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In these days of conservation and elimination of waste every subject that
seeks admission to the course of study should be challenged at the door
and be made to show what useful purpose it is to serve. Nor should any
subject be admitted on any specious pretext. If there are subjects that
are better adapted to the high purposes of education than the ones we are
now using, then, by all means, let us give them a hearty welcome.
Above all, we should be careful not to retain a subject unless it has a
more valid passport than old age to justify its retention. If Chinese will
help us win the goal of appreciation more effectively than Latin, then, by
all means, we should make the substitution. But, in doing so, we must
exercise care not to be carried away by a yearning for novelty. Least of
all should any subject be admitted to the course of study that does not
have behind it something more substantial and enduring than whim or
caprice.
The subjects that avail in generating and stimulating the growth of
appreciation are many and of great variety. Nor are they all found in the
proverbial course of study of the schools. When the boy first really sees
an ear of corn from another viewpoint than the economic, he finds it
eloquent of the marvelous adaptations of nature. From being a mere ear of
corn it becomes a revelation of design and beauty. No change has taken
place in the ear of corn, but a most important change has been wrought in
the boy.
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