Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/754

682 will be of service to him outside the schoolroom, for these also will create habits of attention, reflection, and industry equally well. Thus, in the study of history, literature, or science, habits of careful observation and reflection may be formed with as great readiness and surety as in the study of algebra, English grammar, Latin, or Greek. And, moreover, the conditions for accurate observation and reasoning in science or in the conduct of society are somewhat different, as every one will admit, from what they are in Greek, Latin, or arithmetic; and if the purpose is to lead the pupil ultimately to observe keenly and accurately and interpret readily and serviceably facts of Nature or the phenomena of social intercourse, then the more he has to do of this in the school the more will he become familiar with right methods for future activity. On the other hand, if the object is to make the pupil keen in the appreciation of linguistic matters, then, of course, he must study language; and we might speak in a similar way of any special subject.

We have, therefore, this broad conception, that study along special lines does not create general but only special power. There follows a second principle of equal importance in determining the relative value of materials of instruction; but this, like the one just considered, has not yet received universal recognition among teachers. It has been maintained from aforetime that arithmetic, grammar, spelling, and the mechanical side of reading, writing, and the art subjects should receive particular attention because of the paramount necessity that the pupil should be master of these things before he leaves the school, in order to be able to make any progress in his learning thereafter; and there has always accompanied this first argument another, close of kin, that these branches afford opportunity for excellent discipline of the mind. Enough has already been said perhaps to indicate that the idea of pure discipline (or, as Prof. Hinsdale calls it, "the dogma of formal discipline" ) is not founded upon good philosophy; it remains to examine briefly this second position which many teachers, with their faces always turned toward the setting sun, declare with fervor to be impregnable. A survey of the subjects in the elementary school curriculum will show that they fall naturally into three great classes, usually styled (1) the real or content subjects, including history, literature, geography, and Nature-study or science; (2) the form or symbolic subjects, including language, grammar, arithmetic, and the mechanical side of reading, writing, music, and art; (3) the industrial or "psycho-manual" subjects, including manual training, sewing, and cookery. It has been held hitherto that the