Standardization and the "Socialized School" (1929)

[14] Few social institutions of our time have been subjected to so much criticism and have furnished the theme for so much discussion as the modern school. This perennial interest in educational methods and in the many cultural agencies connected with the school is reflected in pedagogic journals and in the many "meetings" of teachers that are constantly being held in one or the other part of our country. The annual meetings of the National Catholic Educational Association are, of course, equally useful gages for measuring the alert attitude of our people towards everything bearing on work and welfare of the school.

The latest Bulletin of this Association is before us—Report of the Proceedings and Addresses of the Twenty-fifth Annual Meeting, Chicago, Ill., June 25, 26, 27, 28, 1928. There is the usual rich variety of papers, most of them showing signs of much labor and study in their preparation. As in former years, we do not think it worth while to mention every paper, but shall refer to one topic, which, as it was discussed at one of the "General Meetings," seems to have been of outstanding interest. This is "Standardization and its Abuse," by the Rev. Henry Woods. S.J. The writer said in his opening paragraph : "To have followed year by year the meeting of our Association is to know how large a place standardization has had in its discussions." This is very true, as the present writer is well aware from attendance at previous meetings. We hold with Father Woods that the "thing has been somewhat overdone." Father Woods sums up the "modern abuse of standardization" as follows: It is, "first, unnatural and therefore unphilosophical; secondly, it wrongs the parent, the child, the individual school; thirdly, a false ideal of education having been introduced, standardization is used to maintain it; fourthly, God has been shut out of education; standardization is made to turn the key on Him; fifthly, it standardizes, not education for the benefit of the citizen, but the citizen for the benefit of the State."

Of course, the advocates of standardization and of the "socialized school" will quarrel with these arguments; but it only shows that schools and their methods and technique will be a bone of contention for many a year to come.

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source: Fr. Albert Muntsch, S.J., "Standardization and the 'Socialized School'," The Catholic Fortnightly Review 36, no. 1 (Jan. 1, 1929): 14.