Sivut kuvina
PDF
ePub

For one, I have never been able to appreciate the objections urged to having a nominating committee appointed by the President. There may be criticisms on the appointments to this committee by some particular president, but the plan itself was in keeping with the general tendency of our country to fix responsibility by intrusting the powers of the many to the hands of the few, always with the reserve right to withdraw this trust. Note the appointive power of the president of the United States, of the governors of the different states, of the mayors of the different cities, extending to boards of education, of the trustees of the different institutions of learning, of the presiding officers of the different institutions, etc.

Education, if it is genuine, is always in advance of the masses; hence the growing tendency of our people to fix responsibility in men whom they can trust and in whom they believe. But our association has chosen to change this system, and with the change there is no conflict. Each state may now name its representative on the nominating board; hence each state has a voice. I do not see how anything more democratic could be asked. Whatever may now be the wisdom of the acts of the nominating committee, each state must fully share the responsibility for these acts. No representatives of a state can now charge the responsibility of action to the representatives of another state without acknowledging, tacitly at least, their own incompetency to take their part in dealing with their fellow-men.

The plans proposed, viz., to put men in nomination for the Executive Committee a year in advance of election, and then conduct a campaign, would certainly prove exceedingly distasteful to the men the country would like to see in these offices. It would be a fatal mistake for the National Educational Association ever to resolve itself into an election organization. No one who presumed to be a candidate has ever yet been elected to its highest office, and no such one ever should be. A deliberative body of the character of this association is much more capable of selecting its Executive Committee than would be the individuals who would constitute that committee. I can think of some men who, it seems to me, would greatly honor the presidential chair. I cannot imagine them in the rôle of seekers for that office. If our association is to be truly dignified, it must rise above even the appearance of gratifying personal ambitions. Whatever may be the records of the executive committees of the past—and they need no eulogist—we must have men in the future who know the educational problems of the country and the persons who are capable of throwing light on those problems, rather than men skilled in the art of vote-getting.

The organization of our association needs reviewing, and certainly some revision. The general program should always be an important and popular part of our meetings, but it is to the departments that we must

look for the conservation of that class of thought most applicable to our schoolroom work. It is the relation of the general program to the departments, and of the departments to each other, that most needs revision.

Under our present rules it is quite possible for all of the departments to be working on the same subject and seeking the same men. Each department is practically independent of every other, and independent as well of the general program.

We have the Departments, for instance, of Kindergarten Education and Child Study; the Department of Elementary Education, the Department of Secondary Education, the Department of Higher Education; then the special Departments of Manual Training, Music, Business, Physical Education, Science, etc. Will anyone try to imagine elementary, secondary, and higher education with these special departments left out of consideration? Such an arrangement, if not the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out, would certainly be the play of Hamlet with that distinguished character badly "drawn and quartered." Our departments remind us of lean-to's built to a house simply to get more room, and without regard to symmetry or convenience. We are in the position of trying to suit our subjects to our names, instead of our names to our subjects.

What does kindergarten mean other than simply the way we begin our schoolroom instruction ? What does elementary education mean other than how much instruction in each of the branches should be given a child? What does secondary education mean other than how much instruction in manual training, physical training, art, music, etc., we should give in the high school? Perhaps elementary education is sufficiently unclassified as to subjects to constitute a department, but beyond elementary education it would seem far wiser to name the departments after the subject than after the grade of school. For instance, the Departments of Natural Sciences, Classics, Modern Languages, Art, Music, Physical Training, Manual Training, etc., would be much better guides to the line of work that might be expected in these different departments than some of the present titles.

The present Executive Committee has enjoyed the most cordial relations with the heads of departments, and believes that an examination of the program for this meeting will show that the different sections of the country, as well as the different topics of interest, are as fully represented as at any previous meeting. Hence I cannot be considered personal when I say that the program of every department should be submitted to the general Executive Committee before final adoption, and that in reviewing said programs and plans of meeting the general committee should be governed by fuller by-laws than are at present in

existence.

It is now quite possible for a department to violate the general sentiment and policy of the association, even to the extent of holding a series of meetings when the meetings of the general association are in session. It is quite possible for a department to make of itself an advertising medium for the sale of books, shoes, patent medicine, Pears' soap, etc. This may be a worthy enterprise, but if we enter upon it, the association as a whole should share in the profits. The Executive Committee in reviewing department programs should have no desire to go farther than to prevent crossing subjects and trespassing upon the general rules.

Were the departments named after their specialties, it would be much easier to secure able specialists for the programs. It would seem that this is one of the points to which we must look for our greatest usefulness in the future. What of chemistry should I teach to my class, and how should I most effectively teach it? are two questions the correct answers to which would save the country untold sums of money and years of time. Answer the same two questions for each of the subjects of the curriculum, and the schoolmaster will be the greatest benefactor of all ages. It is safe to say that at least one-half of all the time spent in the schools is wasted by reason of its being spent on unprofitable subjects.

To the answering of these two questions our association should apply itself. Already we have made a beginning. The report of the Committee of Ten was, in the judgment of all, one of the greatest contributions of learning that have ever been made, and this report, so far as it went, was in this line. Everywhere in our land this report was read, and the school curriculum modified accordingly.

We are frequently asked to make appropriations for reports-sometimes for reports on subjects that possibly might wait; but reports and publications such as that of the Committee of Ten cannot be too frequent, provided they cover new ground and show definite progress.

Let me emphasize: If the National Educational Association is to shape wisely public educational opinion, it can do so only by establishing the most important and best-adapted subject-matter for schoolroom work, and this can be done only by securing the very ablest talent in the land. thru the departments.

Finally, we need to spread abroad a stronger feeling of obligation to our association. We are fortunate in being able to secure some of the very ablest scholars and thinkers of our country for oar programs, but there are yet many from whom the country is anxious to hear, persons who have been placed in responsible positions, and who owe it to the country. to make their views known, who may not suffer interruption of a vacation to serve us. We should in some way inaugurate a systematic campaign to impress upon our great institutions of learning, and upon our men of

great accomplishments, the patriotic debt they owe to the education of their time.

The work of our association in administrative lines cannot be too highly commended. The efforts to establish a national university, to relate the collections in the Smithsonian to the different educational institutions of the land, to strengthen and develop the Bureau of Education, to establish and maintain proper ideals for education in our dependencies—in the islands and Alaska, as well as among the feebler races within our states-cannot be too highly commended or too strongly encouraged.

Our legislative bodies, whether national or state, are naturally concerned with many interests, and as naturally should welcome the results of the deliberations of a body single in purpose. If we are ambitious that our work should be only the best, we may be equally ambitious that it shall appeal with executive force to the minds of the lawmakers.

We enter upon the new century under the most favorable auspices. Our treasury is now in a condition practically to warrant the expenditure of the income of each year in promoting in the most efficient manner the causes that concern us. We have reached a position that commands the respect, not only of our nation, but of other nations. We may with courage undertake the most serious educational problems that present themselves to the minds of men. May our successes of the past be but feeble prophecies of the successes that await us!

PROGRESS IN EDUCATION

RT. REV. J. LANCASTER SPALDING, D.D., PEORIA, Ill.

Our belief is that the Word shall prevail over the entire rational creation, and change every soul into His own perfection; in which state everyone, by the mere exercise of his own power, will choose what he desires and obtain what he chooses. For although in the diseases and wounds of the body there are some which no medical skill can cure, yet we hold that in the mind there is no evil so strong that it may not be overcome by the Supreme Word and God.-ORIGEN.

Progress is increase of power and quality of life. It is this even when it seems to be but greater control of the forces of nature; for they are thus made serviceable to life. Education is the unfolding and upbuilding of life, and it is therefore essentially progress. All progress is educational, and all right education is progress.

The nineteenth century will be known as the century of progressthe century in which mankind grew in knowledge and freedom more than in all preceding ages; in which the energies, not of a few only, but of whole peoples, were aroused as never before. We have been brought into conscious contact with new worlds, infinitely great and infinitesimally small; we have formed hypotheses which explain the development of suns and planets; we have traced the course of life from the protoplasmic cell

thru all its endless varieties; we have followed the transformations of the earth, from its appearance as a crust on which nothing could live, thru incalculable lapses of time, down to the birth of man and the dawn of history; we have resolved all composite substances into their primal elements, and made new and useful combinations; we have discovered the causes of nearly all the worst diseases, and the means whereby they may be cured or prevented; we have learned how the many languages and dialects, with their wealth of vocabulary, have been evolved from a few families and a few thousand roots; we have traced the growth of customs, laws, and institutions, from their most simple to their most complex forms. What control of natural forces have we not gained! We have invented a thousand cunning machines, with which we compel steam and electricity to warm and light our cities, to carry us with great speed over earth and sea, to write or repeat our words from continent to continent, to spin and weave and forge for us. The face of the earth has been renewed, and we live in worlds of which our fathers did not dream. Filled with confidence and enthusiasm by this wonderful success, we hurry on to new conquests; and as the struggle becomes more intense, still greater demands are made upon us to put forth all our strength. Our fathers believed that matter was inert; but we know that all things are in motion, in process of transformation. The earth is whirling with incredible speed both on its own axis and around the sun. A drop of water that lies quietly in the palm, if it could be sufficiently magnified, would present a scene of amazing activity. We should see that it consists of millions of molecules, darting hither and thither, colliding and rebounding millions of times in a second. The universe is athrill with energy. There is everywhere attraction and repulsion, an endless coming and going, combining and dissolving, in the midst of which all things are changing, even those which appear to be immutable. The sun is losing its light, the mountains are wearing away. The consciousness to which we have attained that the universe is alive with energy has awakened in the modern man a feverish desire to exert himself, to be active in a world in which nothing can remain passive and survive; and as greater and greater numbers are mobilized and set thinking, it becomes more and more difficult for the individual to stand upright and make his way, unless he be awakened and invigorated in mind and body. The ideal, doubtless, is the co-operation of all for the good of each; but the fact is the effort of each to assert himself in the face of all, and, if needs be, at their cost. Nations, like individuals, are drawn into the world-wide conflict. The old cry of vae victis still applies, under conditions indeed seemingly less brutal, but more inexorably fixed.

In such a state of things whoever is not alert, intelligent, brave, and vigorous falls, as the ancient civilizations fell, before advancing armies. filled with courage and the confidence of irresistible might. Hence, not

« EdellinenJatka »