(ii) A knowledge of the
ideas which have been achieved in the past as the outcome of
activity places the educator in a position to perceive the
meaning of the seeming impulsive and aimless reactions of the
young, and to provide the stimuli needed to direct them so that
they will amount to something. The more the educator knows of
music the more he can perceive the possibilities of the inchoate
musical impulses of a child. Organized subject matter represents
the ripe fruitage of experiences like theirs, experiences
involving the same world, and powers and needs similar to theirs.
It does not represent perfection or infallible wisdom; but it is
the best at command to further new experiences which may, in some
respects at least, surpass the achievements embodied in existing
knowledge and works of art.
From the standpoint of the educator, in other words, the various
studies represent working resources, available capital. Their
remoteness from the experience of the young is not, however,
seeming; it is real. The subject matter of the learner is not,
therefore, it cannot be, identical with the formulated, the
crystallized, and systematized subject matter of the adult; the
material as found in books and in works of art, etc. The latter
represents the possibilities of the former; not its existing
state. It enters directly into the activities of the expert and
the educator, not into that of the beginner, the learner.
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