eople, so
every child may take a real interest in story, biography, and history,
if these subjects are rightly approached. So also the indifference to
plant and animal life shown by many persons is due to lack of culture
and suitable suggestion at the impressionable age. Unquestionably the
lives of most people run in too narrow a channel. They fail to
appreciate and enjoy many of the common things about them, to which
their eyes have not been properly opened. The particular trade or
business so engrosses most people's time that their sympathies are
narrowed and their appreciation of the duties and responsibilities of
life is stunted. The common school, more than all other institutions,
should lay broad foundations and awaken many-sided sympathies. The
trade school and the university can afford to specialize, to prepare
for a vocation. The common school, on the contrary, is preparing all
children for general citizenship. The narrowing idea of a trade or
calling should be kept away from the public school, and as far as
possible varied interests in knowledge should be awakened in every
child.

But this variety of interests may lead to scattering and _superficial
knowledge_. And in its results many-sided interest would seem to point
naturally to many-sided activity; that is, to multiplicity of
employments, to that character which in Yankee phrase is designated as
"Jack of all trades and master of none." If instead of being allowed
to spread out so much, the educational stream is confined between
narrow banks, it will show a deep and full current. If allowed to
spread over the marshes and plains, it becomes sluggish and brackish.
Our course of study for the common schools in recent years, has been
largely added to and has been extended over the whole field of
knowledge. History, geography, natural science lessons and drawing
have been added to the old reading, writing, arithmetic, and grammar.
There may appear to be more variety, but less strength. When in
addition to this greater variety of studies, enthusiastic teachers
desire to increase the _quantity_ of knowledge in each branch and to
present as many interesting facts as possible, at every point, we have
the _over-loading_ of the school course. This effect will be noticed
in a later chapter in its bearing upon concentration. Children have
too much to learn. They become pack-horses, instead of free spirits
walking in the fields of knowledge. _Mental vig