l and abstract phases,
and thus force upon the child forms of knowledge which he is not able to
refer to his life needs in any practical way. This tendency is
illustrated in the desire of some teachers to substitute with young
children a technical study of botany and zoology, in place of more
concrete work in nature study. Now when the child approaches these
phases of his surroundings in the form of nature study, he is able to
see their influence upon his own community life. When, on the other
hand, these are introduced to him in too technical a form, he is not
able, in his present stage of learning, to discover this connection, and
the so-called knowledge remains in his experience, if it remains at all,
as uninteresting, non-significant, and non-digested information. In the
elementary school at least, therefore, knowledge should not be presented
to the child in such a technical and abstract way that it will seem to
have no contact with daily life.

CHAPTER V

EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

THE SCHOOL

As man, in the progress of civilization, became more fully conscious of
the worth of human life and of the possibilities of its development
through educational effort, the providing of special instruction for the
young naturally began to be recognized as a duty. As this duty became
more and more apparent, it gave rise, on the principle of the division
of labour, to corporate, or institutional, effort in this direction. By
this means there has been finally developed the modern school as a fully
organized corporate institution devoted to educational work, and
supported as an integral part of our civil or public obligations.

=Origin of the School.=--To trace the origin of the school, it will be
necessary to look briefly at certain marked stages of the development of
civilization. The earliest and simplest forms of primitive life suggest
a time when the family constituted the only type of social organization.
In such a mode of life, the principle of the division of labour would be
absent, the father or patriarch being the family carpenter, butcher,
doctor, judge, priest, and teacher. In the two latter capacities, he
would give whatever theoretic or practical instruction was received by
the child. As soon, however, as a tribal form of life is met, we find
the tribe or race collecting a body of experience which can be retained
only by entrusting it to a selected body. This experience, or knowledge,
is at first mainly