TH

THURSDAY AFTERNOON.

HE Association was called to order at 1:50, and the first paper on the programme was read by Dr. J. P. Welsh, Principal of Bloomsburg Normal School, on the question,

DO THE SCHOOLS OF THE COMMONWEALTH MEET OUR EDUCATIONAL NEEDS? Perhaps, the object of our public school system may be summed up in the statement that its aim is so to train the youth of the commonwealth that they shall grow into good and intelligent citizens. The term intelligent may not be needed, if we assume that good citizens are always intelligent. Good citizens are law-abiding, patriotic, and selfsupporting. The best of citizens are more than self supporting. They are producers of national wealth. Intelligence conditions their power to produce. Whether it has any effect on their law-abiding nature, or on their public spirit, is not so certain. But we cannot study the efforts made by the illustrious Thaddeus Stevens to save the law which formed the basis of our public school system, without being impressed with the fact that he expected the system to lessen crime, bring happiness, thrift and contentment to the citizens of the commonwealth, and produce a strain of exalted patriotism that would be manifest in all the affairs of the commonwealth.

There is no doubt that this system has accomplished to a remarkable degree what was expected as to the intelligence of the people; illiteracy has decreased, and material prosperity has increased; but it is doubtful whether patriotism has been much affected by our public school curriculum. It always seems to come to the required standard in time of war as it did then, but it seems to be little better in time of peace than it was in the days of Stevens himself. He seems to have been the only member of the Legislature who had enough real love for the commonwealth to brave the threats of constituents, and face the overwhelming majority of both houses that loved their seats better than the educational interests of their state. I leave it for my hearers to determine whether the number of such patriots in our Legislature has grown greater or fewer, and after they have decided the question, I will cite them to the well-known principle, that integrity in public officials seldom rises higher than it is in the people who elevate them to that position, and may be taken as an index of patriotism among the people. We believe that the commonwealth has needs here that public school education is not meeting.

Has education lessened crime? I think the reply must be in the negative. No doubt numerous individual instances could be brought forward to prove both sides of this question; but when the last examina

tion has been made, and the last word said, it will have to be that in Pennsylvania as elsewhere education of the kind required by our public school laws does not lessen crime. Only the education that touches the heart can do this.

Up to the present time there has been nothing in the requirements of our public school instruction that is calculated to educate the feelings. They have all tended toward the storing up of information. The oft-repeated saying of the ignorant, that education breeds rascals, is an instance of the fact that in their crude way they mean to express the statement that education of the kind their children get does not prevent crime. A farmer some years ago, in whose district a friend of mine taught school, objected to his son's studying Geography. In arguing the question he said among other things, "What a boy learns in school does not keep him from going to the devil," and he added that he did not want his boy to have any knowledge of Geography, because if he should ever become a horse thief such knowledge would be of advantage to him in getting away with his plunder.

It must be admitted that many thousands of children every year, and year after year, are coming in contact with teachers whose characters and lives are "living epistles known and read of all men." By such contact they are educated away from crime. This is because of their good fortune in associating with noble characters; not because of anything that the school curriculum contains, but in spite of it. It must be admitted, too, that we have a law establishing high schools, with improved and uniform courses of study, but it is inoperative, and will not affect high schools now in existance, when it becomes operative. If we would lessen crime by education (and that is the only way to do it), we must have in that education that which touches the heart. Let us look at some of the branches required by law, and the manner in which they are taught, and try to note their effects on the feelings.

The study of History, is, of course, important; but in our text-books on this subjcct, and among most of our teachers, it is narrowed down so nearly to a role of bloody battles, that the little that is recorded of what took place in times of peace, the real history, is lost to memory because of lack of emphasis. Rarely is a great historical fact, like the discovery of America, placed before the mind of the learner so as to show it as a result of a great cause, one of many results that dated back, say to the great Indo-European movement that crowded the Celt out of Europe, and eventually the aborigines out of America, and that now through what may be called the Anglo-Saxon arm of this same movement, has reached on to the isles of the Pacific; a movement that no people or government started, is responsible for, or could check if it wished. Unless history is

taught as a philosophical subject it will breed crime instead of check it, and breed it faster than the machinery of government can detect it and punish it.

The multiplication of this machinery, by the way, is the strongest possible proof of the increase of crime. Many counties of the commonwealth have two courts of justice running full-blast nearly twelve months of the year, the chief business being to determine the degree of guilt of criminals. Jails and penitentiaries have multiplied, and their number has been enlarged almost past our power of comprehension. Crimes that were once rare and looked upon as horrible now seem mild because of their frequency, and because of the greater ones that outshine them.

Arithmetic is another important subject, of course, but it will not make men and women better. All the subjects of our public school curriculum are important, but as they are taught at present we must not expect them to remove from the human heart the tendency to wrong doing. They make men simply wiser. A few years ago a law was passed to have what has been known as "Temperance Physiology" taught in our public schools to all children. As a consequence all the rising generation ever since, as one urchin expressed it, "say their bones" at least once a day. I was in favor of this law, and am now; the facts in regard to tobacco and alcohol, as well as in regard to our anatomy and health, are important, and ought to be known by everybody; but I desire to call your attention to the fact that we all, including those connected with the tobacco business and the rum business, expected that this would result in a great diminution in the use of tobacco and spirits, and in a consequent diminution of crime. But I think we shall all have to admit that this has not been the case.

Information alone seldom makes the heart better. Men's acts always result from their feelings; and, while it is true that knowledge arouses feeling, it is also true that the kind of feeling aroused depends upon the kind of knowledge presented to the mind; and, furthermore, the kind of knowledge that arouses the finer and higher feelings is not embraced to any extent in our public school curriculum. The lessening of crime is one of the needs of the commonwealth. Punishment does not lessen crime. Education of the proper kind does. Pennsylvania's course of study for her public schools should be revised.

It is easier to criticise a course of study than to revise one. Perhaps the best way to revise it would be to have a commission of educators appointed to formulate a course of study for our schools, one that would make provision for all the schools, for all grades of all the schools, and for all ungraded schools. This course should be balanced so there would be food for both

the intellect and the feelings. The present course seems to have in view solely what have been considered the business needs of the rising generation, what they are supposed to need in the struggle for existence. But have we not changed our views in regard to this? Do we not now realize as we did not when the public schools of Pennsylvania were established, that culture as well as knowledge counts in the struggle, and that as a little knowledge is better than none, so a little culture is better than none? Such a commission would, of course, have a difficult task in determining what to omit from our present course, as well as what to add to it. But I believe they could find much to omit that never would be missed, and might well be replaced by that which would better meet the needs of the child. We will be surprised some day to find how many things we now believe essential, are not so. In the story entitled "A Kentucky Cardinal," by James Lane Allen, we find the following:

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The next time Miss Sylvia comes over I am going to give her a tremendous scolding and a big basket of green apples.'

Or what is worse, suppose you encourage her to study the greatest common divisor: I am trying to get her ready for school in the fall.'

'Is she being educated for a teacher?' 'You know that southern ladies never teach.'

'Then, she will never need the greatest common divisor. I have known many thousands of human beings, and none but teachers ever had the least use for the greatest common divisor.'"

I wonder how many other things in our public school curriculum are useful only to the teacher.

We should have in our public school curriculum a proper infusion of science, nature study if you so choose to call it; not a heterogeneous, disconnected collection of knowledge about beetles, cray-fish, and what not, but true science. It is a pity that it has taken us nearly half a century to reach the conclusion that in the soil and pebbles over which our children walk to school, in the trees and bushes that shade their pathway, in the harmless insects that they so often are taught to crush, in the panorama of life that in profusion fills their surroundings, there is a wealth of soulstirring knowledge that they need to know, not only that they may make the most of themselves and their circumstances, but in order that they may be lifted to that plane of thought and feeling which will make them better citizens.

This science study forms the best possible basis for art study. Let our commission make art a public school study. I do not mean art in the sense in which we so often think of it; but in a broader sense. I mean art, not drawing. I would have our children taught to love and seek the beautiful

in nature, the beautiful in their surroundings, the beautiful in literature, and the beautiful in human action. I would cultivate their æsthetic taste, so that all that is ugly and squalid would be revolting to them. Art should be the " synonym of beauty in everything that the hand of man touches." How different would be this commonwealth if every youth from his earliest years had his soul in revolt against the sordidness of the life in which he finds himself! Then might we hope for crime to diminish. I am aware that the law cannot go into the child's home and remove from it the ugliness in furnishings, in surroundings, in actions, in character, that stamp themselves upon him before he goes to school; but if the school is what it might be, the homes will eventually be what they should be.

As a part of the instruction in art, there should be a law requiring the school house and school grounds to be the most attractive spot in all the neighborhood in which it is situated. Many cities and boroughs have buildings well enough from an architectural standpoint on the outside, but inside too many of them are barren of all that tends to refinement and culture. But what shall we say of our country school houses and grounds? As a rule they are the most barren and blighted spots one finds in all his travels. The results of training children in such places would be dreadful in the extreme, were it not for the fact that while the child passes to and from school, nature with her wonderful art gallery counteracts many of the ill effects.

I anticipate that some may reply to these suggestions that there are plenty of schools now in which these reforms have all been made or begun; and there is nothing to hinder the rest from making them as soon as they choose. Such a statement can be answered only by calling attention to the fact that the Commonwealth did not wait till all were ready for the common school, supported by taxation, before it was established. She did not wait till everybody was ready for compulsory education and a six or seven months' term. There are certain classes of society that are never ready for improvements, especially in educational facilities, and they are generally those who have the greatest need of these improve

ments.

It is, of course, impossibie in this paper to outline even in a general way, the whole field which our commission should cover. In addition to an improved course of study, I would have them revise our whole method of training, examining, and certificating teachers. Any one who will make a study of our school law on certificates, must find evidence in the dates when the different laws were enacted, as well as in their provisions, of a strife between two classes of applicants who are on different sides of the certificate wall. One class seems to have

exerted its energies in making breaches in the wall, while the other class seems to have been trying to make the barriers higher. As a result, we have the following kinds of certificates: Provisional certificates; professional certificates; permanent certificates; normal school certificates; practical teachers' certificates; college certificates. I have a faint recollection, also, that I have heard something about an effort to have academy certificates and high school certificates. But these have not yet succeeded in scaling the wall. After they have done so, the grammar school and kindergarten certificates will be in order.

The provisional certificate was originally intended as an emergency measure. After the emergency was met it usurped first place, and bids fair to keep it, as more provisional certificates than any other kind are issued. If I had time, I should like to say much more on this subject, as I consider it very important,

Out of this certificate warfare has grown the examination curse. Of all the evils that threaten education, this is the most dangerous. Doubtless many of my hearers have read a book by Edmond Demolins (recently translated from the French) on AngloSaxon superiority. (Everybody interested in schools ought to read it.) In the first chapter of the book is a criticism of methods that obtain in the French schools. He deplores among other things the fact that

voluminous books are becoming scarcer and scarcer," especially those that represent personal work, that has required long and elaborate reflection. He says, "This inability to go to the bottom of any subject is not a racial phenomenon, but is mostly due to the cramming occasioned by examinations. When the mind has been trained solely to skimming the surface of things, to learning exclusively from manuals,' to comprehending things speedily, rather than judiciously understanding them, to swallowing the greatest quantity of indigestible information; then does all methodical and thorough work become impossible. A mind so trained simply cannot do it."

Let us quote a little further:

Naturally, this inability is in proportion to the length of time and intensity accorded to the cramming and examination regime. This phenomenon reaches its climax amongst pupils of our largest schools. They are superior in memory, rapidity of conception, in aptitude to seize a demonstration on the wing, as it were. These are the only qualities which there has been any attempt to develop in themand to them they owe their successes in examinations; the pupils prove decidedly inferior as soon as they are called to bring into practice those brilliant but empty qualities."

It strikes me that we have here a pretty good picture of ourselves. Ask a Pennsylvania child what he dislikes most in his

school experience, and he will say examinations. Now, it is one of the characteristics of children to enjoy telling what they have learned. If this characteristic were made the basis of a system of examining, the results would not be so bad. But the prevailing purpose of examinations is to find out what children do not know, not what they do know. There is much needless examining. The craze is on us so hard, that if we see a child running loose anywhere our fingers tingle to catch him and examine him. Some one has said that when a Pennsylvania teacher asked admission at the Golden Gate, St. Peter said, "As you're from Pennsylvania, it will be necessary for you to be examined."

When the child enters school he is examined for admission. Then he's examined again when he leaves, and examined all the time between these two examinations in order to keep him ready for examinations. If there is bred into him during his school life any educational ambition, it is an ambition to pass examinations, not an ambition to be educated and refined. A part of this blighting condition is fastened upon us by law. When a student enters a Normal School, for instance, from whatever other school he may come, he must be examined. He may be a graduate of the best high school in the State. Before he is admitted to the Senior Class he must be examined to see whether he can read, and write, and spell, and add, and subtract. Nothing is taken for granted. It is assumed that the high school might have let him slip through without learning to read and write. Timid, bashful, scared, feeling himself in the hands of strangers, he submits-fails to make a record such as he hoped, such as he should, becomes discouraged, and, perhaps, worst of all, begins to wonder whether his previous teachers might not be at fault. If he should reach the required grade, as it is called, he's turned over to another body of examiners, the State Committee, where the scene is re-enacted. Thus, at the end of three examinations (for he passed one before leaving the high school) he is landed in the Senior Class--what is left of him.

Remember, this is examination according to law. This case is extreme, perhaps the worst to be found in the entire system of schools; but it actually exists.

Oh, let the day hasten that will bring to us our commission to revise the schools of the Commonwealth! I know when their labors are completed they will be ready to propose a plan to be enacted into law that will require every student who is examined, to be examined in the school where he studied the branches in which he is to be examined. He will be examined by his own teachers, in the company of his classmates, and having his customary surroundings; and when the examination has ended he will have a record that will admit him in subjects satisfactorily covered, to equal

standing in any school in the Commonwealth.

How petty it is for one class of school officials in the same system to be placed in a position to condemn or criticise the effectiveness of the work of others! Let the school and the pupil be condemned only when his failure to carry forward successfully the work of his course becomes apparent.

Out of a revision of our system of examinations will come something else that we need most of all. We have been calling our public schools all along a system, but the term is a misnomer. Every school is as separate from and independent of every other, as if they were not in the same state. If a child in the country moves into an adjoining township, or into a neighboring city, he carries no record of standing into the school he enters which enables his new teacher to place him where he belongs; and if he did have such a certificate of standing, it would be of little use to him, for his new school would not likely be graded on the same lines as the school he left. If he passes from the ungraded country school to the graded town school, here again he is at a disadvantage. If he passes through the graded schools, and is graduated from a high school, here again we are reminded of the unsystematic nature of our system. He is now a high school graduate. This is coming to be a much used term, because high schools are multiplying; but it is a term that means one thing in one place, and quite another thing in another. Almost no two high schools have the same course of study. Their courses of study not only vary, but, as might be expected, their standards of excellence vary. The same lack of unity exists everywhere. Even the ungraded schools of the same township have no connection with each other that produces any kind of uniformity of method or product. From this point all the way to the Normal School and the College, the same lack of system is apparent. The schools of a borough or city in themselves may form a system, but the schools of the State do not. At no point is the child made to feel that having accomplished one step he is ready for another. He is more likely made to feel that having completed the studies of the course in his home school, he has finished his education. If later he tries to enter a higher school, or college, he generally finds to his disappointment that his course has not been such as to meet the entrance requirements.

At this point let me quote from a recent report of our College and University Council to the Senate and House of Representatives of our State Legislature:

The College and University Council recommends a unification of our educational system; so that the chasm that now separates the public schools and the Normal schools from the colleges and universities, may be bridged over at an early day."

In the judgment of the speaker, there is no way to bring about this unity; improvement in courses of study and granting certificates; emancipation from the evils of examinations; and the elimination of other weaknesses of our so called system, but to have a commission of educators appointed for that purpose. Let their report come in the form of suggestions as to needed legislation, and then let the school directors of Pennsylvania demand the legislation. Let them first ask for the commission, then for the laws; and if the work of revision all along the line is carefully and systematically done, Pennsylvania will soon rank first in education, instead of where she does.

Let us see what her rank is. According to a recent report of the United States Commissioner of Education, Pennsylvania stands in the enrolment of her population in school, 31st in the list; eleven states pay more school tax per capita, and thirteen states expend more per capita on education; twenty-six states spend more per pupil for teachers' salaries; and twenty-three states pay higher salaries to their teachers. These are facts which may be taken as a fair index of Pennsylvania's educational standing. Here's work for the State Association of School Directors. If they accomplish it, and place the Old Keystone State at the head of the list educationally, where she belongs, their names will go down on the pages of the State's history alongside of that of Thaddeus Stevens, and they will have the consciousness of having done as much for the boys and girls of the State as he did in championing the system when it was in its infancy.

Samuel J. Garner, Hatboro, Montgomery county, followed with a paper on the same subject:

In order to arrive at an intelligent conclusion upon this question it will be necessary for us to determine first what our educational needs are; and then determine, if possible, if the public schools of the commonwealth meet these needs.

Prior to the advent of the public school system, and for years subsequent to its establishment, one who could write his name, read the newspaper, and do the simplest problems in arithmetic, could start out upon a business career with every prospect of success as far as his educational advantages were concerned, because in that particular he was as well equipped as the large majority of people with whom he would come in contact. and as well qualified, educationally, as the majority of those with whom he would be brought into direct competition.

But, Mr. President and fellow directors, is that the condition of the educational status of the majority or masses of the people to-day?

Since the early days of the public schools the people of this and every other common

wealth have been passing through an educational era. The process of educating the masses of the people through the medium of the public school has gone on until to-day it is absolutely necessary for every one in any pursuit, if he would be qualified to meet his competitors in life, and would command the respect and esteem of his fellowman, to have a broader and more liberal education than at any time in our past history.

Now the question that confronts us is: Does the public school of our commonwealth give the masses of the children that broad, liberal education that the educational needs of the day require?

I give it as my humble opinion that the public school as a whole in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to-day does not meet that need.

Let it, however, be said here, gentlemen, to the lasting credit of our people, that we have in this commonwealth to day a large number of districts in which the public school is educating the masses of her children fully up to the needs and requirements of the times; but taking the public school as a whole, I do not believe we are giving the masses of the children sufficient education to meet the demands of the day.

I believe this, gentlemen, because you know, and I know, that a very large percentage of the children who leave our public schools and never again pursue their studies in other institutions do not have the education the public school is able to give, the educational needs the times require, and that which the people are full able to afford.

We hear a great deal these times about our school children being over-worked, having too great a variety of studies, and about our attempts to do too much in the public school. Gentlemen, I want to take issue with some of the accusations; it is an easy thing to fall in with the hue and cry, to accept an opinion ready-made rather than to think and make one yourself. I do not believe, gentlemen, that the public schools of Pennsylvania are attempting to do too much in the breadth and liberality of the course of studies they are giving the children; rather upon the other hand, I believe that the public school is not attempting to do enough. If we are overworking the children, the fault is not because we are attempting to teach them too much, it is because we are trying to meet the educational needs of the day in too short a period of time. We are not willing to give the children sufficient time in school to master a course of studies that will qualify them to meet the educational requirements of the present day. We are in too great a hurry to get the children out of the public schools, wanting them at too early an age to earn their own living; and fearing the school tax might be a little too high, the trouble is we are willing to sacrifice the intellectual development of the children in order to save a few paltry dollars.