Influence of the doctrine of evolution of evolution. This change has been made, and as the century closes the soundest educational philosophy the world over teaches that the individual alone is nothing, but that the individual as a member of a society and of a race is everything. Selfhood, which can only be attained by entering into the life-history and the experience of the race, is now put in the high place which was about to be rashly filled by selfishness. True individualism, which would enrich the life of each with the possessions of all, is well-nigh supreme, and sham individualism, which would set every man's hand against his fellow, is disposed of, let us hope forever. Education rests securely upon the continuous history of man's civilization, and looks to the nature of each individual for guidance in the best methods of conducting him to his inheritance, but not for knowledge of what that inheritance is. Every conception of this nineteenth century, educational as well as other, has been crossfertilized by the doctrine of evolution. In whichever direction we turn we meet that doctrine or some one of its manifold implications. We have incorporated it into educational theory and have thereby shed a flood of light upon problems hitherto dark. Evolution has assisted mightily in that interpretation of individualism which I have just defended. It has bound the universe together by homogeneous law, and the relations of each to all, both physical and social, have become far clearer and more definite. But much remains to be done in applying the teachings of evolution in actual plans and methods of instruction. The application is going on, however, all around us and without cessation, and is the cause of not a little of the existing educational inquiry and unrest. Our schools have shed one shell and the other is not yet grown. Illustrations of this will be found in the teaching of mathematics, of language, of history, and of the natural sciences. We halt often between the logical and the psychological order, failing to appreciate that evolution gives a place to each. The logical order is the order of proof, of demonstration; the psychological order is the order The logical of discovery, of learning. Children do not learn and the logically; they come later to see logical rela- order tions in what they have learned. The wellequipped teacher knows both logic and psychology. He is prepared to guide the pupil in his natural course of learning, and also to point out to him the structure of relationship of what he has learned. Text-book writers the psychological Evolution and individualism world over have been slow to see this distinction; but with but few exceptions, the best American text-books, which control so powerfully all school processes, are in advance of those most in use in Europe. The logical order is so simple, so coherent, and so attractive, that it seems a pity to surrender it for the less trim and less precise order of development; but this will have to be done if teaching efficiency according to evolution is to be had. The course of evolution in the race and in the individual furnishes us also with the clew to the natural order and the real relationships of studies. It warns us against the artificial, the bizarre, and points us to the fundamental and the real. Only educational scholarship can protect the schools against educational dilettantism. Two lines are needed to determine the position of a point. The two principles of evolution and of an individualism viewed in the light of the history of civilization, seem to me to determine the status of education at the close of the century. The working of these principles is exemplified in practise in a thousand ways. They lie behind and determine every effort for improvement and for progress. The diverse types of school, higher and lower, with their widely different special ends and yet with a common fund of basic knowledge which they all impart, reveal a purpose to cultivate and to adapt the special powers and talents of the individual, while holding him in touch with the life and the interests of his kind. The existence of the wonder-working elective system in secondary schools and colleges, together with the limitations put upon it, is due to a real as opposed to a sham individualism. The marked emphasis now laid upon the social aspect of education, in Europe as well as in the United States, and also upon the school as a social institution and a social centre, is additional evidence of the dominance of the individualism of Froebel rather than that of Rousseau. The demands for the establishment of a proper system of secondary education in England, for the making over of the secondary school systems of France and of Germany, for the closer articulation of lower schools and higher schools, of schools and colleges, in the United States, for making elementary school instruction as little wasteful and as full of content as possible, for bringing forward studies which give adequate scope for expression in various forms, and the demand New importance of education as a government function uncon that the community shall relate itself to its mous. Education, so conceived and so shaped, has made an irresistible appeal to every civilized nation. During the century education has definitely become a state function, not as a dole but as a duty. Consequently, the public expenditure for education has become enorIn the United States it amounts annually to $200,000,000 for the common schools alone, or $2.67 per capita of population. This sum is about one-tenth of the total wealth of Indiana or of Michigan as determined by the census of 1890. In Great Britain and Ireland the total public expenditure on account of education is over $88,000,000, or $2.20 per capita. In France it is about $58,000,000, or $1.60 per capita. In the German Empire it is over $108,000,000, or more than $2.00 per capita. These four great nations, therefore, the leaders of the world's civilization at this time, with a total population of nearly 210,000,000, are spending annually for education a sum considerably greater than $450,000,000. |