An ideal school

Front matter

Qass.

Book.

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT

Author's Preface

" Hitch your wagon to a star." (Emerson.)

I BELIEVE in ideals, and in ideals which can not be easily reached; for the man who raises his ideals highest is the one who lifts his work most. Therefore, I am not concerned that the things presented in this little constructive endeavour will not find bodily incorporation in schools; for it is cross-fertilization and not grafting which has given us our richest varieties of fruits and flowers. This work is an attempt at spirit, not letter; at principle, not method.

I do not come to this presentation with merely a theoretical knowledge of schools, but from the rich, active, versatile experience of one who has made a faithful attempt to solve for his own schools some of the great, burning questions of child life. A service as teacher for three years in the ungraded schools, as tutor in college, as teacher in the lower-grade schools and in the commercial school, as principal of a classical academy and normal school, as specialist in and principal of a high school, as supervisor of a large system of evening schools, as superintendent in the village, the town, the smaller city, and the larger city schools,

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AN IDEAL SCHOOL.

in every case with rare opportuuity for experimental endeavour, supplemented with wide observation in every part of the country, entitles me to speak with some confidence, and I trust with acceptance, concerning reforms most needed in the schools of the day.

The man who once presents his ideals to the world makes his own life work difficult; for he is ever afterward, more than other men, measured by these same standards, the realization of which conditions limit. Under such circumstances, it is best for him to offer freely the accumulations of hard-earned experience and long years of toil in order that others may carry forward the work which an impatient world would fain deny him. It is also true that an expressed ideal soon loses its original identity, working its way often unconsciously into the products of others, who perhaps were hostile to its original utterance. It is in this way the world moves forward. Evolution appropriates as its own everything which can enrich ; but no one factor can be better expended than to be thus absorbed. It is perhaps well that it is so.

That these ideals may not seem beyond practical application, I have attempted to illustrate each point as presented by citations from the actual experiences of schools. A long, active, personal experience in exceedingly rich fields, a wide observation of the best schools in every part of the land, and an accumulation of data perhaps in kind not the possession of any other person, enable me to do this a hundred times beyond the limits of these pages. There is scarcely a single feature of all these ideals presented, no matter how inaccessible they may seem, which is not supported by

AUTHOR'S PREFACE. xxiii

something tested and proven, to a greater or less degree, in the experience of schools. If these fragments of success can be found, no matter how scattered, then an ideal school is the direct product of their co-ordination in a single system. If only one teacher can reach the results herein described, then the possibilities of the whole plan are completely demonstrated.

The ideal school will never be the product of any one person; nor is this little work in exposition. The treasured contributions of a still living past and the willing co-operation of many collaborators in various parts of the country have been freely utilized. To these earnest associates, so closely related to my own work, but whose names are too many for mention, I desire to express my personal appreciation and indebtedness. If any one thing has ever made my own work successful, it has been the noble co-operation of a great coterie of workers whose zeal for better things grows with the passing years.

My thanks are esj)ecially due to President G. Stanley Hall for his great interest in urging the production of this work, and to Dr. A. F. Chamberlain and Librarian L. N. Wilson for helpful kindness in proof-readings during the author's absence in Europe.

The questions presented in the discussions of this work are largely those which have come to my table in earnest inquiries from all over the country. They type very well practical difficulties concerning which, in an enormous correspondence, and by lecture audiences, I have been repeatedly asked to give information; and they are offered largely in the personal form in xxiv AN IDEAL SCHOOL.

which they have appeared. Perhaps their discussion here may be helpful.

If this discussion seems to be over-critical, I trust it will be remembered the criticism largely applies to my own work as well as that of others. I love the public schools, in the service of which my life has been spent; but my experience with the one hundred thousand boys and girls who have been under my charge, supplemented by a wide observation of schools in almost every state of the Union, tells me there are radical defects in our school practices which must be remedied. The best things in education are not yet. It is in this spirit, which comprehends my own responsibility as well as that of others, that this little attempt in construction is offered. May I not hope to be understood?

Preston W. Search.

Clark University, Worcester, Mass.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

Editor's Preface vii

Introduction by President G. Stanley Hall . xvii