Civics, as Taught in the New Bedford

Industrial School

RUSSELL B. LEONARD, HEAD OF DEPARTMENT OF RELATED Work, INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL, NEW BEDFORD, MASS.

¤mun♣T is said that the reason for the lack of progress made by the Chinese nation is their strict adherence to the customs of their forefathers. But the Chinese are not the only people to be so hindered. In every nation and in every field of human activity we find people regulating their living by precedents established by others. Nor is this altogether wrong. Many times these customs are founded on sound common sense and will prove in the end the best way. But often in accepting the good we also use that which in the light of our modern research is undesirable.

In the field of education this doing as our fathers did has been even more common than in the fields of business or science. Our high schools of today emphasize this point since in the main the subjects taught are general or college preparatory rather than fitting for a business life, when, as a matter of fact, less than a quarter of our high school pupils enter college.

So it was with a feeling of dissatisfaction with the old methods of teaching that we approached the idea of teaching Civics in the New Bedford Industrial School. That Civics should be taught there was no question. No one will disagree when I say that every boy attending school in the United States should be taught his duties and responsibilities as a member of a community. Our problem seemed to be, to find a better way to teach this subject.

As in every efficiency movement we felt that the first step was to look over the ground and find what material we had to deal with. In New Bedford we have boys ranging from fourteen to nineteen years of age. These boys come from the public schools, anywhere from the sixth grade to the second year of high school and have had one year of training in the industrial school, for we

decided to begin Civics in the second year of the course. For the most part these boys come from families of moderate circumstances. In many cases their parents need their wages as soon as they are qualified to get a position. These boys come to the school to learn a trade. They feel that they have spent as much time as they can afford acquiring a general education in the public school. Now they wish to learn a trade and earn money as soon as possible. Many of the boys have already worked during vacations and outside of school hours. Thus we can see that the attitude of the boy is intensely practical and to fulfill its purpose the school work should be conducted along practical lines, in fact, in many respects the school resembles a factory or workshop more than it does a school. The boy entering his classes with this attitude must at once be made to realize the value of the subject to him as a workman.

Having studied the type of boys to be taught, it was next necessary to look over the subject matter. We needed to see what part of this subject matter was practical for teaching and most likely to be needed by the tradesmen that these boys would become. First and foremost, every boy will become a voter, so he must be taught how to cast his vote on election day; how to consider the different candidates and judge their merits for the position desired by them; and how to consider each question presented to the voter for decision. Secondly, he must know how to use any methods of procedure employed by his community. For instance, he must know why and how he is taxed and where to pay those taxes; how to get a curbing in front of his house, etc. Thirdly, he must realize the need of experienced officers in charge of the city's affairs and thus be ready to coöperate with them in the fulfillment of their duties. More often than the average man realizes is the health officer balked and opposed in the enforcement of quarantine, not from any criminal intent, but from ignorance. For the same reason the school authorities have difficulty in making some children attend school. These facts make it evident that the cultivation of the proper spirit toward the activities of the city government is as fully important as any other point. Then throughout the whole course we must strive to impress the boy with the idea that it is a solemn duty, since he has the right, to cast his vote. He should feel that it is as much an act of patriotism to

vote as it is to fight in the battle's front in time of war. Indifference to voting is one of the greatest weaknesses of the republican form of government.

This work must be covered in some logical order that no time may be lost, no points omitted, and that one may give adequate amount of time to each subject proportionate with its value. The order most commonly used is that, proceding, from the simple to the complex, from the easy to the difficult, and from the known to the unknown. Keeping always the ideal of practicability before us, we have tried to lay the greater emphasis on those phases which touch the citizen most directly. With these points in mind we laid out an outline covering the material. The average man deals more with the city's affairs than he does with the state or national, therefore the largest amount of work covers city conditions and activities. The city's activities may be divided into the following groups: Protection, which includes fire, police and military; Health, covering the Board of Health, sewer system, clinics, district nurses, etc.; Education; Transportation and Highways; Recreation and Social Welfare, which includes the various forms of courts and penal institutions; the General Government. These divisions are used by the City Government of New Bedford and we found them easily adapted to the state and national affairs. We called each division a unit and considered it as such in the formation of our outline. In comparing them we could not decide on any one that was materially more difficult than any other. Furthermore, in endeavoring to proceed from the known to the unknown, we realized that the average boy of fourteen years has some idea of all these units, hence we decided to carry all the units along at the same time. This not only makes the work proceed logically from the easy to the difficult, but it shows the relation of one unit to another and prevents any wrong ideas of the relative importance of each unit.

Guided by the idea of arousing the boy's interest at the very start, the unit, Protection, was taken first, believing that the boy's love of excitement and heroism will be appealed to by the ideas of firemen, policemen, and soldiers. The City Government was reserved as last by reason of its more abstract nature and less concrete activities. In order to carry these units along at the same time, it was found necessary to arrange our outline in the

form of a spiral. The dotted line represents the line of work passing through each unit consecutively on each level. These levels are arranged according to difficulty and importance. In deciding what the levels should be, we wished first to take the boy's own ideas and knowledge of the subject and build on that. So the first level was called the Idea. Here the boy is allowed to tell what he knows of the subject with little direction from the teacher further than that of not allowing the discussion to become aimless or wander away from the subject at hand. The boy becomes interested, for every child likes to talk about the things he knows or tell his experiences. A little information is gathered from listening to the various pupils report and from the comments made by the teacher on the subject, but above all, interest is aroused in the subject and a general idea is gained, not only of each unit, but of what the subject, Civics, is about, as well as the relation of the parts to the whole.

The next level is not more difficult for the pupil if treated in the right way. This level deals with the need of each unit. Here little reference work is necessary, but the teacher by careful questioning brings the idea to the boy's mind and makes them by their own reasoning find the answer. It should be a drill in learning to think, which is an exercise much needed by pupils of the present day. At this point the boys will begin to gain rapidly under good teaching an appreciation of the benefits provided by the city.

In taking up the level, Organization of each Unit, the boys begin to do real research work. At this point the boys should be shown the importance of skilled officers, and their responsibility in voting for the best man, which idea may be admirably brought out in other levels, but should be emphasized here. The value of efficient organization must be shown and the study of Parliamentary Rule can well be brought in as a side issue.

In studying Maintenance, the whole subject of taxation may be treated, as well as the appropriations for the various departments. In taking up each unit the relation of the tax to the work of the unit must be clearly shown and any other way in which income is derived for that unit.

The title, Services, How Obtained, for the next level is a trifle misleading, but no other name was available that expressed