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philosophy of education. Rightly understood, they put us on our guard
against certain conceptions of mind and of subject matter which have
had great vogue in philosophic thought in the past, and which exercise
a serious hampering influence upon the conduct of instruction and
discipline. Too frequently mind is set over the world of things and
facts to be known; it is regarded as something existing in isolation,
with mental states and operations that exist independently. Knowledge is
then regarded as an external application of purely mental existences
to the things to be known, or else as a result of the impressions which
this outside subject matter makes on mind, or as a combination of the
two. Subject matter is then regarded as something complete in itself;
it is just something to be learned or known, either by the voluntary
application of mind to it or through the impressions it makes on mind.

The facts of interest show that these conceptions are mythical. Mind
appears in experience as ability to respond to present stimuli on the
basis of anticipation of future possible consequences, and with a view
to controlling the kind of consequences that are to take place. The
things, the subject matter known, consist of whatever is recognized
as having a bearing upon the anticipated course of events, whether
assisting or retarding it. These statements are too formal to be very
intelligible. An illustration may clear up their significance. You are
engaged in a certain occupation, say writing with a typewriter. If you
are an expert, your formed habits take care of the physical movements
and leave your thoughts free to consider your topic. Suppose, however,
you are not skilled, or that, even if you are, the machine does not work
well. You then have to use intelligence. You do not wish to strike the
keys at random and let the consequences be what they may; you wish to
record certain words in a given order so as to make sense. You attend to
the keys, to what you have written, to your movements, to the ribbon
or the mechanism of the machine. Your attention is not distributed
indifferently and miscellaneously to any and every detail. It is
centered upon whatever has a bearing upon the effective pursuit of
your occupation. Your look is ahead, and you are concerned to note
the existing facts because and in so far as they are factors in the
achievement of the result intended. You have to find out what your
resources are, what conditio