An American Looks at His World Comment on the Times by Glenn Frank UNSETTLING THE SOCIAL SETTLEMENT OCIAL settlements have played an important rôle in the development of sound social ideals among the poor and immigrant classes of our large cities. They have brought recreation into crowded tenement quarters whose only playground was the street. Through their settlement theaters they have given an opportunity for selfexpression to thousands of able and ambitious youths who were otherwise stifled by their environment. They have taught the stammering tongues of foreigners to speak the English language, which was the key to their new world. They have exerted a valuable influence by their interpretation of America to the immigrant and by their interpretation of the immigrant to America. Even when their achievements have not been of the sort that can be captured in statistics, they have brought something of the grace and gladness of life into sordid surroundings. And on that, of course, no price can be placed. If their leaders have not always gone as far as some of the radicals whom they serve would have liked them to go, they have in most instances gone further than some of the conservatives who support them would have them go. All in all, our social settlements have more than justified themselves not only by the practical services they have rendered to their immediate neighborhoods, but also by the more indefinite, though equally important, influence they have exerted upon the social thinking of our wealthier and more conservative classes. The other evening I was discussing the probable future developments in American business and industry with Mr. Edward A. Filene, who always reminds me of the distinguished economist and philosopher, Adam Smith, of whom Woodrow Wilson said, "He was no specialist, except in the relation of things." Now, Mr. Filene is a specialist in the policies and procedures of successful business, but he has also an unusual sense of the interrelations of economic, social, educational, and political issues. How this sense of "the relation of things" brought the discussion of the probable future of American business business and industry around to social settlements will appear as I go on with this comment. It is enough to say here that the discussion left me unwilling to stop with the blanket indorsement of social settlements expressed in the two preceding paragraphs. There is little, if anything, to criticize in the general idea of the social settlement; it is mainly their technic, I think, that offers opportunity for basic reform. This becomes clear when one realizes how thoroughly the settlements depend name. Now, one thing is obvious, and that is that the best educational results, in any sort of institution, are obtained when the student brings to his studies a sincere and sustained desire to learn, when the student is possessed by a genuine interest that needs no coddling by the teacher. The first concern of the modern teacher is not the enforcement of discipline, but the awakening of interest. Yet what are the possibilities and limitations that the settlement teacher faces when he sets out to stimulate the curiosity and to awaken the interest of the young men and women who go to the settlement to learn? There are exceptions, I know. There are unusually brilliant youths in our poor and immigrant classes who, despite tired bodies and crowded hours, will always steal time from their pillows for their books. But, in the main, the settlements are attempting to educate men and women who are victims of conditions of living and circumstances of employment which tend to crush their spirits and dull the normal alertness of their minds. And the settlements are attempting to teach them in evening hours when they are tired and want recreation, when, indeed, they should have recreation instead of intense application to the tasks of a class room. The settlement, then, as an educational agency, faces two fundamental problems. The first is the eternal problem that every educational effort encounters the problem of stimulating in the students that eager intellectual interest without which there can be no education worthy of the The second is a problem peculiar to the settlement-the problem of finding some way of getting at the minds of its people when they are less tired. What can the settlement teacher do to awaken in his students a keen interest that will make their study more an adventure and less a task to which they must whip their tired bodies and tired minds? Of this much I am certain: the closer any educational effort can be related to the student's job, the more likely he is to be so eagerly interested in his study that he will forget that it is a task. that it is a task. If study bears a definite relation to the student's economic and social advancement, half the struggle for the student's interest is won before the class is called. Mr. Filene emphasized this point in telling me of his own experience as a young man, when he was obliged to assume business responsibility instead of going to college. "When I was obliged to give up the notion of entering Harvard University," he said, “I set about a plan of self-education by which I made the daily problems that arose in my business my cues for study. I did not map out a course of general reading and give my leisure hours to the conquest of that elusive thing called culture. I did not, in a general search for knowledge, undertake the study of this and that subject. I did not try to duplicate the thing I would have done had I been able to attend the university. method led me, of course, into practically all the subjects I would have studied in Harvard, but my study was not a matter of memorizing lessons' in economics or sociology, but the more interesting task of unraveling personal problems. Practical necessity forced me to adopt this method, but, as I look back upon it, I am convinced that it was educationally sound." After all, there is some ground for thinking that the custom of teaching by subjects is artificial and absurd. Outside of a classroom we never think in terms of history or geography or mathematics or language. We think in terms of concrete situations. When we read a despatch in our newspaper, all the geography and economics and race involved in the story merge in one impression. It is easier to feel a keen interest in a good newspaper story and then to "look up" whatever geography and economics we may need in order to understand the story than it is to become excited over an assigned lesson in geography or economics. And we are more likely to retain the facts as part of our permanent equip ment. There is no reason why this method of study should not be valid for any educational effort, but particularly valid for the educational work of settlements. I do not think the settlements can afford to depend as fully as conventional educational institutions do upon the mere itch for culture. I do not mean to say that there is no general hunger for cultural advancement among the poorer classes served by our settlements. I do not mean to suggest that the man who works with his hands may not and does not have an alert and curious mind as well. The long and inspiring history of the movement for adult education and the brilliant record of the Workers' Educational Association would disprove any such contention. I am saying only that, taken by and large, the students in our social settlements start with the handicap of stifling environments and physical tiredness, and that no added means of mental stimulation should be overlooked. I believe that the settlement teachers could achieve the necessary interest, eagerness, and curiosity in half the time with half the effort if, in addition to relating their educational effort to the general subjects that bear upon the students' probable life-work, they related the work to the specific job out of which the students are making their bread and butter at the moment, making the problems of their jobs the cues for study. But all this is rather stale generalizing on a matter that has been put better in a score of modern books on education. And it leaves untouched the biggest problem the settlement teachers have to meet. It accepts the notion that our settlements must go on trying to bring education to its students in evening hours, in the scraps of their time, and when they are tired from the day's work. And this leads me to the second problem: What can be done about getting at the minds of these youths when they are less tired? It is on this point that Mr. Filene made a very practical suggestion. Here it is in Mr. Filene's words, as nearly as I can remember them. "I believe," said Mr. Filene, "that social settlements should carry on their educational work not in the settlement houses, but in the stores, shops, and factories where those they serve work. As I said a moment ago, the details, the demands, and the difficulties of the settlement student's daily job afford the best possible cues for his study. Manifestly, the best place in which to pick up these cues is the place where they first show themselves, and the best time to catch them is when they first show themselves. This means that the sort of educational work the settlement is called upon to do can best be done where the student works and while he is at work. "I believe that the business men who are attempting to do business scientifically would aid and abet such a program. For instance, at the present time we could use in our store several men and women who might be called floor-managers but who would be in reality teachers, men and women who would move about among our employees, using the mistakes and the problems that arise hourly as cues for direct instruction in the finer and more effective carrying out of the employees' duties. There are, I am convinced, unlimited possibilities of development in this direction. Some day the foremen, superintendents, and departmental managers of businesses will be regarded as men whose function is not merely to spy upon and to speed up, but to educate, their subordinates. "Business men, in order to make their businesses succeed, need to have an educational effort constantly going on among their employees. The directors of our social settlements are carrying on an educational effort among the very people who are doing the ordinary work of the world. The point I am trying to make is that the business man and the director of the social settlement are working away on the same problem, and that both are losing because they do not combine their efforts. "The business man loses, from the business point of view, when he fails to institute a thorough and comprehensive educational work in his plant, leaving his employees to get what education they can in their tired evening hours at the social settlement or in other evening classes. The settlement teacher loses, from an educational point of view, when he conducts his classes in the conventional manner in evening hours at the settlement house, where it is more difficult to relate the student's study to the student's job, where it is more difficult to stimulate the intellectual eagerness that comes involuntarily when the student sees early advancement, early increase in income, and sure development of efficiency in his job as a result of the lesson in hand. "I do not think it is visionary to suppose that in the future much of what we now call 'settlement work,' except its purely recreational aspects, will be carried on away from the settlement houses, in stores, shops, and factories during business hours, not at night, as now. The social settlement of the future will be in the store, the shop, and the factory. What we now know as the social settlement will disappear. There will remain in its place an institution which will be the club and home of the teachers and workers who do the creative educational work in our businesses and industries, a place where they get together for recreation and the pooling of their experience in the give and take of discussion. This new kind of settlement will, I believe, mean a greater efficiency in teaching the students, and a still greater efficiency in teaching the teachers." The real problem, then, is to unsettle the settlement. THE RUMFORD PRESS CONCORD |