Some notes on the trend of educational thought in the United States and in the Philippines

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Part of Philippine Craftsman

Title: Some notes on the trend of educational thought in the United States and in the Philippines
Language: English
Year: 1912
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Fulltext: SOME NOTES ON THE TREND OF EDUCATIONAL THOUGHT IN THE UNITED STATES AND IN THE PHILIPPINES. THE Journal of b'duca.tion (New England and National) for J uly 25 contains an account of the proceedings of the fift.ieth annual meeting of the National Education Association held at Chicago July 6 to 12. The following very pertinent statements are quoted from the address of the president, Carrol G. Pearse, Superintendent of Schools, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. "Our children must not be allowed to grow up without the power to work with their hands or to apply themselves to useful and homely duties during their most impressionable, formative years. "lt may be that this opportunity can come in connection with the home and its tasks and duties; it may be that by coOperation of the school with the home the problem may be solved. On the other hand, it may be that it will be necessary to devise some plan by which, in towns as well as in some of those model farm schools which are scattered here and there through the country, children may devote the proper number of hours each day or week to the exercises of the schoolroom and to the study of books, while during the other hours of the day or the week they have <ln opportunity to do some real work in the shop, in the factory, or in some such place as the thoughtfulness and good sense of the industrial employer, in consultation with students of educational and social problems, may be able to bring into use." The following is an article entitled "Significance of the Industrial Arts in the Schools," by Dr. Charles A. McMurry, Director of Normal Training, DeKalb, Illinois: "The characteristic of the Arts and Crafts work is manual effect. It consists in directing motor action along typical lines of construction in special trades. We will sum up the grounds on which this motor activity is recommended to the schools. '· ''First--It supplies an educative outlet for the great physical energy of the children. This powerful impulse for activity in constructive work has not always caught the attention of the 216 TREND OF EDUCATJONAL THOUGHT 217 teacher, but we may be justified in saying that the constructive instinct in children is as strong as the play instinct. "Second-Our psychology greatly strengthens the argument for motor action. Our present psychology centres in the statement that every sense impression tends to work out through a nervous pathway into motor action. "Third-Mastering the difficulties of construction leads on to mental as well as muscular control. The child is getting possession of himself. "Fourth-The right kind of motor training leads to the same kind of healthy physical development as well regulated sports. "Fifth-A full equipment of shops, gardens, and other facilities of work for all children is an obvious need of our present civil life. "Sixth-To sum the matter up, the large problem is how the child is to work his way into proper relations in the physical world and to the social world about him. "If the conclusions stated above are justified, the great moral \'alue of the arts in the education of children lies in their ability to give an appreciation of our duties to our fellow men. "The manual arts are not being emphasized in their relation to vocational training. The industrial arts in schools prepare for vocational life in two ways:"First-By giving variety of motor training and a versatile mental attitude toward constructive problems. It trains one to adjust himself to new situations. "Second-By giving positive experience and knowledge of several typical arts. This forms an introduction to the course in the arts, greatly facilitating the mastery of any particular art when the time comes to specialize." Right along this line may be called to mind the oft-repeated statement that when a farm-bred boy and a city-bred boy are put side by side in a trying position the former is almost sure to win out while the latter has fewer chances for making good. This statement may or may not be true. However, the average boy from the good old-fashioned rural community certainly had an advantage over his city-bred brother. F rom the time he became old enough to make himself useful he was always kept busy with healthful, instructive, or producti\'e occupation of some sort. He split the fire-wood; he milked the cows; he churned the butter; he gathered the eggs; he fed the chickens, pigs, cows, and horses; he "made garden;" he plowed, harrowed, and planted his father's fields; he helped to harvest and prepare 218 TJ/E." PNIL/PJ>/NE CR.-\FTS.IIAN the grain for market; he became, without making any special effort, thoroughly acquainted with all the details of the construction and workings of every piece of farm machinery; on rainy days he busied himself indoors with repairs and even construction of tools and implements; he derived a working knowledge of carpentry from assisting in the construction of stables, granaries, and barns; he knew the current prices of every farm product; he was on speaking terms with every flower of the pasture; he called every bird by name; every tree of the forest was to him nn open book. And when he became a man, he was able to excell in all his undertakings, because he knew many things and knew them well-knew how to do many things and do them well. His was "the mettle of the pasture"-the spirit of a man born and nurtured close to the great heart of Mother Earth, where the sun smiles instead of stifles and the rain freshens instead of bdnging discontent. From his earliest years, without knowing it, he was engaged in some phase of the a!l-impo1·tant work of transforming raw material into the finished product; and the same process wrought by him upon the materials at hand was reflected back into his own life-he himself as raw material in character was being transformed into a man of parts. This is why the farmer boy generally succeeds in special vocations. He arrives at the stage of manhood with mind and hands trained to constructive activity; and, although the work he may have to commit his energies to upon leaving the farm may be something entirely new to him, still the faculty of investigation and mastery is already well-developed within him and he is ready in an emergency to stand upon his own feet. In former times in the States, before the city occupied the place of import.1.nce it occupies to-day, most boys secured this training of the hands from theil· daily occupations. Now, however, conditions are changed. Along this line, President Pearse sums up the results of his observations as follows: "Our public educational system stands in the presence of great impending changes. The system as it is now among us, its curriculum, its daily hours of work, its weekly time arrangement, its grouping of terms and vacations, grew up at a time when social and industrial conditions were far different from those which exist to-day. The subjects which until within a ff!W years were included in the curriculum were those which were thought desirable at a time when many aspects of education were looked afte1· in the home. The daily school hours were TREND OF EDUCATIONAL THOUGHT 219 arranged when children had work to do at home in the morning and in the evening-chores and household tasks that required their attention and their time. The weekly program of school exercises was also arranged at a time when both girls and boys had work to do at home. Their help was required to such a degree that out of the six days of the week only five could be devoted to the school because necessary home tasks crowded. "With the tremendous changes that have come into our indus· trial life, with the continued clustering together of our people into the cities, we still maintain too largely a school curriculum formed under conditions which have passed away; we still main· tain a daily and weekly school program that was dictated by conditions which for a vast proportion of our people no longer exist; and our program of terms and vacations smacks still of the rural community, though an ever increasing horde of our people dwell in towns. We thus have placed upon us the responsibility for recognizing the changed conditions and for so recasting the subjects of study in the schools, our daily and weekly program of school exercises, and our arrangement of school terms and vacations, as to meet the changed conditions in which we live. It is for us to bring back the schools to such touch with life that the school may meet lhe conditions of our presentday communities." In the Philippines, the social conditions and the local distribution of the population are such that until within recent years practically the only children who ever saw the inside of a school room were those who never engaged in any manual labor of any sort-children from the better-to-do families of barrios and municipalities who led a life of absolute ease, depending upon their servants for every stroke of manual labor that had to be done. It was not even uncommon for a servant to be required for carrying the pupil's books to and from school. Naturally the pupil living under such conditions secured but a one-sided education. He could spin fine theories and philosophize most astutely; but his practical knowledge of things in general was apt to be nil. The present system of education has opened the school house door to rich and poor alike; but the fact that the mass of the population live in groups (barrios) precludes the possibility of the pupil's getting at home the same healthful work experience enjoyed by the average farmer boy all over Europe and the United States. Recognizing this fact, our schools have stepped in and provided such industrial instruction as may have the effect of meeting the deficit.-J. D. D. 220 THE Pl/ILIPPINE CR.4FTS.l1AN "There is pleasure in working in the soil, apart from the ownership of it. The man who has planted a garden feels that he has done something for the good of the world. He belongs to the producers."-C. D. W. "No child who has ever loved a garden will despise the farmer, for he has learned by experience to respect manual labor, and that brains and hands must work together to bring good crops."-M. LOUISE GREENE, Ph. D. (Yale). The bulletin on "The Chosen Educational Ordinance and Various Attendant Regulations" has been received from the bureau of education of Chosen, that province of the Japanese Empire which was formerly the independent nation of Korea. This ordinance makes provision for three general classes of schools-common schools, industrial schools, and special schools. It is notable that in organizing the new school system for Chosen, it has been found advisable to make the industrial schools one of the throe general branches of public education. The governorgeneral of Chosen in issuing the ordinance on November 1, 1911, stated: "The industrial education shall have as its aim not only the training in knowledge and art required in the branches of industry concerned, but also undertake to accustom pupils to the habit of diligence." Quoting from the ordinance: "The education given in an industrial school should lay special importance on practice and should avoid too much teaching of theories. It should agree with local needs and conditions and be practicable, so that the pupils may acquire knowledge and art indispensable to daily life and afterwards contribute to the improvement and development of industry." An admirable provision in the educational ordinance requires instruction of an industrial nature through all the grades of the common schools from the lowest up. The work is practicable; the object is to teach the pupils to make useful and salable articles, and to prepare them for their future work by training the hand and eye as well as by engendering in them a love of hand work. From the industrial work of the common sch.Qol, the child falls naturally into the more advanced and even technical training of the industrial schools, where he learns every detail of the trade which he chooses and which he follows in after life.