nt in life, that the grocery is another part, the
post-office still another part, and so on through an almost endless list.
Equally well does he know that the school is a part of life, because it
enters into his daily experiences the same as the grocery and the
post-office. Full well does he know that he is not outside of life when he
is in school, and no amount of sophistry can convince him otherwise. If
the school is not an integral part of the world and of life, so much the
worse for the school and, by the same token, so much the worse for the
teacher. Either the school is a part of the world or else it is neither a
real nor a worthy school.

The hours which the child spends in school are quite as much a part of his
life as any other portion of the day, no matter what activities the school
provides, and we do violence to the facts when we assume or argue
otherwise. Here is a place for emphasis. Here is the rock on which many a
pedagogical bark has suffered shipwreck. We become so engrossed in the
mechanics of our task--grades, tests, examinations, and promotions--that
we lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with real life in a
situation that is a part of the real world. The best preparation for life
is to practice life aright, and this is the real function of the school.
If teachers only could or would give full recognition to this simple, open
truth, there would soon ensue a wide departure from some of our present
mechanized methods. But so long as we cling to the traditional notion that
school is detached from real life, so long shall we continue to pursue our
merry-go-round methods. If we could fully realize that we are teaching
life by the laboratory method, many a vague and misty phase of our work
would soon become clarified.

Seeing, then, that the school is a cross-section of life, it follows,
naturally, that it embodies the identical elements that constitute life as
a whole. We all know, by experience, that life abounds in vicissitudes,
discouragements, trials, and

Martha Finley (1828 - 1909) was a teacher and author of numerous works, the most well known being the 28 volume Elsie Dinsmore series which was published over a span of 38 years. The daughter of Presbyterian minister Dr. James Brown Finley and his wife and cousin Maria Theresa Brown Finley, she was born on April 26th, 1828 in Chillicothe, Ohio. Finley wrote many of her books under the psodonym Martha Farquharson. She died in 1909 in Elkton, Maryland, where she moved in 1876.

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