Political theory and the curriculum

Polanyi). The most accurate and detailed of theoretical explanations inevitably leaves something missing-often something crucial to the skill. To get to the heart of the matter we have to try things out for ourselves. Familiarly, this is certainly true of learning motor skills, like riding a bicycle or using a wood-chisel, and of intellectual skills, like those involved in arithmetical calculation; but it is no less true of learning the skills of social life, like tact (Price, p. 102) and political skills, like 'the art of exercising public liberty' (Polanyi, p. 54).