isolation from the rest of the community. This involves, in general, two types of change: one in the point of view of many of the teachers, and the other in the curriculum.

Regarding the teachers it may be said that the true teacher is a social worker, and not an operator of an automatic educational machine. In this connection I have observed that the teachers in the grade schools are often more informed about conditions in the community than the high-school teachers, in spite of the fact that the latter are supposed to be more "highly" educated. The grade-school teacher knows that Johnnie is out of school because his father is out of work, or that Mable cannot keep awake in school because she has not at home proper conditions and time for sleep. Poor nourishment, poverty, the influence of bad neighborhoods, and disturbed family conditions are more observable in the grades than in high school, chiefly because in the latter are to be found only 10% of the children, of whom the most come from a superior economic class.

Still, with all the opportunities for observation of the effect of social conditions afforded to grade teachers, they are often at a loss to know what to do with their first-hand knowledge; and this is because in their own training they have not learned to see the schools functioning in association with other institutions in the community: relief and employment agencies, housing bureaus, health centers, clinics, courts, legal aid societies, recreation departments, and so on, any one of which may in an emergency be of more importance to the child than his school. The need for these different agencies has arisen since the establishment of the schools, and many of them would have been set up in the schools, if the educational system had been sufficiently plastic and adaptable. As it is, they have grown up, touching the life of the children at a hundred points or more, but not affecting the schools, which too often remain like vine-clad memorials to the

past amid new and stimulating surroundings. The teaching profession itself must protest against this imposed asceticism. The broader community, outlook should not be the exclusive possession of the school visitor and the school nurse who enter the educational system as new types of specialists. Indeed, the work of these people depends upon the fullest understanding and co-operation on the part of the teachers, if the system as a whole is to touch the child effectively. Needless to say, the teaching of the prescribed subjects will take on new meaning if the teacher can see more than one phase of the child's life, and enter broadly into his varied experience.

But the newer, and, if I may call it so, the sociological point of view will result not only in benefit to the teacher, but also in very great advantage to the child. The teacher who can recognize a child problem when it appears in the school, and is aware of the community's equipment for dealing with it, can be of invaluable assistance to the child and the whole community. Why does the community establish expensive social agencies for varied forms of social service, if they are not to be used when occasion arises? Not long ago a colored child was obliged to leave a Detroit school because his sister had to have an expensive operation. It was afterwards learned that this medical service could have been performed under the auspices of one of the medical social service agencies at a much less cost, and if its aid had been sought the child might have remained in school. Can the teacher say in this case that she was employed to teach spelling or number work and not to advise a child concerning his personal affairs? It is feared that too many teachers thus forego opportunities for being of wider service. Already, the success of the Parent Teacher Association bears witness to the value to all concerned of a closer co-operation between the school and the home. The next step in correlation should be between the school and the other social agencies besides school and home, to the

end that wherever these touch the lives of children, the total effort of the community. should be consistently effective. But such co-operation requires many-sided teachers; and teachers and other social workers must learn to recognize the common aspects of their different tasks.

Probably, to secure an adequate supply of teachers, disposed to regard the schools in the light of their social functions and coordinations, it will be necessary to begin with those institutions where teachers themselves are trained. I speak as a layman when I express my notion that the curricula of normal schools where grade teachers are trained could profitably undergo examination in this regard. I have always wondered what formal "pedagogy" and "education" were about, and I have an idea (it is again a mere notion) that there is much time wasted upon them. On the other hand, there is a great accumulation of concrete and fascinating material, relating to child. welfare and the work of agencies furthering it, which might properly be made the subject of study for prospective teachers. The upshot of this matter of training for special work seems to be this: that, whereas we must all work in and with institutions, our preparation should prevent us from becoming institutionalized. Law, business, preaching, as well as teaching, have a deadening effect upon their votaries unless each one in these respective callings sees from his own particular angle the larger circle of relationships, and functions as though these really existed and bore some reference to his own task.

To sum up the argument thus far: the present problem is to adapt the schools to life conditions, and the first requirement of this adjustment is for teachers to see the schools not in isolation, but in working relations with other agencies in the community that affect child life either in special emergencies, or in the ordinary course of things. A second requisite concerns certain changes in the curriculum.

Doubtless, in these days, many fools rush at the curriculum with destructive intent. Nevertheless, underlying the criticism of the

schools with respect to what is taught is the sane demand that this be more closely related to the needs of the modern worker and citizen. Traditionally, the schools have been concerned with imparting knowledge of the use of tools, "the three R's," not appreciating the fact that such knowledge may be made to serve good or bad ends. It is precisely the social ends or purposes that are lost sight of in modern school discipline. Success is emphasized and there is a sharpening of the aquisitive instincts; but of that which relates to the nature and the conditions of a truly democratic success there is nothing. Child labor, epidemics, juvenile delinquency, and a generally ignorant citizenry are among the more notorious byproducts of the traditional school. But how can we in the curriculum break with tradition?

A truly socialized curriculum results from a balancing of considerations, arising from the requirements of society, on the one hand, and from the physiological, psychological, and social needs of the child, on the other. Education is not a goal, but a continuing process in which more satisfactory adjustments between the individual and his material and social environment are prepared for. Thus, the school system which directs the process must look both ways: to the needs of the child, and to the life conditions which he must meet. In many respects the child is to be molded, disciplined, civilized; in other ways the environment itself must be resisted, especially where it will repress the personality and real human qualities of the child. Herein, I suppose, is to be found the justification of those who maintain that the cultural needs must not be sacrificed to vocational ends. To adjust the curriculum so as to satisfy both the individual and social requirements is the real educational problem.

To make these generalizations somewhat. more specific, I would say that the school curriculum could be socialized in three respects: first, so as to enable the child to appreciate the significance of economic life; secondly, to teach him the care of his mind and body; and thirdly, to prepare him for

a richer participation in civic life, as a member of a family, as a neighbor, voter, or as a volunteer or official agent in the actual work of government. By particular schools, here and there, much progress has been made in these directions, but generally speaking the field is very far from being ready for harvesting.

1. With regard to economic life, we are not concerned here with vocational training as such, but rather with an interpretation of economic society in its two-fold aspects of production and consumption. The approach perhaps could be made best through a descriptive study of certain economic phenomena. On the side of production the child could be shown how, where, and by whom are made some of the great staple commodities that are bought and sold in the markets of the world. The innumerable processes by which things are fashioned out of the raw materials of nature and brought ultimately to one's neighborhood store afford abundant material of scientific and human interest for use in the schools.

Geography, chemistry, foreign and domestic trade, the division of labor, and, above all, the great idea of the interdependence of peoples and classes here find illustration. On the side of consumption there is a corresponding wealth of interesting material. The manner of life of peoples, their diet, dress, houses, amusements are all here involved. From discussion of these there would develop ideas of the standard of life, which could be approached in non-technical terms. At some point in the curriculum it should not be difficult to dwell upon the fact that some things must be had in sufficient quantities and of adequate quality, if life itself is to be maintained; that other things are necessary, if life is to be enjoyed; and that still others are wasteful and extravagant, adding nothing to the fullness of life. This all points, of course, to the development of a sense of values. Economists can afford to consider utilities as those which satisfy wants, trusting that people will want the useful and the good; but there

is abundant evidence about us to show that the masses of people have not been disciplined in their economic wants. Custom, the desire for display, and even vicious. tendencies are among the forces that underlie consumption in the matter of food, clothing, housing, and amusement, and they involve the possibilities of degeneration. Can any educator doubt that these tendencies should and could be forestalled in the schools? If they can be, would it not be through a natural and stimulating approach to the whole problem of the economic life?

2. The health of school children has been a growing concern with school people and social workers these recent years. We are here again led to consider the interrelation of things. tion of things. Health is a product of heredity and environment, and of such personal care as may be stimulated through the environment.

In a chart attributed to Dr. Thomas D. Wood, Chairman of the Committee on Health Problems of the National Council of Education and the American Medical

Association, defects found among city and country school children are as follows:1

that health activities in the interest of children must radiate from the schools. Here only is it possible to reach large groups for the discovery of defects with a thoroughness upon which depends the success of any program for treatment. Wherever competent examinations of the physical and mental conditions of school children have taken place, an astonishingly large number of defects have been revealed.

Correlative with the conditions here made manifest are the findings of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs regarding defects, and rejections for the same among the two and one-half million men in the draft. The average ratio of defectives was 468 per thousand, and the average ratio for rejections was 212. In Michigan the ratio for rejections was over 300; in Rhode Island, over 400.

It is not fair to charge the schools with full responsibility for this condition of affairs among children and young men; it would be equally wrong to acquit them of all responsibility in the matter. Part of the case against the schools is chargeable to the physical equipment-the buildings, rooms, seats, and so on; and part concerns the curriculum, discipline, and administration. It would be difficult to say which is the worse of these two aspects of the situation. The buildings often represent the health ignorance of a past generation; the curriculum and discipline bespeak contemporary folly.

To be more specific concerning the effect upon health of the school curriculum and discipline, I should say that the five-hourday indoors, the prison-like silence, the foolish rules about going to the toilet, or for a drink, the practice of extending the day by keeping children after school, the enforcement of the sitting posture are all barbarisms. Associated with these is the failure to work out a thorough-going system of physical education and training. The whole question needs to be made the subject of frequent conferences among educators, phy

sicians, social workers, parents, and, last but not least, the publishers, who have perpetrated much that is dull and erroneous in this field. Enough has been scientifically ascertained about health to enable us to develop an effective course of training and study.

At the basis of such a course is the periodic medical examination. This is already installed in progressive communities, though generally lacking in rural districts. The examination itself is of no avail unless

discovered defects receive proper treatment. To secure this requires the co-operation of the school or visiting nurse, of the parents, and of the child. Following the treatment should be a re-examination.

Without doubt the medical examination arouses the interest of children in health problems, and makes way for effective teaching. With this a beginning could be made in the lowest grades. Food values could be taught along with nonsense rhymes in the primer. In the rudiments of sex education the Oregon Social Hygiene Society is developing, in co-operation with the school authorities, a course that begins in the third grade and continues throughout the higher grades. The attempts to reach the children through the parents in this difficult subject have not been very promising. Habits of cleanliness, the sources of infections, the necessity for isolation in cases of communicable disease, the evils of patent medicines, and many other health facts could be imparted,1 the whole scheme being accompanied by a thorough-going system of physical education.

One lesson of the World War stands out unmistakably, namely, the effectiveness of propaganda. Health education, centered in the schools, reaching into industry and homes, should enable us after a decade or two to give a better account of ourselves than now appears wherever the data are collected.

A school program in mental hygiene is

1See Dr. H. W. Hill, "The New Public Health" for a school curriculum in health.