Los Angeles herald., 1907-03-06
COMPARES THE
NEW METHODS
WITH THE OLD.
Prof. Moore Lectures
in Baltimore
superintendent Of Los Angeles Schools
Talks to Eastern Teachers on
Different Systems Of
Education

Eastern high school on 'Ine Olu hnu
the New Education" The Baltimore
Sun gives the following account:
DIR. Moore was introduced by Super
intendent Van Sickle, and spoke for
about an hour, comparing the differ
ences in the old and new ideas of
teaching. He said:
II bring you the greetings of the
teachers of Los Angeles. We are not
80 large q company as you of Balti-
more. but there are more than 1000 of
us, and we are emulating you In good
works and in the effort to make our
city pre-eminent in point of educational
distinction.
"It is a somewhat hazardous thing |
for one to travel from the Pacific to
the Atlantic to lecture on educational
topics; particularly hazardous to make
the journey to lecture to the teachers
of Baltimore, inasmuch as the high
reputation of your city in matters edu-
cational has gone abroad throughout
all the land. know 1 shall be guilty
of discussing principles that are al
ready trite features of everyday prac- |
tice to you, but If cannot serve you
by bringing you something new per-
haps 1 can do something to confirm
you in what you are already doing
and furnish a somewhat new discus
sion of old and valued points of view.
"'Nothing is worth doing that is not
worth thinking dDOuI, Sdlu nAdIItS"
Arnold, and nothing that the teacner
does or believes Is worth doing or be-
lieving that is not worth talking about.
An enraged parent came to my office a
few days ago to ask for an investiga-
tion of one of our attendance officers,
who had done him the indignity of
arresting his boy for not attending
school as the law directs. He said: 7
want to have this whole matter aired
That is what we want in educational
work-to have all that we are doing
and planning made known, or aired.
"I want to talk about certain changes
in educational practice which, 1t seems
to me, are coming to pass all about us
and whose significance Is very great
indeed. 1 want, in other words, to in
dicate the direction in which the edu-
cational current seems to me to be
running. 1 do not so much want to
praise the newer education and de-
fame the old, ass is usually the habit
of those who speak upon this theme,
as to indicate clearly some points of
difference between them.
THE essential difference between
them is not q temporal one. The old
education is not old because 1t came
into being long ago, and the new edu-
cation is not new because it is recent.
The old education is old because it
makes for death and decay, and the
new is new because it makes for life
and for growth.
Conceptions of Discipline
"They differ in their conception of
discipline. The old education was pain
full. The boy had to be driven to
school, and when he got there he tip
toed about the schoolroom, and when
he left there he tiptoed about the
world. And that was by far the worst
of it. Whatever inventiveness or dar-
-irri,, he Iod xua fal lraY1
of him The school turned him out a
sort of washed-out product. 1t got
him into the habit of sitting still and
not making fuss, and when he went
out into the world he continued to sit
still and not make a fuss. Other men
did his thinking for him and bosses
ruled him.
at believe that we have a right to
hold the schools in part responsible for
political conditions, and particularly
for the bad government of our Ameri-
can cities. The state, we are told,
created the schools for selfish reasons
that through them the people might
become state minded. So far the state
has had no particular reason to be
satisfied with fts product, and school
discipline is in part responsible.
There is more hope in the discipline
Of the Junior Republic than in the dis
cipline of the reform school. There is
older grades of our public schools than
there is in rigid her-government
There is more training in the expert
mental life than there is in life by
proxy.
"This problem of discipline is un-
doubtedly the most difficult problem of
the public schools. 1t is easier to over
discipline than to underdiscipline
There is only one principle that / know
which can be given as leading to the
newer and better discipline in every
case in which 1t is used. 1t is, put
yourself in the other fellows place.
Treat him reasonably, as reasonable
being, the result will be better than
any form of machine-made education
could produce.
Teaching to Think
Turn now to the studies. In spite
of all that has been said to the con-
trary, lessons are still learned almost
altogether from books; are committed
in the seats and repeated in the reci-
tation. What the child learns outside
the school is not coupled up with what
he learns inside the school, and what
he learns inside the school is not
hitched on to the things he does, and
will do, outside the school. And these
are the marks of the old education,
and wherever you find them you will
find it-masters mastering pupils, les
sons learned entirely from books and
the memory the chief function used.
1.-The new education, on the contrary
begins wherever teachers begin to ask
themselves the question, What am
/ here for? Where am going?' Think
ing has marvellous regenerating power
"What would you think of a pilot
who would take out ship from the
harbor without a destination and should
simply splash around for the allotted
time of the voyage and then put back
to port? There are not words enough
in the English language to tell the sort
of a fool that we would think him.
And yet does It not sometimes happen
that teachers spend their time In the
schoolroom without destination
fioundering about until the end of the
term without going anywhere and with
out trying to go anywhere IN particular,