209 
 C96 
 
CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924032695763 
 
LA209 .C96™" ""'""""' """"^ 
 Changina conceptions of education, 
 
 ,. 3 1924 032 695 763 
 
 olin 
 
Kftjerjsiue CDucatfonal iWionogtapi^js 
 
 EDITED BY HENRY SUZZALLO 
 
 PROFESSOR OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 
 TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
 
 CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 OF EDUCATION 
 
 BY 
 
 ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY 
 
 PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION, LELAND STANFORD 
 JUNIOR UNIVERSITY 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON, NEW YORE AND CHICAGO 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVKD 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Editor's Introduction v 
 
 I. Changes in the Nature of our Life i 
 II. Changes in the Conception of the 
 
 School 25 
 
 III. New Conceptions and Present Tenden- 
 cies 49 
 
 Outline 69 
 
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 Experience and prcygress 
 
 The proper means for reconstructing our social 
 institutions are best suggested by a careful ac- 
 cumulation and analysis of our institutional ex- 
 periences. In every work of political and social 
 reform, we are more or less conscious of the past 
 failures and successes of our instruments. But 
 such consciousness is not altogether deliberate 
 and thorough. With communities, as with indi- 
 viduals, much is forgotten or neglected ; while 
 other fragments of our past, emphasized beyond 
 their true importance, influence us unduly. Thus 
 many of our social advances are gained through 
 a radicalism that has finally to be tempered by 
 the work of the reactionary. Such progress, the 
 product of conflict and partisanship, is costly. 
 It arises out of an imperfect mode of bringing 
 our experiences to bear upon our problems. In 
 the reconstruction of states, schools, vocations, 
 and other social instruments, we need a wider ac- 
 
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 cumulation and a saner interpretation of the 
 facts of our educational history. 
 
 Experience and school reform 
 The institution of education does not escape 
 the full force of the principle suggested. Indeed, 
 educational conditions are such in America to- 
 day that one might be disposed to say that this 
 principle has a special and peculiar applicability 
 to the problem of school reform ; at least, there is 
 no institution where a rational use of institutional 
 experience could effect more good. 
 
 A static view of education 
 
 We have among us those who have become 
 keenly sensitive to the evils of the many changes 
 in the methods of our schools. They have per- 
 haps been over-sensitive to the very necessity of 
 rightful change. Seeing that our schools have 
 been alternately pulled and hauled by radical and 
 reactionary, and failing to perceive the slow but 
 certain progress that has taken place, they have 
 wearied of change in educational theory and 
 practice. Impatient of the hasty wrangling and 
 contention, these sigh for a peaceful and fixed 
 vi 
 
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 programme in education. As temperament or rear- 
 ing dictates, they offer one of two modes for its 
 achievement : (i) the return to the educational 
 system of some past century, or (2) the solution 
 of the entire matter once and for all by some coun- 
 cil of wise and agreeable experts. Nothing save 
 educational history alone can well reveal the nafve 
 futility of such notions of what is best in education. 
 
 An unstable view of education 
 
 There are those, too, among us whose error is 
 quite the reverse of these we have just mentioned. 
 They are impressed by the panorama of the de- 
 cades, by the changing nature of man's economic 
 and spiritual surroundings. They perceive life as 
 ever new, calling for some modern virtue or skill 
 in man, and for a new training which will pro- 
 vide it. Each change in life must be met, and 
 the school must be quick to provide the power. 
 The new necessities dominate ; the old and the 
 eternal are forgotten. So the school, disregarding 
 the value of stability, must flit from one purpose 
 to another. It is civic training to-day, moral train- 
 ing to-morrow, and industrial training the day 
 vii 
 
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 after. For these, too, educational experience has 
 its message, — the lesson of poise and perma- 
 nence, — its revelation of the abiding powers in 
 men and the continuing necessities in all agesl 
 
 A preliminary historical interpretation 
 
 It would be impossible to offer in a small vol- 
 ume any complete answer to the tendencies of 
 unrest in our educational thought. But it is pos- 
 sible to present a preliminary interpretation of 
 American educational history which will suggest 
 the fundamental nature of many of our present 
 problems. Even the cursory reader of the essay 
 here presented must perceive that ours cannot 
 be a static system of education. Change is the 
 inevitable accompaniment of schools which are 
 the defense and the support of a progressive demo- 
 cratic society. But change need not be whimsi- 
 cal and irrational, the fruit of mere radicalism or 
 mere reaction. A deliberate and thorough con- 
 sciousness of our educational past with all its les- 
 sons for the present and future will reveal the 
 stable relations that exist between the school or- 
 ganization and social conditions. 
 viii 
 
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION 
 
 In these days when some of our educational 
 workers are doubting the power of educational 
 history to give practical guidance to the teacher, 
 it is a particular pleasure to offer this illuminating 
 historical treatment of the problem of educa- 
 tional reconstruction. 
 
CHANGES IN THE NATURE OF 
 OUR LIFE 
 
CHANGES IN THE NATURE OF 
 OUR LIFE 
 
 The first half-century of our national life was 
 a period of intense struggle. It was essentially a 
 pioneer period. Conditions ever3rwhere were ru- 
 ral and agricultural. Means of communication 
 were few and diffieult. There were many diffi- 
 culties to be met and overcome, many dangers to 
 be encountered, many privations to be borne, 
 and the pressing demand for food and shelter for 
 family and stock was one that needed to be sat- 
 isfied before all else. On all sides the life of 
 the people was one of unremitting toil. There 
 were forests to be cut, land to be cleared, 
 swamps to be drained, and the wilderness to be 
 tamed and reduced to civilization. The physical 
 conquest of nature, carried on by the primitive 
 methods of the time, largely absorbed the ener- 
 gies and the earnings of the people. We of to- 
 I 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 day who can call to our aid the labor-saving de- 
 vices, the inventions, the discoveries, and the 
 accumulated knowledge of a century, can scarcely 
 realize the difficulties which confronted a pioneer 
 people a century ago, or the primitive conditions 
 of their pioneer life. 
 
 Experience everywhere was the great teacher. 
 What was demanded on all sides was the man 
 who could meet the exacting conditions of his 
 rude environment and make a living for himself 
 and family. To be able to do was the real test, 
 and both boy and girl were trained to accom- 
 plishment. In the dozens of different kinds of 
 work on the farm or in the village home, the boy 
 learned much that to-day he has little chance of 
 learning. He learned to make and repair wagons 
 and harness ; to build and repair buildings ; to 
 take care of animals ; to sow and to reap ; to read 
 the signs of the weather ; to know the trees, the 
 plants and the animals about his home and their 
 habits; and to know how to act when emergen- 
 cies arose which called for action. He was edu- 
 cated in the school of experience, and it devel- 
 oped in particular his judgment and his skill in 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 doing things with his fingers. The girl, too, re- 
 ceived an analogous training in the daily duties 
 about the home. 
 
 In this early period; almost everything used 
 was made by hand. The factory system had not 
 as yet destroyed domestic industryyand every- 
 where the home was a workshop as wen_as a 
 dwelling. iMost of the common articles now sold 
 in the stores — clothing, shoes, preserved foods, 
 smoked meats, lard, soap, candles, butter, furni- 
 ture — were made in the homes. On the farm 
 almost all the common industries of life were 
 practised. Town life did not differ materially 
 from that in the country. Life in the days of our 
 forefathers was indeed intense, and every one 
 found plenty to do as soon as able to work. The 
 different industrial processes, which to children 
 to-day are closed books, not only stood revealed 
 to every youngster, but also called for the initia- 
 tion of the youngster into the work of manufac- 
 ture as soon as he was able to put his hand to 
 the task. The conditions of life were largely 
 static! The apprentice system was everywhere 
 in vogud and experience was the chief means of 
 ^ 3 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 education./ The provision of food, clothing, and 
 the necessities of existence for the family, with 
 all the steps in the industrial processes which 
 these involved, made heavy demands on the time 
 and the energy of all. 
 
 Since this earlier time steam, electricity, and 
 machinery have wrought a tremendous change 
 in our national life. Old occupations and meth- 
 ods are gone./ One man with a machine to-day 
 can do the work formerly done by fifty or a hun- 
 dred men. The people of Massachusetts have a 
 greater productive capacity now than had the 
 entire English-speaking race a century ago. So 
 great have been the changes wrought that agri- 
 culture, commerce, and manufacturing have been 
 more profoundly modified during the past him- 
 dred years than they had been before since the 
 days of the Crusades. Manners, customs, re- 
 ligious observances, political ideas, and views of 
 life, as well as the ways of living, have been al- 
 most equally transformed. Business knowledge, 
 industrial skill, executive capacity and personal 
 efficiency have been emphasized ; peace and in- 
 dustrial welfare have been substituted in large 
 4 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 part for the wastefulness of war; and leisure, 
 culture, and education have come to be regarded 
 as the birthrights of all. The human race as a 
 whole has been relieved from the constant and 
 pressing struggle for the necessities of exist- 
 ence, and lifted to a higher plane of material 
 comfort and industrial welfare./An increasing 
 proportion of our population have been freed 
 from the mere drudgery of life and have been per- 
 mitted to devote themselves to the work of ex- 
 tending culture and advancing the art and the 
 science for the race. / 
 
 A people with little material wealth at the 
 beginning, the War of the Revolution left us im- 
 poverished. It was not until the third decade of 
 our national existence that evidences of prosper- 
 ity began to be manifest. Up to 1807, the devel- 
 opment of our country was almost wholly agri- 
 cultural. This meant a scattered and an isolated 
 population, with few common ideas, common 
 interests, or common needs. Nearly all of the 
 manufactured articles in use were made in Great 
 Britain. The Embargo of 1807 gave rise to "in- 
 fant industries," and many of the legislative acts 
 5 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 of the next five years had to do with the grant- 
 ing of charters and privileges to various kinds of 
 manufactories. The War of 1812, the shipping 
 regulations of foreign nations adopted at the 
 close of this and the Napoleonic Wars, and the 
 general westward movement of population all 
 tended to build up manufacturing faster than 
 agriculture. 
 
 / The period from 18 10 to 1850 was a period of 
 great national expansion and great industrial de- 
 velopment./ The introduction of the steamboat 
 and the railroad, together with the digging of 
 many canals, opened up the possibility of doing 
 business on a scale before unthought of, and led 
 to a great demand for labor-saving machinery of 
 every sort. The^ inventive genius of our peo- 
 ple was called into play, and Yankee ingenuity 
 manifested itself in every direction. After 
 1825, the threshing machine began to supplant 
 the flail and the roller ; after 1826, edge tools be- 
 gan to be made in this country ; and shortly 
 after this time the Fairbanks platform scale, the 
 reaper, and the lock-stitch sewing machine were 
 invented. 
 
 6 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 /since that time,ithe whole aspect of our life 
 has been changedyThe railroad has made com- 
 munication easy and cheap. It is five hours from 
 Boston to New York now, instead of five days. 
 The telegraph and the submarine cable have an- 
 nihilated time and space. It no longer takes four 
 weeks to get news from England, or three months 
 from Manila or Hong Kong. The telephone has 
 made us all neighbors, and enables a single person 
 to-day to trai^act the business formerly done by 
 ten or twelve/ The many labor-saving devices en- 
 able us greatly to increase our capacity for dis- 
 "patching work and have largely increased our 
 effectiveness, while they have at the same time 
 freed' us and our children from the necessity of 
 doing much of the laborious work which people 
 in earlier times were compelled to do./ The neces- 
 sities of life have been cheapenea and made 
 common, and even many of the luxuries of life 
 have been brought within the reach of almost all. 
 We of to-day belong to the world instead of to a 
 county, we have the conveniences of the world 
 at our doors, and we have large amounts of lei- 
 sure time for service, amusement, or personal im- 
 7 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 provement which used to be demanded by the 
 necessities of mere physical existence. 
 
 Our development as a nation has been wonder- 
 ful. The frontier has been pushed farther and 
 farther to the West, and finally pushed off into 
 theocean. By 1850, fourteen new states had been 
 added to the original thirteen, and these included 
 every state east of the Mississippi River and all 
 of the first tier of states west of the river except 
 Minnesota. To-day the nation reaches to the Pa- 
 cific and includes forty-six states, with the last 
 two of our mainland territories standing on the 
 threshold waiting for admission. From a little and 
 an isolated Federation with an uncertain future 
 we have grown into a strong nation and finally 
 into a great world power, and we are situated in 
 the centre of the theatre of action in the future. 
 The problems now before us are more numerous 
 and larger than ever before, and they call for 
 men of large training and capacity. 
 
 Our population practically doubled every 
 
 twenty years between 1790 and 1850, doubled 
 
 again by 1880, and will double again by 1915. 
 
 With the rapid development of commerce and 
 
 8 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 manufacturing, cities developed rapidly after 
 1825. In 1790, there were but six cities having a 
 population of eight thousand or over, and these 
 represented but 3.4 per cent of the total popula- 
 tion; in 1 8 10 there were but 11 such, represent- 
 ing but 4.9 per cent; and as late as 1830 there 
 were but 26 such cities, representing but 6.7 per 
 cent. By 1850, the number of cities of eight thou- 
 sand inhabitants or over had increased to 85, re- 
 presenting 13.5 per cent of the total population ; 
 by 1870, to 226, representing 20.9 per cent; by 
 1890, to 447, representing 29,2 per cent ; and 
 by 1900, to 545, representing 33.1 per cent. In 
 1900, there were 38 cities having a population of 
 100,000 or over, while 40.2 per cent of the entire 
 population were classified as living in cities of 
 2500 inhabitants or over. 
 
 '* The growth of the city with us has been rapid 
 indeed. The country resident and the immigrant 
 
 J have both been attracted to it in large numbers. 
 The opportunities for trade and industry which 
 the cities present have drawn many to them who 
 have found great difficulty in adjusting theni- 
 selves to the new and peculiar life. They have 
 9 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 drawn to them the most energetic and capable, 
 as well as the most vicious and corrupt. The 
 modern city is essentially a centre of trade and 
 industry, and home life and home conditions are 
 determined and conditioned by this fact. The 
 increasing specialization in all fields of labor has 
 divided the people into dozens of more or less 
 clearly defined classes, and the increasing cen- 
 tralization of trade and industry has concentrated 
 business in the hands of a relatively small number. 
 The small merchant and employer are fast giving 
 place to large mercantile and industrial concerns. 
 No longer can a man save up a thousand dollars 
 and start in business for himself with much chance 
 of success. The employee tends to remain an 
 employee; the wage earner tends to remain a 
 wage earner. New discoveries and improved ma- 
 chinery have greatly increased the complexity of 
 the industrial process in all lines of work, and the 
 worker tends more and more to become a cog in 
 the machine and to lose sight of his place and 
 part in the industrial process. 
 
 The character of our people, too, has greatly 
 changed. In the earlier period the people of <fif- 
 
 lO 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 ferent regions were very homogeneous, and the 
 commercial and intellectual independence of each 
 community and the difficulty of intercommunica- 
 tion tended to keep them so. The early people 
 were largely of English stock. Their ancestors 
 had brought with them many English customs 
 and observances, English ways of thinking, and 
 the English attitude toward religion and law. 
 Though much changed and weakened since this 
 early time, these English traditions have never 
 ceased to influence the character of our national 
 Hfp. Where the people were not English in ori- 
 gin, as in parts of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and 
 New York, the English language gradually sup- 
 planted the foreign tongue, English ways were 
 in part adopted, and gradually the greater part 
 of these people were assimilated as a part of 
 our English-speaking and English-thinking na- 
 tion. 
 
 In 1820, our government began for the first 
 time to keep a record of aliens arriving in this 
 country. The number was small at first, but in 
 1842 it reached 100,000, and since 1845 there 
 have been but two years, both of them during 
 II 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 our Civil War, when the arrivals have been less 
 than this number. Between 1905 and 1908, more 
 than 1,000,000 arrived each year, and the total 
 immigration since 1820 exceeds 27,500,000. 
 
 The first to come in any great numbers were 
 the Irish, driven out of Ireland by the potato 
 famine of 1846, and by the oppressive system of 
 landlordism which prevailed. Between 1845 and 
 1855, a million and a quarter of poor, illiterate 
 Irish immigrants landed on our shores, settling 
 chiefly in the North Atlantic States. Again in 
 1882, following another famine, Irish immigra- 
 tion reached another high point, and in all over 
 four millions of .Irish have come to us since 1820. 
 These people were very poor and uneducated. 
 Less than one half of those who came in the 
 early migration, and scarcely one fourth of those 
 who came later, could read and write. 
 
 From 1848 to_iB^2r-a.nd again from 1859 to 
 1882, our country received great numbers of 
 Germans, a total of about five and one quarter 
 millions of Germans having come since 1820. 
 Unlike the Irish who came earlier, the Germans 
 were a picked and an educated class, the earlier 
 12 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 ones having left Germany because of political 
 and religious oppression, and the later ones to 
 escape forced military service or economic de- 
 pression. They brought with them their liberal- 
 ism in politics and religion, and for a time formed 
 a segregated intellectual aristocracy in the East- 
 ern and interior cities of the country. 
 
 During the middle years of the nineteenth 
 century, large numbers of English came, in all a 
 total of about three and one-half millions having 
 arrived since 1820. Still later, large numbers of 
 Scandinavians arrived, these going largely to the 
 agricultural sections of the Northwest. In all, 
 nearly two millions of Scandinavians have come 
 to our shores. 
 
 While these people frequently settled in groups 
 and retained for a time their foreign language, 
 manners, and customs, they were nevertheless 
 relatively easy to assimilate. All except the Irish 
 came from countries where general education 
 prevailed, and where progressive methods of 
 agriculture, trade, and manufacturing had begun 
 to supersede primitive methods. All were from 
 race stock not very different from our own, and 
 13 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 all possessed courage, initiative, intelligence, 
 adaptability and self-reliance to a large degree. 
 The willingness, good nature, and executive 
 qualities of the Irish, the intellectual thorough- 
 ness of the German, the respect for law and 
 order of the English, and the thrift of the Scan- 
 dinavian have been good additions to our life. 
 
 About 1882, the character of our immigration 
 changed in a very remarkable manner. Immigra- 
 tion from the north of Europe dropped off rather 
 abruptly, and in its place immigration from the 
 south and east of Europe set in and soon devel- 
 oped into a great stream. After 1880, southern 
 Italians and Sicilians ; people from all parts of 
 that medley of races known as the Austro-Hun- 
 garian Empire, — Czechs, Moravians, Slovaks, 
 Poles, Jews, Ruthenians, Croatians, Servians, 
 Dalmatians, Slovenians, Magyars, Roumanians, 
 Austrians ; and Slavs, Poles, and Jews from Rus- 
 sia began to come in great numbers. After igoo, 
 Finns from the north, driven out by Russian 
 persecution; and Greeks, Syrians, and Arme- 
 nians from the south, have come in great num- 
 bers to our shores. 
 
 14 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 These southern and eastern Europeans are of 
 a very different type from the north Europeans 
 who preceded them. Illiterate, docile, lacking in 
 self-reliance and initiative, and not possessing 
 the Anglo-Teutonic conceptions of law, order, 
 and government, their coming has served to 
 dilute tremendously our national stock, and to 
 corrupt our civic life. The great bulk of these 
 people have settled in the cities of the North 
 Atlantic and North Central states, and the prob- 
 lems of proper housing and living, moral and 
 sanitary conditions, honest and decent govern- 
 ment, and proper education have everywhere 
 been made more difficult by their presence. 
 Everywhere these people tend to settle in groups 
 or settlements, and to set up here their national 
 manners, customs, and observances. Our task is 
 to break up these groups or settlements, to as- 
 similate and amalgamate these people as a part 
 of our American race, and to implant in their 
 children, so far as can be done, the Anglo-Saxon 
 conception of righteousness, law and order, and 
 popular government, and to awaken in them a 
 reverence for our democratic institutions and for 
 IS 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 those things in our national life which we as a 
 people hold to be of abiding worth. 
 
 As an accompaniment of these changes in our 
 mode of life and the nature of our population, 
 there has ensued a general weakening of the old 
 social customs and traditions which exercised so 
 strong an educative influence during the early 
 years of our national life. Nearly all of our early 
 people were people of deep religious convictions. 
 The church was a potent factor in their lives and 
 exercised a much stronger influence than it does 
 to-day. The minister was everywhere respected 
 and looked up to by both parents and children. 
 The young were trained to go to Sunday school 
 and to church, and Sunday was observed as a 
 day of rest and religious observances. A re- 
 ligious sanction for acts of conduct was often 
 set forth. The numbers of opportunities to do 
 wrong and to go wrong were much smaller than 
 they are to-day. Communities were small and 
 homogeneous, and every one's actions were every 
 one's business. The community code of conduct 
 and community sentiment were strong restrain- 
 ing and educative forces. The positive convic- 
 i6 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 tions of the older members of the community 
 served to check the tendencies toward wayward- 
 ness of both boys and girls. The home, too, ex- 
 ercised a much stronger restraining and direct- 
 ive influence over the children than is generally 
 the case to-day. Children were taught obedience, 
 proper demeanor, respect, courtesy, honesty, 
 fidelity, and virtue. The master was required by 
 law to look carefully after the manners and the 
 morals of his apprentice as well as to teach him 
 a trade. 
 
 All of this was highly educative, along certain 
 lines, to both the boy and the girl, served to keep 
 many in the path of rectitude, and trained them 
 for an honest and a respectable life. In many of our 
 smaller and older communities these conditions 
 persist, to a certain degree, though of necessity 
 much modified by the conditions of modern life ; 
 but in the cities, towns, and the newer portions of 
 the country these old educative influences and 
 traditions have largely broken down, or have en- 
 tirely ceased to exist. The church has lost its in- 
 fluence over the young, frequently they give it 
 only a nominal allegiance, and many children 
 17 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 grow up to-day without anyTeligious training. 
 The little homogeneous community with its lim- 
 ited outlook and its clannish spirit is fast being 
 displaced by semi-urban conditions, a much more 
 cosmopolitan population, and a much freer and 
 an easier life. The apprentice system has prac- 
 tically gone. The amusements and temptations 
 of life have been greatly multiplied. The attitude 
 of the people toward the old problems has greatly 
 changed. Parents everywhere are less strict than 
 they used to be, and the attitude of many com- 
 munities to-day, as expressed in their life, their 
 newspapers, and their failure to enforce law, is 
 really opposed to righteousness and good behav- 
 ior. The home altogether too often is unintelli- 
 gent or neglectful in the handling of children, 
 and not infrequently it has abdicated entirely and 
 has turned over to the public school the whole 
 matter of the training and education of the young. 
 Along with these changes there has come not 
 only a tremendous increase in the quantity of 
 our knowledge, but also a demand for a large 
 increase in the amount of knowledge necessary to 
 enable one to meet the changed conditions of our 
 i8 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 modem life. The kind of knowledge needed, too, 
 has fundamentally changed. The ability to read 
 and write and cipher no longer distinguishes the 
 educated from the uneducated man. A man must 
 have better, broader, and a different kind of 
 knowledge than did his parents if he is to suc- 
 ceed under modern conditions. Success is higher 
 up the ladder now than it was a generation ago, 
 while the crowd about the bottom of the ladder 
 increases every year. Science has been freed 
 and made the common possession of all, and 
 its wonders have become so common that dis- 
 coveries and inventions have almost ceased to 
 awaken a feeling of wonder. Books, magazines, 
 and newspapers bring knowledge of the latest 
 discoveries, inventions, and improvements, as 
 well as the world's doings, to our doors. With 
 the advent of factory life, the home has ceased to 
 be a workshop ; and in our cities it has come to 
 be little more than a sleeping and eating apart- 
 ment. Factory life has also made it undesirable 
 that children should labor. The result is that a 
 boy or girl in our modern life has so little real 
 home life, so much unprofitable leisure, and ac- 
 19 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 quires so much through the eyes and the ears and 
 learns so little by actual doing, that the problem 
 of providing a proper environment and of utiliz- 
 ing this excess leisure time in profitable training 
 has become one of the most serious as well as 
 one of the most difficult problems now before us. 
 The school, begun at first as a means of impart- 
 ing to children the common rudiments of learn- 
 ing, has gradually been transformed into one 
 of the most important institutions of democracy 
 and has been called upon to offer some practi- 
 cable solution of the situation created. This has 
 caused us to look at education in a new and a 
 larger light. 
 
 The effect of all these changes in our mode of 
 living is written large on our national life. The 
 industrial and social revolution which we have 
 experienced has been far-reaching in its conse- 
 quences, and the " good old times " of our grand- 
 fathers are gone, never to return. In their place, 
 we have a new and a vastly more complex civili- 
 zation, with a great and an ever increasing spe- 
 cialization of human effort, and new and ever 
 more difficult social and industrial problems 
 20 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 awaiting solution. The specialization of labor and 
 effort has been applied to all fields of work. We 
 have been made dependent even for the necessi- 
 ties of life upon the commerce of remote regions 
 and distant peoples to an extent that it is difficult 
 for us to understand. The world has become 
 very much smaller than it used to be, and its 
 parts have become interdependent to an extent 
 never known before. 
 
CHANGES IN THE CONCEP- 
 TION OF THE SCHOOL 
 
II 
 
 CHANGES IN THE CONCEP- 
 TION OF THE SCHOOL 
 
 The early colonial school of New England was 
 a semi-private and a semi-religious institution. 
 Its curriculum was limited to reading, writing, 
 ciphering, and religion. Writing, being a more 
 difficult art, was frequently taught by a special 
 teacher. Education was insisted on chiefly for 
 religious reasons. Salvation being deemed an in- 
 dividual matter, and the Bible indicating the way, 
 it was very desirable that every one should be 
 able to read it for himself. Family instruction 
 was a common practice, though dames and itin- 
 erant schoolmasters eked out a precarious living 
 by giving instruction. The division of labor had 
 not as yet been applied to education to any ex- 
 tent. Teaching was still in the household stage 
 as an industry. The chief educational interest of 
 25 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 the colonies, aside from the desire that all should 
 be able to read the Holy Word, lay in grammar 
 school and collegiate training, that a supply of 
 properly trained ministers might be insured. 
 There was no direct connection between these 
 higher schools and elementary instruction. It 
 was essentially a period of middle-class education, 
 and along the lines of English traditions. These 
 conditions continued until well on into the first 
 quarter of the nineteenth century. 
 
 This early period was one in which the need 
 of general or extensive education was relatively 
 small. The education most useful was the edu- 
 cation of common experience. Everywhere the 
 right to vote and to hold office was restricted. 
 The possession of a certain number of acres of 
 land, of an estate of a certain value, or of an an- 
 nual income of a certain amount was necessary 
 to vote, while to hold office still more rigid prop- 
 erty qualifications were required. In a number 
 of states there were religious restrictions as well, 
 and in a few taxes were collected for the support 
 of the established churches. There was little need 
 for much education to meet the simple and un- 
 26 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 differentiated conditions of this early period, and 
 little opportunity existed for obtaining it. 
 The ability to read, to write, and to cipher dis- 
 tinguished the educated from the uneducated 
 man, while the amount of general knowledge 
 possessed by even the better educated would 
 seem to us relatively small. 
 
 During the early decades of the nineteenth 
 century, schools and the means of education made 
 little progress. There were among the founders 
 of our states certain far-seeing men who wished 
 for general public education, but it was well along 
 toward the middle of the century before these 
 men represented more than a hopeful minority 
 in most of our states, and in the South little was 
 done until after the Civil War. Even in Massa- 
 chusetts, pioneer as this state has been in so 
 much that has been good, the revival of inter- 
 est in education dates from the establishment of 
 the State Board of Education and the appoint- 
 ment of Horace Mann as its Secretary in 1837. 
 Popular education was the dream of the reformer 
 rather than the conviction of the people, and 
 popular and free education at public expense 
 
 2J 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 was still further removed from the realms of the 
 necessary or the possible. 
 
 Few of the problems of democracy which we 
 are trying so hard to solve to-day by means of 
 public education had as yet presented them- 
 selves for solution, and the need of a general sys- 
 tem of tax-supported schools was evident to but 
 a few. To be illiterate was no reproach, and it 
 was possible to follow many pursuits successfully 
 without having received any other education than 
 the education of daily work and experience. A 
 large proportion of the people felt that those who 
 desired an education should pay for it. As the 
 Rhode Island farmer expressed it to Henry Bar- 
 nard in 1844, it would be as sensible to propose 
 to take his plough away from him to plough his 
 neighbor's field as to take his money to educate 
 his neighbor's child. Others felt that at most free 
 education should be extended only to the chil- 
 dren of the poor, and for the rudiments of learning 
 only. Still others felt that all forms of education 
 would be conducted best if turned over to the 
 various religious and educational societies of the 
 time. A system of public instruction maintained 
 28 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 by general taxation, such as we to-day enjoy, 
 would not only have been declared unnecessary, 
 but would have been stoutly resisted as well. 
 The best schools, and often the only schools, 
 were private schools supported by the tuition fees 
 of those who could afford to use them, and most 
 of these were more or less directly under church 
 control. 
 
 Not until after the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century was education regarded at all as a legiti- 
 mate public function. At the time of the forma- 
 tion of the Federal Constitution, education was 
 not considered of sufficient importance to receive 
 mention in the document ; and so far as there is 
 any recorded mention of the subject in the de- 
 bates of the constitutional convention, it refers 
 to a national university and not to public educa- 
 tion. The reasons for this are easy to see. Edu- 
 cation was then a luxury and not a necessity. 
 For centuries it had been the possession of the 
 gentleman and not of the common man. The de- 
 centralized district system of administration and 
 the theory of individual and community rights 
 reigned supreme. The provision of schools was 
 29 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 entirely a local and an optional matter. The in- 
 dustrial movement awakened by the Embargo of 
 1807 and the War of 18 12 had not as yet resulted 
 in the substitution of the factory system for do- 
 mestic industry and in the specialization of labor. 
 The development of new means of intercom- 
 munication had not as yet come to break up the 
 homogeneity and independence of the villages. 
 The development of manufacturing centres and 
 labor organizations had not as yet begun to exert 
 their influence. The different humanitarian 
 movements which arose after 1820, and which, 
 among other things, demanded public tax-sup- 
 ported schools for all, had not as yet made them- 
 selves felt. The people were poor, and indiffer- 
 ent as to' education. 
 
 Gradually, and only after great effort, this con- 
 dition of apathy and indifference was changed to 
 one of active interest, though the change took 
 place but slowly, and differed in point of time in 
 different parts of the country. The Lancastrian 
 system of monitorial instruction (by which a 
 single teacher with the assistance of his best 
 students, called monitors, taught hundreds of 
 30 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 pupils), introduced into this country from Eng- 
 land about 1806, for the first time made an ele- 
 mentary school training for all seem possible, 
 from a financial point of view. The first schools 
 in a number of Eastern cities were Lancastrian 
 schools, and the introduction of this system tre- 
 mendously stimulated the movement for general 
 education. The "charity-school" conception of 
 education, by which free tuition was to be pro- 
 vided only for the children of the deserving poor, 
 and which also came over from England at a 
 slightly earlier date, was after a time eliminated 
 as a conception dangerous to the future of our 
 free institutions. 
 
 The idea that free education was a right, and 
 that universal education was a necessity, began 
 to be urged and to find acceptance. The land 
 grants of Congress to the new states for the 
 benefit of .common schools greatly stimulated the 
 movement. The published reports of those who 
 had visited Pestalozzi's school in Switzerland, 
 and had examined the new state school system 
 in Prussia, were extensively read. The moral and 
 economic advantages of schools were set forth 
 31 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 at length in resolutions, speeches, pamphlets, 
 magazines, and books. 
 
 By 183s, a marked change had taken place in 
 the attitude of society toward many questions. 
 Religious prerequisites for office and taxes for 
 the support of religion had been withdrawn; im- 
 prisonment for debt had been abandoned ; humani- 
 tarian, freedmen, and labor organizations were 
 gaining rapidly in power; and the elective fran- 
 chise had been widened so as to provide for 
 universal suffrage in almost every state. The 
 unexpected shortcomings which had revealed 
 themselves in legislatures and officials had raised 
 the faith in the common people to a maximum. 
 Elective offices, with short terms, were increased 
 in number. State constitutions were revised so 
 as to limit more narrowly and to define more 
 exactly the powers and duties of those entrusted 
 with office. The need of an educated electorate 
 began to be felt, and the new state constitutions 
 began to instruct the legislatures to provide for 
 common schools, and to create new elective 
 officers to look after the interests of the schools, 
 the school lands, and the school funds. 
 32 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 ? Just when this change took place cannot be 
 definitely stated. Roughly speaking, it began 
 about 1825 and was accomplished by 1850 in the 
 Northern states. It was a gradual change rather 
 than a sudden one, though rapid advances were 
 at times made. The movement everywhere was 
 greatly stimulated by the educational revival in- 
 augurated by Horace Mann in Massachusetts in 
 1837. In the Southern states, with one or two ex- 
 ceptions, little was accomplished until after the 
 Civil War and the Reconstruction Period were 
 over. Almost everywhere it took place only after 
 prolonged agitation, and ofttimes only after a bit- 
 ter struggle. The indifEerence of legislatures, the 
 unwillingness of taxpayers to assume the burdens 
 of general taxation, the small sense of local re* 
 sponsibility, the satisfaction with existing condi- 
 tions, the old aristocratic conception of education, 
 the pauper and charity-school idea, and frequently 
 the opposition of denominational and private 
 schools, — all of these had to be met and over- 
 come. The referendum was tried in a number of 
 states, and sometimes more than once ; in others, 
 the question of free schools became a vital polit- 
 33 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 ical issue. The work of such men as Horace 
 Mann in Massachusetts, Henry Barnard in ,Con- 
 necticut and Rhode Island, John D. Pierce in 
 Michigan, and Caleb Mills in Indiana stand as 
 conspicuous examples of men who labored against 
 the ignorance and inertia of their times for the 
 establishment of the free public school. 
 
 By 1850, the principle of tax-supported schools 
 had been generally accepted in all of the Northern 
 states, and the beginnings of free schools made 
 in some of the Southern states. Six state normal 
 schools had been established, a number of states 
 had provided for State Superintendents of Com- 
 mon Schools and for ex-ofBcio State Boards of 
 Education, and the movement for state control 
 of education had begun. It may be said that it 
 had now become a settled conviction with a ma- 
 jority of the people that the provision of some 
 form of free education was a duty of the state, 
 and that such education contributed in a general 
 way, though just how was not at that time clear, 
 to the moral uplift of the people, to a higher civic 
 virtue, and to increased economic returns to the 
 state. A new conception of free public education 
 34 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 as a birthright of the child on the one hand, and 
 as an exercise of the state's inherent right to 
 self-preservation and improvement on the other, 
 had taken the place of the earlier conception of 
 schools as merely a cooperative effort, based on 
 economy, and for the instruction of youth merely 
 in the rudiments of learning. The large immigra- 
 tion of illiterate Irish and clannish Germans which 
 set in in the late forties gave particular emphasis 
 to this point of view. 
 
 Public education was thus for the first time 
 definitely established as a national interest. In 
 the states west of the Alleghany Mountains, the 
 principle of state support was more definitely es- 
 tablished, and has been carried further than in the 
 states to the east. General taxation for elemen- 
 tary schools was estabhshed, and a state univer- 
 sity definitely provided for by all. Almost all of the 
 states subsequently formed to the westward have 
 estabhshed general state taxation, and all have 
 provided for a state university for the higher 
 education of their children. 
 
 The schools at first provided were of an ele- 
 mentary and a rudimentary nature only. Reading, 
 35 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 writing, spelling, and arithmetic constituted al- 
 most the entire curriculum at first. Grammar, 
 geography, and history were added a little later. 
 The term was short, and a small tuition fee, in 
 the form of the "rate-bill," was usually charged 
 to supplement the small income from school 
 funds and from taxation. Those who could not 
 pay the charge were usually admitted as indi- 
 gents, much as text-books are now supplied to 
 indigents in some of our states. A "fuel tax " 
 was also charged for a time, and admission was 
 denied to those whose parents had not provided 
 their quota of wood. The opportunities for edu- 
 cation were small until after the Civil War. It 
 has been estimated by the United States Com- 
 missioner of Education that, taking all public 
 and private forms of education and adding them 
 together, each individual in the population on an 
 average received only Sj^Jdays of education dur- 
 ing his lifetime in 1800, only 208 days in 1840, 
 and only 434 days in i860. By 1880, the number 
 had reached 792 days ; and by 1900, it had reached 
 998 days. A short winter term, with a subscrip- 
 tion school in the spring, was a common pro- 
 36 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 ceeding. School keeping vta^s the rule rather than 
 school teaching. The method of instruction for a 
 long time was almost entirely individual. Grad- 
 ing of pupils and uniformity in text-books were 
 for a long time unknown. The children studied 
 their lessons and worked their sums, and when 
 these were mastered they went up and recited 
 what they had learned. Those who could work 
 well alone succeeded ; the others made only in- 
 different progress, and soon became discouraged 
 and quit. 
 
 Gradually, after the principle of public support 
 had become established in the minds of the 
 people and the method of procedure had been 
 definitely settled in the courts, this condition of 
 affairs was changed, though the change took 
 place at first but slowly. The free-school move- 
 ment was greatly retarded by the anti-slavery 
 agitation, the Civil War, and the Reconstruction 
 Period. The cities were the first to throw off the 
 "rate-bill " and to provide absolutely free schools. 
 By i860, it had been abolished in most of the states, 
 and in 1871 the last state. New Jersey, did away 
 with this objectionable provision. Taxes were 
 37 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 slowly increased in amount, and the school term 
 was slowly lengthened. The extension of in- 
 struction to include secondary education was a 
 natural outcome, though secondary schools were 
 not established in any numbers until after the 
 Civil War, and almost everywhere the right to 
 do so was fought out in the legislatures, or before 
 the people, and was then unsuccessfully questioned 
 in the courts. 
 
 The years immediately following the Civil 
 War were a period of great industrial activity and 
 national development. The cities experienced a 
 very rapid growth; new enterprises were launched 
 in all directions ; factories were started for the 
 manufacture of many new kinds of articles ; ma- 
 chinery of many new t)rpes was introduced ; 
 there was renewed activity in railroad building ; 
 the West was opened up ; immigration from the 
 north of Europe reached a maximum, and that 
 from the south and east of Europe began. 
 The many social aad industrial changes which 
 followed made great inroads on the old educa- 
 tional functions of the home, and marked the end 
 of the apprenticeship system as a useful means 
 38 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 of education. Life and industry became dynamic, 
 and methods of procedure and instruction suited 
 to static conditions completely broke down. The 
 overwhelming success of the Prussian armies in 
 the War of 1870 with France called new attention 
 to the importance of public education. "The 
 Prussian schoolmaster has triumphed," was as- 
 serted on all sides. The business men of Mas- 
 sachusetts, returning from the London exhibition 
 of 1867, petitioned the legislature to introduce 
 drawing into the public schools of the state. 
 The law of 1868, the importation of a supervisor 
 of drawing from England in 1870, and the es- 
 tablishment of the Boston Normal Art School in 
 
 1875 were the results. The exhibit of the Rus- 
 sian government at the Centennial Exhibition of 
 
 1876 revealed tons the value of manual training. 
 In the early seventies, the kindergarten idea came 
 to America from Germany, and was soon recog- 
 nized as a valuable addition. In the eighties, the 
 
 .Herbp:tiln conception of education, with its 
 
 emphasis on proper psychological procedure and 
 
 on character-building as the aim of education, 
 
 began to reshape our educational theory. 
 
 39 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 V 
 
 During the quarter of a century from 1875 to 
 1900, the common school experienced a marked 
 change in method and in direction. The old 
 limited curriculum for disciplinary purposes could 
 no longer meet the changed conditions of our 
 national life. The school was asked to concen- 
 trate its energy to some more definite purpose, 
 to train the eye and the hand for direct and 
 useful action, and to prepare more definitely its 
 pupils for personal usefulness in life. Drawing, 
 manual-training, domestic science, laboratory in- 
 struction, and the kindergarten began to demand 
 recognition in the course of study. Music was 
 advocated for its cultural and inspirational value, 
 and elementary science — nature study — began 
 to crowd arithmetic and grammar on the basis 
 of practical usefulness in life. Old conservative 
 schoolmasters, unaware of the changed conditions 
 and the new problems before us, spoke sneeringly 
 of these new "fads and frills," but despite such 
 opposition the school has been compelled to 
 admit and to make a place for these new subjects, 
 and to direct its energies toward a new and a 
 higher purpose. In all this, the cities have been 
 40 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 the leaders, while the country school has done 
 little or nothing to adapt itself to the changed 
 conditions of our life. The process is as yet by 
 no means completed. There are many commu- 
 nities and some normal schools which as yet have 
 not been touched by the modern spirit in educa- 
 tion. Sooner or later, though, these slow and 
 conservative communities and schools will be 
 forced to take up their share of the educational 
 burden, and to provide the kind of training which 
 they should. 
 
 By 1900, it may be said that our public schools 
 had been transformed from mere teaching insti- 
 tutions, where a disciplinary training in the rudi- 
 ments of learning was given, and had been called 
 upon to undertake some of the educational func- 
 tions no longer provided either by the home or 
 in the shop. The industrial capabilities and the 
 /character of the child were now to be shaped, 
 some better preparation to meet the changed 
 tonditions of life was to be given, and the school 
 was also called upon anew to help assimilate the 
 increasing number and the changing type of 
 aliens coming to our shores. In the cities this 
 41 ' 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 became a serious question, and many additions 
 and concessions had to be made, especially to the 
 Germans, to get their children into our Ameri- 
 can public schools instead of their alien paro- 
 chial schools. The period from 1875 to 1900 
 was a period of discussion and criticism. Prac- 
 tical men took the public school severely to task, 
 and pointed out the shortcomings of the old 
 type of training. The proceedings of the edu- 
 cational associations of the time are filled with 
 discussions as to the need and value of the new 
 subjects, and the desired changes in the nature 
 of the school itself. The school was forced to 
 become conscious of itself, and it became criti- 
 cal of its aims and of its methods of procedure. 
 
 The psychology of instruction and discussions 
 as to the relative value of subjects now came to 
 the front. Normal schools for the proper train- 
 ing of teachers, both public and private, began 
 to be founded in numbers. The new subject of 
 " pedagogy," a term expressive of the conception 
 of public education at that time, now began to 
 be grudgingly received into the more demo- 
 cratic of our universities. The influence of the 
 42 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 new doctrine of evolution also began to be appar- 
 ent, and a conception of the child as a slowly de- 
 veloping personality, demanding subject matter 
 and method suited to his stage of development, 
 now began to take the place of the earlier pouring- 
 in-of-information conception. Child study for a 
 time almost monopolized the educational field. 
 Books on the curriculum, on child life, and on 
 methods of teaching were now published numer- 
 ously. Character-building was erected as a defi- 
 nite aim in education. Psychology became the 
 guiding science of the school. 
 
 In all of these changes of a quarter of a cen- 
 tury, the school has gained tremendously in dig- 
 nity, power, and influence. The old do-as-you- 
 please policy had to be abandoned. Permission 
 was changed to obligation all along the line. 
 Minimum requirements were laid down, and these 
 have been gradually advanced. New and higher 
 requirements for those who are to teach have 
 been instituted. The new subjects of instruc- 
 tion have found a place in the system, and the 
 system itself has been broadened and added to 
 at each end. The democratic American high 
 43 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 school has become a truly national institution. 
 New taxes have been provided, old forms of tax- 
 ation have been increased, and the school funds 
 have been more carefully guarded. Aid for pri- 
 vate, sectarian, and denominational schools has 
 been cut off, and that question forever settled. 
 Bulky school codes have been developed; new 
 constitutions have made very definite provisions 
 for state school systems, and have laid very posi- 
 tive mandates on the legislatures " to provide an 
 efficient system of free public schools" for all 
 the children of the state. School legislation has 
 become an important part of the work of each 
 session of the legislature. The right of the state 
 has been asserted and sustained by the courts. 
 Education for all at public expense has come to 
 be accepted as a settled conviction of our people. 
 The right to compel the child to partake of the 
 advantages offered has also been established, 
 and is now in the process of being generally ac- 
 cepted. So thoroughly have we come to be actu- 
 ated by a common purpose that we often find 
 ourselves speaking of the American public 
 school, thojigh strictly speaking there is no such 
 44 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 I thing. Our school systems are all state school 
 1 systems, though within recent years they have 
 become truly national in spirit. All of this had 
 been thoroughly established in principle before 
 the end of the last century, but it may take an- 
 other generation to establish it thoroughly in 
 the schools. Our national development advances 
 faster than our educational practice. 
 
NEW CONCEPTIONS AND 
 PRESENT TENDENCIES 
 
Ill 
 
 NEW CONCEPTIONS AND 
 PRESENT TENDENCIES 
 
 The Spanish- American War of 1898 and the 
 recent Russo-Japanese War served alike to con- 
 centrate attention once more on the advantages 
 of general education. It was "the man behind 
 the gun " who won in each case. These wars, 
 and other more or less related events, have 
 served to bring out into new relief our position 
 in the family of nations, and to reveal to us some- 
 thing of the part we shall probably be called 
 upon to play in the world's affairs in the future. 
 Our location, our resources, our capacity, and, 
 not least, the high moral and humanitarian pur- 
 poses which actuate us as a nation, are certain to 
 make our influence felt in the affairs of the world 
 in the future. We are slowly beginning to see, as 
 well, that the great battles of the world in the 
 future are to be commercial rather than military 
 49 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 or naval, and that it is our duty to get ready for 
 them if we wish to continue to prosper as a na- 
 tion. The trained artisan is to be the private; the 
 trained leader the captain ; and an educated, 
 sober, capable, and industrious people the base 
 of supplies for the national armies of the future. 
 Whether we like it or not, we are beginning to 
 see that we are pitted against the world in a 
 gigantic battle of brains and skill, with the mar- 
 kets of the world, work for our people, and in- 
 ternal peace and contentment as the prizes at 
 stake. 
 
 From 1897 to 1907, our country experienced 
 an unprecedented period of industrial develop- 
 ment and national prosperity. It was a period 
 marked by the concentration of capital and busi- 
 ness enterprises in all fields ; undertakings on a 
 scale heretofore unattempted were begun ; capi- 
 tal changed from a national to an international 
 basis; "trusts," combinations, and associations 
 were formed in all lines of business ; the special- 
 ization of labor and the introduction of labor- 
 saving machinery took place to an extent before 
 unknown; new inventions destroyed old trades 
 SO 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 and threw hundreds out of employment ; the im- 
 migration of people racially further removed from 
 our own stock reached a maximum ; city condi- 
 tions everywhere became even more complex and 
 potentially more dangerous; villages became 
 more urban, and a more cosmopolitan attitude 
 began to pervade our whole life; the frontier 
 practically disappeared ; the national feeling was 
 deepened and intensified, and the national govern- 
 ment was called upon to do many things for the 
 benefit of the people which it had become clearly 
 evident that the states could not do. 
 
 Such periods of rapid development subject ed- 
 ucational systems to increased strain. National 
 progress outruns the possibility of education to 
 keep pace with it. Many readjustments are called 
 for, and readjustments are not easy to make, and 
 cannot be made at once. The need of broad, 
 general, and diversified training, adapted to the 
 needs of the future rather than to the needs of 
 the present or the past, becomes even more evi- 
 dent. The educational system is subjected to new 
 and increased criticism. We hear this on all sides 
 to-day. The practical man would make the school 
 51 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 over; the conservative schoolmaster clings tena- 
 ciously to the past. Criticism and skepticism alike 
 prevail. At last the tension becomes so great that 
 something has to give way, and progress, often, 
 rapid progress, ensues. A new view-point is at- 
 tained, a new inspiration directs our work, new 
 means and methods are introduced, and often a 
 new philosophy actuates the work of the school 
 There are many reasons for thinking that our 
 school system has entered on another such period 
 of change and development now, and that we are 
 standing on the threshold of a new era in educa- 
 tional progress. The period since igoo has cer- 
 tainly been a remarkable one. The number of new 
 educational societies and associations which have 
 been formed, and the number of congresses which 
 have been held to promote some one phase or 
 another of educational work, is so large that one 
 can scarcely remember their names. The great 
 educational awakening which has taken place in 
 the Southern states is only paralleled by that 
 started by Horace Mann in Massachusetts seventy 
 years ago. The large endowments for higher ed- 
 ucation, and the deep interest taken in popular 
 52 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 education by many laymen, are certainly signifi- 
 cant. The many state educational commissions 
 which have been created within the past five 
 years indicate a general dissatisfaction with ex- 
 isting conditions and a desire for change and im- 
 provement. The new interest in school hygiene 
 and the physical welfare of the child indicates a 
 new and a commendable desire to care for the 
 bodies as well as the heads of our children. The 
 great educational lessons to be learned from a 
 study of the educational, political, and industrial 
 progress of the German Empire during the past 
 forty years are at last beginning to take root with 
 us. Above all, the new and extensive interest in 
 industrial and vocational training is especially 
 significant of the changing conception of the 
 function of the school and the classes in society 
 which the school is in future expected to serve, 
 A right-about-face movement, too, is taking 
 place in our educational theory. When the school 
 first became conscious and critical of itself it 
 turned to methods and class-room procedure for 
 lines of improvement, and psychology became its 
 fundamental science. Its gaze was turned inward 
 S3 
 
 « • 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 upon itself. Many reforms and improvements in 
 methods and in the teaching process were made, 
 but the advances in organization and in the en- 
 richment of the curriculum have nearly all been 
 forced upon the school by practical men from 
 without. The school now shows signs of becoming 
 conscious of itself in a new and a truer direction; 
 its gaze is now outward instead of inward, and 
 the relation of the school to the world outside has 
 now become a question of the first importance in 
 educational procedure. The school is essentially 
 a time and labor saving device, created — with 
 us — by democracy to serve democracy's needs. 
 To convey to the next generation the knowledge 
 and the accumulated experience of the past is not 
 its only function. It must equally prepare the 
 future citizen for the to-morrow of our complex life. 
 The school must grasp the significance of its social 
 connections and relations, and must come to real- 
 ize that its real worth and its hope of adequate 
 reward lies in its social efficiency. There are 
 many reasons for believing that this change is 
 taking place rapidly at present, and that an educa- 
 tional sociology, needed as much by teachers to- 
 54 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 day as an educational psychology, is now in the 
 process of being formulated for our use. 
 
 Child life is everywhere experiencing to-day a 
 new lengthening of the period of dependence and 
 training. In proportion as our social life becomes 
 broader and more complex, a longer period of 
 guidance becomes necessary to prepare the in- 
 dividual for active participation in it. As our in- 
 dustrial life becomes narrower and its processes 
 more concealed, new and more extended training 
 }s called for to prepare the future worker for his 
 task, to reveal to him something of the intricacy 
 and' interdependence of our modern, social, and 
 industrial life, and to point out to him the neces- 
 sity of each man's part. With the ever increasing 
 subdivision and specialization of labor, the danger 
 from class subdivision is constantly increasing, 
 and the task is thrown more and more upon the 
 school of instilling into all a social and a politi- 
 cal consciousness that will lead to unity amid 
 diversity, and' to united action for the preserva- 
 tion and betterment of our democratic institutions. 
 The great numbers of aliens who yearly come 
 to our shores and at once become a part of our 
 55 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 industrial classes, many of whom are illiterate 
 and few of whom have any real conception of 
 the meaning of democratic life, add new empha- 
 sis to this point of view. Five or six months of 
 common school education each year for a few 
 years are no longer enough, and on all sides the 
 school year is being lengthened and the educa- 
 tional requirements increased. So marked has 
 been the change in this direction within recent 
 years, that sixteen years of age bids fair to be the 
 earliest time at which we will, ultimately, permit 
 children to entirely cease attendance at some 
 form of the public school. 
 
 Our school curriculum bids fair, too, to experi- 
 ence many modiiications during the next one or 
 two decades, and chiefly along a line that will lead 
 toward preparation for increased social efficiency. 
 Much antiquated material, adapted largely to the 
 needs of a society that has preceded us, will 
 doubtless be eliminated. New subjects and new 
 points of emphasis in old subjects, better adapt- 
 ing the school to our changed and changing so- 
 cial and industrial life, will probably be added. 
 Our city schools will soon be forced to give up 
 56 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 the exceedingly democratic idea that all are equal, 
 and that our society is devoid of classes, as a few 
 cities have already in large part done, and to be- 
 gin a specialization of educational effort along 
 many new lines in an attempt better to adapt the 
 school to the needs of these many classes in the 
 city life. City, town, and country schools alike 
 have, in the past, directed most of their training 
 to satisfying the needs of the children of the well- 
 to-do classes, and those headed for business life 
 or the professions. More recently, most of the 
 larger cities have provided some form of work 
 leading to preparation for the executive positions 
 in technical pursuits. The common wage earners, 
 those who enter the industries as workmen, and 
 the country boy and girl have been forced to 
 take what was provided for the others, or to do 
 without. 
 
 The situation has been somewhat analogous to 
 that of the old colleges, with their Latin, Greek, 
 and Mathematics curriculum and their small stu- 
 dent body and limited support. With the introduc- 
 tion of many new lines of work and the demo- 
 cratization of all instruction, the colleges have 
 S7 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 experienced a great increase in students and in 
 popular favor and support. Our public schools are 
 at present experiencing some such change, and 
 it is one that is likely to increase rather than to 
 diminish with time. Vocational schools and spe- 
 cial type schools of many kinds are likely soon to 
 find a place in our more important school systems. 
 There is some reason to hope, too, that the aim 
 and direction of the country school and the small 
 town school will also change, and that in the fu- 
 ture these will seriously turn their attention to 
 the needs of rural life. Ever since the establish- 
 ment of rural schools they have been giving in- 
 struction of a kind which has led to the city 
 rather than to the farm. The introduction of man- 
 ual training, domestic science, and agriculture 
 would do much toward making the country school 
 and the small town school a more useful social 
 institution. 
 
 A very significant change has also taken place 
 since 1900 in the attitude assumed toward the 
 study of education by our higher institutions of 
 learning. The study of education, rather than 
 the old "pedagogy," has recently become an im- 
 58 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 portant part of the work of most of our colleges 
 and universities. Instead of a study of school 
 methods and management only, the work has 
 changed into a phase of political science, — that 
 of a study of means of improving the state and of 
 advancing the public welfare. Nearly all of our 
 universities and colleges now have such chairs or 
 departments, and the state universities and our 
 more democratic private institutions are now or- 
 ganizing professional schools for the training of 
 teachers and educational leaders for the state. 
 Active, capable, and mature young men are 
 studying the subject, and many are preparing 
 themselves for leadership in the work which will 
 soon have to be done. The work begins at last 
 to offer a good career, and the opportunities for 
 useful service are almost unparalleled. The in- 
 struction offered in a number of our normal 
 schools has been revised recently to make it 
 conform better to the new conception, and many 
 indications point to education as a future high 
 school subject of study, with ultimately a unit of 
 credit for college entrance. Surely a study of the 
 history, aims, purposes, and functions of public 
 59 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 education in a democratic society such as our 
 own ought to be as useful, either as a preparation 
 for participation in active life, or for the thinking 
 required of a college Freshman, as is the study of 
 the History of Mediasval Europe, or the reading 
 of four books of Caesar. 
 
 The administration of education each year be- 
 comes a more important and a more dignified 
 piece of work. If we could only cast off the an- 
 tiquated and unsatisfactory method of awarding 
 the selection of state and county superintendents 
 to the Republican and Democratic parties, and 
 open up these places to the competition of the 
 brains of the whole country, as we have done with 
 the high school principalship and the city super- 
 intendency, these positions would become among 
 the most important within the gift of the state. 
 The office of superintendent of city schools has 
 in many places become one of much dignity and 
 importance, and the office is being completely 
 divorced from partisan or personal politics by all 
 progressive communities. State Superintendents 
 of Public Instruction and State Boards of Edu- 
 cation are being entrusted with new functions, 
 60 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 and a marked tendency toward a centralization 
 of power and responsibility is manifest in many 
 states. There is even good reason to believe that at 
 last Congress has been touched by the new spirit 
 in education, and that it will, before long, per- 
 form the long-delayed task of raising the national 
 Bureau of Education from a position inferior to 
 that of the life-saving service, the bureau of fish 
 and fisheries, or the meat-inspection service, to 
 a position commensurate with the importance of 
 education to us as a nation. 
 
 A people who express themselves as completely 
 as we do in free political institutions, and whose 
 whole life is experiencing such rapid changes and 
 advances as our own, is increasingly dependent 
 on education for guidance and progress. As a 
 nation we have been slow to realize this. We 
 have cared for higher or university education 
 relatively well, and our secondary schools are in 
 many places well provided for, but our elemen- 
 tary, supplementary, continuation, and voca- 
 tional schools have been as yet but imperfectly 
 developed. The recent German commission sent 
 to this country to investigate our educational 
 6i 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 conditions mentioned this as one of our most vul- 
 nerable points. 
 
 The new period of advance which we now seem 
 to be entering also bids fair to be very paternal- 
 istic, perhaps even socialistic, in the matter of 
 education. The old principle, fought for so vig- 
 orously fifty or sixty years ago, that the wealth 
 of the state must educate the children of the 
 state, bids fair to be even further extended with 
 a view to a greater equalization of both the bur- 
 dens and the advantages of education. Poor and 
 overburdened towns and districts will be supplied 
 with sufficient means to enable them to provide 
 a good school for their children, and the present 
 great difference in tax rates, to provide practically 
 the same educational advantages, will be in large 
 part equalized by the state. There is, as yet, a 
 small but a very significant tendency for the 
 school to free itself from the financial control of 
 the town board or city council, and to erect itself 
 as an independent and a coordinate branch of the 
 town or city government, responsible only to the 
 people for its work and its expense. There are 
 many signs of an increasing centralization of 
 62 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 management which will ultimately lead to greater 
 efficiency. Many options which communities have 
 to-day will in time be changed into obligations. 
 The state oversight of private and parochial edu- 
 cation is likely to increase slowly, especially 
 along the lines of uniformity in statistics and rec- 
 ords, sanitary inspection, common standards of 
 work, and the enforcement of the attendance laws. 
 In particular, the attitude toward the control of 
 the child is likely to change. Each year the child 
 is coming to belong more and more to the state, 
 and less and less to the parent. In all that relates 
 to proper care, kindness, education, and advan- 
 tages, the child belongs to the parent; but 
 when neglect, abuse, and the deprivation of the 
 child of any natural right takes place, the child 
 belongs to the state. The right to reasonably 
 good treatment, proper care, an education, pro- 
 tection from vice, and protection from labor be- 
 yond his strength and years, the state will soon 
 guarantee. The plea in defense that " the child 
 is my child " will not be accepted much longer 
 by society. Our future welfare is too thoroughly in 
 the keeping of the child to permit of such a policy. 
 63 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 The movement for general education for all 
 of the people has been essentially a democratic 
 movement. Everywhere west of the Alleghany 
 Mountains the girl has shared equally with the boy 
 in all of the advantages provided. The masses, 
 who have been the voting strength of the move- 
 ment, have seen in it a chance for their children 
 to rise, and educators and statesmen have seen 
 in it the safety of the republic. School systems 
 with us are thoroughly democratic. An educa- 
 tional ladder for all who can afford it and have 
 the mental capacity to use it extends from the 
 kindergarten or primary school to and through 
 the state university. Only in the states of the 
 North Atlantic group, Maine alone excepted, 
 has there been a failure to carry the system to 
 its logical conclusion at the top. 
 
 The evils and shortcomings of democracy are 
 many and call loudly for remedies and improve- 
 ment. Whether we shall have remedies and im- 
 provement or not depends very largely on how 
 the next generation is trained. The ideas taught 
 in the school to-day become the actuating princi- 
 ples of democracy to-morrow. Because the school 
 64 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 is so thoroughly a democratic institution and 
 responds so quickly to democratic sentiment, the 
 school has for long hesitated to touch, except in 
 a very cautious manner, many of the evils and 
 shortcomings of democracy. The greatest obsta- 
 cle to intelligent educational and social progress 
 is the lack of intelligence and grasp of demo- 
 cracy itself. It takes time and patience to educate 
 and move the mass, yet in some way the school 
 must touch these sores. Our state governments 
 are weak and inefficient, we say ; the school must 
 then teach, and teach in some effective manner, 
 the principles of strong and effective government. 
 Our city governments are corrupt, we hear; 
 fundamental moral and economic principles must 
 then be taught to the masses, so that they may 
 realize the importance of civic righteousness, and 
 understand as well who ultimately pays the bills 
 for all mismanagement. Our people waste their 
 money and their leisure in idle and profligate ways, 
 we say ; a knowledge of values and of howto utilize 
 leisure time must then be taught. The list might 
 be prolonged over pages, with similar conclusions. 
 Through all the complicated machinery of the 
 65 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 school, some way must be found to awaken a social 
 consciousness as opposed to class consciousness, 
 to bring out the important social and civic les- 
 sons, to point out our social and civic needs, and 
 to teach our young people how to live better and 
 to make better use of their leisure time. Read- 
 ing, Writing, Arithmetic, Grammar, Geography, 
 and History, the staples of the elementary cur- 
 riculum, are really of little value except as they 
 are closely related with the needs and problems 
 of our social, civic, and industrial life. 
 
 This new conception shifts the emphasis in 
 education from methods to men, and this new 
 conception has underlain many of the better 
 courses of study issued for our schools during re- 
 cent years. It also underlies much of the discus- 
 sion of the present time. Teachers as a body, 
 though, are not thoroughly conscious of such a 
 purpose or need, and courses of study alone cannot 
 produce results. If our schools are to become 
 more effective social institutions, our teachers must 
 become more effective social workers. What teach- 
 ers need, as much as anything else, is a know- 
 ledge of democracy's needs and problems, and of 
 66 
 
OF EDUCATION 
 
 conditions to be met. Our teaching force is com- 
 posed largely of women, and women are seldom 
 interested by nature in this point of view. Their 
 training for generations has been along different 
 lines. Those teachers who enter the work wholly 
 by examination have little opportunity ever to 
 acquire this point of view, and the examination 
 door should be closed as soon as financial con- 
 ditions will permit. The time to impart ideals is 
 during the training period, and an introduction to 
 the social point of view and the social and indus- 
 trial problems before us as a nation ought to be an 
 essential part of the training of every normal school. 
 A normal school which is essentially an appren- 
 tice school will inevitably turn out teachers with 
 limited vision and little power of growth, while the 
 call to-day for far-sighted teachers of large adap- 
 tability is greater than ever before in our history. 
 The work of public education is destined in 
 the near future to be one of the most important 
 lines of work which our republic has to do. Its 
 importance in a government such as ours can 
 scarcely be overestimated. Each man with us 
 is the captain of his own fate and the carver of 
 67 
 
CHANGING CONCEPTIONS 
 
 his own destiny. It is within his power to do great 
 good or to do great harm. To decide righteously 
 and to act wisely he must know. Knowledge and 
 training, if of the right type, can hardly be pro- 
 vided too extensively. The overeducated man is 
 scarcely possible if an education adapted to his 
 needs and station in life is given him. The work 
 of public education is with us, too, to a large de- 
 gree, a piece of religious work. To engage in it is 
 to enlist in the nation's service. Its call is for 
 those who would dedicate themselves in a noble 
 way. Those who would serve must be of the 
 world, with red blood in their veins ; they must 
 know the world, its needs, and its problems ; they 
 must have largeness of vision, and the courage to 
 do and to dare ; and they must train the youth 
 with whom they come in contact for useful and 
 efficient action. 
 
OUTLINE 
 
 I. CHANGES IN THE NATURE OF OUR LIFE 
 
 1. Early pioneer conditions i 
 
 2. Training of the school of experience 3 
 
 3. The farm a centre of industry 3 
 
 4. Changes since this early period 4 
 
 5. Character of the nation in the early period ... 5 
 ' 6. The period from 1810 to 1850 6 
 
 7. Great changes since that time 7 
 
 8. Increase in population and growth of cities . . 8 
 
 9. Changes in the character of our people .... 10 
 
 10. Changed character of immigration since 1882 . . 14 
 
 II. ESect of these changes on our life and education . 15 
 
 12. Changes in the old social customs and traditions . 16 
 
 13. Great increase in the quantity of knowledge . .18 
 
 14. The problem of utilizing leisure time 20 
 
 15. Far-reaching effect of all these changes .... 20 
 
 11. CHANGES IN THE CONCEPTION OF THE 
 
 SCHOOL 
 
 1. The early Colonial school 25 
 
 2. Conditions before 1830 26 
 
 3. Early difficulties ; a hopeful minority . . . . .27 
 
 4. Early conceptions of education 28 
 
 . 69 
 
OUTLINE 
 
 5. Early influences tending toward a development of 
 
 education 30 
 
 6. Changes efiected by 1835 32 
 
 7. The period of agitation and achierement • • • 33 
 
 8. What had been established by 1850 34 
 
 9. The early state school.; extending the system . . 35 
 
 10. Progress after the Civil War ,38 
 
 11. Great changes between 1875 and 1900 . . . . 40 
 
 12. The psychological conception of education . . .42 
 
 13. Gains made by the school 43 
 
 14. The American Public School 44 
 
 in. NEW CONCEPTIONS AND PRESENT 
 TENDENCIES 
 
 1. A new national conception 49 
 
 2. The recent national prosperity 50 
 
 3. New strain and new criticism 51 
 
 4. A new era in educational progress 52 
 
 5. A new educational consciousness 53 
 
 6. Longer dependence and training required • ■ • 55 
 
 7. A changing curriculum to meet new needs ... 56 
 
 8. The subject of education as a study 58 
 
 9. Improvement on the administrative side .... 60 
 
 10. New attitude assumed by the state 62 
 
 11. Schools and the shortcomings of democracy . . 64 
 
 12. Need of a study of democracy's problems ... 65 
 
 13. The conception shifted again 66 
 
 14. In the service of the nation 68 
 
Eil)erj3iDe CDucattonal i^onograpi^^ 
 
 Editor, Henry Suzzallo, Professor of The Philosophy of 
 Education, Teachers College, Columbia University, New 
 York. 
 
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 General Educational Theory 
 
 EDUCATION. An essay and other selections. By Ralph Waldo 
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 EDUCATION FOR EFFICIENCY, and The New Definition of the Cnl- 
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 MORAL PRINCIPLES IN EDUCATION. By John Dewey, Professor 
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 OUR NATIONAL IDEALS IN EDUCATION. By Elmer E. 
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 THE SCHOOL AS A SOCIAL INSTITUTION. By Henry Sdzzallo, 
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 Administration and Supervision of Schools 
 
 CONTINUATION SCHOOLS. ByPAin. H. Hands, Professor of Educa- 
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 CHANGING CONCEPTIONS OF EDUCATION. By E. P. Chbberlhy, 
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