Slutz and freely gave him the right to use their jointthought product. He was elected, and, with the help of other teachers and the pupils, "the particular adaptation of this general theory to the actual practice of the schoolroom" has been evolved.

After three years of such practice, Mr. Slutz and the Dayton citizens who support the school are more enamored than ever of their venture. They regard it as a return in conscious form to the unconscious schooling of an earlier American day, when the farm boy "had but three months of schooling in the year, which left nine months for him to get an education." Now that the three months of schooling have grown to nine, they seek to make them, as well as the other three, months in which to get an education.

"One way of looking at our school," says Mr. Slutz, "is to consider it as a return to Americanism. We had abundant education in this country of a very good quality, if of narrow field, when the average boy got two or three months of usually distasteful 'book larnin',' and put in the rest of the year getting his education in the barn, the shed, and the field. With the taking on of an elaborate system of public schools that largely copied their methods from the Germans or the classic English public school, and with the extension of the scholastic year to include three fourths of the calendar year, we crowded out the American sort of education, which, as Mr. Morgan says, is as old as life. American schools should make Americans. To make Americans, you must inculcate and strengthen American traits. That, our schools are not doing. Initiative is a prime American trait, but our schools teach conformity. We are an ambitious people, but our schools put a premium on average performance. We are a sportsloving, athletic people, but our schools tend to delegate athletics to specialists. The American is many-sided, but our educational system aggrandizes only one side of the

mastery of living. Business shrewdness is another distinctive American trait, but our education does not give us business power. We believe in democracy and selfgovernment, and our schools are autocracies. We are a religious people, and our schools are unreligious, repressing the spiritual element in education through fear of offending sectarian prejudices. At Moraine Park we are trying to teach Americanism by developing the American type not the English, French, German, or some other type. You can't develop a hunting dog by giving it the training suited to a poodle."

MASTERING THE ARTS OF LIFE

A TRAINED observer, even though he is not an expert in the field under observation, often sees more clearly than the experts themselves. Theodore Knappen, in his analysis of the principles underlying the Moraine Park School at Dayton, Ohio, illustrates the ability of the newspaper man to achieve an excellent perspective in a specialized field. Until recently associated with several metropolitan dailies, Mr. Knappen is now an independent magazine writer.

Points of View

1. How could the principles of the Moraine Park School be applied in a public school, if at all? Would it be possible to educate a whole community into accepting the Moraine Park report-card? Would not almost any home be glad to have the school report on attitudes and traits, if these could be adequately exercised and tested in school life?

2. Compare the Moraine Park plan with the Dalton plan. (Cf. Helen H. Parkhurst, Education on the Dalton Plan, New York, E. P. Dutton and Co., 1922.)

3. Is it necessary to adopt the "ten occupations" in order to conduct a school on the general scheme of the Moraine Park School?

4. Does it seem possible or desirable to give up the traditional school subjects altogether?

A NEW MOVEMENT IN EDUCATION

STANWOOD COBB

I

A TRUTH to which humanity seems ever blind is this that everything that is born must die; and that institutions, being part of the ephemera, are also subject to the law of change and death, giving place to new and ever-rising forms, which prove more adequate to express the eternally progressive spirit of man.

It is hard to believe this truth, because nothing seems so substantial and lasting as a great institution, established upon ideas and practices that have enlisted the acceptance and faith and activities of countless men and women, moving on beyond human life and death, and receiving anew the devotion of successive generations. It seems to stand immune to change, to be above mortality.

Such is the apparent stability of our great public-school system. Yet at the very meridian of one star's success, another star is always dawning on the horizon. At the moment of the greatest power and prestige of an established institution, a new and revolutionary institution is rising so small, so insignificant as to seem unworthy of attention, yet destined perhaps to outrival and eventually displace the old. Might one suspect that the very maturity and perfection of organization of our present school system is a presage of overripeness?

Yet, in spite of age, an institution will survive and maintain its prestige so long as it proves satisfactory. It

is only in an atmosphere of discontent that revolutions are born. If all parents were contented with the present educational system, no one could, with any confidence, announce a revolutionary change. It is, however, just because of a discontent almost universal on the part of the most cultured and intelligent parents that one may prophesy a revolution - or perhaps an evolution — in our educational ideals and methods. Just what line that evolution may follow is open to discussion. To parents of the class above mentioned, educational malcontents, parents who dare rebel against the long hours of physical, mental, and emotional suppression of their children within the public schools, this article would point the way to the education of the future as conceived by numerous educators and parents of this country — a type of education to which the name "progressive" has been given.1

This movement has already been evolving for half a generation. As in the case of many inventions and scientific discoveries, different innovators have been independently working out the principles which may now be brought together, and are so being brought together, in successful practice. New schools of this progressive type are springing up in different cities. More and more parents are coming to demand this education for their children. And young and unheralded as this movement is, it is presented to those who are anxious for a change in education as a possible David for their Goliath.

The primary demand of progressive education is more freedom for the child. Thus it is an expression in education of that innate desire which has already so strongly

1 The term "progressive," as applied to a special and definite type of education, was first used a few years ago, in Washington, D.C., by a group of people then organizing the "Progressive Education Association" — an association which is bringing together educators working along certain new lines, and laymen interested in this kind of education.

expressed itself in the world of intellect, of government, and of religion, and which is fast invading other fields of human activity. Freedom without license is the right of every man and woman. It is the discovery of the progressive educator that it is the right of every child — a right that can safely be granted.

As the physical is that side of our nature which is most fundamental, and the first in order of development, progressive education believes in giving the child freedom of movement. In a progressive school there are no fixed desks. All the furniture is movable. To form a class, the children draw up their chairs or movable desks around the teacher. In mild weather the class may be bodily transferred out-of-doors, desks and all, with no loss of efficiency; for habit has bred in those accustomed to freedom the ability to exercise it without excitement or waste of time and attention.

Not only are the seats comfortable and easily adjusted to the pupil's desire, but the child, in most progressive schools, is free to get up and leave the class if it becomes too irksome. Not that this privilege is often used; but it is there and if a pupil is restless and unable to give attention, the teacher might even suggest that some form of activity, such as work at the carpentry bench or a run out-of-doors, would be advisable.

This physical freedom may seem a slight thing; but the lack of it is irksome to a growing child, and is responsible for many neuroses that the teacher in a formal school is obliged to call misbehavior. Ole Bull, when a schoolboy, sometimes became so physically nervous that he would jump out of the window and run away. Such a situation should be impossible. Schools of the progressive type have been conducted long enough now to prove that the average amount, or even more, of the a b c's can be acquired in a school of physical freedom, on account of