The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1909-09-03
MORAL PRINCIPLES IN EDUCA-
TON

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by John Dewey, Professor Of Philoso-
ply in Columbia University, is pub
lished as one of series Of River
side Educational Monographs, by
Houghton Mifin company. 1t is lit
tie book of sixty pages, price thirty
five cents.
The author originated the Dewey
school in Chicago and has exerted a
strong influence for educational re-
form. This monograph is a brief
statement Of his philosophy Of what
the school should be made to do for
the child. 1t is almost too brief
perhaps not for the profession, but
the general reader will wish that the
ideas we're more fully expanded and
that there were more concrete ex-
amples and other specific suggestions
as to the ways and means by which
child's capacity for. constructive pro-
duction and creation" shall be made
ito shift the center Of ethical grav-
ity from an absorption which is sell
fish to service which is social"
DR.. Dewey says our conception Of
ethical teaching is too narrow and
formal: that the influence Of direct
moral instruction Tor as he puts 1t,
instruction about morals) lis COM
partively small In amount and slight
in influence, when the whole field Of
moral growth through education is
taken into account" that the test Of
the moral value of the school is whe-
ther it fits children for life--not
theoretically but actually. He would
have the school train children for life's
many social relationships. THE only
way to prepare for social life is to en-
gage in social life" and he believes
that "the school itself must be vital
social institution to a much greater
extent than obtains at present."
Where children are all engaged in
preparing and reciting the same les
sons and are measured by the stand
ard of what they can take III during
the time allotted for study and give
out during the time allowed for reci-
tation, there is no opportunity for
each child to work out something of
his own and contribute to others.
School reading is poor, because the
child knows that the teacher and all
his fellow pupils are acquainted with
what is read A further objection to
all the pupils of class doing the
work In the same way, is that the
children are judged from the stand
point of relative success, cultivating
the sense Of superiority unduly In
some, while depressing the timid and
REFRESHING the reticent "The weaker
gradually lose their sense of power,
and accept position of continuous
and persistent inferioHty.'
Wrong standards are created,
where work is estimated not on the
basis of present value and present re-
sDonsibility but by reference to fut-
ure result. The inducements of pass
ing an examination, getting promo
ted, entering high school, getting in
to college, etc., appeal to those In
whom motives of different nature
do not respond.
The school should not be barren
course of study, abstractly classified.
Geography, history, arithmetic. and
all other subjects should be taught on
the basis Of "affording the child a
consciousness of the world in which
he has to play part and the de-
mands he has to meet" He says that
to train the child in the business ope-
ration of arithmetic, which have no
distinctive mathematical principle
while paying no attention to the
business realities in which they are
of use, or to the conditions of social
life which make these business activ-
tiles necessary, is neither arithmetic
nor common sense"
BY Responsiveness" is meant that
quality, hard to define, which makes
the difference between personality
hard and formal and one which is
sympathetic, flexible, and open. And
DR.. Dewey says that in so far as the
school lacks opportunity for free So
cial intercourse between teacher and
pupils and between pupils and pupils.
the child's social nature is stunted
and starved.
He says further in regard to the
development of this quality:
when the school system, under !
plea of the practical (meaning by the
PRACTICAL the narrowly utiliarian) con-
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