useful ideals. As found in practice to-day, liberal education directs its efforts toward mastery of certain subjects; these are certainly only means to further ends, which are not yet defined or rest largely on a basis of tradition and mysticism. But modern education should prove equal to the task of discovering and formulating, as educational ends, a large variety of interests, forms of appreciation, and powers of utilization, all having worth to the individual and to society. Having found valid and attainable aims, it could then develop ways and means of realizing them. A few examples may indicate what is here meant. In the study of music, proficiency in execution can be attained by but few; but fine appreciation should be possible to many. Might not a programme of musicteaching in secondary schools be devised with the latter end only in view? It is doubtful if we yet have any tested methods for this purpose; but these would follow a definition of such purpose. Again, suppose it were made a controlling end of certain civic education in the high school to produce a fairly definite attitude toward, and comprehension of, the problems of the joint employment of public servants: namely, voting. What kind of pedagogic programme could be devised to that end? To take another example, what could a college do if it sought to evoke by educational means, not the scientific attitude in general, which is at best a questionable possibility, but a constructively scientific attitude toward the modern reporting and publication of alleged news? Or if a high school were to seek to elevate the consuming capacities of its students in the field of the drama, would its faculty provide for an analytical study of Shakespearean plays, or would it strive to evoke fairly good results through amateur playwrights and actors from within the student body itself? Again, how shall we give to the youth who is to be a future householder taste in the choice of material surroundings - by the study of formal drawing and physics, or by the exercise of the constructive interests of the amateur furniture-maker and interior decorator, the work of the manual training shops? IV The second condition governing the formulation of a more vital programme of liberal education, as defined above, would seem to require a lessening of the aloofness of such education, as now carried on. An ancient type of spiritual-mindedness was clearly characterized by its contempt for worldly things, its insistence on the allimportance of things beyond this earth; our so-called liberal education preserves even yet some cloistral aspects, in its distrust of worldly things, its shrinking from too close contact with actualities of the present. Perhaps this attitude was desirable when culture of any considerable degree was necessarily the product, as well as the possession, of an exclusive and leisure class; and just as the modern world is richer, in all probability, for the monastic detachment of the churches which permitted the ripening of certain social tendencies, so possibly an exclusive ancient culture has fertilized modern life. But what is here called liberal education ought not only to be democratic and popular; it is, in forms good or bad, actually that to-day. The school may ignore its responsibilities; other less disinterested agencies will continue actively at work. All people in modern society are being subjected to neverceasing influences which debase or improve their consuming capacities. A system of liberal education which maintains old traditions of intellectual or social aloofness cannot serve well under modern conditions. Our academic studies are, on this ground, open to criticism. Many of them are organized and presented too much with reference to their "pure" aspects — that is, without regard to their applications in contemporary life and activity. As a consequence, they fail to function in life, social and individual, as it is now lived; that is, the results in terms of ideals and knowledge in action, namely, in "works," are not realized. Can we not devise a system of liberal education which shall find its foundations in the best things of the here and now? Literature and art are all about us; science and faith offer their daily contributions; history is in the making to-day; industry pours forth its wares; and children, no less than adults, are sharing in the dynamic activities of contemporary social life. Not in the things of the past, but in those of the present, should liberal education find its beginnings as well as its results. Fortified by the resources, interest, and insight thus obtained, it can be made to embrace areas of culture and power which are relatively remote and abstract. Cannot our teachers of the liberal arts, while holding their high ideals and conserving their refined interests and tastes, yet keep themselves in vital contact with the world of people and of things in which their real work is to be accomplished? Is any other course open to the supporters of a liberal education which shall meet modern requirements of pedagogy on the one hand and of democratic society on the other? WHAT OF LIBERAL EDUCATION? IN the modern restatement of educational objectives a large share of leadership belongs to Dr. David Snedden. He was the Commissioner of Education for Massachusetts from 1909 to 1916, since when he has been professor of educational sociology at Teachers College, Columbia University. Dr. Snedden has written many books and magazine articles dealing with educational principles and problems. Points of View 1. DR. SNEDDEN wrote this paper over ten years ago. What progress have we made since then in defining our aims, improving our methods, and reorganizing our curricula? How can there be dissatisfaction with liberal education in view of the constantly increasing enrollment in high schools and colleges? 2. Can the values of liberal education be defined altogether in terms of consumption? Is a liberally educated person likely to be a better producer? In what ways? By producing more goods, or better goods, or by trying to produce his goods and distribute them in ways that will increase the general welfare? 3. Dr. Snedden deals more definitely with the problem of organizing our programme of studies in the schools than does Mr. Yeomans. What set of subjects, both required and elective, might conceivably result in educating a generation of high school graduates so that they would have command of the English language, a general notion of the problems of the race, an orientation in time, and such discriminations as would make them better consumers? Would such a programme completely satisfy the ideals presented in the first two essays in this book? 4. How can extra-school agencies — playgrounds, libraries, museums, churches, and so on be made more truly educative? 5. In his recent book, Educational Sociology, Dr. Snedden suggests the following exercise: "Define areas of modern culture in which your appreciations, tastes, information, and interests give you the right to be treated as (a) well 'cultivated'; (b) moderately cultivated'; (c) slightly 'cultivated.' Break up the fields of literature, science, art, food, furnishings, geography, and expert services, into particular areas for this purpose.' If you attempt this exercise, you are likely to find that the areas in which you are most cultivated are those in which you have the strongest desire to be at least creative, even if not "productive" in the economic sense. EDUCATION: THE MASTERY OF THE ARTS OF LIFE ARTHUR E. MORGAN I THROUGHOUT the long ages during which education has been of the very essence of life, by endless selection and by the relentless test of time a natural educational method has emerged, which has a wonderful record of successful application under widely varying conditions. We are not sailing on an uncharted sea, for although innovators' have come and gone, their practices warping or thwarting the lives which have come under their influence, always the sound historic method has survived, being wrought ever more firmly into our lives. The other day I visited a school where this method is being used with success. It consists in the practice of the arts of life, sometimes with the assistance of the teacher, sometimes by the pupils working out points of technic with each other, when the teacher is not present. Occasionally the teacher will reprove or punish, most often because pupils have become too interested and boisterous for her comfort. Once I saw her bring a new problem to the class, and direct attention to its solution; but in the main the day's work is initiated and sustained by the interest of the pupils. We have here two of the fundamentals of sound education: that its method shall include and mainly consist of the practice of the arts of life, under the direction and inspiration of competent teachers; and that effort shall be initiated and maintained, not primarily |