conception of growth which has been set forth. But
as worked out in the theories of Froebel and Hegel, it involves
ignoring the interaction of present organic tendencies with the present
environment, just as much as the notion of preparation. Some implicit
whole is regarded as given ready-made and the significance of growth
is merely transitory; it is not an end in itself, but simply a means
of making explicit what is already implicit. Since that which is not
explicit cannot be made definite use of, something has to be found to
represent it. According to Froebel, the mystic symbolic value of certain
objects and acts (largely mathematical) stand for the Absolute
Whole which is in process of unfolding. According to Hegel, existing
institutions are its effective actual representatives. Emphasis upon
symbols and institutions tends to divert perception from the direct
growth of experience in richness of meaning. Another influential but
defective theory is that which conceives that mind has, at birth,
certain mental faculties or powers, such as perceiving, remembering,
willing, judging, generalizing, attending, etc., and that education is
the training of these faculties through repeated exercise. This theory
treats subject matter as comparatively external and indifferent, its
value residing simply in the fact that it may occasion exercise of
the general powers. Criticism was directed upon this separation of the
alleged powers from one another and from the material upon which they
act. The outcome of the theory in practice was shown to be an undue
emphasis upon the training of narrow specialized modes of skill at the
expense of initiative, inventiveness, and readaptability--qualities
which depend upon the broad and consecutive interaction of specific
activities with one another. 1 As matter of fact, the interconnection is
so great, there are so many paths of construction, that every stimulus
brings about some change in all of the organs of response. We are
accustomed however to ignore most of these modifications of the total
organic activity, concentrating upon that one which is most specifically
adapted to the most urgent stimulus of the moment. 2 This statement
should be compared with what was said earlier about the sequential
ordering of responses (p. 25). It is merely a more explicit statement of
the way in which that consecutive arrangement occurs.

Chapter Six: Education as Conservative and Progressive

1. Educat