Looking back upon our
school studies we often wonder what botany, geometry, and drawing have
to do with each other and with our present needs. Each subject was so
compactly stowed away on a shelf by itself that it is always thought of
in that isolation,--like Hammerfest or the Falkland Islands in
geography,--out of the way places. Are the various sciences so
distinct and so widely separated in nature and in real life as they are
in school? An observant boy in the woods will notice important
relations between animals and plants, between plants, soil, and seasons
that are not referred to in the text-books. In a carpenter shop he
will observe relations of different kinds of wood, metals, and tools to
each other that will surprise and instruct him. In the real life of
the country or town the objects and materials of knowledge,
representing the sciences of nature and the arts of life, are closely
jumbled together and intimately dependent upon each other. The very
closeness of causal and local connections and the lack of orderly
arrangement shown by things in life make it necessary in schools to
classify and arrange into sciences. But it is a vital mistake to
suppose that the knowledge is complete when classified and learned in
this scientific form.
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