Mastering the Arts of Life: As Exemplified in a New School

I

IN a greenhouse at Dayton, Ohio, where a master of scientific research once experimented with plant-life, there is being conducted an interesting experiment in juvenile life, conceived by the man of research and a group of friends and associates. There was no significance in the choice of the greenhouse for the human experiment. It happened to be the most available shelter for the new-old school that the group had in mind. Yet a building so little suited for school purposes did complement an idea behind the school — that now, as in Garfield’s time, a log with a Mark Hopkins on one end and the student on the other is enough material equipment to ensure the success of a school.

This ‘ Moraine Park School ’ began as a preparatory school, but the scheme has now been projected down to the tenderest school-years; so that it is possible for 220 of the more fortunate of the Dayton boys and girls to pass all their years, from kindergarten to college entrance, in the pleasant paths of education that have been sketched for them by the founders. The paths are many. Some are well-defined; some are merely blazed and left to the development of the boys and girls as they move forward through the years; but all lead up toward the general goal of mastery of the arts of life, which is education according to the Moraine Park conception.

The definition is important, because it shapes the scheme of this novel school. Manifestly the arts of life cannot be mastered by excising the boy from life. He cannot be prepared for life by staying out of life for twelve or sixteen years. From the standpoint of this definition, education and life cannot be kept in separate compartments for a quarter, or a third, of a lifetime. Education, regarded as something wholly preliminary to, or dissociated from, practical life, could thus be segregated, and has been these last fifty years in America — or ever since our educational system spread out to enclose the youth of the land in its meshes for nine months or more in all the formative years. The arts of life, like any technical art, are mastered by doing, not by looking on.

But what are these arts of life, whose mastery constitutes education according to the Moraine Park way of thinking? They do not consist of technical expertness in any particular formal study, or in any craft. They are not based on the attainment of a rating of 70 per cent in algebra, or on such and such a rating in making tools and machines. On the contrary, ‘the arts of life’ are described as occupations, ten in number. And these occupations do not respond to the ordinary definition of the word, as a means of gaining a living; rather are they the departments of human activity which, taken together, make up the whole life. In the ‘pedagese’ of the school publications these ‘occupations’ are set down as (1) Body-building; (2) Spirit-building; (3) Society-serving; (4) Man-conserving; (5) Opinion-forming; (6) Truthdiscovering; (7) Thought-expressing; (8) Wealth-producing; (9) Comrade-or mate-seeking; (10) Life-refreshing.

The ordinary studies of the schools are relegated to places in these ‘occupations.’ In the monthly report cards that go to the parents, the latter have to look closely to find out how their boy is doing in history. They find it listed as No. 3 under opinion-forming, such unheard-of qualities in scholastic reports as fairness of mind and judgment being listed above it in this ‘ occupation’ or art of life. This grouping illustrates the theory of the school. It does not look upon history as something to be taught for itself, but as something to be studied as a means of developing the ability to form sound opinions. The boy may be very lame in history as a study, and yet stand up well in his rating in opinion-forming.

Should the parent wish to know how his son is doing in chemistry, or zoölogy or physics, or botany, he will consult the score-card in vain. In the space set aside for appraisal of progress in truthdiscovering, he will, however, get a hint of how well the boy is doing in science as a whole, as one of the seven factors that contribute to the mastery of truth-discovering—but that is all. Manifestly the boy might have only an ‘unsatisfactory’ in science as a study, and being excellent and satisfactory in the six other elements of truth-discovering, make a most excellent showing as a discoverer of truth. The other elements of the mastery of truth-discovering are set down as alertness, thoroughness, skill in observing, skill in experimenting, soundness in interpreting, and geography.

Following the obscured trail of the traditional studies through the Moraine Park curriculum, we find French, Latin, Spanish, and mathematics set down as contributors to thought-expressing, with truthfulness and accuracy listed ahead of them. Unless we except manual training, listed under wealthproducing, this completes the list of mention of ‘studies’ in the ordinary acceptation. Grouped with manual training under wealth-producing are ‘project work,’ diligence, perseverance, honesty, initiative, thriftiness. As for the other ‘occupations,’ body-building includes eating carefully, general care of health, regular exercise. Spirit-building is made up of loyalty to high ideals, efforts to do the best, trustworthiness, power to will to do the right. Under society-serving come obedience, respect for law, faithfulness in office, interest in the community, punctuality. Manconserving is made up of generosity, spirit of helpfulness, home-making. Contributing to comradeor mate-seeking ability are the elements of coöperation, courtesy, agreeableness, frankness. Elements of the mastery of the art of life-refreshing are play interest, sportsmanlike spirit, courage, self-control, resourcefulness.

The report card really tells the story of the Moraine Park School. The parent examines it to learn whether and how the child is progressing in his mastery of the art of living and its component arts; the child views it as a picture of his progress in the adventure of life. Neither worries about the progress in studies, school-exercises, or methods, for both conceive of them as but ‘the material and means of education.’ In fact, the so-called studies, which must be carried on for drill purposes, and to keep up the articulation of the school with the colleges and universities, and also to keep the student from coming short of the mastery of living because of lack of understanding of the formal education of the past and present, are only a part of the instruments of education at Moraine Park. Training in business and in citizenship are granted as much importance and as much time as the formal studies; and beneath all three is the ever-considered basic occupation of being physically well and strong.

II

The method of the school varies in detail from day to day, from year to year, from class to class and pupil to pupil, but, in general, it seeks always to blend studies and life, mental and moral drill, with business and citizenship. So far as practicable, all things are learned or acquired by doing. Citizenship is mastered by making the school democratically self-governing, even to the conducting of the classes, wherein one of the class presides and does the ‘paper work,’ leaving the teacher free to be ‘one of the bunch.’ The studies are absorbed by utilizing them. This utilization may be through the ‘projects’ or through the working out of real-life problems. The book learning comes in as a tool in handling the problem. Instead of leading a boy up to a textbook on arithmetic, for example, and giving him so many rules to learn and so many examples to do, the textbook is arrived at by indirection. If a boy is going through all the phases of a duplication of earning money, saving it, and building a home on the installment plan, he finds himself up against many real-life problems in mathematics and naturally wants to know how to meet them. At this stage he is eager for the study of mathematics. He takes up arithmetic now because he has a compelling interest in it.

Running the school and the classes on a democratic plan inevitably leads to a desire to study civics and politics. In these ways the student comes to get, as a means to an end, what in the ordinary school is the end of his work. He follows his interests. He acquires with feverish enthusiasm the things that he might otherwise rebel against. The idea is, not to lay a course of education before a boy and tell him to swallow it, nolens volens, but to lead him along to a point where he demands it. He works out his own education. The teacher stays in the background as friend and adviser. He does not do all the swimming himself, but gets the boy to come into the pool with him. Education flows from the irresistible impulsion of his own activities — until it becomes his life.

So wide are the boundaries within which the girls and boys may follow the needle of their own inclinations that if, as sometimes happens, a class votes to pursue a study in the conventional manner of study, recitations, and examinations, it has its way; for the old way is held to be as good as any for those who like it. This does not often occur. Usually the indirect route is the one followed.

Take English, for example. Spelling and grammar are merely incidental. The pupils read pretty much what they want to read, fix a minimum of achievement, and choose their own themes. Eager to write or to understand, they perceive the necessity of knowing what is correct in composition and rhetoric. Spelling, grammar, and composition are now appealed to. Themes written in the pursuance of any study or occupation serve for the themes of the English class. A boy who was all for agriculture in his interests was utterly indifferent to literature. But to acquire the facts that appealed to him, he had to read various agricultural papers and bulletins. Then he noticed that some of these publications were easy to read and had an appealing style, while others were obscure and dull. This observation opened the door of English and literature to him. He desired to learn how to write lucidly and interestingly himself.

The learners of the arts of life can go as slowly or as rapidly as their abilities and energies determine. They receive credits, not on the basis of so many hours a week or on mere memory examinations and formal recitations, but rather on what they have mastered as shown by inquiry, ability-testing examinations, and observation. As the child progresses, he is informally appraised from time to time, and fundamentally surveyed and checked up at long intervals. Many children are notoriously slow in grasping particular drill studies, as, for example, mathematics. For them there are no despairing moments of agonizing tests and torturing examinations at Moraine. The mastery of mathematics being but one seventh of the mastery of ‘thought-expressing,’ the child to whom numbers come but slowly has abundant opportunity to compensate his pride and defend himself from mortification. Left to his own evolution in ample time, he generally finds himself sufficiently informed, even in the most backward studies, to master minimum requirements before the day comes for him to be graduated.

The so-called projects are related to all the ten occupations. They are reallife enterprises, in the development of which the child finds understanding of the arts of life. One group of boys has a project for building an air-plane — a natural enterprise in an aeronautical centre like Dayton. This project has its mechanical, scientific, and business aspects. First, of all, it must be financed; and the financing must be earned. So the boys rent a plot of land and plant popcorn, which they tend, harvest, and sell. This involves many business activities and much business initiative. Incidentally they learn something of agriculture, something of the popcorn business, something of banking, something of commercial correspondence. At each stage of the progress of the project they have to do something that is done in everyday life — and their natural prompting is to find out how to do it in the best way. They are turned to composition, to arithmetic, to typewriting, to bookkeeping. The mechanical and scientific by-paths are many and obvious. The air-ship boys were unfortunate enough to purchase an engine that was not satisfactory. In trying to unload it, they fell into a commercial temptation. They be thought themselves to offer it to the school bank, which is the project of another group, as collateral for a loan, leave the loan unpaid, and let the bank take possession of the worthless engine. At this point they learned something of business ethics and morals.

The bank project, besides being one means of the mastery of the arts of life for its shareholders and officers, is important in the financing of the other projects, as well as a convenience to the students in general, and an open door to banking practice. It has about a hundred accounts and its deposits amount to one thousand dollars. It makes loans at current interest rates, and on notes supported by collateral or good indorsements.

The projects number more than a hundred. Usually they are of a moneyearning or money-absorbing nature, but they are sometimes purely research or educational, and may be within the school’s purview or outside it. Among them are a school drug-store; a printing-shop; a newspaper; managing the school library; toy-manufacturing; a lunch-room; a law firm to look after the legal contacts and court trials that arise under the self-established government and from the conflicts of projects; a brokerage company; a second-hand store on pawnshop lines; a towel-supply service; a lost-and-found office; getting out the school catalogue (which is almost entirely performed by the students); camera shop; serving as secretaries to the director and instructors; advertising production for school announcements and business projects; an insurance company, which protects against various losses, including broken panes in the greenhouse that still shelters the larger part of the school; an advertising company; a bookstore; a transfer company; a construction company; and so on.

What with the handling of the many and diverse projects, and the work of the ‘details’ that perform the school chores, — such as janitoring, — the internal business administration of the school, and some of its external relations, are largely carried on by the pupils. There are, of course, various clubs, and sports and play are as much a part of the daily programme as classes and ‘projects.’

III

The very fact that the school began in a disused greenhouse and without much physical equipment opened the way for many projects and leaves it still open. There were, and are, many alterations to be made. The boys plan changes in their environment, and carry them out with saw and hammer, plane and paint-brush. Subject to the advice and counsel of the instructors, they make their way through school much as they will have to make it when the designated school years are over. They educate themselves. Within spacious bounds they follow the paths of their own interests and inclinations through the studies and activities that give the mastery of the arts of life. They are driven on by the impulsions born of what they do. In a large sense they ‘run’ themselves and the school. Thus they come to the final goal of the twelfth grade, — though grades are but shadowy things in this school, which flows steadily rather than advances by steps, — only partly by virtue of the book-learning that is revealed by set examinations, but as men progress in daily life; and they show their progress by their deeds rather than by accounts of what they have memorized.

The pupils are divided into four groups, with a normal allocation of four years to the first or primary group, two years to the second, three years to the third, and three years to the fourth. To each group are assigned certain standards, the attainment of which indicates eligibility for the next higher group. The standards are not arbitrary, but are used as goals, and are subject to change. Just now, for example, the child is ready to emerge from the first group when (1) he has made definite progress in physical development toward the norm for his age, according to standard tables; (2) when he has attained satisfactory standing in at least seven of the personal traits of self-control, thrift, perseverance, trustworthiness, obedience, truthfulness, helpfulness, generosity, courage, initiative, self-reliance; (3) when he shows by mental tests that his intelligence is within two years of the normal for his actual age; and (4) when he has reached a full fourth-grade standard in the ‘drill subjects,’ namely, reading, spelling, numbers, and writing.

To complete the work of the second group, the requisite normal physical progress must be in evidence; there must have been satisfactory advancement in the personal traits; there must be a wellestablished purpose ‘ to support the right and oppose the wrong’; there must be an intelligence within two years of that indicated as normal for the child’s actual age, and the attainment of a full sixth-grade proficiency in the drill subjects.

To pass through the third group the pupil must keep his physique up to the age-standard, pass mental tests indicating an intelligence within two years of that for his age, and have a standing of ‘good’ in at least seven of the nine ‘occupations’ that are based on the primal occupation of bodv-building or health-preserving; and must have completed, with a grade of ‘good,’ at least ten of the twelve units of the drill-subject work of this group — a unit being a year’s work.

To complete the fourth group (end of twelve years of work), the physical standard must be satisfied, the intelligence test must be passed, all the nine ‘occupations’ must be mastered to the extent of ‘good,’ and, finally, credit gained for twelve units of conventional studies of this group, and a total sixteen units, including those of the last year of the third group. These units are chosen so that they ‘equip for entrance to college or for a life occupation.’

In reviewing these progress-requirements, it will be observed that in each group there are three fields of appraisal in addition to the conventional ones. Roughly, it might be said that at Moraine the work of the typical school counts only as one fourth of the pupil’s advancement; and that statement presents briefly the difference between this school and the familiar ones. Were it not for the fact that Moraine must adapt itself to the general educational scheme, in order to equip its graduates for college entrance examinations and to enable them to produce the accepted symbols of education, it would doubtless give still less weight to the conventional. It is the hope of the founders and director to persuade colleges and universities to accept Moraine graduates on the school’s recommendation, full confidence being felt that they will more than make good. Already Michigan, Ohio State, and some other universities and colleges have agreed to accept Moraine boys for the full valuation the school accords to them. A number of boys, by their college records, have justified the school’s confidence in them and in itself.

Moraine is as adaptable and reasonable in its own entrance-requirements as it would have the colleges in theirs. By means of an application blank, which is an elaborate questionnaire, it gets a survey of the applicant’s life, character, disposition, attainments, performance, inclinations, and health. The parent, not the child, fills out and signs this blank. The last two questions remind him sharply of the educational creed he subscribes to in sending his child to Moraine. They are: —

‘Do you believe that self-discipline is the kind for children to acquire, rather than that they be trained by force of the will of adults?’

‘Do you believe that books, classes, materials, are of secondary importance to fundamental attitudes and qualities in education?’

IV

The pressure of Dayton boys and girls to get into this school, lured by the glowing accounts of its fascinating adventures in the book of life, soon scrapped the original scheme of a private school for a dozen or so sons of the creators. The latter are all democratic Americans, and they abhor exclusiveness. They had no intention of establishing a school that should seek patronage, but were merely trying to find a better way of educating their children — not to set them apart from other children. Within limits, a larger number of pupils would contribute to the realization of their ideas, as it would create a community, and establish opportunity for contacts and the practice of the ‘occupations’ that would be impossible in a small group. Moreover, a larger school would afford a desirable demonstration of the applicability of the conception to the public schools. By a weighted scale of tuition, whereby wealthy parents pay more than those less fortunate, it has become possible to keep the school from becoming a mere congregation of rich men’s sons. As the school is a self-governing democracy, the ‘citizens’ have a voice in the matter of admissions. Newcomers are accepted on probation while the community gets a chance to give them the ‘once over.’ No snobs or mere sons of their fathers can get by that searching scrutiny, although hasty judgments arc often revised after taking counsel with the instructors.

The democratic spirit of the school is further promoted by the comradeship of instructors and pupils. The former have no pride of position. They are of, for, and by the boys. They stand on no dignity of authority. The boys address them as familiarly as they do each other, and they maintain their leadership solely by virtue of their engaging personalities and their success in helping the boys to explore zestfully the realm of education. The teacher who requires the support of authority cannot remain at Moraine Park.

The expansion of the school, now but three years old, has compelled an enlargement of its housing. A beautiful home — not a schoolhouse — has been erected in Dayton proper for the accommodation of the little tots, a cottage for the older girls has been erected at the Park, and soon the boys will have a new building there; but the greenhouse will not be forsaken. Moraine Park is out in the country, though but a few miles from Dayton, so that the older children have the advantage of passing all their school-work and playhours in the midst of fields and forests, though their homes are in the city. So far, Moraine is entirely a school for Dayton, there being no accomodations for children who do not live with their families. The long waiting-list makes it doubtful whether Moraine will ever grow away from Dayton. Its spirit will doubtless go to other cities in like schools to be.

The admirers of the conventional school will decry Moraine Park as one more of many pedagogical fads and educational experiments, and ‘practical’ men will brand it as a doomed child of theory. Yet it is entirely the creation of practical men — self-made men — who desired a thoroughly practical school for their boys. When, some ten years ago, Colonel E. A. Deeds and Mr. C. F. Kettering, men whose names are of much import in the American automotive industries, and others, were developing one of the products of their genius, two boys, imitating their fathers, developed a waste-paper basket, and manufactured and marketed it with such success, that, though they were but seven or eight years old, they made a thousand dollars. This venture being wound up, one of the boys took up poultry-raising and made a corresponding success of it. The fathers, perceiving that the boys had developed strong commercial, engineering, and industrial tendencies, and were educating themselves in the ‘getting-on’ side of life, so indispensable to happiness in this age, bethought themselves whether it was possible to send the boys on through school and college, and give them the rest of the equipment of a well-balanced man of culture, without checking or perverting their spontaneous tendencies to learn for themselves. In other words, they desired their sons to get college educations without losing their innate practicality and their oneness with life. They sought a preparatory school that would make the boys resistant to the diversion of college life and equip them to make the most of its potentialities.

Thinking along similar lines, individually for his own son, and generally for better educational methods, was Mr. Arthur E. Morgan, an eminent engineer, who had come to Dayton to direct the $35,000,000 task of preventing such floods in the Miami Valley as the one that cost that part of Ohio several hundred lives and a property loss of more than $100,000,000 in 1913. So it came about that these men, and others who soon became interested, decided to start a school of their own, which would embody their ideas of what education should be. Realizing that the first essential was the finding of a teacher with sympathetic conceptions of education, possessing at the same time the character, energy, and personality to be an inspiring comrade and leader for normal boys, the searchers for something new in schooling set out in a characteristic way to find him. Being engineers and producers, they drew up, through Mr. Morgan, what they facetiously called plans and specifications for the type of man they desired. They proceeded deliberately. Just as they had taken five years to plan their huge work of flood-prevention before they put a shovel in the ground, so they took two years to find the man who would fit their plans and specifications. The whole of the United States was combed over, and more than two thousand men offered themselves for consideration in response to the circular setting forth the requirements and the conceptions of what the proposed school should be.

Lest it be inferred that these busy men of large affairs were seeking merely to establish a sort of exceptional business or technical school and were thinking not at all of cultural values, a few sentences from this remarkable circular must be quoted, with regret that the whole of it cannot be reprinted here.

Among the acquirements which reduce the embarrassments and inefficiencies of everyday material life are an experimental knowledge of commercial habits, rules and methods; of the art of being solvent; of appraising accurately one’s possessions; and of making correct measurements and judgment of material values. . . . The teaching of common-school subjects can be interwoven with all these interests. . . . By such methods proficiency in elementary and high-school subjects, as well as manual training, to some extent, may be acquired coincidentally with a knowledge of the usual contacts of everyday life, whether they be industrial, domestic, scientific, or cultural. . . . Any education is vitally at fault which does not develop a habit of enjoyment of the finer resources of life. The companionship of the teacher should result in opening eyes and minds to the phenomena of natural science — to life-processes and habits of plants and animals; to the data of geology, of physics and of astronomy; and to the appeal of good literature, poetry, history, and the various forms of art. . . . Education is not complete if its aim is so to engross the attention of men and women, either in industrial, professional, or social life, that they will not have time to ask themselves the question, ‘What is it all about?’ To have asked this question and to have reached a satisfactory attitude, which is not out of harmony with present-day knowledge, is necessary to a teacher who is wisely to direct the minds of boys. And unless the conclusion he has reached results in his having and imparting an enthusiastic faith in the worth-whileness of a full development of the physical, mental, and moral faculties, and in his being committed to complete intellectual and spiritual freedom, he would be out of place with us. As a corollary of this attitude, we would expect that the controlling necessity of life would be intellectual and moral integrity, with comprehensive unity of purpose. . . .

Bearing in mind always the need for maintaining progress approximately equal to that of our graded schools, the aims should be, not first of all to impart knowledge, but to open the boys’ eyes and minds; to arouse interest, aspiration, and determination; to develop accuracy of observation and of judgment. We should aim at vital orderliness, not dead conformity; at self-reliance, selfdiscipline, self-control; providing enough routine to develop patience, power of adjustment, and habits of social team-work.

The circular lays stress on the teaching of manners born of ‘ considerateness and good-will ’; on the encouragement of independence, ‘so that a boy will stand on his own resources’; on the conservation of ‘the spirit of daring and adventure so nearly universal in youth, commonly thwarted at every turn in a boy’s life’; and adds: ‘A man whose personality and temperament do not answer to this spirit in the boy would be out of place with us.’

While the Dayton seekers after an ideal education were advertising, corresponding, and traveling in search of their Moses, a group of educators in Colorado, meeting in ‘shop’ conference every six weeks, had progressed far in thinking out, from the standpoint of the professional teacher, a programme of education that the Dayton men were groping for from the standpoint of the layman familiar with the shortcomings of educational systems as measured in terms of actual life. They, too, had evolved the idea of the ‘occupations’ of life, the mastery of which would constitute education. One of them was Frank D. Slutz, then superintendent of the public schools of Pueblo. When the Colorado teachers heard of the Dayton quest for a new school and a teacher, they recommended Mr. Slutz and freely gave him the right to use their jointthought product. He was elected, and, with the help of other teachers and the pupils, ‘ the particular adaptation of this general theory to the actual practice of the schoolroom’ has been evolved.

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

‘One way of looking at our school,’ says Mr. Slutz, ‘is to consider it as a return to Americanism. We had abundant education in this country of a very good quality, if of narrow field, when the average boy got two or three months of usually distasteful “book larnin’,”and put in the rest of the year getting his education in the barn, the shed, and the field. With the taking on of an elaborate system of public schools that largely copied their methods from the Germans or the classic English public school, and with the extension of the scholastic year to include three fourths of the calendar year, we crowded out the American sort of education, which, as Mr. Morgan says, is as old as life. American schools should make Americans. To make Americans, you must inculcate and strengthen American traits. That, our schools arc not doing. Initiative is a prime American trait, but our schools teach conformity. We are an ambitious people, but our schools put a premium on average performance. We are a sports-loving, athletic people, but our schools tend to delegate athletics to specialists. The American is many-sided, but our educational system aggrandizes only one side of the mastery of living. Business shrewdness is another distinctive American trait, but our education does not give us business power. We believe in democracy and self-government, and our schools are autocracies. We are a religious people, and our schools are unreligious, repressing the spiritual element in education through fear of offending sectarian prejudices. At Moraine Park we are trying to teach Americanism by developing the American type — not the English, French, German, or some other type. You can’t develop a hunting dog by giving it the training suited to a poodle.’