A quarter century of public school development

Preface

It seemed to be fitting that, upon the completion of a quarter of a century of service by Dr. William H. Maxwell as City Superintendent of the schools of Brooklyn and New York, a collection of his educational writings should be made. Dr. Maxwell was therefore persuaded to allow others to attempt a piece of work that his busy days gave him *no opportunity to perform and the preparation of this volume has, by his permission, been undertaken by a committee of editors who are responsible for the selection of the papers which are included in the book.

Those who read its pages cannot fail to be impressed, as were the editors, by the fact that many of what we now count the most ordinary and necessary activities of the public school had to be fought for year by year, and sometimes for many years, before they were accepted and made part of our educational system.

Introduction

The public career of Dr. Maxwell in the cities of Brooklyn and of New York is at once an example and an inspiration. It is an example to those public officers who are without conviction or guiding principle, and whose ears are ever bent to catch the sound of every passing w r ave of shallow opinion. It is an inspiration to those who are sometimes prone to despair of the conditions attending public service in our American democracy.

Dr. Maxwell affords perhaps the most striking example that our generation has seen of a man of scholarship, courage, and firm principle in high public office. He has had more to do than any other man, or any other hundred men, with shaping the public educational system of New York so that it will be free from political domination ; free from the taint of personal influence or privilege, and free from narrow and pedantic formalism. It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of Dr. Maxwell's life work. The citation of elaborate

Vll viii INTRODUCTION

statistics might illustrate but would not reveal it in anything like its importance and its wide scope. The worst and most self-seeking elements in the metropolis have persistently opposed Dr. Maxwell and his policies, and have sought, by ways that were dark and tricks that were vain, to humiliate and to defeat him. While this opposition has from time to time harassed Dr. Maxwell, it has never caused him to lose his courage, to weaken his grip upon his principles, or to enter upon the cheap and easy path of compromise. He has gained the fullest measure of support from the press and the best elements of the city's population that any public officer in New York has ever had. Men and women who care for the city's good, and who know what is involved in offering the right or the wrong opportunity for training, to the city's children, have looked on with admiration and joy as Dr. Maxwell has fought one successful battle after another for the freedom of the schools, for the enforcement of the highest practicable standards of fitness in teaching, and for making the needs and interests of the children the sole aim of public school policy. In these days of political stress and storm, when public opinion is blown about like a leaf upon the wind, it is noteworthy that in the city of New York a man of Dr. Maxwell's eminence as scholar, as administrator, and as citizen has been permitted to

INTRODUCTION IX

spend the long years of an active life in the devoted service of the city and of the city's children.

The publication of this volume is a well-earned tribute to Dr. Maxwell's public service. It reveals only in small part what that service has been, for men are so minded that it is only when the bark of life has put out forever upon the shoreless sea that they are willing to tell all that is in their hearts of their friend. Therefore, the printed records and his published writings are left to speak for themselves.

Of one thing we may be sure : when Dr. Maxwell's task is closed and the time comes for him to lay down the heavy burden that he has so sturdily and so worthily borne, the city of New York will say with one voice, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."

NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER

Columbia University, September 18, 191 2

Contents

Com

I. Expectations and Ideals

II. Literature in the Grades