The New Education Part 14

"Well, I saw--I saw--" and Elmer sat down.

"I saw that it had been raining in the night by the mud in the streets,"

said Alice; while John had seen trolley cars, and remembered that the number on one of them was 647.

A seventh grade girl had read the Psalm beginning, "Who shall ascend unto the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in His holy place?" After asking what a psalm was, and who wrote the Psalms, the teacher asked:

"Who was David?"

"He was the king of Palestine," replied one boy promptly. After straightening out the history the teacher next asked:

"For what was David noted?"

"For being Solomon's father," ventured one little girl.

"Oh, no," protested a boy, "He was the fighter."

"Sure enough," said the teacher, "would the fact that he was a warrior naturally influence his thoughts?" After an affirmative answer from the cla.s.s: "Where do we find any evidence of that in this Psalm, George?"

asked the teacher.

George considered the reading a moment. "Oh, I see, it's where he says, 'The Lord mighty in battle.'"

After an elaboration of this idea the teacher went on to ask why David wrote, "Lift up your heads, oh ye gates, and the King of Glory shall come in." By careful questioning the cla.s.s was led to see that cities had walls and gates; that David, who had won many victories, was accustomed to have the gates thrown wide to receive him, and that his triumphal entries had made a deep impression on his thoughts. After some more discussion the Psalm was read again, this time with surprising intelligence and feeling.

One eighth grade cla.s.s in English was engaged in preparing a catalog of all of the pictures in the school, looking up the painters, their lives, their princ.i.p.al works, and the circ.u.mstances connected with the painting of the pictures which hung on the school wall. In the same room a girl had written a description of a sunset, in which she had said: "The western sky is illuminated with a fiery red, and the edges of the clouds are also tinted with a silvery hue."

"What would Corot say about that?" asked the teacher.

The girl thought a moment. "I guess he would say that there was too much color."

"Yes," smiled the teacher, "he would say, 'Let's go home and wait for a few moments.'"

The essay work in the upper grades is linked with all of the other school work. The children write about civics, architecture, localities, books and pictures. One girl of thirteen wrote on "The Reaper"--"As I enter my bedroom one picture especially catches my gaze. It hangs on the eastern wall. It is the picture of a large city by moonlight. The moon is bright and the stars are out. A beautiful lake borders the far end of the city, and the moon makes the lake look like a mirror. The church steeple stands out clear against the sky. It is a beautiful summer night, and while the city sleeps an angel descends and bears a little child to the heavens above. Some mother must have given up one of her beloved flowers."

No less valuable are the essays describing an ideal kitchen, a location for a house, a home, school life, and the various other things with which the child comes in contact.

Last among the academic branches, there is a carefully organized eighth grade course in civics, which, beginning with the geography and early history of Cincinnati, covers family relations and the tenement problem; the protection of public health--street cleaning, sewage, water, smoke abatement, and the activities of the Board of Health in providing for sanitation and the suppression of disease; the protection of life and property; the business life of the community--relation of the citizen to business life, the growth of commerce and industry in Cincinnati; Cincinnati as a manufacturing center, the labor problem, and the regulation of business by the government; the necessity for civic beauty; the educational forces of the community; the care of dependents and delinquents; the functions of government; and the collection and expenditure of city funds. In this way the child, before he leaves the elementary school, is given an idea of the real meaning of citizens.h.i.+p.

Beginning in the kindergarten, the art work extends through the high school, including in the lower elementary grades, paper-cutting and pasting related to school work, the seasons and the holidays. From the third grade on, the children make real products--trays, boxes, blotter pads, calendars, booklets and folios--work which is supplemented by object and constructive drawing and designing.

Shop-work is given to boys, and domestic science to girls, in all of the schools. The point at which these subjects are introduced and the amount of time devoted to them depends upon--what do you think? The regulations prescribed in the course of study? Not a bit of it! It depends upon the needs of the community and of the child.

Schools which are located in the poorer districts begin manual training and domestic science with the second grade, though ordinarily they are not introduced until the sixth. Normally the children are given one and one-half or two hours a week of such work, but over-age, backward and defective children may spend as much as half of their time upon it. For some of the girls a five-room flat has been rented, in which they are taught housekeeping in all of its phases. Otherwise the domestic science consists of hand and machine sewing, the designing and making of simple garments, the planning and preparation of food, and the organization and care of a household. Wherever possible, the boys make useful products in their shop-work, instead of constructing show pieces which have no value.

From top to bottom the grades are shaped to meet the needs of children.

Each cla.s.s and each school is built around this central idea. The school system, instead of taking the usual form of a c.u.mbrous machine, is a delicate mechanism adjusted to the wants of Cincinnati children.

V Popularizing High School Education

Not content with making the grades interesting, the school authorities of Cincinnati have made the high schools so profitable and popular that ninety-five out of each one hundred children who complete the eighth grade go to the Cincinnati high schools. Furthermore, during the past six years the high school attendance in Cincinnati has doubled. These two noteworthy conditions are the product of carefully matured and efficiently executed plans, and of infinite labor. Yet the results have more than repaid the labor which they cost.

"Our first task," explained Dr. E. D. Lyon, princ.i.p.al of the Hughes High School, "was to persuade the community that it needed high school training. Next we secured two fine new high school buildings. Then those of us who are engaged in high school work faced the supreme task. We had to prove to the people that their expenditures on high schools were worth while, by providing a high school education that would mean something to the pupils and to the community." Note the spirit of social obligation--a feeling prevalent throughout the Cincinnati schools.

"Most parents fail to see the importance of the high school problem,"

said a.s.sistant Superintendent Roberts, "because they never make consistent efforts to have their children choose their vocations intelligently. We began our work right there, at the bottom, by telling the parents of grade children about the high school courses, and what they meant. Eighth grade teachers, under the guidance of Mr. F. P.

Goodwin, are expected to talk to their cla.s.ses regularly on the vocational opportunities in Cincinnati and elsewhere, and to help the children get started right in high school careers. Besides that, we take the grade children on trips to the high schools, showing them on each trip some striking feature of high school work. Parents' meetings are held, in which the high schools are explained and discussed, and we send circulars to the parents of sixth, seventh and eighth grade pupils, explaining the high school work as simply as may be."

After arousing such expectations, the high school cannot fulfill its obligations in any way other than by the provision of a thorough course of study adapted to the needs of all types of pupils. The preparation for this in Cincinnati has been made with consummate skill. The pupil, on entering the high school, may select any one of the nine general courses, in which there are twenty-three possible combinations of subjects.

Four of the courses--General, Cla.s.sical, Domestic Science and Manual Training--prepare for various colleges and technical schools. The other five courses--Commercial, Technical Co-operative Course for Boys; Technical Co-operative Course for Girls; Art and Music, lead to vocations. Housed in the same high school building is this range of work, which permits boys and girls to select a course which will bear directly on almost any line of work that they may care to follow in later life.

Each course is shaped to give the children who select it a definite training in the line of their interest. The General Course prepares pupils for college; the Domestic Science Course shows girls how to make and keep a home; the Commercial Course turns out bookkeepers; the Technical Co-operative Courses, enabling boys and girls to spend part of their time in the school and part in the factory, are arranged in co-operation with the princ.i.p.al industries of Cincinnati. The Art and Music Courses, like the other special work, are in the hands of experts who are competent to give a practical direction to the activity of their pupils.

In pa.s.sing, it is interesting to note that the people of Cincinnati are getting the best possible use out of their splendid high school equipment. In addition to the regular cla.s.ses which fill the Woodward High School from 8:30 to 3:00, the pupils in the continuation courses occupy the building every afternoon and all day Sat.u.r.day. Five nights a week it is filled by an enthusiastic night school, three thousand strong, and during six weeks of the summer vacation a summer school holds its sessions there. It would be difficult to find a school plant which comes nearer to being used one hundred per cent of its time. To be sure, such things were not done "in father's time," but then the people of Cincinnati have a theory that while a good thing is worth all it costs, it does not pay to let even the best of things decay for lack of use. That is why the school system tingles from end to end with vigor and enthusiasm.

VI A City University

Besides the kindergarten, elementary schools, and high schools, the city of Cincinnati has a university, which, like all of the other educational forces of the city, is tied up with the general educational program.

Those graduates of the Cincinnati high schools who desire to go to college, may pa.s.s from the high school of Cincinnati into the University of Cincinnati without a break in the continuity of their education.

The University of Cincinnati is a munic.i.p.al university. The city appropriates one-half of one mill on the general a.s.sessment, for university purposes. The board of education appropriates ten thousand dollars a year toward the maintenance of the Teachers' College, the school in which the city teachers are trained. The training school for kindergarteners is affiliated with the university, having the same entrance requirements as the other university courses. In explanation of this close connection between the city and the university, President Dabney begins his 1911 report to the board of directors by saying: "An effort has been made in this report to explain the service of the university to the city and people of Cincinnati. It is therefore not only an official report to the directors, but is also a statement for the information of all citizens." Begun in this spirit of public obligation, the report details the services of the Teachers' College in supplying teachers; of the School of Economics and Political Science in supplying munic.i.p.al experts; and of the Engineering School for its inauguration of the widely-known industrial co-operative courses--for be it known to the uninitiated that the five hundred students of the University Engineering School spend alternately two weeks in the school and two weeks in a shop. More than that, the Engineering School furnishes experts for munic.i.p.al engineering work.

That the students of the University may feel the interest of the city in their work, preference is given to the University graduates in appointments of teachers, of munic.i.p.al engineers, and of employees on such munic.i.p.al work as testing food, inspecting construction, and the like. University students may thus occupy their spare time in practical munic.i.p.al work.

"The University should lead the progressive thought of the community,"

says President Dabney, and by way of making good his proposition he avails himself of every opportunity to turn his students into munic.i.p.al activities, or to co-operate in any way with the forces that are making for a greater Cincinnati.

VII Special Schools for Special Cla.s.ses

There are children in Cincinnati, as in every other city, who cannot afford to go to the high school. The easiest answer to such children is, "Well, then, don't." The fairest answer is a system of schools which will enable them to secure an education even though they are at work.

Cincinnati in selecting the latter course has opened a school for the education of every important group unable to attend the high schools who wish to avail themselves of advanced educational opportunities.

First there is the night school work, which, in addition to the ordinary academic courses, offers special opportunities in machine shop practice, blacksmithing, mechanical and architectural drawing, and domestic science. As these courses are carried forward in the Woodward High School building the students have all of the advantages of high school equipment.

Night school, coming after a day's exertion, is so trying that only the most robust can profit by it. No small importance therefore attaches to the operation of the compulsory continuation schools under the Ohio law, which empowers cities to compel working children between fourteen and sixteen years of age to attend school for not more than eight hours a week between the hours of 8:00 A. M. and 5:00 P. M.--hours which will presumably be subtracted from shop time. By means of this adaptation of the German system even those children who must leave school at fourteen are guaranteed school work for the next two years at least. Although this is but a minimum requirement, it represents a beginning in the right direction.

No less significant than this compulsory system are the voluntary continuation schools for those over sixteen years of age, which have been established for machinists' apprentices, for printers' apprentices, for saleswomen, and for housewives. The first two courses are conducted under the direction of a genius named Renshaw, who takes from the machine shop boys of every age, nationality and experience, fits them somewhere into his four-year course; gives them a numbered time check from his time board; teaches them reading, writing, arithmetic, mechanical drawing, geometry, algebra and trigonometry by means of an ingenious series of blueprints, which const.i.tute their sole text-book; visits them in their shops, giving suggestions and advice about the shop work, and finally sends them out finished craftsmen, with an excellent foundation in the theoretical side of the trades. The work is entirely voluntary, yet so excellent is it that a number of Cincinnati manufacturers send their apprentices to Mr. Renshaw, paying them regular wages for the four hours of credit which the said Renshaw registers weekly on the boys' time-cards. "One firm sends sixty boys here each week," commented Mr. Renshaw's a.s.sistant. "That makes two hundred and forty hours of school work each week for which they pay regular wages. Well, sir, the superintendent there told me that they didn't so much as notice the loss."

"I tried to explain my system to one superintendent," said Mr. Renshaw, "but he wouldn't even listen. 'It makes no difference how you do it,' he grumbled, 'I don't care about that. I know that the boys are neater, more careful, more accurate, and better all-around workmen after they have been with you for a while. That's enough explanation for me.'"

Acting on such sentiments the manufacturer peremptorily dismisses the boy who does not do his school tasks satisfactorily. The responsibility is in the school, whose growing enrollment and influence tell their own story. Firms send their boys to the school with the comment that the hours of school time, for which they are paid, do not add to the cost of shop management, but do add to the value of the boys to the shop.

Increased efficiency pays.

A school of salesmans.h.i.+p for women has met with a like success. The leading stores, glad of an opportunity to raise the standard of their employees, grant the saleswomen a half day each week, without loss of pay, during which they take the salesmans.h.i.+p course. The course has the hearty backing of the best Cincinnati merchants, who see in it an opportunity, as Mr. Dyer put it, "to make their employees the most skilled and intelligent, the most obliging and trustworthy, the best treated and best paid--in short, the very best type of saleswomen in the country."

That this work may keep pace with the demand for it the school authorities offer industrial instruction in any pursuit for which a cla.s.s of twenty-five can be organized.