Published Monthly, except July and August, by the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education VOL. XI WASHINGTON, D. C., OCTOBER, 1925 No. 2 Education is the Discipline of One's Powers by Himself Neither Institutions, Libraries, nor Laboratories Can Educate Without Determined Effort by the Student. Capacity for Self Direction the Goal of Training. In Education Will must Master Mind; Moods Mean Laziness. College Diploma Shows only Completion of Apprenticeship; Learning Process Continues Through Life. 1. All Education is Self-Education N° PERSON or institution can educate anybody. Education is a voluntary process. In the very nature of the idea one must educate himself. Schools and colleges are helpful; so with libraries, laboratories, and the association of fellow students. Possibly textbooks are useful. We are greatly helped by wise and knowing teachers. But these facilities are not absolutely necessary to education. Pasteur did his greatest work in a dark room under a stairway. Many of the great producers in research had little formal apparatus, but only such things as they could devise and make for themselves. It has long been said that a few good books make the scholar. Great collections of books, often of a miscellaneous character, bewilder us. Textbooks create the impression, unconsciously be it said, that when one has learned the contents of the textbook he knows something—as history, or science, or mathematics. Assigned fragments of subjects reported back to teachers in what we call recitations, duly marked and graded, fool us with the notion that they are educative. These are generally but recitations properly so called. The room where the performance takes place is called a recitation room. How foolish it all sounds when we state it plainly! Dear friends, education is the determined and long-continued effort of a serious-minded person to train his powers of observation, thinking, and reflection through gain in knowledge. A student, rightly so called, is a person who comes to 61685°-251-1 By WALLACE BUTTRICK Chairman General Education Board college to avail himself of assembled opportunities for self-education. Granting that we must educate ourselves, the next logical step is II. Capacity for Intelligent Self-Direction Self-directed intellectual inquiry that's the thing. We think of such capacity for self-direction as the goal of the training got in the schools. And in a real sense it is, for the time comes when we must launch out on life's ocean and steer our own ships. But capacity for self-directed inquiry should be gained very early in life. I have read several times a remarkable book, "Sanderson of Oundle." He was for 30 years head master of Oundle School, about 30 miles from Petersborough, England. Every teacher should read this book. The story of how he taught physics to young boys is not less than thrilling. He did not make them learn some law of physics contained in the textbook and then have them set up some apparatus to demonstrate the truth of the things they had learned by rote. He rather adopted the method of research and with painstaking care and utmost patience led them to discover laws of physics and then formulate these laws for themselves. And they did it! When once they discovered one physical law their enthusiasm for more physical laws was unlimited. As the research man says, they had found a lead. They had gained that priceless bit of knowledge-law is discovered, not made. Future study would convince them that this is true of all laws whether in nature or in society. They had made the great first step in self-education, and thenceforth, while they sought counsel from masters and tutors, they steered their own ships; they stood on the bridge. A fault with education in America is too much teaching; too much prescribing of what shall be learned and how it shall be learned. Freedon is what is needed in education. Start a boy right in any subject; better, help a boy start himself right in any subject, and then say to him, "Come to me when you are in trouble and we will talk it over that we may help each other, but son, if you are going to be an educated man, you must have large liberty in directing yourself." III. Trained Capacity for Sustained Attention We need to get the mastery of our brains and of our minds so that they become working instruments which we control. In education will must master mind. For example, your first attempts at penmanship were slow and painful and wearisome to body and mind, but after a while you wrote without conscious effort. A mechanic is a clumsy fellow when he begins his apprenticeship, but before long his fingers become supple and deft and serve his will without his thinking. Reading and the reading habit tax one's purpose mightily, but soon the printed page is taken in at a glance, and the reading habit, once formed, is a joy forever. These are simple facts of common experience which point a long moral. Many people who are supposed to have trained intelligence are the slaves of moods. They can only do serious, intellectual work when they "feel like it." 21 Now I have noticed in the observations IV. Education is Never Finished; It is as Long as There is no such thing as a completed course of education. "Commencement" is an unfortunate word, for it has lost its meaning. It has come to mean the job is done, I have my diploma; I am an educated man. Would it not be fine if we could substitute that great Saxon word 'Beginning?" I hail the college that dares do it. When one gets a diploma certifying that he has completed certain prescribed things called education he really has only served an apprenticeship. I know that is a trite saying, but it is full of meaning if you will reflect a little. You have learned a little chemistry, a little physics, a little biology, a little mathematics. What will they mean to you after to-day if you drop them now? You can at least read with fair regularity a good journal in these great scientific subjects and thus know what is going on in this age of science and keep yourself alive. You have had some work in history, in economics, in English literature, in modern languages, with a bit of their literature. I tell you that a very high per cent of college graduates stop right there. Or I might say that, because of the inevitable shrinkage of mentality, they will know less and less afterward than they do at graduation. It was a member of a so-called literary club. The meetings were insufferably dull, made up of smoke and gossip. Some one suggested that at the next meeting and thereafter we should report on the reading of the month. To my surprise there were only 3 out of 30 who had read a serious book during 30 days. I once told this to President Eliot. His quick reply was, "That would be a high average for the graduates of Harvard College." The other day a New York paper dis- Omaha High Schools on All coursed editorially on the progress of age, if one is educated at all. The person V. The Object of Education is Character, not Effi- I mean character in the sense of high I have little patience with vocational training in college, the taking of valuable time for the learning of a trade. Mastery of one's self prepares for mastery in any honorable career. Michael Pupin was first of all a classical scholar. He had the highest marks in Greek ever given at Columbia. Afterward he became a master of science. You might read his book with much profit. Two leading pathologists of my acquaintance were classically trained with a little college science. One of them said to me, "I regard the classical training got in college without a squint toward the vocational as the best possible training for a scientific career." Efficiency is a fine by-product of education, but to make efficiency the object of education is to debase that fine thing which we call character. For many years we have been greatly influenced by Prussian educational methods, not realizing that the educational program of Prussia was chiefly designed to promote efficiency. Is this the difference between kultur and culture? It is a very serious tendency which we observe in college catalogues of the present timethis tendency to use the precious four years of college to train a man to get a living. Those years should be devoted to making living worth while, by the selfmastery of one's powers of observation and reflection. But you will ask, "How is education, the process of education, this, lifelong process of education, to be assimilated to character?" Let biology answer us-by functioning. The generous use of knowledge and training in promoting the wellbeing of mankind will return to us in character, in ever-growing high manhood, in satisfactions that perish not, in those qualities of being which live on forever, because they are life. As Sanderson of Year Plan New Technical High School, Thoroughly Equipped, Enrolls 4,000 Pupils. Advantages in Four-Quarter Organization. WHAT was our commercial high school is now the Omaha technical high school. The school last year enrolled more than 4,000 pupils. We have a new building which cost $3,500,000. We offer all types of commercial work, auto mechanics, telegraphy, printing, household arts, electricity, music, and even college preparatory courses. This school has been operating 48 weeks a year for about 7 years, and it has proved very satisfactory. The school is reorganized every 12 weeks. We graduate a four-year class at the end of each 12-week quarter. There is no loss in organizing between terms. The advantages of this plan are: 1. The continuous use of the school plant, which indicates good business management and economy. 2. The holding power of the school. This school formerly had a two-year commercial course, and practically 90 per cent of the pupils took that course. We give no two-year courses now; they are all full four years in every department. 3. It enables the bright and energetic pupil to finish the course in three years. 4. By having a greater use of the school building, pupils are able to move more rapidly through the system and thus make a clearance for others who want to attend; again, economy. 5. A pupil may, if necessary, be absent any quarter, fall, winter, summer, or spring, and his loss is only 12 weeks, not a full semester. The school is popular with parents, We are teachers, and business men. thinking seriously now of having three more of our high schools operate on the 48-week plan. They have already adopted an eight-week summer session. This shows the trend in our city.—J. H. Beveridge, Superintendent of Instruction, Omaha, Nebr. A 12-months public school session in Arlington County has been authorized by the Virginia State Board of Education. It is an experiment which may be the beginning of an all-year-round school policy in Virginia. Oundle said, "The great purpose is to enlist the boys and girls in the service of man to-day and man to-morrow." In knowledge and learning, as in money, "All you can hold in your cold dead hands Is what you have given away." Beautiful High School George Washington High School, Erected on Historic Ground, Designed to Embody Every Feature Which is Conducive to Effective Academic Work. Superb Architecture and Magnificent Views from Windows and Porticocs. Auditoriums, Great and Small, Gymnasiums, Laboratories, Studios, Workshops, and Rest Rooms Supplement Abundant Classrooms. School Spirit is Excellent TH By C. R. TROWBRIDGE Teacher of English, George Washington High School, New York City HE NORTHERN extremity of Manhattan Island consists of two ridges, with the valley between them through which runs upper Broadway. The western one rises steeply from the Hudson and ends in the cliffs above Spuyten Duyvil Creek. The eastern ridge springs as abruptly from the Harlem River, rises to a somewhat greater height, and even more abruptly comes to an end, about where Two hundredth Street would run if the city streets could keep their lines on these steep slopes. On the northern end of this eastern ridge stands the new home of the George Washington High School, New York's newest, biggest, most costly, most complete, and most beautiful high school. All of New York Before Us Superlatives are necessary to describe it. From the school windows one can look far up the line of the Palisades and the gleaming waters of the Hudson, or over the wooded hills of Westchester County, or up Long Island Sound-for 30 miles in that direction, they say, if the skies are clear or to the south past the Harlem High Bridge, and over miles and miles of roof tops to the high pinnacle of the Woolworth Building. Adjoining the school on the south is an old people's home with extensive grounds. We look down on its green turf and shimmering trees and bright flower beds. Just across the Harlem River on Fordham Heights is the circular colonnade of the Hall of Fame. All of New York City lies stretched out before our pupils. Nothing will ever cut us off from the beauty of river and sky and towered city. George Washington in Lasting Possession The hill is historic ground. It was the scene of a short but bloody struggle, when 10,000 British troops overpowered the remnants of the American forces left by Washington to cover his retreat through New Jersey. Its name, Fort George Hill, was given it then in compliment to His Britannic Majesty, George III, but George Washington has come back now into lasting possession of it. Because of these historic associations and the name of the school, colonial architecture was the type selected for the plans. The building has a frontage of 376 feet. It rises to four stories, topped by an octagonal tower and a lookout lantern. The building is beautiful alike in general mass and outline and in delicate detail. Six Ionic columns with a windowed pediment form the portico which leads through bronze doors into a marble hall. From this a double spiral staircase of most graceful design rises to the second floor. Everywhere the decoration is carefully worked out in a beautiful and fitting simplicity to reflect the stately and spacious and dignified life of colonial forefathers. Opposite the entrance is the auditorium with seats for 1,500, and a stage large enough for grand opera. The principal's office is also on this floor, the library, the two gymnasiums, for boys and for girls, two swimming pools with plunges and dressing rooms, and a concert room seating 150. The classrooms begin on this floor and fill the floors above. There are laboratories for chemistry, physics, and biology, six art studios, a little theater classroom with a stage for dramatic work, a workshop and domesticscience rooms, supply rooms, department offices, and on the fourth floor a cafeteria accommodating 1,000 pupils at one time. Above this the teachers have a lunch room and rest rooms are provided for them in other parts of the building also. The total cost of the building was more than $3,000,000. State and city officials joined in the dedication exercises, which were held on Washington's Birthday. The school had moved into its new quarters on February first and shared possession with an army of long-suffering workmen. Whether they or we endured more inconvenience through this joint occupancy could not easily be adjudged. But everything was put to rights for the Topped by an octagonal tower gala day of dedication. Thirty boys in colonial uniforms were stationed about the entrance, and as many girls in Martha Washington costumes served as ushers. Both they, and the Peg Woffington waitresses, had designed and made their own dresses. They were a very effective bit of decoration as they went up and down the marble stairway of the entrance hall. Local Organizations Have Pleasure In It Our school colors were presented that day by the Martha Washington Club, an organization of the mothers of our pupils, which does much for the school. The ladies of the local Grand Army of the Republic have given the flag for out-door display, and the Daughters of the American Revolution have put a bronze tablet on the great bowlder above which the flag flies. For the school museum, which is to be housed in the tower, General Pershing has given the 48 flags which were given to him on his retirement by the several States whose troops served under him in the World War. We are still so new to the school that we have not yet been able to make use of all its possibilities. Almost every week some new room is ready for usethe grade advisers' room, the medical room, the bank, the printing office, the school store, or another department office. When everything within doors is completed, we shall still have our stadium to look forward to, for to the north of the school grounds there is a considerable open stretch which has been secured for an athletic field that will be the envy of all the other city schools. School Long Identified with Locality With only eight years of history behind it, the George Washington High School still feels youthful. We have been housed in an old school building antedating the Civil War, which was grotesquely illadapted to the needs of to-day. As we overfilled it, little wooden bungalows were built around it, and wherever we could find quarters annexes were opened, three of them all told. We have been largely a neighborhood school, drawing our students from the rapidly developing section of northern Manhattan. The residents of this district have felt a local pride in the school and helped in many ways its development. There have been friendly and informal relations between teachers and pupils, such as are not always possible in a school standardized and systematized from the first to deal with great numbers of children. The faculty, 150 in number, are united in spirit and purpose, genuine in apprecia tion of each other's work, tolerant and progressive in their intellectual attitude, and, as teachers should be, even more interested in their pupils than in their subjects. In a composition a youthful student once wrote: "The teachers in George Washington smile at you when you come into a room." We were very anxious to bring this school atmosphere with us into the new building and to maintain it there. The pupils are led, not driven. A considerable measure of self-government is being worked out-community government it is called, because pupils and teachers both have part in it. A legislative board makes school regulations on matters of order and discipline. A judicial board tries and sentences offenders against these laws. All passing through the building between classes is controlled by a traffic squad, and order in the lunch room is enforced by the service squad, members of which are stationed also in each corridor to insure quiet in the halls during recitation periods. The black and orange buttons, which are the symbols of membership in these squads, are highly prized insignia. More than 3,000 students are enrolled now (June, 1925), and a considerable increase in enrollment will be made in the fall. Academic and Commercial Studies Emphasized The school curriculum is planned largely on academic and commercial lines. Other high schools open to our pupils offer commercial and manual training and we do not therefore emphasize those branches. For a diploma the George Washington High School requires four years of study, with English and physical training in each term, two years each of history, music, and drawing, and a term each of civics and economics. The pupils are given every opportunity for electing work in Latin and modern languages, history, mathematics, science, stenography, bookkeeping, typewriting, art, and Six Ionic columns form the portico music. There are classes in journalism, art history, art and music appreciation, costume design, dramatic training, and a delightful course which combines stage designing and costuming with study of the drama. A post-graduate course is being developed which promises to offer a valuable postscript to the four-year program. Practice with membership in the school orchestra of 50 players counts as regular school work. Numerous clubs supplement classroom activities. The dramatic society and the sketch club are among the oldest and largest. The sketch club is subdivided into groups painting water colors, making posters, sketching from models, preparing illustrations for school publications, and doing craft work. The radio club has a large and enthusiastic membership. There are modern literature and poetry clubs, one in first aid, a French club, science clubs, and two glee clubs. One office is marked "Graduates' office." Here is available to students information in regard to entrance requirements for all colleges and for art, music, and technical schools, and suggestions for vocational study. Here, too, the placement clerk has his office. It is hoped the alumni will feel that this room still belongs in as the jaws of defeat were almost clicking together. It was such a game as every boy has dreamed of participating in. The other side, three runs ahead and confident of success; the bases full, two strikes and three balls called on the batter, then seven foul hits in succession and at last a soaring ball to the far corner of the field, four runs brought in-and victory. There had to be a celebration, and all the school was summoned Monday to the assembly. The auditorium was filled to overflowing. What followed was an inspiration to any one alive to the possibilities of reaching the hearts of boys and girls. The principal has a very warm and personal interest in the pupils, a keen sense of the dramatic, an ardent love of baseball, a never-failing wit, and high ideals of school honor. He began his talk to the eager audience with a tribute to the self-control and determina Bronze doors lead into a marble hall part to them when they come back to visit the school. The Cherry Tree, prepared by the journalism class, is issued once a fortnight. The Hatchet is our school annual. In athletics the school has made a name for itself. In basket ball, track meets, football, and swimming it has met with varying success. In baseball it has had a spectacular record, winning the championship of Greater New York twice in succession and defeating Chicago in the intercity contest of 1921. The spirit of the school can not be better illustrated than by its celebration of a baseball victory this spring. The team one Saturday afternoon in a crucial game of the season snatched victory just tion that had won the game for our team and the good sportmanship of the boys who had lost after victory had seemed assured. Then and there the cheer leaders led the school in a resounding cheer for our defeated rivals. A short and vivid story of the game was given, and as the climax was reached the team, to frantic applause, came down the aisle and up to the seats reserved for them on the platform. With a special mention of his part in the victory, each of them was introduced in turn. The coach spoke with pride of his team and paid his tribute to the loyal support received from the grandstands, so that all the school could feel a happy pride in having helped. As we, from the plat form, looked into the faces, they were so joyous, so proud of the school, so lifted out of themselves that all the radiance and beauty of youth were theirs. Then we were dismissed. It is the unexpectedness of youth that makes teaching school so endlessly interesting. teresting. The pupils might easily have been forgiven for finding it hard to settle into their accustomed routine, but they took up the day's work with infinite zest. Seldom have we had a day when they were so responsive, so law abiding, so gay hearted and courteous; the very best in them had been quickened into life. What the school was that morning we hope it may never cease to be. So long as that spirit lives, we shall not be unworthy of our new building. Health Education Tends to Prevent Retardation Doing things over is not only a waste of time and energy but it tends to bad habits of doing things, and in publicschool work it results in a sad waste of public funds. There is more than one cause for retardation and the repetition of school work which it entails, but one of these is the presence of remediable physical defects in the repeaters. An adequate system of health education, with examination for and correction of defects, more than pays its way in reducing this expensive business of repetition, and besides it speeds up school work by placing all students in the best condition for their tasks. It will profit every taxpayer to look into the matter of what the schools are doing for the health of the pupils. The day set apart, November 21, as Community and Health Day in American Education Week, is a good time to show your interest in this vital subject.James F. Rogers. English and French Teachers A number of English and French teachers of secondary schools will change places this fall for a year of exchange work, each taking over as far as possible the entire work of the other. An English teacher to be eligible for this assignment must be 25 years of age or over, a graduate of a British university, and must have been an instructor for at least two years in a secondary school in England or Wales, with experience in teaching French. Teachers will continue to be paid by their own school authorities, and the exchange service will be recognized for pension purposes.-Teachers World, London. |