The Audubon Societies 437 



NEW STANDARDS IN A NEW ERA 



In an illuminating and, as it seems, prophetic address given by President 

 emeritus Eliot of Harvard University, entitled ''Certain Defects in American 

 Education and the Remedies for Them" (later published as Teachers' Leaflet, 

 No. 5, Bureau of Education), eleven points were frankly stated and discussed 

 with reference to the betterment of our educational system, and particularly 

 that part of it represented by the public schools. 



Briefly, the defects noted were classified under eleven headings, of which 

 the last three are: (9) No manual skill, the remedy for which is the develop- 

 ment of ''some kind of ocular and manual skill, which may be attained not alone 

 through mechanical drawing and the elements of free-hand drawing, both of 

 which are desirable in elementary and secondary schools, but also, the elements 

 of chemistry, physics, and biology in an experimental and concrete manner, 

 partly for the reasoning of these sciences, of course, but also for the training of 

 the senses which comes through the proper study of them;" (10) little 

 TRAINING OF THE SENSES, again the remedy for which lies in systematic train- 

 ing, and (11), NO HABITUAL ACCURACY OP OBSERVATION AND STATEMENT, for 



which what better training could be offered than nature-study? Indeed, the 

 last three defects enumerated find much of their antidote in nature-study. 



President Eliot observes that "it is the men who have learned, probably 

 out of school, to see and hear correctly, and to reason cautiously from facts 

 observed, that carry on the great industries of the country and make possible 

 great transportation systems and international commerce," and although we 

 may take some exception to this opinion, it is nevertheless based upon a wide 

 and impartial estimate of actual conditions. 



Inspected thus critically, our school-systems, admirable as they seem in 

 organization and equipment, must be subjected to a very searching investiga- 

 tion, if they are to fulfil the needs of a new era. It would be well if in every 

 school might be posted, for the benefit of each pupil, these words of President 

 Eliot: "Every boy and girl in school should learn by experience how hard it is 

 to repeat accurately one short sentence just listened to, to describe correctly the 

 colors on a bird, the shape of a leaf or the design on a nickel," and for each 

 teacher "every child should have had during its school-life innumerable lessons 

 in mental truth-seeking and truth- telhng." 



The pity is that we do not recognize the unlimited opportunity in bird- and 

 nature-study for this much-to-be-desired training, and enter into this inheri- 

 tance so long withheld from us in its entirety. 



Not only our public schools, but normal schools, colleges, and universities 

 need awakening and are rapidly coming to it through the exigencies of the war. 

 To-day between five and six hundred of our higher institutions of learning are 

 in affiliation with the War Department, having in charge the Students' Army 

 Training Corps. Time-honored curriculums are being completely revamped, 



