264 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. L. No. 1290 



hardly refer to the most fundamental question 

 of all — namely, the piirpose of education in 

 general; yet every time the content of the 

 curriculum is discussed, it becomes all too evi- 

 dent that many worthy people either do not 

 keep that question clearly in mind, or else they 

 wholly misconceive it. One can not go into 

 details here — ^the question is too large. At 

 the risk of being trite, it may be categorically 

 asserted that the aim of education is not 

 merely to give information, nor merely to 

 teach somebody how to do something, and 

 especially is the aim of education not confined 

 to preparing young people to get a living, nor 

 (more emphatically) to get a living only by 

 commercial pursuits. This could not be better 

 said than it was by Professor A. Caswell 

 Ellis :* 



Certainly they [the laboring classes] must have 

 vocational education to make efficient producers, 

 but they are going to be "producing" only about 

 six or eiglit hours a day. What preparation is the 

 school to give for the other sixteen or eighteen 

 hours each day and the twenty-four on Sunday? 



I think it will hardly be extreme to say that 

 this question is the supreme problem of pres- 

 ent-day education. As Professor Ellis con- 

 tinues to say : " If we do not show more in- 

 telligent recognition of this problem than we 

 have in the past then the production of isms 

 and impossible Bolshevist dreams during the 

 leisure hours may more than offset the mate- 

 rial production of the working hours." And 

 even if the individual is not inclined to be an 

 agitator, or a public menace in any way, he 

 has himself to live with sixteen or eighteen 

 hours a day, and he exerts his conscious or 

 unconscious influence on others whether he 

 will or not; and he may become a member of 

 the local government, or a member of the board 

 of education, or, if worse comes to worst, even 

 a school superintendent, having a large voice 

 in the organization of public education. Cer- 

 tainly it ought to be clear that the public 

 school curriculum, and the content of each 

 subject taught should be determined with such 

 eventualities, as well as with vocational needs, 

 in mind. 



Not to dwell unduly on this first point, let 



i Jour. Nat. Inst. Social Soi., 4, 135, 1918. 



us very briefly note that public education 

 should always adapt itself to the needs and 

 ideals of the age, seeking at the same time to 

 help mold and formulate them. In what di- 

 rection, then, let us ask, is social organization 

 now tending? What is the modern spirit? 

 Well, a new spirit and changed ideals have 

 certainly been developing during the past two 

 or three decades. One of the outward expres- 

 sions of this fact is the reduction of the hours 

 of labor from twelve a day to nine or eight. 



One of the finest expressions of the new 

 spirit is the address of John D. Eockefeller, 

 Jr., before the War Emergency and Eecon- 

 truction Conference of the Chamber of Com- 

 merce of the United States, at Atlantic City, 

 on December 5, 1918. " Men are rapidly 

 coming to see," said Mr. Eockefeller, "that 

 human life is of infinitely greater value than 

 material wealth ; " and " Modern thought is 

 placing less emphasis on material considera- 

 tions. It is recognizing that the basis of na- 

 tional progress, whether industrial or social, 

 is the health, efficiency, and spiritual develop- 

 ment of th§ people." The fourth article of his 

 proposed industrial creed rightly affirms, 

 " that every man is entitled to an opportunity 

 to earn a living, to fair wages, to reasonable 

 hours of work and proper working conditions, 

 to a decent home, to the opportunity to play, 

 to learn, to worship, and to love, as well as 

 to toil." Every subject in the curriculum, 

 therefore, should, in its introductory course at 

 least, have its content decided with reference 

 to this entire modem ideal. 



But, unfortunately, proposals are now being 

 made in some quarters to revise the botanical 

 course of study in exactly the opposite direc- 

 tion, evidently with the idea that the chief 

 purpose of studying the subject is preparation 

 for a vocation. I would not, for a moment, 

 wish to appear to be losing sight of the fact 

 that there is a vocation of botanist, and many 

 vocations depending, in whole or in part, upon 

 a knowledge of botany. Wliat I am objecting 

 to is the tendency to lose sight of every other 

 consideration, and to commercialize or voca- 

 tionalize every subject from the introductory 

 course to the doctorate thesis. The committee 



