All
information and systematized scientific subject matter have been
worked out under the conditions of social life and have been
transmitted by social means. But this does not prove that all is
of equal value for the purposes of forming the disposition and
supplying the equipment of members of present society. The
scheme of a curriculum must take account of the adaptation of
studies to the needs of the existing community life; it must
select with the intention of improving the life we live in common
so that the future shall be better than the past. Moreover, the
curriculum must be planned with reference to placing essentials
first, and refinements second. The things which are socially
most fundamental, that is, which have to do with the experiences
in which the widest groups share, are the essentials. The things
which represent the needs of specialized groups and technical
pursuits are secondary. There is truth in the saying that
education must first be human and only after that professional.
But those who utter the saying frequently have in mind in the
term human only a highly specialized class: the class of learned
men who preserve the classic traditions of the past. They forget
that material is humanized in the degree in which it connects
with the common interests of men as men. Democratic society is
peculiarly dependent for its maintenance upon the use in forming
a course of study of criteria which are broadly human.
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