for labor, and a purpose to labor as well. It does not mean dependence: it signifies independence; and that educational process is faulty that does not leave the child at each succeeding stage abler to work for himself, more his own master, more independent both of the teacher and of the class. For this defect we must all share the responsibility. Parents cannot bear to see their children undergo the same trials and hardships thru which they themselves passed. They are forgetful that thru the ordeals of self-sacrifice, effort, and overcoming are developed the hardy virtues of the race. Teachers on the other hand like to have a part in the educational process. We do not like to efface ourselves. We want to feel that we personally have something to do about it. And so we interfere with our development lessons, with our tricks and devices, and with our explanations, until there is danger that our pupils lose the power to initiate, the ability to attack and to conquer for themselves the problems and the difficulties which they encounter. If our schools shall succeed in producing generations of independent responsible men and women able to think for themselves, act for themselves, support themselves, then must we be careful lest we take from them in youth the influences which shall work to these ends. HAS THE PRODUCT OF OUR SCHOOLS REASONABLE FIT- SAMUEL HAMILTON, SUPERINTENDENT OF ALLEGHENY COUNTY SCHOOLS, BRADDOCK, PA. The purpose of a system of education varies with the age and the ideals of a nation. Sparta through training sought courage; Athens, beauty; Rome, power; monasticism, piety; the Renaissance, classical culture. But the immediate purpose of our state systems of education is manhood, the ultimate purpose, citizenship. This citizenship calls for personal intelligence and personal integrity. And the question assigned to this paper for discussion is simple and direct: Are the schools to a reasonable degree meeting these two demands of modern citizenship? The pessimist who bemoans the decay of civic virtue will answer this question in the negative. And his answer in the main is correct. In reaching this conclusion, he is materially, tho unintentionally, aided by the public press. It speaks little of the nation's broad fields of civic life, rich with golden grain, while it discusses at great length the intermixture of tares growing here and there. It devotes small paragraphs to the intelligence, culture, and character of our people; while it gives whole pages to their vice, ignorance, selfishness, and greed. It admits that we have excellent schools, great colleges, magnificent libraries, beautiful churches, splendid asylums, and fine hospitals; while it advertises with great headlines the gold bricks, the political machines, the corrupting lobbies, and the oppressive monopolies of modern business and political life. The press is wont to overlook the common honesty of the masses; but it proclaims with trumpet blasts the bossism, the dishonesty, the selfishness, the corruption, and the political graft in municipal mismanagement. It has little to say about the small business institutions that pay for all they get, seek no rebates, and live in the open fields of honest competition; but it announces from the housetops the selfish methods of corporate wealth; methods that suborn legislation, enthrone dishonesty, corrupt public morals, and buy for a private price what should be sold openly and then only for the public good. It speaks in whispers of the personal integrity of the average business man, while it is loud in its denunciations of the juggling methods of high finance by which a man may actually sell his plum and still own it. It passes by the honest lawyer to discuss the great legal lights who sell their talents to the predatory corporations, and show the directors of such bodies how to break restrictive laws without breaking into the penitentiary. Thus the pessimist sees the decay of public virtue. To him the golden rule and the moral law may not be "iridescent dreams," but they seem to be submerged in the raging torrent of political corruption. These ancient laws, if not abrogated, seem at least to be sinking into a state of "innocuous desuetude." Money seems better than manhood; cash more important than character; and growth in graft more in evidence than growth in grace. And, as a consequence, the school is not meeting the civic demands of modern life. These conditions reported by the press actually exist, and it is right and proper for it to give the broadest publicity to all dishonesty and malfeasance in public life. The conclusion of the pessimist, too, is possibly correct, for all this smoke certainly means some fire; but it is scarcely fair to pass judgment in this case without considering the unpublished virtues of the common people. It is also unfair to hold the school solely responsible for all the frailties of citizenship. The home and the church are the centers of the nation's religious life, and must therefore share this responsibility with the school. The state too must bear its part. It licenses the saloon, permits the prize fight, tolerates corrupting lobbies, smiles at social evils, winks at political vices, and often moves with a snail's pace in punishing rich offenders. But while this is true, it is right and proper to hold the school responsible for the size and the value of the contribution it makes to civic intelligence and civic integrity. But if the school is not fully meeting the demands of modern citizenship, even the adverse critics must admit that through the lessons, the methods, the management of the school, the games, and especially through the personality of the teacher, the ethical nature of the child is trained and the individual prepared in a measure at least for the responsible duties of citizenship. But in spite of the good ethical work of the school there is a demand for a higher type of civic integrity. American citizenship needs more oak and less straw in its fiber. The manhood of the nation needs more iron in the blood, more wisdom in the head, more honesty in the heart, more spine in the con science, and more moral courage in the soul. So urgent and universal is this demand that an international association for the promotion of moral training in the schools was formed in London last summer. This demand is especially urgent in our own land. James Terry White says the crying need of the country is not "more law and legislation, but greater virtue and more individual integrity." Dr. A. D. White recently said, "The great thing to be taught in this country is truth; simple ethics; the distinction between right and wrong." And for the welfare of the state, the president of the United States is urging the importance of a "square deal” and a nobler quality of personal integrity. Everywhere we are brought face to face with this demand for a higher type of moral excellence in the individual, and educators are earnestly asking how the school can do more than it has yet done to give the intelligence and the personal qualities for citizenship? The first question to confront us at this point is the question of methods. Shall morals be taught directly? Shall we have a system of ethics and a code of morals taught directly in formal textbook lessons, or shall all moral instruction be given indirectly through the ordinary work of the school? Existing conditions fully answer this question. By the indirect method we have accomplished much, but the results are still so unsatisfactory that there is certainly a demand and a place for direct moral instruction in our schools. In our study of the subject assigned to us, however, we shall keep in mind mainly the indirect methods by which the end may be attained. This subject suggests the personal intelligence and the personal integrity of the individual. Our discussion, therefore, at this point naturally divides into two parts: 1. What kind of knowledge contributes most to citizenship and how may the child acquire that knowledge in the school? 2. What personal qualities will enable the individual to use this knowledge in the highest interests of the state; and how may the school best build these qualities into the character of the child? In answer to the first question, Mr. Adler suggests that the three great elements of civic duty are law, punishment, and nationality. If these three fundamental ideas constitute the elements of civic duty, then the knowledge that clusters around them ought to contribute something to citizenship. Various answers may be given to this question, and yet in a general way the knowledge most helpful in the discharge of civic duty may be designated as follows: 1. An intimate knowledge of American history, including the personal elements that stir the hero-worship of the child and awaken his patriotic emotions. Dr. Jewett, headmaster of Balliol College, Oxford, says that "in the future morals will be taught only through biography." 2. A definite knowledge of how the state legislates and exercises control through the local, state, and national governments seems essential to good citizenship. This knowledge may be best acquired, possibly by actual practice in the school municipality, the school legislature, and the school senate organized according to the plans of the George Junior Republic. This will give the facts, and, far more important, the spirit of American civic life. 3. A knowledge of the institutional life of the state, including the origin, growth, purpose, and worth of our free institutions. Our national spirit and our national genius in government must spring primarily from this knowledge. 4. A working knowledge of political science, including the most important safeguards of civil liberty as embodied in our Constitution and fostered by our free institutions. 5. A knowledge of the principles of sociology and economics seems desirable, too, since most of our political questions are of a sociological or an economic nature. These five fields of knowledge seem at least to include some of the "fat things full of marrow" upon which the future citizen could profitably feed. We know it is not possible because of the nature of these subjects and the crowded condition of the curriculum to bring this knowledge completely within the limit of public and high-school instruction. And yet the studies of history and civics, especially in the high school, could be made to include much. of this important subject-matter. 1. The first objection urged against teaching these subjects more fully in the school is lack of time. But if our school histories would eliminate the sickening details of war and battle, so undesirable and of such doubtful moral worth, there would be abundant space left for the personal elements in biography that help to make great souls of a good quality by filling them with nobler thoughts and inspiring them to more heroic action. In certain high schools time for these important studies might be found in another way. Latin is the major study of the high school. It has been the backbone of Anglo-Saxon culture for five centuries, and it is likely to remain its essential element in the civilizations which are to follow. It demands much time, and to the student who takes a complete course it gives a large measure of culture and a valuable mastery of the resources of one's mothertongue. Not so, however, to the student who takes a limited course and whose acquaintance with Latin literature is confined to a scrappy knowledge of two or three books of Caesar's Commentaries. To him it gives little in return except that vague something that is called discipline. This is not the age of the Renaissance, and citizenship, not classical culture, is the aim of the high school supported by the state. The dogma of formal mental discipline too is generally discarded. If this is true the schools that do not prepare for college might omit Latin and football and substitute civics and political science. If these subjects are well taught, possibly the graduates would have just as much discipline, and, in addition thereto, the knowledge that leads the way to a nobler and better citizenship. 2. The second subdivision of our subject relates to civic virtues and the methods by which they may be trained in the school. The personal qualities that contribute to character are many, but the virtues that are the cornerstones of citizenship and on which these qualities rest are few. 1. The first of these civic virtues is common honesty. As a personal asset this virtue is of first importance. The undue influence of money in politics is a crying evil of the day. The barrel is the arch enemy of the republic. When it contains beer intended to buy votes, it pollutes the stream of civic life; but when it contains money intended to buy party nominations, it poisons the very fountains of civic virtue. The traitor betrays his country and gives aid to the enemies of the state; but the politician with the barrel taints the life blood of the nation, saps its vitality, corrupts its morals, destroys its manhood, debauches its electorate, and makes traitors to the state of all who are weak enough to be bought for a price. Election frauds, graft in public life, political machines, corrupting lobbies are due mainly to the illegitimate use of money in politics. And the legal right to the throne of power from which trusts, corporations, and demagogues rule with an iron hand is often purchased with gold. In fact most of our political evils have their taproot in dishonesty. They owe their presence to the absence of moral integrity in the individual. Unscrupulous money-users in politics could never carry on their nefarious business if there were no unscrupulous money-hunters among the citizens to help them. Common old-fashioned Puritanic honesty, that has sufficient strength to stand upon its own legs without being propped, is not a panacea for all the ills of political life, but it would cure some of them. It would at least help to restrain the greed and shackle the cunning of those lords of gold who expect to buy unjust privileges secretly. 2. A second civic virtue that would help the individual citizen to serve the highest interests of the state is moral courage. Honesty without moral courage will not accomplish the purpose. Political evils are intrenched behind the ramparts of vice, secrecy, corruption, legislation, and party platforms. In the presence of these evils the citizen should be a man of courage and conviction. With such men the political boss may frown and crack his whip; the treacherous demagogue may fawn and flatter; the ward heeler may rage and rant; the machine may threaten; the party leader may croak of party fealty; but the citizen of conviction will be swayed by none of these. Intelligence is the polestar that guides the civic mariner; honesty is the compass by which he keeps the ship true to its course; but moral courage is the engine that propels it onward. Intelligence knows the right, honesty loves the right, but in the face of temptation it requires moral courage to do the right. The old adage was, "He who hesitates is lost." In modern politics it may be written, "He who hesitates is bossed." 3. A third civic virtue, as president Roosevelt suggests, is the saving quality of common-sense. It differs somewhat from intelligence and is practically synonymous with political wisdom and good judgment. It is the power that enables the citizen to weigh the claims of rival policies and political platforms, to detect political shams, and to select what is just and right. Common sense and good judgment are especially needed in these days of reform to select and inaugurate the necessary remedial agencies that will raise actual political conditions toward the ideal. Little progress will be made in civic |