The discussions have been nation-wide in
their scope and most fertile in plans and practical suggestions. No
subject of greater importance or of more far-reaching import now engages
the interest of educational leaders. They are quite aware that something
needs to be done, but no one has announced the sovereign remedy. The
critics have made much of the fact that there is something lacking or
wrong in our school procedure, but they can neither diagnose the case
nor suggest the remedy. They can merely criticize. We are having many
surveys, but the results have been meager and inadequate. We have been
working at the circumference of the circle rather than at the center. We
have been striving to reform our educational training, hoping for a
reflex that would be sufficient to modify the entire school regime. We
have added domestic science, hoping thereby to reconstruct the school by
inoculation. We have looked to agriculture and other vocational studies
as the magnetic influences of our dreams. Something has been
accomplished, to be sure, but we are still far distant from the goal.
The best that writers can do in their books or educational conferences
can do in their meetings, is to report progress.
=The obstacle of conservatism.=--One of the greatest obstacles we have
to surmount in this whole matter of vitalizing school work is the
habitual conservatism of the school people themselves.
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