far abstracted from human experience must be brought back again into contact with the concrete social experience from which they sprang. The highest ideals of co-operation, loyalty, sacrifice, which men have wrought out in the past and present must live again in the personalities of the young. Only mature life can see the full development of character, but the socialized school, under the guidance of a high-minded teacher who sees life whole, may render unvaluable service.

ECONOMICS IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

PRESIDENT GEORGE GUNTON, INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ECONOMICS, NEW YORK, N. Y.

Human progress is measured by the degree in which experience is converted into helpful knowledge. It is the function of science to reduce this knowledge to working principles, and of education to present these principles in teachable form. It is by this process that modern institutions come into existence. There is no important feature of civilization, in religion, ethics, art, science, economics, or politics, that has been or could have been accomplished by any one generation. It is all the result of successful contributions of succeeding generations, thru converting the experience of one into helpful knowledge for the next.

While this work is constantly going on in numerous forms, the institution which today must be more than ever relied upon to render this important service to society is the public school. The efficiency of the schools in rendering this service depends largely upon the extent to which the knowledge they impart is applicable to the conduct and conditions. of modern society. As Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler aptly puts it: "The first question to be asked in any course of study is, Does it lead to a knowledge of our contemporary civilization? If not, it is neither efficient nor liberal."

It is no part of my purpose to detract from the value of any part of the public-school curriculum, but rather to plead that social economics should have a place in the public schools. It will be conceded that in our system of public education those subjects have the greatest claim to consideration which most directly lead to the character-making conditions of life. Nor will it be questioned that this may change with the progress of society. For instance, it is easy to understand that in the Middle Ages, when the common people were outside the pale of social and political recognition, no education was necessary for the masses. That which was necessary, being mostly for the clergy, might well be of a theological and classical character. Latin and Greek and abstruse theological doctrines were, of course, the chief requirements of the only educated class. But, as society developed and industry became an important factor in

public affairs, education must needs take a broader sweep.

With the rise

of manufactures and commerce it became necessary to extend education to the middle class.

As social life and institutions became more complex, a greater extent and variety of knowledge became necessary, if the future was to have the benefit of the past and progress to continue. So, with the birth to social consciousness of what Lassalle called the "fourth estate," it became necessary to extend education to the common people. Under democratic institutions, where the very form of government and conditions of industry are within the political control of the masses, the character of education thru the common schools becomes a matter of paramount importance to civilization itself. The progress of the last quarter of a century has radically changed the importance of economics as a public-school study. Fifty years ago, for instance, when we were chiefly an agricultural country, with a little domestic manufacture, the industrial problems and social questions growing out of them were comparatively simple; but during the last thirty years this has all changed. We have become dominantly a manufacturing nation; our progress in this regard is unparalleled in the history of mankind. During the last thirty years our manufacturing industries, measured by the value of the output or of the domestic per capita consumption, has increased many times faster than the population. This has given us exceptional advancement in material and social welfare; which in time. has brought a tremendous urbanization of our population, with new social problems like the sweatshop, the housing of the poor, the question of sanitation, of public charity, and many other quasi-economic and social problems growing out of city conditions.

On the other hand, this progress has brought with it a radical change in the organization and character of industrial enterprise. The once small individual concerns have been supplanted by corporations, and corporations have been superseded by syndicates, or so-called "trusts." These two sets of circumstances have created two new groups of social problems which are injecting themselves into the institutions of the country. Therefore, intelligent citizenship today involves a different and higher standard of intelligence and broader comprehension of public questions than fifty years ago.

Moreover, all this material and social progress, which has carried with it the spirit of individual independence, has made the ill-informed citizen a more dangerous element in the community than he was half a century ago. The growth of large industries and immense individual wealth has created in the mind, not only of the laborer, but of the economic layman. generally, a feeling of distrust. They come to view all with whom they are in more or less competitive relation, and especially the rich employing class, as their enemies and the enemies of public welfare. When they enter the field of activity as citizens, whether in municipal, state, or

national affairs, they are dominated by this suspicious feeling which frequently amounts to a social prejudice. They look with distrust upon public officials, and the whole system of administration to them appears in the light of an instrument in the hands of the rich to govern society in their own interest. Nor is this altogether surprising when they see those who should be leaders of public opinion exercising the power of political dictators, buying and selling nominations for public office, blackmailing business corporations under the pressure of coercive legislation, and thru the power thus acquired corrupting the very sources of our political institutions. By these means, in not a few instances, a small coterie controls the government of large cities, and even states, and sometimes even the president of the United States is the victim of this unwholesome power. This has done much to beget in the public mind the belief that the rich are corrupting our government, dictating the public policy, and tending to convert our democracy into an oligarchy.

On the other side of the same picture are the city problems, to which I have already referred. There they see the poor ill-housed, huddled in unwholesome quarters under quasi-pestilential conditions. Poverty, vice, and the accompanying social degradation follow in their train. To this picture the revolutionist can point as one of the consequences of the great capitalistic movement, and appeal to the masses to overthrow the existing industrial system and adopt socialism as the only efficient remedy.

One of the greatest safeguards against the threatened disruption of society is the public school. At present, for the great army of youths. who go from the public schools to the workshop, there is no mental. preparation for intelligently dealing with these subjects. They are left to jostle against their fellows in the workshop, hear and feel the causes for discontent; they read the inflammatory and sensational stuff in the newspapers, listen to the more or less acrimonious discussion of social questions in their shop meetings and organizations; and all without the slightest background of educational preparation for forming rational judgments. The very natural result is that their opinions are made up from feelings and prejudices created by their economic environment. If the public school is to "lead to a knowledge of our contemporary civilization," it must necessarily furnish some mental training on these subjects which lie at the foundation of our social life, and furnish the material out of which public opinion is made and public policy is constructed.

This brings us to the practical aspect of the subject and raises the question of feasibility. In pleading for the introduction of economics. into the public school, we may expect numerous objections from the traditional pedagog. It will be urged, with considerable truth, that the public-school curriculum is already overloaded; that, instead of the student having more subjects, he should have less. It will also be urged

that economics is too difficult and complex a subject for the public-school student. It will not be denied that there is force in these objections, yet they might with similar force be applied to very many of the present studies. It may very properly be urged that education should be mainly directed to developing the mind rather than loading the memory. No education, and particularly that of the public school which stops before the age of sixteen, can furnish the student with much literal information. Indeed, that should not be the principal object. It should rather be the purpose of education to cultivate and develop the powers of observation and reasoning. To teach the student how to see and how intelligently to reason about what he sees is the most that can be hoped for in publicschool education, and for that matter in college education too. It is not so much what the student learns at school as his ability correctly to observe and understand what he sees after he leaves school that is of greatest importance in his education. Whatever there is of value in education, it is as a preparation for seeing and understanding the envi

ronment.

It is a knowledge of principles, not a collection of facts, that school education should furnish. The time and ability both of student and teacher are limited. It is, therefore, a question of selecting subjects the study of which will best develop the mental powers of the student. If there are two subjects of equal merit as regards mental training, and one of them leads directly to the live interests with which the student will have to deal as a citizen, and on which his personal welfare and the welfare of the community depends, and the other leads only to the study of a dead language and the details of some effete civilization having only the remotest relation to the live affairs of today, there ought to be no difficulty in deciding which subject should be taken. That subject which leads to a knowledge of the affairs of modern life has a double claim, for besides affording an opportunity for mental training it furnishes preparation for useful citizenship. In this respect economics is pre-eminent, because, besides affording as high degree of mental training as these, it gives life to the study, and social equipment to the student.

Economics is pre-eminently a logical subject. It has to do with principles and deductions. It constantly calls the reasoning faculties into action, and it is pre-eminently the study that inspires observation. A study of the principle of wages or prices or rent or banking supplies its own incentive for observing these phenomena. It is equally important and more effective as a mental training than the study of history even; and far be it from me to belittle the study of history. But, in comparing the claims for mental training of history and economics, the superiority of economics is obvious. Even if we avoid the method of teaching history which takes note chiefly of battles, royal coronations, and court feuds, and direct the studies entirely to the important industrial, social,

and political events arising out of the progressive struggles of the people for improvement, it still remains chiefly a matter of memorizing. It is, indeed, of some consequence that the student know about the Norman Conquest, the Magna Charta, the Statute of Laborers, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the surrender of Cornwallis, and the Civil War; but it is far more important that the masses know what determines their wages, how improvements in industrial conditions are brought about, and what effect capital has upon the industrial welfare of the community. If they know something of the fundamental principles. that govern their industrial and social welfare, they will have an intelligent appreciation of the significance of these historic events. But if they are ignorant of economic principles, these historic events, so many facts. memorized, are of little educational significance.

Clearly, in furnishing mental training for the youth of the nation, and especially the youth that has but a limited share of educational opportunity, training should be given in the subjects which lead most directly to an acquaintance with the affairs of real life, thus at once affording the double purpose of mental training and preparation for social usefulness.

If it be objected that economics is too difficult a subject for the public-school student, we have only to compare it with some of the other subjects already in the curriculum. We find there astronomy, mathematics, chemistry, principles of hygiene, etc. If these are not too complex for the public-school student--and obviously they are not so regarded— then economics cannot be objected to on that score, for it has the advantage over all of these of being less abstruse and of dealing with more familiar objects and conditions and matters of greater personal and social interest.

The chief difficulty in teaching economics in the public schools thus far is in the unpreparedness of the teachers and the clumsy methods of teaching. Usually the teachers have had practically no preparation in the subject. They know nothing of the essential principles of economics; yet they are expected to take that subject along with mathematics and English, and perhaps Greek and Latin. The teacher usually adopts the hardest and least effective way, namely, sets the student to memorizing a lot of, to him, meaningless facts, instead of helping him to understand a few elementary principles, and makes what might be an attractive study a dry, wearisome task. Besides being much harder for the student, it is altogether less effective in developing a flexible mentality.

This comes partly of the habit of confounding teaching with investigation. Investigation is to discover principles; teaching is to impart them. The methods for the two are wholly unlike. The inductive method of investigation is to discover, verify, and classify facts, and then from a careful analysis of these verified phenomena deduce the law or principle. In teaching, the reverse method is the effective one, namely, to give the principle and then confirm or verify it by reference to facts.