to form character than to reform it. Under a wise and good teacher all the lessons, all the exercises, all the government and influences of the school become powerful instrumentalities in the formation of right habits in the pupils, the culture of the moral judgment, the quickening of the feelings and the conscience, the training of the will in right-doing, and the upbuilding of noble character.

The Three H's in Education.-We have now pointed out the aims of education in each of its three great divisions, the culture and training of the hand and the body, the head, and the heart. With these broad aims of education all the work of the school should be in harmony.

The Partners of the School.-Of course we do not assume that the school can do all the work of educating the child. There are other powerful influences that have a part in educating him. The material and social environment of the pupil outside of the school, his home, the street life, the Sunday-school-all these are at work as partners with the school in shaping the life and character of the child. All of these together may fail to make of the pupil a useful member of society and a good man or woman. Many of the influences surrounding the child out of school are evil, but no honest teacher will make this fact an excuse for neglecting to work toward the highest aims of education.

The Teacher's Opportunity and Privilege. It should not be forgotten that the school is the one institution devised by society for the consistent, continuous, and conscious training of the young. The other influences in the child's education work incidentally and at intervals, but the school and the teacher work directly and continuously. The teacher and the pupils in the school are set apart, dedicated, as it were, to the work of teaching and learning. As Arnold Tompkins said: "The teacher is the one and

only member of society whose sole business it is, by set plan and purpose, to develop the whole life of another." Not only so, but the child during the school year is with the teacher in the school, including intermissions and time spent on the way to the school or from the school to his home, more of his waking hours each day than he is at home. School work, school companions, school thoughts dominate his life. The teacher in the school can do for the children of any community many things that parents have not done for them in the home and some things that parents cannot do. He can help the pupil to know himself, to get a larger vision of life, to "covet earnestly the best gifts," to aspire to the things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report. These are the

ultimate aims of the school.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Compayre, "Lectures on Pedagogy," chap. I; "Psychology Applied to Education," chap. I; White, "School Management," pp. 9-16 and 218-224; Gordy, "A Broader Elementary Education," chaps. IV-VIII; Seeley, "The Foundations of Education," chap. XXII; Bagley, "The Educative Process," chap. III; Search, "An Ideal School," chap. XII; Hadley, "The Education of the American Citizen," pp. 150-160; Horne, "The Psychological Principles of Education," chap. III; "Educational Foundations," vol. XVI, pp. 263-266.

CHAPTER IX

THE COURSE OF STUDY

How Related to the Aims of the School.-In the preceding chapter we discussed the aims of the school. In order that these aims may be attained the every-day work of the pupils must be wisely planned and carefully directed. Gilbert says: "To allow each teacher to teach what he pleases to the children would quickly produce disorganization alike fatal to the teacher's success and disastrous to the children." The aims of the school cannot be secured unless the materials used in instruction are wisely selected, carefully arranged and graded, and properly correlated. Subjects of study so selected, arranged, and correlated constitute the curriculum. Thus the course of study is the most natural and concrete expression of the aims of the school. It serves the teacher both as chart and logbook. It makes possible the steady, unbroken progress of the pupil in his efforts to realize the aims of the school.

Importance of the Elementary Course of Study.-Until very recently there has been no general recognition by the American people of the vast importance of the elementary course of study. Even among educators the problems of secondary and higher education have been considered the paramount ones. But ever since Francis Parker began his famous "experiment" at Quincy, the interest of both people and teachers in the course of study for elementary schools has constantly grown more pronounced and more

intelligent. Everywhere our courses of study for the elementary schools are being modified by the weeding out of purely formal exercises, like parsing, the spelling of long lists of unrelated words, arithmetical oddities, and mechanical map questions in geography, and by introducing in their place interesting and useful knowledge of all kinds: art in the form of music, drawing, and painting; literature and history in the form of stories, myths, legends, and biographies; science under the name of nature study, elements of botany, physics, zoology, geology, and physiology; and on the side of expression we have handwork, physical training, and all that may be included under the terms manual training, crafts, and domestic science. As a result of all these radical changes our elementary courses are in a chaotic condition. But we have at last fully realized the importance of the problem and no one can doubt its final successful solution. Some of the reasons for its importance are: (1) The elementary schools must provide for all classes of children regardless of their possible vocations in the future; (2) it is in the elementary school that the pupil must build the foundation for successful work in the high school and college, both as to knowledge acquired and habits of study formed; (3) the first eight years of a pupil's school life are almost certain to determine his attitude toward intellectual pursuits, for it is here that he either acquires a many-sided and permanent interest in knowledge for its own sake or forms a dislike for all study; (4) lastly, the great majority of pupils will never enter the high school, so that the elementary school must supply them with all the school instruction they will ever have.

The Teacher and the Curriculum.-It is of vital importance to the success of the school that the teacher should

understand the nature, aims, and value of the course of study and should make a wise and conscientious use of it in his daily work. Although the law gives to school boards the right to prescribe the course of study, it is, as a matter of fact, nearly always compiled by the principal or superintendent and is merely adopted by the school board. But no matter how the course of study has been provided, nor how perfect it may be, it will be of little practical value unless it is intelligently used. It is only a thing on paper; the teacher must make it effective, must put life and purpose into it, must master the art of applying it to the daily needs of the pupils, and this is a much more difficult thing to do than to put a course on paper.

Some teachers calmly ignore the course of study and work in a blind, aimless, hap-hazard way, giving no thought whatever to the reasons why certain studies are selected for the course, to the proper sequence of topics, or to the correlation of subjects. They are the blind leaders of the blind. Other teachers who really appreciate the value of the course of study as a means of attaining the aims of the school apparently get lost in the details of organization and instruction and soon lose sight of the greater problems involved in the education of the child. The work of such teachers will invariably become mechanical and without inspiration. Many teachers put their time and energy on the subjects that they like best or are most proficient in and notoriously neglect other subjects equally important. Still other teachers are satisfied to read only that portion of the course of study that outlines their own particular work. Now it ought to be perfectly clear that teachers in the fifth grade cannot teach the subjects and topics included in the work of that grade intelligently unless they know what the pupils have learned in the preceding grades