II THE WORSHIP OF THE YARDSTICK This is an age of efficiency. In the eyes of the public no indictment of a school can be more severe than to say it is inefficient. Mr. Flexner has pictured for us a modern school in which efficiency permeates the aims, curriculum, and methods. The spirit of "conservation of our resources" has at last entered the school; we now strive to use all the material formerly wasted, and to discard any wasteful methods. No pupil should be lost, permitted to fall by the educational wayside; no methods should be used whose efficiency can not be demonstrated. A modern efficiency expert has proved that spanking will soon be a lost art because the upward motion of the arm is all waste effort. Efficiency can only be demonstrated when methods and results can be correctly measured. Accordingly, we have been flooded with an awe-inspiring mass of measurement scales of every sort. We now measure the efficiency of a school system by ascertaining the percentage of elimination and retardation among its pupils, by figuring the cost per pupil hour in each subject, by knowing the construction cost per cubic yard of each building, and so on to infinity. Educational efficiency experts, often at considerable cost, are brought into our systems to apply these measurement scales or yardsticks. The efficient instruction is tested thru scales for spelling, arithmetic, composition, writing, drawing, Latin, German, and French. Pupils' intelligence may, we are told, be accurately measured in Binet-Simon or Terman units. Teacher efficiency is now being measured too; scores of different scales for rating teachers have been evolved in the past few months. We may soon expect to be rated on some such scale as this: rosy cheeks, indicating good health, add ten per cent; gaudy necktie, deduct five per cent; good handwriting, add fifteen per cent; rasping voice, deduct eight per cent. Efficiency and tests of efficiency are to be found everywhere. A yardstick is a useful thing to have about the house; yardsticks are also valuable in the school. Indefiniteness of aim and vagueness of method, too often characteristic of the school of yesterday, can find no justification in the school of tomorrow. These faults can best be demonstrated by the use of the measuring yardstick. Teaching, like every other industry, must be made efficient. Even college teachers may soon find themselves stood up beside a yardstick of efficiency; football coaches are rated by their teams' success in winning games; why should not college professors be rated upon a similar basis? The university president of the future will certainly need to be a human efficiency engineer. But before this wave of efficiency engulfs us it may be wise to suggest that some things are worth while even tho their inefficiency is perfectly obvious. The Church of today is not a very efficient institution, whether your yardstick be that supplied by scientific management or by Billy Sunday, and yet there are many who do not believe that this inefficient Church should be discarded. Certainly, there are places in life where there may be a danger of worshiping the yardstick too much. In educational affairs this bowing down at the shrine of efficiency may be seen in the course of study, in the treatment of the individual pupil, and in the teacher's attitude toward his profession. There are some subjects of value for the curriculum of a modern school, whose efficiency can not be measured by any yardstick. We are saying a great deal today about the necessity of having subjects "function" in the lives of those who study them. On this basis there will be practically no justification for the teaching of mathematics, the classics, much of the modern languages, and most of history. Modern schoolmen tell us that all the mathematics we will ever use in daily life could be taught in one month in the eighth grade; none but a future Latin teacher ever makes direct use of his dearly bought classical knowledge; not one in a hundred of our modern language pupils will ever be really able to speak the languages studied. "Off with their heads," shouts the educational Duchess, as you and I, Alices in the Wonderland of Education, stand sadly and silently gazing at the destruction of former friends. True, you can not measure the efficiency of these subjects by any current yardstick, and yet, unlike Mr. Flexner, some of us are old-fashioned enough to believe that there is still a justification for teaching these same inefficient, immeasurable subjects. The yardstick most popular in testing modern curriculums is: how much does this subject prepare a pupil for his job? Splendid as are courses which can rate one hundred per cent when measured by such a yardstick, I firmly believe we should teach in our public schools some subjects whose rating on this yardstick may be almost zero. There is a danger of overdoing vocational education. It is well to heed the recent words of President Butler of Columbia: The younger generation shows many signs of being too impatient to prepare for life. What is called vocational training is being steadily pushed down thru the secondary into the elementary schools, and presumably it will soon reach the cradle. The old notion that a child should be so trained as to have the fullest and most complete possession of its faculties in order to rise in efficiency, to gain larger rewards, and to render more complete service, has given way to the new notion that it is quite enough if a child is trained in some aptitude to enable it to stay where it first finds itself. . . The basis for any true vocational preparation is training to know a few things well and thoroly, and in gaining such knowledge to form those habits of mind and of will that fit the individual to meet new duties and unforeseen emergencies. Lord Balfour in England has sounded the same note of caution: "We often hear it said that learning should have a practical purpose; and that sounds reasonable enough until we inquire what is meant by 'practical'. Then we usually find that practical means money-getting. We are told that learning is only valuable if it helps a man in the struggle for life' but if that is ever generally believed the schools will change their nature and our civilization will become only an elaborately organized barbarism." There is something suggestive in the story told of a very efficient American who visited Cambridge University, and who cynically commented upon the tremendous waste of buildings and human energy in that very antiquated institution. Meeting one of the dons, he satirically inquired, "What do you manufacture here?" "Power, sir," said the don. "Indeed! What kind of power?" "Come along with me and I will show you." They went into a nearby room. The wall was covered with pictures. "These are some of our products," said the don, and pointed out Spenser, Dryden, Milton, Gray, Byron, Tennyson, Cromwell, Wilberforce, Macaulay, Thackeray, Newton, and hosts of other men who have contributed to life. An education may be one hundred per cent efficient from the standpoint of training a boy for a job and yet absolutely pernicious in the way it trains him to look upon life. I can not tell you what it is-I suppose character is the nearest verbal approach to it but I do believe that this same practical, efficient education, so splendidly measurable with the educational yardstick, may yet be an absolute failure if it does not train the boy for something beside getting a living. I found the other day in my Dickens what is one of the earliest literary references to vocational education. Those of you who remember your Oliver Twist will recognize it. "Is my pocket handkerchief hanging out of my pocket, my dear?" said Fagin, stopping short. "Yes, sir," said Oliver. "See if you can take it out, without my feeling it: as you saw them do when they were at play this morning." Oliver held up the bottom of the pocket with one hand, as he had seen the Dodger hold it; and drew the handkerchief lightly out of it with the other. "Is it gone?" cried the Jew. "Here it is, sir," said Oliver, showing it in his hand. "You're a clever boy, my dear," said the playful old gentleman, patting Oliver on the head approvingly. "I never saw a sharper lad. Here's a shilling for you. If you go on in this way, you'll be the greatest man of the time." This principle of preparation for a job by vocational efficiency has largely come to us thru imitation of German efficiency. Some of us who in educational affairs have been willing to imitate Germany's efficiency might well recognize that "God or the devil made one Germany and that one is enough." We have heard a great deal recently about military training in the schools. Some of you have heard Professor Snedden point out that no education that we have ever had has been so inefficient, from the vocational standpoint, as the military work in our schools. What we need is not so much courses in drilling and the manual of arms as work, like that undertaken by the Boy Scout movement, which aims to develop courage, chivalry, and resourcefulness, a clean mind in a strong body. The newly adopted New York system goes far along this way. Again, it is worth while to remember that a boy's job may change, and that the school may well teach him some subjects whose practical value can neither be demonstrated nor measured. I suppose that is the idea Professor Erskine had in his clever ode to Dr. Flexner. Just after the Board had brought the schools up to date, Without teaching one superfluous thing, Jim Reilly presented himself to be educated. He wanted to be a bricklayer. So they taught him to be a perfect bricklayer And nothing more. He knew so much about bricklaying that the contractor made him a partner. But he knew nothing about figuring costs, Nor about bookkeeping, Nor about real estate, And he was too proud to go back to night school. So he hired a tutor, who taught him these things. Prospering at last, and meeting other men as wealthy as he, |