RECONSTRUCTION

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 211, 31 May 1919, Page 8

RECONSTRUCTION

THE SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE THE CONTINUATION SCHOOL (For The Dominion.) (My 1\ li. Combs, M.A.) IX. "We should transplant Hip human sappling (I concede reluctantly) as early ns eight . ... to tla , schoolhous.e. . . We must sliul: out nature nnd open books. The child must; sit on unhygienic benches and work the tiny muscles Hint wag tonguu and pen, and let nil tho others which constitute nearly half its weight decay."—<j. Stanley Hall, the grailpst living , writer on tho science- of education.

Ideas a Philosopher's Diet. The philosopher may feed upon pale abstractions. The dust, smoke, and clamour of ■buttles, military, economic, and jiolilical may pass over him unheedfiil. may come and cooks may go, lifelong wifely friendships be cemented and dissolved from week to week, and yet. rcninltt and aloof from it all the mighty mind may advance from generality to generality, tieeking in polysyllabic profundities the answer to this riddle of a universe. '

The- philosopher may thus insulate himself from contact Villi his kind, but never Iho schoolboy. For his young mind is the opposite of tho philosopher's. The latter is intent even in. his posturing upon secondary causes only to ,be formulated in terms of thought. The former revels' with avidity in lirst-hand concretn actualities. lie is an eager impressionist, whetting ami exciting his primal instincts, his love of movement, colour, nud occurrence b.v friction with the human and material world. In Hie amphitheatre his soul is absorbed with the encounters, the gore, tho shout? of the multitude, the betting and the vendors of .refreshments. With not cue jealous pang, ho leaves to the philosopher a monopoly of all pessimistic reflection on tho coming downfall of Imperial Koine. j>

Yet Philosopher is Boy's Tyrant. But flie philosopher, nevertheless, lias his innings. On the sidewalk irresponsible youth may clamour irreverently after his- 'progress, "Go up Ihou baldhead." but a. turn to the loft and we are in the presence t of a building singularly like a gaol, wherein, 'hound to pen and book, and us light packed as galley slaves at the oar, aro his erstwhile re•vilers and tormentors:

His tyranny is' even more insidious, for not only Ims he removed tho young mind from those lush pastures of graphic personal experience whereon it so gluttonously browsed; he has replaced thw appetising diet with his own diluted aud savourless extracts of wisdom. Instead of knowledge, its instruments—instead of sensory absorption, a drinking in with eyp. and car of the moving, seething, compel ing, combining panorama of life, difficult, jind distasteful reflection upon large tendencies—instead of a street altercation over strike tactics, the.prolonged thesis (lf'cmpiro and imperial polity— instead of a creek to dam. the international significance of the Itliine to unravel—instead of language, trenchant, full flavoured, uugarnished, impulsive considerations of grammatical correctness . and analytic, structure—instead of till that the primal mind is first disposed to seek and assimilate the philosopher substitutes those ultimate, fruits of 1 uman thoucht, which arc the. last achievement of tho developed intellect. Principle put before Practice, Tlnis does ho take his revenge. Jlo insists iu making children think (more often merely .seem to think) about: largo and general asppefs of civilisation which they will have fo wait another 20 rears to really realise. Attest ho gets tiiem U> set forth in intelligible verbal form that lo which only hull' a lifeV ercjerrence will give real and practical significance. At worst he. bafi'les and starves Iho child mind on a. diet of deductions it ran no more assimilate than tho child stomach can digest fat. He, the iinilosophiir, has incarcerated the child at a time when everv nerve is :ilinglo with practical'haml-10-niouf'h interests In lif.ll* everyday things and doings, iu a. building where only big stalely secondary gencrai--isiitions ;ire in order. Ho has removed them from-the world they aro commencing to live iu, in order io explain it to them.

Later on, at an age 115 to IS), wnim tlio mind,its beginning 1.6 generalise, ,uul has ex.hnlisted the first freshness of practical intuitions, it is bundled out into the real Avorld to make that thousand-fold detailed connection, with the swarming activities of civilisation called learning a trade or a business. AYlint n disastrous inversion. T.lie man's thought coniuhl and verbally assimilated in childhood —the child's intuitions.'its etching in on the map of life of scrap after scrap of vivid detailed experience) left to the man. Xo wonder our experimental schools, our normal colleges, .with a vague sense of something lacking in their pabulum, ore endeavouriijg. to. supplement their formal instruction with scanty crumbs of actuality such as allowing the children to wash up the dinner dishes or to iniiko' trivial models in , paper or wood of adult ornaments and ulcnsils. Needed, a Fusion of Teaching and Living. This tendency, timid lit present, and opportunist, is nevertheless sulutary. •Broadened out to its logical dimensions 'it will make life-a school, and schools lifelike, it will i|iiitu in one flesh two entities, education and existence, too long dissevered by pedantry of spirit in the iirst ami the sheer unthinking iudilference of the second. Education will Urns return to (he simple efficient form in which the primitive and classic peoples left it. Close association of the boy in the pursuits and responsibilities of the man, appealing as it does to the aspiring tendencies of his whole personalilv, will cause that stretching upward 'which heightens moral, , even as it does physical, eraturc. Like the young (.1 reek or Itomiiii or Ked Indian, having learnt; about life from Ihe book of life itself, he will immerse himself eagerly and confidently in the doings of his fellows (not, itjj is so fatally common nowadays, become a domestic recluse, whose calculable alinu.il episodes am early tomatoes, spring millinery, and r.pring cleaning). In briof, in order lo learn to swim he will get into the water, not dally eight years on '.he bunk, receiving vague theoretical hinls in regerd to the process. Hut it may hu asked,' even .supposing thn remedy for ihe inveterate pedantry of education lies in this inextricable and informal interfusion with the schools' activities uf those of real life, How is-it to bo brought about? Tin: answer k that it is already being brought about and that tendencies operating only need tae.tful and judicious furtherance to produce the consummation desired-Hint in which schosi life anil civic and industrial life will !h» Kn much of. a piece that-houc will he able lo discover the.ir.seamless join. The Kindergarten to the Rescue. i'or a slow, encroaching at lack has been made on formal instructional education from its two Hanks, 'i'h-.r Wiiulergarli-n on the one side, with its unorthodox methods ami outlook, has discovered in the happy, free, complete activity of lint whole personality, imaginative-; active ami emotional, the key to all true education, and unwelcome paradox has revealed more of the science of Ihe teacher's call in;! than all the lofty thinking of our universities. Verily it.' case this of "out of the mouths of babes and suckling.-." To .Mr. (.ilover: The nails had been in American parlance, to "campaign on the "round." Coming down lo the child's level and operating through those vivid associations already knitting him lo lite ami his infantile environment, ij; has imperceptibly aiid unobtrusively intermingled with these in applied forms, full always of intense practical interest, Ihe cultural elements necessary later on lo a thinking, as conlra-dislinguished from an. observant intelligence. Also the Continuation School. This insidious penetration by fhe kindergarten of education's lower Hank hns for its counterpart on the upper side the encroachments of the coiilinualion school and its derivatives, W.KA.'s. university extensions, etc. The W.E.A.. in particular, though it has sl.ill In break free from some £l' (he formal restriction* of academic learning, can already give the university more than it receives. It re-

Hiiires- no excessive vehemence, of imagination to see such study ami discussion groups coalescing round every subject in the Encyclopaedia Britnnmen, and seeking by direi-t striking applications of opinion au<l theory to daily life to vitalise thought anil to idenliJo disk work. Toward tho W.E.A. Ihc conlimiatioii school is now reaching: out nil eager hand. Tt, ton, for its aloleseence. shows a lieallhy disposition to strip learning of its formal trappings. It. studies English, for instance, as what it really is, that magical texture of feeling and imagery in which we set forth in artistic form our experience of life ami our commentary upon it. The. painful L'l'iibbim: on the contrary among tho grammatical roots of the Mihjei-t, the hone-div etymological hair-splitting from which even Shakespeare line hardly survived, is being brought down to an irreducible minimum.

To engraft upon the continuation school debating classes—special study courses— monthly and quarterly periodicals is lint to fen hire as central what our older insituations. our colleges and universities, .have peryerselv regarded as accessory. To establish in each continuation school a >ooil library wilh an enthusiastic: render as n snide to its contents is a step 100 obvious not already to have been taken. To set afoot as topics of the day, suggest special courses, brief or prolonged, on uirrent questions such as the League of Trillions, Bolshevism, profiteering, liquor laws, national economics— to have these really investigated in the dry light of a. conscientious logic is nn advance on flip verge of whicli wo are undoubtedly noised. Add to all this lectures and discussion on alL.inoot questions of iriirrent-politic?, and we. shnll .have electors prepared to give wise and 'just, decisions on the issues of dm day. Ynf mankind is much honester than is generally allowed, and uerlinenl knowledge and valid argument can do nn immense amount to clarify that unduly condemned entity—tho mind of the demoeracv, and to'"true if" on the magnetic ■worth of real progress.

Will Grey Heads Return to .School? That.the continuation class and the W.K.A. should systematically and comprehensively insinuate themselves into older and older strata or. tho public mind seems a great deal to contend. Our greybeards, it might be urged, even our men in I heir prime, would lack inclination for, would resent as an indignity, membership of a study group in history or town-planning. Such resentment,' such disinclination is not, however, found in fact. The writer's own experience, common to most A\.E.A. tutors, is that of riot 100 confidently addressing or arguing with, on economics yr history, men old enough to be grandfathers—men wiioso rthrcwd, worldly judgment applied crucial tests to the symmetrical theories of the text book. H'jven as pastime such classes left draughts hopelessly outdistanced, and made of chess a jealous rival, lhesr. hopeful auguries of the -possibilities ol adult continuation courses tho writer need only say i.u passing arc amply Ijorno out by ihe immensely significant activities of our military educators and their soldier pupils. It was, however, will) the design ot carrying the continuation school back arid down among children as well as pushing it forward into increasingly mature layers of the adult mind that dns article was commenced. In making this suggestion (his writer has been already taught that ho is on debatable ground. There is a proposal afoot to make "compulsory education (shade pi MonlcMOri, what a contradiction in tonus) go on till IC. to'immure lorlh■ivilli yet another two,- years our risin? generation in the schools. . For the reasons given at the beginning ot this article the writer would most emphatically prefer to do the opposite, and to make tho leaving age. now 11. not: 10. but 12. For ono thing, he has seen on a poultry farm tho abortive enoi'ts of -I day-old 'clucks to break through, Iho shell. At 1C he equally op lies Inat it mi"ht. bo possible tn fct the .will and tbnVhte of the pupil In-c from the encrusting formalism of the school, and i<. cull; of education still disciplinary ratnei than peir-devclopmenf. For another, under ideal conditions of class size and teaching ability, our children could owilv at 12 "kurw more ill .lh»t i» Iμ be-all .'aid cnd-a.H of education) I ban if kept, under esinji'S eomhhjms un t<. B in school. Jlako ho schooU 1* 1 ci. This will do more for the child than robbing him of two additional yeard >t oxislenci, ill, the coercive Wie.-t i-t- >h* contemporary cheap and nasty system.

Life and Learning Interleaved. AVluit the child should do' at 12 " clear lo tho mind of the writer Hfl should become a part-timer, llie fufscslioii has no o«lraucous nnvc t,v. n does not Hunt a single one of tho leu Commandments, or own the ™]'° l! 1 1;? dicta of present-day loading lights m SU. J» poor repute, because tTi* Imntlin" of an Variolous im iistrnd toS tho nart.-li.ncr lug liitlievto been Sβ double victim of both school and factorV But there is norea?on m the world iviiv tho child's five-hour day or Wk chool vear should not without the elVhtcst hardship, be halved toween eduction and occupyhon .be to wlMevclopraeiit and epecific P< n> tion in Ihe conorcto activities ot lite. Tholottor, for the reasons given in his n'-Jimii or os. tho writer is convinced, is s n p^rA^atf»;» iXv date) has by tl.« primary schools.