business considers it valuable, for prominent business men are constantly deploring their own lack of training in it. Society considers it valuable because it considers correct and elegant English one of the marks of the gentleman. And so on ad infinitum. He will be an egoistic youth indeed who will not feel some pressure from this array of opinion. The less one analyzes these testimonials the better, however, for as a matter of fact the classes making them have but vague notions of their own reasons and such as they have are not of the best. In this method of motivation two forces operate; first, the social or economic importance of the makers of the evaluations; and second, the mere repetition. The second force is familiar to us through the advertising campaigns of many well known breakfast foods, but let it not be beneath us if it gets results. In fact, is not the force of every social dictum due more to repetition than to anything else? It may, I recognize, injure the dignity of many a "professor" for him to consider himself a specialty salesman. Note that this is not a description of him in his capacity as a student or a scholar. But it is a true statement of his right position as a paid agent of the more enlightened public of these United States. That public is determined to clarify the thinking of the masses by giving them some training in exact and lucid self expression. It is entitled to maximum results for its money and the salesman it employs must deliver the goods, not on the factory platform but on the customers' workshop doing daily duty. And I am the first to admit that being an expert salesman is not the English teacher's whole duty. He is paid to be that at least, but if there is the true altruism in his heart he will at the same time be focussing, through his own trained perceptions and power of expression, the whole of human experience upon that large. sector of the student's life and character that comes beneath his touch. Being himself a searcher for and appreciator of truth and beauty, he will day by day consciously and unconsciously train those whose minds he touches to appreciate these things. It is the priceless opportunity to do this that draws the true teacher to his profession, but we must recognize the sober fact that when a man is expressly paid to vend washing machines, he cannot cancel his obligation by instead devoting his time to the selling of mantel ornaments. Departmental Teaching in the NICHOLAS RICCIARDI, PRINCIPAL PIEDMONT DEPARTMENTAL I S departmental teaching in the grammar school a success? To answer the question with some degree of definiteness, instruction under the departmental plan should be compared with instruction under the one-teacher plan, and both should be measured in terms of the ultimate aim in education. But what is the ultimate aim in education? Bagley believes that the ultimate aim in education ought to be social efficiency. He defines a socially efficient person as one "who is not a drag upon society * can 'pull his own weight', either directly as a productive agent or indirectly by guiding, inspiring, or educating others to productive effort; % * interferes as little as possible with the efforts of others;" and "not only fulfills these two requirements, but also lends his energy consciously and persistently to that further differentiation and integration of social forces which is everywhere synonymous with progress." * * * * The socially efficient person can consciously adjust himself to the things about him, to the persons with whom he comes in contact, and to the dictates of self. He can consciously assume control of his own acts with at least a fair sense of selection, evaluation, and possible, or even probable, results; and can consciously measure himself in terms of the material and the spiritual. If social efficiency is accepted as the ultimate aim in education, then departmental teaching in the grammar school is a success, if it can be proved that such teaching tends more effectively to make the average pupil more efficient socially than does the instruction under the one-teacher plan. In cities where the grammar schools have departmental teaching in the upper grades, the introduction of such teaching may be attributed largely to the following reasons: 1. "The difficulty of securing teachers qualified to teach efficiently all the subjects prescribed for the upper grades." 2. "The desirability of preparing pupils to assume more easily and successfully the larger freedom and responsibility in a job, or in the high school. 3. "The desirability of vitalizing instruction in the upper grades, and of removing, or at least reducing, the waste by substituting skilled for unskilled teaching." The chief reasons advanced against the departmental plan are the following: 1. The personal influence of the class teacher is substantially diminished. 2. The pupils are too young to adjust themselves to the ways, methods, and standards of more than one teacher. 3. The deportment of pupils is more difficult to control. 4. The pupils are confused and discouraged by the different methods, standards, and requirements of the different teachers. In answer to the first, second, and third reasons enumerated above, Superintendent W. L. Stephens, of Lincoln, Nebraska, says: "The influences that flow in upon pupils from several teachers are more like those of life. In the home and on the playground the child is not subject to the influence of one person wholly, but to the influence of many. As a result of this composite influence the child is more likely to develop symmetrically and to preserve his individuality than if he were too constantly under the influence of one person alone. In my judgment the intimate, rare, and lasting relations, between teacher and pupil are more common under the departmental plan than under the single-teacher plan. I recall a teacher in one of our departmental schools who especially appeals to boys and whose desk at intermission is usually surrounded by lads eager to secure her advice relative to all their school activities. To another teacher, the girls are attracted; they tell her freely of their difficulties and troubles, even more freely than many of them tell their mothers." "Under departmental teaching", says Superintendent Stephens, "the discipline is materially improved." * * * * At a meeting of the principals of the departmental schools called by Superintendent A. C. Barker, of Oakland, California, Mr. C. H. Greenman, principal of the Lockwood School for more than fifteen years, emphatically declared that the discipline in his school has materially improved under the departmental plan. Of the seventeen departmental grammar school principals present not a single one of them stated that the discipline had been more satisfactory under the one-teacher plan. All of them heartily endorsed the departmental plan, and declared that practically all their teachers and their pupils were enthusiastically in favor of departmental teaching. There is a real danger, however, in departmental teaching, if the teachers "teach their subjects, and not their pupils". This practice would soon result in the confusion and discouragement cited in the fourth reason advanced for re training the one-teacher plan. But proper supervision can wholly eliminate this danger. In the Piedmont Avenue School, Oakland, California, one hundred and fifty-two pupils were asked to give, anonymously, their reasons for or against departmental teaching. Ninety-two and four-tenths per centum favored departmental teaching. Some of the reasons given were these: 1. "It prepares better for the high school." 2. "It developes self-reliance better." 3. "It teaches system." 4. "It breaks the monotony by going from one room to another, and changing teachers." 5. "The teachers know better what subjects the children excel in and what they have talent for." 6. "In the old system the teachers who had real talent for some subjects but had to teach many other subjects, also, had little chance to use their talent to the best advantage." 7. "Each teacher teaches the subject which she knows best, and the children learn more." 8. 9. "The children get to know all the teachers better." "It makes the work easier for the teachers because they have two or three subjects to study up and they can find out more about them." 10. "The teachers have only papers of two or three subjects to correct and do not get mixed up." Education for social efficiency means the developing of the fol 4. "Desire to produce directly." 5. "Desire to guide, inspire, or educate others to produce." Which will more effectively develop these qualities, the oneteacher plan, or the departmental plan? Let the unbiased visit a departmental school, and a school conducted under the oneteacher plan. He will find that the departmental school, under proper supervision, is making the average pupil more efficient socially. It drives home, above all other things, the lesson of personal responsibility, and turns out boys, and girls who are better prepared to grapple with the real problems of life. School. Creed and color and race Unite from the ends of the Earth, In the pride of a glorious birth. Fuse in a melting heat As the little hearts beat fast To the stir of a common beat. A fresher brawn and brain, For the stock which the Fates destroy, Of the new American Boy. Elias Lieberman. |