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Title: Moral Principles in Educa;on

Author: John Dewey

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Riverside Educa;onal Monographs

EDITED BY HENRY SUZZALLO
SOMETIME PROFESSOR OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION TEACHERS COLLEGE,
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, AND PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
MORAL PRINCIPLES IN EDUCATION
BY
JOHN DEWEY
PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON · NEW YORK · CHICAGO · DALLAS
SAN FRANCISCO
The Riverside Press Cambridge
COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY JOHN DEWEY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
The author has drawn freely upon his essay on Ethical Principles Underlying Educa4on,
published in the Third Year-Book of The Na;onal Herbart Society for the Study of
Educa;on. He is indebted to the Society for permission to use this material.
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
CONTENTS
• Introduc;on
I. The Moral Purpose of the School
II. The Moral Training Given by the School Community
III. The Moral Training from Methods of Instruc;on
IV. The Social Nature of the Course of Study
V. The Psychological Aspect of Moral Educa;on
• Outline

INTRODUCTION
Contents
Educa4on as a public business
It is one of the complaints of the schoolmaster that the public does not defer to his
professional opinion as completely as it does to that of prac;;oners in other professions.
At first sight it might seem as though this indicated a defect either in the public or in the
profession; and yet a wider view of the situa;on would suggest that such a conclusion is
not a necessary one. The rela;ons of educa;on to the public are different from those of
any other professional work. Educa;on is a public business with us, in a sense that the
protec;on and restora;on of personal health or legal rights are not. To an extent
characteris;c of no other ins;tu;on, save that of the state itself, the school has power to
modify the social order. And under our poli;cal system, it is the right of each individual to
have a voice in the making of social policies as, indeed, he has a vote in the determina;on
of poli;cal affairs. If this be true, educa;on is primarily a public business, and only
secondarily a specialized voca;on. The layman, then, will always have his right to some
u^erance on the opera;on of the public schools.
Educa4on as expert service
I have said “some u^erance,” but not “all”; for school-mastering has its own special
mysteries, its own knowledge and skill into which the untrained layman cannot penetrate.
We are just beginning to recognize that the school and the government have a common
problem in this respect. Educa;on and poli;cs are two func;ons fundamentally controlled
by public opinion. Yet the conspicuous lack of efficiency and economy in the school and in
the state has quickened our recogni;on of a larger need for expert service. But just where
shall public opinion justly express itself, and what shall properly be lem to expert
judgment?
The rela4ons of expert opinion and public opinion
In so far as broad policies and ul;mate ends affec;ng the welfare of all are to be
determined, the public may well claim its right to se^le issues by the vote or voice of
majori;es. But the selec;on and prosecu;on of the detailed ways and means by which the
public will is to be executed efficiently must remain largely a ma^er of specialized and
expert service. To the superior knowledge and technique required here, the public may
well defer.
In the conduct of the schools, it is well for the ci;zens to determine the ends proper to
them, and it is their privilege to judge of the efficacy of results. Upon ques;ons that
concern all the manifold details by which children are to be converted into desirable types
of men and women, the expert schoolmaster should be authorita;ve, at least to a degree
commensurate with his superior knowledge of this very complex problem. The
administra;on of the schools, the making of the course of study, the selec;on of texts, the
prescrip;on of methods of teaching, these are ma^ers with which the people, or their
representa;ves upon boards of educa;on, cannot deal save with danger of becoming
mere meddlers.
The discussion of moral educa4on an illustra4on of mistaken views of laymen
Nowhere is the validity of this dis;nc;on between educa;on as a public business and
educa;on as an expert professional service brought out more clearly than in an analysis of
the public discussion of the moral work of the school. How frequently of late have those
unacquainted with the special nature of the school proclaimed the moral ends of
educa;on and at the same ;me demanded direct ethical instruc;on as the par;cular
method by which they were to be realized! This, too, in spite of the fact that those who
know best the powers and limita;ons of instruc;on as an instrument have repeatedly
pointed out the fu;lity of assuming that knowledge of right cons;tutes a guarantee of
right doing. How common it is for those who assert that educa;on is for social efficiency to
assume that the school should return to the barren discipline of the tradi;onal formal
subjects, reading, wri;ng, and the rest! This, too, regardless of the fact that it has taken a
century of educa;onal evolu;on to make the course of study varied and rich enough to
call for those impulses and ac;vi;es of social life which need training in the child. And how
many who speak glowingly of the large services of the public schools to a democracy of
free and self-reliant men affect a cynical and even vehement opposi;on to the “self-
government of schools”! These would not have the children learn to govern themselves
and one another, but would have the masters rule them, ignoring the fact that this
common prac;ce in childhood may be a founda;on for that evil condi;on in adult society
where the ci;zens are arbitrarily ruled by poli;cal bosses.
One need not cite further cases of the incompetence of the lay public to deal with
technical ques;ons of school methods. Instances are plen;ful to show that well-meaning
people, competent enough to judge of the aims and results of school work, make a
mistake in insis;ng upon the preroga;ve of direc;ng the technical aspects of educa;on
with a dogma;sm that would not characterize their statements regarding any other special
field of knowledge or ac;on.
A fundamental understanding of moral principles in educa4on
Nothing can be more useful than for the public and the teaching profession to understand
their respec;ve func;ons. The teacher needs to understand public opinion and the social
order, as much as the public needs to comprehend the nature of expert educa;onal
service. It will take ;me to draw the boundary lines that will be conducive to respect,
restraint, and efficiency in those concerned; but a beginning can be made upon
fundamental ma^ers, and nothing so touches the founda;ons of our educa;onal thought
as a discussion of the moral principles in educa;on.
It is our pleasure to present a treatment of them by a thinker whose vital influence upon
the reform of school methods is greater than that of any of his contemporaries. In his
discussion of the social and psychological factors in moral educa;on, there is much that
will suggest what social opinion should determine, and much that will indicate what must
be lem to the trained teacher and school official.
THE MORAL PURPOSE OF THE SCHOOL
I
THE MORAL PURPOSE OF THE SCHOOL
Contents
An English contemporary philosopher has called a^en;on to the difference between moral
ideas and ideas about morality. “Moral ideas” are ideas of any sort whatsoever which take
effect in conduct and improve it, make it be^er than it otherwise would be. Similarly, one
may say, immoral ideas are ideas of whatever sort (whether arithme;cal or geographical
or physiological) which show themselves in making behavior worse than it would
otherwise be; and non-moral ideas, one may say, are such ideas and pieces of informa;on
as leave conduct uninfluenced for either the be^er or the worse. Now “ideas about
morality” may be morally indifferent or immoral or moral. There is nothing in the nature of
ideas about morality, of informa;on about honesty or purity or kindness which
automa;cally transmutes such ideas into good character or good conduct.
This dis;nc;on between moral ideas, ideas of any sort whatsoever that have become a
part of character and hence a part of the working mo;ves of behavior, and
ideas about moral ac;on that may remain as inert and ineffec;ve as if they were so much
knowledge about Egyp;an archæology, is fundamental to the discussion of moral
educa;on. The business of the educator—whether parent or teacher—is to see to it that
the greatest possible number of ideas acquired by children and youth are acquired in such
a vital way that they become moving ideas, mo;ve-forces in the guidance of conduct. This
demand and this opportunity make the moral purpose universal and dominant in all
instruc;on—whatsoever the topic. Were it not for this possibility, the familiar statement
that the ul;mate purpose of all educa;on is character-forming would be hypocri;cal
pretense; for as every one knows, the direct and immediate a^en;on of teachers and
pupils must be, for the greater part of the ;me, upon intellectual ma^ers. It is out of the
ques;on to keep direct moral considera;ons constantly uppermost. But it is not out of the
ques;on to aim at making the methods of learning, of acquiring intellectual power, and of
assimila;ng subject-ma^er, such that they will render behavior more enlightened, more
consistent, more vigorous than it otherwise would be.
The same dis;nc;on between “moral ideas” and “ideas about morality” explains for us a
source of con;nual misunderstanding between teachers in the schools and cri;cs of
educa;on outside of the schools. The la^er look through the school programmes, the
school courses of study, and do not find any place set apart for instruc;on in ethics or for
“moral teaching.” Then they assert that the schools are doing nothing, or next to nothing,
for character-training; they become empha;c, even vehement, about the moral
deficiencies of public educa;on. The schoolteachers, on the other hand, resent these
cri;cisms as an injus;ce, and hold not only that they do “teach morals,” but that they
teach them every moment of the day, five days in the week. In this conten;on the
teachers in principle are in the right; if they are in the wrong, it is not because special
periods are not set aside for what amer all can only be teaching about morals, but because
their own characters, or their school atmosphere and ideals, or their methods of teaching,
or the subject-ma^er which they teach, are not such in detail as to bring intellectual
results into vital union with character so that they become working forces in behavior.
Without discussing, therefore, the limits or the value of so-called direct moral instruc;on
(or, be^er, instruc;on about morals), it may be laid down as fundamental that the
influence of direct moral instruc;on, even at its very best, is compara4vely small in
amount and slight in influence, when the whole field of moral growth through educa;on is
taken into account. This larger field of indirect and vital moral educa;on, the development
of character through all the agencies, instrumentali;es, and materials of school life is,
therefore, the subject of our present discussion.
THE MORAL TRAINING GIVEN BY THE SCHOOL COMMUNITY
II
THE MORAL TRAINING GIVEN BY THE SCHOOL COMMUNITY
Contents
There cannot be two sets of ethical principles, one for life in the school, and the other for
life outside of the school. As conduct is one, so also the principles of conduct are one. The
tendency to discuss the morals of the school as if the school were an ins;tu;on by itself is
highly unfortunate. The moral responsibility of the school, and of those who conduct it, is
to society. The school is fundamentally an ins;tu;on erected by society to do a certain
specific work,—to exercise a certain specific func;on in maintaining the life and advancing
the welfare of society. The educa;onal system which does not recognize that this fact
entails upon it an ethical responsibility is derelict and a defaulter. It is not doing what it
was called into existence to do, and what it pretends to do. Hence the en;re structure of
the school in general and its concrete workings in par;cular need to be considered from
;me to ;me with reference to the social posi;on and func;on of the school.
The idea that the moral work and worth of the public school system as a whole are to be
measured by its social value is, indeed, a familiar no;on. However, it is frequently taken in
too limited and rigid a way. The social work of the school is omen limited to training for
ci;zenship, and ci;zenship is then interpreted in a narrow sense as meaning capacity to
vote intelligently, disposi;on to obey laws, etc. But it is fu;le to contract and cramp the
ethical responsibility of the school in this way. The child is one, and he must either live his
social life as an integral unified being, or suffer loss and create fric;on. To pick out one of
the many social rela;ons which the child bears, and to define the work of the school by
that alone, is like ins;tu;ng a vast and complicated system of physical exercise which
would have for its object simply the development of the lungs and the power of breathing,
independent of other organs and func;ons. The child is an organic whole, intellectually,
socially, and morally, as well as physically. We must take the child as a member of society
in the broadest sense, and demand for and from the schools whatever is necessary to
enable the child intelligently to recognize all his social rela;ons and take his part in
sustaining them.
To isolate the formal rela;onship of ci;zenship from the whole system of rela;ons with
which it is actually interwoven; to suppose that there is some one par;cular study or
mode of treatment which can make the child a good ci;zen; to suppose, in other words,
that a good ci;zen is anything more than a thoroughly efficient and serviceable member of
society, one with all his powers of body and mind under control, is a hampering
supers;;on which it is hoped may soon disappear from educa;onal discussion.
The child is to be not only a voter and a subject of law; he is also to be a member of a
family, himself in turn responsible, in all probability, for rearing and training of future
children, thereby maintaining the con;nuity of society. He is to be a worker, engaged in
some occupa;on which will be of use to society, and which will maintain his own
independence and self-respect. He is to be a member of some par;cular neighborhood
and community, and must contribute to the values of life, add to the decencies and graces
of civiliza;on wherever he is. These are bare and formal statements, but if we let our
imagina;on translate them into their concrete details, we have a wide and varied scene.
For the child properly to take his place in reference to these various func;ons means
training in science, in art, in history; means command of the fundamental methods of
inquiry and the fundamental tools of intercourse and communica;on; means a trained and
sound body, skillful eye and hand; means habits of industry, perseverance; in short, habits
of serviceableness.
Moreover, the society of which the child is to be a member is, in the United States, a
democra;c and progressive society. The child must be educated for leadership as well as
for obedience. He must have power of self-direc;on and power of direc;ng others, power
of administra;on, ability to assume posi;ons of responsibility. This necessity of educa;ng
for leadership is as great on the industrial as on the poli;cal side.
New inven;ons, new machines, new methods of transporta;on and intercourse are
making over the whole scene of ac;on year by year. It is an absolute impossibility to
educate the child for any fixed sta;on in life. So far as educa;on is conducted
unconsciously or consciously on this basis, it results in fiung the future ci;zen for no
sta;on in life, but makes him a drone, a hanger-on, or an actual retarding influence in the
onward movement. Instead of caring for himself and for others, he becomes one who has
himself to be cared for. Here, too, the ethical responsibility of the school on the social side
must be interpreted in the broadest and freest spirit; it is equivalent to that training of the
child which will give him such possession of himself that he may take charge of himself;
may not only adapt himself to the changes that are going on, but have power to shape and
direct them.
Apart from par;cipa;on in social life, the school has no moral end nor aim. As long as we
confine ourselves to the school as an isolated ins;tu;on, we have no direc;ng principles,
because we have no object. For example, the end of educa;on is said to be the
harmonious development of all the powers of the individual. Here no reference to social
life or membership is apparent, and yet many think we have in it an adequate and
thoroughgoing defini;on of the goal of educa;on. But if this defini;on be taken
independently of social rela;onship we have no way of telling what is meant by any one of
the terms employed. We do not know what a power is; we do not know what
development is; we do not know what harmony is. A power is a power only with reference
to the use to which it is put, the func;on it has to serve. If we leave out the uses supplied
by social life we have nothing but the old “faculty psychology” to tell what is meant by
power and what the specific powers are. The principle reduces itself to enumera;ng a lot
of facul;es like percep;on, memory, reasoning, etc., and then sta;ng that each one of
these powers needs to be developed.
Educa;on then becomes a gymnas;c exercise. Acute powers of observa;on and memory
might be developed by studying Chinese characters; acuteness in reasoning might be got
by discussing the scholas;c subtle;es of the Middle Ages. The simple fact is that there is
no isolated faculty of observa;on, or memory, or reasoning any more than there is an
original faculty of blacksmithing, carpentering, or steam engineering. Facul;es mean
simply that par;cular impulses and habits have been coördinated or framed with
reference to accomplishing certain definite kinds of work. We need to know the social
situa;ons in which the individual will have to use ability to observe, recollect, imagine, and
reason, in order to have any way of telling what a training of mental powers actually
means.
What holds in the illustra;on of this par;cular defini;on of educa;on holds good from
whatever point of view we approach the ma^er. Only as we interpret school ac;vi;es with
reference to the larger circle of social ac;vi;es to which they relate do we find any
standard for judging their moral significance.
The school itself must be a vital social ins;tu;on to a much greater extent than obtains at
present. I am told that there is a swimming school in a certain city where youth are taught
to swim without going into the water, being repeatedly drilled in the various movements
which are necessary for swimming. When one of the young men so trained was asked
what he did when he got into the water, he laconically replied, “Sunk.” The story happens
to be true; were it not, it would seem to be a fable made expressly for the purpose of
typifying the ethical rela;onship of school to society. The school cannot be a prepara;on
for social life excep;ng as it reproduces, within itself, typical condi;ons of social life. At
present it is largely engaged in the fu;le task of Sisyphus. It is endeavoring to form habits
in children for use in a social life which, it would almost seem, is carefully and purposely
kept away from vital contact with the child undergoing training. The only way to prepare
for social life is to engage in social life. To form habits of social usefulness and
serviceableness apart from any direct social need and mo;ve, apart from any exis;ng
social situa;on, is, to the le^er, teaching the child to swim by going through mo;ons
outside of the water. The most indispensable condi;on is lem out of account, and the
results are correspondingly par;al.
The much lamented separa;on in the schools of intellectual and moral training, of
acquiring informa;on and growing in character, is simply one expression of the failure to
conceive and construct the school as a social ins;tu;on, having social life and value within
itself. Except so far as the school is an embryonic typical community life, moral training
must be partly pathological and partly formal. Training is pathological when stress is laid
upon correc;ng wrong-doing instead of upon forming habits of posi;ve service. Too omen
the teacher’s concern with the moral life of pupils takes the form of alertness for failures
to conform to school rules and rou;ne. These regula;ons, judged from the standpoint of
the development of the child at the ;me, are more or less conven;onal and arbitrary. They
are rules which have to be made in order that the exis;ng modes of school work may go
on; but the lack of inherent necessity in these school modes reflects itself in a feeling, on
the part of the child, that the moral discipline of the school is arbitrary. Any condi;ons that
compel the teacher to take note of failures rather than of healthy growth give false
standards and result in distor;on and perversion. A^ending to wrong-doing ought to be an
incident rather than a principle. The child ought to have a posi;ve consciousness of what
he is about, so as to judge his acts from the standpoint of reference to the work which he
has to do. Only in this way does he have a vital standard, one that enables him to turn
failures to account for the future.
By saying that the moral training of the school is formal, I mean that the moral habits
currently emphasized by the school are habits which are created, as it were, ad hoc. Even
the habits of promptness, regularity, industry, non-interference with the work of others,
faithfulness to tasks imposed, which are specially inculcated in the school, are habits that
are necessary simply because the school system is what it is, and must be preserved intact.
If we grant the inviolability of the school system as it is, these habits represent permanent
and necessary moral ideas; but just in so far as the school system is itself isolated and
mechanical, insistence upon these moral habits is more or less unreal, because the ideal
to which they relate is not itself necessary. The du;es, in other words, are dis;nctly school
du;es, not life du;es. If we compare this condi;on with that of the well-ordered home,
we find that the du;es and responsibili;es that the child has there to recognize do not
belong to the family as a specialized and isolated ins;tu;on, but flow from the very nature
of the social life in which the family par;cipates and to which it contributes. The child
ought to have the same mo;ves for right doing and to be judged by the same standards in
the school, as the adult in the wider social life to which he belongs. Interest in community
welfare, an interest that is intellectual and prac;cal, as well as emo;onal—an interest,
that is to say, in perceiving whatever makes for social order and progress, and in carrying
these principles into execu;on—is the moral habit to which all the special school habits
must be related if they are to be animated by the breath of life.
THE MORAL TRAINING FROM METHODS OF INSTRUCTION
III
THE MORAL TRAINING FROM METHODS OF INSTRUCTION
Contents
The principle of the social character of the school as the basic factor in the moral
educa;on given may be also applied to the ques;on of methods of instruc;on,—not in
their details, but their general spirit. The emphasis then falls upon construc;on and giving
out, rather than upon absorp;on and mere learning. We fail to recognize how essen;ally
individualis;c the la^er methods are, and how unconsciously, yet certainly and effec;vely,
they react into the child’s ways of judging and of ac;ng. Imagine forty children all engaged
in reading the same books, and in preparing and reci;ng the same lessons day amer day.
Suppose this process cons;tutes by far the larger part of their work, and that they are
con;nually judged from the standpoint of what they are able to take in in a study hour and
reproduce in a recita;on hour. There is next to no opportunity for any social division of
labor. There is no opportunity for each child to work out something specifically his own,
which he may contribute to the common stock, while he, in turn, par;cipates in the
produc;ons of others. All are set to do exactly the same work and turn out the same
products. The social spirit is not cul;vated,—in fact, in so far as the purely individualis;c
method gets in its work, it atrophies for lack of use. One reason why reading aloud in
school is poor is that the real mo;ve for the use of language—the desire to communicate
and to learn—is not u;lized. The child knows perfectly well that the teacher and all his
fellow pupils have exactly the same facts and ideas before them that he has; he is
not giving them anything at all. And it may be ques;oned whether the moral lack is not as
great as the intellectual. The child is born with a natural desire to give out, to do, to serve.
When this tendency is not used, when condi;ons are such that other mo;ves are
subs;tuted, the accumula;on of an influence working against the social spirit is much
larger than we have any idea of,—especially when the burden of work, week amer week,
and year amer year, falls upon this side.
But lack of cul;va;on of the social spirit is not all. Posi;vely individualis;c mo;ves and
standards are inculcated. Some s;mulus must be found to keep the child at his studies. At
the best this will be his affec;on for his teacher, together with a feeling that he is not
viola;ng school rules, and thus nega;vely, if not posi;vely, is contribu;ng to the good of
the school. I have nothing to say against these mo;ves so far as they go, but they are
inadequate. The rela;on between the piece of work to be done and affec;on for a third
person is external, not intrinsic. It is therefore liable to break down whenever the external
condi;ons are changed. Moreover, this a^achment to a par;cular person, while in a way
social, may become so isolated and exclusive as to be selfish in quality. In any case, the
child should gradually grow out of this rela;vely external mo;ve into an apprecia;on, for
its own sake, of the social value of what he has to do, because of its larger rela;ons to life,
not pinned down to two or three persons.
But, unfortunately, the mo;ve is not always at this rela;ve best, but mixed with lower
mo;ves which are dis;nctly egois;c. Fear is a mo;ve which is almost sure to enter in,—
not necessarily physical fear, or fear of punishment, but fear of losing the approba;on of
others; or fear of failure, so extreme as to be morbid and paralyzing. On the other side,
emula;on and rivalry enter in. Just because all are doing the same work, and are judged
(either in recita;on or examina;on with reference to grading and to promo;on) not from
the standpoint of their personal contribu;on, but from that of compara4ve success, the
feeling of superiority over others is unduly appealed to, while ;mid children are
depressed. Children are judged with reference to their capacity to realize the same
external standard. The weaker gradually lose their sense of power, and accept a posi;on of
con;nuous and persistent inferiority. The effect upon both self-respect and respect for
work need not be dwelt upon. The strong learn to glory, not in their strength, but in the
fact that they are stronger. The child is prematurely launched into the region of
individualis;c compe;;on, and this in a direc;on where compe;;on is least applicable,
namely, in intellectual and ar;s;c ma^ers, whose law is coöpera;on and par;cipa;on.
Next, perhaps, to the evils of passive absorp;on and of compe;;on for external standing
come, perhaps, those which result from the eternal emphasis upon prepara;on for a
remote future. I do not refer here to the waste of energy and vitality that accrues when
children, who live so largely in the immediate present, are appealed to in the name of a
dim and uncertain future which means li^le or nothing to them. I have in mind rather the
habitual procras;na;on that develops when the mo;ve for work is future, not present;
and the false standards of judgment that are created when work is es;mated, not on the
basis of present need and present responsibility, but by reference to an external result, like
passing an examina;on, geung promoted, entering high school, geung into college, etc.
Who can reckon up the loss of moral power that arises from the constant impression that
nothing is worth doing in itself, but only as a prepara;on for something else, which in turn
is only a geung ready for some genuinely serious end beyond? Moreover, as a rule, it will
be found that remote success is an end which appeals most to those in whom egois;c
desire to get ahead—to get ahead of others—is already only too strong a mo;ve. Those in
whom personal ambi;on is already so strong that it paints glowing pictures of future
victories may be touched; others of a more generous nature do not respond.
I cannot stop to paint the other side. I can only say that the introduc;on of every method
that appeals to the child’s ac;ve powers, to his capaci;es in construc;on, produc;on, and
crea;on, marks an opportunity to shim the centre of ethical gravity from an absorp;on
which is selfish to a service which is social. Manual training is more than manual; it is more
than intellectual; in the hands of any good teacher it lends itself easily, and almost as a
ma^er of course, to development of social habits. Ever since the philosophy of Kant, it has
been a commonplace of æsthe;c theory, that art is universal; that it is not the product of
purely personal desire or appe;te, or capable of merely individual appropria;on, but has
a value par;cipated in by all who perceive it. Even in the schools where most conscious
a^en;on is paid to moral considera;ons, the methods of study and recita;on may be such
as to emphasize apprecia;on rather than power, an emo;onal readiness to assimilate the
experiences of others, rather than enlightened and trained capacity to carry forward those
values which in other condi;ons and past ;mes made those experiences worth having. At
all events, separa;on between instruc;on and character con;nues in our schools (in spite
of the efforts of individual teachers) as a result of divorce between learning and doing. The
a^empt to a^ach genuine moral effec;veness to the mere processes of learning, and to
the habits which go along with learning, can result only in a training infected with
formality, arbitrariness, and an undue emphasis upon failure to conform. That there is as
much accomplished as there is shows the possibili;es involved in methods of school
ac;vity which afford opportunity for reciprocity, coöpera;on, and posi;ve personal
achievement.
THE SOCIAL NATURE OF THE COURSE OF STUDY
IV
THE SOCIAL NATURE OF THE COURSE OF STUDY
Contents
In many respects, it is the subject-ma^er used in school life which decides both the
general atmosphere of the school and the methods of instruc;on and discipline which
rule. A barren “course of study,” that is to say, a meagre and narrow field of school
ac;vi;es, cannot possibly lend itself to the development of a vital social spirit or to
methods that appeal to sympathy and coöpera;on instead of to absorp;on, exclusiveness,
and compe;;on. Hence it becomes an all important ma^er to know how we shall apply
our social standard of moral value to the subject-ma^er of school work, to what we call,
tradi;onally, the “studies” that occupy pupils.
A study is to be considered as a means of bringing the child to realize the social scene of
ac4on. Thus considered it gives a criterion for selec;on of material and for judgment of
values. We have at present three independent values set up: one of culture, another of
informa;on, and another of discipline. In reality, these refer only to three phases of social
interpreta;on. Informa;on is genuine or educa;ve only in so far as it presents definite
images and concep;ons of materials placed in a context of social life. Discipline is
genuinely educa;ve only as it represents a reac;on of informa;on into the individual’s
own powers so that he brings them under control for social ends. Culture, if it is to be
genuinely educa;ve and not an external polish or fac;;ous varnish, represents the vital
union of informa;on and discipline. It marks the socializa;on of the individual in his
outlook upon life.
This point may be illustrated by brief reference to a few of the school studies. In the first
place, there is no line of demarka;on within facts themselves which classifies them as
belonging to science, history, or geography, respec;vely. The pigeon-hole classifica;on
which is so prevalent at present (fostered by introducing the pupil at the outset into a
number of different studies contained in different text-books) gives an u^erly
erroneous idea of the rela;ons of studies to one another and to the intellectual whole to
which all belong. In fact, these subjects have to do with the same ul;mate reality, namely,
the conscious experience of man. It is only because we have different interests, or
different ends, that we sort out the material and label part of it science, part of it history,
part geography, and so on. Each “sor;ng” represents materials arranged with reference to
some one dominant typical aim or process of the social life.
This social criterion is necessary, not only to mark off studies from one another, but also to
grasp the reasons for each study,—the mo;ves in connec;on with which it shall be
presented. How, for example, should we define geography? What is the unity in the
different so-called divisions of geography,—mathema;cal geography, physical geography,
poli;cal geography, commercial geography? Are they purely empirical classifica;ons
dependent upon the brute fact that we run across a lot of different facts? Or is there some
intrinsic principle through which the material is distributed under these various heads,—
something in the interest and autude of the human mind towards them? I should say that
geography has to do with all those aspects of social life which are concerned with the
interac;on of the life of man and nature; or, that it has to do with the world considered as
the scene of social interac;on. Any fact, then, will be geographical in so far as it has to do
with the dependence of man upon his natural environment, or with changes introduced in
this environment through the life of man.
The four forms of geography referred to above represent, then, four increasing stages of
abstrac;on in discussing the mutual rela;on of human life and nature. The beginning must
be social geography, the frank recogni;on of the earth as the home of men ac;ng in
rela;ons to one another. I mean by this that the essence of any geographical fact is the
consciousness of two persons, or two groups of persons, who are at once separated and
connected by their physical environment, and that the interest is in seeing how these
people are at once kept apart and brought together in their ac;ons by the instrumentality
of the physical environment. The ul;mate significance of lake, river, mountain, and plain is
not physical but social; it is the part which it plays in modifying and direc;ng human
rela;onships. This evidently involves an extension of the term commercial. It has to do not
simply with business, in the narrow sense, but with whatever relates to human intercourse
and intercommunica;on as affected by natural forms and proper;es. Poli;cal geography
represents this same social interac;on taken in a sta;c instead of in a dynamic way; taken,
that is, as temporarily crystallized and fixed in certain forms. Physical geography (including
under this not simply physiography, but also the study of flora and fauna) represents a
further analysis or abstrac;on. It studies the condi;ons which determine human ac;on,
leaving out of account, temporarily, the ways in which they concretely do this.
Mathema;cal geography carries the analysis back to more ul;mate and remote
condi;ons, showing that the physical condi;ons of the earth are not ul;mate, but depend
upon the place which the world occupies in a larger system. Here, in other words, are
traced, step by step, the links which connect the immediate social occupa;ons and
groupings of men with the whole natural system which ul;mately condi;ons them. Step
by step the scene is enlarged and the image of what enters into the make-up of social
ac;on is widened and broadened; at no ;me is the chain of connec;on to be broken.
It is out of the ques;on to take up the studies one by one and show that their meaning is
similarly controlled by social considera;ons. But I cannot forbear saying a word or two
upon history. History is vital or dead to the child according as it is, or is not, presented
from the sociological standpoint. When treated simply as a record of what has passed and
gone, it must be mechanical, because the past, as the past, is remote. Simply as the past
there is no mo;ve for a^ending to it. The ethical value of history teaching will be
measured by the extent to which past events are made the means of understanding the
present,—affording insight into what makes up the structure and working of society to-
day. Exis;ng social structure is exceedingly complex. It is prac;cally impossible for the child
to a^ack it en masse and get any definite mental image of it. But type phases of historical
development may be selected which will exhibit, as through a telescope, the essen;al
cons;tuents of the exis;ng order. Greece, for example, represents what art and growing
power of individual expression stand for; Rome exhibits the elements and forces of
poli;cal life on a tremendous scale. Or, as these civiliza;ons are themselves rela;vely
complex, a study of s;ll simpler forms of hun;ng, nomadic, and agricultural life in the
beginnings of civiliza;on, a study of the effects of the introduc;on of iron, and iron tools,
reduces the complexity to simpler elements.
One reason historical teaching is usually not more effec;ve is that the student is set to
acquire informa;on in such a way that no epochs or factors stand out in his mind as
typical; everything is reduced to the same dead level. The way to secure the necessary
perspec;ve is to treat the past as if it were a projected present with some of its elements
enlarged.
The principle of contrast is as important as that of similarity. Because the present life is
so close to us, touching us at every point, we cannot get away from it to see it as it really
is. Nothing stands out clearly or sharply as characteris;c. In the study of past periods,
a^en;on necessarily a^aches itself to striking differences. Thus the child gets a locus of
imagina;on, through which he can remove himself from the pressure of present
surrounding circumstances and define them.
History is equally available in teaching the methods of social progress. It is commonly
stated that history must be studied from the standpoint of cause and effect. The truth of
this statement depends upon its interpreta;on. Social life is so complex and the various
parts of it are so organically related to one another and to the natural environment, that it
is impossible to say that this or that thing is the cause of some other par;cular thing. But
the study of history can reveal the main instruments in the discoveries, inven;ons, new
modes of life, etc., which have ini;ated the great epochs of social advance; and it can
present to the child types of the main lines of social progress, and can set before him what
have been the chief difficul;es and obstruc;ons in the way of progress. Once more this
can be done only in so far as it is recognized that social forces in themselves are always the
same,—that the same kind of influences were at work one hundred and one thousand
years ago that are now working,—and that par;cular historical epochs afford illustra;on of
the way in which the fundamental forces work.
Everything depends, then, upon history being treated from a social standpoint; as
manifes;ng the agencies which have influenced social development and as presen;ng the
typical ins;tu;ons in which social life has expressed itself. The culture-epoch theory, while
working in the right direc;on, has failed to recognize the importance of trea;ng past
periods with rela;on to the present,—as affording insight into the representa;ve factors of
its structure; it has treated these periods too much as if they had some meaning or value
in themselves. The way in which the biographical method is handled illustrates the same
point. It is omen treated in such a way as to exclude from the child’s consciousness (or at
least not sufficiently to emphasize) the social forces and principles involved in the
associa;on of the masses of men. It is quite true that the child is easily interested in
history from the biographical standpoint; but unless “the hero” is treated in rela;on to the
community life behind him that he sums up and directs, there is danger that history will
reduce itself to a mere exci;ng story. Then moral instruc;on reduces itself to drawing
certain lessons from the life of the par;cular personali;es concerned, instead of widening
and deepening the child’s imagina;on of social rela;ons, ideals, and means.
It will be remembered that I am not making these points for their own sake, but with
reference to the general principle that when a study is taught as a mode of understanding
social life it has posi;ve ethical import. What the normal child con;nuously needs is not so
much isolated moral lessons upon the importance of truthfulness and honesty, or the
beneficent results that follow from a par;cular act of patrio;sm, as the forma;on of
habits of social imagina;on and concep;on.
I take one more illustra;on, namely, mathema;cs. This does, or does not, accomplish
its full purpose according as it is, or is not, presented as a social tool. The prevailing
divorce between informa;on and character, between knowledge and social ac;on, stalks
upon the scene here. The moment mathema;cal study is severed from the place which it
occupies with reference to use in social life, it becomes unduly abstract, even upon the
purely intellectual side. It is presented as a ma^er of technical rela;ons and formulæ apart
from any end or use. What the study of number suffers from in elementary educa;on is
lack of mo;va;on. Back of this and that and the other par;cular bad method is the radical
mistake of trea;ng number as if it were an end in itself, instead of the means of
accomplishing some end. Let the child get a consciousness of what is the use of number, of
what it really is for, and half the ba^le is won. Now this consciousness of the use of reason
implies some end which is implicitly social.
One of the absurd things in the more advanced study of arithme;c is the extent to which
the child is introduced to numerical opera;ons which have no dis;nc;ve mathema;cal
principles characterizing them, but which represent certain general principles found in
business rela;onships. To train the child in these opera;ons, while paying no a^en;on to
the business reali;es in which they are of use, or to the condi;ons of social life which
make these business ac;vi;es necessary, is neither arithme;c nor common sense. The
child is called upon to do examples in interest, partnership, banking, brokerage, and so on
through a long string, and no pains are taken to see that, in connec;on with the
arithme;c, he has any sense of the social reali;es involved. This part of arithme;c is
essen;ally sociological in its nature. It ought either to be omi^ed en;rely, or else be
taught in connec;on with a study of the relevant social reali;es. As we now manage the
study, it is the old case of learning to swim apart from the water over again, with
correspondingly bad results on the prac;cal side.
In concluding this por;on of the discussion, we may say that our concep;ons of moral
educa;on have been too narrow, too formal, and too pathological. We have associated the
term ethical with certain special acts which are labeled virtues and are set off from the
mass of other acts, and are s;ll more divorced from the habitual images and mo;ves of
the children performing them. Moral instruc;on is thus associated with teaching about
these par;cular virtues, or with ins;lling certain sen;ments in regard to them. The moral
has been conceived in too goody-goody a way. Ul;mate moral mo;ves and forces are
nothing more or less than social intelligence—the power of observing and comprehending
social situa;ons,—and social power—trained capaci;es of control—at work in the service
of social interest and aims. There is no fact which throws light upon the cons;tu;on of
society, there is no power whose training adds to social resourcefulness that is not moral.
I sum up, then, this part of the discussion by asking your a^en;on to the moral trinity of
the school. The demand is for social intelligence, social power, and social interests. Our
resources are (1) the life of the school as a social ins;tu;on in itself; (2) methods of
learning and of doing work; and (3) the school studies or curriculum. In so far as the school
represents, in its own spirit, a genuine community life; in so far as what are called school
discipline, government, order, etc., are the expressions of this inherent social spirit; in so
far as the methods used are those that appeal to the ac;ve and construc;ve powers,
permiung the child to give out and thus to serve; in so far as the curriculum is so selected
and organized as to provide the material for affording the child a consciousness of the
world in which he has to play a part, and the demands he has to meet; so far as these ends
are met, the school is organized on an ethical basis. So far as general principles are
concerned, all the basic ethical requirements are met. The rest remains between the
individual teacher and the individual child.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT OF MORAL EDUCATION
V
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT OF MORAL EDUCATION
Contents
So far we have been considering the make-up of purposes and results that cons;tute
conduct—its “what.” But conduct has a certain method and spirit also—its “how.” Conduct
may be looked upon as expressing the autudes and disposi;ons of an individual, as well
as realizing social results and maintaining the social fabric. A considera;on of conduct as a
mode of individual performance, personal doing, takes us from the social to the
psychological side of morals. In the first place, all conduct springs ul;mately and radically
out of na;ve ins;ncts and impulses. We must know what these ins;ncts and impulses are,
and what they are at each par;cular stage of the child’s development, in order to know
what to appeal to and what to build upon. Neglect of this principle may give a mechanical
imita;on of moral conduct, but the imita;on will be ethically dead, because it is external
and has its centre without, not within, the individual. We must study the child, in other
words, to get our indica;ons, our symptoms, our sugges;ons. The more or less
spontaneous acts of the child are not to be thought of as seung moral forms to which the
efforts of the educator must conform—this would result simply in spoiling the child; but
they are symptoms which require to be interpreted: s;muli which need to be responded
to in directed ways; material which, in however transformed a shape, is the only ul;mate
cons;tuent of future moral conduct and character.
Then, secondly, our ethical principles need to be stated in psychological terms because the
child supplies us with the only means or instruments by which to realize moral ideals. The
subject-ma^er of the curriculum, however important, however judiciously selected, is
empty of conclusive moral content un;l it is made over into terms of the individual’s own
ac;vi;es, habits, and desires. We must know what history, geography, and mathema;cs
mean in psychological terms, that is, as modes of personal experiencing, before we can
get out of them their moral poten;ali;es.
The psychological side of educa;on sums itself up, of course, in a considera;on of
character. It is a commonplace to say that the development of character is the end of all
school work. The difficulty lies in the execu;on of the idea. And an underlying difficulty in
this execu;on is the lack of a clear concep;on of what character means. This may seem an
extreme statement. If so, the idea may be conveyed by saying that we generally conceive
of character simply in terms of results; we have no clear concep;on of it in psychological
terms—that is, as a process, as working or dynamic. We know what character means in
terms of the ac;ons which proceed from it, but we have not a definite concep;on of it on
its inner side, as a system of working forces.
(1) Force, efficiency in execu;on, or overt ac;on, is one necessary cons;tuent of character.
In our moral books and lectures we may lay the stress upon good inten;ons, etc. But we
know prac;cally that the kind of character we hope to build up through our educa;on is
one that not only has good inten;ons, but that insists upon carrying them out. Any other
character is wishy-washy; it is goody, not good. The individual must have the power to
stand up and count for something in the actual conflicts of life. He must have ini;a;ve,
insistence, persistence, courage, and industry. He must, in a word, have all that goes under
the name “force of character.” Undoubtedly, individuals differ greatly in their na;ve
endowment in this respect. None the less, each has a certain primary equipment of
impulse, of tendency forward, of innate urgency to do. The problem of educa;on on this
side is that of discovering what this na;ve fund of power is, and then of u;lizing it in such
a way (affording condi;ons which both s;mulate and control) as to organize it into definite
conserved modes of ac;on—habits.
(2) But something more is required than sheer force. Sheer force may be brutal; it may
override the interests of others. Even when aiming at right ends it may go at them in such
a way as to violate the rights of others. More than this, in sheer force there is no
guarantee for the right end. Efficiency may be directed towards mistaken ends and result
in posi;ve mischief and destruc;on. Power, as already suggested, must be directed. It
must be organized along social channels; it must be a^ached to valuable ends.
This involves training on both the intellectual and emo;onal side. On the intellectual side
we must have judgment—what is ordinarily called good sense. The difference between
mere knowledge, or informa;on, and judgment is that the former is simply held, not used;
judgment is knowledge directed with reference to the accomplishment of ends. Good
judgment is a sense of respec;ve or propor;onate values. The one who has judgment is
the one who has ability to size up a situa;on. He is the one who can grasp the scene or
situa;on before him, ignoring what is irrelevant, or what for the ;me being is
unimportant, who can seize upon the factors which demand a^en;on, and grade them
according to their respec;ve claims. Mere knowledge of what the right is, in the abstract,
mere inten;ons of following the right in general, however praiseworthy in themselves, are
never a subs;tute for this power of trained judgment. Ac;on is always in the concrete. It
is definite and individualized. Except, therefore, as it is backed and controlled by a
knowledge of the actual concrete factors in the situa;on in which it occurs, it must be
rela;vely fu;le and waste.
(3) But the consciousness of ends must be more than merely intellectual. We can imagine
a person with most excellent judgment, who yet does not act upon his judgment. There
must not only be force to ensure effort in execu;on against obstacles, but there must also
be a delicate personal responsiveness,—there must be an emo;onal reac;on. Indeed,
good judgment is impossible without this suscep;bility. Unless there is a prompt and
almost ins;nc;ve sensi;veness to condi;ons, to the ends and interests of others, the
intellectual side of judgment will not have proper material to work upon. Just as the
material of knowledge is supplied through the senses, so the material of ethical knowledge
is supplied by emo;onal responsiveness. It is difficult to put this quality into words, but we
all know the difference between the character which is hard and formal, and one which is
sympathe;c, flexible, and open. In the abstract the former may be as sincerely devoted to
moral ideas as is the la^er, but as a prac;cal ma^er we prefer to live with the la^er. We
count upon it to accomplish more by tact, by ins;nc;ve recogni;on of the claims of
others, by skill in adjus;ng, than the former can accomplish by mere a^achment to rules.
Here, then, is the moral standard, by which to test the work of the school upon the side of
what it does directly for individuals. (a) Does the school as a system, at present, a^ach
sufficient importance to the spontaneous ins;ncts and impulses? Does it afford sufficient
opportunity for these to assert themselves and work out their own results? Can we even
say that the school in principle a^aches itself, at present, to the ac;ve construc;ve powers
rather than to processes of absorp;on and learning? Does not our talk about self-ac;vity
largely render itself meaningless because the self-ac;vity we have in mind is purely
“intellectual,” out of rela;on to those impulses which work through hand and eye?
Just in so far as the present school methods fail to meet the test of such ques;ons moral
results must be unsa;sfactory. We cannot secure the development of posi;ve force of
character unless we are willing to pay its price. We cannot smother and repress the child’s
powers, or gradually abort them (from failure of opportunity for exercise), and then expect
a character with ini;a;ve and consecu;ve industry. I am aware of the importance
a^aching to inhibi;on, but mere inhibi;on is valueless. The only restraint, the only
holding-in, that is of any worth is that which comes through holding powers concentrated
upon a posi;ve end. An end cannot be a^ained excep;ng as ins;ncts and impulses are
kept from discharging at random and from running off on side tracks. In keeping powers at
work upon their relevant ends, there is sufficient opportunity for genuine inhibi;on. To say
that inhibi;on is higher than power, is like saying that death is more than life, nega;on
more than affirma;on, sacrifice more than service.
(b) We must also test our school work by finding whether it affords the condi;ons
necessary for the forma;on of good judgment. Judgment as the sense of rela;ve values
involves ability to select, to discriminate. Acquiring informa;on can never develop the
power of judgment. Development of judgment is in spite of, not because of, methods of
instruc;on that emphasize simple learning. The test comes only when the informa;on
acquired has to be put to use. Will it do what we expect of it? I have heard an educator of
large experience say that in her judgment the greatest defect of instruc;on to-day, on the
intellectual side, is found in the fact that children leave school without a mental
perspec;ve. Facts seem to them all of the same importance. There is no foreground or
background. There is no ins;nc;ve habit of sor;ng out facts upon a scale of worth and of
grading them.
The child cannot get power of judgment excep;ng as he is con;nually exercised in forming
and tes;ng judgments. He must have an opportunity to select for himself, and to a^empt
to put his selec;ons into execu;on, that he may submit them to the final test, that of
ac;on. Only thus can he learn to discriminate that which promises success from that
which promises failure; only thus can he form the habit of rela;ng his purposes and
no;ons to the condi;ons that determine their value. Does the school, as a system, afford
at present sufficient opportunity for this sort of experimenta;on? Except so far as the
emphasis of the school work is upon intelligent doing, upon ac;ve inves;ga;on, it does
not furnish the condi;ons necessary for that exercise of judgment which is an integral
factor in good character.
(c) I shall be brief with respect to the other point, the need of suscep;bility and
responsiveness. The informally social side of educa;on, the æsthe;c environment and
influences, are all-important. In so far as the work is laid out in regular and formulated
ways, so far as there are lacking opportuni;es for casual and free social intercourse
between pupils and between the pupils and the teacher, this side of the child’s nature is
either starved, or else lem to find haphazard expression along more or less secret channels.
When the school system, under plea of the prac;cal (meaning by the prac;cal the
narrowly u;litarian), confines the child to the three R’s and the formal studies connected
with them, shuts him out from the vital in literature and history, and deprives him of his
right to contact with what is best in architecture, music, sculpture, and picture, it is
hopeless to expect definite results in the training of sympathe;c openness and
responsiveness.
What we need in educa;on is a genuine faith in the existence of moral principles which
are capable of effec;ve applica;on. We believe, so far as the mass of children are
concerned, that if we keep at them long enough we can teach reading and wri;ng and
figuring. We are prac;cally, even if unconsciously, skep;cal as to the possibility of anything
like the same assurance in morals. We believe in moral laws and rules, to be sure, but they
are in the air. They are something set off by themselves. They are so very “moral” that they
have no working contact with the average affairs of every-day life. These moral principles
need to be brought down to the ground through their statement in social and in
psychological terms. We need to see that moral principles are not arbitrary, that they are
not “transcendental”; that the term “moral” does not designate a special region or por;on
of life. We need to translate the moral into the condi;ons and forces of our community
life, and into the impulses and habits of the individual.
All the rest is mint, anise, and cummin. The one thing needful is that we recognize that
moral principles are real in the same sense in which other forces are real; that they are
inherent in community life, and in the working structure of the individual. If we can secure
a genuine faith in this fact, we shall have secured the condi;on which alone is necessary to
get from our educa;onal system all the effec;veness there is in it. The teacher who
operates in this faith will find every subject, every method of instruc;on, every incident of
school life pregnant with moral possibility.
OUTLINE
Contents
I. THE MORAL PURPOSE OF THE SCHOOL
1. Moral ideas and ideas about morality 1
2. Moral educa;on and direct moral instruc;on 3
II. THE MORAL TRAINING GIVEN BY THE SCHOOL COMMUNITY
1. The unity of social ethics and school ethics 7
 2. A narrow and formal training for ci;zenship 8
3. School life should train for many social rela;ons 9
4. It should train for self-direc;on and leadership 10
5. There is no harmonious development of powers apart from social
situa;ons 11
6. School ac;vi;es should be typical of social life 13
7. Moral training in the schools tends to be pathological and formal 15
III. THE MORAL TRAINING FROM METHODS OF INSTRUCTION
1. Ac;ve social service as opposed to passive individual absorp;on 21
2. The posi;ve inculca;on of individualis;c mo;ves and standards 23
3. The evils of compe;;on for external standing 24
4. The moral waste of remote success as an end 25
5. The worth of ac;ve and social modes of learning 26
IV. THE SOCIAL NATURE OF THE COURSE OF STUDY
1. The nature of the course of study influences the conduct of the school 31
2. School studies as means of realizing social situa;ons 31
3. School subjects are merely phases of a unified social life 32
4. The meaning of subjects is controlled by social considera;ons 33
5. Geography deals with the scenes of social interac;on 33
6. Its various forms represent increasing stages of abstrac;on 34
7. History is a means for interpre;ng exis;ng social rela;ons 36
8. It presents type phases of social development 37
9. It offers contrasts, and consequently perspec;ve 37
10. It teaches the methods of social progress 38
11. The failure of certain methods of teaching history 39
12. Mathema;cs is a means to social ends 40
13. The sociological nature of business arithme;c 41
14. Summary: The moral trinity of the school 42
V. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT OF MORAL EDUCATION
1. Conduct as a mode of individual performance 47
2. Na;ve ins;ncts and impulses are the sources of conduct 47
3. Moral ideals must be realized in persons 48
4. Character as a system of working forces 49
5. Force as a necessary cons;tuent of character 49
6. The importance of intellectual judgment or good sense 50
7. The capacity for delicate emo;onal responsiveness 52
8. Summary: The ethical standards for tes;ng the school 53
9. Conclusion: The prac;cality of moral principles 57
RIVERSIDE EDUCATIONAL MONOGRAPHS
• General Educa4onal Theory
o Coolidge’s America’s Need for Educa;on.
o Dewey’s Interest and Effort in Educa;on.
o Dewey’s Moral Principles in Educa;on.
o Eliot’s Educa;on for Efficiency.
 o Eliot’s The Tendency to the Concrete and Prac;cal in Modern Educa;on.
o Emerson’s Educa;on and other Selec;ons.
o Fiske’s The Meaning of Infancy.
o Horne’s The Teacher as Ar;st.
o Hyde’s The Teacher’s Philosophy in and out of School.
o Judd’s The Evolu;on of a Democra;c School System.
o Meredith’s The Educa;onal Bearings of Modern Psychology.
o Palmer’s The Ideal Teacher.
o Palmer’s Trades and Professions.
o Palmer’s Ethical and Moral Instruc;on in Schools.
o Prosser’s The Teacher and Old Age.
o Stockton’s Project Work in Educa;on.
o Stra^on’s Developing Mental Power.
o Terman’s The Teacher’s Health.
o Thorndike’s Individuality.
o Trow’s Scien;fic Method in Educa;on.
• Administra4on and Supervision
o Be^’s New Ideals in Rural Schools.
o Bloomfield’s The Voca;onal Guidance of Youth.
o Cabot’s Volunteer Help to the Schools.
o Cole’s Industrial Educa;on in the Elementary School.
o Cubberley’s Changing Concep;ons of Educa;on.
o Cubberley’s The Improvement of Rural Schools.
o Dooley’s The Educa;on of the Ne’er-Do-Well.
o Gates’s The Management of Smaller Schools.
o Hines’s Measuring Intelligence.
o Koos’s The High-School Principal.
o Lewis’s Democracy’s High School.
o Maxwell’s The Observa;on of Teaching.
o Maxwell’s The Selec;on of Textbooks.
o Miller and Charles’s Publicity and the Public School.
o Perry’s The Status of the Teacher.
o Russell’s Economy in Secondary Educa;on.
o Smith’s Establishing Industrial Schools.
o Snedden’s The Problem of Voca;onal Guidance.
o Weeks’s The People’s School.
• Method
o Andress’s The Teaching of Hygiene in the Grades.
o Atwood’s The Theory and Prac;ce of the Kindergarten.
o Bailey’s Art Educa;on.
o Be^s’s The Recita;on.
o Cooley’s Language Teaching in the Grades.
o Dougherty’s How to Teach Phonics.
o Earhart’s Teaching Children to Study.
 Evans’s The Teaching of High School Mathema;cs.
o
Fairchild’s The Teaching of Poetry in the High School.
o
Freeman’s The Teaching of Handwri;ng.
o
Haliburton and Smith’s Teaching Poetry in the Grades.
o
Hartwell’s The Teaching of History.
o
Hawley’s Teaching English in Junior High Schools.
o
Haynes’s Economics in the Secondary School.
o
Hill’s The Teaching of Civics.
o
Jenkins’s Reading in the Primary Grades.
o
Kendall and Stryker’s History in the Elementary School.
o
Kilpatrick’s The Montessori System Examined.
o
Leonard’s English Composi;on as a Social Problem.
o
Losh and Weeks’s Primary Number Projects.
o
Palmer’s Self-Cul;va;on in English.
o
Ridgley’s Geographic Principles.
o
Ruediger’s Vitalized Teaching.
o
Sharp’s Teaching English in High Schools.
o
Stockton’s Project Work in Educa;on.
o
Suzzallo’s The Teaching of Primary Arithme;c.
o
Suzzallo’s The Teaching of Spelling.
o
Swim’s Speech Defects in School Children.
o
Tuell’s The Study of Na;ons.
o
Wilson’s What Arithme;c Shall We Teach?
o
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

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