PRESENT PROBLEMS OF THE SCHOOL 109 



that have been gradually made are nature-study, which is intended to 

 train what President Eliot calls " capacities for productiveness and 

 enjoyment " through the progressive acquisition of an elementary 

 knowledge of the outside world; algebra, chiefly as an aid, through 

 the equation, to the solution of arithmetical problems; inventional 

 geometry; literature, studied as such, distinct from the ordinary 

 reading-lesson; language and composition, as the art of expression; 

 drawing from objects; and manual training and other physical 

 exercises. This seems a long list of subjects, and yet every subject is 

 justified and required by the fundamental assumption that the school 

 exists for the progressive adaptation of the child's mind to its 

 spiritual environment. In other words, each child has a right to the 

 acquisition not only of the tools of knowledge, but at least to the 

 beginnings of a knowledge of literature, of science, of art, of institu- 

 tions, and of ethics, so that when he leaves school he may be able to 

 continue along the road on which he has started. Educators 

 throughout the United States are now practically agreed that each 

 of these great divisions of knowledge should be represented in some 

 way in each year of the course. 



How, then, has room been made, or may room be made, for the 

 new subject-matter and the new activities? In the first place, 

 through the correlation of studies, the reinforcing of one study 

 through other studies, as the correlation of history with geography, 

 and of composition with literature. In the second place, through 

 improved methods of teaching, so that more work is accomplished in 

 a given time. The early introduction of the idea of ratio in arithme- 

 tic, and the use of the phonetic method in teaching reading, are cases 

 in point. It is safe to say that when reading is scientifically taught 

 the average child reads better at the end of the first year in school 

 than twenty-five years ago he could read at the end of the third year 

 and that he actually reads five times as much matter during the first 

 three school years as he read during the same period a quarter of 

 a century ago. In the third place, time may be saved by lopping off 

 useless and wearisome detail in all subjects. To a considerable 

 extent this pruning process has been applied in the best schools. 



That the memorizing of unnecessary details has not altogether 

 gone out of fashion, however, is shown by the recent exposure of 

 methods of teaching history in the high schools of one of our most 

 enlightened states. One hundred students who entered a state 

 normal school were asked to write answers to the question: " How 

 were you taught history in the public school? " Of the one hundred, 

 sixty-two answered that they had " memorized the text-book and 

 recited it word for word as nearly as possible." * But history is not 

 the only subject in which children's time is wasted and their interest 



1 Educational Review, May, 1904. 



