Training in Citizenship

Training in Citizenship. By Roy Winthrop Hatch '02. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1926.

Recent educational tendencies have been given fair expression in Mr. Hatch's Training inCitizenship a description of the work in Horace Mann School. For the past forty years Horace Mann School of New York City as the educational laboratory of Teachers College, Columbia University, has been among the leading experimenters in education in the United States. To anyone interested in educational methods the instruction at Horace Mann has a great interest.

For a considerable length of time such ideas as the socialized recitation, the project method, improved examinations, and the use of extracurricular activities for educational purposes, have been of exceedingly great interest to educators. In consequence, we feel thankful to Mr. Hatch for giving us specifically and in detail the methods employed at Horace Mann in History and Civics. Not only is new light thrown upon these methods, but there are also many specific suggestions which should be of great value to teachers all over the country. Additional aid is given by the many references which appear throughout the book.

Nothing stands out more clearly in the book than Mr. Hatch's own ability. From the stenographic report (pp. 304-316) of a meeting of his class, we are pretty well convinced that the teaching would be effective whether done from the front of the room, as in the usual manner, or from a seat in the class, which is actually the way the work is done. There certainly can be little quarrel with Mr. Hatch in his emphasis upon the proper mental traits and habits of thought, instead of upon the acquisition of soon-to-be-forgotten facts; we can only wish that in the early part of the book there had been a little more emphasis upon the search for truth rather than upon such traits as courtesy, punctuality and cleanliness.

The book is composed largely of articles and addresses which have been printed in other places. A few of these articles were not written by Mr. Hatch. Taken together, we must compliment the author upon the general organization of the book and the lack of repetition. Now and then, however, one feels a slight lack of unity, while in a few cases there is obvious repetition; for example, the paragraph on pp. 218-9 is a word for word reproduction of a paragraph on pp. 146-7.

It is to be hoped that Mr. Hatch's book has a wide sale. For all teachers and parents it represents a valuable point of view, as well as giving a large number of very useful and practical teaching suggestions.