tribute toward
the realization of this aim. We must, of course, provide children with
the tools of investigation or of inquiry; but their importance should
not be overemphasized, and in their acquirement significant experiences
with respect to life activities should dominate, rather than the mere
acquisition of the tool. Beginning reading, for example, is important
not merely from the standpoint of learning to read. The teaching of
beginning reading should involve the enlarging and enriching of
experience. Thought getting is of primary importance for little children
who are to learn to read, and the recognition of symbols is important
only in so far as they contribute to this end. The best reading books no
longer print meaningless sentences for children to decipher. Mother
Goose rhymes, popular stories and fables, language reading lessons, in
which children relate their own experience for the teacher to print or
write on the board, satisfy the demand for content and aid, by virtue of
the interest which is advanced, in the mastering of the symbols.

It is, of course, necessary for one who would understand modern social
conditions or problems, to know of the past out of which our modern life
has developed. It is also necessary for one who would understand the
problems of one community, or of one nation, to know, in so far as it is
possible, of the experiences of other peoples. History and geography
furnish a background, without which our current problems could not be
reasonably attacked. Literature and science, the study of the fine arts,
and of our social institutions, all become significant in proportion as
they make possible contributions, by the individual who has been
educated, to the common good.

Any proper interpretation of the social purpose of education leads
inevitably to the conclusion that much that we have taught is of very
little significance. Processes in arithmetic which are not used in
modern life have little or no worth for the great majority of boys and
girls. Partnership settlements involving time, exact interest, the
extraction of cube and of square roots, partial payments, and many of
the problems in mensuration, might well be omitted from all courses of
study in arithmetic. Many of the unimportant dates in history and much
of the locational geography should disappear in order that a better
appreciation of the larger social movements can be secured, or in order
that the laws which control in nature