Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/164

 I$2 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

who appreciate its importance, and who have secured it by a logical series of constructive activities with little or no relation to the curriculum as a whole hesitate to change their position. But, if it can be shown that it is possible to organize the curricu- lum so that the various subjects will stand in mutually helpful relations, while each preserves its own individuality, there will be less reluctance in making the change.

One of the most important considerations in determining the gradation of the steps in technique is the demand made by each upon the physical co-ordinations of the child. His spontaneous activities furnish the clue to this, and it is always possible to find stimulating problems which represent important achieve- ments of the race at a time when its problems in technique were similar to those with which the child is now grappling. When we consider that the type of the child's physical co-ordinations was fixed by the activities of primitive people, and that the type of his emotional and intellectual attitudes is largely a product of that time, from the point of view of the satisfaction of the child in the use of his powers the path marked out by the race is a safe guide. When, on the other hand, we consider that our forefathers, when still in the stages of savagery and barbarism, acquired a sympathetic knowledge of nearly every raw mate- rial now used for manufacturing purposes, that they acquired an almost inimitable skill in many industrial processes, that they worked out all of the mechanical principles that have yet been discovered, and that the problems that they worked out during the long ages are the basis of the civilization of today, we can- not fail to recognize that the history of their achievements fur- nishes a variety of technical sequences of inestimable value for educational purposes. Sequences which exhibit the develop- ment of tools, utensils, modes of cooking and serving food, habitations, modes of defense, means of travel and transporta- tion by land and water, clothing, ornament, musical instru- ments, etc. all these are especially valuable if made use of at a time when the technique of the processes involved is sufficiently difficult to stimulate and sufficiently simple to be worked out thoroughly enough to secure educational results.