Part 13
SUPERINTENDENT S. T. DUTTON, _Brookline, Mass._: About all has been said that needs to be said now. It seems to me that the question takes this form--the same God that made the child made the world about him. The purpose of those who mean to work out something better is to find how the child should be taught. My friends, we do not recognize the value of this report. Dr. Harris said very distinctly that the course of study in point should include the whole round of human knowledge. Now, there are two things that have helped me in this matter. My view is singularly different from Dr. White’s. If correlation makes the kindergarten what it is, it seems to me that it should go on. It seems to me that, in a certain way, this is true in the first year, in the second, etc.
This cross section brings in so many things we find imposed upon the schools that certain confusion and certain difficulties have been found in working out the Herbartian plan. The only way is the working out of these principles. If that is not done, we shall have reaction. I am not afraid that this work shall be retarded because of this report. Every teacher ought to understand this discussion of educational values. It ought to help us; it will help us. If this report is not complete, it will be completed in the good works of teachers in all this country. [The chair here announced that Colonel Parker and Dr. Harris would be asked to close the debate.]
* * * * *
COLONEL PARKER: Shall we study this question with open and unprejudiced minds? I am not a Herbartian. I simply ask the most careful study of all these questions and systems. There was a time when method seemed to be incarnated. Now, in regard to this report and the eminent philosopher who wrote it, I would not say one word except of the most profound respect. I am never going even to make a pun before a teachers’ meeting hereafter. When Dr. Harris says I do not believe in grammar, he should say that I do not believe in certain methods. I respect butterflies and grubs, but I respect language. When Dr. White says that certain things are plain by concentration, he says what I know nothing about. Herbart said of Pestalozzi that his great merit did not consist in his method and his means, but in his sublime zeal. He who faces this question of education faces infinity. I protest against unfair statement as to discipleship, following leader, and so forth, I acknowledge that I make such statements myself, but I hope to do better. When Dr. White speaks of the great giants, we have but to look at him and know it is true. But do we ever question what has been lost? We are facing the great problems of the twentieth century, and the present methods of teaching are not equal to their solution. Under God, let us find the truth and follow it. Let us have the means of knowing what each teacher and each superintendent is doing for the child. Let us not lay down a great educational doctrine and say that it is sufficient. The Sermon on the Mount is sufficient for nineteen centuries; but what we want is an application of Hegel, of Herbart, and of the wisdom of all other philosophers to the problems of the future. All hail the future!
* * * * *
DR. W. T. HARRIS: I wish to add one remark as to the meaning of correlation. I would call attention to its etymology, which makes it a bringing into relation of what is coördinate. I knew of the Herbartian idea of concentration of studies, but I was not familiar with the use of the word “correlation” in the same sense as concentration. I have given an example in discussing the methods of teaching geography of the application of the deeper doctrine of concentration. I have shown that we should start with the child and proceed in two directions, one towards the elements of difference in order to explain the obstacles which man has to overcome. On the other side, we should go towards the subjects of human industry, invention, and commerce, and learn the method by which man overcomes the “elements of difference.” Geography for the child should begin in the centre and move outward towards these extremes, including at every step a human side and a natural side. This is not a philosophical study of correlation, Hegelian or otherwise, although it has been called so in this debate, but a scientific study of the educational value of the branches of the course of study. I began it in 1870. Now, in a scientific study one does not allow his feelings of attraction or repulsion to cloud his reason. He assumes an unprejudiced attitude towards the object that he studies. Child study, as it is pursued by Dr. Stanley Hall, is pursued with this true scientific spirit. But child study is not the only thing in education, nor can education be founded on child study alone. The child is here to be correlated with the world. The educator must study the world and study the child, and correlate the one to the other. That is to say, he must bring the child into a knowledge of the world and a mastery of its appliances. The report, of course, assumes the value of child study, and in all the numerous places where attention is called to the danger of producing arrested development the results of child study are drawn upon; but, on the other hand, if you have a knowledge of the child, and do not have a knowledge of the significance of the branches of study and the way in which they unlock the world of reality, you cannot correlate the child with the world.
[Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.]