s which appropriate knowledge by direct energy of
intellect. The very word pupil has almost come to mean one who is
engaged not in having fruitful experiences but in absorbing knowledge
directly. Something which is called mind or consciousness is severed
from the physical organs of activity. The former is then thought to be
purely intellectual and cognitive; the latter to be an irrelevant and
intruding physical factor. The intimate union of activity and undergoing
its consequences which leads to recognition of meaning is broken;
instead we have two fragments: mere bodily action on one side, and
meaning directly grasped by "spiritual" activity on the other.

It would be impossible to state adequately the evil results which have
flowed from this dualism of mind and body, much less to exaggerate them.
Some of the more striking effects, may, however, be enumerated. (a)
In part bodily activity becomes an intruder. Having nothing, so it is
thought, to do with mental activity, it becomes a distraction, an evil
to be contended with. For the pupil has a body, and brings it to school
along with his mind. And the body is, of necessity, a wellspring of
energy; it has to do something. But its activities, not being utilized
in occupation with things which yield significant results, have to be
frowned upon. They lead the pupil away from the lesson with which his
"mind" ought to be occupied; they are sources of mischief. The chief
source of the "problem of discipline" in schools is that the teacher
has often to spend the larger part of the time in suppressing the bodily
activities which take the mind away from its material. A premium is put
on physical quietude; on silence, on rigid uniformity of posture and
movement; upon a machine-like simulation of the attitudes of intelligent
interest. The teachers' business is to hold the pupils up to these
requirements and to punish the inevitable deviations which occur.

The nervous strain and fatigue which result with both teacher and pupil
are a necessary consequence of the abnormality of the situation in which
bodily activity is divorced from the perception of meaning. Callous
indifference and explosions from strain alternate. The neglected body,
having no organized fruitful channels of activity, breaks forth, without
knowing why or how, into meaningless boisterousness, or settles into
equally meaningless fooling--both very different from the normal play
of children. Physically active childre