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THE RECITATION. 
 
The Recitation 
 
 George Herbert Betts, Ph. D. 
 
 Author of "The Mind and Its Education" 
 
 Professor of Psychology, 
 Cornell College, Mount Vernon, Iowa 
 
 Mount Vernon, Iowa 
 
 The Hawk-Eye Publishing Co . 
 
 1910 
 

 <^^% 
 
 Copyright 1910 
 By Geo. Herbert Betts 
 
 Published November, 1910 
 
 "THE HAWK-EVE press 
 
 ©ClA27r,r>86 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Foreword VII 
 
 Introduction IX 
 
 I. The Purposes of the Recitation 5 
 
 Necessity of having a clear aim— Testing, teaching and 
 drilling as aims— What is to be tested and how— How 
 teaching differs from testing— Aims to be secured 
 through teaching— The purpose and necessity of drill- 
 In what branches most needed— Principles governing 
 drill— Equal skill in all three aims needed by the 
 teacher. 
 
 II. The Method of the Recitation 25 
 
 Method differs with aim sought— Two fundamental 
 principles of method— The question and answer method 
 —Inductive teaching— Topical method; use and abuse 
 —The supplemental n^ethod- The written recitation. 
 
 III. The Art of Questioning 45 
 
 Importance of questioning- Freedom from the text 
 book— The principle of unity— Clearness— Definiteness 
 Other principles— Treatment of answers-Repeating 
 answers. 
 
 IV. Conditions Necessary to a Good Recitation 67 
 
 Freedom from distractions— Distractions by the 
 teacher; by the class; by the school; physical distract- 
 ions-interest and enthusiasm on part of teacher and 
 class— Well prepared lessons— High standards— A 
 spirit of co-operation. 
 
 V. The Assignment of the Lesson , 87 
 
 Great importance of proper assignment— Teaching 
 children to study— The teachers' preparation for as- 
 signment—How to assign a lesson— The bird's-eye 
 view; the analysis; the summary— Principles govern- 
 ing the assignment. 
 
v^V 
 
FOREWORD. 
 
 This little book is an outgrowth of a course of 
 lectures given before various teachers' institutes 
 and the author's own classes in education. The 
 lectures are published at the earnest solicitation of 
 a number of superintendents who desired that their 
 teachers might have the matter in printed form. 
 
 It is believed that the subject-matter is vital and 
 concrete, for it deals with the work of the school 
 room, and not with the theories of the educators. 
 The attempt has been made to base all discussions 
 on a good psychology and sound educational prin- 
 ciples, but these have been assumed rather than 
 presented. This fact will account for what may 
 seem a somewhat dogmatic method of treatment of 
 certain topics. The aim is to present immediate 
 and concrete help in the actual problems of the 
 real recitations in our present-day schools. There- 
 fore the lectures contain much of illustration and 
 little of theory. 
 
 The ten questions given at the end of each chap- 
 ter are of such nature that* their answers are to 
 be sought chiefly in the daily recitations of the 
 reader. They may be used simply as helps in read- 
 ing the book and applying its teachings ; they will 
 be found worth while for this purpose. The an- 
 swers may also be required by the county superin- 
 tendent as an evidence of careful professional read- 
 ing upon which to base renewals of certificates. 
 
 VII 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The teacher has two great functions in the 
 school ; one is that of organizing- and managing, the 
 other, that of teaching the school. 
 
 In the first capacity he forms the school into 
 its proper divisions or classes, arranges the pro- 
 gram of daily recitations and other exercises, pro- 
 vides for calling and dismissing classes, passing 
 into and out of the room, etc., and controls the 
 conduct of the pupils ; that is. keeps order. 
 
 The organization and management of the school 
 is of the highest importance, and fundamental to 
 everything else that goes on in the school. A large 
 proportion of the teachers who are looked upon as 
 unsuccessful fail at this point. Probably at least 
 two out of three who lose their positions are 
 dropped from inability to organize and manage a 
 school. While all this is true, however, the" or- 
 ganizing and managing of the school is wholly 
 secondary; it exists only that the teaching may go 
 on. Teaching is. after all, the primary thing in the 
 school ; lacking good teaching, no amount of good 
 management or organization can redeem the school. 
 
 Teaching goes on chiefly in what we call the 
 recitation. This is the teacher's point of contact 
 wnth his pupils ; here he meets them face to face 
 and mind to mind : here he succeeds or fails in his 
 function of teaching. 
 
 Failure in teaching is harder to measure than 
 
 IX 
 
failure in organization and management. It quickly 
 becomes noised abroad if the children are not well 
 classified, or if the teacher cannot keep order. If 
 the machinery of the school does not run smoothly, 
 its creaking soon attracts public attention, and the 
 skill of the teacher is at once called into question. 
 But the teacher may be doing indififerent work in 
 the recitation, and the class hardly be aware of it 
 and the patrons know nothing about it. There is 
 no definite measure for the amount of inspiration a 
 teacher is giving daily to his pupils, and no foot- 
 rule with which to test the worth of his instruction 
 in the recitation. 
 
 And it is this very fact that makes it so neces- 
 sary that the teacher should study the principles 
 of teaching as applied to the recitation. The dif- 
 ficulty of accurately measuring failure in actual 
 teaching tends to make us all careless at this point. 
 Yet this is the very point above all others 
 that is vital to the pupil. Inspiring teaching may 
 compensate in large degree for poor management 
 in the school, but nothing can make up to a pupil 
 for dull and unskillful teaching. If the recitations 
 are for him a failure, nothing else can make the 
 school a success so far as he is concerned. 
 
 The ultimate measure of a teacher, therefore, is 
 the measure taken before his class, when he is con- 
 ducting a recitation. 
 
THE RECITATION 
 
1 
 
 THE PURPOSES OF THE RECITATION. 
 
 Any discussion of the recitation should begin 
 with its aims or purposes ; for upon aim or pur- 
 pose everything else depends. For example, if you 
 ask me the best method of conducting a recitation, 
 I shall have to inquire before answering, whether 
 your purpose in this recitation is to discover 
 whether the pupils have prepared the work as- 
 signed them, or to introduce the class to a new sub- 
 ject, such as percentage in arithmetic, or to drill 
 them upon the multiplication table. Each of these 
 purposes would demand a different method in the 
 recitation. Again, if your purpose is to show a 
 class off before visitors, you will need to use a 
 very different method from that you will employ 
 if your aim is to encourage the class in self-ex- 
 pression and independence in thinking. 
 
 There are three great purposes to be accom- 
 plished through the recitation : Testing, teaching 
 and drilling. These three aims may all be accom- 
 plished at times in the same recitation, may even 
 alternate with each other in successive questions, 
 but thev are nevertheless whollv distinct from each 
 
other, and require different methods for their ac- 
 compHshment. The skillful teacher will have one 
 or the other of these three aims before her either 
 consciously or unconsciously at each moment of 
 the recitation, and will know when she changes 
 from one to the other and for what reason. Let 
 us proceed to consider each of these aims some- 
 what more in detail. 
 
 I. TESTING AS AN AIM IN THE RECI- 
 TATION. — Testing deals with ground already cov- 
 ered, with matter already learned, or with powers 
 already developed. It concerns itself with the old, 
 instead of progressing into the new. It seeks to 
 find out what the child knows or what he can do 
 of that which he has already been over in his work. 
 Of course every new lesson or task attempted is 
 in some measure a test of all that have preceded 
 it, but testing needs to be much more definite and 
 specific than this. 
 
 The testing discussed here must not be confused 
 with what we sometimes call "tests," but really 
 are examinations, given at more or less infrequent 
 intervals. Testing may and should be carried on 
 in the regular daily recitations by questions and 
 answers either oral or written, bearing on matter 
 previously assigned ; by discussions of topics of 
 the lesson assigned ; or by requiring new work in- 
 volving the knowledge or power gained in the past 
 
 6 
 
work which is being tested. The following are 
 some of the principal things which we should test 
 in the recitation. 
 
 1. The Preparation of the Lesson Assigned. — 
 The preparation of every lesson assigned should 
 be tested in some definite way. This is of the ut- 
 most importance, especially in all elementary grades. 
 We are all so constituted mentally that we have a 
 tendency to grow careless in assigned tasks if 
 their performance is not strictly required of us. 
 No matter how careful may be the assignment of 
 the lesson, and no matter how much the teacher 
 may urge upon the class at the time of the assign- 
 ment that they prepare the lesson well, the pupils 
 must be held responsible for this preparation day 
 by day without fail if we are to insure their mas- 
 tery of it. 
 
 Nor is it enough to inquire, "How many under- 
 stand this lesson?" or "How many got all the ex- 
 amples ?" It is the teacher's business to test thor- 
 oughly for herself a pupil's mastery of the lesson 
 or the knowledge or power required for the ex- 
 amples, in some other definite amd concrete way. 
 It will not suffice to take the pupil's judgment of 
 his own preparation and mastery. 
 
 2. The Pupil's Knowledge and His Methods 
 of Study. — Entirely aside from the question of 
 the preparation of the lesson assigned, the teacher 
 must constantly test the pupil's knowledge in or- 
 
der that he may know how and what next to teach 
 him. For no maxim of teaching is better estab- 
 Hshed than that we should proceed from the known 
 to the related unknown. And this is only another 
 way of saying that we should build all new knowl- 
 edge upon the foundation of all knowledge already 
 mastered. 
 
 To illustrate : Pupils must have a thorough mas- 
 tery and ready knowledge of addition, subtraction, 
 multiplication and division before we can proceed 
 to teach them measurements or fractions. And 
 without doubt much time is wasted in attempting 
 to teach these subjects without a ready command of 
 the fundamental operations. Further, pupils must 
 know well both common and decimal fractions be- 
 fore they can proceed to percentage. They must 
 know and be able to recognize readily the different 
 "parts of speech" before they can analyze sentences 
 in grammar. 
 
 But not less important than what the pupil knows 
 is hozv he knoivs the thing. That is, what are his 
 methods of study and learning. The pupil in a 
 history class may be able to recite whole pages of 
 the text almost verbatim but when questioned as 
 to the meaning of the events and facts show very 
 little knowledge about them. A student confessed 
 to her teacher that she had committed her geometry 
 lessons all to memory instead of reasoning them 
 out. She could in this way satisfy a careless teacher 
 
 8 
 
who did not take the trouble to inquire how she 
 had prepared her lessons, but she knew little or 
 no geometry. 
 
 The mind has what may be called three different 
 levels of learning. The first is the sensory level, 
 represented by the phrase "in at one ear and out 
 of the other." Everyone has experienced reading 
 a page when the mind would wander and the eyes 
 only follow the lines on down to the bottom of the 
 page, nothing remaining as to the meaning of the 
 text. It is easy to glance a lesson over just before 
 reciting, having it stick to the memory only long 
 enough to serve the purposes of the recitation. 
 Things learned in this way are not permanently 
 serviceable and really constitute no part of an edu- 
 cation. 
 
 The second level of the mind may be called the 
 memory level. Alatter which enters the mind only 
 to this depth may be retained for a considerable 
 time but is little understood and hence of small 
 value. All rules and definitions committed with- 
 out knowing their meaning or seeing their applica- 
 tion and all lessons learned merely to recite with- 
 out a reasonable grasp of their meaning, sink only 
 as deep as the memory level. 
 
 The third and deepest level is that of the un- 
 derstanding. Matter which sinks down through 
 the sensory and memory levels, getting thoroughly 
 into the understanding level, is not only remem- 
 
bered but is understood and applied, and there- 
 fore becomes of real service in our education. Of 
 course it is clear that the ideal in teaching should 
 be to lead our pupils so to learn that most of what 
 enters their memory shall also sink down into their 
 understanding-. 
 
 Therefore, in the recitation we should test not 
 alone to see what the pupil knows, but to see how 
 he knozvs it; not only to find out whether he can 
 recite, but also what are his methods of learning. 
 We should discover not only whether the facts 
 learned have got into the memory, but whether they 
 have sunk down into the understanding so that 
 they can be used in the acquisition of further edu- 
 cation. 
 
 3. The Pupil's Points of Failure and the 
 Cause Thereof. — Every teacher has been surprised 
 many times to discover weak places in the pupil's 
 work when everything had seemingly been thor- 
 oughly learned. With the best teaching these weak 
 places will occasionally occur. It is not less essen- 
 tial to know these points of failure than to know 
 the foundations of knowledge which the pupil has 
 already mastered as described in the preceding 
 paragraph. For these weak spots must be reme- 
 died as we go along if the later work is to be suc- 
 cessful. \'ery frequently classes are unable to 
 proceed satisfactorily because of lack of thorough- 
 ness in the foundation work which precedes. To 
 
 10 
 
know where a pupil is failing is the first requisite 
 if we are to help him remedy his weakness. 
 
 But not only must the teacher know where the 
 pupil is failing, but also the cause of his failure. 
 Only when we know this can we intelligently apply 
 the remedy for the failure. A physician friend of 
 mine tells me that almost any quack can prescribe 
 successfully for sickness if he has an expert at 
 hand to diagnose the case and tell what is the mat- 
 ter. This is the hardest part of a physician's work 
 and requires the most skill. So it is with the 
 teacher's work as well. If we are sure that a cer- 
 tain boy is failing in his recitations because he is 
 lazy, it is not so difficult to devise a remedy to fit 
 the case. If we know that another is failing be- 
 cause the work is too advanced for his preparation, 
 we select a different remedy. But in every case we 
 must first know the cause of failure if we hope to 
 prescribe a remedy certain to produce a cure. 
 
 Some teachers prescribe for poorly learned les- 
 sons much after the patent medicine method. A 
 recent advertisement of one particular nostrum 
 promises the cure of any one. of thirty-seven dif- 
 ferent diseases. Surely with such a remedy as this 
 at hand there will be no need to diagnose a case 
 of sickness to find out what is the matter. All we 
 need to do is to take the regulation dose. And all 
 patients will be treated just alike whatever their 
 ailment. This is the quack doctor's method as it 
 
 11 
 
is the quack teacher's. If the teacher is unskillful 
 or lazy the remedy for poor recitations usually is, 
 "Take the same lesson for tomorrow." There is 
 even no attempt to discover the cause of failure 
 and no thought put on the question of how best 
 to remedy the failure and prevent its recurrence. 
 
 II. TEACHING AS AN AIM IN RECITA- 
 TION. — While testing- deals with the old, review- 
 ing and fixing more firnTly that which we have al- 
 ready learned, teaching using the old, leads on to 
 the new. To educate means to lead out — to lead 
 the child out from what he already has attained and 
 mastered to new attainments and new mastery. 
 This is accomplished through teaching. It is not 
 enough, therefore, to employ the recitation as a 
 time for testing the class. The recitation is also 
 the teacher's opportunity to teach. Teaching as 
 distinguished from testing becomes, therefore, one 
 of the great aims of the recitation. 
 
 Teaching should accomplish the following ob- 
 jects in the recitation : 
 
 I. Give the Child an Opportunity for Self- 
 Expression. — "We learn to do by doing," pro- 
 viding the doing is really ours; that is, providing 
 the doing holds our interest and thought nothing 
 will serve to clear up faulty thinking and partly 
 mastered knowledge like attempting to express it. 
 One really never fully knows a thing until he can 
 
 12 
 
so express it that others are caused to know it also. 
 
 Further, every person needs to cultivate the 
 power of expression for its own sake. Expression 
 consists not only of language, but the work of the 
 hand in the various arts and handicrafts, and also 
 of bodily poise and carriage, facial expression, ges- 
 ture, laughter, and any other means which the mind 
 has of making itself known to others. These vari- 
 ous forms of expression are the only way we have 
 of causing others to know what we think or feel. 
 And the world cares very little how much we may 
 know or how deeply we may feel if we have not 
 the power to express our thoughts and emotions. 
 
 The child should have, therefore, the fullest pos- 
 sible opportunity in the recitation for as many of 
 these different kinds of expression as are suitable 
 to the work of the recitation. Not only must the 
 teacher be careful not to monopolize the time of 
 the class herself, but must even lead the children 
 out, encouraging them to express in their own 
 words or through their drawings and pictures, or 
 through maps they make or through the things 
 they construct with their hands^or in any other way 
 possible, their own knowledge and thought. The 
 timid child who shrinks from reciting or going to 
 the blackboard to draw or write needs encourage- 
 ment and teaching especially. The constant danger 
 with all teachers is that of calling upon the un- 
 usually quick and bright pupil who is ready to re- 
 
 13 
 
cite, thus giving him more than his share of train- 
 ing in expression and robbing thereby the more 
 timid ones who need the practice. 
 
 2. Give Help on Difficult Points. — A complaint 
 frequently heard in some schools, and no doubt in 
 some degree merited in all is, "Teacher will not 
 help"; or, "Teacher does not explain." No mat- 
 ter how excellent the work being done by the 
 class or how skillful the Reaching, there will always 
 be hard points in the lessons which need analysis 
 or explanation. This should usually be done when 
 the lesson is assigned. A teacher who knows both 
 the subject-matter and the class thoroughly can 
 estimate almost precisely where the class will have 
 trouble with the lesson, or what important points 
 will need especial emphasis. And in the explana- 
 tion and elaboration of these points is one of the 
 best opportunities for good teaching. The good 
 teacher will help just enough, but not too much ; 
 just enough so that the class will know how to go 
 at work with the least loss of time and the greatest 
 amount of energy ; not enough so that the lesson 
 is already mastered for the class before they begin 
 their study. 
 
 But not only is it necessary to help the class on 
 the hard points in assigning the lesson, but also 
 in reciting it.' The alert teacher will in almost 
 every recitation discover some points which the 
 class have failed to understand or master fully. 
 
 14 
 
It is the overlooking of such half mastered points 
 as these that leaves weak places in the pupil's 
 knowledge and brings trouble to him later on. 
 These weak points left unstrengthened in the reci- 
 tation are the lazy teacher's greatest reproach ; the 
 occasion of the unskillful teacher's greatest bun- 
 gling ; and the inexperienced teacher's greatest 
 "danger points." 
 
 3. Bring in New Points Supplementing the 
 Text. — While the lesson of the text book should 
 be followed in the main, and most of the time de- 
 voted thereto, yet nearly every lesson gives the 
 wide awake teacher opportunity to supplement the 
 text with interesting material drawn from other 
 sources. This rightly done lends life and interest 
 to the recitation, broadens the child's knowledge, 
 and increases his respect for the teacher. In this 
 way many lessons in history, geography, literature 
 — in fact, in nearly all the studies, can also have 
 their application shown, and hence be made more 
 real to the pupils. 
 
 4. Inspire the Pupils to Better Efforts and 
 Higher Ideals. — The recitation is the teacher's 
 mental "point of contact" with his pupils. She 
 meets them socially in a friendly way at intermis- 
 sions and on the playground. Her moral character 
 and personality are a model to the children at all 
 times. But it is chiefly in the recitation that the 
 mental stimulus is given. The teacher who is life- 
 
 15 
 
less and uninspiring in the teaching of the recita- 
 tion cannot but fail to inspire his school to a strong 
 mental growth, whatever else he may accomplish. 
 
 Most people have powers far in excess of those 
 they are using. They only need to be inspired, to 
 be wakened up mentally by a teacher whose mind 
 is alive and growing. They need to be made hun- 
 gry for education, and this can be accomplished 
 only by a teacher who is^herself full of enthusiasm. 
 Inspiration is caught, not taught. 
 
 5. Lead Pupils Into Good Habits of Study. — 
 It is probably not too much to say that one-third 
 or one-half of the pupil's time is lost in school be- 
 cause of not knowing how to studv, Over and 
 over pupils say to the teacher, 'T didn't know how 
 to get this." Many times children labor hard over 
 a lesson without mastering it, simply because they 
 do not know how to pick out and classify its prin- 
 cipal points. They w^ork on w^hat is to them a 
 mere jumble, because they lack the power of anal- 
 ysis or have never been taught its use. 
 
 Very early in school life the pupil should be 
 taught to look for and make a list of the principal 
 points in the lesson. If the lesson starts with a Ro- 
 man numeral /, the child should be taught to look 
 for // and ///. and to see how they are related to /. 
 An Arabic i usually means that there is a 2, j 
 and 4 to follow ; the letter a at the head of a para- 
 graph should start the pupil to looking for h, c, 
 
 16 
 
etc. And if the text does not contain such num- 
 bering or lettering, the pupil should be led to 
 search for the main divisions and topics of the 
 lesson for himself. 
 
 Of course these principles will not apply to spell- 
 ing lessons, mere lists of sentences to be analyzed 
 or problems to be solved, but they do apply to al- 
 most every other type of lesson. The best time to 
 teach the child to make the kind of analysis sug- 
 gested is when we are assigning the lesson. We 
 can then go over the text with the class helping 
 them to select the chief points of the lesson until 
 they themselves have learned this method of study. 
 
 III. DRILL AS AN AIAl IN THE RECITA- 
 TION. — There is a great difiference between mere- 
 ly knowing a thing and knowing it so well that we 
 can use it easily and with skill. Perhaps all of us 
 know the alphabet backwards, yet if the order of 
 the dictionary were reversed so that it would run 
 from Z to A we would for a time lack the skill 
 we now have in quickly finding any desired words 
 in the dictionary. 
 
 Certain fundamentals in our education need to 
 be so well learned that they are practically auto- 
 matic, and can hence be skillfully performed with- 
 out thought or attention. We must know our 
 spelling in this way, so that we do not have to 
 stop and think how to spell each word. In the 
 
 17 
 
same manner we must know the mechanics of 
 reading, that is, the recognition and pronunciation 
 of words, the meaning of punctuation marks, etc. 
 And similarly multiplication and the other funda- 
 mental operations in arithmetic. Pupils should 
 come to know these things so well that they are 
 as automatic as speech, or as walking, eating, or 
 any other of the many acts which "do themselves." 
 If this degree of skill is «ot reached, it means halt- 
 ing and inefficient work in all these lines farther on. 
 Many are the children who are crippled in their 
 work in history, geography, and other studies be- 
 cause they cannot read well enough to understand 
 the text. Many are struggling along in the more 
 advanced parts of the arithmetic, unable to master 
 it because they are deficient in the fundamentals, 
 because they lack skill. And many are wasting 
 time trying to analyze sentences when they cannot 
 recognize the different parts of speech. 
 
 Skill is efficiency in doing. It is always a growth, 
 and never comes to us ready-made. To be sure, 
 some pupils can develop skill much faster than oth- 
 ers, but the point is, that skill has to be developed. 
 Skill is the result of repetition, or practice, that is, 
 of drill. 
 
 The following principles should guide in the use 
 of drill in the recitation : 
 
 I, Drill Should be Employed Wherever a 
 High Degree of Skill is Required. — This applies 
 
 18 
 
to what have been called the "tools of knowledge," 
 or those things which are necessary in order to 
 secure all other knowledge. Such are the "three 
 R's," reading, (w)riting, and (a)rithmetic, to 
 which we may add spelling. Without a good foun- 
 dation in these, all other knowledge will be up-hill 
 work, if not wholly impossible. 
 
 2. Drill Must be Upon Correct Models, and 
 With Alert Interest and Attention. — Mere repe- 
 tition is not enough to secure skill. What teacher 
 has not been driven to her wits' ends to prevent 
 the successive lines in the copy book from growing 
 steadily worse as they increase in number from 
 the copy on down the page ! Surely drill with such 
 a result would be long in arriving at skill. Such 
 practice is not only wholly wasted, but actually re- 
 sults in establishing false models and careless hab- 
 its in the pupil's mind. Each line must be written 
 with correct models in mind, and with the effort 
 to make it better than any preceding one, if skill 
 is to be the outcome. 
 
 Much of the value of drill is often lost through 
 lack of interest and attention.' The child lazily 
 sing-songing the multiplication table may learn to 
 say it as he would a verse of poetry, and yet not 
 know the separate combinations when he needs 
 them in problems. What he needs is drill upon 
 the different combinations hit-and-miss, and in 
 simple problems, rapidly and many times over, 
 
 19 
 
with sufficient variety and spice that his interest 
 and attention are always alert. A certain boy per- 
 sisted in saying "have went" instead of "have 
 gone." Finally his teacher said, "Johnny, you may 
 stay to-night after school and write 'have gone' 
 on the blackboard one hundred times. Then you 
 will not miss it again." 
 
 Johnny staid after school and wrote "have gone" 
 one hundred times as fhe teacher had directed. 
 When he had completed his task the teacher had 
 gone to another part of the building. Before leav- 
 ing for home Johnny politely left this note on the 
 teacher's desk : "Dear Teacher : I have went 
 home." Plenty of drill, but it was not accompanied 
 by interest and attention, and hence left no effect, 
 
 3. Drill Must Not Stop Short of a Reason- 
 able Degree of Efficiency, or Skill. — Most teach- 
 ers would rather test or teach than to drill. Others 
 do not see the necessity of drill. Hence it hap- 
 pens that a large proportion of our pupils are not 
 given practice or drill enough to arrive at even a 
 fair degree of skill. Set ten pupils of the inter- 
 mediate grades to adding up four columns of fig- 
 ures averaging a footing of 100 to the column, 
 and you will probably have at least five different 
 answers. And, so with many of the fundamentals 
 in other branches as well. We too often stop the 
 practice just short of eificiency, and thereby ivaste 
 both time and effort. 
 
 20 
 
4- Drill Must be Governed by Definite Aims. — 
 
 Probably drilling requires more planning- and care 
 on the part of the teacher than any other work of 
 the recitation. Drill applied indiscriminately wastes 
 time and kills interest. To study a spelling lesson 
 over fifteen times as some teachers require is folly. 
 Every spelling list will contain some words which 
 the pupil already knows. He should put little or 
 no drill on these, but only on the troublesome ones. 
 In learning and using the principal parts of verbs 
 it is always the few that cause the difficulty. "He 
 done it" ; "Has the bell rang?'' "Set down." These 
 and a few other forms are the ones which give 
 the trouble ; they should receive the drill. Likewise 
 in arithmetic. There are certain combinations in 
 the tables, and certain operations in fractions, meas- 
 urements, etc., which always make trouble. They 
 are the "danger points," and upon these the prac- 
 tice should be put. 
 
 The teacher must aim, therefore, to select the 
 difficult and the important points and drill upon 
 these until they are mastered, being careful not 
 to stop at the "half-way house," but steadily to go 
 on until skill is obtained. She must be resourceful 
 in methods and devices which will relieve the mo- 
 notony of repetition ; she must be persistent and 
 patient, insisting on the attainment of skill, but 
 realizing that it takes time to develop it ; she must 
 possess a good pedagogical conscience which will 
 
 21 
 
be satisfied with nothing short of success in her 
 aims. 
 
 The aims to be accompHshed through the reci- 
 tation are, then, testing, teaching, and drilling. 
 These three aims may, as said before, all be car- 
 ried on in the same recitation, or they may come 
 in different recitations, as the needs of the subject 
 require. Not infrequently they may alternate with 
 each other within a few ^moments. In every case, 
 however, the teacher should have clearly in mind 
 which one of the three processes she is employing 
 and why. Not that the teacher must always stop 
 to reason the matter out before she employs one 
 or the other, but that she should become so familiar 
 with the nature and use of each that she almost un- 
 consciously passes from one to the other as the 
 need for it arises. 
 
 Not many teachers are equally skilled in the use 
 of testing, teaching, and drilling. Some have a 
 tendency to put most of the recitation time on 
 testing whether the class have prepared the assign- 
 ment, and devote but little time to teaching or 
 drilling. Others love to teach, but do not like to 
 test or drill. It is highly desirable that every 
 teacher, young or old in experience, should examine 
 herself on this question and, if she finds herself 
 lacking on any one of the three, carefully set at 
 work to remedy the defect. The ideal for us all 
 
 22 
 
to reach is equal skill in each of the three processes 
 of the recitation, testing, teaching, and driUing. 
 
 EXERCISES. 
 
 1. Which do you think you are most successful 
 in, testing, teaching, or drillingf Which do you 
 like best? 
 
 2. Explain the difference between a series of 
 questions meant to test and a series meant to teach. 
 
 3. In what classes are you now giving or have 
 you recently given particular attention to drill? 
 Why did you think drill necessary? 
 
 4. Have you any pupils who seem not to have 
 had sufficient drill in certain subjects? How do 
 you tell whether they have had or not? What are 
 you doing to remedy the defect? Explain fully, 
 giving specific instances. 
 
 5. Explain, giving full particulars, any devices 
 which you are using to relieve drill of its monotony 
 in some subject where much drill is required. Be 
 specific in explaining your method. 
 
 6. Have you any pupils who are hard to get to 
 recite? If so, what have you found the best meth- 
 od to overcome this difficulty? 
 
 7. Have you discovered any pupils who have a 
 tendency to commit their lessons to memory with- 
 out coming to understand them? If so, what rem- 
 edy have you found for this bad method of study? 
 Describe some of the cases, giving details. 
 
 8. Have you found that some of your pupils 
 write each succeeding line in their copy book worse 
 
 23 
 
the farther they get away from the copy? If so, 
 what remedy are you trying? Does it work? 
 
 9. Describe some particular recitation you have 
 recently had in which you used testing, teaching 
 and drilling, all within the one class period. Tell 
 just how you did each. 
 
 10. At what points of your work have the sug- 
 gestions of this chapter been most helpful? Ex- 
 plain with some fullness. 
 
 The answers to all the exercises should be writ- 
 ten out carefully and with sufficient fullness and 
 detail that they may show clearly just how you 
 have handled in your own school the problem sug- 
 gested in the question. This note applies to the 
 exercises following each chapter. 
 
 24 
 
II. 
 
 THE METHOD OF THE RECITATION. 
 
 In our last talk we discussed the aims or pur- 
 poses of the recitation. We now come to see how 
 these aims affect the methods we employ. For it 
 is evident at the outset that the method we choose 
 must depend on the aim sought in the recitation. 
 If we seek to-day to make the recitation chiefly a 
 test of how well the lesson has been prepared, or 
 how much of yesterday's work has been retained, 
 we will select a method suited for testing. If we 
 aim to introduce the class to the subject of per- 
 centage for the first time, the method must be 
 adapted to teaching. If we wish to make the reci- 
 tation a drill in the diacritical markings or the mul- 
 tiplication table, the method must be still a differ- 
 ent one. In other words, the method must he 
 planned to accomplish certain definite ends if the 
 teaching is to be purposeful and effective. 
 
 There are certain fundamental principles of 
 method which underlie all teaching, and which, 
 therefore, are to be sought in every recitation, no 
 matter what the special method used may chance 
 
 25 
 
to be. The first of these principles may be stated 
 as follows : 
 
 1. Interest is the first requisite for attention 
 and all mental actiznty. A recitation without in- 
 terest is a dead recitation. Because it possesses 
 no life it cannot lead to growth. Nothing can 
 take the place of interest. Fear may drive to work 
 for a time, but it does not result in development. 
 Only interest can bring all the powers and capaci- 
 ties of the child into play. Hence the teacher's 
 first and greatest problem in the recitation is the 
 problem of interest. To secure interest she must 
 use every resource at her command. This does 
 not mean that she is to bid for the children's in- 
 terest with sensational methods and cheap devices. 
 This is not the way to secure true interest. It 
 means, rather, that she is to oflfer to the class sub- 
 ject-matter suited to their age and experience, and 
 presented in a way adapted to their capacity and 
 understanding; that she is to have all conditions 
 surrounding the recitation as favorable as possible; 
 and that she is herself to be constantly a source of 
 interest and enthusiasm. If these conditions are 
 all met the problem of interest will present few 
 difficulties. 
 
 2. The natural mode of learning is to proceed 
 from the known to the related unknozvn. This is 
 a statement of what is known as the principle of 
 apperception, or the learning of the new by con- 
 
 26 
 
necting it with the old already in the mind. To 
 make use of this principle it is necessary to freshen 
 up what the pupil already knows on a topic by 
 asking him questions or otherwise causing him to 
 think anew the facts previously learned which are 
 related to what he is about to learn. For example, 
 when beginning the subject of percentage, the sub- 
 ject of decimals should be reviewed, since percent- 
 age is but an application of decimals and can most 
 easily be learned and understood as such. Like- 
 wise in beginning the study of the civil war the 
 question of slavery and that of the doctrine of 
 states' rights should be reviewed, since these are 
 fundamental to an understanding of the causes of 
 the war. In similar manner we might apply the 
 illustration to every branch of study. Indeed there 
 is hardly a single recitation which should not start 
 with a brief review or a few questions to freshen 
 up in the minds of the pupils the points related 
 to the coming lesson. Not only will this insure 
 that the lessons themselves shall be better under- 
 stood, but the entire subject will in this way come 
 to possess a unity instead of ^consisting of a series 
 of more or less disconnected lessons in the mind of 
 the child. 
 
 Having stated these two general principles of 
 method, we will now consider some of the special 
 forms of method to be employed in the recitation. 
 In discusing these methods and comparing them 
 
 27 
 
it is not to be forgotten that attention and interest 
 are dependent in large measure on change and va- 
 riety. The same method used day after day in 
 the recitation palls upon a class and invites listless- 
 ness and inattention. A teacher should never em- 
 ploy cheap or sensational devices in a recitation 
 just to have something new, but neither should she 
 work a good method to death by too constant use. 
 
 I. THE QUESTION AND ANSWER 
 METHOD. — The question and answer method is 
 so familiar to everyone that it requires no formal 
 definition. It is employed in all grades from the 
 primary to the university, and it is adapted alike 
 to testing, teaching or drilling. 
 
 This method admits of wide modification to suit 
 it to specific uses. The questions asked may re- 
 quire but a short and simple answer, such as can 
 be given by a primary pupil. They may also re- 
 quire a long and complex answer which will test 
 the powers of the most advanced student. The 
 questions may be detailed and searching, covering 
 every point of the lesson, as when we are testing 
 preparation. They may deal only with certain re- 
 lated truths, as when we "develop" a new subject 
 intentionally by questions and answers. Or they 
 may select only the most important points upon 
 which the class needs drill. 
 
 I. When and Where to Employ the Question 
 and Answer Method. — The question and answer 
 
 28 
 
method is particularly adapted to the lower grades, 
 in which the children have not yet developed the 
 ability to recite independently on long topics. This 
 method allows the teacher to encourage and draw 
 out the child by what is really a conversation be- 
 tween the two, the teacher asking simple questions 
 and the child responding to them. In more ad- 
 vanced grades the questions may be so arranged 
 as to require longer and more complex answers, 
 and thus lead up to the topical method of reciting. 
 
 The question and answer method is also suitable 
 to employ at the beginning of a recitation to freshen 
 the minds of the class on previous lessons to which 
 the lesson of the day is related. There is hardly 
 one recitation in a hundred that does not require 
 an introduction of this kind. The only true method 
 in teaching is to build the new knowledge on the 
 related old knowledge which is already in the mind. 
 This is what is meant in pedagogy by "proceeding 
 from the known to the related unknown." And 
 the known must always be fresh and immediately 
 present to the mind. Hence the necessity for the 
 introductory review. 
 
 This method is also serviceable in reviewing for- 
 mer lessons. By the use of well selected questions 
 a large number of important points already passed 
 over can be brought before the class in a short 
 time. 
 
 On the whole, it is probable that we do not re- 
 
 29 
 
view frequently enough in our recitation work. 
 We review a subject when we have finished the 
 text upon it, or before examination time, but this 
 is not enough. Careful psychological tests have 
 shown that the mind forgets within the first three 
 days a large proportion of what it fails to retain. 
 Further, there is great economy in catching up a 
 fading fact before it gets wholly away from us. 
 This would suggest the constant use of the ques- 
 tion and answer method to fix more finally the im- 
 portant points in ground we have already passed 
 over. 
 
 One of the most important uses of this method 
 is found in all inductive teaching. The famous 
 "Socratic method" was simply the question and 
 answer method applied by Socrates to teaching new 
 truths. This noted teacher would, by a series of 
 skillful questions calculated to call forth what the 
 pupil already knew, lead him on to new knowledge 
 without actually telling the youth anything himself. 
 And this is the very height of good teaching — the 
 goal toward which we all should strive. 
 
 It is a safe maxim never to tell a child what 
 you can lead him by questioning to see for him- 
 self. To illustrate : Suppose an elementary arith- 
 metic class already know thoroughly how to find 
 the area of a rectangle by multiplying its base by 
 its altitude, and that we are now ready to teach 
 them how to find the area of a triangle. Let us 
 
 30 
 
see whether we can lead them to "develop" the 
 rule instead of learning it out of the text; that is, 
 we will proceed inductively. First draw a rec- 
 tangle 4 by 6 on the board. 
 
 Q. What do we call this figure? 
 
 A. A rectangle. 
 
 Q. How shall we find its area? 
 
 A. Multiply its base 4 by its altitude 6; the 
 area is 24. 
 
 Q. Now I draw a line diagonally across the 
 rectangle ; how many figures are there ? 
 
 A. Two. (Teacher here gives new word "tri- 
 angle" and explains it.) 
 
 Q. How do the base and altitude of the tri- 
 angles compare with the base and altitude of the 
 rectangle ? 
 
 A. They are the same. 
 
 Q. How do the two triangles compare in area? 
 
 A. They are equal ; each is half of the rectangle. 
 
 Q. Then, if each is half of the rectangle, what 
 must be the area of one of the triangles? 
 
 A. The area of each triangle is 12, for the area 
 of the rectangle is 24, and the area of each triangle 
 is half that of the rectangle. 
 
 Q. Then, how may we find the area of a tri- 
 angle ? 
 
 A. Multiply the base by the altitude and take 
 one-half the product. 
 
 Of course the teacher may have to supplement 
 questions like the above by others to assist the 
 
 31 
 
child in arriving at the desired answer, but the 
 method is the same in any case. The inductive 
 method is the child's natural way of learning:, and 
 should be applied to nearly all school branches. 
 Too many teachers have children learn rules and 
 definitions which m.ean little or nothing to them. 
 This is not only discouraging to the child and a 
 serious waste of time, but it develops bad habits 
 of study by making the^ pupil think he is learning 
 something when he is not. Only when the fact or 
 process learned is understood is it true knowledge. 
 The inductive method begins with what the child 
 already knows and. step by step, leads him to un- 
 derstand the new truths. It comes last to the rule 
 or definition after the m.eaning is clearly seen. 
 
 2. Dangers of the Question and Answer 
 Method. — Xo matter how good a method may be 
 there are always some dangers connected with its 
 use. some points at which a teacher needs to be 
 on guard to see that the method is not misused or 
 overused. The question and answer method is no 
 exception to this rule. 
 
 One of the greatest dangers in the use of this 
 method is that pupils will com.e to depend on the 
 questions as a crutch to help them along mentally 
 when they should be able to proceed by them, selves. 
 Not infrequently do pupils say to the teacher when 
 called upon for a topical discussion. 'Tf you will 
 ask me questions upon the topic I can answer them, 
 
 32 
 
but I cannot recite upon the topic." It is very 
 much easier to answer a series of questions upon 
 a subject than to discuss it independently. This 
 is well adapted to younger children ; and this very 
 reason makes it a danger when overused with more 
 advanced pupils. We need to learn to think 
 through a subject and talk about topics without 
 the help of a teacher to stand by and ask questions ; 
 we need to become independent in our thinking ; we 
 need practice in organizing and expressing our 
 thoughts for ourselves. 
 
 The second danger we note in the question and 
 answer method is that it does not give as much op- 
 portunity for training in self-expression as the top- 
 ical m.ethod. In teaching by the question and an- 
 swer method, the teacher occupies nearly or quite 
 as much time with the questions as the class do 
 with the answers. This does not give opportunity 
 for practice enough in reciting on the part of the 
 pupil, if the question and answer method is em- 
 ployed exclusively. The only way for a child to 
 learn to recite well is by reciting, the only way to 
 learn to express one's self is by having opportunity 
 for expression. 
 
 II. THE TOPICAL METHOD.— The topical 
 method is too familiar to require definition. In 
 this method the teacher suggests a topic of the les- 
 son or asks a question which requires the pupil 
 
 33 
 
to go on in his own way and tell what he can 
 about the point under discussion. There is really 
 no hard and fast line betweea the topical method 
 and the question and answer method. The funda- 
 mental difiference between the two is this : In the 
 question and answer method, the question is defi- 
 nitely upon some fact or point, and requires a spe- 
 cific answer bearing on the fact or point of the 
 question ; in the topicaf method, the question or 
 topic suggested requires the pupil to decide upon 
 what facts or points need discussion, and then to 
 plan his own discussion. 
 
 I. Where the Topical Method is Most Serv- 
 iceable. — As has already been explained, the top- 
 ical method requires more independence of thought 
 than the question and answer method, and will 
 therefore find its greatest use in the higher grades. 
 We are not to think, however, that the topical 
 method is not to be used until some certain grade 
 has been reached, and that then the child will sud- 
 denly find himself able to use it. The ability to 
 think independently and speak one's thoughts free- 
 ly is a growth, and is not attained suddenly at a 
 given age. Even little children, telling their lan- 
 guage stories, are using the topical method, and 
 should be encouraged in its use. As the grades 
 advance, however, the use of this method should 
 increase, and the length and difficulty of the topics 
 should grow, so that recitation by topics can be 
 
 34 
 
efficiently carried on in the higher intermediate and 
 grammar grades. 
 
 Probably the easiest forms of the topical recita- 
 tion are found in history or reading lessons, where 
 narration abounds. Narration deals with a succes- 
 sion of events, and is always found one of the 
 easiest forms of discourse. In proof of this, one 
 has but to note the fluency and ease with which a 
 child will narrate the events of a game, a trip, or 
 an accident, whereas if you call upon him for log- 
 ical explanations or even for description, as for 
 example. Just what kind of a looking team it was 
 which ran away? much more difficulty will be ex- 
 perienced in telling about it. 
 
 Another great field for topical recitations is 
 found in all lines where description is required. 
 This applies to all nature study and science, to 
 geography, to certain phases of literature and his- 
 tory. To describe even a commonplace object ac- 
 curately and well is an art more rare than most 
 of us would think. Suppose you ask the first per- 
 son you meet to describe fully the house in which 
 he lives or the sunset which he has just seen. If 
 he seriously tries to comply with your request, you 
 will probably be surprised both by the difficulty he 
 has in his attempt, and the little that he really can 
 say upon these familiar subjects. The interesting 
 story teller is a rarity, which is only another way 
 of saying that the ability to narrate and describe 
 
 35 
 
needs cultivation. There is no better opportunity 
 possible than that of the topical recitation. 
 
 The topical method can manifestly be used to 
 supplement the question and answer method in 
 testing the pupils on the preparation of the lesson, 
 or in reviewing former lessons. It can also be 
 well used in teaching new subject-matter which 
 does not particularly require the developmental, 
 or "Socratic," method. * Illustrations of such ma- 
 terial are to be found in much of the work in his- 
 tory and in literature; also in the descriptive parts 
 of geography, nature study and science. 
 
 When the topical method is being employed it 
 will nearly always need to be supplemented by 
 questions and answers. Very rarely will a pupil 
 recite upon any important topic with sufficient ac- 
 curacy and completeness that nothing more needs 
 to be said concerning it. Hence, after the pupil 
 has completed his topical discussion, the teacher 
 can round out the subject, impress the more im- 
 portant points, or correct wrong impressions, by 
 a few questions to be answered either by the pu- 
 pil who has had the discussion, or by the remainder 
 of the class. 
 
 The topical method gives the teacher the best 
 opportunity to teach the pupils how to study. It 
 is safe to say that most pupils consider that they 
 "have their lesson" when they understand it, or 
 think they can remember it. But if the child is to 
 
 86 
 
be taught expression, as well as given knowledge, 
 it is evident that this is not enough. Not only 
 should a pupil be sure that he understands his les- 
 son and can remember it, but also he should think 
 how best to express it in the recitation. The 
 teacher can help the class in this when assigning 
 the topii s by showing the pupils how to pick out 
 the main points of the topics, and arrange them in 
 order for discussion. This is, of course, really 
 training in analysis — a power which all pupils need 
 to cultivate. 
 
 2. The Question of Standards in Topical Reci- 
 tations. — The success of the topical method will 
 depend much on the teacher's standards of thor- 
 oughness applied to its use. Children, particu- 
 larly of the lower grades, have not yet developed 
 much grasp of mind, and consequently are not able 
 to judge when they have sufficiently covered a 
 topic given them for recitation. They are likely 
 to think that if they stand up and say something 
 about the topic, this is sufficient. 
 
 It is at this point that the teacher needs to exer- 
 cise great care. The child must not be discouraged 
 by harsh criticism, but neither must an incomplete 
 recitation be accepted as a complete one. The 
 teacher must judge carefully how full a discussion 
 should be expected from a child of the given age, 
 taking into account the treatment of the topic in 
 the pupil's text book. Then by questions, further 
 
 37 
 
discussion by other pupils, kindly criticisms, and 
 helpful suggestions the standard should be placed 
 as high as the class can attain. Nor is it to be 
 forgotten that the standard is to be a constantly 
 advancing one. 
 
 III. THE LECTURE, OR SUPPLEMEN- 
 TAL METHOD.— The lecture method is rather 
 too formal a name for *.the method in which the 
 teacher talks to the class instead of asking them 
 to recite. She may either take the entire period 
 in a lecture, or talk, or she may only supplement 
 now and then the answers or topical recitations 
 of the pupils. This method is almost exclusively 
 used in many universities and colleges, but is not 
 suited for extensive use in more elementary schools. 
 
 I. How the Lecture Method is to be Used. — 
 
 While the lecture method should be employed 
 sparingly in the elementary school, yet it is most 
 valuable to supplement other methods. First, in 
 introducing a class to a new subject or section of 
 work, it is frequently desirable that the teacher 
 should take a part or the whole of a recitation pe- 
 riod to explain the nature of the work or to in- 
 terest the pupils in it. For example: In taking 
 up the discovery of America, the teacher can create 
 interest by telling the class of the wonderful events 
 going on in Europe during the fifteenth century, of 
 the life of Columbus as a boy, of the ships then 
 
in use. comparinor them with our present steam- 
 ships, etc. Similarly for almost every new sec- 
 tion taken up in any study. 
 
 The lecture method is also useful in supplement- 
 ing the recitations of the pupils. The teacher's 
 knowledge must be much broader than the text 
 book, and a little explanation added, an incident 
 told, or an application of the lesson made will often 
 do much to broaden the pupil's knowledge of the 
 subject, and will at the same time lend interest 
 to the recitation, besides increasing respect for the 
 teacher's education. There is nothing more deaden- 
 ing to the recitation than a mechanical plodding 
 through the questions and answers of a text book, 
 without any explanation or amplification, and often 
 without much comprehension on the part of the 
 class. The teacher who has nothing of her own 
 to add is incapable of teaching in the true sense 
 of the word. At best she can only test as to the 
 preparation from the text book. 
 
 2. Dangers From the Lecture Method. — While 
 we justly condemn the teacher who has nothing 
 of her own to add to the recitation, we must not 
 forget that there is a danger on the other side. 
 Ask any assemblage of teachers how many think 
 that, in general, their own teachers talked too 
 much in the recitation, thereby monopolizing the 
 time, and two-thirds will thus blame their former 
 teachers for overusing the lecture method. Most 
 
 39 
 
people, when they are sure of an audience, Hke to 
 talk, and probably teachers are no exception to the 
 rule. 
 
 The teacher who is full of information and en- 
 thusiasm for the recitation is led by this very fact 
 into temptation. Some point in the lesson sug- 
 gests an interesting story or illustration, or some 
 additional bit of information, and the teacher starts 
 to tell it to the class. She becomes herself so in- 
 terested in it that the lesson is forgotten and the 
 class period ended long before the story is com- 
 pleted. This may do occasionally but, once it be- 
 comes a habit, it is fatal to good teaching. The 
 recitation as prepared by the class should be the 
 chief interest of the class period. The teacher . 
 must learn to supplement without monopolizing. 
 
 IV. THE WRITTEN RECITATION.— The 
 written recitation can hardly be called a method, 
 since it can be itself applied to any or all of the 
 methods of reciting. Like all other methods, the 
 written recitation has its strong points of excel- 
 lence and also its dangers. 
 
 I. The Use of the Written Recitation.— The 
 written recitation is especially useful in cases 
 where all of the class should recite upon all of 
 the lesson. It is easy to see that by having each 
 of a class of ten answer ten questions, a far larger 
 amount of answering is done in the aggregate 
 
 40 
 
than if only one could be answering at a time, as 
 in oral recitation. 
 
 Certain knowledge is used only when we use it 
 in writing. For example, we are never called upon 
 to spell except on writing; similarly forms of let- 
 ters in correspondence, business forms, punctuation 
 marks, etc. It is safe to say that matter of such 
 kinds should usually be taught by having it 
 written. 
 
 The written recitation also leads to accuracy and 
 precision of thought and expression. We all for- 
 mulate more carefully what we write than what 
 we speak. 
 
 The written recitation also gives an opportuni- 
 ty for training in written expression. Every person 
 needs to be able to express himself easily and forc- 
 ibly in writing. But this requires much practice, 
 and there is no better practice than in formulating 
 in writing the thoughts of the daily lessons. 
 
 2. Dangers in the Use of the Written Method. 
 — Valuable as the written method is, there are 
 certain cautions to be observed in its use. 
 
 This method does not ordinarily possess the in- 
 terest and spontaneity of the oral recitation. There 
 is no opportunity for the teacher to supplement 
 with points brought in. Misconceptions are not 
 cleared up in the minds of the pupils, at least dur- 
 ing that recitation period, unless the written pa- 
 pers are read at once. Usually time does not per- 
 
 41 
 
mit this. Many children do not Hke to write, and 
 hence find the lesson tiresome, especially if con- 
 tiued for a whole class period. 
 
 The amount of writing required of children may 
 be too great. Few pupils can write long at a time 
 without eye-strain, muscle cramp and bad bodily 
 positions. Where this is the case, over-fatigue re- 
 sults if the amount of written work required is 
 large. It is not unusual to find schools in which 
 children are required to spend almost half of their 
 school hours in some form of written work. This 
 is a serious mistake both educationally and from 
 the standpoint of health. 
 
 There is also still another side of the matter to 
 consider. One of the great advantages of writ- 
 ten work is that the pupil may have his errors 
 shown him, so that he may reflect upon them and 
 correct them. But not infrequently, where the 
 amount of written work is too large, the errors 
 are not carefully corrected by the teacher, and not 
 corrected at all by the pupil. This is why many 
 pupils will keep on making the same error time 
 after time on their papers. The correction has not 
 sufficiently impressed them. 
 
 All written work, with perhaps rare exceptions, 
 should be carefully gone over by the teacher, and 
 all serious or oft-repeated errors corrected by the 
 pupils who made them. Not infrequently may chil- 
 dren be seen to glance over a paper which the 
 
 42 
 
teacher has put precious time and some red ink 
 upon in making corrections, and then crumple the 
 paper and throw it into the waste basket. Some- 
 times this is done in sheer carelesness, and some- 
 times in petulance because of the many corrections. 
 This is all a loss of time and opportunity. The 
 teacher should have tact enough to show the pu- 
 pils that corrections are made on their papers for 
 their benefit, and not as a punishment. And then 
 the pupil should take the trouble to correct the 
 errors, that they may not occur again. Better a 
 thousand times correct carefully an old paper than 
 to write a new one containing the same errors. 
 
 EXERCISES. 
 
 1. Give a series of questions which you have 
 used or plan to use in testing the preparation of 
 some certain lesson. Tell specifically the text book 
 and the pages containing the lesson. 
 
 2. Give a series of inductive questions which 
 you have used or plan to use in developing some 
 new topic. 
 
 3. Give a series of questions which you have 
 used or plan to use in conducting a drill. 
 
 4. What do you consider the advantages of the 
 topical method? Its disadvantages? Do not give 
 a theoretical answer, but reply from your own 
 teaching experience. 
 
 5. When you call on a pupil to recite on a 
 topic, and he does fairly well, but does not fully 
 cover the topic, what means do you take to have 
 
 43 
 
the topic completed? Give some specific case and 
 the way you handled it. 
 
 6. Give particular instances in which you have 
 employed the supplemental method, and tell what 
 you did. 
 
 7. Give a list of questions which you have used 
 or plan to use to freshen up the points of a pre- 
 vious lesson or topic in the minds of a class, so 
 as to secure an "apperceptive basis" for present 
 ing a new topic. Tell what topic you were pre- 
 paring to present. ♦ 
 
 8. What written lessons have you had during 
 the past week? Why did you make these partic- 
 ular lessons written instead of oral? 
 
 9. Give the plan you took for correcting the 
 papers and tell what use the pupils were required 
 to make of your marks showing errors. 
 
 10. Have you found any carelessness or bad 
 spirit on the part of pupils toward corrections 
 marked on their papers? If so, have you devised 
 a remedy? Do your pupils hand in carelessly 
 written papers? If so, what means do you take 
 to secure neatness? 
 
 44 
 
m. 
 
 THE ART OF QUESTIONING. 
 
 Skill in the art of questioning* lies at the basis 
 of all good teaching. When we were children it 
 looked so easy for the teacher to sit and ask the 
 questions which we were expected to answer. 
 When we become teachers we find that it is much 
 harder to ask the questions than to answer them. 
 For to question well, one must not only know the 
 subject thoroughly, but must also constantly inter- 
 pret the mind of the pupil to discover what ques- 
 tion next to ask, and whether he is mastering what 
 we are teaching him. 
 
 The famous "Socratic method" of teaching, 
 which has played so large a part in our pedagogical 
 literature, consisted of nothing but a series of in- 
 ductive questions so arranged as to lead the learner 
 from what he already knew to what the master 
 would teach him. Good questioning stimulates 
 thought, leads to inquiry, and results in under- 
 standing and mastery. Poor questioning leaves the 
 mental powers unawakened, cripples thought and 
 results in inefficiency and lack of mastery. 
 
 45 
 
There are a few fundamental principles which 
 apply to all questioning used in teaching. 
 
 I. FREEDOM FROM SLAVISH DEPEND- 
 ENCE ON THE TEXT BOOK.— The questions 
 of the recitation must of course deal with the mat- 
 ter of the text book and be directly suggested by 
 it. Yet there are two dangers to be avoided in 
 this connection: (i) Questions should not follow 
 the language of the toxt, and (2) the teacher 
 should not be dependent on the text book to sug- 
 gest the question itself or to determine the cor- 
 rectness of the answer. 
 
 The teacher who has not the lesson well pre- 
 pared, or who is mentally lazy, has a constant 
 temptation to ask questions in the words of the 
 book. This is much easier than to know the sub- 
 ject and the text book both well enough to for- 
 mulate original, appropriate questions. An illus- 
 tration of what is meant is found in the following 
 account of a recitation conducted from Montgom- 
 ery's American History, the lesson being on the 
 landing of the Pilgrims (pp. ']'j, 78) : 
 
 Q. On a morning late in November, what did 
 the Pilgrims do? 
 
 A. They sighted Cape Cod. 
 
 Q. Two days later, where did the Mayflower 
 come to anchor? 
 
 A. In Provincetown Harbor. 
 
 Q. While the Mayflower remained at anchor, 
 
 46 
 
what did Captain Standish and a boatload of men 
 do? 
 
 A. They went out to explore. 
 
 Q. On the shore of the harbor what is there 
 lying? 
 
 A. A granite bowlder. 
 
 It is seen that each of these questions follows 
 the words of the text, and that the answer but 
 completes the sentence of which the question is 
 a part. Questions of this kind only suggest to the 
 memory the statement of the text, and do not cause 
 the pupil to use his own thought in realizing the 
 actual event. Hence they arouse little interest 
 and leave little impression. They train the verbal 
 memory, but leave imagination, thought and un- 
 derstanding untouched. How much better such 
 questions as these : 
 
 When did the Pilgrims first sight land? 
 
 What land did they see? 
 
 What was its appearance? 
 
 Have you ever seen a stretch of shore like this 
 one? 
 
 Why did not the Pilgrims Idnd at this point? 
 
 Where did they finally anchor? 
 
 What measures did they take to see whether 
 this was a suitable place to land? 
 
 Why is the name "Plymouth Rock" so famous 
 in American history? 
 
 These questions cover just the same ground as 
 
 47 
 
the ones above, but they suggest living pictures 
 and actual events rather than the language of the 
 text book. 
 
 The unprepared or lazy teacher is also in dan- 
 ger of relying on the text book for her questions 
 even when she does not formulate them in the 
 language of the printed page. Not infrequently 
 teachers conduct the whole of a recitation with 
 the text open before theai, hardly taking their eyes 
 from the book, and seeming to have no inspiration 
 or questions not immediately gleaned from the 
 page before them. In extreme cases of unpre- 
 paredness they may even have to test the correct- 
 ness of the answers given bv the class by refer- 
 ence to the text. Of course this is all the highest 
 degree of inefficiency. It should not be called 
 teaching at all. for no one can teach another that 
 which he does not himself possess as a part of his 
 own mental equipment. Nothing can be more 
 deadening to a class than to see a teacher, whom 
 they look upon as their intellectual leader, flounder- 
 ing in such a vain attempt to teach something 
 which he does not himself know. 
 
 The eyes and the mind of the teacher must 
 both be free in the recitation — the eyes to look 
 interest and encouragement into the eyes of the 
 class, the mind to marshal the points of the les- 
 son and watch the effects of their presentation on 
 the minds of the pupils. A recitation at its best 
 
 48 
 
consists of an animated and interesting conversa- 
 tion between teacher and class. And no conversa- 
 tion can be live and interesting when one of its 
 participants has mind and eyes riveted to a book; 
 for conversation involves an interchange of expres- 
 sion, of spirit, and of personality as well as of 
 words. 
 
 It is not meant that a teacher must never have 
 a text book open before her during a recitation. 
 Often it is not only desirable, but necessary that 
 she should do so ; but only for suggestion and ref- 
 erence, and never to supply questions and test 
 answers. 
 
 It is certainly much better to have the text book 
 before one than to teach the lesson after a discon- 
 nected and haphazard fashion from lack of familiar- 
 ity with its points. An excellent substitute for the 
 text, however, is an outline, or plan of the lesson 
 embodying the main points, illustrations and ap- 
 plications to be made. Such an outline will save 
 the teacher from wandering too far afield in the 
 discussions, will insure unity in the lesson,, and 
 make certain that important points shall not be 
 overlooked. 
 
 A desirable rule for the teacher to set for her- 
 self would be so to prepare for the recitation by 
 mastery of the subject, and by lesson plan or out- 
 line, that she does not need to have the text book 
 open before her when the pupils do not also have 
 
their books open. The teacher who will heroically 
 meet this standard will soon find growing in her- 
 self a feeling of mastery of her subjects and of 
 joy in her teaching. 
 
 II. THE PRINCIPLE OF UNITY OR CON- 
 TINUITY. — Questions should be so planned that 
 they develop or bring out the unity of the lesson. 
 It is possible for questions to be so haphazard and 
 disconnected that the pupil receives the impression 
 of a series of unrelated facts, rather than a uni- 
 fied and related subject. In good questioning, one 
 question naturally grows out of another, so that 
 the series develop step by step the truth contained 
 in the lesson, and bring it to the mind of the child 
 as a complete whole. 
 
 This means that the teacher must know the whole 
 subject so thoroughly that the right questions come 
 to her easily and naturally, and in the right order 
 to bring out the successive steps of the lesson in 
 their logical relations. 
 
 The diflference between a related series of ques- 
 tions and an unrelated is shown in two lists which 
 follow. Both deal with the same subject-matter, 
 a physiology lesson on respiration. The questions 
 of the first list are not themselves faulty, but there 
 is no continuity among them ; one does not grow 
 out of another so as to "develop" the subject in 
 the minds of the class. 
 
 50 
 
What chang-e takes place in the air while in the 
 lungs ? 
 
 What change takes place in the blood while in 
 the lungs? 
 
 How many cubic inches of air will the lungs 
 contain ? 
 
 How much of this cannot be expelled by breath- 
 ing out? 
 
 How many times do we naturally breathe in a 
 minute? 
 
 What are some of the effects of breathing im- 
 pure air? 
 
 How is the oxygen carried by the blood ? 
 
 What is animal heat? 
 
 What is the temperature of the body ? 
 
 These questions were all answered fairly well 
 by the class, but the answers contained only so 
 many bits of isolated information, and the pupils 
 did not understand the subject after they had re- 
 cited upon it. Another teacher asked the following 
 questions : 
 
 Why must the body have air to breathe? 
 
 Of what use is oxygen in the body? 
 
 Where does this oxidization, or burning up of 
 worn out cells take place? 
 
 But how is the oxygen carried to every part of 
 the body and brought into contact with the tissues? 
 
 Where do the corpuscles of the blood get their 
 loads of oxygen? 
 
 51 
 
What gas do they give up in exchange for the 
 oxygen ? 
 
 Where do they get the carbon-dioxide? 
 
 How does air entering the lungs differ from air 
 leaving them? 
 
 What corresponding change takes place in the 
 blood while it is in the lungs? 
 
 Explain how the change is effected in each case. 
 
 Suppose we breathe air that contains too little 
 oxygen, what will be the effect on the corpuscles? 
 
 What will be the effect on oxidization in the 
 tissues? 
 
 And what is the effect of poor oxidization on 
 physical vitality? 
 
 On mental vitality? 
 
 The class who answered these questions not only 
 had the information belonging to each separate 
 question, but they understood the lesson as a whole, 
 because each question grew out of those which 
 preceded it, thus making the recitation a unified 
 whole. 
 
 III. CLEARNESS. — Questions must be made 
 clear, so that their meaning may be understood. 
 This is not always an easy task, and the teacher 
 frequently misses being wholly clear, as is evi- 
 denced by the fact that often when a pupil fails 
 to answer a question asked in one way, he can an- 
 swer it easily when the wording is changed. This 
 
 52 
 
means that the difficuhy for the pupil existed in 
 the question, and not in the answer. 
 
 Clearness in questioning involves three factors : 
 (l) Freedom from ambiguity or obscurity of word- 
 ing; (2) adaptation to the age and understanding 
 of the pupil; (3) reasonable brevity. 
 
 I. Freedom From Ambiguity or Obscurity of 
 Wording. — This is fundamentally a matter of the 
 use of good English. It requires such a choice 
 and arrangement of words and clauses that there 
 can be no doubt as to the meaning to be conveyed. 
 Assuming a fair command of the language and 
 care in its use, the basis of clearness at this point 
 is thorough mastery of the subject-matter of the 
 questions, so that the teacher himself understands 
 clearly just what he means to ask. 
 
 The following illustrations show some questions 
 which are faulty from the standpoint of obscurity 
 of meaning: 
 
 What caused Lincoln to issue the Emancipation 
 Proclamation in 1863? (Not clear whether ques- 
 tion means why did he issue the E. P. at all, or 
 why did he issue it in 1863 instead of some other 
 time.) 
 
 What are the effects of attention to a moving 
 object? (Not clear whether question means ef- 
 fects on the person attending or the efifect which 
 the moving of an object has in making itself seen.) 
 
 Who chased whom down what valley? 
 
 Why has a cat fur and a duck feathers ? 
 
 53 
 
2. Adaptation to the Age and Understand- 
 ing of the Child. — Questions which may be per- 
 fectly clear to an adult may be hazy or incom- 
 prehensible to a child because he does not under- 
 stand the terms used in the question, or because 
 it deals with matters beyond his grasp. The 
 teacher must keep within the vocabulary of the 
 child in formulating his questions. Where it is 
 necessary or desirable t(t introduce new words into 
 questions, care must be taken that the child fully 
 knows the meaning of the new terms. A teacher 
 asked a class in elementary physiology, "What 
 measure? would you take to resuscitate a person 
 asphyxiated with carbon dioxide?" The class all 
 looked blank. No one seemed to know what to 
 do. It chanced that the superintendent was visit- 
 ing the school, and he said to the teacher, "Let me 
 try." Then he asked the class, "What would you 
 do for a person who had been smothered by breath- 
 ing coal gas?" The class brightened up, and every 
 hand was raised indicating readiness to answer 
 the question. 
 
 Another teacher bewildered her class by asking, 
 "Which phenomena of the fratricidal strife in the 
 American Republic were most determinative of the 
 ultimate fate of the nation?" No one knew. Had 
 she asked her question in plain terms, no doubt the 
 class could have answered it. 
 
 In an elementary history class, a teacher pro- 
 
 54 
 
pounded this question : "What American institu- 
 tions have been founded on the principle of social 
 democracy?" Not only the terms of the question, 
 but the thought also is beyond the comprehension 
 of children. Such questions are not only useless 
 as a means of testing, teaching, or drilling, but they 
 serve to confuse and discourage the child, and 
 cause him to lose interest in school. 
 
 3. Brevity. — No matter how^ w^ell a question 
 is worded, or how well it is adapted to the age 
 and capacity of the pupil, it may fail in clearness 
 because it is too long and disjointed, or because it 
 deals with too many points. Better far break a 
 complicated question up into several simple ones, 
 concerning whose meaning there can be no doubt. 
 
 A teacher who had not yet mastered the art of 
 questioning asked her physiology class a question 
 something like this : "Do you consider it advis- 
 able, taking into account the fact that none of the 
 vital processes go on as vigorously during sleep as 
 during the waking hours (you remember that the 
 breathing and the pulse are less rapid and the tem- 
 perature of the body also lower), to eat just be- 
 fore retiring at night, especially if one is very 
 tired and exhausted — a condition which still fur- 
 ther lowers the vitality and hence decreases the 
 powers of digestion and assimilation, and would 
 your answer be different if it is understood that 
 the food taken is to be light and easily digested?" 
 
 55 
 
It is needless to say that the class found themselves 
 lost in the maze of conditions and parenthetical 
 expressions and did not attempt an answer. The 
 question contains material for a dozen different 
 questions, and probably the class could have an- 
 swered them all had they been properly asked. 
 
 IV. DEFINITENESS.— Questions should be 
 definite, so that they can have but one meaning. 
 It is possible to ask a question so that its general 
 meaning is clear enough, but so that its precise 
 meaning is in doubt. Such questions leave the pu- 
 pil puzzled, and usually lead to indirectness or 
 guessing in the answer. Failure to make questions 
 definite, so that they can have but one meaning is 
 responsible for much of the difference of opinion 
 on disputed questions. 
 
 Many of the stock questions upon which amateur 
 debating societies have exercised their talents would 
 admit of no debate at all, if once the question were 
 made definite. For the ground for debate lies in 
 the difference in interpretation of the question and 
 not in the facts themselves. For example: If a 
 cannon ball were to be fired off by some mechanical 
 device a million miles from where there was any 
 ear to hear, would there be any sound? The lack 
 of definiteness here which permits difference of 
 opinion lies in the word "sound." If we add after 
 the word "sound" the phrase, "in the sense of a 
 conscious auditory sensation," the answer would 
 
 56 
 
obviously be, No, since there can be no auditory 
 sensation without an ear to hear it. If, on the 
 other hand, instead of the above phrase we add, 
 "in the sense of wave-vibrations in the air," the 
 answer will obviously be, Yes, since the wave- 
 vibrations in the air do not depend on the pres- 
 ence of an ear to be affected by them. 
 
 Likewise, in the question, If a man starts to 
 walk around a squirrel which is clinging to the 
 limb of a tree, and as the man circles the tree the 
 squirrel also circles the tree, so that he constantly 
 faces the man, when the man had gone completely 
 around the tree, has he gone around the squirrel? 
 Here the indefiniteness lies in the meaning of to 
 "go around." With this indefiniteness remedied, 
 there is no longer any possibility of difference of 
 opinion. 
 
 Indefiniteness may come from the use of certain 
 words, which from their very nature are indefinite 
 in meaning. Such are the verbs he, do, have, he- 
 come, happen and the prepositions of and about. 
 Examples of indefiniteness growing out of such 
 colorless words are found in >the following ques- 
 tions, which are types of many asked in our schools 
 daily : 
 
 What does water do when heated? (Expands, 
 evaporates, boils.) 
 
 What happens when it lightnings? (Thunder, 
 discharge of electricity, flash.) 
 
 57 
 
What must immigrants coming into this country 
 have? (Money, freedom from disease, character.) 
 
 What did Arnold become? (A traitor, a British 
 general, an outcast, a repentant man.) 
 
 What is the cow? (A mammal, a quadruped, a 
 producer of milk, butter and beef, .an herbivorous 
 animal.) 
 
 What about the Monroe Doctrine? (A dozen 
 different things.) • 
 
 What of the animals in the temperate zone? 
 
 Questions may be so general as to be indefinite. 
 The teacher asks, "Where is Chicago?" The class 
 may answer, "In Illinois on Lake Michigan ; in 
 North America; in Cook County." The teacher 
 should know just what answer he desires, and then 
 ask, "In what State; on what continent; on what 
 lake; or in what county?" 
 
 Other illustrations of vagueness coming from 
 the use of words of too general a meaning are 
 found in such questions as. What kind of a man 
 was George Washington? 
 
 When does a person need food? 
 
 Hozv does tobacco grow? 
 
 What do birds like? 
 
 All indefinite questions deserve and usually re- 
 ceive an indefinite answer, and hence lead to and 
 encourage guessing. If the answers to such ques- 
 tions as the above are not indefinite, they must be 
 purely memoriter, merely reproducing the words 
 
 58 
 
of the text without comprehension of any real 
 meaning. 
 
 Indefinite questioning usually comes from a lack 
 of clear thinking on the part of the questioner. 
 The teacher herself does not know precisely what 
 she means to ask, and hence cannot be definite. 
 It is safe to say that the teacher's questions cover- 
 ing a subject will never be any more clear or defi- 
 nite than the subject itself is in her mind. In- 
 deed it is hard to be wholly definite in questioning 
 even when one is a perfect master of his subject. 
 Certainly, then, eternal vigilance will be the price 
 of clearness and definiteness on the part of the 
 young teacher who is as yet striving for mastery 
 of what he is teaching. 
 
 Besides the foregoing fundamental principles un- 
 derlying the art of questioning, there are a few 
 secondary principles, some of which are of hardly 
 less importance: 
 
 1. Questions should be asked naturally, and in 
 a conversational tone, and not explosively de- 
 manded of pupils. 
 
 2. Usually the question sht»uld be addressed to 
 the entire class and, after all have had a moment 
 to think, some one then designated to answer. The 
 reason for this is obvious. If the one who is to 
 answer is designated before the question is asked, 
 the incentive to the rest of the class to think the 
 answer is greatly lessened. 
 
3- No regular order should be followed in call- 
 ing on pupils. If such an order is established, the 
 lazy and uninterested ones have a tendency to re- 
 main inactive until called upon. By the hit-and- 
 miss method of calling no one knows at what mo- 
 ment he may be the next one, hence there is a 
 strong incentive to attend to the lesson. It is also 
 desirable to call on a pupil occasionally the second 
 time very soon after he 4ias previously been called 
 upon. This prevents him from thinking that as 
 soon as he has recited once he can then safely 
 relax his attention. 
 
 4. Inattentive or mischievous pupils should be 
 the mark for frequent questions. If it comes to 
 be known that any inattention is sure to bring ques- 
 tions to the pupil at fault, the battle for attention 
 is half won. There is a strong tendency on the 
 part of the teacher to ask for the answer to a 
 question from those whose eyes show that they 
 are attentive and ready with an answer. While 
 this readiness and attention should be rewarded by 
 giving an opportunity to answer, it must not lead 
 the teacher to neglect those who may need the 
 question more than the more ready ones. The 
 questions should be impartially distributed among 
 the bright and the dull pupils. 
 
 5. It is highly important that questions shall 
 be asked so that they demand thought in answer- 
 ing, and usually so that the answer must be given 
 
 60 
 
in a full statement. Seldom should a question be 
 asked in such form that a simple yes or no will 
 answer it. This does not require sufficient thought 
 on the part of the pupil, it permits guesswork, 
 and fails to cultivate ability in expression. An- 
 swers which may be given in a word or two, or 
 by yes or no may be accepted in rapid drill or 
 review work, and also in the inductive question- 
 ing used in developing a new subject, but this form 
 of answer should be used very sparingly in other 
 places in the recitation. 
 
 6. The "pumping" question should not be used. 
 In this type of question, the teacher formulates 
 the answer and leaves only the key word for the 
 pupil to supply. The teacher sometimes goes so 
 far as to suggest the necessary word by pronounc- 
 ing the first syllable or two of it. A dialogue like 
 the following is was heard in one school : 
 
 Q. "Columbus was an ?" 
 
 A, "Explorer." 
 
 Q. "No, he was an It ?" 
 
 A. "Oh, an Italian." 
 
 Such an attempt at teaching would be amusing, 
 were it not so serious for the child. 
 
 The teacher's treatment of the answers given 
 is of hardly less importance than the formulation 
 of the questions them.selves. It is to be remem- 
 bered that the recitation is an interchange of 
 thought and expression between teacher and class. 
 
 61 
 
In order to this the response must be mutual. 
 Not alone when the question is being asked, then, 
 is the teacher to be animated and interested, but 
 likewise while the answer is being given. It is 
 neither good pedagogy nor good manners for a 
 teacher to sit unresponsive and inattentive when a 
 pupil is reciting. Not that the teacher needs al- 
 ways to comment on an answer, or say that it is 
 correct ; it is rather a matter of manner, of atten- 
 tion and interest to the answer. We find it em- 
 barrassing either in a recitation or out of it to 
 talk to a person who seems not to be listening. 
 
 Right at this point, however, there lurks an in- 
 sidious danger. It comes easily and naturally to 
 one to give some sign of assent or disapproval as 
 to the correctness of the answer while it is being 
 spoken. The slightest inclination of the head, the 
 dropping of the eyelids, or a certain expression of 
 the face, comes to be read by the pupils as a sign- 
 board to guide them in their statements. This is, 
 of course, all wrong. The teacher should give 
 absolutely no sign while the answer is going on. 
 Thus to help the child, leads to dependence on the 
 teacher instead of reliance on the pupil's own 
 knowledge. It leads to guessing, and so skillful 
 does this sornetimes become that a bright but un- 
 prepared pupil is able to steer through a recitation 
 guided by the unsuspecting teacher. 
 
 Answers should not be repeated by the teacher. 
 
 62 
 
This is a very common fault, and a habit that is 
 usually acquired before the teacher is aware of it. 
 The tendency to repeat answers probably arises at 
 first from a mental unreadiness on the part of the 
 teacher. She has not her next question quite 
 ready, and so bridges over the interval by saying 
 over the answer just given by the pupil. It is a 
 method of gaining time, but really finally results in 
 great loss of time in the recitation. By actual 
 count, many teachers have been found to repeat 
 as high as 75% of the answers given in the reci- 
 tation. Besides the great waste of time, the repe- 
 tition of answers is a source of distraction and 
 annoyance to pupils. No one enjoys having his 
 words said over after him constantly. Of course 
 answers may sometimes need to be repeated to em- 
 phasize some important point. But when repeti- 
 tion has become a habit, no emphasis is gained by 
 the repetition. 
 
 Finally, answers should be required in good Eng- 
 lish, clear and definite, like the questions. Pupils 
 who say, "An improper fraction is 'where' the 
 numerator is greater than the denominator"; "A 
 compound sentence is 'when' it has two or more 
 independent clauses," should be led to restate their 
 answers in clear and correct language. 
 
 EXERCISES. 
 
 I. To what extent do you find it possible to get 
 
 63 
 
along without the text book in conducting recita- 
 tions? Do you find it necessary to use a written 
 outline or lesson plan when you dispense with the 
 book? In what lessons do you think it is better 
 for the teacher to have the book open? 
 
 2. Do you find in your own case a tendency to 
 ask questions in the words of the text? Have you 
 noticed whether the children have a tendency to 
 answer in the words of the text? What objection 
 is there to pupils answering in the words of the 
 text? 
 
 3. Select some lesson which you will soon reach 
 in your work and write down a list of the ques- 
 tions you plan to ask in the recitation. Give the 
 name of the book, and the pages of the lesson. 
 
 4. Have you caught yourself asking questions 
 in the recitation which were faulty from the stand- 
 point of clearness? If so, give the particulars. If 
 not, keep watch for a few days and then answer 
 this question. 
 
 5. Keep for one week a list of all the questions 
 you notice asked by yourself pr your pupils which 
 are faulty because of not being definite. Report 
 the results. 
 
 6. Is it your custom to call on the pupil who 
 is to answer before you state the question, or to 
 ask the question first and then designate the one 
 who is to answer? Give reasons for the plan you 
 follow. 
 
 7. Do you find that you have a tendency to give 
 some sign of approval or disapproval while an an- 
 swer is being given? Do you think there are any 
 
 64 
 
circumstances under which it might be well to offer 
 the pupil some help with the answer? Explain, 
 
 8. Do you find yourself repeating answers after 
 the pupils? What seems to you the chief objec- 
 tions to this habit? 
 
 9. Do you find your pupils using incorrect forms 
 of answer such as are described in the last para- 
 graph of the chapter? If so, what measures are 
 you taking to remedy the defect? 
 
 10. Write with some fullness whether the sug- 
 gestions of this chapter have been helpful to you, 
 and if they have, in just what particulars. 
 
 65 
 
IV. 
 
 CONDITIONS NECESSARY TO A GOOD 
 RECITATION. 
 
 We have now discussed the aim of the recita- 
 tion, its methods, and the principles governing the 
 art of questioning. But no matter how well de- 
 fined the aim for the recitation, no matter how ex- 
 cellent its method, no matter how skilled the 
 teacher may be in the art of questioning, these 
 things alone cannot make a good recitation. Cer- 
 tain other fundamental conditions must obtain if 
 the recitation is to be a success. Let us now dis- 
 cuss the more important of these conditions. 
 
 I. FREEDOM FROM DISTRACTIONS.— 
 Distractions of any nature result in a double waste. 
 First, a waste of power through preventing con- 
 centration and continuity of thought. No mat- 
 ter how hard one may try he cannot secure the 
 best results from his mental effort, if his stream 
 of thought is being broken in upon. The loss by 
 this process is comparable to that involved in run- 
 ning a train of cars, and stopping it every ten rods 
 instead of every ten or every one hundred miles. 
 
 67 
 
But this form of waste is not all. There is also 
 a serious waste of interest and enthusiasm result- 
 ing from interrupted recitations. Every teacher 
 has at times felt the sudden drop in attention and 
 interest on the part of the class after some inter- 
 ruption which took the minds of the class off the 
 subject. Try as hard as the teacher may, it is im- 
 possible to go back to the same level of efficiency 
 following such a break. , The following are some 
 of the chief sources of distractions : 
 
 I. Distractions by the Teacher. — It may seem 
 strange to accuse the teacher of causing distrac- 
 tion, but it is none the less true that many teachers 
 are to be criticised on this point. Any striking 
 feature or peculiarity of manner, dress, or carriage 
 which attracts the attention of the class is a dis- 
 traction. A loud or ill-modulated voice, tones too 
 low or indistinct to be heard well, the habit of 
 walking up and down the aisles or back and forth 
 before the class, assuming awkward positions stand- 
 ing or sitting before the class — these are all per- 
 sonal factors which the teacher needs to keep con- 
 stantly under surveillance. 
 
 The teacher may also distract the class by an- 
 swering questions asked by the pupils at their 
 seats, or by rebuking misdemeanors seen among 
 those not in the recitation. Most of such interrup- 
 tions are wholly unnecessary, and could be avoided 
 by a little foresight and management. The lessons 
 
should be so well assigned that they will not need 
 to be asked over again, and then there should be a 
 penalty for forgetting them. The drinks should 
 be secured and the errands attended to between 
 classes. The pencils should be supplied and sharp- 
 ened before the session begins. The mischievous 
 culprits should be taught that it is a serious of- 
 fense to interrupt a recitation. The teacher who 
 permits these distractions by the school has not yet 
 learned the secret of good management, and could 
 hardly advertise her inefficiency in this regard any 
 more effectively than by permitting such interrup- 
 tions to continue. 
 
 It is also possible for the teacher to distract the 
 person reciting by interrupting when there is a 
 slight pause to think of the next point, or a hesita- 
 tion before pronouncing a word. Teachers some- 
 times even interrupt a pupil who is reciting and 
 themselves offer explanations, make remarks, or 
 continue the discussion, leaving the child standing 
 and not knowing whether he is excused or not. Of 
 course this is bad manners on the part of the 
 teacher, and it is even worse pedagogy. It is not 
 encouraging to the pupil to feel that he may be in- 
 terrupted at any moment, and few can think clearly 
 or recite well when expecting such interruptions. 
 The pupil should not expect to be allowed to think 
 out a lesson or point when he is reciting, which he 
 should have thought out before coming to class. 
 
 69. 
 
On the other hand the teacher must remember 
 that the child's mind is working on what to him is 
 new and difficult matter, and hence cannot move 
 as rapidly as the teacher's. 
 
 2. Distractions by the Class. — Inattention, 
 restlessness and mischief are great sources of dis- 
 traction from the class themselves. All these 
 things have a tendency to be contagious, and in 
 any case always break ip upon the train of thought 
 of the recitation. Because of this the teacher must 
 win the inattentive and restless, and tnust check the 
 restless if she would save her recitation. 
 
 Not infrequently, in the more elementary classes, 
 a certain kind of distraction is fostered and en- 
 couraged by the teacher with the aim of securing 
 the attention of the whole class to the one who is 
 reciting. This form of distraction consists in hav- 
 ing the whole class watch the one who is reciting 
 and, if he makes an error, those who observe the 
 error are at once to raise their hands, and the one 
 reciting must stop. This is a mistake from almost 
 every standpoint, and has very little to redeem it. 
 It may result in closer attention on the part of the 
 class ; but the motive which prompts the attention 
 is bad. It leads to elation and rejoicing over the 
 mistakes and failures of another, and it centers at- 
 tention on the mistakes rather than on the facts 
 to be brought out. Attention should be trained so 
 that it will not have to depend on this kind of 
 
 70 
 
motive, and the memory should be trained to note 
 and hold a correction until the one reciting has 
 finished. Further, it is a most serious distraction 
 to the one who is reciting to be expecting that a 
 forest of hands may at any moment be wildly wav- 
 ing about his ears, gleefully announcing that he 
 has made an error. Condemnation of this method 
 of securing attention can hardly be too severe. 
 
 3. Distractions by the School. — In any busy, 
 working school there is bound to be more or less 
 of hum and confusion. In many schools, however, 
 there is much more confusion than is warranted. 
 It is true that children get tired of sitting still for 
 an entire session, and that they find relief in going 
 for a drink, or going to the dictionary, or on some 
 other errand about the room. In some schools, 
 one or more pupils may be found walking about 
 the room at almost any time of the day, and not 
 infrequently several are on errands at the same 
 time. This, as previously noted, is usually a fault 
 in management on the part of the teacher. The 
 larger part of these interruptions can just as well 
 be saved by a little foresight an'd firmness. 
 
 Some teachers even leave the class which they 
 are hearing to answer questions or give help to 
 pupils in the school who have not been trained to 
 wait for their requests until the class is dismissed. 
 Usually a very small percentage of these questions 
 should have been asked at all, or would have been 
 
 71 
 
with the proper management of the school. And 
 all the necessary questions and requests should al- 
 most without exception be held for the interval 
 between recitations. The school should be taught 
 that nothing short of the direst necessity will war- 
 rant asking a question or making a request during 
 a recitation. 
 
 Likewise in the case of misdemeanors. The class 
 which is reciting should not be interrupted for 
 minor misdemeanors which occur during the reci- 
 tation. This does not mean that the misdemeanor 
 is to go by unnoticed. On the contrary, the set- 
 tlement for it may be all the more severe for hav- 
 ing to wait until the class is dismissed. 
 
 4. Distractions by the Physical Environment. 
 — Distractions from the physical environment may 
 be of several kinds. Not infrequently the recita- 
 tion seat is so placed with reference to windows 
 that the light strikes the eyes of the pupils, instead 
 of the pages of the books; or it may be that a 
 stray sunbeam strikes athwart the class and daz- 
 zles the eyes. It need hardly be suggested that 
 no such distraction as this should go unremedied. 
 
 In the rural schools the recitation seats are often 
 near the stove, where the temperature becomes un- 
 bearably hot when the stove must be generously 
 fired to heat the remainder of the room. Not in- 
 frequently the ventilation is bad, and the room is 
 filled with foul air, from which the major part of 
 
 72 
 
the oxygen has been exhausted. No matter how 
 good the intentions of the class or how zealous the 
 teacher, such conditions will kill the recitation. 
 
 Whatever may be the cause of physical discom- 
 fort or unrest should be remedied. One's body 
 should be so comfortable and healthy that it does 
 not attract attention to itself, except when needing 
 food or other care, and it is the duty of the school 
 to do all possible to bring this condition about. 
 
 II. INTEREST AND ENTHUSIASM.— In- 
 terest is the foundation of all mental activity. Its 
 very nature is to lead to thought and action. 
 Grown ardent, interest becomes enthusiasm, "with- 
 out which," says Emerson, "nothing great was ever 
 accomplished." On the other hand, the absence of 
 interest leaves the pupil lifeless and inert mentally, 
 his work a bore and achievement impossible. In- 
 terest is, therefore, a first consideration in the reci- 
 tation. 
 
 I. Interest and Enthusiasm on the Part of the 
 Teacher. — Interest is contagious. Enthusiasm 
 is caught, not taught. No one ever saw an in- 
 terested and enthusiastic teacher with a dull and 
 lifeless class. Nor can interest and enthusiasm on 
 the part of a class continue in the presence of a 
 mechanical and lifeless teacher. The teacher is the 
 model, and she sets the standard and pace for her 
 class. Unconsciously the pupils come, under the 
 influence of the teacher's personality, to reflect her 
 
 73 
 
type of mind and attitude toward the work of the 
 school. The teacher's interest and vivacity in the 
 recitation depend on many factors, some of which 
 are largely under her own control. 
 
 a. The teacher's command of the subject-mat- 
 ter of the recitation. — A teacher whose grasp of 
 the lesson is doubtful, who does not feel sure that 
 she is a master of all its points, who fears that 
 questions may be asked which she cannot answer 
 or points raised which she cannot explain, can 
 hardly possess an attitude of true interest toward 
 the recitation. Her mind is too full of worry and 
 strain and embarrassment. She lacks the sense of 
 ease and freedom which comes from a sense of 
 mastery. 
 
 Command of the subject-matter of the recitation 
 depends, first on the teacher's general mastery of 
 the branch, and, second, on being freshly prepared 
 upon it. It behooves every young teacher, there- 
 fore, to strive for mastery as she teaches. 
 
 But no matter how good the preliminary prepa- 
 ration, this cannot take the place of the fresh daily 
 review, which gives the mind a new readiness and 
 grasp on the subject. Let the teachers who feel 
 that their recitations are slow and dull, seek the 
 cause first of all in their own lack of preparation 
 in one of the two lines mentioned. 
 
 b. The teacher's attitude toward her work. — 
 If the teacher looks upon teaching as a mechanical 
 
 74 
 
process ; if she looks on the recitation as "hearing 
 the class recite;" if she realizes nothing of the op- 
 portunities and responsibilities connected with teach- 
 ing children, then she can command little interest 
 and no enthusiasm. If, on the other hand, teaching 
 is 10 the teacher a joy ; if she loves to watch the 
 minds of children unfold ; if she rejoices in her 
 opportunities and responsibilities as a teacher, then 
 she is sure to develop an interest which will soon in- 
 tensify with enthusiasm. 
 
 c. The teacher's health. — All have experienced 
 the mental depression and lack of interest in things 
 which comes from over-fatigue. The most interest- 
 ing occupation palls on us when we are fagged, 
 or when our vitality is low from derangement of 
 health. A case of indigestion may sweep us out of 
 our usual cheery mood into a mood of discourage- 
 ment and pessimism. Frayed nerves and an ill- 
 nourished or exhausted brain are fatal to enthu- 
 siasm. 
 
 Teaching is found to be a very trying occupa- 
 tion on the general health, and particularly on the 
 nervous system. Many girls* break down, or de- 
 velop a chronic nervous trouble in a few years in 
 the school room. The combined work and worry 
 prove too much for their strength and not infre- 
 quently, also, the teacher who boards, and carries 
 a cold luncheon to school fails to secure the right 
 kind of food. This is especially true in the rural 
 
 75 
 
schools. Farmers have enough to eat, but often 
 the food suitable for men engaged in heavy manual 
 labor is wholly unsuited for one who works with 
 the brain and does not have a large amount of 
 outdoor exercise. 
 
 Nor do teachers always secure enough pure air. 
 The air of schoolrooms is usually vitiated to such 
 a degree that one on coming in from the outdoor 
 air can detect a foul odor. But the air of a room 
 ceases to be fit to breathe long before an odor can 
 be detected from its impurities. 
 
 These are some of the chief factors which are 
 proving so fatal to the health of many of our 
 teachers, and to interest and enthusiasm on the 
 part of the teacher in her work. Both for the 
 sake of her health and her work, every teacher 
 should seek to control these three factors as far 
 as possible. Strain and worry and wear of nerves 
 can be greatly lessened by careful planning of work, 
 by good organization and careful management, and 
 by exercise of the will to prohibit worry over 
 matters large or small when worry will not help 
 solve them. The teacher can in some degree de- 
 termine what food she will eat, even if it means 
 a change of boarding place. And surely every 
 teacher can control the supply of fresh air for 
 the schoolroom and her bedroom, and this is per- 
 haps the most important of all. 
 
 d. Experience. — The young teacher, without ex- 
 
 76 
 
perience, may from sheer embarrassment and lack 
 of mastery fail to show the enthusiasm which she 
 would like, for embarrassment of any kind and 
 enthusiasm do not thrive well together. But if the 
 teacher is really fundamentally interested in her 
 teaching, the enthusiasm will soon come. And 
 better a thousand times the young teacher who is 
 earnestly fighting for freedom and mastery in the 
 recitation, than the old teacher who has grown 
 wearied of the routine and has made out of the 
 recitation a machine process. 
 
 III. LESSONS WELL PREPARED.— Prob- 
 ably the worst of all drawbacks to good recitations 
 is poorly prepared lessons. One of the greatest 
 criticisms to which our educational system is open 
 is that teachers try to teach and pupils try to re- 
 cite lessons which are badly or indifferently pre- 
 pared by both. There is nothing more stupefying 
 to the mind, or more fatal to interest in school 
 work than the halting, stumbling, ineffective recita- 
 tions heard in many schools. Teachers who try to 
 teach lessons with which they are not thoroughly 
 familiar are but blind leaders of the blind, and both 
 they and their pupils are sure to fall into the ditch. 
 
 I. Preparation by the Teacher. — The teacher 
 is the key to the situation. If she herself lacks in 
 preparation, she can neither lead nor compel her 
 pupils to the preparation of their lessons. She 
 
 77 
 
sets the standard. A stream does not rise higher 
 than its source. 
 
 The teacher's preparation has two different as- 
 pects : ( I ) The general fundamental knowledge 
 of the subject as a whole obtained by previous study ; 
 and (2) the daily preparation by stCidy, thought, 
 or reading for the recitation. 
 
 In general it is safe to say that teachers enter 
 upon their vocation without sufficient education. 
 Our certificate requirements are low, and many 
 enter upon teaching with Httle or no more school- 
 ing than that obtained in the schools where they 
 go to teaching. Of course this is radically wrong, 
 but it is the fault of our school system and not of 
 the teacher. It behooves teachers entering upon 
 their work with this scanty preparation to recog- 
 nize their limitations, however, and do their best 
 to remedy them. Low grade of certificate, low 
 standings in any branches, or the teacher's own 
 consciousness of lack of mastery should be suffi- 
 cient to send the sincere and earnest teacher to 
 school again, even if this must be to summer schools 
 instead of longer sessions. This sacrifice will not 
 only pay abundantly in higher salary, but also in 
 greater teaching power and in the sense of greater 
 mastery and personal growth. 
 
 But no amount of preparation in a branch will 
 relieve a teacher of the necessity of daily prepara- 
 tion for the recitation. Dr. Arnold expressed this 
 
 78 
 
thought when he said: "I prefer that my pupils 
 shall drink from a running stream, rather than 
 from a stagnant pool." In order that one may 
 handle a line of thought easily it must be fresh 
 in his mind ; it is not enough that he has once 
 known it well. One of the master teachers of our 
 country, a university professor who is recognized 
 as a great authority in his chosen subject, Latin, 
 recently said to a group of Latin teachers: "I 
 have taught Cicero for twenty years, until I know 
 it by heart. But yet, every day, one hour before 
 the time for my Cicero class, I go to my study and 
 spend an hour with Cicero, just to get into the 
 spirit of it. I would not dare to meet my class 
 without it." 
 
 It is true that the teacher with twenty or more 
 classes a day cannot spend an hour on the prepara- 
 tion of each lesson. But most of the lessons will 
 not require so much — sometimes it is an outline 
 or a lesson plan, sometimes reading the lesson over 
 to freshen the mind upon it, sometimes it is only 
 to think the lesson through to get its plan and 
 topics into the mind. It may at times, however, 
 mean hard and serious study to master the dif- 
 ficult points and their presentation. But whatever 
 tt means, the conscientious and growing teacher 
 will go to the lesson prepared to teach it in such a 
 way as to inspire to high standards and mastery 
 on the part of the pupils. 
 
 79 
 
2, Preparation by the Class. — But in addi- 
 tion to the well prepared teacher, there must also 
 be a well prepared class. The teacher cannot make 
 bricks without straw. Every failure to recite when 
 called upon is a dead weight upon the progress of 
 the recitation ; and each failure makes it easier for 
 the next one to fail with impunity, or at least with- 
 out disgrace. It therefore behooves the teacher 
 who would have inspiring recitations to lead the 
 pupils to a high standard of preparation. 
 
 The pupil's preparation of the lesson should in- 
 clude two distinct lines: (i) Mastery of the facts, 
 thought, or meaning of the lesson, and (2) thought 
 or plans as how best to express the lesson in the 
 recitation. Most pupils think they "have their les- 
 son" when they have memorized it or come to un- 
 derstand it. They must also be made to see that 
 an important part of their preparation lies in the 
 ability to tell well what they have learned. 
 
 IV. HIGH STANDARDS.— There is no more 
 potent force than public opinion to compel to high 
 achievement or restrain from unworthy acts. A 
 school in which the standards of preparation and 
 recitation are low presents a difficult problem for 
 the teacher in the recitation. In some schools pu- 
 pils who are diffident about reciting, or who do 
 not care to take the trouble, shake their heads in 
 refusal almost before their hear the question in 
 full. Others sit in stolid silence when called upon, 
 
 80 
 
and make no response of any kind. In still other 
 cases the class smile or giggle when several have 
 been called upon and have failed to recite, thus tak- 
 ing the failure as a joke. 
 
 Of course such a lack of standards proclaims 
 the previous teaching to have been weak and bun- 
 gling. It shows the effects of a teacher without 
 standards or skill. But the immediate question is 
 how to remedy such an evil situation when one 
 finds it existing in a school. 
 
 It is probable that low standards come as often 
 from work which is too difficult or too great in 
 amount as from any other source. If the child 
 fails to understand the lesson, or has not had time 
 to master it, he cannot recite, however much he 
 may desire to. All that is left for him is to de- 
 cline when called upon. He may be chagrined at 
 first over his failure, but if failure follows failure, 
 he soon ceases to care, when unable to recite. 
 The remedy suggests itself at once; assign lessons 
 which are within the child's ability, and also within 
 the time available for their preparation. Then 
 insist that the work be done 'and the recitation be 
 made. 
 
 If the failure comes from laziness, lack of study, 
 indulgence in mischief, or any such cause, the 
 remedy will be a different one. But a remedy must 
 be devised and applied. No school can run suc- 
 cessfully without good standards well maintained 
 
 81 
 
for the recitation. The teacher who feels that the 
 standards of the school are too low in this par- 
 ticular should never be satisfied until the cause for 
 such a condition is discovered, and worthy stand- 
 ards instituted. This will be one of the hardest 
 tests upon the teacher's ingenuity and skill. 
 
 The public opinion of the school must be brought 
 to take the recitation seriously. It must not be a 
 cause for levity when several pupils fail. Failure 
 must come to be looked forward to with apprehen- 
 sion, and back upon with humiliation. And all 
 this must be done without scolding and bickering. 
 It must be done with great patience and good na- 
 ture, but it must be done. The teacher must him- 
 self have a high standard of excellence, and must 
 persistently impress this upon his class. Here 
 again the ideals of the teacher are contagious. 
 
 V. A SPIRIT OF CO-OPERATION.— Much 
 depends on the spirit with which class and teacher 
 enter upon the recitation. If the spirit of co-opera- 
 tion is lacking; if the relations between teacher 
 and pupils are strained or not cordial; if the class 
 look upon the recitation as a kind of game in which 
 the teacher tries to corner andi catch the class, and 
 the class tries to avoid being cornered and caught, 
 then the recitation is certain to be a failure. 
 
 Under skillful teaching the pupils should come to 
 look forward to the recitation with pleasure and 
 anticipation. It should be a time when teacher and 
 
 82 
 
class work together in whole-hearted, enthusiastic 
 effort, with the common aim of bringing the class 
 to master more fully the matter of the lesson. 
 There should be no feeling that the teacher has one 
 aim and the class another aim, or that their in- 
 terests are in any way antagonistic ; no feeling that 
 the teacher's highest ambition is to catch pupils in 
 errors, and the pupil's highest achievement to avoid 
 being caught. There should be no attempt at bluf- 
 fing, or covering up errors or points not understood. 
 Probably the greatest factor in establishing and 
 maintaining a spirit of co-operation between teacher 
 and class is a deep-seated and sympathetic desire 
 on the part of the teacher to be helpful. If her 
 attitude is that of a friend and co-worker, and her 
 criticisms and corrections are all made in the spirit 
 of helping to a better understanding rather than in 
 the spirit of faultfinding, this will go far toward 
 establishing a spirit of co-operation in the class. 
 
 This does not mean that the teacher shall be 
 weak, and let mistakes or failures go by unnoticed. 
 Weak teachers are never liked or respected. It 
 only means that the teacher, 'in making corrections 
 or calling attention to failures, shall manifest the 
 spirit of a helper and not of a faultfinder. It means 
 that no matter how many times a teacher may 
 have to correct or even punish a pupil, her attitude 
 toward the pupil will still be cordial and friendly. 
 There are many persons who cannot correct a fault 
 
 83 
 
without having some enmity arise toward the one 
 corrected. But what the teacher needs is to be able 
 to correct, rebuke or punish and at the same time 
 keep the heart warm toward the wrongdoer. This 
 will not only secure better results from the correc- 
 tions, but will also foster the spirit of helpfulness 
 and co-operation between teacher and school. 
 
 Finally, the class should be brought to see that 
 the school is their school, and not the teacher's 
 school or the board's school. They should realize 
 that failure or low achievement is their loss, and 
 not the teacher's loss. They should feel that their 
 interests and those of the teacher, the board, and 
 the taxpayers who support the school are all com- 
 mon interests, and that only as the pupils do their 
 part will the interests of all be conserved. 
 
 EXERCISES. 
 
 1. What forms of distraction do you find most 
 common in your school? What plans are you try- 
 ing as a remedy? 
 
 2. Are the physical conditions of your school, 
 such as light, heat, and ventilation, satisfactory? 
 If not, what needs to be done? Have you any chil- 
 dren in your school with defective sight or hearing? 
 With adenoid growths in the nasal passages caus- 
 ing them to breathe through the mouth? 
 
 3. Do you find it possible to prepare for each 
 lesson specifically from day to day? If not, why 
 do you find it impossible? 
 
 4. Do you find teaching particularly trying on 
 
 84 
 
your general health or your nerves ? Do you worry 
 over your work or dream about it nights ? Are you 
 using any special care to keep your health good 
 while teaching? Explain. 
 
 5. Do you find a low standard of preparation 
 and reciting in your school? If so, what plans are 
 you trying to set a higher standard ? How are you 
 succeeding? 
 
 6. Do you enjoy teaching school? Do your pu- 
 pils seem to like to go to school? 
 
 7. Do you find any of the spirit described in 
 the chapter causing pupils to be resentful and an- 
 tagonistic when corrected? If so, have you found 
 any way of curing this spirit? Explain, 
 
 8. What conditions other than those discussed 
 in the chapter have you found tending to help or 
 hinder in the recitation? Explain these fully. 
 
 9. What seems to you to be the hardest thing 
 about making your recitations a success? Have 
 you a remedy for the difficulties? 
 
 10. Are there any points made in the chapter 
 which seem to you impracticable in your school? 
 If so, explain fully. 
 
 85 
 
V. 
 
 THE ASSIGNMENT OF THE LESSON. 
 
 Upon the proper assignment of the lesson de- 
 pends much of the success of the recitation, and 
 also much of the pupils' progress in learning how 
 to study. The assignment of the lesson thus be- 
 comes one of the most important duties of the reci- 
 tation period. Too many times this is left until 
 the very close of the class hour, when there is no 
 time left for proper assignment, and the teacher can 
 only say, "Take the next four pages," or "Work 
 the next twenty problems." 
 
 We forget that children do not understand how 
 to go to work at the lesson as we know how. The 
 result is that they come back to the next recitation 
 listless and uninterested, with the lesson not pre- 
 pared. Or, it may happen that the less timid ones, 
 when they come to study tHe lesson, call upon the 
 teacher to show them how to go to work. The 
 teacher has then to take time needed for other 
 things to show different individuals what should 
 have been presented to the entire class when the 
 lesson was assigned. Such a method is comparable 
 with giving a set of tools into the hands of novices 
 
 87 
 
who do not know how to use them, and then, with- 
 out any instruction in the use of the tools, expecting 
 them to turn out good work, without loss of time. 
 
 Little children are unfamiliar with books, para- 
 graphs, outlines, divisions and subdivisions of sub- 
 jects. They hardly know even how to "gather 
 thought" from a printed page, and yet we expect 
 them to "get their lesson" without being shown how 
 to go at it. Much time is lost in this way, and 
 many children are discouraged in their work and 
 caused to dislike going to school. 
 
 The Germans far excel us in this feature of their 
 school work. No class of German children are ever 
 sent to their seats with the simple direction to 
 take so many pages in advance. Teacher and class 
 together go over the next lesson, the teacher calling 
 the attention of the class to the points of the les- 
 son, asking them to hunt out subdivisions, etc., and 
 instructing them how to prepare the lesson. And 
 the class, having this necessary help are able to 
 prepare their lesson better and recite it better than 
 the American children of the same age. 
 
 There are three chief reasons why teachers do 
 not give more attention to the assignment of the 
 lesson: (i) Lack of time, (2) failure themselves 
 to prepare the lesson in advance so as to be able 
 to assign it, and (3) lack of understanding of 
 proper methods of study. 
 
 Lack of time is not an adequate excuse for fail- 
 
 88 
 
nre properly to assign the lesson. If there is but 
 fifteen minutes for the recitation, all the more rea- 
 son why this time should be used to the best ad- 
 vantage for the pupils. If one-third of this time 
 should be taken for the assignment of the next les- 
 son (and this is usually not too large a proportion 
 in elementary classes), then this much time should 
 be taken. And, besides, if the lesson is well as- 
 signed, so that it is better understood and prepared 
 by the class, more can be accomplished in ten min- 
 utes of actual reciting than in fifteen under the 
 old method. 
 
 It may sometimes be advisable to assign the 
 advance lesson at the beginning of the recitation, 
 but usually it is better to wait until the close ; for 
 then the connection between the present lesson 
 and the next can better be brought out 
 
 Failure to look ahead in the text book and be- 
 come familiar with the next lesson renders it im- 
 possible properly to make the assignment. The 
 teacher must know the scope of the lesson, its 
 chief points, and the main difficulties it will pre- 
 sent to the class. How often teachers are obliged 
 to say to an unprepared class : "I did not realize 
 how hard that lesson was, or I would not have 
 assigned so much." Or, "That lesson was longer 
 than I intended." All of which is a confession 
 that the teacher was unprepared to make the as- 
 signment properly. It is true that the teacher is 
 
very busy, and has many lessons to prepare, but, 
 on the other hand, the teacher who keeps a day 
 ahead of the class in her preparation will find that 
 it abundantly pays in the greater mastery of her 
 subject and the time saved in reviewing it pre- 
 paratory to the recitation. This is not time lost, 
 it is time saved. 
 
 The young teacher's lack of knowledge of the 
 principles underlying the art of study is a more 
 serious matter, and a (difficulty harder to overcome. 
 Every teacher should make a special study of the 
 psychology of attention and interest. She should 
 also come to know how the mind naturally ap- 
 proaches any new subject, first securing a synthetic 
 or bird's-eye view of it as a whole; how next it 
 analyses it into its elements; and how finally it 
 thinks them together, or synthesizes them, into a 
 new and better-understood whole. 
 
 There may, of course, be some lessons which 
 can properly be assigned in a moment by telling 
 the class how much to take in advance. This is 
 true of lessons which are only a continuation of 
 matter with which the class are already somewhat 
 familiar, which they know how to study, and which 
 contains no special difficulties. For example, spell- 
 ing lessons which present no new difficulties or 
 especially hard words ; arithmetic lessons contain- 
 ing practice problems intended for drill instead of 
 introducing new topics ; grammar lessons consist- 
 
 90 
 
ing of applications of principles or rules already 
 mastered. But all lessons which are built upon a 
 logical outline, or contain new or difficult prin- 
 ciples, or involve especial difficulties of any kind 
 should be assigned carefully and with sufficient de- 
 tail to make sure that the class know how to go 
 at work in preparing the lesson without loss of 
 time and interest. 
 
 It is necessary, however, to observe a caution 
 in this connection. There is some danger of as- 
 signing lessons in such a way as to render too 
 much help, and thus relieve the pupil of the neces- 
 sity of mastering it for himself. It is difficult to 
 say whether the mistake of helping too much in 
 the assignment, or not helping enough is the more 
 serious. The teacher must know his class and his 
 text book, and then use the best judgment he has 
 in making just such suggestions as will result in 
 the best effort and mastery by the pupils without 
 robbing them of the necessity for work. 
 
 The following are the chief points to be observed 
 in assigning the lesson : 
 
 I. Go over the lesson with the class in such 
 a way as to give them a bird's-eye view of the 
 whole, a general idea of what the entire lesson is 
 about, or what it is meant to teach. Sometimes 
 this can best be done with the books open in the 
 hands of the pupils, the teacher calling attention 
 to the topics treated. Occasionally the teacher may 
 
 91 
 
herself state the aim or scope of the lesson with- 
 out the use of the text. Getting this synthetic 
 view of the lesson enables the pupil to go at its 
 study with better intelligence, and also helps him 
 better to understand the relation of the separate 
 parts to the lesson as a whole. In this bird's-eye 
 view of the lesson its relation to the lesson just 
 recited, or other previous lessons should be brought 
 out so as to unite the separate lessons into a con- 
 tinuous view of the 51^3] ect. 
 
 2. Suggestions should be given as to the anal- 
 ysis of the lesson into its diflFerent topics. If the 
 text uses a system of numerals in designating the 
 points, the pupils should form the habit of using 
 these in studying the lesson. For example, finding 
 /, they should look for //, ///, etc., thus getting 
 the main heads. Under these main topic numerals 
 will often be found a series of paragraphs numbered 
 /, 2. 5, etc., indicating tJie different topics under 
 each head. The system may even extend to sub-topics 
 lettered a, h, c, etc. The pupil should early learn 
 to look for and make use of these helps in the 
 analysis of the lesson. And even when the author 
 does not introduce any such system of numbering 
 he still follows some outline more or less logically 
 arranged. No better training in analysis, and no 
 better method of mastering a lesson can be found 
 than for the pupil himself to make a written out- 
 line of the lesson, using such a system of num- 
 
 92 
 
bering- the topics and sub-topics as that suggested 
 above. 
 
 3. Children should be taught to make a final 
 summary, or synthesis, of the lesson after they 
 have analyzed it into its separate points. Of course 
 a large proportion of the details learned and re- 
 cited in any lesson will finally be forgotten. But 
 this does not mean that such details were unneces- 
 sary. It rather means that their part was to help 
 in bringing out the few main facts or points and 
 making them clear. For most lessons can be re- 
 duced to a few chief points. These are the ones 
 to be remembered and used in further learning. 
 It is these important points which the pupil should 
 sumrnarize and fix in his memory and understand- 
 ing as the final act in preparing the lesson. Not 
 to do this is to fail to reap the best results from 
 the work put upon the lesson, for these more im- 
 portant points are lost almost as readily as the 
 less important details unless they are emphasized 
 in some such way as has been suggested. 
 
 It is of course not meant that this summary of 
 points should be worked out by the teacher when 
 the lesson is being assigned. That is for the pu- 
 pils to do as a result of their analysis of the les- 
 son. But the teacher should specifically call at- 
 tention to the necessity for such a summary until 
 the habit is so fixed that the pupils follow this 
 method of study without further direction. The 
 
 93 
 
pupil's summary of the lesson should be tested in 
 the recitation just as much as his analysis of the 
 facts of the lesson. This is done by few teachers. 
 
 4. Particularly difficult points, or points of im- 
 portance as a basis for later work should be espe- 
 cially emphasized in the assignment of the lesson. 
 This will go far toward saving the fatal weak- 
 ness on fundamental points which is shown in 
 later work by so many pupils. Not having been 
 over the ground beforehand therefore not realizing 
 the importance or difficulty of the critical points 
 in a subject, the pupils must of necessity be largely 
 dependent on the teacher for such suggestions. 
 
 5. Pupils need to be taught to look up and 
 come to understand the allusions and various ref- 
 erences often used in history, reading, or other 
 lessons. The younger pupils will often have to 
 be shown how to do this. Therefore such points 
 should be referred to in making the assignment, 
 and any necessary directions should be given. 
 
 6. Not infrequently new or unusual words or 
 phrases are encountered by pupils in preparing 
 their lessons, and they are hampered in their study 
 by failing to understand the new terms. The 
 teacher, knowing his pupils, should be able to an- 
 ticipate any trouble of this kind, and give such 
 explanations or help as may be necessary when as- 
 signing the lesson. 
 
 7. In case written work is to constitute a part 
 
 94 
 
of the preparation, the directions governing what 
 is to be done should be so clear and explicit that 
 there is no possibility of their not being under- 
 stood, and the teacher being interrupted next day 
 to explain to members of the class. Much time 
 could be saved for both teacher and pupils, and 
 many distractions prevented from disturbing reci- 
 tations if this simple direction was followed. 
 
 8. If the principles suggested above are fol- 
 lowed in assigning lessons, there will be Uttle ex- 
 cuse for a pupil's forgetting the assignment. It 
 will therefore be a safe rule not to repeat assign- 
 ments for the benefit of careless or inattentive pu- 
 pils. The teacher who will refuse to be inter- 
 rupted during recitation hours to tell pupils what 
 the lesson is, but who will reassign the lesson for 
 the pupil at recess time, or after school, will very 
 soon find all such troubles vanish, and will at 
 the same time be giving her pupils valuable and 
 necessary training in attention and memory. 
 
 EXERCISES. 
 
 1, How many times within the past week have 
 you been asked by pupils to tell them what thfe 
 lesson was after you had assigned it? So far as 
 you can judge, what were the reasons they did not 
 know? 
 
 2. Write ten or fifteen lines giving your opin- 
 ion of the statement in the text, "Lack of time is 
 not an adequate excuse for failure properly to 
 assign the lesson." 
 
 95 
 
3- Do you find any trouble in keeping the les- 
 sons looked over a day ahead so that you are 
 familiar with them when you come to assign them? 
 If not, how do you manage it? If you do find 
 trouble in thus keeping ahead of the class, what 
 do you do about it? 
 
 4. Have you assigned any lesson recently which 
 you thought required only that you tell the class 
 how much or how far to take? If so, state fully 
 what the lesson was, and why it could properly be 
 assigned so briefly. 
 
 5. Write out in full*detail just what you did in 
 assigning some recent lesson. Give the subject, 
 name of the text book, the pages assigned, and 
 tell about how much time it required for the as- 
 signment. 
 
 6. Select some lesson you will soon reach in 
 your assignments, and write out (i) the points 
 you will bring out in the preliminary synthesis or 
 bird's-eye view; (2) the points the class should 
 work out in their analysis of the lesson; and (3) 
 the points which the class should fix upon as a 
 final summary of the lesson. 
 
 7. Mention the points of this chapter which 
 have helped you most, and tell how they have 
 modified your teaching. 
 
 8. Are there any points in the chapter which 
 seem to you impossible to put into practice? If 
 so, tell what they are, and why they will not work. 
 
 9. Have you found any instances recently in 
 your work in which pupils were unable to go on 
 with the preparation of the lesson because they 
 did not understand how to go to work? If so, 
 
 96 
 
tell how the difficulty could have been obviated by 
 more careful assignment. 
 
 lo. Name and discuss briefly ten suggestions 
 received from this booklet which have been of 
 especial help to you. 
 
 97 
 
n. 
 
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 One copy del. to Cat. Div. 
 
 .25 t9',