Sociological Determination of Objectives in Education
by . Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company. 1921. 8vo, 322 pp. $2’50.
THOSE who wish to remain undisturbed in the possession of their present convictions and prejudices iu education had better avoid Snedden. Ever since he became a figure of importance in the educational world, he has been an iconoclast, an undismayed, persistent challenger of easily accepted tradition and dearly held faith. To many a complacent teacher his very name spells heresy. He refuses to leave any of us content in the uncritical practice of a task prescribed by custom. Yet he does not go about breaking images without providing a goddess of reason to set up in their places; for his questioning is always dictated by a single consideration — the justification of educational procedures in the light of their relation to social progress. The form of his challenge is always the same: What are you teaching this subject, or setting up this type of school, or using this method for? And he insists that you press the inquiry far enough to get beyond the immediate situation, the value of your work to an individual or a group; he asks you to justify the individual or the group itself, as it is affected by your work, in its relation to the larger good of society as a whole, of human beings in their collective life.
This present volume shows Professor Snedden at the top of his bent. He insists on the sociological point of view. He wall accept no superficial or temporizing answers as to the value of subjects in our schools or of our educational enterprises, whether old or new. He examines the junior high school, vocational education, secondary education as a whole, Latin, mathematics, physics, the fine arts, graphic and plastic arts, history, social studies, moral training, and the study of education itself, with a persistent and determined effort to get at our reasons for present practice, and to suggest possibilities of practice more profitable from the standpoint of an ultimate social good.
He pays no homage to the gods of the literary. He will be exact, as in his title for the book, whether we cry ‘barbarous’ or not. For the rather frequent slips of the printer he is doubtless only remotely responsible; and his publisher has given him a book which is at any rate clear to the eye and light in the hand, if otherwise (as in the staring color of its binding and scantness of margin) unattractive.
Dr. Snedden’s style is vigorous, and he says precisely what he means, and richly, too; but he will not be lured aside by the temptation to be graceful or to talk untechnically where technicalities of phrase will serve the ends of exactness for those who are initiated.
The serious professional student will find in the book infinite stimulation to thought. It is professedly inconclusive; but it does more than question all things. It is full of proposals, alternative assumptions, and positive suggestions. Doubtless Professor Snedden’s most ardent admirers, of whom the present reviewer is one, will ask him to turn next to consistent constructive effort in a limited field; but they will thank him for this challenging, critical volume of essays, as for his other similar productions.
One question we are minded to ask in challenge on our own part: Is sociology so much a science, either now or in its outlook, as to be the final basis for the ‘determination of objectives in education’? Can we set the aims of education in the light of any body of facts whatever, even sociological facts? The philosophical educator will insist on a critique of pure reason, even amid the growing science of his own field.
HENRY W. HOLMES