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Milne's Progressive Arithmetics

By WILLIAM J. MILNE, Ph. D., LL. D.

President State Normal College, Albany, N. Y.

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HIS new series of arithmetics has been prepared by Dr. Milne to meet the demand which has sprung up in some quarters for a treatment of the subject upon somewhat new lines. This treatment does not, however, depart from the old and tried foundations which have gained for his previous series the widest use throughout the country.

In planning the Progressive Arithmetics, the author has preserved these older features, and infused them with new life by a combination with what is best in modern methods of instruction.

Built upon a definite pedagogical plan, these books teach the processes of arithmetic in such a way as to develop the reasoning faculties, and to train the power of rapid, accurate and skillful manipulation of numbers. The inductive method is applied, leading pupils to discover truths for themselves, but it is supplemented by model solutions and careful explanations of each new step. Each new topic is first carefully developed, and then enforced by sufficient practice to fix it thoroughly in the mind when first presented. The problems, which have been framed with the greatest care, relate to a wide range of subjects drawn from modern life and industries.

Reviews of various forms are a marked feature. Usefulness is the keynote. The numerous illustrations always serve a practical purpose.

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American Education

VOL. X.

FROM KINDERGARTEN TO COLLEGE

SEPTEMBER, 1906

Why Do We Educate?

C. L. CRONEBAUGH, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, MASSILLON, OHIO

IN attempting to answer this question

I shall assume that the pronoun we refers to the people taken as a whole, that the term is confined to the people of this country, and that reference is had to the present time. Such an inquiry involves a knowledge of the intents and purposes of all the people, including in its scope persons of all ranks of society and of widely varying degrees of intelligence. No attempt has ever been made, so far as my knowledge extends, to gather the necessary data upon this subject to give an exact answer to the question.

The conclusions must therefore necessarily be based purely upon observation within a very limited field and must be wholly empirical in their nature.

If the desired data were at hand, a generalized answer might be given, derived in a manner similar to the method employed in finding the resultant of a number of forces acting upon a body, as is done in physics. To make such a statement valuable, it would be necessary that all the components be known from which the resultant is derived. What a complex problem! Yet the problem exists, and the answer is being given in daily life in that which we do, or rather in the results which we obtain in the great scheme of public education.

The forces that determine the trend of public education may all be included under (a) those that are inherent in the

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human race and which compel progres-
sion rather than retrogression, of which
the race is probably wholly unconscious,
and (b) those by which individuals put
forth a conscious effort to resist the
downward tendencies of
of unfortunate
hereditary influences and vicious environ-
ment or to make an advance upon present
conditions and achievements. With the
first of these we cannot deal, for if we
could they would fall into the latter class.
The second class at once suggests (1)
those forces which are incidental and are
directed to ends and aims entirely dis-
tinct from the purposes of education but
very potent for all that, and (2) those
which are formal and find expression in
schools, colleges and seminaries, and al
the educational processes carried on in
them. The end and aim of these insti-
tutions and processes is the problem with
which we have to deal.

CULTURE VERSUS PRACTICAL STUDIES

Two distinct views are held upon this subject, clearly indicated by the subjectmatter in which pupils are to be trained, one class placing emphasis upon the socalled culture studies, the other emphasizing what are called practical subjects. There is an insistence on the part of some educational experts that some subjects. are pre-eminently culture studies. ture as understood by these persons, and indeed as generally accepted by all per

Cul

sons, means a cultivation of the human faculties to develop refinement in conduct and speech. These culture studies correspond to what was known in earlier times as the humanities. They formed the major portion of every formal course of study of those times. They were the principal studies of those who did not expect to enter the ministry, the latter taking up additional studies known as divinity studies. They were, in brief, the studies pursued by the sons of gentlemen of those times who aspired to some literary and intellectual standing. Whether it was supposed at that time that they possessed some peculiar virtues by which they inculcated refinement of manners, or whether it was thought that the educative process alone produced such refinement, was probably not clearly defined. But since these studies contributed so largely to every gentleman's education they came to be looked upon as being peculiarly adapted to making a gentleman of a boy. There is no doubt that at the present time a great many people attach superior value to a training in classic language and literature. To the educated man or woman this belief comes as an inheritance. The people who in former times hoped to occupy positions of influence socially or intellectually had to be trained in these subjects. The positions of influence demanded such training. It was practically the only list of subjects except mathematics in which training was given. The common people were ignorant in most instances of the rudiments of an education. The industrial life of the people was of such a character that education for the workingman was not a necessity. What need was there a century ago of a knowledge of steam, or electrical, or mechanical engineering? What call was there for the skilled operator at the loom, or the forge, or the throttle? These posi

man.

tions, which I have named, requiring a skilled brain as well as a skilled hand, might be multiplied many fold. I have already said that the education offered a century ago was intended for a gentleBut our conception of a gentleman has undergone a radical change. Men who were classed as gentlemen in the Virginia colony three hundred years ago would belong to an entirely different class in the opening years of the twentieth century. There is therefore every reason for saying that an education that met the requirements of the people a century or two ago is not adequate to meet present requirements. This fact has been recognized by schools and colleges everywhere. New departments have been created in colleges, new subjects have been introduced into the public schools, new schools, such as business colleges, schools of technology and so on, have been organized. All of this has come in response to a demand; a demand that students shall be able to do some things as well as that they shall know some things. This is an age of scientific investigation rather than of pedantic disputation; an age of action, not of inanition; an age of achievement, not of dreaming. The demand made of the schools is that they shall develop men and women of power and not make them receptacles of vast stores of knowledge which they can not apply. The problem, therefore, that confronts the public schools at present is to choose such subjects for the curriculum of study as shall have a direct and vital relation to the social and industrial life of the people, and to teach these subjects in such a way that this relation may be clearly perceived so that the school training may be applied directly to the process of living. This must not be taken in the narrow sense of providing the material means of living only, but in the more extensive conception of entering imme

diately and intimately into the whole fabric of the life processes, affecting the thoughts, the feelings, and the purposes of the race. I would not be understood as entering a protest against the teaching of what I have called the humanities. Undoubtedly they have a place in the modern scheme of education. They belong there to the extent to which they contribute to this broader conception of training for living. I do enter a protest, however, against the claim that they possess superior merit in developing greater refinement of speech and conduct, or in crivating in a higher degree the gentlemanly virtues and instincts. The highest development along these lines comes from an honest effort in any department of human activity that contributes to the well-being of society. The special subject of study is of little consequence so long as it falls within this category, and the demand made by the people is that the student shall so master his subjects of study that he may apply them directly and successfully to this end. The product of education is not to be ladies and gelemen of leisure who may manifest good breeding in squandering time, but men and women who labor for a beneficent purpose and who retain the dignity of ladies and gentlemen in doing so.

WE EDUCATE FOR SERVICE

affirm, therefore, in the first place, as a partial answer to the question forming the title of this paper, that we educate for service. The method of organization, the means by which sustained, makes the School stand forth as the instrument through which the state and society at large realize that they can best serve their own highest interests. The idea that loving care and devotion on the part of parents or state demands loyal service from children or citizens has almost been forgotten by us. The law has held and

still holds that children are under obligation to render service and obedience to parents during the period of their minority. The same rule applies with equal force to the citizens of a state. If this fact were more clearly perceived it might transform many of the conditions that now obtain.

FOR THE SAKE OF TRUTH

In the second place we educate for the sake of truth. Truth is "conformity to fact or reality; exact accordance to that which has been, or is, or shall be." The love of truth is one of the highest attributes of the human soul. To know the truth is to be set free from the bondage of error and falsehood. The whole formal process of education consists largely in finding truth. Consider the various exercises that take place in the school room, the learning of lessons, the recitation, the gradation and classification of pupils, and you will find that every act and process is based upon truth. Every text-book is an exposition of truth. Every teacher is required to possess many virtues, and not least among these is the virtue of truthfulness. Everything in the way of sham, or pretense, or hypocrisy in an educational policy is met with severe denunciation. The love of truth has been one of the greatest factors in civilization. has made men martyrs or heroes, or both. Men have spent a lifetime in proving the truth or fallacy of a belief. Truth holds the loftiest place in history, in science, in society, and in religion. The demands of truth involve every faculty with which we are concerned in the educational process. It requires the most careful training of the intellect in order that truth may be distinguished from falsehood. It compels conduct to square itself with knowledge. It demands integrity in action, fairness in speech, and candidness in thought. It touches the entire subject

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matter of instruction, every method of presentation, and the whole moral and mental nature of the child. It deals not only with his school life, but extends through his entire present life and into the life beyond the grave. It exists through past, present, and future; through time and eternity. The knowledge of the truth brings finite mind into harmony with the infinite. A love for the truth is a prerequisite for teaching and for learning. A mind imbued with a love for truth yields itself readily and willingly to leadership and guidance. Such a condition of mind must precede the possibility of attaining the highest success in the education of any being. And here I must recur again to a former statement that the subject-matter is not of as much importance as the manner in which that subject is pursued. The things that are usually considered incidental in the school room are frequently of more vital importance than the immediate subjects of study themselves. Regularity and punctuality in attendance upon school duties, right habits of study and conduct, cheerful obedience to correct regulations and properly constituted authority, courtesy and refinement in speech and conduct toward others, these are the things that enter most vitally into the life of the learner and determine his future character and career. That indefinable, all-pervading influence which is usually called the atmosphere of the school room is a powerful factor in determining the attitude of the learner toward his work. This influence is not dependent so much upon the child's surroundings as upon the personality of the teacher. The school room may be fitted up with the most modern equipment, the walls may be adorned with pictures, refinement and culture may pervade the home life of the children, but in the school they may evidence a spirit of re

bellion and sullenness, or of disorder and abandon, all because the teacher has failed in her relation to the children to catch the true spirit of normal child growth. Another teacher goes into the room and happiness and quiet orderliness take the place of sullenness and disorder. The change is brought about by the clearer perception of the conditions. that govern child life. Her ideas, her manner, her methods conform to the truth. Authority is no longer based upon the right of the individual to govern but upon the right of the individual to govern rightly, to make his acts conform to right standards. No man has a right to govern me in a wrong manner whether he hold his position by right of birth or whether he be chosen by the people. So in the school room no teacher can ever claim the right to do an act of teaching or of governing upon purely personal authority. The appeal must always lie to the principles of truth and justice. It took the world a long time to perceive this truth, but it has entered the consciousness of the American people, and, though no formal statement of the fact could be made by the children of this land, they are conscious of it. It was the consciousness of the violation of a great and fundamental truth that caused our country tɔ sever the ties that bound it to the mother country. It was the same thing that brought about the Civil War, and again the war with Spain. It is the recognition of this fact also that is producing the remarkable agitation which is demanding of officials a cleaner administration of public affairs, a "square deal" on the part of great corporations, and a proper accounting of the funds belonging to widows and orphans entrusted to the large life insurance companies. And when the public conscience is sufficiently aroused it will be this influence that will eventually purge our fair land of the curse

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