Book Description

PRIMITIVE EDUCATTON TKT NORTH AMERICA BY GEORGE A. PEXTIXT UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES 1946 oli CLI GB IA. PUBLICATIONS IK AMERICAN ARCHAEOIX GY AND EDITORS BERKELEY A. L. KBOEBER, It. BE. LOWIE, It. L. OLSOK Volume 43, ISTo. 1 7 pp. Iv 1-182 Submitted by editors September 3, 1943 Issued June 1, 1946 Paper, 2.25 cloth, 3.50 OF CALIFORNIA PRESS AOT Los IN THB TTCTXTKD STATBB O3T CONTENTS SUCTION PAGE I. INTRODUCTION - . . . . . 1 II. DISCIPLINE 6 III. THE ROLE OF THE MOTHERS BROTHER 15 The Avunculate . . 17 Mothers Brother as Disciplinarian and Teacher 18 IV. DISCIPLINE BEFEBBXP TO THE SUPERNATURAL 25 The Use of Masks for Disciplinary Purposes 28 V, IMITATION VERSUS STIMULATED LEARNING 40 Praise as an Incentive 47 Bidicule as a Deterrent and as an Incentive 50 The Privileges of Maturity 53 VI. THE EDUCATIONAL FUNCTION OP PERSONAL NAMES 59 The Bole of Personal Names in Ridicule Stimulus 60 Personal Names as Prestige Rewards 62 Use of Names in Personality Transference 65 VTI. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF FIRST-FOOD BITES 75 VIII. THE VISION QUEST AND THE GUARDIAN SPIRIT 87 The Nature of the Vision, 94 IX THE TRAINING OP EXTKAMUNDANE iNoaatoEssoRS 105 The Nature of Extramundane Intercessors ., ., ., 105 Training for the Priesthood 107 The Training of the Shamaai, . 118 X. THE STORYTELLING ART 151 XI. GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 161 BIBLIOGRAPHY, 165, , 179 PRIMITIVE EDUCATION IN NORTH AMERICA BY GEORGE A. PETTITT I. INTRODUCTION CIVILIZATION is, of course, a gold mine of paradoxes but none of them is more curious than the success and purported failure of Americas magnificent experi ment in mass education. The success of the public school system would seem to be obvious. Exceptfor slight reverses occasioned by economic depressions and regres sions, the number of public schools and of subjects included in the curricula, the percentage of each age group attending the schools, and the duration of the average individuals period of schooling have all steadily increased. The public has ex pressed its satisfaction with the schools and their product by voting more and more stringent, compulsory attendance laws, by urging young people to stay in the schools far beyond the compulsory age limit, and by cheerfully spending large sums of money on public education. In spite of these evidences of success, there has been an ever more vociferous com plaint from leading educators and observant laymen that the public schools have failed in their basic responsibility that they have filled the minds of youth with disparate and fragmentary bodies of knowledge intended to supplement living, without teaching them how to live either as individuals or as members of a demo cratically inclined society. Criticism of the school system, of the content of cur ricula, and of teaching methods is not, of course, a new thing. Whether the first critic arose before or after the first public school and the first teacher, is a moot question. But the voice crying in the wilderness did not become an a eapella choir until the depression struck and well-schooled young men and women failed to find jobs or to found families as successfully as had their frequently less literate parents and grandparents in times past. Few people actually claimed that the schools were responsible for - unemployment, but there was a widespread feeling that conditions would be better if the schools at least taught somespecific trade and that the depression would have been shortened if the schools had properly equipped their graduates to create jobs and to carry on the tradition of helping their parents. Then came the rise of the dictators and the onslaught of totalitarianism against democratic ideals. The choir swelled to a full symphonic chorus...