The connection with the university, as indicated in this chart, I need
not dwell upon. I simply wish to indicate that there ought to be a free
interaction between all the parts of the school system. There is much of
utter triviality of subject-matter in elementary and secondary education.
When we investigate it, we find that it is full of facts taught that
are not facts, which have to be unlearned later on. Now, this happens
because the “lower” parts of our system are not, in vital connection
with the “higher.” The university or college, in its idea, is a place
of research, where investigation is going on: a place of libraries and
museums, where the best resources of the past are gathered, maintained,
and organized. It is, however, as true in the school as in the university
that the spirit of inquiry can be got only through and with the attitude
of inquiry. The pupil must learn what has meaning, what enlarges his
horizon, instead of mere trivialities. He must become acquainted with
truths, instead of things that were regarded as such fifty years ago or
that are taken as interesting by the misunderstanding of a partially
educated teacher. It is difficult to see how these ends can be reached
except as the most advanced part of the educational system is in complete
interaction with the most rudimentary.
The next chart (III) is an enlargement of the second. The school building
has swelled out, so to speak, the surrounding environment remaining the
same, the home, the garden and country, the relation to business life
and the university. The object is to show what the school must become to
get out of its isolation and secure the organic connection with social
life of which we have been speaking. It is not our architect’s plan for
the school building that we hope to have; but it is a diagrammatic
representation of the idea which we want embodied in the school building.
On the lower side you see the dining-room and the kitchen, at the top
the wood and metal shops and the textile room for sewing and weaving.
The center represents the manner in which all come together in the
library; that is to say, in a collection of the intellectual resources
of all kinds that throw light upon the practical work, that give it
meaning and liberal value. If the four corners represent practice, the
interior represents the theory of the practical activities. In other
words, the object of these forms of practice in the school is not found
chiefly in themselves, or in the technical skill of cooks, seamstresses,
carpenters, and masons, but in their connection, on the social side,
with the life without; while on the individual side they respond to the
child’s need of action, of expression, of desire to do something, to be
constructive and creative, instead of simply passive and conforming.
Their great significance is that they keep the balance between the social
and individual sides—the chart symbolizing particularly the connection
with the social.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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