final authority upon the particular subject-matter, rather than being
treated as a mode of representing what is held valuable and true in
relation to present-day interests and activities. The position of
authority which the text-book thus secures, may serve as a check against
even necessary changes in the attitude of the school toward any
particular subject.

=D. May Present Experience in too Technical Form.=--Lastly, the school
curriculum, even when representing present life, may introduce it in a
too highly technical form. So far at least as elementary education is
concerned, each type of knowledge, or each subject, should find a place
on the curriculum from a consideration of its influence upon the conduct
and, therefore, upon the present life of the child. There is always a
danger, however, that the teacher, who may be a specialist in the
subject, will wish to stress its more intellectual and abstract phases,
and thus force upon the child forms of knowledge which he is not able to
refer to his life needs in any practical way. This tendency is
illustrated in the desire of some teachers to substitute with young
children a technical study of botany and zoology, in place of more
concrete work in nature study. Now when the child approaches these
phases of his surroundings in the form of nature study, he is able to
see their influence upon his own community life. When, on the other
hand, these are introduced to him in too technical a form, he is not
able, in his present stage of learning, to discover this connection, and
the so-called knowledge remains in his experience, if it remains at all,
as uninteresting, non-significant, and non-digested information. In the
elementary school at least, therefore, knowledge should not be presented
to the child in such a technical and abstract way that it will seem to
have no contact with daily life.