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March 1909
Plain Facts About Public Schools
by Samuel P. Orth
Were you ever a member of a school board? If not, then have hardly been
revealed to you, in their fullest measure, the machinations and tendencies of
the dual forces that combine to establish our public schools: the educational
forces on the one hand, and the public or political forces on the other. To the
thoughtful board member are revealed the inherent weaknesses of the
public-school system as developed in America. To him are shown "the foibles and
fancies of the educationist, the heedlessness and pettiness of the more
thoughtless element in the constituency, and, alas! the limitations of the
teachers. And he is constantly comparing the ideal schools he supposed to exist
before he got his intimate insight, and the schools he really discovered after
his official relationship began. This disillusioning is distracting.
Just at present there is a stirring about in the public-school world. Some mild
muckrakers have been busy with the rake, and are trying to find out "What is
the matter with our public schools;" and a few conscientious critics are
pointing out genuine weaknesses in the RESULTS of our public-school system.
This commotion comes almost like a shock, after a long lull which had put us to
sleep in the pedagogical cradle, bringing us pleasant dreams about the great
public-school system, the pride of the land, the glory of the nation and so
forth. For everybody was quite sure that these schools were the bulwark of our
freedom, and that they somehow were too sacred to be criticised. At the same
time, every one reserved the right to decided personal opinions about the way
these schools should be run. For there is no other public institution so
universally lauded in bulk, and so criticised in parvo, as the public-school
system.
The results of the school system that are challenged in these newer indictments
may be brought under three groups.
First, we are told that the pupil does not gain real knowledge. He studies
about things, in an indefinite sort of way, but never learns the solid facts.
The whole system, from the happy kindergarten to the mimic-college high school,
is permeated with the haze of indefiniteness. There is present only the mirage
of learning, not the substantial reality. The old-fashioned drilling has
vanished. The line upon line and precept upon precept method, that builds real
brain-substance, is replaced by pseudo-psychological "methods" taught in
"normal" schools. The result is, the pupil is not trained in exactness and
thoroughness.
Secondly, we are told that the pupil does not even learn to use his mind.
Schoolmasters give as an excuse for the lack of exactness in their pupils, that
the boys and girls have learned how to use their mental equipment even though
they do not know very many facts. But here is a substantial arraignment of this
supposed result of modern school methods. The school is an enslaver of memory
instead of an emancipator of reasoning. Originality is tabooed, and servility
demanded. The curse of the lawyer, the search for precedent, is written on the
brow of pedagogy. Logic and reason are not encouraged.
And, thirdly, the results of our schools are not practical. This is heard on
every hand. The schools do not fit for bread-and-butter earning, they rather
make a boy or girl unfit for the hard tasks of life.
A fourth count in the indictment is sometimes added by the moralist, who claims
that the moral traits of the child are hardly awakened, and that the boys and
girls, especially those who break the ranks before the eighth grade is reached,
are entirely unfit to meet the severe demands that the temptations of life make
upon them.
These, briefly, are the charges. They may be summed up by saying that, in a
very general and unsatisfactory way, the schools teach the elements of mental
processes: that they, to this extent only, teach morals; and that they leave
the aptitudes, manual and mental, in about as dormant a condition as they found
them in.
These charges are made against the RESULTS of our public education. But these
results are the outgrowth of CONDITIONS. I do not wish here to discuss the
indictment, I wish only to describe frankly some of the conditions that prevail
in our public schools, from which these undesirable consequences have grown.
These plain facts I present, as they were unfolded to me while serving on the
Board of Education in one of our large cities, where conditions are perhaps a
little above the average.
I.
And I begin with the teacher. For the teacher is the school. And in considering
the teacher we must begin with the superintendent. The position of
superintendent of schools is unique and anomalous. It demands the learning of a
college president, the consecration of a clergyman, the wisdom of a judge, the
executive talent of a financier, the patience of a church janitor, the humility
of a deacon, and the craftiness of a politician. The position demands that the
superintendent manage the schools purely as an educational investment for the
public, without being in any degree influenced by the passions and impulses of
the public. It is because of these requirements, which would tax genius and
divinity, that there are so few real superintendents. If you should attend a
meeting of the National Association of Superintendents, for the purpose of
seeking one for your home town, you would be depressed by the scarcity of
first-class material for so important a place. You would learn, on inquiry,
that most of these men drifted into the superintendency,-- they just happened
into the job. Some were educated for the ministry, some for the bar, some for
medicine, a few had been in business, all of them had been teachers, but only a
small minority had started out in life by choosing the regal following of
educational leader as a profession, and had persisted in their laudable
ambition with courage and perseverance. Until very recently, there was no
college or university that paid any attention to school administration in its
curriculum. Those great centres of learning to which the nation rightly looks
for educational guidance were blind to the great needs of the common schools;
so that a man, ambitious to become a successful superintendent of schools, had
to pick his own way, prepared by experience and inclination but not by
scientific guide. The result was perfectly natural. The making of
superintendents was left to chance, and to those interested forces which
contrived to gain the mastery of the situation. Some superintendents were thus
made by party politics, some by certain commercial interests, some by coteries
of teachers or cliques of busybodies, and some, we may be very sure, by a happy
and conscientious choice. These last have been, fortunately, the propulsive
force in American public education, and the nation owes a large debt of
gratitude to the great pioneer superintendents, who rose above the
circumstances of their appointments and gave conscience and professional
prowess to their tasks.
Happily there is now growing up in our country a group of young men who have
definitely chosen educational administrative work as their profession who have
been trained for their calling in colleges that have recognized their special
needs, and who, it is hoped will prove strong enough to withstand the
temptations that are peculiar to public office. But ideal professional guidance
in public school affairs will not be possible until some of the conditions
surrounding the office of Superintendent are changed. The office must be
entirely separated from the haphazard of politics. Formerly the superintendent
was elected in many states by the people on party tickets. One of our large
cities even today clings to this barbarous custom to its shame and the great
detriment of its school system. At present it is almost the universal custom to
elect the superintendent through the board of education. Even under this
practice he is still made to feel the insecurity of his tenure. For the board
members are elected, and through them the people can strike at the
superintendent. Every city is prone to have a superintendent war about every
ten or twenty years. A man who has to direct so many teachers, placate so many
parents and come in practical contact with the public every day will make
enemies, especially if he is a robust and enterprising man. And these enemies
will seek revenge at the polls. So, in order to raise a generation of
professional superintendents it will not be enough to have them trained in the
technique of their profession. The tenure of office must be made long enough
and secure enough from interference by either the board or the public to
attract scholarly men.
While there has been so much of chance in the making of the superintendent,
there has been a more earnest attempt made in the training of teachers although
even our normal schools are of comparatively recent origin. School-teaching is
even now scarcely a profession. People still think that almost any one can be a
teacher. In truth, any one who can pass the required examinations and get a
certificate is legally qualified to teach. These requirements are usually so
low that a graduate of an ordinary high school can pass them. Indeed our cities
maintain normal schools that are filled with girls taken green from the high
school who are given two years of seasoning in method and are then turned back
into the public schools whence they came. This perpetual stream wends its
never-varying circuit annually swelled only occasionally by the addition of a
few women or men who have had a college education.
This kind of hurry-up training emphasizes method not character; memory, not
logic. It tends to make education mechanical, impersonal. It leads the youthful
pedagogue to teach arithmetic and reading, when she should be told to teach
Johnny and Mary. For education that is not individual, that does not respond
hopefully and joyously to the magic of personal association, results in mental
palsy. Our meagre starveling way of preparing teachers degrades the schools and
the profession. The basis of teaching must be knowledge, and how shall they
teach if they have not knowledge? The inspiration of teaching must be
personality, but how shall they inspire if they have no soul for their work?
Moreover, this factory method of making teachers inclines to shrivel them. The
exactions of their daily tasks, goodness knows, are severe enough to deaden
their wider instincts. The stronger reason why their preliminary training
should be of the greatest diameter. The natural propensities of all human
beings are easily influenced by their vocations. Perhaps this is why some
teachers are so apt to be narrow and unsympathetic toward persons and events
that lie beyond the pale of their immediate work. There must be a broad
sympathetic spirit at the basis of every profession; and it is this spirit that
marks the subtle distinction between a calling and a business--a distinction
that is important and potent.
Of course, the vast majority of public-school-teachers are women. Probably this
will always be true, though more men are surely needed. Thirty years ago it was
almost the only occupation a woman could enter. To-day the call of many
occupations reaches her ear. The result is that many of the ablest and most
robust women who must work, avoid teaching, and the ranks of the public-school
teachers must suffer from this loss.
The state has certainly not done its part to glorify the profession of
teaching. It has not lured talent, either by offering preparatory schools equal
to those of the other professions, or by offering adequate pay. Our school
resources are too small on all sides. The maximum tax levy for school purposes
is usually fixed by state law, and the harassed school board is continually
confronted by the task of doling out the resources at hand among teachers, and
buildings, and supplies, and playgrounds, and free lectures, and a hundred
other things that call for money. They are, as a rule, as generous with the
teachers as the state permits them to be. On the other hand, better pay should
be contingent upon a broader preparation, more effective service, a more
genuine spirit of helpfulness, less petty self-seeking, and a more liberal
outlook on life. Money alone cannot create a profession.
II.
Out of such educational conditions has come the course of study. What shall
these teachers teach? This seems to be a universal enigma. The question was not
asked seventy years ago. The itinerant schoolmaster, boarding round, and
gathering his flock from the scattered huts of the pioneers, taught reading
writing and arithmetic. And the refulgent halo of the three R's rests above the
traditions of these early district schools. With a little history, geography,
and spelling added, this remained the course of study until some educator
suddenly awoke to the fact that, while science was eagerly and rapidly
enlarging the domain of human knowledge, while human ingenuity was binding the
continents into unity, and civilization was moving forward with swift strides,
the course of study had remained quite stationary. So the prop of "enriching"
began. But alas! the enriching proceeded from books and theories, to the
exclusion of the vital needs of the state. So much frosting has been put on the
loaf, and so many raisins put within, that very little of the nourishing
substance is left.
This course of study, being built by educators who have studied books rather
than civilization, is bookish. Its creators being theorists rather than
empiricists, it is transcendental. And the cry of an awakening nation is, "Back
to the fundamentals. Make education practical. This is the extreme reaction on
the part of the people from the extreme attempt on the part of educators to
embellish the curriculum. The impulsive public, electing its school board,
demands a "practical education," but fails to define what constitutes a
practical education. So with the swaying pendulum we are bound to have either
Day-Dreamer or Gradgrind.
Thus far we have been told not to meddle with the course of study. We the
laymen, must keep our hands off and let the professional educator arrange the
schedules. And as a result every fad and fancy has been given a place, until
the printed course of study resembles the menu card of a metropolitan
restaurant. Modernly, every teacher has her psychologists and the beautiful
science of child-study has been wounded and torn by thousands of clumsy,
awkward amateurs, whose addenda to this "course" of study make the schools
ridiculous to earnest, sensible men. These varied and all-embracing programmes
of study presuppose every Tommy and Mary Ann to be a modern Lotze, capable of
greater feats of genius than constructing, or even comprehending, a
Microcosmos.
Of course it is all dealt out in homeopathic doses. There are pellets of
anatomy and physiology, of painting and drawing, of psychology and philosophy,
of a little arithmetic and a little grammar. All the pellets are sugar-coated,
for the whole pedagogical theory seems to command that the teacher make all
these things easy for the pupil. So we have all kinds of patent devices for
making the child's pathway one of velvet. There are wonderful new text-books
that have all the lessons analyzed and classified, leaving very little for
exertion. There are charts, multi-colored, that simplify the lessons, and
pictures and cabinets that illustrate the charts. Everything is put in the
pupils' hands. Genuine effort seems to be discouraged.
The vicious, immoral thing about all this is, that it enacts a great and
terrible lie to the child. He is made to believe that superficiality is a
substitute for thoroughness, and that effort is superfluous as well as
unpleasant. And what is even more cruel, he is entirely unprepared for the
school of life, where no teacher and no text are at his side to resolve his
tasks from work into play.
And this hodge-podge of "essentials" and "enrichments" the teacher is told to
dole out by "method." And mere method, technical routine, is the deadly enemy
of individual work. And individual development is the supreme function of human
life. Society could endure the crazy patchwork of an enriched course of study,
and the stern competition of life teach the youth the lessons of perseverance
and application; but society cannot long endure the suppression of personality.
Our machine-made teachers are, by machine methods, making of our splendid boys
and girls, each one stamped with the divinity of individuality, mere
machines.
Now that the educator has had his day in telling us what to teach and how to
teach it, the taxpayer is beginning to teach the pedagogue. He approaches the
question from the bread-and-butter side. He leaves the basic studies in the
course, follows the child into the world, and asks for RESULTS. The danger from
this is apparent.
In the technique of the course of study, America is just beginning to learn
from Germany the lesson of differentiation. Heretofore we have crammed
everything into one building, and into one course of study. For instance, the
city high school, the offspring of the old academy, has had tacked on to it
some work in manual training and also some few commercial studies. The product
is a hybrid, neither a technical school, nor a commercial school, nor a
classical school. The time has now come for separating the diverse organs, and
developing their functions. Technical and commercial high schools, fully
equipped and doing a splendid work, are now found in our most advanced
cities.
Of the grades the same is true. The trade-school is coming into vogue rapidly.
It has come to stay. But not as an adjunct to the present grade schools. It
will be an entity by itself. As our country fills up, this differentiation will
increase. It must become our national economic salvation.
III.
These American schools are public schools. This lends to them at once their
greatest significance, their greatest power, and their greatest handicap: is at
once the source of their wonderful strength and their gravest weakness. The
handicaps mentioned above are technical, and to a great extent can be remedied;
probably in the course of fifty years they will be. But when shall the foibles
of the people be consumed, and when their impulsiveness tamed? The schools
belong to everybody, and everybody wants to keep his spoon in the educational
porridge, and stir, and stir, and stir.
Of the hampering and intermeddling public, the most excusable portion is the
unreasonable parent. Parents who may be reasonable about all their neighbors
and about all other subjects, are not unlikely to become impatient and
unreasonable about school matters that pertain to their own children. It
becomes a question of my Charlie versus your Charlie. Of course the variety of
subjects that appeal to the unreason of such people is limitless. It may be a
matter of discipline, or of transfer, or of personal pique against the teacher,
or any one of a thousand different trivialities. But this particular species of
parent immediately magnifies it into an astounding greatness, and usually makes
a neighborhood issue of it. This may merely be annoying; always it is
irritating; and sometimes, unfortunately, it becomes inflaming. Then it leads
to written charges, to court-martial by the superintendent, star-chamber
sessions by the board, lawsuits in the courts, and to political issues at the
polls. Superintendents have been ousted, principals discharged, teachers'
hearts broken, by these unreasonable meddlers. Such instances will recur, in
various guises, to the reader. One fractious parent can upset an entire
neighborhood, and dispel that beautiful spirit of cooperation between the home
and the school that forms the real potency of education.
When this unreasonable ire is poured out upon a board member, its results are
far less deplorable, for he is not as essential to the welfare of the schools,
and has weapons at his command. While his life is made a burden by all kinds of
busybodies, he yet has the imperial privilege of talking back.
Then there are many groups or special interests which try to use the schools to
further their enterprises or prejudices. Among these the party politician may
be placed first. Happily he is a vanishing factor in school elections and
administration. The boards are in some states still nominated by party
machinery, and placed on party tickets, but the Australian ballot and
nomination by petition are being widely adopted for the school ticket. This
removes the board from party politics so far as such a thing is possible. But
the party spoilsman, in some cities, still looks upon school janitors and
employees as legitimate party spoils. And he even ventures to call on the
superintendent and board members to suggest appointments for the teachers'
roll, or to further the promotion of some teacher who may be related to an
influential citizen, not infrequently accompanying his "request" with a mild
threat. It is to the interest of the partisan, of course, that members are
elected to the board whom he can use. Such men are ordinarily unfit for
administering school affairs. It is an axiom that the usefulness to a community
of a board-member increases directly as his political partisanship decreases.
No doubt a purely political school board, particularly a board, has been one of
the great curses of our public schools. But they are almost a thing of the
past, and with their departure will vanish the attempts to use schools for
purely partisan ends.
Of course, there is Politics in everything,--in church, in business, wherever
a group of men and women are contending for place and power. This instinct for
playing the game of human nature is strongly developed in Americans, and forms
the motive of our remarkable organizations, and all our public institutions are
peculiarly subject to these influences. This spirit lends itself very readily
to trivial transactions. Old-time politics are not nearly so destructive to
school efficiency as are the petty "peanut" politics called forth by
grievances, by revenge, by commercial cupidity, and a score of other petty
potencies. Take, for instance, the question of retiring a superannuated
teacher. Even in cities that provide a pension fund, this is a most delicate
and hazardous undertaking for superintendent and board. If the teacher of sixty
or seventy years does not wish to retire gracefully and peacefully, she calls
upon her hundreds of former pupils, many of them now leading business and
professional men, she calls on the city editor of the daily papers, on her
minister, her doctor, and her lawyer, on the members of her lodge and her
church, and together they march in motley array, with grim energy, upon the
school officials, more determined than crusaders, and, quite convinced that the
welfare of the world is hanging on the outcome of their fight. If the school
authorities yield, discipline goes wild. If they persist, the crowd threatens
and plays politics when the term of the superintendent or board expires. And it
is surprising what a fine class of citizens can be enlisted in these grievance
campaigns. Men and women who surely ought to know better, who are expected to
be self-possessed, allow themselves to be carried to ridiculous extremes over
such matters.
Likewise the dismissal of incompetent teachers is made almost impossible in
some communities by such over-zealous delirium on the part of good people.
Sometimes lodges, business organizations, and even churches, are used as
cudgels over the heads of the miserable school authorities. I have known a
sewing society in a certain church in a small town to champion an unworthy
superintendent and lead the fight to the polls, and, by virtue of the anomalous
law that gives women the franchise in school questions, carry on a campaign of
gossip and win an election.
In most of our cities there is a prevalent, provincial feeling that looks with
disdain and disfavor upon the hiring of teachers from other towns. This
sentiment makes of our schools semi-eelymosynary institutions, whose principal
function is to give employment to the daughters and sons of the place. The bane
of this in-and-in breeding is felt in every large city. So acute is the feeling
that, if the superintendent goes abroad for a few alien teachers, he is decried
as disloyal, and he is fortunate if the disgruntled ones fail in organizing a
foolish opposition to his well-meant endeavor to infuse new life into his
schools. There are instances on record where a determined parent has set out to
elect a school board so that her daughter might be appointed a teacher, though
she was lacking both in spirit and knowledge. "I have lived here thirty years
and paid taxes, and the city owes it to me to employ my daughter rather than
hire some one from out of town who never helped make this city," said an irate
parent to me, after I had told him I could not interfere with the appointing of
teachers by the superintendent. And this feeling is quite as prevalent as it is
hurtful to the schools.
Another form of school politics found in every city emanates from those
commercial interests which find it profitable to be able to control school
administration. While I believe the methods of book companies and supply houses
have been very greatly improved in the last twenty years, it still remains true
that some of their methods are inscrutable, and their attempt at interference
with the selection of school boards and superintendents is not conducive to the
best educational results. The popular estimate of the amount and manner of this
interference is vastly and grotesquely exaggerated; but the involved interests
have only themselves to blame for this. Their competition often lacks that fair
and broadminded spirit that is usually found among business men, while any
unwarranted attempts to control school elections and appointments are hurtful
to the schools. Of course this can be said of any other public business.
Still more unfortunate is it when a clique of teachers forms a cabal against
superiors for the purpose of furthering its own selfish interests. They succeed
at times in allying themselves with a faction in the board, and a reign of
terror follows their enthronement. Cheap pedagogical factionalism has crippled
many a school system. Only heroic remedies help such a pathological
condition.
The result of all this agitation and potboiling is increased manifold by the
attitude of the sensational newspapers. Such papers find meat in quarrels, and
are always tempted to distort the truth into a misshapen thing. Fortunately
such newspapers are rare. Even the wildest among them profess a crocodile
interest in the children of the schools and the teachers. But even the best and
most conservative newspapers often do an irreparable injury to the educational
work of the schools by giving voice to the silly discontent and personal
vindictiveness of the disgruntled. Thus they awaken the distrust of the people
and lead to a loss of confidence, based on no adequate reason, that undermine
the work of conservative educators; The carping, fault-finding newspaper, that
never permits a cheerful, helpful adjective to escape its fonts, that is
pessimistic by policy, always hinting at things sinister, and saying that
thus-and-so affirms that this and that should have been done as it was not
done, and that so-and-so would have been better if this or that had not
happened, and so forth,--this newspaper is infinitely worse in its influence on
the schools than the senseless busybody and self-seeking meddler.
It is always easier for a sore-head to get a big headline in the dailies than
for the constructive conservative; and unfortunately for society, human nature
is always more willing to listen to calumny than to praise, and to lend its
strength to tearing down than to building up.
The consequence of all this multiformed political activity is, that turmoil
unseats tranquillity, dark discontent stalks by the side of cheerful
helpfulness, distrust dispels hope, and uneasiness and restlessness are felt
everywhere in the schools. All these disgruntled forces, by working in unison,
can usually elect at least one member to a board of education. Lucky is the
city where it is not a majority. This member is the grievance member. He, or
she, becomes the repository of all secret complaints. Dissatisfied teachers or
parents or neighbors pour out their imaginings into his or her lap. Reporters,
hard pressed for stuff, ply him or her with ingenious questions. The public is
fed on a diet of "suppose" and "they say," while the poor schools are a-quiver,
wondering what will happen next.
If these disgruntled ones succeed in carrying an election, and with it a
majority of the board, then the voice of the sovereign people must of course be
obeyed. Whatever was the issue, usually kept in reserve during the campaign, it
must be dragged out and the will of the people vindicated--sometimes by
breaking the heart of a fine and cultured teacher; sometimes by discharging a
superintendent of independence and courage who refuses to do the bidding of the
unreasonable board, and dares to stand between people and their enemies;
sometime ripping up a course of study, or by dismissing a business manager, or
by reinstating a delinquent official. Whatever the original grievance, by the
time election is over it has grown, like a fast-rolling snowball, and the
avalanche is rushing on its destructive course.
IV.
In spite of these volatile, irresponsible, disgruntled elements; in the teeth
of agitation about what to teach and how to teach it, and how to build and
where to build; against restlessness and suspiciousness on the part of teachers
and patrons, our free schools have vindicated the great wisdom of their
founders. At heart everybody believes in them, and they are among our most
cherished public possessions. We must not be blind to the handicaps that so
universally beset them.
Before they can approach the idealized usefulness that so often is pictured of
them, they must be placed under purely professional control, out of the reach
of the mere agitator, the headless and heedless costermonger of educational
panaceas, and the unreason of the multitude. Moreover, there must be a saner
popular participation, finding expression in much more generous tax levies, and
the election of the wisest and sanest men the community to membership on the
governing board. There must come a greater public interest in the educational
work of the school. Some method will be devised, whereby the public will be
enabled to infuse some of its energy and practicalness into the school work.
The dividing of the city into small districts and appointing a committee of
visitors from each district, whose duty it is to visit the schools, and suggest
to the board of education and the superintendent such changes as they deem
wise, has produced good results in German cities. And there must certainly be
more educational aggressiveness on the part of the pedagogue, more response to
the actual needs of life, both cultural and vocational.
It appears that the public-school educator needs tranquillity, freedom, and
enterprise. He needs tranquillity, because the development of his science
requires the repose of the study. The rude jolting of suspicion, jealousy,
vindictiveness, and bigotry are fatal to the growth of a sane pedagogical
science.
He needs freedom, for an institution dependent upon the political vicissitudes
of the day cannot be stable and well poised.
And, above all, he needs enterprise, the enterprise to match his schools with
our civilization.
Maybe, if there were more genuine enterprise, not the make-believe, bustling
kind, among the educators, there would be a great deal less carping and
parsimoniousness on the part of the people. Maybe the public would hail with
great joy and cooperation such an energizing of the schools. Maybe it is too
much to hope that this tranquillity, freedom, and enterprise shall ever abide
in the schools that belong to an impulsive public which often seems to prefer a
self-complacent mediocrity to a virile efficiency.
The Atlantic Monthly; March, 1909; "Plain Facts about Public Schools"; Volume 103, No. 3;
pages 289-297.
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