The old system of education benefited only the comparatively few to whose nature and inclination it was adapted.  We have need, indeed, of classical scholars, but the majority of men and women are meant for other work; many, by their very construction of mind, are unfitted to become such.  And only in the most exceptional cases are the ancient languages really mastered; a smattering of these, imposed upon the unwilling scholar by a principle opposed to psychology,—­a smattering from which is derived no use and joy in after life, and which has no connection with individual inclination—­is worse than nothing.  Precious time is wasted during the years when the mind is most receptive.  While the argument of the old school that discipline can only be inculcated by the imposition of a distasteful task is unsound.  As Professor Dewey points out, unless the interest is in some way involved there can be no useful discipline.  And how many of our university and high school graduates today are in any sense disciplined?  Stimulated interest alone can overcome the resistance imposed by a difficult task, as any scientist, artist, organizer or administrator knows.  Men will discipline themselves to gain a desired end.  Under the old system of education a few children succeed either because they are desirous of doing well, interested in the game of mental competition; or else because they contrive to clothe with flesh and blood some subject presented as a skeleton.  It is not uncommon, indeed, to recognize in later years with astonishment a useful citizen or genius whom at school or college we recall as a dunce or laggard.  In our present society, because of archaic methods of education, the development of such is largely left to chance.  Those who might have been developed in time, who might have found their task, often become wasters, drudges, and even criminals.

The old system tends to make types, to stamp every scholar in the same mould, whether he fits it or not.  More and more the parents of today are looking about for new schools, insisting that a son or daughter possesses some special gift which, under teachers of genius, might be developed before it is too late.  And in most cases, strange to say, the parents are right.  They themselves have been victims of a standardized system.

A new and distinctly American system of education, designed to meet the demands of modern conditions, has been put in practice in parts of the United States.  In spite of opposition from school boards, from all those who cling to the conviction that education must of necessity be an unpalatable and “disciplinary” process, the number of these schools is growing.  The objection, put forth by many, that they are still in the experimental stage, is met by the reply that experiment is the very essence of the system.  Democracy is experimental, and henceforth education will remain experimental for all time.  But, as in any other branch of science, the element of ascertained fact will gradually increase:  the latent possibilities in the mind of the healthy child will be discovered by knowledge gained through impartial investigation.  The old system, like all other institutions handed down to us from the ages, proceeds on no intelligent theory, has no basis on psychology, and is accepted merely because it exists.