2. The Complementary Nature of History and Geography. History
and geography -- including in the latter, for reasons about to be
mentioned, nature study -- are the information studies par
excellence of the schools. Examination of the materials and the
method of their use will make clear that the difference between
penetration of this information into living experience and its
mere piling up in isolated heaps depends upon whether these
studies are faithful to the interdependence of man and nature
which affords these studies their justification. Nowhere,
however, is there greater danger that subject matter will be
accepted as appropriate educational material simply because it
has become customary to teach and learn it. The idea of a
philosophic reason for it, because of the function of the
material in a worthy transformation of experience, is looked upon
as a vain fancy, or as supplying a high-sounding phraseology in
support of what is already done. The words "history" and
"geography" suggest simply the matter which has been
traditionally sanctioned in the schools. The mass and variety of
this matter discourage an attempt to see what it really stands
for, and how it can be so taught as to fulfill its mission in the
experience of pupils. But unless the idea that there is a
unifying and social direction in education is a farcical
pretense, subjects that bulk as large in the curriculum as
history and geography, must represent a general function in the
development of a truly socialized and intellectualized
experience.
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