to cover it with sugar-coating; to conceal its barrenness
by intermediate and unrelated material; and finally, as it were, to get
the child to swallow and digest the unpalatable morsel while he is
enjoying tasting something quite different. But alas for the analogy!
Mental assimilation is a matter of consciousness; and if the attention
has not been playing upon the actual material, that has not been
apprehended, nor worked into faculty.

How, then, stands the case of Child _vs._ Curriculum? What shall the
verdict be? The radical fallacy in the original pleadings with which we
set out is the supposition that we have no choice save either to leave
the child to his own unguided spontaneity or to inspire direction upon
him from without. Action is response; it is adaptation, adjustment.
There is no such thing as sheer self-activity possible--because all
activity takes place in a medium, in a situation, and with reference to
its conditions. But, again, no such thing as imposition of truth from
without, as insertion of truth from without, is possible. All depends
upon the activity which the mind itself undergoes in responding to what
is presented from without. Now, the value of the formulated wealth of
knowledge that makes up the course of study is that it may enable the
educator to _determine the environment of the child_, and thus by
indirection to direct. Its primary value, its primary indication, is for
the teacher, not for the child. It says to the teacher: Such and such
are the capacities, the fulfilments, in truth and beauty and behavior,
open to these children. Now see to it that day by day the conditions are
such that _their own activities_ move inevitably in this direction,
toward such culmination of themselves. Let the child's nature fulfil its
own destiny, revealed to you in whatever of science and art and industry
the world now holds as its own.

The case is of Child. It is his present powers which are to assert
themselves; his present capacities which are to be exercised; his
present attitudes which are to be realized. But save as the teacher
knows, knows wisely and thoroughly, the race-expression which is
embodied in that thing we call the Curriculum, the teacher knows neither
what the present power, capacity, or attitude is, nor yet how it is to
be asserted, exercised, and realized.

* * * * *

Transcriber's note.

Two half-title pages have been omitted.

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