284 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



DETERMINING EDUCATIONAL VALUES 



By Professor M. V. O'SHBA 



UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 



IT will probably not be questioned by any one that the most complex 

 business society can undertake is to train the rising generation 

 effectively. The human mind is an extremely complicated thing. It 

 is so intricate, indeed, that it has been found impossible thus far to 

 discern many of the laws according to which it evolves and functions. 

 "What a marvelous piece of work is man," expresses the feeling of the 

 poet as well as the view of the student of any phase of human nature. 

 The problem of preparing a child for happy and effective adjustment 

 to the world in which he must live is immeasurably more difficult than 

 the hardest engineering problem, say, which men in any age have yet 

 undertaken. The engineer has only to deal with physical laws, which 

 are relatively simple and easily determined as compared with the laws 

 governing mental activity and efficient mental development. The engi- 

 neer is usually able to ascertain whether or not he has correctly appre- 

 hended and dealt with any law of nature. At every step he can control 

 his work, because the effects of his action are immediately measurable. 

 But it is entirely different with the educator. He can not directly 

 measure the outcome of his methods. Most of his training produces 

 noticeable effects only after a long lapse of time, and then only in an 

 obscure and entangled manner. Any one, then, whose duty it is actually 

 to mould a human mind according to the most desirable pattern, and 

 who realizes the complexity of his task, is apt to be more or less awed 

 and even mystified by his problem. 



But the man on the street, looking at the business from the outside, 

 is apt not to feel much mystery about it. The whole matter is likely to 

 seem clear and simple to him. He can dash into his office, and in a 

 few minutes give instructions how to deal with problems which are 

 probably inscrutable to one who for years has been seriously trying to 

 solve them with due regard to all the factors involved. The tendency 

 of the non-expert in any field is to resist the idea that he is incompetent 

 to form an opinion about matters in that field. Witness how the lay- 

 man and even the drug doctor have ridiculed the theory that disease is 

 largely of bacterial origin. It is the same way with legislation. The 

 layman proposes to solve social ills by some simple, drastic legislation. 

 He resists taking the point of view that social relations are extremely 

 complex, and that the new difficulties which arise with the increasing 



