents arrive at a comprehension of the lines within that range. Upon the interpretation of "freedom is the soul's birthright" depends the moral training of the nation. Between the merits of the extreme which, on one hand, exacts obedience and subordination to the dictates of teachers and parents in all things, and that which, on the other hand, grants all rights to children, it is difficult to decide. In each extreme the children reach adult life, devoid of that command of self which can be realized in the highest degree possible for each individual, only as the power of initiative and execution is exerted in the sphere to which the individual belongs in the To evolution of his nature or character. repress this power in connection with those Isolation in the School I05 duties, in the performance of which the child is capable of exercising it, is to dwarf him; to encourage the exercise of this power in connection with that which does not belong in the child's world of thought and action is to develop him prematurely. Never has the function of the school in a state been more plainly indicated than is that of the public school in this country in evolving a theory and practice of developing selfgovernment for childhood and youth. The predominance given just now to the value of the school-training in fitting the coming men and women to carry forward the work of popular sovereignty -a work to which this nation has consecrated itself-indicates the forcing of the old question, "What is the function of the school ?" into the consciousness of public thought, with the added idea that the school is a part of the state. All of this shows a broadening of the conception of a state. An interaction is being set up between the idea of a state and that of a school. The relation of the whole to its parts is undergoing investigation. Though the political horizon is darkened by the clouds that lower about it, yet the light must break through them ere long, for the isolation of the various instrumentalities of society is becoming a thing of the Io6 Isolation in the School past. That liberty and equality which had disappeared in the national consciousness of political superiority are again open questions which must be interpreted by the light of original investigation and application. The school cannot take up the question of the development of training for citizenship in a democracy while the teachers are still segregated in two classes, as are the citizens in an aristocracy. No more un-American or dangerous solution of the difficulties involved in maintaining a high degree of efficiency in the teaching corps of a large school system can be attempted than that which is effected by what is termed "close supervision." Frequent visitations to the schools in the district, or ward, bring the minutiae of each schoolroom into the foreground, and develop a feeling of responsibility for matters of petty detail which are of a purely personal nature; and hence it follows that a ranking officer may be so near to the daily work as to have an exaggerated, or mistaken, conception of the obligations of a superintendent in determining the method in regard to even the non-essentials in the conduct of the school. In a short time the teachers must cease to occupy the position of initiators in the individual work of instruction Isolation in the School .Io7 and discipline, and must fall into a class of assistants, whose duty consists in carrying out instructions of a higher class which originates method for all. The reaction from close supervision with one set of dominant ideas to close supervision with another set has been the basis of procedure in every large system, with little recognition of the fundamental difficulty in the theory. In colleges and universities the benumbing theory of close supervision of the members of the faculties is unknown; and yet it is generally held as an inspiring, natural one for elementary schools. There must come a recognition of the law of life in those schools. The rights and obligations that inhere in members in different parts of the system must be subjected to careful analysis, and then the teaching corps must be unfettered in its activity in striving to realize those things which will evolve themselves in a free play of thought in the individual and the community. To secure this freedom of thought, there must be, within the various parts of the school, organizations for the consideration of questions of legislation. Such organizations have been effected in some universities and in a few school systems, but in the latter they lack some essential features for securing freedom Io8 Isolation in the School of thought; and yet they are deemed satisfactory; so little does the teaching corps know about origination of thought on questions concerning education. Without doubt, councils for discussion and recommendation may be organized, and seem to have an eminently successful life, and yet come far short of their potentialities. The voice of authority of position not only must not dominate, but must not be heard in the councils. There should be organized, throughout every system, school councils whose membership in the aggregate should include every teacher and principal. The membership of each school council should be small enough to make the discussions deliberative, not sensational. The necessity for such an organization that shall insure a free play of thought and its expression, rather than courage in opposing and declaiming, because restive under restraint, cannot be made too emphatic. There should be a central council composed of delegates from the other councils. The representation in the central council should not be determined by ranking positions in the schools. It is fair to assume that the delegates would be selected with care. After recommendations have been made to the superintendent, and he, with the assistant or district superintendents and the Isolation in the School 10o9 supervisors of special studies, has discussed them, if there are any points of difference in judgment, the district superintendents should meet the first councils and present the objections. The attendance of members of the supervising force upon the meetings for the reconsideration of questions would clarify the thought of all, provided there was no suspicion of an effort to have the objections sustained because of the official position of the objectors. If the result of the second discussion shows the original recommendation by the council again sustained, and the superintendent upon receipt of the report believes the majority of teachers and principals mistaken, there should be no further effort made to secure the adoption of his views by vote of the councils. He should act in accordance with his own judgment, and be held responsible for the outcome. No one would receive the decision of the superintendent as something strange, unknown, to be incorporated in the work. The deliberations would have familiarized all with the essentials involved, and those sharp breaks in theory and practice which have been made in the past would no longer be possible. Education would be a continuous process, based on theory; not mere experimentation, based on personal preferences. I Io Isolation in the School The most difficult line of action to pursue is that which respects the rights of other minds; not the rights of property, but of thought. The number that can yield these rights to their owners is limited. To break down the barriers of selfishness behind which, in our assumed strength, we intrench ourselves; to participate in helpful communion with those who as yet have less experience than we, is to become an active member of a democratic solidarity. In such a solidarity will life in the school be noble. In monarchies and aristocracies it may be that the perpetuation of the particular form of government is dependent upon training the young for the station in life for which each is by the social organization destined. In this government the young cannot be trained for any particular station, for no one can foretell what that will be. Simply training free individualities will not suffice. Professor Mead makes plain the difference between the ancient and the modern conception of free individuality: "Greece furnishes a perfect illustration of the distinction between the freedom of the individual as an individual and the freedom of the individual as a factor in an organization; leeway was given to individual opinion or speculation, but recognition of the individual Isolation in the School III as an organic part of the community was unknown. In the mediaeval period the individual and his development came into the public consciousness." In America today more than leeway in individual opinion is needed; more than the recognition of the individual and his development. From the entrance upon the first year in the kindergarten till the close of the student life, if the school functions as an intrinsic part of this democracy, the child, the youth, and the teacher will each be an organic factor in an organization where rights and duties will be inseparable; where the free movement of thought will develop great personalities. This book is a preservation facsimile produced for the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. It is made in compliance with copyright law and produced on acid-free archival 60# book weight paper which meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (permanence of paper). Preservation facsimile printing and binding by Northern Micrographics Brookhaven Bindery La Crosse, Wisconsin 2013