they should be utilized and turned into new and modern channels of activity. Mr. John A. Hobson in a recent article touches upon this point. "The factory employee, the shop assistant, the office clerk, the most typical member of modern industrial society, finds an oppressive burden of uninteresting order, of mechanism, in their working day. Their work affords no considerable scope for spontaneity, self-expression and the interest, achievement and surprise which are ordinary human qualities. It is easily admitted that an absolutely ordered (however well ordered) human life would be vacant of interest and intolerable; in other words it is a prime condition of humanity that the unexpected in the form of happening and achievement should be represented in every life. Art in its widest sense, as interested effort of production, and play as interested but unproductive effort, are essential." If modern industrial and commercial life is being placed upon a stable, sure, scientific, calculable basis, if chance. and luck are being replaced by skill and efficiency, if routine and dead uniformity are replacing allround effort and variety, if the home environment is becoming more monotonous and artificial, other social institutions must furnish pleasurable change and variety. If elevating institutions such as the school or the church do not cope satisfactorily with the situation, other much less desirable ones will, and the spirit of gambling, of riotous living, of carousal, of living for the sake of sport, will enter 1 International Journal of Ethics, January, 1905. society and take a firm hold. Old instincts are not easily eradicated; education must never overlook them. The recent additions and contemplated additions to our educational system are the concrete results of some of the attempts which have been made to cope with the question in a more or less intelligent manner. The entrance of the United States and other important industrial nations upon a policy of commercial expansion, the growth of imperialism, and the prevalence of the desire to exploit the less industrially progressive nations, mark the beginning of a new epoch in our national life. Specialization of industry and subdivision of labor now assume new aspects. Capital becomes international, while labor still remains upon a national basis. Mr. Hobson and others have pointed out that the backward nations will now assume the place hitherto occupied by the great mass of the unskilled in the home country. Humanitarian and democratic tendencies are in danger of receiving a check. Capital in a new, rapidly developing country finds opportunity for investments in improvements; but in a more highly developed, but still progressive country, it is obliged, unless there are opportunities for investments in foreign countries, to seek investment in directly productive enterprises which produce articles for the consumption of the great mass of the people. If there is no opportunity for foreign investment of capital, industrial progress will necessitate an improvement in the consumptive power of the masses. Economic and ethical aims begin to draw into closer relationship. The possibility of enormous investments of capital in South America and Asia is something which threatens to affect the industrial, social and educational welfare of the American people. "Once encompass China with a network of railroads and steamer services, the size of the labor market to be tapped is so stupendous that it might well absorb in its development all the spare capital and business energy the advanced European nations and the United States can supply for generations." China and the Chinese workers are a danger because of the low standards of living which prevail in the Asiatic nation, and the consequent ease with which the Chinese people may be exploited. If increased manufacturing and commercial activity in China is not accompanied by a corresponding increase in the standard of living, the American farmer and the American workman are doubtless imperiled by the situation. The educational movement of the last two or three decades is essentially a working class movement, and its future is bound up in the welfare of the industrial and agricultural classes. 1 CHAPTER IV NEW AIMS. IDEALS AND METHODS IN EDUCATION The many recent modifications in home, industrial and social life inevitably lead society toward new social, educational and moral ideals. During the last century industrial and scientific progress outran all other forms of development. A problem of to-day is to bring our educational, legal, economic and social values and ideals into harmonious relations with the present industrial situation. There is a continual conflict between the ideals and customs established under conditions existing in preceding generations, and newer ones called into being by changing economic and social conditions. The aims and ideals which were presented to the schoolboy and the schoolgirl of a generation ago are not as appropriate and fitting now as then. Society needs time to adjust itself to the kaleidoscopic changes of the last quarter of a century. Time is, indeed, required to remodel and to reconstruct our educational system upon a new basis; in order to perform this task intelligently, efficiently, and with the least possible friction, consideration should be given to the aims and ideals which education ought to present to the students of to-day. The haphazard, patched-up condition of our school curriculum is the result of a conflict between the traditional and the practical ideals in education. The former overlooks almost completely the dynamic view of the world; its eyes are turned backward toward the past. It magnifies the desirability of disciplinary and purely cultural studies; and on the other hand it minimizes the value of, and often sneers at, the practical and the concrete. An extreme example of this spirit is presented in the familiar story of the old college professor of higher mathematics, who chose that subject for his speciality because, he believed, no practical use could ever be made of it. On the contrary, the partizans of the practical studies are prone to forget the lessons of the past, and to see only the immediate monetary value of the training which they advocate. The clamor and confusion arising from the contentions of these two opposing factions have prevented or retarded the general acceptance of certain aims, methods and ideals which are of fundamental importance at the present time. The American public-school system-the word "system" reveals one of the crying evils in educational work and philosophy. Everything is systematized, "routinized," standardized, averaged. All the children of the nation are crowded, pushed or pulled through similar courses of study at as nearly uniform speed as possible, a common mold is used for each and for all. The teachers are obliged to teach according to a minutely prescribed system-ten minutes for this and fifteen for that |