<► ^ <<6 * * w **^. THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL BY CHAUNCEY P. COLEGROVE, A.M., Sc.D., LL.D. FOR TWENTY TEARS A TEACHER OF TEACHERS IN THE IOWA STATE TEACHERS COLLEGE, CEDAR FALLS, IOWA, AND FOR FIVE YEARS PRESIDENT •F VPPER IOWA UNIVERSITY, FAYETTE, IOWA CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON .Cu Copyright, 1910, 1922, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Printed in the United. States of America NOV 21*22 To my wife, Emma Ridley Colegrove, formerly Professor of History in the Iowa State Teachers College, whose help and sympathy have been my constant en- couragement, this book is affectionately dedicated Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/teacherschool01cole PREFACE Every human being ought to aspire to become some* thing, to be somebody, to do some useful work, to earn an honest living. It is taken for granted that the readers of this book are either teachers, or those who aspire to become such. For those who assume that teachers are born, not made, or believe themselves to be teachers "by the grace of God" through some process of pedagogical predestination, this book has no message. These pages are written for those who desire to become good teachers and always better teachers. Youth is no crime, and inexperience Is no dis- grace; but youth that does not aspire, and age that has not learned from experience are both a disgrace and a crime. All instruction involves both learning and teaching, and there are three elements that always enter into these processes: (i) The subject-matter to be taught; (2) the consciousness and self-activity of the pupil; (3) the prepa- ration and personality of the teacher. To be a real teacher one must make preparation along three main lines. Teachers must know what they teach, how to teach, and whom they teach. Scholarship, pro- fessional training, and a knowledge of children are, there- fore, essential to success as a teacher. "In place of the vii viii PREFACE former demand," says Roark, "that the teacher should know only the three R's, there has grown up the more rational one that he should know the three M's — Matter, Method, Mind." The teacher's work is many-sided. Under the condi- tions that prevail in American schools, he must perform the functions of organizer, instructor, trainer, ruler, and manager. This book attempts to give a systematic outline of the teacher's work along these lines. The aim of the book is not technical, but practical. It is the outgrowth of many years of study, observation, and experience. And during these years there has grown up in the mind of the author the supreme conviction that the teacher is the life of the school. Every other educational problem can be reduced to this question of the fitness of the teacher. Our entire educational system breaks down if teachers, when brought face to face with pupils in the school, fail to inspire, to teach, and to train them. How best to prepare themselves to become more efficient teachers is the problem that faces thousands of earnest, honest young people to-day. That these pages may assist them in making such preparation is my sincere desire. C P. C. Iowa State Teachers College, Cedar Falls, Iowa, May t 191a NOTE TO THE REVISED EDITION The basic principles of education do not change, but the relative emphasis placed upon them and the method of applying them vary constantly in order to fit better our changing social needs and national ideals. These variations give us what we are pleased to call "trends in education". Thus it is that the "Old Education" is always passing away and the "New Education" is al- ways coming into being. Just now the "educational trend" in the United States, influenced in some degree by the Great World War, is the increased emphasis placed upon eight lines, or phases, of instruction and training in our public schools: (i) Greatly increased emphasis on the conserva- tion of health and the teaching of good health habits to all pupils; (2) systematic vocational guidance and train- ing; (3) the Americanization of all our people and com- pulsory instruction in all our schools in the duties of citizenship ; (4) determined effort to stamp out illiteracy everywhere through the more adequate and effective organization and use of our educational agencies, local, state, and national; (5) better trained teachers and more efficient class instruction, as indicated by various popular labels, such as "the socialized recitation," "vitalizing instruction," "the motivation of class work," the "project method of teaching"; (6) moral and re- ix x NOTE TO THE REVISED EDITION ligious training in the public schools; (7) better rural schools; (8) scientific methods of testing the intelli- gence of pupils and the results of teaching. The reader will find that all these current phases of educational progress have received due consideration in this revision. With sincere gratitude for the cordial reception which "The Teacher and the School" has had in the past, both from teacher-training classes and teachers' reading circles, the author ventures the hope that in its revised form the book may be still more help- ful and satisfactory. June, 1922. INTRODUCTION There is a practical side to the teaching of children that requires knowledge of the child to be taught, of the subject matter to be acquired, and of the management and methods best to employ. The solution of the problems that arise in daily experience demands a thorough acquaintance with what has been found most effective and desirable. The experience of leading educators, combined with their opinions regarding policies and plans, is therefore of special value to those who desire to grow into greater effectiveness in professional life. There is much to be said about teaching and teachers that has not found its place in either history, philosophy, or literature, and the develop- ment of systems and of the practical means of economiz- ing time and effort will continue for years to come. The last word concerning the great work of public education* through elementary and secondary schools, will not be said until American educational problems have all been solved, and that time will come only when democracy has completed its mission and mankind is fully civilized and enlightened. There are interpretations to be made of what the great thinkers of the past have said, while adaptations of their conclusions must be secured to render the truth effective for the service of the teacher. The necessity for actual teachers, who have won success in the fields of public school work, to become interpreters of this truth in order xii INTRODUCTION that the truth may become useful to the rank and file Is self-evident. They owe it to those who daily face the children of the common people in the common school in order that more perfect knowledge may lighten the burden necessity makes imperative and real when instructing and training them in the way of civilization. These great phases of education as found in the philoso- phy, science, and art of teaching are presented in this work in such a way that helpfulness, good spirit, and personal character are brought to the front as essentials to success in the vocation, while at the same time the realities and the necessities of school instruction are so emphasized and explained that quality and quantity are both given place and prominence. Education is shown to be a gradual process of growth in certain elements that are cumulative in their nature and definite in their existence. The reader constantly con- fronts the fact that the teacher has a personal work to do, and that there is no substitute for good health, good scholarship, good character, or good training. Efficiency is a logical consequence of endeavor and of fidelitv to the principles of sincerity and truth. Success is a result that can be insured by acquiring the qualities essential to the teaching vocation, and the teaching of children is so im- portant and has such immense possibilities that no person should dare to undertake it without having made a prepa- ration that the time and the means at hand give in such abundance. No teacher of teachers is more fully represented in his book than is the author of these pages. He has been INTRODUCTION xiii through the experiences he suggests, he is an exemplar of his philosophy of work, he has given all he has in ordei to attain to the high standard of capability he has reached, while he comprehends in full the problems each beginner has to solve. His sympathy is marked in the atmosphere he throws about the sentiments here expressed; his ideals of life are portrayed in the choice standards here developed; and his conception of the greatness of the teacher's work is apparent on every page. To the young teacher this message will be the way of life; to the worried, tired teacher these sentiments will point a way of obtaining rest and relief; while to the enthusiastic, experienced teacher these words will be a constant reminder to keep near to the children and depend more upon the daily practice than upon sublime theory. Homer H. Seerley, President Iowa State Teacliers College* CONTENTS PAGE Preface vii Note to the Revised Edition ix Introduction xi PART I THE MAKING OF A TEACHER Chapter I — Choosing a Vocation in a Democ- racy 3 i. Becoming a teacher by accident. 2. Choosing a life-work in a democracy. 3. Importance of choosing a vocation. 4. Prob- lems involved in choosing a vocation. 5. Vocational guidance. 6. Essentials to success in all vocations. 7. What constitutes a profession? 8. Standards for measuring the efficient teacher. 9. Renton score card for grading teachers. 10. Preparation for efficient teaching. Chapter II — Efficient Teachers must have Scholarship 14 1. Importance of scholarship. 2. Meaning of scholarship. 3. How scholarship aids the teacher: (a) creates interest in school work; (&) prevents disorder; (c) commands respect and confidence; (d) secures and holds attention in class; (e) inspires faithful study; (/) sets up ideals to be attained. 4. Conclusion. Chapter III — Professional Training and Growth .22 1. Neglect of the professional training of teachers in America. 2. The protest of the wise. 3. Why professional training has been neglected in the United States. 4. Social and economic changes in the United States have: (a) greatly broadened the xv xvi CONTENTS work of the school; (b) made the training of teachers essential. 5. What professional training includes. 6. Advantages of profes- sional training: (a) would prevent failure; (b) save health; (c) fur- nish correct standards of teaching; (d) render experience fruitful; (e) prevent costly experimenting on pupils. 7. Means of securing professional training before teaching. 8. Professional growth while teaching: (a) through daily practice in teaching; (b) through study; (c) through educational papers; (d) through school visi- tation; (e) through institutes, associations, and summer schools. Chapter IV — The Study oe Children and Its Results 38 1. Child-study a necessary part of the teacher's preparation. 2. In loco parentis. 3. Society's costly blunder and its results. 4. The "new education" based upon a knowledge of children. 5. The modern teacher must study children: (a) to understand educational aims and values; (b) to avoid mistakes; (c) to select and apply methods and devices intelligently; (d) to consciously direct the thinking, feeling, and willing of the child. 6. Methods of studying children. 7. Aids to method. 8. Results of teaching without a knowledge of children. 9. Effects of studying chil- dren: (a) has profoundly influenced our courses of study and methods of teaching; (&) greatly improved school architecture and school sanitation; (c) given us a more rational view of the child's development; (d) pointed the way to effective moral train- ing in our public schools; (e) stimulated public interest in the welfare of children and given teachers greater insight and more sympathy. 10. The loveless school is a bad school, n. Pesta- lozzi's miracle at Stanz. Chapter V — The Health of the Teacher r . 61 _ 1. Essentials in the making of a teacher. 2. Health condi- tions as revealed by the World War. 3. Importance of good health in the teacher. 4. How the teacher's ill-health reacts upon the school. 5. The teacher's duty as to health. 6. Health as a source of happiness. 7. Modern health ideals and agencies. 8. Teachers are the real health officers of the school: (a) in pre- venting disease; (b) in teaching the laws of healthful living; (c) in forming good health habits. Chapter VI— The Teacher's Personality . .71 1. Meaning of _ personality. 2. Factors in personality. 3. Will as an element in personality. 4. Self-selection in the growth of personality. 5. Rules for developing personality: (a) law of health and happiness; (b) law of courage and endurance; (c) law of uplift of soul; (d) law of selection and emphasis; (e) law of de- CONTENTS xvii voted service. 6. Unconscious preparation for teaching: (a) skill and tact in handling children; (b) preparation for responsibility; (c) growth in executive ability and initiative. 7. Excuses for failure. 8. No impossible ideal. 9. Importance of the teacher's work. PART II THE TEACHER AS ORGANIZER Chapter VII— American Democracy and Com- mon Schools 83 1. Democracy and free public schools. 2. Views of Wash- ington, Jefferson, and Madison. 3. The struggle for free schools. 4. American common schools a unique institution. 5. Com- pulsory attendance laws. 6. Democratic society maintains the school through co-operation. 7. The four institutions that are partners in the school are: (a) the family; (&) the state; (c) the vocations, or business; (d) the church. 8. Reaction of the school upon society. 9. Americanization. 10. Marks of a good citizen, n. Training good American citizens in the schools must: (a) be based upon the fundamental principles of democracy; (b) have a definite programme; (c) requires a rational method; (d) and de- mands competent and patriotic teachers. 12. The school citizen's creed. Chapter VIII — Nature and Importance of School Organization 98 1. The five phases of the teacher's work: (a) organization; (&) management; (c) instruction; (d) training; (e) discipline. 2. Organization must come first. 3. The teacher's share in organizing the school: (a) importance; (b) must be planned; (c) value to the pupil. 4. Organization implies mechanism. 5. Common-sense factors. 6. The teacher as organizer needs: (a) a good under- standing of human nature; (&) constructive imagination; (c) con- fidence in his ability to plan work; (d) practical skill, good temper, and good sense; (e) a broad social outlook. Chapter IX — Nature of the School . . . 108 1. The school is an organism. 2. The school is an industrial organization. 3. The school is a social community. 4. The school viewed as a complex, self-perpetuating institution. 5. Co- operation is the great law of school organization and work. xviii CONTENTS PAGE Chapter X — Aims of the School . . . .117 1. General aims of the school as expressed in famous definitions of education. 2. Why these definitions are of value to teachers. 3. "Complete living" as the general aim of education includes: (a) the promotion of vigorous health; (b) vocational outlook and guidance; (c) right behavior in the home; (d) citizenship and social efficiency; (e) training for rational enjoyment. 4. Sig- nificance of these aims of the modern school. 5. No conflict be- tween "complete living" and "morality" as supreme aims of education. 6. The moral mission of the school. 7. The teacher's opportunity and privilege. Chapter XI — The Course of Study . . . .129 1. Relation of the course of study to the aims of the school. 2. Importance of the elementary course of study. 3. The aims of the course of study. 4. Relation of the course of study to the com- munity and to civilization. 5. Making a course of study involves three main problems: (a) the selection of material; (b) the order, or sequence, of studies and topics; (c) the correlation of subjects. 6. Theories governing the selection of studies: (a) theory of formal discipline; (b) theory of the utility of knowledge; (c) theory of socializing the individual; (d) theory of interest. 7. Basis of truth in each of these theories. 8. The relative value of studies. 9. Groups of studies in the elementary course: (a) language and literature group; (b) science group; (c) mathematics group; (d) history and civics group; (e) art and play group; (/) vocational subjects. 10. Outline of the six groups of subjects by grades, n. The sequence of studies and topics: (a) psychological order; (&) logical order; (c) the order of the culture epochs. 12. The correlation of studies. 13. The teacher and the curriculum. 14. The nature of the course of study. 15. How to make the best use of the course of study. 16. Needed reforms in elementary education. Chapter XII — Planning the Campaign . . . 157 1. Preliminary work: (a) meeting the legal requirements; (b) securing the school; (c) signing the contract. 2. Making a pre- study of the field: (a) to ascertain the public sentiment of the dis- trict; (b) to secure a good boarding-place; (c) to know the condi- tion and arrangement of the school-house; (d) to find out what materials there are to work with; (e) to consult the school records; (/) to get the information necessary to form an intelligent plan of action. 3. The first day. 4. A teacher's confession. 5. Some additional suggestions. 6. The secret of making a good start. CONTENTS xix PAGE Chapter XIII — Better Rural-School Organi- zation 169 1. Meaning. 2. Systems of school organization. 3. Rural- school problem is of vital importance, because it is: (a) closely re- lated to rural social and economic life; (b) concerns one-half of all our school children; (c) the old-time "district school" is no longer an efficient school; (d) boys and girls on the farm must have equal educational opportunities with city children. 4. Factors in the solution of the rural-school problem: (a) major program of con- solidation; (b) minor program of standardizing schools. 5. Out- line course of study for one-room rural schools. 6. Suggestions for classifying pupils. 7. How to reduce the number of classes. Chapter XIV — Gradation of City and Con- solid ated Schools . . . . . . . .184 1. Grades and classes are necessary in a system of universal edu- cation. 2. Plans of gradation: (a) term or semester plan; (b) Mr. Search's "Ideal School"; (c) the Elizabeth plan; (d) the Batavia plan; (e) the modified Cambridge plan; (/) the Gary plan. 3. Other devices for securing flexible gradation. 4. Departmental teaching. 5. Intelligence tests as a basis of classification and promotion: (a) meaning of intelligence; (b) army intelligence tests; (c) Binet intelligence tests and results; (d) use of intelligence tests and results; (e) value of intelligence tests in school work; (/) lim- itations of intelligence tests. 6. The wiser course. Chapter XV — The Daily Programme . . . 206 1. Importance and objects of the programme. 2. Factors in the problem of making a programme: (a) the time element; (b) the subjects and their relative importance; (c) the succession of studies. 3. Summary of principles. 4. Programme for a rural school — five divisions. 5. Keeping to the programme. 6. Rural-school graduation exercises. Chapter XVI — The School-room as a Factor in Organization 219 1. The old-time school-house. 2. The school-room interests the entire community. 3. A pleasant school-room a silent teacher of morals. 4. The relation of school hygiene to good order. 5. The question of health: (a) care of the eyes; (6) correct posture; (c) comfortable temperature; {d) pure air; ( Domestic Science, or Household Arts; (3) Specihc Vocational Train::: r The a im s of these vocational subjects are partly edu- cational and partly practical. THE COURSE OF STUDY 143 (a) They should furnish pupils a natural and welcome relief from the monotony of continuous book study. (b) They ought to lessen the evils of fatigue, prevent eye-strain, offset the dangers of close confinement to seats, and encourage pupils to express and apply their knowledge as fast as it is acquired. (c) These vocational subjects should help to bridge the chasm between the life of the school and the life outside of the school. They should serve to connect the home with the school, the shop, and the field. (d) They should stimulate interest in every other study in the course and vitalize all the instruction* of the school by revealing to the pupil the worth of knowl- edge as a means of sustaining life, securing the comforts of the home, and ministering in manifold ways to the happiness and welfare of mankind. Outline of. the Six Groups of Subjects by Grades. — Some one or more forms of each of these six groups of studies must be included in every year's work of the elementary course. Teachers should study the outline of the whole course, as here given, very carefully and plan their work in accordance with it. II. The Order, or Sequence, of Topics and Studies. — The sequence of studies means the order in which they should be arranged in the curriculum. It will be readily granted that the studies should be arranged so as to aid most effectively in the education of the average pupil. In making the selection of the materials for the course, we have gone far in solving the problem of the sequence of topics; for most studies are taught from text-books in which some care has been used in the ar- rangement of the subject-matter. There are, however, two or three general principles relating to the arrange- ment of topics and studies that should be perfectly clear 144 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL Classics Grammar Orthography Writing Geography Physiology and Hygiene Elements of Science Arithmetic and Business Forms _"5j rtU 5 Music Drawing Physical Training Elementary Agricul- ture Manual Arts Domestic Science a ^ < J? u a , a a cfl r3 >-< be •55 g 2-j3 m S-d .t3 iS 2tijC uoo? 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This is espe- cially true, because there is a wide divergence of opinion among educators as to the prevailing practice of to-day in regard to the sequence of studies. Some writers main- tain that the true sequence of studies and topics already prevails in educational practice; that this is true of all classes of schools; that our text-books are arranged in accordance with this principle; that our courses of study, in the main, follow the natural order; that our teachers are constantly seeking for approved methods of corre- lating the different topics and studies in the course. Other writers assert that the true order of studies is almost completely ignored in our schools; that most courses of study are prepared by men who do not know that psychology is an accepted science; that these courses of study are put into practice by teachers whose instruc- tion is mere guesswork; that the true sequence of studies is violated in the arrangement of topics in most text- books. They assert that having ascertained long ago the natural order of the development of the child, we per- sistently turn our backs upon the course indicated by established facts and follow the path marked out by custom and tradition. It is no doubt true that the proper sequence of studies is greatly interfered with by custom and tradition, by the over-emphasis of electives, by changeable popular demands, by the use of inferior text-books, and by the ignorance of teachers. The judicious observance of two or three principles would do much to improve our educational practice in this regard. (i) The Psychological Sequence. — In the lower grades the sequence of topics and studies should be governed 146 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL by psychological considerations. The order and ar- rangement of the studies must conform to the nature of the child's mind and the order of its development. The developing mind of the learner should determine not only the sequence of studies but also the method of teaching. (2) The Logical Sequence. — This is the scientific con- nection and relation of topics and studies to each other. It is the objective factor in determining the arrangement of the subjects in the course. This principle should govern the arrangement of material and the method of instruction in the higher grades. But the transition from the psychological to the logical order should be very gradual. The history of every branch of study and every science proves that the order of their develop- ment has been: (1) an accumulation of materials through experience vitally related to the needs and activities of daily life with little regard to their logical connection; (2) a period of associating and classifying this material by means of certain fundamental relations and prin- ciples; (3) the application of these principles to new- cases. Sciences are never made off-hand. Neither should they be taught in the lower grades by the deduc- tive method nor in strictly logical order. (3) The TJieory of the " Culture Epochs" — This theory, as stated by Herbert Spencer, is: "The education of the child must accord both in mode and arrangement with the education of mankind as considered historically; or, in other words, the genesis of knowledge in the indi- vidual must follow the same course as the genesis of knowledge in the race.' 5 By culture epochs we mean those typical periods in the history of the race which furnish materials best fitted for the instruction and THE COURSE OF STUDY 147 training of children through the successive stages of their developing interests and capacities. It is claimed that children pass through certain epochs of moral and intellectual growth and that these epochs repeat in a general way the experience of the race. Ziller says: "We are to let children pass through the culture de- velopment of the race, only with greater speed." In his "Ideal School," P. W. Search says: "That the child repeats the history of the race is undoubtedly true in the normal individual." And he maintains that from this fact we are able to deduce the fundamentals which should enter into a scheme of education. "So, there- fore, in a fruitful education the things which are funda- mental must take precedence over the things which are purely accessory." Good health, the uplift of person- ality, contact with nature, love for the beautiful, lan- guage, construction, love for stories and myths, are some of these fundamentals. Details in penmanship, spelling, technical grammar and science, mechanical drawing, and second-hand information Mr. Search con- siders as accessories to be subordinated to the funda- mental things. Some serious attempts have been made by disciples of Herbart to apply this theory to the succession of subjects in the course as well as to the method of presenting them. Some of these efforts have been fantastic and none of them has been wholly successful. Yet there is no doubt that this theory has furnished several valuable hints in making a course of study. It has emphasized the oneness of the individual with the race and the tendency of the child to grow into the type of his race. It has emphasized the value of history and literature in the lower grades for their ethi- cal importance in shaping ideals and training character. 14S THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL III. The Correlation of Studies.— The third great problem in making a curriculum is the correlation of subject-matter. In discussing the need of better corre- lation of subjects, Raymont says: " Total neglect of the affinities of the subjects of instruction undoubtedly in- creases the embarrassments caused by crowded curricula; it leads to artificiality and takes a false view of knowl- edge as a mere agglomeration of independent parts, and, to crown all, it leaves room for diversities of aim where the aim is essentially one." Several theories of the correlation of studies have been exploited in America. They are variously known as correlation, concentra- tion, and co-ordination. The purpose of each of these is to unite all the subject-matter of the course of study into one grand interconnected, systematic, and progres- sive plan of instruction. Concentration. — As generally understood, concentra- tion is the attempt to group all the studies of the course around one central study or subject. Various studies have been proposed as this central one, some choosing literature and history, others nature study and geogra- phy, and still others attempting to group all the work of the school around the constructive activities. Most of the attempts to solve the problem of correlation by this method are fairly open to the criticism of being arti- ficial, and at their best are applicable to the primary grades only. As Arnold Tompkins so well says: "True concentration is not the strained and mechanical bring- ing together of diverse subject-matter into the same recitation, but fixing the attention on all the relations of the given subject, and thus drawing into the move- ment the other subjects required for the mastery of the one under consideration." THE COURSE OF STUDY 149 Co-ordination. — Most students of education reject the plan of grouping all the studies around one central study. Some of them have favored the plan of selecting two or more important studies as the main ones, or co-ordinate studies, and making the others subordinate to them. Dr. Gordy says: "We may, then, fairly assume that the work upon which the school formerly concentrated its entire attention may be as well or better done inciden- tally; that instead of keeping — rather trying to keep — the child employed with the wearisome tasks of learning to read, write, and 'reckon' apart from anything he has any interest in, we can teach him these arts quite as rapidly by teaching them in connection with things which it is important for him to learn." The attempts that have been made to group all the other studies around two or three so-called co-ordinate studies have not met with a very cordial reception, and there seems to be little immediate prospect that this method of unifying studies in the course will be adopted. Correlation. — By correlation is meant the associa- tion and interrelation of subjects in the act of instruc- tion. The purpose of Correlation is to prevent the loss of time and energy of the pupil by enabling him to use the knowledge gained in one study to help him in master- ing the others. That there is great need of better corre- lation of studies in our elementary course than now exists is very plain to every thoughtful observer. The great enrichment of our school courses in recent years has not been governed by any principles of relation; it has been a simple process of addition, but every such addition to the course has made the need of rational correlation more imperative. Our common-school course has be- come an example of converting a necessary educational 150 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL agency into an instrument of torture. It has led to over-pressure, irritation, too much home study by little children, fatigue, and loss of all interest in school work. It has encouraged shallowness and smattering. The only salvation of the child under such conditions is his own power of natural resistance to what his teachers attempt to impose on him and his extreme facility in forgetting the mass of unrelated knowledge that he cannot assimilate. Correlation is not an abstract prin- ciple to be applied off-hand in making a course of study. It must become concrete and effective in the act of in- struction. The teacher must make it so in her daily work. The laws of association and apperception must be observed. Every opportunity for practical correla- tion between topics and subjects which will help the pupil to obtain a better grasp of the topic considered must be improved. Geography should help pupils to understand history; drawing and language should help in every other study. Moreover, teachers should miss no occasion to correlate the work of the school with the child's out-of-school life — his games and sports, the books he reads, his home experiences, his excursions and trav- els, his ever-developing interest in nature and in the so- cial and economic life of his community. This is the only really effective correlation. The Teacher and the Curriculum. — It is of vital im- portance to the success of the school that the teacher should understand the nature, aims, and value of the course of study and should make a wise and conscien- tious use of it in his daily work. Although the law gives to school boards the right to prescribe the course of study, it is, as a matter of fact, nearly always compiled by the principal or superintendent and is merely adopted THE COURSE OF STUDY 151 by the school board. But no matter how the course of study has been provided, nor how perfect it may be, it will be of little practical value unless it is intelligently used. It is only a thing on paper; the teacher must make it effective, must put life and purpose into it, must master the art of applying it to the daily needs of the pupils, and this is a much more difficult thing to do than to put a course on paper. Some teachers calmly ignore the course of study and work in a blind, aimless, haphazard way, giving no thought whatever to the reasons why certain studies are selected for the course, to the proper sequence of topics, or to the correlation of subjects. They are the blind leaders of the blind. Other teachers who really appreciate the value of the course of study as a means of attaining the aims of the school apparently get lost in the details of organization and instruction and soon lose sight of the greater problems involved in the educa- tion of the child. The work of such teachers will in- variably become mechanical and without inspiration. Many teachers put their time and energy on the subjects that they like best or are most proficient in and no- toriously neglect other subjects equally important. Still other teachers are satisfied to read only that por- tion of the course of study that outlines their own par- ticular work. Now it ought to be perfectly clear that teachers in the fifth grade cannot teach the subjects and topics included in the work of that grade intelligently unless they know what the pupils have learned in the preceding grades and also keep in mind what will be required of these pupils in the work beyond the fifth grade. In other words, every teacher should be familiar with the course as a whole, should know the connection 152 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL and relation of its parts, understand its aims and the principles underlying its construction. The Nature of the Course of Study. — The course of study is not then, as some writers seem to think, an invention of educational philosophers to be ignored, neglected, revised, or used by teachers at their conve- nience. It is not a thing to be tinkered with by every budding principal or superintendent who can persuade a school board to adopt the product of his genius. It is not a waste-basket into which every crank or fanatic may dump his hobby or his ism. It is not even "the measuring-rod or scale to determine at what point in the elementary course a pupil's work has arrived/ ' as defined by the Committee of Twelve. On the contrary, it is the point of vital contact between the child's mind and the intellectual and spiritual forces that have made our civilization. To the learner it is the means by which he grows into the mental and moral type of his race, and thus becomes an integral part of our twentieth- century civilization. The child who does not in some way grow into unity, co-operation, and sympathy with the ideals and aspirations of our present civilization remains a barbarian or becomes a confirmed hoodlum, degenerate, or criminal. "Summing it all up," says Dr. Charles McMurry, in discussing the elementary- course, "it is not too much to say that the school has begun to bring the whole range of human life and activity in select typical forms under its purview. This comprehends broadly the whole history of mankind in its typical and striking manifestations, the whole run of nature, animate and inanimate, and its relation to man, and all those great institutions, occupations, and tra- ditional bodies of knowledge which man has accumu- lated in the course of the centuries." THE COURSE OF STUDY 153 To the competent teacher the curriculum is the means by which it becomes possible to realize the aims of the school, to put a correct estimate upon educational values, and to place emphasis upon the things of greatest impor- tance. Such teachers are not easily made the victims of fads and irrational ideals, for they have the vision to see that wisdom is more precious than knowledge and to realize that the poorest investment that the State can make is to educate a rascal or a shirk. That the course of study is of vital importance in attaining the aims of education is my contention, and the soundness of this position has been evident in the discussion of the prin- ciples that govern the construction of the curriculum. How to Use the Course of Study. — It is not intended that the course of study shall fetter the teacher's free- dom and individuality. It should not propose a rigid system to be strictly and literally applied by the teacher. A course of study must be general in its provisions and must leave very much room for the exercise of judgment, tact, and common-sense on the part of the teacher. Of course this implies that the teacher will try to master the provisions of the course of study. After carefully studying the curriculum as a whole, in order to get a general view of the work of the school, the teacher should study each subject separately in order to obtain a good understanding of it from beginning to end. Only in this way can the sequence of topics be fully grasped. Then the outline of the special subject or year's work in which the teacher must give instruc- tion should be thoroughly mastered and the work for each term or month should be carefully planned. This will enable the teacher to correlate the work in the dif- ferent branches and assign lessons intelligently. The work of each year and each branch of the course has its 154 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL general aims, but the teacher in planning and assigning lessons must have specific and definite aims or the pu- pils are all "at sea" in their study and preparation. Every lesson, if taught effectively, must be taught with reference to the lessons that have preceded it as well as to those that are to follow it. A proper use of the course of study will enable teachers to do this and will render the work of the school more definite and symmetrical and the progress of pupils more satisfactory. Every good teacher will make a constant use of the course of study in the preparation of her daily lessons. In making such preparation a plan-book is a great help. Magee says: "A plan-book offers, when well done, a method of preparation of the lessons, a means of giving to the grades and of dovetailing the subjects into one another, that would scarcely be accomplished as well by other means. Experience shows that young teachers meet with their chief difficulty in instruction and consequent difficulty in discipline from lack of systematic and pro- gressive outline and plan work. To such a teacher a daily plan-book prepared with some detail is a great help; such a book may be examined by the principal daily, or at frequent intervals, and suggestions and di- rections may be made therein by him. ' ' Superintendents and principals must insist that teachers make a wise use of the course of study, but they should always bear in mind that the curriculum is made for the teacher and the school and not the teacher for the curriculum. It ought not to be necessary to hamper competent teachers with a lot of weekly or daily petty restrictions and mi- nute directions. While the course of study in our public schools should be determined as to its essential features by the author- THE COURSE OF STUDY 155 ity of the State, a great degree of freedom should be left to the local community and local school officers to sup- plement the course by adding studies of local interest and adapting it to meet the specific needs of the pupils. Ana, in like manner, while the local principal or super- intendent must exercise a wise general supervision of the practical work of administering the course, he should leave the details and minor adjustments to be worked out by the individual teachers. Only in this way can the course of study be both flexible and progressive and individual initiative be combined helpfully with central authority. A course of study should be a constant challenge to the teacher to study and self -improvement. It is easy to master the work of one grade and to repeat the round of instruction year after year, but the effects of such teaching upon the teacher are pitiful in the extreme. Following thus the line of least resistance, the teacher becomes inert, unprogressive, narrow, unstudious, and intellectually atrophied. The course of study should make students of the teachers who use it. Reforms Needed. — The reforms needed in regard to our elementary schools are (i) a better knowledge on the part of teachers as to what constitutes the essentials in education; (2) the simplification of text-books by the omission of non-essentials, technicalities, and conun- drums, and the selection of type forms embodying the important concepts of the subjects for continuous and extended study; (3) closer correlation among the vari- ous subjects of the course; (4) greater attention to the physical conditions surrounding the pupils in the school; (5) the introduction of constructive work and manual training into all the grades to be closely correlated with 156 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL the other studies in the course; (6) such a centralization of authority in school matters as will not leave the es- sentials of making and administering a course of study in the hands of non-experts and subject to a change of policy with the election of every new school board; (7) the elimination of petty politics in the selection of teach- ers and superintendents. Such reforms are already in progress. The process of true reform is that of evolution. The gradual introduc- tion of music, drawing, physical culture, nature study, agriculture, handwork, manual training, domestic sci- ence, and the study of literature into our elementary schools during the past few years and the earnest efforts that teachers are making to find the best means of properly correlating this material in their daily instruc- tion are evidence of this process. This work must con- tinue in every department of education, and awakened teachers must be the apostles of a more rational system than the past has known. SUGGESTED READINGS Bonser, "The Elementary School Curriculum," chaps. I, IV, V; Wells, "A Project Curriculum," sections II, III; Sears, "Classroom Organization and Control," chap. XI; Dewey, "Democracy and Education," chaps. XIV, XV; Report of the Committee of Fifteen; Bobbitt, "The Curriculum," chap. VI; Krackowizer, "Projects in the Primary Grades"; Judd, "Intro- duction to the Scientific Study of Education," chap. XI; F. M. McMurry, "Elementary School Standards," chaps. VIII, IX, X, XI. CHAPTER XII PLANNING THE CAMPAIGN Preliminary Work of the Teacher. — Every public-school teacher is an employee of the State. The great majority of teachers are educated wholly or in part at the public expense in rural schools, graded schools, normal schools, and State universities. It ought to be assumed that among the motives that prompt them to become teachers is the desire to repay society and the State for the free education that they have received by rendering faithful and efficient service in the school-room. It ought to be assumed that they will cheerfully meet all the legal requirements that are demanded of teachers by the State. It is a part of the preliminary work of the teacher to comply in good faith with these legal requirements. I. Meeting the Legal Requirements. — The State de- mands that before young men and women begin the work of the public-school teacher they shall attend the normal institute, pass the examinations for certificate, and sign a contract with the school board. The laws of the State also require of the prospective teacher a certain minimum age, aptness to teach, ability to govern, and a good moral character. It is the intent and purpose of these laws to bar the door of every public school-house to immature, incompetent, or immoral persons, if such persons should attempt to undertake the important work of instructing children in the name and under the authority of the State. 157 158 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL (i) Duties of School Officer s.-^-lt is the duty of school directors and county superintendents to see that these laws are enforced. Applicants for certificates are required to present to the proper school officers such evidences of good moral character as may be demanded. Before any county superintendent or examining board issues a certifi- cate there should be no doubt of the applicant's moral fit- ness, for the character of the teacher and his influence over his school are of even greater importance than his literary qualifications. Stephens says: "The county su- perintendent who carelessly licenses a coarse, ignorant person to practise on little children is to be pitied be- cause his crime is so great." (2) Teachers Also Responsible, — But the responsibility does not lie wholly with the county superintendent and the examining boards. Any person who attempts to evade the laws of the State in regard to the requirements de- manded of teachers, who attempts to secure a certificate through favor, misrepresentation, or positive cheating and fraud is unfit to be a teacher. The manner and spirit in which young people meet these plain provisions of the law are, therefore, a good test of their real worth and character and have an important bearing upon their suc- cess as teachers. Let it be understood in the district that the teacher secured r/s certificate dishonestly or for the sake of a little higher pay tried to deceive the board as to the grade of the certificate he holds, and the influence for good of such a teacher is at an end. II. Securing a School. — The great majority of teachers begin their work in the rural schools. This is so because there are very many rural schools in which the average daily attendance is less than ten pupils, and sometimes only three or four. In such schools the problems of organ- PLANNING THE CAMPAIGN 159 ization are very simple, the discipline is comparatively easy, the "individual method" of instruction is followed simply because there are not enough pupils to organize classes, wages are apt to be at the lowest, the educational ideals of the community are usually correspondingly low, and, as a consequence, these schools are likely to fall into the hands of beginners or of incompetents. They are the real, although very pitiful and inadequate, "practice schools" of the country, and how to eliminate them is one of the great educational problems of the day. The larger country schools afford an excellent oppor- tunity to the well-qualified beginner to acquire power and skill in organization, management, and teaching ability. It is exceedingly important to make a success of one's first term and at the same time to realize that this success is not the result of having an "easy job" but is fairly earned by hard work, good judgment, and faithful per- formance of duty. It is better not to teach one's first term in his home district. Applying for a school is a business matter and should be done in a business-like way. No one should apply for a position unless he feels competent to fill it, and no one is ready for promotion until he more than fills the position he holds. Good positions are sometimes won by accident or favor or graft, but ignorance and fraud soon run their course and have their appropriate reward. In the long run, merit, hard work, and honesty win their way to better salaries and larger fields of usefulness. The young teacher should not place too much depend- ence upon letters of recommendation. The best recom- mendations are a simple statement of the grades one has actually earned in school or in examination for a certificate, 160 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL a good face, a pleasant manner, a dignified, modest bear- ing, and a straightforward method. III. The Contract. — It is frequently the case that school boards are negligent about complying with the law in regard to the teacher's contract, but this does not excuse the teacher for a failure to observe the law. Surely, no teacher can afford to be a law-breaker. The teacher's contract should be signed by the president of the board and the teacher, and filed with the secretary before the first day of school. This contract should settle all such details as the length of the term, the time of beginning school, the wages of the teacher, the date of payment, the care of school property, the janitor work, the loss of time caused by legal holidays and in cases of contagious diseases. Teachers should realize that they are under the strictest business and moral obligations to carry out their part of the contract in every particular. Many teachers secure positions through the recommendations of friends, sign their contracts, and then because, forsooth, they are offered a better position or change their minds, calmly ignore their obligations, break their pledged word, and in effect say to the school board: " What are you going to do about it ? " Such teachers are a disgrace to the profession. So common has contract-breaking become among teachers that school boards in many places feel compelled to require all teachers to furnish a bond for the faithful performance of a solemn written promise. IV. A Pre-study of the Field. — We have said that the skilful organizer must have a good constructive imagina- tion, power to foresee consequences and forecast results. This is especially true in preparing for the first day's work. Having met all the legal requirements for the office of the teacher, secured a school, and arranged the contract, the PLANNING THE CAMPAIGN 161 teacher should plan carefully for the quick and effective organization of the school. The chances of failure are reduced to the minimum by such wise forethought, and success is almost assured. The teacher should plan what to do as well as how and when to do it. Some accurate knowledge of the school is essential to enable one to make such a plan. (i) The Public Sentiment, — The teacher should ascer- tain before the first day of school something of the public sentiment of the district. He should take an inventory of its educational resources and possibilities. He should plan to utilize the churches, the libraries, and the homes of the community for the improvement of the pupils and Hie school. He should get into close touch with the school officers, and if possible should visit the school and the neighborhood before planning for his work. Where there is no knowledge of each other, how can there be close sympathy and co-operation between parents and teacher ? The surest way to win a parent's heart is to show an intel- ligent and sympathetic interest in the welfare of his children. The teacher who has discovered by actual observation something of the people of the district — their nationality, religious views, moral standards, educational sentiment, home life — will be saved from many an error in the organ- ization and management of the school, and will win the good-will, sympathy, and hearty co-operation of parents^ where another teacher, ignorant of all these things, would find only indifference or open opposition. The teacher who cannot visit the district in person should secure all the information possible through the school directors, the county superintendent or principal, and the teachers who have taught in the neighborhood. 162 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL (2) Importance of Securing a Good Boarding-place. — The teacher who would succeed must plan to have a pleasant home. This is not the place in which to practise small economy. Teaching is hard work, and the teacher needs good food, a quiet place to study — a room all to himself — and congenial surroundings. Many teachers fail for no other reason than that they have no quiet resting- place, no opportunity to study, and are constantly irritated by the associations, the lack of conveniences, or the family bickerings in the homes where they board. (3) The School-house. — To plan wisely for the first day's work the teacher must know the arrangement of the school-house. To insure a successful beginning the build- ing should be in good condition, the out-buildings should be clean and free from marks, the necessary furniture in place, and the provisions for seating, heating, and ventila- tion well understood. The teacher should plan the best method of seating the pupils, provide for the arrangements in regard to wraps, think out the best order for pupils to follow in passing through wardrobe, halls, and stairways, and determine the best means of collecting and distribut- ing copybooks, pencils, pens, and other materials. (4) Materials to Work With. — Many a teacher has been hampered in his first day's work by the lack of crayon, erasers, pencils, paper, text-books, maps, and even such necessary articles of furniture as a chair, a broom, a pail, or a drinking-cup. The black-board is almost indispen- sable in making the first day's work a success. All appa- ratus should be put in good condition and should be ready for instant use. (5) School Records. — These records, if properly kept, are a very great aid in planning the work of organization. There should be a course of study and a classification PLANNING THE CAMPAIGN 163 register in every school. The course of study will indicate the branches to be taught and the number of classes to be organized, while the register will show the names and ages of the pupils, the studies each class has pursued, the text- books used, and a copy of the last term's programme. Every teacher should leave the school records in com- plete form and should endeavor by every means in his power to make it easy for his successor to organize the school efficiently and without loss of time. To this end he should leave in the classification register a full and complete statement of the work done during the term, the classes organized, the new classes necessary, the standing of pupils, the programme and what changes in it are advisa- ble, the text-books in use and where each class should begin work, a plan of the seating, and any other information or . suggestions that will be helpful to the next teacher. It is the duty of county superintendents and city super- visors to see that the classification register is properly kept (6) The Teacher's Plan. — Possessing thus the necessary information in regard to the public sentiment of the district, the school-house and its arrangements, the materials to work with, the school records, the text- books in use, and the organization of the previous term, the teacher can plan intelligently for his first day. He should aim to plan definite work for each division and class. This work should be as closely connected as possible with the work of the previous term. He should be especially careful to plan for interesting and spirited work in the reading classes; should expect to make a good use of maps, charts, pictures, and black-board; and should arrange for the definite and careful assignment of lessons. He should prepare the lessons for the first day with unusual care and 164 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL should resolve that every pupil shall have plenty to do- He should determine what signals he will use, what opening exercises will be most appropriate, and what regulations it will be necessary to make. V. The First Day. — The importance of the first day in the term is insisted upon by all writers on school manage- ment Bell says: "Upon no other day of the school year does so much depend. The impressions made the first day, especially the first morning, will be lasting, and will have a powerful influence for good or for bad upon all future work." Questions of vital importance press upon the teacher for prompt and wise action. The pupils come, as a rule, full of interest and expectation and ready to fall in with the plans and suggestions of the teacher, but with keen eyes for signs of weakness, insincerity, and sham. There are many problems that must be solved. There are many questions that must be answered. They cannot be deferred nor evaded. There is no one of whom to ask advice; the teacher must depend upon his own judgment. If the teacher has made earnest, intelligent preparation along the lines already suggested in this chapter this first day will bring joy and strength and victory, but if no such preparation has been made it is sure to bring confusion, defeat, and mortification. The great object of the teacher in this first day's work is to make a favorable impression upon the school, to win the respect and good-will of all the pupils, and through them to gain the confidence of the parents. A Teacher's Confession. — A member of my class in school management who had been a county superintendent for four years was asked to write out his first day's experi- ence as a teacher. Here is what he wrote: u Having secured a teacher's certificate and employment PLANNING THE CAMPAIGN 165 for the spring term in a rural school, I supposed everything was in readiness for the first day's work. Upon reaching the school-house the first morning I found the children waiting to get into the building, I tried to greet them cordially, but I began to feel very nervous. As soon as 1 unlocked the door there was a wild scramble for the choice of seats. "The room had not been cleaned, and the floor was literally covered with dirt. Many of the desks were broken and nearly all were loose and shaky. There was an old dirty tin water-pail and a cup without any handle, but no wash-basin. The curtains would not roll up. The black-board was very poor and there were no erasers or crayon. Here I was. The floor must be swept, a tem- porary programme must be made, and the lessons of the day ascertained and prepared. After selecting their seats the children had gone out to play, and when, at nine o'clock, I rang the bell, in came about twenty boys and girls. I made, or attempted to make, a little speech that I had thought out. It was very disconnected and did not seem to impress the children as I had thought it would. "After this speech I made some inquiries as to where the last reading lessons had been, and then assigned the morning lessons in this branch. Pretty soon the class in first reader was called. I asked one of the class to read, but ke could not pronounce the words, so I called on the 'next' and the 'next/ and so on. Finally the lesson for the next recitation was assigned and the class dismissed. The class in second reader was called, and conducted about as the first class had been. The children all seemed to be watching every move I made, and I was very ill at ease. And now the pupils began to get restless. Hands 166 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL were raised and such questions as these asked: 'Where shall we begin in arithmetic ? • 'What lesson in history shall we take ? ' "I need not describe further the mistakes I made that first day, but will only say that I struggled through the work in a hap-hazard way, and you may be sure I was glad when four o'clock came. "Some of my mistakes were as follows: " (i) I should have gone to the school-house before the first day and become familiar with its condition and sur- roundings. " (2) I should have asked that the room be thoroughly cleaned and repaired. " (3) I should have asked that crayon, erasers, and other needed materials be supplied. " (4) Above all, I should have secured the classification register and ascertained, as nearly as possible, just where each class and each individual pupil should commence work. " (5) A good temporary programme should have been made. " (6) I should have become familiar with the names of all pupils likely to attend school. " (7) I should have reached the school-house very early the first morning. " (8) It was a mistake to make or attempt to make any extended speech; a very few words would have answered the purpose better. "(9) Definite lessons should have been assigned as needed. " (10) I should have been so full of the subjects to be taught and of the spirit of teaching that the first day's impression would have been favorable." PLANNING THE CAMPAIGN 167 Some Additional Suggestions. — (i) Do not attempt to get the names of the pupils the first thing. Any other time is better. (2) Omit the opening exercises unless you are sure that you can make them interesting and brief. (3) Begin as you intend to continue during the term. (4) Place the assignment of the first lessons on the black- board before the time for opening the school. (5) Ask pupils to help you in doing any necessary work, such as sharpening pencils, cleaning erasers, distributing crayon, rearranging the furniture. (6) Endeavor to carry out your plans just as you have made them. Lose no time, but assign work promptly, see that every pupil has something to do, and begin recita- tions as soon as possible. (7) Aim to make the first day's work a full day's work, allowing no puttering, dawdling, or waste of time. (8) Give very clear and definite directions for all move- ments and explain the signals to be used, and enforce all your signals and directions rigidly from the first (9) Use the intermissions to advantage in preparing board work for the next classes, getting material ready for illustrative work, planning changes in seating, or other necessary arrangements. Jean Mitchell's First Day. — In that delightful school story, " Jean Mitchell's School," there is a vivid description of her first day. To one who reads between the lines the story of that first day reveals the secret of making a good start and the qualities that make any teacher's first day a success. The "new teacher" was neatly dressed and greeted the pupils with a pleasant " Good-morning." She had a good face and clear eyes, alive to all that took place. She was perfectly self-controlled, quick to resolve, prompt 168 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL to act, and perfectly fearless. She had a sweet voice and was a good reader. She could tell a story well and illustrate it by drawing objects on the board rapidly and skilfully. She was a good questioner and put such life and enthusiasm into her work the first day that it was not strange " the school went home in a maze of wonder," at a loss to understand the magic of it all. But the wise teacher knows that the secret of that first day is summed up in the sentence: " Meanwhile in her quiet home at Newton a brown-eyed girl planned by day and dreamed by night of her first school and how she could best make it a success." SUGGESTED READINGS Bagley, "Classroom Management," chap. XI; White, "School Management," pp. 94-101; Roark, "Economy in Education," pp. 37-44. Seeley, "A New School Management," chaps. Ill, IV. CHAPTER XIII BETTER RURAL-SCHOOL ORGANIZATION Meaning. — Thus far we have discussed the larger problems of organization that deal with our school system as a whole. But each individual school must be organized before instruction can be carried on suc- cessfully, and every school is in some respects a special problem in its organization. This problem must be solved, as to its details, by the teacher in charge of the school, and, as we have seen, some of the local factors that must be considered in the solution are the public sentiment of the community, the number of pupils, the course of study, the teaching force, the building, and the materials to work with. However, no teacher should make the mistake of sup- posing that any school can be organized once for all or that the organization will maintain itself without wise and continuous management and supervision. School management is keeping the school well organized, for there must always be a continual process of readjust- ment. We have seen that the course of study is made up of many different branches, each arranged in a progressive order of difficulty. In like manner the school is com- posed of individual pupils of different ages, capabilities, and degrees of advancement. Now the teacher must adapt his instruction to the needs and advau cement of his pupils. If he attempts to make a wholly separate and distinct problem of each pupil, he will have neither 169 170 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL grades nor classes. But if he selects those pupils whose ability and advancement in one particular are so nearly equal that they are able to join with profit in the act of learning the same lesson, then he has organized a class. If the teacher combines several classes into a larger group on the basis of their ability to do about the same work in all the studies of the course, he has organized a grade. Departments, or divisions, are two or more grades con- sidered as a whole. Systems of School Organization. — In Landon's "School Management" four systems of school organization are discussed. These systems are (i) The Individual Sys- tem; (2) The Monitorial System; (3) The Collective System, including (a) the training system and (b) the simultaneous or class-room system; (4) Mixed Systems. Each one of these systems has its special advantages and its limitations as well. In America our smaller country schools are usually pretty fair examples of the individual plan of organiza- tion, which generally means no organization at all. With poorly prepared and inexperienced teachers, much of the time of pupils in any school is wasted, work is mechanical, lessons are poorly prepared, there is little preparation or planning on the part of the teacher, and the school is a dull, wearisome affair. In our larger country and city schools we have adopted the simultaneous or class-room system. Classification is based largely on age and ability; pupils are divided into groups, divisions, or grades; each teacher has charge of a separate room; all the pupils of each class or grade receive the same instruction at the same time, and are promoted to higher grades or divisions when they have completed a certain definite portion of the course of study. BETTER RURAL-SCHOOL ORGANIZATION 171 The Rural-school Problem. — No educational problem is attracting more earnest thought on the part of all who are concerned in the welfare and upbuilding of our nation than the problem of the rural school. There are many reasons why this problem is a vital one: (i) Because It Is Closely Related to Rural Social and Economic Life. — The rural-school problem, as a matter of fact, becomes the larger problem of how to maintain on our farms an intelligent, self-respecting, contented population, American in ideals and spirit, in love with country life, and conscious both of the great service that the farm renders to the well-being of all other classes and of the priceless value that the farmer, in turn, re- ceives from his participation in the larger life of the State and the nation. If the typical xAmerican farmer of the past, owner of his farm, intelligent, industrious, thrifty, proud of his local institutions and political independence, is to disap- pear, and in his place as tiller of the soil are to come tenants of absentee landlords, migratory and mer- cenary, with no pride of land ownership, no interest in upbuilding local institutions, no sturdy independence of thought, no trained leadership, we shall repeat the tragedy of the old civilizations in which agriculture became the occupation of slaves or serfs or peasants. One of the most potent means to prevent such a national tragedy is a reorganized and vitalized rural school. (2) Because of Its Bigness and Importance. — In spite of the unprecedented growth of our cities, more than one-half of our total population is still classified in our national census as "rural." In twenty-three States our rural population constitutes from 70 per cent to 89 per cent of the people. More than one-half of our teachers are teaching in rural schools, and 90 per cent of the pu- 172 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL pils from farm homes will receive all their education in these rural schools. Poor rural schools mean a low av- erage of national intelligence and efficiency. (3) Because the Old-time District School Is No Longer an Efficient School. — In an age of marvellous social, in- dustrial, and economic progress the one-room rural school has been left behind. In the spring of 1859 a little group of farmer pioneers who had come from Eastern States to make new homes in Fayette County, Iowa, met to plan for providing school facilities for their children. They organized a rural-school corporation, elected a school board, and voted a school-house tax. Soon a brick school-house was built — by far the best building in the community — a teacher was hired, and for over sixty years a school has been maintained in this same building. For some years this school served the community well. It enrolled forty-seven pupils. In the winter the teacher was us- ually a mature man of ability and good scholarship. The school-house was the community centre, and was used as a church, a Sunday-school room, a lecture hall, a polling-place, and a meeting-place for the local Grange. A singing-school was maintained each winter and spell- ing-schools, lyceum meetings, and exhibitions were fre- quent. The pioneer days passed away. Commodious houses took the place of log cabins. Great barns and silos were erected. Towns and cities sprang up along every railroad. Machines drove out men. The telephone, the parcel post, and the automobile brought the city to every farm home. The school ceased to be a com- munity centre, the most enterprising young men left the district. The people most interested in education BETTER RURAL-SCHOOL ORGANIZATION 173 moved to town or sent their children to the city school. The pupils now are nearly all the children of tenants. Cheap and inexperienced teachers are employed, and this one-room rural school is not as efficient now as it was fifty years ago. It is a typical case. In the midst of the most astounding changes known to history — changes that have created a new world socially and industrially — the one-room district school has remained unprogres- sive and has lost its touch with modern life. This is the great educational weakness of our nation. (4) Because Boys and Girls on the Farm Must Have Equal Educational Opportunities. — From the reports of the U. S. Commissioner of Education we find that the length of the school year in the country is 144 days and in the city it is 182 days. The average salary of the rural teacher is $479; that of the city teacher is $854. The average cost of schooling per pupil is $24.13 in the country, and in the city it is $40.60. Two-fifths, or 40 per cent, of the rural pupil's time is lost through ir- regular attendance. In one of our richest agricultural States there is a county in which a rural school for eighteen pupils was run nine months for $310. In the same county there are thirteen rural schools that have cost less than $500 per year for the past eight years and some of them have not graduated a single pupil from the eighth grade in these eight years. Poor teachers are a logical result of low standards for certificates and of low wages. Thirty-seven States per- mit teaching certificates to be issued to candidates with less than a four-year high-school education, and all the States issue temporary or emergency certificates. The great majority of these low-grade teachers are found in 174 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL the rural schools. There is absolutely no hope for better rural schools as long as we tolerate eighth-graders as teachers and refuse to pay a decent wage. The rural-school problem is too vital in importance, too complex in its nature, too hopeless in its present condition, to be solved by local school boards and rural communities. What is needed is State and national aid in reorganizing and revitalizing the rural school as an institution, a large programme, backed by enlight- ened legislation and directed by competent leaders. Boys and girls on our farms must be given educational advantages equal to those of city-born children. The effects of ignorance cannot be localized. The unedu- cated child in a remote country district is as great a menace to society as the neglected child in a city. It is the fundamental principle of democracy that all its citizens shall have equal opportunities. The right to a good education is the most precious opportunity that the children of our republic possess, for it is the open door to all other opportunities worth while. To de- prive one-half of our boys and girls of this opportunity is a national crime. Factors in the Solution of the Rural-school Problem. — Any adequate programme for securing equal educa- tional opportunities for children in our rural communi- ties must include: (i) Equal standards of efficiency as between city schools and rural schools; (2) a modern school plant; (3) a school year of nine months with a reasonably strict enforcement of compulsory attendance; (4) a course of study suited to the natural and economic environment of the rural boy and girl; (5) adequate salaries for rural teachers and special training of teach- ers for work in rural schools; (6) comfortable homes for BETTER RURAL-SCHOOL ORGANIZATION 175 teachers; (7) ample provision for rural high-schools; (8) efficient supervision by school officials trained for rural leadership; (9) State and national aid for poor and iso- lated districts; (10) intelligent educational extension service for rural people. Solving the Rural-school Problem Through Consoli- dation. — After many years of experimenting with the rural-school problem it has been demonstrated beyond question that the most satisfactory solution of the prob- lem is the consolidation of rural schools. While other methods of dealing with the betterment of rural educa- tion have met with temporary success in isolated cases and under the direction of individual teachers of special power and fitness for rural leadership, the results, as a whole, have been disappointing. In many of the States there has been legislation providing for a minimum salary for teachers, for State aid to poor districts, for improved sanitation in school buildings, for instruction in agri- culture, manual training, and home economics, for in- creasing the tax levy for schools, for physical training, and for standardizing one-room rural schools. But all these efforts of individual teachers and local communi- ties and all this school legislation have not gone to the root of the difficulty and have not greatly changed the rural-school system as a whole. The only vital and effective method of dealing with the rural-school problem as a whole is the consolidation of a number of these small, isolated, one-room schools into one large, centrally located, well-equipped, properly graded school, taught by competent teachers under effi- cient supervision. Originating as early as 1859 in Massachusetts, the consolidated school movement has had to fight its way 176 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL to success against the ignorance and conservatism of those who should have been its best friends, against the .indifference and petty politics of legislators, and against the selfishness of large taxpayers. Finally, a few States passed laws permitting voluntary consolidation. With persistent effort and untiring zeal educational leaders took up the work of acquainting the people with the advantages of consolidation. Here and there progres- sive rural communities were persuaded to give consolida- tion a trial. Little by little the laws were improved, and at last a sufficient and rational solution of our rural school problem is in sight. The consolidation of rural schools is making rapid progress in all parts of our coun- try and is the most vital and important movement con- nected with rural progress and uplift of the present time. Through the revitalized rural school, made possible by consolidation, which shall serve as a community centre — a school that will bring to the children of the farmer as good educational advantages as those given to the chil- dren of the city and will provide the farmer and his wife with a social, intellectual, and recreational centre- there is no reason why farm life may not be made at- tractive and elevating. The worth of the farmer to civilization should be emphasized. All other vocations depend upon the farm. "The farmer's wealth is nobly won; He's partner with the soil and sun; He's partner with the seas and rain; And no man loses by his gain. No other class holds him in thrall, For the farmer, he must feed us all. God bless the man that sows the wheat, That gives us bread and fruit and meat; BETTER RURAL-SCHOOL ORGANIZATION 177 May his purse be heavy and his heart be light, His fields and home be free from blight; God bless the seed his hands let fall, For the farmer, he must feed us all." Above the entrance of the magnificent union depot in Washington, D. C, are the words: "The farm, best home of the family; main source of national wealth; foundation of civilized society." To help realize thi£ ideal is the mission of the rural schools. There is no reason why they may not be our best schools. Minor Programme for Rural-school Improvement. — While it has been estimated that with better roads and more rational laws governing the process of organizing consolidated districts, at least four-fifths of our rural schools can ultimately be operated under this system, it will require years to work out this large programme of rural-school improvement. In the meantime the pupils in our one-room rural schools must not be neglected. Therefore, a minor programme of rural-school better- ment is necessary. Such a programme must include better sanitary conditions, improved equipment, recrea- tional facilities, a richer course of study, better classifi- cation and grading, more competent teachers, more gen- erous financial support, vocational instruction, effective supervision, and some provision for opening the doors of the high-school to rural pupils completing the eighth grade. The problems of the course of study and the proper classification and grading in these one-room rural schools are hard to solve and will demand careful study on the part of the teacher. 178 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL OUTLINE OF THE COURSE OF STUDY FOR THE ONE-ROOM RURAL SCHOOL Reading Language Phonics and Spelling Writing Numbers Agriculture and Nature Study Handwork and Manual Arts General Lessons PRIMARY Grades (E and D Divisions) First Year. (First Readers) Second Year. (Second Readers) Reading Language Phonics and Spelling Writing Numbers Agriculture and Nature Study Handwork and Manual Arts General Lessons First Inter- mediate Grades (C Division) Third Year. (Third Readers) Fourth Year. (Fourth Readers) Reading Language Spelling Writing Arithmetic Physiology and Hygiene Agriculture and Nature Study Handwork and Manual Arts General Lessons Reading Language Spelling Writing Arithmetic Geography Physiology and Hygiene Agriculture Handwork and Manual Arts [ General Lessons Health Work Civic Training Plays and Games Oral History Music Drawing Health Work Civic Training Plays and Games Oral History Music Drawing Civic Training Plays and Games Oral History Music Drawing Civic Training Plays and Games Oral History Music Drawing BETTER RURAL-SCHOOL ORGANIZATION 179 Second Inter- mediate Grades (B Division) Fifth Year. (Fourth Readers) Sixth Year. (Fourth Readers) Advanced Grades (A Division) Seventh Year (Fifth Readers or Classics) Eighth Year. (Fifth Readers or Classics) Reading Composition Spelling Writing Arithmetic Geography Physiology and Hygiene Agriculture Handwork and Manual Arts General Lessons. Reading Composition Spelling Writing Arithmetic Geography Physiology and Hygiene Agriculture Handwork and Manual Arts General Lessons Civic Training Physical Training Oral History Music , Drawing Civic Training Physical Training History Music Drawing Reading or English Classics Grammar Arithmetic and Business Forms Geography Physiology and Hygiene Elements of Science History and Civics Agriculture Handwork and House- hold Arts General Lessons ^usic J Drawing Reading or English I Manual Arts Classics Grammar Arithmetic and Business Forms Geography Elements of Science Physiology and Hygiene History and Civics Agriculture Handwork and House- hold Arts f Physical Training General Lessons j Music | Drawing I Manual Arts f Physical Training 180 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL Suggestions for Classifying Pupils in a One-room Rural School. — The course of study as outlined provides for five divisions. Reading serves as the most convenient and logical basis of classification. The first-year pupils, or all pupils who read in the first reader, constitute the E division. All the pupils who read in the second reader should be classified in the D division. Third and fourth year pupils are to be classed in the C division, provided they are correspondingly ad- vanced in their other studies. The B division will include nearly all the pupils of the fifth and sixth years, or those who read in the fourth reader. But if, for any reasons, pupils have not completed the work of the C division, they should not be promoted to the B division simply because they are in the fourth-reader class. All pupils in the seventh and eighth years who are in the fifth-reader class and up in their other studies make up the A division. In many rural schools the organization and classifi- cation are exceedingly faulty. The reasons for this are apparent. Teachers and school directors are changed too frequently. Families move from one part of the coun- try to another, and their children lose time, bring no grades or records from their former teachers, and always want to use their old books. Some pupils are slow; others fast. Some are strong; others are not able to carry full work. Some pupils are regular in attendance; while others are very irregular. Many rural schools are taught by inexperienced teachers from town, who never attended a rural school. For all these reasons it may be that not much dependence can be placed upon the classification of the preceding teacher. In fact, the classification of the pupils in every rural school will need constant change and readjustment. BETTER RURAL-SCHOOL ORGANIZATION 181 The "new teacher" should not attempt to settle all the problems of classification the first day of the term. AH the help possible should be obtained from the register, from the records left by previous teachers, from the county superintendent, and from the pupils themselves. Within a few days, after carefully considering the case of each pupil, his age, natural ability, and atttainments, a term classification should be made, placing each pupil where he can accomplish the best results. Worthy pu- pils should be promoted when they can do the work of the next higher class. Make such promotions an incentive to do good work. While it is desirable that a pupil should recite in the same division in all his studies, yet this is not essential. Some pupils are very uneven in their studies and must be permitted to recite in the class or division where they can derive the greatest good. But teachers should try very hard to keep all pupils classified as uniformly as possible. It may be accepted as a general principle that the more irregular a pupil's classification becomes, the less probability there is that he will ever complete his course. There are many serious obstacles to the proper classi- fication and grading of a large rural school. Some of these are the great number of classes that must be or- ganized, the irregular attendance of pupils, the diversity of text-books, the lack of proper records, no well-defined course of study, and the opposition of parents. Over- coming these obstacles is a problem in school manage- ment, and success will depend upon the energy, tact, patience, and good sense of the teacher. The teacher must somehow secure regular attendance of pupils. The school board must be appealed to in order to obtain uniform text-books. In the absence of proper records, the skill and training of the teacher should be such as to 182 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL enable her to determine fairly accurately the ability and needs of each individual pupil and to work out the proper classification of the school as an original problem. The opposition of parents must be removed by personal visits and explanations that will convince them that the teacher is sincerely and earnestly striving for the best interests of the school as a whole. It ought to be clear to all concerned that without proper classification, effi- cient instruction is impossible and pupils have little in- centive to complete the elementary course. low to Reduce the Number of Classes. — Hundreds of rural schools contain only a few pupils. In schools with only five or six pupils, the teacher's problem is not how to reduce the number of classes, but how to increase it. As a rule these schools are not taught by competent, wide-awake, progressive teachers, and the progress of pupils is not at all satisfactory. In the large rural schools the problem of reducing the number of recitations and general lessons to a reason- able number is a very difficult and important one. How- ever, the solution of this problem is not impossible, if the teacher is reasonably competent, and will make use of the following suggestions: (i) The number of classes may be reduced by the use of general lessons; (2) by combining classes, grades, or divisions; (3) by alternating general lessons, classes, subjects, or even dropping out a whole year of the course; (4) by correlation of subjects within the same group or between studies in different groups; (5) by the monitorial plan, or student help. Records. — Teachers should keep a record of the ad- vancement of their classes in the work of the course. In this way officers of the school can easily determine the GRADATION OF SCHOOLS 183 progress of the pupils, and reports may be made to par- ents or guardians. A statement should be prepared showing what years have been finished and how much work, by months or terms, has been done in years not completed. This statement, together with a programme of daily recitations, should be left for the benefit of the next teacher. Most rural schools are now provided with classification registers. If properly kept, these registers are a valuable aid to a systematic and intelligent use of the course of study. At the close of the term the classi- fication register and course of study should be returned to the director or secretary of the board. At the be- ginning of the term the new teacher should secure pos- session of these records before organizing the school. SUGGESTED READINGS Betts and Hall, "Better Rural Schools," chaps. XIV, XV, XVI; Kirkpatrick, "The Rural School from Within," I, XII; Carney, "Country Life and the Country Schools," chaps. I, VIII, IX; Eggleston and Bruere, "The Work of the Rural School," chaps. X, XI; Betts, "New Ideals in Rural Schools," chaps. I, IV; Foght, "The American Rural School," chaps. I, V, XV; Culter and Stone, "The Rural School," Part I; Cubber- ley, "Rural Life and Education," chaps. VIII, X. CHAPTER XIV GRADATION OF CITY AND CONSOLIDATED SCHOOLS Education for All the Children of All the People. ■ — To provide education for all the children of a great nation is a tremendous problem. There are 38,000,000 children under fifteen years of age in the United States. To furnish these children with sufficient education to equip them for useful citizenship in our Republic is our greatest and most vital national problem, and it is a costly problem. School-houses must be maintained and equipped for them. Competent teachers must be pro- vided. But there is a limit to taxation. So Boards of Education everywhere are confronted with the perplex- ing question of school finance. As a rule the money raised for school purposes is not sufficient to provide schools that are as efficient as they should be. All com- munities should demand a wise and economical use of all school funds and a strict accounting of such money. Any community that tolerates the misuse or squander- ing of the funds raised to educate the children of the community is almost hopelessly corrupt. Grades and Classes Are Necessary in a System of Universal Education. — That pupils should be divided into grades and taught in classes are fundamental principles in the administration of our city and consoli- dated schools. Those who criticise this plan of instruc- tion and advocate what they please to call " individual in- struction" seem to forget that universal education is not possible under a tutor system, or individual pupil plan 184 GRADATION OF SCHOOLS 185 of instruction, and that in any public-school system instruc- tion of pupils in classes is a physical as well as an economic necessity; for only in this way can one teacher instruct successfully thirty or forty children without resorting to some such discarded system as the monitorial plan of Bell and Lancaster. Advantages of Gradation. — Even if the gradation of pub- lic schools were not a physical and economic necessity, the plan has many strong advantages to commend it. (i) The school is, as we have shown in another chapter, a social organism. Social co-operation, not selfish indi- vidualism, is its basic principle. To secure the application of this principle, pupils must co-operate in grades and classes, achieving the same aims by continuous and simul- taneous effort. (2) The association of pupils in grades and classes doing the same work is a powerful and constant stimulus to all of them to do their very best work. Ambition and a friendly spirit of emulation are evoked, and these, in turn, become strong incentives to be regular and prompt in attendance, faithful in preparing lessons, and responsive in recitation, for only in this way can pupils maintain their place in class. (3) There is sympathy in numbers. Variety, different view-points, opposite personalities come to the surface in class work, and dulness, fatigue, and lack of spirit are banished from the recitation. Just in proportion as the interest of the pupils in their school-work increases will the necessity for harsh and frequent punishments be diminished. The elementary school is no place for elec- tives and specialization. Pupils should not be permitted to study only what they choose to study at the expense of studies which are absolutely necessary to their future 186 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL progress in the higher grades. When pupils work togethe? in grades and classes, each study receives its fair and pro- portionate share of effort, and pupils are encouraged to complete the elementary course as a whole. Thus they are in a position to enter the secondary schools and con- tinue their work with efficiency and satisfaction. An English writer says: "In order to understand the advantages of classification one needs only to imagine a school conducted on the plan usual in the grammar schools and dame schools of a former generation. The master or mistress remained seated at a desk, and the pupils occupied benches ranged round the walls of the school-room. They wrote copies, worked sums out of books, learned gram- matical rules, and so forth; and they were called up indi- vidually to have their work examined or to receive help. There was no collective teaching as we know it. Under these circumstances the stimulus of emulation did not act strongly, the teacher's time was badly economized, control was difficult, and harsh punishments were therefore com- mon. Further the instruction tended to resolve itself into a system of memory exercises. The best that can be said for the plan is that the teaching, such as it was, was nicely suited to individual scholars, and that the ablest of them undoubtedly formed those habits of self-reliance which in our modern schools are sometimes conspicuous by their absence." Dangers of the Graded System. — Notwithstanding all the advantages of grading schools, there are connected with it certain real dangers. (i) There is danger that school boards will endeavor to curtail expenses by requiring teachers to attempt the in- struction of too great a number of pupils. Not uncom- monly sixty, or even eighty, pupils have been assigned to GRADATION OF SCHOOLS 187 one teacher. It is, of course, perfectly obvious that no teacher can accomplish the best kind of work under such conditions. (2) Teachers and superintendents are very prone to base the classification of pupils on the power of verbal memory alone. So great a hold on the ordinary mind has the idea that the pupil's mental ability is measured solely by power to learn lessons from a book, that teachers often make absurd work of grading and promoting pupils. I have known girls in geometry classes to simply commit to mem- ory the book demonstrations and receive high grades from their teachers, when they could not solve the simplest original problems nor apply their knowledge of geometry in any practical way. During my first month's work as high-school principal in a certain city, a young lady who was a member of the senior class greatly annoyed me by her poor work in Latin. At the end of the second month I determined to call at her home and inform her parents cf her poor work and advise them to have her give up the thought of graduating with the class; but what I saw and heard in the home made me defer my request. Her father was a laboring man whose wife had died about six months before. There were six children in the family, and my high-school pupil was the oldest girl and was doing her best to fill the mother's place. The house was in good order, the children well cared for, and the father told me what a wonderful girl Nellie was, how hard she worked, what a great comfort she was to him, and how anxious she was to graduate with her class. I did not state my errand, but afterward I helped her with her work and tried to smooth the path for her as well as I could. Later in the year I was invited to her home, and the dinner she served would have done credit to a graduate of a school 188 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL of domestic science. My estimate of her ability was completely revised. She graduated with her class. The problem of grading and promoting pupils is not one that can be settled solely by the application of abstract princi- ples nor by monthly examinations. The personal equa- tion must always enter into the problem. (3) Again, there is danger that the differences between the individual pupils composing the class are so great that the rate of progress is too fast for some and too slow for others. The effect on both these classes of pupils is bad. These individual differences may not have existed at first They may be the result of sickness, irregular attendance, rapid physical growth, outside work, or dissipation. Va- rious devices are used to overcome these difficulties. The slower pupil may be required to drop a study or the faster pupil may be given additional work. Where the interval between classes is not too great, individual transfers to higher or lower classes may solve the problem. If the interval between classes is a year, the grade should be divided, for to promote individual pupils in such a case is nearly always disastrous; and, on the other hand, no pupil should be compelled to go back an entire year in his course to do over again the self-same work in the same way. (4) From what has been said, it will be clear that there is great danger that the grading of the school will become a rigid, mechanical system, that the individual will be sacrificed, that personal incentive to progress will be checked or destroyed, that promotions will be merely a matter of time rather than of merit and ability. These evils are all the greater when examinations are made the basis of promotions, when teachers use the antiquated method of daily marking, and when the superintendent issues minute instructions as to method and gives exact GRADATION OF SCHOOLS 189 orders as to the amount of work each class is to do during the week or month. Methods of Gradation. — Now, real as are the dangers of the graded system, they hy no means justify the con- clusions that "the school grade is a fiction," that there is no such thing as the "average pupil," that the so-called "lock-step in the public school" is the sum of all villainies^ and that our educational salvation depends upon discard- ing grades, classes, and recitations and going back to the individual method of instruction, alias the "Pueblo plan." To assert that children are so different that no two or more can be taught in the same class is simply preposter- ous. Of course no two children are exactly alike, and neither are two trees or plants or birds. Yet trees and plants are like each other in the essentials, and so are birds and children. If this were not true there could be no science of botany or zoology or psychology — in fact, no science of anything. The laws of induction, attention, deduction, apperception, and association all testify to the fact that children are alike in the essentials of intellect as they are in the essentials of body. The faults of the graded system are mainly due to ignorant teachers and incompe- tent or lazy supervision. As we have shown, there is constant need of reclassification and readjustment in the classes and grades of every school. The teachers should see that all the members of the class in any subject are so nearly equal in ability that they can do the work of the class profitably. It is the business of the teacher and the superintendent to discover the pupils who do not fit the class or grade and to provide some remedy that shall be effective. The grading of the schools must be flexible, and several plans, or so-called systems, of securing flexi- bility have become quite famous. 190 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL (i) Tlie Term or Semester Plan. — In towns or smaller cities with eight or more teachers below the high school, each of the grades is divided into two or three sections. The sections of any particular grade should not do the same work at the same time. The rate of progress may- be different in these sections, but, as nearly as possible, the interval between them is kept the same, so that pupils may be transferred from one section to another at any time during the year. Where the interval between sections or classes is only three or four months, individual promotions are possible, and pupils who are weak can be put back without losing a whole year. It ought not to be neces- sary to consult the calendar to tell when to promote pupils. Neither is it necessary that all of the pupils in the same room should be doing the same work or even the same year's work. Arbitrary divisions of rooms into first- grade room, second-grade room, and so on, should be avoided. I have known a school to have sixty-five pupils in one room and only twenty in the room above, because, forsooth, the pupils "were not ready for promotion," and the superintendent had not wit enough to discern that a fourth-grade teacher could do third-grade work or that third-grade pupils might possibly study in a fourth-grade room. Such supervision is sheer stupidity. (2) Mr. Search's Ideal School. — The individual meth- od, or the Pueblo plan, has been advocated as a cure-all for the evils of our graded-school system. Starting with the fundamental proposition that "We must reconstruct our educational system," Mr. Search asserts that the central idea of our system of gradation has been that the child must fit the school and not the school must fit the child. He would abolish classes and grades and substitute individual work for class recitations. This is the extreme GRADATION OF SCHOOLS 191 of individualism. It ignores the facts that the school is a social unit, that children should learn to co-operate in work as well as in play, that the recitation properly con- ducted affords the best possible stimulus to individual pupils, and, as Mr. Harris says, enables each pupil to add to his own mind the thoughts and views of all the cthef members of the class. Every good teacher, of course, should supplement class instruction with individual help, but to do so it is not necessary to return to the methods of the old-time country school. (3) Mr. Shearer's Elizabeth Plan. — The pupils in each room are divided into three or four classes, according to their ability to do the work in the essential branches. By the essential branches Mr. Shearer means such studies as must be pursued in consecutive order, like arithmetic and language. In such studies as drawing, geography, phys- iology, and penmanship the different groups may recite together. Individual pupils are transferred from one group to another as they may need to advance faster or slower, for the rate of movement in the different groups is not the same. Mr. Shearer claims that this plan entirely overcomes the evils of "lock-step," test examinations, yearly interval, regular promotions, " average pupil" theory, loss of time, and crushing out of incentive and Individuality, all so prominent in the usual graded system. (4) Mr. Kennedy's Batavia System. — This plan is a com- promise between class instruction and individual instruc- tion. It claims to so harmonize these two methods that the advantages of both are retained and the evils of both eliminated. It seeks to preserve the stimulus derived from class instruction and to provide for the systematic individual instruction of the weaker or slower members of the class. The time of the teacher is about equally 192 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL divided between class instruction and individual help. When there are from sixty to seventy pupils in one room, two teachers are provided, one having charge of the class work, the other giving her whole time to individual teach- ing. The core of the plan is that there shall be definite school periods systematically devoted to individual teach- ing. Professor Smyser gives the following directions to his teachers to aid them in introducing the Batavia plan. (a) Keep the guiding aim steadily in view. (b) See that assignments of work for the class in the individual period are clear and definite. Assignments of work should always provide for methods of work as well as amount. (c) Use the individual period (i) to give the pupil a grasp of principles, not to aid him in getting his next lesson; (2) to bring into line pupils who have been absent; (3) to teach the pupils how to study the lesson; (4) to encourage timid pupils. (d) Do not hurry in attempting to help too many pupils in one period. (e) Make the plan a means of growth in power and not merely the adoption of a device. (5) Mr. T. B. Button's Modified Cambridge Plan. — In 1 90 1 Professor Hutton introduced a two-course system of grading into the schools of Odebolt, Iowa. Later the same system was adopted at Lemars, Iowa. This method which is the Cambridge plan, extended so as to include the primary grades, is fully explained in the course of study of the "Lemars Public School for 1908," from which the following explanations are taken. Two courses of study are made out covering identical work and differing only in the length of time it takes to do any portion of the work. These courses are outlined so as to run parallel GRADATION OF SCHOOLS 193 and articulate with one another at different points along the line. Classes may be so graded by means of two courses of study as to come together at different periods, allowing pupils at these points to be transferred from one course to the other without loss of any of the work whatever. And in addition, the intervals between classes are so cor- respondingly short as to permit transfers practically at any time. The two courses of study are a six-year and a nine- year course. This offers the opportunity whereby the pupil may complete the full course in six years; by three other routes in seven; by three different routes he may take it in eight years; and by one route in nine years. And in none of these cases is he required to repeat any part of the course. The result of the two courses working to- gether will be readily understood by reference to the fol- lowing diagrams. The nine-year course is represented by the grades indicated by numbers and the six-year course by the grades indicated by letters. (6) The Gary Plan. — Perhaps the most unique and consistent plan for getting away from the traditional method of rigid grades is the "Gary System." This plan has been in successful operation in Gary, Indiana, since 1908, when Mr. William Wirt was made superin- tendent of the Gary schools. The system provides for organizing all the school activities around the daily interests and needs of the child and the social and in- dustrial conditions in which he lives. Mr. Wirt formu- lates the principles on which he bases the "Gary Sys- tem" as follows: "(1) All children should be busy all day long at work, study, and play under right conditions; (2) Cities can finance an adequate work-study-and-play programme only when all the facilities of the entire community for 194 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL. Grade 9 Grade 8 Grade 7 Grade 6 Grade 5 Grade 4 Grade 3 Grade 2 Grade 1 4th Year 3rd Year 2nd Year 1st Year Grade F Grade B Grade D Grade Grade B Grade A KINDERGARTEN GENERAL PLAN OF GRADES IN ALL DK>AETM£NTS £ GRADATION OF SCHOOLS 195 • • s « © © © 11 © • CO © V © © © © 9 9 * § g « >« >* >• 5? >« J* o >* ♦» c ■♦» C «» a o 3 •a © « © « © O a 3 i « 03 « pa i « 03 e i 8 j* © © © © © © © © « 03 a a a a w © to Jm § a fe 3 S % u 3 § *4 3 § M t-4 o o o o O o o © w » o o o o CJ O o o a» e» w 4) © 3 1 * N o O u u o (4 p-' • © © C9 u § « « no O e o % 3 § u M C3 O 3 « tri eo O g U P 1 s «* p* V M s 3 & o o § • E « w © •s u © 1 I tb It Oj © 1 ft < © H 1 11 u O u cs «H CM to ^» «o <© c«- CO 0) © © © © © a © C9 CD a ra (0 § 3 h 3 u 3 3 3 3 1 S o o U O o o o O o o o 196 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL the work, study, and play of children are properly co- ordinated with the school, the co-ordinating agent, so that all facilities supplement one another, and all fa- cilities of the school plant are kept in use all the time." A platoon system" of grouping pupils is followed. Pupils are distributed in groups so that while some groups are engaged in class work or study other groups are out at play and still others are busy in shops or laboratory or kitchen. The school day is eight hours. In Bulletin No. 18 of the United States Bureau of Edu- cation for 1 9 14, Dean Burris claims that the Gary plan calls for: (1) The better use of school buildings, day and evening, including Saturday; (2) a better di- vision of time between the regular studies and the special activities; (3) greater flexibility in adapting studies to exceptional children; (4) more expert teaching through the extension of the departmental plan of organization; (5) better use of pupils' play time; (6) more efficient teaching of vocational subjects; (7) greater facilities for the promotion of the health of children; (8) pupils may do work in more than one grade and are promoted by subjects rather than by grades; (9) possibility of having pupils help each other; (10) closer articulation of the elementary work and the high-school studies; (11) a saving in the cost of instruction; (12) better co-ordina- tion of all the educational and recreational agencies of the community. The Gary plan has been introduced into quite a num- ber of other cities and is being closely studied by pro- gressive school men. Other Devices for Securing Flexible Grading. — (1) By varying the quantity of work required of different pupils in the same grade. The stronger pupils are as- GRADATION OF SCHOOLS 197 signed more work in the same studies than the weaker ones or are permitted to carry an additional study. (2) By establishing an ungraded room with a strong teacher in charge capable of teaching all the subjects of the entire course of study. Pupils in any grade of the school who are "misfits" in their classes, whether due to sickness, irregularity, entering school late, rapid physical growth, or lack of ability are transferred to this room. The method of instruction is, of course, entirely individual. As soon as a pupil is ready to go on with his class or reaches a point where he can without loss take up his work in some other class or section, he is transferred from the ungraded room to a regular grade. (3) By permitting the advanced pupils to coach the members of a lower class who have fallen behind in their work. This is the old monitorial plan of Lancaster and Bell and has little to commend it. (4) By making ex- ceptional cases of very bright or very slow pupils. No attempt is made to hold such pupils to rigid grading. They are permitted to recite in higher or lower grades in special subjects, reciting these lessons to different teach- ers and passing from room to room, as may be neces- sary. In this way pupils may specialize in the grades, even omitting subjects for which they seem hopelessly inapt. Departmental Teaching. — Some educators, notably Dr. W. H. Maxwell, of New York City, advocate the plan of departmental teaching in the elementary grades. This plan of instruction is the one now used in our larger high-schools. In a work by V. E. Kilpatrick the ad- vantages of extending this plan to the work of the grades are declared to be (1) expert teaching, (2) improved dis- cipline, (3) improved physical conditions, (4) better 198 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL equipment, (5) enriched curriculum, (6) unity and force in school management. It is also claimed that under departmental teaching the pupils' interest in school work would be greatly intensified; teaching would be more attractive; there would be more men teachers in the grades; the special talent of children would be developed better; pupils would feel a greater sense of responsibility in preparing their work; pupils would be developed as individuals and promoted on merit; favoritism and par- tiality would be avoided. The objections urged against departmental teaching are: (1) It would result in over- working pupils; (2) correlation of studies would be more difficult; (3) teachers would tend to become narrow; (4) school organization would be more difficult; (5) the per- sonal influence and responsibility of the teacher would be lessened; (6) discipline would be lax; (7) there would be little independent study by the pupils; (8) harder studies cannot be placed at the most favorable time for all pupils; (9) the family spirit of the school is weakened. From this summary it is obvious that it will require careful experiments under various conditions to settle the many important problems relating to departmental teaching. Intelligence Tests as a Basis of Classification and Promotion. — One of the most important and interesting present-day problems in education is the best method of adapting school work to the " individual differences" that exist among pupils of the same age, class, or grade. Some writers claim that these differences are so pro- nounced that no system of grading and classifying pu- pils should be tolerated, that each pupil is a separate and distinct problem, and that the educational progress of one child must not be linked up in any way with the GRADATION OF SCHOOLS 199 progress of any group, grade, or class. Other educa- tional writers advocate the use of intelligence tests as a scientific basis for the classification and promotion of pupils, and the segregation into separate classes of the " bright" and the "dull" pupils. A brief description of intelligence tests seems in place here: (i) What Is Intelligence? — By intelligence in human beings we mean (a) general ability; (b) special aptitudes. Enough is known of the laws of heredity to warrant the following statements: (a) In human beings there is a relation between the size of the cerebrum and the intelli- gence of the individual; (b) feeble-mindedness runs in families; where both parents are feeble-minded, all their children are so, and if one parent is feeble-minded half of the children are usually mentally deficient; (c) "dull" children make low-grade adults mentally and, barring accidents or sickness, "bright" children make high- grade adults mentally; (d) inheritance determines na- tive traits, such as instincts, reflex action, impulses, sensation, and attention; (e) acquired traits are all developed out of native traits. As to what constitutes general intelligence there is pretty close accord among specialists in psychology: (a) responsiveness to stimuli, including curiosity, or the outreaching for new stimuli; (b) ability to learn and re- member; (c) adaptation of means to ends; (d) persistence in "trial and error" attempts to meet a new situation; (e) ability to discover relationships. An intelligence test, then, is a standardized method of measuring the native and the acquired abilities of an individual or a group of individuals. (2) Army Intelligence Tests During the Great War. — Group intelligence tests were first extensively used in 200 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL the American Army during the World War. The test used for recruits who could read and write was called the "Alpha Test." The results of these tests were very useful in selecting men for training as officers and in eliminating recruits with too little intelligence to learn the duties of a soldier. These army tests, so the records show, revealed the astounding fact that 47.3 per cent of our white soldiers between twenty-one and thirty-one, native and foreign born, possessed only the mentality of children from seven to twelve years old. In other words, since these soldiers fairly represent our entire adult male population, it would seem that every other grown-up man one meets is a moron. (3) The Binet Intelligence Tests. — The first attempts to standardize tests for general intelligence were made by Binet, a French psychologist, about the year 1900. Binet measured general intelligence on the scale of "mental age." The mental age of a perfectly normal child is just equal to his chronological age, and his "Intelligence Quotient," abbreviated to IQ, is 1, or 100 per cent, the result of dividing his mental age by his chronological age. If a child ten years old has a men- tal age of ten, he is exactly normal; if his mental age is more than ten years, he is above normal; if his mental age is less than ten years, he is below normal. Individu- als are thus rated as "feeble-minded," "near feeble- minded," "low normal," "normal" or "average," "high normal," "near genius," and "genius." The IQ of an individual does not, as a rule, change materially as he grows older. (4) Use of Intelligence Tests and Results. — Intelli- gence tests, both individual and group, have been per- fected to such a degree that they are now in general GRADATION OF SCHOOLS 201 use to test the mentality of all criminals and juvenile offenders, and are employed more and more in our schools to detect those pupils who are improperly graded. As a general result of testing tens of thousands of children, both in school and out of school, we find that among every one hundred children, selected at random, these "individual differences" exist: One is " Feeble-minded" with an IQ below 70 per cent. Five are "Near Feeble-minded" with an IQ of 70-80 per cent. Fourteen are "Low Normal" with an IQ of 80-89 per cent. Sixty are "Normal" or "Average" with an IQ of 90-110 per cent. Fourteen are "High Normal" with an IQ of 110- 119 per cent. Five are "Near Geniuses" with an IQ of 120-129 P er cent. One is a "Genius" with an IQ above 129 per cent. (5) Value of Intelligence Tests in School Work. — There is no question but that the use of these intelligence tests is of great value to teachers and superintendents in: (a) Discovering the causes of the lack of progress of individual pupils who seem unable to keep up with other children of their own age; (b) in revealing unusual abil- ity in pupils who have been classed as bad, lazy, or in- different; (c) in determining doubtful promotion cases; (d) by emphasizing the need of flexible grading, frequent readjustment of classes, and the organization of "special classes" for "low normal" or "high normal" pupils; (e) by saving pupils who are below normal from cruel, 202 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL if thoughtless, injustice at the hands of teachers who utterly ignore the fact of the great " individual differ- ences" among pupils of the same grade, age, or class, and attempt to exact the same quantity and quality of work from all. (6) Limitations of Intelligence Tests. — Valuable as are intelligence tests in their application to school instruc- tion and organization it is perfectly clear that there are limits to their usefulness, and that, in the hands of non- experts, they may prove positively harmful. The Binet scale is an exceedingly delicate scientific instru- ment, and in the hands of a teacher or superintendent who has not been trained to use it properly and has little knowledge of psychology it gives no valuable results. Besides, it is by no means certain that group tests used in the army for adults, and by which it was proved that nearly one-half of our adult male population are morons, have been so perfectly adapted to testing children that the results may not be questioned. Of course it is a simple matter to construct a definition of intelligence and classify children on the basis of such a definition. But is intelligence in the child the same thing as in the adult? And is the process of ascertaining the intelli- gence of any particular class or group so perfect that, as the result of such a test in the hands of a non-expert, we dare put the label of " gifted" on one child and that of "stupid" on another, except in extreme cases? An illustration of the extreme difficulty of distinguishing normal intelligence from subnormal intelligence is the fact that in scores of celebrated trials for murder the question of the mentality of the person on trial has been an important factor. The greatest intelligence experts and alienists have examined the prisoner, and GRADATION OF SCHOOLS 203 it is very seldom that there is any degree of maanirnity in the conclusions and sworn testimony of these experts. Finally, until our intelligence tests are made more perfect and teachers are thoroughly trained in their use, it is hard to see how they can be made the chief basis of the gradation and promotion of pupils. "Individual differences " as a basis of classification violates the fun- damental law of all classification, which is, that a class of any sort must be based upon the law of similarity, not the law of differences. Basing the classification of pupils on the principle of "individual differences/ ' carried to its logical conclusion, would result in grades of one pupil each. The Wiser Course. — From this whole discussion of the problems involved in the classification, gradation, and promotion of pupils, the thoughtful teacher will doubt- less form certain definite conclusions. (i) Our present system of grading is not as hopelessly bad as some zealous reformers would have us believe. In the valuable work on "Public School Administration, " by Button and Snedden, there is this statement: "The one basis of classification, however, with which the graded system deals is that based either on the stage of intellectual advancement reached as measured in the course of study, or what is nearly allied to that, the ability of the pupil to do the next work presented by the course. The class thus formed contains boys and girls, and pupils who are below the average age for this grade as well as those who may be above it. So long as the group is truly homogeneous by this standard and with reference to the course of study it is probable that teach- ing can be carried on most effectively. The teacher gives directions to forty or more children (pr a lesser 204 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL number if two classes or divisions of the grade at differ- ent stages of advancement are formed in the same room), all of whom have the same kind and amount of knowledge and skill back of them and all of whom have the same need of learning the things just before them. The difficulties of one will be largely the difficulties of all. The same lesson can be assigned to all and the same explanations given with least waste of effort. Duplication of work is avoided, and month by month the pupils proceed abreast in their educational march." This is a fair and reasonable statement of what our graded system really is, and under ordinary conditions this plan ought to produce good results without seriously interfering with the normal development of the individual pupil. (2) Most of the evils connected with the grading and promotion of pupils are caused by poor teaching or in- competent supervision, and the adoption of any other method than the one in general use would not make the teaching any better nor render the supervision any more efficient. (3) There are many successful devices for securing flexibility of grading and insuring greater freedom to individual pupils. But teachers and superintendents should remember that these devices are for exceptional pupils only; that no rational system should be based on abnormal or exceptional cases; and, above all, that to make these devices a means of self-advertising and an excuse for wholesale condemnation of our public-school system is both foolish and unprofessional. Dr. Shaw says: "The newer conception of what should constitute a course of study must not be sacrificed or violated in any new scheme for the irregular promotion of pupils. GRADATION OF SCHOOLS 205 It is not a difficult matter to move pupils on through the grades at irregular intervals, when the acquirement of so much book knowledge, in a formal way, is all that is required. The problem becomes a much more serious one when constant provision is made for the thought side of education as above the formal side." (4) In reform evolution is better than revolution. Sudden and wholesale changes in school administration are usually unwise and harmful. With a more rational course of study, better trained teachers, more expert supervision, and greater stability in the teacher's tenure of office, we may reasonably hope that the evils con- nected with gradation and promotion will be eliminated. SUGGESTED READINGS Terman, "The Measurement of Intelligence," chaps. I, VII, VIII; Cubberley, " School Organization and Administration/ ' chap. IX; Judd, "Introduction to the Scientific Study of Edu- cation," chaps. VII, XII, XV; Sears, "Classroom Organization and Control," chaps. X, XII; Bourne, "The Gary Schools," chap. VIII; Bagley, "Classroom Management," chap. XIV; Search, "The Ideal School," chaps. I, III, VII; Bennett, "School Efficiency," chap. XIII; Bolton, "Principles of Education," chap. XII; Meriam, "Child Life and the Curriculum," chaps. XI, XIX; Strayer and Engelhardt, "The Classroom Teacher," chap. VIII; Haggerty, "Intelligence Examinations," Holley, "Mental Tests for School Use"; Huey, "Point Scale Tests for Intelligence"; Woodworth, "Psychology," chap. XII. CHAPTER XV THE DAILY PROGRAMME I. Importance and Objects. — The making of a pro- gramme for any school is a difficult problem, for it in- volves all the fundamental principles which govern the construction of the course of study and the organization of the school. The programme represents the organized efforts of all the school authorities to accomplish the aims of the school through carefully planned, well-directed, continuous work. Some of the leading objects of the daily programme are: (i) It i6 a chief means of keeping the teacher in constant and helpful co-operation and unity with all the classes of the school and all the pupils of each class. It is a general plan of the daily work for every member of the school, including the teacher. (2) Without such a prearranged and systematic schedule of recitations and study periods, there would be hesitation, delays, great loss of time and energy, and constant tempta- tion to putter over work or shirk it altogether; for at the close of every lesson the pupils would have to stop to think what to do next. (3) A good programme is a great aid in the easy control of the school, for when pupils know just what their work is, just when each lesson is to be prepared and recited, there is no excuse for idleness and no time for mischief. It is a silent but constant monitor, calling every pupil to 206 THE DAILY PROGRAMME 207 perform the duty nearest at hand. It embodies regular, steady, rational authority, and makes this the guiding principle of the school rather than the spasmodic, irregular, personal authority of the teacher. (4) Thus the programme becomes a valuable agent in training pupils in habits of regularity, methodical work, obedience to rightful authority, and a sense of personal responsibility. The importance of this function of the programme may be inferred from the following statement by Professor James: "There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision and for whom the time of rising and going to bed every day, and the beginning of every bit of work, are subjects of express volitional deliberation." (5) A good daily programme permits the work of the school to be done with the least amount of noise, friction, and nervous strain; it concentrates the efforts of the pupil upon one thing at a time; it secures the exercise of all the different powers of the child in due proportion, and enables the teacher to make specific daily preparation for every exercise. II. Factors in the Problem of Making a Programme. — While schools vary greatly in the number and age of the pupils, the studies, and the number of classes required, still there are certain factors in all schools that are constant and must, therefore, always be prominent in determining the programme. (1) The Time Element. — This includes (a) the length of the school year; (b) length of the school day; (c) time to be deducted for recesses and intermissions. In the United States, custom, which has almost the force of law in this case, has fixed the length of the school year at from eight to ten months of twenty days each, or one huadred and 208 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL sixty to two hundred school days. The school day is usually six hours, although there is a tendency to shorten this somewhat in the primary grades. There are two recesses of fifteen minutes each and generally one hour lor noon intermission. This gives the teacher about five and one-half hours, or three hundred and thirty minutes, each day for actual instruction. It is of vital importance that this time should be used to the best advantage and should be properly apportioned among the various sub- jects included in the course of study. This leads us to the consideration of the second important factor. (2) The Subjects and Their Relative Importance. — The subjects are quite generally determined by the school authorities, so that the teacher has very little discretion as to what shall be taught. But since the teacher, as a rule, must determine how much time each subject shall have and what place it shall occupy, the question of the relative value of the various subjects is, in reality, a question to be solved by the teacher. In Chapter IX it was shown that there are six groups of studies included in the curriculum. Now every day's work throughout the elementary course should provide for exercises in all of these six groups — should present, as it were, a cross section of all of them. In determining the time each study shall receive, the teacher should consider: (a) Its importance as a means of the further acquisition of knowledge by the pupil; (b) the degree in which it affords mental training in some specific line; (c) its value as practical and permanent knowledge; (d) its relative difficulty as compared with other subjects. The following division of the time among the six groups of studies is suggested: Language, including reading, spelling, writing, language, and grammar, 40 per cent, of the whole time; arithmetic, 15 per cent.; science, including THE DAILY PROGRAMME 209 nature study, geography, and physiology, 12 per cent.; history, 10 per cent.; art, including music and drawing, 8 per cent.; motor activities, including handwork, physical culture, manual training, and general exercises, 15 per cent. Reduced to minutes, language would receive about 130 minutes; arithmetic, 50 minutes; science, 40 minutes; history, 35 minutes; art, 25 minutes; motor activities, 50 minutes. These estimates give the average time for the eight grades and are subject to some modifications. In the lower grades language may fairly claim the one hundred and thirty minutes, for it is the tool which the pupils must learn to use in order to master the other subjects of the course or use books independently. In the higher grades language should receive less time and history and science more time. Again, fifty minutes a day for arithmetic is altogether too much for the first two years of the course, and the time taken from arithmetic should be given to handwork and general exercises. In the same way the time for music and drawing, subjects that require no study period for preparation, should vary according to the grade. (3) The Succession of Studies. — Not less important than the time devoted to a subject is its place in the programme. Long before child-study specialists had demonstrated the principle that the capacity of children for sustained atten- tion varies greatly with the different periods of the day, observant teachers had discovered that some periods are very much more favorable than others. These facts con- cerning fatigue in children are pretty well established: (a) Fatigue is caused by overtaxing the brain and may be defined as decreased capacity for mental work, (b) Fatigue differs from weariness, which is simply the result of monotony and lack of interest and effort, (c) The signs 210 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL of fatigue are loss of the ability to give attention, de- crease of accuracy in all work, weakened power of per- ception and memory, greater errors in judgment, lack of self-control, lower work rate, and less responsiveness to all kinds of stimuli, (d) The major offsets to fatigue are sleep and nutrition; the minor offsets are rest, free play, and change of occupation and posture. The teacher should realize, too, that inattention of the pupil is sometimes "nature's safeguard against over-fatigue," and that it is not so much the effort required for study as the manner, method, and spirit of the teacher that are responsible for the amount of fatigue produced by school work. These facts should be carefully considered in arrang- ing the order of studies in the programme, for to con- serve the vitality and nervous energy of children is even more important than to economize their time. In the lower grades the formal studies, such as arithmetic, reading, writing, language, and spelling, should come at the more favorable periods, but two such subjects should not occur in immediate succession. The periods in these grades should be short. The Committee of Fifteen rec- ommends recitation periods of fifteen minutes in the first and second years, twenty minutes in the third and fourth years, twenty-five minutes in the fifth and sixth years, and thirty minutes in the seventh and eighth years. There must also be frequent change of posture, variety of method, and occasional rest intervals, songs, or games. On no account ought the out-door recess to be abolished for young children. Opening exercises should be bright and cheery and all general work care- fully planned. It should be well understood by the teacher that mere change of occupation does not con- THE DAILY PROGRAMME 211 stitute an effective remedy for fatigue. The real remedy lies in the amount of interest evoked by the new occupa- tion, the different kind of attention required, and the different muscles that are called into action. Finally, it must not be overlooked that children must use up a vast amount of nervous energy in learning to perform acts and processes which grown-up people can do auto- matically. It is a universal law that the first movements in acquiring skill along any line require far more nervous energy and vitality than are needed later. In the school the pupil finds himself in a new environment, confronted with many new and difficult problems, and to meet the daily demands made upon him he must use to the utmost his nervous energy. Every unfavorable circumstance, every fit of fretfulness or bit of nervousness on the part of the teacher, only makes his task the harder and more life-destroying. III. Summary of Principles. — Some of the leading principles involved in the preceding discussion may here be stated. (i) The daily programme should provide for study periods as well as for recitations. Definite work should be provided for every class and every pupil during the entire day. (2) Each subject in the course of study must receive the time and attention that its relative importance de- mands. (3) The studies requiring the greatest expenditure of nervous force on the part of the pupil should be given the most favorable periods of the day. (4) The length of the recitation and study periods should be regulated by the age of the pupils and the na- ture of the subject. 212 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL (5) Where the number of classes would be too great, studies must alternate, classes be combined, or some capable pupil must be utilized as an assistant. (6) The programme must be planned and adapted to fit the needs of the school. (7) Very little home work should be demanded of the pupils in the elementary grades. If home work is re- quired in the upper grades, it should not be arithmetic or grammar. (8) Variety of occupation, intervals of relaxation, and periods for individual instruction of pupils should be provided for. (9) Exercises, like writing and drawing, requiring steady nerves, should not be placed immediately after an intermission. IV. — Programme for Rural Schools with Five Divisions. — The programme on pages 214 to 217 presents in a defi- nite and concrete way the serious difficulties confronting the teacher of a large rural school. It is not to be fol- lowed slavishly, but must be adapted in its minor details to the needs of each school, and such adaptation must be left very largely to the judgment of the teacher. V. Keeping to the Programme. — There are many strong temptations every day to violate the provisions of the programme. Some teachers habitually "run over the time." Others prolong recitations in the studies they like best. Still others vary the programme for every visitor, attempting to "show off" only the best classes. All these things should be avoided. Surely if the teacher does not keep to the programme, pupils will not do so. Study periods will be thrown into confusion; some classes must recite on short time or not at all; pupils never quite know what may happen and will take chances on preparation, and the moral effect of a programme is THE DAILY PROGRAMME 213 almost wholly counteracted. As we have shown, one of the main objects of the programme is to regulate the study periods and seat work of the pupils, and this cannot be accomplished successfully unless the teacher adheres rigidly to the programme as made out. Pupils are not to be left to shift for themselves during the study periods. To permit this is fatal to good order, and the teacher who permits it will be in great danger of becoming a chronic keeper of pupils after school to make up their lessons. The teacher shows as much power and skill and aids the pupils as effectively in directing their seat work and study of lessons as in conducting the recitation. The daily programme should be in a conspicuous place in the school-room. It should be changed only on proof that revision is desirable. Pupils should be fa- miliar not only with the programme, but also, as far as possible, with the course of study. At the close of the term a copy of the programme should be left in the classification register for the benefit of the next teacher. VI. Reviews. — Reviews, both oral and written, are a necessary part of the work of every good school. It is a shame that so many pupils in the higher grades have never learned the multiplication tables thoroughly, nor standard weights and measures, nor the most fundamen- tal definitions in any subject. There are some things in the course that must be so mastered by means of drill, repetition, and review that they become second nature, or automatic, to the pupil. Oral review should form a part of almost every recitation. Written reviews should be given frequently in all subjects. Such re- views reveal to the teacher the success or failure of her instruction, emphasize essentials, serve as an excellent exercise in language, and are the best test of the pupil's spelling, penmanship, and grammar. These written re- 214 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL tn O % 8 o ft % g 1 - <* m td « * | < | < i < ft) a < bO .S a CO bfi D P4 bfl G a CO s # «0 bO G 1 d bO g S < a < D cS b* ft> bO ci =1 I > H M O ft bo C 0) P4 bfi c 1 U II pq ■a g W >> C/J en D U ft) Pi bfl 1 o H <; H o 5 04 c* (4 g* bO C O U ■a 8 ■a w •a m ft) ui I 1 01 '2 a fp O bO g bO o3 ft) P bJD g U 1 < u s < ft) s ft) 1 CO l-l ft) s CI p £3 10 M to M 10 10 >o 8 . 8 to o* IO On <* On 10 H 6 6 10 6 10 lO 6 THE DAILY PROGRAMME 215 *£ O L >> >. >^ M jlj ^5 ,£} ^ £2 H bO b-* & & S * ^ ^3 n 2 O SO Si bO M bO a£ 8 O (U O m tf j o o o ft M >> >-> >. O rn W ^5 ^3 ^3 < ft £2 h S * l & s* bo bO bo P 0) o o !7 * 1^ < # o 6 Q P H t/2 B.B &* 1u 4) s^ be CI a3 55 rO 1-3 h4 < < ^ 5 ^ T3 O <* S M < c^3 S3 m > J* 8 Q Q £ 1? *>> o o b* 3* £ s u £ j pq SP bO o M to Q g cu o U •e -a b£> e '% 05 rt ft S O Q g H < H O 3 CO a u bo g bO a P4 0) a 1 bO el Ci Cfl <* > .g.H 1 bO P5 o « o w? o o o lO SB M M H M "O M H M o 3 o o IT) <* a a8 o o %« M H M £J s §5 2 H >*> M H 1 1 hJ 0) I SP M 5j 75 *53 >> ,n Pm >> O 75 *S5 Jr Ph •7 * > %■ 3 # o o CO If 1 • A 73 a CO I Oh CO I 13 l"5j en m > P 8 Q hi 1 el W -a o 1 9 w gp I o U If a o U s CO O H O W la S H o 9 w ■a 1 ■a w tn 4> P4 bfl C W 3 o "^ Ph w W xn 3 hi bo O o < id Pj «J >> h< s +2 CO U hj y o> hi bfeW Q3 4) M u "hi < PQ CO a i o .22 '35 W > 73 S hi __ o .a >» a- SP ! pq S3 S 1 hi o 1 '-a •4 3> andwork & Manual Arts Ph P4 W m o P« bO *1 2 -^ ' 3 o ■SI* ■2 hi .-a-s? f-t ^°3< Ph' Ph w W S3 *1 to w bO bO o £ & C3 M £J2 W M Ph u P w 55 O 02 w to CO >> M b a, CO 5 to to K w .2 ir .22 < Ph K <8 2:3 Ph < Ph o 1 CO o o O lO a p H M M H M U"> io U"> lO M cs PO ri- £ Ph* CO ro CO fC 218 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL views need not be required at regular intervals. They need not come in all subjects or all divisions at the same time. They should come in one division or one subject on one day, and in some other subject or division an- other day. They should be required on the comple- tion of a topic or a well-defined portion of the subject- matter rather than at the end of the month. Thus the burden of looking over papers will not be great for the teacher. VII. Rural-school Graduation Exercises. — Every county superintendent should provide for township or county graduation exercises, at which pupils who have completed the common-school course may receive their diplomas and certificates. Such exercises may be made a powerful means of uplift educationally to the whole community. An all-day programme, consisting of es- says, declamations, or a class play by the graduates, may be prepared. A good speaker may be engaged. A picnic dinner may be planned for. Games, athletics, and contests between the various schools should have a place. The best work of the graduates should be placed on exhibit. Parents, teachers, and school officers should encourage pupils in' every way to complete the common- school course, and to make the rural school course worth completing. SUGGESTED READINGS Strayer and Engelhardt, "The Classroom Teaeker," chap. X; Bennett, "School Efficiency," chap. XVI; Sears, "Classroom Organization and Control," chap. XII; Bagley, "Classroom Management," Chap. IV; Perry, "The Management of a City School," pp. 96-102; Page, "Theory and Practice of Teaching," pp. 269-286; White, "School Management," pp. 86-94; Thomp- kins, "School Management," pp. 130-133. CHAPTER XVI THE SCHO0I*-ROOM AS A FACTOR IN ORGANIZATION The Old-time School-house. — In 1837 Horace Mann stated in an official report that not one- third of the school- houses of Massachusetts were fit for habitation. And ten years later Lord Macaulay said of the common schools of England: "We know what such a school too often is: a room crusted with filth, without light, without air, with a heap of fuel in one corner and a brood of chickens in another; the only machinery of instruction a dog- eared spelling-book and a broken slate; the masters the refuse of all other callings." The educational palaces, fitted with every conve- nience for comfort and health, that adorn so many of our larger cities bear witness to the wonderful improvement of school architecture in recent years. But in our smaller towns and rural districts school authorities are still too often content with the unsightly, poorly lighted, unven- tilated, badly heated, filthy structures and forbidding surroundings of the school buildings of a generation ago. "The evils of unsanitary school-houses," says A. P. Marble, "have attracted most attention in the crowded school-rooms of cities, but these evils are not confined to densely populated places. The vigorous country boys and girls may for a time resist the evils of a school- room alternately too hot and too cold; of draughts of cold air in winter through cracks in the floor and poorly built walls; of out-houses too filthy for use and sources of moral defilement; of seats and desks built for cheap- 219 220 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL ness and not for comfort, and more like racks for torture than like a perfect resting-place for the growing bodies of little boys and girls. But, however much the injury may be concealed, the deadly work goes on in many a country school. It is well known that no child can learn well or grow mentally when in bodily discomfort. Dulness, uneasiness, and consequent disorder in a school are often directly traceable to vitiated air." In the recently adopted "rules and regulations" of a certain city school board is this provision, under "duties of the janitor": "He shall scrub the floors twice each year." So it would seem that with all of our advancement in school architecture and school sanitation since the time of Horace Mann, there is still room for improvement, and teachers should be the apostles of a better hygiene. The School-room Should Interest the Entire Com- munity. — There is no other kind of public buildings in which all classes of the community ought to be so vitally interested as the school-house. The progress of educa- tion can be traced in school architecture. The difference between the old-time school and the up-to-date modern school is measured by the difference between the school- houses of a generation ago compared with our modern educational palaces with their study-rooms and libraries, their domestic-science kitchens and laboratories, their manual-training shops and gymnasium, their gardens and ample playground. Such a modern school building is a credit to any community, for it reveals a generous pro- vision for the instruction and training of boys and girls under the best possible conditions. For the children of the community the school-room is both a home and a work-shop, a living-room and a library. It is where they spend a great portion of their early years and THE SCHOOL-ROOM IN ORGANIZATION 221 of their waking hours. Its influence on their health, their intellect, and their morals will abide through life. It should be a comfortable, cheerful, attractive place. Out- side there should be little parks, trees, birds, flower beds, and ample grounds. Inside there should be sunshine, pure air, comfortable seats, tasteful furnishings, a good library, a workshop, and joyous life. The School-room a Silent Teacher of Morals. — This home of the peoples' children should be kept as neat and clean as any other well-ordered home. " There is scarcely a sounder principle in pedagogy," says the " Massachusetts State Report of 1895," "than that care begets care; order, order; cleanliness, cleanliness; and beauty, beauty* Things conspicuously good command the respect of chil- dren, invite their imitation, and in ways real, though ob- scure, sink into their souls and mould their being." The school-room should be a positive and elevating moral influence in the life of every pupil. Children seldom learn to respect themselves unless their surroundings are respectable. "Day by day beautiful, comfortable, and clean surroundings will have their ethical influence upon the pupil's development, until he comes in time to abhor anything that is not beautiful, well-ordered, and clean." " When pupils grow up and have homes of their own they must have them clean, neat, bright with pictures, and fringed with shade trees and flowers, for they have been brought up to be happy in no other environment." "The true test of our civilization is the kind of home we are content to live in, and the influence of our schools should help to form a disposition for these things that make home life happy and healthy." These extracts from the "Report of the Committee of Twelve" are not too strong. 222 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL The Relation of School Hygiene to Good Order. — The law of co operation demands unity between the teacher and pupils. Everything that interferes with this unity subtracts so much from the effectiveness of teaching and of learning. The condition of the school-room must not divert the energy of the pupils from the learning process. Nov/ it is too much to expect children to be good and studious when they are in bodily discomfort. To them Dr. Johnson's famous saying: "Every man is a rascal when he is sick," applies with special emphasis. Their physical condition must be such that they will have no need or wish to think about it. If the room is too cold or too hot, the air impure, the light too strong or dim, the seats uncomfortable, the pupil's attention is diverted from his studies, his mind is irritated, his worst instincts come to the surface, and his conduct soon leads to collisions with the teacher. Gilbert Morrison says: "Every observing teacher knows the intimate relation between the vitiated air in the school-room and the work he wishes the pupils to perform. Much of the disappointment of poor lessons and the tendency to disorder are due directly to this cause. The brain unsupplied with a proper amount of pure blood refuses to act, and the will is powerless to arouse the flag- ging energies. The general feeling of discomfort, dissatis- faction, and unrest which always accompanies a bad state of the blood breeds most of the school-room squabbles, antagonism, misunderstanding, and dislike which are wont to occur between teacher and pupil. The pupil apparently at variance with his teacher is really at war with his own feelings, caused by an impure and stagnated condition of the blood." The Question of Health. — The demands which modern civilization makes upon the health and physical soundness THE SCHOOL-ROOM IN ORGANIZATION 223 of the Individual seem to be increasing continually. Our intense modern life with all its complexity, its rush and roar of traffic, its social unrest and keen competition, its tendency to congregate in cities, makes greater and greater demands upon all classes of our people; and if the Amer- ican race shall be able to bear the strain — shall be saved from degeneracy — the physical and nervous energy of our children must not be exhausted in the process of education. Their school work must not be done under extreme press- ure, causing physical stunting, mental worry, and fatigue. Their school life must be made happy and cheerful and must appeal to them as worth living now, not as simply preparing them to live by and by. Above all, there must be in the school, teachers who comprehend the physical limitations of mental work, teachers who have learned to say with Dr. Hall: "What shall it profit a child if he gain the whole world of knowledge and lose his health, or what shall he give in exchange for his health?" P. W. Search maintains that "the prime requisite in the education of the child must be health; that good health is subject to command; and that the school must be measured by the extent to which it contributes directly to this realization." It is true that teachers must make the best of the school- room conditions as they find them, but to make the best of these conditions constant care and oversight are abso- lutely necessary. The conditions requiring the teacher's conscientious supervision are those relating to (i) the care of the eyes, (2) correct postures, (3) comfortable temperature, (4) pure air, (5) contagious diseases, (6) general care and cleanliness of the room, (7) over-pressure of delicate or nervous children. (1) Care of the Eyes. — Short-sightedness, or myopia, with its attendant evils of headaches and general nervous 224 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL derangements, is in danger of becoming the curse of modern childhood. It is the result of too steady applica- tion of the eyes to close objects, especially under unfavor- able conditions. All the investigations of this subject point to the conclusion that myopia is essentially a school disease, that both the degree of near-sightedness and the number of pupils so afflicted increase from grade to grade as pupils advance in their course; and that from twenty to thirty per cent, of the pupils who complete a high-schooi course are near-sighted. The causes of myopia are bad light; text-books with poor type, paper, or print; whatever tends to congestion in the head, as overheated rooms, unnatural positions of the body, bending over work at the seat, wet feet, and too long-continued study; bad ventilation; poor black-boards; and lack of out-door exercise. In regard to the light of the school-room: It should come chiefly from the left side of the room and through the upper part of the windows. The window space should be one-fifth of the floor space, and the top of the windows should reach nearly to the ceiling. The shades should be of some light color and semi-transparent. On account of the cross-lights, the space between windows is not good for black-boards, the walls should not be smoothly finished and should be tinted a light gray, pearl, brown, lavender, or green. Every school-room should admit the direct rays of the sun during some part of the day. But no matter how perfect the arrangements for lighting the school-room may be, it will require the constant watch- fulness of the teacher to make them effective in preventing injury to the eyes of children. The secretary of the Iowa Board of Health gives the following suggestions for the care of the eyesight of school-children: (a) Require pupils THE SCHOOL-ROOM IN ORGANIZATION 225 to sit erect while studying, with the book not less than twelve to fifteen inches from the eyes, (b) See that pupils have well-printed books, (c) Furnish abundant light from the left side of the room, (d) Regulate the temperature of the room very carefully, (e) Secure good ventilation. (J) Test children for near-sightedness, and see that pupils who need them are provided with glasses, (g) Do not require too long periods of study. (2) Correct Posture. — With the lengthening of our school year and the shortening of recesses the tendency of our school practice is to make man a sitting animal; but it is a crime against childhood to confine little folks for long periods to uncomfortable seats. Either the school hours for children in our primary grades should be shortened or more of their work should be done in workshop, field, and laboratory. Even with these much- needed reforms it must still be assumed that much of the child's school work will be done at his desk; and since his bones and muscles are so plastic, and there seems to be a natural disposition for pupils to assume uncouth and unhealthful positions, the greatest care is necessary on the part of the teacher to prevent malformations and serious bodily derangement. Of course no form of seat or desk can be devised that will wholly prevent the physical evils of re- maining a long time in one position. But if teachers are careless, or seats not well adjusted to the pupils, the inevitable results are round shoulders, congested brain, poorly developed chest, nearness of sight, curvature of the spine, and misshapen thigh bones. The desk may be too high for the pupil, thus raising his arm unduly in writing and bringing the book too near his eyes in studying; or too low, compelling him to bend over his work. The vertical distance of the desk top 226 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL above the seat should be one-sixth of the child's height, and the width of the seat should be about one-fifth of the child's height. A flat- topped desk forces the pupil to lean forward in a stooping position in order to bring the line of vision perpendicular to his work. The height of the seat should be such that the feet may rest on the floor without raising the knees. The back of the seat should be curved. A perpendicular line from the edge of the desk to the floor should fall one or two inches within the edge of the seat. Seats in every room should vary in size or be easily ad- justable, and should be simple, neat, and durable. For reasons of health and good order, single desks are far pref- erable to double ones. Ail English writer says: "At present it is not uncommon to find schools with expensively equipped gymnasiums but with desks whose evil effects on the pupil's physical development cannot be counter- acted by occasional gymnastic exercises." Above all, teachers must resolutely and persistently drill pupils in habits of correct sitting, standing, holding the book when reading, and maintaining correct positions in writing and drawing. This requires on the part of the teacher strength of purpose, exact knowledge of the great dangers of incor- rect postures in producing permanent bodily injuries, definite remedies, and almost infinite patience. (3) Comfortable Temperature. — Of all methods of heat- ing school-rooms, the commonest and the worst in rural schools is the unjacketed soft-coal stove. Such a stove heats the room by direct radiation, provides no means of ventilation whatever when the draught is closed, permits the escape of poisonous gases into the room, burns the moisture out of the air, and requires constant attention to maintain an even temperature. The pupils farthest from the stove are cold, while those nearest to it suffer with the THE SCHOOL-ROOM IN ORGANIZATION 227 heat, and all are hindered in their work and injured in health. Teachers are made nervous and irritable by breathing impure air and think the pupils are stupid and hard to manage. No greater economy can be practised by school boards than to provide for the proper and ad- equate heating and ventilation of the school-house. While the teacher is not personally responsible for the method of heating provided by the school board, by a little tact and good sense unfavorable conditions can be greatly improved. A good ventilating stove could be secured at a little additional expense; thermometers could be supplied; and greater care could be taken to have the room comfort- ably warmed by nine o'clock and the temperature main- tained at from sixty-eight to seventy degrees during the day. (4) Pure Air. — Closely connected with the subject of heating is that of ventilation, and every teacher should be familiar with some good book on this subject Even where the janitor is responsible for the heating and ventilation of the school-room, the teacher should be thor- oughly acquainted with the general principles of ventila- tion, and should see to it that these principles are properly applied. The average pupil requires thirty cubic feet of fresh air each minute, or from three to four thousand cubic feet every hour. Air which has been breathed once has lost five per cent of oxygen and gained five per cent, of car- bonic-acid gas. Thus each pupil gives off into the room about six- tenths of a cubic foot of carbonic-acid gas each hour. Besides this, a large amount of watery vapor, and worn-out cells in the form of organic matter are constantly breathed out into the atmosphere of the school-room. Added to these there are almost numberless sources of 228 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL impurities in the air of the school-room, such as dust and dirt from the floor, chalk-dust and coal-dust, bits of hair, and worn-out clothing. Then, too, it must not be forgotten that some of the pupils come from homes where cleanliness is surely not next to godliness — pupils with unwashed garments and bodies, disease germs, unbrushed teeth, and chronic colds, and from homes afflicted with tuberculosis. The immediate effects of breathing the air laden with these impurities are restlessness, lack of attention, drowsiness, and headache; and the remote effects are chronic ailments of throat and lungs, persistent headache, arid extreme susceptibility to colds, catarrh, and contagious diseases. The Board of Health of New York asserts that forty per cent, of all deaths are caused by breathing impure air. Medical authorities agree that breathing impure air is the prime cause of consumption and is the chief means of spreading infectious diseases. Obtuse, indeed, must that teacher be who in the face of all these well-established facts makes no effort to secure the very best ventilation possible; and to realize the vital importance of good ventilation is the first and most important step in securing it. Much may be accomplished, even where the room is heated by a stove, by proper management of the windows, by flushing the room with pure air during all intermissions, by thoroughly airing the room at night and in the morning, by insisting that pupils come to school decently clean, by vigorous use of broom and scrubbing brushes, by providing good foot-scrapers and mats, by requiring pupils to eat their dinner in a civilized fashion, and by the proper use of disinfectants. Landon says: "When suitable means for healthy work exist the teacher should look keenly to himself that they are most scrupulously attended to; where suitable means THE SCHOOL-ROOM IN ORGANIZATION 229 do not exist he should leave no stone unturned to get matters righted at the hands of the managers. To work continuously in a close, stuffy room is slow suicide." (5) Contagious Diseases. — As long as our schools are not subject to regular medical inspection, the teacher must assume considerable responsibility for the prevention of contagious diseases among pupils. No child should be permitted to attend school if he comes from a home where any contagious disease is known to exist, and no pupil who has been out of school because of having such a disease should be received back into the school without a physi- cian's certificate. The symptoms of most of the common contagious diseases are quite similar and are readily de- tected. No risks should be taken, and when pupils are feverish, have sore throats, and manifest any other symp- tom of measles, scarlet fever, or diphtheria, they should be cared for at once. (6) Care of the School-room. — Throughout this discus- sion the teacher's responsibility for the general care and cleanliness of the school-room has been emphasized. Others may shirk their duty, but the teacher must not make this an excuse for shirking his duty. His own health is at stake as well as that of his pupils. It may be difficult at first for a new teacher to gain the active co-operation of the parents or even of the school officers, but an earnest, tactful teacher can always enlist the cheerful assistance of, the pupils in improving the school-room and its surround- ings. The erasers should be kept clean, the desks free from dirt, the stove polished, the windows washed, the floor scrubbed and always free from litter, the books in order when not in use, all apparatus in its place, the outhouses in good condition and free from marks, the drinking-cup cleansed, and the school premises free from ashes and 230 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL rubbish. The teacher who keeps the school-room shift- lessly will be justly suspected of shiftless teaching. (7) Over-pressure of Exceptional Pupils. — In every school exceptional pupils will be found. Some are unduly precocious; others are unduly dull. Some are delicate in health or growing rapidly or have been ill. Others may be defective in sight or hearing. All such children should be studied carefully by the teacher, and on no account should they be goaded on beyond their power and strength. Home study must not be required of them. Time to make up their work must be given to pupils who have been ill. Defective children must have favorable seats. Delicate children must not be seated in the coldest cor- ner, and all must be treated with consideration and ten- derness. Bookcases and Cabinet. — Every school-room should contain a good bookcase and a cabinet. The library books cannot be well taken care of without a proper book- case. They should be kept in this case when not in use and should always be arranged in an orderly way. For work in nature study it is necessary to have specimens of the shells, minerals, soils, insects, plants, woods, and grains of the neighborhood. Pupils should be encouraged to help the teacher make as complete and valuable a col- lection as possible. "Whoever has not in youth," says Spencer, " collected plants and insects knows not half the halo of interest which lanes and hedge-rows can assume." The teacher's opportunity to inspire pupils with a love of nature and to cultivate habits of observation is limited only by his knowledge and his power of judicious guidance. Other Furniture. — It seems strange that so many school- houses are still without the common necessary furniture of THE SCHOOL-ROOM IN ORGANIZATION 231 the home. The poorest homes have some means of telling the time of day, drinking utensils for each member of the family, window curtains, wash-dish and soap, towels, broom, mop, door-mats, and an extra chair or two. Yet it seems never to have occurred to some school officers that children need any of these things at school. Apparatus. — School apparatus includes all the appliances which are used for purposes of illustration in teaching. Such appliances in the hands of a teacher who knows how to use them greatly increase the effectiveness of instruction; they are to the teacher what tools are to the mechanic. Chief of these appliances is the black-board, and every school-room should be provided with generous black- board space. The material should be slate. When the long life of the slate board is considered, no "penny-wise" policy should induce any school board to invest in any so- called substitute for a good slate board. A few good charts are helpful and a dictionary is indispensable. No pupil should leave the school without learning to use the dictionary intelligently. For the teaching of geography there should be a set of good relief maps, a globe, a sand table, a cabinet for specimens, and clay for modelling. For arithmetic there are needed a numeral frame, a set of blocks, weights, and measures. For reading an abundance of supplementary books are necessary, including several complete sets of readers. Proper apparatus for games and gymnastics should also be provided. It is needless to say that school boards would be far more willing to buy all necessary apparatus if teachers possessed more skill in its use and exercised greater care in its preservation. When not in use, each article should be put in its proper place and kept away from dust and careless hands. 232 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL Decoration. — The school-room should be not only clean, comfortable, and healthful, but also beautiful. Little chil-? dren are instinctively attracted to a pretty toy, a bright flower, a graceful animal, a pleasant face, a simple melody, but without a careful nurture and training this instinctive love of beauty may be so starved and perverted that they will soon prefer noise to music and take delight in deformity and ugliness. Plato emphasized the close relation between the beautiful and the good, and Hegel defined beauty as the "sensible manifestation of the spiritual." School-room decorations cannot take the place of actual contact with nature in the form of flowers, birds, rocks, and streams out under the open sky, but they may be made a potent indirect means of teaching a love of beauty by revealing the wonders of all these things. They may induce and encourage moods of mind that enrich the life by lifting up the soul to higher and purer ideals. Not all teachers are artists, and besides, it requires good sense as well as good taste to manage school-room decora- tions wisely. Bare walls are better than bad pictures. The only proper way to begin with some school-rooms is to clear out and burn the so-called decorations, yellow with age, cheap, dirty, and unhealthful, such as tissue-paper flowers, cheap chromos, and ancient wreaths of ever- greens. To talk of decorating a dirty school-room is a contradiction of terms and a lesson in bad morals. It costs very little to kalsomine the walls and ceiling a pleasing tint, to paint the wood-work, to put the black-board in good condition, to procure curtains for the windows. A piece of pink or green cheese-cloth may be fastened smoothly to the wall to serve as a place to display specimens of work done by the pupils. Such specimens should be changed every few days and not left to gather dust and breed THE SCHOOL-ROOM IN ORGANIZATION 233 disease. If possible, a few good pictures should be hung on the walls, reproductions of the works of some master, that can be understood and appreciated by children, chaste, simple, and distinct. Let the pictures of the school-room suggest the noblest types of animal life, lessons of brave deeds, splendid achievements, great cathedrals, child life, and mother love. There should be room for a large flower- ing plant, a flower-box in one of the windows, and a box where children may watch the germination and growth of seeds. Teachers everywhere should read and ponder these words from Supt. L. B. Evans, of Georgia: "The silent influence of clean surroundings, of cheerful teachings, of classical pictures and music and literature, the presence of flowers and their care, the planting of shade trees and studies of their growth, will be a supervision so constant and so searching that no child can escape it. Under its potent warmth, like the steady, quiet shining of the sun, the child-plant grows into all the marvellous possibility of flower and fruit." The School Library. — The real value of teaching a child to read is measured by the kind of books he learns to love. Now an ordinary text-book is not a book to be loved; it is a skeleton, a mere epitome of some subject. It is full of general definitions and abstract principles. The study of the text-book on any subject should be supplemented by the systematic reading of good books on the same subject. These books should be in the school library. They should connect the lessons learned from the text-book with good general reading and literature. Geography and history are taught to little purpose in the school if they fail to create in the pupil the desire to know more of the people and products of other lands and other sections of his own land. Well-selected books of travel, biography, fiction, 234 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL and poetry should all be made the means of extending the lessons taught from the text-books. The report of the Committee of Fifteen says: "The works of literary art in the readers, re-enforced as they ought to be by supple- mentary reading at home of the whole works from which the selections for the school readers are made, will educate the child in the use of a higher and better English style. Technical grammar never can do this. Only familiarity with fine English works will insure one a good and correct style." Moreover, the deepest moral lessons may be taught through the medium of some beautiful poem, like Long- fellow's "Legend Beautiful" or Bryant's "Sella" and the "Little People of the Snow." Read such a poem to the children, help them to picture its scenes very vividly and catch its spirit and meaning. None but good books should be tolerated in a school library, and every teacher should know what constitutes a good book for children. The books of the library should be a part of the daily life of the school. Passively handing out books to children does little good. Daily reference to them should be made in assigning lessons, and pupils should be taught how to read a book intelligently and required to make reports, oral or written, on what they have read. In the hands of a cultured teacher the school library may serve as a link to bind together the home and the school, and to arouse the interest of parents in what their children are reading. There is no better intellectual and moral home influence than that which comes from reading a good book aloud in the family circle. Morgan says: "Teachers can suggest to pupils valuable books suitable for their age, attainments, tastes, and necessities. Many a boy has been ruined by the dime novel who might have been saved THE SCHOOL-ROOM IN ORGANIZATION 235 by reading books of real adventure and true heroism suggested to him by some thoughtful, faithful teacher. Seldom does a day pass when the vigilant teacher has not an opportunity, either in class or in private conversation, to drop into the prepared soil of some pupil's mind a hint of some valuable book to read." "What teacher of yours helped you most?" I once asked a successful lawyer, noted for his high ideals and true manliness. His reply was: "It was a Miss R . One night she called me to her desk and gave me a book to read. I read it, and it made me a man. It was 'Plutarch's Lives.'" SUGGESTED READINGS Thorndike, "The Principles of Teaching, " chap. II; Dewey, "The School and Society"; Bagley, "The Educative Process," chap. XXVIII; Judd, "Introduction to the Scientific Study of Education," chaps. VI, XVII; Tompkins, "School Manage- ment," pp. 72-84; Wray, Jean Mitchell's School," pp. 32-38 and 1 49-1 51; Morrison, "Ventilation." PART III THE TEACHER AS INSTRUCTOR CHAPTER XVII METHODS OF ^TESTING AND MEASURING SCHOOL WORK I. Wrong Conceptions of School Work. — The work of the school revolves around two processes; (i) Instruc- tion; (2) training. It is of the utmost importance that teachers should have right views of their work as in- structors and trainers, — its nature, its possibilities, its limitations, and the best methods of testing and measur- ing its results. Some of the prevalent misconceptions of school work are: (1) That " Hearing Recitations" Is School Work. — The teacher's work is often spoken of as "hearing reci- tations." And the pupil's work is thought to be simply learning lessons just to recite them. This is a sorry conception of school work. Study and recitation are, it is true, important parts of the work of the school. But if such work is devoid of interest and aim it becomes a mechanical grind, a method of killing time, and does not take hold of the pupil's inner life in such a way as to build up character. Hearing lessons recited is not teaching, nor does any pupil secure ideas by merely memorizing words. And since memorizing words is not acquiring knowledge, it is plain that reciting to the 236 TESTING AND MEASURING SCHOOL WORK 237 teacher words so memorized is not a knowledge-getting process and is not school work in the true sense. (2) That " Keeping Order" Is School Work.— Keep- ing order is one of the teacher's duties, but this cannot be the essential thing in school work, for it would not differentiate the teacher's work from that of a police- man. No surer way of defeating all the higher aims of the school can be devised than to set up order as an end in itself regardless of how it is obtained. The dangers of employing immature and untrained teachers to gov- ern children are far greater morally than intellectually. Channing said: "A child compelled for six hours each day to see the countenance and hear the voice of an un- feeling, petulant, passionate, unjust teacher is placed in a school of vice." This is strong language, but the statement is perfectly true, for there is no better place to develop impudence, disobedience, deceit, sullenness, shrewd malice, and a vindictive spirit than is such a school. (3) That "Puttering" Over Non-essentials Is School Work. — From the very first, pupils should have definite work with a definite aim, and should be encouraged to do this work in the shortest possible time. Idling and dawdling over school work should not be permitted. Better a great deal to shorten the school day in primary grades, or let the little ones go out-of-doors to play, or take a nap in the school-room than to have them do over and over so-called "busy work" which they have outgrown and of which they are heartily tired. Shrewd old John Locke called the state of mind produced by such monotonous work "sauntering." Sauntering is the op- posite of childish eagerness and curiosity. It is a list- less carelessness, a want of regard to anything, and a 238 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL trifling over all work. Locke says: "I look on this sauntering as one of the worst qualities that can appear in a child, as well as one of the hardest to be cured where it is natural/' The pupil who loses his eager, question- ing spirit, his God-given curiosity, without acquiring other strong motives to mental effort is a nearly hopeless case. One of the best results which can come from work in the primary grades is to develop the child's natural curiosity into a genuine love of knowledge. Every one knows how eager children are to learn before they enter school — how interested in all that goes on around them, how full of questions, what keen observers, what ready talkers; and when one sees these same children trans- formed in a few years of school life into listless, unob- serving, tongue-tied boys and girls, without curiosity, ambition, or interest, he cannot escape the conclusion that such a change must be caused by poor teaching. (4) That Merely " Doing Things" Under the Spur of Interest Is School Work. — The school should not be an educational vaudeville. There is a delightful theory that school work may be so interesting and pleasant for pupils that it is all play. The "doctrine of interest " as applied to school work has been greatly misunder- stood. There is an interest which is a natural form of intellectual feeling or emotion. It accompanies thought, prompts the will to act, and is re-enforced by thinking and acting. This is educative interest, and is the vital element in all effective school work. It is uplifting in its influence and abiding in its results, for it has the magic power of transforming the hardest lessons of the school into pleasant tasks. But this educative interest has its counterfeit. It is the shallow, fickle, reflex in- terest that accompanies the use of the senses only. It TESTING AND MEASURING SCHOOL WORK 239 is one of the primitive forms of feeling, like fear and anger, but does not rise to the dignity of an emotion. It is transitory, and does not arouse the mind to think or to act. It is the interest that feeds on dime novels, shuns hard study, must always have something new, seeks emotional dissipation, shirks every difficulty, ig- nores duty, and ends in worthless character. This counterfeit form of interest is very much in evi- dence in our schools. In their efforts to arouse interest the old-time teachers invented new forms of bribery in the shape of prizes; the average modern teacher worships at the shrine of new methods and devices. Our school- supply houses do an immense business in supplying materials for "busy work." Patent devices for "arous- ing interest " are for sale at a penny a dozen. Our school- journals are full of catchy "methods" for teaching read- ing, language, nature study, and arithmetic without mental exertion on the part of the pupil, and these often constitute the sole stock in trade of institute instructors. Such devices seem to work well, to arouse interest, to awaken sensations, and to afford momentary pleasure. But they may do all this and still be of no educative value, or be even harmful, for although they may arouse temporary interest, their use does not result in knowl- edge, power, or skill. Interest for the sake of sensations merely is not edu- cative. Interest that does not lead to investigation and comparison is only emotional dissipation. Interest must not be permitted to end in sensation and feeling; it must result in thought and choice and conduct to be really educative. Object-lessons, manual training, na- ture study, music, drawing, and domestic science cannot claim a place in the course of study simply on the ground 240 THE TEACHER AND. THE SCHOOL that they are interesting. Sensations of touch and sight and sound are not knowledge, as so many teachers seem to think; they are only the raw materials out of which knowledge is made. Sense-impressions are ex- ceedingly transitory states of mind, and the teacher who mistakes them for real knowledge will be surprised to find how quickly and how completely pupils forget their lessons. An inspector of schools once wrote: "To what purpose in life is a boy taught if the inter- vention of a school vacation is to be a sufficient excuse for entirely forgetting his instruction?" The exceeding great facility which pupils display in forgetting is the result of either no interest at all, which means compulsory learning, or of making interest end in mere sense-im- pression, which means sensational learning — the sen- sations of one lesson being constantly superseded by those of the next. This is not real school work; it is largely a waste of energy. It is what Mr. Carter has called "the artificial production of stupidity in the schools." (5) That a "Monotonous Round of Drudgery" Is School Work. — In maintaining that school work cannot be made all play, it must not be supposed that we advo- cate making the school-room a place of drudgery. This was the great fault of the old-time school. There were no interesting games, no nature study, no variety of method, no handwork, drawing, painting, moulding, and dramatizing. The routine of school work was unvarying. Object-lessons were unknown, and until the time of Comenius, text-books contained no pictures or illus- trations. There were no slates or blackboards, no charts or globes, no experiments or laboratories, no physical training or excursions. Under such conditions TESTING AND MEASURING SCHOOL WORK 241 the average teacher could not create interest in school work. Pupils learned their lessons because they were compelled to do so. Punishments were harsh and brutal. The school was regarded by the pupils as a prison house. This conception of school work has not yet entirely disappeared. There are still many teachers who depend more upon force, threats, and punishment to secure study on the part of pupils than they do upon educative in- terest and good teaching. There are other more con- scientious teachers who seem to be afraid that school work may become so interesting that it will fail to pre- pare pupils for the battles of life. Such teachers insist that pupils must be broken in to hard work, interest or no interest. Life, they say, is full of drudgery, and the pupil's school work should prepare him for such effort. Such teachers have a mistaken conception of work. Work does not mean labor in the sense of disagreeable effort. School work performed under the spur of edu- cative interest is not drudgery. It is the free expression of the pupil's activity as truly as play is such. We may compel a child to learn a lesson by heart, but we cannot force him to wish to comprehend it. Where one pupil learns to study hard by threats and punishment, ten pupils are made dull, stupid, and dishonest by such treatment. No teacher can really compel the child's intellect to work alone; back of it there must be interest and will, and this interest should be spontaneous and natural. This is what Comenius meant when he said : "Learning should come to children as swimming to fish, flying to birds, and running to animals." Without interest there can be no proper learning. And where the desire for learning is encouraged by parents and teachers, where 242 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL the school buildings are light and clean and cheerful, where there are proper appliances for teaching, such as maps, charts, pictures, and libraries, where the subjects are not too hard for the pupil's understanding, where the teacher is kind, competent, and sympathetic, where public sentiment is heartily on the side of good schools, it should seldom be necessary to substitute force for interest as an incentive in school work. " As a final test by which to judge any plan of culture," says Herbert Spencer, " should come the question, Does is create a pleasurable excitement in the pupils? Nature has made the healthful exercise of our faculties, both of mind and body, pleasurable. Experience is daily showing with greater clearness that there is always a method to be found productive of interest, even of delight, and it ever turns out that this is the method proved by all other tests to be the right one." II. Right Views of School Work. — Work is energy put forth for a purpose. It is exertion guided by aim. It is the best available means of accomplishing a definite end. "Aimless work" is a contradiction of terms. (i) School Work Is Instruction and Training Guided by a Definite Educational Aim. — This aim must be in the mind of the worker from the beginning and must guide the choice and the use of means to attain the de- sired end. Held to this definition of work, much that passes in the school-room for work is not work at all. There may be regular effort on the part of the teacher, but it is only " beating the air." There may be con- scientious activity, but it is not work, for it does not accomplish any educational result. There are shiftless teachers as well as shiftless farmers and shiftless housekeepers. There is a striking para- TESTING AND MEASURING SCHOOL WORK 243 graph on work in " Uncle Tom's Cabin," in which Mrs. Stowe describes that personification of common-sense and Yankee thrift, Miss Ophelia: "The great sin of sins in her eyes — the sum of all evil — was expressed by one very common and important word in her vocabulary, 'shif tlessness ' ; and by this word she characterized all modes of procedure which had not a direct and inevita- ble relation to the accomplishment of some purpose then definitely held in mind. People who did nothing, or who did not know exactly what they were going to do, or who did not take the most direct way to accomplish what they set their hands to, were objects of her entire contempt." Applying these tests to the school, we readily see that school work ought not to be shiftless work, not aimless effort, but a systematic, vigorous putting forth of effort to realize a definite aim. (2) School Work Is Helping the Child to Realize His Possibilities. — The work of the school should be in harmony with the nature and aims of the school. Neither the limitations nor the possibilities of the school should be lost sight of. "What can the school and the teacher do for the child anyhow? Not very much, I tell you." This was the sneering question and inevitable answer of a dyed-in-the-wool believer in the power of heredity as the chief factor in shaping the child's life and char- acter. But to any fair-minded man or woman such a statement must seem extreme and even ridiculous. If our teachers and our schools are not doing very much to change the child's character and shape his destiny they should be reformed or abolished. The character of the pupil is greatly modified under the instruction and guidance of the true teacher (1) by the knowledge acquired; (2) by the habits formed; (3) by the power and 244 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL skill gained; (4) by study and reflection under favorable conditions; (5) by association with other children under wise supervision; (6) and by the daily example and in- spiration of a leader, wise and generous and just, who holds before each pupil an ideal self and points the way to its realization. There are two important articles of faith that should be in every teacher's creed. These two articles are: (1) A belief in the " connectedness of humanity, " as Froebel puts it — belief in the natural capacity of the average child and his ability and tendency to grow into the typical man; (2) the tremendous influence of the cultured and sympathetic teacher in directing and aiding the child's development. Pestalozzi taught us to have faith in the capacity and educability of the ordinary boy and girl. Not many teachers would want to under- take to teach a school of seventy or eighty pupils like those that Pestalozzi taught at Stanz: "Most of them on their arrival were very degenerated specimens of humanity. Many were almost skeletons, with hag- gard, care-worn faces and shrinking looks; some were accustomed to begging, hypocrisy, and all sorts of de- ceit; others were broken by misfortune, patient, timid, suspicious, and entirely devoid of affection. But what was common to all was a persistent idleness, the result of their want of physical and mental activity. There was hardly one in ten that knew his A B C's. But this complete ignorance was what troubled me least, for I trusted in the natural powers that God bestows on even the poorest and most neglected children. I had ob- c ^rved for a long time that behind the coarseness, shy- ness, and apparent incapacity of children are hidden the finest of faculties, the most precious powers; and TESTING AND MEASURING SCHOOL WORK 245 now even among these poor creatures by whom I was surrounded at Stanz marked natural abilities soon be- gan to show themselves. It was my object to arouse these powers, for I was convinced that I should be able to form the hearts and minds of these children almost as I wished. I felt sure that my affection would change the nature of these children as quickly as the sun changes the frozen earth in the spring, nor was I wrong." (3) School Work for Pupils Is the Solving of Problems That Grow Out of Their Present Interests. — Some of these interests grow out of the pupil's home life, others are connected with his plays and games and school compan- ionships, and still others are the product of his natural curiosity and vivid imagination. From all these sources a multitude of problems arise to capture the pupil's interest, grip his attention, and challenge him to effort. The school-house and all its equipment, the organiza- tion of the school and the entire course of study, the teacher and the methods of instruction are all for the purpose of suggesting worth-while problems to the pupil and helping him to solve them. The vital element in real school work is that the "things to be done" appeal to the pupil's deeper interests, are connected with his present needs, and are worth doing. It does not matter what we call these "things to be done," whether prob- lems, or projects, or project-problems, or lessons, or oc- cupations; but it matters greatly that in solving these problems the pupil is consciously at work to reach a definite result which has for him a real and immediate value. (4) School Work Is Acquiring Specific Skills Which Are Directly or Indirectly Valuable to Pupils. — No method has yet been discovered by which any pupil can use at 246 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL one time all the knowledge and skill that he has. How- ever much we may insist that all school work shall consist of projects directly connected with the child's present needs and that the answers to these project- problems shall be capable of immediate application or bear directly on preparation for some specific vocation, the fact remains that every individual needs a large margin of knowledge and skill to meet new situations as they arise, and that all men and women are called upon as citizens and members of a social order to per- form services and meet obligations entirely outside of the limits of their particular vocation. For these rea- sons it is universally conceded that all children should acquire a reasonable mastery in the use of the " tools of civilization," reading, writing, geography, history, etc. Now the mastery of each one of these subjects is a matter of acquiring certain definite skills, or chains of reactions. Such skill is acquired only through repetition and prac- tice and the whole process is subject to the laws of habit- formation. Mastering a vocabulary, rate of reading, comprehension of the printed page, speed and accuracy in the fundamental operations of arithmetic, rate and quality in handwriting, ability to spell correctly, are all examples of such skills, and the acquirement of these specific habits must always constitute a large part of the work of the school. (5) School Work Is Creative Activity. — It seems to me that FroebePs idea of utilizing in education the play instinct of the child has been unduly emphasized and with unfortunate results. Such over-emphasis leads to the error of supposing that work cannot be made interesting in itself and for its own sake. This is to misapprehend Froebel. In the " Education of Man" TESTING AND MEASURING SCHOOL WORK 247 he preaches the gospel of creative work as the basis of sound education. " God," he writes, " creates and works productively in uninterrupted continuity. Each thought of God is a work, a deed. Man should work, should create, like God. We become truly God-like in dili- gence and industry; in giving body to spirit, form to thought; in rendering visible the invisible." Creative work, useful employment, not play as mere amusement, are the root ideas of FroebePs philosophy. We have shown that school work should be done under the inspiration of educative interest if it is to develop the intellect, strengthen the will, and mould the char- acter. School work is not simply "hearing recitations," " keeping order," " puttering over non-essentials," just " doing things that are interesting," nor "mere drudg- ery." School work is instruction and training guided by definite educational aims; it is helping the child to realize his possibilities; it is aiding pupils to solve spe- cific problems that grow out of their present needs and can be interpreted in terms of their own experiences; it is acquiring specific skills and forming definite reac- tions to a social environment; it is guided, joyous, productive, and creative self-activity. III. Testing and Measuring Results of School Work. — Standards of measure are a recognized necessity in all lines of production. All the products of work must be estimated as to amount and value by certain accepted standards, such as the yard-stick, the bushel, the gallon, or the dollar. School work, too, must be subjected to accepted tests and measurements. (i) Traditional Method of Measuring School Work. — Until very recently pupils were classified into grades, groups, or classes on the basis of their ability to do the 248 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL work of the grade or class to which they were assigned, and were advanced from grade to grade, awarded prizes and honors, and finally graduated on the record they made as ascertained by the application of certain tra- ditional standards of measurement. These standards had no scientific basis. They consisted of a combina- tion of: (i) Daily recitation marks; (2) oral tests and re- views; (3) note-book work and themes; (4) written ex- aminations. The results were estimated on a percent- age scale and each pupil's grade or rank was recorded in numerals, per cents, or letters. The "passing grade" was quite generally fixed at 70 per cent. The defects of such a method of measuring the results and worth of school work are: (1) It was crude and unscientific, and did not reveal the causes of failure nor suggest any definite basis for improving instruction; (2) it was variable, for no two teachers possessed the same standard; (3) it was inaccurate, vague, often mere guesswork ; (4) over-emphasis was put on mere memoriz- ing and the purely mechanical elements of the learning process; (5) pupils and parents regarded the grades as purely arbitrary, representing only the personal opinion of the teacher; (6) the method ignored the rate of work of pupils and was open to all sorts of evasions and cheating. Careful investigation of teacher's marks shows that even in such an exact subject as geometry the same ex- amination paper was marked as high as 90 per cent by some teachers, and as low as 30 per cent by other teach- ers, that even the same teachers varied in their standards of marking, and that as between different schools there is no common standard of proficiency in any subject or in any grade. TESTING AND MEASURING SCHOOL WORK 249 (2) Scientific Measurement of the Results of School Work. — A scientific method of measuring school work, in order to be of very much practical value, must be simple enough to be used by the ordinary teacher. Such methods are now available for all superintendents and teachers. During the past few years such investi- gators as Thorndike, Courtis, Ayers, Kelly, Monroe, and Judd have perfected standard tests and units of measure in most of the school subjects. (a) The Problem of Determining a Standard of Measure- ment. — The first step in constructing a standard test is to analyze the process of mastering the subject to be tested into its simple elements. For example, there are two such elements in silent reading: (1) Rate, or the number of words read per minute; and (2) comprehen- sion, or the ability to grasp the thought accurately. In writing there are two simple elements, rate and quality. In working problems in arithmetic there are three ele- ments, speed and accuracy in adding, subtracting, mul- tiplying, and dividing, and the ability of the pupil to determine what steps are necessary to solve the problem. After selecting the specific subject and grade to be tested, the same set of problems or exercises is given to thousands of pupils of the grade selected, representing schools from all parts of the country. The papers are carefully graded, and the median score of all the papers is ac- cepted as the standard by which to measure the work of all pupils in the subject and grade so tested. This standard is as scientific and as reliable as the standards on which all life insurance is based. (b) How to Use the Standardized Tests. — Compara- tively few teachers have had any adequate instruction in the use of these tests, but all teachers know how 250 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL unsatisfactory the old system of determining grades is, and are quite ready to welcome a more rational system. With a little help from principals and superintendents, teachers in graded schools soon learn to use the tests successfully. Even in the rural schools any intelligent teacher can master the use of the simpler tests if the following suggestions are observed. i. Select one of the simplest tests, like Ayers Gettys- burg Penmanship Score, Monroe's Silent Reading Test, Courtis Series B Arithmetic Test, or Ayers Spelling Scale. 2. Master the printed directions for giving the test. Unless the teacher is thoroughly familiar with these directions and follows them with absolute fidelity, no results of any value can be expected. 3. Grade all the papers with care, and record the results in the score-card. Each test provides a standard scale of measuring results and it is the teacher's problem to apply this scale to each pupil's work. The median, or class, score is found by arranging all the papers in the order of their value and taking the score on the middle paper, that is, the paper representing the half sum of all the papers. The scores should be recorded in the order of their numerical value and the scores for each grade kept separately. 4. Give the most careful thought to the interpretation of the scores. The proper interpretation of the scores is the most vital part of the teacher's problem in mak- ing the test, for the chief purpose of the scientific mea- surements of the results of teaching is not to grade pu- pils but to furnish a solid foundation for improving the work of the school. In the interpretation of the results obtained in a test in silent reading, given to sixth-grade TESTING AND MEASURING SCHOOL WORK 251 pupils, the teacher may discover that as a class the pupils are up to standard for their grade, but that very great differences in both rate and comprehension exist as between different members of the class. It may be found that some pupils in the class read five times as fast as others and that even greater differences exist in the comprehension of what is read. It will also sur- prise the teacher to find that, as a general rule, the pu- pils who are the fastest readers stand highest in compre- hension. The results of the test should reveal to the teacher the nature, the extent, and the cause of each pupil's deficiencies. Such causes are apt to be: (i) Weak vocabulary; (2) defective visualization; (3) lack of practice in silent reading; (4) carelessness and guess- work; (5) lack of interest and motive. 5. Use the results of the tests as a basis for improved teaching. Whatever the cause of any pupil's defect may be, the value of discovering it will be very little unless both the pupil and the teacher are led to put forth an earnest effort to overcome it. When such in- telligent and purposeful effort is made, wonderful im- provement is possible in the pupil's silent reading, or his ability to add or subtract rapidly and accurately, or in the rate and quality of his handwriting. (c) Value of Scientific Tests and Measurements of School Work. — To the teacher the use of scientific measurements of school work is most helpful, for it : (1) Sets definite objectives to be reached by interpreting facts in terms of each pupil's needs; (2) furnishes a re- liable basis of comparing the work of different schools, grades, and pupils and reveals what it is reasonable to expect of pupils; (3) prevents waste of time and effort on work that pupils already know well enough; (4) dis- 252 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL covers the weak spots in the method of teaching and shows where greater emphasis and drill are necessary; (5) discloses the individual differences between pupils in the same grade or class; (6) affords a definite means of self -measurement and professional growth as a teacher; (7) insures justice in the promotion of pupils. To the pupil the great value of scientific measurements of his work is that it enables him to measure his own at- tainments and to compare his own knowledge and skill in any subject with the accepted standard for pupils of his own age or grade. It sets before the pupil con- vincing evidence of his relative strength or weakness in a given subject and compels him to share consciously in the responsibility for correcting his own defects, and to become an active partner with the teacher in the work of the school. It emphasizes the importance of mastering the essential elements of the different subjects, and enables him to concentrate his effort where it is most needed. It recognizes the value of the rate of work, tends to prevent half-hearted effort, gives the pupil the strongest possible motives for the maximum of self-improvement by diligence in study and persis- tence in drill, and emphasizes the results of effort rather than the effort itself. To the superintendent the standardized tests and the statistical method of measuring school work are indis- pensable aids, for they enable him to compare the different States as to the efficiency of their school sys- tems and to assign each State its true rank; to com- pare his own school with that of other schools in his own State as to its cost, equipment, quality of teach- ing, salaries, organization, tax levy; and to measure and compare the schools, the grades, the teachers, and TESTING AND MEASURING SCHOOL WORK 253 the progress of the schools in his own school system accurately and impartially. Indeed, without the use of standard tests and scientific measurements there cannot be a science of supervision. (3) Measuring the By-products of School Work. — In thus emphasizing the value and need of the scientific measurement of school work I have not been unmindful of the fact that many teachers succeeded most admirably under the old traditional system of estimating the re- sults of instruction, but they were teachers who always lived up to their light, earnestly sought to avail them- selves of every means of doing better work, and would be the first to welcome a more rational method of mea- suring school work than the one used in their own times. These gifted and successful teachers have always put great stress upon the by-products of school work, such as the spirit and attitude of pupils, their ideals and mo- tives, the habits of industry, accuracy, honesty, truth- fulness, and self-control acquired, and the atmosphere of the school. If, during the plastic years of school life, the learner has not acquired the power to stand on his own feet, conquer his evil tendencies, shun debasing surroundings, and hold to the right by his own inner strength, he is in dire danger of becoming a moral wreck and a social derelict. It is impossible to ignore or disguise the fact that these by-products are, in truth, the most valuable results of school work, and that they cannot be measured directly by any scientific standards yet invented. They are to a great degree too intangible and spiritual to be measured with exactness. But this does not mean that we have no method of testing rather definitely even these by- products of school work. Among these tests are these: 254 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL Does the school work accomplish day by day the ob- jects for which the school exists? Is there a perfect understanding and sympathy between pupil and teacher ? Do pupils work steadily under the inspiration of inter- est and duty? Are pupils attentive in the recitation? Are pupils regular and punctual in attendance ? Are the recitations characterized by life, good-feeling, and spon- taneity ? Is the atmosphere of the school one of home- like cheer, freedom, and helpfulness ? The teacher who can answer these questions in the affirmative need have little fear that his school work is not successful. (4) Remote Tests of School Work. — A long distance separates primary and elementary teachers from the finished product which results from their teaching. The remote tests of school work are the pupil's success, in the best sense, and his character. Time alone can reveal the full result of the work of the school in shaping the life and character of the pupil. Teacher and pupil part at the doorway of the school-house. After long years they meet again, clasp hands, look into each other's face. Not till then may the faithful teacher know the full power that he has exercised over the life of the pupil. Not till then may he hear from a grateful heart sincere thanks for the honest labors of former years. But it is worth the waiting. One evening after a day's work in a normal institute in a city in Iowa I met a gentleman who was a stranger to me. He stopped and said: "I hear you are from C F . Do you know Prof. B there?" "Yes, very well," I replied. Then he said: "Well, when you go home, please give him my love, and tell him I think of him every day. He was my teacher twenty-seven years ago, and he first made me believe TESTING AND MEASURING SCHOOL WORK 255 that I could be somebody. Through all these years he has been my ideal man." He told me his name, and I at once recognized it as the name of the member of Con- gress from that district, one of the noblest men in the State, a brilliant lawyer, a splendid man. I carried the message to Prof. B , and I shall never forget the look on his face as he said: "It is worth while to be a teacher." "I took a piece of living clay, And gently formed it day by day, And moulded, with my power and art, A young child's soft and yielding heart. I came again when years were gone, — It was a man I looked upon, He still that early impress bore, And I could change it never more." SUGGESTED READINGS Cubberley, "School Organization and Administration," chap. VIII; Wilson and Hoke, "How to Measure," chaps. I, X, XII Rapeer, "Teaching Elementary School Subjects," chap. XXIII Strayer and Engelhardt, "The Classroom Teacher," chap. IX F. M. McMurry, "Elementary School Standards," chaps. I, II III, IV; Strayer and Thorndike, "Educational Administration,' Part IV; Starch, "Educational Measurements," chap. XV Thorndike, "The Principles of Education," chaps. Ill, V, XII Chapman and Rush, "Scientific Measurement of Classroom Products"; Bureau of Educational Measurements and Stand- ards, Emporia, Kansas; Russell Sage Foundation, New York City; Monroe, "Measuring the Results of Teaching." CHAPTER XVIII NATURE OF THE TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS Definitions of Teaching. — In studying the nature of the teaching process, we shall not derive very much aid from the attempts that have so far been made to define teaching, Indeed, Dr. Trumbull says: "Out of an extensive study of the literature of teaching, for now more than twenty years, I can say with positiveness that, from the days of Roger Ascham down to the latest European and American writers, hardly one writer in fifty has even attempted to tell his readers what he means by the term teaching, or to indicate the precise nature and limits of the teaching process as he understands that process. In hardly more than half a dozen instances have I found an educational writer attempting to explain his understanding of this term teaching. " Most of the attempts to define teaching are misleading, figurative, indefinite, or too general to serve any useful purpose. Some such definitions are these: "Teaching is the art of human development"; "Teaching is simply helping the mind to perform its function of knowing and growing"; " Teaching consists in fitting or dove- tailing new thoughts and emotions with those already in the pupil's possession"; "Teaching is the art of promoting self -evolution." One of the best and most famous definitions of teaching is that of Jacotot: "To teach is to cause to learn," This 256 THE TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS 257 definition has served as a model of many others: "Teaching is causing another to know"; "Teaching is making the pupil think the thoughts of the lesson"; "Teaching is the occasioning of those activities in the learner that result in knowledge, power, and skill"; "Teaching is the process by which one mind, from set purpose., produces the life- unfolding process in another." Teaching is a Two-sided Process. — All these definitions imply that teaching is a double process, and that where there is no learning there can be no teaching. Teaching always implies two persons both of them active over the same thing, but not in the same way. One teaches; the other learns. What is taught and learned constitutes the lesson. This lesson serves as the meeting-point of the teacher's mind with that of the pupil. All the work of the school revolves around this lesson. The teacher assigns it, the pupil studies it. In the recitation the teacher questions, the pupil answers; the teacher explains, the pupil gives attention the teacher suggests data, the pupil infers results; the teachei l^ustrates, the pupil forms vivid images; the teacher pomts the way to a generalization, the pupil grasps a new thought. Thus the teacher must plan the work, determine the aim, direct the process; the pupil must be teachable, alert, self-active receptive. The teacher instructs, tests, trains; the learner acquires knowl- edge, power, and skill; but all this is cond T tioned on the self activity of the pupil. Learning is exactly what the teacher cannot do for the pupil. Joseph Payne says: "The teacher can no more think or practise or see for his pupil than he can digest for him or walk for him." The Psychology of Teaching. — Stated in the simplest terms of psychology, the twofold process of teaching con- sists in stimuli presented by the teacher and appropriate 258 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL reactions to these stimuli on the part of the pupils. Learn- ing in all its forms of knowledge, power, and skill, so far as school work is concerned, is the result of these reactions of the pupil to the stimuli presented and controlled by the teacher. The word stimulus here means any object, force, action, event, w T ord, or idea that awakens a response in the pupil. The responses of the pupil include any act, emotion, thought-process, decision which is the result of the stimulus presented. From this point of view, teaching consists in the use of definitely and logically related stimuli planned and directed by the teacher, together with their corresponding reactions on the part of the pupil. When these stimuli are the teacher's presence, voice, manner, gestures, questions, explanations, illustrations, suggestions, and the responses of the pupils are interest, attention, answers, questions, discussions, solving a problem, draw- ing a picture, or reading a paragraph, the exercise consti- tutes a recitation and involves both teaching and learning. Teaching Not a Mechanical Process. — While teaching has its mechanical side, it can never be a mechanical process. There must be a definite aim as well as material appliances and physical acts to accomplish these aims, but the process itself is always a mental, a spiritual one. Method, text- books, devices, lessons do not constitute the teaching process. There must be the vital contact of mind with mind > ?nd this contact must take place in the realm of the child's own personal experience. Teaching must begin within the range of the child's interests and must seek tc enrich and develop those interests, for only in this way can instruction produce the life-unfolding process in the pupil. Learning is not a passive reception of subject- matter; for as Dr. Dewey says: "What a child gets out of any subject presented to him is simply the images which THE TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS 259 he himself forms with regard to it." On the other hand> in the act of teaching, the true teacher is conscious of the lesson as subject-matter only as a means of developing the mind of the pupil. The pupil thinks the lesson, but the teacher must think the lesson plus the mental and spiritual processes by which it is being acquired and assimilated by the pupil. To do this requires an accurate knowl- edge of the pupil's capital and how it must be invested to yield the best returns. The Child's Capital. — Teaching must appeal to the whole child — his bodily organism, senses, feelings, intellect, will. The teacher must take into account the pupil's original capacities and instincts, his inborn curiosity, love of activity and play, and his tendency to imitate. Nor must the acquired interests of the child be overlooked, his stock of ideas already accumulated, his habits already formed, his likes and dislikes, his fears and hopes and ambitions, his moral standards, his individual eccentricities. All these constitute the child's capital, and all these must be reck- oned with in the process of teaching. So many teachers fail to see any real connection between psychology and the art of teaching that a brief discussion of the child's capital as related to the nature of the teaching process will be given. (i) The Child? s Nervous System as Related to Teaching. —The teacher stands outside of the child's consciousness> and can work on his life and mind only by affecting that consciousness through the nervous system by means of stimuli. These stimuli set into action the appropriate sensory nerves, through which means certain impressions are made upon the cells of the cortex. These impressions when interpreted by the mind give rise to images and ideas which always tend to go out in some form of expression. 260 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL If these ideas are not permitted to go out into motor action, the nervous force so checked must find expression within the bodily organism, must flow off from brain and nerves into the muscles, the circulation, the respiration, the diges- tive organs; and this is an inner response to the stimulus. If the ideas are allowed expression in outward action, then the motor areas of the cortex and the motor nerves must be brought into use. Such an action is an outward re- sponse to the stimulus. Thus learning can always be expressed in the double terms of brain exercise and mental activity. That all mental activity is accompanied by nervous changes is a familiar idea, but that mental states are reflected in the muscles and that they influence all the vital operations of the body is not so well known. It is also true that our states of mind are exalted or depressed by purely physical conditions. There seems to be a more or less complete paralleasm between mental phenomena and physical states, and this parallelism is more marked in children than in adults. Translated into physiological terms, the child's ceaseless activity is the result of abundant nutrition and rapid growth. He is excitable, suggestible, impulsive, superficial because his ideas always tend to go out into motor expression and he has little power of reflec- tion, deliberation, or inhibition. He is pretty much the slave of his instincts, his physical environment, and bodily feelings, and it is the purpose of education to set him free. He acquires new ideas with marvellous facility, because his nervous system is plastic. Moreover, every impression made on a brain cell changes its structure and leaves a tendency in the cell to react in the same way again, and this is the physical basis of memory and habit. All the outside impressions and influences affecting the child's THE TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS 261 growth as an organism are expressed by the term environ- ment; while from within are the complex influences of race, called heredity. Any serious lack or defects in the early environment of the child will leave areas in the cortex undeveloped or wrongly developed, and either of these results will always remain a hindrance to the child's mental growth. A many-sided interest leading to a wide range of physical activities is requisite to arouse into action all the cells of the cortex, and. the whole course of study and the entire process of education and teaching must be care- fully planned and adapted to meet the needs of the child's successively ripening instincts and budding powers as they awaken into life under the influence of heredity. To arouse an interest in school work has always been a. difficult task. The physical effects of interest are in- creased blood supply to the brain and a quickened pulse. It is through the child's leading interests that the teacher may discover the real growing point in the child's mind, for entirely new objects have little power to awaken interest and old objects have lost their charm. To understand these physical factors and nervous changes that condition all education, to be familiar with the road through which we must reach the child's mind, to take advantage of the child's ripening powers and interests and to see how to supply the right stimuli at the right time, to guard the pupil against fatigue and waste of energy, and to enable him to do his school work under the best possible physical conditions-— all these are vitally connected with the nature and success of the teaching process. (2) The Contents of the Child's Mind. — The contents of the pupil's mind are the accumulated results of his past experiences; that is, the effects of the use of his powers of body and mind The systematic study of this mental 262 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL content as manifested in the average adult person is the science of general psychology. There are many depart- ments of psychology, depending upon the method of study or the special field of research selected for investigation; hence we have the terms introspective psychology; genetic and race psychology; experimental, animal, physiological, abnormal, individual, and social psychology. But the teacher's chief concern is obviously in those departments of psychology that deal with the growing mind of the child and the laws that must shape its proper unfolding, for upon these laws the science of teaching must be based. It is impossible to discuss the nature of the teaching process intelligently without constant reference to the fact that the child mind is a growing, developing mind and that there are certain laws that control or modify such growth. A brief statement of the child's mental development, expressed in the ordinary psychological terms, will give us the basis for the proper understanding of the funda- mental laws that govern the teaching process. (a) Sensations. — The power that the mind has to receive impressions from the material world through the senses is called sensation. A state of consciousness pro- duced by the action of any stimulus upon a sensory nerve is called a sensation. Sensations are what Pestalozzi called "passive sense-impressions" as distinguished from "active sense-impressions," or percepts. They are the simplest states of consciousness and constitute the founda- tions of all knowledge; or, as Comenius puts it, "There is nothing in the intellect which has not first been in the senses." There are four factors in the production of a sensation: (i) A stimulus; (2) a sensory nerve to carry the impres- sion made by the stimulus to the brain cells; (3) a con- THE TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS 263 scious mind; (4) a change in the conscious mind. Some force is required to overcome the inertia of the nerves and brain cells, and the point at which the mind can just begin to distinguish the sensation is called the threshold of sensation. Sensations differ greatly as to their quality, intensity, and duration and these differences furnish the materials for the fundamental intellectual operations of compar- ison, discrimination, selection, assimilation, and associa- tion. Owing to the fact that sensations always have tone, or the element of pleasure or pain, they form the basis of feeling and emotion. Thus the materials upon which the mind works come to it through the senses. Our percepts, our memory images, our concepts,, our beliefs and opinions are all based upon this material. (b) Percepts. — A percept is the consciousness of any object as occupying space, possessing certain qualities, and actually present to the senses. The manifold objects of the external world crowd upon our senses, giving rise to count- less sensations; we attend to some of these, compare them, note their likeness or difference to former sensations we have had, and infer that they are caused by certain stimuli. This process is called the interpretation of sensations. The mental act is perceiving; the power of the mind to act in this way is called perception; the result in consciousness of the act is called a percept. Percepts constitute real knowledge of individual objects. The word "object" here means any individual thing present to the senses, any single fact, date, event, relation, or quality. Percepts are also called individual notions or concrete notions. As to their nature, percepts are vivid mental pictures dependent upon external objects, their qualities and rela- tions; they are transitory states of mind, coming and going 264 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL rapidly with our constantly changing environment; they are largely independent of the will in their origin; they are simple when derived through one sense only, and complex when they are the result of the combined action of two or more senses; and they are the basis of all memory images. In forming percepts the mind is by no means passive. Objects are not simply stamped on the mind as a seal is stamped on wax. The same object may appear very differ- ent to two individuals or to the same person at different times. New impressions are interpreted by means of old ones, and thus every new percept is changed and colored by the contents of the mind. From these considerations it is plain that we cannot tell how any new object will appeal to a child or be interpreted by him unless we know something of his previous experiences. Very many of these experiences survive in the mind as memory images. (c) Memory Images. — "A memory image," says Locke, "is a revived percept only less vivid." Remembering is a complex act of the mind, for it involves (i) retention, (2) reproduction or recollection, and (3) recognition. The impressions made upon the brain cells in the act of receiv- ing sensations modify these cells, and these modifications tend to become permanent. This is the physical basis of memory and is called retention. The power of the will to cause these brain cells, without the aid of any physical stimulus, to work again as they worked in the act of sensation and perception, and thus call back a former experience, is called reproduction or recollection. The power of the mind to know this experience as an actual and personal one and refer it to a definite time and place is called recognition. Thus memory is the mind's power to retain, reproduce, and recognize any past experience and refer it to a definite time and place. Memory images are THE TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS 265 independent of external objects. In perception actual material stimuli are presented to the senses. In remem- bering, these stimuli are represented in the mind in the form of memory images. Perception gives us command of the present; memory makes us master of the past. From earliest infancy the child has been accumulating experiences of every kind — experiences of taste, smell, touch, muscular movements, hearing, and sight. Memory forms images of these experiences. As soon as he acquires spoken language he learns to call these experiences by certain names. These images of past experiences with the names for the same constitute the child's stock of knowledge, or the contents of his mind. Thus memory renders the child less and less the slave of the objective world. In the place of actual sensations and percepts he substitutes memory images and thus saves times and energy. Moreover, these images of past experiences tend to arrange themselves in definite and related groups based on some thought relation. These types, or groups, of images are arranged in such a way that any one image of a group tends to suggest the others. These groups of as- sociated images are sometimes called apperception masses. They seem to have the power of reaching out, as it were, to meet any new related images or ideas that enter con- sciousness and of assimilating them, thus making a con- stantly richer and more complex mental content. This process constitutes growth in knowledge. (d) Images of Imagination.— As we have seen, a memory image is one which serves as a symbol of actual previous experiences. These images are so nearly a literal repro- duction of such experiences that the mind easily recognizes them as based on reality. But the mind also has the power of modifying these images in many different ways. It may 266 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL think of them (i) as dissociated, or separated into parts, or changed in time or space; (2) as enlarged or diminished; (3) as simply combined, without change, with other images or parts of images; (4) or the mind may select certain parts or elements of images, change them to fit some definite plan, and out of these parts, so changed, construct a new image. Imagination is the power of the mind to dis- sociate the elements of past experiences and recombine them into new forms. Imagination may be simple or complex, mechanical or constructive, dissociative or asso- ciative. In its complex form it involves memory, com- parison, abstraction, judgment, and will. All its materials are based on sense-perceptions. It creates nothing. Yet through this magic power of the mind the child, under a skilful teacher, is able to modify his percepts and memory images in such wondrous fashion as to build up vivid pictures of mountains and oceans that he has never seen, of distant places that he has never visited, of important events of past centuries, of the operation of invisible forces and laws, and of the ideals to which he aspires; and these images of the imagination, these children of fancy, these ideals of excellence and nobility may become the most potent forces in shaping his character. (e) Concepts. — A concept, or general notion, is the sum of all the qualities common to a class. Concepts cannot be imaged, for an image must contain the individual qualities of an object, whereas a concept must contain only those qualities that are common to the whole class. Concepts are not fixed and constant, but are always in process of expansion and development. Very young children form concepts, but these are comparatively crude. To change these crude, imperfect concepts into logical, exact, com- plete concepts is the chief business of education and ex- THE TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS 267 perience. This is the great truth which Pestalozzi so reiterates in "How Gertrude Teaches Her Children." To him clear ideas are the goal of all instruction. Read- ing, writing, numbers, drawing were only means by which the pupil's knowledge "should grow from confusion to definiteness: from definiteness to plainness; and from plainness to perfect clearness." This progress to clear ideas is not a steady, unbroken one. It is an irregular growth out of mental confusion and uncertainty into clear- ness and certainty. At times there seems to be no prog- ress whatever; then there is a period of rapid growth. The psychology of the teaching process must deal constantly with the manner in which clear concepts are formed. The formation of a concept always implies thought, but the thought process need not be a continuous one. From earliest infancy children are close and constant observers. They compare, examine, note likenesses and differences, sift out qualities, and, in a crude way, classify and define objects. Long before they enter the school, children have learned to put certain objects into the class horse and certain other objects into the class flower or house or good. They have learned that some things will burn, that some things creep or fly or run. The processes of observing, comparing, classifying are as natural to chil- dren as playing or running, and are usually unconscious processes. Thus in his out-of-school experiences the child's concepts are formed bit by bit, through repeated acts of observation and comparison. But in the school, under the direction of the teacher, concepts should be reached by more continuous and systematic thinking. This mode of thinking is called induction. Induction is thinking from sensations and percepts to concepts. It begins with the observation of individual cases, facts, 268 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL objects, relations, and by means of comparison, abstract tion, and generalization reaches up to a general principle, truth, class, or law. The reverse of this process of thinking is called deduction. It is clear that all inductive thinking must be based on actual personal experience, observation, and experiment. If all the individuals in a class are examined in making an induction, the conclusion is called a perfect induction. If only a few individuals are exam- ined, and some logical reason is discovered why all other objects of the class must possess a certain quality, the induction is called imperfect; but if no such logical reason is discovered, the induction formed would be a hasty induction and would not be trustworthy or valid. As De Garmo says, "If we infer too much, we think we per- ceive what is not true; if we infer too little, we are of those who, having eyes, see not." The steps in thinking the concept, as the inductive process is called, and their relation to teaching require explanation. First Step, Observation. — Bain says, "Observation is sense-impression plus inference." In the observation of objects, qualities, and processes in school work the pupil employs the same powers of sensation, perception, and inference that he uses out of school, but he uses them in a different way. Under skilful teaching he observes more carefully and he examines m.»re minutely. The school limits the range of the child's observation, but what he loses in extent he gains in clearness and depth of impres- sion. By attending to fewer things he gains in power of at- tention. There is a great deal of truth in the statement that we can neither know nor touch nor see except as we have been trained to know and touch and see. It is one of the great ends of school training to transform the spontaneous, careless, almost unconscious observation natural to chil- THE TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS 269 dren into the close, persistent, exact, and systematic ob* servation of the trained student or scientist. The materials at the teacher's command for training pupils in observation are abundant and varied. They include all the natural environment of the school, the soils, rocks, and strata; the changing seasons, clouds, winds, fogs, rain, and snow; the varying appearance and position of the sun, moon, planets, and stars; the trees and plants, their kinds, growth, flowers, fruits, and various uses; animals, as to their size, habits, form, color, instincts, movements, food, enemies, and uses. And in addition to all these, there are the materials that may be drawn from the pupil's social environment, the persons whom he meets, their occupa- tions, interests, classes, dress, customs, institutions. And yet with all this wealth of material close at hand, teachers too often fail to make use of it. They attempt the im- possible by trying to teach concepts in the form of defini- tions and rules as mere abstractions, without any sure foundations of actual experience and observation on the part of the pupil. "To exercise the senses carefully in discriminating the differences of natural objects is to lay the foundation of all wisdom, all eloquence, and of all good and prudent action. The right instruction of youth does not consist in cramming them with a mass of words, phrases, sentences, and opinions collected from authors. . . . Not the shadows of things; but the things themselves, which make an impression upon the senses and imagina- tion, are to be brought before the youth." Second Step, Comparison. — Comparison always implies two objects or ideas to be compared, and the purpose of comparison is to discover the likenesses and differences between these objects or ideas. Some of these likenesses and differences lie on the surface and are easily discovered, 270 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL others are not at first apparent and must be sought for diligently. Some are unimportant, others are essential. Children very early acquire great facility in discovering resemblances among the people and objects that surround them. They soon come to understand what constitutes a horse or a chair or a cat or any other familiar object. In school work this process of comparison must be stimu- lated and directed, for it forms the basis of clear and accurate conception. Only by the constant exercise of comparison can children form a proper concept of Wash- ington, Lincoln, Arnold, and Nathan Hale, or form any adequate notion of such terms as ocean, hill, valley, desert, fraction, quotient, phrase, sentence, etc. Third Step, Abstraction. — In the process of comparison the mind notes certain qualities of the things compared, as color, form, size, weight, structure, materials, arrange- ment, and use. Some of these are seen to be necessary to the very nature of the things compared, and therefore are called essential qualities. Other qualities, not common to all the objects compared nor necessary to their existence, are seen to be non-essential qualities. The mental act of selecting or picking out the common and essential qualities of an object and rejecting the non-essential ones is called abstraction. Thus the child compares the animals that he sees, notes their form, size, color, and habits. He observes that some walk or run, that others fly or swim or crawl. He discovers that some of them live in holes, others in nests; that some are covered with hair, others with fur, feathers, scales, or shells. He learns that some of them are tame, others are wild; some are useful to man, others are regarded as enemies. All these facts must be compared, elaborated, connected by the learner. Grad- ually the common and essential qualities of all these differ- THE TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS 271 ent animals are sifted out from the great number and variety of qualities, and these essential qualities form the basis of the crowning act in the inductive process; that is, generalization. Fourth Step, Generalization.— By generalization we mean the mental act by which the learner forms a class, or head, including all objects that possess certain common and essential qualities. In observation, comparison, and ab- straction the mind deals with a limited number of individ- ual objects and their qualities and sifts out some quality or qualities which are common to them all; but in generaliza- tion the mind classifies under one head not only all the objects so far examined that possess the common quality or qualities but also all other objects possessing such quality or group of qualities. Thus the number of objects in a class becomes indefinite. In the act of generalization the mind shakes off the ordinary limitations of time and space and number and forms a universal or general notion. This general notion is called a concept. It includes an indefinite number of objects but a definite number of qualities. When expressed in language these general notions, or concepts, take the form of words, definitions, laws, principles, rules, maxims, proverbs. These concepts are the aim, or goal, in all inductive teaching; and their skilful and ready use is the aim of deductive instruction. They are the means by which new ideas and experiences are assimilated. Without these our knowledge could not be classified, nor could we form any conclusion that would be valid beyond the limited range of our own personal experience. Thus through his own personal experience, supple- mented by the systematic instruction of the school, the pupil rises step by step out of the confusion and indefinite- 272 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL ness of sense-impressions into the realm of clear and precise ideas. As Pestalozzi says* 'The world lies before our eyes like a sea of confused sense-impressions flowing into one another. If our development through nature only is not sufficiently rapid and unimpeded, the business of instruction is to remove the confusion of these sense- impressions; to separate the objects one from another; to put together in imagination those that resemble or are related to each other, and in this way to make all clear to us, and by perfect clearness in these to raise in us distinct ideas." At first the child's concepts are crude, imperfect, inaccurate. Such concepts are called psychical, or crude, concepts. Little by little through the constant repetition of the mental processes of observation, comparison, and generalization, described above, these crude and imperfect concepts grow in accuracy, clearness, and defmiteness until they include all the common and essential qualities of the class and no other qualities. Such concepts are called logical concepts. Now text-books contain these logical, complete concepts in the _orm of definitions, rules, laws, principles, and children are too often set to learning them from the book. That this method of procedure is utterly stupid, unnatural, and unpsychological any one who has read the preceding discussion can understand. (3) The Factors of Feeling and Will. — We have now completed our brief survey of the child's mental capital and the processes by which it is acquired. It has been shown that sensations, percepts, memory images, images of the imagination, and concepts constitute the materials with which the teacher must work in the teaching process, and the mental acts through which the child accumulates these materials have been indicated. But the child is not all intellect. He possesses feeling and will, and these THE TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS 273 powers must be reckoned with in teaching. Indeed, these factors of feeling and volition are so important that no teacher who ignores them can be successful. Thoughtful teachers, even with no professional training whatever, very- soon discover through experience the immense importance of the three words, study, interest, and attention as related to effective school work. But it would seem that some professionally trained teachers fail to realize that study is thinking, or the exercise of the intellect; that interest is feeling; and that attention is will. Now the mind is not a hydra-headed thing. Thinking, feeling, willing are not separate, independent powers, or functions, of the mind. They are all present, in different relative oroportions, in every mental act. Each deliberate act of the child, each mental image, each idea has its thought side, its emotional side, its volitional side. Intellect is the discriminating and assimilating power of the mind; a feeling or an emotion is the pleasurable or painful side of any mental state; will originates in the tendency of an idea or an image to go out into action. Feeling inspires and stimulates thought and action; will guides, sustains, and controls them. Feeling, in the form of interest, must enter into every step of the teaching-learning process. To the real teacher the pupil's interest in the subject of the lesson is a vital consideration. This interest may be direct or indirect. Direct interest is that interest which the pupil has in a subject for its own sake, its own attractiveness. Indirect interest is simply a means to an end. Interest is transitory, lasting only for the time being, or permanent. Transitory interest may be almost valueless as to its influence upon character; permanent interest, on the other hand, is vitally related to growth in character. Herbart points out two sources of interest, nature and 274 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL society. When interest is directed toward nature it may be of three kinds, empirical, speculative, and aesthetic. There are also three kinds of interest that grow out of the pupil's relation to society; these are sympathetic interest, social interest, and religious interest. In view of the fact that every teacher has all these sources of interest at his command, Mr. Quick says: "I would go so far as to lay it down as a rule that whenever children are inattentive and apparently take no interest in a lesson, the teacher should always look to himself for the reason." This much, at least, may be safely affirmed; the school work of the student will be of very little benefit to him unless he is actively interested in his lessons. And when such interest is lacking, it is the teacher's first duty to seek for the cause of such lack of interest and do his very best to remove it. The cause may be in the pupil, the teacher, the subject, the home, or the outside influences surrounding the pupil. Again, it must be noted that not one step of the teaching process can be successfully accomplished unless the pupil's will is taken into account. How to capture the pupil's will is the teacher's greatest problem in the recitation. This is the problem of attention. Voluntary attention is consciousness directed toward some specific object or idea. Without the attention of the class the teaching process breaks down utterly. And this attention cannot be a forced, grudging attention; it must be free, spontane- ous, eager, persistent. Here the teacher must employ all his skill in method, all his expedients and devices in illus- tration, all his powers of persuasion, all his knowledge of the child's instincts, motives, and interests. A little reflec- tion will convince the teacher that in order to secure and hold the attention of the pupils to the lesson in hand they amst have some definite and immediate end or aim in vie^ 7 THE TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS 275 and that the attainment of this aim must appeal to them as worth while and must be within the range of their powers. The teacher must also realize that the three factors in attention are (i) the physical condition of the pupil; (2) the kind and the amount of the stimulus; (3) the relation of the stimulus to the child's instincts and acquired interests. Teachers should not expect pupils to give prolonged attention to an uninteresting subject or to an unvarying stimulus. They should not expect attention where there is no sufficient incentive. They must make due allowance for fatigue and must seek to vary the work of the recitation by introducing appropriate forms of motor expression. Summary. — In this discussion of the nature of the teaching process it has been shown that most definitions of teaching fail to give an adequate conception of the process; that true teaching cannot be mechanical; that in the teaching process the teacher must deal with the whole child, his nervous system, his instincts and acquired interests, the contents of his mind, his feelings, and will. Some Important Inferences. — (1) If the teacher is to be anything more than a "mere hearer of lessons," he must, in the act of instruction, be able to follow the pupil's men- tal processes in acquiring any certain kind of knowledge. Such knowledge on the teacher's part is by no means impossible, for, notwithstanding the great complexity and variety of the pupil's mental processes, there are two, and only two, great types of thinking, and these two types of thinking serve to explain what goes on in the mind of the child in the act of learning. Induction and deduction are the common names for these two types of thinking. In- ductive thinking, as we have shown, is thinking from percepts, individual notions, particular cases, concrete data, 276 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL specific facts, qualities or relations to concepts, defini- tions, laws, rules, principles, or general classes. De- ductive thinking is the reverse of inductive thinking. Both of these types of thinking are equally natural and equally important in the teaching process. Every child thinks both inductively and deductively in all stages of his development. Now it is a comparatively easy thing for the teacher to follow these two fundamen- tal processes in the child's act of learning. The pupil is not conscious of the mental processes involved in an act of learning; he is conscious of the lesson only and the external means of instruction used by the teacher. But the teacher is already familiar with the subject-matter and is free to think of the pupil's mental processes in the act of learning. Moreover, the teacher can deter- mine beforehand from the nature of the subject-matter of the lesson and his knowledge of the nature of the pu- pils' thinking whether they must think inductively or deductively in the recitation, and thus he can adapt his lesson plans, questions, illustrations, and entire procedure to meet the needs of the pupils. Only in this way can teaching become a simple, natural, rational process. (2) The recitation is a double process, a thinking to- gether of teacher and pupils. The thinking of the pu- pils must be vitally related to that of the teacher; each must match, so to speak, or dovetail with the other. Nothing should be permitted to interfere with this double process of thought. "The stream of thought," to use a favorite expression of Dr. James, should flow on uninterruptedly during the recitation, gathering force and momentum at every stage. (3) All the powers of the child should be appealed to THE TEACHING-LEARNING PROCESS 277 in the process of teaching — interest, attention, percep- tion, memory, oral expression, imagination, comparison, inference, motor activity. (4) Every step in the teaching-learning process in- volves certain fundamental laws, and the method of teaching and all the devices used to make the method effective must be governed by these laws. Some of these laws will be stated in the following chapter. SUGGESTED READINGS Strayer, "A Brief Course in the Teaching Process," chaps. II, III, XIX; Freeman, "How Children Learn," chaps. I, XI; Colvin, "The Learning Process," chaps. I, II; Starch, "Educa- tional Psychology," Part II; Earhart, "Teaching Children to Study," chaps. II, III; Swift, "Learning by Doing," chaps. II, IV, V; Dewey, "Interest and Effort in Education"; Charters, "Methods of Teaching," chaps. VIII, IX, X; Hall, "The Con- tents of Children's Minds on Entering School"; Thorndike, "Principles of Teaching," chaps. I, X, XI; Bagley, "Classroom Management," chaps. IX, X; Home, "Psychological Principles of Education," chaps. V, IX, XXII; Angell, "Psychology," chaps. XV, XVI; Edwards, "Fundamental Principles of Learn- ing and Study." CHAPTER XIX SOME LAWS OF TEACHING AND LEARNING That there are laws of teaching must be admitted by all who believe in a science of education. It is hardly rational to assume that all the efforts of the great educators of the past centuries have been utterly fruitless and that we have nothing to learn from their experience. It is by no means claimed that all the laws of teaching have been discovered. Only a few of them have been formulated. Others are in process of formulation. Still there are some laws of teaching, even with our imperfect knowledge of psychology, which are founded upon a solid basis. These laws the teacher should know and apply. I. The Law of Sense-perception. — "There is nothing in the mind that has not first been in the senses." This is the statement of Comenius, the disciple of Bacon, and it was in following out this principle that he wrote his famous "Orbis Pictus," the first text-book containing pictures. In his course of study for elementary schools he included measuring and weighing, music, drawing, experimental physics, geography, the arts and handicrafts. He would furnish occupation for the hands of the learner as well as the mind. He thought that the hands and the senses are the child's first teachers. These same princi- ples have been emphasized by Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Froebel, but they have won ground very slowly in their application to the actual work of the schools. It is so 278 SOME LAWS OF TEACHING AND LEARNING 279 much easier to assign lessons by pages to be memorized from the text-books than it is to plan work for the exercise of the senses and the judgment, so much easier to be a mere taskmaster than a trainer, that teachers, even those who know better, fall into the habits of mere verbalism and formalism against which the great reformers in educa- tion have so strenuously contended. And yet it is becoming more apparent every year that all educative influences must affect the mind by means of the body. The senses, as Bunyan so beautifully put it, are the real gateways to the soul. The better one's senses are trained the fuller and richer are the materials for the structure of his mental life; for without vivid and varied sense-perceptions there can be no clear and accurate memory ■ images, no sure basis for constructive imagina- tion, and no certainty of judgment and inference. " Open- ing the windows of consciousness" for the pupil is the teacher's first vital task in instruction. II. The Law of Motor Reaction. — Every sensory stimu- lus that affects the child's consciousness suggests some mental state, or idea, and this mental state, or idea, tends to go out into motor action. There is a motor element in every distinct image, idea* or emotion. Impression always suggests expression. That a sensory stimulus tends to produce an appropriate muscu- lar response is a law that applies to the cortex as well as to v the spinal cord. In the case of the spinal cord, however, the response is immediate and is called a reflex act or an instinctive act. But the tendency of an image or an idea to go out into motor action may be restrained or inhibited by an effort of will. It is a well-known fact that every emotion has its char- acteristic form of physical expression. Anger, fear, hope, 280 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL joy, hate, all have their familiar signs. Even where the tendency of an idea or emotion to go out into its appropriate physical expression is checked or outwardly suppressed, the effects of such a check or suppression are felt in all the bodily organs — mirrored in the face and muscles, revealed in the deeper breathing and the quickened heart-beat. This law makes it obligatory upon the teacher to remove all disturbing stimuli from the school-room and to avoid every unpleasant or irritating suggestion; for anger, fear, and dislike, either given vent or suppressed, are a fearful drain upon the vital powers of both teacher and pupils. This law also makes clear the great importance of provid- ing appropriate and abundant means of physical expression in the work of the school, especially in the lower grades, for the attempt to express an idea is the surest and best method of making that idea clear, distinct, and a perma- nent possession. It would seem that ideas must be ex- pressed in some form of motor activity in order to become clear and definite. From this it will be seen that the chief value of painting, drawing, modelling, and manual training in the schools is not to make artists or mechanics of the pupils, but that these modes of expressing ideas through physical action form the only possible basis of clear think- ing and rational education. It should not be forgotten, however, that children from the first are to be taught to check and restrain motor im- pulses which ought not to be expressed. Social customs, decency, politeness, and the requirements of the school all make it imperative that children should not permit every impulse, idea, and emotion to find expression. At first the child is the slave of his emotions and feelings, has very little power of restraint, and does not understand the reasons why he may not cry or fly into a passion; but little SOME LAWS OF TEACHING AND LEARNING 281 by little he must be taught the customs and conventions of civilized society, taught to inhibit undesirable impulses, suppress selfish emotions, and refrain from unbecoming actions. This power of self-control, of daily subordinating the lower to the higher self, of enthroning reason and conscience in the life is the most precious training that the school can give. III. The Law of Apperception. — New experiences of every kind are interpreted and assimilated only by means of old experiences. Apperception is the combining and relating activity of the mind. It is the common element in perception, repre- sentation, conception, and reasoning. It involves reten- tion, comparison, and constructive imagination. Through apperception the mind combines all the differ- ent sensations derived through touching, seeing, smelling, and testing a peach or an apple into one percept. Through apperception the mind unites the different percepts of trees, houses, hills, and valleys into one complete image of a landscape. Through apperception the mind groups related ideas into one cluster or collection called an apper- ceptive mass, and these clusters of ideas are being con- stantly enlarged and enriched and made more perfect by the addition of new ideas. And, lastly, the mind through its apperceptive activity brings into unity and harmony all these various groups or masses of knowledge, correlates all our acquisitions in science, history, art, literature, and the ordinary affairs of life, and forms the mental content that characterizes us as individuals. Thus, as Baldwin says, "This combining of all the items or groups of items into ever larger and more fruitful combinations is the one typical way the mind has of acting." It will very readily be seen that this great law of apper- 282 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL ception applies to the teaching of all subjects, and that little or no progress can be made in teaching any lesson unless the teacher conforms to this law. Moreover, the laws of the association of ideas grow out of the law of apperception. These laws are based on the fact that when any ideas have been apperceived by the mind as related in time, space, resemblance, difference, whole and parts, identity, cause and effect, design, etc., any one of them will tend to suggest the others. Facts that are thus firmly welded together become the permanent possession of the mind, and the great function of the teacher as an instructor is to assist the pupil to establish these logical and lasting relations among the ideas acquired. A few suggestions for applying this law may not be out of place. (i) The starting-point in every lesson must be within the range of the pupil's knowledge and his previous ex- periences. Unless the teacher complies with this require- ment, there is no real contact between the lesson and the pupil's mind, and failure is a foregone conclusion. The teacher must begin his instruction where he finds the pupil and must think with him, otherwise there can be no pro- gressive development of the ideas of the lesson; for the child cannot make images unless he has first acquired the necessary raw materials through sensation and perception. (2) The individual members of the class will receive very different impressions from the same lesson. Just as the same oak-tree may call up very different images in the mind of a hunter, a lumberman, and an artist, so may the same lesson call up very dissimilar images in the minds of the pupils that compose the class. Each pupil will see in the lesson pretty much what he brings to it. He will interpret it in terms of his past experience. The teacher must know something of the contents of the pupil's Kiind, SOME LAWS OF TEACHING AND LEARNING 283 must know something of his previous experiences, before he can foretell the effect of the lesson or judge how it will be apperceived by him. What each particular pupil thinks or feels or wills during any lesson will depend on his past thoughts, feelings, and actions. In a certain reading class the lesson for the day was the poem, * ' Woodman, Spare That Tree. ' ' The teacher called on one little boy to read the lines: u Twas here my sisters played, My mother kissed me here." The little fellow shook his head and sat still. The teacher insisted, commanded. At last he rose, began the lines falteringly, broke down, and sobbed. Not until one of the other children told the teacher that the boy's mother had died only a few weeks before school began did she understand his seeming stubbornness. (3) The teacher should strive to present the ideas con- tained in the lesson in organic relation to each other, not as a mass of disconnected facts. As we have stated, facts connected by means of thought relations are easily asso- ciated together in the mind, and will afterward tend to suggest each other. But the pupil must apperceive these relations, be fully conscious that they exist, and understand their connection with his old knowledge and former experiences. (4) The law of apperception reveals to the teacher the immense value of the child's previous experiences, espe- cially his out-of-school experiences, as a factor in instruc- tion, as well as the importance of a thorough mastery of essentials by the constant application of definitions and rules to new cases. The old knowledge of the child should 284 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL never be permitted to become "dead knowledge," but should be kept alive through constant use in acquiring new knowledge. In this way the old knowledge of the pupil is worked over, revived, enlarged, enriched, com- pletely mastered. (5) The law of apperception explains many of the well- known educational maxims, such as "from the known to the unknown," "from the empirical to the rational," "from the simple to the complex," "from the concrete to the abstract." These maxims should not be regarded as universal laws of teaching. IV. The Law of Self-activity. — The right unfolding of the mind is possible only through its own activity and under proper conditions. Exercise is the law of growth, but the proper kind and amount of exercise is essential to the right kind of growth. Organs are modified by function and disuse causes atro- phy. Therefore the mental and moral unfolding of the child needs intelligent direction. It is the business of the home and the school to give such direction. But the child can never be a passive partner in his own development. Before the school age the child learns to talk, to use his hands, to walk, and a hundred other things, urged on by his natural self-activity and his instinct to imitate those about him. This persistent imitation always involves will and some form of expression and is the beginning of educa- tion. At first the child imitates only the external act of another, but very soon he makes the act his own, gets hold of the purpose of the action and the motives of the actor. Thus from being an imitator he becomes an originator, a creator. This desire to create, this self-activity, leads the child to the constant exercise of his powers both physical and mental. He has a restless eagerness to touch, to SOME LAWS OF TEACHING AND LEARNING 285 examine, to pull apart, and to change everything about him. He uses his senses, his hands, his legs, his voice constantly, and in this way acquires ideas with marvellous facility. Now why should this natural mode of acquiring ideas be changed as soon as he enters school? Why should this natural method of learning be replaced by the stupid process to which he is subjected in the average school? Why should it be thought necessary to make him sit still, keep quiet, and become a mere passive recip- ient of ideas which in some mysterious manner the words of the teacher or the text-book are supposed to impart? Telling a boy how to move his hands and feet in swimming is not teaching him to swim. The teacher cannot see or hear or remember for his pupils. Only as they actively participate in the act of instruction do children really learn. The teacher can suggest the aim, plan the work, select the materials for the lesson, supply the motives, furnish the data for inferences, but learning must be the result of the pupil's own activity. Thinking is an individual process not a class affair. Real study is not a partnership concern. Knowledge is neither imparted nor absorbed through words without ideas, but knowledge, skill, and self-reliance are the result of the pupil's own self-activity wisely di- rected. The loquacious teacher is a mind-killer. The law of self-activity consistently applied in. the education of the pupil makes him an independent and a willing worker, guarantees vividness and permanency to knowledge, creates enthusiasm for learning, cultivates courage in mastering difficulties, and prevents school life and school work from degenerating into hateful tasks imposed by the arbitrary authority of the teacher. V. The Law of Aim. — Unless both teacher and learner are conscious of a definite aim, continuous co-operation 286 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL in the process of instruction cannot be secured. Or, in shorter form, no aim, no will; and no will, no work. This law applies to the study of a lesson as well as to the recitation. The value of having a definite aim is revealed in every step of the teaching process. It serves as the welding- point of the effort of teacher and pupils, and makes it possible for them to become co-workers. The pleasure of learning grows out of the consciousness of achieve- ment, and every specific aim realized by the pupil is transformed into power to accomplish higher and more difficult things. The aim of the lesson must appeal to those ideas al- ready acquired by the pupil with which the new ideas of the lesson can be most readily associated. These old ideas are the source of the pupil's interest in the new lesson, and hence become his motives to self -activity. The pupil must see from the first what the aim of the lesson is if he is to use all his powers freely and vigorously in the effort to reach that aim. So the teacher must not only have a specific aim himself in the recitation, but must also succeed in having the pupil set up the same aim in his own mind, for without a clearly defined aim there is no will, no interest, no self-activity. That teacher who is careful to have a definite aim, who realizes that no mere statement of the aim of the lesson will suffice to fix that aim in the pupil's mind, who through skilful questioning, guided by the laws of association, calls up in the pupil's consciousness those images and ideas most nearly related to the new ideas to be taught, may rest assured that much of his activity, his energy, his effort deserves the name of " work." Without such an aim the teacher's method must be SOME LAWS OF TEACHING AND LEARNING 287 as indefinite as that of a certain old Scotch professor of theology who, when asked how he treated his subject, replied: " I just begin with infinity and go right on." And without such a clear and definite aim in his mind tne pupil will not be able to prevent his mind from wan- dering from the work in hand. VI. The Law of Induction. — In the earlier stages of learning, inductive thinking must precede deductive thinking. The reasons for this law have been given in the pre- ceding chapter, where the steps in thinking the concept were discussed. Whenever the goal, or aim, of the les- son is a concept, definition, law, rule, or general prin- ciple, the thinking of the pupil must proceed inductively. But to assume that all lessons, even in primary classes, can be taught inductively is a fundamental pedagogical error. Many such lessons must consist of memory work, pure and simple. Inductive thinking begins with objects, specific cases, concrete data, individual notions, and through comparison and abstraction reaches a general conclusion or truth; but this process cannot be a continuous, unbroken inductive process. The child does not attain general truths and laws at one great stride of thought. He gets a very imperfect concept of a class at first, only a glimpse of the truth or law, and must wait for further experience to perfect his knowledge. His first inductions are only partial generalizations. But he must not wait to act until he fully understands the law or completely masters the principle. He must act on his imperfect knowledge and test his conclusions by applying them. Thus through deductive thinking he is constantly testing and supplementing his imper- fect concepts and partial generalizations acquired 28S THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL through induction. This will appear more clearly in the discussion of the next law. VII. The Law of Deduction. — Inferences reached through inductive thinking must be applied to new cases before they can be thoroughly understood or produce any permanent effect upon the character. It is the function of induction to furnish the mind with logical concepts in the form of definitions, rules, and principles; the function of deduction is to apply these laws and principles to new cases, to the forecasting of results, to anticipating the effects of known causes. We have pointed out the fact that concepts are of two kinds: (i) Crude and imperfect, (2) logical, and that it is a mistake to suppose that children must wait until they attain logical concepts before they can reason de- ductively. Children delight to apply their knowledge as fast as they acquire it. When a boy one year and a half old first saw a tiger in a cage, he clapped his hands, crying out, "See, papa, big kitty." He was thinking deductively. It is the very nature of the child to make the facts and inferences which he has already acquired the premises for further conclusions. He turns his knowledge to account as fast as he acquires it. In fact, his strongest motive for acquiring knowledge is to use it and to use it immediately. This tendency should be encouraged, not thwarted, by the teacher. Only in this way does knowledge acquired become a means of train- ing in skill and efficiency. One of the most common and pernicious practices of the school-room is to treat the concepts, definitions, and rules acquired by the pu- pils at great cost of time and effort as so much material to be stored away in the mind for use at some remote future time. Not knowledge, but the ready and skilful SOME LAWS OF TEACHING AND LEARNING 289 use of knowledge, is power. As Dr. Dewey says: " Edu- cation is not preparation for life merely; it is life." Knowing and doing are too often widely separated. That conduct and profession so often contradict each other is one of the greatest evils in our American life. The true test of character is found in the application of one's knowledge to the affairs of daily life. To apply knowledge properly as fast as it is acquired is, then, one of the most important habits that school training can give to the pupil. VIII. The Law of Interest and Attention. — The greater the interest and attention of the pupil when ideas are first conceived, the more vivid and permanent will be the knowledge gained and the less need will there be of repetition. Interest is feeling and attention represents the will. No lesson can be made vital and effective in the child's life or exert any strong influence upon his growth and character that does not enlist his feelings and capture his will. In fact, some degree of interest and attention is necessary on the part of the pupil to secure the merest husks of knowledge from the text-book or the lesson, so that teachers are under the necessity of either compel- ling a show of interest and attention by threats and pun- ishments or of buying it with marks and prizes. But how different such interest and attention are from the genuine articles is shown by the extreme facility with which children forget what they have so painfully learned, and by the further fact that what they learn in school has very little effect in shaping their conduct out of school. Real interest is any form of feeling that arouses the will to voluntary effort. It is the source of motives and 290 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL incentives. There are habits of feeling as well as habits of acting, and the teacher should strive to form in the pupils correct, many-sided, and permanent interests and emotional habits. The law of apperception makes it clear that all new interests must grow out of old ones. So the great secret of " creating interest" in school work is to discover what interests the pupil has already de- veloped, and then to graft on to his old interests the bud of a new one. Attention grows out of interest and re-enforces it. The teacher should never lose sight of the fact that the child's susceptibility to stimuli and his power to respond to them vary greatly with his age, the stage of his devel- opment, with different days, and with different periods of the same day. The wise teacher will always take ac- count of the amount of nervous energy at the disposal of his pupils, for to make large demands on the interest and attention of pupils who are thoroughly fatigued is to "kick against the pricks." The effects of concentrating the attention upon any image or idea are: (i) the image or idea grows in vivid- ness, clearness, and definiteness; (2) it increases in feel- ing or interest; (3) it gains in motor power or its ten- dency to go out into action. Thus, such an image or idea becomes a motive to action. From this it is clear that forming the character is, in reality, training the will or, in the last analysis, cultivating the power of voluntary attention and forming habits. This is what Rooper means when he says: "I am not sure that if the teacher's art is to be summed up briefly it may not be described as the art of developing the power of fixing the attention." IX. The Law of Habit-forming. — Every voluntary action produces some modification of the nervous sys- SOME LAWS OF TEACHING AND LEARNING 291 tern which persists as a tendency to repeat the act, thus forming the basis of habit, and conscious repetitions of this act result in its automatic performance. A habit is an acquired reflex act, or series of acts, originally performed by voluntary effort. The physical basis of habit is the plasticity of the matter composing the nervous system. We speak of matter as plastic when it is pliable enough to yield to impressions which gradually change its structure, but stable enough to maintain its organization during the process of change. Such changes are illustrated in the action of a magnet on a piece of iron, in crystallization, and in the harden- ing of plaster of Paris. Thus the physical basis of habit is exactly the same as that of memory and the associa- tion of ideas, for habit is only one phase of the general law that, "All mental experiences occurring together tend afterward to suggest each other." To quote Dr. Carpenter: "Our nervous system grows to the modes in which it has been exercised." One of the most important functions of the school is to train pupils in the formation of right habits and to safeguard them from bad ones. Success here depends on the foresight, intelligence, watchfulness, patience, and persistence of the teacher. The work of training pupils in right habits is literally one that requires "precept upon precept, line upon line; here a little and there a little." There must be sympathy, but no softness; a steady purpose, but no haste; constant supervision, but no spying; variety in instruction and originality in de- vice, but steady, relentless drill and practice in learning and doing the things in education that must be made automatic. Dr. James says: "The great thing in all education is 292 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL to nake our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy.' ' SUGGESTED READINGS James, "Psychology," chaps. X, XIII; Seashore, "Elementary Experiments in Psychology," chaps. IX, XII; Lange, "Ap- perception"; Rooper, "A Pot of Green Feathers"; McMurry, "The Method of the Recitation," chap. IX, and "General Method," chap. V; Quick, "Educational Reformers," pp. 396- 413; Woodworth, "Psychology," chaps. II, IV, XI, XV, XVI, XVTII. CHAPTER XX IMPROVING THE RECITATION LESSON Forms of Teaching-learning. — The form of educa- tional procedure that stands first in the order of time is, of course, the teaching of children in the home. The parental instinct, care and protection of the young, helping them to master the tools of the race and the customs, ideals, and beliefs of the social group into which they are born are the foundation of all educa- tion. Just as the human race is maintained by the transmission of physical life from parent to child, so must the social inheritance of civilized men be preserved and renewed by transmitting it from the older to the younger members of society through education. The child is born into the social group of the family, helpless and ignorant of all things. He must begin the learning process immediately. The home is his first school and his parents are his natural teachers. Other historic forms of the teaching-learning process are: (i) The tutor plan of instruction; (2) the apprentice system of vocational training; (3) learning by means of lectures; (4) memorizing text-books and each pupil re- citing verbatim to the teacher* (5) the modern class, or group, recitation. The Recitation Lesson as a Form of the Teacnmg- learning Process. — In our American schools the teach- ing-learning process takes the form of a class or group exercise conducted by the teacher. In this exercise a problem, topic, project, or portion of subject-matter 293 294 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL from a book is discussed. Whatever the subject-mat- ter of discussion may be constitutes the lesson for the period, and this lesson usually forms one step in a series of lessons in a specific subject arranged in some order of sequence. The lesson is generally assigned by the teacher and, except in the primary grades, is studied by the pupils before the recitation. Aims of the Recitation Lesson. — The aims of the reci- tation lesson, as given by Dr. W. T. Harris, are : (i) To draw out each pupil's view of the lesson and to test his grasp of the subject. (2) To correct the pupil's wrong impressions and en- large his horizon by comparing his views with those of the other members of the class. (3) To arouse interest in the next lesson, stimulate pupils to study it, and to direct their study. (4) To cultivate the habit of close and continuous at- tention. (5) To bring out the teacher's highest powers as an instructor and leader. (6) To supplement what the pupil gives. (7) To inspire self-activity, power of independent study, and keen insight. (8) To teach pupils the great advantages of helpful co-operation with others. (9) To help the pupil to overcome harmful individual peculiarities. Possibilities of the Recitation Lesson. — It is evident that Dr. Harris had great faith in the possibilities of the recitation lesson. Many educational writers regard the recitation lesson as the principal feature of the school. They assert that all the other school activities are only a preparation for the recitation lesson, and that the deep- IMPROVING THE RECITATION LESSON 295 est interests of the school are all focussed in this teaching- learning process. Dr. Hamilton says : "The recitation is the gateway of opportunity both to the teacher and the child. To the teacher it is an opportunity to impart knowledge, to guide effort, to develop power, to form habit, to mould character, to deepen impression, to train in the art of study, to inspire the child with a love of learning, and fix forever his habits of thought and ex- pression. To the child it is an opportunity to acquire knowledge, power, and skill, and to catch glittering glimpses of the great sunlit valley of truth from the glowing hilltops of the teacher's inspiration." Why the Recitation Lesson May Fail to Realize Its Possibilities. — That the recitation lesson may fail most pitifully to realize its aims and possibilities is very much in evidence. Some of the reasons for such failure are : (i) Many Teachers Do Not Know How to Teach. — Such teachers may fail because they have made no prep- aration for their calling, are deficient in knowledge, do not plan their work nor assign lessons intelligently. They neither study the lessons nor train pupils how to study. They are slaves to the text-book, have no aim in teaching the lesson, no standards of measuring results, no enthusiasm. Concerning the recitation lesson under such teachers, the author of "An Ideal School' 7 asks these pointed questions: " Can an immature person study well when distracted by the more lively exercise of the class recitation? Is it not possible that much valuable time of school life has been squandered because the chil- dren have not been systematically taught how to study ? Does the old-time recitation secure individual interest, give free opportunity for individual advancement, and eliminate all dead time ? Are all the pupils of the class 296 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL equally occupied during all the moments of the recita- tion? Are not some pupils carefully calculating their chances of being called on, with every encouragement to take a rest as soon as their turns have passed ? Are not many learning skill in looking the teacher squarely in the eye without hearing a word that is being said? What fraction of the recitation period is the pupil actually re- citing ? Is it not true that the best pupils are the ones most called on when the visitors are present? Is not the recitation a fearful bore to the visitor who is forced to endure its long, tortuous, and uninteresting passage ? What are the ethical values of this kind of work ? " (2) Misuse of Text-books. — When children first come to school they are unable to make any use of the text- book as a means of preparing lessons, for the simple rea- son that they cannot read. The primary teacher must of necessity make very little use of text-books in class. The recitation cannot be simply a testing process. The pupil's mental energy is centred upon immediate acts of perception, experimentation, and dramatizing, not on attempts to reproduce, through memory, words learned from a book. The teacher's attention is fixed on the mental processes of the child, his difficulties and how to overcome them, and this is a main requisite of good teaching. Such an exercise is neither a study period nor a recitation in the ordinary use of the term, but a blend- ing of both, a "study recitation." By this method the progress of the pupils in the lower grades in mastering the difficult arts of reading, phonics, writing, numbers, and accumulating facts in nature study and history is simply wonderful. And yet, as soon as the child has learned to read, books on all subjects are thrust upon him; he is confined to his IMPROVING THE RECITATION LESSON 297 seat for long periods and told to "get his next lesson," winch is commonly assigned by pages, with no sugges- tion or help as to its proper preparation. The pupil's time is sharply divided into study periods and recitations. Teacher and pupil are widely separated, coming into di- rect contact only during the class periods. Such a divi- sion of the pupil's time and such a separation of teacher and pupil are, of course, inevitable if the pupil is to learn the art of independent study; yet there is no doubt but that in our American schools these changes are made too early in the pupil's advancement and too suddenly; that pupils are required to devote too much time to the study of text-books; and that they are not given proper assistance in such study. (3) Lack of Proper Surroundings and Facilities. — The construction of the school-house may be so primitive that no provision is made for recitation rooms. There may be no workshops, laboratory, or gymnasium, and the facilities for teaching, such as blackboards, maps, charts, tools, garden, play-ground, magazines, and reference books are wholly lacking. These conditions have been discussed in Chapter XVI. (4) Lack of Motivation and Social Co-operation on the Part of Pupils. — Motives grow out of instincts, impulses, interests, and felt needs. They naturally take the form of problems to be solved, actions to be performed, aims to be realized. They are guided, re-enforced, modified by efforts to realize them, especially so when one's efforts are shared with others. This is what we mean when we say that "we learn to do by doing." But with in- efficient teachers, misuse of text-books, and lack of proper surroundings and facilities for teaching, the reci- tation lesson does not satisfy any felt need of the pupils, 298 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL nor help them to formulate problems, nor appeal to them as a worth-while affair. There is nothing to stimulate self-activity, arouse interest, challenge thought, invite action. Under such conditions pupils become listless, discontented, sullen. They form habits of divided atten- tion, simulated interest, weak moral conduct, and must be held in school by bribes or threats. Shall the Recitation Lesson Be Abolished? — In view of the many abuses of the recitation lesson some educa- tors advocate giving it up altogether. Ignoring the real causes of the failure of the recitation lesson to realize its possibilities and starting with an outgrown definition of the recitation, based on the etymology of the word, these writers claim that the recitation lesson as a teaching- learning process is hopelessly wrong in theory and bad in practice. One such recent book says: "To get our lesson means to get his (the author of the text-book) words by heart. What is committed in the seats is re- peated in the recitation. The teacher assigns the pages and hears the lesson 'said.' This is the recitation method." But such is not the recitation method as Dr. Harris saw it nor as it is used by any good teacher. Other critics of the recitation lesson assert that it aims to secure only the memory of information, and informa- tion merely for "cold storage," provides only an artificial setting for learning, leaves no opportunity for reasoning, inverts the natural order of instruction by teaching prin- ciples prior to the problems in which they are involved, and makes no provision for using knowledge to modify conduct. That these defects are not inherent in the recitation lesson, but are due to its misuse is, at least, a possible inference. Both method and subject-matter are made IMPROVING THE RECITATION-LESSON 299 concrete and vital in the teacher. As long as weak, un- trained, immature teachers are tolerated, as long as " eighth-graders attempt to teach sixth-graders," there will be poor recitations; but such teachers would do not one whit better with any method of teaching suggested by those who advocate abolishing the recitation-lesson. Improving the Recitation Lesson. — On the whole, it seems to be good sense and good pedagogy to seek edu- cational progress on its instruction side, not by abolish- ing the recitation lesson, but by improving it. Such improvements are now being made, and they constitute the most fascinating phase of current educational thought. Some of the methods of improving the recita- tion lesson are: (i) By the Better Motivation of School Work. — School work is motivated for pupils when it appeals to them as worth while, is full of meaning and interest, satisfies their felt intellectual, recreational, or social needs, and calls forth their best powers in steady and vigorous efforts to solve definite problems and to achieve clearly foreseen ends by the best available means. Work is properly mo- tivated when the worker is vitally and personally con- cerned in the result of his labor and works with this result in mind to urge him on to activity and guide him in action. Under efficient teachers such adequate mo- tivation of school work is not only possible but is an accomplished fact in thousands of school-rooms. Pupils enter whole-heartedly into their work because the teacher has selected the subject-matter, assigned the lessons, and shaped conditions for study in such a way that each class faces a worth-while situation in the recita- tion lesson, confronts a definite problem, and each pupil in the class becomes an active partner in the teaching- 300 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL learning process. Working in such an environment pupils are alert, inventive, resourceful. They use tools, books, magazines, maps, and laboratories as helps in getting clear ideas. They enter eagerly into the class discussions. They question each other. They seek new- sources of information, perceive important thought re- lations, discover new principles, and thus reorganize their past experiences in terms of a better control of their physical and social environment. Such a recita- tion lesson in the school-room is just as much a part of life, just as truly a real situation, just as natural a setting for learning, just as fully a "purposeful activ- ity," just as rich in opportunity for growth as any expe- rience in the home, the field, or the shop can possibly be. (2) By Socializing the Recitation. — Dr. Harris declared that one of the important aims of the recitation lesson is to " teach pupils the great advantages of helpful co-op- eration with others." Thinking, working, playing with others, and sharing in the stimuli and responses that make up the activities of the recitation lesson, children, if wisely guided and supervised, are educated into "so- cial efficiency. " No form of so-called "individual in- struction" yet devised by those who would abolish the recitation lesson supplies an adequate social environ- ment for the teaching-learning process. The recitation lesson is socialized when the class and the teacher work together as members of the group, when the physical and social contacts between the child's life in school and his out-of-school experiences and interests are utilized as sources of problems ^of study, when the subject-matter of the lesson is not so many pages of a text-book but a definite portion of experience to be made significant and to be reorganized in terms of usable information and IMPROVING THE RECITATION LESSON 301 social conduct, and when a fair share of the responsibil- ity for the class work is assumed by the pupils them- selves. As far as possible pupils are to be encouraged to help the teacher in the selection of the problems to be worked out, the planning of the means to be used to achieve the desired results, the gathering of material, and the assignment of specific work for each member of the class. Each pupil should make a definite contribu- tion to the work of the class and all pupils should be given opportunities for trying out ideas, for the manipu- lation of materials, for purposeful observation, for free discussions and questions, and for the discovery and formulation of new concepts and principles. The social- ized recitation lesson thus becomes the means of utilizing the individual differences and abilities of all the mem- bers of the class in mastering the tools of social progress, in productive team-work, and in moral conduct and self- control based upon a sense of personal responsibility. (3) By Supervised Study. — If the school is to be a copy or epitome of the world's activities it must include work — productive work, and a lot of it. The lot of the average man or woman out of school is dominated by work. The individual can neither develop his native powers nor serve society effectively except through work. The real productive work of the world is not an affair of pageants, picnics, celebrations, and fairs, and, valu- able as are these recreative activities, they alone cannot serve as the basis of the school curriculum. Nor is the world's work done under a dramatic setting with stage effects and applauding spectators, but in homes, shops, offices, fields, and mines. The modern school plant must have its shops and kitchens, its laboratory and library, its stage and moving-picture outfit, its play- 302 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL ground and garden, its swimming-pool and gymnasium, but a school plant without a study-room would be an educational monstros ty. What goes on in the study- room is a matter of supreme importance. How effi- ciently books and materials are used there is a factor of vital concern in the success of the recitation lesson. What motives direct the study there is full of significance for the future of the pupils. What working habits are formed there will modify conduct and permanently shape character. Habits of study are formed, just as other valuable habits are formed, by a will to work and by practice under intelligent direction and supervision. Superintendents and teachers are realizing more and more the cause-and-effect relation that exists between supervised study-lessons and effective recitation lessons. It is recognized that pupils must be taught how to study, how to use text-books, dictionary, maps, reference works, magazines, and newspapers as a means of gaining infor- mation, gathering data, sifting opinions, and forming ra- tional conclusions. In a later chapter the subject of supervised study is fully discussed. Here we are em- phasizing its importance as one of the means of improv- ing the recitation lesson. (4) By the Use of Projects. — "Project teaching" is a term which was first used in the teaching of agriculture, home economics, and manual training. It has been adopted by teachers of other subjects in both elementary and high schools, and there are some who advocate or- ganizing the entire curriculum around the "project" and teaching all subjects by the so-called "project-method." (a) Definition of "Project" as Applied to Teaching. — A project has been defined as a "unit of purposeful ex- perience"; as "a clear-cut, intellectual grasp of a whole IMPROVING THE RECITATION-LESSON 303 complex situation"; as "an act carried to completion in its natural setting and involving the solution of a rela- tively complex problem"; as "a whole-hearted purpose- ful activity proceeding in a social environment"; as "a life topic in which the processes and objects of learning are largely manual"; as u a problematic act carried to completion in its natural setting." Perhaps the most illuminating definition of the project is that of W. H. Kilpatrick: "A project is any unit of experience dominated by such a purpose as sets an aim for the experience, guides its process, and furnishes the drive for its vigorous prosecution." (b) Types of Projects. — School projects may be indi- vidual or co-operative, simple or complex, major or minor; they may deal with problems of the home, the field, the shop; they may be confined to one subject, such as geography, reading, arithmetic, or they may in- clude a cross-section of many subjects. According to Kilpatrick, there are four types of proj- ects, based upon the nature of the purposeful activity which serves as the project: (i) experiences in which the dominating purpose is to do, to make, or to effect — to embody an idea or aspiration in natural form; (2) the purposeful enjoyment or appropriation of an experience; (3) experiences in which the dominating purpose is to solve a problem — unravel an intellectual difficulty; (4) experiences where the dominating purpose is to acquire some item or degree of knowledge or skill — specific drill with a purpose or attitude to master it. (c) Characteristics of a Good Project. — The marks of a good school project are: (1) it must appeal to the class as a purposeful activity; (2) it must teach some valuable lesson; (3) it must present a definite problem to be solved 304 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL as nearly as possible in its natural setting; (4) it must utilize the purposes, interests, and already acquired knowledge of the pupils; (5) as the work proceeds it must be possible to check results and modify plans; (6) it must lead on to other related projects. (d) Method of Teaching a Project. — As outlined in Bul- letin 346 of the United States Department of Agriculture for 191 6, the method of teaching a "home project" in agriculture must provide for: (1) work at home covering a season or a more or less extended period of time; (2) it must be a part of the instruction in agriculture of the school; (3) there must be a problem more or less new to the pupil; (4) the parents and pupils should agree with the teacher upon the plan; (5) some competent person must supervise the home work; (6) detailed records of time, method, cost, and income must be honestly kept; (7) a written report based on the record must be sub- mitted to the teacher. Other suggestions for teaching a project are: (1) the class and the teacher select the project and outline a plan for working it out; (2) organize the class into working groups with officers, committees, and leaders; (3) cover the essentials of the text-book, but not page by page, and omit non-essential matter; (4) supplement the text- book by the use of reference books, bulletins, magazines, newspapers, reports, local community records, and pu- pils' out-of-school experiences; (5) follow the pedagogical order of teaching in the lower grades rather than the logical order; (6) provide for class discussions, debates, reports, and experiments; (7) encourage questions, indi- vidual sub-projects, research work, and the verification of results; (8) copy outlines and important data in note- books; (9) call for reviews and motivated drill exercises; IMPROVING THE RECITATION LESSON 305 (10) agree upon a minimum amount of work for all pupils in the class; (n) keep the aims, purposes, plan, and the discovery and application of principles constantly in mind; (12) just as far as possible the teacher is to sub- ordinate his own activities, direction, control, and opin- ions to those of the class or group. (e) Advantages of Project-teaching. — The advantages claimed for project-teaching are that it makes the pupil an active investigator and discoverer instead of a passive fact-receiver; creates enthusiasm for study and original research; forms habits of gathering data from many sources; gives skill in the ability to sift knowledge; pro- vides a natural setting and a compelling inner motiva- tion for school work; cultivates in pupils a sense of re- sponsibility for the success and progress of the work of the class; appeals throughout to the comparing, judging, and reasoning activities rather than to memory; empha- sizes the element of purpose and definite aim in all school activities; results in greater freedom and a more demo- cratic spirit in the class-room; adapts the work of the school to the individual needs and differences of pupils; develops skill in mastering essential processes with the minimum of drill; kindles a desire to explore the subject further; trains pupils in effective team-work; assists learners to state their opinions convincingly arid courte- ously; encourages open-mindedness and independent thought; unifies the school life of the pupil with his out- of-school interests and activities; enables pupils to sub- ordinate the mastery of the formal studies to the mean- ing of content studies; prevents disorder caused by lack of interest and divided attention; stimulates interest in current history and literature; inspires pupils to formu- late problems and to work them out intelligently; and 306 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL serves as the most effective means of modifying conduct and shaping character. (/") Dangers of Project-teaching. — That there are many pitfalls and dangers in the use of the project is obvious. There is: (i) the danger of its adoption as a mere form, fad, or new device; (2) the danger of "soft pedagogy," "just turning pupils loose/' which assumes that the child should never be made to do anything he does not want to do and must be free to follow his native im- pulses, instincts, moods, and whims without "let or hin- drance"; (3) the danger that the work of the school will tend not to counteract but to repeat and re-enforce the worst tendencies of community and home life, such as the growing indifference to regular effort, the loosening of home ties, and the weakening of authority of parents, the shirking of serious preparation for life-work, the in- creasing love of entertainment and excitement, the wrong attitude toward work, and the lowering of indi- vidual moral standards of conduct; (4) the danger of failing entirely to teach the mastery of the essential tools of the race, fashioned for preserving and advancing social progress, known as the "common branches"; (5) the danger of breaking up the organization and continuity of the subject-matter of the course of study, and attempting to teach a hodge-podge of "pupil-selected" projects of very little educational value, omitting drill, making a farce or a tragedy of "original discovery of principles," and permitting the recitation lesson to degenerate into a babble of fruitless talk; (6) the danger of limiting all school work to constructive activities, dealing with con- crete materials alone, and arresting the development of all the higher forms of thought, feeling, and aspiration; (7) the danger of fostering the habits of desultory read- IMPROVING THE RECITATION LESSON 307 ing, waste of time on petty details, shirking real study and letting a few leaders carry the work, lack of super- vision of home work, no discovery of thought relations, and no intelligent application of principles. From all this it is quite apparent that the adoption of "project- teaching" and committing it to the hands of teachers who are incompetent to use the recitation lesson effectively would not solve any of our problems of in- struction. Method and subject-matter are made con- crete and effective in the process of instruction only when incarnated in the teacher who knows how to teach. The use of the project in teaching is not a substitute for classes, lesson assignments, study lessons, and recita- tion lessons. The project serves as an important means of improving the recitation lesson just in the degree in which project-teaching emphasizes large lesson-units, and thus binds in closer connection the separate lessons that constitute a series, brings into greater clearness and prominence the aims to be attained in each lesson and in each series of lessons, motivates school work by relat- ing it more effectively to the activities and interests of the home and the civic, industrial, and social life of the community, and provides for active social co-operation in class work. With better-trained teachers who are competent to use all the means at hand for improving the efficiency of the recitation lesson, such as the motivation of school work, the socializing of class-room activities, supervised study, the wise use of projects in teaching, the approved methods of testing and measuring results, the proper use of text-books, the judicious correlation of the construc- tive and vocational work of pupils with their other les- 308 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL sons, and the ability to measure " individual differences" and to adapt instruction to the needs of pupils as revealed by the use of intelligence tests, the recitation lesson be- comes an ideal setting for the teaching-learning process. How Teachers May Realize the Aims of the Recita- tion Lesson. — Young teachers should thoroughly master the aims of the recitation lesson and should seek to uti- lize all the means suggested in this chapter for improv- ing class-room teaching. At first the realization of these aims and the application of the right means of improv- ing recitation lessons must be deliberately planned and consciously made. With the increasing power and skill which such intelligent practice gives, the teacher will find that he can easily, almost unconsciously, apply the right principle in meeting any teaching situation, and will reap an abundant reward for all his painstaking effort at first. It is folly to expect to become a master teacher unless we work under the inspiration of correct and definite aims and wise direction and supervision. No one be- comes a good teacher by merely teaching, nor are good recitations a matter of chance. There are certain condi- tions that must be met, certain principles that must be intelligently applied, certain prerequisites that are essen- tials. Prerequisites of a Successful Recitation Lesson. — As- suming that the teacher's general preparation is what it ought to be, and that pupils are sufficiently advanced to master lessons assigned from text-books, there are four prerequisites to a successful recitation lesson. (i) The teacher's preparation of the lesson; (2) the proper assignment of the lesson and watchful supervision of the pupil's seat work; (3) the pupil's preparation of IMPROVING THE RECITATION LESSON 309 the lesson; (4) comfortable, quiet, and healthful sur- roundings and necessary study helps. The last one of these topics has been discussed in the chapter, "The School-room as a Factor in Organization." The other prerequisites now demand our attention. SUGGESTED HEADINGS Stevenson, "The Project Method of Teaching"; C. A. Mc- Murry, "Teaching by Projects," chap. I; Wilson and Wilson, "The Motivation of School Work"; F. M. McMurry, "Ele- mentary School Standards," chaps. V, VI, VII; Hall-Quest, "Supervised Study," chaps. I, II, III, IV; Stockton, "Proj- ect Work in Education," Part I; Freeland, "Modern Elemen- tary School Practice," chaps. II, III, IV, XVI; Bonser, "The Elementary School Curriculum," chaps. VI, VII; Whitney, "The Socialized Recitation "; Robbins, "Socialized Recitations"; Weeks, "Socializing the Three R's." CHAPTER XXI THE TEACHER'S PREPARATION OF THE LESSOIf-PROJECT The Dead-line. — The teacher who has ceased to grow has crossed the dead-line, and begins to die at the top. No matter how complete the preparation for teaching may have been, the teacher at work must acquire the habit of daily study. In no other way will growth as a teacher be possible. The teacher who has ceased to be an active student has lost the secret of his greatest power. With most young teachers this study will take the form of daily preparation of the lessons to be taught. Such study is a sure means of growth. The Teacher Should Be Independent of the Text- Book in the Class-room. — Any teacher who expects his pupils to be independent of the text-book during the recitation surely ought to be independent of the book himself. "Going thus to his class/' says Mr. Page, "so full of the subject that were the text-book annihilated he could make another and better one, he will have no diffi- culty to secure attention." It is a very common thing to hear teachers with open text-books in their hands, teachers who could not possibly recite the lesson them- selves, berate their pupils for their dulness and lack of preparation. This does not appear to the average boy or girl to be either fair or honest. Why Teaching Is a Mode of Learning. — Frequently young teachers assert that they never really understood certain branches of study until they had to teach them. Other teachers say that they actually learned more of the 310 PREPARATION OF THE LESSON-PROJECT 311 branches that they taught their first term than they had learned in any one term as students. There is a great deal of truth in these statements. Teaching and study react upon each other. The effort to make a point clear to others helps the teacher to see it more clearly himself. It has been said that knowledge, stored away, spoils; shared with others, it increases. Sir William Hamilton says: "Teaching, like the quality of mercy, is twice blessed, blessing hrm that gives and him that takes." And a wise Jewish teacher once declared: "I have learned much from my master, more from my equals, but most of all from my pupils." How to Study a Lesson to Teach It Well. — To study a lesson is not merely to memorize its words. The words are important, but they are important only as they are signs of ideas, symbols of thought. In the study of a lesson every important word should be considered; new words should be looked up in the dictionary; the key- thought in every sentence should be mastered, and the meaning of every paragraph should be understood. But any teacher or pupil who masters the thoughts in the lesson in this way ought to be able to clothe these thoughts in his own words. Some further suggestions may not be out of place here. (i) The teacher should study every lesson, not as an isolated topic, but as connected with all other lessons in the same subject. Pupils often study blindly. Even where they are able to see the relation of the lesson in hand to those lessons which have preceded it, they are wholly ignorant of its relation to the next topic or les- sons, and do not realize that the mastery of to-day's les- son is absolutely necessary to the conquest of the lessons of the future. But the teacher has been over the subject 312 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL before. He has a view of the whole field, and is able to study each lesson in the light of its relation to all the les- sons that have preceded it as well as to all the lessons that are to follow it in the same subject or in kindred ones. This is an immense advantage, and the teacher who is ignorant of this difference between his own study of the lesson and that of his pupils will do them a con- stant and a great injustice. (2) The teacher must have a plan of study. In every lesson there are certain essential facts or truths — essen- tial in the sense that they are important in themselves or are necessary to future progress in the subject. The teacher must sift out these essential truths and fix them clearly in his own mind. Many teachers give time enough to daily preparation of lessons, and yet they are never really prepared. They are tied to the book in the recitation. The reason for this is easy to understand. They have no study plan. They merely read the lesson over and over as a whole. They do not look for what is fundamental in the lesson. Trying to put equal empha- sis on all parts of it, they emphasize nothing, and there- fore remember nothing clearly. Such study becomes more and more mechanical and is a great cause of the indefinite and hazy knowledge of most pupils. The teacher should write out a sketch of the lesson in the form of an outline. The main heads in this outline should be the fundamental truths which he proposes to teach to his class. He may use these notes in his class at first as an aid in emancipating him from slavish de- pendence upon the text-book. But very soon he should fix these main truths so firmly in his mind that he can teach the lesson without referring to the notes. Of course these notes should be concise and logically ar- PREPARATION OF THE LESSON-PROJECT 313 ranged. They should suggest the train of ideas in the lesson. The main topics may be stated in the form of questions, but the class questions, as a rule, should be framed in the recitation to meet the needs of individual pupils. There is a great deal more in every lesson than the teacher can hope to teach. No teacher ought to expect to teach a class all he knows about the lesson. He must separate very clearly in his own mind what he knows of the lesson from what he proposes to cause his pupils to know. He should always keep in mind the bearing of each lesson upon the lessons that are to follow in the same subject, and also its connection with the other studies that the pupils are pursuing. (3) In the study of the lesson the teacher should keep before his mind an image of the class, not as a whole, a mere mass of boys and girls, but as individuals. How to help this pupil to see the meaning of some part of the lesson; how to illustrate some hard point for that one; what questions to ask a third; what fact or principle to emphasize for a fourth; how to use the special knowledge or interest of any pupil for the benefit of the whole class — these problems must be vividly in the teacher's mind as he prepares his lesson. (4) All material for illustrations or experiments in the recitation, and all necessary apparatus, reference books, maps, and charts, should be kept in mind in the teacher's preparation of the lesson. What to use as helps in teaching the lesson, where to use them, how to use them to the best advantage are questions to be considered be- fore the recitation. To have all such helps close at hand and ready when needed in the class work is the sure mark of a carefully planned lesson. 314 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL (5) In making his daily preparation of the lesson, the teacher should provide for a review of what has been taught and a pre-view of what is to come next. Whether the mastery of one lesson shall help the pupil to master the next one more easily depends upon the care and skill of the teacher. For every pupil the study of each lesson ought to be either the application of old principles to new subject-matter or the discov- ery of new truths by means of old truths already mas- tered. This is the only kind of study that is really educative. When to Study the Lesson to Teach It. — Most teachers fail to realize how important it is to study the lesson before assigning it. They assign lessons before prepar- ing them, and hence work at a constant disadvantage. Their lesson study is barren and unfruitful. No mere cursory glance ahead at the close of a recitation is suffi- cient preparation to enable the teacher to assign the next lesson intelligently, yet the careful assignment of the lesson is absolutely essential in order to secure faith- ful or even decent preparation by the pupils. For the pupil the order of steps is: (1) The pre-view of the les- son; (2) the study of the lesson; (3) the recitation of the lesson. But for the teacher the logical order is: (1) The selection and preparation of the lesson; (2) the assign- ment of the lesson; (3) the review of the lesson; (4) the teaching of the lesson. And it is no more illogical or foolish for a pupil to attempt to recite a lesson before studying it than it is for a teacher to attempt to assign a lesson before preparing it, at least in its general outline. If teachers would only get one day ahead in the prep- aration of their lessons it would more than double their efficiency in the recitation. PREPARATION OF THE LESSON-PROJECT 315 How Daily Study Aids in Assigning the Lesson. — Let us consider some of the ways in which teachers would be aided by faithfully planning and preparing the lesson be- fore assigning it. (i) They would know what to assign. The amount to be assigned ought not to be mere guesswork, nor ought it to be gauged by pages or topics or cut-and-dried courses of study. Very often unexpected difficulties arise in the lesson as we prepare it — difficulties that we did not suspect when we assigned it. These difficulties may absolutely block the pupil's progress in his study of the lesson. Then, again, many teachers rarely finish the advanced lesson in the recitation, consequently their pu- pils never take the assignment of the lesson very seri- ously. (2) The teacher can emphasize the main points in the new lesson and prepare pupils for intelligent study. Un- less pupils master the art of intelligent study, the greater part of their time in school is wasted, and they acquire a distaste for books in general. One of the most im- portant reforms in our elementary schools is the emphasis that good teachers everywhere are placing on silent reading. How inefficiently we have been teaching pupils to read is abundantly proved by the astonishing number of our "half -illiterates" — pupils who never really mas- tered the art of reading sufficiently well to get any pleasure out of what they read; pupils who always "move their lips" when they read to themselves; pupils who never make any consistent use of reading to continue their education after they leave school, and soon lose through disuse what little skill in reading they had ac- quired. Every properly assigned lesson is a safeguard against such educational inefficiency. The teacher 316 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL can state the central thought, or aim, of the lesson, and direct pupils where to concentrate their efforts, where to look for difficulties, and how to overcome them. The pupils are forewarned and therefore forearmed. (3) Great efforts have been made in the last few years to put a library into every school. Of what value will all this effort and expense be unless pupils learn to use the library intelligently? Only those teachers who prepare their lessons before assigning them can help pupils to use the library to the best advantage. As the wise teacher prepares his lessons he notes the library references that will be most helpful to the pupils. When he assigns the lesson he asks the class, or certain members of the class, to read a reference in some library book and report in the next recitation. Pupils, too, who learn easily can be given extra work in this way. All such references should be very definite, giving the book and the exact chapter or pages to be read. (4) Having so recently gone over the lesson carefully himself, the teacher is able to give his pupils valuable hints and suggestions that will stimulate them to earnest study. Pupils rarely know how to attack the new lesson unless they receive help from the teacher. They really never get into the lesson; just blunder around it. There is a tremendous amount of misapplied energy in our schools, besides no end of "puttering," wool-gathering, dawdling, laziness, mischief, and meanness, all caused by the lack of care and foresight on the part of teachers in assigning lessons. Frequently a few hints or suggestions would put pupils on the right track at once and secure earnest endeavor to master the lesson. It may be wise to ask pupils to review some previous lesson connected with the one to be assigned, to think over some experience out- PREPARATION OF THE LESSON-PROJECT 317 side the school, to ask their parents concerning some local facts, to refer to some other text-book than the one in use for a better treatment of a topic, to look up new terms in the dictionary, to bring to the class some material for illustrative work, to draw certain figures or charts, or to examine some object, place, or phenomenon outside the school-house. (5) Only by being in close touch with the lesson before it is assigned can the teacher hold before the class a reason- able and consistent standard of work in preparing their lessons. The lessons of the pupils all taken together should require a uniform amount of effort each day. Spasmodic work is not educative in the best sense. Sup- pose a pupil to have five lessons to prepare every day; the teacher should assign each of these lessons in view of the other four; and taken all together, they should make a task which the pupils can reasonably be expected to master. In no other way will pupils learn the great lesson of feeling personally responsible for preparing every lesson assigned. How Daily Study Aids the Teaching of the Lesson. — In the teaching of the lesson the rewards of careful daily study are immediately apparent. (1) Being reasonably independent of the text-book, the teacher is left free to give all his mind and energy to the work of teaching. As he teaches, his eyes are free to observe his class and his thought is not so much fixed on the subject-matter of the lesson as on the mental processes of the pupils. Seeing the faces of his pupils the teacher can judge correctly of the class progress. He knows when a point has been mastered. He quickly detects any lagging of interest and wins it back by an apt illustration. He observes the special difficulties of individual pupils and 318 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOI restates the obscure point. In this way he checks the forward, encourages the timid, calls back the inattentive, and puts new life into the discouraged. (2) The teacher can become a skilful and ready ques- tioner. As long as the teacher is tied to the text-book he has no freedom in questioning. His questions are bookish and do not grow out of the pupil's answers and immediate needs. There is little adaptation to individuals and no life or enthusiasm. But where the teacher's preparation is full and fresh all these hindrances are swept away. The questions grow naturally out of the pupil's needs, are well distributed, require careful thought, and are a constant spur to interest and attention and a perfect curb to any tendency to disorder. (3) No time is lost in attempting to recover from the effects of a wrong assignment of the lesson and consequent lack of preparation by the class. No apologies need be made, no excuses offered. Occasions for irritation and fault-finding are reduced to the minimum. No time of the recitation is lost in attempting experiments that won't work, hunting up globes and charts that may be wanted, or sending pupils to other rooms to borrow maps and apparatus. In conclusion, the teacher who wisely and faithfully prepares his daily lessons and who does not run the risk of assigning his lesson without careful planning will not be put to shame before his pupils by being unable to an- swer their questions in the recitation or to decide class discussions correctly. He will not often have to confess his ignorance or pretend to know what he does not know. In fact, so essential is this daily study of the lesson, this fresh knowledge of the subject, that without it the recita- tion does not deserve the name of an educative process at PREPARATION OF THE LESSON-PROJECT 319 all. Without such daily planning and preparation the teacher must fail to keep the school wisely and profitably employed. Poor order, rebellion, loss of time, shiftless habits, and anarchy are the sure results in the school; and to the teacher, worry, loss of temper, injury to health, and the consciousness of failure. Bagley says: "Every lesson that is to be taught should be worked out beforehand. The best manner of approach- ing the lesson should be determined, and questions framed that will prepare the class for the new material. Illustra- tions should be sought from all possible sources, worked over, and adapted to the age and mental attainments of the pupils. At the beginning, the teacher would do well to write out carefully the plan of each lesson, including the specific questions and explanations, and to rehearse the whole before an imaginary class. This is a strenuous programme, but it will return large dividends upon the time and energy invested. In addition to work of this nature, one should reflect carefully upon the order in which pupils are to be called upon for recitation and adapt questions and topics to the peculiarities of individual children. Finally, the independent work of the pupils during the study periods should be planned and the neces- sary materials provided." Such faithful, painstaking preparation brings its own rich reward in the daily consciousness of growth in power and usefulness, in the respect of the community and the love of the pupils, in freedom from loss of nervous force expended in "governing the school," and in the absolute certainty that an abundant harvest will follow such sowing. 320 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL SUGGESTED READINGS White, "The Art of Teaching," pp. 105-112; Hamilton, "The Recitation," chap. IV; Dutton, "School Management," pp. 249-275; Branom, "The Project Method in Education," chap. XII; Whipple, "How to Study Effectively"; Sandwick, "How to Study," Part I; Hall-Quest, "The Text-Book," chaps. V, IX. CHAPTER XXII PROPER ASSIGNMENT OF LESSONS Meaning. — To assign a text-book lesson properly is to set a definite problem before a class to be solved and to give them sufficient motives and helps to solve it. It is pointing out a goal to be reached, an ideal to be realized. It should be a spur to interest, a challenge to effort, and a guide to thought. "To assign a lesson," says Roark, "is to designate a more or less definite portion of subject-matter to be ac- quired, assimilated, and put into some form of expres- sion." Other suggestive terms for lesson assignment are the preliminary drill, the pre-view of the next lesson, or the pre-survey of the lesson. What the Teacher Assumes in Assigning a Lesson.— (i) When a teacher assigns a lesson to a class to be learned from a text-book, he assumes that all the mem- bers of the class are able to use that particular text-book intelligently, to understand its words, to grasp its thought and meaning, to comprehend its ideas by interpreting them through their relation to their own previous knowl- edge and experiences. It is never an honest performance to set pupils an impossible task. In nearly all classes the teacher will find pupils who have never been taught to use a dictionary, an index, or a table of contents. Very few text-books are exactly adapted to the class. Some parts of the book should be omitted, and it should always be supplemented by outside references. 321 322 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL (2) The teacher assumes that each pupil has the time, health, strength, the necessary means, and a favorable opportunity to prepare the lesson as it is assigned. Unless these conditions exist it is little less than criminal to assign the lesson. If one or more pupils in the class cannot study the lesson intelligently because of lack of previous prepara- tion, they should be reclassified or receive individual help. If the text-book is not a suitable one for the class it should be discarded. If the pupils are weak, sick, or over- burdened with work, they should be excused from the preparation, or at least a part of it. If the school-room conditions are not favorable to study, the order poor, the ventilation bad, the teacher should use his utmost en- deavors to make them better. (3) It should be assumed that the teacher has mastered the course of study sufficiently well to know how to plan the work of the year or the term to the best advantage, how to divide the subject-matter into "method-units'' and "lesson-units." Unless the teacher is able to do this, there is no assurance that the work and progress of the pupils will be reasonably uniform throughout the month, term, or year, and that the different subjects and lessons will be properly correlated. The lesson assignment for one day will be too long, the next day, too short; too hard to-day, too easy to-morrow. This is what Arnold Tompkins meant when he said: "For practical purposes the whole course of study must be worked out in quite minute de- tails. No matter if a teacher teach but a single grade, that work cannot be done intelligently without a sense of its organic relation to the whole." At the first of the year the lessons should be considerably shorter than the average, and much attention given to review. (4) It should always be assumed in all honesty that the PROPER ASSIGNMENT OF LESSONS 323 teacher has made special preparation for assigning the lesson; has measured the lesson carefully, not by the standard of pages or chapters or number of problems, but by the amount of thinking and mental energy and time required for its preparation; has formed a plan of study for the class that is reasonable, helpful, and suggestive. (5) That pupils will be held rigidly responsible for the work assigned is also assumed. To assign a lesson and not to demand aa accounting of pupils for the work as- signed is worse than a waste of time and a violation of sound pedagogy. It is an immoral act; for it is a species of deception, a mere pretence, and a standing encourage- ment to pupils to shirk their duty. It destroys the pupil's sense of personal responsibility and leads to the formation of habits of idleness and disobedience. Page says: "Now the effect of learning a lesson poorly is most ruinous to the mind of the child. He, by the habit of missing, comes to think it a small thing to fail at recitation. He loses his self-respect He loses all regard for his reputatiom as a scholar. It is deplorable to see a child fail in a lesson with indifference." Assigning Lessons a Test of a Teacher's Ability.— -"Few teachers realize," says White, "how fine a test of teaching ability and success is the manner in which lessons, and especially book lessons, are assigned. A very good judg- ment of a teacher's work may be often based on this simple test. 'Take the next chapter; class dismissed/ is sufficient ground for dismissing a teacher from further consideration if one is looking for a first-class instructor." (1) To assign a lesson properly the teacher must know not only the subject, the book, and the lesson, but also the sequence of topics and lesson-units, as well as their con- 324 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL nection and correlation with lessons in other subjects which the pupil must prepare. He must be able to select the essential facts in the lesson from the non-essentials and to direct the pupil's effort to the mastery of the leading concepts and principles. (2) The teacher must be in such close touch with his pupils as individuals as to know something of their previous experiences; their out-of-school life; their leading inter- ests, emotions, and ambitions; their games, favorite books, and home occupations. (3) The proper assignment of the lesson requires of the teacher sufficient insight to see that the subject-matter of the daily lessons is only a means by which each pupil in the class finds the realization of his unfolding inner life, his intellectual aspirations, his best impulses, his aesthetic and moral emotions. Every lesson should be assigned so as to afford the pupil an opportunity to develop some power, to satisfy some desire for truth, to realize some hope, ideal, or aspiration. (4) According to Salisbury, the teacher, in order to assign a lesson well, must meet these conditions: (a) He must be conscious of the general aim of each particular study or branch — the reason why it should be taught at all; (b) he must have a distinct recognition of the particular aim of the given lesson, the reasons for teaching it, and the definite result which should follow; (c) he must clearly apprehend just what mental steps or processes are neces- sary on the part of the pupil before he can realize the definite result aimed at; (d) he must understand just what foundation the pupil has to build upon, what mental pos- sessions he has that are related to the new topic; (e) he must base his plan of instruction, aims, and method upon the fundamental laws of mind. PROPER ASSIGNMENT OF LESSONS 325 Importance and Value of Good Lesson Assignment. — From the foregoing considerations it is clear that no other part of the teacher's work exceeds in value and importance the proper planning and assignment of the daily lessons. It is supplying the class and the school with a definite plan of work. It is preparing the mind of each individual pupil for the reception of new truths and whetting his intellectual appetite for a feast of good things. It inspires confidence by pointing out to the pupil just how he can use his past lessons and acquisitions to make new conquests. It pre- vents pupils from misunderstanding the lesson or approach- ing it with indifference or positive aversion. Tt enables the pupil to approach the new lesson in an apperceiving mood, and helps pupils to form the habit of being success- ful in their work and of making a daily application of their old knowledge. It prevents the teacher from degenerating into a mere talker, and, where text-books are used, should be the most vital part of the recitation. Bagley says: " Opponents of elaborate assignments tell us that the pupil gains strength by overcoming difficulties, and that he should attack the printed page without help and get out of it what he can. . . . The natural result is that the teacher who does not teach in the assignment is forced to teach in the recitation." Principles Governing the Assignment of Lessons.- — (i) The lesson should be assigned in such a way as to appeal to the child's instincts and emotions. Few teachers realize how rich and varied the child's emotional nature really is,, and fewer still realize that all the child's incentives to effort must spring out of his instincts and feelings. When children are constantly being forced to think and to study, there is something wrong; for the normal child's natural hunger for ideas is as instinctive as his hunger for food. 326 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL The instincts of ownership, collecting, imitation, activity, construction, co-operation, mastery may all be brought into the service of the school by the wise teacher. Interest, curiosity, expectation, eagerness, hope, desire to know, wonder, surprise, perplexity, doubt, mystery, belief are all intellectual emotions, and may become strong incentives to study if the teacher has the skill to appeal to them aright. And besides all these, there are the moral and aesthetic emotions, such as the love of beauty, symmetry, and harmony, the sense of right, duty, obligation, all of which the teacher may make his allies. Even the egoistic emotions of pride, emulation, ambition, and love of appro- bation may be drafted into service where individual pupils cannot be reached by other means. Poor, indeed, must that lesson be if it cannot be made to appeal to some of these instincts and emotions, and unskilled the teacher who can- not assign the new lesson in such a way as to arouse in the pupil a definite interest, an active curiosity, a real desire to know more about it. (2) The lesson as assigned must challenge the child's power to think. Feeling, interest, curiosity must be sup- plemented and made productive by intellect The desire to know must be more than a mere impulse or a vague, indefinite, hazy, or temporary incentive. It must be a longing to know plus a distinct idea of what to know; hence the need of a clear statement of the aim and purpose of the new lesson. The pupil's desire to realize the aim must be a real and conscious need, a felt want that suggests certain definite efforts to satisfy it Thinking is comparing objects or ideas, noting their likenesses and differences, and classifying them according to certain selected qualities. The subject-matter of every lesson contains objects whose qualities are to be noted, compared, arranged, or ideas PROPER ASSIGNMENT OF LESSONS 327 which are connected by thought relations. To discover these qualities and thought relations is to think the lesson. Some of the most common thought relations are similarity? difference, identity, subordination, exclusion, whole and parts, time, space, quantity, number, position, design, cause and effect. The search for these thought relations has all the interest of a puzzle. And the mind is so con- stituted that the discovery of these relations gives intellect- ual pleasure. Thus successful study is the oil that con- stantly, mysteriously feeds the lamp of interest. To make a new application of Spencer's thought, the final test by which to judge of the merit of any lesson assignment is: " Does it create a pleasurable excitement in the pupils" as they study the lesson according to its directions ? As Mr. Spencer so strongly puts it: "Children should be led to make their own investigations and to draw their own inferences. They should be told as little as possible and induced to discover as much as possible. ... If the sub- jects are put before him in right order and right form, any pupil of ordinary capacity will surmount his successive difficulties with but little assistance. . . . This need of perpetual telling is the result of our stupidity, not of the child's. . . . Having by our method induced helplessness, we straightway make the helplessness a reason for our method." (3) The assignment must persuade the pupil's will to make an aggressive attack upon the lesson. The pupil should feel eager to begin the task. He should approach the preparation of the lesson full of courage, confident of success, convinced that he can conquer it. The lesson as assigned must appeal to him as possible of accomplish- ment; difficult enough to call out his best powers, but not too difficult; long enough to call for sustained effort, yet 328 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL not too long to be thoroughly mastered in the allot- ted time. The teacher should see to it that the pupils are given a fair chance to master the lesson assigned, He must remove from their pathway insurmountable obstacles or show the way around them, but he must not attempt to level all the rough places. He must warn pupils of ambuscades and dangers, but he must make them march and not carry them in ambulances. He must furnish proper assistance and provide necessary helps, but he must be careful not to cumber the pupil with crutches. (4) The lesson assignment should so appeal to the pupil's past experiences as to call up those ideas, and only those, that are most nearly related to the new ideas of the lesson. To understand his lesson as he studies it, the pupil must grasp the new ideas by means of his old related ones, compare the old with the new, abstract essential qualities and use such qualities as a basis of classification. In fact, this is the only way in which he can really study or think at all, for anything else is a sheer attempt to memorize words that are meaningless to him. The purpose of the recitation lesson is not to dis- count the pupil's efforts at independent study by requir- ing him to reproduce the lesson, but to suggest compari- sons, to clear up apprehensions, to strengthen the weak places, to discover new principles, to give opportunity for questions, discussion, reports, and illustrative work. It is clear that the nature of the lesson assignment will dominate the pupil's method of study and tend to de- termine his habits of thinking. There is no doubt that the careless, thoughtless, haphazard way in which les- sons are assigned is largely responsible for the average pupil's inefficiency in study. The ordinary method of PROPER ASSIGNMENT OF LESSONS 329 assigning an arithmetic lesson is to give out so many problems to be solved. The result is that pupils simply read the rule with no comprehension of the principles on which it is based, look over the model solution in the book, and then try to work the other problems like it. "Doing sums" in this way is not studying arithmetic. It is at best only a shallow process of imitation utterly stultifying in its effects. Getting a lesson in history or geography, assigned by pages, is usually a still less in- telligent process, since there are no model solutions to imitate. (5) The lesson assignment, as far as possible, should be based on purposeful activities that represent large, live, and valuable projects. The value of well-selected projects as a means of preventing "aimless" lessons can- not be over-estimated. In history, for example, a com- paratively few important projects thoroughly marked out in a series of related lessons, using the text-book in history as a basis for the instruction and supplementing it with the use of other texts, current magazines, newspapers, and visits to historic places, if near by, are of far more value than a great number of petty topics connected, it may be, by chronology only. Why people in Europe left their homes to become colonists in America; How local in- stitutions grew up among the colonists; What causes tended to separation and jealousy among the different colonies; What influences tended to unite these col- onies in the United States; The reproduction of the Convention of 1787 that framed our Constitution; What theories of interpreting the Constitution grew up; How the present relations of State governments to the Na- tional government developed: these are examples of projects in history. Each of these projects contains 330 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL material for many lessons. It will fix in the mind of pupils and teacher an important and definite goal to be reached, a big problem to be solved by co-operative effort. This big problem will include many smaller ones, and these smaller problems will constitute the aims of the series of lessons in which the project is worked out. Thus all the study and activities of the class are unified in a definite, organized, practical, rational, dy- namic forward movement under the leadership and in- spiration of the teacher. Steps in the Assignment of the Lesson. — As a rule the proper assignment of the lesson comprises several distinct steps, although these need not be taken in the same order in all lessons (i) Review Questioning.— -Since the pupil must use his old knowledge to interpret and understand the new lesson, it devolves upon the teacher to help him to call up those ideas in his possession that are most nearly related to the ideas in the lesson to be assigned. In calling up these related ideas the pupils must use the powers of memory, analysis, and oral expression. The teacher's instrument here is suggestive review questions. Some of these questions will quite naturally grow out of the preceding lessons, but they need not be confined to these lessons. They may cover a wide range of topics and deal with any experiences of the pupils, in school or out of it, that are closely related in thought to the new lesson. It is often the case that when a new topic is to be introduced, some local event, some great man's birthday, a coming holiday, a bit of news in the daily paper, an excursion to fields or woods, the erection of some near-by structure, some pupil's recent trip, a visit to a factory, a picture or a story may serve as the best starting-point for PROPER ASSIGNMENT OF LESSONS 331 the line of questioning. One main object of these pre- paratory questions is to lead pupils up to the limit of their knowledge on the subject in hand in order that they may feel the need of further knowledge. The more clearly the pupil separates his old ideas from those new ones to be presented in the lesson, and the greater his desire to know more on the same subject, the better the introduction has been. The questions should be definite and fairly well distributed over the entire class. As soon as the properly related ideas have been secured from the class, they should be summarized and arranged so as to form the best possible natural introduction to the new lesson. It will be seen that this step in the assignment of the lesson constitutes the best possible review of previous lessons. (2) Stating the Aim. — The aim of the new lesson should be clearly stated. When the new lesson introduces a new topic, this step may well precede the review questioning, for here the statement of the aim seems necessary to give definite direction to the pupil's thinking. Dr. Rein says: " If the aim of the lesson has been rightly put, itj)roduces a flood of thoughts in the pupil at once, . . . To conduct a child along an unknown road, toward an unknown object by means of questions and hints, the purpose of which he does not see, to lead him on imperceptibly to an unknown goal, has the disadvantage that it develops neither a spontaneous mental activity nor a clear insight into the subject." It is taken for granted that the teacher has the aim clearly in mind. The need of having an aim in each recitation is just as important as it is in building a house or planning a journey. Aimless work is shiftless work. The teacher must state the aim of the lesson so clearly, definitely, and simply that each member of the class can fully grasp its meaning. 332 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL The aim should be stated from the stand-point of the pupil rather than that of the teacher. Of course, the teacher should have in mind the larger aim of the whole topic, type, or method-unit, and must clearly understand the relation of each specific lesson aim to this larger aim, but the pupils must approach this larger aim step by step and lesson by lesson. They must toil up the mountain side before they can catch the full and splendid view from its summit and recognize the landmarks which they have passed in their ascent. In stating the aim, a set form of words should be avoided. As a rule, it is best to put the aim in the form of a problem, and it should always suggest some important thought relation. If there is danger that pupils will forget the aim as stated, they should write it out, or the teacher may write it on the board. The value of the aim is readily seen when it is realized that this aim is to be the pupil's guide in the preparation of his lesson at his seat or at his home, and that where a definite aim is lacking there is little will to work. The aim serves as a common meeting point for the minds of all the class and the teacher, and this unifies their thoughts and efforts in both the study lesson and the recitation lesson. It saves time and energy, secures definite work, prevents failure and discouragement, serves as a standard of value by which to judge all the means used to accom- plish it and to test every step of the pupil's learning and the teacher's teaching. To omit the aim is to invite failure, encourage poor preparation of the lesson, set a premium on idleness and the formation of shiftless habits, and pave the way for a disorderly school. (3) Removing Difficulties. — The teacher who has care- fully gauged the new lesson, prepared it, at least in its general outlines., and made out a definite plan of presenting PROPER ASSIGNMENT OF LESSONS 333 it, is in a position to know what particular parts of the lesson will present the greatest difficulties for the pupil. In many lessons, even in the best text-books, there are old words used in a new sense, hidden generalizations, references to laws and facts of which pupils are abso- lutely ignorant, figures of speech, unusual and difficult con- structions, and obscure passages. If pupils are left to plunge into these difficulties unwarned and unassisted, only a few of the very brightest will succeed in floundering through the lesson. The rest will back out. The teacher should not withhold the proper help under the mistaken notion that pupils should be left to work out their own salvation unaided. Only the elect will be saved by such a process. Knowing the specific lesson and the class, the teacher should give such aid in removing the difficulties of the lesson as will enable the average pupil to prepare it well. The brightest pupils should be given some additional work and the slowest pupils should receive indi- vidual help. No pupil who has the spirit to work should be permitted to fail in the preparation of the lesson because of the inherent difficulties of the text-book. (4) Suggestions and Directions. — In the assignment of the lesson the teacher should distinguish very carefully between suggestions and directions. The difference be- tween them is the difference between may and must Suggestions are for the individual; directions are for the class. The individual pupil may not follow the sugges- tions of the teacher, and no offence is committed. He chooses for himself, does as he pleases. But no pupil is at liberty to disregard the directions of the teacher. If he directs that certain written work be handed in, failure to do so on the part of any pupil constitutes an act of diso- bedience for which he is to be held personally responsible 334 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL But if the teacher suggests that certain references would be of value and interest if read in connection with the les- son, no personal responsibility for reading them is implied. Thus the teacher may make every recitation a means of cultivating the pupil's sense of personal responsibility and at the same time encourage individual choice, tastes, and preferences. Order, logical relation, and system are secured in the recitation by holding the pupils rigidly to the directions; while richness, variety, spontaneity, and voluntary effort are secured by the responses of individual pupils who have seized upon this or that bit of work suggested by the teacher. (5) Time for the Lesson Assignment. — The best time for assigning the lesson is usually at the close of the recitation, although until pupils have acquired some skill in the use of text-books the best time for making the assignment is just before the pupils begin their study of the lesson. The amount of time required for making the assignment varies greatly according to the subject, the class, and the lesson. Only the teacher in charge of the class can judge ration- ally of this matter, and superintendents should leave them as free as possible to follow their own judgment. (6) Oversight of the Pupil's Study. — No teacher should presume to think that his whole duty is done when the lesson has been properly assigned. He should see that the pupil works on his lesson. This requires careful and constant supervision of the pupil's seat work. No pupil should be permitted to fool away time in school under the mistaken notion that such time can be "made up" at recess or after school. The teacher who forms the habit of keeping pupils after school to make up lost time confesses his own incompetency. Throughout this discussion it has been assumed that the PROPER ASSIGNMENT OF LESSONS 335 lessons assigned are text-book lessons, consequently parts of the chapter do not apply to oral lessons. But since text-books are so universally used in our American schools, it seems fair and necessary to-discuss the assign- ment of lessons from this stand-point; for there is no more important work of the teacher than the proper assignment of the lesson from the text-book. SUGGESTED READINGS Charters, "Teaching the Common Branches," chap. XVIII; Betts, "The Recitation," chap. V; Davis, "The Work of the Teacher," chap. VI; White, "Art of Teaching," pp. 126-128; Bag- ley, "Classroom Management," pp. 192-206; Earhart, "Types of Teaching," chap. VIII; Bender, "The Teacher at Work," pp. 17-19 and 59-62. CHAPTER XXIII THE PUPIL'S STUDY OF THE LESSON The Study Lesson. — As we have shown in the preced- ing chapter, the recitation lesson and the study lesson are very closely related, are, in fact, where text-books are used, parts of the same process. The study lesson is a continuation of the work begun in the previous reci- tation when the lesson was assigned, and the next recita- tion is the completion of the work begun in the study lesson. If the seat work of the pupils is not well planned and wisely directed, their efforts to prepare the lesson are crippled and their time is wasted or misused ; and, on the other hand, if the following recitation is to be a suc- cess, pupils must be diligent in preparing the lesson as assigned by the teacher. It is conceded that teachers, as a rule, fail to realize this close connection between the recitation and the study lesson and fail equally to correlate them in their practice. For this reason we have placed great emphasis upon the proper assignment of the lesson. But, as we have shown, no teacher should imagine that his work with a class is ended as soon as he has assigned the next lesson and sent the pupils to their seats. He must see to it that the pupils set to work on the preparation of some lesson and keep at work during the time allotted for its study. No mere assignment of the lesson, no matter how carefully made, is sufficient to insure a good recitation. It is equally important to supervise the seat work of pupils. White says: "Both the family and the school assume that the 336 THE PUPIL'S STUDY OF THE LESSON 337 child needs something more than the self-impulsion of instinct, nature, and experience in mental activity and conduct; and so each provides him with the assistance of wider experience and knowledge and the help of per- sonal influence and control. The school recognizes that the child does not learn to think by mere thinking, but that he learns to think correctly by thinking under gui- dance." a The application of the pupil," saysBagley, "in the period of seat work tests the efficiency of the assign- ment. One of the surest indices of a teacher's ability is the diligence of the study class." Study Defined. — Study means more than the mere act of reading or the aimless "looking at objects" or pic- tures, or the purposeless manipulation of materials. We do not apply the term study to the perusal of the ordi- nary novel, nor do we speak of reading a text-book. Study is more than reading; it is intensive, thoughtful reading. Study is the use of books for the purpose of mastering a subject or some portion of it. This is the usual school meaning of study. In a larger sense, study is close, persistent attention to any subject of thought; the term study implies earnestness, zeal, diligent effort. No cursory looking over the pages of a book is study. No attempt to merely memorize the sentences and para- graphs of a book is study. No automatic, half-hearted conning a lesson over and over is study. No frivolous trifling with lessons is study. Study is the opposite of wool-gathering, mind-wandering, mental sauntering, in- tellectual puttering. Study is not a social function. White says: "Study is the attentive application of the mind to an object or subject for the purpose of acquiring knowledge of it. Study involves persistent attention, the continued or prolonged holding of the mind to the know- 338 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL ing of an object by acts of the will." To study is to ob- serve with care, to discover qualities and relations, to compare objects or ideas, to analyze a whole into its parts, to combine ideas into new groups, to classify knowledge; it is investigating with interest, examining with a purpose, inquiring with zeal. Study is the self- effort of the pupil to obtain knowledge. It is the great- est of school arts, for it is the soul searching for truth. In the words of Lessing: "Did the Almighty, holding in his right hand Truth and in his left hand Search after Truth, deign to offer me the one I might prefer, in all humility, but without hesitation, I should choose Search after Truth." Nature of Study. — To understand the nature of the processes that go on in the child's mind in the act of study, the teacher must know what the laws of apper- ception and association, of induction and deduction really mean. These laws have been stated in another chapter, but it is well for the teacher to keep in mind the fact that not one step in the whole process of instruction can be discussed intelligently without reference to them. For example, it is quite possible in explaining the nature of the study process to analyze it into three steps: (i) Apprehension, or the act of knowing an individual ob- ject, fact, relation, or quality — the result of this process of thinking being a percept; (2) comprehension, or the act of knowing a thing in relation to other things in its class — the result being a concept; (3) application, or the act of making knowledge available in some definite or practical way. It will be seen that all of these steps are included in the process of apperception, for the appre- hension of a new object or experience cannot take place without the aid of related experiences and ideas already THE PUPIL'S STUDY OF THE LESSON 339 in the mind; comprehension includes comparison of old and new ideas, separation of qualities, and classification; while application in its most common form is the process of using our old knowledge to acquire and express new ideas. No better description of the art of learning has been written than Mr. T. C. Rooper's little book called "A Pot of Green Feathers.' 3 "To assimilate, then, a wholly new impression is necessarily a task of some difficulty. ... If the new impression is not of a nature to make us feel strongly, and if it is isolated and unconnected with any other knowledge present in our minds, it prob- ably passes away quickly and passes into oblivion, just as a little child may take notice of a shooting star on a summer night, and after wondering for a moment thinks of it no more; if, however, our feelings are excited, and if the object which gives the impression remains before us long enough to make the impression strong, then the impression becomes associated with the feelings, the will comes into play, in consequence of which we determine to remember the new impression and to seek an explana- tion of it. With this object the mind searches its pre- vious stock of ideas more particularly, comparing the new with the old, rejecting the totally unlike and retain- ing the like or the most like, and in the end it overcomes the obstacle of assimilation and finds a place for the new along with the old mental stores, thereby enriching it- self, consciously or unconsciously — unconsciously in the earlier years, and consciously afterward." But it must not be inferred that because the mind must always follow certain definite laws in the process of studying, therefore the act of study is a monotonous, unvarying mental effort. The laws of mind are capable 340 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL of infinite variety of illustration and application. There is also a great variety of subject-matter and there are many points of view which may serve as approaches to any specific lesson. So while it is true, as Sir William Hamilton says, that "the highest function of the mind is nothing higher than comparison, " it is equally true that there is a vast difference between the method and the results of the act of comparison of a child and those of a philosopher in observing the same object. The power to study, to learn, to think is of slow growth, and teach- ers must clearly understand that the manner and method of assigning lessons, the length of the lesson, the require- ments as to study, the degree of thoroughness to be ex- pected, the results to be demanded of any class to be reasonable and just must be suited to their age, experi- ence, and ability. The subject-matter of text-books consists of (i) facts; (2) definitions, rules, laws, and principles; (3) reasoning from facts; (4) application of rules and principles; (5) drills. Facts must be acquired through perception, memory, and association; definitions and principles must be approached through induction, which includes com- parison, abstraction, judgment, and classification; rea- soning from facts involves inference and imagination; application of rules and principles is the process of deduc- tion; drills consist in the intelligent application of prin- ciples to specific acts that it is considered worth while to make automatic. Throughout this whole process, feel- ing and will are present in the form of interest and atten- tion. This work of the pupil is begun in the school as one process. No lessons are assigned, little use is made of the text-book, the teaching is oral, the objective factor is prominent, and all work is done under the immediate THE PUPIL'S STUDY OF THE LESSON 341 direction of the teacher. Gradually, however, the work is divided into two exercises: (i) the study lesson, (2) the recitation. Oral teaching is used less and less; text- book study is more and more required. The change must be gradually made, or pupils become confused, dis- couraged, and form bad habits of study. Thus teaching refers to the efforts of the instructor to cause pupils to learn; learning is the activity of the pupil in the acquisi- tion of knowledge; while study is the means by which the act of learning is made successful and the act of teaching is made effective. The mental effect of acquir- ing knowledge by correct methods is discipline. The power to use knowledge accurately, rapidly, and easily is skill. Aims of the Study Lesson. — In his oversight of the study lesson the teacher should keep in mind the aims to be attained in this part of the work. He must realize that the study habits formed by his pupils will determine pretty largely their progress, both in school and after they leave school. He must also comprehend the intimate relation between the conduct of pupils and the study dabits that they acquire, and that the right use of his time by the pupil during the study period is one of the most satisfactory assurances that his school life will shape his character along right lines. Thus the teacher has every incentive to cultivate in his pupils the habit of faithful and persistent study. To this end the teacher must always keep definitely in mind as educational objectives the specific abilities and skills which he desires his pupils to develop. It surely needs no argument to prove that if pupils need a definite aim in the recitation, when at work under the imme- diate guidance and with the helpful oversight and wise 342 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL direction of the teacher, still greater will be their need of such an aim while they are preparing their lessons without the teacher's active assistance and direct aid. This topic has been treated quite fully in the chapter on the "Proper Assignment of the Lesson." We are not advocating the " Individual method" nor the "Batavia plan" when we insist upon the proper supervision of the study lesson and the need of a definite aim in the pupil's preparation. What we need is a proper correlation of study lessons and recita- tions. Recitations are by no means to be abolished, for to do away with them would be to deprive the pupils of very much of the best training which the school affords, and would also take away from the pupil the most potent, immediate, and natural stimulus to study. Therefore it would seem that the solution of the difficult problem of preventing waste of time and energy in school work is not to abolish the recitation nor even make it subordinate to the study lesson. Nor will the problem of waste in the school-room be solved by the introduction of manual training and all the arts and crafts into the course of study. Intelligent think- ing must accompany or precede all rational action, and the manipulation of materials by pupils under the guidance of teachers who are incompetent to teach children how to think and plan, how to observe and study, will not reform our schools. The really vital question is to bring about a better cor- relation between the pupil's seat work and his class work. And this correlation can be effected by properly assigned lessons and wise oversight of the pupil's study lesson. In stating the aims of the study lesson we may well pass over the rather sweeping and indefinite objects usually given by educational writers, such as "a well-formed mind," "a THE PUPIL'S STUDY OF THE LESSON 343 well-filled mind," "a well-rounded character," or, as another writer puts them, ''knowledge, discipline, aspira- tion, and efficiency." These aims are too broad and gen- eral and apply as much to the recitation as they do to the study lesson. Only a few of the more definite aims will be suggested. (i) To Acquire Power to Master Books Independently. — As Dr. White says: "It is to be kept in mind that knowl- edge is not the only end in view in teaching, but, what may be more important, the training of the pupil's power to acquire knowledge from books." Whatever may be the value of oral instruction, there is one thing that cannot be taught orally, and that is the inde- pendent and right use of books. That the mastery of books is one of the most important things that the school has to give is obvious, for the independent and wise use of books is the chief means of self-culture open to pupils after they leave school. In these days when ardent re- formers would banish books from the schools, teach all subjects orally, introduce all the arts and trades, and teach pupils to "make things," it is well to remember that written language preserved in parchments and books and scattered abroad by means of pen and printing-press is still the greatest force in our civilization and the most precious product of man's thought. School training should unlock the treasure-houses of wisdom by teaching pupils how to read the best books in the best way, how to master the art of "husking the author's thought." The report of the Committee of Fifteen says: "Inas- much as reading is the first of the scholastic arts, it is interesting to note that the whole elementary course may be described as an extension of the process of learning the art of reading." Now the art of reading, in the large 344 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL sense, is acquired only through the study of text-books in arithmetic, geography, history, and so on. It cannot be taught by theory, but must be learned by practice. To learn the art of study, pupils must study, not fitfully, dis- connectedly, without direction and definite purpose, but with proper guidance and with adequate mental stimulus. Only in this way can the average pupil acquire the power to become, at last, independent of teachers and schools. Only thus can he really enter the realm of wisdom, a realm so vast, so rich, so beautiful as to repay a hundred-fold every one who gains admission to it for all the hardships of the journey. Therefore the wise teacher will carefully supervise the efforts of the pupils in learning their lessons, will plan their work carefully, will encourage their attempts at independent study, will give only such assistance as may be needed, and will seek in every possible way to rightly teach the art of study. (2) To Acquire the Power of Sustained Thinking. — Not all reading is study, and for three reasons: (1) The reading matter may be trivial as compared with the reader's ability to think; (2) it may possess an undue sensational interest; (3) the reader may seek to master only the words, giving little or no heed to the thought. Now, in the first case, the pupil does not improve in the power to think, for to improve in any power that power must be exercised nearly or quite up to its limit. A course of study, properly arranged, affords a continuous exercise of the pupil's increasing power to think. And text-books are graded according to their difficulties so as to afford opportunity for this same up-to-the-limit thinking at every step of the pupil's progress. In the second case, the reading matter may possess great interest but have no educational value whatever. Indeed, THE PUPIL'S STUDY OF THE LESSON 345 it may weaken or destroy the pupil's power to apply himself to hard study. Skimming the daily newspaper, the cheap magazine, or the dime novel does not cultivate the habit of sustained thinking. In the third place, the so-called study of a text-book for the purpose of learning the words merely does not help the pupil to acquire the power to think. Writing of his experience as a pupil, Dr. Francis Wayland said: "Geog- raphy was studied without a map, by the use of a perfectly dry compendium. I had no idea of what was meant by bounding a country, though I daily repeated the boundaries at recitation. I studied English grammar in the same way. I had a good memory, and could repeat the grammar throughout. What it was about I had not the least conception. Once the school-master was visiting at my father's, and I was called up to show my proficiency in this branch of learning. I surprised my friends by my ability to begin at the commencement and to proceed as far as was desired; yet it did not convey to me a single idea." And under some modern teachers, even high- school students commit to memory the demonstrations to theorems in geometry. Thus it is clear that no simple reading of books constitutes study. It is only the close and persistent effort to master the real thought of a book suited to his ability and not possessing an undue sensational interest that cultivates the pupil's power of sustained think- ing. And it would almost seem that pupils have to acquire this power out of school rather than in it, because teachers so often fail to understand that reading a book may not be study, and do not realize the value of the real study of text- books as a means of cultivating the power to think. (3) To Form the Habit of Self-controlled Work. — Pupils form the habit of work just as they form other habits, by 346 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL practice. Close attention, persistent effort to accom- plish a definite purpose, steady application to the task in hand, are all required in the right preparation of a lesson that has been properly assigned. And this train- ing, begun in the lower grades and continued judiciously, systematically, to the end of the course, will enable the pupil to carry with him into his life-work the elements that win success; for such a habit of self-controlled work represents years of faithful, continuous effort, daily tasks well performed, self-restraint, self-reliance, and self-direc- tion. (4) To Develop the Sense of Personal Responsibility. — • Another object of the study lesson is to teach pupils the great lesson of individual responsibility. Well-defined daily tasks are allotted to the pupil every day. tEvery day he is called upon to render an account of the man- ner in which he has performed his daily tasks. No bet- ter way has been contrived to develop in children the sense of personal responsibility than the hourly alterna- tion of recitation and study lesson, when lessons are properly assigned, the pupil's preparation carefully supervised, and the pupil held rigidly to account in the recitation for the proper use of his time and opportuni- ties. Such are some of the objects of the study lesson. Method of Lesson Study. — Study is not the mere memorizing of the words of the lesson, though this is just what most pupils try to do in preparing a lesson. Perhaps this is why it is said that by the time a pupil leaves school he has already forgotten nine-tenths of what he has been taught. Herbert Spencer would have pupils learn only such facts as are organizable, and, bar- ring some exceptions like English spelling, the rule is a sound one. Organizable facts are those which are con- nected with other facts by means of thought relations. THE PUPIL'S STUDY OF THE LESSON 347 These facts should be associated together, not in an arbi- trary fashion, but by means of their relations, and thor- oughly mastered so as to serve as materials for the rea- soning powers of the mind to work with. It is such knowledge only that forms a safe basis for the reception and assimilation of fresh knowledge. Real progress in learning is not to be measured by pages, but by what the pupil acquires as a real and permanent possession. "The principal cause of so many dullards is quantity teaching," says Francis Parker. Jacotot has four rules for learning a thing, and Joseph Payne sums up these rules as follows: (i) Learn something; that is, learn so as to know thoroughly, perfectly, immovably, as well six months or twelve months hence, as now — something —something which fairly represents the subject to be acquired, which contains its essential characteristics. (2) Repeat that " something" incessantly every day, or very frequently from the beginning, without any omission, so that no part may be forgotten. (3) Reflect upon the matter thus acquired, so as, by degrees, to make it the possession of the mind as well as of the memory, so that, being appreciated as a whole, and appreciated in its minutest parts, what is as yet unknown may be referred to it and interpreted by it. (4) Verify, or test, rules and general statements by comparing them with the facts which you have learnt yourself." From these rules it is very clear that real study is a serious business. Acquiring knowledge can never be a purely passive matter, and the great value of study is not so much the knowledge gained as the improvement of the powers of attention, comparison, judgment, clas- sification, reasoning, and insight. And this growth of the mind is always the result of a process of apprehend- ing new knowledge by means of old knowledge; so that 348 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL the correct method of study must ever be the correct in- terpretation of impressions received from objects and ideas obtained through words, the discovery of their organic relations to each other, and the association of these impressions or ideas with other similar ones already assimilated by the mind. All helpful rules for lesson study are based upon these principles : (i) The first step in study should be to get a clear un- derstanding of the subject of the lesson and its relation to previous lessons. (2) Grasp the main divisions of the lesson and their general relation to each other. (3) Read the lesson as a whole carefully and connect- edly. Hold the mind to the thought without wandering. Seek to grasp the relation of ideas, to connect sentence with sentence, paragraph with paragraph. (4) Study the lesson in its details. Look up unfamiliar words. Write out definitions. Master the illustrations and think out other similar ones; then write out the principle illustrated. Think of practical applications of the principle. (5) Review the leading points, repeating definitions and principles. Then write from memory a brief out- line of the whole lesson. Difficulties in the Way of Study. — To recognize the great importance of the study lesson and to understand the nature of study are essential to good teaching, but these alone will not make sympathetic teaching. It is possible for the teacher to enter into the study lesson so vitally and helpfully that pupils are conscious of this unity even though the teacher is conducting a recitation or is out of the room. Indeed, this feeling of unity be- tween teacher and pupils ought not to be confined solely THE PUPIL'S STUDY OF THE LESSON 349 to the recitation and cannot be so confined if the best results are to be secured. The source of this feeling of unity is the sympathy of the teacher with the pupils in their efforts to prepare the lesson as assigned. And no teacher will have such sympathy unless he fully under- stands the great and real difficulties that beset the pupil in mastering his lesson and acquiring the art of study. It will be helpful to consider briefly a few of these diffi- culties. (i) The Child's Previous Mode of Learning. — Children acquire a vast amount of knowledge before they enter school. From the hour of their birth they have ex- periences and come into direct contact with objects. Through these experiences and this direct contact with objects they gradually acquire a store of percepts, images, and crude concepts, and at five years of age have mas- tered a working vocabulary comprising hundreds of words in common use. Knowledge gained in this way is first-hand, or empirical knowledge, and must serve as the basis of apperceiving all the knowledge they will ever acquire. There is, however, another kind of knowl- edge, that which is acquired through the oral descrip- tion or the written accounts of other people. This is second-hand knowledge. Now, when the child enters school he has had five years' experience in the direct study of things, and has also acquired some facility in acquiring second-hand knowledge through listening to stories and the conversation of his elders. But he has had no experience whatever in getting knowledge through books. He must begin at the first. He must begin the mastery of knowledge through symbols. He must con- quer a new mode of study. No wonder that his first attempts to study a book are feeble, his steps faltering, and that he is often discouraged. The sublime courage 350 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL with which little folks attack the work of mastering the difficulties that fairly jostle each other on the printed page ought to call out the teacher's admiration and sympathy. Moreover, the transition from the life at home to that of the school is very great, especially when there is no preparatory training in the kindergarten. It is a transi- tion from untrained activity to the restraints of the school-room, from play to regular and systematic work, from individual liberty to social co-operation and the subordination of the personal will to the control of the teacher and the good of the class or school. Feelings must be repressed, impulses must be controlled, prefer- ences must be sacrificed, tasks must be done. To make all these necessary adjustments taxes all the child's powers to the utmost, and calls for the patience, the kindly help, and the fullest sympathy of the teacher. (2) The Change from Oral Lessons to Text-book Lessons Is Too Sudden. — The method of teaching in the lower grades is by means of oral lessons. Primary teachers are, as a rule, specialists. They frequently do not un- derstand the work of the higher grades and sometimes they do not try to understand it. Hence they take no pains to prepare pupils for the independent study of text- books. Lessons are developed, objects are used, seat work is planned in the third grade, just as they were in the first and second grades. As a consequence pupils enter the fourth grade almost totally unprepared for the study of text-books. There they are given books and are told to study their lessons, the very thing that they have not been taught how to do. Is it any wonder that they "mark time," become discouraged, take refuge in the mere senseless memorizing of the words of the book, and form a dislike for books, teacher, and school ? Here THE PUPIL'S STUDY OF THE LESSON 351 are the causes of the first great exodus of pupils from our public schools. In an address before the session of the National Educational Association of 1908, Dr. Andrew Draper said: "When but one- third of the children re- main to the end of the elementary course in a country where education is such a universal passion, there is something the matter with the schools.' ' It is a tremendous fact, and a fact that may justly cause apprehension, that so large a per cent of the chil- dren in this country never get beyond the fourth grade in our schools, and go out into life with almost no train- ing in the use of books, deprived of the means of self- culture, and capable of reading only the sensational newspaper or the trashiest kind of literature. (3) Text-books in Themselves Are No Stimulus to Ef- fort. — -When pupils are set to learning a lesson from a text-book without the assistance of properly assigned lessons, they are at once deprived of all the helps so characteristic of oral teaching. In oral lessons the voice and manner, the emphasis and language of the teacher may all be adapted to the pupils. The teacher calls into play every device and illustration by the use of objects, gestures, drawing, painting, dramatizing to help pupils grasp the thought. But the printed page of the text- book is an unvarying, monotonous stimulus, to which the pupil not trained to study cannot hold his attention without some definite thing to look for. He thus fails to get his lesson, is scolded, ridiculed, kept in, punished, all to no purpose. What he needs are properly assigned work, training in how to study, and sympathy. (4) Physical Conditions May Hinder Study. — Impure air, bad light, imperfect heating, a loud-voiced teacher, a disorderly room, uncomfortable seats may make it im- possible for pupils to hold their thoughts to the study of 352 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL the book. These factors have been discussed in a pre- ceding chapter. (5) Outside Interests and Distractions May Prevent Study. — Pupils are interested in many things outside of the school-room. They are interested in home duties or pleasures, in games or sports, in story-books and fairy tales, in parties and picnics, in holidays and street life. Some of these interests can be turned to good account by the skilful teacher to serve as approaches to text-book study or illustrations in class work; but for the most part all these varied interests must be banished from the mind of the pupil during the study lesson. In some cases these outside interests may invade the school to such an extent that the entire school is demoralized. An athletic craze or a skating-rink mania or an epidemic of parties has sometimes completely spoiled a term's work. Such are some of the difficulties that must be over- come by pupils in acquiring studious habits. These difficulties are very real and very great — so great that unless parents wisely co-operate with the school, and unless the teachers realize the nature of these obstacles to study and render pupils proper assistance in overcom- ing them, the right education of the child is impossible. Right Conditions of Study. — If the right conditions for study do not exist in the school, the teacher should delib- erately set to work to make them right. He should, if necessary, secure the co-operation of the school board in making the physical conditions as favorable as possible. He should endeavor to create a healthy school atmos- phere in the community by getting into close touch with the parents by personal visits, patrons' meetings, appropriate exercises at the schools, reports of each pupil's progress, judicious use of home study, and gen- THE PUPIL'S STUDY OF THE LESSON 353 eral oversight of the pupil's home reading through a wise use of the library. Good order and a reasonable degree of quiet, well-assigned lessons, oversight of the pupil's preparation, good teaching in the recitation, kindly en- couragement are all prime conditions of study and these are all within the teacher's control. These may be called the objective conditions of study. On the subjective side there are three main conditions of study: (i) The pupil must know how to study his lesson. The teacher must make no mistake here by simply as- suming that pupils know how to study the lesson; he must know whether they do or not, and if they do not he must show them how. (2) Interest in the lesson. Interest is that form of intellectual feeling that spurs us on to examine, to in- quire, to investigate, to experiment. Natural or primi- tive interest is the craving of the mind for knowledge, the instinct of the soul for truth; while acquired interest springs out of the stock of ideas which we have already made our own. To arouse the pupil's interest in any lesson, the teacher must discover some point of attach- ment between the lesson and the pupil's previous experi- ences and make the pupil conscious of this relationship. (3) Attention, or will. Interest that is not sustained, and, as it were, constantly re-created, by attention is fugitive and almost valueless in book study. Years ago Rollin declared: "We should never lose sight of this grand principle that study depends on the will, and the will does not endure restraint. We can, to be sure, put constraints on the body and make a pupil, however un- willing, stick to his desk, can double his toil by punish- ment, compel him to finish a task imposed upon him, and with this object we can deprive him of play and 354 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL recreation. But is this work of the galley-slave study- ing? And what remains to the pupil from this kind of study but a hatred of books, of learning, and of masters, often till the end of his days ? It is, then, the will that we must draw on our side, and this we must do by gen- tleness, by friendliness, by persuasion, and, above all, by the allurement of pleasure." How to Help Pupils to Study. — Helping pupils to learn how to study is one of the most necessary and important duties of the teacher. We have stated that no matter how skilfully the lesson may have been assigned, pupils must not be left during the study lesson without supervision. Some reasons for this statement will be considered. (i) Physical Conditions Need Constant Readjustment. — These conditions are variable and therefore need the constant attention of the teacher. Window-curtains need adjustment. The temperature must be regulated. The ventilation requires attention. The physical needs of pupils in regard to fatigue and change of work cannot be ignored. Pupils have their limitations beyond which they cannot go, and any teacher who attempts the im- possible is doomed to failure. Teachers should neither omit nor neglect anything, however small, that helps to create an atmosphere of study, tone up the mind, revive the energy, enhance the comfort, increase the vigor, cheer the mood, and brace the will of pupils for their study of the lesson. This power to look after " little things," to foresee conditions, and to plan for results constitutes the very essence of efficient practical school management. To quote from a recent work on "Public School Administration": "The ability of study, involv- ing, as it does, both consecutive attention and concen- tration of mind, deserves constant control and over- THE PUPIL'S STUDY OF THE LESSON 355 sight by all who are responsible for the progress of school work. Every study period, whether in primary or gram- mar school, should be supervised by the teacher. Even though he may have to perform some other work, he should have prepared the class for their study in such a way that they know just what to do and how to do it." (2) The Plan of Work Must Be Clear. — The aim and plan of the lesson must be perfectly clear to the pupils. For younger pupils the aim may be written on the board in the form of a question, and specific directions should be given as to the manner of preparing the lesson. Some questions may call for written answers or illustrations by means of drawing, painting, maps, and handwork; for such work helps to hold the pupil's attention to the lesson and aids him in gleaning the thought from the printed page. Seat work in the form of copying, paraphrasing, and the like, just for the sake of keeping pupils busy, should not be tolerated. For older pupils study topics may be used in the place of questions, and as they grow in power of attention and self-control outlines may be used. Finally, the pupil will be able to make his own outlines and formulate his own questions, and will have so far mastered the art of study that he can hold his mind to the lesson without any external aids. Thus it is that teachers by training pupils in right habits of study develop their powers of self-help and self- culture until they become independent workers. This is what Dr. Schaeffer meant when he said: "The aim of the teacher should be to make himself useless." The teacher should realize that the help given to pupils during the study lesson should vary with the age, ability, and experience of the pupils, with the nature of the subject, the character of the text-book, and the purpose of the les- 356 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL son. Great care must be taken not to assign pupils more work than they can do well during the study period. The habit of successful and complete preparation must be en- couraged. As soon as fatigue and a sense of worry begin with young pupils the real value of the study lesson ceases and rest or a change of work is needed. (3) No Interruption of the Study Lesson Should Be Tolerated. — The teacher who does not see to it that all the needs of pupils are supplied before the study lesson begins is lacking in foresight and managing power. Unless this is done frequent interruptions of the study period occur through the thoughtlessness of some pupils in the class, and these disturbances spoil the work of the whole class. Before the signal for the study of the lesson is given, pencils should be ready for use; paper provided; books, not needed, removed from the desk; necessary physical needs attended to; questions answered. Pupils should understand once for all that after the study lesson has begun there will be no opportunity to ask questions, borrow materials of any kind, sharpen pencils, get a drink, or change work. Of course, unusual circumstances may arise that will demand immediate adjustment, but ordi- narily no interruption of the study lesson should be per- mitted. Only in this way will pupils learn to appreciate the value and sacredness of the study period. As Arnold Tompkins says: "If the teacher has carefully provided for all the pupil's wants, there can be no necessity for giving him attention now. To stop the recitation to an- swer his question is to give the time of the twenty in the class to the one. He has no right to break the unity between the teacher and the class. If he finds now that he needs a pencil, to supply him would cultivate a want of foresight; and by to-morrow he will want both pencil THE PUPIL'S STUDY OF THE LESSON 357 and book. He cannot get the pencil during the study time without breaking up the whole school, for a moment at least." Thus the child's feeble power of voluntary attention to the study of the text-book must be wisely guarded from all "invading influences." So much is the child the slave of his senses that he must be protected from sights and sounds while he is trying to learn the difficult art of connected thinking and sustained atten- tion to the lesson in hand. (4) Study With the Pupils. — "Come and let me show you how," says Dr. James, "is an incomparably better stimulus than ' Go and do it as the book directs.' " Quite frequently the whole class period may profitably be given over to studying with the pupils, not for them. This is especially true in introducing new topics or when the difficulties in the text-book are unusual. Pupils should not be left to meet these difficulties unaided, if there is every reason to expect that their efforts will end in defeat for all except the chosen few. Making the pupils his fellow- workers in the study of a lesson has a stimulating effect upon the class. It reveals the teacher to them as a searcher for truth. The manner of attacking the lesson serves the pupil as a model in his next attempts at independent study. It is a helpful lesson in teaching the art of study. In such a study exercise the teacher can show how to get at the right meaning of words, how to pick out the leading thoughts, how to discover organic relations, how to con- struct a good definition, how to guard against hasty inferences, how to make use of old knowledge in the study of the lesson, how to apply what is learned to the ordinary affairs of life. The pupils should leave such a co-operative study of the lesson with an added thirst for knowledge, a sense of power, a greater respect for the subject and the 358 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL teacher, and a higher ideal of study. It must never be forgotten that the teacher sets up the ideals of the school — ■ ideals of order, of conduct, of thoroughness of study. Toward these ideals the pupils working with the teacher are ever striving, ever advancing. (5) Teach the Art of Study Through Practice in Study. — The art of study, like every other art, is learned through practice — not unregulated, half-hearted, hap-hazard, spas- modic practice, but through wisely directed, continuous, whole-minded work under the inspiration of correct ideals. " One of the first duties of the teacher," says Roark, " is to show the pupil how to prepare a lesson — how to direct effort and to economize time; how to exert thought power and to question himself and his text-book while he is studying; and especially how to enjoy the processes of learning facts and understanding them." Pupils must be trained in the use of study helps. Very many pupils even in the high school do not know how to use the dictionary helpfully. This work should not be begun until the fourth grade, and must not be overdone, but definite pains should be taken to train pupils how to get the meaning of words from their context; how to find words readily in the dictionary and how to select the right word from many synonyms; how to trace the etymology of words; and the leading suffixes and most important roots should be memorized. Few reference books should be used in the lower grades, since the pupil is not able to account for the seeming discrepancies between the different books on the same subject. But as pupils gain power to master books and greater maturity of judgment they must be trained in the use of reference books and the sifting of evidence, and encouraged to make a constant use of the library as a means of self-instruction. THE PUPIL'S STUDY OF THE LESSON 359 The problem of capturing the pupil's interest and hold- ing his attention to the study lesson is always present and always vital. Here the personal relations between the teacher and pupils are of the greatest importance. Older pupils may study from a sense of duty, but young pupils who dislike the teacher will seldom like their lessons or their school. It is of the greatest moment that teachers should seek to win the confidence and affection of young pupils. Children do their best when encouraged by hope and love; they are at their worst intellectually and morally when depressed by fear and a lack of sympathy. The teacher must strive to make the school a pleasant place for the child, must respect his feelings, encourage him to express his real and best self, call out his interests and turn these interests into profitable channels. Roopersays: "It is a useful hint to study the children's own lead and follow it. School necessarily limits the child's life. You cannot bring all creation into the four walls of the class-room. But what you lose in extent you gain in depth; you lose variety, you gain in concentration. Before school-time all things engage the child's attention in turns and nothing long. At school he has to attend to a few things, and to keep his attention fixed upon them for short periods at first but for increasingly longer ones. It is a matter of practice and experience to find what things most readily arrest attention, and in what way information can best be conveyed so as to arrest attention, and it is in these matters that the skill of the teacher comes in." It is of very little avail to hold up to young children incentives to study that are remote in time and more com- plex than they can comprehend, such as would appeal to older pupils. The art of study cannot be taught by rules and exhortations. What the pupil needs in his first at- 360 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL tempts at study is that the teacher go with him, aid him in his task, throw light on the dark places, praise him when he does well, help him up when he falls, encourage him when he loses heart. Only by such help can the majority of pupils be saved from waste of time, dawdling over les- sons, failure in recitation, aversion to study, and indiffer- ence to acquiring an education. . Home study should be judiciously assigned. The con- ditions in many homes are such that effective study is quite impossible. The kind of work so assigned should receive especial consideration. Probably the poorest lessons for home study are arithmetic and grammar lessons; history, supplementary reading, and library work are much better. Home study may be made a means of interesting parents in the school work of their children, and such work may be suggested only, not required. (6) Help Pupils to Formulate Rules for Study. — The last stage in teaching the art of study may very properly consist in developing certain helpful rules and principles of mental application. Under the careful guidance of the teacher, the pupils have all along practised these rules and, no doubt, some of the most important rules have already been formulated by the more thoughtful members of the class. Having thus mastered the art of study by practice under intelligent guidance, and having formulated the principles on which the art is based, and having ac- quired a permanent interest in science, history, literature, and art, pupils are, at last, fairly independent of teachers; for they are able to teach themselves. SUGGESTED READINGS Strayer, "A Brief Course in the Teaching Process," chap. VIII; Earhart, "Teaching Children to Study," chaps. IV, VIII; F. M. McMurry, "How to Study and Teaching How to Study "; THE PUPIL'S STUDY OF THE LESSON 361 Hinsdale, "Art of Study," chaps. IV, VI, VII, IX; Tompkins, "School Management," pp. 133-141; Perry, "The Manage- ment of a City School," pp. 205-214; H. B. Wilson, "Training Pupils to Study"; Hall-Quest, "Supervised Study," chaps. VII, VIII; Strayer and Engelhardt, "The Classroom Teacher," chap. VII; Davis, "The Work of the Teacher," chap. VIII. CHAPTER XXIV METHOD IN TEACHING THE LESSON Is There a Typical Method of Teaching ? — The young teacher is bewildered by the number and diversity of the factors that enter into the problem of instruction. Teaching a class of restless, wide-awake boys and girls is a very practical affair. It is a time for action. There is no chance to theorize. To "get the ear" of the audi- ence the lesson must be suited to the class. In its pres- entation the teacher must conform to the laws that con- trol the development of the mind. No real success is possible unless the pupil's consciousness is actively en- gaged in the process of learning. So it matters little what the course of study may be, or the subject, or the lesson, or the aim and plan of the lesson; if all these are not adapted to the age, the experience, and the capacity of the individuals composing the class, they are all alike fruitless; hence most teachers work very hard all through the recitation to adapt their instruction to the class be- fore them. The degree in which they succeed in this adaptation is the measure of their success. A few gifted teachers seem to divine the right method of procedure almost intuitively; other would-be teachers never learn it and are failures; while the great majority of successful teachers discover the way through study, observation, and practice. To all students of the art of teaching the question of method is a very important one. To the novice it seems 362 METHOD IN TEACHING THE LESSON 363 that the method of teaching must change with the sub- ject taught, the age of the pupils, the environment of the schools, the text-book in use, and that there are no certain rules or general laws to guide the teacher through the maze of difficulties. But the teacher who studies the problem of method carefully soon comes to realize that there are certain fundamental principles underlying all method. In time it dawns upon him that in spite of all the diversity of subject-matter, text-books, school surroundings, and teaching devices, in spite of all the differences in age, acquirement, and individuality of pu- pils, there is a truly typical method of teaching which is, in the main, constant and capable of being adapted to nearly all subjects and classes. And this is so because the major movements of the mind are common to all learners and because the fundamental laws of teaching, based as they are on the nature of the mind, are valid for all subjects and find application in every recitation. To be successful the teacher must base his method of teaching upon the pupiPs method of learning. Without this the teacher and pupil do not really work together; they work at cross-purposes and only confuse and irri- tate each other. As Raymont says: "That the acquisi- tion of knowledge or of skill is a process of assimilation of new to old, that the relevant parts of a pupiPs pre- viously acquired stock of ideas should therefore be re- called, that there should be a progress from the concrete and particular to the abstract and general, that ideas must be possessed before they can be applied, and that application in its turn makes for effective and perma- nent possession; these are truths as sure as the law of gravitation, because they embody the plain facts of the working of a child's mind." These facts are the basis 364 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL of method in teaching. Any form of procedure that runs counter to these facts is no method. Meaning of Method. — Sir William Hamilton says: "All method is a rational progress toward a definite end." Method, then, is the process of reaching a defi- nite end by the wise use of a series of related acts which tend to secure that end. As denned by Dewey: " Method is not antithetical to subject-matter; it is the effective direction of subject- matter to desired results." As applied to class teaching, method is the series of related and progressive acts used by the teacher to ac- complish the specific aim of the lesson. Method in teaching implies a definite lesson aim. Where there is no such aim, there can be no method. To be rational, method in teaching must be based upon the fundamental laws of mind. To be logical and progressive, there must be a correct arrangement, se- quence, and correlation of all the acts and means em- ployed by the teacher in reaching the aim. To be effec- tive, method must accomplish the aim set up at the be- ginning of the recitation. To be consistent, method must remain the same throughout the recitation, or as long as the lesson aim remains the same. As a complete process, method in instruction must include (i) observa- tion of particular concrete objects, qualities, facts, or re- lations; (2) comparison of the data observed and a clear perception of the qualities that are common to a class; (3) induction proper, or the formulation of a definition, law, or general truth based upon these common quali- ties; (4) deduction or the application of rules, laws, and principles to particular cases. Great Variety of So-called " Methods." — It will mark a great advance in our American schools when these sim- METHOD IN TEACHING THE LESSON 365 pie principles shall be applied in practice, for in no other department of educational theory has there been such hopeless confusion of thought as in the realm of so-called " methods. " Until very recently the term "methods" has been applied quite indiscriminately, not only to the more important phases of the teaching process, but also to the petty devices and expedients used by the teacher and to the manifold forms which the recitation may assume in its forward movement. And so we have a bewildering array of general and special methods; pri- mary methods, grade methods, and high-school methods; Grube method, Speer method, spiral method, and prac- tical method in arithmetic; Spencerian, vertical, Za- nerian, and Palmer methods in writing; and in reading the ABC method, the word method, the sentence method, the Ward method, the Aldine method, the Bea- con method, the eclectic method, and a score of others. A popular work in school management has the follow- ing classification: CLASS METHODS CLASS DEVICES i. Unity method. i. The class. 2. Individual method. 2. Written work. 3. Investigation method. 3. Laboratory work. 4. Teaching-question method. 4. Outline work. 5. Conversation method. 5. Reporting work. 6. Topic method., 6. Teaching work. 7. Discussion method. 7. Concert work. 8. Lecture method. 8. Original class devices. Now, it is perfectly evident that there is no clear prin- ciple of division between methods and devices in the above outline. In a recent book Dr. Stevenson states that in his ex- amination of over forty text-books he found fourteen methods of teaching now in common use, as follows: 366 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL " Questions, topics, problems, examples, originals, exer- cises, drills, tests, reviews, applications, illustrations, demonstrations, experiments, and practicums." Another author says: "In the main, most subjects are treated according to one of three methods, namely, ac- cording to the lecture, the text-book, or the developing method." Now these three forms of the recitation should not be considered as independent methods. They are simply three different phases, or aspects, of one method. The teacher may make use of all these phases in the same recitation, may use now one, then another, but this does not mean that every such change is a change of method. Method in teaching is not deter- mined by such mechanical and external forms of proce- dure as using a text-book or not using a text-book, ques- tioning by the teacher or lecturing by the teacher, oral work or written work. All these are merely the different forms that the recitation may assume in its progress toward the realization of the lesson aim. The recitation should be considered as a concrete, definite exercise with a specific aim to be attained by a series of logically related acts on the teacher's part which call forth corre- spondingly related mental processes and physical acts on the part of the pupils, all tending to accomplish this aim. Thus method in teaching depends upon the na- ture of the child's mental processes as expressed in the fundamental laws of teaching. Method in teaching is not a haphazard use of unre- lated devices, changing as fashions change, dependent upon the caprice or convenience of the teacher. If method is not a fundamental thing in the teaching-learn- ing process, then there can be no science of education. Dr. E. C. Moore says: "When the subject has been de- METHOD IN TEACHING THE LESSON 367 termined and the class is there ready to begin its work, does it make any difference how the teacher proceeds? The fact is that it does. We may spend millions in erecting school palaces; we may gather the youth of the nation together in them; we may employ an army of teachers to teach them just what they should know; but unless they are given an opportunity to learn, the un- dertaking will be in vain. The test of teaching is learn- ing. That must be done by the students." The Lesson Aim, or Problem, or Project. — Elsewhere we have shown that the law of aim applies to all teach- ing, and that there is, in fact, no such thing as method in the recitation without some aim in view. This law implies that in order to accomplish the most effective work the pupils as well as the teacher must keep the les- son aim in mind, must consciously work toward it dur- ing their study lesson, must strive together to realize it in the recitation, and must know when they have at- tained it. Such an aim, it has been shown, becomes the pupil's guide in his search for knowledge; but if it is to be such a guide, it must be stated so clearly, concretely, and attractively that it appeals to him as a definite thing to be done, a problem to be solved, a principle to be mastered and applied. The lesson aim should be stated briefly and simply. It may take the form of a sentence, setting forth the work to be done during the recitation. It may be a single question which serves to turn the thought of the class in a definite direction. It may be the application of some rule or definition or principle, previously mastered, to new cases, facts, and problems. In stating the aim a set form of words should be avoided. While the lesson aim must bear a close relation to the pupil's previous knowledge of the subject, it should sug- 368 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL gest something new. There should be no " beating around the bush," no guessing game to dissipate the pupil's interest and attention, for the aim should serve to focus the pupil's mind upon the subject, call up many of his old related ideas, arouse him to effort in preparing his lesson, keep the teacher and pupil from wandering during the recitation, and serve as a definite standard by which to estimate the value of questions and answers, devices and illustrations, and all the other means used to realize the specific aim of each lesson. What Is Implied in the Proper Statement of the Les- son Aim or Problem. — The proper statement of the les- son aim is a difficult matter, for it implies very much in the way of general preparation as well as accurate and specific information on the part of the teacher. The teacher must understand the course of study as a whole. Then he must be able to arrange all the material included in the course into related groups of knowledge fitted for the pupils in a certain stage of development. Next he must think his way clearly through each subject that he is to teach and comprehend the relation of one part to another. And, finally, he must divide the portion of each subject that is to be presented to his own special class into definite smaller wholes to be mastered separ- ately by the pupils. Such connected portions of subject- matter are called "method- wholes," " method-units," or " projects." Such a unit or project must embody a valuable concept, definition, or principle, or must require the application of definitions and principles. To dis- cover, verify, master, and apply these principles is the essence of the teaching-learmng process. The method- unit, or project, is not so many pages of the text-book or so many exercises to be worked out. It is a portion METHOD IN TEACHING THE LESSON 369 of subject-matter in the text-book, or represents a " pur- posive activity" out of school, which requires for its mastery by the pupil a complete process of thinking in- cluding: (i) a clear grasp of the problem, or thought- situation, and a more or less definite plan of overcom- ing the difficulty involved; (2) gathering data bearing on the situation through the use of observation, experi- ment, and the memory of past related experiences; (3) comparing and sifting data and trying to fit the acquired material into the plan for solving the problem; (4) dis- covering thought relations and principles; (5) verify- ing principles and applying them to meet new situa- tions. Now this complete process of thinking may require the time of one recitation period only; but usually the mastery of the method-unit, or project, will require more than one recitation period and may occupy the time of many recitation periods and study periods. Therefore it is necessary that the teacher shall divide the larger method-unit, or project, into smaller portions called lessons, each having its distinct aim. And this lesson aim as compared with the aim of the method-unit, or project, is a subordinate one, or a sub-aim that can be realized in a single recitation period. From this discussion it is obvious that in order to apprehend clearly the aim of each lesson and state it properly, the teacher must: (1) Grasp the scope and meaning of the course of study; (2) be able to analyze the material of the course of study into definite projects or method-units; (3) know the contents of the pupils' minds, their mental capital, interests, and stage of growth; (4) understand the mental processes involved in the act of mastering a general truth; (5) be able to plan 370 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL the lesson in accordance with the fundamental laws of teaching. Class Activities in the Recitation Lesson. — Since learn- ing is the result of the thinking activities of the members of the class as individuals, the quality and quantity of such activities are the best test of the success of the recitation lesson. In primary grades these thinking ac- tivities are called oral lessons; in the higher grades text- book lessons are the usual form of instruction. (i) Oral Lessons. — Oral lessons must be the chief means of instruction in the lower grades, and as the pupil advances in the course, oral instruction should decrease, while book study should increase. There are two ways of acquiring the materials of knowledge: (i) By experience and observation; (2) by authority. Knowledge which is the result of experience and obser- vation is called first-hand knowledge, because in these processes the objects studied are brought into direct contact with the mind of the learner. On the other hand, knowledge acquired by authority is called second- hand knowledge, because the objects of study are not brought into direct contact with the learner's mind, but are presented indirectly by the use of symbols, such as spoken words, pictures, maps, charts, drawings, and the printed page. The child is a keen observer and a ceaseless experi- menter, and thus, before he enters school, he has ac- quired a great amount of experience and first-hand knowledge and achieved skills that serve him as a basis, and the only basis, for acquiring knowledge through the use of symbols. Oral lessons should be mainly inductive, not dog- matic. They should be based on the pupil's experience METHOD IN TEACHING THE LESSON 371 and observation, not upon authority. They should be conversational and should never degenerate into a mere talking exercise on the part of the teacher. Thus oral instruction should develop in the pupil the power to make correct inferences, both inductively and deduc- tively, from facts derived chiefly through his own experi- ence and observation. Only thus is he prepared to use text-books intelligently and to vitalize knowledge ac- quired from the printed page. The ability of the pupil to understand the words or other symbols used in ac- quiring knowledge by authority depends upon his power to interpret such words and symbols into vivid images in terms of his own past experiences. In the hands of a well-trained and experienced pri- mary teacher we find in these oral lessons our best ex- amples of what the motivated, socialized, supervised, and most effective teaching-learning process should be — school work at its best. The laws of the teaching-learn- ing process, as given in Chapter XIX, that apply to oral lessons are particularly the laws of sense-perception, motor reaction, apperception, self-activity, interest and attention, and habit-forming. (2) Text-book Lessons. — In text-book lessons the work which has been assigned to the class and which the pupils have studied under the general supervision of the teacher, is continued in the recitation lesson with the teacher as a member of the group, a "chairman of the discussion," an inspirer of thought. If the recitation lesson is to be "a thinking exercise and an opportunity for the expression of thought," it must conform to the nature of the teaching-learning process and be governed by its laws as described in Chapters XVIII and XIX. The activities of the class under the guidance of the 372 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL teacher in the recitation lesson will naturally take the following forms: (a) Reporting and Checking the Results of the Study Lesson. — There is great danger of waste of time in text- book study because of the fact that the text-book, as its name implies, is only the barest epitome of the subject treated, a condensed statement, a mere summary, is, in reality, only a book of answers. Unless the pupils have been safeguarded against wrong habits of study by a careful assignment of the lesson, they will read in the text-books the answers to problems in geography, his- tory, physiology, and other studies without as much as even thinking the problems — a perfectly stupid perform- ance. It is obvious that to avoid such a disaster educa- tionally teachers must not insist overmuch on the words or even the "substance" of the text-book, but in the recitation period should give pupils the opportunity to report on their individual reading, to answer specific questions or discuss special topics assigned to them, and to exhibit any outlines, maps, charts, or processes which they have been asked to prepare. This is a testing and checking-up process in which the class takes an active part, not so much a test of knowledge as a lost of the pupiPs effectiveness in study, his zeal in gathering data and consulting sources of information, his ability to arrange and organize material, his use of the knowledge that he already possesses, and his initiative and power to execute. For all this portion of the class work the proper stimuli are the interest, attention, questions, sug- gestion, and criticisms of classmates and teacher. (b) Gatiiering Additional Data. — Having ascertained the combined results of the study lesson, the class and the teacher may find that they do not have sufficient METHOD IN TEACHING THE LESSON 373 data to solve the problem that forms the aim of the lesson. If the recitation is to proceed as a thinking ex- ercise the only right thing to do is to seek for additional data. The chief means used here as stimuli are: (i) Teaching, or developing questions; (2) the use of ob- jects, either bringing them into the school-room or tak- ing the children to the objects; (3) illustrations by means of charts, maps, pictures, views, slides; (4) the use of the pupil's motor activities through drawing, painting, dramatizing, cutting, making, modelling, and all kinds of handwork; (5) appropriate details in the form of ex- planations, stories, legends, and descriptions; (6) calling frequently for summaries and recapitulations. The responses of the pupils must at every step dove- tail with these stimuli used by the teacher. There must be no distractions, no wandering from the subject, no guessing, no foolish answers, no superficial perception, no haziness of images. The mental activity of all pupils in the class must correspond to the external means, or stimuli, used by the teacher to arouse and direct their thinking. Under the spur of interest and the strong natural tendency to react in an appropriate manner to every sensory stimulus, the pupils should lose all sense of embarrassment and self-consciousness, and give them- selves heartily to the work. They should be so entirely natural and fearless as to undertake anything suggested by the teacher in the way of dramatizing, drawing, paint- ing, modelling, cutting, and making. Thus teacher and pupils think and feel and work together, and the stream of thought grows broader and deeper as the recitation moves onward. In this phase of the teaching-learning process the teacher must apply the laws of aim, sense-impression, 374 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL motor reaction, self-activity, apperception, and in- terest and attention. These laws should be reviewed here. (c) Comparing and Sifting Data and Trying to Fit the Material into the Plan for Solving the Problem. — When the class have acquired sufficient data to serve as a sure foundation for the solution of their problem, their think- ing will take the form of comparing and judging, and of "trial and error " attempts to fit their data into their plan. Their new ideas must be sifted, arranged, com- pared with one another and with the old ideas in the pupils' experience. Comparison is the fundamental process in all thinking. There are three stages in thought. These stages are conception, judgment, and reasoning. Where the ma- terials compared are sensations, percepts, and images, the result of the act of comparison is a minor concept or some particular judgment. In the second stage of thought concepts are compared and a larger concept or a more inclusive judgment is reached; while in the third stage of thought the mind compares two judgments and from their relation to each other derives a new judg- ment. Thus comparison is present in every stage of the thinking process. The laws of teaching especially involved here are self- activity, sense-perception, interest, apperception. The powers appealed to are perception, memory, comparison, abstraction, and judgment. The work of the teacher is to suggest standards of comparison and correct units of measure^ to help pupils to distinguish superficial quali- ties from essential ones, to see that the conclusions of the pupils are based upon actual comparison and judg- ment, to encourage pupils to correct their own false con- METHOD IN TEACHING THE LESSON 375 elusions by closer attention to details and a re-examina- tion of materials, and to connect ideas by the higher thought relations of similarity, design, cause, and effect rather than by mere contiguity in time and space. The laws of the association of ideas are based upon fundamental facts. These facts are that ideas tend to group themselves together in the mind by means of definite thought relations, and that any one of the ideas in such a group tends to suggest the others. Related ideas flock together as " birds of a feather" are said to do. The purpose of comparison is to discover thought relations between ideas, and to associate similar ideas with each other, causes with effects, parts with wholes, so that these ideas may be easily retained in the memory. Great care should be taken by the teacher that pupils may find out for themselves these thought relations, and feel the joy of original discovery. In all judging and reasoning, units of comparison are necessary. These units are acquired at first through perception and actual experience. To furnish pupils with accurate, definite units of comparison in the vari- ous branches of study is a most important part of the work of early education. These units serve the pupil as standards by which he measures all new ideas. Accu- racy of judgment depends upon having accurate units of comparison and knowing how to apply them. Thus there are fixed standards of value, size, weight, color, taste, and conduct. These standards are expressed in definitions, tables, rules, maxims, laws, proverbs. In comparison the pupil measures the new ideas presented to him by means of these old standards, notes agree- ments and differences, picks out the essential qualities and rejects the unessential, and thus centres the atten- 376 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL tion on a few important qualities that are common to a class. (d) Discovering Thought Relations and Principles. — Having acquired sufficient data and discovered what they can use and what must be rejected to further the plan they have in mind, pupils are ready to form a gen- eral concept, rule, or principle, and to state it in their own language. This is inference, or generalization, and is the crowning act of inductive thinking. This general concept or principle should constitute the answer to the problem or project proposed in the assignment as the aim or sub-aim of the lesson. If the thinking of the class has been skilfully guided, this general principle has been approached so naturally that pupils readily grasp its meaning and are able to express it clearly. The teacher must see that they do this, and no matter how crude the first statements of the pupil may be, the teacher must not "put the words into his mouth" nor permit him to hide behind the excuse that he " knows it but cannot tell it." Inability to express a truth in words is nearly always due to a lack of clear ideas. The laws of induction, aim, and self-activity are prom- inent here. The pupil's powers of inference, imagina- tion, reasoning, and expression must be active. The teacher should require clear, definite, concise statements of the central truth, correct any misconceptions by re- tracing briefly the preceding steps, criticise incomplete statements, require a better statement on the part of the pupil, and encourage pupils to verify their conclu- sions. Any definition or statement that the pupil makes for himself is better than one committed out of hand from the book. Agassiz said: "The poorest service you can render a pupil is to give him a ready-made defini- tion." METHOD IN TEACHING THE LESSON 377 General truths acquired in the manner outlined in this discussion become the permanent possession of the pupil They are the keys that unlock for him the doors of the temple of truth. They are of broad application; they serve as the means of apperceiving new ideas; they serve as units of comparison and classification. Of course the character and breadth of the generalizations reached in any recitation vary greatly with the age and advance- ment of the pupils. It is absurd to expect little children to reason like philosophers or to master in a few lessons great principles and laws that a Newton or an Agassiz required a lifetime to formulate. A truth, a judgment, or a law may be general as applied to one set of facts,, but may itself be included under a more comprehensive judgment. Whatever the generalization may be, it should be capable of immediate application by the pupils. (e) Verifying Principles and Applying Them to New Situations. — So far the method of instruction here out- lined has been mainly inductive. Step by step the pu- pils have thought their way from percepts to a concept; from a number of different objects with very many re- semblances and differences to a definition including only such qualities as are common and essential to the whole group ; from a mass of apparently isolated facts to a law that connects them all; from particular cases that are seemingly dissimilar to a principle of unity based on their common characteristics. But as soon as these defi- nitions, concepts, laws, or principles have been acquired by the pupil inductively, he must reverse the direction of his thinking and apply them to concrete cases, par- ticular facts, events, and relations. This is deduction, and the teaching-learning process is not complete with- out it. To omit it is like building a beautiful palace and leaving the most important room unfinished, or like 378 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL stopping midway on a journey to secure a rich treasure."* Indeed the mere acquisition of definitions, laws, rules, and principles without constantly applying them to the facts of one's actual environment and the needs of daily life produces a form of helplessness, inefficiency, and positive stupidity not unlike that of the abuse of the old scholastic philosophy. Many students learn high-sounding phrases, memorize formulas in arithmetic and algebra, glibly repeat impor- tant principles in science, wise maxims in history, and lofty rules of ethics who can neither illustrate nor apply them, nor even suggest the data from which they are derived. A definition can have very little meaning to a pupil until he applies it to concrete cases. The law of gravitation is little more to the pupil than a dead formula until he learns to trace its application in descending rain and flowing rivers, in ebbing tides and falling bodies. The operations and applications of percentage will mean little more to the student than senseless juggling with figures, unless he sees that they are merely new ways of applying the principles that he learned in multiplication and fractions. Verifying their conclusions reached through inductive thinking by applying them to solve new problems, pupils are able to revise and perfect such conclusions and review old knowledge. Such application reveals the relation of knowledge gained in school to the needs of daily life; it brings to light any defects or weak- ness in the pupil's knowledge by putting it to the test of use. Such application is a constant incentive to experi- ment, expression through action, and original discovery through which pupils acquire the sense of conscious power and the mastery of things. Application also offers the best opportunity for the formation of habits and the con- METHOD IN TEACHING THE LESSON 379 version of knowledge into power and skill through ra- tional and persistent drill work. As to the form that application may take, there is endless variety if the teacher has the skill to encourage and direct pupils in turning their knowledge to account as fast as they acquire it. The knowledge gained in one lesson should find immediate application in learning the next lessons. Definitions and rules in language and grammar should be immediately and consistently applied to the pupil's oral and written discourse. Tables and principles learned in arithmetic lessons must find con- stant application in actual measuring, weighing, valuing, and making, and to the solution of new problems. The pupil's mastery of geographical facts should be turned to account in explaining the physical features, climate, products, and occupations of his own neighborhood and country. Laws of hygiene should find their application in the care of the school-room, the seating, lighting, care of the eyes, and in the pupil's care of his own body. The application of the moral ideals, maxims, and percepts gleaned from literature, biography, and history should inspire pupils to better daily conduct and nobler living. Thus in the immediate application of these general truths knowledge becomes power and culture is wedded to utility. The laws of teaching prominent here are deduction, apperception, motor reaction, and habit-forming. (f) Planning the Next Study Lesson. — The final class activity of the recitation lesson is to share with the teacher in planning the work of the next study lesson. Any tactful and competent teacher can well afford to make the pupils active partners in selecting and planning the work for the next lesson or series of lessons. In 3S0 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL attacking a large project, or method-unit, the entire time of one recitation period may with profit be used to work out the plan to be followed. The laws of teaching-learn- ing that should guide the teacher in making the assign- ments of lessons are aim, apperception, interest, and self-activity. The teacher should review the old lessons which lead up to the new problem or project to be stud- ied, guide the thought of the class in formulating the general aim and the separate lesson aims, see to it that each pupil or group is given some specific work to do, suggest sources of information, and provide a natural setting for the problem by relating it to home or com- munity interests and activities. All these matters have been presented in Chapter XXII. Aids to Method, or Teaching Devices. — Throughout this discussion of method in teaching it has been assumed that, to be effective, method must be adapted to the age and advancement of the pupils, the subject-matter, and the environment of the school. Such adaptation implies the use of teaching devices and expedients. Chief among such aids to method are: (i) The text-books; (2) ques- tioning, both testing and developing questions; (3) illus- trations, including those that appeal to the ear, the eye, and the hand; (4) problems, projects, and topics; (5) tests, drills, reviews, examinations; (6) explanations, demonstrations, experiments; (7) examples and exercises; (8) excursions, visits to factories, farms, and public buildings; (9) outlines, reports, summaries, note-books; (10) conversation, discussion, debates, dramatization. By the judicious use of these devices the teacher can in- troduce endless variety into the recitation. Thus, al- though the aim and method of the recitation remain the same from beginning to end, its form is varying con- METHOD IN TEACHING THE LESSON 381 stantly. Here the teacher's individuality, skill, scholar- ship, and power of invention have full play. Finally, no teacher can afford to deceive himself as to the real rela- tion between method and personality, as Rein says: "No natural educator is so gifted through divine favor from the beginning as to be able to reach the highest results entirely without the aid of all methodical schooling, and there will never be a method so wonderful as to be able to supplant the power of strong personality. Therefore, the educator who undertakes his office in earnest will constantly direct his attention to the perfection of method of instruction, and at the same time labor to develop and perfect his own personality, because so many factors that are important for the success of direct in- struction depend upon his conduct, his example, and his. appearance." The Stream of Thought in the Recitation. — There is a remarkable chapter in James's "Psychology," entitled "The Stream of Consciousness," in which he says: "Con- sciousness, then, does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as chain or train do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is noth- ing jointed; it flows. A river or a stream are the meta- phors by which it is most naturally described. In talk- ing of it hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life." Now the recita- tion is merely a portion of this ever-flowing stream. But to be a stream at all it must have direction and cur- rent and be confined in certain definite limits by banks. Teachers and pupils must think together toward the same aim; and the teacher must not attempt to do for the pupils what they should do for themselves — perceive, compare, abstract, select, associate, reflect, verify, apply. 382 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL So shall the stream of each pupil's consciousness increase in depth, clearness, power, and sweetness. SUGGESTED READINGS Stevenson, "The Project Method of Teaching"; Bonser, "The Elementary School Curriculum," chaps. VI, VII, IX; Bagley, "Classroom Management," chap. XIII; White, "The Art of Teaching," chaps. V, IX, X, XII; Keith, "Elementary Education," chaps. VIII, IX; Strayer, "A Brief Course in the Teaching Process," chaps. V, VI; Dewey, "Democracy and Education," chap. XIII; C. A. McMurry, "Teaching by Proj- ects," chaps. Ill, XIII; E. C. Moore, "What Is Education?" chaps. VII, VIII; Sears, "Classroom Organization and Control," chaps. XIII, XIV; O'Shea, "Everyday Problems in Teaching," chaps. IV, V; Bennett, "School Efficiency," chap. XXIII; Betts, "Classroom Method and Management," chaps. I, II, III, XXI; Davis, "The Work of the Teacher," chap. VII; Charters, "Teaching the Common Branches," chaps. XVI, XVII; Ear- hart, "Types of Teaching," chap. IX; Bagley, "The Educative Process," chaps. XVIII, XIX, XX, XXI; Turner, "Essentials of Good Teaching"; Parker, General Methods of Teaching in Elementary Schools." PART IV THE TEACHER AS TRAINER CHAPTER XXV TRAINING IN IDEALS AND CHARACTER All Effective Education Implies Training. — A brief summary of the process of growth and development of children which underlies all education will show clearly that training must constitute a very important element in such development, (i) The starting-point of all de- velopment and education of the child is instinct, native impulses, and reactions through which his inner tenden- cies, desires, ideas, and motives produce results in his outer world; (2) development, or growth, includes (a) increase in bulk, (b) increase in complexity, or perfection of organization and corresponding efficiency; (3) devel- opment is produced in one way and one way only — by exercise of function; (4) the continued neglect or disuse of any organ weakens the organ, decreases its power to function, and may result in its atrophy or disappearance; (5) the amount of development possible in any individual child depends upon (a) heredity, or original outfit, (b) opportunities for exercise, (c) the use made of such op- portunities; (6) the kind of exercise required to develop the child must be in harmony with his nature and in proportion to his strength — all other exercise is harmful; (7) the most effective development can be secured only by the training of the whole child by means of specific 383 384 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL exercises for the body, the senses, the hands, the intel- lect, the emotions, the will, the moral nature. The mere statement of this process of the child's de- velopment reveals the supreme importance of the teach- er's function as trainer. Nature of Training. — To train is to form by instruc- tion and practice. Training is causing to act efficiently; it involves doing under guidance, self-expression directed toward definite results, drill and practice with a "will to win," repeated attempts to do a thing better. A trainer is one who by means of a systematic course of instruction and practice modifies a living organism ac- cording to a definite plan. The purpose of training is the unfolding of power and the acquisition of skill. Training must begin with the body, the senses, the hand. The mind acquires skill only through the mastery of the body. The pupil must learn to control his muscles be- fore he can acquire control of his ideas. Exercise is the great law that underlies and conditions all training. The work of the trainer is not so much the giving of in- formation as calling into vigorous use the powers of the pupil. " Giving object-lessons" is a misnomer, for the true purpose of all such lessons is to make the pupils skilful in studying objects. There is no effective teaching where instruction is not accompanied by training. It is altogether too common a practice in our schools to teach geography from maps and books alone, with no reference to real rivers, hills, cities, and people, arithmetic as a system of rules, gram- mar as a mass of abstract definitions, geometry as a series of demonstrations to be memorized, and Latin classics as mere parsing exercises. Recitations are too often weak attempts to reproduce the words of the text-book TRAINING IN IDEALS AND CHARACTER 385 and examinations a test of how much a pupil has remem- bered. Standings are determined by marks and students are ranked by percentages. But the tests of knowledge that the world applies to the student are these: What can he do ? Has he good judgment and common sense ? Has he good habits ? Is he energetic, persevering, self- reliant, honest? Has he learned how to care for his health? Can he work without constant oversight and without shirking and bear hardship without whining? Does he do what he is told to do or simply make excuses for not doing it? Training enables the learner to make a ready and sure application of his knowledge to the needs of daily life, transforms information into mastery, science into skill, theory into practice. A student who cannot both speak and write well has not been trained in language no mat- ter how much of grammar, composition, rhetoric, or Latin he may have studied. Results of the Neglect of Training in Modern Educa- tion. — " Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it," was a proverb before the days of Solomon. In Mulcaster's time it was perfectly good English to speak of the education of the children as the " train" and the teacher as the " trainer." And it is a painful proof of the verbal formalism and memory-cramming of our school instruction that the word "teacher" has come to be used to designate the instructor of children only, while the word "trainer" is applied to one who instructs animals. The marvellous results of such intelligent training of animals may be seen in any travelling circus. The results of this neglect of training in our modern schools are everywhere painfully apparent in the pre- 386 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL vailing helplessness of children to use in a practical way the knowledge they have gained in school, in the ex- treme facility with which they seem to forget the in- struction received in the class-room, in their utter lack of any permanent interest in science, history, or good lit- erature, and in their unwillingness to do even as well as they know how to do. Everywhere there is an insistent demand that our schools shall not only instruct children in things intellec- tual, but train them in doing and in conduct — train their senses in perceiving and their hands in working, train them in habits of health, in right attitudes and appre- ciations, in civic righteousness, in social efficiency, and in living the ideals of morality and character. And there is abundant evidence that the public schools are responding to this insistent demand for such training. The rapidly growing use of the terms health training, vocational training, sense training, civic training, and character training is evidence that the old meaning is being restored to the words "train" and " trainer," and that there is a clear recognition of the great truths that use, or functioning, modifies organ, that knowing right and doing right must develop together, that good habits and moral character are not formed by instruction alone, but by instruction plus training. Indeed all great educational reformers have empha- sized this very truth. The course of study proposed by Comenius included sense training, weighing, singing, drawing, physical training, and handicrafts. Rousseau declared that a child's first teachers are his feet, hands, and eyes. Pestalozzi taught that knowledge is of no value unless it has a basis of action, and that while it is well for a child to learn something, the really important TRAINING IN IDEALS AND CHARACTER 387 thing for him is to be something. Froebel also based his whole system of primary education upon the pupil's self- activity under proper instruction and guidance. And Horace Mann said: " Unfortunately, education amongst us at present consists too much in telling, not in training.' ' The Fallacy of the Old View of Formal Discipline. — Wise training always implies gradual change and im- provement in some specific capacity or power of the pupil, accompanied by greater skill and efficiency in ac- tion in some particular line. That training one mental power will improve all the other mental powers is true only in the degree in which such training includes com- mon elements. The same muscles are used in rowing a boat as in sawing wood, but sawing wood does not de- velop skill in rowing a boat. The training of the eye does not greatly improve the hearing. The immense gulf that often exists between knowing and doing mea- sures the difference between teaching and training. It is easier to "tell twenty what 'twere good to do than to be one of the twenty" to put the teaching into practice. Children in Sunday-school may learn the Ten Com- mandments, but if their conduct in the church has been marked by disorder, levity, irreverence, and disrespect for teachers, they have, in reality, taken a lesson in immorality. Boys may learn from books and teachers the harmful effects of tobacco and actually light their cigarettes on the school-house steps. That is a startling definition of sin which the apostle James gives in the words: " Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not to him it is sin." Training in Right Habits Must Accompany Instruc- tion. — Character, then, is not formed by teaching alone; action, practice, persistent training in the formation of 388 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL specific habits are essential. And these habits must be formed early in life; for "as the twig is bent the tree is inclined." Professor James says: "The great thing, then, in all education is to fund and capitalize our acquisitions, and live at ease upon the interest of the fund. For this we must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and guard against the growing into ways likely to be disadvantageous to us as we should guard against the plague. The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism the more the higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work." Specific habits are formed by actions repeated until they become more or less automatic. The sum total of all these habits constitutes one's character and deter- mines his conduct. The formation of habits changes every kind of function, performed at first slowly and awkwardly, into graceful and rapid action performed with ease and certainty. Radestock says: " Children are not to be taught by maxims that continually slip from their memory. Whatever we believe they must impera- tively do we should strengthen them in doing by un- wearied practice, whenever the opportunity offers, and if possible create opportunities therefor." Plato taught that the impressions that a child receives in childhood are the most important, as they are the more easily im- pressed and are retained best; for what is practised from youth up gradually forms part of the character. And Herbert Spencer said: "Not by precept, though it be daily heard; not by example, unless it be followed; but only through action, which is often called forth by the related feeling, can a moral habit be formed." TRAINING IN IDEALS AND CHARACTER 389 To say that the aim of all education is to build char- acter sounds very fine, but it is too large a concept, too indefinite and intangible an aim to be effective in the daily work of the school-room, Besides, such an aim seems far away, a dim and hazy future possibility to be realized in some mysterious way when pupils are grown- up folks. But there is nothing mysterious or indefinite about forming a specific habit. It can be named, set up as an immediate and definite aim, the nervous system set into action, repetition demanded, drill enforced, im- provement noted till the process is complete. It is thus that the specific habits that make up character are formed through intelligent training. It is in this way and only in this way that children acquire the habits that fit them to five in a civilized community; for in this way they acquire correct habits of speech, habitual atti- tudes of body, tones of voice, personal cleanliness, man- ners, neatness, accuracy, system in work, prompt obe- dience, kindness, honesty, and regard for duty. Could teachers but realize that if they take care of the habits formed by the pupils the character of the pupils will take care of itself, and could they have the vision to see how inevitably children become mere bundles of walking habits, they would give greater heed to this most im- portant work of the elementary school — the forming of right habits, training children to make their nervous sys- tem their ally instead of their enemy. What I wish to emphasize is that teachers should view the whole of education as a process of forming habits; that children are born with a nervous system capable of acquiring good habits almost as easily as bad ones; that unless the nervous system of the child is trained to be his willing servant it will in maturity be his cruel master; 390 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL that in early school life habits grow largely out of in- stincts and suggestions, so that during this period train- ing to act is even more essential than teaching to know; that helping the child to build up specific right habits and guarding him against bad ones is the only way to form character; that since the formation of right habits is so largely a matter of guidance, practice, and atten- tion, the child, if given the proper assistance, can shape his character almost as he wills. The School Cannot Evade Responsibility for Moral Training. — There are still some teachers and superin- tendents who attempt to shirk all responsibility for the instruction and training of their pupils in morality and religion. They seek to justify their conduct on the grounds that all moral and religious education should be given in the home, the Sunday-school, and the church, that such instruction is " sectarian," and that the schools are maintained for intellectual education alone. It is hard to see how such statements can be made an excuse for evading responsibility in the moral and religious training of pupils in the school in the face of the dem- onstrated facts that mere intellectual education is not a sufficient safeguard against immoral conduct; that ten thousand homicides occur in the United States every year; that crime and delinquency in our nation cost more than education; that millions of children live in homes that are morally bankrupt, never go to Sunday- school or church, and that the public schools are their only chance to secure moral education; that the child's life cannot be split up into three separate and distinct forms of activity and labelled physical, intellectual, and moral; that morality and character are not mere abstrac- tions or dogmas or sentiments to be acquired after school TRAINING IN IDEALS AND CHARACTER 391 education is finished; and that no teacher can help teach- ing morality or immorality in every class through his own methods of instruction, ideals, moral standards, conduct, and personality. In "Moral Principles in Ed- ucation," Dr. Dewey writes: "There cannot be two sets of ethical principles, one for life in the school and the other for life outside of the school. . . . The moral responsibility of the school, and of those who conduct it, is to society. The school is fundamentally an insti- tution erected by society to do a certain specific work — to exercise a certain specific function in maintaining the life and advancing the welfare of society. The educa- tional system which does not recognize that this fact en- tails upon it an ethical responsibility is derelict and a defaulter. It is not doing what it was called into exist- ence to do, and what it pretends to do." Sources of Material for Character Education. — The materials for moral education in the school are rich, varied, and close at hand. They include all of life both in the school and out of it; all science and history and literature; all school duties and activities; all current history, community interests, and social reforms. In 19 1 6-1 7 a prize of $5,000 was offered by a promi- nent business man for the best "Children's Code of Morals." The prize was offered for the sake of getting a decision as to what moral ideals intelligent public opinion believes should be taught to children. The win- ning code was submitted by Prof. W. J. Hutchins, of Oberlin College, and is available for use by all teachers. Methods of Moral Instruction and Training. — The method of character teaching may be: (1) Direct, that is, at definite and regular class periods, following a well- mapped-out course of study; (2) indirect, or incidental 392 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL instruction; (3) a combination of both direct and indi- rect teaching. The purpose of all such instruction is to help the pupil to build up a well-organized body of ethi- cal knowledge, to reveal the fundamental elements of character as responsiveness to moral appeals, individual adjustment to social requirements, the recognition of the supremacy of natural law in the universe and of moral law among men, and of our personal relation to these laws. In 1918 the donor of the prize for the best "Children's Code of Morals" offered a second prize of $20,000 for the best public-school method for character education for children and youth. The plan of the work and the award of the prize were to be under the direction and control of the Character Education Institution, of Wash- ington, D. C. Four hundred thirty- two professional educators, nine from each State, were appointed to study the problem of method in character education in the public school. The research work was carried on for three years by the various State committees. In announcing the plan of work to the State commit- tees, the chairman of the National Institution for Moral Instruction said: "Generation after generation our re- public will need a mass of citizens whose purposes and ambitions are in accord with the national standards and traditions and the ever-expanding ideals of civilization. It is character education of the nation's children that can achieve this result. The children of each genera- tion begin! life ignorant of the wisdom of moral experi- ence, and have to learn to do right — to speak the truth, to be kindly to all, to do their share of the work, to love justice, and to serve the good of the nation as a whole in true patriotism." Among the problems of moral instruction to be studied TRAINING IN IDEALS AND CHARACTER 393 were these: (i) How to get children to understand and appreciate the wisdom of moral experience? (2) How to develop personal conviction in matters of morality in the minds of children themselves and the will to live up to their convictions ? (3) How to help children to form character habits ? (4) How to correlate school and home life so as to influence character development together? (5) What character education should be given teachers themselves as a personal influence over character devel- opment in children ? (6) How shall teachers be enlight- ened as to the moral ideas to be inculcated, and how trained to efficiency in the use of methods of character education ? The result of the competitive research work carried on by the State committees was announced March 1, 1922, and the prize of $20,000 for the best set of plans and methods for character education was awarded to the Iowa State committee, of which Prof. Edwin D. Star- buck, of the Iowa State University, was chairman. The plan as prepared by the committee does not pre- sent a moral programme to be superadded to the regular curriculum, but points out ways and means of securing greater moral results from the regular studies. It also advocates that the moral curriculum "busy itself with problems, projects, and actual situations rather than with 'virtues.'" A skeleton outline of character- train- ing " projects" for each grade and each season of the year is presented. The National Institution for Moral Instruction has planned to make all the sets of plans and methods sub- mitted by the various State committees in their compe- tition for the $20,000 prize available to all teachers and others interested in moral education. 394 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL The crowning results of moral instruction should be the development in the pupils of a dominating life ideal of the sort of men or women that they aspire to become, an enthusiasm for noble living, a zeal in forming the habits that make moral ideals and principles effective in all of life's relations. How the forming of such habits constitutes the real essence of character training will be the topic of the next chapter. SUGGESTED READINGS Dewey, "Moral Principles in Education"; Thorndike, "Prin- ciples of Teaching," chap. XV; Bagley, "The Educative Proc- ess," ; chaps. XIII, XXII; Whitney, "Moral Education," chaps.' I, V; White, "The Art of Teaching," chaps. VII, VIII; Drummond, "The Greatest Thing in the World"; Palmer, "Ethical and Moral Instruction in Schools"; Bobbitt, "The Curriculum," chap. XIII. CHAPTER XXVI HABIT FORMING IS CHARACTER BUILDING Advantages of Habits. — It will be very helpful to the teacher to keep in mind some of the ways in which hab- its, once acquired, will make the work of the pupils more efficient. (i) Habits Save Power and Lessen Fatigue. — By right practice the pupil learns how to select the muscles neces- sary to perform an act most efficiently and to inhibit the action of all other muscles. He also learns the amount of force necessary in the performance of an act, and thus avoids the waste of energy. Thus aimless and unregu- lated movements are gradually trained into definite and co-ordinate ones, as in writing, drawing, reading, singing, and maintaining right attitudes of body. To learn to do one thing accurately the pupil must abstain from doing other things at the same time. The vital power uselessly employed in aimless movements not only creates disorder in the school-room, but subtracts so much from the pu- pil's power to concentrate his attention upon his lesson. Habit enables the memory to retain and reproduce with ease and certainty what was at first repeated with great effort and hesitation. Through practice the imagination needs only a cue to foresee the result of a familiar process. The judgment becomes quick and sure when dealing with familiar thought-materials. Sound conclusions can be reached by " short-cut " methods when those conclusions involve only oft-repeated ideas. Reasoning becomes a rapid and easy process when the premises are based upon 395 396 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL objects often compared, and inference almost intuition. With constant and firm guidance and control, pupils soon learn to obey without murmuring and to comply cheerfully with all the necessary requirements of the school, thus saving an immense amount of nervous energy which under an incompetent teacher is worse than wasted in irritation, fretting, fear, and chronic inward rebellion. As actions are repeated they find the lines of least resistance, tend to become reflex, and hence are per- formed with increasingly greater accuracy, rapidity, facil- ity, and pleasure. These four words spell skill. In be- coming skill, an action requires less physical force, less attention, less supervision. Learning to walk, talk, swim, ride, skate, play a piano, all illustrate these facts. It is evident that the energy and power of whatever kind ^thus saved is set free to conquer more complex processes or to acquire new knowledge. (2) Habits Strengthen Power. — Exercise is the funda- mental law of growth of any kind. Every one knows that this law applies to all our physical powers; but few realize that to be strong perceivers we must perceive, to be strong in memory we must remember, to be strong in judgment we must think, and to be strong in virtue we must be trained in right-doing. The marvellous ability of the painter to distinguish colors, of musicians to distinguish sounds, of blind people to know the world through touch are the results of untiring practice — simply habit. Thus through carefully graded exercises, adapted at every stage to his increasing powers, the pupil in the school goes on from strength to strength, in language from primer to Shakespeare, in mathematics from numbers to calculus, and in geography from his school-yard to the uttermost bounds of the earth; and the last lesson is no harder for HABIT FORMING IS CHARACTER BUILDING 397 him than the first. Thus habit widens the circle of the pupil's knowledge and increases his capacities. (3) Habits Conserve Knowledge. — When we speak of "storing up knowledge," what we really mean is that cer- tain brain cells have acquired the habit of repeating a previous action, of working to-day as they worked yester- day. Consciousness is always a personal affair. Ideas have no existence except in some conscious mind. Sensa- tions modify brain cells, and, if often repeated, they change such cells in structure. When the objects causing the sensations are removed, the brain cells tend to act as they have acted before. The result in consciousness is not a sensation nor a percept, but a memory image that serves as a symbol for the previous experiences of sensation and perception. Thus memory is the mind working in the same way it has worked before, that is, a result of the habits acquired by brain cells. In this sense habits are sometimes defined as the "memory of the brain and spinal cord," and we gladly turn over to them all the thousand little necessary actions of our daily life, our walking, dressing, undressing, writing, spelling, selecting what we shall eat or drink, and what particular act in a series we shall perform next. Moreover, ideas are acquired in a definite order of time and space, and such ideas tend to suggest each other be- cause of the associated action of certain brain cells and the tendency of these brain cells to repeat their action in the original way. Thus a child's memory is at first ruled by the primary law of contiguity. As he grows older, the secondary laws of association, such as similarity, re- cency, interest, and voluntary attention enable him to vary the sequence of his memory images. This power of pre- serving and restoring past experiences at will is the great 398 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL conserver of our individual ideas and even our sense of personal identity. The conservative power of habits in society is apparent. It keeps the student at his books, the lawyer at his desk, the farmer at his task, the workers in mine and shop and factory at their weary round of daily toil. Laws, customs, castes, institutions, religions, race distinctions are the habits of society. They are the social safeguards just as personal and professional habits are the safeguards of the individual. Dangers of Habits. — The tendency of the nervous system to repeat actions, to form grooves in the brain, has also its dangers. These dangers are so real and so great that they justify ail that has been said as to the importance of forming good habits, all the warning against evil ways that parents and teachers can impress upon the minds of the young. How difficult it is to change the habits of society the fate of prophets, martyrs, and reformers proves. Only through wars and terrible conflicts are undesirable customs and social habits changed. And this struggle has its counterpart in the life of the individual when he has ad- mitted within the gates of his life enemies in the form of bad habits — enemies, it may be, that appeared to him at first in the guise of friends, gradually acquired the control of his will, at last revealed their true nature, and now sap his vitality, jeer at his weakness, and ever draw their coils more tightly. (i) Children May Acquire Bad Habits Through Igno- rance. — The child at first is a bundle of instincts and im- pulses. These are about as apt to lead him to do wrong actions as right ones. But his nervous system is extremely plastic and the act, if wrong, leaves as strong a tendency in the nerve cells to repeat itself as a right act would leave. HABIT FORMING IS CHARACTER BUILDING 399 Thus, before a child can foresee the results of his actions the foundation of a bad habit may be laid; hence his imperative need of intelligent guidance by a higher author- ity than his own blind instincts. Parents and teachers represent this authority, and to this higher authority the child must be trained to yield ready and implicit obedience, otherwise no principle of order can be introduced into his daily acts. It is the duty of parents and teachers to en- courage the beginning of good habits, to manipulate the child's environment in such a way as to make right-doing pleasant and easy, to furnish correct patterns for imitation, and to insist on a sufficient amount of practice to fix the habit. On the other hand, it is equally the duty of those who are responsible for the child to shield his mind from vice, to keep him away from evil associations, to check the be- ginnings of evil, to starve out wrong tendencies, and nip in the bud every undesirable emotion. As Thorndike says: "Put together what you wish to have go together. Reward good impulses. Conversely: keep apart what you wish to have separate. Let undesirable impulses bring discomfort." (2) Habits Must Not Wholly Supplant Judgment. — Habits are the conservative power in the life of the indi- vidual and of society. But progress always demands change, power of adaptation, freedom of personal choice. The effect of habit is to render the judgment automatic, to lessen the range of adaptation. It is said that to hasten the process of habit forming in children is to prevent the possibility of their future growth, curtail their power of adaptation, weaken their initiative, dull their feelings. This is to produce arrested development and make the pupil helpless in judgment and weak in will when he is 400 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL compelled to face new situations in life. This view of the dangers of extreme habituation led Rousseau to lay down the oft-quoted rule: "The only habit which a child should be allowed to form is to contract no habit whatever." But such a statement must not be taken too seriously; for it was Rousseau also who said: "Education is certainly nothing but a habit." The trouble with Rousseau and those writers who are afraid that the habits formed by the child will stand in the way of his future development and curtail his liberty is that they fail to distinguish between habits that should be fixed early and for all time and those whose purpose is only temporary. There is no danger that children will form too early or too well the habits of chastity, truthfulness, personal cleanliness, correct articula- tion, cheerfulness, reverence, kindness, politeness, honor. These habits are always good and only good. On the other hand, those habits, like the crying of an infant, the creeping of a little child, lining up to enter a school building, un- questioning obedience to the authority of parents and teachers, serve only a temporary purpose in the develop- ment of the child and are subject to change or elimination. In short, some habits are formed to meet situations that are constant. These habits should become "second nature" as early as possible. Other habits are formed to meet situations that are constantly changing, and such habits always involve an element of judgment and personal choice. The teacher must take great pains to foster this freedom of choice and exercise of judgment by plays and games, by variety of exercises, by the creation of new situations, and by the largest possible freedom from re- straints consistent with effective discipline. Judgment and reflection should be encouraged in every stage of the pupil's education. As he acquires greater knowledge and fore- HABIT FORMING IS CHARACTER BUILDING 401 sight, he should be left as free as possible to determine his own conduct, to adapt his actions to the circumstances that surround him, to choose his friends, and to emancipate himself from all sense of external authority through his willing loyal obedience to the inner law of conscience and duty. The acquisition of habits must include the habit of growth, that is, the habit of readaptation to an ever- expanding environment. In a few years, at most, the boy or girl will be free from the restraints of home, free from the control of parent and teacher. He must, therefore, in the home and in the school be trained to be a self-governing being, to walk without crutches, and to follow freely the straight path. Not slavery nor lawlessness should be the outcome of training, but liberty under the law, gladly self- imposed and faithfully obeyed. (3) Bad Habits are Our Worst Enemies. — Bad habits are merciless tyrants. Indolence, evil companions, sensa- tional literature, sensual pleasures are not fictions but real dangers. They promise a good time, popularity, freedom. But for the good time they give wounds and misery. For health and strength they substitute weakness. For manly courage they give the soul of a coward. For promised liberty they give chains and slavery, and brand the face, the eyes, the brain, the soul with the badge of infamy. The libertine, the drunkard, or the opium fiend robs the state of a good citizen, robs society of a man, and robs his own children of the necessities of life, of education, and of a good name. Steps in Voluntary Habit Forming. — The teacher as trainer should clearly understand the chain of processes in the voluntary forming of habits. This chain of proc- esses begins (1) in the child's instincts, native tenden- cies, and impulses, and as long as the actions resulting 402 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL from these instincts and tendencies are purely reflex, such actions are neither moral nor immoral, but non- moral. (2) In all moral actions there must be a choice of alternatives. But motives spring out of instincts, de- sires, ideas. A motive may be defined as a desire plus an image of the thing desired. Any idea upon which the child fixes his attention: (a) grows in clearness and distinctness; (b) increases in emotional interest, pleasant or painful; (c) develops a tendency to motor reaction. Thus it is that voluntary attention creates motives, and that "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." (3) Weighing and choosing, or deliberation, is the vital in- tellectual element in habit forming. In this process are involved comparison, judgment, memory of past ex- periences, and the power to foresee the consequences of a particular action. No mental process or action has been reduced to a habit as long as it requires delibera- tion. The pupil who stops to deliberate whether he will lie or tell the truth, steal or not steal, comply with the rules of the school or break them has not yet acquired the habits of truthfulness, honesty, or obedience. Here is the real battle-field between the lower self and the higher self, and a master stroke in the conflict is to cen- tre the attention upon the ideas that lead to the higher course of action. To do so is to determine choice. (4) Choice is followed by action, immediate or remote. The muscles used in the voluntary actions of an adult are controlled by the motor areas of the cortex, but this control in the case of the child is very imperfect and un- certain; hence his first voluntary acts are awkward, hesi- tating, and inaccurate. This is illustrated in the pupil's first attempts to write, to draw, to sing, or to pronounce words at sight. His first efforts require a great deal of HABIT FORMING IS CHARACTER BUILDING 403 attention and nervous energy and are far from skilful. Gradually they become more accurate, require less atten- tion, arouse less feeling, and finally lapse into a series of reflex acts. Such a series of acquired reflex actions con- stitutes a habit. (5) Tendency to repetition is the phys- iological factor in forming a habit. This tendency is the result of action. It is written in the brain cells. The nervous system possesses the tendency to repeat auto- matically the action it has once performed. Every repe- tition increases the power of this tendency. (6) Repeti- tion with the desire to improve is the final step in habit forming. In training pupils it is important to remember that repetition as used here is not a mere blind and un- varying process as it is in natural reflex actions and instinctive movements. The purpose of repetition in teaching children writing, drawing, reading, composition, and so on is not to reproduce exactly a previous action, but is an attempt to improve on the last action, to image the perfect action a little better, to approach a little nearer to the ideal set up in the child's mind, to read a little more smoothly and expressively, to draw a little better picture, to form the letter a little more accurately. Such carefully guided, adequately motivated, intelligent, and persistent repetition with the ideal of improving on previous efforts is the very essence of effective training. Habits as Related to Character. — Thus through spe- cific instruction and training in the home and the school definite habits are formed, and all these habits together constitute character. If the child's instruction and train- ing have been wise and consistent his life trend is up- ward. Little by little he has gained the mastery of his lower nature or, more correctly, has transformed his primitive instincts into useful habits. Thus every in- 404 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL stinct, through training, may be made to serve some beneficent purpose in the formation of the child's charac- ter. None of his capital is useless, none of it should be lost. The degrading instinct of fear in the child becomes through proper training the habits of caution and pru- dence in the man. The hateful outbursts of anger and rage in the child are fashioned by the magic wand of training into the noble virtues of justice, patriotism, and hatred of wrong. The exasperating inquisitiveness and curiosity of the child are changed into the unselfish love of knowledge. Soon the life is fortified at every point with right habits, and the individual becomes so fixed in principle, so stable in action, so sure in judgment that people trust him, believe in him, and gladly follow where he leads. This is the process by which all great char- acters have been developed. To achieve a worthy and efficient character, to "win out" in the struggle against a life of mere animal pleasure, intellectual laziness, and moral imbecility is the only victory that makes old age tolerable or even respectable. This struggle for a higher self is the supreme challenge of life. All through our best literature the dominant note is the appeal to all of us to strive manfully to realize our best ideals and to be true to our higher self, to " build more stately mansions" for our souls each year, to think on the things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report. Through the loving guidance of par- ents in the home and sympathetic training and teach- ing in the school the child gradually acquires self- mastery and develops into a citizen who realizes his obligations to society in return for his civic rights and privileges — a citizen in whose heart obedience to law is enthroned. But if through vicious home influences and HABIT FORMING IS CHARACTER BUILDING 405 the lack of proper instruction and training the habit of choosing the easy way, the lower course of action, the selfish gratification once grips the inner life, the whole trend of character is downward, and soon a thousand bad habits enslave the will, the moral nature is perverted, and reform becomes almost as impossible as it is for the leopard to change his spots or the Ethiopian his skin. Here, too, it should be noted that there is a very natural explanation for the discouraging fact that children fall so naturally and easily into bad habits, while it requires such infinite pains to have them acquire good ones. By bad habits we mean such as are not suited to the highest ideals of our present morality and civilization. Rage, cruelty, revenge, greediness, deceit, hatred are all strongly characteristic of primitive men and savage races. They are simply instincts, or inherited habits, and do not have to be acquired through education. These instincts are not to be neglected or suppressed, but guided and trained. To permit children to give way to their instincts and make no effort to master them is to permit them to grow up criminals, degenerates, or mere savages unfit to live in a civilized community. To free the child from slavery, to fashion these instincts through right training into habits of self-control, self-denial, patience, courage, chastity, temperance, justice, sympathy, and courtesy is the great purpose of moral education. There is another consideration of great importance to the teacher as trainer. The instincts and tendencies of children, both good and bad, do not manifest themselves simultaneously, but crop out in succession in the course of the child's development. If such an out-cropping instinct is not met with means for development into a habit it soon dies out, and if the means are present but the child is left 406 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL without instruction and training the instinct will easily become a bad habit. Unless a boy learns to love games and sports he will find no joy in such things as a man. In his chapter on " Instinct," Dr. James says: " There is a happy moment for fixing skill in drawing, for making boys collectors in natural history, and presently dissectors and botanists; then for initiating them into the harmonies of mechanics and the wonders of physical and chemical law"; and he adds, "To detect the moment of distinctive readiness for the subject is, then, the first duty of every educator." Rules for Forming and Breaking Habits. — The last word on training is this: habits may be controlled and, in early life, easily controlled. They may be acquired, abolished, modified through training. To form or abolish a habit as long as the nervous system remains plastic is simply a matter of common-sense, clear ideas, strength of purpose, and continuity of effort. There are a few rules for forming and breaking habits that have become classic. (i) Make a Vigorous Start. — Summon to the mind every reason for changing your life; picture the advantages; put yourself in the way of those who possess the habit you desire to form; avoid those with the evil habit you wish to overcome. You must go into the struggle with no coward's heart, expecting defeat, framing excuses for shirking the battle. You must believe in yourself, in your honesty of purpose, and your ultimate victory. Herbart says: "Dejection which becomes habitual is consumption of the character." Commit yourself wholly, unreservedly,, publicly to the new course you have marked out. (2) Permit No Exception. — Success at first is indispen- sable. Failure here dampens the courage, undermines con- fidence, chills enthusiasm, paralyzes effort, aDd helps to HABIT FORMING IS CHARACTER BUILDING 407 form the most pitiable habit of all — the habit of expecting defeat. The evil that we very greatly fear is very likely to come to pass in our lives, Continuity in practice is the one sure means of making the nervous system our constant ally. To " taper off" in breaking a bad habit is to invite deieat and prove one's self a fool as well as a coward. (3) Act on Every Opportunity Until the Habit is Formed, —Precept and example are good, resolves are better, but action and practice are best, for they are absolutely neces- sary to convert precepts and resolutions into habit. In forming or breaking habits one act is worth a hundred resolutions, wishes, or intentions. As one writer says: " There is no more contemptible type of human character than that of the nerveless sentimentalist and dreamer who spends his life in a weltering sea of sensibility and emotion but who never does a manly concrete act." Do not lose time in dreading a disagreeable task. Temper the will by doing hard things. (4) Grow a Good Habit in the Place of a Bad One, — - Action is positive; to simply refrain from action is not enough. To conquer the habit of lying one must not re- frain from talking, but must be scrupulously exact in what he says. A bad temper i* not overcome by refusing to frown, but by smiling and passing the genial word; and selfishness is not conquered by becoming a hermit, but by playing the good Samaritan to those who are in need. Thorndike says : " Intellect and character are strengthened, not by any subtle and easy metamorphosis, but by the establishment of particular ideas and acts under the law of habit. There is no way of becoming self-controlled except by to-day, to-morrow, and all the days in each little conflict controlling one's self. There is no possibility of gaining general accuracy and thoroughness except by 40S THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL seeking accuracy in every situation, by trying to be thorough in every task, by being accurate and thorough rather than slipshod and mediocre whenever the choice is offered. No one becomes honest save by telling the truth or trust- worthy save by fulfilling each obligation he accepts. No one may win the spirit of love and service who does not day by day and hour by hour do each act of kindness and help which chance puts in his way or his own thoughtful- ness can discover. The mind does not give something for nothing. The price of a disciplined intellect and will is eternal vigilance in the formation of habits. Moreover, if special training does not give large dividends they are safe ones; if it drives a hard bargain it at least redeems every promise. No right thought or act is ever without its reward; each present response is a permanent investment for the future; the little things prepare for the great; the gain achieved by a teacher's efforts is never wasted. The only way to become an efficient thinker and a true man is to constantly think efficiently and act manfully, but that way is sure. Habit rules us but it also never fails us." The Spirit and Motives of the Trainer. — Thus the teach- er's work as trainer permeates the entire work of the school. There is a certain time for study, another time for recita- tion, another time for play, but the time for training is all the time. It is the one continuous function of the school. To quote from the rules of the School Board of Cleveland : "It shall be a duty of the first importance on the part of the teachers to be models in personal appearance and con- duct for the pupils under their care. They are especially enjoined to avail themselves of every opportunity to incul- cate neatness, promptness, politeness, cheerfulness, truth- fulness, patriotism, and all the virtues which contribute HABIT FORMING IS CHARACTER BUILDING 409 to the effectiveness of the schools, the good order of society, and the safety of our American citizenship." The forms of training are many. Some school exercises are named physical culture, others are called recitations, drills, study lessons; still others are known as object-lessons, manual training, opening exercises; but the purpose of all of them is habit forming, training for health, for earning a living, for citizenship, for character — in a word, for complete living. Not all this training can be reduced to set exer- cises and drills. The finer and better part of it all may be in the spirit and motives of the teacher. The unconscious tuition of the teacher is one of the most important factors in school training. It is the alchemy of the teacher's influ- ence that counts for most in giving pupils the desire to do better and to be better. It creates the atmosphere of the school. On the wall of a Swiss school-house are these words in memory of a man who transformed the schools of a nation by his spirit and motives: "Henry Pestalozzi, savior of the poor at Neuhof, at Stanz the father of the orphans, at Burgdorf founder of the common school, at Yverdun the educator of humanity; man, Christian, citizen. All for others, nothing for himself." SUGGESTED READINGS Sisson, "Essentials of Character," chaps. IV, VIII, IX; Wood- worth, " Psychology," chap. XIII; Strayer, "A Brief Course in the Teaching Process," chap. XIV; Dewey, "Democracy and Education," chap. XXVI; Colvin and Bagley, "Human Be- havior," chap. XI; James, "Psychology," vol. I, chap. IV; An- gell, "Psychology," chap. XXII; Tompkins, "School Manage- ment," pp. 41-48 and 183-196; Oppenheim, "Mental Growth and Control," chaps. I, VII; Home, "Psychological Principles of Education," chaps. XXVI, XXVII; Rowe, "Habit-Formation and the Science of Teaching," chaps. VI, VIII, IX. PART V THE TEACHER AS RULER AND MANAGER CHAPTER XXVII SCHOOL GOVERNMENT The Old View of School Discipline. — Nowhere else is the difference between the old school and the new more appar- ent than in the treatment of the subject of discipline by- writers on school management. The old books on teach- ing are largely given over to extended discussions of school government in all its phases of authority, rules, regulations, prizes, and punishments. Minute directions are given as to how and when pupils are to be reproved, reprimanded, deprived of privileges, suspended, expelled. There are long and learned discussions of corporal punishment, its dangers, its merits, the instrument to be used, the number of blows to be given, the particular portion of the anatomy to suffer. All this is a strong reminder of the fact that when the school course was entirely devoid of interest, teachers untrained in method and utterly ignorant of the laws of human development, the rod was the necessary emblem of the teacher's vocation. Henry Barnard cites the case of a German school-master who kept a record of the punishments he had inflicted 410 SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 411 during his career as a teacher. Among the usual punish- ments were 911,527 blows with a cane, 20,989 with a ruler, 136,715 with the hand, 10,205 over tne mouth, 7,905 boxes on the ears, 1,115,800 snaps on the head. Why School Government Has Become More Humane. — (1) School government reflects the greater humanity of modern civil codes. In 1800 the criminal code of England recognized two hundred and twenty-three offences punishable with death. If a man shot at rabbits or cut down young trees or in- jured Westminster Bridge or stole property valued at five shillings or stole a piece of cloth from a bleach-field he was hanged. In 18 16 sentence of death was passed upon a child only ten years old. In 1846 an English soldier was flogged to death, and wherever slavery existed punish- ments were frequent and brutal. As slavery gradually disappeared and civil codes became more enlightened, school government reflected the change in public sentiment. In most communities now the teacher will find the question of corporal punishment a matter of regulation by the school authorities. (2) The work of the school has been made more inter- esting. As long as the work of the school consisted largely of memorizing Latin grammar and of absurd parsing exer- cises, it possessed little interest for the average boy. Through an enriched course of study, providing for variety, 1 well graded as to difficulties, and affording outlets for the pupil's instinctive love of physical activity, there is less need of compulsion and punishment. And as teachers have mastered the art of method, learned to understand the instincts of children, to discover their lovable traits, and to believe in their possibilities, instruction and training have 412 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL more and more superseded government and punishment in our schools. (3) The whole spirit of the school has been transformed through the influence of educational reformers. Through the sacrificing labors of Pestalozzi, Froebel, Horace Mann, Elizabeth Peabody, Francis Parker, and hundreds of other noble men and women, the calling of the teacher has been uplifted and dignified, the laws of human development have been unfolded, and the attention of teachers has been turned more and more to the inner forces at work in the school-room and to the process of mental and spiritual growth in the child. Little by little teachers are discovering that school discipline cannot be separated from the other work of the school and pursued as an end in itself; that it is a matter of spirit rather than of mere external acts and forms; that training is better than punishing; that sympathy and love are stronger agents of reform than pain and hate; that the real source of discipline is the teacher's personality and influence rather than his authority and rules. School Government as Related to Discipline.— This changed view of the nature of the teacher's work makes it necessary to distinguish between school government and school discipline. Of course government and discipline are inseparable in practice but they differ as to aim and method. The immediate purpose of school government is good order; that of discipline is good habits and char- acter. Government aims to secure prompt obedience to commands and cheerful compliance with necessary rules and regulations; discipline seeks to render commands and rules unnecessary. Government implies restraints; disci- pline implies growth into liberty. Good order is the result of just government and wise management; discipline is the SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 413 result of instruction and training. The purpose of school government is to prevent everything that tends to disturb instruction and training. All tendencies to disorder, unnec- essary noise, incivilities, useless expenditure of energy, rest- lessness, waste of time, incipient rebellion should be removed, should, in fact, be nipped in the bud; otherwise the work of instruction and training is hindered or entirely prevented. From these considerations it is clear that to secure good order is not only the imperative duty of the teacher but his first duty. Disorderly pupils cannot learn, and they prevent others from learning, thus the very purposes for which the school exists are defeated. Not only so, but in a disorderly school pupils are not simply prevented from receiving proper instruction and training; they are actually being instructed in all meanness and mischief and trained in habits of lawlessness, waste of time, disregard for all authority, impudence, coarseness, neglect of duty, and are missing their opportunity for becoming intelligent and decent citizens. The attentive reader need not be told that the larger problems of school discipline have been fully treated already in the chapters on the teacher as instructor and trainer. A short discussion of school government as a means of securing and maintaining good order is all that is required here. Good Order Must Precede Effective Discipline. — In this narrow sense good order must precede effective discipline. We have said that discipline implies growth into freedom. But freedom is never attained through anarchy and license. True liberty is perfect loyalty to an ideal, cheer- ful submission to an inner law which the mind recognizes as just and necessary. A good man does right not because he is commanded to, but because it is right. He would act just the same if every law were repealed, for he does 414 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL not think of the law at all, but only of his ideal of what is right Now no one acquires this insight, this inner free- dom, except through obedience to some outer authority, some training in self-restraint and self-control. To little children right is what is commanded; wrong is what is forbidden. Children acquire concepts and principles of morality, just as they must acquire all other concepts, i. e.. through concrete experiences. No system of moral train- ing is possible without rewards and punishments. It is neither possible nor just to treat every pupil exactly like every other pupil, to make no distinction between the lazy and the industrious, the careful and the careless, the faith- ful and the faithless, the obedient and the rebellious. It is not possible that a school should be composed of pupils so perfect that rewards and punishments are never neces- sary. But we have seen that while the first aim of school government is order, the final aim is freedom. Compayre says: "The day will come when they (the pupils) will no longer be subject to the rules of the school. And this makes still more apparent the necessity of a discipline, at once mild and strong, affectionate and severe, of a liberal discipline which, while governing the child, refrains from humiliating and enslaving him, from destroying his natural inclinations, but which prepares him for becoming a man, that is, for remaining free while obedient to law." So far as the school is concerned, no order is good and no govern- ment is effective which does not in some measure contribute to the attainment of this final aim. Pupils are governed in school (i) to make instruction and training possible; (2) to learn self-government. School Government a Relative Term. — School govern- ment has to do with the law of the school and its ad- ministration. School government includes the system of SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 415 measures employed by the teacher and the school board to create and preserve order. These measures are effective only as they are adapted to a particular school and to indi- vidual pupils in the school and are enforced with good sense, moderation, and absolute justice. We have shown that growth into self-government, or discipline, is a develop- ment, hence requires time. It is also a continuous process; yet its first aim is order and its final aim is freedom. It has to do with the child in the primary grade as well as the high-school student. But the government of little children is quite a different thing from that of high-school pupils and requires very different means. Indeed this difference is so great that a teacher may succeed admirably in the government of a primary room and fail miserably to govern older boys and girls. The means used, then, by the teacher to secure good order must conform to the stage of the pupil's development In other words, school government is a relative term. As W. T. Harris says : " From simply com- manding the teacher should proceed to explain the reasons of his commands; from these again to the expression of desires and the manifestation of a generous confidence; and from these to the frequent option and discretion of the child, preparatory to the moment of giving him entirely into his own hands." The First Source of Good Order. — The first source of good order is thus seen to be the authority of the teacher. Of course some ultra theorists will balk at this word 1 authority. They have imbibed the sickly sentimentalism of Rousseau, or they are disciples of those who preach the doctrines of natural punishments, or they make "soft government" an excuse for their own weakness of char- acter. There are, however, good reasons for asserting that 416 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL the first source of good order in the school-room is the authority of the teacher. (i) The very nature of children makes authority neces- sary. The greater number of cases of disorder in the school, at least in the lower grades, are the result of the ignorance, the carelessness, and the lack of training of pupils. Chil- dren are naturally noisy, emotional, and impulsive. They are instinctively playful, active, imitative. Some of them are sly, deceitful, cowardly. But it is for these very reasons that they need instruction and training and government. If children did not possess these characteristics, teachers would be out of a job. But it is evident that there can be no effective instruction, no possible training unless pupils are orderly, systematic, quiet, and obedient. (2) Home training is sometimes notoriously defective. Where children have been neglected at home, and have come into the school with bad manners and bad morals pretty well developed, it is not common-sense to expect that the teacher and the school can atone for all the sins of the parents and the home. Until the child from such a home can be trained to subject his will to the general will of the school and conform his manners and conduct to the necessary customs and requirements of the school willingly he must be made to do so, otherwise the whole school would be disorganized. When children have not learned to respect authority at home, it must be expected that there will be a conflict before they learn to respect the authority of the school. To permit children to grow up without respect for some authority is a crime. Hence the law gives school boards and teachers the requisite authority to enforce obedience in the school, and no teacher has the moral right to hide behind the sins of the parent and to SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 417 make the lax discipline of the home an excuse for tolerating lawlessness and rebellion at school. There must be no hesitation in using authority, no weakness, no compromise with anarchy, no fear of unpopularity, no shirking of duty. Good order must be maintained at any cost, for without it the legitimate work of the school is impossible and a disorderly school is a seed bed of vice. The Second Source of Good Order. — The second source of good order is the character and influence of the teacher. The teacher sets the standard of order for the school. Pupils will not have a higher standard than that of the teacher. They will seldom act any better than they are expected to act. The qualifications of the teacher neces- sary to secure and maintain good order are enumerated by most writers on school management. Those given by Baldwin are as follows: i. Bearing, the inspiring factor. 2. Tact, the managing factor. 3. System, the organizing factor. 4. Will power, the controlling factor. 5. Heart power, the winning factor. 6. Teaching power, the vital factor. 7. Pupil insight, the guiding factor. 8. Culture, the commanding factor. 9. Character, the uplifting factor. With a teacher possessing these qualities it will hardly be possible to have a disorderly school, and unless the teacher has them in some degree there will be disorder in any school. The Third Source of Good Order. — The third source of good order is the interest of the pupils in the school and in their daily work. The thoughtful teacher will understand that if pupils as 418 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL a class, or as individuals, are not interested in their school work, there is some adequate cause for it. Such a teacher will not resort to scolding, nagging, and punishing, but will seek to ascertain the cause of the pupil's lack of interest. He will find that the cause is in one or more of these directions. i (i) In the pupils. Some pupils are naturally slow to learn. Other pupils have more or less serious defects of the senses. Many have never been taught how to get a lesson from a book. Some have stronger outside interests, and not a few smoke cigarettes, or have other bad habits, or are improperly fed. Still others have, like Topsy, just "grow'd." (2) In the studies. It may be that the course of study is at fault. It makes no provision for motor activities. The text-book is a poor one. The pupil may have got a bad start under a former teacher, or may be improperly classified, or may have skipped some necessary lessons, or may have never guessed that what he studies in the book has any application to real life. (3) In the surroundings. The air may be foul, the temperature too hot or too cold, the seats uncomfortable, the class uncongenial or too small for stimulating compe- tition. (4) In the teacher. Lastly, the teacher will do well to look for the real cause of the pupil's lack of interest in him- self. Is the school properly organized? Is the manage- ment weak and shiftless ? Are the lessons well assigned ? Does the teacher know the subject, and can he teach the lesson without the book? Is there interest, enthusiasm, earnestness in the teacher? Are the fundamental laws of teaching understood and applied? Is there sympathy for pupils ? Does the teacher waste his energy in dissipa- SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 419 tion and foolish conduct outside of school ? Some writers insist strongly that in nearly all cases the cause of a dis- orderly school is a disorderly teacher. According to Inspec- tor Hughes of Toronto, disorder in school is created by all those teachers whose standard of order is low, who think it "easiest to keep poor order," who allow pupils to think that submission is a compliment to the teacher, who think children like disorder, who know the value of good order but make no conscious effort to increase their power of control or to improve their methods of discipline, who justify their lack of effort by saying that "power to disci- pline is a natural gift," who try to stop disorder by ringing a bell, striking the desk, stamping the floor, who are them- selves noisy and demonstrative, who speak in a high key, who roll their eyes but do not see, who hurry, whose stand- ard of order varies, who do not see any use in being so particular about trifles, who have order only while they are in the room, who believe in lecturing the class, who have no clearly defined motives to communicate to the class, who have not sufficiently developed character to inspire their pupils with their own motives, who have not sufficient will power to insist on obedience, who always teach "where children are bad," who get angry in execut- ing the law, scold, threaten, are impatient, are harsh. What Mr. Hughes means by this formidable list is that most pupils who are disorderly catch the disease from the teacher. The Fourth Source of Good Order. — The fourth source of good order is the ideals and standards of the community. All the social factors of the community should contribute something to the efficiency of the school as a means of preparation for citizenship and social lift. The church, 420 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL the home life, the public library, the museum, the news- paper, the industrial life may each add its quota. Means of Securing Good Order. — The means of securing order are of two kinds: (i) Indirect means; (2) direct means. The indirect means are preventive, and therefore of the greatest importance. This is in the real sense school government as discipline. The direct means are: (a) Positive incentives or rewards; (b) negative incentives or punishments. (1) Indirect Means of Securing Order. — These are the qualifications, personality, ideals, and spirit of the teacher, as already indicated. They include the teacher's scholar- ship, teaching power, skill as organizer, power and fore- sight in management, tact, interest, sympathy, and love. The most potent force in securing good order is what Bishop Huntington has called the teacher's unconscious tuition. Teachers are coming to understand that these indirect factors are the really important . ones in school government, because their purpose is to prevent disorder rather than to cure it. From this point of view, good order is work systematized; it is cheerful law-abiding. Good order has been defined as the "conscious working out of the aims of the school in productive activity, 7 or the "condition resulting from the exact performance of duty at the right time and in the right way." It does not mean stagnation. It does not restrict pupils in their rights. It extends to the pupil's conduct in the halls, on the play- ground, on the street, in public places. In the best schools of to-day teachers aim to secure good order by absorbing the entire time and energy of the pupils in systematic work. They endeavor to capture the pupil's interest through richness in subject-matter, variety in method, pleasant and cheerful surroundings. They make ample SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 421 provision for the pupil's motor activity through games and athletics, through singing, drawing, and all kinds of hand- work. They plan his seat work carefully and supervise it systematically. Good order is best secured by reducing the necessary routine of the school to a habit, by making it automatic, by looking carefully after the " little things," such as the distribution and use of materials, sharpening pencils, care of desk, helping individual pupils, requests to leave the room, to whisper, or to get a drink, passing through the halls. In short, good order is secured through managing rather than governing. Regular employment of activity, systematized and constant occupation, and the influence of the teacher are the real secrets of success in the government of the school. Good order in elementary schools is largely a matter of imitation and suggestion. Children are extremely suggestible. They are uncon- sciously influenced by the voice, the looks, the manners of the teacher. They imitate the teacher's tones, attitudes, mannerisms, and reflect his spirit, his motives, and ideals. Spencer says: a Do but gain a boy's trust; convince him by your behavior that you have his happiness at heart ; let him discover that you are the wiser of the two; let him experience the benefits of following your advice and the evils that result from disregarding it, and fear not you will readily enough guide him." So it is literally true that the school is best governed that is least governed, or rather, that is governed indirectly, through the regular work of the school, wise and skilful management, and with very little show of authority. (2) Direct Means of Securing Order. — (a) Positive in- centives. An incentive is a stimulus to effort. The word is sometimes used to name the desire for a given object, and again it is used to signify the object desired. As a 422 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL matter of fact, it includes both, for without the object, or its image, desire would be blind, and without desire the object would not influence effort. Positive school incen- tives are called rewards. These rewards may be material objects, as prizes, or they may consist of some mark of honor or distinction, some privilege or immunity, or the satisfaction of some specific desire, motive, or ideal. Positive incentives are legion in number, for any desire, instinct, motive, or ideal of the pupil may form the basis of an incentive. Many of the strongest positive incen- tives are based upon the child's natural instincts of activity, play, curiosity, imitation, emulation, and sympathy. The teacher may make use of all these positive incentives. He may bring into play the pupil's social instincts, his collect- ing instincts, and his constructiveness. The teacher may also appeal to the pupil's desire for approbation, for suc- cess, for skill, for co-operation, for the joy of discovery and the satisfaction of ambition. Finally, the teacher may hope to appeal with success to the highest motives and ideals that influence human action, such as positive pleasure in work, joy in mastering difficulties, love of knowledge, hope of success in life, satisfaction of doing right, the ambition to be useful, the sense of duty, the feeling of moral obligation, the joy of unselfish service, and the consciousness of growth toward an ideal. Positive incentives should be used by the teacher rather than negative ones, and a safe rule to follow is, " Of two equally effective incentives, always use the higher." Ap- peals to the child's lower nature, his vanity, selfishness, passions, and malevolent feelings are universally con- demned as school incentives. We have spoken of positive incentives as rewards, for it is the purpose of positive incentives to establish a stable association between good SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 423 conduct and pleasure by the use of incentives in an ascend* ing scale of moral value. This implies that incentives must be suited to the particular school and the individual pupil, and in either case it is little short of a crime to use low incentives where the higher ones could be used. Pupils are like other folks; they must have incentives to effort, motives for conduct, but the higher these incentives are the greater will be the sense of freedom, the higher the plane of conduct, and the nobler the trend of character. With small children commands are necessary; rules, im- plied or expressed, are indispensable. But commands and rules should be used less and less as the pupil advances in knowledge, and at all times they should be few, well- considered, given once for all, clearly stated, positive in character, and, above all, should be enforced impartially, consistently, and vigorously. Only as a last resort or as a temporary resource in order to prepare pupils for "higher things" should the teacher resort to the use of negative incentives. (b) Negative incentives. Such incentives have the ele- ment of coercion. They imply opposition or open rebel- lion. They are repressive. They involve the withholding of some pleasure or the infliction of some pain. David Page said: "Punishment is pain inflicted upon the mind or body of an individual by the authority to which he is subject, with a view either to reform him, or to deter others from the commission of offences, or both." Thus the pur- pose of punishment is to establish such an association between bad conduct and pain as to enable the pupil to repress undesirable instincts, inhibit w "ng impulses, and to render obedience to the customs and rules of the school as the result of freely and habitually choosing highe* incentives to conduct. 424 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL Here we come to the famous theory advanced first by Rousseau and elaborated by Herbert Spencer — the theory of " natural consequences/' or the doctrine that punish- ments should be the natural result of offences. Spencer maintains that Nature inflicts a full and sufficient penalty for every violation of her laws, and that these penalties are beneficial checks to injurious actions, always follow the, actions as results follow causes, are proportional to the offence, are consistent, just, enforce themselves, and hold throughout life. If a child runs a pin into its finger, pain follows. If it puts its hand on the stove, it gets burnt. If it carelessly handles a sharp instrument, it will be cut. And it will be punished in the same way for every repetition of the offence. Children should be treated in like manner in the home and in the school. If a child loses his toy, let him get along without it; if he breaks his knife, do not buy him another; if a little girl is not ready for her walk at the exact minute appointed, let her stay in; if she leaves her toys for her mother to pick up and put away, do not let her have them to play with. There is very much of value in Spencer's suggestions, and every teacher should read his chapter on moral educa- tion. There are many opportunities to apply his theory of natural punishment to school offences. But to attempt to apply his suggestions verbatim would be not only foolish but criminal, for the child is ignorant of the dangers of fire and edged tools; nor are Nature's penal- ties always inflicted at once and in direct connection with the offence; nor are they always proportional to the wrong act or confined to the perpetrator of the act. This conception of Nature, so popular with followers of Rousseau and Spencer, as a benign, motherly personal- ity whose business it is to educate the individual child is SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 425 worthy only of the spring poet. Nature, to use their familiar figure of personification, has her sweet and tender moods, her fragrance of the rose, her songs of birds, her arching skies; but she has her dark and terrible moods as well. She has her tempests, her earthquakes, her serpents that hiss and sting, her monsters that devour. She does not discriminate between the guilty and the inno- cent, the just and the unjust as individuals. She knows no pity, feels no remorse. She beats down the defenceless. She burns all the deeper the baby's tender flesh because he is a baby. Yet the teacher is asked to stand in the place of Nature to the child, and imitate a mere blind, imper- sonal, unfeeling force personified in order to carry out a biological theory of education. Tennyson knew better, for he wrote of Nature: "So careful of the type she seems, So careless of the single life." Pestalozzi knew better, for he said: "Nature is devoted to the race as a whole, but she is careless of the individual. On the side of the individual she is blind, and, being blind, she cannot come into harmony with the seeing, spiritual, moral nature of man. Therefore the education and train- ing of the child must be taken out of the hands of blind, sensuous Nature with her darkness and death, and put into the hands of our moral and spiritual being, and its divine, eternal inner light and truth," that is, into the hands of a discerning, personal, moral, sympathetic teacher. Admitting, then, that negative incentives have a proper and necessary function in the government of the school, the teacher should realize that great care and wisdom are necessary in their use. Negative incentives are as varied 426 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL in kind and degree as are positive ones. In fact, almost every positive incentive has its negative side. The pupil's fear of the loss of favor and his dread of failure may be as strong as his desire for praise and his hope of success. This fact indicates the most important consideration in regard to the use of negative incentives; to be effective, they must be used very sparingly and only to supplement positive incentives or to meet some sudden emergency, or crisis, in government. Children soon lose their fear of penalties daily inflicted. They soon grow callous to fault- finding, scolding, and threats. They care nothing for the censure of one whom they have ceased to respect. They even become indifferent to brutality, sarcasm, ridicule, and personal indignities where these things are daily occur- rences in the school-room. Teachers would never permit themselves to depend upon negative incentives as a system if they understood these things better. Retribution has no place in punishment and only hardens the offender. No teacher should treat the offences of pupils as a personal matter, but should treat every offence as one committed against the school. What is very plain is this: (i) All negative incentives are bad if used all the time, or used in the wrong spirit; (2) some negative incentives are always bad. Among negative incentives that are always bad are per- sonal indignities such as pulling the hair, boxing the ears, blows on the head, washing out the mouth with soap and water, binding a cloth over the mouth to prevent whisper- ing. Other punishments, such as ridicule, sarcasm, calling pupils idiots and dunces and stupid things, are criminal as well as foolish. No teacher can use such punishments, even occasionally, and retain the respect of his pupils. Among the negative incentives that may be used, most SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 427 authorities name: (i) Reproof, public and private; (2) loss of privileges; (3) restitution, as in the case of injury to property; (4) detention to perform a neglected task; (5) suspension; and (6) in extreme cases expulsion or corporal punishment. It would seem as a general rule that corporal punishment is out of place in the high school, and expulsion is equally out of place below the high school. A lot of sentimental foolishness has been written on the subject of corporal punishment. Instead of forbidding corporal punishment, school boards would show greater wisdom to employ as teachers only such persons as are wise enough to decide when its use is necessary and discreet enough to use it judiciously. Some rules that apply to all punishments are: (1) They should be used only as temporary expedients to supplement positive incentives; (2) wherever possible and effective, they should be the natural outcome of the pupil's mis- conduct; (3) they should be just, that is, proportional to the offence, and the offence is to be measured by inner motive rather than by outer act; (4) they should be ed- ucative, and reformatory in nature; (5) they should be economical, making as little draft as possible on the nervous and emotional energy of the offender as well as on the time and the feelings of the teacher and the school. The Teacher at Work. — As a final word on school government, it should never be forgotten that the teacher's chief work is not to punish, but to train; not to govern, but to teach. The true teacher at work is a liberator. In his preface to the "Toilers of the Sea," Victor Hugo says: "Religion, Society, and Nature — these are the three strug- gles of man! They constitute at the same time his three needs. Man has need of a faith; hence the temple. He must create; hence the city. He must live; hence the 428 THE TEACHER AND THE SCHOOL plough and ship. But these three solutions comprise three perpetual conflicts. Man struggles with obstacles under the form of superstition, under the form of prejudice, and under the form of the elements.' ' The child, like the primitive man, is the slave of igno- rance, of fear, and of nature. It is the purpose of teach- ■ ing to set him iTee, to give each child possession of the! priceless heritage of the race, to free him from the bondage of ignorance and superstition, to give him power over brute matter and blind force, to deliver him from selfishness and wilfulness and evil thoughts, and to bring him into such sympathy and union with his race that his soul shall reflect the divine purpose and duty and conscience and service shall become the guiding principles of his life. The teacher at work is a creator. He creates interest and motive and purpose. He recreates his own mental states and his own moral image in the mind and heart of the child. The "communication of knowledge," the "forming of character" can have no other meaning than this. The teacher at work arouses and uses the pupil's mind to form in it a concept, a truth, or an ideal which is in the mind of the teacher. It was one of the world's greatest teachers who in his seventy-seventh year wrote: "I thank God that I have all my life been a man of aspirations; for the heart's longing after good is always a rill from the fountain of all good — from God." In a teacher's note-book I once read these words* "May every soul that touches mine — Be it the slightest contact, get therefrom some good- Some little grace, one kindly thought, One aspiration yet unfelt, one bit of courage For the darkening sky, one gleam of faith SCHOOL GOVERNMENT 429 To brave the thickening ills of life, One glimpse of brighter skies beyond the gathering mist, To make this life worth while, And Heaven a surer heritage." If this shall be the result of our work as teachers, we are teachers indeed, and our labor is not in vain. SUGGESTED READINGS Bagley, "Classroom Management/' chaps. V, VII, VIII; Sears, "Classroom Organization and Control," chaps. VI, VII; Craddock, "The Classroom Republic"; White, "School Man- agement," pp. 129-216; Tompkins, "School Management," pp. 157-183; James, "Talks to Teachers," chaps. VIII, XV; W. H. Smith, "The Evolution of Dodd"; Stephens, "Phelps and His Teachers"; Page, "The Theory and Practice of Teaching," chap. X; Huntington, "Unconscious Tuition"; Perry, "Disci- pline as a School Problem," chaps. XIII, XIX. INDEX Abstraction — Process of, 270- 271. Adolescence — Importance of , 55. Advantages — Of choosing voca- tion early, 6. Of departmental teaching, 197-198. Of gradation, 185-186. Of habits, 395-39^ Of professional training, 27- 31. Of project-teaching, 305-306. Agassiz— -On ready-made defini- tions, 376. Agencies — On teaching health, 66. Aids to method — Projects, 302- 308. Teaching devices, 380-381. Visiting schools, 35. Aim of education, 42, 119-121. Aims — Law of, 285-287. Must be clear, 331-332. Of Americanization, 91. Of art and play, 142. Of course of study, 130-132. Of daily programme, 206-207. Of health teaching, 67-70. Of history and civics, 141-142. Of language and literature, 139. Of mathematics, 140-141. Of moral instruction, 392-394. Of new lesson, 329-330, 367- 370. Of recitation, 294. Of school, 117, 1 21-124. Of science, 139, 140. Of study-lesson, 341-346. Of vocational studies, 142— 143. Of vocational guidance, 8. Apparatus — For the school, 231. Apperception — Law of, 281-284. Steps in, 338-340. Aptitude for teaching, 43-44. Aristotle — Idea of education, 23. Arithmetic — Value of, 140-141. Army — Tests in, 199-200. Art of teaching — How acquired, 27. In college curriculum, 31. Assignment of lessons — How daily study aids in, 317-319. Importance and value, 325. Meaning of, 321. Principles governing, 325-329. Relation to projects, 329-330. Steps in, 330-335. Test of teacher's ability, 323- 324. Things assumed in, 321-323. Assimilation — Factors in, 339. Association of ideas — Laws of, 375. Attention — Children's, 359. Factors in, 275. Importance of in class, 274. Law of, 289-290. Makes motives, 402. Relation to course of study, 129-130. Value of, 242-243. Authority — Necessity of, 416- 417 Autocracy — Vs. democracy, 5. 431 432 INDEX Bagley — Definition of edu- cation, i i 8. On assigning lessons, 325. On seat work, 337. On teachers' preparation of lessons, 319. Bain — On observation, 268. Baldwin — On devices and meth- ods, 365. On school organization, 100. Qualifications necessary to se- cure order, 417. Batavia system of gradation, 191. Bell — Importance of first day, 164. Bender, W. H. — Daily routine, 101-102. Binet — Intelligence tests, 200. Blunders — Neglect of children, 39-40. Teacher's, 17-18. Bonding companies — Questions of, 9-10. Books — Mastery of, 343-344. Means of growth, 34-35. Boys — Why they leave school, 16-17. Browning, Robert — Description of children, 57. By-products — In school work, 253. How measured, 254-255. Value, 253. Cambridge plan of grada- tion, 192-193, 194-195. Care of the school-room, 229- 230. Carlyle — On work, 5. Carter — On producing stupidity, 240. Certificate — No magic in, 3. Lowest grade, 16. Required by law, 15. Channing — On teachers, 237. Character — Children's, shaping of, 46-49. Habits as related to, 403-406. Method of training for, 391- 394. Modified by teaching, 243- 245. Result of training, 401-403. Supreme aim of education, 125-126. Characteristics of a good proj- ect, 303-304. Children — Abuse of, 39-40. Examination of, 53. Intelligence tests of, 201-203. Methods of studying, 49. Nature of, 416-417. Results of neglecting, 40-41. Teachers must study, 43-44. Child's capital — Concepts, 266- 272. Feeling and will, 272-275. Images of imagination, 265- 266. Memory images, 264-265. Nervous energy, 259-261. Percepts, 263-264. Sensations, 262-263. Child Study — Abuse of children by society, 39-40. Advantages of, 44-49. Methods of, 49-50. Results of, 51-56. Teachers must know, 49. Teaching without knowledge of, 50-51. Transforms spirit of teacher, 55. Choosing a vocation— Advan- tages of early choice, 6. Essentials of success in, 9. Gift of democracy, 4-5. Guidance in, 7-9. INDEX 433 Importance of, 5-6. Problems involved in, 6-7, Cicero — On training teachers, 23. Citizenship — American, 91. Democracy demands intelli- gent, 83-85. Marks of good, 91-93. Method of training for, 94-96. Pupils' creed of, 96-97. School training for, 113-114, 123. Study of history as related to, 141-142. Civil service — Questions, 5. Classification — Basis of, 170. In graded school, 180-182. Intelligence tests as related to, 198-203. Colegrove, Dr. Kenneth — On citizenship, 92-93. Comenius — On learning, 212- 214. On the senses, 262. On universal education, 23. Orbis Pictus, 278. Committee of Fifteen — On read- ing, 343- On training teachers, 22-23. On value of studies, 136. On works of literary art, 234. Committee of Ten — Selection of studies by, 135. Common schools — Americaniza- tion through, 91. A unique institution, 85-86. As related to democracy, 83- 84. Compulsory attendance justi- fied, 86-87. Co-operation in, 87-88. Dividends from, 88. Nature of, 1 08-1 16. Partners in, 88-90. Reaction upon society, 90-91. Train for citizenship in, 93-96. Common sense — In organiza- tion, 103. Will not invite failure, 14. Community — Ideals of, 419-420. Relation of course of study to, 132. m Comparison — Importance of, 340. Prominent in good recitations, 374- Second step in forming con- cepts, 269-270. Units of, 375. Compayre — On rules, 414. Compulsory attendance laws, 86-87. Concentration — Definition of, 148. Concept — Nature of, 266-268. Steps in thinking, 268-272. Confidence — Gained by knowl- edge, 17. Lack of, 18. Consciousness — Stream of, 381- 382. Consolidation of rural schools- Only solution of rural school problem, 175. Progress in, 175-177. Contagious diseases — Preven- tion of, 67-68, 229. Contents of child's mind, 261- 272. Contracts — Signing and keeping, 160. Co-operation — Between teacher and pupils, 17. Law of, 1 14-115. Life of the school, 108-111. Society maintains school by, 87-88. Co-ordination — Meaning of, 149. 434 INDEX Corporal punishment — In old- time schools, 410-41 1. Montaigne on, 41. When justifiable, 415-417. Why discarded, 411-412. Correlation — Meaning of, 149- 150. Of studies, 148. Cortex — Impressions on, 259- 261. Course of study — Aims, 130-132. Correlation of subjects in, 148-150. For rural schools, 177-179. Groups of studies in, 138-144. How to use, I53-I55- Importance of, 129-130. Nature of, 152. Problems in making, 133-134. Proposed by Comenius, 386. Relation to aims, 129. Relation to community, 132. Selection of material for, 134- 137. Sequence of studies in, 143. Teacher and, 150-15 1, 322. Creed — Pupils' on citizenship, 96-97. Culture epochs — Theory of, 146- 147. Decoration of the school- room, 232-233. Deduction — Law of, 288-289. Meaning of, 268. Value of, 377-379. De Garmo — On formal disci- pline, 135. Deliberation — Process of, 402. Democracy — Choosing a voca- tion in, 4-5. Democracy and public schools — Americanization, 91. Basis of democratic education, 87-88. How the school reacts upon Democracy, 90-91. Intelligence vital to real de- mocracy, 83-85. Partners in the school and their dividends, 88-90, 127. Tests of good citizens, 91-93, I23 ; Training citizens in a democ- racy, 93-96. Development — Implies training, 383-384. Order of, 145-146. Stages in, 54. Devices — Aids to method, 380- 381. Of gradation, 196-197. Dewey, Dr. — Definition of edu- cation, 118. On method, 364. On moral instruction, 391. On what a child gets out of a lesson, 258. Dickens, Charles — On neglected children, 40. Difficulties in way of study, 348- 352. Discipline — Fallacy of old view of, 387. Montaigne on brutal, 41. Old view of, 410-41 1. Order precedes, 413-414. School government as related to, 412-413- Theory of formal, 135. Disorder — How teachers may create, 418-419. Prevented by child study, 44- 45- Scholarship prevents, 17. Draper, Andrew — On cause of pupils leaving school, 351. INDEX 435 Dutton and Snedden — On classi- fication, 203-204. On supervision of study, 354- 355. Education — Aims of, 42, 117- 118. As preparation for complete living, 1 19-124. Based on laws of mental de- velopment, 53-54- Cardinal principles of new, 43. Defects of old, 41. Definitions of, 1 17-128. New, based on child study, 41-43. Results of, 125. Educational papers — Means of growth, 35. Educational waste — Aimless teaching, 44. Defective organization results in, 100. No professional training, 23- 24. Effects of child study, 51-56. Efficiency — As the aim of educa- tion, 118. Civic, 123. Defined, 11. Implies training, 383-385. Mastery of specific skills, 245- 246. Training as related to, 387- 390. Efficient teacher — Essentials in making, 61 Standards for measuring, 11- 12. Efficient teaching — Preparation for, 12-13. Professional growth in, 33-36. Relation of teacher's health to, 62-65. Scholarship essential to, 21. Unconscious preparation for, 78-80. Elementary schools — Course of study in, 129. Importance of, 129-130. Reforms needed in, 155-156. Up-to-date, some things taught in, 52. Elizabeth plan of gradation, 191. Emotions — Appealing to child's, 325-326, 422. Expression of, 279-280. Environment and heredity, 46- 49. Equipment — Compared with teacher, 36. Essentials of success, 9-10. Evans, L. B. — On decoration, 233. Everett, Edward — On schools, 27. Examinations — Required by State, 15. Experience — Without training not sufficient, 30. Expression — By music, drawing, etc., 52. Eyes — Care of, 223-225. Faculty psychology — May be of no value to teacher, t 53-54- Failure— Effects of, 406-407. Excuses for, 80. Lack of scholarship, 16. Professional training prevents, 28-29. Farm — Boys and girls on, 173. Foundation of civilized soci- ety, 177. Farmer — Partners with na- ture, 172. 436 INDEX Pioneers, 176. Typical, 171. Fatigue — Habits lessen, 395-396. Must be avoided, 222-223. Relation to programme, 209- 211. Feeling — Factors of, 272-275. F6nelon — On schools of his time, 41. First day of school — Importance of, 164. Jean Mitchell's, 167-168. Mistakes of, 164-165. Suggestions for, 166. Formal discipline — Theory of, 135. Free schools — Necessity of, 83- 84. Frcebel — Idea of play instinct, 246-247. On object of education, 126. Functions of the modern school, 26. Furniture — Necessary school, 230-231. Gary system, 193, 196. Generalization — Meaning of, 271-272. Work of the recitation, 376- 377- Gilbert — On course of study, 129. Gordy, Dr. — On co-ordination, 149. Gradation — Advantages of, 185- 186. Batavia plan, 191-192. Dangers of, 186-189. Elizabeth plan, 191. Gary system, 193, 196. Intelligence tests as basis of, 199-203. Meaning of, 169-170. Methods of, 189. Modified Cambridge plan r 192, 194. Of city and consolidated schools, 184-185. Of rural schools, 180-182. Other devices as aid to, 197. Term or semester plan, 190. Wiser course, 203-205. Habits — Advantages of, 395— 398. As related to character, 403- 406. Conserve knowledge, 397. Dangers of, 398-401. Formation of, 103, 387-390. Law of, 290-292. Of self-controlled work, 345- 346. Rules for forming, 406-408. Strengthen power, 396. Steps in forming, 401-403. Hall, Dr.— On health, 223. Hamilton, Sir William — On highest function of mind, 340. On method, 364. On teaching, 311. Harris, Dr. W. T.— Definition of education, 118. On aims of the recitation, 294. On arithmetic, 140. On basis of philosophy of edu- cation, 136. On professionally trained teachers, 36-37. On teachers' commands, 415* On vagabondage, 40. Health — Agencies of, 66. As a source of happiness, 65. Duty of teachers as to, 63-65. Forming habits of, 69-70. Importance of, 61-62. INDEX 437 Method of teaching, 67. Prevention of disease, 67. Promotion of, 121-122. Question of, 224-230. Results of teachers' ill-health, 62-63. Revelations of World War in, regard to, 61. Hearing recitations, 236-237, 293-294. Hegel — On beauty, 232. Herbart — On sources of interest, 273-274. On work of education, 126. Heredity — Discussion of, 46-49. Highschools — Professional course in, 32. Hirsch, Rabbi — Why boys leave school, 16. History — Value of, 141-142. Hughes — On disorder, 418-419. Hugo, Victor — On the three struggles of man, 427-428. Human nature — Understanding of, 104-105. Hutton — Two course system, 192, 194. Hygiene — Relation of to good order, 222. Ignorance — Bad habits formed through, 398-399. Images — Of imagination, 265- 266. Of memory, 264-265. Imagination — Constructive, 105-106. Images of, 265-266. Imitation — Persistent, 284, 403. Value of, 51-52. Improving the recitation — By motivation of school work, 299-300. By socializing the recitation, 300-301. By supervised study, 301-302. By teacher's mastery of the pre-requisites, 308-309. By use of projects, 302-308. Improving rural schools, 174- 177. In loco parentis, 38-39. Incentives — As a means of se- curing order, 421-427. Individual — Socializing the, 136. Individual instruction, 102, 190- 191, 293 Induction — Child's first mode of learning, 267. Law of, 287-288. Meaning of, 267-268. Relation to text-books, 340. Instincts — Appealing to child's, 325-326. Meaning of, 401-402. Training of, 403-406. Institution — Common schools, 85-86, 114. Instruction — Forms of, 293. Forming habits must accom- pany, 387-390. Intelligence tests — As basis of classification, 198-199. Binet's scale of, 200. Limitations of, 202-203. Measures what, 199. Results of, 200-201. Value of in school work, 201- 202. Interest — A form of feeling, 273. As a source of good order, 417- 419. Doctrine of, 238-240. Kinds of, 274. Lack of, 16. Law of, 289-290. Nature of, 353. 438 INDEX Sources of, 273-274. Theory of, 136-137. Jacotot — On teaching, 256. Rules for learning, 347. James, Dr. William — On con- sciousness, 381-382. On habits, 207. On instincts, 406. On "stream of thought," 276. On study with pupils, 357. On the great thing in educa- tion, 388. On the nervous system, 291- 292. Jefferson, Thomas — On public schools, 84. Johnson, Dr. Samuel — On sick- ness, 222. Judgment — Comparison neces- sary in, 374-376. Effects of habit on, 399-401. Keeping school, 18. Keeping order, 237. Kilpatrick, V. E. — On advan- tages of departmental teach- ing, 197-198. Kilpatrick, W. H. — On projects, 303. Knowledge — Acquiring, 369- 370. Habits conserve, 397-398. Road to, 17. Skill in applying, 125. Tests of, 385. Utility of, 135-136. Washington on, 84. Language and literature — Value of, 139. Laws of teaching, 278-292. Learning — Child's previous mode of, 349~350. Rules for, 347"348. Lessing — On truth, 338. Lessons — Aim of, 367-368. Assignment of, 321-335. How study aids teaching of, 317-318. How to study, 31 1-3 14. Pupil's study of, 336-361. Teacher's preparation of, 310- 320. When to study, 314. Lesson-units, 368. Library — School, 233-235. Life — Struggle of, 74. Lighting of the school-room, 223-225. Locke, John — Definition of hap- piness, 121. On aims of education, 126. On memory images, 264. On sauntering, 237-238. London — On care of school- room, 228-229. On school organization, 170. Love — Of parents, 38. Of teachers for pupils, 38-39, 56-60. Macaulay, Lord — On Ameri- can Democracy, 93. McDonald, George — On love of women for children, 38. McMurry, Charles — On course of study, 152. On methods, 366. Madison, James — On popular education, 84. Magee — On plan books, 154. Making of a teacher — Essentials in, 12-13,21,38,61, Health as a factor in, 61. Personality, 75-80. Qualifications, 104-107. INDEX 439 Mann, Horace — On education, 387. On old-time school-house, 219. Marble — On unsanitary school- houses, 219-220. Marks of a good citizen, 91-93. Mason, Charlotte — On value of school work for girls, 112. Mathematics — Value of, 140- i I4 V Measuring efficiency — Renton score-card, 11-12. Measuring school work — De- fects of old methods of, 248. Scientific method of, 248-249. Standards of, 249. Use of standardized methods, 249-251. Value of scientific tests, 251- 253. Memory images — Defined and discussed, 264-265. How related, 397-398. Mental development — Educa- tion based on laws of, 53-54. Mental discipline — Theory of, 135. Method of teaching — Aids to, 50, 380-381. Basis of, 53-54. Citizenship, 94-96. Conforms to child's growth, 54- Health, 66-70. Is there a typical, 362-363. Meaning of, 364. Vocational guidance, 7-8. Method-units, 322. Milton, John — Definition of edu- cation, 117. Mind — Contents of child's, 261- 275. Old view of child's, 53-54. Mistakes — Child study, 44-45. Of first day of school, 164-165. Montaigne — On brutal disci- pline, 41. Moral instruction — Aims of, 125-127. Character research work, 392- 393. Child study as related to, 46- 49, 54-55- Importance of, 387. Method of, 234, 391-394. Relation to habit-forming, 387-390. School cannot evade, 390-391. Sources of material for, 391. Spirit of teacher in, 127-128, 408-409. Morals — School-room as teacher of, 221. Morgan — On children's reading, 234-235. Morrison, Gilbert — On impure air, 222. Motivation of school work, 299- 300. Motives — How attention makes, 402. Motor-activity — Law of, 279- 281. Provision for, 421. Value of, 51-52. Mott, John R. — On training boys for citizenship, 97. Mulcaster, R. — On training teachers, 23, 31. N. E. A. — On vocational guid- ance, 7-8. Natural consequences — Theory of, 424. Nature — Inflicts penalties, 429. Nature of the school — An organ- ism, 108. 440 INDEX An industrial organization, in. An institution, 114. As a social community, 113. Need of vocational guidance, 7. Nervous system — As related to teaching, 259-261. Teacher's knowledge of, 44- 45. Use of, in expression, 279-280. Normal school — First in U. S., Harris on normal school grad- uates, 36-37. Observation — First step in forming a concept, 268- 269. Opportunity — Act on, 407. Teacher's, 58. Oral lessons — In lower grades, 370-371. Relation to text-book lessons, 350-35L Order — Means of securing, 420- 427. Precedes discipline, 413-414. Sources of, 415-420. Organizing the school — Comes first, 98. Factors in, 103-104. Implies mechanism, 102. Importance of, 100. Meaning and objects of, 99. Qualifications required for, 104-107. Systems of, 170. Teacher's share is, 99-100, no. Value of, 101-102. Page, David — On learning a lesson, 323. On punishment, 423. On text-books, 310. Parents — Compared with teach- ers, 38-39. Interest in the schools, 86-87. Training children, 38. Parker, Francis — Experiment at Quincy, 129. On cause of dullards, 347. On the child, 59-60. Patriotism — Common schools, nurseries of, 85. Payne, Joseph — Rules for learn- ing, 347- What the teacher cannot do, 257. Percepts — How acquired, 349- 350. Nature of, 263-264. Personality — Development of, 73~74- # Factors in, 74. Meaning of, 71-72. Rules for developing, 75-78. Self-selection in growth of, 74- 75- Unconscious growth in, 78. Will as an element in, 72-73. Pestalozzi — Father of public schools, 23. Epitaph of, 409. Miracle at Stanz, 59. On children's learning, 126. On clear ideas, 267, 272. On education, 117. On nature, 425. On pupils at Stanz, 244-245. On training, 386. Phases of teacher's work, 98. Physical education — Aims of, 121. Means of, 66. Programme for, 67-70. Physical powers — Mental action depends on, 52. INDEX 441 Plan books — Value of, 154. Planning work — Confidence in ability for, 106. On opening day, 163-164. Plato — Definition of education, 117. Popular education — Madison on, 84. New problem, 23. View of Washington, 84. Problems in choosing a vocation, 6-7. Profession — Requirements of, 10-11. Rewards of the teacher's, 254- 255. Professional growth — Means of, 32. While teaching, 33, 310. Professional training — Demand- ed, 25. Forms standards, 29. Foundation of, 14. Growth in, 33~36. Harris on, 36-37. Health saved by, 29. Is essential, 26. Meaning of, 27. Means of securing, 32-33. Neglect of, 22-24. Prevents experimenting, 30. Prevents failure, 28. Programme — Factors in, 207- 211. For rural schools, 214-217. Importance, and objects of, 206-207. Keeping to, 212. Principles governing, 21 1-2 12. Projects — Aid to method, 380- 381. Characteristics of good, 303- 304. Defined, 302-303. Importance of, in lesson-plan- ning, 379-380. Proper statement of, 368-370. Serve as aims, 367-368. Types of, 303. Project-teaching — Advantages of, 305. Dangers of, 306. Meaning of, 302. Method of, 304-305. Teacher's preparation for, 310. Value of, 307-308. Promotion, 181, 188, 190, 201. Psychology — Faculty, 53. Of teaching, 257-258. Study of, first-hand, 43, 46. Puallup — Pupils' citizenship creed, 96-97. Public sentiment, 161. Pueblo plan, 190-191. Punishments — Rules that apply to, 427. Which are out of place, 426. Pupils — Helping to study, 354- 360. Ideals of, 20. Powers appealed to, 374. Response of, 373. Teacher's love for, 56-60. Pupils — Value of good organiza- tion to, 101-102. Work dovetailing with that of teachers, 373. Questioning — Step in lesson assignment, 33o-33i. Quick — On child study, 43. On inattentive children, 274. Radestock — On habit, 388. Raymont — On acquisition of knowledge, 363. On correlation, 148. 442 INDEX On curriculum, 133. On organization, 99. Reading— Art of, 343-344. Recitation — Aims of, 294. As a form of teaching, 293. Criticisms of, 298. How attention is secured in, 18-20. Means of improving, 299-308. Motivation of, 299. Planning for, 308-309. Possibilities of, 294. Reasons for failure, 295-298. Shall it be abolished, 298. Socialized, 300. Supervised study for, 301. Use of projects in, 302-308. Reforms in school, 155, 205. Rein, Dr. — On aim of new les- son, 331. On interest, 136-137. On method, 381. Renton — Score-card for testing efficiency, 11-12. Repetition— Persistent imita- tion, 284. Tendency to, 403. Requirements of teacher — First, 57- Respect — Gained by knowledge, 17. Responsibility — Created by child study, 56. Personal, 346. Pupils for work assigned, 323, 333- "Revival of learning" — Views from, 124. Roark — On assignment of les- sons, 321. On duty of teacher, 358. Rollin — On study, 353. Rooper, T. — On attention, 290, 359- "Pot of Green Feathers," 339. Rousseau — Conception of na- ture, 424. On child's first teachers, 386. On habit, 400. On nature of child, 41-43. On teacher, 42. Rural school course, 178-179. Rural school problem, 1 71-174. Rural school programme, 214- 217. Rural schools— Classification in, 180-182. Consolidation of, 175-177. Course of study for, 178-179. Factors in problem of, 174- 175. Graduation exercises in, 218. Importance of, 1 71-174. Keeping records in, 182-183. Programme for, 212, 214-217. Reducing classes in, 182. Standardization of, 177. Untrained teachers in, 10-11. Sabin, H. — On nature of the CHILD, 45. Salisbury — On assigning a les- son, 324. Schaeffer, Dr.— On aim of teach- er, 355- Scholarship — Commands respect and confidence, 17. Creates interest in school work, 16. Definition of, 15. Foundation for professional training, 14. Importance of, 14. Inspires study, 19. Meaning of, 15. Prevents disorder, 17, Sets up ideals, 20. INDEX 443 School government — A relative term, 414-415^ As related to discipline, 413. Has become humane, 411-412. Means of securing, 420-427. Sources of good order, 415- 420. School -house— As teacher of morals, 221. Care of, 229. Condition of, 162. Decoration of, 232. 1 Improvement of, 52-53. Old-time, 219. Should interest community, 220. School management — Meaning of, 169. Systems of, 170. School officers — Duties of, 158. School records — In rural schools, 162-163. On keeping, 162-163. School work — Creative self-ac- tivity, 246. Acquiring specific skills, 245. Defined, 242. Helping child to realize his possibilities, 243. More than play, 238. Motivation of, 299-300. Not drudgery, 240. Not "hearing recitations," 236. . Not just "keeping order," 237. Not merely "doing things," 238. Not puttering, 237. • Purposeful activity, 242. Right views of, 242-247. Tests of, 247-254. Wrong conceptions of, 236- 242. Schools, Public — A unique insti- tution, 85. Functions of, 26. Nature of, 108-116. Partners in, 88-89, 127. Visiting other, 35. Science — Aims of, in course, 139— 140. Search, P. W. — On good health, 223. On child, 147. On the recitation, 295-296. Securing a school, 158-159. Seerley, H. H. — On child study, 56. Self-activity — Creative, 246-247. Law of, 284-285. Self-regulating system — White on, 103. Sensations — Defined, 262. Factors in, 262. Foundation of all knowledge, 278-279. How combined, 281. Qualities of, 263. Sense-perception — Law of, 278^ 279. Sequence of studies, 143-147. Shaw, Dr. — On course of study, 204. Simon, Jules — Definition of edu- cation, 117. Skill — In applying knowledge, 125. Smyser, Prof. — On Batavia plan, 192. Socializing the recitation, 300- 301. Society — Neglect of children, 40-41^ Specialization — Necessity of, 25. Spencer, Herbert— Definition of culture epochs, 146. Definition of education, 117. 444 INDEX On a test by which to judge culture, 242. On activities of human life, 1 19-124. On art of education, 31. On forming habits, 388. On gaining a boy's trust, 421. On knowledge vs. discipline studies, 136. On making collections, 230. On teaching without knowl- edge of children, 50-51. On telling pupils, 327. Plea for study of science, 135. Theory of natural conse- quences, 424. Spirit of the teacher — Child study can transform, 55. Meaning of, 14. State— As partner in schools, 87- 88. Stephens — On county superin- tendent, 158. Stream of thought — Dr. James on, 276. In the recitation, 381-382. Studies — Groups of, 138-143. Order of, 143, 145-147. Outline of, 144. Succession of, 209-211. Value of, 138. Study — Aims of, 341-346. Art of, 358-360- Conditions of, 327-328, 352- 354- Defined, 137-138. Difficulties in way of, 348-352. Hindrances to, 351-352. How inspired, 19-20. How study aids in teaching, 3i7-3i9» 341-346. How to help pupils to, 354- 358. Importance of daily, 310. Method of, 311-314, 346-348* Nature of, 338-341. Of lessons, 371-372. Oversight of pupils, 334. Rules for, 347-348. Supervised, 301-302. When to, 314. With the pupils, 357~358. Study lesson — Aims of, 341-346.. Importance of, 348. Meaning of, 336. Supervision of, 301-302, 334. Success — Qualities that win, 9— 10, 60. Sully — Definition of education, 117. Supervised study — Value of, 301-302. Taxpayers — As partners in school, 89. Teachers— Assigning lessons, 321-335. As organizers, 100, 104-107. As trainers, 383. At work, 427-429, Authority of, 38~39» 4I5~4I7» Becoming one, 3-4. Child-study changes, 55-56. Health of, 61-70. Meeting legal requirements, 157. t Necessity of scholarship, 14- 15. Opportunity of, 127-128. Personality of, 71-81. Preparation of, 12. Professional training of, 22— 37. Qualities that win success, 9- 10. Responsibility of, 158. Rewards of, 254-255. Score-card for testing, II-I2, INDEX 445 Securing a school, 158-160. Study of lessons, 310-320. Training essential, 26-27. What people expect of, 80-81. What they should be, 42. Who cease to grow, 310. Work as organizers, 83. Teacher's creed, 244. Teacher's duty — As to health, 63-65. Teacher's ill-health, 62. Teacher's personality, 71-81. Teacher's philosophy of life, 75- 78. Teachers' institutes — Means of professional growth, 35. Teachers' reading-circles, 35. Teaching— Definitions of, 256- 257. Departmental, 197-198. Devices used in, 380-381. Forms of, 293. How daily study aids, 317- 319. Laws of, 278-292. Means of improving, 293-309. Mode of learning, 310-31 1. Must appeal to whole child, 259- Nature of, 257-259. Not a mechanical process, 258. Preparation for, 12-13, 38 f 61 , 78. Psychology of, 257. Purpose of, 427-429. Two-sided process, 257. Typical method of, 362-367. Tennyson — On nature, 425. On law of universe, 71. Text-books — Teacher indepen- dent of, 310, 317. Lessons from, 350. No stimulus to pupils, 351. Study of, 343-344- Subject-matter of, 340. Use of, 371-372. Thinking — Definition of, 326- 327. Power of sustained, 344. Thorndike — On habit, 407-408. On impulses, 399. Tompkins— On business of teacher, 127. On concentration, 148. On course of study, 133-134, 322. On study period, 356. Training — Development implies, 383-384. Forms of, 409. Habits formed through, 387- 390. Nature of, 384-385. Neglect of, 385-387. School cannot evade, 390-391. Spirit and motives of, 408-409. Trumbull — On teaching, 256. Truth — Lessing on search for, 338. Tuley, Judge — On relation of so- ciety to crime, 40. Types of projects, 303. Unconscious preparation for teaching, 78-80. Unconscious tuition, 420. Unity — Law of in child's de- velopment, 71-72. Ventilation — Morrison on, 222. Teacher's knowledge of, 224. Vocational guidance — Aims of, 7-8, 122. Material and method, 8. 446 INDEX Need of, 7. Results of, 9. Vocational subjects, 142-143. -Vocations — All represented in every community, 8. As a partner in school, 89, Created by civilized society, 5. Essentials of success in, 9-10. Guidance in choosing, 7-9. Importance of choosing, 5-6. Preparation for, 142-143. Problems involved in choice of, 6-7. Vocational habits formed in school, 111-113, 245-246. Washington, George — On popular education, 84. Wayland, Francis — On study of text-books, 345. White, E. E. — On assigning les- sons, 323. On child's need of mental ac- tivity, 336. On end in view in teaching, 343. On scholarship, 14-15. '/>* On self-regulating system, 103. On study, 337~338. Will — As an element in person- ality^ 72-73, 76. Factor in learning, 272-275. Relation to attention, 289- 290. Relation to lesson assignment, 327-328. Study as related to, 353. Work of the school — By-prod- ucts of, 253. Creative self-activity, 246- 247. Denned, 241-242. Helping child, 243. More than play, 238. Not "hearing recitations," 236. Not "keeping order," 237. Not mere drudgery, 240. Right views of, 242-247. Tests of, 247-255. Use of standard tests, 249-251. Value of scientific tests of, 251-253. Wrong views of, 236-242. Ziller — On culture epochs, 147. m %. 7 ^ «? ^ *bV* r oV •5«J* v.<* ^ sx