Winter Meeting. 341 



men. They are not speaking to hear themselves. They are great leaders. 

 We should ponder long and well the things they say. 



The voices of these men summon us from our lethargy. They point 

 us in the direction of the new sociological organization. They point us 

 to the electric car, the arc light, manufactured ice, filtered water, vaccin- 

 ation, insecticides, disinfectants, pure food — to all the products of recent 

 scientific advancement. Is it not, therefore, evident that the school-mas- 

 ter should open wide his eyes and seek so to organize education as to 

 contribute to the comprehension and mastery of these forces? Rational 

 school education is inseparably inter-woven with these agencies of our 

 industrial and social life. It is a product of them. It reacts upon them. 

 It stimulates their increase, improvement and use. 



But mark you, this rational new education means not less of the 

 beautiful old classical culture and art, not less of mathematics, not less 

 of serviceable knowledge of any kind ; but it does mean a clearer, quicker 

 comprehension of all knowledge by starting with the building upon and 

 living in v/hat is really fundamental, i. e., the world of sense around us. 



Our vast industrial system calls constantly for young men who can 

 use the mechanical forces furnished the world by science. The old fel- 

 lows will not do. They can not learn. Their time "of plasticity is past. 

 Our boys ! They are the ones with capabilities. They are the ones in 

 the critical stage of susceptibility. We must give them the instruments 

 of science that they may learn to handle such instruments while they are 

 boys. A little later their curiosity flags and their constructive and crea- 

 tive imagination has gone from them forever. 



One enormous obstacle nearly everywhere retards progress. It is 

 the examination machine. One year ago at an Association in this city 

 it was announced with exultation by a devotee of the mechanical scheme 

 of education that children coming to his school from schools using or 

 attempting to follow the new education failed in the examinations. 



To this I add: Such is always the case. My friends, remember 

 this : Children crammed with verbal lore and trained to reproduce it in 

 specific form can so reproduce it. Others can not ; but the reproduction 

 of such verbiage is not evidence of thinking power. Success in passing 

 such examinations is not a part of the child's self-expression. Such tests 

 make of the children mere sounding boards to reflect the things hurled 

 at them bv mechanical teachers. 



The children taught in the spirit of the laboratory and the shop 

 think in visual images or other forms of their own. They speak from 

 pictures in their minds. Where the examination machine predominates, 

 the image in the child's mind is the image of words and of the paragraphs 

 of pages. 



