Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II THE DISCIPLINARY BASIS OP COURSES OF STUDY Charles Hughes Johnston Twofold Purpose of a Course of Study.—It may have seemed to the less conservative readers of the preceding chapter that the practical considerations there adduced as genuine and urgent constitute a sufficient basis for our high school programme of studies. To the more conservative readers these considerations have doubtless seemed ineffectual substitutes for what one should regard as the permanent and respectable aims of secondary education. Either of these conclusions would be a misconstruction. The purpose of the course of study is twofold; to embody content best adapted to immediate social and economic requirements; and to select subject-matter also with reference to our ability to use it best educationally, that is, to make it over into life disciplines, into effectual habits and desirable mental traits. Disciplinary Aspect of Education.—The other side of the case must hence receive just as careful consideration. Education would appear to lose a vital characteristic if we ignore its purely disciplinary, its traditionally honored function. This we have in great measure tended of late to ignore. The cry for high school freedom from domination, even when justified, has carried with it the tone of impatience in directing mental processes all of whichmust be slowly, painstakingly, and expertly supervised if they are to be permanently worth while. Indolent and careless intellectual attitudes, superficiality and lack of thoroughness or of finished knowledge of a few fundamental subjects, inability and disinclination to think an issue or a problem through to its minute details, halfway racings into utilitarian fields, a tendency to tackle anything but the "trunk of he curricula," "novelty specifics"... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.