Learning by teaching, Philip H. Churchman, 65. Bronner's The psychology of special abilities and disabilities, 71-Le- new books, 77. Notes and news Federal aid for vocational education, 80-The Rockefeller Foundation, PUBLISHED BY EDUCATIONAL REVIEW PUBLISHING CO. NEW YORK CITY AGENTS PARIS: J. Terquem & Co. LONDON: P. S. King & Son, Ltd., Orchard House, 2 and 4 Great Smith Street, Westminster Published Monthly except July and August Vol. 55. No. I Whole No. 271 35c. a copy Is. 8d.) $3.00 a year the Best Encyclopedia of Education Articles to appear in an early issue include Sound principles of insurance for teachers, by CLYDE FURST, Secretary of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teachers. Sociological principles fundamental to pedagogical methods, by Ross L. FINNEY, State Normal School, Valley City, N. D. The degree of M.A. at Johns Hopkins, by KIRBY FLOWER SMITH, Johns Hopkins University. The history teacher's patriotic opportunity, by W. B. DAVISON, State Normal School, River Falls, Wis. A working man's university, by D. E. PHILLIPS, University of Denver. Among the old articles still of potent interest The octopus of the Ph.D. degree, by WILLIAM JAMES. Manuscripts intended for publication should be addrest to the 3 dollars. 14s. 6d. 10 Numbers, none being issued 35 cents. Is. 8d. A Copy CHARACTER AND FITNESS IN EDUCATION Without doubt the greatest development of our time has been the systematic study and promotion of efficient methods, or in other words making a number of blades of grass grow where one grew before. It is not, therefore, surprizing that so many establishments exist under conditions of which the following is not an exaggerated description: First. Raw material is received without specification and no more examination than to determine that it is material. Second. Sixty-five to seventy-five per cent of this raw material is thrown out during the process of manufacture, after having been more or less worked upon or, in the language of the shop, spoiled during the process of manufacture. Third. Each foreman or head of department, selected with little regard to his capacity for the work in hand, doing what he likes in his own line, having little regard to the character of material, or to the work which others are doing; frequently with no knowledge of the qualities required in the finished product, and often undoing the work of some other department, more frequently duplicating the same. Fourth. Where the attempt is made to put all of the material into the same form of machine, regardless of the kind of material, be it brass, steel, cast iron, or concrete. i Reprinted by permission from the Bulletin of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education. Fifth. Where the men who use the finished product usually consider it a failure and generally work it over when they do not kick it out entirely, except in those few cases where the product happens to fit. Sixth. Where no systematic study is made as to the suitability of the finished product for the work it is intended to do. One would say that should such a plant be subject to the ordinary laws of business, failure would be a question of time only, and yet the description does not inaccurately portray the conditions which obtain in the average school of engineering, probably to a greater extent in a modern university, and accounts for the all pervading educated misfit. This condition was tersely described in a recent inaugural address of a university president, as follows: "It is a sad commentary on the educational institutions of the country that those upon whom are showered their choicest honors are seldom if ever those whom any one would care to resemble." When we realize that in the old academic type of education the matter of utility of the subject was not only ignored, but was most studiously avoided (see the toast to pure mathematics), and when we consider that utility is the final test of technical education we begin to see that modern technical education has caused a big step in advance of the culture of the civilized world, and when we take into account the condition of our technical schools as described above, we can understand why it took over 2,000 years from the university at Athens to the university of the present day to do what comparatively little civilizing was done, and when, as someone remarked recently, the growth of civilization in the last forty years has been greater than in the previous 2,000 years, we can appreciate more completely the possibilities of engineering education. A member of the faculty of one of our universities was heard to boast that his university was founded on the university at Athens. Would we be so far wrong should we feel that the university has not grown much above its foundation? Many of our universities have grown far above such a foundation, are veritable sky scrapers, but the student is too apt to find that the elevators are not running today. It may be claimed that the entrance examination on the fourteen-unit basis is a specification, but is it anything more than an indication that the student's mind exists and has had some training? It does not differentiate between brass, pig iron, steel, green timber or seasoned, between a memory mind or a reasoning one, between a self-confident mind or the contrary, between one who can grasp only facts and draw conclusions from a general view of a limited number of them or one who reasons step by step. Has the student the mentality of a successful civil engineer, electrical, mechanical, executive, selling, or research engineer, or has he that of a lawyer, physician, artist, or what not? Is any attempt made to determine? How many students start on their college work who are both mentally and temperamentally unfit for the course they are trying? The writer has seen numerous cases where a very cursory examination would have shown that the boy could do better at almost anything else than what he was attempting, and in many a case has sent civil engineers into medicine or law, or mechanical engineers into agriculture or business, or men who were delving hard towards the domain of pure science into executive work, and had them come back afterwards and thank him from the bottom of their hearts. How often are we attempting to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, or use a razor wherewith to open oysters? The writer sent to a warm personal friend, to do rather fine engineering work, a student who afterwards made a success on a small farm and lumber proposition. The friend was polite enough not to express himself audibly, but he would never take any more students on the same recommendation. With the modern development of psychology and character reading, such blunders are inexcusable, for the students in a technical school can be differentiated according to their mental qualifications with quite a great deal of accuracy, and the mental qualities needed in the different lines can be quite definitely determined. |