ulum must take account of the adaptation of studies to the needs
of the existing community life; it must select with the intention of
improving the life we live in common so that the future shall be better
than the past. Moreover, the curriculum must be planned with reference
to placing essentials first, and refinements second. The things which
are socially most fundamental, that is, which have to do with the
experiences in which the widest groups share, are the essentials. The
things which represent the needs of specialized groups and technical
pursuits are secondary. There is truth in the saying that education must
first be human and only after that professional. But those who utter
the saying frequently have in mind in the term human only a highly
specialized class: the class of learned men who preserve the classic
traditions of the past. They forget that material is humanized in the
degree in which it connects with the common interests of men as men.
Democratic society is peculiarly dependent for its maintenance upon the
use in forming a course of study of criteria which are broadly human.
Democracy cannot flourish where the chief influences in selecting
subject matter of instruction are utilitarian ends narrowly conceived
for the masses, and, for the higher education of the few, the traditions
of a specialized cultivated class. The notion that the "essentials" of
elementary education are the three R's mechanically treated, is based
upon ignorance of the essentials needed for realization of democratic
ideals. Unconsciously it assumes that these ideals are unrealizable;
it assumes that in the future, as in the past, getting a livelihood,
"making a living," must signify for most men and women doing things
which are not significant, freely chosen, and ennobling to those who
do them; doing things which serve ends unrecognized by those engaged in
them, carried on under the direction of others for the sake of pecuniary
reward. For preparation of large numbers for a life of this sort, and
only for this purpose, are mechanical efficiency in reading, writing,
spelling and figuring, together with attainment of a certain amount
of muscular dexterity, "essentials." Such conditions also infect the
education called liberal, with illiberality. They imply a somewhat
parasitic cultivation bought at the expense of not having the
enlightenment and discipline which come from concern with the deepest
problems of common humanity. A curricu