lJABS



The
School and the Child
BEING SELECTIONS FROM
THE EDUCATIONAL ESSAYS OF
JOHN DEWEY
Head Professor of Philosophy in the Columbia University, New York
recently Professor and Head of the Departments
of Philosophy and Education in the University of Chicago
EDITED BY
J. J. FINDLAY
Professor of Education in the University of Manchester
LONDON
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CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION....                  5
THE CHILD AND THE CURRICULUM....17
ESSAYS FROM
7HE ELEMENTAR Y SCHOOL RECORD
No. I. THE KINDERGARTEN....48
No. 2. GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF WORK, EDUCATIONALLY CONSIDERED.....63
No. 3. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF INVENTIONS
AND OCCUPATIONS..         70
No. 4. CHILDREN OF EIGHT YEARS OF AGE.. 74
No. 5. PSYCHOLOGY OF OCCUPATIONS.. 81
No. 6. REFLECTIVE ATTENTION....89
No. 7. THE AIM  OF HISTORY IN ELEMENTARY
EDUCATION.... 95
No. 8. THE PSYCHOLOGY' OF THE ELEMENTARY
CURRICULUM....      105
3








INTRODUCTION
The school and its teachers are reckoned, in all
countries, among the most conservative of social
agencies, and as observed during any short period,
very little progress appears to be made; yet if a
man in middle life looks back for twenty or thirty
years, he has to admit that forces of quite a radical
nature have been all the time at work, which
change, within a generation, the aspect of school.
Now in our country these forces have almost entirely found their impulse from outside the teaching
body. New tendencies, in: politics, in commerce,
in moral and religious experience, in social relations, have reacted on the school and re-shaped the
demands which the community has made from
its children.  Thus Science Teaching, Modern
Language, Manual Training, School Games, one
after the other have made their claims felt, and we
teachers, stirred by these external stimuli, have
modified our practice-not always, one fears, for
our scholars' advantage.
In foreign countries, on the other hand, while
the same tendency has been always at work (for
it is an inevitable feature of progress in a calling
so intimately bound up with the common welfare),
5




6


THE SCHOOL


nevertheless one finds also that the forces that
make for change have been guided at times very
powerfully by the teachers themselves. In Switzerland and Germany the names of Pestalozzi,
Herbart, Froebel stand for principles of action
which, through the influence of their disciples,
have effectively and permanently moulded the life
of school. And in the United States the same
may be said of the late Francis Parker-and
perhaps of Horace Mann at an earlier epoch.
In England we can point to Arnold of Rugby,
but with that exception it is fairly safe to say
that no great teachers have arisen whose influence
has been of the same fundamental character. It
is outside the purpose of this introduction to
enquire as to reasons for this difference, nor need
our national amour propre be offended by the
comparison. Scientific truth is not bounded by
land or sea, and as Germany and America have
reaped generously from the work of English
scholars and men of science in other fields, we
need not complain that the chief contributions
to research in school education have been made
beyond our shores. Our task is to sift the grain
from the chaff, to test by our own work among
children the value of the discoveries made by
these great men; to exhibit the permanent principles which underlie their procedure, while discarding local and temporary details.1
1 Compare Dewey on Froebel, p. SI below.




AND THE CHILD


7


Now the conditions under which education has
developed during the last twenty years in America
would lead us to expect results of more than
temporary or local importance. The people believe in the school, and look to it to do great things
for them. Their leaders are untramelled by the
traditions that hold us back in the East; the
ferment of new social ideals touches the life of
school far more than is possible in countries where
the hands of Church and State guide the teacher
step by step: hence the student of education can
survey the situation, and undertake his investigations with a sense of encouragement and freedom
which with us would imply revolt against the
existing order.
This restlessness has been witnessed to an increasing extent for many years past. At first the
American teachers flocked to Germany-young
Francis Parker, before I870, was sitting at the feet
of Ritter in Berlin,-and already in the '8os,
Froebel had become a teacher for America more
than for Europe; and when, early in the '9os, I
heard of Herbart, and of Jena, I found already at
work with Professor Rein a band of eager young
teachers from the western states who were transplanting the Herbartian banner to Illinois.
This period of discipleship presently came to a
close: there were friendly critics at hand in men
such as William Harris and Murray Butler, who
could speak with the authority of great philosophers;




8


THE SCHOOL


there were students of child nature, such as Earl
Barnes and Stanley Hall. With much keen rivalry
and discussion these leaders challenged the strict
shibboleths imported from Germany, and led the
teachers to a deeper search for truth. The National
Herbart Society founded in I895 became in 1902
The National Society for the Scientific Study of
Education, and the change of title indicated a decisive change in purpose and in outlook; the time
for discipleship was passed, and the time for independent research and reconstruction had arrived.
It is not surprising that this ferment of ideas
among American teachers should produce a new
pedagogic literature. At the present moment almost
every month sees the issue of some new exposition
of education. No doubt some of the work is poor,
but much of it is of high merit; and after reading
in succession a number of these books, one is
compelled to admit that these investigators are
definitely creating a new " school", are finding new
foundations for educational practice. They are not
all of one mind, but they are sufficiently in touch
with each other to be regarded as allies in the task
Oil which they are engaged.
Among those who have played a part in this task
of reconstruction I am inclined to regard John
Dewey as the chief, and I am not alone in this
opinion. I judge chiefly from his writings; but if
reasons are to be sought for the influence which his
writings exert, I should attribute it to the fact that




AND THE CHILD


9


he was engaged during these years of ferment in
conducting a school for young children, and in observing the experience of children under his charge,
in the presence of teachers and students who were
seeking to reconcile theory and practice.
I have therefore taken occasion, with the approval of Professor Dewey, to put together a few
of his contributions which have not been published
in this country, and which would not come within
the reach of English teachers unless brought out in
an inexpensive volume of this kind. The first of
these, which is at present out of print in the United
States, also gives the title to the volume,' and I
am sanguine enough to believe that it will in days
to come be recognized as an educational classic.
The rest of the book consists of a series of
essays taken from The Elementary School Record.
[I have added, in an Appendix, particulars relating
to this and other volumes, for the sake of readers
who are able to pursue their enquiries further.]
The Record consists of a series of monographs
sketching the courses of study which were pursued
in this University elementary school. Most of
the numbers are out of print, and I have no information as to whether it is likely to be re-issued. I
understand that when Professor Dewey left Chicago
1'Since writing the above I notice that this same title (Tke
Child and the Curriculum) has been selected for the title of an
English work of a different character; so an alteration has been
made which will serve to keep the two books distinct in the
English market.




10


THE SCHOOL


a year ago to take the Chair of Philosophy in
Columbia, this school changed its character and
became incorporated with the larger Institute
which Chicago owes to Francis Parker; hence
it may not be the intention of Professor Dewey or
of his late colleagues to republish these papers,
although the entire publication is of unique interest
to students of education.
The series of papers which I have selected are,
in reality, studies in genetic psychology. When
read in succession as here printed, they afford a view
of certain features of children's minds, as changing
in aspect between the ages of four and twelve.
Some teachers, in their anxiety to reap a harvest
without the delays of spring and summer, would
rather have been supplied with the detailed courses
of study pursued by the children; but they will be
better advised to fasten their attention first upon
the phenomena of child-life, and then copy Professor
Dewey's example and seek to discover, by experiment, whether his interpretations are of universal
validity. And if I had reprinted these courses of
study, many of the details would have been of
little use to us in England: they contain those
local and temporary details to which I have referred above, and would serve rather to distract the
student's attention from the main problem.
I may add that this little volume may grow to
larger proportions if the desire is expressed: a
second series of Dewey's Contributions will be




AND THE CHILD


II


forthcoming if the publishers find that the first is
appreciated by English readers. I conclude with
a few observations, arising out of the methods pursued by Professor Dewey, and suggestive for the
study of Education in this country.
(a) The addresses given by Professor Dewey to
parents attending his school are contained in a small
volume entitled School and Society (vide Appendix).
One feature of the work is worth noting: Professor Dewey insisted upon securing the services of
" thoroughly-educated, teachers ", with advanced
knowledge in the Science, History, Manual Training,
Music, &c. for which they were responsible. " The
presence of an organized corps of instructors
demonstrates that thoroughly-educated teachers are
ready to bring to elementary education the same
resources of training, knowledge, and skill that have
long been at the command of higher education."
Another quotation from this book will show that
the work was conducted in the true spirit of scientific investigation:- " When the school was started
there were certain ideas in mind-perhaps it would
be better to say questions and problems; certain
points which it seemed worth while to test. If you
will permit one personal word, I should like to say
that it is sometimes thought that the school started
out with a number of ready-made principles and
ideas which were to be put into practice at once.
It has been popularly assumed that I am the author
of these ready-made ideas and principles; but there




12


THE SCHOOL


has been a gradual development of the educational
principles and methods involved, not a fixed equipment. The teachers started with question marks,
rather than with fixed rules, and if any answers have
been reached, it is the teachers in the schools who
have supplied them. We started upon the whole
with four such questions or problems:
i" i. What can be done, and how can it be done,
to bring the school into closer relation with the
home and neighbourhood life-instead of having
the school a place where the child comes solely to
learn certain lessons?
" 2. What can be done in the way of introducing
subject-matter in history and science and art, that
shall have a positive value and real significance in
the child's own life: that shall represent, even to
the youngest children, something worthy of attainment in skill or knowledge; as much so to the little
pupil as are the studies of the high school or
college student to him?
"3. How can instruction in the formal, symbolic
branches-the mastering of the ability to read,
write, and use figures intelligently-be carried on
with everyday experience and occupation as their
background and in definite relations to other studies
of more inherent content; and be carried on in
such a way that the child shall feel their necessity
through their connection with subjects which appeal
to him on their own account?
" 4. Individual attention.




AND THE CHILD


I3


"I think these four points present a fair statement
of what we have set out to investigate. The school
is often called an experimental school, and in one
sense that is the proper name. We have attempted
to find out by trying, by doing-not alone by discussing and theorizing-whether these problems
may be worked out, and how they may be worked
out."
I submit this statement1 by a university professor
under the obligation to search, and re-search, for
truth, as being well in line with the attitude and
sense of duty which is exhibited in all university
departments worthy of the name.2 Universities have
no concern with the training of young people for a
profession unless they combine the obligation to
teach and "train" with the obligation to investigate
and advance the boundaries of knowledge. It
will surely be admitted that the four problems set
out above are as worthy of investigation in a university as any other group of scientific problems
suggested for solution in the older established
Departments of Science and Art whose services
are so honourably recognized by public opinion.
(b) The essays from The Elementary School Record
are, I think, worthy of attention in academic
quarters from another point of view, that of their
1 Readers should consult The Relation of Theory to Practice
in the Education of Teachers (vide Appendix), for a fuller
exposition of Dewey's views.
$ Compare p. o6' below,




14


THE SCHOOL


relation to genetic psychology.  The inevitable
tendency in our modern universities is to lay
emphasis upon studies which have a direct bearing
upon some career in life. The new Departments
or Faculties which find favour and public support
are Chemistry, Engineering, Law, Theology,
Commerce; and the older studies, such as History
and Literature, have to force a place for themselves
within these if they can. This tendency to forsake
"liberal" studies may be, for many reasons, deplorable, but it has to be reckoned with, and no
branch of study has been affected by it more
adversely than that crown of all academiesPhilosophy. So far, indeed, has Philosophy been
dethroned that the latest university to receive a
Charter from the Crown has been approved without having a teacher of Philosophy in its society!
Now while the age and not the teachers of
Philosophy are chiefly to blame for this neglect, I
think that Dewey and Stanley Hall, both of high
rank as philosophers, have shown that the philosophers are also a little at fault. We live in a time
when the methods of biology, the study of growth
and development, dominates our intellectual habits
in every field; and these two investigators, the
one by means chiefly of quantitative data, the
other by means of direct observation of children,
have helped us to understand human life in various
grades of immaturity. By concentrating their attention on genetic psychology they have done




AND THE CHILD


I5


capital service both to Philosophy and to Education: to Philosophy because speculation is unprofitable unless the millstones of the academy are
continually fed with fresh grain; to Education
because the teachers will willingly learn from the
philosopher when he can offer them the fruits of
experience and research among children. Some
may say that Philosophy has a loftier mission and
should not stoop to babes; but John Dewey is not
the first who has shown us what may proceed "out
of the mouths of babes and sucklings". To many
in these modern days the Kingdom of Heaven takes
the likeness of a palace of Truth, whereto none
may attain save after much research and labour, of
the kind called scientific; and in this kingdom,
like that other of old times, we may perchance find
-young children!  Now, as then, we may well
take heed that we despise not one of these little
ones; for of such (in quite a modern sense) is the
Kingdom of Heaven. Mankind is all of a piece,
children and greybeards all of the same mould.
Truth will not be served until the child's body and
the child's mind are studied with the same devotion that we render to every other branch of philosophy and learning.
J. J. FINDLAY.
THE UNIVERSITY,
MANCHESTER, September, 1906.








THE CHILD AND THE
CURRICULUM
Profound differences in theory are never gratuitous or invented. They grow out of conflicting
elements in a genuine problem-a problem which
is genuine just because the elements, taken as they
stand, are conflicting. Any significant problem
involves conditions that for the moment contradict
each other. Solution comes only by getting away
from the meaning of terms that is already fixed
upon and coming to see the conditions from
another point of view, and hence in a fresh light.
But this reconstruction means travail of thought.
Easier than thinking with surrender of already
formed ideas and detachment from facts already
learned, is just to stick by what is already said,
looking about for something with which to buttress
it against attack.
Thus sects arise; schools of opinion. Each
selects that set of conditions that appeal to it;
and then erects them into a complete and inde(B668)         17               B




i8


THE SCHOOL


pendent truth, instead of treating them as a factor
in a problem, needing adjustment.
The fundamental factors in the educative"process
are an immature, undeveloped being; and certain
social aims, meanings, values incarnate in the
matured experience of the adult. The educative
process is the due interaction of these forces. Such
a conception of each in relation to the other as
facilitates completest and freest interaction is the
essence of educational theory.
But here comes the effort of thought. It is
easier to see the conditions in their separateness,
to insist upon one at the expense of the other, to
make antagonists of them, than to discover a reality
to which each belongs. The easy thing is to seize
upon something in the nature of the child, or upon
something in the developed consciousness of the
adult, and insist upon that as the key to the whole
problem. When this happens a really serious practical problem-that of interaction-is transformed
into an unreal, and hence insoluble, theoretic problem. Instead of seeing the educative steadily and
as a whole, we see conflicting terms. We get the
case of the child v. the curriculum; of the individual
nature v. social culture. Below all other divisions
in pedagogic opinion lies this opposition.
The child lives in a somewhat narrow world of
personal contacts. Things hardly come within his
experience unless they touch, intimately and obvi



AND THE CHILD


19


ously, his own well-being, or that of his family and
friends. His world is a world of persons with their
personal interests, rather than a realm of facts and
laws. Not truth, in the sense of conformity to
external fact, but affection and sympathy, is its
key-note. As against this, the course of study met
in the school presents material stretching back
indefinitely in time, and extending outward indefinitely into space. The child is taken out of his
familiar physical environment, hardly more than a
square mile or so in area, into the wide worldyes, and even to the bounds of the solar system.
His little span of personal memory and tradition is
overlaid with the long centuries of the history of
all peoples.
Again, the child's life is an integral, a total one.
He passes quickly and readily from one topic to
another, as from one spot to another, but is not
conscious of transition or break. There is no conscious isolation, hardly conscious distinction. The
things that occupy him are held together by the
unity of the personal and social interests which
his life carries along. Whatever is uppermost in
his mind constitutes to him, for the time being, the
whole universe. That universe is fluid and fluent;
its contents dissolve and re-form with amazing
rapidity. But, after all, it is the child's own world.
It has the unity and completeness of his own life.
He goes to school, and various studies divide and




20


THE SCHOOL


fractionize the world for him. Geography selects,
it abstracts and analyses one set of facts, and from
one particular point of view. Arithmetic is another
division, grammar another department, and so on
indefinitely.
Again, in school each of these subjects is classified. Facts are torn away from their original place
in experience and rearranged with reference to
some general principle.  Classification is not a
matter of child experience; things do not come
to the individual pigeon-holed. The vitalities of
affection, the connecting bonds of activity, hold
together the variety of his personal experiences.
The adult mind is so familiar with the notion of
logically-ordered facts that it does not recognizeit cannot realize-the amount of separating and
reformulating which the facts of direct experience
have to undergo before they can appear as a
"study", or branch of learning. A principle, for
the intellect, has had to be distinguished and defined; facts have had to be interpreted in relation
to this principle, not as they are in themselves.
They have had to be regathered about a new
centre which is wholly abstract and ideal. All
this means a development of a special intellectual
interest. It means ability to view facts impartially
and objectively; that is, without reference to their
place and meaning in one's own experience. It
means capacity to analyse and to synthesize. It




AND THE CHILD


2I


means highly-matured intellectual habits and the
command of a definite technique and apparatus of
scientific enquiry. The studies as classified are the
product, in a word, of the science of the ages, not
of the experience of the child.
These apparent deviations and differences between child and curriculum might be almost indefinitely widened. But we have here sufficiently
fundamental divergences: first, the narrow but
personal world of the child against the impersonal
but infinitely-extended world of space and time;
second, the unity, the single whole-heartedness of
the child's life, and the specializations' and divisions
of the curriculum; third, an abstract principle of
logical classification and arrangement, and the
practical and emotional bonds of child-life.
From these elements of conflict grow up different
educational sects. One school fixes its attention
upon the importance of the subject-matter of the
curriculum as compared with the contents of the
child's own, experience. It is as if they said: Is
life petty, narrow, and crude? Then studies reveal
the great, wide universe with all its fulness and
complexity of meaning. Is the life of the child
egoistic, self-centred, impulsive? Then in these
studies is found an objective universe of truth, law,
and order. Is his experience confused, vague, uncertain, at the mercy of the moment's caprice and
circumstance? Then studies introduce a world




22


THE SCHOOL


arranged on the basis of eternal and general truth;
a world where all is measured and defined. Hence
the moral: ignore and minimize the child's individual peculiarities, whims, and experiences. They
are what we need to get away from. They are to
be obscured or eliminated. As educators our work
is precisely to substitute for these superficial and
casual affairs stable and well-ordered realities; and
these are found in studies and lessons.
Subdivide each topic into studies; each study
into lessons; each lesson into specific facts and
formulae. Let the child proceed step by step to
master each one of these separate parts, and at last
he will have covered the entire ground. The road
which looks so long when viewed in its entirety, is
easily travelled, considered as a series of particular
steps. Thus emphasis is put upon the logical subdivisions and consecutions of the subject-matter.
Problems of instruction are problems of procuring
texts giving logical parts and sequences, and of
presenting these portions in class in a similar de-;finite and graded way. Subject-matter furnishes
"the end, and it determines method. The child is;simply the immature being who is to be matured;
he is the superficial being who is to be deepened;
his is narrow experience which is to be widened.
It is his to receive, to accept. His part is fulfilled
when he is ductile and docile.
Not so, says the other sect. The child is the




AND THE CHILD


23


starting-point, the centre, and the end. His development, his growth, is the ideal.  It alone
furnishes the standard. To the growth of the
child all studies are subservient; they are instruments valued as they serve the needs of growth.
Personality, character, is more than subject-matter.
Not knowledge or information, but self-realization,
is the goal. To possess all the world of knowledge
and lose one's own self is as awful a fate in education
as in religion. Moreover, subject-matter never can
be got into the child from without. Learning is
active. It involves reaching out of the mind. It
involves organic assimilation starting from within.
Literally, we must take our stand with the child
and our departure from him. It is he and not the
subject-matter which determines both quality and
quantity of learning.
The only significant Method is the method of
the mind as it reaches out and assimilates. Subject-matter is but spiritual food, possible nutritive
material. It cannot digest itself; it cannot of its
own accord turn into bone and muscle and blood.
The source of whatever is dead, mechanical, and
formal in schools is found precisely in the subordination of the life and experience of the child to the
curriculum. It is because of this that " study" has
become a synonym for what is irksome, and a lesson
identical with a task.
This fundamental opposition of child and curric



24


THE SCHOOL


ulum set up by these two modes of doctrine can
be duplicated in a series of other terms. "Discipline" is the watchword of those who magnify
the course of study; "interest" that of those who
blazon "The Child" upon their banner. The
stand-point of the former is logical; that of the
latter psychological.  The first emphasizes the
necessity of adequate training and scholarship on
the part of the teacher; the latter that of need of
sympathy with the child, and knowledge of his
natural instincts.  "Guidance and control" are
the catchwords of one school; "freedom and initiative " of the other. Law is asserted here; spontaneity proclaimed there. The old, the conservation
of what has been achieved in the pain and toil of
the ages, is dear to the one; the new, change, progress, wins the affection of the other. Inertness
and routine, chaos and anarchism, are accusations
bandied back and forth. Neglect of the sacred
authority of duty is charged by one side, only to
be met by counter-charges of suppression of individuality through tyrannical despotism.
Such oppositions are rarely carried to their
logical conclusion. Common-sense recoils at the
extreme character of these results. They are left
to theorists, while common-sense vibrates back and
forward in a maze of inconsistent compromise.
The need of getting theory and practical commonsense into closer connection suggests a return to




AND THE CHILD


25


our original thesis: that we have here conditions
which are necessarily related to each other in the
educative process, since this is precisely one of
interaction and adjustment.
What, then, is the problem? It is just to get rid
of the prejudicial notion that there is some gap in
kind (as distinct from degree) between the child's
experience and the various forms of subject-matter
that make up the course of study. From the side
of the child, it is a question of seeing how his
experience already contains within itself elements
-facts and truths-of just the same sort as those
entering into the formulated study; and, what is of
more importance, of how it contains within itself
the attitudes, the motives, and the interests which
have operated in developing and organizing the
subject-matter to the plane which it now occupies.
From the side of the studies, it is a question of
interpreting them as outgrowths of forces operating
in the child's life, and of discovering the steps that
intervene between the child's present experience
and their richer maturity.
Abandon the notion of subject-matter as something fixed and ready-made in itself, outside the
child's experience; cease thinking of the child's experience as also something hard and fast; see it as
something fluent, embryonic, vital; and we realize
that the child and the curriculum are simply two
limits which define a single process. Just as two




26


THE SCHOOL


points define a straight line, so the present standpoint of the child and the facts and truths of studies
define instruction. It is continuous reconstruction,
moving from the child's present experience out into
that represented by the organized bodies of truth
that we call studies.
On the face of it, the various studies, arithmetic,
geography, language, botany, &c., are themselves
experience -they are that of the race.    They
embody the cumulative outcome of the efforts, the
strivings, and successes of the human race generation
after generation. They present this, not as a mere
accumulation, not as a miscellaneous heap of separate
bits of experience, but in some organized and systematized way-that is, as reflectively formulated.
Hence, the facts and truths that enter into the
child's present experience, and those contained in
the subject-matter of studies, are the initial and
final terms of one reality. To oppose one to the
other is to oppose the infancy and maturity of the
same growing life; it is to set the moving tendency
and the final result of the same process over against
each other; it is to hold that the nature and the
destiny of the child war with each other.
If such be the case, the problem of the relation
of the child and the curriculum presents itself in
this guise: Of what use, educationally speaking, is
it to be able to see the end in the beginning? How
does it assist us in dealing with the early stages of




AND THE CHILD


27


growth to be able to anticipate its later phases?
The studies, as we have agreed, represent the possibilities of development inherent in the child's
immediate crude experience. But, after all, they
are not parts of that present and immediate life.
Why, then, or how, make account of them?
Asking such a question suggests its own answer.
To see the outcome is to know in what direction
the present experience is moving, provided it move
normally and soundly. The far-away point, which
is of no significance to us simply as far away, becomes of huge importance the moment we take
it as defining a present direction of movement.
Taken in this way it is no remote and distant result
to be achieved, but a guiding method in dealing
with the present. The systematized and defined
experience of the adult mind, in other words, is of
value to us in interpreting the child's life as it
immediately shows itself, and in passing on to guidance or direction.
Let us look for a moment at these two ideas:
interpretation and guidance. The child's present
experience is in no way self-explanatory. It is not
final, but transitional. It is nothing complete in
itself, but just a sign or index of certain growthtendencies. As long as we confine our gaze to
what the child here and now puts forth, we are confused and misled. We cannot read its meaning.
Extreme depreciations of the child morally and




28


THE SCHOOL


intellectually, and sentimental idealizations of him,
have their root in a common fallacy. Both spring
from taking stages of a growth or movement as
something cut off and fixed. The first fails to see
the promise contained in feelings and deeds which,
taken by themselves, are unpromising and repellent;
the second fails to see that even the most pleasing
and beautiful exhibitions are but signs, and that
they begin to spoil and rot the moment they are
treated as achievements.
What we need is something which will enable us
to interpret, to appraise, the elements in the child's
present puttings forth and failings away, his exhibitions of power and weakness, in the light of some
larger growth-process in which they have their place.
Only in this way can we discriminate. If we isolate
the child's present inclinations, purposes, and experiences from the place they occupy and the part
they have to perform in a developing experience, all
stand upon the same level; all alike are equally
good and equally bad. But in the movement of
life different elements stand upon different planes
of value. Some of the child's deeds are symptoms
of a waning tendency; they are survivals in functioning of an organ which has done its part and is
passing out of vital use. To give positive attention
to such qualities is to arrest development upon a
lower level. It is systematically to maintain a rudimentary phase of growth. Other activities are signs




AND THE CHILD


29


of a culminating power and interest; to them applies the maxim of striking while the iron is hot.
As regards them, it is perhaps a matter of now or
never. Selected, utilized, emphasized, they may
mark a turning-point for good in the child's whole
career; neglected, an opportunity goes, never to be
recalled. Other acts and feelings are prophetic;
they represent the dawning of flickering light that
will shine steadily only in the far future. As regards them there is little at present to do but give
them fair and full chance, waiting for the future for
definite direction.
Just as, upon the whole, it was the weakness of
the "old education" that it made invidious comparisons between the immaturity of the child and
the maturity of the adult, regarding the former as
something to be got away from as soon as possible
and as much as possible; so it is the danger of
the "new education" that it regard the child's
present powers and interests as something finally
significant in themselves. In truth, his learnings
and achievements are fluid and moving. They
change from day to day and from hour to hour.
It will do harm if child-study leave in the popular
mind the impression that a child of a given age has
a positive equipment of purposes and interests to
be cultivated just as they stand. Interests in reality
are but attitudes toward possible experiences; they
are not achievements; their worth is in the leverage




3o


THE SCHOOL


they afford, not in the accomplishment they represent. To take the phenomena presented at a given
age as in any way self-explanatory or self-contained
is inevitably to result in indulgence and spoiling
Any power, whether of child Dr adult, is indulged
when it is taken on its given and present level in
consciousness. Its genuine meaning is in the propulsion it affords toward a higher level. It is just
something to do with. Appealing to the interest
upon the present plane means excitation; it means
playing with a power so as continually to stir it up
without directing it toward definite achievement.
Continuous initiation, continuous starting of activities that do not arrive, is, for all practical purposes,
as bad as the continual repression of initiative in conformity with supposed interests of some more perfect
thought or will. It is as if the child were forever
tasting and never eating; always having his palate
tickled upon the emotional side, but never getting
the organic satisfaction that comes only with digestion of food and transformation of it into working
power.
As against such a view, the subject-matter of
science and history and art serves to reveal the real
child to us. We do not know the meaning either
of his tendencies or of his performances excepting
as we take them as germinating seed, or opening
bud, of some fruit to be borne. The whole world
of visual nature is all too small an answer to the




AND THE CHILD


31


problem of the meaning of the child's instinct for
light and form. The entire science of physics is
none too much to interpret adequately to us what is
involved in some simple demand of the child for
explanation of some casual change that has attracted his attention. The art of Rafael or of Corot
is none too much to enable us to value the impulses
stirring in the child when he draws and daubs.
So much for the use of the subject-matter in
interpretation. Its further employment in direction or guidance is but an expansion of the same
thought. To interpret the fact is to see it in its
vital movement, to see it in its relation to growth.
But to view it as a part of a normal growth is to
secure the basis for guiding it. Guidance is not
external imposition. It is freeing the lifetprocess for
its own most adequate fulilment. What was said
about disregard of the child's present experience
because of its remoteness from mature experience;
and of the sentimental idealization of the child's
naive caprices and performances, may be repeated
here with slightly altered phrase. There are those
who see no alternative between forcing the child
from without, or leaving him entirely alone. Seeing
no alternative, some choose one mode, some another.
Both fall into the same fundamental error. Both
fail to see that development is a definite process,
having its own law, which can be fulfilled only when
adequate and normal conditions are provided.




32


THEi SClIOOL


Really to interpret the child's present crude impulses in counting, measuring, and arranging things
in rhythmic series, involves mathematical scholarship-a knowledge of the mathematical formulae
and relations which have, in the history of the race,
grown out of just such crude beginnings. To see
the whole history of development which intervenes
between these two terms is simply to see what step
the child needs to take just here and now; to what
use he needs to put his blind impulse in order that
it may get clarity and gain force.
If, once more, the "old education" tended to
ignore the dynamic quality, the developing force
inherent in the child's present experience, and
therefore to assume that direction and control were
just matters of arbitrarily putting the child in a
given path and compelling him to walk there, the
" new education " is in danger of taking the idea of
development in altogether too formal and empty a
way. The child is expected to " develop " this or
that fact or truth out of his own mind. He is told
to think things out, or work things out for himself,
without being supplied any of the environing conditions which are requisite to start and guide thought.
Nothing can be developed from nothing; nothing
but the crude can be developed out of the crudeand this is what surely happens when we throw the
child back upon his achieved self as a finality, and
invite him to spin new truths of nature or of conduct




AND THE CHILD


33


out of that. It is certainly as futile to expect a
child to evolve a universe out of his own mere mind
as it is for a philosopher to attempt that task.
Development does not mean just getting something
out of the mind. It is a development of experience
and into experience that is really wanted. And this
is impossible save as just that educative medium is
provided which will enable the powers and interests
that have been selected as valuable to function.
They must operate, and how they operate will depend almost entirely upon the stimuli which surround them, and the material upon which they
exercise themselves. The problem of direction is
thus the problem of selecting appropriate stimuli for
instincts and impulses which it is desired to employ
in the gaining of new experience. What new experiences are desirable, and thus what stimuli are
needed, it is impossible to tell except as there is
some comprehension of the development which is
aimed at; except, in a word, as the adult knowledge is drawn upon as revealing the possible career
open to the child.
It may be of use to distinguish and to relate
to each other the logical and the psychological
aspects of experience-the former standing for
subject-matter in itself, the latter for it in relation
to the child. A psychological statement of experience follows its actual growth; it is historic;
it notes steps actually taken, the uncertain and
(B668)                           C




34


THE SCHOOL


tortuous, as well as the efficient and successful.
The logical point of view, on the other hand,
assumes that the development has reached a
certain positive stage of fulfilment. It neglects
the process and considers the outcome. It summarizes and arranges, and thus separates the
achieved results from the actual steps by which
they were forthcoming in the first instance. We
may compare the difference between the logical
and the psychological to the difference between
the notes which an explorer makes in a new
country, blazing a trail and finding his way along
as best he may, and the finished map that is constructed after the country has been thoroughly
explored.  The two are mutually dependent.
Without the more or less accidental and devious
paths traced by the explorer there would be no
facts which could be utilized in the making of
the complete and related chart.  But no one
would get the benefit of the explorer's trip if it
was not compared and checked up with similar
wanderings undertaken by others; unless the new
geographical facts learned, the streams crossed,
the mountains climbed, &c., were viewed, not as
mere incidents in the journey of the particular
traveller, but (quite apart from the individual explorer's life) in relation to other similar facts already
known. The map orders individual experiences,
connecting them with one another irrespective of




AND THE CHILD


35


the local and temporal circumstances and accidents
of their original discovery.
Of what use is this formulated statement of experience? Of what use is the map?
Well, we may first tell what the map is not.
The map is not a substitute for a personal experience. The map does not take the place of an
actual journey. The logically-formulated material
of a science or hranch of learning, of a study, is no
substitute for the having of individual experiences.
The mathematical formula for a falling body does
not take the place of personal contact and immediate individual experience with the falling thing.
But the map, a summary, an arranged and orderly
view of previous experiences, serves as a guide
to future experience; it gives direction; it facilitates
control; it economizes effort, preventing useless
wandering, and pointing out the paths which lead
most quickly and most certainly to a desired result.
Through the map every new traveller may get for
his own journey the benefits of the results of others'
explorations without the waste of energy and loss
of time involved in their wanderings-wanderings
which he himself would be obliged to repeat were
it not for just the assistance of the objective and
generalized record of their performances. That
which we call a science or study puts the' net
product of past experience in the form which
makes it most available for the future. It re



36


THE SCHOOL


presents a capitalization which may at once be
turned to interest. It economizes the workings
of the mind in every way. Memory is less taxed
because the facts are grouped together about some
common principle, instead of being connected
solely with the varying incidents of their original
discovery. Observation is assisted; we know what
to loolk-for and where to look. It is the difference
between looking for a needle in a hay-stack, and
searching for a given paper in a well-arranged
cabinet. Reasoning is directed, because there is
a certain general path or line laid out along which
ideas naturally march, instead of moving from one
chance association to another.
There is, then, nothing final about a logical
rendering of experience. Its value is not contained in itself; its significance is that of standpoint, outlook, method.  It intervenes between
the more casual, tentative, and roundabout experiences of the past, and more controlled and
orderly experiences of the future. It gives past
experience in that net form which renders it most
available and most significant, most fecund for
future experience.  The abstractions, generalizations, and classifications which it introduces all
have prospective meaning.
The formulated result is, then, not to be opposed
to the process of growth. The logical is not set
over against the psychological. The surveyed and




AND THE CHILD


37


arranged result occupies a critical position in the
process of growth. It marks a turning-point. It
shows how we may get the benefit of past effort in
controlling future endeavour. In the largest sense
the logical stand-point is itself psychological; it has
its meaning as a point in the development of
experience, and its justification is in its functioning
in the future growth which it ensures.
Hence the need of reinstating into experience
the subject-matter of the studies, or branches of
learning. It must be restored to the experience
from which it has been abstracted. It needs to be
psychologized; turned over, translated into the
immediate and individual experiencing within
which it has its origin and significance.
Every study or subject thus has two aspects:
one for the scientist as a scientist; the other for
the teacher as a teacher. These two aspects are
in no sense opposed or conflicting. But neither
are they immediately identical. For the scientist,
the subject-matter represents simply a given body
of truth to be employed in locating new problems,
instituting new researches, and carrying them
through to a verified outcome.    To him   the
subject-matter of the science is self-contained. He
refers various portions of it to each other; he
connects new facts with it.   He is not, as a
scientist, called upon to travel outside its particular
bounds; if he does, it is only to get more facts




38


THE SCHOOL


of the same general sort. The problem of the
teacher is a different one. As a teacher he is
not concerned with adding new facts to the science
he teaches; in propounding new hypotheses or
in verifying them.  He is concerned with the
subject-matter of the science as representing a given
stage and phase of the development of experience.
His problem is that of inducing a vital and personal experiencing. Hence, what concerns him,
as teacher, are the ways in which that subject may
become a part of experience; what there is in
the child's present that is usable with reference
to it; how such elements are to be used; how his
own knowledge of the subject-matter may assist in
interpreting the child's needs and doings, and
determine the medium in which the child should
be placed in order that his growth may be properly
directed. He is concerned, not with the subjectmatter as such, but with the subject-matter as a
related factor in a total and growing experience.
Thus to see it is to psychologize it.
It is the failure to keep in mind the double
aspect of subject-matter which causes the curriculum and child to be set over against each other
as described in our early pages. The subjectmatter, just as it is for the scientist, has no direct
relationship to the child's present experience. It
stands outside of it. The danger here is not a
merely theoretical one. We are practically threat



AND THE CHILD


39


ened on all sides. Text-book and. teacher vie
with each other in presenting to the child the
subject-matter as it stands to the specialist. Such
modification and revision as it undergoes are a
mere elimination of certain scientific difficulties,
and the general reduction to a lower intellectual
level. The material is not translated into lifeterms, but is directly offered as a substitute for,
or an external annex to, the child's present life.
Three typical evils result: In the first place,
-the lack of any organic connection with what
the child has already seen and felt and loved
makes the material purely formal and symbolic.
There is a sense in which it is impossible to
value too highly the formal and the symbolic.
The genuine form, the real symbol, serve as
methods in the holding and discovery of truth.
They are tools by which the individual pushes
out most surely and widely into unexplored areas.
They are means by which he brings to bear whatever of reality he has succeeded in gaining in
past searchings. But this happens only when the
symbol really symbolizes-when it stands for and
sums up in shorthand actual experiences which
the individual has already gone through.   A
symbol which is induced from without, which
has not been led up to in preliminary activities,
is, as we say, a bare or mere symbol; it is dead and
barren.  Now, any fact, whether of arithmetic,




40


THE SCHOOL


or geography, or grammar, which is not led up
to and into out of something which has previously
occupied a significant position in the child's life
for its own sake, is forced into this position. It is
not a reality, but just the sign of a reality which
might be experienced if certain conditions were
fulfilled. But the abrupt presentation of the fact
as something known by others, and requiring only
to be studied and learned by the child, rules out
such conditions of fulfilment. It condemns the
fact to be a hieroglyph: it would mean something
if one only had the key. The clue being lacking,
it remains an idle curiosity, to fret and obstruct the
mind, a dead weight to burden it.
The second evil in this external presentation
is lack of motivation. There are not only no
facts or truths which have been previously felt
as such with which to appropriate and assimilate
the new, but there is no craving, no need, no
demand.    When the subject-matter has been
psychologized, that is, viewed as an outgrowth
of present tendencies and activities, it is easy
to locate in the present some obstacle, intellectual,
practical, or ethical, which can be handled more
adequately if the truth in question be mastered.
This need supplies motive for the learning. An
end which is the child's own carries him on to
possess the means of its accomplishment. But
when material is directly supplied in the form




AND THE CHILD


4r


of a lesson to be learned as a lesson, the connecting links of need and aim are conspicuous
for their absence. What we mean by the mechanical and dead in instruction is a result of
this lack of motivation. The organic and vital
mean interaction-they mean play of mental demand and material supply.
The third evil is that even the most scientific
matter, arranged in most logical fashion, loses this
quality, when presented in external, ready-made
fashion, by the time it gets to the child. It has
to undergo some modification in order to shut
out some phases too hard to grasp, and to reduce
some of the attendant difficulties. What happens?
Those things which are most significant to the
scientific man, and most valuable in the logic of
actual enquiry and classification, drop out. The
really thought-provoking character is obscured, and
the organizing function disappears.  Or, as we
commonly say, the child's reasoning powers, the
faculty of abstraction and generalization, are not
adequately developed.  So the subject-matter is
evacuated of its logical value, and, though it is
what it is only from the logical stand-point, is
presented as stuff only for "memory". This is
the contradiction: the child gets the advantage
neither of the adult logical formulation, nor of
his own native competencies of apprehension
and response.  Hence the logic of the child is




42


THE SCHOOL


hampered and mortified, and we are almost
fortunate if he does not get actual non-science,
flat and commonplace residua of what was gaining
scientific vitality a generation or two ago-degenerate reminiscence of what someone else once
formulated on the basis of the experience that
some further person had, once upon a time, experienced.
The train of evils does not cease. It is all too
common for opposed erroneous theories to play
straight into each other's hands.  Psychological
considerations may be slurred or shoved on one
side; they cannot be crowded out. Put out of the
door, they come back through the window. Somehow and somewhere motive must be appealed to,
connection must be established betweei the mind
and its material. There is no question of getting
along without this bond of connection; the only
question is whether it be such as grows out of the
material itself in relation to the mind, or be imported
and hitched on from some outside source. If the
subject-matter of the lessons be such as to have an
appropriate place within the expanding consciousness of the child, if it grows out of his own past
doings, thinkings, and sufferings, and grows into
application in further achievements and receptivities, then no device or trick of method has to
be resorted to in order to enlist "interest". The
psychologized is of interest-that is, it is placed in




AND THE CHILD


43


the whole of conscious life so that it shares the
worth of that life. But the externally presented
material, that, conceived and generated in standpoints and attitudes remote from the child, and
developed in motives alien to him, has no such
place of its own. Hence the recourse to adventitious leverage to push it in, to factitious drill
to drive it in, to artificial bribe to lure it in.
Three aspects of this recourse to outside ways
for giving the subject-matter some psychological
meaning may be worth mentioning. Familiarity
breeds contempt, but it also breeds something like
affection. We get used to the chains we wear, and
we miss them when removed. 'Tis an old story
that through custom we finally embrace what at
first wore a hideous mien. Unpleasant, because
meaningless, activities may get agreeable if long
enough persisted in. It is possible for the mind to
develop interest in a routine or mechanicalprocedure,
if conditions are continually supplied which demand
that mode of operation and preclude any other sort.
I frequently hear dulling devices and empty exercises defended and extolled because "the children
take such an 'interest' in them". Yes, that is the
worst of it; the mind, shut out from worthy employ
and missing the taste of adequate performance,
comes down to the level of that which is left to it
to know and do, and perforce takes an interest in
a cabined and cramped experience. To find satis



44


THE SCHOOL


faction in its own exercise is the normal law of
mind, and if large and meaningful business for the
mind be denied, it tries to content itself with the
formal movements that remain to it-and too often
succeeds, save in those cases of more intense
activity which cannot accommodate themselves,
and that make up the unruly and declasse of our
school product. An interest in the formal apprehension of symbols and in their memorized
reproduction becomes in many pupils a substitute
for the original and vital interest in reality; and all
because, the subject-matter of the course of study
being out of relation to the concrete mind of the
individual, some substitute bond to hold it in some
kind of working relation to the mind must be
discovered and elaborated.
The second substitute for living motivation in
the subject-matter is that of contrast-effects; the
material of the lesson is rendered interesting, if
not in itself, at least in contrast with some alternative experience. To learn the lesson is more
interesting than to take a scolding, be held up
to general ridicule, stay after school, receive
degradingly low marks, or fail to be promoted.
And very much of what goes by the name of
"discipline", and prides itself upon opposing the
doctrines of a soft pedagogy and upon upholding
the banner of effort and duty, is nothing more
or less than just this appeal to "interest" in its




AND THE CHILD


45


obverse aspect-to fear, to dislike of various kinds
of physical, social, and personal pain. The subject-matter does not appeal; it cannot appeal; it
lacks origin and bearing in a growing experience.
So the appeal is to the thousand-and-one outside
and irrelevant agencies which may serve to throw,
by sheer rebuff and rebound, the mind back
upon the material from which it is constantly
wandering.
Human nature being what it is, however, it
tends to seek its motivation in the agreeable rather
than in the disagreeable, in direct pleasure rather
than in alternative pain. And so has come up the
modern theory and practice of the " interesting ", in
the false sense of that term. The material is still
left; so far as its own characteristics are concerned,
just material externally selected and formulated.
It is still just so much geography and arithmetic
and grammar study; not so much potentiality of
child-experience with regard to language, earth,
and numbered and measured reality. Hence the
difficulty of bringing the mind to bear upon it;
hence its repulsiveness; the tendency for attention
to wander; for other acts and images to crowd in
and expel the lesson. The legitimate way out is to
transform the material; to psychologize it-that is,
once more, to take it and to develop it within the
range and scope of the child's life. But it is easier
and simpler to leave it as it is, and then by trick of




46


THE SCHOOL


method to arouse interest, to make it interesting; to
cover it with sugar-coating; to conceal its barrenness by intermediate and unrelated material; and
finally, as it were, to get the child to swallow and
digest the unpalatable morsel while he is enjoying
tasting something quite different. But alas for the
analogy! Mental assimilation is a matter of consciousness; and if the attention has not been
playing upon the actual material, that has not been
apprehended, nor worked into faculty.
How, then, stands the case of Cbild v. Curriculum? What shall the verdict be? The radical
fallacy in the original pleadings with which we set
out is the supposition that we have no choice save
either to leave the child to his own unguided
spontaneity or to inspire direction upon him from
without.  Action is response; it is adaptation,
adjustment. There is no such thing as sheer selfactivity possible-because all activity takes place in
a medium, in a situation, and with reference to its
conditions. But, again, no such thing as imposition of truth from without, as insertion of truth
from without, is possible. All depends upon the
activity which the mind itself undergoes in responding to what is presented from without. Now,
the value of the formulated wealth of knowledge
that makes up the course of study is that it may
enable the educator to determine the environment of
the child, and thus by indirection to direct. Its




AND THE CHILD


47


primary value, its primary indication, is for the
teacher, not for the child. It says to the teacher:
Such and such are the capacities, the fulfilments,
in truth and beauty and behaviour, open to these
children. Now see to it that day by day the conditions are such that their own activities move
inevitably in this direction, toward such culmination of themselves. Let the child's nature fulfil
its own destiny, revealed to you in whatever of
science and art and industry the world now holds
as its own.
The case is of Child. It is his present powers
which are to assert themselves; his present capacities which are to be exercised; his present
attitudes which are to be realized. But save as the
teacher knows, knows wisely and thoroughly, the
race-experience which is embodied in that thing
we call the Curriculum, the teacher knows neither
what the present power, capacity, or attitude is, nor
yet how it is to be asserted, exercised, and realized.




ESSAYS FROM THE
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL RECORD
No. I.- GROUPS I AND II
(THE KINDERGARTEN: CHILDREN UNDER
SIX YEARS OF AGE)
(a) AS REGARDS PLAY AND GAMES
Play is not to be identified with anything which
the child externally does. It rather designates his
mental attitude in its entirety and in its unity. It
is the free play, the interplay, of all the child's
powers, thoughts, and physical movements, in
embodying, in a satisfying form, his own images
and interests. Negatively, it is freedom from
economic pressure-the necessities of getting a
living and supporting others-and from the fixed
responsibilities attaching to the special callings of
the adult. Positively, it means that the supreme
end of the child is fulness of growth-fulness of
realization of his budding powers, a realization
which continually carries him on from one plane to
another.
This is a very general statement, and taken in its
generality is so vague as to be innocent of practical
48




THE SCHOOL AND THE CHILD


49


bearing. Its significance in detail, in application,
however, means the possibility, and in many
respects the necessity, of quite a radical change of
kindergarten procedure. To state it baldly, the
fact that "play" denotes the psychological attitude
of the child, not his outward performances, means
complete emancipation from the necessity of following any given or prescribed system, or sequence of
gifts, plays, or occupations. The judicious teacher
will certainly look for suggestions to the activities
mentioned by Froebel (in his Mother-Play and
elsewhere), and to those set forth in such minute
detail by his disciples; but she will also remember
that the principle of play requires her carefully to
investigate and criticise these things, and decide
whether they are really activities for her own
children, or just things which may have been vital
in the past to children living in different social conditions. So far as occupations, games, &c., simply
perpetuate those of Froebel and his earlier disciples,
it may fairly be said that in many respects the presumption is against them-the presumption is that
in the worship of the external doings discussed by
Froebel we have ceased to be loyal to his principle.
The teacher must be absolutely free to get suggestions from any and from every source, asking
herself but these two questions: Will the proposed
mode of play appeal to the child as his own? Is
it something of which he has the instinctive roots
(B668)                            D




50


THE SCHOOL


in himself, and which will mature the capacities
that are struggling for manifestation in him? And
again: Will the proposed activity give that sort of
expression to these impulses that will carry the
child on to a higher plane of consciousness and
action, instead of merely exciting him, and then
leaving him just where he was before, plus a certain
amount of nervous exhaustion and appetite for
more excitation in the future?
There is every evidence that Froebel studied
carefully-inductively we might now   say-the
children's plays of his own time, and the games
which mothers played with their infants. He also
took great pains-as in his Mother-Play —to point
out that certain principles of large import'were involved. He had to bring his generation to consciousness of the fact that these things were not
merely trivial and childish because done by children,
but were essential factors in their growth. But I do',
not see the slightest evidence that he supposed that
just these plays, and only these plays, had meaning,
or that his philosophic explanation had any motivc
beyond that just suggested. On the contrary, I
believe that he expected his followers to-exhibit
their following by continuing his own study of contemporary conditions and activities, rather than by
literally adhering to the plays he had collected.
Moreover, it is hardly likely that Froebel himself
would contend that in his interpretation of these




AND THE CHILD


5 r


games he did more than take advantage of the best
psychological and philosophical insight available to
him at the time; and we may suppose that he
would have been the first to welcome the growth of
a better and more extensive psychology (whether
general, experimental, or as child study), and would
avail himself of its results to reinterpret the activities, to discuss them more critically, going from the
new stand-point into the reasons that make them
educationally valuable.
(b) SYMBOLISM
It must be remembered that much of Froebel's
symbolism is the product of two peculiar conditions
of his own life and work. In the first place, on
account of inadequate knowledge at that time of
the physiological and psychological facts and
principles of child growth, he was often forced to
resort to strained and artificial explanations of the
value attaching to the plays, &c. To the impartial
observer it is obvious that many of his statements
are cumbrous and far-fetched, giving abstract philosophical reasons for matters that may now receive
a simple,-everyday formulation. In the second
place, the general political and social conditions of
Germany were such that it was impossible to conceive continuity between the free, co-operative
social life of the kindergarten and that of the world




52


THE SCHOOL


outside. Accordingly, he could not regard the
"occupations" of the school-room as literal reproductions of the ethical principles involved in community life-the latter were often too restricted
and authoritative to serve as worthy models.
Accordingly he was compelled to think of them as
symbolic of abstract ethical and philosophical
principles. There certainly is change enough and
progress enough in the social conditions of the
United States of to-day, as compared with those
of the Germany of his day, to justify making
kindergarten activities more natural, more direct,
and more real representations of current life than
Froebel's disciples have done. Even as it is, the
disparity of Froebel's philosophy with German
political ideals has made the authorities in Germany
suspicious of the kindergarten, and has been undoubtedly one force operating in transforming its
social simplicity into an involved intellectual
technique.
(c) IMAGINATION AND PLAY
An excessive emphasis on symbolism is sure to
influence the treatment of imagination. It is, of
course, true that a little child lives in a world of
imagination. In one sense, he can only "make
believe ". His activities represent or stand for the
life that he sees going on around him. Because




AND THE CHILD


53


they are thus representative they may be termed
symbolic, but it should be remembered that this
make-believe or symbolism has reference to the
activities suggested. Unless they are, to the child,
as real and definite as the adult's activities are to
him,' the inevitable result is artificiality, nervous
strain, and either physical and emotional excitement, or else deadening of powers.
There has been a curious, almost unaccountable,
tendency in the kindergarten to assume that because
the value of the activity lies in what it stands for to
the child, therefore the materials used must be as
artificial as possible, and that one must keep carefully away from real things and real acts on the
part of the child. Thus one hears of gardening
activities which are carried on by sprinkling grains
of sand for seeds: the child sweeps and dusts a
make-believe room with make-believe brooms and
cloths; he sets a table, using only paper cut in the
flat (and even then cut with reference to geometric
design rather than to dishes), instead of toy teathings with which the child outside of the kindergarten plays. Dolls, toy locomotives, and trains
of cars, &c., are tabooed as altogether too grossly
real-and hence not cultivating the child's imagination.
All this is surely mere superstition. The imaginative play of the child's mind comes through the
1 See p. 40 above.




54


THE SCHOOL


cluster of suggestions, reminiscences, and anticipations that gather about the things he uses. The
more natural and straightforward these are, the
more definite basis there is for calling up and holding together all the allied suggestions which make
his imaginative play really representative.  The
simple cooking, dish-washing, dusting, &c., which
the children do are no more prosaic or utilitarian
to them than would be, say, the game of the Five
Knights. To the children these occupations are
surcharged with a sense of the mysterious values
that attach to whatever their elders are concerned
with. The materials, then, must be as "real", as
direct and straightforward, as opportunity permits.
But the principle does not end here-the reality
symbolized must also lie within the capacities of the
child's own appreciation. It is sometimes thought
the use of the imagination is profitable in the degree
it stands for very remote metaphysical and spiritual
principles. In the great majority of such cases it
is safe to say that the adult deceives himself. He
is conscious of both the reality and the symbol,
and hence of the relation between them. But
since the truth or reality represented is far beyond
the reach of the child, the supposed symbol is not
a symbol to him at all. It is simply a positive
thing on its own account. Practically about all he
gets out of it is its own physical and sensational
meaning, plus, very often, a glib facility in phrases




AND THE CHILD


55


and attitudes that he learns are expected of him by
the teacher-without, however, any mental counterpart. We often teach insincerity, and instil sentimentalism, and foster sensationalism when we think
we are teaching spiritual truths by means of symbols.
The realities reproduced, therefore, by the child
should be of as familiar, direct, and real a character
as possible. It is largely for this reason that in the
kindergarten of our School the work centres so
largely about the reproduction of home and neighbourhood life. This brings us to the topic of
(d) SUBJECT-MATTER
The home life in its setting of house, furniture,
utensils, &c., together with the occupations carried
on in the home, offers, accordingly, material which
is in a direct and real relationship to the child, and
which he naturally tends to reproduce in imaginative
form. It is also sufficiently full of ethical relations
and suggestive of moral duties to afford plenty of
food for the child on his moral side. The programme is comparatively unambitious compared with
that of many kindergartens, but it may be questioned
whether there are not certain positive advantages in
this limitation of the subject-matter. When much
ground is covered (the work going over, say, industrial society, army, church, state, &c.), there is
a tendency for the work to become over-symbolic.




56                             THE SCHOOL
So much of this material lies beyond the experience
and capacities of the child of four and five that
practically all he gets out of it is the physical and
emotional reflex-he does not get any real penetration into the material itself. Moreover, there is
danger, in these ambitious programmes, of an unfavourable reaction upon the child's own intellectual
attitude. Having covered pretty much the whole
universe in a purely make-believe fashion, he becomes blase, loses his natural hunger for the simple
things of direct experience, and approaches the
material of the first grades of the primary school
with a feeling that he has had all that already. The
later years of a child's life have their own rights,
and a superficial, merely emotional anticipation is
likely to do the child serious injury.
Moreover, there is danger that a mental habit of
jumping rapidly from one topic to another be induced. The little child has a good deal of patience
and endurance of a certain type. It is true that he
has a liking for novelty and variety; that he soon
wearies of an activity that does not lead out into
new fields and open up new paths for exploration.
My plea, however, is not for monotony. There is
sufficient variety in the activities, furnishings, and
instrumentalities of the homes from which the childrencome, to givecontinual diversity. It touches the
civic and the industrial life at this and that point;
these concerns can be brought in, when desirable,




AND THE CHILD


57


without going beyond the unity of the main topic.
Thus there is an opportunity to foster that sense
which is at the basis of attention, and of all intellectual growth, a sense of continuity.
This continuity is often interfered with by the
very methods that aim at securing it. From the
child's stand-point unity lies in the subject-matter
-in the present case, in the fact that he is always
dealing with one thing: home life. Emphasis is
continually passing from one phase of this life to
another; one occupation after another, one piece
of furniture after another, one relation after another, &c., receive attention; but they all fall into
building up one and the same mode of living,
although bringing now this feature, now that into
prominence. The child is working all the time
within a unity, giving different phases of its clearness and definiteness, and bringing them into
coherent connection with each other. When there
is a great diversity of subject-matter, continuity is
apt to be sought simply on the formal side; that
is, in schemes of sequence, "schools of work", a
rigid programme of development followed with
every topic, a "thought for the day" from which
the work is not supposed to stray. As a rule such
sequence is purely intellectual, hence is grasped
only by the teacher, quite passing over the head
of the child.  Hence the programme for year,
term, month, week, &c., should be made out on




58


THE SCHOOL


the basis of estimating how much of the common
subject-matter can be covered in that time, not
on the basis of intellectual or ethical principles.
This will give both definiteness and elasticity.
(e) METHOD
The peculiar problem of the early grades is, of
course, to get hold of the child's natural impulses
and instincts, and to utilize them so that the child
is carried on to a higher plane of perception and
judgment, and equipped with more efficient habits:
so that he has an enlarged and deepened consciousness, and increased control of powers of
action. Wherever this result is not reached, play
results in mere amusement and not in educative
growth.
Upon the whole, constructive or "built up"
work (with, of course, the proper alternation of
story, song, and game which may be connected,
so far as is desirable, with the ideas involved in
the construction) seems better fitted than anything
else to secure these two factors-initiation in the
child's own impulse, and termination upon a higher
plane. It brings the child in contact with a great
variety of material: wood, tin, leather, yarn, &c.;
it supplies a motive for using these materials in
real ways instead of going through exercises having
no meaning except a remote symbolic one; it calls




AND THE CHILD


59


into play alertness of the senses and acuteness of
observation; it demands clear-cut imagery of the
ends to be accomplished, and requires ingenuity
and invention in planning; it makes necessary concentrated attention and personal responsibility in
execution, while the results are in such tangible
form that the child may be led to judge his own
work and improve his standards.
A word should be said regarding the psychology
of imitation and suggestion in relation to kindergarten work. There is no doubt that the little
child is highly imitative and open to suggestions;
there is no doubt that his crude powers and immature consciousness need to be continually enriched
and directed through these channels. But on this
account it is imperative to discriminate between
a use of imitation and suggestion which is so external as to be thoroughly non-psychological, and
a use which is justified through its organic relation
to the child's own activities. - As a general principle no activity should be originated by imitation.
The start must come from the child; the model or
copy may then be supplied in order to assist the
child in imaging more definitely what it is that he
really wants-in bringing him to consciousness.
Its value is not as model to copy in action, but as
guide to clearness and adequacy of conception.
Unless the child can get away from it to his own
imagery when it comes to execution, he is rendered




6o


THE SCHOOL


servile and dependent, not developed. Imitation
comes in to reinforce and help out, not to initiate.
There is no ground for holding that the teacher
should not suggest anything to the child until he
has consciously expressed a want in that direction.
A sympathetic teacher is quite likely to know more
clearly than the child himself what his own instincts are and mean. But the suggestion mustfit
in with the dominant mode of growth in the child;
it must serve simply as stimulus to bring forth
more adequately what the child is already blindly
striving to do. Only by watching the child and
seeing the attitude that he assumes towards suggestions can we tell whether they are operating as
factors in furthering the child's growth, or whether
they are external, arbitrary impositions interfering
with normal growth.
The same principle applies even more strongly
to so-called dictation work.  Nothing is more
absurd than to suppose that there is no middle
term between leaving a child to his own unguided
fancies and likes or controlling his activities by
a formal succession of dictated directions. As just
intimated, it is the teacher's business to know what
powers are striving for utterance at a given period
in the child's development, and what sorts of
activity will bring these to helpful expression, in
order then to supply the requisite stimuli and
needed materials.  The suggestion, for instance,




AND THE CHILD


6i


of a playhouse, the suggestion that comes from
seeing objects that have already been made to
furnish it, from seeing other children at work, is
quite sufficient definitely to direct the activities
of a normal child of five. Imitation and suggestion come in naturally and inevitably, but only
as instruments to help him carry out his own
wishes and ideas. They serve to make him realize,
to bring to consciousness, of what he already is
striving for in a vague, confused, and therefore
ineffective way.  From  the psychological standpoint it may safely be said that when a teacher
has to rely upon a series of dictated directions,
it is just because the child has no image of his
own of what is to be done or why if is to be done.
Instead, therefore, of gaining power of control
by conforming to directions, he is really losing
it-made dependent upon an external source.
In conclusion, it may be pointed out that both
the subject-matter and the method connect directly
with that of Group III, the six-year-old children.
The play reproduction of the home life passes
naturally on into a more extended and serious
study of the larger social occupations upon which
the home is dependent (see p. 72); while the continually increasing demands made upon the child's
own ability to plan and execute carry him over
into more controlled use of attention upon more
distinctively intellectual topics. It must not be




62     THE SCHOOL AND THE CHILD
forgotten that the readjustment needed to secure
continuity between "kindergarten" and "six year
old" work cannot be brought about wholly from
the side of the latter. The school change must be
as gradual and insensible as that in the growth of
the child. This is impossible unless the kindergarten 'work surrenders whatever isolates it, and
hospitably welcomes whatever materials and resources will keep pace with the full development
of the child's powers, and thus keep him always
prepared, ready for the next work he has to do.




No. II.-GROUP III
(AVERAGE AGE 6 YEARS)
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF WORK,
EDUCATIONALLY CONSIDERED
Little children have their observations and
thoughts mainly directed towards people: what
they do, how they behave, what they are occupied
with, and what comes of it. Their interest is of
a personal rather than of an objective or intellectual sort. Its intellectual counterpart is the storyform, not the task, consciously defined end, or
problem-meaning by story-form something psychical, the holding together of a variety of persons,
things, and incidents through a common idea that
enlists feeling; not an outward relation or tale.
Their minds seek wholes, varied through episode,
enlivened with action and defined in salient
features-there must be go, movement, the sense
of use and operation. Inspection of things must
not be separated from the idea by which they are
carried. Analysis of isolated detail of form and
structure neither appeals nor satisfies.
The material selected as the basis of this year's
study, existing social occupations, is designed to
meet and feed this attitude. The previous years
63




64


THE SCHOOL


the children have been concerned with the occupations of the home, and the contact of homes
with one another and with outside life. Now they
take up typical occupations of society at large-a
step further removed from the child's egoistic, selfabsorbed interest, and yet dealing with something
personal and something which touches him.
From the stand-point of educational theory, the
following features may be noted:i. The studv of natural objects, processes, and
relations is placed in a hunian setting. During
the year, a considerably detailed observation of
seeds and their growth, or plants, woods, stones,
animals, as to some phases of structure and habit,
of geographical conditions of landscape, climate,
arrangement of land and water, is undertaken.
The pedagogical problem is to direct the child's
power of observation, to nurture his sympathetic
interest in characteristic traits of the world in
which he lives, to afford interpreting material for
later more special studies, and yet to supply a
carrying medium for the variety of facts and ideas
through the dominant spontaneous emotions and
thoughts of the child. Hence their association
with human life.   Absolutely no separation is
made between the "social" side of the work (its
concern with people's activities and their mutual
dependencies) and the "science" (regard for
physical facts and forces)-because the conscious




AND THE CHILD                              65
distinction between man and nature is the result of
later reflection and abstraction, and to force it
upon the child here is not only to fail to engage
his whole mental energy, but to confuse and distract him. The environment is always that in
which life is situated and through which it is
circumstanced; and to isolate it, to make it with
little children an object of observation and remark
by itself, is to treat human nature inconsiderately.
At last, the original open and free attitude of the
mind to nature is destroyed; nature has been
reduced to a mass of meaningless details.
In its emphasis upon the "concrete" and
"individual", modern pedagogical theory often
loses sight of the fact that the existence and presentation of an individual physical thing, a stone,
an orange, a cat, is no guarantee of concretenessthat this last is a psychological affair, and appeals
to the mind as a whole, as a self-sufficient centre of
interest and attention. The reaction from this
external and somewhat dead stand-point often
assumes, however, that the needed clothing with
human significance can come only by direct personification, and we have that continued symbolization of a plant, cloud or rain which makes only
pseudo-science possible, which instead of generating love for nature itself, switches interest to
certain sensational and emotional accompaniments,
and leaves it, at last, dissipated and burnt out.
(B668)                           E




66


THE SCHOOL


And even the tendency to approach nature through
the medium of literature, the pine-tree through the
fable of the discontented pine, &c., while recognizing the need of the human association, fails
to note that there is a more straightforward road
from mind to the object-direct through connection with life itself; and that the poem and
story, the literary statement, have their place as
reinforcements and idealizations, not as foundationstones. What is wanted, in other words, is not to
fix up a connection of child mind and nature, but
to give free and effective play to the connection
already operating.
2. This suggests at once the practical questions
that are usually discussed under the name of
"correlation ", questions of such interaction of the
various matters studied and powers under acquisition as will avoid waste, and maintain unity of
mental growth. From the stand-point adopted the
problem is one of differentiation, rather than of
correlation as ordinarily understood. The unity of
life, as it presents itself to the child, binds together
and carries along the different occupations, the
diversity of plants, animals, and geographic conditions; drawing, modelling, games, constructive
work, numerical calculations are ways of carrying
certain features of it to mental and emotional satisfaction and completeness. Not much attention is
paid in this year to reading and writing; but it is




AND THE CHILD


67


obvious that if this were regarded as desirable, the
same principle would apply. It is the community
and continuity of the subject-matter that organizes,
that correlates; correlation is not through devices
of instruction which the teacher employs in tying
together things in themselves disconnected.
3. Two recognized demands of primary education are often, at present, not unified, or are even
opposed. The need of the familiar, the already
experienced, as a basis for moving upon the unknown and remote, is a commonplace. The claims
of the child's imagination as a factor is at least
beginning to be recognized. The problem is to
work these two forces together, instead of separately.
The child is too often given drill upon familiar
objects and ideas under the sanction of the first
principle, while he is introduced with equal directness to the weird, strange, and impossible to satisfy
the claims of the second. The result, it is hardly
too much to say, is a twofold failure. There is no
special connection between the unreal, the myth,
the fairy tale, and the play of mental imagery.
Imagination is not a matter of an impossible
subject-matter, but a constructive way of dealing
with any subject-matter, under the influence of a
pervading idea. The point is not to dwell with
wearisome iteration upon the familiar; and under
the guise of object-lessons to keep the senses
directed at material which they have already made




68


THE SCHOOL


acquaintance with; but to enliven and illumine the
ordinary, commonplace, and homely by using it
to build up and appreciate situations previously
unrealized and alien. And this also is culture of
imagination. Some writers appear to have the
impression that the child's imagination has outlet
only in myth and fairy tale of ancient time and
distant place, or in weaving egregious fabrications
regarding sun, moon, and stars; and have even
pleaded for a mythical investiture of all "science"
-as a way of satisfying the dominating imagination
of the child. But fortunately these things are exceptions, are intensifications, are relaxations of the
average child; not his pursuits. The John and
Jane that most of us know let their imaginations
play about the current and familiar contacts and
events of life-about father and mother and friend,
about steamboats and locomotives, and sheep and
cows, about the romance of farm and forest, of seashore and mountain. What is needed, in a word
is to afford occasion by which the child is moved
to educe and exchange with others his store of
experiences, his range of information, to make new
observations correcting and extending them in order
to keep his images moving, in order to find mental
rest and satisfaction in definite and vivid realization
of what is new and enlarging.
While, doubtless, there are many other subjects
which would meet these demands, it is found that




AND THE CHILD                                     69
the one in question, existing social occupations,
affords a sufficient answer to be worth following
out.
Note by the Editor.-The special occupations selected for
these children centred round the farm, and the products of
farm industry. Materials for Number Exercises, for Music,
Art Work, Shop-work, Cooking, and Sewing all came within
the field of activity.




No. III.-GROUP IV
(AVERAGE AGE 7 TO 7%)
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
OF INVENTIONS AND OCCUPATIONS
As what has been said about Group III, regarding imagination and experienced fact, regarding
correlation, and regarding the relation of the social
or human, and science or physical aspects of the
work, applies equally well here, it remains only to
note the traits which differentiate the work.
The work is taken up historically, with its factors
drawn out longitudinally, so to speak, instead of as
they are co-existent in current life.
i. This permits and requires greater definiteness,
corresponding to the gain of mental concentration
made in the year-greater abstractness, if the word
is used in the sense of an intentional simplification of existing experience, through elimination of
certain elements and emphasis of others, conducted
to bring out a special idea. For instance, farming,
as studied in the previous year, simply shows what
certain people do; what things they come in contact with, how they use them, and how the farmer
serves other people. The agricultural stage, taken
70




THE SCHOOL AND THE CHILD


7I


in historic perspective, while reviewing much of this
material, throws emphasis upon the peculiar needs
in man's life which call forth this occupation, and
the way in which it reacts upon the make-up of
society. In one case, the matter is taken up as a
situation to be realized; in the other as something
whose typical motive and effects are to be discovered and traced. The historical statement is
used, then, as a method of analysis of existing
social life, not as affording information about something past and gone-although it is found that the
children take in much of the material got together
by anthropologists.
2. The historic approach also requires attention
to the sequence and order of progress in its larger
and more obvious features; it brings into play ideas
o" causality, and of logical dependence, if these
terms are used not in an abstruse sense, but as
meaning imaginative consideration of the needs
ihat call forth one mode of occupation, the devices
and inventions that attach themselves, the way the
invention reacts upon life and calls into play new
powers, new modes of association, and leads to
dealing with natural objects and forces hitherto
unmastered. Orderly and cumulative narrative is,
indeed, logic in its concrete form, the form which
appeals to the child mind of this age.
3. This suggests the use which is made of the
interest in the primitive and savage, which so




72


THIE SCHOOL


many observers have noted as characteristic of
this period of childhood. The aim is to avoid a
mere excitation and indulgence of this interest,
through dwelling in an unrelated way upon sensational or picturesque features of it, without regard
to the motives lying behind them, the stimulus
given to further advance, or the ways in which men
have got out of savagery into civilization. The
effort is to lay hold of this interest in such a way
as to use it as a projective-to bring out its defects
as well as its dramatic incidents, to see how and
why men worked their way out of it. The literary
idealizations of such life-like Ab and Hiawathaare used not as the basis and end of the work, but
as means of developing and vivifying the personal
realization of some of its features. It should also
be noted that the use of material from primitive
life does not mean that it is supposed to have any
pre-ordained or exclusive value in reference to this
period of child-life. It is simply one of many
possible modes of approach, selected chiefly because its greater simplicity gives a means of analysing present life as indicated above.
4. The general principle mentioned, under Group
III, as to the human setting of observation of natural things, may be exemplified here with reference
to geography. During the previous year, there is
continuous incidental attention to natural features
in connection with modes of life, bringing up of




AND THE CHILD


73


different children's experiences of fields, woods,
hills, &c., observation of and comparison with the
children's own present surroundings. But in this
year, there is an imaginative abstraction and arrangement of these natural features, corresponding to
the selection and sequence already spoken of upon
the historical side. With each phase of industry,
attention is concentrated upon its natural habitatmountainous woods for hunting, &c., and as one
occupation succeeds to another, the children travel
in imagination till they find the locality especially
suitable. Meantime in their clay and sand maps
each new environment is added to those previously
brought up, until all the main features of physiographic structure have been both introduced and
placed in their relationships to one another. Thus
the child is left with a picture of a typical section
of the earth's surface, of the way in which its
various features, mountains, uplands, river valley,
and sea, connect with one another, and with the
activities of human life.
Note by the Editor.-The special occupations for this
Group are described as starting with "picnic and campingout experiences", in order to realize the evolution of occupations, including inventions and discoveries (nomadic, agricultural, metal-working).  Geography, Number, Reading
and Writing, Music, Art, Shop-work, Cooking, and Sewing
all found a place.




No. IV.-GROUPS V AND VI
(AVERAGE AGE 7 4 TO 8X)
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
In the general plan of the organization of the
school three periods of work are noticed, corresponding to three phases of child growth. The first
is that in which the child is taken up with direct
and outgoing activity, on the basis of the images
and emotions that possess his mind. There is
always physical, motor activity; and there is always
a story, drama, image-a mental whole. But the
two are not separate from each other. Acts are not
(to the child consciousness, I mean) means for realizing ideas; they are just their spontaneous overflow
and exhibition. The child's thoughts are not some_
thing to be realized; they are not projected in the
future as ends; they are the living meaning and
value that saturate whatever he does. Hence this
is called the play period; the whole bent is toward
acting out of images, thus giving them vividness
and a place in life.
The work of the first four years of the school
(from age four to eight) is based upon the working
theory that the child's attitude is predominantly of
this sort; and that it is premature to force upon him
74




THE SCHOOL AND THE CHILD


75


work whose essence, psychologically, is the separation of means and ends; the divorce of elements,
steps, and acts from some idea for the sake of
which they exist. Hence the relatively slight and
incidental attention to reading, writing, and number
during the sixth and seventh years, and the attempt
to introduce geography and science in a synthetic,
living, rather than analytic and morphological, way.
(See p. 39.) This is not because such things are
" hard " and the child ought to be amused; it is not
because the importance of forms and symbols in
civilization and in individual development are not
appreciated.  It is simply because the child's
psychical attitude at this time is less specialized
than such work demands; because the latter introduces a separation of acts and ideas which tends to
make the former conventional and mechanical, and
the latter remote and incomprehensible.
But, of course, it is not supposed that conscious
relating of means and ends is wholly absent in this
period, or that there is no need of anticipating the
later development. On the contrary, even with sixyear-old children consciousness dawns, of a certain
sort, of ends somewhat remote, and consequently
the child is interested in regulating his acts so as
to reach the end. In watching a group of six-yearold children playing "hide and coop ", I noticed
the following: About half of the children played
the game, i.e. they planned their movements to




76


THE SCHOOL


get to the goal first. The other half were carried
away with what they were immediately doing; if
the one who was "it" got to running away from
the goal, he kept on running, in spite of the fact
that others were making for the goal. Their present
activity was so immensely satisfying that it was impossible to check and guide it by some result to be
reached, even such a simple one as touching the
goal first.
But the fact that some did thus direct their acts
shows a change of attitude; it suggests that this
change comes more easily, and hence earlier, in
activities where the result is tangible and practical
than where it is intellectual and abstract. It arises,
for example, far more naturally in making a box,
which the child is interested in putting to some use,
or in cooking a cereal to be eaten at lunch, than in
learning to read or calculate for the sake of some
distant use. The active and constructive work of
the children of ages six and seven (Groups III and
IV) therefore includes activities which combine an
immediate appeal to the child as outlet of his
energy, with leading up, in an orderly way, to a
result ahead. It thus forms habits of working for
ends and of controlling present occupation so as,
by a sequence of steps, to accomplish something
beyond. These habits may be gradually transferred
to ends more consciously conceived and more remote.




AND THE CHILD


77


The eighth year seems to be markedly one of
such transition; with the average nine-year-old
there is evident dislike of attempting results to
which the means at command are felt to be inadequate. The child, for example, objects to the
kind of drawings formerly made with delight, because he sees them as results, and hence as crude
and even absurd, instead of just feeling them as
parts of his own present life. In the tenth year
there is often a conscious demand for "something
hard", something which will test and call out
power, efficiency in selection and adaptation of
means to ends.
Hence this is the period, in increasing measure,
of acquisition of skill, of " technique "-something,
of course, which applies to geography as well as
drawing, to cooking as well as music, to history as
well as reading. Its psychological reality is the
mental presentation of an end to be reached,
making it necessary to select-to analyse-the
required means (the elements, forms, symbols), and
then to follow regular order, method, "rules", in
using the means to get the result.
But in recognizing that this is the period of
technique, of getting facility, skill, in particular
directions, we must keep in mind certain fundamental principles. First, as already intimated, the
growth is gradual. It comes in reading before
in writing; in both before in numbers (this does




78


THE SCHOOL


not mean, of course, that the child may not with
great interest have used numbers, as distinct from
analysing them and learning the rules for their use),
and in all of these subjects before in science. It
may well be questioned whether one of the reasons
for the comparatively small success of science in
elementary education up to this time is not to be
found in premature emphasis upon the strictly
intellectual phases of it. Our experience proves
that children of eight and nine are interested in
experimental work in science; but it is not because
they first conceive certain problems and ideas, and
then regard the experiment as a way of solving the
problem or testing the theory. On the contrary,
such an interest hardly shows itself before the age
of thirteen or fourteen. They take hold of the
experimentation as they do of constructive work,
or cooking; it is the active performance of a series
of steps and seeing "what happens" at each step
that occupy their minds.   And the technical
interest in history and literature comes even later;
in such things the interest in the imagined and felt
totality, the story-form (see p. 63), lasts and resists
objective analysis longest.
Secondly, the interest in technique, in acquiring
skill, demands, in order not to lead to arrested
development, a sufficient background of actual
experience. Even if children of six and seven
were psychologically ready for analysis, for attention




AND THE CHILD


79


to form and symbols and rules, very few of them
have had the range of vital experience which
would make it profitable for them to devote themselves very exclusively to the former at the expense
of the latter. Hence, once more, attention must
still be directed to positive subject-matter that
enlarges and deepens their world of imagination
and thought, rather than to analysing an experience
they have not yet got, or learning rules for doing
things that make no personal appeal to them.
And, in the third place, the introduction to
technique must come in connection with ends that
arise within the children's own experience,l that are
present to them as desired ends, and hence as motives
to effort. The too frequent assumption is that it is
enough for the teacher to see the end; and that
because, as matter of fact, a child is going to need
a certain power, this is a sufficient basis upon
which to engage him in its acquisition. But the
prime psychological necessity is that the child see
and feel the end as his own end, the need as his
own need, and thus have a motive from within,
an inherent and impelling motive, for making the
analysis and mastering the "rules", i.e. methods of
procedure. This is possible only as the formal
work is kept in connection with active, with constructive, and expressive work, which, presenting
difficulties, suggests the need of acquiring an
1 Cf. page 40.




80      THE SCHOOL AND THE CHILD
effective method of coping with them. This is the
form which " correlation " takes at this period.
On account of these three principles, while the
aim of the instructor is in this period to bring the
child to the possession of certain powers, or skills,
(i) there is no abrupt transition; (2) the child
is still kept mainly occupied with positive subjectmatter and with direct, expressive, and constructive
activities in order to supply occasions for originating felt problems or difficulties, and motives for
solving them; and (3) the technical exercises are
selected from such material. Moreover, in order
that the circuit may be complete (4) additional
concrete material or occupation is supplied upon
or in which the child may use his newly-acquired
power and thus realize its value.
Note by the Editor. —In the curriculum of Group V may
be noted American Indians, and literature, geography, &c.,
connected with them; then Great Discoverers; Reading of
Robinson Crusoe; Practical Gardening; Physical Geography.
Group VI introduces Local History and Geography, and
especially Chicago; then on to other States and Colonies.
Science, Cooking, Shop-work, &c., all kept up and related
to human experience as imaged in the historical and geographical situations.




No. V.-GROUPS VII AND VIII
(AVERAGE AGE Io% AND II)
PSYCHOLOGY OF OCCUPATIONS
In the first and second numbers (pp. 48 and 63)
there was given some account of the mental attitude
of little children as expressed in the familiar terms of
play and imagination. In the third number (p. 70)
was a description of the change of attitude that
takes place when the child becomes conscious of
the distinction between means and ends, and of
the necessity of adjusting the former to the latter.
In this number I shall speak of the psychology which
controls the educational use of occupations.
By occupation is not meant any kind of "busy
work ", or exercises that may be given to a child in
order to keep him out of mischief or idleness when
seated at his desk. By occupation I mean a mode
of activity on the part of the child which reproduces, or runs parallel to, some form of work
carried on in social life. In the University Elementary School these occupations are represented
by the shop-work with wood and tools; by cooking,
sewing, and by the textile work.
The fundamental point in the psychology of
an occupation is that it maintains a balance be(B 668 )        81              F




82


THE SCHOOL


tween the intellectual and the practical phases of
experience.  As an occupation it is active or
motor; it finds expression through the physical
organs-the eyes, hands, &c. But it also involves
continual observation of materials, and continual
planning and reflection, in order that the practical
or executive side may be successfully carried on.
Occupation as thus conceived must, therefore, be
carefully distinguished from work which educates
primarily for a trade. It differs because its end is
in itself; in the growth that comes from the continual interplay of ideas and their embodiment in
action, not in external utility.
It is possible to carry on this type of work in
other than trade schools, so that the entire emphasis falls upon the manual or physical side.
In such cases the work is reduced to a mere
routine or custom, and its educational value is
lost. This is the inevitable tendency wherever,
in manual training, for instance, the mastery of
certain tools, or the production of certain objects,
is made the primary end, and the child is not
given, wherever possible, intellectual responsibility
for selecting the materials and instruments that
are most fit, and given an opportunity to think
out his own model and plan of work, led to
perceive his own errors, and find out how to
correct them-that is, of course, within the range
of his capacities. So far as the external result is




AND THE CHILD


83


held in view, rather than the mental and moral
states and growth involved in the process of
reaching the result, the work may be called
manual, but cannot rightly be termed an occupation.  Of course the tendency of all mere habit,
routine, or custom is to result in what is unconscious and mechanical.  That of occupation is
to put the maximum of consciousness into whatever is done.
This enables us to interpret the stress laid (a)
upon personal experimenting, planning, and re-inventing in connection with the textile work, and
(b) its parallelism with lines of historical development. The first requires the child to be mentally
quick and alert at every point in order that he may
do the outward work properly. The second enriches and deepens the work performed by saturating it with values suggested from the social life
which it recapitulates.
Occupations, so considered, furnish the ideal
occasions for both sense-training and discipline
in thought.  The weakness of ordinary lessons
in observation, calculated to train the senses, is
that they have no outlet beyond themselves, and
hence no necessary motive. Now, in the natural
life of the individual and the race there is always a
reason for sense-observation. There is always some
need, coming from an end to be reached, that
makes one look about to discover and discrimi



84


THE SCHOOL


nate whatever will assist him. Normal sensations
operate as clues, as aids, as stimuli, in directing
activity in what has to be done; they are not ends
in themselves.  Separated from  real needs and
motives, sense-training becomes a mere gymnastic
and easily degenerates into acquiring what are
hardly more than mere knacks or tricks in observation, or else mere excitement of the sense
organs.
The same principle applies in normal thinking.
It also does not occur for its own sake, nor end in
itself. It arises from the need of meeting some
difficulty, in reflecting upon the best way of overcoming it, and thus leads to planning, to projecting
mentally the result to be reached, and deciding
upon the steps necessary and their serial order.
This concrete logic of action long precedes the
logic of pure speculation or abstract investigation,
and through the mental habits that it forms is the
best of preparations for the latter.
Another educational point upon which the
psychology of occupations throws helpful light is
the place of interest in school work. One of the
objections regularly brought against giving in
school work any large or positive place to the
child's interest is the impossibility on such a basis
of proper selection. The child, it is said, has all
kinds of interests, good, bad, and indifferent. It
is necessary to decide between the interests that




AND THE CHILD


85


are really important and those that are trivial;
between those that are helpful and those that are
harmful; between those that are transitory or mark
immediate excitement, and those which endure
and are permanently influential. It would seem as
if we had to go beyond interest to get any basis for
using interest.
Now, there can be no doubt that occupationwork possesses a strong interest for the child. A
glance into any school where such work is carried
on will give sufficient evidence of this fact. Outside of the school, a large portion of the children's
plays are simply more or less miniature and haphazard attempts at reproducing social occupations.
There are certain reasons for believing that the
type of interest which springs up along with these
occupations is of a thoroughly healthy, permanent,
and really educative sort; and that by giving a
larger place to occupations we should secure an
excellent, perhaps the very best, way of making an
appeal to the child's spontaneous interest, and yet
have, at the same time, some guarantee that we are
not dealing with what is merely pleasure-giving, exciting, or transient.
In the first place, every interest grows out of
some instinct, or some habit that in turn is finally
based upon an original instinct. It does not follow
that all instincts are of equal value, or that we do
not inherit many instincts which need transforma



86


THE SCHOOL


tion, rather than satisfaction, in order to be useful
in life. But the instincts which find their conscious outlet and expression in occupation are
bound to be of an exceedingly fundamental and
permanent type.   The activities of life are of
necessity directed to bringing the materials and
forces of nature under the control of our purposes;
of making them tributary to ends of life. Men
have had to work in order to live. In and through
their work they have mastered nature, they have
protected and enriched the conditions of their own
life, they have been awakened to the sense of their
own powers-have been led to invent, to plan, and
to rejoice in the acquisition of skill. In a rough
way, all occupations may be classified as gathering
about man's fundamental relations to the world in
which he lives through getting food to maintain
life; securing clothing and shelter to protect and
ornament it, and thus, finally, to provide a permanent home in which all the higher and more
spiritual interests may centre. It is hardly unreasonable to suppose that interests which have
such a history behind them must be of the worthy
sort.
However, these interests as they develop in the
child not only recapitulate past important activities
of the race, but reproduce those of the child's
present environment. He continually sees his
elders engaged in such pursuits. He daily has to




AND THE CHILD


87


do with things which are the results of just such
occupations. He comes in contact with facts that
have no meaning, except in reference to them.
Take these things out of the present social life
and see how little would remain-and this not only
on the material side, but as regards intellectual,
asthetic, and moral activities, for these are largely
and necessarily bound up with occupations. The
child's instinctive interests in this direction are,
therefore, constantly reinforced by what he sees,
feels, and hears going on around him. Suggestions
along this line are continually coming to him;
motives are awakened; his energies are stirred to
action. Again, it is not unreasonable to suppose
that interests which are touched so constantly, and
on so many sides, belong to the worthy and enduring type.
In the third place, one of the objections made
against the principle of interest in education is that
it tends to disintegration of mental economy by
constantly stirring up the child in this way or
that, destroying continuity and thoroughness. But
an occupation, a textile occupation for example,
is of necessity a continuous thing.  It lasts not
only for days but for months and years.    It
represents, not a stirring of isolated and superficial
energies, but rather a steady, continuous organization of power along certain general lines. The same
is true, of course, of any other form of occupation,




88      THE SCHOOL AND THE CHILD
such as shop-work with tools, or as cooking.
The occupations articulate a vast variety of impulses, otherwise separate and spasmodic, into
a consistent skeleton with a firm backbone. It
may well be doubted whether, wholly apart from
some such regular and progressive modes of action,
extending as cores throughout the entire school, it
would be permanently safe to give the principle of
"interest " any large place in school-work.
Note by the Editor.-Group VII carried the History on
to the Revolutionary Period, and treated the Geography in
connection with commercial problems of colonial times. In
Textiles, Cotton-spinning was practised; in Number, Decimals and Percentage. French was commenced, &c. The
next Group commenced Latin and also Elementary Physics,
and in Number took up the Metric System.




No.. VI.-GROUPS IX AND X
(AVERAGE AGE 12 AND 13)
REFLECTIVE ATTENTION
With the development of reflective attention
come the need and the possibility of a change in
the mode of the child's instruction. In the second
number I spoke of the direct, spontaneous attitude
that marks the child till into his seventh year-his
demand for new experiences, and his desire to
complete his partial experiences by building up
images and expressing them in play. This attitude
is typical of what writers call spontaneous attention,
or, as some say, non-voluntary attention.
The child is simply absorbed in what he is doing;
the occupation in which he is engaged lays complete hold upon him. He gives himself without
reserve. Hence, while there is much energy spent,
there is no conscious effort; while the child is intent,
to the point of engrossment, there is no conscious
intention.
With the development of a sense of more remote
ends, and of the need of directing acts so as to
make them means for these ends (a matter discussed
in the third number), we have the transition to
what is termed indirect, or, as some writers prefer
89




90


THE SCHOOL


to say, voluntary, attention. A result is imaged,
and the child attends to what is before him or what
he is immediately doing, because it helps to secure
the result. Taken by itself, the object or the act
might be indifferent or even repulsive. But because it is felt to belong to something desirable
or valuable, it borrows the latter's attracting and
holding power.
This is the transition to "voluntary" attention,
but only the transition. The latter comes fully
into being only when the child entertains results in
the form of problems or questions, the solution of
which he is to seek for himself. In the intervening
stage (in the child from eight to, say, eleven or
twelve), while the child directs a series of intervening activities on the basis of some end he wishes to
reach, this end is something to be done or made,
or some tangible result to be reached; the problem
is a practical difficulty, rather than an intellectual
question. But with growing power, the child can
conceive of the end as something to be found out,
discovered; and can control his acts and images so
as to help in the enquiry and solution. This is
reflective attention proper.
It is illustrated in the studies and occupations of
Groups IX and X in this number-especially the
latter. In history work there is change from the story
and biography form, from discussion of questions
that arise, to the formulation of questions. Points




AND THE CHILD


91


about which difference of opinion is possible, matters
upon which experience, reflection, &c., can be
brought to bear, are always coming up in history.
But to use the discussion to develop this matter
of doubt and difference into a definite problem, to
bring the child to feel just what the difficulty is;
and then throw him upon his own resources in
looking up material bearing upon the point, and
upon his judgment in bringing it to bear, or getting
a solution, is a marked intellectual advance. So
in the science studies there is a change from the
practical attitude of making and using cameras
to the consideration of the problems intellectually
involved in this-to principles of light, angular
measurements, &c., which give the theory or explanation of the practice. In Latin there is the
change from hearing and reading stories, speaking
and writing answers upon certain points, to problems of inflection and syntax-bringing to light
the theoretical significance of matters already practically dealt with.
In general, this growth is a natural psychical
process. But the proper recognition and use of it
is perhaps the most serious problem in instruction
upon the intellectual side. A person who has
gained the power of reflective attention, the power
to hold problems, questions, before the mind, is
in so far, intellectually speaking, educated. He
has mental discipline-power of the mind andfor




92


THE SCHOOL


the mind. Without this the mind remains at the
mercy of custom and external suggestions. Some of
the difficulties may be barely indicated by referring
to an error that almost dominates instruction of
the usual type. Too often it is assumed that
attention can be given directly to any subjectmatter, if only the proper will or disposition be at
hand, failure being regarded as a sign of unwillingness or indocility. Lessons in arithmetic, geography, and grammar are put before the child, and
he is told to attend in order to learn.  But excepting as there is some question, some doubt, present
in the mind as a basis for this attention, reflective
attention  is impossible.  If there is sufficient
intrinsic interest in the material, there will be
direct or spontaneous attention, which is excellent
so far as it goes, but which barely of itself does not
give power of thought or internal mental control.
If there is not an inherent attracting power in the
material, then (according to his temperament and
training, and the precedents and expectations of
the school) the teacher will either attempt to surround the material with foreign attractiveness, making a bid or offering bribe for attention by " making
the lesson interesting";1 or else will resort to
counter-irritants (low marks, threats of non-promotion, staying after school, personal disapprobation,
expressed in a great variety of ways, naggings,
1 See p. 45 above.




AND THfE CHILD


3


continuous calling upon the child to "pay attention ", &c.); or, probably, will use some of both
means.
But (I) the attention thus gained is never more
than partial, or divided; and (2) it always remains
dependent upon something external-hence, when
the attraction ceases or the pressure lets up, there
is little or no gain in inner or intellectual control.
And (3) such attention is always for the sake of
"learning", i.e. memorizing ready-made answers
to possible questions to be put by another. True,
reflective attention, on the other hand, always involves judging, reasoning, deliberation; it means
that the child has a question of his own, and is
actively engaged in seeking and selecting relevant
material with which to answer it, considering the
bearings and relations of this material-the kind of
solution it calls for. The problem is one's own,
hence also the impetus, the stimulus to attention,
is one's own; hence also the training secured is
one's own —it is discipline, or gain in power of
control; that is, a habit of considering problems.
It is hardly too much to say that in the traditional
education so much stress has been laid upon the
presentation to the child of ready-made material
(books, object-lessons, teacher's talks, &c.), and the
child has been so almost exclusively held to bare
responsibility for reciting upon this ready-made
material, that there has been only accidental occa



94   THE SCHOOL AND THE CHILD


sion and motive for developing reflective attention.
Next to no consideration has been paid to the
fundamental necessity-leading the child to realize
a problem as his own, so that he is self-induced to
attend in order to find out its answer. So completely have the conditions for securing this selfputting of problems been neglected that the very
idea of voluntary attention has been radically perverted. It is regarded as measured by unwilling
effort-as activity called out by foreign and so
repulsive material under conditions of strain, instead
of as self-initiated effort.  "Voluntary" is treated
as meaning the reluctant and disagreeable instead
of the free, the self-directed, through personal
interest, insight, and power.
Here I have spoken only of the fundamental
nature of reflective attention-as depending upon
interest in a conscious problem. In a later number
I shall speak of the methods employed in the
school to secure this interest.
Note by the Editor.-The course of study for these Groups
does not seem to have been marked out in as great detail as
for the others; the ground covered in History is indicated in
the last paragraphs of the next Essay, No. VII. The method
of treatment was to provide an abundance of reading material
to assist in the solution of problems proposed for investigation. Latin, Art, Music, &c., continued. Science extended
to problems of Sanitation.




No. VII.-THE     AIM  OF HISTORY IN
ELEMENTARY EDUCATION
If history be regarded as just the record of the
past, it is hard to see any grounds for claiming that
it should play any large role in the curriculum
of elementary education. The past is the past,
and the dead may be safely left to bury its dead.
There are too many urgent demands in the present,
too many calls over the threshold of the future,
to permit the child to become deeply immersed
in what is forever gone by. Not so when history
is considered as an account of the forces and forms
of social life. Social life we have always with us;
the distinction of past and present is indifferent to
it. Whether it was lived just here or just there is
a matter of slight moment. It is life for all that;
it shows the motives which draw men together and
push them apart, and depicts what is desirable and
what is hurtful. Whatever history may be for the
scientific historian, for the educator it must be
an indirect sociology-a study of society which
lays bare its process of becoming and its modes
of organization. Existing society is both too
complex and too close to the child to be studied.
He finds no clues into its abyrinth of detail, and
95




96


THE SCHOOL


can mount no eminence whence to get a perspective of arrangement.
If the aim of historical instruction is to enable
the child to appreciate the values of social life,
to see in imagination the forces which favour and
let men's effective co-operation with one another,
to understand the sorts of character that help
on and that hold back, the essential thing in its
presentation is to make it moving, dynamic.
History must be presented not as an accumulation
of results or effects, a mere statement of what
happened, but as a forceful, acting thing. The
motives-that is, the motors, must stand out. To
study history is not to amass information, but to
use information in constructing a vivid picture
of how and why men did thus and so, achieved
their successes and came to their failures.
When history is conceived as dynamic, as
moving, its economic and industrial aspects are
emphasized. These are but technical terms which
express the problem with which humanity is unceasingly engaged; how to live, how to master and
use nature so as to make it tributary to the enrichment of human life. The great advances in
civilization have come through those manifestations
of intelligence which have lifted man from his
precarious subjection to nature, and revealed to
him how he may make its forces co-operate with
his own purposes. The social world in which the




AND THE CHILD


97


child now lives is so rich and full that it is not easy
to see how much it cost, how much effort and
thought lie back of it. Man has a tremendous
equipment ready at hand. The child may be led
to translate these ready-made resources into fluid
terms; he may be led to see man face to face with
nature, without inherited capital, without tools,
without manufactured materials.  And, step by
step, he may follow the processes by which man
recognized the needs of his situation, thought out
the weapons and instruments that enable him
to cope with them; and may learn how these new
resources opened new horizons of growth and
created new problems. The industrial history
of man is not a materialistic or merely utilitarian
affair. It is a matter of intelligence. Its record is
the record of how man learned to think, to think
to some effect, to transform the conditions of life
so that life itself became a different thing. It is an
ethical record as well; the account of the conditions which men have patiently wrought out
to serve their ends.
The question of how human beings live, indeed,
represents the dominant interest with which the
child approaches historic material. It is this point
of view which brings those who worked in the past
close to the beings with whom he is daily associated,
and confers upon him the gift of sympathetic penetration.
(B668)                            G




98


THIE SCHOOL


The child who is interested in the way in which
men lived, the tools they had to do with, the new
inventions they made, the transformations of life
that arose from the power and leisure thus gained,
is eager to repeat like processes in his own action,
to remake utensils, to reproduce processes, to rehandle materials.  Since he understands their
problems and their successes only by seeing what
obstacles and what resources they had from nature,
the child is interested in field and forest, ocean and
mountain, plant and animal. By building up a
conception of the natural environment in which
lived the people he is studying, he gets his hold
upon their lives. This reproduction he cannot
make excepting as he gains acquaintance with the
natural forces and forms with which he is himself
surrounded. The interest in history gives a more
human colouring, a wider significance, to his own
study of nature. His knowledge of nature lends
point and accuracy to his study of history. This
is the natural "correlation" of history and science.
This same end, a deepening appreciation of
social life, decides the place of the biographic
element in historical instruction. That historical
material appeals to the child most completely and
vividly when presented in individual form, when
summed up in the lives and deeds of some heroic
character, there can be no doubt. Yet it is possible to use biographies so that they become a




AND THE CHILD


99


collection of mere stories, interesting, possibly, to
the point of sensationalism, but yet bringing the
child no nearer to comprehension of social life.
This happens when the individual who is the hero
of the tale is isolated from his social environment;
when the child is not brought to feel the social
situations which evoked his acts and the social
progress to which his deeds contributed. If biography is presented as a dramatic summary of social
needs and achievements, if the child's imagination pictures the social defects and problems that
clamoured for the man and the ways in which
the individual met the emergency, then the biography is an organ of social study.
A consciousness of the social aim of history
prevents any tendency to swamp history in myth,
fairy story, and merely literary renderings.  I
cannot avoid the feeling that much as the Herbartian school has done to enrich the elementary
curriculum in the direction of history, it has often
inverted the true relationship existing between
history and literature. In a certain sense the motif
of American colonial history and of De Foe's
Robinson Crusoe are the same.  Both represent
man who has achieved civilization, who has attained a certain maturity of thought, who has
developed ideals and means of action; but suddenly thrown back upon his own resources, having
to cope with a raw and often hostile nature, and to




o00


THE SCHOOL


regain success by sheer intelligence, energy, and
persistence of character.  But when Robinson
Crusoe supplies the material for the curriculum of
the third- or fourth-grade child, are we not putting
the cart before the horse? Why not give the child
the reality with its much larger sweep, its intenser
forces, its more vivid and lasting value for life,
using the Robinson Crusoe as an imaginative
idealization in a particular case of the same sort of
problems and activities? Again, whatever may be
the worth of the study of savage life in general,
and of the North American Indians in particular,
why should that be approached circuitously through
the medium of Hiawatha instead of at first hand?
employing, indeed, the poem to furnish the
idealized and culminating touches to a series of
conditions and struggles which the child has previously realized in more specific form. Either the
life of the Indian presents some permanent questions
and factors in social life, or it has next to no place
in a scheme of instruction. If it has such a value,
this should be made to stand out on its own account, instead of being lost in the very refinement
and beauty of a purely literary presentation.
The same end, the understanding of character
and social relations in their natural dependence,
enables us, I think, to decide upon the importance
to be attached to chronological order in historical
instruction. Considerable stress has of late been




AND THE CHILDD


IOI


laid upon the supposed necessity of following the
development of civilization through the successive
steps in which it actually took place-beginning
with the valleys of the Euphrates and the Nile,
and coming on down through Greece, Rome, &c.
The point urged is that the present depends upon
the past, and each phase of the past upon a prior
past.
We are here introduced to a conflict between
the logical and psychological interpretation of
history. If the aim be an appreciation of what
social life is and how it goes on, then, certainly,
the child must deal with what is near in spirit, not
with the remote.  The difficulty with the Babylonian or Egyptian life is not so much its remoteness in time, as its remoteness from the
present interests and aims of social life. It does
not simplify enough and it does not generalize
enough; or, at least, it does not do so in the right
way. It does it by omission of what is significant
now, rather than by presenting these factors
arranged on a lower scale. Its salient features are
hard to get at and to understand, even by the
specialist. It undoubtedly presents factors which
contributed to later life, and which modified the
course of events in the stream of time. But the
child has not arrived at a point where he can
appreciate abstract causes and specialized contributions. What he needs is a picture of typical




102


THE SCHOOL


relations, conditions, and activities.  In this respect, there is much of prehistoric life which is
much closer to him than the complicated and
artificial life of Babylon or of Egypt.  When a
child is capable of appreciating institutions, he
is capable of seeing what special institutional idea
each historic nation stands for, and what factor
it has contributed to the present complex of institutions. But this period arrives only when the
child is beginning to be capable of abstracting
causes in other realms as well; in other words,
when he is approaching the time of secondary
education.
The principle stated, together with the applications indicated to industrial history, to biography
and story, and to chronological sequence, will explain, in a general way, the programme of historical
study adopted in Groups IV to X. In this general
scheme three periods or phases are recognized:
first comes the generalized and simplified historyhistory which is hardly history at all in the local or
chronological sense, but which aims at giving the
child insight into, and sympathy with, a variety of
social activities. This period includes the work of
the six-year-old children in studying typical occupations of people in the country and city at present;
of the seven-year-old children in working out the
evolution of inventions and their effect upon life;
and of the eight-year-old children in dealing with




AND THE CHILD


103


the great movements of migration, exploration, and
discovery which have brought the whole round
world into human ken. The work of the first two
years is evidently quite independent of any particular people or any particular person-that is, of
historical data in the strict sense of the term. At
the same time, plenty of scope is provided through
dramatization for the introduction of the individual
factor. The account of the great explorers and
the discoverers serves to make the transition to
what is local and specific, that which depends upon
certain specified persons who lived at certain specified places and times.
This introduces us to the second period, where
local conditions and the definite activities of particular bodies of people become prominent-corresponding to the child's growth in power of dealing
with limited and positive fact. Since Chicago,
since the United States, are localities with which
the child can, by the nature of the case, most
effectively deal, the material of the next three
years is derived directly and indirectly from this
source. Here, again, the third year is a transitional
year, taking up the connections of American life
with European. By this time the child should be
ready to deal not with social life in general, or even
with the social life with which he is most familiar,
but with certain thoroughly differentiated and, so
to speak, peculiar types of social life; with the




104    THE SCHOOL AND THE CHILD
special significance of each and the particular contribution it has made to the whole world history.
Accordingly, in the next period the chronological
order is followed, beginning with the ancient world
about the Mediterranean and coming down again
through European history to the peculiar and
differentiating factors of American history.
The programme is not presented as the only one
meeting the problem, but as a contribution, the
outcome not of thought but of considerable experimenting and shifting of subjects from year to
year, to the problem of giving material which takes
vital hold upon the child; and at the same time
leads on, step by step, to more thorough and accurate knowledge of both the principles and facts
of social life, and makes a preparation for later
specialized historic studies.




No. VIII.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF
THE ELEMENTARY CURRICULUM
(AND THE UNIVERSITY AS A
PLACE FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION)
As the current number closes the present series
of monographs relating to the work of the Elementary School, a statement of the principles
underlying its work may be in place. The present
month' happens also to end the fifth year of the
school's existence, if further justification for the
statement be required.
Naturally, most of the public is interested in
what goes on day by day in a school in direct
relation to the children there. This is true of
parents who send their boys and girls for the sake
of the personal results they wish to secure, not for
the sake of contributing to educational theory. In
the main, it is true of visitors to a school who
recognize, in varying degrees, what is actually done
with the children before their eyes, but who rarely
have either the interest or time to consider the work
in relation to underlying problems. A school cannot
lose sight of this aspect of its work, since only by
December, 1900oo.
105




io6


THE SCHOOL


attending to it can the school retain the confidence
of its patrons and the presence of its pupils.
Nevertheless a school conducted by a department
of a university must have another aspect. From
the university stand-point, the most important part
of its work is the scientific-the contribution it
makes to the progress of educational thinking.
The aim of educating a certain number of children
would hardly justify a university in departing from
the tradition which limits it to those who have completed their secondary instruction. Only the scientific aim, the conduct of a laboratory, comparable
to other scientific laboratories, can furnish a reason
for the maintenance by a university of an elementary
school.
But since this phase is likely to be the last to
show itself to the ordinary observer, since it is the
most difficult to understand, there is ground for
setting forth this university aspect of the work done
in the elementary school of the University of Chicago. But most generally, the school is a laboratory
of applied psychology. That is, it has a place for
the study of mind as manifested and developed in
the child, and for the search after materials and
agencies that seem most likely to fulfil and further
the conditions of normal growth.
It is not a normal school or a department for the
training of teachers. It is not a model school. It
is not intended to demonstrate any one special idea




AND TH-E CHILD


1o7


or doctrine. Its task is the problem of viewing the
education of the child in the light of the principles
of mental activity and processes of growth made
known by modern psychology. The problem by its
nature is an infinite one. All that any school can
do is to make contributions here and there, and to
stand for the necessity of considering education,
both theoretically and practically, in this light. This
being the end, the school conditions must, of
course, agree. To endeavour to study the process
and laws of growth under such artificial conditions
as prevent many of the chief facts of child life
from showing themselves, is an obvious absurdity.
In its practical aspect, this laboratory problem
takes the form of the construction of a course of
study which harmonizes with the natural history of
the growth of the child in capacity and experience.
The question is the selection of the kind, variety,
and due proportion of subjects, answering most
definitely to the dominant needs and powers of a
given period of growth, and of those modes of
presentation that will cause the selected material to
enter vitally into growth. We cannot admit too
fully or too freely the limits of our knowledge and
the depths of our ignorance in these matters. No
one has a complete hold scientifically upon the
chief psychological facts of any one year of child
life. It would be sheer presumption to claim that
just the material best fitted to promote this growth




to8


THE SCHOOL


has as yet been discovered. The assumption of an
educational laboratory is rather that enough is
known of the conditions and modes of growth to
make intelligent enquiry possible; and that it is
only by acting upon what is already known that
more can be found out. The chief point is such
experimentation as will add to our reasonable convictions. The demand is to secure arrangements
that will permit and encourage freedom of investigation; that will give some assurance that important
facts will not be forced out of sight; conditions that
will enable the educational practice indicated by
the enquiry to be sincerely acted upon, without the
distortion and suppression arising from undue
dependence upon tradition  and  preconceived
notions. It is in this sense that the school would
be an experimental station in education.
What, then, are the chief working hypotheses
that have been adopted from psychology? What
educational counterparts have been hit upon as in
some degree in line with the adopted psychology?
The discussion of these questions may be
approached by pointing out a contrast between
contemporary psychology and the psychology of
former days. The contrast is a triple one. Earlier
psychology regarded mind as a purely individual
affair in direct and naked contact with an external
world. The only question asked was of the ways
in which the world and the mind acted upon each




AND THE CHILD


I9og


other. The entire process recognized would have
been in theory exactly the same if there were one
mind living alone in the universe. At present the
tendency is to conceive individual mind as a function of social life-as not capable of operating or
developing by itself, but as requiring continual
stimulus from social agencies, and finding its nutrition in,social supplies. The idea of heredity has
made familiar the notion that the equipment of the
individual, mental as well as physical, is an inheritance from the race: a capital inherited by the
individual from the past and held in trust by him
for the future. The idea of evolution has made
familiar the notion that mind cannot be regarded
as an individual monopolistic possession, but
represents the outworkings of the endeavour and
thought of humanity; that it is developed in an
environment which is social as well as physical, and
that social needs and aims have been most potent
in shaping it-that the chief difference between
savagery and civilization is not in the naked nature
which each faces, but the social heredity and social
medium.
Studies of childhood have made it equally apparent that this socially acquired inheritance
operates in the individual only,,under present social
stimuli. Nature must indeed furnish its physical
stimuli of light, sound, heat, &c., but the significance attaching to these, the interpretation made




IIO


THE SCHOOL


of them, depends upon the way in which the society
in which the child lives, acts, and reacts in reference
to them. The bare physical stimulus of light is not
the entire reality; the interpretation given to it
through social activities and thinking confers upon
it its wealth of meaning. It is through imitation,
suggestion, direct instruction, and even more indirect unconscious tuition, that the child learns to
estimate and treat the bare physical stimuli.  It is
through the social agencies that he recapitulates in
a few short years the progress which it has taken
the race slow centuries to work out.
Educational practice has exhibited an unconscious
adaptation to and harmony with the prevailing psychology; both grew out of the same soil. Just as
mind was supposed to get its filling by direct contact with the world, so all the needs of instruction
were thought to be met by bringing the child-mind
into direct relation with various bodies of external
fact labelled geography, arithmetic, grammar, &c.
That these classified sets of facts were simply
selections from the social life of the past was overlooked; equally so that they had been generated
out of social situations and represented the answers
found for social needs. No social element was
found in the subject-matter nor in the intrinsic
appeal which it made to the child; it was located
wholly outside in the teacher-in the encouragements, admonitions, urgings, and devices of the




AND THE CHILD


II!


instructor in getting the child's mind to work upon
a material which in itself was only accidentally
lighted up by any social gleam. It was forgotten
that the maximum appeal, and the full meaning in
the life of the child, could be secured only when
the studies were presented not as bare external
studies, but from the stand-point of the relation they
bear to the life of society. It was forgotten that to
become integral parts of the child's conduct and
character they must be assimilated not as mere
items -of information, but as organic parts of his
present needs and aims-which in turn are social.
In the second place, the older psychology was
a psychology of knowledge, of intellect. Emotion
and endeavour occupied but an incidental and
derivative place. Much was said about sensations
-next to nothing about movements. There was
discussion of ideas and of whether they originated
in sensations or in some innate mental faculty; but
the possibility of their origin in and from the needs
of action was ignored. Their influence upon conduct, upon behaviour, was regarded as an external
attachment. Now we believe (to use the words of
Mr. James) that the intellect, the sphere of sensations and ideas, is but a "middle department
which we sometimes take to be final, failing to see,
amidst the monstrous diversity of the length and
complications of the cogitations which may fill it,
that it can have but one essential function-the




112


THE SCHOOL


function of defining the direction which our
activity, immediate or remote, shall take ".
Here also was a pre-established harmony between
educational practice and psychological theory.
Knowledge in the schools was isolated and made
an end in itself. Facts, laws, information, have
been the staple of the curriculum. The controversy in educational" theory and practice was between those who relied more upon the sense
element in knowledge, upon contact with things,
upon object-lessons, &c., and those who emphasized abstract ideas, generalizations, &c.-reason,
so-called, but in reality other people's ideas as
formulated in books. In neither case was there
any attempt to connect either the sense training
or the logical operations with the problems and
interests of the life of practice. Here again an
educational transformation is indicated if we are
to suppose that our psychological theories stand
for any truths of life.
The third point of contrast lies in the modern
conception of the mind as essentially a process-a
process of growth, not a fixed thing. According
to the older view mind was mind, and that was
the whole story. Mind was the same throughout,
because fitted out with the same assortment of
faculties whether in child or adult. If any difference was made it was simply that some of these
ready-made faculties-such as memory-came into




AND THE CHI~LD


113


play at an earlier time, while others, such as judging
and inferring, made their appearance only after the
child, through memorizing drills, had been reduced
to complete dependence upon the thought of others.
The only important difference that was recognized
was one of quantity, of amount. The boy was a
little man and his mind was a little mind-in everything but size the same as that of the adult, having
its own ready-furnished equipment of faculties of
attention, memory, &c. Now we believe in the
mind as a growing affair, and hence as essentially
changing, presenting distinctive phases of capacity
and interest at different periods. These are all
one and the same in the sense of continuity of
life, but all different in that each has its own distinctive claims and offices. "First the blade, then
the ear, and then the full corn in the ear."
It is hardly possible to overstate the agreement
of education and psychology at this point. The
course of study was thoroughly,T even if unconsciously, controlled by the assumption that since
mind and its faculties are the same throughout, the
subject-matter of the adult, logically-arranged facts
and principles, is the natural "study" of the child
-simplified and made easier of course, since the
wind must be tempered to the shorn lamb. The
outcome was the, traditional course of study in
which again child and adult minds are absolutely
identified, except as regards the mere matter of
(B668)                           H




I14


THE SCHOOL


amount or quantity of power. The entire range of
the universe is first subdivided into sections called
studies; then each one of these studies is broken
up into bits, and some one bit assigned to a certain
year of the course. No order of development was
recognized-it was enough that the earlier parts
were made easier than the later. To use the
pertinent illustration of Mr. Jackman in stating
the absurdity of this sort of curriculum: " It must
seem to geography teachers that Heaven smiled on
them when it ordained but four or five continents,
because starting in far enough along the course it
was so easy, that it really seemed to be natural, to
give one continent to each grade, and then come
out right in the eight years."
If once more we are in earnest with the idea of
mind as growth, this growth carrying with it typical
features distinctive of its various stages, it is clear
that an educational transformation is again indicated. It is clear that the selection and grading
of material in the course of study must be done
with reference to proper nutrition of the dominant
directions of activity in a given period, not with
reference to chopped-up sections of a ready-made
universe of knowledge.
It is, of course, comparatively easy to lay down
general propositions like the foregoing; easy to use
them to criticise existing school conditions; easy
by means of them to urge the necessity of some



AND THE CHILD


I5s


thing different. But art is long. The difficulty is
in carrying such conceptions into effect-in seeing
just what materials and methods, in what proportion and arrangement, are available and helpful
at a given time. Here again we must fall back
upon the idea of the laboratory. There is no
answer in advance to such questions as these.
Tradition does not give it, because tradition is
founded upon a radically different psychology.
Mere reasoning cannot give it, because it is a
question of fact. It is only by trying that such
things can be found out. To refuse to try, to stick
blindly to tradition, because the search for the
truth involves experimentation in the region of the
unknown, is to refuse the only step which can
introduce rational conviction into education.
Hence the following statement simply reports
various lines of enquiry started during the last five
years, with some of the results more recently indicated. These results can, of course, make no claim
to be other than tentative, excepting in so far as a
more definite consciousness of what the problems
are, clearing the way for more intelligent action in
the future, is a definitive advance. It should also be
stated that practically it has not as yet been possible,
in many cases, to act adequately upon the best ideas
obtained, because of administrative difficulties, due
to lack of funds-difficulties centring in the lack
of a proper building and appliances, and in inability




11


THE SCHOOL


to pay the amounts necessary to secure the complete time of teachers in some important lines.
Indeed, with the growth of the school in numbers,
and in \the age and maturity of pupils, it is
becoming a grave question how long it is fair to
the experiment to carry it on without more adequate facilities.
In coming now to speak of the educational
answers which have been sought for the psychological hypotheses, it is convenient to start from
the matter of the stages of growth. The first stage
(found in the child, say, of from four to eight years
of age) is characterized by directness of social and
personal interests, and by directness and promptness of relationship between impressions, ideas, and
action. The demand for a motor outlet for expression is urgent and immediate.  Hence the
subject-matter for these years is selected from
phases of life entering into the child's own social
surroundings, and, as far as may be, capable of
reproduction by him in something approaching
social form-in play, games, occupations, or
miniature industrial arts, stories, pictorial imagination, and conversation. At first the material is
such as lies nearest the child himself, the family
life and its neighbourhood setting; it then goes on
to something slightly more remote, social occupations (especially those having to do with the
interdependence of city and country life), and then




AND THE CHILD


117


extends itself to the historical evolution of typical
occupations and of the social forms connected with
them. The material is not presented as lessons, as
something to be learned, but rather as something
to be taken up into the child's own experience,
through his own activities, in weaving, cooking,
shop-work, modelling, dramatic plays, conversation,
discussion, story-telling, &c. These in turn are
direct agencies. They are forms of motor or expressive activity. They are emphasized so as to
dominate the school programme, in order that the
intimate connection between knowing and doing,
so characteristic of this period of child life, may be
maintained. The aim, then, is not for the child to
go to school as a place apart, but rather in the
school so to recapitulate typical phases of his
experience outside of school, as to enlarge, enrich,
and gradually formulate it.l
In the second period, extending from eight or
nine to eleven or twelve, the aim is to recognize
and respond to the change which comes into the
child from his growing sense of the possibility
of more permanent and objective results, and of
the necessity for the control of agencies for the
skill necessary to reach these results. When the
child recognizes distinct and enduring ends which
stand out and demand attention on their own
account, the previous vague and fluid unity of
1 See pp. 64-74 above.




I8$


THE SCHOOL


life is broken up (see p. 90). The mere play of
activity no longer directly satisfies. It must be felt
to accomplish something-to lead up to a definite
and abiding outcome. Hence the recognition of
rules of action-that is, of regular means appropriate to reaching permanent results-and of the
value of mastering special processes so as to give
skill in their use.
Hence, on the educational side, the problem is,
as regards the subject-matter, to differentiate the
vague unity of experience into characteristic typical
phases, selecting such as clearly illustrate the importance to mankind of command over specific
agencies and methods of thought and action in
realizing its highest aims. The problem on the
side of method is an analogous one: to bring
the child to recognize the necessity of a similar
development within himself-the need of securing
for himself practical and intellectual control of
such methods of work and enquiry as will enable
him to realize results for himself.
On the more direct social side, American history
(especially that of the period of colonization) is
selected as furnishing a typical example of patience,
courage, ingenuity, and continual judgment in
adapting means to ends, even in the face of great
hazard and obstacle; while the material itself is
so definite. vivid, and human as to come directly
within the range of the child's representative and




AND THE CHILD


I19


constructive imagination, and thus becomes, vicariously at least, a part of his own expanding
consciousness.  Since the aim is not "covering
the ground", but knowledge of social processes
used to secure social results, no attempt is made
to go over the entire history, in chronological
order, of America.  Rather a series-of types is
taken up: Chicago and the north-western Mississippi valley; Virginia, New York, and the
"Puritans and Pilgrims in New England.   The
aim is to present a variety of climatic and local
conditions, to show the different sorts of obstacles
and helps that people found, and a variety of
historic traditions, and customs, and purposes of
different people.
The method involves presentation of a large
amount of detail, of minutiae of surroundings, tools,
clothing, household utensils, foods, modes of living
day by day, so that the child can reproduce the
material as life, not as mere historic information.
In this way, social processes and results become
realities. Moreover, to the personal and dramatic
identification of the child with the social life
studied, characteristic of the earlier period, there
now supervenes an intellectual identification-the
child puts himself at the stand-point of the problems that had to be met, and rediscovers, so far
as may be, ways of meeting them.
The general stand-point-the adaptation of means




I20


THE SCHOOL


to ends-controls also the work in science. For
purposes of convenience, this may be regarded as
now differentiated into two sides-the geographical
and the experimental. Since, as just stated, the
history work depends upon an appreciation of the
natural environment as affording resources and
presenting urgent problems, considerable attention
is paid to the physiography, mountains, rivers,
plains, and lines of natural travel and exchange,
flora and fauna of each of the colonies. This is
connected with field excursions in order that the
child may be able to supply from observation, as
far as possible, the data to be used by constructive
imagination in reproducing more remote environments.
The experimental side devotes itself to a study
of processes which yield typical results of value to
men.   The activity of the child in the- earlier
period is directly productive, rather than investigative. His experiments are modes of active doing
-almost as much so as his play and games.
Later he tries to find out how various materials or
agencies are manipulated in order to give certain
results. It is thus clearly distinguished from experimentation in the scientific sense-such as is
appropriate to the secondary period-where the
aim is the discovery of facts and verification of
principles. Since the practical interest predolninates, it is a study of applied science rather than




A~ND THE CHIILD


121


of pure science.   For instance, processes are
selected found to have been of importance in
colonial life-bleaching, dyeing, soap and candlemaking, manufacture of pewter dishes, making of
cider and vinegar, leading to some study of
chemical agencies, of oils, fats, elementary metallurgy. "Physics" is commenced from the same
applied stand-point. A study is made of the use
and transfer of energy in the spinning-wheel and
looms; everyday uses of mechanical principles
are taken up-in locks, scales, &c., going on later
to electric appliances and devices-bells, the telegraph, &c.
The relation of means to ends is emphasized
also in other lines of work. In art, attention is
given to practical questions of perspective, of
proportion of spaces and masses, balance, effect
of colour combinations and contrasts, &c. In
cooking, the principles of food-composition and
of effects of various agencies upon these elements
are taken up, so that the children may deduce,
as far as possible, their own rules. In sewing,
methods of cutting, fitting (as applied to dolls'
clothing) come up, and later on the technical
sequence of stitches, &c.
It is clear that with the increasing differentiation
of lines of work and interest, leading to greater
individuality and independence in various studies,
great care must be taken to find the balance be



122


THE SCHOOL


tween, on one side, undue separation and isolation,
and on the other, a miscellaneous and casual attention to a large number of topics, without adequate
emphasis and distinctiveness to any. The first
principle makes work mechanical and formal,
divorces it from the life-experience of the child, and
from effective influence upon conduct. The second
makes it scrappy and vague, and leaves the child
without definite command of his own powers, or
clear consciousness of purposes. It is perhaps
only in the present year that the specific principle
of the conscious relation of means to ends has
emerged as the unifying principle of this period;
and it is hoped that emphasis of this in all lines of
work will have a decidedly cumulative and unifying
effect upon the child's development.
Nothing has been said, as yet, of one of the most
important agencies or means in extending and controlling experience-command of the social or conventional symbols-symbols of language, including
those of quantity. The importance of these instrumentalities is so great that the traditional or three
R's curriculum is based upon them-from sixty to
eighty per cent of the time programme of the first
four or five years of elementary schools being devoted to them, the smaller figure representing
selected rather than average schools.
These subjects are social in a double sense.
They represent the tools which society has evolved




AND THEE CHILD


123


in the past as the instruments of its intellectual
pursuits. They represent the keys which will
unlock to the child the wealth of social capital /
which lies beyond the possible range of his limited
individual experience. While these two points of
view must always give these arts a highly important place in education, they also make it necessary
that certain conditions should be observed in their
introduction and use. In a wholesale and direct
application of the studies no account is taken of
these conditions. The chief problem at present
relating to the three R's is recognition of these
conditions and the adaptation of work to them.
The conditions may be reduced to two: (i) The
need that the child shall have in his own personal
and vital experience a varied background of contact and acquaintance with realities, social and
physical. This is necessary to prevent symbols
from becoming a purely second-handed and conventional substitute for reality. (2) The need that
the more ordinary, direct, and personal experience
of the child shall furnish problems, motives, and
interests that necessitate recourse to books for their
solution, satisfaction, and pursuit. Otherwise, the
child approaches the book without intellectual
hunger, without alertness, without a questioning
attitude, and the result is the one so deplorably
common: such abject dependence upon books as
weakens and cripples vigour of thought and enquiry,




124


THE SCHOOL


combined with reading for mere random stimulation
of fancy, emotional indulgence, and flight from the
world of reality into a make-belief land.
The problem here is then (I) to furnish the
child with a sufficiently large amount of personal
activity, in occupations, expression, conversation,
construction, and experimentation, so that his
individuality, moral and intellectual, shall not be
swamped by a disproportionate amount of the experience of others to which books introduce him;
and (2) SO to conduct this more direct experience
as to make the child feel the need of resort to and
command of the traditional social tools-furnish
him with motives and make his recourse to them
intelligent, an addition to his powers, instead of
a servile dependency. When this problem shall
be solved, work in language, literature, and number
will not be a combination of mechanical drill,
formal analysis, and appeal, even if unconscious,
to sensational interests; and there will not be the
slightest reason to fear that books and all that
relates to them will not take the important place to
which they are entitled.
It is hardly necessary to say that the problem
is not yet solved. The common complaints that
children's progress in these traditional school studies
is sacrificed to the newer subjects that have come
into the curriculum is sufficient evidence that the
exact balance is not yet struck. The experience thus




AND THE CHILD


125


far in the school, even if not demonstrative, indicates
the following probable results: (I) The more direct
modes of activity, constructive, and occupation
work, scientific observation, experimentation, &c.,
present plenty of opportunities and occasions for
the necessary use of reading, writing (and spelling),
and number work. These things may be introduced,
then, not as isolated studies, but as organic outgrowths of the child's experience. The problem is,
in a systematic and progressive way, to take advantage of these occasions. (2) The additional vitality
and meaning which these studies thus secure make
possible a very considerable reduction of the time
ordinarily devoted to them. (3) The final use of the
symbols, whether in reading, calculation, or composition, is more intelligent, less mechanical; more
active, less passively receptive; more an increase of
power, less a mere mode of enjoyment.
On the other hand, increasing experience seems
to make clear the following points: (i) That it is
possible, in the early years, to appeal, in teaching
the recognition and use of symbols, to the child's
power of production and creation; as much so in
principle as in other lines of work seemingly much
more direct, and that there is the advantage of a
limited and definite result by which the child may
measure his progress. (2) Failure sufficiently to
take account of this fact resulted in an undue postponement of some phases of these lines of work,




126


THE SCHOOL


with the effect that the child, having progressed to
a more advanced plane intellectually, feels what
earlier might have been a form of power and
creation to be an irksome task. (3) There is a
demand for periodic concentration and alternation
in the school programme of the time devoted to
these studies-and of all studies where mastery of
technique or special method is advisable. That is
to say, instead of carrying all subjects simultaneously
and at an equal pace upon the programme, at times
one must be brought to the foreground and others
relegated to the background, until the child is
brought to the point of recognizing that he has a
power or skill, which he can now go ahead and
use independently.
The third period of elementary education is upon
the borderland of secondary. It comes when the
child has a sufficient acquaintance of a fairly direct
sort with various forms of reality and modes of
activity; and when he has sufficiently mastered the
methods, the tools of thought, enquiry, and activity,
appropriate to various phases of experience, to be
able profitably to specialize upon distinctive studies
and arts for technical and intellectual aims. While
the school has a number of children who are in this
period, the school has not, of course, been in existence long enough so that any typical inferences can
be safely drawn. There certainly seems to be
reason to hope, however, that with the consciousness




AND THE CHILD                             127
of difficulties, needs, and resources gained in the
experience of the last five years, children can be
brought to and through this period without sacrifice
of thoroughness, mental discipline, or command of
technical tools of learning, and with a positive enlargement of life, and a wider, freer, and more open
outlook upon it.




APPENDIX
Psychology of Number. By JOHN DEWEY and
M'LELLAN.   (International Education Series,
Edward Arnold, London. I895.)
The School and Society, supplemented by a statement concerning the work of the University
Elementary School.  Fifth Edition, 130 pp.
i2mo, 6s.  (Chicago, The University Press;
London, P. S. King & Son.)
Psychology  and  Social Practice.  Presidential
Address before the American Psychological
Association.  42 pp. I2mo, paper, 25 cents.
(Chicago, The University Press.)
The Educational Situation (Second Edition). Io4
pp. I2mo, paper, 50 cents. (Chicago, The University Press.)
Publications of the National Herbart Society, I895 -I902, and of its successor, The National Society
for the Scientific Study of Education, I902-05.
Articles by Professor DEWEY: 1895, Interest as
Related to Will; I896, Culture Epochs; I897,
Ethical Principles underlying Education (reprinted in 'this volume); I904, Relation of
Theory to Practice in the Training of Teachers.
(Chicago, The University Press.)
The Elementary School Record: Nine Monographs
describing in detail the Courses and Methods
pursued in the Chicago University Elementary
School. (The Essays in this volume are extracts
from the Record, Chicago University Press,
out of print.)
128