could they give to those about them. This seems typical of the present
relation between the school and its environing world. While the two
need each other sadly, the school is isolated somewhat like the old-
time monastery. The fixing of specific aims for study can aid
materially in establishing the normal relation, and children can
certainly contribute to this end by discovering some of these purposes
themselves. That is one of the things that they should _learn_ to do.



PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHING CHILDREN TO FIND SPECIFIC AIMS FOR
THEIR STUDY


_1. Elimination of subject-matter that has little bearing on
life_

The elimination from the curriculum of such subject-matter as has no
probable bearing on ordinary mortals is one important step to take in
giving children definite aims in their study. There is much of this
matter having little excuse for existence beyond the fact that it
"exercises the mind"; for example: in arithmetic, the finding of the
Greatest Common Divisor as a separate topic, the tables for
Apothecaries' weight and Troy measure, Complex and Compound
Fractions;[Footnote: For a more complete list of such topics, see
Teachers College Record, _Mathematics in the Elementary School_,
March, 1903, by David Eugene Smith and F. M. McMurry.] in geography,
the location of many unimportant capes, bays, capitals and other
towns, rivers and boundaries; in nature study, many classifications,
the detailed study of leaves, and the study of many uncommon wild