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zation of

tion of second

tion and the various State Departments of Public Instruction have had their functions much enlarged and their activities greatly increased. There are also such matters as the new procedure in school hygiene, arising school hyfrom the modern attitude toward the prevention of disease; new health regulations, as a result of having so many children housed in the same buildings; medical inspection, open-air schools, and better nourishment; and new tendencies in school architecture. Likewise we find school architecture; progressive legislation on compulsory school attendance; more extensive training of teachers; a rapid recognition of education as a profession; the organization of various professionalitypes of teachers' associations; and the development of teaching. educational journalism. Secondary education is also being greatly extended and largely reorganized. 'Junior Reorganizahigh schools,' combining the upper grades of the elemen- ary and higher tary school with the lower grades of the secondary school, education. and thus bridging the gap, are being widely introduced into American cities, and a variety of propositions for a six-year course are being seriously entertained. In connection with higher education there are such new tendencies as university extension, correspondence courses, summer sessions, university interest in the practical problems of the people, the correlation of the first two years of college with the secondary school, more flexible entrance requirements, an increasing number of fields of professional work, and, above all, the professional training of teachers through Departments of Education, Teachers Colleges, and Schools of Education. With this is connected the scientific study of Education, both in graduate courses and independent investigations. Similar efforts to secure economy, guard health, im

Other progres- prove method, and cause education to serve democratic sive tendencies. ideals are everywhere apparent. Educational theory and practice are in a constant flux, and have entered upon a most distinctive epoch of experimentation, change, and improvement. While such a situation is not without its perils, and each proposal should be carefully scrutinized before acceptance, the present tendencies are in the main a sign of progress and life.

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Graves, In Modern Times (Macmillan, 1913), chap. XI; Monroe, Textbook (Macmillan, 1905), chaps. XIII-XIV. For the special tendencies mentioned, the following works may be consulted: Cooley, E. G., Vocational Education in Europe (Chicago Commercial Club, 1912); Hanus, P. H., Beginnings in Industrial Education (Houghton, Mifflin, 1908); Haskins, C. W., Business Education and Accounting (Harper, 1904); Adler, F., Moral Instruction of Children (Appleton, 1895); Palmer, G. H., Ethical and Moral Instruction in Schools (Houghton, Mifflin, 1909); Goddard, H. H., Education of Defectives (Monroe's Cyclopædia of Education); Bell, A. G., Deaf Mute Instruction in Relation to the Work of the Public Schools; Armitage, T., Education and Employment of the Blind (Harrison & Sons, London, 1886); Dewey, J., The School and Society (University of Chicago Press, 1899), and Elementary School Record (University of Chicago Press, 1900); Montessori, Maria, The Montessori Method (Translated by Anne E. George, Stokes Co., New York, 1912); Kilpatrick, W. H., The Montessori Method Examined (Houghton, Mifflin, 1914); Ayres, L. P., Measuring Educational Processes through Educational Results (School Review, May, 1912); Strayer, G. D., Standards and Tests for Measuring the Efficiency of Schools (Report of the Committee of the National Council of Education in the United States Bureau of Education Bulletin, 1913, No. 13); Thorndike, E. L., The Measurement of Educational Products (School Review, May, 1912).

CHAPTER XXVIII

RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT

OUTLINE

Evolution in education may be interpreted from the standpoint of the development of individualism. Individualism was first

fully recognized in the teachings of Christ, but was repressed during the Middle Ages. While it reappeared during the Renaissance, Reformation, and other movements, it soon lapsed, but a complete break from tradition occurred with Rousseau in the eighteenth century.

For a time individualism dominated, but education since then has endeavored to afford latitude to the individual without losing sight of the welfare of society.

The Development of Individualism.-The discussion of present day tendencies that has just been given, together with the account of educational evolution in the preceding chapters, serves to show how far modern times have progressed in the ideals and practice of education. This may perhaps be best appreciated from the standpoint of the development of individualism. To follow such an interpretation back to the beginning of the history of education, it may be stated that during the day of primitive man no real distinction was made between Progress of society and the individual, and practically all advance- tendencies during the days ment was impossible, for no one looked much beyond of primitive the present. With the appearance of the transitional period in the Oriental countries, the individual had begun nations,

individualistic

man,

Oriental

Jewish,

Athenian, and

zations,

to emerge, but was kept in constant subjection to the social whole, for man was quite enslaved to the past. As the Jewish, Athenian, and Roman civilizations deRoman civili- veloped, the beginnings of individualism were for the first time clearly revealed, and some regard was had for the future. Then, through the teachings of Christ, there came to be a larger recognition of the principle of individualism and the brotherhood of man. Owing to a necessity for spreading these enlarged ideals among a barbarous horde of peoples, individualism was repressed, and the Middle and throughout the Middle Ages the keynote was sub

Christian development,

Ages;

the Renaissance,

the Reformation,

mission to authority and preparation for the life to come. The cultural products of Greece and Rome largely disappeared, and all civilization became restricted, fixed, and formal.

But the human spirit could not be forever held in bondage, and, after almost a millennium of repression and uniformity, various factors that had accumulated within the Middle Ages produced an intellectual awakening that we know as the 'Renaissance.' Its vitality lasted during the fifteenth century in Italy and to the close of the sixteenth in the Northern countries, but by the dawn of the seventeenth century it had everywhere degenerated into a dry and mechanical study of the classics. This constituted a formalism almost as dense as that it had superseded, except that linguistic and literary studies had replaced dialectic and theology. A little later than the spread of the Renaissance, though overlapping it somewhat, came the allied movement of the 'Reformation.' This grew in part out of the disposition of the Northern Renaissance to turn to social and moral account the revived intelligence and learning. Yet here

also the revival failed in its mission, and the tendency to rely upon reason rather than dogma hardened into formalism and a distrust of individualism. Again, in the seventeenth century, apparently as an outgrowth of the same forces, intellectual activity took the form of a search for 'real things.' The movement that culminated in 'sense realism' appeared, but this small and crude and realism; beginning of the modern scientific tendency was for some decades yet held within limits. Associated with this realistic tendency, on the religious and political sides

also appeared a quickening in such forms as 'Puritanism' Puriand 'Pietism,' which likewise degenerated eventually into tanism and a fanaticism and hypocrisy.

Pietism;

and the de

tendency.

The Harmonization of the Individual and Society.Thus the way was opened for the complete break with and Rousseau tradition and authority that occurred in the eight- structive eenth century. This tendency, while in France at least most destructive and costly, was the inevitable result of the unwillingness to reshape society and education in accordance with changing ideals and conditions. Hence Rousseau undertook to shatter all educational traditions. But his recommendation of isolated education, so palpable in its fallacies, prepared the ground for the numerous social, scientific, and psychological tendencies (see pp. 218-222) that were destined to spring up in modern education and for the consequent improvement in the aim, organization, content, and method of education. Of course modern education has advanced infinitely beyond anything implied by Rousseau or even the later reformers of the past century, but it is out of his attempts at destruction that has grown this nobler structure. For a time individualism triumphed and

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