Psychology Of High School Subjects

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PSYCHOLOGY OF
HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

BY
CHARLES HUBBARD JUDD

PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION AND DIRECTOR OF THE
SCHOOL. OF EDUCATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

GINN AND COMPANY

BOSTON - NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON
ATLANTA • DALLAS • COLUMBUS • SAN FRANCISCO

1915, BY
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PREFACE

'•if •<> ' **Vk m*
It is more difficult to prepare- anbook on applied science

than to write a book on pure science. Applied science
touches so many fiejds of thought and action that there
are twenty critics ready to point out difficulties where only
one would appear against a volume on pure science. In
the following pages I have been guilty of excursions into
the territory of the teacher of English, into the stronghold
of Latin, into the newly established dotfiains of science and
manual arts. I have made observations in these various
quarters from the point of view of the psychologist. Many
of these observations will be looked upon by my colleagues
in psychology as unpsychological ; many will be regarded
by specialists in English, Latin, science, and the manual
arts as biased and ill-advised. It is the fate of anyone who
attempts to contribute to applied science to draw upon
himself abundant criticism.

The only opportunity which one has of making a remark
of a purely personal type being in the preface, I am con-
strained to point out that it is not at all unlikely that many
of the specialists who will say that I ought to keep within
the bounds of my own field will unhesitatingly talk in
psychological ternis which they cannot justify. It would
be easy to point to cases where psychology has been used
but not applied, where the name of the science of education
has been set up as a defense by those who are altogether
unscientific.

Fortunately, however, the time has arrived when educa-
tion is to be put on a broad, objective foundation. The

iii

iv PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

numerous books on high-school education which have pre-
ceded this show that personal views are soon to be set aside
in favor of more general and well-established principles.
Whoever is able to state in an objective way the grounds
of his beliefs about secondary-school problems has a right
to speak, and to hope that the criticism which he receives
will be directed toward his methods and his formulation
of problems rather than toward his special views. It is in
this hope that the following pages are offered.

It would be difficult to acknowledge the contributions
which have been made directly and indirectly to this vol-
ume. Some years ago the author acted as inspector of
high schools for the state board of education in Con-
necticut and came into close and instructive contact with
Secretary Hine and others who were engaged in developing
secondary education in that state. For the past six years
he has profited greatly from intimate association with Prin-
cipal F. W. Johnson and the other members of the faculty
of the high school conducted as a laboratory school in the
School of Education of The University of Chicago. During
the last four years he has learned mucli from a group of
principals of high schools in and about Chicago who have
admitted him each month to the informal meetings at which
they canvass without restraint the problems of high-school
teaching and organization. To all these the author is under
special obligation. To the students who have been mem-
bers of the classes in which this book has been gradually
put in form the author's obligations are larger than he is
able adequately to acknowledge. The reports which have
been handed in by members of these classes have been full
of fruitful suggestions. Many other obligations of a less
personal type are indicated by footnotes in the text.

C. H. J.
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

CONTENTS

PAGE

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION 1

Educational psychology as a study of students. New motives for
making such a study. The problems of such a study are to be
found in the special subjects of instruction. Methods of collecting
material. Scientific treatment of this material consists in analysis,
comparison, and generalization.

CHAPTER II. PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS IN MATH-
EMATICS 17

Evidences that the problems of instruction in mathematics are
not solved. Historical reasons for present course. Problems of
rearrangement and application.

CHAPTER III. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPACE ... 24

Space is a sensation-complex. As such its essential characteristics
are not to be sought in content, but in its relational aspects. Genesis
of space ideas. Space and movement. Mechanical elements of ma-
ture space ideas. Space is a highly generalized phase of all expe-
rience. As such it is the basis of a formal science. This science
goes beyond the direct recognition of space.

CHAPTER IV. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF
GEOMETRY 46

Analysis of a typical textbook on geometry, showing the various
devices employed to induce in students more and more elaborate
judgments about space. Percepts of figures, abstraction, analysis,
synthesis, comparison, logical treatment, demonstrations. Analysis
of typical classroom activities. Modes of attacking problems; social
interference ; various mental processes, especially memory and
reasoning. Treatises on the theory of the teaching of mathematics.
Memory, logical processes, imagery, formal discipline, relation of
algebra and geometry, applications, purposes of the study.

v

vi PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

PAGE

CHAPTER V. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NUMBER AND
ABSTRACTION 90

Number in its origin and genesis. Higher processes based on num-
ber. Algebra as science of mathematical operations. Abstractions
and their relation to symbols. Algebra as an abstract science —
more abstract than arithmetic. Analysis of textbooks in algebra.
The problem of applications. Observations in an algebra class.
Absence of concrete checks ; confusion in processes.

CHAPTER VI. THE REORGANIZATION OF MATHE-
MATICS 123

Supervised study. Combined algebra and geometry. Applied
mathematics. Principles which must underlie reorganization.

CHAPTER VII. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE 133

The literary character of the high-school course. Language not a
succession of images, but a form of behavior. Relation to emotions.
Influence of social behavior in modifying vocal expression. Ges-
ture as example of this evolution. Growth of conventional modes
of expression. Written language. Complex processes of behavior
related to words. Miss Rowland's analysis. Words ultimately
constitute a relatively independent sphere of behavior.

CHAPTER VIII. THE ENGLISH PROBLEM .... 162

Reasons for late introduction of the study of the vernacular. Chief
defect of present English courses lies in their specialized character.
Reading needs new emphasis. Composition is formal and barren.

CHAPTER IX. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ENGLISH
COURSES 174

Rhetoric a study of forms of expression. Observations in a rheto-
ric class. Literary form in its elements. Rhythm one of the most
primitive of these elements. Literary habits as exemplified by
grammatical habits. Emotional reactions involved in appreciation.
Appreciation and style matters of reaction. Appreciation of con-
tent likewise a matter of reaction. Instruction should not be
merely analytical ; should cultivate appropriate forms of reaction.
Plans for generalizing English instruction.

CHAPTER X. FOREIGN LANGUAGES 211

Ground for teaching foreign languages. Analysis of methods sug-
gested by the Committee of Twelve. Grammatical method first

CONTENTS vii

PAGE

based on analytical comparisons. Natural method, so called, as
opposed to analysis. Problems of translation. Psychological method
is inadequate in its emphasis of imagery over reaction, but accep-
table in its advocacy of gradual progression. The direct method.
The inductive method. Method must vary according to the aim of
instruction. General language courses.

CHAPTER XI. OPPOSITION BETWEEN THE PRAC-
TICAL ARTS AND LANGUAGE 247

Practical arts are increasingly important in the school curriculum.
Disagreement between practical arts and conventional courses must
be overcome through more careful psychological analysis.

CHAPTER XII. MANUAL SKILL; PRACTICAL AND
THEORETICAL EXPERIENCE 252

Psychology of skill. " Controls " of activity to be sought in sensa-
tions. Absence of analysis characteristic of skillful behavior. In-
telligent analysis should be added to skill. Purposes of manual
training variously conceived. Experiment showing relation of
theory to practical adjustment. Theory and language. Applica-
tion as the solution of the antithesis between theory and practice.
Primitive and higher forms of learning. Higher uses of language
as means of overcoming specialization and generalizing experience.

CHAPTER XIII. INDUSTRIAL COURSES 285

Beginnings of such courses in America were commercial courses.
Special methods employed in such courses. Emphasis on speed,
business conditions, and individual skill. Antithesis to academic
courses in methods and standards. Tendencies toward specializa-
tion. Special courses for girls. Science and industry. Applications
and discipline.

CHAPTER XIV. SCIENCE 303

Problem of organizing science courses. Historical development of
sciences. This development not based on practical motives, but
depending at first on the demand for social consistency and inter-
nal consistency. Imagination seeks to fill out experience. Critical
imagination a late product. Specialization, its nature and dangers.
General science courses. Investigations of children's interests.
Investigation of drawing as a means of instruction in science.
Science apart from practical motives. Science grows out of
the intellectual discovery of problems. Applications. Criticisms
of textbooks in science. Laboratory methods. Scientific method.
Science and generalization.

viii PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

PAGE

CHAPTER XV. THE FINE ARTS 345

Opposition between arts and the conventional courses. Historical
development of music, with emphasis on the reactions cultivated by
music. Various kinds of training : that of the listener, that of the
technician, that of the composer. Cultivation of power of pro-
duction as a method of training appreciation. Graphic arts show
development and problems analogous to music. Nature and com-
parative value of different forms of appreciation. Description of
the place of the arts in American schools.

CHAPTER XVI. HISTORY 370

Growth of history courses. The organization of such courses in the
high school. Various authorities on the purpose of history in the
school and on the complexity of its materials. Nationalism and
the cultivation of moral judgments as ends. Memory and chrono-
logical and causal judgments as forms of mental activity culti-
vated. Critical judgments versus mere statements of facts. Historical
imagination. Applications to present-day problems. History as a
center of correlation.

CHAPTER XVII. GENERALIZED EXPERIENCE . . 392

Statement of the partisan views regarding formal discipline, show-
ing the confusion of issues and the inconsistency of treatments.
Transfer is recognized by all. The real question is the amount and
method of this transfer. Thorndike's evidence shows large degree
of correlation. Transfer takes place wherever generalization is
reached in experience. Nature and importance of generalization.
This view regarding generalization contrasted with the inade-
quate theory of identical elements. Further elaboration of the
doctrine of generalization. Formalism as opposed to generalization ;
application a form of generalization.

CHAPTER XVIII. TEACHING STUDENTS TO STUDY 436

Methods of study less completely understood than subject matter.
Various typical forms of study : rapid survey, asking questions
intelligently, discovering problems. Advantages of group study.
Economy in study. Applications sought out by the student. The
use of standards. Progression as the surest test of efficient intel-
lectual work. Devices for securing efficiency. Power of selection
should be supplemented by power of elaboration. Cultivation of
power of generalization. Mental hygiene depends on due propor-
tion of all kinds of activity.

CONTENTS ix

PAGE

CHAPTER XIX. GENERAL PROBLEMS OF SECOND-
ARY EDUCATION 473

High schools have become part of the common-school system. Rapid
growth of high schools has led to internal readjustments of the
most radical type : richer courses, adaptation of courses to local
needs, and better adjustment to individual needs. Some of these
changes are embarrassed by efforts to standardize. Elimination is
not the present end in education, but rather vocational distribution
and guidance. This is shown by contrast with foreign school sys-
tems. Periodicity of development. Adolescence can be understood
only when we comprehend the periods which precede it. Reorgan-
ization of the secondary school so as to articulate it to insti-
tutions above and below urgently needed. General principles of
secondary education : the principle of broad training and the
principle of concentration on some sequential line of study.

INDEX 509

PSYCHOLOGY OF
HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

THE STUDY OF STUDENTS' CAPACITIES

/It would undoubtedly be easy to secure unanimous
assent to the general assertion that the teacher ought to
understand the mental processes of his students. Every
beginner's book in Latin or German, every volume of
selected source material in history, every carefully formu-
lated introductory textbook in science, is concrete evidence
that the student as well as the subject to be taught is part
of the teacher's problem. If we attempt to push the argu-
ment beyond this general suggestion, however, and insist
that every high-school teacher should take courses which
deal with the mental processes of his students, we en-
counter a Avail of objections. We are told that what
teachers need is a more complete knowledge of the sub-
jects they teach, that it is distracting and irrelevant to
spend time on the study of mental processes. It is confi-
dently affirmed that the teacher will in any case get some
acquaintance with human nature through classroom expe-
rience ; roundabout, labored, theoretical studies are there-
fore declared to be wasteful and unproductive. Finally,
one hears the statement that students who are of the ma-
turity of young people in high school ought to be able to

l

2 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

understand anything that is presented logically and clearly ;
it is therefore better that the teacher should think of orderly
organization of subject matter rather than devote tjme and
attention to the study of students' mental processes^

These objections to the study of the mental processes
of students have grown stronger in the minds of teachers
and laymen because psychology has been slow to point
out the applications of its principles to the work of the
high school. Psychology has been a general and some-
what abstract description of mental life. For example,
since the time of Aristotle psychologists have taught the
laws of memory, but until recently no one has thought it
important to study in detail the most economical methods
of memorizing, and no one has made a careful analysis of
the ways in which the general laws of memory manifest
themselves in the special fields of historical and mathe-
matical study. Again, psychology has had much to say
about the perception of space, but little has been worked
out regarding the mental processes involved in the study
of geometry, which is based on space perception, and little
has been written on the relation of courses in drawing
to space perception. Finally, psychology has taught that
mental development is a gradual process exhibiting stages
which differ in the quantity and probably in the quality
of the intellectual processes exhibited, but few writers
have attempted to tell us how the fourteen-year-old boy
differs in his train of ideas from the boy just ready to
graduate from the high school at eighteen years of age.
In short, we have been without a thoroughgoing applica-
tion of even the most generally accepted principles of
psychology.

After assuming, in behalf of the science of psychology,
a due share of responsibility for this neglect of applica-
tions, it is just to call attention to the fact that, in a very
proper sense of the word, psychology cannot be charged

INTRODUCTION 3

with the task of applying its principles. Applications vary
with different situations "and must be worked out by many
minds. The same is true in the domain of physical science.
Many and diverse are the situations which arise in industry
and art. Just as the science of physics remains seemingly ab-
stract and general until the manifold applications of mechan-
ical laws are worked out by a thousand practical inventors,
so the science of psychology can never, as a science, dem-
onstrate its usefulness until many workers apply its general
laws to concrete cases.

SOCIAL NECESSITY OF STUDYING STUDENTS

Fortunately for educational psychology there are social
forces at work which are making necessary a careful study
of the mental processes of high-school students. However
reluctant teachers and supervisors may be to turn away
from subject matter, however large their confidence in
classroom experience, the urgent problems of secondary
education are calling for new insights and new wisdom;
and psychological methods of studying these problems are
being called into service on every hand more rapidly than
these methods can be refined by careful, technical study.
We find ourselves, accordingly, in the curious situation of
listening to vehement objections to the study of psychology,
while at the same time we observe social forces compelling
a movement in the direction of the study of educational
problems by psychological methods.

Thus the sudden enrichment of the course of study has
so disturbed the quiet satisfaction with which the older
subjects, such as foreign languages and mathematics, con-
sumed the time of students that no department feels any
security about its place on the program. Latin, seeing the
sudden end of Greek, its sometime companion in aristocratic
supremacy, has cultivated the fluent use of a formidable

4 PSYCHQLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

psychological vocabulary, and one hears the teacher of this
ancient and respected tongue contending that Latin culti-
vates the constructive imagination, gives the student train-
ing in comparison and generalization, and develops the
power of expression.1 In like spirit the teacher of algebra
confesses that his subject has in the past been somewhat
abstract, but he promises to eliminate the most objection-
able and formal parts of the subject and to amplify those
parts which will aid the student in concise, accurate, and
summary treatment of the quantitative aspects of nature.2
The newer subjects are exultant in a formula which they
believe that the psychologist has supplied them, and fall
upon the older members of the course of study with the
statement that the dogma of formal discipline is to be re-
placed by the doctrine of specific training.3 Since there is
no more formal discipline, the argument runs, there ought
to be infinite variety in the course of study.

The psychologist, who has traditionally been a person of
the most abstract temper, observes with interest that he has
become a party to the struggle for place in the high-school
program. He may be permitted to wonder why the destruc-
tive psychologists who attack formal discipline are quoted
so freely by the newer subjects, and the constructive psy-
chologist who has developed a positive doctrine of general
habits 4 has to wait for the gradual spread of interest in
psychology before he can be heard. It seems at times that
education is moving in the direction of a study of applica-
tions of psychology, but moving somewhat obliquely.

1 F. W. Kelsey and others, Latin and Greek in American Education,
p. 21. The Macmillan Company, 1911.

2 Arthur Schultze, The Teaching of Mathematics in Secondary
Schools, p. 292. The Macmillan Company, 1912.

8 C. R. Mann, The Teaching of Physics, pp. 170 ff. The Macmillan
Company, 1912.

4 S. S. Coivin, The Learning Process, chaps, xiv, xvi. The Macmillan
Company, 1911.

INTRODUCTION 5

UBGBNT DEMANDS FOB EFFICIENCY AND ECONOMY

Again, social forces are pushing in the direction of psy-
chological studies because in these days there is a wide-
spread interest in efficiency and economy. One may scoff
at this interest and dub it mercenary and groveling if he
likes, but the time has passed when the public will pay for
a school which has no justification for its being other than
that it fills up the leisure of its students. Indeed, systems
of training are open to criticism, even though they are
thought to be working along right lines, if their work is
done clumsily and to less than the maximum effect. It is
no longer accepted as a mere academic discussion when it
is reported that the English instruction given in high schools
and colleges is inefficient.1 [English has been generously
dealt with in the course of srady in recent years. When it
is found that students cannot write and do not read, the
question arises very pointedly, What is the matter? One
finds the English teachers organizing and discussing the
natural tendency toward dramatization,2 the contrast in
effectiveness between oral and written expression, and the
literary preferences of different stages of adolescent develop-
ment. When the English teachers take up such matters as
these, the psychologist rejoices to note that a wider currency
is being given to a type of consideration which he developed
at a time when teachers of English and science and mathe-
matics were absorbed in their subjects and regarded the
psychological jargon as of little value. Even the layman is
beginning to interest himself in these detailed discussions.
Surveys are organized to find out whether school moneys
are well spent and whether the time of boys and girls is

i The English Journal, 1913, Vol. II, pp. 68, 416, 676.

a Percival Chubb, The Teaching of English, pp. 63, 187, 236 ff., 276,
The Macmillan Company, 1909. G. R. Carpenter, F. T. Baker, and F. N.
Scott, The Teaching of English in the Elementary and the Secondary
School, pp. 99, 266, 276, Longmans, Green, & Co., 1913.

6 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

*•

properly conserved. The methods of these surveys turn
out to be, in many cases, psychological. The psychologist
is finding in the school surveys an opportunity to carry out
on a large scale tests which a few years ago he proposed in
vain as purely psychological studies.

RECOGNITION OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

/ Another problem which has come to be an urgent social
problem is that of individual differences. The time was
when a boy or girl was assigned a station in life in terms
of the father's achievements in the world. To-day a new
order is being evolved. Society is finding that its tasks are
most efficiently performed by those who are best suited
through native and acquired interests to certain particular
kinds of work. The whole school system beyond the first
six years of the elementary school recognizes clearly the
principle of differentiation, and is absorbed in studying
individual variations so as to provide adequately for the
different natures and interests of students. Here again the
psychologist recognizes a familiar type of study. Centuries
ago Descartes distinguished between different tempera-
ments. He used the terms which the medieval physicians
had employed, and called attention to the differences be-
tween the phlegmatic, or slow, individual and the quick,
sanguine type of mind. He pointed out that some are hot-
tempered or choleric and others sad or melancholic. The
present-day psychologist is not satisfied with this general
classification, but the reference to Descartes shows that he
follows the lead of the founders of his science in calling
attention to the fundamental differences in personality
exhibited by high-school students.

In 1883 Sir Francis Galton1 made a notable modern
contribution to the study of individual differences. He

1 Inquiries into Human Faculty.

INTRODUCTION 7

found that certain persons recall in vivid detail anything
they have seen. Such persons he called visualizers. They
remember the colors of objects and recall fully and accu-
rately the positions of things. On the other hand, there are
many who have only faint, blurred visual images. The
work of Galton has been quoted again and again by those
who would justify this or that educational practice. More
recently several students of psychology, notably Thorndike1
and Hall,2 have developed the doctrine of individual differ-
ences in an extreme form. The advocates of various inno-
vations, such as vocational education and special courses for
girls, have seized on these studies with the greatest avidity.

GENERAL AND SPECIAL STUDIES OF PSYCHOLOGY

Such examples encourage the psychologist to believe that
the time is ripe to essay the comprehensive task of applying
his science to all high-school problems. This general appli-
cation has been attempted from one point of view by that
pioneer in educational psychology, G. Stanley Hall. Hall
undertook to give a description of the mental characteristics
of the adolescent period. So elaborate is his description
that it frequently becomes highly speculative and fantastic,
but the outcome is a keen awareness on the part of high-
school teachers that adolescent mental processes are not
like those of earlier childhood and not like those of adult
life. This recognition of the special characteristics of the
adolescent mind turns out, however, to be only of general
value to the individual teacher In his daily task of training
students. The teacher's special instrument of instruction
is the particular subject matter which engages both his

1 E. L, Thorndike, Educational Psychology, Vol. III. Teachers Col-
lege, 1913.

2 G. S. Hall, Adolescence, Vols. I and II. D. Appleton and Company,
1906.

8- PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

1A»

thought and that of the student. The general facts about
"the period of adolescence do not determine what should be
done in these particular courses. Would it not be more
productive to take up one after another the subjects of in-
struction and inquire what are the mental reactions typical
in each ? General psychology and the special psychology
of adolescence would thus be focused on the day's task.
To be sure, there will appear in the successive chapters of
such a psychology of high-school subjects the clearest evi-
dence that there are general temperamental traits, general
habits of visualization, general laws of memory, and all the
rest, but these generalizations will not be the chief matters
of investigation. It is the special mathematical idea gener-
ated in grasping an algebraical formula which the teacher
of mathematics must control. It is the special recognition
of the Latin form which is important to the teacher of
the classics. General principles will not satisfy these
specific needs.

The preceding paragraph may leave in the mind of the
reader the impression that each teacher is to be urged to
study only the psychology of his own specialty. It must be
admitted that even 'so much knowledge of applied psychol-
ogy as would be represented by a chapter on the psychology
of a single subject would be a real addition to the equip-
ment of most high-school teachers. But one should not con-
fuse this plea for a little psychology with the final purpose
of the psychologist. Applied psychology will advance most
rapidly if it is subdivided to conform to the teacher's special
needs and interests, but the science will not be complete
until a synthetic comparison is made of the results of these
special chapters. Such a comparison is necessary in order
to show clearly the meaning of statements like the follow-
ing : Algebra is abstract and theoretical ; manual training
is concrete and practical. The algebra teacher must ulti-
mately know what is meant by concrete and practical ; the

INTRODUCTION 9

manual-training teacher must know what it means when
we assert that some subjects in the curriculum are abstract.
To a plea for the cultivation of special psychologicalstudies
in each field may therefore be added an equally urgent plea
for a comprehensive study of the psychology of all fields.
One of the gravest menaces to the unity of educational in-
stitutions to-day is the lack of common interests on the part
of special teachers. Their natural, common interest is, of
course, the student. If the effect upon the student of a
course in English is to make him more appreciative of emo-
tional experiences, what effect will this have upon his in-
terest in geometry ? The psychology of the special subjects
will thus merge into the psychology of the student; but
the investigation is introduced by a treatment of specific,
practical problems and is brought gradually up to the more
general considerations.

^ TYPICAL PROBLEMS FOR SPECIAL STUDY

^In order to show that specific problems are the natural
starting points of the study, let us anticipate later discus-
sions by referring to one or two urgent special questions.
One hears the teacher of science, for example, advocating
the use of drawings in the notebooks of students. If the
question is raised whether all kinds of drawing contribute
to clearness of scientific thought, one is likely to get an
answer from the uncritical teacher which is too inclusive.
As a matter of fact, only analytical drawing is of value in
science work; general sketches are often worse than useless
in cultivating scientific observation. This example gives us
the opportunity to dwell on the moral that teachers of
science should clear up their psychology of drawing. They
have a vague idea about drawing and about the way in
which it affects mental life, but they seldom subject this
vague notion to adequate, scientific criticism.

10 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

The teacher of languages writes in a large, loose way
that pronunciation of a foreign language is important be-
cause it contributes to the student's sensory and motor
experience.1 The more sensory material the student gets,
the more vivid and lasting his experiences; the more the
motor organs are exercised, the more permanent the effect
of impression. If these statements are true, they are im-
portant for the teacher. If they are not true, or if they need
to be qualified in any degree, the teacher of language will
be helped by a substitution of exact, scientific statements
for the indefinite beliefs with which he started.

How shall definite, exact statements be substituted for
present vague ideas on the psychology of high-school sub-
jects ? It would, needless to say, be a source of large satis-
faction to the writer if he could answer this question by
saying : Read the following chapters and you will be in the
presence of an exact science. In the interests of candor, it
must be said that the goal is not reached. This volume is
an effort to open up as many questions as possible, to sum-
marize definite knowledge where such exists, and to suggest
to high-school teachers the methods which they may adopt
in carrying on this type of study.\

METHODS OP COLLECTING PSYCHOLOGICAL MATERIAL

The writer has found it very productive for himself and
for his students to take in hand some one of the books on
the teaching of a specific high-school subject or some text-
book designed for classroom use, and to read its pages with
the idea of discovering the psychological principles which
the author had in mind, often very vaguely. Conversely,
it is interesting and profitable to assume the attitude of a
teacher of mathematics or history and to read some general

1 C. H. Handschin, "On Methods of Teaching Modern Languages,"
Science, April 18, 1913, N.S., Vol. XXXVII, p. 600.

INTRODUCTION 11

book on psychology for the sake of extracting those psycho-
logical principles which can be applied to the special sub-
ject. Such readings, undertaken with a highly specialized
purpose, raise many interesting and important questions
for the student of high-school problems.

Once a question is raised, the answer can be sought
through systematic observation, including experimentation.
Systematic observation has for the most part been lacking
in school work. For example, teachers visit other schools
than their own for the sake of observing. On arrival in the
strange school, the visitor finds himself absorbed in the
material equipment, in the textbook, in the appearance of
the students, in the personality of the teacher, and in a host
of other externals. The hour passes without any definite
concentration of observation on any single problem. The
case is often quite as bad when one tries to observe his own
students while he tries, at the same time, to do his duty as
a teacher. The effort to keep the class moving and the
urgency of the sheer social situation in the classroom are so
engrossing that the teacher finds the hour past and no psy-
chological observations completed. In the midst of such
distractions the teacher must learn two maxims of scientific
method : first, select one definite point on which to make
observations ; and second, make these observations deliber-
ately for a sufficient period of time to reach some conclu-
sions. Accessory devices are valuable, such as keeping
records and setting up experimental conditions. Thus, in the
matter of drawing in the science class, keep the drawings
and compare them with the rest of the work of each indi-
vidual. In the matter of pronunciation of a foreign language,
have one class which emphasizes pronunciation and another
which does not, keeping the other conditions, so far as possi-
ble, alike. If teachers could be induced to begin systematic
observations in their special lines and to report their find-
ings, the science of educational psychology would flourish.

12 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

*•

Indeed, it is hopeless for the teacher of psychology to
undertake single-handed to do much toward developing a
science of applied psychology. He can raise questions and
formulate suggestions, but the applications, as indicated
above, must be worked out and refined by many workers.
In the past, individual teachers have doubtless reached
many definite and- well-supported conclusions, but these
have been, for the most part, lost because there was no
effort to collect and record them. To-day the teaching pro-
fession is working more and more as a unit, and the time
is at hand when agencies will be developed for bringing
together the scattered findings of many observers. It is the
purpose of the following studies to contribute to this end.
Even disagreement with the conclusions reached can be
accepted as promoting the purposes of the book, provided
these disagreements are supported by observations.

EXACT MEASUREMENT AND SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS

There is one discussion upon which it is appropriate to
touch at this time, in order to create in the minds of teachers
a proper conception of scientific method. An acrimonious
dispute has been carried on in some quarters between prac-
tical school people and the so-called scientific experts re-
garding the possibility of measuring school activities and
evaluating results of teaching in a rigid, scientific way. The
expert calls for exact comparisons with standards and for
tables which show quantitatively how far these standards
are reached. The individual student and the individual
teacher seem to many to be left out of consideration in
these strenuous efforts to attain exactness and a high degree
of generality. Many a teacher is alienated, and refuses to
become a party to scientific study of education because he
does not sympathize with the expert's demands for rigid,
scientific exactness.

INTRODUCTION 13

The writer of these pages is an advocate of exactness
and of rigid, scientific formulation of results, but he is also
an advocate of direct, analytical studies of individual cases.
He believes it is possible to reconcile these two types of
study so that the strict, scientific character of each shall
be apparent.

After all, what is sought in scientific studies of educa-
tion is a thorough understanding of each situation which
arises, fake the case of a boy who is about to leave school.
The teacher may let the boy go without making any effort
to study his case, or may try to find out about the boy's
home conditions, about his expectations of employment,
about the boy's success or failure in his studies, and the
reason for failure if this is one of the causes of withdrawal.
Such a study of a single boy may be most productive. The
difficulty with such a study of a single case is that the
teacher is not likely, without contact with other cases, to
know how to attack the problem, fror example, let us sup-
pose that the boy says that his family needs the money he
can earn. Perhaps this is merely an excuse that the boy
offers himself and his friends, not the real cause of with-
drawal. If the teacher lias at hand a whole series of cases
which have been analyzed on the side of their economic
urgency, he will have standards of economic needs by
which he can determine whether this boy really is forced
to withdraw or is merely falling into this device of justify-
ing his act. Furthermore, if the teacher can show by the
study of many cases that there is a constant tendency in
boys of a certain type and age to become interested in occu-
pations, even when there is no economic stress, he will see
in this particular boy the operation of a general principle.
The teacher will come to realize that this one boy's act is
an indication that the whole school situation needs to be
looked into. Perhaps what is needed is not a reform of the
boy, but a reform of the course of study. This example

14 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

shows that the individual teacher needs to have his hori-
zon extended by general studies in order that his particular
observations may be understood in their true perspective.

ARBITRARY STANDARDS AND SCIENTIFIC STANDARDS

Take another type of illustration. The teacher of science
in a high school has in mind certain standards which he
regards as representing the legitimate requirements to im-
>pose upon his students. The students should be able, he
thinks, to reason, to apply their mathematics, and to look
up information in the library. Several students in the class
cannot do this, and he warns them or puts them out. The
rest of the class struggles through the course and never
elects any more science work. The teacher takes great
pride in his high standard and strong handling of the class.
Very often he has been wrong in his views about students ;
he has been arbitrary and wholly unscientific in his behavior.
If he is a keen observer and of an adaptable temperament,
he will gradually change his methods, and will, with increas-
ing experience, ultimately reach a standard which will be
a compromise between the arbitrary standard with which
he started and the real needs of his students. This slow re-
adjustment could have been greatly facilitated if the teacher
had at the outset investigated his students by some of the
tests which are being developed in every subject. A test is a
means of informing an instructor what students of a certain
degree of maturity can do. The kind of work which in the
long run is best for the school is not determined by a consid-
eration exclusively of the subject to be taught. The students
in one class should be compared with students of other schools
and of other degrees of maturity. The trouble with many
a teacher, especially when he first begins to teach, is that he
does not have a knowledge of students adequate to give him
proper standards of judgment. Standards of judgment are

INTRODUCTION 15

matters of comparative experience, and they must be set
up through observation and comparison of many cases.

The demands for general standards sometimes discourage
teachers, because they realize that the individual teacher
often has no opportunity to make comparisons on a large
scale. There are two considerations which may help to
remove this natural discouragement. First, standards are
being developed through cooperative activity and are be-
coming each year more easily accessible. If teachers will
cooperate in working out these standards and will examine
the work done along these lines, there will shortly be no
lack of comparative material usable by all. Second, and
more important, is the fact that the establishment of
general standards is only one phase of scientific study.
Standards are valuable only when they aid in producing
discriminating analyses of individual cases. Here is a boy
who is failing in algebra. General standards help to sug-
gest various ways of determining the facts in this case,
and the combined experience of algebra teachers would, if
known, undoubtedly suggest possible explanations of the
individual's difficulties. But after all is done and said, this
individual case must be analyzed as an individual case.
In its totality it is not like any other in the world. That
teacher is truly scientific who sits down with all the ex-
perience and suggestions he can gather and focuses these
on this individual case. What this particular boy needs
is perhaps guidance in how to study, or he may need to be
given an outlook into his own future possibilities, or he
may need to go back and review something essential which
he missed, or he may need more physical exercise. What-
ever he needs, he is a case to be diagnosed by a trained
analyst. Science in its applications is here seen to assume
the form of analysis.

Individual teachers are scientific when they acquire the
ability to analyze individual cases. They will usually be

16 'PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

4%

most successful in analyzing individual cases if they work
in the light of general experiences. The teaching profes-
sion becomes scientific when it creates a body of general
standards and principles of analysis which will help the
individual teacher in making individual diagnoses. The
science of education is general, comprehensive, inclusive;
the scientific work of the trained teacher who applies scien-
tific principles must be both comprehensive and penetrat-
ing, both general and analytic. Between the two demands
there is no opposition. The keen analysis of the individual
teacher will aid the comprehensive science; the compre-
hensive study will give the individual teacher the instru-
ments of analysis. There are many cases in which the
general science and the experience of the individual teacher
will nob cover with equal completeness some urgent, con-
crete school problem. We shall then have to get on by the
best guessing of which we are capable. If, however, we
have the true scientific spirit, guessing will be followed
by a careful criticism of the outcome. Even here, where
we are forced to act without the guidance of science, we
can turn the case to the advantage of science by following
up our results.

These comments will serve to illustrate what is meant by
the statement made some paragraphs back that all careful,
systematic studies of school problems are scientific. There
need be no lack of cooperation between the scientist and
the practical teacher. There need be no aloofness on the
part of teachers. Our science of applied psychology is in
the making — any real experience will contribute to its
development. In what degree this is true in the domain
of high-school teaching the following chapters will aim to
demonstrate.

CHAPTER II
PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS IN MATHEMATICS

Mathematics is the best subject with which to open our
studies. In the first place, the practical difficulties which
arise in teaching mathematics bring the courses in this sub-
ject constantly to the attention of all who are interested in
the development of the high school. In the second place,
psychology is better equipped to discuss mathematics than
it is to deal with any other school subject, because the psy-
chology of space perception which throws light on geom-
etry, and the psychology of abstraction which throws light
on algebra, are among the most complete and satisfactory
chapters in psychology.

In dealing with mathematics it will be possible to illus-
trate a number of general methods and typical conclusions.
The reader of these early chapters should be prepared,
therefore, to carry forward many of the discussions to later
subjects, keeping in mind the comment made in the intro-
ductory chapter that the psychology of high-school subjects
is a general science, not merely a series of isolated chapters
on particular subjects.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FAILURES

Mathematics must be recognized as one of the most
difficult subjects in the high-school course. The follow-
ing table gives, in a vivid way, evidence in support of this
statement. It shows the failures and withdrawals in eleven
suburban high schools surrounding Chicago and reveals a
condition which is doubtless typical.

17

18 'PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

NUMBER
OF PUPILS
ENROLLED

NUMBRR

OF PUPILS

WITH-
DRAWN

NUMBER
OF PUPILS

FAILED

PERCENT-

AOE WITH-
DRAWN

PERCENT-
AGE FAILED

TOTAL
Loss

English I

1075
723
627
422

98
57
41

28

109
63
49
20

9.1

7.9
6.5
6.6

9.4

8.7
7.8
4.7

18.5
16.6
14.3
11.3

English II

English III

English IV

Total

2,847

224

241

7.9

8.5

16.4

Algebra I .....

914
386
397
74
73
660
470
188
82
402
249
119
10
238
102
25
12
836
385
279
278
157
278
136
198
360
143
293
208
215
128
154
218
127
233
20
150
139
116
208
75
26
45
41
56

118
54
61
7
7
98
34
10
1
51
17
11
0
20
8
0
4
109
45
23
24
10
29
26
31
60
18
31
26
25
7
13
19
12
7
4
22
9
6
43
6
1
6
1
7

157
44
74
4
3
71
51
7
1
49
11
1
0
18
2
0
0
97
31
11
15
26
38
14
12
59
18
45
14
5
13
0
19
8
3
1
4
4
1
10
3
1
0
3
4

12.9
14.0
15.4
9.5
9.6
14.9
7.2
5.3
1.2
12.7
6.8
9.3
0
9.4
7.8
0
33.3
13.0
11.7
8.3
8.6
6.4
10.5
19.2
15.7
16.7
12.6
10.6
12.5
11.7
5.5
8.5
8.7
9.5
3.0
20.0
14.7
6.5
5.2
20.7
8.0
3.9
11.1
2.4
12.5

17.2
11.4
18.6
5.4
4.1
10.8
10.9
3.7
1.2
12.2
4.4
.8
0
7.6
2.0
0
0
11.6
8.1
3.9
5.4
16.6
13.7
10.3
6.1
16.4
12.6
15.4
6.8
2.3
10.2
0
8.7
6.3
1.3
5.0
2.7
2.9
.9
4.8
4.0
3.9
0
7.2
7.2

30.1
25.4
34.0
14.9
13.7
25.7
18.1
9.0
2.4
24.9
11.2
10.1
0
17.0
9.8
0
.33.3
24.6
19.8
12.2
14.0
23.0
24.2
29.5
21.8
33.1
25.2
26.0
19.3
14.0
15.7
8.5
17.4
15.8
4.3
25.0
17.4
9.4
6.1
25.5
12.0
7.8
11.1
9.6
19.7

Algebra II

Plane geometry . . .
Solid geometry . . .
Trigonometry ....
Latin I
Latin II

Latin III

Latin IV

German I

German II

German III

German IV
French I

French II

French III
Spanish I

Ancient history . . .
Med. and mod. history
U.S. history ....
Physics

Physical geography
Botany

Zoology

Chemistry

Physiology .....

Commercial geography
Commercial arithmetic
Bookkeeping ....
Stenography ....
Typewriting ....
Freehand drawing . .
Mechanical drawing
Science

Design

Hygiene

Household art . . . .
Domestic science I . .
Domestic science II . .
Manual training (wood)
M. T. (forge foundry) .
M. T. (machine shop) .
Pottery

Economics

Civics

NOTE. Quoted from School Review, June, 1913, Vol. XXI, p. 415.

PROBLEMS IN MATHEMATICS 19

The figures given for withdrawals include all who left the
course before the examination. Some withdrew for the reason
that they were failing, but these were not separated from those
who withdrew for reasons unrelated to their scholarship. The
significance of withdrawals, as compared with failures, comes
out in comparison of different classes. Thus compare English I
with Latin I. In many cases the students in English remain in
the course and fail rather than withdraw. This is doubtless due
in part to the fact that English is required of all students. In
Latin, on the other hand, students withdraw after they have tried
the course for a short time. The percentage of withdrawals is
accordingly greater than the percentage of failures. There is a
very surprising percentage of withdrawals in manual training.

The table given above also shows that the mental proc-
esses which the mathematics teacher aims to call out are
less likely to be called out successfully in the average
student than are most of the mental processes with which
the high school deals.

CHANGES IN MATHEMATICAL TEXTBOOKS AND COURSES

Following this clue of the difficulty of mathematics, we
find striking evidences on all sides that the mathematicians
have been trying to make their subject easier. The algebra
textbook of to-day is a less difficult text than was the book
of twenty years ago. In geometry the same process of sim-
plification has been going on. Furthermore, not only have
the individual courses been reduced to a minimum, but the
requirement of mathematics for graduation and for admis-
sion to college has been steadily relaxed. All these facts
bear eloquent testimony to the difficulty of the mathemati-
cal modes of thought for the average student.

While mathematics has thus been gradually reduced,
other questions have naturally arisen. The place of algebra
in the first year has been called in question. The experi-
ment has been tried of putting algebra into the second year,

20. PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

•« (

with distinctly better results. It is to be noted that in this
experiment the students are somewhat more highly selected
because of the withdrawals of the first year, and they have
the advantage of other lines of work which have prepared
them more fully ; but these facts only make it clearer that
algebra in the first year is at least open to question.

HISTORICAL GROUNDS FOK THE POSITION OF GEOMETRY

Historical considerations strengthen the suspicion that
our high-school mathematics is not well arranged. Nothing
is more evident than that algebra is less natural to the
occidental mind than geometry. The Greeks had a vast
knowledge of geometry and very little knowledge of alge-
bra. The knowledge which the Greeks had of geometry was
undoubtedly related to their interest in form and figure.
They were a nation of sculptors, and their wise men formu-
lated the science of angles and areas to the point where it
could take on that rigid logical formulation which Euclid
gave to Greek geometry. While all this interest was being
manifested in form and space, nothing of the modern type
of algebra was known. Indeed, that the simpler science of
numbers was in a most primitive stage, is shown by the
clumsy number system evolved by the Greeks and Romans.

Before we turn to the history of the introduction of alge-
bra into Europe, let us see how it came about that geom-
etry gained the place which it holds as a more advanced
subject than algebra. One would expect geometry to come
early in the school course, in view of the fact that it matured
much earlier than algebra. The fact is that its very per-
fection served to take geometry into the highest schools.
In the university of Alexandria the results of Greek studies
of space were put into logical form by Euclid. This logi-
cal form was also borrowed from Greece, where Aristotle
had evolved that perfect system of syllogistic logic which

PROBLEMS IN MATHEMATICS 21

dominated the whole period of medieval thought. A com-
plete geometry expressed in a perfectly logical form became
one of the chief subjects of the highest 'courses of study.
Studies of space were no longer of the primitive type that
had grown up among the early Greeks. Teachers in the
lower schools have never realized that the union of logic
and space studies deprived them of one of their most natu-
ral subjects of instruction, namely, form-study. The logical
statement of the principles of geometry has blinded modern
as well as medieval teachers to the true worth of this subject
for younger pupils.

ALGEBRA HISTORICALLY OF SECONDARY IMPORTANCE

Algebra, on the other hand, was a late comer. This
science, like modern arithmetic, came into Europe with the
Moors. A little arithmetic had been taught in the lower
schools of Rome and medieval Europe to the shopkeepers,
who needed it for their accounts, and to the priests, who
needed it to compute their calendars. It was not until
Europe learned the Arabic numerals that a real science of
arithmetic became possible. With the new arithmetic came
also a close relative, namely, algebra. Algebra, as a late
coiner and as a relative of arithmetic, took second place in
the universities and high schools as compared with geom-
etry ; and second place meant, curiously enough, an earlier
place in the course of study, no one having insight enough
to raise the psychological question of the true intellectual
sequence of the two subjects.

This historical sketch shows how utterly lacking in
rational, psychological arrangement has been the school
course in mathematics. It is at least thinkable that algebra
ought to follow geometry. Indeed, one reads in the books
on the teaching of mathematics discussions which suggest
that even the mathematicians have at times had guilty

22 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

consciences about the matter.1 To the psychologist who
has no interest in following the traditional order of the
course of study it seems important to raise a series of
psychological questions. Why did the Greeks develop
geometry early? Why did the logical form which geom-
etry took on fail to develop in later generations the vivid
interest in space and the keen perception of space exhibited
by the early Greeks ? What is there in algebra and geom-
etry which justifies the classification of the two under the
single term " mathematics " ? Is the relation between arith-
metic and algebra recognized by the ordinary high-school
student? If teachers find that arithmetic does not easily
carry over into algebra, how was it that arithmetic and
algebra were related in their early history when they were
not associated with geometry ? Are algebra and geometry
related in the thought of students? The mere asking of
these questions shows how rich is the opportunity for psy-
chological analysis of high-school courses in mathematics.

INTEBKELATION OF ALGEBRA AND GEOMETRY

Perhaps the most significant psychological questions are
those which arise out of the fact that the mathematicians
recognize all of the different branches of these sciences as
interrelated, while students do not. Descartes showed that
algebra and geometry are parts of a single system of thought.
What is it that is common to the two subjects? The
schools and historical development have kept them apart,
and now, in the effort to follow the suggestions of the
mathematicians, there is a new and vigorous movement to
bring them together.2 In Europe, especially in England,

1 A. Schultze, The Teaching of Mathematics in Secondary Schools,
p. 289. The Macmillan Company, 1912.

2 E. H. Moore, w On the Foundations of Mathematics," School Review,
1908, Vol. II, p. 621. Numerous references are given to the writings
of advocates of combination.

PROBLEMS IN MATHEMATICS 23

and at several centers in America, combinations of one sort
or another have been attempted. If these combinations are
to be ultimately successful, they must be based on some
clear and explicit principle. This principle must be a
psychological principle, for the combination of the two
subjects is intended to produce some sort of intellectual
advantage to the student. What is this advantage?

THE PROBLEM OF APPLICATION

Another interesting psychological question arises when
we consider the problem of applying mathematics to other
spheres of thought and action. Experience shows in the
most discouraging way that a student may know his algebra
and geometry and not know how to apply mathematics to
physics or to certain practical shop problems. Evidently
one is not performing the same mental process when he
masters a mathematical formula and when he uses it. This
suggests the study of the psychology of applications.

In seeking answers to the psychological problems which
have been stated in the last few pages, we shall begin by
summarizing the conclusions which general psychology
has reached in its studies of space perception. We shall
thus have the advantage, as pointed out above, of being
in a field where psychology can speak with a good deal
of definiteness.

CHAPTER III
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPACE

SPACE A COMPLEX FORM OF EXPERIENCE

Most people who have not studied the character of their
space experiences assume that all one needs to do in order
to see distance or form is to open his eyes and look. A
very little consideration will, however, convince even the
superficial observer that this is not true. The ordinary
man sees maple trees and elm trees and apple trees, and
does not notice that each of these kinds of trees has a
characteristically different form. We all'of us look at the
houses in which we live, but the chances are infinitely
large that we do not notice many of the facts of form
which come out immediately if we pause for a moment
and look with careful discrimination. As for distance,
we all know that the judgment of the ordinary person
is very crude. Every novice at baseball knows that he
has very little power of recognizing distances ; and the
false estimations which result when one goes from the moist
air of the seashore to the dry, clear air of the mountains
have been commented on again and again. Furthermore,
the sizes of things are constantly misjudged. The house
which seems so huge to the little child shrinks into very
modest dimensions in the consciousness of the man. The
colossal statue disappoints the tourist when he first sees it
from a distance. Men and horses seen from a high build-
ing fascinate one with their curious littleness.

Perhaps the most striking way of reenforcing these
commonplace examples of the fact that space is not seen

24

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPACE 25

by merely opening the eyes is to report a laboratory experi-
ment, which shows how the recognition of a simple form
develops through a few repeated observations.

EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF SPACE PERCEPTION1

When a pattern is ten times in succession laid before an
observer for ten-second intervals and his successive efforts
to reproduce the pattern are compared, there is often very
striking evidence of the development which has taken place
during the ten drawings, but it is extremely difficult to
prepare a table or curve which will adequately demonstrate
these facts of development. In order to make clear the
character of the results and at the same time illustrate
some of the most significant characteristics of the drawing,
two series of drawings are reproduced in Fig. 1. These re-
productions are one sixteenth the size of the actual draw-
ings. The figure shows two full series from observers
F and W. Above the two series of drawings from these
observers is shown the pattern which they were trying to
reproduce.

Considering series J., which is from subject F, certain
facts regarding the subject's perceptual development are
very evident. The first drawing is correct in general out-
line, but very vague in its details. The subject has here a
percept comparable to that which most persons have of an
object which has been observed superficially but not exam-
ined in detail. The face of a comparative stranger, for ex-
ample, or the forms of a plant or wall-paper pattern are first
recognized in gross general outline. Drawing II shows
progress, in that the details now begin to be correctly repro-
duced. The first part of the figure has evidently received

1 C. H. Judd and Donald J. Cowling, f f Studies in Perceptual Develop-
ment," Monograph Supplement No. 34, of the Psychological Beview, June,
1907, pp. 352-356.

26 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

•»

not merely a vague general inspection, but has been
examined in detail. The slow rate at which the details of
a percept are recognized is here strikingly illustrated, in the

'VTTT

or

Jl

m.

TSL

3CT

TTTT

FIG. 1

fact that an adult who is perfectly familiar with lines of
this character does not succeed in ten seconds in clearing
up more than five lines. Furthermore, the fourth and fifth
lines are sufficiently different from the pattern to be recog-
nized as rough approximations rather than fully recognized

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPACE 27

details. The general form of the figure is maintained while
the details of the first part are being worked out. In draw-
ing III is illustrated a fact which comes out time and time
again with almost every subject. There appears in the
course of perceptual development a certain point where
readjustment of the recognition of the parts is so actively
under way that if the subject is interrupted before the re-
adjustment is complete, the reproduction shows the great-
est confusion. Thus, in drawing III what had been gained
in drawing II seems to be wholly lost. Moreover, the gen-
eral form of the figure which was approximated in the first
drawing is here much less correctly reproduced than in
either of the preceding figures. Such a poor reproduction
as that in drawing III must be recognized as very striking
evidence of the complexity of the perceptual process. The
explanation of the period of confusion can be made out
very clearly in this case by an examination of drawing IV
and reference to the subject's introspections. The intro-
spective record is as follows : " There is a succession of
straight and curved lines, but their order is very confused
in my mind. I think there should be more curves, especially
at the end." The essential point is in this reference to the
end. From drawing IV it is evident that the subject is try-
ing to straighten out the confusion at the right end. The
right end of the figure was vague in drawings I and II. In
II the first part of the figure was mastered. In turning to
the right end the confusion arises, as shown in drawing III.
The subject has not had time in drawing III to master the
right end. This is finally accomplished in drawing IV, but
the attention is withdrawn from the general form of the
figure and from the first part of the drawing in the effort
to work out the last part. Drawing III is a very striking ex-
ample of the difficulty of any single test of mental ability.
Without drawings I, II, and IV a very false notion would
be gained of the subject's mental condition from III.

28 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

Drawing IV shows, as has been pointed out, the mastery
of the end of the drawing. It also shows that the subject
has mastered a general characteristic of the figure, which
consists in the alternation of curved and straight lines.
The introspective records show that this principle has been
explicitly recognized. That the perceptual record of the
first part of the figure is wholly incorrect shows what is
certainly a general tendency in adult mental processes,
namely, the tendency to generalize perceptual experiences
under some abstract statement and to neglect the perceptual
details out of which the abstract statement grew. The sub-
ject of these tests must have seen the succession of straight
lines and curves, but was evidently more attracted by the
abstract relational fact of succession than by the concrete
forms of the parts of the figure. The concrete relations
were recognized only at the end of the figure toward which
perceptual attention had been definitely attracted.

Drawing V shows the mastery of the figure. Its relation
to the earlier processes of distribution of attention, of mas-
tery of parts, of confusion and recognition of the general
principle of alternation is sufficiently obvious from what
has been said. This drawing could not be understood at
all if it had been preceded merely by drawing IV or by III
and IV. The mastery of the first part of the drawing, as
shown in drawing II, is an essential part of the preparation
for drawing V. Though the elements mastered in drawing
II have been for a time neglected in drawing III and IV, they
can be more easily recovered than at first. In drawing II
there is evidence that if the subject attended to the first
part of the figure, he could not at the same time include
in a single process of recognition the last part of the figure.
Putting the matter in quantitative terms, we may say that
the scope of perceptual consciousness, as evidenced in draw-
ing II, is three clear lines and two vague lines. In drawing
V the first five lines are recovered with sufficient ease so

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPACE 29

that the scope of perceptual consciousness extends over all
seven lines. The greater inclusiveness of perceptual con-
sciousness in drawing V gives evidence of a facilitation in
some degree of the perception of the first five lines ; and
since this facilitation did not occur during the period occu-
pied in drawings III and IV, it must have been carried over
from the period of drawing II.

The remaining drawings of this series show certain de-
tails which are typical. Thus the angle of line three dete-
riorates instead of improves through the later drawings of
the series. This may be connected with the fact that the
greatest error in all the later drawings is to be found in
the angle of line four. There is very noticeable variation
in the position of line four. In drawing VIII it is better than
in drawing VII, but in IX it is again worse than in
drawing VIII. In drawing X there is a very decided
improvement in the position of line four. There is, on the
other hand, in drawing X, not merely the deterioration
of line three noted above, but also a very marked lapse
in the length of line six. Other similar facts will be
obvious from the drawings.

The various lapses and slight improvements in the last
five drawings show very clearly why there is so little im-
provement in our ordinary perception of complex figures.
Attention is from moment to moment fastened upon this
or that detail of the figure and there is a corresponding
withdrawal of attention from some other part. The com-
plete mastery of all the details is therefore a long process.
In most ordinary experiences the interval between obser-
vations is so long that the lapses more than make up for
the periods of improvement, and so we have merely crude
approximations to complete and correct percepts.

Another general fact shown by the series as a whole is
that the size of the figures is throughout too large. Indeed,
there was a very general tendency, on the part of all the

30 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

subjects to make mistakes in the size of the drawings. The
significant fact in this immediate connection is that the sub-
ject was in no case conscious of the error in size. That is
evidently a matter upon which attention must be especially
directed. While attention is on the various lines and their
positions, there is little attention for size.

SPACE PERCEPTION A COMPLEX

The foregoing discussion makes it clear that the recog-
nition of form and distance develops in the course of expe-
rience. We now turn to the demonstration of a second
general fact with regard to space perception. The recog-
nition of distance and form depends upon the bringing
together or fusion in consciousness of many sensory ele-
ments. Let the reader try the simple experiment of cover-
ing and uncovering one eye while observing carefully the
distance in depth between the objects before him. He will
note how his recognition of distance is affected by the pres-
ence of sensations from both eyes in the one case, and by
the withdrawal of part of his usual sensations in the other
case. When he sees with only one eye, the world seems to
flatten out into a single plane ; when both eyes are open, the
objects stand out in clear relief, showing the importance of
the two sets of sensations derived from the two eyes for
a clear recognition of depth.

FURTHER EXAMPLES OF COMPLEX PERCEPTIONS
OF SPACE

Other examples could be cited without end to prove the
statement regarding the complexity of the sensory processes
on which we depend for our recognition of form. One of
these examples which is easy to present on the printed page
may be added, in order to reenf orce the conclusion reached

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPACE 31

by comparing one-eyed vision with two-eyed vision. First
look at two equal horizontal lines such as the following,
and note how easy it is to recognize their equality.

FIG. 2

Then add oblique lines at the ends of the horizontals, and
note how the added lines have not merely contributed more
experience ; they have also changed the apparent length of
the horizontals, showing that so simple a mental process as
the recognizing of the length of lines can be complicated
by added sensations which come from contiguous lines.

FIG. 3

In general, all lines and forms are seen in their settings,
and are influenced by these settings. Or putting the prin-
ciple in the terms in which it was originally stated, every
space percept is a complex made up of many elements.

RELATION OF PERCEPTION TO SENSATION

From the foregoing statement, that space percepts are
sensation complexes, we turn to a more difficult and abstract
matter. Space may be defined negatively by saying that it is
not a kind of sensation. Thus space is not color. One can
lay before his eyes variously colored squares which are alike
in their distance from the eye and alike in their contours,

32 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

but different in their colors. The spatial characteristics
of these squares — that is, their forms and distances — are
alike, but their colors are different. In like fashion it can
be shown that space is not a touch sensation. I can reach
out with my hand and touch these squares. If I keep my
eyes shut as I reach, the distances and forms which a moment
ago were perceived through the eyes will be perceived
through the sense of touch without color. The distance
will be recognized as the same as the distance seen, and the
form as the same as that which was recognized with the
eyes, but the sensory elements will be those of touch rather
than of vision. Furthermore, distance and form are not
only not identical with color sensations, they are quite as
emphatically not identical with pressure impressions, with
smoothness and hardness, or with coldness and muscular
strain. We find thus that space is a type of experience into
which vision or touch or other sensory qualities may enter,
but space is not one of these sensory qualities.

At times psychology has been disposed to find in sensa-
tions of movement the explanation of space perception.
The sensations from joints and muscles have been looked
upon as the important factors in building up notions of
space. This emphasis of sensations of movement does not
contradict the statement that space is not identical with
these sensations. If movements help to build up space
ideas, it still remains true that the space scheme is com-
prehensive enough to include also sensations from touch,
vision, hearing, and other senses.

The foregoing statement can be reenforced by calling
attention to the fact that some sensory quality must always
be present when we perceive form or distance. These spatial
characteristics of things are no substitutes for sensory qual-
ities. Thus, let one try to think of empty space : it will be
noted that attention tends to fasten upon the wall around
the empty space. Or if one tries to think of the middle of

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPACE 33

a vacuum, there will be a vague gray visual content filling
the space. All these positive factors can be changed in
quality, and yet the space may remain the same. Again try
to think of infinite space : one moves on till he reaches in
imagination a distant cloud, and after pausing a moment he
moves on again through the vaguely seen gray distance.
The man born blind, who has never seen clouds, represents
infinite space in his imagination as the experience of swim-
ming on and on without stopping. All these examples show
that space is not identical with sensation ; yet, on the other
hand, it is never experienced except when sensations are
present to fill it or surround it.

SPACE A RELATIONAL FORM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

The statement for which we are now prepared is that
space is a species of relational consciousness ; it is a mode
of arranging sensations. Thus, when one notes the distance
between two points he has a conscious experience of transi-
tion from one point to the other. During this transition he
may see a white or black surface, or he may feel his arm
moving, or he may recognize that his finger is passing over
a rough or smooth surface. The sensations of color or touch
which fill one's consciousness are stepping stones for one's
spatial consciousness. The space perception itself is the
stride from one sensory element to the next. Space is a
relational fact, not a new sensation. As a relational form
of consciousness space has certain characteristics which are
like those exhibited in the higher forms of experience.
Consciousness of transition is a general term which may
apply to a great many different kinds of experience. Thus,
I think not only of transition from near to far ; I think of
transition from a sad feeling to one of rejoicing. Wherever
my experiences show gradations and I can note the tran-
sition from one gradation to the other, I have a form of

34 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

consciousness which is similar to space in the fact that
it is relational.

Space is the most fundamental, direct, and familiar form
of relational consciousness. The only other relational con-
sciousness which is anything like as familiar as space is
time. We shall not complicate the present discussion by
attempting to describe the nature of time-consciousness. It
is enough for our present purpose to note that space and
time are the two universal forms in which all sensory facts
appear in experience.

Some reader may be wondering why the discussion of
space is carried on in terms of consciousness. Why not
talk about space as the receptacle in which all the things
in the world are contained ? Why not treat space as an
external reality of a superior order embracing all the objects
in the world ? The answer to these questions is that the
consideration of space as an external receptacle leaves us
absolutely in the dark as to how it is known by human
beings. We have a sense which explains our experiences
of light and color. We have another sense for sounds, and
another for touch qualities, and so on, through the whole
list of qualitative experiences, but we have no sense through
which we can get knowledge of a receptacle in which objects
are contained. Empty space has no positive characteristics
which it can impress on the mind. One could admit the
existence of an external receptacle in which things are
contained, and he would still have before him the prob-
lem. How is this receptacle known? How does it get
into the mind?

In attempting to answer the question how space gets
into the mind, psychology has been led to the statements
made in earlier paragraphs. Space is recognized through
the building up of a series of relations in consciousness.
We pass from one object to another, the intervening sen-
sations get themselves organized into a system or series of

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPACE 35

related experiences, and then we speak of space as the rela-
tional aspect of the whole. We can talk about space as
though it were empty. As a matter of real experience
space is recognized as the transition from one object to
another. It is the form or order in which objects are
arranged. Empty space is not a really recognized fact ; it
is what remains if we think of all sensations as dropped
out of our real percepts.

THE GENESIS OF SPACE IDEAS

These statements will become clearer if we study briefly
the development of the child's recognition of space. If one
touches an infant of six months of age on the back of the
head, the infant will get a sensation. He will respond by
trying to put his hand on the stimulated spot, but he does
not know where the sensation is, and shows that he does not
know by his irregular and ill-directed movements. The
infant has no spatial scheme in which he relates this sensa-
tion to other sensations. As his experience matures he
learns that this particular sensation has a definite relation
to many other sensations from other points on his body.
He learns that each sensation calls for a particular move-
ment of his hand, and he thus learns where the back of the
head is. He has learned to recognize the relation of sensa-
tions from the back of his head to the rest of his world.

Another example of learning to locate objects can be
drawn from the experience of the tennis player. He gets a
series of visual impressions as the ball comes toward him.
These he meets with a complex reaction of his arm and
hand or of his whole body. When he strikes the ball, he
has successfully worked out a most complex adjustment of
all the factors of vision and touch, using these to guide his
motor organs. If he does not meet the ball, he exhibits the
difficulty of relating the various factors of experience to

36 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

each other, and the difficulty of moving his hands properly
when experience is imperfectly organized.

The foregoing examples show the importance of bodily
movements in the development of space percepts. The
infant learns the parts of his body by moving his hand to
them ; the tennis player learns to locate ball and hand by
trying to move properly. So significant is movement for
space recognition that some psychologists, as mentioned
above, have held the view that space is a series of move-
ment sensations coming from the joints and muscles. It is
not necessary to enter into further critical discussion of this
doctrine here; enough to remark once more that the im-
portance of movement sensations can be fully recognized,
and there yet remains the problem of explaining how all
other sensations — colors, touch qualities, sounds, and the
rest — come to be included in a single space scheme. Space,
whatever the value of muscle sensations, is always some-
thing more than these sensations — it is a general form of
consciousness in which muscle sensations, visual sensations,
and all other sensations are arranged.

SPACE AND MOVEMENT

Indeed, we may go a step farther than do the muscle-
sensation psychologists, in emphasizing the importance of
movement for the development of space perception. Move-
ment is more than a mere source of sensations; it is a
constant check on all our efforts to arrange our sensa-
tions in the space form. If one sees a book on the table
and, estimating its distance, reaches for it, he will, by the
act of reaching, instantly prove his visual recognition of
distance to be right or wrong. We are thus constantly im-
proving our visual evaluation of the space relations within
which we move. Things within our reach get properly
related to each other and to our bodies, because if they did

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPACE 37

not we should fail in our practical adjustments. The world
immediately under our hands gets organized in this prac-
tical way with a high degree of completeness. This appears
in the fact that we recognize the spatial relations of the
things near at hand more fully than we recognize the spatial
relations of things remote.

Furthermore, space, as we know it through the practical
organization of responses to sensations, reflects all the
mechanical laws of weight and movement, because as we
learn to relate our experiences in space we are constantly

FIG. 4

under the guidance of mechanical laws. For example, let
the observer decide which of the three figures given above
(Fig. 4) he prefers. He will inevitably choose the third,
because the two black spots do not balance mechanically
in the first two figures. The recognition of the lack of
balance is in one sense not a matter of space perception ;
in another and important sense it is quite impossible for
one to see the spatial relation between the two black spots
without evaluating this relation in terms both of spatial
distance and mechanical balance.

Space perception is thus seen to include the results of
many of our practical adjustments to objects about us.

38 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

Conversely, when we have no practical motives for detailed
adjustments to objects and sensations, we are likely to be
deficient in space perception. Thus, as mentioned above,
the ordinary man sees people when looked at from a high
building as small. Most of us have never had occasion to
perfect our space perception of objects far below us.

Another significant fact is that certain of our spatial
percepts remain imperfect because the kind of practical
adjustments into which these percepts enter do not require
that we pay close attention to spatial details. Thus I see
the face of my friend and recognize only so much of the
spatial details of his features as I need to keep him distinct
from other people. I do not explore his features as I should
have to if I wanted to draw his face. My experience has
developed only so far as my practical efforts have required.

The example becomes still more striking if we consider
the lack of space perception which oife exhibits in the
presence of persons whom he passes on the street and neg-
lects because their faces are not familiar. One scarcely
sees the details of these faces at all.

From such examples as these we see that the degree of
spatial analysis depends directly upon the kind of use
which one is going to make of his sensations. The artist
makes one kind of analysis of a mass of sensations, the
familiar friend makes another, the stranger a third.

UNIVERSAL CHARACTERISTICS OF SPACE PERCEPTS

Whatever the individual differences in our perceptions of
space relations, there are certain respects in which we all
agree. Thus all human beings look at the world from an
upright position. As a result we all recognize a vertical
line as having unique value as a line of reference. What-
ever departs from the vertical is recognized with vividness.
On the other hand, a few degrees of deviation from an

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPACE 39

angle of forty-five degrees or from an angle of sixty de-
grees are recognized very imperfectly. The vertical line is
a fact of major importance in the experience of all human
beings. In like fashion the experiences described by the
words " up " and " down " have a distinct and common
value for all human beings. The same is true of the words
" backward " and " forward."

Jennings has given a striking illustration of the fact that
one human being is more like another human being in mat-
ters of space experience than like some of the lower animals.
Take, for example, the starfish. For this animal there is no
forward and backward. His radial structure makes every
direction a forward direction. If one wishes to put the star-
fish in a position where its experiences and movements will be
analogous to ours, one may turn it over ; then the distinction
between right side up and bottom side up appears as a fun-
damental distinction in the experience and behavior of the
starfish, but for the starfish there is no forward and backward.

The universal characteristics of space perception arising
from our common human structures give us all a sufficiently
definite basis for understanding the spatial experiences of
others, so that we overlook our individual differences and
think of space as alike for all human beings. Indeed, in
ordinary intercourse we think of space as quite as real and
independent of individual perception as is light or sound
vibration. To be sure, when a layman compares his per-
ception of space with that of the artist, the layman realizes
that he is deficient in a sphere where the artist is expert ;
but even with this difference in mind the layman knows
that in fundamental characteristics his perception of space
is like that of the artist. In other words, .human nature

**** ' ~ -±>Lm " ********

being what it is, all men are fundamentally alike in the
essentials of space relations.

It is an interesting speculation to consider what must

hp thp form of PYnpripnpp nf snfl,pp nf a. hirrl nr nf a flvi'ncr

40 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

squirrel. The ordinary standards of comparison with our
fixed vertical must be replaced by wholly different standards.

Again we can gain a more vivid conception of the char-
acter of our own space world by imagining such contrasts
as are presented to us by the non-Euclidean geometricians.
Our space is three-dimensional. Imagine a race of intelli-
gent shadows confined in their movements to a world
limited to the surface of a table. To such beings many
of our movements through the third dimension would be
absolutely unintelligible. If, for example, a shadow living
on the surface of a table could observe the fact that I take
a book from the table and bring it down on the other side
of him, he would be at a loss to know how the book could
disappear from his world and then reenter it at a new point.

These contrasts with human space perception give some
insight into the importance of the statement that all human
beings are fundamentally alike in their space perceptions.

PSYCHOLOGICAL GROUNDS OF THE FORMAL CHARACTER

OF GEOMETRY

Another fact regarding space which is of great moment
to the student of geometry depends on the general principle
that space is not a particular kind of sensation, but a gen-
eral scheme within which all sensations can be arranged.
We can accordingly study space relations with the aid of
any available objects. Thus, if one wishes to study the effect
of rotating one object around another, he does not have to
secure any particular objects. He can use outline figures
on the blackboard, or the books which lie on his table, or
carefully constructed geometrical models. Space is thus a
very simple kind of experience to demonstrate. The man
who is blind can understand space relations just as com-
pletely as the man who sees. Even the fact that the blind
man is limited in the range of his space perceptions does

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPACE 41

not prevent him from deriving from his limited world all
of the broader notions of space. Space is a relational aspect
of experience and appears in the same fundamental forms,
whatever the sensory contents which are brought into the
relation.

In fact, space is so easy to express and demonstrate that
it becomes in mental life the standard experience in terms
of which we describe many other relational experiences.
Thus, when we wish to make a statement about our feelings,
although they are absolutely unspatial, we speak of them
as elevating or depressing. When we talk about values
we describe them as high or low. We speak of all men
in a democracy as on the same level. These expressions
show how dominant in human life is this vivid, relational
experience of space.

Not merely in crude popular thought is space the typical
and most readily demonstrated relational experience ; in
the most exact science, space is used as the convenient
medium of expressing all relations. If the physicist wishes
to describe the weights which can be carried by steel or
concrete of different grades, he assembles all his facts into
a graph. The graph shows the whole series of varying
relations. The economist shows by using a graph how stocks
and bonds fluctuate from day to day and from week to
week. These uses of space as a means of expressing non-
spatial facts show, first, that space is a relational fact,
for otherwise it could not express all the other relational
facts which are put into graphs ; second, that space is the
most directly perceived and familiar relational fact in
human experience. They explain also the unique impor-
tance of the science of space as the science dealing with
the most familiar and readily demonstrated relational fact
in conscious experience. They also explain the fact that
geometry is so often mistaken for logic.

42 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

HIGHER FORMS OF REASONING APPLIED TO SPACE

Before we turn to the study of geometry we must carry
our psychological analysis one step further. Geometry em-
ploys certain forms of comparison which are of a higher
mental order than space perception itself. Thus I can say of
two squares that they are alike in form. The recognition
of likeness is of a higher type than the mere recognition of
the square as a spatial form. I can say of a triangle that it
has three sides. Here I have exercised a power of analysis
on my spatial experience and have compared this three-sided
figure with other figures of more or less numerous sides.
Enumeration of parts, with its attending analysis, is a process
of comparison differing from mere recognition of form.

GO

FIG. 5

The foregoing remark can be amplified by examples of
comparison at various levels of difficulty. Thus, if I recog-
nize that the two figures A and B (Fig. 5) are alike in form,
I make a very direct comparison which is hardly more
elaborate than the direct recognition of the figures com-
pared. But if I try to compare figures C and D and ask
whether they are alike in form, I find that I am in difficulty,
because the figures are complex ; and exact comparison re-
quires a minute discrimination which in turn requires a very
detailed recognition of the figure, possibly even a counting
of the sides. Comparison in the latter case will require
methods which were not necessary in dealing with A and B.

These cases show us that direct perception of form and
higher comparisons or scientific study of forms belong to
different levels of mental life. To see a triangle is one

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPACE 43

experience; to discover its properties by analysis and
comparison with other figures is another level of thought,
involving forms of relational consciousness higher than
space perception. Undoubtedly one's perceptions of figures
will be influenced by his scientific study ; that is, one who
has studied a pentagon will recognize it more readily and
more fully than the observer who has not studied it ; but
study and recognition, though mutually interdependent, are
different in character.

That study and direct recognition are riot the same
appears from the fact that two persons may gain intimate
knowledge of the same form by two wholly different routes.
Thus the practical carpenter who repeatedly cuts out a
certain form in wood will come to know this shape inti-
mately. When he sees the familiar form in other settings he
may recognize it at once. In like degree the geometrician
may cultivate intimate knowledge of the same form and may
recognize this form wherever it turns up. The two men
may both see the form with something like the same detail
and accuracy. They will, however, differ absolutely in the
types of experience which attach to their percepts. To one
the recognition of the shape suggests the tool which cuts out
the figure ; to the other the shape suggests ideas of angles
to be measured and lines to be projected into infinity. The
percepts hi the two cases have entirely different connec-
tions and relations, though the accuracy with which they are
recognized is the same.

SPACE PERCEPTION AND SCIENCE OF SPACE

We may think of one's space percepts, therefore, as a
result of those mental processes which from earliest child-
hood have contributed to one's recognition of form and
distance ; or we may think of space percepts of lines and
figures as the raw material to be taken up by higher forms

44 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

of comparison into the sphere of a scientific study of spatial
characteristics. Considered as a product of contact with
things, space perception is an organized arrangement of
sensory qualities in a series; considered as material for
scientific study, space is a group of facts to be analyzed
and compared with a view to defining more fully the remote
and less obvious characteristics of particular figures. This
contrast may be made clear by pointing out one of the prob-
lems encountered by the teacher of solid geometry. Many a
student has difficulty with solid geometry because he does
not know what the flat figure on the page means. His
teacher expects him to have in mind a solid object filling
three-dimensional space. He cannot supply the three-
dimensional idea. It is therefore impossible for him to go
on intelligently with the study of the solid object. He does
not have the space idea needed to furnish the raw material
for scientific studies. Writers on the teaching of geometry
have urged that it is a mistake to give models and photo-
graphs to students when they are studying solid geometry.
The writer saw this pedagogical doctrine carried one step
further by a teacher who did not draw even the flat figures
of plane geometry on the board, but required the members
of the class to keep the figure in mind after it had been
drawn by a movement of the hand in the air before them.
This teacher's contention was that reasoning about figures
was more exact if the students had the figure in their heads.

TEACHING OF GEOMETRY INVOLVES A VARIETY OF
PROCESSES

Whether we accept the verdict of those who object to
concrete forms as aids in the study of geometry or not, one
fact is certainly clear : there are two problems involved in a
geometrical demonstration — first, there is the problem of
making sure that the student has clearly in mind the figure

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SPACE 45

which is being discussed; second, there is the problem of
studying the figure. If the student does not know the figure,
or if he cannot hold it in mind, he cannot perform the later,
more complex mental operations of dealing with the figure.
If one has the figure in mind, then the real business of the
science of geometry can begin. The science of geometry
undertakes an analysis and comparison of figures, and in-
volves higher forms of consciousness than those which are
cultivated in the perception of forms and distances; but
it requires a high degree of space perception before the
student can take up scientific analysis and comparison.3
_ The conclusions reached in this chapter prepare the way
for a psychological study of geometry and of the relations
both of space perception and geometrical analyses to other
types of thought, especially those which appear in the
sciences of arithmetic and algebra. By way of summary it
should be borne in mind that the recognition of space is a
complex psychological process which develops in the course
of individual contact with the world, especially through
movements in the world. Space is not a form of sensation
and is not dependent on any single group of sensations. It
is a relational type of consciousness. As the most vivid type
of relational experience, and as one which can be reproduced
through our own rearrangements of any convenient objects,
it serves as the pattern for the expression of all other
relational forms of experience. Space is in turn capable
of analysis and comparison ; and through these higher
forms of study, space perception is itself refined and
clarified and is made the object of an elaborate science.

CHAPTER IV
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRY

SOURCES OF MATERIAL

In attempting to make a psychological analysis of geometry
there are several possible sources of material : first, we may
take a textbook prepared for the use of students, and note
the mental processes which the successive exercises are in-
tended to call out ; second, we may attend class exercises in
the subject, and give attention to the mental processes of
the students, noting incidentally the mental processes of the
teacher and his ability to recognize what is going on in the
minds of his students ; third, we may go through the vari-
ous books which have been written on the teaching of
geometry, noting the problems which are there discussed
and the solutions offered by the various writers.

TEXTBOOK METHOD OF EXEMPLIFYING SPACE

The textbook in geometry which we shall use for the
purpose of this study1 begins with a series of definitions of
the terms which are to be employed. On the first page is
the figure of a cube. The figure is a less complete basis for
direct perception than a real cube would be, because it is
two-dimensional ; but with all of its limitations it furnishes
a concrete perceptual basis for the study. We pause to note
that space is one of the simplest materials to present to
students. Most sciences have to collect their materials at

1 G. A. Wentworth, Elements of Plane and Solid Geometry (edition of
1889). Ginn and Company.

46

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRY 47

some cost of time and energy, but space is everywhere
•available. The figure of a cube allows the author to begin
with a definite concrete example of that which his science
is to study. By looking at the figure given in the book and
by reading the text, the student is led to recognize the fact
that the cube has a number of different surfaces, lines, and
points. The psychological process which is here involved
is a process of analysis; the parts are distinguished. As
soon as the student distinguishes the parts of the figure, the
definitions draw his attention to the fact that the different
parts of this figure have different characteristics as well as
different appearances. Thus a side or surface is different
from an edge or line.

VALUE OF VERBAL DISCUSSIONS

The words used in the definition have a double value:
first, they direct the attention of the student so that he
selects certain aspects of his percept for attentive consid-
eration ; second, the text helps the student to substitute
words for his percepts. The use of words instead of figures
makes it possible to carry on later discussions in a way
which would not have been possible if space images alone
were employed. Words are more readily compared, and
space ideas which have been turned into words are by
this translation made ready for new and higher nonspatial
comparisons. Thus the word " line " may be put into all
kinds of sentence relations ; it is a more plastic element
of experience than is a linear figure.

In a later chapter we shall have opportunity to comment
more fully on the flexibility of verbal ideas and upon the
fact that the human mind tends to carry on all its higher
processes in verbal form. At the moment we must be satis-
fied to note that the association of space ideas with words
raises the mental processes of the student to a level where

48 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

scientific comparisons are rendered easier. This fact is illus-
trated by the use to which the verbal ideas are put, even
in the preliminary definitions. Thus we come very soon
to the statement that a line has only one dimension, namely,
length. Here the student is called upon not only to relate
a visual image of a line to a word, but he is called upon to
strip the visual image of certain of its obvious characteris-
tics. He knows that every real line which he sees has
breadth and thickness ; but he must learn that it is not
the purpose of the student of geometry to give attention
at any time to the breadth and thickness of the particular
lines with which he has to deal. Words, therefore, help
the student to carry his analysis beyond the figure as it is
presented to his senses. This ability to go beyond the real
experiences in the interests of a special scientific study
we call abstraction. The use of words in geometry, there-
fore, is an example of one of those higher forms of thought
which were discussed in the last chapter, when it was
pointed out that space is not only recognized, but is also
compared with other experiences for the purpose of bring-
ing out characteristics which can be apprehended only
through higher forms of thought.

SPECIAL SCIENTIFIC SYMBOLS

The first page of definitions furthermore exhibits a de-
vice whereby the student's attention may be fixed upon
certain parts of a figure through the use of symbols, which
are even simpler than words. One corner of the cube is
designated by the letter A, another by the letter J?, and so
on. We have here a technical kind of terminology which
is created for the purposes of geometrical study. The ter-
minology is relatively simple from one point of view. It
avoids such circumlocutions as this: "that surface of a
cube which is turned directly toward the observer," or " the

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRY 49

corner of the cube which appears at the lower right-
hand side of the page." Rather than use these long and
clumsy descriptive phrases, the author uses a single letter
or series of letters. By putting letters on the figure, and
using them in the later discussions, he gives a perfectly
clear designation to the parts of the figure with which he
wishes to deal. Such letters are, however, dependent for
their interpretation on the figures to which they are at-
tached. Unless one has the figure before him or in mind,
he will not be able to use the letters. The word ft line " or
the word "surface" each has a meaning which is independ-
ent of any particular figure or any particular connection
in which it may be employed. It is therefore a general
term, or a meaningful term, for all connections ; but the
letter A is a specific term relating to a specific figure, useful
as a technical abbreviation, but not significant when taken
out of the particular connection in which it is given. Every
teacher of geometry knows the disastrous consequences
which follow when a student fails to keep together in
thought the letter and the figure to which it properly
relates. Words are in a measure open to a like objection
— that the student sometimes goes astray because word
and meaning get separated ; but a letter, for the reasons
given, is much more in danger of losing its connection.

ABSTRACT IDEAS

Especial attention should, perhaps, be devoted to the type
of idea which the student is called upon to develop in con-
nection with the definition of a point as a purely geometri-
cal conception. " A point," he is told, " has no dimensions,
but denotes position simply." This definition of a point is
an effort, as is the definition of a line, to aid the student in
getting rid of the direct sensory content which is always
present in any real point which he observes. The definition

50 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

illustrates very fully the conclusion which was reached in
the last chapter, when it was pointed out that space can
never be recognized except in terms of some kind of sen-
sory content. One tries by the substitution of an abstract
verbal idea for sensory content to get rid of as much sen-
sory content as he can, in order to leave behind the pure
spatial elements of experience.

Another definition which may be noted as especially sig-
nificant for our psychological study is that in which the
student is told that any figure is a limited portion of space.
This definition calls attention to the fact that the same
kind of space extends on all sides of a given figure. There
is an implication here which comes out more clearly in later
discussions; namely, the implication that any limited portion
of space has the fundamental characteristics of all space.
Indeed, geometry recognizes that all space is absolutely
homogeneous. Any limited portion of space which is se-
lected for discussion is a representative of other limited
portions of space or of space in general. We may regard
a figure, therefore, as a representative example rather
than as a single isolated experience significant in itself.
Thus, while our definition of a point attempts to get rid
of all the content, the statement that a given figure is a
limited portion of space attempts to generalize or extend
the conclusions of any particular discussion to the larger
field of all space.

ANALYTICAL STUDIES OF SPACE

The mental processes required to understand the defini-
tions which have been discussed up to this point are space
perception and the higher processes of analysis, abstraction,
and interpretation of symbols.

We pass now to another phase of geometrical science.
Not only are the different parts and aspects of figures to

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRY 51

be distinguished, but the properties of figures and geomet-
rical elements must be discovered. What can be said about
a point differs from the definition of the point itself, in that
higher and more complex groups of ideas are involved.
Thus one of the statements which is made about the prop-
erties of a point is that " through a point an indefinite
number of straight lines may be drawn." This statement,
though included among definitions, is not strictly a defini-
tion. It is, rather, an effort to get the student to consider
carefully some of the facts which are outside of the point,
but closely related to it. The statement is put at the be-
ginning of the science because it is obvious. The student
can find the truth of this fact if he scrutinizes his experi-
ences, and brings to clear consciousness that which he can
readily justify, but which he has probably never before
recognized with explicit clearness. The words of this state-
ment are intended to call up in the student's mind a whole
series of experiments. He will try to draw different lines
through an imaginary point, and will note the characteristic
relation between these different lines and the point. The
mental process thus induced is relatively direct, but it is
by no means a mere matter of space perception. It is a
matter of experimentation and a matter of comparison, with
a view to discovering and recording explicitly facts which
will be of use in later elaborate studies.

By guiding students through such simple experiments
as these the geometrician prepares them to try all possi-
ble combinations and recombinations of figures. One can
imagine, for example, that the first student of geometry
who explicitly formulated the statement that an indefinite
number of lines can be drawn through a single point re-
garded the fact as a discovery. It was a discovery, not of
an obscure fact, but a discovery in explicit form of a fun-
damental fact which all along had been present in experi-
ences, but was now brought to attention as of sufficient

52 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

importance to be treated as a distinct and explicit matter
of comment.

There is a large part of geometry which may be described
as the explicit statement of characteristics which are capa-
ble of direct observation, but which are not distinguished
from total experience until geometrical analysis has made
them elear. The attitude of an ordinary man to one of
these explicit statements in geometry very frequently is
that the statement is hardly worth making because it is so
obvious. The attitude of beginning students is very often
one of disregard for these obvious analyses, but it is through
the combination and recombination of these direct analyses
that the science of geometry is ultimately developed. All
of the later propositions in geometry must be traced back
to postulates ; that is, to simple analyses which depend on
direct experimentation.

PROBLEM OF PEDAGOGICAL ARRANGEMENT

It might be questioned whether the textbook in geometry
ought to give these analyses at the beginning. Certainly
the recognition on the part of the student of the motive for
these simple forms of analysis is not complete until after he
has gone farther in his study. On the other hand, no stu-
dent will begin to analyze his experiences until someone
sets him thinking about the properties of figures. When
the child begins to play with paper and pencil and finds
that he can draw a great variety of lines, he is working
toward the statement that an infinite number of lines can
be drawn through a single point, but he is not likely to hit
upon that particular idea until he has cultivated a large
experience with lines and with points. On the other hand,
the scientist who has made a careful examination of the
properties of different geometrical elements comes to realize
the fact that this statement with regard to lines and points

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRY 53

is the logical foundation for many of the more elaborate
discussions and analyses of space. The writer of a text-
book, therefore, puts this logically simple proposition at
the beginning of his science.

To begin with definitions in any subject requires of the
immature student some appreciation of values which it is
quite impossible for him fully to recognize until he has
progressed to a high degree of knowledge of the subject as
a whole. Psychologically, therefore, the procedure of the
geometrician in beginning with definitions cannot be justified
by the expectation that the matters dealt with in these defini-
tions will be mastered at once by the student. As we shall
see later, the early theorems and demonstrations are in reality
mere repetitions and elaborations of the definitions. The geo-
metrician undoubtedly holds that the student's time would
be greatly economized if he could only take up the subject
in the order which the mature science recognizes as most
advantageous for the development of the later, more elabo-
rate, propositions. Perhaps it is worth the effort to get as
many of these obvious analyses as possible made, even if it
becomes necessary to reestablish the definitions by later
reiterations in more detailed form. The student may gain
something by the preliminary statement, even though he
does not gain all that he might ; but the teacher of experi-
ence knows how little some students really absorb the first
time they encounter these simple analyses.

The practical school problem here presented is one which
cannot be solved by adopting any single method of pro-
cedure. In some cases a statement of the definition will
induce the student to perform the desired mental process ;
in other cases, elaborate reasoning may have to be resorted
to before the student is made to see the truth and its
importance. Possibly one order of procedure could be
advantageously used by one teacher, while the other order
would be more successfully used by a second teacher. This

64 -PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

4*

comment indicates the relation between psychological analy-
sis and the methods of teaching. Psychological analysis does
not determine what method is best ; it simply indicates the
type of mental process which is to be cultivated. There is,
therefore, an ample field for experimental treatment of
school problems that lies beyond the field of psychological
analysis itself. Methods aim to produce psychological
results, but there may be several methods of producing a
given result. The contribution which psychology can make
to methods may be described by saying that the teacher is
more likely to understand what he is doing if he considers
the type of mental process which he is setting up.

METHODS OF DEVELOPING IDEAS

It is psychologically interesting to follow the mental
development at which the author aims in his section defin-
ing angles. Angles are first defined as " the opening
between two straight lines." Gradually this definition
is amplified until finally we are told that an angle is the
result of the rotation of a line about a point. The difference
between these two statements is that in the first statement
a single definite specimen is chosen as the basis of consid-
eration. When we take a single angle and consider it as
a fixed quantity, we may illustrate it and discuss it quite
apart from any other elements of space. When, on the
other hand, we generate an angle by rotating a line about
a point, we show the relationship between any given angle
and the rest of space. The angle comes to be a part of a
general spatial scheme. The relation between all angles is
suggested at the same time the properties of a single angle
are exhibited. The term " angle " thus comes to have a very
much broader connotation than it does in the first defini-
tion. Or one may say that a principle of construction is
substituted for the figure.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRY 55

METHODS OF TRAINING IN COMPARISON

The chapter on definitions next explains certain simple
forms of comparison which are not spatial at all but are
relational in one of the higher senses referred to in the dis-
cussions a few pages back. Thus the student is introduced
to methods of superposition. When two lines are superim-
posed upon each other or two angles are superimposed on
each other, they are compared with a view to discovering
their likenesses and differences. The discovery of likenesses
among lines is comparable to the discovery of likenesses in
economic values or the discovery of likenesses in rhetorical
forms. When we say that likeness or equality is a general
characteristic discoverable in many different mental experi-
ences, we must amplify this statement so as to bring out the
fact that the method of reaching the judgment of likeness is
different in different cases according to the material com-
pared. If one compares economic values, for example, he
does not superpose one value upon another. If one com-
pares two musical notes, he cannot superimpose them to
discover whether they have the sajne pitch. These examples
show that the comparison of two lines is a special problem
which requires the student to know not only how to recog-
nize the one line and the second line but also how to make
the comparison hi a definite and well-ordered fashion. The
geometrician finds it necessary to direct his student, there-
fore, in methods of making comparisons. Comparisons are
necessaiy in order to bring out the remoter characteristics
of figures. The single figure is no longer the subject of
recognition and discussion ; the single figure must be
understood by finding its proper place in science, where
likeness and unlikeness are quite as significant as distance
and form. Indeed, for purposes of further mental develop-
ment and for purposes of application, comparisons are
indispensable.

56 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

•»

GEOMETRY GOES FAR BEYOND SPACE PERCEPTION

It is thus made clear that it is a mistake to assume that
geometry is the art of seeing space. Geometry is rather the
science of finding out all that can be discovered with regard
to the characteristics of spatial figures. The scientific in-
vestigation of the characteristics of figures leads us into
the most elaborate logical processes of comparison and in-
ference. Indeed, so large a part of geometry is made up
of comparisons that the mere recognition of figures is likely
to drop in the background. We select a few easily acces-
sible samples of angles and compare these with each other.
We select a few examples of triangles and compare these
with each other. The student learns how to make the com-
parisons in these relatively simple cases. He then general-
izes his findings in the form of a principle, which principle
is not a matter of perception at all.

We may digress for a moment from our study of the
textbook to call attention to the fact that the science of
geometry may contribute little or nothing to the student's
perception of space. Space, as it confronts the student in
architectural forms, in the shapes of animals and trees, in
the perspective of the street, and in the shadows of solid
objects, may be entirely overlooked while the student buries
himself in the pages of definitions and comparisons which
go to make up his book on the science of geometry. To be
sure, the analytical studies of figures might make the stu-
dent more intelligent in the observation of form if he would
apply his analysis to objects about him. It has been one of
the mistakes of the modern school that it has assumed that
the student can readily carry over his textbook studies into
ordinary life. What is needed is more attention to the ob-
servation and analysis of all forms. The^studgnt must be
taught geometrical analysis, and, at the same time, he must
be taught to apply this analysis to figures outsida of the

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRY 57

textbook. In later chapters we shall have occasion to come
baclTTfo this problem of generalizing experience. For the
moment we must be content to leave the matter, with a
reiteration of the statement that geometrical analysis and
space perception are different processes, and that there is a
possibility of their developing in the student's mind quite
apart from each other. The student must, however, in any
case, have enough space perception to furnish the basis for
his complete scientific study.

GEOMETRY AND MECHANICS

Returning to our examination of the textbook, we find
after superposition a discussion of symmetry. The type of
comparison here involved is higher than that required to
discover equality. In superposition one thinks of a spatial
element brought into the closest possible relation to a sec-
ond spatial element with which comparison is to be made.
In the case of symmetry the two spatial facts to be com-
pared lie on opposite sides of the center of comparison. The
mind must therefore pass from one side of the symmetrical
figure to the other in making its comparisons. Further-
more, the elements must be compared with due regard
to the fact that in their present relationship they resist
superposition.

As pointed out in the last chapter, all of our space ideas
are developed in a world where movements must follow
mechanical laws. Consequently, all our space experiences
contain a large element of conformity to mechanical laws.
Symmetry of spatial figures is an aspect of space perception
which differs radically from that aspect which we refer to
by such terms as " length " and " distance/' Length and
distance depend upon quantity of experiences, but symmetry
depends rather upon a recognition of mechanical balance.
When we deal with symmetry, therefore, we are dealing

58 "PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

%

with a special aspect of space experience. Geometry has
never been satisfied to regard comparison through symme*
try as of equal fundamental reliability with comparison
through superposition. When, for example, one wishes to
deal with the vertical angles which are made by two inter-
secting lines, or with the relations of the angles formed by
a line crossing a pair of parallels, he finds himself trying to
reduce an experience which is primarily an experience of
symmetry to that type of comparison which we have in super-
position. The geometrician frankly acknowledges that this
effort to reduce symmetry to superposition is artificial and
probably unnecessary, but he does not feel satisfied to rest
his geometrical demonstrations upon the recognition of sym-
metry, because such recognition seems to be more indirect.
Thus we see that a psychological analysis of the notion
of symmetry throws an interesting light on an ancient geo-
metrical discussion. Symmetry is not as direct as super-
position. Superposition in turn is not as direct as simple
perception. Possibilities of error increase with the increas-
ing complexity of the psychological processes. Stating the
successive stages of probable error explicitly, we may say
that the perception of a line is simpler than the comparison
of one line with another. The comparison of one line with
another when they are placed side by side is easier than
the comparison of two lines which balance each other on
two sides of a point. Geometry gives us a definition of
a line which is looked upon as unquestionable. Geometry
makes certain fundamental and very direct comparisons of
lines by superposition. In practical experiences these super-
positions become more and more uncertain as the objects
superimposed become more complex. All the difficulties
which arise in measuring can be cited as examples of in-
creasing difficulty of comparison, for in processes of meas-
urement we have to deal with complex superpositions.
Finally, geometry becomes very cautious when comparisons

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRY 59

begin to depend on a recognition or demonstration of sym-
metry. Here it is insisted that the problem be broken up
into elements and the comparisons reduced, if possible, to
one of the simpler forms.

WORKING DEFINITIONS INCLUDED IN GEOMETRY

We may pass over briefly thev paragraph of definitions
dealing with such terms as " proof," " theorem," and ff prob-
lem." These definitions of terms are not directly concerned
with space, but are intended to indicate to the student the
various different modes of procedure which are followed in
performing geometrical analyses and comparisons. For ex-
ample, when the definition of a construction is given, the
definition is merely the statement that in certain cases cer-
tain preliminary steps must be taken by the student in
order that he get a clear notion of what he is going to do.
Geometry has to employ such terms describing procedure
in order to set the student at work on the problems which
are to be solved. Such terms as these are not, as stated
above, spatial ; some of them are not even logical terms ;
they are working terms used in collecting the material for
geometrical comparisons.

LOGICAL DEFINITIONS

We come finally to a discussion of axioms and postulates.
The postulates are to be distinguished from the axioms by
the fact that postulates describe spatial experiences, whereas
the axioms refer rather to the fundamental laws of thinking
which are valid for all sorts of processes of comparison.
Thus the first postulate states that a straight line can be
drawn from any point to any other point. Contrast this
with the first axiom, which states that things which are
equal to the same thing are equal to each other. The

60 PSYCHOLOGY OP HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

<•

postulate deals with a spatial fact. The axiom, on the other
hand, is not a statement of a spatial fact at all ; it is rathe?
a fundamental principle of a logical type. It is important
to note while making this distinction that the logical
axioms of geometry are always looked upon by geome-
tricians as parts of their science. This fact gives increasing
evidence in support of the conclusion pointed out before,
that the science of geometry is so absorbed in directing and
controlling processes of comparison that in many instances
the spatial material on which these logical processes are
exercised sinks into the background. Geometricians often
neglect space and emphasize logic. The result is that in
many cases the student is trained not in the observation
of lines and figures, but chiefly in the methods of making
logical comparisons. It is possible to find students of geom-
etry quite unobserving of form. This situation will be
understood wherever it is found that the primary emphasis
is on axioms.

THEOREMS CONTRASTED WITH DEFINITIONS

We turn now to the first book and find that the early
theorems are elaborations of the definitions given in the
preliminary pages. These early demonstrations are so direct
and obvious that the psychological analyst is at first in
doubt as to the possibility of discovering any new mental
processes not found in the foregoing study of definitions'.
However, on closer study a clear psychological and peda-
gogical difference appears between definitions and demon-
strations. A definition is a closed, compact statement. A
demonstration is a detailed and explicit unraveling of the
situation. In a demonstration, however simple, one phase
afte*" another of the total situation is scrutinized and reduced
to the form of a separate statement. While the early theo-
rems do not use very complex series of statements, they train

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRY 61

the student in the use of a form of analysis which was
assumed but not demanded in the definitions. If the student
can be trained in analyzing a situation which is fairly obvi-
ous, he will be better prepared to take up situations which
are not obvious. Furthermore, this explicit analysis serves
to review many of the statements included in the introduc-
tory chapter on definitions.

Finally, one notes as he examines the demonstrations
that they are made up of successive steps, which steps
must be held together in one general mental process. This
process of holding together the products of analysis calls
for a type and reach of attention which is higher than that
which is required in learning a definition. To hold in mind
a single question, and bring to bear in answering this ques-
tion a chain of evidence, is a higher type of reasoning than
that which is involved in mastering a single final statement.

The later demonstrations which appear as one progresses
through the text involve in increasing degree this power of
combining the results of successive steps of analysis. They
also involve retention and recall of the results of earlier
discussions. It would be interesting to find out in what
terms different students remember propositions. Doubtless
there are some students who recall vividly the spatial fig-
ures ; others recall the verbal formulas used in stating the
theorems ; others think of the steps of reasoning. The ability
of a given student to use his knowledge of a theorem in
later demonstrations is undoubtedly related very closely to
the form in which propositions studied earlier lie in his mind.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OP OKIGINAL PBOBLEMS

The last remark leads us to a consideration of the dif-
ference between a demonstration and a so-called original
exercise. In the original exercise the student must first
analyze the situation which is propounded, and then he

62 PSYCHPLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

must be able to draw out of the fund of experience which
he has accumulated the principles which will help him in
solving his complex present experience. There is no rule
which can be learned to guide in solving originals, because
the solution depends on the student's ability to look around
in his mind and find among the contents of his experience
the propositions which fit the present case. The psychologi-
cal process can be described after it has taken place ; but it
cannot be prophesied in advance, because the student may
make his analysis in one of many different ways, and he
may make many a failure in trying to fit one remembered
proposition after another into the present situation before
he finds the right combination to complete the thought
process. The only way to teach a student to solve origi-
nals is to teach him how to analyze a new problem and
how to seek among his store of experiences. A demonstra-
tion given in the text, on the other hand, requires only
ability to follow the statements that are set down in the
book. The student does not have to search around in his
mind among the many possible combinations ; he has only
to follow one combination which is given. The student
gets inferior training when he merely follows another's
lead. If he stops to think at all how the author hit on
the solution of his problem, he is apt lazily to set aside
the question because it seems unnecessary.

The student should in some way gain an insight into the
methods employed by the author in solving his problem.
Whenever it is possible more than one solution of the prob-
lem should be presented, and the merits and demerits of each
solution should be discussed. Some comments on method
should be introduced into the text itself. The only possible
justification for giving a student a solution is to train him
in methods of solving problems economically and in rigid
form. The mistake is too often made of dragging a stu-
dent along too rapidly over a path which someone else has

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRY 63

mysteriously marked out The student walks in the path,
but never for a moment thinks of stepping out of it or mov-
ing faster than his guide. Geometry learned under such
conditions becomes the most formal kind of drill in memory.
Students thus trained never can apply what they learn.
Indeed, they are more and more bound down by every lesson
they study to a slavish adherence to the text. Rote memory
is thus unfortunately substituted for the supposed scien-
tific analysis of space, which is the aim set by the teacher
of geometry for his work.

PSYCHOLOGICAL MATERIAL DERIVED FROM OBSERVA-
TION OF CLASS WORK

Turning now from the textbook to the students, we must
note one general fact ; the reactions of students to the les-
sons set for them are infinite in their variety. No psycho-
logical principle is more strikingly proved by every class
exercise than the principle that mental life shows marked
individual variations. The effort to give an outline of some
of these individual variations may seem to experienced
teachers labored and meager in results, but it will be
undertaken in the hope of stimulating these experienced
teachers to record their broader observations. For the pur-
poses of this study the writer visited a class of second-year
students who had been studying geometry for seven months.
The class exercise preceding the one visited had been de-
voted to the study of the two general theorems : " If a circle
is divided into equal parts, and if the successive points of
division are connected by line-segments, the polygon so
formed is a regular inserted polygon"; and "If a circle
is divided into equal parts, and if tangents are drawn at
the points of division, a regular circumscribed polygon is
formed." The members of the class were not required
to make any outside preparation, and during the period

64 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

they inscribed and circumscribed squares, octagons, and
hexagons, and developed the demonstrations related to their
constructions. During the exercise several types of diffi-
culty arose.

LOGICAL PBOCESSES DISTINGUISHED FROM PROCESSES
OP DIRECT KNOWLEDGE

One member of the class inscribed a square in a circle by
first drawing diameters perpendicular to each other. The
proof following this construction should have proceeded
from the equality of the angles at the center of the circle to
the equality of the arcs subtended by equal angles, and so on.
After the construction had been completed and proof was
called for, however, it became apparent that the members of
the class knew all the facts necessary to prove that they
had inscribed the square, but they did not readily arrange
their facts in logical order. They were not able to take the
strictly analytical view and to proceed step by step to the
end sought. The trouble in this case was that the spatial
facts were known, and the individual items of the proof
were known, but the notion of an organized logical demon-
stration was deficient. Thus one student insisted on starting
with the fact that the arcs of the circle are equal when log-
ically it was necessary to show first that the arcs are equal.
Such errors of using the converse in proof are familiar
errors in the work of geometry students. They do not bear
in mind what is given and what is to be proved. It cannot
be said that they are deficient in memory. They know all
the facts. Their deficiency is altogether in their lack of
appreciation of the demands of logic. The student is con-
fused at times because as an observer of space relations his
comments are quite right and equally obvious to him. He
cannot distinguish between his knowledge of space and the
logical process of demonstration.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRY 65

Again, the opposite type of difficulty appeared in two
•cases when students were not able to pass from a logical
demonstration to the spatial fact The first of these two
cases was as follows : After the square was inscribed, the
question was asked, " What other figures can now be readily
drawn ? " The answer was given, "An eight-sided figure, by
bisecting the central angles or by bisecting the arcs." The
instructor put marks on the circumference assuming that
the bisecting had been done. The new points were named
F, jfiT, etc. The next step in construction was to connect
these new points with the old points A, J5, etc., but the
student who had correctly stated that the arcs should be
bisected did not see how to go on. She suggested connect-
ing F, one of the new points, with Jf, another of the new
points. Her confusion increased when objection was raised.
Evidently when she described the method of getting eight
sides, she was thinking in abstract terms and could not,
even with the figure before her, see at once the space rela-
tions involved. Another case of a similar type appeared
when the class began to discuss constructing a hexagon.
One member of the class — knowing that the division of the
circumference could be made with the aid of the radius —
began to work on the problem by going back to the value
of TT. Once started on this kind of reasoning, the student
could not give it up. Even after the figure was drawn
and on the board, the desire to deal with the matter in
terms of TT reappeared. The fact that the circumference
had in no case been measured was of no avail in getting
this student's mind off TT. That train of ideas once started,
the solution was sought abstractly and persistently in the
single unproductive direction. The figure before the eyes
was neglected in favor of an idea in thought which was
so vivid and insistent that the student could not get
away from it

66 PSYCHQLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

PRACTICAL PROCEDURE AND SCIENTIFIC ANALYSIS

A third type of difficulty appeared because the member
of the class who began the problem of inscribing the hexa-
gon knew that the method of procedure was to measure off
chords equal to the radius, but he did not know the reason
for this, method. He got the result in terms that seemed
satisfactory so far as the figure showed, but he was soon
persuaded by the instructor that he had no evidence that
his last chord was equal to the radius. He then was lost.
He did not know how to go back and get the fundamental
fact that he needed equal central angles. A rule of proce-
dure is very often far enough removed from the fundamental
fact so that once the mind is fixed on the rule of procedure
it is very difficult to adopt the logical attitude. Even when
the student saw that his rule was not a demonstration, he
could not get away from the circumference long enough
to think of the angles at the center. The mode of approach
was confusing because it turned attention in the wrong
direction. The instructor said that in other classes the fact
that the central angle is the important fact is usually rec-
ognized. Perhaps it would have been better in this case to
have criticized the boy when he began with a practical rule
of procedure. On the other hand, the independence of the
class is quite as much at stake as logical procedure, and
the class undoubtedly must face cases where the wrong
entrance on the problem occurs and must be overcome.
The class finally discovered the equilateral triangles re-
quired for demonstration and worked out the proof, but
the student who began could not. He was committed to
his practical rule and could not get a point of departure
suitable for the proof. He illustrated by his attitude of
mind the antithesis so common in life between the practi-
cal and the theoretical method of dealing with situations.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRY 67
DIFFERENT SPHERES OF EXPERIENCE IN GEOMETRY

*

Up to this point we have seen three spheres of experi-
efffce, each of which is so different from the others that
transition out of the one into another is difficult. These
three spheres are first, space perception ; second, an abstract
system of logical steps constituting proof; and third, rules
of practical procedure. That the transition from one sphere
of experience to the other is a new mental process is of the
first importance to the teacher of geometry. The teacher
sees now that knowledge of theory, knowledge of the prac-
tical procedure, and direct percepts of space are all separate
problems to be worked out ; and, furthermore, he sees that
the student must be trained to pass from one to the other.
Educational methodology has long recognized that there
are various spheres of experience, but very little explicit
attention has been given to the complete enumeration of
these or to carrying the student from one sphere to the
other. The student is supposed to gain the power of such
transition by learning demonstrations, but the fact is that
transitions constitute in many cases the most confusing and
difficult part of the problem. More instructorial energy
should be devoted to training students in these transitions.
There should be a conscious effort to view the matter from
each of the possible points of view, and to pass from one
point of view to the other with full knowledge of the reason
for the transition. Furthermore, the student should see
that the fact which is essential for demonstration is often
very different from the point of highest attention to the
practical operator or to the observer of space. Only through
a fuller cultivation of all of these methods of thought can
the student gain the advantages which come from each.
So long as he is rapid and skillful only in one mode he
will be limited in his resources. If he is master of all and
can use all, he will be more efficient.

68 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

DANGER OP RELIANCE ON SOCIAL AIDS

A number of minor difficulties appeared during the lesson.
Several times superficial answers were given. Thus, in the
course of the discussion the question arose, What is one third
of 360 degrees ? One student replied successively 60, 90,
180 degrees. As the instructor waited, the student showed
some confusion, and finally stopped long enough to get the
correct 120. She evidently had a vague notion of the equal
subdivisions of 360 degrees, and, without trying to be spe-
cific and get the particular division needed, tried several pos-
sible answers, depending on her social surroundings to check
her up. This use of social checks is often most advantageous;
but here it is evidently bad for the student that she could
rely on the instructor to correct her carelessness. Her social
dependence in this case operated to make her mental proc-
esses vague and haphazard.

PKOBLEM OF DEALING WITH MISTAKES

Another example of vagueness appeared when one of
the students was asked how to draw a tangent at a point.
He directed that the radius touching the point be extended,
and then directed that a line be drawn bisecting this
indefinitely extended radius. He probably had vaguely in
view the fact that a perpendicular can be erected by laying
off on a line equal distances from the point at which the
perpendicular is to be erected; but he continued to be very
vague about bisecting, and finally the class moved on,
leaving his vagueness forever behind, corrected in the sense
that the right answer was given, but unconnected in the
sense that the impossibility of his answer was never fully
explained. Every error of this type furnishes an educational
opportunity to find out what the student is thinking about
and lead him back over the wrong path to the point where

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRY 69

he can take a right start. How far mistakes ought thus to
be taken seriously is hard to determine. The rights of the
rest of the class must be considered. The student whose
vagueness is not corrected undoubtedly suffers.

ANALYSIS CONTROLLED THROUGH RECENT AND
DIRECT EXPERIENCE

Students evidently do not use the general demonstrations
which they have reached with any degree of confidence;
they go back to the simpler and more fundamental theorems.
Thus the instructor could not get the class to use the gen-
eral theorems proved the day before. They insisted on
going back to prove that the sides were equal because the
angles were equal. The interest in simple fundamental
theorems undoubtedly expresses the feeling which everyone
has, that the simpler demonstrations most nearly related to
direct observations are more reliable than proofs dependent
on elaborate demonstrations.

At one point in the exercise the class had been dis-
cussing the relation of the side of the inscribed square to
the radius. They then turned to the circumscribed square,
and the question arose regarding the length of the sides
of the circumscribed square. The discussion which followed
showed two facts: first, the size of the circumscribed
square was seen directly from the figure long before the
proof of its size could be given ; and second, the particular
fact which was observed in the figure was the length of
half of one side of the circumscribed square. This concen-
tration on half the side of the square was plainly due to
the preceding discussion of the radius, for the relation of
the whole side to the diameter was quite as obvious from
inspection of the figure. This incident illustrates two im-
portant facts: first, geometry even at this advanced stage
uses the facts of space perception in guiding theory and in

70 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

discovering relations ; and second, the part of the figure on
which attention was last concentrated is likely to be the
starting point of the next step in observation and reasoning.
The first fact demonstrates that geometry is at all stages
dependent in many ways on perception ; the second shows
the importance of preparation as a stage in instruction.

DIFFICULTIES OF ABSTRACTION

In marking off the points on the circumference to be
used iii constructing the hexagon, the student began with
the point A. The instructor tried to get a statement of the
way in which this point was selected ; and after some per-
sistence developed the correct logical statement that it is
"any point." The student had difficulty in recognizing the
point as indefinite in its location, because to his eye and mind
it was a very definite and particular point. The instructor
straightened the matter out by contrasting A with /*, C\ etc.
All the later points were to the eye equally definite, but
the student was led to see that B was definite only in re-
spect to A. When he got back to A he could not get it from
any earlier point, and so saw that it was <f any point." Com-
parison leads to knowledge of the properties of a point, and
shows the student that knowledge of properties of a point
is very different from direct perception of the point itself.

MEMORY AS A FACTOR IN EDUCATION

All through the lesson it was evident that the students
were being called on to use their memories and to select
from the propositions and facts stored up in memory. A
chapter could be written on this aspect of the lesson. We
have of late come to regard memory work in the schools
as something unworthy of recognition in comparison with
reasoning and the higher thought-processes. No one who

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRY 71

gives the matter any serious thought can, however, fail to
recognize the fact that the criticism of memory is not based
on any real expectation on the part of teachers that
students will be able to carry on the higher processes
without an appeal to memory. Criticisms of memory are
directed not against memory, but against bad forms of
remembering. Again and again the members of the class
were required to go back into their memories and select
the theorems necessary for progress in the demonstration
in hand. Sometimes they offered an irrelevant theorem.
This showed lack of discrimination in selection, or it showed
poverty in the stock of ideas from which the selection
could be made. When we speak of working, out a demon-
stration, it is evident that the material stored in memory
must be in form to permit selection and rapid review for
the purpose of facilitating selective thought. One general
principle of memory which immediately suggests itself in
terms of the instructor's questions is the principle of arrange-
ment. What do you know about equilateral triangles?
What do you know about lines that are perpendicular to
parallel lines? These are examples of questions which
were asked with a view to helping students to classify
knowledge. Furthermore, the classification must evidently
not be too rigid, else the proposition which is needed now
to illuminate the discussion from the point of view of the
size of angles will not be available later when the same
fundamental fact is needed in connection with the dis-
cussion of areas. Memory must therefore contain items
classified in a variety of ways. When the student goes
back into his store of experiences, he must find there many
propositions ready for use in many different connections.
To such a flexible memory there can be no objection. To
a well-ordered body of knowledge, especially if it is well-
ordered in many different directions, there can be no ob-
jection. From these statements of what is demanded of

72 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

*>

memory we begin to see how memory should be trained.
If one wishes to have his students flexible and ready in
ideas, then he must give them that type of memory train-
ing which will make them both ready and flexible. The
problem of modern teaching is not to discard memory, but
rather to train the powers of retention and recall in a better
way than formerly. To object to memory is very short-
sighted; to improve memory is rational.

We shall come back to this problem later. It is enough
to point out here that ideas must be put into the mind
with their possible relationships clearly recognized if these
relationships are at some later day to be used productively
in calling out Jthe ideas. It is therefore important, when an
idea is given, so to store it up in the mind that it shall be
flexible and ready. One is tempted even at this stage of
the discussion to point out that much of what has been
said about the doctrine of formal discipline has been utterly
at sea because it has not been based on this conception of
the way in which ideas ought to be given. If ordinary school
training does not transfer from one field of experience to
another, this is not due to the inability of the human mind
to transfer its training. The lack of transfer is in many
cases due to the clumsy, stereotyped way in which ideas
were put into the mind. The absence of general ideas and
general habits of thought resulting from school work is
due to poor teaching rather than to any limitations of
the mind. Knowledge that does not transfer is inflexible
and inert. It is badly remembered and was badly acquired.
It shows that the mind is capable of taking in highly spe-
cialized ideas ; it does not show that the mind is incapable
of generalized experience, for generalization is seen to be
dependent on the arrangement or organization of experi-
ences. This matter will be fully discussed in a later chapter
where the problem of organizing all experience so as to
facilitate transfer will be the topic under discussion.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRY 73

REASONING PROCESSES

This discussion brings us to a consideration of the
psychology of reasoning processes. Reasoning is the re-
arrangement and recombination of ideas. Reasoning in-
volves memory and classification of experiences and the
combining of the experiences which belong together in
leading to a definite conclusion. The process of thus
organizing and recombining experiences is one of the most
important and, at the same time, one of the most baffling
for the teacher to induce in a student. There is no specific
rule which can be followed in cultivating the reasoning
powers. The various facts which must ultimately be fitted
together come up in one mind in one order, in another
mind in a different order. Often the needed fact is coupled
in memory with irrelevant facts. These irrelevant facts
must be rejected, and the useful facts must be recognized
and held in mind until the whole fabric of the reasoning
processes is woven together in a complex pattern. The
teacher must stimulate to continued effort, must guide in
the selection and rejection of elements, must point out
that the selection of elements depends on the end sought.
The end must be anticipated in general before it is reached
in particular. This must all be done in such a way as to
keep the student active and, so far as possible, free from
dependence on the teacher and on other members of
the class.

Such a description of reasoning leaves one with only
general maxims such as the following: First try to fore-
see in a general way what end you want to reach. Next
marshal all the facts you can find which are related to this
end. Then arrange these facts in a progressive series. Such
maxims describe what may very properly be called the
general problem of the teacher. They also describe certain
general mental habits and attitudes.

74 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

GENERAL PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS

We may close our comments on class observation oy
noting that there are certain general psychological princi-
ples suggested by a visit to any class. The individuals in
the class show marked individual mental and social charac-
teristics. One student is aggressive and talkative, inter-
rupting on the slightest provocation, full of energy and
ready to attack any problem ; another is quiet, undemon-
strative, shy, and embarrassed.

Again, the relation of the teacher to the students is dis-
tinctly a psychological problem. Students and teachers alike
are absorbed in certain reasoning processes ; they are all in
the midst of psychological situations which are of great inter-
est to the student of psychology, but which are viewed by the
active participants in these processes from a wholly unpsy-
chological point of view. The teacher will realize how direct
and personal and unpsychological he usually is by undertak-
ing, at some time when he is not absorbed in teaching, to
make psychological studies of his students and their mental
processes. When he is teaching, there is less opportunity to
give attention to both the content of the discussion and the
psychology of the student's difficulties. Later, after he has
studied the psychology of the situation, he will be able to find
in every class exercise opportunity to apply his discoveries.

There is, finally, the general emotional situation as it
changes from moment to moment. The class and teacher
in sympathy working together ; the single student confused
and unable to reason because he has made a mistake and is
being laughed at, and, consequently, is more acutely aware
of the other members of the class than he should be ; the
egotistical member of the class who prefers to hear himself
rather than wait for ideas to justify speech — all these are
interesting psychological problems, but they are general,
and not especially appropriate to an analysis of geometry.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRY 75

THE THEORY OF TEACHING MATHEMATICS

From observations of students we turn to books on the
methods of teaching geometry. Some of these books are
written without any attempt to deal with the psychology
of the situation ; others are full of psychological statements.
For the purposes of our study we may refer to two books :
one nonpsychological, the other very largely colored by
psychological interests and discussions. Let the reader try
the experiment of going over one of these books with a
view to raising explicitly all the psychological questions
that are referred to or implied in the text. Frequently the
author will suggest interesting psychological problems
and discussions even when the treatment in the book is
wholly unpsychological.

SCHULTZE ON MEMORY

Let us consider first a passage from Schultze's " Teach-
ing of Mathematics in Secondary Schools"1 (pp. 10-11), in
which the author deals with matters which are evidently
psychological.

In the preceding paragraph it was pointed out that mechan-
ical memorizing is a perfectly proper method of studying the
most elementary, the most fundamental facts, which are of fre-
quent application. This is possibly the reason why the teach-
ing is far more effective in the lower grades than later on. In
more advanced work the very nature of the subjects makes
mere memorizing ineffective.

Our high schools, however, not only encourage memorizing,
but sometimes almost force the student to adopt this as the
only mode of study, for only by memorizing can he hope to
satisfy the immediate demands of the school.

The daily rations of mental food that the student has to
swallow give him no choice ; there is no time for thought, for

1 Published by The Macmillan Company, 1912.

76 PSYCHOLOGY OP HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

meditation, for judicious study 5 he must memorize. Moreover,
the character of the studies leads him to mechanical work, for
in spite of the vigorous denials of our pedagogues, the greater
part of the curriculum is informational. It is knowledge and
not power that is emphasized in most of the studies, and even
subjects which by their very nature should be mastered by
thinking are often made informational. For the informational
method produces much quicker and more spectacular results
than the slow judicious mode of study. What a fine display of
learning students can make if they have been cramming con-
scientiously ! How high the percentage they can secure in ex-
aminations ! True, the after effects are sad, but who cares ?
As long as the boy can talk glibly about complex economic
problems in terms which he does not understand, we are satis-
fied. What does it matter, that a year later he has not the
remotest inkling of the subject, that he cannot discuss intelli-
gently the simplest new problem that may arise !

Can we wonder that under such conditions the student never
breaks away from his mechanical way of studying that he ac-
quired in the elementary school ? And can we wonder, too, that
the results of our teaching become inferior in the higher grades
of the grammar school, and especially so in the high school ?

As one reads such a criticism of the schools he cannot
help wishing that the author had been more explicit about
the meaning of the term " mechanical memorizing." Just
how does this differ in character from nonmechanical ?
And how far does the " slow judicious mode of study " in-
volve memory ? Surely a student who does not know the
theorems he has passed over will be slow indeed, and prob-
ably far from judicious in his thinking. Is it true that ele-
mentary education is made up of memorizing? It is a
common habit of high-school teachers without very much
knowledge of the real conditions in elementary schools to
give liberally of their advice about what is and ought to
be the task of the lower schools. If our author would talk
over this matter with some good elementary teacher, he

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRY 77

would find that the elementary teachers have the same
problem that he has. What does anyone mean when he says
that most of the curriculum is informational? Has our
author measured the amount of time devoted in most
schools to such noninformational studies as drill in lan-
guage and to exercises in writing and speaking ? Probably
not; for if he had, he would hardly have made the statement
which he makes. In short, our author does not contribute
any very clear ideas on the value of memory in geometry
and algebra. We should be left in a bad plight if we had
nothing but the prejudice against memory which this pas-
sage is calculated to foster. Indeed, our author is himself
so prejudiced against memory that he writes (p. 18),
" The principal value of mathematical studies arises from the
facts that it exercises the reasoning power more, and claims
from the memory less than any other secondary school sub-
ject." The trouble is that he has got his mind fixed on a con-
trast between two processes, namely reasoning and memory,
which are psychologically not opposed to each other at all.

SCHULTZE ON AXIOMS AND POSTULATES

Another discussion by the same author relates to the
difficulty of introducing the work without confusing the
student by elaborate proofs and discussions which seem to
him unnecessary and cumbersome (pp. 88-89).

The most fundamental propositions in geometry, such as
" straight angles are equal " or " the complements of equal
angles are equal," are frequently designated preliminary
propositions. These preliminary propositions have certain
peculiarities which make them less adapted to produce an
understanding of geometry than are the theorems that follow.

In the first place, these propositions state facts which are
so self-evident that the beginner does not see the necessity of
proving them. That right angles are equal, or that only one

78 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

perpendicular to a given line can be drawn at a given point,
are facts so obvious that their certainty does not appear to.
become greater by demonstrations of any sort.

In the second place, proofs of exceedingly simple facts are
often difficult, and hence it is not surprising that many of the
demonstrations given for the preliminary propositions are not
the same simple deductions that are usually employed in geom-
etry, but rather artificial devices. To the beginner such proofs
frequently appear as unintelligible, complicated statements, the
truth of which is far more doubtful than that of the theorems
to be proved.

Although absolute rigor is utterly unattainable when present-
ing this subject in a secondary school, many textbooks sacrifice
pedagogic considerations in the attempt to present the prelim-
inary propositions rigorously. Whether or not the student can
fully comprehend the presentation seems to be a matter of
minor importance with some authors. " We must have r^gor,
absolute exactness, training in logic from the first day on,
otherwise," so these dogmatists claim, "the student will be
hopelessly led into the habit of slipshod thinking from which
no further training can redeem him." This striving for rigor
is undoubtedly responsible for the tyighly artificial character
and the complexity of the preliminary propositions as given
in a great many textbooks.

The psychology of this difficulty certainly calls for earnest
attention on the part of teachers. How can a matter be
clear, and yet difficult to translate into a train of logical
reasoning ? The answer offered in an earlier paragraph of
this chapter (p. 60) is that we are here dealing with two
spheres of experience. Transition from one to the other is
the real difficulty. If this answer is not acceptable, then it
devolves upon someone to go further, because the problem
is an urgent one for the teacher. Indeed, the problem here
presented raises the interesting question whether geometry
of a simple type ought not to be given in the elementary
schools where the simpler and less rigorous types of thought
are recognized as more at home.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF GEOMETEY 79

SCHULTZE ON IMAGERY

Another psychological problem which our author presents
is that of imagery (pp. 266-268) :

The study of solid geometry strengthens the student's space
imagination and his power to image space configurations, and
it gives him an understanding for drawings that represent
spatial objects.

Altogether it seems that the utilitarian advantages are some-
what greater, but the purely cultural advantages somewhat
smaller, than in plane geometry.

With such restrictions the study of solid geometry will not
offer great difficulty to the student. It may require a little
more time and a little more study, but it does not require more
intelligence than does plane geometry.

One difficulty, however, against which we must guard and
which we must overcome at the very start is the inability of
some students to understand diagrams of solids. There are
students who are able to reason logically, but who cannot imag-
ine clearly the spatial forms which the diagrams represent.
There are two ways of overcoming this difficulty, namely, the
use of models and rational methods of drawing.

The function of the model is to help the student in the
beginning to an understanding of solid figures in general, and
to make clear to him, later on, difficult drawings which other-
wise he would not understand. The model should, however,
not be used to supplant the drawing. As soon as the student
is able to understand the drawings, the models should be dis-
carded or reserved for the most difficult cases only. Otherwise
the student will lose one of the main benefits of the study,
namely, the development of his space imagination and of his
faculty to understand diagrams of solids.

There are other passages, of like import, which cannot be
quoted in full. These all raise at once — and in a very vivid
way — the question of imagery. How does imagery differ
from reasoning ? Why is it more difficult to imagine solid
figures than to imagine plane ? Is it true that one of the

80' PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

^

functions of geometry as taught in the schools is to culti-
vate the power of imagery ? It is interesting to note that
the experience of schools shows that students are deficient.
Why should we be more deficient in this matter than the
Greeks or the Japanese ? Is it not because the school has
left space to develop as best it can in the mind of the stu-
dent without the legitimate help which would come from
instruction in spatial relations all through the period of
education prior to that in which the student encounters
high-school geometry? If so fundamental a power as the
interpretation of a drawing of a solid is lacking in high-
school students, is it probable, in the light of experience,
that a course in demonstrative geometry administered in the
high school will cure the difficulty ? Is it not rather the duty
of the school to put into the elementary course at an early
point some constructive geometry ? Indeed, it seems very
clear to the unbiased student that it is to the interest of
the geometrician himself that he be persuaded to look about
for ways of cultivating space imagery which are more effi-
cient than those afforded in the logical courses now offered
in demonstrative geometry.

SCHULTZE ON FOBMAL DISCIPLINE

One problem which always turns up in educational dis-
cussions is the problem of mental discipline. Thus, our
author writes : *

Some psychologists claim that there is no such thing as
general mental discipline, that the disciplinary value pertains
only to the subject studied, or to one of similar content, and
that consequently mathematical study increases the reasoning
power for mathematics only.

It cannot be denied that there is a little truth in the first
part of this assertion, and that this theory has produced some

i Schultze, pp. 24-25.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRY 81

reaction against the practice of defending any pedagogical
absurdity on grounds of " mental discipline." But on the other
hand there is a tendency among the sensational pedagogues
to exaggerate and to generalize too sweepingly. Pedagogy and
psychology are not exact sciences. Their results are only
approximately true, and cannot be applied in the same rigorous
fashion as those of mathematics or physics. If we attempt to
apply them to complex problems, the limits of error are likely
to become so large as to invalidate the entire results. Conclu-
sions reached by such methods need constant verification, and
must be modified if found to be contradictory to experience.

Precisely this thing happens in this widely advertised disci-
pline theory when we apply it to mathematical teaching. Every
mathematical teacher of experience has seen cases which dis-
prove this theory. It is a common experience to see a pupil in the
upper grades suddenly wake up to the meaning of mathematics,
and thereby change his attitude towards study in general.

On the matter here discussed we shall later enlarge in a
full chapter devoted to a review of recent discussions of
formal discipline.

SMITH ON FORMAL DISCIPLINE

The importance of a rediscussion of the whole matter
will be obvious when we put together two quotations from
another leading author : l

There have been those who did not proclaim the utilitarian
value of geometry, but who fell into as serious an error,
namely, the advocating of geometry as a means of training
the memory. In times not so very far past, and to some extent
to-day, the memorizing of proofs has been justified on this
ground. This error has, however, been fully exposed by our
modern psychologists. They have shown that the person who
memorizes the propositions of Euclid by number is no more
capable of memorizing other facts than he was before, and

1 David E. Smith, The Teaching of Geometry, p. 12. Ginn and Com-
pany, 1011.

82 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

that the learning of proofs verbatim is of no assistance what-
ever in retaining matter that is helpful in other lines of work.-
Geometry, therefore, as a training of the memory is of no more
value than any other subject in the curriculum.

A few pages later the same author holds that logical
training will carry over (p. 17).

In spite of the results of the very meager experiments of
the psychologists, it is probable that the man who has had
some drill in syllogisms, and who has learned to select the
essentials and to neglect the nonessentials in reaching his con-
clusions, has acquired habits in reasoning that will help him in
every line of work.

SCHULTZE ON COMPARATIVE DIFFICULTY OF ALGEBRA
AND GEOMETRY

Another problem on which every writer expresses himself
is the character and difficulty of algebra as compared with
geometry. The following quotations refer to this problem.1

The selection of the subject-matter for courses in elementary
algebra must largely depend upon the educational advantages
of the subject, which are not absolutely identical with those of
geometry. Algebra requires the same accuracy of thinking,
and the same, or possibly greater accuracy of detail than geome-
try. It may be graded as perfectly, and its introductory chapters
may be made even simpler than those of geometry. The defi-
niteness of the task given to the student, the certainty of the
results, and the applicability of many of its topics to scientific
or other problems are precisely the same as in geometry.

On the other hand, algebra does not require as much reason-
ing, and this reasoning is not always of the same high order as
geometry. The amount of information cannot be reduced quite
as much as in geometry, and some topics in algebra require a
certain amount of mechanical drill. Hence, ingenuity and
originality of thinking do not play quite the same rdle, and the

1 Schultze, pp. 288-289.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRY 83

knowledge of facts is somewhat more important than in geom-
etry. Moreover, algebra lends itself rather readily to a purely
mechanical treatment. Students may add exponents, transpose
terms, and perform other manipulations without having a clear
notion of the meaning of these operations, and the symbols
involved.

Thus, while possessing most of the advantages of other
mathematical branches, algebra has certain drawbacks, and the
courses of study should be so arranged as to eliminate or to
minimize these disadvantages.

This passage raises a whole series of psychological prob-
lems with which we shall have to deal when we have made
an analysis of algebra. In the meantime we may quote
once more from Professor Smith1 on the same topic.

SMITH ON THE RELATIVE DIFFICULTY OF ALGEBRA
AND GEOMETRY

The child studies form in the kindergarten before he studies
number, and this is sound educational policy. He studies form,
in mensuration, throughout his course in arithmetic, and this,
too, is good educational policy. This kind of geometry very
properly precedes algebra. But the demonstrations of geometry,
the study by pupils of fourteen years of a geometry that was
written for college students and always studied by them until
about fifty years ago, — that is by no means as easy as the study
of a simple algebraic symbolism and its application to easy
equations. If geometry is to be taught for the same reason as
at present, it cannot advantageously be taught earlier than now
without much simplification, and it cannot successfully be fused
with algebra save by some teacher who is willing to sacrifice
an undue amount of energy to no really worthy purpose.

This paragraph suggests a number of interesting psycho-
logical questions. Why should different stages of the study
of space be separated as they now are ? Why should the
study of geometry continue in its present form ?

1 The Teaching of Geometry, p. 88.

84 PSYCHOLOGY OP HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

If there are various kinds of geometry, then the limits of
each are certainly worthy of definition. How far should direct
space perception appear in the later studies of geometrical
propositions, as well as in the elementary studies ? Suppose
that we find the studies of mensuration made in arithmetic
by the ordinary elementary-school child to be quite as ab-
stract as the theorems in geometry ; will this justify our
taking a different attitude than that announced in the para-
graph ? Why should geometry not be simplified ? Is algebra
made up of " simple symbolism " and " easy equations " ?

SMITH ON THE APPLICATION OF GEOMETRY

As pointed out in the introductory discussion in Chap-
ter II, geometry and its applications are different. The psy-
chology of applications is a topic which will naturally come
up again in discussing the technical subjects. We shall not
be able to enter into a complete discussion of the matter in
this connection, but there is a good opportunity here to get
the problem clearly before us.

In his second chapter and throughout the book Profes-
sor Smith discusses the problem of the practical application
of geometry. He points out that in the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries (p. 10) there were large numbers of treatises
published on the subject of practical geometry. On page 11
he reaches the following conclusion :

Out of all this effort some genuine good remains, but rela-
tively not very much. And so it will be with the present
movement [that is, the movement in the direction of applied
geometry] ; it will serve its greatest purpose in making teachers
think and read, and in adding to their interest and enthusiasm
and to the interest of their pupils; but it will not greatly
change geometry, because no serious person ever believed that
geometry was taught chiefly for practical purposes, or was made
more interesting or valuable through such a pretense.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRY 85

A further passage dealing with the same topic appears
on page 74.

And as to the exercises, what is the basis of selection ? In
general, let it be said that any exercise that pretends to be real
should be so, and that words taken from science or measure-
ments do not necessarily make the problem genuine. To take
a proposition and apply it in a manner that the world never
sanctions is to indulge in deceit. On the other hand, wholly to
neglect the common applications of geometry to handwork of
various kinds is to miss one of our great opportunities to make
the subject vital to the pupil, to arouse new interest, and to
give a meaning to it that is otherwise wanting. It should always
be remembered that mental discipline, whatever the phrase may
mean, can as readily be obtained from a genuine application
of a theorem as from a mere geometric puzzle. On the other
hand, it is evident that not more than 25 per cent of proposi-
tions have any genuine applications outside of geometry, and
that if we are to attempt any applications at all, these must be
sought mainly in the field of pure geometry. In the exercises,
therefore, we seek to-day a sane and a balanced book, giving
equal weight to theory and to practice, to the demands of the
artisan and to those of the mathematician, to the applications
of concrete science and to those of pure geometry, thus making
a fusion of pure and applied mathematics, with the latter as
prominent as the supply of genuine problems permits.

In drawing this contrast Professor Smith has done us
the great service of calling attention to the fact that the
mental processes involved in applications of geometry are
different from the mental processes aroused during the dem-
onstration of theorems. If we recognize clearly this conclu-
sion, we shall see the necessity of studying the processes of
application in order that we may train them and in order
that we may understand their value. The assumption of
the school in times past has been that students will work
out the applications of the theories which they learn in
school in a natural and spontaneous way. There is of

86 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

course, in practical life, little justification for the pious hope
that applications of science will take care of themselves.
There is ample evidence that a student must be shown how
to use his mental equipment before it becomes available in
circumstances other than those in which it was acquired.

Let us assume that some of the applications found in
the school are artificial in character. Is it not true that
any general scheme of education is in this sense relatively
artificial? Is not the whole period of dependent, unpro-
ductive childhood and youth a relatively artificial period ?
It may be said that the child who imitates his elders in a
game is doing something that is highly artificial; the girl
with her dolls or the boy with his carpenter's tools is cer-
tainly not making an application of his powers to any situ-
ation which can be thought of as productive. But this very
artificial opportunity of employing one's powers is of the
greatest advantage to the child ; it is the purpose of nature
during this period of dependency to furnish the child with
leisure to experiment. There is no better exercise for the
memory and no better exercise for the growing mind than
to set up some kind of situation and face it with a view to
solving its difficulties — not because the solution is going
to be marketable or because it is going to modify the real
world of affairs, but because it is going to give the individual
poise and new 'equipment and new ability to carry over
what he has acquired in one field into another situation
which does not contain the elements of the original situation.
Such an artificial situation trains one's knowledge and skill.

One reads in the educational literature of the day the
statement that the school should be a real world. One
reads that the child will not attack the problems of the
school with any enthusiasm unless the school can be made
as real as the business world is for an adult. The answer
to many of these statements is that the world of action is
real even when situations are merely imagined situations.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRY 87

In order to be real, a situation does not need to be produc-
tive for society ; it does not need to modify the physical
world in any definite way. The situation is real if it calls
for a mental adjustment on the part of the child or a
conscious readjustment of his behavior. In this sense the
applications of geometry to relatively artificial situations
may be immensely real for the student who is working
them out, although from the point of view of adult society
they may be very artificial and insignificant.

It is enough for our present purpose if the problem is
clearly before us. The solution of the problem must be
sought in connection with the discussion of the place of
the practical arts in school work.

SMITH ON THE REASONS FOE THE STUDY OP GEOMETRY

One final quotation from Professor Smith suggests an
interesting psychological problem. On page 15 he con-
cludes his discussion of the reasons why we teach and
study geometry with the following :

Probably the primary reason, if we do not attempt to deceive
ourselves, is pleasure. We study music because music gives
us pleasure, not necessarily our own music, but good music,
whether ours, or, as is more probable, that of others. We
study literature because we derive pleasure from books ....
At any rate, these are the nobler reasons for their study.

So it is with geometry. We study it because we derive
pleasure from contact with a great and ancient body of learn-
ing that has occupied the attention of master minds during
the thousands of years in which it has been perfected, and we
are uplifted by it.

The student of psychology is instantly struck by the fact
that Professor Smith's argument at this point is by no means
fundamental. He does not go to the bottom of the matter
when he says that we derive pleasure from this sort of
study. Pleasure itself is an experience which needs some

88 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

explanation. There are as many different kinds of pleasure
as there are different types of mental attitudes. If geom-*
etry gives pleasure, this result must be due to the fact that
in some fashion or other geometry sets up forms of behavior
and forms of mental activity that are in keeping with the
demands of the individual's nature. No form of experience
is pleasurable unless it is in some fundamental way in keep-
ing with the demands of the individual. Therefore, when
our author states that we derive pleasure from geometry,
he gives a descriptive account of the situation and not an
explanation of it. To offer pleasure as the prime reason
for the study of geometry is to take only one step in the
direction of a real explanation.

Suppose, for example, that we try two or three of the
different hypotheses that might be suggested as back of
Professor Smith's statement. Thus we might hold with
certain metaphysicians that geometry gives pleasure be-
cause in this sphere the mind is operating in a world of its
own creation. Geometry is nothing but a creation of one's
own consciousness, and consequently geometry is more fully
and satisfactorily understood than any other system of ex-
perience. Geometry therefore gives the mind an opportu-
nity to work over with pleasure its own creations.

On the other hand, we may turn to an entirely different
interpretation of the situation. We may say that geometry
is a more concrete subject than most of the others offered
in the course of study. The student can see his sensory
experiences unite in a well-organized and connected system.
Thus, for example, when one tries to find out the sum of the
angles of a triangle, he is not at liberty to modify the real,
objective facts in any particular, and the more he experi-
ments with these facts, the more stubbornly concrete they
become, while at the same time the more thoroughly reli-
able they are to his thinking. After he has experimented
with five triangles he can go on to fifty or five hundred,

PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF GEOMETRY 89

and he will always find that the result is the same with re-
gard to the sum of the angles. Experience of this type is
very concrete and objective ; and the high degree of satis-
faction which the student derives from this contact with a
series of experiences which are uniform is the satisfaction
which comes from a definite understanding of the real world.

Both of these statements would comport with Professor
Smith's statement regarding pleasure, and yet they are fun-
damentally opposed in their teachings regarding the nature
of geometry. The problem of why geometry gives pleasure
is therefore a deeper problem than the mere assertion of the
fact. Furthermore, there are many known cases where the
study of geometry does not give pleasure to the student.
The problem of how to produce a readjustment in such
cases is a very urgent human problem. We shall certainly
need to inquire, in such negative cases, what is the psy-
chological character of pleasure, and what the possibility of
so readjusting the situation as to produce pleasure through
the study of geometry. Suppose we tell students that they
will ultimately derive pleasure from tasks which at the
outset do not afford pleasure, we shall be deep in the psy-
chology of pleasure, and we shall be greatly concerned to
discover the formula by which geometry can be used as an
instrument for giving the ultimate pleasure promised.

The reader who has had the courage to follow the dis-
cussions of the last few pages will be convinced that it is
relatively easy to raise psychological questions. The answers
to some of these questions are not always easy to find. Our
present purpose has, however, been served if the method of
raising questions has been demonstrated. Answering some
of these questions will be the work of later chapters. We
shall therefore close the special treatment of geometry and
turn for a time to the analysis of algebra, returning, after
some discussion of algebra, to the question of the relation
between geometry and the other branches of mathematics.

CHAPTER V
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NUMBER AND ABSTRACTION

The psychological analysis of algebra must be introduced
by a consideration, first, of the psychology of number, and
second, by a consideration of the. psychology of abstraction.
Algebra is a generalized arithmetic, and as such is related
historically to the science of number rather than to the
science of space. This historical relation was the subject
of brief comment in an earlier chapter and need not be
elaborated here.

NUMBER CONSCIOUSNESS A FORM OF COMPARISON

The mental process which appears in number conscious-
ness is in essence one of the many forms of comparison.
The objects to be counted are related in consciousness to
some set of objects, or to some standard series of ideas,
which serve as tallies. Thus, when primitive man came
to possess so many cattle or tents that he could no longer
remember them individually, he began to compare his pos-
sessions to convenient and more readily manageable sets of
objects which served as tallies. The word " calculate " and
related words show that the ancient Roman used peb-
bles (calculus, " a pebble ") for the purpose in question. He
looked at one sheep or one ox and set aside a pebble as a
reminder of this item of his wealth. The pebble thus set
aside was easy to manage, and it was a safe reminder, for
it was soon found to be invariably true that if there had
once been a one-to-one correspondence between tallies and

90

NUMBER AND ABSTRACTION 91

objects, there would always be a one-to-one correspondence.
That is, if a pebble had been set aside for a sheep, then later
there must be a sheep for each pebble.

The common series on which primitive man depended
to thus remind himself of his possessions was the series of
digits which he always had as convenient objects of im-
mediate reference. The fingers exercised a significant and
formative influence on the methods of counting. We can
understand this influence only when we consider many facts
regarding the fingers as a system of tallies. Thus we may
comment in detail on one essential characteristic of the
fingers which influenced the mind in making up number
systems. The fingers are a limited group and require, in
addition to themselves, certain supplementary devices which
make it possible to use them over and over again in tally-
ing off large collections of objects. The number system
becomes, therefore, a series of multiples, and much of the
terminology of number deals with this repeating of the base.
Furthermore, the decimal base and the base of five which ap-
pear in many number schemes are not mathematically nec-
essary. The base might equally well have been six or twelve
or some other small, easily recognized number. In the se-
lection of ten we see the influence of the fingers. In the
struggles through which primitive people passed in develop-
ing a number terminology which should include many tens,
we see the embarrassments and limitations which grew out of
the limited system of tallies which the hand made available.

WORDS AS SUBSTITUTES FOB TALLIES

After primitive man became familiar with the advantages
of a one-to-one comparison of objects with a system of tal-
lies, it was natural that he should translate the system of
tallying which he had evolved into a system of words. The
number terms used by primitive peoples exhibit almost

92 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

4fr

universally the direct relation of number words to the hand-
tally system. Thus one historian1 remarks:

The number five is generally represented by the open hand,
and it is said that in almost all languages the words " five " and
" hand " are derived from the same root. . . . The only tribes
of whom I have read who did not count in terms either of five
or of some multiple of five are the Bolans of West Africa, who
are said to have counted by multiples of seven, and the Maoris,
who are said to have counted by multiples of eleven.

The creation of a series of words which could be substi-
tuted for the objects used as tallies is a long process. Such
a series of words has the disadvantage over a series of tal-
lies that the word disappears as soon as it is uttered. Imag-
ine a speaker saying over to himself, " one, one, one," and
so on, as the items of his property pass in review. Evi-
dently such a series of ones is of no use in keeping tally,
because the tally system is less easy to remember than the
objects taken directly. The words used in the tally system
must be distinguishable, and, furthermore, each word must
have a fixed place in the number series. The importance
of giving a number word a fixed place in the series is seen
when we observe little children who know number words,
but do not know their order. A little child will count with-
out recognition of order, saying " three, seven, one, five."
A few moments later he will say " nine, six, one, three."
He does not know the order of these words, hence he
cannot count in any true sense.

HIGHER FORMS OF COMPARISON APPLIED TO NUMBERS

We cannot here enter into the details of the history of
number terminology. Let us assume that a race or indi-
vidual has learned to count, and has a developed number

1 W. W. R. Ball, A Short Account of the History of Mathematics,
p. 125. The Macmillan Company, 1893.

NUMBER AND ABSTRACTION 93

terminology. There are still higher forms of thought which
number makes possible. Thus, suppose there are side by
side two heaps of pebbles representing the Roman's count
of his properties. He wishes now to combine or divide the
two parts of his property represented by these two heaps
of tallies. He can do this in various ways : either he can go
back to the things themselves, or he can carry on the re-
distribution with the aid of his tallies. There is a third way
which he might adopt : he might divide up the images of
his possessions which he carries in memory. Finally, he
might adopt the most elaborate and complex method of
all: he might first translate his property into tallies, and
then do his readjusting by thinking about his tallies. The
method of relying on tallies proved to be the simplest.
Man also found very soon that there are certain regular
principles which assert themselves in the combination and
recombination of tallies. The discovery of these regular
principles of combination in tally systems led to the inven-
tion of counting and adding machines such as the abacus.
An abacus is a mechanical contrivance to facilitate combin-
ing and recombining groups of tallies. The psychological
effect of using this machine is that the individual becomes
expert in rearranging sets of tallies ; this is a higher proc-
ess than that involved in counting.

Again, we cannot enter into the history of adding and
dividing devices. We are, however, interested in the fact,
for which there is abundant historical evidence, that when
men found how elaborately numbers can be combined and
recombined, some of them became so absorbed in this mere
working over of number systems that they forgot the rela-
tion of numbers to things. Numbers became things of a
higher order — they were of interest not because of what
they represented, but because of their own laws of combi-
nation and recombination. We speak to-day of pure num-
ber as distinguished from applications. The expression

94 .PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

•*

" pure numbers " indicates that the number system has an
interest to the student of the laws of number combination, •
even though the process of combination and recombination
is not directly related to any perceptual experience.

NUMBERS DISTINCT FROM SYSTEMS OF MEASUREMENT

Number systems and principles of number combination
and recombination are, in our present-day civilization, inti-
mately related to all kinds of systems of measurement. It
should be recognized, however, that numbers are not to be
confused with standards of measurement. Thus, when one
uses a foot ruler to measure distance and a dollar to meas-
ure money values, he can apply the principles of number
combinations in exactly the same way to two wholly differ-
ent standards and to two wholly different sets of experi-
ences. The creation of a standard foot is not a phase of
number consciousness. Number is used in dealing with the
foot, but the selection of the foot, and the devices adopted
for applying the foot to other spaces which are to be meas-
ured, are not problems of number.

The distinction between the pure number idea and the
practical arts of applying standards to objects is a distinc-
tion which needs to be emphasized by the student of
education. Educational literature has at times confused
these two different psychological processes, and our text-
books are full of admixtures of the two. Thus, in all school
arithmetics the tables of weights and measures are given as
a part of the science of number. That the tables of weights
and measures are not arithmetical in character, as are the
addition table or multiplication table, is seen in the simple
fact that French arithmetic is the same as English arithmetic
in so far as it presents the tables of pure number and number
recombination, but French and English books are wholly
different in the standard weights and measures presented.

NUMBER AND ABSTEACTION 95

The selection of a standard greatly promotes the appli-
cation of number to practical life, and a standard could not
be used to any advantage if there were no number system;
but the intimate relation of the two does not justify the
notion that they are psychologically the same.

For our study of algebra it is of the highest importance
that we distinguish between measurement and number
combinations. Algebra is a science which studies the laws
of number recombination without any reference to stand-
ards of measurement. The student who has been studying
weights and measures in the upper grades of the elemen-
tary school comes into high-school algebra and finds no
tables of weights and measures. He finds some of the famil-
iar forms of combination which he used in arithmetic, but
these combinations are freed, as far as possible, in algebra
from direct reference to any particular standards of meas-
urement. Algebra does not measure; it establishes and
expounds laws of combination and recombination. It is an
abstract science of the laws of mathematical combination,
it is not a final chapter of the ordinary arithmetic ; such
chapters invariably deal with applications of mathematical
laws to complex measurements.

ALGEBRA A SCIENCE OF HIGHER ABSTRACTION

Take, for example, the simple algebraic statement

= a6 + ac.

This statement sets forth a fundamental and universal law
of combination, but it says not a word about standards.
The algebraic formula is a device for stripping the process
of combination, as far as possible, of all content, and with
the content removed, we face the one question, How can
quantitative ideas be recombined? We are dealing here
with an abstract matter of rearrangement.

96 PSYCHOLOGY OP HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

•*

This concentration of attention on the laws of combina-
tion and the neglect of all concrete aspects of situations
is a form of abstraction. We must therefore study more
completely the psychology of abstraction. Abstraction is a
form of mental activity which begins with analysis. Through
analysis we cut off in thought certain elements of a percep-
tual experience, and concentrate on a single characteristic
or on a limited group of characteristics. We saw one type
of abstraction when we were considering the geometrical
definitions of lines and points. The perceived line has
width and color as the observer sees it, but we do not want
to consider the width or the color in geometry ; we accord-
ingly neglect them and say that a line has only one charac-
teristic, namely, length. The point is described as having
no sensory properties, no color, not even dimensions. That
means that in geometry we must neglect all those sensory
properties which we see when we look at real points. The
neglect of certain aspects of a situation is the negative side
of abstraction. On the positive side we concentrate atten-
tion on those facts which constitute the real subject matter
of our science. Thus a line has length ; a point has position.
For geometry the laws of position and extension are the
only facts worth considering in the experiences which we
derive from points and lines.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF FORMS OP ABSTRACTION

The example of abstraction which was borrowed from
geometry is by no means the simplest example that could
be found. We are constantly making abstractions in our
dealing with objects in that we neglect certain parts of the
sensory experiences which come to us as we look at each
object For example, when talking with a person we neglect
practically all of the visual experiences which come to us
from the walls of the room or the objects in the room. We

NUMBER AND ABSTRACTION 97

thus cut off or abstract the person from his surroundings.
If we are talking with a larger number of people in the
same room, we include more sensory elements; we even
make use of the visual images which we get from the walls,
in order to adjust properly the vigor with which we articu-
late. Our mental and physical attitudes are very different
when we are thinking of many people and when we are
thinking of a single person. Our attitudes are thus seen to
be relatively independent of the sensory impressions offered
to us. We may therefore conclude that abstractions and
activities are closely related.

The reason why we analyze our experiences and concen-
trate on certain selected portions of them is that we are
able to react at any given moment only to one aspect of
the whole situation. Those parts of the situation to which
we react are of enough greater importance to us so that we
recognize them more clearly in consciousness than we do
the elements of the situation to which we do not react. In
some cases we deliberately react for the purpose of helping
ourselves to discriminate. Thus, if one points his finger in
a certain direction, he finds that he can concentrate his
attention and the attention of his audience very much better
through this act than through any other means. The ges-
ture of pointing is, therefore, an instrument of analysis. In
the same way there are certain reactions of the eyes which
aid analysis. If one points to a particular object and focuses
his eyes upon that object, he brings out the meaning and
value of the object on which he focuses very much more
vividly than he could if his eyes simply wandered about the
room. Indeed, in visual analysis, nature has cooperated by
making the central part of the retina very different, in its
structure and in its ability to receive impressions, from the
rest of the retina. Consequently, a person who looks with
fixed vision not only has the advantage of the movement by
which he concentrates attention on a given object, but he also

98 -PSYCHOLOGY OP HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

<*>

has a clearer and more vivid group of sensory experiences1
from an object which is seen with the center of the retina.
Many of our movements are designed to bring us into
more intimate sensory contact with the objects of attention.
Thus, if after looking at an object for a time I go to it and
take it in my hand, I am not only helping myself to neglect
the rest of my environment and to concentrate attention
on the one object through my movement, but I have also
increased my sensory contact with the object. All these
examples show how important are the analyses which we
are constantly making of our experiences.

WORDS THE CHIEF INSTRUMENTS OF ABSTRACTION

We have, in addition to the various forms of movement
which have been described above, an important instrument
of analysis in the words which we employ. If I look at a
general surface and observe at first its general character-
istics, and then use a single word to designate its color,
I aid myself in the analysis of the situation by the use of
this word. The value of the word is not merely that I ex-
press an idea. The greatest value of the word is that I am
thus aided in making an analysis of my own experience.
I distinguish between the color and the other characteristics
of the object through the word as an instrument of discrim-
ination. After I have thus made analysis by means of a
word, the word comes to stand in my experience for the
characteristic which it designates. In later cases the word
may be used to bring up in the mind a picture or image
of the selected characteristic. On the other hand, in many
cases the word does not recall the characteristic in any
vivid way. It merely makes the characteristic available
without concrete imagery. Thus, if one uses the word
" blue," he can safely contrast blue with other colors, re-
marking to himself that blue is different from red or green.

NUMBER AND ABSTRACTION 99

In such a contrast of words we do not need vivid pictures
of the colors themselves to become aware of the differences
between the sensory qualities to which the words refer;
the very difference between the names is significant for our
thought. The fact that one has separate words for various
color experiences records the fact that these experiences
are different. Indeed, one can talk about this difference
without realizing exactly what the difference is. In short,
one can concentrate attention on a difference depending
wholly upon two words without calling up the actual sen-
sory images at all. To be sure, if one wanted to do so, he
could usually think this difference out in sensory terms,
but for the most part one saves time and energy by not
trying to think out the difference in full. It is more eco-
nomical for one to do his thinking and comparing in words.
In all these cases we see how the mind operates through
symbols, that is, through representative experiences which
are substituted for direct experiences. The use of symbols
is also, as seen in these examples, related to selective
thought or abstraction.

In the same way there is a relation between a given word
and the more general word under which it is classified.
When I use the two words "color" and "blue," I do not
have to stop and work out the matter in a sensory way. I
have learned how to use the words as substitutes for the
experience, and I know that the word "color" is a general
word and that blue is classified under it as a specific term.
If now I go on and use a still more highly specialized
term such as " navy blue," the words themselves serve to
indicate that I am dealing with a subclass. Even a person
who has not seen navy blue would realize that this word
designates a more specific experience than does the general
word "blue."

We see by these examples how the process of abstraction
is more than a process of mere analysis. The first stage of

100. PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

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abstraction is to neglect certain of the facts of the environ-
ment and to concentrate attention on the others ; the second-
stage of abstraction is that in which we substitute products
of our thought for real experiences, and by using these prod-
ucts of our thought we carry on more rapidly and efficiently
all sorts of complex comparisons and discriminations.

DANGERS OF ABSTRACTION

In some cases, to be sure, our symbols, or substitutes for
experience, get so far away from the real sensory images
that we have difficulty in carrying on our trains of thought
in such a way that they are productive as guides for later
contact with the world of direct sensory experiences. We
then speak of our abstract thinking as too abstract, or we
treat our mental processes as mere speculations. Thus, to
use one more example from geometry, we may assume,
with the non-Euclidean geometricians, that parallel lines
meet if they are extended. This assumption that parallel
lines meet is made for the purpose of comparing a wholly
abstract or assumed space with the space which we know
in Euclidean geometry where parallel lines do not meet.
There is no difficulty whatsoever in talking about parallel
lines that meet. In the world of complete abstraction, that
is, in the world of thought about lines, we may think of lines
in any way that seems to us to be desirable ; but we cannot
take the results of such thought back into the world of prac-
tice or even into the world of direct imagery. Anyone who,
after speculating for a time about different kinds of possible
space, should try to lay railroad rails, on the assumption
that parallel lines meet, would find himself in difficulty.
Speculation and practical life thus frequently need to be
distinguished from each other. Indeed, the distinction is so
evident that perhaps the better statement of the case is to
say that the two forms of experience need reconciliation.

NUMBER AND ABSTRACTION 101

ADVANTAGES OF ABSTRACTION

Nor is the value of speculation to be questioned even
when the results are not directly applicable to common
life. Very frequently it is important that we should con-
trast our experiences in various ways, in order that we may
learn to understand the characteristics of real experience.
One who has studied non-Euclidean geometry for a time
realizes very much more vividly than he ever realized be-
fore the importance of the statement that in the space
which we know parallel lines do not meet. The contrast
has helped him to understand in a new way what he has
always seen but never fully realized.

The mental exercise which comes from contrasting pos-
sible experiences is thus seen to be of value. In the same
way in many of our demonstrations in geometry we assume
the contrary, and by the process of reductio ad abvurdum
we demonstrate the fact that the assumption which we have
made is untenable. The argument in this case is a purely
speculative argument. We assume that things might be
different from real experience for the sake of coming back
with greater assurance to the real experiences which will
not conform to our speculation.

SPECIAL MEANS OF MATHEMATICAL ABSTRACTION

There are instruments of abstraction other than words ;
or, perhaps, the better way to put the case will be to draw
attention to the fact that after language developed, other
forms of experience were brought into conformity with
language and were made abstract in a sense even more
general than speech itself. Thus written words came to
stand for spoken words. At the outset written symbols
were of an entirely different type from those which we
now have, but so significant is oral speech as an instrument

102 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

*

for abstraction and analysis that the visual symbols took on
all the characteristics of spoken words. Then came a new
and additional development. The written word, having
taken on all the characteristics of the abstract spoken
word, began to exhibit abstract possibilities of a higher
order than even the oral word. The mere sight of a word
now makes comparative thought possible. For example,
when the two words " blue " and " color " appear on the
printed page, the word " blue " is recognized as a specific
term under the general term " color." This is done without
any complete articulation, or any clear representation of the
visual experiences to which the words refer or even of the
auditory experience arising from the utterance of the word.
Any careful analysis of the reading process shows that we
tend to keep alive more or less the articulation which is
connected with the word ; but this articulation, as we shall
note more fully in a later chapter, gradually grows weaker
and, in some cases, gives place entirely to other and more
fundamental forms of physiological activity. The fact is
that we have in written symbols a new stage of abstraction
which can be used in complex thought-processes in almost
complete independence of sensory experiences.

From written words turn to the signs used in mathemat-
ical equations. How far we are from direct sensory experi-
ence in the use of the symbol of equality or the symbol
of addition ! We can talk about adding things, using the
word " addition " as the instrument for expression, and we
shall recognize that we have reached a high stage of ab-
straction ; but when we write the symbol for addition and,
without any complete articulation or description, instantly
recognize the fact that this symbol means the assembling
into a single quantity of all the quantities that are on both
sides of it, then we have isolated for purposes of thought,
and dealt abstractly with, a process of mathematical manip-
ulation. The purely abstract use of addition is, of course,

NUMBER AND ABSTRACTION 103

possible only after one has seen the process actually carried
out with a number of concrete experiences. Thus the child
must add seven splints to five splints or he must add five
blocks to seven blocks before he will understand what is
meant by the process of addition. Little by little he can be
brought to the point where he does not need to think of
the actual piling together of objects in order to understand
what is meant by addition. Ultimately the child can think
of the process of addition and its laws quite apart from
any concrete examples, as when a trained adult recognizes
without detailed thought that addition increases while
subtraction diminishes.

ALGEBBA AS AN ABSTRACT SCIENCE

The science of algebra can be defined in terms of the
foregoing discussion as a science which examines math-
ematical operations in a purely abstract way. We get as
far away as we can from any real cases, and we study in
the most abstract form how any case could be treated if we
wanted to treat it from the point of view of the adding
process, or the dividing process, or the subtracting process,
etc. We study the different combinations of multiplication,
permutation, etc., which are feasible, with all quantities of
any kind whatsoever. Whenever we come upon a symbol
of mathematical operation we have the real subject matter
of this science before us.

It is not enough, however, to have mere symbols of
operation. There must be in every algebraic formula some-
thing which stands for, and serves as a substitute for, the
things which are to be added or otherwise manipulated.
For the purposes of a general science which is studying the
process of manipulation, it is desirable that the quantities
which are to be handled should, as far as possible, leave
behind all of their particular characteristics. We do not

104 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

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want to know what kind of things are to be added. We
merely want to know what will happen to anything if it
is added to something else. We consequently set down in
our algebraic formulas the most abstract symbols of quan-
tity which we can find, taking great pains that the symbols
which we use shall have as little concrete significance as
possible. We have, as a matter of fact, found it advantageous
to use for this purpose the letters of the alphabet. The
letters taken singly have no meaning whatsoever, and con-
sequently they serve admirably the purpose in hand. We
cannot use numbers, because numbers are expressions of a
definite kind of fact, namely, exact position in the number
series. It would be fatal to our study of the addition
process, as such, if we used particular numbers. To be sure,
numbers represent a high stage of abstraction, but they
are nevertheless particular quantities in the sense that a
given number means a perfectly definite relationship. On
the other hand, if we use the letter a instead of a number,
we have freed ourselves from any particular experiences,
even the experience of a particular relation. It would not
do to use a symbol which had even so much concrete sig-
nificance as a word. Suppose, for example, that one should
say in algebra that books added to books equal a library.
Here we should have our attention concentrated upon books,
and we could not study the addition process apart from
the concrete objects which are to be added. Letters as
contrasted with numbers and words represent no particular
content. We might use symbols other than letters. We
might use triangles and squares. The difficulty here is
that if we try to use triangles and squares, we are in danger
of forgetting that we do not mean triangles and squares.
Forms are too interesting in themselves. We might use
such a form as that of a triangle, stipulating that it repre-
sents any sort of a quantity, but there would still be the
lingering impression that this triangle can represent only

NUMBER AND ABSTRACTION 105

other triangles. The association of space with space is
too vivid to make the triangle available as an absolutely
general symbol.

When a set of symbols has been stripped of all concrete
content we find that attention can be concentrated wholly
upon processes or operations. Furthermore, we find that
when we have learned the laws of mathematical operation
we can come back to real situations with greater economy
of mental energy than we could effect if we held all along
to the concrete facts. In other words, if our reasoning is
correct, it is possible to come back to real quantities with
full assurance that in so far as the conclusion depends on
rearrangement it is entirely reliable, without carrying the
real quantities through all the operations. Thus, if I have
a real set of facts, such as income and expenditure, and
wish to find out how the combination of income and ex-
penditure will work out if I add at this point and subtract
at another, I can turn my items at the beginning of the
discussion into abstract form by substituting letters for the
particular items. I can now carry these letters through all
the various processes of combination and recombination
without thinking in detail about income and expenditure
as real concrete experiences. I merely think about the proc-
esses of combination and recombination. That is, I can
say to myself that if I add a to b and b to <?, the result
for my next operation will be thus and so ; I can carry on
my second and third operations, using the letters all the
time as substitutes for all real facts, and can after a long
train of reasoning, in which I have been concerned only
with combinations and recombinations, find myself in pos-
session of a result which now can be translated back into
the real facts. If I have taken a, 6, and c as three quan-
tities and have worked them over until I find that I am
left with 2a + £& — 4c, I can instantly translate these
symbols back into real quantities, with the assurance that

106 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

<+

all my manipulations have yielded a perfectly definite re-
sult. By turning quantities into abstract symbols at the
outset, I have avoided all the clumsiness of reference to
particular quantities. I have concentrated attention upon
the processes in which I am interested, and have there-
fore economized enormously my mental energy; indeed,
since my rules of procedure are reliable I have insured
even greater correctness of thought than would have been
possible if I had carried the concrete experiences along in
full, for my thought-processes have been reduced to the
last possible stage of simplicity.

ADVANTAGES OF NEGLECTING THE CONCRETE

Algebra thus shows itself to be, as is all abstract thought,
a most economical mental device. Once we acquire the
power to neglect all the concrete facts and to concentrate
our attention wholly upon the processes of manipulation,
we are free from the incumbrances that come through at-
tention to the concrete facts. Not only so, but there are
certain additional advantages which can be gained from
carrying on thought at this abstract level. We can repre-
sent to ourselves certain quantities which could not, as a
matter of fact, be known in the concrete. Thus the student
of algebra can represent the quantity which he wishes to
secure by a letter such as X, and although it is for the time
being an unknown quantity, he can include it in all his
reasoning about operations. By including the unknown
result in one's reasoning, one gets all of the advantages
of having the quantity for purposes of manipulation even
when he could not include it as a real quantity, because it
is not known. The use of a quantity before one knows it
is possible only when the student becomes so familiar with
the laws of algebraic manipulation that he is perfectly
sure that he is treating all quantities properly without any

NUMBER AND ABSTRACTION 107

reference whatsoever to their real character. Another and
perhaps a more striking example is the use of imaginary
quantities in algebra. Here the quantity is a pure abstrac-
tion developed by the processes of mathematical manipula-
tion, and useful as a means of carrying these processes far
enough to permit them to reach completion.

CONTRAST BETWEEN ALGEBRA AND ARITHMETIC

These discussions show the enormous advantage which
is gained by dealing abstractly with situations. If a stu-
dent can be made aware of the fact that algebra is an
economy of time and energy, he is likely to get on very
much better in his use of symbols and in his appreciation
of their meaning than if he is simply led to think of the
algebraic processes as processes of the same type as those
which he used in arithmetic. Arithmetic is a particular
science ; algebra is a general science. Arithmetic is limited
by the fact that the use of numbers always requires atten-
tion to the number characteristics of each integer which is
employed. We cannot use unknown quantities in arith-
metic, simply because we have not gone far enough in the
process of abstraction in arithmetic to get rid of the partic-
ular qualities which are connected with particular numbers.
In arithmetic it sometimes takes a long series of operations
to work out an example which a very short series of proc-
esses will work out in algebra. It is not proper, therefore,
to speak of algebra as a chapter of arithmetic. Algebra
takes up the processes and operations which are known to
arithmetic in a form which is unknown to arithmetic. Stu-
dents always have difficulty in seeing the connection be-
tween arithmetic and algebra. If there is to be a relating
of the two sciences of arithmetic and algebra, the teacher
must see to it that the relation is worked out explicitly for
the student.

108 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

RELATIONS OF ALGEBBA

Algebra has other relations than the relation to arith-
metic. Conspicuous, and important for our study, is the
relation of algebra to geometry. For the practical teacher
the relation of algebra to applications in industry and sci-
ence is of equal importance. These special relations deserve
full consideration, and will be taken up in a separate chap-
ter. For the present we shall be content with the account
which has been given of the number idea and the process
of abstraction seen in algebra, and shall turn to a brief
study of algebra texts.

COMPARISON OP ALGEBRA TEXTBOOKS

The analysis of algebra which has been presented in the
foregoing pages can be applied to some of the particular
problems of teaching this subject by contrasting two text-
books— one from the middle of the last century, l before the
present-day high-school curriculum had developed, and one2
from the present period, during which every high-school
subject is being carefully revised.

SIMILARITY OF TOPICS TREATED

The order of subjects in these two treatises is surprisingly
alike. Indeed, the authors of the later book point out that
they have followed the traditional order of treatment of
topics. The fact that the traditional order of treatment has
been maintained, in spite of the most careful revisions, indi-
cates how completely the situation, up to this time, has

1 Horatio N. Robinson, New Elementary Algebra. Copyrighted 1869.
Preface of new edition, 1876. Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor and Company.

* H. E. Hawkes, W. A. Luby, and F, C. Teuton, First Course in
Algebra. Ginn and Company, 1909,

NUMBER AND ABSTRACTION 109

been dominated by the logical structure of the science.
The newer book differs from the old book, however, in the
fact that there are interspersed, throughout the text, chap-
ters on the equation. In these chapters the abstract proc-
esses are directly applied to the solution of problems. Thus,
in the new book, after a chapter on the process of addition,
there is a chapter on simple equations. In the older book
equations were not taken up until all of the processes of
addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division had been
explained. Indeed, in the older book not only were these
processes explained and exemplified with integers, but they
were also applied to fractions before the student was brought
to the use of the processes in the solution of equations
and problems. There can be no doubt that the more recent
book has, in its free use of problems and equations, furnished
the student with a means of developing his ideas of the
fundamental processes. To go through half a book on a
subject with nothing but abstract examples of the processes
that are to be used later is a great tax upon the interest
and attention of the student. The change which has been
introduced is undoubtedly of value in building up and
maintaining the student's insight and interest.

EMPHASIS ON SPACE MATERIAL IN THE NEWER BOOK

In the second place, the modern book contains certain
topics which are entirely absent from the earlier book. There
are a number of chapters in the new book on graphic meth-
ods and on equations that deal with space and its different
relations. This emphasis upon space is in the interest of
application of the science of algebra and also in the interest of
clearness of presentation of the various algebraic processes
studied. The student gets an idea from seeing a graphic
representation of an equation which he never could get in
the same vivid way if the matter were discussed wholly in

110 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

<*

abstract terms. This disposition to show the student con-
crete facts related to algebraic equations is one of the most
important innovations that has been made in the presenta-
tion of mathematical sciences to secondary-school students.
Algebra is remote from the ordinary subjects of real ex-
perience ; consequently, the discovery that space is at the
same time a direct concrete experience and a means of
expressing abstract relations is important to the teacher
who is looking for some kind of experience which can
always be used in explaining and applying algebra. Space
is such material. In the older book there is very little ref-
erence to geometrical facts. To be sure, in dealing with
negative quantities one finds spatial facts in the older book.
There are examples about distances to the north and
south which illustrate the fact that the direction in which
one moves is quite as important as the distance through
which he passes ; but in the newer book this geometrical
fact is used not merely in examples, it is used as the best
and most direct means of explaining the meaning of posi-
tive and negative quantities. The principles of algebraic
subtraction and addition are expounded in the newer book
in terms of the straight line along which the student may
move in two directions and along which he may pass from
zero to positive or negative quantities. The exposition of
the matter in the new book is vivid and definite, whereas
in the old book the exposition was very abstract. The
reader will not overlook in this connection the fact that
space is well suited to this relation with algebraic processes
because of its own character.

MANY EXAMPLES AND EXPLANATIONS

A third characteristic of the new book as contrasted with
the older book is the appearance of more exercises for the
student to work out Furthermore, these exercises begin in

NUMBER AND ABSTRACTION 111

each section with very simple examples, many of which are
drawn directly from arithmetic. In this respect the two
books agree ; but the larger number of exercises makes it
possible to develop gradually the transition through which
the student must pass from simple number statements to the
abstract statements of the higher, algebraical type. In the
older book this transition is often abrupt, leaving the stu-
dent in the dark as to the motive for giving up the number
for the literal expression.

The newer book indicates a tendency to recognize the
needs of the student, in that it expounds somewhat more
fully the different processes through which the student is
passed. Thus, when a new paragraph is introduced, the text
itself shows the student why he should take the steps that
are described in the rule which is to be presented. This
elaborate effort to explain the processes to the student
helps him to guide himself. The book becomes more and
more useful as a teacher. The work of the classroom is also
facilitated by the fact that more of the fundamental expla-
nations can be comprehended by the student in private study.

SIGNIFICANT OMISSIONS IN THE NEWER BOOK

Finally, the newer book omits some of the more elaborate
topics which were contained in the older book. Indeed, the
tendency of algebras in recent years has been to eliminate
those topics which are useful merely for the student of the
theoretical processes. For example, there is no attention to
equations with many unknown quantities, and there is little
or no attention to powers above the cube. The extracting
of roots for higher powers is omitted. Doubtless the prac-
tice of teachers who used the older book was much of the
same type as that now followed in the more recent book.
The fact that a subject was included in the older textbooks
does not necessarily indicate that it was actually dealt with

112 • PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

*»

in class exercises. There can, however, be no doubt, even
after deducting somewhat from the formidable, character
of the older course, that the modern course in algebra has
been materially simplified.

ARITHMETIC AND ALGEBRA

Some further considerations are suggested by the items
in the preface of the later book. The authors write (p. iii),
" Constant reference has been made to arithmetic in explain-
ing the various algebraic processes." The student is often
more confused than helped by reference to arithmetic. The
reason for this is explained in an earlier paragraph, where
the analysis of the mental processes involved in the two
subjects led to the conclusion that the distinction between
arithmetic and algebra is quite as important to impress
upon the student as the relation between the two. We
find that the necessity has been recognized from time to
time of pointing out the distinction between the arithmeti-
cal processes and the algebraic processes. For example,
on page 4 there is evidently an effort to help the student
to understand the value of the abstract symbols. He is told
that symbols enable one " to abbreviate ordinary language."
Furthermore, he is led gradually to see that symbols can
be even more general and abstract than those which are
used in arithmetic, but this last statement is not as explicit
as it might be made.

Indeed, as one reads books on algebra he wonders that
mathematicians have not taken more complete advantage of
the possibility of distinguishing sharply for the student be-
tween arithmetic and algebra. If algebra is nothing but the
last chapter of arithmetic, as the student would naturally
assume from many of the statements which are made in the
text, why was algebra not introduced in the arithmetic
books themselves ? There is some tendency to take algebra

NUMBER AND ABSTRACTION 113

down into the elementary classes. If this tendency is to
grow, would it not be well to point out explicitly to stu-
dents the economy of this mode of treating mathematical
operations? The distinction between algebra and arith-
metic is quite as significant to the elementary student as it
is to the mature student of the subject, and this distinction
may advantageously be brought out. For example, on page
7 in the book in hand the statement is made, " In algebra
numbers are represented by one or more numerals or let-
ters or by both combined." Would it not be better at such a
point as this to indicate that not only numbers but whole
series of numbers are expressed by the letters? In the
next paragraph, for example, it is said :

Precisely what numbers 4 xy and 2 x + 3 represent is not
known until the numbers for which x and y stand are known.
In one problem these symbols may have values quite different
from those they have in another. To devise methods of deter-
mining these values in the various problems which arise is the
principal aim of algebra.

This is the opportunity to tell the student that the chief
business of algebra is to avoid determining from step to
step the exact values of these different symbols. It is the
business of this science to carry on the reasoning processes
with the symbols in the most general form possible. The
final discovery of a particular quantity is of less interest
to the science of algebra than the correct manipulation of
quantities in processes which may ultimately lead to results,
but are capable of study long before the result is obtained.
To describe the processes of algebra as though they were
similar to those of arithmetic is to confuse the student.
He gets the impression that the use of letters is another
refinement of the teacher's methods of giving him unneces-
sary problems to solve. It would be much more psychologi-
cal and helpful for the teacher to let the student understand

114 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

<•>

that he is now acquiring a new and more general mode of ma-
nipulating quantities. As he studies the science of algebra he
must aim to criticize processes and results not from the point
of view merely of the ends which are to be obtained, but also
from the point of view of the methods which he adopts at
every step.

APPLICATIONS

One further comment in the preface of the newer book
is of interest :

Some informational problems have been included, but wholly
with the intention of stimulating interest and not with the
idea that such problems are practical, or that they arise in
everyday life, or that it is the function of algebra to teach
history, geography, or other subjects.

This tendency to include in the problems facts of ordinary
experience appears also in the older books. There evidently
has been all along some desire to make algebra seem to the
student to have connection with concrete life. The artifi-
ciality of many of these problems is, however, very strik-
ing. For example, on page 38 we get such an example as
this : " The combined horse power of a Mallet Compound
freight engine (Erie Railroad), of a Pacific passenger en-
gine (Pennsylvania Railroad), and of a Baltimore and Ohio
electric tractor," and so on. Imagine the student trying
to get from this kind of a problem any inspiration for his
science. There is very little wonder that writers on mathe-
matics find themselves in difficulty with problems of appli-
cation when this sort of thing is developed in the minds of
teachers as a means of showing students the interesting side
of the science. The student knows perfectly well that these
three engines will never get together for purposes of real co-
operation. He knows that the use of these different names
is merely a device to make him readjust the problem in

NUMBER AND ABSTRACTION 115

algebraic terms. He will have to convert engine No. 1
into letter a and engine No. 2 into letter 6, and so on, be-
fore he can go through the ordinary algebraic processes.
This translation from one set of terms into another is, on the
whole, good training for the student who has to use the
abstract terms, but he cannot help feeling the artificial
character of the original statement which is supposed to be
nearer to practical life than the letters which he employs.
The situation is bad because there are materials which are
capable of employment in algebra borrowed directly from
the sciences and so real and significant that they avoid all
the artificiality of examples like the one just cited. The
trouble is that algebra is usually taught at a time in the
high school when examples from the sciences cannot be
readily borrowed. In this connection note that our authors
make this statement (p. iv) :

A large number of "motion" problems are given which, with
many problems based on physical ideas and physical formu-
las, should give much desirable correlation with the subject of
physics. A very large number of problems are based on geo-
metrical ideas, and as the needs of geometry largely decided
the choice of the exercises in radicals, it is hoped that a close
correlation of algebra with geometry has been secured.

Why should not material of this sort, which is perfectly
natural and legitimate, be used to the exclusion of the arti-
ficial problems that have really no connection with either
science or life ? If necessary, let us precede the algebra
problems by an explanation of these phenomena which can
be adequately dealt with by algebraic methods. It may
prove to be wise for us to develop some simple notion of
mechanics in the first years of the high school and postpone
algebra to a later period. In an earlier historical introduc-
tion to this discussion the reasons have been suggested why
a postponement of algebra would, on the whole, be very
legitimate. In any case space is evidently from now on to

116 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

be used, even if algebra stays in the first year ; the device
which the modern author has adopted, of introducing graphs
as a part of the algebra course, will help to cure in a
measure the abstractness of the algebra course.

OBSERVATIONS IN AN ALGEBRA CLASS

Before attempting any discussion of the conclusions to
be drawn from our studies, let us turn to a brief study
of students and their work in class. Observations made on
students who are attempting to solve problems in algebra
always make the layman wonder what the writers on math-
ematics mean by the repeated assertion that algebra is easier
than geometry. Probably the assertion is correct when
some of the simpler formulas of algebra are compared with
the later propositions in geometry, but such a comparison
is obviously without value. Certainly when one comes to
the more complex problems in algebra, there is so much of
a demand upon the powers of abstraction, and so much con-
fusion which can arise from the many steps which need to
be taken in solving a problem, that one understands very
readily why students fail in this course.

GREAT VARIETY OF MENTAL PROCESSES OBSERVED

For the purpose of getting material that should parallel
the observations made in the class in geometry, the writer
attended a class in which the students were factoring and
using the methods of factoring to solve equations. At the
beginning of the class they factored some compound frac-
tions and reduced them to simpler forms ; toward the end
of the class they factored certain equations and found the
roots of the equations. In all these cases it was evident
that the solution of the single problem involved a number of
different operations, and the successive operations involved

NUMBER AND ABSTRACTION 117

references to many principles of mathematical manipulation
which the student had to use correctly or he was in trouble
later. Thus, in clearing a compound fraction he must first
discover a common denominator for the fractional elements.
Second, he must multiply each fraction by the factor which
would reduce it to the common denominator. This involved
a knowledge of all the principles of division and multipli-
cation, including the correct manipulation of signs.

ABSENCE OF CONCRETE CHECKS

Furthermore, each step is an abstract step ; that is, it is
not guided by any observable starting point or any refer-
ence to a conclusion which can be seen and anticipated.
This characteristic of algebraic operations may be made
more obvious by contrasting algebra with geometry. When
one is solving a problem in geometry he knows that he is
working with triangles or with rectangles and he can con-
stantly come back in the development of his reasoning to
the concrete space figure with which he is dealing. In alge-
bra, on the other hand, the successive stages of the process
are not referred back to any concrete experience ; the second
step leaves the first behind, having substituted for the first
situation a relatively new set of facts. In like manner the
third stage leaves the second behind. The whole reasoning
process is thus carried on without any concrete point of
reference. Sometimes, in order to meet this situation, the
instructor calls upon the students to write out each step
completely. The advantage of writing out each step is
evidently this: it makes it easier for the student to see
liis way through the succession of processes. He can com-
pare the result which he has reached at the end of the first
step with the requirements, and then he can proceed to the
second step with some degree of assurance. This writing
out of each individual step is, however, very cumbersome ;

118 PSYCHOLOGY OP HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

and instructor and students alike realize the possibility of
curtailing the work by carrying on some of these processes
in the mind, rather than working them out completely and
recording them on the blackboard or paper. On the other
hand, if one of these steps is performed mentally, there is
grave danger that the result obtained will not be reliable for
the next stage of reasoning. Every algebra class furnishes
abundant illustrations of the uncertainty of a conclusion
which is reached through a series of unrecorded mental
operations. There is, therefore, a constant conflict between
certainty and precision of procedure, on the one hand, and
rapidity and economy of effort, on the other.

In the second place, a process of reasoning may be cor-
rect in itself, but may not help in reaching the final solu-
tion, because it leads in the wrong direction. For example,
if one is rearranging an algebraical quantity for the pur-
poses of factoring, he may rearrange it in such a way that
he cannot easily extricate himself from the new form in
which he has cast his expression. He may get his quanti-
ties on the wrong side of the equation in such a way that
it will not be easy to factor them ; or he may get all of his
quantities on one side of the equation where their negative
character will confuse, whereas if he had assembled them
on the other side of the equation, the proper quantities would
have been positive. Very frequently there is a single addi-
tional operation (if one thinks of it) which will extricate
him from these difficulties, but more often one must turn
back and begin over. One is required, therefore, to look ahead
as intelligently as he can. He must take the step which he is
taking at the present moment with a view to following it
up by a second and third productive step later. This con-
stant effort to anticipate the consequences of one's reason-
ing requires a range of attention which is not required in
the geometrical processes in the same degree, or if it is
required in the geometrical process, it is always supported

NUMBEE AND ABSTRACTION 119

by a much more concrete view of the end toward which
one is working. One knows in geometry something about
the theorem which he has to demonstrate. He does not
know in the same concrete way in a problem in algebra
the conclusion toward which he is working. There is there-
fore at the moment no immediate check which will guide
him in arranging his quantities.

CONFUSION ARISING FROM ABSENCE OF CHECKS

This last statement helps us to appreciate what is meant
by students when they say that they do not know what to
do next. They can do something that would be entirely
correct, but they feel very sure that correctness is not all
that is wanted. What they do not know is how to proceed
in such a way as to aid themselves in reaching a solution
of the problem. There is an element of guesswork in the
solution of an algebra problem which is very confusing to
a student, especially if he is carried forward in the course
too rapidly. This type of confusion is so common in algebra
that it explains many of the failures in this subject. How
an instructor knows, or how some other member of the class
knows, just how to proceed is a mystery to the student
who is not able to see far enough ahead to determine how
he ought to proceed. Factoring, for example, is all right as
soon as one gets the quantities put together in a recogniz-
able form, but the ingenuity which textbooks and instructors
seem to be able to exhibit in putting quantities together in
such a way that they will not be recognizable as familiar
quantities for factoring is baffling to the ordinary student.
It would be interesting for some teacher of the subject who
is also interested in the mental processes of his students to
try to enumerate the different ways in which students may
be right in the single operations which they perform, and
yet wrong in their solution of the problem as a whole.

120 ' PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

•*>

In addition to the possibilities described in the last para-
graph of going astray in the manipulations, there are infinite
possibilities of actual error. One forgets how to remove
a parenthesis or how to transpose quantities, or, through
carelessness, omits to apply the principle which he knows
well enough in theory. The teacher of algebra is constantly
working, therefore, to keep alive and in operation a long
list of principles of operation which students are constantly
omitting. The omission means an error, and an error means
failure to reach a solution.

EXAMPLES OF TYPICAL DIFFICULTIES

The observations made in a single period exemplified all
of the difficulties described above. Perhaps the most vivid
presentation of the observations will result from an enumer-
ation of errors ; that is, of the principles that were omitted or
violated. The list would probably be longer if the writer
had been more expert in this type of observation. He
noted, however, the following cases. The students often
failed to keep in mind a long series of principles necessary
to guide in manipulating the signs of different quantities.
They forgot that a negative sign before a parenthesis works
certain changes in the quantity within the parenthesis.
They lost sight of the effect produced upon signs by trans-
position from one side of the equation to the other. An-
other type of error arose from a failure to keep in mind the
processes which control the different combinations of quan-
tities. They made repeated mistakes in addition, subtraction,
multiplication, and division. Again, they did not see the
various familiar combinations which make it possible to get
rid of undesirable quantities on both sides of the equation.
They did not always remember that the management of the
two sides of an equation or of the two members of a frac-
tional expression calls for a like treatment of both of the

NUMBER AND ABSTRACTION 121

elements in the operation. They committed an error of
omission in that they did not show the boldness to try
experiments in the rearrangement of quantities. They were
not patient enough to work out this rearrangement until
they could see ahead a method of getting a conclusion.
Their hesitation was evidently due in some cases to a rec-
ognition of the fact that if they eliminated some of the
quantities they might lose just the one needed to turn their
factors into the familiar factors needed for later manipula-
tion. They frequently made the error of trying to economize
by carrying on processes mentally when the more deliberate
written statement of the same problem showed that they
knew the principle of procedure.

METHOD MUST BE ADAPTED TO PARTICULAR
DIFFICULTIES

Perhaps some reader of the foregoing paragraph will ask,
What is the use of laboriously cataloguing all these different
types of error? They are all alike, in that they show inability
to solve the problem. Give the erring student more exam-
ples ; that is the one and only cure for all these difficulties.
Our answer to such a comment is that the cure is not one
and simple. The student of algebra is often lost in the maze
of complexities. At each turn he is confronted by a single
difficulty. His difficulties need to be disentangled, and one
by one the kinds of processes which he needs must be
picked out and definitely dealt with. If some teacher of
algebra would make out a card catalogue of the kinds of
mental processes involved in the solution of all algebra
problems, and would then arrange his subject matter to
meet these difficulties, he would probably break away from
the traditional order of that subject more than any of the
textbooks have ventured even in the latest period. He
would also give to the subject an educational character

122 • PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

•+

which it does not now have. At present we let students
flounder in a sea of mental difficulties until some learn to
swim and many drown. We tell them from time to time
when they are going down, and sometimes we rescue them
when we see them sinking, but we have little advice for
them in regard to the best methods of swimming. Our
algebra instruction is on the whole a crude exhibition of
the method of " try, try again," when it ought to be the
most completely supervised of any of the subjects, espe-
cially if it is to continue to hold its place as a subject
commonly required.

CHAPTER VI
THE REORGANIZATION OF MATHEMATICS

REORGANIZATION EVIDENTLY UNDER WAY

In a vigorous paper Superintendent Morrison l has re-
cently advocated the complete rearrangement of high-school
mathematics. Algebra and geometry, he contends, must be
taught (if at all) so as to function throughout the student's
life. If the student is especially interested in commerce,
his mathematics must be so organized as to contribute to his
practical training. If the student is pursuing agriculture, his
mathematics are to be of a type which shall serve that interest.

Other evidences are not wanting that high-school math-
ematics are approaching a period of radical revision. There
is evidence which, from the point of view of the school
administrator, is of a very practical type. Statistics show
that in the more progressive high schools algebra is reced-
ing to a position of less importance than it formerly held.2
The colleges are requiring less mathematics than ever for
admission ; and the individual student who fails is becom-
ing more insistent than ever that he be allowed to go on
with other subjects.

SUPERVISED STUDY

In the meantime, two experiments are imder way which
promise relief, and to these we turn for their contribution
to our psychology.

1 Thirteenth Yearbook of the National Society lot the Study of Edu-
cation, pp. 9-31. University of Chicago Press.
* Science, 1912, N.S., Vol. XXXVI, pp. 587-690.

123

124 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

The first experiment is in the direction of more super-
vision of study by the teacher.1 Students are not being sent
home with problems to solve; they are working out the
problems in class with the teacher. The mistakes which
they make are being checked through social criticism.

The value of social criticism as an instrument in educa-
tion cannot be exaggerated. To be sure, there is something
artificial from the point of view of the science itself in
interposing between a student and the solution of his
problem criticism by another person. For example, when
the teacher says, w Be careful, have you removed that paren-
thesis correctly ? " the scientific training of the student has
been so far forth interrupted that a human check has been
substituted for a check of the strictly algebraic type. If
the child becomes dependent on social help in the solution
of all his problems, the substitution of social training for
independent learning may become a serious drawback. On
the other hand, learning through proper supervision is eco-
nomical and rapid beyond all other methods.

Psychologically, social interference in mental processes
is of various types. There is social interference which
terrorizes and distracts. There is social interference which
aids one over a difficulty without clearing up the difficulty.
There is social interference which teaches deliberation.
There is social interference which makes for economy in
mental operations by pointing out methods of procedure.
In short, there is a whole psychology of the relation between
student and teacher. This is not the point at which this
particular psychological problem can be discussed at length ;
but it is germane to the present discussion to note that the
right kind of supervision or social cooperation cannot be
expected unless teachers study the problem of how students
study, and how they ought to study. We shall come back

1 Article by E. R. Breslich in Thirteenth Yearbook of the National
Society for the Study of Education, pp. 32-72,

THE REORGANIZATION 0# MATHEMATICS 125

to a fuller discussion of methods of study in a later chapter
devoted entirely to this problem. The student needs help
in algebra more than in most subjects, because the mental
processes involved in this study are so abstract and com-
plex that it is extremely difficult to find one's way without
much guidance.

One reciprocal advantage of such a system of supervised
study is that the teacher discovers the details of students*
mental processes more fully than under the usual conditions
of recitation work. Errors are corrected before they become
chronic, and the waste that follows upon confusion is avoided.

SMITH ON APPLIED AND COMBINED MATHEMATICS

A second type of reorganization reaches into the subject
itself and undertakes to reorganize the matter dealt with
in these courses. Of the various internal reforms within
the mathematics courses there are two which have gone far
enough to attract adverse criticism. We may therefore
quote at length the passages in which these matters are
discussed by Professor Smith.

[P. 74] And as to the exercises, what is the basis of selec-
tion ? In general, let it be said that any exercise that pretends
to be real should be so, and that words taken from science or
measurements do not necessarily make the problem genuine.
To take a proposition and apply it in a manner that the world
never sanctions is to indulge in deceit. On the other hand,
wholly to neglect the common applications of geometry to hand-
work of various kinds is to miss one of our great opportunities to
make the subject vital to the pupil, to arouse new interest, and
to give a meaning to it that is otherwise wanting. It should
always be remembered that mental discipline, whatever the
phrase may mean, can as readily be obtained from a genuine
application of a theorem as from a mere geometric puzzle. On
the other hand, it is evident that not more than 25 per cent of
propositions have any genuine applications outside of geometry,

126 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

<+

and that if we are to attempt any applications at all, these
must be sought mainly in the field of pure geometry. In the
exercises, therefore, we seek to-day a sane and a balanced book,
giving equal weight to theory and to practice, to the demands
of the artisan and to those of the mathematician, to the appli-
cations of concrete science and to those of pure geometry, thus
making a fusion of pure and applied mathematics, with the
latter as prominent as the supply of genuine problems permits.

[Pp. 84, 85] From the standpoint of theory there is or
need be no relation whatever between algebra and geometry.
Algebra was originally the science of the equation, as its name
indicates. This means that it was the science of finding the
value of an unknown quantity in a statement of equality.
Later it came to mean much more than this, and Newton spoke
of it as universal arithmetic, and wrote an algebra with this
title. At present the term is applied to the elements of a
science in which numbers are represented by letters and in
which certain functions are studied, functions which it is not
necessary to specify at this time. The work relates chiefly to
functions involving the idea of number. In geometry, on the
other hand, the work relates chiefly to form. Indeed, in pure
geometry number plays practically no part, while in pure
algebra form plays practically no part.

In 1637 the great French philosopher, Descartes, wishing to
picture certain algebraic functions, wrote a work of about a
hundred pages, entitled w La G£om6trie," and in this he showed
a correspondence between the numbers of algebra (which may
be expressed by letters) and the concepts of geometry. This
was the first great step in the analytic geometry that finally
gave us the graph in algebra. Since then there have been
brought out from time to time other analogies between algebra
and geometry, always to the advantage of each science. This
has led to a desire on the part of some teachers to unite algebra
and geometry into one science, having simply a class in
mathematics without these special names.

It is well to consider the advantages and the disadvantages
of such a plan, and to decide as to the rational attitude to be
taken by teachers concerning the question at issue.

THE REORGANIZATION OF MATHEMATICS 127

[Pp. 89-90, 91] It is therefore probable that simple mensura-
tion will continue, as a part of arithmetic, to precede algebra.,
as at present ; and that algebra into or through quadratics will
precede geometry, drawing upon the mensuration of arithmetic
as may be needed ; and that geometry will follow this part of
algebra, using its principles as far as possible to assist in the
demonstrations and to express and manipulate its formulas.
Plane geometry, or else a year of plane and solid geometry,
will probably, in this country, be followed by algebra, com-
pleting quadratics and studying progressions; and by solid
geometry, or a supplementary course in plane and solid geom-
etry, this work being elective in many, if not all, schools.
It is also probable that a general review of mathematics, where
the fusion idea may be carried out, will prove to be a feature
of the last year of the high school, and one that will grow in
popularity as time goes on. Such a plan will keep algebra and
geometry separate, but it will allow each to use all of the other
that has preceded it, and will encourage every effort in this
direction. It will accomplish all that a more complete fusion
really hopes to accomplish, and it will give encouragement to
all who seek to modernize the spirit of each of these great
branches of mathematics.

There is, however, a chance for fusion in two classes of
school, neither of which is as yet well developed in this
country. The first is the technical high school that is at
present coming into some prominence. It is not probable even
here that the best results can be secured by eliminating all
mathematics save only what is applicable in the shop, but if
this view should prevail for a time, there would be so little left
of either algebra or geometry that each could readily be joined
to the other. The actual amount of algebra needed by a fore-
man in a machine shop can be taught in about four lessons,
and the geometry or mensuration that he needs can be taught
in eight lessons at the most. The necessary trigonometry may
take eight more, so that it is entirely feasible to unite these
three subjects. The boy who takes such a course would know
as much about mathematics as a child who had read ten pages
in a primer would know about literature, but he would have

128 PSYCHOLOGY OP HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

*>

enough for his immediate needs, even though he had no appre-
ciation of mathematics as a science. If any one asks if this is
ix>t all that the school should give him, it might be well to ask
if the school should give only the ability to read, without the
knowledge of any good literature ; if it should give only the
ability to sing, without the knowledge of good music; if it
should give only the ability to speak, without any training in
the use of good language ; and if it should give a knowledge of
home geography, without any intimation that the world is
round — an atom in the unfathomable universe about us.

The second opportunity for fusion is possibly (for it is by
no means certain) to be found in a type of school in which the
only required courses are the initial ones. These schools have
some strong advocates, it being claimed that every pupil should
be introduced to the large branches of knowledge and then
allowed to elect the ones in which he finds himself the most
interested. Whether or not this is sound educational policy
need not be discussed at this time ; but if such a plan were
developed, it might be well to offer a somewhat superficial (in
the sense of abridged) course that should embody a little of
algebra, a little of geometry, and a little of trigonometry. This
would unconsciously become a bait for students, and the result
would probably be some good teaching in the class in question.
It is to be hoped that we may have some strong, well-considered
textbooks upon this phase of the work.

THE FOREGOING ARGUMENT ANSWERS ITSELF

Are we not in a position to recast the geometry of the
Greeks and the algebra of the Arabs into an instrument of
modern intellectual training ? May we not urge this change
the more freely when we have come to recognize the impor-
tance of both algebra and geometry and the contribution
which each is ready to make to intellectual life ? The very
fact that we have taken both into our circle of subjects to be
taught shows that we are better off than was Euclid, or the
early European teachers who started our present tradition.

THE REORGANIZATION OF MATHEMATICS 129

VABIOUS BRANCHES OP MATHEMATICS INVOLVE FUNDA-
MENTALLY DIFFERENT MENTAL PROCESSES

The psychologist is of course not equipped to work out
the change. He may, however, venture to suggest certain
principles which will have to be taken into account when
the change is made. The first of these principles is that
arithmetic, algebra, and geometry each represents some
forms of mental activity not included in the others. No one
can make a psychological analysis of these sciences without
recognizing the distinctive character of the mental processes
involved. The earlier chapters of this book have been de-
voted to the description of the mental processes peculiar
to geometry and algebra. The principle has not been justi-
fied in full for arithmetic because arithmetic does not fall
within the scope of this book ; however, considerations were
presented which adequately cover even arithmetic.

ALL MATHEMATICS ABSTRACT

Second, all mathematical sciences represent abstract forms
of thought. Number is an abstraction derived from, but not
identical with, the system of tallies from which it originated.
Space, as treated in geometry, is something other than the
space system which we build up through touch and vision.
The line which is studied in geometry is an abstraction and
belongs in an abstract scheme of thought ; so is the surface
and solid. Algebra is evidently a system of abstractions.
As a system of abstractions mathematics can never be
identified with its" applications. The justification for a sys-
tem of abstract thought is that it evades some of the com-
plexities of real concrete situations and furnishes a means
of thinking one's way through the real world with greater
economy. The system of abstraction deserves, therefore,
some treatment for its own sake.

180 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

/ TRAINING IN APPLICATION REQUIRED

Third, it is contrary to experience to assume that stu-
dents can apply mathematics to the other sciences or to
the practical affairs of life unless they are trained to see
mathematical relations in other forms than those in which
they are commonly presented in the schools. The student
who knows the abstract demonstrations of geometry, but
does not realize that knowledge of space is involved in
every manufacturing operation, in every adjustment of
agriculture and practical mechanics, is only half trained.
Application must be a phase, and an explicit phase, of
school work. Application is as different from pure science
as pure sciences are different from each other.

SPACE TYPICAL FORM OP RELATIONAL EXPERIENCE

Fourth, the direct perceptual experience which is most
closely related to all types of mathematical thought is
space. Space, because of its character as a relational type
of experience, is not only itself a natural subject of mathe-
matical consideration, but is also capable of representing
in graphic form those mathematical relations which are
usually represented in letters and numbers. Space is
therefore strongly suggested as an instrument for both the
exemplification and the expression of mathematical ideas.
Furthermore, by virtue of the intimate relation of space
perception to mechanics, space seems to be a good instru-
ment for the training of students in application of mathe-
matics. While thus emphasizing the significance of space
for mathematics, it is proper once more to emphasize the
historical fact that in our Western civilization the science
of space is prior to all other phases of mathematics. It is
altogether probable that this fact will shortly be recognized
in the elementary course*

THE REORGANIZATION OF MATHEMATICS 131

MATHEMATICAL SUBJECT MATTER IN NEED OP
REGRADING

Fifth, both algebra and geometry contain simple and
complex principles. There is no reason why the simpler
principles of both branches of mathematics should not be
recognized as more suitable for beginning students than
an exclusive diet of either algebra or geometry. The con-
clusion that one or the other is harder or easier when the
two subjects are taken as wholes is unfortunate. The expe-
rience of schools does not justify the statements of special-
ists that algebra is easier than geometry. The fact is that
some parts of one are hard for beginners and other parts
are simple. The best arrangement of subjects would be to
bring together all the simpler mathematical principles and
lead up from these to the complex problems in both fields.

MATHEMATICS AS TRAINING IN MODES OF ABSTRACTION

Sixth, no student will know what mathematics is until
he realizes the great economy of mental energy which this
form of experience makes possible. The student of high-
school age should certainly be taught the value of abstrac-
tion, as well as the methods of abstract reasoning.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS OF GENERAL PRINCIPLES

These principles, all of which grow directly out of the
discussions of the foregoing chapters, seem to the writer to
call loudly for a first-year course in high-school mathematics
which shall lay emphasis on space, shall include application
but not become so absorbed in applications as to obscure the
principles of abstract reasoning, shall include the simpler
principles of both algebra and geometry, and shall train the
student in an appreciation of the value of symbols.

132 PSYCHOLOGY OP HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

If this book were intended for teachers in the elementary
schools, it would advocate a course in form study early in
the grades, and it would advocate the use below the high
school of some of the economical methods of mathematical
reasoning taught by algebra.

The only one of these conclusions which has not been
fully supported in the foregoing pages is that referring
to applications. The issues here involved are too broad to be
dealt with in terms of mathematics alone. Every course in
the curriculum raises the same kind of problem. We shall
therefore let this question rest for the moment, with the
promise that the psychology of applications will come up
again. These early chapters on mathematics have carried
enough of the general burden of introducing the reader
to the problems of high-school education. We shall turn,
therefore, to the next general topic on which psychology
is prepared to speak, namely, the psychology of language.

CHAPTER VII
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

SECONDARY COURSE TRADITIONALLY LITERARY

The secondary-school curriculum has throughout its his-
tory been dominated by language courses. Whether these
courses have been given for the sake of acquainting the
student with foreign literatures, as in the period of the
Renaissance, or for purely disciplinary reasons as during
the later period when the cultivation of a Latin style was
thought to be the highest form of training; whether the
training has been in a foreign language as in earlier days, or
largely in the vernacular as at the present time — language
has, in one form or another, been the favored course of study
in all secondary and higher schools. If one considers the
merely quantitative fact that at the present time about
36 per cent of the courses offered in the secondary schools
are courses either in the study of the vernacular or in the
study of a foreign language,1 he recognizes the importance of
sound views with regard to this phase of secondary educa-
tion. Indeed, it may be said that the proper organization of
language courses is, if possible, a problem even more urgent
than the problem of organizing algebra and geometry. The
practical difficulty arising from student failures is not as
great in the language courses as in mathematics. In some
quarters, to be sure, Latin shares with mathematics the
doubtful honor of being the course through which freshmen
are eliminated from school. The characteristic difficulty

1 Unpublished study of North Central Association reports from
approved high schools.

133

184 PSYCHOLOGY OP HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

that appears in language instruction is the difficulty which
arises from the fact that students spend an enormous amount
of time on these courses and carry away what is acknowl-
edged to be a very meager result. An American high-school
graduate who can really read Latin is a very rare product.
In the modern languages students study the courses for
two or three years and are not able to read a simple text
or understand a simple conversation. Even in the vernac-
ular the complaint is heard again and again from English
teachers that students who have been studying English
all their lives are unable to write a coherent paragraph or
to understand even the best-known examples of English
classical literature. The net outcome of the time and en-
ergy devoted to language is hardly to be compared with
the net outcome which is demanded of students in science
courses. If students should study the natural sciences for
two or three years and at the end of the course have nothing
substantial to offer as the outcome of their endeavor, cer-
tainly the natural sciences would not be able to maintain
themselves in the curriculum. When, accordingly, one hears
a teacher of German or French contending that two years
is too short a time to accomplish anything for a student in
that language, he realizes the necessity of canvassing care-
fully the language courses. Certain it is that many students
will not be able to spend more than two years on German ;
and if the course is not organized at the present time in such
a way that these two years will yield a useful result, then
there ought to be a reorganization of the course.

JUSTIFICATION DEMANDED FOB EMPHASIS ON ENGLISH

In classifying English and foreign languages together for
the purposes of the following discussion some confusion
is undoubtedly created, because in general the instruction
which is offered in foreign languages is different in its

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE 135

character and in its purposes from instruction offered in
English. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that
the large amount of attention which is being given at the
present time to English is to be explained as a survival of
the traditional devotion to the language subjects. English
lias, in the present period of reaction against the classics,
enjoyed the advantage of being acceptable to both parties
in the classical controversy. English has been acceptable
to the defenders of classical training because they think
of English as a body of literary material, and regard it
as proper to use in defense of English most of the argu-
ments which they have developed in defending their own
subjects. On the other hand, the students of science are
also interested in seeing English receive a good deal of
attention because they believe that it represents a depar-
ture from the classical traditions and from the devotion
to formal instruction in foreign languages. English has
therefore gone on its way undisputed. It has come to
be the only subject in the secondary-school curriculum
which is recognized by everyone as a suitable subject to be
required of all students. Signs are not lacking that a day of
reckoning will come for English also. When the teachers l
of this subject themselves are prepared to criticize it as
severely as they do, there is danger that representatives of
other departments will discover its weaknesses. Just as soon
as the weaknesses of present-day English courses are clearly
pointed out, there will inevitably come a demand for a justi-
fication of the large amount of attention which these courses
now receive. The classical languages have for some years
past been on the defensive. The modern languages have
been growing in importance, and yet they also are being
questioned by those who are interested in the possibilities
of developing a scientific and technical curriculum ; so that

1C. S. Duncan, "A Rebellious Word in English Composition,1'
English Journal, March, 1914, p. 154.

136 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

on all sides the language subjects will have to canvass care-
fully the question of the amount of time which they can
legitimately demand, and they will have to supply an educa-
tional defense for themselves much more critical and com-
plete than anything which has been supplied up to this time
either by tradition or by the concrete evidences of success
which have attended instruction in these subjects.

THE GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE

As in our earlier studies of mathematics, so here we may
very properly introduce the consideration of detailed prob-
lems by a review of the contributions which psychology has
to make. This is the more needed because there is in the
minds of most uncritical thinkers a great deal of false doc-
trine about the mental processes connected with words and
their interpretation. Indeed, it is only during the last fifteen
years, since Wundt's work in his "Volkerpsychologie" be-
gan to be widely appreciated, that anything like an adequate
psychological treatment of language has been current.1

EARLIER PSYCHOLOGY EMPHASIZED IMAGES

The earlier descriptions of the mental processes involved
in the use of language all started and ended with the
assumption that words get their meanings by association
with images in the speaker's mind or in the mind of the

1 Wilhelm Wundt, VGlkerpsychologie. Engelmann, Leipzig, 1900.
Unfortunately there is no English translation of this great work. Read-
ers who do not command German are referred to the following brief
discussions in English : Wundt, Outlines of Psychology (translation
published by Engelmann. Only the third English edition is complete);
G. F. Stout, Manual of Psychology (Hinds and Noble); G. F. Stout,
Groundwork of Psychology (Hinds and Noble) ; Charles H. Judd, Psychol-
ogy, General Introduction. It is the more important that teachers should
become acquainted with these summaries, since the educational writings
of recent years have curiously omitted discussions of language, so
absorbed have they been in sensations, instincts, emotions, and the like.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE 137

listener.1 When one hears a word, we have been told, he
calls up a train of pictures, and these are the really im-
portant mental facts. The word is a mere clue, a kind of
key to the storehouse of meanings. There has been at all
stages of the discussion a very large disregard, almost a
contempt, for the word as distinguished from the associated
image. Indeed, the word has been so much neglected that
one obvious fact has been overlooked in most of the dis-
cussions. This obvious fact is that speech in all of its
manifold forms is more than a mere train of ideas ; it is a
definite and important kind of behavior. There is a move-
ment of some muscles of the body present in every form of
speech and reading. If one articulates a word, there is a
most elaborate coordination of the muscles of respiration,
of the vocal-cord region, and of the mouth. If one reads,
there are eye movements and incipient movements of the
muscles of articulation. If one listens, there are adjust-
ments of the head and ears, and active vocal tendencies to
repeat what one hears, and active forms of inner reactions
of assent and dissent. Even if it were true that words
always call up images, it is infinitely more true that words
are forms of behavior, and their value in individual life
can be understood only when this behavior-aspect of the
matter is duly considered. Furthermore, there is ample
ground in personal experience for skepticism about the
statement often made that words call up trains of pictures.
The few faint images which flit through the mind as one
reads a page of meaningful discussion are by no means the
important facts in mental life whicli some psychologies have
tried to make them. When one looks into his own mind
he finds wealth of meaning and meagerness of imagery.
When a false psychology tries to persuade the observer

1 Locke's "An Essay concerning Human Understanding11 (1689-1690)
set the example of English writers in this respect. See also Berkeley's
"A Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge,11 1710.

138 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

that the images pass through the mind too rapidly to be
noted, he has a right to ask for a more vital and adequate
explanation of this most important form of experience.

LANGUAGE A FORM OF BEHAVIOR

There is one other aspect of the matter which calls for
comment before we turn to the study of words as forms
of behavior. Up to this time the breach between words
and practical activities has been complete. The teacher of
manual training has scorned words, and the teacher of Eng-
lish lias looked down on shop work. These mutual antipa-
thies grow out of a vagueness with regard to the character
of the mental processes connected with words and with
manual activities. If we are ever to adjust the so-called
academic subjects and the technical subjects, we must be
perfectly clear that shop work and Latin are both forms
of behavior. What is the nature of one form of behavior,
what the nature of the other ? These are questions which
must be answered, in order to give to each subject its proper
place and its proper relations.

Language as a form of behavior must be studied in con-
nection with other forms of behavior and with reference
to its development. We may, therefore, at the outset call
attention to the fact that everyone, throughout his waking
life, is intensely active. The muscles of the body are always
tense. This tension of the muscles is due to the fact that
the stream of sensory energy which goes in at the eyes and
ears pours out into all the muscles of the body and main-
tains a general bodily tension or muscular tonus. When
a special impression comes to the senses and arouses a par-
ticular set of muscles, a single definite contraction, as, for
example, a contraction of the muscles of the arm, rises
above the general bodily tension, and the arm moves
through space. The ordinary observer is likely to overlook

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE 139

the fact that the body was active before the arm moved.
He will see the matter in a new light, however, if he thinks
how much work is done all the time in holding up the
body or the head during waking hours. If the muscles of
the neck relax for a moment the head falls forward. The
muscles of the body are likewise active all the time; and
the particular movements of which we think when the term
" activity " is ordinarily used are mere special cases of a
general muscular tension.

RELATION OF LANGUAGE TO EMOTIONS

Corresponding to the general tension of the muscles, there
is a general excitement throughout the nervous system ; and
corresponding to this general excitement throughout the
nervous system, there is a general tonus of mental life. We
often speak of this as the emotional tone of consciousness.
The man who starts out at the beginning of the day with
buoyant spirits and head erect exemplifies the relation
between bodily tonus and mental tonus.

The relation between mental life and bodily activity is
also well illustrated by the infant. The infant's conscious-
ness can best be described by saying that it is a mass of
vague mental tensions. Some of these mental tensions reach
a high level of intensity and stand out from the general
body of vague, massive experiences. So it is also with the
infant's behavior. The infant moves with all the parts of
his body irregularly and diffusely. He exhibits infinite
possibilities of behavior and unorganized tendencies of
action. The business of experience is to develop out of
these vague, general possibilities specific forms of reaction.
With the development of specific bodily movements will
come specific mental processes.

Among the earliest phases of indefinite reaction on the
part of the infant are the reactions of the vocal muscles.

140 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

These vocal muscles, like the muscles of the arms and legs,
contract at the beginning of life whenever there is a general
excitement of the nervous system. Such excitement some-
times grows intense, as in the case of emotional reactions.
The screaming infant is always a kicking and a striking
infant. He does not scream for purposes of communication.
Indeed, he does not have any appreciation of the world
about him. His experience is all internal, personal, and
emotional in type. Very shortly, however, certain forms of
personal behavior begin to take on a unique value. The in-
fant finds that some of his forms of behavior produce effects
on those about him. Furthermore, he begins to note in those
about him forms of activity which he can imitate. Certain
forms of behavior come thus in a social group to have a value
which they do not possess in individual experience. This
fact can be illustrated by an example borrowed from adult
life. When we are afraid we feel many internal contractions
which we have not learned to control. On the other hand, we
control our facial expression because we do not want to show
to our fellows just how frightened we are. Facial expres-
sions are easily observable, and we know it ; hence our effort
to suppress them. Our internal reactions and our private
emotions we enjoy without interruption because no one can
see them. So it is with the infant : certain of his external,
visible reactions begin to stand forth in his experience as
having a unique social value. He cultivates a social con-
sciousness through a recognition of the effects of his acts.

SOCIAL IMITATION INFLUENCES EVOLUTION OF
BEHAVIOK

Perhaps it will be well to study the growth of social con-
sciousness in connection with forms of activity other than
speech. To this end let us consider more in detail facial
expressions. In the first place, the person who exhibits

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE 141

the facial expression becomes aware of the fact that he
is likely to induce imitation in others; and, in the second
place, the person who sees the contraction of the facial
muscles is aware of the fact that he is drawn into sympathy
with one of his fellows. The person who exhibits the ex-
pression will therefore try to modify it if he does not wish
to be imitated, or he may, on the other hand, try to exagger-
ate the expression if he wishes to be imitated. Conversely,
the person who sees the expression will either try to
suppress his own tendencies toward imitation or become
absorbed in these tendencies. A simple example of social
imitation is seen when a group of people imitate each other
in yawning. The activity is in this case a very simple
physiological reaction, and yet, because it is so easy to
imitate, it takes on a strong social character.

If we study natural reactions we discover a whole series
of graded steps of imitation and tendencies to take on
social significance. For example, the angry man who shakes
his fist in the face of his neighbor is very likely to induce
an equally vigorous imitative response. Imitation here is
more compelling than in the case of a yawn. A serious
mood, with its accompanying expressions, will induce a like
attitude in others. Here the external symptoms are many
and complex. A spirit of optimism or pessimism is socially
contagious because the person possessed of such a spirit is
violently expressive. In all these cases, be it noted, we are
dealing with social values which are more fundamental and,
in a sense, more simple than speech.

Imitation reaches far beyond the muscular act itself.
It not only brings the social group into harmonious action,
but it also makes it possible for one individual to induce
indirectly in his neighbor an inner state of mind. Thus,
if by shaking one's fist in the face of his neighbor one can
stir up an imitative act, he is likely also to communicate
his anger to the person in whom he induces imitation.

142 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

Two consciousnesses are thus brought together through
an external act which was originally attached only to the
consciousness of one person.

SELECTION OF FOKMS OF BEHAVIOR FOB SOCIAL
COMMUNICATION

Once this possibility of communicating from mind to
mind through external behavior becomes obvious in a social
group, there is sure to be a rapid development of a general
system of communications. The evolution of a system of
communications will naturally emphasize that form of be-
havior which is at once easy to observe and easy to control.
If there is some form of activity which impresses one's
neighbor but which one cannot himself control, it is not
likely that one will depend on this uncontrollable system
of activity for purposes of social intercourse. A moment
ago we referred to facial expressions as one of the avenues
of social communication. Evidently, however, facial ex-
pression is not the best medium for influencing one's
neighbor, because one is himself not aware of the way
in which his facial muscles contract. In order to have the
largest possible control of one's own acts, one must be
able himself to observe his acts. We see, therefore, that
the tendency in any social group will early be in the di-
rection of emphasizing such activities as those of the hand
rather than those of the face.

GESTURES A PRIMITIVE FORM OF LANGUAGE

One of the earlier forms of language is gesture language.
When one makes a gesture he can see what he is doing,
and he can also induce imitation on the part of the per-
son with whom he is trying to communicate. Through
social development the gesture, which was at first a purely

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE 143

personal reaction, has passed into the sphere of elaborately
meaningful acts.

For example, if the traveler on the plains wishes to
express to a stranger whom he meets the fact that he is
thirsty or hungry, he is able to do so readily by the use of
gestures which point to his mouth and indicate that he wishes
to have something to put into his mouth. The gesture in this
case is undoubtedly accompanied by some degree of emo-
tional excitement, but the gesture is more than an emotional
expression — it is a means of communicating an idea. The
gesture is a part of the total behavior which the individual
would go through if he really wanted food. In this sense it
requires no special training either to produce it or to under-
stand it. Gestures have accordingly been called natural signs.

CONVENTIONALIZED GESTURES

Gestures come to be, in the course of repeated use, rela-
tively much simpler than they were at the outset. Thus
two individuals who have frequently communicated with
each other can, by some familiar gesture which is a mere
remnant of an earlier, more elaborate movement, arouse in
each other's minds ideas which are definite and significant.
This simplification of gestures appears in the study of deaf
mutes and others who depend entirely upon gestures in com-
municating with each other. Gestures become simpler and
simpler because the interpretation which the various mem-
bers of the social group are able to give to them becomes
more and more trained. Finally, the gesture is so far sim-
plified that it is no longer a natural sign. It is significant in
its simplified form merely because it starts a train of asso-
ciations in a mind especially prepared by past experience
to respond to the suggestion. At this stage the gesture is
to be described as a convention ; that is, several persons
have come to use it for a common purpose long enough to

144 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

establish a like interpretation for each of the members of the
trained group. A stranger who comes into the company is
not able to use the gestures as do the members of the trained
group, because in the stranger's mind there is no fixed rela-
tion between the simplified movement and its appropriate
interpretation. The term " convention," as above used, is
not -to be understood to indicate that there has been any
deliberate arrangement or agreement on the part of the
members of the group ; they simply came to use the gesture
in this common way through their contact with each other.
There is no conscious agreement to develop a system of
signs ; there is merely a natural development of the mem-
bers of the group in the same direction until finally their
expressions are naturally simplified.

SELECTION OF THE VOCAL CORDS AS INSTRUMENTS
OF EXPRESSION

Up to this time we have used examples of expressions
and conventional activities which do not involve the vocal
cords. This discussion of other forms of movement shows
us how closely the evolution of vocal language has followed
natural lines. We turn now to a brief consideration of the
reasons why the vocal cords have come to occupy the posi-
tion of preeminent importance which they hold in human
life. We have in the vocal cords an organ of the highest
degree of flexibility. The movements of the muscles which
control the cords are more delicate than the movements of
the hand or of most parts of the body. At the same time
these movements produce, through the sense of hearing, a
series of sensations which can be recognized by both the
speaker and the auditor. There results thus, through the
sense of hearing, the most advantageous control of the motor
organs. Furthermore, the sensory experience which is pro-
duced by the vocal cords is not dependent upon external

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE 145

conditions, except that there must be air through which the
sound can be transmitted. As long as there is air enough
for a human being to breathe, there will also be a medium
for the transmission of sounds. In this respect the vocal
cords are very much less dependent upon external condi-
tions than are gestures. One cannot use gestures after
dark, because the withdrawal of the light makes it impos-
sible for the person addressed to see. On the other hand,
the speaker can produce a noise even if he is in the dark.
The external conditions do not limit him in producing
noises, as they would limit him if he tried to communicate
through the visual sense.

Finally, the vocal cords rather than the hands are selected
as the instruments of social communication, because the
hands are needed for other purposes. The hands in the
course of human experience have come to be specialized as
the organs for technical activities. We learn the arts and
engage in them with the hands. We cannot spare the
hands for purposes of social communication. Indeed, in
many cases the chief importance of social communication is
that it aids workers to cooperate with their hands, as in
moving a heavy object. While the hands are too useful to
be given over to communication, the vocal cords are use-
less as technical instruments. We cannot do anything in
the physical world with our vocal cords. We cannot move
objects about with the vocal muscles, and we cannot manip-
ulate tools with them. The vocal organs are adapted to a
single type of behavior, namely, social communication.

EVOLUTION OF VOCAL EXPRESSIONS

Once the vocal cords have been selected, and the general
fact that a sound can be used as a medium of social com-
munication has become obvious to a social group, there will
appear a tendency similar to that which was pointed out in

146 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

connection with gestures. The sound will begin to take on
meanings which are dependent more upon the training of
the speaker and the auditor than upon the natural relations
of the sound. For example, if we take one of the natural
sounds produced by an animal and think of it as imitated
by the human vocal cords, as when a child says " bowwow,'*
there will undoubtedly be a natural relationship in the
mind of both the speaker and the auditor between this par'
ticular sound and the animal which it represents. Gradu-
ally, however, the social group will be freed from the
necessity of producing the complete natural sound in this
case. A partial sound which grows out of the more elabo-
rate natural sound will be entirely adequate to arouse the
idea. The principle of association operates here, and the
simplification of the expression goes on exactly as it did in
the case of gestures. Furthermore, there are many cases in
which there are no sounds produced by the objects to be
designated. In such cases the naturalness of the sound will
arise from the fact that a human being, in the presence of
a certain object, tends to make a certain noise. It is often
difficult to show why a particular noise is natural. In some
cases the articulation is undoubtedly natural in the sense
that one tends to make a loud noise in the presence of a
large object, while one tends, on the other hand, to make a
faint or shrill noise in the presence of small objects. One
notes, for example, that his method of talking to a little
child or a little animal is always different from his method
of addressing an adult or a large animal. One tends to
speak in a high, shrill tone when he speaks to a cat;
whereas he never uses this pitch when speaking to a horse.
The naturalness of the sound in this case is not dependent
at all upon the sound which is produced by the animal
itself. We discover here that behavior derives its natural-
ness from the human speaker rather than from the object
named* Max Muller expressed this fact when he said that

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE 147

if you strike a human being you will get a characteristic
sound exactly as you do when you strike a bell. The crit-
ics of Max Miiller's theory call this the " dingdong" theory of
the development of language. They regarded the theory as
fantastic, but there can be no doubt that Miiller expressed
a fundamental truth.

In the beginnings of language there were many situations
in which vocal reactions were perfectly natural and, at the
same time, distinctive because of the character of the sit-
uation in which the articulation was produced. If now a
social group has repeatedly heard a sound produced in the
presence of a certain object or situation, there naturally
develops a tendency for the sound and the ideas to get
themselves so definitely connected that whenever the object
or situation is presented this particular sound will be pro-
duced. Conversely, whenever the sound is produced, the
idea of that particular object or situation will arise in the
mind. The question of the form in which such an associ-
ation will develop is a problem to which we must return
again. It is important to note, however, at this juncture,
that what is associated with a partial sound is not merely a
picture or image in the mind, but rather a whole attitude
of reaction. When I utter the word " dog," or hear the
sound which comes from uttering that word, the partial
or verbal reaction expands instantly into the general bodily
attitude appropriate to the experience of seeing a dog. If I
am afraid of dogs, the essential part of the experience will
be a feeling of violent contraction of my internal muscles
and a desire to run. If I am fond of dogs, I shall have a
reaching out of all my muscles and a feeling of satisfaction.
There may be, and often is, no image in the mind at all.
The word is part of a system of behavior rather than part
of a series of pictures. The experiences attached to words
thus include as important elements the feeling attitudes
appropriate to the object.

148 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

SPEECH AS CONVENTION

In the course of development, sounds became more highly
conventionalized than gestures. A newcomer in the social
group which has many conventions has certain unique
advantages and certain serious difficulties. He can acquire
through imitation a whole system of expressions which the
group developed very gradually, but he will have to take
on many of the sounds without seeing anything natural in
them. Thus the child who comes into a social group in pos-
session of an English vocabulary will have little opportunity
to exercise his inventive genius. He could doubtless make
many natural sounds, but society has no time or patience
to attend to his personal attempts. Society has its system,
and the newcomer must learn the system. In the long run
he will profit, for the system is more elaborate than anything
he could invent, and it has subtle virtues which he does not
always realize. His task is, however, a relatively artificial
task. He must learn to control his vocal cords so that he can
produce the great variety of sounds included in the lan-
guage which he is trying to acquire, and he must learn most
meanings as pure conventions. This latter is no simple task,
and nature does not guide him. He will have to acquire
meanings by any devices he can adopt, in order to bring
himself into sympathetic contact with the ideas of his
elders. Learning a language is, therefore, a very different
process from helping to construct a language in a social
group without established conventions.

CONVENTION HIGHLY ADVANTAGEOUS

Critics of educational methods and results have often had
occasion to emphasize the unnaturalness of words and the
dangers that the intellectual life of the student encounters
when he is introduced to words as the chief instruments of

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE 149

his training. It may be well, therefore, at the very begin-
ning of the study to point out the great advantages of an
elaborate scheme of communication, even if that scheme
is highly conventional. One thinks of the primitive savage
who succeeded in communicating his emotions and a few of
his simple concrete ideas to his fellows, and realizes that the
moment this possibility of communication was developed,
there grew up an intimate relationship between the mem-
bers of the communicating group which made for social
cooperation and social solidarity of the utmost importance.
A tribe that had developed this means of communication
was no longer made up of individuals relatively independ-
ent of each other. Rather, it was made up of a group closely
bound together and able to cooperate with each other in the
most efficient way. The larger and more powerful the social
group became, the more important became the means of
communication, the more dependent the individual found
himself to be upon his social environment, and the more
eager he was to cultivate the fullest possibility of social
expression. Language came, therefore, to be an instrument
of social union, and social union changed the character of
individual effort and individual interest It would be hard
to exaggerate the importance of language among the forms
of primitive human activity. The industrial arts developed
slowty, but even these depended for their fullest usefulness
upon the compactness of the social group. When the hunter
and the arrow maker began to divide their functions in such
a way that the hunter carried on one part of society's activi-
ties, and the arrow maker, as a specialist, played an entirely
different part, it was language that held them both to-
gether in a single social organization. It was language
which made it possible for them to exchange their prod-
ucts, and to reach an agreement with regard to the future
policies which should set each one at work in his own
particular line with the complete assurance that this type

150 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

of cooperation would be advantageous to himself and to
his fellows. Man came to be, because of his use of language,
an entirely different kind of a being from any of the ani-
mals. Indeed, he began to live a kind of life which had
never been evolved in the animal kingdom ; and his devo-
tion to language was merely the expression of the fact
that he depended upon this instrument of social life in a
very high degree for the maintenance of the general con-
ditions under which he carried on all of his activities. The
pursuit of a line of thought such as this will show the stu-
dent of human nature the value of social conventions as
distinguished from naturalness of expression. The individ-
ual must give up something of his personal directness of
reaction in order to become a part of the social whole, but
the result is worth the cost.

SPEECH A DOMINATING SYSTEM OF BEHAVIOR

Little by little this one dominant mode of behavior began
to draw into itself and associate with itself other forms of
human activity. For example, primitive drawing originated
in the beginning without any reference whatsoever to spoken
language. Men drew pictures of objects, and through these
pictures aroused in each other certain ideas. We have
ample evidence that the earliest forms of picture-writing
had no connection whatsoever with oral communication.
In the course of time, however, just as gestures were sim-
plified and gradually came to take on conventional meaning,
so the pictures which are drawn by primitive men came to
have conventional significance. There are evidences of this
to-day in all of the conventional mythological figures which
still survive as direct appeals to the visual imagination, in
the totem pole of the Indian, and in the idol of the Oriental.
These show that the pictures which men drew in the early
stages of social life began to have a significance for the

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE 161

group which they could not have had if there had not been
a social group to use and interpret them. Certain of the
pictures which primitive men drew were ultimately simpli-
fied and brought into the closest relation to words. If one
goes to China to-day, he finds that every word has its corre-
sponding picture. The Chinese picture-words undoubtedly
originated at first as independent creations; but as soon
as it was found that a picture could be related to a word,
the picture lost its character as an appeal to the visual
imagination and became a part of the abstract system of
language. The possibility of using pictures as permanent
means of expression and as a means of expression over
long distances, both of space and time, gave them an in-
fluence on civilization which is in some respects superior
to the influence exercised by oral expression. Oral expres-
sion, while less permanent and therefore less significant
as a means of establishing records, was, however, the con-
trolling system of expression and determined the ideas
which should be associated with the written symbol. The
written symbol had to express first a word, and through
this word the related ideas. Incidentally, this subordina-
tion of drawing to oral expression is the strongest possible
evidence that words are not psychologically dependent on
visual images for their usefulness. Words are substitutes
for pictures.

The foregoing psychological sketch of the origin of the
written alphabet should be supplemented by a perusal of
some of the more complete accounts of this evolution.1

* 1. Taylor, History of the Alphabet (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1899);
article " Paleography " in Encyclopaedia Britannica (ninth edition, Vol.
XVIII); C, H. Judd, Genetic Psychology for Teachers, chap, vii
(D. Appleton and Company, 1903) . See also at the beginning of each letter
in the Century Dictionary a brief history of that letter.

152 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

INFLUENCE OF WBITTEN FORMS ON SPEECH

After the domination of picture-writing by articulation
had been completely effected, the reflex influence of written
language on oral speech became everywhere apparent. Oral
speech has to-day elements of conservatism and fixity
which can be explained only by recognizing the fact that
we not only speak our words but also write them. In un-
civilized tribes the modifications of sounds went forward
very rapidly because men had no permanent record of the
sounds which constituted their language. Since the inven-
tion of printing — indeed, since the beginning of the use
of writing — the permanent visual record has made it more
and more difficult for dialects to break off from each other
and for new signs and combinations to arise in oral speech.
Other reflex influences of written speech have also shown
themselves in the development of the history of language.
The grammatical forms and the rhetorical principles which
are operative in modern society are more governed to-day
by written and printed language than by oral expression.

The reflex influences of written speech upon oral lan-
guage are nowhere more apparent than in the practices of
our schools. Here we find ourselves in a sphere where
written language has been so much emphasized that it has
come to be the dominant instrument of instruction. When
we wish to give the child an idea in our American schools
we usually do it through the printed page rather than
through the spoken word. When one thinks of the number
of printed pages that a child reads in the course of his edu-
cation, one realizes how important this mode of instruction
has come to be in our civilization. Probably a child in
school reads more words in a year than he hears or speaks
in all the class exercises which he attends. He becomes,
therefore, as we sometimes say vaguely in our general dis-
cussions of school activities, eye-minded. He will begin to

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE 153

establish preferences for writing as a means of expressing
his own ideas as over against oral speech. As a result, we
find that ordinary school training has limited very greatly
the powers of oral expression in most children. Many a
child and many an adult finds himself able to work out an
idea if he is given a pencil and paper, while he is very far
from fluent in oral speech.

SPECIAL FORMS OF BEHAVIOR CONNECTED WITH
WRITTEN LANGUAGE

The special psychology of the reading and writing proc-
esses includes, in addition to the foregoing discussion of the
relation of writing to oral speech, a study of certain special
forms of motor adjustments. .We cannot enter into these
details at this point. It is enough to call attention to the
fact that there are special movements of the eyes which
must be acquired by one who reads, and there are special
movements of the hands and fingers which must be acquired
by the child who is learning to write. Oral expression re-
mains, however, the fundamental form of language expres-
sion throughout education, as shown by the fact that there
is a tendency to articulate even when one reads and writes.
Oral expression is, however, reduced to its lowest terms in
the course of development. The ordinary observer may
hardly be aware of the remnant of vocalization present when
he reads or writes. Careful observation will show him that
such movements are present, and scientific studies have
furnished abundant evidence that we never lose entirely
the tendency to articulate.

The problems of language instruction are thus multiplied
as we recognize the various kinds of language activities
which have arisen in modern society, and the complexities of
behavior which appear in the forms of language conscious-
ness cultivated in connection with reading and writing.

154 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

REDUCTION OF BODILY ACTIVITIES TO A MINIMUM

Before we turn to the application of our studies of
language, it is important that we should dwell upon the
fact mentioned incidentally a moment ago. With the de-
velopments of meanings in words there has been a gradual
reduction of the motor processes that are involved. This
reduction of movements appears not only in the processes
that accompany recognition of words, but also, and perhaps
more completely, in the motor processes that are involved in
the interpretation of words. The simplification and reduc-
tion of the interpreting reaction have gone so far in most
cases that they eluded the earlier writers on psychology.
Take such words as express anger, and study their effect
on both speaker and listener. Such words arouse activities
in the inner muscles of the body. I say to my neighbor
that I will not tolerate so and so. We are both roused to
a pitch of excitement that can be described only in terms
of strong internal reaction. Other words arc less exciting,
but have this same relation to inner behavior ; interpreta-
tion of all words depends upon these internal attitudes.

WORDS AS SUBSTITUTES FOR DIRECT EXPERIENCES

When one realizes that words are thus interpreted
through direct association with bodily reactions, a problem
of language consciousness which has long confused teachers
is at once cleared up. Through its association with reac-
tions the word becomes a substitute for external impres-
sions and makes it possible for the speaker and listener to
have a whole train of vivid experiences without calling up
any images or having any objects whatsoever in mind.
This statement can be illustrated as follows : When I seize
an object I get at first an impression of that thing; if
the impression is disagreeable, I react by pushing it away.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE 155

The end of the whole process is the pushing away. Later,
as I become acquainted with the thing, I push it away with-
out examining it in detail; that is, without a complete
impression of it. Finally, the merest suggestion that the
thing is there will arouse the reaction. The reaction can
now be detached from the thing and can be attached to
some substitute for the thing. Thus the word " danger "
sounded in my ear causes me to jump. The word ' ' danger "
is a substitute for an impression or ail idea of a dangerous
thing. The words " rough " and " smooth" arouse in me con-
trasting experiences without any necessity of first handling
some rough or smooth thing. The words have in all these
cases taken meanings to themselves ; that is, they have taken
on connection with interpreting forms of behavior.

It is not alone in the sphere of emotional interpretation
that words become independent of the experiences from
which they first derived their meaning. Take for purposes
of illustration such words as " up " and " down." These
words were at first interpreted to us in childhood by some-
one who pointed upward or looked upward when he used
the word " up." Sometimes the word was associated with
the observation of a flight of stairs or a ladder. Ultimately
all these experiences were condensed into a few faint ten-
dencies to roll the eyes upward or downward, and the adult
thus appreciates in an easy way, through a mere tendency
to move, the meaning which the child had to learn through
many experiences and much effort. Furthermore, the roll-
ing upward of the eyes has, in the course of mental devel-
opment, attached itself not only to tall things and high things
but also to such matters as abstract values, as when we say
that prices have gone up. Again, we say that a man's career
is downward. Words thus come to have a value of their
own without going back to things for their interpretation.
Furthermore, words have a value for mental life which
they could never have if they merely called up images.

156 PSYCHOLOGY OP HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

WORDS INDEPENDENT OF PICTURES IN THE MIND

Such a view of the psychology of words is in the most
fundamental opposition to the view which teaches that
words get their meanings by calling up pictures. That view
thiiiks of a word as a clumsy device for reviving in the
mind something more useful ; namely, an image. That view
is obviously disproved by all experience. It fails in the first
place to explain that great host of words for which there
could in the nature of the case be no images. Think of such
a word as " appalling " or f f inconvenient " and it will in-
stantly be recognized that only in the most artificial way
can such words be attached to pictures in the mind. But
the doctrine of images fails at a second and, on the whole,
much more crucial point. Words grew up at first as means
of social intercourse, but once they had developed they
proved to be of such value to individual thought that they
have very largely taken the place of all the other means of
individual thought. Even if images were the natural instru-
ments of thought before words came, it is certain that now
the greater part of the world's thinking is done with words.
Images would be too clumsy for the mind which has learned
the use of words. A moment's consideration of what has
passed through the reader's consciousness during the last
few moments will convince him that he does not stop to
develop pictures. The fact is that words take on a char-
acter of their own. Contrasting words are immediately
recognized as opposed. Related words are thought of as
capable of combination. The psychological mechanism of
interpretation can be understood in terms of tendencies
toward reaction. When words contrast, one feels within
himself opposing tendencies. When the word " appalling "
strikes the ear, one feels his muscular system respond with
a cringing, expectant shock. When one hears the word
" magnificent " he feels a muscular expansion long before

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE 157

he is able by any exercise of imagination to place before
his mind a picture of a magnificent object.

A very instructive analysis of experiences connected with
different words is given by Miss Rowland.1 We may there-
fore quote at length from her work.

Miss ROWLAND'S ANALYSIS OF MENTAL PROCESSES

AROUSED BY WORDS

Miss Rowland presented to her subjects certain series of
words such as the following : " entrance," " enter," " in,"
" inner " ; " weight," " lift," " heavy," " under," and so on ;
and asked the subjects to observe carefully the moment at
which they understood the meaning of the word and the
mental processes which passed through their minds during
the apprehension of this meaning. In describing the results
Miss Rowland says that her subjects noted three stages in
the development of meaning.

(1) A feeling of familiarity with the word, that she [the sub-
ject] would know presently what it meant (this stage of word
meaning has been called " Implicit Apprehension " by Stout, in
his discussion of this matter in his "Analytic Psychology").
(2) She then felt she would know how to use it, that is, the actual
meaning came before (3) the images unrolled themselves in all
their variety in the third stage. In other words, the images
in the third stage seemed sometimes to stay the same for two
words of allied meaning, whereas she felt at once there was a
difference in their meaning or their use. Although visual im-
ages were always present when she attempted to define meaning,
they seemed arbitrary and not to express its essence. She had,
so far as she could discriminate, exactly the same visual image
for drink and for water, that is, a person drinking water in both
cases, yet the difference in meaning was evident and remained

1 Eleanor H. Rowland, f f The Psychological Experiences Connected
with the Different Parts of Speech," Monograph Supplement No. 32,
of the Psychological Review, January, 1907.

168 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

the same with all kinds of voluntary changes of the images.
For this reason, she felt that the meaning came with the second
stage. The sound of the word was familiar, and then she knew
what it meant, that is, she had a peculiar feeling of knowing
just what to do about it, whereas the images appropriate to
the occasion (whether pictures, the word written, or what not),
although present when she attended to them, seemed more or
less arbitrary. Of course in a sense any idea or any feeling is
an image, and one might contend that the feeling of knowing
how to use words was a memory-image of former use or some-
thing of the sort. But it seems to the writer that such a broad
use of the word image, applying it to any possible mental state,
simply vitiates its own particular significance. When image is
used in this discussion it will refer to reproduced sensations
whether of sight, hearing, touch, or any other ; whereas feel-
ings, attitude of like or dislike, tensions, etc., will be designated
as such. The subject admitted that no definition could be given
of the word without some visual or auditory images, some
specialized associations. But she also insisted she felt what it
meant before she could define it, even to herself, and that
if she waited for images to elucidate the feeling, there was no
determining where to stop.

On page 5 Miss Rowland defines somewhat more fully, in
the following statement, what is meant by one of the stages.

EMPHASIS ON REACTIONS

The feeling of word meaning is apparently composed of
knowing how to react on it to some extent. This reaction is
at its lowest stage when the ability to react is solely to write
or speak it, or even to give some approximate imitation of it in
tone or articulation. This knowledge of reaction varies in com-
plexity. It may be only slight knowledge of the general nature
of reaction, that is, it is an imperative to do something, although
just what is not recognized. Or it may be a rich complex of
varied and discriminating associations. This necessary reaction
means physiologically that the sound of the word has brought
a train of associations with it and in going over into its
centrifugal discharges, the number and extent of open channels

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE 159

varies largely. If nothing is known of the meaning of the word,
but it is articulated by the human voice, the feeling of famil-
iarity or vague consciousness of meaning (when in truth it has
no ulterior significance) is merely the general feeling of the
organism which accompanies the opening of the channels appro-
priate to reproducing the word by speech or writing. If the
wvord was too complicated to be reproduced accurately, simply
an approximate reproduction would be sufficient. There need
be no actual felt tendency to reproduce, indeed no strain or
sensation of any kind. But the very sensory stimulus of the
sound must have some motor discharge before it can become
a conscious state. The combined discharge of the associated
auditory or written images which may be with it (more or less
distinctly) gives a certain balance or set, to consciousness ; that
balance gives rise to its own peculiar feeling ; and that feeling is
the skeleton of its so-called meaning. If on receiving the stimu-
lus there was not even a reactive tendency to reproduce the
word, the last vestige of its meaning as a word would be gone.

Miss Rowland's analysis of the different parts of speech
shows that while the imagery for different words may be the
same, the particular significance of the different parts of
speech is brought out in the accessory feelings of reaction
which characterize each. Without attempting to report in
full her findings with regard to all of the different kinds of
words, we may repeat her statement with regard to adjec-
tives. Adjectives differ from nouns, in that the former are
more likely to call up visual images. Even if one accepts
the general theory, that a noun gets its full meaning through
the association of the word with images, the adjective has a
character which is to be defined as follows :

SPECIAL MENTAL PROCESSES CONNECTED WITH
ADJECTIVES

Adjectives seem to be more intimate, more personal words
than any yet given. Several phrases were used by the subject
in explanation such as " broader feeling than noun," " seems
to spread over the whole of me," and it was noticeable that

160 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

almost invariably some feeling-tone was connected with the
adjective. Although the adjectives were thought of as applying
to something else, the meaning was felt in terms of their effect
on the person. Thus, in all the phrases w sharp wind," " sharp
knife," "sharp rebuke," "sharp pain," the abiding sense of
sharp, although applied to different objects, meant a subjective
cringe. The likeness of all these various nouns was solely in
the fact that they produced the same kind of a shiver. The
adjective state of mind is composed of a definite qualitative
content. It involves no purposive action, no feeling of the self
as agent and acting toward an end or of anything else doing
so. It is concerned with subjective reaction regardless of what
it acts on or any end to be accomplished.

SENTENCES AS PSYCHOLOGICAL UNITS

Finally, one quotation may be made from Miss Rowland's
statement of the way in which words are used in sentences.

The tendency in all higher word combinations is to tempo-
rarily deprive the words of all associations that do not contrib-
ute to the meaning of a sentence as a whole. The span of
attention is limited, and if we had as complete a reaction as
I have described for each word in a sentence, we should be lost
in the meaning of the parts before we could combine them in
a whole. We do not give equal value to the different parts of
a sentence, but we dwell on the more important words, while
those of lesser interest serve, not as independent words, but
simply as parts of the associative cluster that makes up the
meanings of the others.

The meaning of a word in a sentence varies, and demands
strictly a change in word-form to express this variation, as one
or another of its associations or motor reactions is sacrificed
for the more concise meaning of the sentence.

The tendency of language development for practical and
scientific purposes is all in the direction of economizing the
separate word-reactions, for the sake of the meaning of the
sentences as wholes. But in these cases, while we get more
meaning from the senteuce than we could from any separate

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LANGUAGE 161

word, we are not getting as wide an individual meaning from
any one word as if we heard it alone. The words limit each
other, and by their very definiteness cut off the extent of their
individual significance.

SUGGESTIONS OF A PSYCHOLOGY OF A LITERARY STYLE

The highest literary style consists of a nice adjustment of
values, where the words mean all that they possibly can, with-
out confusing the combined meaning of them all. On the other
hand, scientific style of expression differs, in that the separate
words are allowed only as much independent significance as is
necessary for the sentence to have a meaning. This prevents
any doubleness of interpretation, and more can l>e crowded into
a single given space. In general, a phrase may become a kind of
elongated word, and may have meanings in every way analogous
to word-units as we have studied them. When these phrase-
experiences are described, however, the analysis must fall into
the same terms as we have used for the word-experiences.

WORLD OF WORDS

The world of thought is enormously expanded by the
creation and use of words. It is little wonder that man for
long ages thought of himself as absolutely distinct from the
rest of the animal kingdom. Man lives in a world of words ;
the animals live in a world of things and memories of
things. To those who can use words so as to influence the
rest of us we give society's great rewards. To the combi-
nations of ideas which have been worked out in words, we
owe changes that have later been wrought out in things.
In short, our civilization rests on words more than on things
themselves, for our civilization differs from primitive, un-
couth conditions chiefly because the economical methods
of thought and action made possible by words have trans-
formed our relation to the world and put at man's disposal
forces which could not have been discovered or mastered
without the higher modes of abstract thought

CHAPTER VIII
THE ENGLISH PROBLEM

INSTBUCTION IN THE VERNACULAR LATE

The problem of finding the true place of English in the
school course of study can be understood only by recalling
the historical fact that in the beginning no one thought of
the vernacular as a suitable subject for school training. It
was assumed, and is, indeed, assumed to-day by many people
that one can acquire his native tongue without any special
education. Foreign languages, it was recognized from the
beginning, must be taught by a teacher, and the subject
matter which enters into science and history evidently re-
quires to be taught before it can be mastered ; but the use
of common words and the formation of common sentences
are assumed as a part of the informal training of the child
through his home and through his everyday environment.
We read in the history of education, therefore, how the
vernacular was brought into the school by the special plea
of Martin Luther and his successors as an innovation in
the educational system. Up to the time of the Reformation
the languages taught had all of them been the remote and
unusual languages.

UNFAMILIAR ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE FIRST EMPHASIZED

Coming down to the modern period we find something
analogous to the movement which was inaugurated at the
time of the Reformation. We find that the high school of a
generation ago assumed that the student would get English

162

THE ENGLISH PROBLEM 163

incidentally as a part of the rest of his work. Up to that
time the lower schools had indeed recognized the impor-
tance of teaching reading. Like a foreign language, reading
requires acquaintance with a set of symbols which do not
confront the child in his ordinary home life or in his play
on the street. The early New England school, founded
explicitly as a reading school, was therefore a very natural
concession to the demands of society for the special training
of children ; but the New England reading school was not
a place where the child was trained in oral language. So
also the high school of a generation ago was absorbed in a
kind of training which emphasized very little the common
use of the mother tongue. The high school put into the
hands of its students many books which they were required
to use, but there was little or no pretense at training chil-
dren in modes of common speech or in the use of common
forms of conversation. The only phase of the vernacular
which was taught in these schools was formal grammar,
that is, the structure of language. The upper grades of
the elementary school usually went over grammar in great
detail, but in some cases the course commenced hi the high
school. Grammar, as the science of language, was taught
in imitation of the methods prevalent in teaching the classics,
on the assumption that the student would know the words
and sentences of the language before he began to take up
the rules of parsing and grammatical agreement.1 Still
later, when some training in the use of words was brought
into the school as a substitute for pure grammar, it was
found that written composition received the emphasis. It
is even to-day assumed that the ordinary child can talk, but
it is conceded that he cannot write well ; hence the school
must take his writing in hand. The spirit of all these efforts
to bring the vernacular into the course of study is the same.

1 F. A. Barbour, The Teaching of English Grammar : History and
Method. Ginn and Company, 1902.

164 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

They all begin with the remote, the unusual, and the ab-
stract. It is very hard to organize any plan of school work
which will emphasize the common use of the vernacular.

ENGLISH COMMONLY TREATED AS A SPECIAL SUBJECT

At the present time we are in the curious situation of
desiring to recognize the vernacular to the fullest possible
extent, and yet we are unable to see that the vernacular
means expression whenever and wherever it appears. Every
one realizes that students are defective in their oral expres-
sions even in their English recitations. Students, after
years of schooling, do not know how to carry on for any
length of time a coherent and continued discussion — evi-
dence enough that the schools and the English department
have not mastered their problem of training children in
coherent common use of the vernacular. It is assumed that
children will be able to get on in history and physics and
mathematics because the vernacular is there the common
medium of expression. The fact is that half the difficulty
of children in these subject-matter courses arises from their
inability to understand English sentences. The English
department and the school in general continue to assume
that the business of the English department is to deal only
with those unusual phases of the vernacular which are not
of daily significance. Therefore we find the English classes
devoting themselves to composition or literary studies of a
type which has very little relation to practical life and little
relation to the rest of the work of the school.

In opposition to the assumption that English is a special
subject the effort is sometimes made to call attention to the
desirability of a constant supervision of the use of the ver-
nacular throughout the day and throughout all of the activ-
ities of the students. This plea gets scanty hearing, because
our educational system at the present time is divided into

THE ENGLISH PROBLEM 165

a number of special interests, and there seems to be no one
now responsible for the general training of students except,
possibly, administrative officers. One reads with a good
deal of interest the plea of the English teacher that he is
quite unable to master the situation because he has no
authority over other members of the high-school faculty;1
that only the principal can bring about the reforms which
are now needed in English training in the schools. This
means, from the side of the English teachers, that they
are unable for some reason to present with compelling
force arguments in favor of a general cultivation of the
mother tongue.

Members of other departments undoubtedly look upon
the work of the English department as a special and closely
delimited phase of training. Teachers of English in the
high schools are thought of as a group of people who have
been trained in a specialty. That specialty is literary form.
The ordinary English teacher knows the classics of our
language and is interested in bringing to the attention of
students the virtues of these English classics. He would
encourage the student to imitate these classics much as the
teacher of Latin used to try to induce his students to imi-
tate Cicero. For the most part English teachers, trained
as literary critics, are wholly unaware of the fact that their
place on the program of the high school of to-day depends
upon something more fundamental than interest in literary
form. When, therefore, the English teacher gives a course
which is virtually a course in the history of literary form
coupled with a few technical exercises which aim to culti-
vate literary form in his students, he widens the chasm
between himself and all of the other departments, since
the other departments are interested in the vernacular for

1 James F. Hosic, f f The Cooperation of All Departments in the
Teaching of English Composition," Proceedings of the National Educa-
tion Aamvltition, 1013, p. 478. See also School Review, 1913, p. 698.

166 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

wholly different reasons. The man who teaches science can-
not be made excessively enthusiastic about literary form
and its history. His use of English is for an entirely dif-
ferent reason, lie may not know how to tell the English
department just what he wants. Indeed, he is often so dis-
gusted with the work which is now done in English that
he will not take pains even to consider how the English
department may be improved.1

GRAVE DANGERS OF SPECIALIZATION

There is a lack of unity of purpose and lack of sympathy
in the handling of expression in schools which grows out of
the fact that both the man of science and the teacher of
English are specialists. Illustration after illustration of this
highly specialized interest can be found in the current
literature which deals with the teaching of English in the
high school. There is a conspicuous illustration of this in
Mr. Percival Chubb's book, "The Teaching of English."2
The book sets forth in vigorous terms the desirability of
more training in English in the high school and the elemen-
tary school. In his effort to define the general purpose of
English during the adolescent period, Mr. Chubb says on

1 An anonymous writer in a communication published in Science,
September 4, 1914 (N.S., Vol. XL), pp. 844-340, gives an excellent
example of the temper of the teacher of science toward rhetoric. The
communication is an answer to a review published in the February (1914)
issue of Modern Language Notcft of ff Representative Essays in Modern
Thought," by Steeves and Ristine. The book under discussion is written
in the effort to stimulate the study of other forms of literature than the
belles lettres commonly taken up in English courses. The conclusion of
the discussion is given in the following sentence : " And yet, if rhetoric
instructors do not awake, some time or other scientists, engineers, and
lawyers will somehow face the problem of themselves instilling the prin-
ciples of unity and coherence into their promising students.11 The whole
communication is a most urgent plea for the study of themes of a scien-
tific and practical type.

2 Published by The Macmillan Company, 1909.

THE ENGLISH PROBLEM 167

page 239 that one of the riain divisions of literature which
should receive attention in the secondary school is that
which deals with vocational subjects. He reviews enthusi-
astically the position taken by G. Stanley Hall, that the vast
majority of high-school graduates should get social training
through the vernacular. They should be given that kind of
reading and opportunity for expression which will prepare
them for social and personal life in the vocations. One
reads this part of the book with great interest, and assumes
that now, at least, we have reached the point where the
vocations are to receive adequate attention from the Eng-
lish teachers. He goes on through the book, and, to his
astonishment, finds that all of the references to books that
are actually to be used are of the conventional literary type.
There is not mentioned in the whole volume a single book
of a strictly technical type. The specialist in English liter-
ature has once more shown that he does not have any idea
of his duty to the vernacular in general. One is reminded
of the story told by the high-school principal, who, after
urging his English teachers to put in some vocational read-
ing, encountered a teacher glowing with enthusiasm because
of her success in complying with his suggestion. She was
reading " Silas Marner " with her class, and since Silas was
a weaver, she was introducing vocational ideas at the same
time that she satisfied the college-entrance requirements.

ENGLISH PROGRAM SHOULD BE REDUCED

Probably the whole fraternity of teachers of English
would ask, if they were confronted by such a remark as the
foregoing, " What is expected ? Are the high schools to
devote themselves to the reading of books on mechanics?
Is the English department failing to do its duty when it
devotes itself to its proper task of training students to
appreciate and produce higher things?" The argument

168 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

would undoubtedly be presented that it is the business of
the English department to see to it that the student carries
away an appreciation of those books which are not discussed
in the other classes. Undoubtedly there is some justification
for this specialized kind of training ; but the point which is
to be made is that the school program of the present day
gives to English an amount of time which is entirely at
variance with the assumption that English is a specialized
subject. No high-school faculty which votes for four years
of English to be required of every student would vote that
amount of time if the statement could be explicitly put
before them that these courses are all to be devoted to the
development of literary form. This amount of time is voted
because it is assumed that English somehow is to be regarded
as a fundamental, underlying subject, of more significance
in the life of students than any other single subject. The
deplorable fact is that after all of this time has been given
to English teachers, they do not realize that it is their duty
to distribute it in some fashion which will comport with
the assumption on which the time was given. Perhaps two
courses in our present-day high-school course of study
could be justified as requirements if English continues to
be what it is now, namely, training in literary form ; but
certainly there ought not to be four courses required of
students, nor ought there to be three, and there may be
some question whether it will not be wiser to make even
the second English course elective.

THE UNSOLVED PROBLEM OF TEACHING READING

There is another aspect of this matter which ought, per-
haps, to be discussed in reenforcing the general criticism
of English work contained in the preceding paragraph. It
is assumed that high-school students know how to get the
meaning out of paragraphs which they read ; that is, it is

THE ENGLISH PROBLEM 169

assumed that the work of elementary education has been
satisfactorily completed, and that elementary reading has
prepared students for all their later work. The fact is, that
the ordinary student does not know how to read economi-
cally. He is very clumsy in his methods of getting the*
meaning from his textbook in history or his textbook in
science. This deficiency of the high-school student is of
importance both to the special teacher, who is training the
student in history and science, and also to the English
teacher, who is training him in reading. Both teachers,
however, overlook the necessity of training in reading and
in interpretation of what is read. We have not yet learned
the lesson that the commonplace activities are, after all, the
most important activities to be trained. Why we should
assume that the child knows how to take up and study a
book economically when no one has ever helped him to see
the importance of economy in his reading, is difficult for the
student of education who is not a specialist in English to
understand. To the student of education who sees history
and science and English literature all as phases of the gen-
eral effort to train the mental processes of children, the
fundamental and general requirement, that mental processes
be trained so that mental work can be done in an economical
way, is more significant for the child's training than is the
demand for any particular type of training. This general
demand, that the student know how to study, is neglected
by too many teachers because they are interested in some
particular subject matter. The psychologist, on the other
hand, who insists upon the recognition of the general fun-
damental needs of all students, discovers that there is no
one especially charged in the school with the duty of train-
ing children how to use books.

The critical student of education feels justified in charg-
ing this deficiency most heavily against the teachers of
English because they have so much time given them and

170 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

because they have so little content requiring to be taken up.
But the English teachers, like the other special teachers, are
contributing what they can to the development of uneco-
nomical habits of the use of books. No one who has seen
an English class working with the question-and-answer
method on a literary masterpiece, such as " Ivanhoe " or
"Silas Marner," can fail to recognize the fact that asking
questions about a book, and asking questions in such detail
that the student's attention is distracted from the general
stoiy to the minutiae of the matter on successive pages, is the
worst possible preparation for the use of books. English
teachers are absorbed in subject matter just as are the
teachers in other departments. They are so much absorbed
in subject matter that they do not realize that they are im-
peding in many cases the student's mental development in
the use of books. It would be very much better to allow a
student to read the whole of " Ivanhoe " through at four or
five sittings than to spread the study of this book over half a
year. Requiring the student to digest a story in small frag-
ments and to answer the most minute questions with regard
to each fragment is to cultivate a habit of mind with regard
to books which is utterly disastrous for later life. The stu-
dent gets an impression that a story of this sort is a Hercu-
lean intellectual problem. He will never be stimulated to
take up a book of this sort in leisure hours in his later life if
he is impressed with the immensity of the undertaking.

THE SAD STATE OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION

What the student of education finds to criticize in the
class in literature fades into insignificance when he follows
the English teacher into that burying ground of human
interests, the class in composition. Where shall the bewil-
dered observer begin his psychological analysis of these so-
called exercises ? Do they make for economy of expression ?

THE ENGLISH PROBLEM 171

When a student is given one of the usual subjects
presented to the composition class, he is fortunate if he
has ideas that would cover half a page. He is encouraged
to write these few ideas in a form which will cover three
or four pages. Indeed, the requirement commonly set
down is one which states the amount required rather than
the quality. The student is told to write two pages on a
given subject. Furthermore, the subject is frankly acknowl-
edged to be one which is of no practical value. He writes
on it in the English class because it is of no value and
therefore can properly be made a subject of discussion from
the point of view of its style rather than from the point of
view of its usefulness to anybody who comes in contact with
it. A student who has thus been trained in the making of
useless paragraphs is likely to look on paragraphs in general
as belonging to the same type. He will come to think of
the writer of books as a person who has set himself a task
of covering so and so many pages with words, and his whole
notion of literature will be perverted by his own frantic
efforts to fulfill a certain requirement on a subject in which
he is not interested and on which he has nothing to say. The
written page comes to be for him a sham battlefield, different
from the industries or practical activities of life, where prac-
tical efforts are made in the spirit of serious accomplishment.

LOUNSBURY OX EXGLISH COMPOSITION

Perhaps one would be less bold in such estimates of
composition if he did not have the support of that veteran
teacher of English, Professor Lounsbury. In commenting
on required composition, even in college, he writes : l

I am by no means disposed to go so far as the historian of
New England, John Gorham Palfrey, who, as I have been told,

1 Thomas R. Lounsbury, "Compulsory Composition in Colleges,11
Harper's Magazine, November, 1911, Vol. CXXIII, pp. 866-880.

172 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

was wont to express the desire that an act of Congress should
be passed forbidding on pain of death anyone under twenty-one
years of age to write a sentence. Excess in one direction can
not be remedied by excess in the opposite. Still, none the less
am I thoroughly convinced that altogether undue importance
is attached to exercises in English composition, especially
compulsory exercises ; that the benefits to be derived from the
general practice in schools is vastly overrated ; that the criticism
of themes, even when it is fully competent, is in the majority of
cases of little value to the recipient ; that in a large number
of instances the criticism is and must ever be more or less in-
competent ; and that when the corrections which are made are
made inefficiently and unintelligently, as is too often the case,
the results are distinctly more harmful than helpful. (P. 869.)

Professor Lounsbury would have us abandon the whole
farce, and recognize that the ordinary student can never
produce literature and never ought to be perverted in his
tastes by having to contemplate his own productions. The
student ought to be introduced in a large and liberal way
to some of the vital productions in his mother tongue, and
he ought to have these set before him not as subjects for
minute scrutiny and clumsy imitation but rather as examples
of documents which have molded history and guided the
thinking of men in politics and religion and in the organi-
zation of social institutions.

DANGERS OF EXTREME FORMALISM

The time will certainly come when the historian of edu-
cation will look back upon the present period of high-
school composition and high-school dissection of literature
as one of the most formal periods in education. It will be
said of us that we gave up all of the advantages of a
compact and consecutive course in the classics before we
succeeded in bringing into the high-school curriculum
anything that gives the continuity and definiteness of

THE ENGLISH PROBLEM 173

training that these older courses provided. It will be said
that we wasted the time of our students on a type of liter-
ary pedantry which did not justify itself even to the teachers
of the subject itself. In evidence of this the writings of the
teachers of English will be quoted. There is no group
of teachers who more frankly acknowledge the complete
failure l of the work which they are doing. They disagree
with each other at every point with regard to the content
and methodology of their work. They frankly report the
results of their own tests to show that high-school students
and college students alike fail to meet even the most ele-
mentary standards of achievement which are set up. Yet
they insist that they must 'have the time which they now
occupy, and indeed in some quarters they clamor for more
time and attention. They complain about the number of
hours that they have to spend in correcting compositions,
and ask for more assistance.2 They point out the fact that
their present mode of teaching wears out teachers so rapidly
that the average professional life of an English teacher is
less than that of members of other departments.3 In the
midst of acknowledged failure and chaos they keep insist-
ing that what they are doing is of the highest importance.
They scoff at the courses in manual training and voca-
tional training. They criticize the sciences as uncouth and
uiicTsthetic. They charge the classics with formalism, and
they regard mathematics as abstract and uninspiring.

1 Twenty Years of School and College English. Published in Cam-
bridge, 1896. F. N. Scott, f ' College P^ntrance Requirements in English,"
School Review, 1001, Vol. IX, pp. 365-378.

a " Requirements for Admission to the Freshman English Course,"
Bulletin No. 13, University of Wisconsin, 1914. English Journal, Vol. II,
1918, p. 398. Reports of committees and individuals on "Amelioration
of Conditions," published in the Proceedings of the National Education
Association, 1912, pp. 747-766.

* James F. Hosic, "The Advance Movement of Teaching of English,"
Proceedings of the National Education Association, 1918, p. 91.

CHAPTER IX
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ENGLISH COURSES

It is the purpose of this chapter to discuss the mental proc-
esses which are cultivated in the English courses ordinarily
administered in high schools. We shall follow this discussion
by a study of the methods proposed for teaching foreign lan-
guages, and then come back to the problem of the relation
of verbal consciousness to other types of mental activity.

CARPENTER ON THE PURPOSE OF ENGLISH TEACHING

In his statement of the present-day purpose of the Eng-
lish course, Professor Carpenter1 contrasts our period with
two earlier movements. First there was a period in which
grammatical correctness was the aim. This was the period
of Lindley Murray and Noah Webster, and covers the mid-
dle half of the nineteenth century. Then came from 1874
on, after the Harvard entrance examination in English
was established, a period of emphasis on rhetorical study.
" The third ideal, that now rapidly coming into prominence,
is that of familiarity with, and appreciation of, English
literature." Accepting Professor Carpenter's classification,
we may omit from discussion grammar, except in so far as
it survives in the rhetorics ; we must consider the aims of
rhetoric, since the rhetoric period is not yet passed, and we
must take up the newer movement, which is devoted to
literary appreciation.

1 G. R. Carpenter, F. B. Baker, and F. N. Scott, The Teaching of
English in the Elementary and the Secondary Schools, p. 180. Long-
mans, Green, & Co., 1913.

174

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ENGLISH COURSES 175

COMPARISON OP TEXTBOOKS ON RHETORIC

Within rhetoric itself the most conspicuous change is
from a long statement of rules and principles to a very great
abbreviation of rules and much attention to practice, espe-
cially written practice. Exercises, then, are an important
part of any book on composition.1 Indeed, the modern text-
book often bears in its title the frank emphasis upon exer-
cises. " English Composition," " Essentials of Exposition
and Argument," " Practical Training in English," are
among the familiar titles of the modern rhetorics.

Let us contrast the chapters of one of the newer rhetorics
with the chapter headings of one of the older books. The
modern book2 treats, in successive chapters, The Sentence ;
Forms of Discourse, Narration ; Forms of Discourse, De-
scription ; Letter Writing ; Forms of Discourse, Exposition ;
Forms of Discourse, Argumentation ; Figures of Speech ;
Verse Forms. The older book3 has such chapters as the
following : Style ; Simplicity ; Precision ; Purity ; Perspi-
cuity in Sentences ; Perspicuity in General ; Figures of
Speech ; Figures of Relativity arising from the Perception
of Resemblance ; Figures of Gradation ; Figures of Empha-
sis ; Part III, Harmony in Style (including seven chapters);
Part V, The Emotions (including chapters on The Beau-
tiful, The Fantastic, etc.); Part VI, The General Depart-
ments of Literature (including Description, Narration, etc.).

This contrast shows how greatly rhetoric has been sim-
plified. The older book was, to be sure, used in college
more frequently than in high school, but it is typical of the
painstaking effort of the rhetoricians of that date to be
inclusive. The present-day rhetorician aims to stimulate

1W. F. Webster, English for Secondary Schools, p. iii. Houghton
Mifflin Company, 1912.
2 Ibid.
• De Mille, Elements of Rhetoric, 1S78.

176 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

composition, and reduces his statement of principles to
the smallest possible compass.

Turning now to the remnant of rhetoric which has sur-
vived, we are impressed at once with the frequent excursions
which every author makes into psychology. The student is
called upon to consider how language portrays ideas.

Just as the artist has to avoid certain combinations of colors
because they offend the eye, so any person, using language to
communicate his ideas, must obey the rules of language if he
wishes to please people by what he says. ... A sentence has
been defined as a group of words expressing a complete thought.
. . . Sentences may be defective because they are not the full
expression of one complete thought.1

RHETORIC A FORMAL STUDY

These examples show clearly that one of the major func-
tions of rhetoric is to turn the student's thought to his
mental processes as distinguished from the content about
which these processes are concerned. Rhetoric is a science
of the forms of thinking and expression. The older rhet-
oricians were fully aware of the relation of their subject to
logic. Indeed, the old-fashioned course was often a course
which explicitly combined logic and rhetoric. The high-
school student has difficulty with this formal science because
he is not mature enough to distinguish between his thought-
process and the content of his thought. The teacher asks
him to write on his vacation, and he does so. He then dis-
covers that the teacher does not care at all about the vaca-
tion or anything pertaining to it. The teacher is interested
rather in the way one thinks and the way one expresses
himself. Very often the student is still further confused
by the contrast between thought and expression. He finds
that one may have an idea, but not be able to get it into

1 W. F. Webster, op. cit., pp. 1, 2, 8.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ENGLISH COURSES 177

acceptable form for communication. He now has three
things to consider : ideas, how one has ideas and arranges
them, and finally how one expresses ideas.

The complexity of the situation which thus faces the stu-
dent is hardly understood by adults. Most mature minds
have faced in some form or other the distinction between
content of thought and the forms of thought. But the
high-school student does not readily grasp this distinction
and is seldom interested in the introspective facts. Just as
soon as an adult begins to talk about forms of thought to
a high-school student who is absorbed in some real content
and quite unconcerned about his own mind, there is sure
to develop an educational situation which is confused and
unproductive. The student is absorbed in things and in
people and their doings. He is not likely to look into
his mind for forms of thought. On the other hand, a teacher
who becomes absorbed in noting how his students think and
express themselves will find the problem of form so inter-
esting that he will forget all about the subject matter. He
will become an observer of thought-processes and modes of
expression and will be unable to understand why his students
are not interested, as he is, in the forms of experience. The
breach between student and teacher may become infinite.

There is one common ground on which teacher and
student may meet and often do meet ; that is, in a study
of the history and structure of language. So the study of
an elementary form of science of language comes to be in
many cases the real object of attention in the rhetoric
class. The history of particular words is an interesting
chapter in this kind of rhetoric. The structure of the
sentence, the principles of agreement and subordination,
become the absorbing topics. Such a study is not with-
out value. Students learn something about language and
its history, and they will doubtless be aided in the long
run by such knowledge in controlling their own expression.

178 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

There is another sense in which rhetorical knowledge of
the type which we have been discussing is formal. A stu-
dent may know about words and sentences and yet not
apply his knowledge in his own performances. The psychol-
ogy of application of knowledge turns up again here as it
did in the case of mathematics. We shall have to let the
problem thus suggested wait, noting that here, as in other
courses, the problem of applications presents itself as one
of the most important problems in education.

THE FOUR FUNDAMENTAL FORMS OF DISCOURSE

There is one series of topics which appears in all of the
rhetorics, namely, the four fundamental forms of discourse :
narration, description, exposition, and argument. Some
writers do not attempt to deal with all ; some use the clas-
sification as the basis of all their treatment; while others
touch upon it only lightly, devoting the major part of their
time and attention to details rather than to these more
general distinctions.

The four fundamental forms of discourse may be treated
as representing four different mental attitudes. They can
also be discussed from the side of content when the empha-
sis is laid on the fact that they differ in the type of subject
matter which they present. Let us select a number of state-
ments illustrating the fact that the classification of forms
of discourse describes mental attitudes. Thus in discussing
narration one author states:

The mind does not think in single words, complete enough
so that they represent a single idea. . . . Such a group of words
is like a picture thrown upon a screen. . . . And just as a series
of single pictures tells a story at the moving picture show, so a
series of groups of words tells a story in man's everyday life.1

i W. F. Webster, English for Secondary Schools, p. 68.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ENGLISH COURSES 179

Later he defines description in these terms :

In the preceding chapter it has been pointed out that the
sequence of language is well adapted to detail the sequence of
action in a narrative. For the purpose of presenting a picture,
language has serious drawbacks ; the picture has to be shown
in pieces. . . . Each [phrase] introduces a new element into
the picture ; and then, from these phrases the reader must con-
struct the real picture (p. 105). Exposition treats of abstract
ideas, either general terms like horse, man, tree; or propo-
sitions (p. 202).

On the other hand, the attempt is often made to define
each of the forms of discourse from the point of view of
content. "All composition may be arranged in two great
groups. The first group includes composition that deals
with real things and incidents ; the second group includes
compositions that deal with thoughts and ideas " (p. 55).

The quotations which have been given show how easy it
is to take first the psychological attitude and then to turn
directly to the objective attitude. That students are con-
fused by these different points of view is hardly to be
wondered at when their immaturity and lack of training in
introspective analysis is kept in mind. Rhetoric of the psy-
chological type is very abstract and vague to the ordinary
student. Rhetoric based on the effort to classify subject
matter is likely to get the student into difficulty, because
subject matter refuses to follow the lines laid down in the
classification. The classification is essentially logical and
psychological.

Enough has been said in the foregoing analysis of text-
books to bring out clearly three general facts. First, the older
textbooks dealt frankly with the forms of experience and
expression ; the later books attempt to make rhetoric con-
crete and thus often confuse with considerations about
subject matter a study which is essentially a formal sub-
ject. Second, the study of formal aspects of expression is

180 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

an abstract study, and high-school students can only with
difficulty neglect that in which they are most interested,
namely, subject matter, to concentrate attention on form.
Finally, present-day rhetoric is not complete or successful
even on its own chosen grounds. It does not deal adequately
with subject-matter problems because it is divorced in its
organization from subject-matter courses.

ORAL COMPOSITION

In the general books on teaching English in high schools
a problem is discussed which is omitted from most texts ;
namely, the problem of oral composition. When one goes to
the classes in English as actually conducted, one finds very
little oral composition. This is, perhaps, one of the greatest
weaknesses of American schools. The student in an Amer-
ican class seldom says more than three sentences, and often
he says only a word or two. Teachers do not seem to
realize the value of continuous discourse, and the rhetoric
books, while they talk about argument, very seldom give
any serious attention to oral argumentation. Oral expression
is, in its psychological elements and organization, very dif-
ferent from written composition. Oral composition must
be rapid. Writing may be very deliberate. Oral composi-
tion is less likely to be influenced by the models which the
student has read. When one is writing, the length of the
sentence, the character of the words used, and other details
of expression, such as the rhythm of phrases, will all be de-
termined by the qualities of writing activities as much as
by anything relating to the vocal activities. It is a mistake
to assume that oral and written composition are the same.
The lack of regard for oral expression has been commented
on before as an evidence that the English teacher does not
view his task broadly enough.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ENGLISH COURSES 181

VERSE USED IN COMPOSITION

A word may be added with regard to verse as a form of
composition. Objection to the use of verse often arises from
the fact that the mind of the student is likely to associate
verse with sentiment, and the temptation to indulge in
trivial sentimentality is overpowering when composition is
undertaken in this form. On the other hand, there is no
type of composition which so definitely checks and controls
the form of the student's work as versification. If some of
the narrative poems are adopted as models so as to over-
come the objection of sentimentality, it is possible to use
verse-making as a very compelling type of formal train-
ing. Any work which checks itself is excellent material
to use in training an immature student, because the rules
are automatically kept before the student's mind by the
product itself.

One cannot leave the topic of rhetoric and the forms of
expression without commenting once more on the dangers
of formal work in the English class. Formal training is not
damaging to the student if it is a part of a more general
system of education in which form is ultimately filled with
productive content. Training in form can always justify
itself as a necessary part of the total equipment of the
student. The danger arises when form replaces complete
training. When form becomes an end, then the system of
education has abandoned its legitimate function, which is to
develop the individual's experience. Form which is magni-
fied above content is empty and a burden. Many a rhetoric
class exhibits the sad spectacle of a teacher absorbed in
form and quite unconscious of his weakness. The students
in such a class do not know what the difficulty is, but they
realize that the subject is utterly lacking in inspiration and
they are the more confused because they do not see what
is the purpose of the work.

182 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

PSYCHOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS IN A RHETORIC CLASS

Observations made in a rhetoric class add three general
statements to those which have been derived from a study
of the texts. In the first place, the questions asked are
usually of such a character that any one of several differ-
ent answers will satisfy the demand. What criticism is to
be offered of the paragraph is a typical question. The stu-
dents now begin to cast about for the teacher's probable
idea in asking the question. Very often it is a lottery, and
the student knows it and is prepared to take two or three
trials if the teacher's patience holds out.

In the second place, the number of different kinds of
judgment which a student is called upon to pass is much
greater than in most subjects. In mathematics the judg-
ments and comparisons are fairly uniform in type and the
different varieties are limited in number. Not so in Eng-
lish. The following types were enumerated in one period.
Whether the author was recording a fact or a fictitious idea
was investigated, and the students passed judgments on the
evidences submitted. Again, the relative importance of the
fact stated was discussed. This led to the general discussion
of the importance of the fact for the narrative and the im-
portance of the fact for the real outcome. The students
were asked to judge of the appropriateness of the narrative
with a view to arousing the desired ideas in the audience.
This called for a discussion of the mental processes of the
audience. What kind of emotions do people have in such
cases ? Is the narrative detailed enough ? Is the order of
events such as to produce the most vivid effect ? In this
connection a little attention was given to the individual
words employed, and very shortly the discussion drifted off
into a study of the history and form of words. The stu-
dents were then brought back to a discussion of the way in
which the passages illustrated rhetorical principles studied

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ENGLISH COURSES 183

earlier in the course. This led to a review and application
of general principles regarding form. Finally, the students
were asked to compare this passage with others with refer-
ence to the form and with reference to the content.

Such an array of judgments makes it perfectly clear that
rhetoric is a general subject. The reason why it is so hard
to define courses in English and to secure uniformity in
these courses is to be found in the infinite variety of
ends which may be sought with identically the same text
in rhetoric and identically the same illustrative material.
Teachers of rhetoric recognize this fact when they say that
the English teacher's personality is a very large factor —
more of a factor than the personality of the teacher of math-
ematics. In the observations recounted above, it was fortu-
nately unnecessary to include the petty insistence which
some instructors feel obliged to exhibit about the absolutely
formal matters of margin, spelling, punctuation, etc.

In the third place, one notes a strong tendency on the
part of both teacher and students to seek some solid, uni-
form content for thought by reducing the whole exercise
to a repetition of a few stereotyped phrases. The rhetoric
class becomes a kind of memory exercise. Students try
to answer every question in some formula from the book.
One student evidently bereft of all ideas answers blandly,
" The passage lacks unity." When the matter is pursued
further, it does not appear that he understood either unity
or the passage. This frantic devotion to the text is clear
evidence of the desire of the student to get something
tangible in the midst of the whirl of things. When one sees
the corrected compositions of a class, he realizes why the
manifold judgments which are possible and even attempted
gradually get reduced to a few simple, formal matters.
These formal matters can be noted with red ink with a
defmiteness that is quite impossible when one tries to deal
with the other, larger matters that are suggested.

184 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

A visit to a rhetoric class leaves one with the impression
that too much has been undertaken and too little carried
through. The difficulty of organizing work in English is
evidently great. The layman is led to believe that the
subject should be subdivided and the parts attacked in
succession.

PROBLEMS OF LITERATURE

From the discussion of modes of expression we turn to
a discussion of that phase of English which is designated
as literature. The business of class exercises and study in
literature is to cultivate appreciation. There is a certain
mysticism in the minds of many teachers about appreciation.
Taste is proverbially a purely personal and quite inexpli-
cable trait. The power of appreciation is accordingly said to
rest on subconscious judgments which are very vivid but
quite incapable of communication. Such statements regard-
ing the nature of the process of appreciation are, of course,
a challenge to the psychologist. Appreciation is a mental
process and is capable of training under direct guidance,
while to some extent it seems to mature without direct
guidance. Our problem is to discover what is the mental
and physiological mechanism involved in appreciation, and
thus to throw light on the methods of its training. In other
words, it is here, as always, the business of psychology to
refuse to be satisfied with mysticism. Appreciation must
be analyzed and explained.

RHYTHM AS A FUNDAMENTAL IN LITERARY FORM

For the purposes of our study we shall begin with a very
simple form of appreciation. Professor Sievers l has pointed
out the fact that every writer and speaker has certain

*G. E. Sievers, GrundzUge der Phonetik, especially Cap. XXXI-
XXXVI. Breitkopf und Hfcrtel, 1898.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ENGLISH COURSES 185

typical rhythms of speech and phraseology. In his lectures
he goes so far as to assert that it is possible to determine
the authorship of a manuscript by finding out the rhythm
in which the successive phrases fall. Furthermore, he calls
attention to the fact that the rhythms whicji express differ-
ent types of emotional reaction differ from each other. Thus
the writer or speaker who is excited by some intense emotion
will write in short and rapid rhythm and will speak in the
same fashion, whereas the long deliberate periods of un-
emotional discourse indicate an entirely different attitude
of mind and body. These rhythms attaching to different
emotional situations are recognized, though not always
explicitly distinguished, from the total expression by the
reader and by the author. If there is a fitness in the partic-
ular rhythm, so that the content of the sentence and its
rhythm are felt to be appropriate, we speak of the style as
satisfactory. If, on the other hand, there is any incongruity
which gives us a content of one type and a rhythm of a
wholly different type, we speak of the style as inappro-
priate. Undoubtedly most people are more sensitive to the
rhythms in oral speech than in written speech. When,
therefore, one wishes to bring out the full significance of a
paragraph which expresses strong emotion he can do it best
by reading it aloud. This does not mean that he should
give to each word any peculiar intonation ; indeed, the
emotion is expressed not by single words and their emphasis,
but rather by the general rhythm of the whole paragraph.
Some teachers of reading make much of the principle that
the voice must be raised and lowered so as to express the
emotions which are carried by certain words. It is often
not the change in pitch which is significant in an emotional
passage. The rate at which words flow is the more signifi-
cant fact.

As stated above, the ordinary individual frequently does
not analyze the situation far enough to pick out the rhythm

186 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

as a separate part of the total situation. The passage seems
to him to have a certain emotional coloring, and he associates
this emotional coloring with the words and with the ideas
as they flow through his mind. He does not realize that
the source of the emotional experience is the rhythm of the
words rather than their content. The meaning of this
statement can perhaps be best illustrated by referring to
the fact that the little child who is first learning to read
does not read sentences, but reads single words or short
phrases. For him the sentence and the thought are broken
up so much that he gains the meaning very laboriously.
As soon as he masters the sentence so that he can read
it with a single rising or falling inflection embracing the
whole series of words, he will be expressing a degree of
maturity in the reading process which is instantly recognized
by the teacher. So significant is this grouping together
of all the words of a sentence that one can test by the
child's intonation his ability to master the whole of an idea
as distinguished from its separate elements. There is no
more significant development in the child's ability to read
poetry than his ability to keep the voice from dropping at
the end of a line which does not finish a given idea. To
get beyond the single verse and modulate the voice so as
to include the next verse in a single expression shows that
the whole idea and the emotional experience which properly
attaches to it have come to be more significant for the child
than the single word or the mechanical processes involved
in reading. To be governed by the ends of the lines of
poetry is a relatively primitive stage of development; to
get beyond this early stage of development and have the
true appreciation of the whole idea involves a rhythm of
speech and reading which is superior to the rhythm of the
individual lines.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ENGLISH COURSES 187

APPRECIATION AN ACTIVE PROCESS

This discussion of rhythm makes it obvious that appre-
ciation of a full sentence or passage is by no means a
purely passive affair. Intelligent apprehension of meaning
depends upon a general response to a total situation, and
this response is an active process. The rhythm here un-
der discussion cannot be described as a purely ideational
matter. Rhythm is a matter of nervous activity and is un-
doubtedly related to the fact that all language involves
certain direct muscular responses. The rhythms of an
author or reader must not be too long or they will be
impossible of fluent utterance. Fluent utterance is a
matter of respiration and reaction of the muscles of the
vocal cords and mouth. The laws of articulation thus
govern our appreciation of passages. Even when the artic-
ulation is not actually carried out in full, we are con-
trolled in our enjoyment of passages by the articulations
which they suggest.

Rhythm is one of the instruments employed in arousing
others. Not only does each writer have his own rhythm,
but he is effective just in the degree in which he transmits
to his readers his own reaction. Thus, when one becomes a
reader his appreciation is not limited to forms of reaction
which he originates. If one reads the long sonorous lines
of Milton's " Paradise Lost," he gets an elevated emotion
which originated with Milton and is transmitted to the
appreciating individual through the reactions which are in-
duced in him by his reading. One could get from " Par-
adise Lost " the lofty emotions conveyed by the poem even
if he were quite unable to originate anything of the same
sort himself. All that is necessary is that he should be able
sufficiently to follow the words and sentence structures
to reproduce in himself the reactions which the author

188 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

desired. Well-arranged words thus induce rhythmical re-
actions, at the same time that they carry a freightage of
other meanings through their appeal to other active func-
tions of the individual.

REACTIONS RELATED TO GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURES

Up to this point we have dealt primarily with the rhythm
of sentences and its connection with emotional life. There
are, however, a great variety of other forms of reaction
which are established during the cultivation of language
and during the development of the ability to read. Thus,
one acquires, as pointed out in the last chapter, definite
modes of reaction for the different parts of speech. If one
uses a preposition, there is in his experience a definite de-
mand for an object to follow this preposition. This demand
is no shadowy mental desire ; it is a real physical need. It
is to be explained by the fact that in expressions preposi-
tions have always been followed by objects. We have
learned prepositions and objects as a single verbal reaction.
We learn to move our vocal cords in certain series of ex-
pressions and our whole motor organization is such that
we feel the need of complete expressions.

Grammatical habits are real motor habits. Just as the
left hand tends to follow the right in its upward and down-
ward movements, so our phrases are expressions of our sys-
tems of speech. Our language habits are as fixed as our
habits of facial expression. Let one note his experience
when the object of a preposition is omitted. Read the
partial sentence, " This book lies on . . ." The impulse to
go on beyond the preposition is as strong as the impulse to
look around when one hears a sound. Again, anyone who
has experienced the shock of hearing a person say " With
you and I " will realize how pungent is the bodily feeling
is produced by the preposition " with " followed by

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ENGLISH COURSES 189

the pronoun " I." One has the same kind of experience in
this case as that which shocks him when he makes a false
step at the top of the stairs. There is a physical jolt which
is altogether out of proportion to any actual sensory expe-
rience which he encounters. The preparation and the ten-
sion of all of his muscles is in conflict with the expression
which is executed contrary to his expectations.

There are other grammatical adjustments, as when one
uses the subject of a sentence and starts to satisfy his feel-
ing of the necessity for a verb. Not only is this connection
between subject and predicate a definite one in the sense
that the verb must follow, but the verb must be of a par-
ticular form. Anyone who has used a plural noun begins
to feel the necessity of a plural verb. If the sentence be-
comes long and involved he may be satisfied with a verb
of the wrong number. This is particularly true when qual-
ifying words which have a number different from that of
the subject are interposed between the subject and the verb
itself. In all these cases, however, we have examples of
definite active adjustments on the part of the speaker,
which adjustments have come to be so fixed in form that if
one is speaking or reading he demands the proper consum-
mation of the expression in conformity to his habit. One
will never be satisfied to have an author break through the
habits of his own speech to the extent of using a singular
verb with a plural subject or to the extent of using a prep-
osition without an object. On the other hand, one is
quite willing to follow an author beyond his own personal
ability to develop sentence structure. There is nothing
more interesting than to read a sentence which is long and
involved, but which works out with perfect precision. One
reads such a sentence as this, which is longer than any that
he would himself construct, with a feeling of a good deal of
satisfaction that the author of the sentence has been able to
extricate everyone concerned from the intellectual maze.

190 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

Anyone who has struggled with the German language
has an appreciation of the satisfaction which the novice feels
in watching the way in which an expert in this language
manages a separable verb. The moment the verb is used
in a sentence, there arises a feeling of craving for the re-
mainder of the verb. The skillful German places between
the verb and the prefix a long series of phrases and words,
but ultimately arrives with perfect precision at the end of
the sentence, and gives the satisfaction which comes from a
proper closing of the feeling which was started when the
verb was first introduced. The learner is fully aware that
he could not have carried the grammatical suspense forward
as has the German expert, and the satisfaction at the final
conclusion of the whole matter is the greater because he
realizes how much the achievement surpasses any German
of which he is himself capable.

REACTIONS RELATED TO RHETORICAL FORMS

In the same way one follows a public speaker, when a
climax is gradually being developed, with a kind of breath-
less anxiety lest the climax should break down. If the
climax is properly reached, there is a satisfaction which is
very much greater than that which would be derived from
hearing a rhetorical period which one is himself able to con-
struct. The audience becomes more and more tense as the
speaker moves to his conclusion ; and the satisfaction of this
tense strain, if it is properly managed and properly brought
to its consummation, may be of the highest type.

In the case of a climax or of an elaborate paragraph the
reaction and the experience are induced ; that is, they did
not originate with the auditor, but rather were taken on by
him through a kind of imitation. Appreciation may thus
be described as the ability to follow a series of adjust-
ments. Appreciation does not depend upon one's ability

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ENGLISH COURSES 191

as a performer, but rather upon one's ability as an auditor.
Illustrations of this ability to appreciate another's perform-
ance, even where one is himself not expert, can be seen in
the way in which an audience will follow an expert singer.
Anyone who has heard a high soprano note will understand
what is meant by the statement that the audience appre-
ciates performances which are far beyond any listener's in-
dividual possibilities. As the singer takes the high pitch
which no member of the audience could imitate, there is an
incipient tendency to draw one's self together in a supreme
effort to follow the note which is being produced. If, for
any reason, the sound is not accurately produced, there is
a violent reaction of disappointment, which is so obviously
a physical reaction that one who has experienced it needs
no argument to persuade him that appreciation in this case
is a genuine physical matter. We have the same sort of
sympathy with a person who is using the muscles of his
arms and back in trying to lift a great weight. It is not
necessary that we should lift the weight with him in order
to have sympathy with what he is doing ; it is enough that
our eyes see him and our muscles grow tense in watching
his efforts to lift the weight

RELATIONS OF ALL EMOTIONS TO REACTIONS

The reader who has never realized the importance of
behavior in determining the character of individual con-
sciousness has undoubtedly been growing more and more
restless as the foregoing pages have omitted all mention of
images and ideas and have set forth the relation of reac-
tions to appreciation. This emphasis on reactions came
into psychology with the James-Lange doctrine of the emo-
tions. Before James wrote his great work l the psychologies

1 Principles of Psychology, chaps, iv, xxiv, and xxv (Henry Holt
and Company, 1800); Talks to Teachers on Psychology (Henry Holt
and Company, 1902).

192 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

were utterly deficient in their treatment of emotions. There
was a descriptive classification of emotions but no explana-
tion of their character and conditions. James went further
than any writers before him, and pointed out that it is evi-
dent that emotions cannot be explained by the facts of
sensation. When one enjoys looking at a certain shade of
blue and is displeased with a certain shade of yellow, the
pleasure and displeasure attaching to these colors cannot
be explained by referring to the retinal processes involved.
The sensations have quality and intensity, but the feeling
tone is due to the reactions which they arouse. The blue
color makes the circulatory and respiratory organs act in a
way wholly different from that in which they act during
the observation of yellow. This doctrine worked out by
James and Lange is an explanation of one group of mental
processes which the sensory psychology could not deal with
except in the most general descriptive terms.

The theory of the emotions sketched above has influ-
enced psychological thought in all directions. To-day we
recognize that there are many aspects of experience other
than emotions which can be understood only by the study
of reactions. Space as an arrangement of sensations is the
product of our efforts to organize our responses to sensa-
tions. This was discussed in an earlier chapter. The facts
of attention can be best understood when we refer to activ-
ity. The individual who is concentrating on an object is
turning all his motor processes in the direction of that
object. The processes of discrimination are processes of
varied response. In short, wherever sensations are organ-
ized or arranged we are dealing with processes of behavior.
The term " behavior " is not used in any large and loose
sense. Behavior means bodily reaction and the nervous
organization on which bodily reaction depends. The reason
why right and left are so clearly distinguished is that these
are sharply contrasted directions in which action may be

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ENGLISH COUESES 193

turned. The reason why up and down are recognized as
different is the same. The reason why we classify altruis-
tic outgoing effort as opposed to narrow selfishness is to
be explained by the motor attitudes which are attached to
these contrasted words and ideas.

REACTION AND INDIVIDUAL INTERPRETATIONS
OF WORDS

Another general topic which the psychology of behavior
finds it very profitable to discuss is the problem of individ-
ual differences. The same sound goes in at the ears of two
different individuals. We have every reason to assume that
each individual experiences a sensation essentially like that
of all other human beings stimulated by the same sound,
but how vastly different are the results of the two stim-
ulations! The one individual hearing the sound remains
unmoved and inactive ; the other is aroused to the most
strenuous endeavor. The one has no organized tendencies
to react to the sound ; the other has. The experiences which
arise in the two minds will reflect very little of the common
sensation element present in both cases. No one would
think of treating the two mental experiences as alike be-
cause of the like sensory factors. The real character of
each mental process depends on the mode of response of
which the individual is capable. It is the reaction side
of human nature which is significant.

The same conclusion appears when one studies the de-
velopment of an individual. The child and the man both
see the same object, but the man knows what to do in the
presence of the object and the child does not. Psychology
and teaching are concerned with reactions ; sensations are
important only in so far as they arouse reactions.

This long digression from our study of appreciation has
perhaps served to persuade the reader to assume toward

194 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

language and language teaching an attitude different from
that assumed in the conventional explanation of words
as merely clues to mental pictures. Words are vital, sig-
nificant facts in the mental world. We have word habits.
We have modes of expression. We demand in all our con-
tact with others that our habits of verbal reaction shall be
conciliated.

PSYCHOLOGY OF STYLE

Such general statements can be supplemented by further
details. In colloquial speech with one's familiar friends,
one has a certain type of articulation and a certain set of
familiar phrases. The moment one gets out of this friendly
environment into a group of strangers one finds that his
mode of articulation and his phraseology take on an en-
tirely different character. He uses more dignified words,
and he drops the familiar phrases which he used with his
friends. One has, therefore, a style of familiar speech and
a style of public address. One has a style for strangers
and a style for friends. These are modes of behavior.

In the same way one has a style of written expression
which distinguishes itself sharply from his style of oral
expression. In his autobiographical notes Herbert Spen-
cer calls attention to the fact that he finds his practice
of dictation leads to a diffuseness and looseness of style
which was not exhibited in his earlier work, when he
wrote his books with his own hand. This looseness of
style in dictation is in part connected with the fact that
one does not see the products of his work with the same
degree of definiteness as when he is writing, but there is
also the general fact that the words which issue from one's
vocal cords are different in character and in their con-
nections from the words which one writes with a pencil or
pen. The habits of expression in the two spheres of action
are different.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ENGLISH COURSES 195

Perhaps this difference in style can be most clearly illus-
trated by the confession of a psychologist, who said that as
a boy he had acquired the habit of profanity, but never
made the mistake of using any of his profane phrases in
his conversation at home. He did not have to stop and
think each time he said anything at home that he must
avoid profanity. He simply had a nonprofane style at
home, whereas when he was associating with his compan-
ions he had a style which included a free use of profane
words. Later in life he resolved to give up the use of pro-
fanity altogether. Then he found that his profane phrases
crept into his conversation both at home and away from
home. In other words, the profane phrases in this case
crept in only when he did not detect them and eliminate
them, and during this period of elimination they broke up
his habits of expression both at home and away from home.

Such examples of different kinds of style in different
situations could be multiplied indefinitely. One has a
serious style of address when he is engaged in one of his
profound technical discussions, which serious style of ad-
dress differs altogether from the style of address which he
would use if he were discussing matters of business or pol-
itics with his audience. Many an academic man realizes
that he can lecture very much better than he can write.
His lectures are clear and explicit and attractive to the
students whom he sees before him. The moment he loses
the stimulus of the class environment and sits down with
pencil and paper and tries to write out his ideas, he becomes
heavy and unintelligible. On the other hand, there are
many people who would be utterly at a loss to express
themselves in oral speech. If they were suddenly placed
before an audience and called upon to express ideas, they
would find the whole machinery of expression blocked.
The only hope for such people is to write out what they
have to say and then read it. Some people are able, when

196 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

given this opportunity of writing out deliberately what they
have to say, to prepare a fluent and coherent statement of
the situation. They have a habit of written expression
which is superior to their style of oral speech.

CONTINUITY OF DISCOURSE A MARK OF MATURITY

Finally, one further illustration may be offered which
distinguishes the trained individual from the untrained in-
dividual. The trained individual feels the necessity of keep-
ing up the continuity of thought and statement. He uses
certain connective words and phrases which carry him over
from sentence to sentence and from phrase to phrase. He
uses at the beginning of a paragraph such a connective word
as nevertheless or accordingly. The untrained thinker, on
the other hand, omits most of these connective words. His
ideas come in disconnected units. He does not feel the
necessity of carrying the reader or his own discourse forward
from phrase to phrase. He speaks in short, choppy sentences,
and he is likely to use the wrong connective word if he tries
to bridge over one of the chasms in his thought and expres-
sion. Something analogous to this appears in the mature
writings of a poet. It requires a high degree of develop-
ment of the poetical art to bridge over the formal breaks
in versification ; it is a mark of complete mastery of verse
forms to adhere to the laws of division dictated by the
meter and, at the same time, to carry forward the idea when
need be beyond the line in such a way as to avoid gross
inversion of speech and sharp breaks in sentences.

SUMMARY OF REACTION TO FORM

Enough has been said in these examples to make it clear
that style grows through the accumulation of a great vari-
ety of habits of speech and expression which cannot be

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ENGLISH COURSES 197

connected with single words, but which control the forma-
tion of sentences and paragraphs. Furthermore, it has been
made clear that the appreciation of these sentences and
paragraph structures does not depend upon the ability of
the individual himself to originate the forms of expression
which he enjoys. Finally, attention can be called once
more to the fact that in many cases the learning of one
of these forms of sentence reaction is greatly facilitated
by oral reading as distinguished from silent reading. The
habits involved in appreciating matter which has only been
seen are undoubtedly different in character from the habits
involved in appreciating that which is expressed aloud.

REACTIONS TO CONTENT

Appreciation of rhythm, of structural facts, and of style
constitute what we may call the pure forms of rhetorical
appreciation. There is an entirely different sphere of
appreciation. A literary passage is appreciated by the
trained reader for its content as well as for its form.
Appreciation of content is in essence the same kind of a
mental process as the appreciation of form. Content is en-
joyed just in the degree in which the individual's habits of
reaction are satisfied by the impulses aroused by what he
reads. Or to put the matter in a negative example, an indi-
vidual can appreciate fully an emotion which is expressed
in a poem only after he has had some of the real experi-
ences capable of arousing in him modes of response appro-
priate to the sentiment expressed in the poem. Take, for
example, such a poem as Whittier's "Barefoot Boy." It is
sometimes assumed that because this poem is about a boy it
ought to be given to boys to read. It is assumed that boys
will be aroused by the sentiment which the author experi-
enced when he contrasted the boy and his simple surround-
ings and possessions with the unhappy man of wealth who

198 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

is deprived of all of the physical enjoyments which the
barefoot boy enjoys. The fact is, of course, that an ordinary
boy who has had the privilege of going barefooted has prob-
ably never had the remotest approach to that emotional re-
coil against luxury experienced by the man of wealth who
rides by in his carriage. In other words, the barefoot boy can-
not appreciate the discomforts of luxury which are described
to him because the description arouses in him no response.
In order to have the contrast which is in the poet's mind, he
must have had maturity of experience and the recoil of dis-
appointment. To the ordinary boy no such contrast in expe-
rience is possible. He sees the matter only from one uniform
level of meager personal experience, and this leaves him with-
out any possible appreciation of the author's point of view.
What has been said in connection with this example is
frequently stated in discussions of appreciation when it is
pointed out that one must have had some contact with life
before he can fully comprehend the meaning of literature.
Undoubtedly one must have cultivated certain forms of
emotional reaction and certain forms of interpreting expe-
riences before he can know what ideas mean. It is not that
one needs merely to know words, one must know how to
relate words to the larger experiences of life. Every indi-
vidual word in the poem may be known to the barefoot
boy. Every sentence may be capable of perfectly definite
explanation, and yet one may have no appreciation what-
soever of the sentiments which the phrases ought to bring
up. The total situation is the mature product of many
experiences. It is not even a matter of interpretation of
a given sentence. There is undoubtedly a good deal of
failure in the schools to appreciate this fact. We give
literature to high-school students without any proper back-
ing of personal experience to interpret the significance of
the passage. The result is that the student's mind is con-
centrated upon the purely formal side of the passage. He

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ENGLISH COURSES 199

is absorbed in the words and in the sentences as they
are presented on the page, and he fails to have any appre-
ciation of the real significance of the passage because
appreciation in this case means a response of a large and
mature type. It would be very much better in such cases
to find passages which can be related to reactions of which
the learner is capable. Not that the passages should forever
remain below the level of present experience, merely de-
pending on the accumulations of the past to interpret what
is now given ; each passage read should refine the evalua-
tions given to life's contrasts ; each passage should bring
out some new analogy and some worthy difference. But
these new contributions to experience must be close enough
to that which the individual now has, so that a real relation
may be established in the learner's mind. Literary content
must not merely be given. It must arouse a response. The
student must feel the contrast or the agreement. He will
thus be prepared to face in later life more elaborate com-
parisons and more elaborate interpretations. He cannot, on
the other hand, be prepared for the later appreciation of
literature or for the relating of life and literature if the
habits of mind which are cultivated in the school are for-
mal habits of attention to words and sentences. A strict
attention to the text in such cases as this is likely to per-
vert rather than to aid the student's literary development.
He gets a bad habit of thinking of poems and of prose
passages as things in themselves, as groups of words, as oc-
casions for barren rhetorical, grammatical, or analytical drill.

STUDIES ABOUT SELECTIONS VERSUS APPRECIATION

There is another perverted form of instruction which is
very common in the schools. It assumes that students will
get some notion of the meaning of passages by hearing
about these passages and about their authors. There is

200 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

undoubtedly some value in the information which is given
in the history of literature, but the history of literature as a
list of names is certainly not to be identified with training
in appreciation of literature. To learn about the conditions
under which a poem was written may indeed throw some
light upon the significance of the author's mood and the
meaning of the passage, but too frequently a statement
about the conditions under which the poem was written
becomes itself a remote and distracting subject of attention.
The student is distracted from the poem itself to think
about a series of facts or statements which are of little or
no value in promoting his interpretation of what he reads.

DANGERS OP DISSECTION

Formalism very frequently appears in another practice.
The literary passage is dissected in such a way that each
item of information which is presented is scrutinized and
made the subject of long comment. Each individual para-
graph is studied apart from its place in the total composi-
tion. All of the allusions must be looked up, and the student
becomes absorbed in the history of classical mythology
rather than in the turn which is given to the passage by
the reference to some classical story. This breaking up of
a passage into its elements is very dangerous, because at-
tention is in this case frequently drawn away from the real
centers of emphasis. An allusion is frequently a remote
suggestion of something that ought to be included in the
thought rather than an appropriate subject for long discus-
sions and attention.

It is not denied that explanations and intelligent com-
prehension of an allusion may be necessary. If the student
does not know who Hercules was, it is sometimes necessary
to study the whole myth in connection with the use of the
single adjective " Herculean" ; but what the student should

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ENGLISH COURSES 201

carry away from this study of an allusion is the merest
remnant of the whole story, the intellectual deposit of the
discussion, rather than the long-drawn-out statement of the
myth itself. Herculean means something large or strong
or noble. That is what the student ought to be required
to carry away from his study of classical mythology in this
particular instance. He ought not to have to break up
the passage the next time he reads it and go into a long
discourse on all of the feats of strength which the hero
accomplished, otherwise the flavor of the adjective will
be lost in a didactic discussion of the information which
came out of the classical dictionary.

How English teachers expect to create appreciation of
" Ivanhoe" or " Miles Standish" by drilling into the student's
mind all of the details that can be looked up in commentaries
and books of information is indeed difficult for an outsider
to understand. The student gets the impression that the
reading of one of these classics involves an encyclopedic
inquiry into history and art. He loses the story itself in
the multitude of explanatory considerations that are clus-
tered about it. He is not encouraged to boil his experiences
down to the point where they shall be mere interpretations
of words. He is encouraged all the time to elaborate every
word into a long and dreary series of explanatory ideas.

INSTRUCTION IN APPRECIATION

Perhaps the best antidote for formalism of the type
which has been under discussion in the last paragraphs is
to point out the fact that attention to form of expression is
often the best possible means of securing appreciation of a
passage. The writer recalls with grateful appreciation the
skill with which his college teacher of English literature
gave him a lesson in literary interpretation by compelling
him to contrast two lines in Hamlet which were being read

202 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

orally in class. In the fifth scene of the first act Hamlet,
replying to the Ghost's injunction tf Remember me," says :

Kemeinber thee !

Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe. Remember thee !
Yea, from the table of my memory
I '11 wipe away all trivial fond records.

The recurring exclamations " Remember thee ! " had been
read in the first instance with the same intonation. The in-
structor called attention to the desirability of distinguish-
ing the two phrases in the two cases. Finally, the learner
saw that the first " Remember thee " emphasized the word
"remember," the second the word " thee." From that moment
on the effort to interpret all the lines in the drama was of a
wholly different type. The teacher had taught discrimina-
tion. This discrimination was a matter of form; but it
reacted on content, and content became significant and illu-
minating from the moment the discrimination was clearly
made. The study of what may be called internal form as
distinguished from the study of external outstanding facts is
shown by such an example to be productive in a high degree.
This example could be multiplied by many another which
would reenforce the general position defended all through
this chapter, that appreciation is a matter of discriminat-
ing reaction. There is no mystery about appreciation in
a psychology which lays as much emphasis on reaction as
it does on imagery.

VARIETY AND COMPLEXITY OP APPRECIATIVE
REACTIONS

There is one question which has undoubtedly suggested
itself to the mind of the reader who is not in sympathy with
this type of psychology. Such a reader has doubtless noted
that nothing very specific has been said about the actual

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ENGLISH COURSES 203

muscular contractions which appear in the interpreting re-
actions. What are the forms of muscular contractions which
result from the reading of Milton's " Comus," and how do
they differ from the contractions induced by reading the
jokes in the daily paper ? The simple and straightforward
answer to this question is that we do not know very much
about these details. Probably there are vast individual dif-
ferences which can be understood only when it is recognized
that all the active habits of an individual are involved in
any one act. These individual differences account for the
highly subjective character of our tastes and appreciations,
while at the same time they baffle the student who would
give a general scientific explanation.

Professor Sievers has of late been tiying some interest-
ing experiments in the reactions which connect themselves
with literary appreciation. He sets be-
fore the reader sharply contrasted pas-
sages, one containing such adjectives
as " narrow " and " straight," the other
full of suggestions of a broad horizon.
With these passages are supplied certain visual figures, two
of which are shown above. When the figure A is presented,
with a passage about a narrow, straight path, the result is
a reading of the passage with a reenf orced tendency toward
emphasis on the narrowness and straightness of the road.
When, on the other hand, the reader looks at It and tries
to read the passage about a narrow road, there is a curious
feeling of incongruity and a strain in the act of reading.
Professor Sievers explains this phenomenon as due to the
induced muscular contractions in the trunk muscles which
result from recognition of the figure. Converse results ap-
pear when one uses the figures A and B with the passage
referring to free space.

These experiments suggest fruitful lines of investigation
and, at the same time, supply the answer to our critical

204 PSYCHOLOGY OP HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

reader. Our psychology has been so absorbed up to this
time in the study of impressions that it has not dealt ade-
quately with reactions. Hence we are not equipped with
details. We are, however, supported in our generalizations
by a growing body of evidence.

DEVELOPMENT OF INTERPRETATIONS

With this psychological analysis of literary appreciation
we may turn to several of the practical implications of the
doctrines which have been developed. In the first place,
one realizes that literary appreciation depends upon the
growth of experience. Little children cannot be expected
to have very much literary appreciation. Their apprecia-
tion is keen for such primitive characteristics as the rhyth-
mic forms of speech. The content of the primitive rhythms
most readily appreciated is a curious mixture of narrative
and nonsense. The little child enjoys Mother Goose quite
as much as he would enjoy a poem full of sound, wholesome
moral doctrines, for in any case the content is subordinated
to the rhythm. He enjoys the Mother Goose because it
makes an appeal to his sense of rhythm and because the
words arouse all sorts of familiar reactions in a confusing
but stimulating medley.

With the growth of more mature ideas there is an in-
creasing emphasis on the reactions which are aroused by the
content, but we cannot depend upon literature alone to
create an appreciation of the larger experiences of life. We
cannot depend upon any study of a verbal type to create a
large appreciation of one's social relations. One must have
come in contact with social relations and must have seen his
dependence upon his neighbors in such a way that he reacts
to the whole social environment with some degree of intel-
ligence before he can have a full appreciation of verbal state-
ments which call attention to his contact with his fellows.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ENGLISH COURSES 205

On the other hand, it should be recognized at once that
verbal descriptions help the student to see the contrasting
factors of his world of experiences. Point out to a child
that some acts are good and moral and others are bad and
immoral, and he will forever after be more keenly aware of
this contrast than he was before he received the instruction
contained in those words. Words are themselves significant
reactions, and one's organization of experience depends on
their use. Words help to mature one's ideas of the world.
Literary appreciation is thus seen to be a developing agency
as well as a result.

EXAMPLES AS MEANS OF LITERARY INSTRUCTION

Another application of our studies is seen in the fact
that literature is a means of modifying one's own mode of
speech and writing. We must accordingly consider the re-
lation of appreciation of the writings of others to one's own
modes of expression. It is a fundamental mistake to as-
sume that a child must be able to produce a literary passage
in order to appreciate it. Indeed, the mere shock of con-
trast between what he would himself do in a given case
and what some writer has done for him is perhaps the most
significant contribution which can be made to the student's
education. That student who is confronted day after day
by his own productions is likely to find his habits of ex-
pression and thought very much narrowed by this contact
with his own work. Bad habits of expression become fixed,
and the general level of mediocrity is established, from which
there is no escape. If there is anything that composition
has demonstrated in the schools, it is that students may be
correct within the limits of their own possibilities of ex-
pression and yet be most commonplace in all that they say
and write. The teacher hardly knows how to tell the medi-
ocre student what is wrong. What the teacher would like to

206 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

say to the student is, perhaps, something like this : " Your
sentences are all right, but they show no variety in form.
There is no pleasing aesthetic change in the modes of ex-
pression. There is no spontaneity and change of temper
from paragraph to paragraph. Get some variety into your
writing." A student thus addressed by a teacher would be
wholly at a loss to know what is meant. He has laboriously
hammered out one sentence after another, painfully express-
ing the best that he had in each of these sentences, and now
the teacher comes to him with the preposterous criticism
that this is all right and yet worthless. What that student
needs is to come in contact with somebody else and hear
somebody else's longer sentences and variety of expres-
sion. He needs to be taken out of his own limited sphere
of thought and language and introduced to a sphere of
thought and language created by someone who has a
broader experience and broader scope of language. The
introduction of a student to this higher and more elaborate
sphere of expression is attended by all sorts of difficulties,
to which attention has been called. There is danger that
he will be suddenly elevated into an atmosphere which he
cannot breathe. He will fail to appreciate what he reads
because it is so far beyond his comprehension that he is en-
tirely lost in his efforts to understand the meaning of the
passages before him. The teacher, in the meantime, being a
person of wider experience and broader training, will have
no sympathy with the inability of the student to react upon
this larger body of ideas, or else he will become so accus-
tomed to the immaturity of his students that he will him-
self be dragged down to the level of the immature thought
of his class. It is a pathetic sight to see some teacher of
literature who probably once realized that tf Julius Caesar "
was worth reading, trying to get this drama down to the
point where it can at least be recited upon by his class.
Teacher and students alike have lost all appreciation in

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ENGLISH COURSES 207

the effort to cram the text into the narrow spaces which are
furnished by the comprehension of the immature class and
the bored teacher.

TRAINING IN VERNACULAR MUST BE BROADENED

Finally, the outcome of our study must be the conviction
that the gravest problem of English teaching is to train in
the broad appreciation of all kinds of material, while at the
same time we subject all kinds of materials to the refining
effects of literary formulation. The student will bring new
ideas to the English class from the preceding recitation in
science. The teacher ought to be able to utilize this experi-
ence, and ought to send back to the science class the advan-
tages which would come if the student knew how to express
in clear, well-arranged sentences the findings of his scientific
study. We have some experiments in this direction.

The Cicero Township High School has a formulated
series of requirements in English which are enforced in all
classes. The author is indebted to Principal H. V. Church
for the following series of " direction sheets " used in
carrying out this plan.

PLAN OF GENERAL ENGLISH INSTRUCTION IN CICERO
TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL

The following requirements shall be enforced in all depart-
ments, and shall be the basis for the English grade :

ENGLISH 1
FIRST SEMESTER. FIRST MONTH

Oral. 1. Not more than twenty-five per cent of the recita-
tion shall be in incomplete sentences. These recitations may
be given while the pupil is seated.

2. The careful enunciation of syllables, particularly of final
syllables, shall be insisted upon.

208 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

Written. 1. Balanced margins shall be maintained both at
the top and bottom and at the sides of the page on which the
written composition is placed.

2. Paragraphs shall be indented.

3. Sentences shall begin with capitals.

4. Sentences shall close with periods.

&. The use of incomplete sentences shall not be allowed.

6. Written work shall be legible.

7. A liberal space shall intervene between consecutive lines
and consecutive words.

FIRST SEMESTER. SECOND MONTH

Oral. 3. If the recitation gives promise of continuing for
several sentences, the pupil shall rise and stand erect and free.

Written. 8. The use of commas in series shall be insisted
upon.

FIRST SEMESTER. THIRD MONTH

Oral. 4. Sentences shall not be introduced with such words
as « why," "well," "ah," etc.

Written. 9. The use of long, straggling compound sentences
shall not be permitted.

FIRST SEMESTER. FOURTH MONTH

Oral. 5. The use of slang shall not be permitted.
Written. 10. The use of slang shall not be permitted.

ENGLISH 1
SECOND SEMESTER. FIRST MONTH

Oral. 6. The discriminating use of words peculiar to your
department shall be inculcated.

Written. 11. Opening sentences of paragraphs shall contain
a topic statement.

SECOND SEMESTER. THIRD MONTH

Oral. 7. Opening sentences of paragraphs shall contain a
topic statement.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ENGLISH COURSES 209

Written. 12. Single paragraphs, especially those of consid-
erable length, and the closing paragraphs of related paragraphs,
shall be concluded with a summarizing statement.

ENGLISH 2
FIRST SEMESTER. FIRST MONTH

Oral. 8. If the recitation is of the nature of a report, or
lengthens to a paragraph, the pupil shall stand in front of the
room before the class.

Written. 13. A dependent clause standing first in the sen-
tence shall be followed by a comma.

FIRST SEMESTER. SECOND MONTH

Oral. 9. Errors in grammar shall not be permitted.
Written. 14. In a compound sentence, independent clauses
not closely related shall be separated by a comma.

FIRST SEMESTER. THIRD MONTH

Oral. 10. Recitations shall be audible to all.
Written. 16. Parenthetical material shall be set off by
commas.

FIRST SEMESTER. FOURTH MONTH

Oral. 11. In talking on a topic, the pupils shall look their
classmates in the eyes and assume a free and easy position.

REORGANIZATION IN DIRECTION OF GENERALIZATION

These and like requirements are to be imposed on the
science class and the mathematics class by the teachers of
science and mathematics for the sake of clearness in science
and mathematics. Such requirements are good and they
generalize English in spite of the English teachers.

On the other hand, the English teachers are induced in
other high schools to require or allow science themes and
history themes. This coordination is usually opposed on

210 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

both sides. The science and history teachers object that
the English teachers do not understand the subject matter.
The English teacher usually assents to the objection raised
by the other departments, and adds the fact that all English
teachers are overworked. The net result, after a spasm of
correlation, is usually a smug and complacent retirement of
English into its own peculiar field, while science and history
turn to the task of cultivating subject matter, and inciden-
tally requiring periods now and then at the end of sentences.
The formula which suggests itself to the nonpartisan
outsider is one of readjustment. Let us find someone bold
enough to try the following experiment : Teach in one course
the elements of form. Make it a good course, frankly dealing
with sentence and paragraph structure. Then teach some
of the history of literature, and train students to read, not
dissect, some of the literary masterpieces. Then relieve
the English department of further duties, so far as required
work in the school is concerned. Take the time that would
thus be saved and give it to history and science, but add the
requirement that these courses be conducted in the English
language, and not in the ejaculatory and explosive mono-
syllabic pretenses at expression now commonly tolerated.

CHAPTER X
FOREIGN LANGUAGES

The psychologist experiences little or no difficulty in
finding material for his discussions in the field of the
teaching of foreign languages. From the earliest period of
such instruction, teachers have discussed the principles of
mental operation which underlie their methods. The psy-
chologist could confine his efforts to a review of the various
methods and of what has been said in support of them if it
were not for the fact that there are such glaring disagree-
ments in the statements made by language teachers that
he is compelled to add critical comments to his reviews.

METHOD OF THIS CHAPTER

Our method of procedure in this chapter will accordingly
differ from the method adopted in discussing mathematics
and English. We shall examine critically certain of the
more important discussions of the teaching of foreign lan-
guages. We are forced to select from the great mass of
material which is at hand, otherwise we should be led into
too lengthy a treatment of this single field. The reader
who wishes to go more fully into the history of these dis-
cussions should take in hand some of the special discussions
of methods in the classics 1 and modern languages.2

1 C. E. Bennett and G. P. Bristol, The Teaching of Latin and Greek.
Longmans, Green, & Co., 1906,

2 For a general discussion of this matter as well as the history of the
teaching of modern languages see Teachers College Record, May, 1903,
Vol. IV, No. 3, pp. 1-92. This is also published as a separate volume
under the title, The Teaching of Modern Languages, by Leopold Bahl-
aen (translated by M. B. Evans). Ginn and Company, 1905.

211

212 PSYCHOLOGY OP HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

For our purposes it is not important that we should
distinguish sharply between the classics and the modern
languages. Since the more recent and more vigorous dis-
cussions of methods relate to modern languages, we shall
pay attention chiefly to these rather than to the classics.

Before entering upon the discussion of methods it may
be well to point out the urgent need of an impersonal,
scientific study of our problem. Many recent discussions
have been of a bitter partisan type. Particularly during the
last fifty years, since Herbert Spencer made his pointed
attack upon classical education, there has been exhibited,
especially among those interested in the newer subjects,
a very intolerant attitude toward foreign-language instruc-
tion. The classics above all, and to some extent the
modern languages, have been called upon to indicate the
grounds on which they can properly maintain their position
in the curriculum.

GROUNDS URGED IN FAVOR OF REQUIRING LANGUAGES

In answer to this challenge the defenders of the lan-
guages have urged three justifications for their courses:
first, languages are supposed to give a type of mental
training which is advantageous quite apart from the con-
tent which the text supplies ; second, the study of a foreign
language is said to be very advantageous in clearing up a
student's notion of his own language, both in matters of
structure and in matters of vocabulary ; finally, the study
of a foreign language is supposed to be the means of bring-
ing the student into contact with -a culture other than that
which he knows in his native land.1

The first two arguments are psychological in type and
have been elaborately argued on both sides. Indeed, in a

1 F. W, Kelsey, Latin and Greek in American Education. The Mac-
inillau Company, 1911.

FOREIGN LANGUAGES 213

very important sense the languages, because they are the
subjects which have long held leading place in the curricu-
lum, have had to take the brunt of a psychological discus-
sion which is in reality very general in its scope. For
example, the general doctrine that a subject may be studied
with advantage quite apart from the content of the text is
an argument that has been presented by every subject in
the curriculum at some time or other. But the classics
have presented this argument with such clearness and such
force that they have become the center of the debate. The
classics, more than any other subject, have been charged
with support of the general doctrine of formal discipline.
As a matter of fact, the natural sciences have assumed
more commonly than the classics the validity of this prin-
ciple of formal discipline. When one considers that the
various sciences in the curriculum have been satisfied to
give very short courses, on the theory that if a student
were introduced to the methods of the science he would be
able to carry these methods over into all sorts of situations
that have not been canvassed in the class itself, one sees that
the sciences have been assuming, in very large measure,
that training given in a brief course will carry over into
all sorts of varying situations. The advocates of sciences
have been exultant in the recent criticisms of formal dis-
cipline, and they have charged the classical languages with
maintaining this doctrine in opposition to evidence, while
these same advocates have tried to justify the position of
the sciences in the school program by an appeal to the
value of scientific method and to the training which their
subjects give in observation and reasoning. These scientific
Critics of formal discipline very seldom make reference to
Herbert Spencer's argument regarding the formal value of
science in his first essay on " Education." They write para-
graphs that can be quoted, as we shall show later, in sup-
port of the most extreme form of the doctrine of formal

214 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

discipline, while they criticize the classics violently for the
defense of what they regard as an antiquated and aban-
doned theory. The general discussion of the doctrine of
brmal discipline is of such importance that we shall devote
a later chapter to this subject. For our present purposes it is
enough to call attention to the fact that the languages have
borne an undue share of this general discussion just because
they are in point of method and in point of pedagogical the-
ory more mature than the other subjects of the curriculum.

PARTISAN DISCUSSIONS OBSCURE ISSUES

With regard to the second and third arguments for
language study it may be remarked that the truth is sadly
obscured by the most violent partisan statements. In recent
years English, as a special subject, has received so much
attention in the course of study that there is less patience
than there otherwise would be with the second argument.
The third leads to enthusiastic comments on classical civ-
ilizations on the one side and to the bitterest attacks on
classical culture on the other.

There is indeed a certain psychological phenomenon in
the very partisanship which is here observed. The psychol-
ogy of a violent reaction is always an interesting topic for
the student of social life, and there can be no doubt that
we have here a violent reaction. There was a time when
the classical languages were so in control of the curriculum
that there was no disposition to question the pedagogical
wisdom of administering to every student a great deal of
language instruction. It took generations of dissatisfaction
with the methods employed in language instruction and
with the results that come from this instruction to prepare
the way for the attitude which many now assume toward
the languages. Furthermore, after the storm began to rise,
friends of the classics made what now appears to have been

FOBEIGN LANGUAGES 215

a grave strategical blunder. They attempted by sheer ad-
ministrative authority to require the languages, and thus
they alienated those who otherwise would have been pre-
pared to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of these
subjects in a purely impersonal way. It must be admitted
also that the friends of the classics have not been wise in
their day and generation, for they have been slow to change
their methods of teaching in such a way as to meet the
legitimate demands of the modern curriculum. The modern
curriculum is not, as was pointed out in the introductory
discussion, a series of courses intended for the student who
is specializing with a view to entering the professions. The
modern high-school course of study is offered to a very
wide and cosmopolitan constituency. Whatever may have
been true of the boys of the middle of the last century, it
certainly is not true at the present time that every student
will benefit by a long and rigorous course in the classics or
in one of the foreign modern languages. Perhaps we shall
find later, as we become more experienced in the adminis-
tration of the type of high-school course which we now
have, that brief courses in a great many different subjects
are not the most desirable type of courses. But at the
present moment such general courses are administered in
practically every department except the languages. Stu-
dents certainly have a right to ask, at the end of a year
of work in any subject, that they carry away something
that is of real importance in their intellectual development.
Language teachers, accustomed to having a major place on
the school program, are very intolerant of any suggestion
that they ought to give the student something that is
of real intellectual value in so short a period as a single
year. This unwillingness of the language teachers to ac-
commodate their subjects in any wise to the general spirit
of the modern curriculum is undoubtedly disadvantageous
to their subject.

216 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

GENERAL COURSES DESIRABLE

We shall have occasion later to point out that there are
possibilities in language study of a generalized treatment
of language which would be very useful to a student who
doessnot intend to read the language with success or to
become directly acquainted with its literature. But such a
generalized course in language requires the highest type of
genius on the part of the instructor and on the part of the
department which is to organize it.1 Teachers of language
have very seldom seen the possibilities of such a language
course. It is to be reiterated that such language courses are
at least thinkable, and for the sake of their own depart-
ments teachers should give them careful consideration. If
the languages would make a genuine effort to interest stu-
dents by putting in the foreground some of the general
principles of language structure, thus using the rich body
of material which is known to comparative philology, there
can be no doubt at all that much of the prejudice against
the long courses which are now required as the only means
of studying language would tend to disappear. Further-
more, if the administrative device of trying to bolster up
the languages by requirements of a type which none of
the other subjects adopt were abandoned by the defenders
of these subjects, there can be no doubt that the general
emotional tone of the educational world toward language
instruction would be materially modified.

We must, however, come back from this digression into
the psychology of social reactions and devote ourselves to
the psychology of foreign languages. It is to be hoped that
the purpose of this digression will be served, in that the
reader will be prepared to lay aside prejudices either for or

1 Indirectly the report of the Joint Committee on Grammatical No-
menclature is of interest to the advocate of such a generalized course.
Proceedings of the National Education Association, 1913, pp. 315 ff.

FOREIGN LANGUAGES 217

against language instruction and devote himself for a time
to the single problem, What are the psychological problems
involved in such instruction?

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF TWELVE

Turning to the various methods which have been sug-
gested for language teaching, we find an excellent sum-
mary in the report of the Committee of Twelve of the
Modern Language Association of America. This report was
presented to the Modern Language Association in 1898. It
was reported also to the National Education Association.1

GRAMMATICAL- METHOD

The first method which is discussed in this report is the
grammatical method. When this method is followed, a
series of paradigms are presented to the student before he
is introduced to sentences or to the study of a consecutive
text. After mastering a number of the forms, the student
is introduced to the simple rules of syntax, and sentences
illustrating these facts of syntax are constructed out of the
words which he has encountered. He is also required to
translate simple sentences from the vernacular into* the
foreign language. This again is for purposes of illustrating
the rules of syntax which are given to him in the gram-
mar. Finally, after a considerable period the student is
allowed to read some of the classics of the foreign lan-
guage ; but the reading is slow, and a good deal of attention
is given to the parsing of words, with a view to training
the student in the details of grammatical structure.

1 Deport of the Commissioner of Education of the United States, whole
number 168, Vol. II, pp. 1391-1433, for the year 1897-1898. Printed by
the government printing office in 1899. Also Proceedings of the National
Education Association, 1899, pp. 707-765.

218 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

The Committee of Twelve presents arguments for and
against this method. " It trains the mnemonic faculty. . . .
The careful study of grammatical rules and their nice
application in translation and composition form one of the
best possible exercises in close reasoning."

These two arguments in favor of the method hardly need
to be restated in psychological form. They both assume that
certain mental powers need to be trained, without reference
to the content of the text which is being read. We have
had occasion in an earlier connection to comment on the
present-day attitude toward memory work. In referring to
some of the discussions in mathematics, it will be remem-
bered that it was pointed out that at the present time there
is a violent reaction against the view that the memory ought
to be trained. Furthermore, since William James wrote his
chapter on memory,1 grave question arises against any view
which assumes that the training of the memory in one field
aids memory in other fields of experience.

The second argument in favor of the grammatical method
is purely and simply an argument in favor of formal disci-
pline, and we can dispose of the matter by referring forward
to a later special chapter on this subject.

Against the grammatical method the Committee of
Twelve argues that it omits " the broadening of the mind
through contact with life . . . and the cultivation of the
artistic sense by the appreciative study of literary master-
pieces. . . . " Furthermore, the grammatical method fails to
stimulate and maintain the interest of students.

We are led in the first of these arguments against the
grammatical method back to one of the general contentions
in favor of the study of foreign language. As pointed out
above, when advocates defend foreign languages in the
secondary-school course, on the ground of the value of

1 Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, chap, xvi, especially pp. 663 ff.
Henry Holt and Company, 1890.

FOKEIGN LANGUAGES 219

the content of texts, we are dealing with an argument
that is not psychological in its character, and we need not
take it up in any detail.

PSYCHOLOGY OP INTEREST

The contention that the grammatical method does not
maintain interest is so general that if one attempts to sub-
ject it to a psychological analysis, he is led into the broad
and somewhat vague discussions which characterize the
Herbartian pedagogy. This pedagogy emphasized interest
as one of the most important psychological concepts for the
teacher. The conflicting interpretations that have been put
on the Herbartian doctrine of interest justify us in passing
on to more definite problems without any attempt to revive
the discussions that center about this word.

ANALYSIS AS A PRODUCT OF LANGUAGE STUDY

The discussion of the grammatical method brings us into
one of the very general problems of education. Every
mental process involves a certain degree of analysis. The
analysis of spatial experiences was fully illustrated in an
earlier chapter.

Grammatical studies are analytical studies. The sentence
is taken apart and its various elements and their relations
are examined in detail. The question which confronts the
teacher is not, Should analysis be made? for sooner or
later the sentence will be analyzed by any careful reader.
The question is rather when and how shall the analysis be
made. As to when, it is now very generally agreed that
students should not be called on to analyze any body of
experience until they have in their own minds some ex-
amples of the matter which is to be analyzed. Further,
it is agreed that complete analysis is the function of the
mature mind rather than of the child's mind.

220 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

REACTION ON VERNACULAB

We may therefore argue that analysis of grammatical
structures is very properly a function of education at its
higher levels. One of the advantages of studying a foreign
language is that such a language lends itself more readily
to a scientific study than does the vernacular. The point
of view which one has toward his vernacular is an intimate
unanalytical point of view; he is not explicitly aware of
the fact that language has structure. He never takes a
view of his native tongue from what might be called the
outsider's point of view. He is always using this language,
and its structural peculiarities seem to him to be so natural
that they seldom arouse in his mind any questions. If now
the school can, through instruction in foreign language,
develop a wholly new point of view with regard to lan-
guage, it will certainly contribute to the student's training.
Hence, as is often pointed out, a foreign language is the
best instrument with which to teach English grammar.
The abstractness of English grammar as it was taught
a generation ago in the upper grades of the elementary
schools has led to an abandonment, for the most part, of
that type of study. Some substitute for this old-fashioned
abstract grammar certainly must be found, and one of the
difficulties in finding a substitute arises from the fact that
English has so little structure of its own, either in inflection
or in the principles under which its sentences are put to-
gether, that it is difficult to give a student the notions of
language structure through the use of our highly simplified
language. Furthermore, as stated above, the analytical point
of view is not easy to assume.

If now we can use a foreign language as a basis of
comparison and can, at the same time, give the essential
principles of this foreign grammar, we shall gain a double
advantage, because the student from the outset can assume

FOBEIGN LANGUAGES 221

toward the foreign language an entirely different attitude
from that which he takes toward his own tongue. When
the advantages of teaching foreign language are finally
formulated by teachers of language, this argument for a
clear understanding of the structure of the vernacular will
doubtless survive as one of the most important reasons for
teaching foreign languages.

ANALYTICAL ATTITUDE NATURAL TO ADULTS

Two further comments suggest themselves : first, an adult
who is attacking a foreign language for the first time will
naturally assume from the outset an analytical attitude
toward the study because much of his training has made
him analytical in his habits of thought ; second, a foreign
language might be used for the purpose of training the
student in analysis without carrying him very far into a
reading or speaking command of the language. The ar-
gument for such scientific studies of language will be
presented more fully after we have canvassed other con-
tributing lines of thought.

NATURAL METHOD

The foregoing discussion lias anticipated in a measure
the treatment of the second method of teaching foreign
languages discussed by the Committee of Twelve ; namely,
the natural method. The fundamental teaching of this
method is that the adult should acquire a foreign language
in the same way that a child masters his mother tongue.

In criticism of this method the Committee calls attention
to the fact that the advocates of the natural method " over-
look, first, the fact that the child requires eight or ten years
of incessant practice to gain even a tolerable command of
his own tongue, and, secondly, the vast difference between

222 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

the mind of the baby and that of the youth." To show the
difference between the mature and immature mind the Com-
mittee considers the facts of pronunciation, calling attention
to the observation that a little child learns by imitation,
while the boy of maturer years does not imitate, but rather
selects from the stock of acquired modes of pronunciation
one which he applies to the present situation.

This illustration is a very suggestive one from the point
of view of psychological analysis. Undoubtedly the authors
of the Committee's report had in mind the contentions of
those who have, of late, been describing the phonetic method
of teaching the pronunciation of foreign languages. Per-
haps the simplest way of reenforcing their statement that
there is a difference in the mode of learning pronunciation
in the later stages of life is to repeat a paragraph published
by a recent writer in the School Review.1

PRONUNCIATION; IMITATION VERSUS PHONIC ANALYSIS

In the November, 1913, School Review, M. Locard has an
article entitled " French in the Public High Schools." In try-
ing to demonstrate that conversational French is inadvisable,
M. Locard affirms : " It seems rational to say that French
nationality, backed by education and experience, is the absolute
requisite for any person who claims to teach French. A Ger-
man, an American, a Japanese may have mastered the language
to some extent, but with few exceptions, the standard of his
pronunciation will always be below that of any mature French-
man." Thus are we to conclude that the requisite for teaching
French pronunciation is a good pronunciation? The French
nation, as regards the teaching of English and German, has
answered this question in the negative. In Paris the teaching
of English is intrusted to Frenchmen. In visiting eight of the
largest French lycdes I met but one native English teacher, and
she was permitted to teach permanently only because she had
been naturalized. French is taught in Germany by Germans

I A. G. Bovee, School Review), June, 1914, Vol. XXII, No. 6, p. 417.

FOREIGN LANGUAGES 223

with most excellent results. Professor Walter of Frankfurt,
who evidently does not talk like a Frenchman, succeeds in get-
ting a very superior pronunciation from his pupils. Professor
Vietor of Marburg gives his students of English a pronunciation
which is almost impeccable. We fear that M. Locard's state-
ment will scarcely bear comprehensive examination. Pronun-
ciation is not contagious ; a little knowledge of the science of
phonetics easily turns the balance against the native teacher.
Then, too, the native teacher is generally entirely lacking in
any scientific preparation for this work.

Put into psychological terms this statement means that
the control of the vocal cords and of the other organs of
articulation can be learned by finding out in detail the
various positions which these organs should assume with
reference to each other when one makes a sound. The child
does not know anything about his organs, and consequently
has only one possible way of learning to make sounds. He
must try a variety of experiments and must, through ex-
perimentation and close attention to adults about him,
ultimately learn their methods of making sounds through
sheer trial and error. The adult, on the other hand, is fully
equipped with mature habits of making sounds. If these
mature habits are not counteracted by some explicit correc-
tive method, there is grave danger that the learner's attention
will never be turned to the example of his teacher, and that
he will not be docile enough in his trials and errors to assure
any modification of his own natural method of producing re-
lated sounds. The more mature the learner, the worse he is
as an imitator. The concrete cases cited above by Mr. Bovee
go to show that the phonetic study of sounds has great ad-
vantages for mature students and mature teachers as con-
trasted with the purely imitative method advocated by those
who defend the natural method of teaching foreign lan-
guages. The whole argument is psychologically sound and
shows clearly one of the fallacies of the natural method*

224 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

FOREIGN LANGUAGE AS THE MEDIUM OF INSTRUCTION

There is one other characteristic of the natural method
which has from time to time reappeared in the later methods.
It is insisted by advocates of the natural method that only
the, foreign language which is the subject of instruction
shall be used by the teacher and by the student. The em-
phasis which is laid on the foreign language in this and
other methods is a matter of psychological interest.

From the point of view of the use of the foreign lan-
guage as an instrument for reading the literature of that
language, there can be no doubt at all that the student
should ultimately reach the stage which will make it un-
necessary for him to translate each word into his own
vernacular. Even those who lay great stress upon the
translation method would undoubtedly recognize the ad-
vantage of this kind of acquisition of a foreign language.
It might be argued that such a mastery of the foreign lan-
guage is seldom attained in the schools, and consequently
there will be many teachers who will feel justified in giving
up from the outset any hope of attaining this desirable
end. They will insist that the advantages of a translation
knowledge are great enough to justify the teaching of a
foreign language in the school curriculum, and that there
is accordingly no need of insisting on the use of foreign
words in instruction.

TRANSLATION AS THE METHOD OF INSTRUCTION

The student of psychology finds himself in the position
of accepting both views. If one can get a reading knowl-
edge of the language, that is good ; if one must translate, let
him do so with diligence. The psychology of the two cases
is different. Let us therefore take note of the statements
made by the opposing parties.

FOBEIGN LANGUAGES 225

The proper opinion among those who have not thought the
matter over, or who have not given sufficiently careful atten-
tion to their own mental processes is that a foreign language
can be understood only by transposing it into one's mother
tongue ; but this is not so. Those who read foreign authors in
the original with real advantage do not actually first translate
each word, still less each sentence or each period, into English
before they proceed further.1 (P. 48.)

Our ideal must rather be the nearest possible approach to the
native's command of the language so that the words and sen-
tences may waken the same idea in us as in the native — and
these ideas, as we well know, are not the same as those called
forth by the corresponding words in our own language. (P. 54.)

For all these reasons, it is not translation (or skill in
translation) that we are aiming at in teaching foreign lan-
guages. (P. 55.)

Contrast with these statements by Jespersen the dictum
of Lowell quoted by Bennett.2

In reading such books as chiefly deserve to be read in any
foreign language, it is wise to translate consciously and in words
as we read. There is no such help to a fuller mastery of our
vernacular. It compels us to such a choosing, and testing, to
so nice a discrimination of sound, propriety, position, and shade
of meaning, that we now first learn the secret of the words we
have been using or misusing all our lives, and are gradually
made aware that to set forth even the plainest matter as it
should be set forth is not only a very difficult thing, calling
for thought and practice, but is an affair of conscience as well.
Translation teaches, as nothing else can, not only that there is
a best way, but that it is the only way. Those who have tried
it know too well how easy it is to grasp the verbal meaning of
a sentence or of a verse. That is the bird in the hand. The
real meaning, the soul of it, that which makes it literature and
not jargon, that is the bird in the bush, which tantalizes and

1 0. Jespersen, How to Teach a Foreign Language. Allen & Co., 1912.

2 Bennett and Bristol, The Teaching of Latin and Greek, p. 18. Long-
mans, Green, & Co., 1000.

226 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

stimulates with the vanishing glimpses we catch of it as it flits
from one to another lurking-place :

Et fugit ad salices et se cupit ante videri.

The psychologist has two comments to offer. First, the
two kinds of mental processes sought by these two oppos-
ing views are radically different. Second, which is better in
any given social situation depends on considerations that are
not psychological. For example, if a student has just one
year in which to get all the knowledge of German that he
is going to get, the social situation is very different from
that which confronts teacher and student when the latter
expects to take German four years in succession. Those
language teachers who oppose translation to direct knowl-
edge of the foreign language should realize that both are
psychologically possible, but that one or the other can be
more advantageously sought under given conditions.

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL METHOD

The third method which is discussed in the Report of the
Committee of Twelve is the so-called psychological method.1
There are two distinct characteristics of this method : first,
the word is learned in close association with the object to
which it refers and much emphasis is laid on sensory expe-
riences as giving words their value and meaning ; second,
all words are acquired as parts of short sentences, these
sentences being at the outset of the study very simple,
and gradually increasing in complexity until the student is
able to read any miscellaneous text in the foreign language.
The first contention of the method — that words should be
associated with objects — is to be viewed most critically,

1 For a full discussion of this method see articles by R. Kron in Die
neueren Sprocket^ Vol. Ill, 1806. For a discussion of the first character*
istic, see especially p. 10 ; the second is also fully illustrated.

FOEEIGN LANGUAGES 227

especially in the form in which it is commonly presented.
The principle of sentence study and serial progression is
in keeping with the best tendencies of recent educational
methodology.

IMAGERY

In discussing the requirement of the psychological
method, that objects or images be associated with words,
the Committee of Twelve makes the following statement:

On presenting each new word to the beginner, the instructor
exhorts him to close his eyes and form a distinct mental pic-
ture of the thing or act represented. This image (it is affirmed)
will remain indissolubly connected with the word, and the evo-
cation of the one will always recall the other. Sometimes real
objects or drawings are used, and pantomime is frequently
resorted to ; but in most cases reliance is placed on the child's
active imagination.

DIRECT SENSORY AND MOTOR PROCESSES

One of the recent writers l says :

Another cardinal doctrine of the reformers is the belief that
the more direct the connection established between the thing
and its name, the more direct the association between an idea
and its expression, the more permanent and effective it will
be. ... Pantomime, gesture, bodily movement, impressions
made by concrete objects upon the various senses, all sorts of
devices are employed to enable the instructor to dispense with
the vernacular. (Pp. 476, 477.)

The use of Realien constitutes a valuable adjunct to this
method of instruction. In addition to the well-known and
widely used pictures of the seasons by Hoelzel, upon which
conversation may be based, whatever tends to throw light upon
the material and spiritual life of the nation whose language is
being studied receives a hearty welcome. (Pp. 478, 479.)

1 A. Gideon, The Phonetic Method of Teaching Foreign Languages,
School Review, 1909, Vol. XVII, pp. 47&-480.

228 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

In the latter part of this article the author argues that
because brain physiology has shown that several different
centers, especially those of hearing and vision, are involved
in the cerebral processes connected with speech that it is de-
sirable to arouse to action, in the course of language study,
as many of these centers as possible.

A like discussion is to be found in an article published
in Science.1

Physiological psychology teaches us that four distinct centers
of the brain are active in the acquisition of language ; namely:
the auditory, the visual, the motor writing, and the motor speech
centers, the first two sensory, the latter two motor. The function
of the auditory center is to receive sensory impressions through
the nerves of the ear ; that of the visual center to receive im-
pressions from the nerves of the eye ; the motor-writing center
controls the muscles of the hand in writing, while the motor
speech center controls the muscles of the speech organs. . . .

Without going into the old question whether sensation is
the sole principle of knowledge, we are on safe ground psycho-
logically when we assert that in learning a language auditory,
visual and kinesthetic sensations play the most important role,
and are in fact the basis of knowledge. It follows then that
the greater the number of sensory impressions that can be en-
listed in the acquisition of language, the greater the acquisition.
It follows also that the more combined the activity of the senses,
the more rapid and the more thorough will be the organization
of the speech centers physically and psychically. . . .

Thus the argument which is often used against the analytical
or direct method that adults do not learn language like children
do loses much of its force. Certain it is that for adults the
idea comes before the sign for the idea, although, to be sure,
the mature mind, accustomed to abstract thinking, soon de-
mands that it be given not only the percepts but the concepts,
and the general concepts as well.

Good pedagogy should call into activity all the powers of
the mind of the learner. Thus in the case of the language

i April 18, 1918, Vol. XXXVII, p. 600.

FOREIGN LANGUAGES . 229

teacher, to utilize the visual and the graphic centers only, and
allow the auditory and the motor speech centers to lie barren,
is to get only a portion of the sensory impression that may be
got if all the centers are utilized.

Again, since some individuals of a group will learn better
by the utilization of the visual and the graphic centers, others
by the utilization of the auditory and the motor-speech centers,
etc., every course in language should give opportunity for both
forms of impression and both forms of expression, that is, for
hearing, and seeing (reading) ; for speaking and writing.

Language study is best cultivated by utilizing the nerv-
ous energy of all four centers, that is, the ear, the eye, the
vocal organs and the hand. Each must support the other, thus
heightening the total impression.

Generalizations, in this case principles and laws, must base
upon sense perceptions, in this case spoken or written words
and phrases, and must follow, not precede them.

Finally, an example may be quoted from the notes taken
at the conference at Sorbonne by Charles Schweitzer.1

Take, for example, the word " apple." In learning his native
tongue the French child sees the fruit placed before him on the
table or suspended from the tree. At the same time some one
pronounces to him the word w apple " and accompanies the pro-
nunciation of this word by a gesture. After the experience
has been repeated several times an indissoluble association is
formed between the two percepts, one a visual percept and the
other an auditory percept. An equation is set up in the mind
of the child between the word u apple " and the image of an
apple. The two members of this equation form so intimate an
association that the image of the object will invariably call
up the word and that which the word was intended to intro-
duce, namely, the image of the object.

1 Methodologie des Languea Vivantes, p. 7. Librairie Armand Colin,
1903.

230 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

CRITICISM OF "IMAGERY" AND "SENSATION" DOCTRINES

These quotations show how much emphasis the psycho-
logical method has laid upon the images which reproduce
sensations and which all learners are supposed to form of ob-
jects when they begin to acquire the words of a language.
Enough has been said in an earlier discussion of the nature
of language to make it clear that this conception which lays
stress upon the images associated with words is true only
in a very limited way, if, indeed, it is true at all. Doubtless
the mind does carry certain images of the objects for
which we have names in mature life, but these images are
very vague and very general. Let one test himself, for ex-
ample, to see how exact and complete is his image related
to any object which he may know by name. For example,
suppose one hears the word " animal " or the word " verte-
brate " and asks himself how fully these familiar words are
paralleled in his experience by images that could be sub-
jected to any careful analysis. If our adult images are vague
and indefinite even in a field where popular science has done
much to make ideas clear, it is much more the case that a
child's images are vague and indefinite. One has only to
observe a child in the early stages of his acquisition of
language to realize the truth of this statement. He uses
words in a broad, general way. For example, any sort of
liquid will be called " water," not because the word calls
up any definite idea of a particular substance but rather
because all of the various substances are enough alike to
fit into his loose, general imagery. In the same fashion,
the word " horse " is not used by the child in any sharply
defined way so as to distinguish one of the larger animals
from the rest, which resemble it in gross outline ; the child
uses the word to refer to any large object, even applying
it to his playthings which have no sensory likeness to the
animal at all.

FOREIGN LANGUAGES 231

The evidence from the study of the child's vocabulary
is reenforced by a study of his efforts to reproduce im-
ages. The moment he begins to draw he exhibits vrith
perfect clearness the fact that his images are not sharp and
definite ; they are vague and symbolic — that is, a few
irregular lines stand in his mind for some object such as
man or animal, and there is no possibility, until his mental
development has gone much further, of his refining these
crude images so as to make them resemble at all closely
the objects for which they stand in his thinking. The child's
mental attitudes toward the world are dominated by his
own personal feelings and by his own attitudes of reactions
toward the world. He likes things or dislikes them with
great intensity. He does not make any careful analysis of
their form or external characteristics. What is true of his
images is true of his words. These words are significant
to him not because they are associated with the external
characteristics of objects such as the form and color of
these objects ; they are significant rather because they call
up in his experience certain attitudes of mind and body
which he has learned to assume toward the objects which
are being designated

REACTION ESSENTIAL TO INTERPRETATION

When, therefore, the psychological method of teaching
foreign languages begins to lay great emphasis upon sensory
aspects of language, it fails to in-
clude the most essential facts in p j *
the situation. Perhaps this can be

made clear by the use of a series of simple diagrams. Let
us represent an external object as it impresses the indi-
vidual by the letter 0. The letter / will be used to rep-
resent the individual who is brought in contact with this
object. A line connecting 0 and / will represent the

232 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

impression which is produced upon the individual by this
external object. A line issuing from / in a direction oppo-
site to that from which the impression came represents the
reaction of the individual upon the object. This reaction
may be an emotional reaction, as when an individual is
afraid of the object which he sees ; or it may be a reaction
of the hand and arm, as when an individual seeks to grasp
the object. In any case the reaction is an expression of the
individual's organization rather than a matter of impression
from the object.

The little child gets an impression from the object, but
this is by no means the important part of the whole situa-
tion from the psychological point of view. Much more
significant is the reaction which issues from the child. At
the outset these reactions on the part of the child are few
in number and simple in character. As he develops, how-
ever, there come to be a great variety of them, among which
are the reactions of the vocal cords. We can now represent
the second stage of our psychological analysis by showing

that the impression received
by the child may issue in a
variety of different forms of
reaction. These are repre-
sented by the three reaction
^ ^ < lines that issue from /. These
different types of reaction have

more or less connection with each other. The result is that
when an object calls for one form of reaction, it tends at
the same time to call up other forms of reaction. Certain
cross associations begin to set themselves up between the
different types of reaction. This we might represent by
drawing cross lines between the different jR's that were
indicated in the second diagram. At the same time a new
type of impression begins to act upon the individual. This
is the auditory impression which comes to him from his own

FOREIGN LANGUAGES 233

reactions of articulation and from the words which are pro-
duced by those who are about him. We may set down,

therefore, in the third dia-
gram two incoming sensory
Ip impressions; namely, the
^-^--~*~"2 original type of impression

r 0 and the new type of im-

*- — ^ ^ ft3 pression W. W^ in turn, gets

"* *" its meaning not merely by

virtue of the fact that it

is connected with 0, but more from the fact that it is con-
nected with the various forms of reaction which constitute
the individual's reaction to
0. Indeed, after 0 has led '
to the organization of R\
JB2, and R^ these may at-
tach directly to W, as when
one reacts to the cry of danger rather than to the sight of
a dangerous object. The interpretation of a word is there-
fore an elaborate product of development, depending quite
as much upon the JS's as upon 0.

In their emphasis upon objects, the natural method and
the psychological method lay great stress on the connec-
tion of the word with 0, but they overlook the importance
of all of the R elements which enter into the interpretation
of words. From what has been said in an earlier chapter
which deals with the nature of language, the absurdity of
this overemphasis is apparent.

MANY WORDS INCAPABLE OF SENSORY INTERPRETATION

Furthermore, one might derive from the study of words
much evidence in support of the general psychological con-
clusion which was reached in the earlier chapter. One needs
very little contact with the language to note that there

234 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

are many words for which it is quite impossible to have
any images whatsoever. Prepositions, for example, and
connective words obviously cannot have any imagery which
could be made the basis of interpretation. All sorts of
abstract words fall into the same class. It should be noted
that there is no denial in all of this discussion of the
presence or value of imagery in certain psychological con-
ditions ; but it should be reiterated here, as it was in the
chapter on the nature of language, that very often, especially
in the higher forms of experience, imagery is a hindrance
rather than a support to thought. Words are superior to
images for the higher thought-processes. They come to be
substitutes for the images of objects; and it is distinctly
uneconomical for a trained individual to attempt to carry
in his mind any long train of images — it is much simpler
for him to use words as actual substitutes for the objects,
and to depend upon his trained reactions associated with
these words to guide him in his thought, rather than to go
back to the primitive forms of imagery out of which his
interpretations may, in some cases, have originated.

REACTIONS KEFINE IMAGES

Furthermore, even when we study mental imagery it can
be shown that reactions are more important than impressions
in determining the character of the memory picture which
we carry away from the objects about us. If we want to
know the details of form in an object, we set ourselves the
task of reproducing it in a drawing or by carefully tracing
its outlines through reactions. Even the verbal reactions
can be described as our most potent instruments for induc-
ing and supporting analysis of images. Consider, for ex-
ample, the fact that the botanist is able to train his students
in the observation of plants through the development of a
series of names of the different parts of the plant. When

FOEEIGN LANGUAGES 235

a child looks at a plant, before he has had any scientific
training whatsoever, he sees the characteristics only in a
broad, general way. There is no practical motive for a
discrimination of the different parts. There is no reaction
to these different parts which would tend to distinguish
one part from another. For purposes of scientific study a
terminology is created which constitutes a kind of artificial
reaction to the different parts of the object. The individual
is now equipped with the motives and with the psychologi-
cal devices to aid him in his discriminations. He reacts
with one word to one part of the object, and with an en-
tirely different word to another part of the plant, with the
result that he recognizes the different parts of the plant
and gives to each enough attention to distinguish it in the
percept and in the memory from the other parts which are
differently named. These sharp distinctions of science may
later be used for practical purposes, but they are commonly
cultivated as scientific distinctions before practical life
takes them up and makes use of them. We shall have
occasion later to call attention to the difference between
the motives that grow out of verbal discriminations and
the motives which appear in practical life for the analysis
and discrimination of the parts of objects. For our present
purposes it is enough, with the aid of this example, to have
called attention to the fact that words and verbal reactions
are among the important means employed in intellectual
development for the analysis of impressions themselves.
A body of impressions which has been thus analyzed through
the use of discriminating words is a much more highly
refined experience than any which presents itself to the
mind before verbal reactions were developed. Furthermore,
the introduction of the child to all those distinctions which
society has found to be important is rendered easy through
language. Words are therefore means of transmitting dis-
tinctions as well as means of establishing them.

236 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

MATURE DISCRIMINATIONS DEPEND ON WORDS

We are now prepared for the final criticism of the so-
called psychological method of teaching foreign languages.
The most important characteristic of a mature mind is that
its discriminations as well as its contents are determined
in great measure by words. Words constitute the chief
instruments of thought and of reaction upon all things.
A man reacts with words to most of the situations of life.
Even when he is thinking to himself he uses words. If
a mature person tries now to acquire a foreign language,
he cannot possibly go back to the supposedly primitive
stage when impressions are the chief factors in building up
mental life. Impressions, as a matter of fact, never were of
great importance as compared with reactions, but certainly
in mature life sensations sink far into the background.
The so-called psychological method turns out to be quite
unpsychological in the analyses of mental processes which
it proposes.

The real difficulty here is like that which was discussed
a few paragraphs above when dealing with the example of
pronunciation as employed by the Committee of Twelve.
The mature mind has a fixed system of verbal reactions ;
and the development of a new foreign system of reactions
is difficult just in the degree that the foreign language
involves forms of reaction not present in the vernacular.

SPECIAL DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING AMERICAN
CHILDREN

In this connection it is interesting to note that people
who have in their vernacular a highly inflected and com-
plex language can learn a simple language very much more
readily than one who has as his native tongue such a simple
language as English,

FOREIGN LANGUAGES 23T

FOBBIGN LANGUAGES DEMAND NEW REACTIONS

The acquisition of a foreign language for a mature mind
is accordingly a process of fitting new word impressions and
reactions into an established system of language reactions.
The meaning of this statement can be made clear by con-
sidering the following facts. There are certain grammatical
habits peculiar to every language. This difference can be
illustrated by drawing attention to the fact that in Latin
and German it is perfectly safe to place the object of a
verb before the subject of the sentence. In both of these
inflected languages the accusative case shows by its form
that it is the object of a verb. In English, on the other
hand, the student must give heed to the order of his words
and is always dependent upon the order of the sentence
for the discrimination between the subject and the object
of the verb. One naturally comes, therefore, in the English
sentences to a fixity of arrangement which is unknown to
the Latin or German language. Not only so, but the forms
of inversion within the subordinate clauses are matters of
habit of thought which English-speaking people find it diffi-
cult to take on. When one transposes the verb in German,
he has expressed a relationship which seems very natural
in the thought of the German, but has to be laboriously
acquired by an English-speaking person. These habits of
syntax are undoubtedly important if one is to speak a lan-
guage. They are of some significance if one is to understand
a language.

Habits of syntax are eclipsed in importance by habits of
interpretation induced through intimate contact with words.
There is no exa&t synonym for many a foreign word. Our
own language has developed certain shades of meaning,
full appreciation of which can be cultivated only by paying
close attention to all the different contexts in which Eng-
lish words appear. The foreign word, in like fashion, has

238 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

its own peculiar significance ; and that peculiar significance
will be learned only by seeing the word in its proper con-
text in the foreign language. The most striking examples
of this sort appear when one tries to understand the German
attitude toward such exclamations as are very common in
German colloquial speech but, when translated, constitute
objectionable profanity in English. The German is con-
stantly using the term Q-ott where the literal English trans-
lation would be offensive and inappropriate. On the other
hand, the German uses only in extreme cases such a word
as Donnerwetter. When we try to translate this exclamation
into English it becomes a very inoffensive remark on the
weather, but to the German mind it is a form of vulgar
and offensive profanity. It is quite impossible to convey
the meaning of these different exclamations by any direct
translation from one language into another. In like manner,
the reader of Latin comedies finds himself, in his efforts to
translate Plautus and Terence, in exactly the same situa-
tion in which a student of modern French finds himself
when he tries to translate the slang of French colloquial
speech. One is justified in saying, in the presence of these
striking examples, that a language can never be translated.
Again, take such cases as the following. The conception
which the German has when he uses such a common verb
as machen is wholly different from the notion which the
Englishman has when he uses the literal translation " to
make." Mark Twain has pointed out in his discussions of
the German language this peculiarity of the Teutonic mind
in connection with the general word machen. Perhaps we
can find a suitable English parallel in the colloquial use
of the word "thing." An ordinary American uses the word
"thing" to refer to objects in the external world, social
situations, mental processes, and experiences ; in short, he
uses it on all occasions when he wishes to get a word that
shall refer back to any situation which has been described

FOREIGN LANGUAGES 239

in an earlier sentence. " I meant no such thing " is a good
illustration of the general use of the term. Such an idiom as
this is almost unintelligible to anyone in whose language the
common word for " thing " holds closer to the substantive
idea. The curious mistakes which one finds when foreigners
try to use some of the most common idiomatic phrases can
be understood when we recognize the fact that a foreign
word, in its own context, has legitimate shades of meaning
which cannot be translated into another tongue.

MEANING THROUGH CONTEXT

Such considerations as these are in the minds of lan-
guage teachers when they emphasize the desirability of
using only foreign words in the foreign-language class.
The foreign word then gets its meaning from its setting,
we are told, and the student is saved the confusion of
trying to translate. The advantages and disadvantages of
translation have been commented on above. It remains
here to call attention to the fact that if the student can-
not be thought of as beginning at the beginning when he
meets a foreign word, the chances are great that he will
fall back on one of his familiar vernacular reactions. As
in the case of pronunciation, there is much to be said in
favor of the method of conscious direction of the learner's
efforts by contrasting foreign words with vernacular words.
The mature high-school student can, if properly directed,
make comparisons which will be productive. Why not give
him some of the advantages of an analytical study of the
foreign word in contrast with the vernacular ?

GRADED EXERCISES

The other alternative is to make a very gradual entrance
into the language through a series of carefully prepared
exercises. This was the second aim of the psychological

240 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

method. The method, as worked out especially by Gouin,
gradually builds up a vocabulary by taking a few simple
words and carrying the student step by step through com-
binations of these words and more elaborate combinations of
simpler words to a final mastery of the foreign vocabulary.
This gradual method of procedure gives the student a certain
confidence and a certain ability to interpret the whole idea
that is expressed in the sentence, as distinguished from the
partial idea that comes from an isolated word. The psycho-
logical study of language has made it perfectly clear that
the unit of all language consciousness is the sentence rather
than the isolated word. A sentence conveys a fully rounded
series of experiences. The psychological method undoubt-
edly does well to take advantage of the possibility of giving
the student in foreign language, as well as in his vernacular,
a whole sentence rather than a part of the sentence.

No elaborate argument needs to be presented in support
of the effort which the psychological method has made to
grade its sentences. If the sentences can be so worked out
that the student can interpret the new words from the con-
text, the interpretation will be exact in character and will,
at the same time, serve to make the student independent
in his later interpretations of new words and new sentences.

THE DIRECT METHOD

This method of gradually inducting the student into the
language has also been called the direct method. Great en-
thusiasm has of late been expressed for the direct method both
among teachers of modern languages and among teachers of
classics. The following quotation from W. H. D. Rouse l
illustrates how far some teachers are willing to go in praise
of the direct method.

1 Preface to ff Decem Fabulae Pueris Puellisque Agendae." Claren-
don Press, Oxford, 1012.

FOREIGN LANGUAGES 241

It is fortunately no longer needful to defend the direct
method of teaching languages, no one whose opinion is based
on knowledge now attacks it, so long as the languages to be
taught are modern. But there was a time not so long ago,
when the method was derided as foolish or slovenly by those
who had not tried it ; and this is the case now with the direct
method of teaching Latin and Greek. Those who have tried it,
so far as my knowledge goes, are quite at ease in their minds ;
they have found not only that it is quicker and more attrac-
tive, but that it does really what the exercise-book method
pretends to do, that is, it holds the attention in detail, disci-
plines the mental faculties, and enables the scholars to under-
stand and to appreciate the best qualities in the best literature.

Of course, the direct method is not all talking ; the system
includes reading, writing, and even the conscious learning of
grammar, although in different order and different proportion
to that of the exercise books. But speech does take in it the
first place.

The direct method has been vigorously discussed under
a variety of titles in recent years. It is sometimes called
the reform method ; sometimes it is designated the analyt-
ical, inductive method. A full description of its details
can be found in a pamphlet by Victor.1 Sometimes the
phonic element has been emphasized, as in the report of
the Committee of Twelve.

AlM MUST CONTROL THE METHOD OF INSTRUCTION

We may concentrate attention on the one fundamental,
psychological question which comes up everywhere. This
fundamental, psychological problem can be stated in this

1 Der Sprachunterricht muss umkehren ! Ein Beitrag zur Ueberbur-
dungs-frage von Quousque Tandem. Heilbronn, Verlag der Gebrttder
Henninger, 1882. A summary of this document is to be found in the
Teachers College Record referred to on page 211, Vol. IV, No. 3, and also
in the reprint "Teaching of Modern Languages/1 by Leopold Bahlaen
(translated by M. B, Evans). Ginn and Company, 1906,

242 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

form: Should foreign languages be taught by a method which
ignores, as far as possible, the acquired grammatical and ver-
bal habits of the student, or should the contrast between the
vernacular and the foreign language be consciously brought
out and made an important part of the study?

The writer once saw an experiment in teaching which puts
the tesue in a clear light. He visited a school in a rural
district where a clergyman had gathered together a few of
the children of the community who had taken all that the
district school could offer, and was attempting to give them
some view of higher subjects. The teacher, who was him-
self trained in Latin and Greek, was utilizing a few Latin
stories to teach the children something about the Roman
language and the derivation of English words. This teacher
was not attempting to give a Latin course. He had no
grammar, and he had no desire to make the students ac-
quainted with Latin literature through the reading of Latin
texts. In fact, he had changed the pronunciation which
he had himself cultivated in college, and was utilizing for
purposes of training the children an English pronunciation,
which helped them to recognize the direct relationship
between the Latin roots and the familiar English words
which are derived from these roots.

THE INDUCTIVE METHOD

Another example which illustrates the issue is seen in an
experiment which was undertaken a few years ago in the
so-called inductive method. The method never proved a
general success, probably because it sacrificed the language
in order to give students principles about language. A
brief review of the method will indicate how far it went
in analytical studies of language.1

1 Harper and Burgess, Inductive Latin Primer, Preface. American
Book Company, 1891.

FOREIGN LANGUAGES 243

A sentence of the original text is placed before the pupil.
The pronunciation and exact translation of each word are
furnished him. By the aid which the teacher gives him in
advance, and with the help given in the book, he thoroughly
masters the words and phrases of this sentence. His knowledge
is tested by requiring him to recite or write the Latin sentence,
with only the translation before his eye.

In connection with this mastery of the words and phrases of
the sentence assigned, the pupil reads and digests the contents
of the " Notes " on these words. This study accomplishes two
things : first, the careful examination of each remark, with its
application to the work in hand, aids in fixing more firmly
in mind the word sought to be mastered ; second, grammatical
material is being collected from the very beginning of his work.

The "Text" and "Notes" having been learned, the next step
is one of a more general character. Out of the material which
has thus far been mastered, those principles which are of most
importance, and which the pupil himself will be most likely to
recognize, are pointed out under the head of w Observations."
The pupil should be brought to see these principles for him-
self before reading the statement of them in the " Observations."

The words of the sentence are now separated from their con-
text and placed in alphabetical order. Thus separated, they
form the basis of additional study.

In order to prevent the memorizing of the Latin text with-
out a clear idea of the force of each word, to impress more
firmly on the mind the words and phrases of the text, and to
drill the pupil in prose composition — " Exercises," Latin into
English and English into Latin are given. These are always
based upon the sentence which furnishes the basis of the
" Lesson."

Once more the leading points of the entire lesson, whether
suggested in the " Notes," the w Observations," or the " Vocab-
ulary," come up for consideration under the head of " Topics
for Study." Upon each topic the student is expected to make
a statement of what he knows (not of what has been said in
the book). If his statement is not sufficiently full, it will be
criticized by the class.

244 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

From this outline the idea of the method will be apparent
It proposes: first, to gain from the classic text an accurate
knowledge of some of the facts of the language; second, to
learn from these facts the principles which they illustrate, and
by which they are regulated ; third, to apply these principles
in the further progress of the work.

This method is reported to have been most successful in
the hands of skilled teachers in giving to mature students
within the compass of a few exercises some knowledge
of the language and much knowledge about the principles
of construction and interpretation.

SPECIAL ENDS SERVED BY DIFFERENT METHODS

Our psychological analysis makes it easy to understand
the school situation as it confronts us to-day. Those who
would teach students to master a language and have much
time for instruction tend toward the direct method. Those
who are interested in the scientific study of language em-
phasize analytical discussions and are skeptical of the direct
method. Wherever mature students are involved, the direct
method tends to give way to some form of analytical method.
Analytical methods in one sphere, as, for example, in pro-
nunciation, are at times combined with direct methods in
other spheres, as, for example, in the interpretation of words.
In the meantime, teachers of English-speaking children do
not make as much headway with language instruction as do
teachers of children familiar with a highly inflected language.

On the administrative side, pressure becomes more in-
tense to reduce the amount of time given to language
courses and to increase the value to the student of what
he takes even if he remains in the course only one year.

Furthermore, there can be no doubt that we are con-
fronted in America with a grave problem because we begin
language work late, that is, in the high school or even in

FOREIGN LANGUAGES 245

the college. The methods appropriate to teaching children
in their early years are radically different from those ap-
propriate to maturer years. Just at what point the direct
method should diminish and the analytical method increase
is with us a most urgent problem, and, unfortunately, as
yet an unsolved problem. While this problem is awaiting
solution we are all much in the position of the Commit-
tee of Twelve, We praise the direct method and follow
the analytical method, with strong leanings toward the
grammatical method.

GENERAL LANGUAGE COURSE

There is one experiment which a psychologist may ven-
ture to suggest to teachers of language. Let a course be
prepared that shall teach much about language structures
through an analytical study of some foreign language. Let
the student have an insight into the rich field of compar-
ative philology and comparative study of civilization. Take
some of the time now given uselessly to English composi-
tion if the foreign-language departments are unwilling to
contribute the time for such a course. Let such a course be
open to everyone who wants to know in a year what Latin
and German are. When this course has been tried, note
whether students do not begin language work of the pres-
ent type more enthusiastically.

By way of practical administrative suggestion it may be
legitimate to urge that some of the instructional energy
which is being rapidly released in the classical departments
be turned to the task of trying this experiment.

Finally, in order to make perfectly clear the psychological
conclusion of the whole matter, let it be explicitly pointed
out that there is no single best method of teaching foreign
languages. The method must vary with the purpose and
the maturity of students.

246 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

CLASS OBSERVATION

In this connection the writer may venture to add two
observations made in the classroom. He has observed classes
struggling to get a meaning of a foreign word, and con-
fused beyond degree because of the teacher's dogmatic de-
termination to use only the direct method; and he has been
persuaded that it requires more than ordinary resourceful-
ness and more command of the language than most teachers
possess to adhere at all times to the strictest form of the
direct method. Second, like every other observer of lan-
guage instruction, he has seen formal analysis carried to
such limits that he has-been almost persuaded to become
a convert to the most extreme form of the direct method.

If one could gain the advantages of direct use of the lan-
guage without losing the virtues of analysis, and could also
get some of the quick returns of intelligent analytical study
as a foundation for later, more intimate appreciation of
words in their context, he would in a measure gain the
advantages of both tendencies. If one must choose, his
choice will certainly depend on general social conditions.
Children in their early years gain little from analysis;
adults gain much. Time is always a factor which must be
considered. The consideration of these social factors sug-
gests that probably there is truth in several different and
apparently opposing statements about languages and lan-
guage teaching. We may therefore close, as we began, with
a plea for careful, discriminating, impersonal examination
of all claims and methods rather than a partisan dogmatism
in favor of any single solution of the matter.

CHAPTER XI

OPPOSITION BETWEEN THE PRACTICAL ARTS AND

LANGUAGE

Thus far we have discussed the problems which relate
to the teaching of mathematics and the language subjects.
It would perhaps be most natural to continue the discussion
by taking up those branches of school work which depend
very largely upon the ability to use books, such as history
and certain phases of science. Language is not merely a
subject of instruction in itself, it is also a tool employed
in the study of other subjects. But the psychological prob-
lems which confront us in teaching any subject which de-
pends upon the use of books can be clearly understood only
when we contrast with book subjects those which depend
upon the cultivation of practical, manual skill.

RISE OF NEW SUBJECTS OF INSTRUCTION

There is at the present time a growing tendency in the
secondary course to recognize the importance of various
kinds of training which are wholly at variance, so far as
their content and form are concerned, with the academic
traditions of earlier years. One finds in the technical high
school of to-day an equipment for shop work and laboratory
work that is altogether foreign to the conception of educa-
tion which was common in the high school of a generation
ago. Agriculture has taken a major place in those high
schools which are situated in rural communities. Much of
the work of the agricultural high schools is carried on in

247

248 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

the field in a fashion utterly unfamiliar to the high-school
teacher at the close of the last century.

The introduction of these new subjects has been hastened
by the demand of the industries that more attention be
given to the preparation of expert laborers. The problem
of providing for boys from fourteen to sixteen years of age
is one of the clearly recognized and conspicuous problems
of present-day social life. While the urgency of the situa-
tion is somewhat less for girls, there is nevertheless a clear
recognition of the fact that some kind of training must be
devised for girls who are not going to take the ordinary
high-school course.

We turn away, then, from the discussion of language and
all that belongs to the language subjects, for the purpose of
gaining a clearer notion of the mental processes which attach
to these newer subjects. We shall then be able to return to
the analysis of science and history with a better preparation
for the appreciation of their place in the course of study.

MANUAL TRAINING AND INDUSTRIAL COURSES

The first break in the curriculum which carried the schools
away from the purely academic traditions of an earlier day
was in the direction of the kind of training specifically
known as manual training. In America the Centennial
Exposition in Philadelphia was undoubtedly important in
bringing the attention of American educators to the value
of this sort of instruction for school children. For a number
of years great enthusiasm was exhibited at certain centers.
Very shortly, however, objections presented themselves.
Where the manual-training courses followed rigidly one of
the set systems, these courses were criticized as formal and
destructive to initiative. On the other hand, when no sys-
tem was followed, the courses were criticized as loose and
unsystematic. In recent years it has become the fashion in

THE PRACTICAL ARTS AND LANGUAGE 249

some quarters to attack manual training as a wholly unsuc-
cessful experiment. It is said to be neither academic nor
practical. Industrial training is urged as the true method
of giving skill of hand and equipment for real life. Fur-
thermore, there are general social forces pushing in the
direction of industrial education. So it comes that as we
hear less of manual training we hear more of industrial arts.
There can be no doubt that the technical industrial arts
are at the present moment very much respected by modern
society and by those school officers who wish to keep the
curriculum abreast with the demands of modern life.

Our discussion naturally follows both of these lines of
development. We may with propriety introduce the whole
discussion by considering the psychological claims of man-
ual training in its most general form. We shall not con-
cern ourselves in this general discussion with any of the
minor disputes which have arisen within the camp of tech-
nical teachers themselves. We shall use the term " man-
ual training" to include any of the forms of manual work
which have been developed in recent years in the general,
untechnical, nonindustrial courses of study. We shall then
take up briefly the mental processes which are developed in
the course of the cultivation of some of the industrial arts.

It may be well to point out, before entering upon the
details of these various discussions, that it is not in place
here to canvass all of the considerations that arise in con-
nection with these different subjects. Our business is merely
to make a psychological analysis of these different forms
of training. The social conditions which call for more or
less emphasis on one or the other of the practical forms of
training we cannot with propriety take up. We shall have
occasion repeatedly to refer to the fact that the strictly
educational questions which arise in the effort to introduce
these subjects into the course of study are very much com-
plicated by social conditions. For example, there is the fact

250 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

that specialists in the technical arts have felt themselves
for a long time separated from the rest of the teaching pro-
fession by a prejudice against the manual arts. As one of
the chief exponents of these arts has pointed out : l

WOODWARD ON THE DIFFICULTIES OF INTRODUCING
MANUAL TRAINING

The traditions are heavily against us, but the traditions of
the fathers must yield to the new dispensation. As was to
have been expected, the strongest prejudices against this re-
form exist in old educational centers. . . . The idea of giving
heed to the demands of skilled labor, of preparing for lives of
activity and usefulness ; the idea of earning one's daily bread
and of supporting one's family — scarcely enters their heads.
... In such an atmosphere as that, how incongruous is the ap-
peal of minds for an education to things ; for a training of the
hand and eye as well as the intellect to lives of useful employ-
ment ! . . . The highly cultivated would soar away into purer
air and nobler spheres. There is a feeling, more or less clearly
expressed, that the material world is gross and unrefined ; that
soiled hands are a reproach ; that the garb of a mechanic}
necessarily clothes a person of sordid tastes and low desires.

There can be no denying that this sort of prejudice exists
in many quarters. To be sure, it is breaking down very
rapidly. Again and again, however, one must listen to the
charge made by one's own colleagues in the educational
profession that the educational world is not only preju-
diced against the practical arts, but is wholly unable to
sympathize with their introduction into the school. In a
recent discussion the Commissioner of Education2 of the
State of Massachusetts made the following statements:

1 C.M. Woodward, The Manual Training School, pp. 190 ff. D.C. Heath
& Co., 1887.

2 David Snedden, ''Summation," Bulletin No. 18, Proceedings of the
Seventh Annual Meeting of the National Society for the Promotion of
Industrial Education, pp. 55, 67. Manual Arts Press, Peoria, Illinois, 1014.

THE PRACTICAL ARTS AND LANGUAGE 251

SNEDDEN ON VOCATIONAL COURSES

Ancient division exists between so-called cultural education
and the practical affairs of life. The schoolmaster has kept his
pupils as long as possible from submergence in utilitarian activi-
ties. He has often had a contempt for the manual occupations.
He has looked with favor upon professional callings and others
involving the maximum of intellectual activity. On the other
hand, the practical man has always looked upon the school-
master as somewhat over-refined, effeminate and impractical,
with a disposition to follow visions. . . .

With reference to these issues, my experience has been that
the inherited antagonism between cultural and vocational edu-
cation has by no means disappeared, and that to an extent as
yet unrealized the educator not only holds to traditional views,
but is constitutionally unable in many cases to alter his atti-
tude. It seems to me that the educational literature of this
country contains as yet surprisingly few statements regarding
either the desirability or the feasibility of vocational education
that exhibits the educator as a profound student of this sub-
ject. . . . Undoubtedly predisposed desires are in the direction
of a purely intellectual approach to problems of skill as well
as those of understanding.

PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY AN ANTIDOTE FOB
DISAGREEMENT

Even more vigorous comments upon the situation than
those which have just been quoted can be found in current
educational literature, but for our purposes it is enough to
call attention to the fact that other than strictly psycholog-
ical considerations are operative in determining the entrance
of practical courses into the curriculum of the high school.
Needless to say, the psychologist has no sympathy with any
of these prejudices. His one problem — as in the discussion
of the various methods of teaching language — is to dis-
cover, if possible, the essential character of the mental proc-
esses which axe aroused by the practical arts.

CHAPTER XII

MANUAL SKILL; PRACTICAL AND THEORETICAL
EXPERIENCE

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SKILL

The psychology of skill is a chapter in the psychology
of habit. We have come to realize in studies of animal
and human behavior the importance of habit. The nervous
system of the child is, at the beginning of life, a mass
of unrealized possibilities. A visual stimulus entering the
brain of an infant may come out in the form of a cry of
surprise or fear ; the hand may move in the effort to grasp
the bright object from which the visual stimulus came;
there may be a movement of the head ; or the child may
begin to turn away with his whole body. Out of this mass
of possibilities comes, in the course of life, a series of regular
modes of response. The nervous system, which was charac-
terized at first by unlimited possibilities of varying response,
is organized into a series of regular channels of response for
each familiar stimulus. Such an organization of the nervous
system has disadvantages as well as advantages. The man of
fifty cannot adjust himself to new situations as can the child,
because the nervous system of the mature man has been
mapped out for better or for worse into a system of paths.
The adult has his habits all formed. If these habits are of
such a type that they carry him through life comfortably and
successfully, well and good ; if his habits are such that he
continually does the wrong thing, he must suffer. The one
major fact is that the nervous system has been laid out into
a series of paths, and the habits of life are formed.

252

MANUAL SKILL 253

Among the habits cultivated in this transition from
infancy to maturity are those which we group together
under the general term " skill." One shows skill when he
plays tennis, when he saws a board or drives a naiL A
girl shows skill when she threads a needle or beats an egg.
The artisan shows skill when he feeds a machine or sorts out
its products. In all these cases the nervous system has been
organized so that the stimulus which comes into the eye or
the finger passes quickly and surely to the hand and arouses
an act which through long repetition has come to have a
degree of precision comparable to a mechanical process.

CHARACTERISTIC LACK OF ANALYSIS

If we look into consciousness during the performance of
an act which has developed into a habit we shall find as
one of its most conspicuous characteristics an absence of
all analysis. The consciousness which one has when he hits
a tennis ball or a nail is a total, undivided experience of the
whole situation. We sometimes speak of this experience as
a feeling. One has a feeling that he has done the act well
or badly, but he cannot tell either how he did it or how the
successive steps of the processes took place. We sometimes
describe the situation by saying that one does the act with-
out any consciousness at all. Thus we say that we write
without any consciousness of pencil and paper or the form
of letters. We say that the carpenter adjusts his plane to
the grain of the wood without thinking. Obviously such
descriptive phrases are not to be taken literally. The person
who is writing would be very promptly aware of the fact if
his efforts produced no marks. This is evidence enough
that he is not unconscious of paper and pencil and black
lines. The carpenter knows when his plane is properly
driven and he gets satisfaction out of the shaving which
he produces. There is always consciousness accompanying

254 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

an habitual act, but it is not analytical consciousness. One
does not think of details ; one sees the situation as a whole.
If questions are asked referring to some particular part of
the situation, the reactor is at a loss to disentangle this part
of the situation from the whole.

For the sake of a scientific study of habit the psycholo-
gist must make an analysis which the reactor himself does
not make. Let us consider, therefore, the factors of a habit,
taking our stand outside of the reactor and looking at him
for the moment not as a conscious being but as a complex
machine. Later we shall come back to a consideration of
the inner, conscious characteristics of this same individual.

SENSORY " CONTROLS " IN HANDWRITING

Since writing is one of the most common types of skill
with which the school has to deal, and since it has been
scientifically analyzed, let us note some of the elements of
the writing process. We are guided in our formation of let-
ters in large measure by the sensations of pressure1 which
come to us through the fingers which hold the pen. Espe-
cially is this true with regard to the height of letters. Let
anyone try to make his letters twice as high as usual and he
will at once become aware of the fact that the relations of
pencil and paper are such that the pencil at the top of the
letter tends to leave the paper. The old-fashioned shading
of letters showed the same fact in another way. No heavy
shading was made by upward strokes, because mechanically
the pen rises from the paper in upward strokes. The down-
ward strokes were the heavy strokes, because here the pen
came with increasing pressure into contact with the paper.
The changes in pressure which thus control the height of
our letters are not ordinarily recognized by the writer.

1 F. N. Freeman in Monograph Supplement No. 84 of the PsycJwlogi-
col Review, 1907, p. 801.

MANUAL SKILL 255

Little children are more dependent than are adults on in-
tense experiences of pressure. They break the points of pen
and pencil because they press too hard in trying to secure
intense sensations. The pressure sensations help them and
help the adult in guiding movement. We speak of these
sensations, therefore, as " controls " of writing, because as
soon as the pressure at the top of a letter gets light the
skillful writer is controlled in his movement and turns
back. In like manner he is controlled at the bottom of his
letter by the increasing pressure.

TACTUAL CONTROLS IN THE USE OF TOOLS

Every habitual act is governed by certain sensory con-
trols. Each tool in the manual-training shop has its partic-
ular system of controls. Take, for example, the saw. When
one drives the saw forward, it should engage the wood vig-
orously, just as the pen makes naturally a heavy downward
stroke. When the saw is drawn back it should pass lightly
over the wood. The skillful sawyer makes his movements
without stopping to analyze the experience. The learner,
on the other hand, has to pay close attention in order to
acquire the proper adjustment of movements and sensa-
tions. Furthermore, the expert sawyer is instantly respon-
sive to the sensations which come from his saw if the line
which he is following is not perfectly straight. Let the
saw swerve ever so little and the skillful workman makes
the necessary turn of his hand. He knows, further, how
to adjust his stroke to different kinds of material; and he
knows also that when the board is just about divided he
must make a skillful stroke in completing the cut which
the novice does not know how to accomplish.

Contrast with the experiences which control the use
of the saw those which control the use of the hammer.
The workman very frequently gets indispensable aid in

256 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

controlling the hammer, which is swung with the right
hand, by grasping with the left hand the nail which is to
be driven. The guidance of the hammer depends further
on the sensations received from the handle. These in
turn .are determined by the balance of the head on the
handle, by the length of the handle, and by the way in
which the hand grasps the handle. Each4 of these elements
of the situation contributes to the experiences of pressure
which the workman gets in the palm of his hand from the
handle. Each stroke that he makes is guided by his sensa-
tions. But he does not analyze the situation into these
elements. He thinks of it as a whole. He becomes accus-
tomed to his hammer. He regards it as a misfortune when
he breaks the handle, because the nice stroke is controlled
by the familiar relation of the tool to his arm movement.
Furthermore, the stroke itself is a complex series of adjust-
ments. The skillful workman lets the hammer bear the
shock of the stroke by relaxing the hand somewhat just at
the instant of impact. The novice takes the stroke in his
hand because he grasps the handle tightly. Finally, there
is the precision of the stroke. The novice moves irregu-
larly, now in one downward line and now in another. The
skillful workman gauges his movements from the first
movement, which is often a movement away from the nail
to be hit, and thereafter swings the hammer with unerr-
ing precision in the same arc. The sensory surfaces of
the workman's joints are involved during movement and
supplement the skin of the hand in reporting to him the
slightest deviation from the true course. He has complete
sensory control of the swing, but he does not distinguish
the separate sensory controls.

The foregoing analysis of tools will perhaps be clearer if
we suggest the possibility of grouping together such tools
as the knife, the saw, and the plane. All are cutting in-
struments and have the same general type of drive forward

MANUAL SKILL 257

and relaxed withdrawal. All must govern the intensity of
the stroke by the texture of the material. All have second-
ary Adjustments which are necessary if the stroke is to be
kept straight. The control of these cutting tools is of a
wholly different type from that of the driving tool. Fur-
thermore, certain complex adjustments appear in the dif-
ferent methods of using the same tool. Is a chisel a cutting
or a driving instrument ? The answer to such a question
leads us into the discussion of the chisel driven by the hand
as different in its uses from the chisel driven by the hammer.
The psychology of the workshop could be indefinitely
extended. We have a psychology of play ; why not a psy-
chology of the industrial arts ? The delicacy of control ex-
hibited in holding a billiard cue or in striking a golf ball
has perhaps been more fully discussed than the corre-
sponding facts in the lives of artisans, because the player
has more leisure and more social incentives for analysis
than has the workman.

VISUAL CONTROLS

Up to this point the sensory controls which have been
discussed are those which come through the sense of touch.
Another and even more elaborate discussion might be
undertaken of visual controls in sawing and hammering.
Rather than duplicate the description which has been given
of touch sensations, however, we shall leave to the reader
the description of the visual controls and shall turn directly
to the important fact that in many cases vision, in spite
of its general superiority, is not as useful a control for del-
icate movements as is touch. For example, the skill which
the piano player acquires through a tactual recognition of
the position of the fingers transcends visual control. In
like fashion the skill of the carpenter who can saw a straight
line by keeping his saw straight is much greater than that

258 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

of the novice who must look at the line and follow the
seen line with his tool. In typewriting, the "touch" method
is more rapid and exact than the mixed method, in which
vision plays a part.

OTHER SENSATIONS

Another contrast which has been suggested, and is of
importance, is the contrast between sensations which come
from the joints and inner organs and those which come
from the ends of the fingers and skin. The typewriter
who knows just how far to move from one key to the next
and the piano player who takes three notes at one stroke
by the nicest spatial adjustment of his fingers are not
controlled by the skin sensations which come from their
contact with the keys, but by the sensations from the joints
and muscles of the fingers and hand.

ABSENCE OF ANALYSIS

This discussion of the sensory controls which are present
in all habits leads us to a very interesting psychological
problem. Why does the person who uses all these sensory
controls fail to recognize them ? The answer to this ques-
tion has already been suggested. Consciousness is not or-
dinarily sufficiently analytic to make the reactor aware of
all the details. The reactor's consciousness deals with sit-
uations in the gross. Even when one begins to be analytic
in his thought he is not likely to select as his object of
attention the particular sensation which guides him in action.

Let us consider the rise of any particular habit; take,
for example, the bicycle-riding habit. When one first gets
on a bicycle, there is a great mass of sensations and a vivid
consciousness of striving. This massive experience is soon
supplemented by more experience arising from contact with

MANUAL SKILL 259

the ground and the necessity of disentangling one's self
from the capsized object of attention. Little by little one
gets so that he can pick out from this mass of experience
the handlebars and the road ahead. As long as he holds
tightly to the one and keeps his eyes fixedly on the other,
matters seem to improve. The tight gripping of the handle-
bars gives the learner warning, through the sense of touch,
of the slightest turning of the wheel, and thus one comes
to avoid disaster by responding to these early danger sig-
nals. The eyes fixed on the path notify one of a change in
relation of the body to the plumb-line and also deviations
from the safe line of progress. The learner's consciousness
will not exhibit all the facts with equal distinctness. He
will see in the center and focus of consciousness the road,
and then more road. The rest of the content of conscious-
ness will be a vast, unanalyzed mass of what we call, for
want of a better term, " feeling." This so-called feeling is
not pleasure or displeasure ; it is strain and tension. The
rider is stretching every nerve, and is full of experience but
not of detailed knowledge of his acts. A week later the
paths in the nervous system will be organized so that the
movements are satisfactory, but there will be no knowledge
on the learner's part of the details of his adjustments.
The intimations of loss of equilibrium which come through
hand and eye now set up corrective movements without
delay and without fail. The road has expanded into the
countryside, and our rider thinks about the landscape.
The content of his consciousness is what he sees; and
all the feelings of bodily adjustment combine as a vague,
undifferentiated margin of experience. Unless some new
motive arises, he will never bring into the focus of thought
the sensations of pressure from the handlebars and sensations
of bodily movement which come from his efforts to main-
tain equilibrium. He has achieved a result without study-
ing the process of his achievement. The details of how he

260 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

reached the result he does not know, for they were in his
mind only a vague, massive feeling. The more perfect his
adjustment the less motive there is to analyze the situation.

ANALYSIS SUPERIMPOSED ON HABIT

One motive which might lead a bicycle rider to analyze
his experience would be the necessity of teaching someone
else. The analysis in this case would be greatly aided by
the fact that one could watch in his pupil each stage of
adjustment from the outsider's point of view. The expert
rider sees the learner tipping and trying to recover by a
sudden jerk. This is the wrong way to act. What is the
right way? Now the expert realizes that he moves the
front wheel in the direction in which he feels the bicycle
tipping, so as to increase the breadth of his supporting base,
and gradually recovers equilibrium by a slow movement
The whole process is thus reviewed analytically by first
being looked at from the outside. The result in the mind
of one who has made such an analysis is a curious mixture
of images of someone else, images of one's self as though
looked at from the outside, and sensations of tipping and
movements of recovery.

Another good illustration of the analytical process neces-
sary to understand one's skill appears when one tries to
teach someone to hold his hands as he should to perform
some manual trick involving both the right and left hands.
One can move his own hands in the proper succession, but
he is so confused by trying to guide the other person's
hands in a relation which always presents itself in vision
in the reverse that analysis is almost impossible.

It will be recognized from the examples which have been
discussed that analysis does not naturally arise in the course
of ordinary experience. One must get a new point of view
if he is to make an analysis. If he does not deliberately

MANUAL SKILL 261

place himself outside of the ordinary experience, he will
tend to think only of the outlying circumstances. The
most striking evidences of this are the mistakes which peo-
ple make in regard to their performances. Thus the un-
trained workman is likely to think the wood is hard rather
than to recognize that his tool is dull. The tired bicycle
rider thinks something is wrong with his wheel because it is
so hard to move his legs. In both these cases the analyses
are wrong because they are guided by accidental prejudices.
Consciousness is thus seen to be, in many cases, an unsafe
guide in the description of a habit. The habit may depend
on certain complexes of sensation and may operate under
the guidance of these sensations, while analyses, prompted
by other motives, may follow other and often unsafe lines.

ADVANTAGES OF ANALYSIS

On the other hand, it is perfectly clear from the fore-
gping discussion that personal habits furnish unlimited
opportunities for the exercise of analysis. One may sub-
stitute for the accidental and often incorrect analysis of
ordinary life true and well-directed analysis of a scientific
type, provided he directs his attention to the experience as
a real problem. Thus the boy who makes a careful study
of the construction of his tool before he begins to use it
will have his attention turned inward to his direct experi-
ences more than does the ordinary individual. Note how
the teeth of a saw are set; which way ought it to cut?
Note that one side of a chisel is beveled and the other is
straight. Note that one may take hold of a hammer near
the head or far away. Each of the analyses will help a
novice, especially if the teacher has worked out clearly in
his own experience the meaning of the adjustments. The
analysis makes a student especially sensitive to certain
impressions which will guide him in his activities. Thus,

262 PSYCHOLOGY OP HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

following the example suggested a moment ago, if the
student realizes that one side of a chisel has a different
function from the other side, he will be prepared to take
advantage of the sensations which come to him during the
use^of the tool. If he did not make the preliminary analysis,
he would receive from the total situation a mass of impres-
sions, and this mass of impressions would gradually work
itself out into some degree of skill without any analysis.

EDUCATION AND ANALYSIS

Analysis is a different kind of mental process from direct,
habitual contact. Consider the beginner who has made an
analysis of his tool and observed his material. In the first
place, his analysis usually employs a different set of sensa-
tions from those which control his acts. He uses his eye in
making his analysis. His sense of touch is the one which
is called into play during direct action.

The union of preliminary analysis and practical adjust-
ment is accordingly a larger experience than practical ac-
tivity taken by itself or visual analysis taken by itself. This
larger experience, which includes the practical contact with
the object and also the preliminary analysis, has certain ad-
vantages over either practical adjustment alone or analysis
alone. A person who has made a visual analysis appears at
times to be in a position to concentrate attention upon the
various aspects of the tool experience which he would not
have noticed if he had not made the analysis. This leads
at times to precision of adjustment. At other times the
effort to analyze the situation seems to cause distraction ;
that is, if one tries to keep in mind all of the elements of
his complex experience, he may find that he is distracted
by the effort to include so much in his consciousness. It is
frequently pointed out by practical teachers that one must
not be self-conscious during the performance of the act itself.

MANUAL SKILL 268

He must concentrate his whole attention upon the object
with which he is dealing. If he tries to think of his own
hand, and his own relation to the tool, and the relation of
the tool to the material, he may get into so elaborate a state
of consciousness that he will embarrass himself and be
hindered in what would otherwise be a relatively simple
and straightforward performance.

The relating of practical experience and analysis, there-
fore, constitutes one of the important problems of educa-
tional courses in the manual arts. The child in the workshop
must not be self-conscious about his acts to the extent of
interfering with his work. Some practical teachers are so
impressed with this danger of distraction that they prefer
to omit all possible reference to the analyses that seem to
them to be too theoretical and remote. On the other hand,
it must be recognized in many cases that while progress is
slower under these distracting conditions of analysis, the
ultimate achievement of the highest skill is promoted and
the efficiency of the worker increased. When there is no
analysis, habits of action are likely to become fixed early
in the individual's training. On the other hand, where one
lias studied the relation between the tool and the material
he is open to all sorts of suggestions for change in method,
and these suggestions of change constitute in later experi-
ence a very great advantage, because after one has mastered
the total complex situation and has learned how to use the
tool, and has at the same time learned how to think about
its use, he will have a very productive line of comparison
opened up before him. He will distinguish between his own
successful and unsuccessful acts and will note what are the
elements of highest success. He will know how to borrow
from other workers, for he will know how to watch them.
In short, his whole activity will be raised to a high leval
of comparative study.

264 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

ANALYSIS NECESSARY IN PROGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR

There are two types of practical workmen in every trade.
The one type of workman has acquired practical skill and
has v never thought about the way in which his skill was
acquired, nor has he thought about the reasons why he is
skillful. He works in a routine fashion, his activities be-
coming more and more solidified in the direction in which
he started by accident at the beginning of his training. His
methods become more and more fixed, and the whole atti-
tude of mind comes to be that of an unquestioning worker,
relying absolutely on the habits and controls which he has
always used. The other class of workmen will always be
looking for possible improvements in method, and they will
succeed in introducing innovations in their own modes of
activity which will be economical, or at least will be tested
with reference to their economy. They look upon every
situation as an object of interest and as an object of study.
This group of men will find in the practical arts an oppor-
tunity for continuous mental development.

This last remark brings us to one of the crucial difficul-
ties in the organization of practical work as a part of tha
school curriculum. If one goes into the manual-training
shop and cultivates certain habits of adjustment, but makes
no analysis of the situations in which he works, the progress
of his course of study will be entirely different in this shop
work from his progress in any other field, because shop work
which is done without any analysis requires less and less
attention to the act itself. We express this fact by saying
that a habit requires less and less concentration as it becomes
more fixed. The second course in manual training to such
a student is not likely to be any more instructive than was
the first. Indeed, we may describe the situation as it fre-
quently appears in manual-training shops by saying that
there is no progressive enlargement of the scope of work

MANUAL SKILL 265

in successive courses. The student might just as well have
done the problems which he encounters in the second and
third year during his first year of work. He becomes merely
a more fixed and established artisan without becoming more
intelligent. There is no intellectual progress involved in
the training. On the other hand, academic courses usually
show a very distinct line of increase of breadth and scope
of interest. As one goes forward in a course in arithmetic
to a course in algebra, he comes on new topics and new
interests. If he can be shown the connection between these
newer interests and the older interests with which he has
been working, he will himself be distinctly aware of the
intellectual progress of the work from stage to stage. In
the same way, as one studies a foreign language he becomes
increasingly conscious of the wider vocabulary which he
accumulates and of the richer mental content which comes
to him through the new books which he is able to read.
Progression within the course is one of the greatest advan-
tages that the older and more highly organized subjects
present in the course of study. If manual training cannot
in some way secure the same type of progressive interest,
it will never commend itself as a school subject. This criti-
cism of manual training cannot be met by simply enlarging
the type of product which the student makes in the later
years of his course. One finds at the present time that stu-
dents in the second year are supposed to be stimulated to
continue their work with enthusiasm and interest merely
because they are making something large or because their
interests are turned to considerations outside the work itself,
such as the idea of making something useful in the home
or in the school. Such interest is foreign to the training
which the course is supposed to give ; and unless the course
itself can devise some means of keeping alive the intellec-
tual interests of the students, there is no probability that
an external motive will save it from formalism.

266 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF MANUAL AKTS

The lack of clearness among teachers regarding the
purpose of manual training, and regarding the best form
which this work may take on, is reflected in a controversy
which has long been going on about the place of manual
work in the schools. One party of teachers is in favor of
the general introduction of manual training into all schools,
on the ground that there is a unique type of education
which can be derived from such a course.1

These educators are anxious to have every child in the
school required to take such a course. They say that it is
well even for the boy who is to go into one of the pro-
fessions that he shall get into the shop and learn the use
of tools. Sometimes they justify this position in detail by
saying that he will get a kind of experience in the shop
which he does not get elsewhere. He will learri how to use
his hands, and he will get a direct contact with nature
which he can acquire through no other means. Again, they
sometimes put the matter in the form of an argument in
favor of social experience.2 They say that it is well for the
boy who is going into a profession to have the same kind
of experience that is had by the workers who deal with
material things. Such a boy will have a larger appreciation
of the functions in society of the mason and the stoneworker.
He will have a larger interest in the manufacturing processes
with which he will come into indirect, social contact.

This group of teachers who are strongly in favor of
courses in manual training is opposed by two groups of
critics. The first group say that manual training does not
cultivate a high degree of skill. The conditions of work in

*A. Me Arthur, Education in its Relation to Manual Industry.
D. Appleton and Company, 1806. See also C. M. Woodward, Manual
Training in Education. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1898.

2 G. Kerschensteiner, Education for Citizenship. Rand McNally &
Company, 1911.

MANUAL SKILL 267

the schools are not enough like conditions of work in the
shop. There is too much spreading of the worker's energy
over loose, general activities. Let us give up manual
training and have trade training.1 Trade training will be
like real shop work. Get a good workman and put him in
charge. Let skill be cultivated in the well-known fashion
in which apprentices have always learned.

The other group of critics are those who say there is not
enough training of the mind in a shop course. There is
nothing to make a boy think, and nothing on which he can
be examined when the work is done.

The problems suggested by these various contentions
regarding handwork in the schools never called more ur-
gently for solution than in this day and age, when techni-
cal schools arc increasing in number and the demand for
skilled labor is being vigorously set forth by practical men
in the business world.

THE REACTION OF MANUAL ARTS ON THE INDIVIDUAL

We may note again that there are problems suggested
in these discussions which go beyond the technical courses
themselves and relate to the influence of the technical arts
on the whole life and thought of the student. How far
does the acquisition of skill make the student more appreci-
ative of industry ? How far does the mastery of a trade
prepare one to think out new problems of a practical or theo-
retical type ? Conversely, how far should the school attempt
to maintain its traditional program, and how far should it
give up language subjects for the practical subjects?

Some of these questions can be stated in a concrete form.
Here is a boy who has made a table in the manual-training
shop. He knows how difficult it is to fit together th§ parts.

1 David Snedden, The Problem of Vocational Education, pp. 43 ff.
Houghton Mifflin Company (Riverside Educational Monograph), 1910.

268 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

Will he ever look at a table again without considering how
well or how badly it is put together ? Here is a girl who
has learned to sew. Will she ever lose her critical insight
into the quality of workmanship exhibited in a garment ?
Evidently practical skill is accompanied by the cultivation
of insights which are difficult to acquire unless one has
actually constructed a typical thing.

We are told also that shop work is very helpful in the
training of students because each piece of work requires
a fidelity to the materials used which is more rigid than
the fidelity required in merely reciting a verbal recitation
to a class teacher. One may give an ambiguous answer, but
he cannot drive an ambiguous nail. This demand for strict
conformity to natural law is said to be very good for students.

EFFICIENCY DEPENDS ON ADEQUACY OF INSTRUCTION

The striking fact, when all these claims have been
recorded, is that manual training has sometimes failed to
justify itself as a school subject, while in other cases it has
served a most useful purpose. Here, as in other subjects,
it is evidently no inherent characteristic of the course itself
which brings advantage to the student ; advantage appears
or fails to appear because of the mental processes which
the student cultivates during the course.

Our problem, therefore, is not to accept any general
statement about the virtues or defects of manual arts, but
to study their mental relations.

EXPERIMENTS ON RELATION OF THEORY AND PRACTICE

On one aspect of this subject we have much evidence of
a definite type to which we now turn. We have experi-
mental studies which show certain of the relations between
theory and practical behavior. In such a study it is easily

MANUAL SKILL 269

possible to set up a situation in which some practical ac-
tivity can be definitely measured. Into this practical situa-
tion we then inject theory at a time and under conditions
which make it possible to measure the practical activity
again and discover whether the injection of theory has aided
or hindered in the perfection of the activity. Such an ex-
perimental situation as this was set up by requiring two
groups of boys in the fifth and six grades to hit a target
under water. To do this, when the target is looked at
obliquely from above, is a task requiring some readjustment
of the boy's ordinary habit of throwing a dart, because the
light which comes from the target is refracted as it leaves
the water and, as a result, there is an apparent displacement
of the target. Furthermore, the amount of apparent dis-
placement will differ when the depth of the water is changed.
The two groups of boys selected for the experiment were
made as nearly alike as possible by including in each group
some boys who were described by the teachers as bright,
some who were described by the teacher as slow, and a
number of mediocres. Such educational experiment should
always be tried on groups, otherwise results will be obscured
by marked individual differences. The two groups were
kept entirely apart from each other so that there was no
possibility of a disturbance entering into the experiments
through conference between the two groups. The one group
was allowed to acquire experience without any instruction
whatsoever. They were simply set at the task of hitting
the target The second group was given a preliminary
explanation of what is meant by refraction and how the
apparent displacement of the target is produced. The ex-
planation thus given to the second group constituted the
only distinguishing characteristic between the two groups.
It may therefore be said that one group had the theory of
the situation, while the other had no theoretical training.

270 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

THEORY NO SUBSTITUTE FOB PRACTICE

The result showed that the two groups of boys required
the same length of time to learn how to hit the target under
water. This first result of the experiment shows with per-
fect clearness that one cannot substitute theory for practical
experience. One can know something about refraction,
but if he has to deal with it he must learn to make his
readjustments to the practical situation by actual readjust-
ment of his movements, and this actual readjustment of his
movements apparently will take place at a no more rapid
rate than it does for any intelligent person who starts out
to accomplish the practical task. In terms of our earlier
discussion it may be said that the theory of refraction had
to do with the visual part of the total experience. An analy-
sis of the visual facts could not be carried over directly into
hand movement, hence the time required in making the
hand adjustment was not reduced through a preliminary
analysis of the visual facts.

THEORY FACILITATES ADAPTATION TO NEW CONDITIONS

After both groups of boys had thus mastered the practi-
cal situation the experiment was modified by changing the
depth of water. This change in the depth of water is fol-
lowed, of course, by a change in the apparent displacement
of the target. This change in the apparent displacement of
the target turned out to be a source of very great confusion
to the boys who had had no theoretical training. They had
learned how to deal with one situation in which the target
was under water, and they had at the outset of the ex-
periment 'such natural experiences as any boy brings to a
task of this type, but the new situation produced by chang-
ing the depth of the water did not correspond to either of
these sets of experiences which they had mastered. They

MANUAL SKILL 271

consequently oscillated between the newly acquired expe-
rience with the first depth of water and the earlier, natural
experience, which had nothing to do with water at all.
They were doubly confused in their efforts to master the
new situation.

The psychology of this confusion is the same as that
which is often exhibited in practical life. Many men who
are called upon to face a new practical situation are con-
fused because of their earlier training and because of their
fixed, uhanalyzed modes of behavior. It is a well-known
fact in the trades that men who have long been accustomed
to one method of operation are very much confused by the
introduction of new methods, such as new machinery or a new
type of material. Their very training prevents them from ex-
hibiting the kind of flexibility that would be presented by
a novice unacquainted with earlier methods of adjustment.

As contrasted with these boys who had no theoretical
training, the group of boys who knew the theory of refrac-
tion presented an entirely different result. These boys who
knew the theory of the situation adapted themselves rapidly
to the new depth of water. Their ability to deal with the
new situation grew out of the fact that this new situation
was recognized, because of the theory which they studied, in
its true relation to their earlier experiences. The theory had
put all their experiences — those without water, those with
the earlier depth, and finally those with the new depth — in
a single scheme of thought. They were aware of the fact that
there are gradations in apparent displacement, and when
they encountered a second depth of water they felt able to
deal with it promptly and efficiently. In other words, after
they had mastered one practical situation and had compre-
hended it in the light of their theoretical knowledge, they
were able to take up rapidly and with all of the advantages
of earlier experience a new problem which involved both
practical adjustment and analysis.

272 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

<»

THEORY A SUMMARY or EXPERIENCE

Theory is nothing more nor less than the general state-
ment of accumulated experience. A scheme of thought or
a scheme of experience will be stated in the form of a gen-
eral theory when a whole series of variations can be included
under a single general statement. The individual who
knows this single general statement can master a series
of experiences more readily and accurately, because he
knows where to turn his attention and how to harmonize
his individual experiences.

The case is the same as that which was discussed earlier
in speaking of the sensory controls which appear when one
is using a tool. If one knows how the tool looks and the
principle upon which it is constructed, he is in a position
later when he comes to use this tool to turn his attention to
the phases of experiences which will be most useful in guid-
ing him. So theory helps the practical worker to guide his at-
tention and to understand the situation in which he has come.

THEORY AND PRACTICAL BEHAVIOR SEPARATE IN
NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT

If one studies the development of theoretical knowledge
in the history of the race, he will see that this statement is
wholly justified by the way in which theory has developed.
We shall come later to the full discussion of science as a
subject of school training, but it may be pointed out in this
connection that the development of science or theory is not
the same as the development of practical skill. There are
races which have grown very skillful in the arts but have
known nothing of scientific method. Conversely, there have
been periods when abstract forms of thought have far out-
stripped practical activities. The greatest problem of mod-
ern society is to take the results of science into industry

MANUAL SKILL 273

and refine the industrial arts under the guidance of theory.
The attainment of this desirable end is impeded, however,
by the fact that science often develops in one mind while
skill develops in another individual. Even where the scien-
tific knowledge and practical skill appear in a single indi-
vidual, it often happens that this individual fails to apply
such science as he knows to practical activities which he
takes up at a time when his science lies dormant.

One of the most striking facts in human mental life is the
possibility of two experiences failing to influence each other
though they present the possibilities of productive combina-
tion. The student studies physics during one hour, and then
goes into the shop and uses all the laws of mechanics ; but
because the workshop presents these facts in a different
form, he fails to recognize them. The girl takes chemistry
and cooking and fails to see the relation between the two.

THEORY AND LANGUAGE

The psychology of this situation is perfectly clear in the
light of our earlier studies. Theory is ordinarily a form of
verbal reaction ; practical life is a form of hand reaction.

The boy who tries to hit a target, for example, does not
use his vocal cords in this effort at all. He uses his hand ;
and the experiences which he gets through his eye and
through his contact with the dart issue in a muscular ad-
justment of the hand and arm. If now one turns the boy's
attention away from the actual throwing of the dart and
points out to him the ray of light as it traverses the water
and the air, the boy's mode of reaction to the situation
which he contemplates is likely to be a verbal reaction.
He describes the situation to himself. This description of
the situation is not a practical movement of the hand
and arm, nor can it be brought, as we saw above, into
relation to practical movements of the hand and arm

274 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

without §pme practice and without some contact with new
and complicated opportunities to con vert theory into practice.
Persistent effort to adjust behavior to different depths of
water may develop a more comprehensive form of conscious-
ness, including both verbal description and hand activity,

OPPOSITION BETWEEN THEORY AND PRACTICE
IN EDUCATION

This distinction between a verbal description and prac-
tical reaction is constantly brought to the attention of the
student of education. No more notable illustration of this
distinction can be offered to the teacher than the distinc-
tion which presents itself in one's own professional experi-
ence. One may study the theory of school discipline and
yet be wholly unable when it comes to practical contact
with students to make the sort of move which will secure
good discipline. Theory, on the one side, is a verbal descrip-
tion of a situation ; practical activity, on the other, calls
for all sorts of adjustments to social complexities, and the
practical adjustments involved are essentially different in
character from the mere verbal statements.

Industry has again and again shown itself to be divorced
from science ; and science has very frequently gone, in its
theoretical statements, very far away from the practical
situations that arise in ordinary industry. So sharp is the
antithesis between science and industry in some cases that
both parties to the discussion have felt keenly their sepa-
ration from each other. The theoretical student has been
regarded as a mere juggler with words, while the practical
operator has been thought of as an unintelligent workman
incapable of analyzing his own experiences and certainly
unable to transmit to others through clear statements the
habits which he himself has acquired.

MANUAL SKILL 275

INSTRUCTION IN APPLICATION SOLUTION OF PROBLEM

The antithesis will continue so long as one form of be-
havior is cultivated without a clear recognition of the pos-
sibility of bringing it into productive relation to the other.
There must be a higher form of experience than that which
connects itself with skill of hand or fluency of verbal ex-
pression. Let us adopt the term " application " as a general
term to signify the relating of two systems of experience
to each other. Our problem then becomes the problem of
determining how language can be applied to the indus-
trial arts, and how the industrial arts can be applied to
language activities.

PRIMITIVE FORMS OF LEARNING

Behavior of a practical sort is undoubtedly the original
mode of adjustment, both in the animal kingdom and in
primitive races. The technical student of psychology notes
in his studies of such primitive behavior that it develops
through trial and error. The animal which finds itself in
a trap or in an inclosure of any kind tries to escape by
seeking an exit, now at one point and now at another. It
runs blindly about from place to place and tries every pos-
sible adjustment. If by accident it makes the right sort of
adjustment it may escape from the trap. Success in this
case is due merely to energy in keeping up all sorts of
lines of endeavor.

The same general formula explains man's efforts to edu-
cate animals. One tries to get an animal to perform a trick.
lie keeps the animal stimulated until finally by a fortu-
nate combination of circumstances the animal does what is
wanted. One must be very prompt in rewarding the animal.
The reward gives a satisfaction which tends to lead to a
repetition of the successful adjustment. Undoubtedly many

276 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

human adjustments are of exactly the same type. The work •
man who, as an apprentice, is given a certain tool learns in
the course of his experience some of the skillful methods of
using this tool. He tries one method after another without,
being very fully aware of the fact that he is introducing
modifications, until finally by some fortunate accident he
succeeds in hitting upon a relatively economical method of
doing the work. Satisfied with this accidental adjustment,
he now goes on working in that way and makes the adjust-
ment more and more fixed by his constant repetition of it,
In an earlier connection it was pointed out that there is
little or no motive in practical life for any consideration
of the details of such an adjustment. We see accordingly
in many practical activities trial and error with little or no
analytic thought.

HIGHER FORMS OF LEARNING

Contrast with all of these examples of trial and error the
way in which an intelligent man proceeds to deal with a
new situation. Let us assume for the moment that a man
has been caught as was the animal which we used in an
earlier illustration. The man in the trap sits down and
carefully considers every phase of the situation. If he
should begin to run around as the animal does, trying now
this point of attack and now that, we should say of him
that he is unintelligent; but his deliberate consideration
of the total situation marks him as an intelligent man, and
his intellectual processes are evidently being appealed to
as important means of extricating him from the difficulty
in which he finds himself. The way in which the man is
using his mental experiences in this case may be described
somewhat as follows : He first takes into his conscious life
the situation that lies before him. He sees with his eyes or
hears with his ears or feels with his hands the situation as

MANUAL SKILL 277

it now stands. He then proceeds to concentrate his atten-
tion upon the different elements of this situation. He does
not try to move these elements themselves, but he fixes
his attention upon certain aspects of the situation as these
appear in his mind. We have described this sort of proc-
ess in an earlier connection as an analysis of the situation.
We may now put the matter in this form : The individual
has a conscious process which is a legitimate substitute for
the objects about him, and he works over this conscious
process preparatory to dealing with the practical situation.
Having now analyzed the situation in his own conscious-
ness, he brings to bear upon that phase of the situation
which seems to him to be the most worthy of attack all
of the memories and experiences of the past. He says to
himself : "There is no use in trying to get out in that direc-
tion, because the bars are evidently much too strong. There
is no use in trying to do anything here, because the wall is
too compact and thick. I can, however, by putting together
these and these pieces of wood that I find on the other side
of the cage get to a point where I may be able to reach
over the wall." This mental process of rearranging expe-
riences in the mind before one attempts to deal with the
outside world shows the great advantage of mental read-
justment over physical readjustment. It is proper to say that
one tries a great many experiments in his imagination, and
in a sense it is legitimate to call that also a method of trial
and error ; but the point is, this kind of trial and error which
one carries on in consciousness is very economical as con-
trasted with the kind of trial and error which the animal
exhibits when he goes from point to point in the trap and
makes futile efforts to attack now this and now that part
of the situation. Man has created for himself a world of
imaginary experiences in the midst of which he tries to work
out adjustments. He tries to see whether new elements
of experience may be piled together; and if his conscious

278 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

efforts at readjustment satisfy his mind, he may then later
try to realize in the external world these readjustments which
he has worked out first of all in his conscious imagination.

LANGUAGE A GENERAL INSTRUMENT OF APPLICATION

Thus far in describing the thought-processes of the
intelligent man we have spoken in terms which did not
clearly depict these processes as forms of behavior. The
form of activity which is indispensable for such considera-
tions as we have been describing is language. The man
talks matters over with himself. He tries now this formula,
now that. When he says to himself, " The wall is too
strong," he is classifying his present visual experiences
under the whole of his past experience, and that past ex-
perience has been marked and deposited for future use
with the label " strong." The very power of discrimination
by which he turns attention, now to this point, now to
that, depends on his use of words as guides to his mental
processes. Discrimination, comparison, recall of experi-
ences, classification of experiences, are not terms which
imply lack of action. On the contrary, every one is an
active term, and the chief instrument of human life in
each of these processes is language.

In short, language is the means which man has devised
of rearranging his ideas. He first developed language as
an instrument of social relations. He took up the facts of
experience and passed them on to his neighbor. But very
soon he found that a mode of behavior which would shift
ideas from mind to mind might advantageously be used for
private ends as well as social, and so man turned language
into a means of private adaptation. Language is a means
of self-adjustment, an instrument of personal recoil upon
one's own mental material. It is an active instrument for
assorting and rearranging ideas.

MANUAL SKILL 279

PLAY OF IDEAS

There is something very fascinating about the readjust-
ment of ideas in one's own mind. The little child enjoys
putting ideas together just because he finds ideas so easy
to rearrange. He finds the real world, which he pushes
around with his hands, very stubborn. So he puts together
ideas with all the freedom of limitless possibilities of re-
adjustment. Some day he will learn the hard lesson that
this free putting together of ideas is sometimes useless
and often worse than useless as a preparation for practical
life. Mere facility in recombinations of ideas is not the
final goal of verbal training.

Come back to our man caught in a trap. He wants to
distribute his ideas with a view to preparing for escape.
Escape means movement of hands and legs. Consideration
means rearrangement of ideas with the aid of language. It
will be well for our prisoner if he has learned to rearrange
ideas and use words in such a way that he can guide his
practical behavior by his carefully considered plans. It will
be well for him if he has cultivated such a control of his
hands and legs that they can ultimately turn into practical
acts what his verbal considerations have worked out in his
mind. In short, there is a higher form of adjustment than
that exhibited either in gross bodily movements or in the
finer movements of articulation. The two forms of behavior
must be made to influence and promote each other.

ERROR IN REARRANGING IDEAS

This has been the great struggle of human thought.
Often the inner reaction is fantastic, unpractical, unsafe as
a guide to life. The result is that many people profess to
be skeptical about the value of intelligent readjustments.
The race as a whole, however, has undoubtedly reached

280 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

an entirely different conclusion. Human experience differs
from animal experience in the fact that human experience
is primarily an experience based upon theoretical considera-
tions and readjustments. The man who is about to do a
piece of work sits down and plans it carefully, because the
race has found that it is on the whole very much more
economical in point of material and in point of energy to
proceed after one has made a very careful plan.

When one reaches on such grounds the conclusion that
it is desirable to develop a relation between practice and
theory, and when one bears in mind the conclusion which
has been emphasized through this chapter and earlier
chapters, — that there is a fundamental difference between
theoretical processes and practical processes, — he sees that
there is an important problem in education in developing
the power of translating theory into practice and practice
into theory. Theory is not identical with practice nor
does the existence of practical experience insure theoreti-
cal insight. Consequently, in the school one must make
an effort to bridge over the chasm between the two. We
must say to the student who has studied physics that he
ought to try to work out some of the principles of physics
in a practical way, and we may say to the student of me-
chanics in the shop that it is his business to understand
the theoretical principles under which he does his work.
It is not necessary for the student to work out the relation
between theory and practice in every possible case. If he
can work out a few simple cases he will be in possession
of a principle of transition from theory to practice, and the
reverse, which will stand him in good stead in many new
situations where this transition from the one type of ex-
perience to the other must be worked out. The ordinary
school has long realized the importance of making the
transition from theory to practical applications. In almost
every course of training we find some effort to show the

MANUAL SKILL 281

student the avenues of such application. We have not
taken advantage, however, to the extent which we might,
of the possibility of developing science in the presence of
practical experience through analysis of this experience. We
have taught physics and told students that the mechanical
world is based upon physics. We have not developed fully
the practice of teaching students how to make something
with tools and then to subject this activity to the analysis
which will make them aware of the way in which theory
can be attached to industry.

UNION OF THEORY AND PRACTICE

If now we can realize as the outcome of our study of
the relation between theory and practice the importance of
moving back and forth from theory to practice and from
practice to theory, and if we can realize that this movement
backward and forward between the two forms of experi-
ence must be made a matter of explicit endeavor in the
school, we shall have added to our course of study an im-
portant series of exercises which are neither purely theo-
retical on the one hand nor purely practical on the other.

No school can accomplish this purpose without including
in its program both verbal reactions and hand reactions.
Schools have long tried the experiment of inculcating
theory and relying on later life to supply the opportunities
for application, but the outcome has been unsatisfactory.
If one thinks of industry as a training school in which
skill is emphasized to the entire neglect (in most cases) of
science, again the pitiful plight of the worker in a modern
factory bears testimony to the unsuccess of a training which
omits theory. We come back to the conclusion that the
school must include both theory and practice for the sake
of producing that highest type of human experience —
a single comprehensive union of theory and practice.

282 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

DIFFICULTIES ARISING OUT OF SPECIALIZATION

This is a lesson which must be taken to heart on both
sides of the discussion. The teacher of science must not
refuse to deal with shop work, nor can the teacher of
manual training get on without science. The two must
work together. That there has been lack of sympathy in
the past is due to the fundamental, psychological differ-
ences between theoretical and practical activity. The two
types of activity may grow up apart from each other.
Often the manual-arts teacher illustrates this fact in his
lack of knowledge of science. He does not know enough
of mechanical science to state the facts of experience which
would be encountered in the shop in the formulas of
mechanical science. Furthermore, he is very frequently so
absorbed in the practical adjustment of the tools to certain
types of material that he does not realize the possibilities
of a scientific study of the facts with which he is dealing.
He very frequently expresses loudly his opposition to the
use of books and stigmatizes language as an unworthy
form of expression. Conversely, the student of science
shows a like onesidedness when he looks down upon hand-
work as unworthy of recognition in the schools. For him
handwork is an unintellectual form of endeavor. It has
no relation whatsover to thought-processes which are of
a high and elevated type.

When the student of science and the student of manual
training have to meet in the faculty meetings for the pur-
pose of deciding how students shall be trained, each makes
an effort to secure as much time for his special line of
work as possible ; and each regards it as highly desirable that
the other's subject should be limited to as short a period
as is consistent with the popular demand for variety in the
high-school course. If one should propose to a manual-
training teacher that part of the time in his course be given

MANUAL SKILL 283

to training in the theory of mechanics, he would probably
reply that the student gets too much theory now, and what
is needed is some practical contact with real things. Con-
versely, if the student of physics were urged to do a little
manual training in the physics laboratory, he would prob-
ably offer as a substitute the conventional laboratory ex-
periments in which the apparatus has been carefully made
in some distant city and so arranged that the student
can hardly fail to set up the different pieces in the way
intended by the manufacturer. The school thus actually
fosters the divorcement between theory and practice.

There is another element of the situation which exagger-
ates this separation between the two subjects. Both sub-
jects are supposed to accomplish as much as possible within
their own fields. The teacher feels pressed for time because
in the manual-training shop he must introduce the student
to fourteen different tools and to several projects which
belong in his particular course. The teacher of physics
has a textbook in hand and must get over the work in
some fashion or other inside of a year. It makes no differ-
ence at all to either of these teachers that the student will
have to live after he finishes that particular year's course ;
and it does not seem to be very significant in the thought
of either one of these teachers that the student will prob-
ably forget something over three fourths of what he has
learned in either course. A readjustment which would
spend half of the time in each of these courses, actually
making the transition in the student's mind from theory
to practice, or the reverse, would undoubtedly be in the
long run economical of the student's mental energy, and
would make available for later life the small residuum
of experience which is all that he can possibly carry away
from either course.

284 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

CORRELATION OF SCIENCE AND THE MANUAL ARTS

The readjustment here recommended is by no means as
fanciful as it may seem to some who have not considered
the possibilities of working out such a combination. The
effort has been made, with a good deal of success, in one
of the German schools to make a combination of manual
training and physics which shall be advantageous to both
subjects. Professor Freeman has made available in English
a description of this experiment, in a review of the German
book, setting forth the course in detail.1

Furthermore, the spirit of this suggestion has been real-
ized on a large scale in a number of experiments which are
being tried in this country at the present time; namely, the
experiments with part-time classes, which attempt to unite
school work of the traditional sort with shop work carried
on by students. In these part-time schemes the student is
in school during one week or during one month, and dur-
ing the following week or month is engaged in practical
industrial work. The business of the school in this case is
not to duplicate the work of the shop, but rather to bring to
bear on the problems of the shop the science and mathematics
and reading which the student would miss if he were en-
grossed altogether in the practical industries. On the other
hand, it is recognized that his reading and his study are
taken up more enthusiastically because in his shop work he
is constantly in the presence of practical problems which
stimulate him to see the importance of his school studies.2

lfr Manual Training in the Service of Physics," School Review,
Vol. XVII, 1909, p. 609, reviewing fully Physikalischer Arbeitsunterricht,
by 0. Frey. Ernst Wunderlich, 1907.

2 Twenty-fifth Annual Report of the United States Commissioner of
Labor, published by the government printing office, 1911. Special title of
the report, "Industrial Education. Part-time Schools, " pp. 200-206.

CHAPTER XIII
INDUSTRIAL COURSES

RISE AND DEVELOPMENT OF COMMERCIAL COURSES

With the rapid growth of industrial education during
recent years, there have appeared numerous psychological
problems which can perhaps best be introduced by describ-
ing the observations which one makes when he goes into
the classes where work of this sort is being given. The
earliest industrial courses to be organized in American high
schools were the so-called commercial courses. Before the
economic pressure was felt which is now driving the schools
and the public at large to recognize the importance of
training in the trades, there was a demand for clerks who
could take charge of the shipping activities of the country.
For a long time the United States has exported enormous
amounts of raw material. This country has not needed,
therefore, skilled laborers to make up its materials so much
as shipping clerks and agents who could supervise trans-
portation. At first the demand for clerks was met by
the organization of special schools entirely outside of the
control of the public boards of education. Even to-day we
have a large number of private business colleges. Some-
thing of the character of these institutions can be gathered
from the special report prepared by the Chicago City Club
on the private institutions in Chicago.1 In general it is
shown in this report that the effort of these institutions is

1 A Report on Vocational Training in Chicago by a Subcommittee of
the Committee on Public Education of the City Club of Chicago (Part III).
Published by the City Club of Chicago, 1912.

285

286 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

•*

to give in the shortest possible time those essential forms
of training which are required to bring the students into
commercial offices.

There can be no doubt at all that these institutions have
discovered some of the most efficient methods for training
students rapidly in business methods. They criticize the
public schools for the long general courses which are re-
quired of students, and undoubtedly secure a large part
of their patronage because many people are convinced of
the validity of these criticisms.

The example of these numerous private business schools,
together with the urgent demand on the part of students
that they be equipped to enter profitable business engage-
ments immediately upon graduation, has led to the wide-
spread organization of various kinds of commercial courses
in the high schools of this country.

EMPHASIS ON RAPID EXECUTION

If one attends the classes conducted by the commercial
departments, as for example the classes in bookkeeping or
business arithmetic or the exercises in stenography and
typewriting, he finds that the methods of procedure are
radically different from the methods of procedure which
are common in the other courses administered in the school.
One of the first ends of these courses is to secure rapid
execution. The student is brought, as soon as he enters
the course, to realize that one of the urgent demands of the
business world is speed. In business arithmetic many of
the short methods of work which are given to students are
not explained with a view to a full comprehension of the
scientific side of the subject. There is no time for a com-
plete scientific explanation, and the student is not called
upon to deal with this aspect of the matter. Bpokkeeping
also is, for the most part, taught as* a series of conventions,

INDUSTRIAL COURSES 287

Those who take the course are impressed with the necessity
of carrying out the work exactly as it is planned in the
models which they use rather than with the necessity of
understanding the fundamental reasons why this particular
method of procedure is economical.

If one reads the literature on typewriting, for example,
he finds that there is very little discussion of the reason
why a certain position of the hand or a certain course of
training is economical. The student is directed what to do,
but even the teacher does not understand the reason for
the formula. In one recent publication on typewriting, the
question of the best position of the hand is discussed.
Should one always go back to the home key in order that
he may locate the other keys from this point of reference,
or should there be a general position of the hand which is
free from definite reference to any single point? There
seems to be no evidence beyond the testimony of certain
interested observers, and this testimony is not carefully
worked out in any exact way. This problem could, of
course, be definitely solved by simple experiments.

EMPHASIS ON IMITATION OF BUSINESS CONDITIONS

A further general characteristic of these commercial
courses is their effort to cultivate, so far as possible, condi-
tions that are exactly similar to those which appear in the
industries. One finds in the commercial department that
the furniture is made to approximate, as far as possible, the
furniture of business offices. It seems necessary in teaching
the forms of banking to have the physical paraphernalia of
a bank as well as the general problems that confront that
kind of an institution.

Perhaps no clearer evidence of this disposition to demand
conditions that are like those of the business world can be
found than that given in the reiterated statements that

288 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

-*

business training and knowledge of the details of business
operations are absolutely essential in the training of the
teacher. This statement applies not only to the commercial
courses, which were the original courses introduced in the
high schools, but also in more emphatic form to all of the
technical courses, which are rapidly following in the train
of the commercial courses. A recent bulletin l issued by the
National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education
lays great stress on the practical training of the teacher.

THE TRAINING OF TEAOHEES

In discussing the qualifications of industrial-school teach-
ers, this report lays great stress upon actual contact with
trade.

The shop instructor must know his trade as fully as does a
skilled journeyman : and in addition, must have knowledge of
the technical methods in use in the trade together with the
command of its drawing, mathematics, science and art. (P. 27.)

Even the teacher who has charge of subjects that are
related to the strictly technical subjects is described as
follows :

The ideal teacher of related subjects whom, admittedly, in
practice it would be difficult to secure in large numbers, should
have trade equipment. ... (P. 28.)

Experience as a wage earner is an asset, as it enables one to
gain a sympathetic insight into the needs of the worker, to
understand the aims and purposes of the industrial school and
its responsibility for the pupil and to the industry. . . . (P. 29.)

1 Bulletin No. 19, f ' The Selection and Training of Teachers for State-
Aid Industrial Schools for Boys and Men." Special report, issued 1914,
by the National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education.

INDUSTRIAL COURSES 289

INDIVIDUAL INSTRUCTION

Another characteristic of the commercial course which
is very conspicuous to the observer is to be found in the
fact that the work is very largely individual in character.
The class in typewriting is not a social organization as is the
class in history or science. Each member of the class is ac-
quiring personal skill and is allowed to progress at a rate
which is in keeping with his own development. He goes
over a certain number of routine exercises, and as soon as
he can produce a perfect copy of one of the exercises he is
allowed to progress to the next. Whether the other mem-
bers of the class are keeping pace with him or not is a
matter of indifference. The amount of recitation which
one hears in the commercial department is relatively slight.
The same statement may be repeated with regard to the
technical courses carried on in the shop.

ANTITHESIS BETWEEN CONVENTIONAL COURSES AND
INDUSTRIAL COURSES

All of these examples, as well as the general discus-
sions of the problem of industrial education which have
recently been presented, emphasize the fact that there is a
distinction between the ordinary school procedure and the
procedure which is appropriate as one turns to a study of
industry.1

This antithesis between industrial courses and the ordi-
nary courses of the school program is not a mere matter of
school organization. It implies a fundamentally divergent

1 F . M. Leavitt, Examplesof Industrial Education, especially chaps, vii-
xiv (Ginn and Company) ; J. M. Gillette, Vocational Education, espe-
cially chaps, xi-xiii (American Book Company, 1910) ; address by Andrew
S. Draper, "The Desirable Uniformity and Diversity in American Educa-
tion,'1 Proceedings of the National Education Association, 1908, p. 215.

290 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

<*

conception of the mental processes which are to be devel-
oped in students and of the way in which society's demands
are to be presented to the growing individual.

Let us consider briefly the psychological consequences of
some of the characteristics of industrial courses which have
been mentioned above. In the first place, what is the result
of requiring that an act be performed at the highest possible
speed? All that was said in the chapter on the psychol-
ogy of skill about the difficulty of recognizing the sensa-
tions which one employs in controlling his activities is
pertinent to this discussion. If one has to work at a high
rate of speed, his attention must always be concentrated
upon the results of his work and he has little or no oppor-
tunity to study his methods of procedure. Furthermore,
there is little disposition to call in question those modes
of procedure which have been found in earlier practice to
serve the purpose.

THE RELATION OF SCIENTIFIC STUDIES IN INDUSTRY

Industry is seeing the importance at the present time of
setting aside certain of its agents to examine very carefully
the way in which workingmen move during each of the
processes of their labor. These so-called efficiency experts
are finding that the product which heretofore has been
regarded by commercial concerns as entirely acceptable is
ordinarily produced in a relatively uneconomical way. The
standards of commerce up to this time have been the stand-
ards of a general average of mediocre types of activity.
The efficiency expert finds that by careful analysis of some
of these mediocre and relatively clumsy forms of activity
he can produce a more efficient form of behavior. He brings
into the commercial world an entirely new psychological atti-
tude. It is the attitude of analyzing one's movements for
the purpose of improving the movements themselves. To be

INDUSTRIAL COURSES 291

sure, the ultimate aim is an output which shall be cheaper
and perhaps better than that which has been produced by
the earlier methods. But the psychology of the situation is
that for the time being attention is turned to the process
itself, and this is made a subject of careful analytical study.

No clearer evidence could be found than this to show
that there is a difference between the ordinary commercial
attitude and the intellectual attitude which is common to
science. The difficulty with a careful scientific study of
one's behavior is that it impedes the progress of the activity
for the time being. One cannot deliberate about his activi-
ties and work with the speed that is required in practical,
competitive commerce. The laborer, therefore, is trained
not to deliberate about his activities, but to go forward at
the highest possible rate of speed. The business of the
class which is to train the worker is thought of in the same
spirit, and is held to consist in pointing out some of the
methods of work which will bring the worker more promptly
to the result and will suppress in his mind any inquiries
as to the grounds for these different forms of behavior. He
cannot be both a scientist and an efficient laborer in the short
period of time which society has allotted him for his training.

The psychologist finds himself confronted here by one of
those large social questions which it is not possible for him
to deal with inside the limits of his special science. How
the individual is to get time for a scientific; examination of
commercial processes and likewise fill his place in the world
as an efficient laborer is indeed a difficult social problem.
So long as our manufacturing concerns are organized at
the level of competition which is common at present, and
so long as the diversities of human nature are as great as
they are, the probabilities seem large that a uniform atten-
tion to analysis of processes on the part of all students will
hardly be attained in education. But if society is to make
a distinction between its members, and if the methods of

292 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

•*

training the different members of society are to be sharply
differentiated, there ought to be a clear consciousness on
the part of teachers of the effects on personality of these
social stratifications. For example, if it is contended that
commercial courses are good for everybody, the antithesis
between commercial methods and scientific methods ought
certainly to be borne in mind. If, on the other hand, the
commercial courses are to be administered to a part of
the school population and not to another part, again there
should be a perfectly clear knowledge on the part of all
that the distinction is a psychological distinction and not
merely a distinction of specialized subject matter or content.

ACADEMIC STANDARDS AND PRACTICAL STANDARDS

Again, let us consider the psychological difference be-
tween the standards which are set up in the ordinary
academic courses and the commercial courses. As indi-
cated above, there is always an appeal in commercial
courses to the standards accepted in the business world.
The academic world is supposed by the business world to
be very lax in its standards. Possibly this criticism of the
academic world can be removed in a measure by calling
attention to the fact that the teacher always has a sliding
scale of standards, which he applies with reasonable dis-
crimination to the different stages of development of his
students. One can be very complacent, for example, with
a little child who is just beginning to read if he does not
read with accuracy and fluency. The standards of the first
grade in reading are relatively low as contrasted with the
standards which are set in the upper grades. In the same
way one is very complacent in educational institutions with
the German sentence which is formulated by a student who
has been studying German for two semesters. No one asks
of a student of this degree of maturity in the schools that

INDUSTRIAL COURSES 293

he pay attention chiefly to the results of his work. The
teacher is always more or less aware of the fact that the
student's mental activity is being perfected even through
the errors which he commits. The teacher constantly dis-
counts, therefore, the actual product of a student's work,
making allowances for his immaturity.

Commercial teachers and trade teachers, on the other
hand, are likely to be very intolerant of mistakes. They
do not make any careful study of the student's mental
processes which, in many cases, explain the mistakes. Any
one who has seen a shop teacher send a boy back to the
task of making over his work, without a word of expla-
nation as to the way in which he may improve it, will
realize that in many of our shop courses commercial stand-
ards are imposed upon the workers with a good deal of
vigor, but with little tolerance for their immaturity. In fact,
this is supposed to be one of the virtues of shop courses.
There is no parleying with students about their loose meth-
ods and inefficient work. They must come up to the com-
mercial standards by some means or other. Unless they do
reach these standards, their work will be ruthlessly rejected
and they will have pointed out to them their lack of prepa-
ration for actual contact with the real world.

Not all commercial teachers are open to this type of
criticism ; but enough of them would be quite willing to
accept the description of their methods given above to jus-
tify the statement that there is a marked opposition between
the methods adapted in teaching ordinary academic subjects
and the methods of commercial and trade courses. Whether
the one method of procedure or the other is the most advan-
tageous from an educational point of view must, of course,
be determined by an empirical study of the effects of each
method upon students. The psychologist is probably better
acquainted with the effects of the ordinary academic meth-
ods of teaching students, and he notes with interest that

•294 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

*>

the tendency of the academic world at the present time
is to pay more and more attention to the mental processes
through which students are passing. The movement toward
supervised study in all of the academic institutions is one
of the most significant movements in current education.
Unless industrial teachers also recognize the value of super-
vised teaching, it is likely that the breach between their
courses and methods and the ordinary academic courses
will grow wider rather than be eliminated.

SPECIALIZATION

A further psychological principle which emerges from
our examination of the practical courses is the principle
that industry tends toward specialization. We are urged to
prepare brief courses in even the academic subjects which
shall eliminate all of the matter that is not relevant to the
industrial expectations of the student.1

In these continuation schools one of the most significant
arrangements is the close correlation of the theoretical founda-
tions of each trade with the instruction in the processes of the
trade. That is to say, the mathematics of the school is the
mathematics of the shop, whether it is jewelry or shoeniaking
or carpentry. The same is true of the machinist's mathe-
matics. Similarly the drawing of the school is the drawing of
the shop. The problems which the boy finds in the shop to-day
are dwelt upon at length in the school to-morrow. In the same
way the closest possible relations of the sciences, physical or
biological, to the trade concerned are maintained. The youth
learns also the history of his trade, civics, and the proper use
of his mother tongue in relation to his trade.

This spirit of specialization is entirely intelligible when
one studies the historical development of industry. Industry

1 P. H. Hanus, Beginnings in Industrial Education and Other Educa-
tional Discussions, p. 20. Houghton Miffliri Company, 1908.

INDUSTRIAL COURSES 295

has always shown itself to be a progressive concentration
upon particular types of material. If one wishes to borrow
from the anthropologists a very striking illustration of this
fact, he learns that for a long period of time man used only
one substance, namely, stone, in all of his arts. The reason
for this was that he had not discovered the value of other
substances and probably was wholly complacent about the
substance which he knew so familiarly. It takes an indus-
trial concern a long while to make up its mind to change
from one material with which it is familiar to some other
material which is less familiar. It takes a long while in any
business operation to persuade men to change their methods
of procedure. Industry is conservative ; and the student who
gets a training of an industrial type is likely to be conserva-
tive to the extent of excluding from his psychological inter-
ests practically all of the concerns which do not bear directly
upon the one mode of operation that is familiar in his field.

CONSEQUENCES OF SPECIALIZATION

This high degree of specialization within any given in-
dustry explains in a measure why industry and science
have always been relatively aloof from each other. Industry
is so conservative that it does not seek to discover the
possibilities of change which lie all about it. Science, on
the other hand, with its keen interest in the extension of
investigation into new fields, is constantly working out
principles without attempting to apply these principles to
practical situations. Science is an expression of human in-
terest in exploration; industry is an expression of human
interest in the conservation of material and the conser-
vation of energy. Science and industry have, therefore,
been very inert in seeking relations with each other. One
reads in books on education the broad, optimistic statement
that knowledge grows with the evolution of industry and

•296 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

•*

that training in intellectual ways will make more efficient
workmen. Even a superficial knowledge of the history of
the race makes it clear that, so far as the individual and
his training are concerned, there is no ground for this opti-
mism that industry and science will cooperate. In the long
run society, as a whole, does develop both industry and
science ; and in the long run these two types of experience
encounter each other and modify each other's points of
view. But the union of the two types of interest and the
two types of training is one of the most difficult problems
of modern civilization.

IS THERE TO BE SPECIALIZATION IN ORGANIZATION?

These facts explain the bitter controversies that have
arisen in recent years in educational circles with regard to
the organization and administration of industrial education.
There is a party of educators — and they are supported by
practical business men — who believe that it is quite impos-
sible to organize industrial education under the same roof
with general education. They believe that the methods of
industrial education are radically different from those of
ordinary education. They believe that the spirit of these
courses is at variance with the spirit of traditional school
work ; that a new and unhampered effort to turn human
interests in the direction of industry is the only salvation
for our times.

APPLICATIONS MUST BE CONSCIOUSLY DEVELOPED

The psychologist sees in these contentions in favor of a
separate organization of industrial courses not a complete
and discriminating analysis of the situation, but a violent
partisan expression of the psychological facts which all
along have been exhibited in the history of science and

INDUSTRIAL COURSES 297

industry. The psychologist's solution for the situation is
one which calls for the development of that higher form
of intellectual mastery which, in an earlier chapter, has
been called the power of application. That the power of
application is neither abstract science on the one hand
nor specialized industry on the other has been fully stated
in these earlier paragraphs and may be left at this point
without a review of the psychological grounds which
were there presented.

NEW VOCATIONAL COURSES FOE GIRLS

There are plenty of illustrations within the school or-
ganization which could be added to that earlier, theoretical
discussion in support of the conclusion that science and in-
dustry find it very difficult to merge in the school program.
Most of the examples which we have used up to this point
are examples that relate to the training of boys. Let us
choose for the present discussion an example that relates
to the training of girls.

High schools have recently taken on, in increasing de-
gree, courses in domestic art and domestic science, it being
clearly recognized that, whatever occupation a girl is to
enter immediately after her school training, she will inevi-
tably look forward to the ultimate vocation of conducting
a household. So universally has this demand for domestic
courses been recognized that there has been less question
about the introduction of these courses into the school
program than about the introduction of any of the other
vocational courses. There has been the most sincere effort
to articulate these courses with the rest of the work of
the school. Furthermore, since cooking involves certain
changes that are chemical in type, the suggestion naturally
came very early in the development of the domestic courses
that the cooking courses should be articulated as intimately

298 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

as possible with the courses in chemistry. The result is
that we see the most extraordinary efforts to make cook-
ing a science like the science of chemistry. We see, on the
other hand, equally extraordinary efforts to make chemistry
practical for the girl who is studying cooking.

FAILURES IN THE EFFORT TO CORRELATE SCIENCE
AND PRACTICAL COURSES

Any examination of the actual situation in high schools
and colleges will make the unbiased observer perfectly
clear that this effort at articulation of chemistry and cook-
ing has been a huge failure. What commonly happens is
that a course in organic chemistry or a general course in
chemistry is administered with the usual paraphernalia
of laboratory exercises and with the usual demands of a
strictly quantitative, scientific analysis. The girl is prom-
ised, through the whole of this course, that she will get
information which is indispensable for her cooking. She
then goes to the cooking class and finds that the formulas
in this class are loose and unquantitative. Then she finds
that the chemical changes which go on in the ordinary food
substances are by no means understood by her instructors
or by any one who was interested in giving her the known
facts of organic chemistry. She finds that there is a whole
series of unsolved problems in cooking which are not prob-
lems of chemistry at all, but problems of physics or problems
of economics. Her confidence in her teacher who has been
promising her applications of chemistry breaks down. She
feels that there is no correlation between her cooking and
the one subject where this correlation was definitely prom-
ised, and consequently she gives up, in general, the effort
to relate her cooking to the rest of her studies.

Somebody ought to convince the teachers of domes-
tic science that scientific methods can be applied to the

INDUSTRIAL COURSES 299

problems of the cooking laboratory quite as much as in any
of the problems of chemistry which are studied in the ordi-
nary elementary courses. The empirical facts which can be
ascertained with regard to the changes that take place in
meat while it is being roasted are just as important to the
human race as any of the laboratory investigations in the
chemistry course. A description of these changes under
carefully organized, scientific conditions is good science
and good mental discipline even if it is not to be classified
as chemistry or physics in the ordinary sense of the term.
The difficulty, educationally, in these cases is that the cor-
relation has been sought on too narrow a basis. The effort
to make industry scientific has started from the foundation
of a conventional course in science, without recognizing
the fact that this conventional course grew up historically
without reference to the particular problems of cooking.
The sudden effort to bring the two together without the
creation of any intermediate system of ideas is destined,
from the outset, to be a failure. The trouble here, as else-
where in the school program, lies in the assumption that if
a student is given two bodies of knowledge, the two will
flow together in his mind and affect each other favorably ;
whereas all school experience goes to show, beyond any
perad venture, that two systems of knowledge given to a
student are as unlikely to flow together in his mind as two
streams on two sides of a watershed.

COURSES IN AGRICULTURE ILLUSTRATE THE DIFFICUL-
TIES OF CORRELATION

Another example of the extreme difficulty of working
out correlations between science and industry is to be found
in the recent experiments which have been undertaken in
agricultural courses in the high school. A very large body
of literature has been created on this topic and it would

•800 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

*

require a specialist to offer any valid judgments about the
actual situation at the present time.1

Quoting from the report by Robison, we see that it is the
judgment of a specialist that the situation is not materially
different from that which is described in connection with
cooking and chemistry.

Agriculture is probably taught as well as other sciences in
the same schools, but the deficiencies are more common on ac-
count of the greater opportunity afforded to make concrete the
principles of the various sciences. So much have the sciences
been regarded as instruments of a disciplinary education, that
the absence of concrete applications has not seemed to many to
be such a marked defect. The pedagogy of agricultural instruc-
tion must take account of the essentially utilitarian aspect of
this subject. The philosophy underlying the method of instruc-
tion is not consistent with that conception of education that to
be cultural is to be useless ; nor does agriculture in the schools
depend for its justification on any supposed disciplinary values,
not that it does not possess as much value in this direction as
other studies, but agriculture as a study may justly claim to
have a content of its own that is worth while. It does not need
the prop of a disciplinary conception of education that bids fair
to become obsolete. But if the administrator's idea is to teach
the art or trade of farming, his methods, while involving the
idea of doing, will probably be those of purely imitative doing,
and not calculated to cultivate initiative, to give opportunity
for forming and correcting judgments, nor for acquiring a scien-
tific habit of thought. Viewed as an education, agriculture
should do all these things as truly as any other science is sup-
posed to do. We must remember that we are teaching children
as well as subjects. (P. 173.)

We do not have to believe that the unrelated chemistry ex-
periment is the only thing giving opportunity for making and

1 W. G. Hummel and B. R. Hummel, Material and Methods in High
School Agriculture (The Macmillan Company, 1913) ; G. A. Bricker, The
Teaching of Agriculture in the High School (The Macmillan Company,
1911) ; C. H. Robison, Agricultural Instruction in the Public High Schools
of the United States (Teachers College, 1911).

INDUSTRIAL COURSES 301

correcting judgments; nor is this the exclusive attribute of
that particular kind of mathematical physics that is killing
itself off except as bolstered up by college entrance require-
ments. The contests between the disciplinarians and the phe-
nomenologists tend to drive the latter class into an extreme
and untenable position. The remark made recently that " there
are no methods of teaching above the grades " is not an indict-
ment of the high school instruction and not of pedagogy. Even
in the grades the current methods of carrying on garden work
are not calculated to encourage initiative on the part of the
child or to place any definite problems before him for solution.
It is often only a sort of physical exercise that is better than
gymnasium work because it is out of doors. (P. 175.)

PROBLEMS OF APPLICATION AND DISCIPLINE

This last quotation leaves us with two general psycho-
logical problems which we must canvass more fully in later
chapters. One of these problems has been emphasized
throughout this chapter. It is the problem of relating sci-
ence to industrial training. The second problem which is
suggested by Mr. Robison is the general problem of mental
discipline, to which he refers in the remark that this doctrine
of education is rapidly becoming obsolete. We shall reserve
for a general chapter the discussion of this topic. But we
must take the opportunity of reiterating what was said in
an earlier chapter. The ancient languages have borne,
because of their completely developed form, a very large
burden of the discussion of the general doctrine of formal
discipline. Everywhere through the course of study this
problem turns up as an important problem. Does one sub-
ject have a bearing upon other subjects in the course of
study ? Does the mental attitude which a child cultivates
in one sphere of experience affect his mental life in other
spheres ? We have seen how entirely possible it is for sci-
ence and industry to be separated from each other in the

802 PSYCHOLOGY OP HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

*

history of the race and in the experience of the individual.
We have had occasion to call attention to the grave educa-
tional problem which arises out of this fact We shall later
see that any statement that subjects are not related to each
other is of cardinal importance to the educator and cannot
be dismissed by the mere assertion that at present relations
do or do not exist. The important question for the student
of 'education is how can school work be organized so as to
gain as intimate a relationship as possible between the dif-
ferent mental processes which the student cultivates. No
educational scheme is adequately worked out which has
to be characterized by the statement that two subjects are
so remote from each other that one may go on developing
without influencing the other.

This chapter leaves us with a clearly defined problem.
A solution of this problem can be reached only through
further analyses of related subjects.

CHAPTER XIV

SCIENCE
DIFFICULTY OF ORGANIZING SCIENCE INSTRUCTION

Throughout the last few chapters the implication that
science cultivates a type of experience which is desirable has
been expressed without any serious effort to justify the
position assumed. When we turn to the school situation
we find much to discourage the assumption that science is
a successful element of the course of study. As was pointed
out in the introductory chapter, twenty years ago there
was the most unqualified optimism among those who were
active in introducing science into school programs. They
were emphatic in the assertion, which cannot be denied,
that science lies at the foundation of modern industrial
development. They called attention to the popular interest
in scientific discovery and to the vast improvement and en-
largement of the methods of research. They assumed that
it would be easy to introduce students to science. Expe-
rience has served to temper this optimism. During two
decades the percentage of election of science courses has
steadily decreased. Textbook after textbook has appeared
and been discarded. High-school administrators say that
the teaching in science is not as effective as the teaching in
literary subjects. The various courses in the different sci-
ences show no coherence, and the outcome in the way of
practical applications made by students is so meager that
the value of science teaching is, on every hand, seriously
called in question. Certainly if any situation ever demanded
careful examination, it is this failure of science to establish

304 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

+

itself in an age when science is popularly thought of as the
most productive type of intellectual activity.

The discoveries which have been made by science teachers
during this period of discouragement may be summarized
in the following statements. The scientific attitude of
mind is by no means a simple attitude, and it is not one
which is readily assumed by the immature thinker. The
interest of the student in the things about him, which
interest it was assumed would prepare him for science, is,
as a matter of fact, utterly unscientific and so far from
furnishing the basis for scientific study that in many cases
it creates a prejudice against science. While science has
had a powerful influence on industrial development, scien-
tific thought and practical skill are not identical forms of
mental activity. Indeed, science and skill are, as we have
seen, the most diverse aspects of mental development. It is
only in the later stages of the two that they are brought
into productive relation. The psychological analysis of
science teaching ought to make clear- the reasons for the
difficulties just mentioned and may suggest some methods
of overcoming these difficulties.

PBIMITIVE SCIENCE

Some of the most suggestive psychological studies of
science are those which deal with the beginnings of scientific
thought among primitive peoples. The savage personified
everything about him. If he heard a clap of thunder, it
suggested to him the idea of a voice. If he saw the force
and power of lightning, he thought of some personal agent
behind the flash. The winds and waves and all the other
activities of physical nature were for him personal forces.
The psychology of these primitive views about nature
is the psychology of a very simple kind of interpretation
of new phenomena by familiar formulas. Man saw the

SCIENCE 305

%

phenomena of nature. His mind tended to relate what he
saw with the personal experiences which were the familiar
facts of his life. The most familiar part of the world was
that made up of personal emotions and ideas. These per-
sonal attributes he carried over and attached to the phe-
nomena of nature.

Not only was the association of ideas thus made domi-
nated by personal experience, but the thinker was vaguely
satisfied with any combination of ideas that comes into
consciousness. The little child is in this respect like primi-
tive man; neither one thinks of the difference between
a true explanation and a mere fiction. In fact, if the fanci-
ful explanation is full of people, it will be accepted by the
immature thinker with the greatest interest. Little children
pass, as did the race, through a period of personifying every-
thing. Dolls and hobbyhorses, even chairs and empty rooms,
take on personal characteristics and furnish the child's mind
with an unbounded opportunity of recombining personal ex-
periences. The reconstructed personified world is for him
just as real as the world of sensory colors and sounds.

Another way of stating the matter is to say that both the
savage and the child feel the need for a fuller experience
than that which is supplied at any moment by the senses.
The child hears a voice, and is impelled by his desire for
a fuller experience to look for the source of the voice. The
child sees a color, and tries to get in contact with the object
so that he may feel its hardness. The demand for a fuller
experience is thus a natural expression of the demand of an
active mind. In securing fuller experiences the child and
the savage unhesitatingly supply ideas from memory. Many
times, rather than trouble to look for the source of a sound,
one thinks he knows and so supplies the idea needed to
make the experience complete. There is, of course, in this
supplying of Elements from memory the largest possibility
of error. The ideas drawn from memory follow the laws

306 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

of the inner world, and it is not probable that the laws of
the inner world will always agree with the laws of external
reality. When, for example, the inner world follows the
principle of personification, it gets so much out of harmony
with the real facts of the physical world that we think of
savage explanations as the sheerest fictions of inner fancy.
And such they were. It was long generations before the
inirrd was disciplined to carry out those elaborate and care-
fully guarded forms of thought which constitute modern
science. Science began with uncritical imaginings and has
only gradually been disciplined into forms of thought in
which the imaginings are brought into agreement with
nature and made productive for the control of nature.

SCIENCE BASED ON MOTIVES OTHER THAN PRACTICAL

It may be well at this stage of the discussion to dispose
of a view which is often expressed in educational literature.
It is said that science grew up as the handmaiden of
industry. Nothing could be more untrue than this view.
Primitive man had a set of explanations of the world
which was immensely more elaborate than were his ideas
in industrial matters.^ He used the stars to guide his ship
or his caravan, but his science went very much beyond the
study of the positions of the stars. His active mind peopled
the firmament with grotesque monsters whose imagined
shapes bound together the stars in constellations; and,
pursuing a vain hope, he sought to determine his own
future by the juxtaposition of the heavenly bodies. To say
that early astronomy was a handmaiden of the art of navi-
gation is to pervert immeasurably the history of science.

Again, take the hunting ceremonies of primitive peoples.
The peoples depended on game for their food and became
most expert in the tracking of animals. The modern scientist
can learn from his unscientific guide the most interesting

SCIENCE 307

and important facts out of which to formulate a science of
animal life. This is because the guide has much practical
information and uses it in tracking game. But the guide
is, in his own science, grotesquely crude and uncritical. The
primitive hunter, when he sits down by the fire after the
day's hunt, lets his imagination have free rein. Then
the prey which he tracks so skillfully during the day takes
on all sorts of personal characteristics and goes through
all kinds of unobserved and unobservable performances.
The hunter is now a man of imagination. He is cultivating
the powers of thought which some day will mature into criti-
cal science, but at this stage he is limited by no restraints of
mere observation and by no disposition to collect evidence
before he enters upon the formulation of theory.

IDEAS SHAPED PRACTICE RATHER THAN THE REVERSE

The unrestrained speculations of primitive man are not
turned in the direction of science by any effort at applica-
tion. Indeed, the history of primitive custom shows exactly
the reverse, how absurdly man shaped his practices to fit
his theory. Think of the practices of sacrifice and religious
propitiation. Primitive society put its members through
the most onerous tasks to satisfy needs which were wholly
of the imagination's making. The history of these practices
is to our modern minds like a fairy tale. They are, indeed,
part of the fantastic world which man made in his own
mind and substituted for the world of his senses. To
understand primitive customs one has to study primitive
myths. Thought was not controlled by practical adjust-
ments. Quite the contrary, behavior was dominated by
fantastic imagination.

308 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

CRITICAL THOUGHT ARISES FROM SOCIAL RELATIONS

The first revisions of primitive science came not from
the efforts to reconcile practical behavior and thought, but
rather from the clash of social groups. The history of the
Greeks illustrates this in a very striking way. The various
Greek tribes developed elaborate systems of mythology
and elaborate systems of ceremonial practices. Each tribe
was content to believe its own myths until tribe began
to come into intimate relation with tribe. Then the clash
of social opinion made men skeptical. There is nothing
more jarring to one's primitive scientific theories than to
find that one cannot persuade his neighbor. So it was with
the Greek thinkers. At first each developed his own views
without restraint, but soon he met some one who had evolved
other views. Now came the clash of wits which characterize
that period of Greek skepticism that introduced the first
great constructive period of Western thought. During the
period of skepticism the Greeks learned that thought, to be
productive, must be critical as well as imaginative.

Not only does the thought of a whole tribe thus progress
through social conflicts to a stage where criticism checks
and organizes imaginations, but there appears during this
social checking up of ideas a tendency for the thoughts of
each individual to become more systematic and internally
coherent This is most conspicuous in those purely myth-
ological systems such as the system of the Greek gods
and goddesses. The system gradually cultivated a kind
of inner coherence, and all new experiences which were
allowed place in the system were made to conform to the
general scheme. Indeed we find that the hierarchy of gods
was made to conform more and more to a well-arranged
human state, thus revealing not only system but a system
of a very familiar type.

SCIENCE 309

INTERNAL CONSISTENCY AS A LOGICAL CRITERION

Thus the first principle of validity arises and gets a
general social recognition. Thinking is regarded as valid
when it is consistent with itself. There is no psychological
demand at the outset for conformity with any external
facts. All that is necessary is that ideas shall not contra-
dict earlier ideas.

This criterion of internal consistency is the one which is
used even to-day in testing much of our scientific thinking.
If the geologist has a theory with regard to the formation
of the earth's surface which he cannot test with reference
to its actual agreement with external facts, he offers as
evidence of the validity of his theory the criterion that
his theory includes all that is known without presenting
any internal inconsistencies. Indeed, one may say that the
whole of formal logic is based on this criterion of internal
consistencies. One may reason validly in non-Euclidean
geometry where his assumptions are known from the first
to be actually contrary to fact as observed. One may be
mistaken in his premises but consistent in his inferences.
To be sure, modern science has developed methods of test-
ing premises as well as methods of testing processes of
inference, but it is interesting to note that science is, in its
attitude toward the criterion of consistency, very different
from the so-called practical man. The man of science is
willing to go through a long and laborious comparison of
different ideas for the purpose of testing their internal
coherency. The practical man, on the other hand, cuts
short this comparison of ideas and resorts to the practical
test If the thing works, it is enough for him. If, on the
other hand, it does not work, the practical man casts it aside,
whatever may be its scientific probability. The scientist
very frequently has to hold to the validity of his views,
because they meet the criterion of internal consistency, for

.810 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

<»

a long period before he is able to refine the instruments
of demonstration far enough to persuade a practical man
of the workableness of the theory.

There is so wide a breach between practical tests of
validity and the demand for consistency that at the outset
the practical tests cut no figure. Primitive man was satis-
fied when his stories held together, quite apart from their
application in any way to practical life. It is only in the
latest and most elaborate stages of science and industry
that internal consistency and practical applicability are both
recognized as equally valid methods of testing thinking.
It is only when these two entirely different attitudes of
mind and means of criticism are equally applied to thought
that we get the highest productivity of thinking. For long
generations the two types of criticism of truth were sepa-
rated from each other. For example, the medieval theolo-
gian cared not at all for practical applicability. Many a
practical man cares not at all about theoretical consisten-
cies. It is only the modern worker, trained in applying
science to industry, who can see the importance of both
criteria of validity.

IMAGINATION RECONSTRUCTS ENVIRONMENT

Another way of stating the same case and of reviewing
the earlier discussion is to say that ideas may be put to-
gether in the freest possible fashion. For primitive man
the putting together of ideas was itself a pleasure quite
apart from any use which could be made of these imagi-
nations* The same is true in the personal experience of
each of us. We all get pleasure out of pure imagination.
We build castles in the air and construct in thought com-
binations of ideas which satisfy our desires. It is much
easier to satisfy one's desires in this thought world than in
the world of actual reality. Indeed, so free is the thought

SCIENCE 311

world from agreement with external things that very fre-
quently it is difficult to see how free imaginations come to
be disciplined into service in a world where men live and
move under the limitations of external things. It is not
until we realize that the ideas which one puts together
freely in thought are capable of being used as models on
the pattern of which to rearrange external reality that we
see the possibility of uniting the two interests. It is one
of the most striking characteristics of human life that man
has turned upon his environment and has, through his in-
dustrial and practical arts, remolded the environment to
fit his ideas. Instead of changing himself to fit the external
conditions of climate, as did the animals during the process
of organic evolution, man has gone about changing the
external conditions around him in such a way that he
has freed himself from the necessity of changing his own
physical characteristics. Anthropologists have long called
attention to the fact that the physical changes which man
has undergone in the course of his whole history are rela-
tively very slight. Man of to-day is not different in size
and general physical equipment from man when he first
appeared on the earth's surface. The fact is, he has not
been progressing physically during the period which an-
thropology has studied. When we study his behavior
we see that there is no reason why he should change
physically. He has evolved a very much better plan of
adaptation to his environment. He now reorganizes his
surroundings. Instead of becoming strong in his own arms
and legs he devises mechanical substitutes for his own
weakness. Instead of learning how to fight the animal
kingdom better, he takes the beasts into his service and
domesticates those animals which will be of use to him in
maintaining his own life. These processes of mechanical
invention and of domestication of animals have been made
possible through the fact that man was able in his own

312 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

thinking to rearrange the world and then by his actions
to make the external world conform to the world which
he had imagined.

It is well, therefore, that the internal world of imagi-
nation should be freer than the external world of things,
It is because of the freedom with which man can readjust
his .inner world that he has been able to make his great
strides in civilization. In this inner world of free recombi-
nation of ideas man was at first without restraint of any
kind. Then he came to demand internal consistency. All
that he asked of his ideas at the beginning was that they
should not disagree with each other. During this early
period his ideas were not very useful ; indeed, they often
misled him. Later he realized the advantage that would
come to him if he could accomplish in the external world
what he thought of in the world of ideas. Then he began
to try and test his imaginations by the possibilities of reali-
zation in the external world. Now a new type of thought
was created ; namely, experimental research.

CRITICAL THINKING LATE IN DEVELOPMENT

Such considerations explain how the transition gradually
takes place from the first unsystematic imaginings of primi-
tive man to the critical, systematic thought of the modern
sciences. How slow this evolution has been one realizes
when he remembers that not until the most modern period
has science come to be the dominant mode of thought
Earlier centuries were speculative, theological, romantic.
Only the last centuries have been scientific. We should
keep in mind this slow development of science when we
propose a course for the school. Can children learn to sub-
stitute something better for their imaginations about the
world? Can children learn the lesson of self-criticism?
Can children become systematic and at the same time

SCIENCE 318

learn to conform their systems of thinking to the world
of physical phenomena? The answer suggested by the
history of science to these questions is not encouraging.
The race learned scientific modes of thought very late and*
after a long period of intellectual struggle in which error
dominated. How then shall the child escape some of these
difficulties ? When one recalls the fact that experimental
methods are among the latest achievements of the race,
he understands in a measure why the efforts of science
teachers to introduce experimental methods into schools
have met with a serious rebuff.

SPECIALIZATION IN SCIENCE

If we turn from the first beginnings of science and con-
sider some of the later periods of its history, we shall realize
more fully another cardinal difficulty in promoting scien-
tific thought and teaching. Science, as a system of experi-
ence, tends to become highly specialized. This is due to
the fact that individuals who pursue one system of ideas
for a time tend to become limited in thought and action
to that one field of experience. The mind is narrow in its
ranges of attention, and, whatever may be the possibilities
of extension of any system of ideas, the tendency in the
life of a single individual is to narrow all experience down
to a single type. While society as a whole may be inter-
ested in different systems of ideas, the individual tends to
become a specialist. This tendency is so often exemplified
that it seems unnecessary to offer illustrations in support
of the above statement. The psychology of science as well
as of industry would, however, be incomplete without great
emphasis on this principle.

It may be well, therefore, to consider one of the strik-
ing examples of specialization which appears in the his-
tory of science. The science of chemistry grew out of a

814 PSYCHOLOGY OP HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

semipractical and general interest. Men had long known
the metals and were familiar with their uses and with many
methods of treating them in art and industry. The the-
ory, which we now know to be a pure fiction of human
desire, that baser metals can be turned into gold, led men
to make trials and to enter into the most elaborate schemes
in prder to make Nature conform to their theory. But
Nature was stubborn, and as men worked to achieve their
desired goal they became more and more conscious of the
fact that Nature follows certain laws altogether different
from those which human speculation had planned. The
shock of disappointment was great, and some of those who
had entered upon the search for the desired power to change
metals gave up discouraged. Others became absorbed in a
wholly new quest. Finding that Nature has her own laws,
they began to inquire into these laws. So deeply did these
searchers after Nature's laws become immersed in their
study that they lost contact with the world about them.
They appear in history as a group of men devoted to a
special search. They cultivated a language and a fraternity
of their own. They did not ask about the uses which could
be made of their findings. They were bent only on enlarg-
ing the one type of knowledge. This one type of knowledge
became to them an absolutely engrossing interest, a religion.

SPECIALIZATION DUE TO LIMITATIONS OF ATTENTION

To the psychologist who reads the history of the begin-
nings and the later development of chemistry the lesson is
clear. The human mind is relatively narrow in its interests.
Once a man becomes absorbed in a certain type and system
of thought, he has no attention for anything outside the
sphere of this one dominant interest. One needs only to
go into any modern chemical laboratory to find descendants
of the alchemists buried in their cult. The research chemist

SCIENCE 815

turns his mind to the task of determining specific gravities
and for him there is only one interest in life. He is an
example of the narrow scope of human attention. Such a
research man has no interest in industrial applications. He-
looks upon application of knowledge as a distraction. If
one is to discover facts and the laws of chemical behavior
of substances, he must think of these, and only these, day
and night. When society at large looks in upon such a
devotee of science at his work, it turns away with an un-
canny feeling that he has ceased to be a part of the normal
human group. Most men have limits of attention that are
narrower than those of the research student, but the com-
mon narrowness of ordinary men seems broader because
the ordinary man flits from problem to problem and gains
in breadth of objects touched by scattering his limited
powers in many directions. The research student holds
to one group of facts and so stands forth convicted of
human narrowness.

DANGERS OP SPECIALIZATION

The growth of specialization in modern civilization is
one of the drawbacks of a highly scientific age. The physi-
cist of to-day is likely to think slightingly of his fellows who
work in botany and zoology. New sciences are always
received with coldness. For example, the science of psy-
chology is so different from the natural sciences in method
and material that it has made its way slowly against the
critical skepticism of these older sciences. The antithesis
between applied science and theoretical science is sometimes
emphasized to the point of bitterness. The only salvation
in the situation is that society as a whole overcomes some
of the narrowness of its individual members. The chem-
ical researcher is supplemented by the practical man who
dyes cloth and tans leather and makes sugar. Society is

316 PSyCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

gradually evolving special agencies to help her in overcom-
ing the narrowness of specialists. She is evolving specialists
whose business it is to bring to narrow-minded practical
workers the results of the researches of narrow-minded
students of science. These middlemen are sometimes un-
able to get the sympathy of either group whose efforts they
are staying to unify. Society needs the student of applied
chemistry, however, and will doubtless be able to support
him until his place in the scheme of human effort becomes
established.

The narrowness of specialization in the sciences is the
source of one of the gravest problems of the modern school.
How shall the student be put in contact with science and
be shown the meaning of scientific method when the typical
attitude of the scientist is narrow devotion to a single
limited field? The high-school course of study of to-day
shows how difficult is the answer. Shall there be short highly
specialized science courses giving the student glimpses into
each of the great divisions of science? Shall there be
courses giving a few sample problems and solutions from
biology and a like number from physics ? Shall the student
be given results, being told in the easiest possible way
what science has learned, or shall he be brought into the
laboratory and guided in the discovery? Shall he elect
science after he finds out from his reading or through his
endeavor to keep up with modern practical life that science
would give him the typical modern view of the world, or
shall he be required for the good of his soul to take some
science whether he has learned to want it or not ? Shall
high-school science be exact and in its most final form, full
of mathematical statements and rigid and complete in its
demonstrations, or shall it aim to persuade the immature
student to look at the world in a critical and systenaatic
way? Shall we teach applications in the first stages of
pcience, thus reversing the history of science, or shall we

SCIENCE 317

wait for applications until science is mature ? These and a
hundred other questions are difficult to answer because
those in charge of science courses are narrow-minded like
all human beings.

THE NEED OP GENERAL STUDIES OP EDUCATIONAL
SITUATIONS

How narrow science makes one was illustrated in the
writer's hearing by a colleague who described the require-
ments which a certain university department of physics was
attempting to enforce upon graduates of that institution
who wanted to secure recommendations to teach physics.
The department wanted all intending teachers of physics
in high schools to take three fifths of their courses in that
department. It can be shown, and was shown in the case
in question, that in no high school in that state could a
teacher be found who taught physics alone. Physics, then,
was only part of the rational preparation of the prospective
teacher. Suppose the second subject to be a science. There
would be no adequate margin in the student's course for
training on a like scale even in this second subject, to say
nothing about the general courses in literature and history
which it is commonly thought a student should pursue.

THE NEED OP A GENERAL CURRICULUM OP SCIENCE

COURSES \s^

Another symptom of the limitation of the ordinary
scientist's horizon is seen in the fact that after all these
years no one has devised a high-school course which ex-
tends through a period of four years. Do the science
people realize the enormous disadvantage to their subjects
which results from their absorption in their specialties to
such an extent that they cannot get together and agree as

318 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

to the advice which should be given to students about the
proper sequence of science courses ? The following table,
compiled by Professor Caldwell from statistics given by
G. W. Hunter,1 shows the present chaotic state of the art
of teaching science.

SUMMARY MADE FROM TWO HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SIX

SCHOOLS

FIRST
YEAR

SECOND
YEAR

THIRD
YEAR

FOURTH
YEAR

Botany

76

94

26

29

General Biology

36

23

7

7

Human Physiology

105

34

21

33

General Science

0

0

0

0

Physical Geography

94

49

6

17

ZodloffY

27

84

24

16

Physics

13

26

148

90

Chemistry

0

8

94

146

Astronomy and Geology

0

0

8

23

GENERAL SCIENCE AS AN INTRODUCTORY COURSE

One suggestion which has been offered with reference
especially to the first-year course is that a composite gen-
eral course be organized including material from various
special sciences. To be sure, the onlooker sees evidences
of specialization even in these general courses. One of the
general courses is based on physics and another on biol-
ogy. The scientist has his specialty as his chief topic of
attention even when he tries to be general. These courses
in general science, whatever may be their virtues, are con-
demned by most specialists as unscientific, and they are
found by administrative officers to be difficult to keep alive
because the supply of teachers of such courses seems to
be short.

1 School Science and Mathematics, Vol. X, 1010, p. 3.

SCIENCE 819

A STUDY OF CHILDREN'S SCIENTIFIC INTERESTS

The organization of other courses for various years has
also been dominated very largely by the supposed interests
of the science itself. Is it not time that scientific studies
of the mental processes of students be substituted for a
too absorbing devotion to scientific studies of physics and
botany ? One such study, made by Mr. Finley,1 although
it dealt with the interests of children in the elementary
school, may be reported as furnishing the clearest evidence
that there are successive stages of development in scientific
interest. In the investigation in question objects were ex-
hibited to children in the different grades of the elementary
school for the purpose of determining the type and distribu-
tion of their interests. In the first part of the experiment
the children were shown a water animal, and their interests
were tested by the questions they asked. In the second
part of the experiment a plant and an animal were exhib-
ited and a simple physical apparatus was demonstrated,
and the interest was measured by the choice made by the
children later of a subject on which to write.

Two striking facts came out of the investigation. First,
there is a radical change in the attitude of the children as
we pass upward through the grades. In the earlier grades
the interests of the children can be described as centered
on mere identification or on purely personal relations. The
questions asked were such as these : f< What is it ? " " May
I touch it ? " " Will it bite ? " Obviously these questions
are not scientific at all. There is no interest indicated in
them in a critical study of the structure or function of the
thing itself. There is only a crude, personal interest mani-
fested as the earliest type of interest which children have
in the world about them. In the later grades evidence

1 Unpublished Master's Thesis in the Department of Education, The
University of Chicago.

820 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

began to appear of interest in the structure of the animal
and in its life history. This higher type of interest had
been fostered in the school by nature study, so that even
here it may be that the apparent interest of the children
in structure and function was an expression rather of the
results of instruction than of a natural and spontane-
ous^ interest in these aspects of reality. At all events,
whether induced by the classroom work or by the natural
growth of the child's experience, we have evidence here
of a change from an earlier unscientific attitude to a later
scientific attitude.

In the second place, it became apparent that different
classes of facts commanded the interest of children in dif-
ferent degrees. It has usually been assumed in discussing
children's interest that they will early and spontaneously
turn to the scientific study of animals. We all know that
children are interested in animals, and the inference has
often been uncritically drawn that all interest is scientific
interest It is only later, we are told in the older books on
education and in the prefaces to nature-study books, that
children can be interested in objects which are inanimate
or do not move. Now it appears from the investigation
that some children are very much interested in simple me-
chanical phenomena. They comprehend such facts very
much more readily than they comprehend the structure
and function of animals. In this particular experiment
one of the lower classes showed an overwhelming interest
in the pendulum, and some of them preferred the plant to
the animal. With these facts before us we must explain the
universal interest of children in animals as unscientific.
They are interested in animals because animals have so
many characteristics which the child recognizes as personal
characteristics. It is so easy to personify an animal that
the child begins in the early stages of experience by feeling
a very large sympathy for the animal, and just because of

SCIENCE 321

this close personal friendliness, he is far from desiring any
structural or functional knowledge about it. If one points
to the history of science, he can easily show that man
studies last his own bodily structure and only in the latest
stages of scientific development did he study animals. All
of the biological sciences are very recent sciences so far as
the race is concerned, and that for exactly the same reason
that the scientific study of biological facts is very much
more difficult for the child than the study of simple
mechanical devices.

STUDY OF THE RELATION OF DBA WING TO SCIENCE
INSTRUCTION

A second investigation which has much to contribute to
the psychology of science is one in which Mr. F. C. Ayer 1
has studied the usefulness of drawing as a means of instruc-
tion in science courses. It is commonly assumed that repre-
sentative drawings ought to constitute a very large part of
a course in science. Since laboratory notebooks came to be
regarded as necessary, one finds a demand frequently reiter-
ated that students make sketches in these books. The atten-
tion of Mr. Ayer was drawn to this problem through two
sets of considerations. In the first place, it did not appear
on superficial examination of the standings of students that
those who can draw best are the best students from the
point of view of the teacher of science. In the second
place, it was evident from the psychologist's point of view
that drawing calls for types of training and interest by no
means identical with those required for science. Mr. Ayer
was led, therefore, to make a more rigid comparison, and
it appeared that his skepticism with regard to the relation

1 Unpublished studies in the Department of Education, The Uni-
versity of Chicago. See also L. de Boisbaudran, The Training of the
Memory in Art. The Macmillan Company, 1911.

'322 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

between drawing and science was entirely justified. It
appeared that there is very little correlation between the
ability to draw and the standing of the student either in
science or in his general courses. He found that the student
may pay the strictest attention to the aspects of an object
necessary for correct representative drawing without becom-
ing conscious of the scientific import of the same details.
Furthermore, it did not appear that improvement in science
and improvement in drawing go hand in hand. The student
who shows an increasing degree of efficiency in science may
remain entirely static at a low level of ability to draw.
Conversely, the person who improves in his ability to draw
does not necessarily show any improvement in his science
work. This negative result must, however, be paralleled by
a positive statement regarding the relation between draw-
ing and science work. Mr. Ayer was able to show on the
positive side that the ability to make a sketch which points
out hi careful analytical detail those characteristics of an
object which are of importance for the purposes of scientific
explanation develops in parallel with the development of
scientific thought itself. Thus, if we are studying the
habits of a bird and it is desirable that we should know
something about the type of food which the bird lives on,
we may with propriety ask the student to make a drawing
which will show the function of the bird's beak. If we
wish to find out in what kind of an environment the bird
lives, it is desirable that the student should make such
sketches of the bird's feet and of its plumage as will show
the relation of these structures to environment. Thus the
study of drawing confirms the conclusion that it is very de-
sirable that students should be able to analyze the objects
which they are studying.

Analytical drawing as distinguished from mere making
of pictures seems, therefore, to be the solution of our prob-
lem. One may say that scientific analysis must always have

SCIENCE 323

a definite motive. Attention on the part of a student can-
not be too widely distributed over the object as a whole,
if he is to be a good scientist. Furthermore, he must not
be left to be guided merely by his accidental appreciation
of this or that element of form. The student who is to use
an object for scientific study must be guided by a definite
principle of selection and analysis. He must look at the
object with a view to finding out exactly how far the
characteristics of this object are related to the one problem
which he is at that moment trying to solve. Scientific draw-
ing thus appears to be guided thought ; science helps the
student to distinguish from the mass of elements of experi-
ence those elements which are significant from a particular
point of view. In a certain sense of the word scientific
thought is thus seen to be narrow and limited. One turns
away from the general characteristics of the situation to the
particular characteristics and is guided in this specialization
by definite principles and interests.

We have already seen that there are ample evidences for
the statement that science is highly specialized. So also in
this matter of scientific drawing or sketching we see that
it is specialized sketching which is of value. Only after
the student has worked out each of the details of an object
from some particular scientific point of view can he come
back to the more comprehensive and general problem of
fitting these details together in one comprehensive study
of the whole. A comprehensive study of the whole situa-
tion or a synthetic study of the object is, therefore, one
of the very late products of scientific thought. Analysis
or specialization naturally precedes the later grasp of the
object as a whole. The experiments reviewed in an earlier
chapter, where an example was given of the development
of an individual recognition of a figure, illustrate this
principle very clearly.

824 P§YCHOLO&Y OP HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

SCIENCE MUST UNIFY EXPERIENCE

The synthetic mental processes by which science attempts
to build up in the minds of students a complete idea of the
world are quite as important for psychology as the analytic
processes which have just been discussed.

PRIMITIVE EFFORTS AT UNIFICATION

Again an illustration from primitive science will help us.
The Greeks saw a part of the relations of the earth to the
sun ; they observed the sun travel from day to day across
the sky and they tried to formulate some idea of the way
in which this could happen. To their minds the largest and
most powerful instrument of movement was a horse and
chariot. Consequently, they gave the sun in their thought
all of the machinery of movement across the heavens that
their imagination could devise, and the f onn of this imagined
means of movement was a chariot with horses. We regard
this idea of the Greeks as very crude. All of their stories
about how the horses ran away, and about the coming of
the sun down toward the earth and scorching the desert,
seem to us to be very childish — because the imagery is
wholly inadequate, and is so obviously inadequate that
their satisfaction with it causes us no end of wonder at
their simplicity of mind.

In the same way we often find that the explanations of
facts offered by children are picturesque, but ridiculous.
What is inside of a mechanical toy, for example? Since
the child does not know anything about mechanics, he is
very likely to think that there is some person or some ani-
mal inside. This simple explanation is merely the effort of
the child to get an idea which will fill out his experience.
He will be disappointed when he opens up the toy and finds
nothing of the kind. Indeed, the astonishment with which

SCIENCE 325

he will be filled when he comes in contact with the real facts
of the case is comparable to the reluctance exhibited by the
race to substitute mechanical forces for the agencies that
they originally assumed for all sorts of natural phenomena.

UNIFICATION THROUGH THE DEVELOPMENT OP
SYSTEMS OF IDEAS

In view of this difficulty of supplying children with ade-
quate systems of ideas, we find much of our modern science
instruction engrossed in the task of filling the minds of
children with the right kind of supplementary ideas. One
sees elaborate models of mechanical principles and of phys-
iological organs. These models are constructed in the effort
to give children proper systems of ideas.

One of the best lessons that the writer ever heard in
physics illustrates admirably what is needed in order to
introduce elementary students to some adequate notion of
physical forces. The lesson in question was a lesson on the
transmission of heat The instructor began by furnishing
the students with the imagery necessary to enable them to
picture to themselves the molecules and their relations. He
asked them if they had ever noticed the way in which bricks
are canned in the construction of a building from the sup-
ply to the point where they are to be used. By questioning
the class he brought out the fact that there are at least two
entirely different ways in which the bricks may thus be car-
ried. In one case a line of workmen is formed and the
bricks are passed directly from one to the other along the
line. In the second case one workman takes a hodful of
bricks and goes the whole distance. With this analogy in
mind, he gave some simple demonstrations to show that in
some cases the heat which is applied to substances, such as
iron, is passed along rapidly from molecule to molecule.
This is analogous to the action of the line of workmen who

326 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

pass the bricks from man to man. On the other hand, in
the case of water there is no rapid transmission of heat from
molecule to molecule, but heat must be carried by a change
in the position of the heated water particles. He gave a
demonstration to show that if water is heated, there is a ten-
dency for its particles to take their load of heat and move
to a new position. They do not, in this case, pass the heat
to other molecules directly, but they keep the load of heat
and move about, thus giving the phenomena of convection.
In general, molecular phenomena are much more abstract
for students than are the mechanical phenomena treated in
the first chapter of physics. Put into psychological terms,
this statement means that students have great difficulty in
forming coherent systems of ideas about molecules, while
they can more readily think their way through the mechan-
ical processes, which are more open to direct observation.
The effect of this greater difficulty in understanding mo-
lecular phenomena is that in American high schools very
little attention is given to chemistry and to those forms of
physical phenomena which are chiefly molecular. In Euro-
pean schools, where one of the guiding motives for the in-
troduction of science has been the practical application of
these sciences to industry, more attention has been given
to chemistry than in this country. Foreign visitors in our
secondary schools are very much surprised to find that we
do not have special courses that are centered around the
chemistry of industry. The common practice here is un-
doubtedly due to the psychological difficulty of teaching
an abstract subject.

FORMALISM ENCOURAGED BY ABSTRACT INSTRUCTION

The abstract character of much science further results in
the student's giving up the effort to acquire a real system
of ideas ; he resorts to the easier method of learning the

SCIENCE 327

sentences given him in his text. The difficulty in such
cases is that the student never gets an independent mastery
of the methods of science, and merely follows the verbal
formulas of some scientist who has turned observation into
verbal description and verbal formulas. Words are not to
be condemned as unscientific. Indeed, science could not
develop without these essential aids to abstract thought
The trouble is that where finished verbal formulas are sub-
stituted in the mind of a student for systems of ideas,
science is subordinated to words rather than aided by them.
The grave problem which confronts the science teacher is
the problem of making sure that the student shall learn
how to guide himself in critical thought even when he must
deal with abstractions and words.

COURSES IN CONSTRUCTION NOT INHERENTLY
SCIENTIFIC

One of the suggestions which has been offered is that the
student can be made scientific if he is confronted with con-
structive problems. Let him feel the desire to do something,
and he will learn to use his mind in satisfying his desire.
He will be driven to thinking. Sometimes the explicit
statement is made that scientific investigations grow, of
necessity, out of practical situations. The introduction of
practical arts is accordingly offered as the solution of the
educational problem. Put a boy in the workshop at the task
of making something, and he will discover that he needs to
know how to use a ruler. He needs to know, also, some-
thing about the science of mechanics. Stimulated by these
practical necessities, he will turn eagerly to the study of
mathematics and physics. Enough has been shown in con-
nection with the study of the history of the sciences to make
it clear that this is an unfounded doctrine. Practical in-
dustry does not automatically arouse the scientific attitude

828 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

as its natural consequence. Anyone who is confronted with
the desire to make something is likely to resort to the
crudest means if he is not trained beforehand to adopt more
scientific methods. Instead of studying science and math-
ematics, the boy who wants t£> make something usually
patches together a very crude device, expending as little
time and energy as possible on consideration. Furthermore,
the ordinary attitude of mind is one in which desire for
practical results often fails to arouse even the crudest
activities. All of us would be very glad indeed to have
devices around the house which would satisfy our needs,
but we give up without even attempting to think of the
ways in which these problems could be solved. In short,
there are many needs which are really urgent but are
entirely ignored by even the most practical men.

PROBLEMS MUST BE INTELLECTUALLY APPREHENDED

Perhaps one of the best illustrations of this fact is to
be found in the unintelligent way in which many commu-
nities ignore their really urgent needs for improvement
of sanitary conditions. Savage tribes encountered a great
many inconveniences and often diseases because of the
lack of sanitary conditions in their villages. Modern cities
in the tropics have frequently suffered seriously because of
lack of appreciation of the needs of sanitation. Most children
have a natural neglect of dirt that has to be eradicated
by artificial training. In other words, the importance of
keeping clean and the importance of sanitary measures have
to be learned through a study of the situation. A community
has to be persuaded that it has this sanitary problem before
it will adopt measures to relieve itself of the inconveniences
and dangers that come from ignoring its problem.

Primitive man had need of mechanical devices, but he
had not the remotest imagination of the possibilities of

SCIENCE 329

machinery. Slowly he progressed by very short steps from
the natural weapons which he picked from the ground to a
modification of these, in the direction of greater usefulness
and greater convenience. Slowly he learned, usually through
social comparisons, that there are possibilities of securing
better tools and better instruments of warfare. Still more
slowly he learned that thought about the mechanical prin-
ciples which he employs will facilitate the development of
more elaborate and perfect tools. As the outcome of this
very gradual development man is now keen about his needs
and about the possibility of applying science to the solution
of these needs ; but the situation which has thus resulted
from long experience can in no proper sense of the word be
described as a natural or spontaneous interest in science.
The problems which man has discovered are not natural
problems which force their attention upon the ignorant or
the inattentive. One must learn to see the problems about
him. One must have a certain stock of problems and their
solution in mind, as examples, before he will realize that the
problem-seeking attitude is a productive attitude of mind.
The ordinary member of society does not seek problems of
social reform. He does not seek problems of personal im-
provement. He does not seek problems in the world of vege-
table and animal life about him. He simply goes through
the world adjusting himself in a crude and inadequate way
to the various experiences with which he comes in contact.

SCIENCE DEVELOPS ONLY WHEN PROBLEMS ARE
UNDERSTOOD

The scientific specialist knows that there are problems in
a certain sphere of reality, but he is not likely to be keen
about problems in other directions. After one has examined
minutely the structure of a certain set of animals or plants
he sees familiar problems whenever he encounters a related

880 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

plant or animal. The zoologist and botanist, therefore, are
always prepared to raise questions in the sphere in which
they have had some experience* The man who is interested
in politics or government sees the problems in that sphere
of life, but he does not see the problems of the zoologist or
botanist. He cannot understand how anyone will devote to
the * structure of animals and plants the amount of time
and enthusiasm that the zoologist and botanist are ready to
bestow upon the facts in which they are interested. The
teacher sees problems related to school organization which
the community cannot understand at all. The student of
architecture sees problems in every house which he passes,
while the ordinary observer fails utterly to realize what it
is that absorbs the architect.

In all these cases the first stage in cultivating the attitude
of mind which is to be defined as scientific is that of discov-
ering problems rather than that of seeking solutions. In
the same way, the business of the high-school course of
science consists not merely in giving the solution of prob-
lems; it consists rather in stimulating the student to see
that there are problems to be solved. The difficulty with
most of the science textbooks and with much of the labora-
tory work is that the effort of the teacher is devoted to giv-
ing the student results. Science in its completed form is a
statement of solutions of problems. Science in the personal
form in which the student needs to acquire it consists in
the stating of problems in such a way as to give the student
an appreciation of the reason why anybody should try to
work at the subject. There is nothing more fatal to mental
life than the learning of solutions of problems which are
wholly artificial to the student and not appreciated by him
as having any significance either for himself or for society.
On the other hand, if one can get a student to see that the
facts of life ought to arouse his curiosity, a very large part
of the difficulty in science teaching disappears.

SCIENCE 331

STRANGE FACTS MAKE PROBLEMS EASY TO RECOGNIZE

It is sometimes suggested that science ought to begin
with the study of familiar facts. Psychologically it is very
difficult to see a problem in a familiar fact. It was pointed
out in connection with the study of the manual arts that an
analysis of a familiar situation is difficult just because of its
familiarity. The same general fact was referred to in con-
nection with the discussion of language teaching. It is very
difficult to get students to think about their mother tongue
in any such way as to arouse an interest in the structure
of the language. It is much simpler to get a person in-
terested in a foreign language and to get him to discuss
this language from the point of view of its structure and
vocabulary. In short, it is the unfamiliar which presents
obvious problems. One finds a concession to this natural
psychological attitude in some of the supplementary read-
ers on science which are put into the hands of students.
Remote problems of a type which are utterly unfamiliar to
the student's ordinary experience are offered in these books
as the most stimulating body of material with which to in-
terest the student in scientific investigations. Strange plants
and animals are described, and their modes of life pointed
out, as the means of drawing the attention of the student
to the fact that plants and animals have peculiarities which
need to be studied. One can frequently interest a student
in mechanical devices by referring to some new and elabo-
rate and, on the whole, mysterious mechanical contrivance.
It has been found relatively easy, for example, to interest
boys and older people in wireless telegraphy, because that
is a new invention and difficult to explain and understand.
One hardly feels the necessity of interesting himself par-
ticularly in an ordinary telephone, because it is so familiar.
An appeal to the relatively strange is undoubtedly legiti-
mate as an introduction to science.

332 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

ULTIMATELY THE STUDENT MUST DISCOVER PROBLEMS
IN FAMILIAR FACTS

On the other hand, a continual diet of strange and won-
derful things distorts the student's attitude toward science
in such an extreme way that there is danger of leaving in
his mind the impression that all science deals with strange
and remote objects. One of the criticisms of ordinary news-
paper science is that it leaves in the popular mind the im-
pression that science is full of extraordinary and mysterious
problems and solutions. It would be very difficult to get
any newspaper to publish some of the ordinary facts with
regard to the atmosphere or with regard to the common
principles of mechanics. There is no difficulty in getting a
hearing for an account of some remarkable manifestation of
atmospheric conditions or a description of a new and doubt-
ful application of mechanics. Indeed, the more doubtful
the veracity of the inventor in reporting his invention, the
more likely is his story to get a hearing in the public mind.
The teacher in the high school must, therefore, be on his
guard not to stimulate the student with this foreign and
strange material to such an extent that he will get the im-
pressioir that science always relates to the remarkable and
the remote. The student must be led to see that every
object about him has characteristics which ought to arouse
his inquiring mind to a scientific study.

APPLICATIONS OF SCIENCE CONSTITUTE A SPECIAL
^/ PHASE OF STUDY

It must be admitted that the ordinary textbook on science
and the ordinary class instruction fail lamentably in apply-
ing science and the scientific attitude to the ordinary facts
of experience. It requires very skillful teaching to utilize
physics for the ordinary facts of life. Although we are in

SCIENCE 333

the midst of mechanical appliances of all sorts we over-
look them so readily that the ordinary student does not see
physics as a practical science ; he learns it rather as a body
of remote and abstract principles. The abstractness of the
material is greatly increased by the seleclioin^Tperimental
material which has to do with interests that are ordinarily
very far from the student's life. This is nowhere better illus-
trated than in the physical experiments which are offered
as a means of instruction to girls. It has been pointed out
repeatedly that the ordinary examples used in a textbook
in physics are drawn from the industries that are open to
boys and men rather than from the domestic surroundings
which are familiar to girls. The result is that the course of
physics in the ordinary high school, if made elective, is usu-
ally taken chiefly by the boys. The girls, trained through
their elementary courses and through the ordinary influ-
ences of the home to disregard mechanical devices as lying
outside of the sphere of woman's ordinary activities, look
upon physics as a further expression of the male interest
in mechanics and forget that all of the commonplace facts
of ordinary life can be illuminated by a study of physical
sciences. It would be very much better to begin a study
of physics for girls by taking up some such problems as
those of heat and color. To be sure, these are somewhat
more abstract than are the laws of motion, but we shall
ultimately recognize that the chief business of science,
whatever its subject matter, is to train students to see prob-
lems. When we have comprehended this general principle
we shall undoubtedly find that many of the sciences will
have to be recast. The final form which these sciences
assume for pedagogical purposes will not be the form in
which the sciences are most satisfactory to the mind of the
trained scientist We must find the means of arousing in
students the problem-seeking and the problem-solving atti-
tude. We cannot depend on ordinary life to cultivate either

884 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

one of these attitudes. We must discover devices which
will arouse the problem-seeking attitude, and we must then
focus this attitude upon the commonplace surroundings
of the students.

TEXTBOOKS PKESENT RESULTS BATHEB THAN
PROBLEMS

Illustrations of what has been said in thtf foregoing para-
graphs can be taken from any one of the science books.
Most science textbooks can be criticized by drawing atten-
tion to the fact noted above that these books are chiefly
concerned with the statements .of results. Usually the most
general results are put near the beginning of the textbook.
A textbook in physics begins by telling about molecules
and the constitution of matter or by giving some of the
most compactly formulated statements about the principles
of mechanics. From the point of view of the trained scien-
tist this seems to be the surest way of introducing a termi-
nology which shall be available for the statement of his
science. His conception of the science is that it must fol-
low the logical arrangement of the results of this science.

Again, let us take a textbook in physical geography as
an example. We find that such a book begins with a dis-
cussion of the form of the earth. One of these texts begins
as follows: "On September 6, 1522, a little company of
weather-beaten sailors brought their vessel to rest in a
Spanish port Three years before, Magellan had led them
forth, with a fleet of five ships, to find the Spice Islands
by a western route," and so on. We have a description of
the fact that the earth can be circumnavigated. The next
paragraph takes up latitude and longitude and discusses
the earth from that point of view. The third paragraph
deals with the earth within and without. This paragraph
begins as follows : " No one knows much about the inside

SCIENCE 335

of our globe. Yet most of its bulk and weight* are far
within the surface, and geography, which looks at the earth
as a whole, must take notice of it." We then have some
discussion of strata of rocks and of the internal structure
of the earth's crust. The fifth paragraph deals with land
and water; the sixth deals with volcanoes; and so on.

Doubtless the authors of such a book as this realized to
the full the importance of getting before the student some
general conception of what their science is about. The
authors, knowing the importance of this general conception
of the earth as a whole, began by trying to give the stu-
dent the ripest and most complete product of all their sci-
entific inquiry in the first few pages. The trouble is, the
student who comes to this science sees absolutely no reason
why one should be so absorbed in a study of the earth as a
whole. The student very seldom has any real interest in
the internal anatomy of the earth. He might wonder in a
general way what is there, but he certainly is not prepared
to exercise his mind very vigorously on this inquiry. The
scientist who is enthusiastic about some discovery regard-
ing volcanoes assumes that every student who hears about a
volcano will instantly want to know exactly how the earth
behaves at these points ; but the fact is that the student
is usually quite complacent, knowing that somewhere in
the world a scientist will furnish him with the explanation
of these facts if he needs it, and, furthermore, he feels
that the probabilities are in favor of his never needing the
information at all.

The degree of enthusiasm of the ordinary student for
these introductions which he gets in the textbooks is very
slight indeed. Take textbooks on botany as another ex-
ample. One well-known book on this subject opens with a
paragraph on the inorganic world, contrasted in the next
paragraph with the organic world. Then follow para-
graphs on "the difference between plants and animals,*'

33'6 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

*

a definition of botany, and a full description of the dif-
ferent subdivisions of physiology. Chapter II opens with
a paragraph on " the course of vegetation," and so on.
The student, confronted by these verbal additions to his
experience, gets into the habit of thinking of science as
verbal additions to experience, and he faithfully learns the
\vord$ and keeps them in store against the time when the
teacher demands them.

ABSTRACT STATEMENTS OF RESULTS

If it is objected that this kind of a text is antiquated,
let us take one now in common use. In its " elementary "
edition it begins with protoplasm. It then tells the student
about spirogyra, mucor, nitella, and the rest. The student
is left to interest himself as best he can in these results
of science. The instructor is at the end of the course in
science ; the student is at the beginning, and yet the order
of presentation is that which is appropriate to the teacher's
mature knowledge rather than to the student's immature
state. Furthermore, these results of science come in the
easy form of words. The student suddenly inherits a
wealth of results without any effort on his own part be-
yond that which is necessary to read words. The trouble
is that he has no appreciation of all this that is lavished
on him. Science, from society's point of view, is a rich
body of results. The scientific attitude which ought to be
cultivated in the student is an inquiring attitude of mind
full of problems, not solutions.

Teachers wonder sometimes why students develop an in-
terest in science so slowly. The lack of interest is hardly
to be wondered at when one has canvassed a few of the
textbooks and sees how the first chapters are always very
general, dealing with the results of the science and giving
none of the reasons why the science should be developed.

SCIENCE 337

It would be difficult for the psychologist to improve
upon the efforts of the science people themselves, and it
would be presumptuous to make any recommendations if it
were not for the obvious failure of the current science text-
books to meet the needs of school courses. As has been
pointed out time and time again, the present courses in
science are under such constant criticism by the scientists
themselves that any suggestion of relief will doubtless get
a hearing if not a respectful acceptance.

INSTRUCTION SHOULD PRESENT PROBLEMS

Would it not be well to begin the discussion of a science
in any one of the books by a concrete, particular problem
as distinguished from the usual general results ? Let us
assume that the concrete, particular problem is approached
at first in a wholly unscientific way. Let it be described from
the historical point of view, explaining the interest which
man has cultivated, or let it be approached from the point
of view of its unusual characteristics. For example, in
ordinary conversation the layman finds that the botanist
has a body of information about the wheat plant which
is so interesting that he wonders why this has not been
put in the first chapter of some botany textbook. The
answer of the scientist is, of course, that the wheat plant
is by no means a suitable object for an introductory study.
It does not exhibit the organs of a plant in that form which
makes it easy to base upon it a later analysis of other plants
and their organs. The attitude of the psychologist and the
layman in science is that the textbooks which begin with
the forms of plant life that are easy to expound do not
seem to have succeeded, after many years, in arousing
high-school students to a satisfactory pitch of enthusiasm
for botany. Why not, for the sake of experiment, try some-
thing new?

838 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

LABORATORY METHOD OF INSTRUCTION

No study of science courses would be complete without
full recognition of the enormous contribution which has
been made to the intellectual life of students by the intro-
duction of laboratory courses. Scarcely a generation has
passed since laboratory exercises were first introduced into
the high-school curriculum, and in this short period their
usefulness as instruments of instruction has been so com-
pletely demonstrated that any new method in the humanities
as well as in the sciences needs only to call itself a labora-
tory method to be sure of a respectful hearing. A well-
organized laboratory exercise does for the student much
that the general textbook, overfull of results, fails to do.
The laboratory exercise confronts the student with a prob-
lem ; it leaves him to work out the solution ; it gives him
an opportunity to verify his judgments. It is concrete ; it
shows by many of its obvious, external characteristics its
relation to ordinary life.

How, then, can the laboratory method ever fail? The
answer to this question is implied in the directions offered
by one experienced teacher in his chapter on Instruction
in the Laboratory. l The directions much abbreviated are
as follows:

First, the object of the experiment must be definitely stated.
. . . Second, the apparatus must be lucidly described. . . . Third,
a minute and practical description of the materials must be
given. . . . Fourth, the handling of the material and apparatus

must be made clear Fifth, the point at which a pertinent

observation may be made should be indicated. . . . Sixth, some
indication is necessary as to what is to be observed. . . . Finally,
definite questions should be asked in regard to the interpreta-
tion of what has been observed.

1 A. Smith and E. H. Hall, The Teaching of Chemistry and Physics in
Secondary Schools, chap. iv. Longmans, Green, & Co., 1910.

SCIENCE 339

PSYCHOLOGY OF LABORATORY EXERCISES

Put into psychological terms these directions mean some*
thing like this: The laboratory situation is usually too
complex for the immature student to master if left to his
own devices. The experience of the race must be focused
for him on this complex situation. He must be led by a
short path to the productive conclusion which science has
reached as its final result. Unless the guidance of the race
is given to the student, he will wander and either come to
the goal far too slowly or not at all.

Laboratory exercises are among the most difficult prob-
lems for the teacher to work out. The student must be
guided enough, but not too much. The student must be
called on to find out for himself, but he must not be left
to become confused. The business of the teacher is to help
the student reach a result, but at the same time to make
sure that the student has used the right methods in reach-
ing the result. The problem is therefore to find a proper
balance between instruction and independence.

Here, as in other school exercises which are properly
organized, the contrast between an educational situation
and a situation in the practical world can be described by
saying that the school simplifies the situation for the time
being in order that the student who is limited in his capa-
bilities may cope with this simplified group of conditions.
Little by little the school must lead the student forward
through more and more complex situations until finally he
is able to cope with the natural environment in all of its
complexity. The problem of the school is so to simplify the
educational exercise that it shall train the student without
making him unable or afraid to face complexities. The
danger in these exercises is that they will become quite as
formal and ineffective as the recitations which they were
intended to supplement

340 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

PEARSON ON SCIENTIFIC METHOD

There is one final matter to be discussed in this study
of the psychology of science. It is the nature of that high-
est product of scientific education, scientific method. Every
teacher of science hopes to inculcate into his students re-
spec$ for methods of exact, impersonal, and comprehensive
thinking. These methods have often been (declared to be
the most significant contribution of our age to the history
of civilization.

What, then, is the nature of scientific method ? An answer
to this question may be sought first in a series of quotations
from the writing of Karl Pearson.1

The classification of facts and the formation of absolute
judgments upon the basis of this classification — judgments
independent of the idiosyncrasies of the individual mind — is
peculiarly the scope and method of modern science. The scien-
tific man has above all things to aim at self-elimination in his
judgments, to provide an argument which is as true for each
individual mind as for his own. The classification of facts, the
recognition of their sequence and relative significance is the
function of science, and the habit of forming a judgment upon
these facts unbiased by personal feeling is characteristic of
what we shall term the scientific frame of mind. (P. 7.)

The insight into method and the habit of dispassionate in-
vestigation which follow from acquaintance with the scientific
classification of even some small range of natural facts, give
the mind an invaluable power of dealing with many other classes
of facts as the occasion arises. The patient and persistent study
of some one branch of natural science is even at the present
time within the reach of many. In some branches a few hours'
study a week, if carried on earnestly for two or three years,
would be not only sufficient to give a thorough insight into
scientific method, but would also enable the student to become
a careful observer and possibly an original investigator in his

1 The Grammar of Science. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1892.

SCIENCE 341

chosen field, thus adding a new delight and a new enthusiasm
to his life. The importance of a just appreciation of scientific
method is so great, that I think the state may be reasonably
called upon to place instruction in pure science within the
reach of all its citizens. (P. 8.)

SCIENCE DEPENDS ON IMAGINATION

But, none the less, disciplined imagination has been at the
bottom of all great scientific discoveries. All great scientists
have, in a certain sense, been great artists ; the man with no
imagination may collect facts, but he cannot make great dis-
coveries. If I were compelled to name the Englishmen who
during our generation have had the widest imaginations and
exercised them most beneficially, I think I should put the
novelists and poets on one side and say Michael Faraday and
Charles Darwin. Now it is very needful to understand the
exact part imagination plays in pure science. We can, perhaps,
best achieve this result by considering the following proposi-
tion : Pure science has a further strong claim upon us on ac-
count of the exercise it gives to the imaginative faculties and
the gratification it provides for the aesthetic judgment. The
exact meaning of the terms "scientific fact" and "scientific
law " will be considered in later chapters, but for the present
let us suppose an elaborate classification of such facts has been
made, and their relationships and sequences carefully traced.
What is the next stage in the process of scientific investiga-
tion ? Undoubtedly it is the use of the imagination. The
discovery of some single statement, some brief formula from
which the whole group of facts is seen to flow, is the work
not of the mere cataloguer, but of the man endowed with
creative imagination. The single statement, the brief formula,
the words of which replace in our minds a wide range of
relationships between isolated phenomena, is what we term a
scientific law. Such a law, relieving our memory from the
burden of individual sequences, enables us, with the minimum
of intellectual fatigue, to grasp a vast complexity of natural
or social phenomena. The discovery of law is therefore the
peculiar function of the creative imagination. (P. 37.)

842 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

The scientific method is marked by the following features :
(a) careful and accurate classification of facts and observation
of their correlation and sequence ; (4) the discovery of scientific
laws by aid of the creative imagination ; (c) self-criticism and
the final touchstone of equal validity for all normally constituted
minds. (P. 46.)

SCIENTIFIC LAW A PRODUCT OF INTELLIGENCE

The other problem with which we are concerned is the
existence or non-existence of a scientific law before it has
been postulated. Here the reader will feel inclined to remark:
"Admitted that * Nature' is conditioned by man's perceptive
faculty, surely the sequences of man's perceptions follow the
same law whether man has formulated that law in words or
not ? The law of gravitation ruled the motion of the planets
ages before Newton was born." Yes and no, reader ; the an-
swer must depend on how we define our terms. The sequences
involved in man's perception of the motion of the heavenly
bodies were doubtless much the same to Ptolemy and Newton ;
to primitive man and to ourselves the motion of the sun is a
common perception, but a sequence of sense-impressions is not
in itself a law. That planets move, that a chick takes its origin
from the egg, may be sequences of sense-impressions, they may
be facts to be dealt with scientifically, but they are not laws
in themselves, at least not in any useful interpretation of the
word. The changes of the whole planetary system might be
perceived, and even those perceptions translated into words
with a fulness surpassing that of our most accurate modern
observer, and yet neither the sequence of perceptions in itself
nor the description involve the existence of any law. The se-
quence of perceptions has to be compared with other sequences,
classification and generalization have to follow; conceptions
and ideas, pure products of the mind, must be formed, before
a description can be given of a range of sequences which, by
its conciseness and comprehensiveness, is worthy of the name
of scientific law.

Let it be noted that in this it is not only the process of
reaching scientific law which is mental, but that the law

SCIENCE 343

itself when reached involves an association of natural facts or
phenomena with mental conceptions, lying quite outside the
particular field of those phenomena. Without the mental con-
ceptions the law could not be, and it only comes into existence
when these mental conceptions are first associated with the
phenomena. The law of gravitation is not so much the dis-
covery by Newton of a rule guiding the motion of the planets
as his invention of a method of briefly describing the sequences
of sense-impressions, which we term planetary motion. He
did this in terms of a purely mental conception, namely, mutual
acceleration. Newton first brought the idea of mutual acceler-
ation of a certain type into association with a certain range of
phenomena, and was thus enabled to state a formula, which,
by what we may term mental shorthand, resumes a vast number
of observed sequences. The statement of this formula was not
so much the discovery as the creation of the law of gravitation.
A natural law is thus seen to be a resume in mental shorthand,
which replaces for us a lengthy description of the sequences
among our sense-impressions. Law in the scientific sense is
thus essentially a product of the human mind and has no
meaning apart from man. It owes its existence to the creative
power of his intellect. There is more meaning in the statement
that man gives laws to Nature than in its converse that Nature
gives laws to man. (P. 102.)

The essential conclusion which can be drawn from the
psychological analysis of these statements is that science
is quite as much a product of human characteristics and
capacities as of the characteristics of things. The human
power of reducing all objects to namable classes through
the use of language is as important in explaining scien-
tific classification as is the existence of objects themselves.
Animals have no science. Their minds in contact with im-
pressions from the outer world react in a way wholly dif-
ferent from that in which human beings react. Savages
have a crude mythology, but no rigid scientific methods.
They have no adequate scientific terminology. In short,
their reactions are unscientific.

344 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

SCIENCE DEPENDS ON THE POWER OP GENERALIZATION

To the student of educational problems these considera-
tions are important because they make it clear that science
is something more than mere reception of sense-impressions.
Science is a system of thought. Science is a body of gen-
eralizations. To construct this system of thought and these
generalizations is a step in intellectual development be-
yond the mere acquisition of the impressions out of which
science may grow.

We shall come back in a later chapter to the problem
of the generalization of experience. This problem has come
up several times before in our discussions. It is one of the
major problems of education. Each subject in the curricu-
lum seeks to develop the power of generalization in some
way ; and science, in making this its chief aim, is not de-
parting in any measure from the traditions of the course of
study as this course has always been organized by strong
teachers, whatever the content with which they have worked.

CHAPTER XV
THE FINE ARTS

OPPOSITION BETWEEN THE FlNE ARTS AND THE
CONVENTIONAL COURSES

The fine arts, like the manual and industrial arts, have
stood apart from the conventional academic subjects and
have been given only a half-hearted recognition in the
organization of school programs. From one point of view
this is difficult to understand, for civilized nations have
always regarded training in music and drawing as highly
desirable accomplishments. We in America have been sub-
jected to criticism by foreign visitors and we have freely
criticized ourselves for our meager cultivation of the fine
arts in our schools. While thus recognizing the arts as de-
sirable, we have found it a very difficult problem to make
them available for school purposes. How can one formu-
late a course in these subjects ? They seem to be highly in-
dividualistic and vague in their results. There seems to be
so large an element of chance in the outcome that we turn
by preference to those courses of instruction which seem
to be more definite and capable of impersonal formulation.

The psychology of the fine arts helps to explain in a meas-
ure this situation. The arts, like literary appreciation, de-
pend in large measure on certain inner reactions which are
obscure and often unrecognized by student and teacher.
The external acts which are cultivated when one acquires
some skill in one of the arts sink into insignificance as com-
pared with the inner emotional processes involved in appre-
ciation. These inner reactions are extraordinarily difficult

346

346 PSYCHOLOGY OP HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

to control and train. A part of the vagueness of the arts
also grows out of a lack of analysis comparable to the
lack of analysis which we found in studying manual habits.
When one enjoys a painting it is very difficult for him to
tell why he enjoys it When one feels a thrill in response
to music he does not make the kind of analysis that he
does when he distinguishes the parts of a plant in botany
or the organs of an animal in physiology. The arts train
in a type of analysis which we shall understand more fully
as we proceed with the discussion ; but this analysis is dif-
ferent in character from verbal analysis, and the school fa-
miliar with scientific and verbal analysis has great difficulty
in taking up the problem of art analysis.

HISTORICAL BEGINNINGS OF Music

We shall gain a clearer view of the nature of art con-
sciousness by studying briefly the evolution of one of the
arts. The history of music furnishes material for such a
study. One of the most primitive forms of music is that
produced by the dancing warrior who beats his spear against
his shield. A little higher in the evolution of the art the
drummer sits apart and makes a rhythmical sound that
guides the dances. The sounds in both these cases are not
of interest because of their quality. In fact, the quality is of
the crudest sort. The music is nothing but a crude series
of noises reenforcing the bodily rhythms by giving to the
nervous system shocks of stimulation which aid and inten-
sify the rhythmical reactions.

The work-song is another primitive type of music. A
group of workers set up a rhythmical vocal accompaniment
to their activities. The vocal reactions are not of significance
because of their quality. Even when words are used these
words have no significant ideas to convey to the singers.
Anyone who has listened to a group of sailors drawing in

THE FINE ARTS 347

a rope and chanting a meaningless melody will realize at
once that the purpose of the song is to secure social co-
operation and to emphasize a rhythm of bodily activity
which turns drudgery into a pleasurable succession of
stimulations and reactions.

The content of consciousness in both these cases is, of
course, a matter on which one can offer only speculations.
But if we may judge from the analogies of personal expe-
rience, it is safe to say that there is not much analysis of
experience. The sounds and bodily activities, the rhythm
and the excitement, all fuse into a vague general mass of
experience which submits itself only very little, if at all, to
consideration or scientific dissection.

Development does, however, gradually take place, show-
ing that there is a tendency for attention to concentrate on
the sound and for experience to become more complex in
the rhythms which are evolved. The pleasure which comes
with this enlargement of experience is greater than the
primitive types of pleasure which came when the art was
in its cruder beginnings.

RHYTHM THE CHIEF SOURCE OF PLEASURE IN
PRIMITIVE Music

Let us consider first the increasing complexity of rhythms.
Boas1 has shown that primitive American tribes cultivate the
ability to beat simultaneously two or three different rhythms
with different parts of the body. These rhythms also exhibit
internal complexities in that the accented movement is re-
lated to a whole series of complex, unaccented beats.

1 Franz Boas, The Mind of Primitive Man. The Macmillan Company,
1911.

348 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

GROWTH OF DISCRIMINATION OP TONES

With the growth of complex rhythms there is a natural
demand for differentiation of sounds. The accented sound
differs from the unaccented in intensity. The contrast is
made sharper if qualitative differences are also introduced.
Thus, if the drummer has two drums or a series of sticks
of different lengths and strikes these at intervals in the
music, there will be a pleasing variety of pitch and inten-
sity to accompany the complex rhythm. All this calls for
increasing attention to the sound elements of experience,
and the professional musicians of the tribe discovered the
meaning and value of tonal differences as well as the pos-
sibilities of more complex rhythms. The analysis of these
professional musicians can hardly be assumed to be paral-
leled by any like analysis on the part of auditors. The
auditor receives a mass of experiences which he enjoys, and
yet he never stops to analyze his pleasure. We discover
even at this early stage, therefore, that reactions to music
are highly individualistic and variable in character.

ENJOYMENT DUE TO REACTIONS

A consideration in some detail of the internal processes
on which appreciation of rhythmical sounds depends makes
it clear that we are here in the presence not of a purely
sensory fact but of a complex form of behavior. There is
a change in the rate of the heartbeat and of respiration.
There is a change in the tension of the voluntary muscles.
There is a succession of contractions and relaxations of the
muscles of the hand and arm and trunk. Even the crudest
sounds, if rhythmical, arouse in one the impulse to beat time.
In short, there is a real physical play which responds to
the stimulations of the music heard. If the vocal cords are
excited so as to participate in the response, the pleasure of

THE FINE ARTS 349

articulation may be added to the pleasure of other organic
reactions. The conspicuous fact which is brought out by
all these considerations is that enjoyment is a complex
phenomenon depending in large measure on motor responses.
Furthermore, each individual responds with a series of
movements peculiar to himself. His past development and
present nervous and muscular development determine his
inner reactions. This explains the individualistic character
of art and also the fact that the essence of the art is in its
appeal to the individual, not in its external content.

Primitive music remains for a long period at this level
where it is to be described as a mere accompaniment to
bodily rhythms. The variety of tones necessary at this stage
of evolution of the art is small. We find, accordingly, many
musical scales which include only two or three tonal vari-
ations. A common form of primitive music is that in which
the voice or musical instrument oscillates between a note
of low pitch and a note of high pitch, passing from one to
the other and back again in a rhythmical succession of
sounds and intensities. Sometimes this scale is elaborated
into three variations of pitch, sometimes into five.

ART ULTIMATELY BECOMES A STANDARDIZED SYSTEM

Each of these changes in the scale marks an increase in
the complexity of experience. The particular tones used
by any particular tribe also come to be standardized. The
result is that music rises to the level of a highly specialized
system of tonal variations and combinations. Music as an
art does not use all the variations of tone of which the
voice is capable ; it uses only a limited number of selected
tones. Indeed, in early music the chant and the accompani-
ment were different in tones, thus leading to the evolution
of a specialized instrumental music. Furthermore, it is to
be recognized here, as in all arts, that the experience of

•350 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

*

the auditor or observer very often does not include as much
attention to detailed differences as does the experience of
the producer. The auditor is absorbed in the total unan-
alyzed excitement of the situation.

DEPENDENCE OF ART ON SUBJECTIVE MOTIVES

At this point we may digress to call attention to the fact
that music evolves from purely subjective motives. Art is
never forced upon man by the external world. Man was
compelled to learn the practical art of getting food and
the practical art of building shelter because the stern
necessities of existence in the world drove him to think
of the things about him. He had to pick out the objects
which he needed and think about them, and consequently
his practical needs trained him in concentration of atten-
tion on the particular things about him. But music has
purely subjective value. Music appeals to the rhythms of
the body and nervous system. Music does not move the
world or provide shelter. Music develops only in response
to the demand for subjective delight We find, therefore,
that musical systems, when once they are evolved, are
extraordinarily conservative, depending absolutely on the
development of modes of reaction in the individual. Primi-
tive races adopt the clothes and the food of civilized man,
but keep their own dances and their own music. Music is
pleasurable because it sets up personal reactions and re-
sponses. The more highly the art is elaborated, the more
definitely personal responses will become fixed. Above all,
music is not a practical system of behavior.

Returning from this digression, we note that music as a
system of sound relations developed in connection with the
development of song on the one hand and with the growth
of technical skill in instrumentation on the other hand.
As the chanting of the minstrel at the festival and later as

THE FINE ARTS 851

the singing of the church choir developed, more complex
systems of tonal combinations were worked out. Attention
was centered in these later stages on sound, and the com-
binations of sounds constituted a growing part of the
art. The development of interest in sounds was also accom-
panied by an evolution in the mechanical devices for the
production of tones, though instrumentation has in many
respects shown lines of development different from those
which appear in vocal music.

MELODY AND HARMONY RELATED TO REACTIONS

The evolution of tonal discrimination and interest in
tonal combination carries us far beyond the original stage
of music, where the interest attached merely to noise and
rhythm. As soon as men began to discriminate tones, they
were led to work out certain regular sequences, or melodies.
Later these melodies were made increasingly complex, until
finally the higher forms of harmony were evolved.

These later forms of experience seem at first observation
to be sensory matters, and psychological discussions have
usually proceeded on the theory that appreciation of mel-
ody and harmony is a sensory fact. The physicists, concen-
trating attention upon the stimulus which comes to the
ear, are able to show that the number of vibrations in the
successive tones included in an agreeable melody stand in
a definite numerical ratio to each other. This fact has in
turn been accounted for by certain physiologists as due to
certain structures in the ear. The discussions which have
been carried on in support of these sensory theories cannot
appropriately be reviewed in detail here. We may remark
in passing, however, that there has always been great diffi-
culty in working out a satisfactory theory of the sensory
elements involved in the creation of a scale and the devel-
opment of melody.

352 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

It is legitimate to supplement these sensory theories by
turning to the motor processes. A nation, long accustomed
to a certain scale of sounds, cultivates both in singing and
in emotional responses a definite set of reactions, which
are aroused when one hears music or when one attempts
to produce melodies or harmonies. These facts of response
are quite as significant in explaining appreciation as are
any facts of sensation.

The case is immediately clear if we refer to the appre-
ciation exhibited by a trained singer. Whether he listens
or himself sings, his appreciation of tonal differences and
of tonal conventions will depend upon the ability of his
vocal cords to produce by a muscular readjustment the
successive pitches of the melody. Where the adjustment
of the vocal cords in attempting to pass from one tone to
another is of an extremely difficult type, as for example
when the tones are too nearly alike, the reaction will
be difficult and disturbing. The flatting of a tone either
when one is singing or listening is an extremely painful ex-
perience for a trained singer, because he realizes, not only
through his ear but also through his own motor adjust-
ments, that the flatting of the tone is an improper adjust-
ment of the sound-producing organs. When, on the other
hand, the movements of the vocal cords are easy and agree-
able, the total emotional experience is one of great pleasure.

Added to these habits of the vocal cords, however, are
the trained reactions of all the emotional reactions which
come through long drill in a conventional series of pitches
accepted in the national musical scale. A Chinaman evi-
dently enjoys the monotonous succession of simple tonal
variations which make up his national music. A European
enjoys the simple Chinese music very little. He has been
trained to a more elaborate series. In either case it is not
alone the ear that has been trained. The whole organism
responds to melody.

THE FINE ARTS 353

This view finds new support in the fact that appreciation
of harmony comes late in the evolution of music. Harmony
consists in a group of agreeable simultaneous tones. The
tones which are agreeable when heard simultaneously are
for the most part those which are agreeable in a succession
of tones. The development of a taste for harmony is a
relatively recent fact and its psychological explanation is
most intricate. One may discuss contrasts in tones and
the fusion of tones ; one must recognize that inharmonious
tones produce beats and roughness which are added items
of sensation, distracting from the pure tones and disturbing
recognition ; but after attention has been given to all these
sensory elements of harmony the fact remains that there
is an inner emotional response to all harmony, and this
response is not a sensory element. When one listens to a
great orchestra his appreciation is determined not alone by
the way the sound strikes the ear ; it is the reverberation
of the whole muscular organism that explains the enjoyment.

APPRECIATION INCREASED THROUGH TRAINING
IN PRODUCTION

Consider the child who is learning to sing or play the
piano. Observe how this child makes keener discrimina-
tion after a little practice ; note that he listens to melodies
with new appreciation. In fact, the full appreciation of
music cannot come without some skill in production. Some
appreciation of music there is without a corresponding
ability to produce, but the auditor's appreciation is never
so complete as that of the person trained in production.
Even the appreciation exhibited by the mere auditor must
be explained in motor terms. The relaxation which comes
when one hears rich, soft tones, the tightening up of the
muscles when one listens to martial music — these are typical
facts on which to base an understanding of the appreciation.

854 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

When one has, in addition to the vague general organic
reactions just mentioned, the finer discriminating reactions
of the trained technician, appreciation will be of a higher
and more complete type. Nearly every one can tell when
a note is very flat, because every one has some skill in
the vocal production of simple melodies; but it requires
the drained singer to recognize a slight departure from the
exact note. So it is with the more elaborate emotional
responses to musical combinations.

VARIETY IN ATTITUDES TOWARD Music

The complexity of the educational problem becomes obvi-
ous when we summarize what has been said about different
classes of persons, all of whom are involved in this discus-
sion. Consider in succession the composer of melodies, the
ordinary producer, and the auditor who enjoys music but is
not trained in production. The composer studies the laws
of musical relations and the effects of various combinations
of tones. His attention is alert for tonal differences and
effects. The producer may be a pure technician, translat-
ing visual symbols or memories into finger movement, or he
may add varying degrees of discrimination. The listener
may respond merely with vague general bodily reactions.
The practical school problem is to train all students to
some extent, and to discover the possible producers and
composers soon enough to give them the more elaborate
training which they need.

Germany has a universal system of training. The pu-
pils in German schools are taught to sing. The teachers
of the Volksschule are trained to give instruction in music
by courses in instrumental and vocal music. Every such
teacher must sing and play either the violin or the organ.
Appreciation is thus developed by a course of training in
the production of music.

THE FINE ARTS 355

In the schools of this country music is regarded as de-
sirable enough to be made a part of the course ; training
in singing is the method most commonly adopted of culti-
vating appreciation. Instrumental training is seldom taught
In a few instances the theory of harmony is taught even to
secondary students. For the most part, however, training in
music is regarded as a luxury, and failure to show efficiency
in the music course is not treated as a serious deficiency.

Especially has the cultivation of skill in playing a musi-
cal instrument been looked on as of doubtful educational
import. The experience of the world has shown that in
some conspicuous cases the instrumentalist is devoid of
intellectual power of the ordinary types; skepticism has
therefore arisen as to the value of instrumental practice
as a means of general training. This skepticism regarding
instrumental music has reenforced the general attitude
which arises from the fact that music is different from
science and history and literature, and has made it more
difficult for music to secure a place in the curriculum.

PROBLEMS OF INSTRUCTION IN Music

If one asks the music teacher what is cultivated in stu-
dents by the course in music, the answer received is likely
to be somewhat hazy. Some statement about the higher
emotions, about cultivated feelings, is as far as one usually
gets in these discussions. The psychologist has a right to
ask that the emotion be defined more fully. Here we en-
counter the real difficulty. The various individual modes
of appreciating music are so different that the work is
extraordinarily difficult to standardize. One person appre-
ciates music because he has learned to play the violin,
another because he has learned to sing, another because
music sets his involuntary muscles in emotional action.
Each person enjoys music, but each in his own way and in

356 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

his own degree. Suppose the problem is put in such terms
as these : " Does it pay to take two hours a week to train
students in singing?" There are two kinds of results from
such training. The students will learn in some degree to
sing. This result can be observed and tested. If the two
hours a week have to be given for what is usually accom-
plished in singing in a high-school class, the investment is
probably too heavy. The music teacher will, however,
usually emphasize a second and not easily measured result.
The singing may be poor, he will tell you, but the cultiva-
tion of taste is the real result. If now you ask for the
evidence of cultivation of taste, it will be very difficult to
supply objective evidence. This is the major reason why
music and the other arts are looked on as doubtful members
of the academic family.

There is another phase of the situation which is not to be
overlooked. The lack of analysis which is usually exhibited
in the experience of a person who is absorbed in music is
so opposed to all of the traditions of academic training that
teachers are skeptical of the mental attitude which grows
up through interest in music. To be absorbed in tonal
combinations, to react with strong emotional reactions, may
be personally satisfying and even elevating, but the scien-
tific, analytical mode of looking at the world is the end
aimed at in most of the other classes in the school. The
analytical attitude teachers understand, and they know
that this is the sort of training of attention which lies
back of many improvements in our modern civilization.
Music, they hold, will have to prove its case, if it has a
case, or it will have to remain an incidental feature of
the curriculum.

To introduce some history of music or some studies in
harmony, in the hope of turning music into a subject like
other subjects, is probably not the way to prove the case for
music. To present general statements about the elevating

THE FINE AETS 357

effects of music is certainly not the way to prove the case
for music. To give drill in production, together with train-
ing in some of the canons of the art, and to concentrate
attention on good examples of music so as to cultivate gen-
uine appreciation are probably the most promising methods
of procedure. In the meantime, someone interested ought
to give to the students of education a statement of what
musical taste really consists in, and he should evolve some
method of evaluating the effects produced by instruction.

GRAPHIC AKT AS AN INSTRUMENT OF INSTRUCTION

What has been said with regard to music may be re-
peated, with slight variations, for the graphic arts. If we
study the history of graphic arts, we find again a rapid
process of differentiation between the producer of pictures
and the person who merely enjoys pictures. The producer
of pictures, like the producer of music, has been regarded
by society as a person whose skill is to be respected. Cer-
tain aspects of the skill exhibited by the producer of draw-
ings are recognized as of the highest intellectual type. The
civilized world has commonly been prepared to reward its
producers of art. On the other hand, the appreciation of a
drawing is another matter. To give academic credit or any
other form of credit for ability to enjoy a picture has not
in general been regarded as legitimate. Furthermore, it has
sometimes been doubted whether the school ought to try to
cultivate in any general way the technical ability needed to
produce drawings. It has been pointed out that some people
apparently acquire this ability to produce drawings by some
mysterious process of inheritance, or by a special devotion to
one aspect of mental life to such an extent that they become
narrow specialists, and defeat, through their devotion to
graphic art, the ordinary ends of intellectual training. A
person who is always trying to draw things may be very

358 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

negligent of his social relations and of his relation to the
physical necessities of life. The artistic temperament, as it
is sometimes described, is looked upon by the practical man,
when it assumes its extreme form, as an unfortunate type
of intellectual development, and one which hardly fits into
the general scheme of society's life and society's training.
There is, therefore, a great deal of confusion in the minds
of school officers as to what they ought to do.

TECHNICAL CHARACTER OF DRAWING

Again the psychologist comes forward with the sugges-
tion that a more careful study be made of the mental proc-
esses aroused by the study and production of drawings.
The historical materials are even more definite than those
available in music. On the other hand, the reactions which
arise in the individual are more heterogeneous than are the
reactions which result from appreciation of music. Appre-
ciation of pictures is connected in a measure with the ob-
server's development of space percepts. This involves, as
indicated in an earlier chapter, some appreciation of mechan-
ical balance. For these and like reasons we must relate
graphic art to both the fine arts and practical behavior.
Indeed, the pictorial arts are much more closely related to
the industrial arts than music, for the simple reason that
the pictorial arts have been obliged to employ external
materials. There is no form of behavior which will produce
a picture without the manipulation of external materials.
In this respect drawing differs from music, since the un-
aided voice will produce music. A picture is always depend-
ent upon the relation between a tool of some kind and
the substance on which the picture is drawn. To learn the
relation between the tool and the surface on which the
picture is to be produced involves, therefore, the acquisi-
tion of a technical art. Furthermore, the subject of every

THE FINE AKTS 359

pictorial expression must be some external object. Conse-
quently the artist is obliged in the drawing of his picture
to pay some attention to the things which he intends to
represent. There is in this necessity of paying attention to
the external object an important characteristic of graphic art.

EARLY DISREGARD OF PATTERN

The extent to which the external object enters into
drawings is a matter of great historical interest. We find,
for example, that in earlier art the color of objects is a sub-
ject of very little attention. Indeed, there was in the early
days of painting so obvious a conflict between the observa-
tions which were made on external objects and the mate-
rials which were in the hands of the artist for expression,
that it was only by neglecting the color of external objects
that the artist could do anything. He had no means of
expressing the observed colors of nature. The artist took
advantage of the fact that the ordinary observer pays so
little attention to color that it is usually quite impossible
for him to give any account of the different shades of color
exhibited by the object which he has in memory. Primitive
painting was very like memory images in the fact that it
did not imitate natural colors. What colors the artist had
he used in expressing certain distinctions which were in his
own mind. Color was of value, therefore, merely as a means
of drawing attention to certain sharp contrasts. We find,
accordingly, in primitive art a period of purely symbolical
use of the color differences ; and, furthermore, these colors
were put into the pictures not in the relations in which
colors appear in natural objects, where gradations of color
and modulations of color tone are the rule, but in the
earlier pictures there are great surfaces of the most striking
colors, contrasted sharply, without gradations.

360 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

DBFECTIVE PERSPECTIVE IN EARLY DRAWING

Another conspicuous lack in primitive drawing is a lack
of perspective. The early artists were again dominated in
their productions not by a careful examination of the ob-
jects which they represented but rather by their own mem-
ory images. It makes no difference in the memory images
whether an object is regarded as far away or near at hand.
Its essential character is the same in either case. Indeed,
the considerations which determine the size of objects in
memory are wholly different from considerations of distance.
It is the important objects which are likely to loom large.
Important objects may be so large as to be altogether out
of proportion in thought to the other objects, which consti-
tute the background of consciousness. We see, therefore,
in earlier art grotesque exhibitions of disregard for the true
relations of perspective. In the foreground of the picture
will appear a human figure of colossal size as compared with
the landscape, which is put behind for the sake of artistic
completeness. In like fashion, the impression which the
earlier artist had of the interior of a room was very prim-
itive indeed. Under the ordinary conditions of life one does
not concentrate attention on the spatial characteristics of
the room in which he lives. For example, one does not
recognize the details of the lighting of the room until he has
made a very careful study of it. Consequently the earlier
artists were altogether unable to represent the interior of a
room or to give the objects in the room anything like their
real shading.

This difficulty of representing perspective properly ap-
pears very conspicuously in certain mistakes made both by
children and by primitive artists. In drawing a human fig-
ure in profile a child will represent more in this profile than
he could actually see in an object observed from the side.
He puts both eyes on the side of the face, or he represents

THE FINE AiiTS 361

both arms on the side of the body which he is trying to
draw. Primitive artists did exactly the same sort of thing.
Furthermore, primitive artists and children draw the differ-
ent parts of objects out of all proportion to each other. They
draw the head of an animal altogether too large. This is
due to the fact that the head is of much more significance
to the observer than is any other part of the body.

COMPLEX PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTER OF GRAPHIC ART

All of these facts with regard to primitive art and chil-
dren's drawing show that the graphic arts are a mixture of
internal motives springing from the artist's memory and
from his personal attitudes toward objects and external
motives borrowed more or less skillfully from the world
of sensory experiences. For the most part, it may be said
that attention to the external objects is relatively very late,
and a careful analysis of external objects is the result of
very elaborate study.

This statement is seen to be the more significant when
it is remembered that a large part of art is to be classified
as design rather than as pictorial representation of objects.
Design calls for the distribution of the drawing in a given
space, and that space must, furthermore, have the different
parts of the drawing so distributed as to satisfy the funda-
mental demands for symmetry and balance. Much of the
appreciation which we have for mural decoration is due
not merely to the representations of external objects which
appear on these surfaces, but to the way in which these
representations are grouped so as to satisfy the observer
with the space in which the drawing is placed. The lines
of a mural painting must tend to support the architectural
structure, and the emphasis which is given to different
parts of space must have due regard to the building as
well as to the tiling depicted. Frequently the demands of

862 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

design Sre such as to supersede altogether the interest in
the representation.

Where design flourishes, therefore, there is developed
a kind of taste which is wholly different from that which
attaches to the study of objects. For example, in dress
designs and in decorative patterns on fabrics, taste de-
pends on form relations, not on the desire to represent
any real objects.

All these facts complicate the issue for the school. Shall
students be taught to draw ? If so, what is the motive ?
Study of form and color ? Appreciation of symmetry and
balance ? Careful observation of things or a study of the
properties of expressive materials ?

APPRECIATION MORE COMPLICATED THAN PRODUCTION

If there is difficulty in dealing with graphic art as a
means of educating those who produce pictures, the diffi-
culties multiply when we discuss the training of apprecia-
tion apart from production. Let us consider a concrete case
which shows how difficult is the training of appreciation.
A painting which tells a story will usually excite infinitely
more popular enthusiasm than a painting which shows the
finest balance of form and color. The reason for this public
enjoyment of the story-picture is that this picture arouses
familiar, responsive emotional reactions. The painting shows
someone in danger; the observer has all the contractions
which would come from seeing real danger, with this one
qualification, he knows that no harm is really coming to the
subject represented. So he can enjoy the thrill of real dan-
ger without having to pay the price of a real catastrophe.
His experience is accordingly intense, while the cost is small.

Yet pictured stories are not the highest art we are told.
One ought to rise through training above the primitive en-
joyment of a picture which merely tells a story to a correct

THE FINE ARTS 363

appreciation of the highest art. This higher art is some-
times called in question. One finds himself interposing the
objection that art has often suffered in its extreme technical
forms from temporary domination by grotesque fashions.
How is one to be sure that the refinements which his taste
undergoes are really carrying him in the direction of the
highest types of appreciation ? Perhaps he is taking on an
artificial fad. The very fact that appreciation is a subjective
matter, not checked by external conditions, leaves art at a
disadvantage when contrasted with science. Science checks
subjective reactions by constant references to the world
of things. Art cannot check itself in this way. The fact
that Western art exhibits fashions so radically different from
those of the Orient, and the fact that occidental art shows
so many divergent types in our own times, shows the diffi-
culty of using art as an instrument of general education.

COMPARATIVE VALUES OF DIFFERENT FORMS OF
APPRECIATION

It has been pointed out that literary appreciation is ac-
cepted in the schools without serious dissent, and it is asked
why art of other types should be less hospitably received.
The answer is not far to seek. Language is a mode of ex-
pression which all must cultivate for the purposes of prac-
tical life, while the other modes of artistic expression are
relatively nonessential. Since all must cultivate language,
all will have some of the producer's share of appreciation
in artistic language forms. Furthermore, the canons of taste
in language are constantly checked by the applications of
language to the practical affairs of social and personal life.
There is, accordingly, a stability in the language arts which
does not appear in the other arts.

The reader of the foregoing pages will doubtless interpret
what has been said as unfavorable to the introduction of

864 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

art intcuthe high-school course. Such an interpretation is
legitimate only in so far as difficulties frankly faced always
seem to make the case unfavorable. The writer might free
himself from the responsibility of uttering criticism against
art by hiding behind the actual present-day verdict of the
schools. If he has implied criticism of art, the school openly
classifies art as of doubtful value in the course of study.
It is no part of the writer's purpose to escape responsibility
by' appealing to present practices and present prejudices.
He much prefers to let the statements stand as valid quite
apart from any of the present attitudes of those who make
school programs. The interpretation which he would put
upon the facts discussed is this: If the arts are to find a
place in the school program, they must first find an adequate
and definable method of instruction. Experience seems to
point in the direction of an emphasis on production as the
best method of training. Whatever the method of instruc-
tion, art teachers must give up the practice of indulging
in rhapsodies over art and its value, and must learn to de-
fine the types of appreciation which they wish to cultivate.
They must show that they know when they have produced
one of these approved types of appreciation. Finally, they
must by practical demonstration convince the world that
there is no fundamental opposition between the habits of
mind and action cultivated in the arts and those cultivated
in the scientific courses given in the schools. The present-
day conditions are a challenge to art teachers and to all of
us. Vaguely we all believe in art; practically we are not
able to bring it into the schools in any form which we re-
gard as satisfactory for the training of students. To bring
it forcibly into the course without heeding the objections
raised will be unfortunate. To omit it altogether is to
deprive the student of one important aspect of civilization.
The challenge to deal with this situation intelligently is
peremptory.

THE FINE AETS 365

THE PBBSBNT STATUS OF Music IN AMERICAN
HIGH SCHOOLS

Since the foregoing statement has given relatively little
account of the practices of high schools in the matter of art
instruction, we may, before closing the chapter, make some
reference to the reports which show the conditions of these
lines of work in schools.

Statements with regard to music may be taken from a
bulletin issued by the Bureau of Education.1 The following
quotations taken from different parts of the monograph set
forth the situation in detail.

Musicians are not fully agreed among themselves as to what
constitutes music education. The definition still varies accord-
ing to the standpoint of the definer. The composer, the per-
former, the theorist, the pedagogue, will each interpret it in the
light of his own specialty. It is this lack of system, this indefi-
niteness of aim, that have repelled those who mold educational
opinion, and have caused them to withhold from music that edu-
cational value which its votarists claim for it but which has been
obscured by the desultory nature of music instruction. (P. 7.)

A statement of the work in secondary schools would be a
recapitulation of what has already been said [regarding courses
in colleges and special schools of music] with the addition that
the standards of excellence and efficiency do not as a rule com-
pare favorably with those in the institutions of higher educa-
tion. Of the two hundred and twenty-eight schools reported
forty-six per cent employ one or two instructors whose entire
time is given to the institution and whose duties are to give in-
struction in piano, singing, organ, violin, and theory. There are
schools among the number reported which have well-organized
departments and well-conceived courses of study. In some,
mention is made of the advantages accruing from the study of
music in connection with subjects in the literary departments,

1 A. L. Manchester, " Music Education in the United States, " Bulletin
No. 4 of the United States Bureau of Education, 1908. Whole number,
387.

366 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

and in a few instances, the completion of a high-school course
of at least three years is required before graduation in music.
Attention here, as in many institutions of the other classes,
is directed mainly to performance, with some emphasis upon
theoretical subjects. (P. 19.)

Perhaps no single disclosure by the investigation is more
encouraging than this. While the advancement of students
still rests in many cases with the instructor, or with the in-
structor and director of the department jointly, the develop-
ment of a system of accurate grade marks, based on examination
and recitation, gives promise of the eventual setting up of such
standards as will result in the unifying of educational effort.
(P. 41.)

There appears to be a growing purpose upon the part of the
departments of music in colleges and universities to demand a
certain amount of general educational qualifications from those
who wish to enter graduate courses in music. (P. 42.)

Perhaps the most significant fact which an investigation of
present tendencies shows is the marked change in their attitude
toward music of the dominating forces in educational move-
ments to-day, namely, the colleges and universities. While music
is still made to feel that it is only tolerated in some institutions,
there has come to pass what might rightfully be esteemed a
remarkable change of heart upon the part of the institutions
of the highest grade and influence. It is clear that the separa-
tion between music and general educational thought is not only
being rapidly lessened but that it will completely disappear in
a much shorter time than past conditions would warrant one
in predicting. (P. 81.)

Secondary schools, which in general education take care to
have their courses closely articulated with those of institutions
of higher education, attempt the same grade of music instruc-
tion as the best equipped conservatory or college. There are
no secondary music schools. A well-defined, properly regulated
development of music education from its most elementary to
its highest grades does not yet exist. (P. 83.)

THE FINE ARTS 367

CARTER ON GRAPHIC ARTS IN AMERICAN
HIGH SCHOOLS

A review of the place of graphic arts in secondary schools
in the United States is included in the general volume pre-
pared under the auspices of the American Committee of the
Third International Congress for the Development of Draw-
ing and Art Teaching held in London in 1908.1

In his review, Mr. Carter gives various statements made
by heads of departments in high schools regarding the pur-
pose of art in the secondary-school course. In summing up
these various statements Mr. Carter writes as follows :

Increasing importance seems to be given to the dissemination
of art ideas. We are recognizing more and more that familiarity
with these ideas is fully as important as technical skill in draw-
ing and painting. It is also to be noted that the tendency is
increasing to connect designing with work in material. (P. 206.)

Most of the teachers have had special training. Occasionally
they have studied at home and abroad with the aim of becom-
ing artists, and have afterwards taken up teaching. As a gen-
eral thing they are allowed considerable liberty as to what they
teach and as to how they present it. As a consequence courses
of study present considerable variety. (P. 209.)

A PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION

In the field of graphic art many studies have been made
of children's drawing, but these relate, for the most part,
to an earlier period than that in which we are interested in
dealing with the high school. One volume, however, which
may be referred to as a strictly psychological discussion is
De Boisbaudran's monograph entitled, ft The Training of

1 Charles M. Carter, f 'Art Education in the High Schools," in Art Edu-
cation in the Public Schools of the United States (edited by J. P. Haney),
pp. 201-242. Published by the American Annual, New York, 1908,

368 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

the Memorj^in Art." l In this monograph the author gives
an account of his method of training students to remember
form and color. The whole discussion is very interesting
to the psychologist in its emphasis upon the analyses which
are to be made of objects, in order that the student may be
keen in his memory of their outlines and colors. The volume
is a very forcible argument for the kind of analysis described
in the paragraphs in the foregoing chapter on the place of
drawing in science instruction.

Dow ON THE TEACHING OF ART

In support of some of the comments which have been
made regarding the difficulty of defining the exact purpose
and character of art instruction it may be proper to quote
at length the hopeful but vague statements of one of the
leading teachers of the graphic arts.2

A training that calls for a very direct exercise of the critical
powers, developing judgment and skill, is a training that will
increase the individual's efficiency whatever his calling may be

The general public has not thought of art education in this
way, but has acknowledged the value of w drawing," especially
when it can serve some utilitarian purpose.

A better understanding of the true usefulness of art recog-
nizes creative power as a divine gift, the natural endowment
of every human soul, showing itself at first in the form that
we call appreciation. This appreciation leads a certain number
to produce actual works of art, greater or lesser, — perhaps a
temple, perhaps only a cup, — but it leads the majority to desire
finer form and more harmony of tone and color in surroundings
and things for daily use. It is the individual's right to have
full control of these powers.

1 Translated from the French by L. D. Luard. The Macmillan Com-
pany, 1911.

2 A. W. Dow, ' ' Theory and Practice of Teaching Art." Published by
Teachers College as a reprint, with additional plates from Teachers College
Record, 1908, Vol. IX, No. 3, p. 1.

THE FINE AKTS 369

Even from the economic side, that education is deficient
which leaves one unable to judge of form and color when he
is constantly required to use such judgment. This lack of
appreciation is responsible for an immense waste of labor, skill,
and money in the production of useless and ugly things. Works
of fine art stand among the things which the world prizes most
highly. A nation's ideals are revealed in its art, and its art
has greatest value when it is the expression of the spirit of
the whole people.

In a sympathetic public is found the life-giving influence
which creates works of fine art, and the measure of their ex-
cellence is the measure of the nation's appreciation.

The attainment of such an end as this places public art
education above a mere training in drawing, painting or model-
ing, and above the so-called practical applications. The work
must be organized for a steady growth in good judgment as to
form, tone, and color, through all grades from the kindergarten
to the university. The main question at all stages is whether
the art work of the school is making this good red blood of
appreciation and giving to the individual the greatest possi-
ble encouragement to express himself.

CHAPTER XVI

HISTORY
THE RAPID INCREASE OF HISTORY COURSES

History courses have grown very rapidly in recent years,
both in the number of courses offered and in student regis-
tration. While the courses in science have grown relatively
less popular, and while the subjects which were formerly
required of every student, such as mathematics and classics,
have been falling off, history has steadily gained. There is
evidently a general belief on the part of school authorities
and students alike that history serves, in a very important
way, the interests of broad, general education.

During the period of rapid growth of historical subjects
there have arisen many questions both as to the subject
matter and methods. The reports of successive committees
of the American Historical Association, and of certain local
associations which have interested themselves in the organi-
zation of a secondary course, all make it clear that a defini-
tion of history is more difficult than a definition of almost
any other subject in the curriculum. The types of judgment
which history is supposed to cultivate in the student and
the wide range of facts which are given to him in the history
courses distinguish this subject from the other subjects of
the curriculum. The only other subject which approaches
history in the complexity and range of material is English,
and, as we have seen in an earlier discussion, it is extremely
difficult to organize the English courses satisfactorily just
because of the variety of ends which different teachers seek
to attain through them.

870

HISTORY 871

ADMINISTRATIVE COMPLICATION IN ORG
HISTORY

ORGANIZING

One becomes clearly conscious of the difficulty of defin-
ing history if he examines the various suggestions which
have been made about sequences of courses, and even more
if he examines the actual practices in schools. The actual
practices depart from the ideal courses which are laid down
by committees of historians, because students do not take
the full series of electives that are regarded as necessary by
the authors of these plans for a complete course in history.
The ideal course is sometimes based upon a chronological
sequence. Ancient history is to be followed by medieval
and modern European history. These, in turn, are to be
followed by the special study ,of English history and by a
final course in American history. This full chronological
plan, however, is not organized so that all of its parts can be
taken by each student. The student in the classical course
is sure to be required to take ancient history. Whether he
takes any other history or not depends entirely upon the
opportunities which the elective course may offer him and
upon his ability to take advantage of these opportunities
at the same time that he is fulfilling the requirements of
the college which he expects to attend. We have in many
cases, accordingly, the spectacle of a classical student thor-
oughly trained in ancient history but relatively ignorant of
any of the modern periods. On the other hand, the student
who takes one of the modern-language courses, or who takes
a scientific course, very frequently is content to elect only
a single modern-history course out of the chronological
sequence. In some states the single course which such a
student takes is determined by law. A course in American
history is required of every graduate of the high school;
and this is the only course in history which many students
are able to include in their programs.

372 PSYCHOLOGY OP HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

Here again a complication grows out of the fact that
American history is one of the favorite subjects of instruc-
tion in the upper grades of the elementary school. It is
not regarded as advisable, therefore, to include it in the
program of the earlier years of the high-school course. The
student takes American history in such cases near the end
of his high-school course, but without any background of
European history or any knowledge of the English ante-
cedents of American civilization.

THE VARIETY OF PURPOSES AIMED AT BY HISTORY

COURSES

Not only is the history course thus broken up by the
miscellaneous choices made by students, but the courses
themselves seldom show any clear definition of purpose or
progression of method. In writing for Monroe's " Cyclo-
pedia of Education " l Professor Haskins defines the proper
sequence of historical courses as follows :

In the earlier stages of historical instruction, attention is
given particularly to the teaching of a few simple facts and
the development of the historical imagination ; in the higher
stages the number of facts increases and more emphasis is put
upon their relations and political and social significance, and
upon the acquisition of a critical and impartial habit of mind ;
while in the most advanced grades of instruction the student
learns to find, test, and combine his facts for himself until he
is able to undertake independent research.

THE DIFFICULTY OF ORGANIZING COHERENT COURSES

This definition of the proper sequence of historical
methods and material is, however, seldom realized in the
actual practices of high schools. Indeed, it may be doubted

* Vol. Ill, p. 284. The Macmillan Company, 1912.

HISTORY 373

whether even in college departments of history a definite
sequence of this sort is ever followed. It is not an un-
familiar experience of the student to find that the course
in history which he pursues in his senior year is no more
advanced in character than the course which he takes in
his freshman year. The subject matter has, indeed, changed
somewhat; it may in some cases be more detailed in the
later course than in the early course ; but there is no obvi-
ous progress from year to year in the intellectual require-
ments which are made in the successive history courses.

In this respect history is in sharp contrast with many of
the other subjects in the curriculum. The course in Latin
or the course in mathematics carries the student forward
to more and more complicated mental operations with each
change in the subject matter. Science, as we have pointed
out, does not show us clearly this progressive demand upon
the student in successive courses. That is a symptom of
immaturity in science teaching as well as in the organiza-
tion of the history courses.

The lack of sequence grows in part out of the fact
that any course in history may make, and does make, a
very large demand upon the general powers of the stu-
dent. Even if a student is studying the relatively simple
material of biography, he has an opportunity to judge of
all sorts of human relations in a complex fashion which
makes the subject of history from the outset very broad
in its character and in the types of mental activity which
it should include.

HART ON THE PURPOSE OF HISTORY COURSES

It is not difficult to find evidence that historians them-
selves recognize the complexity of history. A number of
quotations may be given to show the extent to which they
have pointed out this complexity of their subject. In the

374 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

following statement Professor Hart l indicates a number of
different intellectual methods of procedure which a good
history course ought to include. Especial emphasis should
be laid upon the latter part of Professor Hart's statement,
where he demands more than mere accumulation of facts.

Let us now pass to the everyday work of the classroom. In
all historical teaching the first principle to fix in the mind of
pupil and teacher is the importance of accurately established
facts, and the second principle is the worthlessness of detached
facts. From the beginning, it should be understood that a knowl-
edge of facts is not a knowledge of history ; that the textbook
simply selects and groups a very small number of facts, and
that the essential thing is to know how facts are related and
what they mean when viewed together. There are, therefore,
four correlated aims which the teacher must keep constantly in
mind. He must teach facts ; and for that purpose the textbook
and recitation system is best adapted. He must show the rela-
tions between facts; and lectures and talks will bring out those
relations. He must accustom the pupil to assemble facts for
himself and to test them ; the topical method affords the nec-
essary training. He must lead the pupil to think and judge a
little for himself; the preparation of topics and outside read-
ing will induce some degree of independent thought.

THE COMMITTEE OF FIVE ON THE PURPOSE OP
HISTORY COURSES

The Committee of Five, which has recently reviewed
the work of earlier committees and expressed a very ma-
ture judgment upon the proper character of historical work
in the secondary schools, describes the course in history in
the following terms, making clear its general position that
the scope of such a course is very broad.2

1 History in High and Preparatory Schools. Reprinted from The Acad-
emy for September and October, 1887, p. 14.

2 The Study of History in Secondary Schools. Report of the Commit-
tee of Five, p. 14. The Macmillan Company, 1912.

HISTORY 375

But if history is to be a study of actual educational value
and culture, if the boy and girl are to be given insight into
social life, some real sense of time and movement, and, above
all, interest, vital interest, in books and facts^ the teacher must
have character, enthusiasm, and knowledge. Because we believe
so profoundly in the helpfulness of historical study, the neces-
sity of bringing the pupils to see the world about them as the
product of past ages, the value of learning to handle books and
to think and speak clearly, — riot alone of quantities in algebra
or of facts in physics, but of human doings, — we wish here
distinctly to state our belief that all questions of curriculum
are comparatively insignificant. The schools have a right to
demand teachers that are prepared to teach history and have
the ability and the spirit to teach it right. Public schools, sup-
ported by taxation, that are content with the old idea that any-
body can teach history, that anybody can trace the line of life
through the past and give his pupils the spark of interest and
the fire of useful knowledge, have, in our opinion, a distorted
conception of their responsibility. The great demand of the
day is for teachers that have themselves inhaled the breath of
enthusiasm, and that have knowledge, skill and force.

SEELEY ON THE COMPLEXITY OP HISTORY

Contrasting the history course in its methods and com-
plexity with the science courses, Professor Seeley has made
the following statement : l

In short, science brings together phenomena of the same
kind, but history brings together phenomena of different kinds,
which have chanced to appear at the same time. We have given
to history the conscientiousness of science, but we have not yet
given it the arrangement of science. We still arrange historic
phenomena under periods, centuries, reigns, dynasties, but what
is wanted is a real rather than a temporal classification. The
phenomena should be classed under such headings as Constitu-
tional, International, Economical, Industrial, etc. Nor should

1 Methods of Teaching History, Pedagogical Library, Vol. I, pp. 198-
199. D. C. Heath & Co., 1886.

376 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

each state fa studied by itself, but all states together, the com-
parative method being constantly employed, and much atten-
tion being given to the classification of states.

It will be seen that this principle would be almost revolu-
tionary if it were at once, and without reserve, applied to the
teaching of history. I am sensible that it needs to be explained
at great length, and I am quite aware how many objections
might be urged against it. But I have not time either for fuller
exposition or for dealing with objections, and therefore in the re-
mainder of this paper I shall deal with an intermediate system
which might, without too great difficulty, be adopted at once.

The essential point is this, that we should recognize that to
study history is to study not merely a narrative, but at the
same time certain theoretical subjects. Thus, industrial facts
cannot be understood without political economy, nor military
facts without military science, nor legal facts without legal
science, nor constitutional and legislative developments with-
out political science. I have gone further, and laid it down
that these theoretical subjects are the real object for which his-
torical facts are collected and authenticated. But for the pres-
ent it is enough that they should be recognized as inseparably
connected with historical study. It has always been tacitly
assumed that the historian is also an economist, an authority
on constitutional law, on legislation, on finance, on strategy.
Let us, then, go a single step further, and recognize that, as the
historian is all this, the student of history must prepare him-
self to be all this — in other words, must master all these sub-
jects. These are the great subjects of public life ; these are the
studies which make the citizen and train the statesman. All
the poetic charm which history is losing would be amply com-
pensated if it should acquire in exchange the practical interest
that is associated with these studies.

NATIONALISM AS AN END OF HISTORY TEACHING

Furthermore, it is possible to show that history teachers
are not entirely clear as to the functions of their subject by
reviewing a discussion which has, of late, attracted a good

HISTOKY 377

deal of attention. The earlier teachers of history never ques-
tioned at all the statement that the course in history was in-
tended to develop a spirit of intense nationalism. The courses
in European schools have long served explicitly this purpose
of training the youths of each country in intense devotion
to the interests of that country. When history began to
find "its place in the American course of study, it was
natural that it should be assumed that one of the main
purposes of the course is to cultivate a national spirit.
History was thus made to serve a very genuine social end
in the course of study.

Of late, however, the students of history have been call-
ing attention to the fact that it is extremely difficult to pass
judgments upon the acts of nations and individuals on the
basis of the relatively meager knowledge which any student
of history, especially an elementary student, can acquire.
This whole discussion is made very clear in two quotations
which may here be inserted.

The study of United States history should infuse into the
minds of American youths the American spirit, a benevolent
disposition toward all classes of American citizens, a profound
regard for all sections of the country, an admiration for free
institutions, a willing obedience to the constitution and laws,
and a deep and abiding love for the Union.1

On the other hand, the Committee of Seven2 takes a
position exactly opposed to that taken by Allen. This com-
mittee expresses itself very pointedly on the matter.

The corresponding noteworthy fact is that, if a definite
reason for the study of history is presented, it is the factitious
one of patriotism. The idea that the chief object in teaching
history is to teach patriotism is so thoroughly ingrained, not

1 John G. Allen, Topical Studies in American History, p. v. Scran-
torn, Wetmore & Company.

a Report of the Committee of Seven on History Teaching, p. 160.
The Macmillan Company, 1899.

378 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

only in America but in other countries, that it is extremely
difficult to combat it. Yet it must be evident that the patriot-
ism thus advocated is more or less a spurious one, a patriotism
that would seek to present distorted ideas of the past with the
idea of glorifying one country at the possible expense of truth.
If the facts of the Franco-Prussian War should be used both in
France and in Germany to inculcate this kind of patriotism,
diametrically opposite results would be reached ; if the Amer-
ican Revolution is to teach this patriotism both in England and
in America, one nation or the other must be illogical ; if the
Northern and the Southern states of America should use the
facts of the Civil War to promote either a national or a sec-
tional patriotism of this character, those facts would have to
be perverted. That the ultimate object of history, as of all
sciences, is the search for truth, and that that search entails
the responsibility of abiding by the results when found, is yet
to be learned by many of our teachers of history.

The present condition of instruction in history in the schools
is open to criticism for another reason. The curriculum has in
many cases not been the result of educational experience or a
product of educational theory. This fact explains in large meas-
ure the prevailing desire to use history as a vehicle for teach-
ing patriotism. It probably does not admit of question that the
curriculum of the public schools must and should be enacted by
the state legislatures, but it is equally true that behind these
legislatures should be organized bodies of competent advisers
to whose decisions on educational matters the state legislatures
should give the weight of their authority rather than them-
selves assume the initiative.

INTRICACY OP MORAL JUDGMENTS

If we attempt to reduce this discussion to its psycho-
logical terms, we may make some such statement as the
following: No person is in a position to pass judgment
upon the moral character of any act unless he understands
thoroughly all of the conditions which surround the act
In order to understand historical relations fully one needs

HISTORY 379

to have such a view of the historical situation as it is
extremely difficult for a modern student to acquire. The
modern student is, in the first place, guided in all of his
judgments by an established mode of thought which is
peculiar to his own generation. We have certain notions in
this day about the treatment of colonies, for example, that
are wholly different from the notions that obtained at the
time that England was in controversy with her American
colonies. The notions that we now entertain are the results
of long historical periods which have recorded themselves
in the literature and language of our people. The youth of
to-day is introduced directly to these political and ethical
ideas without any special reference to the earlier controver-
sies out of which the present notions have grown. When,
therefore, he is suddenly carried back in his historical stud-
ies to situations that differ altogether from the situations
that now confront him, he is likely to carry back, without
being fully aware of the fallacy of his procedure, those
standards of judgment and canons of ethical thought which
constitute his present inheritance. He judges, in other
words, by modern standards, situations which are in char-
acter wholly different from those of to-day.

MEMORY AND HISTORICAL MATERIALS DEFECTIVE

There is another way of expressing the same matter. We
may say that any individual is always hazy in his efforts to
recall past situations. His memory images are only partial.
What is true of the individual is true also of the race. Its
memories of its earlier struggles are incomplete. The diffi-
culty of recording, as well as the difficulty of recognizing,
the full details of any situation will always hamper the his-
torian. The result is that the memory of the race is more
defective than the memory of an individual who tries to
recall his own past experiences.

380 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

This defective material is, however, regarded by the stu-
dent as an adequate basis for a final judgment as to relative
merits. He will more commonly err in his judgments than
be right if he takes the position that his history is complete
and his knowledge adequate. The historians, therefore, are
striving, so far as they can, to impress upon teachers and
students the necessity of being very cautious in condemning
or eulogizing those who are described in history. One should
be slow to pass moral judgments upon any historical char-
acter. At the same time, there can be no doubt that his-
torical material stimulates any student to just this sort of
consideration of the ethical values of all sorts of human
relations. It is almost impossible to conduct a high-school
course in American history which does not present to the
student again and again the opportunities for forming his
own judgments about the propriety of certain historical
acts. It is inherent in history, as a subject, that it stimu-
lates all sorts of human judgments. The student's imagina-
tion is kindled by the accounts given of human activities,
and his sympathies are aroused in spite of every effort that
he may make to keep his mind open for an impartial judg-
ment. The effort of the historian, therefore, to describe
history as a scientific subject is likely to fail to persuade an
elementary student whose human sympathies are aroused
by the narrative which he reads.

CHRONOLOGICAL JUDGMENT MUST BE TRAINED

There is one type of special judgment which may be
regarded as peculiar to history. The student must learn,
through his historical studies, to have a proper judgment
with regard to time and the sequence of events in time.
The Committee of Five has called attention in an interest-
ing way to the importance of training students in this mat-
ter of time judgments. This report recommends that the

HISTORY 381

division between ancient and medieval history be set at
the year 800 rather than at the year 476. The reason for
this recommendation, as given in the report, is that if the
earlier date is chosen the student is likely to think of an-
cient civilization as wholly set off from modern civilization.
In this case the student loses the continuity of civilization
and has a distorted chronological idea.

This single example can be elaborated by other examples
from the experience of students. We may properly refer
to the fact that little children in the elementary schools
have no more notion of periods of time than they have of
great spatial areas. The little child beginning his study of
geography is seriously handicapped by the fact that he has
never seen any large land areas. The space world, as he
learns about it, is symbolical and abstract. In the same
way the child has difficulty with time. Indeed, his difficulty
with time is even greater than his difficulty with space. Lit-
tle children very seldom know the difference between yester-
day and the day before. Their memories are confused with
regard to the dating of past experiences. As they grow
older and have behind them a whole series of years of
experience, they gain somewhat in ability to think of time
and to mark off the different epochs of their own personal
experience; but the long ranges of time continue to be
extremely difficult for them to imagine and to fill up with
historical events. The meager outlines of history which are
given to them pass over centuries with a few isolated state-
ments which make it quite impossible for the child to com-
prehend anything about the actual time units with which
history deals. If his historical material is arranged in such a
way that one body of descriptions stops at a certain definite
date and a later body of information begins at a later date,
there will be, exactly as the Committee of Five has pointed
out, a break in his thought about historical sequences. His
whole study of time is abstract. When dates are given to

382 PSYCHOLOGY OP HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

him in such a way as to mark breaches between different
typfcs of civilization, the dates will be very impressive in
controlling his abstract thought about civilization.

DEVICES FOB TRAINING OF CHRONOLOGICAL JUDGMENT

Various devices have at different times been used in
school work to overcome this difficulty of establishing ade-
quate^ chronological notions in history. In the older courses
a pictured stream of events was often hung on the wall so
as to keep constantly before the child's mind the continuity
and breadth of the centuries through which he was supposed
to pass in his historical studies. The complexity of such a
graphic chart becomes so great if one studies in detail any
historical period that the charts which were familiar on the
walls of school buildings a generation or two ago have
gradually been eliminated because the amount of material
which the student is supposed to compass has increased to
such an extent that these charts are no longer acceptable.

Sometimes teachers attempt to substitute a series of defi-
nite points in history for the picture of the whole sequence of
events. The student is required to learn a set of important
dates. Here again the difficulty is to limit the emphasis which
shall be given to particular dates, and there is grave danger
that the student's experience will be more broken up and sub-
divided by these dates than developed into a single continuity.

The abandonment of the chart device and the difficulty
of getting a useful series of dates should not lead teachers
to neglect the task of cultivating in students a system
of chronological judgments. Students must be taught the
meaning of a century and of a decade. They must learn
to arrange events in sequence and in parallel. It requires
constant attention on the part of the teacher to render
these judgments clear and adequate, but the task is one of
the essential aspects of history teaching.

HISTORY 888

CAUSAL JUDGMENT

A second type of judgment which is frequently empha-
sized in historical study is the causal judgment which the
student is supposed to cultivate in the presence of historical
facts. The Committee of Five has commented on this mat-
ter as follows :

History cultivates the judgment by leading the pupil to see
the relation between cause and effect, as cause and effect appear
in human affairs. We do not mean by this that his attention
should be directed solely to great moving causes, or that he
should study what is sometimes called the " philosophy of his-
tory"— far from it; nor do we mean that time should be
consumed in discussing the meaning of facts when the facts
themselves are not known. But history has to do with the
becoming of past events, — not simply with what was, but with
what came to be, — and in studying the simplest forms of his-
torical narrative even the average pupil comes to see that one
thing leads to another ; he begins quitfe unconsciously to see
that events do not simply succeed each other in time, but that
one grows out of another, or rather out of a combination of
many others. Thus, before the end of the secondary course,
the well-trained pupil has acquired some power in seeing rela-
tionships and detecting analogies. While it is perfectly true
that the generalizing faculty is developed late, and that the
secondary pupil will often learn unrelated data with ease, if
not with avidity, it is equally true that history in the hands
of the competent teacher is a great instrument for developing
in the pupil capacity for seeing underlying reasons and for
comprehending motives. (P. 21.)

FORMAL STATEMENT OF RESULTS VERSUS JUDGMENT

The danger which arises in attempting to train students
of history to acquire causal judgments is similar to that
which was discussed in an earlier chapter in commenting
on the serious difficulty of getting students to do scientific

38-J: PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

thinking for themselves. Most of the causes and effects
which students of history really canvass in their school work
are given to them as the result of someone else's thought
rather than as a result of their own reaction upon the sit-
uations jvhich they study. They learn a list of causes and
a list of effects, substituting this purely formal list for any
genuine, personal thought about the situations under ex-
amination. It is not necessary here to recanvass the com-
ments which were made in the chapter on the teaching of
science ; it is enough to point out that the causal relations
in history are by no means as obvious as the causal relations
in science. History is in this respect, therefore, a much
more complicated subject than science as an instrument
for teaching children to pass causal judgments. Causes
in human society and in human behavior are frequently so
obscure that they become matters of speculation if they
are commented upon at all. This does not prove by any
means that causal discussions should be eliminated from the
history course, but it does make it perfectly clear that the
teacher who lays great stress upon causal relations is deal-
ing with a more complex type of material in history than
in any other subject of the curriculum.

THE CBITICAL EXAMINATION OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE

Finally, as has been frequently pointed out, history is
designed to create in the mind of the student a critical
attitude toward the evidences which are presented to him
in historical narratives. This statement may be subdivided
into two special statements of the way in which this train-
ing may be given. In the first place, historical evidence is
very largely a matter of documents. The student must
therefore become familiar with the use of books. Indeed,
it may be pointed out, without fear of dispute, that the
history course, if properly conducted, is more likely than

HISTOKY 385

any other course in the school to familiarize the student
with methods of using the library for reference. He must
come in contact with the sources of his material. Critical
judgment will naturally develop during the student's effort
to secure his material.

There is a higher form of critical judgment which comes
not through the mere collection of material but through
the comparison of different authorities with each other.
This higher form of critical judgment has sometimes been
essayed in the secondary schools. It has been assumed
that students can be brought in contact with old newspapers
and with the reminiscences of some of the older members
of the community, and that they will be able, through a
comparison of the information collected from these differ-
ent sources, to develop the true narrative of historical
events. In the main it has been found that elementary/
students are not competent to carry on any large amount
of work with original sources. It appears, on the other
hand, to be very stimulating for any student to be brought
into contact with some of the original sources. Undoubtedly
extracts from contemporary writings constitute a very le-
gitimate part of the collateral reading for any historical
course ; but the assumption that this can be made the sole
or leading method of instruction in secondary schools has
proved itself to be in opposition to the experiences of those
who have attempted to use the source method in secondary-
school instruction. The psychological reason for the ina-
bility of secondary-school students to study merely sources
is not far to seek. The weighing of evidence requires a
detached, impersonal attitude which is not easy for a
student to assume. Furthermore, the complexity of such
problems of the comparison of evidence takes the student's
attention away from the central historical sequence which
he is supposed to be following, with the result that he gets
no adequate historical narrative. In general the sifting of

386 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

evidence iff the business of the specialist. The elementary
student gets his best view of the course of events if he
is saved the complexities of research.

TRAINING IMAGINATION

One of the strictly psychological topics which has fre-
quently been made the subject of comment in the reports
of committees on history courses is the subject of imagina-
tion and the part which it plays in historical courses. The
report of the Committee of Seven was criticized in some
quarters because it assumed on the part of high-school
students a power of abstraction which the experience of
teachers did not justify. The Committee of Five, in can-
vassing this question, evidently sees the wisdom of empha-
sizing in the high-school course the cultivation of a great
deal of concrete imagery on the part of students. Their
comment on this matter is as follows:

The secondary pupil must deal with real facts and with real
men, with institutions as men worked in them and with them ;
he must have time to think and read as well as to learn. We
must not forget that history merits a place in the curriculum
because of its distinctly educational value; by it the pupil
learns how the toil and labor of the past generations made the
present ; he learns to read and think of social problems. Such
ends are not attained by any unreal and impersonal treatment
of institutions and processes, or by the memorizing of chrono-
logical outlines. (P. 22.)

Ancient history must be made simpler and less abstract;
more attention must be paid to great men, less to the history
of institutions ; more time must be given to simple studies of
art and habits of life ; wars that mean nothing must be omitted,
and time must be gained for easy, familiar talks and lessons
about things that pupils of fourteen can understand. Consti-
tutional details must give place to pictures and to stories of
the great deeds and achievements of antiquity. An attempt
to show just how this can be done would be out of place here.

HISTORY 387

There is an undoubted demand for textbooks that will aid the
teachers in this difficult task ; and there is need of abundant
and cheap illustrative material. But the task must rest with the
teacher. ^Difficult as it is, there is reason for thinking that it will
be mastered. We feel confidence in saying that there is no other
field of history so rich in materials of human interest and which
can be made more vivid and comprehensible; but pupils will
probably not be fired to enthusiasm by the reforms of Clisthenes,
the duties of archons, the campaigns of the Samnite war, or the
technicalities of the Eoman constitution. (P. 36.)

There can be no doubt at all that the reconstruction of
historical scenes is one of the best devices for elementary
instruction in history. It must, indeed, be kept in mind
that the historical course cannot deal exclusively with the
mere description of events ; but there is so much that is in-
volved in the true representation of past situations that the
student is likely by this method to get a training in historical
criticism and historical judgment which he cannot get if he
is not required to be exact and accurate in his descriptions.

DEVICES FOE STIMULATING AND DIRECTING
IMAGINATION

A method which has of late come into vogue for histor-
ical study is the dramatic method of presenting historical
events. The historical drama, like all imaginary pictures
which the student must develop, calls for the careful scru-
tiny of much material. Students learn a great deal about
Roman liistory from an effort to dramatize Julius Caesar.
Their attention is called to details of costume and details
of social life which they would pass over if these were pre-
sented merely in verbal form without any clear appreciation
of their meaning or exact character. On the other hand,
there can be no doubt that the vividness of the dramatic
presentation is so great that there is danger of substituting
the scene, as partially worked out in the drama, for the

388 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

more complete personal idea which the student would have
to cultivate if the drama had not been worked out for him.

The difficulty which is here pointed out is akin to that
which was pointed out in discussing solid geometry, where
attention was called to the fact that many teachers in solid
geometry prefer to get on without a model of the figure
which the students are studying. The reason there presented
was that students fail to cultivate their imaginations just in
the degree in which they are relieved from exercising their
imaginations through the presence of real objects.

So here, if the historical drama is too vivid the student
may substitute that which he sees for that which he ought
to work out in his own thought. This difficulty is in some
measure corrected by the historical pageant, which in many
cases is a substitute for the drama. The historical pageant
merely reviews the figures involved in historical scenes,
giving some of the details of their appearance, but does
not attempt to work out in detail all of their activities.
There is, therefore, a stronger appeal to the imagination of
the student in the pageant than in the drama.

INDUSTRIAL HISTORY AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR
POLITICAL HISTORY

One direction in which recent history studies have aimed
to cultivate the thought and imagination of students more
completely than was formerly the practice is in the direc-
tion of a full knowledge of the historical life of the common
people. History has been remote from the experience of
the ordinary student because the characters dealt with have
been exclusively the leaders in the political and military
world. If history is to be utilized by the ordinary student
in cultivating any appreciative knowledge of earlier periods,
he must have, as a part of his subject of thought, the life
of people who, like himself, move in the common planes.

HISTORY 389

History of the purely military or political type has proved
to be so barren for the student that there was a great recoil
from the formalism of this type of content. This recoil from
purely political history shows again how the historical course
aims to cultivate the personal sympathies and personal judg-
ments of all the students. There can be no doubt that his-
tory makes a large advance just in the degree in which it
arouses in the student those more intimate forms of sym-
pathy and judgment which are needed to put the individual
in contact with the full life of earlier generations.

APPLICATION OF HISTORY TO PRESENT CONDITIONS

Writers on history frequently call attention to the fact
that students ought to be able to apply the history which
they read to the present. This application must often take
the form of contrast. The student is made vividly aware
of present modes of institutional life by having his atten-
tion drawn to the fact that other nations and other ages
have dealt with situations in a way wholly different from
that which he. observes in present institutions. On the other
hand, the application of history to present institutions may
take a more direct form if the student is made acquainted
with the reason for the present mode of organization. Take
such an institution as the United States Congress with its
two Houses. What is the historical origin of this body?
We have here an interesting constitutional question which
can be discussed from the point of view of its history in such
a way as to make the student clearly aware of the reason
for the dual organization of this legislative body.

A very productive suggestion has recently been made in
the method of historical presentation, in that some event of
crucial significance in the life of the nation has been made
the starting point for a backward inquiry as to the causes
that led up to this particular event. If one could determine

390 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

step by step the different conditions that had made inevi-
table the present situation, he would have an historical
study which, in its applications, would be perfectly obvi-
ous since the historical study would be undertaken for the
purpose of giving an explanation of the present situation.
In general, history begins at the chronologically remote
point, and the application to the present is reserved for a
later period of the course. Application thus becomes an
extremely difficult part of the work. It would be inter-
esting for some vigorous secondary-school teacher to try
the experiment which, as indicated in the foregoing para-
graph, has been tried in more advanced courses offered
to research students.

HISTORY A CENTER OF CORRELATIONS

History, more than any other subject in the curriculum,
has been studied with regard to its correlation to other
subjects. The Herbartians called attention to the impor-
tance of history as a central subject in the curriculum. In
view of the fact that the training of the younger members
of the race is the natural outgrowth of the historical devel-
opment of the race, it seems very natural to point out that
historical studies can be utilized as the best instruments for
introducing children to the institutions in which they must
live. The Herbartians, therefore, would make the historical
narrative the basis for the development of all of the other
forms of school work. They would allow science to attach
itself to the historical narrative and to receive that emphasis
which can be justified by reference to the relations between
science and industry. Especially would they show the re-
lation between geography and history, calling attention to
the fact that the movements of races aiid their economic
undertakings all depend on the physical environment in
which they grow up.

HISTORY 391

All of these correlations between history and the other
subjects emphasize the fact, which has been pointed out again
and again in this discussion, that history is a very broad sub-
ject in its content and in the judgments which it aims
to cultivate in students. There is one practical suggestion
which tends to utilize the possibility of correlating history
with other subjects and serves at the same time to supply
a way out of a difficulty mentioned in an earlier discussion.
It has been recommended that a good deal of the English
work which is now apparently without motive and lacking
in proper content could be made more productive if the
time that is consumed in aimless writing and reading trivial
material could be related in some way to the requirements
of the history course. At all events, there can be no doubt
at all that a broad subject like history invites a broader
type of training than most of the special subjects in the
curriculum. The teacher of history should be sufficiently
interested in these relations to work out material which will
satisfy the legitimate demand for correlation of his subject
with the other courses.

Finally, in this connection it is interesting to note that the
demand is being felt more than ever for a study of the history
of industry. This demand grows out of the development
of technical courses in secondary schools, which technical
courses are demanding the same kind of academic back-
ground as that which has heretofore been provided for the
other subjects of the curriculum.

The remaining topics which might be taken up in dis-
cussing history as a special subject are topics which have
already been touched upon in discussing other subjects in
the curriculum, and we may with propriety turn over to
a series of genejal chapters such problems as discipline,
methods of study, and the organization of the students'
curriculum*

CHAPTER XVII
GENERALIZED EXPERIENCE

ATTACKS ON THE DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE

Discussions of formal discipline have been carried on
with vigor and keen partisan feeling during the last two
decades. The report of the Committee of Ten 1 stimulated
Professor Hinsdale3 and others to open the discussion in
terms of Herbartian psychology and pedagogy. Following
this report of the Committee of Ten came a series of statis-
tical investigations and experiments by students of educa-
tional psychology. Those who are not interested especially
in the scientific study of education have been drawn into
the controversy. The discussion was taken up by the
opponents of the classics who found that the arguments
in favor of the teaching of the classics in the schools were
couched in a terminology which made the classicists appear
as the natural defenders of the doctrine of discipline. At-
tacks on the doctrine were especially welcome to representa-
tives of the new subjects which base their claims for their
reception into the course of study upon the rich variety of
content which they offer to the student. The sciences, for
example, have been assumed to contain so much valuable
information capable of practical application to the activities
of ordinary life that the advocates of these subjects have
been very glad to see the classics under fire because of their

1 Report of the Committee of Ten. Published separately by the
American Book Company, 1894.

* Address by B. A. Hinsdale, "The Dogma of Formal Discipline,11
Proceedings of the National Education Association, 1894, p. 626.

392

GENERALIZED EXPERIENCE 393

alleged inability to furnish training that can be recognized
as of immediate practical value.

It will be noted from the foregoing remarks that the dis-
cussion has been from the outset of a partisan type, and to-day
it bears all of the marks of an intense partisan controversy.
There is very little sobriety of statement on either side.
The classicists, still feeling that they must defend their sub-
jects as giving a type of mental training which will be val-
uable to the student, and finding that the very terms which
they employ are under criticism by students of educational
psychology, are bitter in their counter attacks upon every-
body, including students of the science of education. In
some cases they have felt it necessary to go so far as to assert
that there is nothing at all in the science of education. On
the other hand, the opponents of the classics have made the
most extreme statements, holding that the argument that
a subject disciplines the mind is an absolutely unacceptable
ground for the admission or continuance of any subject in
the school curriculum.

EXTREME CRITICS ASK FOR REFORMULATION

There are some evidences that this partisan discussion
has reached its climax and that we are now in a position to
take up the serious scientific discussion of the doctrine of
formal discipline and its meaning. For example, Thorndike,
who has long posed as one of the strongest opponents of
the doctrine of formal discipline, writes in the second vol-
ume of his tf Educational Psychology " l as follows :

These experimental facts as a whole, like those concerning
memorizing, leave a rather confused impression on one's mind,
and resist organization into any simple statement of how far
the improvement wrought by special practice spreads beyond
the function primarily exercised. They do, however, at least

1 E. L. Thorndike, Educational Psychology ; Vol. II, The Psychology
of Learning, pp. 417, 418. Teachers College, 1918.

394 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

put out of court the old doctrine of a very wide spread of a
very large percentage of the special improvement. Possibly
nobody really believed that the improvement made in reasoning
about Latin syntax would spread equally, or almost equally,
to all or nearly all varieties of reasoning; but men wrote as
if they believed substantially this. Certainly nobody can now
believe it in the face of these experiments.

It is indeed doubtful whether anyone ever held the ex-
treme views sometimes described by the opponents of the
doctrine of formal discipline. This fundamental ambiguity
is amusingly illustrated in such cases as the following. We
find O'Shea1 complaining bitterly because he cannot find any-
one who will state the doctrine of formal discipline in such
a way that he can attack it to his heart's content. He says :

Those who profess to believe in the virtues of formal mental
discipline are still not willing to carry it to its logical conclu-
sions. They will not say that any particular sort of mental
activity will benefit the mind on every side. They maintain
rather that the training of perception in any direction improves
the power of perception in every direction, but not the power of
reason, or memory, or imagination. Here the theory that all pos-
sible mental functions are benefited in the same degree by any va-
riety of experience is abandoned, and it is implied that there are
various departments, as it were, to the mind, from each of which
may be produced special articles of mental merchandise accord-
ing to the needs of the moment. We cannot draft the power de-
veloped by exercising the perceiving faculty, for instance, into
the service of the remembering faculty ; nor can power of mem-
ory be utilized in carrying forward reason or imagination.

The same sort of complaint is made by Heck : 2

Finally, we notice that adherents of the doctrine of formal
discipline shrink from carrying their doctrine to its logical

1 M. J. O'Shea, Education as Adjustment, p. 251. Longmans, Green,
& Co., 1903.

* W. H: Heck, Mental Discipline and Educational Values, pp. 126 ff.
John Lane Company, 1911.

GENERALIZED EXPERIENCE 395

conclusions, namely, the exact equivalents of studies for mental
discipline or, if a distinction is made between them, the concen-
tration on a single superior study for the training of a given
power or set of powers. In practice, if not in theory, these ad-
herents acknowledge a variation in training of a given power
or set of powers as related to a variation in content of study.
A case in point is the inconsistency of the Committee of Ten
on Secondary School Studies in stating what seems to be a be-
lief in the equivalence of studies and then specifying elaborately
varied curricula, representing different phases of the environ-
ment, different subject-matter and method.

CASE AGAINST FORMAL DISCIPLINE EXAGGERATED

One might go on multiplying examples from the writings
of the opponents of the doctrine of formal discipline to show
that they have never really succeeded in finding the extreme
position which they like to attack actually represented by
any one of the advocates of the doctrine. It is interesting
to note that the quotations which are given by Thorndike
and others in support of their contention that the doctrine
of formal discipline has been whole-heartedly advocated by
teachers of the classics and their friends are very labored.
For example, if one takes the first quotation used by
Thorndike in the successive reprints1 of his attack upon
the doctrine of formal discipline, he finds the following, on
the whole, fairly innocuous statement:

Since the mind is a unit and the faculties are simply phases
or manifestations of its activity, whatever strengthens one fac-
ulty indirectly strengthens all the others. The verbal memory
seems to be an exception to this statement, however, for it may
be abnormally cultivated without involving to any profitable
extent the other faculties. But only things that are rightly
perceived and rightly understood can be rightly remembered.
Hence whatever develops the acquisitive and assimilative

i For example, Educational Psychology, Vol. II, p. 360.

896 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

powers will tdso strengthen memory ; and, conversely, rightly
strengthening the memory necessitates the developing of other
powers. (R. N. Roark, w Method in Education," p. 27.)

EXTREME CRITICS APPEAR AT TIMES AS ARDENT
ADVOCATES

It will be noted that this quotation, presented by Thorn-
dike as the first example of the teachings of the advocates
of formal discipline which he feels compelled to refute, dif-
fers very little from statements which might be extracted
from Thorndike's own writings. For example, on a later
page of the same volume l he reprints with evident satisfac-
tion an extract from one of his own earlier works as follows :

Identity of Procedure. — The habit acquired in a laboratory
course of looking to see how chemicals do behave, instead of
guessing at the matter or learning statements about it out of a
book, may make a girPs methods of cooking or a boy's methods
of manufacturing more scientific because the attitude of distrust
of opinion and search for facts may so possess one as to be car-
ried over from the narrower to the wider field. Difficulties in
studies may prepare students for the difficulties of the world
as a whole by cultivating the attitudes of neglect of discomfort,
ideals of accomplishing what one sets out to do, and the feeling
of dissatisfaction with failure.

It will be remembered that identity of procedure and prac-
tice is what Roark is advocating in the earlier paragraph.
Furthermore, one may turn to those who have been influ-
enced by Thorndike's writings for examples which illustrate
admirably the difficulty of distinguishing between those who
are in favor of formal discipline and those who are not.
In his interesting book, " The Teaching of Physics," Pro-
fessor Mann 2 is very clear in the earlier chapters that the

1 Educational Psychology, p. 431.

* C. R. Mann, The Teaching of Physics. The Macmillan Company,
1012.

GENERALIZED EXPERIENCE 397

doctrine of formal discipline should be violently attacked.
He says on page 183 :

The first point to be noted is that training in any subject is
specific, not general. . . . Thinking, like training, is always spe-
cific, that is, connected with some practical situation and depend-
ent upon the specific nature of the situation as a whole.

One hardly settles his mind to the acceptance of this doc-
trine of specific discipline when he comes, on page 214, to
the following wholesale adoption of the doctrine of formal
discipline :

Discipline in the methods of acquiring this useful knowledge
results not only in skill in weighing evidence and in criticising
and testing data, in openmindedness or the ability of holding
conclusions tentatively and of altering them whenever new
evidence demands it, and in the ability of predicting conse-
quences and of making judgments that shall have the great-
est possible degree of validity ; but also in self-forgetfulness,
perseverance, self-respect, and resourcefulness in the face of
difficulties.

CRITICISMS OF THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF TEN

Perhaps the above quotations will be enough to convince
the impartial reader why it is very difficult to find anyone
sufficiently clear on the doctrine of formal discipline to be
accepted as a suitable target for those who suppose them-
selves to be in opposition to this doctrine. One other ex-
ample, however, of the partisan spirit of this discussion may
be cited in view of the reference made by Hinsdale,1 Heck,1
and others to the report of the Committee of Ten. This
report has been referred to in many quarters as advocating
the doctrine of formal discipline. If we turn to the minority
report of the Committee presented by Baker we find the

1 Report of the Committee of Ten, Edition of 1894, pp. 56, 67. Amer-
ican Book Company.

398 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

following Statements which indicate that Baker himself
evidently thought that the rest of the Committee were
in favor of formal discipline:

I cannot endorse expressions that appear to sanction the idea
that the choice of subjects in secondary schools may be a mat-
ter of comparative indifference. I note especially the following
sentences, referring the reader to their context for accurate
interpretation.

" Any school principal may say : — ' With the staff at my com-
mand I can teach only five subjects out of those proposed by
Conferences in the manner proposed. My school shall, there-
fore, be limited to these five/ Another school may be able to
teach in the thorough manner proposed five subjects, but some
or all of these five may be different from those selected by the
first school.

" If twice as much time is given in a school to Latin as is
given to mathematics, the attainments of the pupils in Latin
ought to be twice as great as they are in mathematics, provided
that equally good work is done in the two subjects ; and Latin
will have twice the educational value of mathematics.

" The schedule of studies contained in Table III permits flex-
ibility and variety in three respects. First, it is not necessary
that any school should teach all the subjects which it contains,
or any particular set of subjects.

" Every youth who entered college would have spent four
years in studying a few subjects thoroughly ; and on the theory
that all the subjects are to be considered equivalent in educa-
tional rank for the purpose of admission to college, it would
make no difference which subjects he had chosen from the pro-
gramme — he would have had four years of strong and effective
mental training."

All such statements are based upon* the theory that, for the
purposes of general education, one study is as good as another,
— a theory which appears to me to ignore Philosophy, Psychol-
ogy and Science of Education. It is a theory which makes
education formal and does not consider the nature and value
of the content. Power comes through knowledge ; we cannot
conceive of observation and memory in the abstract.

GENERALIZED EXPERIENCE 399

CRITICISM BASED ON OBVIOUS MISINTERPRETATION

Inasmuch as the Committee's report itself contains a
minority statement which thus charges the Committee
with adherence to the doctrine of formal discipline, and
inasmuch as this tradition about the Committee of Ten
has been perpetuated in some of the later discussions of
the subject, it may be well to call attention to the fact
that the last paragraph in Baker's quotation, which is also
quoted by Hinsdale and others, was written not as a part
of a discussion of the general educational value of high-
school subjects but rather as part of a statement dealing
with the organizing of a college preparatory course. What
the Committee asserted was that the high school of to-day
cannot formulate its course of study with a view merely to
preparing for college. The school must organize its courses
in such a way as to offer to all of the young people in the
community as large a range of subjects as possible with a
view to preparing them for the ordinary duties of citizen-
ship. This is the principle which the Committee lays at
the foundation of its various programs of study. Having
organized the course of study for the high school in this
general way, it finds that the problem of preparing for
college must be treated as a secondary problem. The
Committee holds that the preparation for college, being a
relatively incidental matter, will be adequately taken care
of within the limits of the courses which it has arranged
if all the subjects which are taught are raised to a uniform
level of excellence. All of the different courses being
regarded by the Committee as of value for the training of
a student, the student who is to go to college may extract
from the total series of possibilities those particular courses
which he wishes to elect. The college may safely rely upon
the outcome of this secondary training because it has been
completely and thoroughly organized in the general programs

400 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

laid dowiwby the Committee. It is at this point that the
statement quoted from the Committee's report appears.
How anyone could read this report and find justifications
for Baker's minority report, or for the statement made by
Heck and quoted on page 394, is difficult for an unbiased
student of education to determine. Certainly there must
be in any social or educational situation which permits this
partisan misinterpretation much greater intensity of partisan
feeling than sobriety of intellectual evaluation of positions.

HADLEY ON GREEK AND FORMAL DISCIPLINE

One further quotation may be added to show that the
statements of those who are in favor of the general doctrine
of formal discipline are by no means so extreme on the one
hand as has been assumed by the opponents of this doctrine,
nor on the other hand greatly at variance with Thorndike
and others who are in favor of the doctrine of identity of
procedure. The following quotation from the presidential
report of President Hadley in 1909 is an admirable state-
ment of the doctrine.1

One of the chief causes which have given the teaching of
Greek its importance in American colleges was well stated in
President Garfield's inaugural.

" That some subjects produce better results than others in
the same general group is due rather to the accident of time
and to perfection of method, than to qualities inherent in the
subjects. Consider, for example, the teaching of Greek. Both
the language and the method of instruction have been stand-
ardized, if I may borrow a term from the shops. This result
has come about, in part, because the language is Mead/ thereby
lending itself to fixed methods of analysis and treatment, and
in part because it has been studied long enough, since its

1 Report of the president of Yale University, 1908-1909, pp. 7-9, 22.
Published by the University, 1909.

GENERALIZED EXPERIENCE 401

revival, to enable teachers to agree upon the authors to be read
and the order in which their work can most profitably be placed
before the student.

" These considerations give to Greek, as to Latin, a peculiar
claim to consideration as a discipline, wholly aside from the
question of literary quality and historic value."

What does this last sentence mean ? It means, I think, that
if a man has passed an examination in Greek, you know that
he has studied Greek to some purpose, and is likely to work to
the same purpose in other things that he may take up. Greek
is an intellectual game where the umpires know the rules better
than they know the rules in the game of French, for instance,
or history, or botany. A man's rating in an examination on
any one of these last three subjects is largely the result of
accident unless the examiner is quite unusually skillful. A
man's rating in Greek, on the other hand, means something.
There never were intellectual competitions keener than the
classical competitions at Oxford in the days when the best men
in England wanted their sons to learn that particular game.

Unfortunately, a large number of the strongest men, both
in England and in the United States, have decided that this
game takes more time than it is worth. Personally, I believe
that this change of mind is in many respects a misfortune ; that
in trying to get more practical results in the way of knowledge
or culture a great many American college boys have lost the
training which the Greek would have given them and gained
nothing of equal value in its place. But colleges cannot teach
a thing to a public which does not want to study it ; and we
must recognize the fact that an increasing part of the American
public does not care to have its sons give the time necessary
for the effective use of the Greek language as a means of
competition and discipline.

This makes academic problems more difficult. It is infinitely
harder to manage a college where the students do not want to
study Greek than one where they do. It is harder to enforce
habits of regularity; harder to organize general intellectual
competitions ; harder to be sure that examination marks are a
test of ability. But we must meet the facts as they are. We

402 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

cannot decline solving the problem of to-day because we like
the problem of yesterday better.

It was a mistake for the advocates of the old curriculum to
think that all the students required the same treatment. It is,
I believe, an equal mistake for the advocates of the elective
system to think that each student requires a different treat-
ment. For while there is a very large number of subjects of
interest to study, and an almost infinite variety of occupations
which the students are going to follow afterwards, there is a
comparatively small number of types of mind with which we
have to deal. If we can have four or five honor courses, some-
thing like those of the English universities, where the studies
are grouped and the examinations arranged to meet the needs
of these different types, we can, I think, realize the chief ad-
vantages of the elective system or the group system without
subjecting ourselves to their evils. I am confident that we can
secure a degree of collective intellectual interest which is now
absent from most of our colleges, and can establish competi-
tions which will be recognized not only in college but in the
world as places where the best men can show what is in them.

It may be objected that any such arrangement would render
it difficult for a boy to study the particular things that he was
going to use in after life. I regard this as its cardinal advan-
tage. The ideal college education seems to me to be one where
a student learns things that he is not going to use in after life,
by methods that he is going to use. The former element gives
the breadth, the latter element gives the training.

DISTINCTION BETWEEN FORM AND CONTENT DIFFICULT

A part of the misunderstanding regarding formal disci-
pline grows out of the fact that the terms in which the
discussion has been carried forward are themselves very
unfortunate. In the first place, a distinction between for-
mal subjects and content subjects is quite impossible to
draw and has never been strictly adhered to in any of the
discussions. One finds, for example, that Thorndike is
constantly discussing identity of procedure and identity

GENERALIZED EXPERIENCE 403

of substance. His term " procedure " may be regarded as
synonymous with the term " form," while his term " sub-
stance " is synonymous with the term " content." It is
evident, therefore, that in his own mind the discussion is
not limited to form on the one hand as distinguished from
substance on the other, nor to content as distinguished
from the modes of mental activity.

REACTION AGAINST DISCIPLINE

In the second place, the term " discipline " undoubtedly
carries to the minds of many thinkers an implied criticism.
The term " discipline " reminds one of the early days of
educational theory when it was assumed that the child is
by nature unregenerate and perverse. The child must in
some fashion be changed so that he will become an indi-
vidual of the accepted type in society. This earlier notion
about child nature had its sources in the theological preju-
dices of the medieval period. It was assumed by the theo-
logians who tried to frame their school work on the basis
of a pietistic or puritanic religious theory that there is
nothing in the world so bad as that which is natural. To-
day we are all of us prepared to assume exactly the oppo-
site attitude. Studies of mental development and of social
organization have convinced all of us that Nature is con-
stantly working for the improvement of the species and
the individual. Nature provides devices which constantly
make for betterment. Consequently, if we can do anything
which will aid Nature in the processes which she is carrying
on, we shall have worked to the advantage of all concerned.
This attitude with regard to Nature makes us skeptical
about any form of training which seems to run counter to
Nature. When one reads Herbert Spencer's unqualified
statement that we may properly depend upon the child's own
judgment of what is agreeable to him, since all education

404 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

which is natural is sure to arouse a pleasurable feeling;
when one reads in the Herbartians that the child's interest
is a suitable criterion for the selection of school material
and modes of procedure ; when one reads the pleas of the
students of physical education for more of the play type
of activity in school work, he realizes that the day of disci-
pline as a favorite educational concept is past. No one can
get a hearing to-day for any doctrine which repudiates
Nature at the outset. Consequently, the use of the term
" discipline " is unfortunate. No subject can afford at the
present time to bear the burden of this doctrine of disci-
pline. If the classicists want an impartial hearing of their
case, they should abandon that word altogether. What-
ever virtues there may be in learning how to overcome dis-
tractions ; whatever advantages there may be to the student
in learning to concentrate his attention ; he must be freed,
so far as popular thought is concerned, from the necessity of
doing all this in a way that is opposed to Nature. We must
treat concentration as a natural characteristic of the mind.
If we have to cultivate it by strenuous endeavors we must
not say that the mind has been disciplined into concen-
tration; we must say rather that' the mind ought to be
allowed to express its own tendencies. We must learn to
use phrases which will free us from controversies with
medievalism.

ONE DENIES THE FACT OF TRANSFER OF TRAINING

The discussion of formal discipline as it has been carried
on by recent writers can legitimately be expressed in en-
tirely neutral terms. It is in fact a discussion of the degree
to which training gained in one sphere of thought and
activity can be transferred to other spheres of thought and
activity. Special emphasis may furthermore be laid on the
fact that there is no one who denies that some kind of

GENERALIZED EXPERIENCE 405

transfer takes place. The real questions at issue are what
is the degree of transfer and what is its method. It should
perhaps be reiterated that it is entirely out of keeping with
the evidence to assume that there is anyone who believes
that the transfer is uniform and absolute. Sometimes the
opponents of the doctrine of formal discipline write as
though they thought that the advocates of this doctrine
believe in absolutely equal transfer in all directions. Note
Thorndike's comment quoted on page 393. Note also the
statements that were made above from O'Shea and Heck,
where it was pointed out that they cannot find anyone
who goes the whole length of advocating complete transfer
of powers.

TffE REAL PROBLEM THAT OF DEGREE OP TRANSFER

The fact is that in all of these cases the real question is
one of degree. Thorndike's statement of the problem which
he wishes to discuss is thus somewhat biased by his confu-
sion of two distinct problems. He himself admits that there
is some degree of transfer. He wishes to put his opponents
in the position of stating that the transfer is more general
than he admits, and that it takes place by a method other
than that which he accepts. His preliminary definitions are
quoted from his " Principles of Teaching." l

The problem of how far the particular responses made day
by day by pupils improve their mental powers in general is
called the problem of the disciplinary value or disciplinary
effect of studies, or more briefly, the problem of formal disci-
pline. (P. 235.)

A common answer of the theorists about human life and
education has been that each special mental acquisition, each
special form of training, improves directly and equally the
general ability. Teachers have believed and acted on the theory

1 E. L. Thorndike, The Principles of Teaching. A. G. Setter, 1906.

406 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

that the mind was a collection of faculties or powers — obser-
vation, attention, memory, reasoning, Vill and the like — and
that any gain in any faculty was a gain for the faculty as a
whole. (P. 236.)

The powers of the mind are supposed to work irrespective of
the data with which they work. Improvement in one special
power rarely, if ever, means equal improvement in general.
(P. 237.)

CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF EVIDENCE BY CRITICS

We shall first take up the problem of the degree of trans-
fer. It would be simpler to marshal the abundant positive
experimental evidence that transfer of a high degree is very
common, but the rules of argumentation dictate that we
use the material which has been the basis of the opposite
conclusion. We turn, therefore, to Thorndike's text for his
evidence that transfer of training is very slight. We quote
in full his statement.1

The exact extent to which the improvement of any special
capacity does improve other capacities than itself can be esti-
mated from two lines of evidence, one concerning the extent
to which special capacities are related one to another in the
human mind and the other concerning the actual effect of special
training on general ability as found by scientific investigations.

Common observation should teach that mental capacities
are highly specialized. A man may be a tip-top musician but
in other respects an imbecile : he may be a gifted poet, but an
ignoramus in music : he may have a wonderful memory for
figures and only a mediocre memory for localities, poetry or
human faces : school children may reason admirably in science
and be below the average in grammar: those very good in
drawing may be very poor in dancing.

Careful measurements show that the specialization is even
greater than ordinary observation leads one to suppose. For
instance those individuals who are the highest ten out of a hun-
dred in the power to judge differences in length accurately are

i The Principles of Teaching, pp. 238-240.

GENERALIZED EXPERIENCE

407

by no means the highest ten in the ability to judge differences
in weights accurately. In fact they are not very much above
the average. The best ten out of a hundred in observing mis-
spellings in words are not very much better off than the worst
ten when we test their ability to observe the shape of objects.
Similarly, quickness and accuracy in thinking of the sums of
numbers by no means implies equal quickness and accuracy in
thinking of the opposites of words.

The records given below are samples of many that have been
obtained by scientific students of education, all testifying to
the complex specialization of human capacities, and the exist-
ence of variations in any power according to the data with
which it works.

The ranks for thirty students throughout their college course
were as follows :

Indi-
vidual

Rank in
English

Rank in Latin,
French, and German

Indi-
vidual

Rank in
English

Rank in Latin,
French, and German

A

1

2

P

16

16

B

2

13

Q

17

17

C

3

1

R

18

18

D

4

3

s

19

20

E

5

4

T

20

24

F

6

6

U

21

30

G

7

9

V

22

26

H

8

6

W

23

19

I

9

8

X

24

21

J

10

10

Y

26

22

K

11

11

Z

26

7

L

12

28

a

27

29

M

13

12

b

28

23

N

14

14

c

29

26

O

16

16

d

30

27

The ranks for thirty-five fourth-grade girls in two mental
tests l are shown on the following page :

1 The two tests were : (1) in quickness and accuracy in observing A's
In a sheet of capital letters, words containing certain combinations of
letters and the like, and (2) in quickness and accuracy in thinking of
the opposites of words. They may be called tests of (1) observation and
(2) of association.

408 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

Indi-
vidual

Bank in obser-
vation

Rank in asso-
ciation

Indi-
vidual

Rank in obser-
vation

Rank in asso-
ciation

A

1

6

8

19

7

B

2

16

T

20

35

C

8

1

U

21

13

D

4

2

V

22

3

E

5

29

W

23

33

F

6

26

X

24

25

G

7

10

Y

25

29

H

8

24

Z

26

12

I

9

27

a

27

15

J

10

14

b

28

23

K

11

20

c

29

8

L

12

9

d

30

22

M

13

4

e

31

31

N

14

19

f

32

6

O

15

30

g

33

18

P

16

32

h

34

21

Q

17

17

i

35

34

R

18

11

The ranks for twenty-five high-school boys in discriminating
lengths and in discriminating weights were as follows :

indi-
vidual

Rank in ac-
curacy with
lengths

Rank in ac-
curacy with
weights

Indi-
vidual

Rank in ac-
curacy with
lengths

Rank in ac-
curacy with
weights

A

1

4

N

14

11

B

2

8

0

15

15

C

3

24

P

16

10

D

4

12

Q

17

25

E

5

5

R

18

13

F

6

17

S

19

3

6

7

2

T

20

19

H

8

14

U

21

21

I

9

6

V

22

22

J

10

7

W

23

1

K

11

20

X

24

16

L

12

23

Y

25

18

M

13

9

Many facts such as these prove that the mind is by no means
a collection of a few general faculties, observation, attention,

GENERALIZED EXPERIENCE 409

memory, reasoning and the like, but is the sum total of count-
less particular capacities, each of which is to some extent inde-
pendent of the others, — each of which must to some extent
be educated by itself. The task of teaching is not to develop
a reasoning faculty, but many special powers of thought about
different kinds of facts. It is not to alter our general power of
attention, but to build up many particular powers of attending
to different kinds of facts.

A SIMPLER STATEMENT OF THE TABLES

The student will understand these tables better if we
recalculate them for him. In the first table individual A
stands in the first position in English and in the second po-
sition in languages. He is displaced, therefore, by one posi-
tion. Individual B in this table is displaced eleven positions.
If in this fashion we go through the whole table and indi-
cate the amount of displacement, we find that there are two
groups of cases. There is one group in which the displace-
ment is very slight. Thus, there are seven members of the
group of thirty who are not displaced at all ; that is, they
assume exactly the same position in the English series as
in the foreign-language series. Seven members of the group
of thirty suffer only a single point of displacement. There
are four cases where the displacement is two positions ; five
where the displacement is three ; three more where the dis-
placement is five or less. We now have four scattering
cases in which the displacement is very large. One of these
cases has a displacement of nine ; one, eleven ; one, sixteen ;
and one, nineteen.

STRIKING POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE CORRELATIONS

How an astute observer like Thorndike could fail to
recognize that he has in these figures a very interesting
indication of the fact which is known to every teacher is

410 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

difficult to understand. Teachers realize that there are
some students who acquire In each study better equipment
for general school work. There are other students who be-
come so absorbed in a single line of training that they are
actually interrupted in the rest of their school work. It is
very easy to find in any school some member of the Latin
class who has become so absorbed in this one subject that
he neglects the rest of his work in order to be perfect in
this subject. It would be natural to expect that such a stu-
dent as this would suffer a very large displacement if his
marks in Latin were compared with his marks in English.
Thorndike's table makes it perfectly clear that such
facts lie before us in abundance in every class. Here are
some students whose work correlates; others who show
the sharpest contrasts. Why should anyone be satisfied to
throw all these cases together, and shutting his eyes draw
out an average ? What does the average show ? Nothing
but this : in a large class there are enough different kinds
of transfer so that if you mix them thoroughly you will
find no transfer. Note that all you need to do if you want
to cover up correlations is to continue to mix until the
desired result is reached.

THE FALLACY OF USING TESTS WITHOUT CRITICAL
INTERPRETATION

A second fact which comes out in Thorndike's tables is
that our methods of testing students are such that it is
extremely difficult to know how much transfer we ought
to expect between the different functions under discussion.
In the second and third tables presented above, investiga-
tions are reported of the degrees of correlation between
quickness and accuracy of observation and association, and
between the abilities exhibited by high-school boys to dis-
criminate lengths and weights. The table on discrimination

GENERALIZED EXPEEIENCE 411

of lengths and weights, like the first table, shows a relar
tively very high degree of correlation. Students are dis-
placed only in a few isolated instances more than seven x>r
eight places. These few isolated instances, like the cases of
negative correlation in the first table, are just as impor-
tant to the educator and just as significant for educational
theory as the cases of the students showing a high degree
of positive correlation. Whenever two mental functions
are opposed to each other the relationship between the two
opposing functions is quite as important to the teacher as
the relationship between two functions which cooperate
with each other.

The second table, in which observation and association
are contrasted with each other, shows a very wide disparity
in the standings of individuals, but it does not follow from
this disparity that it is the students who are responsible.
Before an investigator begins to draw inferences from his
tables he ought certainly to recognize the fact that a table
depends for its significance on the kind of comparison which
it institutes. Who could expect to compare the quickness
and alertness in observation and association exhibited by
fourth-grade girls with the same degree of finality as he
could reach in comparing the attainments of college stu-
dents in English and in foreign languages? It has long
been recognized by all students of education that a single
test is a very unreliable basis on which to make a general-
ization. It would be very much better to throw out this
table on observation and association than to attempt to
build upon so slender a foundation the structure of a gen-
eral educational doctrine, especially when this table differs
so radically from the other two on the same page.

This table also shows that the methods of investigation
have much to do with the degree of transfer which is shown
in any given, situation. Furthermore, it is not merely the
method of testing that influences the result; the method

412 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

of training is also of the greatest influence. Our school
organization has undoubtedly been responsible for much of
the separation between subjects under which students have
suffered. In dealing with English, for example, we had
frequent occasion to point out that the influence of Eng-
lish courses is not general because of the way in which
these courses are organized. The same type of argument
may be applied to other courses in the curriculum.

The negative evidence offered by the critics of formal
discipline thus turns out to be of the thinnest possible
type. They have not only not proved a negative; they
have presented a series of facts which calls loudly for
affirmative discussion.

WHAT is THE METHOD OF TRANSFER ?

We are thus brought to the second phase of our topic.
It is, as we have seen, admitted on all sides that transfer
of some degree takes place. The next question is, How
does transfer take place, or, What conditions secure much
transfer and what secure little ?

TRANSFER DEPENDS ON THE POWER OF
GENERALIZATION

The first and most striking fact which is to be drawn
from school experience is that one and the same subject
matter may be employed with one and the same student
with wholly different effects, according to the mode of pres-
entation. If the lesson is presented in one fashion it will
produce a very large transfer; whereas if it is presented
in an entirely different fashion it will be utterly barren of
results for other phases of mental life. It is quite possible
to take one of the objects of nature study, for example,
and to teach it in such a way that it becomes an isolated

GENERALIZED EXPERIENCE 413

and utterly formal possession of the student. This has
been illustrated time and time again by the instruction
which has been given in birds and plants. A teacher can
teach birds and plants in such a way as to arouse a mini-
mum of ideas in the student's mind. The training may be
as formal in these content subjects as it ever was in lan-
guage instruction. On the other hand, the same subject
matter may be taken by a different teacher, and under
other methods can be made vital for the student's whole
thinking. Thus the teacher who is dealing with birds as a
subject of nature study and secures an interest on the part
of his students for the world in which these birds live,
through an examination of the structures and habits of
the birds, will have in this subject matter one of the most
broadly interesting topics that can be taught. In exactly
the same way a teacher who knows how to make use of
the materials given in a Latin course may render this sub-
,ect very broadly productive, as contrasted with the teacher
who merely gives the formal aspects of the subject. For-
malism and lack of transfer turn out to be not characteris-
tics of subjects of instruction, but rather products of the
mode of instruction in these subjects.

JAMES ON GENEBALIZATION

The important psychological fact involved in the above
statements is that the extent to which a student general-
izes his training is itself a measure of the degree to which
he has secured from any course the highest form of train-
ing. One of the major characteristics of human intelligence
is to be defined by calling attention, as was pointed out in
the chapter on science, to the fact that a human being is
able to generalize his experience. James has discussed this
matter by using the example of the animal trained to open
a particular latch. The animal becomes acquainted with

4U PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

the necessary movements to open one door, but he never
has the ability to generalize this experience. He cannot
see that the same method of opening doors is applicable
to many other latches. The result is that the animal goes
through life with one particular narrow mode of behavior,
and exhibits his lack of intelligence by his inability to carry
this single type of skill over to the other cases which are
very familiar to the trained human intelligence.

James goes on to say that the same distinction appears
when we contrast a trained scientific mind with the ordi-
nary mind. The ordinary thinker does not see how to deal
with a situation in terms of scientific principles. James
cites the example of his own experience with a smoking
student-lamp. He discovered by accident that the lamp
would not smoke if he put something under the chimney so
as to increase the air current, but he did not realize that
what he had done was only one particular example of the
general principle that combustion is favored by a large sup-
ply of oxygen. The general principle and its useful appli-
cation belong to a sphere of thinking and experience which
the untrained layman has not yet mastered.1

THE THEORY OF IDENTICAL ELEMENTS LOOSE AND
AMBIGUOUS

When one studies the psychology of generalization he
becomes aware of the uselessness of some of the formulas
which have been proposed by those who hold that transfer
of training takes place in cases where there are identical
elements present. The identical element is usually con-
tributed by the generalizing mind. On the other hand,
there may be identical elements potentially present in vari-
ous situations, but wholly unobserved by the untrained
or lethargic mind In fact, the discovery of the identical

* Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, p. 389.

GENERALIZED EXPERIENCE 415

element in a situation is in some cases the whole problem of
training. Take the famous illustration of Newton's dis-
covery. He saw for the first time that the relation between
the moon and the earth is identical in character with the
relation between the earth and everything which falls toward
its center. The discovery of this identity in the two situa-
tions was the great achievement of a scientific mind. The
discovery of identical elements in all of the Indo-European
languages was the achievement of the students of compar-
ative philology who a generation ago established the broad
principles of the scientific study of grammar and word
structure. The discovery of identical elements in two sit-
uations was in both cases an achievement of trained minds
applying themselves to situations which heretofore had de-
fied analysis. Or we might borrow our illustrations from the
world of mechanics. The discovery of a common mechan-
ical principle in all of the situations which involve the use
of the wedge and the inclined plane is an achievement of
mature physical science. Primitive man did not recognize
in these different situations a common principle, nor was
he able to carry over from one practical device to other
practical situations the experiences that he had accumulated
in the accidental use of one tool after another. We may
express this limitation of primitive intelligence by saying
that although common modes of procedure were possible
in these different cases, they were not discovered.

BAGLEY ON TRANSFER OF NEATNESS

Let us see how the same general criticism applies to
the discussion of another well-known case. The frequently
quoted experiments which Bagley utilizes in his discussion
of formal discipline1 show that children who had been taught

1 W. C. Bagley, The Educative Process, p. 208. The Macmillan Com-
pany, 1908.

416" PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

in the schools to keep their papers neat in the arithmetic
class did not adopt the same mode of procedure in other
lines of work. It was of course possible for them to find
in the other classes opportunities for neatness equal to those
which were presented in arithmetic. They might have
adopted the same mode of procedure. There were many
elements in the other situations which, compared with the
situation in arithmetic, invited either neatness or its oppo-
site ; but these other situations were not recognized by the
children as inviting the same treatment as the arithmetic
papers, and the mode of procedure, although it was possible,
did not carry over into the new situations.

POWER OF GENERALIZATION VERSUS IDENTICAL
ELEMENTS

In the same fashion we may show that the principles of
intellectual economy which Thorndike frequently includes
in his statement of indentical modes of procedure, namely,
the principles that one can learn to avoid distractions of all
sorts, or that he can refuse to give up a piece of work even
when it is uncomfortable, represent generalized identities
of procedure which are not always realized. In all these
cases we must distinguish sharply between the possibility
of identical modes of procedure and the actual achievement
of this identity. Such an achievement depends upon the
exercise of trained intelligence. The existence of possible
modes of procedure does not lead inevitably to their real-
ization in fact.

Another illustration is of exactly the same type. A great
deal of our reasoning involves the principle which has been
clearly stated in the logics in the formula that every effect
has its cause. Whoever becomes conscious of this general
logical principle will find that in many different situations
he depends upon this fundamental mode of explanation for

GENERALIZED EXPERIENCE 417

his scientific thinking. The little child undoubtedly is in-
fluenced very early by his experience to look for some cause
for every effect. For example, the little child who hears a
noise always looks for the source of the noise. If he sees a
missile flying toward him, he always looks for the source of
the missile. Gradually he falls into the habit of looking for
causes for all effects and for effects of all causes. He could
not formulate the fundamental principle back of these expe-
riences in any definite terms, but he undoubtedly does come
to assume a general attitude which is the background for
the later logical formula that all effects must have their
causes. There is, indeed, an identical element of causal
relation in every possible situation. In this sense of the
word we might say that all thinking is absolutely bound
together by the presence of an identical principle. The
degree to which the student will become aware of this
common principle in all thinking will differ according to
his training. The little child looks for fantastic causes for
effects which he observes, and we say of him that his power
of causal reasoning is very immature. The savage, as we
have seen in the discussion of scientific thinking, tries to
invent explanations ; but he indulges in very free and un-
critical imaginations. It would be very difficult to relate
his mode of thought to the causal principle of science. It
would be interesting to inquire how far a savage's mode of
explanation of the physical facts about him is influenced
by purely accidental elements, and how far by the demand
for causal explanation which he possesses in common with
all mankind.

GENERALIZED MODES OF THOUGHT AND BEHAVIOR

There are also certain identical elements of personality
involved in every situation. When I view the world from
my point of view, I import into every experience which I

418 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

pass through a certain mode of observation and a certain
mode of thought which grow out of the totality of my earlier
contact with the world. James has described this by saying
that every human being is a bundle of personalities. At
one moment one thinks of the world from the point of view
,of his business ; a little later he will look at the world from
the point of view of his social engagements. In these two
cases he will be dominated in his thought by the point of
view which he is at that moment assuming. All business
transactions are thought of in a world of experience which
is made up of the sum total of the individual's past contact
with business affairs. We may say, therefore, that every
individual brings to every new situation which he encoun-
ters the identical sum of his past experiences. This sum of
past experiences will from time to time undergo enlarge-
ment and change because every new experience enters into
the sum and contributes to a change in the individual's per-
sonality. There is, however, in a very proper sense of the
word a nucleus of permanent experiences which must be
reckoned with in any educational development. The child
who has gone through the hands of a certain teacher carries
away the stamp of that teacher's training ; and every other
course which he takes up will bear the impression of this
earlier training. There is not a school in the country that
does not testify loudly to the fact that a bad teacher in one
of the lower grades will leave so serious an impression upon
the class that has gone through the hands of this teacher
that later instructors will have difficulty in overcoming the
bad effects. It is fortunately true, on the other side, that
an excellent teacher leaves behind methods of work and
ideas about work which are of very great advantage to the
students in their later studies.

GENERALIZED EXPERIENCE 419

THE AUTHOR OF THE DOCTRINE OF IDENTICAL
ELEMENTS FINDS IT INADEQUATE

When one begins to define the identical elements of a
situation in these broad general terms he sees that the for-
mula, identical elements of experience, is absolutely worth-
less. One is tempted to confirm this general position by
quoting from Thorndike's own mature conclusions l in the
matter where he says :

The general theory of identical elements — that one ability
is improved by the exercise of another only when the neurones
whose action the former represents are actually altered in the
course of the exercise of the latter — is sound, and is useful
in guiding thought. However, so little is known about which
neurones are concerned in any ability that this general theory
does not carry us far.

On the other hand, one is convinced as he considers
carefully this general doctrine of identical elements that
one of the most important considerations in any system of
training is to help students to discover the possibilities of
generalization presented in successive situations. For exam-
ple, mental economy is possible in a great variety of cases.
Let us practice mental economy now under this set of con-
ditions, and now under that. Again, the facts which are ac-
cumulated in a course in physics are capable of being carried
over into the world of mechanics and the world of practical
affairs. Let us take these facts, therefore, and see how
far they can be generalized and made useful in all of the
different spheres of experience. The problem of education
thus turns out to be the problem of generalizing experience.

1 Educational Psychology, Vol.11, p. 417.

420 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

GENERALIZATION AN ACHIEVEMENT OF THE
ACTIVE MIND

There can be only one conclusion drawn from the fore-
going discussions: There is no inherent reason in the
spsychology of the individual mind or in the psychology of
any subject of instruction for supposing that experience
cannot be generalized. On the other hand, there is no rea-
son to assume that experience of any type will infallibly
carry over into any other sphere whatsoever. The gener-
alizing of experience is a qualitatively new fact wherever
it appears. Given experience A and experience B, the
transfer of effects from A to B is just as much a new psy-
chological process where it occurs, as were A and B when
they first appeared in experience. To think of A and B
as related because they exist is to fail to understand
the psychology of generalization. Everywhere in human
experience there are large possibilities of generalizing ex-
perience, and everywhere hi school there is danger that
experience will be narrowly specialized.

FORMALISM MEANS AN ABSENCE OP GENERALIZATION

This conclusion can be reenforced by studying what is
really criticized when one uses the term " formal " as a term
of condemnation in describing educational efforts. One goes
back, for example, to the period of instruction in the classics
when extreme formalism obtained in that study. What do
we mean by the statement that extreme formalism appeared?
We mean merely that there was no possibility of utilizing
the results of that classical study in the life of the student.
The study was a closed domain of experience, useful only in
carrying the student around a narrow circle of exercises which
terminated in more exercises of exactly the same sort and
never stimulated the student to go out in further investigation

GENERALIZED EXPERIENCE 421

of the world. A subject which gets itself so organized that it
rotates around its own center immediately becomes formal.

Attention has been drawn to the fact in the discussion
of manual training that even a course in handwork may
become formal in the same extreme sense in which a course
in the classics becomes formal. A course in mathematics
may become formal or a course in science may become
formal. There is nothing that is more stereotyped than a
course in botany taught by an instructor who does not see
the opportunity of generalizing the results of this science.

Over against the formalism which is possible in every
subject, there is the possibility of generalizing all sorts of
training. We may express this in terms of an earlier dis-
cussion by saying that every science and every subject
taught in the schools may be made productive because of
the higher forms of mental activity which are stimulated
by the study itself. If one can have his interest in number
enlarged by each progressive step of mathematical study,
he will be carried forward in his mathematical studies in
such a way that he will find new applications for the prin-
ciples which he has learned. The opposite of formalism is
not emphasis on content, but emphasis on application. Any
content may become formal. Any mode of procedure may
become formal. Opposed to " formal " is such a word as
" vital." That is not formal which moves forward to new
applications. Generalized knowledge is not formal. Knowl-
edge which is being used in applications, either in the
evolution of higher thought-processes or in the solution
of practical problems, is not formal.

APPLICATION AS A FOBM OF GENERALIZATION

The application of a body of information to a particular
situation has sometimes been regarded as psychologically
identical in character with the possession of this information.

422* PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

Thus, it has been assumed in much of our school practice
that if a student knows the principles of mechanics he will
be able to discover these principles in operation in the ordi-
nary facts of everyday life. This expectation is, of course,
not justified. The boy who learns physics in the laboratory
goes out into the workshop and passes many practical situa-
tions in which the results of his physics would be applicable,
but fails utterly to recognize in these situations the physi-
cal laws which he knows in an abstract way. The school
has undoubtedly been remiss in its attention to the phase
of mental life which we here call application. Application
is, however, a most difficult mental process, and needs
to be learned just as the original principle itself has to
be learned.

One of the methods by which one learns to apply experi-
ence that he has acquired is by the careful analysis of a
large number of situations, and by a statement in connection
with this analysis of the fundamental common principle
which appears in all of the different situations. Thus, when
we find the principle of gravity operating in one experiment
in the physical laboratory, and then turn to a second and
third experiment where the same principle is exhibited, we
are preparing to isolate from these various different situa-
tions the common facts of gravity. If the student can be
interested in discovering this common principle in a great
variety of situations, he will have a type of mental attitude
which is different from that whicli he cultivates in merely
contemplating a single fact.

Successive examples, therefore, should be treated as the
opportunity on the part of a teacher to cultivate the attitude
of application. The cultivation of this attitude will be
defeated if the instructor starts out with the explicit state-
ment that each of the cases to be submitted contains the
particular factor under discussion. Thus, if one gives fifty
examples of the first law of mechanics, and explicitly states

GENERALIZED EXPERIENCE 423

at the outset that these fifty examples are all manifestations
of that first law, he will not give his students the same
degree of training that he would have given if he had mixed
these examples with examples of the other laws of mechan-
ics, and allowed the student to discover which of the lawa
of mechanics appears in each case.

APPLICATION HAS MANY FORMS

In the same fashion, in algebra it is a fundamental mistake
to give to students all of the examples under a given prin-
ciple with a definite statement to the effect that all of these
are examples of a single type. The student fails to get the
mental training in this case which is desired. He merely
cultivates a kind of dexterity of manipulation which is very
far from a genuine application of a scientific principle.
Students leave school without the ability to make applica-
tions as a separate mode of mental activity. The teacher
ought to recognize in all of these cases that the mere solu-
tion of the problem is of slight importance if the student
does not acquire that higher power of discovering the mode
of procedure which is appropriate in each case. The solution
of the problem is mere routine. The classification of the
problem is a form of generalization.

In the same way we may consider the possible extensions
of any course of language study. If Latin is taught merely
for the purpose of making it possible for the student to read
some of the classical texts, the subject has a very narrow
range of application. On the other hand, Latin may be
taught with a view to stimulating students to consider the
civilization which utilized this language ; and still better,
it may be taught in such a way that one comes back to a
consideration of his mother tongue with the enriched expe-
riences that he gains through his study. Finally, if the stu-
dent not only realizes that Latin and his mother tongue have

424 ^PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

certain common structures, but learns also that language in
all of its development is an expression of a clear mode of
thinking, and that he can become more lucid in his thought-
processes by mastering this instrument of thought — then
the applications of Latin become highly productive.

GENERALIZATION THE HIGHEST AIM OF INSTRUCTION

Generalization of ideas and extension of any subject to
its possiBTe" applications is, therefore, a larger and more sig-
nificant aim in education than mere training in any given
particular subject. Those who have opposed the doctrine
of formal discipline by saying that the school subjects at
the present time do not give a generalized training are un-
doubtedly criticizing not the human mind, but our methods
of instruction. It is, indeed, possible to find courses in arith-
metic and algebra which are so narrowing in their effect
upon students' minds that it is doubtful whether they ought
to be included in the course of study at all. So long as
narrow-minded teachers are put in charge of these courses,
and especially if teachers become imbued with the idea that
their only business is to cultivate a narrow and limited func-
tion of mind, we shall have examples of these pedagogical
failures which in the statistics show that training has not
been transferred.

On the other hand, there has been a very large body
of experience which makes for the conclusion that any sub-
ject properly taught has a broadening influence upon the
student's general experience. The older subjects of the
curriculum have so long served the purposes of instruction
that they have cultivated a form of treatment and body
of material which generation after generation has come to
appreciate as a suitable vehicle for the general training of the
mind. These older subjects have a distinct advantage over
the newer subjects, which are still trying out the subject

GENERALIZED EXPERIENCE 425

matter which they utilize and the methods of presenting
this subject matter. Until the newer subjects have mastered
the problem of selecting material they will never be equal
to the older subjects which have been worked out by gen-
erations of teachers. It is always safe to assume that the
older subjects have more possibility of successful employ-
ment in the school for any purpose of education than have
the new and untried subjects, the contents of which have
not been worked over by experienced teachers. That the
newer subjects should be able to impeach the older subjects
of frequently lapsing into formalism is not to be wondered
at, because it is certain on the simplest calculation of chances
that the older subjects which have been widely utilized in
the schools will exhibit more pedagogical failures than the
newer subjects which have not yet been tried out. But
there is no adequate justification for the loud contention of
the newer subjects that the older subjects of the curriculum
are inherently formal and of necessity narrow in the effects
which they produce on students' minds.

GENERALIZATION APPEARS IN MANY FORMS

There is one further psychological discussion which is
important in concluding this treatment of formal discipline.
Bagley1 and a number of other writers have contended
that the transfer of training always depends upon the con-
scious recognition by students of the possibilities of carrying
overman ideal from one course to another. The statement
that a generalization must come to explicit recognition goes
too far. A study of the facts of mental development
reveals many different forms and stages of the process of
generalization. For example, the student who discovers a

1 W. C. Bagley, The Educative Process (The Macmillan Company,
1906); also E. N. Henderson, Textbook in the Principles of Education,
p. 213 (The Macmillan Company, 1010).

426 ^PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

general principle in physics may get his principle in one of
two ways : he may either have the principle presented to
him in a definite and conscious form, after which he seeks
illustrations of the principle in various facts which he en-
counters. This is commonly known as a deductive method
of teaching. Or, on the other hand, the student may equally
.well be brought to the general principle through contact
with a number of concrete cases. He now sees this case
and now another. He learns to adjust himself in each of
the particular cases without making at the outset any
complete analysis of his experience.

PRACTICAL JUDGMENT AS AN EARLY FORM OP
GENERALIZATION

Hobhouse1 has described in his discussion of practical
judgment the stage of mental development which precedes
the full development of conscious principles. Practical
judgment for Hobhouse is a mode of generalization in which
the individual becomes aware of certain aspects of the
world without making a complete conscious analysis of his
different experiences. As a result of practical comparisons
one carries over modes of behavior from situation to situa-
tion. This carrying over of experiences without complete
analysis appears in a large way in all the minor adjustments
of life. In social matters, for example, having cultivated a
certain attitude toward a given individual, one is likely to
behave in the same general way to everybody who vaguely
reminds one of the original person for whom the mode of
behavior was cultivated. One becomes in the course of
time suddenly aware of the reason why he behaves toward
his new acquaintance as he does. The reason is that this
new acquaintance resembles in some general way people
who have in earlier experiences been the subjects of certain

1 L. T. Hobhouse, Mind in Evolution. The Macmillan Company, 1902.

GENERALIZED EXPERIENCE 427

types of behavior. If now we can bring the individual to
the level of clear conscious analysis, we very frequently see
that the rough analogies on which we have been depend-
ing are wholly inadequate ; that is, the individual whom
I have been treating in an agreeable way because he re-
sembled a friend may turn out to be an individual wholly
undeserving of this attention on my part. The conscious
ideal or the complete analysis of the situation then inter-
rupts a mode of adjustment which has been going on in a
general way without any clear knowledge on my part of
the reasons for this mode of adjustment. Conversely, if I
have been treating a person badly because he looks like one
of my enemies, I may on discovering the real reason of my
attitude suddenly find that I ought to revise this attitude.
The earlier stages of such situations can be described as
stages of practical judgment of a rather crude and indefinite
sort. To say that all transfer of attitudes depends upon
clear and conscious ideals is to fail to recognize these early
stages of practical judgment. It would be more in keeping
with the facts to say that we rely on all sorts of practical
judgments until some failure makes us aware of the inade-
quacy of our vague generalizations. Then we cultivate a
higher form of generalization.

LANGUAGE AN INSTRUMENT OF GENERALIZATION

The discussion of generalization in the chapter on science
brought out the fact that in many cases generalization is
dependent on the use of words. There can be no doubt
that this fact was one of the chief considerations which led
Bagley to his doctrine of transfer through conscious ideals.
When a child is led to see, through the use of words, that
various situations are all capable of one identical treatment,
he discovers what he would otherwise overlook, and gener-
alization is greatly aided.

428 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

On the other hand, as has been pointed out repeatedly in
all the discussions of language, the student may be led away
from true generalizations into mere substitutes for general-
izations by words. This is the reason why ideals which are
expressed in words are often very formal in character. One
may tell a student, for example, that he ought to concen-
trate his attention, and he may have the theoretical ideal
of concentration well in mind and yet be quite unable in
practice to realize the advantages of this ideal. What is
needed in this case is a real generalization or a translation
of his verbally recognized principle into an actual mode of
behavior. This translation into an actual mode of behavior
very frequently differs so radically from the recognition of
the verbal statement of the principle that the student may be
fully aware of the principle in one form but altogether un-
acquainted with it in the other. Even then the verbal prin-
ciple may be a useful means of education. Thus, when one
is told to concentrate his attention he will try first by one
method and then by another. He will withdraw himself
from all sorts of distractions. He will read out loud in order
to facilitate the concentration of attention. He will wrinkle
his forehead as Fechner indicated that he always did when
he was trying to concentrate attention. He will sometimes
adopt devices that seem to an onlooker to promote distrac-
tion rather than concentration, such as beating a rhythm
with his fingers on the desk, or whistling, or stamping his
feet. These different devices adopted by the student who
is trying to concentrate his attention are very difficult to
relate to the general verbal formula, and yet the steady
holding of the verbal formula before one's mind may lead
one to try a great variety of experiments in the concentra-
tion of attention. Ultimately these experiments may result
in the adoption of some practical mode of procedure which
will satisfy the formula with which one started. The ver-
bal formula in this case is not to be regarded as the actual

GENEBALIZED EXPEBIENCE 429

habit to which it relates, but it is a kind of stimulus or a
kind of reminder that one ought to seek continually some
habit of concentration. To say that the transfer has taken
place in this case through a conscious ideal is to fail to
recognize the fact that the value of the verbal formula is
that it is of such a general type that it can stimulate in a
great many different cases the development of a great many
different kinds of detailed procedure. Thus the concentra-
tion of attention when one is reading may be wholly differ-
ent from the concentration of attention when one is listening
to music or to a lecture ; and yet the effort to concentrate
attention in these different cases may be promoted by the
presence in the mind of the student of the verbal formula
that he must pay as close attention as he can.

LANGUAGE ITSELF A GENERALIZED MODE OF BEHAVIOR

In general, as has been pointed out in earlier discussions,
language is a general mode of behavior capable of connect-
ing itself with all sorts of particular habits. It is a kind of
generalized sphere of action, and as such a general sphere
of action it becomes an influential element in all sorts of sit-
uations. It is indeed a common element of all of these dif-
ferent situations, but it is a common element in the sense
that it is a higher type of adjustment than any particular
mode of procedure. As such a higher type of procedure, it
reaches down into a variety of concrete situations. Its value
arises from the fact that it is a general mode of behavior.

EMOTION A FORM OF GENERAL BEHAVIOR

There are other general modes of behavior besides lan-
guage. For example, one of these general modes of behavior
which is of a good deal of importance is the emotional re-
action of the individual. We speak in ordinary life of the

430 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

optimistic attitude of an individual, and we have every
evidence that the optimistic attitude is a favorable attitude
in whatever particular line of accomplishment the individ-
ual expresses himself. A person who is constantly opti-
mistic will undertake all sorts of enterprises in a spirit
of energy and enthusiasm which is wholly different from
that exhibited by a pessimistic individual. There can be
no doubt that the skillful teacher should be interested in
the cultivation of such favorable general attitudes. The
failure of teachers to appreciate the value of optimism
appears at times in the fact that they correct the student
so frequently in classes as to develop an expectation on his
part that he is going to fail in everything that he tries to
do. The withdrawals from school which are so characteris-
tic of the earlier years of the high school are connected in
no small measure with the unfavorable emotional attitude
aroused in the class exercises.

These general emotional attitudes may attach themselves
to all sorts of particular situations. Thus, one may be opti-
mistic about getting a Latin lesson or he may be optimistic
about a game of football. He may be optimistic about a
business venture or he may be optimistic about the move-
ments of his political party. In any case he will react in
each of these situations with a general organic vigor which
is represented in his own experience by the pleasure that
attaches to his reaction. It cannot be stated that the emo-
tional reactions in the various manifestations of optimism
are identical in detail, because all of our psychological an-
alyses go to show that the pleasure which comes from the
solution of a problem of an intellectual type is different
from the pleasure which comes from physical exercise. Yet
the two are of the same general type ; and both represent a
kind of organic vigor and a mode of organic reaction which
becomes typical of the individual and characteristic of all
his behavior. This kind of example serves also to reep force

GENERALIZED EXPERIENCE 431

what was said a few paragraphs above with regard to the
importance of personality as the central element in all sorts
of situations. There is nothing more typical of one's per-
sonality than his emotional moods and his general reactions
of optimism or pessimism.

INTELLECTUAL METHODS WHICH ARE GENERALIZED

Further examples of general reactions will be discovered
if we analyze the typical school situations in which an
effort is made to cultivate general habits. Take, for ex-
ample, the series of exercises which are used in the algebra
class to make a student thoroughly familiar with a given
principle of factoring or a given mode of procedure in mul-
tiplication or division. One may say that the various exer-
cises which the student works out are intended to acquaint
him with the same mode of procedure as it appears in a
variety of different connections. He uses a certain prin-
ciple of factoring now in one situation and now in another,
or he uses the process of multiplication now with one com-
bination of letters and now with another. The common
fact in each of these different situations is the mathemati-
cal process as distinguished from the actual recombination
of the particular elements that enter into the special exer-
cise. From the point of view of the mathematician, there
is a common element in all of these situations ; but that
common element is a general principle, which general prin-
ciple and general mode of procedure must be discovered
after one has solved a number of the particular situations
in which the general mode of procedure occurs. The gen-
eral principle to be comprehended is not a part of each one
of the situations. It is the product in the individual's mind
of a comparison of all these different particular cases. It
cannot be said that the general mode of procedure appears
in case one and case two and case three, or that it is

432 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

*>

something which can be detached from each of these cases
and looked at as a common element. The general principle
arises from the comparison of case one with case two and
case three. The power of making this comparison and of
arriving at a general mode of procedure is a higher power
than the power of solving the particular problem. This
fact, that the recognition of the general principle is a higher
type of power than that which is involved in the solution
of particular problems, appears again and again in the train-
ing of students. There are many students who know how
to solve a problem if they are told which process to employ,
but they do not know enough about the problem to select
the process which is appropriate to the situation in hand.
The mastery of the general principle is therefore a new
type of mental achievement.

In the same way the student discovers a general prin-
ciple of language structure when he learns, for example,
that all nominative cases have certain characteristics. He
is not merely taking an element that appears in one ex-
ample of the nominative case, and in the second example
the same sort, and so on, recognizing an element common
to all of these different situations; he is learning rather
to extract from a variety of experiences a general principle
or rule. The discovery of this general principle or rule is
a new performance ; it is an expression of the power of
generalization. The cultivation of this power of general-
ization is the most important achievement in the student's
education. It will not come without special endeavor on
the part of the student and on the part of the teacher.

METHODS OF INDUCING GENERALIZATION
-^
The same conclusion is reached if we examine some of

the practical methods which are adopted in school work to in-
duce students to generalize their experiences. Undoubtedly

GENERALIZED EXPERIENCE 433

one of the most advantageous methods that can be em-
ployed is to give students a verbal statement or conscious
ideal as Bagley suggests. A verbal formula which will
stimulate a student to strive on various occasions for con-
centration of attention is a suitable instrument for the
teacher to employ in developing concentration. On the
other hand, the teacher knows full well that the mere
presentation of this verbal formula is not enough ; conse-
quently he devises situations which he presents to the
student with a view to furnishing him the opportunity of
applying his verbal formula and making generalizations.
These situations ought to be organized in such a way that
it will be relatively easy for the student to make a general-
ization. Sometimes the generalization can be reached by
the comparisons of a number of cases. Every teacher is
aware of the value of a comparison as a means of training
the student to arrive at generalizations of his own. For
example, if one wishes to get the general meaning of a
foreign word clearly in the mind of a student it is always
advantageous to compare the word with certain synonyms.
The purpose of this comparison is not to bring out an iden-
tical element which appears in all cases. Very frequently
the purpose of comparison is to bring out unlike elements.
In the same way, if one is working on the scientific descrip-
tion of an animal in zoology or a plant in botany the most
impressive lesson can be derived from comparison and con-
trast. The use of the terms "comparison" and " contrast"
shows that generalizations very often deal with something
besides common elements in different situations. There are
discoverable relationships in all of the different situations,
but the discovery of a relationship which can be regarded
as a general element of a variety of different situations is
a new achievement. Suppose, for example, that one wishes
to show that the structure of an animal that lives in water
is very different from the structure of an animal that lives

434 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

*

in the air. The contrast between the two cases will lead
directly to generalizations about relations of function to
structure which could not be secured if all of the animals
were of a single type. In the same way, in discussing
geometry it has been found advantageous to contrast the
space which we know with such hypothetical space as the
non-Euclidean geometricians devise for the purely theo-
retical purposes of contrast. Here the mind creates a sit-
uation for the purpose of aiding contrast rather than for
the purpose of discovering similarity of elements. As was
pointed out in the discussion of the study of foreign lan-
guages one of the most useful functions of this study is to
supply a student with a background for the application of
his mother tongue.

ATTENTION TO GENERALIZATIONS A PRODUCT OF
INSTRUCTION

There can be no doubt that all the efforts of the school
to induce generalization lead to an attitude of mind which
can be described as the generalizing attitude. Wherever a
student has seen the possibility of analyzing various situa-
tions and discovering productive relationships between these
different particular situations, he will be stimulated to treat
new problems in the same way. He will see the possibility
of analyzing everything that comes into his experience for
the purpose of discovering general principles. We have
here a broad habit of mind which is undoubtedly very
largely promoted through the use of language as a general-
ized mode of reaction upon all situations. The habit of
verbal analysis is a general habit dominating all of the de-
tailed habits of mental life. In our discussion of scientific
method we have pointed out the fact that there is such a
generalized habit of scientific analysis which can be culti-
vated through the study of all of the sciences. The only

GENERALIZED EXPERIENCE 435

additional remark which needs to be made at this point is
that the teacher must explicitly cultivate this general habit.

FAREWELL TO CRITICS OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE

In conclusion, we^may be permitted to set the teachings
of this chapter in as sharp contrast as possible with the posi-
tion taken by those who teach a doctrine of specialized men-
tal functions. This chapter is intended to teach a doctrine
which is diametrically opposed to the following principle
announced in 1905 by Thorndike in his " Principles of
Teaching," p. 248 :

Training the mind means the development of thousands of
particular independent capacities, the formation of countless
particular habits, for the working of any mental capacity de-
pends upon the concrete data with which it works.

Or, putting the matter in another way, this chapter is
intended to prevent the violent oscillations described by
Thorndike in his " Educational Psychology," published in
1913 (Vol. II, pp. 364-365) :

The notions of mental machinery which, being improved for
one sort of data, held the improvement equally for all sorts ;
of magic powers which, being trained by exercise of one sort
to a high efficiency, held that efficiency whatever they might
be exercised upon ; and of the mind as a reservoir for potential
energy which could be filled by any one activity and drawn on
for any other — have now disappeared from expert writings
on psychology. A survey of experimental results is now needed
perhaps as much to prevent the opposite superstition; for,
apparently, some careless thinkers have rushed from the belief
in totally general training to the belief that training is totally
specialized. In any case, such a survey is the safest prepara-
tion for deciding theoretical or practical questions concerning
the effect of the improvement of any one function, in school
or out, upon the efficiency of other functions.

CHAPTER XVIII
TEACHING STUDENTS TO STUDY

TEACHEBS NOT EQUIPPED WITH METHOD OF TRAINING
STUDENTS TO STUDY

The theme of this chapter can be illustrated by an ex-
ample given the writer by a high-school principal who is
much concerned with the problem of teaching students how
to do their school work efficiently. He has so organized his
school that one period a day is set aside for consultation be-
tween each teacher and some class. During the last period
of the day on every Monday the teachers meet the classes
which in the daily program recite during the first period of
the day; on Tuesdays, during the last period, classes go
to the teachers who have charge of their recitations during
the second period of the day; and so on. When the teacher
and the class meet in this additional period, it is not for
the purpose of an additional recitation ; the purpose of this
period is to direct students in the methods of getting their
lessons efficiently and economically. The program above
described was arranged and the classes met the teachers.
Then it was discovered that the teachers did not know
what to say to the students. Teachers know about Latin
and mathematics. They can ask questions in these subjects ;
but they do not know about students' minds in a way which
makes it possible to tell students how to study.

One becomes most acutely aware of the problem of
method of study when a student is in difficulty. How shall
we help him out of his difficulty ? Yet the more important
problem is to make increasingly efficient those students

436

TEACHING STUDENTS TO STUDY 43T

who are not in difficulty. Most teachers do not realize that
good students need help in methods of work. The result
is that a teacher confronted with a class which he has met
that morning in a Latin recitation, and told that his duty in.
this second period is to teach not Latin but the methods
of study, stands dumb and embarrassed. If someone fails
in a Latin construction, this teacher can tell him the cor-
rect construction. If someone uses a clumsy Latin phrase,
the teacher knows Latin enough to suggest improvement.
When it comes to improving mental processes, how differ-
ent the case I The teacher has little training.

PSYCHOLOGY AS SCIENCE OF METHODS OF STUDY

This is the point at which the student of psychology finds
his opportunity to review what he has to say in his discus-
bion of the psychology of the various subjects. The psychol-
ogist deals in mental processes and difficulties. He knows
neither Latin nor mathematics except as content for mental
processes. He is therefore eager to impress on the Latin
teacher and the teacher of mathematics the desirability of
becoming psychologists as well. The following pages will
be devoted to the effort to set forth in a concrete way the
kind of considerations which a teacher might take up with
a class which he meets for the purpose of discussing the
problem of how to study. Some of the illustrations will be
drawn from the earlier chapters of this book, some from
classroom experiences,

PSYCHOLOGY OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF STUDY

First, attention may be called to the fact that a sharp
contrast can be drawn between studying by one's self with
the aid of a book and studying with the cooperation of
others, as, for example, when a class as a whole reads a book

438 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

and considers its contents hi conference. The student who
sits down alone with a book does not have in his own per-
sonal experiences the same number of questions about the
meaning of the text or the same number of ideas growing
out of his reading of the text as would a group of people.
While one individual reading a book sees in the text diffi-
culties or suggestions, two individuals will have, possibly,
not twice as many questions and suggestions, but certainly
more than the single individual would have. Therefore,
when two people read a book together they may help each
other by raising questions which represent two different
individual points of view. It would be very valuable for
someone to set the same lesson to be studied, first by a
class that took it for home work, and, second, by a class
that read the same book over with the teacher and with the
other members of the class. After these two different types
of study, an investigation might be made of the differences
between the points of view cultivated and the completeness
with which the information was criticized.

The foregoing paragraph also suggests that different
kinds of subjects need to be approached in different ways.
For example, it might be very profitable to study a history
lesson or a geography lesson with the class as a whole ; on
the other hand, the study of a lesson in spelling might better
be undertaken by the individual without the cooperation
of the class. Or perhaps the last example should be modi-
fied so as to call attention to the fact that if the class as a
whole studies the spelling lesson the method of procedure
will be one of discussion of the different words rather than
a concentration on the individual words, whereas if the
student studies the words by himself he is likely to give
himself up to the exact memorizing of the words rather
than to their discussion.

TEACHING STUDENTS TO STUDY 439

RAPID SURVEY

A second general topic which it is important to discuss
is the distinction between a careful analytical study of a-
subject and the development of a general point of view by
rapidly reading over a body of material. For example, the
student who is given a passage in history to learn may
advantageously read the whole section that has been as-
signed to him at a single sitting, for the purpose of gaining
a general view of the subject, and then he may come back
to the detailed examination of the particular incidents that
enter into the full description. Evidently a general reading
of an arithmetic lesson or a lesson in algebra would be less
productive. In some cases, however, a general reading of
the whole lesson might be advantageous even when the
lesson is of the type that one finds in algebra; but here
the successive stages of any topic depend so much upon a
clear comprehension of everything that has gone before that
it is probably not desirable for the student to emphasize
the whole until he has mastered the successive steps of the
reasoning.

Undoubtedly the attitude of a minute study of each
individual sentence is sometimes carried to an extreme.
The student puzzles over the exact meaning of a certain
sentence when the exact meaning cannot be understood
except in the light of fuller exposition which follows later
in the paragraph. This puzzling over a single sentence con-
sumes much time, and leads to a mental habit of distracted
thinking which is opposed to the interests of rapid assim-
ilation of large bodies of material. The student should be
trained both in careful analytical study and in general
study of whole passages, but the two types of training
should not come at the same time.

The rate at which a student assimilates material is a
matter of importance. It is not desirable that he should be

440 PSYCHOLOGY OP HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

hurried in his mental processes, otherwise he is likely to
become confused. If he is told that he must get a thing
done in a limited space of time, this very requirement is
itself a subject of attention. The student is constantly dis-
tracted by looking forward to the end of the lesson, and is
therefore unable to take the successive steps of the reason-
ing without distraction. On the other hand, it is a mistake
to allow a student to develop habits of excessively slow
reasoning and slow study. He should be encouraged to
work, while he works, at a maximum rate. One of the sim-
plest ways of securing this maximum rate of study is to
give explicit training in the mastery of short sections of a
subject where the confusion from the demand to work
rapidly will not be great. Let the teacher set, under his
own guidance and supervision, a short paragraph and ask
the student to get it as soon as possible. The task of con-
centrating attention at a high level for a brief period of time
does not make an excessive demand on the student's powers;
and if he finds that he can do this for short sections, the
sections may gradually be increased in length.

OBSERVING METHODS OP STUDY

One of the best opportunities for observing the way in
which students do their work is in the study period. If the
teacher will acquaint himself with the sections in the book
which the student is supposed to be studying and will form
a rough, general estimate of the length of time that is
necessary for the reading of a page of printed matter, he
may then watch the student and see whether he is reading at
a reasonable rate. Very frequently it will be observed that
the reader turns away from the book and looks out of the
window or does something else, indicating that he is dis-
tracted from the reading itself. Sometimes this turning
away from the book indicates a genuine thought-process.

TEACHING STUDENTS TO STUDY 441

The reader gets an idea from the passage and stops to
consider the value of the idea. In general, in an immature
reader this is not a fact The turning away from the book
is an indication of an interruption rather than of the
working out of an idea.

Careful observation of different individual students will
undoubtedly bring out the fact that some students are able
to concentrate for a longer period of time and to do their
work at a higher rate of speed. If the teacher can learn to
discriminate in this way between the different members of
the class, he or she can later concentrate attention upon
those who do not know how to stick to the problem. Here
again the best method is to help them to concentrate
attention on short passages.

The mere social desire to get things done as rapidly as
somebody else can be used in this connection. Certainly
there are some subjects where social emulation can very
properly be employed. Thus, in simple mathematical exer-
cises it is proper to get up speed by competition. This speed
should not be cultivated in such a way as to excite students
too much. There is danger, if a speed exercise is continued
for ten minutes, that the excitement will become too intense.
On the other hand, a little excitement for a short period,
say through a five-minute exercise, is entirely legitimate
and desirable. In the same way, speed exercises in silent
reading are entirely legitimate and should be undertaken
from time to time. The habit of oral reading, and reading
at the rate of oral reading, should be corrected by giving
definite exercises in rapid silent reading.

ASKING QUESTIONS OF PEOPLE AND OF BOOKS

Another important problem in learning how to study is
to learn how to get information from books. The student
should have the matter explained to him in some such

442 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

terms as these : If one needs information and goes to some
other person and asks for it, he can keep on asking the
person questions until a method of answering is adopted
which the questioner can understand. On the other hand,
if one goes to a book and insists on getting the information
in just the form in which the question is present in one's
mind, he is not likely to find the exact answer to his ques-
tion in the book. The way in which one has to get infor-
mation out of the book is to learn to use the book in its
own way. Perhaps the information which one wants is
scattered over three or four pages. Possibly it is to be
found only by consulting two or three different books.
Asking questions of books, therefore, consists in getting
one's self trained so that he can get from the books what
he wants by looking at the different places in the book
where the different parts of his information are to be found.
Very frequently one has to read in the book many things
that he does not need for the answering of his question.
In this respect looking in a book is not altogether different
from asking a person questions. One very frequently gets
more information than he needs when he asks a question.
The one who answers starts out to give the answer, but he
includes several other things. The listener must learn to
make a selection from among the things he hears if he is to
concentrate his attention on the particular items wanted.
In like fashion, if one consults a book with a question in his
mind, the answer which he seeks must be secured through
a careful, selective reading just as in the case of personal
inquiry; but here, in addition to selecting from an over-
supply of information, one must know the technique of
going through the book. Getting answers to a question is
in any case different from the process of merely learning
straight ahead what is in the book or what is given to one
by someone else's dictation. When one reads straight
ahead in a book and gets the information that is there

TEACHING STUDENTS TO STUDY 443

presented, he follows the lead of someone else. He tries
to f ormulate his thinking along lines laid down in the book.
The difficulty with this process of simply following some-
one else's lead is that very shortly one comes on a sentence
or a statement which he does not understand. He is then
obliged to ask some sort of a question in order to clear up
the difficulty. If he does not know how to ask that ques-
tion, or if he is not alert enough to see that failure to under-
stand the passage ought to lead him to ask a question,
he becomes confused and unable to go on with his work.
Students are often confronted by difficult passages, and
they do not know what to do with them simply because
they have not been trained in the course of their earlier
work to ask questions about difficulties and to find answers
to these questions. It is highly important, therefore, that
students should be trained to ask questions and get answers.

FORMULATING PRODUCTIVE QUESTIONS

One important part of instruction in any course should
accordingly be to get the students to raise questions about
the subject under discussion. It would be an excellent prac-
tice to require the class to formulate questions about each
lesson. Some of these the teacher could answer directly,
thus exhibiting the importance of social relations and social
methods of getting information. Some of the questions
should not be answered by the teacher, but should be given
back to the class as problems to be solved.

Assuming that a question has, in some fashion, been
raised either by the teacher or by some member of the class
who encounters a difficulty which he does not readily over-
come, there should now be a careful consideration of the
methods of getting answers to this question. The first and
readiest method has already been suggested. Let someone
who has the information in his mind and sees the point of

444 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

the question give an answer. Very frequently an answer
will be given which does not entirely cover the question.
It is interesting, then, to subdivide the question to show
that the answer given is a partial answer. Finally, the class
will be brought to the point where no one has exactly the
information that is needed to answer a part of the question
that has been asked. One must now turn to the more
elaborate authorities for this answer. The methods of turn-
ing to these authorities should be taught. The teacher
can very frequently give the necessary method by teaching
students to turn to other parts of the textbook which they
have in hand. Thus a student who is in difficulty with a
problem in algebra ought to be taught how to turn back
to the early parts of the book and get the answer to his
difficulty. Turning back to the earlier parts of a book may
involve turning to the table of contents. Another way of
turning back to the earlier parts of the book is to look over
rapidly all of the matter which is contained in the first part
of the book. Students should be shown that it is not diffi-
cult to run through fifty or sixty pages of a book in looking
for an explanation of a difficulty which is encountered in
the latter part of the book. Indeed, one ought to get into
the habit of looking through all sorts of books and getting
a general impression of what a book contains even before
one studies the details of the book.

THE DISCOVERY OF PROBLEMS

The foregoing paragraph suggests a most important phase
of the studying process. Students should realize that one
of the important interests in mental life is the discovery of
problems, not merely the acceptance of answers to these
problems. Wherever there is a deficiency in the information
which the student has, he ought to be aware of that defi-
ciency just as much as of the positive information which

TEACHING STUDENTS TO STUDY 445

he gets. For example, if a student is reading in a history
lesson and comes to the fact 'that while the United States
was passing through a certain series of events England
made such and such a representation to our government,
the question ought instantly to arise in his mind, Why was
England interested in making this representation? This
question, in turn, should raise in the student's mind the
general question, What was going on in England at the
same time? Very frequently our histories are one-sided
because the students do not go beyond the statements in
the text itself. They do not realize that these statements
are only a part of the whole story of the world's doings at
that time. Ability to formulate this additional question and,
in consequence, to see that one needs fuller information is
the best possible training. There is nothing so disastrous
in intellectual life as the attitude that one has all the in-
formation which he needs. As pointed out in an earlier
chapter the scientific method has, as one of its most impor-
tant elements, the habit of problem raising and problem
stating. When the chemist realizes that there is something
which he does not know, but which he must find out in
order to apply his chemistry to industry or to later develop-
ments of the science itself, he has raised a question which
makes possible fuller investigations.

PROBLEMS DO NOT ARISE ; THEY ARE DISCOVERED

It has been one of the favorite themes of recent educa-
tional writers to point out that problems are constantly
arising in shop work and in industrial life. There is a cer-
tain fallacy in this statement. It is true that shop work
presents the possibility of certain problems. It is true also
that in industry certain problems naturally arise, but it is
equally true, as has been pointed out in an earlier chapter,
that in industry only the leaders recognize these problems.

446 JPSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

The ordinary workman does not see the direction in which
his work can be improved. He goes on in the regular
routine, following the example of his predecessors without
question and without ingenuity to make a change. As soon
as one sees the possibility of looking into every industrial
process and asking whether it is as efficient as it might be,
he starts on a new line of development. This new line of
development is of first-class importance to industry, because
it means that the attention of the man who has raised the
question will be directed toward new answers to the problem
that has always existed.

Exactly the same statement can be made about school
work. We go on studying texts that do not answer all
possible questions on the subject, simply because our mental
habits have been chiefly the habits of accepting and follow-
ing someone else's lead. Students are, in general, domi-
nated by their teachers and by their textbooks, because these
contain a great deal more information than the student can
compass. The student is carried forward in the new fields of
authority so rapidly that he is not stimulated to ask ques-
tions. He is too busy trying to keep up with the questions
that are asked by his teachers. It would be very much
better if we could lead him to see new questions. The
probabilities are that he will not ask questions even in his
shop work any more than the practical worker asks these
questions in the ordinary course of industry. Anyone who
has seen shop work in the schools realizes that it does not
satisfy the expectations of those who hold that shop work
stimulates originality and creates a need for scientific study
on the part of children. The fact is that our educational
method must be modified, with the explicit view of giving
children an opportunity to create intellectual needs through
the questions which they raise. It has long been recognized
in our description of children's mental processes that they
.begin their, school life with a natural feeling of these needs.

TEACHING STUDENTS TO STUDY 447

They ask questions with a good deal of freedom. The
difficulty is that we do not know how to conserve that side
of the child's natural mental attitude. We answer these
questions in such a way as to seem to give a final answer
to the child's needs, and we do not lead him to be keen
about other possible questions of a higher order.

THE ADVANTAGES OF GROUP STUDY

One of the best ways to correct this difficulty is to allow
a group of students to study a lesson together as indicated
in an earlier paragraph. They will then stimulate each
other to recognize difficulties and questions. If the lesson
is recognized by the teacher and the class as a study les-
son rather than as a recitation, the students can be made
aware of methods that they ought to adopt in private
study. The teacher who exhibits skill in this kind of an
exercise has done much more for students than merely to
train the memory.

There is no doubt at all that we are confronted here with
one of the greatest educational problems — the problem of
cultivating the intellectual initiative which is necessary to
raise questions, as the first step toward training students
in the methods of getting answers to their own questions
by the long and difficult methods of self -directed study. In
the higher institutions of learning we call this intellectual
initiative " research." In the lower institutions we should
describe it by saying that the student ought to learn first
why he is expected to go to the library or to the laboratory
or to the shop, or to some other source of information, and
get a reply to his question. The value of an inquiry is very
often in the appreciation which it brings of the problem
solved. Thus the sixth-grade class which, in the study of
geography, is led to see the possibility of observing the
position of the sun in successive months is getting training

448 ^PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

in scientific research which is of first-class importance.
Such investigation through direct scientific experiments is
often by no means the most economical method of getting
an answer, though it is often the most vivid way of teach-
ing both the question and the answer. What the student
often learns most impressively from an experiment is that
others have seen this problem before he saw it. He will
then appreciate more fully the fact that they worked on it
and solved it. He will thus be led to recognize more fully
the significance of his ability to read, and by reading secure
the help of others who have made scientific investigations.
One notices in his contact with teachers that there is
in some quarters great respect for books, while in other
quarters, books are regarded as of doubtful value. Some
people are so absorbed in their ambitions to secure scien-
tific work from the children that they regard it, on the
whole, as very damaging to children that they should be
brought in contact with books. The better attitude in
these matters is for the teacher to recognize that there are
several different methods of getting solutions to questions.
The book method of getting a solution is a complex method
which gives mental training, but it is a different method
from that which the scientific investigator follows when he
gets a solution through experimentation. Social discussion
is still another method which can be employed. Whichever
method is being used, the student should be trained not
only to master this or that mode of procedure for getting
his answers but, above all, to know how to formulate ques-
tions, and then to recognize the use of each of the methods
of getting answers and the legitimacy now of one method
and now of another.

TEACHING STUDENTS TO STUDY 449

TKAINING IN ECONOMICAL METHODS OF STUDY

Another important matter in teaching students to study
is to show them that there are certain principles of intel--
lectual economy which ought constantly to be considered.
Thus, it is a very bad investment of time to do over and
over again in a superficial way a task which could be mas-
tered, once for all, by giving a little more time to it than
one naturally gives. One of the best arguments in favor
of economy is to be found in the case of a student who
wastes his time by looking up a word in a vocabulary
every time he finds it in the text. Thus, in translating a
Latin passage a student comes to a certain word. He
turns to the vocabulary and finds that there are fifteen or
twenty meanings given for this word. He runs his eye
down the list of meanings and carefully selects the one
that will serve his purpose. He tries to overlook the other
meanings because they do not serve his purpose at the
present moment. From one point of view this seems to
be economical. One is trying to translate a given passage,
and to stop and consider the meaning of a word in general
will be distracting. Furthermore, our textbook vocabula-
ries are frequently so made up that a student would be
quite unable to get at the general meaning of the word
by reading over the full statement given. Even the worst
vocabulary that has ever been constructed would, however,
if properly looked at, give some clue to the general mean-
ing of the word, and offer some suggestions as to the
reason why all of these different meanings are attached to
the single root. If the student would stop, therefore, and
read over the list of words in the vocabulary with a view
not merely to selecting the particular meaning which he
needs for the given passage but also with the view to
recognizing the general character of the word ; if he would
pay enough attention to the word itself so as to form its

450 ^PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

acquaintance and prepare for later uses of the word, he
would, by a small expenditure of additional time, effect a
genuine economy in the long run. Somebody ought to per-
suade the student of Latin at the outset that he is going to
take the course for a whole year, and that an investment
of time to-day which will economize his time all through
the year is well worth his consideration.

\d£ ANTICIPATION OF APPLICATIONS

This looking forward into the future and trying to see
all of the different applications of a present mental act is an
attitude which students do not often cultivate. In geom-
etry, for example, it would be well to ask a student while
he is working on the relation between triangles to look for-
ward himself, and to consider what advantage this part of
the study will be to him in further study of geometry. Are
the principles which he is taking up at this time likely to
turn up in later combinations ? If so, what kind of combi-
nations could one expect ? To make each individual lesson
an introduction to the rest of the subject is worthy of the
explicit attention of teachers. Not only should the learner
in this way try to make a subject apply to the later stages
of the same study, but one may well expend time in calling
attention to the possible applications of a given subject to
other phases of life which are more remote. Undoubtedly
our method of subdividing and sharply separating subjects
has made this looking for applications a relatively unusual
type of the work of the school. Indeed, it may be said that
very few teachers, to say nothing of students, are trained
to look for the applications of their subjects. If one is
studying history, he ought to be interested not only in the
event which is now under examination, but he ought to
look forward to some of the probable implications of the
events. To ask what is likely to come from the combination

TEACHING STUDENTS TO STUDY 451

of events which one encounters in to-day's history lesson
is to make an entirely legitimate historical study and is
practically suggestive, in view of the fact that our esti-
mate of the future is always based on our own analysis
of present situations. Historical studies might serve, there-
fore, to cultivate the power of looking critically into the
future, which will be of very great importance to students.
This kind of application of history to present needs does
not mean that we merely try to explain the present by
history, but we try to cultivate in the student some recog-
nition of the complexities which confront all of our execu-
tive officers in the government. For example, if one sees
the difficulty of telling the consequences of the French
Revolution as a purely historical problem, one will recog-
nize immediately how difficult it is for the present-day
legislators to see the possibilities which may grow out of a
given piece of legislation. If it is difficult to tell how far a
nation is to be plunged into conflicts through a single nego-
tiation, then we can be prepared, in dealing with our own
current events, to recognize that any act of our government
is likely to be of far-reaching consequences.

In the same way, one may use other examples. Suppose
that when studying a series of principles in algebra the
student is called upon to find some use to which the prin-
ciples may be put. These uses need not be applications
to commercial life and business life. The assumption that
application of a subject always means a turning of it into
business or into constructive activity is, as was pointed out
in an earlier chapter, a limited notion of what is meant by
application. One ought to realize that algebra is an instru-
ment for the solution of problems in the sciences. The
student has a right not only to the general statement that
mathematics is necessary for the solution of scientific prob-
lems ; he ought to be encouraged in the algebra class itself
to look for possible uses that can be made of the principles

452 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

of algebra. There js^no bettgL exercise, in any course than to
encourage the student to prepare in a large way for future
uses of the present lesson. Students should be taught to
do this with a full recognition of the intellectual economy
which they are thus securing.

STUDENTS PROFIT BY USE OF STANDARDS

One of the methods which is of great importance in
training students to study is the method of giving the
student some standards which will help him judge of the
success of his own work. S. A. Courtis,1 in discussing his
arithmetic tests, calls attention to the fact that these tests
are of value to the individual student because one can train
the student himself to judge of his ability as compared with
his own past achievements and as compared with the legiti-
mate expectations to be imposed on people in his class. If,
for example, the student knows that the other members of
a certain class can, on the average, complete a certain series
of addition exercises in twenty seconds, he has a standard
which he can utilize in his own practice. He can try to do
this exercise in twenty seconds. If he succeeds in doing it
at this rate, he knows that he has come up to the sixth-
grade standard. Furthermore, he can be told that this is
the standard required in business. If, on the other hand,
it takes him forty seconds, he knows that he must drill
himself more or he will be rated as backward. Further-
more, if he records the time which he requires every time
he performs exercises of addition or other processes, he
will be able to watch his own improvement. There is noth-
ing so stimulating to a student as to see the rate at which
he is improving. On the other hand, there is nothing

1 "The Courtis Test in Arithmetic," Report of the Committee on
School Inquiry of New York City (Part II, Subdivision I, Section D),
Vol. I, p. 489.

TEACHING STUDENTS TO STUDY 458

so discouraging to a student as to be unable to determine
whether he is making intellectual progress or not It is
for this reason that many a student becomes discouraged
in his class work ; he does not know whether he has a right
answer or not, and is therefore greatly disadvantaged as
contrasted with the student who has some method of
checking up his results.

In a recent number of the Elementary School Teacher1
a clever device was described by J. W. Graham for show-
ing grade pupils whether they can add rapidly or not by
asking them to add at the rate at which a pendulum swings.
The pendulujn is gradually shortened until the limit of
speed is reached. The student knows from the length of
the pendulum what degree of success he has attained in
the adding process.

THE VALUE OF STANDARDS IN SELF-ADJUSTMENT

It is fairly easy in such subjects as arithmetic to give the
student some kind of a standard which he himself can adopt
and follow. It is of course by no means as easy to give
him similar standards in some other subjects ; but he ought
to be made aware of the meaning of standards. One device
that can be adopted is to ask the student to rate himself in
the degree of preparation which he has on a given subject.
Get him, in the case of an examination, to tell how well
he thinks he did his work, and help him check up his judg-
ment by showing him how little this judgment comports
with the actual results of his work as judged in the light
of the work of the class as a whole. Call attention to the
fact that the estimate which the student has of his own
work differs from the estimate which he ought to have
because he does not know how well others do their work.
Show him that comparative standards are significant in
i Vol. XIV (1914), p. 348.

454 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

estimating one's own value in the commercial world or in
the world of intellectual achievement. A student should
know about how long he ought to spend in the preparation
of a lesson. Individual differences must of course be
taken into account, but it is important that the student
should come to recognize some of his own peculiarities.
If a student is a slow reader, he ought first to realize the
possibility of improving the rate of his reading ; and, in the
second place, he ought to realize that it is going to cost him
more time than it costs some other members of the class
to get up his work. In spite of his individual peculiarities
he ought never to be allowed to assume that his mental
efficiency is satisfactory if he requires an indefinite length
of time for the execution of a certain task. The teacher
ought to know the time and effort required to master every
assignment, and ought to be able to say to the class that the
rapid members are expected to get the lesson in a half hour,
the slower members certainly inside of an hour and a half.
If our educational work were thus standardized, it would
be a very great advantage to both students and teachers.
There would be no evasions between students and teacher
with regard to the amount of effort that the students need
to expend. There would be very much greater certainty in
our definition of standards of institutions. At the present
moment we turn a student loose on a certain section of a
course and ask him to get it ready. The sections which we
assign from day to day are very rough divisions, given out
without exact knowledge on the part of the teacher as to the
amount of effort which is required on the part of the student.

PROGRESSION A TEST OP EFFECTIVE TRAINING

Finally, the student ought to realize that the best check
of his own work is his ability to go on with the next line
of work. He ought to realize that the natural penalty of

TEACHING STUDENTS TO STUDY 455

failure at one point is increased difficulty in the next
stages of the course. In order to make him distinctly aware
of this relationship between different parts of the course,
it will be necessary for us, first of all, tq^reorganizg^ our
education material in such a way that there shall be real pro-
gression in intellectual demands made upon tEe student.

Our discussion of standards for the student, therefore,
leads us back to the problem of standardizing and system-
atizing our various courses. Heretofore our courses have
been systematized from the point of view of the subject
matter to be covered. Some courses have also, in a rough,
general way, been systematized with reference to the dif-
ficulties of intellectual problems presented. It is assumed
that the course grows more and more difficult as one goes
forward to the higher stages of the subject. There is cer-
tainly no consistent development of this ideal type in many
of the subjects of the curriculum. For example, in an
earlier chapter attention was called to a conspicuous illus-
tration of the lack of development in intellectual demands
found in the courses in history. Often hard courses are
purposely put near the beginning of the school work. For
example, we very frequently have evidence that the algebra
course in the first year is one of the most severe courses in
the whole curriculum of the high school. The first science
course which is given in a department is very frequently
much more severe than the later courses in the same subject.
Educational institutions very frequently point out the fact
that the difficult courses at the beginning are intended to
weed out the poor students. In the work in home econom-
ics, for example, it has frequently been the case that a
severe course in scientific chemistry precedes a number of
very easy courses in the practical art of cooking.

This failure to give a student any progressive series
of requirements in the different subjects is a mistake from
the point of view of the student's own intellectual habits.

456 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

Having mastered a given subject, the student feels the need
of a progression of some sort in his own intellectual life,
and the school ought to give him this satisfaction and also
this test of his own earlier work.

TRADITIONAL COURSES EMPHASIZE PROGRESSION

Latin and some of the other traditional subjects are
undoubtedly in excellent form in just this respect and are
better organized than the scientific or historical subjects.
Furthermore, the nature of language development is such
that accumulation of training comes as a necessary result
of larger contact with the words and constructions which go
to make up the language. If one has read a certain amount
of Latin, he finds that it is easier for him to read the next
Latin passage to which he comes. The acquisition of facility
in reading Latin is thus a kind of natural indication to the
student of his progress in the subject.

SCHOOL SUBJECTS REQUIRE PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

The reorganization of all of our courses with this prin-
ciple in mind will be worked out when teachers see the im-
portance of making a definite catalogue of the intellectual
processes which students cultivate. For example, suppose
the history course could be organized in such a way that
the demand made upon students in the earlier years of the
history course were, first of all, for ability to comprehend
a coherent narrative of successive events. Suppose that at
this stage we did not demand any very large explanation
o£ the events studied. Suppose that at the second stage of
his study we asked the student not only to understand the
history that he is studying, but also to understand the physi-
cal facts which influence history, making at this stage of
the course a correlation between history and geography.

TEACHING STUDENTS TO STUDY 457

This would demand a power of comparison and associative
thinking.^ Suppose that in the third stage we askeH tor a
mastery of evidences upon which history is based ; that is,
a critical evaluation of the original sources. Suppose finally,
at the last stage of historical discussion, we asked the student
to make a critical comparison of the different authorities
who have attempted to interpret a given period. Whether
the historian would agree that this is the best order in which
historical methods are to be taught or not, the example at
least serves to call attention to the fact that there is a possi-
ble progression of intellectual demands within the course.
The present tendency in history is for the most elementary
student to be brought in contact with all of the possible
modes of historical interpretation. Thus a teacher who has
studied history through original sources, and who has seen
the geographical correlation of history, assumes that all the
different mental processes which are involved in the study
of history can be aroused in the beginner. He starts out,
therefore, to give the most complex reasoning about his-
torical events to the elementary student. The elementary
student becomes confused and is satisfied to get half of his
lesson, never developing any standard of completeness ; and
the teacher is satisfied with a partial achievement on the
part of the student because he recognizes that there are
some aspects of the situation which are evidently too com-
plicated for the student. The difficulty in this case is that
the teacher has not analyzed the ability of the student, and
has not developed in his own mind any notion of real pro-
gression which would make it possible to test the student's
achievements in the first part of his course by ability to go
on in the later parts of the work.

458 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

<+

SCIENCE COURSES LACS' PROGRESSION

The difficulty which has just been pointed out in history
is also one of the conspicuous difficulties in the organization
of science work in the schools. A student studies a little
botany or a little physiography in the earlier part of his
course. He is then transferred to a physics course or a
course in general biology, and he begins all over again with
very simple problems and very simple methods of scientific
investigation. His first science course goes forward rapidly
from simple problems to complex problems. His second
science course begins as though nothing had ever been done
to train him in scientific methods. Indeed, the organization
of our schools is such that we frequently mix classes, putting
in the second science course a number of students who have
never had any of the earlier work, so that it is quite impossi-
ble in this second class to do anything except begin at the
early rudiments of the science, while in the same course are
students who have done several courses in related subjects.
Thus, science courses are very frequently badly arranged or
not arranged at all, and the student gets only a vague gen-
eral impression of scientific method and its application to the
problems in the particular field. In each of these sciences it
is the subject matter which has been the dominant interest.
The student has never been shown that there are different
degrees of complexity in reasoning. He realizes very slowly,
if at all, that the first stage of a science is to collect a few
simple facts with a certain degree of accuracy. The second
stage of science is to try and develop some sort of a general
principle, utilizing in support of this general principle the
observations which one has made. The third stage is veri-
fication ; and so on. What is needed is a careful analysis
of the mental processes which represent progress within
the science. What we need is a list of all of the different
kinds of mental activities that students are called upon

TEACHING STUDENTS TO STUDY 459

to go through in each of the sciences and in each of the
humanities. We should realize, for example, that there is
always some memory work, and that this memory work is
essential to comparison and reason, which come later in the
subject. Furthermore, the student should realize as well as
the teacher that there is sequence from memory to reason.

TRADITIONAL SUBJECTS CAPABLE OF GREATER
PROGRESSION

Other examples of the same fundamental requirements
can be presented if one comes to a criticism of Latin and
German, which were described a few minutes ago as having
a sort of natural progressiveness. The student of Latin
is undoubtedly a good deal confused by his transfer from
Caesar to Cicero. He recognizes Cicero as one of the higher
courses in the high-school curriculum, but just why Cicero
is more advanced than Caesar is difficult to make clear to
a student. Finally, when the transfer comes from Cicero
to Virgil the student becomes aware of the added body of
material which he gets in the principles of scansion, but it
is not at all clear that the Latin itself requires any true
progress on his part.

Suppose that the Latin teacher should make a radical
distinction between the work in Caesar and Cicero in some
such terms as these: The class has been reading Caesar.
Now for some time, as we turn to Cicero, there will no
longer be any requirement for detailed translation. It is
assumed that the class can now read Latin in the original
and can understand it without translation. Therefore in
Cicero we shall call upon members of the class to read
with expression the Latin text and to answer directly,
in Latin, questions about the text. This would constitute
a real step in advance, a real progressive demand upon
the student. The student would now recognize that his

460 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

work-in Caesar is going to be tested by the demand that he
use the original language itself.

Suppose that the same sort of requirement were imposed
upon the student in German. We might say the simplest
stage of German is that stage in which the student learns
by translation. A later stage in German would be the stage
in which the translation can be dropped. In setting forth
.this example one becomes immediately aware of the fact
that the language teachers themselves have never agreed
as to the relative difficulties of understanding a language
through translation and through the use of spoken language
itself without translation. Students of the direct method
in German, for example, assume that oral expression in
the language itself is the first stage. Translation for them
would be a later study of a more complex type, since it
would involve the comparison of German with English.
On the other hand, Latin teachers have assumed that trans-
lation is a relatively simple mental process and that the
mastery of Latin without translation would be a somewhat
more complex form of mental activity. Perhaps, as pointed
out in an earlier chapter, there are conditions under which
each of these assumptions may be regarded as true. If we
teach simple idiomatic phrases by the oral method, prob-
ably the use of the foreign language is somewhat simpler
than translation. On the other hand, if we study a lan-
guage, analytically getting at the notion of its structure
before we try to make use of the language, perhaps trans-
lation is the simpler process. In either case the student
should be required to progress.

SUBJECT MATTER LESS IMPORTANT THAN PROGRESSION

The degree of complexity of the mental process would
therefore depend upon the methods of procedure within the
subject itself and upon the aims of instruction. It might not

TEACHING STUDENTS TO STUDY 461

be possible to say that a certain mental process taken out
of the context is in itself more or less complex than some
other mental process, but the teacher, and also the student,
should be made aware of the fact that within each method
of instruction there is the possibility of creating for the stu-
dent progressr^ demands which shall carry him within that
subject to more and more complex forms of mental life.

Progression within the subject is the only solution of the
educational problem. It is to be feared that many teachers
are satisfied with a wider range of information as the only
demand imposed in the later stages of a given subject
They give more and more of the same sort of work in the
later stages of a course without recognizing that more and
more material of the same type and degree of difficulty will
not constitute real educational progress. If the teachers in
any given field would canvass their own subjects with a
view to determining what is the demand at the later stages
of a course, as distinguished from the demand at the earlier
stages, we should have a series of discussions of the differ-
ent school subjects that would be of first-class importance
to the science of psychology as well as to the methodology
of the subject itself.

ORGANIZING A STUDY PROGRAM

There are certain external devices for securing economy
and efficiency in the work of students which depend upon
the general principle that organization of one's work is
always more economical than unsystematic effort, however
earnest. One finds that the ordinary high-school student
has no regular plan of attack upon the subjects which he
has to study. He goes home at night with four or five
assignments, and the order in which he takes up these
assignments is a matter of pure accident. Sometimes a
student begins with the subject which he likes best; at

462 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

other times he begins with the subject that he knows will
be most vigorously followed up in the recitations of the
next day. Furthermore, the very fact that he has no regu-
lar order of procedure becomes itself a distraction, because
as soon as he begins the study of one subject he will think
of the other subjects which he might be taMng up.

There are two ways of meeting these general difficulties.
The first is for the student to have a regular program for
his own work. Such a regular program as this is very
difficult to maintain unless there is cooperation between
the student and the teachers who have his assignments in
charge. If the student sets aside a certain amount of time
each day or a certain sequence of studies for his work, it is
likely that the assignments will not balance in such a way
as to make the most economical use of his time. Still, he
will gain something by regularity of habits, even if his pro-
gram of study is a purely individual affair. An interesting
report has been made by W. C. Reavis,1 who organized the
high school of which he had charge on this plan of full
individual programs for students. Not only were the study
hours that occurred during the school itself assigned to
various topics, but the students were induced also to fill
up the hours which they spent at home with a regular pro-
gram. The result of this organization of the students' work
was a decided improvement in the quality and quantity of
work" caff ied"by The students in th"al"scFool.

Another general device which commends itself as having
certain advantages over the organization of individual pro-
grams by the students is the organization of the general
program of the school in such a way that the selection of
the study which shall be treated as most important from
day to day shall be determined by a plan arranged by the
faculty. Thus the work of Monday should be organized in

lfrThe Importance of a Study-Program for High School Pupils,"
School Review, 1911, Vol. XIX, pp. 398-406.

TEACHING STUDENTS TO STUDY 463

all classes with a view to allowing science to have more
time and attention from the students than any other sub-
ject. Tuesday might be devoted to mathematics ; Wednes-
day to history ; and so on through the week. This would
give the whole school a certain definite arrangement of its
work, and would prepare students to lay emphasis upon the
different subjects in rotation. Such a plan as this would re-
quire some consultation among the members of the faculty
as to the length of assignments, and would undoubtedly
be advantageous from that point of view also. It would
relieve the students of the necessity of determining each
time just the order in which they ought to do their work.
They would realize that they must prepare the assignment
in the subject that has the right of way, whatever the fate
of the other subjects.

SELECTING ESSENTIALS

The principle of organization which has been illustrated
in the last paragraph should reach not only to the general
program of the students, but should reach into each indi-
vidual subject. The material which is presented in the text-
boolclihd the class exercise is of course arranged with some
deference to the sequence of ideas in the subject matter.
There are undoubtedly in every lesson certain cardinal
points which the teacher is able to bring out in the recita-
tion, and ought to impress upon the students as of more
significance than other points in the lesson. The difficulty
is in training students to select these important points, and
to realize that they are the essential elements of the lesson.
Most students read with laborious minuteness everything
set down in the assignment, and the lesson is not organized
in their experience around central ideas. Their ideas consist
merely in a train of sentences, all of which are evaluated as
though they were of the same intellectual importance. To

464 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

*

correct this monotonous emphasis on everything, each class
exercise should at some time in the recitation be summarized
in a general way. Some student should be asked, either at
the beginning or at the end of the lesson, to present the
three or four major lines of discussion which are at the
center of the assignment. Very frequently the assignment
of the lesson can very advantageously be made in terms
which shall point out these major items. In this way stu-
dents will get into the habit of summarizing all bodies of
material which come to them in the course of an hour.
They will thus be prepared to take notes better, because
they will learn how to select from the material which is
given to them those items which constitute the key to
each one of the phases of the discussion.

ELABORATING A THEME

The necessary complement of the selection of the most
important point is the cultivation of the ability to elabo-
rate each point. Many students are able to give in very
brief form a certain statement which is one of the impor-
tant statements in the lesson, but they are utterly at a
loss to take up that statement and illustrate it and elabo-
rate it as the author of the textbook or the lecturer has
elaborated the item. In our discussion of the methods of
teaching English, attention was called to the fact that most
students in American schools are quite unable to give any
lengthy discussion of topics. One of the exercises which
would be of great advantage in every subject is that which
would grow out of the requirement that students take an
important point in the lesson and write three or four pages
on this point Students would gain through such an exer-
cise a much keener appreciation of the paragraphs in the
textbook. Every author who has elaborated an idea in a
textbook has had some reason for adding supplementary

TEACHING STUDENTS TO STUDY 465

and secondary illustrations to the main idea which he is
discussing. These accessory ideas are just as necessary to
the explanation of the main idea and to the development
of connections with other ideas as is the bald statement of
the principle itself. Students should learn how to connect
ideas and illustrate them. They should be able to take up
any major principle and find interesting points of connec-
tion between that major principle and other information,
especially information collected in other courses. A good
deal has been said in pedagogical literature about the im-
portance of selecting the major idea, and certainly the
comments which have been made along this line are all of
them justified, but relatively little has been said about the
necessity of elaborating major ideas as indicated in the
foregoing sentences.

TRAINING IN GENERALIZATION

When students have gained some knowledge of a sub-
ject through a few exercises, it is very important that they
should be trained in generalizing this knowledge. Em-
phasis was laid on this point in the chapter on science
teaching and also in the chapter on formal discipline. It is
in place at this point to indicate some of IHe methods of
generalization which can advantageously be employed in
the classroom and in the student's own mental procedure.

ANTICIPATING THE FUTURE

In the first place, as suggested above, the student ought
to try to look forward in the subject itself and anticipate
the later problems which are to come up.

466 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

REVIEWS

Further than this, generalization of experience can be
cultivated through frequent reviews. Indeed, the student
and the teacher ought to realize that the function of a re-
view is to crystallize earlier studies in more comprehensive
forms than were possible while the subjects were being
studied in detail. The student who gets an impression
that a review just before an examination means a hasty
running over of all of the material which has been covered
in the course will not gain from the review the advantage
which he ought to secure. He ought to realize that, having
learned the subject in its details, he is now in a position
to take a more general view of the whole subject Princi-
ples too broad to be included in a single exercise ought
now to be the subjects of his thought. After he has studied
a certain period of history, for example, he ought to be
able to characterize the whole of that period. This is a
period during which military operations were the most sig-
nificant public activities ; this is a period during which the
internal operations of the state were of more significance
than any outside relations ; this was a period during which
the country prospered financially and commercially; and
so on. None of these general statements would be signifi-
cant to a student, if made at the beginning of the study, in
any such degree as they ought to be after he has canvassed
in detail the military or commercial enterprises which are
summarized in his final review.

The general summary is also a great aid to the organiza-
tion and presentation of the details if one wishes to elab-
orate these details later in answer to specific questions.
Thus a review in science makes it possible to hold in mind,
through the use of general formulas, the details of physics
or zoology. One needs for general education not merely
the detailed facts about motion and forces; he ought to

TEACHING STUDENTS TO STUDY 467

be able to grasp the general topics and to show that all of
the details group together under the general principles of
the distribution and conservation of energy. He ought to
be able to describe in zoology the whole animal kingdom,
pointing out the major characteristics of the different parts
of the animal kingdom rather than the detailed structures
of any particular species.

BroaJ'general views of this type are the significant re-
sults of all specific courses when the student has really
mastered the subject matter that he has been going over.
Broad general views of this sort will also encourage stu-
dents to realize that any subject which they study will be
of significance to the broad-minded individual. The stu-
dent who is going to go into business is not likely to care
about the details of zoology or physics ; but if he can feel,
when he has completed a course, that he has secured nine
or ten general principles in each of the sciences, he will be
encouraged to regard these as permanent elements of his
intellectual equipment, whereas now he commonly believes
that he is at the end of the subject and is entirely content
to forget all of the information which he has accumulated
in these courses.

Generalization is the most important result of any study ;
and any course which does not permit its material to be
generalized in a few salient principles that can be compre-
hended and carried away by the student is not organized in
the form which justifies its retention.

MENTAL HYGIENE

These. practical suggestions for the organization of the
course of study should be coupled with certain practical
suggestions on mental hygiene. Every student should re-
alize that there is a hygiene of mental operations exactly
as there is a hygiene of physical operations. Indeed, in

468 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

many cases the two coincide exactly. Thus the student
will find, if he watches carefully his own modes of study,
that very frequently mental excitement is accompanied by
a form of physical tension which is altogether unfavorable
for his work. Anyone who has seen an eager student over-
working in his efforts to get a lesson will realize that over-
work consists in an abnormal tension of the muscles. Very
frequently the facial muscles are so tense that the student
is seen to be wearing himself out and expending his energy
at an utterly unjustifiable rate. That student ought to
be taught to relax. It is just as much a part of his intel-
lectual training to learn to work without so much physical
friction as it is to remember the ideas which he is reading.
In fact, he will never be able to remember ideas so long as
he works at that high physical tension.

DANGERS OF OVEKSTIMULATION

Teachers very frequently transgress the requirements of
mental hygiene when they develop in students an attitude
which is entirely out of accord with their real needs. Thus
a conscientious boy or girl is urged to study more because
the teacher has fallen into the habit of assuming that boys
and girls usually do not study as much as they ought to.
The artificial devices adopted by such a teacher sometimes
consist in an appeal to class loyalty or school loyalty. When
the student, already overconscientious about his work, is
thus urged to add to his efforts, he sits down to his task
with his mind full of the necessity of not disgracing the
class. He works at a high tension and under a form of dis-
traction which is utterly irrational. Teachers ought to real-
ize that there are many students who do not need to be
urged to work. Some students ought to be told definitely
that it makes no difference whether they get a certain
lesson in great detail or not. Such students ought very

TEACHING STUDENTS TO STUDY 469

frequently to be encouraged to read over matter in a rela-
tively superficial way and get the general principles, leaving
the details to be worked out in the recitation itself. Once
a habit of relaxed and deliberate study is cultivated, such
a student will make progress because he needed only to re-
duce the distraction and tension in order to take a calm view
of the subject which he is studying. There is quite as much
danger of one type of student losing his perspective in a sub-
ject because he tries too hard and makes unnecessary mo-
tions, intellectual and physical, as there is of another type
of student failing because he does not study enough.

DANGERS OF DISTRACTION

Of course there are and always will be students who
need to be encouraged to work. The teacher must learn
to discriminate. The people who do not work enough are
either constitutionally phlegmatic or they are distracted
by outside engagements. Outside engagements constitute
a much more common source of distraction in the school
than do constitutional limitations of any sort. A recent
study l which has been made of this matter goes to show
with perfect definiteness that students who have numerous
other engagements fail in their school work just because of
these outside engagements. A student ought to realize and
the parents of students ought to realize that a certain amount
of energy is at hand during the school period. It is entirely
legitimate for the student and his family to decide that this
energy ought to be expended on activities other than those
covered by the school curriculum. For example, it is un-
doubtedly legitimate for the student to tafc e a course in
art or music ; but if this work outside of the regular cur-
riculum is taken by the student, there ought to be such a

1 1. King, The High-school Age, Chaps, x and xi. The Bobbs-Merrill
Company, 1914.

470 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

readjustment of the school program that the outside work
will not simply be added to the demand which is made for
the regular work. The fundamental principle of physical
and mental hygiene is the principle of distribution of energy.
Overtaxing of energy is illegitimate and disadvantageous
from every point of view. Why not allow the student to
go more slowly through his course of study in the school,
in order that he may cultivate certain other lines of activity
which are good and often more advantageous to the indi-
vidual than are the school courses ? This would mean that
students would move through the high school at various
different rates ; and there ought to be no social or intellec-
tual stigma attaching to this movement through the high-
school course at a rate which is determined by the outside
activities of the student.

ADJUSTING STUDY TO OUTSIDE ENGAGEMENTS

One remembers the plan which is in regular use in the
English universities of distinguishing between students who
are aiming at high intellectual honors and those who are
merely passing in their courses and are using their energies
for outside social activities. Whether this is a plan that can
be adopted in a democracy or not, it is certainly rational in
the sense that it does not assume that all students are go-
ing to put forth in study the same kind or degree of energy.
Probably we should not want to make the distinction in
this country on the basis of the English university plan, but
we certainly may with propriety relate the work done in-
side the school and the work which a student is doing
outside of school hours. If for some reason or other the
student is going to be engaged in outside activities three
days in the week, he certainly ought to make this a
part of his general program. If he can afford to give
four or five days to these outside engagements, he ought

TEACHING STUDENTS TO STUDY 471

to recognize such engagements as part of his legitimate
program of intellectual and physical effort.

What has been said with regard to outside activities ought
to cover also those activities which are organized by the
school as social and athletic undertakings. There ought
to be absolutely no prejudice against recognizing this work
and making it a part of the legitimate program of the stu-
dents. It is a fundamental mistake to believe that the im-
mature student can regulate without advice and supervision
the amount of energy which he can properly devote to these
activities outside of the regular course. If we are not pre-
pared to put such engagements on the same footing as class
work, we certainly must realize their relation to the work
which is credited toward graduation ; and this relation ought
to be adjusted in a rational way. The amount of energy
which students have available is enormous. This fact is
attested by their numerous organizations and numerous
lines of activities not immediately connected with the school
program. If one attempted to get the whole of this energy
for school courses, he would find himself obstructed by the
social temper of the school and of society at large. Society
regards irregular social and recreative activities as impor-
tant for high-school students. How far these activities may
legitimately absorb the student's energy is a difficult prob-
lem for both society and for the school to solve, but it is
certainly time that the problem received grave attention.
Appeals must be made to the students themselves in terms
of scientific self -management to distribute their energy with
an economical and clear recognition of the fact that the
energy which is available at any given time in life is limited.

Such discussions as these lead us to the whole problem
of secondary organization and the problems characteristic
of the adolescent student. In the next chapter we shall
have an opportunity to summarize briefly the general facts
which are now available on these subjects. In the meantime

472 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

the conclusion of the present discussion is that there ought
to be a definite, conscious recognition on the part of students
of the necessity of studying mental hygiene. Mental hygiene
is quite as important as hygiene of buildings and of the phys-
ical system. Mental hygiene involves a study of individ-
ual differences ; it involves a study of human energy and
its distribution ; it involves the recognition of the fact that
the course of study is only one factor in an education, but
a factor which must be safeguarded by a clear recognition
of the fact that the course of study cannot be pursued un-
less the intellectual and physical conditions under which it
is presented are favorable to this pursuit.

EXCELLENT STUDENTS REQUIRE THE MAXIMUM
OF ATTENTION

Finally, it should be emphasized once more that all this
discussion about how to study and how to organize intellec-
tual material and distribute energy is more important for the
strong student than for the weak or mediocre student. We
commonly recognize the necessity of helping the student
who is failing, though we usually do this rescue work badly
because we have not given due attention to good habits of
study. It is time for us to learn how to guide those who do
excellent work quite as much as those who do a low grade
of work.

CHAPTER XIX

GENERAL PROBLEMS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION
GENERAL SOCIAL AND HYGIENIC PROBLEMS

Casual reference has been made in earlier chapters to
general psychological conditions which govern all of the
activities of school life. A relation of friendly cooperation
between teacher and students is one such general condition.
Grave consequences for the intellectual life of students
follow failure to establish friendly relations. Furthermore,
favorable hygienic conditions must be provided for school
work. The physical conditions which are necessary for
healthy functioning of the nervous system must be secured
if there is to be vigorous and productive mental work.

SPECIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE HIGH SCHOOL

It is not the purpose of this chapter, however, to enter
into a discussion of these general facts of school hygiene
and mental hygiene. We shall discuss what might be called
the problem of social hygiene. There are certain unique
characteristics of the high school which determine the social
and mental atmosphere of this institution. These unique
characteristics of the high school affect the intellectual work
of the students in such a degree that we shall be able to
understand the work of each department only by defining
the place of this department in the general scheme. We
shall accordingly take up in this final chapter such general
characteristics of the high school as influence the activities
of the students.

473

474 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

GENERAL SOCIAL CHANGES

A generation ago the high school stood apart from the
common schools as an institution to be attended by the
select. One reads the history of American secondary schools
with a clear recognition of the fact that fifty years ago the
ordinary family did not expect to send its boys and girls
through secondary schools. It was not until the rapid devel-
opment of the secondary schools in the eighties and subse-
quent decades that the general social attitude toward the
high school came to be something like the attitude toward
the elementary school. In fact, one can trace a very inter-
esting evolution of the relations between the two schools.
In the older sections of the country there was a vigorous
effort made to extend the elementary-school period so that
every child might have as much education in the common
school as possible. We find, therefore, that in New Eng-
land there was an extension of the common school to in-
clude the ninth year of school life. Even to-day one can find
in many of the cities of New England a nine-year elemen-
tary school. This nine-year elementary school is the expres-
sion of a high economic and social development. Since the
common people did not expect to send their children to
the high school, it was natural that they should seek for
these children as full an opportunity of elementary-school
life as possible. The difficulty with the nine-year elemen-
tary school was that it did not provide in the upper grades
for any training other than that which had been traditional
in the lower grades. The ninth grade offered nothing but
mere repetitions and timid extensions of the work done
in the lower grades.

PROBLEMS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 475

THE HIGH SCHOOL AS PART OF THE COMMON SCHOOL

In the newer sections of the country there is absolutely
no disposition at the present time to extend the elementary
school through the ninth year. If one visits the elementary
schools of the Middle States he finds, indeed, that there is
great eagerness on the part of communities to provide as
full an educational opportunity as possible for the young
people of th^se communities, but it never occurs to a com-
munity in the Middle West that it is desirable to extend
the elementary school. The fact is that the high school is the
natural place for most of the young people in the community
to continue their education, and access to the high school
is made so easy that there is no reason for an extension of
the elementary school. There probably will never be a rep-
etition in newer parts of the country of the New England
phenomenon of an added year of elementary education.

The same general movement appears in the South, where
there is no disposition to extend the seven-year elementary
school which resulted from the relatively unfavorable eco-
nomic conditions that limited the development of public
common schools. The seven-year school appeared merely be-
cause it was not possible, on account of economic conditions,
to reach the full organization of New England or of the
middle states in the North. But this seven-year elementary
school has served so well the purposes of education, and in
the meantime there has been so vigorous a development of
secondary education in the more progressive communities,
that there is a consensus of intelligent opinion against
extending the seven-year school into an eight-year school.

We have, accordingly, in this country at the present time
three types of elementary schools, the seven-year school, the
eight-year school, and the nine-year school.1 All of these

1 E. C. Brooks, " Seven, Eight, and Nine Years in the Elementary
School," Elementary School Teacher, 1918, Vol. XIV, pp.~ 20-28, 82-92.

476 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

will be understood when one recognizes the fact that the
present-day movement is in the direction not of the elabo-
ration and extension of elementary education, but rather in
the direction of amalgamation of the elementary school with
the high school in such a way that the latter institution
shall become a part of the common-school system.

This new attitude toward public education is of the high-
est advantage because it opens the way for any readjust-
ment which can be justified by scientific studies of education.
So long as there was a breach between the two schools the
problem of readjustment was complicated by institutional
barriers. With these barriers removed, there is no reason
why considerations relating to intellectual and physical
development should not come into the foreground. The
social movement which has opened the high school to all
the children is therefore a movement toward the best
educational organizations.

EFFECT OF RAPID INCREASE IN ATTENDANCE

The clearest evidences which appear within the high
school itself of the adoption of this institution into the
common-school scheme of education appears in the rapid
growth of the high schools. The facts which have frequently
been summarized in the reports of the Commissioner of
Education show that during the decade immediately preced-
ing 1900-1901 the number of secondary schools, including
both private and public, increased nearly 100 per cent, and
the number of students increased in a somewhat higher ratio.
In the decade from 1900-1901 to 1910-1911 the number of
schools increased from 8210 to 12,213, and the number of
students increased from 649,951 to 1,115,326. At the end
of the year 1911-1912 there were 13,268 schools and
1,246,827 students. This great increase in the number of
students attending high schools indicates that the social

PROBLEMS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 477

movement in the direction of a democratic institution is very
strong. Such an influx of students brings into the high school
every possible kind of interest. It is not merely the students
who are going to enter the professions who now take a sec-
ondary course. Many students enter the high school with a
definite knowledge that they are going into business or into
the other nonprofessional activities of society. When a va-
riety of interests begins to assert itself in the student body,
consequences are sure to appear in the organization of the
course of study and in the intellectual life of the school.
It is quite impossible to think of a rigid required course
under the social conditions represented by this increase in
the high-school population. It is quite impossible to think
of a policy of elimination of students on a basis such as
was laid down in the earlier days of the secondary school.
We shall not attempt to describe in any detail the psycho-
logical consequences of this movement toward democracy.
Certain disadvantages doubtless appear with this rapid ex-
pansion. The individual student is distracted by the be-
wildering variety of social relations. The tendency to pay
attention to people rather than to studies is often remarked
as one of the dangers of the present-day high school. On
the other hand, the constant emphasis on social and practical
relations has a broadening influence which no subject of
instruction taken by itself can supply. The psychological
atmosphere is broad and free, and the study which goes on
in the school and at home is radically affected by this new
and stimulating social environment.

A WIDER INTELLECTUAL VIEW CHARACTERISTIC
OF THE AGE

A further change in the psychological atmosphere is to
be explained by calling attention to the productive scholar-
ship and wider national life which have in recent years given

478 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

to the high schools a new body of material of instruction.
The rapid enlargements of modern science and the exten-
sion of commercial relations are so obvious that a mere
reference to these without any effort at quantitative evalu-
ation suggests one of the major causes for the vigorous
intellectual life of the age. The boy who went to high
school in 1890 had no such interest in European civilization
as does the boy who twenty-five years later enters upon his
high-school course. The present-day boy may be interested in
Europe because he expects to develop commercial relations
with some country in Europe or he may be interested for
the general reasons which prompt all of us to consider the
place of the United States in the politics of the world ; but
it is certain, whatever the motive, that the high-school boy
of to-day knows more about European affairs than did his
father when his father went to the high school. In the same
way natural science has come to be one of the general pos-
sessions of society. A generation ago natural science was
the field of the specialist, and "the applications of scientific
principles in the industrial and mechanical world were com-
paratively few. To-day all sorts of complex mechanical
devices are familiar facts in the home and in community
life. The high-school student must be introduced to all
of the underlying principles which govern these industrial
changes. Indeed, so urgent has come to be the need for
knowledge of mechanical principles that some of this ma-
terial has been introduced into the elementary schools as
well as into the high schools.

AGRICULTURAL HIGH SCHOOLS

In its attempts to deal with all of the new problems that
are arising, the modern high school is boldly trying the most
radical experiments. One finds that a school has arisen in
rural communities known as the agricultural high school.

PROBLEMS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 479

This agricultural high school is attempting to develop a
body of knowledge which shall be appropriate to the ^ge
and maturity of the students and shall at the same time
serve the definite social end of training members of the
community to remain in the rural districts and carry on
their life work in agriculture.

TECHNICAL SCHOOLS

Parallel with this agricultural high school there have
grown up in the cities technical education and commercial
education. These various types of training have asserted
themselves with sufficient vigor to receive the enthusiastic
support of the community. It costs more to build and equip
a technical high school, and the cost of maintenance for such
a school is much higher, than that of an ordinary school.
But the communities in which these schools have been
established have usually supported them with even greater
willingness than they have manifested in providing for the
ordinary school.

READJUSTMENT OF STANDARDS

Agricultural and technical high schools have not hesi-
tated to abandon most of the standards which were familiar
to the old-fashioned classical high school. This abandon-
ment of familiar standards has led to criticism and counter
criticism. Colleges and academic people in general have
questioned the propriety of many of the courses which are
offered in these technical schools, on the ground that they
are lacking in power to train the student. The technical
high schools have retorted by criticizing the colleges and
the classical courses as thoroughly formal and unproductive.
We have, therefore, the extraordinary sight, at the present
time, of a great social movement which is pushing in the

480 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

direction of the enlargement of secondary education while
the academic world seems to draw back and hesitate, reject-
ing many of the experiments in secondary education and
exhibiting skepticism about the movement as a whole.

Perhaps one of the most striking evidences t>f the com-
plexity of the present situation is the long list of agencies
at work trying to standardize the courses of education in
secondary schools. Since the Committee of Ten completed
its work numerous efforts have been made to enlarge in
some form upon the work of that committee. There can be
no doubt at all that the bringing together of material by the
Committee of Ten on the course of study promoted very
greatly the organization of secondary schools. That commit-
tee did its work just at the beginning of the epoch of rapid
expansion, and its influence can hardly be overestimated.
But the time is long since past when a well-organized high
school can be satisfied with the recommendations made at
that time. At first thought, therefore, it has seemed to some
desirable to recommend another such committee. A study
of the recent history of the high school, however, discourages
so simple a device.

In the first place, there is very little possibility at the
present time of devising one formula which will include all
parts of the country. The Middle West has a type of high
school which no one born and bred east of the Allegheny
Mountains can comprehend. The committee which tries to
put the high schools of Cincinnati and St. Louis into the
same general scheme with the high schools of Hartford and
Worcester finds that it is dealing with incommensurable
quantities. The tendency, therefore, has been to carry on
standardizing through a number of distinct, local agencies.

In the second place, development of courses and plans
of instruction has gone forward at such a rapid rate that
standardization in the ordinary sense of definition before
the course is given is no longer possible. The experience

PROBLEMS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 481

of the North Central Association of Colleges and Second-
ary Schools in this respect is very striking. The work of
numerous departmental committees became so rapidly anti-
quated that even the effort to keep up these detailed reports
has lapsed.

EXCESSIVE EMPHASIS OF QUANTITATIVE STANDARDS

In a period of rapid readjustment the tendency of human
nature to grasp at the one easy device of quantitative eval-
uation has unfortunately dominated thought and action.
We have a quantitative standard all over the United States.
It is a fiction of the most ludicrous transparency, but it
seems to be satisfying to some who know little about the
real conditions, especially to those who solemnly sit in
judgment on those graduates of high schools who wish
to go to college.

NUMBER OF REQUIRED UNITS HAS RAPIDLY INCREASED

Let us consider briefly some of the facts regarding our
present-day quantitative standard. When the definition of
a high school was given by the Committee of Ten, it was
assumed that the student's weekly program might consist
of sixteen periods of work, with a possibility of extension
in exceptional cases up to twenty. Nowhere in the report of
the Committee of Ten are more than twenty mentioned ;
and wherever twenty periods are mentioned it is evident
that the Committee regards this number as an extreme
maximum. If a student carries sixteen hours of work a
week, as the Committee of Ten evidently intended that he
should, he would complete at the end of a four-year course
twelve or thirteen units of work. Or else a unit would
consist of four periods a week. This was a very familiar
kind of requirement when the Committee of Ten was doing

482 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

its work. To-day no secondary school could maintain itself
as a first-class high school if it gave to its students twelve
units of work in a four-year high-school course. Furthermore,
all of the standardizing agencies discourage four periods.
Fourteen is the absolute minimum to which the school may
fall, and sixteen is the common requirement for graduation.
The ordinary student in an American high school expects ;
therefore, to take at least four units of work each year. In
order to be quite safe in completing four units a year, he
is likely to take five. In many cases the school is so organ-
ized that during the years when the student is taking work
which is, for the most part, required, he will regularly find
himself required to take more than four units of work. In
some cases the excess beyond four units is dropped before
the end of the year, and in some cases the student fails in
one or more of his courses, but readjusts and achieves grad-
uation at the end of the fourth year because of the excess
units which he elects at some time during his course.
Furthermore, there are many students who are anxious to
get off the major part of their requirements in the early
years of the course, so that they may have a light election
of studies during the last year. Finally, many students
complete the high-school course in less than four years
by taking five units.

MOTIVES FOR INCREASE IN NUMBER OF UNITS

The agencies which have been at work increasing the
number of units demanded of high-school students have
been prompted in part by the desire to include in a given
student's training a large number of subjects. As the re-
quired classical curriculum of earlier days has been forced
to give way before the newer subjects, the simplest device
which suggested itself was to add the new subjects as
extras* English was once an extra in some schools. To-day

PROBLEMS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 483

there is a fringe of noncredit extras which will presently
be adopted " for credit."

The second motive which has been strong in pushing up
the number of courses required for graduation is the desire
to secure a greater quantity of intellectual work from stu-
dents. Every generation of teachers has felt that students
do not do all the work of which they are capable. Again,
it seems natural to assume that the simplest device is to
require more courses. It would be possible to require more
study within the limits of existing courses, but such in-
ternal requirements can be enforced only when instructors
have the highest qualifications of initiative and skill. The
external quantitative standard is therefore accepted while
internal improvement is left to the vicissitudes of chance.

EMPHASIS ON QUANTITY HAS BECOME FORMAL

The emphasis on quantity defeats its own purposes. Let
us try, for example, to estimate the requirements which
can be imposed on a class studying algebra in a present-
day high school. This class is made up of members all of
whom are taking three other units and some of whom are
taking four other units. The class also contains members
of the athletic teams and social organizations. The class
is made up in large measure of young people who do not
intend to use algebra for professional purposes. Without
commenting at this time on the desirability of their taking
algebra, the fact is that they are together in this class, and
the business of the teacher is to see to it that something
productive comes out of the undertaking. Can the teacher
require as much work of such a class as was required
twenty years ago when a class in algebra was made up of
a restricted membership, in which most of the students
were pursuing only two other subjects? Most of the
members of the earlier class were also free from outside

484 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

distractions of any engrossing type. The answer is perfectly
clear. The quantity of work which is now undertaken in
any particular course differs radically from the quantity
which could be required before the quantitative standards
were pushed up to their present level.

STANDARDIZATION EXTREMELY DIFFICULT

If we turn from the quantitative definition to discover
what degree of readjustment or redefinition ought to be
required, we find that we are in the midst of uncertainty
and the sharpest disagreements. There is no subject of in-
struction in the high school which has an accepted method.
There are some teachers of the classics, for example, who
lay great stress upon grammatical constructions ; there are
others who openly express their dissatisfaction with the
grammatical method, and are carrying on courses which
lay very little emphasis on grammar. College teachers of
the classics complain bitterly because students come to them
without knowledge of the fundamentals, as they call them,
of the Latin language. One might go on through the list,
pointing out the discrepancies in qualitative standards in
different high schools. Various associations have attempted
to define these subjects in the high school, with the result
that elaborate committee reports are at hand, differing from
each other so radically that it is evident that no one is pre-
pared to allow anyone else to define for him the subject
matter of a high-school course.

ELIMINATION AS A SPUR TO EFFORT DISAPPEARING

This vagueness of standards is exaggerated by a change
in the social attitude with regard to school standards in
general. The time was when every higher institution prided
itself on the number of students it eliminated. One still

PROBLEMS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 485

finds individual instructors and institutions which adopt
the standard of elimination as the expression of the highest
academic efficiency. One finds an institution, for example,
which eliminates at Christmas time fifteen to thirty-five per
cent of the students who were admitted in the autumn.
This elimination is supposed to be justified, on the ground
that during the first term the students have been tried out.
There is, however, a growing conviction that wholesale
elimination is a mark of inefficiency. If this growing con-
viction could express itself, it would be something like this :
No institution has the right to admit in the autumn students
who are likely to be eliminated by Christmas time. When-
ever an institution makes a wholesale elimination at the end
of the first term, this elimination is the clearest possible
evidence that the institution has not succeeded in establish-
ing proper relations with the schools below. If students
are not qualified to go on with the work of a given institu-
tion or a given class, that fact ought to be known at the
beginning of the course. It is the business of the higher
institution to make its purposes clear enough to the lower
institutions so that there shall not be wholesale elimination.

DISTRIBUTION TAKING THE PLACE OF ELIMINATION

Furthermore, elimination is a very doubtful method of
treating young people in a democratic community. Would
it not be better to find means of requiring of these young
people satisfactory work ? Would it not be better to redis-
tribute them in some fashion or other so that they shall
ultimately find courses which they can take with profit and
in which they can do a satisfactory grade of work ? We
have such a school system as that of Newton, Massachusetts,
for example, deliberately putting into secondary courses
young people who have not completed the work of the
elementary school. We find that the members of this

486 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

transferred class are successful in a very high degree in do-
ing more advanced work. We find that society in general is
asking, not that boys and girls be eliminated, but that the
course of study be so modified that something can be given
to each boy and girl which will be profitable for his intellec-
tual and social growth. This standardizing of courses by
the demands of the communities, rather than by eliminating
members of the community because they do not conform to
the demands of the curriculum, is an entirely new develop-
ment in the educational world.

CONTRAST BETWEEN GERMAN AND AMERICAN METHODS

One becomes very conscious of the fact that we are work-
ing out new standards and new methods of adjustment in
America when he contrasts American secondary schools with
the secondary schools of European countries. The German
Gymnasium maintains its standards very much as the high
school of a generation ago maintained its standards. If a
student secures admission to a Gymnasium and does not
conform to the requirements which are set up in that insti-
tution, he is instantly eliminated. In fact, in Germany the
pressure is so great for admission to this institution, and
the conditions are so crowded in the professions and other
social callings to which a higher education leads, that the
whole social system favors elimination of individuals who
seem to lack in any degree the ability to carry on the work
of the higher schools. The result is that the German Gym-
nasium is a highly conservative institution. It changes its
standards and its course of study very little. It is in no
sense a popular institution, and it is in no sense an institu-
tion which tries to fit its course of study to general social
demands. The other secondary schools of Germany are very
much more liberal in the type of course which they admin-
ister, but they have been so influenced by the Gymnasium

PROBLEMS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 487

that their method of maintaining standards is the method
which was formerly familiar in the American high school.
Indeed, one finds as he considers the German school situ-
ation that the principle of elimination goes one step farther.
The Vblksschude, or common school of Germany, is itself an
instrument of elimination. Anyone who goes into this com-
mon school is cut off from the possibility of a higher educa-
tion and from admission to any one of the professional careers.
The system of education in Germany is a dual system. One
group of children, including over 90 per cent of the popu-
lation, is expected to complete the work of eight years of
elementary education and then to go into the lower, general
activities of society. The other group of children, selected
because of their economic conditions and social connections,
is permitted to enjoy the opportunities of a secondary educa-
tion; but, as indicated above, this group is so large and the
desire to reduce the group is so intense that elimination goes
on in the higher schools, thus adding within the secondary
school another type of selection to the fundamental selection
which prevents many from beginning a secondary education.

GERMAN STANDARD UNDEMOCRATIC

The German system makes it possible to set up and main-
tain a definite and relatively simple standard. It is the
arbitrary standard of the instructor who is interested in a
special subject in which he is a specialist. He requires of
the students under him a certain degree of mastery of the
subject. There is very little concession to the individual.
There is no elective opportunity to adjust courses to indi-
vidual capacities and tastes. The product of such a rigid
system as this is much more uniform than the product of
an American secondary school, and it is much easier to
understand the excellencies of such a uniform product than
it is to comprehend the virtues of our American democratic

488 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

system. We sometimes find ourselves criticizing the miscel-
laneous character of the American high-school course and
commending the rigid uniformity of the German course.
When one considers the historical background of our own
American course, however, he sees how utterly impossible
it would be for us to go back to the German ideal of second-
ary education. We must master the difficult and complex
problem of a democratic social standard even if we have to
suffer for a period while we are working out the uncertain-
ties of this type of organization.

ENGLISH EXAMINATION METHOD

In England we find another type of more or less rigid
requirement which contrasts with the standards of American
schools. The method of standardizing English schools is
the examination method. One finds in England a whole
series of corporations and institutions devoting themselves
to the examining of students who have reached various
stages of maturity in the elementary and secondary schools.
There is a corporation at Oxford, for example, and one in
the municipal universities of central England which will
supply to any institution a set of examination papers on
almost every conceivable topic of instruction. Students
write the papers, and these papers are sent to Oxford to be
examined by official examiners. The successful passing of
this or some similar examination is the key which unlocks
for the student the higher opportunity of education. If the
student is a member of a family of wealth he may try these
examinations with deliberation, and he may make as many
efforts as his own patience and the natural limitations of his
increasing age will permit. He can drift along through the
school system by taking these examinations, therefore, at a
slow rate in the hope of ultimately reaching some institution
where he will get the kind of training which will give him

PROBLEMS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 489

admission to one of the professions. The poor boy, on the
other hand, must pass these examinations, and must pass
them well, in order to gain admission to the higher institu-
tion. If he passes them well, he will get his fee paid. There
is no free secondary school to which he may apply. The
school is free to him as an individual because he gets a
scholarship which pays his fee, but there is no disposition
in any of the English secondary schools to open the door
to all comers as does our American high school.

CRITICISM OF THE EXAMINATION METHOD

This effort to standardize English students suffers in
many respects. The examinations given by the various cor-
porations are criticized even in England as very unequal
in their seventy. One of the leading systems of examina-
tions is commonly spoken of as too easy to give a definite
standard to the students who are subjected to its tests.
All examinations given by those who have not been in inti-
mate contact with the student's instruction are arbitrary.
Furthermore, there is no certainty that the examination
will pick out the best students for scholarship awards.
The boy or girl who is fluent and able to pass an examina-
tion gets ready recognition, whereas the slower and more
deliberate boy has difficulty in securing access to the higher
school. Experience shows also that the accidents which
frequently prevent a student from showing his real ability
in a single crucial test constitute a fatal objection to the
examination system. Finally, if one is to judge of the suc-
cess of the English system by the demands which democratic
leaders are setting up all over England for freer access to
the higher institutions, it is evident that there, as in this
country, the movement in the direction of a more demo-
cratic secondary education is sure to overthrow arbitrary
and external standards.

490 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

STANDARDS FOB GIRLS

In general, it may be pointed out that both in Germany
and in England the admission of girls to secondary educa-
tion is relatively less common than the admission of boys.
Indeed, one may say that Germany has only the beginnings
of a system of secondary schools for its women ; and in
England the opportunities for girls are also limited.

NATURAL, DEMOCRATIC STANDARDS IN AMERICAN

SCHOOLS

One turns from these Old World efforts to standardize
secondary education to American high schools, with a reali-
zation that whatever is done here to standardize schools
must be done in an entirely different spirit. We cannot
tolerate a scheme which is primarily one of elimination.
Society has opened the high school to all American youths.
These schools are now a part of the general school system
of the country. In population and variety of interests
these schools represent a social movement of a magni-
tude not equaled in any other country. Our adjustment
of the situation must grow out of a careful consideration
of students' interests and of the interests of related in-
stitutions. We must study the students. We must know
something about the changes which go on in the adolescent
mind. We must understand the relation of various subjects
of instruction to individual changes, and we must be pre-
pared to group the subjects of instruction in such a way
that the purposes of society shall be served and a group of
young people shall be trained for the highly diversified
activities of social life. No theoretical or traditional stand-
ard will serve the purposes of present-day secondary educa-
tion. It cannot be said that the high school must give such
and such a course merely because that course has been

PROBLEMS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 491

thought to be of value in the past. It cannot be said that
anyone can set up a theoretical standard which gets its
justification from a study of some subject by a specialist in
that subject. The specialist must study also the relation of
his subject to the students and to the demands of society.

The high schools realize fully the new strength and
independence which they have acquired in their purpose
to be of service to the community at large. They are no
longer interested in the arbitrary comments of college
boards of admission on what ought to be the standard of a
high school. They are not interested, indeed, in trying to
send their products to those institutions which assume that
the high school is a subservient and dependent organization.
The high school is in a very real sense of the word a part
of the common-school system ; and if colleges are not pre-
pared to connect themselves in turn with the common-
school system of the country, the result will be the worse
for the colleges and not for the common-school system. It
is indeed proper that all members of the educational body
should join in the discussion of educational standards ; but
he who would prescribe the program for a high school in
these days of general, democratic education of all the
young people of the country must be prepared to give for
his prescription a better justification than either tradition
or his own opinion. He must be prepared to say that the
subject which he is advocating and the mode of adminis-
tering that subject which he would defend are of genuine
service in promoting intellectual and social development of
young people of the age of high-school students.

The intellectual atmosphere of the high school is seen, in
the light of the foregoing discussions, to be an atmosphere
of stimulating democratic experimentation. Such crudities
and uncertainties as are manifest are symptoms of an in-
adequate mastery of a new and complicated situation. But
the work of both students and teachers is going on under

492 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

conditions which promise much for the enlargement of the
influence of this institution. Furthermore, as has been
repeatedly pointed out, the high school is now in a position
to make the radical changes which a careful scientific study
of its problems dictates as desirable. The restrictions which
limited the work of the high schools in the past are largely
broken down, or at least so far weakened that there are no
serious barriers in the way of needed reorganization.

CHANGES CHARACTERISTIC OF ADOLESCENCE

Many of the considerations which must guide in this
reorganization have been fully discussed in the foregoing
pages. It remains to make reference to some of the general
facts which did not properly appear in earlier discussions.

First, there are marked external changes of physical de-
velopment. The growth of adolescents may be described
briefly by saying that girls develop from eleven to thirteen
years of age, whereas boys show a similar growth about
two years later. This growth consists in a general enlarge-
ment of the skeleton and a change in the relation of the
different parts of the body. For example, the face enlarges,
but the skull does not change very much in its capacity.
The trunk grows longer, while the legs show relatively
less growth. There is an enlargement of the heart, but less
change in the arteries and veins. There is a rapid growth
in the sexual organs. This unequal growth of the organs
produces certain radical changes in the internal organiza-
tion, and these in turn are accompanied by a change in the
functional life of the individual. The blood pressure in-
creases because of the change of relation between the heart
and blood vessels, and this higher blood pressure brings
about marked changes in the energy of the individual.
Often there are changes in the appetite. Food which the
child enjoyed now becomes distasteful.

PROBLEMS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 493

These physical changes undoubtedly are the sources of
some of the psychological changes which appear at the same
time. For example, the adolescent youth is very likely to
be moody in his temperament. He is sometimes elated to
the point of exultation ; at other times he is depressed and
plunged into the deepest melancholia. Girls at this period
show marked tendencies toward hysteria. These emotional
conditions arise from the fact that the nervous system is
experiencing the changes which follow the increase in blood
pressure to which reference has already been made. Again,
investigation has emphasized the fact that the period of
adolescence is the period of religious awakening. There
are more conversions in the adolescent period than at any
other period in life, and in this connection attention is
drawn to the fact that the ceremonials of primitive peoples
always emphasize the adolescent period as the period for
initiation into religious orders and into religious knowledge.
The type of reading matter which an adolescent youth en-
joys is different from that which was enjoyed by the child
of younger age. There is a tendency toward romanticism
and sentimentalism. There is undoubtedly a larger interest
in the opposite sex. The interests of boys begin to turn
toward the occupations upon which they expect to enter
in later life, and the girls become aware of the impending
duties of adult life. There is, therefore, a natural empha-
sis upon considerations of the type that look forward into
adult life rather than backward into childhood.

HALL'S DISCUSSION OF ADOLESCENCE

The facts thus briefly reviewed are sufficiently impres-
sive to receive all the consideration which has of late been
given to them. The educational world owes a large debt
to G. Stanley Hall for his work on adolescence. It is little
wonder that a pioneer in the field should be overenthusiastic

494 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

about his finding. Hall becomes intemperately speculative
in his writings. He iharks off adolescence from the rest of
life with all the verbal and theoretical devices at the com-
mand of a fertile mind. Adolescence is a second childhood;
it repeats certain crucial stages in the evolution of the race.
It is to be thought of as the period of the wildest emotional
upheavals. It is unique in its psychical processes and cru-
cial for all later development. The period of elementary
education sinks into unimportance awaiting this one final
period of intellectual readjustment.

Whatever there may be of exaggeration in these fanciful
analyses, studies of adolescence have performed the one
great service of drawing attention to the fact that mental
life has a certain periodicity. After the first intoxication
of this discovery we may settle down to a careful evalua-
tion of the facts. The changes which gradually accumulate
during an earlier period of child life are consummated in
adolescence in such a way that a marked qualitative and
quantitative change takes place in mental character. Un-
doubtedly the clearest conception can be gained of the
adolescent period by giving attention to the way in which
this period grows out of the preceding periods.

INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE ELEMENTARY

SCHOOL

^

We turn, accordingly, to a brief survey of the changes
which have been going on intellectually during the elemen-
tary-school period. The little child just entering school has
social interests quite as strong as those of the adolescent,
but these social interests of little children are of a different
type from those which appear in the later stage in which
the high school is interested. When a child goes into the
primary grades he is very much interested in trying to do
everything that older people about him do. He wants to

PROBLEMS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 495

read not because he has any appreciation of the value
of this art or any desire to accumulate information; he
merely wants to be admitted to what he recognizes as^one
of society's modes of procedure. One hears parents giving
accounts of the early exhibitions of this desire to be ad-
mitted to society in such form as this : A little boy of four
years of age is found holding the newspaper patiently be-
fore himself as though he were reading. When inquiries
are instituted to find out what motive he has in doing this,
it is discovered that he believes it to be the proper thing
for all men to hold newspapers before their faces because
he has seen his father engaged in this absorbing perform-
ance. The strenuous efforts that are made by little children
to use pencil and paper in writing are of exactly the same
type. Such efforts show a desire to initiate one's self into
society rather than an impulse to accomplish anything for
which there is a real external motive. The type of social
life here exhibited is not purposeful ; it is imitative in char-
acter. Little girls like to play with dolls for this reason,
and boys like to imitate the carpenter and other workmen
whom they see about them. All of these cases illustrate
the desire of the child to become a part of the social organ-
ism which he observes. He has in this early stage no
standards of perfection, and he suffers no embarrassment
from his misuse of the tools which he sees others using. It
may be said that he is not aware of the fact that society is
critical of anything that he does ; he therefore works with
the tools of society without the slightest embarrassment

DEVELOPING SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS

Such an early type of social interest must be contrasted
with the type of social interest which appears during the
period of adolescence. Here again the youth is interested
in the doings of society, but he lias now acquired through

496 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

experience a different attitude toward society. He realizes
that people about him who work with tools are all of them
working at a much higher degree of perfection than he is
able to exhibit. His interests are therefore not merely those
of imitative effort ; his interests are those of social excel-
lence. He wishes to do the thing as well as someone else
does it. He is becoming aware of the standards of society,
and these are embarrassing to such an extent that the
adolescent age is a period of extraordinary clumsiness.
It would be out of keeping with the facts to say that the
adolescent period is any more a social period than is the
period of early childhood, but there is a new qualitative
aspect in the social ambition of the adolescent youth which
marks it off from the earlier period of mere imitation.

PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF INTERMEDIATE

GRADES

Furthermore, there lies between the earlier social inter-
est exhibited by the child in the primary grades and the
later period of adolescence an intermediate period during
which the interests of the child are not primarily social.
If one watches the development of the children in the ele-
mentary school he finds that after a period of compliance
with all sorts of social demands during the first three years
of school life little children begin to exhibit a type of inde-
pendence which they do not exhibit in the primary grades.
After the child has learned to read, for example, in the
first two or three grades, he begins to be independent of
the school's attitude toward reading, and he begins to want
to read something for himself. The type of material which
he selects becomes more independent in character, and he
very frequently seems to be out of joint with the school's
requirements. It can be shown that the fourth and fifth
grades are centers of the greatest ^coordination in school

PROBLEMS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 497

work. Children fail of promotion and drop out of school in
larger percentage than at other points in the school system.
In matters of discipline the fourth-grade or fifth-grade boy
is likely to be wholly unsocial in his attitudes. During the
early years he has been obedient without very much ques-
tion. No one ever finds a second-grade or third-grade child
insubordinate to the school's discipline, but in the interme-
diate grades the child begins to realize his independence of
society by trying experiments to see what will happen if he
does not comply with the rules of the classroom.

This intermediate period is also one of great interest in
the material things of the world. So far as the intermediate
boy is interested in society, it is chiefly because society is
producing something in the industries. He wants to get out
of school so that he may go into the shop or go into business.
He has a large interest in the doings of men, especially in
their actual productive work in the external world. He has
learned in the lower grades something of society's methods,
and he now begins to apply these methods to the material
things about him. Out of all this independent experiment-
ing comes a vivid realization of one's own personality and
of the standards of society and the physical world.

THE ADOLESCENT PERIOD

The adolescent period which follows this intermediate
period can be understood only by realizing that the adoles-
cent period is immediately preceded by a period during
which the child cultivates a very high degree of personal
and social independence, and at the same time comes to
recognize the existence and the importance for him of a
physical and social environment. With all of this prelimi-
nary training the adolescent youth also has impressed upon
him the lesson that he must very shortly take a part in the
adult activities of society. Is it any wonder that he is afraid

498 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

and clumsy ? Is it surprising that he becomes moody and
introspective ? Evidently the adolescent period is a con-
summation of the intellectual development through which
the child has been passing for long years.

The productive view of the adolescent period is there-
fore not that view which emphasizes the break between
earlier education and adolescent training, but a view which
finds the foundations of adolescent character in the changes
passed through during elementary training.

Fourteen or fifteen years of age — the period at which the
elementary school is completed by the ordinary child — is a
period when the changes of adolescence may be regarded as
so far completed that the individual child already realizes
his own personality in terms of the newer adult life into
which he is to enter. The necessity of recognizing the onset
of the adolescent period somewhat earlier is coming to be
very obvious to careful students of educational organiza-
tion. We have seen in earlier paragraphs that the whole
social situation within the high school has been so modified
in recent years that the school is rapidly freeing itself from
the traditional difficulties arising from a breach between the
elementary and high schools. Scientific studies point most
emphatically to the necessity of explicitly recognizing the
needs of adolescence at a period earlier than fourteen years
of age. It is true that children of fourteen and fifteen years
of age are consciously assuming an entirely new attitude
toward society. It is equally true that these children ought
to have some preparation in the years immediately preced-
ing fourteen and fifteen for the new type of work and the
new type of thought which they are to take up.

PROBLEMS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 499

ANTICIPATING ADOLESCENT NEEDS

For example, in the matter of industrial education we are
beginning to be aware of the fact that a boy who is four-
teen years of age needs to be prepared, in a higher degree
than he now is, to consider intelligently matters of vocation.
We are keenly aware of the fact that boys between the age
of fourteen and sixteen are not provided for in our educa-
tional system. Consequently we are making frantic, belated,
and ill-coordinated efforts to provide for these young people
some sort of industrial education. But if a boy of fourteen
about to enter upon industrial life is in need of training,
certainly the boy of twelve needs to have some training in
the methods of anticipating the crucial difficulties which he
is to encounter when he is two years older. Twelve years
of age is the crucial period, physically and morally and
intellectually. We cannot do the work of training adoles-
cent youth by waiting until the period is well advanced.
In the first place, under our present social system many of
these youths will escape from the control and guidance of
the educational authorities. In any case we should recog-
nize the fact that intellectually, as well as physically, the
period of rapid growth is one of maturing powers which have
been gradually developing in an earlier period. The impa-
tience of boys and girls in the seventh and eighth grades
with a mere continuance of the elementary curriculum ought
long ago to have drawn the attention of teachers to the fact
that a new mode of administration is required for these years;
and new subject matter is required if instruction is to serve
the purpose of bridging over the education of the primary
years and making it available as a preparation for entrance
into the adolescent mode of thought and action.

500 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

THE HIGHER ELEMENTARY GRADES

To some extent this demand is being met. The mode of
organizing the work of the last two years of the elementary
school has commonly been different from the mode of organ-
ization which appears in the lower grades, but too frequently
the subject matter of instruction in the upper grades has
not been properly modified to correspond to the changes in
the modes of administering this work. Departmental organ-
ization has prevailed in the upper years, but the subject
matter canvassed by the departmental teachers has been
much like the subject matter of the grades below. Further-
more, in some cases the educational device of a review of
the earlier work has been adopted as the only means of fill-
ing up these last two years of the elementary school. The
eighth grade begins very commonly with a review of all
that has been done in the lower grades before the small
amount qf new material permitted in this grade is added to
that which has been administered in the first seven years.
After a little additional material is given in the eighth grade,
the last months of this grade are once more devoted to a
careful restudy of all of the earlier work, in order that the
students who go into the high school may be sent on with
a preparation which will omit nothing of the elements that
have been taken up in the elementary school. High-school
teachers have very frequently been skeptical even after this
careful reviewing, and have commenced the work of the
high school with still another review so as to make sure
that the work of the eighth grade has been properly done.
All of this repetition of matter has disappointed and dis-
couraged the students, so that many of them withdraw in
the later years of the elementary school or in the early years
of the high school from sheer exhaustion and lack of inter-
est in the repetitious matter which the school offers them.

PROBLEMS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 501

REORGANIZATION REQUIRED TO ADAPT SCHOOL TO
ADOLESCENTS

If instead of this failure on the part of the schools to
recognize the oncoming adolescent period we could have a
clear recognition of the possibilities of productive work in
the seventh and eighth grades, there would be a general and
radical change in the content of the course of study and in
the method of instruction with a definite view to carrying
the children along at a more rapid and efficient rate. The
experiment has several times been tried in this country of
deliberately reducing the length of the elementary-school
course and turning children at an earlier age into the work
which has commonly been thought of as belonging to the
high school. l The difficulty with any such change as this is
the prejudice on the part of teachers and parents against any
modification of existing practices. Where the experiment
has been tried in single subjects it has sometimes failed.
For example, there are cases in which arithmetic was given
up in the seventh and eighth grades and an attempt made
to introduce algebra. Disastrous results have followed in
some of these cases, because algebra in its common form
is so abstract that children do not succeed in taking it up
as readily as they do more concrete work. We have said
enough in an earlier chapter about the possibility of modify-
ing mathematics to make it clear that the algebra which is
commonly offered in the high school is not suitable material
either for the seventh and eighth grades or for the high
school itself. If we could have, however, a reformulation of
this subject, with emphasis upon those productive elements
of the work which would be suitable for first-year high-
school students, we might expect also to cure some of the
difficulties which have appeared when teachers have simply

1WA Seven-year Elementary School," Elementary Sctool Teacher,
1913, Vol. XIII, p. 274.

502 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

carried back into the seventh and eighth grades in unmodified
form a single subject from the high-school curriculum. The
cure for such failures is not greater conservatism but greater
radicalism. There ought to be a recasting of subjects, and
there ought to be a sufficiently general importation of ad-
vanced work into the upper grades of the elementary school
to put an end to the timidity of both teachers and students.
This greater radicalism will not lead to a break in the
school organization; it will tend to cure a breach that
has been traditional.

In methods of administering studies there has commonly
been a very great abruptness in the change from elementary
to secondary education. During the elementary period chil-
dren have been allowed to depend entirely upon their books
for assignments ; and the recitation has commonly been of a
sort which emphasized mere repetition of the work which has
been assigned. In the high school the child has found him-
self suddenly called upon to listen to lectures and to depend
upon himself very much more fully for his methods of work
and for the arrangement of his own study program. This
break between the high school and the elementary school
has been a subject of frequent comment. Would it not
seem rational, with the break distinctly in mind, to spend
some time and energy in the later years of the elementary
schools preparing the students for the transition ? If instead
of conducting a uniform, required course during the last
two years of the elementary school the student could be
induced to elect certain subjects and to take some degree
of responsibility under guidance, would it not be possible
to come up to the elective work of the high school with a
much better training and preparation for the advantageous
acceptance of the new opportunities there offered ? If the
high-school student is to study independently, are not all of
the principles discussed in the last chapter highly important
for the seventh and eighth years ?

PEOBLEMS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 503

THE JUNIOR HIGH-SCHOOL MOVEMENT

These arguments for a change in the character of the
organization of the school have been so widely discussed in
recent years that many schools have undertaken to organize
junior high schools. The difficulty in many cases with these
junior high schools is that they do not represent any genu-
ine modification either of the course of study or of the mode
of treating children. Very frequently a junior high school
is nothing except the seventh and eighth grades of the ele-
mentary school carried over into the high-school building,
or otherwise designated by a name which would seem to
indicate a new type of organization, but which in reality
merely continues earlier practices under a new designation.
There is absolutely no justification for the use of the term
" junior high school " if the type of work carried on in the
junior high school is exactly the same as that done in the
seventh and eighth grades. If elementary subject matter
and elementary methods are employed between twelve and
fourteen years of age, then let us recognize the fact that
the school is an elementary school.

On the other hand, if the arguments in favor of a new
type of organization are sufficiently cogent to make it clear
that radical changes ought to be made, then such changes
ought to be of a type which will influence the whole educa-
tional machinery and will explicitly recognize the importance
of the coming period of adolescence.

THE EARLY YEARS OF COLLEGE ABE SECONDARY
IN CHARACTER

The unsolved problems of adolescence are not alone
the problems of the upper grades of the elementary school.
College courses of the first two years are many of them
distinctly secondary in type. Every American college has

504 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

elementary courses in languages, history, and science. There
is often the most unjustifiable duplication, as in the Eng-
lish courses. This elementary college work is for the most
part administered by methods appropriate only to advanced
courses. The result is deplorable. Students go from the
high school with incipient habits of study and some intellec-
tual interests and encounter a situation in college classes
which stimulates little or not at all to earnest endeavor, and
gives even to the serious student a minimum of guidance
in the art of study. The four-year high-school course is not
long enough to carry the burden of secondary education.
Students now go to college immature and unable to nieet
the expectation of those who aim in the college to encourage
specialization.

Readjustment is here beset with great difficulties. The
colleges of the country are not as free as the high school
to make changes in their organization. We may look for-
ward to a period of transition during which the college will
struggle to retain its present domain. The high school in
the meantime is steadily reaching the point where it will
do the work under public control which has up to this time
been carried on, for the most part, in the freshman and
sophomore years of private institutions. The problem of
adolescent training includes such work as has been adminis-
tered up to this time in the early college classes, and this
work must be articulated more closely with the rest of the
high-school course.

REFORM URGENTLY NEEDED IN INTERESTS OF ECONOMY

If there were no other motive than economy compelling
us to canvass these problems, that motive would be strong
enough to bring serious students to a clear consciousness
of the fact that the high school has a new problem to work
out. As it is now, pupils from twelve to fourteen years of

PROBLEMS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 505

age waste much time in review. From fourteen to eighteen
they get a brief secondary course. From eighteen to twenty
they mix secondary work with advanced courses and repeat
in part the work of the high school, and wonder what they
are to do next. These eight years result in training which
every other civilized nation accomplishes in six. It is time
that we shook ourselves loose from tradition and an in-
coordinated scheme of training, and organized a secondary
school which shall do fully and efficiently in six years the
full work of training adolescents.

^THE PRINCIPLE OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

There are certain general principles which should guide
in bringing about these radical changes. In the first place,
the adolescent period is one of clear recognition and em-
phasis of individual differences. The elementary course is
constructed on the general theory that there are certain
fundamental forms of knowledge which must be had by
every member of society. Everyone must learn to read and
write. Everyone must learn the elements of arithmetic,
geography, and some of the other fundamental forms of ex-
perience. But when we come to the high-school period, it
is perfectly clear that individual differences have a right to
exhibit themselves, and must be recognized as major con-
siderations in the organization of the school course. We
should have a recognition, on the one hand, of industrial
interests ; and on the other hand, of professional interests.
For some students we should emphasize science and its
applications ; for others, literary studies. There should be
such a modification of general courses in history as to
appeal not only to those who are going into history as a
specialty in the later schools but also to those who are not
going on with the study. In short, the work of the second-
ary school should be organized from the beginning with a

506 PSYCHOLOGY OP HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

clear recognition of the differences in capacity and inter-
ests of the various members of the class. Progress in the
different subjects with different individuals ought also to
be at different rates. A breaking up of the class, not
only with reference to the subject matter to be studied
but also with reference to the rate of progress through
these subjects, is highly important as a natural concession
to individual differences.

^^ .THE NEED OP GENERAL COURSES

As a corollary of the principle of individual differences,
or, perhaps better, as a second independent principle, we
must emphasize the necessity of giving to each student in-
troductory courses in all the major fields of human expe-
rience. Later life will demand specialization ; the period of
adolescence is one of general training in anticipation of
the period of specialization.

BEGINNING OF SPECIALIZATION

The discussion of this principle of general training in
many fields may be coupled with the discussion of a tliird
general principle which is important in secondary education,
but is likely to be lost sight of unless it is given explicit
attention at the beginning of the course ; namely, the princi-
ple of continuity of work. It is advantageous for students
that they should take a variety of different subjects only
when this spreading over many subjects in the curriculum
is so administered as to insure that each student shall get
some coherent study which will equip him for later concen-
tration. It is now difficult, in the four years which are de-
voted to the high school, to satisfy both the demand for
diversity of subject matter and also the demand for cohe-
rence of work. If the student has only four years in the
high school and is expected to cover all the major fields

PEOBLEMS OF SECONDARY EDUCATION 507

of knowledge, it is evident that his energy will be very
largely dissipated. One of the reasons why the languages
are having a good deal of difficulty at the present timje in
maintaining a position in the program is that they demand
so large a portion of the high-school students' time that it
is felt both by parents and by the students themselves to
be irrational to devote so much of a brief high-school course
to the study of a single subject. If now the period of sec-
ondary training is extended to six years, there is a possibility
of combining the two principles of diversity of training and
coherence of courses in a very much more advantageous
fashion. There will be six years instead of four through
which the diversity of interest may be spread. The clear
recognition of the principle will lead high-school teachers
to present to students certain general courses which general
courses will supply the ordinary members of the student
body with a view of the various subjects in which they
ought to be interested, but in which they are not expected
to make exhaustive studies. In the earlier pages of this
volume this recommendation was made even in the extreme
form, that certain short general courses be organized to give
students some notion of languages other than their mother
tongue. Jtt has been suggested that general science might
serve a very useful purpose in giving a view of the funda-
mental methods of scientific operation. It has been suggested
that mathematics courses be amalgamated in such a way that
a student may in one year get some notion of both algebra and
geometry. These suggestions are in keeping both with the
natural development of the subjects themselves and Mfith
the tendencies that are appearing in secondary schools.

At the same time one must emphasize the great impor-
tance of giving students a coherent body of courses in some
one or two lines. It would be a great mistake to fill up the
high-school course with general, summary courses, merely
introducing the student to lines of thought and bodies of

508 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

material. Parallel with these general courses distributing
the student's interests, there should be sequent courses which
will concentrate his interests. Undoubtedly the great virtue
of the older required course of study in the high school
was exactly this, that it concentrated the student's time
and energy very definitely upon certain limited subjects,
with the result that four years of consecutive work devel-
oped an ability of concentration in one field which undoubt-
edly influenced all of his later study and work. There is
very little probability of our returning to the required
course of the earlier high school. That has sometimes been
suggested by those who are critical of our present mode of
organization. The difficulty with the required course was
that it designated for each individual student the lines in
which he should concentrate. Our elective program has
made it clear that we are going to organize our high schools
in such a way that concentration will not be required of
students in any single predetermined line. Let the student
select the lines in which he is interested, but after he has
begun work see to it that he follows some lines with suffi-
cient energy and devotion to insure continuous and coherent
training. This is not a compromise with the old required
course; it is a recognition of the cardinal virtue of that
course, and a reformulation of that virtue in terms of the
elective organization which has undoubtedly come to stay
as a part of our school organization.

To these three psychological principles may be added a
fourth general social principle, which has already been am-
plified in earlier paragraphs ; namely, the principle that the
duty of a democratic secondary school is not to eliminate
students, but to guide them into courses which they can take
with advantage. The recognition of this last principle will
have the largest influence upon the methods of work of stu-
dents and teachers, and must therefore be included in any
summary of the psychological conditions of high-school work.

INDEX

Abstraction ... 48, 49, 70, 96

advantages of 101

in algebra 117

dangers of 100

mathematical 101

in mathematics . . . 129, 131

in science 336

and words 98

Adaptation through theory . 270

Adding devices 93

Administration of courses in

industry 296

Adolescence .... 7, 492, 497
Adults and study of lan-
guage 221

Agriculture, courses in ... 299

in high schools 478

Aim of instruction .... 424

Algebra 4

abstract 117

applications of 461

and arithmetic . . . 107, 112
definition of .... 95, 103

history of 21

relative difficulty of ... 82

simplified Ill

Allen, J.G 377

Alphabet, evolution of ... 151

Analysis 15, 97

absence of 258

in drawing 822

in education 262

in geometry 50, 69

grammatical 219

and habit 260

lack of, in habits .... 253

in music 356

psychological 456

Application ... 66, 423, 450

and generalization .... 421

Applications, of algebra . . 114

of geometry 84

of history 389

through language .... 278

of mathematics ... 23, 130

of science 332

Appreciation 184

in art 362

instruction in 201

of pictures 357

training of 353

Aristotle 2

Arithmetic .... 21, 107, 112

Art, graphic 357

Arts, fine 345

Athletics 470

Attendance on high schools . 476

Attention 29

to generalization .... 434

and specialization . . . . 314

Attitudes 430

Axioms 59, 77

Ayer, F. C 321

Bagley, W. C 415, 425

Bahlsen, L 211, 241

Baker, F, T 5,398

Ball, \V. W. R 92

Barbour, F. A 163

Behavior, and analysis . . . 264
and appreciation .... 187

generalized 417

and language 429

language as form of ... 138

speech 150

Bennett, C. E 211, 225

Berkeley 137

Boas, F 347

Boisbaudran, L. de . . 821, 867
Books, use of, in study . . . 442

Bovee, A. G 222

Bresiich, E. R 124

Bricker, G. A 300

Bristol, G. P 211, 225

Brooks, E. C 475

Burgess 242

609

510 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

Caldwell 818

Carpenter, G. R 6, 174

Carter, C. M 867

Characterology 6

Chicago City Club Report . 286

Chronological judgments . . 880
Chubb, Percival .... 5, 166

Church, H.V 207

Cicero High School .... 207
Classics, controversy

relating to 214

Classification and words . . 99

Classroom observation ... 11
Classroom observations

63, 116, 182, 246

in algebra 120

of study 440

Coherent courses 607

College and secondary school 604

Colvin, S.S 4

Commercial courses .... 287

standards in 292

Committee of Five 874, 888, 886

Committee of Seven .... 377
Committee of Ten . 392, 398, 480

Committee of Twelve ... 217

Common schools 476

Communication, evolution of 142

Comparison 42, 66

of numbers 92

Competition 441

Composition 170

oral 180

Concentration 441

Concrete, the 106

Consciousness in habits . . . 263

Consistency, criterion of . . 309

Content and form 402

reactions to 197

Continuity of education . . 266

Controls, sensory 264

tactual 266

visual 267

Convention 143

and words 148

Correlation, in grades ... 409

and history 390

Course of high school enriched 478

Course of study 3

literary 183

Courtis, 8. A 462

Cowling, D.J 26

Critical judgments in history 384

Criticism, origin of .... 308

Curiosity and science . . . 331

Curricula, in history .... 371

in science 468

Curriculum in science ... 317

Dates, teaching of 381

Definitions, in geometry 46, 64, 69

logical 69

DeMille 176

Demonstrations in geometry 60

Descartes 6, 22

Design 861

Differences. See Individual

differences
Difficulties in algebra ... 120

Digits in counting 92

Dimensions of space .... 40
Direct behavior and words . 166
Direct method .... 224, 240
Discipline (see Formal disci-
pline) 403

Discourse, forms of .... 178
Discrimination of tones . . 348
Discriminations and words . 236

Distraction 469

Distribution of students 486, 608

Domestic courses 297

Dow, A. W 868

Dramatization 387

Draper, S 289

Drawing 9, 867

recognition of 27

and science 821

Drum in music 348

Duncan, C. S 186

Economy, in school work . . 604

in study 499

Efficiency 6, 268

Elaboration 464

Elementary school .... 494
Elementary schools, reorgan-
ized 601

Elimination 13,608

of students 486

Emotion, and appreciation . 186

and generalization .... 429

Emotions 191

and language 139

English 6

INDEX

511

English course 162

English courses 134

reorganization of .... 209

English Journal 5

English standards 488

Errors through ideas .... 279

Essentials 463

Euclid 20

Euclidean geometry .... 100

Evans, M. B 211, 241

Evidence, historical .... 384

Examinations in England . . 488

Examples in algebra .... 110

Experience in teaching ... 14
Experiment, psychological 268, 319

Experiments, in geometry . 61

in psychology 25

Expression, facial 142

vocal 144

Eye movements in reading . 153

Failures 17

Figures, solid 44

Fine arts 345

Finley 319

Form and content 402

reactions to 196

Formal discipline

4, 80, 81, 301, 392

Formalism 420

in English ... 165, 172, 199

in science 326

Freeman, F. N 254, 284

Frey,0 284

Gallon, Sir Francis .... 6
General course

in language .... 216, 245

in science 318

General courses 506

General habits 429

General science 318

Generalization .... 344,392

in geometry 50

and language 427

methods of 482

and transfer 412

Geometry, and algebra ... 108

as formal science .... 40

history of 20

relative difficulty of ... 82

German 459

German standards 486

Gestures 142

Gideon, A ; 227

Gillette, J.M 289

Girls, vocational courses for . 297

Graded exercises 239

Grades, higher 500

intermediate 496

Graham, J. W 453

Grammar 163

Grammatical method . . . 217

Grammatical structures . . 188

Graph 41

Greek, Hadley on 400

Group study 447

Gymnasium 486

Habit 252, 258

Habits 4,427,431

grammatical 237

Hadley, A. T 400

Hall,E.H 338

Hail, G. S 7, 167, 493

Hammer, sensations from . . 255

Handschin, C. N 10

Hanus, P. H 294

Harmony 351

Harper 242

Hart, A. B 374

Raskins 872

Hawkes, H. E 108

Heck, W. H 394

Henderson, E. N 425

Herbartians 404

and correlation 390

History 370

applications of 451

sequence in 457

High school, characteristics of 474

Hinsdale, B. A 392

Hobhouse,L. T 426

Hosic,J.F 165,173

Hummel, W. G. and B. R. . . 300

Hunter, G. W 818

Hygiene, mental 467

Idea of number 90

Ideas, abstract 49

and error 279

and learning 277

method of developing . . 54

play of 279

512 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

Ideas, and practice .... 307

of space 36

systems of 325

verbal 47

Identical elements 414

Illusion 31

Images, and reactions . . . 234

and words 136

Imagery 79

and language 227

and words 156, 230

Imagination 277, 305, 307, 310, 341

in history 386

Imitation 222

and language 140

Inductive method of language

teaching 242

Individual differences 6, 193, 454

Individual study 437

Industrial arts 358

Industrial courses 248

Industrial history 388

Industry, courses in .... 285

and education 281

and ideas 327

psychology of 264

and science .... 290, 306

Initiative 447

Interest, psychology of ... 219

Interests, scientific, in children 319

Intermediate grades .... 496

Interpretations 204

James, William . . 191, 218, 413

James-Lange theory .... 191

Jennings 39

Jespersen, 0 225

Judgment, practical .... 426

Judgments, causal 383

chronological 380

in English 182

Junior high school 503

Kelsey, F. W 4, 212

Kerschensteiner, G 266

King, 1 469

Kron, R 226

Laboratory exercises, psy-
chology of 339

Laboratory methods in science 338

Language, and adaptation . 278

as behavior 138

arid emotions 139

foreign 211

general course 507

and generalization .... 427

versus practical arts . . . 247

psychology of .... 133, 136

and science 343

teaching 10

and theory 273

Lapses 29

Law, scientific 342

Latin 4, 133, 449, 459

Learning, animal 275

habit of 259

higher forms of 276

primitive 275

Leavitt, F. M 289

Literary course of study . . 133

Literature 184

Locke 137

Logic and geometry .... 20

Logical criteria 809

Logical order 52

Logical processes 64

Lounsbury, T. R 171

Lowell, James Russell . . . 225

Luard, L. D 368

Luby, W. A 108

Me Arthur, A 266

Manchester, A. L 305

Mann, C. R 4, Sim

Manual arts, in education . . 266

and science 284

Manual training 248

Mathematics 17

combined 22, 125

principles of reorganization 129

reorganization of .... 123

tests 452

Meaning through context . . 239

Measurement 12

and numbers 94

Mechanics 87, 67

Melody 351

Memory 70, 76, 82

in art 321

in history 879

Method, direct, of language

teaching 224

grammatical 217

INDEX

513

inductive, of language teach-
ing 242

laboratory 338

natural, of language teach-
ing 221

psychological, of language

teaching 226

of raising problems . . . 446

scientific 12, 340

of teaching applications. . 450
Methods, of inducing general-
ization 432

of psychology 10

scientific, in education . . 16

of study 436

of teaching 64, 121

of teaching music .... 355
Mistakes, pedagogical treat-
ment of 68

Models, use of 44, 79

Modern language 459

Monroe 372

Moore, E. II 22

Moors and algebra 21

Moral judgments in history . 378

Morrison, II. C 123

Movement, and space ... 36

reduction of 154

sensations of 32

Miiller, Max 146

Murray, Lindley 174

Music, historical beginnings . 346

in schools 3(55

in Volksschule 354

Mythology 304, 311

Nationalism as aim of history 376

Natural signs 143

Nature study 319

Nervous organization . . . 252

Non-Euclidean geometry . . 100

Number, ideas of 93

origin of 90

Numerals 21

Observation in classrooms . . 11

Oral composition 180

Organization, of experience . 72

school 296

Originals in geometry . . . 62

O'Shea, M.J 394

Overstimulation 468

Pageant, historical .... 388

Pearson, K 340

Perception, versus logic ... 65

arid reasoning 43

of space 25

Personification 306

Perspective in drawing . . . 360
Pleasure, nature of .... 88

Postulates 59, 77

Practical judgment .... 426

Practical methods 66

Practice 280

experiments on 268

and ideas 307

and theory 262, 274

Problem, method of teaching 444

teaching in science .... 328

Problems, discovery of ... 444

Program, study 461

Progression, in courses . 454, 506

in science 458

Pronunciation 222

Psychological order .... 52
Psychological problems . . . 9, 74
Psychology, applications of . 2, 8

definition of 1, 2

of language teaching ... 211

methods of 10, 11

scope of 8

of study 437

Questions 441, 443

Kate of study 439

Reactions, and appreciation . 353

appreciative 203

and enjoyment 348

to form and content . . . 196

refine images 234

and rhetorical forms ... 190

and words 231

Reading 153,168

rate of 440

Reasoning 42, 73, 276

in algebra 117

in geometry 56, 67

and perception 43

Reavis, W. C 462

Refraction in educational ex-
periment 269

Regrading of mathematics . 181
Relational consciousness 33, 41. 130

514 PSYCHOLOGY OF HIGH-SCHOOL SUBJECTS

Reorganization of English . 200

Reviews 460

unproductive 500

Rhetoric 175

Rhythm 184

in music 347

in style 185

Roark, R. N 395

Robinson, H. N 108

Robison, C. H 300

Rouse, W. H. D 240

Rowland, Eleanor H. . . . 157

Saw, sensations from . . . 255

Scale, musical 352

Schultze, Arthur

4, 22, 75, 77, 79, 80, 82

Schweitzer, C 229

Science, general course . . 507

and handwork 282

and industry .... 290, 327

and manual arts 284

and practical courses . . . 298

psychology of 303

sequence in 458

and specialization .... 313

Scientific method 340

Scientific methods in educa-
tion 16

Scott, F. N 6, 173, 174

Seeley 375

Self-adjustment 453

Sensation and space .... 31

Sensations, of movement . . 32

in typewriting 258

Sentence appreciation . . . 188

Sentences, psychology of . . 160
Sequence

in courses . . . 317, 456, 507

in history 873,457

Seven-year school 501

Sievers, G. E 184,203

Signs, natural 143

Singing 356

Skill, psychology of .... 252

and theory 272

Smith, A 338

Smith, David E. . 81, 83, 87, 125

Snedden, David .... 260, 267

Social activities 470

Social aid in study .... 124

Social aids 68

Social consciousness .... 495

Social criticism 308

Social imitation 140

Social organization and lan-
guage 149

Social readjustments .... 474

Social study 487, 447

Solid geometry 44

Sound and meaning .... 146

Space 130

in algebra 109

character of 34

empty 32

in geometry 46, 66

homogeneous 50

psychology of 24

Space ideas 60

Space perception . . . . 25, 30
Specialization 282, 294, 313, 606

in English 166

Speculation 312

Speed, emphasis on .... 286

in study 439

Stages of development . . . 494
Standards ... 12, 14, 479, 484

in art 349

democratic 490

in education 292

English 488

German 486

in measurement 95

of study 463

Statistics of high school . . 476

Stout, G. F 136

Study (see Supervised study) 123

methods of teaching . . . 436

program 461

Style, psychology of .... 194

Subject matter 460

Subjective character of art . 360

Superposition as method . . 68
Supervised study . 123, 436, 462

Survey method of study . . 489

Symbolism in art 359

Symbols 48, 101

general 104

Symmetry 87, 67

System in art 349

Tallies 90

Taylor, 1 151

Teachers in practical courses 288

Technical schools 479

Technique and appreciation . 353

INDEX

515

Temperaments 6

Tests in mathematics . . . 462

Textbook, in algebra .... 108

on geometry 46

Textbooks, in mathematics . 19

in rhetoric 175

in science 334

Theorems in geometry ... 60

Theory 280

and adaptation 271

experiments on 268

and practice .... 263, 274

versus practice 66

psychology of 271

and skill 272

Thorndike, E. L.

7, 393, 395, 405, 406, 419, 435

Tones, discrimination of . . 348

Tools, sensations from . . . 255

Touton, F. C 108

Trade teachers 288

Training, experiments on . . 269

Transfer of training .... 404

method of 412

Translation 224

Trial and error .... 259, 275

Typewriting 287

habits in 258

Units 481

Value, educational .... 266

Verbalism in learning . . . 826

Vernacular 207,220

instruction in 162

Verse in composition .... 181

Vertical, recognition of ... 38

Vietor 241

Vision, monocular 30

Visualizers 7

Vocal cords, selection of . . 144

VoUcssehule 487

Webster, Noah .... 174, 176

Wentworth, G. A 46

Withdrawal 17

Woodward, C. M 250

Word reactions .... 233, 238

Words, and abstraction ... 98

in counting 91

and direct experiences . . 154

and generalization .... 428

and interpretation .... 193

and meaning 102

psychology of 167

as realities 161

use of 47

Workshop, psychology of . . 267

Writing 264

evolution of 161

Wundt,W 136