Page:How we think (IA howwethink00deweiala).pdf/125

parts. As matter of fact, we cannot assume that the portion of the earth already familiar to the child is such a definite object, mentally, that he can at once begin with it; his knowledge of it is misty and vague as well as incomplete. Accordingly, mental progress will involve analysis of it—emphasis of the features that are significant, so that they will stand out clearly. Moreover, his own locality is not sharply marked off, neatly bounded, and measured. His experience of it is already an experience that involves sun, moon, and stars as parts of the scene he surveys; it involves a changing horizon line as he moves about; that is, even his more limited and local experience involves far-reaching factors that take his imagination clear beyond his own street and village. Connection, relationship with a larger whole, is already involved. But his recognition of these relations is inadequate, vague, incorrect. He needs to utilize the features of the local environment which are understood to help clarify and enlarge his conceptions of the larger geographical scene to which they belong. At the same time, not till he has grasped the larger scene will many of even the commonest features of his environment become intelligible. Analysis leads to synthesis; while synthesis perfects analysis. As the pupil grows in comprehension of the vast complicated earth in its setting in space, he also sees more definitely the meaning of the familiar local details. This intimate interaction between selective emphasis and interpretation of what is selected is found wherever reflection proceeds normally. Hence the folly of trying to set analysis and synthesis over against each other.