Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-06-04
The Elective and Other School Crazes.
From the Chicago Times Herald


Every teacher. every person interested in
education should read Prof. Hugo Munster
berg's article on School Reform in the
May number of the Atlantic Monthly 1t
is the forerunner, we hope of strong re-
action against the elective" craze with
which this country is now beset for what
higher authority could our educational the
orists have than a German psychologist?
The author is certainly in a position to
gain hearing which is denied the common
sense Of our own people.
The professor. after appealing to his ex-
perience as child. which may say is
the common experience of all children,
argues most convincingly that elective
studies are not really elected at all. They
simply express. he declares, the cumuation
of hundred chance influences:
A little bit of talent. petty caprice
favored by accident, contagious craze or
fad. IA chance demand for something of
which scarcely the outside is known-all
these whir and buzz in every boyhood, but
to follow such superficial moods would
mean dissolution of all organized life. and
education would be empty word.
The error is of the most essential, fun
damental sort. Intelligent choosing pre-
supposes some acquaintance with the OBJ
ject Of choice, yet even in college two
thirds of the elections are haphaZard, con-
1roiled by accidental motive. This grand
broad scheme so loudly extolled one of
the greatest of modern improvements and
a rebuke to the narrow minded is very hap
ply termed "a helter-skelter chase of the
unknown" and is well Illustrated in the
following:
If a man who does not know French goes
into restaurant where the bill of fare is
given in the French language. and points
to one and to another line, not knowing
whether his order is fish or roast or Dud-
ding the waiter will bring him meal. but
we cannot say that he has elected his
courses"
We do not know whether pedagogy per-
mits the expression or not. but that is love-
ly. We commend 1t to our high school re-
diet that shall not clog digestion. The
trouble with the old prescribed courses was
not in the courses themselves. but in the
teachers and all the surrounding IL Influences.
Munsterberg who was called from a Ger
man university to Harvard, dwells delight
fully upon his own school life. His teach
ers were experts and enthusiasts over their
Greek and Latin. OF the old Greek teacher
he says: His Plato and his Sophocles, his
Homer and Thucydides were to him life
and happiness, and to share them with us
was an instructive desire which would have
lost its enthusiasm and inspiration il he
had tried to base 1t on arguments"
That man was not a product of teachers
institutes. He was just In love with teach
ing, and did space permit We should like
to quote at length from the professor on
the absurdity of distracting the teachers
mind with elaborate theories of education
and histories of pedagogy and psychology.
But we must return to the question Of
the prescribed course. Whether studies are
prescribed or optional, there will be SYM
pathetic and unsympathetic teachers. and
IL was the latter who made the Greek and
Latin dull to the American boy Further
more the professor had a more helpful
home influence than most Americans enjoy.
His parents aided his instructors by trust
ing them. not carelessly but with faith