m certain habits of
manipulation of material (for everything must always be done "just so"),
the absence of more vital purposes being supposedly compensated for by
the alleged symbolism of the material used. Manual training is reduced
to a series of ordered assignments calculated to secure the mastery of
one tool after another and technical ability in the various elements of
construction--like the different joints. It is argued that pupils must
know how to use tools before they attack actual making,--assuming that
pupils cannot learn how in the process of making. Pestalozzi's just
insistence upon the active use of the senses, as a substitute for
memorizing words, left behind it in practice schemes for "object
lessons" intended to acquaint pupils with all the qualities of selected
objects. The error is the same: in all these cases it is assumed that
before objects can be intelligently used, their properties must
be known. In fact, the senses are normally used in the course of
intelligent (that is, purposeful) use of things, since the qualities
perceived are factors to be reckoned with in accomplishment. Witness the
different attitude of a boy in making, say, a kite, with respect to
the grain and other properties of wood, the matter of size, angles, and
proportion of parts, to the attitude of a pupil who has an object-lesson
on a piece of wood, where the sole function of wood and its properties
is to serve as subject matter for the lesson.

The failure to realize that the functional development of a situation
alone constitutes a "whole" for the purpose of mind is the cause of the
false notions which have prevailed in instruction concerning the simple
and the complex. For the person approaching a subject, the simple
thing is his purpose--the use he desires to make of material, tool, or
technical process, no matter how complicated the process of execution
may be. The unity of the purpose, with the concentration upon details
which it entails, confers simplicity upon the elements which have to be
reckoned with in the course of action. It furnishes each with a single
meaning according to its service in carrying on the whole enterprise.
After one has gone through the process, the constituent qualities and
relations are elements, each possessed with a definite meaning of its
own. The false notion referred to takes the standpoint of the expert,
the one for whom elements exist; isolates them from purposeful action,
and presents th