Sociological determination of objectives in education

Preface

More education and better education must be provided by the people and for the people if the aims of democracy are to be realized in a populous and forward striving world — this has been the verdict of all thoughtful persons trying to read the riddles of war and of peace propounded by our age.

But education is not an easily standardized commodity like wheat or coal or gold. Its varieties are numberless, and their gradations of worth as yet undetermined. More education — yes, if it is of right kinds; better education — what is it, and how shall it be known ? More education, always increasing in cost — for whose advantage? Better education — better for the individual or for the " small " group to which the small-souled man wholly gives himself, or for the state and humanity to which the true citizen dedicates his best efforts?

What, in fine, should be the objectives or purposes — not of education in the abstract, which is a problem for metaphysicians — but of each of hundreds of varieties of education as practicable of attainment with scores of types of potential citizens? And how are these types of potential citizens to be distinguished by virtue of native inheritance, modifying environment and probable prospects? Here lie very many problems for future statesmen, sociologists and educators.

The actual objectives of much of our education still rest largely on faiths and beliefs — often hardened into dogmas as to educational values, and the ex-parte creeds of subject-matter specialists. College entrance requirements, framed with little appreciation of the needs of

6 ' PREFACE

democratic secondary education and with even less knowledge of the educational potentialities of adolescents, still constitute the only clearly defined objectives of our public high schools, apart from certain half-hearted commercial courses.

Two forces are, however, now compelling sweeping changes in educational faiths. The multiplication of forms of useful knowledge that manifestly can and should be taught to some if not all of the rising generation brings us constantly into* situations where choices must be made. We obviously cannot have everything, and it is urgent that we devise means of determining which is the best.

Again, the underlying social spirit of our time is opposed to blind action and insists on increasing purposiveness. But purposiveness in education necessitates knowledge of practicable as well as of desirable goals — practicable for learners as they now are with all their variabilities of power, capacity and opportunity; and practicable also for given societies as they now are with their needs and resources.

John Adams, the wise and witty English educator, told Americans some years ago that until recently educators had not really learned the lesson that verbs of teaching govern two accusatives. For centuries we have been content to say, " The master teaches Latin " ; but the child-study movement forced progressive educators to realize that " the master teaches John (or Mary) Latin," and that it is of no less importance that he know much about John or Mary than that he know much about Latin.

But the scientific spirit of our time is about to impose a new burden on the master. He must explain and justify his reasons for teaching Latin to John or Mary

PREFACE 7

instead of music or American literature or hygiene or carpentry. To what ends, useful to society or to the individual, should the Johns and Marys or some known varieties of them study Latin — " or anything else! " the fogies will exclaim.

It is the purpose of this book to ask a variety of questions which must be answered by sociologists and educators before we can justifiably claim to possess a science of education. The writer has undertaken in each chapter to do at least three things, no one of which can, obviously, be at all completely done in the present youthful state of the social sciences. The first is to search for certain sources in the social sciences or in experience from which to derive standards of examination for the " faith objectives " now controlling in the departments dealt with ; the second is to criticize those faiths which have probably come to have the injurious characteristics of superstitions; and the third is to propose, tentatively, certain new objectives for examination. Each chapter is, therefore, in a true sense an " essay " in educational sociology, designed at least to point the way to further arid more detailed inquiries in this field.

Much of the material in this volume first appeared as articles in periodicals. This fact explains a variety of minor repetitions as well as some variations in style of treatment. The author wishes to express his sense of obligation to the editors of the following publications for permission to incorporate into this boojk materials which first appeared as articles in these journals : The American Journal of Sociology, Educational Review, International Journal of Ethics, School Administration, School and Society, School Review, Unpopular (now the Unpartizan) Review. D. S.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Educational Sociology: Its Province and Possibilities ii II. Readjustments of Schools: The Junior High School. . 38

III. Readjustments of Curricula: High Schools and Voca-

Chapter I Educational Sociology: Its Province And Possibilities

I. INTRODUCTORY

Men, women, and children nearly always live and work in groups or societies — clans, families, clubs, villages, partnerships, unions, cities, nations. Any given individual usually strives to " realize himself," to amount to the most possible, to " get all that he can " (in the more or less "long run") by virtue of the advantages of living and working in various groups, Because all other individuals do the same, group membership involves endless adjustments, compromises, tensions, quiet struggles, and sometimes open and violent conflicts.

In any given group of human beings the " strong " individual usually exerts a greater influence on the " weak " individual than does the weak on the strong. (It is assumed than an individual is stronger because he is older, or of keener mind, or of stronger body, or of better training, or of greater cooperative ability than another.) Normally, also, however, if the weakness of an individual is due to youth, lack of experience, or the performance of special function, then strong individuals protect him and give him opportunity to grow to full usefulness.

In any given human group a portion of the strength of

ii any individual is due, as in the case of animals, to innate or (biologically) inherited powers and capacities as these developi when given time and nuture. But another portion is due to the stored knowledge, tools, and methods of living and work which the group has accumulated and passes on to new members by example and education. The " strength " of a social group, therefore, consists not only of the sum of the biological strengths of the individuals composing it at any one time, but also of the character and amount of this accumulated knowledge — the social inheritance which can in part exist outside of any individuals for the time being (such as inventions, laws, books).

The foregoing paragraphs, which could easily be indefinitely multiplied, express some o>f the truisms of contemporary sociological science. They suggest that the sociologist thinks constantly in terms of social groups of human beings, but also in terms of the individuals composing these groups. Numberless quotations from sociological writers could be cited which would seem to suggest, too, that the sociologist is frequently preoccupied with aspirations and plans for " improving " conditions or for discovering the means whereby more individuals may have more well-being than is now the case.

But the sociologist is clearly not the only man to have these aspirations and plans. Deep-rooted in the nature of every man, animal, and plant, too, probably, is the ambition, desire, instinct, or vital tendency (call it what we will) to "get on," to survive, to accomplish as much as possible. Very early in the lives of many species it is found that these results can best be accomplished by cooperations — and cooperative abilities become as much the ends of evolution through natural selection or through design as protecting horns, or bigger muscles, or more active brain. Nearly all inventions, governments, religions, and social customs have been evolved to help men to " get on," to have "life more abundantly." Hence a very large portion of the effort that men have expended on inventions, governments, religions, and other social agencies has been expended to help either these persons themselves, or others in whom they were interested, to have life more abundantly, to realize more happiness and less suffering, to "multiply and replenish the earth," and to enjoy the fullness thereof. Every man who has led an army to punish an enemy or has tried to further a religion has been concerned with his own or his fellows' well-being. So' has every man who has sought to discover a new, or to improve an old, tool ; to add new knowledge to the social inheritance; to make two blades of grass grow where but one grew before ; to heal the sick ; to reform the delinquent; to promote justice; or to educate the young. It can be said of the sociologist only that he is trying to see social conditions more comprehensively and a little more profoundly than these others. He is trying to* get at the more obscure relations and processes involved and to substitute tested knowledge for the half -knowledge of inference or slowly evolved faiths. Quite probably he finds it especially desirable that some persons shall study those things affecting human well-being which are important over long periods of time and for large numbers of people. Often he becomes especially solicitous for the well-being of those weaker ones who seem to be crowded down or aside by stronger individuals or stronger groups in pursuit of their ends. Sociology is still a very young science, a very imperfectly developed field of knowledge ; and conscious applications of its results have been made in only a few of the major departments of human action. The sociologist has already exerted visible influence in the i 4 EDUCATIONAL SOCIOLOGY

treatment of dependency and crime. Indirectly he seems to be affecting policies of control of colonial dependencies and of state oversight or direction of some phases of production. But he has had as yet little recognition in practical efforts to improve religion, war, finance, economic production in general, domestic life, or education.

Nevertheless, it is certain that sociology is now rapidly amassing knowledge and evolving methods which must soon find application in all departments of social study. It has frequently happened that a department of practical effort has advanced far as an art before science became available for application. The working of iron and steel had reached an advanced stage of development before physics and chemistry gave a basis for scientific metallurgy. Tillage of the soil and breeding of domestic animals had elaborate technics before chemistry and biology had reached a stage where help could be procured from them. Healing the sick and preventing disease had become highly developed arts long before the appearance of physiology or bacteriology as sciences. Pedagogical practice, in schools and elsewhere, had produced its arts and its discussions of teaching problems long before men thought of applying psychology to their elucidation.

There are many indications that sociology has now reached a stage of evolution where its findings and methods can in large measure be made available for the further development of government, cooperative production, religion, domestic life, and education. It is noteworthy that traditions, beliefs, faiths, and customs play a large part in any field of practice in the stages prior to the application of knowledge and methods from the sciences; in fact, they frequently constitute the bulk of the social inheritance of guiding principles of aim, procedure, and valuation. Such was the case with the

PURPOSES 15

mechanical industries largely until the end of the eighteenth century ; such was the case with medicine and agriculture (except as to a few factors) until well along in the nineteenth century; and such is still, in large measure, the case with education, social control, and domestic life.

But we are clearly approaching a time of transition even in the new fields. Hardly a modern problem of politics, religion, education, economics, or community cooperation but forces us back to needs of more exact knowledge that in the last resort only the sociologist can supply — or will be expected to supply — when he is ready, for no one can pretend that sociology, relatively, is to-day more advanced or more in the possession of needed keys of interpretation than was chemistry in 1720 or biology in 1820. We have seen how psychology in its speculative stages waited generations and in its more scientific stage, years, until it came partly to a fruition of its dreams of application in the recent war. Now education, industry, and government are clamoring for its contributions.

2. PURPOSES

The time is ripe to begin a careful examination of the possible contributions of sociology and social economy to< education. The two sciences most fundamental to education are sociology and psychology. From sociology must come answers to' the question, What shall be the aims of education ? From psychology must come answers to the questions, What is the educability of the individual? and, How shall we best instruct, train, or otherwise educate toward predetermined goals?

In the empirical fashion characteristic of social action in prescientific stages educators have, of course, for thousands of years determined the purposes of conscious education on the basis of such knowledge and belief as was available regarding the needs of the family, tribe, state, army, craft, or church. The education of princes and priests, the training of captains and soldiers, and the instruction of citizens in reading and writing have nearly always been designed partly, if not chiefly, for the good of society or some important group thereof. At times it may have appeared that the good of the individual was the chief goal — in the teaching of Latin to the sons of gentlemen, a trade to the prospective guildsman, arithmetic to the American farmer's boy, or algebra to the minister's daughter. But no serious student would at any time have defended these efforts on purely individualistic grounds. The prevailing beliefs of the time held that the public good was somehow served through the persons thus rendered more cultured, keener, or more upright than they would otherwise have been. We may flatter ourselves that we have discovered the social justifications of public or endowed education; but in reality we have only restated ancient purposes in slightly more modern terms.

Lester F. Ward, Herbert Spencer, and some other prominent sociologists have indicated some of the possibilities of educational sociology. But educators who have recently written on this subject have been unnecessarily modest in their claims. They have seemed to hold that educational sociology should concern itself only or chiefly with the newer extensions and modifications of educational theory and practice. They have seemed desirous of avoiding recognition of the undoubted fact that the proper province of this study is the entire range of educational aims, traditional and modern, social and individual. Its primary concern must be with normal groups being educated under normal conditions.

Two recent tendencies in education have probably

PURPOSES 17

somewhat misled students in defining the desirable and practicable purposes of educational sociology. Beginning conspicuously about the opening of the twentieth century there developed certain new interests (in a few cases renewed interests) in those individuals and groups that had heretofore shared little, if at all, in the advantages of the schools. It was noted that only for the upper classes — for those likely to enter on their vocations through the aid of professional schools — was systematic vocational education available. Defectives and potential delinquents received small consideration in the ordinary schools. The special educational needs of dwellers in sparsely settled areas, in crowded slums, or in broken homes were hardly recognized, and received small attention when recognized. Hence arose a large variety of demands that, in the interests of a sounder social economy, education should be extended, modified, enriched, so as to provide valuable offerings for these heretofore neglected classes or groups. Necessarily these demands had to be expressed in the sociological terminology of the day, and the needs described largely in language which had developed chiefly in connection with studies in social pathology — the first area of practical effort to which sociologist and social economist had turned.

In the second place there developed among educators during the first decade of the twentieth century, and conspicuously in America as an outgrowth of the child-study movement, a strong interest in the socialisation of education, including all the common varieties or grades. Among many able educators the conviction grew that existing curricula were excessively individualistic in aim as well as in method — that is, their effect was to induce the individual to think unduly in terms of personal achievement, to strive to win against, rather than with, his fellows, and to ignore the realities of social interdependence. Naturally these aspirations for a more socialized education greatly interested students of sociology as well as educators possessed of some insight into contemporary social problems.

Valuable as have been the results of these new interests which have somewhat linked up education as a field of practice with sociology as a science, it is a fact nevertheless that their net effect has been to cause many educators, and sociologists as well, to think that sociology could be of significance only in the marginal or frontier regions of education, and particularly where pathological conditions are in process of correction. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of articles have been written during the last twenty years dealing with these slightly explored fields. But it is as yet hard to find more than a scant half dozen books or articles written in the conviction that to* sociology and studies prosecuted by sociological methods we must look for criteria of scientific aims in all education, and conspicuously in that which is to be provided for the average or normal 90 per cent, of our folk.

This preoccupation of pioneer educational sociologists with problems in the marginal fields of education was, of course, only to be expected. In the more ancient and familiar areas standards of aim are profoundly traditional, deeply set in dogma and custom. In some cases processes of selection have so operated as to give these a very substantial validity, even though, as in the case of all practice based upon belief and custom, there is always a very marked " lag " in making the adaptations required in a strongly dynamic social order. But, generally speaking, so strongly intrenched are our faiths in the validity of the aims usually held for educational practice in our kindergarten, elementary and secondary

PURPOSES 19

schools, and liberal arts colleges, that any fundamental questioning of them still arouses the same mingled horror, resentment, and incredulity that formerly greeted religious or medical heresies and that still fiercely confront much sincere and profound political criticism.

We can readily concede that as a distinctive field of study educational sociology is as yet very imperfectly developed. It is not certain that within it are capable of being developed the necessary methods of attack on some of the most difficult of contemporary problems of curricula. Writers on educational sociology still slip constantly into the methods and language of speculative philosophy. Quite possibly we shall have to wait on the sociologists themselves for new methods of analyzing and evaluating the objectives of social and, therefore, of educational action.

For, obviously, we can have no> satisfactory set of working principles in the construction of curricula until we possess fairly acceptable analyses, qualitative and quantitative, of the values of social life. Granted that such words as security, health, righteousness, wealth, knowledge, beauty, sociability, extension of race and communion with God express valuable ends of social action to be achieved partly through education, we are still confronted by endless problems of relative values. We cannot have everything within the space of a few years; what shall we emphasize, what ignore? Every educator knows to-day that, after we leave the lowest grades, the most serious difficulties are encountered in choosing among the embarrassment of riches presented to us. Here especially do we find ancient faith standards of values in conflict with modern aspirations for a scientific criteria (always condemned, of course, by conservatives, as a conflict between idealism and materialism).

But, in spite of the meagerness of sociological support yet available, it is certain that scores of the hundreds of problems of educational aim now confronting educators are capable of being at least somewhat elucidated by sociological methods. It is especially important that inquiring minds address themselves to these problems, even if they can piroceed only to the stage of breaking some of the crusts of custom and belief which have hitherto repelled all tools of criticism. In some respects work of this character should even now prove very productive.

It should, for example, prove easily practicable, given sufficient working resources, to analyze, classify, and, at least crudely, to evaluate the habits, knowledge, appreciations, aspirations, and ideals promotive of such values as health, wealth, sociability, and righteousness which given groups or classes of adults possess, and to 1 trace to their respective sources in original nature, environmental influence (including by-education), and school education these various qualities. It could be ascertained how far such of these qualities as are demonstrably valuable to the possessor himself, or indirectly through him to society, have been produced by school education or, in its absence, through by-education or fostered development. The foundations could thus be laid for investigations and experimental procedures designed to determine how far direct education could or should be provided to reinforce or supersede by-education.

In the case of qualities demonstrably unsatisfactory, as gauged by standards of a scheme of social values approved by a representative jury, similar inquiries could be made. How far, for the next generation, can the conditions of defective by-education be corrected, apart from the procedures of direct education? how far through proposed new forms of direct education?

As a means of giving concrete illustration to some possible studies in this field the examples given below are submitted. It is freely conceded that the suggested findings are excessively dogmatic in form and possibly speculative in origin. Nevertheless, it is confidently believed that the problems suggested are even now capable of attack by methods reasonably scientific.

1. When leading legislators, social economists, business men, and educators became convinced a few years ago that the well-being of American society as well as that of mostvof the individuals composing that society required substantial extensions of special facilities for education for vocational competency, and when it became apparent that such extensions could be assured only through vocational schools provided at public expense, problems of specific aim and method immediately appeared in large number. What was meant by vocational education ? For what occupations were vocational schools desirable ? for what practicable ? At what ages, for stated vocations, should or could school vocational education begin? What should or could be the relations of school vocational education to commercial work, to productive enterprise, to> apprenticeship, to shifting or promotion from one stage to another?

Throughout the earlier stages of evolution of school vocational education (of less than professional grade), theorists and doctrinaires found endless opportunities for expression. Little was definitely known about the pedagogy of vocational education and hardly more about localized and specific needs for it. A variety of courses in manual training and household arts had been developed in schools and these presented to citizens many of the semblances of vocational education. A variety of so-called commercial and agricultural subjects had also been introduced into schools which (with the exception of typewriting and stenography) were actually designed more to impart general information about some vocations than to prepare for competency in their pursuit, perhaps in the vague expectancy that such information would, in some invisible way, function as vocational competency later.

It was only when objective sociological studies of the conditions surrounding the work of men and women in actual vocational practice were instituted that the promoters of vocational education found themselves on sound ground. Surveys were begun with a view to obtaining reasonably correct answers to such questions as these: What are the various vocations now followed in a given community? How many workers in each? When, where, and how did these acquire the competency they now possess ? Were the methods followed by them in acquiring their present vocational powers (chiefly through extra-school education, of course) effective, or ineffective, wasteful, or the reverse? Is it in evidence (here or abroad) that school programs of training and instruction could be devised (as they have for several of the professions) which would give, in whole or in part, more effective vocational education for specific vocations than does now apprenticeship or the fortuitous conditions of wage-earning participation ? What should be the program of such a school to insure specified vocational skills? Technical knowledge? Social insight (related to the specific vocation) ?

Our accumulations of knowledge resulting from this method of study are meager enough as yet, but such as they are they present good evidence of being soundly based and relatively free of speculative elements and mystical assumptions.

2. School curricula are usually designed for normal children. What shall be done for those that are greatly abnormal or variant ? As a rule, philanthropy rather than the state first undertakes to provide education for the blind and the deaf, the moron and the delinquent. The very conditions of variance encountered force certainly highly specialized or new types of training — touch reading for the blind, manual communication for the deaf, objective instruction for the moron, occupational training for the delinquent. But beyond these departures, historic curricula for variant children have been patterned almost rigidly after curricula for normal children. Even yet in many schools teachers are striving to impart to blind children the same knowledge of geography that is sought on behalf of normal children; in schools for the deaf, it is a usual boast that the customary " high-school " studies are taught; and even for morons the standards of intellectual attainment sought, for example, in arithmetic, hardly differ in scope and content from those held in other schools.

Nevertheless, there has been progress in recent years, especially in the less " institutionalized " schools. Certain fundamental questions, obviously inspired by sociological considerations, are being asked. Are the pupils of a given class and grade being trained in the expectation that they will eventually leave the school and' participate on a free competitive basis in the work of the world? Or is it expected that they will remain for life the protected wards of the state? According to the answers to these questions, for given groups of variant children, programs of education will obviously differ greatly; and that fact is gradually being given influence in shaping the principles governing curricula.

But this method of inquiry has gone further. It has resulted in the foundation of many varieties of classes for children who are less manifestly variants than are the blind, deaf, and moron. It has given us special classes, opportunity classes, ungraded classes, certain types of so-called prevocational schools, day truant schools, and several others. Gradually specific aims, more or less empirically derived, are being differentiated for the various groups thus recognized.

Here again it is obvious that, given resources and time, it should now prove practicable to carry sociological methods of inquiry very far in determining the types of special schools that society should provide and the curricula and conditions needed for each type.

3. The responsibilities for collective thinking and acting forced upon us by the war gave rise to fears that our democracy would not be equal to the strain put upon it. To many it appeared that we had allowed our education, and especially that of the public schools, toi become excessively individualistic. Doctor Bagley, writing in April, 1 91 8, said:

" For the first time in our history our people are awakening to the fact that an educational system in a democracy has a fundamental duty to discharge in insuring a thorough-going community of ideals, aspirations, and standards of conduct. ... It is safe to say that the actual sanctions that have operated to promote universal education in this country have been essentially individualistic. . . . The people are thinking to-day as never before in terms of common good. They are insisting that the common good shall be the fundamental standard in the administration of business, transportation, and industry, as well as in the conduct of public affairs. . . . To-day it is clear that the primary function of education in a democracy is to integrate rather than to differentiate the people."

The " Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education " created by the National Educational Association, states, among its " cardinal principles," under the head, " The unifying function " :

" In some countries a common heredity, a strongly centralized government, and an established religion contribute to social solidarity. In America, racial stocks are widely diversified, various forms of social heredity come into conflict, differing religious beliefs do> not always make for unification, and the members of different vocations often fail to recognize the interests that they have in common with others. The school is the one agency that may be controlled definitely and consciously by our democracy for the purpose of unifying the people. In this process the secondary school must play an important part because the elementary school with its immature pupils cannot alone develop the common knowledge, common ideals, and common interest essential to American democracy."