Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/166

 154 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

The limitations now placed upon practical activity in the schoolroom are such that much of the child's interest in public works must expend itself in an illustrative and a dramatic rather than in a more real way. The facilities afforded by playgrounds and the unoccupied land in the vicinity may be made use of in many cases. Where such opportunities are not present it is important that the means of illustration be supplemented by activities which call forth such a degree of co-operative effort as is represented in the real construction of the work. The mag- nificent public works of ancient times are significant, not with reference to the huge piles of masonry which appear in the external product, not with reference to the form, although that is not a matter of indifference, but with reference to the social conditions of the people whose ideas they embody. Public works have a larger place in the curriculum of the elementary school than is usually accredited to them. They serve to widen the sympathies and to arouse a consciousness of a larger self than those activities which have reference merely to the indi- vidual, the family, or smaller social groups. It is to anthropology that we must look for the most valuable racial experiences avail- able for the enrichment of the child's first efforts along these lines.

When anthropological research shall have become more extended and its results organized with reference to educational needs, the difficulty that teachers now feel in attempting to cor- relate the various subjects in the curriculum will be greatly mini- mized, if they do not entirely disappear. The service which anthropology can render is to furnish the fundamental facts with reference to the typical activities in the successive stages of primitive culture. These facts once in the possession of one fitted by interest and training for the work of interpretation and organization, a course of study can readily be outlined which will represent the social factor of the educational process more vitally than ever before.

With the development of anthropology, and with the growth of the departments of education in our great universities, it ought not to be necessary for teachers in the elementary schools