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The New Education
A REVIEW OF PROGRESSIVE
EDUCATIONAL MOVEMENTS
OF THE DAY
BY
SCOTT NEARING, Ph.D.
Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
AUTHOR OF “SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT,”
“THE SUPER RACE,” “WAGES IN THE UNITED STATES,”
“SOCIAL SANITY,” “REDUCING THE COST OF LIVING,” etc.
Chicago New York
ROW, PETERSON & COMPANY
Copyright, 1915
ROW, PETERSON & COMPANY
PREFACE
During 1910, 1911, and 1912, as a part of a general plan to write a bookon education, I reread a great deal of the classical educationalliterature, and carefully perused most of the current material inmagazine and book form. An interest aroused by undergraduate andgraduate work in the department of pedagogy had been whetted by therevolutionary activity in every field of educational endeavor. The timeseemed ripe for an effective piece of constructive educational writing,yet I could not see my way clear to begin it. Glaring faults there were;remedies appeared ready at hand and easy of application; the will of anaroused public opinion alone seemed to be lacking. By what method couldthis wheel horse of reform best be harnessed to the car of educationalprogress?
I was still seeking for an answer to this riddle when the editors of“The Ladies’ Home Journal” asked me to consider the preparation of aseries of articles. “We have done some sharp destructive work in ourcriticisms of the schools,” they said. “Now we are going to do someconstructive writing. We are in search of two things:—first, aconstructive article outlining in general a possible scheme forreorganizing the course of study; second, a series of articlesdescribing in a readable way the most successful public school work nowbeing done in the United States. We want you to visit the schools, studythem at first-hand, and bring back a report of the best that they haveto offer. When your investigation[4] is completed, we shall expect you towrite the material up in such a form that each reader, after finishingan article, will exclaim,—‘There is something that we must introduceinto our schools.’”
That was my opportunity. Instead of writing a book to be read by athousand persons, I could place a number of constructive articles beforetwo million readers. The invitation was a godsend.
The articles, when completed, formed a natural sequence. First there wasthe general article (Chapter 3) suggesting the reorganization. Thenfollowed descriptions of the schools in which some such reorganizationshad been effected. Prepared with the same point of view, the articlesconstituted an acceptable series, having a general object and aconnecting idea running throughout. What more natural than to write afew words of