because they deal with things of observation and experience. To be sure, the boy does not comprehend the philosophy of all these modern processes-what he sees are externals. These he takes as matters of course and extracts no complexities. The child sees things superficially, in broad outlines only, and complex surroundings produced by telephones, telegraphs, trolley-cars, and newspapers present no greater complexities to the modern child than abiding in a wigwam and living by hunting. Children may be in homes where philosophy is discussed, but they hear it not. Complexities of life exist all about the child, but he responds only to that for which his development has attuned him. Later on he becomes fitted by complexity of neurological and psychological development to vibrate in harmony with a more complex order of things-but not necessarily those things only which have come within ancestral experience.

Imitation and Interest. I well remember, when a child, trying to fashion modern mowing-machines and threshingmachines. I did not take to scythe-making, or threshing with a flail, or even tramping the grain out with the feet. The fact is, that children imitate the life about them as they see it. The things that interest them are the things re-enacted. It may be foot-ball, or marching to the sound of martial music, but in either case they will have none but the most modern paraphernalia. Nothing but sweaters and padded knees, swords, guns, and drums will answer.

1

When we foist upon the child the products of civilization in the order in which they were developed and because they were so developed, we are trying to make him realize an adult philosophy of development. Prof. Simon N. Patten "points out that the argument often advanced in behalf of the culture epochs, that modern life is too complex for the child to grasp, and that education therefore must begin with ancient materials to get initial simplicity, is weak." He asserts that "the sickle is not simpler to the boy than the harvester, so long as both repre1 Pub. Am. Academy Political and Social Science, No. 136.

sent to his mind the process of reaping. The same would be equally true of the most complex piece of social, industrial, or political mechanism, as long as the child can see what it accomplishes. The argument holds good, however, only so long as we contemplate the mechanism merely in the performance of its function; let it once become the object of analytic investigation of structure or of development and the case is reversed. Then the sickle is simpler than the harvester, and it is by such analysis that the object is understood by us."

It has been asserted that children will reproduce the activities suggested in mythology, Robinson Crusoe stories, etc., rather than the various activities which they witness about them daily. My own observations lead me to the opposite view. Many other persons with whom I have talked, confirm my views. My children build not palaces of the giant, nor the home of Cinderella, but instead they construct bridges, railway trains, fences, barns, houses of modern pattern, automobiles, etc. The factors determining the children's specific activities are interest and imitation, not ancestral experience. Ancestral experience may and does place limitations upon powers and capacities of the individual, but the order of racial experience is absolutely unreliable as a guide in determining the order of the details of individual instruction. The individual is not a sum of all racial experience, but rather a resultant of all of them in which the particular experiences have largely lost their identity.

Conclusions. Although the knowledge of recapitulation and the culture epochs does not furnish a guide-book for the details of educational practice, yet it is of the utmost significance in marking out the broad outlines of educational procedure. Even though it were not true that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, there is such a close correspondence or parallelism between the development of the individual and the ascending forms of life that each can throw much light upon the other. The failure of the culture epochs to furnish a curriculum is not due to any unreliability of the law of recapitulation. The main reasons why a knowledge of the kind of culture materials

utilized by the race at a given time cannot furnish this guidance are twofold, viz.: first, a given kind of stimuli may produce very different reactions upon different individuals. The effect depends upon all previous effects. The child of to-day is not just like the man of yesterday. The child of to-day is like the child of yesterday, plus the potentialities of the man of to-day. Second, since so many short-circuits have been established, the details of successive stages have become so obscured that only large outlines are observable.

A knowledge of phylogeny has been of great value in assisting us to understand the order of development of the latent powers. Knowing the phylogenetic order of unfoldment will assist in securing appropriate stimuli for the awakening of the various powers. Many diverse kinds of objective stimuli might be employed, however, to secure a given general type of reaction. The particular kind of stimuli most efficient will depend largely upon the individual's interest, that in turn being dependent upon environment. Thus the culture epochs theory is more suggestive as to the method of approach than as to the content of the curriculum. It is doubtless also very suggestive as to the order of presentation of the different aspects of a given subject. The very same material may be presented in concrete details or as scientific abstractions.

The culture epochs theory shows plainly that the order should be from simple to complex, from the concrete to the abstract, from sensory impressions to abstract relations, etc. But the materials employed by primitive man may be considered in scientific relations, or present-day knowledge may be considered in a very simple way. The scientific truths about steam discovered by present-day man will ever be scientific truths and unsuitable for children. Similarly the obvious concrete phenomena regarding steam will ever be concrete. Their availability for cultural material in the education of children will in no wise depend upon the time of their discovery by man, but upon the interest determined by their relation to life activities. In conclusion, a knowledge of the order of the unfolding of the

various powers is important, the particular material utilized in furthering this development is relatively less important. The discussion of instinct, heredity, and the law of from fundamental to accessory, shows more clearly how inherited impulses and tendencies may be utilized in education.'

1 For a more extended critical discussion of the culture epochs theory by the author see Journal of Pedagogy, 16: 136-152.

1

CHAPTER VII

FROM FUNDAMENTAL TO ACCESSORY IN EDUCATION

Meaning. In studying children and lower animals it has been noticed that at birth certain movements and certain parts of the body are much better controlled than others. The child can move its whole body with much force; the legs and arms also can be moved with great strength, while the fingers seem powerless and entirely lacking in precision. A little reflection further recalls the fact that the vital processes of respiration, digestion, and circulation are thoroughly functional at birth, while processes of thinking, speech, writing, and walking have to be learned through toilsome endeavor and after some degree of maturity is reached.

From the stand-point of structure we find that those organs which are the most vital, the oldest, and most stable are the first to be developed. The heart, lungs, circulatory organs, and skin are developed before the special organs of sense. An individual could exist without eyes or ears, but not without organs of circulation. In the growth of the bones those which form the framework are first developed. The backbone, the large bones of the trunk and the head, develop first, and later those of the limbs. The larger bones precede the smaller ones, such bones as the fingers and toes appearing late in fœtal life. The teeth and the finer bony structures of the ear are of late appearance; the former, though rudimentary in late fœtal life, not becoming visible until months after birth. The muscles follow similar lines of growth and development. The great muscles of the trunk and limbs judged from both the stand-point of function and structure are developed before the muscles of