72 EDUCATIONAL THEORY 



a like regard for individual choice and initiative in the processes of 

 instruction and of training. Our schools tend to become institutions 

 of cooperative self-education. The implications and limitations of 

 this movement and its permanent relations with the organic whole 

 of educational thought and practice, furnish another important 

 range for theoretical inquiry. 



The current discussion of these questions, in so far as it rises above 

 the mere iteration of commonplaces, belongs mainly to the litera- 

 ture of power rather than that of knowledge. It embodies the 

 opinion of many large and forceful personalities, with their differing 

 estimates of educational tradition, of personal and social values, of 

 the changing needs of our time. It shows various degrees or creative 

 daring on the part of men who are the makers as well as the apologists 

 of our modern education. In a word, it is literary art, reflecting and 

 interpreting the art of education. As such it is of very great signi- 

 ficance. It is not at all the business of educational theory to brush 

 aside such discussion, if that were possible. This literature of the 

 art of education may serve rather as a base for the movement toward 

 making this part of our theory of education more thoroughly 

 scientific. 



This is far from saying that nothing has yet been done toward 

 a scientific examination of such subjects. It must be admitted that 

 adequate objective and critical treatment of them is generally 

 lacking or has appeared only in fragments and beginnings; yet one 

 who appreciates the positive excellence of some of the art-literature 

 of these questions, with its occasional appeal to scientific and philo- 

 sophical knowledge, will venture only with extreme diffidence to offer 

 his suggestions of improvement. 



The chief improvements to be suggested are a more adequate 

 definition of the questions at issue, which shall take account of their 

 place in the historical tendency and development to which they 

 belong; and the substitution, wherever possible, of accurate state- 

 ment of facts, objectively determined, for easy assumptions and mere 

 personal opinions. The actual working and results of different 

 systems should be examined with greater thoroughness, and more 

 than superficial comparisons should be instituted among them. 

 Where such facts admit of it, they should be subjected to statistical 

 treatment, and all care should be taken to see that the things enumer- 

 ated and compared are of the same denomination -- are comparable 

 - the attendant circumstances which give to every fact its full 

 significance being taken fully into the account. It is not unlikely 

 that ways may be devised of adding systematic experiment to our 

 observation of that which comes to pass under ordinary conditions, 

 and so of reducing somewhat the number of distracting variable 

 elements and defining more exactly the play of calculable influences. 



