Excerpt from Selection and Organization of Materials for a Course in "the Control of Conduct" For Secondary Schools: A Thesis

Remembering, says Spencer, how narrowly this time (i. E. For schooling) is limited not only by the shortness of life, but also still more by the business of life, we ought to be especially solici tous to employ what time we have to the greatest advantage. (1) Hence, he holds, we must seriously enquire What Knowledge is of Most Worth and too not only whether such and such knowl edge is of worth, but what is its relative worth for There is, perhaps, not a subject to which men devote attention that has not some value. (1) Now this question of educational values, raised by Spencer and discussed by him with such vigor, though with too much one sidedness, is one that has been deeply agitating the pedagogical world. Even long before the time of our great Philosopher of Evolution the same challenge to studies to show the credentials upon which their claims to inclusion in the curriculum rested was thrown down by Locke, Rousseau, and others. Already in the seventeenth century Locke wrote: (2) Can there be anything more ridiculous, than that a Father should waste his own Money and his Son's Time in setting him to learn the Roman Language, when at the same Time he designs him for 3 Trade, wherein he having no use of Latin, fails not to forget that little which he brought from School, and which 'tis ten to one he abhors for the ill Usage it procured for him? Could it be believed, unless we had everywhere amongst us Examples of it, that a Child should be forced to learn the Rudiments of a Language which he is never to use in the Course of Life that he is designed to, and neglect all the while the writing of a good Hand and casting Accounts, which are of great Advantage in all Conditions of Life, and to most Trades indispensably necessary? But though these Qualifications, requisite to Trade and Commerce and the Business of the World, are seldom or never to be had at Grammar Schools, yet thither not only Gentlemen send their younger sons, intended for Trades.

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