their classes for
the next day. A physics teacher may be found in the blacksmithing shop
digging up problems about the tractive strength of wires and the
expansion and contraction of metals under heat and cold. A teacher of
chemistry may be found in the kitchen of the cooking school unearthing
problems relating to the chemistry of food for her class the next
day. If, on the other hand, you go into a classroom you will find the
shop is brought into the classroom just as the classroom has been
brought into the shop. For instance, in a certain English class the
topic assigned for papers was "a model house" instead of "bravery" or
"the increase of crime in cities," or "the landing of the Pilgrims."
The boys of the class had prepared papers on the architecture and
construction of a model house, while the girls' papers were devoted to
its interior decoration and furnishing. One of the girls described a
meal for six which she had actually prepared and the six had actually
consumed. The meal cost seventy-five cents. The discussion and
criticism which followed each paper had all the zest which vitally
practical and near-at-hand questions always arouse.

When the Department of Superintendence of the National Educational
Association met in Atlanta, Ga., in 1904, many of the delegates, after
adjournment, visited the Tuskegee Institute. Among these delegates was
Prof. Paul Monroe of the Department of History and Principles of
Education of the Teachers' College of Columbia University. In
recording his impressions of his visit, Professor Monroe says: "My
interest in Tuskegee and a few similar institutions is founded on the
fact that here I find illustrated the two most marked tendencies which
are being formulated in the most advanced educational thought, but are
being worked out slowly and with great difficulty. These tendencies
are: first, the endeavor to draw the subject matter of education, or
the 'stuff' of schoolroom work, directly from the life of the pupils;
and second, to relate the outcome of education to life's activities,
occupations, and duties of the pupil in such a way that the connection
is made directly and immediately between schoolroom work and the other
activities of the person being educated. This is the ideal at
Tuskegee, and, to a much greater extent than in any other institution
I know of, the practice; so that the institution is working along not
only the lines of practical endeavor, but of the most advanced
e