T he price of this book (HspeM^mc 
 
 GArRilT^F-) IS $__ . ORDERS 
 
 LEFT WITH “ORDER CLERK" WILL BE GIVEN 
 PROMPT ATTENTION AND THE BOOK WILL 
 
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 CONVENTION. 
 
 Contributions to Education 
 
 Number V 
 
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 
 
 FOUNDED BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER 
 
 CONTRIBUTIONS TO EDUCATION 
 
 Number V 
 
 The Child 
 AND THE Curriculum 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN DEWEY 
 
 SOMETIME PROFESSOR AND HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY 
 AND DIRECTOR OF THE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION IN 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 
 PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 
 
 1909 
 
 LIBRARY Cr THE 
 
 STUDENT VOL'JHTLER MOVEMENT FOR FORETN mZZlO'iS- 
 COO Lexington Avenue, New Vobx City. 
 
Copyright 1902 By 
 The University of Chicago 
 
 Published September 1902 
 Second Impression February 1905 
 Third Impression July 1906 
 Fourth Impression January 1908 
 Fifth Impression September 1909 
 
 Composed and Printed By 
 The University of Chicago Press 
 Chicago, Illinois, U. S. A. 
 
The Child and the Curriculum 
 

 I 
 
 - s 
 
 f;<fC < 
 
 I •: 
 
 - V 
 
 Digitized by the internet Archive 
 in 2019 with funding from 
 Columbia University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/childcurriculumOOdewe_0 
 
THE CHILD AND THE CUR¬ 
 RICULUM. 
 
 Profound differences in theory are never 
 gratuitous or invented. They grow out of con¬ 
 flicting elements in a genuine problem — a 
 problem which is genuine just because the 
 elements, taken as they stand, are conflicting. 
 Any significant problem involves conditions 
 that for the moment contradict each other. 
 Solution comes only by getting away from the 
 meaning of terms that is already fixed upon 
 and coming to see the conditions from another 
 point of view, and hence in a fresh light. But 
 this reconstruction means travail of thought. 
 Easier than thinking with surrender of already 
 formed ideas and detachment from facts al¬ 
 ready learned, is just to stick by what is already 
 said, looking about for something with which 
 to buttress it against attack. 
 
 Thus sects arise ; schools of opinion. Each 
 selects that set of conditions that appeal to it; 
 and then erects them into a complete and inde¬ 
 pendent truth, instead of treating them as a 
 factor in a problem, needing adjustment. 
 
 The fundamental factors in the educative 
 
 7 
 
8 
 
 The Child and the Curficulum 
 
 process are an immature, undeveloped being ; 
 and certain social aims, meanings, values incar¬ 
 nate in the matured experience of the adult. 
 The educative process is the due interaction 
 of these forces. Such a conception of each 
 in relation to the other as facilitates completest 
 and freest interaction is the essence of educa¬ 
 tional theory. 
 
 But here comes the effort of thought. It is 
 easier to see the conditions in their separate¬ 
 ness, to insist upon one at the expense of 
 the other, to make antagonists of them, than 
 to discover a reality to which each belongs. 
 The easy thing is to seize upon something in 
 the nature of the child, or upon something in 
 the developed consciousness of the adult, and 
 insist upon that as the key to the whole prob¬ 
 lem. When this happens a really serious prac¬ 
 tical problem — that of interaction—is trans¬ 
 formed into an unreal, and hence insoluble, 
 theoretic problem. Instead of seeing the edu¬ 
 cative steadily and as a whole, we see conflict¬ 
 ing terms. We get the case of the child vs. 
 the curriculum ; of the individual nature vs. 
 social culture. Below all other divisions in 
 pedagogic opinion lies this opposition. 
 
 The child lives in a somewhat narrow world 
 of personal contacts. Things hardly come 
 within his experience unless they touch, inti- 
 
The Child and the Curriculum 
 
 9 
 
 mately and obviously, his own well-being, or 
 that of his family and friends. His world is a 
 world of persons with their personal interests, 
 rather than a realm of facts and laws. Not 
 truth, in the sense of conformity to external fact, 
 but affection and sympathy, is its keynote. As 
 against this, the course of study met in the 
 school presents material stretching back indefi¬ 
 nitely in time, and extending outward indefi¬ 
 nitely into space. The child is taken out of his 
 familiar physical environment, hardly more than 
 a square mile or so in area, into the wide world 
 — yes, and even to the bounds of the solar 
 system. His little span of personal memory 
 and tradition is overlaid with the long centuries 
 of the history of all peoples. 
 
 Again, the child’s life is an integral, a total 
 one. He passes quickly and readily from one 
 topic to another, as from one spot to another, 
 but is not conscious of transition or break. 
 There is no conscious isolation, hardly con¬ 
 scious distinction. The things that occupy 
 him are held together by the unity of the per¬ 
 sonal and social interests which his life carries 
 along. Whatever is uppermost in his mind 
 constitutes to him, for the time being, the 
 whole universe. That universe is fluid and 
 fluent; its contents dissolve and re-form with 
 amazing rapidity. But, after all, it is the child’s 
 
lO 
 
 The Child and the Curriculum 
 
 own world. It has the unity and complete¬ 
 ness of his own life. He goes to school, and 
 various studies divide and fractionize the world 
 for him. Geography selects, it abstracts and 
 analyzes one set of facts, and from one particu¬ 
 lar point of view. Arithmetic is anotiier divi¬ 
 sion, grammar another department, and so on 
 indefinitely. 
 
 Again, in school each of these subjects is 
 classified. Facts are torn away from their 
 original place in experience and rearranged 
 with reference to some general principle. Clas¬ 
 sification is not a matter of child experience; 
 things do not come to the individual pigeon¬ 
 holed. The vital ties of affection, the connect- 
 ing bonds of activity, hold together the variety 
 of his personal experiences. The adult mind 
 is so familiar with the notion 'of logically 
 ordered facts that it does not recognize — it 
 cannot realize—the amount of separating and 
 reformulating which the facts of direct experi¬ 
 ence have to undergo before they can appear 
 as a “study,” or branch of learning. A prin¬ 
 ciple, for the intellect, has had to be dis¬ 
 tinguished and defined ; facts have had to 
 be interpreted in relation to this principle, 
 not as they are in themselves. They have 
 had to be regathered about a new center 
 which is wholly abstract and ideal. All this 
 
The Child and the Cufficttinm 
 
 11 
 
 means a development of a special intellectual 
 interest. It means ability to view facts impar¬ 
 tially and objectively; that is, without refer¬ 
 ence to their place and meaning in one’s own 
 experience. It means capacity to analyze and 
 to synthesize. It means highly matured intel¬ 
 lectual habits and the command of a definite 
 technique and apparatus of scientific inquiry. 
 The studies as classified are the product, in a 
 word, of the science of the ages, not of the 
 experience of the child. 
 
 These apparent deviations and differences 
 between child and curriculum might be almost 
 indefinitely widened. But we have here suffi¬ 
 ciently fundamental divergences: first, the 
 narrow but personal world of the child against 
 the impersonal but infinitely extended world 
 of space and time; second, the unity, the 
 single whole-heartedness of the child’s life, 
 and the specializations and divisions of the 
 curriculum; third, an abstract principle of 
 logical classification and arrangement, and the 
 practical and emotional bonds of child life. 
 
 From these elements of conflict grow up 
 different educational sects. One school fixes 
 its attention upon the importance of the sub¬ 
 ject-matter of the curriculum as compared 
 with the contents of the child’s own expe¬ 
 rience. It is as if they said : Is life petty, 
 
12 
 
 The Child and the Curriculnm 
 
 narrow, and crude ? Then studies reveal the 
 great, wide universe with all its fulness and 
 complexity of meaning. Is the life of the 
 child egoistic, self-centered, impulsive? Then 
 in these studies is found an objective universe 
 of truth, law, and order. Is his experience 
 confused, vague, uncertain, at the mercy of the 
 moment’s caprice and circumstance ? Then 
 studies introduce a world arranged on the 
 basis of eternal and general truth; a world 
 where all is measured and defined. Hence 
 the moral: ignore and minimize the child’s 
 individual peculiarities, whims, and experi¬ 
 ences. They are what we need to get away 
 from. They are to be obscured or eliminated. 
 As educators our work is precisely to substi¬ 
 tute for these superficial and casual affairs 
 stable and well-ordered realities; and these 
 are found in studies and lessons. 
 
 Subdivide each topic into studies; each 
 study into lessons; each lesson into specific 
 facts and formulae. Let the child proceed 
 step by step to master each one of these sepa¬ 
 rate parts, and at last he will have covered 
 the entire ground. The road which looks so 
 long when viewed in its entirety, is easily 
 traveled, considered as a series of particular 
 steps. Thus emphasis is put upon the logical 
 subdivisions and consecutions of the subject- 
 
The Child and the Currictilum 
 
 13 
 
 matter. Problems of instruction are problems 
 of procuring texts giving logical parts and 
 sequences, and of presenting these portions in 
 class in a similar definite and graded way. 
 Subject-matter furnishes the end, and it deter¬ 
 mines method. The child is simply the imma¬ 
 ture being who is to be matured ; he is the 
 superficial being who is to be deepened; his is 
 narrow experience which is to be widened. It 
 is his to receive, to accept. His part is ful¬ 
 filled when he is ductile and docile. 
 
 Not so, says the other sect. The child is the 
 starting-point, the center, and the end. His 
 development, his growth, is the ideal. It alone 
 furnishes the standard. To the growth of the 
 child all studies are subservient; they are in¬ 
 struments valued as they serve the needs of 
 growth. Personality, character, is more than 
 subject-matter. Not knowledge or informa¬ 
 tion, but self-realization, is the goal. To pos¬ 
 sess all the world of knowledge and lose one’s 
 own self is as awful a fate in education as 
 in religion. Moreover, subject-matter never 
 can be got into the child from without. 
 Learning is active. It involves reaching out 
 of the mind. It involves organic assimilation 
 starting from within. Literally, we must take 
 our stand with the child and our departure from 
 him. It is he and not the subject-matter which 
 
14 
 
 The Child and the Cnrficulnm 
 
 determines both quality and quantity of learn¬ 
 ing. 
 
 The only significant method is the method 
 of the mind as it reaches out and assimilates. 
 Subject-matter is but spiritual food, possible 
 nutritive material. It cannot digest itself; it 
 cannot of its own accord turn into bone and 
 muscle and blood. The source of whatever is 
 dead, mechanical, and formal in schools is 
 found precisely in the subordination of the life 
 and experience of the child to the curriculum. 
 It is because of this that “study” has become 
 a synonym for what is irksome, and a lesson 
 identical with a task. 
 
 This fundamental opposition of child and 
 curriculum set up by these two modes of doc¬ 
 trine can be duplicated in a series of other 
 terms. “ Discipline ” is the watchword of those 
 who magnify the course of study; “interest” 
 that of those who blazon “The Child” upon 
 their banner. The standpoint of the former is 
 logical; that of the latter psychological. The 
 first emphasizes the necessity of adequate train¬ 
 ing and scholarship on the part of the teacher; 
 the latter that of need of sympathy with the 
 child, and knowledge of his natural instincts. 
 “ Guidance and control ” are the catchwords of 
 one school; “freedom and initiative” of the 
 other. Law is asserted here ; spontaneity pro- 
 
The Child and the Curriculum 
 
 15 
 
 claimed there. The old, the conservation of 
 what has been achieved in the pain and toil of 
 the ages, is dear to the one; the new, change, 
 progress, wins the affection of the other. In¬ 
 ertness and routine, chaos and anarchism, are 
 accusations bandied back and forth. Neglect 
 of the sacred authority of duty is charged by 
 one side, only to be met by counter-charges of 
 suppression of individuality through tyrannical 
 despotism. 
 
 Such oppositions are rarely carried to their 
 logical conclusion. Common-sense recoils at 
 the extreme character of these results. They 
 are left to theorists, while common-sense 
 vibrates back and forward in a maze of incon¬ 
 sistent compromise. The need of getting 
 theory and practical common-sense into closer 
 connection suggests a return to our original 
 thesis : that we have here conditions which are 
 necessarily related to each other in the educa¬ 
 tive process, since this is precisely one of 
 interaction and adjustment. 
 
 What, then, is the problem ? It is just to 
 get rid of the prejudicial notion that there is 
 some gap in kind (as distinct from degree) 
 between the child’s experience and the various 
 forms of subject-matter that make up the course 
 of study. From the side of the child, it is a 
 question of seeing how his experience already 
 
i6 
 
 The Child and the Curficttlum 
 
 contains within itself elements — facts and 
 truths — of just the same sort as those entering 
 into the formulated study; and, what is of 
 more importance, of how it contains within 
 itself the attitudes, the motives, and the inter¬ 
 ests which have operated in developing and 
 organizing the subject-matter to the plane 
 which it now occupies. From the side of the 
 studies, it is a question of interpreting them as 
 outgrowths of forces operating in the child’s 
 life, and of discovering the steps that inter¬ 
 vene between the child’s present experience 
 and their richer maturity. 
 
 Abandon the notion of subject-matter as 
 something fixed and ready-made in itself, out¬ 
 side the child’s experience; cease thinking of 
 the child’s experience as also something hard 
 and fast; see it as something fluent, embry¬ 
 onic, vital; and we realize that the child and 
 the curriculum are simpl)^ two limits which 
 define a single process. Just as two points 
 define a straight line, so the present stand¬ 
 point of the child and the facts and truths of 
 studies define instruction. It is continuous 
 reconstruction, moving from the child’s pres¬ 
 ent experience out into that represented by 
 the organized bodies of truth that we call 
 studies. 
 
 On the face of it, the various studies, arith- 
 
The Child and the Cufficulum 
 
 17 
 
 metic, geography, language, botany, etc., are 
 themselves experience—they are that of the 
 race. They embody the cumulative outcome 
 of the efforts, the strivings, and successes of 
 the human race generation after generation. 
 They present this, not as a mere accumulation, 
 not as a miscellaneous heap of separate bits of 
 experience, but in some organized and sys¬ 
 tematized way — that is, as reflectively formu¬ 
 lated. 
 
 Hence, the facts and truths that enter into 
 the child’s present experience, and those con¬ 
 tained in the subject-matter of studies, are 
 the initial and final terms of one reality. To 
 oppose one to the other is to oppose the in¬ 
 fancy and maturity of the same growing life ; 
 it is to set the moving tendency and the final 
 result of the same process over against each 
 other ; it is to hold that the nature and the 
 destiny of the child war with each other. 
 
 If such be the case, the problem of the rela¬ 
 tion of the child and the curriculum presents 
 itself in this guise : Of what use, education¬ 
 ally speaking, is it to be able to see the end in 
 the beginning ? How does it assist us in 
 dealing with the early stages of growth to be 
 able to anticipate its later phases ? The studies, 
 as we have agreed, represent the possibilities 
 of development inherent in the child’s immedi- 
 
i8 
 
 The Child and the Corricultim 
 
 ate crude experience. But, after all, they are 
 not parts of that present and immediate life. 
 Why, then, or how, make account of them ? 
 
 Asking such a question suggests its own 
 answer. To see the outcome is to know in 
 what direction the present experience is mov¬ 
 ing, provided it move normally and soundly. 
 The far-away point, which is of no significance 
 to us simply as far away, becomes of huge 
 importance the moment we take it as defining 
 a present direction of movement. Taken in 
 this way it is no remote and distant result to 
 be achieved, but a guiding method in dealing 
 with the present. The systematized and de¬ 
 fined experience of the adult mind, in other 
 words, is of value to us in interpreting the 
 child’s life as it immediately shows itself, and 
 in passing on to guidance or direction. 
 
 Let us look for a moment at these two 
 ideas : interpretation and guidance. The 
 child’s present experience is in no way self- 
 explanatory. It is not final, but transitional. 
 It is nothing complete in itself, but just a sign 
 or index of certain growth-tendencies. As 
 long as we confine our gaze to what the child 
 here and now puts forth, we are confused and 
 misled. We cannot read its meaning. Ex¬ 
 treme depreciations of the child morally and 
 intellectually, and sentimental idealizations of 
 
The Child and the Curficnlum 
 
 19 
 
 him, have their root in a common fallacy. 
 Both spring from taking stages of a growth 
 or movement as something cut off and fixed. 
 The first fails to see the promise contained in 
 feelings and deeds which, taken by them¬ 
 selves, are unpromising and repellant ; the 
 second fails to see that even the most pleas¬ 
 ing and beautiful exhibitions are but signs, 
 and that they begin to spoil and rot the 
 moment they are treated as achievements. 
 
 What we need is something which will en¬ 
 able us to interpret, to appraise, the elements in 
 the child's present puttings forth and fallings 
 away, his exhibitions of power and weakness, 
 in the light of some larger growth-process in 
 which they have their place. Only in this way 
 can we discriminate. If we isolate the child’s 
 present inclinations, purposes, and experiences 
 from the place they occupy and the part they 
 have to perform in a developing experience, 
 all stand upon the same level; all alike are 
 equally good and equally bad. But in the 
 movement of life different elements stand upon 
 different planes of value. Some of the child’s 
 deeds are symptoms of a waning tendency; 
 they are survivals in functioning of an organ 
 which has done its part and is passing out of 
 vital use. To give positive attention to such 
 qualities is to arrest development upon a lower 
 
20 
 
 The Child and the Cufficulnm 
 
 level. It is systematically to maintain a rudi¬ 
 mentary phase of growth. Other activities are 
 signs of a culminating power and interest; to 
 them applies the maxim of striking while the 
 iron is hot. As regards them, it is perhaps 
 a matter of now or never. Selected, utilized, 
 emphasized, they may mark a turning-point for 
 good in the child’s whole career ; neglected, an 
 opportunity goes, never to be recalled. Other 
 acts and feelings are prophetic ; they represent 
 the dawning of flickering light that will shine 
 steadily only in the far future. As regards 
 them there is little at present to do but give 
 them fair and full chance, waiting for the fu¬ 
 ture for definite direction. 
 
 Just as, upon the whole, it was the weakness 
 of the “old education” that it made invidious 
 comparisons between the immaturity of the 
 child and the maturity of the adult, regarding 
 the former as something to be got away from 
 as soon as possible and as much as possible; 
 so it is the danger of the “new education” 
 that it regard the child’s present powers and 
 interests as something finally significant in 
 themselves. In truth, his learnings and achieve¬ 
 ments are fluid and moving. They change 
 from day to day and from hour to hour. 
 
 It will do harm if child-study leave in the 
 popular mind the impression that a child of a 
 
The Child and the Curriculum 
 
 2 I 
 
 given age has a positive equipment of purposes 
 and interests to be cultivated just as they stand. 
 Interests in reality are but attitudes toward pos¬ 
 sible experiences; they are not achievements ; 
 their worth is in the leverage they afford, not 
 in the accomplishment they represent. To 
 take the phenomena presented at a given age 
 as in any way self-explanatory or self-con¬ 
 tained is inevitably to result in indulgence 
 and spoiling. Any power, whether of child or 
 adult, is indulged when it is taken on its given 
 and present level in consciousness. Its genu¬ 
 ine meaning is in the propulsion it affords 
 toward a higher level. It is just something to 
 do with. Appealing to the interest upon the 
 present plane means excitation ; it means play¬ 
 ing with a power so as continually to stir it up 
 without directing it toward definite achieve¬ 
 ment. Continuous initiation, continuous start¬ 
 ing of activities that do not arrive, is, for all 
 practical purposes, as bad as the continual re¬ 
 pression of initiative in conformity with sup¬ 
 posed interests of some more perfect thought 
 or will. It is as if the child were forever tast¬ 
 ing and never eating; always having his palate 
 tickled upon the emotional side, but never 
 getting the organic satisfaction that comes 
 only with digestion of food and transforma¬ 
 tion of it into working power. 
 
22 
 
 The Child and the Cufficultim 
 
 As against such a view, the subject-matter 
 of science and history and art serves to reveal 
 the real child to us. We do not know the 
 meaning either of his tendencies or of his per¬ 
 formances excepting as we take them as ger¬ 
 minating seed, or opening bud, of some fruit 
 to be borne. The whole world of visual 
 nature is all too small an answer to the problem 
 of the meaning of the child’s instinct for light 
 and form. The entire science of physics is 
 none too much to interpret adequately to us 
 what is involved in some simple demand of the 
 child for explanation of some casual change 
 that has attracted his attention. The art of 
 Rafael or of Corot is none too much to enable 
 us to value the impulses stirring in the child 
 when he draws and daubs. 
 
 So much for the use of the subject-matter in 
 interpretation. Its further employment in 
 direction or guidance is but an expansion of 
 the same thought. To interpret the fact is to 
 see it in its vital movement, to see it in its re¬ 
 lation to growth. But to view it as a part of 
 a normal growth is to secure the basis for 
 guiding it. Guidance is not external imposi¬ 
 tion. It is freeing the life-process for its own most 
 adequate fulfilmeiit. What was said about 
 disregard of the child’s present experience be¬ 
 cause of its remoteness from mature experi- 
 
The Child and the Cufriculum 
 
 23 
 
 ence ; and of the sentimental idealization of 
 the child’s naive caprices and performances, 
 may be repeated here with slightly altered 
 phrase. There are those who see no alterna¬ 
 tive between forcing the child from without, or 
 leaving him entirely alone. Seeing no alter¬ 
 native, some choose one mode, some another. 
 Both fall into the same fundamental error. 
 Both fail to see that development is a definite 
 process, having its own law which can be ful¬ 
 filled only when adequate and normal condi¬ 
 tions are provided. Really to interpret the 
 child’s present crude impulses in counting, 
 measuring, and arranging things in rhythmic 
 series, involves mathematical scholarship — 
 a knowledge of the mathematical formulae and 
 relations which have, in the history of the race, 
 grown out of just such crude beginnings. To 
 see the whole history of development which 
 intervenes between these two terms is simply 
 to see what step the child needs to take just 
 here and now ; to what use he needs to put his 
 blind impulse in order that it may get clarity 
 and gain force. 
 
 If, once more, the “ old education ” tended 
 to ignore the dynamic quality, the developing 
 force inherent in the child’s present experi¬ 
 ence, and therefore to assume that direction 
 and control were just matters of arbitrarily 
 
24 
 
 The Child and the Cufficttltim 
 
 putting the child in a given path and compel¬ 
 ling him to walk there, the “ new education” 
 is in danger of taking the idea of development 
 in altogether too formal and empty a way. 
 The child is expected to “develop” this or 
 that fact or truth out of his own mind. He is 
 told to think.things out, or work things out 
 for himself, without being supplied any of 
 the environing conditions which are requisite 
 to start and guide thought. Nothing can be 
 developed from nothing; nothing but the 
 crude can be developed out of the crude — 
 and this is what surely happens when we throw 
 the child back upon his achieved self as a 
 finality, and invite him to spin new truths of 
 nature or of conduct out of that. It is cer¬ 
 tainly as futile to expect a child to evolve a 
 universe out of his own mere mind as it is for 
 a philosopher to attempt that task. Develop¬ 
 ment does not mean just getting something 
 out of the mind. It is a development of ex¬ 
 perience and into experience that is really 
 wanted. And this is impossible save as just 
 that educative medium is provided which will 
 enable the powers and interests that have been 
 selected as valuable to function. They must 
 operate, and how they operate will depend 
 almost entirely upon the stimuli which sur¬ 
 round them, and the material upon which they 
 
The Child and the Curricultim 
 
 25 
 
 exercise themselves. The problem of direction 
 is thus the problem of selecting appropriate 
 stimuli for instincts and impulses which it is 
 desired to employ in the gaining of new expe¬ 
 rience. What new experiences are desirable, 
 and thus what stimuli are needed, it is impossi¬ 
 ble to tell except as there is some comprehen¬ 
 sion of the development which is aimed at ; 
 except, in a word, as the adult knowledge is 
 drawn upon as revealing the possible career 
 open to the child. 
 
 It may be of use to distinguish and to relate 
 to each other the logical and the psychological 
 aspects of experience—the former standing 
 for subject-matter in itself, the latter for it in 
 relation to the child. A psychological state¬ 
 ment of experience follows its actual growth; 
 it is historic ; it notes steps actually taken, the 
 uncertain and tortuous, as well as the efficient 
 and successful. The logical point of view, on 
 the other hand, assumes that the development 
 
 I 
 
 has reached a certain positive stage of fulfil¬ 
 ment. It neglects the process and considers 
 the outcome. It summarizes and arranges, 
 and thus separates the achieved results from 
 the actual steps by which they were forthcom¬ 
 ing in the first instance. We may compare the 
 difference between the logical and the psycho¬ 
 logical to the difference between the notes 
 
26 
 
 The Child and the Curriculum 
 
 which an explorer makes in a new country, 
 blazing a trail and finding his way along as 
 best he may, and the finished map that is con¬ 
 structed after the country has been thoroughly 
 explored. The two are mutually dependent. 
 Without the more or less accidental and devious 
 paths traced by the explorer there would be 
 no facts which could be utilized in the making 
 of the complete and related chart. But no 
 one would get the benefit of the explorer’s 
 trip if it was not compared and checked up 
 with similar wanderings undertaken by others; 
 unless the new geographical facts learned, the 
 streams crossed, the mountains climbed, etc., 
 were viewed, not as mere incidents in the 
 journey of the particular traveler, but (quite 
 apart from the individual explorer’s life) in 
 relation to other similar facts already known. 
 The map orders individual experiences, connect¬ 
 ing them with one another irrespective of the 
 local and temporal circumstances and acci¬ 
 dents of their original discovery. 
 
 Of what use is this formulated statement of 
 experience? Of what use is the map? 
 
 Well, we may first tell what the map is not. 
 The map is not a substitute for a personal 
 experience. The map does not take the place of 
 an actual journey. The logically formulated 
 material of a science or branch of learning, of 
 
The Child and the Curriculum 
 
 27 
 
 a study, is no substitute for the having of 
 individual experiences. The mathematical 
 formula for a falling body does not take 
 the place of personal contact and immediate 
 individual experience with the falling thing. 
 But the map, a summary, an arranged and 
 orderly view of previous experiences, serves 
 as a guide to future experience; it gives 
 direction; it facilitates control; ‘it econo¬ 
 mizes effort, preventing useless wandering, 
 and pointing out the paths which lead most 
 quickly and most certainly to a desired 
 result. Through the map every new trav¬ 
 eler may get for his own journey the bene¬ 
 fits of the results of others’ explorations with¬ 
 out the waste of energy and loss of time 
 involved in their wanderings — wanderings 
 which he himself would be obliged to repeat 
 were it not for just the assistance of the objec¬ 
 tive and generalized record of their perform¬ 
 ances. That which we call a science or study 
 puts the net product of past experience in the 
 form which makes it most available for the 
 future. It represents a capitalization which 
 may at once be turned to interest. It econo¬ 
 mizes the workings of the mind in every way. 
 Memory is less taxed because the facts are 
 grouped together about some common princi¬ 
 ple, instead of being connected solely with the 
 
28 
 
 The Child and the Curriculum 
 
 varying incidents of their original discovery. 
 Observation is assisted; we know what to look 
 for and where to look. It is the difference 
 between looking for a needle in a haystack, 
 and searching for a given paper in a well- 
 arranged cabinet. Reasoning is directed, 
 because there is a certain general path or line 
 laid out along which ideas naturally march, 
 instead of moving from one chance association 
 to another. 
 
 There is, then, nothing final about a logical 
 rendering of experience. Its value is not con¬ 
 tained in itself; its significance is that of 
 standpoint, outlook, method. It intervenes 
 between thb more casual, tentative, and round¬ 
 about experiences of the past, and more con¬ 
 trolled and orderly experiences of the future. 
 It gives past experience in that net form 
 which renders it most available and most sig¬ 
 nificant, most fecund for future experience. 
 The abstractions, generalizations, and classifi¬ 
 cations which it introduces all have prospective 
 meaning. 
 
 The formulated result is then not to be op¬ 
 posed to the process of growth. The logical 
 is not set over against the psychological. The 
 surveyed and arranged result occupies a crit¬ 
 ical position in the process of growth. It 
 marks a turning-point. It shows how we may 
 
The Child and the Ctirrictilum 
 
 29 
 
 get the benefit of past effort in controlling 
 future endeavor. In the largest sense the log¬ 
 ical standpoint is itself psychological; it has 
 its meaning as a point in the development of 
 experience, and its justification is in its func¬ 
 tioning in the future growth which it insures. 
 
 Hence the need of reinstating into experi¬ 
 ence the subject-matter of the studies, or 
 branches of learning. It must be restored to 
 the experience from which it has been ab¬ 
 stracted. It needs to be psychologized; turned 
 over, translated into the immediate and indi¬ 
 vidual experiencing within which it has its 
 origin and significance. 
 
 Every study or subject thus has two as¬ 
 pects : one for the scientist as a scientist; the 
 other for the teacher as a teacher. These two 
 aspects are in no sense opposed or conflicting. 
 But neither are they immediately identical. 
 For the scientist, the subject-matter represents 
 simply a given body of truth to be employed 
 in locating new problems, instituting new re¬ 
 searches, and carrying them through to a veri¬ 
 fied outcome. To him the subject-matter or 
 the science is self-contained. He refers vari¬ 
 ous portions of it to each other; he connects 
 new facts with it. He is not, as a scientist, 
 called upon to travel outside its particular 
 bounds ; if he does, it is only to get more facts 
 
30 
 
 The Child and the Cufficttlum 
 
 of the same general sort. The problem of 
 the teacher is a different one. As a teacher 
 he is not concerned with adding new facts to 
 the science he teaches; in propounding new 
 hypotheses or in verifying them. He is con¬ 
 cerned with the subject-matter of the science 
 as representing a given stage and phase of the de¬ 
 velopment of experience. His problem is that 
 of inducing a vital and personal experiencing. 
 Hence, what concerns him, as teacher, is the 
 ways in which that subject may become a part 
 of experience ; what there is in the child’s 
 present that is usable with reference to it; how 
 such elements are to be used ; how his own 
 knowledge of the subject-matter may assist in 
 interpreting the child’s needs and doings, and 
 determine the medium in which the child 
 should be placed in order that his growth may 
 be properly directed. He is concerned, not 
 with the subject-matter as such, but with the 
 subject-matter as a related factor in a total 
 and growing experience. Thus to see it is to 
 psychologize it. 
 
 It is the failure to keep in mind the double as¬ 
 pect of subject-matter which causes the curric¬ 
 ulum and child to be set over against each other 
 as described in our early pages. The subject- 
 matter, just as it is for the scientist, has no direct 
 relationship to the child’s present experience. 
 
The Child and the Curricultim 
 
 31 
 
 It stands outside of it. The danger here is not 
 a merely theoretical one. We are practically 
 threatened on all sides. Text-book and teacher 
 vie with each other in presenting to the child 
 the subject-matter as it stands to the specialist. 
 Such modification and revision as it undergoes 
 are a mere elimination of certain scientific diffi¬ 
 culties, and the general reduction to a lower 
 intellectual level. The material is not trans¬ 
 lated into life-terms, but is directly offered as 
 a substitute for, or an external annex to, the 
 child’s present life. 
 
 Three typical evils result: In the first place, 
 the lack of any organic connection with what 
 the child has already seen and felt and loved 
 makes the material purely formal and symbolic. 
 There is a sense in which it is impossible to 
 value too highly the formal and the symbolic. 
 The genuine form, the real symbol, serve as 
 methods in the holding and discovery of truth. 
 They are tools by which the individual pushes 
 out most surely and widely into unexplored 
 areas. They are means by which he brings 
 to bear whatever of reality he has succeeded 
 in gaining in past searchings. But this hap¬ 
 pens only when the symbol really symbol¬ 
 izes— when it stands for and sums up in short¬ 
 hand actual experiences which the individual 
 has already gone through. A symbol which is 
 
32 
 
 The Child and the Curricultim 
 
 induced from without, which has not been led 
 up to in preliminary activities, is, as we say, 
 a bare or mere symbol; it is dead and barren. 
 Now, any fact, whether of arithmetic, or geog¬ 
 raphy, or grammar, which is not led up to and 
 into out of something which has previously 
 occupied a significant position in the child’s 
 life for its own sake, is forced into this posi¬ 
 tion. It is not a reality, but just the sign of a 
 reality which might be experienced if certain 
 conditions were fulfilled. But the abrupt pres¬ 
 entation of the fact as something known by 
 others, and requiring only to be studied and 
 learned by the child, rules out such conditions of 
 fulfilment. It condemns the fact to be a hiero¬ 
 glyph : it would mean something if one only 
 had the key. The clue being lacking, it re¬ 
 mains an idle curiosity, to fret and obstruct the 
 mind, a dead weight to burden it. 
 
 The second evil in this external presentation 
 is lack of motivation. There are not only no 
 facts or truths which have been previously felt 
 as such with which to appropriate and assimilate 
 the new, but there is no craving, no need, no 
 demand. When the subject-matter has been 
 psychologized, that is, viewed as an outgrowth 
 of present tendencies and activities, it is easy 
 to locate in the present some obstacle, intel¬ 
 lectual, practical, or ethical, which can be 
 
The Child and the Cufficulum 
 
 33 
 
 handled more adequately if the truth in ques- 
 tion be mastered. This need supplies motive 
 for the learning. An end which is the child’s 
 own carries him on to possess the means of its 
 accomplishment. But when material is directly 
 supplied in the form of a lesson to be learned 
 as a lesson, the connecting links of need and 
 aim are conspicuous for their absence. What 
 we mean by the mechanical and dead in instruc¬ 
 tion is a result of this lack of motivation. 
 The organic and vital mean interaction — they 
 mean play of mental demand and material 
 supply. 
 
 The third evil is that even the most scientific 
 matter, arranged in most logical fashion, loses 
 this quality, when presented in external, ready¬ 
 made fashion, by the time it gets to the child. 
 It has to undergo some modification in order 
 to shut out some phases too hard to grasp, and 
 to reduce some of the attendant difficulties. 
 What happens ? Those things which are most 
 significant to the scientific man, and most 
 valuable in the logic of actual inquiry and 
 classification, drop out. The really thought- 
 provoking character is obscured, and the 
 organizing function disappears. Or, as we 
 commonly say, the child’s reasoning powers, 
 the faculty of abstraction and generalization, 
 are not adequately developed. So the subject- 
 
34 
 
 The Child and the Curriculum 
 
 matter is evacuated of its logical value, and, 
 though it is what it is only from the logical 
 standpoint, is presented as stuff only for 
 “ memory.” This is the contradiction : the child 
 gets the advantage neither of the adult logical 
 formulation, nor of his own native competencies 
 of apprehension and response. Hence the 
 logic of the child is hampered and mortified, 
 and we are almost fortunate if he does not get 
 actual non-science, flat and commonplace 
 residua of what was gaining scientific vitality 
 a generation or two ago — degenerate reminis¬ 
 cence of what someone else once formulated 
 on the basis of the experience that some further 
 person had, once upon a time, experienced. 
 
 The train of evils does not cease. It is all 
 too common for opposed erroneous theories to 
 play straight into each other’s hands. Psycho¬ 
 logical considerations may be slurred or shoved 
 one side; they cannot be crowded out. Put 
 out of the door, they come back through the 
 window. Somehow and somewhere motive 
 must be appealed to, connection must be 
 established between the mind and its material. 
 There is no question of getting along without 
 this bond of connection; the only question is 
 whether it be such as grows out of the material 
 itself in relation to the mind, or be imported 
 and hitched on from some outside source. If 
 
The Child and the Ctifficulum 
 
 35 
 
 the subject-matter of the lessons be such as to 
 have an appropriate place within the expanding 
 consciousness of the child, if it grows out of 
 his own past doings, thinkings, and sufferings, 
 and grows into application in further achieve¬ 
 ments and receptivities, then no device or trick 
 of method has to be resorted to in order to 
 enlist “interest.” The psychologized is of 
 interest—that is, it is placed in the whole of 
 conscious life so that it shares the worth of 
 that life. But the externally presented 
 material, that, conceived and generated in 
 standpoints and attitudes remote from the child, 
 and developed in motives alien to him, has no 
 such place of its own. Hence the recourse 
 to adventitious leverage to push it in, to 
 factitious drill to drive it in, to artificial bribe 
 to lure it in. 
 
 Three aspects of this recourse to outside 
 ways for giving the subject-matter some psy¬ 
 chological meaning may be worth mentioning. 
 Familiarity breeds contempt, but it also breeds 
 something like affection. We get used to the 
 chains we wear, and we miss them when 
 removed. ’Tis an old story that through 
 custom we finally embrace what at first wore 
 a hideous mien. Unpleasant, because mean¬ 
 ingless, activities may get agreeable if long 
 enough persisted in. It is possible for the mind 
 
36 
 
 The Child and the Curriculum 
 
 to develop interest m a routine or mechanical proce¬ 
 dure, if conditions are continually supplied which 
 demafid that mode of operation and preclude any 
 other sort. I frequently hear dulling devices 
 and empty exercises defended and extolled 
 because “the children take such an ‘interest’ 
 in them.” Yes, that is the worst of it; the 
 mind, shut out from worthy employ and miss¬ 
 ing the taste of adequate performance, comes 
 down to the level of that which is left to it to 
 know and do, and perforce takes an interest 
 in a cabined and cramped experience. To find 
 satisfaction in its own exercise is the normal 
 law of mind, and if large and meaningful busi¬ 
 ness for the mind be denied, it tries to content 
 itself with the formal movements that remain 
 to it — and too often succeeds, save in those 
 cases of more intense activity which cannot 
 accommodate themselves, and that make up 
 the unruly and declassi of our school product. 
 An interest in the formal apprehension of sym¬ 
 bols and in their memorized reproduction 
 becomes in many pupils a substitute for the 
 original and vital interest in reality; and all 
 because, the subject-matter of the course of 
 study being out of relation to the concrete 
 mind of the individual, some substitute bond 
 to hold it in some kind of working relation to 
 the mind must be discovered and elaborated. 
 
The Child and the Cttfriculum 
 
 37 
 
 The second substitute for living motivation 
 in the subject-matter is that of contrast-effects ; 
 the material of the lesson is rendered interest¬ 
 ing, if not in itself, at least in contrast with 
 some alternative experience. To learn the 
 lesson is more interesting than to take a scold¬ 
 ing, be held up to general ridicule, stay after 
 school, receive degradingly low marks, or fail 
 to be promoted. And very much of what 
 goes by the name of “discipline,” and prides 
 itself upon opposing the doctrines of a soft 
 pedagogy and upon upholding the banner of 
 effort and duty, is nothing more or less than 
 just this appeal to “interest” in its obverse 
 aspect — to fear, to dislike of various kinds of 
 physical, social, and personal pain. The sub¬ 
 ject-matter does not appeal; it cannot appeal; 
 it lacks origin and bearing in a growing experi¬ 
 ence. So the appeal is to the thousand and 
 one outside and irrelevant agencies which may 
 serve to throw, by sheer rebuff and rebound, 
 the mind back upon the material from which it 
 is constantly wandering. 
 
 Human nature being what it is, however, it 
 tends to seek its motivation in the agree¬ 
 able rather than in the disagreeable, in direct 
 pleasure rather than in alternative pain. And 
 so has come up the modern theory and prac¬ 
 tice of the “interesting,” in the false sense of 
 
38 
 
 The Child and the Cufficultim 
 
 that term. The material is still left; so far as 
 its own characteristics are concerned, just ma¬ 
 terial externally selected and formulated. It 
 is still just so much geography and arithmetic 
 and grammar study; not so much potentiality 
 of child-experience with regard to language, 
 earth, and numbered and measured reality. 
 Hence the difficulty of bringing the mind to 
 bear upon it; hence its repulsiveness; the 
 tendency for attention to wander; for other 
 acts and images to crowd in and expel the 
 lesson. The legitimate way out is to trans¬ 
 form the material; to psychologize it—that is, 
 once more, to take it and to develop it within 
 the range and scope of the child’s life. But it is 
 easier and simpler to leave it as it is, and then 
 by trick of method to arouse interest, to make 
 it interesting; to cover it with sugar-coating; 
 to conceal its barrenness by intermediate and 
 unrelated material; and finally, as it were, to 
 get the child to swallow and digest the unpal¬ 
 atable morsel while he is enjoying tasting 
 something quite different. But alas for the 
 analogy! Mental assimilation is a matter of 
 consciousness; and if the attention has not 
 been playing upon the actual material, that has 
 not been apprehended, nor worked into faculty. 
 
 How, then, stands the case of Child vs. Cur- 
 irculum ? What shall the verdict be ? The 
 
The Child and the Curriculum 
 
 39 
 
 radical fallacy in the original pleadings with 
 which we set out is the supposition that we 
 have no choice save either to leave the child to 
 his own unguided spontaneity or to inspire 
 direction upon him from without. Action is 
 response ; it is adaptation, adjustment. There is 
 no such thing as sheer self-activity possible — 
 because all activity takes place in a medium, in 
 a situation, and with reference to its conditions. 
 But, again, no such thing as imposition of truth 
 from without, as insertion of truth from with¬ 
 out, is possible. All depends upon the activity 
 which the mind itself undergoes in responding 
 to what is presented from without. Now, the 
 value of the formulated wealth of knowledge 
 that makes up the course of study is that it may 
 enable the educator to determine the environment 
 of the child, and thus by indirection to direct. 
 Its primary value, its primary indication, is 
 for the teacher, not for the child. It says to 
 the teacher: Such and such are the capacities, 
 the fulfilments, in truth and beauty and beha¬ 
 vior, open to these children. Now see to it 
 that day by day the conditions are such that 
 their own activities move inevitably in this 
 direction, toward such culmination of them¬ 
 selves. Let the child’s nature fulfil its own 
 destiny, revealed to you in whatever of science 
 
40 
 
 The Child and the Currictilum 
 
 and art and industry the world now holds as 
 its own. 
 
 The case is of Child. It is his present 
 powers which are to assert themselves; his 
 present capacities which are to be exercised; 
 his present attitudes which are to be realized. 
 But save as the teacher knows, knows wisely 
 and thoroughly, the race-experience which is 
 embodied in that thing we call the Curriculum, 
 the teacher knows neither what the present 
 power, capacity, or attitude is, nor yet how 
 it is to be asserted, exercised, and realized. 
 

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