iiiKifii !M.;iii'i At Q^otnell Mmueraitg Strata, iS. $. Slibrarg LB IO5I.BI5"*" ""'*'"'■»>' "-ibrary iiiiiiilf **''"=3t've process The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013074053 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS '^^^>^' THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS By WILLIAM CHANDLER BAGLEY (Ph.D., Cornell) professor of education,' university of illinois; formerly vice-president and director of training, montana state normal college mtD f orfe THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. I917 A2i rights reserved COPyRIGHT, S903, By the j/acmillan COMPAN'^. Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1905. Keprlnt&l March, 1906; January, August, October, 1907 ; February, September, December, igo8j January, June, 1910; jMuary, June, 1912; January, December, 1913 ; July, December, 1914; August, December, 1915; May, T916; January, 1917. Nofwood Press f,S, Cusbing & Co. — Berwick & Smith Oo Norivoody Mass.. U,S,A, ) Deduction. 8. Importance of so fixing judgments in educative process that they may later function in reasoning. 9. A science is an organized group of conceptual judgments; ,' this organization, however, fulfills the final end of adjustment. 10. Definition of philosophy; antinomy between the "practical" and the "theoretical," and its solution. 11. Significance of this distinction to education. 12. Definition of terms "fact," " law," " principle," etc., in the light of preceding discussion . 15I XIV ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER XI The Factors of Efficient Recall PAGE I. Judgment a focal process, consequently experience to function as judgment must be subject to recall. 2. Factors involved in recall of (a) concrete experiences: (l) recency, (2) primacy, (3) vividness, (4) frequency; significance of each to the edu- cative process. 3. Relation of these factors to attention. 4. These four factors are also significant to the recall of con- densed experience. 5. But these are inadequate to efficient functioning of (3) condensed experience; a fifth factor, organiza- tion, largely replaces them; advantages of organization over more primitive factors; results of experiments on memory. 6. Operation of the factor of organization in educative process, 7. Education must effect a compromise between the three fectois : organization, vividness, and frequency. 8. Combination of two or more factors probably more effective than exclusive use of any one; experimental evidence. 9. Frequency or repe- tition holds unique position. 10. The concentration and corre- lation of studies as promoting organization . . . .169 CHAPTER Xn rHE FimCnONING OF THE FACTORS OF RECALL AS MODIFIED BY THE Periods of Child Development I. Antinomy between habit and judgment in educational practice; solution of this antinomy in the light of child development. 2. Division of the elementary school into " primary," " interme- diate," and "grammar" grades an implicit recognition of periods of growth. 3. Periods of child development as indicated by child study: (a) the transition period (6-8) ; physical charac- teristics. 4. Mental characteristics of transition period. 5. Moral characteristics. 6. (*) The formative period (8-12) ; physical characteristics. 7. Mental characteristics. 8. Moral character- istics. 9. {e) The adolescent period (ia-i8); physical charac- teristics. 10. Mental characteristics. 11. Moral characterbtics. 12. Soinmaiy; factors oi recall to be emphasized in each period 184 ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS XV PART V TUB SELECTION OF EXPERIENCES FOR EDUCATIONAI PURPOSES: EDUCATIONAL VALUES CHAPTER XIII Formal versus Intrinsic Values of Experience. The Doctrine of Formal Discipline PAGB I. Distinction between formal and intrinsic values of educative mate- rials; "formal disciplines" formerly supposed to develop "gen- eralized habits." 2. But a generalized habit is a psychological absurdity. 3. Experiment also conclusively proves that specific habits are not generalized. 4. It is evident, however, that the development of certain functions influences in some manner the development of other functions. 5. While habits are always specific, they can probably be related to one another through the judgment process; hence it is an ideal that is generalized, not a specific function. 6. Examples of this process. 7. Appli- cation of this solution to the doctrine of formal discipline . . 203 CHAPTER XIV The Development of Ideals as the Chief Work op Education I, Ideals represent an important type of condensed experience not always recognized in education. 2. Significance of ideals in social evolution and in existing human institutions. 3. The educational system or method that fails to instill effective ideals is a failure. 4. The ideal and intrinsic values of subject-matter can be harmonized. 5. Psychological characteristics of an effective ideaL 6. Educational applications . . . . si3 CHAPTER XV The Intrinsic Values of Different Types of Experience I. Qassification of intrinsic values. 2. (a) Utilitarian values; cri- terion; relatively small representation in school curricula. XVI ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS FAGI 3. Utilitarian values frequently applicable only to specific occu- pations. 4. (i) Conventional values; criterion; illustrated by grammar and spelling. 5. {c) Preparatory values; criterion; illustrated by arithmetic and geography. 6. (d) Theoretical values; criterion. 7 («) Sentimental values; criterion; signifi- cance of sentiments as higher means of pleasure. 8. Illustrations Tom literature and art • . 225 PART VI THE TRANSMISSION OF EXPERIENCE AND THE TECHNIQUE OF TEACHING CHAPTER XVI The Transmission of Experience in the Concretb; Imitation and Objective Teaching I. Problem of Part VI. 2. Transmission of experience through (a) imitation; imitation one expression of a fundamental psy- chological law; application of imitation in educative process depends upon the principle that the child imitates that which he admires. 3. Imitation an important factor in initiating habit; illustrations. 4. Relation of imitation to apperception. 5. Summary. 6. (i) Objective teaching; nature and function. 7. Principles governing success of objective teaching. 8. The school excursion as a type of objective teaching; rules for con- duct of school excursion. 9. Museums as educative agencies; the school museum. 10. The school garden as a medium for objective teaching. 11. The laboratory and its functions. 12. The limitations of objective teaching; danger of neglecting conceptual processes 239 CHAPTER XVn The Transmission of Condensed Experience : Develop- ment AND Instruction C. Problem of the chapter; distinction between imparting of con- ceptual judgments by development and by instruction. 2. De- ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS XVii PAG« velopment and instruction compared as to advantages and limitations. 3. The field of each in the educative process; many facts must be presented by method of instruction. 4. In imparting principles based on facts, the method of development is more frequently to be employed; in general, the rights of generalization and inference belong to the individual. 5. But this principle must be qualified. 6. Summary .... 256 CHAPTER XVIII The Media of Instruction . Classification of media of instruction. 2. (a) Language as the most efficient medium; reasons for efficiency of language; factors conditioning this efficiency. 3. Oral versus book instruction; advantages and limitations of each. 4. Lecture versus question- and-answer methods, 5. Relative values of different methods of book instruction : sources versus text-books. 6. (J>) Graphic representation as a medium of instruction: pictures, models, maps, and diagrams; principles governing successful use of these media in the educative process. 7. The media of emo- tional transmission; distinction between emotional and intel- lectual experiences. 8. Emotional experiences function (a) as essential ingredients of ideals, (^) as the fundamental essences of the sentiments; illustrations from teaching of art. 9. The function of art in the educative process 265 CHAPTER XIX Typical Forms of Development and Instruction; (a) The Inductive Development Lesson Classification of school exercises as to structure. 2. The two types of development lesson : (a) inductive and (^b) deductive. 3. The inductive development lesson; history and present status of the "formal steps." 4. (l) The step of preparation; function; method; time element; illustrations. 5. (l «) The statement of the aim; function; characteristics of an effective aim; illustrations. 6. (2) The step of presentation; function; varieties; time element; illustrations. 7. (3) The step of comparison and abstraction; function; method; time element; XVIU ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS aiustrations. 8. (4) The step of generalization; function; form; time element; illustrations. 9. (5) The step of applica- tion; function; time element; illustrations. 10. The inductive development lesson is an organic unity. 11. All school exercises cannot be cast in this mold . 284 CHAPTER XX Typical Forms of Development and Instruction: (b) The Deductive Development Lesson I. Nature of the deductive development lesson; its two functions: (a) anticipation of truth, (i5) explanation of facts. 2. This type of lesson has not been generally reduced to formal steps, but is frequently represented in the school. 3. Advantages of deductive development. 4. Two types of deductive lessons, corresponding to the two functions; in both types deductive lesson covers four steps: (l) the data, (2) the principles, (3) the inference, (4) the verification; illustrations of these steps in anticipatory lessons. 5. Explanatory lessons; their function; illustration^. 6. Field of application of the develop- ment lesson in the educative process , 305 CHAPTER XXI TypicAL Forms of Development and iNSTRUcnoN: (/) The Study and (rf) the Recitation Lesson I. Nature and varieties of the study lesson. 2. Function of the study lesson. 3. Phases of the study lesson: (l) the assign- ment; nature of the assignment; principles governing its effi- ciency; illustrations. 4. (2) The seat work; significance of seat work as a source of waste. 5. Blackboard questions for guidance in seat work. 6. Topical outlines to replace questions. 7. Development of art of outlining in pupils. 8. The recitation lesson; functions and varieties. 9. Distinction between question- and-answer and topical recitations; nature of (i) the question- and-answer recitation. 10. The art of questioning. II. (2) The topical recitation; nature, functions, and development of the topical recitation 316 ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS xix CHAPTER XXII TvpiCAL Forms of Development and Instruction: (*) The Drill, (/) the Review, and (f) the Examination Lessons FAGB I. Function of the drill lesson; its technique governed by the law of habit building. 2. Necessity of focalization in drill; illus- trations from school exercises. 3. Devices to secure focaliza- tion; dangers involved in use of devices. 4. The two functions of the review lesson. 5. Organization as the keynote of the review lesson. 6. Technique of the review lesson. 7. The examination as the capstone of the review process; the essence of an examination is its formal character; organization the ultimate end of the examination 328 CHAPTER XXIII The Hygiene of the Educative Process I. Education an artificial process; demands a readjustment to which physical structure is not naturally adapted. 2. Abnormal con- ditions imposed by the educative process: (a) indoor life, (J>) fine adjustments, (c) active attention. 3. (i) The hygiene of instruction : conditions of light, temperature, ventilation, fatigue, and cheerfulness. 4. (2) Hygienic habits and ideals; duty of the school in development of these; fallacy of the dictum, "Follow nature." 5. Hygienic habits must be empha- sized in the pre-adolescent period. 6. Hygienic ideals must be emphasized in the adolescent period 335 Index . . . 3S' THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS PART I. FUNCTIONS OF EDUCATION CHAPTER I Education reduced to its Lowest Terms I. As with all the activities and interests that are fostered by modern civilization, the forces of education have reached a stage of very elaborate specialization and organization. From the kindergarten to the uni- versity, each period of development is catered to by a specific kind of education, with its specific aims and ends, its specific standards and ideals, its specific meth- ods and devices. And cutting across these planes of cleavage, which represent the varying needs of the individual at successive levels of his growth, are the almost numberless sciences and disciphnes, each with its own vocabulary, its own technique, its own specific function. Not only is the teacher a speciaHst in edu- cation, but he is perforce a speciahst in one department of education as distinguished from other departments. And not only this, but he is frequently a specialist in one narrow field of a single department as distinguished from the remaining fields. 2 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS In spite of its many advantages, this condition brings with it a very serious difficulty; for while, generally speaking, organization means efficiency, it is none the less true that organization means complexity, and that a complex structure is hard to understand. The lay- man sees in education a vague, undifferentiated whole; but the novitiate, as his acquaintance continues, watches this whole spht up into a myriad of separate parts. For a long time he is troubled by the lack of orderly arrangement, by the seeming neglect of logical con- tinuity and system. He sees a vast, noisy machine, the various parts of which appear to work with little refer- ence to the needs and nature of the whole; not a co- ordinated system of interacting elements, but a mere aggregation of independent units. The initial study of any complicated structure in- volves a similar difficulty. It required thousands of years for science to discover the order and system that govern the organic world, — to "strip the mask from things." The serious student of nature from the very first has been baffled by the multiplicity of living forms, the diversity and seeming independence of species and genera, the imceasing strife and struggle for supremacy, and the resulting waste of time and energy. Yet we now know that each of these factors has its peculiar significance in the compKcated scheme of life. Where once the massing of seemingly disconnected units con- fused and baffled us, we see to-day the harmonious EDUCATION REDUCED TO ITS LOWEST TERMS 3 cooperation of all these factors toward a definite end. The forces that appeared to be independent are now seen to be interdependent, and what looked to be the utter neglect or absence of relation is now revealed as the very apotheosis of system and order. The organic world has been reduced to its lowest terms, and the apparent antithesis of diverse forms and forces has melted away under the new light. In the study of the concrete problems of education, we need a guiding principle; we need a formula that will cover every case that is presented; we need to know what education means in its simplest terms. Having such a principle, we shaU have a basis for in- terpretation, — a criterion, perhaps, for approval or con- demnation. Lacking such a principle, our results will be the merest empiricisms, valuable it may be as sepa- rate facts, but totally inadequate to the needs of con- structive eflFort. It is the purpose of this chapter to attempt the formulation of such a principle. 2. Fundamentally the possibility of education de- pends upon the capacity of the organism to profit by past experiences. In one way or another the facing of past situations comes to' modify present and future adjustment. Education in its broadest sense means just this: acqmring experiences that wiU serve to modify inherited adjustments. 3. In order to understand the fundamental signifi- cance of this principle, we must know that the capacity 4 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS to profit by past experience is limited to a compara- tively few forms of life. In the lower animals, reaction or adjustment is fixed and uniform. It varies only with the nature of the stimulus and not with the re- sults of previous reactions to similar stimuli, — only with the nature of the environment and not with the results of previous adjustments to similar environments. A certain situation "sets off" a certain fixed, unvary- ing reaction. No matter if that reaction has resulted disastrously in previous instances, the same stimulus will again initiate it; there will be no improvement in adjustment even after repeated trials. The classic instance of the moth and the flame is a case in point. The light impressions "set off" the muscular reactions that carry the moth to the flame. Its wings are scorched and it retreats, — adjustments resulting in the retreating movement having been set off by the effect of the scorch- ing upon the nerve endings. But let the light again impinge upon the sense organs of sight, and the forward movement wiU again be initiated, — to be repeated, no matter how frequently the scorching may occur, until the stimulus is either withdrawn or replaced by another more compelling, or until the moth is disabled or consumed. The inborn tendencies to response are termed either reflexes or instinctive movements, according as they are simple or complex. Each follows upon its appropri- ate stimulus as mechanically as the ringing of an electric beU follows upon the pressing of the button. EDUCATION REDUCED TO ITS LOWEST TERMS J 4. Reflexes and instinctive movements must be looked upon as products of heredity. The connections in the nervous system upon which they depend are provided for in the development of the embryo just as are the connections between the limbs and the trunk or between the blood vessels and the various organs. To their gene- sis, too, must be applied the same explanation. How did it come about in the first place that the moth responded in one way to light impressions and in another way to impressions of scorching or pain? One might similarly ask, How did it come about that the original moth (if one may use the term) had wings and legs, a head, a thorax, and an abdomen? In the light of our present knowledge, we can only say that all these determinations of anatomical structure (and nerve structure is anatomi- cal structure) have resulted through the operation of natural selection upon chance variations. All organ- isms tend to vary, — to deviate in one respect or an- other from the "normal" or average type. One may have a shghtly longer body, another may vary slightly in coloring or markings, another in strength, another in speed, and so on. Where the variation is helpful in the struggle for life, the organism possessing it has an advantage over the organisms that lack it. Conse- quently the chances that the favored organism will sur- vive and perpetuate its species are increased. Of its progeny, some are likely to vary still farther in the right direction and so on, perhaps indefinitely. If, on the 6 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS Other hand, the organism is a variant in an unfavorable direction, it will be placed at a disadvantage in the struggle for existence, and the chances of its elimination and the consequent cutting o£f of its line of descent are thereby increased. It is through this factor of "natural selec- tion" that the origin of specific characters among organic beings can be most satisfactorily explained, and it is to this factor that one must look for an explanation of the origin and development of those connections in nerve tissue that lie at the basis of reflex and instinctive movements.^ 5. Whatever theory may be called upon to explain the origin of instinct, however, there can be no doubt that a large number of animals are entirely dependent upon instinctive reactions for adjustment to the environment. 1 It is true that the genesis of instinct presents certain difficulties to this explanation. According to the traditional view, natural selection works only upon slight variations, each of which must contribute definitely to the survival value of the organism. While it is easy to see that each slight change in the right direction may have been useful in the develop- ment, say, of the horse's hoof, it is not so easy to see how all the inter- mediate links could have been similarly useful in the development of a complex instinct like the nest-building instincts of some of the birds, Darwin recognized this difficulty and attempted, although not very sat- isfactorily, to surmount it. (See Origin of Species, vol. i, ch. viii.) Romanes {Heredity and Utility, Chicago, 1896, p. 87) prefers to discard the principle of natural selection in the case of instinct, and to look upon instinctive adjustments as inherited habits. Baldwin (^Development and Evolution, New York, 1903, ch. v) disapproves of Romanes's position because it assumes the inheritance of characteristics acquired during the life of the individual. He prefers to think of the slight changes essential to the development of the full-fledged instinct as "kept alive" either by intelligence or by " imitation." This view is also open to objection, for it assumes that mind or consciousness existed prior to instinct. In fact, the explanation of instinct by the principle of natural selection seems to be an EDUCATION REDUCED TO ITS LOWEST TERMS "} Reaction with them is purely mechanical, the same stim- ulus or combination of stimuli uniformly giving rise to the same adjustment. Such animals are not able to apply experience to the improvement of adjustment, and are consequently not amenable to the influences of education. At just what point in the animal series the lower limit of educabiUty is to be placed is still a matter of dispute, but it is generally conceded that the mammals, the birds, and at least some of the fishes are able to profit by experience in varying degrees, while the invertebrates and the primitive protozoa probably lack this capacity. Some authorities are inclined to exclude the higher inver- tebrates, especially the ants, bees, and wasps, from the latter class, but there is a marked tendency to look upon even the complex activities of these forms as products of pure instinct.^ In general, then, it may be concluded almost hopeless task so long as one maintains that anatomical structures must be developed through a long series of gradual changes. Very re- cently it has been discovered, however, that very pronounced variations are not entirely lost to posterity, but reappear in a definite proportion of the progeny. This discovery, if generally substantiated, will undoubtedly do much toward clearing away these difficulties. (See H. de Vries: Species and Varieties, Chicago, 1904.) 1 For example, A. Bethe : Durfen wir den Ameisen und Bienen psy- chische Qualitaten zuschreiben? in Pflueger's Archiv, 1898. H. S. Jen- nings {^Contributions to the Study of the Behavior of Lower Organisms, Washington, 1904) maintains, however, that, even in very primitive ani- mal forms, reaction varies with experience. (See a brief critique of Jennings's theory by J. B. Watson, in Psychological Bulletin, 1905, vol. ii, pp. 144 £f.) R. Pearl {Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psy- chology, 1904, vol. xiv, pp. 138 ff.) also believes that adjustment in some forms improves with practice; the machine "works better ";' but, he maintains, no psychical element is needed to explain this. O THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS that educability, meaning by that tenn the capacity ta profit by individual experience, is limited to the verte- brates (and possibly the highly organized invertebrates), and is most pronounced in man and his nearest relatives in the animal kingdom, — the lemurs, monkeys, and anthro- poid apes, — together with the animals that man has been able to train for his own service, particularly the horse, the dog, and the elephant. 6. But while man shares with some of the higher ver- tebrates the capacity for education, there is one point in which his position is practically unique. Man must be subjected to an educative process before he can com- plete his development, and this is true in like degree of none of the lower orders. In one sense it is not so much the capacity for education as the necessity of education that differentiates man from the lower animals. The moment that the moth emerges from its pupa stage it assumes all the functions of an adult member of its species. It does not have to be taught where and how to procure its food; it does not have to be taught where and how to secure shelter or protection against the ele- ments; it does not have to be taught where and how to lay its eggs and provide for its young. If it does these things, it does them by instinct — by the innate ten- dencies of the nervous system to react to definite situa- tions in a definite manner. Two essential points are to be noted in this connection: the moth can develop into a mature insect without the presence or aid of other EDUCATION REDUCED TO ITS LOWEST TERMS Q insects; furthennore, it can develop into just as good a moth as either of its parents. Man, on the other hand, comes into the world immature; only a very few of the functions of complete development are present at birth. Certain functions, as, for example, nutrition, are opera- tive from the first, and these are based entirely upon in- stinct. The infant possesses a nervous mechanism that will respond appropriately to certain stimuH immediately after birth. But the instincts that ate operative in the infant are obviously much less efficient than those of the lower forms. Even possessing them the infant is a help- less and dependent creature. Nor is this all. Suppose that a method were devised by means of which food and shelter could be provided mechanically and the infant left to develop into indepen- dent maturity without the aid of parents or other human beings. There is no need to make such an experiment, for the results would be obvious from the outset. The moth is "bom" just as good a moth as either of its par- ents. But the infant, even if he could reach maturity without the aid of other human beings, would certainly not be so good a man as his father. What he would lack are the great essentials of human hfe that are trans- mitted, not directly through the germ cell, but indirectly by social contact, — culture, "education," and civihzed habits. Professor Baldwin^ has termed this factor 1 J. M. Baldwin: Development and Evolution, pp. 53-54; also pp. 103 fF. lO THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS "social heredity" in contradistinction to physical heredity or physical transmission. 7. It is generally agreed among biologists that the me- chanical agency for the transmission of Ufe from parent to offspring is not affected in a significant degree by the experience of the parent. That is, characteristics that are acquired during the Kfe of an organism — even before it produces offspring — are not transmitted through the germ cell (the ovum of the female or the sperma- tozoon of the male) to the offspring. This principle of the non-transmission of acquired characteristics has not been indisputably estabhshed as yet, but that it holds good in the main no one apparently is ready to deny. We may therefore build upon it so far as education is concerned, confident that the objections to its rigid appli- cation, even if they be sustained, will not affect the validity of our deductions. The question of the transmissibility of acquired character- istics forms the dividing line between two contemporary schools of evolutionists. The neo-Darwinians contend that acquired characteristics are never transmitted, while the neo- Lamarckians maintain that acquired characteristics may be transmitted under certain conditions. A great deal of evidence has been brought forth by both parties to the controversy, but perhaps the most important arguments are these : — I. In favor of transmission. (a) One of the most important evidences of evolution is the picture of growth and development that is revealed by the fossil remains of plant and animal life found in different geologi- cal strata. These remains present a serial progression which, EDUCATION REDUCED TO ITS LOWEST TERMS li in some cases, can be actually reproduced by specimens.'' The neo-Lamarckians argue from this orderly progression that the variations appear in a definite direction.^ This would seem to indicate that the factor of use or function must have some effect upon inheritance ; for, they say, if the variations were promis- cuous or accidental, as the neo-Darwinian maintains, we should find among the fossil remains a large number of forms varying from the normal type, some in one direction, some in another, above and beyond those that form the true serial Une of descent. That is, in order to account for the chance production of a given useful organ, one would have to believe upon the neo- Darwinian hypothesis that thousands, if not millions, of unfit variations were produced. But, the neo-Lamarckian objects, the fossil beds fail to reveal the remains of these forms as they should 'had such forms ever existed. Hence the gradual im- provement in the adaptation of a series of forms must be explained upon the supposition that, through " use " during the life of the individual, the fit characters became firmly fixed and were then transmitted in a more or less perfect condition to the offspring. Hence the phrase, " use inheritance," as applied to the neo-Lamarckian position. (Ji) Apart from this deductive argument, factual evidence has been brought forward attempting to show by concrete cases : (i) that variations due to mechanical causes have been inherited; (2) that changes due to nutrition in the parent have been inherited; (3) that characteristics developed by the exercise of function have appeared more fully developed in the offspring than they originally appeared in the parent ; (4) that organs transformed through disease in the parent have been transmitted in their new form to the offspring; (5) that well-authenticated cases of the transmission of mutila- 1 For example, the phylogeny of the horse; see E. D. Cope: Primary Factors of Organic Evolution, Chicago, 1896, pp. 146-150. 2 Cope, op. cit^ p. 13. 12 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS tions are on record ; and (6) that changes in environment pro duce changes in bodily characteristics that are transmitted to the offspring.* 2. Against transmission. (a) The Lamarckian factor of " use inheritance " was not seriously questioned by biologists prior to 1883. Darwin " had assumed the inheritance of acquired characters, but had con- structed his theory quite independently of its implications. Spencer assumed use inheritance throughout his " Principles of Biology," and remained to the last an active opponent of the neo-Darwinian hypothesis. In the year named, however, August Weismann asserted that the inheritance of acquired characters was, in the higher animals at least, a physiological impossibility. He based his statement upon the discovery that had recently been made in the field of embryology, relative to the " continuity of the germinal protoplasm." It is now a well-known fact that the cells concerned with reproduction are differentiated and separated from the other cellular elements of the body (the somatic cells) immediately upon the segmen- tation of the fertilized ovum. Hence the reproductive cells are removed from the influence of those forces that modify the somatic cells. Further circumstances during life cannot directly or definitely affect them; they are amenable only to general influences, such as nutrition.* (3) The different lines of factual evidence brought forth by the neo-Lamarckian, and noted above, are controverted in various ways by the neo-Darwinian. He will say, for example, that in the great majority of cases mutilations are not trans- 1 For a full discussion of this evidence, see Cope, op. cit., ch. viii. 2 Origin of Species, vol. i, ch. i, " As far as I am able to judge, . ; . the conditions of life appear to act in two ways, — directly on the whole organi- zation or on certain parts alone, and indirectly by affecting the reproductive system." ' A. Weismann ! The Germ Plasm, New York, 1893 ; VortrSge ubet die Deszendemtheorie, Jena, 1904. EDUCATION REDUCED TO ITS LOWEST TERMS 1 3 mitted.* The same is true of variations due to mechanical causes.^ The influences of nutrition and disease, on the other hand, are to be classed among the general influences from which the germinal protoplasm is not free. Variations that are thought to be due to geographical conditions would certainly appear in the offspring as well as in the parent as long as the offspring lived under similar conditions.* Now if an organism has no means of transmitting its acquired characteristics — the products of its expe- rience — to its offspring, any improvement that the off- spring may make over the condition of its parents will depend upon one or both of two factors: (a) the influ- ence of a more favorable environment in which the various functions will work together to better advan- tage; or (b) the environment remaining the same, a variation that permits in the offspring a more efi5- cient adaptation than was possible in either of the parents. 8. Such are the general conditions of progress in all the lower forms of life. But the non-transmission of acquired characters through the germ cell does not pre- clude all possibiHty of transmitting from generation to generation the products of experience. It only pre- 1 The well-known fact that the " docking " of the tails of sheep for sev- eral centuries has never produced a variety of tailless sheep is frequently cited. 2 " The feet of the Chinese do not indicate that their long habit of compression has yet produced any hereditary results. '' — Edith E. Wood ; JVb/es on Oriental Babies, in American Anthropologist, 1903, vol. v, no, 4. * See also W. K. Brooks : Foundations of Zoology, New York, 1899, lectures iv and v. 14 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS eludes such transmission through a certain channel. For animals that come to independent maturity imme- diately after birth, all other channels of progress are closed. For animals, however, that are cared for dur- ing a longer or shorter period of dependence, the pos- sibility of utilizing the experience of the parent and thus of advancing beyond the condition which the parent rep- resents is still open. While it is undoubtedly true that some of the higher forms below man train their young during a plastic period of infancy, it is not altogether clear that this training forms an appreciable advance over the transmission of characters through physical heredity. That is to say, the training in itself is largely instinctive, following the same plan generation after gen- eration, and influenced very little, if at all, by the expe- rience of the parent. And at the very best, of course, the possibility of transmitting experience is, in animals below man, greatly curtailed by the lack of an efl&cient medium of communication. It is clear, then, that man's supremacy in the animal series is due to his ability to profit, not only by his own experiences, but also by the experiences of others. Not only is this true, but it is also not to be doubted that, without this twofold capacity, man would be far below many other vertebrates and would be placed at a tre- mendous disadvantage in the struggle for existence. "Every child is born destitute of things possessed in manhood which distinguish him from the lower animals. EDUCATION REDUCED TO ITS LOWEST TERMS 1 5 Of all industries he is artless; of all institutions he is lawless; of all languages he is speechless; of all philos- ophies he is opinionless; of all reasoning he is thought- less; but arts, institutions, languages, opinions, and men- tations he acquires as years go by from childhood to manhood. In all these respects the new-born babe is hardly the peer of the new-born beast; but, as the years pass, ever and ever he exhibits his superiority in all the great classes of activities until the distance by which he is separated from the brute is so great that his realm of existence is in another kingdom of nature." ^ 9. In order still more forcibly to emphasize the fun- damental importance of the educative process in human life, it will be profitable to compare man's chances for progress with those of the lower animals. (a) It has been noted above that, leaving out the fac- tor of experience, any improvement that an organism may make over the condition of its predecessors will depend on either (i) the influence of a more favorable environment in which the various functions will work together more harmoniously, or (2), the environment remaining the same, a variation that permits in the offspring a more efficient adaptation than was possible in either of the parents. In what degree will these fac- tors operate in man? It is clear that, as a mobile crea- ture, he can change his environment to one perhaps * J. W. Powell, quoted by A. F. Chamberlain: TAe Child, London, 1900, p. I. l6 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS better suited to his capacities. Assuming his inher- ited or congenital characteristics to be exact replica of his parents', he may be able, nevertheless, to find an environment where these characteristics would be of better service to him than they were to the latter. This is constantly illustrated by the phenomena of human migration. But, primarily, man is not more mobile than many other mammals and far less mobile than numberless birds and insects. In these lower forms, however, the discovery of a more favorable environ- ment depends largely upon chance, while with man the factor of intelligence operates. If it were not for this factor, together with the secondary means of locomotion which his intelligence enables him to utilize, it is safe to say that, in this particular, man would be at a great disadvantage compared with many other forms, in so far as improvement through change of habitat is concerned. (6) Regarding the second factor, it is clear that, in a changing environment, — such as the advance and retreat of an ice cap, — variations may be produced that will be adaptable to changed conditions and thus serve to perpetuate the Une of descent. Can improve- ments in human adjustment also be laid at the door of variation and, if so, to what extent? The tendency to variation is common to all forms of organic Hfe, but it differs in degree with different species and genera. Thus, among domestic animals, the cat varies very little as compared with the dog, and the EDUCATION REDUCED TO ITS LOWEST TERMS 1 7 turkey very little as compared with the barnyard fowl.' When we compare man with other animals, we find that his tendency to variation is not particularly marked. Indeed, it is safe to say that man is one of the least vari- able of all animal forms. The only important change that has taken place in man's structure since Eocene times has been a marvel- ous increase in the size of the cerebral hemispheres.^ This means that during approximately two and one half milhon years man's bodily structure has remained practically the same, save for this increase in the size of the brain. But even more remarkable is the fact that from Pleistocene times onward — a period of at least a half-million years — there has been very little change even in the form and size of the brain; while it is still more remarkable that, during the period cov- ered by human history, — perhaps eight thousand years, — there has been no apparent change in the gross ana- tomical structure of this organ. It may be that changes in the microscopical structure have been occurring as the result of natural selection, and that these, as well as the fund of useful traditions at his disposal, have con- tributed to man's mental superiority. These changes ^ Cope, op. cit., p. 21. * Cope, op. cit., p. 150, " It is only in the structure of the brain and the reproductive system that man shows an advance over the Eocene type." Keane, on the other hand, admits nothing more than a "generalized precursor, differing specifically from all present varieties," even in Plio- cene times. (A. H. Keane : Ethnology, Cambridge, 1901, p. 69.) l8 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS in the finer structure are, however, yet to be demon- strated. When we remember that this latter period has witnessed the most profound changes in everything that we call human, we are in a position to comprehend in some sUght measure the absolute insignificance to man of the factors that make for progress in the lower orders. Away back in Neolithic, perhaps even in Paleolithic, times. Nature finished her work as far as man is concerned. The forces of structural variation, which mean everything to the lower orders, then came to an abrupt halt in the human species. Since that time man's progress has been determined by another factor. We may call this factor culture, we may call it, with Baldwin, "social heredity," we may call it morahty, we may call it civilization; but whatever we call it, its essence is education in the broadest sense: the acquisition, the retention, and the organization of experiences that shall serve to modify and render more efficient man's adjustment to his environment. Measured by all the standards of the brute world, man seems to be almost pitiably unfortunate. Nature has provided other animals with fur coverings for protection against cold, with migratory instincts which lead them to avoid unfavorable environments, with teeth and tusks and claws for offense and defense. Or, if Nature has not provided these things directly, she has at least provided tendencies to variation that have resulted in their development. Man, on the other hand, lacks both the factors and the tendency to variation which might produce them. And yet the lack of a natural covering for the body, the lack of natural weapons, even the lack of a proclivity for variation, have all been positive forces in human progress. EDUCATION REDUCED TO ITS LOWEST TERMS I9 The endowments that man lacks have been too easy a means of survival and progress. Nature has always set a premium upon the successful surmounting of difficulties. Throughout the en- tire range of life, we find that advancement has been corre- lated, not with what would seem at first glance to be the most favorable conditions, but rather with conditions that have offered serious obstacles to life. It is beyond doubt that life began with simple, unicellular forms, living at or near the surface of the ocean. Professor Brooks ' has shown that this is the most favorable environment for the genesis and perpetuation of life that the earth has ever afforded. " At the surface of the ocean the abundance and uni- form distribution of mineral food in solution, the area which is available for plants, the volume of sunUght, and the uniformity of the temperature are all favorable to the growth of plants, and as each plant is bathed on all sides by a nutritive fluid, it is advantageous for the new plant-cells which are formed by cell multiplication to separate from each other as soon as possible, in order to expose the whole of their surface to the water. Cell aggregation, the first step toward higher organization, is there- fore disadvantageous to the pelagic plants." Hence it comes about that we find to-day, upon the surface of the ocean, myriads of primitive forms that are undoubtedly the exact replica of forms that existed millions of years ago at the very dawn of hfe. It was not until some of these forms migrated to the sea floor, and later to the dry land, that aggregation and differentiation gave the first impetus to progress. "The pelagic plant life of the ocean has retained its primitive sim- pHcity on account of the very favorable character of its environ- ment, and the higher rank of the Uttoral vegetation and that of the land is the result of hardship."''' 1 W. K. Brooks: Foundations of Zoology, p. 225. ^ Brooks, op. cit, p. 224 (italics mine). Cf. also p. 219: " A lingula is still living in the sand-bars and mud-flats of the Chesapeake Bay undet conditions which have not effected any change in its structure since the 20 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS Passing over the long ages that elapsed between these fir^ steps in progress and the appearance of the human species, it is still apparent that the same principle is operative. The highest types of human development in the earliest times of which we have record were not found in the most favored environments. The influence of the desert upon civilization has often been noted. The great river valleys of the Nile and Euphrates were the seats of ancient civilization, not from acci- dent, but because the constant struggle with the encroaching desert brought out, selected, and developed those characteristics that we identify with human progress. Mere brute strength and brute cunning were not adequate to meet the conditions of life. Agriculture must be depended upon for food, and under desert conditions successfiil agriculture means a high degree of intelligence. In the struggle for survival under these con- ditions, a premium was set upon mental rather than physical prowess, and the forms of life that lacked intelligence were swiftly eliminated. Under more modern conditions, we find that the highest types of human progress are represented by races inhabiting the temperate zones, where men must consciously struggle during the summer to provide food and shelter and clothing against the coming of the winter. The survival of the fittest in such an environment means a survival of the intelligent, the industrious, the temperate. It means the selection and per- petuation of those that can look ahead, that can hold a remote end clearly in mind, that can sacrifice the desires and impulses of the moment to the duties of the fature. How far is this principle to be carried? Is one to say that the chances for progress always bear an inverse ratio to the superficial advantages that an environment affords? If this times of the Lower Cambrian. . . . The everlasting hills are the type of venerable antiquity; but lingula has seen the continents grovf up, and has maintained its integrity unmoved by the convulsions which have given the crust of the earth its present form." EDUCATION REDUCED TO ITS LOWEST TERMS 21 were true, the frigid zones should be the seats of the highest type of civiHzation, and the best type of individual manhood should consistently arise from the gutter. Certainly a line must be drawn at some point. Somewhere between the privation and discomfort of the Polar regions and the ease and luxury of the tropics there lies an optimal zone for progress ; and some- where between the idleness and caprice of the favored child of fortune and the sodden, ceaseless, mechanical drudgery of " The Man with the Hoe," there lies the optimal zone for individual achievement. "A favorable environment in any case is not one free from struggle, but rather one in which the organism is victorious in its conflicts, and in which the victory is not bought at too great a price." ■' To summarize. Despite its weakened capacity for variation, the human species possesses two characteris- tics that place it far in advance of all other animal forms in so far as its chances for improvement over past con- ditions are concerned, (i) Man has the capacity to profit by his own experiences; and (2) the additional capacity to profit by the experiences of the race. The higher animals share with him the first capacity to a Hmited extent; the second capacity is his alone. It is the prerogative oj man to transmit to his offspring acquired characteristics. An experience that modifies adjustment certainly gives rise to an acquired characteristic. Knowl- edge is race experience. Knowledge is the greatest and most potent of all acquired characteristics. 10. These two capacities, which mean so much to man, 1 L. F. Barker : American Text-book of Pathology, Philadelphia, 1901 p. 18 (preface). 22 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS are both dependent in very large degree upon the powei of speech. That this is true with the capacity to profit by the experiences of others is obvious enough. That it is equally true of the capacity to profit by individual experiences must be left for later demonstration. II. Education may be tentatively defined, then, as the process by means of which the individual acquires expe- riences thai will function in rendering more efficient his future action. The Ufe of the individual is limited: give him no guidance and each generation must practically repeat, step by step, the Ufe of its predecessors. The only chance for improvement would he, as with the lower animals, in the abihty to change the habitat or in the proclivity to congenital variation. When, however, the individual has at his disposal not only his own experi- ences and those of his lineal predecessors, but, with both these, the experiences of his contemporaries and bf his ancestors' contemporaries, the equipment that he pos- sesses for his struggle with the environment is far and away superior to that of any other animal, and his chances for improvement and progress are far greater. It is hardly too much to say that education is the larg- est word in the vocabulary of Hfe, for it symbolizes all those forces that have raised man from the plane of the brute, all those characteristics that differentiate him from the speechless anthropoid, the Homo alalus, with which, not so very long ago, he was to be identified. CHAPTER n Tece Function of the School I. If the tentative definition of education with which the last chapter closed is valid, it follows that the acqui- sition of any experience whatsoever that serves to modify future adjustment is an educative process. One is per- haps apt to think of education as confined to the school, or, at most, to the school and the home. This is mani- festly a narrow view, and one that has done much to create in the popular mind an antithesis between edu- cation and life. Throughout the years of childhood, at least, there is very Uttle that the individual does that is without some effect upon his future adjustment. It is therefore well to divide educational forces into two classes: (o) injormal education, embodying those modi- fying influences to which every individual is subjected in varying degrees, and (b) formal education, embody- ing the modifying influences the control of which is consciously assumed either by the individual himself or by some educative agency, such as the school, the home, or the church. (o) Informal education is symboHzed by the common saying, "Experience is the best teacher." It would 23 24 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS appear from the previous discussion that this statement is a palpable truism, for when education is reduced to its lowest terms, experience is seen to be the only teacher. What the phrase is intended to convey is this: experi- ences that are gained incidentally in the course of the individual life are much more effective in modifying adjustment than experiences gained formally for this express purpose. Stated in this way, the proposition involves an assumption that schools and teachers are inferior in efficiency to the educative forces of practical life. That this proposition is generally vaHd can scarcely be doubted, "The burnt child dreads the fire" much more effectively than the child who is carefully instructed that the fire will burn him. A youth will assimilate a greater number of useful experiences in a bank than he will in a commercial school. In general, the experi- ences that issue from "practical" life will have a more lasting effect and wiU function more effectively than the experiences gained in school. The truth of this statement is self-evident. The reason that lies behind it, however, reveals an important lesson for pedagogy which must be left for later discussion. Notwithstanding its unquestioned advantages, how- ever, informal education has some marked limitations, (i) It is unsystematic: it fixes only the experiences that happen to come, and makes no provisions for expe- riences that may not be presented until adjustment has come to move in fixed channels; until the bodily THE FUNCTION OF THE SCHOOL 25 tendencies are firm and stable, and hence insusceptible to ready modification. (2) It is uneconomical: it leaves out of account the mass of experience that the race has acquired, and thus virtually leaves unutilized the capacity which man alone possesses to profit by the experience of others. If the child had a life as long as that of the race, and if he remained in a plastic stage throughout this period, we might well leave him to work out his own salvation. In short, the phrase, "Experience is the best teacher," is not nearly so profound as the quah- fication that is commonly added,. "Experience is the best teacher, and also the dearest," (b) Formal education, then, while it labors under certain inherent disadvantages, is seen to perform an indispensable function in Kfe. It does not leave the child to the haphazard operation of natural forces, but sees to it that he assimilates, whether he will or no, those experiences which, it has learned, will help him the most. It may place him in environments where such experi- ences cannot fail to be gained, or it may simply transmit to him the experience of the race through the medium of language. In either case, its function is selective and in this sense it is a formal — even an artificial — process. 2. The fundamental agency of formal education is the family. It is true that family life affords number- less opportunities for education of the informal type, but, essentially, the atmosphere of the home is dominated by a conscious purpose to bring the child into harmony 26 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS with whatever degree of civilized life the home may represent. It is here that the first steps are taken away from the animal, away from the brute. Care- fully and patiently the habits of personal cleanliness and decency are inculcated — in part through imitation; in part, too, by conscious instruction involving the cor- rection of mistakes, the serial repetition of trial and error, the positive and conscious setting up of models of speech and deportment for conscious and painstaking imitation. And beyond this is the impressing of the ideals of morality and religion and the very fundamentals of that national or race ideal that draws its nourish- ment from the home as the unit of all human society. "At all stages of educational history," says Laurie,^ "the family is the chief agency in the education of the young, and, as such, it ought never to be superseded." In the most primitive forms of human society, the home is the sole agency of formal education, involving, in addition to the fundamental functions just mentioned, conscious instruction in whatever crude arts of hunting and warfare the adult members of the family may prac- tice.2 Among many primitive tribes, it is true, this edu- cation of the home or family is supplemented at the onset of adolescence by different types of initiatory cere- monies which serve, in some measure, as a medium of formal instruction undertaken by the community rather 1 S. S. Laurie : Pre-Christian Education, New York, 1900, p. 6. *T. Davidson: History of Education, New York, 1900, p. 20, THE FUNCTION OF THE SCHOOL 2? than the family;-^ but this would seem, in the majority of cases, to be more in the nature of a reUgious rite than of an agency of formal education ; that is to say, it is deter- mined by custom and precedent rather than by a con- scious purpose to bring the child into harmony with the tribal institutions, although there can be no doubt that it serves, in a measure, to fulfill this latter function. 3. Passing from the stage of savagery to the stage of barbarism, a differentiation of the educative function is first to be found. "The barbarian, as distinguished from the savage stage of culture, begins at the point where men learn to control natural forces — fire, water, wind — and to apply them directly to the satisfaction of their desires."^ With this progress in culture comes a division of labor. Social life, before unsettled and perhaps nomadic, becomes relatively fixed and perma- nent. The home retains its fundamental educative functions, but the training in the primitive arts of hunting and warfare gives place to a more thorough training in special trades — a training, moreover, not neces- sarily confined to the home. As the crafts of rudimen- tary civilization became speciaUzed, the masters in these crafts undertook the education of "apprentices," and "guild" instruction forms the first type of conscious or formal education outside the family.* 1 J. Deniker : The Races of Man, London, 1901, pp. 241 ff. ; see also A. H. Daniels : The New Life, in American Journal of Psychology, 1893, vol. vi, pp. 61-106. ^ Davidson, op, cit., p. 25, * Davidson, op, cit,, p, 26. 28 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS With this division of labor there also arose the so cial castes, — priests, soldiers, producers. Of these the priests became the conservators of whatever race- experience had been concentrated or condensed into the forms of knowledge. It was their duty to interpret, to explain, to forecast. Knowledge, or the past expe- rience of the race, however crude and inadequate, how- ever heavily overlaid with superstition and mystery and speculation, became the tool with which they worked. Davidson ^ poijits out that, just as the discovery of fire laid the basis for the arts, so the discovery of writing laid the basis for science. With writing came the preser- vation of knowledge in relatively fixed and permanent forms. Hitherto the medium of social heredity had been oral discourse. The race-experiences shaped them- selves into myths and legends, epics and sagas; and wandering bards, of which Homer is the type, scattered broadcast the crude and primitive AArisdom thus repre- sented. But with the advent of writing this medium of transmission gradually lost its place.^ With the advent of writing, also, education assumed a new significance. The priestly caste still further monopohzed the pre- rogatives of learning; education came to mean still more the assimilation of knowledge rather than the ac- quisition of experience. The temple became a school. 1 Davidson, op. cit., p. 28. " But oral transmission was not so inefficient as we seem to think to-day- see E. B. Tylor : Anthropology, New York, 1896, ch. xv. THE FUNCTION OF THE SCHOOL 29 A new type of formal education, centering in books and neglecting all arts save those concerned with lan- guage, became a fixed and permanent function of religion. 4. How the modern school gradually developed from this educational appendage of the church, the history of education relates. For centuries only partially dif- ferentiated from the priesthood, schoolcraft finally secured an independent footing in the division of labor. Still more gradually it came to concern itself with the practi- cal as well as the theoretical, with the arts as well as the sciences. This has been at best only a very recent devel- opment and the full fruition is not yet; but education as concerned with all conscious and purposeful modi- fications of adjustment through experience is coming to be recognized as the true function of the school. No longer Hmited to the realm of the intellectual and "ab- stract," it touches life at aU points. This conception is both narrower and broader than that which it is dis- placing so rapidly. It subordinates the ideal to the practical; it sacrifices science to service and truth to life. But on the other hand it idealizes the practical, ration- alizes service, and enriches life. It involves serious dangers as well as undoubted blessings, but if the dan- gers can be counteracted, the movement assuredly augurs well for the future of the school. 5. One further point remains to be considered in connection with the function of the school. As an agency of formal education, its field is largely limited to the 30 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS period of individual immaturity, — the so-called "period of infancy," and to understand the function of the school one must grasp in some measure the significance of this period to human evolution. The biological meaning of the helplessness and depend- ence of infancy has been fully recognized only in recent years. While some of the Greek philosophers hinted vaguely at its function,^ it is to John Fiske that the credit must be given for endowing education with what is perhaps its most illuminating conception.^ (a) In the first place, infancy is a period of necessary dependence. The child Uves what might well be termed an artificial life — a Uf e where everything is provided for him, where he has to take no thought of food or shelter or clothing, where responsibiUty is borne by other shoul- ders. This means that the. energy which would, under other conditions, be devoted to procuring food and cloth- ing and providing shelter is available for other piirposes. (b) In the second place, infancy is a period of plas- ticity. The lower animals are bom with nerve connec- tions already fixed and, except in the higher vertebrates, comparatively permanent and stable. In the nervous system of man, the entire cerebrum is practically un- organized at birth. It is a mass of latent possibilities, and whatever connections are made later are due almost 1 Cf. E. G. Burnet: Early Greek Philosophers, London, 1892, p. 74; cited by Chamberlain. ' J. Fiske : Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, London, 1S74. THE FUNCTION OF THE SCHOOL 3 1 entirely to the forces of the environment and not to the forces of heredity. But these connections, once made, also tend in the course of time to become permanent and somewhat inflexible. That is, after a certain plastic period the nervous tissue loses some measure of its plasticity. While it is still possible to learn new adjust- ments, — to acquire and profit by experiences, — after this time the task is much more difiicult.^ The meaning of infancy is, therefore, economic leisure — freedom from the responsibiUties of food-getting and self-support — and organic plasticity. Curiously enough, the Greek equivalent of the English word " school " — schole — also means leisure. Because the child must be supported by the labor of others during this period, he can utilize his time and energy for remote rather than imme- diate ends ; he can store up experiences for future years. Because his body, and especially his upper nerve centers, are in a plastic condition, the experiences that he acquires at this time can most easily make a deep and abiding impression. "A comparatively witless infancy must augur the high intellectual development of the men and women of the race. What a vast difference between the 1 The significance of human infancy as a period of plasticity has a close parallel in the lower animals. J. B. Watson (Animal Education, Chicago, 1903) has shown that the mental development of the white rat is directly correlated with the meduUation of fibers in the central nervous system after birth. Similar studies made by Jessie Allen on the guinea-pig (^JournaX of Neurology and Psychology, 1904, vol. xiv) show that medullation is com- plete at birth, and that the guinea-pig never equals the white rat in adjust ments involving intelligence. 32 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS amoeba at the beginning of the animal scale and thfc human infant at the top ! There parent and offspnng are practically one, with no immaturity and no need of education. And between the two he all varieties of animal Hfe, with ever increasing complexity of struc- ture and intelUgence in the adult, and ever lengthening infancy and childhood in the offspring." ^ 6. The school, then, is a specialized agency of formal education which aims to control in a measure the expe- riences of the child during the plastic period of infancy. It must be repeated, however, that education is not limited to the school. Wherever one individual learns from another how to better his Ufe, how to meet more success- fully the forces that oppose him, how to assimilate race- experience and profit by it — there an educative process is going on whether there be a school or not. And more than this: wherever one individual learns from his own experiences how to adapt himself more adequately to future situations, there an educative process is going on, whether there be a teacher or not. The education by the family up to the period of school instruction, the education by the family and by society during this period and afterward, the education of the individual in the "school of experience" — none of these factors can be neglected. But while one recognizes this truth, one must also recognize that the school demands the largest share of attention and study, not because it influ- 1 A. F. Chambeilain : The Child, London, 1900, p. 3. THE FUNCTION OF THE SCHOOL 33 encesthe child more than any of the other forces, — home or society or Hfe, — but because it is more amenable to control. It is through the school that the future of the race can be influenced with the greatest certainty. The factor of parental education is quite invariable; the same ends are sought and the same methods employed generation after generation. The social factor and that designated by "hfe" are, on the contrary, ultra- vari- able, possessing so Uttle stability that, notwithstanding their profound influence, their results can never be pre- dicted with certainty. The school hes, therefore, be- tween these two extremes as the one factor that is within our control in an appreciable degree. This last proposition may demand evidence. After all, can the formal education of the school make a lasting impression upon the social body ? Can a powerful educator of to-day so direct the forces at his command as materially and tangibly to influ- ence the future condition of society? These questions can be answered in but one way — by an appeal to educational history. That of China is a case in point. No other country is so thoroughly imbued with the spirit of formal instruction ; in no other country have the power and influence of an elaborate educational system been put to so adequate a test. It is, as it were, an experiment made to hand. The Chinese character as it stands to-day is the result of a selective process that has been going on for centuries, tending to preserve and promote the non-progressive ideals of the past, and tending by the same token to eliminate the variations from the established stock. The work of the Chinese schools and schoolmasters, crystallized as it is in memoriter drills of the most formal kind, has given its characteristic features to the race ideal. 34 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS The educational history of England famishes a parallel case It is now almost half a century since Herbert Spencer pubUshed his essays on " Education," in which, almost with the vision of a prophet, he predicted the effect which the hypertrophy of classical instruction would have upon the English people. He pleads for more science in the schools and universities. "Just as fast," he says, " as productive processes become more scien- tific, which competition will inevitably make them do j and just as fast as joint-stock undertakings spread, which they cer- tainly will, just so fast will scientific education become neces- sary to every one. ... All our industries would cease were it not for that information which men begin to acquire as best they may after their education is said to be finished. And were it not for this information that has been from age to age accumulated and spread by unofficial means, these industries would never have existed."' It is a matter of commonplace knowledge that Spencer's prophecy has "come true," and that England is reaping, in vanishing markets and a decay of commercial prestige, the finiits of her neglect of scientific instruction. Yet, even now, she only hesitatingly acknowledges that the cause of her indus- trial decline must be laid at the door of her short-sighted educa- tional policy. China and England ofier evidence of a negative character. Japan and Germany offer evidence of a positive character, and this is all the more convincing because each offsets a people of its own race, thus eliminating any factor that might be urged on the ground of " constitutional tendencies." It is not necessary to dwell upon the marvelous change that has been wrought in the Japanese people within the last half- century. Almost in a generation the character of the race has been transformed. Nor can there be a doubt that formal edu- cation has been a large factor in this change. The compulsory * H. Spencer : Education, New York, 1895, PP- S3 f- THE FUNCTION OF THE SCHOOL 35 public school system, the liberal endowment of universities and schools of technology, and the state support of native students in foreign lands have all contributed their share to the material prosperity of the empire. Education in Japan is a " business " proposition, not a mere matter of precedent and custom ; and, although it is an expression of a new and vigorous national ideal, it is not " sentimental " in the sense that the ultra-effeminized school system of the United States deserves that opprobrium. Germany's contribution to the discussion is even more con- vincing. At the close of the Napoleonic wars, Germany's con- dition was almost hopeless. Politically and industrially, she seemed to be upon the verge of disintegration. At this criti- cal juncture, Prussia took up Pestalozzi's scheme of a public, universal education — the same comprehensive plan that Na- poleon had dismissed with a sneer. In two generations educa- tion had transformed Germany from the weakest to the strongest nation on the continent of Europe; and when Von Moltke received the capitulation of Paris at the close of the Franco- Prussian War, he gave the credit for the triumph to the school- master. The insult that Pestalozzi had suffered at the hands of Napoleon could not have been more fittingly wiped out. Nor is Germany's industrial supremacy to-day less due to edu- cational factors than was her political supremacy in 187 1. It is a commonplace that she owes her virtual command of the world's markets to her high-grade technical schools. Just as the schoolmaster won the Franco-Prussian War, so the schoolmaster, aided by the professor of chemistry, has triumphed in industrial competition. In view of these facts one can scarcely marvel that the education of the German people is not intrusted (as it is in some other countries) to " immature women and feeble men." 7. Every now and again the old question, "Is heredity more influential than environment in determining char- acter?" is raised in a new form. It is a world-old 36 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS query thac will probably never admit of a universallj valid answer. It offers a choice between fatalism and hope — and the enlightened nations of the earth are aimually staking millions of dollars on the side of hope. It is certainly true that individuals vary in tendencies and aptitudes, and it is certainly true that many of these differences are due to hereditary conditions; yet it is generally agreed among anthropologists that, in the large, the factor of heredity plays a very small part in human Ufe as compared with the factor of environment. It has already been suggested that hereditary factors have been largely replaced in man by environmental factors because of the higher survival value that attaches to the latter; that instinct has degenerated; that the re- flexes with which the infant is provided at birth are much less efi&cient and much less highly organized than in the lower forms. Nature is not lavish with her gifts; she refuses to expend energy needlessly; she refuses to supply Ixixuries that have no purpose. And just because the factor of environment is all- important in human Ufe, education, which simply represents the rational emplo)rment of this factor, is all- influential. The school is only an institution for provid- ing environments, for regulating environments, for turning enviroimiental forces to a definite and conscious end. Each subject of the school curriculum represents a certain specific attitude toward the worid about us — represents a certain specific phase of experience with the environment THE FUNCTION OF THE SCHOOL 37 From the standpoint of mathematical science, the arithmetic of the schools comprehends the principles of number; from the standpoint of education, arithmetic is one expression of our attitude toward our surroundings. Number is one of the ways in which we interpret the environment, one of the methods by means of which we subdue it and turn its forces to our own ends. Geography is a study of the environment in the concrete ; it treats of the earth as the home of man. And the natural sciences, from this point of view, are but abstractions from the comprehensive field that geography covers, — botany dealing with the world of plants, zoology with the world of animals, geology with the world of inorganic matter, meteorology with the world of air, and so on. Physics represents still another phase of our surroundings, — our experience with the forces that operate upon material bodies. And chemistry and as- tronomy represent still other types of experiences that result from our contact with the external world. The world of man is just as real and tangible as the world of matter, and the human sciences represent our experiences with the social environment, just as the natural sciences repre- sent our experiences with the physical environment. History relates the experience of different races amid diverse sur- roundings j it is a record of reactions and adjustments ; it is experience in the concrete. Sociology is experience with the social environment, condensed into principles and organized into a system. Politics is only a certain phase of sociology, representing experience with a limited sphere of social activity. Nor are the mental sciences to be excluded from this list. Psychology is the science of experience itself, — the experience of experiences, to put it awkwardly but truthfully. Ethics and aesthetics, logic and epistemology, are but specific phases of the larger field of psychology, much as physics and twcany are abstractions from the larger field of geography. 38 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS Throughout the curriculum of the school, then, each of the various branches of knowledge really represents a certain type of experience with a hmited phase of the world about us or within us. It is one duty of the school to impart this experience to the child. "It should not be forgotten," says Professor Howerth,^ ". . . that one function, if not the function of our school system, is to distribute amongst the members of society the most important knowledge that has already been collected." But the school has another function. Education means not only the assimilation of race-experience but the acqui- sition of individual experience as well. The school must provide for the child certain environments, reaction to which will give him experiences that will be service- able to him in later hfe. This is the phase of educa- tion that is just now coming into prominence — so rapidly, indeed, that Professor Howerth very pertinently warns the teacher that the side of knowledge or race- experience must not be forgotten. It has been rnen- tioned earher in this chapter as a recognition of the arts as well as the sciences, of doing as well as knowing, of action as well as thought. How these two functions may work together harmoni- ously will be the theme of a later section. One further problem still remains for consideration in connection with the present discussion. It has been said that the school is an institution for providing environments, 1 1. W. Howerth, in Educational Review, 1902, vol. xxiv, p. 161. , THE FUNCTION OF THE SCHOOL 39 for regulating environments, and for turning environ- mental forces to a definite and conscious end. What this end is and what it should be are questions that demand a treatment far more comprehensive than the following chapter can attempt. CHAPTER m The Ethical End of Education 1. The question now presents itself: Upon what basis shall the school, or any other agency of formal education, select the experiences that are to function in modifying adjustment? To what end shall adjustment be modi- fied? Shall the school attempt so to organize the reac- tions of the individual that he may be able to earn a respectable hvehhood? If so, it must first determine what experiences will best subserve this end. Or will irs ultimate aim be to develop "moral character," as the followers of Herbart maintain? In this case, it is possible that a different set of experiences must be chosen. And so one might go on through the entire list of educational aims. 2. It seems tolerably clear, however, that the laws that underHe the educative process are largely in- dependent of the ultimate end of education. The particular problem with which this book is concerned is how experiences shall be impressed in order that they may function effectively in modifying adjustment. Whatever the ultimate end of education may be, the acquisition, the retention, the organization, and the 40 THE ETHICAL END OF EDUCATION 4I application of experiences are subject to certain uni- form laws. The ultimate end may vary and has varied from race to race and from generation to generation; but the fundamental processes are based upon the relatively constant factors of mental and physical activity and growth. The ultimate end of education in the public school, for example, will doubtless be vastly different from the aim of Fagin the Jew in his training of Oliver Twist. Yet the methods employed in both cases may be based upon identical principles. In either case the child is subjected to certain experiences that are planned to modify his future adjustment; in neither case is this adjustment left to the blind control of inherited impulse. 3. At the risk of multiplying terms needlessly, it may be profitable to discriminate between aims of education in this way: the aim or purpose or function that was discussed in Chapter I may be termed empirical, while the ultimate or final aim may be termed ethical. It is the empirical aim of education to fix experiences that shall modify adjustment. It is the ethical aim to fix those experiences that shall modify adjustment with reference to a certain definite end; those experiences that will make the individual a moral agent, or enable him to earn his own livelihood, or, perhaps, enable him to steal successfully. Dynamite explodes in the same way, — according to the same laws, — whether it is used as a harmless blast in a mine or to deal death and destruction at the will of an anarchist. Similarly, the 42 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS principles of educational method work in the same way whether they are to produce a theologian or a thief. The advantage of this distinction between empirical and ethical aims of education will be apparent to all who have been distressed by the cry of certain critics to the effect that educa- tion can never become a science, because, forsooth, educa- tional ideals are in continual flux, and the truth of to-day may be the falsehood of to-morrow.' As well say that physics can never become a science because there is nothing in the law of gravitation that wiU indicate with certainty whether a criminal or an innocent man is to be himg. A great many problems of educational practice can be solved only by recognizing a defi- nite end of education. These problems are concerned mainly with the course of study, — the " educational values " of dif- ferent items of the curriculum. Will science develop bread- winning capacity better than history? WiU history develop moral character more effectually than science ? Here the ulti- mate aim is obviously important. But these questions once settled, there still remain the detailed problems of method. Granted that science represents the experience that will best subserve our ultimate purpose, how shall the individual be sub- jected to this experience ? How shall we insure that the knowl- edge will be assimilated and retained and appUed? This is the practical problem of method, and the problem that the great rank and file of teachers must solve. They have littie to do with the determination of educational values or with the structure of the course of study. 4. True as this is, it must not be inferred that the average teacher need take no account of the ethical ^ Cf. Professor O'Shea's rejoinder to Dilthey's assertion that education can never be admitted as a science because its generalizations do not have universal validity. M. V. O'Shea: Education as Adjustment, New York, 1903, pp. 11-13. THE ETHICAL END OF EDUCATION 43 aim of education. While the principles of method may be independent of aim, just what method is to be em- ployed by the teacher in a given instance may depend entirely upon the purpose that he seeks to accomplish. While dynamite may either blast a rock or kill a king, the miner or the anarchist may decide that, after all, gunpowder is better suited to his purpose. And while the direct method may enable the child to assimilate a bit of knowledge, the teacher may conclude that, for his purpose, the indirect method will answer as well or better. In short, while it would be possible to con- struct a science of educational method in which the ultimate aim of education should be entirely neglected, the value of such a structure would certainly not be impaired and might, for some purposes, be greatly enhanced if a definite aim were assumed. The prin- ciples that we shall present in the following chapters are, in the main, general principles vahd in any particu- lar case; but it is safe to assume that no one will care to apply them to the development of thieves and mur- derers; and inasmuch as a definite assumption of an ethical or ultimate aim may serve to render our discus- sions more vital and less abstract, it may not be amiss to state this assumption at the outset; remembering, of course, that, even if it is not accepted by all as the true end of education, the larger principles which it is used to illustrate will not suffer thereby. 5. The ultimate aims that have been proposed foi 44 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS education are as numerous as educational theorists, consequentiy their name is legion. It would require a volume of no small dimensions to discuss in a critical manner even the more important. We shall therefore limit ourselves to those that have had the greatest in- fluence in shaping contemporary educational policy. These will not necessarily be the most profound, but rather those that have appealed most effectively to the popular mind. (a) The " Bread-and-Butter" Aim. That education (in the popular sense of the term) may enable an indi- vidual to earn a livelihood is the motive that impels perhaps the great majority of parents to send their chil- dren to school. It may be well to qualify this assertion by adding, "The great majority of parents who think about the matter at all;" for here as elsewhere the pow- erful factor of social imitation must be taken into account: the child is sent to school because the school is there, and because other parents send their children to school. But of those who have a deliberate purpose in mind it is highly probable that the impelling motive of the majority can be reduced to the "bread-and-but- ter" type. It is the habit among educators to lament the preva- lence of this aim — to lament especially the sordid and purely individual spirit which it commonly reveals. Yet it may be said in its favor that the motive is not merely to enable the child to obtain a livelihood, but THE ETHICAL END OF EDUCATION 45 to obtain a better livelihood than would otherwise be possible, — a better Uvelihood, it may be, than his par- ents have been capable of procuring. This signifies a desire for improvement, for advancement, and as such it is surely commendable from any standpoint. That this improvement should be measured in dollars and cents is due to the universal significance of the monetary standard of value. In truth, improvement in the con- ditions of hfe can undoubtedly be more accurately and definitely measured by this standard than by any other. That the motive is individual is not wholly to be dep- recated; that is to say, such an aim, even though indi- vidual, is not necessarily unsocial; for, within certain limits, individual advancement means social advance- ment. The chief virtue of the bread-and-butter aim is its definiteness. There is nothing vague or intangible about the criterion that it sets up. But, notwithstand- ing this advantage, it involves a grave source of danger in the mental attitude that it encourages — a danger that lies, not in its objective results, but in its subjec- tive tendencies. In other words, it breeds a narrowing spirit and thus tends, in a measure, to defeat its own ends. With its rigid adherence to processes that have been tried and tested by its own standards, with its un- willingness t® accept a process the practical value of which is not evident upon the surface, it may miss many a golden opportunity to further the very purpose which 46 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS it sets out to accomplish. The parent who objects to a "liberal" education because he thinks it impractical may see his son outstripped in the race of life by men who obtained the liberal training with Httle or no thought as to its effect upon their earning capacity. The " bread- and-butter" philosophy everywhere pays the price of short-sightedness for the virtue of practical utility. In the economy of nature one cannot be both broad and narrow at the same time. 6. (b) The Knowledge Aim. This may be looked upon as the practical antithesis of the aim just discussed. Each is the expression of a popular philosophy: the bread-and-butter aim representing the practical, work-a- day view of life, the knowledge aim reflecting a view of Ufe that would minimize its material expressions and emphasize the ideal; the one representing the life of struggle, the other representing the life of leisure. But the knowledge aim and the bread-and-butter aim, contradictory as they may seem in theory, may not work inharmoniously in practice. If we look upon knowl- edge as that part of race- experience that has been pre- served, it would seem reasonable to believe that this preservation has been, in large measure, determined by practical standards. That is, the body of knowledge is made up of facts and laws and principles that are, or have been, in one way or another, valuable from the standpoint of utility. From the operation of natural law there is no ultimate escape, and the survival of the THE ETHICAL END OF EDUCATION 47 useful with the consequent elimination of the useless works in the long run as relentlessly in the field of mind as it does in the field of matter. It is assumed, of course, that those who support the knowledge aim con- ceive of knowledge in this way. If, however, the knowl- edge aim measures the value of experience merely by conventional standards, the case is entirely different. We shall revert to this point under the discussion of the "culture aim." With the knowledge aim as thus interpreted, the dan- ger hes, as in the bread-and-butter aim, not in the nature of the objective results, but in the nature of the subjec- tive tendencies. The hoarding of facts for their own sake is somewhat akin to the hoarding of gold. Both tend to develop the mental attitude of the "miser." In either case the objective results may be the same as they would be were the ' individual abstemious and industrious from other and broader motives; but from these results must be deducted the negative factors that are involved in an unsocial and abstract point of view; so that, in the ultimate analysis, the net result may be vastly different. Or, to put it in another way: to assimi- late experiences merely for the sake of the experiences does not prevent the individual from utilizing them after- ward; but the fact that he does not, in the first place, look upon the experiences as something primarily to be used, may interfere with their maximal efl&ciency in apphcation. 48 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS 7. (c) The Culture Aim. Closely cormected with the knowledge aim is that which proposes "general culture" as the end of education. In the latter case, however, knowledge is to be acquired, not for its own sake, but because tradition has developed certain standards of cul- ture which imply the acquisition of certain items of knowledge. — the assimilation of certain conventional experiences. It is not necessary that these should have a definite application to the problems of life except thac they give the individual prestige among his fellows. To be able to read Latin was once the sine qua non of the student. Before the tongues of Europe had become organized and efl&cient means of preserving and trans- mitting experience, one who desired acquaintance with the wisdom accumulated by past generations must have had recourse to the Latin language. And so it came about that Latin formed the central feature of formal education at a time when the schools of modem Europe first began to take definite shape. In the course of organic evolution, structures persist long after they have outlived their usefulness. In the brain, the epiphysis represents the last vestiges of a once-fimctioning eye. In the muscxilar system, the recti of the ears once had a definite and useful purpose. In the digestive tract, the vermiform appendix is an atrophied and now useless and cumbrous remnant of an organ that still functions in some of the lower forms. And so it is with human customs : they persist long after THE ETHICAL END OF EDUCATION 49 their original function has been outgrown. Many of the so-called culture studies have Uttle or no practical utility imder present conditions. They represent, in other words, experiences which the individual has very little occasion to apply to existing problems of life. Yet they remain a part of the curriculum of the schools, and in many cases they dominate the curriculum. They are condoned and justified in various ways — some of the attempts to justifiy their continuance being so labored and involved as almost to appear ridiculous. The real reason for their persistence, however, is that they represent, especially in ultra-conservative countries like England, "the things that a gentleman must know," which is only another way of saying that they give a man the earmarks of gentility, — certain habits of thought, certain tricks of speech, that serve to differen- tiate him from the ungentle. Happily the elementary school has developed with little reference to this standard, as, obviously, a system of education supported from the beginning by the people at large must have developed. So much cannot be said, however, of the public high and secondary schools. That such institutions are still largely dominated by this conventional factor and are, in this regard, totally subservient to the colleges that receive but the merest fraction of their graduates, is a commentary upon the snobbish tendencies which a democracy may inherit from older forms of government. 5© THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS There is a more or less prevalent theory to the effect that the school is a powerful agent in molding public opinion. That it can become a powerful agent, the facts brought out in the last chapter seem to prove. But that the school generally follows rather than leads is a fact which a survey of conditions, espe- cially in Anglo-Saxon countries, cannot fail to impress. Where the school has become a force, it has been largely in virtue of arbitrary rulings, as in the case of Germany or Japan. In demo- cratic countries its policy is usually determined by external fac- tors, — prejudice and custom in England, prejudice tempered by economic conditions in the United States. The conservatism of formal education is inherent in its very nature. It is firmly rooted in the past, because race-experience, or knowledge, with which it is so largely concerned, is a product pf the past. At the present time the importance that attaches to natural science — in itself essentially modern — may lead us to underrate this tendency ; but generations hence, after the stage of crystallization has set in, its full effects will again be plainly apparent. 8. (d) The Harmonious Development of All the Powers and Faculties of Man. In spite of its apparent com- prehensiveness, the insufficiency of this aim is evident at a glance. The word "harmonious" is the disturbing factor. If "complete" or "maximal" development were desired, the situation would be materially simplified. But no one could, in common sense, demand the com- plete or maximal development of all the capacities of the individual, although not a few have, in theory, sup- posed such a miracle possible. The man who can do aU things equally well; the man who is master of all arts, and at the same time an authority in all fields of THE ETHICAL END OF EDUCATION 5I knowledge; the man who works equally well with head and hand, with pen and pencil, with brush and chisel,- the man who is poet and plowman, orator and artisan, financier and philosopher, all in the same breath — this man exists only in the pages of fiction or in the fanta- sies of the dreamer. It may be possible to develop all the faculties equally, but not maximally. Here the relentless law of compensation interposes an emphatic veto. But suppose "harmoniously" to mean "equally" — what, then, shall we say of this aim ? Common sense suppHes the answer. You may find the legitimate prod- uct of such a view of education in every crossroads village. He is known as the jack-of-all-trades, and the veriest schoolboy will tell you that he is good at none. In art and literature, he is the dilettante; in business, he is the "general utiHty man"; in professional life, he is the pettifogger. You will find him everywhere — the man who can turn his hand to anything, and do nothing well. Society needs some of these men, but society does not need a system of education that is de- signed to turn them out in quantity. The office will never be vacant, whatever system of education prevails. The harmonious development aim works some very curious results when put into practice. Here is a capacity, it says; Nature has provided it, hence it is our duty to develop it The fallacy of this syllogism is -that of non sequitur. Because the capacity is there is not a sufficient reason for its development. Every individual has a number of muscles and sets of muscles which may be developed. Acting upon this argument, every 52 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS bit of muscular tissue has its duty to perform, and should not be allowed to atrophy through disuse. This point of view neglects to take account of a very simple fact, — the fact, namely, that conditions of life are vastiy different to-day from what they were when our bodies took their present form. Just as there are in mind certain tendencies that had a vital con- nection with primitive conditions of survival, — the tendency to do bodily harm to our enemies, to appropriate objects that give us satisfaction, regardless of the rights of others, — and just as in civilized life we not only let these tendencies atrophy, but help on the process as strenuously as possible ; so there are in the muscular system certain sets of fibers that had a signifi- cance at one time, but the original fiinction of which has long since disappeared. And if one is pressed for an example, it is easy to eke the rudimentary muscles that once wagged the ears of our remote ancestors. It were scarcely necessary to empha- size this point were not the contemporary philosophy of physi- cal education so utterly naive. The harmonious development aim has taken another erratic turn in giving undue prominence to "sense training," espe- cially as applied to the lower senses, which are not at all acute in man. The rudiments, however, exist ; ergo, they should be developed. Now the sense of smell has atrophied in man for a very good reason, — a fact for which one who lives under modem conditions should, in all conscience, be duly gratefiil. Olfactory acuteness was undoubtedly highly important at one period of race-development. Its function has, however, been almost entirely replaced by other factors, — by acuteness of vision and hearing in some measure, but more than this by the fact that intellectual acuteness is far more efficient than mere sensory acuteness. Intellectual acuteness, however, involves concentrated and sustained attention. Anything that interferes with such attention will interfere with intellectual efiiciency. Like all the lower sensations, the sensations of smell have very marked affective qualities ; they are either very pleasant or very THE ETHICAL END OF EDUCATION 53 unpleasant ; hence, they distract attention, — or, to speak more accurately, they compel attention to themselves. In the psy- chological laboratories, indeed, odors are looked upon as the very best distracting stimuli. It can be easily seen that, as sustained attention became more and more important in the struggle for existence, those senses that furnished distracting stimuli would be somewhat at a discount. Consequently the forms that possessed such senses would tend to be eliminated, and natural selection would gradually work toward a general atrophy of the lower senses, provided that they did not con- tribute definitely to the survival of the animal. Thus organic sensation, while even more highly colored with affection than the sense of smell, persisted because its function could not be taken up by anything else. Smell, however, was not in this class. Its functions could easily be taken over by intelli- gence, and consequently its utihty was practically at an end. The rudiments still persist, and can be developed, although in no degree approaching their former acuteness. It is plain, however, that'to spend time and energy in such development is simply to replace, as far as possible, a capacity that nature has done her best to eliminate. We must also refer at this point to another vagary of the harmonious development enthusiast, — that, namely, which has reference to developing the " powers of observation,'' — meaning, as nearly as one can make out, the capacity to take notice of little things, and especially of external objects of which we obtain knowledge through the sense of sight. With- out raising the question whether there is such a thing as a " general power of observation," we may admit that the capacity to note minutiae in the visual environment may be improved through training. But even then, as we shall see later, this would probably be limited to specific features of the environment. The botanist would take note of minute de- tails in plants, the geologist would note differences in earth sculpture and rock formation, the artist variations in color, etc. 54 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS Each of these capacities would doubtless be valuable to the person in question, and he would develop his special capacity in the course of his special training. For the average man, however, the habit of taking note of every little detail of his environment, even if it could be developed, would doubtless prove more of a curse than a blessing. Through long ages of selection, man has gradually acquired the capacity to concen- trate — to neglect irrelevant stimuh and to sustain his atten- tion over a consecutive line of thought. When Nature has done her best to eliminate the tendencies to distraction, why should we go out of our way to multiply them ? And here, again, one might certainly accuse us of setting up a man of straw, were not contemporary educational theory so distress- ingly short-sighted. These cases may serve to illustrate how the harmonious development aim may work out in practice. That they are extreme cases is undoubtedly true, and yet they tjrpify the mental myopia that characterizes so much of our educa- tional philosophy. We seize upon high-sounding phrases with- out stopping to inquire. What does all this mean ? And, if the matter ended here, the conditions would not be so discourag- ing. But the matter does not end here. For not only do we theorize blindly, but we apply our theories ruthlessly to our practice, tearing away the foundations that have stood the test of time, and replacing them with flimsy framework fash- ioned from unseasoned timbers. And when, through the operation of forces that we might have foreseen and calcu- lated, our timbers shrink and warp and rot, we tear them out — only to replace them with others of their kind. The harmonious development aim, as proposed in different forms by various educators, is thus seen to be deficient in two essentials: definiteness and perspective. The term "harmonious" is strictly relative; upon its THE ETHICAL END OF EDUCATION 55 further definition one's judgment of the aim must surely depend. It is not ultimate; the question, "Harmo- nious with what?" is still left open. We must have a still more remote criterion for the selection of expe- riences which are to modify adjustment. There must be a broader principle upon which our efforts are to be "harmonized." 9. (e) The Development of Moral Character. This aim of education stands upon a different basis from that just considered. It is certainly more definite to speak of the development of moral character than to speak of the harmonious development of an individual's capacities. Here, then, we have a possible ultimate principle : if the capacities of the individual are to be developed in harmony with a recognized standard of morality, then we at least have something tangible upon which to build. Having this standard definitely in mind, we can select the experiences that will most effectively accomphsh our purpose. The difficulty Hes in the fact that not all men agree as to what constitutes moral- ity. Morality is a name; a definite meaning must be attached to the word before we can accept it as an ultimate principle. Of those whose names are prominent in the philoso- phy of education, Aristotle and Herbart have, perhaps, most consistently argued for moral development as the end of education. Aristotle ^ finds in man two tenden- * AiistoUe : Nicomachtan Ethics, ii, 5 £f. $6 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS cies: the one passionate and brutal, the other intel- lectual and human. The latter, he maintains, is the basis of morality and to develop it is the work of edu- cation. Thus morality, gained in part through educa- tion, is the conquest of brute passions, animal impulses, by what we may designate as inteUigence. In the natural man, pleasures of the senses are the motives for conduct ; in the moral man, pleasures of the intellect. The moral life becomes, then, a "golden mean" in which the mate- rial is governed by, but not sacrificed to, the ideal. Herbart ^ looks upon education and moraHty in a similar light. "The true and whole work of education," he says, "may be summed up in the concept — morality." The most important characteristic of Herbart's concep- tion of morahty is the "good will." This he explains in the following words: "The good will is the steady reso- lution of a man to consider himself as an individual under the law which is universally binding. ... If we think of the power, and resistance as well, with which a human being maintains this good will erect in himself against those movements of the emotions and desires working in opposition to it, then moraUty . . . becomes to us the virtue, povjer, action, and efficacy of the will so determined." Or, to put this clumsy and obscure proposition in another way, morality consists in the dominance of the lower and more primitive impulses ' J. F. Herbart : /Esthetic Revelation of the Worlii, in Science of EdtKce Hon, trans. Felkin, Boston, 1893, p. 57. THE ETHICAL END OF EDUCATION 57 (' movements of the emotions and desires") by higher ideas; a point of view, it will be seen, quite similar to that of Aristotle. This bold statement of the dependence of morality upon experience is Herbart's lasting contribution to the theory of education. It is only another way of saying that the child is not bom a moral being, but attains to morality only after a long and tedious process of train- ing — a process that is justly termed education. The Herbartian school of pedagogy has consistently built upon this principle, and it is hardly too much to say that the unquestioned success of this educational movement is most largely due to a clear conception of the funda- mental truth here expressed. Whatever differences of opinion may appear in the theories proposed by the sev- eral followers of Herbart, there is unanimity of opinion upon the aim: moral character must be developed, and moral character can be developed only by a process of education. To this end all means are subordinate. Although Herbart died more than sixty years ago, and although, like all other sciences, the science of ethics has been almost revolutionized by the doctrine of evo- lution, Herbart's conception of morality is, at basis, the prevailing conception to-day. What we commonly term moral action is the control of impulses that we have inherited from a long Une of brute and savage ancestry. When we are hungry, the natural impulse would be to appropriate whatever article of food we chanced to see. 58 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS But if an impulse to take food belonging to another should enter consciousness, it would probably be inhibited by the idea that the food is not ours, that we have no right to it. Such is the type of moral action. As a matter of fact, we seldom practice this inhibition, because the tendency to respect the rights of others is so thoroughly ingrained upon our nervous systems that the primitive impulse seldom makes itself felt. Nevertheless, it has been edu- cation of one kind or another that has impressed this tendency to respect the rights of others. The "natural man" would not think for a moment of doing so. He would never have assimilated experiences that would lead him to modify impulse in this way. The distinction be- tween Ohver Twist's education at the hands of Fagin and the education that the pubhc school attempts to give, is a moral distinction. Both have equal rights to the term " education," for in both cases experiences are fixed for the definite purpose of modifying future action. But in Fagin's case the experiences were to modify action with reference to immoral ends, while the contrary is true with the education of the pubUc school. We generally understand that when we select experiences for educa- tional purposes, we have definitely in mind a measurable addition to the child's capital of character; and moral character is nothing more nor less that an habitual and ideal bias toward moral action. lo. (/) The Development of the Socially Efficient In- dividual as the Ultimate End oj Education. The point THE ETHICAL END OF EDUCATION 59 that Herbart and his followers have failed to emphasize is the social essence of morahty. It is true that the social criterion is implicit in the Herbartian ethics, as, indeed, the same criterion is implicit in practically all ethical theories. There is an advantage, however, in using the term "socially efficient" in place of the term "moral." In the first place, it is more definite ; in the second place, it emphasizes the social factor, and, inasmuch as the school is supported by society presumably for society's benefit, it is only right that this factor should find a defi- nite expression in the aim of the school. The equivalence of the terms " social " and " moral " has been stated rather dogmatically, and demands further explana- tion. It is clear that the inborn or brute tendencies which exist in man until he is educated away from them are, in reality, legitimate products of heredity. Yet they are in their essence purely individual, and make for the satisfaction of indi- vidual desires. They are opposed to everything that is social and altruistic. But the conquest of these tendencies is uni- versally agreed to be a process of moral development ; while, from its very nature, it is also a process of social development. The keynote of morality is self-denial ; yet the very term " self- denial" implies the denial of self to others — the true essence of the social spirit. The doctrine of evolution has revolutionized ethics, inas- much as it has revealed the equivalence of the; terms " social " and " moral." And in rationalizing ethics it has pointed out that self-denial, unchecked by the social criterion, may become as immoral as self-indulgence. It recognizes to the finest de- gree the delicate balance between the individual and society, in the neglect of which courage becomes foolhardiness, tem- 60 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS perance passes over into asceticism, enthusiasm engendeis fanaticism, and virtue degenerates into vice. Morality means the control of impulse with reference to a social end ; but this control assuredly defeats its own purpose when it completely annihilates impulse. Absolute self-sacrifice is the greatest of virtues only when it can be distinctly proved that the termina- tion of the individual life will do more to promote social wel- fare than a continuation of the same life would accomplish. The world has recognized this fact for ages. One man sacrifices his life in order to crush tjrranny, and the world honors him as a martyr; another meets the same fate for the same reason, and the world anathematizes him as an assas- sin. Judged by subjective standards, each man's act merits the same reward. But the world does not judge acts by the subjective standards of the agent. It has an eye to its own wel- fare, and it dubs this man a hero and that man a rascal accord- ing as the deeds of each are consistent or inconsistent with this welfare. This view may be distasteflil, but it is relentlessly logical. We may rebel against the apotheosis of society and the consequent sacrifice of the individual, but all the facts of nature range themselves against us. "It is a condition and not a theory that confronts us." Social efl&ciency, then, is the standard by which the forces of education must select the experiences that are to be impressed, upon the individual. Every subject of instruction, every item of knowledge, every form of reac- tion, every detail of habit, must be measured by this yardstick. Not What pleasure will this bring to the individual, not In what manner wiU this contribute to his harmonious development, not What effect will this have upon his bread-winning capacity, — but always. Will this subject, or this knowledge, or this reaction, or THE ETHICAL END OF EDUCATION 6l this habit so function in his after-life that society will maximally profit? II. The present chapter thus far has been largely a statement of opinion — largely speculative. The ques- tion of the aim of education is an ethical question, and, like all ethical questions, it seeks, not to establish facts, but to set up norms and standards. It impHes a broad outlook, based upon a multitude of facts and theories; and the pressing problem is to hit upon a norm or stand- ard that will be consistent with these facts and theories. We have still to continue for a brief space this general method of procedure. Social efi&ciency has been pro- posed as the ultimate aim of education. It now remains to state as clearly and explicitly as possible just what social efficiency means. This, too, will be largely in the nature of individual opinion. We cannot always wait for problems to be solved by the exact methods of sci- ence. If we could there would be much less theoriz- ing in the world; but it goes without saying that exist- ing conditions frequently forbid such delay. What we need in education is something definite to tie to. If this something be accurate and exact, so much the bet- ter; if it cannot be accurate and exact, let it approach this ideal as closely as possible, but in any case let it be definite. If we have a definite notion of what we are trying to accomplish, and if we reaHze that this notion is subject at all times to the changes that later discoveries may necessitate, we shall at least have a chance to make 62 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS some degree of progress and yet escape the danger that is incident to hasty generalization. (i) That person only is socially efficient who is not a drag upon society; who, in other words, can "puU his own weight," either directly as a productive agent or indirectly by guiding, inspiring, or educating others to productive effort. This requires of a socially efficient individual that he be able to earn his livelihood, either in a productive employment or in an employment where his energy will be ultimately if not directly turned into a productive channel. For example, the farmer, the miner, the fisherman, are all engaged in producing, in turning the products of nature to the needs of man ; likewise the manufacturer who continues this process of conversion, the carrier who transports the products to those that need them, the tradesman who turns them over to the consumer. Indi- rectly, the housewife or the boarding-house keeper who main- tains those that are engaged in productive labor is performing a necessary fiinction in the productive process. Not less, though more indirectly, are the physician who keeps men at a maxi- mal degree of productivity ; the clergyman who does his best to free their lives from tendencies that would interfere with maximal productivity ; the teacher who renders the productive capacity more efficient by rendering the producer more intelli- gent ; the lawyer, the jurist, and the statesman who adjudicate conflicting claims and keep men fi-om wasteful disputes. And, finally, there are those whose business it is to amuse and enter- tain, and who, by relieving the mind of its tension for a while, enable the producer to go back to his work with new energy, new courage, and new hope. Nor is this merely an academic analysis of society. It is confirmed upon every side by the activities of social life. THE ETHICAL END OF EDUCATION 63 Every boy who sets out to secure employment realizes the significance of this process before he has applied at a half- score of places. He finds that it is the man who can fit into one or another of these niches that is in demand ; and he is in demand because, in one way or another, he adds something to the world's prosperity. Incidentally the world repays hirn in kind. The man who does not " pull his weight," either directly by manipulating an oar, or indirectly by steering the boat, direct- ing the oarsmen to concerted effort, quelling the strife that interferes with effort, caring for them when they break down, keeping their minds in a healthy condition, inventing devices for making their work more efficient and less wasteful, showing them how to apply the experiences of their predecessors to the end of better service, amusing, encouraging, comforting, inspir- ing them to greater effort — such a man steals his ride, and it is such a man that we term socially inefficient. Sometimes he is thrown overboard, but the world has gradually grown away from this remedy because it has discovered that the process really does more harm than good, tending in the long run so to brutalize the workers as to interfere materially with their highest efficiency. (2) That man only is socially efficient who, in addition to "pulling his own weight," interferes as little as possi- ble with the efforts of others. This requires of a socially efficient individual that he be moral in at least a negative fashion; that he respect the rights of others, sacrificing his own pleasure when this inter- feres with the productive efforts of his fellows. (3) That man is socially most efficient who not only ful- fills these two requirements, but also lends his energy 64 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS consciously and persistently to that further differentiation and integration of social forces which is everywhere synonymous with progress. This demands of a socially efficient individual that he be positively moral; that he not only refrain from injuring his fellow-workers, but that he contribute something to their further advancement; that he repay to the world not only the cost of his existence, but as much more as his strength and his life span will permit ; that he sacrifice his own pleasure, not only when its gratification interferes with the rights of others, but also when its gratification will not directly or indirectly lead to social advancement. f 12. "True education, always personal, will develop the social consciousness and promote genuine social cul- ture." ^ This is the standard by which it must select the experiences that are to modify future adjustment. It is obvious that this aim includes the "bread-and- butter" aim, without at the same time involving its per- nicious subjective tendencies. No man would be socially efficient who was unable to earn a livelihood. In gen- eral, the better the "living" that he procures, the higher the degree of his efficiency. This aim also includes the "knowledge" aim. It recognizes the possible value of every item of knowledge to social welfare; but it does not abstract knowledge from the rest of life or main- tain that it is or ever can be a sufficient end in itself. It includes the "harmonious development" aim, for it 1 J. H. W. Stuckenberg: Sociology, New York, 1903, vol. u, p. 272. THE ETHICAL END OF EDUCATION 65 sets up a criterion with which development shall har- monize: those capacities of the individual aire to be developed that will best subserve his social needs. And finally it includes the "moral" aim, because, generally speaking, the moral standard is the social standard. It includes the " culture " aim only in so far as conventional requirements are positive factors in social progress. The standard of social efficiency must be rigorously appHed to the products of the school. The school must fit the individual, not for the life of the past, nor for a remote Utopian future, but for the immediate future, the requirements of which can be predicted with reason- able certainty. If it fails to do this, the school cannot justify its existence.^ 1 The aim of social efficiency is implicit in all recent educational writ- ings. Cf. O'Shea, op. cit, p. 95, "Education, then, . . . must seek to develop social action ; it can take no account of possible thought or feel- ing which exercises no influence upon one's behavior toward his associates in the business of life." See also J. Dewey: The School and Society, Chicago, 1899; S.T. Button: Social Phases o/Ecltication,'N.\.,i^g. PART II. THE ACQUISITION OF EXPERIENCE CHAPTER IV Tede Reading of Meaning into Sense Impressions; Apperception I. Mind is info rmed of the condition of the various parts of the body and of the happenings in the external world by means of sensations. Each of the sense organs is a nerve structure especially adapted to pick up a certain type of information. The eye responds to light impres- sions, the ear to sound impressions, the temperature spots to impressions of warmth or cold, the nerve endings in the tendons to variations in strain, and so on. It is .necessary that the movements and hfe of an organism should be governed in accordance with bodily needs and with the condition of the external world, and sensa- tion is the channel through which are reported the changes and happenings upon which adjustment must depend. Adjustment, therefore, is the end toward which sen- sation is the means. If the body could not be adjusted in accordance with the reports furnished by the sense organs, mind or consciousness would be of no value to the organism; it would be "a luxury without a purpose." 66 APPERCEPTION 67 2. But this does not mean that the purposeful char- acter of sensation is obvious from the outset. When the infant first begins to receive impressions from the outer world, these impressions are quite devoid of the sig- nificance that an adult would attach to them. The vari- ous sensations which the adult would combine and interpret as "nurse" or "mother" are, at first, entirely without meaning to the infant. Indeed, it is probable that they are not joined together in a unitary impres- sion, remaining simply a continuous complex of conscious changes which constitute, in Professor James's happy phrase, "a big, blooming, buzzing Confusion." Gradu- ally, however, these chaotic impressions come to be asso- ciated with the feeding process, with the satisfaction of hunger ; and slowly — very slowly — the vague, undif- ferentiated mass of sensation and feehng is resolved into a number of meaningful units — into objects and pro- cesses that have a definite reference to the pleasure or pain of the infant's existence. This process of unifying and making "meaningful" the data furnished by sensa- tion is known as apperception. 3. The fundamental law of apperception is this: the unifying of sensations into concrete experiences is accomplished through the adjustments to which the sen- sations themselves give rise. This statement appears to be paradoxical. One might, indeed, infer at first sight that the cart has been placed before the horse; and so in truth the cart is placed before the horse in 68 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS the development of experience. The use to which sen sations are put determines their significance to the organ- ism — determines, in other words, their meaning. A stimulus is presented to an infant and reaction follows. The stimulus becomes a sensation; that is, the infant is "conscious" of it in a vague, incoherent fashion. A reaction foUows upon the stimulus, but the initiation 0} the reaction is unconscious ; that is, it foUows instinc- tively or refiexly upon the stimulus and woixld have taken place even though the stimulus had not entered consciousness as sensation. But this instinctive reac- tion is also reported to consciousness through the agency of the strain sensations arising in the tendons ; the mus- cular adjustments to which the stimulus gave rise are made data of the child's consciousness and become fused with the original sensations which the stimulus aroused. Repetitions follow, and this association between the sen- sation occasioned by the stimulus and the sensations occa- sioned by the instinctive adjustment to the stimulus becomes firmly fixed. Gradually the stimulus loses its vague and incoherent character. It comes to "mean" a definite sort of response, the satisfaction of a definite need. This may be stated more concretely. Consider,^ for example, the sucking reflex caused by the stimulus of the nipple upon the child's lips. This reflex may be initiated and probably is initiated in the first days of the infant's life without an accompanying sensation; APPERCEPTION 69 in Other words, the entire process is just as mechanical as the adjustment that carries the moth to the flame. But there comes a time when the stimulus of the nipple on the lips reaches the conscious threshold. A fraction of a second later the. sensation thus aroused is fused with the strain sensations coming from the adjustments of sucking. The two together form a unitary impres- sion closely correlated with the satisfaction of hunger. The sucking reflex is purposive in its character, but the infant makes a great many movements which are not purposive but rather spontaneous and random, and which are caused by an overflow of energy, as it were, from the motor centers.^ Suppose that a series of these random movements is going on and at the same time some object stimulates the sense organs of sight, giving the infant a complex of visual sensations. In one of the random movements he may grasp the object that caused the sensations. Immediately his knowl- edge of the object is amplified. His visual sensations are supplemented by a large number of pressure and strain sensations incident to the movement and the grasping. His perception, which before was vague and meaningless, becomes more sharply defined, more accurate, more adequate. But this does not tell the whole story. If conscious- 1 Cf. Baldwin's theory of "excess discharge," Mental Development: Methods and Processes, New York, 1895, pp. 179 ff.; also Development and Evolution, pp. 108 ff. 70 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS ness merely took cognizance of stimuli and of the reac- tions that heredity has provided for such stimuli, it would fail to serve a useful purpose. Consciousness, however, has a vital function. In the instance of the sucking reflex mentioned above, it is apparent that the entire process represented by the stimulus on the one hand and the reaction on the other would be colored by a pleasant affection. This pleasant coloring would reenforce or confirm the inherited adjustment. But the grasping of the object in the second instance may, on the contrary, have resulted unpleasantly. In this case, the next time that it presented itself, the tendency would be to withdraw from it rather than to grasp it. Thus the first effect of experience upon adjustment is, as Mr. Hobhouse^ points out, either to confirm or inhibit an inherited reaction. So much for the very earliest form of interpreting the data of sensation. If this account be correct; it would seem that the most primitive of mental functions has its basis in the inherited structure of the nervous system — in the inherited tendencies to reaction that operate in the beginning entirely apart from conscious control. The threads that are necessary to combine the data of sensation into meaningful units — into unified perceptions — are furnished by the sensations of strain arising from this reaction. Thus the cart is placed before the horse because nature has provided instinctive adjust- 1 L. T. Hobhouse : Mind in Evolution, London, 1901, pp. 85 ff. APPERCEPTION ^t ments that shall serve the purposes of the organism until consciousness is ready to take the reins of conduct into its own hands; and, to continue the figure, instinct must needs give the budding mind a few lessons in the control of adjustment before it relinquishes its authority and becomes the servant instead of the master. 4. The sensations of strain continue throughout life to play the role of centralizing or unifying agencies. It is they that weave the thread of continuity through the disparate elements of our experience and resolve the numberless data with which the senses furnish us into definite, coherent, and meaningful unities. To consider a concrete case: Analysis of my present consciousness reveals a complex of visual sensations — light and shade and color — which unite to give me the perception of a certain form. I can also find in my present conscious- ness a sensation of warmth, the sound of a shght buzzing, a vague, reproduced idea of touching a hard, smooth substance, a revived idea of weight. These are the elementary processes that are just now informing me of an object in my environment. But I have to analyze my consciousness carefully to get these elements out of it, so thoroughly are they woven together in the total perception of the object itself. If I were not trying to "psychologize," t should find no difficlilty and little interest in the object before me. I should know it as a lamp. That is, I should know it, not as a complex of sensations, some visual, some thermal, some cutane- 72 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS ous, some kinassthetic ; but I should know it as an ob ject that furnishes me with light. I should "apper- ceive " it with reference to the use to which I put it — with reference to its relation to my life. It might be urged, however, that this attempt to analyze my consciousness of the lamp really does violence to the facts in the case. It is true that I am conscious of the lamp as a unified object and that I am not conscious of the component sensations as such. But what would be the condition of affairs with the infant who sees a lamp for the first time? Would the sensations that the object arouses in him have any reference to his life? What reason would he have for separating it from the rest of the environment — from the table, the books, the papers, and other objects into which we, as adults, read significance and meaning and unity? Or con- sider the case of the savage who knows nothing of lamps. Would not the bare sensations to which the object gives rise be meaningless to him ? — not, perhaps, in the degree in which they are meaningless to the child, for he would try to make something significant out of them, but mean- ingless when compared with our own interpretation of them? It seems clear, then, that the analysis given above, while it does violence to the adult conception of things, really lays bare the elements that would be operative in the mind of the infant or the savage. That is, it discloses the original meaningless "stuff" out of which APPERCEPTION 73 experience gradually elaborates a meaningful world. The synthesis of chaotic elements into meaningful units is made possible by the fact that certain of these elements stand in a definite relation to some need of the organism. This need is represented by a pleasant or unpleasant affective coloring, and the relation of sense impressions to this need is made manifest to mind by the data of bodily adjustment reported through the agency of strain sensa- tions. In adult life, as in the first mental functionings of infancy, the strain sensations form the threads that weave together the otherwise disconnected strands of consciousness. The factor of use is the constant factor in all our experiences with objects and processes of the outer world. Chairs, for example, may differ in every imaginable quality, — in shape, in size, in color, in mate- rial. But there is one thing that is constant in our expe- riences with the objects to which we give the name "chair," and that is use or function. While qualita- tive differences are represented in mind by the sensations of sight, hearing, pressure, taste, smell, etc., use or func- tion is represented by the sensations of strain that origi- nate in bodily adjustment. The importance of the sensations of strain in reading unity and meaning into sense impressions has only recently been recognized. That they play a prominent r&le in the process of attention (essentially a unifying or centralizing process) was clearly shown by Ribot* some years ago, but this represents 1 Th. Ribot: Psychology of Attention, English trans., Chicago, 1889. 74 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS only one phase of their manifold duties. Baldwin * points out that the motor processes are extremely important in recogni- tion and assimilation : " The sense of assimilation in each suc- cessive appearance of the same objective content varies with the different motor shades of attention, just as it also varies for the diiferent sense qualities by reason of the different motor associations, strains, etc., involved in accommodating to the different sense qualities." And again, " Every two elements whatever, connected together in consciousness, are so only because they have motor effects in common." Stout ^ also calls attention in no uncertain terrfls to the fundamental significance of the kinaesthetic elements : " Perceptual process is penetrated through and through by experiences of movement. Passive sensations only serve to guide and define motor activities." Still more definite and tangible is the position recently taken by Professor King:^ " The differentiation of the special forms of sense experience from the primary general consciousness takes place as a function of the child's increasing demands for fuller activity. The connections are made possible on the sensory side because they have first occurred, or been made necessary, on the active side. The infant repeatedly finds the same com- plexes of sensations connected with a certain set of activities. The activity is a unit, and the group of eye, ear, and tactual sensations become inextricably bound up with the act, and per- haps come to be symbolic of it ; the reinstatement of one of the sensations serving to call up the images of the others as it sets up the activity for which it stands. The unity in the reference of the sensations comes in on the side of the act. Later, when the object is known as an object, the sensations are easily trans- ferred to it, or, rather, the object seen is recognized as the one 1 J. M. Baldwin: Mental Development, New York, 1895, pp. 310 ff. * G. T. Stout: Analytic Psychology, London, 1896, vol. i, pp. 212-223; Manual of Psychology, New York, 1899, pp. 64, 464-467. 8 Irving King: Psychology of Child Development, Chicago, 1903, pp 36-37- APPERCEPTION 75 touched or seen, because it has been the basis of a previous single activity." And again (p. 37) : " If it were not for the connecting activity, there would be absolutely no ground on which the senses could be brought together in their reference and thus become more than mere undefined modifications of the general tonus of consciousness. ... It is only as something is done with the object, and the various senses cooperate in the doing, that then: unity of reference appears. , . . The child's first objects are really certain possible activities that are symbolized by cer- tain sensations involved in performing the acts." 5. That the strain sensations really fulfill the impor- tant function of weaving together the conscious elements is thus seen to be supported by the testimony of con- temporary investigators. It may not be amiss, however, to detail some of the direct evidence that lends support to this contention. This evidence may be classified under three heads: (a) pathological, (b) anatomical, and (c) genetic.^ (a) Pathobgical. Baldwin^ has called attention to the mental disturbance known as apraxia as throwing light upon this problem. Patients who are afflicted with this disease fail to read meaning or significance into certain of the sensations that come to them from the outer world. They lack the capacity to grasp the significance which the normal mind at- taches to objects of common use. This does not imply that there is a disturbance in the functioning of the sense organs, or 1 It would take us too far afield to note the long series of investigations through which the strain sensations came to be recognized as integral (and integrating) elements of consciousness. For this historical data the reader is referred to W. A. Lay: Experimentelle Didakiik, Wiesbaden, 1903. PP- 10 ff- ^ J. M. Baldwin: Mental Development, p. 311. y6 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS of the nerves that carry the impressions to the cortex, or of the nerves that innervate the muscles. The trouble is " central " ; it Hes in the cortex itself. Nor is it in the centers that receive the impressions, nor yet in the centers that send the im- pressions outward. It is rather in the centers in which the incoming impressions are associated with other impressions and with the residua that past experiences have left in the form of modifications of nerve structure. As far as his use of the object is concerned, the patient afflicted with this disease approximates the condition of the infant. He sees the object or touches it, just as the infant may, but the past experiences that should enable him to read into it its normal meaning have in some way become disso- ciated from the impressions of sight and touch. Such a patient may use chairs or books for firewood, confuse the use of such articles as washbowls and drinking cups (drinking out of the one and attempting to wash in the other), and in similar ways show that he has no appreciation of the use to which different objects are normally put.^ From a study of apraxia it seems clear that meaning and use are intimately connected with one another, and that loss of meaning carries with it loss of use and vice versa. Use, however, must be represented in consciousness by some form of sensation, and the kinaesthetic or motor elements involved in sensations of strain seem to be the natural agencies for fulfiUiiig this function. {b) Anatomical, (i) The ground plan of the nervous sys- tem — the arrangement of sensory systems, association systems, and motor systems ^ — may be looked upon as substantial evi- dence that mind exists for the purpose of adjusting the organism to its environment consistently with reports informing of this environment. In harmony with this general arrangement, we 1 Cf. J. Collins : The Faculty of Speech : A Study of Aphasia, New York, 1898, pp. 293 f. ^ L. F. Barker: The Nervous System, New York, 1 899, ch. xxvL APPERCEPTION "J^ must conclude that the ultimate standard or test of all nervous action is adjustment. It must be in terms of adjusted response that the intermediate sensory and intellectual processes acquire meaning and significance. (2) Increase in intelligence in the animal series is correlated with increase in delicacy and nicety of motor coordination. On the anatomical side, this delicacy of coordination is repre- sented by an increase in the diameter of the pyramidal tracts — large bundles of fibers that carry the motor impulses from the cerebral cortex to centers in the ventral and lateral portions of the spinal cord, whence their impressions are distributed along the motor nerves to the muscles. The greater the number of fibers, the more complete is the control that the higher centers exercise over the bodily movements, and the more accurate are the coordinations and adjustments with which the organism can meet definite situations of the environment. As one would naturally expect, the diameter of the pyramidal tracts is found to be relatively much greater in man than in the lower animals. (3) There are recognized in the cerebral cortex several distinct areas that are concerned with the registry of different sensations. Pressure, temperature, organic, and kinesthetic (motor) sensations are located in the great central region, for- merly called the " motor " zone, but now generally recognized as containing sensory as well as motor centers, and known as the " somaesthetic " area. The visual sensations are registered in the occipital lobes, the auditory sensations in the temporal lobes, the smell sensations in the region of the hippocampal gyre, etc. All together, however, these various sense areas oc- cupy only about one third of the surface of the cerebral hemi- spheres. For many years, physiologists were puzzled as to what function they should ascribe to the remaining areas of the cortex. The great region of the frontal lobes, the area between the parietal and occipital lobes, the ventral portions of the temporal lobes, and the Island of Reil, which together occupy two thirds of the cortical surface, must have some function. So uncer- 78 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS tain were the data concerning these regions, that they came to be known as the "silent areas" of the cortex. To Professor Paul Flechsig of Leipzig must be given the credit for clearing up the mystery of these silent areas.' After years of study and investigation, he finally discovered a very significant fact; namely, that cells in the silent areas are pecul- iar in that they have no direct connection with the lower centers of the midbrain and the cord ; that is, they neither receive impressions from the outer world nor send " orders " directly to the muscles. They are, however, connected by fibers with the sense areas. For example, the cells in the ex- tensive region lying between the occipital, parietal, and tem- poral lobes receive fibers from the cells of the visual, auditory, and somaesthetic areas. The inference almost forces itself upon one that these intermediate areas function in connecting the different sense areas. In the parieto-occipital region, for example, visual, auditory, and somaesthetic impressions may be united to form meaningful complexes — perceptions and ideas — involving all these sense elements. If this position taken by Flechsig is valid, — and it is supported by a large mass of evidence from other sources, such as pathol- ogy and experimental physiology, — the confirmation that it lends to our hypothesis of the fundamental unifying fiinction of the motor or kinsesthetic elements is plainly apparent. The great somaesthetic area in which are registered the sensations of movement is situated centrally as regards the remaining sense areas. It is directly contiguous to all the great " associa- tion centers " of Flechsig, and it doubtless sends association fibers into all these areas and fiinctions thoroughly as a centra- lizing and unifying agency.'' 1 Wundt's earlier hypothesis, that the frontal lobes are concerned with apperception rather than sensation, was an important suggestion. 2 P. Flechsig : Ueber die Localisation der geistigen Vorgdnge, Leipzig 1896; Gehirn und Seele, Leipzig, 1896. APPERCEPTION 7g (/ qualities. Professor Earl Barnes^ gives some statistical results that serve to generaUze this conclusion with regard to children : — "The results, based on fifty examination papers from boys and fifty from girls of each age between six and fifteen years (in all two thousand children sent in returns) contained, as col- lated, 37,136 statements about the thirty-eight nouns, defini- tions of which had been requested. Here, again, it seems, the uses and activities of objects appeal to children before structure, form, color, etc. Of the definitions directly reporting use, the proportion for each of the years is as follows : 79.49 %, 62.9s %, 63.83 %, 57.07 %, 43.81 %, 43.69 %, 33.74 %, ■"37-75 %. 30-62 %, — or, for all ages, 45.58 %." 6. A clear conception of the fundamental r61e that the kinsesthetic elements play in the basal process of edu- cation — the acquisition of experience — is essential to an adequate construction of educational principles.^ As Lay 2 truthfully says, "Pedagogy and didactics have hitherto neglected the kinaesthetic sensations." In a later section it will be shown that primary educa- tion has recently come through a process of selection and rejection to hit upon the factor of use or function 1 Quoted by Chamberlain, p. 148. * W. A. Lay : ExperimenielU DidakHk, p. 10. APPERCEPTION 8 I as the corner stone of its philosophy. The emphasis of the industrial feature in the constructive work of the lower grades, the manual training and domestic science of the upper grades, and the agricultural instruction in the rural schools are evidence that the importance of the kinassthetic element is implicitly recognized by con- temporary pedagogy. One of the objects of the present discussion is to make this recognition explicit. 7. To summarize: The term "experience" implies that certain mental processes acquire significance to the life of the organism. The "raw materials" of expe- rience are the elementary processes of consciousness — sensation and affection. The making of these pro- cesses in their combinations significant — the reading of "meaning" into them — is technically termed " apperception." ^ Sensations that inform of the envi- 1 It is unfortunate that one must use a term that has fallen into some- thing so akin to disrepute as has the term " apperception." A few years ago Professor James severely criticised certain educational writers and pub- lishers for attempting to foist upon the rank and file of teachers a number of so-called works upon educational psychology, purporting to explain the hidden meaning of obscure technical terms. An understanding of these terms, it was intimated, would furnish an open sesame to successful teach- ing, and among them apperception was easily the most mysterious and bewildering. While Professor James was justified in exposing the shallow- ness of these works, one must certainly admit that he went rather farther than the facts seemed to warrant. That writers of indifferent psychological training should have placed the term " apperception " under a temporary shadow of distrust is assuredly not a sufficient ground for dismissing the concept as merely a " convenient name for a process to which every teacher must frequently refer," but which " psychology itself can easily dispense with." True, as James says, " it verily means nothing more than the act of taking a thing into the mind," And true it is that digestion means 82 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS ronment are interpreted, not according to their in- trinsic nature, but according to their reference to the needs of the organism. This last statement involves some important pedagogical corollaries whichr-^11 be discussed in the following chapter. nothing more than taking food material into the body. But just as no physiologist would think of dismissing digestion with so superficial a definition, so a psychologist should not try to conceal the fact that the process which this name covers, and which is so easily described as to its general function, is one that is most complex and baffling when an attempt is made to analyze it. (Cf. W. James : Ta/As to Teachers on Psychology, etc, New York, 1899, pp, 155-168,) ^ CHAPTER V The Needs of the Organism as determining Apperception: Degrees of Apperception and Apperceptive Systems I. Mind interprets impressions from the outer world, not according to their intrinsic nature, but according to their relation to the needs of the organism. These needs may be roughly grouped into two great classes: (a) primitive needs, correlated with the fundamental instincts or tendencies that man has inherited from his brute and savage ancestry; and (b) acquired needs, cor- related with those readjustments and modifications of primitive tendencies that have been made necessary by the changed conditions of human life, and particularly by the growth of social forces as opposed to individual forces. The primitive needs can be reduced to one or the other of two fundamental types of instinct: (a) self-pres- ervation, and (b) race perpetuation; or, more briefly, the food instinct and the sex instinct. When the former is predominant, sensations that inform of the environ- ment are interpreted — apperceived — with reference to self-preservation ; objects of the external world appeal 83 84 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS to one, as food, shelter, weapons, etc. When the lattev instinct is predominant, one interprets -objects of the outer world with reference to the sex impulse — as decoration, means of attraction, etc. With the advance of social organization, however, these primitive needs, represented ultimately by one or the other of these two fundamental instincfs, become more and more remote, more and more overlaid by intermediate processes. One no longer apperceives ob- jects with reference to their direct bearing upon self- preservation or race perpetuation. One no longer works for the immediate gratification of desire or appetite. These may be the ultimate driving forces, but they are frequently lost to view in the complication of the pro- cesses that intervene. 2. Degrees of Apperception. Apperceptive functions may, therefore, be classed into (i) those of low degree, and (2) those of high degree, according as one reads a primitive or complex meaning into sense impressions. For example : the apperception of a teacup as a missile to be hurled at a supposed enemy is an apperception of low degree; the apperception of the same group of im- pressions (through which we "know" the teacup) as an object to drink from is an apperception of a higher degree; while the apperception of a teacup as an object of beauty — a delicate piece of bric-a-brac — is an apperception of a still higher degree. In every case the externally aroused sensations that inform us of the DEGREES OF APPERCEPTION 8$ teacup are the same; but in every case we read a dif- ferent meaning into these sensations. The patient afHicted with apraxia may use a chaii as a club or as firewood. This means that his higher apperceptive functions have been cut away. He has been reduced to the plane of primitive needs. The normal intlividual uses a chair to sit in; he apperceives it with reference to this need, which is obviously of a later growth than the use of an object as a club or weapon. But the antiquarian may see the same chair entirely apart from its conventional use; he may apperceive it as a representative of some forgotten craftsmanship — some " lost art " of wood carving, perhaps. These' examples may serve to clear up the significance of the terms "primitive" and "acquired." The use of objects as utensils or as articles of furniture is not instinctive; it must be "learned." And it goes without saying that the apperception of an object entirely apart from its "utility" is a product not of heredity but of acquisition. 3. The reactions that form the important features in apperceptions of low degree involve the larger move- ments of the body. Hurling and striking are crude movements: the muscles that are brought into play are the more fundamental, the more deeply seated; the co- ordinations are few and comparatively coarse. Drink- ing from a cup, however, involves movements slightly more deUcate : it brings into play smaller and less fun- 86 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS damental muscles; the adjustments are more complex and require a greater nicety of coordination. Finally, when, for example, one admires a delicate, fragile piece of bric-a-brac, — a masterpiece of ceramic art, — the motor adjustments and coordinations are of the most refined character. To one whose smaller muscles have had no training, this appreciation is impossible. The keen delight of the enthusiast is conditioned by a highly organized nervous system. To the child, to the savage, to the boor, these refinements of art are meaningless. He cannot apperceive because the complex and highly organized system of associations and reactions that means apperception is lacking. Degrees of apperception do not seem to have been recog- nized by the Herbartian writers, who have made the most exhaustive analyses of the general process. Herbart^ himself ascribes the difference between the apperception of the child and that of the adult to a lack of experience upon the part of the former. He states the law : " Apperception is the less probable the more meager the experience of the individual. Children and uncultured men apperceive but little, because there is lacking in them a mass of apperceiving ideas." It is, however, a mistake to assume that children and uncul- tured men apperceive little. They may apperceive as much as the cultured adult, but they apperceive in a different way — on a lower level. They "see things" in the light of their own simple, primitive needs, not in the light of the acquired and highly complex needs of the adult. They read into sense impressions a primitive, uncultured meaning. 1 J. F. Herbart : Psychologie ah Wissensckaft, pt. ii, p. 197, in Har- tenstein's edition, Sammtliche Werkt, Leipzig, 1850, Bd. v. DEGREES OF APPERCEPTION 87 4. Apperceptive Systems. The mental disturbance known as apraxia has been cited to illustrate degrees of apperception. Another characteristic of the appercep- tive process is revealed in a related mental disturbance, sensory aphasia. This disease is similar to apraxia, except that the loss of meaning affects words rather than objects. When one loses the capacity to interpret spoken words, the affliction is termed "auditory aphasia" ; when the capacity to interpret written or printed words is disturbed, the affliction is known as "visual aphasia." The two forms together constitute sensory aphasia — a genus, as it were, of which the others are species. In either auditory or visual aphasia there need be no disturbance of hearing or vision as such. The patient hears the word, but it is simply a complex of meaning- less sounds; he sees the word, but it is merely a jumble of marks upon a white page. The significance that years of experience have put into these sensations has been cut away. But, at the same time, the meaning of auditory and visual impressions not connected with lan- guage is not necessarily lost. The patient may recognize objects of everyday use in a normal fashion; he may recognize sounds other than those connected with speech, and react appropriately to them. That sensory aphasia is reaUy a disturbance of apper- ception is clearly brought out by a case of the visual variety described by D^jerine.-' A merchant lost the 1 Cited by J. Collins : The Faculty of Speech, pp. 262 f. 88 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS ability to put meaning into printed or written words and sentences — the ability to read. At the same time, how- ever, he found no difficulty in recognizing letters that he used arbitrarily as price marks on his goods. That is, the very same sense contents — letters — were full of meaning to him in one phase of his life (selling goods), but utterly devoid of meaning in another phase (reading). Put in a more general way, this means that the same complex of sensations means different things to the same individual at different times. To-day I meet my students in their classes ; to-night I meet the same students at a social gathering. They are the same individuals, but my attitude toward them has changed. I quiz them in their classes in a manner that would stamp me as a bore if I did it at a social gathering. This morning I dissect calves' brains at the laboratory ; at noon I have calves' brains served up for lunch. The brains are similar, but my attitude toward them has changed. The physician meets a patient in his office. As a physician, he looks upon the patient in a pro- fessional light. He inquires into the workings of his heart, his lungs, his digestive tract. The patient is to him a bundle of tissues, and it is the physician's business to see that these tis- sues work together harmoniously. Two hours later the same physician meets the same patient socially. The professional attitude is no longer prominent. The patient is a friend to be amused with an anecdote, or he is a rival at biUiards, or he is, perhaps, a competitor for feminine preference. And yet, intrinsically speaking, the patient is no less a bundle of tissues than he was earlier in the day. He is the same patient, and the physician knows him through the same sense complexes, but the " meaning " that the patient has for the physician is quite different. DEGREES OF APPERCEPTION 89 The tendencies to reaction, therefore, — whether in- herited or acquired, — come to be systematized, grouped together, with reference to large functions of Ufe.^ One has different attitudes toward things, — a professional at- titude, a social attitude, a work attitude, a play attitude, etc. According as one has one or another of these atti- tudes, one- interprets sensations in this way or that. A group of systematized tendencies to reaction is termed an " apperceptive system." Each system represents an adjustment to a phase of the environment, which adjustment, is constant with us while we are in a certain mood. A system may therefore be of high or low degree, according as it refers to a primitive or a highly developed need of the individual. The apperceptive system that is operative when the physician sees in his patient only a bundle of tissues and that which is operative when he sees in the same patient a social equal are both systems of relatively high degree; but the system that operates when I look upon a calf's brain as an intricately complicated organ for controlling action is higher than that by which I apperceive a similar brain as an article of food. The tendency, of course, is for one to get into a "rut" with advancing years. This means that a single large apperceptive system comes to function practically to the exclusion of all others. I should indeed be fortunate if I could lose entirely my attitude as teacher when I meet my students socially. The physician would be equally \ Cf. G. F. Stout : Groundwork of Psychology, New York, 1903, pp. 7-9. 9© THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS fortunate if he could drop entirely his professional atti- tude when he meets his patients socially. The ability thus to change one's larger apperceptive systems as one changes one's coat varies with different individuals and at different ages. The child in his play adjustments represents, perhaps, the maximal plasticity of appercep- tive systems. "Let's play house. Let's pretend that this stone is a table!" Straightway the stone bepomes a table, only to be changed a half hour latgp into a stove, a store, a steamboat, or a wagon.^ To the adult the stone is now perhaps a representative of some geological stratum; again, it may be material for a good horse block; again, a sample of excellent building material. But the chances are that, according as the adult is a geol- ogist, a horseman, or an architect, one or another of these apperceptive systems will overshadow aU the others. The merchant cited by Dfejerine was undoubtedly more a merchant than a man of letters. The apperceptive system that represented his commercial activities was, comparatively speaking, fundamental in his Ufe. Con- sequently, when disintegration set in, it failed to affect that part of his experience. 5. Both heredity and experience have a share in deter- mining the structure of the larger apperceptive systems. 1 The larger systems of apperception are well illustrated by the different attitudes of children, which in turn are manifested by entirely distinct vocabularies. The boy has one set of words and constructions which he uses with his playmates and another set for the schoolroom. He never confuses the two. DEGREES OF APPERCEPTION 9I Every individual inherits certain peculiarities of nervous structure that manifest themselves in certain tendencies to reaction. One person is slow and deliberate, another quick and impetuous, another morose and brooding, another gay and cheerful. These "predispositions" to reaction obviously have an important influence upon the way in which one "looks at things." It is common to speak of the dyspeptic as viewing the world through blue spectacles. His dyspepsia may be due to inherited tendencies, but it may, just as certainly, be due to envi- ronmental forces. And so it is with all cases of tem- perament or mood. One cannot draw a line accurately between the influences of heredity and the influences of experience. But here, as elsewhere, it is safe to say that the latter is by far the more important factor. In either case some force has been at work to give the nervous structure a peculiar bent. This is what Professor Titchener ^ refers to when he defines apperception as a "perception whose character is determined wholly or chiefly by the peculiar tendencies of a nervous system rather than by the nature of the thing perceived." Needless to say, the great bulk of one's perceptions are determined in this way. This fact is impressed more forcibly when one remembers that the peculiar tendencies provided for by heredity are, dur- ing the process of growth, supplemented in far greater number by the pecuhar tendencies due to modifica- 1 E. B. Titchener: A Primer of Psychology, New York, 1899, p. 88. 92 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS tions of nerve structure through experience with tht environment. It is this condition that renders it so difficult to eliminate the "personal equation" from scientific observation. So com- pletely are our perceptions colored by the hues and tints of our peculiar apperceptive systems, that only by the most strenuous effort are we enabled to separate in any act of observation what we really see from what we " think " we see. . 6. Apperceptive systems of low degree are most pro- foundly influenced by inherited tendencies. Self-pres- ervation is the first law of nature. Race perpetuation might analogously be called the second law of nature. These fundamental instincts he at the basis of primitive apperceptions; but these primitive systems come, in course of time, to be overlaid with, and modified by, others of higher . degree. Experience is elaborated by the exigencies of a complex social environment. The relation of our surroundings to our individual existence is determined by social forms and usages that all but rob hfe of its primitive significance. Yet the "all but rob" is a saving clause. Directly or remotely, the manner in which mind interprets or apperceives new impressions is determined by the relation that these impressions bear to the existence and survival of the organism. It is a maxim of pedagogy that apperception functions most readily along the hnes of interest. Interest attaches most strongly to that which has a vital relation to one's well-being. But in a social environment, one's well- DEGREES OF APPERCEPTION gj being is determined by factors far different from those that operate in a purely "natural" environment. Civilization means an overlaying of selfish impulses with impulses of a social nature ; ^ in such a way, how- ever, that the former are not entirely eradicated, but rather chastened and subdued in the light of reason. And so the business of the school is to overlay the lower apperceptive systems with those of higher degree; but the school must never lose sight of the fact that the well-being of the individual always lies, directly or re- motely, at the basis of dominant motives. The well- being of the individual finds its subjective counterpart in pleasure. But there are pleasures of a high order and of a low order. The essence of civihzation is that remote and not immediate pleasures govern conduct; remote and not immediate ends determine action. And the capacity of man to govern his conduct by remote ends depends entirely upon a process 0} education. This proposition will be the thesis of the next chapter. ^ Mr. Hobhouse takes a different view of this matter. " The concep- tion of a primitive egoism on vfhich sociability is somehow overlaid is without foundation either in biology or in psychology. . . . For the im- pulses of sex and provision for the young, if not unselfish, at least do not tend to self-maintenance." {Mind in Evolution, London, 1901, pp. 339 f.) It is certainly true, as Mr. Hobhouse says, that the parental and sexual impulses make for the preservation of the race, but it is none the less true that subjectivfly the working out of these instincts satisfies an immediate and individual desire. The racial or altruistic implication is, after all, only an implication, as the same writer so clearly points out in a later chapter (ch. xvii), and the task of civilization, as he himself states it, is ta make this implied or unconscious altruism exphcit or conscious. 94 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS 7. Thus far the term "apperceptive system " has been used to cover a group of tendencies that determine the meaning or significance that is read into any given com- plex of sense impressions. The individual's "moods" and "attitudes" constitute "large" apperceptive systeras. These may be conditioned either by heredity or by envi- ronment, but the latter factor is by far the more impor- tant. In general, then, the majority of the apperceptive systems that operate in the normal individual may be looked upon as resultants of a vast number of experi- ences or, briefly, as condensed experiences^ The "large" apperceptive systeras that have been mentioned consti- tute only a specific class. Whenever one has a number of experiences that have been condensed and systema- tized, one has an apperceptive system^^ It may be large or small, according to the variety and scope of the experiences that it covers, but in either case it fulfills an important function in the economy of mental life, as will be shown in a later section. CHAPTER VI Attention, Interest, and Will in the Light of Apperception: the Doctrine of Work I. The following conclusions result from the devel- opment of the last two chapters: (i) In the beginning, experiences are assimilated with reference to the primi- tive needs of the organism, such, needs being represented by the instincts. (2) As development continues, the primitive needs come to be overshadowed by acquired needs; these are represented by outgrowths of instinct due to the modifying operation of experience ; thus expe- riences may be said to grow upon themselves — once grafted upon instincts, they assimilate one another. (3) With continued development, fairly constant systems of experience come to be organized to which new expe- riences are referred. (4) Assimilation with reference to a primitive instinct is an apperception of low degree; assimilation with reference to an acquired need is an apperception of higher degree — the higher, the more remote is the need from the primitive instinct. (5) The business of education is to replace the lower apper- ceptive systems with those of higher degree — to develop the higher needs and cater to them. The task of the 95 96 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS present chapter is to show that the higher needs can bfc developed only through a process of education. To this end it will first be necessary to examine the relations that exist between apperception and attention. 2. Attention is best described as a state of conscious- ness that presents a focus and a margin.^ One group of ideas or perceptions occupies the focus of conscious- ness for the time being as the thing "attended to"; the remaining components of consciousness are relatively vague and indistinct ideas or perceptions, grouped about the central or focal idea.^ In listening to an orchestral selection, for example, the per- ceptions of timbre, interval, rhythm, etc., occupy the focus of consciousness. Grouped about this focal complex are various other elements : visual data concerning the players and their instruments ; touch and kinaesthetic data concerning the posi- tion of the body, pressure of the clothing, and the like ; thermal data concerning the temperature of the room ; and all these mingled with ideas, the residua of past experiences, reawakened by the music, or by other of these data. 3. There are four important differences between the marginal and focal constituents of consciousness: (a) the focal idea or perception is the clearer; (b) it is the more enduring; (c) it is the more easily revived; and (d) it 1 Cf. O. Kiilpe : Outlines of Psychology, trans. Titchener, London, 1895, pp. 423 ff. ^ It is generally agreed by psychologists that but one datum of con- sciousness can occupy the focus of the conscious field at a given instant of time. For the results of a careful analysis of the literature upon this point, see J. P. Hylan, " The Distribution of Attention," in Psychological Review, 1903, vol. x, pp. 373-403. 498-534- THE DOCTRINE OF WORK 97 is the more associable. It follows from this that a con- scious process is valuable to an organism because of atten- tion to that process; for the fact that the process attended to is clear, enduring, revivable, and associable means that it will function more readily in later adjustments, and this is the characteristic that gives to conscious- ness its value in the hfe process. Therefore an answer to the question, "How does an idea or perception get into the focus of consciousness?" will form a very impor- tant part of the answer to the more general question, "How are experiences acquired?" The conditions of focaKzation are thoroughly discussed by text-books and treatises on psychology and need be only briefly referred to at this point.-' 4. (o) Passive Attention. There are certain impres- sions to which attention is involuntarily or spontaneously directed. One attends "naturally" to intense stimuli of all kinds, — to loud noises, bright lights, sharp pains, etc.; one attends naturally to movement; one attends naturally to contrasts. The tendency to focalize such stimuli is inborn or innate. It is to be classed among the inherited tendencies of the nervous system which were mentioned in a previous chapter. "In the order of 1 The classification of the forms of attention that follows is based upon that presented by Professor Titchener, in his Primer of Psychology, New York, 1899, ch. v. As will be seen in the sequel, it possesses certain ad- vantages over a twofold division. A fourfold division, based upon a similar principle, is presented by Mr. Stout. {^Groundwork of Psychology, ch. vi.) 98 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS nature," says Professor Brooks, "each stimulus is a sign with a significance." In the early history of mind, strong stimuli were danger signals, and the animal's survival was conditioned upon its ability to notice them and react appropriately to them. Hence the forms pos- sessing this capacity were "naturally selected" to sur- vive. To-day this capacity is not significant to survival in feo high a degree; yet it still persists, subdued and overlaid in the course of experience by other tendencies, but stiU cropping out at frequent intervals. The tendency to follow movement is typical of all forms of passive attention. Whenever a moving object stimulates the periphery of the retina, — that is, when one sees movement out in the margin of the visual field with the " tail of the eye," — the tendency is always to turn in the direction of the moving object. It is a significant fact that a very slight movement can be perceived with the non-foveal portions of the retina when it cannot be perceived in direct vision — that is, by looking di- rectly, focally, at the moving object.^ It is easy to see how this capacity came to be selected in the process of evolution. The animal that could perceive its enemies creeping up from the side, while, at the same time, it appeared to be looking " straight ahead," would have an obvious advantage in the struggle for existence. The capacity is, however, practically without signifi- cance to-day. The astronomer, it is true, makes use of it in observing the entrance of a star into the field of telescopic vision, because he has foimd by experience that his observations are more accurate if he uses the outlying portions of the retina rather than the fovea. But with the average man, living under 1 Cf. some interesting conclusions regarding the functional differences between focal and marginal vision in perception of motion, R. Dodge, in Psychological Review, 1904, N. S., vol. xi, pp. 1-14. THE DOCTRINE OF WORK 99 the conditions of civilized society, the capacity is merely a " vestigial organ " of the mind, the useless remnant of a once- significant function, — except, perhaps, in the congested districts of the large cities, where pedestrianism is perilous. 5. (b) Active Attention. But if one had always to follow the strongest external stimulus, — if the strongest stimulus always forced itself into the focus of conscious- ness, — one would be Kterally at the mercy of the envi- ronment. Sustained effort and all that it impUes would be hopelessly out of the question. It is well, then, that in the development of social Ufe, these distracting stimuli have come less and less to mean danger to the organism ; hence the importance of attending to them has come gradually to be reduced. At the same time, social devel- opment has demanded that the individual govern his action with reference to remote rather than immediate ends. This means that present stimuU must be neglected in order that past experiences may be revived, and the relation between past experience and present or future situations adequately determined. With the diminution in value of the strong stimuli, therefore, there comes an enhancement in value of ideas and weaker stimuli,-^ due to the exigencies of social Ufe. But the older conditions always operate in greater or less degree. Just as the primitive impulses given through heredity cannot be entirely eUminated; and just as self- 1 We still follow the strongest stimulus, but not the strongest external stimulus. Ideas and weak external stimuli become reSnforced from withia lOO THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS preservation is still the first law of nature, even in thi most highly organized societies; so the intense, the mov- ing and the contrasting stimuU from the outer world always tend to distract the mind from other processes. This tendency expresses itself in movement which must be inhibited or checked. Thus originates the ejfori that characterizes this later development of attention. It is always a battle as it were against nature — a constant struggle against fundamental forces. 6. (c) Secondary Passive Attention. But if attention to the important things of social Ufe, and inattention to those danger signals that meant so much to primitive life, always involved a struggle, the chances for advance- ment would be greatly curtailed. To be maximally efficient, mind must devote all its energy to the task in hand. When part of this energy is used up in resist- ing distracting stimuli, efficiency must be seriously inter- fered with. Hence it is fortunate that active attention may work over into the passive form — that ideas and weaker stimuli, at first attended to only through strenu- ous effort, come to be attended to without appreciable effort. This "secondary passive attention" is identical with the primary passive form as far as its immediate conscious effects are concerned, but it differs from the latter in its genesis. It is not the result of inherited or instinctive tendencies, but is rather to be looked upon as an acquired art, and furthermore as an art that can he acquired only through a period oj active attention or ejfort. THE DOCTRINE OF WORK lOI 7. Work and Play. In this distinction between pas- sive, active, and secondary passive attention are revealed the psychological principles that differentiate work from play. Both work and play are forms of activity, but work means activity directed toward a remote end, while in play the activity is an end in itself. The mind is constantly open to distractions — it always tends to follow the lines of least effort. And because it is so dif- ficult to resist distractions, the capacity for work is gen- erally conceded to be the greatest conquest that man has made in his rise from the brute. One of the first signs of a return to ancestral conditions — of a " rever- sion to type " — is the incapacity for sustained effort — for active attention. This tendency to revert to type is latent in all men. It finds expression in the love for change, the desire — sometimes overwhelming — to do "something else." There are those who work and work well with a variety of conflicting and intense stimuli pressing in upon them from all sides. ^ But this habituation to distracting influences comes only after a long and tedious process of discipline and training ; and it is seriously to be doubted whether the worker ever does his best under such conditions. Normally our minds are so sensitized that one who lives " in the midst of alarms " almost necessarily " burns the candle at both ends. " But apart from those who are adapted to this overplus of distraction, there are others who are veritable slaves of dis- tracting influences. To them quiet and seclusion are irksome and laborious, and the occupations that involve the absence of 1 A slig-kt distraction is probably essential to the best work. I02 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS frequent distractions become tedious and unbearable. The love of change which is sporadic and occasional in the average man is normal with them. Such individuals may be capable almost to the point of genius, but the incapacity for sustained ef- fort renders their exceptional gifts almost entirely without value. In short, the abnormal liking for change and variety, for "life" and noise, for the excitements of the theater, the race track, and the gaming-table, is unmistakable evidence, either of arrested development, or of decay and degeneration. It is something that grows upon itself; idleness begets idleness. At best the supports that hold the race to the plane of civilization are frail and insecure enough. Release the tension ever so little, and the entire structure topples to the ground. How hard it is to be civiUzed and how easy it is to be primitive and brutal is only thoroughly appreciated by those who have slipped from the plane of humanity and are painfully struggling to climb back. It is in times of material prosperity that this danger is most strenuously to be combated ; for it is then that the innate desire for distraction most easily finds an outlet. The sophistries of ease and comfort then most readily eat their way into the popu- lar mind, catering to the love of change, the appetite for distraction, the enervating influences of dissipation and prodi- gality. This is, perhaps, why one finds in history that the seeds of national decay have frequently been sown in eras of great prosperity.' 8. The capacity for work is the capacity for sustained effort. It means concentration, organization, and per- 1 It may be urged that civilization owes not a little to the restless spirits of all ages. But the really great names of discovery and exploration and early settlement were borne by men of another type, — men to whom the pleasure and excitement of novel scenes and strange adventures were but incidental to the strenuous accomplishment of a set purpose. THE DOCTRINE OF WORK 103 manency of purpose. The intense desire for activity is not in itself sufficient. Children and savages possess this in great abundance. Not activity alone, but sus- tained and directed activity has been the keynote of human progress. Individually it expresses itself in unre- mitting effort toward the attainment of a far-ofif goal. Psychologically it means the subordination of inherited impulses to remote ends. In popular language, it is the expression of "will power" or "self-control." The man vnth a "strong will" is the man who can subordinate "lower" to "higher" motives; and lower and higher are genetically correlated with the immediate and the remote, with instinct and reason. "Active attention" and "will" may, therefore, for our purposes, be looked upon as synonymous terms. Volitional effort is a struggle against desire — gener- ally speaking, a struggle against instinct, against an impulse of a lower order. It has, however, a positive significance. The natural tendency may sometimes be to react in the primitive instinctive fashion, and this tendency must frequently be inhibited or controlled; but perhaps it is oftener the case that the desire for inac- tion must be overcome. That is, while the desire to do "something else" is always at least latent, the desire to do nothing at all is perhaps more frequently in evidence. Active attention is no less a battle against "laziness" than against "indolence," and this becomes increasingly true with advancing years. Children are I04 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS seldom "lazy," but they are normally and constitu. tionally "indolent." In other words, they are not inac- tive, — activity indeed may be called the first law of child nature, — but they are averse to continued effort along a given line; they abhor monotony. The adult, on the other hand, is more frequently "lazy" or desirous of inaction. An "act of will" is a condition of attention in which the struggle against the lower tendencies or impiilses is especially strenuous. In ordinary hfe, the social or moral (i.e. artificial or civihzed) conduct becomes ingrained as habit — becomes "second nature." This is what Ribot^ means when he says that the lower ten- dencies are always the stronger by "nature," while the higher tendencies are sometimes the stronger by "art." It is only another way of stating the difference, already noted, between primitive and acquired needs, between apperceptive systems of low and high degree. But always the tendency to follow the fines of least effort — either to react in the natural or inherited fashion or to remain inert — is at least latent. When this ten- dency becomes so strong as to demand a conscious struggle between apperceptive systems, we have the voli- tional consciousness. 9. From the above analysis, it is apparent that the terms "apperception" and "attention" simply indicate two aspects or phases of one and the same phenomenon. 1 Th. Ribot : Diseases o/tie Will, Chicago, 1894, p. Jo (English trans.). THE DOCTRINE OF WORK I05 Attention is a structural term; it describes a certain state or pattern that consciousness may assume. Apper- ception is a functional term; it describes what mind does when it is in the attentive state — and what it does is to assimilate experience, to read meaning into sense impressions, to bring perceptions and ideas into rela- tion with the needs of life. In passive attention, the processes upon which atten- tion is focalized are "apperceived" with reference to primitive needs; passive attention, in other words, means an apperception of low degree. In active atten- tion, there is a struggle to lose sight of the primitive needs and to apperceive with reference to the higher needs; but the primitive needs still solicit attention, hence the effort and struggle that are necessary in order to keep them down. In secondary passive attention, the struggle is no longer present. The primitive need has been conquered and the remote need has taken its place. 10. Systems of apperception are represented struc- turally by the "marginal" constituents of the attentive state. While he is in the professional attitude, the phy- sician has a certain adjustment toward his patient which is represented by a definite tension of the muscles. This tension, in turn, is reported to consciousness through the sensations of strain. These are fairly constant as far as the professional attitude of the physician is concerned. But because they are constant in innu- I06 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS merable cases, they are gradually relegated to the background, to the margin of consciousness. Othei marginal features doubtless contribute to this appercep- tive system — the suggestive apparatus of the ofi&ce, the odors of drugs, etc. But the important elements are the muscular and strain sensations.^ II. The doctrine of apperception, with its imphca- tions concerning attention and will, goes far toward clearing up the problem of interest, recently so vigor- ously discussed in educational circles.^ As stated above, 1 While the intimate connection between apperception and attention has been recognized by several authorities, — among them, Herbart (^Psy- ehologie als Wissensckafl, pp. 200 ff.), Wundt {Outlines of Psychology, tr. Judd, Leipzig, 1902, pp. 227 ff.), and Stout (^Analytic Psychology, London, 1896, vol. ii, pp. 118 f.), — it remained for Professor James to point out the significant function of the conscious margin in mental life. (See his Principles of Psychology, New York, 1900, vol. ii, p. 49.) That the marginal elements which, according to James, " carry the meaning," are made up predominantly of strain sensations was first suggested to the author by Professor H. H. Bawden's " Study of Lapses " {Psychological Review Monograph Supplement, 1900, vol, iii, no. 14). Very recently Mr. H. R. Marshall has elaborated a theory which Identifies the concept of self with the field of inattention, or the margin of the conscious field. He divides the concept of self up into a number of subordinate " egos," and identifies each of these with a certain attitude which, if we under- stand his position aright, is structurally represented by the marginal ele- ments of consciousness. (See H. R. Marshall : " The Field of Inattention — the Self," in Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Method, 1904, vol. i, pp. 393-400-) ' Cf., for example, W. James : Talks to Teachers on Psychology, New York, 1899, ch. x; M. V. O'Shea : Education as Adjustment, New York, 1903, pp. 146 ff.; C. A. McMurry: Elements of General Method, New York, 1903, ch. iii; J. Dewey : Interest in Relation to Will, etc., second supplement, /?i?»-^ar/ Year Book, 1895; C. De Garmo: Interest and Edu- cation, New York, 1903. THE DOCTRINE OF WORK IO7 it is an educational truism that apperception functions most readily along the lines of interest. This is only another way of saying that one assimilates experiences according to one's needs, for the needs of the individ- ual determine his interests. The two varieties of needs — primitive and acquired — suggest a similar classification of interests into two groups which can be conveniently represented by the same two terms. Primitive interest is the pleasurable affective state that accompanies primary passive attention. Acquired interest is the pleasurable affective state that accom- panies secondary passive attention. Active attention — inasmuch as it always means a struggle against desire, against that which would normally be pleasant — is obviously always unpleasant. So long as the pedagogical doctrine of interest meant the following of the Hnes of least resistance, its failure as an educational principle was absolutely certain. Always to obey the dictates of interest, in this sense of the term, would mean the instant arrest of all prog- ress. But if the interest means the desire for a satisfac- tion of acquired needs, the case is somewhat different. The child is no longer at the mercy of the strongest stimu- lus; sustained attention directed toward a remote end has become possible. But the point never to be for- gotten is this: acquired interests are developed only under the stress of active attention. Always there must be some inhibition of natural tendencies at the outset. The I08 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS passion for change, the insidious and often overwhelm- ing desire "to do something else" must be strenuously repressed. It is at this point that the function of the teacher is all- important. As far as passive attention is concerned, the child needs no guidance ; when he has reached the stage of second- ary passive attention, he needs little guidance ; but the stage of active attention is the field in which the arts and devices of the teacher find their highest utility. To see to it that the child's development is not arrested on the plane of play is the serious business of education. To determine the point at which the mind must be guided, pulled, or prodded on to a higher plane of functioning is the duty of educational science. But the task of guiding, pulling, or prodding is assigned to the teacher. It is this task that makes the work of the teacher, especially in the elementary schools, so largely a battle against nature. It could not well be anything else. One may seriously doubt whether there is anything innate in the child that will lead him to the increased effort that this implies. Civilization in the race has cost a struggle which the exigencies of the environ- ment have necessitated. No race with whom the conditions of life were too easy has ever reached the higher planes of development. There is no reason for beheving that the civili- zation of the individual can be accompUshed by following the lines of least resistance. It is clear, then, that what we commonly term "work" is, biologically, the central feature of education. The play of childhood bears all the earmarks of passive attention. Its end is immediate, it follows the strongest stimulus — the lines of least resistance. It is not sus- THE DOCTRINE OF WORK IO9 tained, creative, or directed toward a remote end. All this must be changed; gradually, it is true, but none the less surely and certainly. The child must be civil- ized, and, as we have said again and again, the essence of civilization is that remote and not immediate ends govern conduct. 12. But if the doctrine of apperception emphasizes work or effort as the fundamental factor in education, it also indicates in terms equally unmistakable that the task of education may be materially simplified by lead- ing the child as rapidly as possible to acquire the higher needs. Until some need is distinctly present, the assimi- lation of experience is slow and halting. The indi- vidual would learn arithmetic wiUingly enough when, in adult years, he perceives the value of arithmetic to his survival. But unhappily this would probably be too late to do him much good. At any rate, the task would be infinitely more laborious and the individual's time and energy much more in demand for productive pursuits. One vital necessity of education, therefore, is to develop in the immature child needs that will demand the acquisition of experiences that will be beneficial in mature life. Until recently, educators gave little heed to this problem. The child "learned his lessons" under compulsion. His common motive was to avoid pain. This meant the assimilation of experiences with reference to needs of a low order. Not only were the apperceptions of no THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS low degree, but the stage of secondary passive attention was seldom reached. Always there was a tremendous waste of energy in the conflict between the desire to follow the hues of least resistance and the desire to avoid pain. One of the watchwords of modem civiUzation is " elim- ination of waste." Modem education is slowly recog- nizing that it is economy to develop acquired interests, — that the primitive interests may be replaced with higher needs to the great saving of time and energy. At the same time, it has been recognized that these higher interests must not be so high as to be entirely out of reach of the child. There must be an adjustment, a compro- mise. Education consequently does not neglect the instincts, the primitive interests. On the contrary, it seizes upon them and turns them to its own ends, seeking slowly to transform them into acquired interests representing ever higher and higher needs. This pro- cess may be illustrated by reference to a few of the current practices in elementary education. («) When the child enters school, he is in the period of play, — the stage of passive attention. His apperceptions are determined by primitive needs. His end is the immediate satisfaction of desire. Sustained attention is as yet an un- developed capacity. Consequently he has but few acquired needs, and these of a relatively low order. The first task of the teacher is to search out a dominant in- stinct. It is now believed that instincts have their periods of rise and dominance and decay just as other vital forces. Not THE DOCTRINE OF WORK III all instincts are in the ascendant at the same period of time ; ' consequently the teacher must know something of this rhythmic movement. It is probable that the instinct of imitation will offer the most favorable avenue of approach. The child, at about the age of entering school, delights to repeat in his play adjustments various economic processes of the world about him. The teacher plans a playhouse which the children are to make and furnish for themselves. ■ Here is a remote end that corresponds to an immediate interest. The consummation of this end will occupy perhaps several weeks. Left to himself, the child would tire of the process within a brief period. The house would be neglected for " something else " and soon for- gotten. But the teacher, while he permits frequent rests and changes, aims to keep the child returning to the task until it is accomplished. Gradually the instinct of imitation is replaced by a higher interest, — the interest of " construction " ; primary passive attention has grown into secondary passive attention. And yet, even with an objective process, such as building and furnishing a playhouse, there has been an indispensable link of active attention, a period of effort, of work, — perhaps even, brief though it may be, of drudgery. {b') In the upper grades, the work of instruction in language, and especially in grammar, has always been a tender spot in the curriculum, and very largely because it has been difficult to arouse the acquired interest, to make the subject matter vital to the child. Grammar has seemed to have no connection with the pupil's life. Consequently its mastery has been a life- less, formal process. The teacher of language to-day attempts first of all to develop the need. Every child must express himself; every 1 The science of child study is gradually working out this problem by accurate methods. The work of Sully, Kline, Gulick, Croswell, Taylor, Burk, Lindley, Bryan, and others is important in this connection. An excellent summary will be found in I. Kings Psychology of Child Devel- opment, Chicago, 1903, ch. xiii. 112 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS child takes a certain delight in expression. He likes nothing better than to talk about the things that interest him, and he likes to inform others about these things. The problem of the teacher of grammar is to show that, in one way or another, the study of grammar will promote the efficiency of expression. If he can do this in such a way that the child will see the con- nection, grammar will mean something to the pupil, will have a vital relation to his life. It is to this end that the teaching of the mother tongue attempts first of all to give the child a motive for expression, — something to talk about, a sympa- thetic ear to listen. Improvement in expression may then follow by the gradual correction of mistakes, the imitation of correct forms, and the application of principles gained from the study of grammar. (c) In an analogous fashion, arithmetic is now begun in the grades. Constructive work reveals the need of counting, meas- uring, evaluating, etc. This need will make the first steps rational and not arbitrary. They will take on " meaning " to the pupil, and the first condition of apperception will thus be fulfilled. (d) In the preceding paragraphs, we have illustrated the development of needs of an intermediate order, — something higher than mere instincts, something less high than needs that will later be developed. Once the experiences take on a defi- nite reference to the life of the individual, the problem of apperception is solved. But the higher needs still remain to be developed. The child, for example, may perceive the value of grammar in im- proving his expression, and this may make possible his intro- ductory study of the subject. But at a later period, he may acquire an interest in grammar for its own sake. The study of the subject may as a study satisfy a need of his life. This will obviously be a need of a purely intellectual order, a further development of the primitive instinct of curiosity. (e) One might go on to show how the teacher in the ele- mentary school may seize, at the proper moment, upon the THE DOCTRINE OF WORK II3 "collecting" instinct, and turn its force into an educative channel. Again an entire chapter, even an entire book, might be written upon the instinct of emulation and the manner in which education may legitimately utilize it. The examples given, however, will serve to illustrate the principle, and this is all that can be attempted in the present connection. We thus see the significance of the statement, made earlier in the discussion, that the business of the school is to overlay the lower systems of apperception with those of higher degree. We must build upon the lower sys- tems; all our work must start with these. Occasion- ally, too, we must return to them. There are some experiences which the child must assimilate and yet a higher need for which may be hard to find. The last resource in such cases is to fall back upon the incentive of fear. This is especially true in cases where normal development has been arrested upon the plane of play. The new methods of teaching have not entirely replaced the older and harsher methods. There are frequently points at which puUing and guiding must give place to prodding. It is safe to say that the point will never be reached where pain and drudgery can be entirely eliminated from the educative process. 13. Part I discussed the functions of education and of the school in biological and sociological terms. Part 11 has been concerned with a continuation of the same topic from the psychological standpoint, and especially with a development of the laws underlying the acqui- sition of experience. It will be the task of Part III 114 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS to determine the dififerent modes in which experience functions in modifying adjustment, with a view to ascer- taining in what manner these will affect the educative process. It will doubtless appear in the succeeding chapters that much of the matter of Part 11 cuts across thg discussions of Part III. This is due to the fact that Part III deals with the functioning of experience while Part II has already brought out one function of experience — namely the interpretation of new expe- riences; hence it has already encroached upon the terri- tory properly belonging to the former section. In return for this, Part III should throw some light upon the problems with which we have just been dealing. PART III. THE FUNCTIONING OF EXPERIENCE CHAPTER VII Experience functioning as Habit 1. In the modification of adjustment, experience functions in two ways : (a) with a minimum of conscious- ness, or even without consciousness — marginally or automatically; and (b) with a high degree or, perhaps, a maximum of consciousness — focally. Or, in other words, experience functions (a) as habit, and (6) as judgment. These terms, however, really represent the extremes of functioning; between them are all degrees and shades through which the two extremes merge into one another. 2. Any motor adjustment that has dropped into the margin of consciousness, or sunk beneath the conscious threshold, may be looked upon as a type of habit.^'' The adjustments that are involved in bicycle riding furnish a familiar example. In the acquisition of this art, new 1 It is true that " habit," as a psychological term, cannot, strictly speak- ing, be applied to an unconscious phenomenon. The term is here used rather in its neurological significance. Cf. Baldwin's Dictionary of Phi' losophy and Psychology, art. " Habit." "5 Il6 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS and complex adjustments of the muscles must be mas tered through a number of slow and tedious repetitions Improvement is so gradual that it is often difficult to note any change between one series of efforts and its successor; yet, in one way or another, the process is improved. Each new trial gives a new experience and helps — ever so httle, it may be — to render the next trial more successful. Finally the nerve connections become so firmly fijxed that the appropriate adjustment "goes off" with a minimum of attention. The sUghtest deviation from the position of perfect balance forms the stimulus that initiates the complex coordinations neces- sary to a reestabUshment of equiUbrium. These coordi- nations come gradually to be relegated to the margin of consciousness and finally drop below the threshold. What is now the "reflex arc" at first included the cor- tical centers. The stimulus and the adjustment were data of consciousness. But gradually consciousness leaves the process more and more to look after itself. When the necessity for conscious control no longer exists, — when the movement can be adequately "set off" by the stimulus in this mechanical fashion, — the process is said to be automatic. Automatic movement is therefore seen to be identical with reflex movement, except in this particular: it must be built up during a period of conscious control, while the latter may run its course from first to last without conscious intervention. In other words, reflex move- EXPERIENCE FUNCTIONING AS HABIT Ii;> ment is due to an inherited connection of elements in the nerve structure, while automatic movement is due to an acquired connection in the nerve structure, — a connection made, moreover, through the agency of con- sciousness. 3. The process of bicycle riding, once mastered, may go on either with a minimum of conscious intervention or entirely without conscious control. It represents, therefore, a type of the functioning of experience that may be termed unconscious or subconscious. There are, on the other hand, certain habits in which the con- scious element is more pronounced. These are mar- ginal habits, and they differ from automatisms in that the stimulus comes into the field of consciousness, but into the margin rather than the focus. As Stout ^ ex- presses it, such stimuli are "assimilated" rather than " apperceived." "Sensori-motor" actions^ form good examples of this type of habit. They include the multitude of Uttle things that one does in the course of daily Ufe — the habitual adjustments involved in dressing, eating, etc. The sight of the coat "sets off" the adjustments requi- site to putting it on. The pressure upon the arms and shoulders sets off, in turn, the adjustments necessary to buttoning it up, and so on. At the table, the sight of the knife and fork suggests the movements required 1 G. F. Stout : Analytic Psychology, vol. ii, p. 88. 2 Cf. E. B. Titchener: Primer of Psychology, pp. 170, 256. Il8 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS to take them up ; the sight of the food suggests the move- ments that will cany it to the mouth, etc. These may, it is true, degenerate into pure motor au- tomatisms, but it is safe to say that they generally involve a higher degree of conscious control ; certainly due in part to the fact that, while they are constant elements in daily Ufe, they are practiced only at intervals during the day, — once or twice or three times as the case may be. If one ate and dressed as continually as one walks, the movements would doubtless become as thoroughly unconscious as are those of walking. One who is familiar with the crowded streets of a city must have noted and marveled at the skill with which the teamsters and cabmen thread their way through the congested traffic, — with what apparent ease they guide their horses past trucks and street cars that seem hopelessly to obstruct the way, — how nicely they avoid disasters that appear to be inevitable. Yet many of these men seem to give little heed to what they are doing. Some of them, it is true, are worried and anxious, but these are in the minority. The majority sit complacently behind their horses, seemingly as careless of their surroundings as if they were upon a lonely country road. Nor is this apparent carelessness without foundation in reality. So thoroughly familiar have they become with these conditions that eye and hand work harmoniously together with little effort of mind. To be sure they are alert and wide-awake, but their eyes and hands and the lower centers of the brain do the work. The foci of their minds may be occupied with far different situations. 4. Another type of marginal habit is represented by "ideo-motor" actions.-^ Ideo-motor action is similar to the sensori-motor variety, except that an idea rathei ^ Cf. Titchener, op. ciU, pp. 1 70, 256. EXPERIENCE FUNCTIONING AS HABIT II9 than an external stimulus sets off the accustomed ad- justments. Ideo-motor habits may be illustrated by the processes of speaking and writing. Here the adjust- ments that are requisite to the formation of the spoken or written word follow upon the idea of the word. The unstudied and habitual use of "good form" in speak- ing and writing is a type of ideo-motor habit that is especially important from the standpoint of education. If one is to speak or write effectively, the form must be largely outside the focus of consciousness. Proper and effective modes of com- bining words must be so firmly fixed by practice that attention can be given unreservedly to the " thought " or " content," with full confidence that the form will, as it were, take care of itself. In this category belong, also, the little conventionalities of " etiquette," — those habitual adjustments that mark the per- son of " good breeding." These must be so fixed by constant (and, in the beginning, conscious) repetition that they will "go off" without mental effort, — that they will become " second nature." An important general characteristic of habit is well illustrated by the examples cited. Once the process of bicycle riding has become thoroughly automatized, the bringing of the adjustments back into the focus of con- sciousness will seriously interfere with its efi&ciency. Similarly, where the movements of walking become "self- conscious," they are thereby rendered awkward and ungainly. The same rule holds with marginal habits. When one has mastered the use of correct forms of speech, attention to these forms will very likely render the expression stilted and formal. I20 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS 5. Moral Habits. There are processes of a more com- plex nature that also demand treatment under the head of habit, for, notwithstanding their complexity, they still retain the essential structure of habit— r a definite and uniform response to a definite stimulus or situation, involving less and less conscious effort as practice con- tinues. {a) Habits of Cleanliness. The old proverb, "Clean- liness is next to Godliness," expresses a world of truth froni the standpoint of education. Filth is the line of least resistance; the "natural man" is an unclean man. Cleanliness is a product of civilization; it represents a certain measure of triumph over the brute. Once let the tension relax and here, as elsewhere, man tends to revert to type. This is shown in the decay of old age, in progressive dementia, and in that unnamed decay that results from the unbridled pursuit of sensual pleas- ures. Always there must be more or less efifort involved in holding one's self to the plane represented by civilized society. The habit of cleanliness means the reduction of this effort to a minimum through a term of unceasing vigilance. (6) Habits 0} Industry. Like the habits of cleanli- ness, these are, in their initial stages, a battle against nature. The line of least resistance is not the line of sustained effort. The natural man is the "indolent" man, — not necessarily the inactive man, but the man who is averse to sustained effort. Like the child, he is the EXPERIENCE FUNCTIONING AS HABIT 121 slave of every stimulus to change. The habits of indus- try represent the uniform resistance to this temptation. (c) Habits 0} Honor. As with all terms of a profound nature, it is difficult, if not impossible, adequately to define "honor." Essentially it is an ideal, a conscious attitude. Habits of honor are built up through a con- tinued subordination of certain natural tendencies to high ideals of manhood and womanhood. The moral habits undoubtedly approach the judg- ment more closely than the automatisms and marginal habits previously discussed, and their treatment must be reserved for a later section, where they can be studied in the Ught of the principles underlying judgment. 6. The Function 0} Habit. The relation of habit to efl&ciency is direct. It is simple, simon-pure economy to reduce the constant and unvarying functions of life to the plane of automatism, — to take them out of the focus* of consciousness and thus leave the higher centers free to deal with the changing, varying problems of exist- ence. A man could accomphsh very little if he had constantly to devote his energy and attention to the little details of everyday hfe. If he had consciously to adjust his muscles at every step of his walk to his office, he would have httle strength left for the business of the day; and if men had always consciously to resist the temptations to unsocial and immoral action, the mere operation of physical folrces would make corruption the rule and not the exception in every department of life. 122 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS If habit, then, is nine tenths of life, — as it certainly is, — the formation of habits should bear a somewhat corresponding ratio to the total task of education. The school deals with the individual during a plastic period, and it is during this period that habits of all kinds must be formed if they are to be formed most economically and effectively. George Eliot has forcibly expressed this truth in "Daniel Deronda." Gwendolen, a butter- fly of society, has been thrown upon her own resources after a childhood and youth in which discipline and train- ing found no place. She beheves that she has musical talent, and she asks Klesmer, a successful musician, to help her turn this talent to financial account. Klesmer's reply sums up the pedagogy of habit in a nutshell : — " Any great achievement in acting or in music grows with the growth. Whenever an artist has been able to say, ' I came, I saw, I conquered,' it has been at the end of patient practice. Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline. Singing and acting, like the fine dexterity of the juggler with his cup and balls, require a shaping of the organs toward a finer and finer certainty of effect. Your muScles, your whole frame must go like a watch, — true, true, true to a hair. This is the work of the springtime of life before the habits have been formed." Drill, repetition, and discipline are the important words in the pedagogy of habit; but the principle that is perhaps most frequently neglected is this: processes that are to he made habitual or automatic must first be focalized. Not only this, -but a process is automatized the EXPERIENCE FUNCTIONING AS HABIT 1 23 more effectively the more strenuously it is focalized in its initial stages. The law of habit building might, then, be summed up in the following formula: Focali- zation plus drill in attention. The formation of a habit is somewhat analogous to the concentration of a solution to the point of crystal- lization. One may add to such a solution increment after increment, but unless one final increment is added, the solution will remain in the Hquid state. Similarly, in forming a habit, one may go through with the slow and gradual process of repetition upon repetition-, drill upon drill, but unless one final series of drills and repeti- tions is added, the plane of automatization is not reached. The simplicity of the pedagogy of habit as contrasted with the involved character of the pedagogy of judgment, perhaps accounts for the neglect of this subject by educational writers. At any rate it is true that few pedagogical treatises give to habit even the smallest fraction of the treatment that its funda- mental significance would seem to demand. This neglect is reflected in certain fallacious practices that have caused an immense waste in the work of the schools. The wide application of the doctrine of " incidental learning " is a case in point. This doctrine assumed that " content " and " form " could be acquired simultaneously ; or, to put it in another way, that form could be acquired incidentally while attention is fixed upon "thought "or "content." This assump- tion is a direct violation of the law of habit ; the child can never become proficient in form without many distinct acts of attention dealing with form alone. It may be that the child will learn to spell without spelling lessons as such; that he will," absorb" the form of written and printed words while he 124 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS is reading interesting stories or writing essays and compositions But if this is ever true, it is because attention has been divided, now being concentrated upon the form, now upon the content, and flitting from one to the other as the exigencies of the task have demanded. Similarly, the principles of syntax and rhetorical composition may be gained through the reading of Kterary masterpieces and the hearing of correct forms in conversation ; but whenever this miracle occurs, it is because attention has been drawn away from the content — from the thought or meaning of the writer or speaker — and concentrated upon the form. Macaulay says, " It is not by overturning great libraries, but by repeatedly perusing and intently contemplating a few great masterpieces that the mind is best disciplined." It is in the repeated perusal and intent contemplation that content is neglected and form emphasized. The essence of a good literary style lies in the very fact that the form is not superficial, not obvious. Like a window, it fulfills its function most effectively when it is least in evidence. If one is to gather the principles of style, then, from the study of masters, one must look deeply to find them. Mere reading for the sake of the " story," — for the sake of the content, — will not furnish them. The doctrine of incidental learning may bring results, but it is obviously at a certain waste of time and energy. Divided attention means a breaking up of the continuity of conscious- ness. At each change there is demanded an overcoming of inertia, and this operates in mental work precisely as it operates in physical work. 7. The Breaking Up 0} Habits. In the work of the school, habit building frequently takes the form of re- placing bad or inefficient habits with those of the opposite character. The "rooting out" of a habit follows the same law as the formation of a habit except EXPERIENCE FUNCTIONING AS HABIT 125 that the process is reversed. In forming a habit, the rule is focahzation, followed by drill in attention until automa- tism results. A full-fledged habit operates apart from attention. If such a habit is to be disintegrated, it is necessary to bring the mechanized process back into the focus of consciousness and there to replace it with another process. Examples of this procedure are found particularly in the language training of the elementary school. The child uses a number of incorrect and inefficient forms, — partly because he has acquired them through imitation, partly also because language is a synthetic process, and the pupil puts words to- gether in combinations that he has never heard before, or, at least, never noted. Necessarily some of these forms will be crude, incorrect, and inefficient, but their continued repetition will tend to fix them as habits. A common trick of speech among children in the early grades is the useless and awkward repetition of the pronoun after a noun : " George Washington, he crossed the Dela- ware ; " " The Irish, they eat potatoes." Other tricks of speech that must be broken up are the use of such words as well, why, then, in useless connections. The wise teacher does not attempt to correct all such mistakes at once. Rather he selects a typical mistake, common to most of his pupils. This mistake he points out to them, showing in what its insufficien- cies consist, and how the correct form will improve the ex- pression, — will better subserve the purpose of communication. Then, by constant drill on this one mistake, — correcting it as quietly as possible when it creeps into the recitation, asking the pupils frequendy what it is that they are trying to avoid, — he gradually replaces the erroneous with the correct form. 126 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS 8. The treatment of the last section may seem some- what unorthodox to one who is familiar with contem- porary educational theory. The prominence that has attached to the factor of imitation through the writings of Tarde and Baldwin has given rise in some circles to a notion that imitation is the chief process in education. This notion has found its most effective expression in the reaction against the "false syntax" that had so promi- nent a place in the older grammars. There can be no doubt that this feature of grammatical instruction was carried to an unnecessary extreme ; perhaps a few pupils used incorrect forms because they saw them upon the page of the text-book — although that this evil ever assumed the tremendous influence lately ascribed to it is seriously to be doubted. At any rate, it is safe to say that the child uses false syntax in his own spontaneous expression in a degree sufi&cient for all purposes of illus- tration. But when the opponents of false sjmtax state that the child should never be made conscious of an incorrect form, they are repudiating one of the basal principles of growth and development. It is hardly too much to say that every man who succeeds climbs to success upon the carcasses of his dead mistakes. As one writer ^ has expressed it: "The whole process of human locomotion, not only physical but mental, is literally a series of -unin- 1 W. Hutchinson : The Gospel according to Darwin, Chicago, 1898, p. 12. EXPERIENCE FUNCTIONING AS HABIT 12^ terrupted falls. Our only chance of advancing is to fall in the right direction and keep at it. Our only struggle should be, not to avoid falling, but to fall forward." In spite of asseverations to the contrary, it is safe to say that a principle that the history of science and the history of civilization reveal upon every page is far too fundamental to be repudiated by education. CHAPTER VIII Experience functioning as Judgment I. The essence of an automatic adjustment is that it is automatic — that it takes place in the same definite manner upon every occasion. Once an adjustment functions freely as habit, consciousness is relieved of attention to the details which habit looks after efficiently. Hence it "pays" for the individual to undergo a strenu- ous training in order to mechanize a large number of reactions. But experiences that are to function con- sciously must be treated in a different manner. They are not to be used in the same uniform fashion on every occasion. Certain experiences, indeed, that education goes to great pains to impress may function but once in modifying adjustment. Others may never function at all. Still others may function frequently in hundreds of different situations. The problem here is obviously less simple than that which was presented in connection with habit. In the latter case, we had reference to situations that should be constant; now we must plan with reference to situations that are to be variable. In habit, the task is to make 128 EXPERIENCE FUNCTIONING AS JUDGMENT 1 29 adjustments rigid, unchangeable; in judgment, it is essential to insure the very reverse of this — to insure adaptabihty to different situations.-' 2. The last chapter instanced a teamster in a crowded city street as illustrative of a man whose experiences functioned mainly as habit. It was noted that his ad- justments were few and comparatively unvarying. Con- sequently, once his art had been mastered, it could be practiced with little effort of attention. Now and again, perhaps, a situation might present itself that would require delicate judgment, but such situations would not enter largely into his duties. On the other hand, there are some men who must solve new problems at every turn, — who must constantly apply experience in ways new and unforeseen. The situations that they face are seldom twice the same. Between these two extremes there are thousands of occupations demanding judgment in varying degrees. Consider, for example, the captain of a steamship. Nine tenths of his time is perhaps devoted to routine duties, — to duties that are largely relegated to the field of habit. His only care in such cases is to see that the routine is faithfully kept up. 1 " We have argued that ' reason ' is our name for the process which in an objective view appears as organic variation; . . . that 'reasoning' is our name for the conscious side of those activities of our nature vchich enable the organism to depart from typical reactions; . . . that reason ii therefore the psychic coincident of that capacity vfithin us which is all- important in the adaptation of life to an environment which, in its very nature, must be ever-variable." — H. R. Marshall: Instinct and Reason, New York, 1898, p. 114. I30 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS As long as conditions remain normal, the ship will almost " run itself." But in the exceptional instance, — when the ship is entering a strange harbor, when an accident has disabled the machinery, when a storm renders navigation dangerous, — every increment of the captain's energy must go to the solution of the problem in hand. He must diligently search his past experience for similar situations which may help him out ; he must recall and apply all the principles that bear upon the case ; in short, from the experiences that he has gained in his own work, from the experiences of others in similar situations, from the general principles relating to his calling that have been derived from race experience, he must devise, construct, plan a course of action that wiU meet his needs. His ability to do this successfully will obviously depend largely upon the mass of experience at his command, upon his ability to recall those features that are salient to the present problem, and upon his ability to perceive the relation between what he " knows" and what he must do. 3. A judgment is an act which results from the facing of a given situation, and in which past experience is con- sciously brought to bear upon the solution of this situation. As Miss Thompson^ says: "It is always an act stimu- lated by some set of conditions which needs readjusting. Its outcome is a readjustment whose value is and can be tested only by its adequacy." 4. There are two important types of judgment, the distinctions between which must be carefully consid- ered in educational theory: (a) the practical judgment involving the conscious application of concrete experi- 1 Helen Bradford Thompson : " Bosanquet's Theory of Judgment," in Dewey's Studies in Logical Theory, Chicago, 1903, pp. 107 ff. EXPERIENCE FUNCTIONING AS JUDGMENT I3I ence; and (&) the conceptual judgment, involving the conscious application of condensed experience. (a) The Practical Judgment. This term has been used by Hobhouse ^ to denote the application of expe- rience revived in its concrete form; that is, recalled in the same materials of sensation in which it originally occurred. The organism faces a situation; some fea- ture of the situation recalls, in at least a portion of its sensory details, a similar situation previously faced. This brings with it the idea of the way in which the former situation was reacted to. Reaction is then made to the present situation on the basis of the former reaction. Suppose, for example, that some one is severely burned and that, no physician being within call, a servant of a physician, who has helped his employer upon several occasions, is sum- moned. As he views the situation, he recalls a peculiarly vivid experience in which he assisted in dressing a similar burn. The procedure of the preceding case is readily repeated in this instance and the burn is successfully dressed. This is the re- call of experience in a concrete, particular form. The idea of a single past situation is revived and applied to a similar present situation. 5, Analysis, Synthesis, Comparison, and Abstraction in the Practical Judgment. But this does not tell the whole story. No two situations are exactly alike; they may approach identity, but, in the nature of things, it may be assumed that perfect identity is never reached. The capacity, then, to make such a correlation of expe- 1 L. T. Hobhouse : Mind in Evolution, London, 1901, ch, vi. 132 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS riences as that just cited depends upon the capacity to analyze an experience into its component parts, and to recognize some relation between similar parts of different experiences. This relation once recognized, a synthesis of parts of experiences is made which results in the appli- cation of the past situation to the present situation. Thus the practical judgment involves what the older logicians called analysis and synthesis as truly as does the logical judgment. Analysis and synthesis, however, depend upon atten- tion: in analysis, we break up experiences into their component parts, attending to one part at' a time and neglecting the others; in synthesis, we recognize a com- ponent that is common to two or more experiences, raise this element into the focus of attention, and combine the two or more experiences upon the basis of this common ele- ment. This process obviously involves what the logicians term comparison and abstraction. The practical judgment rests upon the capacity to pick out the common element in different experiences, and this "perception of a rela- tion" is a vital characteristic in all forms of judgment. 6. Advantages and Limitations of the Practical Judg- ment. An organism that can recall its past experiences and utilize them in facing new situations is obviously at an advantage over an organism that can face situa- tions only upon the basis of instinct or habit, although there are numerous situations to which the inherited and habitual adjustments are entirely adequate. Situa- EXPERIENCE FUNCTIONING AS JUDGMENT 1 33 tions that are common to everyday life, for example, are best met by an habitual adjustment, and situations that throughout the history of the race have always been critical to life are best met by hereditary or instinctive adjustments. It is well that one can dodge a missile instinctively — without stopping to "think" about it — without reducing action to the form of judgment. But instinctive and habitual adjustments, efficient as they are, require numberless experiences, either racial^ or individ- ual, in order that they may become fixed and certain. This process impUes a tremendous waste — a constant elimination of the many forms that are unfit and the slow, long-continued selection of the few forms that are fit. In the practical judgment, however, a single expe- rience may serve to insure a more adequate adjustment. Thus while the practical judgment may not work as rapidly or as certainly in a given instance as either in- stinct or habit, it broadens the scope of an organism's activity and requires infinitely less time to be brought to a stage of efficiency. The limitations of the practical judgment are (i) the fact that it involves the recall of a particular, concrete experience; the new situation must resemble the past experience in many features, and these features must be ■ upon the surface; there is no reference to underlying principles that might form a common link between 1 This statement does not necessarily assume the inheritance of acquired characteristics. 134 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS experiences having, superficially, nothing in commoiv (2) Furthermore, the past experience must have been very recently, very vividly, or very frequently impressed in order to be revived in a concrete form. Thus only com- paratively few experiences will serve as possible bases for practical judgments, because, in the nature of things, comparatively few experiences will possess either one or another of these advantages. If man were limited to practical judgments, he would have little advantage over some of the higher animals, for experi- ments in animal psychology seem to indicate that some of the more "intelligent" of the vertebrates — particularly the dog, the horse, the elephant, and the monkey — can apply experi- ence in this way; that is, they can analyze past and present experiences, pick out common qualities, and mediate means to ends upon this basis.^ Such an animal, for instance, when placed in a cage the door of which is fastened by a peculiar clasp, will watch his master unfasten the clasp and then do it himself. This may be looked upon as a crude form of practi- cal judgment, for it is tolerably clear that the animal perceives a relation between the experience of watching the master open the cage and the opening of it by his own efforts. It has, in other words, abstracted a common quality from different expe- riences, and applied this common element to the solution of a given problem. The monkey, however, will do more than this. If the clasp 1 The conclusions regarding practical judgment in animals are stated on the authority of Hobhouse, op. cit., chs. vi-viii. See also his criticism of the views of Thorndike and others, who deny this capacity in even the higher vertebrates. The conclusions regarding the operation of practical judgment in children are based upon the author's own observations and experiments. EXPERIENCE FUNCTIONING AS JUDGMENT 1 35 be replaced by one slightly different, it will perceive the rela- tion between the first experience and the new situation, or, to speak objectively, between the first clasp and the second, and modify its adjustments accordingly. If the relation is not obvi- ous, however, — if the difference between the two experiences is too great, — the monkey will be nonplussed. In other words, its judgments are of an entirely practical order. They depend upon superficial resemblances and do not penetrate to underly- ing principles. The child, in the earlier stages of his development, is limited to practical judgments. If he is confined in a yard by a rope slipped over the gate-post and one of the pickets of the gate, he may watch some one open the gate by lifting the rope, and then, if he can reach or climb to the top of the gate, he may proceed to do the same thing himself If the rope is replaced by a hoop, the new situation will offer no insurmountable diffi- culties. The relation between rope and hoop will be readily grasped. If the hoop is fastened by a peg, he may see the relation between the hoop and the peg, and pull the latter out. But if the hoop is replaced by a knob that turns a latch, he may perceive the relation between the latch and the opening of the gate, but the relation between the latch and the knob will, for some time, be too much for him. This relation is not superficial, and practical judgment is inadequate. If some one turns the knob and opens the gate, he can easily repeat the operation, but if knob and latch be replaced by lock and key, he is again nonplussed. With one of mature years, however, a situation of this sort, even if it were as thoroughly novel as it is to the child,* would offer few difficulties. His experiences would be much more thoroughly organized, and superficial resemblances between the 1 This is, of course, only a supposition. In reality, the situation could never be as novel to the adult as to the child. See O'Shea, op. cit., p. 225; also E. B. Titchener: An Outline of Psychology, New York, 1899, p. 271. 136 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS present and the past situations would be less essential. We have now to inquire how it comes about that man can advance beyond the practical judgment to the operation of which the child and the young animal are rigorously limited. 7. (6) The Conceptual Judgment. Reverting to the illustration of the physician's servant and the bum, it is clear that the servant was able to treat the bum suc- cessfully because he recalled an experience in which he had helped his master treat a similar bum. The com- mon features of the two experiences enabled him to apply the first to the second, treating the wound as successfully, perhaps, as his master could have done. But suppose the resemblance to be only superficial — suppose that the bum were of such a kind that the application of the first form of treatment to it would be inadequate. Here the repetition of the same procedure might produce the most untoward results. It is not likely, however, that the physician himself would be deceived by super- ficial resemblances. He would see more deeply, although he would still apply experience to the solution of the problem. Nor would the only difference be that he had more experiences at his command than the servant had. If that were true, the art of surgery could be acquired by an apt servant if he only remained with his master long enough. The physician, however, is trained in the principles of his calling, and in so far as he has his own experiences and those of his fellow-craftsmen reduced to principles and thoroughly organized, just so EXPERIENCE FUNCTIONING AS JUDGMENT 1 37 far will he be likely to hit upon that experience that will help him the most in any particular case. In other words, the practical judgment of the servant will be replaced by a much more elaborate judgment, depending upon a more thorough elaboration and correlation not only of the physician's individual experiences, but also of that vast mass of race experience from which the underlying principles of surgery are drawn. The operation of the conceptual judgment, then, in- volves two new factors, (a) It is obvious that expe- riences that function effectively in such judgments must be condensed. All the detailed experiences that bear upon a given situation cannot be recalled, each in its concrete particularity, as was the experience that the servant apphed. If such a procedure were necessary, the patient would die — if not from his wound, at least from old age — before the physician came to a decision. The necessity, then, for some form of abridgment or condensation is apparent. (6) A vast number of expe- riences bearing upon a particular case implies a great diversity in the details of the separate experiences. Per- haps the point that will help the physician the most will be enmeshed in a complex of experiences that have very little superficial or qualitative resemblance to the situa- tion in question — experiences gained in the laboratory, it may be, where their relation to the treatment of burns was never even hinted at. In brief, as experiences be- come massed and condensed, the relations between them 138 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS become less and less superficial and more and more penetrating and fundamental. The point of contact is no longer a surface-resemblance, but a deep, abiding, underlying principle, essence, around which the various experiences, so diverse in themselves, are clustered. This condensation of experiences is made possible through the formation of concepts which, in a sense, take the place of, stand for, particular experiences. It is because this form of judgment depends upon the con- densing virtues of the concept that it is termed the "con- ceptual judgment." This process of condensation and the advantage which it gives in adjustment to the envi- ronment must now be considered in some detail. CHAPTER IX The Condensation of Experiences and the For- mation OF Concepts I. The efficiency of the conceptual judgment depends upon the condensation of experience, but this conden- sation is not a mere compressing; it is rather a picking out of the sahent, the prominent, the significant features, and the casting aside of those features that are merely accessory. It is safe to say that an experience is never revived in its entirety. The term "concrete" is, there- fore, strictly relative. It simply means that the original experience has been condensed in a minimal degree. An accurate analysis of a vast number of experiences would doubtless reveal all degrees of condensation and abridg- ment from what we have termed the concrete idea to the most abstract concept. The effective use of experi- ence, however, depends in no small degree upon the extent to which it has been condensed. Concrete ideas are, at best, clumsy contrivances. They are readily recalled only under exceptional conditions; their sahent features are necessarily superficial; and their very mas- siveness, so to speak, interferes with their effective use. 139 140 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS 2. The practical judgment, as we have seen, implies some capacity for analysis and synthesis, and only those animals that can hold parts of experiences in a definite relation to one another are capable of making such judg- ments. A still higher stage of mental development is essential to the formation of a concept, because the analy- ses must be much more minute and the syntheses much more comprehensive. There must be capacity to look at experiences apart from immediate ends, and this, it is clear, may involve a high grade of active attention. Finally, there must be some convenient symbol that will form the link between various experiences, represent- ing the relation which analysis has revealed and upon which synthesis must work. Until an animal has devel- oped a symbolism that will permit dehcate variations to represent equally delicate shades or nuances of experience, the conceptual judgment is out of the ques- tion. It is not surprising, then, that man should be the sole possessor of this prerogative. The word represents the concept which, in turn, stands for a relation binding together, representing, a greater or smaller number of concrete experiences. But while words normally represent masses of experience once actualized in the concrete, they can be combined in vari- ous ways, thus making possible constructive results to which no previous experience corresponds. Man is consequently able, not only to face present situations in the light of past experience, but also to look into the THp CONDENSATION OF EXPERIENCES I4I future and govern action with reference to remote ends. Thus active attention and the concept-forming capac- ity reciprocally benefit one another. Hobhouse's treatment' of this stage of mental growth is especially clarifying. He defines a concept in the following words : " When an element common to many experiences is not merely recognized when it appears, but (i) is thought of without being perceived, and (2) is capable of being combined in thought with other elements, it becomes a concept of general meaning and application. To be a general concept, the ele- ment must be something for consciousness apart from its per- ceptual setting, and it must be applicable to a different setting." 3. Concepts have been variously classified by various authorities. While it is not pertinent to our purpose to review these classes at this time, it will be helpful to consider briefly two of them for the sake of the light that they throw upon the nature of the concept in general. (a) Collective Concepts. These are represented in language most typically by the common nouns. Having the capacity for analysis, we are enabled to "know" objects as definite parts of experience. Certain objects have certain features in common. They may differ in many respects, but there is something that combines them into a class. This constant common quality we perceive as a relation and represent by a name. Thereafter we are enabled to deal with the name, — to use the name, — as representing the class, as standing for a mass of similar experiences. It is clear that the greater the number of objects included under the concept, the fewer will be the common quaUties that the concept connotes, and the more "abstract" will be the 1 Hobhouse, op. cit., p. 292. 142 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS , relation that is designated. The spreading-out of the concept over a number of individual objects is technically known as its extension ; the common qualities that it represents form its intension. Therefore the extension and intension of a collec- tive concept always bear an inverse relation to one another, — ■ the greater the extension, the less the intension, and vice versa. The concept horse, for example, possesses more intension and less extension than the concept vertebrate, and so on. This distinction is somewhat important from an educational stand- point. {B) Individual Concepts. These are typically represented by particular names or proper nouns.^ That such words stand for condensed experiences is, perhaps, not obvious at first glance. Formal logic has accustomed us to think of the con- cept as something abstracted from several objects, rather than from several experiences. But it is plainly apparent that our knowledge of an object varies with our experiences with that object. For example, my friend, Mr. Smith, is an individual; but my knowledge of him is a product of several experiences that I have had with him. My concept of Mr. Smith, represented by his name, is really a condensation of these experiences. I have seen him at different times, talked with him upon different subjects, gained thereby an insight into different phases and aspects of his " nature." My concept has gradually changed during all this time. Particulars and details have been cut out, and only permanent features remain. These constitute a thread of continuity or identity running through the details of various experiences, and to this thread I attach the symbol, his name. 1 " The individual marked by a proper name is a universal. Any indi- vidual man, John Jones or Richard Roe, is a unity of manifold states, qualities, activities, and relations. . . . The proper name marks the con- necting unity." — Baldwin and Stout, in Diet, of Philosophy, etc., art " Conception." THE CONDENSATION OF EXPERIENCES I43 Perhaps there will come up with his name, when I speak of him or hear him spoken of, an image of his face ; perhaps even a picture or image of him, as he appeared at some particular time and place. But if one or another of these " constant associates " ' does occur, it is, to all intents and purposes, what the name is, — a symbol. If, for example, my constant associ- ate with Mr. Smith's n^me is an image of him as he appeared at a social gathering, and if this is revived when I speak of him as being seriously ill, my meaning will not be obscured, although intrinsically the idea of serious illness would seem naturally to require an image of him as he would appear in the sick room, rather than an image of him at a social gather- ing. But the use of a concept in a judgment does not neces- sarily involve any definite and consistent imagery which would, in itself, represent that judgment. If it did, the capacity for condensing experience would mean very little to mental development. 4. The Concept 0} Self. One of the best examples of the individual concept is the concept of self. The mental content represented by the pronoun / is just as thoroughly a product of condensation as is the concept of any other individual. I have a social self, a family self, a professional self, and, in virtue of my inherited tendencies, a primitive self. Each of these represents, 'in a certain measure, a distinct individual. I have different attitudes, different dispositions, different ways of looking at things, according as one or another of these subordinate selves is dominant. But all through these subordinate concepts there runs a thread of unity. Some- 1 See W. C. Bagley, in American Journal of Psychology, 1900, vol. xii, p. 120. 144 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS times, perhaps, this may be a very slender thread and, in pathological conditions, it may be broken off altogether. But normally it is a thread which, in spite of whatever efforts one may make at modesty, is bound to be the largest and most comprehensive of one's concepts. It is with reference to this ultimate self that all the activi- ties of one's life are ordered, either exphcitly or implic- itly. MoraUty has been termed the subordination of individual impulses to remote social ends; but morality is possible only when these social ends can be identified with the highest and most permanent interests of the ultimate self. 5. Concepts and Apperceptive Systems. An apper- ceptive system was defined in an earlier chapter -"^ as a mass of experience functioning in a condensed form. There is an obvious correspondence between the sub- ordinate concepts of self, mentioned in the last para- graph, and the larger apperceptive systems discussed in the earlier chapter. Not only the concepts of self, how- ever, but every concept is an apperceptive system; a concept is an apperceptive system made explicit — made self-conscious. In the process of simple apperception, the operating systems are in the background or margin of consciousness; in the process of judgment, which is only a more complete, more elaborate form of apper- ception, the operating systems are brought into the fore- ground. In the conceptual judgment, the apperceptive * Ch. V, above. THE CONDENSATION OF EXPERIENCES 1 45 systems are, for purposes of convenient representation, attached to words or symbols. The word thus becomes the focal representative of the apperceptive system. One can deal with the word or concept precisely as one could deal with any of the concrete experiences from which it has been derived if the latter were represented con- sciously by its original sense ingredients. It should not be forgotten, however, that back of the word is the marginal " halo,'' or fringe of relations, which " carries the meaning," and in which the kinaesthetic sensations, represent- ing as they do the constant factors in experience, occupy a prominent place. Except from the standpoint of genesis, how- ever, these marginal elements may be largely left out of account ; one may deal with words precisely as if they were, as they seem to be, the sole representatives, — the attenuated shadows, — of the original experience. But the standpoint of genesis is the very standpoint with which education is concerned. It is our business to know how these apperceptive systems are formed and how the words that represent them come to fiinc- tion effectively. Professor Gore * emphasizes clearly the importance of the marginal residua of past experiences : " The conceptualist has contributed to the data of descriptive psychology by calling attention, by implication at least, to the remote and reduced character of the imagery which may characterize thinking. But it by no means follows that the more remote and reduced the sense-content of an image becomes, the less important is that sense-content for thinking, the less demand for discrimination. On the contrary, the sense-content that remains may be of supreme logical importance. It may be the quintessence of 1 W. C. Gore : " Image and Idea in Logic," in Dewey's Sitidies in Logical Theory, pp. 201-202. I. 146 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS meaning. It may be the conscious factor which, when dis> criminated from another almost equally sublimated conscious factor, may determine a whole course of action. The delicacy and rapidity with which these reduced forms of imagery as they hover about the margin of consciousness or flit across its focus are discriminated and caught, are points in the technique of that long art of thinking, begun in early childhood. The fact that questionnaire investigations — like that of Galton's, for example — have in many instances failed to discover in the minds of scientists and advanced thinkers a rich and varied furniture of imagery does not argue the poverty of imagery in such minds ; it argues rather a highly developed technique, a species of virtuosity, with reference to the sense-content of the types of imagery actually in use." To put this in another way, one may say that, in the early years of childhood, the words used are always associated with concrete imagery. In adult life, also, in dealing with unfamiUar subjects, the tendency to supplement the word with concrete imagery is very strong. But with practice in the use of words, the imagery becomes more and more schematic, more and more symbolic, more and more representative and connota- tive, until a point is reached where the expert in a certain field images very little, perhaps not at all so far as he can discover.* 6. Concept Building in Education. An important task of education is to lead the pupil to condense his experi- ences and attach symbols to the concepts thus formed. The fundamental principle that governs this process ^ See, in this connection, Titchener's remarks upon the word-idea : Outline of Psychology, New York, 1899, pp. 309 ff.; H. M. Stanley: "Language and Image," in Psychological Review, 1897, vol. iv, p. 71; G. F. Stout: Groundwork of Psychology, l^ew York, 1903, ch. x; W. G Bagley : " Apperception of the Spoken Sentence," in American Journal of Psychology, 1900, vol. xii, p. iig. THE CONDENSATION OF EXPERIENCES I47 has been recognized almost from the beginning, — reo ognized in theory but often sadly neglected in practice. This principle is formulated in the pedagogical maxim: "Proceed from particulars to generals and from the concrete to the abstract." Rightly interpreted, this dictum lies at the basis of all rational instruction. It means that there is no way to reach concepts that will function efficiently, save through a series of experiences beginning with the concrete and particular and passing gradually through the various stages of condensation. There is no "royal road to learning," and there is no short cut to the concept. But the principle must mean concrete and particular experiences and not necessarily concrete and particular objects. Mind passes "naturally" from particulars to generals, if one means by these terms particular expe- riences and general concepts. But the term "particu- lars" must not be confused with the term "details." Mind does not move normally from details to masses; it does not work synthetically alone, but first analyti- cally and then s)mthetically. The concrete experience in the first place is vague and homogeneous; by the operation of analysis and synthesis it is made definite and heterogeneous. The large, undifferentiated mass is the beginning; the large unity, made up of connected and interrelated parts, is the terminus. The vague, undifferentiated masses or wholes which constitute concrete experiences are technically termed 148 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS "aggregate ideas." Any given situation of which per ception informs us is a type of the aggregate idea. We break it up into parts, perceive relations between these parts and similar elements of past experience, and form a judgment, a synthesis. Obviously we can do the same with an ideal experience as well as with the real perceived situation. We may have in mind an aggregate made up entirely of old materials and subject it to analysis and synthesis in a similar manner. The term "aggre- gate idea" is a convenient designation and will be fre- quently employed in the subsequent discussions. 7. The duty of the teacher in the process of concept building is to see to it that the process of condensation is not taken for granted, but actually worked out. The individual must be subjected to a number of experi- ences of the concrete order and led consciously to make the analyses, comparisons, and abstractions that are nec- essary to the formation of the concept. Consider, for example, the concept river system. By the approved method of teaching geography, a single river system is studied as a type. If possible, this will be one with which the pupils can deal directly, of which they can have first-hand knowledge. If this is the case, they will observe the various features of the river system from as many points of vantage as possible. They will represent what they see in various ways — by drawing, by modeling, by picturing, by describing. From all their experiences with this typical river system, they will gain somewhat of a " general " idea — a condensed experience. But this idea will have been condensed from experiences, not from objects. For a long time they will deal with one rivei THE CONDENSATION OF EXPERIENCES 149 system ; yet, when the term is applied, it will represent a con- cept just as truly as if they had compared a hundred different river systems, abstracted the common qualities, and built up the general notion in the highly artificial manner described in the older treatises on educational psychology. Certainly this typical river system will be compared with others as geographi- cal instruction continues, and the concept will be gradually extended, losing, at the same time, some of its intensive char- acters. The point that is to be emphasized in this connection, however, is that the pupil may gain a working concept through the study of a single type. The grievous error of the older method of teaching arithmetic was, that it assumed the concepts of number and dealt entirely with the symbols that represent the concepts. This naturally led to a barren formalism in instruction, — a formalism to which number symbols lend themselves all too readily.' Cer- tainly one who has constantly to deal with numbers must come in course of time to manipulate figures with little conscious ref- erence to their concrete bases. But one who would effectively use number concepts in this fine degree of condensation must first build up these concepts through a long series of concrete experiences with the particular data that they represent. It is in arithmetic that this danger of neglecting to pass through the preUminary stages of concept building is most clearly revealed, but other subjects of instruction have not been free from the blight of formalism. The " memoriter " method of learning geography, grammar, and history is even now all too common. Learning words " by heart " still has its place in education, but its sphere is restricted, and the process must be rigidly subject to certain general principles that will be discussed in a later section. 1 How the introduction of the Hindu system of notation, convenient and time-saving as it proved to be, opened the way for formalism in arith- metic teaching is clearly shown by Professor D. E. Smith : Teaching oj Elementary Mathematics, New York, 1900, ch. iv. ISO THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS 8. To summarize: (a) The process of condensation must work through concrete experience, (b) The ef- fective use of the word as the focal representative of an apperceptive system is conditioned entirely upon the faithfulness with which the details of this condensing process have been carried out. (c) For some time the word will tend to be supplemented by more or less concrete imagery revived from the particular experiences to which it is referred, (d) The most effective use of words, however, demands that this concrete imagery be reduced to a minimum; that the sensory components of the apperceptive system retire to the margin of con- sciousness; and that the word become the sole focal representative. PART IV- THE ORGANIZATION AND RECALL OF EXPERIENCE CHAPTER X The Organization of Experiences through Con- ceptual Judgments I. It has been pointed out that judgment is essen- tially an adaptation, an act; and this is true whether the judgment be of the practical or of the conceptual type. The physician who solves the situation with a conceptual judgment uses his experience as an instru- ment for directing adjustment just as truly as the servant who solves the situation with a practical judgment. In the latter case, experience is recalled in a concrete and particular form; in the former case, it is recalled in a condensed and s)anbohc form. Not only real situations, however, but also ideal or imagined situations may be solved by a process of judg- ment. The physician may have a fairly accurate report of the case before starting from his office, and on his way he may picture the situation and arrive at practi- cally the judgment that he would have reached had he waited for the real situation to be presented. Or, in his earlier days, he may have "thought out" an imagi- 151 152 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS nary case of a similar nature and arrived at a judg- ment that could afterward be applied to a real situation. Or, again, he may have looked up the matter in a surgi- cal treatise before leaving his oflfice and appropriated the conceptual judgment which the author of the treatise recommended as a solution of such a situation. In other words, the finished product 0} a conceptual judgment may itself function as a condensed experience in facing new situations. The average man has at his command a number of judgments already made. He has come into possession of these in various ways : some he has worked out for himself, some he has gained in social intercourse, some are due to his reading. How he has gained them we shall find to be a very impor- tant factor in their effective use. In the present connec- tion, however, it is enough to know that they can be used. The repeated appHcation of a "preformed" judgment, however, does not involve so compHcated a process as that required for its first elaboration. Indeed the application of these preformed judgments may fre- quently approximate the operation of habit. Inasmuch, however, as the process is normally focal, it may be termed a judgment; that is, the application of a preformed judgment to a given situation is in itself a judgment, for it is the conscious application of past experience to a present problem. 2. Reasoning. This distinction furnishes a basis for an adequate definition of reasoning. Essentially, it is THE ORGANIZATION OF EXPERIENCES 1 53 the formation of a judgment "out of the whole cloth," — the solution of a new experience' in an entirely new way. The physician of long practice will make a rapid examination of the condition in which he finds his pa- tient and immediately come to the judgment, "This is malarial fever," or "This burn must be dressed with a dry bandage." The thinking, the reasoning, that such a process involves is scarcely more strenuous than that of the layman who casually remarks that it is a fine day. But somewhere and at some time the physician had to go through a severe course of reasoning in order to arrive at such a judgment. Even now, in very novel or very critical cases he would do so. It is very easy to become confused upon this point. Formal logic recognizes syntheses of subjects and predicates as judg- ments, and syntheses of judgments as reasoning, whenever cer- tain formal conditions are fulfilled. Any grammatical sentence fulfills such conditions, therefore any grammatical sentence may be looked upon as a judgment. To the psychologist a grammatical sentence may represent a judgment, but this does not in the least imply that the capacity to put words together grammatically means the capacity for judgment. This point is well brought out by Professor Titchener^ in the following paragraph : — " Man has dubbed himself homo sapiens, and defined him- self as a ' rational animal ' ; but he rarely thinks. For we are, all of us, bom into a society where judgments await us ready- made ; every generation receives a heritage of judgments from the preceding generations. Hence facts that cost our ancestors immense pains to work out come to us as a matter of course. 1 E. B. Titchener: Primer of Psychology, p. 217. 154 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS Society is already organized; then we do not need to make judgments about social organization. A form of religion is established ; we need not judge for ourselves in religious mat- ters. A code of conduct has been laid down; we need not judge in matters of conduct. The applications of scientific principles are seen all about us, — we may take the steam- engine and the telegraph for granted. Life is made smooth for us by the accumulated work of past generations. ... It follows from this that propositions like, ' The grass is green ' are not judgments at all ; they do not express results that we have gained laboriously by active attention." Miss Thompson* has also called attention to this distinc- tion : " A large portion of the so-called judgments considered by logicians, even by those who emphasize that a judgment is an act, are really not judgments at all, but contents of thought which are the outcome of judgments — what might be called dead judgments, instead of live judgments. When we analyze a real act of judgment, as it occurs in a living process of thought, we find given elements which are always present. There is always a certain situation which demands a reaction." 3. Reasoning, then, in the strict sense of the word is a relatively rare process and occurs only in the formation of a judgment ie novo. In the great bulk of our daily activities, we apply ready-made judgments to the situa- tions presented, rather than analyze the situations and form therefrom entirely new judgments. In the former case, however, there will be something of the process of judgment, only much less complex than the more elabo- rate process for which the term "reasoning" has been reserved. A term is needed, therefore, to cover this 1 Helen Bradford Thompson, op. cit., p. 108. THE ORGANIZATION OF EXPERIENCES ISJ application of preformed judgments to given situations, — a term that will cover the middle ground between the automatic functioning of experience as habit and the maxi- mally conscious functioning of experience as reasoning. Professor McLennan-^ has used the term intuitive judgment to designate a class of this intermediate type This class is exemphfied in the manner in which an expert responds to a situation as contrasted with the reaction of a novice or a layman. "To the intuitive judgment there is no hesitation, no aloof- ness. Action is direct, but entirely self-conscious. That such a type of judgment as the intuitive exists, there can be no doubt. There is all the difference in the world between the quality of consciousness of a mere layman and that of an expert, no matter what the line. It is a process whose parts are suc- cessive, whether much or little difficulty be experienced. For the expert situations are taken in at a glance, parts and wholes are simultaneous and immediate. Yet the meaning is entirely exact. The expert judgment is self-conscious to the last de- gree. While other individuals are thinking out what they do, the expert has it, sees the advantage, adjusts, and moves. De- mand and solution jump together. . . . Only in so far as we become experts in our special fields of experience, and have reduced our instruments of action to precise control, can we expect the presence of intuitive judgments. They remain, therefore, as the final outcome of the judgment-function made perfect in its technique and use.'' The term intuitive seems to be an excellent desig- nation for this type of judgment, for it implies that the 1 S. F. McLennan : " Stages in the Development of Judgment," in Dewey's Studies in Logical Theory, pp. 139 ff. 156 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS process has a certain resemblance to habit. It differs from the judgment of reasoning, — which Professor McLennan aptly terms " reflective," — in that the inter- vening stages of analysis and synthesis have been left out or reduced to a minimum — the "reasoning" has been ehminated. As the author puts it, "Demand and solution jump together," "Situations are taken in at a glance, parts and wholes are simultaneous and immedi- ate." The term seems thoroughly adequate also to cover the application to existing situations of most of the preformed judgments gained through social heredity, — the commonplaces of everyday conversation. This is the field where we are all experts, as it were; or, at least, where only little children and savages are laymen. Professor McLennan would doubtless prefer to identify these last-named judgments with what he terms the impersonal type. But, as he points out, there is a clear resemblance between the •impersonal and intuitive forms ; and, inasmuch as the multipli- cation of technical terms must be avoided as far as possible in a work of this kind, it may be safe to neglect the differences, and to consider the two forms as identical. 4. The Aggregate Idea in Reasoning. The process of true reasoning — the formation of a judgment de novo rather than the application of a preformed judgment — in- volves what has already been referred to as an "aggregate idea." This is a more or less vague, more or less undiffer- entiated mass, represented in consciousness by concrete sense materials, "tags" of meaning, disconnected con- THE ORGANIZATION OF EXPERIENCES 1 57 cepts, and, if one is facing a real situation, a complex of perceptual elements. The process of reasoning con- sists in "working over" this mass in active attention, analyzing it, discovering the relations that exist between its several parts, and reconstructing the whole in a defi- nite judgment or series of judgments.^ 5. Logical Reasoning. Sometimes the materials of the aggregate idea consist entirely of preformed judg- ments. The task is then to arrange these judgments in logical order, — that is, in the order that reveals at a glance the relation between them, — and to express this relation in the form of a new judgment. All this may, of course, be done for us and we may simply bor- row the result, but, in case we do it for ourselves, we are performing an act of logical reasoning; and this holds true whether the judgments with which we deal have themselves been borrowed or whether we have worked them out for ourselves from still simpler data. 6. Logical reasoning assumes two general forms: in- duction and deduction. In a' process of inductive reason- ing, one passes from a number of particular judgments to a more general judgment; one recognizes in the par- ticulars a common principle which one abstracts and generalizes. The process is similar to that of the forma- tion of concepts, except that here one deals with con- 1 A very good illustration of a process of true reasoning and the reduc- tion of an aggregate idea is cited by Titchener : Primer of Psychology^ p. 217, 158 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS densed experiences of a particular nature, rather than with concrete experiences. The formation of any great principle of natural science will illustrate the workings of inductive reasoning. Take, for ex- ample, the law that eighteen inches of rainfall annually is the minimal amount that will support agriculture without artificial irrigation. This is 'a generaUzation drawn from a number of particular judgments regarding the influence of rainfall upon agriculture in thousands of particular instances. Agriculture was attempted in this place with sixteen inches of rainfall ; it proved a failure. In another place, seventeen inches were available, but results were not obtained. In this locality, twenty inches of rain fell during the year ; agriculture was carried on successfully with careful cultivation. Nineteen inches gave similar results. With eighteen inches, let us say, the number of successes just overtopped the number of failures. Hence the general law. All the important principles of science have been gained largely in this way. The principle of gravitation and the law of evolution are perhaps the most notable examples. In the work of education, we make frequent use of induc- tive reasoning. Take, for example, the simple experiments performed in nature study. The teacher wishes to develop in his class the general principle that the germination of seeds depends upon moisture and warmth. A number of boxes are provided, in each of which similar seeds are to be placed. Two boxes are filled with damp and dry loam, others with damp and dry sand, others with damp and dry sponges, others with damp and dry blotting paper. A duplicate series of boxes is prepared in precisely the same way. One series is placed in a warm room, another in some place where the temperature is close to the freezing point. The children observe the behavior of the seeds under these various conditions. Each box represents, as it were, the center of an aggregate idea, out of which, in the course of time, the pupils will make one of these judgments : THE ORGANIZATION OF EXPERIENCES 1 59 " The seeds in this box germinate in damp sand ; " " These seeds do not germinate in dry sand ; " " These seeds germinate in damp sand in a warm room;" "These seeds do not ger- minate in damp sand in the cold," etc. Finally, these particular judgments are put together in the more general judgment, or principle : " Moisture and warmth are necessary to the ger- mination of seeds." In a similar manner, the negative judg- ment, " Darkness is not necessary to the germination of seeds," or the judgment, " Light, warmth, and moisture are essential to the growth of green plants," may be reached, each repre- senting a definite act of inductive reasoning upon the basis of particular judgments formed from actual observation. 7. Deductive reasoning proceeds from a general judg- ment to an individual or less general judgment. In a sense, it is an explicit application of a principle covering a large number of particular cases to one of the cases which the principle covers. It is represented schemati- cally by the well-known formula of the syllogism : — MisP, S isM; therefore, S is P. Or, as it is worked out in the classic example: — All men are mortal ; Socrates is a man ; therefore, Socrates is mortal. Deductive reasoning subserves two very important functions in the economy of Ufe: (a) the function of explanation or solution, exemplified when one identifies an object of experience as a member of a still larger class, or recognizes a process as the expression of a more gen- l60 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS eral law; and (b) the function of anticipation or predic- tion, exemplified when one makes a judgment about some situation with which direct, sensuous experience is impossible, or in the solution of which the formation of judgments from direct experience would be a slow, laborious, and unprofitable process. The first function is really a process of apperception, in which all the operating apperceptive systems are made ex- plicit. A situation is presented which baffles the individual for the moment. He does not know what to do with it, how to relate it to the needs of his hfe. He studies it carefully, how- ever, and finally identifies it with a group of other similar phe- nomena which are described by a certain law or principle. Immediately the situation " clears up." The operation of that particular principle has a definite and well-known relation to his life. The mystery is solved and the appropriate adjust- ment results. The process is quite similar to simple apper- ception, except that it is long drawn out and thoroughly self-conscious in all its details. The second function of deductive reasoning is illustrated typically by the discovery of the planet Neptune. The planet Uranus had been observed for several years, and its position at successive periods of any given year could be predicted with mathematical certainty. But in the course of time it happened that Uranus failed to act according to the astronomers' calcu- lations. John Couch Adams argued that the apparent aberra- tions in the planet's course were not due to an error in the previous calculations, as many supposed, but to the presence of another planet beyond Uranus. During the same year, Lever- rier reached a similar conclusion, maintaining that, by all the known laws of celestial mechanics, the behavior of Uranus could be explained only by assuming the existence of a large planet beyond. He even went so far as to compute the orbit THE ORGANIZATION OF EXPERIENCES l6l of this hitherto unknown planet from the data furnished by Uranus, and in the following year (1846) the planet Neptune was revealed by a new and powerful telescope within i" of the point indicated. 8. The great majority of the judgments witn which education furnishes the individual are useful only under the condition that they may be made the bases of deduc- tive reasoning; and the paramount problem of educa- tional method is to determine how these judgments are to be imparted in order most efficiently to function in this way. It will do the pupil Httle good, for instance, if, after learning that eighteen inches of rainfall are essen- tial to agriculture without irrigation, he joins in the next wild rush to populate a semi-arid region — such a migra- tory movement, perhaps, as that witnessed in the "boom" days of western Kansas and Nebraska. It is one func- tion of education to prevent just such blunders. 9. The Organization of Judgments. When a vast number of experiences, having reference to some defi- nite phase of life, are reduced to judgment form, corre- lated with one another, and combined into a system, there results a "body" of knowledge or a science. Thus every science, such as physics, botany, sociology, is a body of organized and interrelated judgments gained from thousands of different experiences or drawn from more general judgments which, in turn, rest upon expe- rience. But this organization and systematization of judg- I62 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS ments, no matter how elaborately it may be worked out, still has as its end or purpose the modification of adjust- ment. Improvement in the organization of facts and principles means that they are more closely related to one another; that, instead of being "massed," they are shot through with a multitude of connections; and that, in virtue of these connections, they may be recalled most readily and applied most effectively. The aim of each science is to arrange its judgments in a system, the component parts of which shall harmonize perfectly with one another. As Hobhouse * points out, what we term " common sense " differs from scientific thought in this respect. Common sense cares nothing for fine distinctions that do not subserve imme- diate practical ends. If a law or a principle " works," that in itself is sufficient. That laws or principles may be logically inconsistent with one another fails to be a disturbing factor. But a science seeks to put all the judgments relating to its special province into a consistent and coherent whole. If they do not harmonize, their premises must again be sought out, subjected to new and more rigid analyses, and resynthe- tized. Hence, as science develops, more exact and more refined methods of attacking the aggregate idea come to be applied. There is greater nicety of analysis ; greater accuracy in comparing, measuring, weighing; greater care in drawing conclusions, either inductively or deductively. All these refinements of method may look, on the surface, to be remotely removed from what one terms " practical " ends. One speaks of the efforts of science to build up coherent sys- tems of knowledge as " theoretical." In the universities, there 1 L. T. Hobhouse : Mind in Evolution, pp. 329 ff. THE ORGANIZATION OF EXPERIENCES 163 are scores of investigators who spend their time over what seem at first glance to be the most futile problems, — problems that appear to have not the slightest significance to the vital ques- tions of life. And if we ask these investigators why they spend priceless time in solving impractical problems, they will tell us that it is all for the sake of truth, and that they care nothing for the " common-sense " estimate of their work. But truth is only another name for a consistent system of judgments, and no system that presents gaps or lacunse can be thoroughly complete. Facts and principles which may not have a practical value in direct application to the situations or problems of life may still have a theoretical value in bringing nearer to perfection a system of knowledge. The history of civilization sufficiently demonstrates that experience is most effectively applied when it is formulated in such a system ; hence judgments that have only a theoretical value at the outset may ultimately, through devious channels that escape our view, find a useful and timely application to the pressing problems of existence. 10. Philosophy, which may be called the science of sciences, is popularly supposed to be the most "im- practical" pursuit to which the energies of man can be given ; for, while a science may bring forth some detailed judgments that find immediate practical application, phi- losophy is entirely concerned with making the various sciences consistent with one another and in tracing out the fundamental postulates upon which all knowledge rests. Its goal is the coherent organization of all knowl- edge. Yet the fact that improvement in organization yields practical results in the various special sciences justifies our faith that a still wider improvement of l64 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS organization which aims to bring all the facts and prin ciples of all sciences into a coherent system will work an influence on practical life commensurate with its com- prehensive character. Thus, though philosophy "bakes no cakes," as the ancient proverb reminds us, its influ- ence may still operate to render even the baking of cakes more efficient. The work of Herbert Spencer, dealing though it did with abstract and theoretical thetnes, revealed the principle of evo- lution as the one permanent essence in all our experiences with nature, with mind, and with society. The recognition of this principle has had the most profound effect upon the practical affairs of life. There is scarcely a field of human labor that it has not modified. Agriculture has been revolutionized, medi- cine has been founded upon a new and firmer foundation, and even government and practical politics have felt its influence. II. The fact that the organization of experience in coherent systems is a fundamental factor in promoting the appHcation of experience to the practical improve- ment of adjustment is profoundly significant to the pro- cess of education.^ A large number of the judgments that education impresses will serve, not so much in direct application to the needs of life as in cementing together the various parts of a coherent body of knowl- edge. But the educator must never lose sight of the fact that his work is ultimately to be measured and judged by practical standards; ultimately all knowl- edge must have practical worth. Simply because a mul- 1 Cf. L. F. Ward: Dynamic Sociology, New York, 1897, '^°^ "> P- 54^. THE ORGANIZATION OF EXPERIENCES 1 65 titude of stages may intervene between the assimilation of experience and its outcome in action, one must not be deceived into believing that mind exists for any purpose other than the modification and direction of adjustments. Nature does not provide luxuries that subserve no pur- pose; and a mind that assimilated knowledge for its own sake would certainly be such a luxury. But while education must recognize this standard, it will still be untroubled by the popular clamor for the "practical." It will understand that practical ends are sometimes best subserved by seemingly impractical means, and that, in ways far beyond the ken of "com- mon sense," the judgments which that common sense derides as purely theoretical may converge upon and improve even so prosaic a task as digging a ditch; for just as no fact is so small that theoretical science may neglect it, so no human duty is so mean or lowly that this same theoretical science may not enlighten and ennoble it. It is not to be inferred, however, that the individual who assimilates knowledge is necessarily conscious of the ultimate function which this knowledge is to fulfill in his life. One must distinguish carefully between the ultimate value that education may see in subject-matter of instruction and the interest that the individual may have in this subject-matter. The investi- gator may work solely and simply from an abstract love of truth, taking no thought whatsoever of even the indirect bear- ing of his conclusions upon practical life. Further than this, the love of truth may be only an empty phrase to him, and the l66 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS real motive that keeps him to his work may be a mere delight in that particular form of activity called investigation, — an acquired interest, growing directly out of the primitive instinct of curiosity. Viewed from the subjective standpoint, the satis- faction of this interest is a commendable end in itself, — but, from the social standpoint, it is commendable only because experience has proved that society is, in the long run, the gainer if men are permitted to investigate for the sake of inves- tigation. In other words, investigation is an individual interest that society confirms as ultimately promoting social welfare. 12. In the discussion hitherto, the terms fact, law, principle, generalization, have frequently recurred. It is well to have a definite connotation for each of these terms. A fact, for our purposes, is a judgment of the particular type, representing, one may say, the solution of an aggregate idea made up largely of concrete sense- material. In the illustration cited above, the judg- ments, "These seeds germinate in damp sand," "These seeds do not germinate in dry sand," are facts. The terms "generahzation," "law," and "principle" may be looked upon as synonjonous. Each represents the statement of a relation that is constant in a number of separate facts. Thus the judgment, "All seeds require heat and moisture for germination," is a generalization, a law, or a principle. In view of its universal vahdity, it is also known in logic as a universal judgment. A judgment that is drawn from a comparatively few facts and inferred to cover a much larger number is termed a hypothetical judgment, or a hypothesis. THE ORGANIZATION OF EXPERIENCES 167 The organization of judgments into systems of know! edge also gives rise to some technical terms that should be used in a definite manner. An investigator working in a special field of knowledge generally confines his constructive efforts to a very small corner of that field. He attempts first to discover facts and then to work these facts up into principles or generalizations of a comparatively simple nature. The written or printed record of such investigations, together with the conclu- sions that he draws from them, is termed a monograph, and the investigator himself is a specialist. A second corps of workers might analogously be called generalists. They work over the facts and principles brought out by the speciaHsts and attempt to put these together in a coherent system.^ The record of their work is termed a treatise. Finally, there is a third class of workers who deal with the relations of the several sciences to one another and to Hfe in general. These are the philoso- phers, and their writings as works of philosophy fall into several subclasses. In addition to all these, there are men who sum up in brief form the main facts and prin- ciples in the larger fields and produce text-books. A text-book may take the form of a treatise, but, as a rule, it is a compilation from a number of treatises and aims at brevity and simpHcity of treatment. The principle of compensation would suggest that a high degree of efficiency in more than one of these lines would be 1 Hence the term systemattsiis often used as a synonym oi generalist. l68 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS exceptional. This inference is strongly confirmed by experi- ence. There seems to be a distinctive type of mind that is either adapted to or developed by speciaHzed research, and unusual ability along this line seems quite to preclude even mediocre attainments in philosophy and system. Occasionally we find a man, like Darwin or Wundt, who is an exception to this rule ; but, in general, the scientists are poor philosophers, and the philosophers are rather less than indifferent scientists. CHAPTER XI The Factors of Efficient Recall 1. The functioning of experience in consciousness is characteristic of all forms of judgment, and whatever is to function effectively in consciousness must be capable of revival or recall. This implies that the factors which condition the revival of experience will be of extreme importance from the educational point of view. 2. (a) The Recall of Concrete Experience. Psycho- logical investigation ^ has shown that abiUty to revive concrete sense impressions involves one or more of four separate factors: (i) recency, (2) primacy, (3) vivid- ness, and (4) frequency. (i) The more recently an impression has been made, the more likely it is (other things equal) to be brought up again in consciousness. This is, of course, a matter of commonplace knowledge and needs no demonstra- tion. From an educational standpoint, however, recency is not an important factor in recall, for the obvious reason that education works toward a comparatively remote end. In a negative way, it is important to know that mere "cramming" may produce the most deceptive results, 1 See particularly Mary W. Calkins : " Association," in Psychological Review Monograph Supplements, 1896, vol. i, no. 2. 169 170 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS and that measures must be taken to check the opera- tion of this factor to the subversion of the true purpose of education. (2) Primacy, as a factor of efficient recall, finds expres- sion in the popular phrase, "First impressions are last- ing." It is the new thing that "catches the attention." We remember in great detail the events of our first com- ing to a certain town or to a certain school. The re- maining events of our stay may be vague and shadowy enough, but the initial impressions stand out clear and distinct. As with the factor of recency, education is concerned with primacy in only a sUght degree. First impressions color later experiences, hence it is always well to make one's introduction to a subject of study or a line of work as pleasant and agreeable as possible. Not a few individuals have probably been effectually discouraged from that persistent effort which is every- where essential to success by some impleasant occur- rence at the outset which tinges all future endeavor. (3) The value of vividness in promoting recall is Uke- wise a matter of commonplace knowledge. We remem- ber experiences that have, for one reason or another, made a "deep" impression upon our minds. A serious accident or an exciting episode is Ukely to be retained indefinitely, even to its concrete details. Needless to say, however, impressions are vivid because of their contrast to other impressions that lack this character- istic; hence not all impressions can be given this advan- THE FACTORS OF EFFICIENT RECALL I71 tage. Furthermore, vivid impressions mean an abnormal nervous activity, hence a multiplicity of such experiences would doubtless promote a nervous breakdown. This is seen very plainly among those who Uve for some time under conditions of great excitement. Notwithstanding this disadvantage, however, the factor of vividness is extremely important in education. If the child is to be corrected for a serious fault, it is neces- sary to make the experience of correction as vivid as possible in order absolutely to insure an inhibitory effect in the future. Vividness is also important in the early stages of education, when the child is still under the sway of passive attention and must be appealed to through stimuh that soUcit passive attention. With advancing age, the individual becomes less and less dependent upon these primitive means of holding the attention. To make an extensive use of "spectacular methods" at this time is to appeal to the lower apperceptive sys- tems, to the primitive interests; and persistent use of such methods cannot fail to weaken the individual. (4) Frequency, as a factor of efficient recall, is a syno- nym for repetition. As we have seen, it lies at the basis of the pedagogy of habit, but it is not without impor- tance in the pedagogy of judgment, and especially in that form of judgment that lies between habit and reasoning and which we have termed "intuitive." The factor of frequency will be discussed in greater detail later on. 172 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS 3. These four factors of efl&cient recall have impor- tant relations to attention. Attention increases the vividness of an impression. Vividness and frequency, in so far as their effects are concerned, may be said to bear an inverse relation to one another. Other things equal, the less vivid the impression, the greater the num- ber of repetitions essential to insure its efficient recall. The relation is analogous to driving a nail by a single sledge-hammer blow or by a number of hght taps. This is why we laid so much stress upon repetition in atten- tion as the essential principle of habit-forming. The more strenuous the attention, the more quickly will repetition reach the goal of automatism and vice versa.^ The relation of attention to primacy is equally clear. Attention abhors monotony as nature abhors a vacuum. It is the new, the changing, the varying that solicit atten- tion; consequently, through the virtue of attention, the new impression becomes the vivid impression. Re- cency, on the other hand, bears an inverse relation to attention. The recent experience is recalled in spite of the fact that the attention that it aroused was only of shght degree. It is for this reason that recency has the least significance to education; it does not pro- mote the efficient recall of experience except by accident. 4. (&) The Recall oj Condensed Experiences. Al- though the four factors just discussed find their chief ' Cf. E. S. Swift : " Acquisition of Skill in Type-writing," in Psychological Bulletin, 1904, vol. i, pp. 295 fi. THE FACTORS OF EFFICIENT RECALL 1 73 sphere of activity in the practical judgment, they are not without importance in connection with the conceptual judgment. The condensed experiences which the latter form of judgment involves must be represented by sym- bols, but these symbols are, intrinsically, concrete sense- materials. The word "horse" is just as much a matter of concrete auditory kinsesthetic or visual kinaesthetic imagery as the image of a particular horse is a matter of visual imagery. The principle "Dry bandages dress this type of burns" is embodied in words which form concrete sense-material just as surely as the servant's revived idea of his master dressing a burn with dry band- ages. Therefore the factors that condition the recall of concrete sense-material will serve, under the proper conditions, to effect the recall of condensed experiences. Repetition is doubtless the factor that operates most frequently in this connection, and repetition is prob- ably more important in the recall of judgments that are borrowed from other sources than in the recall of judg- ments that one reasons out for one's self. 5. But even under the most favorable conditions, any or all of the four factors above mentioned are inade- quate to a maximally efficient recall of condensed expe- riences. Indeed, the very virtue of condensation lies in the fact that it promotes the operation of a factor of recall that far transcends all others. This factor is organization, which is, in essence, the grasping to- gether of judgments by means of their "thought con- 174 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS nections." Combinations of sentences that have no relation to one another can, it is true, be fixed in mind by verbal repetition, but the task is dishearteningly tedious and the results inconsequential. But once let the sentences bear a definite relation to one another, once let them be bound together by a thread of unity, and they may be lodged in the memory and become amenable to efficient recall with very little effort. This is most clearly brought out by the psychological ex- periments upon memory that have followed in the wake of Ebbinghaus's ■" classic investigations. Ebbinghaus constructed a number of " nonsense " syllables made up of two consonants and a vowel so combined that they would not form a significant word, — for example, bok, jak, neb, lup, etc. Among other experi- ments, he compared the time required for " committing " a series of twelve of these nonsense syllables with the time re- quired for learning a stanza of Byron's " Don Juan." The fol- lowing table is typical of the results obtained in this test ; the Roman numerals indicate the successive days of the tests, the Arabic numerals the number of repetitions necessary to make mastery perfect. I II III IV V VI Nonsense syllables . . Significant stanza . . 16.5 7-75 II.O 3-75 7-S 1-75 5-0 0.5 3-0 0.0 2-5 0.0 Even more convincing testimony is offered by the experi- ments of Miss Lottie Steffens.^ She compared two methods ^ H. Ebbinghaus: Ueber das Gedachtniss, 1885. 2 Lottie Steffens : " Zur Lehre vom okonomischen Lernen," in Zeit- ickriftflir Psychologic, etc., 1 900, vol. xxii, pp. 321 ff. THE FACTORS OF EFFICIENT RECALL 1/5 of learning one stanza of" Childe Harold's Pilgrimage " : (i) the "piecemeal" method, — repeating a single line over and over until it is mastered, then proceeding to the second line, and so on; and (2) the "complete" method, — reading the stanza through as a whole, then repeating the operation until the whole is mastered. She found that the complete method is by far the more economical. This conclusion has been verified by a number of other investigators, among them Lobsien,' Pent- schew,^ Des Bancels,^ and Ephrussi.'' The " piecemeal " method, it will be noted, is really a learn- ing of comparatively disconnected sentences, while the " com- plete " method involves the operation of " thought unities." The same principle explains the differences found by Ebbing- haus in the mastery of nonsense syllables and significant words. Hobhouse* utilizes both these experimental sources to demon- strate the efficacy of the factor of organization as contrasted with vividness and repetition in the recall of experiences that function in the conceptual judgment.® 6. Organization in Education. How the factor of organization operates in education may be clearly seen by comparing the old memoriter methods of teaching geography and history with the modern "rational" ^ Marx Lobsien : " Memorieren," in Zeitsckrift fur p'ddagogische Psy- ckologie, etc., 1902, vol. iv, pp. 293-306. ^ C. Pentschew : " Untersuchungen zur Oekonomie und Technik des Lernens," in Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologic, 1903, vol. i, pp. 417-526. " J. L. Des Bancels : " Sur les M^thodes de Memorisation," in Annie Psychologique, 1902, vol. viii, pp. 185-204. * P. Ephrussi : " Experimentelle Beitrage zur Lehre vom Gedachtnis," in Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 1905, vol. iv, pp. 56-103. * Hobhouse, op. cit., pp. 1 20 fF. 8 For further practical applications of the "memory" experiments, see O. Lipmann, \n Journal fur Psychologie und Neurologic, 1903, vol. ii, pp. 108 ff. 176 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS methods. Instead of memorizing a number of dis- connected facts, the present plan is to emphasize the connection between facts, to show how each is related to the others, and how, through all, there runs a certain thread of unity which may frequently be formulated as a general principle or law. In treating Washington's retreat across New Jersey, for ex- ample, the teacher of history will first lead his pupils to see why the retreat was necessary, then why it was made in this particular direction, and so on. It is a fact that Columbus dis- • covered America in 1492. It is also a fact that the Turks captured Constantinople in 1453. There is a distinct causal relation between these two facts, and the tracing of this relation forms a " thought connection " which will serve to fix the two facts in memory far more effectively than an indefinite amount of rote learning. It is well to know that the Missouri Com- promise was made in 1820; it is better to know the sig- nificance of the Missouri Compromise in the long series of incidents that constituted the antislavery agitation. Similarly, in geography, it is no longer thought to be" sufficient for the child to memorize a number of disconnected facts about a country, — that New York is the largest city in the United States, that Cleveland is an important center of the iron and steel industries, that flour is manufactured in MinneapoKs. These isolated facts are grouped under large principles, — prin- ciples that serve to give the facts a human significance and to bind them together in connected systems. In other words, the keynote of modern methods in history and geography is to " trace out " causal connections, to discover the underlying principles that unite disparate judgments. Just as the single, particular judgment is a condensation from a number of con- crete experiences, so the general principle is a condensation from a number of particular judgments. Experience functions THE FACTORS OF EFFICIENT RECALL IJ"] the more effectively in modifying adjustment the more thor- oughly it is condensed and organized into principles. To paraphrase a famous dictum of the philosopher Kant, one may well say that fact without law is blind, and that observation without induction is stupidity gone to seed. 7. But is education to depend entirely upon the factor of organization to insure the efi&cient recall of experiences ? Here one is reminded again of the extremes to which educational theory tends. At one time the work of the school is entirely of the memoriter type. Repetition and rote learning are the order of the day. Another generation sees repetition cast aside and organization exalted. Reasoning becomes the watchword, and any- thing that smacks of rote learning is rigidly, dogmati- cally abjured. In the one case, there is a barren formalism that mechanizes the work of instruction and reduces the progress of the pupils to a lock step. In the other case, there is a futile attempt to enforce upon the immature mind forms and processes that are beyond its grasp. The various factors must be harmonized with the needs and capacities of the child, and it will be the task of the next chapter to indicate the princi- ples that govern this adjustment of means to ends. 8. But even where organization becomes the lead- ing factor, vividness and repetition — especially repe- tition — may play an important, although subordinate, part. Suppose the rule, the principle, or the definition to have been rationally developed, to have been revealed in its proper relation to other items of knowledge, to 1/8 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS have been packed full of meaning and content; it still remains true that this rule or principle or definition has a form which verbal repetition may now readily fix and render stable. In other words, the various fac- tors cooperate in making items of experience maxi- mally effective for recall. Jost ^ has proved that primacy and vividness cooperate in this way, and Lipmann ^ has similarly shown that experiences fixed by vividness are given an increased stabihty by repetition. It is a matter of commonplace knowledge that organization is always aided by repetition, and there can be no doubt that the memorizing of rules and definitions, even after they have been "reasoned out," may stiU be profitable in the work of education. Repetition alone, or vivid- ness alone, or organization alone is more prodigal of time and energy than a combination of two or even three of these factors. 9. There is one department of education, however, where the sole use of the factor of repetition has an unquestioned right. Each of us has doubtless memo- rized verse and prose selections during childhood, half the content of the selections being entirely unnoted at the time. As we repeat them afterward, — perhaps years afterward, — we become conscious of meanings that we seem never before to have grasped. When we learned these selections, the mere sensuous pleasure 1 Jost, in Zeitschrift fur Psyckologie, etc., 1900, vol. xxiv, p. 459. " O. Lipmann, in Zeitschrift Jur Psychologic, 1904, vol. xxxv, p. 221 THE FACTORS OF EFFICIENT RECALL 1 79 that attached to the rhyme and rhythm, to the succes- sion and juxtaposition of sounds, with perhaps a faint glimpse of the hidden meaning, was sufficient to warrant the effort. "Even half-grown boys and girls," says Professor Groos,^ "take but little note of the sense, com- pared with the interest that they bestow upon rhyme and rhythm. Is it not a frequent experience of full- grown men and women to be suddenly struck with the profound truth hidden in some epigrammatic form of expression whose euphony has a hundred times dehghted them? They have actually failed up to that time to grasp the clear logical meaning of the verse or passage." The child who does not master some of the great poems and shorter masterpieces of Hterary prose when he is in the "memory stage" of development will reahze in later life that he has missed an important part of his intel- lectual heritage. He wiU not understand the full sig- nificance of the words as he learns them, but he will store away a veritable mine of intellectual wealth in which, when his higher apperceptive centers have devel- oped, he may delve at his heart's content. 9. The Concentration and Correlation of Studies as a Means of promoting Organization. That a thorough- going organization of knowledge increases its revival value leads to the inference that studies in the school should be so thoroughly interrelated that each may form ' K. Groos: TAe Play of Man, tr. E. L. Baldwin, New York, 1901, p. 21. l80 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS a unit in an organic whole. All educators would prob- ably agree that the tasks imposed upon the pupils should be justified by the ultimate aim of education and that, in this sense, subject-matter of instruction should be "concentrated" upon a unitary purpose. But in pre- cisely what degree the facts and principles imparted should be exphcitly related to one another in the minds of the pupils themselves has been a matter of some dis- pute. The theory of concentration proposed by Ziller^ and indorsed with slight modifications by most of the Her- bartian writers seeks to organize all the subject-matter of instruction into a unified system, the various units of which shall be consciously related to one another in the minds of the pupils. To this end Ziller chose, as the central feature or "core" of the curriculum, those subjects which he supposed contribute most to the de- velopment of moral character, — namely, history and literature. The remaining subjects were to be taught, not in and for themselves, but simply because they threw light upon, or aided in the interpretation of, the central subjects. Literature finds expression in language; hence the study of language has a vital and, what is more impor- tant in Ziller's opinion, an explicit relation to literature; or, in our own terminology, literature reveals the need for language study. History, on the other hand, involves 1 Tuiskon Zillef : Grundlegung zur Lehre vom erziehenden Unterricht, 1865. THE FACTORS OF EFFICIENT RECALL l8l the study of geography; geography opens the gateway to the natural sciences; while these in turn involve the conceptions of mathematics. Thus the entire elemen- tary curriculum is built up, not as a mere mosaic of dis- connected parts, but an organic whole centraUzed about a unitary "core" in such a manner that the relations of one part to another cannot fail to become apparent to the pupil. The doctrine of concentration has been very thoroughly worked out and greatly elaborated by Professor Rein,^ of Jena, and by Professor C. A. McMurry ^ in the United States. The late Francis W. Parker ' also proposed a thoroughgoing system of organization, somewhat similar to that of the Herbartians, but utilizing science rather than culture-subjects as the " core." lo. Of late the term "correlation" has largely replaced "concentration" to indicate the organization of studies in the school. One may recognize the principle of or- ganization in correlating the various discipHnes with one another without attempting, as did Ziller and Parker, to make one subject or set of subjects the central core to which everything else must be subordinated. Sub- ject-matter must be organized, but not in so fine a degree that the values of the various units will be lost to view. There are a great many facts and principles of arith- metic that will not be needed in the study of the natural iCf. C. De'Garmo: Berbart and the Herbartians, New York, 1896, ch. vi. 2 C A. McMurry : General Method, New York, 1903. * F. W. Parker : Talks on Pedagogics, New York, 1894. 1 82 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS sciences or of geography, but which are still important in life. Similarly, there are many chapters in the formal study of language which have unquestioned value and yet which do not apply to the study of literature. Arith- metic must be taught in a measure as a "closed system," organically complete within its own limits, and the same will be true of geography, history, and the natural sciences. To make the separate parts of a single science coherent and unified will add to the revival value of these parts. To show the relation between certain facts of history and certain facts of geography will contribute to the revival value of each ; but to teach history as history and geography as geography certainly does not preclude such a correlation, while to teach geography simply as an adjunct to history would preclude whatever value might accrue from the independent organization of the former. In short, the doctrine of correlation, while it recognizes the wisdom of relating different subjects of instruction to one another, also recognizes the virtue of a coherent organization within the limits of each subject. Certainly at some time of the pupil's life he should make an effort to grasp the entire body of knowledge in a schematic outline, where the relations between dif- ferent parts will be thoroughly explicit; but the time when this can be done profitably comes only with rea- sonable maturity, — perhaps in later adolescence. This large, comprehensive attitude toward knowledge is the THE FACTORS OF EFFICIENT RECALL l8j specific province of philosophy. Prior to the prosecu tion of this study, organization is certainly not to be neglected, but it is to be confined within certain limits which can be detennined only by practical experience in the class room. The standard by which these limi- tations are to be judged, however, is this : Does organi- zation, up to this point, contribute essentially to the efl&cient recall of the units organized? CHAPTER Xn The functioning of the Factors of Recall in Education as modified by the Periods of Child Development I. The charge of "loose" Schoolcraft and a demand for a return to the older and harsher educative methods frequently recur in contemporary educational Hterature.-' Under the present regime, it is asserted, drill and disci- pline have become obsolete terms, effort is at a discount, and the net result is a loss of stamina and a weakening of the moral fiber. But when these charges are made, the "new" education seldom lacks a champion to defend it.^ The harsher methods, it is maintained, have been justly eliminated. The well-driUed, finely disciplined individual is at best a machine, and modern life requires deUcate judgments, adequate to ever differing situations, rather than the machine reaction adapted only to typi- cal situations. Both parties to this controversy appear to have neg- lected some very important data that have been accumu- 1 Cf., for example, Barrett Wendell, in North American Review, Sep- tember, 1904, vol. cbudx, pp. 388-401. 2 Cf. an editorial in the Nation, October 20, 1904, vol. Ixxix, pp. 311- 312; also F. A. Fitzpatrick: "Reflections of an Iconoclast," in Edtua- tional Review, 1905, vol. xxix, pp. 151-162. 184 PERIODS OF DEVELOPMENT 18$ lated during the past ten years by the now unpopular and much-abused cult of "Child Study," and this neglect is the more unfortunate because the light that child study throws upon the main question at issue renders these heated and speculative discussions quite superflu- ous. Effort and interest, habit and judgment, repetition and organization, all have a legitimate and indispensable place in the educative process. If certain methods have been emphasized at the expense of others, it is simply because, with his human propensity to hasty generahza- tion, the enthusiastic educator has assumed that a factor which he finds to be efficient at one period of develop- ment is equally efficient at all periods of development. As far as the educative process is concerned, however, the child is an entirely different being at different levels of his growth. Each period of development is marked by peculiar physical, mental, and moral characteristics that demand specific treatment. In short, "method" cannot be generalized: what is food and drink at one time may become the veriest poison at a later stage, and what is thoroughly sufficient and adequate at this later stage may work the most disastrous results if applied to the earher period. 2. Throughout the United States, the eight grades that commonly comprise the elementary school are divided into three fairly distinct groups. Grades I and II form the "primary" division, grades III, IV, V, and VI the "inter- mediate" division, and grades VII and VIII the "gram- 1 86 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS mar" division. While this grouping was doubtless quite unconscious at the outset, child study has shown that it corresponds very closely to the natural lines of cleavage separating distinct stages of mental and physical growth, and that the threefold division of the elementary school is really based upon fundamental differences in the capacities and needs of children at different ages. Neither mental nor physical development follows the law of uniformly accelerated motion. On the contrary, both are rhythmical, periods of growth being followed by longer or shorter periods of comparative quiescence, and these in turn by shorter or longer periods of growth. So different are the characteristics of both mind and body at successive crests of these developmental waves that some writers have termed the great changes in the child's life "metamorphoses," indicating an analogy with the changes exhibited in the development of many lower forms of Hfe and most spectacularly, perhaps, in the development of the typical insect through larval and pupal stages to complete maturity. In so far as the work of the school is concerned, this analogy is hardly over- drawn. The school Ufe of the child presents three dis- tinct phases: (i) the transition stage, from the age of six to the age of eight; (2) the formative stage, from eight to twelve; and (3) the adolescent stage, from twelve to eighteen. The stages are closely consistent with the primary, intermediate, and grammar-high school princi- ple of grading. It is true that the dividing lines separat- PERIODS OF DEVELOPMENT 1 8) ing each stage from its predecessor and successor cannot be accurately drawn, but it is also true that there is, for each individual child, a change much more abrupt than the educator usually recognizes in his practice.-^ 3. (a) The Transition Stage. The years six to seven and seven to eight form a period of child development somewhat analogous to the later adolescent period, but possessing many individual features not yet well under- stood. Its physical characteristics are (i) relatively rapid growth,^ (2) an incoordination of the smaller mus- cles and the finer nerve connections,^ and (3) a relatively high susceptibility to disease and fatigue.* The rapid physical growth indicates that a large part of the poten- tial energy normally available for other purposes is now utihzed in the building up of new tissues. The coordi- nation of the nerve connections and the smaller muscles points to a critical period of nervous disintegration. The susceptibility to disease and fatigue confirms this ''■ Cf. W. C. Ruediger : " Has the Dividing Line between Elementary and Secondary Education been drawn at the Proper Point?" in Element- ary School-teacher, 1905, vol. v, pp. 482-492. 2 This is clearly seen in the tables of growth compiled by various au- thorities. Cf., for example, Roberts's table as cited by H. H. Donaldson : Growth of the Brain, London, 1897, p. 51; and Burk's table, compiled from over sixty-eight thousand cases investigated by Porter, Peckham, and others (F. Burk : " Growth of Children in Height and Weight," in American Journal of Psychology, 1898, vol. ix, pp. 253-326). * Hall : " Ideal School," in Addresses and Proceedings, National Edu- cational Association, 1901, p. 478. * Hall: The Ideal School, p. 477; Adolescence, New York, 1904, vol. ^ p. 251. 1 88 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS inference and adds to the significance of this period a* one of a comparative paucity of excess energy. 4. The leading mental characteristics of the transition stage are suggested by its name. Prior to the age of six, passive attention holds almost undisputed sway. Whatever the child does is done for immediate ends — to satisfy immediate desires. His activity is charac- terized by an interest in the process rather than in the product. Whatever he is doing absorbs his attention for the time being; the end that is to be gained does not trouble him. The transition period is really a "pass- ing over" of interest from means to end, from process to product, — an initial development from passive to active attention. But it must be imderstood that this transition is only initial even under the most fortunate conditions; and the fact that passive attention is still the order of the day is the key to a very important chapter in the pedagogy of this period. Although the child possesses the power of speech, he is not at this time, strictly speaking, a "rational animal." His thinking is stiU predominantly of the concrete order, and his judgments, in the main, are of the "practical" type. It is still far too early for con- ceptual thought and logical reasoning, since the condensa- tion of experience has not yet progressed to that point where symbols may effectively rid themselves of their attendant imagery. The word does not function as a * Cf. ch. vi, above. PERIODS OK DEVELOPMENT 1 89 focal representative of a concept, for the concept itself is stiU in a nascent stage; consequently, the word is associated definitely with a concrete thing or a concrete image. It is because the condensation of experience to the conceptual point is highly dependent upon active attention ^ that the child in the transition period is so largely unamenable to those educative influences that depend upon "reasoning" and organization. 5. The moral characteristics of this stage are likewise to be explained by the incapacity for active attention. If we think of morality as the subordination of momen- tary impulse to a remote end, we must consider the child at this time of his life as neither moral nor immoral but rather unmoral. Since he is largely incapable of inhibit- ing unsocial impulses with reference to an ideal, — for he lives in a world of reals, — he must sometimes be forced to this inhibition by the primitive incentives of pleasure and pain — using these terms in a strictly physi- cal sense. Gradually, as the ability to hold in mind the more remote and intangible ideas comes to be devel- oped, these primitive methods may give place to those of higher degree. The child will recognize that the unsocial impulse may profitably be sacrificed in order to gain a reward or avoid a punishment which his widen- ing experience now reveals to him. At a still later period, — probably not until the onset of adolescence, — the ab- stract ideals of honor, duty, and obedience, functioning 1 See ch. ix, above. I go THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS in conceptual judgments, may come to dominate his conduct. 6. (b) The Formative Stage. The rapid rate of growth that characterizes the transition period is sharply contrasted with the relatively slow growth of the forma- tive period. A certain amount of energy is consequently set free for other purposes than the formation of new tissues. This is evidenced by the ceaseless activity which is so marked among pre-adolescent children. Indeed, it is probably true that the child expends more energy in proportion to his weight during these years than at any other time of his life. Unlike the adult, however, — with whom he has many points in common, — the chan- nels through which this energy is distributed are not highly organized; hence its constant overflow as "excess." At about the age of eight, the brain practically completes its development-' as far as weight and size are concerned, and the changes that this organ subsequently undergoes are due to internal organization, — the knitting together of different sense areas, the ripening of the association centers, and the formation of functional connections be- tween neurones. Expressed in another way, this means that the years eight to twelve are the "habit-forming" period, for habit, on its physiological side, is the making permanent of pathways of nervous discharge. President Hall^ says of this period: "We are now educating the ^ H. H. Donaldson: TAe Grcraith of the Brain, London, 1897, P- I04! Hall : Ideal School, p. 477. 2 jjall, op. cit., p. 478- PERIODS OF DEVELOPMENT I9I automatic bases of both mind and morals, and habits are never so easily formed and made stable. ... It is the time to break in the human colt, in some sense the wildest of all wild animals. If the piano or any other musical instrument is to be learned, this is the time for drill, especially on the scales and exercises. An instru- mentalist's technique is rarely good if the foundations are not laid at this stage." The same author also cites the well-known fact that pronunciation of foreign lan- guages is seldom perfect unless the adjustments are made automatic at this time, and Professor James,^ in his classic chapter on habit, emphasizes the necessity of early training in the little niceties of dress and etiquette, if these acquirements are ever to count for much among one's fellows. In contrast to the susceptibility to fatigue and, disease that marks the transition period, the years eight to twelve show a comparative immunity to both of these energy- exhausting forces. Some authorities,^ indeed, maintain that the child fatigues easily at this time, but all appear to agree that he recovers very rapidly from fatigue and that a reasonable amount of strain and effort is now quite without the disastrous results which overwork may easily produce in the preceding and in the following period. I W. James: Principles of Psychology, New York, 1890, p. 122. * For example, Siegert : Die Periodicitat in dcr Entwic&eiung det Kindernatur, Leipzig, 1891; cited by King, op. cit., p. 183. 192 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS 7. The mental phenomena that characterize the forma tive period differ in degree rather than in kind from those of the transition stage. Under the most favorable conditions, the years six to eight can accomphsh but a partial transition from passive to active attention. In fact, the "strong stimulus" will never cease to solicit passive attention, and throughout life one is always sub- ject, in greater or less degree, to the temptations of the moment, the passion for change, the desire to do "some- thing else." But in the formative period, while passive attention is still dominant, the concentration and effort that active attention involves can be demanded with less fear of disastrous consequences. At the same time, the child's interests will center very largely in the objective rather than the subjective, and especially in objects that are animate and moving. According to Kline,^ the "runaway curve" reaches one of its high points between eight and ten. This means that the dislike for monotony and for "staying with" a task is especially strong at this time. Perhaps it is largely for this reason that the average pupil finds the intermediate grades so irksome. Here, more than anywhere else, the teacher has constantly to battle against nature. On every hand, the stimuli that solicit passive attention must be strenuously, often forcibly, resisted. The concrete imagery that characterizes the child's 1 L. W. Kline : " Truancy as related to the Migratory Instinct," in Pedagogical Seminary, 1898, voL v, pp. 381-420. PERIODS OF DEVELOPMENT I93 mental processes in the transition period continues to dominate the early years of the formative period. Judg- ment is still largely limited to the practical type, experi- ences being revived with little attempt at condensation. Especially is it to be noted that any tendency toward symbolism is entirely lacking.-^ On the other hand, the capacity for retaining concrete sense impressions is never so strong as during this period; the mind seems to grasp and hold everything that reaches the focus of attention. Even words that are comparatively empty of meaning can be readily impressed; as President HalP says, "Verbal memory is at its very best and should be trained far more than it is." In short, in no other stage of childhood is it so thoroughly true that the mind is "wax to receive and marble to retain." In the early part of the formative period, the capacity for logical reasoning is still nascent,^ although it would seem to make its presence felt in a slight degree at about the age of nine.* Its subsequent growth is comparatively slow until the onset of adolescence.^ 1 E. L. Thorndike: Notes on Child SUtdy, New York, 1903, p. 80. 2 Hall, op. Hi., p. 478. ' Mary Sheldon Barnes: "The Historic Sense among Children,'' in Studies in Education, 1896, vol. i, p. 90. * "At the age of nine and a half or ten the number of those giving reasons why they wish to follow such and such vocations also rapidly increases." — King, op. cit.,-p. 187. 5 Professor Thorndike, in denying any specific "reasoning" capacity in adolescents over and above that possessed by young children, evidently fails to discriminate between practical and conceptual judgment. Notes on Child Study, pp. 98-104. 194 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS 8. Morally, the formative period is best described by its name. Because of the slight capacity for logical reasoning, the more recondite moral judgments are not to be relied upon. The social ideals which play so im- portant a part in such judgments are likewise a product of a later growth, — being, in a measure, acquired in- terests based upon the sexual instincts that arise with adolescence. From the standpoint of moral culture, the years eight to twelve are preeminently the time for de- veloping specific moral habits, — habits of cleanliness, industry, honesty, and obedience, — with very little attempt at "moral suasion," but rather a chief depend- ence upon arbitrary authority. This statement may smack of barbarism and suggest an unwelcome return to the severe moral culture of the past. But if, in at- tempting to civihze the child, we assume that he is civil- ized at the outset; if, in attempting to develop higher motives, we assume that these motives already exist and operate effectively; then we not only commit a logical fallacy, but experience goes to prove that we make a very serious practical blimder. If the child is to be treated by barbaric methods, it is because, from an ethnic stand- point, he has barbaric characteristics. President Hall's * interpretation of the transition and forma- tive periods is particularly illuminating. He believes that the peculiar physical and mental characteristics of the years six to eight are the outcroppings in the individual of traits that 1 G. S. Hall: Adolescence, New York, 1904, Preface, vol. >, pp. i-x ff. PERIODS OF DEVELOPMENT ig5 marked the period of puberty at some remote stage of race history. As infancy has been prolonged, sexual maturity has been retarded, and what was at one time the period of puberty becomes now only a " nodal " point of development, still retain- ing, however, the adolescent characteristics in miniature. In- deed there is much to confirm this conclusion in the analogies between the transition stage and the much later adolescence — " as if, amid the increasing instabilities of health at the age of about six, we could still detect the ripple marks of an ancient pubic beach now lifted high above the tides of a receding shore-line as human infancy has been prolonged." In an analogous fashion, Dr. Hall would consider the forma- tive period as representing a remote period of maturity, " when, in a warm climate, the young of our species once shifted for themselves independently of further parental aid." The char- acteristics of this period were presumably predatory and pre- social, and these we find cropping out in the child from eight to twelve. " The elements of personality are few, but are well organized and on a simple, effective plan. . . . Thus the boy is father of the man in a new sense, in that his qualities are indefinitely older, and existed, well compacted, untold ages before the distinctly human attributes were developed." Whatever truth there may be in this hypothesis, it still remains as the most illuminating and satisfying explanation of the pre-adolescent child that has yet been offered. 9. (c) The Adolescent Stage. This important period has been so thoroughly and adequately treated in recent literature^ that little need be said of its characteristics in this place. Physically, it is marked by a very rapid growth, — the rate of growth being sometimes (that is, in individual cases) almost doubled within a single * Especially in President Hall's monumental work. 196 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS year, while the normal percentum increase is from onf third to one half. The usual accompaniments of rapid growth, noted in connection with the transition period, are again in evidence. There is a diminution of excess energy — sometimes even a positive lack of sufficient energy, resulting in anaemia, lassitude, and Welischmerz. There is a recurrence of the nervous disintegration char- acteristic of the former period, and this finds an ex- pression in awkward movements, uncertain adjustments, and a general incoordination sometimes bordering upon chorea. While the mortahty average is much lower than during the preceding years, owing to a diminished susceptibiHty to the diseases peculiar to childhood, there is, on the other hand, an increased susceptibihty to adult diseases; it would also appear that the germs of many diseases that raise the mortality average later in life are apt to be implanted at this time.^ But the most important physical changes are, of course, involved in the development of the primary and secondary sex func- tions. These ultimately furnish the key to the explana- tion of the mental and moral characteristics. 10. Menially, then, as well as physically, adolescence is a "new birth." The intellectual changes — in them- selves profound — are at first quite overshadowed by the emotional instability. "Fear, anger, love, pity, jealousy, emulation, ambition, and sympathy are either now born or springing into their most intense life." ^ 1 Hall : Adolescence, ch. iv. ' H^U : Ideal School, p. 483. PERIODS OF DEVELOPMENT I97 All these are what might be termed "social" instincts. They imply an innate widening out of the child's hori- zon. Heretofore he has been largely self-centered, in the narrowest sense of this narrow term. The new instincts have no less a selfish reference, but they also include a "consciousness of kind" that has hitherto been lacking. This sudden coming into function of a host of new instincts accentuates the dominance of impulse and thus in a measure causes a reversion to passive attention. Hall ^ places the apex of the runaway curve at the begin- ning of this period. All teachers of adolescent children would doubtless agree that the child entering upon this stage reacts very strongly against the drill and repeti- tion to which he has become inured during the pre- ceding period, and it is certainly true that the factor of interest will bring far better results at this time than the factor of forced effort. The interests that can be appealed to, however, are on a much higher plane than the primitive interests of early childhood. The dominant instincts are innate, it is true, but they operate upon a superstructure built up during the preceding period. Indeed, the drill and discipline of the formative years may be looked upon as a necessary preparation, — as a culture of the soil in which the social instincts are to be planted; and the pedagogy of adolescence will be easy or difficult accord- 1 Hall : Ideal School, p. 484; Adolescence, vol. i, p. 348, 198 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS ing as the work of the preceding period has been done well or ill. Adolescence brings with it a new outlook from a higher vantage point, but the acquisitions already made must form the field which this new outlook faces. Hence the dominant interests are, in a sense, acquired interests. They are relatively permanent and abiding, relatively deep and penetrating. The idle curiosity of childhood becomes a deeply seated love of knowing for the sake of knowing; the blind and purposeless imitation of infancy becomes critical of ends, and from the mere copyist is developed the virtuoso; emulation is more highly organized, sees farther into the future, and forms the basis of ambition; the primitive "puzzle" instinct, which culminates in the formative period,^ now merges into a deeper interest that seeks to discover causes and to trace out hidden relations ; and the instinct of property which, as early as four or five, found a primi- tive expression in aimless and trivial collections^ now takes a rational and human form. All or almost all the instincts that dominate early childhood are inten- sified during adolescence, but, owing to the culture of the preceding years and to the modifying influence of the new "consciousness of kind," they seek a far dif- ferent expression. AU these factors operate to heighten the capacity 1 E. H. Lindley : " A Study of Puzzles," Pedagogical Seminary, vol. vii, pp. 431-443. 2 C. F. Burk : " The Collecting Instinct," Pedagogical Seminary, vol. vii, p. 179. PERIODS OF DEVELOPMENT I99 for logical reasoning. The new interest in causes and hidden relations places a premium upon the concep- tual rather than the practical judgment. The broader outlook renders condensation and some form of sym- bolism an absolute necessity. There is a transition almost from one extreme to the other ; where before the mental processes were intrinsically concrete in their meaning, where the detailed and particular were wholly dominant, there is now a tendency, sometimes almost a yearning, toward the most profound abstractions. The broad conceptions of science, the comprehensive movements of history, the critical interpretations of literature, are now thoroughly in place. "Neither you nor I, however speciaUzed our knowledge, know any- thing really worth knowing the substance of which can- not be taught now if we have pedagogical tact." ^ II. This truth is even more forcibly impressed when we turn to the moral characteristics of adolescence. The profound emotional changes combine with this broadening of the intellectual horizon to make this period the great breeding-ground of ideals, and it is the inevi- table clash and conflict of these ideals that justify the term "storm and stress period," so frequently applied to later adolescence. The profound religious awak- ening on the one hand and the stronger tendencies toward criminality on the other mark the extremes in the post-pubertal development of the sentiments. Con- 1 Hall : /tfeal School, p. 485. 200 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS duct is organized on a much more elaborate plan. Motive, which has hitherto been determined by the primitive standards of immediate pleasure and pain, now takes its cue from desires that look to realization far in the future. From these facts, it follows that the methods of moral culture must be transformed almost in a day. Just as in mental training "the drill and mechanism of the previous period must be relaxed," so, in moral training, the arbitrary and authoritative rulings that have hith- erto been the mainstay must now give place to reason. All forms of punishment that appeal to the fear of physi- cal pain are beyond doubt always more productive of evil than of good in the normal adolescent, no matter how serious his offense. If he cannot see in what man- ner the inhibitions and repressions that are demanded of him will conduce to his ultimate well-being, it will be next to impossible to compel these restrictions through physical force and at the same time fail to work an irre- mediable injury. He feels that he has left such methods behind him in the stage from which he has just emerged, and it is pedagogical wisdom to respect this conviction, even at some sacrifice. 12. Summary. The foregoing analysis must, of course, be subject to whatever revisions future investigations in the field of child study may dictate; but in the light that is now available it would seem to indicate in no uncertain terms that the child at different levels of his PERIODS OF DEVELOPMENT 201 growth has different needs and capacities that must be catered to in different ways. It consequently follows that the factors conditioning the recall of experience cannot be intelligently applied to the educative process without taking into account these varying character- istics. The following conclusions attempt to formu- late such an interpretation; if they seem to assume a too rigid demarcation between periods, it is because the writer is convinced that this type of possible error is a far safer risk in the present connection than its oppo- site would be. (i) The factor that operates most effectively in the transition period is vivid portrayal dealing almost ex- clusively with concrete experiences. Repetition is fre- quently in order, provided that it involves a minimum of strain and fatigue. Logical reasoning is thoroughly out of place, and symbols must not be used apart from a direct connection with the concrete experiences for which they stand. Moral culture is of a strictly pleas- ure-pain type with pleasure predominating. (2) In the formative period, repetition is the watch- word, but it should be strongly supplemented by vivid portrayal and, in the later stages, by the simpler opera- tions of logical reasoning. Symbols should still be closely associated with the concrete, but there is some place for the operation of verbal memory through repe- tition, even if the underlying conceptions have not been thoroughly traced out. The more specific moral habita 202 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS should be thoroughly automatized; their advantage to the child's immediate well-being should be clearly shown if possible; in case this is out of the question, moral rules should be arbitrarily enforced until adjust- ments that harmonize with them have become matters of habit. (3) Organization or logical reasoning holds undis- puted sway in the adolescent stage. There is, however, abundant opportunity for vivid portrayal provided that it cooperates with organization; and some slight place for repetition provided that the need for it originates in the child himself, and provided that it operates upon processes already organized. Moral culture is now entirely of the rational type, and future rather than immediate well-being can be safely appealed to. Ex- alted ideals can and must be developed, with which immoral action will be clearly seen to be inconsistent; and moral instruction, before largely impersonal, must now be strongly tinged with inspiration. PART V. THE SELECTION OF EX- PERIENCES FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES: EDUCATIONAL VALUES CHAPTER XIII Formal versus Intrinsic Values of Experience: THE Doctrine of Formal Discipline I. Until very recently, the experiences that the school attempted to impart were divided into two classes: (i) those which were or might be intrinsically valuable to the individual in facing future situations, and (2) those which were not intrinsically valuable but which were believed to develop certain general tendencies to reaction that would insure a definite response to situa- tions- of different^'types. In a sense, this was a very broad extension of the differences, already noted, between habit and judgment. Certain subjects of the curriculum, if properly pursued, were believed to develop what might be termed "generalized" habits. A simple habit is a specific response to a specific stimulus; a general- ized habit would be a specific response common to a number of different stimuli. For example, a pupil may acquire the specific habit of pro- ducing neat papers in arithmetic. The doctrine of formal 203 204 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS discipline assumes that if this habit is once thoroughly estab- lished, it will function equally well in connection with language and drawing ; that, functioning successfully here, it cannot fail to insure neatness of person and attire ; and that the habit of neatness thus ingrained upon the pupil will surely be carried over into mature years. Again, it has been assumed that the study of mathematics trains general habits of reasoning, that nature study trains gen- eral habits of observation, and that all branches, properly pur- sued, train general habits of industry. Analogously, it was assumed that the capacity for memory was capable of improve- ment through formal discipline, and the study of the ancient languages has frequently been justified on this ground. The extent to which this doctrine has been applied is plainly apparent from the most cursory study of the traditional curricula of the higher schools. While many of the facts and principles embodied in these curricula can probably be otherwise justified, it stiU remains true that they have held their place almost solely upon this supposition; and even in the elementary school, the instruction in grammar and to some extent the instruc- tion in arithmetic have been governed by the supposed operation of this factor. 2. It is clear that, so far as a "generahzed habit" is concerned, the term is a psychological absurdity. The very essence of a habit is the specific character of its response. An habitual adjustment is a definite reaction called forth by some specific stimulus or com- bination of stimuli, and if habit were capable of being generalized, the utility of judgment or conscious adjust- DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE 20$ ment would be greatly diminished. But while this theoretical evidence is unquestionably sound, it has not operated to prove the theory of formal discipUne to be a practical fallacy; largely, perhaps, because actual expe- rience seems to demonstrate that, notwithstanding the theoretical absurdity of the statement, habits are gen- erahzed. Cases are cited in the Hterature, and can easily be multiplied from individual experience, which indi- cate that a thorough training in the mathematical dis- ciplines has given one an increased capacity for efficient reasoning in other Hnes, and that insistence upon neat work has had a beneficial effect upon the neatness of person and dress. In fact, so conclusive is this empiri- cal evidence that the theoretical impossibiUty carries but little weight. 3. This condition amounts almost to a paradox, and indicates the need of careful experiments based upon accurate methods. Such experiments have been con- ducted at Columbia University within the past few years with very suggestive results. The general problem was the influence that special forms of training may have upon related functions. "Individuals practiced estimating the areas of rectangles from 10 to 100 sq. cm. in size until a very marked improve- ment was attained. The improvement in accuracy for areas of the same size but of different shapes, due to this training, was only 44 per cent as great as that for areas of the same shape and size. For areas of the same shape but from 140-300 sq. cm. in size the improvement was 30 per cent as great. Foi 206 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS areas of different shape and from 140-400 sq. cm. in size the improvement was 5 2 per cent as great. "Training in estimating weights of from 40-100 g. resulted in only 39 per cent as much improvement in estimating weights from 120 to 1800 g. Training in estimating lines from .5 to 1.5 in. long (resulting in a reduction of error to 25 per cent of the initial amount) resulted in no improvement in the esti- mation of lines 6-12 in. long. " Training in perceiving words containing e and s gave a cer- tain amount of improvement in speed and accuracy in that special ability. In the ability to perceive words containing / and 4 -f a^d /, c and a, e and r, a and n, I and o, misspelled "words and As, there was an improvement in speed of only 39 per cent as much as in the abiUty specially trained, and in accuracy of only 25 per cent as much. Training in perceiving English verbs gave a reduction in time of nearly 2 1 per cent and in omissions of 70 per cent. The ability to perceive other parts of speech showed a reduction in time of 3 per cent, but an increase on omissions of over 100 per cent."* Professors E. L. Thomdike and R. S. Woodworth, who conducted these experiments, reached the following conclusions : ^ — "Improvement, in any single mental function, need not improve the ability, in functions commonly called by the same name. It may injure it. "Improvement in any single mental function rarely brings about equal improvement in any other function, 1 E. L. Thorpdike; Educational Psychology, New York, 1903, p. 90; for details, see Thorndike and Woodworth : " The Influence of Improve- ment in One Mental Function upon the Efficiency of Other Functions,'' in Psychological Review, 1901, vol. viii, pp. 247-261, 384-395. 2 Thorndike, op. cit., p. 91. DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE 207 no matter how similar, for the working of every mental function group is conditioned by the nature of the data in each particular case. "The very slight amount of variation in the nature of the data necessary to affect the efficiency of a function group makes it fair to infer th,at no change in the data, however sUght, is without effect on the function. The loss in the efficiency of a function trained with certain data, as we pass to data more and more unlike the first, makes it fair to infer that there is always a point where loss is complete, a point beyond which the influence of the training has not extended. The rapidity of this loss — that is, its amount in the case of data very similar to the data on which the function was trained — makes it fair to infer that this point is nearer than has been supposed. "The general consideration of the cases of retention, or of loss of practice effect, seems to make it unlikely that spread of practice occurs only where identical ele- ments are concerned in the influencing and influenced function." Dr. Naomi Norsworthy ^ carried on similar experi- ments with school children, using similar methods and reaching the following conclusions : — "It seems probable that certain functions which are of importance in school work, such as quickness in arith- 1 N. Norsworthy : " Formal Training," in New York Teachers' Mono- graphs, 1902, vol. iv, pp. 96-99. 208 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS metic, accuracy in spelling, attention to forms, etc., are highly specialized and not secondary results of some general function. That just as there is no such thing as general memory, so there is no such thing as general quickness or accuracy or observation. . . . Accuracy in spelling is independent of accuracy in multipUcation, and quickness in arithmetic is not found with quickness in marking misspelled words ; abiUty to pick out the word 'boy' on a printed page is no guarantee that the child will be able to pick out a geometrical form with as great ease and accuracy." At the Montana State Normal College careful experi- ments ^ were undertaken to determine whether the habit of producing neat papers in arithmetic will function with reference to neat written work in other studies; the tests were confined to the intermediate grades. The results are almost startUng in their failure to show the slightest improvement in language and spelling papers, although the improvement in the arithmetic papers was noticeable from the very first. 4. The very decided trend of all this experimental evidence seems to indicate that the theoretical impossi- bility of a generalized habit — either "marginal" or sub- conscious — is thoroughly substantiated by accurate tests. There still remains, however, the widespread 1 These experiments were planned by Dr. Carrie R. Squire and con- ducted by Margaret Ross, Lilian Lambrecht, and Frances Chase, students in the college. DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE 209 notion that formal training is generalized, and whatever cases may be adduced stand against the evidence from experiment. Professor Thorndike ^ disposes of such cases in three ways : (i) where specific training is thought to spread out and affect other functions, it may simply mean that the individual in whom this tendency seems to be evinced is really inherently more capable than the average; therefore, if he shows particular aptitudes for the study of Latin, he may later excel in Greek, not because the pursuit of Latin has necessarily improved the functions that operate in the study of Greek, but because the individual is "bound" to excel in anything. (2) Certain effects commonly attributed to disciphne are really due to "mere inner growth and maturity." (3) Educators tend to judge all children on the basis of their own childhood, — a fallacious procedure, because . educators "arehjkelv to be gifted men who could as boys and girls readily acquire and apply general ideas and habits." Professor O'Shea,^ whose discussion of this matter is especially clarifying, would ascribe the seeming "spread" of special training to the fact that many lines of activity, differing in several characteristics, may yet have some characteristics in common. If such is the case, training in one may promote efficiency in the others. "The geometrical method is incorporated, as it were, in the * Thorndike, 0/. cii., p. 93. * M. V. O'Shea : Education as Adjtisimtnt, pp. 271 ft 2IO THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS more involved method of physics, and it would seem most economical to have the student familiar with the method of geometry before he undertakes the study of physics. So, too, the method gained in the observa- tion of plant life will be of assistance in observing human life." All these explanations, however, seem to leave some- thing unaccounted for. What this something is, from the writer's standpoint, may appear in the following cases. The writer believes that he has acquired a passable habit of industry in connection with his school work. He is fairly regu- lar in his hours of rising and retiring ; he goes to his class room and laboratory at stated periods, and accomplishes a fairly uniform allotment of work each day. This routine goes on day after day throughout the school year. OLcourse theJaily (Jasks_£resent_jQme_degree_of .individuality; new situations will arise which must be met and mastered. But, in general, the day's work is reduced to the plane of habit. The " work attitude " is assumed at a definite time and dropped at a defi- nite time. It forms, as it were, a large ring of habit, within which are smaller rings, and within these and across them are the dots and chains of focaUzed effort. But outside these rings of habit, within which the day's work is accomplished, persistent effort is distasteful and unsatisfactory. If the writer attempts to " carry over " his habit of industry fi-om the class room to the wood pile, nature rebels. His tendency at such times, he frankly confesses, is to "loaf" and temporize. The summer months are spent upon a farm. Here it is to his advantage — hygienic and otherwise — to take a serious part in the farm work ; yet his first tendency is antagonistic to industry. He does not crave inaction, but he DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE 211 dislikes the persistent effort that one identifies with work as dis- tinguished from the temporary and ever changing activity which, however strenuous it may be while it lasts, is still closely akin to play. The first day may go off very well, for it is a change and presents a certain element of novelty ; but for several days afterward industry is a constant battle against nature. In the course of time, however, the farm work becomes as much a matter of course as the school work has previously been. That is, a new habit of industry has been acquired through a period — longer or shorter — of strenuous, conscious effort. It seems perfectly clear that, in this case at least, the habit of industry — the abihty to sustain a line of con- tinuous effort with a minimum of conscious "prodding" to a fairly remote end — is not carried over from school life to farm life. And yet something is carried over. The formation of the new habit of work is undoubtedly more economical of time and energy than it would be had not a habit of work already been developed in another field. Again, the writer is convinced that students who come into his classes in psychology after completing thorough courses in the higher mathematics do far better work than those who have not had this "training." Something has been carried over from one study to the other. It is certainly not the habit of study, nor are the points that mathematics and psychology ■ have in common sufficient to account for this difference. The paradox reaches its climax in the case of habits of neatness. Here the experiments indubitably validate the general law that habit is specific. General experi- ence seems to confirm this experimental verdict on one 212 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS hand and to deny it on another. The writer has a friend who is scrupulously neat in his personal attire and yet whose desk and study are samples of conspicuous con- fusion. He has another friend who is neat almost to the point of femininity in the details of his work and yet careless to the point of slovenliness in his attire. So far the specific character of cleanly adjustments seems to be confirmed. But he can, at the same time, count a dozen among his acquaintances who are neat in all departments of life and a few, at least, who are slovenly in everything that they are concerned with. Here it seems at first sight that the habit is generalized. And yet it is these last exceptions that really prove the rule. If it were the tendency of habit to become generalized, neat adjustments in one activity would mean neat adjustments in all activities in all individuals. That it does hold with some individuals, but not with all, is sufi&cient to prove that the habit, as such, is not gen- eralized. But that there is some link that joins all spe- cific habits of neatness is perfectly apparent to any one who may have a particularly "tidy" acquaintance. 5. What, then, is the connecting link between habits of different species and the same genus? The distinc- tion already noted between habit and judgment suggests that, just as the latter may initiate the former, so judg- ment may connect and estabhsh a functional relation between two specific habits. In other words, what I carry over from my school work to my farm work is DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE 213 not a generalized habit of work, but a generalized ideal of work. It is something that functions in the Tocus of consciousness and hence cannot be identified with habit, which always functions either marginally or sub- consciously. This ideal furnishes a motive and this mo- tive holds pie to conscious, persistent effort until the new habit has become effective, until the distracting influences no longer solicit passive attention. 7/ / had acquired a specific habit of work in one field without at the same time acquiring a general ideal of work, my acquisition of a specific habit in another field would probably not be mate- rially benefited. Similarly with the habits of mental application or study. The students who come to psychology from the mathematical courses have no generalized habit of study, but they have an ideal of study. They have penetrated pretty deeply into abstract problems and, along with their drudgery, they have experienced some delight of achievement, some of the pleasure that attaches to suc- cessful effort. It may be that mathematics has given them nothing but this, but this is enough to hold them to their new task until a new and specific habit of psy- chological study has been established. Similarly, too, with the habit of neatness. Those who appear to carry this habit over from one department of life to another really carry over the ideal of neatness. This explains why some persons are neat in their work and untidy in their dress, while others are neat in their 214 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS dress and untidy in their work, and still others are neat in both work and dress. An ideal is an individual jactor. One may be neat in one's work from other motives than a general ideal of neatness. Neat work may be an essential to success; neat work may mean economy of effort; neat work may mean a thousand other things that have no relation whatsoever to neatness of dress and person. The .word "disciphne" implies a mechanizing process — the formation of an habitual reaction that shall func- tion with little or ho effort of attention after it has once been firmly estabhshed. But, in its initial stages, the process of habit building must always be conscious — focal. There must necessarily be effort, — struggle to hold one's self to the line, — struggle to resist the normal desire for change. Gradually this struggle becomes less and less strenuous until finally the process is com- pletely mechanized. This mechanizing, however, must be thoroughly specific in the narrowest sense of this term ; and if the line of work is changed ever so slightly, a new habit must be formed. This means a refocali- zation, a new period of conscious effort, and it is at this point that what we have termed the ideal has its sphere of activity. 6. The factor of ideals may operate with equal effi- ciency in connecting specific functions other than habits. The Columbia experiments seem to indicate that "rea- soning" processes are as thoroughly individual as are DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE 215 habits, and it is seriously to be doubted whether the dis- ciphne of geometry or any other form of the higher mathe- matics will enable the student to "reason" any better in biology or political economy. Indeed, the very fact that specialists in mathematics are not infrequently handicapped in making effective judgments in other fields would speak strongly against a general capacity for reasoning.-' Nevertheless, a training in mathematics may well give a student ideals of exact methods of pro- cedure in getting at truth, and these ideals can be gener- alized to any extent that one desires. It is needless to say, however, that mathematics can be taught without impressing such ideals, and it is equally easy to see that a high degree of mathematical proficiency does not necessarily mean that such ideals function. The pursuit of natural science may similarly develop ideals of observation. This does not mean that the stu- dent who has pursued natural science will thereby have gained a tendency to make acute observations in fields other than those in which he is proficient; he will be no more likely to note a two-bit piece lying between the cracks of the sidewalk than his unscientific brother; and it is certainly to be hoped that he will not have ac- quired an abnormal disposition to see the mote that may lie in this brother's eye. But if he passes from the study of biology to the study of psychology, he may easily make some such judgment as this: "Careful observation is 1 Cf. O'Shea, op. cit., p. 266. 2l6 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS the basal principle of truth getting in biology; it maj work equally well in psychology; therefore I shall ac- quire a nev/ habit of psychological observation." 7. The important lesson for education in connection with ideals is apparent from these examples. The doc- trine of formal discipHne assumed that the mastery of a certain subject gave one an increased power to master other subjects. It is clear that there is a certain amount of truth in this statement, provided that we understand very clearly that this increased power must always take the form of an ideal that will function as judgment and not of an unconscious predisposition that will function as habit. In other words, unless the ideal has been devel- oped consciously, there can be no certainty that the power will be increased, no matter how intrinsically well the subject may have been mastered. The factor of ideals does not appear in the experi- ments noted above simply because the experiments demanded its eUmination. The problem under inves- tigation was whether a habit can be carried over as habit, not refocalized and made to function as idea or ideal." In the tests of neatness, for example, it was distinctly understood that the pupils should have no general in- struction on neatness as an ideal. Neatness was^exacted of them in arithmetic, and the matter ended there. The passing of the doctrine of formal discipline cer- tainly does not detract in the least from the serious responsibility of the school to develop specific habits of DOCTRINE OF FORMAL DISCIPLINE 217 cleanliness, industry, and mental application in the par- ticular and specific line of work with which it is con- cerned; for, if the carrying over of a good habit from one occupation to another demands a process of judg- ment dependent upon an ideal, surely this ideal can be strengthened and sustained only by a cultivation of the specific habits that form its concrete expression. It would be futile to instill ideals of cleanhness, industry, and honor in the schools, expecting them to be applied in later life, if, at the same time, the antitheses of these ideals — filth and sloth and vice — were tolerated in the daily experience of the pupils. CHAPTER XIV The Development of Ideals the Chief Work of Education 1. If the conclusions of the last chapter are valid, it follows that there is an educative value of experiences over and above their intrinsic worth as facts or items of knowledge. The experiences that the individual acquires may carry with them ideals that may later serve to modify adjustment even more fundamentally and effi- ciently than the knowledge itself. Our definition of education must be extended to include ideals as an im- portant type of condensed experiences not always recog- nized in the educative process. 2. This conception is especially important in the light of existing tendencies. The passing of the dogma of formal disciphne has greatly enhanced intrinsic values. Where hitherto subject-matter has often been justified only by its supposed disciplinary effect, such subject- matter is now either justified on other grounds or elimi- nated altogether. This has been a healthful reaction, for the pendulum undoubtedly had swung too far to the other extreme. But, as the last chapter indicated, the basal notion of disciplinary values had too large a meas- ure of worth to be cast entirely aside. Indeed, it is 218 DEVELOPMENT OF IDEALS 219 hardly too much to say that, if one must choose between the two, the doctrine of formal discipline, with all its fallacies, would be a far safer risk than the doctrine of exclusively intrinsic values. The mere subject-matter of knowledge might be likened to the letter that killeth; the ideal, to the spirit that maketh aUve. It would probably be difficult to overestimate the importance of ideals in civilized life. They are the dominant forces in all the great movements of history. Races and nations are distinguished from one another by their ideals far more than by their inherent physical and mental pecuharities. In spite of the elements that foreign nations have contributed and are contributing to the American people, our nation is distinctly individual because it has its individual ideals. The German, the Celtic, the Slavic, and the Romance ingredients become indistinguishable after two generations because their distinctive race or national ideals have been dropped and the American ideal has been assimilated. That the Jewish people still maintain their racial characteristics is due to the fact that their great ethnic ideals are cher- ished from generation to generation with a tenacity that no other people of history have even approximated. Nor is the operation of ideals less evident in individual development. The impetus which family pride may give to individual effort is illustrated in such strains as the Adamses of Massachusetts, the Breckenridges of Kentucky, the Harrisons of Indiana, and others too 220 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS numerous to mention. The very fact that one's for- bears have accomplished things and attained to high places among their fellows may form a most effective spur to the present generation. Certainly not all great men's sons are great, but this fact only lends confirma- tion to our hypothesis, for the ideal may or may not be developed; while, if the tendency to preeminence were transmitted physically there should be no such exceptions as we now find. The esprit de corps that is expressed in loyalty to one's school or college is another type of ideal that functions effectively in spurring one on to greater effort. The college or the university that can imbue its students with such loyalty is doing much more to equip them for the battle of life than the institution that simply instructs, no matter how faithfully that instruction may be im- parted. It is largely for this reason that the personal influence of teacher and professor counts for far more in the long run than the mere mechanical advantages of libraries and laboratories and work shops. 3. It is safe to assert, then, that the main aim in edu- cation is to instill ideals that will function as judgments, and that, in one sense at least, the subject-matter of instruction must be totally subservient to this aim. The classical education of the past undoubtedly had little worth in so far as the intrinsic value of its subject-mat- ter was concerned; but it had- immeasurable worth in so far as the ideals that it instilled were concerned. If DEVELOPMENT OF IDEALS 221 the new education fails to develop equally effective ideals, its mission will result in a net loss, no matter how thor- oughly it may succeed from its own intrinsic standpoint. Mark Hopkins on one end of a log and ambitious youth on the other end are no less the type of a true college to-day than in the boyhood of Garfield. 4. But can the formal and the intrinsic values be sat- isfactorily adjusted? Is it possible to place the main emphasis upon ideals and yet so impress the more spe- cific judgments that they will function effectively? The results in typical cases seem to justify an affirm- ative answer to these questions. Intrinsically useful materials may just as successfully form the basis for the development of ideals as intrinsically useless mate- rials. That the student of engineering or agriculture or commerce does not always acquire the ideals that mark the cultured and refined "gentleman" is not the fault of the subject-matter, but rather of the method. The old classical curriculum did not always produce the desired result; in both cases the subject-matter is always subservient to the spirit in which it is imparted. Chemistry and physics and commercial geography can be taught in a mechanical fashion, but so can Greek and Latin and history. In both cases, the result, in so far as ideals go, is precisely the same, but the former is the less serious of the two evils, for at any rate useful knowledge has been acquired, while in ihe latter case the entire process is a dead loss. It may be that the ten- 222 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS dency toward mechanical method is stronger in the former case. Everything that is in the line of progress carries with it some new and often unforeseen danger; and just because scientific and technical instruction is intrinsically useful, the instructor is probably more likely to miss the broader outlook, which, in turn, is more easily retained when the value of the subject-matter is purely ideal. It may be concluded, then, that the function of the teacher is to inspire as well as to instruct. Doubtless his task would be materially simpUfied if one or the other of these factors could be eliminated, but the time when this could be safely done is past. New condi- tions impose new duties and demand a readjustment. In this readjustment something will assuredly be lost. The task must be so to balance the factors that a net gain will result. 5. It is difficult adequately to define in psychological terms just what we mean by the word "ideal," yet it is essential that the notion be made as definite and tan- gible as possible if the dangers of loose thinking, to which educational science is so prone, are to be avoided. The following analysis, although quite inadequate from the psychological standpoint, may serve this purpose in some measure. (i) An ideal is a type of condensed experience. It is the upshot of a multitude of reactions and adjustments, both individual and racial. DEVELOPMENT OF IDEALS 223 (2) Because it represents condensed experience, it is commonly formulated as a proposition or conceptual judgment. For example: "All men are created free and equal; " "The greatest good of the greatest number is the standard of conduct;" etc. Or it may be attached to a single word such as "honor," "chastity," "truth," "patriotism," and the like. (3) As a condensed experience, it functions in the process of judgment. It serves as a conscious guide to conduct, especially in novel and critical situations. It func- tions in the initiation of specific habits, and such habits once formed may be said to harmonize with the ideal; but ideals themselves do not function as habit, although the judgments that are based upon them may often be of the "intuitive" type. (4) The development of an ideal is both an emotional and an intellectual process, but the emotional element is by far the more important. Ideals that lack the emotional coloring are simply intellectual propositions and have little directive force upon conduct. (5) Ideals may be classed as high or low according as they are (a) concrete or abstract ; (b) selfish or social ; (c) formed with reference to immediate or remote ends. 6. The above characteristics suggest some fundamental propositions regarding the pedagogy of ideals. (a) It has already been indicated that the period of adolescence represents the best time for the development of ideals. This means that the work of the grammai 224 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS grades, the high school, the college, and the university must be organized with especial reference to this factor, It also means that the personaUty of the teacher or instructor during this period is of fundamental impor- tance. (b) That the emotional element is dominant in the development of ideals indicates that mere didactic in struction from the intellectual standpoint is not suffi- cient. The emotional spirit of the instruction is the factor that counts. It is also necessary that the ideal be reenforced and confirmed through as many channels of emotional functioning as possible, — that is, through the forms of aesthetic, intellectual, and religious sentiment.-' Art, literature (including poetry, the drama, and fiction), music, and religion are the great media for the transmission of ideals and as such fulfill an educa- tive function far more fundamental than our didactic pedagogy has ever realized.^ ^ Cf. E. B. Titchener : Primer of Psychology, cb, xii. * Cf. ch. xviii below. CHAPTER XV The Intrinsic Values of Different Types oi Experience 1. If education is to produce the socially eflScient individual, it is essential that the educator know in what degree xlifferent types of experience will promote this end, and particularly the relative values of different facts and principles — different items of knowledge — in their intrinsic relation to this end. These values fall into the five classes: (a) utiUtarian, (b) conventional, (c) preparatory, (d) theoretical, and (e) sentimental. 2. (a) Utilitarian Values. The utihtarian value of knowledge imphes that its direct application may serve in the solution of the problems and situations that life presents. Detailed facts and general principles may alike lend themselves to this purpose. If I know that eighteen inches of rainfall are necessary to agriculture without irrigation, I shall certainly not settle in a country where the annual rainfall is below this point, with the expectation of making a Hving by "dry" farming. If I know that, to find the interest on $600 for 6 months at 6 per cent I multiply $6 by 3, my debtor will not be able to cheat me. If, as a sailor, I know that a sudden Q 22s 226 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS fall in the barometer commonly presages a severe storm, I can take in sail in time, perhaps, to avert a disaster. Facts and principles, then, have utilitarian value when they can be applied directly to some of the needs and situations of life. They have a legitimate claim on instruction from this standpoint when it can be shown that their utility will probably be called into service by the majority of the pupils receiving the instruction. Thus the laws of percentage and interest, the rules for addition and subtraction, the principles of commerce, may be said to be of probable value to every individual. Oppor- tunities will doubtless present themselves in . his future adjustments when such knowledge will render these ad- justments efficient. On the other hand, there are many facts and principles that have no possible utilitarian value, and a still larger number the utilitarian value of which will in any case be hmited to certain classes of the population. The number of persons, for example, who find occasion in mature fife to apply the rules for extracting square and cube root is extremely small, and the same statement could be made with reference to a thousand other facts and principles that are imparted in elementary instruction. In fact, if those items of knowl- edge that have no utiUtarian value were excluded from the school curriculum, a very few years would be suffi- cient to cover the work. It is true, however, that a utilitarian value may not be obvi- ous upon the surface. This is not the case with the study of INTRINSIC VALUES OF EXPERIENCE 22;> arithmetic, for the utility of quick and accurate methods of computation can never be doubted. But this is not so obvious in the case of geography. And yet if we think of geography as a study of the environment in its relation to the life of the in- dividual, the very definition seems to imply utility. Broadly speaking, all life is adjustment to an environment. Anything that tends to render this adjustment more efficient is of value from the standpoint of utility. Whatever reduces waste, what- ever saves time, energy, labor, whatever increases wealth and material prosperity, may be looked upon as utilitarian in its value. That the facts of geography possess such value is prob- ably not obvious at first glance, but a few concrete instances may serve to demonstrate it. The process of distribution that is continually going on, tending to relieve the congested areas of the earth's surface and to populate the undeveloped areas, may take place either blindly or intelligently. In the former case, lack of accurate information concerning the conditions of different regions — their relative productivity, healthfulness, etc. — leads to a chance or fortuitous selection of favorable environments. That is, under conditions of geographical ignorance, migratory movements frequently entail a tremendous material waste, — to say nothing of human suffering. We have already referred to the misfortunes that followed the wild rush into the semi-arid regions of western Kansas and Nebraska in the early eighties. This migratory movement was a mistake 'due to ignorance of geographical conditions. To-day the work of the scientific bureaus of the national government is devoted to the gathering of accurate information regarding the temperature, rainfall, fer- tility, and salubrity of various parts of the country. Annually a vast mass of information is published, — information which is, in its very essence, geographical knowledge. The pupils in the upper grades of the elementary schools should certainly be made acquainted with the sources of this information and trained in its interpretation. 228 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS The merchant engaged in the export trade has no longer to send his vessels to distant shores on the chance that a market may be found for his goods. The " Consular Reports " pub- lished by the government give accurate information concerning the commercial geography of foreign countries, — what goods are in demand, at what proiit they may be sbld, what duty must be paid for their importation, what commodities do not find a sale, and a host of other valuable facts, knowledge of which will operate to reduce losses and increase profits. All this geographical knowledge is important from the utilitarian point of view to many different classes of people. It is knowledge which the merchant, the farmer, the manufacturer, and the legislator may frequently use to their advantage. And the laborer, seeking a market for his labor, may be just as materi- ally benefited by such knowledge as the manufacturer seeking a market for his products. The writer once proposed this question to an eighth-grade class that had been exceptionally well prepared in commercial-' geography : " The Great Northern Railroad recently sent a representative to Asiatic Russia to study the trans-Siberian Railroad, which was then just completed : what motives led the management to take this step?" A variety of answers were obtained, nearly all showing commendable acumen of thought. They were criticised by the class with the aid of sug- gestive questions, and the conclusion was finally reached that the Great Northern directors were anxious to know whether they could compete with Russia in supplying wheat and flour to the Oriental market. A member of the class later brought in a newspaper clipping, stating that the directors of this com- pany were contemplating the construction of several large trans- Pacific freighters. It is obvious that such a question as this is - of vital interest, not only to the stockholders of the trans-conti- nental railroads, but also to every man, woman, and child living in the northwestern states. INTRINSIC VALUES OF EXPERIENCE 22g 3. But notwithstanding this widely distributed utilita- rian value of certain detailed facts and general principles, could it not be urged that, in the large, the utilitarian value of any subject of instruction is a specific value for special occupations? The sailor needs sailor geography and sailor mathematics, the importing or exporting mer- chant needs commercial geography and commercial arithmetic, the farmer needs agricultural physics, the engineer needs mathematical physics, and so on. There can be no doubt of the general vaUdity of this contention. On the other hand, there are a number of facts and principles that every one may apply to the needs of life, no matter what his special occupation. In practice, a compromise may be reached by making this latter class of facts a part of the elementary instruction and reserving the first class for the secondary and higher schools. This has been the poHcy for some time as far as the colleges' and universities are concerned. It is now the tendency to speciaUze secondary education in accordance with the needs of the community. The commercial high school has become a typical feature of secondary education in the larger commercial centers. Manual-training high schools are looking after another field of appUed science. In Wisconsin the county agricultural high schools are serving the interests and needs of the farming communi- ties. In this way the specific occupations are being provided for and secondary education is undergoing a wholesome and much-needed reform. 230 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS 4. (b) Conventional Values. The prominence oi certain items of the curriculum is to be justified, not by the utiHty of their facts and principles in actual applica- tion to the problems of life, but rather by the condition that ignorance of these facts and principles brands a person as uneducated, and hence serves to miHtate against his maximal efficiency in society. The study of grammar is perhaps the best instance of formal instruction, the main value of which is conventional. A sen- tence that is grammatically incorrect may express one's thought, one's meaning, just as clearly as a sentence that is grammati- cally correct, yet habitual use of incorrect forms — disregard of conventional requirements — will distract the attention of one's auditors from the thought to the form, and hence militate against the maximal efficiency of expression. It is clear, also, that grammar possesses a modicum, at least, of utilitarian value, for in many cases the incorrect form is inferior to the correct form in the manner in which it conveys meanings. An ungram- matical sentence is frequently obscure and equivocal, clumsy and inaccurate. But, generally speaking, the value of gram- matically correct expression is purely conventional, although none the less important and deserving of attention. Geographical knowledge, too, is certainly " assumed " as part of the intellectual equipment of every one who would claim for his thoughts and opinions the consideration and respect of the average man. One who does not know, for example, that the earth is round will surely be handicapped in his dealings with others ; for in social intercourse men and women generalize on slight bases, and the man who has proved himself to be ignorant upon so common a branch of knowledge as geography will receive scant attention upon other matters. The elementary school owes it to the individual to furnish him with those geo- graphical facts and concepts that " every one must know." INTRINSIC VALUES OF EXPERIENCE 23 1 A certain conventiQnal value also attaches to correct spelling, although here, too, the utilitarian value is also in evidence. The misspelled word not only reveals one's "ignorance," but frequently it may obscure one's meaning. Arithmetic may be said to have but a sUght value from the conventional stand- point. Literature, on the other hand, is extremely important in this Hght — far more important in the schools from the con- ventional point of view, probably, than from any other. The " classics " are studied (or, better, dissected) because they are things that one must be familiar with. Not to have heard of them, at least, is to lack the first essentials of culture. This interpretation of their value is natural, but unfortunate. 5. (c) Preparatory Values. The traditional Herbar- tian notion that ideas assimilate ideas possesses a cer- tain measure of truth. It is natural to expect, therefore, that facts and principles may have a certain value as bases for the acquisition of other facts and principles. This value may be termed preparatory. The preparatory value of arithmetic as a basis for the higher mathematics, and as a useful implement in dealing with natural science, needs no especial justification. The study of the mother tongue is also important as a groundwork for the study of foreign languages. The significance of this value is, however, most clearly re- vealed in the study of geography. As a recent writer^ has said: "History is not intelUgible without geography. This is obviously true in the sense that the reader of history must learn where the frontiers of states are, where battles are fought, whither colonies were dispatched. It is equally, if less obvi- ously, true that geographical facts very largely influence the 1 H. B. George : The delations of Geography and History, Oxford, looi. -a. I. 232 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS course of history." The study of geography is also essential to a rational understanding of " current events." Not to evaluate current tendencies with some degree of intelligence is certainly not to prove one's self efficient in society. In this day, when an occurrence on the other side of the globe may immediately and directly influence the humblest citizen on this side, the ability to read newspapers intelligently needs no elaborate argument for its defense. And the ability to read newspapers intelligently certainly demands not a superficial, but a thorough knowledge of geography, as the contemporary happenings in the Orient abundantly testify. Even more important is the relation of geography to natural science. Geography borrows many of its facts from different fields of natural science — from geology, meteorology, astron- omy, botany, zoology, et al. In the high school and college, each of the sciences is treated in and for itself as a pure science, — that is, without explicit reference to its economic and human relations. It is generally agreed, however, that the initial study of a science should be from its economic, or human side. The child should be introduced to facts and principles in their rela- tion to his life, to his needs. The law of apperception demands this, and this is what geography attempts to do. In a sense it may be looked upon as an introduction to all the sciences of nature. It is here that the child must get that first large view that should precede all detailed and abstract study. Educators are now coming to believe that the curriculum should include geography, not only as a preparation for the sciences, but also as the culmination of all scientific study. The student should bring together the facts and principles that he has acquired in the detailed study of the various sciences, and discover their relations to human Ufe. This is only a consistent application of the general principle that mind begins with large wholes, passes from these to detailed parts, and then back again to the wholes — analysis followed by synthesis, differentiation followed by integration. INTRINSIC VALUES OF EXPERIENCE 233 6. (d) Theoretical Values. Items of knowledge that have little or no significance in the practical affairs of life, from either a utihtarian, a conventional, or a pre- paratory standpoint, may nevertheless be necessary to a system of knowledge. The importance of organiza- tion and system as important factors in efficient recall has been emphasized in a former chapter. Very fre- quently, in organizing knowledge into a coherent whole, it is necessary to insert many facts and principles that have in themselves httle practical worth. This, as already suggested, is the justification of a very large part of the educational curriculum. It is hardly too much to say that three fourths of every subject of instruction has abso- lutely no value when measured by the standards already dis- cussed. A large part of its value is purely theoretical, — that is, it contributes to the coherence of the various facts and prin- ciples as knowledge. Its value cannot be disputed, for any attempt to " cut out " the " impractical " parts invariably results in the inefficient functioning of the remainder. Short courses that aim to give only the essentials, fifth-rate colleges and nor- mal schools that educate you while you wait, are sufficiently damned by their own products. The muse of science is a jeal- ous mistress. She demands all, and if she fails to get all, she gives nothing in return for whatever she may receive. 7. (e) Sentimental Values. Inquisitiveness in man is an instinct. Like all instincts, it owes its existence to the forces of natural selection working upon fortuitous variations in nerve structure. It has been "good" for man to be curious about his environment, to study his environment, and to determine the laws that govern its 234 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS phenomena. Primitive man did not realize, probably, that his inordinate curiosity was good for him. In his own crude way he investigated things for the mere "fun of it," — for the pleasure it afforded him. Later in his development he came to find out that many of the facts that he discovered and many of the laws that he worked out were "good" for him — that the knowledge thus gained helped him to solve the problems of his life. But this appreciation of the value of inquisitiveness came only after a long lapse of time. The desire to satisfy curiosity is thus seen to lie at the basis of knowledge. The child evinces this desire. His curiosity is boundless, and upon this native instinct the educator must build. It is clear from our previous dis- cussion, however, that he cannot depend upon it entirely. The very fact that it is an instinct means that it runs its course in passive attention. It is not sustained, directed, organized. All these things mean active atten- tion, mean work. Curiosity soon tires, but any measur- able addition to knowledge involves persistent effort. It is the problem of the educator, then, to replace this instinctive curiosity with a higher mental process. The desire to obtain knowledge is not to be discouraged, but it is to be held to a definite line until results follow. Wherever possible, of course, the child's curiosity should be directed along Hnes that will help him most in his future adjustments. There are times, however, when this curiosity may be directed toward ends the practi- INTRINSIC VALUES OF EXPERIENCE 235 cal significance of which is not once apparent. Some pupils, for example, may be curious in certain special directions. They may evince a desire, perhaps, to learn all that they can about Arctic exploration. The facts that they obtain may not be applicable to any of the problems that they will be called upon to solve, yet no sensible teacher would think for a moment of curtailing this interest. He has here the opportunity to replace instinctive curiosity with a higher mental attitude, intel- lectual interest. This is a form of what is technically termed in psychology, sentiment. It is rather unfortu- nate that this term must be used, for it popularly con- notes something shallow and "silly." Psychologically, however, a sentiment is one of the highest forms of mental activity.^ It is emotion, refined and idealized. The sentiment of intellectual interest is closely akin to other forms of sentiment, such as appreciation of art, music, poetry, and the drama. None of these is in itself practical, yet each subserves a very practical end. With- out some form of pleasure, life would be impossible. It is a pretty fallacy (preached mostly by the rich) that one toils like a drudge for a competency and then enjoys one's self. Life, however, is not built upon this plan. Pleasure is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Bio- logically it may be looked upon as a bribe to keep one aUve and in good spirits until one's life work is accom- plished. The individual instinctively seeks pleasure, 1 Cf. E. B. Titchener : Primer of Psychology, ch. xii. 236 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS and if the higher forms of pleasure have not been cul- tivated, he must fall back on the lower pleasures, — the pleasures of the senses, the satisfaction of instinctive desires, the insidious lines of least resistance. The enlightened educator realizes this fundamental truth, and he attempts in his practice to develop the sentiments. This is done most consciously in the field of the aesthetic sentiments — the appreciation of music, painting, and Hterature. These subjects form just as legitimate a part of the elementary school curriculum as arithmetic and reading and writing. But the teacher should certainly not forget the intellectual sentiment, — the pleasure that comes from knowing, — and it is for this reason that no wise teacher would think of curtail- ing the child's interest in such a subject as Arctic ex- ploration. With a Kttle trouble, he may lead the child to take deUght in a purely intellectual pursuit, just as with a little trouble he may lead the child to see the beauty in a great picture, or a classical musical composition, or a world epic.^ The foregoing paragraphs explain the criticism that was sug- gested on a former page concerning the teaching of literature for its conventional value. The educational value of literature is not primarily conventional, but rather sentimental and ideal. The aim in the study of literature should be to enable the pupil to enjoy it, not to have him cut it up and mutilate it, nor to have him look upon it as a medium for communicating useful infor- 1 This is in addition to the function of art to inspire the individual ta higher ideals. INTRINSIC VALUES OF EXPERIENCE 237 mation in an agreeable form. But, as with everything else that is worth while in this life, the appreciation of the higher forms of art is not a simple thing. It demands some degree of active attention, some element of work, before it can be acquired. It is a mistake to think that art appeals to every one simply because it is art. There are thousands of men and women who get no pleasure out of the great pictures, or the great poems, or the great musical compositions. Many affect enjoy- ment, because they have a dim sort of notion that it is the " proper thing." But not a few are frank enough to say that they see nothing in art to "rave over." And yet, once de- veloped through a process of active attention, the aesthetic and intellectual sentiments become a source of the highest kind of pleasure. 8. From what has been said it might be inferred that education has neglected the values that we have termed "theoretical" and "sentimental." This is not alto- gether true. The briefest examination of the curricula of the secondary schools and colleges will serve to dem- onstrate the importance of these values in the higher departments of education. The larger part of these cur- ricula is made up of subjects that subserve one or another of these two functions: tending either to develop intel- lectual and aesthetic interests or to make more compre- hensive and complete the body of knowledge. The science, mathematics, language, and literature that oc- cupy so prominent a place in the higher education can be justified only upon these grounds. Here, indeed, as we have intimated, they are, or have been, perhaps, too prominent, and a reaction in favor of the utihtarian 238 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS may work a wholesome change. In the elementary school, on the other hand, we find the other extreme. The bulk of the time is here given over to arithmetic and language, the latter including reading, writing, composi- tion, and grammar. Literature and geography, with a modicum of music and drawing, divide most of the remaining time between them. Arithmetic is justified entirely by its utihtarian and preparatory values, language by its utihtarian and conventional values, geography by its utihtarian, conventional, and theoretical values, htera- ture mainly by its conventional value, and music and drawing by their sentimental value.^ Just as a readjust- ment in favor of the more practical values has been important to the efficiency of higher education, so a readjustment in involving a more exphcit recognition of the sentimental values would seem desirable in the elementary schools. This would not mean the introduc- tion of more subjects, but rather a reform in methods of teaching. 1 To those who are troubled by the cry, now so seldom heard, " Art for art's sake," the following expression from John Addington Symonds may be comforting : " I had composed these lectures for what I most abhor, an audience of cultivated people. This is a paradoxical confession. I am nothing if not cultivated, or at least the world expects only culture from me. But in my heart of hearts I do not believe in culture except as an adjunct. ' Life is more than literature,' I say. So I cannot, although I devote my time and energy to culture (even as a carpenter makes doors or a carver carves edelweiss on walnut wood) regard it othervrise than in the light of pastime, decoration, service." — Quoted in H. F. Brown's Life of John Addington 5)/»«o«(i&, speaking of lectures delivered in 1877 on " Florence and the MedicL" PART VI. THE TRANSMISSION OF EXPERIENCE AND THE TECH- NIQUE OF TEACHING CHAPTER XVI The Transmission of Experience in the Concrete: Imitation and Objective Teaching 1. Up to this point, the educative process has been treated mainly from the standpoint of the individual who is to be educated ; it must now be viewed from the standpoint of the teacher who is to control and direct this process. The remaining chapters will consider the va- rious ways in which the teacher may lead the child to acquire experiences, the present chapter dealing par- ticularly with the transmission of concrete experiences through imitation and objective teaching. 2. (a) Imitation. It is instinctive for the child to imitate the processes that he sees going on in the world about him. It seems to be a fundamental law -^ of psy- cho-physics that an idea or a perception always tends to work itself out in action: the child's concrete expe- rience of witnessing a given process is applied instinc- tively in a repetition of that process. It has already 1 Often called the "law of dynamogenesis " ; see J. M. Baldwin: Mental Development : Methods and Processes, pp. 165 ff. 339 240 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS been shown ^ how education lays hold of this primary instinct and turns it into the acquired interest of con- struction. But education also makes other uses of imi- tation. Indeed, there are those ^ who maintain that imitation is the fundamental principle, not only of edu- cation, but of all mental development. There is a dan- ger here as elsewhere, however, of taking an extreme position in magnifying a given factor, if not beyond its theoretical significance, at least far beyond its practical significance. And, after all, education is not so much concerned with the development of imitation. Imitation is an instinct and needs either utilization, transformation, or elimination — not development. Probably the most important truth for the teacher to reaUze in connection with imitation is this: the child imitates that which he admires. And the practical apph- cation of this truth involves, not only the provision of good models for imitation, but also, and more funda- mentally, the leading 0} the child to admire and emulate these models. The first point has been adequately em- phasized and even overemphasized by educators during the past decade. The latter point has been very sadly neglected. Thus in impressing correct forms of speech, it is not suflScient to provide good models of speech. In addition it must be 1 Cf. ch. vi, above. " Baldwin, op. cii., chs. ix-xii; see also an admirable critique of Bald< win's theory in King, of. eit., ch. x. IMITATION AND OBJECTIVE TEACHING 24I assured that bad models do not appeal the more strongly to the child. Many children hear good language in the home and in the schoolroom, but they hear crude language on the street and on the playground. More than this, it is safe to say that the crude forms appeal as a rule the more strongly to the child. There is not a real boy but strenuously abjures what he con- siders the niceties of personal bearing and speech in favor of the swaggering air, the crude phrases, and the coarse jests of his boyish heroes. The uncultured strata of society stand for arrested development and so approximate the plane of child- hood. It is natural that children should be attracted more strongly to representatives of these strata than to the represen- tatives of culture and learning, with whom they have no com- mon bond. Nor would the sane educator have it otherwise, — for the time. There is a period of childhood when the prim niceties are distinctly out of place and when the little prig who prac- tices them is justly frowned upon as precocious and unnatural. But this does not mean that education is to neglect the crudities of speech and manner, or to permit them to persist. Slowly but surely the child must be led to admire and emulate the higher forms of life, and even before this point is reached, edu- cation can see to it that the cruder models are at least clean and wholesome rather than base and degrading. ' 3. Imitation and Habit Building. Imitation is an im- portant factor in the initial stages of habit forming. It will be remembered that the fundamental principle of habit forming is focalization and drill in attention. It is only after a long period of practice that the stimulus "sets off" the reaction automatically. For a long time, the stimulus must be met with a concrete idea of the appropriate movement, — a process that involves the 242 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS essential conditions of the practical judgment. • In the development of a typical motor automatism, such as walking or speech, the first incentive will probably be furnished by imitation. The child notices these pro- cesses going on in the world about him and makes an effort to repeat them. As King ^ says : " He gets more or less vivid images of the activity of other children or of adults. These images, by the very fact that they have been selected out of an infinite complex of images, indicate their affinity to certain impulses to action on the part of the child that are struggling for expression." That is, the process that he sees is coincident with some impulse that he feels for similar movement. Imitation gives him the cue, as it were. It selects impulses at the appropriate moment and turns them into social channels. To the extent that the sight of the process stimulates these impulses into action, imitation may be looked upon as an important practical judgment initiating habit. But in the further development of habit, imitation probably plays a very minor part. The adjustment once made with a fair degree of success, further details are improved by a recall of the experiences of the first and subsequent movements rather than by a recall of the process that the child has witnessed in another person. The process of habit forming, once started by imitation, goes on by what may be called the "method of trial and error." Each successful effort forms a new expe- ^ King, op. cit., p. 121. IMITATION AND OBJECTIVE TEACHING 243 rience that can be revived and applied concretely to the next trial. Each unsuccessful effort also forms an expe- rience which, when revived on a future occasion, serves to inhibit the movements that before proved unsatis- factory. All school activities that we group under the head of manual training (including writing, drawing, sloyd, etc.) and moral training (cleanliness, industry, silence, etc.) are important from this point of view. Here the aim is to train the muscles to cer- tain specific adjustments, and the only way in which this can be done is by imitation, trial and error, and persistent practice. The task of the teacher is to provide a good model in the first place, and then to keep the child constantly returning to the process, frequently comparing the results of his work with the model, until proficiency results. 4. Imitation and Apperception. The fact that the child imitates that which he admires is only a concrete expression of the principle of apperception. Imitation depends first upon focalization, and a process is imitated the more readily if it is seen to have a distinct and vital relation to the needs of life. Certainly these needs may not always be economic needs. In very early childhood, processes are imitated with great pains, not because their purpose is perceived, but because they coincide, as King says, with an inherent impulse.^ Here the needs that operate to select "copies" are primitive and innate, 1 The writer has observed a two-year-old girl carefully wipe certair. chairs that had just been dusted, but scrupulously avoid touching thos< that her mother's duster had not yet reached. 244 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS But education, as has been pointed out, must get the child as rapidly as possible beyond this blind and pur- poseless stage to a plane where the needF will be of a higher order.-^ Imitation still operates here, but in the form of constructive interest rather than in the form of primitive imitation. In other words, the model must be copied with a purpose, and the more vital the purpose, the greater will be the motive for copying the model faithfully. This is clearly seen in the current methods of teaching drawing. Objects that possess intrinsic interest to the child have almost entirely replaced the "type forms" once so generally used. True, there is still a place for the type form, but not until the pupil can see that its use will subserve a distinct end. This point will obviously not be reached until he can grasp a rather involved mediation of means to ends, — in short, until he has attained the plane of conceptual judgment. Similarly, in manual training, the formal exercises, such as whittUng to a straight line, planing a board to a smooth surface, constructing typical joints, etc., without having in view the construction of some definite and useful object, are justly giving place to a more rational treatment which assumes that the child will learn best how to make these adjustments if he has in mind some- thing that he wishes to make and then sets about to make it. His product will be crude enough at first, but it will 1 Cf. ch. vi, above. IMITATION AND OBJECTIVE TEACHING 245 supply a motive for painstaking practice that will ulti- mately lead to good results. Here again the formal exercises have a place in the later stages of instruction when the pupil can perceive something of their value. The use of models in written composition is subject to the same conditions. One reason for the paucity of results in this field of education is the lack of a vital motive. Merely to write a letter or a composition for the sake of writing is not a task for the average adult to enthuse over, much less the average child. President Hall has said that no written work should be undertaken in the schools the need for which does not originate in the child himself. This is profoundly true, but the practical question arises. How can this need be sup- plied? This question is so important in the work of the elementary school that space may profitably be given to a few suggestions that have proved valuable in the writer's experience. (a) The narrative form of composition seems to afford a more natural avenue of expression in children than the descriptive or expository forms. The writer has noticed that the majority of children will respond enthusiastically to the suggestion of an imaginative story. Here the need is perhaps furnished by the instinctive tendency to "day-dream."^ (3) The construction of little dramas that the children are later to enact furnishes a very powerful motive for painstaking 1 Cf. Theodate L. Smith, in American Journal of Psychology, 1904, vol. XV, pp. 465 ff.; also, S. W. Eaton : " Children's Stories," in Pedagogical Seminary, 1895, vol. iii, pp. 334, 338. 246 THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS work in composition. This device is employed rather generally at the present time, although the tendency to utilize " ready- made " dramatizations frequently eliminates its most important virtue. Needless to say, the drama that is worked up by a class of twelve-year-olds will be a very crude affair, but it is in the recognitiori of its crudities through later comparison with better models that an important motive for improvement is secured. ( 40 PIONEERS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY \ centB PIONEERS OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS AND THE WEST J each By DR. CHARLES A. McMURRY This series provides excellent supplementary reading matter for schools of fk-om the fifth to the eighth grade. In these volumes is told the story of the pioneer life of all sections of our country, from the epoch-making voyages of Columbus to Major Powell's marvellous jour- ney through the Grand Caiion of the Colorado. The stories are com- plete and interesting, making the experiences of pioneer life as graphic and real as possible. Indeed, the text is made up largely of source materials. 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