Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 70.djvu/134

130 ignores most of the principles that control people in practical affairs. Under its operation, it compels the teacher to lay the greater emphasis upon the similarities among pupils, and to ignore differences, and it places a premium upon uniformity. The more closely the school grade approaches its ideal, the more strictly must each pupil work for himself; while the closer we approximate the grouping required by the social ideal, the more earnestly must the individual strive for the whole.

The school grade aims at a certain dead level of uniformity in three things, namely, age, knowledge and skill. These rigid conditions have imposed the stamp of their own arbitrariness upon the selection of subject-matter and methods of instruction, and they render it impossible to realize the highest ideals of social and civic life in the school. The grading system was established long before child-study opened the eyes of teachers, and it represents the quantity idea in education as opposed to that of quality.

In school, not all of the teaching is done by the teacher; the younger children are constantly learning from the older. Experience shows that when pupils have the opportunity to organize themselves for work they form groups which in many instances utterly ignore the age limits set by the grade. The younger pupils gain in skill and knowledge, and the older have lessons in consideration for others and in responsibility that in a graded system must remain forever untaught.

It is equally undesirable to grade pupils on the basis of equality of knowledge. Outside of school such an aggregation of people would be considered a stupid company, with but little chance for improvement. It would distinctly improve the situation to bring together in some common enterprise pupils who differ widely in both knowledge and experience. This applies especially where the pupils are employed in doing rather than in talking. The less capable learn from those who know more, and the latter will learn to work from the strongest stimulus that can move anyone—the necessity of making knowledge immediately intelligible and available for others. The nearer the conventional grade is approximated, the less there is of such a motive; for a similarity of knowledge makes each one useless and uninteresting to every other.

The same argument applies against the requirements for a parity of skill. Every pupil has a certain skill of his own, and his work should so relate him to others that he may make the most of it. He need not be 'graded' with those having equal skill in the same direction. This point finds illustration in the building of a house. In this there may be six or eight different kinds of workmen employed. No two have quite the same skill, in no two is it required. Each one does what is needed and what he is best able to do. The group is so organized that the house-building progresses rapidly and well; but the