Page Forty-two
THE UNITED AMERICAN
ADULT EDUCATION IN CALIFORNIA
(Continued from Page Seventeen)
JUNE 1925
more of a research student than a teacher and cannot
deal with the subject matter of his specialty in a way
that is interesting or stimulating to an untrained mind.
The task of discovering people who have a genius for
“humanizing knowledge” is not an easy one.
In order that the state as a whole may have a
program which it can put in effect for the year
1925 - 26, as well as a goal for the distant future, a
conference is being held in August under the auspices
of the State University, the State Department of Edu
cation and the State Library. The subject of this
conference will be “What shall California adopt as a
program of Adult Education?” To this conference we
have invited successful teachers of adults from the
University librarians who have been working in this
field and the directors of Adult Education in the
schools.
This is our next step forward and probably we will
have nothing spectacular to show for some time to
come. We have always believed that the immigrant
should be made an asset in our community life. We
have too little utilized the great gifts that he brings
us. With pageantry and drama we can depict his fine
historic traditions and save them for the future of
America, but the best thing he brings us is his intel
lectual curiosity, his interest in philosophic discussion
and his belief that the first aim of education is not to
train a man to earn a living but to enrich the hours
when he is not earning a living. If America can use
the immigrant to bring this new note into our national
life, he will have indeed justified the hope of those who
have wanted to keep our doors open.
these classes under the direction of Miss Ethel Swain,
who is the instructor, have been published by the state.
III. The function of a State Department of Educa
tion is to keep a long look ahead. In California, al
though we still have much poor teaching and many'
communities where classes have not been established,
we feel that the machinery for carrying on Immigrant
Education has been very largely perfected. We see that
our greatest losses from classes are from those groups
which are most advanced. We have learned how to
teach English but we have not learned how to supply
subject matter in that English of a sufficiently vital
character to hold men and women in school after they
have learned to speak our language—this in spite of
the fact that all over the world Adult Education is the
watchword of the hour.
The State Director of Education, therefore, spent
a few months in Europe studying the later develop
ments of Adult Education in order to see whether the
education of the immigrant might not be but the begin
ning of a larger and more important movement which
would embrace both the immigrant and the native born.
There was abundant first-hand evidence in the classes
visited in Europe that adults with very limited ele
mentary education can concern themselves with
problems which only mature minds could comprehend.
Every adult who has had the experience of looking for
work, establishing a home and a family, coping with
the problems of unemployment, meeting the political
issues of his day, can be interested in the causes and
relations of the principal problems of his life.
Classes in Economics, Political Science, History, In
ADULT EDUCATION IN PENNSYLVANIA
dustrial Problems and Psychology, as well as non
(Continued from Page Thirty-eight)
technical courses in Science, can all be presented, not hensive and effective program of adult education,
as they are done in the universities, but as a way of gives full credit for the success of its initial extension
explaining to the uneducated man both himself and his education legislative program to the splendid coopera
universe. This need for reaching the people and stir tion of the leaders in extension education throughout
ring their interest to a better understanding of all the the state. One hundred percent cooperation has
vast unfolding of knowledge which has come in our characterized the attitude of those interested in this
generation has been well presented by James Harvey field of endeavor, and no expense in effort, time or
Robinson in his “Humanizing of Knowledge.”
ipony has been withheld to bring Pennsylvania as a
The Department of Adult Education in California state to realize the need for a comprehensive program
is setting itself to a greater task than supplying the and constructive effort in this field. Thanks to the
elements of English to the few who need it, or prepar united effort of all, for the first time in the history of
ing for the naturalization examination those who wish Pennsylvania, definite provisions for adult education
to become citizens. It is leaving to those better have been written into the School Law of the State.
equipped the training of adults who wish to increase
their vocational fitness. It is undertaking, however,
HAVE A PURPOSE
to accept its responsibility for developing and stimulat
Live
for
something.
Have a purpose
ing the intellectual life of all the people of the state.
And that purpose keep in view;
To his end, evening high schools are attempting to
Drifting like a helpless vessel,
turn themselves into popular universities. Here short
Thou canst ne’er to life be true.
unit courses are to be presented in all fields of human
Half the wrecks that strew life’s ocean,
knowledge, in order to discover in what subjects the
If some star had been their guide,
people of the community are interested. The people
Might have long been,;riding safely,
chosen to give these courss may or may not be
But they drifted with the tide.
teachers. They will be people with a vast enthusiasm
for the subject which they present and a degree of
PRACTICAL VS. ORNAMENTAL EDUCATION
scholarship which will insure high standards. The
A tramp once begged a breakfast at a farmhouse. Before
University and the schools will cooperate closely in this
he wrote on the bottom of the tin plate he had used
effort, although it is recognized that only a very a leaving
Correct- Greek sentence, which, translated, said: “I would
few selected university professors are qualified to teach not have been where I am now if my parents had given ¡me
classes of this sort. A university professor is often a practical, instead of an ornamental education.”