The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-12-14
owing is the editorial:
SCHOOL AND SOCIETY.

Parents ana teachers WHO are inter
ested in the development of modern
education along its most advanced
lines, but fail to perceive an underly-
ing purpose in certain recent innOya.
tions, will find an intelligent and luciC
statement of the case in volume en-
titled The School and Society,"" writ
ten by John Dewey, professor of peda-
gogy in the University of Chicago, anC
published by the University Press. Ii
view of the quite general denunciatior
of the proposed innovations as arbi-
trarily adopted ''fads" grated on tc
the real educational system, Prof
Dewey's explanation is of immediate
practical interest. He does not seek tc
defend these fads as "Object lessons
for their own sake, nor even for what
ever merely practical advantage is &c
be gained from practice of, say, cook
cry or manual arts.
He starts with the supposition tina;
the best educational agency requires
that the school and the life which en-
virons it be brought into closer touch;
that the school, in fact, should be the
childs habitat, where he learns
through directed living, instead OF be-
ing only a place to learn lessons hav-
ing an abstract and remote reference
to some possible living to be done in
the future He affirmS that the old
time household. which produced nearly
everything needed for it's own use and
wherein every member found an out
let for his productive energies, was
thus an invaluable educational factor
The end now sought is the organlza-
ton of a school which shall afford
simiidr chance for the development OF
the child's productive powers; a school
where, instead of being merely in
Structed, the pupil will be constantly
constructing, and so experimenting life
with a sense of its reality and mean
ing, instead of merely acquiring al
stract and useless facts.
The various so-called "fads'' which
have been introduced into the public
school Prof Dewey regards as repre-
senting half-conscious efforts toward
a system better adapted to bringing
the child in touch with real educative
influences. They have been defended
on the ground that they make the child
alert and attentive, at the same time
increasing his general capacity and
him the more fit for some prac-
tical undertaking. These reasons, in
Prof. Dewey's opinion, indicate too
narrow point of view. Manual train
ing and other similar expedients should
be made instrumentalities through
which the school itself shall become a
genuine form of active community
life, the pupils activities being types
Of the processes by which society keeps
itself going" Under such a system
properly conducted, for instance, the
of numbers and language
would not be the subject matter o.
but both be employed as the
media to be used in getting at that sub-
ject matter.
Whatever be it's application in the
case Of the public school, Prof. Dewey's
theory, which has been tried with in
teresting results in tho case of the
University Elementary school, is one
which must be taken into account. It
presents a strong plea for the most adj
vanced form of the new education, -
and its arguments no doubt will have
to be considered sooner or later in the
course of any future evolutions in the
public-school system.