The Direction of Education

THE most important, if not the most obvious gains in the modern economic arts are in the ways of saving labor. The century of invention which is nearing its close will remain forever memorable, for the reason that it has vastly increased the resources of civilized people. During this time, the individual man has manifolded his doing power by means of mechanical contrivances which have given him command of natural forces, or have enabled him the more effectually to apply the strength of his own body or that of his domesticated animals. In his ability to produce in all mechanical fields, the average laborer of to-day is at least thrice as effective as his ancestor was two centuries ago. It is indeed likely that a close analysis of the conditions would show that, in mechanical employments, the productive power of men has increased not less than fivefold over what it was in the later years of the eighteenth century ; the last hundred years having been greater in results than all the previous ages during which our kind had been learning the lessons of employment.

The profit which we have won, and are yet to win, from the field of invention is to be attributed to the keen sense that we have acquired concerning the vast resources of the natural world, and the infinite variety of ways in which they can be combined so as to yield a diversity of results. The ancients conceived the world as relatively simple. We recognize it as infinitely complex. To them the earth appeared to be a limited realm, whose stores could be readily inventoried. We see it as a universe holding an inexhaustible store of things unknown, all of which may be made useful to man. Thus, from an intellectual point of view, the advance won in the memory of living man, in all that concerns the resources of this world and its relations to mankind, is far greater than is represented in material successes. The triumph of our age is indeed to be found in the sense of the manifold, the diverse, in nature.

By the diversity oE employments which have necessarily arisen in our modern life, we perceive, or at least are beginning to discern, that in our fellow-men there is another universe, as rich in resources as the physical world. So long as occupations were limited in their variety, as they were until this developed age, it was a relatively simple classification which had to be provided to include the several kinds of talent that could be of service to society. Above the plane of the common herd, whose peculiar capacities were no more considered than are those of the sheep in the flock, there were but a dozen or so fields of endeavor in which talent was of value. The activities of the statesman, the soldier, the priest, the jurist, the physician, the architect, with some few minor occupations, represented the walks of life upon which a man of capacity could well enter. When placed by birth or the chance of life in any vocation, little account was taken of the special qualities that he might possess. Differences in power were of course well recognized, but diversities of talent, those peculiarities of nature which, developed by education, might fit the person for particular accomplishments, were, until our own time, commonly disregarded.

Even in our day, the diversity of men, that peculiar accommodation of the mental parts which fits each individual for specific duty, and makes every fairly educated person especially suited to some of the manifold tasks of society, has not been formally recognized. We can only note a rough appreciation of the facts in the endless shifting of our population to and fro among the vocations, as each man looks for the exact kind of labor which he is fitted to do. Laborers and employers are ever seeking to avail themselves of this diversity of talents ; in fact, a large part of the gain in the economic efficiency of the labor of our time has doubtless come from this very modern system whereby the man may make a trial of his talents by essaying various forms of work, until he finds the task which is his birthright. It is altogether probable, we may note in passing, that the efficiency of the American laborer, which is recognizedly greater than is possessed by his brethren of the Old World, is in a considerable measure due to the freedom with which he makes these essays.

So far as we have gone in this task of exploring the capacities of men, as yet indeed not very far, we have been led by the needs of classified industries enforcing a choice of men for each particular kind of labor ; fitting one man, for instance, to run a locomotive, and another to care for a stationary engine. Thus, in a way, machinery, from the simplest to the most complicated, has become a means of exploring the diversities of human nature, and is helping to show men something of the meaning of their industries. It now seems certain that their experience with the arts will react on their conception of human nature, and will lead to the study of each youth, as not commonplace and uniform with all others, but exceptional, and unrevealed by mere inspection.

It seems to be clear that the next great advance in civilization should not be sought, and will not be found, altogether or even mainly in further conquests of the outer world. Richer fields for exploration. those which will yield vastly greater returns, are to be discovered in the realm of human capacity ; in the development of that store of qualities which is latent in every well-conditioned man. Human intercourse is in its nature so limited that it ordinarily reveals only a very small part of the latencies of the individual. Immemorial custom has habituated us to accept the little of our neighbor which is disclosed to us in his aspect or his speech as a satisfactory indication of the man. For the simpler purposes of life these signs of quality are sufficient, but in this new day, when we have to fit men to do deeds of exceeding variety and delicacy ; when, in a word, we have to adjust the man to his duty in a way that was not necessary in the ruder and more primitive conditions of civilization, these rude tests will not suffice. In their place must come a system wherein each person shall be explored for capacity, and the task of nurturing the talent shall receive the attention which we already devote to our mechanical contrivances, or to our domesticated animals and plants.

The problem of gauging the capacities of man, particularly in the formative period of youth, has been so far neglected that there is little in the way of knowledge or prescription based thereon which can serve in our inquiry. Here and there, however, there are shreds of information that enable us to make important judgments as to the variety which exists in the invisible kingdom of the mind. Perhaps the most suggestive of these fragments of knowledge, which may be built into the future science of mental diagnosis, has come to us through the system of examinations that is pursued in the honor work at Cambridge, England. In that system, the men who are separated from their fellows by the possession of mathematical talent are, for some years, subjected to a special training, which is substantially the same in all cases ; they are then submitted to a long-continued examination, which is clearly contrived to give a very just and complete testing of their relative ability. The candidates who are successful are afterward arranged in the order of their accomplishment. In the opinion of those who have the examination in charge, the difference between the highest senior wrangler and the lowest honor man is fairly to be measured in a scale containing several hundred units. In another form of statement, the senior wrangler, so far as this science is concerned, overtops the common man as a great mountain does an ordinary honse-roof. And yet this vast difference in native capacity is not revealed by any of those tokens of which we take cognizance in our association with men. the existence of this peculiar ability would have remained unknown even to its possessor save for the exceptional opportunity which is afforded by the prize system which has been developed in Cambridge.

Unfortunately, no other important quality of the mind has ever been subjected to the systematic testing which the tripos examinations give to that of mathematics. It is doubtful, indeed, if the various talents, some of them more significant than this capacity, could be gauged with anything like the same accuracy. There is no reason, however, to believe that the range in the ability to deal with formal relations in the computative way is any greater than that which is possible in the other divisions of the intelligence. The history of mechanical invention clearly indicates that if we could school men to their utmost powers in such work, we should in the end find a like difference in their capacities. So, too, for poetic ability, for investigative work, for the tasks of the soldier or the statesman, or the many other branches of thought and action.

There are those who hold that all capacity is a common or united quality ; that if a man have mental power it may be turned in any direction, so that from the same strong mind we may, according to the nurture, make the poet, the statesman, the soldier, or the discoverer of natural order. I doubt if any experienced teacher, who has been willing to be taught by his experience, will affirm this opinion. The evidence which comes to him is to the effect that capacities are special ; that though mental strength must be the foundation of all ability of a profitable sort, the direction or set of the individual capacity is, in substantially all cases, determined by the conditions of inheritance ; that it is implanted in the individual by events which were shaped before he came upon the earth. We may indeed compare the set of intellectual power in particular directions to the flow of streams over the land. The course of the currents is determined by events, not of the moment, but of antiquity. The chances of the day may vary the amount of fluid which the channels contain ; art may divert the tide this way or that ; but the drainage is in large measure shaped by the structure of the under earth. In the mind, this topography, as we may term it, is clearly a matter of ancestral experience, and is infinitely diversified. It may be somewhat qualified by the powers of education, but the essential form remains to guide the stream of life.

The diversity in the nature of individual minds is not limited to that measure which depends on the variety in the fundamental capacities. Each of these is to be qualified by the exercise of others, so that in the thought which guides to action we commonly find several of the prime factors of the intelligence showing in the work of the moment. It has to be an unusually simple deed that does not call for the exercise of the constructive imagination, the natural powers, the sympathetic emotion, and many other more or less discrete qualities of the mind. The measure of these interactions is varied, and from the variations, in great part, arise the effective differences in men. We note some of these variations in the so-called mirror of the soul, the face, and know full well that, in all the millions of men who are and have been, no two are in countenance just alike ; yet the quality of their thoughts is clearly more unlike than the order of their features. It may be well that we can observe little of our kindred ; if we could see them entirely, they would perhaps seem so strange to us that the bond of sympathy could not be preserved.

So far, the individuality of men has been cloaked by the sense of the commonplace which envelops them ; with the advance in the complication of society, it is now necessary to seek out the possibilities of its members, and to develop the store of utilities which may there be had. Such a result can be obtained only by a very considerable change in the ideas and methods of our education.

As at present contrived, our educational systems proceed on the assumption that persons of the same sex and age are substantially alike ; and further, that the aim of training is to bring the young to certain standard modes of thought and action which experience shows to be best for people according to their social or intellectual casts ; in a word, to bring them into an accepted, a necessary state of uniformity, in order that they may fill their appointed stations. It is indeed essential that education should have this result as its main aim, for the swift succeeding generations have to be made ready for duty and marshaled to their places in life. It is owing to the success that has been attained in this fundamental task that civilization has crept onward and upward. Should it be interrupted for one or two generations, our race would fall back towards the undifferentiated state whence it came. To do this gigantic work at all, education, like other industries of civilization, has had to organize its methods so as to give a good average “ mill product,” or perhaps we might say, mintage. It is now time that we began to consider a change in methods by which the process may be lifted to the higher plane of a fine art, which differs from the grosser work in that each piece is considered by itself, receiving all the care that can be given to it, and this without immediate reference to the money profit which is to be made from the labor.

It seems perfectly clear that the full value of a man cannot be extracted by routine methods. It is, be it said, equally clear that the expenditure in thought and action that will have to be directed to a really individualized method of education, which, from the beginning of its task, with the youth, shall treat the problem in the fine-arts way, is greater than society at present is able to afford. Such an endeavor would demand for each youth something like the personal care which, in a few instances, learned, discreet, and sympathetic parents of ample means have been able to devote to their children. Moreover, it should be said that there are reasons why the study of the youth, with the view of ascertaining the peculiar qualities of his mind, should not be begun at too early an age. In the first stages of development, the aim should be in the main to awaken the elements of the mind which are of general value, the sympathies, and the race motives of honor, as well as to provide the simpler tools which open the ways to thought and action. We may therefore assume that, during the period of infancy, education should retain its present shape, and the time should be devoted rather to the task of awakening the child’s capacities than to seeking out and nurturing those exceptional elements of value which may constitute his individuality. Just when the passage should be made from this ideal of general culture to that of fostering the special capacities is not easy to determine, and this for the reason that mental growth differs exceedingly. Some youths attain to their specialized powers long before others have emerged from the common paths which are followed in the earlier years of life. Herein, it may be noted, lies one of the most evil results of the present system, which assumes that like age means like growth.

During the period which precedes puberty, children are much more alike than afterward, save for the exceptional development of talents which, because of their power, may obtrude themselves and claim a premature place in their life. In fact, the change which takes place in the mind as boys and girls pass to the estate of men and women generally leads to the awakening of those special powers which may be of high value to society. It is as if nature, in the earlier time, was occupied in laying the foundations for the race life, and postponed the growth of the more individualized features until the time when there was need of them. On this account, and so far as the majority of our youths is concerned, it does not seem to be very necessary to vary our educational methods in any considerable way from the present usage, in the period which may be termed the childhood age. It is perhaps too much to expect a change in our system of education which will provide for the precocious children, those in whom, during what should be childhood, the mind departs from the normal rate of advance, and takes on the qualities that we are accustomed to find at a later age. Yet as these abnormal children are often so because of the very strength of their individuality, and may become the ablest of their generation, it is of the utmost importance that their special needs should be considered. In the case of these youths of exceptional nature and singular promise, it would richly profit society to make provision for a special education which should be fitted to their peculiar needs. As it is, their talents are generally denied the chance of growth which is so necessary to faculties at the time they begin to spring into activity.

Assuming that in average youths the most valuable elements of their mental individualities declare themselves at or about the time of puberty, it may be asserted that at this period of education there should begin a careful study as to the tendencies of their intellectual development. It will evidently cost much in the way of labor to do such work ; perhaps the most serious part of the effort will be to bring the world to a sense of the importance of the task. It is much the fashion to say to those who seek advice concerning some young person who, in the great awakening of the second decade, shows a marked ability in a particular path of thought or action, that he or she should be kept at work in the old - fashioned way, in order to lay a good foundation for the special courses that may begin at a later time. Unfortunately, often, when the proposed foundations are laid, the neglected talent has vanished. To the naturalist who has come to recognize the meaning of the normal in organic life, this system appears to be excellently well contrived to secure the extinction of nascent talent. He knows full well that in all processes of growth the inertias of inheritance tend to keep the individuals to the average of the species. The tendencies to depart from the normal are ordinarily weak ; so that it requires peculiarly favorable conditions to permit them to attain their possibilities. When, in the second decade, the mind suddenly puts forth its new shoots, those which are fostered may well draw away the life from the others. Every one who has reached middle life can look back and see how certain motives of youth, though for a brief period they may have been strong, have withered from lack of culture, while others, originally of less prominence, have, under favoring influences, become the foundations of the mind or the basis of activities. These facts point us to the conclusion that the easiest way in the world to crush out a peculiar manifestation of talent is to subject the youth to a training which will develop the commonplace qualities of the mind in which it seeks to spring.

The division between the primary and the secondary school work, including in the former class the studies which are ordinarily placed in the grammar-school grade, should in the main rest upon the principle that the diversification of talent becomes most active at or about the age of puberty. In the lower, or, as it would be better to call them, the easier grades of work, the aim should be to imbue the minds of the young with the motives of the race, and to provide them with the simpler tools of education. The next step should be to introduce a sufficient variety of studies to afford an opportunity for a discerning teacher to learn the quality of his pupils. It is easy to suggest this work, but it is difficult to formulate it so that it may have a real value. The matter is one of such importance that I venture to set forth some suggestions which have a foundation in observation.

An experience of thirty years as a college teacher has shown me how desirable it is that young men who come to the later stage of their formal education should be effectively introduced to their new helpers. Of late, as dean of the Scientific School of Harvard University, I have had a large correspondence with the masters and teachers of secondary schools concerning the young men they send up to Cambridge. I am glad to say that from many of these instructors there comes a clear account of the previous mental history of the student, — an account which enables me to see something of his nature as it has been revealed to the discerning eye of his master. These teachers evidently make good use of their chances to learn the bent of their pupils, and their advice concerning it is in almost all cases of very great value. In general, however, the statements are too vague to be of service. They say that the candidate is morally all right ; that he is a good or fair student, or, at the worst, that he is erratic ; rarely, indeed, is there a hint that he has shown this or that particular capacity or incapacity.

This experience, which I believe to be common to all who have had to do with the task of continuing the work of the secondary schools in institutions of collegiate grade, indicates some very grave defects in our system of education. It is easy to see that in the education of a youth the knowledge of his qualities which the instructors acquire is only less in value than that which is gained by the student himself ; but neither here nor in other countries is any systematic effort made to preserve this knowledge, and transmit it from the primary to the preparatory school, or, what is more important, from the latter to the university. On each occasion when the youth passes to a new school, the chance is that he has for a time to be treated in a purely categoric way, without any reference to his individual powers. His work is laid out for him with no reference to his natural bent, and his special talent lacks the sympathy which is the breath of life to any rare quality of the mind. In my experience, it requires, even with a practiced person, one or two years, in order, without any knowledge of a student’s previous history, to become well enough acquainted with him to serve as his guide. When, as is often the case, the young man instinctively, or because of the ill treatment which his “ hobby ” has received, hides his light under a bushel, it may be yet more difficult to discern his quality. Thus the youth is seen to be heavily burdened by this fatal lack of knowledge concerning his possibilities, knowledge which should in some way have gone with him in his passage from one school to another. He is fortunate if the absence of system in this matter does not very seriously diminish his chances of development.

To show the hindering nature of this ignorance, let me present the conditions which will be met at the beginning of the next academic year in the Harvard Scientific School. At that time there will appear about two hundred new students ; men who desire in part to obtain a general education in science for the sake of the culture which it may afford, but who in larger measure wish to enter on work of a special character which may fit them for employment as engineers of various kinds, as architects, chemists, field geologists, or teachers in various subjects. In determining the plans of study which these men are to pursue, it would be desirable to know not only their own lives in a complete way, but those of their ancestors for some generations. In place of this acquaintance there is only the personality of the youth, which of course is much ; his account of himself, which, like all personal diagnoses, is apt to be erroneous ; and the record of his school or entrance examinations, which is even more likely to be deceptive. The dean, or the adviser to whom the new comer is committed, may do his best to interpret these living enigmas who are entrusted to his care, but he would have to possess supernatural powers to divine all he needs to know. Often the result is blundering and discouragement for both the parties in the work. To a great extent, these ills might be avoided if the indices of the student’s character and ability, such as are to be gathered in the fitting - schools, could be sent with him when he enters upon his new courses.

There seem to be but two ways in which we may hope to mend the breach in our educational system which comes from the lack of information concerning youths when they most need the advantages that such information might afford. One of these ways would be to have the connection between the fitting-schools and the universities so intimate that the teachers of the two grades would constitute one body, having a common knowledge of the pupils. Although it is common enough, in this country, to find colleges which maintain fitting-schools within their halls, the system has never found favor with the better class of these institutions ; therefore, though the experiment of such a close connection, devised to secure a better integrated education, would be interesting, it is perhaps not worth while to discuss it further. The other way is so to unite the secondary schools and the universities that the teachers of the schools may feel that they do not part from their pupils in the last stage of their education. If it could be so contrived that the masters of the academies should be enlisted among the advisers of the pupils, giving counsel concerning their first steps in the final work of their training, a strong point of advantage would be gained. We might expect to develop a sense of responsibility with reference to a youth’s education which would bear equally upon the authorities of the academy and of the university. As a first step in this direction, it might be suggested that each student, at his matriculation, should have, as a part of his introduction to the university, not only the formal and generally useless certificate of good moral character and of fitness to pursue a course of study within its halls, but also a statement as to what is known of his mental peculiarities, his aptitudes and inaptitudes ; these are ascertained in the class-room of a good fitting-school more clearly than they can be by any system of entrance examinations.

It may be objected to this plan that the teachers in the secondary schools will fall into the way of giving perfunctory statements, or that their judgment will be of little value, and that they will not like to have this responsibility impressed upon them. To me such objections seem of no weight. As a class I have found these men to be very judicious persons, close observers of character, and in most cases knowing the qualities of their pupils in a measure to which a university teacher, because of the methods of instruction which have to be pursued by him, cannot usually hope to attain. There can be no question that their help in the grave matter of planning the later steps of education would be of great value. It may also be urged against this project that it would diminish the independence of the student in the new life which the university opens to him ; that it would tend to tie him to his past, in an undesirable way. To one who sees that the gulf between the academy and the university is a serious evil, this objection will have little weight. Therefore we may assume that a statement of each student’s capacities and other mental peculiarities should be sent, as a part of his record, to the university which he is to attend.

Of late years, the custom has grown in this country whereby students are taken on certificate, without special entrance examinations, from the fitting-schools into the institutions of collegiate and university grade. Although there are grave objections to this method, it has one most important advantage in that it serves to ally the fitting-schools in spirit with the institutions to which their pupils go forth. If these certificates were so planned that they would make a real presentation of the individual qualities of the student, and especially if the schools were from time to time inspected and approved by the universities, in the manner now adopted by Harvard through its “ schools examinations board,” the advantages arising from the system would be so great that they would much outweigh the evils which it might bring. By adopting it, the universities would not only clear away the difficulties of the entrance tests and the evils of cramming which attend them, but would ally the better fittingschools with their interests in an immediate and effective way. The schoolmasters would no longer feel that their task was done when their pupils were admitted to the universities ; they would know that the reception was due to the estimate which they themselves had placed on the qualities and attainments of the youths.

If this practical union between the fitting-schools and the universities should be established, the result would be that, in time, each fitting-school would become the place of preparation for some higher institution. This is, on many accounts, a most desirable arrangement, if indeed it is not a necessary preliminary to the unification of our higher education. A proper integration of the work of the student after he leaves the grammarschool grade demands that the masters of each fitting-school should have clearly in mind the methods and resources of the university or college with which it is connected. They need to keep in close touch with that establishment, for continuance of the educational task they share demands a keen sense of the motives and methods of the institution with which they are collaborating. Such a relation as this between the schools and the colleges or universities cannot be accomplished without an essential unification of their work. Thus contrived, a school could advantageously prepare men for only one seat of the higher learning.

So far as the private schools and endowed academies are concerned, the arrangement above proposed is not only feasible, but is to a certain extent already effected ; it is evident that there is a natural tendency towards this alliance of such schools with particular colleges. In the case of public high schools, however, the practicability of the plan is less clear. These schools should not become objects of contest on the part of the universities of this country, as in such a plan of action would be likely to occur. Still, it might be hoped that the pupils who went thence would be helped by such an account of their abilities as would enable those who had to see to their further education to undertake the task intelligently.

It may appear to those who have not faced this problem of the unification of education that too much importance has been given to the need of a knowledge of the past history of the pupil which can be transmitted from one school to another. I must confess that before experience had taught me better, I too should have held that the best plan with a youth was to put the resources of learning before him, leaving him to find his profit in a way that his individuality might determine ; and this, in part, at least, for the reason that the judgment is likely to be cultivated by the responsibility thus laid upon the young man. Thirty years of life as a teacher have served to increase my reverence for the individuality of men, and have indeed convinced me that the first duty of a university officer is to develop that quality in youths. At the same time it has been made plain that the only effective method of attaining this end is through the most intimate knowledge that can be obtained concerning the pupil, and that all the information which can be gained from his previous history and that of his ancestors is scarcely enough for the need. In looking over the instances where I have been able to help young men find the way to their talents, I see clearly that almost all the successes have been due to a close acquaintance with their qualities. It has very often been the case that a former teacher of the youth has given me the key to the problem, — a key which I could not have found by any personal study. It is well to remember that in other fields of life, where actions are subjected to more strenuous criticism than in that of education, the rule is to search the facts, and to trust no one man for a judgment. No man, before the law, can be deprived of his chances in life without the vote of a full jury and the amplest chance to present proof. Something of the same care is due from educators towards the birthright of talent which is possessed by their pupils, and which, however small, may be the guide to their place in the world they are preparing to enter.

The objections to neglect of the individual capacities of a student’s mind, to which our system leads, may be stated in a brief way which in general will sum up the considerations of the preceding pages. Society, owing to its nature, is ever demanding peculiar talents. In this age of mechanical industries, the necessity for a varied educational product is increasing at a very rapid rate. To meet this need, it is essential for educators to seek out those — in my opinion, by far the greater part of the youth — who have a special fitness for certain kinds of duty. The various abnormal powers of young people which we term talent are in most cases exhibited about the age of puberty, or about the time when they are in the secondary schools. Unless these tender shoots of exceptional ability are noted and cared for they are likely to perish. Therefore it is of the utmost importance that those who instruct the young in this period of their lives should watch for those buddings of development which are of good promise, as they have to do for those other aberrations which are in their nature degrading. Where the capacity is discovered, it needs to be nurtured, and the knowledge of it should be sent to the teachers who are next to take charge of the youth’s education. This transmission can be most effectively accomplished where the men in the two schools know each other ; where, in a word, the institutions are united by means of a full understanding as to the joint work which they have in hand. But in whatever measure and manner it can be done, it will be profitable to undertake it. If our educational system could have been deliberately devised, and this in the light of modern experience, care would doubtless have been taken to arrange the work in such a manner that youths would not have incurred the risk of neglect which arises from the separation between the preparatory schools and those to which they next pass. As it is, the system is firmly rooted in custom as well as in certain conveniences and necessities, so that the most that can be done now is to remedy the defects as best we may.

N. S. Shaler.