Citizenship and the schools

Front matter

Clns^ - L C, yp A\

Book aZ

Copyright N"_

Preface

to add to this essay a supplementary note containing a list of laws along similar lines which have been passed in the various states since that time.

As a student of politics for many years, I have been much impressed by the apathy of most voters, even on questions of great public interest. It has seemed to me that this very great evil must be removed, if at all, mainly through the influence of our public schools. In consequence, both before general audiences and before gatherings of teachers I have often taken the opportunity to discuss the question of training for citizenship.

Every one interested in good government must have been gratified by noticing how prominent this subject has lately become in discussions among teachers; but the schools doubtless still lack much, and they may be of far greater service in the future than they are at present, provided the teachers work intelligently together toward this end, the promotion of good citizenship. Every subject taught in the common schools will contribute to this purpose, if the teachers only keep it in mind and so organize their work as to carry it out. Moreover, in no other way can the burden of our overcrowded curriculum be so much lightened and the interest of pupils and parents be so easily aroused and retained as by careful work toward the unification of the curriculum around the central idea of social service,

PREFACE. Vii

It would be extremely useful if the teachers of any school system, through reading circles or otherwise, could arrange their subjects harmoniously with this end in view, each making his own subject teach citizenship from its own view-point, so that the work of each teacher would supplement that of every other. In the higher grades where special teachers of separate subjects are employed, those teaching arithmetic, for example, would do well to work out a series of lessons adapted to local economic and social conditions, so that, while suited to the teaching of arithmetical principles, the lessons would also contribute to the work in history, geography, literature and science. The teachers in geography, in the same way, should prepare a series of lessons that would be of service to the classes in history, literature, and mathematics, while the teachers of history, literature, and science should so plan their work as not only to bring out the full value of those subjects from the social point of view, but also, by so doing, make each subject supplement the others. Adaptability to human service is the element in each case which will unify them.

In the lower grades where all classes are taught by one teacher, such harmonious working of the different subjects can readily enough be planned, provided due care is taken and each subject is considered from the point of view of its relations to social life.

VIU

PREFACE.

If this book can contribute in even a slight degree towards giving our teachers the view-point of social and political betterment as their chief aim in teaching, I shall be content.

I wish to thank the publishers of the various periodicals in which several of these addresses and essays have appeared for permission to republish them here, and particularly to express my obligations to Dr. Charles McMurry who has read several of the essays and has made upon them most valuable criticisms and suggestions.

J. W. J.

Cornell TJniveksity^

Ithaca, Kew York.

February, 1906.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I, Training for Citizenship 3

First supplement of the Second Year-book of the National Herbart Society. Paper discussed at the Herbart Section of the Department of Superintendence of the National Educational Association, 1897.

I

" The true measure of a nation's success is the amount that it has contributed to the knowledge, the moral energy, the intellectual happiness and the spiritual hope and consolation of mankind." — Lowell,

The veteran pedagogue is inclined to smile — rather pathetically to be sure, when he thinks of the need for better citizens — at the expression, " campaign of education/' which has become so popular now-a-days. The efforts of some 16,000,000 voters to " cram " on the money question, the tariff, expansion, or the open door in the Far East in the short space of three or four months with the aid of " coaches," each of whom is bent on giving a warped view of the subject, are praiseworthy and worth far more than the millions of dollars spent in the process; but it is a misnomer to call the process education. The more thoughtful voters will get much trustworthy and valuable information as a result of the special interest of the time ; the rousing of the at-

* First Supplement of the second Year-Book of the National Herbart Society. Paper discussed at the Hei-bart Section of the Department of Superintendence of the National Educational Association, 1897.

tention of so many to the importance of public questions, and the stimulation to think of the citizen's duties are of inestimable value in kind, though wofullj inadequate in degree. But back of the whole process is the tacit assumption that what our citizens chiefly need is specific information on the issue of the day, while such information is in fact of minor importance.

The whole matter of the education of adult voters is made doubly difficult, because, in the first place, teachers who are both willing and fit are hard to find — the willingness, judging from our campaign speakers, usually existing in inverse ratio to the fitness — and, in the second place, the voters rarely feel sufficiently the need of training. That most difficult and complex of trades, statecraft, most voters, except the true statesmen, think they know by intuition. With lack of knowledge, too, on the subject, is often united the blindest prejudice and even pride in this prejudice. How often, for example, we hear an aged voter boasting that he has voted his party ticket straight for forty or fifty years, priding himself on the fact, though unconscious that it is a fact, that he has so long nursed his prejudices. Men, otherwise sensible, see only wisdom and patriotism in their own party, in their ojDponents only folly and corruption ; only good in the institutions of their own country, only evil in those of a foreign nation, though such shortsightedness checks progress.

It is encouraging, however, to reflect that there is no more hopeful sign of social progress than the increasing sensitiveness of all classes of people regarding social evils, whether these evils be the physical suffering of the poor, or moral corruption, as shown in political frauds or impure lives of individuals. Even fifty years ago, one might take too much strong drink on festive occasions and expect to be easily excused for the folly; one hundred years ago a man might be as immoral in his private life with little danger of public condemnation. Only within late years have men been shocked and disgusted at the thought of a lottery or a prize fight or rat pit, or opposed to the employment of corporal punishment for misdemeanors. Our New England ancestors who were so horrified by the sin of Sabbath-breaking or blasphemy, or disobedience to parents as to punish these crimes with death, were still ready to look calmly at a wretched neighbor groaning in the pillory while his tongue was pierced with a red hot iron or his nostrils slit with a keen-edged knife. The generation that cares for over-worked horses and stray dogs and cats is put by this sensitiveness on the highway to social improvement of one kind. The generation that has produced the great temperance reform movements ; that has brought woman into the foreground in social reforms, as is shown in the powerful influence over legislation exerted by the W. C. T. U. and kindred organizations, has in another way made a great stride toward the millennial civilization of which all good men have dreamed since the days of Plato, though no one realizes better than these dreamers how far off is still that millennial age. In the fight against either pauperism or vice, all thinking people who realize how slowly social changes must come, know that all reforms, if they are to be wide-reaching and permanent, must come through

Q CITIZENSHIP AND THE SCHOOLS.

the education of the people into an appreciation of what is highest and best in life, and into the firmness of character required of every good man.

As the dwellers in our tenement houses, many of them, do not know without instruction — as experience shows — that bath-tubs have other purposes than to be used as coal-bins, so many of our citizens who have been best trained intellectually, need still to be educated in the art of wise giving and perhaps still wiser withholding; to be not merely told about, but to be trained into the proper ways of controlling city councils and legislatures — in short to be schooled into the higher citizenship.

""' The purpose of training our citizens, whether by campaign speeches or in schools, is to secure better service for the state, greater willingness and intelligence in curing social evils, greater zeal in promoting social good.

But before one can speak intelligently of the kind of training that our citizens need, one must consider somewhat carefully the nature of social evils and of social reforms. Such reforms must all be effected either (1) by improving the opinions and habits and characters of the individual members of society, or (2) by changing for the better the relations existing between different persons and classes and institutions in society.

Hitherto, most efforts of social reformers have been directed toward the reform of the individual by improving his moral character or habits, and only here and there, in an unsystematic way, have efforts been directed toward improving his relations with others. Yet possibly the greater number of our social evils come from mal-adjustments in social relations. This undue emphasis that has been often laid upon the faults of individuals may be my excuse for emphasizing first the social evils that arise from social misfits. I do not ignore the others by any means.

There is, of course, a constant tendency for social institutions of all kinds to adjust themselves to social needs. The environment will in the long run modify the individual, unless the individual has pov^^er to change the environment; but, always, as society moves on into new habits, old institutions will be found unfit for use and much suffering must be endured in making the needed transition from old to new. When, for example, late in the last century and early in this the spinning-jenny and the power-loom were coming into general use in England, the hand-looms in the cottages lost their value, and the hands of the cottage weavers were forced to rest in idleness. The despair of the hungry whom the spirit of progress was starving to death led in many instances to riot; but their despair and passion availed nothing. The abler were forced to adopt the new methods ; the feebler, the more ignorant, died : but industrial society moved on through this suffering and evil into a better condition than it had ever before enjoyed. It was not the characters of the individual rioters and murderers that especially needed reforming ; the need was rather for some device to adjust quickly the economic machine thrown by the new inventions for the time being out of gear.

"We must realize that like evils are always with us; must always be with us if economic society is to improve, unless we can devise a way of rapid adjustment to changing circumstances. The last twenty years has seen a revolution no less complete than that of the weaving industry. The rise of our great combinations in industry — the Standard Oil Trust, the Sugar Combine, the Telegraph Monopoly, and the hundreds of sister savers of expense — has brought its evils. We no longer, it is true, except in rare cases through ignorance of the suffering, permit our fellow men to starve; but many a manufacturer or dealer in these monopolized products has had his competitive business forced out of his hands ; thousands of the non-employed, thrown out of work by the monopolies, have been driven into pauperism. Monopolies at times prevent bankruptcy of the monopolists, but multiply bankruptcies of their competitors.

Legal institutions suffer from like evils, and bring like evils upon society. Within thirty years a whole body of law dealing with inter-state commerce has been created. Under the old law cities were built up or ruined to suit the needs or wishes of railroad directors. Sometimes they bought up a tract of land, located towns on it, gave it special rates to help it, and reaped the harvest they had sown. A business man here was lifted into affluence, his rival swept from the industrial field by the favor of a good-natured, or corrupt, freight agent — and all because our commercial laws were behind the times. Many a college or charitable institution finds itself hampered by the terms of an old-time legacy, framed to suit the needs of a bygone day ; many a city groans under the baleful influence of the Dartmouth College case, which recognized an outworn contract as good as new. Our courts still permit at times street railways, or other corporations, under old contracts to plunder cities, while brand new laws, also, and new decisions made to remedy old evils, like new machinery, bring their hardships.

Again, the slow action of courts — made slow by technical rules, fitted in most cases to do exact justice — are not suited to the needs of many new communities in cases of extreme hardship. So vigilance committees and Judge Lynch swing to the nearest tree the horsethief or riddle with bullets the violator of woman's honor. Such means seem in these exceptional cases at times the only remedies.

So it is, also, in political institutions the world over. Our former methods of voting were well enough adapted to local government in most rural communities where they were first employed. They were not then abused ; but before they were changed they had resulted in so vast a system of corruption that money given by reputable citizens in New York bought village votes in Indiana and Connecticut by the thousands, and in many cases had so completely demoralized the voters that the traffic in votes was looked upon by many of the more ignorant and thoughtless as a proper means of income. " Is not my vote mine ? May I not dispose of it as I please ? " Even many thoughtful people do not realize that the ballot is a public trust.

Most of us believe, I suppose, in popular suffrage; but we cannot blink the fact that the ballot in the hands of the negro in reconstruction days drove into bankruptcy some of our southern states, furnished a travesty on legislatures and legislators perhaps never elsewhere equalled in a civilized country, and finally drove the whites into the armed revolution of the Ku Klux — an act perhaps not so discreditable to their manhood and sense of justice as would have been peaceful submission to the forms of law forced upon them. When the representatives of the people supply themselves with costly viands and elegantly furnished rooms for themselves and disreputable friends at the public expense, free men will revolt.

Few in that contest on either side could be much blamed. Social evils often do not impute conscious guilt to individuals ; otherwise the injunction to love one's neighbor would be more difficult to heed. Doubtless in reconstruction days Congress acted with good intentions, though probably with some natural and pardonable partisan feeling; and surely no one can blame the negroes for their failure or for their personal unfitness to fulfill their task. There was a misfit — that was all. Institutions and people were not in harmony. Corruption, then anarchy, then an aristocracy — better said an oligarchy — were the natural outcome of the conditions. On one side the whites had outgrown their old institution of slavery ; on the other, the new institution of free government was fit for a more advanced people than the negroes, or for a more homogeneous people than those trying to live together in peace. To both sides serious evil was the result.

In our legislatures, examples of the same kind are numerous. Most of the members in private life are honest, well-meaning men, who would like to give our state excellent government. Unfortunately, the circumstances of their elections, the nature of the tasks that they find themselves called upon to do, the closeness with which they are held to the work desired by the party chiefs, the pressure upon them to get through local bills to please their constituents, prevent them from doing much that is of general interest, and soon lead them to consider an independent member with earnest opinions on measures of general interest as unpractical and visionary.

At election times a wealthy corporation makes a large contribution to a campaign fund. After election the party leaders feel under obligations. If a bill comes up that affects the interest of that corporation, a hint to the campaign chief, the boss, will bring word to every legislator, if need be, who has been nominated and elected under the influence of the party organization. He is told that the interests of the party demand his vote. He may feel that the bill is on the face of it detrimental to the state. He may not see how it is for the interest of his party ; but his chief says that it is of vital interest. He believes in his party; he is under obligations to the chief; in nine cases out of ten he will yield. Most of us would. Again, some worthy institution in his district, say a state school for the feebleminded, needs state aid and ought to have it. He introduces his bill. Other members know little about it, but other members also have bills calling for appropriations, many of them not worthy, but popular in their districts. They ask him for his vote, plead the personal necessity to themselves of passing their bills. He needs their vote for his bill. He votes for theirs, careful perhaps not to inquire too closely into their merits lest his conscience should prick him too hard. Thus, too many bad measures pass. We blame our representatives ; but many of us would do no better. The truth is that our political machine needs rebuilding in many parts.

Even in religious institutions changes come that bring often untold suffering. I need only refer to the persecutions of the Middle Ages and the Reformation. Even to-day men burn, though not at the stake, because they think in advance of their time. Many a person joining a church in his younger days finds that, as his sympathies broaden, as his range of spiritual vision extends, he no longer places the same emphasis on certain dogmas as before. His fellow church members may consider him unfaithful to his duty ; he may even be made to feel that he has wounded grievously the hearts of those most dear to him — but he cannot go back. He may, in his suffering, impatiently blame his critics for their narrowness ; but this is equally unjust. They cannot come with him. No one is to blame. The religious institution is not adjusted to his needs. When he reaches the height from which he can overlook the whole field, he will see that, as there must be different political or social groups to suit the various political or social beliefs, so must there be various religious groups to fit the changing religious needs. The period of transition from one group to another, if one cannot be tolerant enough to feel at home in either, is a time of suffering. The time of a general shifting in belief, as in the 16th century, is a time of revolution. Can this in any way be avoided ?

Conditions are not materially different in what we call society in the narrower sense of that word. Most of us are born into a certain place in the social life of our town or city. So long as we stay there and are like our companions, we are comfortable ; but if, through added wealth, or higher intellectual training, or changed political positions, we attempt to change our places, discomfort ensues. Still greater discomfort comes, perhaps, if through misfortune or disgrace or poverty or love for evil, we take what is considered a downward step in the social scale. Whenever we are unsuited to our social surroundings, we suffer.

But social and personal discomforts, evils, may also arise and often do arise likewise from what may be called personal disharmonies. We sometimes meet persons, who from birth, training, social experiences, manner, etc., would seem to be suited to us and whom we wish to know well, but with whom we are always at odds. Even dear friends of our childhood days sometimes as years go by grow away from us or we from them as changes creep into our lives.

All these evils, personal and institutional, when we look closely for their causes, throw much light on the nature of society and point out the necessary nature of social reforms. Aside from lack of conscience in the individual, the evils are all alike in essence ; all demand individual or institutional adaptation. Wliether the evil be economic, as in the case of the hand weavers, when power looms were bought ; or political, or legal, or religious — in all cases there has been on one side a human mind or spirit out of harmony with its surroundings. Either the individual has changed, or his surroundings have changed, and the man, under the domination of mental and spiritual inertia, is unable to will a change in himself to meet the new conditions ; or if he makes the change, he suffers because others do not change with him. As one looks into the faces of men suffering from lack of work and finds each of them looking for the special work that he has been trained to do, and unwilling or unable to turn his hand to other things, one begins to realize the social significance of what may well be called psychical or mental inertia. Still more pitiable, if possible, does this mental inertia appear when one sees men year after year — generation after generation sometimes — clinging to the cherished name of a political party, and worshiping it for what it has done, as if, when the issues of the day had changed and even the personnel of the membership, the party remained the same. Most men are too weak, too careless, or too lazy mentally to readjust their political beliefs to the changing needs of the day.

Even in spiritual or religious or educational matters, conditions are much the same. The great mass of people rest in the places into which in early days their parents, the circumstances of their lives, their early training have placed them, or they follow blindly the leader whom they have chosen. If great preachers and teachers could use their influence over their followers' opinions for personal gain, we should soon have religious and educational " bosses," as we have political bosses.

How many teachers gulp educational doctrine ; how few make good doctrine, or even assimilate it and use it wisely and independently ! One feels tempted to conclude that the most powerful social influence is mental inertia, spiritual laziness. It tends toward stability; but it is the stability of stagnation, of death. Social reform demands a force that will quicken the minds of men ; will render them more adaptable to their surroundings, more ready to fit themselves to the needs of the day.

But, let us note for a moment, too, besides the mental inertia of the multitude the mental force of the inventor or the thinker, an activity that often causes suffering, though it is an inevitable preliminary to social improvement. Mental slowness, as we have seen, may cause the starvation of men and families who cannot readily learn to tend a power loom ; but the inventor of the machine, also, till his machine is established in popular favor, may well have made himself miserable, because he realized the imperfections of the old loom on which he was compelled to waste his time. Nay, he may even starve before he can convince his fellows of the value of his invention. His mental keenness may bring him discomfort at first, and will cause his fellows suffering later, though ultimately it will bless the world. Not only did Galileo and Luther suffer for their advanced ideas, but they caused suffering to thousands of others by setting the pace of life faster than common men could follow; and yet by their originality they became two of the world's greatest benefactors.

It is a painful reflection that, while we can advance only by the aid of advanced thinkers, yet they and we must suffer in our efforts to harmonize our views. Popular government, of course, demands these changes ; and we can never avoid, we can only minimize the disharmony. A large part of the work of the conscientious legislator is the adaptation of good bills to suit the whims of stupid people.

The remedy for these evils lies in two directions: (1) The leader himself may have so clear a vision of the future of his work and of its ultimate success that he overlooks the present suffering to himself and to others for the sake of the future benefit of the world; (2) He may see into the nature of society and its tendencies so clearly that he may bring about more readily than is common a readjustment of the institution itself.

If now the evils in our society are to be removed, in good part, only by increasing the power of our workers in the industrial field to adapt themselves readily to their conditions, no matter what new circumstances may arise; or, in the political, or legal, or religious field, either to adapt themselves to circumstances, or to modify conditions by changing institutions, political, legal, social, one can see how completely social reforms rest upon education of the citizen. If our schools and colleges cannot now give the kinds of education needed, we certainly must have wide-spread educational reform within and outside the schools.

For the hand-worker, perhaps the best training that can be given to secure adaptability in his industrial activity is that of a good manual training school. But the question of educational reforms even for the Industrial life involves far more than manual training, good as that may be in plan and practice. Not merely skill in turning one's hand to any kind of mechanical work is needed; but of vastly more consequence is the spirit of adaptability, readiness to do as best one can whatever offers — the spirit of independence and self-respect that implies a willingness to stand, by one's self, if need be, for one's own opinions, and to do one's duty under all circumstances. Laboring men often refuse to adapt themselves to new conditions from fear of the opinion of their trade-unions, or from foolish pride which hinders them from stooping to tasks requiring less skill than does their own. They may be justified at times. I do not overlook their argument that one may become permanently classified with the less skilled laborers. Politicians hesitate to act freely for fear that they may alienate their party votes, or — worse yet — the party boss. Voters do not vote against the party for fear of being called irregular. Preachers hesitate to speak the whole truth for fear of their congregations. Congregations hesitate to think freely from fear of the preacher and elders. But there must be this personal fearlessness and independence, if men are to adapt themselves to social institutions or to adapt social institutions to their needs. They must see clearly, decide independently and impartially or society must suffer. This involves, as I understand it, in many cases, the setting up of new and higher ideals of life, and habituating our citizens to strive for these ideals instead of for their present ones. Again, as men need to have personal adaptability and independence, they must also have tolerance for inde- 2 pendence in others, if social evils are to be overcome. If I ask that in religious matters I be allowed to think freely and to live in peace without a creed, I shall only bring lack of harmony into society, unless I am equally ready to let my Christian brother who wishes to do so, keep his creed, without calling him narrow or despising him. If in politics I demand the right to stand as a democrat or republican or mugwump, I may do so with advantage to our political institutions if I let my neighbor take another position with no feeling that he is not doing what is right. Until I am thus tolerant, I am rendering political changes difficult, and am forcing disharmony into society in a way that will have evil consequences. The free use of the epithets, " anarchist, revolutionist," on the one hand, and " robber, conspirator," on the other, in political campaigns do not tend toward either harmony or remolding of institutions. It is irrational and of evil influence.

Still further, if I am to work out reforms of our social evils, I must have a thoro knowledge of our social institutions, so that I may not merely fit myself to them so far as I can, and let my fellow citizen shape his course without hindrance ; but, also, that I may shape the institutions themselves to meet the needs of the times. When, for example, public opinion is changing (let us say on the temperance question), a conflict is sure to arise between the present laws and the new habits. The student of social institutions should be quick to see the coming change, to know the new form of law that will be in harmony with the new opinion, and to make his influence felt in bringing about the passage of the law. Legislators usually seek to follow public opinion, and practically they must not go too far in advance of it ; but we shall not only hasten progress, but also more nearly secure social harmony, if our laws somewhat precede and thus help to mold public opinion into definite form. The legislator ought to lead as well as to follow.