There
are some signs that this doctrine has now at last entered the minds of
the so-called practical men. The Cubans are to be raised in the scale of
civilization and public happiness; so both they and we think they must
have more and better schools. The Filipinos, too, are to be developed
after the American fashion; so we send them a thousand teachers of
English. The Southern states are to be rescued from the persistent
poison of slavery; and, after forty years of failure with political
methods, we at last accept Emerson's doctrine, and say: We must begin
earlier,--at school. The city slums are to be redeemed; and the
scientific charity workers find the best way is to get the children into
kindergartens and manual training schools.
Since the Civil War, a whole generation of educational administrators
has been steadily at work developing what is called the elective system
in the institutions of education which deal with the ages above twelve.
It has been a slow, step-by-step process, carried on against much active
opposition and more sluggish obstruction. The system is a method of
educational organization which recognizes the immense expansion of
knowledge during the nineteenth century, and takes account of the needs
and capacities of the individual child and youth. Now, Emerson laid down
in plain terms the fundamental doctrines on which this elective system
rests. He taught that the one prudence in life is concentration; the one
evil, dissipation.
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