278 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1941 



Antioch College, who has said that "results as revolutionary are 

 possible in education as in engineering, and they are even more 

 necessary." 



Conditions in our schools and even in our colleges and universities 

 today are far less satisfactory than they should be in view of our 

 acute need of the best education we can provide. As recently 

 remarked by Professor Curtis (1939) : 



Even in this so-called scientific age we find, among our high-school, college, and 

 university graduates, many who believe nothing definite and have no convictions, 

 while many others will believe anything, no matter how fantastic * * * 

 there is little difference between many college graduates and those who have 

 not gone beyond the eighth grade, insofar as their mental attitudes or judgments 

 in the fields of science are concerned. 



This he is inclined to ascribe partly to the fact that many teachers, as 

 well as students, have had little or no training in science and partly 

 to the type of teaching that is all too prevalent, especially in our 

 lower schools. Too much of it is dogmatic, and the student is not 

 trained to think for himself. There is far too much emphasis upon 

 the learning of facts, on the mistaken supposition that knowledge, 

 as distinguished from understanding, is the chief object of schooling. 



Since in order to progress we must constantly improve our educa- 

 tion, we shall have to have more teachers, especially better and wiser 

 teachers, and teachers who are not only competent to train youth but 

 who are allowed to utilize their competence in teaching, under a 

 minimum of administrative control. In my opinion no mature 

 teacher who needs to be told by a principal or dean how to teach 

 deserves to be employed as a teacher. There has grown up in recent 

 years a widespread tendency to overstress the importance of teaching 

 methods and to give school executives wide powers of direction over 

 the daily work of the individual teacher. Such practice overlooks 

 the fact that good teaching is a matter of individuality, that the 

 teacher to be successful must be a true scholar, and that scholars can- 

 not be regimented. Also, our system has always been less effective 

 than it should be, because we have left so much of the education of 

 our rising generation to relatively inexperienced young persons. This 

 seems almost as shortsighted, and in the long run as likely to prove 

 disastrous to the Nation, as to leave our military defense largely to 

 young recruits. The only apparent advantage to this is that it is 

 less expensive than the alternative ; but the cheapest system may prove 

 in time to be the least economical. 



At this point it may be asked what results we can fairly expect 

 from such improvements in our educational arrangements in the next 

 decade or century. The experienced scientist will understand that 

 sound improvement in human affairs will come only by evolution and 

 after cautious experiments on a small scale rather than by sudden 

 revolutionary changes on a large scale. 



