Progressives' Victory

Progressive Education won a thumping victory over traditional education last week. The biggest Progressive experiment ever conducted, involving 65,000 of New York City's 600,000 elementary school children, was officially pronounced a success.

New York City launched its experiment, called the "activity program," in 70 schools six years ago. Though handicapped by old-fashioned teachers and old-fashioned schoolrooms with fixed desks (anathema to Progressives, who like to give children room to paint, hammer, build), the experimental schools scrapped their formal curriculum and educated their pupils by "activities," e.g., keeping store, building a post office, taking an imaginary trip to California. Pupils picked up reading, writing and reckoning (with teachers' help) as they carried on their activities, instead of by formal drill.

School officials carried on continuous tests to see how Progressive pupils com pared with traditionally educated ones. Final verdict was delivered last week by the State Education Department. A group headed by Assistant State Commissioner for Research J. Cayce Morrison and assisted by eminent educators of other States, having studied the experiment exhaustively for a year, reported:

> Progressive pupils did just as well in the three Rs as traditional ones, although in Progressive schools teaching of the three Rs was secondary.

> In character and personality Progressive pupils surpassed their fellows. They had a better attitude toward their responsibilities as citizens, understood the grown-up world better, excelled in cooperativeness, poise, selfdiscipline, creative ability, scientific outlook.

> They liked school better.

> Most surprising finding: although Progressive pupils are generally supposed to be undisciplined and bumptious, in this experiment they actually turned out to have more respect for school authority than their contemporaries.

The State Education Department recommended that the whole New York City School system go Progressive, not by compulsion but as rapidly as teachers showed themselves ready & willing to try the new way. Progressives were elated: they had won in the nation's largest city school system.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.