482 HUMAN BIOLOGY 



theoretical psychology into effect in the classroom. But it is a 

 great advance to have destroyed the theory that underlay 

 and justified the old procedures. Gradually there will come 

 about such a transformation of actual schoolroom conditions 

 and equipment as will make it possible to carry the new 

 scientific conceptions into practice. In the best schools, much 

 progress in this direction has already been made. 



OBSTACLES TO BE OVERCOME 



A difficulty which amounts to an obstruction is the 

 persistence of older scholastic traditions after the actual 

 situation as respects knowledge has radically changed. It 

 was inevitable at a certain time that chief emphasis should 

 be given to the acquisition of the tools of learning. This 

 tradition took possession of elementary schools during their 

 formative period in our own country. For under pioneer 

 conditions mastery of the three R's (reading, 'riting, 'rithme- 

 tic) was the key to all educational opportunity. Homes and 

 neighborhoods were scantily supplied with reading material; 

 letter writing was a special event, and so on. Moreover the 

 school and neighborhood provided, in demands made upon 

 the young, full opportunities for immediate contact with 

 raw materials of nature and with such industrial techniques 

 as existed. Now the situation is largely reversed, at least 

 in urban and semi-urban communities which have constantly 

 grown at the expense of rural districts. Yet upon the whole the 

 tradition persists which makes the acquisition of the three R's, 

 together with a somewhat miscellaneous body of information 

 in history and geography and perhaps nature study, the main 

 • business of the eight years of the grades, that is, of the entire 

 schooling which the mass of children receives. The case is 

 made worse by the multiplication of bodies of learning. 

 Modern languages now make their claim; to the new develop- 

 ment of the physical sciences are added new and important 

 social studies. The result is congestion of the curriculum, 

 and a consequent superficial touching, in the higher elemen- 

 tary grades, the high school especially' and even the college, 

 upon a multitude of subjects with mastery of none. There 

 is not even enough of any one of them to leave behind a 



