A. Dt Ree es ME DPN CROP TR pb aiv aa ay araner sia . ah Sy . 2 ee = ae aca ons sapere res Meme merengue er ae Pereemieeene « aera nena re ee Aton + RIN rapa ere oo Smee coer em ee A ra rh A Rep rertarty ecw te bse A es degen Tee ee "wav 12 1928 NUV 12 1926 a ae <2 ogica sewer UAC LRIN?R Division Es BB NY Gr A MAS? Section v2 Copy ~ Briet Course Series in Lducation EDITED BY PAUL MONROE FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD INFORMAL TALKS ON TEACHING Brief Course Series tn Boucation EDITED BY PAUL MONROE, PuH.D., LL.D. BRIEF COURSE IN THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION PauL Monrokg, PH.D., LL.D., Professor of Education and Director of International Institute, Teachers College, Colum- bia University. BRIEF COURSE IN THE TEACHING PROCESS GEORGE D. STRAYER, PH.D., Professor of Educational Administration, Teachers College, Columbia University. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CHILDHOOD Naomi NorsworrnHy, Pu.D., formerly Associate Professor of Educational Psychology, and MARY THEODORA WHITLEY, Pu.D., Assistant Professor of Education, Teachers College, Columbia University. SCHOOL HYGIENE FLETCHER B. DRESSLAR, PH.D., Professor of Health Edu- cation, George !'cabody College for Teachers, Nashville. PRINCIPLES OF SOCICLOGY WITH EDUCATIONAL APPLICATIONS FREDERICK R. CLow, PH.D., Teacher in the State Normal School, Oshkosh. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SUBNORMAL CHILDREN Lera S. HOLLINGWoRTH, PH.D., Associate Professor of Education, Teachers College, Columbia University. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION DAVID SNEDDEN, PuH.D., Professor of Education, Teachers College, Columbia University. FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD: INFORMAL TALKS ON TEACHING WILLIAM HEARD KILPATRICK, PH.D., Professor of Edu- cation, Teachers College, Columbia University. FOUNDATIONS OF METHO Informal Talks on Teaching BY WILLIAM HEARD KILPATRICK PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION, TEACHERS COLLEGS COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY Rew Work THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1926 All rights reserved Coprricat, 1925, Br THE MACMILLAN COMPANY Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1925 Reprinted August, December, 1925; May, 1926; December, 1926. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA L. H. JENKINS, INC, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER BARLIEST AND BEST OF MY TEACHERS Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/foundationsofmet0Okilp PREFACE This book is based on a course which I have been giving for a number of years under the name of “‘ Foundations of Method.” Its aim is, accordingly, not to present details of specific method procedures, but rather to discuss the principles on which method in general may be founded. Among the conceptions that determine the trend of the discussion, two stand out prominently: first, that the indi- vidual of whatever age, being complex, responds in many varied ways as he reacts to a stimulating situation and that education must care for all these responses; second, that there must be considered the dominating part played by the individual’s mind-set or attitude in determining what varied responses he shall make and which of these are to be fixed as habit in his character. Method, in conse- quence, becomes then much more than a question of how a child best learns any one thing, as spelling or silent read- ing. Such inquiries are good and proper but they do not suffice. Method must look further. In particular the broader outlook upon method asks how the parent or teacher shall so manage the total situation confronting the living child as to call out the most and best of all his inner resources and how then to guide the ensuing experience so that the aggregate learning results of knowledge, attitudes, habits, and skills shall be best. Among these learning results, attitudes and habits here receive emphatic atten- tion, because they have heretofore been too much over- looked. For the solution of this broader problem of method the vu Vill PREFACE element of purpose is herein presented as a factor having peculiar value, promising as it does at one and the same time to call out the child’s available resources, to direct and organize his varied responses, and, by the resulting satisfactions and annoyances from success and failure, to fix in his character the learning results properly accruing. How method thus conceived becomes probably the great- est essential factor in moral character building need not here be elaborated, nor its consequent significance in the very insistent problem of adjusting our total educational scheme more effectually to the demands of democracy and of a changing world. However, it may not be out of place to say that the conception of method here presented finds its proper position in an educational philosophy which consciously intends to look these demands of modern life squarely in the face. It may be added that, in such a phi- losophy, method and curriculum will be found more in- herently related than is usually conceived. No particular age of learner is here contemplated. The considerations urged are believed to apply to all ages — to all who can learn. Nor is the work directed solely to teachers, actual or prospective. It should appeal as truly to parents and to any who lead others. ‘To some teachers it may seem unfortunate that the discussions are not more explicitly directed to ordinary school work. A partial re- joinder is that the contentions here made would, if ad- mitted, demand a different type of school. It would be ungrateful not to mention my indebtedness to those whose teachings have most helped to make the ideas here presented — Spencer, James, Dewey, Thorndike, and Woodworth. Their ideas, particularly those of Dewey and Thorndike, permeate these pages. What I have to offer is built largely on their foundations, though of course I alone am responsible for what here appears. Some of the PREFACE iX chapters have already appeared in the Journal of Educational Method, and for the use of these my thanks are hereby tendered. As regards the unusual style of composition, it may be said that this was chanced upon in an effort to lighten a presentation that otherwise threatened to become too in- volved and heavy. Being tried, it has been retained, partly for the reason named, partly to encourage more independent thinking on the part of those readers who come as learners to the book. Other readers may possibly feel regret at my choice in the matter. In keeping with the conversational style, the organization of the several topics is somewhat less systematic than is usual. Stu- dents of the book are accordingly urged to use the index in connection with any topic studied in order to consider at one time all the references to that topic. This use has been kept in view as the index has been made. For reading the manuscript and making valuable sugges- tions, hearty acknowledgments are due to the Rev. Dr. Thomas &. Cline of the General Theological Seminary and to my colleague, Professor Fannie W. Dunn. For valued help in the preparation of the manuscript and in seeing the book through the press my best thanks are due to my assistant, Miss Marion Y. Ostrander. May, 1925. Ce i i he ¥) AY ely @ MeL 8 Neh i A ie art : Ab m4 HUIENY NTA aK y ' he * i My i 7 HU Va tea oA Stitt Diy CHAPTER I II Il IV V TABLE OF CONTENTS Tur WER vs. THE NaRROW PROBLEM oF METHOD Wuat Learninc Is anp How Ir Taxes PLACE ANOTHER VIEW OF LEARNING SimpLER INSTANCES OF LEARNING Minp-Set AND LEARNING CoERCION AND LEARNING CoERCION AND LEARNING — Concluded . THe Wiper ProsiEM oF METHOD . Tue Wiper PropuemM oF Metuop — Concluded . INTEREST IntEREST — Continued: Tue SELF AND INTEREST InreREst — Concluded: Tue INTEREST SPAN . Purpvoserut Activiry: THE CoMPLeTE ACT . MEANING AND THINKING . Ture Complete Act oF THOUGHT Wuy Epucation Is CHANGING Supsect-MATTER AND THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS . PsyCHOLOGICAL AND LOGICAL Morau EpucaTiIon Mora Epucation — Concluded SomE CONCLUDING QUESTIONS List OF REFERENCES . INDEX ‘ Je ait es ee ) ial 4 Sie ald mh men) WN } , ues ‘tine pik ch 9) ) Aa ile ‘a at alae Mi oy Ae ys ad Winn net : singh i As aah mil, ‘ i | ies ‘ | i he Wiad, la My, ene von aia nd ay ee Rani bei \ vet i pa #4 UF i iho Ye FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD CHAPTER I Ture WIDER vs. THE NARROW PROBLEM OF METHOD ‘Method,’ ‘problem of method,’ ‘wider problem of meth- od,’ — what do you mean? What is it all about? What is the ‘wider problem of method’? I have 4 group of never heard of that. And is there a ‘narrow’. teachers are problem? I didn’t hear the address — I’ve just ne come. Was method discussed?’ “That’s just the point. The speaker gave us a new dis- cussion of the problem of method. He did not, as is sO commonly done, talk about the newer ways of selecting subject-matter or the scientifically re pata devised special methods of teaching spelling, handwriting, and the like. He talked instead about the part which he said method, broadly interpreted, can and should play in education.”’ ‘Was there any discussion at the close?” “Yes, rather an animated discussion. Many asked him further about the broader problem of method; but as most had never before heard of it they couldn’t make out what he meant.”’ “Vou object to his position then?”’ ‘No indeed. I cordially approve so far as I can under- stand it. It seems to me almost, if not quite, the most important problem in the whole field of education.” ‘Well, I should like to know more about this most 1m- portant problem in education. I have heard more or less 1 2 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD of this position but I have never fully understood it. Is this what the speaker called ‘the broad problem of method’? How did he discuss it?”’ ‘“‘Let’s take it up and go to the bottom of it. I mean let’s go into the ins and outs of this matter of method. We can all ask questions, whoever knows or thinks he knows can answer, and we can all judge. Let’s do it.” ‘“‘I for one should be glad to discuss it, for my own ideas need clarifying. Where shall we begin?” ‘Let me begin with my earliest recollection. I can’t help so much on the recent developments, but I well re- member the first time I ever heard method discussed. I was a child of about ten — more years ago than I care to tell. I recall to this day what a furor there was in our backwoods community when a new teacher said that she didn’t teach the alphabet first, she taught the words first, and letters and spelling later. She called it the ‘word method.’ My head went round. It sounded like building a chimney from the top down. My uncle said it was foolishness, that it couldn’t possibly work, that the school board ought to turn off such a teacher. He certainly was surprised, however, to find his little Tommy actually reading in less than half the time his older children had taken.”’ “Yes, and then we had the sentence method, which some claimed was better than the word method; and later Varigus we had all kinds of method: the phonic method, “methods” the phonetic method, and I don’t know how are recalled =~ many others. The Grube method in arithmetic came and went; and then we had the Speer method, I believe. In those days our institute lecturers had a great deal to say about methods. They spoke bravely about the ‘new methods’ as something great; but I think of late years I have noticed a superior sort of smile sometimes as ‘methods and devices’ are mentioned. Am I right?” THE WIDER vs. THE NARROW PROBLEM 3 “You are right, I am sure; but there is still another way of looking at method. Last summer at the university I took a course in educational psychology. Our Phe berets professor said that some day we’d have 4 dogical study science of method, or rather that the scientific of methods is psychologist would tell us which of two ways Tia ae of learning anything is more economical and would give us definite rules. He talked a great deal about the laws of learning, about set, readiness, exercise, and satisfaction. It was awfully hard at first, because I had never heard of such things; but after a while I got into it, and now I believe he is right. I have been watching myself and how I learn, and watching my class, too. Those laws of learning certainly work — it’s all a matter of exercise with satisfac- tion or annoyance.”’ ‘‘Well, suppose your psychologist is right as you think. I don’t see much difference between method when we talk about the ‘word method’ of reading and the 4, og ang study of method by your psychologist. It seems new are to me that the psychologist is just doing more ©o™Pared carefully what we all did when we decided that children learned quicker and better by the word method than they did by the old alphabetic method. I was at summer school myself last year, and in one course it was brought out that science and common sense don’t differ much ex- 4 gegnition of cept in degree; science is more exact. Whether method is you proceed by common sense or by science, slat es method seems to me to be a matter of the most economical way of teaching or of learning anything.” ‘The speaker to-day referred to that, but he objected to restricting method to this scientific procedure.” ‘And that’s where he is exactly right. There are more reasons than one why I should prefer the ‘word method’ or the ‘sentence method’ or any of the modern combinations 4 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD of these to the old ‘alphabet method.’ It is not simply because the child sooner learns to read. That’s good, but Awidernotion there’s more to it than that. That old dry of method is humdrum alphabet and spelling method made suggested the children hate the school and hate the teacher. ‘The newer methods of teaching reading somehow encourage the children. They seem more alive. If I wanted to make the children just docile, like the old serfs, you know, and always ‘keep them under’ and ‘break their spirit,’ and if I wished. to run the world on the principle that ‘children should be seen and not heard,’ then I’d favor such spirit-killing methods as the old alphabet method or even some of the drill methods now used. But if I be- lieved in all that old slavish docility, ’'d be consistent and give up democracy and accept Prussianism outright.” ‘Yes I know; I have heard you on this before. I am not going to dispute now whether your way of treating children is better or not. I know you’d begin by telling me that children are less refractory in school than they used to be; I remember what you said before about child suicides in Germany caused by the harsh school treatment. But I am interested in your idea of method. You mean, if I understand you, that the problem of method includes more than the best way of learning the lesson immediately at hand, that method is more than a matter of the most economical way of teaching a child how to read or how to learn a long poem. ‘This sounds reasonable, but I don’t quite understand. I wish you’d discuss it more fully.” ‘‘Well, it is just this. There is, as I see it, a narrow way of looking at method and a broader way of looking at it. The two views L’ might be better to employ different words of method are for the two uses, but so far no one has proposed contrasted the different terms. The narrow way is all right as far as it goes. It asks what is the best way of THE WIDER ws. THE NARROW PROBLEM 5 learning to read, what is the best way of learning a French vocabulary, and so on. This is what the older generation had in mind when they made so much of ‘methods.’ Only they had little or no scientific procedure for testing whether one method was better than another. If the difference between two rival methods was great, the better would probably win out in the end. In this way the old alphabet method, as was said before, has gone entirely. Scientific psychology and the tests and measurement movement will undoubtedly place method, considered narrowly, on an increasingly scientific basis. This will prove of great ad- vantage to all concerned if only we know how to make it all work together for the best education of children. But right there comes the rub. I have seen children, after they had passed a history examination, slam their books down and say, ‘Never again! I hope I may never look into another history book as long as I live!’ Now it seems to me that our pupils ought to learn not only what is in the history course, but also to love history. I have seen older children study civics and government and come out not caring a rap whether their city was well governed or not. There is something to learn besides what is written in the books, and a child may learn the one without learning the other. Then I know too that some of the pupils who make the highest marks — at any rate under some teachers — are afraid to call their souls their own. They can’t think independently; they don’t know how. They are afraid to trust their own judgment — they hardly have any judg- ment. If it is in the book, or if the teacher says it, then it’s true and that ends it. But surely that isn’t the kind of citizens we need in a democratic country.” —_ 4, it method ‘“Do you mean that whether pupils come to or subject- like history or to wish good government or be ™#tter? able to think independently is a matter of method? I¢ 6 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD seems to me that each of these is something to learn just as truly as is the subject-matter of history or government. How about it?” “Tt is something to learn. You are exactly right. Learn- ing the subject-matter of history is one thing. Learning to love history is another thing, related but different. Learning how to reach independent but dependable judg- ments in history is still another thing. Each learning is valuable and needs consideration. We should not trust to luck in the last two any more than in the first.” “But you have not answered my question. You admit that all these things are something to learn, but you say nothing of the method. A few minutes ago you were making big claims about method; you said you were widen- ing the reach of method. In the end it seems that every- thing is something to learn, everything merely some kind of subject-matter — different kinds of subject-matter to be sure, but all subject-matter. Why not agree with those - who say that after all curriculum is the one question? For curriculum seems to me to be nothing but a selection of desirable subject-matter, of desirable things to be learned. How do you answer that?” ‘In one way it is all a question of things to be learned. But the problem of method comes in. It won’t be kept A second def. OUt- It cannot be kept out. To each thing to nition of be learned belongs its own way of being learned. ably To learn anything we must somehow practice that thing. To learn how to form judgments we must practice forming judgments — under conditions that tell success from failure and give satisfaction to success and annoyance to failure. To learn to think independently we must practice thinking independently. Now the problem of method is exactly the problem of providing such conditions for learning as give the right kind of practice for learning — THE WIDER vs. THE NARROW PROBLEM a a practice that will tell success from failure and attach satisfaction to success and annoyance to failure. To each thing you call ‘subject-matter’ (the term is a slippery one) belongs its own style of method. Self-respect is a thing needful to be learned — you wish it called ‘subject-matter.’ At any rate, to the learning of self-respect belongs its own style of method, namely discriminative practice in exercising self-respect. Now, isn’t it true: to each learning, its own method? Do we see how method attaches to learning history, to learning to love history, to learning to think trustworthily in history, to acquiring self-respect in ae matters?” “Yes, I must admit it. I had not before seen how inti- mately subject-matter and method are related to each other. They seem strict correlations of each 4, + not one other. To each thing to be learned belongs its typeofmethod, own appropriate method. Perhaps I’ll wish to “ter a? - ask you more about that later. But I have now another question. You spoke, earlier, of a wider sense of method and a narrower sense of method. I don’t yet see any two senses of method. You have pointed out perhaps unusual fields in which to seek and find method, but all the instances you have given — once they are found — belong to the same kind. All reduce themselves to one formula: the most economical way of learning the thing at hand. There may be more things at hand, more things to be learned at one time and together than I had thought; but the same notion of method — your narrower sense of method — fits them all. What then becomes of your broader sense of method? I believe you have forgotten it or rather have been confused in your thinking.” ““Don’t be too hasty. Perhaps we shall yet locate the broader kind of method. You spoke a moment ago of several things at hand to be learned, many things to be 8 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD learned at one and the same time. Can a child learn several things at a time or must he learn in fact but one at a time?” ‘“‘T don’t understand. I have always heard that we can do only one thing at a time, or at any rate can pay atten- tion to only one thing. How then can we learn more than one thing at a time?” “Tl tell you how several things may be learned at one time. Suppose a shy little girl enters the kindergarten. Many learn- he shrinks at first from the other children, she ings goonat is unwilling to engage in any of their activities, a a but at length she is coaxed into trying the ‘slider.’ (You know our kindergarten has in it a children’s toboggan slide.) This little girl learns how to mount the stairs, how to get herself ready, how to let go and slide down. She forgets her shyness and enjoys sliding tre- mendously. The next day she comes to school a different child. Why different? I'll tell you why. She has learned - some things. What has she learned? Wherein is she different? She already has decided that she likes the kindergarten assistant who helped her yesterday. She likes Mary and Tommy who helped her on the slide. She likes the slide. She knows how to use it, how to take her turn. She is less shy. She told her mother, when she reached home that night, that she liked the kindergarten. Kach of these things represents a something learned. Each represents an exercise with satisfaction. Did she learn these several things, one at a time, in a set order? Clearly not. Nor did she learn them all exactly simultaneously or in one moment. But they are inextricably interwoven. Learning each was in some measure bound up with learning the others. It would have been impossible for her to practice with the slide without at the same time acquiring some sort of attitude toward the other children using it, THE WIDER vs. THE NARROW PROBLEM 9 some sort of attitude toward the kindergarten assistant who supervised, some sort of attitude toward herself in the total situation, some sort of attitude toward the kinder- garten as a whole. And note how large a part method played. Suppose the assistant were an impossible sort of kindergartner who had greeted the shy stranger sternly and had gruffly ordered her at once to mount the slider stairs. Would the child’s learning have been the same in any way? On the contrary, wouldn’t it all have been different ?”’ “Of course it would have been different. Anyone can see that. The teacher’s way of handling the situation must have its effect.” “Then we have two factors that together make up the wider problem of method. First is the fact that while the child is responding in significant fashion for any length of time to any situation, he responds not singly but variously, variously to the many different parts and aspects of the situation. What he learns by these varied responses I am calling ‘simultaneous learnings.’ The second is the fact that the teacher’s way of handling any pupil-learning situa- tion affects for good or ill the aggregate of these simul- taneous learnings. They are all tied together; they must be considered together. These two facts or factors present for us the wider problem of method: How shall the teacher so act as to make finest and best this aggregate of ‘simul- taneous learnings’?”’ “Vou seem to imply that what you call ‘simultaneous learnings’ are inevitable. Is that true? I can see that it’s true in child life and with such childlike experiences as that with the ‘slider,’ but how is it with our school sub- jects — with grammar, for instance? Does a boy learning a grammar lesson inevitably have these simultaneous learn- ings?” 10 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “Indeed, yes. Simultaneous learnings are inevitable. In the half hour when a boy is facing his grammar lesson, An illustration € is not only learning or failing to learn that from specific lesson, but he is also fixing or unfixing tara! an attitude toward the subject of grammar, another attitude toward his teacher, another toward schools, another toward himself with reference to grammar and school and his ability and disposition generally. He may be getting interesting suggestions for further study into language when a favorable moment shall present itself, or he may be hardening his heart on the whole matter. He may be saying, ‘It’s no use. I can’t learn anything.’ He may be deciding that school and parents and the whole tribe of governors are unfeeling tyrants, that wrong to them is right to him, that right to him is success in ‘getting by’ with his unbridled impulses. These are some of the heads under which this boy has been learning during his half hour of grammar study. Does this make it clearer?” “That point is clear —the simultaneous learnings are there; but I don’t see where method comes in. We were discussing the ‘wider’ problem of method. Have you forgotten that?”’ ‘‘Method was there all the time, whether I mentioned it or not. Does the teacher have any part in influencing The wtde: which learning under all these different heads sense of a boy will make? Is it not true that what ee the boy thinks or does not think, what he feels or does not feel, what, in short, he brings with him out of the total situation depends in large measure upon the teacher, upon his way of handling the boys in and about the school? The narrow sense of method singles out for consideration one specific thing to be learned and for the time being pays exclusive attention to that as if it were the only thing going on at that time. The wider sense of method knows THE WIDER vs. THE NARROW PROBLEM 11 that in actual life one thing never goes on by itself. This wider method demands that we consider the actual facts, the real world. The narrow sense of method faces always an abstraction, an unreality —a part of a total situation, a part that can no more exist by itself than could a man’s head continue to live apart from his body. We have to make such abstractions for the sake of economy in studying; but we should know what we are doing —we must never make the mistake of supposing the abstracted element is real life. The problem of method in the wider sense is thus very general: How shall we treat children, since whether we like it or no they are going to learn well or ill not only the thing we choose to set them at, but also at the same time a great many other things perhaps of far greater importance?’”’ : “That is just what the speaker said to-day. Method in the wide sense must be studied. Too much is involved. Without this method the study of education walks on one leg instead of two. Curriculum alone does not suffice.” “But this problem of method puts a great responsibility upon the teacher. I am almost sorry I see it. Why, I can- not teach ‘Stocks and Bonds’ next week without wonder- ing whether I am doing more harm than good! I cannot shut my eyes any longer to what you call the wider problem of method. But what shall we do about it? How can we study it, and how is it related to the narrower problem of method?” “We do thus have these two problems of method, one narrow, the other wide: one has to do with learning the details, as such, that go to make up education; ME eG the other concerns education as a whole, edu- wider sense is cation considered as the correlative of the the problem whole of life. We can and must study both. riaranke The psychologist and experimental educator will help most 12 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD on the first problem, the problem of method in its narrow sense. The second problem is in a way the problem of life itself. The answer to the second problem, the wider prob- lem of method, will depend on the answer we give to the problem of life. That is why the old Prussian type of method doesn’t suit us in America. Military Prussia wanted some of her children to fill this station in life ; Others, that; but all to be docile and obedient. She wanted some to be tradesmen and shopworkers, others of the upper classes to be officers in the army and government officials, but all to accept the rule of the Kaiser without question. So her school officials hunted out a way of treating children that made them able each to do his own work, but did not make them independent in judgment. I once heard Dean Russell of Teachers College discuss this. He said the method was the same for all the Prussian children whether they went, as the common people, to the V olksschule or whether they went, as the upper classes, to the Gymnasium. The curriculums of the two schools were different, to fit each group for its place in the scheme; but the method was the same, to mold them all into the Prussian type of character.”’ “That’s exceedingly interesting and very important for us. I begin to wonder if we don’t have some Prussians in this country, I mean people who are anxious to fit our immigrants into some sort of lower working class. I have heard certain persons talking a great deal about ‘instine- tive obedience,’ as if they wanted some of our people to grow up especially strong in obedience while others perhaps should grow up especially strong in commanding those more obedient ones. It doesn’t sound like democracy to me.”’ “Yes, it is a very important problem, and it is equally important that it should be recognized. If we are going to THE WIDER vs. THE NARROW PROBLEM 13 make a success of our democratic experiment begun (formally) about 1776, we must have a type of education that fits democracy. A democratic society A democratic should have a democratic school system, and society should in this system a democratic method will play bave 2 demo i “ cratic method a most important part. “T have just come in and I don’t know about the two problems of method that I am told you have been dis- cussing. If the others don’t mind, I wish you nother would summarize what you have pee saying, teacher joins so that I may take part with you.” Be OUe “With pleasure. Our first_conclusion was that Just as, we need to study the curriculum to find out what to teach, ~ so we : need to study method to find out how to teach. When we came more closely to the question of method we found there were two problems of method: one, long recognized, the problem of how best to learn — and consequently how best to teach — any one thing, as spelling; the other, less often consciously studied, the problem of how to treat the learning child, seeing that he is willy-nilly learning not one but many things all at once, and that we teachers are in great measure responsible for the aggregate of what he learns. The first of these problems we called the narrow view of method; the second, the wider view of method.” bel: eae to see what you mean. But why do you say ‘narrow’ and ‘wider’? Do you mean to disparage the one and exalt the other?” ‘By no means. The one is narrow because it considers only one thing at a time, the other is broader because it takes into account the many learnings all going on at once. But there is no wish or willingness to disparage the narrow view. Some of us think the psychology of learning which undertakes to answer the first problem is the most notable single contribution that psychology has thus far to offer.” 14 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “Won't you say a further word about the wider view of method? I don’t get exactly what you mean. The idea is so new that I don’t fully grasp it.” ‘Well, if the others don’t mind hearing it again, Til gladly explain how we saw it. As it seemed to us, any child during an educative experience learns not The wider wie or merely the one thing he is supposed to be en- method is gaged in, say a grammar lesson, but is also at summarized the same time learning well or ill a multitude of other things. Some of them may be: how he shall study, whether with diligence or the reverse; how he shall regard grammar, whether as an interesting study or no; how he shall feel toward his teacher, whether as friend and helper or as a mere taskmaster; how he shall regard him- self, whether as capable or not; whether or not he. shall believe that it pays to try (in such matters as grammar) ; whether to form opinions for himself and to weigh argu- ments in connection; how he shall regard government, of all kinds, whether as alien to him and opposed to his best interests, a mere matter of opposed superior force, or as just and right, inherently demanded, and friendly to his true and proper interests. This by no means exhausts the list, but it will give you some idea of what we mean by ‘simultaneous learnings,’ some idea of what we had in mind in saying that many things are being learned at once. You will also see how important some of these attendant learnings are, and I believe you will agree with us that whether they are well learned depends in great measure on how the teacher treats the children.” ‘Please don’t think me stupid. I have been here from the first, but I still don’t see the difference. I don’t see the two problems. I see that grammar is one thing and that a liking for grammar is another, and I can well believe that each has to be learned in its own way; but I should THE WIDER vs. THE NARROW PROBLEM 15 say that each presents essentially the same problems of method, how to use the laws of learning so as to get that thing best learned. Where are the two different problems?” ‘Perhaps an illustration will help. Imagine an athletic coach so anxious for his team to win that he preaches ‘Anything to win.’ What do you think of the pe atntetic probable effect on the morals of his boys?” coach: “Any- “T fear they’ll do ‘anything to win.’ I should epee ney expect a bad moral effect. But I don’t see that this illus- tration is any clearer than the other. We have here two things to be learned, the game and the morals involved. But doesn’t each follow the same laws of learning? I see two instances of one problem, both instances of what you called the narrow problem of method. I do not see two problems. I see only one. I see no ‘broad problem.’ ” ‘““You stopped me too soon. I agree with most of what you say. The problem of how best to learn the game is one instance of the ‘narrow problem.’ The problem of how best to build morals through the game is, as you say, but a second instance of the same ‘narrow problem.’ But I maintain there is yet a second problem — one you have not named.” ‘““T don’t see it.”’ ‘Let me then ask a further question or two. Suppose you are coaching a team and know the best way to teach the game as a mere game, and you also know ie pee how best to teach morals through games; will of teaching you teach the two separately or together?” two things “T don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it. aeeres I suppose I should teach them separately on the principle of ‘divide and conquer.’ What do you say?”’ “Suppose the two things were so tied together that you couldn’t separate them but had to teach both at the same time, what then?”’ 16 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD ‘“That’s not so easy to say. I can see how attention to either one might distract attention at a critical time from the other, and that this might interfere with doing either well. I believe I should take them separately.”’ ‘Suppose we had not simply two things to consider but many. What then?” ‘The more reason for separating them and taking each in turn.” ‘But suppose for some sufficient reason you had to teach all together?” ‘Then I should have the problem on my hands of how to manage all, and I don’t now see how I could do it. I suppose I should have to compromise somehow, slighting some things and stressing others.” “‘And that problem would be another and a different problem from the problem of how to teach each alone provided you could separate them all out from each other?”’ ‘““Indeed, yes. I begin now to see.” “‘T am glad you do, but there is yet more.” “More yet?” ‘“Yes. Suppose you faced a group of children and knew that they were certainly learning many things simulta- The problem eously, but you didn’t know just what these of what is many things were. What then would you do?” beinglearned =“ T suppose my first step would be to find out what were the different things they were learning.”’ ‘“‘And after you had found out, you would still have to ask how to manage the situation so that the total outcome would be best?” «Vag? ‘‘ And these two problems would still be different from the problem of teaching each thing separately, would they not?”’ ‘Yes, I see that.” THE WIDER vs. THE NARROW PROBLEM 17 ‘And finally is it not true that any class is inevitably learning many things simultaneously? “ “Yes, I must admit it. We have sufficiently discussed that before.”’ “And we cannot, even if we would, separate them so that only one is learned at once?”’ “Yes that too is true.” “Then every time I as teacher face a class I must con- sider (a) what things they are simultaneously learning, and (b) how I can manage so that this aggregate as a whole may be the best?”’ “T see no way out of it.” ‘And these together constitute a different problem from the problem of how to teach each if I could, by a miracle, have it all by itself?”’ “Yes I now see your two problems: one is a problem of seeing and adjusting many things together, the other is a problem of how I would manage each by yo distinct itself if I could so isolate it. I see now.” problems of “How many things are being learned at Sa cg once? Do you think of them as few, many, or very many?” “Possibly in strictness there 1s no limit to the number. Practically the most significant ones are seldom more than a dozen, I reckon. What do you say?” “T agree with you.” ‘Am I right in thinking of the narrow problem as pri- marily psychological?’”’ “Ves that’s how I see it.” ‘And the broad problem is rather moral and ethical, or perhaps better still philosophical?” “Yes I think so. When we face life and Snape have several demands simultaneously on us the other is and they get somewhat in each other’s way so ser eh arian that some must be made to yield in a measure to others, 18 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD then we have a moral or philosophical problem. It is a conflict of values, you see, and that’s always philosophical.” ‘And each learning situation inevitably presents the broad problem of method?’ “Yes, and we must face it. Duty demands it. In so far as we can help matters, we are morally responsible for what happens.” | “And, besides this, each learning situation may well pre- sent to us one or more fruitful problems of method nar- rowly considered?” ; ‘Quite true. The alert teacher will always see them.” “Then, if I understand it, the problem of method properly considered looks to psychology to tell us how to make learning go well in each of all its several details?” “Yes, but a full consideration of method makes us ask at each time and all the time what kind of character is being built through all the learnings simultaneously going on, and how we can with it all help a finer character to grow.” “Then if we are to do our full duty as teachers we should make a serious study of method in both these aspects.” “Yes, and for us psychology is probably the next step.” REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING ! Kinpatrick — “Method and Curriculum,” Journal of Educational Method, 1:312-318, 367-374 (April and May, 1922). Kinpatrick — “Dangers and Difficulties of the Project Method,”’ Teachers College Record, 22:311-314 (September, 1921). Kitpatrick — Source Book in the Philosophy of Education, No. 480. (This item repeats part of the preceding reference.) Dewry — Interest and Effort in Education, pp. 8-11. 1Tt is advised that the student use the references in the order given. CHAPTER. IL Wuat LEARNING Is AND How It Takers PLACE ‘‘T wish I understood the ‘laws of learning.’ Wherever I go, some one refers to them. They sound very imposing — and mysterious — but do they really amount 4 pother to anything? How did the world manage to get meeting of on so long without them?”’ Mca ‘Well, you may be interested in the laws of learning, but I’m not. I don’t see the use of teachers’ worrying their heads about psychology. Teaching has to do yo teachers with children, real live children; but psychology need psy- is as dead as other things that live only in “Sy? books. Teaching is hard enough and dry enough without having to learn psychology besides. If I went to summer school, which I don’t intend to do, I’d study photography or something else interesting, but you’d never catch me in a class in educational psychology. Besides, when I go off in the summer I don’t want to be always reminded of my work, September to June is enough for me.” “Yes: we all know how you feel on such matters; but I believe one reason why you find teaching dry and hard is exactly because you don’t study it. At sum- mer school last year I found out so many new acinenel a things about children and how they learn, and makes teach- heard so much of the plans and experiments of Heaney 3 the other students, that I could hardly wait for school to begin again, I was so eager to see those things in my pupils and to try some experiments of my own. You will perhaps say that I have always liked teaching. So I 19 20 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD have, in a way, but teaching the same way year in and year out was getting to be pretty monotonous. Now it’s a different thing. I have more interesting things to watch than you can imagine. But I must admit that I don’t seem to see all my psychology as clearly now as when we were discussing it in the class. More difficulties have arisen than I had ever dreamed of. For one thing the psychology seems more complicated, not only when I watch my pu- pils in relation to it, but also when I try to straighten it all out in my mind. There’s nothing Id like better than to talk it over, but I warn you I’ll raise many questions : for I want to know.” “If psychology or anything else will make teaching my brats anything but humdrum, I’ll say, ‘Yes, let’s study it.’ Dose cer I am willing to listen awhile and see how your chology fit all discussion starts off, but I tell you beforehand artetee St I’m skeptical of it all. You don’t know my pu- pils. Psychology may help your nice well-dressed children who come from good homes, but it takes something stronger for mine. My first step with each new class is to put the fear of God into their souls. After that I can sometimes do something with them. Perhaps I might use even psy- chology then, if I knew enough about it.” ‘Where shall we begin? Some one suggested the laws of learning.”’ “That’s my first question: Why do you say ‘law’? I know you don’t mean that we have to obey Thorndike or whoever first made those laws; so why say ‘law’?”’ “A law of learning is like any law of nature. Newton didn’t make the law of gravitation; he discovered it. As I The meaning Understand it, a law of nature is nothing but of the term a statement of an observed regularity. Galileo Nobid discovered certain laws of falling bodies, but bodies fell afterwards just exactly as they had fallen before. LEARNING AND HOW IT TAKES PLACE 21 They didn’t pay any attention to Galileo. He only told what they do, regularly do, always do, so far as he could tell. The laws are merely exact statements of how bodies fall.” ‘Well, if that’s all, I don’t see the use of laws. Why bother with them?”’ ‘The use is this: If we know what to expect of falling bodies, we then know how to act where falling bodies are concerned.” ‘“That’s nothing but common sense, isn’t it? Where does the science come in?”’ ‘“‘Seience is itself nothing but common sense, common sense more careful of its steps. Science is based on experi- ence just as common sense is, but it has more exact ways of measuring and of telling. In particular it tries to include many experiences under one statement. A law of nature is merely a very inclusive, very careful, and very reliable statement of what to expect.” “That sounds reasonable, but apply it to our topic. What is a law of learning?” ‘‘A law of learning would be nothing but a very carefully made and very inclusive statement of how learning takes place.” “Give us one of the laws of learning. I’d like to know how learning takes place. Perhaps I’d know better how to make my pupils learn.” “Vl give you the Law of Readiness: When a bond is ready to act, to act gives satisfaction and not to act —’ ‘“‘Now there you go with your outlandish jargon. Why don’t you use everyday English. Bond! What is a bond?” ‘That is the trouble about trying to be exact. As a matter of fact, I fear I have over-simplified it now. I think, though, we’ll have to begin further back. We'll pe FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD have to get some preliminary terms or give up the effort to use understandingly the laws of learning.” “Go on. Only don’t give us too many.” “Let’s begin with this symbol, S—R, and build up from there. 5S stands for stimulus, or perhaps, more ex- actly, for situation acting as stimulus; and R stands for response. Any act of conduct is a response (R) to some sort of situation (S$). I hear a child crying (S); I stop and listen (R). I meet a friend on the street (S); I say ‘good morning’ (R). My friend sees me and hears me speak (S); he responds in like fashion (R). He notices that I stop walking (S); he stops (R). I see that he is within close hearing distance and attentive (S); I speak commending his address of last evening (R). He hears me speak (S); the meanings of my words arise in his mind (R). He understands my meaning (8); his face flushes and he feels gratification (R).”’ ““You haven’t said a word about bond or connection. Please explain that. I told you I’d raise many questions.” ‘‘Notice the next to the last instance given: ‘He hears me speak (8); the meanings of my words arise in his mind (R).’ If he had not in the past learned the meanings of these words, my voice would have struck in vain upon his ears. The meanings could arise in his mind only because in the past he had learned to associate thenceforth these meanings with these sounds. That is, his past experience had built up somewhere in him — in his nervous system, in fact — such connections or bonds that when a particular sound is heard (e.g., my spoken words ‘magnificent address’), its appropriate mean- ing arises as a thought in his mind. Each such language connection or bond has to be learned — that is, built up — by and in experience.”’ ‘But not all bonds are built up or learned, are they?” The symbol S—R The term “bond” LEARNING AND HOW IT TAKES PLACE 23 ‘No, that is what I was about to say. My friend flushed with pleasure (R), when I commended his address (S8). His being pleased at commendation and his qnate ys. flushing in connection were not learned; these acquired responses are innately joined. Each one of us Soe is born with many such responses already joined by strong bonds to their appropriate situations.” ‘‘What is the arrow in S— R? Is that the bond con- necting S and R?”’ “Yes. It is usually better to think of the situation (8S) as being sized up or received by one nerve structure (or mechanism), the response (R) as made by a second, and the arrow as a third nerve structure that carries the stimula- tion from the receiving structure (or mechanism) (8) to the responding structure (or mechanism) (R). There are some difficulties in so simple a statement, but we shall not go far wrong so to take it.’ “Do you mean that this S— R holds true of everything we do? Everything?”’ “That is exactly what I mean. All conduct of whatever kind is so described. Of course some situations are very simple, while others are very complex. And Ali conduct similarly with responses, some are simple, Sea others exceedingly complex. The bonds also terms of vary. Some are so simple, definite, and ‘strong’ 5 ® that as soon as the stimulus comes the response follows with almost mechanical promptness and certainty. You know how it is if one is struck sharply just below the knee cap, the knee flexes in spite of anything we can do to prevent it. Other connections or bonds are so weak, so little formed, that the least interference will prevent the response. If I ask a third grade pupil what is 2 x 2, he will say ‘4’ at once. If I ask 7x6, he may tell me ‘42,’ but he is likely not to feel very sure of it. If I ask 8x 13, he is almost sure not 24 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD to know. Now it isn’t a question of knowing 42 as a number in and of itself, it is precisely a question of having or not having built a bond that joins 42 to 7x6, so that the thought of 7 x 6 (S) is followed by 42 (R). The arith- metic connections or bonds have to be built in order to be available for use. I wonder if the word ‘learn’ doesn’t begin to take on a more definite meaning?”’ ““T see that S—R does join up with arithmetic and language; but does it fit all learning — geography, for ex- ample, or composition?”’ ‘Most certainly. If one should ask about the capital of North Dakota, some will answer at once; others will hesi- tate, making perhaps several guesses; some won’t know at all. The presence or absence of the bond and its strength, if present, tells the tale. So with composition work. One child will leave a straight margin at the left of the page, another will write as if there were no such thing. The differ- ence is the presence or absence of the appropriate bond. One child will join with and’s many short sentences. An- other will consciously avoid it. So with morals: One boy in a tight place (S) will le out of it (R). Another in the same tight place (S) will tell the exact truth unflinchingly (R). Everywhere it is a question of what bonds have or have not been built.” ““Now tell us about readiness and satisfaction and annoy- ance. ‘They are fairly clear to me, but there are still some difficulties.”’ ‘And others of us know nothing about them as yet.” “Readiness is easier to see than to tell. I like to think of it as connected with the degree of stimulation needed at any given time to bring about a given response, the greater the readiness, the less stimulation is needed. Imagine a small boy and a heartless experimenter. One hot day the boy begs for ice cream, Readiness discussed LEARNING AND HOW IT TAKES PLACE 25 boasting recklessly that he can eat six helpings. The experi- menter dares him to do it, saying that he will furnish the ice cream. The contest is on. Situation: a plate of ice cream before a small boy on a hot day. Response: the boy falls with alacrity upon the cream. Readiness is high. The second helping finds, if possible, even greater readiness. But toward the end of the third plate readiness sharply declines. The fourth sees readiness reduced to the zero point and even below. Readiness is thus a condition of the neurone measuring the degree of its craving for activity.” ‘That is clear so far, but are there not other causes of readiness or unreadiness?”’ | ‘“‘Indeed, yes. Fatigue, due to extended exercise, is a common cause of unreadiness. (The case above was dif- ferent. It was not so much exercise of jaw or ihe : Conditions palate nerves as it was fullness of stomach that making for reduced below zero the readiness for ice cream.) Tea@diness or : ; ; unreadiness Preoccupation with something else of an op- posing kind may also bring unreadiness, as when fear or sorrow cause unreadiness for mirth. A most important source of readiness is set, one’s mental attitude at the time.” “I wish you would tell us about set. I have heard so much about set and purpose that I just must straighten them out. What is the connection between set and pur- pose? But first, what is the difference between set and readiness? ‘They seem much alike to me.” ‘‘They are much alike and sometimes confused, but I believe we can make a clear distinction between the two. Set is broader than readiness. Readiness is , ‘ ‘Set” and best thought of as belonging to one response “readiness” bond (possibly a compound response bond), discriminated while set refers to the mind acting more or less screen te as a whole (or for our purposes, set more precisely belongs to an aggregate of bonds that for the time being have 26 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD practical charge of the person or organism).! The term ‘mind-set-to-an-end’ brings out perhaps more clearly what I mean. ‘The emphasis here is on one controlling end which seems to possess the mind. The organism is bent or set upon attaining this end (typically an external end). The practical relations between set and readiness are here most interesting. A boy gifted in baseball is anxious that his team shall win in the match next Saturday. We may say that he is ‘set’ on winning the match. This set reaches out to many allied and auxiliary response bonds and makes them ready for the part they may possibly play in attaining the end in view. The boy’s ear will be ‘wide open’ to hear any useful ‘dope’ on the game. His eye will be ‘peeled’ to see the curves of the opposing pitcher. This effect is general, the mind-set-to-an-end in fact makes more ready all one’s inner resources (response bonds) that by previous inner connection seem pertinent to the activity at hand. Nor is this all. Simultaneously with passing on readiness to pertinent bonds, this set also makes unready all those response bonds whose action might interfere with attaining the end in view. The same thing that made our baseball boy ready for the necessary practice during the preceding week made him correspondingly unready for anything that might interfere with that practice. Every teacher knows that little study is given to books just in advance of any en- grossing contest. Some college teachers say no serious study is possible till after the Thanksgiving games.’’ “You have struck something live now. But you seem almost to make a thinking being out of mind-set. It enter- tains ends. It seems to know what will help and what will hinder action to these ends. I don’t see what becomes of the person — his self, I mean.”’ 1 There is still a slightly different sense in which the mind-set makes one see everything as ‘‘roseate”’ or makes one ‘‘blue.”’ LEARNING AND HOW IT TAKES PLACE 27 “Your inquiry raises a real difficulty, but it is a difficulty rather of language than of fact, I believe. Imagine a little girl walking by a toy shop. Her shoes have been hurting her feet. All at once her eyes fall ane cues ; wie e mind-set | on a fairy vision of a doll. Her ‘heart’ (ag- R gregate of S—R bonds capable of forming a mind-set) responds at once. She wants the doll. A set for possessing the doll is in possession of the girl. Shoes are forgotten, by-standers vanish. She and the doll for one brief mo- ment make up the whole world, but in another moment the mother is included: ‘O Mother! I want her so much. Please get her for me.’ Then that world enlarges to include in succession shopkeeper, price, money, possible sources of money, Father, Uncle George. ‘‘A formal analysis will perhaps make clear the life his- tory and action of this psychological set: (a) there must be available for stimulation certain end-setting-up S — R bonds (here the doll-appropriating response and, likely enough, bonds for doll-carriages, ice cream, etc., as well); (6) some- thing (here the chance sight of the doll) stimulates one such available S — R bond (more strictly an aggregate of bonds); (c) a response follows, wherein an end is set up (here the strong wish for the doll); (d) from this set there spreads readiness through previously made connections to allied and auxiliary S > R bonds (here become ‘ready’ the bonds for asking Father or Uncle George); (e) a similar and simultaneous spread of unreadiness to such other 5-R response bonds as might thwart or unnecessarily postpone the doll-appropriating activities (the pains from the shoes are forgotten); (f) then follows the auxiliary action of the most ready of the allied S— R bonds (‘O Mother, please get her for me’). Thus instead of using the mysteries of self and thinking to explain what has here gone on, we must, I think, ultimately explain from the inside and along 28 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD these lines what a self is and how thinking proceeds. But that’s another story.”’ ‘Well, we have to admit that psychology is not as dead or dry as I said. But how are you going to use all this? What bearing has it on your laws of learning that you began to talk about?”’ ‘Possibly when we take them up our digression will be justified. Suppose we begin now? Thorndike gives three The three major laws, those of Readiness, of Use and Laws of Disuse (or Exercise), and of Satisfaction and ene Annoyance (or Effect). The Law of Readiness follows well what we have been discussing: When a bond is ready to act, to act gives satisfaction and not to act gwes annoyance. When a bond is not ready to act, to be forced to act gives annoyance. Think what we have been saying about readiness, and see if this law does not sound reasonable.”’ ‘Why, yes indeed. That boy and the ice cream — as long as the ice-cream-eating bonds were ready to act, he got satisfaction from his eating; and the less ready he became, the less satisfaction he got from his eating. I suppose if he had been compelled to eat all six plates, it would have proved very annoying. Yes, this law is clear, but I have been wondering if it isn’t a kind of definition of what is meant by satisfaction and annoyance. What do you say?” “The question is a very interesting one. I am inclined to agree with you. But probably we had better not go into that discussion just now. Fix attention on readiness as a state of the neurone (or nerve structure) which disposes it to action; then this law throws its light on the meaning of satisfaction and annoyance. Probably our general experi- ence has something else to add in any particular case. I am inclined to say that this law partly defines and partly The Law of Readiness LEARNING AND HOW IT TAKES PLACE 29 joins things of which we have otherwise independent knowledge. Let us now go to the Law of Satisfaction and Annoyance.” ) “You skipped the Law of Use and Disuse. Do you wish to keep the order you first gave?”’ “So we did skip it, and I believe it is best to take the other first. Before taking it up, consider what we are about. Some S—R bonds we bring into the world with us; others — the great majority — we acquire after we get here. Of the innate bonds some fit our civilization and need to be maintained; others don’t fit so well, and need to be changed or killed off. Acquiring new bonds or changing old ones is what we mean by learning. Perhaps our commonest work is strength- ening or weakening bonds.” “What do you mean by strengthening a bond? When is a bond strong and when weak?”’ ‘(We strengthen a bond when we change the connection between any § and its R so that the response (R) will more likely follow the stimulation (S) or will follow more promptly or more definitely. Weakening is merely doing the contrary; though often people speak of weakening a bond when they really mean strengthening a substitute bond. Of course, pedagogically, this is usually the best way of weakening an undesirable bond.” ‘‘Can all bonds be changed? Or are there some beyond our influence?” ‘‘There are some bonds practically beyond the power of education to modify. These we call reflexes. They belong especially to certain more mechanical actions of the body. Education too has limits fixed for it by nature. Of course then when we are speaking of learning we restrict ourselves to modifiable bonds.” Learning defined Strengthen- ing bonds 30 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD ‘We are ready now to state the Law of Satisfaction and Annoyance (or Law of Effect): A modifiable bond is strength- ened or weakened according as satisfaction or The Law of : : Satisfaction annoyance attends rts exercise.”’ and Annoy- ‘When we studied this last summer our in- Tarte structor led us to repeat many times: ‘Satisfac- tion strengthens; annoyance weakens.’ And then he would have us repeat the whole law. As a result, in the end we fixed it strongly in mind. It is certainly a great law. I never dreamed when I first heard it how much help it can give a teacher. But the more I watch my children learning, the more I believe that this law is the very bottom on which our learning rests and upon which we must base our school procedure.”’ ‘‘Let’s go on and see how this law tells us what to expect in our teaching.”’ ‘‘T believe I see already how it is all going to work out. Mind-set-to-an-end is purpose. If the child has a strong purpose, this as mind-set pushes him on to attain his end. This mind-set makes ready his inner resources for attaining the end. When he succeeds, these ready neurones and the success both mean satisfaction; and satisfaction means strengthening the bonds used. He learns by doing. His purpose helps him learn. It must be so. Mind-set, readi- ness, success, satisfaction, learning — they follow just this way. Am I not right?” : “You have certainly caught the clue.” “Does this explain the value of interest in learning? I have always believed that interest helped learning, but now I seem to see more in it than ever before.” untae aoe “Exactly so; to take interest in doing any- thing is to have a mind-set towards it. That means, as we saw, an inner urge to engage in that thing and readiness in sense and thought for whatever helps it along.” LEARNING AND HOW IT TAKES PLACE 31 ‘Why say ‘readiness in sense’? Do you mean that my eye actually sees things I am interested in better than it sees others? I thought the eye was like a mirror or camera and saw everything in front of it.”’ “The eye does see everything in focus before it, and, as a mere mirror, sees them indifferently; but you don’t see them that way. You pick out from all the things in front of your eye certain ones to pay attention to. When I say ‘You pick out,’ it would be more exact to say that your mind-set at the time, your various readinesses, pick out the things significant to these readinesses. Don’t you know that a girl on her way to buy a hat will see the shop windows of the milliners more certainly, more readily in fact, than the windows of the hardware stores? Her eyes, as bare optical instruments, may see the hardware windows, but that see- ing meets no response within. Actual and effective seeing is selective according to the mind’s set at the time. So with hearing and all the rest.”’ “Then the working of interest is a scientific fact, and not mere sentimentality. I had got the idea that really hard- headed thinking ignores interest. Haven’t we been told that?” “Possibly you have heard something like that, and some sentimentalists have brought just reproach on a good cause. But it is true beyond a doubt that interest is a significant factor in mental life and a positive help to learning.” “Tt seems, too, that you don’t oppose interest to effort. I thought some people held that you have to choose between interest and effort, that you can’t have both.” “You are certainly right that I don’t oppose er ene interest to valuable effort. Exactly the con- trary. Interest is the natural, indeed the only, basis of effort; the stronger the interest, the stronger, if need be, will be the effort.”’ 32 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “You gave the Law of Effect as if it were scientifically established. Is it not true that some psychologists reject it? It seems to me I’ve heard about some rats learning a path quicker when they were pun- ished for going wrong than when they were rewarded for going right. What does this say about the effect of satisfaction?” ‘““There are two replies to be made to that. First, the Law of Effect includes, as its statement shows, both satisfaction and annoyance. Whether the rats learned faster by punish- ment or by reward matters not to this law; either learning was by effect. The fastest learning, other things equal, is where both are used, satisfaction when they go right, annoyance if they go wrong. The other reply is that among psychologists Watson alone, so far as I have heard, denies the law, and he gets little if any backing in his contention. It is true that some very good psychologists have questioned whether the law as stated is ultimate. They do not deny the law as a fact, they merely propose to explain it by appealing if possible to more fundamental considerations.”’ “Suppose any one denied the law, could he consistently use punishment?” “Tf this law is not true, punishment has no place in the learning process strictly considered. To be consistent, one who denies this law would have to deny that the pain attached to going wrong helped the rats to learn more quickly the way out.” ‘““T wonder if everyone understands the word ‘satisfaction’ in the same sense. Do you mean by satisfaction pleasure and by annoyance pain?” ‘No. I do not mean to make satisfaction the same thing as pleasure. Sometimes they may be the same thing, more often not. If I had to choose single words as synonyms I’d Satisfaction and learning LEARNING AND HOW IT TAKES PLACE 30 use success and failure. Indeed Woodworth uses these words instead of satisfaction and annoyance.” ‘‘Well, won’t you please leave off this hair-splitting and arguing! If the laws you talk so much about are of any service, please go on and explain how we can use them.”’ “Very well. Take the very specific case of John who has not learned well his number combinations. Suppose he is called on in class for 7x9. He hesitates; it yoy the Law might be 72, or 56, or 63. Which is it? He of Effect tries them in this ee When he says 72, the WTS: teacher looks unimpressed, certain pupils Tae: raise their hands, one or two actually snicker, the teacher says ‘No.’ Now this response of 72 did not bring satisfaction because it did not succeed. He saw by the words and manners of teacher and fellows that 72 was the wrong response. The failure brought annoyance, and the snickers served to in- crease it. When he ventures 56, he is by reason of the pre- vious attendant annoyances the more anxious to find it right. This very anxiety increases the annoyance of failure. When finally he says 63 and it succeeds, his satisfaction is all the greater by reason of his previous failures and their attendant annoyances. Now the Law of Effect says that the next time he will be less likely than he was this time to say 72 or 56 and more likely to say 63. If this happens often and consistently enough, he will eventually say 63 at once without fail.’’ ‘‘When you say ‘often enough’ you are using the Law of Use, are you not?” ‘‘Axactly so. Any teacher knows that joining 42 correctly to 7 x 6 just once is not sufficient. More is needed to fix the learning. As we have always known, repetition is necessary. The Law of Use (or Exercise) Law of Use tells us that within limits the more often a response is made to a situation the closer becomes the 34 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD bond connecting the two; that is, the more surely and smoothly is the response made when the situation presents itself.’ ‘‘T am interested to ask how the two laws of Effect and Use work together. So far as I can see the Law of Use or Repetition merely says that the Law of Effect holds for the second instance and for the third and so on. Am I right or wrong? If the effect is satisfactory once and again and again, we build a habit of acting that way. If the effect is annoying once and again and again, we build a habit of not acting that way, even of aversion to acting that way. Is it not so?” “You are right as far as we have gone; at least that is what I think. But there are some instances where Use or Iixercise seems to be independent of satisfaction or annoy- ance. Suppose while we were here talking we heard a tre- mendous noise, the most deafening we had ever heard, do you think we should remember it?” ‘““We certainly should and for a very long time.”’ ‘Do you think the satisfaction or annoyance it gave us to hear it would make us remember it? Or would its intensity be the main thing?” “Tf the noise were intense enough to be the loudest we had ever heard, it would hurt our ears and be rather annoy- ing than satisfying. Still we should surely remember it, and the more, I believe, because it hurt. Don’t you think so? But this seems a denial and reversal of the Law of Effect. I am puzzled. What do you say?” ‘‘T think we had better say that the intensity of the hear- ing exercise is the main thing.” ‘We seem then to have two parts or aspects of the Law of Exercise, the number of repetitions and the intensity of the exercise.” LEARNING AND HOW IT TAKES PLACE 30 ‘“Yes, and there is a third, often called recency. Of two experiences otherwise equal we are more likely to recall the more recent one.” ‘“‘Tsn’t that merely the Law of Disuse stated tae aie the other way about?” “Yes; if John goes many months without having 63 follow 7 x 9, the connection weakens and he is less sure to think 63 when 7x9 confronts him. All learning tends thus to weaken and drop away.” ‘‘Do you mean that eventually we shall forget every- thing?”’ | ‘‘Oh no, not that. I said tends to weaken and drop away, and this is true. But if it is once very well: learned it may stay ‘on tap,’ as it were, a very long time, and in any event is more easily re-learned. Besides every time we do use any such connection (with satisfaction), we give it new life. You hear people say they remember things that hap- pened when they were three or four years old. They may be correct, but most of such memories have been kept alive by telling them every few years or at any rate by thinking them over.” ‘““Haven’t I heard that people remember the pleasant things of life longer than the ordinary or the unpleasant things?’ Remembering ‘here is some reason for thinking so. Al- pleasant most all grown-ups look back on childhood as “8s a period of almost unalloyed bliss, but most children do not think so at the time. This stronger hold of the pleasant may be due to the ‘effect’ of the original pleasure, but it may in greater part be due to the fact that we tend by the Law of Effect to think over the things that it gives us satisfaction to dwell upon in our minds, and similarly to turn away from recalling the unpleasant things. So the pleasant memories get more exercise than the unpleasant.” 36 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “Tf I understand you, we might sum it up as follows: Whether I am more or less inclined to repeat a response depends then on the number of times it is used with satis- faction or annoyance, as the case may be. Each instance of satisfaction inclines me more to repeat it; each instance of annoyance disinclines me to repeat it or, if you prefer, inclines me against doing it?” “Yes, the laws of Effect and Exercise work together that way.” ‘‘ And if I go a long time without using a response, I lose in some measure the power and tendency to use that response?” ‘Yes, that is the factor of Disuse.”’ ‘‘But whether I shall remember an event depends largely on the intensity of the experience, independently of whether it was pleasant or unpleasant?” ‘Yes, with the understanding that on the whole we tend besides to dwell on and so to think over pleasing things more than unpleasant ones, and in this further way the memories of the pleasing tend to outlast the memories of the unpleasing.”’ ‘‘But some people seem to take pleasure in brooding over unpleasant things, such as slights and rebuffs.” ‘Quite right; and since they get satisfaction from such brooding they remember these things longer. Many of the slights and rebuffs were only imaginary in the first place, but brooding over them fixes them in memory as truly as if they were real.” ‘Does all this mean that the way we think about our experiences may determine their subsequent influence in Mow inking | OUl uVvesan guides “It certainly does, as moralists have always anes, known. Thinking may make all the difference. Suppose that I get angry with a man and while angry tell Brooding over slights LEARNING AND HOW IT TAKES PLACE 37 him what I think of him and of his conduct, does it give me satisfaction or annoyance?” “Tf you are really angry, you'll enjoy telling him, especially if you see that it hurts. But later when you think it over, you may regret it. You will most likely regret it if you made a spectacle of yourself and if there were other undesirable consequences. The man may have been an old friend. The annoying circumstance may have been totally misunder- stood. In such circumstances, your initial satisfaction may turn to very great regret and annoyance.” “What is the ‘effect’ then? Am I more or less inclined next time to give way to angry words?” “Tf the annoyance of regret outweighs all the satisfactions involved, you are next time less inclined.’ ‘But doesn’t it make a difference what I regret? I may regret losing control over myself; or as a small man I may regret having tackled unsuccessfully too big a man; or I may regret the injustice I was guilty of while still approving the use of angry words in resentment. Doesn’t the ‘effect’ depend on what I regret?’ ‘You are quite right. If I regret losing my temper (no matter whether the other man was right or wrong, or large or small), then next time I shall more likely keep my temper. And if I do hold my temper next time successfully against provocation (and the greater the provocation the better for my subsequent self-control, if only I succeed) and if later consideration approves, then I have taken a step toward holding my temper as an abiding characteristic. I am be- coming a man of self-control. ‘But if I only regret having picked too big a man, then next time, I’ll pick my man with more discretion, and I am on the road to making a pugnacious fellow of myself, per- haps a prudent one, perhaps even a bully; but still I am more likely thereafter to give vent to anger if only I think I can succeed in the controversy.” 38 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “Much depends then on thinking — much more, I see, than I had believed before.” ‘‘Tgn’t there a lesson here for all teachers, that we should get our pupils to think carefully over what they do, so as to see wherein they have been right and wherein they have been wrong?” ‘Yes, and it holds of all they do — writing a letter, baking a cake, making a box, playing a game, settling a quarrel.” “T don’t agree with you here. You may laud thinking all you want to. My opinion is that thinking without doing is worthless, even worse than worthless. People that are always thinking about their sins never have anything but sins to think about. They don’t help the world along. I had rather have one sturdy sinner that works than a dozen snarling hypocrites. Young hypocrites grow into old hypo- crites. Your plan gives them a bad start while they are young. You are wrong with your mere thinking. It’s action we want.’’ ‘‘Not quite so fast. Who said we believed in thinking only and not in doing? Didn’t you notice a moment ago we euaninuete said: ‘And if I do hold my temper next time?’ to follow Do you think that actually holding your temper Se under provocation is not doing something? No, you have spoken too hastily. You are right in saying that thinking without doing is worthless, but you are wrong in intimating that we do not mean to stress doing.” ‘“‘Haven’t we forgot that we were to discuss the laws of learning? It seems to me we’ve got off the track. This is all very interesting and I think valuable, but are there not some other laws? Last summer I heard a good deal about ‘Association’ or was it ‘Associative Shift?’ My roommate talked about them a good deal, but I was not in the course with her. What do these things mean?”’ Associative Shift LEARNING AND HOW IT TAKES PLACE 39 “Let me give an illustration I found. I think it makes this ‘association’ clear. A man put some savory meat in a dog’s mouth and at the same time rang a bell. Because of the meat the dog’s mouth watered; Pawlow’s dog that is, saliva began to flow. This was done frequently for many days. In the end, if only the bell were rung the saliva would still flow.” “Yes, that is a well known instance of Association or of Associative Shift or, as many prefer, of Conditioned Reflex. Can you tell us more about how it happened?” “T think so. At the beginning, of course, it was the meat only that made the saliva flow. The bell could have no such effect. But the bell being for many days rung in association with the presence of the meat and so in association with the actual flow of saliva, it finally came about that the bell’s ringing alone would suffice to start the saliva flow. This might seem mysterious if there were not so many other instances of the same thing in man and brute.” “This story sounds very curious to me. You say it really happened? I don’t know whether I believe it or not.” “Oh yes, it is a well authenticated experiment, in sub- stance often repeated. Haven’t we all seen dogs taught to stand at the word of command? That’s the same thing. You show the dog something he wishes and you hold the object so that he must stand up to get it. At the same time you say ‘stand up.’ You repeat this till the ‘association’ is made. It’s all the same.” “Yes, I see that it is. Have you any more illustrations?” “Yes; a little child was shown a rabbit. She put out her hand to play with it. Just then a harsh noise was made close by. The child, being frightened by the HOSS Ny drew back her hand from the rabbit. The next itn at day the same rabbit was shown and the same frightening noise made; the child shrunk away and showed 40 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD other signs of fear. This was kept up for several days until the sight of the rabbit without the noise would frighten the child. This is a very interesting case. At first the child had two natural (innate) responses: one, on seeing the rabbit (S), to wish to play with it (R); the other, on hearing the loud noise (S’), to draw back in fright (R’). In the end the response (R), playing with the rabbit, had yielded entirely to the response (R’) of fright. The sight of the rabbit (S) now made the child draw back in fright (R’).” “Don’t you think children learn many things in this way? I mean things like being afraid of the dark or of frogs or of gruff Uncle Henry, as the case may be?” “It often so happens. I think too that with young children punishment often acts by association in much the same way. After punishment the word of command may, by reason of its association, suffice.” ‘Why do you say with young children? Is it different with older children?” “Tt may work differently with older children. Go back to the child and the rabbit. Suppose the child has seen how the noise was made. She might then not have associ- ated the noise with the rabbit but with the experimenter instead. If so, the child would not have come to fear the rabbit. The older the child the more likely she is to sepa- rate in thought the noise from the rabbit, and accordingly the less likely she is to fear the rabbit. So with punish- ment — it does not as a rule work so well with older chil- dren. ‘This is partly the reason.” ‘‘Do you mean then that punishment succeeds better with children too young to think much?” ‘Yes, this artificial kind of punishment does on the whole succeed better with young children. They are, you might say, more easily fooled. The association seems LEARNING AND HOW IT TAKES PLACE 41 closer to them. With older people, other things being equal, the more arbitrary the punishment the less likely will the desired association be set up; while panichinent the more inherent the punishment the quicker and and better is the lesson learned. From the 29S°ciation artificial kind of punishment they may even learn wrong things, such as resentment, for instance, or cunning.’ “‘Isn’t part of this the same question we had before about regret? We learn according to where we place the satis- faction or annoyance?”’ “Yes, the older child makes distinctions that may break up the wished-for association and he naturally places his annoyance according to his analysis of the situation. When people whip children, or punish them in any way, they ought to be careful how the child thinks and feels about it. If he regrets his wrong-doing, he is less likely to repeat the evil act next time. If, however, he merely regrets being caught, he is less likely to be caught the next time. Pos- sibly some husky boy might afterwards regret that he stayed to take his punishment instead of running away. If this is how he feels, he will the next time be less likely to stay. He may run away.” “This is all very interesting. You know I never dreamed that psychology could tell us so much that we as teachers have needed to know. Of all this discussion about the laws of learning, what one thing do you think we need most to keep in mind?”’ “Tf I had to choose one thing, I should say the Law of Satisfaction and Annoyance. It has more new things to tell us than all the others. It is strategic.’ Serres “What do you mean?” value of the “T mean that our schools do not as a rule 1@¥ ° Effect pay as much attention to this law as they might. They fail to arouse readiness. They fail to see that the child 42 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD gets satisfaction from desirable things. They otten seem to think that exercise alone suffices. They forget that exer- cise with annoyance may tear down. If our teachers thought mote about these things, they would succeed better.” REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING See references at the end of Chapter IIT (page 51). CHAPTER III ANOTHER VIEW OF LEARNING ““When we were talking last time, nothing much was said about the nervous system. I didn’t know that any one could talk about learning without discussing Thee neurones and synapses. We did last time ex- basis of actly what I had thought could not be done and king we managed pretty well, but I still think it helps to know about synapses.”’ “Well, I don’t know anything about synapses or those other things you mentioned, and I don’t want to. You people seem to revel in long words. I am dead against all such long-winded terminology. I have heard about a ‘terminological complex,’ and I believe some of you have it. Why isn’t common sense good enough?”’ “All I can say is that this additional way of looking at it helps many people, including me. Perhaps if you studied it you'd like it. Any word that we don’t know seems strange. Surely you are not going to balk at words of no more than two or three syllables.” “Do I understand that there is another way of studying about learning? I thought we had found a pretty good way last week. Does the new way add anything to that way? Do the two ways fit together or does one contradict the other?”’ “There is another way, but the two ways do not contra- dict each other. Suppose we look at the other way. I think it helps greatly. You remember we said that all 43 44 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD conduct could be described by telling first the situation which calls for the conduct, and then by telling the response called forth. We call this the stimulus-response formula and we write it, as you know, S— R. Suppose some one tells you of a particularly spoiled boy and you ask for details. You may hear something like this: If you ask him a ques- tion (S), he just sticks out his tongue at you (R); if his mother tells him to be quiet (S), he goes right on hammering or shouting (R). Our question now is, What is there in this boy that makes him respond in such ugly ways when his sister is so different? If you ask the little girl a question (S), she answers very prettily (R); if her mother tells her to be quiet (S), she not only stops at once but says she is sorry she has disturbed (R). The outward situations are ~ the same for both children, but the responses we get are quite different. What makes the difference? Is it that the little girl cannot stick out her tongue or that the boy can- not answer our questions? No, either child could, in point of ability, do what the other one does. What then is the difference?”’ “The boy is just bad and the girl is just good, that’s all there is to that. What more can you say?” *“Wouldn’t you rather say that the boy has formed bad habits, while the girl has formed good habits?” ‘““T’> locate the goodness or the badness in habits is much better, I should say, than merely saying ‘good’ or ‘bad’; but even these answers don’t carry us as far as we should like to go, or can go. We can study the nervous system as the carrier or immediate cause of behavior. Suppose we take a very simple case of conduct, one so simple as to be ‘automatic,’ the knee jerk, for example. A man sits with one knee crossed over the other; the experimenter taps on the tendon just below the knee, and the man’s foot shoots forward with a jerk. This knee jerk is very quick. The ANOTHER VIEW OF LEARNING 45 time has been measured and found to be about three- hundredths of asecond. But short as this time is, the move- ment is not so simple as might be thought.” “T think I have heard that in all such cases a nerve or set of nerves carries the stimulation in t0 ggisory and the brain or backbone and another set brings motor out the motor response. But can this be true "*™°n°S of so simple a case as the knee jerk response? Three- hundredths of a second seems too short a time.”’ “Tt is not too short a time. What you had heard is correct. There is always one set of neurones that carry in the stimulation and always another set that bring out motor response. Generally, if not always, there are ‘central’ neurones connecting these two.” ‘A moment ago you said ‘nerve’ and now you say ‘neurone.’ What is the difference?” ‘A nerve is made up of many neurones, somewhat as a telephone cable is made up of many telephone wires. It is easier for us to think in terms of neurones.”’ “Do I understand that the neurone is the unit element in a connected system of communication?” “Ves, that’s about right.” ‘And what is the synapse that was mentioned along with neurones earlier to-day?”’ ‘A synapse is a junction point for two neurones, through which, or over which, a stimulation leaps. A neurone has always a receiving end branching out like a tree (called in fact a dendrite); it has a long central cord (sometimes called axon); it has finally a discharging end branching out like a brush. A synapse is a contact point where the branching receiving end of a second neurone is close enough to the branching discharging end of a first neurone to allow the current to jump across.” A synapse defined 46 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “Tf I could see a diagram I think it would help. What I can’t see, I can’t grasp.” ‘Here is one which may be taken to illustrate the knee jerk reflex. This system consists of two neurones, ABC called the ‘sensory’ neurone, and DEF the ‘motor’ neurone. You can see how the stimulation follows the arrows. The experimenter tapped at A. The stimulation, fn Satie being received by the many sensory branches, then ran along the neurone ABC to a connec- tion (‘center’) in the spinal cord (the cord is not given in the figure). There it started a motor response stimulation A Fic. 1. Two neurones with synapse. which, running along the neurone DEF to F and spread- ing out there through the discharging endings, caused the appropriate muscles to act. This made the jerk.” ‘‘Do you mean then that in the knee jerk the stimulation ran along a neurone to the spinal cord before the jerking response could be started?” “That is just what I mean. But generally, if not always, the connection is more complicated. There might be a ‘central’ neurone running along the spinal cord joining the sensory neurone with the motor neurone. And of course the reflex is the “Central” neurones ANOTHER VIEW OF LEARNING 47 simplest kind of behavior. Voluntary acts are more com- plicated still. Many other neurones involving the brain are then to be found.” ‘“You said this knee jerk is one of the simplest systems of neurones, requiring only three-hundredths of a second to take place. Do more complicated instances of conduct take longer?” “Yes and the more complicated the instance is, the longer the time required. To respond by pressing with one hand on an electric button as soon as the other hand is touched takes about fifteen-hundredths of a second. To respond similarly to sight takes about eighteen-hundredths of a second. When one must choose between two stimula- tions, responding to one and not the other, it takes longer. In general, the more thinking required, the longer it takes to respond.” ‘Do you mean that in these longer time intervals there are more neurone connections involved?” ‘Yes: that is, in general, true. Of course some people are quicker than others, but that is a different matter.” “Do you not think that so simple a diagram does more harm than good?”’ “T had thought it does more good, but what have you in mind?’’ “Just this. I once heard a very competent student and lecturer say that novices in this field are so likely to be misled by over-simplified diagrams that he for his part refused to use them.”’ ‘“You think that the one we have just seen may be so simple as to mislead?”’ ‘“‘T don’t know. I am asking for information.” “T look at the matter this way. There is danger that such simple diagrams may lead the novice to think the nerve structures back of behavior more simple than in 48 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD fact they are; but, on the other hand, there is good reason to believe that simplified diagrams help much in under- standing how learning takes place.” ‘As between the probable good and the possible danger you think the good outweighs?”’ ‘Yes, provided we are careful to put the learner on his guard.” ‘This all sounds very pretty, but what’s the use? How much more do we now know about learning and teaching?” ‘Yes, tell us about learning.”’ ‘One other thing is necessary. In life nothing is more common than to keep trying further responses if the first one doesn’t work. We spoke last week about a boy’s trying to recite his multiplication table and not knowing 7x9. We imagined him trying first 72, then 56, and finally 68. This kind of con- duct means the branching of neurones. A very simple case might be like this. Gs é — Fig. 2. Multiple response by the branching of a central neurone. (Adapted by permission from Woodworth, Psychology, Holt, New York, 1921, p. 39.) Repeated trials ANOTHER VIEW OF LEARNING 49 ‘“‘Before the teacher speaks the boy is ready (though he may not yet know it and he may of course change at any friendly suggestion) to offer answers in the order suggested, 72, 56, and 63. This means that path (synapse) DE (the path to 72) is in better working order than either of the other two, the connection (synapse) being closer; and that path (synapse) FG (the path to 56) is in turn more closely connected than HI (the path to 63). “The teacher says ‘7x9?’ John answers, ‘72.’ It doesn’t succeed and some degree of annoyance ensues. The teacher repeats, ‘7x9?’ John then tries ‘56.’ Again failure and annoyance follow. The teacher again asks, ‘7x9?’ John hazards his third try, ‘63.’ This time suc- cess and satisfaction result. ‘Suppose the teacher at once asks again, ‘7 x9?’ What will happen?”’ ‘“‘Tf the teacher asks at once and John is even normally bright, he will answer ‘63’ immediately.” ‘Suppose she waits ten minutes and then asks John?” ‘‘He may say ‘63’ or he may not, depending.” “Depending on what?”’ ‘‘On whether he remembers.” ‘“‘Could we say it in terms of the diagram? Perhaps we can find out something about remembering. At the be- ginning, path (synapse) DE was most closely connected, and path (synapse) HI was of these habit doa three least closely connected. If we ask at once after his success with 63, what then?” “Why, I suppose HI would then be most closely con- nected, and the other two less closely connected. But I don’t know. I have never thought about it this way before. Do you mean that something happens to the paths? Some- thing physical, I mean? Do these little branches change or get closer together or wider apart, as the case may be?”’ 50 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “That is exactly what happens. Or at least that is the best opinion we have. Woodworth thus pictures four stages of a synapse as it is more and more closely connected through successful exercise, and a fifth where the connection has through disuse grown less strong. Of course, according to our pre- ceding discussion, failure and annoyance would also weaken a connection as truly as does disuse.”’ Learning re- sults pictured Repeated Fig. 3. The Law of Exercise in terms of synapses. The diagram shows four stages of a synapse as it is more and more closely connected through suc- cessful exercise and a fifth where the connection has, through disuse, grown less strong. (Adapted from Woodworth, Psychology, Holt, New York, 1921, p. 415.) ‘Then learning means such a change in a synapse as makes closer that connection, thus rendering it more likely that the stimulation will take that path in preference to others?” ‘Exactly so; that is what learning means, if we under- stand that the connection is made by use (and not, as we may ANOTHER VIEW OF LEARNING 51 suppose sometimes happens, by mere bodily growth — the maturing of the child).”’ “Then that’s what learning means. I now see why you were so particular about that S—R. Learning means changing the path among the neurones so as to join a new R toanold $8. Yes, I see it now. This does add to our other discussion. I see better now what we then discussed.”’ ‘‘ And those laws of learning all have reference to carrying stimulations along new paths so as to bring new responses?” “Yes. Success and satisfaction bring a closer connection. Failure and annoyance or disuse weaken the connection. I like to see it in terms of those little fibre endings reaching out toward each other or shrinking away — shrivelling up. It helps me a great deal.” | ‘“‘T have a rather ridiculous thought in this connection. Have you ever seen a snail put out his horns, his feelers? If all goes well, they stick far out; but if trouble comes, the horns come in. Perhaps you'll laugh at me. But I think something like this of those little branching fibres. Success and satisfaction make them reach out. Failure and annoy- ance bring them back. Of course there is the difference that in permanent learning the fibres become (relatively) fixed. There the illustration breaks down.” ‘““What does ‘readiness’ mean according to this idea?”’ “Tt means a temporary livening up of connections. Imagine a man who speaks well in two languages. If one addresses him in French, all the French word connections liven up, as it were, and the English connections go to sleep. When he sees a horse he thinks and says cheval.” ““Wouldn’t you call this ‘set’ rather than ‘readiness’? It seems to me too inclusive, too widespread, to be called ‘readiness.’ ”’ “Tf you think of the whole thing as one big inclusive Readiness and set 52 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD change, I should say ‘set.’ If you think of the particular connections, I should say ‘readiness.’ ‘Set’ applies to the aggregate, ‘readiness’ to the individual neurone.” ‘‘T think we can see this better than before. Each readi- ness comes because the appropriate neurone is joined up effectively with the others of the set.” ‘“How do purpose and will enter in this physiological discussion?”’ ‘We have practically answered that already. Remember that purpose is much the same as mind-set-to-an-end. If we speak of holding an end in view and of striving to attain it, we are but describing in other terms how set and readiness work. You will recall, in this connection, the little girl and her wish to get the doll. The set is a persisting tendency of organized neurones to respond in a certain fashion. The ‘effort to attain the end’ is the name we give this tendency. When this response is balked by any hindrance, the tendency may be strong enough to find a path for itself through related neurones. These neurones then become ready; and if they act, the resulting acts constitute what we call the ‘step’ or the ‘means’ to attain the end in view. If they succeed in attaining the end, they give satisfaction and learning ensues.” ‘This reminds me of a passage from Thorndike: ‘“‘*Purposive behavior is the most important case of the in- fluence of the attitude or set or adjustment of an organism in determining (1) what bonds shall act, and (2) which results shall satisfy.’!” “Yes, that’s a good statement of the facts in the case.” “But where does will enter?” “Opinions differ. But mine is that will is merely an- other name for the action of a mind-set, especially where 1 Educational Psychology, Vol. II, p. 51. Purpose and will ANOTHER VIEW OF LEARNING 53 there have been conflicting tendencies and one tendency finally wins out.” ‘Then you locate the will in the action of neurones?”’ 6c Yes.’’ ‘And learning results from the action of set and readi- ness?”’ “Yes, and habit and learning are respectively result and process. Learning has its results in habit, that is, in an abiding synaptic connection.” | “Yes, I see it all better now. It is clearer. TheS— Ris now richer in meaning. TheS makes me think of the branch- ing sensory receiving end, and the R the final branching dis- charging end that makes the response. The— is the whole path in between. Learning means such a change in those little synaptic fibres as makes the stimulation take a new path. This means of course that a new — now joins a new R to an old 8.” “Then neurones and synapses do help us to understand better what learning is and how it takes place?” “They help me.”’ REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING? THORNDIKE — Education, pp. 53-67, 95 ff. Gates — Psychology for Students of Education, pp. 23-27, 31-33, 45-62, 222-236. Woopworti — Psychology, Ch. 2, 13, 16. THORNDIKE — Educational Psychology, Vol. II, 1-16 (Brief Cowrse, pp. 125-137). 1 In this instance the readings are so arranged as to indicate the thorough- ness of treatment, the most exhaustive last. _ CHAPTER IV SIMPLER INSTANCES OF LEARNING ‘What I should like to see is how this psychology will work in school. I don’t care much for theory till I see it at Paycholozy to work. Some people seem to be satisfied with be put to the beauty of mere theory, but I don’t feel that ro way. I want it put to work.” “That pleases me, and I wish we could begin with my class. Ever since we have changed the schedule and my pupils have had so much marching through the halls they drive me crazy. March! They don’t march; they run. Unless I am there and watch them with an eagle eye I can’t get decent behavior. My principal is not overly exacting, but I have had several strong hints that my class needs toning up, or ‘toning down,’ if you prefer.” “Tn answer, let’s see what one teacher did in like circum- stances. She said one day to her class: ‘Your going through A ia ON LN halls is not so orderly as it might be; you from march- know it and others have been speaking of it. ing Today I am going to ask you to notice your- selves as you go, and when you come back I shall ask each ‘ectytpil one who thinks he did not walk exactly as he wasto report should to raise his hand. I tell you in advance his own I shall not punish you. I shall do nothing about ich it beyond the show of hands, but f do wish you to notice and tell me.’ ”’ “Much good that would do my pupils. For many it would only add lying to noise. If I didn’t punish, or at least threaten it, they’d raise the roof.” 54 SIMPLER INSTANCES OF LEARNING 55 ‘Wait till we have finished, and then see. These children at first seemed to take the matter much as you say yours would. They made at least as much disorder as usual; and when the hands were called for not very many were raised.”’ “Just what I told you. Children are naturally born that way. They won’t keep quiet and they will lie. At least some of them will. You have to punish. I admit I mainly threaten, and that doesn’t do much good. But what did the teacher do? She’d give up her sweet and gentle ways if she listened to me. But go on; I want to hear.” “The teacher stood and looked at the class, a bit dis- couraged. Then one boy, ignoring her, spoke up, pointing his finger straight at another boy near by: ‘You " j One boy re- ought to raise your hand. You made just as puked another much noise as the rest of us and you know you for not did.’ At this Boy Number 2 looked sheepish "P28 and squirmed a little. Some others didn’t seem very happy. The teacher let it ‘soak in’ a while, then said: ‘To-morrow we'll try it again; and we wish then to see all the hands that ought to go up.’ “The next day she reminded them seriously, but not naggingly, that they were to walk quietly and that all hands were to come up where there had been disorder. yo... , ext time: This time there was less noise, but more hands; less noise, and what was equally significant, there was an ™ore hands air of conscious success about the class, not of smug satisfac- tion nor of having got ahead of anyone, but almost as if a victory had been won. The teacher, sensitive to such matters, could feel the difference. Moreover, although more pupils had confessed to disorder there was little or no sense of opposition between pupils and teacher. They seemed somehow to feel them- selves on her side. I need not prolong the story. They did Not all » reported Class feels the victory 56 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD the same thing each day for a goodly number of days. The hands grew fewer and the order grew better. In the end the class could control itself reasonably in walking through the halls without teacher or monitor, and would, so far as the teacher could judge, tell the exact truth.’”’ “A good story of a good teacher, but I don’t see where the laws of learning came in. It was personality that did it. The class was good material to begin with. The teacher’s personality supplied the rest. I have always said that personality is the main factor in successful teaching. I knew a 99 “But the laws of learning did enter. The teacher’s skill is evident, I grant you, and doubtless her personality was a How the laws 12ctor, but the laws of learning were skilfully oflearning and tactfully used. The teacher may not have were utilized thought about it in just that way, but the laws entered just the same, and we can see where and how.” ‘Recently I saw two maxims that pretty well sum up our laws of learning: ‘Practice with satisfaction,’ and ‘Let annoyance attend the wrong.’ Let’s try these in this form and see how they work. I believe the short form maxims will help.” “Very well, if you wish, we'll use those. Let’s ask first, what did the teacher wish these children to practice?” ‘Walking quietly through the halls.” What wee We Wasithatralley practiced MY i : Telling the truth.” “Yes she wanted them to practice these two things — walking quietly and telling the truth. Did they practice these two and with satisfaction?”’ ‘At first, no. Well, I am not sure.” “What happened? Did the children walk quietly the first day?”’ 1The incident is substantially true though details have been changed. W. H. K. SIMPLER INSTANCES OF LEARNING 57 “Some probably did. Many didn’t.” “Did they ‘practice with satisfaction’ or did ‘annoyance attend the wrong’?”’ ‘Not much of either on the first day so far as I can see.” “Did they practice telling the truth?” “Some did. Some didn’t.” “Did annoyance attend the wrong?”’ “Not at first, but after that boy spoke I think it did. I think all who had untruthfully not held up their Anioyetee hands were ashamed. That was annoyance. after the boy And all who had held them up were then glad SP°Ke they had told the truth. That was satisfaction. And those who had walked quietly were more pleased than before that they had walked quietly. That was ra Panay satisfaction. I think that boy made them all think, and thinking directed satisfaction or annoyance to the right place.” “How was it the second day?” “More practiced walking quietly, and they got satisfaction from it both then and later when the time came to make a show of hands. Apparently all practiced telling the truth, and I am sure they got satisfaction from that. I don’t know what the teacher would have done if it hadn’t been for the first boy; but taking both together it worked finely. I can see how much more ready the children were after the first day both to watch their walking and to tell the truth afterwards.” “Your word ‘ready’ is very apt, though perhaps you used it independently of our discussion of ‘readiness.’ They were ‘readier’ to notice their walking and they were ‘readier’ to tell the truth. You re- call our law, ‘When bonds are ready to act, to act gives satisfaction.’ Did these children get satisfac- tion because of their readiness?”’ Practice with satisfaction How readi- ness entered 58 ~ FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “TY think they did. Satisfaction if they walked better. Satisfaction if they told the truth.” ‘‘Tt was a master stroke for the teacher to say she wouldn’t punish. They could tell the truth more easily, and they How it had no incentive to try to get ahead of her. It helped not § changed the whole situation. If the pupils con- to punish trolled themselves in walking, their thought in so doing was directed to the real thing and not to fear of punishment or other artificial elements.” “One of the best things in the situation was that pupils and teacher could get together in the matter. I think children often look at teachers as in some sense their ene- mies.”’ ‘Hor those who walked in a disorderly manner, did annoy- ance attend the wrong? Were they not so pleased at telling the truth that they forgot about the wrong of disorder? And if they did forget wasn’t this ‘practice with satisfac- tion’ in wrongdoing?”’ ‘“‘Hor the first few times there might be something in what you say but, as between the two, truthtelling is more im- portant. We could wait to get the other. However, telling the truth (as regards this particular thing) would easily be learned and then would come the wish not to have to hold up their hands.’ “Are we agreed then that this teacher did use the laws of learning?”’ | “There is no way out of it. She did use them and use them wisely.” ‘And do we see how much better it is to see what the teacher did and how the laws were used than to fall back “Personality” OD a blanket term like ‘personality’?”’ a poor I wonder if we don’t mean by personality explanation the power and disposition to use (consciously or unconsciously) these laws skilfully and tactfully?” SIMPLER INSTANCES OF LEARNING 59 “Perhaps so, if we add to it a nice consideration for others.’’ “Do I understand from this illustration that we should try to arouse a ‘readiness’ for practicing the right (whether of conduct or of lessons) and then be sure that satisfaction attends the right and annoyance the wrong? Is that all?” “That’s the most of it. Readiness, exercise, and effect, these three sum up the conditions of learning.” “T wonder if public opinion didn’t play a part in this case, and if so what the laws of learning had to do with it.” ‘Almost surely public opinion entered, at any rate after the first. When that first boy spoke, all who had told the truth felt that the others had acted unfairly. y,, mabe This boy’s words directed and voiced the dis- opinion approval. This public opinion was keenly alert PEM the next day and afterwards to see that the truth was told.” “That’s all right, but I don’t see any laws of learning.” “Why, this public approval or disapproval would in- crease the satisfaction or annoyance as the case might be of all who acted with or acted against the public opinion. It increased the readiness to prac- aaa tice the right. This brought more surely the utilized the exercise of the right, and then gave greater pte effect to the satisfaction or annoyance according as right or wrong had been done. Certainly the laws of learning entered.”’ ‘From this discussion one would infer that the laws of learning enter always and everywhere. Is that true?” “Certainly it is true. The laws of learning are always present in conduct just as the laws of chemistry are always present in chemical phenomena.” Te “Tf that is true, why bother about them? learning al- If they are bound to be present, they will take W#¥S Present care of themselves. Why all this fuss?” 60 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “They are always present, but they need not work for us. They may work against us. In the chemistry labora- We mustsee %TY, explosions sometimes do great damage. that they The laws of chemistry work in such explosions work forus as truly as when things go the way we wish them. It is our business to know how things will work so that we may make them work for good rather than for evil.” “Do you mean that when a mother ‘spoils’ a baby she is following the laws of learning?’’ ‘Certainly she is following the laws of learning, and this whether she ever heard of them or not. Let’s follow up “Spoiling” the illustration. What do we mean by a andthe laws ‘spoiled’ child?” of fearning ‘Tf he wishes anything, nothing else must get in the way. If you won’t give it to him, he’ll make himself disagreeable till you do.” ‘“A child who acts as if nothing but his wishes count. If he can’t have what he wants, he’ll make himself dis- agreeable till he gets it.” “Very good. Now these characteristics are habits of conduct, habits of thought and behavior. How did it come about that this child thinks that nothing but his wishes should be considered? Did he not learn it?” ‘“‘Tf it is a habit, he must have learned it.”’ ‘‘ And if he learned it, he must have practiced it. Isuspect that he ‘practiced this with satisfaction.’ What say you?” “IT suppose you are right. His mother or nurse or grandfather — somebody — let him ‘practice with satisfac- tion’ this wrong idea.” ‘‘And when he learned it he was following the laws of learning?” “Yes, I see that he was. It can’t be otherwise. He got what he wanted by being disagreeable; that is, he practiced being disagreeable and satisfaction was allowed to attend. SIMPLER INSTANCES OF LEARNING 61 I see it. The laws hold all the time. It is our business to see that they work for the good and not for the wrong.” “Why can’t we have an illustration from arithmetic or geography or English composition. If the laws of learning are useful, why shouldn’t we teachers put them to work for us?”’ ‘There is no reason why we shouldn’t, and every reason why we should. Only it is not always easy.” ‘Why isn’t it easy?” “Because for one thing we don’t always adapt school work to child nature. If we don’t — and in the degree that we don’t — we shall find it difficult to get readiness for our lessons, or to get in any high degree satisfaction from learn- ing them. We are in danger of getting mostly annoyance.” “You are right there I suppose, though I don’t just know what you would do. But can’t we find some illus- trations that fit ordinary school work?” “Certainly we can. Have you ever seen children inter- ested in writing a letter?” “Yes, I remember when my fourth grade was going to invite the fifth grade to see their play, they planned to write a letter inviting them to come and ex- ; 4, eine plaining why the play was given. They were and the laws much interested.” pe ‘Did the questions of spelling or of capitalization or of margins come up?”’ ‘“They did, and the children took more pains to get that letter right than any other they wrote for me.”’ “Was there readiness for learning the right forms?”’ “Indeed there was readiness. That is what interest means, doesn’t it? They applied what they found to be the best practice, and they showed great satisfaction when at last they had a letter no one of them could find fault with.” 62 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD ‘“‘Did they learn anything?”’ “Surely they learned. After that we had almost no trouble with the right form of letter arrangement. I think I never saw a class learn it more quickly. They got some new rules about capitals that stayed with them too. There were still other things they learned — how to enter- tain guests, for one thing. They had a committee to meet the incoming class, show them seats, give them pro- grams, and after the play was over to serve them refresh- ments. They were as pleased as Punch over it all. Two years later the sixth grade teacher told me that some of the girls with her had used this experience as a kind of model for an entertainment that class was giving.” ‘“‘Did the laws of learning enter?”’ ‘Yes, indeed; there was readiness, exercise, and satisfac- tion all along the line. ‘There was annoyance too over some mistakes made. They talked it all over afterwards to see what was right and what was wrong. In this I think satisfaction and annoyance were well directed to successes and failures.” ‘‘But we still don’t have illustrations of everyday les- sons. You all get eloquent over exceptional instances. I want something to help the daily grind. Do you give it ivyave: ‘‘By no means. Take the dryest lesson of them all. Maybe it ought not to be dry, maybe it ought not to be taught where it is, or perhaps not taught at How success 4 nes : utilized the all. But supposing it is going to be taught, we laws of ean still help. Perhaps the best place of all learning ; ; x for helping is to work for success, for nothing succeeds like success, and nothing fails like failure.” ‘“What do you mean by ‘work for success’?”’ ‘IT mean, plan your work so that each child can feel that he succeeds. If he succeeds to-day, he will be readier to SIMPLER INSTANCES OF LEARNING 63 attack to-morrow. This new readiness not only makes success likelier but adds to it increased satisfaction. And satisfaction means learning. I have seen bad boys almost made over when they at last got hold of some work they could really do.”’ “Would you then make the work easy so that they would surely succeed? Or is there danger from this?”’ “There is great danger of having work too easy. In fact success is hardly sweet unless it follows effort. Diffi- culties that challenge are best. To succeed yeitner too after putting forth all short of the last ounce of easy nor energy is of all successes the most satisfying. ‘°° pate We wish then activities difficult enough to challenge us, to put success really in jeopardy, but not so difficult that success does not come at last.” ‘‘Tf I understand you, success in the face of such diffi- culties brings greater satisfaction and so increases the learning. Is this true of all the details of the activity?” ‘‘The question is a good one. It is true of all the de- tails in so far as greater difficulty gives increased considera- tion. Much beyond that I should not care to go. It is further true, moreover, that one’s interest along such lines is likely to grow, and favorable attitudes toward teacher and school are likely to be built as well as toward the subject and toward one’s fellow-workers who share the difficulties and the successes.”’ “You speak of attitudes. Are they acquired in accord- ance with the same laws of learning?”’ Aihpeanel eat “Fxactly the same. It is ‘practice with the laws of satisfaction’ that builds an attitude, just as sca truly as it builds good handwriting or truthtelling or anything else.”’ ‘‘Haven’t I heard that good teachers are using problems more frequently in geography and history than formerly?” 64 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “Yes, and these illustrate well our laws of learning. A problem, felt as such, challenges thought. This guides the Hee a oh search for an answer, and gives satisfaction lem utilizes When pertinent material is found. Having a meh of problem, we have something to tell us when we e have found the solution, and finding the solution is satisfying in the degree that we were anxious to find it and had to work for it. This satisfaction makes an earned solution stick in mind in a way that need not be expected of the merely ‘handed out’ solution.” “What do you mean, ‘earned’ solution, ‘handed out’ solution?” ‘Did you ever work an original problem in geometry? If so, you will remember how much easier it was to remember your demonstration than even a shorter demonstration given in the book. You had earned it. The other was ‘handed out.’ The same holds in geography or history or physics or economics, everywhere that man is man. An earned solution sticks.” ‘An earned solution gives self-reliance too.”’ “Indeed it does. Success after a challenge adds to one’s confidence in such matters. It is an awful pity that teachers do not play more consistently for such successes among their pupils.”’ | “Then you believe in the modern tendency toward the Modern tend- USe of problems?”’ ency to use ‘Indeed I do. I hope we may discuss the Ea matter later in much greater detail.” ‘“‘Isn’t this problem attitude really an instance of mind- set with all the attendant readinesses?” “It is exactly that and that is the very subject we ought to consider next — mind-set and learning. Meanwhile, be- fore we separate, let us see where we stand. What have we discussed to-day? How shall we say it?” SIMPLER INSTANCES OF LEARNING 65 “The laws of learning hold all the time. They may work against us. We must make them work for us.” “Practice with satisfaction’ and ‘Let annoyance attend the wrong.’ These together made an alternative statement of the law of effect. I like these short forms myself.” ‘“““We cannot learn what we do not practice’ has been implied at several points, though I believe it was not so worded.”’ 3 ‘Readiness, exercise, and effect — these three include practically all.” ummary CHAPTER V Minp-SET AND LEARNING ‘Shall we begin where we left off last time, with mind-set and learning?”’ “Ves, do. I think I see how it goes but I want to hear the’ discussion. Mind-set brings readiness; and readiness and successful effort both mean satisfaction; and satisfaction means learning. Couldn’t we have a practical illustration? They always help me.” ‘By all means if you like. Suppose a girl has asked her mother’s permission to make a dress ‘all by herself’ and her mother has at last consented. What do you say? Is there any mind-set?” ‘“‘T should say so; there is a very definite mind-set. I remember something like this when I was young, and I was nearly wild with enthusiasm and determination. I was bent on showing all the family that I could make a dress. I chose a party dress, because I had been invited to go to a more important party than usual and I thought I had no suitable dress. Yes, there is a definite mind-set.” ‘‘And what about an inner urge?”’ ‘‘What do you mean by ‘inner urge’? Is there also an outer urge? And are the two different?”’ ‘Tet me answer that. I know the difference. Sometimes I find a boy determined to do something, say make an air- plane. The urge is inside the boy. I may try to discourage him, others may laugh at him, he may find difficulties; but as long as he feels that way inside he will persist in spite of all outside interferences. That’s an inner urge. But sup- 66 Mind-set and learning bad MIND-SET AND LEARNING 67 pose the boy’s father tells him to mow the lawn, and the boy does it only because his father makes him; the urge here is outside. With an outer urge, one will give up at the first opportunity. If any interference comes along, he will try to take it as an excuse to stop. This girl had a strong inner urge to make the dress. A strong mind-set to ac- complish an end means exactly a strong inner urge. Am I not right?”’ “Exactly right. But now tell us what else this girl’s “strong mind-set means besides an inner urge?”’ “You called it further back a ‘mind-set-to-an-end.’ I should say it means a clear and definite end in view, a strong purpose with a clearly defined end. Here the end was to make a dress that would fit and be becoming, and call forth favorable comments from all who saw it and arouse their wonder that so young a girl should make so pretty a dress. The strong mind-set meant setting up this sort of end.”’ ‘‘And what about readiness or unreadiness?”’ “TI know; it was just what we had before. The mind-set makes this girl ready to see and examine dresses and styles and patterns and fabrics, and to hear people talk about such matters, and to read Vogue and the Delineator.”’ “Yes, it will make ready for action all the mechanisms in the girl’s mental make-up that might have to do with making the dress. ~ But what about unreadiness?”’ ‘We had that too. It makes the girl unready to do any- thing else. I dare say she is more or less of a nuisance about the house till the dress is finished, for she won’t want to be called on to care for the baby or to set the table or even to be told that it’s bed time. Yes, all the mechanisms whose action might interfere will be distinctly unready to act.” ‘What does all this mean for thinking? Does this girl think?” Set and readiness 68 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD ‘‘Certainly she thinks. She has to choose the style in which she will make the dress. That takes thinking and a great deal of it. I fancy she’ll have everybody in the house nearly crazy looking and passing judgment, unless she is the kind of girl who somehow already knows her own mind. Of course she has to choose the material, and watch the price so as not to exceed her supply of money. After that there will be the pattern and how to lay it on, how to cut out the material, etc., etc. Yes, she has to think. “An important matter is this—-What guides her thinking? What tells her what to think? It is the end in view that guides. Here it is exactly the kind of dress she wants to make that guides her thinking. In this case it is a party dress. Her purpose to make this dress guides her thoughts, at least in a large way, all the time. Some smaller purposes, specific subordinate ends I suppose you would call them, guide at other times; but all have to fit together.” “You say all have to fit together. Is this what some call ‘organization’?” ‘“BHxaetly, this is what is meant by organization. Every- thing she does — buying, planning, cutting, sewing — all have to work consistently together or she will not have the kind of dress she wants. I should say there is opportunity here for the best kind of organization. How to organize her efforts is part of what she had to learn, and an important part.” ‘But are you not leaving out the most important thing? I mean the learning. I can see how the girl’s purpose means a definite end in view and an inner urge to attain that end. I can see too how these things mean an efficient organization of effort — in fact the whole thing seems to be working for efficiency of Thinking Purpose and learning MIND-SET AND LEARNING 69 action. But I don’t yet see where learning comes in. Can you explain more clearly?” ‘All we need is to apply the results of our previous dis- cussion. Learning mainly comes by the Law of Effect. Any movement of mind or body that succeeds (or brings satis- faction) has for that reason a better chance of being used again. Similarly any movement that fails has a smaller chance. This better (or lesser) chance of being used again we call ‘learning.’ The greater the feeling of success or failure (satisfaction or annoyance) the more definite the learning.! Now if the girl has a strong interest in making the dress, what she does by way of successful planning or execu- tion brings great satisfaction. Wherein she fails, she feels annoyance. This success (satisfaction) fixes in her nervous system the success-bringing movements. The annoyance in like manner tends to cut out for the future the failure- bringing movements. When the girl has finished her dress, each step that helped make it a success is more firmly fixed in her (as a habit or skill or memory), and each step that hurt will less likely be used again. And not only are the separate steps thus fixed (or dropped out, as the case may be), but so likewise are the connections of one step with another. The organization as an effective whole is fixed in the girl’s mental make-up. The stronger the purpose and the more definite the success (or failure) the stronger and more definite the learning.” ‘““You have said nothing about the factor of readiness here. Does that play any part?” “Yes, indeed. The readiness we discussed as growing out of the mind-set not only prepares each pertinent mechan- ism for use but accords satisfaction when used. We then have, as it were, satisfaction coming possibly from two 1Except in some extreme cases where such factors as consternation or paralysis of action interfere with the learning process. 70 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD sources: first, from the readiness of the mechanisms used, and second, from the resulting success. This fact means the possibility of better learning.”’ ‘“How does consciousness help? Does it have any part in the learning process as here described? I have heard some say that this too is an important factor.”’ Consciousness = Tndeed it is an important factor in learning. and learning : f Its function here is at least three-fold: first, to connect more surely and definitely the various responses with their several appropriate stimuli that they may be properly and strongly joined together for learning; second, to attach satisfactions or annoyances more precisely where they severally belong and so bring about the right learning; and third, by emphatic attention to heighten the satisfaction or annoyance felt and so increase the learning. It is for these reasons, among others, that we are most anxious that pupils think while they act and consciously intend the several steps they take.” ‘“You do not mean then that in purposeful activity all the success-bringing movements or steps are equally well learned or remembered?”’ ‘“‘Indeed, no. At one time the girl who made the dress needed to pick up her scissors from the floor. She probably did so as a matter of course and will never think of it again; but she will think of the store in which she bought the goods for her dress. One movement has significance; she thinks about it, and she will remember it. The other has such slight significance to her that she doesn’t think about it at the time and so will not remember it in the future.” ‘But you don’t mean to say that remembering is all there is to learning?’’ “Most certainly, no. As thinking is not all of life, so remembering is not all of learning. Remembering, that is, MIND-SET AND LEARNING 71 recalling to mind, is a very important kind or instance of learning; but the skill to use a tool or the tendency to repeat an act are instances of Se nee that are : ; Remembering not well described as remembering.” not the only ““Didn’t the older education mainly think of Hs of learning as remembering?”’ aes “Yes, I think it did; and it was, as we say, too exclusively bookish. We are now stressing habits, attitudes, and appre- ciations, which our schools formerly too much overlooked.” “And you think that purposeful activity, under a strong mind-set, helps in all kinds of learning, habits, skills, attitudes and appreciations as well as in things properly to be remem- -bered?”’ “Yes, that’s what I think.” ‘“What about the presence of a difficulty? Does it help or hurt?” “Tf not too great, it may help appreciably. Success after overcoming a difficulty yields greater satisfaction.” ‘“Once before we spoke of the effect of a difficulty to spur to action. Ought we not say something about that here?”’ “You are quite right. It is recognized by competent psychologists that when one is pursuing an end any obstacle (not too great) serves to spur to greater energy yoy an and effort. Not only then are more of one’s obstacle spurs inner resources thus called into play, but success * °#or attained under such circumstances is sweeter when it comes. The increase of attention occasioned by the obstacle and the greater satisfaction from success both increase the learn- ing. You are right; reasonable difficulties enhance the probable educative effect of the enterprise.”’ ‘Toes this mean that we are to put hindrances and diffi- culties in the way of students? Is there not danger that they will resent this?”’ ‘There would be great danger of resentment. No, I @2 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD should not place artificial difficulties in the way. Rather should the teacher know these psychological facts and en- courage the students to undertake enterprises neither so easy as to fail to challenge their powers nor so difficult as to discourage. Between these limits lie the best educational results.” ‘““Won’t you please sum this up for us? I think I have the main points, but I should like to have it in more systematic form.” ‘That it may be clear that the same analysis holds true of academic activities as in the case of the girl with her dress, suppose we make a tabular statement showing how a strong mind-set acts in both kinds of activities. Imagine now that Siegen opt het boy who likes mathematics is brought face to mind-set and face with a certain difficult problem. The care teacher says that this is an unusually hard prob- lem, that he doesn’t know whether any member of the class ean solve it or not, though they have now had enough mathematics to enable them to solve it. He’d like them to try, but he is not very hopeful. The boy feels in this a defi- nite challenge. He proposes to solve that problem and to solve it all by himself. He attacks it, but it doesn’t yield at once. He redoubles his efforts. We have then a clear case of study and, let us suppose, of eventual success under the influence of a very strong mind-set-to-an-end. We find accordingly for this boy (and for the girl making her dress): “1. A definite end in view. The boy is definitely determined to solve the problem all by himself. (The girl is definitely determined to make an excellent dress.) “2 An inner urge to attain this end. The teacher has not re- quired the problem, but the boy is strongly urged on by himself from within to solve it. (So with the girl, making the dress is her own enterprise. She acts from her own inner urge.) ee “4 lati wey ag “Q. MIND-SET AND LEARNING 73 Readiness in all the boy’s pertinent inner resources. All his knowledge and skill, all his available ideas, are in a state of readiness. They rise up, as it were, earnestly desiring to be used. (It is the same with the girl.) An unreadiness for thwarting activities. He has real difficulty for the time being to enter wholesouledly into his other lessons. He can hardly cease thinking about the problem. (The same is true of the girl.) The inherent difficulties spurring to greater efforts. The dif- ficulties met, beg not insuperable, do not discourage but call forth more conscious attention and stimulate to even greater efforts. (True of boy and girl alike.) The end defines success for him. He won’t count it success unless he solves the problem beyond a question and by his own unaided efforts. (Success with the girl means a dress that she and others will approve, made all by herself.) Success attained brings satisfaction. The stronger the mind- set and the greater the difficulties successfully overcome, the greater will be the satisfaction of success. (True of both alike.) Satisfaction means fixing the responses that brought success. When he finally sees the solution, the way out of the diffi- culty, the satisfaction attending will by the Law of Effect fix in him the success-bringing steps. (The satisfaction will fix in the girl’s nervous system each success-bringing step, whether of knowledge or of skill, and the organization of all into one whole.)’’ ‘“Do you mean by ‘fixing the success-bringing steps’ that the boy will remember the solution?”’ ““Yes, I mean that and more. Solving the problem means seeing the elements of the problem in a certain ap- propriate relationship. Now the satisfaction of success will fix in him this relationship. It will How success acts be almost impossible for him to forget it. Moreover, his mind will in sheer pleasure at hard-earned 74 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD success play back and forth over the main success-bringing steps, so that exercise with renewed effect will fix this yet more strongly in his mind. Each time he shows his solution to an appreciative listener, this fixing process will again be repeated. And there is yet more. This present success will make him more inclined to attack the next challenging problem he meets; and he will for the same reason find it easier the next time to get into the spirit of seeking; the mind-set to study having this time brought success will the next time more readily-call into play the boy’s available mathematical resources for solving such a problem.”’ ‘And are the like things true of the girl?”’ ‘“‘Indeed, yes. The results to her are in effect the same. Her success fixes it all in her mind. She too will delight to think it over and talk it over. . She too will be encouraged by this success to attempt more difficult feats of sewing. Another time it will be easier for her to get into the mind- set necessary for successful dressmaking. The next time her experiences will be better available when needed.” “Ts this why purposeful learning is so much advocated now?” ‘“Yes, only there are still other reasons for wishing to utilize the child’s purpose. ‘There is in the first place more likelihood of success. The strong inner urge will mean stronger efforts. Then there is greater probability of a good organization’s re- sulting. The definite end makes it easier to form an effec- tive organization, because there is something to guide the steps. This is more evident where the effort to attain the end involves the assembling and uniting into one whole of. many obviously different steps. The third reason for wishing the strong purpose is the one above described, that the learning takes place better. The learning not only comes more quickly, but it is more abiding when it does The function of purpose MIND-SET AND LEARNING 75 thus come. ‘The satisfaction following success brings about this result by the Law of Effect.’ “You have not said anything about annoyance. Does that not enter into the situation?”’ ‘Yes, but negatively. The steps that lead nowhere bring annoyance, and for that reason they tend to drop out, not to be repeated the next time. This is 3...) taiture the other half of the Law of Effect.’’ and annoy- “TDoesn’t the satisfaction of such success 22°¢ 4% affect also the associate suggestions and the concomitant learning that we discussed in Chapter I?” ‘Indeed it does; but we ni leave that until we have taken up the ‘tai of coercion.’ “Tt is good to talk about such things. Already teaching means more to me. Heretofore I have been an artisan in,the work. Now I see that we eine may become artists at teaching.” *‘And the art is based on science.” ia§ Yes REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING Kiipatrick — The Project Method, pp. 8-11. THORNDIKE — Educational Psychology, Vol. II, 2138-234 (Brief Course, 208-224). WoopwortH — Psychology, pp. 69 fi., 74 ff., 542. Kitpatrick — Source Book in the Philosophy of Education, No. 501, 512, 513. CHAPTER VI COERCION AND LEARNING ‘“‘T understand we are to discuss coercion and learning. T hope we may take a clear case of coercion and carry through the whole process. I want to see each step, for I find it a difficult subject.” ‘Before you do that, I have a preliminary question. What does coercion mean? Must there always be another person to do the coercing or might impersonal circumstances coerce? Might one even coerce himself? I wish you’d make this clear.”’ . “To say what meaning a word shall have is not easy. Different people see things differently, and differing situ- ations sometimes require differing senses of meaning; but if there is possible doubt we must say what meaning we propose to use. Let’s begin with the clearest case of coercion, which is certainly where one person forces another into doing some- thing he wouldn’t otherwise do. Suppose a boy has planned to go swimming with the other boys and his mother in spite of his tearful pleading forbids, and ‘forces’ him, as we say, ‘against his will’ to stay at home and ‘mind the baby.’ Suppose further that before he will yield she has to threaten punishment, and even after the other boys have gone she has to speak sharply to ‘make’ him treat the baby decently and care for her properly. What, now, are the characteristic elements in this instance of undoubted co- ercion? As it is an extreme case, we may expect the ele- ments to stand out in unusual relief. First, in point of 76 The meaning of coercion COERCION AND LEARNING 77 time we find a mind-set already occupying the stage of action. This mind-set would, unless thwarted, result in a certain line of conduct; namely, in his going swimming with the boys. Second, there arises some interposition, felt by the one coerced to come more or less from the outside, which sets up the essential coercion; namely, a state of affairs that thwarts the activity already under way and against the will of the coerced directs experience along another and, under the circumstances, undesirable line. Third, the one coerced accepts, but against his will, the new line of conduct because he fears a threatened and still more unacceptable alternative. “This is of course an analysis and description, not a logical definition. The emphasized words must have been experienced in order to be understood; but, having been experienced, their meaning is fairly definite. With these understood, the essential elements of coerced activity stand out.’ “It seems to me, then, that whether you call any such experience a case of coercion depends upon the attitude of the one concerned, whether there arises in him PEL Fl: a contrary set which inwardly rejects while matter of there is outward yielding.” ead ‘Yes, I think you are right, and the more definite the inner rejection, the clearer is it a case of coercion.”’ ‘Might it not happen that what began as a clear case of coercion would cease to be such because the coerced person changed his mind, the inner attitude shifting from rejection to acceptance?”’ “You are quite right, and the possibility of this is a matter of great practical importance for the educator.” ‘Would you not also need in this discussion to say whether you were thinking of the one who did the coercing or the one who felt coerced?”’ 78 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD ‘‘Perhaps so, and the instance given above was in terms of the attitude of the one coerced. Whether he learns or not is our concern; so we have given our analysis and dis- cussion in terms of his attitude. We have in our past dis- cussions seen clearly that the attitude of the learner affects his learning. That’s why it is emphasized in our present discussion.” ‘Have we sufficiently answered the question as to whether coercion must come from another person or might proceed from circumstances?”’ “T think so. The question is one of fact. This inner attitude of rejection is most easily and most typically aroused by persons, possibly because their motives are both complex and hid and are accordingly the more easily mis- taken, and resentment is thus more readily stirred. Re- sentment, I may add, seems a typical accompaniment of coercion. The young and hotheaded may entertain feel- ings of resentful and rebellious rejection against mere im- personal circumstances, where older and calmer persons would accept such thwarting as inevitable. To the one group this kind of thwarting would be coercion, to the other it would not. But the two undoubtedly merge into each other in intermediate cases.” ‘Can, then, a person coerce himself?”’ ‘After the discussion given, the question is, as stated, for us now one of fact. Do we see anyone rejecting with inward rebellion what he imposes on himself? If we do, then one may coerce himself. The cases that seem most like this may, however, upon reflection, turn out to be examples of the coercion of circumstances rather than of one’s self. The question thus becomes rather academic than useful.” “Well, may we not go on to something interesting? When you people begin splitting hairs, you never know COERCION AND LEARNING 79 when to stop. It gets very tiresome to the rest of us. Are we never to take up the effect of coercion on learning? ”’ “Tt is too bad to spend so much time on what may seem unnecessary. We are, however, now ready to go on with our topic. Shall we take an illustration and follow it through with the same steps we used at the outset?”’ “By all means. An illustration always helps.”’ “Suppose, then—John has lately been so much interested in football that he has slighted his lessons. At length the teacher in desperation tells him that he must stay away from practice that afternoon and work on some problems he has repeatedly missed. As soon as he can do the work, he may go. To make a clear case, suppose John feels rebellious the whole time, but doesn’t dare actually to rebel. Our problem, then, is to find out what kind of learning will go on, and how it will take place.’ “Shall we take into account only the learning of the problems, or shall we consider all the learning that takes place? I mean, shall we ask about all the simultaneous attendant learnings that we discussed before [Chapter I]?”’ “FEventually we must take account of all, because they are all taking place, but for our immediate purposes let’s begin with the problem solving.”’ ‘‘Well, if the boy is going to be rebellious the whole time, he won’t learn much. Anybody knows that. I don’t need to study psychology or pedagogy or pedaguese or anything else to tell me that. Why don’t you ask something that people want to know?”’ “Ves we went over the same point earlier in connection with learning through interest. The main results in the clear cases may already be known, but if we can find out how the rebellious attitude works to prevent the learning, An instance of coercion 80 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD we have learned something new. Perhaps then we’ll know better how to manage rebellious cases. Shall we go on?” ‘Yes, for gracious’ sake, do.” ‘Well, consider John. He stays because he’s afraid not to stay, and he studies at least after a fashion. Is there any mind-set?”’ “Certainly, he is dead set against the whole performance and, as you said, this contrary set continues throughout.” “Ts that all? Is there any other mind-set? Remember, he can get out with the other boys only if he will convince the teacher that he can work the problems. Does this mean anything?” “Yes, it probably means that he will try to convince the teacher, and so will study the problems.” ‘Then he will have a mind-set for the problems?” ‘“To a degree, yes; but he may try to convince the teacher by some kind of bluff or, it may be, even by cheating. But whatever the means he adopts for convincing the teacher, he will have at least some temporary mind-set for that.” “Why do you say that his mind-set for the study or for the cheating, as the case may be, will be temporary?” “Because he is really intent on getting to the football practice. That’s the end for him. The study and fooling the teacher are only means. For the football he has what we called an inner urge. For what he does to convince the teacher there is only an outer urge.”’ ‘‘What is the effect of the rebelliousness?”’ “It acts, as it were, on the side of the football urge. The two work together. They are almost parts of the same thing.” “Yes, I see that, but what is the effect of the rebellious spirit on these temporary sets? Doesn’t the feeling of opposition keep him from trying to persuade the teacher?” Opposed mind-sets COERCION AND LEARNING 81 “T don’t think so. I was wondering if this rebellious feeling of opposition doesn’t work against the boy’s study- ing, but in favor of his fooling the teacher.” “T believe you are right. The teacher undertakes to force the boy to study. To get ahead of the teacher and so get out of study would afford an outlet for the boy’s spirit of opposition. Yes, the rebelliousness works against study and for getting ahead of the teacher.”’ ‘But suppose the boy is in the end forced to study. Is there or is there not any set for the problem solving?” ‘‘Let’s see. Suppose one of the problems involves a long subtraction. Will the boy remember throughout that he is subtracting, or will he forget and either begin adding or have to go back and ascertain anew what he is trying to do?”’ “IT see what you mean. Certainly, if he is to solve the problem he must in some measure have a mind-set that puts his mind on it. In such case he probably would go ahead consistently in his subtraction.” ‘But the contrary mind-set roused by the coercion would interfere with this mind-set, wouldn’t it?” “Yes, as a rule the contrary set would interfere to some extent with his attention to the arithmetic, at times so much so as to prevent anything but a very mechanical How the Gene sort of attention. In other cases there would trary mind-set be less interference. In still others, he might 4°S really give pretty good attention to the arithmetic.” “Would it not depend on the strength of the contrary set and on the degree of rebelliousness, as to how much inter- ference there would be?”’ “Exactly so.” “This discussion sounds very reasonable, but I thought we were to hear about the psychology of learning under coer- cion. You seem to have overlooked that.’’ 82 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD ‘“‘Suppose we take the eight definite steps in purposeful learning under a strong favorable mind-set as given before [pages 70-71], and discuss the effect of coercion under those heads.” ‘Very well. In that case we had a strong mind-set-to-an- end that favored, as you say, the learning. How is it here?” ““We have here also a strong mind-set, but it is opposed to his staying in or to studying. We find also a certain temporary and relatively weak mind-set for the problems. The stronger the rebelliousness that attends the opposed mind-set, the weaker this mind-set for arithmetic is likely to be.” “What about (1) the ‘definite end in view’? ”’ ‘There 1s one main end, to get to the football practice. There may be a kind of subordinate end, to solve the prob- In coercion lems; but there may be in place of this a plan there are op- of deceiving the teacher.”’ inns si ttt: ‘What about (2) the ‘inner urge’? ” ‘The inner urge is to get to the football practice. There may be a derived and temporary inner urge to deceive or otherwise cheat the teacher, but any urge for the problems would in this case be typically outer. It will let up as soon as the external pressure is removed.” “What about (38-4) ‘readinesses and unreadinesses’?”’ ‘Hach mind-set will have its own system of readinesses and unreadinesses; and these will greatly interfere with each other. So long as the contrary mind-set is acting — especially so long as the rebellious feeling is present —it will be psychologically impossible for the best arithmetical thinking to go on. The thoughts just won’t come with fullness and freedom. Under such circumstances it would be only relatively mechanical work that could result.’’ ‘‘Won’t there be actual readiness for thwarting activities? Resulting unreadiness COERCION AND LEARNING 83 Don’t pupils under such conditions actually take to a kind of sabotage, as they call it in labor discussions?” “There certainly is likely to arise readiness for thwarting activities, and sabotage is not an inapt term to describe many of them; but often an older and uglier word is even more apt.” “You mean cheating, I suppose, and you are certainly right. Many children under unwise management readily feel great ‘readiness for thwarting activities.’ In answer to such readiness, children hitherto and other- wise good may find a natural if unholy satis- faction in ‘beating’ the teacher?”’ | ‘Yes, here as elsewhere the Law of Readiness holds: ‘Where a bond is ready to act, to act gives satisfaction.’ ” ‘And does this satisfaction fix the cheating habit in these children?” “Yes, unless there is some counteracting annoyance. Only we mustn’t say they will surely cheat under all other conditions. The rule of no general automatic transfer holds here as well as elsewhere.”’ “And what about (5) ‘hindrances spurring to greater efforts’ ?”’ “So far as studying the arithmetic is concerned, exactly the opposite will hold. As with all ‘outer urges’ each new difficulty is a new suggestion to stop, to cease efforts. No, where one works under coercion a difficulty encountered in a problem will not as a rule spur to greater efforts at problem solving. Just the contrary will generally happen.”’ “And (6) what is success for this boy?” “Tt all depends on the ends set up. The main success, if success there be, will be get- ting out with the other boys. There may be the subsidiary success in his efforts at cheating, or the milder success at the problem solving.” Tendency to deception Ambiguous success 84 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD ‘‘And what about (7) the satisfaction that attends suc- cess?”’ ‘‘Each success carries its own satisfaction, the amount of which depends on the strength of the corresponding mind-set. If the boy can beat the teacher, considerable satisfaction ensues; he has escaped and he did it by his own contrivance. If he solves the problems and so gets out, the main satisfaction may still be in getting out. The satisfac- tion in the problem solving as such is lessened in the degree that he has felt resentfully that his work has been under compulsion.” ‘‘What, then, shall we conclude about (8) the learning that results from coercion?” ‘‘First, in so far as the opposed mind-set begets unreadi- ness for the problem solving, in that degree the necessary Conrriontnies thoughts are unlikely to arise. There is then less promise danger that psychologically he will be unable Ch euCeres to do a good job of thinking. In other words, his chances of successful solution (as the teacher counts success) are lessened in the degree that the boy feels opposi- tion and rebellion. ‘‘Second, the satisfaction that results from successful problem solving (supposing he does succeed) is probably the smaller, both on account of the lack of readiness for the necessary effort because of his opposition to the coercion, and also by reason of the over- shadowing feeling of satisfaction that he has at length escaped coercion. “Third, since the satisfaction is small there is small learning. The Law of Effect must play its part. There may even have been built up a growing distaste for the whole subject of mathematics. If so, — this is merely the negative side of the same law.” ‘“‘Tyo you mean that the annoyance of the whole proceed- Less satis- faction Less learning COERCION AND LEARNING 85 ing may disgust him with mathematics? It isn’t the mathe- matics that is at fault, it is his own previous idleness or lack of attention to duty. Won’t the annoyance thus serve to keep him from being idle again? Why do you pick out the mathematics to suffer?” “Tt all depends upon the boy’s own reaction. If he lays the blame on his idleness, he will less likely be idle the next time. If he blames the teacher and the dryness of mathe- matics, then he may build an aversion to both. Which he will probably blame, you know as well as I; but the Law of Effect will work in any case.” ‘Do you conclude that coercion has no place in school?” | ‘No, I wouldn’t say that. I think it has a place. But I would say that if my coercion of children is of such kind as to arouse a strong feeling of active resentment, then I need not expect much useful learning to result directly; and there are other possible results to be positively feared. If at any particular time I wish children to learn, I must at that time either avoid coercion or I must so use it as not to arouse the contrary set that spoiled, as we have just seen, the most of John’s learning.” ‘But haven’t we heard of children who practised piano playing under coercion and later came to love their playing? What about them? And what about holding up standards? Isn’t that necessary, and isn’t it coercion?” “That’s a good question about the piano playing. I have heard people argue much about it, but they never reached a satisfactory conclusion because they had no way to settle the issue. I hope we shall be more successful.” “T’ve just come in. I wish you would tell me what you have been saying so that I may go on with the discussion.” Aversion may result The place of coercion 86 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “T am glad to sum it up if the others don’t mind. We have been discussing coercion and its effect on learning. We ae a A agreed by a kind of definition that the presence the effect of an aroused contrary mind-set is the essential ofcoercion =» factor in what we call coercion. The normal and legitimate effect of such a contrary mind-set we con- cluded is to bring unreadiness for the coerced action and to lessen — in any event — the satisfaction accompanying the successful completion of this action. This unreadiness and accompanying lessened satisfaction would mean, by the psychological Law of Effect, less of learning in connection with the coerced activity. From this we further concluded that if we wish a child to learn best we should as far as is feasible avoid arousing the contrary mind-set.” “TIsn’t it inevitable that if you force anything on another you do arouse opposition, and isn’t this feeling of opposition just what you mean by a contrary mind-set? If this is so, then doesn’t coercion, however you define it, necessarily prevent learning? How can one ever learn to play the piano through compulsion, still less learn to like it?” ‘‘Not so fast. You are ignoring certain necessary qualifi- cations to your statements. The typical result of forcing Coercion does COnduct upon another is, true enough, to arouse not prevent opposition; but there are many possible degrees all learning = of such opposition. Some degrees of opposition are so weak as hardly to mean a contrary mind-set. More to the point, however, we never have said that an opposed mind-set destroys or prevents all learning in connection. On the contrary, human responses are always mixed. We pointed out explicitly in the case of the boy kept after school to work his problems that he had at least two mind-sets, one of opposition to the teacher, the other, much weaker as a rule but still present, to solve the problems. When he suc- ceeds in solving the problems he feels some satisfaction. COERCION AND LEARNING 87 This satisfaction may come from either of two sources. He feels satisfaction first at getting out. The more exclusively his satisfaction as he finishes is centered consciously on get- ting out, the less, in probability, does his success fix any mathematics in his mind. The second satisfaction arises from the success attending his efforts with the mathematics. He may, it is true, have felt his resentment and opposition so keenly that he wouldn’t even try to solve the problems. If so, the result is no effort and therefore no chance for suc- cess or satisfaction, and consequently no possible learning of the arithmetic. But if he did try at all and did make any sort of success, then there will be some satisfaction and consequently some learning.” 2 “You do admit, then, that coercion can bring learn- ing?” “Certainly. We have all the time said that coercion might and usually would bring some learning. Our point has been that in so far as coercion arouses and maintains a contrary mind-set, it tends to reduce and lessen the learning we wish.”’ ‘Then coercion is merely a poor way to get things learned?”’ “Tt is that, true enough, but it may be worse than that. We have in this whole discussion been ignoring all those accompanying learnings we discussed in our first meeting [Chapter I]. In any actual case before us they have to be considered. Coercion may teach on the side, as it were, many undesirable things. For instance, many boys who have been badly managed in school conceive such a distaste for school that they leave it as soon as the law allows, to the hurt both of their own future and of society at large.” “This question seems to me to grow as we work on it. I had no idea it was so complicated.” Coercion and concomitants 88 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “Ves it is becoming complicated. I fear we shall have to wait till the next time to finish.” “May we not begin then with the piano playing? I am very much interested in that.”’ ‘Indeed, yes, if you all so wish.” REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING See references at the end of Chapter V (page 73). CHAPTER VII COERCION AND LEARNING — Concluded “Will coercion bring success in the teaching of piano playing? That’s where we are to begin, is it not?” ‘Yes, that’s what we agreed to.” “Then, let me tell how it strikes me. I have been thinking a great deal about it. I think I now see how a girl may learn to play from compulsory practice on the piano Ravine piano. Isn’t it just like the boy kept in after under school — the girl will as a rule give at least coercion some attention to her practice, and if she succeeds even a little she will have some satisfaction arising from her success. So she will learn at least a little.’ “Yes, that is exactly the case. Of course the more she puts her soul into what she does, the more likely she is, first of all, to succeed, and also the greater will be her satisfaction in what she accomplishes, and consequently the better will be her learning.” “T find myself confused a little just here. I thought the question was not whether the girl will learn to play a piece from enforced practice. That I never doubted. The ques- tion I asked the last time was whether the coercion, if per- sisted in by the mother, wouldn’t result in a fondness for piano playing in the girl. And if this is so, it seems to contra- dict your analysis.”’ ‘You mean, then, to ask whether coercion can create a fondness. And if so, how can we reconcile this with the effect of annoyance, which would be expected to create an aver- sion?”’ 89 90 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD ‘Yes, or you might put it, ‘Can coercion build an interest?’ I should certainly expect from your line of argument that an aversion and not a fondness would result.” ‘What are the observed facts? Does coercion build fond- ness or aversion?”’ “T think I can answer that. Of course I haven’t kept any statistics; but my experience as a music teacher through a good many years is this: if a girl has talent and if she is started right so that she feels herself succeeding, she will learn rapidly. If she does learn rapidly and keeps on grow- ing in her music and if people praise her playing, she will grow more and more fond of her music. But if she has no talent, she won’t learn very rapidly and will easily get dis- couraged. Then when people don’t praise her playing, she will begin to look for praise and satisfaction along other lines. For such a girl, a strong fondness for the piano will seldom, if ever, develop.” “But you said nothing about coercion and its effect.”’ “TY don’t think much about that with my pupils. It may help or it may hurt.” ‘‘T wonder if we haven’t now the essential facts before us. If a girl has no talent for playing she will sooner or later When ce find it out. If she doesn’t play very well and ercion can is normally sensitive to what people say, she help will gradually leave off playing for others. In such ease the coercion couldn’t help, it might hurt. If a girl has talent but doesn’t know it, a certain amount of coercion — skillfully applied — may overcome an initial objection to practising until her success, which is probable from her talent, brings satisfaction enough to build a fondness. In such cases the coercion may help.’ “Why say ‘may help’? Why not say ‘does help’?” ‘Possibly you are right, but I must believe in every case that so far as the child feels the coercion to be coercion, the COERCION AND LEARNING 91 desired learning is lessened. I admit the need for getting the child to put forth the necessary initial effort, but I can not admit that coercion is always the best way to secure this needed effort. kemember that coercion naturally lessens both the chance of success and the accompanying learning. Perhaps some other way than coercion might arouse the effort without at the same time incurring the hurtful effect almost bound to follow in some measure from coercion. In other words, as a teaching device, coercion is always in some measure an evil. In a particular case it may be the best available instrument. If so, use it. But know all the time that it carries with it evil possibilities.” ‘Do you refer, in speaking of ‘evil possibilities,’ merely to the lessened learning or to the bad attendant learn- ing?”’ “To both. We can never lose sight of either. If we decide to use coercion in any particular case, we must decide only after a full survey of all the probable results.”’ ‘You do admit, however, that coercion does sometimes build an interest.” “IT must admit it. The facts as well as my own theory demand it as a possibility.”’ “Would you mind recapitulating your position on this point?”’ “T am glad to do so. Building interests is perhaps as important a work as education can undertake. Whether it is feasible to build an interest along any given line depends first of all on the native capacities of the person.”’ “May I interrupt you? Do you refer here exclusively to . some specific talent, such as a talent for music?” ‘No, although some pronounced capacity or talent may be the dominating factor. I mean, however, to include other instances where the activity involved includes many different satisfactions as, for example, what we popularly 92 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD call ‘manipulation,’ ‘inventiveness,’ ‘social approval,’ and the like.”’ ‘‘Haven’t you now so broadened your conception as to take in all conceivable activities?” ‘Yes and no. There is practically no activity to be shut out entirely. The Hindu fakir who daily tortures his body has actually built up in himself this repulsive practice as an interest.”’ ‘‘It may be an aside, but would you mind saying a further word about building interests? I mean without special reference to coercion. If I correctly understand you, there are first some necessary prerequisites and then an appro- priate procedure.” ‘“‘I myself reckon two necessary prerequisites for an abid- ing interest: first, enough capacity for the activities involved Prorequintes 100 bring continued satisfaction from success; for building and second, a growing activity. The first may aninterest refer more specifically to one dominant talent, as for mathematics or music, or it may contemplate only a combination of more ordinary powers. But there must be the possibility of continued satisfaction from the success- ful exercise of the activity. The second prerequisite, that of the quality of growing, it seems, is not equally necessary for all people; but on the whole the interest will not be abidingly gripping unless it continually faces at least some element of novelty.” ‘These I understand to be the prerequisites. Now what about the procedure?” Thee “The essential of the procedure is our old Hea es Law of Effect, ‘Practice with satisfaction.’ We building an = =must somehow get vigorous action along the hea desired line and of a kind that brings a high degree of satisfaction. Suppose we say it in tabular fashion: COERCION AND LEARNING 93 1. Get the activity going with zest — if possible in the face of obstacles that challenge all but the last reserves of power. See that success attends. 3. If possible, let there be approval from those whose approval is valued. ~ If the two prerequisites have been met and this procedure can be followed, I believe you will with practical certainty see an interest growing.” ‘You seem to think that overcoming hindrances is a help to interest. Isn’t that contrary to general opinion?”’ ‘Perhaps so, but I am sure of my ground. Granted an initial mind-set in that direction, there are, as Woodworth has pointed out,! few things so interesting as overcoming a difficulty that calls for all but the last ounce of available energy. Of course if difficulties of this sort keep on confronting us, we have to be sustained by a belief that the end is worthy of the effort. Approval of others helps just here; it steadies our faith in the end.” “What do you mean by an interest when you speak of building an interest? Your last remark seems to me to imply the presence of interest, but not of an interest, ; as I understand the term. Interest is there, is nes but it seems to be fleeting, found only in over- coming and the like. I thought you were to build up a per- manent interest in some end that would supply interest to the necessary means.” ‘“Your distinction is well made and properly made. We do contemplate building an interest that will carry its own drive. Unless it results that the end in view, or the working with and toward the end, carries its own drive, arouses an inner urge, is desired for its own sake — unless these things happen, no interest has been built. Now what I mean is 1 Dynamic Psychology, p. 102. Overcoming hindrances 94 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD this: If one does put heart and soul with very great endeavor into working for some end, especially for some difficult end; if one sees himself succeeding, if one hears meanwhile the plaudits of those whose praise counts with him — then not only is there interest in overcoming and in being ap- proved, but you may be reasonably sure that an interest will in time be built which will of its own pull carry the person on without plaudits, perhaps even against jeers, without even present signs of success, but with many and varied efforts in a real struggle to achieve the end that is called for by the interest. Such an interest becomes as it were an intrinsic source of effort, capable of lending interest to aux- iliary causes.”’ “From this discussion on building interests I see now more clearly than before how coercion fails. But couldn’t we go Virtues further? Wouldn’t these two discussions have as moral important bearings in the field of moral educa- interests tion?” “Just what do you have in mind?” ‘Are we not, in the realm of morals, mainly concerned with building what might be called moral interests? For example, with building up in the child interests in honesty and fair play and consideration of others? If I understand rightly, honesty is indeed the best policy, but the man who acts honestly merely from policy is not really honest. Do we not wish to make him love honesty for its own sake, and isn’t this substantially the same thing as the interest you have just described?” “Yes. We wish these moral virtues and other social inter- ests enthroned in the hearts of each one so that they are, so far as one’s feelings at the time go, their own justification for being. Of course we wish more than this by way of understanding the why of them and more in the way of loving our fellow men and so on; but you are exactly right as to COERCION AND LEARNING 95 their psychological character. They are interests to be built in the hearts of the young.” ‘‘And would the same procedure hold for these as for the others?” ‘Yes, so far as these are interests, they are to be built in the same way. But some of them are broad generalized ideas and would accordingly demand first the procedure necessary for making such generalizations. That, of course, is another story.” “Would the same limitations on coercion hold in building these interests as hold, say, in building a fondness for piano playing?”’ » ‘Yes, and perhaps in effect even more strongly. In piano playing we have the possibility that great natural capacity for music may bring success in spite of the lessened efforts due to the coercion. In this way we have the possi- bility that the opposed mind-set will disappear under these favorable conditions and an interest accordingly come to be built. There are even good grounds for supposing that strong native capacity and initial interest are usually found together. The coercion might in such cases serve to cut off rival activities. The native ability would do the rest.” “Might not the same thing hold in the realm of morals? Are there not born moral geniuses, just as there are born musical geniuses? I fail to see why the same discussion would not hold unchanged.”’ “It would probably hold unchanged if we were content to have as many people incompetent in morals as in music. We are for the most part willing — indeed more than willing — to leave the making of music to the gifted few. But every- body needs morals, especially —as the humorist said — does the other fellow. So we must try to build moral inter- ests often in mediocre native ability.” 96 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “You mean then that we may use coercion in morals where we don’t in music?”’ ‘‘No. Coercion is just as hurtful in one as in the other. We saw that coercion, if skillfully managed, might in music cut off thwarting interests and give the natural interests a chance to develop. In the same way, skillfully applied, it may help in morals, but we must remember that morals must be built even where there is no pronounced moral capacity to help us.” “T wish you would illustrate this. I don’t quite follow all you have said.” “Suppose at home some evening the younger children per- _ sist in making so much noise that the older children cannot study and their parents cannot read. What panei should we do and why?” “That’s easy. I’d tell them to stop. If they didn’t I’d send them to bed. Coercion or not, I cer- tainly would not allow any of my children to ruin everybody else’s happiness, and I’d do it for their own good as well. Spoiling children does what the word says; it ‘spoils’ them.” “Well, that is what most people would do and for the same reasons. But let’s examine the matter a little. There are several ways of sizing up this situation. We may con- sider the rights of the parents and the older children to rea- sonable quiet and the attitudes of the younger children toward these rights. So stated, we have an educational situa- tion strongly suggested. The younger children either don’t understand or don’t appreciate or won’t respect the rights of the others. Each of these failures is a matter within the realm of education. A diagnosis should accordingly be made to locate the exact defects, and the proper educational pro- | cedure should be followed to correct them. Am I right?” ‘You may be right, but you haven’t told us what to do. Would you punish the children or not?’ COERCION AND LEARNING of. “Certainly not until I had made an educational diagnosis and not then unless I could see in reason that the proposed punishment promised to supply the needed educational stimulation called for in their particular cases.”’ “Don’t you believe wrongdoing must be punished?” ‘‘As you ask it, no. The sole reason the parent can properly have for punishing a child is the foreseen educative effect that is to follow.” ‘What about spoiling a child? Isn’t it a real danger?” “Yes, but it is brought about by bad education. I un- derstand a spoiled child to be one who thinks his wish fur- nishes sufficient grounds for getting what he pgucational wishes, and who is moreover disposed to make diagnosis and things uncomfortable for others till he gets it. Teen Now both of these attitudes can come in only one way: he has tried them with such uniform success that they have been fixed in him. They can be removed only by reversing the process. He must learn by the action of satisfaction and annoyance that his wish is not sufficient, that others have rights which he must take into account, and that making himself a nuisance is not a socially satisfactory way to secure ends. It may take time and patience on the part of his elders for him to learn these things, but there is no other course available.” ‘And what is the psychology of the procedure?”’ “There are two possible ways of procedure: one is to attach annoyance to the children’s wrong behavior, the other is to see that satisfaction attends the right. Of course both at times may be combined.” ‘You refer in the first to the use of punishment?” ‘““Yes, and it is best available when the annoyance will be attached uniquely to the wrongdoing. Otherwise there is danger that wrong aversions may be built up, perhaps to the mother for interfering, or to the home as a place where unpleasant things happen, or to the older sister for com- 98 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD plaining, or to duty as a disagreeable word that figures Punishment Whenever pleasures are curtailed. It is this and itslimi- uncertain effect of punishment, and indeed of une all coercion, that makes it so unreliable an agency for moral betterment. If the attendant annoyance happens to be misplaced, mis-education takes place.” “The second possible procedure then is more satisfactory?” ‘““It promises better in every way, though it is less easy for the unthinking to apply than the ‘Shut-up-or-be-sent-to- bed’ procedure.”’ ‘‘Do you recognize any proper place for coercion other than those already mentioned?”’ ““We didn’t say explicitly, I believe, that coercion may at times be properly used to prevent the exercise of certain undesirable practices and consequently prevent the forma- tion of undesirable habits. But even here a positive régime of building good interests instead is, if feasible, far more desirable.’’ ‘‘ Are there then no other uses for coercion — none what- ever?” ‘““Oh, yes. Coercion may properly be used as an emergency measure to prevent damage to one’s self or to others or to valuable property. In themselves these are not educational measures, though we can never forget that they have edu- cative effects, usually mixed, some bad and some good.” ““You seem then to count coercion always as an evil, but sometimes as the least of the evils confronting one.” The lcone ‘fT think it has always attendant evils. Fre- clusion quently, perhaps usually, these evils outweigh its good. Sometimes the reverse is true. The constant use of coercion, however, is a sign of bad teaching somewhere.” REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING Woopworts — Dynamic Psychology, pp. 200 ff. See also references at the end of Chapter V (page 73). CHAPTER VIII THe Wiper PRoBLeEM or Meruop “Would not the psychology we have recently been studying affect the simultaneous learnings we discussed the first time we came together? I mean psy- chological set and readiness. We have dis- ae Lee bectae cussed how these influence ordinary ‘main-line’ taneous learning, so to speak; but I should think readi- aaa ness and the like would make a great difference in the simul- taneous ‘side-line’ learnings.”’ “IT am glad you have brought this up. The wider problem of method has greatly impressed me from the time we first discussed it. I have been thinking about it ever since.” “T too have often thought of how we inevitably face the wider problem of method every time we face a class. Ina particular instance I might wish to think , ; : ; The impor- mainly of arithmetic, for example, but more tance of the than arithmetic is going on — inevitably going Wider problem on — and I am responsible for all. Inevitable, rer responsible — these are sobering words to me. I wish I knew better how to meet the responsibility.” “And the importance of the attitudes that are being built! Just think that to these children the attitudes they are building toward life in its various aspects probably mean more for their future than anything else they learn; and we are in good part responsible for these attitudes.” ‘“What do you mean by saying that the children’s atti- tudes mean so much for their future?”’ 99 100 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “TI mean that what anyone does, or perhaps better, tries to do, depends on the attitudes one has built. Perhaps I am just telling what J mean by attitude, but ne satan to me my attitude toward anything is what I customarily think about that thing and how I am customarily inclined to behave towards that thing. My attitude toward my friend includes what I customarily think when I think about my friend and what I am cus- tomarily inclined to do when the time comes to act in rela- tion to him or her. The patriot’s attitude toward his country is different from the traitor’s, partly in what he thinks, partly in what he does; but each has his habitual way of thinking about and acting towards his country and his country’s good.” ‘From what you say, attitudes come pretty near to being the stuff of which character is built.” “That’s just it, and I mean then that we are helping these children to build characters each day and all the time. And Characterjs the building is inevitable. The children must being built | and do build attitudes of one sort or the other, all the time —_ favorable attitudes toward, or unfavorable atti- tudes against. It can’t be avoided. It goes on all the time. They are all the time building attitudes in regard to sub- ject, school, teacher, themselves, ways of going about things. That they build attitudes is inevitable; but what kind do they build? That is where our responsibility comes in.” ‘And is this what you mean by the wider problem of method? I wasn’t here when you talked about that.’ : “Yes, in good part at least. The wider The wider ; problem of | problem of method is how to manage myself, Bey manage the schoolroom, the children, every- thing concerned, so that the children shall grow most and best from it all.” THE WIDER PROBLEM OF METHOD 101 ‘‘And the emphasis here is on all the learnings combined as a whole?”’ ‘Yes, whether we like it or not, or know it or not, all the learnings will come together. We are responsible for the aggregate, for the combination.”’ “That’s why you call it the ‘wider problem,’ is it not?” “Yes, the ‘narrow problem’ concerns itself with any one or more of the details taken separately; the ‘wider problem’ considers the aggregate, the whole.” “One thing that struck me before in our discussion is that in such things as attitudes we are dealing with things that we cannot assign as tasks. I mean we .. cannot say that the children must get this or ae caesii that kind or degree of attitude or else we’l] cannot be y y Cagis assigned punish them. Imagine a scale of appreciation of good literature and our saying to the poorer pupils, ‘Some of you children are behind in your appreciation of the “Psalm of Life.’”? Those who do not measure up to Unit 14 on the Jones Scale must stay in every afternoon till they have caught up.’ That plan wouldn’t work.” “IT am not sure how well it ever worked even with as- signed spelling or arithmetic, but it certainly sounds absurd when you apply it to appreciation of literature. No, it wouldn’t work. There are some things that cannot be assigned under penalty for failure to learn. It looks on the face of it as if this were true of all attitudes.” ‘And if life’s decisions spring largely from one’s attitudes, attitude building is then about the most important part of education. Isn’t it?” ‘“‘T see no way out of it.” — “Doesn’t it seem odd, then — wrong, I mean— to try to run our schools on a plan that cannot take care of what is probably the most important part of education?” 102 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD ‘Do you mean that we are trying to run our schools on the assignment-testing-penalty basis?” ‘Yes, I think that till recently this has been Our schools eh Ae too largely the prevailing notion in our country and through- ignore out the world; and probably it is still the posi- attitudes : ; ; : ; tion assumed in most curriculum discussions.” “Tt is wrong, it must be wrong, to ignore the building of attitudes, and we must change our management of chil- dren. Our schools must be changed. I think already I see many signs of the change coming. Probably, however, most people haven’t seen it yet. I know I had never realized what it meant till we began to talk about it.” “Don’t you think if we had some good names to use— terms, I suppose our more pedantic friends would call them —it would be easier to get people to see the true situation?”’ ‘Yes, and I have some to propose. I heard them at summer school last summer. The terms as I got them Fe ip were ‘primary,’ ‘associate,’ and ‘concomitant.’ desobintetand Mi ML eww OLd ‘primary’ was used to refer to concomitant all the learning that belongs closely to the enter- learnings Bere y : : prise immediately under consideration: If I am making a dress, then the primary learning includes all the learning that comes from the actual making, such as in- creased skill in planning and cutting. “The term ‘associate’ is usually found in the phrase ‘associate suggestions,’ and refers to all those allied thoughts or ideas that come from working on the dress, but which, if followed up then, would lead me away from my dress- making. I may thus be thinking whether the dress will wash, and so think about the dye used, and ask myself how such dyes are prepared. This in its place is a valuable and proper question, but I do not need to answer it in order to make this dress, and if I do try to answer it, I must for the time lay aside my dressmaking. THE WIDER PROBLEM OF METHOD 103 “The ‘concomitant’ learnings grow (in part at least) out of the dressmaking, but do not belong so closely or ex- clusively to the dress as do the primary. I may thus say, ‘I see it pays to be careful.’ I learned this, perhaps in connection with making the dress, but it may and should remain with me as an ideal that will reach beyond dress- making. In general we may say that the concomitant learnings have to do with the more generalized ideals and attitudes, while the primary learning has rather to do with specific knowledges and skills. The concomitant is, typi- cally, of slower growth, requiring perhaps many successive experiences to fix it permanently in one’s character. Prom- inent among concomitants are personal attitudes, attitudes toward one’s teachers or comrades, attitudes toward the several subjects of study (as geography or history), atti- tudes toward one’s self, such as self-reliance or pride or humility. Other important concomitants are standards of workmanship and the like, neatness, accuracy, or the reverse.”’ “I see what you mean, but why must you introduce more ‘terms,’ as you call them? If you people who study and read books would only learn to use everyday words, you’d be much more popular and do much more good. And why do you choose such outlandish words for your terms? Who ever uses such a word as ‘concomitant’? Why don’t you choose a short word? But I didn’t mean to offend you.” “You didn’t really offend me. I suppose it was another case of ‘pride going before a fall.’ I was proud of myself that I had made my meaning clear, for I con- fess I had trouble last summer in getting the idea. And you are in good company in wishing for simpler terms, for I remember the professor said that he felt he ought to apologize for such long words and he The use of terms 104 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD asked us to suggest shorter ones, only we couldn’t. But you, in my judgment, are wrong in objecting to ‘terms.’ They help us to think. Why, ever since I got these distinctions I can see the things themselves more clearly. In fact I never really saw the things in my pupils until I got these distinguishing terms. A name, let me tell you, 1s the way to hold and spread an idea. When you talk about a thing and give it its proper name, you yourself have something to hold to, while other people begin to ask what is meant and to look for the thing back of the name. Without terms there would be little exact thinking.’ ‘‘I suppose you are right. It sounds reasonable. At any rate, I can’t argue against you. But I wish you would explain how you actually use these terms ‘primary,’ ‘asso- ciate,’ and ‘concomitant.’ ” ‘Principally they make me critical of my work. I mean they help direct my self-criticism. I used to be content if The use of ™yY pupils didn’t miss in daily recitation work the designa- and could pass on the term examinations. I tive terms = thought that was all. Now I know better. That was being satisfied with the primary only. I never thought about the associate suggestions, and but little of what I now call concomitants. It is not that I do not value the primary now; I do value it, perhaps just as much as before, only differently, more intelligently, I believe. But I think a great deal more about the other two. “Besides, I used to be impatient if my children asked questions suggested by the lesson but not on the lesson. Using You see my eyes were glued on the course of associate study, and I thought of these questions only suggestions as evidence of mind wandering. I still am troubled to keep the class sufficiently intent on the matter THE WIDER PROBLEM OF METHOD 105 at hand, but I feel differently about the outside questions and I act differently. Now I feel that my pupils and I are really succeeding when these associated suggestions arise. Properly used, they mean growth. We don’t yield to the present inclination to follow them up, but we do notice them enough to see whither they invite us. Sometimes we write them down for future use. And I see that a dif- ferent attitude is already growing up in the class. The chil- dren are more thoughtful. Associated suggestions noted in the past come up again in their right places, and James or Mary is proud to have foreseen the point. They feel dif- ferently toward me too. We seem to be working more sympathetically, and we really enjoy thinking things out together and connecting them all properly. I find that I respect my pupils more; and, really, the advance connec- tions they see are remarkable. My pupils think more connectedly now, instead of less connectedly as I feared. Their organization is much better. You see I was before- times repressing rather than encouraging their natural inclinations to think. “And as for the concomitants, I am now much concerned about them, particularly as to what attitudes are being built and how I can help forward the better ones. I see now that I always valued those things, the ideals and attitudes of my pupils: but I didn’t concern myself consciously and specifically about them. I somehow trusted to luck about them. The pupils who were going to have good ideals were going to have them, and that was all there was about it. I scolded sometimes and I criticized a good deal, but I now think that in so doing I did more harm than good. Now I know that each ideal and each attitude has a life-history of its own; each is built up just as truly as is any fact of knowledge or any skill.”’ Using con- comitants 106 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “It seems to me that you are now contradicting yourself. Harlier you were speaking of these attitudes as being built Are attitudes incidentally. Now you talk as if you seek sought them directly. Which is right?” gurcuye “So far as the child is concerned they are principally built incidentally, that is, in connection with other purposes of his. I as teacher, however, must be conscious of what he is doing and steer his various activities so that the proper ideals and attitudes shall actually grow up. I consider them consciously; he achieves them — for the most part — indirectly. But at times we do talk mat- ters over, because clear consciousness is often an important factor in building ideals.” “‘T understand you now on that point, but I wish to ask further. Do you then judge each thing the children do under these three heads of primary, associate, Is each act ; to be judged and concomitant?”’ in these “Typically, yes. Each study period, each terms? Be ‘ + inion we recitation period, and each recess is in its own measure going to result in primary learning of some kind, well or ill done; in few or many, rich or poor, associated suggestions; In good or bad concomitants. As teacher, I am in some measure responsible, and in so far I must know what is going on and adequately appraise the results. In the light of the results — so far as I do or could influence them — am I to be judged.”’ “Isn’t it different now? If I understand you aright, we examine and promote almost if not entirely on the The primary Primary learning, and disregard the other two.” is now too “Yes, I think we do. You see we can test much stressed the primary learning so much more easily than we can the others. The new scientific tests and measures of achievement even reinforce the tendency to pay exclu- sive attention to the primary, because they are so far for THE WIDER PROBLEM OF METHOD 107 the most part confined to the more mechanical skills and knowledges. I sometimes fear their first effect will be to fasten the merely mechanical side of school work even more firmly on our schools.”’ “Well, you certainly surprise me now. You have al- ways been eager for each new advance of science, as I have heard you say, and here you are decrying what you must admit is at least one of the most scientific steps yet taken in the study of education. I didn’t expect it of you.” ‘The new tests are indeed a contribution of the very first value, but what I say is still true. So far as they measure achievement they are up to now 7, na oer largely confined to the more mechanical as- in the pects of learning. A superintendent gives a 2¢W tests series of tests in spelling, arithmetic, or reading. Sooner or later the teachers learn the records of their classes, and unless the superintendent is wise they will find themselves rated according to these records. If the superintendent could as satisfactorily measure the teacher’s success in building ideals and attitudes, so that all the educational outcomes could be weighed, the situation would be different. But as matters now stand the superintendent is in danger of taking the teacher’s attention away from the ‘imponder- ables,’ the ideals and attitudes and moral habits that can- not yet be measured in wholesale quantities, and of fasten- ing that attention upon a part only of the educational output and that the most mechanical.” “Don’t you think this a fanciful picture? Is there really any danger?”’ ‘Indeed it is not a fanciful picture. The danger is very real. Such considerations as this make me look earnestly for the day when we shall be able to measure the whole gamut of achievement. I believe that day will come and a great day it will be. Till then, however, I should advise 108 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD superintendents and supervisors to consider carefully how they use the tests. Let them use the tests, but with a clear sense of their limitations and dangers. In the mean- while there is the greater reason for urging attention to the wider problem of method. We must make everyone see the value of the concomitant learning and of the associate sug- gestions. Every recitation period, every school exercise, must be appraised under all three heads of primary, asso- ciate, and concomitant.”’ “Tf you made your*expression even stronger, I should not object. When I consider that while we are stressing THelercnter arithmetic, for example, our children are form- need to ing at the same time the very warp and woof study method of their moral characters, I shudder to think of the consequences if our teachers see only the arithmetic and ignore the life-attitudes being built. Fortunately, there is no necessary opposition between the two, rather the contrary; but nothing can excuse us for failing to consider those other outcomes that inevitably accompany every school activity.” “You seem to connect the wider problem of method in some peculiar sense with the problem of life. Am I right?” ‘“Yes. The wider problem of method seems to me now to be almost the same as the moral problem of life itself. As I see it, our schools have in the past chosen Root ays from the whole of life certain intellectualistic method is tools (skills and knowledges), have arranged prepara these under the heads of reading, arithmetic, geography, and so on, and have taught these separately as if they would, when once acquired, recombine into the worthy life. This now seems to me to be very far from sufficient. Not only do these things not make up the whole of life; but we have so fixed attention upon the separate teaching of these as at times to starve the weightier THE WIDER PROBLEM OF METHOD 109 matters of life and character. The only way to learn to live well is to practice living well. Our highly artificial study of arithmetic and geography and physics has too often meant that the child lived but meagerly in and through the school studies. The practice of living that has in fact counted most for him has often been what he and his like-starved fellows could contrive for themselves apart from their elders. Educative indeed has this been, but not always wisely so. There is no cause for wonder that American citizenship disappoints. Democracy demands a high type of character. Our schools have not risen to the demand upon them.”’ “Do you mean that the wider problem of method espe- cially concerns building for citizenship?”’ “That is exactly what I mean. It has always been so. Without clearly distinguishing what they did, or rather how the results have been attained, each long- abiding type or ideal of civilization has con- Peete ae trived its answer to this wider problem of has used its method in such fashion as to mold the type of Pes teap character correlatively needed to perpetuate itself. The Spartan and the Athenian of antiquity differed from each other quite as much by reason of different methods of education as because of the different contents of the curriculum. ‘The proverbial ‘hardening’ of the former was sign and result of the treatment accorded their youth. The slave of every age has by well-contrived processes been made lowly in spirit in order that he might the more con- tentedly bear his hard lot and lowly station. Civilizations have differed much as to whether the individual man should think for himself. Those opposed to such thinking have always contrived such methods of treating their young as early habituated them to acquiescence in the officially ap- proved opinions. Prussia, old China, Mahomet, the Jesu- 110 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD its, the older military discipline, all represent various efforts along this line. These have differed among them- selves almost in toto as to the primary learning they have sought to inculcate; but they have been agreed markedly in the methods of inculcating the concomitants, the desired attitudes.”’ ‘Does this have any lesson for this country?” “Indeed, yes. We in this country must study anew this problem of method in order the more adequately to devise To America the proper treatment of our young so as to fit its appropriate them for democratic citizenship. The begin- oes ning of this wisdom, I believe, is to recognize the fact that the child learns many things at once. On this rock of simultaneous learnings shall we by proper effort rear the needed structure of an all-round character.” “Don’t you think we ought to study more about these The loeteh ot simultaneous learnings? Wouldn’t our psy- ogy of simul- Chology help us?”’ ee ( “Yes, our psychology will help and we ought to bring it to bear on the problem. I should like nothing better than to follow it out.” ‘First I should like to ask how your S > R formula fits what you call simultaneous learnings. S— R seems rather simple, single as it were, while these simultaneous learn- ings seem complexity itself.” ‘“That’s a good question. To help answer it let’s bor- row from James two terms that he in turn had borrowed Roce and from Lloyd Morgan, focus and margin. As they © margin of used them, the thing we are mainly thinking — aria about at any one time is at that time in the — focus of consciousness. We are here discussing and think- — ing about these terms; they are accordingly in the focus; but while they are there the janitor opens the door and comes in to shut the windows. He was closing the windows _ THE WIDER PROBLEM OF METHOD 111 before any one of us thought much about him. The kind of thinking by which we were aware of his coming in (yet continued to give principal and direct attention to our dis- cussion) these writers called marginal. At any one time we are giving focal attention to one thing, while on the side, as it were, we may be giving marginal attention to one or more other things. For certain purposes it is in- teresting to note that one’s attention is frequently shifted; what is now marginal may in a moment become focal, and what is now focal may then be marginal. When the window stuck and the janitor had to make serious efforts in order to lower it, we all began to watch. He and his window efforts ceased then to be marginal to us and became focal.” ‘‘TDoesn’t this mean that there are many things on the margin, but only one in the focus?” “Ves, there are many marginal stimulations and, if you watch closely, also many marginal responses. While we are here thinking of focus and margin, which is our . ‘ ean Many margi- focal response, we are also responding by sitting nat stimula- rather than lolling or falling out of our chairs. tions and We are turning heads and directing eyes now to oR this speaker and now to that. Some are taking notes. As one leaves the room, the others turn mechanically to let him pass. There are, during any extended period of atten- tion to any one main focus, a host of marginal stimulations and a host of marginal responses.” “Do not the ‘concomitants’ come in here?” “Yes precisely. They are — speaking generally — mar- ginal responses. We are pleased or displeased with this or that line of thought. This weighing or valuing, the ac- companying likes and dislikes, as now this and now that meets approval or disapproval — all of these are typically marginal responses.” 112 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD ‘‘Isn’t it true that almost no one can give focal attention to one thing indefinitely? I think I have heard so.” “Yes, there is normally a shift, possibly due to fatigue. The well-ordered mind comes back to its undertaking, but some people just hop from one thing to another The shift of focal attention 1 ‘Succession. Of course they are not so efficient.” ‘Then the efficient person will during a considerable period of time have a principal focus of attention. From time to time his attention is drawn off, but he comes back. This principal focus guides and directs his steps.” ‘‘It seems to me that you are now merely describing with & new set of terms a mind-set and how it works. The ef- ficient person is one who is capable of holding faci cal teens one end in view, more or less continuously, till it is attained or until he finds out he cannot reasonably attain it. Your principal focus seems to be about the same thing as the end upon which the mind is set.”’ ‘Yes, I think you are right. But some one else has a question.” ‘I was going to ask if the marginal stimulations we are all the time receiving do not attack and jeopardize, as it were, the focal mind-set?” ‘Yes, and any one of these marginal stimulations, if the mind-set be not strong, may dislodge the present focal object and itself become focal.” “Isn’t that exactly what happens when street noises dis- tract the attention of a class? They are certainly side How distrac- Stimulations, and if they find the children not tions may interested in the lesson, they certainly dislodge Peco soca gi ty Long division or prepositions or the Mis- sour Compromise easily give way to a brass band. I am on a street where every procession comes by, and nearly THE WIDER PROBLEM OF METHOD 113 every procession becomes focal for my pupils. Have I got the idea?”’ ‘“Rxactly, and your illustrations are apt.” “But isn’t it hard sometimes to tell the difference be- tween suggestions that distract and tear down and sugges- tions that bring up new and constructive ideas? Are both marginal?”’ “You are quite right in distinguishing the two kinds of suggestions, and the line of demarcation may well be hard to draw. Both may be suggested by the focus. One would lead attention away and so bring another object into focus. ‘The other makes the old focal object grow. The rival thought suggested by the focus is what we called above an ‘associate suggestion.’ The suggestion that makes the focal object grow belongs to the primary learning.” “The word ‘efficient’ was earlier used in connection with those people whose attention remains true to one object, who fasten their fortune to one focus. Are there Tha eet ant limits to this? Suppose a coal pops out of the too little fire and I am too absorbed in writing to notice fixedness that the rug is burning, am I really efficient?” neva “You mean that a person ought to be reasonably alert to marginal stimulations. Indeed, yes. We call the other kind ‘absent-minded,’ and often laugh at their queer ways. Common sense seems to suggest a kind of middle ground between being scatter-brained and being absent-minded.”’ “Do not certain moral considerations enter here?”’ ‘What do you have in mind?”’ ‘Well, imagine a person anxious to make a trip. I have seen people who, once having got this idea into their heads, could see nothing else. The work left behind yroratity and undone, the resulting inconvenience to others, marginal ~ eosts — none of these things got any consider- Busses ons ation. Once the trip had gained the focus, it held on 114 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD against everything else. The person seemed to have be- come blind and deaf to every other consideration. I should call this selfishness.”’ “Tf I understand you then, a person facing a situation ought to be open to a great variety of questions besides the bare one of how to effect the end in view? Otherwise he may act wrongly.” ‘Yes, before the end is accepted all its significant bearings ought to receive attention: Is the proposed enterprise wise and right? Is the cost reasonable? And even after it is accepted there should still be marginal sensitivity to new considerations. New evidence may demand a revision of judgment.”’ “Well, isn’t this just another way of saying again that there must be a just balance between the shut-mindedness of overmuch persistence and the open-mindedness which is too ready to take up new leads.”’ ‘This all sounds good and true, but haven’t we forgotten the simultaneous learnings we started out to discuss?” ‘‘Not a bit. We needed the notions of focus and margin to help us with simultaneous learnings. Take this last ques- tion about the preliminary consideration of right and wrong and the like, might a person so act as to increase his persist- ence or his sensitivity in such matters?” ‘“‘Assuredly he might. Take persistence, for example. If he does persist this time more than usual and it turns out How persist. Well, what has psychology to say?” ence may be ‘‘T see, you mean ‘Practice with satisfaction.’ ocr eae If he practices with satisfaction a new per- sistency, this new and stronger persistency will grow to be habitual with him. Is that right?” “Yes, only we must not say that he will necessarily be equally persistent along all lines. His new persistence is likely to be limited pretty largely to this one line.” | : / { THE WIDER PROBLEM OF METHOD 115 ‘“‘Might his persistency grow too strong along one line?” “Indeed, yes; and it will probably so grow if there is no annoyance to rise up and check it. Your py cistence selfish man may be an instance.”’ may be too “Does this mean that he has learned to 2°! disregard the marginal responses that should warn him?” “Tt probably means that. If the warnings come and he disregards them and is satisfied with the results, he will in time almost certainly learn not even to hear or see such warnings. If, however, he obeys the warnings and is satis- fied with doing so, then he will likely increase in sensitivity to such warnings.” ‘“‘Tt seems then that all depends on how it works, whether he is satisfied or not with the results.”’ ‘“Fxactly so. This is nothing but our Law of Effect at work. Two things are necessary if one is to improve: The right and good must stand out from the wrong yoy censi- and bad, so as to be seen and known, and one tivity may be must be pleased with the right and troubled by et telohe the bad. If these conditions are met and one acts accord- ingly, growth in sensitivity to the right will come as a plain matter of fact.” ‘‘Sensitivity to all right things?” “Indeed, no. Sensitivity along this one line and in some measure to other allied lines.” “Tg this the way that the proper balance is built up? I mean the balance between overmuch shut-mindedness on the one hand and a helter-skelter scatter-brainedness on the other hand?” “Yes, in just this way; and here is where the teacher comes in, to help build the proper sensitivities.” “Tsn’t this our problem of method seen from another point of view?” ‘What do you mean?”’ 116 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD ‘“‘T mean this, that what a person sees in any situation depends partly on what there is in the situation to be seen, Method and PUt possibly just as much on the person himself, the buildmg the sensitivities that he has built up so as to see of sensitivities the elements in the situation. We have seen how sensitivity is built. Now isn’t method, the new notion of method, just an effort to take care of building the proper sensitivities?” “That sounds interesting, but I wish you would say more about it. I don’t quite see.” ‘““Why just this. We have already discussed how a person is stimulated marginally while he is paying main attention focally; he is inevitably so stimulated in many ways. We also have seen that there are many other elements in the situation that might and would stimulate us, at least mar- ginally, if only we were sensitive to them. Isn’t method just an effort to give larger opportunity and encouragement to building up sensitivities and attitudes in our young people, especially along these marginal lines?” ‘Why say ‘especially’ along these lines? Are the marginal responses more important than others?” “T say ‘especially,’ partly because they are very important, partly because they are now so largely overlooked.”’ “It seems to me that we are now in the heart of the ques- tion of method, that is, the newer conception, the wider problem of method.” “Do you mean that it is our method of dealing with children that largely determines their marginal responses?” ‘“That’s exactly what I mean. And it is the Method and j ; ; marginal marginal responses that build centers of interest aed Sarat and stimulation.” ‘“‘T thought I agreed with you till you said ‘centers of interest and stimulation.’ Then I got lost. What do you mean?” THE WIDER PROBLEM OF METHOD 117 ‘To answer, let’s separate ‘centers of interest’ from ‘centers of sensitivity,’ though we’ll see in a minute they are but two ways of describing the same thing. What is a Possibly the word ‘center’ is a stumbling block. center of Let’s look at it first. You agree that we may imterest? build an interest?” “Yes, I know as a child when I first heard of collecting stamps I thought it too silly for words. Later on I built so strong an interest in it myself that to this day it makes me notice and desire any unusual stamp. Itis almost a nuisance, as I don’t really wish them for myself and I have no one else to give them to.” “This interest that you built was composed of SR bonds?”’ “I suppose so; it must have been if our psychology is right.’ ‘One $— R bond or a lot of them, an aggregate?” “Why I suppose a kind of organized aggregate centering about keeping unusual stamps.” ‘Now that is exactly what I mean by a ‘center of interest,’ an aggregate of S—> R bonds so organized as to center about some one thing as an interest.” ‘“Where does the sensitivity come in?” “That’s clear enough with my bothersome stamps. I can’t help seeing the things. I am very sensitive to the sight of any unusual stamp.”’ “Yes, and if we think a minute, sensitivity goes with the interest. It always does. Whatever you are interested in, you are keener to see.”’ “Isn’t this just what we said about mind-set and readi- ness?” ‘Exactly so. An interest is but the abiding possibility of a mind-set, and a mind-set always means readiness along that line.” 118 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “Then to go back; if I understand you, you mean that we build interests and their accompanying sensitivities largely through paying attention to our marginal A Catt responses and that the problem of method is mainly then the problem of how to stimulate the right kind of marginal responses. Am I right?” “Yes, but not only to stimulate the right kind of re- sponses. We must also give opportunity to respond ac- cordingly and under such conditions as will select the good from the bad and give satisfaction to the good and annoy- ance to the bad.” ‘““You never lose a chance to emphasize ‘such conditions as select the good from the bad’ or ‘give satisfaction to the good and annoyance to the bad.’ You surely lay stress on them.” ‘‘Indeed I do, and I do it because they form the founda- tion of all learning.”’ ‘“‘T am surprised that you as teacher wish to hand out satisfaction and annoyance. Are you not afraid that you will antagonize the pupils?”’ “T do not wish myself to apportion satisfaction and annoyance. I am afraid of just what you say. I wish as far as possible that these be inherent in what the children do. | Otherwise I should fear lest I defeat my own method by stimulating the wrong marginal responses. I refer to emo- tional responses against me and against the things I ap- prove.” “Do you mean that method is especially concerned with the marginal responses and not the focal?’”’ ‘Method is concerned with both, but I here stress margi- — nal for the reasons stated before. They are very important — and we have too often neglected their method effect.” ‘“Does method working through marginal responses seek to build anything else besides interests and sensitivities?” 4 « ! THE WIDER PROBLEM OF METHOD 119 “These are general terms; I have in mind every variety of interest, attitudes, ideals, standards, appreciations. All of these mean structures of 5 — R bonds capable of bringing about significant mind-sets and their appropriate readiness.” ‘Tam sorry that we must stop thus in the middle of things, but there is too much ahead for us to go on now to the end.” ‘“Won’t you say one word in conclusion?” “Tf I am restricted to a brief statement, it shall be this: We must depend upon method working upon marginal responses to build centers of interest.” REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING | See references at the end of Chapter I (page 18). CHAPTER IX THe Wiper ProspLem or Metruop — Concluded ‘‘Can we go on from where we left off last time? I am very anxious to learn more about method and marginal re- sponses.’’ ‘“‘By all means. What question do you raise first?” “Is there not a very wide range of stimulation? Some seem very obvious and impelling, others very delicate. I The range of SUPpose every degree lies in between.” marginal ‘You are quite right. The most obvious and stimulations =~ impelling will bring a focal response willy-nilly: the others shade off to those that we just barely notice.”’ ‘Could you illustrate? It isn’t quite clear to me.” ‘In ordinary life you can hardly avoid hearing and notic- ing a thunderclap. It is too loud not to be heard. Or better still, if someone sticks a pin sharply into your arm, the stimulation will immediately become focal. You can’t help it. Similarly in an ordinary schoolroom there are some stimulations more impelling than others. The word of com- mand of the teacher is the principal means relied upon to secure voluntary focal attention. This works because the children have built already certain attitudes of obedience. The doings of fellow students, street noises, heat or cold — these if emphatic enough will produce focal attention, dis- placing the teacher’s tasks from the focus. ‘So much for the stimulations to focal attention. The most immediately impelling stimulations to marginal responses are perhaps the tone and manner of the teacher, and the observed responses of the other pupils. These come 120 THE WIDER PROBLEM OF METHOD 121 at the outset of any new undertaking. Later on, the success or failure of what is undertaken brings very impelling margi- nal responses. ’’ ‘““Do you mean that the tone and the manner of the teacher stir to approval or disapproval?”’ “Yes, and to like and dislike. As I see it each child is building all the time centers of interest (whether of like or dislike) regarding the teacher, the school, AANA the subject, the way of doing things, the pupil’s interest own self-esteem in its various degrees of self- always being ‘ os uilt confidence or conceit or abasement, a liking or disliking for the pupils he works with, etc., etc. Each of these is a center both of sensitivity to receive impressions and of expression to give out responses. What results from the responses is of course determined by the laws of learn- ing.” “But these are not the only environmental factors that stir to marginal responses, are they?” ‘Indeed, no. One consideration, very important but less obvious perhaps than the foregoing, is whether the general scheme of school life, both of curriculum and of management, does or does not satisfy the ‘natural’ aspirations of child- hood and youth. Such aspirations of course are very varied. If the ‘higher’ aspirations are stimulated and granted satisfactory expression, the ‘lower’ are likely to be inhibited. This one question of expressing childhood and youth is big enough for much study and many books. The felt adequacy or inadequacy of the available self-expression creates in the class and school a popular mind- set which by its attendant readinesses and un- spirit readinesses determines in turn, for the adoles- cent at any rate, almost everything else about a school.” “T hadn’t thought of it in just these terms, but I can see what you mean. Will it not, however, be true that this 122 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD adequacy or inadequacy as the pupils see it will vary greatly with the times? If they don’t expect too much, won’t they more easily be satisfied?”’ ‘Yes, and that creates one of our very difficult problems, but we can not, I fear, go into it now.” ‘What are some of the least obvious or least compelling’ environmental influences? Would you, among these, name Least com- He pictures on the wall?” pelling “Yes, both their esthetic value and the stimulations), R? We have many such bonds and carry them about with us, but they are active only as stimulated.” ‘So far so good, but I was thinking of mind-set, which is of course based on S—R. To have tennis as an abiding NBevehotost interest means to have built up already in the cally, interest past within one an aggregate of tennis-regarding ismind-set_ = and tennis-acting S > R bonds such that when this aggregate is properly stimulated we have and feel right then and there a mind-set on tennis, and when this mind-set is so aroused, the person is at that time actively interested In tennis.” ‘Tf I understand you then, interest is psychologically the same as mind-set. The abiding but now unaroused interest means the possession of an appropriate aggregate of SR bonds. When this aggregate is stirred so that the mind is now set on doing something about this thing, the interest is active.”’ ‘“Iixactly so. Interest to me is simply another way of naming and describing the psychology of mind-set and readiness.” “To you, then, the doctrine of interest in education is nothing but the doctrine of mind-set and learning. Am I right?” INTEREST 139 ‘““Yes, practically that.” ‘Where does readiness come in?”’ “When one is interested, actively interested at the pres- ent time, as the little girl is in making a doll’s dress, 1s there any readiness?’’ “Surely, she is ready ‘all over,’ as we said once before when we were discussing mind-set and readiness. But this only confirms the idea that interest and mind-set are the same thing.” ‘Ts this why interest is a favorable condition for learning?” ‘“Tixactly so. We could if we wished repeat under the head of interest our whole discussion of mind-set and learning and this in all its applications to pri- poy interest mary, associate, and concomitant learnings.’’ __ is favorable “Does this mean that there is no such thing * lems as spoiling, that we have nothing to fear under that head?” “Not a bit of it. I thmk we can accept pretty much everything that has been said here to-day against indulgence and spoiling.” | ‘‘Now I am getting confused. At one time the doctrine of interest is the same as the doctrine of mind-set and readi- ness and is all good. But now we seem to hear that the doctrine of interest is a doctrine of indulgence and spoiling and is, therefore, bad. Which is it? Good or bad?” “Not quite so fast. Are all mind-sets good or may some of them be bad?”’ “Some may be bad.”’ ‘‘ And interests, are they good or may they be bad?”’ “Of course, they may be bad, but that is not quite the question. It is the ‘doctrine of interest’ we are asking about. What is the doctrine of interest? I understand a doctrine of interest to be some position or opinion as to how interest should be used. Now what is the doctrine of interest? ”’ 140 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “It seems to me that we find advocated two doctrines of interest. They overlap perhaps, but one is carelessly conceived and the other carefully conceived. One is clearly indefensible. The other stands on quite a different basis.” ‘“How do you state the two?” ‘The indefensible position is the one we heard about at the outset to-day. It says that since interest is the condi- tion favorable for learning, one must, therefore, strive to interest children; amuse them; cajole them; do anything so long as they are inter- ested. This doctrine is bad. It easily leads to, and could hardly fail to lead to spoiling, to forming all sorts of bad habits.”’ “But are you not forced logically to this position, I mean to this doctrine of interest, if you start out by saying that a state of interest is desirable? If it is desirable, why not get it, and get it any way you can?” ‘In order to answer, let’s get the other doctrine of interest before us. Interest is the name this second position gives Interestas 10 that state of affairs in which one is intent whole-hearted On something, in which his mind is so set on Sento some activity that he is striving to go ahead with the activity. It may be a child who is intent on making a doll’s dress; it may be a poet intent on expressing adequately his deepest insight into life. Each is inter- ested. This kind of interest inspires whole-hearted en- deavor. Each one finds his whole being unitedly and absorbedly at work upon the object of interest. The essence of this interest is that the self is active and unified as it works. This doctrine of interest says that interest, so understood, is the guarantee of attention and effort ; and that such attentive and interested effort best utilizes the laws of learnings, particularly of set, readiness, and effect. A wrong kind of interest INTEREST 141 So stated, the doctrine of interest is nothing but the doctrine of mind-set and learning as we have previously discussed it.”’ “You don’t mean to deny that there are degrees of interest? ”’ “Most assuredly not. There are infinitely many de- grees, reaching from those things that we do only under the direst compulsion up to those into which we put our whole souls.”’ “Then I don’t understand your doctrine of interest. Which kind of interest are you talking about?”’ “My doctrine of interest, as a psychological doctrine, is that learning conditions are met in the degree that whole- hearted interest (short of painful solicitude) is present.”’ “Why say ‘short of painful solicitude’?” ‘Because we are discussing learning conditions, and I know that anxiety or fear may be so great as to interfere with learning. So I wish whole-heartedness of interest short of such fear or anxiety.”’ “You say that this doctrine of interest is a psychological matter. You seem to mean that there is something else. Is there some other doctrine of interest?”’ “There is more yet — an ethical or social aspect to the question. Suppose a bad interest, I mean a socially bad one. If the child were whole-hearted about it, he might, psychologically, learn just as well as if it were a good interest. We need then some criterion to tell a good interest from a bad one. That is what I had in mind.” ‘Can you give us such a criterion?” “Qo far as I can see, we best judge by the kind of growth that comes from the interest.” “Tg this where indulgence comes in? Or rather how we tule out indulgence?”’ When inter- ests are good 142 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “Yes, when a child, or grown person for that matter, engages in an interest that merely excites, merely amuses, and so leaves no growth effect, we say he is indulging him- self, and we call such interest or activity a worthless one or perhaps positively bad.” “Tf I understand you, you are now criticizing the other doctrine of interest.”’ ‘Yes, that doctrine of interest was content with what it called a ‘state of interest’ (whatever that meant). It for- got that interest is essentially active. It was willing for children to be always and merely amused. That such treatment of children would be bad no one need question. Instead of leading to growth, it would rather hinder growth.” ‘“Doesn’t this connect with what was said the last time we met [page 130] about wishing activities that appeal to the child as he is, but at the same time challenge his power and call for knowledge and skill beyond his present achieve- ments? I may have added a word or two to what was then said, but that was the idea as I got it. This criterion for evaluating interests seems to me to be the same as that.” “Yes, itis the same. Both statements look to growth, to progress in the life of individual and of society. We object to ‘mere excitement,’ to ‘mere pleasure,’ to indulgence, because they not only don’t lead on, but, even worse, they are likely to set up habits of indifference or of excitement that hinder healthy growth. I think we see such in many card players and theater habitués. They are blasé, bored, cynical. Life has lost its enthusiasms for them.” ‘“T understand your criticism of the false doctrine of interest, but is it fair to say that anybody ever held it as a doctrine?” How indul- gence injures INTEREST 143 “Possibly not, at least not in the form in which its op- ponents state it; but I think probably some have miscon- ceived the better doctrine and have said or done things that have brought any notion of interest into contempt.” “You used the word ‘effort’ a while ago. I have been hoping we could talk about that. I have been confused by some discussions I have heard.” ‘““What do you mean?” ‘Why, I have heard some say that as between interest and effort, they would choose effort every time. But others say that interest and effort go together. From the discussion so far the latter seems the ese pag better statement, but I should like to have the © matter cleared up.”’ “Do you think the poet we mentioned earlier put forth any effort?”’ ‘Certainly he did. It is no easy matter to express one’s idea adequately. I have understood that many writers search weeks at a time for a word with just the right shade of meaning. Effort, yes; more effort than most people know.” “Now, J think you are wrong. For the poet his search, even though it is long, is such a matter of love — if he is a true poet — that he doesn’t count it effort. To him it is interest, absorbed interest, that and nothing more. To eall it effort is to degrade both the poet and his interest.” ‘“Tsn’t it clear that you two have used effort in two quite different senses? One counts effort to be the steps taken in the active working out of interest, or perhaps better, the steps taken in the face of difficulty and in spite of the difficulty. This naturally makes effort the correlative of interest, the stronger the interest the greater — if need be — will be the effort. The other counts effort to be work done unwillingly, ‘against the grain,’ as we say. This notion will naturally Two senses of effort 144 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD oppose interest and effort to each other — the more effort, the less interest.’’ ‘Which is the right meaning?” ‘“Possibly there is room for both, if we are careful to let people know which we are using on any occasion.”’ ‘Does this mean that one kind of effort is as good as the other?”’ “Not at all. Which is the kind that we most wish?” ‘Why, the first kind. The effort that comes from inter- est. The more of that there is in the world, the more there is accomplished.”’ “Yes, and not only that; but the more joy there is ir, life. Successful endeavor after strenuous effort brings keen satisfaction. Happiness comes by that road.” ‘Do you mean that happiness consists of doing things — yourself? I don’t think so; I like to be waited on, to have things done for me. I have had to work so hard all my life that I have come to look on happiness as being able to take my ease, ring a bell and have a servant come to learn my wish, buy anything I fancy, Effort and happiness have a box at the opera and go as often as I like, buy pictures _ and old furniture, have an interior decorator to plan my — house. This is my ideal of happiness. And other people seem to agree. If this isn’t happiness why does almost — everybody wish this sort of life?’ “Many people do think this way about happiness, or at | any rate act as if they so thought. But I am willing to abide by what I said. As between passivity and activity, having things done for one and doing things oneself, there can be no question as to where happiness lies. Happiness is essentially a matter of activity, of such activity as means growth. In the long run anything else fails.” “This all sounds very well. I can’t object to what you — have said so far. But you haven’t said enough, and you are i. a INTEREST 145 going off to one side. The practical question still remains. If you could get whole-hearted interest for all the necessary efforts of life the problem of education might be simple. But you can’t do it. Some things are not interesting. Life isn’t based on the interest theory. It is full of disagreeable things, things that simply are not interesting and can’t be made so. Now what are you going to do? If you ignore this effort side of life, you simply fail to prepare children to live in this world. I challenge you to answer. What are you going to do?” “Tt is an important question and we must face it. But let us face it fairly. Why do people do disagreeable things? If we can answer that of grown people, possibly ans He we can tell how to educate children. Do you do the dis- disagreeable things? And can you name one?” pera oale “T most certainly have to do disagreeable things. My friend and I have a kitchenette apartment and do light housekeeping. Most of it I like, except washing the dishes. That’s just plain drudgery. But it has to be done and I do it. I surely don’t run my life on any interest basis, and I don’t believe in it for children. I do disagreeable things because I must, and I believe in making children do dis- agreeable things while they are young, so that they’ll learn to do them when they are grown.”’ “You say washing dishes is disagreeable. Why do you do it?” “Why do I do it? Why! Why, surely you don’t mean that I should leave my dishes unwashed! The question is absurd. I couldn’t respect myself nor ask anybody to respect me if I let the dishes go unwashed. Besides I couldn’t eat from unwashed dishes. No, I want them clean; that’s why I wash them.”’ ‘““Haven’t you given us just the clue we were seeking? You wish clean dishes, and wish this so much that you are 146 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD willing to go to the trouble of washing them. Isn’t this after all the doctrine of interest? Isn’t it your interest in clean dishes that makes you do the disagreeable washing up? If you had no such interest to impel you, you wouldn’t do this disagreeable thing. And the illustration is typical. Whenever you find any one, except, apparently, an ascetic, doing a disagreeable thing, it is because there is beyond the disagreeable thing some interest that pulls him. He cares so much for this interest that he is willing in its behalf even to undergo the disagreeable matter intervening. You do then live on the basis of interest in spite of your brave words.” ‘What does this tell us about educating children?” “Much. It tells us that we should seek for our children challenging interests — not the easy, merely amusing ones, — but interests that grip and stir, yes, and those that in- volve difficulties also, so that our children may among other things have practice in striving in the face of difficulties. The difficulties must, of course, be adjusted to their strength. It is overcoming that on the whole educates. If our children are to grow in persistence, success is as a rule necessary.” ‘Do you seriously mean that our children will get suffi- cient discipline, I mean the right kind of discipline, from working at matters that interest them? Have you sufficiently considered the proportion of uninteresting work in the world?” “Tf you will understand that the matters of interest shall involve dificulties, then I answer ‘Yes.’ That is what I mean, and I mean it very seriously. You wouldn’t accuse Professor Thorndike of ‘soft pedagogy,’ would you? Here is something of his that I read the other day: Interest and discipline ‘The discipline from enduring the disagreeable seems to be far outweighed by the discipline from working with an in- terested will along lines that fit one’s abilities.’ ” 1 1 Teachers College Record, 25:143 (March, 1924). INTEREST 147 “You make out a pretty good case, I must admit. But there is one question yet: How can we make things inter- esting? I mean school subjects, really necessary yaring things like the multiplication tables and spelling. things They are not in themselves interesting. What anteresung shall we do?” ‘The question is as good as the answer is difficult. There are many factors involved. First of all, if our psychology of mind-set and readiness be accepted, we cannot really make things interesting. Anything is interesting according to the degree that it belongs with an aroused mind-set, either as end or aim of the mind-set or as means felt to be necessary to attaining that end. But for such interest to take place, the aggregate of S— R bonds must already be there to be aroused. All we can do is to stimulate what is there.’’ “Well, you can say that if you wish. But you know as well as I that there is a great difference, say, in lecturers. One man will make a subject interesting (I am obliged to use these very words); and another, try as he will, cannot inter- est his hearers. The audience may be the same and the topic may be the same. The difference is in what the lec- turers do. One makes the subject interesting and the other doesn’t. How then can you say that we cannot make a thing interesting? It can be done. I have seen it done and so have you. It is done or not done every day. I am not just talking words; I am talking facts, and you know iE “Yes, you are talking facts, but I stick also to what I said. The only way to ‘make’ a thing interesting is to give it a chance to arouse some interest already present in the - mind or, better, in the nervous system. Go back to our ' psychology. There must be present in the nervous system the proper aggregate of S— R bonds before the stimulus ean take effect, i.e., before there can be stimulation to 148 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD action. The resulting action is the responding of the R. The interest, as a matter of S > R structure, must be present in the nervous system before it can be aroused to activity. Take your two lecturers. They address the same auditors. One interests, as you say. The other doesn’t. The differ- ence is that the successful lecturer so presents the subject as to stir what was all the time there to be stirred. The unsuccessful lecturer does not know how to disclose the at- tractions of the subject or to organize these so as to arouse those responses of thought and emotion and action-tenden- cies which, when aroused and active, we call interest. It is after all a disclosing of attractions, a presenting of stimuli. And this is essentially what we mean when we speak of making a thing interesting.”’ “Does this have any bearing on curriculum construction?” “Tt has a very great bearing. The main business of curri- culum making is two-fold — first, to know what interests, native or acquired, lie available in the child nature; second, to know how these may be stimulated, guided and directed so as to bring Interest and curriculum growing. One main part of curriculum making is to know and stir interests that otherwise might lie dormant. We must think of all stirring to action as an appeal to what is present as S— R in the mind and character of the person. Most people get into trouble by choosing first what children - should learn, then hunting about for the best way to teach — it. If this subject-matter so chosen in advance does not correspond to the child’s present active powers, naturally | there is trouble. In the older days people said of such cases : that human nature is naturally depraved and that we need _ not expect desirable subject-matter to correspond to child nature. They accordingly reduced their subject-matter to _ what could be assigned for learning (mostly memorizing) — under penalty. In that day, school was worse than a dull ; , ] ; ‘ $ INTEREST 149 place. Switches were much in evidence. When we examine the subject-matter of that day, we don’t wonder that chil- dren had to be whipped. Later there came kinder methods, rivalry and prizes, and also some modifications of subject- matter. Much later a doctrine of interest was preached, but it was still likely to be a doctrine of making things interesting. That is, the old subject-matter was assumed, and interest was used as a teaching device. ‘That people learn better when interested was seen to be true. ‘“There- fore,’ it was said, ‘interest the children in what they are to learn.’ In this way ‘sugar-coating’ was offered as a sub- stitute for punishment, and people divided into two camps, one favoring the ‘soft pedagogy’ of sugar-coating (‘inter- est’, they called it) and the other the hard pedagogy of coercion (‘effort,’ they called it).”’ ‘‘Isn’t this what Professor Dewey refers to in his ‘law- suit’ between ‘interest’ and ‘effort’?’”! ‘‘Yes, and then he goes on to say that both are wrong, and in place of both offers the doctrine that interest and effort are alike the natural accompaniments of healthy activity meeting normal difficulties. We use the term ‘interest’ when we think of the emotional warming up to the end in view. We use the term ‘effort’ when a challenging difficulty has been met, and the self still persists in going forward in spite of the naturally discouraging effect of the hindrance. Interest and effort are thus but two aspects of the same on-going activity.” ‘This all sounds very well, but I still don’t see how we can avoid spoiling children. Why don’t you tell us how to manage?”’ ‘“The answer has in good part been given. We get our best discipline ‘from working with an interested will along lines that fit one’s abilities.’ Education is concerned to get 1 The reference is to Interest and Effort in Education, Ch. 1. 150 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD going in children such activities as (a) evoke work with an interested will, (b) lie along lines that fit their abilities. To these I should wish to add a third, or rather make explicit what was probably implied, (c) that the work, while begin- ning and remaining within the child’s interest, should still always reach out beyond the past achievement of the child. If these three conditions are met, interest and effort will take care of themselves, and growth will ensue.” ‘“‘But I still don’t see how you avoid spoiling. How are you going to get ‘work with an interested will’? I say you can’t start out on that basis without spoiling the child. If you keep trying to interest the child—to amuse him — if you continually ask him whether he chooses to do this or prefers to do that, if you keep forever deferring to his wishes, you are bound to spoil him. Your start is wrong, and the result is bound to be wrong.” “Tf what you say were what I propose to do, I should agree with you. But you fundamentally misrepresent my position, and at the same time ignore the essen- tial nature of childhood. Children when awake are inevitably and incessantly active. They will set up ends. They will strive to attain these ends. To do merely nothing is impossible with them. To keep children from activity, to make them do nothing, is a foregone failure, and is, moreover, irritating to them in the degree that it succeeds. We start then not with a child waiting to be amused, but with one incessantly active. Only a child already spoiled or already starved into inac- tion waits to be amused. It is opportunity they crave, opportunity to receive stimulation and opportunity then to respond. It is our business to supply or perhaps better allow both, and then give the more promising of the child’s active stirrings a chance to go ahead. You assume or pretend to assume that the child is essentially inactive, Children al- ways active INTEREST 151 that he will do nothing, or at any rate nothing good, unless we either coax him or coerce him. This we know is not true. Your essential premise is false.” ‘‘Granted for the sake of argument that the child is in- cessantly active, you still don’t show how you will avoid spoiling him. If you allow him to do just what he wishes to do, you will spoil him. If you refuse to let him follow his wishes, you won’t get the ‘interested will’ or the favor- able mind-set, and so, on your own account of affairs, you lose what you seek. Take either horn of the dilemma and you fail. Either you spoil the child or, according to your ideas, he doesn’t learn.”’ - “No, you are again wrong. What I essentially seek is not that the child shall do what he wishes, but that he shall wish what he does. The difference be- y,,, arotted tween these may not seem very great, but if I selfishness act wisely, it is sufficient to prevent spoiling. is acquired Let us look more closely at this question of spoiling. What is it? We discussed it once before [page 58]. Spoiling is essentially fixing the habit of selfishness. The child learns to consider only his own wishes. Since all voluntary ac- tivity springs out of one’s wishes, there is abundant oppor- tunity for any one to become spoiled. What can prevent? Our old rules must guide: ‘Practice with satisfaction’; ‘Let annoyance attend the wrong.’ Each occasion of choice where others are involved is an occasion for learning spoiledness or its opposite, and this holds of you and me as well as of children. I have known some grown men, otherwise and previously good, to be spoiled by indulgent wives. Itis simply a matter of deciding with or considering the rights and feelings of others or deciding without doing this. If any one practices ignoring others’ feelings and re- mains satisfied in so doing, this ‘practice with satisfaction’ will spoil him.”’ 152 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD ‘‘Do you mean to say that considering the child’s interest doesn’t lead naturally to spoiling?”’ ‘““That’s exactly what I mean, or rather that it need not do so. The final question is whether we can give children opportunity to decide things and still not spoil them, not make them selfish.” “Tf you put it that way, isn’t the opportunity of making decisions necessary for acquiring unselfishness? How can a child learn unselfishness unless he practices unselfishness? And how can he practice unselfishness unless he practices choosing, holding before his mind the different alternatives? It seems to me that your opponent’s argument in the end turns against him. It proves a boomerang. Isn’t it so?” ‘‘Partly so, yes; but we must be fair and face the whole situation. The old way was (in theory) to deny the child the chance to practice choosing. He was too young to choose, they said. His parents or teachers would make all How the old the necessary decisions for him. In so far as way avoided this worked he formed habits along two lines: selfishness first, of obedience, second, of doing the specific things he was told to do. So far as this was all, he prac- ticed neither selfishness nor unselfishness of choosing, since he didn’t really choose (except that acquiescence is a limited kind of choosing). However, a negative sort of good was accomplished. He did fail to practice outwardly selfish acts (as obedience to another is not selfishness and as his elders presumably directed courses not selfish for the child), and in so far he was shut off from the chance to build ~ outward habits of selfishness. But the inner attitude could not be constrained and he may have been building inward opposition to much of what was commanded.”’ ‘But what about the boomerang? I still believe that | the argument recoils. In their commendable zeal against — spoiling, the advocates of the old way cut off the chance to INTEREST 153 build unselfishness. Isn’t it true that if children don’t practice choosing, they cannot be building intelligent un- selfishness? I can’t see it any other way.” “Ves, I think you are right. But isn’t there still another side to this question? Suppose we take your words used a while ago, and agree on the policy that children shall ‘wish what they do,’ don’t you think we shall make them soft? People, if they can, always choose the easy course. Where then does discipline come in? I recall what you quoted from Thorndike, but I just don’t see it. People don’t choose the hard, they choose —if they can — the easy. Then what becomes of strength of character?”’ “There are two things to be said. First, young people do not choose merely what is easy to them. Have you never heard boys daring each other to do this Peosierde tot or that dangerous or difficult or even painful always choose thing? Why they like nothing so well as to ekeee) undertake something that has hitherto baffled them. Speaking generally, I believe that all strong, vigorous people, especially the young and ambitious, are more attracted to experiences that challenge their best than they are to the easy and certain lines of action. That’s one thing. The other is that any interest worthy the name is almost sure to involve difficulties. The determination to attain the goal in view will carry one through great difficulties. And if the hindrance be not too great or too monotonously pro- longed, its very difficulty is a challenge. It actually serves to increase zeal. In both these ways people do, because of their very interest, face difficulties.” “Then you conclude that your doctrine of interest does not lead naturally to spoiling?” “T most certainly do. There is danger of spoiling in it, just as any sharp tool is more dangerous than a dull one, but a sharp tool will accomplish more. So my doctrine of 154 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD interest has in it possibilities of character building not otherwise to be secured.”’ “You claim then that your doctrine of whole-hearted, interested endeavor makes rather for than against strong moral character?”’ Arey ati “‘T most assuredly do. The argument is on for strong our side. Strong moral characters practice in- pene hibitions, but these are best acquired in con- nection with strong positive interests. Mere inhibitions never built a strong character. Strong charac- ter is mainly positive.”’ “Tf you stress child decisions so much, why have a teacher? Have you left any place for a teacher?”’ ‘“‘T most certainly do have a place for the teacher, a definite and an abiding place. The teacher guides first in the making of choices and second in the pur- suit of the aim. Of course if need be the teacher will command or refuse as occasion demands. But stimulation and guidance are the teacher’s more constructive functions. I like to think too of the teacher as a builder of morale. Each school can have its morale, and, well built, it is a most precious heritage. So also is there a class morale and there is an individual pupil morale. Morale implies both habit of outward conduct and inner attitude towards this. I should like many habits and attitudes built that put the common good above mere individual interest, and others that demand persistence as long as it is wise to persist.” ‘“How are these things to be built?” “There are no ways but the old ways: ‘Practice with satisfaction,’ ‘Let annoyance attend the wrong.’ The children must practice, outwardly and inwardly, putting the common good above mere selfish Place of the teacher Place of morale How morale is built INTEREST 155 interest. If they fail, then regret for such failure should attend. But note you: It is practically impossible to get the right practice and the right satisfaction or annoyance except through interest.”’ ‘“Yes, and there’s the rub. You can’t build interest without practice and you can’t get practice unless you al- ready have the interest. So you are caught; either you already have what you want or you can’t get it. That’s where I say your interest doctrine breaks down. You have to call in the parent or teacher to issue a command, else the children never take a higher step.” ‘“Not so fast. Let’s see if we are so hopeless as you say. Is it not true that interest in an end will to some degree extend itself to means?’’ ‘“‘T don’t quite understand. [Illustrate it.” ‘“Tmagine a mother with a child dangerously ill. Is she interested in railway time-tables or other plans for a trip?”’ “Not at all, if she is the right kind of mother. , You couldn’t persuade her to leave home.’’ mashed rene he ‘Oh, Iam not so sure. Suppose the doctor recommends a change of climate for the child. If so, she will at once be interested in where to go and how to get there. Her interest in her baby will make her interested in the trip necessary to his recovery.” ‘‘Ts the mother of a well baby interested in any other things for the baby’s sake — things she used not to be interested in?”’ ‘‘Indeed she is. I have seen many a young woman made over. Before the baby came her interests were only danc- ing or cards or the theater; now you can hardly get her to leave home, and she studies food values and the sterilization of bottles, not to mention infants’ clothes, go-carts, or rattles. Yes, anything that affects the baby is interesting to her.” ‘Then interest in end does extend itself to means?” ‘“Indeed, yes.”’ 156 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD ‘And does she practice new things?”’ “Yes. I knew a young mother who could never bear to sew for herself or anyone else; but when her baby came, it was different. She sewed for him as if she were born for the work.” ‘‘And did she become interested in sewing?” “This particular woman did. She found out she had more of a gift than she had thought. As her husband, being merely a college instructor, had a small salary, she made most of her own-clothes thereafter and was proud of her success. In fact she became a kind of authority on the subject in her young circle.” ‘Let’s see now if we can not find a kind of progression in this.”’ ‘Nature gave this woman a potential love for babies and sufficient abilities to enable her to learn to choose food values, sterilize milk bottles, make clothes; but up to marriage none of these possibilities were realized. Am I right?” Ly acs ‘“‘And the coming of the baby awoke her mother love, and that, apart from any interest inherent in them, made her studyand learn food values and practice scientific care of milk bottles?” ‘Yes, and made her make baby clothes.” “It was her interest in baby then that made her practice making baby clothes?”’ “Yes, that’s true; and success with baby clothes showed her she could sew. Success and a desire to economize made Ms her try to make her own clothes. First she made aa aaa over some of the clothes she had when she was mutually married, and from that she branched out into steghe Seine more ambitious schemes.” “It seems then that first of all nature supplies a potential interest. Then some exigency of life stirs this to INTEREST 157 activity. The pursuit of this aroused activity involves new allied lines of practice. This practice in turn builds (arouses and fixes) new interests, which in their turn lead to more practice and more interests — and so on indefinitely. Am I right?” ‘““Yes, that’s the way of life.’ “Then we are not caught by the fact that interest depends on practice and practice depends on a prior interest?”’ ‘“No, I see how it worked in this case. But suppose you had no interest to begin with. In that case I don’t see what you would do.” ‘‘Nor do I. Show me a person who has no interest to begin with and Ill freely admit I shouldn’t know where to begin with him. But where ever was there a normal and healthy child who was not full of interests?”’ “T now see why you insisted that children are always active. It gives you the starting point.” ‘Exactly so, and there is no other.”’ “Do you mean that education is exactly a succession of interest, new practice, new interest, still further practice, still new interest, and so on forever?” “That’s just what I mean — that, with wise pincer teacher guidance.” interest, ‘‘ And you wish in developing such a succession Hh fragt ae to stay always within the realm of interest?”’ ‘“That’s what I wish, and I believe that in the degree I can stay always within the realm of interest, in that same degree do I secure conditions favorable for learning.”’ ‘““TDoesn’t the fact of indirect interest help us here?’’ ‘“You mean that it increases the range of interest? Yes, that is a very good idea. You are quite right.” “T don’t understand. What do you mean by indirect interest? Is there a direct interest, and if so what is the difference?”’ 158 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “By direct interest we mean the condition that exists when a person is really interested in a thing without asking or thinking why he is interested. The mother Pears cial is interested in her baby’s health in this way. She just is, that’s all there is to it. In like man- ner is a little girl interested in playing with her doll. There is no why about it. But when the physician recommended a change of climate, then the mother became interested in mountain resorts and railroad schedules, because these things had to do with her baby’s welfare. Her direct interest in the baby so extended itself as to give an indirect interest in these other things. Things uninteresting in themselves become interesting (indirect interest) because of their bear- ings on things that are interesting in themselves (direct interest).”’ “Then you mean that around each direct interest there is a wide region of possible indirect interest?”’ “Yes, get the direct interest going strongly and it will reach out, often far out.” ‘And this is the enlarged interest range?” TAN Aree “May not an interest that begins as an indirect interest end by becoming a direct interest? The young mother who be- came interested in sewing as discussed above is an example of what I mean.” “Quite so; and, in fact, each new practice begins nor- mally as an indirect interest.” ‘“May we now have a summing up of what we have covered?” ‘There is not so much to be said. Interest and effort are normally and properly but different ways of describing action that is going forward under a definite mind-set. We call it interest when we think of how the person warms up to the object upon which the mind A summary INTEREST 159 is set, how he feels about it, how he values it. We call it effort when we think of the tendency of the set mind to push ahead in spite of hindrance. So much for definition. ‘We value interest and effort then just as we value mind- set. Each term indicates a condition of the organism favor- able for efficient action — success is more likely to result; favorable also for that complicated kind of action which demands learning — learning is more certain to be called for; and favorable finally for the learning process itself — learning of a higher kind and degree is more likely to take place. ‘With interest, just as with any keen-edged tool, for those who know not how to use it, there are dangers; but without it only bungling work can be done —no masterpiece of teaching is possible. “The criterion for judging good from bad interest is as always whether fruitful growth takes place. To exercise an interest and yet not grow is to yield to indulgence. For best growth three things should concur: a gripping interest, a challenge from the situation for the best effort that in us lies, and eventual success. From these three come growth. Social situations and wise guidance are necessary if the growth is to be along best lines. ‘All these put together make up what we may call the doctrine of interest.” REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING Dewey — Interest and Effort in Education, pp. 16-60. Woopworti — Dynamic Psychology, pp. 100-104. THORNDIKE — Principles of Teaching, pp. 54 ff. James — Talks to Teachers, Ch. 10. Dewey — Democracy and Education, Ch. 10. CHAPTER XI InrEREST — Continued: Tur SELF AND INTEREST ‘‘Eiver since our discussion last week I have been wonder- ing about something I read in Thorndike — that the ‘mere decision to accept certain work as interesting improved it.’!” “T don’t see anything strange about that. It fits exactly with what we have been saying. Readiness and set will explain the better learning.”’ “Yes, I see that; but I was comparing this statement with certain statements of Dewey’s to the effect that in interest ‘the self is concerned throughout,’ that genuine interest means that a person has identified himself with a certain course of action.2” ‘But I still don’t see the difficulty. All these statements seem to me to tally exactly with all we have been saying. If one has a sufficiently unified mind-set, one will feel himself identified with the course of action in which he is interested.” ‘‘It is the self, the notion of the self involved in it all that concerns me. The self is concerned throughout. The self accepts certain work as interesting. In interest one identi- fies himself with a course of action.” ‘“You are right, even if the others don’t see it. There isa question here about the self. In any case of interest the self is involved. It is hard to understand, but it is there. In class last summer I ran across the same insistence on the The self and interest 1 Educational Psychology, Vol. Il, p. 353. The statement is quoted from Ebert and Meumann. 2 Interest and Effort in Education, pp. 15, 43. 160 THE SELF AND INTEREST 161 self. Coercion was said to be choice ‘external to the self’ and there were many other things like this. It was interest- ing though. I remember a discussion by the class as to whether this ‘identification of the self’ in interest is a literal or figurative use of the word identify. There was a keen division. I thought ‘literal’ won out.” “Well, I must be stupid or otherwise wrong-minded, but I don’t see what you are talking about. Self and identify seem to mean something quite different to you from what they do to me. Suppose a little girl is interested in a doll, does she identify herself with it? How can you say she thinks she is ne, hel or is the same thing as the doll? To me it’s nonsense.’ ‘“‘T wouldn’t say she thinks she is the doll or the same thing as the doll. That would be nonsense. I say she identifies her self with dressing the doll or with whatever else she wishes to do with the doll.” ‘“That’s not quite so bad, but I am still puzzled.” ‘“‘Couldn’t we take up this question of the self and see how interest is related to it? I believe it would heip us straighten out some other things.” “T should be glad to do so, but we must remember at the outset that a single word like ‘self’ when standing alone may trouble us more than whole phrases like ‘identification of the self with,’ or ‘choices external to the self’.” “T wish I could follow you people. Any notion of ‘choices external to the self’ is beyond me. What can such a phrase mean?” - “J think I understand that. Suppose a boy has planned with other boys to go fishing on Saturday and his father, who is old-fashioned in his manage- ment of the boy, says: ‘No, you must stay at home and weed the onion patch.’ And when the boy demurs, the father, being, as was said, ‘old-fashioned,’ replies: ‘You'll stay; it The self and choosing 162 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD is for you to say whether you will also get a whipping.’ Sup- pose now the boy decides to stay without the whipping, will you say he chooses so to stay?” ‘‘T hardly know what to say. In one sense he chooses. In another he doesn’t.” ‘‘Now that’s the uncertainty of meaning we wish to clear up. I heard an interesting discussion last summer on that point. The words hope and fear were used to mark off what is ‘internal to the self’ from what is ‘external to the self.’ ”’ “Your meaning is a bit hazy, but I think I under- stand it.” ‘Let me see if I understand you. As we face the future and its possible happenings, we hope some things will happen, we fear others will happen. If it is a question of choosing, we choose those we hope for, and we reject or choose not to have happen the ones we fear.”’ ‘Yes, and those we choose in hope are thus ‘internal to the self,’ and those we reject in fear are ‘external to the self.’ ”’ “That seems all right, but what about ‘choice external to the self’? That sounds like a contradiction.” Chole “Contradiction or no, it expresses a fact. externalto Go back to the boy with his fishing plans and ae the onion patch. The fishing plan was ‘in- ternal’ to his self?” ‘Yes, that’s clear. He hoped to go.” “And the weeding the onion patch on that Saturday morn- ing was ‘external’ to his self and so also, of course, was a whipping. But as between weeding without a whipping and weeding after a whipping he chose the former as the lesser of the two evils.” ‘Yes, that too is clear.’’ “Then by the phrase ‘external choice’ or a ‘choice external to the self’ we mean where one does choose the THE SELF AND INTEREST 163 lesser of two evils both of which are external to the self, both of which one if left to himself would reject.” “The words ‘if left to himself’ tell the same tale, do they enot:”’ “Yes, and so do the words ‘identify one’s self with.’ One really identifies one’s self only with those activities which one chooses in hope. In such a choice the willed activity seems in a very true sense to be ‘internal’ to the self, somehow a part of the self.” “Then if I understand you, coercion, if effectual, means in fact an ‘external choice,’ a choice external to the self.” ‘Yes, that’s the way I understand it.” ‘“‘T have heard a person say he was ‘torn within.’ What does that mean from this point of view?” “Tt, too, fits in here. Let us illustrate. Suppose John has joined a poultry club and his broilers are coming on finely. He is tremendously interested. There is no question about it: he has identified himself thas ma with the undertaking. Being, however, a boy and having other interests, he plans in company with other boys to take a fishing trip on a certain Saturday. When the morning comes and he is about to start, he learns to his dismay that roup has very suddenly appeared among his chickens. What shall he do? The fish are said to be biting finely, the bait is all dug, the boys are expecting him. But his broilers —can he leave them even for one day’? He is indeed ‘torn within.’ One interest says ‘Go,’ the other says ‘Stay.’ Both are internal. The choice is tragic, but must be made. He decides to stay.” ‘“‘And you call this an internal choice?”’ “Yes, the motivation was within, so we call the choice internal. True enough the roup is ‘external,’ and for a minute or two John felt so keenly its externality that he was angry with it and almost inclined by association to 164 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD be angry with the chickens. But this was only for a mo- ment. His good sense at once reasserted itself. Getting angry would do no good. The situation must be accepted. There was no other way out of it. He must accept the situation as a fact and act upon it, else irreparable damage would be done to his chickens.”’ “It seems to me that you have now brought in the doctrine of continuity.” | “What do you mean? The doctrine of continuity? I don’t recall that we have ever met it before.” ‘Perhaps not the word, but you have met the fact often. What I mean is this: Hope and fear perhaps seem at first glance absolutely opposed, with no middle ground between them; and the same with ‘things internal’ and ‘things external’ to the self. Before we think closely, everything would seem to be either inside or outside and that’s the end of it. So it seemed at first with choices external and choices internal. But now it appears there are degrees. Some choices are more external or more fully external, more internal or more fully or com- pletely internal. Is it not so?” ‘Certainly, it is so. If that is what you mean by con- tinuity, then by all means, yes. Life presents such facts and we must recognize them. I should like to begin on it right now.” ‘“How? What do you mean?” “IT mean the notion of continuity. Let’s see what it means. Perhaps an illustration will help. Suppose some- time after the roup is conquered John hears of a new- fangled brooder. The principle is novel. John doesn’t understand it. He asks his father, who, being old-fashioned in this also, scoffs at the new brooder and intimates that it is merely a city notion, a book-farming affair, which no hard-headed person would consider. John accepts his The notion of continuity THE SELF AND INTEREST 165 father’s opinion and next day scoffs when one of the boys in the club mentions the matter. But the new brooder won’t down. The farm demonstrator explains it approv- ingly. R bonds. That’s all. But it’s different with the gamboge.”’ “Is it different? On the contrary, isn’t it exactly the same thing. Let’s illustrate with a speaker. He wishes his audi- ence to think and feel certain things. He chooses his words, his intonation, his gestures, all as stimuli to stir his auditors to think certain thoughts and feel certain emotions. While he is doing this he may be thinking that the room is hot, that the crowd at the door is noisy and may hinder his efforts, that his auditors are not yet ready for his full thought and must be prepared, that they are now a little sleepy and had better be stirred by an amusing story. Does he really try to convey his thought?” ‘You mean to ask whether convey is a good word to describe what he does or rather what he tries to do.” ‘Exactly so, and I think it isn’t. In a sense he may be said to convey his thought; but psychologically, no, he stirs thought. He uses symbols to rouse meanings.” We stir t howe: ah ‘‘And both must know the same symbols and ey they must be joined with like meanings?” oug ‘Yes, that’s it. That’s what language is.” — “But the speaker uses more than words —he shrugs his shoulder, he frowns, he sneers. These, too, are symbols and have meanings.” MEANING AND THINKING 229 ‘Quite right, and they are language too of a kind. At any rate they all illustrate my point that, psychologically, we do not directly convey thought. Westirit. Westimulate it. We use 8’s that are connected with like R’s in both speaker and hearer. We speak the §8’s, the hearer makes — more or less accurately — the R’s that we hoped for.” “How about that punctuation lesson you promised?” “Tt is the same. I don’t punctuate — or I shouldn’t — merely to use, repeat, illustrate some rules on punctuation. Some people do; they are mere pedants. I pyictuation say to myself, ‘I wish my readers to think to guide thus and so. If I use a comma here will they “ought more likely think this or not?’ I punctuate then pragmati- cally, to affect my readers and to effect in them certain desired thoughts, to make them think the things I wish.” ‘‘And that gives you a practical criterion with which to judge the success of your punctuation?” ‘‘Rixactly, yes. I like the phrase, “success of my punc- tuation.’? You have got my idea. A pedant seeks criteria to judge of the ‘correctness’ of his punctuation, and he means by correctness mere conformity with established rules.” ‘And you think your notion here will help one to punc- tuate more successfully?” ‘“‘Indeed, I do think so. It will help the individual as mat- ters now stand and, still more, wili gradually help the literary world to reduce the number of senseless conventions in this field.” ‘“And what about style? You said, if I understand, that your idea of stirring, not conveying, thought eNO Ae would help the writer or speaker.” style is ‘““Yes and I repeat it. If I, as writer, under- successful stand fully that I am trying to stimulate people Suaetie to think, I have a real criterion with which to judge of my own success.” 230 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD ‘‘Some people have cynically said that words are to con- ceal thought. Does that come in here?” ‘“‘T think it does. If I believe that I can directly convey my thought, it will be easier for me to be content if I can see my thought in my words. In such case my words will probably conceal my thought. But if I have to consider the other person and the effect of my words on him, I shall not be content that my thought lies concealed in my words. I shall ask myself very explicitly what thoughts my words are likely to call forth in my readers or hearers, and I shall keep experimenting till I can make words stir the exact thoughts T wish.” ‘“‘It has been an unusual discussion we have had; I should like to hear it summed up.” ‘As I see it, we have discussed two main things, meanings and thinking. Meaning we found to consist in the fact that a this, present to thought or sense, suggests or points to a that as filling out or completing the this. Thinking we saw is exactly the name we give to the movement from the this to the that. That is, thinking is a meaning appropriately at work. From this relationship we saw that education is greatly concerned with having children get many and exact meanings as the basis for thinking. We saw too that practical thinking is essentially a foretelling of what to anticipate or expect when one faces a situation. In this sense, thinking is to be considered as an adventure into the unknown future. From this fact, education gets a princi- pal task of increasing the reliability of thinking—in general by developing certain rules to guide the process, and more specifically by accumulating in any field the successful thoughts pertaining to that field. ‘An interesting application of this conception of meanings and thinking was that words do not, psychologically, convey thought, but at best act as symbols to arouse in the hearer Summary a es a | | | MEANING AND THINKING 231 or reader the thought desired by the speaker or writer. This conception gave a practical criterion for punctuation and for speaking and writing: How shall I so say this as to stir the precise thought I wish?” ‘‘I am coming to see that there is more in the work of education than I had thought.” “So am I, and I am glad.” REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING Dewey — How We Think, pp. 6f., 26ff., 30ff., 39ff., 63ff., 116ff., 125ff., 129ff. | Dewey — Democracy and Education, Ch. 12. | Kinparrick — Source Book in the Philosophy of Education, No. 29, 531, 532. CHAPTER XV Tue Complete Act or THOUGHT “Do you recall what we agreed upon last time as the essence of thinking?” ‘Yes, it was the movement of attention from The essence = sgmething at: hand to what it means.” of thinking ’ : ‘“Before you begin on that, I wish to ask as to what is meant by the word ‘essence’ as you use it here.” ‘“Bssence is an old word, not so often used now as for- merly. As here used, it means thinking stripped, as it were, of all surplusage, thinking reduced to its lowest terms, so low that it would not be thinking if it were carried any lower.”’ ‘As T recall we discussed the essence of practical think- ing, but not of thinking in itself.” ‘Ves, because thinking is used in a number of senses I thought if we said ‘practical thinking’ we should be less likely to go astray.” ‘And what was that essence? J wasn’t here when you talked about it.” “The essence of practical thinking we found to be the movement of attention from any given situation to what to ee expect from it, or expect to do about it. The etal ea baby is crying; I think he is cold and needs to into the be covered up. Such thinking looks essentially one to the future and involves an adventure into the unknown.” ‘“‘T don’t quite see.”’ “The baby is crying. This is an event in a situation. 1 face it and think: He is cold and needs to be better covered. 232 | | THE COMPLETE ACT OF THOUGHT 233 Whether he is cold and whether covering him more warmly will accordingly meet the situation involve for me essentially a leap into the dark, not total darkness to be sure, for I know somewhat of babies and their cries, but it is still a venture, a surmise, an hypothesis. I test my hypothesis, my surmise, my mental leap, by trying it out, acting it out, acting upon its consequences: If the Deby is cold, covering him will probably meet the situation.’ “Tam a bit troubled. You say ‘future’ and yet say ‘is cold.’ The future is clearest when you set out to try the idea of covering the baby. This seems, too, more clearly or more surely an adventure.” “Our words nearly always join us to the past and its ways of thinking. ‘Is cold’ is perhaps an instance. I myself like to think of the whole incident as involving for action the future element, and this you have well brought out.” “Ts this another reason why you said ‘essence of practical thinking’?”’ ‘Yes, I had in mind the kind of thinking that takes place typically in action in connection with practicalevents. Take this baby. Probably the deepest reason why you say ‘is cold,’ is because that is your first step in clearing up the sit- uation and deciding what to do about it. The whole thing looks to doing something about the crying. That crying indicates a situation to be remedied. We must do some- thing. Now the whole thinking process involved is one of wisely meeting the situation. The doing, what we are to do, necessarily lies in the future. And we don’t know whether we shall succeed; it is an adventure into the unknown future.” “Are you not discussing what Dewey calls the ‘Complete Act of Thought’?’’! ‘““Yes, exactly that.” 1 How We Think, Ch. 6. 234 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD ‘“‘T have heard a good deal about the complete act of thought. Just why is it important?” ‘“Tt happens to have been one of the most influential con- ceptions given to the educational world in the past few decades. It has been gradually remaking American teaching ever since.” ‘“Might we not study it? I tried once, but somehow the class never got anywhere. I know it is important, but I never felt that I had reached the bottom of it.”’ ‘Yes, do; let’s study it.’ ‘“‘T shall be very glad for us to discuss it, but it will take close attention if we are to get out of it what is inh tb.) “« “We are game; let’s go to it,’ as the boys say.” ‘“‘First let us be clear that we are discussing not just any or all thinking, but the complete act of thought.” ““Does that mean a very complicated instance The complete of thinking?” act of thought ie ; " Not necessarily complicated, but one ex- hibiting all the steps necessary for completeness. A simple instance might suffice. What the necessary steps are we shall see as we go.” ‘‘Won’t you give us a preliminary notion?”’ ‘“Willingly. Keep in mind two things. First, practical thinking means following along a practical meaning; this thing which is now happening tells us something else to expect next. This dark cloud now lower- ing makes us expect that rain will soon follow.” “But may we not be mistaken? Will the rain certainly come?” ‘Certainly, we may be mistaken. That’s why we say that thinking is an adventure, that it involves a leap into the dark, a surmise as to the future, an hypothesis as to what will happen.” Thinking a forecast THE COMPLETE ACT OF THOUGHT 235 “‘You said there are two things to keep in mind. What is the other one?”’ “The second grows out of the uncertainty. Since we must leap, the second tells us to make the leap as reliable and trustworthy as possible.” ieee “Why?” 8 ‘““Why? On account both of the present situation and of the future. We wish to do the wise and right thing now: If it is going to rain we wish to go to the house; if it is not going to rain we wish to continue our walk. So much for the present, but we are also concerned about the future. If we can use this present instance to help us hereafter to fore- tell more accurately which clouds do mean rain and which do not, then on future occasions we shall more surely know what to do. For the sake of the present we wish to judge as carefully now as we can, using all pertinent past experience to help us. For the sake of the future we wish to test our present judgment that we may know wherein it was justified and wherein not, so as hereafter to judge better in the light of present experience.”’ ‘“You have said so much I am a bit confused.” “You asked about the complete act of thought. Just plain thinking tells us what to expect next. The complete act of thinking is to make surer of our thought by taking the steps necessary to give greater reliability.” ‘‘What are these steps?” ‘‘Let us consider each step one at a time. What is the situation calling forth the thought? The baby cries; we must do something; we don’t know what to do. pp. situation Or more generally: A situation calls to action, calling for but we have no response ready; we must act, Moe but we do not know what to do. Two things I should like here to emphasize, the call or drive to action, and the lack of a suitable response certainly appropriate.”’ 236 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “Ts this lack what Dewey calls the difficulty and is that the cause of the thinking?” ‘This lack is what Dewey calls the difficulty, The difficulty ; does not but let us be clear, the difficulty does not impel tte us to action.” ‘“But it does impel us to think, doesn’t it.” ‘“‘T cannot agree with you. A difficulty as such does not impel. The drive to thought comes from the drive to action. We think because that is the only way, seeing that we face a difficulty, in which to secure action. I should say the difficulty, the lack of the behavior pattern, is the occasion but not the cause of the thinking. The thinking comes because the organism still struggles to continue the action.” “Do you call this one step or two?” “‘T like to say that these constitute the first two steps: First is the drive to action; second is the presence of a diffi- culty, the lack of an appropriate response or lack of appro- priate behavior-pattern.”’ ‘What is the third step?” ‘To answer this, ask what the mother will do when the baby cries. She will notice the kind of ery and consider the me situation so as to see what is probably causing Reet the cry and this in order that she better may know what to do. More generally: The third step is an examination of the situation to narrow the task for thought, to locate and define the problem, so as to facilitate the arising of appropriate suggestions for solving the prob- lem.”’ ‘This step will sometimes take a long time, won’t it?” ‘At times, yes; at other times a moment or two may suffice. There is every gradation.” ‘And is the fourth step the arising of suggestions for a solution?” THE COMPLETE ACT OF THOUGHT 237 “Ves, exactly that; in theoretical terms, the arising of hypotheses; in practical terms, the coming of suggested behavior-patterns. Psychologically and _logi- cally, they are both the same.” ‘‘And what step is the testing?” ‘Testing gives us two steps: fifth, elaborating the impli- cations of the hypothesis; and sixth, trying out by actual test one or more of the implications.”’ “You are wading in deep water now. I am lost com- pletely. I don’t believe I do anything like your fifth and sixth steps when I think; John Dewey may, but not I.” “Oh, yes, you do. Consider this mother. She is, let us say, not sure whether the baby cries because he is cold or because he has colic. She listens intently to the Eiahoratne kind of crying and notices the baby’s move- the ments; she concludes tentatively that he is cold. ae ns This listening and noticing make up step 3, the tentative conclusion that he is cold is step 4. Now she says to herself: ‘I’ll see; if he is merely cold, more cover better tucked in should warm him in a few minutes.’ This think- ing if etc., then etc., is putting the tentative conclusion to work as an hypothesis; and this is what we called ‘elaborating the implications of the hypothesis.’ If the baby is cold, covering him more warmly is the practical implication.’ “You mean that you take the hypothesis or suggested solution and ask what it tells you to do or to expect. This is what you mean by ‘elaborating the implications,’ is it not?” ‘““Exactly so.” ‘‘And then step 6 is testing to see if what you are told to do or to expect, is really the right thing?” ‘“‘Precisely.”’ ‘“‘And how do you test?”’ Suggested solutions 238 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “Tf the implications tell you something to do, you do it and see if the trouble is relieved. If the implications tell Tents you something to expect, you look for an in- trying out the stance and note what happens. If what was implications ~~ foretold does happen, then it looks as if the hypothesis is correct.” ‘‘Can you illustrate the latter?’ “Yes. Before the planet Neptune had been seen, it was noticed that the outermost planet Uranus (outermost so far as then known) was leaving its (supposedly) proper orbit. What could be the cause? (Step 2 of the thinking process.) Closer examination (step 3) confirmed the general fact and gave details. Thereupon certain astronomers formed the hypothesis (step 4) that there was another planet further out from the sun than Uranus which was deflecting Uranus from its otherwise proper path. They then calculated where such a planet would have to be (step 5) thus to pull Uranus out of its path. If the calculations were right, they would know where to look for the new planet. They did look (step 6) and sure enough the new planet was found and later called Neptune. Later careful calculations of both planets (steps 5 and 6 repeated) have confirmed the conclusion thus reached. The difficulty of the wandering of Uranus is ex- plained. The once hypothetical planet is now a known fact (Neptune).” “Suppose covering the baby more warmly does not stop his crying?” ‘Then the mother may take up the colic hypothesis (step 4), make some deductions from it (step 5), try these out (step 6), and observe the results. If the baby then stops crying (and didn’t stop for the warm covering), presumably it was colic and not the cold that was troubling him.” “Do you think the mother of a crying baby is going to be concerned to follow these steps? I don’t believe it. I think THE COMPLETE ACT OF THOUGHT 238 she will do just what mothers have always done, try first one thing and then another till she finds something to stop the crying.” ‘‘There are several things to be said in reply. First, I seem to think more highly of mothers than you. Most of the mothers I know do think whenever and wherever baby is involved, and more in these days than ever before. Second, I have nowhere said when any- one will think or that anyone will think. All I have said is that if one does think sufficiently his (or her) thinking will show essentially these steps.” “Do you mean that the steps must always follow each other in this order?” | “No, I do not so think. Dewey himself explains that he does not mean us to understand a chronological order.” ‘What I think happens is this. If the baby gens togical, cries a little, the mother will ‘guess’ that he is not cold and call to his older sister to see that he is chronglogica properly covered. If no more crying, well and good; no further thought is given to the matter, and we cannot say that there had been a complete act of thought. If, however, erying continues, more careful thought is given till the household has exhausted its resources. This may well have included all the steps of a complete act of thought. If still no solution and the baby still cries, then the physician is called in and he repeats the steps on a more professional scale. If still there is no satisfactory solution, higher ex- perts may be called in and the process carried out with all the refinements known to science.”’ Incomplete thinking 1‘'Tn speaking of ‘steps’ it is perhaps natural to suppose that something chronological is intended, and from that it is presumably a natural conclusion that the steps are taken in a temporal sequence in the order taken above. Nothing of this sort, however, is intended. The analysis is formal, and indi- cates the logical ‘movements’ involved in an act of critical thought.” Journal of Philosophy, 19:29. 240 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “And you think it is essentially the same process repeated over and over again?” “Yes, with ever increasing consciousness. At the first, there is so little conscious thought that the steps are aborted and run, as it were, together. With increasing conscious consideration the steps emerge with increasing definiteness.”’ “TI heard an old farmer say, ‘It can’t be a coon, for those are not coon tracks.’ What step was he using?” ‘Clearly steps 5 and 6 ‘telescoped’ together, thus reject- ing the hypothesis (step 4) that it was a coon which had com- mitted, I suppose, some depredation.” “And you think if we look closely we can see in any think- ing worthy the name these six steps?” “Yes, that’s what I think.” “One thing troubles me about the mother and the crying baby. I agreed that the difficulty was practical, namely, what to do, but I thought the problem would be not what is the matter with the baby, but what to do when a baby is cold or has the colic. You seemed to assume that the mother knows what to do if only she knows what the trouble is.” “I quite see your difficulty. I did assume that the mother knew what to do if the baby were merely cold. Under other circumstances the problem might, as you suggest, be else- where or it might even lie in both places. In the last instance I should prefer to say that one practical situation involves two problems, first, what is wrong, second, how shall we remedy such a wrong. Each problem would then repeat the same six steps.” ‘‘T notice you were careful earlier not to say that the solu- tion was proved to be correct. You qualified your statement each time—‘it looks as if,’ ‘it might be presumed.’ Was this intentional?” “Yes. Final and complete proof may be a very difficult thing. It is wiser to be cautious.” Difficulty of final proof THE COMPLETE ACT OF THOUGHT 241 “T don’t see it that way. If the solution works, doesn’t that prove it? What more do you wish?”’ “Tt often happens that two or more hypotheses will work equally well in a great number of specific instances. For a long time the hypothesis that dew falls from the sky was accepted as true. It seemed to work: dew is not found under trees or other cover, nor on cloudy nights. But after a while instances were found where this hypothesis would not work and eventually a different hypothesis was formed that so far explains all the present known facts.” “T notice even here you are cautious. You say ‘so far explains’ and the ‘present known facts.’”’ “You are right. One should be cautious. The future may at any time upset our present thinking.” “You said earlier that this Dewey analysis had greatly influenced American teaching. I do not care to dispute your Influence of Statement, but I fail to see in what has been so the Dewey far said any good reason for expecting so far- ena reaching a result. Won’t you explain?” ‘“‘TDo you know that some years ago most normal schools followed the Herbartian Five Formal Steps in their teach- ing methods?” Say ean? ‘And do you know that these are giving way and largely to teaching through problems?” “T have noticed something like that.” “T think the more you notice the more you'll agree. Well, I am myself in no doubt that much of this change is due to this analysis and its allied theory.” “You give it credit for the problem method of teaching. Do you think it deserves similar credit for what I hear called the ‘project method’ of teaching?” “Ves, it and its allied philosophy.” “T still don’t quite see why teaching should be so much 242 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD concerned. Won't you explain? Why is a problem better than the five formal steps?”’ “In order to answer suppose we list the separate steps Thelstepa ia in the complete act of thought and see how the complete learning is fostered by using them. act of thought 1 A situation arouses an impulse or tendency to pursue a certain course of action. The baby’s crying stirs the mother to seek to relieve him. Unexpected movements in Uranus stir the astronomer to try to explain these movements. 2. A difficulty appears: how to continue the given course is not known; there is no appropriate way of responding known or immediately available. The mother does not know what to do for the baby. The astronomer has no satisfactory explanation for the move- ments of Uranus. 3. An examination of the situation is made to locate and define the difficulty more precisely. The mother listens to the baby and considers his move- ments. The astronomers measure carefully the deviation of Uranus from what had been expected and consider alt possible interfering causes. Each is meanwhile considering all the facts with reference to possible solutions. 4. Suggested solutions arise: hypotheses are formed, behavior patterns are suggested. The baby is cold or perhaps has colic. Uranus is at- tracted by some hitherto unknown planet yet more distant from the sun. 5. Implications (one or more) are drawn from each sug- gested solution, each hypothesis. | If the baby is cold, covering him more warmly will relieve his discomfort. If a planet is attracting Uranus, we should see it in such and such part of the sky. eee ee THE COMPLETE ACT OF THOUGHT 243 6. Actual trial is made to see whether the deduced impli- cations hold. Does the baby stop erying when covered? Do we find the new planet where we were told to look, and is it such as to explain the aberrations of Uranus? 7. A solution is accepted in the light of the tests made. Of course there is no problem till the second step leads on toward the third, but let us ask how the problem guides the process after that. In step 3 the problem as a conscious formulation is emerging into defi- ashe niteness, but even so the presence of the felt guides the difficulty thus seeking to define itself more sie narrowly guides the thought process. The ; mother’s anxiety (felt difficulty as to what may be the trouble and what she should do) causes her to consider all the signs of discomfort shown by the baby and to bring to bear all she knows about such. The search to define the problem and the accompanying preliminary search for pos- sible solutions each goes on in the light of the problem as thus far seen. Data are sorted out, the more promising from the less, and the more promising are given further consideration. All of this means that the whole situation is considered in the light of its bearing on the problem. Consciously to reject any data as not pertinent means a relating (in a negative sense) of these data. Consciously to accept any data as pertinent is to organize all such about the problem.” “Tf I understood you then in the third step the problem actually guides the examination and organizes the whole situation in its varying relationship to the problem and probable solution. Am I right?” “Yes, that is the way I see it.” “Couldn’t you illustrate with a school problem or some- thing more nearly like it?” 244 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “Suppose the question is as to why New York, which was once smaller than Philadelphia, won its preéminence Illustration 2mong American cities. A class studying this from would have, as step 3, a study of the facts geography 4s to when and how Philadelphia was once ahead of New York and the facts as to wherein New York is ahead now and when this came about. While this definition of the problem was in process there would be a preliminary study to see what explanations for the change of status should be considered. This one step 3 would thus involve a close study and evaluation (from the point of view of pertinency) of a vast deal of information. Much would be lightly dismissed as not pertinent to the problem, but much would be considered as highly significant. A very considerable organization of data would certainly result just here, and all by reason of felt relationship to the problem. The problem is here the guiding and organizing feature.” “Ves I see now, but how about the other steps?” “Sten 4, the arising of suggested solutions, shows a similar influence of the problem. Any solution to be considered at all must be a way of looking at pertinent data that promises to remove the difficulty. The arising of a suggested solution is then a promising arrangement of data. In the Philadel- phia-New York problem, if one suggests that New York has a better harbor, we have at once a relating of harbor to commerce and this to city size and importance. If the Erie canal is suggested, at once comes a relating of East and West, with the mountains as a trade barrier and the Erie canal as one way of getting around the barrier, with consequent effect on the commerce of New Yorkies word, any suggested solution worth considering does in- volve more or less of the data pertinent to the problem and an arrangement of these that at least promises to solve the problem.” i ee THE COMPLETE ACT OF THOUGHT 245 “It seems then that again the problem acts to select pertinent data and to organize such into some connected point of view.” Resin the “Yes, the problem again selects and organ- problem izes. Thinking is thereby directed along both selects and : organizes these lines.” ‘““And does the same hold of steps 5 and 6?” “Yes, in much the same way. The elaboration of implica- tions (step 5), the opening up of the content of the hypothe- sis, is to get implications pertinent to the solution of the problem. And the testing of these (step 6) is again as they bear upon the solution of the problem.”’ “It is interesting to see that in each step the problem selects and organizes.” “What organization results from the whole process?” “First of all, the accepted solution is an organization of all the facts and features recognized as pertinent in the situation, such a way of looking at all these »,, peeulting as takes due account of all the pros and cons organization in the case. When we are justly satisfied that of e*Petience we know why New York outgrew Philadelphia, we have a great deal of data, historical, geographic, and economic, reduced to an orderly arrangement of cause and effect. Second, if the search for a satisfactory solution has led to the rejection of any unsatisfactory hypotheses, then each of these makes its contribution of organization, because we see why it was rejected and thus see more clearly wherein ies the satisfactormess of the accepted solution. Third, the search to define the problem, the search for possible hy- potheses, the elaboration of the implications of the various hypotheses, and the testing of these by actual trial — al? these cause a conscious and critical survey of the field in which the problem is located. In this third kind of organ- ization, negative conclusions (that thus and so does not bear 246 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD on the problem) will be as true an organization of data and perhaps prove as valuable elsewhere as would positive con- clusions. All that is necessary to give valuable organization is that the conclusion be as consciously made as possible.” ‘You spoke earlier of the drive or tendency to pursue the matter at hand. Does much turn on this?”’ ‘Indeed it does. The greater the zeal, the more interest will there be in finding a satisfactory solution, the greater will | be the readiness in pertinent neurones; and so peda of the greater will be the effort, the readier will thoughts come, the more will satisfaction result from successful connections made, the greater will be the annoyance when promising leads disappoint. In a word, the laws of set and readiness are the better called into play by the zeal to push on with the matter at hand. And then will satisfaction and annoyance work favorably to the mat- ter at hand. What is done will be better done and better remembered.” | “T have heard the question asked as to whose problem is contemplated in problem solving, the pupil’s or the teacher’s? aN el Whose problem is contemplated and what lem, the difference does it make?”’ igual * “JT should think our previous discussions ‘the pupil’s would answer that.” “You mean that it is from the pupil’s action that the pupil learns. Therefore it is the pupil’s problem that we wish?” “Exactly so. The more fully the pupil feels the problem and determines to solve it, the more fully do set and readi- ness, satisfaction and annoyance, help him to succeed and help him to learn from what he does.’’ “Tt seems to me that everything we said about mind-set and learning fits here.” “Tt does, exactly.” THE COMPLETE ACT OF THOUGHT 247 “And everything about ‘complete acts’ and purposeful activity.” “You are exactly right. Those discussions throw light here, and our recent discussions of meaning, thinking, and problem solving throw still further light.” “In the ‘complete act,’ we discussed how it might be hurtful for the parent or teacher to take unnecessarily one of the steps for the child. Would not the same : The child thing hold here?’’ eHonidinine “Precisely, and our conclusion there fits Self take here. As far as feasible the child should con- ‘* *¢?S sciously take each step himself, but the teacher may step in to save from defeat. In such a case he helps best by helping the child to help himself.” ‘You have spoken as if there are only individual prob- lems. Might there not be group problems?”’ ‘Indeed, yes. I should, in fact, hope that a good part of the day’s work of all the children above the : », Group very young would consist of group problems. NABER: “Would it not be well to divide a big prob- lem into smaller parts and let a small group work on one of the component parts?” “I think so, but let them report to the whole group in order that as far as feasible each individual shall in the end at least have thought through the whole work.” “Do you think geography can be taught wholly by prob- lems?” “Probably so, by problems and purposeful enterprises, but I question whether we shall always wish Teaching to teach by cutting out separate pieces of life subjects by and considering them separately as distinct Problems subjects. I think that as life seldom if ever presents geography by itself, perhaps it should accordingly not be taught by itself.’ 248 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “Do you think we have time to go into that now?” “T do not, but we must return to it after a while.”’ “How would you sum up what we have considered to- day? Iam afraid I may lose some part of it if we leave it like this.” kab ‘We have been discussing the complete act of thought. Ordinary practical thinking consists essentially of inferring from the situation at hand an expec- tation of whatit means. We can do this only because of the me con meanings we have previously formed of the like plete act things. Such thinking involves a step into the of thought = future and accordingly is liable to error. The complete act of thought is the full logical process by which one takes pains to make his thought reliable. Such an act of thought typically arises when a tendency to action has been hindered because no customary or tested meaning or proce- dure is available. The thinking is thus the effort to find a satisfactory meaning or plan of action. The measures for in- creasing reliability involve first the effort to get the best pos- sible suggestions as to the needed meaning or plan of action and second the effort to test the suggestions thus made. To get the most promising suggestions we examine carefully the situation of difficulty to locate the problem more precisely if that be possible and to arouse promising suggestions. To test a suggested solution (hypothesis) we first ask what would follow if it should be accepted, and second we put the matter to a trial to see whether the predicted does follow. If the predicted does follow from one hypothesis and so far as known from no other, we accept that hy- ae eae pothesis as the best available. | thinking, the ‘While these logical steps are to be seen in ernie the the degree that care in thinking is present it does not follow that they always appear with separate distinctness or in the order given. And if a given Stee 2 - ee ee a re eee ae =. Se a ee Sw. ee ee THE COMPLETE ACT OF THOUGHT 249 situation of difficulty does not yield to the first informal efforts at solution, we shall frequently find repeated efforts made, increasing in conscious formality as the matter in- volved seems to warrant the more careful procedure. “We found the use of problem work increasing in educa- tional procedure, partly because it utilizes better the condi- tions favorable to learning, partly because it Value of better serves to organize for the learner the field problem of attention. A favorable set and readiness S°ving may be expected from the initial impulse, and this, by well known psychological principles, is likely to be enhanced by the thwarting which sets the problem. Besides both these, a problem itself has a challenge which arouses the alert mind to a peculiar endeavor. From these three factors distinctly favorable conditions for learning are more than likely. “As regards organization, we saw that the urge and the definiteness of the problem guides thinking first to the selec- tion and evaluation of pertinent data and second to the con- sequent joining of meanings in such a related and evaluated way as to result not only in the definite organization consti- tuting the solution, but also in a valuable mapping of the whole situation studied. The respective satisfaction and annoyance at accepted and rejected relationships, felt ac- cording to the degree of interest present, tends to fix these organizations in mind, while the fact that they were made in answer to practical thinking gives them the greater probability of practical application when related demands shall later arise.” “Do you not reckon thought as man’s strongest instru- mentality of control?”’ “'T certainly do.” “Do you know any better way to increase one’s effec- tiveness of thinking than by facing and solving many and varied problems felt by the learner to be vital to him?” Conclusion 200 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “T know of no better way, nor any other that equals 1ti3 “Tg that in essence what we have been discussing?” ‘As I see it, yes.” REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING Dewey — How We Think, Chap. 6. KibpaTrick — Source Book in the Philosophy of Education, No. 27, 529. CHAPTER XVI Wuy EpvucaTIon 18 CHANGING ‘‘Am I wrong in thinking that education is changing now more rapidly than ever before?”’ ‘‘So far as I can tell, you are right, not wrong.” “Do you think the sober historian will bear us out?” “I do. I believe I could quote authorities Changes to if there were need.” be seen in “How is education changing? 1 see larger °¢ucation enrollments and larger and finer buildings, but I am not sure that I see better teaching than formerly.” ‘According to our best information, we teach better to- day than they taught seventy-five years ago, provided we still believe in teaching the same things.” * Have there not then been changes in the curriculum?” ‘Yes, great changes; not so much perhaps in the names of the subjects taught as in the content of what is taught.” “Do you mean that geography now is not Pye curric- the same as geography then?”’ ulum is “That’s just what I mean. Practically ‘2288 all the subjects are greatly changed in content.” ‘Even arithmetic?” ‘““Yes, it has changed greatly, and ought to change more.” ‘“Why has the content of the school subjects changed?” ‘“‘For various causes. Speaking generally, because the «present civilization demands a richer content, but an additional reason is that we are studying the question with increasing knowledge and with less respect for mere tradi- tion;’’ 251 252 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “Do you think that content has changed any more than aim or method? It seems to me that the intelligent teacher of to-day has very different aims from those Aims, too, are held by our predecessors, and consequently uses ene a different conception of method.” ‘How do aims differ? I teach algebra and geometry, and . I am not aware of any specially different aims from what my teachers had.” “Tt seems true that certain departmental teachers are less likely to feel the changes than others. This is more likely to be true where, as in geometry, the content doesn’t change much with the times.” “How are aims different? I repeat my question. I did not hear a real answer.” “T think in those older days teachers didn’t so much ask what they were aiming at beyond the textbooks — and these were pretty well fixed by tradition. If the children could recite the content of the textbook even by mere rote memory, and if they kept quiet and were otherwise ‘good,’ the teachers felt that they had done their duty. Now- adays many intelligent teachers are very much concerned with public questions, with social trends; and they are asking how they can best teach the children in the light of pressing public demands.”’ “Do you mean by ‘public questions’ such matters as an immigration policy, the relations of capital and labor, or the tariff?’ ‘Those are some of the things I had in mind.” “But surely you don’t think it is the duty of the school to deal with such controversial matters. Think what trouble we should bring down on us if we attempted to teach children the answers to such questions.” “Teach answers to these questions, no; but to introduce the older children to such questions, make them intelligent Controversial questions WHY EDUCATION IS CHANGING 253 with regard to them, get them to feel more keenly what is involved, yes.” ‘“You said a moment ago ‘teach children’; I wonder if the difference between the old and new is not pretty well indicated by the contrasted phrases, ‘teach qeaching - subjects,’ ‘teach children.’ What say you?” children, “T think the contrast has a significant lesson 2°t Subjects for us, but of course we don’t teach unless children learn. So teaching children must mean that they learn something. But I quite agree with you that we are properly concerned first with our children that they shall grow, and only second- arily with subject-matter that it be learned. The older view seems to reverse this order.” | “And you think that the better education of to-day differs from the best of the past in aim, in content, and in method, all three?”’ “T do. I certainly do so think, and furthermore I believe the difference is of very great significance to us.” “Why should there be such a difference? What has brought it about?” “Vou are asking a big question. I hesitate to go ito 1h? “T wish you would. I have heard many express a wish that we might discuss it. What do you think is the main thing that has made the change?”’ What has ‘Science.”’ brought these “You surprise me. I thought you would a have said industry or our many inventions and discoveries.” ‘“‘T think science lies at the bottom of our discoveries and our inventions; without it they would not have gcence, been; and our discoveries and inventions in discovery and turn underlie the changes in modern industry. ™”°""™"S You have only to mention steam, electricity, and chemistry to see more fully what I mean.’’ 204 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD ‘And all these inventions and their applications change life and the conditions of life?”’ ‘“‘Rxactly so; and the change is seen to be the greater when we remember that this country is as yet new, that but recently it was rural, agricultural, even pioneer.” ‘“T see well enough these changes in life; even in my life- time they have been many; but I don’t see the bearings of all this on education and schools. What difference does it make to them?” ‘“Much in every way.’ “How? Be specific.” ‘“‘Consider first that the child is educated by the home, the church, the community, the larger world without, as sapl ea truly as by the school. In fact when you take not the only all into account, the ‘little red schoolhouse’ educative played a much smaller part in the total educa- mar tion of our forebears than many seem to think.” ‘“How so?” ‘Because most of the population went to school only a few months in the year and for not many years. Many pioneer men and women had even less than this meager schooling.” “Yes, and they had correspondingly little education. They were a crude lot, let me tell you.” ‘Crude seems a needlessly harsh word. For one thing, they had character — stronger, some people think, than that of their less crude descendants. They conquered the wilderness, and that took not only bravery but resourcefulness. Life for them was hard, but it was hearty and vigorous. “T should like, too, to deny that they lacked education. Abraham Lincoln was one of them — one of the crude ones if you wish — but he had an education far and away better than most have who now live so much more easily.” Frontier education WHY EDUCATION IS CHANGING 255 ‘Well, Lincoln was an exception, and he did have access to some of the best English literature. I suppose we may account for his wonderful literary style by his close study of a few great classics.” ‘‘Lincoln’s style is far from constituting him or his char- acter. I was thinking of much more than that. I should think of Lincoln as well educated even if he had _ not left us the Gettysburg speech or the Second pea ‘ale Inaugural Address.”’ “Do you mean that Lincoln had a great heart and a great character?” ‘Yes, I mean all that and more. He was not educated in the sense of having acquired the conventional signs of a cultivated and refined life. But he knew life, he knew people, he knew the big issues of his time, he had thought himself through to firm convictions. Moreover he had built strong interests in the things that count — his heart was right. And not only these things, he was capable also — he knew how to bring things to pass. In a word he seems to me to have made of himself the character needed by his times. However great the demands, he rose to meet them.” “Is that what you mean by education?” “Yes, so far as these things can be acquired. Education means nothing less than all this; and Lincoln had it all.” ‘But we seem to have got off the track. We were asking whether our forebears were educated.” ‘So we were, and Lincoln was brought in to show the possibilities of that older education. As schooling, it was at best slight, generally much worse than that; but the life itself educated.” “Do you think the life of that day educated those children any better than the life of the present day educates our 256 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD children? People laugh at moving pictures, but the ‘movies ; are a liberal education in themselves. And there is, besides, the radio and all the other modern inventions.”’ “Time for time, demand for demand, they did better then than do we.” “How so? I don’t get your meaning.”’ “The demands now are greater than the demands then. Life is now vastly more complex in detail, and we are far Frontier life more tied up with others about us even to our as aneduca- most distant neighbors. Our problems are much tional agency more difficult.” “T suppose our times are more difficult; I think you are right there; but our schools are much better. Why say the education of that day was in comparison better? Or did you mean to say that?” “Yes I meant just that. Ill put it this way. The demands now are relatively greater, and the opportunities for learning now relatively less. Education suffers accord- ingly.” “The greater demands of the present I’ve seen and ad- mitted, but the greater relative opportunities of the past I don’t see.”’ ; “In that day the home and the immediate community made up almost the whole of life. Food, clothing, shelter —. ah Pee almost everything that went to the making of relatively lezer eLe nay come mostly from the home, or at most efficient asan from the near neighborhood. The home sup- Seue rn plied the corn and wheat; the neighboring mill ground it. The crossroads blacksmith did prac- tically all the necessary iron work. Clothes came from wool or cotton grown at home, spun at home, dyed at home, woven at home, and at home made into garments. Shoes were made at home, near by at the farthest.” “T evant all that, but where is the education?” WHY EDUCATION IS CHANGING 257 “Exactly in all this. With all these things going on right at hand the children were early introduced to life itself. They shared with their parents in all these y : How edu- necessary operations for supplying the elemen- Qaiion came tary constituents of life. Not only were skills from sharing needed and developed. but insight and attitudes tae were gained. It required no far-flung imagina- tion to see the closely woven fabric of their immediate social life. Social insight came so easily that it seemed all but instinctive. And with insight came positive response. If any shirked, all saw, and in obvious truth all suffered. The needed social attitudes came almost inevitably, so close and apparent was connection between cause and effect.” “This reminds me of something we said a few weeks ago.” “What is that?” “That education is such a remaking of life as brings growth, and that growth runs along the three lines of out- look and insight, attitudes and appreciations, and _ tech- niques of control.” ‘You mean that the children of these early days gained outlook and insight?”’ “Yes, it was all but inevitable from the kind of lives they lived, but of course they gained outlook and insight only for life as it was then seen.”’ ‘And so, too, with attitudes and appreciations?” “Yes, life was definite in requiring and giving a just appreciation of what was then needed. And of course techniques of control came most certainly of all. yoy the The girl must learn to cook, spin, weave, sew, girl then and all the many other things that made up ‘4e¢ women’s work then.” | ‘“That’s how she learned household economy in those days?”’ 258 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD ‘“BHxactly. She had to; and what is even more, she saw that she had to, and she never questioned it.” “That sounds like coercion, only very effective coercion.” ““Yes, so effective it was seldom felt as such.” ‘‘And so ceased to be coercion?” “Yes. The girl did these things of inner choice, only de- murring when the task extended beyond her powers.” ‘‘So she did learn.” ‘Certainly she learned. First, she had an inherent motive impelling her to learn —'a real set with all its readiness — second, the situation to be met told her and the rest of the family when she succeeded and when she failed.’’ ‘““Yes, and the same situation supplied satisfaction for suecess and annoyance for failure. There is no doubt that she learned.”’ ‘And her brother?”’ “Tt was the same with him. He helped on the farm. He carried the corn to mill. He held the horse while the black- smith shod him. He was an active participant Pop teamed nell that his father did?) “How about the larger political life?” ‘It was simple; the problems were less complicated — partly because less well understood; but the boy heard and saw everything that went on. Local affairs were out in the open. When court week came the boy would go to see any specially mteresting case tried. Even the larger political meetings were so important that all attended or at least heard the matter discussed in detail at home.”’ ‘‘But just think what children can see now! How can you ignore that?” “‘T don’t ignore it, but I still assert that, in proportion to what they were expected to learn, the children of that day learned more, relatively, than do our children.” “Do you mean that just living their lives itself taught WHY EDUCATION IS CHANGING 259 them, whereas our children now do not by just living learn so large a proportion of what they need?”’ “Yes. That’s part of it. The children of those early days participated in the serious life of their parents. The common run of our city children nowadays are on-lookers. ; : Restricted They may have a few duties required of them, opportunities but we and they know that they don’t feel any © present special responsibility for the success of the home. Se teiNed Relatively, they are onlookers and feel so. In the city homes of the well-to-do, children are economic drones and nui- sances. In that earlier life they were economic assets.” ‘‘Do you mean that, accepting their due places as actual sharers, they were early educated to a sense of responsibil- ity in the family life?’ ‘Yes; and children now not so sharing are in danger of growing up with too little sense of such responsibility.” ‘Do you think any of the present wider social ills are due to an analogous lack of responsibility?” ‘Indeed I do. We have trouble to get citizens to vote. They won’t accept responsibility for matters of public wel- fare. Our city government is notoriously bad.” ‘*And you think the lives children now lead fail to educate them to meet these social demands?” ‘““Yes. Government is too complex, too difficult to see, too far off. The children can’t seeit. Their parents even do not understand it. So children grow up neither ‘ : : ‘ : é omplexity of knowing nor: caring, still less doing anything present life about it.”’ an educative “What about labor and capital?” corm ‘“‘TIt is too complicated to say much about, but at least one difficulty is that the children, whether of the ‘labor’ group or of the employing group, see or hear, at most, but one side of the economic problem. Division of labor, valuable as it is for production, has divided life, and people with it, 260 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD into widely separated parts. Unless special pains be taken, no child will grow up seeing how one kind of work is related to another kind. Under such circumstances it is easy for the demagog to appeal to narrow and selfish interests.” “Does this general line of thought throw any light on the introduction of the various manual activities into the school?” “Ves, The older life gave children enough first hand contact with things to supply them not only with the per- wi sonal and homekeeping skills but also with the y our 4 : : ’ schools are Varied meanings of practical affairs necessary using manual {o practical thinking. Now, unless the schools activities grow up mentally starved so far as concrete things and their meanings go, not to mention the lack of useful skills.” ‘And working with such things fits the active manipula- tive life natural to children?” “That’s another way of looking at it and a good way too.” “Do I correctly understand that we are to think of educa- tion 2s all the influences that mold one’s life and that just plain natural living in those older and simpler days came fairly close to giving the whole of the all-round training then needed for such a simple life?”’ “Ves that’s well said.” ‘‘ And that now with so many lines of work having left the home for the factory — large and distant factories at that — the home and community no longer supply the same sort of education they once did?” “Ves, Or you might say it in this way — that the school in that day had but a small part of the total educational work to carry. Now it has a much larger part.”’ “T don’t see why you put all these things on the school.”’ take special pains, many city children would = —_ = WHY EDUCATION IS CHANGING 261 ‘‘For the simple reason that they are not otherwise cared for. The school is the social institution made to care for all that would otherwise be neglected. You may not like it, but it is a fact. The school is the Pueraeoes residuary legatee so far as concerns social duties. duties other What the others won’t care for, the school must 88@2¢ies relinquish undertake.” “Don’t you think it weakens the family to have the school take up so many things that the family should care for?” “Don’t misunderstand‘me. I am trying neither to impoy- erish the home nor to relieve it of its proper duties. What I am trying to do is to recognize facts. The present family faces a different situation from the old family. I would strengthen the family in any way feasible, but we must not refuse to do the best possible by all the children. What the family cannot or will not do, the school must do. Possibly the rising generation, if better educated to face present condi- tions, will raise the status of family life in the next genera= tion.” “And are the other educative institutions—the church, the community, business life—in similar fashion yielding their former educative functions to the school?” ‘No single answer will suffice. Much of business demands better general education than formerly, but business itself offers less in the way of apprenticeship. ‘No Basicnedas admission’ signs indicate too that childish ob- an educative servers are not welcome. Putting it all together, #8°2°Y it seems fair to say that business on the whole follows the general trend; it demands relatively more and offers relatively less. The schools must make good the difference.” “How about the community?” “T think we have already answered that. Social life is vastly more complex, which means at one and the same time that it too demands more and offers relatively less.’ 262 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “T don’t quite see what you mean by ‘offers relatively less.’ How is this?” “T mean that the complexity of modern social and politi- cal life makes it harder to understand. More of it goes on unseen. So many things happen that each one thing gets less talked about at home. For these reasons young people see less of public affairs and hear less about them than formerly. The community in proportion to what it comprises offers smaller opportunities for the young to see how it works. Relative to demands, the community is less educative than formerly.” “Tsn’t part of the difference because we see the demands better than formerly?” More ‘What do you mean?”’ adequate ‘“‘T mean that the people of the frontier times insight now = saw clearly the situation close at hand and their children got practical skill and character training to fit the narrow range of their daily living, but none of them got insight enough not to waste our natural resources. Look at the school lands sold for a dollar an acre; and, as if that were not bad enough, see how often the proceeds were squandered besides.” “You mean that part of the present greater demand is owing to our greater insight into possibilities and dangers?” “Ves that’s just it; and I say that the simple life didn’t give broad insight then any more than it does now. I’ve lived in the country and I know.” “T am glad to agree with you that a very significant part of the difference between demands then and demands now is our present better insight into what is needed. It is part of our slowly accumulating stock of knowledge. The world has learned by experience. Your suggestion helps us to see this. I should like, however, to make clear that 1 have at no time wished a return to the simpler life of those early days. WHY EDUCATION IS CHANGING 263 My sole idea has been to see why our schools now must carry a heavier load than schools were formerly supposed to carry.” ‘And you still say that the school must make good the deficiency?” ‘Yes, indeed; whether the greater demands come from a more complex civilization or from fewer educa- : ne The schools tional opportunities or from more adequate must carry insight, the result is the same. The schoo] what others “¢ leave must carry a greater burden. “Does this tell us anything about the problem of the rural school?”’ ) “Yes, it does; but I think we can generalize. Each school should consider on the one hand the educational demands facing its children and on the other hand the total educa- tional possibilities inherent in the lives the children are leading anyhow. With these two things in mind the school can decide on its task. What won’t come to the child other- wise, the school must, if possible, undertake.” “Will these considerations mean different curriculums for the rural school and the city school?” “Properly understood, each curriculum is unique to its own situation. Yes, the rural school must have a curriculum to suit its situation. So with the small city; so with the large city. So with East; so with West.” ‘The school must always undertake to supply what would otherwise be lacking ?’’ “Yes, as far as it can.” “What about the church in these changing demands?” ‘There are many delicate elements involved here, and people are not so well agreed on the answer. Certainly in some quarters there is a lessening of authority. Many new ideas are pressing for consideration. The outlook is not clear.” 264 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “Do you think we are passing through a period of peculiarly rapid readjustment, or is this rapidity of change going to decrease?” “T should say the contrary.” ‘What! Do you mean that things are going to change more rapidly?”’ ireceatinote “T think they will.” | rapid changes ‘‘That’s a startling outlook. Why do you in the future think so?” ‘What makes the changes?” “Life must change when we keep having so many new inventions and discoveries..” ) “And what makes inventions and discoveries? And are they likely to increase or decrease in number?” “Our scientists make the discoveries and I suppose our inventors, whoever they are, make the inventions?” ‘And the inventions mainly depend on the discoveries?” Vasv? “Qo we come back to science and our scientists?” PONV aac ‘And is science increasing or decreasing?” “Increasing, and increasing rapidly.” ‘And an ever increasing science makes ever increasing discoveries?” “Yes, and I suppose that means ever increasing in- ventions, and that means ever increasing change.”’ “Ves, that’s the argument. Do you see any escape?” “No, not unless civilization somehow goes to pieces.” “Then you face not only inevitable change but the added fact that the change will itself become more rapid?” “Ves, I can see nothing else.” “T ean’t see that all this makes any difference to the schools. If we let you people run on the way you like, we should get clear away from practical school affairs? What WHY EDUCATION IS CHANGING 265 possible concern is it of the school that there should or should not be rapid changes in social life?” ‘“‘T think a great difference.” “T asked you what difference, not how great. I don’t see why we are concerned.” ‘Do you think the school should so prepare young people that they can take charge of affairs SPE Nisan after we go?” prepare for “T certainly do. Don’t you?” Srperet fila nh “If we understand preparation rightly, yes. Suppose we say yes, and suppose you set out to prepare your pupils for that coming day, how can you prepare them. if you don’t know what that day will be like?”’ “Why, then, I couldn’t prepare them. How could I, if I don’t know what I am preparing them for?” “But things are changing; do you know what new inven- tions will be made?”’ “Certainly not.” “So you don’t know what changes will be introduced into life?’’ “No, but some things are fixed and settled.” ‘‘And you can prepare for them?” ‘Vag? ‘‘And not for the new ones?” ‘‘Not exactly.” “Why say not exactly?” “YT was thinking that I might prepare the children to expect changes; that would be some help, I believe.” ‘‘And prepare them to adjust themselves to , : P ‘ . ow to pre- a changing situation, adjust themselves to pare for an change itself, perhaps?” unknown “Yes, I think so.” Sa “Imagine two teachers: one knows exactly what his pupils will face, what they will face and all they will face; 266 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD the other knows (or thinks he knows) some things they will face, but he mainly knows that they will face inevitably and increasingly rapid change in unknown directions. Now I ask, should the teachers manage their schools alike.”’ “JT think not. The fixed-civilization teacher will know in advance the answers to the questions his pupils will meet. Deetaration He can teach these answers just as his pupils in a static will need to know them. But the changing- civilization = Givilization teacher can’t do that. Really I don’t know what he can do.”’ “Teaching for him becomes a different problem, doesn’t 1b?! / “Tt certainly does. I had never thought of it in just that way before.” “The fixed-civilization teacher can teach his pupils what to think, you say, but the other cannot.” “How about how to think? I mean how to attack prob- lems? How to judge of difficult situations? Couldn’t the Procerattion changing-civilization teacher do that?” in a dynamic “And if so the schools would be run dif- civilization = ferently, would they not?” “Ves I see now. I begin to see. As long as people looked on the world as fixed and static, they had children mainly memorize answers to the questions they might expect to meet. Memorization and adjustment to a fixed order, habituation I mean; that’s the kind of school we should expect, and that’s the kind they did have. It’s certainly interesting.”’ “Yes, and if people face a rapidly shifting and changing world, changing in unexpected ways and in unexpected directions, then what?”’ “Why, their education would stress thinking and methods of attack and principles of action rather than merely what todo. Yes, I see it. Such a school would try to make self- WHY EDUCATION IS CHANGING 267 reliant and adaptable people; and are not the better of our newer schools working just exactly along these lines? This is all very interesting.’ ‘But we agreed above that even in a shifting civilization some things would stay fixed. Wouldn’t selfishness be one of those fixed things?”’ “At any rate the danger of selfishness is always with us. Then you would have us prepare against this?” “Yes, but I don’t know exactly how to do it.” “And now we face education for morals.” “T am glad, for I have long wished that we might dis- cuss moral and religious education.” | “We shall probably have to postpone that particular topic for a while, but at least some part must ° ” Certain come in here. eerabds “What do you mean?” ARN unchanging “Certain human traits, as the tendency to selfishness, we shall always have with us; and new forms of selfishness will constantly be possible with the new modes of living.” “T wish you would illustrate.” “Take the automobile. It is a relatively new invention. Has it given us any new example of selfishness?” “TI think so. What the newspapers call the ‘road hog’ is at any rate a peculiar development with the auto- mobile.” ‘What is the conclusion of this?” ‘That in morals we cannot depend merely on fixed rules, a set of don’t’s and do’s. We do wish a number of very spe- cific habits; but we also wish to go as far as we ithe can toward building up conscious unselfishness Cake en as a trait of character in our young. Specific unselfishnesses, yes, in so far as we can foretell; but, if possible and as far as possible, we wish to enthrone the 268 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD more general conception of unselfishness so as to take better care of the new cases that are bound to occur.” “You mean, if I understand, that we must teach princi- ples and not mere habits?” ‘“That’s another way of saying it. Any words we use have their pitfalls, but rightly understood, yes, I agree.” ‘‘When has a thing really been taught? I am sick of this talking of teaching morals when so many think that if you give orders often enough or require children to memorize rules of conduct you are teaching morals.” “T agree thoroughly with you, and should like to say that we haven’t taught till the child has learned. It is just like selling and buying.” ‘“What do you mean?”’ ‘‘Just this. The salesman hasn’t sold unless the customer buys. The teacher hasn’t taught unless the child learns. I believe in the proportion: When learn- ; ing has teaching : learning = selling : buying.”’ taken place “That’s very good. I like it. But some- thing still remains. When has the child learned?” ‘We had that once before. The child has not learned until he cAN and wit do the thing. That is particularly our answer in the matter of morals. It takes all three, SEE, CAN, and witL; but to me ‘Wit he do it’ is the main one.” ‘And all this means a new type of teaching?” ‘““How so?”’ “Our older school concerned itself mainly with CaN. Can this child repeat these words? Can this child perform these skills?” ‘Was that because the school in that day and time could expect the home and community life to teach the sEE and WILL?” “In good part so, I think. Yes, I agree with you.” WHY EDUCATION IS CHANGING 269 “‘Tf I understand you, the changing times have changed largely the duty of the school?”’ “Yes, that’s it.” ‘‘And the new duties demand a broadening and enrich- ing of the curriculum?” ‘Yes, otherwise our rising generation will not sEE its duties and obligations and possibilities.” ‘‘And it requires, too, a new method because the home and community life has lost much of its former educative possibilities?”’ ‘‘A new method? I don’t see that.” ‘I mean that in a former day vital activities surrounded the child on all sides. His life was filled with purposeful activities of real worth and he saw and felt the 4 ..w worth. Now the usual home has for the child method few of such vital activities. His life is largely eede4 reduced to mere play which does not have all the needed educative values. The school as usual must make good the deficit. ‘The school accordingly must introduce activities, purposeful activities, in order to give the child the vigorous living that he needs. This of course is method in the broad sense.” ‘“We have thus a need for a new type of school.”’ “Yes, but many not thinking deeply and knowing only the schools of their childhood consider the needed new changes as fads and frills.” ‘‘So this is why the old three R’s no longer suffice?” ‘“‘T think so.”’ “And why we see everywhere signs of a change in method?” ‘Yes, there is fundamental need for new aims, new con- tent, and new method.” ‘So far nothing has been said about a new science of education. That seems to me one of the most potent Résumé 270 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD factors in changing aim, content, and method of educa- tion.” ‘‘So it has been, but it has come largely as an attendant result of the causes previously discussed. ‘The need for a Thee different type of school has, as was to be ex- study of pected, brought consciousness to the problem.” aria Me ‘‘And this new consciousness of the problem working itself out has given us the new study of edu- cation?” ‘‘Exactly so.” | ‘‘T am surprised that nothing has been said of democracy in connection with the new education.” Democacy “Well, for one thing we cannot mention andthenew everything at once. Democracy I think has Stet been at work slowly remaking the school to a greater sensitiveness to child nature, and perhaps especially to make us see that we must get our children to where they can and will think for themselves. In both it has worked hand in hand with science.”’ ‘“But you think the most fundamental causes for a new conception of education have beer the new industrial order?”’ ‘““Yes, that and its own underlying cause, science.”’ “And you think that with a greatly changed civilization has come a shifting in the relative duties of home, school, community, and church in the education of the child?” ‘‘A shifting first of relative opportunities of home and community, and a consequent shifting of relative duties of the school.” ‘What about those who say, ‘What was good enough for me is good enough for my children ’?”’ “They are simply blind. They know they live in a changed world, but they do not see that the changed world makes new and greater demands on the schools.” Summary WHY EDUCATION IS CHANGING 271 “And what about the three R’s and ‘fads and frills’?”’ “As for ‘fads and frills,’ I should not like to say that teachers have made no mistakes, but I must say that the three R’s no longer suffice to do for children what the times demand. We must enrich the curriculum and we must change our methods. To make these changes is no more a matter of fad or frill than is the building of garages. If we live in the modern world we must face its duties.” ‘Have we already made most of the needed changes?”’ ‘We are not yet well begun.” ‘‘Then you look for yet greater changes?”’ “T certainly do.”’ “And they will cost yet more money.” “They certainly will.” REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING Dewey — School and Society, Ch. 1. Dewey — The Educational Situation, Part I. CuBBERLEY — Changing Conceptions of Education. KanpeEt (ed.) — Twenty-five Years of American Education, Ch. 3. CHAPTER GXVIL SUBJECT-MATTER AND THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS ‘All these years I have been thinking I knew what subject- matter is, but recently I heard it discussed, and now I don’t Aris eoanine feel at all clear about it.” of subject- ‘“Moral: Don’t discuss; or perhaps better, Bicrnct don’t think.” “Ts your trouble that you don’t know what subject- matter means as a term or that you don’t know what is the most useful way of thinking about it?” “‘T don’t know which, probably the latter.” ‘“‘T don’t see your difficulty. Subject-matter is what you learn when you study.” ‘‘T am not so sure whether it is what you learn or what you study.” ‘‘Is there any difference?”’ ‘“‘T think there is a great difference. Sometimes at any rate one studies over a whole area and learns just a little or at the most concludes but little. Subject-matter-of-study seems to me almost always wider than subject-matter-of-learning. What you study contains much chaff along with the wheat. Study seems to be an effort to find the wheat and to separate it from the chaff.” ‘“What you say is true, but I don’t just like your figure. The wheat was there from the first and was wheat all the time. Study seems somehow to bring the learning into exist- ence.” ‘Don’t you think this hairsplitting is awful? Why not go on to something practical? I lhked the suggestion of 272 SUBJECT-MATTER AND EDUCATIVE PROCESS 273 seeking the most useful way of conceiving subject-matter. Why not consider that? Only [have no suggestion to make.” “Tsn’t subject-matter simply one essential factor in the educative process? There must be a learner, a child let us say, and something learned. Without both gpg ana these two, child and subject-matter, there is no subject- educative process.” paieha ti : actors in the “T sea you’ve read Dewey’s The Child and the educative Curriculum. What does he mean by saying P70°ess that many so conceive the two as to make them disparate? Only I believe he does not use the word ‘disparate.’”’ ‘“‘T think he means that many conceive them as belonging to entirely different kinds of things, without any common ground between them.”’ Ponleewl st “Well what common ground can there be factors between a child and the definition of a verb or “sparate? the multiplication table? A child is a live, wriggling, emo- tional creature, a young and erring mortal. The multiplica- tion table was fixed before the foundation of the world. It is perfect and timeless. We can’t mention life in connection with it; it is neither dead nor alive. I should say that properly considered child and subject-matter are disparate, as disparate as an inch and an hour. And this young, weak, erring child needs exactly this perfect subject-matter to make good his deficiencies, and that I call learning.” “Tf the two are as disparate as you say, how can you get them together? And what is learning and how does it get in its perfect work? I think you go too far. If they are really disparate, they cannot interact.” ‘(Whether disparate things can interact, I don’t know; but don’t you think the natural tendency of holding the two as separate and disparate is to reduce learning to mere memorizing, to holding unrelated — disparate — matter in the mind?” 274 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD ‘““Yes, I do think so. I believe observation will bear out what you say. For myself I wish to think of child and learning and subject-matter as all having a common de- nominator, as all belonging together in one single con- ception.” “Your common-denominator, get-together, one-single- conception idea sounds good, but I can’t think of any such. What have you to suggest?”’ ‘“‘T like Dewey’s, the conception of experience. The subject-matter of the curriculum is race experience, the Renenenes picked winnings of the race, the best ways man- asaunifying kind has yet devised of meeting its problems.” meee “That’s all right for subject-matter, but where does the child come in? 1 thought we were to have a common denominator?” ‘Tt is a common denominator. The child has experience, the race has experience. The child’s experience is, of course, childish; but it is merely the small, the beginning, the germ; the fuller form we see in the race experience.” ‘“‘T get a glimmer of what you mean, but not all. Won’t you elaborate?”’ ‘“‘Compare inch and hour with inch and mile. Inch and hour are, as was said, truly disparate. An inch is neither longer nor shorter than an hour nor yet equal to it. The two do not belong on the same scale. But with inch and mile it is different. An inch is shorter than a mile. If we think of a scale of length, an inch will belong on it, and so willa mile.” “What are you talking about? I thought we were dis- cussing experience as a common denominator for child and subject-matter.” “So weare. Just wait. I say that on the scale of life or experience the child, like the inch on the mile, reaches but a small way. His ways of behaving are only beginnings, his language, for example, is limited and full of errors. The race SUBJECT-MATTER AND EDUCATIVE PROCESS 275 experience, the best ways of behaving that man has yet devised, like the mile, reaches in comparison much longer. But — and this is my point — they both belong on the same scale. The best and wisest among us are in speech but doing better and wiser the same kind of thing the child is doing in his childish talk. There is no disparateness between the two. The greater is but the development to a higher degree of the less. Child-experience and race-experience are but earlier and later stages of the same thing.” ‘As useful as is the term experience for your purpose, I think you used a phrase even better.”’ “What was that?’ ‘“Ways-of-behaving. To me this is even a more obvious common denominator to child and subject-matter than is the notion of experience. The child is, if he is Weel ne ni anything, a bundle of ‘ways-of-behaving.’ As having asa you yourself said, the race-experience has pre- Unifying served for us the best ways-of-behaving that rated have thus far been devised. Then child and subject-matter are both alike ways-of-behaving. The child’s ways are small, crude, erring, perhaps, when we compare them with the best ways-of-behaving of the best among us; but they clearly belong on the same scale, as you have just brought out.” “That sounds good, but let’s look more closely. The combination 7 x8 = 56 is subject-matter. How is it a way- of-behaving? Did you not too hastily include all subject- matter in your assertion?” “T think not. Consider a case where 7x8 = 56 actually belongs. I buy seven eight-cent stamps. I could pay for them separately, paying in at the stamp window >, Fayrot eight cents seven distinct times—I mean in behaving seven separate and distinct payments. That Aa Sha oe would be 7x8. But that is too much trouble. Thanks to 276 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD our race experience (for many uncivilized tribes do not know so much arithmetic) instead of seven separate and distinct operations of paying eight cents each I make one paying operation of fifty-six cents. This race experience subject-matter way-of-behaving is much neater and more expeditious.” “T had never thought of that before. And do all the things that we teach our children show the same thing? How about geography?”’ ‘It too, properly considered, consists of ways-of-behaving. I was in Detroit and learned to my regret that a certain train epanenyae | SOe which I was relying did not, on account as ways-of- of the change to daylight saving time, get me Beane into New York soon enough to meet an engage- ment. No other through train passing Detroit would do as well. Then came my geography. How about the Lake Shore road? Many trains between Chicago and New York pass that way, and the distance from Detroit down could not be great. There must surely be a road that would make the connection. Search disclosed such a connecting road with a satisfactory schedule of trains. A fast train to New York was caught and the engagement met. Here geograph- ical knowledge actually meant a way-of-behaving. It told me where to look.”’ ‘Would you be willing to say that all subject-matter in the curriculum really works this way?” ‘Tam quite willing to say that all ought to work this way; that anything which does not so work has no place in the i 3 Wayeotbenncun riculum. Mes havingandthe ‘‘ This is one way then of criticizing a curricu- curriculum lum?” ‘‘Indeed it is, and trenchant criticism it gives too. Much curriculum content I fear could not stand it.” “You would have to interpret behavior rather broadly, SUBJECT-MATTER AND EDUCATIVE PROCESS 277 would you not, in order to include all desirable learnings under the head of ways-of-behaving?”’ ‘No more broadly than behavior properly extends. To me behavior is as broad as life; it specifically includes all ways of reacting in life to life situations. So far as I can see that will include all we need.” ‘‘A moment ago you used this conception as a criterion for criticizing the curriculum. Iam wondering if it is equally valuable as a criterion for judging learning.” “What have you in mind?”’ ‘“‘T mean so as to decide whether a thing has been learned. We have said this in several different ways before. I should like now to say that nothing has been learned wy, jearn- until it has been made over into an actual way- ing has taken of-behaving. Much school learning seems to eee me to be merely for show purposes, chiefly for show on examination day. To me this is a degradation of the notion of learning, a prostitution of it. Nothing has been learned till it is there ready and disposed to serve as an actual way- of-behaving.”’ ‘Wouldn’t that condemn many schools and teachers?” “T think it would, but it is no less valuable for all that. In fact I think our schools are often off the track. They seem not to know what they are about or why. If everybody saw that subject-matter is good only and because it fur- nishes a better way-of-behaving and that learning means acquiring actually that way-of-behaving — if every one saw these things, we should have, as we ought to have, a dif- ferent kind of schools.” ‘Does this have any bearing on education as a prepara- tion for life?”’ “This conception helps us to understand one previously discussed, the continuous reconstruction of experience. To learn anything as a new way of behaving is of course 278 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD to reconstruct experience. If we demand that the way- of-behaving be got only as it is immediately needed, we shall have the continuous remaking of experi- Education : Pen MCh te sige Le a ence; and this of course is life itself, hving now construction — the opposite of education as a mere prep- of experience : iP r aration for future living.” ‘And you really mean that you wish everything the child learns to reappear soon as a new way of behaving? Every- thing — arithmetic, geography, history, spelling?” “That is exactly what I mean. I should wish each thing to be learned when and because it was needed as a way-of- behaving right then and there. If it comes into the child’s life because it is thus needed, I think it will sooner and more frequently and more vitally be called on to serve again in that child’s life.” ‘To you mean there should be no variation from this, none whatever? Remember how many inferior teachers we have.” “T told you what I should wish. In this world we often are compelled to take less than we wish.”’ ‘‘Somewhere I have heard the phrase ‘potential subject- matter.’ Does it not fit in here?”’ “T think it does. Take an illustration that we have used once before. A child sets out to learn to lace his shoes. Potential vs. While he is working at this, everything that he actual sub- studies in connection is, I should say, actual ject-matter = subject-matter-of-study. A year ago this activ- ity was far ahead of him and of his abilities. Even a month ago it was too much for him. To-day it is actual subject- matter. Now a year ago, and more so a month ago, his mother knew that if all went well the time would come when shoe lacing would thus become actual subject-matter- of-study. She saw it then as potential subject-matter to the child, possible in the future but as yet not actual.” SUBJECT-MATTER AND EDUCATIVE PROCESS 279 “Then you have by contrast defined for us two terms, actual subject-matter, potential subject-matter.” Se Vie a? ‘What do you call anything after it has been learned, well learned? To him who has learned a thing in the past it cannot now be called actual subject-matter, still less is it for him potential subject-matter. What name do you give iba: “Qo far as I know there is no good name to give it. I have sometimes by contrast called it ‘once-was’ subject- matter; but that sounds odd.” “Vou spoke of the boy’s lacing his shoes. I wish we might go over that again. I should like to see more clearly the vari- ous steps in the educative process and particularly how the notions of study, learn, and subject-matter enter. We have touched on various parts of this already. I should like to see it all brought together.” “Tam glad to do so, though it isnoteasy. Let us take the boy’s lacing his shoes. I like to think of this as typical of practical out-of-school learning. I should like practical to emphasize here the two terms ‘practical’ out-of-school and ‘out-of-school.’ ”’ Secaae “You mean then that not all learning takes this form?”’ “Yes, that’s what I mean. I think this is the most signifi- cant learning. I know there are other kinds, but I find it difficult to draw lines of demarcation. Certainly this shoe- lacing instance is typical of a very important class of learn- ing. I reckon five steps, which I propose to number and discuss: “1. The boy starts out to do something, here to lace his shoes. This he has never done before ‘all by himself.’ He has seen mother or sister or nurse do it, so he knows more or less about it, at least enough to make a beginning. tay FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD . He meets a difficulty. The activity is brought to a stop. Now, as we saw once before, this difficulty arises because he lacks a certain way-of-behaving (as the behaviorist psycholo- gist says, he lacks the appropriate behavior-pattern). He has many habits and skills, many ways-of-behavior, many behavior-patterns, but he lacks this particular way-of- behaving; namely, the behavior-pattern of lacing his own shoes. True enough he already has parts of the needed way- of-behaving; he knows eyelet holes, he can put lace point through eyelet hole, he can pull on the string, he can even tie a knot; but as one whole operation he cannot. He lacks it. And the difficulty is that he lacks it. Lack, difficulty. No lack, no difficulty. . He tries again and again, his mother helping him. He pays attention to all the promising elements in the situation. He notes the order and arrangement of lacing. He watches how his mother does it. He looks at her finished result. He tries again and studies as he goes. “This attention to promising elements in the situation in order to make good his lack is what I call study. Study is thus the studious effort to acquire a needed new way-of- behaving. . Eventually (we will suppose) he gets the ‘hang of the thing’ —he finds, gets, and applies the needed new way-of-behav- ing. He can and does lace his shoes. ‘‘Learning appears here as getting the needed behavior- pattern, the lacking new way-of-behaving. As we said earlier, learning (this kind of learning) has not taken place until the new way-of-behaving is so built up in the learner that it becomes in fact to him a new way of behaving. The new behavior-pattern (way-of-behaving) now being available and applied, the difficulty is gone. The activity is resumed and carried to its conclusion. The shoes are laced.” “T see where siudy and learn come in. They are clear, but I don’t see the subject-matter. Where is it?” SUBJECT-MATTER AND EDUCATIVE PROCESS 281 ‘Curiously enough it appears more complicated than we had beforetimes carelessly thought. We may define subject-matter as what we study and what we learn from the study. If so, we find the first part of the definition in step 3, the things to which attention was paid, those promising elements; and the second part in step 4, what was learned.” ‘““Most people, it seems to me, do not see these two parts in the conception of subject-matter.” ‘Yes, and some who have got the new point of view doubt the wisdom of continuing to use the old term; but I am not yet convinced that we should give it up.” 3 “You speak of the new point of view. Have you not in fact introduced us to new conceptions of study and learn as well as of subject-matter?”’ ‘“‘Before we answer that I should like to recall that this boy who yesterday could not lace his shoes and to-morrow and thereafter does lace his shoes is a different ppe pecon- person. You remember when we were dis- struction of cussing the reconstruction of experience [see paPes lanes page 190] it was brought out that henceforth this boy is more independent, more a self-directing person. He not only can and does lace his shoes, but he now is called upon to consider hours and bells in a way and with a respon- sibility new to him. Having greater responsibility he has more chance to meet responsibility and of course also more chance to shirk. The moral world thus opens a little wider to him. He is in sober fact more of a person. Moreover he feels it. Right or wrong, good or bad, he feels his growing independence, his new responsibility; and through this his personality again grows more complex. And not only he but his mother feels it all. She rejoices that he has gone forward; but her mother heart has its corresponding pang, he is now less dependent on her, is now less her baby. How subject- matter enters 282 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD He has taken a step forward on the road to manhood with its admittedly separate personality and self-control.” “And this you think of as the reconstruction of the child’s experience?”’ ‘Yes, this is true education, true living.” ‘‘T like your phrase ‘step forward.’ Would you say that each instance of learning is in so far a ‘step forward’?” “Yes, a step forward at least toward a more complex and generally distinct personality, not necessarily a step forward Subiect toward a goal ethically good. R response. We will respond (R) to any situation (S) in the degree that the connection between the two has been well built.” ‘From this it would seem that we should form a great many S— R responses covering as well as may be the moral field. If these are well formed we shall then be morally sensitive to their demands as seen in any situation. If there is no contradiction in the resulting demands we shall then act in response to the stimuli felt to be present.” “You mean we shall act in response to a stimulus if the appropriate response bond connection has been built?” “Yes, that’s right.”’ “And we deliberate if we find ourselves pulled into contradictory responses by the S—R bonds called into action?” ‘Yes, deliberation is to find if possible which response will best meet the demands felt in the situation.” “Tt seems to me that, fastening attention on the S> R conception, we may restate the foregoing in a way to give us helpful suggestions for moral education?” ‘“‘How would you restate it?” Three con- iT : : ei dntalae As I see it, we should seek to build three the good things: I h one be’ e e . ae a “1. A stock of ideas to describe and identify the © moral situations likely to arise. “2. Skill in judging such matters so as, if need arise, to decide efficiently which idea best fits a given situation, and if — the case be novel what response is appropriate. MORAL EDUCATION «339 “3. A stock of responses joined appropriately with the ideas above described so that when a particular idea has been selected its appropriate response will follow.” “YT understand you mean this as a program of moral education?” pry ag? ‘‘Would some of the ideas have more idea content than others?”’ “Indeed, yes. Go back to the symbol S— R. So far as I can see, any idea under (1) above may serve as an 8, and these would vary from the barest sign up to the completest system of philosophy.” ‘‘And similarly with the R’s?”’ ‘Again, yes. They would vary from the seh test look of recognition up to the most elaborate and inclusive scheme ever worked out for bettering civilization.” “You called this a program for moral education, how would you go about it? What would you do?”’ “T should expect to build, as occasion offered, the ideas with their appropriate responses, and to develop, as fully as was feasible, the widely varied skills in judging of such matters.” ‘Will the ideas help in judging?”’ “Yes, they form the basis upon which judgment must work, but actual skill must be developed.” “How do you build ideas in this field?” “Just as anywhere else. First of all, the child will get at least a crude idea from hearing about a thing Ppa ees or hearing a term used. With this crude idea are built in as a nucleus, he should have opportunity to try the moral it out under such varied conditions as (a) will hen show where it is strong and where weak, where adequate and where inadequate; and (b) will fix the strong and ade- quate points and piece out the weak and inadequate points.”’ 340 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “T was thinking that our discussion of psychological and logical is pertinent here.”’ “It is pertinent. The alternating series of psychological and logical is exactly the process of building more and more adequate ideas.”’ _ “These two ways of building ideas are the same way, are they not?” “Substantially so. Each succeeding logical is an idea, and each next psychological more or less tests that idea.” “All this means actual experience, doesn’t it?” “Yes, much and varied actual experiencing.”’ “Do you mean we cannot use other people’s experiences in building ideas?”’ “No, this repeats a discussion we had once before. We can use a certain proportion of vicarious experiences, but there must be a large substratum of first-hand experiences to begin with, and as often as feasible we should test our — resulting ideas on the hard facts of first-hand experience.” ‘“How about books or stories or pictures?” “So far as concerns the building of ideas about morality The use of and the practicing of judgment on such ideas, © books, stories, books and the like may be of great assistance. and pictures furnish rich material for this purpose.” ‘You seem to have limitations in mind.” ‘‘I was thinking of the need for first-hand experience in order to build item 3 of the program, the stock of responses. t We cannot build a response without responding, — How moral Bier : ; responses so we are severely limited here. Situations shapes reported in books and elsewhere afford but a colorless and unreal responding. A little is possible. A child may say, ‘If I ever get a chance I’ll do thus and so.’ This has some effect, but such effects are slight in com- parison with actual responding to actual situations.”’ Literature and history and biography all | ! MORAL EDUCATION 341 “Your conclusion then for moral education is that we need much actual practice in life situations?” “Yes, many varied social life experiences calling forth abundant life reactions from the participants.” ‘Does this mean a change in our ordinary schoolrooms?” ‘Indeed it does. The ordinary school with fixed desks, with lessons mostly memorized from books, with the teachers settling practically every ques- peaae inal f tion — such a school situation furnishes so little not adapted opportunity at real living as practically to starve peat the children morally.” ‘“‘Does this account for the wide demand for moral instruc- tion and for lessons in citizenship and the like?” “‘It certainly has much to do with it. If we had set out to devise a system that would prevent moral development we could hardly have surpassed our hitherto prevalent practice in this respect.” “You think then the public school cannot build morals?” ‘“Indeed, I do not. I think it has abundant possibilities.” ‘You mean it has possibilities but has not R ; The public tried to realize them?”’ school and “Fxactly.” moral edu- cation ‘What should it do?” ‘“Get a change of heart in superintendent, supervisor, and teacher as to what is of most worth. Stop stressing skills and facts to the hurt of everything else. Make : yen: ; : Changes our schools into social institutions. Encourage needed to codperative enterprises. Change the curriculum &et moral from extrinsic to intrinsic subject-matter. Seek piece activities that challenge the deepest interest and the highest powers of the children. In it all and through it all seek to make our children increasingly sensitive to the moral aspects of life. Seize every opportunity to build in them a sense of responsibility for group values.”’ 342 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “T accept practically all you say, but I am troubled to hear no discussion of duty. Do you not believe in building Place of duty Sense of duty in children?” in moral “A sense of duty well built is a great moral eee asset, and I should try to build it.”’ “You seem lukewarm. I think duty the greatest thing in morals if not the sum of it.” ‘“Duty may in a certain logical sense be the sum of morals, but it does not follow that we should make moral education depend on building one.all inclusive notion of duty.” ‘“You would disapprove such an effort?”’ “IT certainly would. I consider duty in this all-inclusive sense to be correspondingly lacking in specific content. It Duty! honey: is probably best conceived as a general notion etc.asrein- which along with such similar conceptions as forcements —_ honor, plighted word, ‘what will people think,’ can be built up to the place where they have distinct value for reinforcement purposes. Frequently one’s moral strength is just balanced. To feel that the matter at hand isa duty, to be able to say ‘My honor demands it,’ to think ‘I have given my word’—any one of these may save the day provided we have previously built a strong response to duty or honor or plighted word as the case may be.”’ ‘Then we must be careful to build such a reliable response to duty for example?”’ Ayala “Yes, and it is not easy. Many a parent duty must has for a long time hurt any use of the term duty be built by making it hateful to the child. It is here as elsewhere, ‘practice with satisfaction.’ ”’ ‘Do you not believe in direct moral instruction then?” “If you mean by direct moral instruction Direct moral using some textbook with set lessons, no.” instruction { ‘‘But what about a set time when moral matters are so discussed as to clarify concepts in the field?” MORAL EDUCATION 343 ‘Opinions differ. My own opinion is that this may be done with older children if you have a very good teacher to take charge of it; but great care must be taken that it not be expected to take the place of intelligent oversight of actual moral living.”’ “You think that the main reliance must be zestful social living properly directed ?”’ ‘“Eixactly so.” sat ‘‘And that means a change of heart, as you reliance in said, among school people?”’ moral edu- ‘““Yes. We must put first things first.”’ Sac ‘“You mean value habits and attitudes above skills and facts?” | ey es.’ “But you would not disregard facts and skills?” ‘‘No but I would give them their due subordination in a scheme of fruitful living.” ‘ And is your last word for moral education zestful social living properly directed?”’ ‘“‘Yes, zestful social living under the guidance of those who, on the one hand, appreciate social moral values and, on the other, love children and know how to lead them.” ‘‘Zestful social living under wise guidance. This must be our main reliance.” REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING See references at the end of Chapter XIX (page 326). CHAPTER XXI SOME CONCLUDING QUESTIONS “Could we not to advantage sum up what we have been talking over this year?”’ ‘Or better still, why not consider certain points that will round out our ideas as to what to do about it all?” “What point had you in mind? Possibly we can do both.”’ “One thing I should like to ask about, and that is the word ‘project.’ I have heard a great deal about the ‘project method.’ If I understand it, that’s what we have been talking about a good deal of the time, but I don’t believe any one has used the word The term “project” even once.” ‘Do you know why?” “No, why?” “T can’t answer for any one else, but I have been following the practice I observed at the university where I studied under a man who has done a good deal to spread the idea. I remember, too, his advice.”’ ‘And what was that?” ‘“He said the merits of purposeful activity depend on how well it will work if given a fair chance and not at all on the name assigned to it and still less on who first used the name. He refused to get stirred up by disputes, and he would not use the term ‘project’ at all till the doctrines had all been discussed, so insistent was he that we not mistake the name for the thing signified.”’ ‘Don’t you think, however, a name has a good deal to do with the spread of an idea?” 344 SOME CONCLUDING QUESTIONS 345 “Tt may very well so act. A pat name attracts attention. People ask then what it means.”’ “Yes, and many natural born faddists take it up at once in order to be ‘up with the times,’ just as young people wish to wear ‘the latest thing.’ ” ‘“‘Can a good thing bea fad? I thought a fad was just an empty show.” “Certainly, a good thing may be a fad. If those who practice a thing don’t know or care why they use it but simply do it to ‘get on the band wagon,’ as the politicians say, or to draw attention to themselves, then that thing is to them a fad.” “Theard a great scholar in literature say that we nowadays make a fad and fetish of spelling. He said uniform spelling was not necessary, that Shakespeare didn’t know how to spell even his own name or, perhaps better, he spelled it almost any way that the fancy of the moment struck him.” ‘Well, can’t we get on with the project? Do you mean that when we were discussing purposeful activity and simultaneous learnings we were discussing the project method?” Siete ‘“Eixactly so.” “T thought a method was a device. I should hardly call purposeful activity a device.” “Method is differently conceived by different people. There are some, as we saw, who believe in education as mere preparation for future living and therefore are yretnod not concerned as to how best to get their daily or necessarily weekly quotas of extrinsic subject-matter * eye learned. These people are almost sure to think of method as a matter of device. But there is a much broader notion possible. You recall our discussion of the ‘Wider Problem of Method’ [Chapters I and IX]. It was there brought out that how we influence the child, the way we speak to him, Fads 346 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD the kind of house we provide, all his surroundings, in general all the ways in which we treat him — all these things have great effect on the many simultaneous responses he makes, inwardly and outwardly. And from these many responses comes his character.’ “Tf I understand you, all that we do to the child or let happen to him that stimulates him in any way is to be thought of as having method effect?”’ “Exactly so. And it is in this broad sense that our wish to use child purposes is a matter of method. We believe that this way of treating children stimulates them helpfully in very many ways.” ‘You defend then the term ‘project method’? ” “Tf it is to be thought of as a device for the ‘painless putting across’ of prior chosen subject-matter, no, I abomi- nate it. I saw recently a book telling how to use the project method in religious education that illustrates this wrong use. “But if it be thought of as the purposeful way of treating children in order to stir the best in them and then to trust them to themselves as much as possible, yes, I approve it. But the term ‘project’ must not be allowed to distract attention from the reality back of it. It is the reality and not the name that concerns us.”’ ‘‘Did this book of which you speak use ‘purposeful activ- ity’ as its definition of the project?” “No, I thought it found another definition better suited to its device idea.” ‘How many different types of projects are there?” “For myself I recognize four types useful to distinguish.” “You don’t deny there are other schemes of classification ?”’ ‘““No, indeed. There are many other useful classifications. These four are chosen to show that the different typical procedures are pro- Types of projects vided for.” SOME CONCLUDING QUESTIONS 347 “Tet us keep in mind that a project is an instance of purposeful activity —it is the pursuit of a purpose. Then first of all contrast producers with consumers. yp. pro- Type I is the Producer’s Project, in which the ducer’s purpose is to produce something. This varies oan through the widest conceivable range in importance, from the smallest child’s most temporary sand house to the making of a nation or a world association of nations — in material that may be used, from the stone in the walk under our feet to the spiritual yearning of a prayer. Wherever there is activity dominated by the purpose to produce, there we have a project of Type I.” “You don’t limit projects then to things made with hands?” “T most assuredly do not. Life is not so limited. Our educational outlook must be as broad as the whole of life. Wherever purpose can go there we find projects. yp, The next is Type II, the Consumer’s Project. Consumer's In this the purpose is to consume, to use In some LESSEN way, to use and enjoy. A small boy has the opportunity to see fireworks. His purpose makes his eyes follow the rockets high into the air, as he looks eagerly to see the bomb burst. The boy is, as regards production, merely passive; but he is very active in consuming, taking in, enjoying what some one else has produced. An artist paints a picture, a pro- ducer’s project. I and others come to see and enjoy, a con- sumer’s project.” “Do not some object to calling this a project?” “Ves they are basing their definition on something other than purpose. The question with me is simple: Is there a purpose dominating this boy as he faces the fireworks? And the answer clearly is ‘Yes.’ That there are educa- tional implications is clear as soon as we turn to literature or the appreciation of music or other works of art. If the 348 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD learner has no purpose to take in and enjoy, there will be little learning, little if any growth in taste.”’ ‘Did not some get the idea at the first that this second type was limited to what we ordinarily think of as esthetic appreciation? I notice you give enjoying fireworks as your example. This is hardly an esthetic pleasure.”’ ‘“‘T am not sure that the enjoyment of fireworks is not esthetic; but I do think the wording in an early account of this topic was probably misleading on this point.” ‘You said there are four types.” “Yes, shall we go on? Type III is the Problem Project, . where the purpose is to solve a problem, to clear up some Pursouetil intellectual difficulty. Historically and indi- problem vidually this is probably to be thought of as Bote an outgrowth of Type I. Almost any purpose to produce, especially if it be educative, will involve some difficulty which in turn will call for thinking. The difference then between Type III and Type I is that Type III consists wholly of the problem, while Type I typically involves fash- ioning, with the problematic thinking only incidental.” ‘““Is every problem then a project?” ‘‘No, I may recognize a problem without purposing to solve it. If so, that problem is no project for me. It be- comes a project to me only as I purpose to solve it and do pursue the purpose.” ‘“‘Might some activity begin as a project, but the purpose die away and the activity so end as a mere task?” “Yes, if the purpose dies and the teacher still requires — the completion of what was begun, then it becomes a task.” ‘‘This means that we cannot objectively apply the term ‘project’ as a label—‘ Once a project always a project ’?” (ON O8.77 “Tsn’t this a drawback? Doesn’t it vitiate your defini- tion?” SOME CONCLUDING QUESTIONS 349 ‘No, it does not vitiate the definition. Nor do I think it a serious drawback. If I were more concerned with objective labeling than anything else, I might By uh ced) be troubled. But it so happens that I am attitude an more concerned with the learning of my pupils essential than I am with what you call objective label- aes ing. I wish then a term that points to what I conceive to be the essence of the learning process, the learning’s atti- tude.. When the purpose has gone, the learning process has much deteriorated. The excellence of the purpose definition is that it calls attention to this essential attitude on the part of the learner.” “Do not some overlook this in assigning problems?” “Indeed, yes. With young people it is only in slight degree that problems can be assigned. Assigned problems as a tule remain teacher’s problems; they do not thereby become pupil’s problems. Purpose cannot be assigned.” “Then any one who advocates extrinsic subject-matter is likely to leave purpose out of his project definition?” “Yes, I think so.” “Isn’t this just the difficulty with your project method, that it limits assignment?”’ “Ves both its difficulty and its excellency. Its excel- lency is that it looks facts in the face without eet: blinking. It tells you that in following the of purpose assignment plan, you lose the advantage of the limits pupil’s favorable attitude. It merely discloses ATTN difficulties that were there all the time. It doesn’t make the difficulties; it discloses them.” “Tt seems to me that you are ‘side-stepping’ now. I see what you mean. Purposeful activity is undoubtedly the best way to learn if only you have or can get a strong enough purpose in the child. But we cannot always get this, and when you tell us — as your project method does — to use 350 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD only child purposes, then we do strike difficulties, because you are refusing to allow us to use other ways of dealing with children.” ‘Did I ever tell you to use nothing but child purposes? Did I ever say you must not use other ways of dealing with children?”’ “That’s what I have understood. You have advocated purposeful activity and you have decried coercion and punishment. What else am I to understand?” ‘Tam very glad you have brought this out, because I do not wish to be misunderstood and apparently I have been. What I have said I still say. Purposeful activ- ity furnishes better learning conditions than coercion — better for the primary learnings, better for associate and concomitant learnings. But I have never said you can get purposeful activity just by wishing it or by decreeing it. If you have the purpose working with you or if you can get it, then you will get better learning. If not, then you must do the best you can, taking everything into account.” “Then you are just holding up an ideal. You don’t ex- pect us to attain it? You are dealing with pious wishes?” ‘No, that’s not what I mean.” ‘But you admit that it is an ideal and cannot always be obtained?” “Yes, but let us look more closely before we speak of pious wishes. Consider health. It too is an ideal.” ‘Yos: ‘“‘And you don’t expect all people always to attain it?” ‘No, there are difficulties that hinder. People are either ignorant or wilful or unfortunate. No one has perfect health all the time. Still less can all the people have it.”’ ‘Do the difficulties mean that our advocacy of health is a mere pious wish, that we must not seek health? Suppose I am at the head of the city board of health, what shall How pursue ideals SOME CONCLUDING QUESTIONS 351 I do about the ideal of health and these difficulties you name? Suppose an actual epidemic is on. Many of the citizens are ignorant and prejudiced. My help- ers are too few. Some of them are ill-prepared penetra for the work at hand. What shall I do?” “You must do the best you can with the conditions as they are.” “T must seek my ideal even though I cannot attain it perfectly?” “Ves, by seeking you'll get more than if you don’t seek.” ‘And the difficulties and hindrances, must I yield to them or shall I seek to lessen their power and influence?” “Clearly the latter, but you must not disregard them.” ‘Then if I understand you, whenever I face an actual situation I must take as my beginning the facts as they are. In this sense ideals and hindrances all go in together to determine what I must do. I must no more overlook a difficulty than I overlook my ideal (my aim, my end).”’ ‘Yes, I begin to see what you mean. Go on.” “But as I look to the future, ideal and difficulties must be treated differently. My ideal— my end and aim — I must, if it is feasible, preserve and hold entire. The diffi- culties I must seek to reduce and as far as possible get rid of altogether.” “Yes. Thatis the way of meeting any actual situation.” “So now with purposeful activity. It is my ideal for my pupils. I shall make it my end and aim. But my very devotion to my ideal must make me pay all certain aiti- necessary attention to the difficulties that stand culties to be between me and my ideal. I must know that Co pupils, as they now are (and in some measure as they always will be), will at times purpose hurtful and not helpful things. Textbooks oftentimes are not made for people with purposes but for the other kind. I must know that much if not most 352 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD of the machinery of school promotions and the like are based on finishing set tasks. I must know that this machinery has been of slow growth, that superintendents, supervisors, teachers, pupils, boards of education, and parents are all accustomed to it and—to speak plainly — prejudiced largely in favor of maintaining it without much change.” “You make out a long list of difficulties. I wonder you are not discouraged before you begin.” ‘The real list is much longer, yet I am not discouraged. My ideal is, I believe, founded on essential human nature. If so, then so long as it is disregarded there will be dissatis- faction and unhappiness; wherever it is used properly, satisfaction and happiness.”’ “But you have not told us what to do.” ‘The answer is simple, though the road be hard and long. We must work toward the ideal whenever and wherever we can.” “You admit then that we must often compromise?” “Indeed, yes. It is the only way to be true to the ideal.” (a 5) e ° Daredine But can’t you make it plainer what to do. ideals I still don’t understand.” through — “Tl try. Imagine a scale. I think we used compromise it once before. It is arranged like this: At one end (1) is the complete basis of intrinsic subject- matter and purposeful activity; at the other (E) is the com- EK pletest kind of extrinsic subject-matter with assigned tasks and coercion, looking only to a distant future. We are to try, each in the place where he works, to live as high up towards I as our skill and the situation allow, and also try to carry the whole educational scheme in which we work further up toward I. But we are going meanwhile to ‘carry SOME CONCLUDING QUESTIONS © 393 on,’ we are going to keep things going. This means that we shall, partly for lack of insight and skill on our part, partly by reason of outside conditions, have to live and act at times further down toward E than we like.”’ “Does this mean that if I have to teach a certain thing this term and it does not come purposefully — up toward I —then I am to move on down toward E and if need be assign it asa task?” “Yes, if it must be taught this term and there seems no other and better way of doing it.” “Then you lay all your ideals on the altar of expediency?” “That’s a rather unkind and I think misleading way of putting it. I recognize facts because I must, and I then use them in such way as to further my ideal. Sup- ree pitts pose I wish to be on the other side of a brick wall, I don’t ignore the wall or pretend that it is not there and walk ahead as if it were not there. If I did so act, I should never get on the other side. The wall won’t be treated that way. No, I recognize the facts, I look for a door or a scaling ladder. Recognizing what I can move and what I cannot, I adapt myself to the situation and so in some measure control it. But all the while I hold to the aim of getting on the other side of the wall.” “Won't you illustrate with school matters?” “Willingly. Suppose I have to give my pupils weekly grade marks. The regulations require it. Then I'll try to manage these marks so that they will do as little harm as possible. Instead of calling attention to them as if they were the be-all and end-all of school work, Ill try to distract attention from such extraneous incentives and fasten it on the inherent interests of the work itself.” ‘‘Suppose the course of study fixes just what you have to teach and leaves you little or no time for anything else. What would you do?” 354 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “That I admit is about as hard a situation as I could have to face. I did face it once for a year, and like young Sr Hannibal of old I then ‘swore eternal enmity’ with afixed to such a scheme —a vow, I may add, that I course of have kept. Usually I should advise one to sed leave such a system if possible. If, however, you cannot, then stay and accept facts as they are, but use all your power to change affairs. And work along a variety of lines. First, use all the leeway the situation allows you in dealing with your own class, and that’s more than you might at first thnk. Second, get as many people as you can in the system to study and learn about better things. Third, agitate — properly — for better regulations. If you are tactful and persistent, you may accomplish much.” ‘‘T don’t see what leeway you could find to use under such conditions.” ‘“‘Oh yes, there is much that could be done. Encourage thinking in your pupils. There is always some chance to think. Be on the lookout for problems lying within the course of study. Use such forall they are worth. Encourage some out-of-school projects. In matters of discipline utilize the pupils’ assistance as much as you possibly can. The case of pupils’ marching discussed some time ago [page 54ff.| actually took place during that bad year. In certain more mechanical matters, the work might be arranged on an individualized basis.”’ ‘By the individualized basis you refer to such work as we find in the Dalton and Winnetka plans. You approve them then?” ‘‘Not on the whole or as inclusive schemes, but where we must regularly deliver fixed quotas of subject-matter we may well use certain of their devices to advantage. I did it twenty years ago. Under Individual- ized work SOME CONCLUDING QUESTIONS 395 such circumstances there is, I think, much about them to commend.” ‘‘But you object to all fixed quota schemes, if I understand you?” ‘‘On the whole, yes; and my objection is deeply rooted.” “Ts such individualized work given no place in your ideal scheme? I should think there would at times be distinct need for drill.” ‘“‘T agree heartily that there is definite need for drill, and Type IV which we have not discussed contemplates it. This is sometimes called the Drill Project, though I Type IV prefer to call it the Specific Learning Project. In it the purpose is to acquire some item or degree of skill or knowledge.” “You mean, for example, to attain a certain speed and accuracy in column addition?’’ “Yes, that would illustrate it.” “Then I don’t see why you object to the Winnetka plan. That is exactly what I understand they do under this plan.”’ ‘‘What I object to is having such drill in advance of the need for it and apart from a situation where it is felt to be needed, or at any rate apart from a recognition of the need. After pupils meet a situation calling for column addition and come to realize their need for drill in order to attain a desired standard of speed and accuracy, then I should say use it.” “And would you object to calling their attention to the standard norms in addition work say?” “By no means, provided I was satisfied the so-called standards represented proper work for my | i pupils at that time. You recognize that most Patios so-called norms merely represent existing prac- tice; that is, what can be got under present curricular and 306 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD teaching conditions. Whether they should be accepted as standards is quite another matter.” “T don’t understand you. Do you mean to say that a norm worked out statistically from say 100,000 school children is not a standard? Iam surprised. I thought that such statistics proved it to be a standard and that it had to be accepted.” ‘““You understand me correctly. I do not without special consideration accept such norms as standards. Don’t you see that your 100,000 children merely represent the results of present efforts at classroom teaching. But present efforts may be wrong. Possibly we should not put column addition where it now is taught. Counting thousands or even mil- lions of children doesn’t tell us whether it belongs where we have put it. It only tells us what we get when we do put it there. I do not say that all ‘norms’ are so got, but for any one to claim that the norms so got are binding standards would be ludicrous if it were not tragic.” ‘You spoke as if Winnetka had only individualized study. Don’t they also have group work there?” ‘““Yes, they do and, as far as I can learn, this group work is carried on excellently, with much of the spirit that we have here been advocating. I wish they could see their way clear to emphasizing more strongly the group-work side of learning and reducing the other to distinct sub- ordination to it.” “You think that some of their self-teaching and self- testing devices may be a permanent addition to educational practice?” ‘“Yes; the idea may be, at any rate. But I should wish all such used, as was said above, only after the need had been felt. I fear, too, they ny to reduce more subject-matter to this basis than is wise.’ ‘That brings up the idea of the separate school saben SOME CONCLUDING QUESTIONS 357 Shall we not have to give them up if the ideas of purpose- ful activity and intrinsic subject-matter be adopted?”’ ‘‘As hitherto conceived and taught, yes; sep- Seneraite arate subjects for children would have to go.” school “T don’t see why. We shall forever need S“biects arithmetic, for example. Why not teach it openly and avowedly? Why slip about and pretend?” ‘“You don’t understand me, I think. Arithmetic we shall always need and shall always teach and we shall teach it openly. The point is this. We learn better — certainly as a rule — when we face a situation calling for the use of the thing to be learned. Other things being equal then, we shall try to teach our arithmetic as it is needed; that is, in connection with situations of actual need. The effect of this will be to find arithmetic in many little pieces scattered along the path of life. These we shall teach as we meet them. As we accumulate in this way a store of arithmetic some of the pupils, particularly the more mathematically inclined, will from time to time put the pieces together and form wholes more or less complete. Later some will specialize in the subject.” ‘“‘Ig this our discussion of psychological and logical over again?” Vest” “Do you think arithmetic learned in this haphazard way will be held in mind for use as well as if it were learned more systematically?” “Yes, I think so, though I don’t much like your term ‘haphazard.’ I think that what is learned in a life situation has cues and feelers joined to it that promise best for its future use. I think that what is learned from a systematic course in a book is in danger of lacking these life connections and so it is in danger of lying idle in the mind when the occasion arises to use it.” 308 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD ‘“T have heard some say that the organization of experi- ence into subjects is an artificial affair and that in ignoring subject division lines we are just back to life experience. What do you think?” ‘“‘T think it is true. No person ever finds arithmetic or geography or history by itself in life. It always comes embedded in a situation involving much more. It seems to me wiser to learn it as we find it thus embedded, for then we shall the better recognize it the next time we meet it in life. That’s what I meant by the ‘cues and feelers’ above.” ‘‘But how are you going to get drill and system on any such basis?” ‘‘T thought we had answered that before. We get the needed drill on any operation after we have met it and have seen the need for it. Our drill then can respect the ‘cues and feelers’ and so preserve its ‘natural setting’ connections. The child’s attitude toward it is almost surely better.’ ‘‘But what about the systematic organization of subject- matter?” ‘That too, we have answered. System should come after the separate parts have been met in their life connections. You will have to go back to some things that Systematic i s Sh organization Were said [page 297] on differentiation and ofsubject- integration of parts. Each person must make aia his own system if it is to be of service to him.” ‘“‘It is in just such things as this that you and all who believe as you do seem to me to go wrong. You persist in thinking that the individual can ignore the race experience. You know very well he can’t, but you go on acting as if he could.” ‘No, we don’t propose to ignore the race experience. On the contrary, I think the race has worked out better systems than any one of us is likely to make. And the race experience Drill SOME CONCLUDING QUESTIONS 359 envelops us all the while. Whoever talks, uses the race experience, or whoever uses a tool. Whoever uses such words as ‘whole number,’ ‘fraction,’ ‘decimal,’ is using the race-experience system. We cannot live in this world with- out learning and using what the race has worked out. But to take such things as they come, naturally, discuss them, see what they mean, use them, and so gradually build up each one himself for himself the system into which they fit —this is to give one a control over his thought system that no amount of memorizing other people’s formulations can give.” : “T still don’t quite see. Take geography. The scientific textbook writer can surely surpass your pupils in making a scientific system of geography. Why not use his system? Why throw it away?” ‘“‘How do you mean to use his system?” “Tearn his book just as it is written.” ‘That is what I hoped you would say. Don’t you know that most of that beautiful system fails to strike the pupil at all? The system that he brings from the textbook 1s still the one that he makes as he feels the need himself of sys- tematizing.”’ ‘Wouldn’t you encourage the pupils to make actual systems?” “Indeed I should, and I should wish them to get sugges- tions from well made books, from any source in fact that would help.” ‘‘Wouldn’t they merely borrow?” “Tf their effort at system making was merely formal, yes, they would. That’s what they now do, and I should then be just where the ordinary teacher is. But I should try to have them make a system only after the felt need for system had arisen. Then, if they borrowed, I’d hope they would not merely borrow but would borrow helpfully.” 360 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD “Then you would wish your pupils in the end to organize their geography into a unifying system?” ‘So far as such a system is helpful, yes. For mere formal examination purposes, no. I think as pupils get mentally older they will wish to bring together what they know in ordered form. I should naturally expect this tendency and encourage it.” ‘“Would you use any textbooks in your school?” ‘Again a difficult question. Many textbooks of the present day aim only at presenting children with pre-digested thinking. Such I should not use, or at any rate I should not use them as was intended by their authors.” ‘But what kind would you use?” “Only time and fuller experimentation can tell. At present I can only prophesy, and you know what a bad business that is. I can see several different kinds possible. One kind would be simply a reading book, one that would tell in a fascinating way the story of history or geography or travel or adventure, or of insect life — all the other won- derful things that have come down to us. Another would be a compendium of ready reference or possibly a systematic treatise to be consulted as need might arise. Still another would be a book that raised questions, stimulated inquiries and activities. And still another one would contain self- directing and self-testing drill material.” ‘“Where can we get such books?”’ ‘“Most remain to be written perhaps, but a goodly be- ginning has been made if we know where to look.” ‘Don’t you think that the classes in your school would have to be so small that the cost would be prohibitive?” ‘“No, I don’t see it that way. Of course we don’t now spend a due proportion on our schools. People give lip service to education, but as a whole the country spends Textbooks SOME CONCLUDING QUESTIONS 361 more on its motor cars than on the education of its chil- dren. However, I see no good reason for supposing that very small classes are necessary or even desir- able. I think after we have sufficient experi- ence at it, this method, considering the service rendered, will take care of numbers quite comparably with other methods. Probably most city elementary classes are now too large. All such would have to be cut down.” “Tow about a course of study? It couldn’t be printed and given out in advance, could it?” ‘‘Not as hitherto understood.” Fr aay ‘What kind could we have?” “This is another one of our very difficult questions. I can only suggest a tentative program, a kind of compromise measure, if you wish. It might be something like this: Size of classes “1. A clear account of the theory, with emphasis on the new kind of aims. “2 A few specimen projects of various sorts worked out in de- tail to show the kind of thing to be expected and why, with a study of the correlative outcomes. “3 A list of suggestive projects much larger than could pos- sibly be used, with appropriate reference materials and suggestions for equipment. “4A Some account of outcomes reasonably to be expected, with emphasis on habits, attitudes, and appreciations, since these have too generally been overlooked — such outcomes not to be held up as immediate objectives but to help the teachers and pupils estimate their own progress. “5 Some self-teaching and self-testing drill material with state- ment of correlative desirable standards.” “You call this a compromise?”’ “Yes I should fear lest the formulated outcomes and drill procedures be wrongly used; but probably, at the first, 362 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD public opinion would demand them. Then I should expect further experience to tell us better how to make out the course of study. I distrust my ability to prophesy.” ‘““Wouldn’t there be great trouble in adjusting pupils who go from one school to another?”’ Reon ‘‘No, interestingly enough, our scheme would when pupils have less trouble at this point than the usual change plan. You see it is the precise specification of tert subject-matter quotas that give the trouble now. As soon as this lock-step is broken, adjustment is much easier. ‘Social age’ seems as good a single factor as any, possibly making special provision for the two extremes.” “You said earlier something about the new aims. I wish we might discuss the matter of objectives. It isn’t at all clear to me. You believe in knowledge and skills, you say, but you would add also habits, attitudes, ideals, and appreciations. These, then, would constitute your list of objectives as I understand it. Am I right?” “Yes and no. I am afraid of your way of stating it. For the purpose at hand I reckon three kinds of objectives: more immediate, more remote, and intermediate. Habits, skills, attitudes, knowledge, and other personal traits I am calling the intermediate objectives. If matters go well, they are not to be sought immediately. The immediate objective is to secure a good instance of present child life, gripping and sufficiently difficult to ‘lead on.’ The more remote is life too, succeeding life raised to a higher level because of the traits learned in the immediate experience.”’ “Tam lost entirely. How can you call an instance of present child life an objective? I thought an objective had to be something to be learned. Am I all wrong?’ ‘So far from being all wrong, you have most of the prac- tice on your side, but I still hold to my statement, so I must Objectives —S a ee ee ne. a el a SOME CONCLUDING QUESTIONS 363 defend myself. What is an objective? In military terms it is typically a minor aim, a specific position the taking of which forms a part necessary to the attainment of a larger whole. So here, my first (immediate) objective is a gripping experience that promises to ‘lead on.’ I must get this in order to attain my further aims. Suppose I attam this objective, then my second (intermediate) objective is the acquisition through this experience of certain desirable traits, as knowledge, skill, habit, or attitude. These I must get in order to attain my still further aims (more remote objective) of a higher level of living. The intermediate traits have been satisfactorily got only as they eventuate in this higher living.” , “This seems to fit with the discussion of the ‘continuous remaking of life.’ ” “Yes, it is meant to fit exactly there.” “But I don’t yet quite understand. Do you first set up certain traits as items of knowledge or certain habits or skills that you wish and then hunt about for some experience that will teach them?”’ “No, that is exactly what I don’t do. That would give traits an immediacy of aim which I wish to deny. It’s life I wish to put first. So I seek first some fruitful ee periences experience. Having got that going, I seek to the immedi- direct it, if need be, so that the pupils will obiective grow from it and through it—so grow that they will henceforth live a richer life and have more control over the process.” “How do you decide which experience is to come next?”’ ‘(On my theory we cannot decide in advance of the occa- sion for action — not helpfully asa rule.” ‘‘On what bases do you decide when the time does come to act?” 364 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD ‘‘I value experiences according as they are (a) gripping; (b) sufficiently novel to involve before finished an extension HA te of present outlook and abilities, remaining, appraise however, within the range of success; (c) in expeHcncenshi! relation to preceding experiences, so varied as to keep life from being too one-sided. The experience that promises most under these heads I prefer.’’ ‘And you expect to get desired traits from such experi- ences?”’ ‘Yes, when one lives zestfully and successfully through a novel experience he will learn along many lines. These learnings when sorted out and properly labelled become what we are calling traits.” ‘But what I don’t see is how you pick your experience to get desired traits; you seem to say that you seek the experience first and then take whatever traits follow, but surely you don’t mean that.” “That is exactly what I do mean. I do ask that the successive experiences be varied enough to take care of the different sides or aspects of life; but as a rule I consider traits only when the experience is under way and I am wishing the child to get the most possible from the expe- rience. Even then the trait may very well be rather my adult sophisticated way of looking at the matter. I may not mention any trait, as such, to the child. He is sup- posed to be concerned primarily with making a good job at the present affair and only secondarily concerned with learning.” “Your word ‘trait’ bothers me. What do you mean by 1b??? “T mean by ‘trait’ any one learning outcome worth nam- ing,such as skill, habit, fact, knowledge, ideal, attitude, or appreciation. The word ‘trait’ is merely a general term to represent any one such learning outcome.”’ SOME CONCLUDING QUESTIONS 365 ‘Do you have then no place for minimum essentials? I thought everybody had come to admit that there were certain traits, I suppose you would call them, ,,... j re te : ; Minimum that are essential to good living in society and essentials that these must be got. But you seem to deny 4s 10w ahi conceived “Tet me first ask you a question. Did you ever see included in any actual list of mimimum essentials such things as truthfulness and honesty or only certain abilities as reading, writing, spelling, and certain facts in history and geography?”’ ‘“‘T had never thought about it before, but I believe only the latter. In fact, as I come to think about it, mmimum essentials are practically those things that a child must learn if he is to be promoted. I am sure I never saw truthfulness included, or honesty.” “Why not?” “T am not sure. I don’t know whether it is because we cannot compel a child to learn truthfulness. I mean we cannot assign it as we can spelling and make him practice it before us — drill him on it — till he gets it. Or whether it is because we think untruthfulness doesn’t prevent him from doing next year’s work.” _ “You think, then, minimum essentials refer perhaps to the things essential to our school machinery and its smooth running rather than to things essential to life?” “T don’t know. It looks that way.” “Do you think truthtelling less essential to life than certain words in the spelling list or certain common facts in history or geography?” ‘No, I certainly don’t.”’ “Now I’ll answer your question about my attitude toward minimum essentials. I think there are certain things so useful for future progress in school and life, both immediate 366 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD and more remote, that we should use compulsion if need be to get them, so important that if they are not got other- wise there would eventually come a time when Another notion of we should, if need be, drop practically every- Deen thing else and compel the learning of them. If essentials you wish to say these are minimum essentials I have no objection, provided I be allowed to have my own definition in mind when J use or accept the term.” ‘Would you mind telling us some things you would include in this?” “By no means. Only I cannot give you a complete list. I think, in fact, it would differ with each child and the con- ditions surrounding him. My general list for all would cer- tainly be very much smaller than you are accustomed to think. Reading would be the main such essential, the ability to manage ordinary reading matter. Counting, making change, column addition should be included. These are not all, but the list would be short.” ‘What would you do about honesty and truthtelling?” “There would be a long list of things which I should seek insistently as opportunity presented, but I would not in- clude them in the same list with these assignable things.”’ ‘You don’t mean to stop your other list with _ those few things?”’ “No, but I wouldn’t include all the arithmetic or the ‘facts’ that you are accustomed to see on such lists. This list I should keep short, so short in fact that only rarely would the teacher need to consult it.” “Are you not departing from your conception of the con- tinuous remaking of life when you admit even this short list of ‘minimum essentials’? ”’ “No, because I wish them as means to growth here and now, or as means to the present remaking of life. Without Other desir- - able traits SOME CONCLUDING QUESTIONS 367 them and their unique contribution the reconstruction of experience is sadly hampered. I must have them in order to attain my aim.”’ “Then why not start out at once and get them? ‘Even- tually, why not now?’ ”’ “Tf they can come intrinsically, all is better. If they can- not be so got, then I suffer a loss, but I can save something else by compelling these. All the while I am pursuing my aim.” “Would you mind telling your general aim of education?” “Tam glad todo so. My aim as I work with children is to have them live more richly and successfully aK right now in the belief that this will mean most preoeaias <5 to them and to others both now and hereafter.” “Your word ‘successfully’ is an unusual one in this con- nection. What is successful living in the case of a child? It isa word I am more used to seeing applied to grown-ups.” “JT dare say you are right. But the question is a good one: What is successful living in the case of a child? What do you say? Is the present included or only the future?” “Both, I suppose. I should say that a child lives success- fully when he lives happily and makes others happy about him. That takes care of the present. As for the future ] should say that what he does now must be the kind that prepares also for the future.” “That sounds good. Do you notice that you have said in general terms what I said earlier about how to choose among activities? If an activity is gripping and is carried out successfully the present will, as a rule, be happy. If it requires more than present outlook and achieved abilities and in comparison with preceding activities is sufficiently varied, it will prepare for the future.” “You wish then to get both present and future together in one statement?” 368 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD ‘tO ea “But do you mean that a child should never look ahead. How about planning for a fishing trip? Or an older boy’s trying to choose his life work?” ‘IT wish especially to encourage planning ahead. In fact every plan to make or do any- thing is a look ahead. The more mature the child, the further ahead he can and will look. As the boy gets up toward manhood the choice of a profession may be a most gripping project.” ‘“Didn’t we discuss this under the head of the growing interest span?” ‘Yes [pages 183 ff.], it is eile the same.’ ‘Tn trying to get present life and future into one statement are you trying to care for what we called ‘the continuous remaking of life’?”’ ‘‘Exactly so.” “Tf you were going to introduce these ideas into a school system where they had not been tried, what would you do?” “First of all, I don’t believe in forcing them ras rete in. That isn’t the kindly way to do anything, and it seldom succeeds. If I were a superintend- ent or supervisor, I should take note of the teachers already working most nearly along these lines and encourage them Matourave to do even more. Then I should get other those already teachers somewhat interested to visit these and auticas try some of the things they saw. I should encourage all to study the theory underlying, with the hope of building a general interest in it.”’ “Do you think you would get far if you had hard and fast Relax sub- ‘Subject-matter requirements?” ject-matter ‘““No, these would have to be relaxed. To requirements some quite capable teachers I should give a very free rein and study the results. In meetings with the The child’s look ahead SOME CONCLUDING QUESTIONS 569 teachers I should stress the finer and subtler outcomes and try to remove some of the felt strain to get the more mechanical and accordingly the measurable outcomes.” ‘‘ Are there no specific things a teacher might do?”’ “Yes, there are three specific lines to follow. One is to make over gradually the ordinary class work — we discussed this once before — looking out for every chance to base the work on problems.”’ “You say ‘gradually.’ Are you afraid you might go too fast.” “Yes, and properly so. This idea has its technique and it is different from the old way. No teacher can shift sud- denly. Besides a failure that results from going too fast does more harm than any other kind.” ‘What else? You said there were three diac lines of advance?” | “Another is to get permission to set aside a half hour or an hour as a ‘free-work’ period. Tell the pupils they may take the time for any worthwhile activity, but each must first get your permission for his bhi project. At first most can’t think of anything worthwhile. They are not used to thinking constructively, you see. So you must say: ‘If you can’t think of anything, I can’; and then you must have ready some good sugges- tions.”’ ‘What’s the special advantage of this period ?”’ “Tt serves several purposes. It gives the teacher a chance to try out the plan on a small scale. Teacher and pupils both will have to learn. Again it will serve as a seed bed for suggestions to be used in other school periods. If the teacher is successful, projects soon will be undertaken which require more time. They can then run over to English or history or science according to where they most belong. T'inally after a short period succeeds it can be extended gradually 370 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD to cover as much of the week as it seems wise to run on this plan.”’ ‘“You again speak cautiously.”’ ‘“Yes, we live in the world with a great many other people, most of whom are thoroughly committed to the old way. This must go slowly. Besides there must be much experi- menting before we know how to care for everything on the new basis.” ‘““You said there were three lines of advance. We’ve had two.” “Yes, the third is extra-curricular activity. We can use this to distinct advantage. Perhaps eventually the line Extra- between curriculum and extra-curricular ac- curricular tivity will shift. Surely it must become less ea k ae definite than now.” ‘““Do you honestly, deep down in your heart, expect this new idea to supplant the old? Do you think it can really be made to work?” ‘Indeed, I do. It is coming. There’s hardly a school in this country that is not moving in this direction. The distance moved in a generation is great; and the better the school and the more in touch with modern thought, the greater on the whole has the movement been.” ‘““What are you most afraid of?” ‘That we shall move too fast.” ‘Fear you'll move too fast! I don’t under- stand.” “T fear the why of it all will not be sufficiently understood or the how of it sufficiently worked out before people are boasting that they have it. In other words I fear it will be made a fad.” ‘The faddists will be among the professed friends of the movement. What can the avowed foes do that will most retard it?” What to fear SOME CONCLUDING QUESTIONS 371 “Hold to the old-fashioned fixed quotas of subject-matter. Continue to measure success in terms of it. Insist on hold- ing to this while they pretend to allow freedom to experi- ment.” “You think that extrinsic subject-matter is the crux on which the new and old positions turn?’’ “Yes. Intrinsic subject-matter and purpose- ful activity with education as the continuous remaking of life to ever higher levels — these three pretty well constitute the new position.” ‘“Are you not sorry that we’ve reached the end?”’ ‘“‘Reached the end? Wehaven’t reached theend. There’s plenty more. We have merely stopped. It is the term that has ended.” The crux of the matter REFERENCES FOR FURTHER READING ‘“‘Dangers and Difficulties of the Project Method: A Symposium,” Teachers College Record, 22 : 283-321 (September, 1921). LIST OF REFERENCES BOOKS ALEXANDER, THomas. Prussian Elementary Schools. Mac- millan. New York, 1918. Bonser, F. G. The Elementary School Curriculum. Macmillan. New York, 1920. Cuarters, W. W. Curriculum Construction. Macmillan. New York, 1923. Cones, ELLswortu. An Experiment with a Project Curriculum. Macmillan. New York, 1923. | CUBBERLEY, E. P. Changing Conceptions of Education. Hough- ton Mifflin. Boston, 1909. Dewey, Joun. The Child and the Curriculum. University of Chicago Press. Chicago, 1902. Dewey, Joun. Democracy and Education, Macmillan. New York, 1916. Dewey, Joun. The Educational Situation, University of Chicago Press. Chicago, 1906. Dewey, Joun. How We Think. Heath. New York, 1910. Dewey, Jonn. Interest and Effort in Education. Houghton Mifflin. Boston, 1913. Dewey, Joun. Moral Principles in Education. Houghton Miffin. Boston, 1909. Dewey, Joun. School and Society. University of Chicago Press. Chicago, 1915. Gates, Artuur I. Psychology for Students of Education. Mac- millan. New York, 1923. . JAMES, WILLIAM. Principles of Psychology. Holt. New York, 1890. James, WinuiaM. Talks to Teachers. Holt. New York, 1899. Kanovgt, I. L., (editor). Twenty-Five Years of American Educa- tion. Macmillan. New York, 1924, 373 374 FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD Kinvpatrick, W. H. The Project Method (pamphlet). Teachers College, New York, 1918. Kiuparrick, W. H. Source Book in the Philosophy of Education. Macmillan. New York, 1923. Merriam, J. L. Child Infe and the Curriculum. World Book Company. Yonkers-on-Hudson, 1920. STEVENSON, J. A. The Project Method of Teaching. Macmillan. New York, 1921. THORNDIKE, Hi. L. Education. Macmillan. New York, 1912. THORNDIKE, HK. L. Educational Psychology. Teachers College. New York, 1913-14. Tuornpixe, E. L. Educational Psychology, Briefer Course. Teachers College. New York, 1914. THORNDIKE, EH. L. Principles of Teaching. Seiler. New York, 1911. WoopworrtH, R.S. Dynamic Psychology. Columbia University Press. New York, 1918. WoopwortnH, R.8. Psychology. Holt. New York, 1921. PERIODICALS Journal of Educational Method. World Book Company. Yonkers- on-Hudson. Journal of Philosophy. Journal of Philosophy. New York. Teachers College Record. Teachers College, New York. INDEX Absent-mindedness, 113. Aims, in education, 187, 191-92, Zot, 362-67; in moral education, 312- 13, 314-15, 325; immediate ob- jectives, 362-64; intermediate objectives, 362, 364; remoter ob- jectives, 362; minimum essentials, 365; child’s look ahead, 368. Alexander, Thomas, quoted, 125- 26. Annoyance, not same as pain, 32. See also Effect, Law of; Regret. Appreciation, significance of, 135, 197; how built, 129; cannot be assigned, 101, 119, 129, 288; cannot be compelled, 194. See also Attendant learnings; Atti- tudes; Concomitants. Arithmetic, teaching of, referred to, | 356-58. Architecture, influence of, 122-23. Assignability, 101-2, 129, 287-88. Associate suggestions, defined, 102; value of, 104; how got, 129; how treated, 104-5, 106; follow readi- ness, 133; marginal responses, 113. See also Attendant learn- ings. Association. See Associative Shift. Associative Shift, discussed, 38-41, 179-80; varies with age, 335; in moral education, 334-36; prizes and rewards, 336-37. Athenian method, 109. Attendant learnings, discriminated and defined, 102-3; influenced by readiness, 132; place of, on coer- cion-interest scale, 167-68; in- fluence of, on character, 311. See also Associate suggestions; Con- comitants; Primary learning. Attitudes, how built, 63, 71, 105— 6, 119, 120-35; importance of, 99-100, 101, 123, 135, 197, 343; non-assignable, 101; effect of co- ercion, 89-91; not vet measured, 107 ; give character to an act, 321, 327. See also Attendant learn- ings; Aversion; Concomitants. ae 85, 87, 89-90, 97-98, 118, 28. Behavior, defined, 277; outer, not sufficient, 323. See also Ways- of-behaving; Conduct. Behavior-pattern, 280. See also Ways-of-behaving. Bonds. See Connection. Broad problem of method. See Wider problem of method. Can, 190, 197-99, 268. Character, analysis of, 337-39; how built, 318-25; always being built, 108; strength of, 153-54; charac- ter-conduct series, 313, 325; habit and character, 319, 325; habit vs. thought, 336-37; integration of, 321; in relation to attitudes, 100, 311, 321, 327; influence of ritual on, etc., 124. See also Moral education; Selfishness. Charters, W. W., referred to, 203. Child, essentially active, 150-51; child vs. teacher activity, 206-12, 212-14, 247; child vs. subject- matter, 273; controlling children, 317-19; frontier vs. modern, 254— 62; childhood a waste period, 283. Choosing, how valuable, 152-54, 208, 210-11; internal vs. external choices, 161-64, 316; continuity in, 165; accepting a situation, 165-66; varies with age, 183-84, 185, 201. See also Purpose. Citizenship, characteristics de- manded, 126-27, 129; teaching 375 376 of, 310, 322; relation of method to, 109 ff., 290. Civics, referred to, 310. Civilization, why changing, 251; rapid change of, 264; demands correlative education, 109-10, 265-67; relation of institutions WoL Coercion, defined, 76-79, 258; ef- fect of, on learning, 76-87, 89- 98, 167-68; uses of, 85, 90, 98, 168, 333-34, 350; effect of, on concomitants, 87, 91, 167-68, 194; in moral education, 95-96, 327-28, 333-34; by one’s fellows, 331-382; coercion and will, 175; the coercion-interest scale, 167, 258. See also Aversion. Collings, Elsworth, referred to, 286-87. Common good, building interests in, 130-31. Complete Act, defined, 214, 216; group acts, 215. Complete Act of Thought, defined, 234, 248; discussed, 233-50; influence of, 241; steps in, 236- 40, 242-43, 243-45; examining the situation in, 236, 238, 242, 243, 244, 248; arising of sugges- tions in, 236-37, 238, 242, 244, 248; elaborating implications in, 237, 238, 242, 245, 248; testing hypotheses in, 237-38, 243, 245, 248 ; steps not necessarily chrono- logical in, 239, 248; steps taken by another in, 247; what proof is, 241. See also Problem. Concept. See Idea. Concomitants, defined, 102-3, 133; value of, 104, 311; how sought, 105-6; how built, 117-19, 129, 133-34, 202; marginal responses, 111, 133; follow readiness, 133- 34; coercion and concomitants, 87; from intrinsic learning, 287. See also Attitudes; Ideals; Ap- preciations. Conditioned reflex. tive Shift. See Associa- INDEX Conduct, as broad as life, 77; char- acter-conduct series, 313-14, 325; the immediate aim of moral edu- cation, 314, 325; two kinds of control over, 316, 328-29. See also Behavior; Life. Connection (or bond), defined, 22; innate, 23, 29; modifiable, 29; strengthening or weakening, 29. See also Learning; Laws of learn- ing. Consciousness, place of, in learning, 70-71; in building attitudes, 106; in building ideas, 299— 300; conscious choice, 183-84; habit and thought in moral character, 336-37. See also Thinking. Continuity, discussed, 164, 167. Control. See Experience. Controversial questions, how treat- ed, 252-53. Course of study, binds teacher, 214; in régime of purposeful activity, 353-59, 361. Critical-mindedness, desirable, 127; how built, 180. See also Citizen- ship. Curriculum, why changing, 251-71; varying with needs, 263; content criticized, 276-77 ; old conception of, 283; effect of extrinsic sub- ject-matter on, 287-88; to be composed of experiences, 310; in- fluence of interest on, 148-49; changed by psychological order, 308-9 ; three R’s not sufficient in, 269-71; introduction of manual activities into, 260. See also Subjects, school. Dalton plan, referred to, 354. Definitions, use of, to be mistrusted, 309. Deliberation, for action, 186; in morals, 336-37, 338. See also Complete Act of Thought. Democracy, influence of, on educa- tion, 270. See also Democratic method; Democracy. INDEX Democratic method, 5, 12, 109-10, 125-27, 270. Dewey, John, referred to, 149, 160, 170, 183, 184, 191, 233, 236, 239, 273, 294. Difficulties, how helpful, 63, 71-72, 73, 93, 146, 153; in relation to ideals, 350—53 ; occasion, not cause, of thinking, 236; in case of coercion, 83. Disagreeable, facing the, 145-46. See also Coercion; Interest. Discipline, discussed, 146, 149-50; “pin-drop”’ order, 323. Disuse, Lawof. See Exercise, Law of. Divided self, 170-71, 179, 311. See also Self. Dressmaking, instance of, 66 ff. Drill, intrinsic use of, 355, 358. Duty, sense of, in moral education, 342-43; sense of, must be built, 342. Education, defined, 191-92, 223, 257, 277-78, 292; as reconstruc- tion of experience, 191-92, 197- 98, 257, 277-78, 292, 367-68; not mere preparation, 191, 277— 78, 283, 367; aims changing, 221- 23; why changing, 251-71 (Chap- ter XVI); as here advocated, 370; based on experience, 221- 23, 257; when experience is edu- cative, 196-98; utilizes meanings, 221; sharing experiences, 257; frontier education, 254-60; preparation for change, 265- 67; is life, 2838; science of, 270. See also Growing; Life; Experience; Educative process; Aims. Educative process, analyzed into steps, 280-81; old conception of, 283-84; factors in, 272; unifica- tion of factors in, 274-75. Effect, Law of, discussed, 32; im- portance of, 41-42; illustrated, 33-34, 48-49, 69-70, 97; in co- ercion, 76-87 ; in punishment, 32; 377 in moral conduct, 328, 329. See also Aversion; Coercion. Effort, discussed, 143-45, 149; value of, 159; related to interest, 149, 158-59; relation to happi- ness, 144. End, function of, 72, 73; in coer- -cion, 82. Enterprise. See Project; Purpose- ful activity. Examinations, effect of, 214-15. Executing. See Steps (in purpose- ful act). Exercise, Law of, stated, 33-34; shown in diagram, 49; factor of intensity in, 34; disuse in, 35, 49; recency in, 35. Experience, content of, 187, 191; control over, 187, 191, 197, 198; when educative, 196-98; in rela- tion to meanings, 219-23; basis of learning, 304—5, 340; common denominator of child and subject- matter, 274-75; reconstruction of, 190-92, 197-98, 257, 277-78, 281-82, 292; unit element of cur- riculum, 310; race experience, 222, 304-5; vicarious experience, 222-23, 340; experiences the im- mediate objective, 362-64; com- parative values among experi- ences, 363-64; “‘experience”’ and “result,” 295-96. See also Life, Extrinsic subject-matter. SeeSub- ject-matter. Fads, 269, 271, 345, 370. Fatigue, influenced by interest, 136-37. Fears, origin of, 39-40. Focus of attention, defined and dis- cussed, 110-12, 120. Freedom, why desired and how much, 209-12. Freud, referred to, 172. Galileo, referred to, 20-21. General science, referred to, 310. General terms, to be used sarefully, 020, 378 Generalization, referred to, 95; how built, 131, 323-24. Geography, teaching of, referred to, 310, 358, 360. Grammar, teaching of, referred to, 309, 310. Growing, two senses of, 188-89; the end of education, 187, 209; con- ditions of, 132, 142 , 149-50, 159, 257; content of, 185-89; learning and. erowing, 188- 89, 198; lines of, 197-98, 257; a factor in inter- est, 92; is test of freedom, 209- 10. See also Experience; Life. Guidance, 159, 213, 343. See also Teacher. Habit, value of, 71, 343; how built, 320: in relation to character, 319, 325, 336-37; habit and thought in character, 336-37. See also Learning. Happiness, relation of effort to, 144. Herbartian steps, 241. Hindrance. See Difficulties. History, teaching of, 310, 358. Home, in frontier days, 254-62; now yielding to school, 259-62, 270. Honors. See Prizes. Idea: ideas and meanings, 221; how built, 294-95, 296-300; 339-40: varying content, 339; differentia- tion and integration of parts, 297-98, 305-6; simple and com- plex, 298-99. ’ See also Meaning; Thinking. Ideals, importance of, 123; how built, 105-6, 119, 129: - pursuit of, 350-53. See also Concomitants. Icentives, discussed, 177, 181; intrinsic vs. extrinsic, 177-79, 195, 316; marks and prizes, 180: natural, 180. Individual, in relation to society, 316-17. See also Self; Personal- ity. Individualized instruction, Dalton plan, 354; Winnetka plan, 304-56, INDEX Indulgence, defined, 142, 159. Industrial order, effect of, 251-71 (Chapter XVID. Initiative, 211. Institutions, in relation to society, 31 Intelligence, growth in, 185. Interest, defined, 30-31, 93-94, 140, 158-59; relation of, ‘to mind- set, 30-31, Ghee 138, 141, 149; how built, 90-93, 117-19, 121 ff., 129, 155-58, 179: centers of in- terest, 116-173 119, 121; the doc- trine of interest, 139-40, 153-54, 159; degrees of interest, 140, 166: wrong kind of interest, 140, 141: interest and effort, 31, 143-45, 149, 158-59, 168; coercion and interest building, 90-92, 194; criteria for judging, 141-42, 159: effect on learning, 139, 141, 166-67, 193-94, 246; making . things interesting, 147-48, 179, sugar coating, 149, 179; soft pedagogy, 149; facing the dis- agreeable, 145-56; interest and activity, 150-51: "effect of, on fatigue, 136-387, 168: interest and discipline, 146; value of, 159; an adverse view of, 136; sole begin- ning point, 157; extends itself, 155-58; direct DS. indirect in- terest, 157-58, 169, 190-91, 195; interest and curriculum, 148-49: in relation to self, 160-81; iden- tification of the self, 161: coer- cion-interest scale, 167: extrane- ous _ interest, 168-69: Wood- worth’s opinion, 168; ; warring in- terests, 174; intellectual interest, 187, 198: virtues as moral inter- ests, 94-95, 311, 335. See also Effort; Self: Interest span; In- terest range. Interest range, defined, 192-93; use of, 192-97, 198; how enlarged, 193-97. Interest span, defined, 180-83; dis- cussed, 182-99 (Chapter XI); increases with age, 182-83, 198; INDEX increase of choice, 183-84, 198; new interests, 186-87. Intrinsic subject-matter. See Sub- ject-matter. James, William, referred to, 110, 170. Judging. See Steps (in purposeful act). Knee jerk, 23, 44, 4546. Lacing shoes, incident of, 279-81. Laws of learning, defined, 21; mean- ing of scientific law, 20-21; use of, illustrated, 56 ff., 61-62. See also Learning; Effect, Law of; Exercise, Law of; Associative Shift; Set; Readiness, Law of. Learning, defined psychologically, 23-24, 29, 47-51; defined for life, 189-90, 197-99, 209, 268, 277, 280, 282, 292, 308; how it takes place, 19-42 (Chapter IT); as based on nervous system, 43-53 (Chapter ITI); simpler instances of, 54-65 (Chapter IV); mind- set and learning, 66-75 (Chapter V); coercion and learning, 76-98 (Chapters VI-VII); purpose and learning, 69-70, 74-75, 201-3; effect of interest on, 30-31, 139, 141, 166-67, 198-94, 246; effect of consciousness on, 70-71, 106, 299-300 ; effect of difficulty on, 63, 71-72, 73, 93, 146, 153; learning and .growing, 188-89; intrinsic vs. extrinsic learning, 284-85; logical order of learning, 305-6. See also Laws of learning; Psy- chological and logical. Letter writing, an instance of, 61- 62. Life: the good life, 187; reconstruc- tion of, 190-92, 197-98, 257, 277- 78, 292, 367-68; frontier vs. mod- ern, 254-68; relation to educative process, 282. See also Growing; Experience. Lincoln, Abraham, education of, 254-55. 379 Literature, teaching of, 193-95, 197. Logical. See Psychological and logical. ee activities, why introduced, 260. Margin of attention (marginal re- sponses), defined, 110-11; mar- ginal stimulations, 111-13, 120— 34; range of stimulations, 120- 21; the foundation of method, 116-19, 120-34; influence of readiness, 1383; influence of pur- poseful activity, 131-85; in relation to morality, 113-14; influence of national glory, 124 ff. See also Attendant learn- ings. Marks, use of, 180. Mathematics, boy solving a difficult problem in, 72-73. Maturity, growth in, 184-85, 198. Meaning, defined, 217-18, 280; comes from experience, 219, 221, 223; where resides, 219; use of, 220-21; related to thinking, 223- 24, 230. Measurability, influence of, 107-8. See also Tests and measures. Memory, discussed, 49-50, 70-71, 73-74; for pleasant things, 35- 36; reliance on memorizing, 148, 283-84, 306-7. Method, defined, 3, 6-7, 13, 116 ff., 344-45; contrasted with subject- matter, 5-7, 18, 127; how method acts, 9, 10-12, 109-10, 131; based on marginal responses, 116 ff., 135 ff.; why changing, 252, 269, 271; not properly a device, 345— 46; effect on morals, 311; as re- lated to civilizations, 109-10; in relation to philosophy, 17-18; scientific study of, 3, 5, 17-18; “methods”? and devices, 2; al- phabet method, 2, 4. See alse Wider problem of method; Nar-« row problem of method. Mind-set-to-an-end. Sce Set (mind- set). 380 Minimum essentials, as now con- ceived, 365; in extrinsic régime, 366. Moral education, discussed, 311-26, 327-43 (Chapters XIX-—XX); pervades all education, 311, 325; aims in, 312-18, 314, 325; requires no special psychology, 312; method in, 311; analy- sis of moral character, 337-39; intelligent moralization, 267-68; moral sensitivity, 113-14, 337- 38; building moral ideas, 339; building moral responses, 340- 41; virtues as moral interests, 94-95, 311, 335; character-con- duct series, 3138-14, 325; two ways of controlling, 316, 317-19, 328-29; how character is built, 318-25; practice of characteris- tics, 318-20, 325, 330; discrim- inative practice, 330; essence of moral conduct, 320-21; insist- ence on attitudes, 321, 323, 325- 26; practicing responsibility, 323; danger in generalizations, 323- 24; building unselfishness, 323- 24; varies with age, 324-25; in relation to parents’ comfort, 315- 19, 325; parents’ control indirect, 327-28, 329-30; value of group enterprises, 331-33; value of con- scious consideration, 332-33; habit vs. thought in, 336-37; or- dinary schoolroom not well adapted to, 341; zestful living the main reliance, 331-43; punish- ment of minor importance, 331; use of books and pictures, 340; duty in, 341-42; direct moral in- struction, 342-44; facing the dis- agreeable, 145-46; will training, 176-77; under extrinsic régime, 289-90, 292. See also Morals; Punishment; Spoiling. Morale, how built, 154-55. Morals, defined, 320-21, 330. Morgan, Lloyd, referred to, 110. Multiple response, 47-48. INDEX Narrow problem of method, defined : 4—5, 10-13; narrow vs. wider, 4 ff. See also Method; Wider problem of method. Natural setting, 202-3. Neurone, referred to, 28, 43; dis- cussed, 45 ff.; motor and sensory neurones, 46; central neurone, 45, 46; dendrite, 45; axon, 45; branching neurone, 48, 49. Newton, Sir Isaae, referred to, 20. Norms, criticized, 355-56. Objectives. See Aims. Open-mindedness, discussed, 114- 15, 127; how built, 130. Opposition opinions: to the study of psychology, 19, 20; to considering marginal opinions, 122; on spoil- ing, 150, 155, 315; on interest, ne 137, 150, 155; on coercion, 175} Organization of thought, how built, 68, 105, 202-3, 243-46, 249, 358- 59; influenced by purpose, 68, co 246; a factor in willing, 175: Outlook and insight, growth in, 197. Out-of-school learning, analyzed, 279-80; discussed, 291. Overcoming, value of, 146. Pawlow’s dog, 39, 334. Persistence, how increased, 114—15. Personality, discussed, 56, 58-59, 169-70; growth in, 281-82. See also Self. nape ri in relation to method, 17-18. Physics, teaching of, discussed, 308-9. Piano playing, under coercion, 85, 86, 89-91. Pictures, influence of, 122. Planning. See Steps (in purpose- ful act). Plato, referred to, 172. Primary learning, defined, 102; value of, 104, 106-7. See also Attendant learnings; Learning. / INDEX Prizes, effect of, 180, 335-36. Problem: problem method, 241, 247, 249; utilizes laws of learning, 63- 64; guides thought, 243-45 ;organ- izes thought, 243-45; group prob- lems, 247; child’s vs. teacher’s, 246-47, 349; the problem pro- ject, 348. See also Complete Act of Thought; Purposeful activity. Project, defined, 344, 347; project method, 241, 345-46; four types of projects, 346-48, 355; the pro- ducer’s project, 347; the con- sumer’s project, 347-48; problem project, 348; specific learning project, 355; incompatible with extrinsic teaching, 349; limits as- signment, 349; projects and a course of study, 354-59, 361; dif- ficulties in using, 351-53; indi- vidualized work, 354-55. See also Purposefulactivity ; Purpose; Problem. Prussian methods, 4, 12, 109-10, 125-26. : Psychological and logical, defined, 294, 301-2; discussed, 294-310 (Chapter XVIII); succession of “experience’’ and ‘‘result,’’ 295- 96; building ideas, 294-300, 339- 40; logicals, 299-301; psycholog- icals,302; logical order, 304, 306- 7, 309; psychological order, 304— 9, 310, 357; psychologizing sub- ject-matter, 309. See also Edu- cative process; Purposeful activ- ity. Public opinion, action of, 59. Punctuation, discussed, 227, 229, 231. Punishment: Law of Effect at work, 32; at differing ages, 40-41; as- sociative shift, 40-41, 334; when used, 58, 96-97, 330; not always good, 58, 350. Purpose, as related to mind-set, 52, 201; purpose and learning, 66-75 (Chapter V), 68-69, 74-75, 201- 3; why desired, 74, 201-3, 215; 381 varies with age, 129; related to natural setting, 203; pupil vs. teacher, 206-12; two meanings of, 207; cannot be assigned, 349; individual purpose, not sov- ereign, 350. See also Set; Pur- poseful activity; Learning. Purposeful activity, defined, 200; discussed, 200-16 (Chapter X IIT); influence of, on learning, 71-75, 129; influence of, on marginal responses, 131-35; not merely manual, 200, 215; steps in, 203-6, 215; four types of, 346-8, 355; the complete act, 214-16; why more needed now, 269; not com- patible with assignment, 349-50; incompatible with differentiated school subjects, 357-58; place of drill in, 355, 358; organization of subject-matter in, 358-59; text- books for, 360; size of classes in, 360-61; course of study in, 361; adjustment of pupils in changing schools in relation to, 362; how to introduce, 361-70; what to fear in relation to, 870-71. See also Project; Purpose; Steps (in purposeful act); Set. Reaction time, 44-45, 46-47. Readiness, Law of, stated, 21, 28; discussed, 28; influence on learn- ing, 69-70. See also Readiness, factor of. Readiness, factor of, stated, 24-25, 27; set and readiness, 25-26, 66, 73; selective readiness, 31, 201; influence on attendant learnings, 132-33; in interest, 139, 181. See also Readiness, Law of. Recency, 35. Reconstruction of life. See Life, reconstruction of. Reciting, 283. Reflex, hardly modifiable, 29. Regret, 37. Resentment, referred to, 71-72; present in coercion, 78; hurts learning, 181. 382 Responsibility, sense of, needed in citizenship, 127; how. built, 130, 213, 281, 323. Rewards. See Prizes. Ritual, effect of, 123-24. Russell, Dean J. E., referred to, 12. SR, defined, 22; illustrated, 44; in relation to set and readiness, 27. See also Connection (or bond). Sabotage, of pupils, 83. Satisfaction, not same as pleasure, 832. See also Effect, Law of. Satisfaction and Annoyance, Law of. See Effect, Law of. Scatterbrainedness, 118. School, function of, 921-29. ; shifting duty of, 254-71: - residuary lega- tee of duties, 261; ; present equip- ment supports extrinsic régime, 293; not ordinarily adapted to moral education, 341. See also Curriculum; Out-of-school learn- ing. School spirit, 121. Science vs. common sense, 21; is changing civilization, 253, 264: teaching of, 308-9, 310. See also General science. Scientist, vs. teacher of science, 302- 3 SEE, 197-98, 209, 268. Self, essentially active, 150-51, 170, 180; in relation to interest, 160- 81 (Chapter NL) externality and internality, 161- 63, 180; self and choosing, 161-66; “torn. within,” 163-64; consists of its interests, 169, 176, 180; building of the self, 169-70: -a, divided self, 170-71, 179, aval unified self, 172, 176, 181, "321: lower vs. higher, 172: broad vs. narrow, 173-74; relation to mind- set, 26-28. See also Selfishness. Selfishness, discussed, 173-74; built by parents and teachers, 322; how avoided, 151, 267-68. Sensitivities, how ‘built, 114-16, 117-18, 337-38, INDEX Set (mind-set): set and readiness, 25-26, 66 ff.; mind-set- to-an-end, 26; mind-set and fe: 30, 66-73 (Chapter V), 76-87; op- posed sets in coercion, 80-82, 86-— 87; in wider problem ‘of method, 99-119: mind-set and focal at- tention, 112; mind-set and in- terest, 30-31, 117, 1388-39, 141; influence on ‘marginal responses of, 184; influence on thinking, 246; set and self, 181. See also Readiness, factor of. Shut-mindedness, 114-15. Simultaneous learnings, illustrated, 8, 9-10; defined, 9; inevitable, 9; discriminated, 102-3: basis of method, 110; ‘psychology of, 110 ff. Sce also Attendant learnings; Primary learning; Associate sug- gestions; Concomitants. Nocialization, defined, 317. Society, in relation to the individ- ual, 316-17. Solutions, earned vs. “handed out,” 64. Spartan method, 109. Spoiling, discussed, 60, 96-97, 137, 139, 149-53. Standards, 119. Steps (in purposeful act), discussed, 203-6, 215; purposing, 204, 206, 210, 212, 214: ; planning, 204, 212- 14; executing, 204, 212, 214; judging, 205, 209, 212, 214, 215: inter-relations of steps, 205-6, 215-16; helping others, 206. Stevenson, J. A. , referred to, 203. Study, defined, 280, 291; in case of extrinsic learning, 288-89 ; a life activity, 291. Subject-matter, defined, 272-76, 281; contrasted with method, 5- 7; in relation to child, 273: as experience, 274-75; as ‘ways-of- behaving, 275-80; ’ potential US. actual, 278-79; in relation to re- construction of experience, 281- 82; two aspects of, 281-82: in- trinsic vs. extrinsic, 284-86, 299- INDEX 93, 371; why intrinsic superior, 987-90, 292-93; why extrinsic persists, 290, 293; psychologizing subject-matter, 309; fixed-quota schemes, 354-55, 371. See also Out-of-school learning. Subjects, school, differentiation of, 247, 357-58; often artificial, 108- 9. Success, a factor in learning, 62-63, 69, 73-74, 196, 202; coercion and success, 83-84. Superstitions, referred to, 308. Synapse, referred to, 43; defined, 45; in learning, 48-50. See also Neurone. Teacher, function of, 130, 154, 208, 211-12, 214, 216, 221-22, 289-90, 304-5, 331-32; authority of, 211; child vs. teacher purposing, 206- 12, 247; teacher vs. child plan- ning, 212-14; felt as enemy, 58, 290; bound from above, 214-15, 289: influence of extrinsic sub- ject-matter on, 288-89, 293; of science, 303. Teaching, process of, discussed, 280, 282; logical vs. psychological order, 304-9. Terms, use of, 103-4. See also General terms. Tests and measures, scientific: favor certain learnings, 106-8; unwise use of, 107-8. Textbooks, often on extrinsic basis, 293; in purposeful activity, 360. Thinking, essence of, 224, 232, 233; helps learning, 35, 36-38; rela- tion to meaning, 223-224, 230; how evoked, 67-68, 235-36; an adventure, 224, 230, 232-33, 234, 248; reliability of, 224-26, 230, 235, 248, 249-50; related to ac- tion, 38, 186, 249; purpose and thinking, 68; words and think- ing, 226-31. See also Complete 383 Actof Thought; Problem; Organ- ization; Meaning; Deliberation. Thorndike, E. L., referred to, 20, Ant 153, 160, 179; quoted, 146, 170. Traits, as intermediate objectives, 363-64, 366. Transfer of training, referred to, 115, 130-31, 323-24. Truthtelling, teaching of, 54 ff. Unreadiness, for thwarting activi- ties, 67, 73. See also Readiness. Unselfishness, how built, 323-24. See also Selfishness. Urge, inner vs. outer, 66-67; inner, 72, 93, 1382. See also Interest; Purpose. Use and Disuse, Law of. See Exer- cise, Law of. Watson, John B., referred to, 32. Ways-of-behaving, as common de- nominator between child and sub- ject-matter, 275-76; as subject- matter, 275-76, 292; in arith- metic, 275-76; in geography, 276; as criterion of curriculum content, 276-77, 292; as criterion of learning, 277. See also Sub- ject-matter. White, E. E., referred to, 177. Wider problem of method, defined, 1-18 (Chapter I); discussed, 99- 119 (Chapter VIII), 120-35 (Chapter IX); ethical and philo- sophical, 17-18; the problem of life, 108-9. See also Narrow problem of method; Method; Coercion; Attendant learnings. Wit, 190, 197-98, 209, 268. Will, discussed, 52, 174-75, 181; will training, 175-76. Winnetka plan, referred to, 354-55; group work in, 356. Woodworth, R.8., referred to, 33, 48, 49; on use of interest, 168. | Library | peer HT wth y- | | : informal talks S | Il | | 1 1012 00141 7122 3 ations of method — o = wo WY 6 4 oO 2 oO o 3 h- 3S ~ w oO = = a nd LB1025 .K48c Ou F