more valuable,
take special pains to review, correct, and arrange them. We would
teach children to observe more closely and to remember better the
things they daily see.

We shall appreciate better the value of _home knowledge_ if we take
note of the direct and constant dependence of the most important
studies upon it. We usually think of history as something far away in
New England, or France, or Egypt. History is mainly the study of the
actions, customs, homes, and institutions of men in different
countries. But what an abundance of similar facts and observations a
child has gathered about home before he begins the study of history.
From his infancy he has seen people of all sorts and conditions, rich
and poor, ignorant and learned, honorable and mean. He has seen all
sorts of human actions, learned to know their meaning and to pass
judgment upon them. He has seen houses, churches, public buildings,
trade and commerce, and a hundred human institutions. The child has
been studying human actions and institutions in the concrete for a
dozen years before he begins to read and recite history from books.
Without the knowledge thus acquired out of school, society, government,
and institutions would be worse than Greek. Geography as taught in the
books would be totally foreign and strange but for the abundance of
ideas the child has already picked up about hills, streams, roads,
travel, storms, trees, animals, and people.

Natural science lessons must be based on a more careful study of things
already seen about home--rocks and streams, flowers and plants, animals
wild and tame. These with the forests, fields, brooks, seasons, tools,
and inventions, are the necessary object lessons in natural science
which can serve daily to illustrate other lessons. How near then do
the natural science topics, geography and history, stand to the daily
home life of a child! How intimate should be the relations which the
school should establish between the parts of a child's experience!
This is concentration in the broadest sense. A proper appreciation of
this principle will save us from a number of common errors. Besides
constantly associating home and school knowledge, we shall try to know
the home and parents better, and the disposition and surroundings of
each child. We shall be ready at any time to render home knowledge
more clear and accurate, to correct faulty observation and opinion.
While the children will be encourage