Education and the general welfare

Preface

This book is an outgrowth of classroom work in a course of school law, hygiene, and management, as offered to juniors in preparation for teaching and to others who in pursuit of liberal studies regard a knowledge of this subject-matter as essential to intelligent citizenship.

As a text-book in management, its central theme is the school as a part of community life and the individual child as the dominant interest of the school. It aims to extend the scope of the subject beyond its traditional limits, the four walls of the schoolhouse. Since the public school cannot lead a cloistered existence but must register an appreciable effect upon the community of which it forms a part, it cannot afford to ignore the forces of indifference from without that may nullify its every effort. A study of the causes of illiteracy, child labor, and non-attendance, and opposition to them, is a part of the campaign against ignorance.

But while aiming to give a comprehensive view of the whole school situation, the book considers at the same time the everyday problems of the schoolroom and the details of pupil management. However, the principles of discipline held to, it is hoped, will be found not altogether peculiar to the school but also applicable in the home and equally useful for self -management in the conduct of life anywhere. For the general guiding principle is that of hygiene, and this as applied to the mental and moral as well as to the physical realm. The policy of preventing ills viii Preface

is, however, regarded as complementary to that of providing the means and opportunities for positive character growth in all the activities of school life. The concept of health is regarded as applicable to every kind of functioning, and moral values are kept in mind even before the distinct beginning of moral responsibility in the school child. In the application of psychological principles to the matter of establishing favorable attitudes, school management enters a promising field. From this point of view, it will gain a clearer and larger psychological content and more and more stress conditions of learning as distinguished from methods of teaching.

The teacher and the class, of which the largest school systems are but multiples, is, of course, the typical situation of management held in mind throughout the book. It is not addressed to the administrator, but its subject-matter is related to those general aspects of management that every teacher should appreciate in order to be in a position to cooperate intelligently in measures that seek the highest good of the school system by way of the classroom. While the elementary school, as the most numerous of all schools, is frequently referred to throughout the text, the book was prepared for use in classes in which all the teachers of a complete system may be represented.

The book covers a wide range and does not aim at completeness in any direction. All its topics should, however, stimulate inquiry and further discussion. The statistical tables, in some cases given without textual comment, will in themselves offer data for supplementary work of this character. Thus the work which is here mapped out to cover a three-hour course for half a college year, may be expanded so as to provide material for twice this scope.

Preface ix

In the list of books and pamphlets given under the head of Selected References, certain important titles that may seem to have been ignored will in nearly all instances be found included in the bibliographies of one or more of the references in the list. The references in the text are cited as authority for the statements made or to suggest further study from the same or a different point of view.

The writer acknowledges obligations in general to his colleagues, his students, and to teachers of Cincinnati and vicinity, incurred both before and after the purpose to write a book had been formed. More particularly, to Dean William P. Burris, of the College for Teachers, University of Cincinnati, is due the original suggestion that the course out of which the book has grown be planned to provide information necessary to the fulfillment of certain state requirements for a teachers' life certificate. When the work began to take final form, he made a critical reading of the manuscript, and he gave much encouragement all along the toilsome way. Others who made criticisms and suggestions or assisted in other helpful ways were Miss Frances Jenkins, assistant professor in the College for Teachers, Whitelaw Reid Morrison, M.D., professor of physical education. University of Cincinnati, Principal George H. Shafer, of the Willimantic (Conn.) State Normal School, and the writer's wife, Anna Eldon Sechrist. But the author alone remains responsible for the content of the work and its organization, and for any errors that may have escaped correction.

F. S.

Cincinnati, Ohio, November, 1919.

Chapter I Page

The General Welfare i

The resources of the mind — The content aim of education

— The formal aim of school work — Maximurn and minimum aims — Illiteracy — The allegiance of the spirit — Measures to reduce or wipe out illiteracy for the sake of the children — Americanization of immigrant children — The future of American school children — Educational " Faddism " — Use of concrete things as a source of knowledge and skill — Ideals of recreation — Ideals of achievement — " Internal improvement "

— The means of education.

CHAPTER II Public Opinion and Educational Control 24

A healthy local sentiment for education — A national sentiment — Federal aid to schools — Land grants in support of higher education — Morrill Law — Direct appropriations from the United States treasury — Agricultural Extension Law — Vocational Education Law — Full Time and Part Time Industrial Schools — Federal aid for education as proposed — Other sources of support.

CHAPTER III Distribution of Emphasis 38

The total cost of education in the United States for the year 1916 — Expenses of special schools — Distribution of expenses in state and city systems — Number of pupils per teacher — Financial return to the teacher — Total expense per pupil — Classified expenditures per child in average attendance — Salaries of teachers per pupil in average attendance — Crowding in the elementary school — Method of distribution of school funds.

Chapter IV

The meaning of childhood — Neural basis of work and play — Immediate and remote effects of child labor — Child

xi xiv Contents

CHAPTER XII p^CB

Chronic disease and physical defects — Levels of efficiency — The unwilling and the incapable — Indifference and dullness — Mental consequences of physical defects — Effect of consciousness of weakness — Medical diagnosis and education — School health, a permanent national service — Defects of the respiratory system — Defects of the digestive system — Diseased teeth and retardation — Brushing and cleansing the teeth — Malnutrition — Malnutrition and dullness — Rachitic effects — School feeding — Impoverished blood — Anemia — Anemia and dullness — Sense defects — Hearing — Hearing tests — Impaired hearing and dullness — Symptoms of defective hearing — Symptoms of eye strain — Standard size of letters — Conservation of vision in school — Speech defects — Speech defects and retardation — Cure of speech defects — Mental types of stutterers — Summary.

CHAPTER XIII Original Assets of Character 209

By way of transition — Pupil management — The child's initial equipment — Original tendencies — The impulse to act

— The impulse to resist — Tendency to dispel feelings of ill-will — Tne impulse to render service — The impulse to take the initiative and assume responsibility — The impulse of children to seek companionship — Desire for the approval of the group — The desire to cooperate — The natural hunger of the senses — A desire to get on — The desire for completed action — A desire for results — The impulse to strive — The direction of development.

CHAPTER XIV Problem of the Emotions 222

Study of the emotions — Personal reactions — Continuity of emotion — Affective displacement — The unwilling pupil — Emotion and object — Development of likes and dislikes — Animals and flowers — Symbols and emotions — Good and evil

— Emotional excess — A study of cases — Excessive fears — Children conceal their fears — Fear as a means of discipline

— Fears dissolved by understanding — Anger — Nervous instability—Influence of the teacher — Excessive inhibition — Summary.

Contents xv

CHAPTER XV ,^<,,

Reasons for study of exceptional child — The self-controlled — Study of means of self-control — Instinctive support

— Desire to be a man — A controlling interest — Self-control and leadership — Imagination and character ^ — Imitation of ideals — A critical point of the imagination — Daydreaming — Falsifying — Summary.

CHAPTER XVI Mental Development Through Attitudes 258

An attitude favorable to the work of the school — The cheerful attitude — The right use of the mind — The attitude of attention — The child's attention — Bodily positions and thinking — Thinking under difficulties — Concentrated and distributed attention — Causes of mental inefficiency — How mental power is weakened — Thinking of self — The practice of thinking in school — Substitutes for thinking — Memory for words

— Memory of words a means to higher ends — Memory of facts

— Memory for relations — Steps in development of thinking

— The spirit of inquiry is essential to thinking — Tone and tempo of the teacher's questioning — Consecutive thinking — Constructive type of thinking — Constructive use of knowledge

— What the mind is for — Control of attention — Attention follows interest — Interest follows attention — Inner and outer factors of attention — Concentration weakened by deadly stillness — Concentration weakened by impulse to be active — Concentration weakened by anticipation and memories — Chief sign of mental strength — Mistakes in double-track thinking — Exercise to increase power of concentration — The divided attention — Indecision — Importance of being certain — Indecision as reflected in school work — Home training in indecision — Facing and settling problems — The hygiene and discipline of the mind.

CHAPTER XVII The Individual and the Group 284

Limitations of freedom — The teacher in relation to the school — The school an organic unit — Danger in the strong personality — Teacher's duty to the group — Training for group activity — From family to school — Group efficiency requires system — Distinguishing constants and variables — The appeal to reason — The individual and the group in class work

— Individual vs. Class teaching — Individual and social elements in the formal recitation — Value of class criticism — xvi Contents

PAGE

Establishing class standards — Cooperative class work — Weakening initiative and power of attack —- Group preparation — Intellectual and social value of intensive class work — Loss of individual in the group — Group consistency — Promotion and grading — Where the trouble begins — Appointed time for promotion — Keeping the group consistent — Group organizations.

CHAPTER XVIII The Work of the School Day 302

Principles of program making — Time distribution — A rural school program — Method of alternation — The formal recitation in school programs — The teacher's time — Original function of the oral recitation — Recitation as related to subject matter — Importance of the day's work — The essential factors of school work — Too many impressions — Too few impressions — Over-elaboration — Want of elaboration — Empty language — Cross-purposes in the recitation — Modern program requirements — Organizing a program — A suggested departure from the recitation program — Organization within the time periods — Organization between the period:^ — Directed study — Departmental programs.

CHAPTER XIX The Play Instinct in School Work 328

Play jnd the development of the self — Second and third stage — General agreements and differences between work and play — Types of activity, play — When play becomes work — Plot-interest in play — Plot-interest in a ball — Heightened plot-interest — Feeling of responsibility — The quitter — Summary — Play as mental hygiene — The play illusion — Constructive activity, play and work — Work — Other forms of play — Amusement — Dawdling — Relation of the scientific interest to the drudgery of work — Mental parallels of physical types of work — Summary, How to vitalize school work.

CHAPTER XX

Prophylaxis — Food — Food campaigns — Theory and practice — How a teacher may know whether a child is well-nourished — Nutrition depends not on food alone — Sleep — The amount of sleep — Quality of sleep — Quality of sleep an effect — Sleep and home conditions — John Locke on sleep — Effect of too much sleep — The cause of sleep and cure of sleeplessness.

Contents xvii

CHAPTER XXI p^cg

Benefits of play — Value of open air recreation — Universal play impulse — The modern Olympic games — Physical fitness as a patriotic duty — Exercises in physical training — Playground interests — Organization of play — Play in the country — Play in the city — Sports in the elementary school — A scale of play values — Revelations of a play census.

CHAPTER XXn Auxiliary Agencies 380

Modern needs — Cooperation of the home — How to win parents — The parent-teacher association — Possible influence of such organizations — Every school needs a laboratory — The home as a source of projects — Little Mothers' leagues — The National Children's Bureau — School gardening — School savings banks — Civics clubs — The Scouts organizations — The social center — The unit of democracy — The school needs the social center — Child welfare a universal interest — The promise of the profession.

APPENDIX Standardizing Requirements 397

Statutory definitions of schools — The kindergarten as a part of the public school system — Merging the kindergarten and the elementary school — Definition of an elementary school

— Classification of elementary schools — Graded schools — Consolidated schools — Definition and classification of high schools — Time units — Types of high school courses — Methods of raising standards in elementary and high schools

— Plan of standardization adopted and used by Montana State Department of Education — Score card for city school buildings — A suggested score card for schools in small cities, villages, and consolidated districts.

LIST OF CHARTS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

CHART

I

.XXII

XXIII

The percentage of illiterates in the states . Future occupations of American children . Appropriations for vocational education . Total cost of education in the U. S. for 1916 . Expenditure for education in the states

Classified expenditures in cities

Salaries of teachers per pupil, etc

Child labor in American cities ......

Average length of school terms in the states .

Reasons for non-attendance

Grade distribution in Ohio

Comparison of wages of children ....

Mean hourly range of temperature ....

Comparative reduction in mortality ....

Seasonal diseases

Seasonal diseases

Physical examinations of school children in Chi

cago

Medical examination of school children in Cincin

nati

Causes of rejection for military service

Grade distribution of lispers and stutterers

Time distribution by subjects and grades .

One-teacher rural school recitation program

A flexible program for 5th and 6th grade .

A flexible program for 2nd grade . . . xix

PAGE II

17 32

42-3

47 57 68-9

93-4 125 163 177 178

187-8 189-0 206 303-4

305 321-2

323-4

XX List of Charts and Illustrations

CHART PAGE

XXIV A flexible program for 4th and 5th grade . . . 325-6

XXV Height and weight table for boys 353

XXVI Height and weight table for girls 354-5

XXVII A play census 377-S

FIGURE

1 An approved type of city school building . facing 95

2 A modern one-room school building 97

2a Plan of 2 98

3-4 A one-story school building with floor plan .... 100

5 Basement floor plan of 3 loi

6 Plan of school grounds 104

7 Effect of location of inlets and outlets 127

8 Diagram of psychic activity 311

9 Weighing a child facing 355

CHAPTER I The General Welfare

It is at all times the paramount purpose of good government to promote the general welfare. A wide diffusion of knowledge among the people has from the beginning of our history been furthered by various acts of legislation as a means to this end. While to develop and conserve the country's resources and foster a widely distributed material prosperity is a moral obligation, it has always been our political philosophy that a nation's greatness is not ultimately in mines and forests and prairies, but in the character of the people, in their ideas and sentiments; and that its power is not in armies and navies, but in the invisible ideals for which men and women are willing to lay down their lives.

To support a system of schools for all the people for the purpose of cultivating ideals and developing character is a national political strategy of the first order. It is the permanent line of the national defense. It is a nation's insurance against death by stagnation or destruction by violence. It is a vital part of the national economy. Public education is our common cause, however people may differ in party politics or religion. It is a means of organizing the permanent forces of American life. In its broader mission it reaches three generations : the group of children in school, their parents, and, in the course of time, the generation to come — all in one message that goes home.

The Resources of the Mind. The wealth of a nation is human. The ultimate resources of the individual and the nation for both happiness and prosperity are within. That happiness does not depend on material wealth, that it is the mind that makes the body rich, that who would be free must free his mind from sordid passions, must love virtue and justice and be an active champion of righteousness — all these are familiar truths of the literature of freedom and the moral basis of good citizenship.

But to these lessons of democracy must now be added that the resources of material prosperity and national defense are also of the mind, that when the forces of a nation are summoned to meet a great crisis it is not enough to be schooled in the abstract principles of freedom and duties of citizenship. Now what a man has done or can do in times of peace is called into service. Now it will appear whether his body is strong and alert to serve the will and what his training in other respects has prepared him to offer.i

Our country has passed through several stages of eco-

1 " The most formidable institution we had to fight in Germany was not the arsenals of Krupp or the yards in which they turned out submarines, but the schools of Germany. They were our most formidable competitors in business and our most terrible opponents in war. An educated man is a better worker, a more formidable warrior, and a better citizen. That was only half comprehended before the war." — Lloyd-George in a speech at Manchester, as reported in the Survey. November 9, 19 18.

nomic development. The first was a period of exploration of the vast domain, the age of the pioneer and of individual enterprise. The next was the period of exploitation and waste, of individual and collective enterprise. Before the World War we had already entered upon the present period of cooperative enterprise, of organization and conservation of our resources. We had come to the bounds of the geographical frontier and had come to see our limits in all directions. The beginning of the War revealed a lack of industrial unity, a limited food supply, a congested transportation system, and a national spirit diluted by many diverse racial elements. We learned that there is a national physiology as well as a national psychology. The War intensified and accelerated the conservation movement. It was found that, while our resources are great, they are exhaustible and that there are limits to our fabulous wealth. The multi-millionaire could have financed the War for only a few days. The failure of one year's crop of wheat would have jeopardized the fruits of civil liberty gained in centuries of conflict.

To make more of our material resources, we must fall back on the resources of the mind. These are by their nature inexhaustible. We must keep extending the intellectual frontier. " For the prevention of waste the most effective means will be found in the increase and diffusion of knowledge, from which is sure to result an aroused public sentiment demanding prevention." ^

For the increase of production we depend also on educational development. The animal adapts himself to the environment; man adapts the environment to himself. A

1 From the Report of the National Conservation Commission, 1900.

country possesses material resources only in so far as the intelligence and skill of the people can make them available. The soil is fertile only as it can be made to yield profitable crops. Deposits of iron and coal are rich only as related to useful industry. The nitrogen of the air has no commercial value unless we have the science to extract it. The natural wealth of a country affords but a scant subsistence to an ignorant people. If they cannot rise to their country's opportunities they may become the victims of conquest or of peaceful penetration. The mind of a people is the chief source of wealth as all other resources depend on its productive power.

" Tilling the soil even with so perfected a tool as( a good spade, it would take 560 seasons to turn over a square mile of land, 640 acres. A man with a team and good plow can do it in 4 seasons. Twelve men with three mechanical tractors and fifty-one plows in a gang can turn it over in 36 hours.

" At $2.00 a day, man power costs per horse power, $54,000 per year of 7,500 hours. In a small gasoline engine it costs $300 a year per horse power; for large power installations, whether steam, gas, or electrical, it costs from $20 a year up to $200 per horse power. Man power costs therefore from 135 to 1,350 times as much as uncarnate power.

" On the average each adult man is supplemented by 22 mechanical slaves whose keep averages less than one four-hundredth of his own value of $2.00 a day." ^

To increase production and conservation and use of the product is the constant problem of the world's growing population. In all the universe the mind of man is the only means of solving it.

1 Emerson : " Twelve Principles of Efficiency," New York, 1916, p. vii-ix.

The Content Aim of Education. It is the function of the school primarily to teach that knowledge which the race has found necessary to its continued existence is contentment and happiness, and to discover the place in the social economy of individual capabilities. All this includes the conservation of life and health, the protection and care of property, and the promotion of industry and thrift. To aid in securing the power of self-support is the irreducible minimum of what the school must do for every child. And this for self-respect and moral development as well as for the prosperity and security of the state.

But the aims of education cannot be justly phrased in so brief a way. There are maximum and minimum aims according to individual capacities. And not all desirable knowledge is of equal importance. What is of first importance is not necessarily the first to acquire. There are five major interests which popular education must to a certain extent satisfy. They come in the following order of importance : -^ I. Economic independence. II. Care of offspring. III. The Social interest. IV. The Political interest. V. The Interests of Leisure. Health is fundamental to all.

It is evident that the power to supply an economic need in a community takes precedence of all other interests. To be able to make a living comes first. If the ability to provide for himself food, clothing, and shelter without assistance fails a young man, he should refrain from entering the relation which brings responsibility for the second (II). If he is an economic charge he cannot become a social bless-

1 Spencer, Herbert: "Education," New York, 1900, chap. I, D. Appleton and Company.

ing (III). And as for the fourth (IV), only when one has attained the first (I) can he properly concern himself with the political rights of a freeman. Any one who can make an honest living will readily comprehend the ordinary duties of citizenship, even though he have meager scholastic attainments. On the other hand, one might be well versed in the theory of government and yet be a menace to the state if that is his only means of support. Finally, the interests of leisure (V) are only for him who by his industry and thrift has accumulated a surplus over and above the cost of food, clothing, and shelter, and has earned his leisure.

Accumulations of wealth represent the power of leisure derived from productive labor, and the value of the wealth in any case depends on how the leisure afforded is employed. A certain amount of leisure is the inalienable right of the humblest person. The way it is spent will in all cases measure the value of the energy and thrift that earned it.

In a general way, under the first head (I) comes the money-making enterprise. This is related to the others in so far as it supplies certain of their indispensable material needs. But the others in their own province are not primarily fields for the accumulation of wealth, although in an advanced state of society service in them may be prepared for by special training and used as a means of gaining a livelihood. For example, care of offspring is the parent's duty. He owes it to the child, the community, and the state. A part of this service has become so large that it must be delegated to trained assistants ; and it has become so important that the state now usually takes the place of the parent, as a means of making its own future secure. But if the sole object of any of the agencies engaged in this work is not the supreme good of the child, the common sense of humanity condemns the process as wicked exploitation.

And service to the community and to the state to be honorable must be free and non-remunerative. To be a good citizen one must be a good neighbor and give his time freely for the good of the community. To receive money for a vote or hold office to accumulate wealth is civic treason. A paid representative of the people in any capacity receives a supposed equivalent for loss of time and opportunities in a regular occupation or profession.

Among the interests of leisure are recreative sports and games, music, literature, drama, and the fine arts. Here we have on the one hand creative pleasure and artistic satisfaction as the controlling motive; on the other, the pleasures of appreciation. To give further emphasis to the importance of leisure, it is only necessary to add that it includes the time occupied in that which for many represents the highest type of human enjoyment — religious devotions and public worship. This interest of leisure is the special province of the church and other religious institutions. However, the school can inspire reverence for all religious aspirations.

It is to be especially noted that health is a fundamental condition to the exercise of every activity. Physical vigor has a direct relation to the service of the state. Keeping fit is a social and a patriotic duty. Since no interest can be pursued without health, not even the enjoyment of leisure, keeping well is the prime economy, the first means to all other ends. However, the school was not instituted for the purpose of gaining health but rather for its conservation. It is not a sanitarium. One does not go there to seek lost health but to seek knowledge. Still school conditions and requirements must not interfere with normal growth in height and weight. The physical vitality of the child must be raised rather than lowered by its experience in school.

The Formal Aim of School Work. If we ask what activity in the child the school ultimately seeks to stimulate, the answer to be given is more than a hundred and fifty years old in the history of education. It is : " inner self-activity.'* This may be called the formal aim of school work in distinction from the content aim. In the one the chief goal is economic independence, in the second it is independence of thought. These two attainments are of greater value to the individual than any amount of formal study of patriotism and government without these two. The largest part of good citizenship is to be able to make an honest living and to do one's own thinking.

School Work Aims at the Individual; not at the mass but at the individual in the mass. All planning, organizing, thinking, is in the first place individual. The teacher must keep track of the individual minds composing a class and not expect any of them to be swept along by the momentum of the whole.

Maximum and Minimum Aims. Since all children are now required to go to school, it will be found that the same maximum aims that have been outlined as the major life interests cannot be reached in all the children on account of differences in natural endowments, and that there will be some who are limited not in one but in all possible directions of advancement. Hence it must be the aim of the school to train each child to the limit of its capacity to receive training. In some children this will be reached be-