CHAPTER IX

SPECIALIZED EDUCATION VERSUS GENERAL EDUCATION

PRESENT-DAY WAVERING BETWEEN SPECIALIZED AND GENERAL TRAINING

Because there is an urgent social demand for the reorganization of the curriculum and because the principles which should underlie a sound curriculum are as yet not clear, there is much running back and forth in the educational world and much controversy that at times grows very bitter and even personal. Experiments are set up and lauded or assailed. Optimists are hopeful that out of this experimentation will come much good. Pessimists see in it the failure of a democratic educational system.

The recent controversies have revived the ancient dispute between a general education which makes the “all-round man” and specialized education which serves some particular purpose. This controversy can be illustrated by two kinds of examples. First, let us listen to those who are interested in higher education for the classes of students who are going to high school and college. Later we shall find that there is another level at which the same kind of controversy is going forward.

The following statements and counter-statements illustrate the extent to which the dispute is carried:

I suggest, that, in the first place, a man educated in the modern sense, has mastered the fundamental tools of knowledge: he can read and write; he can spell the words he is in the habit of using; he can express himself clearly orally or in writing; he can figure correctly and with moderate facility within the limits of practical need; he knows something about the globe on which he lives. So far there is no difference between a man educated in the modern sense and a man educated in any other sense.

There is, however, a marked divergence at the next step. The education which we are criticizing is overwhelmingly formal and traditional. If objection is made to this or that study on the ground that it is useless or unsuitable, the answer comes that it “trains the mind” or has been valued for centuries. “Training the mind” in the sense in which the claim is thus made for algebra or ancient languages is an assumption none too well founded; traditional esteem is an insufficient offset to present and future uselessness. A man educated in the modern sense will forego the somewhat doubtful mental discipline received from formal studies; he will be contentedly ignorant of things for learning which no better reason than tradition can be assigned. Instead, his education will be obtained from studies that serve real purposes. Its content, spirit and aim will be realistic and genuine, not formal or traditional. Thus, the man educated in the modern sense will be trained to know, to care about and to understand the world he lives in, both the physical world and the social world. A firm grasp of the physical world means the capacity to note and to interpret phenomena; a firm grasp of the social world means a comprehension of and sympathy with current industry, current science and current politics. The extent to which the history and literature of the past are utilized depends, not on what we call the historic value of this or that performance or classic, but on its actual pertinency to genuine need, interest or capacity. In any case, the object in view would be to give children the knowledge they need, and to develop in them the power to handle themselves in our own world. Neither historic nor what are called purely cultural claims would alone be regarded as compelling.

Even the progressive curricula of the present time are far from accepting the principle above formulated. For, though they include things that serve purposes, their eliminations are altogether too timid. They have occasionally dropped, occasionally curtailed, what experience shows to be either unnecessary or hopelessly unsuitable. But they retain the bulk of the traditional course of study, and present it in traditional fashion, because an overwhelming case has not—so it is judged—yet been made against it. If, however, the standpoint which I have urged were adopted, the curriculum would contain only what can be shown to serve a purpose. The burden of proof would be on the subject, not on those who stand ready to eliminate it. If the subject serves a purpose, it is eligible to the curriculum; otherwise not. I need not stop at this juncture to show that “serving a purpose,” “useful,” “genuine,” “realistic,” and other descriptive terms are not synonymous with “utilitarian,” “materialistic,” “commercial,” etc., for intellectual and spiritual purposes are genuine and valid, precisely as are physical, physiological, and industrial purposes.[42]

The answer in florid and perfervid terms offered by a champion of the classics is as follows:

I have left myself only a few words to sum up and define the main issue raised by the so-called modernist reform of education. It is not the place of physical science in our civilization and in our universities: that is secure. It is not the opportunity of industrial or vocational training for the masses: we all welcome that. It is not the conversion of the American high school into the old Latin-verse-writing English public school: nobody ever proposed that. It is not the prescription of a universal requirement of Greek or the maintenance of a disproportionate predominance of Latin in our high schools and colleges: there is not the slightest danger of that. It is the survival or the total suppression, in the comparatively small class of educated leaders who graduate from high schools and colleges, of the very conception of linguistic, literary, and critical discipline; of culture, taste, and standards; of the historic sense itself; of some trained faculty of appreciation and enjoyment of our rich heritage from the civilized past; of some counterbalancing familiarity with the actual evolution of the human man, to soften the rigidities of physical science, and to check and control by the touchstones of humor and common sense the _a priori_ deductions of pseudo-science from conjectural reconstructions of the evolution of the physical and animal man.

It is in vain that they rejoin that they too care for these things, and merely repudiate our exclusive definitions of them. That is, in the main, only oratorical precaution and the tactics of debate, as, if space permitted, I could show by hundreds of citations from their books. The things which, for lack of better names, we try to suggest by culture, discipline, taste, standards, criticism, and the historic sense, they hate. Or, if you prefer, they are completely insensitive to them and wish to impose their own insensibility upon the coming generation. They are genuinely skeptical of intellectual discriminations which they do not perceive, and æsthetic values which they do not feel. They are fiercely resentful of what they deem the supercilious arrogance of those who possess or strive for some far-off touch or faint tincture of the culture and discipline which they denounce as shibboleths, taboos, and the arbitrary conventions of pedants.

From their own point of view it is natural that they should deprecate with sullen jealousy the inoculation of the adolescent mind with standards and tastes that would render it immune to what one of them has commended in print as the “science” of Elsie Clews Parsons. The purpose, or, at any rate, the tendency of their policies is to stamp out and eradicate these things and inculcate exclusively their own tastes and ideals by controlling American education with the political efficiency of Prussian autocracy and in the fanatical intolerance of the French anticlericalists. Greek and Latin have become mere symbols and pretexts. They are as contemptuous of Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Racine, Burke, John Stuart Mill, Tennyson, Alexander Hamilton, or Lowell, as of Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, or Horace. They will wipe the slate clean of everything that antedates Darwin’s _Descent of Man_, Mr. Wells’s _Research Magnificent_, and the familiar pathos of James Whitcomb Riley’s vernacular verse.

These are the policies that mask as compassion for the child bored by literature which, they say, it cannot be expected to appreciate and understand, or behind the postulate that we should develop æsthetic and literary sensibilities only by means of the literature that expresses the spirit of modern science, not that which preserves in amber the husks of the dead past.[43]

THE THEORY OF SEPARATE SCHOOLS FOR DIFFERENT CLASSES OF PEOPLE

Both writers above quoted are speaking of those learners who are to have large opportunities of higher education. What is to happen to the common masses, to whom the last writer grants the “opportunity of industrial or vocational training,” is still in doubt. There are, however, disputants who are trying to settle this question also. To illustrate we may borrow from a pamphlet issued by a great commercial organization in its campaign for legislation which should transform the school system of the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois.

STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES

Definition: Vocational education includes all forms of specialized education, the controlling purposes of which are to fit for useful occupations, whether in agriculture, commerce, industry or the household arts.

1. State aid is necessary to stimulate and encourage communities to carry on work in vocational education, but local communities should be permitted to initiate and should partly maintain such courses or schools.

2. The vocational schools should not compete or interfere with the present public school system, but should supplement it by providing practical instruction in vocational lines for youth between fourteen and eighteen who have left the present schools. To guard against any competition with the public schools as now organized, a special tax should be levied for the support of vocational schools, which, with the State grant for their support, should not be taken from the funds now provided by law for the support of the public school system.

3. The proper expenditure of State moneys for vocational schools should be fully safeguarded, while at the same time the initiative in adapting measures to local conditions should be left with the local authorities. To secure these ends the general management and approval of these courses and schools should be left to a State commission, while the local initiative and direct control should be exercised by a local board composed of employers, skilled employees and local superintendents of schools.

4. An efficient system of vocational education requires different methods of administration, different courses of study, different qualifications of teachers, different equipment, different ways of meeting the needs of pupils and much greater flexibility in adapting means to ends than is possible under the ordinary system of public school administration. For these reasons these schools should be under a separate board of control, whether carried on in a separate building or under the same roof with a general school, so that they may be free to realize their dominant purpose of fitting for useful employment.[44]

If the last two quotations are stripped of their decorations, they reveal a demand for a distinct class system of education. Broad education is for the few. Specialized education is another matter,—let it be developed for the masses.

PUBLIC DEMAND FOR A NEW CURRICULUM

It is interesting to note that the masses, so far as they can express themselves, are asking for a change in the traditional curriculum and are likely to get it. The masses are expressing their demands through the courses sought by their children.

Our problem will perhaps be clearer if we turn from the writings of those who discuss these matters to the changes which are actually going on in the schools of the country.

COMMERCIAL COURSES IN HIGH SCHOOLS

High schools in all parts of the country are giving commercial courses in increasing degree. The first type of industrial education to be extensively cultivated in the United States was commercial education. This consisted in training for clerical positions and was carried on for the most part in private “business colleges.” The reason for the early demand for this particular kind of training is to be sought in the fact that America has for years been a country devoted on a vast scale to exporting raw materials. Commercial training, which has to do with the shipping of goods, was accordingly the first to grow here. The extent of the demand for commercial training is vividly set forth in a report of the City Club of Chicago published in 1912, which contains the following chart:

ENROLLMENT IN PRIVATE VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS AND IN PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO[45]

There are at least There are only 19,000 STUDENTS 17,781 STUDENTS in in all Private Commercial Schools Public High Schools and 800 in Private Industrial Schools in Chicago in Chicago, and at least and only $1,485,000 $1,114,526 is paid for is expended for TUITION MAINTENANCE

The high schools of the country entered into competition with the private commercial schools, and for some years the competition has been running high. The private schools solicit and get a large patronage on the ground that they do not teach anything that is useless. They give short, compact courses fitted to pupils’ needs. The high schools point out that the short courses leave the stenographer with a meager vocabulary and the clerk with no outlook on life.

The public schools are gradually pulling ahead of their competitors because they are employing a higher grade of teachers than formerly and are doing the work in a fashion which is technically more complete. In the meantime the commercial courses are becoming more “respectable” and are being taken by a better grade of students. The effect of the election of commercial courses by a better grade of students is such as to modify the whole program of the school in the direction of more attention to the needs and practices of business life.

AGRICULTURAL HIGH SCHOOLS

A second type of vocational course appears in the high schools of rural communities where much attention is being devoted to agriculture. Indeed, the increase in the number of high schools in the country in recent years has been very largely due to the fact that rural communities have taken an interest in carrying the training of pupils beyond the rudimentary subjects of the elementary curriculum.

This movement relates itself to the development of a department of agriculture in the Federal government and to the generous subsidy through that department for agricultural experiments in centers of education in all the states. Three years ago a large Federal subsidy was set aside for the further promotion of agricultural demonstrations and schools, and the recently enacted Federal legislation for industrial education includes provision for more agriculture.

PART-TIME COURSES

A third movement which has recently attracted a great deal of attention and favorable comment was started in the engineering school of the University of Cincinnati and is known as the part-time plan. Classes are organized in such a way that their members spend one week or one month in the shop of some manufacturing plant and the next period in school. A second group alternates in the reverse order, so that the shop and the school are at all times engaged in regular work. Where this plan is well organized, there is a special school officer, called a correlator, who sees to it that there is some direct connection between the shop work and the courses taken up in the schools.

The part-time plan aims to supply that mixture of practical opportunity and training in science, mathematics, and the academic subjects which will lead to both vocational efficiency and a general education.

VARIOUS TYPES OF TRADE SCHOOLS

Fourth, there are all kinds of schools for young people in the trades. Some of these hold their sessions at night, when the working day is over, and others are organized to take the young worker out of the shop or store for a limited number of hours during the working day. In the matter of instruction some give only special training intended to make the worker more skillful; others give general courses in civics, or history, or even in literary subjects.

Some of these schools for workers are organized by the corporations which employ the workers. Thus, telephone companies and dry-goods stores find that it is economical to train their employees. Some of the schools are conducted by the school system and are provided with pupils either through the voluntary demand on the part of learners or through the operation of state laws or municipal ordinances compelling children to attend such schools until they are of a certain age.

Fifth, trade training is provided not merely for those in the trades but also for those who are preparing to enter them. Trade schools are sometimes supported out of the public purse, sometimes by private endowments. The method of instruction is that of requiring the learner to go through a definite series of exercises which will give him skill in the trade. The strictly technical training is usually supplemented by some “general” training.

The following quotation gives a brief summary by one specialist in vocational education of the writings of another specialist in the same field:

THE MANHATTAN TRADE SCHOOL, NEW YORK CITY

This trade school for girls is now a part of the public-school system of New York City. Its early history as a privately supported institution is of absorbing interest, and has been tersely written by Mrs. Mary Schenck Woolman, in her book entitled “The Making of a Trade School.” In this volume she gives an interesting account of the first experiment in the United States to deal in an adequate way with the problem of furnishing vocational training and guidance to children destined to enter industrial life, otherwise wholly unprepared, at the earliest possible age.

The aim of the school is frankly stated to be the giving of help to the youngest wage earners, but its ideals are of considerable breadth. They are to demonstrate to the community what education is needed for “the lowest rank of women workers” in order that a girl may become self-supporting and adaptable, “understand her relation to her employer, to her fellow workers, and to her product,” and value health and moral and intellectual development.

The necessity for this effort was found in the unfortunate social and economic conditions, and especially in the lack of opportunity for progressive work. “After several years spent in the market” the girl was found to be little better off than on her entrance into industrial life.

After investigation, trades were selected in which are used the sewing machine (foot and electric power), the paint brush, paste brush, and needle. In organizing instruction all unnecessary waste was eliminated; short, intensive courses were planned to give knowledge and skill in the technical aspects of the selected trade, and to develop mental alertness on the part of the worker. It has been observed that “the academic dullness which is shown at entrance comes frequently from lack of motive in former studies.” The fundamental importance of health and the value of trade art as a help to progress are given special emphasis.

The supreme value of the school’s trade-order business, as an educational asset, is shown in the following quotation:

It provides the student with adequate experience on classes of material used in the best workrooms; these girls could not purchase such materials and the school could not afford to buy them for practice. The ordinary conditions in both the wholesale and the custom trade are thus made a fundamental part of instruction. Reality of this kind helps the supervisor to judge the product from its trade value, and the teaching from the kind of workers turned out. Through the business relation the student quickly feels the necessity of good finish, rapid work, and responsibility to deliver on time. The businesslike appearance of the shop at work on the orders, and the experience trade has had with the product, have increased the confidence of employers of labor in the ability of the school to train practical workers for the trades.... The business organization and management required in the adequate conduct of a large order department can itself be utilized for educational purposes.

A chapter devoted to representative problems makes an illuminating analysis of the difficulties which must be met and solved by those organizing schools for workers in the lower grades of industry. While the instruction must be direct and specific, some preliminary general training is needed, and work intended to awaken vocational interests should also be provided. Mrs. Woolman believes that all this might and should be given in the public elementary school. Other difficulties are the keeping of the school organization flexible and sensitive to ever-changing trade conditions, and in “close contact with industrial and social organizations of workers in settlements, clubs, societies, and unions, that all phases of the wage earner’s life—pleasures, aims, and needs—may be appreciated.” There is the difficulty of securing suitable teachers, and of working in harmony with the ideals of organized labor.[46]

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS AS PARTS OF ACADEMIC COURSES

The effect of these experiments in vocational education is clearly discernible in the traditional courses. Reading books are beginning to include extracts which deal with practical matters. Mathematics textbooks are presenting more than ever before practical problems drawn from commercial, trade, and agricultural life. Science, both in elementary and advanced forms, is turning to practical applications. In short, there is going on a kind of intellectual compromise which will eventually make training in skill an accepted part of a general training.

General training has until recently been so proud of itself that it has not willingly accepted association with courses designed to cultivate skill. The result is that the common man has gained the impression that there is a wide gulf fixed between general education and practical life. One hopeful symptom of the present situation is that discussions of general education are becoming very much more democratic. To be sure, there are examples of the proud exclusiveness of former days still to be found in the writings of those who do not understand the reach of modern reforms in the curriculum, but these cases are likely to become fewer as the years pass. In the meantime the practical world is making long strides in the direction of an appreciation of the value of a general education. The shop mechanic should read. He should be independent in his cultivation of contact with the most recent movements in his trade. The teacher who teaches reading is coming to recognize this as clearly as does the employer, and very shortly the idea that reading is an artificial somewhat, cultivated exclusively for purely intellectual reasons, will give way to the broader view that even the artisan gains in efficiency by reading.

When that time comes there will be no room for the theory that there should be a different school for the tradesman and the professional class. There will be differentiation within the courses. There will be an elective opportunity for each pupil which will adapt the curriculum to his special needs, but there will be no industrial school on the other side of the street, with a separate course, a different kind of teacher, and a different governing board. Such a cleavage of social interests would be disastrous to the academic subjects quite as much as to the practical subjects. Academic life cannot bury itself in the past; it must make its contribution to the activities of the present.

STUDIES OF SOCIAL ACTIVITIES

Nowhere is the future more clearly forecast than in the new lessons which are being introduced into both the elementary schools and the high schools for the purpose of teaching social organization. Under the title “community civics” or “lessons in community and national life” the social sciences are beginning to offer to the lower schools an exposition of the life of the people who make up society. These courses, like all new applicants for admission to the crowded curriculum, are finding some difficulty in making their way into the school. In spite of these handicaps the movement toward the introduction of social studies into the general school is now sufficiently under way to be described as one of the most hopeful innovations in the curriculum.

EXERCISES AND READINGS

What would be the effect on a community of putting different social classes of children into different schools? Is this done in any degree? Is the principle involved in such a suggestion different in its essentials from the elective system?

What classes of students elect commercial courses? If a school were set up which taught exclusively commercial courses, would the attitude of teachers and students toward their work be better than in a school which gives general academic courses also?

Should agriculture be taught in city high schools? It is sometimes argued that the country school should have a course of study different from that given in the city school. Does the argument touch spelling? arithmetic? drawing?

The part-time experiment has failed in a number of cases where the correlator is not appointed. Can you see why?

At what age should trade training begin? Connect this discussion with the earlier discussions of (_a_) compulsory education and (_b_) costs.

Is reading a practical subject? Is science a natural and desirable part of a trade course? The Federal government has appropriated money for trade training. Can any part of this money reasonably be spent in teaching arithmetic? history? literature?

FARRINGTON, F. E. Commercial Education in Germany. The Macmillan Company. A book dealing with one phase of the matter.

ROMAN, F. W. The Industrial and Commercial Schools of the United States and Germany. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. An interesting comparison of the provisions made in Germany for trade education with various American efforts in the same direction.

Eleventh Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education.