INTEREST AND EFFORT
cluded because there has been no provision of situations in which things have to be intelligently dealt with. Everything that is disparaging in the common use of the terms academic, abstract, formal, theoretical, has its roots here.[1]
(2) The supposed externality of subject-matter is but the counterpart phase of the alleged internal isolation of mind. If mind means certain powers or faculties existing in themselves and needing only to be exercised by and upon presented subject-matter, the presented subject-matter must mean something complete in its ready-made and fixed separateness. Objects, facts, truths of geography, history, and science not being conceived as means and ends for the intelligent development of experience, are thought of just as stuff to be learned. Reading, writing, figuring are mere external forms of skill to be mastered. Even the arts—drawing, singing—are thought of as meaning so many ready-made things, pictures, songs, that are to be externally produced
- ↑ Of course, nothing that is said here is meant to depreciate the wonderful possibilities involved in an imaginative experimentation with things, after the conditions of more direct transactions with them have been met.
