ceal vital truths which would help to explain the infinite complexity of environing life.

Unless arithmetic makes clear to some degree the numerical and dimensional characteristics of the world, the time devoted to it is largely wasted. It would be wholly so, if it were not for the truth that the mind itself, in spite of the textbook and the teacher, does a vast amount of coördinating and finds meanings in statements in themselves meaningless, as set forth in the lesson.

The language lesson is too often the study of rules and forms arbitrarily given, which have no more effect upon the speech of the child than the wind that blows. This is particularly true of those elementary language lessons that feed the children desiccated grammar, the husks and chaff of language.

Geography perhaps more commonly than any other school topic to the children is a meaningless and lifeless study, "the study of dots and lines on colored pieces of paper," as Colonel Parker used to call it.

Though of late years much more has been done to vitalize teaching and learning, still our schools are very far from making knowledge real to the children by placing it in its proper and natural relations, and thus rendering the process of fusion easy.

It is no uncommon thing for children to be studying the history of England, the geography of Africa, the natural phenomena of Minnesota, all on the same day, while at the same time memorizing the rules of grammar applied to nothing, and talking ungrammatically of the subjects named, and learning to write "Honesty is the best policy," and to spell hautboy, pneumatics, and in

compatibility, the last-named word having indeed a general application to the various ingredients of the educational hodgepodge. While in its absurdity this picture may be extreme, a glance at almost any course of study will discover fairly close approximations to it. Waste. Perhaps the worst feature of the prevailing plan is its awful waste of time and energy. The cry that we try to teach too many things in school is certainly true if they are taught as so many irreconcilable lists of things to be "stored away" in the mind.

The Remedy. The remedy for the overcrowded curriculum is to be sought, at least partially, in a closer coördination of the now heterogeneous topics. History and geography need to be joined in wedlock. Nature study should be adopted into the family. Language should be taught as one means of expressing ideas on the other subjects studied, drawing as another. Perhaps language study comes nearer to being a universal solvent than any other single topic, because of its manifest function as the universal means of expression.

No Topic Dominant. But no single topic can be made the center of a course of study, for no one is dominant or naturally central. The various attempts of a few years back to concentrate " the course of study about a single topic, or two or three topics, met with foredoomed failure, and brought the whole subject of the correlation of studies into disrepute.

There is no mechanical device of arrangement that will meet all cases, because learning is a vital process; the necessary fusion goes on in and with the mind. The learning child is the necessary center of all correlation. About him and his individual needs and aptitudes the

subjects must be grouped so that he may fuse them unconsciously, much as he digests his food. But still he may be greatly aided by a careful selection and arrangement of the topics in the course of study and especially in the daily program.

It is for the officials who make the course of study and for the teachers who administer it to watch continually for points of contact, to illumine each topic presented by reference to allied topics, to see, in short, that truths, and not mere isolated facts, are presented as food to the growing minds of children.

An Important Distinction. One distinction is important, and, if carefully observed, will do much toward making knowledge real, and consequently toward the prevention of scattering and the elimination of waste, and that is the distinction between content and form, between fundamental vital knowledge and the various minor arts by which such knowledge is acquired and expressed.

If language is always treated as the study of thought; if reading is always taught as a means of getting ideas; if arithmetic is always made to explain some important truth in the physical universe, or in the relations of man to man; if through these arts the children are given insight into physics, commerce, history, literature, human society, then the arts become worth while, and then also the distracting number of disparate topics in the school program will be found to dwindle naturally.

The nearer we can approach in our teaching to a realization of the unity of knowledge, without running into artificial absurdities of correlation, the more time we shall find to "teach the essentials," and the essentials will then be truly essential, because they will be vital.

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CHAPTER XXVIII

EFFICIENCY OF THE COURSE OF STUDY

Not only by correlation is it possible to make room for the many desirable subjects that, it is claimed, now overcrowd the course of study. Equally essential is higher efficiency of administration, through a better adjustment of studies to the pupil's mental status, and through the avoidance of useless repetition. This question has not been sufficiently discussed by students of education.

Supposing the prevalent course of study in our elementary schools to rest upon sound bases, psychological, social, and philosophical, the question remains: Is it efficient? Is it so adjusted to the psychological and social needs of the individual pupils as to render adequate returns for the efforts expended?

This is too large a question to be discussed in a simple brief chapter. Indeed, it can be answered fully only by such a searching investigation as no one has yet undertaken. It is to be hoped that at some time such an examination will be undertaken either by one of the various endowed institutions of research, or better, by the United States Bureau of Education.

A Source of Waste.--I must, however, though briefly, call attention to one manifest and serious source of waste in the general administration of the course of study, to

which I have already referred, the prodigal waste of time through useless repetition.

Several subjects, whose function is chiefly informational, are taken up in the primary schools in simple form and then repeated in the intermediate and grammar schools in somewhat fuller detail and in different language. In some cases even these modifications either are lacking or are very slight. Some subjects, such as reading and the correct use of language, are so naturally progressive that no such repetition is possible. But with the other subjects this is not the case.

Geography. Geography, for example, is usually taught from a "two-book series." In the primary book information is given in more or less simple language about the earth as a whole, about geographic phenomena, such as day and night, the planetary system, the succession of months and of seasons; geographic forms, as hills, valleys, continents, oceans, plains, and the rest; geographic causes, such as erosion, winds, glaciers; and about the political divisions of the earth as shown on maps. Beginning with about the fifth grade the higher book is taken, in which these facts are repeated in somewhat different language and in greater detail, but without great difference or improvement. Much of the information given in the primary book is of no great interest or value to the children pursuing it. The facts are memorized, or not, as may be, but not in any true sense comprehended. The subject is usually disliked, and hence a distaste for it is created which is sure to militate against the best results in the higher grades. There is no special reason why a child should attempt to learn or, still less, to comprehend the greater part of