Identifier: schoolsociety01dewe (find matches)
Title: The school and society
Year: 1915 (1910s)
Authors: Dewey, John, 1859-1952
Subjects: University of Chicago. Elementary School Education
Publisher: Chicago, Ill., The University of Chicago press
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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ing ahead, something better?Some of the work that has been planned for ourseven-year-old children has the latter end in view—to utilize this interest so that it shall become ameans of seeing the progress of the human race.The children begin by imagining present conditionstaken away until they are in contact with natureat first hand. That takes them back to a huntingpeople, to a people living in caves or trees andgetting a precarious subsistence by hunting andfishing. They imagine as far as possible the variousnatural physical conditions adapted to that sortof life; say, a hilly, woody slope, near mountains,and a river where fish would be abundant. Thenthey go on in imagination through the hunting tothe semi-agricultural stage, and through thenomadic to the settled agricultural stage. Thepoint I wish to make is that there is abundantopportunity thus given for actual study, for inquirywhich results in gaining information. So, whilethe instinct primarily appeals to the social side, the
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CHILD S DRAWING OF A GIRL SPINNING THE SCHOOL AND THE LIFE OF THE CHILD 47 interest of the child in people and their doings iscarried on into the larger world of reality. Forexample, the children had some idea of primitiveweapons, of the stone arrow-head, etc. That pro-vided occasion for the testing of materials as regardstheir friability, their shape, texture, etc., resultingin a lesson in mineralogy, as they examined thedifferent stones to find which was best suited to thepurpose. The discussion of the iron age supplieda demand for the construction of a smelting ovenmade out of clay and of considerable size. As thechildren did not get their drafts right at first, themouth of the furnace not being in proper relationto the vent as to size and position, instruction inthe principles of combustion, the nature of draftsand of fuel, was required. Yet the instruction wasnot given ready-made; it was first needed, and thenarrived at experimentally. Then the childrentook some material, such as

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