Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/162

 I 50 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

habits, the social forces represented in our highly organized institutions cannot function completely in his life. The greater part of what they represent, not being appropriated by the child, remains as something external and quite foreign to his experi- ence. There are some phases of the complex life about him that he can experience, but too often that which is most vital is obscured in the complexity of the situation. This is as true with reference to the social forces represented in a text-book as with reference to the industrial and social processes observed in the community. In either case it is impossible for the child to gain an experience that is truly educative, for the process repre- sents a technique too advanced for him to control. As long as such a relation exists between the ability of the child and the technique involved in the subject-matter of study, the question of the unification of the curriculum must remain forever unsolved, for the educational process from which the principle of unification is derived is not present. But, if the partial experiences of the child with reference to the complex life about him are supple- mented by experiences similar in kind, but of a type suited to his powers, he can deal with the situation in an adequate way; and, if he be encouraged to invent simple ways of improving the crude processes, he gradually acquires such an insight and con- trol as to enable him to recognize the essential elements in the more complex processes of civilized life. He is thereby enabled to participate more fully in the life of the present, because he has had the opportunity to experience it in more elementary forms.

Under such circumstances the unification of the curriculum is a simple matter, provided the anthropological materials neces- sary in order to present the simple forms of present problems are available. Under such favorable conditions the various sub- jects of the curriculum appear as different phases of one process. The industrial activities of the stage of culture under considera- tion furnish a proper field for manual training, which, enriched and liberalized by the social experiences of the race which called forth and developed the activity, is no longer open to the criticism that it serves merely utilitarian needs. These experi-