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Chapter VIII.

THE COURSE OF STUDY-THE SECOND AND THIRD CYCLES.

CONTENTS. The secondary period characterized by the phenomena of adolescence-The psychic characteristics of adolescence-Application of the criteria of growth stage and social mind-Two important tasks of the school: (1) Transmitting race experience; necessary to progress; a function of the school; denied by radicals and by individualists; (2) training for a vocation; general information necessary to a choice; tendencies in special training; nodes for vocational branch lines-In transmitting race heritage a survey of the chief departments of knowledge important; general science; general mathematics; general history; literature; foreign languages; music; art-Personal and sex hygiene.

The second and third cycles of work, broken into two equal divisions of three or of four years, dependent upon whether a given community has adopted a six or eight year secondary course, taken together cover the years in that period in the life of the youth characterized by the phenomena of adolescence. These years, according to Hall, comprise the most impressionable and, therefore, the most→ educable period, for this is the time, he holds, when new curiosities run high; when susceptibility, plasticity, and eagerness are pervaded by the interest to try and to plan in many different directions; when ambitions and ideals of widely divergent types force themselves upon the normal individual; when introspection, self-analysis, and selfcriticism develop with extraordinary rapidity; when both the body and the mind are on the qui vive for excitement; when for the first time in development a person is animated by adult goals; when enthusiasm, sympathy, generosity, are at their strongest and best. Such a period is full of meaning and of opportunity for the school system that has reorganized its machinery and its form to render service thereto.

Applying broadly the criteria of growth stage and of social mind, it is noted at once that two important tasks are required of the school during this period: The induction of the youth into the storehouse of race knowledge, and the giving of specific preparation for the work which the individual is to follow throughout the years of adult-hood.

Race progress has been achieved because a given generation has begun where the preceding one left off. Were it necessary for each generation to start at the same level and to work out its salvation

entirely of itself, progress would be impossible. And even though perceptible gain were achieved, its transmissibility would be lost to all who come after. As it is, however, the experiences of each generation have been organized, systematized, catalogued, labeled; and through imitation, speech, the printed page, and the conscious methods of institutions created for the purpose, race achievements have been made available for each succeeding generation. The genesis of the school lay in the recognition of the need of transmitting the body of knowledge accumulated by one generation to the youth of the next. The development and marvelous expansion of the school among civilized races has been due primarily to the faith which people have held that through its mediumship this task could best be accomplished. Yet to-day two important groups of thinkers deny that such an aim is a legitimate goal to be set up for the school.

The first of these assert that attempts to understand the past beget conservatism and make for a static condition of society. In their reaction against the worshipful attitude toward the past which the world so long held, they have swung to the opposite extreme and would break completely with the past, ignoring all that has been crystallized in the form of tradition and custom.

The second of these groups see in education nothing but the development of the innate capacities and tendencies of the child. These look upon the child only as they would upon a growing plant. Surround the latter with proper external conditions-sunshine, moisture, fertile soil-and leave it alone, the organism itself will do the rest. The scholastic content with which the child works does not matter; the important thing is that he be permitted to function normally. The school must frankly recognize that one of its chief purposes is to transmit to the youth that part of the race inheritance which the social mind deems important in the preparation for entrance into the life of the adult social group. The period of adolescence is the period beyond all others when this preparation can best be made. To induct the youth, then, into the storehouse of human experience must remain, as of old, one of the important functions of the school in this period of adolescence.

A second task of consequence rests upon the shoulders of the school, viz, making provision for preparation for the vocation to be entered. Entering a vocation involves, first of all, the choice of a vocation, and then the acquisition of that general or specific preparation which the standards of success within the vocation demand. It is safe to assume that in a very large number of instances the adoption of a vocation is altogether a matter of chance and in no respect the result of a process of reflection, nor the expression of a judgment based upon a survey of vocations. That such haphazard

procedure has not worked out disastrously in more instances is due to the adaptability of the individual; to the wealth of opportunities for profitable occupation which have arisen in this rapidly expanding new country; and to the fact that practically all were on the same level in respect to lack of special training, thus insuring to everyone an equal chance. However, as natural resources are developed and fully exploited, as population increases and congests, as society becomes more highly organized, as specialized training becomes more and more a prerequisite for entrance, the opportunity for quickly turning from a vocation wherein one is a failure to one wherein the individual proves to be highly efficient will rapidly become rare. Whatever be the philosophical end which we hold to be that of the individual, perhaps nothing ministers to it more than the consciousness that, in his chosen work, he is rated a success. Such a consciousness makes a man strong in every branch of his activity and in every relation in life which he assumes. On the other hand, the man who has lost confidence in himself, who for any reason feels himself a failure, is a pitiful object. Society, through every instrumentality at its command, should put forth its utmost effort to prevent such a condition. Much in the accomplishment of this end can be done by the school in connection with giving general information on common vocations. Thus a proper and effective step will have been taken looking toward the prevention of our youth from gravitating later into society's army of "misfits." The period of the second cycle, covering the seventh, eighth, ninth, and perhaps the tenth years of school life, is preeminently the time when such work should be begun, though it need not be terminated with this cycle, but extended until the point is reached where the youth actually makes a choice and enters upon the specific preparation demanded therefor.

Such information can be conveyed, in part, through systematic reading of carefully selected articles assembled with a view to setting before the young people of both sexes the salient characteristics of the common vocations of the community by which both men and women earn a livelihood. Such reading, however, should be supplemented by lectures given before the assembled student body by men and women who are recognized in the community as being successful in their respective callings and who are competent to present in pleasing form the advantages, the disadvantages, the opportunities, the training required of the particular vocation that they represent. In one of the lower high schools of Berkeley, Cal., the principal was particularly successful in securing such a series of talks for the young people of his school. The following titles arranged by him suggest the possibilities, in this respect, open to the schools of every community of any considerable size: "What it means to enter the

ministry," by a prominent clergyman; "The vocations open to women," by a woman who had given much study to the question and who herself was a successful business woman; "What the teaching profession has to offer," by a successful educator; "The possibilities of the real estate business," by the head of a large real estate firm; "The training required of a banker," by the cashier of one of the local banks; "The work of a nurse and the training required," by a professional nurse; "The plumbing trade, its scope and possibilities," by a master plumber. Such a list can be indefinitely extended and modified in any community. The information secured thus, at first hand, will go far toward insuring the intelligent choice of a vocation when the time comes for taking this most important step.

Another suggestive feature in this connection worked out by Mr. Monroe may not be so feasible in every department. A fully equipped printing and binding plant was secured by him and installed in the school. The board of education provided an expert printer. Under his direction elective courses in printing and binding were given, full scholastic credit for the same being allowed to those taking the work. The students in the assemblies were required to report each lecture. The best summary was sent to the printing department and there set up by those having elected the printing course. The galley proofs were sent to the English classes and corrected by the students as an exercise in language. Copies of the printed report were distributed among the students of the school, each being urged to take the address home, read it to the parents, and with them discuss its contents.

The giving of the general information of common vocations, then, is a step which the school can easily take. When, however, we turn from the general information of vocations, and from that general preparation, which is equally valuable in all vocations, to the matter of providing the special training required by each, the problem is much more difficult and complex, and one in which the proper place of the school does not yet fully appear.

In practice, two tendencies have arisen. According to one, the student spends part of his time in his vocation, learning its technique under normal conditions, and the remainder of his time in the school where the instruction is related more or less closely to his vocation. Under the other plan he spends the whole of his time in the school, devoting a portion of it to the occupational courses offered by the school.

Examples of the first of these tendencies are to be found in the elementary technical schools of the now famous Munich system, the "shop schools" in connection with some of the large industrial concerns in England and America, and in the schools organized after the "Cincinnati plan." Examples of a response to the second 5930°-16-10

thought are to be seen in the familiar trade schools of the United States and in the vocational and polytechnic departments of our academic high schools.1

Those who support the first of these plans and oppose the second would make the following assertions: To prepare fully for any considerable part of the vocations represented in a given community would require an equipment prohibitive in cost to most school departments. It is impossible for the school to simulate closely enough the normal and complex conditions under which many vocations must be conducted to make the training which it gives of much practical value. Moreover, success in a given vocation often depends more upon adaptability to conditions that can not be reproduced in the school than upon mere knowledge of technique. Pedagogues can not be expected to teach the technique of specialized vocations any more than blacksmiths can be relied upon to come into the schoolroom and teach Latin. Instead, then, of attempting to bring the vocation into the school, they assert the way out lies in taking the school to the vocation.2

On the other hand, those holding the contrary view assert that there are many simple occupations which can be taught wholly within the school; that the school can systematize, organize, and thus give an orderly presentation of the chief elements of an occupation more quickly and clearly than can years of work under the stress and strain of the activity itself; that opportunity can not readily be secured for practical work in the chosen vocation in a given community by all who might wish to secure the training; and that many students in our high schools wish opportunity for general polytechnic experience without committing themselves wholly to a particular occupation.

The merits of the latter plan are brought out in a statement by Charles S. Evans, head of the mechanic arts department of the Berkeley (Cal.) schools, who also sets forth in some detail the manner in which the work of his department has been organized to meet the needs of each of the two cycles, into which the secondary period has there been broken:

In the second cycle, from the seventh to the ninth grade, inclusive, the argument for manual training is the same as for the first cycle. The boy still needs the stimulating, developing influences which manual training affords, but with enlarged capabilities and increased muscular strength there is justified an added equipment of a more complex nature. At this point a new element enters that of expertness in the use of tools and of understanding and relating mechanical processes.

It would seem hardly necessary to argue that if tools are used at all they should be used in the way which experience has proved to be most effective 1 For a detailed account of the practice in vocational training at home and abroad, see Hall, Educational Problems, vol. 1, Ch. VIII.

2 Burk, in Ladies' Home Journal, March, 1913.

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