de make what she can of such unprofitable baggage.
=Each lesson a prophecy.=--And we still call this education. It isn't
education at all, but the merest hack work, and the tragedy of it is
that the child is the one to suffer. The teacher goes on her complacent
way happy in the consciousness that her pupils were promoted and,
therefore, she will retain her place on the pay roll. It were more
logical to have the same teacher continue with the pupil during his
entire school life of twelve years, for, in that case, her interest in
him would be continuous rather than temporary and spasmodic. But the
present plan of changing teachers would be even better than that if only
every teacher's work could be made to project itself not only to
graduation day, but to the days of mature manhood and womanhood. If only
every teacher were able to make each lesson a vital prophecy of what the
pupil is to be and to do twenty years hence, then that lesson would
become a condition precedent to the pupil's future behavior.
=Outlook.=--Groping about in the twilight of possibilities we speculate
in a mild and superficial way as to the extent to which heredity,
environment, and education either singly or in combination are
determining factors in human behavior. But when no definite answer is
forthcoming we lose interest in the subject and have recourse to the
traditional methods of our grandfathers. We lose sight of the fact that
in our quest for the solution of this problem we are coming nearer and
nearer to the answer to the perennial question, What is education?
Hence, neither the time nor the effort is wasted that we devote to this
study. We may not understand heredity; we may find ourselves bewildered
by environment; we may not apprehend what education is; but by keeping
all these closely associated with behavior in our thinking we shall be
the gainers.
=Long division ramified.=--We are admonished so to organize the
activities of the school that they may function in behavior. That is an
admonition of stupendous import as we discover when we attempt to
compass the content of behavior. One of the activities of the school is
Long Division. This is relatively simple, but the possible behavior in
which it may function is far less simple. In the past, this same Long
Division has functioned in the Brooklyn Bridge, in the Hoosac Tunnel,
and Washington Monument, in the Simplon Pass, and in Eiffel Tower. It
has helped us to travel up the mountai
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