experimentally related to their environment. Why, then, should they be
taught to look past this period, to their distant future as the
harvest time for their knowledge and powers? The occasions are
abundant _now_ for turning facts and abilities to account, and it
is normal to expect them to see many of these opportunities. Proper
development requires that they be trained to look for them, instead of
looking past them.

Here is seen the need of one more reform in education. Children used
to be regarded as lacking value in themselves; their worth lay in
their promise of being men and women; and if, owing to ill health,
this promise was very doubtful, they were put aside. For education
they were given that mental pabulum that was considered valuable to
the adult; and their tastes, habits, and manners were judged from the
same viewpoint.

Very recently one radical improvement has been effected in this
program. As illustrated in the doctrine of apperception, we have grown
to respect the natures of children, even to accept their instincts,
their native tendencies, and their experiences as the proper _basis_
for their education. That is a wonderful advance. But we do not yet
regard their present experience as furnishing the _motive_ for their
education. We need to take one more step and recognize their present
lives as the field wherein the knowledge that they acquire shall
function. We do this to some extent; but we lack faith in the
abundance of their present experience, and are always impatiently
looking forward to a time when their lives will be rich.

In feeding children we have our eyes primarily on the present; food is
given them in order to be assimilated and used _now_ to satisfy