These things
have thereby become educational essentials. Whether a thing today is
an educational "essential" or not seems to depend upon two things:
whether it is a human necessity today; and whether it is so complex
or inaccessible as to require systematic teaching. The number of
"essentials" changes from generation to generation. Those today who
proclaim the Three R's as the sole "essentials" appear to be calling
from out the rather distant past. Many things have since become
essential; and other things are being added year by year. The normal
method of education in things not yet put into the schools, is
participation in those things. One gets his ideas from watching others
and then learns to do by doing. There is no reason to believe that as
the school lends its help to some of the more difficult things, this
normal plan of learning can be set aside and another substituted. Of
course the schools must take in hand the difficult portions of the
process. Where complicated knowledge is needed, the schools must teach
that knowledge. Where drill is required, they must give the drill. But
the knowledge and the drill should be given in their relation to the
human activities in which they are used. As the school helps young
people to take on the nature of adulthood, it will still do so by
helping them to enter adequately into the activities of adulthood.
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