And, bit by bit, these various histories
merge into one, until, perhaps not until college years or later, the
doings of the countries in all the centuries of which we have
knowledge is one unbroken story to us. We know the names of lands and
of people. Why Greece could love art, why Rome could have conquest;
why these countries and all their glories passed away to give place to
others; all these things become clear to us. We learn of generals,
statesmen, poets, musicians, rulers. Their characters are made clear;
their lives are given to us in biography, and year after year the
story of the earth and man is more complete, more fascinating, more
helpful to us in learning our own day.
Then, besides all these studies, we are taught to do things with the
hands. After the Talks we have already had about doing, we know what
it means to have training of the hands. It really means the training
of the thoughts. We are training the mind to make the hands perform
their tasks rightly. It is the same in the science lesson which
teaches us to see; actually to use our eyes until we see things. That
may not seem to be a difficult task, but there are really very few
people who can accurately and properly use their eyes. If there were
more, fewer mistakes would be made.
Thus we can see that school work divides its tasks into two general
classes:
First, the learning of facts.
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