PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION

CHAPTER I

THE NEW INTERPRETATION OF EDUCATION

Popular View of Education.-Education is commonly measured by the number of years of schooling one has had, the institutions attended, the subjects pursued, degrees conferred, and by other similar conventional measuring units. One whose school training has been abbreviated, who has not been through the traditional mill and ground out according to a standard pattern, is often said to be uneducated. Even many scholarly people think of the science or the philosophy of education as dealing wholly with methods of teaching the various school subjects or with school management. While the subject of education may be properly concerned with principles underlying methods of instruction and management, it is by no means restricted to them. This popular conception of education as something confined to schools and school-rooms, the acquiring of book facts, formal drill and discipline, is altogether too narrow.

New Interpretation.-Education is not a new process, but it is receiving new interpretation. Many of the means of education are of very recent origin; but education is in reality a process as old as the race itself. Whatever influences one in such a way as to determine his future conduct is a means of education. This is true whether the influence comes from external forces or as a resultant of one's own actions. Education may thus be good or bad; may elevate or debase. The school, though conventionally regarded as the only institution of education, is of comparatively recent development. But

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it is not the most fundamental means of education, even though society tends to relegate all educational functions to it. Reflection shows us that there are multitudes of influences which help to determine the character of every individual. A few of these factors will be considered.

The Home as an Educator.-First consideration may properly be given to the home. This is the first institution to touch the life of the individual, and in many ways it is the most influential of all the forces brought to bear upon him. Though the school and one's business or profession give more definite mastery of technical accomplishments which come to be regarded as the fruits of education, yet the use to which these will be put is largely determined by the ideals developed in the home. Religious creeds are gained at the mother's knee, political beliefs are absorbed in the family circle, and social ideals largely fixed by family customs. Honesty, veracity, politeness, good manners, clean living and temperance, are most easily inculcated in the home. Likewise, on the other hand, immorality and unrighteousness may be generally traced to undesirable home influences. In fact, the ideals which dominate life and character and give them significance owe more to home influences than to all others combined. So important is this early formative period that some of the churches say: "Give me the child for the first seven years, and the world may have him the rest of his life."

Institutional Influence.-Besides the home there are many specific institutions and activities that educate as really as do the schools. For the great mass they even provide the major portion of the training received. All forms of occupation furnish training and extension of one's horizon. Various scientific, historical and literary societies, clubs, lodges, labor organizations, and guilds, encourage the social instinct and give intellectual and moral uplift. Then there are special means employed to supplement the schools. Among these are lecture courses, public libraries, reading circles, chautauquas, and reading-rooms. The daily newspaper, the magazine, the

telephone, the telegraph, commercial intercourse, etc., all furnish knowledge and incentives for learning, and supply outlets for activities that contribute to the modification of the thoughts, taste, and conduct of the individual. Even plays, games, sports, and pastimes are of vast moment in the develop ment of latent capabilities and in stimulating new ones. determining a boy's moral action the neighborhood environment and the neighbors' boys are far more instrumental than the school.

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President Butler says: "The doctrine of evolution teaches us to look upon the world around us-our arts, our science, our literature, our institutions, and our religious life-as an integral part, indeed as the essential part of our environment; and it teaches us to look upon education as the plastic period of adapting and adjusting our self-active organism to this vast series of hereditary acquisitions." Dr. Harris' emphasizes the importance of the state in education, and maintains that indirectly it is the most influential of all. He writes: "The influence of the constitution of the state, and of its transactions with other states in peace and war, weaving the web of world history, is known to be more powerful in educating the individual and forming his character than any of the three phases of education mentioned (home, school, church), for it underlies them and makes possible whatever perfection they may have. Without the protection of the state no institution can flourish, nothing above savage or barbarous human life can be realized. . . The state is the essential condition for history. . . . History commences with the evolution of man's substantial self and its realization or embodiment in a state."

Farm Life.-The duties and environment of the farm are often thought to be directly opposed to education. But wellordered farm life offers the most advantageous sort of environment and discipline that childhood and youth could have. At its best, when made significant through books, good schooling,

1 Meaning of Education, p. 13.

Psychologic Foundations of Education. p. 266.

and the intelligent leadership of parents, it affords certain educative means that money cannot purchase in crowded cities. To be deprived of its advantages and pleasures is almost calamitous. The outdoor exercise and healthful recreations develop firm muscles and red blood, healthy brains, and vigorous constitutions, without which mental development can proceed only indifferently. The farm duties bring a sense of responsibility, so often lacking in city-bred children, and also secure motor training invaluable for all future accuracy of work and for will development. President G. Stanley Hall says: "Of all workschools, a good farm is probably the best for motor development. This is due to its great variety of occupations, healthful conditions, and the incalculable phyletic re-enforcements from immemorial times. I have computed some threescore industries, as the census now classifies them, that were more or less generally known and practised sixty years ago in a little township which not only in this but in other respects has many features of an ideal educational environment for adolescent boys, combining as it does not only physical and industrial, but civil and religious elements in wise proportions and with pedagogic objectivity, and representing the ideal of such a state of intelligent citizen-voters as was contemplated by the framers of our Constitution." Because of its opportunities for immediate and prolonged contact with nature there is offered the best possible preliminary nourishment for the understanding and appreciation of science, literature, and art. Here is offered the chance to find "tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything."

The Playground.-The function of play as an educative factor is only just beginning to be realized. It is not long since play was very generally regarded by serious-minded people as sinful. We now know that through play the child not only gains necessary relaxation and invigoration, but the forms of play are instinctive expressions of the unfolding potentialities gained through race experience. Play not only retraces ancestral experiences, but anticipates future adult experiences.