growth be limited. They are generous, if the material of growth be plentiful. And by material of growth I mean available material. A dyspeptic organism in the presence of food which it can not assimilate; a feeble brain structure face to face with possible sensations which for it are impossible—these are the victims of a fatal stint. We can set no limit to the power of assimilation. We can see no boundaries to the possibilities of sensation. The unfolding spirit finds itself at the beginning of a road, the end of which lies in infinity.
The distance between the mother and child is very great. Yet it may be traversed, and by one path, that of experience. This is only another way of saying that the child drinks in the outer world. The avidity with which it drinks, the completeness with which it assimilates, these condition its growth. What the one is, the other may become. What the one is, the other does not necessarily become. The process of education, conscious and unconscious, formal and informal, the education of daily contact with life, determines the resemblance or divergence.
It would be a serious matter if we allowed the education of the child to proceed without guidance. This would be to lose the profit of our own experience. It is a still more serious matter when we attempt to guide it. I am afraid that with our sophisticated ways we often do things which make life, acting unconsciously, a far better schoolmaster than we, with all our conscious methods.
Have I made myself clear? Have I pointed out with sufficient plainness and sufficient emphasis that men are the children of their own experience; that education is a process by which we enlarge this experience; that the art of teaching lies in the discrimination with which we decide upon the desirability of any possible experience, and the skill with which we bring the selected experience within reach of the child? I have meant to do so, and for a special reason. What to do?—that is one question. How to do it?—that is another. These two lie at the basis of manual training, as they do at the basis of every other scheme of education. The different answers give rise to the different schemes.
In adding manual training to current education, we are called upon to justify both the end and the means. The end must be rational; the means must be adequate. This is a reasonable demand. I am glad to answer for manual training, and to try to tell why we do it. I hope that others will be minded to correct and to complete the answer that I am about to give.
We did it in the first place for a quiet good.
In the face of matter, man seemed so helpless. In taking boys from the home and field and farm, and packing them into school--
