s deposited from past experience, the
content of social life gets more definitely formulated for purposes of
instruction. As we have previously noted, probably the chief motive for
consciously dwelling upon the group life, extracting the meanings which
are regarded as most important and systematizing them in a coherent
arrangement, is just the need of instructing the young so as to
perpetuate group life. Once started on this road of selection,
formulation, and organization, no definite limit exists. The invention
of writing and of printing gives the operation an immense impetus.
Finally, the bonds which connect the subject matter of school study with
the habits and ideals of the social group are disguised and covered up.
The ties are so loosened that it often appears as if there were none;
as if subject matter existed simply as knowledge on its own independent
behoof, and as if study were the mere act of mastering it for its own
sake, irrespective of any social values. Since it is highly important
for practical reasons to counter-act this tendency (See ante, p. 8)
the chief purposes of our theoretical discussion are to make clear the
connection which is so readily lost from sight, and to show in some
detail the social content and function of the chief constituents of the
course of study.

The points need to be considered from the standpoint of instructor and
of student. To the former, the significance of a knowledge of subject
matter, going far beyond the present knowledge of pupils, is to supply
definite standards and to reveal to him the possibilities of the
crude activities of the immature. (i) The material of school studies
translates into concrete and detailed terms the meanings of current
social life which it is desirable to transmit. It puts clearly
before the instructor the essential ingredients of the culture to
be perpetuated, in such an organized form as to protect him from the
haphazard efforts he would be likely to indulge in if the meanings had
not been standardized. (ii) A knowledge of the ideas which have been
achieved in the past as the outcome of activity places the educator in
a position to perceive the meaning of the seeming impulsive and aimless
reactions of the young, and to provide the stimuli needed to direct them
so that they will amount to something. The more the educator knows of
music the more he can perceive the possibilities of the inchoate musical
impulses of a child. Organized subject mat