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LIPPINCOTT'S

EDUCATIONAL SERIES

EDITED BY

MARTIN G. BRUMBAUGH, A.M., PH.D., LL.D.

SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, PHILADELPHIA

VOLUME XII

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CURRENT ACTIVITIES

AND

INFLUENCES IN EDUCATION

A REPORT UPON EDUCATIONAL MOVE-
MENTS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD

BEING THE THIRD VOLUME OF

"THE ANNALS OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS"

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BY

JOHN PALMER GARBER, PH.D.

ASSOCIATE SUPERINTENDENT OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF PHILADELPHIA

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EDITOR'S PREFACE.

FEW realize the significant changes that have occurred in the aim and spirit of the school within the past ten years. In educational affairs the lapse of a decade now marks a new era. So rapid is the general progress of mankind that this is also true of industrial, political, and social life. But the developments in education have this distinctive feature, they are less restricted by the stress of actual conditions than are other forms of human activity. Even under the pressure of modern competition the school finds it both possible and desirable to do something more than fit its pupils for a definite career. This is the answer to those who would insist that schooling need be little more than an apprenticeship for the shop or the counting-house. Nowhere is the world's need limited alone to trained workmen, no matter how great their skill. We need happy, contented › workmen as well as skilled workmen. And nowhere shall we rise to the plane of leadership, even in industrial competitions, until we have given to our pupils not only an understanding of specific industrial problems, but also that wider and vastly more significant equipment which enables them to sense the relative value of things about them and easily to find their place in the larger social, civic, and economic environment into which they

must enter.

And these larger demands are, after all, more in accord with the spirit of the times. There was a day when knowledge was the only thing demanded of the school. And in a still earlier epoch even this was not deemed the need of all. When the State was everything and everything was for the State, the only training necessary for the masses was that they should learn to obey; and protection was the only right which they could claim in return. But with the growth of wealth among the common people came increase of power and by and by a voice in their own control. With the beginning of constitutional government and the introduction of the ballot, a new order of things was well under way. Now only an intelligent citizenship

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