The most important single contribution to this subject made by American educators is the mono graph Interest as Belated to Will, by Prof. John Dewey, in which interest is represented as aris ing when the child does that which makes for self-expression (self-realization). This view not only places interest in its proper subordinate place, but also makes it clear that a curriculum is not to be worked out in the closet, and that character-building does not necessarily result when the child is occupied with apparently inter related studies. In the practical working out of this principle, the child, with his manifold im pulses to act. his interests, his social relation ships, his spiritual environment and heritage, be comes the core of correlation, and those creative social activities that have to do with providing food, clothing, shelter, and aesthetic expression become the gateway both to knowledge and to character. The influence of this insight into the dynamic nature of education (whereby 'educative I • activity' is substituted for 'educative instruc tion') has been and is destined to be profound and far-reaching.
In an ideal system of education, the pupil would pass without loss of time or energy from the kindergarten into the elementary school, thence into the high school, college, and pro fessional school. Between the kindergarten and the elementary school, on the one hand, and the college and the professional school on the other, the transition is now, indeed, measurably natural and easy. But the transition from ele mentary school to high school and from high school to college involves considerable waste, • which it is being attempted to obviate through conference, discussion, and experiment.
The foundation principles of education may for I the present purpose be summarized in the form of an answer to the question, Wherein does the so-called 'new education' differ from that system which it has replaced or is replacing? Ever since the rise of democratic institutions, there has been developing a new conception of the worth of the individual; and (luring the past fifty years this conception of the in dividual has been modified and reinforced by a new conception of society. It is now coming to be vividly realized that the ideal of individual development is realized in the highest social effi ciency. and that the idea] social or institutional development demands individuals that have at tamed perfect self-realization. This insight has been reflected in educational aims and methods.
. In the old education, based on a certain lack of faith in the individual and on contempt for the body and this present world. the characteristic notes were authority, intolerance. and disregard of hygienic laws: the mainstay in teaching was naturally memorizing. The new education is
based on respect and even reverence for humanity —on belief in the worth of the present mo ment, and on the doctrine of evolution. Its dominant features are, therefore, appeal to in I dividual observation, experience, judgment. rea son—enrichment of school programmes; and en lightened consciousness of the differences in in dividuals, and a consequent tolerance and adapta tion. Under the impulse of these conceptions school hygiene is recognized as an important ad junet to pedagogics; psychology, instead of deal ing only with traits supposed to be common to all, is investigating those peculiar to types and even to individuals; child study makes careful studies of actual children at various stages of development in order to determine effective ways of dealing with each type at each stage. As for cdueating the child to be a social being. the new education proceeds by regarding and treating him as a social being from the start. The Most ad vanced schools of all grades are those recognize most fully the possibilities of social training latent in the class, the school, the play ground. Constructive work, especially the form known as group work (where all the tuentbt•rs of the class are engaged on a common project, each contributing his share) is a fine illustration of how a subject can contribute to both individual and social development. Mention has already been made of the recognition of the need of ad justing the child to his social environment through the curriculum. The bearing of these ideas on moral education is obvious. Morality is to be attained in the individual as such only through his own free and responsible choosing to obey law; it is best to be attained in the indi vidual considered as a social unit by living mor ally in the society of which he is a member—the family, the school, the neighborhood.
The main objection urged against the new education is that it fails to provide for training that power to "endure hardness as a good soldier" which is the bone and sinew of character; that in suiting school work to the grain of a child's dis position it fails to prepare for those demands of life which go against the grain. It is a sufficient answer to this objection to say: ( 1 ) that bone and sinew are none the less firm. and they are the more useful, when developed by growth rather than inserted ready-made; and (2) there is no virtue or strength either in school or in life to be gained by overcoming difficulties merely by a dead pull; the secret of power in performing dif ficult tasks is the ability to raise ally task above the level of drudgery into relation with life as a whole. By giving this power, the new education greatly multiplies the ability to overcome ob stacles.