Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 85.djvu/294

290 to determine these values in any effective way, we must take account not only of particular subjects and methods of instruction, but we must keep in view especially how the individual reacts upon these materials when they are presented to him according to different methods and what effect they have on his activities.

Manifestly, in the present light of our knowledge on the subject, one can not speak with certainty regarding much of the material of education. The factors determining efficiency in adjustment are too complex and involved to permit of detailed analysis, and the function of each definitely estimated. While the pupil is in school he is also in the home and on the street. He is having much experience for which the school is not in any way responsible; though it has been the common practise in discussing values to ignore all experience except that gained within the school. One frequently sees persons who naïvely infer that whatever ability they possess in using arithmetic, say, in daily life, was gained in the school; but it is easily possible that most if not all of it was developed through the necessity of dealing with real situations outside of the school. In the same way, they maintain that their skill and efficiency in the use of the English language was developed through the study of grammar in the school, whereas it is probable that their linguistic ability is due mainly to the give-and-take of life in the home, and in the other real situations of life.

But while one can not assume a dogmatic attitude in the discussion of these problems to-day, nevertheless one may proceed in confidence upon the proposition that the individual will be benefited in school education only to the extent that the sort of experience he has in the school is the same kind as that which he will have outside in adjusting himself to the conditions of daily life. This means that in respect to the material of education, and also to some extent to the method of teaching, there must be diversity depending upon sex, upon existing social conditions, and particularly upon the sphere of life in which individuals will be placed. For a child being trained in Italy, say, any given subject would be likely to have a somewhat different value from what it would have for a child being trained in America. It is impossible then to say what the value of any special subject or method is until one knows what the needs of the pupils are. Of course, in any given country at any particular time individuals can be grouped into classes, all the members of which will have substantially the same needs; and the needs of any one member will be ministered to effectively if he has the experiences which will work out well for the group to which he belongs. His individual needs may not be provided for in every detail; but there will not be much waste in his case provided that the general needs of the group are adequately met. In a dynamic, developing social organism, there will be constant differentiation among individuals, so that for some members new needs will be arising which will