Puslapio vaizdai
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and responsibilities. Habits should be acquired of effective expression of considerateness and goodwill, and of the elimination of social friction through the medium of courtesy, good manners, and good form, this 'good form' to consist of consummate skill in living the Golden Rule, not of proficiency in the mannerisms of an exclusive social class.

Independence, originality, and initiative are mighty factors in human progress, but they find little opportunity for development in obedient poring over the prescribed daily lesson in the classroom. In many individual cases these high qualities actually survive eight or twelve years of routine plodding in our conventional schools - eloquent testimony as to how nearly ineradicable they are. The spirit of adventure, so nearly universal in youth, commonly is thwarted at every turn. Yet this is one of its finest gifts; when it has gone, life's greatest promise is past. An educational system should nurture and direct this spirit, bringing it to expression in a daring to aim at high standards, in adventures into new fields of action, thought, and knowledge; in a desire for the hard, strenuous things which temper and stabilize character. The sporting instinct of youth demands these difficult tasks, and life is stale when they cannot be found.

While youth has these fine qualities so strongly rooted, it frequently lacks the wisdom or outlook to define the objects of its enthusiasms, and commonly adopts those of surrounding groups or individuals. To the father or teacher these qualities are treasures handed over to his keeping, for him to direct toward whatever ends he will. If he fails to direct them at all, or endeavors to suppress them because they do not fit a routine programme, they find objects for themselves, often on

those low planes which commonplace life everywhere suggests.

III

In the end it is the mastery of all these arts of life, and not Greek and Latin, algebra and geometry, that is education. As we bear this fact clearly in mind, the relative importance of subjects begins to change, to become greater or less, as they contribute to the final result. To-day American education is breaking free from its impediments, and is groping its way back to the ages-old method of learning by practicing the arts of life.

The following description is of incidents that have come within my experience, all during the last few months, though not all in the same school. They do not portray a system, but only casual intimations of a new day.

In a certain primary school I found many of the little children keeping chickens and selling eggs. With eggs selling for fifty cents a dozen, even the younger children had learned all the common divisions of fifty. As they had not yet mastered the intricacies of pounds and bushels, the youngest bought feed in small quantities, a few cents' worth at a time. The older children, who were able to calculate the cost, took the part of dealers. A boy of high-school age was wholesaler, buying feed by the ton for all chickens and cattle, and selling it in lots of twenty pounds or less. They built playhouses, made and decorated holiday dresses, and made crude pottery. Definite comparison of these children with children in conventional schools indicated, not only superior development of hand and eye and better developed initiative, but also that they were further advanced in the subject-matter of the conventional school. At a bank administered by pupils in the school

building, checks were cashed in payment for purchases and for labor or other services. Every pupil had money on deposit. Standard accounting methods were used, and a daily balance was kept of each pupil's account.

During the past winter the main school building, formerly used as a hotel, had burned down. In erecting the new building the boys of high school age had done about sixty per cent of the work outside of school hours, this labor having a value of about fifteen thousand dollars. In printing, in editing the school newspaper, and in gardening, the same enterprise was apparent.

Some of the day pupils, who are children of foreign laborers and soon will drop out of school, receive credit for progress in the manner of making beds, caring for baby, and sweeping the house. Under the teaching of a competent doctor and a nurse, the girls take care of babies in various families in the town, this work being designated as mother-craft. Arrangements are made for the boys and girls to be guests of educated people of moderate means, getting glimpses of refined living conditions. These people have not forgotten that to the immigrant child the interior of a well-to-do American home is as unfamiliar as a Chinese temple.

The headmaster and his wife live on the campus in a carefully furnished house. Pupils who are to meet the master find him there in the 'livingroom before a fireplace, and for the time being are his guests. A class in domestic science was combined with one in commercial arithmetic. In groups of two the young people of highschool age chose building lots in various parts of the city, made deals for purchasing the lots, worked out problems of taxes and special assessments as applied to them, determining the

apportioning of taxes among such, interests as education, police protection, and sanitation, and then planned houses to be built on them. The domestic science teacher helped in planning the arrangement and in furnishing the rooms.

On looking into the classwork I found a great variety of progress. In grammar-school subjects, such as arithmetic, spelling, and grammar, each pupil progressed as his own abilities determined. Pupils who had done good work were 'on self-reliance.' Stopping one boy at his work, I asked him what that meant, and he replied, "You see, when you are on self-reliance you can do as you please. I had graduated from the seventh grade in history and geography, but I was only in the sixth grade in arithmetic. Now that I am on self-reliance, I can spend all the time I want to on arithmetic, and can catch up.'

In a class which seemed proof against any interest in literature two boys who were caring for the cows asked if they might, as their work in English, read government bulletins on Holstein cattle. Starting with this, their attention was attracted to parts which might have been written better. Comparison was made with the style of classic authors, stories of keen interest to boys being taken as examples, and before the season was half over they found themselves reading good literature with the beginnings of appreciation. I found much reading of good books, and much effort at original composition.

All this and much more I have seen during recent months. In many schools over the United States one meets flashes of sanity as expressed in devices for modernizing school methods and aims, and these are now leading to an orderly presentation of fundamental principles. Life's activities, whether

social, industrial, creative, or cultural, are made up of a few great fundamental arts or occupations. Whether or not life as a whole is a success depends on whether or not these activities are pursued successfully. The aim of education is to prepare for and bring about their successful following. Certain acquirements, such as skill in reading, writing, and numbers, and the possession of the fundamental facts in any field of knowledge, constitute the tools of life without which men cannot function effectively. Every well-considered action and every sound deduction of reason must be dependent upon the possession of skill and knowledge, or, to use a more formal expression, upon the possession of the necessary technic and of the pertinent data. This underlying preparation must be secured, if not by interesting adventures, then by patient drill and drudgery. Yet we should value such accomplishment somewhat as we do money, considering it not as valuable in itself, but as an almost indispensable medium of accomplishment.

Just as money when possessed for its own sake is a burden, so any knowledge is a useless impediment, which cannot, when occasion offers, function in some normal activity or appreciation, or in some sound deduction. The educational process should consist, not primarily in gaining this information, but in the practice of the arts or occupations of life. Obviously, then, the school must enable the arts of life to be practiced. It should furnish the inspiration and the occasion for each child to undertake adventures in which he is or can be interested, and by means of which he will acquire some of the necessary habits, skill, knowledge, and initiative which will fit him to live. It should be the business of the teacher so to inspire the choice of projects or adventures and so to direct the work

that in the doing of it these qualities will be developed. A child might take for a project making a garden, building a boat, or preparing for college. Several pupils may Several pupils may work upon a groupproject; or they may have more than one at a time. Through the pupil's interest in such projects, related subject-matter will be introduced. The choice of an adventure is of prime importance only as it furnishes for a longer or shorter time the best instrumentality for the child's development.

Drill and routine cannot be eliminated and leave training normal or complete. But generally they can be given value in the pupil's estimation. Pupils learn most effectively and with the minimum loss of time if taught through, rather than in opposition to, their interests. Boys and girls do not always rebel against drudgery, — indeed, what could exceed in routine and drudgery pulling a sled up hill, over and over again, for half a day? - but they do object when it has no obvious connection with that which they value. If we find a final residuum of drill which cannot be made incidental to a project, such as drill in the rudiments of arithmetic or in spelling, we still can take away the deadliness of the drudgery if we will use the resources of human nature.

Recently the colored man who mows my lawn changed his basis from timework to piece-work. When I came to pay him at his old rate for work done in a surprisingly short time, he protested, 'Boss, I thought I was working by the job, and you know nobody works by the hour like he does by the job.' Few of us can work with keen zest at a task of endless repetition, where the degree of excellence of the work done has no bearing on the compensation. Only a fool would enjoy spending his life in sweeping back the tide. Sane men- and sane boys

demand results commensurate with the investment. We give a boy his spelling lesson, an hour a day, month after month and year after year. He knows that no excellence of service will relieve that drudgery, and he has not the experience or capacity necessary for a vital appreciation of final profit in the far-off years. Suppose that, in case we must teach spelling by the book, we give him a list of a hundred or two hundred words which he must master during the month, and tell him that, when they are learned, his spelling period during the remainder of the month will be free for his own pleasures, or for work he likes? So can even the residuum of drudgery be made lighter, and the keenness of life maintained.

In the school of the future the mastery of the arts or occupations of life will be the end and aim of education. The method of education will be the

practice of those arts. Subject-matter and technic will furnish the tools needed in acquiring and exercising this mastery. Projects will furnish the occasion to awaken and maintain the interest and the incentive for effort in acquiring subject-matter and technic, and in practicing the occupations of life. By recognizing the inherent spontaneity of the interests and aspirations of childhood, the greatest of educational assets will be commanded. The school of the future will be protean. It will overflow into all parts of the community, utilizing farm, home, factory, store, and office. There will be time for team-work, for group-play, for class-work, but much of the time will be spent singly or in groups, with the teachers' guidance, in working out the project, with its ramifications into literature, mathematics, science, history, physical labor, and business dealings.

ONE OF THEM. III

BY ELIZABETH HASANOVITZ

I

Now, as I had to look for another job, I made up my mind to get a place in a union shop only. Since the year 1900, the Union, consisting of a few members, had tried very earnestly to organize the workers and uplift the trade. The strikes that had been called had never been very successful because only a minority of the workers had responded. The heroic struggle of the few resulted in long weeks of starvation among the strikers, broken heads,

arrests of pickets by brutal policemen, and workhouse sentences given by judges to young girls who tried to better their condition to save themselves from turning to the 'White Way' for their bread and butter.

For years, these few heroic, intelligent workers had fearlessly carried on the agitation for conditions that would make possible a more human life among their ranks. Until at last, in 1912, the great big mass of down-trodden workers raised their heads and responded to the bell-ringing that had been calling

them for years, and began preparations for a big demonstration during the coming year.

The Manufacturers' Association in the dress- and waist-industry was the controlling element in that trade. For two months previous to the strike, the association, realizing the widespread agitation and foreseeing a strike as the result of the growing strength of the Union, feared to repeat the experience of past strikes. The protocol agreement adopted by the cloak industry in 1910, made the members desirous of having a similar agreement. As early as November, 1912, the Manufacturers' Association began to confer with the Waist- and Dress-Makers' Union concerning an agreement that would prevent strikes in future. On January 18, 1913, a protocol agreement was consummated between the Manufacturers' Association and the Union. It aimed to enlist both parties in an effort to raise the conditions and to obtain the equalization of standards throughout the industry by peaceful and honorable means. They agreed to create a joint board of sanitary control, to ensure sanitary conditions in the factory, sufficient light and ventilation, safety from fire and overcrowding members; a board of grievances-five members representing the Union and five the manufacturers to adjust disputes and determine controversies; and a board of arbitration to settle all disputes that the board of grievances were unable to settle. They agreed that no strike or lockout should take place until these two boards had had an opportunity to try to adjust matters between the disputants.

A wage-scale board was provided, on which both the manufacturers and the Union were represented, to standardize the prices to be paid for pieceand week-work. The board was to preserve data and statistics, with the hope

of establishing a scientific basis for the fixing of prices of week- and piece-work throughout the industry, which would ensure a minimum wage and at the same time permit reward for increased efficiency. That board was empowered to make an immediate and thorough investigation into the existing rates paid for labor, the earnings of the operators, and the classification of garments in the industry.

Subcontracting was to be abolished. The term subcontracting is used when one skilled worker in a shop has under his control from one to ten unskilled workers. He is responsible for the work and is paid for all of it, paying to his helpers what he deems necessary. Subcontracting was very ruinous to the industry as far as the workers are concerned; as the subcontractor's earnings depend on the output of his assistants, he tries to make as much as he can. The labor of a garment was extensively subdivided; each worker in the set was given only one part of the garment to make, so that she quickly specialized in that part and increased her speed. But the subdivision of the work gave no chance to the worker to learn the whole trade sufficiently to change her place for a better one; thus they were always dependent on the man for whom they worked, receiving from him from three to six dollars a week. The speed with which he drove them injured their health. They were also the cause of lowering the prices for the individual skilled workers.

A minimum wage for week-workers was fixed.

Operators were to be paid by the piece; they were given an increase, so that no average operator would earn less than thirty cents an hour on piecework. The standard price per hour was to be finally fixed after investigations by the wage-scale board in the following six months.

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