ns
of ideas that will be most useful later.

In the various school studies, a mass of ideas is presented. These
ideas, isolated or with random connections, will be of little service to
the pupils. They must be organized with reference to future use. This
organization must come about through thinking over these ideas in
helpful connections. The teacher knows best what these helpful
connections are and must help the pupil to make them.

Suppose the topic studied in history is the Battle of Bunker Hill. The
teacher should assist the child to think the battle over in many
different connections. There are various geographical, historical, and
literary aspects of the battle that are of importance. These aspects
should be brought to mind and related by being thought of together.
Thinking things together binds them together as ideas; and later when
one idea comes, the others that have been joined with it in the past in
thought, come also. Therefore, in studying the Battle of Bunker Hill,
the pupil not only reads about it, but gets a map and studies the
geography of it, works out the causes that led up to the battle, studies
the consequences that followed, reads speeches and poems that have been
made and written since concerning the battle, the monument, etc.

Similarly, all the topics studied in school should be thought over and
organized with reference to meaning and with reference to future use. As
a result of such procedure, all the topics become organized and
crystallized, with all related ideas closely bound together in
association.

One of the greatest differences in people is in the organization of
their ideas. Of course, people differ in original experience, but they
differ more in the way they organize this experience and prepare it for
future needs. Just as in habit-formation we should by exercise and
practice acquire those kinds of skill that will serve us best in the
future, so in getting knowledge we should by repetition strengthen the
connections between those ideas that we shall need to have connected in
the future. All education looks forward and is preparatory. As a result
of training in the organization of ideas, a pupil can learn how to
organize his experience, in a measure, independent of the teacher. He
learns to know, himself, what ideas are significant, and what
connections of ideas will be most helpful. Such an outcome should be one
of the ends of school training.

=Training in Reasoning.= We have