will not do it in school, he probably wiil not do it later,

The curriculum, especially from the high school up, should be elastic
enough to adapt to the different kinds of pupils. Original nature en~
dowment, interests, neuro=musculer skill potentialities, all differ,

There is evidence that the distribution in these qualities is nearly
normal; but the same individual may be relatively higher on the curve in one
element than in another. In the high school, electives in the mental

curriculum are offered to meet this situation. The same should be true

in physical oducation. Gome groups should emphasize the fighting types

of activities more than other groups. The individualist should have

some choice in the more individual activities, such as track and field,

handball, tennis, golf, apparatus work, swimming, and the like. The

asthetically inclined should be allowed to elect more dancing. This means

different classes with different balance of activities - probably there
should be a warp of fundamental skills running through all.

 

This curriculum should be continuous from the kindergarten to the
college, but should allow more rapid promotion physically than mentally, or
vice~versa, to meet the needs of the individual. It should be possible
to give a rather complete physical education by the age of sixteen. If such
an education is not started until high school or college, as iss true in
too many cities now, it is possible to give a physical education, but it
is working against the current of habits of mind and body, and usually
little of educational value is accomplished, This could be remedied, how-
ever, with better and more equipment, better trained teachers and smaller
classes,

In adapting to sex differences, it would seem important to determine
objectives for women even more carefully than in the case of men. The
shifting of women from the home to industry end the professions, competing
with men on an equal footing and with no mean physical and phys iological
handicap. introduces an element to be reckoned for. For what should women
be trained? Should we stress aggressiveness and fight, or aesthetics and
individualism, or both? What should be the balance of these types of
activities, and why? These are questions which would appear to be funda~
mental if we are to educate women through physical activities. The
physical educational questions of anatomy and physiology need less dogmatic
statement and more controlled experimentation.

7. The _selected for content, and not for form; for
efficiency, not for looks, The important question is not, "How does it
look from the gallery,” but, "Will it accomplish the results?” To il-
lustrate the point, we shall very briefly discuss dancing as now taught to

WOMEN e

Dancing ~ at least the natural variety - was primarily the portrayal
of the feelings through bodily movement, In this sense, the wild jumps
into the air of the ardent rooter when the home team makes a touchdowm is
natural dancing of a very crude type. In evolution of dancing, a technique
was developed to express the finer emotions through appropriate movement.
This differed from the crude type in much the same way as the soulful playing
of a Paderewski differs from the off-key whistling of that happy individual
who just must express himself musically or purst. In between the extremes
will be found all kinds and degrees of dancing; but it should all be of a
type, such as will educate in the expression of something within the in-
10

dividual. This expressiion may be the expressing of a fine, sensitive,
emotional nature, or the cruder, rougher expression of the emotions of
the coarser natured fighter, but it should be expression, not calisthenics.

The content of dancing now taught in physical education contains much of
the highest value, and much which is of no educational value at all. The
types of dances that evolved from the history of a people ~ as did some of
the better folk dances - and the types which have been developed to really
express something, such as the natural dences of Miss Margaret N. H'Doubler,
Miss Gertrude Colby, and others, are usually of educational value. The type
that have been invented in the enthusiasm of that individual who wanted
"something different" is usually of little or no educative value. The type
of clog dance that expresses the nature of the negro of the plantation has
much of value in it. Much of the invented clog dance, the writer believes,
is nothing but a rather difficult kind of calisthenics, in which the dancer
is more intent upon getting the steps just right than in expressing amything
within. The same is true of much of the stage type of somcalled aesthetic
dancing. Out of all this wealth of material should be selected only that
which expresses, and the rest discarded entirely. Whether it be a masculine
or a feminine type of dancing, it should be chosen for content, not for just
exercise, for looks, or for technique. The same principle should apply
to other kinds of teaching material.

8. In=-so-far as possible, the material should be modern. The content
of the traditional physical education teaching material is largely military.
We conceive of the function of our schools to be that of primarily train-
ing students to be citizens, not soldiers. Incidentally, the real qualities
developed in a scientific program will be such as to make one a good
soldier - look over the objectives again. America thinks that she believes
in a social democracy. If so, let us train students to be citizens of such
@ democracy. This would eliminate much of the old type of regimentation
which was primarily intended to mould the mass into an unthinking machine,
or to develop some mythical discipline. Track athletics are of more value
than the seme time spent on marching; defensive exercises with a walking
stick are of more value than fencing with a foil; learning how to defend
oneself from a thug is better than the same time spent in wand exercises.
We should think in terms of today's need, not in terms of the eighteenth
century.

9. The material selected should be selected because it is the best
possible, not because it is just goods It should be good enough to dis-
place some other material. It must be worth the time spent on it, or in
other words, it must pay its own overhead. It must be of such a nature
that it can be taught effectively where it comes in the curriculum,

10. The material selected must be adapted to the equipment available.
Most of this teaching is in cities where grounds and gymnasia are limited,
and this situation must be kept in mind while making the curriculum.
There are a few essentials, however, that must not be lost sight of:

(a) The writer does not believe it possible to get first rate results
with classes much lerger than thirty. The classroom has pupils five
hours a day, and feels that forty individuals is a large class. The physical
director seldom has them more than forty or forty-five minutes, and must
have action or get little result. Classes of fifty to one hundred in one
gymnasium preclude physical education - all that can be done is exercise.
If there are sufficient grounds or gymnasia and a sufficient number of
well-trained leaders, a large class becomes, in reality, a number of smaller
il

Classes, which is almost as effective as having smaller classes.

(b) There should be adequete bathing facilities for all, even in the
elementary schools. Exercise which produces profuse perspiration should be
done in uniform, and should be followed by a bath.

(c) Phere must be enough teachers to do this work well, to organize in-
tramural activities, and to do the necessary clerical work connected with
the administration of such a scheme.

(d) There should be a really adequate medical service, both for examina-
tions and for remedial stunt health work. This is available in very few
school systems today.

In most schools in this country, we fall short of the above, The
attempt should not be to just adapt to conditions, but to attain to the ideal.
Thirty years ago, few schools had adequate laboratories for science teaching.
Persistent propagande on the part of intelligent educators secured it. The
same must be done for physical education. Not only must facilities be given,
but more time. The minimum should be five hours a week.

If the material for physical education be selected according to the above
ten criteria, it would seem that a few things should stand out clearly in
our minds: .

1. The educational objectives can be best accomplished for both sexes
by using the more highly organized hunting and fighting games, competitive
athletics, some of the "stunt" type of activities, and ~ especially with
girls - natural dancing. These should be the types of activities
Which would directly lead to the accomplishment of the objectives in the
most effective manner, if properly presented by the teacher and mastered by
the student. In every case, the teacher should proceed from the objectives
to be accomplished to the methods to be used to accomplish them.

2e All students are not equally skillful, and most are not skillful
enough to utilize these activities advantageously, they must be led up to
it gradually. This should be done by carefully grading the students and
the activities, and by arranging, the teaching material in such a manner
that every day's work legds to the next. For example, if students are not
skilled cnough in basketball to use it advantageously as an educational
device, other games or contests containing the elements of basketball
should be taught. These may be relays containing passing, shooting, or
dribbling as part of the race, or they may be simpler games containing
these elements, with less physical contact, and giving the player time to
make his reactions = for much poor basketball is due to too hurried thinking.
Then there may be a teaching of the fundamentals in a type of imitative
calisthenics, a sort of mass coaching, as it were, followed by work on
these elements in squads. The same sort of thing to a lesser degree can be
done for track and field athletics. The cloments first taught en masse, and
then practiced in squads for form, not for performance, and finally used in
competition. The same principle can be used for many other activities. At
present, most men are taught these activities by the same technique one
uses to teach a pup to swim ~ throw him in; if he swims fairly well,
give him more practice. If he drowns, pass him up as hopeless, and let
it go at that!
12

3, The material selected should be well balanced, and should be
used only when justified by results. The law of diminishing returns applies
to the use of any teaching device as well as in economic fields. For ex-
ample, if twenty per cent of the time spent on dancing gives what the
instructor would think of as a fifty per cent result, and thirty por cent

of time spent would give a seventy-five per cent result, the extra ten por ¢ ©

cent would be justified. If a further increase of time to forty per

cent gives an increase in result of only five per cent, this last ten per-
cent is not justified by the results. Hence we need scientific, controlled
experimentation to determine just how much time should be spent at each
stage of the curriculum on each type of activity, in order to cause the
curriculum to give a maximum return for the time spent. At the risk of
repetition, it should be again stated that every part of every curriculum
must pay its waye

4, The teaching material should be selected with a view to futuro re~
sults, not just to the present “unfolding” of the child, It is a current
conception in certain schools of educational philosophy that the "life"
of the child at the time he is being taught is the most important thing
and that this should guide the main thought of the educator, There is no
doubt that the child's interests and efforts will be concerned practically
altogether with activities that are of immediate concern to him, and that
the educator must keep this in mind in the planning of a curriculum;
put on the other hand, the physical educator must be looking ahead to the
final result, and must plan a curriculum that will lead to that result,
while at the same time being in many places disguised as to form, su gar~
coated by presenting it as a simple game or contest, when ideally more pro~
gress could be made if there could be direct coaching in technique. It
has been our experience that where the objective was clear enough in the
pupil's mind, and was an objective which he felt was worthwhile, that
much direct coaching in technique could be very easily motivated.

5, Fundamental activities should be stressed out of all apparent
proportion to their direct values. To illustrate, it has been found
that with a group of fifty Chinese students of physical edueation, who
had had at least one and two-third years of careful training in the tech-
nique of track and field and athletic game activities, the correlation
between records in four track and field events and skill (not “value to the
team" which may be largely courage and fighting ability, coupled with
fast thinking and experience) in basketball and soccer football ran from
075 to .98 according to the method of judging the skills. The average of
correlations of able judges who knew the men well, and who rated them first
by the Scott Rating Scale method, and then checked it by ranking then,
was .86. This would indicate that these activities had enough elements
in common with athletic games to jw tify their inclusion in a training
scheme far out of proportion to their obvious educational value.

CRITERIA OF TEACHING FOR PHYSICAL -
EDUCATION

The material given here presents nothing new to the philosophy’ of
education, being merely a re-statement of some of the important principles
of the psychology of education. It is given here because of its general
neglect in physical education and because the writer desires to give a
rounded picture of the whole problem.
13

Physical education activities are no panacea by which the ills
of a weak character may be automatically cured. The content of the curriculum
can be made to present the possibility of such education, but this con-
tent must be made to function, educationally, by skillful teaching. To
see that this curriculum educates, there are a number of items which mst
be emphasized.

To insure learning, there mst be interest on the part of the student
in the activities used, With few exceptions, even boys and girls who state
that they “hate gym" confess that they would like to be able to do these
activities, and that if they were able to do them, they would thoroughly
enjoy participating in them. The major reason they are not interested is
that they do not possess the requisite skills, Interest is probably dis-~
tributed normally. There will be a few who can never be made to enjoy
participation in physical education activities. ‘Phere is evidence (data
from Chinese university students) to show that skill in games is dis~«
tributed with a close approximation to normalty. Some are motor geniuses,
and some are motor morons, If the same individual happens to be near the
small end of the interest distribution, and also at the small end of the
skill distribution, it is most probable that little can be done to help him,
The same problem is presented in mental education in those who fall by
the wayside in spite of all that our best school systems can do for them.
i+ has been demonstrated however, that the curve can be moved over towards
the right with skillful teaching coupled with a scientific curriculum. To
accomplish this, the following things, among others, must be emphasized;

1. The immediate, definite objective which is before the eyes of the
pupil should be one which he feels to be a worthwhile one. The pupil is sel-
dom interested in piece-meal activities from which he sees nothing ahead.
The formal type of calisthenics is seldom interesting, though the person-
ality of a clever teacher cannot infrequently make it bearable, especially
to those who, like some groups of adults, seek improved health as the
primary objective. If the pupil sees that in his massed work there is a
definite, pedagogical progress being made in the skills of the activities
which he desires to learn, as athletic games, track and field, combative
activities, or (especially in the case of girls) dancing,experience has
show that he will be interested and will work to attain that ond, if the
dosage is not too large. But he must know that objective and appreciate it,
The teacher mst see that his progression is sound and the purpose clear,

2. Teaching mst be intelligible - the pupil must know the specific
ends that both he and the teacher are seeking, and be able to tell the
direction of the expected or accomplished improvement. In addition to
skillful teaching, there should be standardized, objective tests of proven
validity to measure performance; standards of attainment should be established
for each activity used, and these correlated with a real curriculum as
definitely taught and definitely required as are the corresponding ones in
mental education.

3. The progression of the curriculum should be perfected to the degree
that the most rapid possible progress may be made by the student, and so
that only skills relevant to the physical education desired shall be
learned, skills without clashing psycho-motor associations. "Ecclectic"
systems are usually guilty of transgressing this requirement. Learning
competitive skills and forming competitive associations involve double
waste.
14

4. Drill work in important skills should be thorough to the point
of over-learning. The high correlations between these fundamental skills and
skill in the more complicated team games is significant.

5e The situation mst be considered in all its phases =~ equipment,
size of classes, grading of pupils, grouping of canpetitors - everything
as completely arranged for, as it is in mental edutation in the best school
systems.

6. The teaching must emphasize the formation of associations which
will cause the traits and characteristics developed in the physical educa-
tion situations to become generalized, or to have rich connections with
the ordinary and extraordinary situations of life. The teacher should con-
stantly but unobtrusively hold before pupils the ideals and ideas connecting
desirable traits and characteristics stressed in the physical education
practice with analogous elements in other fields of life, To this end
the utmosit use should be made of appropriate catchwords and phrases -
“sportsmanship,” “quitter,” “hit the line hard," "it isn't cricket,"
"teamwork," "play the game," and many, mamy others. These should have their
scope widened by the teacher to include all the activities of life. It
is at this place where a great deal of skill and attention should be
focused. Without transfer, there will be but a very partial physical
education; and this transfer will not, the writer is persuaded, be
automatic, except insofar as a rich motor experience in activities that
involve ideas and ward phrases = which transfer not a little = tend
to give some degree of transfer. There is abundant experience, however,
to demonstrate that skillful teachers do secure transfer to a very large
degree. I feel that more real study is needed on this phase of physical .
education than on ey other phase, for results hang more on this than
on all else.

7%. The teacher of physical education (why not all teachers?) should
have the attitude of the coach rather than the traditional attitude of the
teachers. The difference is, the traditional teacher attitude is that of
teaching or presenting certain material to a class or group. The attitude
of the coach is that of developing the abilities of each individual to the
limit of his potentialities. The coach tries to make A. the best
halfback it is possible for him to become,and to make Be. the best tackle
in the country. The traditional method of teaching physical education
is to just teach activities and trust to luck that they will do some good.
The attitude of the coach should, and will, cause the students to feel the
real interest of the instructor, and will cause the instructor to demand
results of his teaching for each man.

Where the above kind of teaching has been the rule, satisfaction in
progress and in the exercise of the skills involved has been demonstrated
to follow. In other words, learning takes place.

To secure any general attainment of these possibilities, at least
the following three things should be essentials

1. The professional training of physical educators must be brought to a
much higher standard, especially the “theoretical” or educational part.
There mst be a better selection and more rigid elimination of the
candidates for admission to the better schools, and adequate recognition
and reward to those taking the work. The college of arts and sciences
is too often the obstructive agent here, denying recognition to anything
15

"applied," and making it difficult for such a course to secure footing.
Physical education is still the educational orphan in this regard, not

fully adopted into the educational family. There will always be a place

for many teachers of mediocre talents, as is the case in mental education
where all too often the teacher is the person that can be secured rather
than the ideal. These lesser lights, however, should be thoroughly

trained in the constructive use of the educational phase of physical educa~
tion, especially in the use of the educational methods developed by research
experts in that field and standardized for general use while further study is
going on. In a phase of education so little standardized as physical
education, we feel that relatively better trained teachers are needed for
the rank and file than is the case in mental education where there is

much better standardization of method. The need of contagious character

and personality on the part of the teacher cannot be too highly emphasized.
Schools of physical education which teach little but a smattering of
biological sciences and physical technique should be placed on probation.
"Without a vision, the people perish."

2. The methods to be used in activities, in teaching technique,
in developing tests and standards of achievement, and in the measuring of
qualities developed should be based upon investigation and objective research,
not solely upon opinion. It is perhaps true that in the beginning, the
methods used must be based upon the best thought of the few scientific
and educational minded physical educators we have, but such a curriculum
should be outlined with a rapid evolution based upon research in mind.
Men who are trained in physical edumation, in educational theory, and in
research technique should be secured, attached to institutions with
adequate support, released from the usual twenty hours a week of teaching
and given abundant encouragement and opportunity to find themselves in the
important problems immediately demanding solution. There is ample precedent
in mental education, and the task should not be nearly as difficult as in
most pioneer tasks of this kind. It is especially essential that schools or
educational institutions offering opportunities for such work be in the
larger cities where adequate opportunity exists to secure data. It should
be obvious that the important point of atteck should be the grades and the
high school, not the university, where it is usually rather late for exten-
sive educational results. This research should not be handicapped for lack
of funds. If thousands can be expended to devise a method to improve
handwriting five per cent, it would seem as though funds might be available
to improve character through physical education. Ten years of applied re-
search on the part of even ten good men, with adequate assistance, could
easily improve physical education five hundred per cente A mixture of con-
structive thinking and moral courage, applied on a base of the scientific
knowledge of educational psychology we now have, could effect an immediate
improvement of at least one hundred per cent.

3. An adequate detailed manual of teaching technique should be de-
veloped as soon as possible, together with detailed laboratory manuals of
the activities to be taught. There has been a pendulum swing as to
syllabi in America. At first, there were syllabi in great detail, as in
the case of the New York State Syllabus, the Michigan Syllabus, and many
others copied from them, a mixture of mterial produced by different
individuals, very uncorrelated, and not at all calculated to give the
best results. There was a swing from this to the very sketchy outline type
now so extensively used, which depends much upon supplementation by super@-
visors. We believe, at present, that there should be a detailed syllabus,
but one written as a course of study, experimented with and improved, and
16

built to function as a whole, The poorer teacher can follow it to advin~
tage, and the exceptional teacher can do as he has always done and always
will do, depart from it in various degrees and blaze new trails.

This discussion of problems in the field of physical education

has been limited by space to a few of the more obvious and important ones.
The principles given are simply a review of the general elements from an
educational philosophy in which the writer has confidence, with an
application to the field of physical education. The contributions which,
it is hoped, stand out in this paper are the emphases on the contentions that,
(1) the system of physical education fommlated should be built to meet
scientifically formlated objectives and criteria, not just warped to par~
tially meet changing educational demands; (2) there should be as much or
more emphasis placed upon devising a means of securing educational results
with the physical educational tool as upon devising the tool itself; and
(3) adequate attention should be given by educational institutions to
furthering better training in physical educational philosophy and teaching
technique, and to fostering experimental study and research in this field
to enable it to base its methods upon ascertained facts rather than upon
speculation and logic, and to catch up, in some degree, to its older
brother, mental edueation, and insure its educational as well as its health
efficacy, The real root-problem from which may grow a genuine science

of physical educetional program and curriculum, and a real art of

educating through physical activities, is the problem of the application

of scientific method to the developing of physical education. The age-old
patching of the old garments should cease, to be replaced by the creation
of new garments cut by educationally competent hands; modeled in many ways
on the proven parts of the old, but designed to fit the educational as

well as the health needs of the pupil, not to perpetuate the stiff-collared
educational fashions of the past. If this be done, progress will follow,
and a real science of physical education will erise and prove itself

worthy to be adopted into the edueational family on a basis of full equality
of respectability and accomplishment.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brereton, Cloudsley. Criteria of Physical Exercises in the Light of
Education as a Whole, Physical Training. Feb., 1914.

Brockman, Fletcher. Association Athletics as a Training in Democracy.
Physical Training, December, 1919.

Colby, Gertrude K. Natural Rhythms and Dances. Barnes, 1922.

H'Doubler, Margaret N. The Dance, and its Place in Education. Harcow t,
Brace and Company, 1925.

Judd, Chas. He. Psychology of High School Subjects, Ginn & Co., 1915.

McCloy, C. H. Some Fundamental Considerations in Physical Education.
Physical Training, November, 1919,
oe ee NN a LT TO at ALCL ON ii eet PEER.

uF

McCloy, C. H. Recent Tendencies in Physical Education and Their Application
to Chinese Education. Educational Review (Shanghai) April, 1921.

The Scientific Method in Physical Education. Physical Training, May,
1922.

The Objectives and Scope of Physical Education. CGh.inese Journal of
Physical Education and Hygiene (Chinese). June, 1922,

The Criteria of Physical Education. Chinese Journal of Physical
Education and Hygiene, September, 1922.

The Biological Basis of Physical Education. The New Education
(Chinese), 1923.

Physical Education as a Builder of Democracy. Chinese Journal of
Physical Education and Hygiene, March, 1924,

Thorndike, E. L. The Original Nature of Man. Teachers’ College, 1921.

The Psychology of Learning. Teachers’ College, 1921.