As Lloyd Morgan
puts it, "We are mainly at work upon the mental background. It is our
object to make this background as rich and full and orderly as possible,
so that whatever is brought to the focus of consciousness shall be set
in a relational background, which shall give it meaning; and so that our
pupils may be able to feel the truth which Browning puts into the mouth
of Fra Lippo Lippi:

This world's no blot for us
Nor blank; it means intensely and means good:
To find its meaning is my meat and drink."

According to Professor Dewey, some such linking or joining is necessary
"to foster that sense which is at the basis of attention and of all
intellectual growth, the sense of continuity." The Herbartian
correlation was designed to further that well-connected circle of
thought out of which would come the firm will, guided by right insight,
inspired by true feeling, which is their aim in education.

Froebelian unity and connectedness have, like the others, an
intellectual and a moral aspect. Intellectually "the essential
characteristic of instruction is the treatment of individual things in
their relationships"; morally, the idea of unity is that we are all
members one of another. The child who, through unhindered activity, has
reached the stage of self-consciousness is to go on to feel himself a
part, a member of an ever-increasing whole--family, school, township,
country, humanity--the All; to be "one with Nature, man and God."

Every one has heard something of the new teaching--which, by the way,
sheds clearer light over Froebel's warning against arbitrary
interference--viz. that a great part of the nervous instability which
affects our generation is due to the thwarting and checking of the
natural impulses of early years. But this new school also gives us
something positive, and reinforces older doctrines by telling us to
integrate behaviour. "This matter of the unthwarted lifelong progress
of behaviour integration is of profound importance, for it is the
transition from behaviour to conduct. The more integrated behaviour is
harmonious and consistent behaviour toward a larger and more
comprehensive situation, toward a bigger section of the universe; it is
lucidity and breadth of purpose. The child playing with fire is only
wrong conduct because it is behaviour that does not take into account
consequences; it is not adjusted to enough of the environment; it will
be made right by an enlargement of its scop