THE INFLUENCE OF EDUCATION 483 



taste and thirst which will secure continuing development in 

 some intellectual line after school days are ended. 



Ideas formed in the days when it was reasonably possible 

 for a man who had been studiously through the schools 

 to master the sum total of learning too largely control the 

 schools today. Complaints of lack of thoroughness and of 

 intellectual disciphne go back to this cause. Nothing which 

 may be of importance at some time in hfe but finds its way 

 into "courses" and textbooks. Meantime books and printed 

 material have increased enormously, and it is possible for 

 the adult to find information when he needs it with a mini- 

 mum of trouble. Also opportunities for amusement and, for 

 culture have muItipHed outside of school. The result is not 

 merely congestion, overstrain and superficiaHty, but distrac- 

 tion. The burden is increased because well-meaning organ- 

 izations who have some cause to serve seize upon the schools 

 as the easiest way to reach the pubhc and promote opinion 

 favorable to their causes. 



In consequence, the most serious of problems today as far 

 as the course of study is concerned is that of reduction and 

 simpHfication. Unfortunately attempts made in this direction 

 are often atavistic. What is urged by way of simpHfication is 

 merely return to some curriculum of the past, simpler in the 

 sense that it consists of a smaller number of studies, but 

 irrelevant to present conditions and conceived still in the 

 encyclopedic spirit as far as it goes. What is actually indi- 

 cated is surrender of the ideal of "covering the ground," 

 and a substitution for full treatment of all subjects of hmited 

 groups of material that are typical, with a view to developing 

 independent method of thought and inquiry on the part of 

 students, instead of the now hopeless task of inculcating a 

 vast mass of information, which in any case is readily 

 accessible in an up-to-date form in books and periodicals 

 when needed. In short, nothing but a revolution in aim would 

 appear to meet the requirements of the situation. Such a 

 revolution would make supreme the development of definite 

 intellectual interests sufiiciently varied to protect students 

 from premature one-sidedness and sufficiently powerful to 

 communicate to the minds of learners an impetus to go 

 further. For one of the tragedies of present-day instruction. 



