moral effectiveness to the mere processes of learning, and to the habits
which go along with learning, can result only in a training infected
with formality, arbitrariness, and an undue emphasis upon failure to
conform. That there is as much accomplished as there is shows the
possibilities involved in methods of school activity which afford
opportunity for reciprocity, cooperation, and positive personal
achievement.

THE SOCIAL NATURE OF THE COURSE OF STUDY

IV

THE SOCIAL NATURE OF THE COURSE OF STUDY

In many respects, it is the subject-matter used in school life which
decides both the general atmosphere of the school and the methods of
instruction and discipline which rule. A barren "course of study," that
is to say, a meagre and narrow field of school activities, cannot
possibly lend itself to the development of a vital social spirit or to
methods that appeal to sympathy and cooperation instead of to
absorption, exclusiveness, and competition. Hence it becomes an all
important matter to know how we shall apply our social standard of moral
value to the subject-matter of school work, to what we call,
traditionally, the "studies" that occupy pupils.

_A study is to be considered as a means of bringing the child to realize
the social scene of action._ Thus considered it gives a criterion for
selection of material and for judgment of values. We have at present
three independent values set up: one of culture, another of information,
and another of discipline. In reality, these refer only to three phases
of social interpretation. Information is genuine or educative only in so
far as it presents definite images and conceptions of materials placed
in a context of social life. Discipline is genuinely educative only as
it represents a reaction of information into the individual's own powers
so that he brings them under control for social ends. Culture, if it is
to be genuinely educative and not an external polish or factitious
varnish, represents the vital union of information and discipline. It
marks the socialization of the individual in his outlook upon life.

This point may be illustrated by brief reference to a few of the school
studies. In the first place, there is no line of demarkation within
facts themselves which classifies them as belonging to science, history,
or geography, respectively. The pigeon-hole classification which is so
prevalent at present (fostered by introducing the pupil at the o