mind, and the restless of spirit,--individuals left out of the old
scheme of education and now reverently educated by the new
democratic order in spite of all their defects,--the school becomes
more flexible and variable in its methods of transmitting truth.
More of the knowledge of human life is brought within the
comprehension of children; more men are brought into a large and
sympathetic participation in the activities of our civilization.
In the truest sense the school becomes an instrument of adjustment
between childhood and society.



_Evolutionary thought interprets childhood_

If the democratic movement emphasized the factor of social
adjustment in the school's function, it was the scientific movement
of the last half-century which drew attention to infancy as a
superior opportunity for biological adjustment Among all the
contributions of modern evolutionary science to educational
thought, none is, more striking or more far-reaching in its
implications than that special group of generalizations which
states the biological function of a prolonged infancy in man.
Interpreting this period, of helplessness and dependence as one of
plasticity and opportunity, it has shown that the greater power of
man in adjusting himself to the complex conditions of life is due
to his educability, which in turn is the outcome of his lengthened
childhood. This "doctrine of the meaning of infancy," for such it
has been called, is perhaps best known to the teaching profession
through those enlargements and applications of the doctrine which
have been made by Mr. Nicholas Murray Butler in his exposition of