means of the school curriculum, the experiences come to him in a pure
form. That is, the trivial, accidental, and distracting elements which
are necessarily bound up with these experiences when they are met in the
ordinary walks of life are eliminated, and the single type is presented.
For instance, the child may every day meet accidentally examples of
reflection and refraction of light. But these not being separated from
the mass of accompanying impressions, his mind may never seize as
distinct problems the important relations in these experiences, and may
thus fail to acquire the essential principles involved. In the school
curriculum, on the other hand, under the head of physics, he has the
essential aspects presented to him in such an unmixed, or pure, form
that he finds relatively little difficulty in grasping their
significance. Thus the school curriculum renders possible an effective
control of the experiencing of the child by presenting in a
comprehensive form a classified, systematized, and pure representation
of the more valuable features of the race experience. In other words, it
provides suitable problems which may lead the child to participate more
fully in the life about him. Through the subjects of the school
curriculum, therefore, the child may acquire much useful knowledge which
would not otherwise be met, and much which, if met in ordinary life,
could not be apprehended to an equal degree.


DANGERS IN USE OF CURRICULUM

While recognizing the educational value of the school curriculum, it
should be noticed that certain dangers attach to its use as a means of
providing problems for developing the experiences of the child. It is
frequently argued against the school that the experiences gained therein
too often prove of little value to the child in the affairs of practical