The Reconstructed School | Page 8

taught us that many people
who have much knowledge are relatively impotent for the reason that
they have not learned how to use their knowledge in the way of
generating power. Gasoline is an inert substance, but, under
well-understood conditions, it affords power. Water is not power, but
man has learned how to use it in generating power. Knowledge is
convenient and serviceable, but its greatest utility lies in the fact that it

can be employed in producing power.
We are prone to take our judgments ready-made and have been relying
upon the copy-books of the fathers rather than our own reasoning
powers. If we had only learned in childhood the distinction between
knowledge and wisdom; if we had learned that knowledge is not power
but merely potential; and if we had learned that knowledge is but the
means to an end and not the end itself, we should have been spared
many a delusion and our educational sky would not now be so overcast
with clouds. We have been proceeding upon the agreeable assumption
that arithmetic, geography, and history are the goals of every school
endeavor, the Ultima Thule of every educational quest. The child
studies arithmetic, is subjected to an examination that may represent
the bent or caprice of the teacher, manages to struggle through seventy
per cent of the answers, is promoted to the next higher grade, and,
thereupon, starts on his journey around another circle. And we call this
education. These processes constitute the mechanics of education, but,
in and of themselves, they are not education. One of the big problems
of the school today is to emancipate both teachers and pupils from the
erroneous notion that they are.
The child does not go to school to learn arithmetic and spelling and
grammar. The goal to be attained is far higher and better than either of
these or all combined. The study of arithmetic may prove a highly
profitable means, never the end to be gained. This statement will be
boldly challenged by the traditional teacher, but it is so strongly
intrenched in logic and sound pedagogy that it is impregnable. The goal
might, possibly, be reached without the aid of arithmetic, but, if a
knowledge of this subject will facilitate the process, then, of course, it
becomes of value and should be used. Let us assume, for the moment,
that the teacher decides to set up thoroughness as one of the large
objectives of her teaching. While she may be able to reach this goal
sooner by means of arithmetic, no one will contend that arithmetic is
indispensable. Nor, indeed, will any one contend that arithmetic is
comparable to thoroughness as a goal to be attained. If the teacher's
constant aim is thoroughness, she will achieve even better results in the
arithmetic and will inculcate habits in her pupils that serve them in

good stead throughout life. For the quality of thoroughness is desirable
in every activity of life, and we do well to emphasize every study and
every activity of the school that helps in the development of this
quality.
If the superintendent were challenged to adduce a satisfactory reason
why he has not written thoroughness into his course of study he might
be hard put to it to justify the omission. He hopes, of course, that the
quality of thoroughness will issue somehow from the study of
arithmetic and science, but he lacks the courage, apparently, to
proclaim this hope in print. He says that education is a spiritual process,
while his course of study proves that he is striving to produce mental
acrobats, relegating the spiritual qualities to the rank of by-products.
His course of study shows conclusively that he thinks that knowledge is
power. Once disillusion him on this point and his course of study will
cease to be to him the sacrosanct affair it has always appeared and he
will no longer look upon it as a sort of sacrilege to inject into this
course of study some elements that seem to violate the sanctities of
tradition.
Advancing another brief step, we may try to imagine the
superintendent's suggesting to the teachers at the opening of the school
year that they devote the year to inculcating in their pupils the qualities
of thoroughness, self-control, courage, and reverence. The faces of the
teachers, at such a proposal, would undoubtedly afford opportunity for
an interesting study and the linguistic reactions of some of them would
be forcible to the point of picturesqueness. The traditional teachers
would demand to know by what right he presumed to impose upon
them such an unheard-of program. Others might welcome the
suggestion as a means of relief from irritating and devastating drudgery.
In their quaint innocence and guilelessness their souls would revel in
rainbow dreams of preachments, homilies, and