The common school course has greatly expanded in recent
years and there is no probability that it will ever contract. It has
expanded in response to proper universal educational demands. For we
may fairly believe that most of the studies recently incorporated into
the school course are essential elements in the education of every
child that is to grow up and take a due share in our society. It is
too late to sound the retreat. The educational reformers have battled
stoutly for three hundred years for just the course of study that we
are now beginning to accept. The edict can not be revoked, that every
child is entitled to an harmonious and equable development of all its
human powers, or as Herbart calls it, a harmonious culture of
many-sided interests. The nature of every child imperatively demands
such broad and liberal culture, and the varied duties and
responsibilities of the citizen make it a practical necessity. No
narrow, one-sided culture will ever equip a child to act a just part in
the complex social, political, and industrial society of our time. But
the demand for _depth_ of knowledge is just as imperative as that for
_comprehensiveness_.
It is clear that two serious _dangers_ threaten the quality of our
education: First, loose and shallow knowledge; second, overloading with
encyclopedic knowledge.
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