in connection with geography and history, and that it should be taught in such a way as to serve this purpose.

In

Even purposes of three R's need careful defining. the above incident the complacency of the parents concerning the values of the three R's suggests that there is more common agreement about the purposes of teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic than in the case of handwork. A careful analysis, however, of the teaching of these well-established and valuable subjects shows that teachers are often wasting much time and energy in activities that have little value in the world at large. This fact will be brought out in detail later.

Kindergarten illustrates relating activities to larger purposes. The fact that fourth-grade handwork should be related to the purposes in studying geography and history, and the necessity of evaluating the three R's in relation to the activities of the world at large, are examples of the necessity of having teachers comprehend the larger aims and purposes of teaching in order that they may determine the values of each activity which they supervise. A good example of this process of evaluating specific schoolroom

Story of the picture on opposite page. The little kindergarten group shown at lunch on the opposite page illustrates the use of certain modern kindergarten materials and projects. In the background is the large five-part folding screen with a door and curtained windows, used to construct a playhouse as described on page 126. To the left of the door, but scarcely visible in the picture, is a sideboard made by the children from large blocks. These large blocks appear more clearly in the little chairs upon which the children are seated. The planning, discussing, and carrying out of the activities suggested in this picture give the children training in problem solving, oral expression, coöperation, and manual construction, as well as helping them to comprehend better the activities of their homes.

activities in terms of the larger purposes of education is found in the work of kindergarten teachers.

An ordinary observer in a modern kindergarten may see the children engaged in such activities as are pictured on pages 16 and 18. To such an observer the children seem to be merely playing — playing house, playing store, playing with dolls, running, skipping, dancing, singing, etc. The

KINDERGARTEN PLAY PROJECT - BAND AND BANDSTAND From The University of Chicago Elementary School. Are these children merely having a good time or are they attaining some of the educational aims described below?

kindergartner, however, will tell you that while it is merely play for the children, they are being trained in "community life, industrial and fine arts, language, music, physical education, nature study, and number work." She may tell you that the purposes of the play activities are represented in the following impressive terms:

1. Social or moral purposes: for example, teaching noninterference with other children; self-control, as in keeping quiet when someone else is speaking; order, as in putting the doll's clothes away; working for some definite end, as

in procuring the seeds and preparing the soil for planting; obedience, as in following promptly the teacher's directions.

2. Training in reflective thinking, in problem solving: for example, in devising by experimental folding a paper basket that will hold the seeds that are to be planted; in devising a slanting roof to be built on a toy barn; in devising a bridge of blocks to cross an imaginary stream that has been marked with chalk on the floor; in choosing colors for various decorative purposes, etc.

3. Training in expression: for example, in drawing and coloring when the children use colored crayons to represent a flowering plant; in oral expression, when they tell about their toys at home or their trip to the grocery store.

4. Training in aesthetic enjoyment: for example, in fundamental rhythms, as in clapping, skipping, and dancing; also in music, drawing, painting, designing, and story-telling.

5. Training in manual skill: for example, in piling blocks, in cutting with scissors, in modeling with plasticine, in throwing and catching a ball.

Historical changes in purposes. From religion to complete living. The examples given above are intended to illustrate what is meant by understanding the aims and purposes of elementary teaching, and the practical bearing of this understanding. We shall now secure further insight into the matter by an examination of the aims and purposes of elementary schools as these have changed in America since the settlement by the Puritans in New England, about 1640. The diagram on page 20 summarizes the remarkable changes which we shall describe.

This diagram suggests the enormous expansion which has taken place in elementary-school purposes and gives the title to this chapter. In the early colonial period, in nearly all elementary schools, practically the sole purpose of teaching was religious salvation. In contrast with this narrow conception the purposes in American public schools

at the present time have become as broad as life itself, excepting only religion.

Colonial purposes. Massachusetts law to circumvent Satan, 1647.-The general statement about the dominant religious purpose in colonial elementary schools may be illustrated by the following quotation from the Massachusetts law of 1647. To appreciate this quotation try to imagine a state legislature at the present time phrasing a law in the same fashion. The preamble began as follows:

It being one chief point of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from a knowledge of the Scriptures, as in former times, by keeping them in an unknown tongue, so in these latter times, by persuading from the use of tongues, that so at last the true sense and meaning of the original might be clouded by false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers, that learning might not be buried in the grave of our fathers in church and commonwealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors, It is therefore ordered that every township in this jurisdiction, after the Lord has increased them to the number of fifty householders, shall then forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write and read, etc. (7: 60)

1640

Religious
salvation

1860 Spencer Complete living

Happiness
Health

Harmless enjoyment

Good will
Social service

DIAGRAM OF BROADENING PURPOSES IN ELEMENTARY EDUCATION

Sin and Satan pondered by children in the "New England Primer." It is apparent from this law that the "old deluder, Satan," was a very real personage to the New England Puritans and that elementary schools were considered an important weapon in beating him. The little children in school werę