The question still remains, Upon what prin eiples shall studies be ehosen within these 1. favorite way of approaehing this question has been to classify all subjects (I) as giving discipline to the faculties of the mind; (21 as giving practical training for life; 131 as giv ing culture. Thus, bookkeeping and spelling are valued chiefly for their practical value; algebra and grammar for their disciplinary value; litera ture and art for their power to give that sym pathy, appreciation, and insight into the meaning of life which we call culture. But it is clear that no subject is without some value in each of these departments. And, further, it appears that much depends on the method of teaching, the purpose in view, and individual attributes; the same study may serve now as a bread-and-butter sub ject, now as a culture subject, according to cir cumstances. The same study may train memory or reason, according to the method employed; or the same study may be good for one pupil, and not so good for another. _Moreover, with the fall of the faculty theory in psychology. the dogma of formal discipline has been discredited. It is held that there is no such thing as training 'the memory,' and that to transfer skill acquired in one department to another department is not in any strict sense possible. It follows that, in any given case, considerations of environment, apti link, aim in life, and method must have greater weight in determining the choice of studies than values assigned to studies in the abstract. These considerations furnish justification from one point of view for the expansion of the modern curriculum and the concomitant development of the elective system.
At what point shall studies be intro duced? This question is to be answered partly in the light of the capacity of the child, and part ly in the light of the culture-epoch theory, which assumes that the child in his development passes through is series of stages corresponding closely to the epochs through which the race has passed in its progress from primitive to modern culture. Gen. Francis A. \\Talker, after investigating the study of arithmetic in the elementary school, pro tested against 'prying up' the powers of the child by giving him tasks for which he was not yet ready, and which he could in due time perform naturally and easily. On similar grounds, it has been proposed to decrease the amount of reading and writing called for in the first three years of school; but advocates of this plan seem not to give sufficient weight to the fact that children in these very years show a decided tendency to perform-these activities, and a marked ability to master them. It is clear that to postpone the study of mythology and of mediceval history until the child has passed the culture epoch to which they appeal involves waste. The application of this latter principle, however, is made difficult by the fact that the youngest child is a member of the modern world as well as of the primitive world—that he can and must learn about the ar rangements for heating and lighting his own house as well as about back-logs and tallow candles.
Children in the elementary school smne times carry as many as fifteen so-called 'sub jects' at one time: how shall they be kept from being overwhelmed by the multiplicity of subjects and interests? Certain well-estab lished principles throw light on the solution of this problem. First, the doctrine of apper ception, which asserts that the mind acquires knowledge by means of knowledge already pos sessed—that what we can learn is conditioned ab solutely by what we have to learn with. Second ly, the principle of self-activity, which affirms that the child is not primarily a knowing being, but an active being, whose instincts and impulses start Lim on the way to knowledge, and whose practical needs teach him to think. Empirical
obaervation attests the truth of these principles; it has been conclusively shown, for example, that under the' old regime children learned the little they had to learn with greater difficulty and strain than they accomplish their greatly in creased tasks, if only the work be properly organ ized and conducted.
In order to understand the various attempts at correlation, it is necessary to consider the evolu tion of the idea. The revolt against the isolation of studies was the outgrowth of Herbartian doc trines, According to Herbart, `erziehender Unter richt'—inst ruction that educates, or education through instruction—expresses the aim and the chief means of formal school work. Now, edu cation means moral character-building, and char acter is produced by the training and culture of volition—the will being reached only through the emotions, these in turn depending on ideas. But not from ideas in any form and relation do emo tional warmth (`interest') and volitional energy spring-, but only from those ideas that are knit into a living whole. Hence the fundamental sig nificance in the Ilerbartian pedagogy of the phrase 'circle of thought,' by which it is meant that instruction should be both many-sided and closely connected; and hence the capital role played in the same system by interest—interest being that condition of mind of which the cause is knowledge made real and vital through being related, and of which the effect is volition. The early schemes of correlation were produced in Germany and were characteristically formal, treating correlation as chiefly a question of cur riculum, and so perhaps better described as schemes for the coordination of studies. Usually, however, German plans of coordination took the form of concentration, whereby certain studies were made dominant and others were treated as subsidiary to them. There was no agreement as to what studies should be the core, some choosing literature and history, others natural sciences. In America, under the impulse of Herbartian ideas, much fruitful experimenting has been done, at first after the German manner Robin son. Crvsoe, for example, as the central subject of a year's work and 'relating' arithmetic, geog raphy, reading, drawing, manual training, and other studies to this core), and later in ways independently American. For the most part, this latter work may be described as informal corre lation. For example, a part of the work of a year or a part of the year in a certain grade may cluster around the reading of Hiawatha and the making and decorating of various objects illustra tive of the story, no attempt, however, being made to confine the work in arithmetic, geog raphy, and nature-study within the limits of Iliawatha's life. Even where correlation is not recognized in the curriculum there is an increased tendency to recognize the manifold inter-relations which exist between all subjects and parts of subjects. In support of such partial schemes it is claimed (1 ) that variety and difference are as essential to wholesale mental development as are identity and relatedness; (2) that the child stud ies with intense interest and with assimilation so apparently isolated a study as arithmetic; (3) that a correlating teacher can make an apper ceptive child even without a correlated curricu lum. But there can be no doubt that waste is often avoided by studying at the same time sub jects related both to each other and to the theo retical and practical interests of the child.