On the Firing Line in Education | Page 4

the fine results of
the Plattsburgh experiment were revealed, in which, thru the processes
of intensive training, men were quickly whipt into shape for new, and
difficult, and responsible undertakings. And the equally good results
that came from the officers' training schools, in which college boys by
a similar program were metamorphosed, almost at over-night, into
capable army officers, had the same effect. How signally had the
schools failed! And these long years spent in school and college,
"dawdling over the frills," had been to no effect, whereas "a few weeks
under intelligent educational direction accomplishes marvels."
And the same has further illustration. Ministers of the Gospel selected
for chaplains, physicians and surgeons chosen for medical service,
nurses for the Red Cross, engineers for various forms of engineering,
and many others have all been given this short period of intensive
training and, to their credit and ours be it said, all responded quickly.
But the conclusion drawn by the unthinking has been, all along the line,
that the later efficiency of these men which has gained for us the
plaudits and the gratitude of the world was due to this short period of
intensive training, "under men who were intelligent enough to know
just what was needed and just how to go about to secure it"--men not
hampered by any pedagogical nonsense or grown stale over a long
attempt to discriminate between the "infinity of nothingness and the
nothingness of infinity" (as one might summarize a rather common
criticism), rather than to the former years of patient toil, and discipline,
and accomplishment which had really laid the foundation so well that
all were able thus to respond. The common school, the high school, the

college, and the professional school was dis-credited, one and all, in
favor of a short-cut method analogous to the so-called "Business
College,"--a short-cut method that could result only in disaster if
applied without the appropriate preparation.
How long it does take people to realize that real education is a slow
process! that it takes years and years and years of varied experiences
for the processes of assimilation and development to bring about the
fine fruitage of stable character!
And the Government, too (I suppose we can criticize Washington just a
little now without serious danger of being sent to jail), must have had
the same point of view in regard to the general management of
education since, during the war, it did not entrust its educational war
program into the hands of the National Bureau of Education. It did
have the War Department and the Navy Department and the Treasury
Department manage their respective phases of war activities. Why was
not the Department of Education called on to direct the educational
work? Had it been, the S. A. T. C. fiasco, as well as some other
blunders, would doubtless have been avoided. But the thought (or was
it the lack of thought?) must have been that most anybody outside of
the teaching profession would know better how to get educational
results than any one from within. A similar point of view is generally
discernible in the election of boards of education in towns and cities
thruout the country--any one is satisfactory save those who know
definitely what should be going on inside of the school house.
Perhaps all this was to be expected. I rather think so. But I confess to
surprise when I find such criticism being echoed from within--from
men who should know better, as, for example, the two quoted at the
beginning of this article. The explanation, I suppose, is that, timid in
nature, they have become panicky and lost their bearings. Perhaps they
were suffering from a mild form of brain-storm, and have temporarily
slipt back into the ranks of the unthinking.
Let us analyze the situation and see if we can discover just what the
war did reveal as to the short-*comings of our educational system. Let
us then try to locate the responsibility.

One of the most serious of the educational shortcomings thus revealed
is a high percentage of illiteracy--nearly eight per cent, I understand,
the country over. The seriousness of such a situation can scarcely be
overestimated. It was serious in time of war--the inability of a soldier to
read orders, or to follow written directions, or to make written reports,
especially when one takes into consideration the myriad forms of war
service just recently used, would limit his possibilities of service and
cripple himself and all his companions. But illiteracy is even more
serious in times of peace, for then such individuals are not immediately
under the direction of intelligent officers and thus prevented from the
disastrous results of their own ignorant actions. Think for a moment of
what it means in a democracy and for a democracy to have