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 SUPPLEMENT TO UNIVERSITY BULLETIN 
 
 New Series Vol. IX No. 8 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE 
 IN THE LIGHT OF CONTEMPORARY 
 PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 A DISCUSSION 
 
 From the Proceedings of the meeting of the Michigan Schoolmasters' Club 
 
 at Ann Arbor, Michigan, April 2, 1908 
 
 Reprint from the Educational Review, June, 1908 
 
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 \A^ 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE 
 IN THE LIGHT OF CONTEMPORARY 
 PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 A DISCUSSION 
 
 From the Proceedings or the meeting of the Michigan Schoolmasters' Club 
 at Ann Arbor, Michigan, April 2, 1908 
 
 Reprint from the Educational Review, June, 1908 
 

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 "limLa . rL Y\\:ctAv . 
 
 jU3 . rL 
 

 THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE IN 
 THE LIGHT OF THE PRINCIPLES OF GENERAL 
 PSYCHOLOGY ^ 
 
 It was not so very long ago that the recalcitrant small boy 
 who objected to the study of the classics or of mathematics 
 was urged to accept his fate gracefully on the ground that, 
 however unpleasant the process, he was acquiring mental 
 discipline which would stand him in good stead whenever 
 later in life he had some especially hard intellectual task to 
 face. The skepticism with which this doctrine was always 
 greeted by the victim has in recent years found an echo in 
 the heretical creed of certain pedagogical radicals, who have 
 dared to proclaim in high places that the formal discipline 
 cult was founded on a myth, and that the educational value 
 of a study is measured directly by its intrinsic worth and not 
 by its indirect gymnastic qualities. It is our business today 
 to determine, if possible, how far this iconoclastic reaction is 
 justified. 
 
 The problem raised by the doctrine of formal discipline 
 or, as it might more justly be called, " general discipline " 
 falls into two main divisions, one subordinate to the other, 
 (i) Does the serious pursuit of any study whatsoever leave 
 the mind better able than it was before to cope with every 
 other study? Stated otherwise, is every intellectual under- 
 
 ' The three addresses which follow were grouped in a Symposium 
 at a meeting of the Michigan Schoolmasters' Club in Ann Arbor, 
 April 2, 1908. 
 
2 Educatio7ial Review \]^^^^^ 
 
 taking rendered materially easier or more efficient by virtue 
 of previous mtellectual training, regardless of the material 
 emploved for such training? (2) Assuming an affirmative 
 answer to the first question, are there specific studies (e.g., 
 the classics) which are peculiarly valuable in this regard; 
 or is any study (e.g., literary criticism) honestly pursued as 
 valuable as any other (e.g., physics) ? In short, does the 
 merit consist in the mere drill given by the very fact of per- 
 sistent concentration, or is there some residual value in the 
 character of the subject-matter studied? 
 
 These are questions which— theoretically, at least— are capa- 
 ble of something approaching an empirical and experimental 
 solution, and whenever such a solution is feasible, mere theo- 
 rizing is impertinent. I regard the appeal to the general 
 principles of psvchology with which our program begins as 
 justified, chiefly if not wholly, by the possibility of gaming 
 from this source a certain orientation for the entire sub- 
 ject. Sundry details, already in part experientially deter- 
 mined, will be discust by my colleagues on the program. 
 Let us consider the psychological question raised by the first 
 problem mentioned: i.e., does the conscientious pursuit of 
 any intellectual occupation result in rendering the mind more 
 efficient in all other lines of work? The limitations of time 
 forbid any attempt to discuss adequately the second question. 
 We may at the outset clear the deck of certain possible 
 grounds of misapprehension. That the higher branches of 
 a study like algebra are both logically and psychologically 
 dependent upon the previous mastery of their elementary 
 features is a truism which requires no debate and ought to 
 introduce no confusion into our deliberations. Similarly, the 
 fact that certain studies like physics make use of material 
 borrowed from other disciplines like mathematics is notorious, 
 and again requires no discussion and should occasion no 
 ambiguity. Evidently our essential problem does not have 
 to do with the transfer from one region to another of specific 
 information useful in two or more fields. Tiie crucial ques- 
 tion is whether studies or occupations which have few or no 
 demonstrable points of contact are reciprocally l)eneficial in 
 
i9o8] The doctrine of formal discipline 3 
 
 the sense that the mastery of one will facilitate the mastery 
 of any of the others. The issue concerns the transfer of an 
 alleged capacity for achievement in general from a special 
 field in which it was gained to all other fields, however differ- 
 ent from the first. With this distinction in mind we may 
 remark certain of the psychological considerations which are 
 to be urged pro and con in the matter.^ 
 
 Whatever disadvantages may ensue from such a procedure, 
 we shall at least insure getting fairly into the middle of our 
 subject if we take it up from the side of habit. The term 
 habit is used loosely in psychology to designate the fact that 
 muscular movements tend to be made in the same way again 
 and again m response to the same stimulations. The neural 
 energy liberated by the stimulus is discharged over a relatively 
 fixt nervous pathway into a group of muscles by whose contrac- 
 tion some appropriate consequence follows. Skating, swim- 
 ming, and bicycle riding may serve to demonstrate the sort 
 of thing we have in mind. To begin with, the connecting 
 of stimulation and response requires conscious guidance; it 
 has to be learned and is, as we say, intelligent. After the 
 act has been repeated a number of times, conscious control 
 tends to fall away and leaves in its place a condition closely 
 comparable to a reflex act, in which an appropriate movement 
 is made in response to a stimulus without the interposition of 
 consciousness. 
 
 'The old-fashioned view of the formal disciplines rested, in fact if not 
 in theory, on the foundation of the so-called faculty psychology. This in- 
 volves a conception of the mind as made up of a number of distinct organs, 
 so to speak, which can be exercised separately or conjointly. A training 
 of memory would consequently train that faculty for any use. Similarly 
 a training of reasoning would leave that faculty in improved form for any 
 use to which one might put it. Contemporary psychology has little pa- 
 tience with this conception, and, so far from recognizing such a thing as 
 memory in general, it urges with seemingly conclusive force that we have 
 many different sorts of memory, one for visual objects, one for sounds, 
 etc. Moreover, nothing seems more certain than that one or more of 
 these forms in which we employ memory may in a given individual be 
 highly developed and extremely accurate, while the other forms are no 
 better than the average, or even considerably below this average. It 
 should not be assumed, however, that because the faculty psychology is 
 exploded, therefore the inferences based upon it are all essentially er- 
 roneous. They may have other foundations than those on which they 
 were supposed to rest. 
 
4 Educational Review [June 
 
 Now working on the foundation of this idea of habit, it 
 has sometimes been maintained that all habits are specific, 
 that we acquire dexterity in this or that special activity and 
 that no habit can be generalized so as to fit a miscellaneous 
 set of conditions. Ergo, it is argued, no formal discipline 
 can have the value claimed for it, because what we gain from 
 such training is specific habits of performing certain limited 
 groups of acts in certain definite ways. Only on the improba- 
 ble assumption that the same groups of acts can be taken up 
 bodily and transplanted substantially unmodified, can the 
 formal discipline doctrine be justified. Before we undertake 
 to pass judgment on this assertion let us examine some of the 
 forms in which habit is actually manifested. 
 
 We may roughly divide our habitual reactions into three 
 groups, groups which are frankly arbitrary, but which will 
 reasonably serve the practical purposes of our present busi- 
 ness. There is (i) the sort of thing to which the term is 
 most often applied and to which the characterizations of a 
 few moments ago are most germane : i.e., motor activities in 
 which the significant feature is some change brought about 
 by the movement in the physical world. Walking, running, 
 talking, and writing may illustrate this group. Here the 
 important thing is the overt external result of the act; the 
 distance traversed, the word spoken or written, and so on. 
 Next (2) may be mentioned habitual acts in which the 
 purport of the act is to be found not in the mere external 
 result, but in some sensation which the act facilitates, em- 
 phasizes, or renders possible. Here belong the habitual ac- 
 commodatory movements by which we focalize our sense 
 organs on stimuli to which we wish to attend. I turn my 
 head to see an interesting object. I turn it in quite a different 
 manner to hear the indistinct speaker. I give it still another 
 shift, accompanied by certain accessory inspiratory move- 
 ments, if I wish to get the full fragrance of a bunch of 
 violets, etc. All these sensory activities involve motor ac- 
 commodations of the habit variety : i.e., efficient muscular 
 acts involving at present little or no conscious guidance. (3) 
 Lastly there are certain ideational processes to which psy- 
 
1908] The doctrine of formal discipline 5 
 
 chologists are sometimes hesitant to apply the term habit, 
 because of the apparent absence of motor elements in some 
 of them, but which certainly deserve it. The boy learning 
 to use the multiplication table illustrates the point. As he 
 becomes more and more expert, his mind executes arithmetical 
 operations more and more automatically, until finally perhaps, 
 here as elsewhere, the acti\ity becomes essentially reflex. 
 
 The term " habit of thought " is applied to other forms of 
 intellectual procedure with the intent sometimes to designate 
 certain sentiments and prejudices, or again, to indicate that 
 which is more nearly relevant to the present discussion: i.e., 
 one's general methods of attacking a subject, the technique of 
 one's thinking. The intellectual method which one acquires 
 after a certain period of discipline in any field of thought — 
 e.g., history, literature, economics, or commerce — will illus- 
 trate the case. One gets into a manner of dealing with such 
 problems and bringing certain considerations to bear upon 
 them which essentially merits the term habit, altho the opera- 
 tion may be considerably less mechanical and inflexible than 
 is the case in the ordinary overt motor types of habits. 
 Individual A always hunts for the details of his problem. 
 Individual B has no interest in details, but always seeks at 
 once the general bearings of the case. Individual C invariably 
 lays out a systematic plan of campaign and follows it to the 
 bitter end. Individual D dips in anywhere and continues 
 to dip without reference to any scheme of action. These 
 illustrations may serve to make clear the point. Now on 
 the basis of this cursory examination of certain typical mani- 
 festations of habit, let us consider the probabilities as regards 
 the efl^ects of general training, or the carrying over of facility 
 from one sort of habit to another. 
 
 One kind of process which certainly goes on all the time, 
 and which may have a remoie bearing on the general point 
 at issue, is the incorporation of smaller habits in larger habit 
 groups. The child in learning to write has at first to give 
 all his energy to the mere grasping and guiding of the pen. 
 As dexterity is gained, the movement gradually comes to 
 take care of itself and gets incorporated in another and larger 
 
6 Educational Review [June 
 
 coordination : i.e., the spelling-and-writing coordination. This 
 in turn gets taken up into a "paragraph-construction habit," 
 which in its own turn may be swallowed up by the chapter, 
 article, or section habit. Not that this account necessarily 
 follows any unchanging chronological sequence or is true of 
 all persons, but that it illustrates what is generally true all 
 along tlie line: i.e., that specific habits are constantly merged 
 with other specific habits to furnish forth larger and more 
 complex coordinations. This is true of each of the three 
 forms of habit which we have distinguished, and illustrations 
 will readily suggest themselves. Evidently it might well 
 often occur that a habit acquired in some special, study should 
 find a place in a larger group of habits apparently quite dis- 
 connected from the study. This is peculiarly true, it may 
 be added, of all the common studies of the elementary 
 school. 
 
 It seems clear, too, that habits closely akin to one another 
 may readily reinforce each other in a practical way, even tho 
 the literal fact should prove to be that one or other is slightly 
 modified in this case, rather than merely reinforced. For 
 instance, a boy who has learned to play baseball and to judge 
 accurately the position of a ball in the air, has a large part 
 of the difficulty of certain strokes in tennis already conquered, 
 despite the fact that the position which he must assume to 
 meet the ball in the two cases is somewhat different. Here 
 again we should on examination find that all our classes of 
 habit would furnish illustrations of the principle. 
 
 On the other hand, certain habits are apparently inimical 
 to certain others. In a general way we recognize this when 
 we lay stress on the avoidance of contracting " bad habits " 
 at the outset of any new undertaking. Such habits may be bad 
 in the conventional moral sense, or merely in the technical sense 
 that they limit efficiency. But in either case we feel such habits 
 to be not only inherently undesirable, but also a menace to 
 the opposed good habits and an added difficulty in the securing 
 of the latter. Apart, however, entirely from the question 
 of bad habits, so-called, there seems to be no doubt that 
 certain habits, if they become thoroly ingrained, may go far 
 
1908] The doctri7ie of formal discipline 7 
 
 to incapacitate their possessor from contracting in an effective 
 way certain other kinds of habits. One who has learned 
 to drive spikes with a sledge hammer will probably find it 
 more difficult to learn to execute fine embroidery than would 
 have been the case had he not received the sledge practise and 
 contracted the sledge habit. Similarly, one who has learned 
 to concentrate altogether on the meaning of the printed page, 
 and especially one who has learned to combine this capacity 
 with great rapidity of reading, finds it extremely difficult, if 
 not impossible, to read proof accurately. And conversely, it 
 may be doubted if any first-class proofreader ever succeeds in 
 reading very rapidly and at the same time with understanding. 
 Attention has to be ditTerently directed to achieve the two 
 ends. 
 
 That our tastes and capacities rapidly become limited to 
 those which we choose to cultivate is of course a fact familiar 
 in literature as well as in common life; but as this fact has a 
 possible explanation somewhat irrelevant to our topic, we may 
 pass it by without further comment. 
 
 In academic life what is so common as to observe that men 
 who have confined themselves assiduously to some one field 
 of intellectual endeavor become largely incapable of entering 
 into other fields of interest ? It is not simply that their tastes 
 rebel at tlie attempt. The machinery of their minds has lost_ 
 a certain flexibility which possibly was once possest. All 
 of which seems to show that expertness in specific directions 
 instead of carrying with it unmitigated blessings may be 
 purchased at a very great price, the price of efficiency in other 
 important directions. It must be frankly con f est, however, 
 that such instances are always ambiguous in the form in 
 which we meet them in ordinary experience, because we have 
 no reliable means of determining how far the outcome is due 
 to native limitation of talent, or to the accidents of environ- 
 ment, and how much is justly attributable to the sheer undi- 
 luted effects of the special form of intellectual discipline 
 pursued. 
 
 This brings us fairly to the question whether there are any 
 generalized habits ? Or, are all habits essentially specific ? In 
 
8 Ediuatiojial Review [June 
 
 the habits by which we accommodate our sense organs to 
 things to which we wish to attend, the process is apparently 
 highly specific, and any gain in the efficiency with which we 
 use one sense organ, say the eye, resulting from the use of 
 another, say the ear, must spring from some central factor 
 common to the use of the two, of which no mention has as 
 yet been made. To this hypothetical factor we shall refer 
 again in a moment. Similarly, the habits which consist in 
 effective manipulations of external objects have for the most 
 part a highly specific character. One who has learned to 
 hammer skilfully can drive nails or tacks with equal deftness 
 perhaps, but sawing requires a quite different set of coordina- 
 tions, and planing still another. Whether such habits will, 
 on the whole, reinforce or inhibit one another can only be 
 determined by actual test. In the intellectual range of habits 
 we meet the most complicated case, and this brings us to the 
 part played by attention and ideal control in all these cases. 
 Personally I am disposed to believe that the most important 
 elements in the whole situation before us are capable of state- 
 ment in terms of attention. 
 
 Leaving aside for the present purposes all more subtle mean- 
 ings, I shall intend by the word " attention " the fact of menial 
 concentration. We may accept for our present practical inter- 
 ests a common psychological distinction between sensory and 
 ideational attention. In the one case, the mind is concen- 
 trated on some sense process; in the other, on some idea or 
 train of ideas. Evidently there will be at least as many 
 subordinate forms of sensory attention as there are sense 
 organs. As we remarked a few lines above, when we attend 
 to a sound our attitude is quite different from that which 
 we assume when attending to a light, and both differ from 
 the attitude of attention to an odor. There is mental con- 
 centration in each case, and yet the acts are in the main quite 
 distinct from one another. Similarly, in instances of idea- 
 tional attention, despite the common characteristic of concen- 
 tration, there will be some difference in the process as a whole, 
 depending on whether we are calling into mind memory 
 images of sound, or of things seen, or are reasoning out some 
 
1908] The doctrine of formal discipluie 9 
 
 algebraic abstruseness which may chance to be teasing the 
 mind. 
 
 Now so far as these several forms of attention have di- 
 vergent elements in them, and certainly there are many such 
 divergences both of sensory content and of motor attitude, 
 we shall hardly be entitled to look for beneficial effects in 
 the use of one form of attention as a result of discipline in 
 another form of it. So far as the two activities are different, 
 it is difficult to see why a training in tone discrimination 
 should produce a beneficial effect upon the discrimination of 
 shades of color.^ But if we look more closely at the facts 
 we shall see that there are certain factors common to all 
 these cases which have not been mentioned. 
 
 The persistent and voluntarily directed use of attention, 
 especially when the subject attended to is lacking in inter- 
 est, speedily becomes acutely distasteful. Voluntary atten- 
 tion involves some strain and this strain, if long continued, 
 is certain to become unpleasant. W^e first become bored, then 
 restless, and finally find the thing intolerable and abandon 
 it. Now no small part of the discipline which comes from 
 the eft'ortful use of attention in any direction and on any 
 topic is to be found in the habituation which is afforded in 
 neglecting or otherwise suppressing unpleasant or distracting 
 sensations. We learn to " stand it," in short. This fact has 
 been pointed out at times by writers on these topics, but it 
 is rarely given the importance which it properly deserves. 
 Any one can attend to things which interest or please him as 
 long as his physical strength holds out. But to attend in the 
 face of difficulties which are not entertaining is distinctly 
 an acquired taste, one to which children and primitive peo- 
 ples always strenuously object. From this point of view it 
 may well be that such studies as the classics and certain forms 
 of mathematics have a peculiar value in affording the maxi- 
 mum of unpleasantness diluted with a minimum of native 
 interest, so that a student who learns to tolerate prolonged 
 
 * That such a transfer of training may occur, see the interesting paper 
 by Coover and F. Angell, "General practice effect of special exercise," 
 Amer. Joiir. of Psychology (1907), p. 328. 
 
lO Educational Review [June 
 
 attending to their intricacies may find almost any other 
 undertaking by contrast easy and grateful. The actual mental 
 mechanism by which this intellectual and moral acclimatiza- 
 tion is secured, is extremely interesting, but we can not pause 
 to discuss it. Certain it is that something of the sort occurs 
 and that it is an acquirement which may presumably be car- 
 ried over from one type of occupation to another. If each 
 form of effortful occupation had a wholly unique type of 
 discomfort attached to it, this inference might be challenged. 
 But such does not seem to be the case. 
 
 Again it is held by certain psychologists that, altho each 
 form of sensory and ideational attention involves a special 
 and peculiar motor attitude not found in any other form in 
 which attention may be exercised, it is nevertheless true that 
 there is a general attitude on wliich each of these special 
 forms is grafted which remains as a constant background for 
 all. Of course if this contention be true, and I am disposed 
 both on theoretical and on experimental grounds to think that 
 it is, there would be some matrix common to all acts of 
 attention, and any development whatever would affect this 
 central core in some degree. 
 
 Altho we are here on distinctly speculative ground, there 
 is at least some reason to think that the frontal lobes of the 
 cerebral cortex are employed in all voluntary attention in a 
 way which may afford a considerable amount of common 
 cerebral action in many forms of attentive process, even 
 tho the community of elements is by no means rigidly fixt 
 and absolute. 
 
 Allied to this physiological consideration and, according to 
 certain psychologists, belonging in the realm of pure postu- 
 late, is the doctrine that the mind is a unit and that all its 
 processes must affect one another either positively or nega- 
 tively. On the whole, it appears that the general theory 
 of attention would lead us to look for some effect, whether 
 advantageous or disadvantageous, on every intellectual under- 
 taking as a result of every other previous mental activity. 
 
 The approach to our problem from the side of attention 
 enables us to attain an interesting and somewhat instructive 
 
1908] The doctrine of formal discipline 1 1 
 
 sidelight on certain familiar edncational tenets. Much is said 
 about the necessity of teaching- accuracy in observation. 
 Clearly this leads us back at once to the various forms of 
 sensory attention previously noticed. A boy taught to remark 
 carefully what he sees, whether in the open field or under 
 the microscope, may or may not learn to distinguish the rela- 
 tions of musical tones more readily than if he had not had 
 the training for his optical attention. On the basis of the 
 consideration just canvassed, we should look even in this case 
 for some gain, however slight, and there is some experimental 
 evidence to justify this expectation, as has already been men- 
 tioned. Moreover, we have to remember that the gain on 
 the score of discipline to attention may be more than offset by 
 the mutually inhibitory character of the habits involved in 
 the two activities, so that loss and not gain would appear as 
 the net result of certain combinations of this kind. But, in 
 any event, nothing is more certain than that the boy's auditory 
 attention must itself receive separate training if it is ever 
 to be of much value. Training in observation, then, can never 
 become widely effective unless it embrace all the important 
 forms of sense activity. 
 
 Memory also shares with " accuracy of obser\ation " the 
 solicitude so often exprest as to modern educational methods 
 and results. Few mental properties have been so widely sup- 
 posed to profit by general training as memory. Nevertheless, 
 certain distinguished psychologists have not hesitated to an- 
 nounce that the devices commonly employed to secure this 
 discipline were worthless. Other psychologists, hardly less dis- 
 tinguished, have urged that the evidence advanced by the de- 
 fenders of this doctrine was inconclusive, and my colleagues 
 upon the program will no doul)t call to your attention some 
 interesting experiments directed to solving this puzzle. We 
 may notice, however, that memory is a func<^ion of concen- 
 trated attention to the extent at least that, other things equal, 
 the person who possesses the most concentration of attention 
 will be found most tenacious of material learned and most 
 prompt and effective in commanding this material when 
 wanted. This consideration would lead us to expect that 
 
12 Educational Review [June 
 
 almost any training of memory would show some detectable 
 effect in any subsequent use of the memory processes. Recent 
 experiments indicate the correctness of this anticipation. 
 
 Again it is said that education ought to train one's ability 
 to execute analyses, to make accurate inferences, and to detect 
 essential relations, as tho analyses and inferences and relations 
 were names for perfectly homogeneous, uniform processes. 
 The futility of this conception in the form in which it is often 
 advocated requires no psychology more recondite than that 
 afforded by common observation and a very modest type of 
 common sense. If the world were built in a neat snug-fitting 
 box, with all parts interchangeable, the scheme ought to work 
 admirably. Unhappily the type of analysis and inference 
 which is valid in mathematics, for instance, is practically very 
 different from that which is valid in linguistics and history. 
 A similar discontinuity of inferential procedure marks off 
 from one another sundry other fields of knowledge. Surely 
 from this side the most that educational doctrine can ask 
 or urge is that the mind shall be brought into intimate con- 
 tact with all the great characteristic divisions of human 
 thought and that the processes in each of these domains shall 
 be made familiar. If one has thus mastered the several modes 
 of procedure needful in these main divisions of the world of 
 mind, one is at least armed against the inevitable errors of 
 complete ignorance and one is fairly started on the path to 
 specialized proficiency. Psychologically, of course, the vari- 
 ous forms of reasoning process reduce to one or two simple 
 types with their variants. But practically the content of the 
 ideas with which thought has to deal is often so diverse as to 
 render discipline gained on this score in one direction of only 
 the most remote consequence in another. 
 
 It should not be forgotten that a very real intellectual ad- 
 vantage is gained from any well-organized study, in that one 
 is given a vivid illustration, which may prove contagious if 
 the teaching be well done, of the possibilities of method and 
 technique in thinking. The leverage given by system and 
 organization is thus made clear. The precise system appro- 
 priate to a given problem may, however, be quite inadequate 
 
1908 J The doctrine of formal discipline 13 
 
 to some other problem, so that the profit on this score is not 
 without its Hmitation. 
 
 This last point leads to another which is in essence, per- 
 haps, but a re-statement. It has been maintained that, after 
 all, the great advantage in any serious study — the formal dis- 
 ciplines as well as others — is in the creation therefrom of cer- 
 tain ideals which are as such applicable to almost any situa- 
 tion. Such ideals are thoroness, accuracy, system, and the 
 like. I believe this contention may be granted without argu- 
 ment, but it leaves us, as in the two preceding cases, quite 
 uncertain as to the exact manner in which such an ideal as 
 " system," say, could be transplanted from chemistry to poli- 
 tics and literature. Even if the ideal really migrated, it 
 would in many cases be necessary to discover from new expe- 
 rience just hoAV it applied in the novel surroundings. 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 In reply to our first question — i.e., whether the serious pur- 
 suit of any study whatever may be expected to result in bene- 
 fits for the subsequent pursuit of any other study — our general 
 psychological principles lead us to the following conclusions, 
 which specific experiment must confirm or disprove : ( i ) Cer- 
 tain habits gained in the mastery of one study may be appro- 
 priated directly in another; they may (2) be slightly modified 
 before such application and still show for their possessor a 
 great gain as compared with the individual who has to start 
 from the beginning. (3) These habits may be incorporated 
 in larger habit groups, either with or without slight modifica- 
 tion. (4) They may tend to impede certain antagonistic 
 habits and in turn be impeded by other previously extant and 
 inhibitory habits. (5) But in all these cases, the instances of 
 inhibition as well as those of reinforcement and incorporation, 
 it seems probable that a certain gain in the power to use and 
 sustain attention will accrue from any purposeful and per- 
 sistent intellectual application. This result may be expected to 
 come in part from the suppressing or disregarding of dis- 
 agreeable and distracting sensations, and in part from the 
 
, . Educational Review 
 
 discipline afforded to the common element in all acts of atten- 
 "on whether this contmon element be fonnd ,n so...e cond - 
 i™; of the cerebral cortex, or in sonte motor cond.t.ons wh c 
 a,^ essetitial concomitants of all attentive attitudes. This 
 prLipTe probably holds true in memory, in reasoning u 
 rZtion, andm all the forms of ^ ^:^^_ 
 common thought and language distinguish. C^') W'^j^^^^^ 
 iects best reinforce one another; what ones most mevita ly 
 CO fliet with one another; whether these relations are - 
 pendent upon the mode of presentation, rather than upon he 
 ' b ect-mltter itself; these and other similar questions, too 
 :^^erous to point out, must one and all be --red by e- 
 periment and experience. Dogmatism ,s wholly impossible 
 advance of such drastic and exhaustive investigation. 
 
 Time and space do not permit any attempt to discuss the 
 second ciuestion which we formulated: i.e., whether any pai- 
 3::' sLies possess a special value for ^---1 ^hscip h^ry 
 purposes? It should, however, be remarked that, stiictly 
 sDcakin- there is probably no such thing as a purely dis- 
 plny study. Any study is likely to be robbed o its good 
 name and labeled a formal discipline, if somebody chances to 
 alle-e that it is good for something beside that for which 
 obviously exists. The implication of our deliberations would 
 be that every study has latent in it the possibilities of becom- 
 iiK. to some extent a formal or general discipline. Its pur- 
 suU mav effect intellectual changes not confined to the topic 
 with which it is ostensibly engaged. Meantime, it seems to 
 be a safe and conservative corollary of this doctrine that no 
 study should have a place in the curricnlum for which this 
 general disciplinarv characteristic is the chief reconimenda- 
 Uon Such advantage can probably be gotten in some degree 
 from every study, and the intrinsic values of each study afford 
 at present a tar safer criterion of educational worth than any 
 which we can derive from the theory of formal discipline. 
 
 J.\MES ROWL/VND AnGELL 
 University of Chicago 
 
II 
 
 THE EFFECTS OF TRAINING ON MEMORY 
 
 This topic is perhaps that one of all the special problems 
 connected with formal discipline that has been most frequently 
 discust and most thoroly investigated. It may, therefore, 
 stand as a type of the results and methods of experimental 
 psychology as applied to the more complicated problems of 
 mind, altho it is perhaps not the one in which most agreement 
 has been attained. 
 
 The oscillation of opinion on the topic is also charac- 
 teristic of the attitude toward the problem in general. In my 
 discussion I shall endeavor to reflect the results of theory and 
 experiment, and shall make effort to distort them as little as 
 possible by the surface from which they are reflected to you. 
 
 Three important stages may be distinguished in the devel- 
 opment of the theory. The first is probably most familiar to 
 the popular mind, in fact was the universal assumption before 
 the recent developments in our knowledge. It is that there is 
 a single function or faculty of memory, and that any train- 
 ing of that faculty must have its influence, no matter to what 
 memory may be applied. On this theory, training anywhere 
 would be effective everywhere. Our problem would be an- 
 alogous to the problem of the physical culturist, for whom 
 it makes no difference what work is done provided only the 
 muscles are exercised. The arm gains strength just as cer- 
 tainly if exercised on the pulley in the gymnasium as if em- 
 ployed in wielding the blacksmith's hammer. Were the same 
 analogy to hold, one could acquire a good memory by learn- 
 ing names from the directory with the same certainty as by 
 taking a college course. 
 
 As in most matters of theory, violent statement gave place 
 to violent reaction. If for generations there was no question 
 that memory might be trained as an arm might be, and the 
 
 15 
 
1 6 Edtuational Review [June 
 
 whole curriculum was based upon that assumption, when the 
 reaction came it was equally extreme. The beginnmgs of the 
 reaction appeared with the refutation of the faculty theory 
 by Herbart. More specifically the dogma received a blow 
 when mental pathology, aided by normal psychology, dis- 
 covered that man had not one memory, but many. It was 
 found that there was a memory for each sense, not of course 
 all represented in the same individual, but usually several m 
 one individual. Then, too, there seemed to be special mem- 
 ories for closely related kinds of material. It was found 
 that memory might be lost for one part of speech, not for 
 another; for one object and not for a closely related one. 
 If memories are thus so distinct that one may disappear and 
 leave the others unaffected, it would seem that training one 
 memory could have no effect at all upon another. In this re- 
 spect the analogv with physical training would assert that you 
 can no more trahi your memory for historical dates by learn- 
 ing poetry than you can train for a race by finger exercises 
 on the piano. The two memories would be as distinct as the 
 two members of the body. 
 
 This negative conclusion was reinforced by two other con- 
 siderations: one, theoretical; the other, factual. In the first 
 place, there is little analogy between training the man as a 
 physical whole and training memory, for the same kind 
 of process is involved in muscular training in general as is 
 involved in each piece of learning. When a muscle contracts 
 there is left behind as a result of the contraction an increased 
 liability and capacity for contraction, that thus strengthens 
 the muscle. Memory of any kind, on the generally accepted 
 theory, is the result of an entirely analogous change in a nerve 
 cell upon any excitation. One remembers a face because cer- 
 tain cells in the back of the brain take on a habit of acting 
 as a result of seeing the face, and this leaves a disposition 
 to be recxcited whenever appropriate occasion arises. And the 
 change in the cells as a result of some sensory impression is 
 assumed to be entirely analogous to the change in the muscle 
 as the result of action. You are training a memory whenever 
 you receive a sensation in exactly the same sense that you 
 
1908] The effects of training on nieniory 1 7 
 
 train an arm by contracting it. The problem, then, is not 
 " Can you train memory thru use? " but " Can you train one 
 group of nerve cells in the brain by exercising other sets of 
 cells that may or may not be situated anywhere near them, 
 or that may or may not be functionally related to them? " 
 
 The factual considerations that tended to confirm the con- 
 clusion were some actual experiments by Professor William 
 James. ^ He first tested his memory by learning some lines of 
 Victor Hugo's Satyr. He learned 158 lines during eight days. 
 This required 131 5-6 minutes. He then worked twenty 
 minutes daily until he had learned the first book of Paradise 
 lost. After this training he went back to Victor Hugo's poem 
 and found that 158 additional lines divided as before required 
 151 1-2 minutes for learning. There was, then, after training 
 a loss of twenty minutes' time rather than a gain. Professor 
 James admits, however, that there was some question of the 
 validity of the second test, because he had been considerably 
 fatigued by other work. The test was repeated by four of his 
 students in approximately the same way. Of these, two 
 showed some considerable gain as the result of practise and 
 two showed no gain. The results are not as striking as the 
 conclusion they were adduced to prove. In fact, it would be a 
 question whether any conclusion at all could be drawn from 
 them by a conser\^ative observer. But whatever value we may 
 assign to the results themselves, the name and fame of the 
 author and the cogency of his arguments from generally ac- 
 cepted physiological theories carried great weight. In fact, it 
 may be said that in American psychology at least his conclu- 
 sion that the primary memory can not be trained, but that 
 man is born with a certain retentiveness that can not be added 
 to or subtracted from by taking thought, has been held to 
 practically without exception. The only point at which Pro- 
 fessor James would admit any effect of training is in ac- 
 quiring better methods of learning, gaining capacity for pick- 
 ing out the essentials of the matter to be learned, and in dis- 
 carding the unessentials. 
 
 Down, then, to a comparatively recent time we have had two 
 diametrically opposed schools. Memory is either a single 
 
 ' James : Principles of psychology, Vol. I, p. 666. 
 
1 8 Educational Review [June 
 
 thing that can be trained as a whole as you train a muscle, or 
 it is a capacity of a vast number of separate organs sufficiently 
 independent to have no increase in capacity of one affect the 
 usefulness of any other. Both of these theories are logical 
 deductions froni the assumed premises, but they are a priori 
 in character, and have not been confirmed by carefully con- 
 trolled experiment or observation. Where two sets of 
 premises may give rise to such opposed conclusions, we must 
 have recourse either to more accurate examination of the 
 premises, or to concrete facts, before it will be possible to 
 harmonize the conclusions or to accept either. Fortunately, 
 more recent investigation seems to furnish both, and of a 
 character to form what may be regarded as a compromise 
 between the two extremes. 
 
 In beginning our discussion of the more constructive work, 
 it will be necessary to distinguish two forms of learning thai 
 follow laws that are diverse, or at least two forms that have 
 little to do with each other. These are rote learning and 
 learning of substance, or logical learning. The two methods 
 seem to be in part mutually exclusive, or at least independent 
 one of the other. One may have a w'ell-developed rote mem- 
 ory and little or no logical memory. At some stages of devel- 
 opment a child seems compelled to learn word for word or 
 not at all, while relatively few adults have an accurate mem- 
 ory for anything more than the meaning of what is read or 
 heard. Quite frequently, too, as one increases the other 
 decreases. This is not a necessary relation, but from com- 
 mon observation seems quite as frequent as to have both in- 
 crease together. It will be necessary, then, to discuss each 
 sort of memory separately. 
 
 On rote memory there has been a large amount of work 
 done in the last two decades, work that for the most part has 
 not been directed to our particular problem of training the 
 memory, but which has, nevertheless, developed a technique 
 and established standards of accuracy that were entirely lack- 
 ing at the time the experiments of Professor James were made. 
 In the experiments, great care is taken to control all possible 
 sources of error. The material employed is usually lists of 
 
1908] The effects of training 07i nietnory 19 
 
 nonsense syllables that have never been used and so probably 
 have never been learned even in part before. Then again, the 
 syllables are exposed at perfectly regular intervals by an 
 instrument that permits but one to be seen at a time and 
 insures that each shall be shown for the same length of time 
 as any other. A vast number of other apparently insignificant 
 details, that experience has shown to be important in their 
 effect upon learning, are carefully lookt to that no single ex- 
 traneous factor may come in to obscure the results. It has 
 been noted in nearly all experiments that have extended over 
 a considerable time that the amount of effort required for 
 learning became less with practise. Whatever the measure 
 used, it has been found that fewer repetitions or less time 
 is needed to perfect the learning process after practise than 
 before. It was explained ordinarily that this was due to ac- 
 quiring familiarity with unusual conditions of learning and 
 with the new material, or at least that the practise would hold 
 only for material of practically the same kind. In 1905, Ebert 
 and Meumann - published from the laboratory of the University 
 of Zurich the results of a long investigation that had for 
 its chief end the determination of the effects of training 
 in learning material of one kind upon the capacity to learn 
 material of the same and different kinds. The investigation 
 was extended over a long period of time, and the effects of 
 the practise were tested upon a sufficient variety of material 
 to leave but slight room for doubt that the main outlines of 
 the investigation will stand the test of time. Eight subjects 
 took part. Their memories were first tested for ease of learn- 
 ing different sorts of material, such as series of letters, num- 
 bers, nonsense syllables, words, Italian words, strophes of 
 poetry, and selections of prose. They were tested for re- 
 tentiveness on some of the same kind of material, and in addi- 
 tion on visual signs that had no conventional meaning. After 
 these tests had been made, the subjects turned to an investi- 
 gation of a problem in the economical methods of learning 
 that does not concern us here. In this investigation they 
 learned thirty-two series of nonsense syllables; ordinarily they 
 learned two series of syllables on one day and tested the re- 
 
 '•' Arc/i.f. d. gesam. Psych., Vol. IV, p. i. 
 
20 Educatio7ial Review [June 
 
 tention of two more. In most cases this meant learning four 
 series of twelve syllables each on each of sixteen days. At 
 the end of this time the first test material was re-learned and 
 the facility of learning was compared with the original. After 
 the second cross section thru the memory capacity, there was 
 still another period of training. Four of the subjects were 
 trained on sixteen series of the same material as before, and 
 four who could give more time were subjected to the com- 
 plete set of thirty-two series. When these had been finished, 
 a final test of capacity was made that could be compared with 
 the original condition and with the result obtained after 
 the first period of practise. 
 
 The results fell out entirely in favor of special training giv- 
 ing a general effect. For every subject there was a pro- 
 gressive increase thruout the series both in quickness of 
 original learning and in the amount of retention. Not only 
 this, but the effect of training from learning nonsense syllables 
 extended to the other materials that were used, and in nearly 
 the same degree as the closeness of the relation between the 
 kinds of material. The table will show the results in general 
 outline. It gives the average for the subjects on the eleven 
 different forms of work. We may divide the results into 
 two groups: one shows the effect of training on original 
 learning; the other, ihe effect of the training on retention, 
 on the retentiveness of the memory as measured by the num- 
 ber of repetitions required for relearning after the lapse of 
 t went v- four hours. 
 
 
 
 TABLE I 
 
 
 
 
 
 3d cross 
 
 2d cross 
 
 ist cross 
 
 per 
 
 cent, gain 
 
 per cent, gain 
 
 
 section 
 
 section 
 
 section 
 
 3 
 
 over 2 
 
 3 over I 
 
 Numbers 
 
 II. 2 
 
 8.8 
 
 7 
 
 
 26 
 
 59 
 
 Letters 
 
 "•3 
 
 9-5 
 
 7-2 
 
 
 19-3 
 
 58.2 
 
 Nonsense sj^llables 
 
 7-3 
 
 6.2 
 
 5-2 
 
 
 19 
 
 42 
 
 Words 
 
 8.8 
 
 7-3 
 
 
 
 20.5 
 
 
 Italian words 
 
 6.5 
 
 5.5 
 
 5 
 
 
 18 
 
 30 
 
 Poetic words 
 
 19 
 
 17 
 
 15 
 
 
 12 
 
 27 
 
 Prose words 
 
 22 
 
 19 
 
 17 
 
 
 16 
 
 29 
 
 In this table the figures all indicate the number of units that 
 could be retained on one repetition. 
 
i9o8] 
 
 The effects of training on niemojy 
 
 21 
 
 TABLE 113 
 
 AVERAGE NUMBER SECONDS PER SYLLABLE 
 
 ist cross 2(1 cross 3d cross 
 
 section section section 
 
 Learning 0.4S 0.83 2. 11 
 
 Relearnuig 0.20 0.27 0.49 
 
 Learning 0.90 2.23 3.83 
 
 Relearning 0.30 0.35 0.68 
 
 Learning .108 .175 .273 
 
 Relearning .036 .040 .056 
 
 Learning 0.47 0.6 .75 
 
 Relearning .07 .oS 0.14 
 
 per cent, per cent. 
 
 gam 
 3 over 2 
 
 43 
 
 35 
 
 59-6 
 
 14-3 
 
 32.8 
 
 10 
 
 21.6 
 
 12.5 
 
 gam 
 3 over I 
 
 77 
 
 59 
 
 76.5 
 
 55-9 
 
 60 
 
 36 
 
 37-3 
 50 
 
 READUXGS REQUIRED 
 
 Learning 50 99 175 
 
 Relearning 9 12 36 
 
 49 
 25 
 
 Nonsense syllables 
 
 [ Optical symbols 
 - Italian words 
 
 V Line of poetry 
 
 ^^'"^ '• 20 lines of prose 
 75 j ^ 
 
 It can be seen from the tables that in every case there was 
 a gain in the average performance of the eight observers for 
 each kind of material used. It will also be seen that there 
 is a tendency for the gain to be greatest in material that is 
 most closely related to that on which practise was obtained. 
 The difference is not, however, sufficiently great to make it 
 at all probable that rote memory for any sort of material 
 would not be increased as a result of practise in learning any- 
 thing else. It is also a striking result that the retentiveness 
 of the memory should be increased as well as its quickness. 
 It is suggestive of the extent to which training may go that 
 the second period of training should still show a very marked 
 eft'ect. Indeed it was the original intention of the investigators 
 to continue practise until a limit was reached, but this did not 
 seem practicable. The limit conjectured by the authors was 
 a degree of training that would permit complete learning of 
 the series used at a single repetition. There was some differ- 
 ence in the amount of training between different individuals. 
 This could be traced in large part to the amount of earlier 
 training. The smallest amount of training was shown by 
 Professor Meumann, who has devoted a large proportion of 
 his time in recent years to learning nonsense syllables and in 
 conducting investigations in memory. Still he did not fail 
 
 3 In this table the figures indicate the average time in seconds required 
 to learn each syllable, except in the last instance, where the results are 
 given in number of readings. 
 
2 2 Educational Review [June 
 
 to show some evidence of training in most of the tests that 
 were made. 
 
 Surprizing, too, are the results of tests of the persistence of 
 the effects of training. Tests made after the lapse of from 
 seventy-five to one hundred and fifty-six days of vacation 
 showed that there had been no loss of the training; in fact, 
 in several instances there had been an actual increase in mem- 
 ory capacity. If we are to take these results at anything 
 like their face value, it would seem that memory is capable 
 of being trained to an indefinite degree, and that training 
 in one field carries with it training in other related fields, 
 but they need not be so closely related as to render it at all 
 likely that training in remembering any one sort of material 
 would be entirely without effect in any other field. This effect 
 of training is not transient apparently, but persists, or its effect 
 may even be increased after the lapse of considerable time. 
 
 It might be objected that training of this kind is impractica- 
 ble and that the methods of training, the materials used, and 
 the methods of testing are so different in character from those 
 that would be used in practise that it is possible to draw no 
 conclusions from them to apply to the fields where we are 
 really interested in producing results. This may in part be 
 met by citing the results of some experiments of Winch * on 
 school children in Great Britain. The tests were made by 
 learning selections from an historical reader, the training 
 consisted in committing poetry or selections from a geographi- 
 cal reader. More than one hundred children, from three 
 neighborhoods of different social standing, were chosen to be 
 subjected to the tests. Each class was divided into two groups 
 of approximately equal mental attainments. One group, after 
 a test had been made, spent four periods in committing to 
 memory about one hundred words of poetry, while the others 
 were engaged in doing sums. The other classwork was the 
 same for the two groups. On the fifth morning after, each 
 group committed a second test passage. It was found that 
 the children who had had the special practise averaged nearly 
 ten per cent, better than those without training. And when 
 the two first divisions were again grouped with reference to 
 
 •» Ihiiish journal of psychology, Vol. II, p. 2S4. 
 
1908] The effects of training on memory 23 
 
 comparative merit, every group with training did better than 
 the corresponding group without ; a very striking result, consid- 
 ering the small amount of training. While these experiments 
 are very much less complete and less carefully controlled than 
 those of Ebert and Meumann mentioned above, they have the 
 advantage of confirming the others on children of school age, 
 on a larger number of individuals, and on material that is 
 used in actual school practise. 
 
 The two investigations, taken together, seem to leave little 
 doubt that rote memory can be improved by practise. Our 
 original theoretical question must then be faced : are we to 
 interpret the results as a proof of the existence of a faculty 
 of memory that acts in all the forms of learning that have 
 been considered, or can we retain something of the more 
 modern theory that the memory functions are in some measure 
 distinct? It must be asserted that the former alternative of 
 a memory faculty is not sufficiently in harmony with known 
 physiological and pathological facts to be accepted, except as a 
 last resort. The one alternative is to assume that, while there 
 are different memories, they either overlap in part, and in 
 sufficient measure to account for our results, or that there 
 are other common elements of sufficient importance to ac- 
 count for the effect. The observations of the subjects in the 
 experiments of Ebert and Meumann tend to favor the latter 
 interpretation. Their progress seemed to be marked by 
 greater capacity for attending to the nonsense material or 
 to attending mechanically in general. Then, too, they acquired 
 better methods of learning. Instead of attempting to help 
 themselves by extrinsic devices, they became willing to give 
 themselves over to the purely mechanical repetition of the 
 material without much thouglit of the consequences. Each 
 tends to adopt the method of learning that is most economical 
 for himself. This varies from individual to individual, but 
 it could be observed in each that the method of learning 
 changed qualitatively as the exercises progressed. The per- 
 sons tested took a devious course towards the end in the 
 early experiments and gradually eliminated the bypaths that 
 proved less profitable as time went on. It would seem, then. 
 
2 4 Educational Review [June 
 
 that a large part of the training, as it appears in the memory 
 process, can be explained in terms of the acquirement of 
 better methods of working and of a familiarity with the ma- 
 terial and processes that makes relatively interesting what at 
 first is probably as uninteresting a task as can easily be imag- 
 ined. Ebert and Meumann were of the opinion that in addi- 
 tion there was a training of some common capacity that might 
 be made to correspond fairly closely to memory as used in 
 the popular sense. This does not seem to me to be a necessary 
 conclusion, for no one knows how the gain due to these 
 secondary factors stands to the total amount of improvement. 
 One can not be sure, therefore, that all of the gain is or is 
 not to be explained in terms of the change in these capacities 
 that are generally assumed to be susceptible of training. 
 
 What explanation is to be offered for the fact is of less 
 importance than is the fact itself. It seems pretty certain, 
 if we are to place any confidence at all in these results, that 
 memory as a rough whole can be trained by comparatively 
 simple methods to a degree that is great enough to offer prac- 
 tical advantages. It also seems that the fact of training 
 can be explained in a way that will not be out of harmony 
 with generally accepted principles of pathology, physiology, 
 and psychology. It matters little, then, whether we still 
 assert or deny that the training is or is not of memory, or is 
 or is not of other functions related to memory. What we in 
 every-day life call rote memory does improve with use. 
 
 Slightly dift'erent is the problem of the logical memory 
 or memory of ideas as opposed to words or symbols. On this 
 problem there are few, if any, technical experiments. Con- 
 clusions must be drawn from observation and from general 
 considerations. Some conclusions on learning of this charac- 
 ter seem, however, to be pretty thoroly established. It is cer- 
 tainly true, so far as common observation extends, that one's 
 memory for any domain of work grows as one's acquaint- 
 ance with the field increases. Mathematical symbols or dem- 
 onstrations are remembered by the mathematician which 
 would be forgotten quickly and entirely by one less versed in 
 that lore. The same principle is evident in every field. What 
 
1908] The ejfects of trainhig on 7neniory 25 
 
 one already knows something of one remembers, and so far 
 as one can say from observation, the ease of remembering 
 is pretty closely proportional to the amount of knowledge 
 in the particular domain. In this sense, learning in one field 
 seems to exert an influence upon other learning in the same 
 field, and it is also probable that it makes easier learning in 
 a related field. Training in mathematics or in chemistry evi- 
 dently aids in some degree in remembering facts in physics; 
 training in one language facilitates learning another, particu- 
 larly if the language be a related one. 
 
 This fact, if it be accepted as such on the basis of what 
 I believe to be general opinion, probably recjuires a slightly 
 different explanation from any that has been given for rote 
 learning. Here apparently the increased facility for learn- 
 ing is due to the circumstance that retention and recall depend 
 upon the connections that are made with material already 
 known. When much is known already, there are many points 
 of attachment for new knowledge, and many of the attach- 
 ments have probably been already partially formed before 
 the particular moment in question. The new, then, is not 
 altogether new, but is in part a new application of old knowl- 
 edge. And even if in itself altogether new, it can be closely 
 related to familiar matter. As a consequence, it seems that 
 learning anything carries with it automatically increased ca- 
 pacity for learning- everything that is related to it in any 
 way. Where the two fields are closely related the gain from 
 earlier knowledge is great ; where the relation is less close, 
 the gain is smaller. In the light of the close relation of facts 
 of all kinds, he would be a bold man who would attempt to 
 assert that learning of any kind would be entirely without 
 influence upon later learning of any other kind. He would 
 also be equally bold who ventured to assert, on the basis of 
 present knowledge, just what fields of knowledge were most 
 closely related and how much influence training in one of 
 the fields would have on any other. 
 
 Besides this improvement in the capacity for remembering 
 that is due to the acquirement of associative bonds, there are 
 undoubtedly habits of learning that can be transferred from 
 
26 Edzicational Review [June 
 
 one sort of material to another that would improve factual or 
 logical learning in very much the same way that similar habits 
 improve rote memory. Habits of attention in general and 
 to one kind of material not to another, are undoubtedly ac- 
 quired thru study of any kind. Even the habit of using books 
 intelligently needs to be acquired in the early stages, and once 
 acquired, can be transferred to other fields. Even more im- 
 portant is the capacity for selecting the important points 
 and in properly knitting them to the related facts, to the facts 
 and occasions that render their recall desirable. For most 
 adult learning it is essential to remember the fact apart from 
 the language in which it is exprest and apart from the particu- 
 lar connections in which it is first learned. All these habits 
 of easv and effective learning can be acquired by learning any 
 sort of material that it is important to remember, and once 
 acquired, may be transferred to almost any other field. 
 
 If we retiu-n by way of summary to our original theories 
 as to the nature of memory and of the factors that affect its 
 training, we may say that we neither have one memory nor 
 many that are absolutely distinct. Rather do we have many 
 memories, more or less distinct, but closely associated, with 
 common elements. We can not train one memory without 
 training others. In terms of our comparison with the facts 
 of physical training, we must find the analogy for memory 
 neither in one muscle nor in many absolutely distinct muscles. 
 But as training one muscle never leaves other muscles un- 
 affected, so training one memory is not without influence 
 on oth.ers. It is found that practise with one hand increases 
 the strength of the other hand. This is in part no doubt due to 
 the fact that the two sides of the body are so connected 
 nervously that it is not possible to move one without moving 
 the other slightly. There is thus actual exercise for both hands 
 when one is exercised. In addition, training in any exercise 
 that requires skill undoubtedly increases more general habits of 
 accurate perception and methods of eliminating useless move- 
 ments that are transferable to other movements and movements 
 with other parts of the body. So, too, with memory, in the 
 usual logical learning the factors involved are in large measure 
 
1908] The effects of training on memory 27 
 
 common to memories of all related subjects. You can not be 
 sure that any fact is absolutely unrelated to any other, and 
 so far as they are related, learning the one makes easier learn- 
 ing the other. In both rote and logical learning there are 
 definite habits and capacities of attending to be acquired, and 
 these may apparently be acquired in one field and used in 
 another. We have to do in memory, then, with a large num- 
 ber of fairly distinct physiological capacities, but their use 
 has become so dependent upon habits common to the differ- 
 ent capacities that they are functionally parts of a common 
 whole. Training one part thus trains related parts, and the 
 whole in some degree. There is at present no means of say- 
 ing how much training one memory receives thru training 
 another, nor is it possible to say very exhaustively what mem- 
 ories are more closely, what more remotely, related. Suffice it 
 to say that memory for any range of facts will be trained 
 more completely by practise in that field rather than in some 
 other, just as training in rowing is more effective in that sport 
 than in football. Nevertheless, the crew-man is better mate- 
 rial for the eleven than a pianist or a golf-player or the man 
 without training in any athletic sport. So the man with well- 
 rounded training is probably on the average better trained 
 for learning in any field than the untrained man, or even than 
 the man with a narrow education in any other field. 
 
 W. B. PiLLSBURY 
 University of Michigan 
 
Ill 
 
 THE RELATION OF SPECIAL TRAINING TO 
 GENERAL INTELLIGENCE 
 
 There have recently been urged upon the attention of Amer- 
 ican teachers a number of experiments and statistical inquiries 
 which are held by their authors to show that training of 
 mental functions is always specific. Thus, it is asserted on 
 the basis of these investigations that there is no general 
 function of observation; there are, rather, as many kinds of 
 observation as there are kinds of facts to be observed. There 
 are no general functions of discrimination or comparison; 
 no general virtues of neatness or good manners. All is spe- 
 cific. To be precise in arithmetic means that and no more; 
 it does not mean to be precise in baseball or even in reading 
 and writing. 
 
 My experience in experimenting with this problem leads 
 me to believe that those who have advocated this doctrine 
 of specific functions have had a very limited A'iew of the facts 
 involved, and have consequently reached a formula of mental 
 organization which is wholly inadequate. I shall report in 
 some detail experiments which bear directly on the problem, 
 and shall then pass to the theoretical and practical conclu- 
 sions which follow from these experimental results. 
 
 The first experiment which I have to report is a very simple 
 one. A person who was to be tested was seated in such a 
 position that his right hand and arm were entirely hidden 
 from view by a large screen. Whatever he did with this 
 right hand would, therefore, be unseen by him. On the left 
 side of the screen and in full view, nine different lines were 
 shown in succession, and he was required to place a pencil 
 held in the unseen right hand in the direction indicated by 
 the several lines seen before him. The errors made in placing 
 the pencil were accuratclv measured and recorded. A stand- 
 
special training and general intelligence 29 
 
 ard of comparison was thus gained by which all later results 
 could be evaluated. The next step in the experiment was to 
 train the person being tested to more accurate localization of 
 one special line, which for purposes of our description we may 
 call No. 5. With this one line, No. 5, the reactor was given 
 fuller visual experience and the error which he at first made 
 with this line gradually disappeared. After this clear im- 
 provement with No. 5 the original conditions were restored, 
 and the reactor was again tested as at first with all nine lines. 
 Every line in the series was affected. This means that there 
 had been a transfer of effects under the conditions of the 
 training described. 
 
 This, however, was not all. Some of the lines had shown 
 in the first series of tests an error in the same direction as 
 line No. 5 ; others showed an error in the opposite direction. 
 The transfer of practise differed in the two kinds of cases 
 in that those lines which had a like error with No. 5 im- 
 proved with No. 5, while the lines which had errors in the 
 opposite direction to No. 5 grew worse as a result of prac- 
 tise with No. 5. The transfer of practise was no less real 
 in the case of the lines which increased in error than in the 
 case of the lines which improved. Both kinds of cases show 
 that the functions involved are interdependent, and that trans- 
 fer of practise is a complex process which must be studied 
 from a variety of points of view if its different modes of 
 operation are to be fully understood. Joint improvement 
 is only one of the possible forms of transfer; reciprocal inter- 
 ference is just as significant a type of relation and just as 
 certainly a type of transfer as is joint improvement. 
 
 The experiment was carried a step further. After practise 
 with No. 5, a new practise series was instituted with another 
 line, which we may designate as No. 2. It was found that 
 the person being tested was now very much less affected by 
 practise with line No. 2 than he had been during the first 
 practise series with No. 5. The amount of practise given 
 Avith No. 2 was much greater in quantity and more radical 
 in type, but the reactor remained relatively unaffected. This 
 means, of course, that when the reactor first came to the 
 
30 Educational Review [June 
 
 experiment he was open to all kinds of suggestions. He was 
 in the habit-forming attitude; he easily took on the effects 
 of practise. But after the training which he received with 
 line No. 5, he was less capable of acquiring new adjust- 
 ments; he was no longer in the habit-forming attitude. 
 
 This is a third phase of transfer of practise. It is no 
 less significant than joint improvement or reciprocal inter- 
 ference, for surely any influence which renders an observer 
 immune to the effects of new practise is not to be overlookt 
 in discussing the relations of various forms of experience 
 to each other. The closing up of the possibilities of future 
 practise is much more important a consequence of any prac- 
 tise series than the direct transfer of effects to other functions. 
 
 We can gain more light on this third type of relation 
 between functions by bringing out the fact that all thru the 
 experiment under consideration the person being tested was 
 kept in total ignorance of the purpose and results of the 
 tests. H did not know that he improved with line No. 5, 
 or that he transferred the effects attained with line No. 5 
 to all the others. When he began working with line No. 2, 
 he did not know that he was resisting improvement, and con- 
 sequently was not disturbed by the absence of new practise 
 effects. 
 
 A second experiment, which exhibits more fully the effect 
 of ignorance of results, is as follows. Two observers were 
 gi\'en a series of tests in the comparison of two geometrical 
 figures. The figures compared were complex and were incor- 
 rectly perceived because of their complexity, giving rise to 
 what is known as a geometrical illusion. One of the two fig- 
 ures was overestimated ; the other was underestimated. As 
 a result of a long series of comparisons, the two observers 
 ultimately overcame the tendencies toward overestimation and 
 underestimation: that is, they learned to apprehend the lines 
 correctly. They both learned this lesson in about the same 
 number of comparisons, showing that they were both at the 
 outset equally capable of taking on the effects of practise. 
 During the course of the experiment one observer was kept 
 in total ignorance of the results of practise, while the other 
 
1908] special training and general intelligence 31 
 
 was fully informed. Thus when they entered upon the second 
 stage of the experiment, one had practise, but did not know 
 its effects upon him. The other had practise and did know 
 its effects. The figures which they were using for com- 
 parison were reversed and a second series of tests began. When 
 they began working with the reversed figures, both observers 
 showed confusion under the new conditions. Very soon, how- 
 ever, the observer who knew about the effects of practise 
 adjusted himself to the new demands and rapidly overcame the 
 illusion. There was in his case a speedy and advantageous 
 transfer of practise. The other observer who did not know 
 the effects of his earlier experience showed a greater error 
 than at any time in the first series, and, what is still more im- 
 portant, he showed no disposition to improve. In spite of the 
 dift'erence in the final outcome it should be noted that the 
 practise gained in the first series was transferred in both cases. 
 In one case, it worked improvement ; in the other, it not only 
 worked against improvement by increasing the illusion, but 
 it also rendered the observer incapable of rapid readjustment. 
 
 The facts which I have thus far cited are experimental 
 results obtained under rigid and accurately measured condi- 
 tions. They are paralleled by facts which appear in ordinary 
 experience, and it will be well to refer to these commonplace 
 experiences before we turn to any final formulation of 
 principles. 
 
 First, let us take a few cases of interference of training. 
 The mathematical prodigy is a person who has become so 
 absorbed in number that he has little or no attention for 
 anything which can not be counted. His ability to use num- 
 ber is cultivated at the expense of all his other possible modes 
 of thought. 
 
 Again, the bookworm may become so absorbed in reading 
 that he will withdraw from the observation of nature and 
 train his bookish capacities at the expense of all others. 
 
 The scientist who is devoted to bugs or plants is proverbially 
 negligent of the other facts which are offered to his eyes. 
 Even the Greeks made sport of the philosopher who, while 
 looking at the stars, fell into a well which he had not noticed. 
 
32 Educational Review [June 
 
 These facts do not show that there is one facuhy for the 
 observation of stars and another for the observation of wells; 
 they show rather that the faculty of observing can not be 
 turned at the same time in all possible directions. If the mind 
 is full of thoughts about stars, this will interfere with thoughts 
 about wells. It is just because mental life is a unity that it 
 can not turn to everything in equal degree. I can not read 
 books and at the same time look at the sky. No one would 
 argue from this that I have one eye for the reading of books 
 and one for looking at the sky. The simple fact is that I 
 have one pair of eyes and I can use them as I will, but if I 
 use them in one direction I must be content to turn them 
 away from many other directions. 
 
 Indeed, the process of mental training is in many cases 
 one of educating the pupil to turn away from things. I teach 
 my child to look at one part of a picture by withdrawing his 
 attention from all else on the page. The principle of selection, 
 or concentration of attention, or of disregarding distractions, 
 is the principle illustrated in all these cases. So far does this 
 principle go in sensory training that when I am intently look- 
 ing at the page before me I do not hear the sounds that appeal 
 to my ears. Does this argue that my hearing and seeing 
 functions are unrelated, or does it show their intimate inter- 
 dependence? I submit that interference of functions is the 
 strongest possible evidence of their interdependence. 
 
 Turning to the type of transfer which we found in our 
 experiments when we observed that sometimes a person is 
 less open to improvement after training than before, we can 
 again find parallel facts in commonplace experience. Chil- 
 dren who have not acquired fixt habits of articulation imitate 
 very readily the pronunciations which they hear about them. 
 We who are adult and have fixt habits, do not change easily. 
 This is amply illustrated in the ease with which children 
 learn a foreign language, and the difficulty which adults 
 experience in trying to articulate unfamiliar sounds. 
 
 Another illustration appears in the fact that the man who, 
 thru much experience in walking, has learned certain methods 
 of keeping his body balanced and erect, does not learn to ride 
 
1908] special training and general intelligence 33 
 
 a bicycle as readily as the boy whose habits of bodily balance 
 are much less fully adapted to the walking position. 
 
 Again, how often have we heard music teachers and writing 
 teachers say that the worst pupils are those who have bad 
 methods. To break up a bad method is more than double the 
 task of teaching a wholly untrained child. 
 
 We might go on multiplying cases to show that, when train- 
 ing has fixt a habit, all related activities are less open to 
 education than before. It is in general the absence of all fixt 
 habits of thought and action which makes the child such a 
 good subject for education. It is not because our functions 
 are separate and distinct that we grow less and less subject 
 to education as we grow older. It is because we are dominated 
 in all our functions by those activities, either of body or mind, 
 which get the first and most intense training in early life. 
 
 All the facts thus argue, I firmly believe, not for a dis- 
 creteness of mental functions, but rather for a unity and 
 compactness of mental life, such that if you influence one 
 phase of a man's conscious being, you contribute, sometimes 
 negatively to be sure, but none the less surely, to all the 
 different elements of his nature. 
 
 Let us turn from the negative cases to some commonplace 
 facts of positive influence of one function upon another. 
 
 I shall take at first a very broad illustration. Our whole 
 generation is greatly influenced in its thinking by the doc- 
 trine of evolution. That doctrine Avas first formulated in 
 biology, but who would attempt to define the limits of its 
 applications now? The preacher, the historian, the political 
 economist, the educator, have all been dominated by this gen- 
 eralization and have carried it over into their several spheres 
 of thought and action. 
 
 A second type of illustration is to be found in the fact that 
 we all know what is meant by the phrase, the scientist's atti- 
 tude. The man who, thru long training in the analysis of 
 situations, has acquired certain general modes of intellectual 
 procedure, will show himself a scientist in the presence of any 
 emergency, however novel. Every new situation is attacked 
 in the fashion for which his training has prepared him. 
 
34 Educational Reviezv [June 
 
 It is sometimes said that this general type of mental re- 
 action is inherited rather than acquired. For my part I do 
 not see how that changes the conclusion regarding the inter- 
 relation of mental functions. If one can inherit a general 
 function, why should we argue further for discreteness of 
 functions? The general characteristic certainly pervades all 
 mental activity, and this is exactly what we mean by the posi- 
 tive cooperation and interrelation of functions. 
 
 Other illustrations of the same type are easy to find. It 
 is no idle fancy of popular observation that the clergyman 
 always adopts habits of behavior and thought appropriate to 
 his walk in life. Indeed, it has been charged that there are 
 certain mental habits and ways of acting which go with the 
 educational profession. We can have a theory to the effect 
 that our training as teachers is not carried over into our other 
 hours of life, and we may possibly derive some comfort from 
 this theory, but it will hardly change the common view, which 
 is after all a very respectable generalization. 
 
 I shall be satisfied with this recital of facts. If we chose 
 other illustrations of transfer and generalization of practise, 
 we might fall into some of the doubtful cases covered by the 
 nebulous phrase used by those who defend the doctrine of 
 specialized functions when they say that certain specialized 
 functions contain identical factors and are related thru these 
 identical elements. I confess I do not understand fully what 
 they mean by their references to identical factors. I feel 
 safe in the cases above cited, however, for there can be no 
 single factor in all of the scientific man's methods of thought, 
 unless indeed the man himself be the identical element. 
 
 I shall venture to stand thru the rest of our discussion on 
 the facts which have been adduced. These facts certainly 
 justify the statement that mental functions are interrelated 
 and interdependent in the most manifold ways. Sometimes 
 the training of an attitude aids the positive development of 
 certain other attitudes. Sometimes one function interferes 
 with other functions. Above all stands the fact that every 
 experience changes the individual's capacity for new 
 experiences. 
 
.1908] special training and general intelligence 35 
 
 With these conchisions in mind I behove we are in a position 
 to restate the problem. We can no longer ask the simple ques- 
 tion whether training in arithmetic helps the student in geog- 
 raphy. To ask that question and be satisfied with some kind 
 of a count of cases where it does and others where it does 
 not, is to touch the real problem very superficially. Certainly 
 it is true that an excessive interest in arithmetic, as in the 
 case of the mathematical prodigy, may close up the avenues of 
 interest in geographical lines. Certainly it is true that an 
 excessive interest in maps and descriptions of countries might 
 very conceivably make the solution of abstract problems of 
 number very distasteful to a boy who wanted to travel rather 
 than count. If geography and arithmetic interfere with each 
 other at times, they must be related at least negatively, and 
 our inquiry must extend to the consideration of such negative 
 possibilities. Furthermore, the moment we admit negative 
 possibilities we reach one of the radical objections to settling 
 this question of transfer of training by averages. If out of 
 one hundred boys there are twenty-five who enjoy counting 
 and are so much absorbed in that form of thought that they 
 seriously neglect geography, and twenty-five others who are 
 indifferent to arithmetic because they enjoy reading about 
 travel, and fifty who are much aided in the precision of all 
 their work by their arithmetic, what will an average of the 
 one hundred boys show about the relation between geography 
 and arithmetic? The first fifty with their negative results 
 will counterbalance the second fifty with their positive tend- 
 encies, and our average will seem to show what is not true: 
 namely, that there is no relation between training in arith- 
 metic and training in geography. I can not refrain from the 
 general remark that the statistician who would venture to 
 assert a universal negative on the basis of an average seems 
 to me to take himself very seriously. I think we are justified 
 in saying to him and to ourselves, that the real question here 
 is not one which can be answered by yes or no. Our ques- 
 tion is not, are functions interrelated and capable of influ- 
 encing each other? The vital question is, what is the type, 
 and what the degree of interrelation? Our problem is one 
 
36 Educational Review [June 
 
 of analysis and not one of classification. To find out ivhy 
 two functions conflict or cooperate is better than to assert 
 or deny their relation in vague general terms. 
 
 There are many productive educational problems of the 
 analytical type thus proposed. Let me take up in detail one 
 of them. What is the relation between education in the theory 
 of a certain situation and education thru practical contact 
 with the situation? It is not difficult to find enthusiasts in 
 favor of practical training as opposed to theoretical. There 
 is the horrible example of the college graduate who knows the 
 theory of bridge-building, but makes very foolish blunders 
 in the shop. There is the theoretically trained pedagog who 
 makes a poor disciplinarian and an inefficient instructor. On 
 the other hand, the consensus of human experience is that 
 theoretical training is worth while. If the college man at 
 first makes more blunders than the man who has grown up 
 in the shops, the college man is not unlikely in a year or so 
 to find himself, and to be able to use his theory very effectively 
 in surpassing his practically trained neighbor. The notion 
 that pedagogical theory is a hindrance in teaching gives way 
 also in face of the facts. Our problem is clear. Why do 
 theory and practise seem in some cases to conflict? Why do 
 they seem at other times to cooperate in producing the highest 
 degree of efficiency? And, when they conflict or cooperate, 
 what are the details of the relation between them? 
 
 W^ith the value of a simple experiment in mind, I shall try 
 to reduce this problem of theory and practise to a very definite 
 experimental basis. I am sorry that I have not been able 
 to work the problem out more fully. Some ten or eleven 
 years ago Mr. Scholckow, now principal of a New York 
 school, undertook at my suggestion the experimental investi- 
 gation of this problem. He did not complete the investigation 
 and has never published his result or his method. I later 
 carried the experiment a little further, and shall report on the 
 basis of my results. I wish to acknowledge very fully Mr. 
 Scholckow's contribution, and I secured his consent some 
 time ago to the publication of anything relating to the topic. 
 
 Two groups of pupils in the fifth and sixth grades were 
 
1908] special training a7id general intelligence 37 
 
 required to hit with a small dart a target which was placed 
 under water. The difficulty of hitting the target arises, of 
 course, from the deflection which the light suffers thru re- 
 fraction. The target is not where it seems to be, and the 
 boy must tit his aim with the dart to conditions which differ 
 from those which he knows in ordinary life. The amount of 
 refraction and the consequent displacement of the target are 
 capable of definite theoretical explanation before one throws 
 the dart. In this experiment one group of boys was given 
 a full theoretical explanation of refraction. The other group 
 of boys was left to work out experience without theoretical 
 training. These two groups began practise with the target 
 under twelve inches of water. It is a very striking fact that 
 in the first series of trials the boys who knew the theory of 
 refraction and those who did not, gave about the same re- 
 sults. That is, theory seemed to be of no value in the first 
 tests. All the boys had to learn how to use the dart, and 
 theory proved to be no substitute for practise. At this point 
 the conditions were changed. The twelve inches of water 
 were reduced to four. The difference between the two groups 
 of boys now came out very strikingly. The boys without 
 theory were very much confused. The practise gained with 
 twelve inches of water did not help them with four inches. 
 Their errors were large and persistent. On the other hand, 
 the boys who had the theory, fitted themselves to four iches 
 very rapidly. Their theory evidently helped them to see the 
 reason why they must not apply the twelve-inch habit to four 
 inches of water. Note that theory was not of value until 
 it was backed by practise, but when practise and theory were 
 both present the best adjustment was rapidly worked out. 
 
 I regret to say that the experiment was not carried far 
 enough to determine how long the boys who were without 
 theoretical training would have had to work al the problem of 
 hitting the target, in order to overcome their confusion with 
 every change in the depth of the water. They did master 
 four inches, but were again confused with eight inches. We 
 may safely appeal to general human experience, however, to 
 supplement our results at this point. Theory has always been 
 
38 Edticatio7ial Review [June 
 
 built on the basis of series of particular results. When men 
 first observed the results of refraction they were much con- 
 fused by them. Lucretius, for example, is an illustration of 
 a thinker who has no generalized theory of refraction. He 
 is typical of all ancient observers when he reports the apparent 
 crookedness of a stick in water and declares that it is a decep- 
 tion of the mind. Men could not, however, be satisfied with 
 this vague conclusion. They were stimulated by repeated 
 experiences to attack the facts more vigorously until finally 
 a general principle was formulated. This generalized expe- 
 rience we call the theory of refraction. When one group 
 of boys was instructed in the theory of refraction, they were 
 merely given by a short-cut method the best experience of 
 tlie race regarding the way to reach objects seen under water. 
 When the boys absorbed this theory they had the epitome of 
 many experiences. The experiment showed that this theoreti- 
 cal knowledge was relatively useless in the first series of tests : 
 that is, until each boy had realized in his own actual contact 
 with water what experiences were discust in the theory. 
 The theory is not a substitute for direct experience; it is rather 
 a frame in which experiences may be properly held apart 
 and at the same time held together. The boys who did not 
 have the theory had experiences, but one experience got in 
 the way of another and there was disconcerting confusion. 
 There was, to be sure, in this confusion a certain relation, but 
 it was of a type opposite in character to that which appeared 
 in the cases of the boys who had the right cue in their theoreti- 
 cal principle and so put the two groups of experiences into 
 the right setting. 
 
 Such an example as this makes it clear that every experience 
 has in it the possibilities of generalization. Whether the 
 generalization will be worked out by any individual is a 
 question of that individual's ability and persistence. It is 
 clear, however, that there is nothing in such an experience 
 which would lead us to speak of training as specific and in- 
 capable of generalization. 
 
 Let us turn from this example to others of a more common 
 ty])e. A boy is taught to look for birds. Does he become 
 
1908] Special training and general intelligence 39 
 
 more alert in looking for flowers and rocks? That depends 
 entirely upon what looking for birds means in the case under 
 consideration. If a boy is taught in a narrow way to name 
 birds and to look for their nests, with no intimation that there 
 is anything else in the world of nature for which to look, 
 then it is not probable that he will tend to generalize his atti- 
 tude toward the world sufficiently to include other observable 
 facts. If, on the other hand, a boy is taught to open his eyes 
 to all the facts of the world; if, for example, he is taught 
 that swimming birds have certain characteristics, running 
 birds others, and that certain birds will be found in one kind 
 of an environment, other types in other surroundings, then 
 the tendency to generalize observation will be strong. It is 
 safe to say that looking for birds may be a narrow training 
 in some cases, and a very broad training in others. The most 
 important educational principle here involved is not a princi- 
 ple of special mental functions, but the principle that good 
 teaching aims at generalizations. 
 
 Again, if we ask whether arithmetic is helpful as an intro- 
 duction to algebra, the answer depends on what we mean 
 by arithmetic. One of the most vivid educational lessons I 
 ever learned came to me when I once undertook to help some 
 candidates for teachers' certificates review arithmetic. I gave 
 them examples, and the question they always asked me was 
 which rule in the book the example belonged under. Those 
 girls had a kind of arithmetic which would not carry the 
 weight of any algebraical superstructure. On the other hand, 
 I have seen arithmetic taught as a method of comparing quan- 
 tities in such a way that the transition to algebra could not be 
 felt as anything but a legitimate fruition. 
 
 There is another way in which I shall venture to put this 
 matter of the desirability of generalizing training. A teacher 
 who has a broad outlook on any field of knowledge will make 
 a single piece of information carry to the student not only 
 a bare kernel of truth, but a whole network of suggestions by 
 which the central truth connects with the rest of the world. 
 Suppose I say to a boy, Caesar was a great general. That is 
 doubtless true, but it is a kind of nugget washed up in its 
 
40 Educational Review [June 
 
 separate purity and carried away by a boy with very little 
 suggestion of other possibilities of rich findings. Now let 
 me say instead that Caesar was a great man who, living in a 
 military age, achieved his greatest success as a military leader. 
 I think we have an idea which leads into a whole mine of truth. 
 
 It will be noted that in tliis simple illustration I have tried 
 to make it clear that the teacher is not called upon to say to 
 the pupil, this idea has implications. The idea ought to be 
 given with its implications present and actively reaching out 
 into the world of new experiences. To check the legitimate 
 flow of association in order to contemplate the process of 
 association is a mistake. The skilful teacher keeps ideas mov- 
 ing without calling attention to the machinery. 
 
 The qualification which more than any other fits a teacher 
 to present ideas with their implications, is the qualification 
 which prepares a teacher to look all around a fact. The 
 teacher ought to see what a fact is going to be used for later. 
 The child has no perspective; the teacher should have. The 
 teacher whose ideas are broad can do much to prepare the 
 student to see and cultivate universals. The teacher who is 
 narrow thru little training can do much to close the mind 
 of a pupil to the possibility of transferring his culture to 
 anything else. The teacher who knows nothing beyond what 
 he teaches can only by the rarest good chance make a remark 
 which will open the mind of his pupil to new connections. 
 The teacher who is full of the legitimate developments of the 
 ideas which he is teaching will never limit his students to 
 a narrow formal view of facts. 
 
 There are a few very specific suggestions which seem to 
 me to grow out of the position which I have attempted to 
 defend before you. Most of our textbooks are written with 
 a division and subdivision of the subject and a finished nicety 
 of definition which destroys all possible links with anything 
 else. Knowledge must, I am clear, be divided into fine parti- 
 cles in order to pass the narrow gateway into the young 
 mind, but I never take up one of these highly dogmatic and 
 completely subdivided textbooks on granimar or arithmetic 
 without a shudder. The formal divisions dominate us in 
 
i9o8] Special training and general intelligence 41 
 
 our teaching to such an extent that I have sometimes thought 
 that the statistics of the non-correlationists are the artifacts 
 of our educational system. Our textbooks make boys and 
 girls learn in such a way that there shall be a wall of division 
 between arithmetic and everything else. And not only so, but 
 we make the intelligent child, who would naturally find com- 
 mon characteristics in the various processes which are de- 
 scribed within the covers of a single book, afraid to look 
 from one section into the next. I suppose you are asking what 
 can be done about it. This much can be done, if nothing 
 more. We can have reviews in our schools designed for the 
 specific purpose of correlating and generalizing knowledge. 
 If we need to divide knowledge into fine parts the first time 
 it is presented, let us recognize with all clearness that in 
 reviews we should not devote ourselves to going over the 
 fine subdivisions, but we should rather develop the general 
 phases of experience. There is a general phase in every expe- 
 rience. To get at it is worth much time and effort. If you 
 bring it out, the particular facts all fall into their proper 
 relations and the compact whole is a substantial structure, not 
 a mass of raw, detached materials. When teachers come to 
 realize the value of reviews, I believe our textbooks will also 
 take on a different form. There will still be divisions, but 
 they will not be so formidable or so disintegrating. 
 
 The. second observation which I wish to make is this. It 
 has been my experience that school work drifts to the pre- 
 cise and exactly markable answer and corresponding question. 
 It is so easy to ask a good question in rhetoric and so hard 
 to ask a good question in literature. It is relatively easy to 
 have a show recitation in Latin made up of definite questions 
 and answers which can be evaluated with mathematical preci- 
 sion. It is relatively hard to make children describe some 
 of the commonplace facts of the world of nature. As a result 
 we drift into the exact forms of teaching. We say Latin is 
 invaluable because it is so precise. I think we ought to ask 
 whether it is capable of cuhivating powers of generalization. 
 We say that scientific studies have not been formulated for 
 teaching. For my part, I find this one of the richest fields for 
 
42 Educatio7ial Review 
 
 educational genius because it has not been trampled into life- 
 less atoms by the weary tread of generations. One living, 
 palpitating truth, grasped even vaguely, seems to me better 
 than many isolated gems of formalism. If our supervisors 
 and teachers could be freed from the bane of precise evalua- 
 tion and could apprehend the significance of truths which 
 have broad implications, our education would, I firmly believe, 
 make inestimably greater progress. 
 
 Finally, I wish to make in this connection a plea for less 
 dogmatism in educational tlieory. The one thing I have tried 
 to make clear in this paper is that a dogmatic answer to the 
 question of transfer of training is totally impossible. Does 
 nature-study train in observation? Does washing of slates 
 train in neatness? Does saying good-morning to the princi- 
 pal conduce to good manners on the playground? If there is 
 any dogmatic answer given you when you ask these ques- 
 tion, put it aside. There is no single answer to any one of 
 these questions. Teachers have become so fixt in their habits 
 of using precise textbooks and asking precise questions and 
 accepting precise answers that they want precise pedagogical 
 formulas. This is itself a very good illustration of generali- 
 zation of a bad habit of mind. There is another and juster 
 attitude toward educational problems. Every educational sit- 
 uation is a new situation and is full of possibilities. Will one 
 experience affect others favorably or unfavorably? The an- 
 swer is, the effect of one experience on later life depends 
 on the character of that experience and the way it is man- 
 aged. We may make of our pupils eager seekers after truth, 
 or we may make of them bigoted little dogmatists. What we 
 do will depend very much upon what we and our interests are. 
 If we believe in specialized functions we shall probably do 
 very little to generalize knowledge in our students. If, on 
 the other hand, we have broad views of the subject we are 
 teaching and of our task in teaching it, we shall find very 
 little in practical experience to bind us to tlie narrow view 
 that mental life is made up of watertight compartments. 
 
 Charles H. Judd 
 
 Yale University 
 
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