THE ELEMENTARY-SCHOOL CURRICULUM I 55
to be handicapped much longer for the lack of proper materials, or for children to be deprived of their full heritage from the past. We can no longer close our eyes to the significance of the long period of development from which our civilization has but recently emerged. We cannot cut loose from the past if we would. We dare not build our educational institutions upon any other foundation than that which has been marked out for us by the action of both physical and social heredity. The activities of our prehistoric forefathers condition every instinctive act of our lives. They form the larger element in the motive of our most refined activities. They contain the germ of all in life that we most prize.
When specialists in anthropology and education shall have restored the means of appropriating a larger share of our heri- tage, when through their united efforts there is a more general understanding of the nature of the child and his relation to the various social forces in life, the teacher will find her work less irksome, and the child will find in the activities of the school the satisfaction that comes from a successful use of his own powers. The materials in the educational process are not static. They are rich in associations. They call forth varied trains of imagery. They speak in a language intelligible to the child, for he recog- nizes them as a part of his own activity.
Anthropology, then, is one factor in the education of the child. It serves to utilize energy which might otherwise become wasted or expended in anti-social forms, and to enrich the prac- tical activities of the child by relating them to society. It makes possible a natural unification of the various subjects of the curriculum, securing to each a richer and fuller development by establishing its fundamental relations with the others. It makes it possible for the child to conceive of the work of the school as akin to that in the larger world. It is beginning to render to the cause of elementary education such a service as that rendered by industrial activities in the upbuilding and main- taining of society.
The following list of recent books and articles serves to indicate the direc- tion that the educational thought of the time is taking with reference to the questions which are considered in the above article :
