The stuff
out of which concepts are built is drawn from the varied experiences of
life. On account of this intimate relation between the realities of
life and school studies they cannot be separated. Every branch,
especially in elementary studies, must be treated concretely and be
built up out of sense materials. Every study has its concrete side,
its illustrative materials, its colors of individual things taken from
life. Every study has likewise its more general scientific truths and
classifications. The prime mistake in nearly all teaching and in the
text-book method is in supposing that the great truths are accessible
in some other way than through the concrete materials that lie properly
at the entrance. The text-books are full of the abstractions and
general formulae of the sciences; but they can, in the very nature of
the case, deal only in a meager way with the individual objects and
facts upon which knowledge in different subjects is based. This
necessary defect in a text-book method must be made good by excursions,
by personal observation, by a constant reference of lessons to daily
experience outside of school, by more direct study of our surroundings,
by the teacher perfecting himself in this kind of knowledge and in its
skillful use.
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