PREJUDICE IN EDUCATION

Appealing for more positive teaching, Dr. George S. Counts of Columbia urged those present at the recent meeting of the National Education Association to throw off the cloak of impartiality in their instruction. He impressed on them the necessity of attempting to "indoctrinate" their pupils with the traditions, especially the democratic traditions, of the nation. It is his belief that the present system of giving all theories equal value prevents the student's ever accepting any one. "In eschewing prejudice," he states, "we fail to achieve direction."

The system approved by Dr. Counts, as applied to elementary education, has been in use for centuries by churches and by despotic governments which have become self-perpetuating through this method of withholding original ideas from their subjects. Dr. Counts would apparently apply his principle to democracy and, at an early age, force an implicit trust therein on the nation's youth. This method of teaching may prolong the life of an institution, but it does not lead to true thinking, a more worthy object of education.

Applied to university teaching, Dr. Count's appeal has a much wider application. A Harvard student should have sufficient discretion to judge the comparative values of the different theories presented him. It is safe for Professor Babbitt to expound the wonders of Humanism as long as Professor Lowes continues to defend the Romantics. The student will progress further towards forming a philosophy of his own in this way, than by listening to any one man, no matter how open-minded. But in a small college this plan presents its dangers. There, it is too expedient for an instructor to share the opinion of his superiors; the student will hear only a one-sided philosophy. It would be better that he heard an uninspired man expound all possible beliefs.