XI. The Goose-Step

BEAR in mind that the necessities of the case required something which would not cost any money, which would leave the system really intact, and yet which would impress beholders with the fact of Progress.

The device which answered to this description was copied from Prussia and informed with the essence of the Prussian spirit—a quasi-military Uniformity. There is nothing, indeed, so impressive to the observer as the sight of everybody doing exactly the same thing at the same time. And when that thing is totally unnecessary and very difficult, the effect is to stun the mind into a bewildered admiration. Hence the preposterously military aspect of the schools of yesterday—the marching in line out to recess and back again. Hence the drillmaster airs of the teaching force—as, for instance, the New York teacher who boasted, “I said to my pupils, ‘All who live on Blank street raise their hands,’ and[Pg 78] then I turned to talk to the superintendent, forgetting to say ‘Hands down’—and five minutes later, when I looked around, those Blank street children still had their hands up. That’s what I call discipline!” And hence the reprimand to the other New York teacher because, when she came back from a visit to Italy, she told the geography class about her journey and passed around picture postcards, instead of hearing the children recite the appointed Lesson from the appointed Book at the appointed Hour. Think how it sounds for a city superintendent to be able to pull out his watch and say to a visitor: “At this moment every sixth grade pupil, in every school in the whole city, is opening his geography!” That is System, and it must not be deranged in order to interest a mere roomful of children in the realities of geography for half an hour!

I experienced some of the benefits of the Goose-Step System myself, back in Illinois—and I know just how a child feels about it. He feels just as you would feel if at the conclusion of a theatrical performance you were commanded to “Rise! Turn! Pass!” He feels humiliated and ridiculous. He feels that he is being made a fool of. The Goose-Step System is not intended to make its little victims feel happy; it is only intended[Pg 79] to impress beholders with the fact of Progress.

And this kind of Systematization, this fake reform, has been the only serious contribution to American educational practice in the public schools during the life of the generation to which you and I belong—until within the last few years.

Fortunately, another crisis arose. In every large city the attendance at the public schools outgrew the school capacities, and it became necessary to put many children on a “half-time” basis. And this scandal demanded relief. It still demands relief. And at present we are faced with a choice between two methods of relief.

One method is familiar—to turn the grammar schools into adjuncts of capitalist shops and factories. It is the system now approved by the educational authorities of most of the large cities, including New York. The other is a sane and democratic proposal for education on scientific principles, for the benefit of the child and of the race.