The New Education

w School

he transition from rural and village life to life in great industrial cities and towns. The introduction of specialized machinery has placed upon education the burden of vocationa

scarcely a problem. General superintendents, associate superintendents, compulsory attendance laws, card index systems, and purchasing departments were unknow

n place of a score of pupils, thousands, tens, and even hundreds of thousands were placed und

on,-leads to increase in class size. A school of twenty pupils is still common in rural districts. In the elementary grades of American city schools, invest

rate of growth in the school plant. The schools in many cities have not caught up with their educational problem.

Versus a C

s Emile) to the education of forty children by one teacher (the normal class in American elementary ci

ons and ideas into conventional channels. The modern city school with one teacher and forty pupils places before the teacher a constant temptation, which at times reaches the proportions of an overmastering necessity, to treat the group of children as if each child were like all the rest. A teacher who ca

inted with the needs of her children, has little or no say in deciding upon the subjects which she is to teach her class. Such matters are for the most part determined by a group of officials-principals, superintendents, and boards of education,-all of whom are engaged pri

ich it is devised is of peculiar importance to this discussion. The administrative officials, having in mind an average child, prepare a course of study whic

allacious

ly-felt want in statistics that headlines do in newspapers. They tell th

nd dividing by 3. The average is 5. Such a process is mathematically correct, because all of the units comprising the 3,

ics, others at drawing, and still others at both subjects. Some children have a strong sense of moral obligation,-an active conscience,-others have little or no moral stamina. No two children in a family are alike, and no two children i

ve Ages o

is made by Dr. Bird T. Baldwin. Child

ronolog

hysica

menta

moral

schoo

elopment. In the same way they have differing mental and moral ages. The school age, a resultant of the first three, is a record of progress in school. Even when children are born on the same day, the chan

ribution i

1911 report of the superintendent of schools for Springfield, Mass. There are in this report a series of figures dealing with the ages, and time

bl

l, Fifth Grade, Sprin

s in

10 11 12 13 14

.. .. 1 .. ..

1 1 1 2 2 ..

8 25 9 .. 1 1

2 200 63 12 10 3

178 131 47 14 2

11 120 60 29 3

.. 1 3 46 29

.. .. 1 4 17 4

.. .. .. .. ..

.. .. .. .. ..

.. .. .. .. .

.. .. .. .. .

.. .. .. .. .

19 416 329 171 102

there would be 1,275 eleven years of age, and 1,275 in the fifth grade. A glance at the table shows that only 131, or about 10 per cent of the children, are both eleven years

her tables giving a more detailed analysis of over an

bl

f Fifth-Grade Pupils in S

mal Over-

.

No.

No.

No.

e

34 74 6

16 131 10

124 10 209

ta

3

1

9

6

3

3

27

0

all in the grade, who need special attention because they are both over-age and slow. Feeble-minded children rarely advance beyond the second grade; hence we know that none of these are feeble-minded, but among their number will be found many who will be little profited by the ordinary curriculum; 110

some administrative arrangement involving special grouping with relatively small numbers in a class, so that we can in the one case maintain, and in the other case bring about, accelerated progress, there is little likelihood that any large number will remain in school to complete the ninth grade, much less take a high school course; for four yea

ncipal, to examine and to understand the varying capacities of individual children i

rogress in school. The infinitely greater variations in the subtle characteristics that distinguish children can be more readily guessed at than measured. Under these circumstances, the at

or Subject Ma

ltimate truth that each child is an individual, differing in needs, capacity, outlook, energy, and enthusiasm from every other child. An arithmetic average can be struck, but when it is applied to childr

e minds of educators, a course of study designed to meet average conditions is a possibility. The moment, however, t

often irresistible. The teacher with forty pupils learns to look upon her pupils as units. The superintendent and principals, seeking ardently for an overburdened commercial id

Practices of O

place of teaching. In such systems the teacher teaches the prescribed course of study, whether or no. The offi

in a recent statement by Dr. W. E. Chancellor, who, in writing of a first-hand investigation made in a city in the Northeast, describes a condition which he says "I k

y, and successfully sacrificed hundreds of boys and girls upon the altar of examinations to the fetish of good schools. They have been so anxious to have good

utes to human welfare. A school may be so good as actually to damage the souls and bodies of human beings. It damages their souls when the machine operators, seeking 75 per cent in every subject

many men and women. A friend came recently to our bungalow, a

iling. These first May days have taken

d to keep her with us for a month in the country, and to go over her school work with her every day. The father

showed him the advantage of a month in the country with her school work carefully supervised. Her school is rather crowded, and a

ases as yours interfere seriously

-The One Object of

at father something which we would fain repeat until every educator and every pa

TION IS TO ASSIST AND P

the million? Hardly. These things are incidents of school business, but they are no more reason for the school's existence than fertilizer and seed are reasons for

r able to describe a situation existing "generally and characteristically," in which the welfare of children is bartered away for high promotion averages? The truth is that society still tolerates, and often accept

that work effectively, it must devote only so much effort to school administration a

any individual child. It is just as obviously possible to analyze child needs, and to classify them in workable groups. It is true that all children are different; so are all roses different, yet all have petals and th

to assist and prepa

needs, which it is the duty of the

hild has because he

sult from the chi

ction with the things which t

ups of needs constitutes the su

TNO

hancellor, Journal of Education, V