putterings 519 < 520 > 521 index
a new wave puttering, some sputtering; water can never achieve such tasks
The passive excellencies of water can never achieve such tasks. Nothing but the active high power of super-heated steam can do it; nothing but a democracy of free spirits, dynamic and unafraid, in self-forgetful co-operation for the common good, can realize the divinely inspired visions of humanity.
₁
All progress in nature and human nature comes in waves, some great waves, some lesser waves. The difference is in the impelling force which emphasizes their power but not their length. Waves a foot in height, eight feet in height differ greatly in their power but not at all in the length of time between the crests of succeeding waves. It is no farther from the crest of waves eight feet high than it is from the crest of those four feet high. ¶ There were two famous educational waves from 1783 to 1803 and from 1823 to 1843 after which there was a civic earthquake which disturbed their rhythm. Since 1873 the waves have been shorter each wave approximately 10 years long...
We are entering upon a new wave. All indications are that there will be, at first, much subject method puttering, some sputtering by rival claimants but out of it will come a steady far-reaching wave that will provide methods enabling children of various degrees of intelligence and aspiration to make 100 per cent efficiency, that will stop the sapping of the teacher’s personality and will develop the pupils’ powers and individual abilities.
₂
- Henry Turner Bailey, Director of the Cleveland School of Art, Cleveland, O., “The Boiling Point in Education;” and
- A. E. Winship, Editor of The Journal of Education, Boston, Mass., “Educational Progress”
both from “Abstracts of Addresses,” The Pennsylvania State Education Association Convention, in the Pennsylvania School Journal 72:6 (February 1924) : 340-342 (341) : link
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not Winship’s first use of the word “puttering,” see 493
11 February 2025