November 1, laOTJ 



SCIENCE 



579 



methods from that under which many of 

 us now living have been trained. It has 

 also been brought home to us that the 

 marvelous changes in our environment, in 

 the conditions under which we live and 

 work, whether in the field, the factory or 

 the office, have necessitated corresponding 

 ehanges in the education to be provided as 

 a preparation for the several different pur- 

 suits in which the people generally are oc- 

 cupied. Yet, notwithstanding these great 

 forces which have broken in upon and dis- 

 turbed our former ideals, forces the 

 strength and far-reaching effects of which 

 we readily admit, we still hesitate to face 

 the newly arisen circumstances and to 

 adapt our educational work to its vastly 

 extended area of operation and to the 

 altered conditions and requirements of 

 modern life. 



When I say we hesitate to face the exist- 

 ing circumstances I do not wish to be mis- 

 understood. As a fact ehanges are con- 

 tinually being discussed, and are from 

 time to time introduced into our schools. 

 But such modifications of our existing 

 methods are generally isolated and de- 

 tached, and have little reference to the 

 more comprehensive measures of reform 

 ■which are now needed to bring our teach- 

 ing into closer relation with the changed 

 oonditions of existence consequent on the 

 alterations that have taken place in our 

 social life and surroundings. 



Four years ago, it will be remembered, a 

 •ommittee of this section was appointed to 

 •onsider and to report upon the "Courses 

 of Experimental, Observational and Prac- 

 tical Studies most Suitable for Elementary 

 Schools." That committee, of which I had 

 the honor to be chairman, presented a re- 

 port to this section at the meeting of the 

 association held, last year at York. The 

 general conclusion at which they arrived 

 was that "the intellectual and moral train- 

 ing, and indeed to some extent the phys- 



ical training, of boys and girls between 

 the ages of seven and fourteen would be 

 greatly improved if active and constructive 

 work on the part of the children were 

 largely substituted for ordinary class 

 teaching, and if much of the present in- 

 struction were made to arise incidentally 

 out of, and to be centered around, such 

 work." It is too early, perhaps, to expect 

 that the suggestions made in that report 

 should have borne fruit, but I refer to it 

 because it illustrates the difference between 

 the spasmodic reforms which from time to 

 time are adopted, under pressure from 

 bodies of well-meaning representatives of 

 special interests, and the well-considered 

 changes recommended by a committee of 

 men and women of educational experience 

 who have carefully tested the conclusions 

 at which they have arrived. 



There can be no doubt that, as regards 

 our elementary education, there is very 

 general dissatisfaction with its results, 

 since it was first nationalized thirty-seven 

 years ago. Our merchants and manufac- 

 turers and employers of labor, our teach- 

 ers in secondary and technical schools all 

 join in the chorus of complaint. They tell 

 us that the children have gained very little 

 useful knowledge and still less power of 

 applying it. There is enough in this gen- 

 eral expression of discontent to give us 

 pause and to make us seek for a rational 

 explanation of our comparative failure. 

 The inadequacy of the results attained to 

 the money and effort that have been ex- 

 pended is in no way due to any want of 

 zeal or ability on the part of the teachers, 

 or of energy on the part of school boards 

 or local authorities. They have all dis- 

 charged the duties which were imposed 

 upon them. It is due rather to the fact 

 that the problem has been imperfectly 

 understood, that our controlling authori- 

 ties have had only a vague and indistinct 

 idea of the aim and end of the important 



