SCHOOL ORGANIZATION AND INSTRUCTION 129 



esting and pertinent to inquire why they do not give corresponding 

 results in the school. People generally seem to understand that the 

 school should reflect the interests of the community, but the traditions 

 of the school are such that the instant an industry or an art is intro- 

 duced into the schoolroom the tendency is to erect it at once into a 

 ' subject of study.' This means to the average person that it must have 

 its special teacher, its arbitrary place on the program, and in other 

 ways take a definite setting in the curriculum. Now, there is a vast 

 and an essential difference between this kind of so-called organization 

 attempted by the school, and the actual organization which takes place 

 in true community life. If, for example, under normal conditions, in 

 the latter, a wagon is to be made, the various activities that contribute 

 to that particular end are so correlated as to combine efficiency and 

 economy. Everybody's efforts are directed to that result. There is 

 just so much wood needed and no more. A premium is placed upon the 

 endeavor to use as little as may be consistent with the character of the 

 wagon desired. The same is true of the iron work — no more bolts or 

 bands are made than are actually needed. So, also, it is with the paint ; 

 what the wood needs for its preservation and adornment is used, and 

 nothing beyond. But bring these industries into school as 'hand- 

 work/ and we find only so many more ' subjects of study ' that in some 

 way must be juggled into an already overcrowded program; only so 

 many more teachers that are to increase the wear and tear in already 

 overwrought children. It is no longer a question of doing just as little 

 as is needed, but as much as possible ! It is as though the wagon-maker 

 were to go ahead blindly and make a dozen wheels where only four 

 can possibly be used ; as though the blacksmith should forge a hundred 

 pieces of iron where but twenty are needed ; and as if the painter should 

 demand forty hours for his work when five would be altogether ade- 

 quate. We are in an incipient stage of development, where there is 

 insufficient attention given to the relation between demand and supply. 

 The work generally in any particular subject represents the strength 

 and the personal push of the teachers, or the reverse. If by superior 

 wit, or by greater cunning, or by sharpness of tooth or strength of 

 claw the ambitious teacher is able to get a lion's share of the program, 

 his particular subject may be correspondingly magnified, even to the 

 detriment of all others. 



If the school is to approximate still further the ideals of community 

 life it is necessary that there should be a more flexible adjustment of 

 the workers to each other and to the thing to be done. The grouping 

 and distribution of the pupils should be based upon the nature of their 

 work. The school grade as now generally constituted is a pure fiction 

 in philosophy but it is a stubborn and unreasonable fact in practise. 

 Under the domination of the grading system, the school reverses or 



VOL. lxx. — 9. 



