University of Wyoming - WYO Yearbook (Laramie, WY)

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• 0 adequateness and is absolutely valueless. In accordance with this principle, we see that every nation that has developed an independnt civilization, has produced at the same time a distinct type of school- ing. India, Persia, Greece, Rome, Europe of the middle ages, and to a lesser extent each of the great modern nations has produced an educational system in accordance with the demands of its social, eco- nomic and political life. Among modern nations the distinction in type has not been so decisive, for the reason that the trend of civilization among all modern nations of the Occident has been along practically the same lines and moreover because modern people, bound by the traditions of the past, have not been so free to develop along indi- vidual lines as were the nations of the past. Yet in every great country of Europe and in America today there has been developed an edu- cational system distinctive in many ways. And the great problem now before the educational world is how to make education more in accordance with present day conditions; how to lay off from our schools much that has served its days of usefulness m an earlier stage of the world ' s development and has today become an incubus on the social body of the race. This is an industrial age. There have been greater develop- ments along industrial lines in the past fifty years than in all the centuries before since the birth of nations on the earth. And the end is not yet. In fact this is but the beginning of a commercial evolution that will finally end in industrial democracy in which the kings of industry will be dethroned and the crown given to the people, just as the French and American revolutions snatched the political crown from the brow of aristocracy and placed it upon the brow of a mighty people. This, then, being an industrial age, and true education the means by which we are guided on our forward march, it follows that industrial education must take the place of the old bookish kind. We must educate children for business. And, indeed, the most important movement in the history of modern education has been that towards industrial education of the young, which has come forward to some extent in the past few years. Based on the conviction that the ordinary curriculum of the public schools of today is not in harmony with the life of today, this new- movement has in a decade become the greatest educational problem confronting the world. Such a problem being taken up by those who are at present directing the educational activities of the world, is in- deed an encouraging sign. It demonstrates that life and education are in accord. The course of study in our public schools had its origin in that period that culminated in the French revolution and the great in- dustrial revolution of the eighteenth century. It was based upon the demands of a bourgeoise civilization, on the needs of the shopkeeper and the small manufacturer. Additions to this course have been made from time to time but no general revision has ever taken place and perhaps never will, for the educational world is notoriously conesrva- tive. Next to theology and law it is the most conservative of existing institutions. Such changes as have taken place have been grafted on to the old. The result has been a hodge-podge list of subjects, some suited to the needs of medieval times, some to the requirements of the bourgeoise period of industrial history, and some to the demands of the present age of commercialism. What then are some of the conditions confronting us? Eet us take the course of the elementary public school. In a general way our work in teaching the child to read and spell has shown improvem.ent, and in the case of the former subject has been fairly satisfactory. In writing we have ignored the demands of the practical business world and produced penmanship that is slow, stilted, awkward, and im- practicable. Our mathematics through all grades is the remnants of a day when the only persons who could do more than count and solve simple problems on their fingers, were those who, fascinated by the subject, devoted their lives to the intricacies of mathematical theory. • (xz»- 0 =»?

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-:-0 := 0 0v (Ennimprrial lE uratinn BY HON. ' . J. TIDBALL. IhiN. V. J. Tii i:. i.[,. I HE principal occupation of people who inhabit the earth is to live, that is, to be able to move, think and be happy. The chief end of man may be different. But to be able to live is important in reaching our destination. One of the means by which we try to accomplish this desired end is education. Therefore it would seem that that system of education is best which prepares human beings for the prob- lems of life. Under different stages of civilization different activities are required in order to live successfully. For example, should a citi- zen of Wyoming suddenly decide to promenade in a leopard skin and live in a cage, subsisting by means of raw meat and roots, he would not, in all probability, be taken into our swell society and invited to participate in the festivities of pink teas and bridge parties. Or should a high-browed Bostonian go among the savages of Africa and live in a marble palace, eating beans and brown bread, and dress- ing in swallow tail and silk hat, the fair inhabitants of Africa ' s savage jungles, not understanding the marks of our civilization, s ' ould doubt- less consider him a mollycoddle. We do not critize either manner of living, but simply desire to point out that adaptability to the present day stage of civilization is indispensable. Therefore a system of education to be a success must be in practical harmony with the civilization which it seeks to represent. To develop citizens who, under the social, economic and political conditions in which they live, will be independent, sell -supporting, honest, law-abiding, and able to keep apace of civilization is the aim of every worthy educational system which has existed or ever will exist. A different object is a confession of weakness and in- vO = 0 9

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•: 0 := 0 0 = 0 ' A fifth grade child should use algebraic equations without necessarily understanding the theory of transposition; and it is almost criminal for a grammar school boy to be unfamiliar with the logarithmic tables. We have destroyed the utility of our work in mathematics by clinging to the exploded theory that by mathematics we teach men to reason. It would be as sensible to say that by the use of chow chow we could teach a child to walk. In geography we teach children to locate Kamchatka and Bachmatchagovsk, who do not know that water natur- ally runs down hill. Our whole courses of study are burdened with useless clogging and extraneous matter that the wliole life of man or woman condemns in the life of the child. But that our educational system is clogged with superfluous and useless material is not the strongest indictment that can be brought against it. There are active demands of every-day life — demands that lack of fulfillment of which are threatening the very foundations of our civilization — which the school is not meeting. The passing of the small shop and of home manufacturing, the movement of the rural population towards the city, the establishment of the factory system of production, and the department store system of distribution, has de- stroyed for the boy or girl of today the hand training once obtained as helper in the home and as apprentice in the shop. The result is that at the very time when the industrial world is demanding men and women of greater dexterity in the handling of more complicated tools and machinery and demanding that they enter industrial life prepared to take up this work, since more and more the opportunity for ap- prentice training is passing away — at the very time when these demands are growing more and more insistent, our boys and girls are being more and more deprived of the training that would prepare them for this new, highly complicated, economic life. There are some signs that the educational world is preparing in some degree to meet these new demands, though not in the inde- pendent, clear-sighted manner that is desirable. Instead of revolution and complete reorganization of our school course to meet the new demands and to get free from the worthless accumulations of grafting and stuffing, we are to have for the most part a retention of the old with industrial and commercial education grafted on it. This move- ment IS seen everywhere in the establishment of commercial courses, in the introduction of manual training, in the building of agricultural and trade schools, and in some isolated cases even the sloughing off of some of the useless accretions of a century and a half of experi- mentation, additions, reforms, and blunders. It is to be hoped as the work of guiding the destinies of our public schools passes into the hands of better educated and more thoughtful men and women who understand modern life and conditions, that the problems which con- front and threaten modern education will be met earnestly and fear- lessly, and as time passes with less regard for tradition and the prejudices of the past. •:-o -0«C3 0