THE CRITICAL STUDY OF QUESTIONING 
 IN CLASS-ROOM METHOD 
 
 By 
 
 ELSIE ANN WERNER 
 
 A. B. University of Illinois, 1921 
 
 THESIS 
 
 SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS 
 FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN EDUCATION 
 IN THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF ILLINOIS, 1922 
 
 URBANA, ILLINOIS 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/criticalstudyofqOOwern 
 
\ (A. 
 
 W 43 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 THE GRADUATE SCHOOL 
 
 June 1 1922 
 
 i HEREBY RECOMMEND THAT THE THESIS PREPARED UNDER MY 
 SUPERVISION by — Elsie Ann Werner 
 
 ENiiTLED_ A Critical Study of Questioning in Cl ass -room- 
 Methods. 
 
 BE ACCEPTED AS FULFILLING THIS PART OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR 
 THE DEGREE OF ..Master-, of Arts in Education 
 
 Recommendation concurred in* 
 
 Committee 
 
 on 
 
 Final Examination* 
 
 •Required for doctor’s degree but not for master’s 
 

TABLE OF COST ENTS 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 I. Introduction I 
 
 II. Questioning a Neglected Field:. 3 
 
 A. Causes: 
 
 1. Teachers do not know the psychology of what they are 
 
 doing 3 
 
 2. Literature on questioning is limited 5 
 
 3. Supervision is neglected.. 5 
 
 4. Training in questioning as in psychology and in content 
 
 subjects is not universal 6 
 
 III. Modern Class-room Methods 8 
 
 A. Aims 8 
 
 B. Defective aims observed 8 
 
 C. Aim and its Relation to method 9 
 
 D. General principles of method 9 
 
 E. Types of method: 
 
 1. project 10 
 
 2. laboratory 11 
 
 3. review and examination 11 
 
 4. lecture method.... 12 
 
 5. Socratic method 15 
 
 6. topical method 20 
 
 F. Stenographic reports in Algebra and History showing the 
 
 Relation between Aim and Method.. 21 
 
 IV. Quantity versus Quality. 37 
 
 A. Number of questions 37 
 
 1. Large number- Stenographic report in English- Sir 
 
 Walter Scott 40 
 
 2. Small number - Stenographic report in Civics - Immigra- 
 
 tion. 45 
 
 B. The Quality of Questions 49 
 
 1. Stenographic report in English- Gray's "Elegy." 49 
 
 V. The Art of Questioning 53 
 
 A. Quotations from DeGarmo, Betts, Parker 53 
 
 B. The function of questioning 54 
 
 C. The essentials of questioning 54 
 
 D. Types of faulty technique 61 
 
 E. Stenographic reports in Geography and Biology 69 
 
 F. Two general types of questions 76 
 
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Chapter I 
 
 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY OF QUESTIONING. 
 
 This investigation is an intensive study of one phase of classroom 
 instruction - the use of the question. It is a critical study of classroom oro- 
 ceiure with the hope of promulgating a theory making for greater efficiency in 
 teaching. The purpose of this study is to turn the searchlight upon some signi- 
 ficant tendencies in our teaching, and to suggest opportunities for constructive 
 work in a neglected field in the training and the supervision of teachers. 
 
 My investigations touching upon the teacher’s use of the question has 
 covered a period of six months. I have observed one hundred classes of three 
 
 well recognized and standard high schools and as many grade schools. I selected, 
 
 as far as possible for observation, the most highly recommended teachers; so that 
 the results of my study would reflect the work that is acknowledged to be the 
 average or above. In the selected classes of high school subjects: Algebra, 
 Ancient history. Civics, English, Geometry, Botany and French; and in the grade 
 subjects: geography, history and reading. I copied stenographically the recita- 
 tions verbatim, so that I- could have accurate records for detailed study. 
 
 It seems very generally assumed that teachers know by a sort of intui- 
 tion when to ask questions and how to ask them - that if the content has been 
 
 adequately planned, the questions will in some way adjust themselves to the needs 
 
 of the moment. 
 
 The situation, as I have found it since making s study of the subject, 
 indicates a poor adjustment since teachers resort to very faulty technique in re- 
 phrasing their own questions two, three and four times for the sake of clearness 
 and self satisfaction and ask such a multiplicity of questions that only memory 
 

 
 
 
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 and very superficial judgment can be effected. 
 
 How the question functions as a medium of instruction is exemplified, 
 in part, by the young lad who remarked petulantly, after a severe cross-examina- 
 tion in school, that he v/as going to be a school teacher, since the teacher did 
 not have to know anything. ’’All that she had to do was to ask quest ions.'* 
 Teachers do use questions not infrequently, as a means to bridere 
 gaps and to kill time during a class period, thus preventing its legitimate and 
 valuable function as an educational agent. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
3 
 
 Chapter II 
 
 DEFECTS IN QUESTIONING 
 
 Since the days of Socrates the question method has occupied a prominent 
 place in the technique of instruction. "To question well," says De Garmo, 
 
 "is to teach well. In the slcillful use of the question more than anything else 
 lies the fine art of teaching." 
 
 Today more than two-thirds of the school time is occupied with question! 
 and answers.* Many teachers ask questions for months and years without ever 
 knowing the psychology of what they are doing, hence without ever talcing into ac- 
 count what mental changes a question calls forth, what emotional state it arouses 
 in the pupills mind, how much the course of ideation and thinking is influenced. 
 
 If teachers do not know anything about these changes they are not qualified for 
 their profession. 
 
 The question rightly used is a medium through which a teacher comes in- 
 to closest touch effectively with her pupil. The pupil’s reaction to 5-iven ques- 
 tions will reveal his mental type and characteristics. A s killful teacher will 
 soon know whether her pupil is of a visual, auditory, motor or motor-mixed type: 
 whether his temperament is sanguine or melancholy: whether he is able to impress 
 
 facts on his mind with ease or difficulty: whether he retains a great mass of 
 
 ideas or only scanty fragments. All these analytical observations are the in- 
 dispensable tasks of a teacher in a real dynamic education. 
 
 The use that a teacher makes of the recitation period reveals very 
 clearly his aim and purpose in teaching. I hardly need to say that not every 
 question needs to bristle with the ultimate aim, but it is certainly true that if 
 a teacher possesses an honest purpose in his teaching, that aim or purpose will 
 1. Yamada, Soshichi, Study of Questioning. Fed. Seminary, Vol.20, p. 129. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 give color and vitality to his question. Thus, if a teacher's ultimate aim is 
 the "acquisition of knowledge", it is reasonable to expect that his class work 
 will reflect that aim. He will resort to many and detailed factual questions. 
 
 If his aim is the "harmonious development of all powers", then again, it is 
 reasonable to expect his class work to reflect that aim. He will employ ques- 
 tions of great variety: those stimulating the memory, those requiring reasoning, 
 judgment and analysis and those that will call for further questioning on the 
 part of pupils. If the teacher's ultimate aim is "social efficiency", it is, 
 likewise, true that the class-work will reflect that aim. Questions will draw 
 upon the experiences of the student at every angle. If the immediate aim is to 
 drill upon previously acquired facts such as types of factoring problems or 
 irregular verbs, in every case his class work will reflect the aim. Such ques- 
 tions to be fruitful will be distributed rapidly among various members of the 
 class, others being held responsible for the detection of any errors. If the 
 aim is merely to cover the assignment, the aim is obvious. The teacher will 
 spend his time, day after day, quizzing upon the facts set forth in the text 
 book. If the aim is vague, obscure or illy-defined, the classroom procedure will 
 show that it is without a goal. The questions, although perhaps clear, concise, 
 and adaptable to individual needs, fail to be logical, coherent and purposeful - 
 fail to contribute to a definite goal. 
 
 The teacher who is a master of the art of questioning knows how, by 
 the use of the right question in the right place to teach his pupil to acquire 
 and to classify knowledge. "If he is not a master of the art, if he cannot 
 himself be clear and logical in his questioning, he fosters in his pupils negativ< 
 habits of work, poor associations and careless impressions." *■ 
 
 ^ith a scientific teacher, the recitation period is the time to stimu- 
 
 1. Stevens, Romiett, The Question as a Means of Efficiency in Instruction, Page 4. 
 
 Teachers College, Columbia University, 1912. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
5 
 
 late pupils to think; to direct the thought processes; to cultivate the fine 
 art of good expression. With a mechanical teacher the recitation period is con- 
 tinuously an hour of pumping into or out of a storage reservoir of the mind 
 often by poorly phrased, multitudinous, obscure, and fragmentary questions. 
 
 In addition to the limited knowledge of the individual psychology and 
 definite aims on the part of the teacher, the lack of available literature on the 
 subject of questioning may be ascribed as one of the reasons for the defects in 
 questioning. So little has ever been written about this aspect of training. 
 Occasional chapters appear on the art of questioning in books of method. The 
 most helpful to teachers are: "Interest and Education", Chapter XIV, by De Garmo; 
 "The Recitation", Chapter III, by Betts; "The Teaching Process", Chapter XI, by 
 Strayer; "The Introduction to High School Teaching", Chapter XV, by Colvin. 
 
 Because of the dragon of misguided questioning so universally rampant 
 in our schools, a greater need arises for closer supervision between teacher and 
 principal. A principal who is to be of the greatest service to a community 
 should have reasonable time set aside for supervision and less for clerical dutiet 
 and the details of administration. 
 
 A large per cent of the failures in high schools is due to poor in- 
 struction; and a large per cent of poor instruction is due to untrained teachers 
 in and out of service. Poor or mediocre instruction could be improved, if the 
 teacher in her beginning years were given intelligent and dexterous assistance in 
 the one phase of classroom instruction - the questioning. 
 
 A community would gain good interest on its investment if its Board of 
 Education would employ a principal with the understanding that he should dedicate 
 one-half of his time to the improvement of the technique of instruction in the 
 classroom. 
 
 How many teachers could be saved from failure in the school room if 
 they had been given the slightest premonition that their aims were too vague. 
 

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 obscure or general; or that their methods were too soulless and mechanical or 
 that their questions were too numerous for reflective thinking or too few and 
 limited in scope to give opportunity for much pupil activity? 
 
 Possibly another reason for the general defect in the questioning, as 
 practised in the modern day, is the casual attention paid to the subject in the 
 training of teachers. 1 In normal schools and colleges, two lines of instruction 
 are strongly stressed, namely, the fund of knowledge and the psychology of teach- 
 ing. A school emphasizes the necessity for a fund of knowledge, requiring that 
 a certain proportion of time be given to content subjects in order that a teach- 
 er’s experience may be broader and richer than any possible needs of his class. 
 The school also emphasizes the importance of the psychology and the theory of 
 teaching, requiring students to make apolication of their psychology or theory 
 in selecting or adapting from their fund of knowledge certain portions for the 
 immediate needs of the classroom. In concrete form this last phase of work is em 
 bodied in a lesson plan, which gives the psychological aims of the lesson, the 
 content, and a brief outline of the manner of presentation. This accomplished, 
 the student teacher is sent to meet his class, leaving the immediate connection 
 between the plan in his mind and the experience in the mind of the child to be 
 met through a series of questions. These questions may be so inspiring in their 
 origin that they stimulate the mental life of the children to just the right de- 
 gree of vigorous activity, or they may, in themselves, wholly defeat a nobly 
 conceived psychological aim of the lesson. Por these reasons, the subject of 
 questioning should have a place in the training of every teacher,- a place that 
 is comparable to the "fund of knowledge" and to the psychology of teaching. A 
 young teacher should not be left to do haphazard work in questioning, but she 
 should know the functioning power of different types of questions and she should 
 know how to incorporate into her lesson plan a series of questions, possibly 
 
 1. Stevens, F.omiett, The Question as a Measure of Efficiency in Instruction. 
 
 Teachers College, Columbia University, 1912. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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7 — “ " — — 
 
 eight or ten in number, that will indicate conclusively the intended value of the 
 lesson. 
 
 The entire range of questions, however, can never be prepared before 
 entering a class. Any teacher who attempted to follow a rigid sequence of ques- 
 tions would have all spontaneity swallowed up in method. There is a reasonable 
 course between the total absence of method and a total absorption therein. 
 
 Not always is mere practice a panacea for all ills in questioning. In 
 fact, I have observed from my study that many of the most colorless, the most ob- 
 scure and the most irrelevant and restated questions came from experienced teachers, 
 When a teacher conscientiously makes a study of the subject, analyzing and criti- 
 cising his own attempts, it is possible to develop a technique in the art of 
 questioning. It is essential to bring conscientious attention to bear upon the 
 subject before one can command the habit of questioning well. 
 
 "In general, we may say that every question should tend to strengthen 
 the pupils mental power by inciting him to think; it should fix or extend his 
 knowledge or increase his power of expression. Consequently, the teacher should 
 study to frame his question so as to stirculate clear, vigorous thinking; he 
 should avoid all forms of questions that tend to confusion by indefiniteness or 
 to mental laxity by their too great universality."* 
 
 "Every quest ion? says Matthias, 2 "must strengthen the mental power of the 
 pupil, sharpen his understanding, advance his knowledge, and develop his speech 
 power. Hence, one should not put any question in which a pupil needs to think 
 nothing or little. Nor should any question be asked without giving sufficient time 
 for purposive thinking and a complete expression of thought. Thousands of teachers 
 practise hourly and daily, year after year, yet are no better off than when they 
 began. The art of questioning cannot be mastered without an accurate knowledge of 
 its fundamental principles - mere practice is not sufficient to teach one the 
 psychology of teaching." 
 
 1. De Garmo,8harles, Interest and Education, p. 178. 
 
 2. Matthias,Adolf , Prak tlsche Pedagogik fur hohre Lehranstalten, 1895, p. 79. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 Chapter III. 
 
 MODERN CLASS-ROOM METHODS 
 
 "The aim", says Colvin, ^"is the pivotal point in every lesson." 
 
 The instructor who teaches history with the aim of giving his pupils a 
 view of human life must teach facts and dates, but he must select these facts with 
 reference to some principle and teach them with reference to some meaning. Just 
 at this point a teacher will have greatest need for a clearly definied specific 
 aim. 
 
 The following aims were recorded from history observations: 
 
 1. To study the expansion policy of Rome. 
 
 2. To bring out interesting facts in the life of Hannibal. 
 
 3. To give pupils an insight into the career of Julius Caesar. 
 
 4. To point out the growth and influence of Christianity. 
 
 These aims are too general, indefinite and vague; they would prompt the 
 most successful teacher to ask straggling, fragmentary, illogical and purposeless 
 questions. How much more meaningful the questions and the whole lesson might have 
 been, had the foregoing aims been specific, definite and clear. 
 
 1. To determine why the expansion policy of Rome was superior to that 
 
 of Greece. 
 
 2. To point out the elements of strength in Hannibal that prompted him 
 
 to offer little resistance in the Second Punic War. 
 
 3. To show why monarchy in 50 B.C. was inevitable and what Caesar 
 
 contributed to that end. 
 
 4. To show wiiy Christianity was considered a rebellious and a disinte- 
 
 grating movement from the standpoint of the Romans. 
 
 .Again such aims as: 
 
 1. To introduce pupils to the subject of proportion. 
 
 2. To study the cell structure of the leaf, root, and the stem. 
 
 3. To study the grammatical constructions of, "Julius Caesar." 
 
 are largely formal and of no value in actual teaching. Such aims, if properly 
 realized, would call forth a multiplicity of questions which could not have their 
 center of gravity in the stimulation of thought. Another aim that is recorded 
 
 1. Colvin, Stephen Sheldon, Introduction to High School Teaching, p.337. 
 

 
 
 
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 from one of the stenographic sheets is: 
 
 To make clear the underlying principles in the factoring of: 
 a 2 +2ab+b 2 ; a 2 -2ab+b 2 and a 2 -b 2 . This aim is altogether too broad in its scope 
 
 to be satisfactorily realized in the course of a single lesson, Any teacher 
 could be commended if she had set up as her aim the factoring of a perfect square 
 trinomial and had satisfactorily realized that aim in one lesson. 
 
 Frequently teachers do not distinguish between an aim and a method. 
 
 Aims always deal with the what and why of instruction while method deals with the 
 how of instruction. 
 
 The skilful teacher must be able to use a variety of methods in his in- 
 struction. No one plan of presentation can be used successfully day after day in 
 any class-room. The very monotony and lack of variety will tend to cripple inter 
 est and lessen attention. "Interest is the first requisite for attention and 
 all mental activity no matter what special method of instruction may be used."* 
 Nothing can take the place of interest. It alone can bring all the powers and 
 capacities of the student into play. "Hence one of the first and greatest prob- 
 lems of the teacher is to secure interest not by creating a cheap and sensational 
 device but by adapting the subject matter to the experience and to the capacity 
 of the pupils; by having all the physical and mental conditions conducive to 
 thinking; and by keeping himself constantly alive with enthusiasm." 2 
 
 The second principle of any method is the procedure from the known to 
 
 the related unknown. To make use of this principle it is necessary to freshen 
 
 up what a pupil knows on a topic by asking him questions or otherwise causing 
 
 him to think anew the facts previously learned that are related to what he is 
 
 about to learn. For example, when beginning the subject of fractions in Algebra 
 
 a teacher should have his pupils review the types of factoring, since they are 
 
 fundamental to multiplication and division of fractions. Having stated these 
 
 1. Betts, George Herbert, The Recitation, Chap. II, p.30. Riverside Educational 
 2. Ibjd . Monographs, 1912. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 two general principles of method, we shall now consider some of the special 
 forms that are employed tn the class-room recitation. 
 
 The project method is the most difficult method and requires the most 
 skill and forethought on the part of the teacher. That is obviously the reason 
 for its being so sparingly used. "A project is a problematic act carried to 
 completion in ita natural setting."* It differs essentially from a problem in 
 that it lays the emphasis upon the manual act while the latter emphasizes the 
 intellectualiet ic side. The project creates an interest of a deep-seated sort 
 because the interest comes from associative connections of many types. The 
 strong initial motive of the project challenges the pupil to think with a higher 
 degree of effectiveness. 
 
 From observations, I note that courses in Home Hconcmics lend them- 
 selves most readily to projects such as: serving cheap but nutritious school 
 lunches, remodeling old garments, making over a girls* room for greater artistic 
 satisfaction and mechanical comfort. In these days of motor cars, the study of 
 the principles of physics through the frame, motor, fly-wheel, cooling system, 
 electrical system, storage battery and operation of the automobile would, indeed 
 approach the project method. The principles of Moment of forces. Hooker's Law, 
 Stability and the low center of gravity could be studied from the frame and 
 spring; Horse power, expansion of gases, and thermodynamics from the motor; 
 methods of the transfer of heat and specific heat from the cooling system; direct 
 current, principles of induction from the electrical system; storage of chemical 
 energy and the transfer to electrical energy when used from the storage battery; 
 and inertia, momentum, velocity and centrifugal force through the operation of 
 the car. 
 
 The project method aims to present problems in situations not essen- 
 tially different from those activities in actual life. Not all material in a 
 1. Stevenson, John Alford, Project Method in Teaching, Ph.D. Thesis, 1921. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
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 given subject should be taught by the project method. Frequently such methods 
 would be unwise, uneconomical both from the standpoint of time and money. However, 
 the project method is a very effective method of teaching and can well be used 
 extensively in any subject of the curriculum. 
 
 The discussion of the project method may seem irrelevant and far remote 
 from the writer's purpose, but not so. After the facts and principles have been 
 introduced by the project method, then the material must be arranged in a logical 
 order by the question method until a systematic grasp of the subject has been 
 realized. 
 
 The laboratory method has its essence in the fact that pupils themselves 
 carry out some experiment or in some way learn through investigation and action. 
 Such method need not be confined to physics, chemistry or biology but may be used 
 in literature and civics as well. The dramatization of the Pyramus and Thisbe 
 scene in "A Midsummer Nightfe Dream" is as truly a laboratory method as is the 
 mixing of potassium chlorate and manganese dioxide, or the growing of a bacteria 
 culture in a laboratory. This method, too, must be accompanied by a systematic 
 presentation made possible by the chief educational instrument of instruction - 
 the question. 
 
 The Review and the examination methods speak for themselves. The func- 
 tion of a review is to organize facts and principles into large systems after 
 the subject has been skeletonized. Thus in Roman history, a review lesson is in 
 place after an intensive study of the last century of the Republic (133-131 B.C.) 
 
 - the social, economic, political decay, the civil strife between Marius and Sulla 
 and the one-man-power of Julius Caesar. 
 
 The examination method is only a capstone of the review process. Just 
 now this method is under the ban of the reformer, nevertheless, it is an indispen- 
 sable agency of instruction. "The function of the examination as a test of the 
 pupil's knowledge is not of paramount importance, but its function as an organiz- 
 

 
 
 
 
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 ing agency is supreme. It is a strain, to be sure, but a strain that pays. The 
 virtue of the examination lies in its power to force strenuous effort to the 
 task of organizing a large body of facts and principles into a coherent system. "I 
 The questions for this .method should be large and comprehensive, so formulated 
 that they will bring out and exercise not the memory for details, but the capa- 
 city to grasp large masses of knowledge and weld the separate facts and princi- 
 ples into systematic units. 
 
 Marks given by teachers are the universal measures of determining 
 the value of the examination paper. Since there is such a wide variation in the 
 distribution of the marks, one is led to believe that the character of the ques- 
 tion has been responsible for such a multitude of interpretations on the part of 
 the pupil. 
 
 The seriousness of the wide variation in marks given on examination 
 
 o 
 
 papers was little realized until Starch and Eliot made a series of investiga- 
 tions in which two examination papers in first-year high-school English were 
 graded by one hundred forty-two teachers. One final examination paper in 
 geometry was graded by 118 teachers in mathematics and one final examination 
 paper in American history was graded by 70 teachers in history. The marks of 
 the first English paper run all the way from 64 to 98, of the second English 
 paper from 50 to 98, of the geometry paper from 28 to 92 and of the history 
 paper from 43 to 90. A thorough investigation of the examination questions might 
 reveal the fact that they were too small in their scope, too vague and incorapre- 
 hensive, and too poorly adapted to the mental capacity of the pupils to prompt 
 any sort of uniformity of answer. Hence such a wide variation in marks. 
 
 The lecture method is one which has wide currency. In all good in- 
 struction the teacher is constantly broadening the point of view presented in 
 the text brought in from his own wider knowledge. Constant tact and judgment 
 
 1. Bagley, William Chandler, The Educative Process, p.335, 1915. 
 
 2. Starch, Daniel, Educational Psychology, p.433, 1921. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 on the part of the teacher are required to judge just when, how and in what de- 
 gree to add material cf his own, "On the other hand, the teacher who has nothing 
 to contribute out of his own knowledge and experience is ill-prepared for the 
 work in instruction. It is in these supplemental remarks, occasional applica- 
 tions, broader discussions that the teacher has his best opportunity for stimulat- 
 ing, inspiring and energizing the ambitions and intellectual ideals of his 
 pupils. 
 
 The broadest criticism that I have to offer in the modern methods of 
 teaching as I have observed them in my study, is that the teacher activity is 
 far greater than the student activity. The teacher does too much of the work 
 of his pupils. The teacher is frequently so full of Information, and abundant en- 
 thusiasm that he assumes the responsibility of the class work by adding illuminat- 
 ing historical incidents, interesting accounts of geographical visitations, ap- 
 propriate excerpts from literature, noteworthy current events, often irrelevant, 
 but in far too many cases, he undertakes to '•recite" the lesson assigned to the 
 class. Such method of procedure used exclusively is fatal togood teaching. It 
 breeds habits of indifference or at best habits of sporadic thinking and robs 
 the student of the ooportunity of learning to carry on a coherent and continued 
 discussion. 
 
 1. Betts, George Herbert, The Recitation, p.45 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
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 Diagram showing the percentages of teachers and pupil 
 activity in a forty-five minute period as meas- 
 ured by the number of spoken words. 
 
 
 Teacher 
 
 Pupil 
 
 
 Activity 
 
 Act ivity 
 
 American History 
 
 95 
 
 5 
 
 Ancient History 
 
 95 
 
 5 
 
 Ancient History 
 
 45 
 
 55 
 
 Ancient History 
 
 35 
 
 65 
 
 Civics 
 
 90 
 
 10 
 
 Civics 
 
 95 
 
 5 
 
 Civic* 
 
 89 
 
 11 
 
 Civics 
 
 92 
 
 8 
 
 English I 
 
 85 
 
 15 
 
 English I 
 
 80 
 
 20 
 
 English II 
 
 67 
 
 33 
 
 English II 
 
 80 
 
 20 
 
 English III 
 
 85 
 
 15 
 
 Geometry 
 
 67 
 
 33 
 
 Algebra 
 
 50 
 
 50 
 
 French I 
 
 60 
 
 40 
 
 French I 
 
 55 
 
 45 
 
 French II 
 
 90 
 
 10 
 
 Botany 
 
 87 
 
 13 
 
 
 1527 
 
 473 
 
 The average for the series shows that the teacher activity is 76.35 
 per cent and the pupil activity is 23.65 per cent, which means that in twenty 
 classes selected at random in three high schools more than 76 per cent of 
 the oral expression is that of the teacher and less than 24 per cent of the 
 oral expression is divided among twenty to thirty pupils in the class room. 
 
 Not much can be expected from pupils by way of effective expression 
 if the teacher constantly deprives them of the use of the vernacular. "The 
 problem of education, ’• says Dewey, "is to direct pupils in oral and written 
 speech used primarily for social and practical needs, so that gradually it shall 
 become a conscious tool of conveying knowledge and assisting thought. ”1 
 
 Effectiveness and leadership in social life depend upon the ability to 
 
 1. Dewey, John, How We Think, Chap. XIII. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
15 
 
 express one's self adequately. Every student should, therefore, have incentives 
 and opportunities for oral expression. What chance can there be for orderly 
 association and a deep, accurate impression of ideas or for oral expression if 
 the teacher monopolizes the recitation period by doing more than 76 per cent 
 of the work while the pupils do less than 24 per cent? 
 
 The one form of dialectic method is the question method associated 
 with an old Greek philosopher, Socrates, born about 470 B.C. By this method the 
 immortal Greek teacher led his pupils inductively, step by step, into the new 
 realms of knowledge without telling them the facts or principles involved. By 
 such method he not only secured to them the desired knowledge, but he trained 
 them to become independent thinkers and investigators. 
 
 The time-long method of questioning given to the teaching profession 
 by Socrates is still to be recommended to all, though it has its shortcomings. 1 
 The Socratic method gets its virtue, in fact, almost entirely from the skill 
 with which it is used. 
 
 The following extract from"Memorabilia" 2 is a conversation between 
 Socrates and Euthydemus. Here the salient features of the Socratic method 
 appear: 
 
 Socrates: "As you wish to be the head of a democratic government you, 
 doubtless, know what a democracy is?" 
 
 "Certainly," said he. 
 
 "Do you think it possible to know what a democracy is without 
 knowing what the common people (Demos) is?" 
 
 "No, indeed." 
 
 "And what do you consider the Demos to be?" 
 
 "I consider it to be the poorer class of citizens*."* 
 
 1. Jones, Gilbert H. , Education in Theory and Practice, p.299. 
 
 2. Xenophon, Memorabilia, Book. If, Ch.2. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 "Bo you know, then, who are the poor?" 
 
 "How can I help knowing that?" 
 
 "You also know who are the rich?" 
 
 "Just as well as I know who are the poor." 
 
 "Which sort of persons do you call poor and which sort rich?" 
 
 "I consider as poor those who have not the things which are necessary 
 for life; those who have more than sufficient I consider rich." 
 
 "Have you ever noticed that to some who have very small means, those 
 means are not only sufficient but that they even save from them while 
 to others very large fortunes are not sufficient?" 
 
 "I have, indeed, noticed it," said Euthydemus, "for I have known some 
 princes who have been driven by poverty to commit injustice like the 
 poorest people." 
 
 "Then," said Socrates, "if such is the case we must place such princes 
 among the Demos, and those who have but little, if they are good 
 managers, we must place among the rich." 
 
 "My own ignorance," said Euthydemas, "forces me to admit even this; and 
 I am wondering whether I had not better be silent; for I seem to know 
 absolutely nothing." 
 
 The foregoing lines show conclusively that the aim of Socrates is to 
 deprive the mind of its prejudices by stripping it of its contents, to show what 
 little it contains and to create in the mind a desire for new knowledge. It 
 stimulates the mind to think for itself. The method as it reveals itself from 
 the extract is to be condemned in that it is not effective in presenting the 
 truth but puts the mind only in a position to receive the truth, whereupon it 
 must go off in search for it. Socrates placed a premium upon telling his pupils 
 
 nothing, 
 

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17 
 
 Present day methods In questioning do not aim to stop just at the 
 point where the mind is in a receptive mood for the truth. They not only create 
 a conscious need for the truth but they must supply it. Questions, to be effect- 
 ive, must come from those who know the psychological laws of association and 
 suggestion as well as the laws of the mind in general. The questioner must know 
 the subject matter both in part and in its entirety and the relation which the 
 part bears to the whole. 
 
 From the quotation the writer has noted that the reciprocal action 
 between the teacher and pupil is tinged with Socratic irony, with the haughty 
 intellectual Athenians such irony was necessary, perhaps to break down their 
 pride in order to make them willing to learn, and with some of the conceited 
 pupils of the present day, a teacher might use it sparingly with advantage. The 
 Socratic method of the modern day has come to have a more sympathetic reciprocal 
 action between teacher and pupil with less of the particular Socratic irony. 
 Pupils are usually willing to learn without being publicly humiliated and ridicul- 
 ed. A very helpful suggestion from the foregoing conversation between Socrates 
 and Euthedymus can be drawn from the fine analysis that the Greek teacher makes 
 of his subject. Each question covers but little ground, yet is of dynamic impor- 
 tance from its relation to the whole series. 
 
 The famous Socratic method is simply the question-answer method applied 
 to teaching new truths by a series of skillful questions calculated to call 
 forth what the pupil already knows, lead him on to new knowledge without actually 
 telling the youth anything. 
 
 For Socrates there was some justification in adhering so rigidly to the 
 principle of telling nothing. He had the theory that all knowledge was only a 
 remembering of things that had been known in some former existence and that the 
 pupil was not conscious of it until a master drew it out. Given certain facts 
 in the minds of the pupil, the teacher who knows how the mind works can elicit 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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18 
 
 certain relations among these facts. The fact must be in the mind before it 
 can be elicited. The important thing for the teacher to know is what can be 
 elicited or what must be told or studied. 
 
 To tell the pupil nothing is a dangerous pitfall of the Socratic method 
 Some judgments are not worth developing; they may better be stated clearly and 
 tersely. According to Dewey, * there must be data at command to supply the con- 
 sideration required in dealing with the specific difficulty. "The material of 
 thinking is not thoughts, but actions, facts, events and the relation of things." 
 
 Data must be at hand; thinking cannot go on in a perfect vacuum. 
 Memory, observation, reading and communication are all avenues of supplying 
 data. When all other avenues of supplying data fail, coaraunicat ion on the part 
 of tne teacher is commendable. 
 
 3 
 
 "There is a vast difference between telling and teaching," says DeGarmc 
 In genuine teaching we must see that knowledge is so acquired that it may be a 
 real possession, and we must see that the mind of the learner is active enough 
 to perceive and feel the significance of what he has learned. This means that 
 the new lesson must be so associated with related knowledge already acquired, 
 and it means that the principles underlying the new facts must be fully ap- 
 preciated through actual thinking. For knowledge of any kind to be scientific 
 must become subject to laws and principles which are seen to be independent of 
 the opinions of individuals. "If there were still opinions about the laws of 
 the multiplication table, we should have no science of mathematics." Socrates 
 used the question-answer method with his pupils to get at the truth of things. 
 Being able to ask questions and to use the answers, he soon sifted out those 
 opinions that were self-contradictory. In this way he was able to reduce ex- 
 perience to rule and principle. 
 
 1. Dewey, John, Democracy and Education, p.184, 1916. 
 
 2. DeSarmo, Charles, Interest and Education, p.153, 1902. 
 
 3. Ibid. . p. 174. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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19 
 
 This feature of the Socratic method, of leading pupils inductively to 
 feel and perceive the significance of what he has learned, might well be incor- 
 porated into the modern day teaching. It is outstandingly the most important 
 and the most promising of results in Algebra, physics, botany, chemistry and 
 foreign languages because these subjects present multitudinous cases of like 
 kind from which pupils may, by skillful questioning of the teacher, formulate 
 their own principles, formulae, laws and rules. To illustrate, we might suggest 
 the square of the binomial, x+y. When the pupil has had sufficient experience in 
 multiplying such simple types of binomials he soon acquires knowledge that is 
 a real possession - he discovers the rule: that the square of the first and the 
 
 square of the second plus twice their roots is always the result of such type 
 of binomial. 
 
 Pupils often carry away notions and impressions that are erroneous 
 and exceedingly stupid. An efficient plan is to subject the pupil to a series 
 of questions which will reduce his misconception to an evident absurdity and thus 
 convince him of his error. The following lines will illustrate: 
 
 T. What is a rectangle? 
 
 P. A four-sided figure. 
 
 T. (Teacher places on the board a trapezium) Is that a rectangle? 
 
 P. No. A rectangle must have its opposite sides equal. 
 
 T. (Teacher draws a rhombus) Is this a rectangle? 
 
 P. No, the lines must be straight so as to form right angles. 
 
 The general criticism against the Socratic method is that it is 
 altogether too destructive. It breaks down the misconception by showing its 
 limitation - it forces the mind to think along a negative rather than a positive 
 
 line 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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20 
 
 The Socratic method, undoubtedly, has Its weakness and limitations; 
 but the essence of the whole method, that is most worthy of consideration for the 
 modern teacher, is the fact that it is stimulative to independent thinking. 
 
 The question-answer method loses its fruitfulness when it is used to bring out 
 in the class room only the results of the pupil's study. Very frequently the 
 whole recitation consists of rapid fire questions of narrow scope as; 
 
 1. Who is Alexander? 
 
 2. What age was he when his father died? 
 
 3. Who was his father? What did he do? 
 
 4. What famous book did Alexander admire? 
 
 5. Who taught him to trace his ancestry to Aeneas? 
 
 6. .What was the name of the famous horse of Alexander? 
 
 7. What incident is connected with Bucephalus? 
 
 8. Who was the teacher of Alexander? 
 
 9. What did Alexander learn from Philip? 
 
 10. How old was he when the power passed into his hands? 
 
 Such procedure is time consuming, it fails to bring the subject matter before 
 the class in connected units and neglects absolutely in training the pupils in 
 the habits of becoming thinkers and investigators. A better question would be: 
 What incidents in the youth of Alexander foretell his coming greatness? 
 
 Supplementary to the question-answer method is the topical method. 
 
 This method requires more mastery and independence of thought on the part of the 
 pupil. He must depend upon his own organization of thought and his own powers 
 of expressioh. If skillfully used this method gives an excellent opportunity to 
 add social incentives in some degree lacking in other methods. 
 
 Stern* in his experiment with ninety pupils in studying a lesson on 
 the Gulanas in South America found a great difference in the psychic activities 
 in the Bericht (spontaneous topical reports) and the Verhor (question answer 
 
 jyp 
 
 report). The former was good in quality but small in because the vague, uncer- 
 tain and ambiguous ideas were retained in subjectivity; while the VerhOr was 
 
 1. Yamada, Soshichi, The Study of Questioning, Ped. Seminary, Vol.20,p. 129. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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21 
 
 wide In range but poor In quality because the purpose of the VerhOr or question 
 was to open up the storehouse of latent ideas which otherwise lay submerged. Many 
 of the answers were erroneous due to the suggested influence caused by narrowing 
 the conscious field. Hence the VerhOr was wide in range but poor in quality. 
 Therefore, both the question-answer method and the topical method should go hand 
 in hand; not to be taken separately to determine the mental status of a pupil to 
 direct the thought processes toward independent thinking and to cultivate the 
 fine art of expression. 
 
 "The question-answer method is not the only method of imparting in- 
 struction, it is perhaps the most important." 
 
 I submit the following stenographic reports in Algebra and history 
 because I have observational data from two teachers in each subject: 
 
 Algebra I. 
 
 Text, Hawke s-Luby-T out on, page 28 and 29. 
 
 Aim: To complete the factoring of a perfect square trinomial and begin the 
 
 factoring of the difference of two perfect squares. 
 
 Teacher - Our assignment today was all of the problems from 1-20 on page 128. 
 
 Wasn’t it John? Did anyone have any trouble with problems today? 
 
 Teacher - Multiply: (a+b) 2 . ( a _b) 2 ; (a-2b) 2 ; ( (a+b) - l) 2 . 
 
 Francis - a 2 +2ab+b 2 ; (a 2 -2ab+b 2 ); a 2 -4ab+4a 2 ; (a+b) 2 -2(a+b)+l). 
 
 Teacher - We shall have a brief quiz today. Hands out papers; writes on board. 
 Factor: 
 
 (1.) a 2 - 2ab + b 2 ; (2.) a 2 +2ab+b 2 ; 
 
 ($. ) 4-4x+x 2 (4.) 9 x 2 -12 xy+4y 2 
 
 (5.) 25x 2 +30xy+9x 2 ( ) 36m 2 +26mn+9n 2 
 
 (7.) x 2 *— 14 x a y b +49y 2b (8.) a 2n -12a a +36. 
 
 (9.) 9+6 (a+x) +(a+x) 2 
 
 (10.) (a+b) 2 -6(a+b) (c-d)+9 (c-d) 2 . 
 
 Teacher - head answer of problems - Mary, Helen, James, Junior read in turn. Each 
 time teacher repeats answer and asks, " any question? " 
 
 1. Bagley, William Chandler, The Educative Process, p.275, 1915. 
 

22 
 
 Teacher - What .mist one always do before solving such type of problem? 
 
 After taking out a common factor, of course? 
 
 Helen - One must see whether the trinomial contains two perfect squares. 
 
 Teacher - Tes, to see whether the trinomial contains two perfect squares. I 
 
 wonder v/hether that is all one must do? Pauses awhile, "Well, class, 
 can't anyone tell me more about this type of problem except what 
 Helen said that it must contain two perfect squares?" 
 
 Junior - It must contain another term. 
 
 Teacher - Certainly, it must contain another term or it would not be a trinomial 
 would it? What is a trinomial. Junior? (Irrelevant) 
 
 Junior - Three terms. 
 
 Teacher - A binomial? 
 
 Junior - Two terms. 
 
 Teacher - New define a polynomial? 
 
 Ruth- An algebraic expression of several terms. 
 
 Teacher - Yes, now what is a factor since that is what we are studying. 
 
 Harriet - One of the equal parts of a product. Yes factoring is whatv/e are 
 studying, isn't it? 
 
 Teacher- Now then, I wonder who in the class is keen-minded enough to tell me 
 just what a trinomial must contain to be a perfect square trinomial. 
 
 Teacher - Writes a 2 +2ab+b 2 on board, and puts a circle around 2ab. 
 
 James - Two perfect squares and the middle term must be twice the products 
 of the square roots. 
 
 Teacher - Certainly a perfect square trinomial must contain two perfect squares 
 
 and the middle term must always be the products of their square roots. 
 Is there any question? 
 
 Teacher - For tomorrow we shall take all the problems on page 29 down to 
 
 problem 12 in the second exercise. Is there any question? These 
 problems are of a different type of problem. I will show you how tc 
 solve this kind of problem. These are called the factoring the 
 difference of tw T 0 squares. Writes on board: 
 a 2 -b 2 = (a+b) (a-b) 
 
 You all know that a 2 -b 2 is made up of what tv;o factors? (a+b) (a-b); 
 so the principle for the solution of this type is to take the square 
 roots of each square and connect one set by a + sign and the other by 
 a minus sign. Is there any question? 
 
 Bell rings. 
 

 
 
 
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23 
 
 The same Algebra lesson was taught by another teacher. 
 
 Aim: To teach the difference of two perfect squares. 
 
 Teacher - If you have solved all the problems assigned and there are no questions 
 on the factoring of a perfect square trinomial you may hand in papers. 
 
 Alice - I can’t factor - 4x 2 +9y 2 - 6xy. 
 
 Teacher - Writes on board: 
 
 a-2ab+b 2 and a 2 +b 2 -2ab. What difference in the two perfect square 
 trinomials? 
 
 Alice - No difference except that -2ab in the last one is not in the middle. 
 
 If that makes no difference I can solve -4x 2 +9y 2 -6xy. 
 
 Teacher - It makes no difference. Takes up papers. 
 
 Teacher points to problems written on beard: 
 
 a+b x-y m+n r+s a+2 5a-6bc 
 
 a-b x+y m-n r-B a-2 5a+6bc 
 
 Teacher - Read the product, Charles. 
 
 Charles - a 2 -b 2 ; x^-y 2 ; m 2 -n 2 ; r 2 -s 2 ; a 2 -4; 25a 2 -36b 2 c 2 . 
 
 Teacher - What factors make up a 2 -b 2 ; x 2 -^ ; m 2 -n 2 etc. 
 
 Ruth- (a+b) (a-b); (x-y) (x+y); (m+n) (m-n). 
 
 Teacher - How would you proceed with any problem of the a 2 -b 2 type? George. 
 
 George - (No response). 
 
 Teacher - Turn to page 29 and tell what factors make up the difference of two 
 perfect squares. 
 
 George - a^-x 2 -(a+x)(a-x) ; m 2 -n 2 =(m+n) ( m-n) ; (a 2 -4) »(a+2) (a-2). 1-25 x 2 = 
 
 ( l+5x) ( l-5x). 
 
 and so on various members of class factor 26 such simple types of the difference 
 of two squares. 
 
 Teacher - Now, how would you factor any problem that ia the difference of two 
 par feet squares? 
 
 George - I should take the square roots of the perfect squares and take the 
 sum of the roots for one factor and the difference of the roots for 
 the other. 
 
 2 2 
 
 Teacher - Well said. Jamee, step to board and write two problems of a -b type. 
 

 r 
 
24 
 
 James - 
 Teacher 
 Class - 
 Teacher 
 
 Louise ■ 
 Teacher 
 
 Louise • 
 Teacher 
 Alice - 
 
 Teacher 
 
 Bell. 
 
 out. 
 
 Writes p 2 -q 2 ; x 2 -y 2 . 
 
 - Can you give factors of each of these? 
 
 All assent. 
 
 - Writes on board: (p-q) 2 - (x-y) 2 This problem looks different but you 
 see whether you can discover the a -b 2 type. Waits for reaction. 
 
 What part corresponds to a 2 Louise? 
 
 p 2 a 
 
 ‘ (p-^) 2 corresponds to a 2 and (x-y) corresponds to b . 
 
 - Will you write and b 2 over the corresponding parts of the new prob- 
 lem, Louise? 
 
 • lp a2 -q) 2 - x b2 -y) 2 
 
 - How would you factor part that corresponds to a 2 ? 
 
 (p-q)t(x-y) (P-q) - (x-y). 
 
 p-q+x-y p-q-x+y. 
 
 - Problem 10 on page 29 is like this one. Problem 3, 4, 5, 6 have only one 
 binomial which is a perfect square. Solve 12 problems for tomorrow 
 
 in the written exercise and two original ones one of which is the 
 difference of two binomial squares. 
 
 In the first lesson the aim was clearly defined but not well carried 
 The questions were colorless, insipid, time-consuming and irrelevant. 
 
 1. What must one always do with such type of problem? 
 
 2. I wonder whether that is all that one must do? 
 
 (Both are insipid and colorless). 
 
 How would you factor a perfect square trinomial? 
 
 (A much better question.) 
 
 3. I wonder who in the class is keen-minded enough to tell me just 
 what a trinomial must contain to be a perfect square trinomial? 
 
 4. Can't anyone tell me any more about this type of problem except 
 what Helen said, that it must contain two perfect squares? 
 
 (Both 3 and 4 are verbose and time-consuming). 
 
 What is the test of a trinomial that is a perfect square? 
 
 (Much improved over 3 and 4). 
 
 5. What is a trinomial? 
 
 What is a binomial? 
 
 What is a polynomial? 
 
 What is a factor? 
 
 (These are irrelevant to point at issue). 
 
 The whole lesson was conducted in a desultory manner with no special 
 
 attempt on the selective emphasis. The development of the new type of factoring 
 problem for the succeeding day was done too speedily to be very promising in 
 

 
 
 
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25 
 
 results. The same lesson presented by another teacher was, indeed, fruitful in 
 its results because the aim was definite, specific and well carried out. The 
 teacher showed great skill in so directing the questions so as to make the 
 pupils by independent thinking arrive at the facts and principles. Every 
 question had its center of gravity in the stimulation of thought. No irrelevant 
 questions as what is a trinomial, a binomial, a factor were allowed to turn the 
 attention from the fixed goal. The assignment too, was not slighted but made a 
 real teaching opportunity. The teacher was not content with giving a few 
 brief and ill-considered remarks in regard to the advanced work but he cleared 
 up those points which were likely to cause difficulty and disappointment. This 
 development of the new lesson he did inductively, step by step, very much like 
 Socrates would have done. 
 
 Stenographic History .Report 
 
 Aim: To give pupils an insight into the career of Julius Caesar. 
 
 Text (Breasted pages 584-596). 
 
 T. Who was Julius Caesar? 
 
 P. He was a great man. 
 
 T. When was he born and what relation was he to Marius? 
 
 P. 100 B.C. and he was a nephew of Marius. 
 
 T. What party did he favor? 
 
 P. The Marius party. 
 
 T. How was Caesar set back by the conspiracy of Catiline? 
 
 P. Catiline gathered around him a large body of aristocrats and tried to seixe 
 the government. (Does not answer the question). 
 
 T. Was he successful? 
 
 P. No. 
 
 T. Why not? 
 
 P. Bawled out by Cicero. 
 
 T. Yes, exposed by Cicero. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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26 
 
 T. How did Cicero distinguish himself by the conspiracy of Catiline? 
 
 P. He gave an oration against Catiline and denounced him. 
 
 T. Yes, his brilliant oratory and his administrative ability won him highest 
 office of Rome. He attached himself to the Marian party who sought justice 
 for the murders and confiscations of Sulla. TThen these men of the aristocrat 
 ic party now out of work were planning to kill the magistrates and seize the 
 government Cicero detected their plot and denounced Catiline. By this act 
 Cicero won the title "Savior of his Country." 
 
 T. What was the policy of Cicero? I mean, just what form of government did he 
 favor? 
 
 P. He favored the Marius party and the rule of the Senate. 
 
 T. Certainly. He was strongly attached to the Republic. Hence he attempted to 
 strengthen the republic by restoring the senators. Such policy as advocated 
 by Cicero even if practicable could not long have saved the aristocracy could 
 it? 
 
 P. No. 
 
 T. Why not? 
 
 P. Senate was too weak. 
 
 T. Tes, the Roman republic had outgrown its usefulness. The corruption of the 
 populace at the capital had made statesmen, however grand, appear strongly 
 dwarfed and out of place; for the age of the generals had come. 
 
 T. Who was a general who had attained power? 
 
 P. Pompey. 
 
 T. How did he distinguish himself? 
 
 P. Cleared the Mediterranean Sea of pirates and made Syria a Roman Province. 
 
 T, How is Pompey brought in oontact with Julius Caesar? 
 
 P. Pompey married Caesar’s daughter. 
 

 
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27 
 
 T. Yes, was that important? 
 
 P. No. 
 
 T. Yes, for Caesar and Pompey were good friends as long as Julia lived. She 
 kept peace between them, hut her death broke the bond between them. 
 
 3?. What does triumvirate mean? 
 
 P. Three men. 
 
 T. Who were the three men? 
 
 P. Pompey and Caesar and 
 
 T. Crassus. 
 
 T. What was the purpose of this alliance? 
 
 P. Pompey wanted some land for his array and the Senate would not favor him much 
 so Caesar wanted to become consul and by this triumvirate these men agreed 
 to work for each other’s benefit. 
 
 T. Why did Caesar, Crassus and Pompey make a good combination? 
 
 P. Because Pompey and Caesar were well-liked and Crassus had much money. 
 
 T. Caesar had commanding intelligence, Pompey had popularity and Crassus had 
 weal th. 
 
 T. What office did Caesar gain after his consulship in 59 B.C.? 
 
 P. Went to Caul and Illyricum as proconsul. 
 
 T. 7/hat is the duty of a proconsul? 
 
 P. To act as a governor or a consul in a province. 
 
 T. How is Caesar connected with the Gallic wars? 
 
 P. He subdued the Cauls and drove back the powerful Germans . 
 
 T. 7/hy are they so important? 
 
 P. Important because Caesar wrote a historical account of these Wars. These 
 books are called the Commentaries . 
 
 P. (Offers suggestion). They were important because Caesar made the Rhine River 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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28 
 
 the "boundary and made all the land to the Atlantic Ocean a Roman province. 
 
 T. How long did Gallic Wars last? 
 
 P. Don't know. 
 
 T. 58 - 50 B.C. - how long? 
 
 P. Eight years. 
 
 T. Yes, during these eight years Caesar distinguished himself as a soldier. When 
 he met the Hervii, a powerful Belgic tribe, he met much opposition but he 
 defeated them. Next year he met the Veneti, who were a maritime people. 
 
 They put to sea with their clumsy flat-bottomed boats with leather sacks. 
 Caesar made little progress against them until his small li^at fleet met their 
 bulky navy in open sea. With scythes fastened to long poles they cut the 
 energy's tackle so as to disable his ships. Victory was easy then. 
 
 T. How did the news of the Gallic Wars affect the Senate at Home? 
 
 P. Senate was jealous and afraid, too, because they thought Caesar would bring 
 his army and seize the government like Sulla did. 
 
 T. Y/hat office was Caesar seeking after his proconsulship in Gaul? 
 
 P. Consul. 
 
 T. How did he gain that office? 
 
 P. Drove out Pompey. 
 
 T. What is the significance of the crossing of the ftubicon? 
 
 P. Senate told .aesar to disband his army but he took his array from the province 
 into Italy to the Hubicon. This was an illegal act. 
 
 T. What became of Pompey? 
 
 P. Driven out by Caesar; he went to Greece then to Sgypt. 
 
 T. Describe the character of Caesar. 
 
 P. He was fearless because he was captured by pirates once and held for a ransom. 
 
 Because Caesar was clever and fearless of them they let him go. 
 
 T. What other characteristics of Caesar? 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
29 
 
 P. He was extravagant because he gave gladiatorial combats. 
 
 T. What other characteristics? 
 
 P. Ambitious . 
 
 T. Yes , what other interests did he have besides being a general and a statesman? 
 P. Gladiatorial combats . 
 
 T. Yes, he was interested in architecture, astronomy, oratory and writing of 
 history. You remember how he built the bridge across the Rhine, how he re- 
 formed the Calendar, delivered his Aunt Julia’s funeral oration and wrote 
 his Commentaries. 
 
 T. Now, class, what do all these facts show about the character of Julius Caesar? 
 P. That he could do anything that he wanted to. 
 
 T. Yes, that he was many-sided. 
 
 T. Here is a picture of Julius Caesar. What are the outstanding physical features? 
 
 How would you describe his eyes, nose, forehead. 
 
 P. His nose is long and sharp. 
 
 T. His forehead is 
 
 P. — broad, and his eyes are grey. 
 
 T. No, he has piercing black eyes, according to Botsford. 
 
 Well, his massive brow and his nose shaped like an eagle's beak show great 
 intellect combined with force. 
 
 T. What evidence have you that he had great power of concentration? 
 
 P. While on Gallic Wars he used to write his book while he was resting. 
 
 T. Also, he used to be able to dictate six letters to his stenographers at one 
 time. That would take high power of concentration to do that wouldn't it? 
 
 T. What offices did g&esar gain in Rome? 
 
 P.. Consul, dictator. 
 
 T. What other one that was very honorary? 
 
 P. Pont if ex Llaximus. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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30 
 
 T. What new name did he assume? 
 
 P. Imperator. 
 
 T. As a king in disguise or king under the name of imperator, how did he adjust 
 evils in provinces? 
 
 P. Put in new governors. 
 
 T. How did he adjust the taxes in the provinces? 
 
 P. Abolished tax-farming. 
 
 T. How did he improve Home? 
 
 P. Made a calendar and built new roads. 
 
 T. Criticise l 
 
 P. Reformed the calendar which was like the Greek Moon Calendar and he planned 
 to rebuild Home but he got killed too soon to carry out his many plans. 
 
 T. How was Caesar warned of the lurking assassins? 
 
 P. The soothsayer told him, "to beware of the Ides of March." 
 
 T. Tell how the warning came true. 
 
 P. He was stabbed by the conspirators, Cassius and Brutus in the Senate house. 
 
 He fell with twenty-three wounds. 
 
 T. Do you think that they were justified in killing Caesar? 
 
 Bell. 
 
 Same lesson Breasted Ancient Times, page 584-596. 
 
 Aim: To show that Monarchy was inevitable in 50 B.C. and how Caesar worked 
 
 to that end. 
 
 Teacher writes on board: 
 
 triumvirate, proconsul, consul, dictator, pontifex, Maximus, Commentaries. 
 Teacher points to each one of these for an explanation from pupils. 
 Whenever a satisfactory answer is submitted she silently passes on to 
 
 the next 
 

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31 
 
 Willard - Triumvirate means an alliance of three men who agree to work together. 
 
 Helen - Consul is one of two magistrates who has command of the army and has 
 the rignt to act as a judge. 
 
 Louise - proconsul is a magistrate who 
 
 Teacher - 7/hat does proconsul mean to you, Richard? 
 
 Richard - A magistrate who has power of consul in province. 
 
 Mary - Dictator is appointed for six months who has complete control in time 
 of great clanger. 
 
 Francis - Pontifex Maximus is an honorary officer who is at the head of the 
 religion of the empire. 
 
 Anna - The Commentaries are, well they are the Murderers of Caesar. Class 
 snouts laughing. 
 
 Teacher - Oh, Anna, you are guessing. 
 
 Several questions further "bring out that they are Caesar's narrative 
 accounts of his Gallic Wars. 
 
 Pupil - 7/hen did Caesar write his Commentaries? He was in caul eight years, 
 then he had to subdue Pompey and then he was murdered? 
 
 Teacher - Calls on pupils. -They were written while he was in Gaul while he 
 was riding in his palanquin. 
 
 T. In what ways has the Roman government shown its weakness since the days of 
 the Gracchi brothers? 
 
 P. It was weak and selfish and most of the senators were selfish aristocrats who 
 did not want to take care of the crying needs of the farming class and who 
 could not remedy the piracy on sea or the plundering conditions in the province, 
 
 T. Why did the Gracchi brothers fail to change the government? 
 
 P. Because they did not have the support of the people and because they made laws 
 favoring the poor people and the Italian Allies the Senate became angry. 
 
 They really did not do anything worth while. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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32 
 
 T. Any criticism? 
 
 P. Yes, they did, they made a few people think that a one-man power would he 
 better than a whole hunch of "crooks" like was in the Senate. 
 
 T. Teacher assents - Y/hy did Llarius and Sulla fail to improve the Government? 
 
 P. Marius and Sulla were too harsh and cruel - during their time people were 
 murdered and killed for spite right in market place. 
 
 T. True, hut how did Sulla’s laws make it possible for a noted general like 
 Pompey to secure the consulship in 70 B.C.? 
 
 P. He passed such stiff laws that nobody had no (teacher: "nobody had any")- 
 
 nobody had any power but the Senate and people promised Pompey the power if he 
 would repeal the laws of Sulla. 
 
 T. So you see that such laws as would give more power to the Senate and less to 
 the assemblies would mean greater disaster. So the past experience show that 
 the Senate was an institution of the past. 
 
 T. Y/hat do you think was the aim of Caesar? 
 
 P. To become king; win a great name for himself. 
 
 P. Other protest. 
 
 Alice - I don't think he was so selfish. I am sure of it because in the play 
 "Julius Caesar" he was offered the crown three times and he refused it, and, 
 besides he did so many things by way of sending money to Home and by improv- 
 ing the conditions in the provinces that I think that he wanted to bring 
 about peace and prosperity. 
 
 Pupils take issue — 
 
 Louise - Yes, but in the play of "Julius Caesar" it says the crown was offered 
 thrice but each time Caesar refused it gentler than the last. So I know 
 that Caesar wanted to be king. He sent money to Home, too, but it was for 
 public amusements and gladiatorial combats so as to keep Pompey from 
 v/inning all the honor and fame. 
 

 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
33 
 
 Teacher - How are we to settle this argument? 
 
 Beatrice -Well, our author says that Caesar was a great statesman and a man can 
 not have such selfish interests if he is a statesman, so I think that 
 he was working to keep the Roman Republic together. 
 
 Lester - I agree with Louise that Caesar wanted to be king but I agree with 
 
 Alice in that Caesar was not just seeking greatness and popularity for 
 himself. I think that he was so far sighted as to see that a government 
 would prosper better under a one-man rule than under a whole set of 
 selfish narrow-minded aristocrats. 
 
 T. You have said that well! Prom the days of the Gracchi brothers in 133 B.C. 
 Rome was moving toward a monarchy. But the Gracchi failed; Marius and Sulla 
 failed because they attempted each in their own way to restore the Republic. 
 A monarch was the only remedy for a decayed, corrupted end weakened govern- 
 ment. 
 
 P. Don't we think more of a republican government than we do of a monarchy? 
 
 T. Yes, indeed, but class don't misunderstand me. To call a monarchy right in 
 Caesar's day is not calling a monarchy right at all times. A Caesar in 200 
 B.C. would have been criminal but in Caesar's day a monarch was a blessing. 
 Ruin seemed lnminent and the change to an imperial government restored pros- 
 perity and staved off a final collapse for five hundred years. 
 
 T. Why did Caesar, Pompey and Crassus form a triumvirate? 
 
 P. So they could help each other. 
 
 T. Why did Pompey need help? 
 
 P. Pompey had just driven the pirates from the Mediterranean Sea and had went 
 and made (teacher, "had gone to make")- had gone to make Syria a Reman 
 Province. He wanted help from the Senate but they refused. 
 
 T. Why would you have been willing to join in an alliance with Caesar and Crassusl 
 
- 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 4 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
34 
 
 P. Because Crassus was rich and Caesar was intelligent. 
 
 T. How did Caesar distinguish himself as proconsul in Gaul and Illyricum? 
 
 P. He drove back a powerful tribe of the Germans and conquered the Gauls. He 
 went to Great Britain too. He made the Rhine River the northern boundary. 
 
 T. Let us see how we are benefited today by Caesar’s conquest of Gaul. 
 
 P. Hands. He wrote his commentaries about the Gallic Wars so we have something 
 to read in our Latin classes today. 
 
 T. In what way do you think the Gauls helped out the Roman stock of people that 
 had been weakened and crippled by long social and civil wars, and proscrip- 
 tions? 
 
 P. The Gauls were strong and not worn out so they helped build up the Roman 
 people. 
 
 T. Just how could that help us today? 
 
 P. The Romans could give us better laws and government than when they were all 
 exhausted and weakened by wars. 
 
 T. Just how did Caesar’s conquests make the spread of Christianity easier? 
 
 P. No response. 
 
 T. What language did the Gauls learn? 
 
 P. Latin language. 
 
 T. Now answer the question about Christianity . 
 
 P. Because of a common language Christianity could spread much faster than if 
 the Gallic tribes each had a different language. 
 
 T. John Fiske, the great American historian, in speaking of the Gallic wars said: 
 "We ought to be thankful to Caesar every day that we live." Can you give 
 two reasons? (Think carefully how you are going to express yourself. ) 
 
 P. John Fiske thought that we ought to be glad: 
 
 1. because Julius Caesar captured the Gauls and made the spread of christianit; 
 
 easier and quicker 
 

 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 , 
 
 . 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ♦ 3 
 
 
 
 
 • ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
35 
 
 2. because he allowed the Latin language to be used by the Gauls. 
 
 They gave us much of the Roman law and Roman customs. 
 
 T. How does Caesar become master of Rome? 
 
 P. After the Senate sent word to Caesar to disband his army on the grounds that 
 he was a public enemy, but Caesar crossed over from the province to the Rubi- 
 con in Italy and said, "The die is castl" This was against the law, too, to 
 bring an army from the province. 
 
 T. Pompey? (Technically a poor question yet effective here.) 
 
 P. Oh, Pompey was driven into Greece and then to Egypt. He told the Senate that 
 the forces at his command could not hold Rome against Caesar. 
 
 T. With Crassus dead, and Pompey fled to Egypt, Caesar had the mastery. 
 
 P. The Senate elected him consul, dictator and Pontifex Maximus and gave him 
 tribunician power. 
 
 T. Why was it as foolish as it was wicked to murder Caesar? 
 
 Bell. 
 
 In the first report the many questions calling for little reflection 
 were directed toward no definite goal. This, I believe, can be traced to the 
 aim which was too large in its scope and too general. Every detail was accentuat- 
 ed to the same degree. The massiveness of Caesar’s brow, the color of his eyes, 
 the ability of Caesar to dictate to his stenographers six letters at a time and 
 the follies of his youth ranged in importance with Caesar’s conquest of the 
 Gauls, his mastery of Rome and his improvement in the provinces. 
 
 In the aecond report the factual questions concerning the terminology 
 of the lesson were cleared up at the very beginning with little activity on the 
 part of the teacher. In fact, throughout, the teacher stood on the side line 
 and acted as umpire while the class played the game. The questions were set up 
 for purposive thinking and aimed to bring out an important fact rather than a 
 trivial one. The questions were progressive and each one aimed at a definite 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 _ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 t 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 _ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
36 
 
 goal. Obviously, the teacher had In the fringe of her consciousness a very 
 definite and specific aim. Although the second report was more limited in its 
 content than the first, I believe that the latter served for greater independent 
 thinking. 
 
37 
 
 Chapter IV 
 
 QUANTITY VERSUS QUALITY. 
 
 The number of questions submitted in a single class period is larger 
 than one would estimate. Twenty stenographic reports selected promiscuously 
 showed that the average number of questions for a forty-five minute period was 
 75. Pupils, who are held collectively to a performance during their five or six 
 periods to nearly four hundred questions, supplemented with as many answers, are 
 undoubtedly affected for better or for worse. 
 
 A very large number of questions may find justification occasionally 
 
 in keeping pupils mentally alert and on the wing, but, as a daily class-room 
 
 procedure, the multiplicity of questions could produce only unprofitable results. 
 
 First, a large number of questions given for a long duration of time gives the 
 
 pupils no time for reflection; he cannot go very far afield in his experiences 
 
 in order to recall or associate his ideas in fruitful ways. Second, it offers 
 
 no time for the pupil to organize his thinking for effective oral expression. 
 
 Third, it does not solicit the attention of individual with peculiar differences. 
 
 The slow, timid, conservative, or nervoud pupil must keep abreast the leader in 
 
 thought or fall by the wayside. Very often instead of keeping up with the pace 
 
 set, participating in the exercise and asking questions, he sinks back into his 
 
 seat and assumes an unpretentious air. Fourth, a large number of questions 
 
 suggests that little effort is put forth to teach boys and girls to be self 
 
 reliant and independent workers. '’There is no time," says Stevens,* "to teach 
 
 1. Stevens, Romiett, The Question as a Means of Efficiency in Instruction, 
 
 1912. P.26. 
 

 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
38 
 
 him how to study; how to organize subject matter, how to judge relative worths 
 of facts studied, and what to memorize. " Fifth, a large number of questions 
 give rise to short responses and comparatively few queries on the part of the 
 pupils. Short answers, however, are not to be wholly condemned in themselves 
 but they disclosed the fact that the questions which preceded them were too 
 limited in their scope or too numerous to warrant a complete and well rounded 
 answer. The stenographic reports showed that in the cases where short, meaning- 
 less answers predominated, that the questions were prolific and faulty in tech- 
 nique. The teacher who concluded each interrogation with "isn’t it?", "Doesn’t 
 it?**, "hasn't it?", indicated careless preparation and careless thinking. No 
 effort is required for the student either in remembering material, organizing it 
 or passing judgment on such questions as: 
 
 1. "An oligarchical form of government isn't it?" 
 
 2. Anthony succeeded in winning over the people against Crassus 
 and Brutus, didn't he?" 
 
 3. George Eliot always makes her characters suffer in proportion to 
 their crime doesn't she? 
 
 4. Describe Starveling - you remember Starveling don't you? 
 
 5. Sir Walter Scott is a Scottish novelist isn't he? 
 
 The relationship between the number of questions asked by the teacher 
 and by the pupils is exemplified in the following diagram: 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
39 
 
 
 Ho. of 
 teacher' s 
 questions 
 
 Ho. of 
 pupil' s 
 questions 
 
 History 
 
 97 
 
 7 
 
 History 
 
 65 
 
 0 
 
 History 
 
 73 
 
 20 
 
 History 
 
 86 
 
 5 
 
 History 
 
 79 
 
 5 
 
 History 
 
 58 
 
 10 
 
 English 
 
 73 
 
 10 
 
 English 
 
 39 
 
 3 
 
 English 
 
 93 
 
 9 
 
 English 
 
 61 
 
 2 
 
 English 
 
 103 
 
 2 
 
 English 
 
 111 
 
 7 
 
 Algebra 
 
 85 
 
 7 
 
 Algebra 
 
 19 
 
 1 
 
 Geometry( development lessen) 
 
 108 
 
 19 
 
 Geometry 
 
 32 
 
 5 
 
 French 
 
 114 
 
 17 
 
 French 
 
 33 
 
 10 
 
 Botany 
 
 101 
 
 3 
 
 Botany 
 
 89 
 
 7 
 
 1519 149 
 
 Average 75.95 7.45 
 
 The foregoing diagram represents data collected from twenty stenographic 
 reports selected at random. It indicates that 75.95 questions are asked by the 
 teaohers and 7.45 questions are offered by pupils. To state the facts more terse- 
 

 
 
 . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
40 
 
 ly, the writer may say that 91.1 per cent of all questions asked is accredited 
 to the teacher and 8.9 per cent to the pupil. 
 
 Stenographic report showing a large number of questions. 
 
 Aim. To study the life of Sir Walter Scott and to determine why he is such a 
 tremendous force in literature. 
 
 T. The significant movement of the eighteenth century is what? 
 
 P. Romanticism. 
 
 T. By whom is romanticism first expressed? 
 
 P. Wordsworth and Coleridge. 
 
 T. Yes, Wordsworth and Coleridge. The poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge was 
 read by whom? What was the current opinion about their poetry? 
 
 P. Too deep for most folks. 
 
 T. Yes, read by the select few. How does Scott’s poetry differ? 
 
 P. How do you mean in structure o* in sneme? 
 
 T. I mean as to popularity. 
 
 P. Scott’s poetry was more popular. 
 
 T. Why? 
 
 P. Wrote interesting things. 
 
 T. Yes, he wrote about very interesting things. He wrote about Crusades, 
 Covenanters, Cavaliers, Roundhead?, Papists, Jews, Gypsies. 
 
 T. Compare him with Wordsworth. 
 
 P. Wordsworth was a poet; Scott was a novelist. 
 
 T. Wordsworth was a nature poet, Scott was a historical novelist. 
 
 T. Where and when was Scott born? 
 
 P. 1771 in Edinburgh. 
 
 T. What effect did his ancestry - Just how did his early environment affect his 
 later career? 
 
 P. He was sick and lame. 
 

 , 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
41 
 
 T. Yes, he was sick and lame and just how did this fact help to shape his future 
 life? 
 
 P. Don’t know. 
 
 T. What kind of woman was his grandmother? 
 
 P. She knew a lot about legends and Border feuds. 
 
 T • How did she influence him? 
 
 P. She told him all these tales. 
 
 T. Yes, certainly from her wonderful tales Scott developed that intensive love 
 of Scottish history and tradition which characterizes all his work. She 
 filled his imagination with legends and stories of family life. 
 
 T. What effect did his parentage have upon him? 
 
 P. Father was a barrister. 
 
 T* Yes, his father was a barrister and through him Sir Walter learned to be a 
 lawyer. 
 
 T. His mother? 
 
 P. She was closely related to Walter. (Hoars of laughter). 
 
 T. Yes, but how did she influence him? 
 
 P. She told him stories about the family heroes. 
 
 T. Yes, his mother had superior native ability for telling stories which stirred 
 young Walter’s enthusiasm by revealing the past as a world of living heroes. 
 T. Tell what you can about his education. 
 
 P. Went to school a few years and then studied law. 
 
 T. What do you think about his scholarship? 
 
 P. A fair student. 
 
 T. Yes he was only a fair student. He liked Border Wars and legends about his 
 wild ancestors better than he did his prescribed studies. Don’t you think? 
 
 T. He attended the University where? 
 
 P. Edinburgh. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
42 
 
 T. When was he admitted to the Bar? 
 
 P. 1771. 
 
 T. Ho, Charles, he was born that year; in 1792 wasn’t it? 
 
 T. Why was he an unsuccessful lawyer? 
 
 P. Didn’t take no interest in it. 
 
 T. Ho, he didn't take any interest in it. Why? 
 
 P. He didn’t like it. 
 
 T. Ho, he would rather make excursions over the country to visit localities of 
 historic interest than to plead law. Wouldn’t he? 
 
 Pupil - Dont you think that he could make more money pleading law than writing 
 books? 
 
 Teacher - Ordinarily so, but Scott had popularized poetry and novels so that he 
 made over a million dollars on his works. The times had changed from such 
 times when writers were almost in want until some wealthy donor gave him 
 support . 
 
 T. Don’t you think that he was justified in leaving his law practising and 
 wander over the country? 
 
 P. Yes. 
 
 T. Why? 
 
 P. Because he wrote books. 
 
 T. Yes - he was storing his mind with facts legends and characters which he after- 
 ward embodied in his immortal works. Didn't he? 
 
 T. Hame Scott's poetry. 
 
 P. "The Lay of the Last Minstrel,” "The Lady of the Lake", and - 
 T. His greatest poem was what? 
 
 P. "Marmion." 
 
 T. Yes, indeed, "Marmion.” Don’t you remember those famous lines: 
 
 "Breathes there a man with a soul so dead.” 
 
43 
 
 P. Yes. 
 
 T. What do you consider as the outstanding characteristics of his poetry? 
 
 What do you remember about "The Lady of the Lake?" 
 
 P. I like the vivid combat between James and Roderick and the end where 
 Snowdon's knights bind the lovers with, with his chain of gold. 
 
 Another pupil - Don't you like the songs that Scott puts into "The Lady of the 
 Lake?" 
 
 T. Yes, Scott's prose and poetry are read and liked so well for their rapid 
 
 action and breezy atmosphere. Scott attracted thousands of readers who never 
 took to literature before. 
 
 T. How could Scott have spent his Just how could he have avoided the tragedy 
 
 which closed his life? What big mistake did he make in business? 
 
 P. "Busted up" with printer publisher. 
 
 T. (Went bankrupt). What criticism, class? 
 
 P. They did not go bankrupt because an extensive sale of Scott's novels saved 
 the company of early bankruptcy. 
 
 T. Certainly, Scott saved the company from bankruptcy. 
 
 T. Why should we admire Scott for this deed? 
 
 P. Scott attempted to pay back every cent. 
 
 T. Yes, exactly. Though he was a silent partner, he assumed the responsibility 
 of this enormous debt of one million dollars. The firm could have compromised 
 with its creditors; but Scott refused to hear of bankruptcy laws under 
 which he could have taken refuge. 
 
 P. Are the bankruptcy laws in Scotland like those we have? 
 
 T . We will leave that for tomorrow and go on - What novels did Scott write? 
 
 P. Waverly, Guy Mannering, Ivanhoe. 
 
 T. What others? 
 
 P. "Rob Roy." 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 ' 
 
 #’■ 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
44 
 
 T. Tes, '’Rob Roy,** "Heart of Midlothian", "Life of Napoleon." 
 
 T. How many novels did he write? 
 
 P • Don' t know. 
 
 T. Two a year for the next seventeen years. 
 
 T. Why did Scott make the transition from prose to poetry? 
 
 P. He was rumaging throughthe drawers of his desk for a fishing tackle and 
 found one of his old stories that he had written nine years ago. 
 
 T. Yes, that incident did bring on the success of the Waverly novel. But why 
 did Scott give up writing poetry? 
 
 P. Liked stories better. 
 
 T. Yes, but there is another reason of which I am thinking. Who knows? Who 
 appeared with some better poems than Scott's later poems? 
 
 P. Byron. 
 
 T. Why yes, Byron. 
 
 T. What famous poem did he write? 
 
 P. "Childe Harold." 
 
 Thus the number of questions and answers of the foregoing calibre 
 reached the maximum of ninety-three. A class of eight year old pupils ought 
 to make as good showing with such method of questioning with twenty minutes of 
 previous study as this tenth grade class did. No comment on such questioning 
 should be necessary were it not for the fact that persons who go through the 
 motion of teaching in this manner pass for experts. Such questioning shows lack 
 of vision and educational outlook. 
 
 The field of English is abundantly rich in offering opportunities for 
 a pupil to associate his experiences and to formulate his expressions in some 
 concise manner. In lieu of a multitude of questions so limited in scope as to 
 pauperize the intellects of healthy-minded girls and boys, I should suggest a 
 "back-bone" question of larger scope, as: 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
45 
 
 Point out five factors in the life of Scott that tended toward making 
 the greatest historical novelist of the day. However faulty this question may 
 be, it, at least, forces the pupil to organize his own thought, to formulate his 
 own judgment and to elicit his own original expression. 
 
 Stenographic report showing a small number of questions. 
 
 Aim: To show the present conditions of immigrants in the United States and 
 
 why rigid exclusion laws are necessary for several years. 
 
 Teacher - In Zangwill's play, "The Melting Pot**, Hew York City is portrayed as 
 the melting pot of the world and, although the title seems to imply 
 that in New York people of every race are assimilated into cne American 
 nation, our greatest problem has yet to be met. We, as a nation, are not 
 Americanizing our alien population and this leads to many of our most 
 serious city difficulties. When we consider that in New York alone there 
 are more Germans than in any city in Germany except Berlin and Hamburg; 
 more Italians than in Rome; more Jews than in Palestine; it is evident 
 that we have not met this problem. Especially do we realize this when we 
 think of our little Russian, Italian or China towns! 
 
 T. What causes can you give for immigration from 1750-1920^ Think way back into 
 European history. What caused the Puritans to leave England? 
 
 P. Religious persecutions. 
 
 T. What caused the Irish immigration in 1846? Clitus. 
 
 P. Why - a religious persecution. 
 
 T. No, indeed, the potato famine; then in 1848-52 5 l/4 million Germans left 
 Germany - Why? 
 
 P. Because they did not like the militarism. 
 
 T. Yes, because of political and religious oppression. Besides these 3 l/2 
 million the English immigranted to America in 1820 and later 2 million 
 
 Scandinavians 
 

 
 
 
 
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 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
46 
 
 T. In 1882 the character of the immigration changed. Most of the immigrants came 
 from the southern part of Europe rather than from the north. (Teacher 
 points to map. ) 
 
 Southern Europeans are very different from the northern Europeans. The 
 Germans, English, Irish, Swedes are usually educated, good workers, full 
 of initiative clean in morals and respectful of law, while those immigrants 
 from aeuthern Europe are usually illiterate, lacking in self-reliance, 
 poor in initiative and have no conceptions of law, order and government. See 
 
 T. What causes great tides of immigration in this country now? 
 
 P. They come to the United States to get rich quick. 
 
 T. Yes, the economic conditions contribute more than any other factor in causing 
 large groups to come here for wealth and then return to their native land. 
 They have no idea of becoming Americans! The over crowded conditions in 
 foreign lands, lack of employment, meager compensations, poor working 
 facilities have all contributed. Just think! Over 1,197,892 immigrants 
 c ame to America in 1914; the majority came from Southern Europe! And 
 three-fourths of these immigrants enter Ellis Island and all steerage 
 passengers must pass an examination both physical and mental examination. 
 
 T. Why are such examinations a good thing? 
 
 P. The physical examination is necessary to safeguard our life and health. To 
 admit into this country people with contagious diseases or immoral women 
 would be contrary to purposes of the United States Public Health Service 
 Bureau. 
 
 T. That was well said. Our immigration law excludes persons mentally defective 
 or those likely to become charges, persons with contagious diseases, 
 criminals, polygamists, anarchists, or laborers brought to the United States 
 by contractors. Natives of Asia, east of Persia, and south of Siberia and 
 of the islands adjacent to southern Asia, excdpt the Philippines, are ex- 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 , 
 
 : 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
eluded 
 
 P. Why I know some Hindoos and some people from Siam here at the University - 
 How did they get here? 
 
 T. Certain professional classes, students, merchants, and travellers are 
 allowed to come. See? 
 
 P, There are Japanese and Koreans, too, 
 
 T. Yes, Japanese and Koreans are not excluded, but Japan has agreed not to grant 
 passports to coolies from Japan or Korea. 
 
 T, What is your opinion about the mental or literacy test? Do you think it a 
 
 good thing or do you believe that it tends to keep out some desirable people 
 
 P. Yes. 
 
 T# In some respects such test is a good thing but recently the papers have shown 
 several instances where it fails. A worthy family, who is industrious, 
 thrifty with money enough to live until some work was found and with a keen 
 desire to become citizens, may be kept out because the mother is unable to 
 pass the mental test. In other cases, very clever crooks might, get in, with 
 no idea of becoming a worthy American. See? 
 
 T. Let us name again the classes that are excluded. Teacher takes lead and 
 names all except one herself. 
 
 All. Criminals, anarchists, mentally defective, diseased, and men under contract 
 labor. 
 
 T. Do you see why the last class should be excluded? 
 
 P. Assent. 
 
 T. Foreign labor is so cheap that is a foreigner could come in under a contract 
 that would lessen wages in America and the American would be thrown out of 
 work thus lowering his standard of living. Thats the reason why the people 
 in California want to exclude Japanese because Japanese labor is so cheap 
 that the Californians cannot compete with him. 
 
 P. I thought that you said Japs were excluded. 
 

 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
48 
 
 T. They are not excluded except through the Gentleman’s Agreement with Japan 
 in which the Japanese government agrees not to give passports to Japanese 
 coolies# You know what a coolie is don't you? It Is a cheap laborer of 
 
 - C 
 
 the Orient. See? 
 
 T. Sow, if we can have the attention of the class we shall consider what the 
 social, economic and political results of immigration are. 
 
 T. What are the social results Ruth? 
 
 R. The social results are bad. 
 
 T. Yes, because the immigrants tend to settle in compact groups and do not 
 
 become assimilated, that is, they do not learn our institutions, our language 
 and our laws. 
 
 T. Sow, there, the economic result - It tends to make the supply of labor greater 
 tends toward lowering wages and then lowering our standard of living. See? 
 Then, in the city it tends to bring about problems of sanitation, overcrowded 
 districts and crime, let us see. 
 
 T. Now, how is the political life here affected by the immigrant? He comes 
 here with glowing ideas of getting rich quick. When he comes and finds them 
 illusions - that living conditions are as difficult here as well as elsewhere, 
 he becomes annoyed, dissatisfied, is fit subject for the "soap box orator." 
 
 He is detrimental to our country. So you can see the menace of immigration 
 and why rigid exclusion laws should be passed? 
 
 T. How would you solve the Immigration problem? 
 
 P. I should stop i emigration altogether or at least untij. the Americans can 
 solve the difficulties with what we have and I would scatter them out. 
 
 T. The Department of Labor has no right to send people to farms for instance. 
 Anyway, you can see that these immigrants would not know how to farm in a 
 scientific way end the foreigner would not go to farm because he would be 
 too far away from his friends. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
49 
 
 P. Why is the "Bureau of Immigration'’ under the Department of Labor? Why could 
 it not be under Department of Interior as well? 
 
 T. Just think carefully! Now, honest effort on the part of the American to be 
 fair must be made to the alien. He must be educated and trained to know 
 what America stands for. What America means! 
 
 Bell. 
 
 A small number of questions does not necessarily indicate the highest 
 efficiency in instruction. The stenographic report on Immigration offered twelve 
 as its maximum number of questions asked by teacher and pupils. In such cases 
 where the teacher attempts "the pouring in process" he assumes the responsibility 
 of the class activity while the student inculcates the habit of indifference and 
 of sporadic thinking. 
 
 Stenographic report showing quality of questions. 
 
 Aim. To appreciate the content of Gray’s "Elegy Written in a Country Church Yard’ 
 
 and select the elements of romanticism therein, 
 to 
 
 T. Turn your texts (Newcomers and Andrews Twelve Centuries of Prose and Poetry) 
 to page 308, to Pope’s "Essay on Criticism." Why does Pope mean by the coup- 
 let : 
 
 "A perfect judge will reach each work of wit 
 With the same spirit that its author writ."? 
 
 P. Pope means that a reader should try to understand the feelings that caused 
 
 the author to write what he did. 
 
 T. What do you think waa the most important feeling that led Gray to write the 
 elegy? 
 
 P. It was his love for man. 
 
 T. What does Pope mean by "In every work regard the writer’s end?" 
 
 P. He means that a reader should understand the purpose that a writer has in 
 mind. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
50 
 
 T. Will you apply that thought to Gray's Elegy? 
 
 P. Gray's purpose was to pay respect to the many worthy men who have died, in 
 obscurity and whose deeds have been forgotten. 
 
 T. What does Pope mean by the couplet: 
 
 "'Tis not a lip, or eye, we beauty call, 
 
 But the joint force and full result of all." 
 
 P. He means that we must toow the whole piece of writing and not judge simply 
 a part of it. 
 
 T. Keeping in mind Gray's love for humanity and his aim, let us analyze the 
 
 thought of the entire poem. Read the words in the first four stanzas that best 
 express the setting. 
 
 P. Parting day, plowman, solemn stillness, distant folds, moping owl, the rude 
 forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 
 
 T. What feeling is expressed in stanzas five, six and seven? 
 
 P. Lament. 
 
 T. What is the third division of the elegy? 
 
 P. It begins where Gray enumerates the humble conditions under which these men 
 
 died and now have no suitable monuments. The next division gives Gray's com- 
 ments upon the uselessness of monuments and his conception of a true epitaph. 
 
 T. Read what you regard as the most essential line of that epitaph. 
 
 P. "He gave to misery all he had, a tear. 
 
 He gained from Heaven ('twas all he wished) a friend." 
 
 T. Thus, far our study of Gray's Elegy has shown us that the poet's love for 
 humanity prompted him to honor the memory of worthy men who have done noble 
 deeds but who have died in obscurity. He has pictured the setting in which 
 "The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep". He has lamented their death and 
 the fact that no trophies have been raised over their tombs and he has added 
 the Epitaph, so Universal in its interest. 
 
 How let's turn to the poem as an expression of romanticism. Enumerate the 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 ■ • 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
51 
 
 characteristics of romanticism as we have learned them. 
 
 P. (Enumerates while teacher writes on board): 
 
 1. love for humanity 
 
 2. interest in nature and the outdoor setting 
 
 3. freedom of thought and expression 
 
 4. love for youth and beauty 
 
 5. respect for Shakespeare and Milton 
 
 T. The first two we have already applied to this poem. So begin with the third. 
 P. Gray expresses freedom of thought and expression - I don’t know. 
 
 T. What was the accepted form of poetry in the day of Pope? 
 
 P. The rhyming couplet. 
 
 T. What is there of interest about the fact that Gray’s poem is not in couplets? 
 P. It shows that he was free in his expression, therefore, a romanticist. 
 
 T. Quote the line which shows that Gray does not favor youth in his poem. 
 
 P. ’’Haply some hoary-headed swain may say.” 
 
 T • Which stanzas would you choose as showing Gray’ s love for beauty? 
 
 P. Selects and reads stanza one: ’’The curfew tolls the knell of parting day.” 
 
 T. Where do you find any reference to Milton? 
 
 ?. "Some mate , inglorious Milton here may rest.” 
 
 T. What conclusion do you reach from this discussion about Gray as a romanticist? 
 P. Gray lacked youthfulness but in all the other characteristics 3uch as: the 
 love of humanity, freedom in expression, interest in nature, and in respect for 
 Milton he is aromanticist. 
 
 C>yv«L 
 
 If a large number of questions nor a small number of questions cannot 
 be taken wholly as criteria for efficient teaching, then the quality of the 
 question must perforce determine the efficiency of Instruction to some degree. 
 
 The last report, which I consider the most superior one, offers sixteen 
 questions broad enough in scope to elicit good mental reaction and clean-cut oral 
 expression. The questions were for most part searching. They could not be an- 
 swered from memory alone but they called for discriminations, individual judg- 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
52 
 
 merits and personal application of previously acquired knowledge on the part of 
 the pupil. The questions stimulated the pupils to independent thinking, invited 
 them to make associations of the new with old experiences and encouraged them 
 to stand on their feet and speak thoughtfully and effectively. 
 

 
 
 
 
53 
 
 Chapter V 
 
 THE ART OF QUESTIONING 
 
 "In the skillful use of the question more than in anything else lies 
 the fine art of teaching; for in it we have the guide to clear and vivid ideas, 
 the quick spur to the imagination, the stimulus to thought, the incentive to 
 act ion." 1 
 
 "Skill in the art of questioning lies at the basis of all good teach- 
 ing. Good teaching stimulates the thought, leads to inquiry and results in un- 
 derstanding and mastery. Poor questioning leaves the mental powers unawakened, 
 
 2 
 
 cripples thought in inefficiency and lack of mastery." 
 
 "The art of questioning is an important factor in all types of reci- 
 tations. Skilled questioning is the most important element in securing educa- 
 
 3 
 
 tive results whether in the project, laboratory or conversational method." 
 
 The question-answer method is the fundamental medium of instruction, 
 as we all recognize. The topical lesson, the laboratory exercise, the lecture 
 method and the projects are aids and complements, but all good instruction cen- 
 ters about the question. Why is scarcely any literature available about the 
 question? Because, probably, it is felt that the teachers are born with an in- 
 tuitive sense which leads teachers to know when to ask questions and how to ask 
 them. The fact is that few teachers since the days of Socrates have been able to 
 employ the question as effectively as he. 
 
 We may ask, why do we question, since the technique of questioning 
 depends upon the reason for questioning. Questions in the class-room have a 
 
 1. De Garmo, Charles, Interest and Education, p.179, 1903. 
 
 2. 3etts, George Herbert, The Recitation, p. 55, 1910. 
 
 3. Parker, Samuel Chester, The Method of Teaching in High School, Chap. XX. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
54 
 
 different purpose from the purpose motivating most questioning in every day life. 
 To the lawyer the question is a weapon of offense and defense; to the physician 
 the question is a prerequisite for offering the proper prescriptions; "to the 
 teacher the question is a means of securing growth, for it can turn indifference 
 into interest, torpidity into activity, ignorance into knowledge. 
 
 The function of the question for the lawyer and the doctor is the ex- 
 tracting of information which will guide the questioner in his action toward 
 his client or his patient. This element of extracting information is too fre- 
 quently ascribed to the teacher. The question for the teacher has digressed from 
 its legitimate purpose if it does not do more than elicit facts, if it does not 
 direct the thought processes to reflection and to well-rounded thoughts and does 
 not cultivate the fine art of expression. 
 
 Good questioning, in the main, has its center of gracity in the stimu- 
 lation of thought on the part of the pupil. The superiority of the good teacher 
 over the mediocre one can usually be found to have its locus in the thought- 
 provoking quality of the question. 
 
 In order to know whether the question is wisely used, we shall con- 
 sider a few essentials of good questioning. Most questions, according to the 
 concensus of opinion of educational experts, should be thought-provoking. Sven 
 the extent and the intensity of reflection may vary widely and should vary some- 
 what in every lesson so that all questions will not operate in the same groove 
 nor keep in motion the same processes of thought activity. Most of the questions 
 found in current practices were exercises which stimulated verbal memory alone. 
 Associative memory, even, was neglected along with other processes of discrimina- 
 tion, association and judgment. I can best illustrate my meaning regarding the 
 extent and the intensity of reflection by a comparison of a few sets of questions 
 
 1. DeGarmo,Char Les, Education and Interest, p.179. 1903. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
55 
 
 as follows: 
 
 1. What is photosynthesis? 
 
 2. When was the battle of Marathon? 
 
 3. What is meant by filibustering? 
 
 4. What is a party caucus? 
 
 5. What is the capital of Wyoming? 
 
 For these questions, essential as they are, you either know or you do 
 not know the answers. ITo amount of reflection will produce the facts if they 
 are not already in the memory. The questions stimulate memory and in that sense 
 provoke thought but the element of reflection is not present, in any appreciable 
 degree such as would exist if the questions were transposed into another form, as: 
 
 1. How would animal life be affected if green plants manufactured just- 
 enough food for their own growth? 
 
 2. Why was the victory at Marathon so meaningful to the Greeks? 
 
 3. Why cannot a bill be defeated in the House of Representatives by 
 f i libustering as well as in the Senate? 
 
 4. Why do you think that laws enacted by the majority party or caucus in 
 
 each house is an efficient system? 
 
 These questions cannot be answered from memory alone. The associations 
 discriminations, and individual judgments must be made by the one who is ques- 
 tioned, using as his basis certain facts in his possession. Questions that re- 
 quire no further thought than an assent or denial have, by many educators, been 
 condemned, and, rightly so, if they create no reflective attitude or any thought, 
 reaction whatsoever. 
 
 The following questions selected from the reports are stimulative of 
 no reflective consideration: 
 
 1. Have I erected a perpendicular? 
 
 2. Was Macbeth brave when he saw the ghost of Banquo? 
 
 3. Are all bacteria harmful? 
 
 4. Is this our lesson today? 
 
 5. Did I assign themes yesterday? 
 
 6. Don’t you think that Irving has a delicate sense of humor? 
 
 For the purpose of contrast I submit another set of yes-no questions. 
 
 Jefferson has some doubt as to the propriety of a national postoffice, 
 thinking \t might be better to leave the carrying of letters to private enter- 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
56 
 
 prise. Do you think that postoffices in private hands would have resulted: 
 
 1. in reducing the postage on a letter from Charleston to Boston from one 
 dollar to two cents? 
 
 2. in establishing rural free delivery, although it is not self-sustaining? 
 
 3. in carrying public documents free, thus saving millions of dollars for 
 
 the government? 
 
 4. in establishing air routes to promote aviation as well as rapid communica- 
 
 tion? 
 
 5. in reducing the rates of postage, before commercially profitable, in 
 
 order that intercourse may be maintained between scattered friends? 
 
 These are yes and no questions, but I think that the general verdict 
 would be that the effect of the question is to stimulate reflective considera- 
 tion. Therefore, they are valuable. 
 
 To stimulate the reflective powers to the highest possible degree the 
 judgment should be called into play. A pupil is thereupon required to weigh a 
 number of facts before making a response. More judgment is required in answer- 
 ing the question: Is the congressional caucus a desirable feature in our politi- 
 
 cal machinery? than is required in answering the questions- what is a caucus, 
 who composes it? The pupil needs the positive accomplishments on one side and 
 the objections on the other and then he needs to strike a balance. 
 
 The formation of reasonable judgments on the basis of facts presented 
 is so inportant a factor in everyday life that the school exercises should lend 
 all possible support to the development of this needed capacity. 
 
 Very few questions are so framed as to call for really individual judg- 
 ment. Many questions designed to be judgment questions, are so superficial that 
 they require the briefest and the most trivial judgment, in fact, they do nothing 
 but stimulate the verbal memory. The following short sequence of sentences 
 illustrates my meaning: 
 
 1. How did Julius Caesar show his superiority over Marius and Sulla as a 
 statesmen? 
 
 2. Why is the tariff on champagne $3.00 and that on vinegar only four cents? 
 
 3. Why does a corn plant growing alone seldom produce good ears? 
 
 These questions ostensibly make an appeal to the judgment, but, to a 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 . 
 
 ♦ 
 
 
 . 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
57 
 
 very superficial judgment since the answers are directly stated in the text. 
 
 Another type of thought stimulating question which tends toward re- 
 flection is one which requires analysis on the part of the student. 
 
 The following questions required analysis before an answer can be 
 
 effected: 
 
 1. At what point in American history was the desirefor independence re- 
 cognized? 
 
 2. What recent events can be traced to the ill-advised actions of the 
 Congress of Vienna? 
 
 a 
 
 To formulate satisfactory answer for the first question one would be 
 required to analyze the character of the pre-revolut icnary events; to answer 
 the second query one would need to analyze treaty arrangements into territorial 
 assignments, and the violations of nationality. And then judge as to the con- 
 nections between these arrangements and recent events. 
 
 Experts on the art of questioning would offer objection to this type of 
 question on the grounds that the scope of the question was too great. Stevens 1 
 would say that pupils do not have sufficient power of organization to give spon- 
 taneously a full answer to a question involving so many factors. Such question 
 may be a legitimate device for instruction when asked merely to turn the thoughts 
 of the class in a certain direction and then followed by more specific and search- 
 ing questions. By means of the analytical question we resolve the totals into 
 their elements in order to find characteristic or individual facts. It is 
 paramount that these questions stand in orderly and logical relations leaving no 
 impassable logical step. 
 
 The analytical and the development question are the most important and 
 the most difficult. By the aid of the latter the teacher endeavors to secure in 
 the pupil a comprehension of generalizations in the form of conceptions, rules, 
 
 and principles. The following is a development lesson of a sixth grade: 
 
 1. Stevens, Homiett, The Question as a Measure of Efficiency in Instruction, 
 Teachers College, Columbia University, 1912. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
58 
 
 Aim: To understand the significance of a preposition and to formulate a 
 definition thereof. 
 
 On the board were the following sentences: 
 
 The dog went into the yard. 
 
 The dog went across the yard. 
 
 The dog went by the yard. 
 
 The dog went through the yard. 
 
 T. Read the sentences, James. 
 
 J. Reads. 
 
 T. Can you tell which words are different in these sentences, Helen? 
 
 Helen reads and points to: into, across , by , through . 
 
 T. (underlines the words as read). These words are followed by what? What word 
 follows these that I have underlined? 
 
 P. Yard. 
 
 T. Yes, yard, What part of speech is it? What part of speech do we call a name 
 word? Don’t you remember? 
 
 P. We call a name word a noun. 
 
 T. That’s right, a noun. Let us see whether we can substitute other nouns for 
 
 the word yard. (She erases the word yard). 
 
 P. The dog went into the kennel. 
 
 The dog went across the lot. 
 
 The dog went through it. 
 
 T. Points to word It_; what do you mean when you say it? 
 
 P. I mean hole. 
 
 T. Let’s us say then, the dog went through the hole. 
 
 P. The dog went by the house. 
 
 T. Can you think of another word that is not a noun that can be substituted for 
 kennel , lot , hole . and house? 
 
 P. The dog went fast. 
 
 T. Yes, but we do not want to know how the dog went; we want to know where he 
 
 went. 
 
 T. The dog went into i 1? 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
59 
 
 ?. It. 
 
 T. Now, read these sentences with words that are not nouns. 
 
 P. He went into it. 
 
 He went across it. 
 
 He went by me. 
 
 T. Yes, (underlines it^ and ire). What parts of speech are these words? Oh, class, 
 they are words that stand for a noun. Aren’t they? 
 
 P. All assent by a volley of yes. 
 
 T. Now, can’t you tell me the name of the word used instead of a noun? p-r-o-n 
 
 P. Pronoun. 
 
 T. Sure, they are pronouns. 
 
 T. (writes on the board): The book on the table is red. 
 
 The pencil in my hand is yours. 
 
 3ring that map to me. Do you see any words which show 
 relation to: the table , my hand, me? 
 
 P. Yes, the words, on, my_ and t£ show relation. 
 
 T. The first two show relation to what part of speech? 
 
 P. Noun. 
 
 T. The last one shows relation to what part of speech? 
 
 P. Pronoun. 
 
 T. The name of this word which shows relation to a noun or a pronoun is a prepo- 
 sition. Now, take your pencil pads and tell what a preposition is now, we 
 
 shall read until we have found the best one. 
 
 P. (Half dozen read). 
 
 T. Who has read the best one? 
 
 Class - class agree on Charles. 
 
 T. You may write your idea of a preposition on the board, Charles. 
 
 Charles writes: A preposition is a word which shows relation to a noun or a pronoun 
 T. Open your book quickly to see what it says about prepositions. 
 
 (Each pupil defines preposition) and learns the definition. Now let U3 find 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
60 
 
 the prepositions in these sentences, snd show their uses: 
 
 1. The picture on the wall is Sir Galahad. 
 
 2. The flowers in the vase are red. 
 
 3. "The trees in apple orchards with fruit are bending down." 
 
 4. The children chases butterflies across the field. 
 
 5. The month of June is beautiful. 
 
 P. (Bead and recognized prepositions readily). 
 
 T. Each pupil pass to board and write a sentence of your own with a preposition. 
 
 A very desirable outcome of the questioning process should be further 
 
 questioning on the part of the pupils. A teacher should be skeptical as to the 
 
 worth of his questions if they do not frequently provoke an active interrogative 
 attitude on the part of the student. The teacher should not be the only one to 
 ask question nor the only one who sets forth ideas for the enlightenment of 
 others. In fact, some of the best class exercises recorded were ones in which 
 the pupils were fighting out a disputed question among themselves, one at a 
 time, while the teacher stood on the side line and acted as a referee. 
 
 Questions should be progressive , purposeful and selected with emphasis . 
 In chapter three of this paper the second stenographic report on Julius Caesar 
 illustrates conclusively the foregoing points. The questions asked by the teach- 
 er were so framed that each one brought nearer to realization the necessity of a 
 monarch in Caesar’s day. It is necessary that questions be so unified as to deal 
 with units of thought of some magnitude. Straggling, scrappy, fragmentary 
 questions are signs of poor teaching. Every question should focus the attention 
 on the problem under consideration. The question is the means of bringing the 
 specific problem to consciousness* whether it is a mere fact, a state of feeling 
 or a process of reasoning. A specific problem holds the attention and gives a 
 center about which relevant material may be grouped. A question that does not 
 furnish a center for focusing the attention of a class has no place in instruct ia 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 « 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
61 
 
 Now, how should a question be evaluated? Obviously, one test is ap- 
 plicable to the question; a question which provokes reflective thinking , which 
 results in formulating a judgment , which calls forth analysis , or leads to 
 thoughtful questioning is to be preferred to the one which tests merely the 
 memory for facts. Few people will object to the statement that the thought 
 question is one of the most important tools in instruction. Most life situations 
 demand the rational powers of the individual who meets them successfully. 
 
 More than anything, the character of the questions asked determines 
 the nature and the value of the teaching. Teachers on the whole are not skill- 
 ful in formulating their questions for the best possible results. Most teachers 
 who have fallin into the habit of using such ineffective and faulty types of 
 questioning, do not realize that their work is so bad. And if confronted with 
 stenographic reports of their recitation they would scarcely believe that the 
 reports were exact reproductions of what happened in their own classes. 
 
 We shall take for consideration some of the most common types of 
 faulty technique observed in the class-room practice. George Herbert Betts, in 
 his Monograph, "The Recitation", makes an arraignment on the inverted question 
 on the ground that it is faulty in technique. 
 
 1. The inverted question if used wholly throughout the class procedure 
 is, indeed, faulty in technique. The quality of such question 
 which ends in where, when and whom depends entirely upon the essence 
 of the question and not so much upon the fact that it is wholly 
 interrogative or interrogative only in the last word. 
 
 1. The period of Romanticism began when? 
 
 2. Monasticism is what? 
 
 3. This figure of speech is what? 
 
 4. The Roman laws were collected and compiled by whom? 
 
 The essence of the foregoing questions could not be improved by just 
 removing the declarative element. If questions are thought stimulating, adapt- 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 *» 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
62 
 
 able to the experience of the pupil and are productive of well-rounded thought 
 they are so irrespective of their inverted form. 
 
 The following extract of a stenographic report will illustrate how the 
 inverted question by its frequency can be made faulty in technique: 
 
 T. Monasticism is what? 
 
 P. It is a life of exclusion and self denial. 
 
 T. The two classes of Ascetics were what? 
 
 P. Hermits and monks. 
 
 T. They lived where? 
 
 P. Hermits lived alone in solitary places and monks went to live together in 
 communit ies. 
 
 T. Yes, if a group of people, let us say seventy, should decide to go to some 
 quiet place to get away from the turmoil and strife of the Homan life, they 
 would need what? 
 
 P. Leader. 
 
 T • Then what? 
 
 P. A government 
 
 T. The man who saw this need and who organized some rules was who? 
 
 P. St. Benedict. 
 
 T. Name the rules of St. Benedict. They were what? 
 
 P. Never to get married and 
 
 T. Yes, chastity; and then what? 
 
 P. To obey and 
 
 T. To obey their what? 
 
 P. Their leader and their church. 
 
 T. And, one more, and the law about property was what? 
 
 P. He could not have property. 
 
 T. Now, every man who went into the monastery had to do what? 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
63 
 
 P. He had to take vows of obedience and pov 
 
 T. and finally what? 
 
 P. and not to get married. 
 
 Near the close of the hour the teacher asked for a complete resume of 
 monasticism emphasizing the services that the monks rendered to civilization. 
 
 P. Many people wanted to withdraw from the strife and turmoil of Reman life 
 
 to live in quiet and peace so they went to swamps, deserts, 
 
 T. and to where else? 
 
 P. quiet places, and 
 
 T. Some having formed large groups, what did they need? 
 
 P. They needed some kind of laws so St. Benedict made some which were obedience — 
 T. And what else? 
 
 P. Poverty. 
 
 T. And then, what? 
 
 P. To never marry. 
 
 T. Yes, that’s right, these laws of St. Benedict were that each one who came to 
 the monastery had to take the vow of obedience, chastity and poverty. 
 
 Now in monasteries where the monks adopted the laws of St. Benedict they 
 were called what? 
 
 P. Benedicts. 
 
 T. No, not quite. Benedict ines. Now go on with your summary Margaret. 
 
 Assume a little responsibility yourself. In order to live they were given 
 
 P. Gifts. 
 
 T . Gifts of what? 
 
 P. Land. 
 
 T. And this caused the monks to be interested in what? 
 
 P. More lands. 
 
 T. But what do we call people who study the composition of the soil and supply 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
64 
 
 fertilizer and chemicals sc it will produce more intensively. 
 
 P. Scientific farming. 
 
 T. Yes, now what about the more ambitious monks, they did what? 
 
 P. They became copyists and scholars. 
 
 T • and what? 
 
 P. Missionaries. 
 
 The general verdict concerning this lesson is that it is outstandingly 
 faulty in technique largely because the inverted questions are used so extensive- 
 ly so as to create monotonous verbiage and deadened interest. The teacher in- 
 terrupted and badgered the pupils unnecessarily thus giving them no incentive for 
 independent thinking. The whole lesson of this freshman class in high school re- 
 minded one of a language completion test where the pupils supply the missing word. 
 Such teaching unquestionably shows a lack of vision and educational outlook. 
 
 2. The second type of faulty technique is in the statement which is 
 invariably followed by: isn’t it? didn’t he? see the point? see? any question? 
 Such conclusions with every statement are useless, for they trifle with time and 
 inculcate habits of mental laxiness on the part of the pupils. 
 
 3. The false start in which the teacher changes the form of the quest ior 
 is faulty in technique. Because of the inadequacy of his question, the teacher 
 
 is prone to repeat and rephrase his query. 
 
 1. Can you give me the exact date of Shakespeare? s birth? Was he born 
 before or after 3acon? 
 
 2. How could Scott have spent Just how could he have avoided a 
 
 tragedy which closed his life? I mean, what big mistake did he make 
 in his life? 
 
 3. In your school and community what are the chief chief needs for 
 
 a better understanding of the nature of bacterial diseases? Yes, 
 just what does the Board of Health do to combat disease? What can 
 you do to help your community fight them? 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ;• : 
 
 
 
 
 
65 
 
 The repetition of questions is "bad. technique. To repeat or to recast 
 the phraseology of questions is to acknowledge that the first form of the 
 question was unsatisfactory or that the pupils were not expected to listen to the 
 first statement. 
 
 4. Obscure and indefinite questions which result most frequently be- 
 cause teachers do not formulate their pivotal questions in advance are poor in 
 technique. 
 
 1. What can you say of the third Canto? 
 
 2. Tell us about Locksley Hall. 
 
 3. Compare Marcus Aurelius with Paul. 
 
 The last question is a type which is much in vogue in English classes. The scope 
 of the question is not too great provided the points of comparison are clearly 
 defined. I should consider such question worthy of study if the teacher had 
 taken some selected memoirs from "Meditations” written by Marcus Aurelius and 
 compared them with the Epistles to the Philippians 4:8 v/ritten by Paul. Pupils 
 would then have had a keener appreciation of the ideals and the philosophy of 
 the pagan emperor. Unless the points of similarity are specified in the question, 
 the answers are apt to be fragmentary, straggling and unsatisfactory. 
 
 5. Repeating answers after pupils claims the greatest share of faulty 
 technique from the grade schools to the high school. The universal excuse of- 
 fered for this sort of procedure is to make the answer emphatic. High efficiency 
 in class work is doubtful where the repetition of answers is prevalent, for it 
 releases the pupil from^he responsibility of making the matter clear to his class- 
 mates and it permits the class to lapse into a reverie, thus reducing the ef- 
 ficiency of class instruction. 
 
 6. To ask a large number of questions is a mark of faulty technique in 
 teaching. A large number of questions suggests the total absence of the psycho- 
 logical principles underlying aim and method. They fail to traih pupils in 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
66 
 
 independent thinking, they fail to invite them to make their own associations 
 and they fail to offer opportunities for the niceties of speech. The following 
 lines quoted frcra an English class represent the oral expressions of the pupils 
 in the class of second year English during the first half of the lesson: 
 Romanticism. 
 
 V/ordsworth and Coleridge. 
 
 Too deep for most folks. 
 
 Do you mean in structure? 
 
 Scott’s poetry was more popular. 
 
 Wrote interesting things. 
 
 V/ordsworth was a poet; Scott was a novelist. 
 
 1771. 
 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 He was sick and lame. 
 
 Don’t know. 
 
 She knew a lot about legends and Border feuds. 
 
 She told him all these tales. 
 
 Father was a barrister. 
 
 She was closely related to Walter. 
 
 She told him stories about family heroes. 
 
 7/ent to school a few' years and then studied law. 
 
 Fair student. 
 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 1771. 
 
 Didn't take any interest in it. 
 
 Yes. 
 
 He didn't like it. 
 
 Because he wrote books. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
67 
 
 "Lay of the Last Minstrel", "The Lady of the Lake", "Mansion. " 
 
 "Marmion." 
 
 Yes. 
 
 Don't you think that he could mak3 more money pleading law than writing hooks? 
 
 Yes . 
 
 I like the vivid combat between James and Rhoderick and the end where Snowdon's 
 knights bind the lovers with his chain of gold. 
 
 Don’t you like the songs that Scott puts into the Lady of the Lake? 
 
 "Busted up" with printer publishers. 
 
 They did not go bankrupt because Scott's novels saved the company. 
 
 Scott attempted to pay every cent. 
 
 Though he was a silent partner, he attempted to pay the million dollar debt. 
 "Waverly", "Guy Mannering." 
 
 Don't know. 
 
 He rummaged through the drawers of his desk for a fishing tackle and found one 
 of his old stories that he had written 9 years ago. 
 
 Liked stories better. 
 
 "Childe Harold." 
 
 In order to make the oral expression of the pupils stand out apart 
 from their content value, I have set them alone. Most of the answers given by 
 pupils constitute a simple sentence of one line; others just a single word; this 
 fact shows conclusively that pupils do not have much opportunity for oral express- 
 ion. Consecutive discourse is necessary to effect reflection. School practices 
 generally tend to interrupt the consecutiveness of oral expression of pupils by 
 confining their class discussions to brief phrases or single disconnected sentenc- 
 es. Explanations are reserved for the teacher, who often admits any hint at an 
 answer on the part of the pupil, and then amplifies what he supposes the pupil 
 must have meant. "The habits of sporadic and fragmentary discourse thus promoted 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
68 
 
 have inevitably a disintegrating intellectual influence.” 1 
 
 Minute and detailed questions in the field of literature, history and 
 political science break up the unity of meaning belonging to a given portion of 
 matter, destroy the perspective, and in effect reduce the whole to an accumula- 
 tion of disconnected details all upon the same level. 
 
 7. Waste of time in class-room procedure is faulty technique. The 
 teacher who is over-zealous in planning the assignment so minutely so as to 
 leave nothing for the pupil to work out is reducing the efficiency of instruction 
 by wasting time. The teacher who permits his pupil to shamble to his feet, mut- 
 ter his words inaudibly and then slide back into his seat is violating the prin- 
 ciples of good technique of teaching. First, he is encouraging the pupil to be- 
 come a sloven in his habits of speech, and second, he is inviting the class to 
 become lazy, shiftless, and inattentive. The teacher who is scrupulous about the 
 form of his questions and yet will accept inexact, incomplete and unsatisfactory 
 replies is retarding the efficiency of his instruction by the waste of time. In 
 the report on Monasticism the teacher asked: 
 
 What do you call the people who study the composition of soil and then 
 treat it chemically for more intensive farming? The pupil answered: 
 "scientific farming.” This answer the teacher accepted without any 
 compunction. Again, from another report I quote the question: "What 
 difference can you detect between the Teutonic and the Homan La w? The 
 pupil answered with much poise and dignity: The Teutons were Indo- 
 Europeans who made invasions on the Homan Empire during the fourth and 
 fifth centuries. They had only a tribal form of government, am un- 
 disciplined array and a pagan religion. The coming of these barbarians 
 
 1. Dewey, John, How we Think, p.185, 1910. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
69 
 
 is one of the most important events in history. It marks a turning point 
 in history. During the "Dark Ages" this new race v/as slowly lifting 
 itself to the level of culture that the Greeks and Homans had attained. 
 This answer with all its merits was far from answering the question. 
 
 The teacher who failed to check up his pupil and make him see that the Teutonic 
 law was unwritten, and thus, more easily distorted, and that the Homan law 
 was written, and less easily distorted, was defeating the purpose of his question, 
 Teachers in general are far less scrupulous and careful than they 
 should he. Pupils will prepare their work thoroughly and will think methodically 
 if teachers invariably insist on their doing so. Pupils will follow the line of 
 least resistance, and ho content with careless, slipshod, thoughtless answers 
 if they are allowod to inculcate such a habit. 
 
 The greatest difficulty that is apparent on the part of the teacher is 
 to formulate questions that are really searching and really stimulative to 
 mental reaction to any appreciable degree. I have recently analyzed five hundred 
 questions asked by teachers all of whom had from three to seven years of exper- 
 ience. Out of this total number I found 7 per cent that were genuine thought 
 questions; 23 per cent were of the calibre of the mere assent and denial ques- 
 tions, and 70 per cent purely informational and quiz questions. 
 
 Stenographic report, 4th Grade Geography. 
 
 T. 7/hat is the capital of New York? 
 
 P. The capital of New York is Albany. 
 
 T. Ghat is the capital of New Jersey? 
 
 P. The capital of New Jersey is Trenton. 
 
 T. Spell Trenton, Mary Francis. 
 
 P. T-r-e-n-t-o-n. 
 
 T. 7/hat is the capital of Pennsylvania, James? 
 
 P. The capital of Pennsylvania is Albany. 
 
 T. No. Jomes, are you guessing, or do you know? Leon. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
70 
 
 L. The capital of Pennsylvania is Harrisburgh. 
 
 T. Now, James, what's the capital of Pennsylvania? 
 
 J. The capital of Pennsylvania is Harrisburgh. 
 
 T. Harrisburgh is the capital of what? 
 
 J, Harrisburgh is the capital of Pennsylvania. 
 
 T. Spell Pennsylvania, Burgetta. 
 
 B. P-e-n-n-s -y-l-v-a-n- i-a . 
 
 T. hat is the capital of Pennsylvania, Burgetta? 
 
 B. The capital of Pennsylvania is Trenton. 
 
 T. How, Burgetta, what is the use for you to learn anything, you don't remember 
 it anyway. Tell her Billy. 
 
 B. The capital of Pennsylvania is Harrisburgh. 
 
 T. What is it, Burgetta? 
 
 B. The capital of Pennsylvania is Harrisburgh. 
 
 T. here in the middle Atlantic States is the soil fine and deep? 
 
 P. The soil is fine and deep in the middle of Hew York and in the eastern part 
 of Pennsylvania. 
 
 T. What is a glacier? 
 
 P. A glacier is a great ice sheet which moves slowly from the north. 
 
 T. Why did the glacier melt? 
 
 P. The glacier meltedbecause it came down in a warmer climate. 
 
 T. 7/hat is the effect of the glacier upon the soil? 
 
 P. The glacier makes some of the soil rich and fine and some stony and rocky. 
 
 T. What part of Hew York is covered with the ice sheet, Paul? 
 
 Paul. The northern part 
 
 T. You are guessing, Paul, Tell him, Helen. 
 
 H. The ice sheet oovered almost all of Hew York and the northern part of 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
71 
 
 Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. 
 
 T. Yes, now that’s right. Almost all of New York and the northern part of 
 Pennsylvania. Nov/, what crops are raised in the Middle Atlantic States? 
 
 P. 'wheat, com, oats and "barley. 
 
 T. What fruits are grown there? 
 
 P. Apples, grapes and all kinds of fruits. 
 
 T. Are bananas grown there? 
 
 Y-e-s. 
 
 T. Now, you don’t know, you are trying to guess. John, what fruits are grown 
 there . 
 
 J. Apples, grapes and peaches. 
 
 Stenographic report of 8th grade Seograj/hy. 
 
 T. In what latitude is Argentina? 
 
 P. 30°-40°3outh latitude. 
 
 T. Eow does Argentina rank in size with the other countries of South America? 
 
 P. It is the largest. 
 
 I. Yes, it is the largest of the Spanish Republics and also the most progressive. 
 Describe its surface. 
 
 P. The surface slopes up to a high plateau near the base of the Andes. South 
 of the Salado river it is fertile. The northern part is v/airo and moist. 
 
 T. What kind of vegetation grows in warn and wet regions? 
 
 P. Usually woods. 
 
 T. Name the chief rivers. 
 
 P. Colorado, Salado and 
 
 T. And the largest one is what? 
 
 P. Parana. 
 
 T. If you were interested in sheep raising what part of Argentina would you go? 
 Derril . 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
72 
 
 D. I would, go to southern part where there is good pasture for sheep some- 
 where near a city so I could have good market for wool and meat. 
 
 T. '.That is the capital of Argentina? 
 
 P. Bunos — Ai , I can’t pronounce it, but I can spell it. 
 
 T. Bunos Aires, \7hat are the products exported from this city? 
 
 P. Heats, wheat, com, tallow, hide and wool. 
 
 T. If you were interested in the growing of wheat, and corn, where in Argentina 
 would you settle? 
 
 P. I would stay in Illinois if I wanted to be a farmer, but if someone in Argen- 
 tina wanted to farm he ought to go to the central part because the soil in 
 the pampas is fertile and the rainfall is sufficient for farming. 
 
 ?. Vi/hat is the product from the north? 
 
 P. Tugar. 
 
 The second geography report is not entirely quoted but a sufficient 
 quanty is quoted to assure one that the thought side of geography is neglected. 
 Prom both reports one may conclude with safety that geography is taught as a mass 
 of disconnected, unrelated facts supposed to be memorized. The subject matter 
 bears little relationship to the interest or the needs of the child. In the 
 fourth grade geography lesson the pupils would have had an interest in glaciers 
 and their effects upon soils if they had learned that this same glacier which 
 covered New York, Pennsylvania and Ifew Jersey also came down through Illinois and 
 left the rich alluvial deposits which make our great com lands possible. 
 
 Good geography instruction not only furnishes a child with useful and 
 interesting facts, but it can afford one of the best opportunities possible for 
 constructive thinking on the part of the child. If geography were approached 
 from an inductive point of view, it would not belong before children would ac- 
 quire an inquiring attitude of mind toward the subject and would be able to think 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
73 
 
 about their ordinary environment and observation. 
 
 "Geography," says Dewey, "^"of course, has its educational influence in a 
 counterpart connection of natural facts with social events and their conse- 
 quences. The definition of geography as an account of the earth as the home of 
 man expresses the educational reality But it is easier to give this definition 
 than it is to present specific geographical subject matter in its vital human 
 bearings. The residence, pursuits, successes and failures of men are the things 
 that give the geographic data their reason for inclusion inthe material of in- 
 struction. But to hold the two together requires an informed and cultivated 
 imagination. When the ties are broken geography presents itself as the hodge- 
 podge of unrelated fragments too often found. It appears as a veritable rag-bag 
 of intellectual odds and ends; the height of a mountain here, the course of a 
 river there, the quantity of shingles produced in this town, the tonnage of the 
 shipping in that, the boundary of the country and the capital of the state." 
 
 T. What are bacteria? 
 
 P. They are small unicellular plants of the simplest structure and of three prin- 
 cipal forms: rods, balls, and spirals. Rods are called bacilla, the balls, 
 cocci, and the spirals, spirella. 
 
 T. They are found where? 
 
 P. They are found everywhere , air, water and underground a few feet below the 
 surface. 
 
 T. Where are they found most excessively? 
 
 P. In decaying matter, manure, filth, slime, alimentary canal, hair, nails and 
 on flies. 
 
 T. How do they reproduce themselves? 
 
 1. Dewey, John, Democracy and Education, p.248, 1921. 
 
 Stenographic report of biology, 10th grade. 
 
 Glass examines cultures of bacteria. 
 
 I 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
74 
 
 P. They grow "by division. 
 
 T. Yes, they grow "by cell division and reproduce rapidly if all conditions are 
 favorable. In a few cases, sane bacteria are capable of producing within 
 themselves smaller cells, called spores, which have thick walls and have 
 great resistance. Spores are more difficult to destroy than vegetative or 
 growing cells . 
 
 P. Do these spores ever produce diseases? 
 
 T. No, not among people but sometimes among cattle. Anthrax is a very important 
 disease caused by spores. Before Louis Pasteur found a treatment Prance lost 
 20 million dollars worth of cattle a year. 
 
 T. How do bacteria live? 
 
 P. They absorb food through their cell walls. 
 
 T. Prom your study and observation of bacteria would you consider bacteria 
 plants or animals? 
 
 P. They are animals because: 1. they move about. 
 
 2. they live upon complex foods. 
 
 T. Did you ever see animals of rod or spiral shapes or see animals develop by 
 fission or by spores? 
 
 P. Ho, in the respect to shape and growth they resemble plants but I think that 
 they are animals because plants must have chlorophyll to manufacture their 
 own food. 
 
 T. Your reasoning is good, the outstanding difference between plants and bacteria 
 is that plants have chlorophyll and bacteria do not. The absence of chloro- 
 has forced them to feed upon complex foods. They are looked upon as a low 
 form of plants without chlorophyll. 
 
 T. V/hy are bacteria of such interest to the physiologist? 
 
 P. Because bacteria decompose and decay foods like milk, butter, and eggs. 
 
 T. ^/hat methods do you use to retard the decomposition of foods? How can you 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
75 
 
 keep fruits and vegetables from putrefying? 
 
 P. By canning, preserving in sugar and drying. 
 
 T. How are meats saved from bacterial decay? 
 
 P. Hefrigeration saves meat for a while because bacteria can live in cold 
 temperature but they do not die. 
 
 T. Yes, refrigeration is one way, but smoking and sugar curing, preserving in 
 salt or canning are means of saving meats from bacterial decay. 
 
 Why are some bacteria of interest to the farmer? James, you are studying 
 farming and live on a farm, tell us. 
 
 James. There are some bacteria that decay the vegetable matter and make the 
 soil fertile. There is one group of bacteria that makes ammonia; there is 
 another group which changes this ammonia to other compounds; then there is 
 another group which changes the nitrites into nitrates. Then there is a 
 group of bacteria which enters the roots of certain kinds of plants. These 
 bacteria take pure nitrogen from the air and make it possible for plants to 
 use. 
 
 T. 7/hat plants have these bacteria in their roots? 
 
 P. Cow peas, alfalfa. 
 
 T. Yes, cow peas, alfalfa, clover, soy beans, in fact, any legume. 
 
 T. Why is bacteria of interest to the hygienist? 
 
 P. He is interested because of the Infections and contagious diseases which some 
 bacteria produce. 
 
 T. How do they produce poison? 
 
 P. They secrete it from their bodies. 
 
 T. Yes, some bacteria enter plants and secrete a poison which causes diseases 
 such as: black rot on cabbage, and blight on pear and apple trees. Here is a 
 twig from an apple tree. See how black and shriveled up it is. 
 
 P. Why does it turn black? 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
76 
 
 T. These bacteria cannot live long in the direct sunlight but they can live dur- 
 ing the winter but when the wam weather comes the diseased twigs become 
 blackened and wilted. How is this disease spread? 
 
 P. Insects carry it from flowers or from the gummy substance sometimes formed 
 on a tree that has blight. 
 
 T. How would you prevent spread of blight in your orchard? 
 
 P. Cut and bum limbs. 
 
 T. How would you prevent spread even while pruning? You would have to sterilize 
 your knife in carbolic acid each time that you cut a limb. Wouldn’t you? 
 
 T. In your community what are the chief needs for a better understanding of 
 
 the bacterial diseases Just what can your Board of health do to combat 
 
 diseases? How can you yourself help to fi^it them? 
 
 P. To fight flies, to stay at home when I am sick, to have my house disinfected 
 after I have had a contagious disease. 
 
 T. What tv/o conditions are necessary for a contagious disease? Yes, why do some 
 people become exposed to diseases yet do not fall victims to them? 
 
 P. Because they are healthy and can fight them. 
 
 T. Just ri$it, so the biggest job that you have is to keep your bodies strong 
 and well by good wholesome foods, regular sleep and daily exercises so as to 
 ward off certain bacteria. 
 
 Prom the preceding stenographic reports and many others, I liave discover- 
 ed two broad types of questions used, those which call forth facts accumulated 
 in memory and those which provoke reflection. Pure memory questions are good 
 questions to use occasionally, but the element of memory is used in all the better 
 questions then why ask a score of pure memory questions when a half-dozen better 
 questions can be made to embody memory and at the same time call for the associa- 
 tion in memory, and some exercise of judgment? Such type of question is found 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
77 
 
 in the report on the study of bacterial From your study and observation would 
 you consider bacteria plants or animals? Also, In your commuhity what are the 
 chief needs for a better understanding of the bacterial diseases? To answer 
 these questions the pupil must use his memory to be sure, but at the same time 
 he can make associations and exercise his judgment. 
 
 Factual or memory questions are sometimes contrasted with thought ques- 
 tions to the neglect of the former; if the purpose of the teacher is to drill 
 or to test for knowledge then he will ask questions that will elicit the fact. 
 During my study, I recorded far too many questions in which thought was not in 
 the least involved in getting the answer. Frequently, the re v/as no connection 
 even between the first question and the next. There is a definite place for the 
 factual question but certainly the legitimate function of the question is more 
 than just to trifle with time or merely to enliven the memory. 
 
 The factual questions find justification in testing the knowledge of 
 the pupil and in making emphatic facts already known to the learner. The factual 
 questions which do not aim primarily to discover what the pupil knows but seeks 
 to impress upon him more emphatically that with which he is already familiar are 
 extremely wasteful in resul ts unless they secure the mental response of the group 
 as a v/hole. When the whole class is alert and eager to learn, as sometimes is 
 the case with a group of superior students, this type of factual question or 
 drill question becomes uninteresting. 
 
 The chief reason for the lack of interest in the school work is the 
 failure on the part of the teacher to introduce questions which require thinking. 
 It is unnecessary to discuss the psychology of attention and interest at this 
 point, yet ary factor which challenges the attention will foster interest. This 
 does not mean that interest v/ill continue because questions are asked, but it 
 does mean that the teacher has an instrument of increasing the interest in the 
 
 question 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 •- s 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
78 
 
 "By means of the question the teacher can keep the mind of the pupil 
 up to the growing point making it alert and thoughtful. The question is, in 
 short, the universal implement of good teaching, applicable to all ages of pupils 
 and suitable to all- states of instruction." -*■ 
 
 1. DeGarmo, Oharles, Interest and Education, p, 179