phesidext's ADDRESS^SECTIOX J. 707 



absolute standard can be fixed as one to which all children should 

 attain by their fourteenth yeaj.\ The variations in individual inherited 

 capacity, and still more, the variations in hoiiie environment make an 

 absolute standard impossible. But, apart from these modifying cir- 

 cumstances, the operations of the school should, under ideal conditions, 

 enable each child to reach the limit of his possibilities. Since the 

 time Avhen elementary instruction aimed at nothing more than pro- 

 ficiency in two or three mechanical arts, the curriculum of the primary 

 school has received one addition after aiiother, until it embraces a 

 wide range of subject-matter. This has led to the comment that the 

 primary course is overloaded with subjects. The comment, however, 

 is made without taking account of what should be the distingaiishing 

 characteristic of the instructional course up to the age of fourteen. 

 This is the period in which the child needs to be brought into contact 

 with the world about him at as many points as possible. In the five 

 or six yea]-s before he enters the school, he has gained from his 

 practical experience a store of knowledge on a number of subjects as 

 various as his experiences have been, and has learnt to express himself 

 in speech on a wide range of topics. It is the function of the primary 

 school to continue that education, and the methods by which the child 

 gained his knowledge, and the power to use it, before he enters the 

 school at all, should suggest the methods by which he might acquire 

 it after he enters the school. During this formative period, variety 

 of subject is the keynote of the school course. There has been no 

 more valuable development in primary education than that which has 

 enriched the course of instruction with subjects that supply the child 

 with fresh experiences, and that give him his first insight into the 

 multitude of activities and ideas with w^hich, whatever may be his 

 future career, he must be, to a greater or less extent, brought into 

 contact. It is difficult to see on what ground, either practical or 

 theoretical, it can be urged that the primaiy course of instruction in 

 the modern school includes too large a number of subjects. But, on 

 the other hand, there is a sense, and a very definite one, in which 

 primary courses of instruction may become overloaded. This arises, 

 not from the inclusion of too inany subjects, but from the inclusion 

 of too much subject-matter. It is this that has contributed to no 

 small extent to reduce the value of the ])roduct of the primary school, 

 and to give rise to the inaccurate comment to which reference had 

 been made. The attempt is too often made to import into the instinic- 

 tion given a range of information which might become useful as part 

 of the mental furnishing of the adult, whose experience of the world 

 would enal)le him to appreciate and use it, but which to the child 

 is so remote from his experience that it has no meaning for him. It 

 sometimes occurs that the information given has not even the merit 

 of being sufficiently useful to either the adult or the child to make it 

 necessary that it should always be carried in the memoiy. In all the 

 subjects of the school course this danger is imminent. In the teaching 

 of arithmetic, grammar, geography, history, and other subjects, the 

 temptation is constantly present to the untrained teacher to introduce 

 into his instruction, lesson material that is either not adapted to the 

 assimilative powers of the pupil, or is not of sufficient value in itself to 

 "be part of the mental outfit of the pupil. If this temptation be 



