CHAPTER XVIII. THE TREND OF CIVIC EDUCATION. By ARTHUR WILLIAM DUNN, Specialist in Civic Education, Bureau of Education. CONTENTS.-Aim and scope of civic education-Continuity of civic education-Socialization of entire school-Extra-school agencies of civic education-Civic education through participation-Civic education of the immigrant-Elementary community civics-Preparation of the teacher-Civic education in secondary schools-Civic education in colleges-Civic aspects of vocational education-Civic education in rural communities-Cooperation in behalf of civic education. AIM AND SCOPE OF CIVIC EDUCATION. A tide of democracy is flooding the country. Remarkable changes are occurring in our methods of self-government. The direct primary, the initiative and the referendum, the popular election of United States Senators, the recall of officials and of judicial decisions, the short ballot, the extension of woman suffrage, preferential presidential primaries, proportional representation-these and other innovations in our methods of government, while aiming at greater governmental efficiency, seek this end through a larger degree of popular control. However good these devices may be, they will inevitably fall short of their purpose unless they are in competent hands. The fundamental problem of good government in a democracy is an educational one. The mechanism of self-government will be built on crumbling sand unless its foundations are laid deep with an effective civic education. Coincident with this expanding tide of democracy, à new interest in civic education has been developing; but it is a civic education with a new content, a new aim, and new methods. The movement began with a feeling that the instruction in government in the schools and colleges was inadequate; but it is growing, under a conviction that no amount of instruction in government will of itself meet the demand for a civic education that will afford a real bulwark to our democracy. The weakness of democratic government lies in part in imperfect devices; in part in a lack of intelligence on the part of the citizen; but it lies chiefly in civic apathy, wrong motives, and the absence of certain essential qualities of good citizenship. Even intelligence includes more than mere knowledge; and intelligence must be supplemented by will if we are to attain the desired ends, even with the best of machinery. 73226- -ED 1914-VOL 1-26 401 The first and most important tendency in civic education at present may be represented by the outline following. The portion above the dotted line represents, in effect, practically all that has been included in civic education in the past. Now the tendency is to lay especial emphasis upon the factors indicated below the dotted line. It is in these factors that the real safeguard of democracy is to be found. Civic Education Aims to Cultivate I. Civic intelligence, which includes 1. Civic knowledge. 2. Power to organize this knowledge with reference to one's own experience and interest. 3. Judgment, when confronted by a civic situation or by a choice of methods of meeting the situation. II. Adequate and proper motives for 1. Training the civic intelligence. 2. Civic action. III. Various other qualities of good citizenship, such as 1. A sense of personal responsibility. 2. Power of initiative. 3. A spirit and habit of team work (cooperation). A second important tendency in civic education is the projection of its organized beginnings back into the early years of life. CONTINUITY OF CIVIC EDUCATION. A dozen years ago, and earlier, inquiries into the subject of civic education were restricted to the field of instruction in colleges and universities. Later, attention was directed to the high schools. One committee reported, for example, that "in the grammar schools very little can be done beyond gaining familiarity with the nomenclature of political science. ** It is to the high schools of our large cities that we must look for the greatest results." Recently, however, perhaps more definite progress has been made toward effective civic training in the elementary schools than anywhere else along the line. The problem of civic education in secondary schools looms larger to-day than ever, but whereas the work of the high schools was formerly little more than an imitation of college courses in government, these schools are now tending to take their cue from the elementary schools; that is, the principles that have controlled in the recent development of elementary civics are being applied in large measure to the reorganization of the high-school work. Just as high-school civics was once, and still is to a large extent, an imitation of college work, so, when it was first conceived that larger numbers could be reached by introducing civics into the lower grades, it was attempted by a more or less faithful reproduction of high-school methods. So true is this that the impression has often seemed to prevail among both pupils and teachers that, if the pupils have "had it," like measles, in the lower grades, they need not "take it" in the upper grades. There has been little conception, apparently, of the truth that civic education is a process of growth. More than this, candidates for teachers' licenses are required, in nearly all States, to take formal examinations in government that many high-school graduates and some grammar-school pupils could pass with credit. The civic education of the immigrant, where it is provided for at all,1 often consists of approximately the same treatment as that accorded to native elementary and high-school pupils, and to those in training to become teachers of young citizens; and his civic proficiency is tested by the same type of examination. But all this is passing; and the third tendency to be noted, accordingly, is the growing recognition of civic education as a process of growth, that must be continuous and that must be adapted in content and method, at its various stages, to the immediate interests, the actual experience, the mental capacity, and the environment of the particular group in training. Out of the general problem, therefore, have grown a large number of special problems, the key to which is to be found in the characteristics, the interests, and the aims of the several groups to be educated. So we now have, not only an elementary school problem, a high-school problem, and a problem of the college, but a new problem of civic education as it relates to the recently developed vocational and continuation schools; a problem of civic education peculiar to rural conditions; a problem of civic education for the adult population; a problem of civic education for the immigrant; and others. SOCIALIZATION OF ENTIRE SCHOOL. A fourth tendency of the greatest importance in civic education is that toward a more general recognition of the fact that, while instruction in civics as such is receiving a new interpretation and a new emphasis, it is only one of the means by which the school may give organized training for intelligent participation in civic life. The new conception of civics makes it imperative that the entire work of the school shall contribute toward this end. The test of the efficiency of the work in arithmetic, or reading, or geography has heretofore been almost solely the amount of knowledge or the degree of skill acquired by the pupil in these subjects. If any civic value has been accorded to these subjects, it has been through a vague notion that the more a citizen knows about anything the 1 See p. 408 of this report. better citizen he will be. But new standards are being set up. Dr. McMurry, of Teachers College, New York, has said, for example: We must look directly to the life about us to find what subject matter the school should offer, and how this should be treated. The curriculum will be good to the degree in which it contains problems-mental, moral, esthetic, and economic-that are socially vital and yet within the appreciation of the pupils; and its method of presenting that curriculum will be good to the degree in which it exemplifies the methods of solving problems found most effective by the world's most intelligent workers. Vocational education was introduced originally because of the individual need of the boy or girl for a "job," or that of the employer for efficient workers. To-day the emphasis is shifting to the civic point of view, viz, that the first duty of the citizen is to be self-supporting, and the second to contribute efficiently to the economic welfare of the community. The playground and the school garden, first advocated largely as means of health and recreation for the individual child, are now seized upon as means of cultivating civic habits, such as cooperation, thrift, regard for property rights, etc. Even the movement for the treatment of pupils as individuals rather than en masse is after all only an attempt to fit the individual for his peculiar place as a member in the social group. Thus the entire development of public education to-day is characterized by a definite recognition of its distinctly civic aspects. EXTRA-SCHOOL AGENCIES OF CIVIC EDUCATION. So far reference has been made only to tendencies seen primarily within the schools. The next tendency of civic education to be mentioned is its extension both for youth and adults through extraschool agencies. This is in recognition of the fact, first, that the school is only one of the available agencies of civic education, and, second, that civic education should not end with the school nor with youth, but should be continuous through life. One manifestation of this tendency is the increasing attention to organized discussion and debate-one might almost say their revival, because the present movement is in some respects a logical substitute for the almost extinct town meeting, and for the country cross-roads discussions that have largely disappeared through the extension of urban influences, the rural postal service, the telephone, and other revolutionary influences in country life. The mechanism for such popular civic education has taken various forms and is directed by various agencies. One of its forms is the social or community center, appearing first in cities, but now extended widely through rural districts. In some States, as in Wisconsin, the work is directed wholly or in part by the State uni versities. In others, as in the State of Washington, the State public school authorities have taken the initiative. In still others, citizen organizations exist as the directing agent, such as the Cooperative Education Association of Virginia, which works in conjunction with the State board of education, and which has organized school and civic leagues throughout the rural districts of the State. In all cases, the school building is usually the meeting place, and a movement seems to be gaining ground for uniting the functions of school principals with those of civic secretaries for their districts. In Virginia, North Carolina, Illinois, Iowa, Washington, Wisconsin, and elsewhere, bulletins are issued at intervals by State universities and other agencies, suggesting vital topics for discussion, and otherwise guiding the movement in their localities. State-wide high school and college debating leagues exist in many States. Through its county work the Young Men's Christian Association is taking an active part in the movement, and the church is awaking to its opportunities and obligations in the same field. Nor may we omit special mention of the aggressive work of women's clubs everywhere, not only for self-education, and community education, in civic matters, but in the organization of junior civic leagues as an adjunct to, or substitute for, the work of the schools in the same field. The junior civic league is one of numerous extra-school agencies for children that are already working, or have peculiar opportunities to do much, in the cause of civic training. The activities and agencies mentioned here are illustrative of a widespread movement of great significance in its relation to the progress of democracy. The very multiplicity of agencies, however, raises the question as to how far some of them have permanent functions to perform, and how far they are merely temporary expedients, pointing the way to functions that should ultimately be performed through previously existing, and perhaps official, channels. To what extent are these recent developments a result of failure on the part of existing agencies to perform their proper functions, and doomed to self-extinguishment when the latter shall have assumed their full duty? For example, the junior civic league doubtless performs a valuable and necessary service; but would the same necessity for it exist if the public school were meeting the problem of civic education to an extent that is wholly reasonable to expect? How far, in other words, should the junior civic league seek to establish itself as a permanent institution, and how far should it merely seek to point the way to the public school, acting only as a temporary substitute for it and stimulus to it? 1 Witness the surveys made by the department of church and country life of the Presbyterian Church. |