The principles of education

Front matter

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Author's Preface

This book is the outgrowth of twelve years of classroom instruction, supplemented by other work in the training of teachers. It is an attempt to present with logical cogency a simple and definite system of principles for guiding educational thought and practice. Elaboration useless for this practical purpose has been avoided.

Attention should be called especially to two characteristics of this discussion of the principles of education. (1) Man is here regarded as a person who seeks to attain purposes through means of control and also as a psychophysical organism in a process of adjustment to environment through stimuli and responses; but these two points of view, the confusion of which has led to much erratic thinking in the field of education, have been kept distinct. (2) The importance in the educative process of the appreciation of values is here emphasized as much as is the importance of the knowledge of facts, by which appreciated values may be attained. In this connection, the essential nature and function of history and of literature and the other fine arts are explained, and the methods in accordance with which this subject matter should be taught are definitely presented.

Quotations used in this book are evidence of my indebtedness to various authors. I should acknowledge especial indebtedness to my former- teachers, including Professors Paul H. Hanus, Hugo Miinsterberg, and Josiah Royce at Harvard University; Professors John

vii vifT Author's Preface

Dewey, John Angus MacVannel, Frank M. McMurry, and Edward L. Thorndike at Teachers College, Columbia University; and Professor John P. Gordy at Ohio State University. My former colleague Professor W. W. Charters of the Carnegie Institute of Technology has read the entire manuscript and has made valuable suggestions for its improvement. Dean Frank Thilly of Cornell University and my colleagues Professors Max F. Meyer and George H. Sabine have given helpful criticisms of parts of the discussion. I am indebted to my colleagues Professors Frederick M. Tisdel and Robert M. Dewey, who have read the manuscript and are responsible for much improvement in the matter of expression. Acknowledgment is due my former colleague Dean Frank P. Graves of the University of Pennsylvania and his wife, Helen Wadsworth Graves, who have reviewed the proof of the entire book. Acknowledgment for helpful criticism of the manuscript and proof is due my wife, Edith Logan Coursault. A final indebtedness I owe to my parents, who encouraged me to prepare for the profession of teaching.

Jesse H. Coursault.

Columbia, Missouri, July, 1920.

Table Of Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Purpose and Plan of this Book . . . 1

'il. The Larger Factors in Human Development 25

Chapter I The Purpose And Plan Of This Book

In educational thought and practice, there is need of guiding principles which conform to the truths established by modern science and philosophy. It is the purpose of this book to make these principles simple, definite, and clear. The truths established by science and philosophy are revealed from two points of view, — that of natural science, which describes and explains man in the light of physical causation as an organism responding to stimuli from the environment ; and that of teleology, which regards him in the light of final causation as a person controlled by purposes and ideas. The principles of education derived from these two points of view may be made more easily available by reducing them to a single system through the translation of those derived from the point of view of natural science, which is more accurate, into the terms of teleology, which is easier. The method adopted here for presenting the principles of education is to analyze into its factors the process of human development which education is to control, and to find footy these factors unite in doing their work.

Every student of education should critically revise, in the light of modern science and philosophy, the principles which guide his judgments of educational thought and practice.

The purpose of this book is to make simple, definite, and clear, a body of principles which should guide in educational thought and practice. Every student of education has certain fundamental beliefs, or principles, which he uses as standards in judging the truth or falsity of educational ideas and practices, upon which, as an explanatory basis, he organizes his knowledge of educational matters, and in the light of which he sees new difficulties to be overcome and new problems to be solved. He may not be able to state these principles in systematic form; indeed, he may not even recognize them as principles. But he has them nevertheless. He must have them in order to know what else in education is worth while. To call them to mind, he need only consider such questions as whether the state should establish separate agricultural or trades schools ; whether state aid to schools in poorer localities is just to taxpayers in wealthier localities; whether Latin, industrial arts, or some other subject matter should be included in the common school curriculum; what subjects in the curriculum should be elective and what subjects should be required; how science, history, or literature should be taught ; to what extent " telling " should enter into teaching ; what the values of interest and effort in school work are ; whether there should be a difference between preparation for college and preparation for life. To deal intelligently with these educational problems, to deal intelligently with any educational problems, even where scientific measurement is made use of, one must have some fundamental ideas as to the nature of education and the part which education plays in the drama of life.

The ordinary source of these principles is a more or less faulty popular tradition. Many of them have grown up in the popular mind and have become embalmed in the common expressions of the language. From time to time they have appeared as new ideas, but with the passing of generations they became common habits of thought and now appear with the cloak of authority as "common sense." Just as people speak of the sun's "rising" and "setting" as if by its own motion, although for three hundred years science has taught differently, so they entertain with regard to the fundamentals of education many ideas that are antiquated and untrue. Indeed, even persons who have made some progress in the study of education are often handicapped by the inadequate popular ideas to which they have been accustomed since childhood and which are as much a part of their mental equipment as the language they speak. Among these popular fallacies, some of which are in conflict one with another, are the beliefs that our ideas of things in the external world are copies of the things themselves; that these copies are impressed upon the mind through the senses; that the mind is composed of general powers, or faculties, which can be developed by special exercise ; that the chief aim of education is knowledge ; that the most valuable effect of literature and music is refined pleasure; that the child's undirected interests are the only guides to what he should study; that the most valuable result of education is mental discipline and strength gained through effort in learning.

Because the principles of education are of such fundamental importance, and because the popular " common sense " beliefs are so often untrue, every student of education should revise critically his basic ideas of the subject and make them conform to the truths established by modern science and philosophy. Failure to do this abandons him to the fallacies of popular judgment in educational matters; it leaves him with an inadequate basis for explaining and organizing modern educational truths, and consequently without easily available guides for educational practice ; and it consigns him to the futile task of trying to solve false problems which arise in any attempt to carry out principles that are not true. Illustrations will make this statement plainer. The erroneous popular belief that literature is merely for refined pleasure would lead one to misjudge the importance of this subject in the course of study. The belief that ideas of things in the external world are copies of those things acquired through the senses would be an inadequate basis for explaining, and therefore an inadequate basis for organizing for use, the steps by which a person acquires knowledge through solving problems by means of hypotheses. The erroneous popular belief that the most valuable result of education is mental discipline and strength gained through effort in learning, and the conflicting, but equally erroneous, belief that the child's undirected interests are the only guides to what he should study, -would lead respectively to the one-sided problems of what should be in the curriculum merely because it requires effort and furnishes discipline, and what should be in merely because it excites interest.

Special studies in the field of education, such as educational psychology, the theory of teaching, and school administration, as well as more general subject matter, such as ethics, sociology, biology, general psychology, history, logic, epistemology, and metaphysics, reveal valid principles of education. None of them, however, covers the whole field of education. Each reveals principles of education from a special angle. All are more or less isolated and lack that organization which includes all points of view, which comprehends all of the fundamental principles, and which closely unites them into a logical system. To learn the fundamental truths of education through a direct, comprehensive, systematic study of them and thereby to satisfy a serious need for which other subject matter does not provide, — this is the essential reason for the study of the principles of education.

II

Since human development is explained in terms of both efficient and final causation, a simple basis for organizing the principles of education is possible only when the principles of education revealed from these two points of view are reduced to a common denominator.

In seeking a simple basis on which to organize the principles of education for systematic study; we meet a difficulty in the fact that a human being may be regarded in two very different ways, and that various special studies of human life, whatever the minor differences among them may be, take one or the other of these general points of view. Since man has a body and is, therefore, a part of the physical world, such natural sciences as biology undertake to describe and explain his nature and behavior in a materialistic way as controlled by physical causes only; since he has a spirit and is, therefore, a free moral personality, teleological studies, such as logic, ethics, and history, regard him as controlled by purposes and ideas. A simple basis on which to organize the principles of education apparent from these two widely different points of view, which we shall explain more fully, is possible only if the principles can be reduced to a common denominator. In order to find this common denominator, this simple basis for bringing together and organizing educational principles, it will be necessary first to consider more fully the point of view of natural science, which may be called physical, or materialistic, and the point of view of teleology, which may be called ethical, or idealistic.

Ill

Natural science describes and explains man as a psychophysical organism controlled by physical causation only, and accounts for purposes and ideas as mere accompaniments of changes in the brain, thus making the body appear to be master of the mind.

Natural science, since it is the science of the physical world, must base its explanations upon physical causes. This method of explanation is the only one that it ever uses, the only one that it knows anything about. Primitive man, with his superstitious belief in animism, attempted to explain changes in the physical world by attributing them to spiritual forces ; the modern scientist — never ! Imagine the futility of trying to convince a physicist that, when the throttle is open, the steam locomotive moves as the result of some spirit inherent in the mechanism! The physical structure of the locomotive and the physical conditions under which it is placed are sufficient for a complete explanation. These, in turn, are traced to their physical causes. The locomotive was produced by whirring machinery in the factory, and the machinery was the product of previous mechanical action. One condition for the movement of the engine is coal, which was made by physical forces geological ages ago. Indeed, every factor in the movement of the locomotive may be traced backward, theoretically at least, from physical effect to physical cause, until the chain of connection is lost in primeval chaos. Nowhere, absolutely nowhere, does natural science recognize a spirit link in this chain.

But did not men work in making the locomotive? Did they not with physical hands guide the iron and steel through the machines and swing the hammers in assembling the parts? And did they not do this because they had desires to earn wages and to construct, and had ideas that guided their movements ? According to the view of natural science, they did not do this because they had desires and ideas. Natural science cannot recognize feelings and ideas as having any part whatever in the causal chain. Conservation of energy, a fundamental assumption of science, forbids it, because force can be attributed with scientific accuracy to physical objects only. According to this assumption, the total amount of force in the universe is always the same; it never increases or diminishes. If this assumption is true, energy, when not manifesting itself, must be considered as latent,. or stored away. For example, when a clock spring is wound, energy is stored in it to be given off gradually in the running of the clock during the flight of hours. When a wagon is drawn up hill, the force applied to it that is not turned into heat by the friction of the running parts, is stored up in it and is given out again when the wagon runs down hill. Energy from the sun is stored in the coal and may be released to warm our houses, cook our food, or run our factories. But how could energy be stored in a mere idea or feeling, neither of which has a body or, except during its momentary appearance in consciousness, even exists? When the workman is asleep, when on a holiday he is thinking about social pleasures, the ideas and feelings that appear in the factory are not in his consciousness; they do not exist. How, then, could there be stored in them forces which contribute to the construction of the locomotive? How could there be stored in them the force necessary even to modify the engineer's brain and nerves so as to make his muscles open the throttle, when the locomotive, under a full head of steam, is ready to run? According to natural science, so long as it holds to the fundamental assumption of the conservation of energy, purposes and ideas cannot have even an infinitesimal amount of force ; they cannot add to or in any way change physical forces.

It is true that feelings and ideas may with correctness be spoken of as causes of physical actions. We may say that a man eats because he feels hungry or because he has the idea of strengthening his body. But in this case the materialistic point of view is not taken, and physical, or efficient, cause is not meant. What is meant is explained in the discussion of the teleological view of man. So far as natural science is concerned, to speak of feelings and ideas as causes of physical action is to use a metaphor that has no foundation in fact. The idea of the locomotive and the warmth of constructive interest, according to the explanation of natural science, can no more cause movements of the physical body of the workman than a bright idea can reflect sunshine into the factory, sharp wit cut the tempered steel, or the heat of desire kindle the forge.

Since man's body is a part of the physical world, natural science has a right to explain his actions in its own way as the result of physical causes. Just as the movements of the locomotive are considered the result of its structure and of the physical environment, such as coal, air, and water, acting upon it, so the actions of man, whether they be breathing, walking, painting a picture, or composing a poem, may be explained as the result of his bodily structure and of the stimuli coming from its physical environment. And just as the structure of the locomotive is the result of physical causes, so the structure of the human being is the result of physical heredity, variation, and natural selection in the great factory of the material world.

Natural science, equipped with its materialistic methods of description and explanation, did not stop with the conquest of the physical world. Flushed with victory in this conquest, it invaded the realm of mind and attempted to explain the nature of consciousness. But here, at the very outset, it met a serious difficulty, because natural science was developed to explain the physical world and knows of no basis for explanation except physical causation. Since, as has been shown, physical energy cannot be stored in ideas and feelings, the mind is not subject to the kind of causal relations to which natural science is limited in its explanations. A way to overcome this difficulty, however, was invented. It was known that lesions in the brain are accompanied by changes in the character of consciousness, that certain drugs taken into the body affect the ideas and feelings, that stimuli applied to nerves leading to the brain are followed by corresponding sensations. These and many other similar facts were made the basis for the assumption that every mental change is paralleled by a corresponding physical change in the brain. This assumption, which is called psychophysical parallelism, opened the way for natural science in the explanation and control of mental life. If every idea and feeling is chained in some mysterious way to a physical partner in the brain, natural science, although it cannot lay hands directly upon ideas and feelings, can do what is for practical purposes the same thing ; it can substitute for the direct explanation of ideas and feelings an explanation of the physical partners which they invariably accompany. It can account for the sensation of light as the accompaniment of the stimulation of certain brain cells, through the medium of the optic nerve, and for the variation in the intensity of the sensation as the accompaniment of the variation in the intensity of the stimulation ; it can account for the consciousness of a purpose as the accompaniment of a check in some habitual reaction to stimuli. We can find here an analogy between the way of controlling the feelings and ideas of a man and the way of controlling the music of a piano. The music itself is intangible, but accompanies the vibrations of the strings, which can be controlled by means of the physical keys. So with the intangible ideas and feelings of a man ; they accompany the brain processes which can be controlled by means of the physical sense organs.

Although a natural science must logically explain mental changes indirectly through explaining physical changes in the brain, these physical changes need not be known directly through microscopic or other examination. It may be assumed that the changes which cannot be observed are like those which, in the physical world, take place on so large a scale that they can be observed. Natural science often makes use of such analogies where direct observation fails. Nobody, for instance, ever saw an atom or a molecule, but explanations of chemistry are, with scientific accuracy, based upon the actions of these analogical constructs. Nobody ever saw ether, but this does not in the least interfere with the value of the physicist's explanation of the transmission of light. Other kinds of waves have been seen, and the ether waves may be imagined to be like these. So 'in the explanation of the physical counterparts of mental facts, the natural scientist may assume that the changes, where he cannot see them, resemble those which he has seen elsewhere in the physical world; and thus, if his assumptions are consistent with the facts so far as the facts are known, he may rest assured that in making these assumptions he has not compromised the dignity of natural science.

When the ideas and feelings of the mental world are accounted for materialistically as the associates, or parallels, of changes in the physical brain, sensations are explained as the accompaniments of brain changes started by physical action upon the in-going nerves; original desires are viewed as the accompaniments of checks in the expressions of instincts, or inborn nervous connections, created through a long process of interaction between organisms and environment, and conserved by heredity ; and acquired desires are similarly explained as the accompaniments of checks in the functioning of nervous connections made, according to the laws of habit formation, in the lifetime of the organism. So, too, a vivid memory of an experience is accounted for as going hand in hand with a deep impression upon the brain; the association of ideas is regarded as the parallel of a path in the brain ; and the emotions are explained as due to bodily conditions affecting the brain through the nervous system. The meanings of ideas are likewise said to be the parallels of brain changes produced by reaction in the adjustment of the physical body to its environment ; growth of mental life is considered the accompaniment of changes in the brain resulting from continued interaction of organism and environment through stimuli and responses ; and the fact that one can learn more easily in youth than in old age is attributed to the plasticity of the brain during youth. Thus is natural law made to rule in the spiritual world, to the end that man may get scientific control of his thoughts and feelings, and in this way control the behavior which they indicate.

IV

Teleologically man is regarded as a person controlled by purposes and ideas, the mind thus appearing to be master of the body. Purposes and ideas are directly interconnected through final causation by bonds of meaning.

When man is regarded as an essentially spiritual being, his conduct is no longer the result of blind force exerted through physical interaction which modifies the brain, but is rather the result of purposes which he has in mind and ideas which guide him in carrying out these purposes. In order to explain his action, we seek to find what he is trying to do and how he is trying to do it. We acknowledge him to be a person having inner experiences, and seek to understand his actions by reproducing in our imagination his feelings and thoughts, his purposes and ideas. The physical body is not regarded as the basis for describing and explaining his thoughts and feelings, but as an instrument under the control of his mind and used by his mind to accomplish its purposes. Instead of being master of the spiritual life, the body now becomes its servant.

Here, from this point of view, to be sure, purposes and ideas are considered the causes of action. A man's purpose to write a letter is the cause for his walking to the typewriter ; his idea that oil makes a machine run more easily is the cause for his putting oil on the bearings. These causes are not, however, the kind recognized by natural science. In the case of natural science, the cause, which is physical, is a real thing preceding an effect. A billiard ball, for instance, must move before by impact it can move another ball. This kind of cause is called efficient. In the case of teleological explanations, where purposes and ideas are said to be the causes, the cause is not a real thing until the effect is complete, until the end of the action. For this reason it is called a final cause. A man, for example, is running towards a moving car. What makes him run is the purpose of getting a seat in the car and the idea that he can do this by running, but he does not get the seat until the running is ended. In accounting from the teleological point of view for the appearance of purposes and ideas, no reference whatever to their physical counterparts in the brain is needed; they are interconnected and controlled by meanings which we can directly experience when they appear in our consciousness. This is the common way of regarding persons in our daily relations with them. With no thought of brain changes, we can reproduce in our imagination and thereby directly understand and appreciate the man's purpose of getting a seat in the moving car, and we can understand in connection with this purpose the meaning of the man's running.

V

In order to take advantage of the stronger features of both materialistic and teleological points of view, in reducing the principles of education to a single basis for organization, principles derived from natural science, which within certain limitations is more accurate and authoritative, should be translated into the more familiar and more easily understood terms of teleology.

The two general ways in which human life is viewed have now been set forth. One uses as the basis for its explanations blind force transmitted through physical interaction, or, in other words, efficient causation ; the other uses as the basis for its explanations purposes to be attained, or, in other words, final causation. The vistas of causation revealed from these two general points of view lie in opposite directions. The one looks towards the past, retracing the chain of physical cause and effect until it is led ultimately to the forces emanating from primeval chaos; the other looks towards the future, accounting for each purpose by one farther ahead, until it is led ultimately in the explanation of things to that " one, far-off, divine event to which the whole creation moves." Our next problem is to find how these two general points of view may be related so that the principles of education • learned from the various special studies which represent them may be unified.

Since only the realm of mind and the realm of matter are known, 1 the idealistic and the materialistic are the only points of view which studies of human life may take • there is no other point of view which includes the two and could bear the burden of reconciliation. The problem of reconciliation becomes, therefore, the problem of translating truths learned from one of these points of view into the terms of the other. In undertaking this task, the first question that arises is : Into which set of terms, the materialistic or the teleological, should the translation be made and the educational principles collected for organization ?

In the statements of the principles of education, as an examination of textbooks in this subject reveals-, a decided preference has been shown for the language and technique of natural science. This preference has been shown because natural science speaks with accuracy and authority. It can speak thus, because the things with which it deals, stimuli and reactions through the medium

1 For those interested in metaphysics, it may be said that this statement is not intended to imply metaphysical dualism, since mind and matter are mere abstractions from a unitary experience.

of the brain, are manifestations of physical things known in common by all observers, either directly or through analogy with other things which are known directly, and which can be analyzed, accurately measured, and reduced to a mathematical basis. Experimental psychology furnishes abundant illustrations of this. On the other hand, from the point of view of teleology, the relations of thoughts and feelings can be determined only by the rule-of -thumb method of trying them in one's own mind, because they are connected by bonds of meaning,' which can be understood only by being felt, and because the price paid for individuality is that one can feel only the content of his own mind and can never become directly conscious of that which is in the mind of another. The public speaker, for example, tries his arguments upon himself to determine what effect they will have upon his audience ; the writer of advertisements imagines himself in the place of his readers and includes in the advertisement the ideas that would have the desired effect upon him ; the teacher sympathetically puts himself in the place of his pupils, tries his lesson plan in imagination, and thus judges from what takes place in his mind what experience his pupils will have. Yet, although in general this method is practically valuable, as the successful efforts of orators, advertisers, and teachers who use it bear witness, the address may not lead to the convictions intended, the advertisement may not excite a desire for the articles offered for sale, and the ideas and feelings which the pupils do actually get may differ from the ones expected. Indeed, those who use this rule-of-thumb method may differ one from another in their conclusions. It is to overcome just such difficulties as these that natural science has been called upon to adapt its accurate and authoritative methods to the realm of mind. In the psychological laboratory, mechanical descriptions and explanations, objective measurements and mathematical technique have begun to replace with scientifically tested truths the inaccurate and conflicting opinions which individuals have formed about mental phenomena by examining subjectively their own experience.

Compared with that of natural science, the teleological way of regarding people has the advantage of being easier to use. It is the common way of everyday life, used by children as well as by grown-ups, by the illiterate as well as by the most learned. But although a little child can know meaningful connections between thoughts and feelings, many a university student finds difficulty in understanding the efficient causal connections paralleling these mental phenomena, when the mind is regarded from the point of view of natural science ; and although an ignorant beggar may control the ideas and feelings of another person regarded teleologically so as to get food and clothing, the most capable psychologists are still puzzled with regard to the materialistic explanation of this persuasion. Indeed, the contrast need not be so marked. How many teachers now in our schools would have been excluded from educational work if there were no simpler guide for teaching than the principles of biology and psychophysics !