, is to encumber the
mind with ill-digested material. A sensible man of the world has
little respect for this kind of learning.

One reason why knowledge is so poorly understood and remembered is
because its _real application_ to other branches of knowledge, whether
near or remote, is so little observed and fixed. Looking back upon our
school studies we often wonder what botany, geometry, and drawing have
to do with each other and with our present needs. Each subject was so
compactly stowed away on a shelf by itself that it is always thought of
in that isolation,--like Hammerfest or the Falkland Islands in
geography,--out of the way places. Are the various sciences so
distinct and so widely separated in nature and in real life as they are
in school? An observant boy in the woods will notice important
relations between animals and plants, between plants, soil, and seasons
that are not referred to in the text-books. In a carpenter shop he
will observe relations of different kinds of wood, metals, and tools to
each other that will surprise and instruct him. In the real life of
the country or town the objects and materials of knowledge,
representing the sciences of nature and the arts of life, are closely
jumbled together and intimately dependent upon each other. The very
closeness of causal and local connections and the lack of orderly
arrangement shown by things in life make it necessary in schools to
classify and arrange into sciences. But it is a vital mistake to
suppose that the knowledge is complete when classified and learned in
this scientific form. Classification and books are but a faulty means
of getting a clear insight into nature and human life or society.
Knowledge should not only be mastered in its scientific classifications
but also constantly referred back to things as seen in practical life
and closely traced out and fixed in those connections. The vital
connections of different studies with each other are best known and
realized by the study of nature and society.

In later life we are convinced at every turn of the need of being able
to recognize and use knowledge _outside of its scientific connections_.
A lawyer finds many subjects closely mingled and causally related in
his daily business which were never mentioned together in textbooks.
The ordinary run of cases will lead him through a kaleidoscope of
natural science, human life, commerce, history, mathematics,
literature, and law, not to