MODERN DEVELOPMENTS IN 
 EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE 
 
MODERN DEVELOPMENTS IN 
 EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN ADAMS, M.A., B.Sc, LL.D. 
 
 SO METIME UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION 
 IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY 
 
 {Printed in Great Britain) 
 
A 
 
 b^ 
 
 ^> 
 
 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON PRESS, LTD. 
 BY HAZELL, WATSON & VINEY, LD., LONDON AND AYLESBURY. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 rxoB 
 
 What underlies the New Teaching . i 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The Child, the School, and the World . 24 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 Standards and Mental Tests ... 60 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 Scales of Attainment .... 92 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 The Psychology of the Class . . .113 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 The Knell of Class-teaching . . . 136 
 
 506b . : j 
 
vi Contents 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Dalton Plan 162 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 The Gary Contribution . . . .185 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 The Play Way 205 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 The Project Method, .... 227 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 
 
 Psycho-analysis in Education 
 
 • 
 
 • 249 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 
 
 Free Discipline 
 
 • 
 
 . 277 
 
 %. 
 
 J 
 
 
 Index 
 
 
 . 207 
 
CHAPTER I 
 WHAT UNDERLIES THE NEW TEACHING 
 
 IN his book on America's Coming of Age Mr. 
 Van Wyck Brooks tells us that on his side of 
 the Atlantic " the recognised way of pinning down 
 something that is felt to be in the air is to adopt 
 some cast-off phrase and tack the word ' New ' 
 before it.' 1 But America has no monopoly of the 
 device. On this side we have always had the New 
 Art : lately we added the New Theology, the New 
 Nationalism, the New Psychology — and now we 
 have the New Education, with its variant the New 
 Teaching, not to speak of the New Children. 1 
 
 The reader's first reaction to the much-used 
 adjective is one of opposition. He declines to admit 
 that these things are really new. Critics cannot 
 resist the temptation to quote a tiiesomely familiar 
 saying of a French cynic that the more such things 
 change the more they are the same. In teaching, 
 for example, no sooner does one suggest a method 
 as something specially fresh than a resurrectionist 
 expert is at hand to dig up from the history of 
 education some hoary example of the same thing. 
 It is certainly galling for the progressive teacher to 
 
 1 Witness Mrs. Radice's interesting book with that 
 title. 
 
What underlies the New Teaching 
 
 find in the books and speeches of inspired amateurs 
 certain familiar methods described as startling and 
 valuable novelties. Mr. F. R. Cholmeley, for 
 instance, is indignant that in the reviews of Messrs. 
 Beresford and Richmond's book entitled W. E. Ford 
 the critics appear to take it for granted that nothing 
 has been improved in education during the past 
 thirty years. He has no objection to people talking 
 of " Ford's Method " if they want to, but he would 
 like them to remember that this method is, in fact, 
 " part of the regular stock-in-trade of every place 
 where teachers are taught, and of a large and 
 increasing proportion of the places where they 
 teach." It is hardly surprising, therefore, to find 
 him telling us that to see the Ford methods treated as 
 if they were new discoveries " is a little depressing." 
 Let it be admitted that we are at all times liable 
 to fall into the fallacy that has aroused Mr. Chol- 
 meley's just indignation. It seems inherent in 
 human beings to regard their own period as one of 
 notable change. We are continually telling each 
 other that this is a critical time, that we are at the 
 parting of the ways, that vital issues lie in our 
 hands at the present moment. Heraclitus is 
 justified of his theory. Without question we live 
 in an age of flux. Men always have. It is natural, 
 since it is inevitable, that we should be making a 
 choice all the time, and in sober earnest we stand 
 at every moment of our lives at what may be called 
 the parting of the ways. No doubt there are 
 partings that are of more importance than others, 
 and it is man's nature to regard the present moment's 
 decision as more than usually important. When 
 
What underlies the New Teaching 3 
 
 all has been said, however, it will be found to be a 
 safe proposition that it is extremely difficult at a 
 given moment in the development of any movement 
 to determine whether we are or are not at a crucial 
 point. 
 
 All this is set forth in order that the reader may 
 realise that it is with full knowledge of human 
 frailty, and not without an appreciation of the 
 humour of the situation, that it is here maintained 
 that we have reached a critical stage in the develop- 
 ment of educational theory and practice. After 
 what has just been written it would probably be 
 inadvisable to say that we are at the parting of the 
 ways, but it may perhaps be permitted to say that 
 we have reached a meeting of the ways, a point 
 where many influences join. The Converging Paths 
 about which Professor Campagnac writes have led 
 people to a position of open-minded enquiry accom- 
 panied by a willingness to take whatever practical 
 steps may seem to be necessary to improve the 
 educational situation. 
 
 When all allowance has been made for the 
 relativity of newness, it must be admitted that 
 each generation has its characteristic way of regard- 
 ing all problems — education among the rest. The 
 very fact that people are talking about the New 
 Teaching implies that there is something that marks 
 off our present-day teaching in some way or other 
 from that of former times. At the very least, we 
 have a new way of being novel in our methods. 
 Just as each age has to have a new translation of a 
 great classic if that classic is to be properly under- 
 stood, so each age that is interested in education 
 
4 What underlies the New Teaching 
 
 at all has to be interested after its own fashion. 
 That there is a new spirit in our educational affairs 
 to-day is evident even to the most superficial 
 observers. We in England are not temperamentally 
 inclined to be drawn aside after the strange gods 
 of mere novelty in education. If we are interested 
 in education at all, it is enough of a portent without 
 our asking for something more wonderful. Yet we 
 have only to open our eyes to find examples of all 
 manner of movements and plans and projects 
 demanding and receiving the attention of school 
 people. No teacher of spirit can fail to be stimulated 
 by merely turning over the pages of Mr. Ernest 
 Young's The New Era in Education, and even the 
 layman will find there cause for serious reflection. 
 It is true that the cautious and reactionary teacher 
 or administrator who can be induced to dip into 
 the book, will look up with a woeful shake of the 
 head, indicating the uneasy feeling within that 
 education is getting into the hands of cranks, and 
 that the whole of the stable and well-tried methods 
 are in danger. Let all such anxious minds be at 
 rest. There is not the slightest danger of our 
 schools going to excess through new ideas. The 
 danger is all in the other direction. Consider for a 
 moment the world of contempt that the average 
 professional teacher can throw into the phrase 
 " freak schools ! " Note the turn up of the nose 
 at the mere mention of the Dalton Plan, the Project 
 Method, the Play Way. 
 
 Yet there is comfort in the frequency with which 
 the professional nose has to be turned up in these 
 latter days. The persistent growls from many a 
 
What underlies the New Teaching 5 
 
 conventional common-room are extremely hopeful 
 signs of the times. It is well that Mr. Young should 
 be able to provide such abundant material for the 
 censure of the severely orthodox. It is much that 
 such an array of actual experiments can now be 
 presented for criticism and verification, but it is 
 more to realise that these are merely the efflorescence 
 of a growing spirit of enquiry that is only now 
 coming to its own. For every new method in 
 actual practice there are scores in theory, all 
 clamouring in the educational press for an oppor- 
 tunity to express themselves in action, and get 
 themselves put to the test of practice. It is probable 
 that there never has been a time at which so much 
 public interest in education has been shown in this 
 country. 
 
 There is, to be sure, no mystery about the cause 
 of the effervescence. There are people waiting at 
 every street corner — their very eagerness being a 
 demonstration of the enthusiasm they seek to 
 explain — to exploit the commonplace that periods 
 of exceptional educational interest always follow 
 great wars. The statement need not be questioned, 
 nor need the fact be explained at length. Intelligent 
 people need no help in understanding the relation 
 of cause and effect here. The significant point is 
 that the twentieth-century interest in education 
 cannot be attributed solely to war influences. No 
 doubt on this occasion education was itself quite 
 commonly introduced into arguments, as one of 
 the main causes of the war. We all told each other 
 that the German educational system was deliber- 
 ately organised to promote the war spirit and the 
 
6 What underlies the New Teaching 
 
 preparation for fighting. No doubt we were right, 
 but if so we have merely carried the cause a few 
 steps farther back. In all probability, the causes 
 that led to the outbreak of 19 14 had also something 
 to do with the great development of interest in 
 education. In any case, that development was 
 well marked long before the fatal August of that 
 year. 
 
 No doubt throughout the ages there have always 
 been a faithful few who devoted themselves to 
 purely educational problems. The labours of the 
 historians of education have unearthed quite a 
 respectable number of these worthy people, and 
 have placed them in the niches to which they are 
 entitled. But there can be no doubt but that 
 education entered upon a new phase so soon as 
 popular instruction was established on a national 
 basis that included the whole population. During 
 the debates in Parliament that led to the passing 
 of the Education Act in 1870, a considerable 
 interest in the subject was aroused in the nation at 
 large, but as soon as the Act came into force the 
 demand for the training of an army of teachers 
 compelled immediate attention to the nature and 
 methods of education. Up to this period the 
 demands of education were confined to the supply 
 of capable men and women who were willing to 
 turn their energies towards the teaching of boys 
 and girls. For the higher grades of work men 
 drifted into the profession from the universities, 
 and for the lower grades a sufficient supply of more 
 or less educated people was available. From the 
 passing of the Act it became imperative that the 
 
What underlies the New Teaching 7 
 
 whole subject of education should be looked at in 
 a broader way. Thus it came about that the 
 development of education as a subject of study 
 received a remarkable acceleration from that time 
 onward. 
 
 Dr. R. Austin Freeman, in his Social Decay and 
 Regeneration, tells us that in all departments of 
 life there has been an enormous increase in the 
 rate of change since the introduction of the power 
 machine. In all essential respects the Victory 
 belonged to the same class as the ships of Tarshish, 
 and the change from the Victory to the Aquitania 
 is almost infinitely greater than any change in 
 shipbuilding that took place during the whole of 
 the preceding centuries. No doubt, in an indirect 
 way, the power machine had also a good deal to do 
 with the introduction of national education, though 
 naturally it took some time for the industrial 
 revolution to produce this, perhaps the most striking 
 of all its indirect effects. But the change, when it 
 came, revolutionised educational methods, and gave 
 them new power, new form, new potentiality. The 
 difference was almost as great as that between the 
 two types of ships. If Plato and Aristotle could 
 return from the shades for what the Board of Educa- 
 tion might call " a visit without notice " to one of 
 our great Public Schools, they would probably not 
 feel greatly surprised at what they would find there ; 
 but if they chanced by mistake to drop into one of 
 our huge elementary schools, they would certainly 
 findr themselves very much at sea. 
 
 Naturally enough, the first effect of the need to 
 train an army of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses 
 
8 What underlies the New Teaching 
 
 was to direct close attention to the human element 
 in the schools. It will be at once objected that 
 the necessary herding together of great masses of 
 boys and girls in class-rooms tended to remove 
 all interest in them as human beings. This is true 
 so far as it goes, but we must not lose sight of the 
 fact that the very size of the classes made it impera- 
 tive t^at the human nature of the children should 
 be studied, if only in the lump. The power of 
 managing a large class was regarded as essential 
 in elementary teaching. The teacher might not 
 " know his boys " in the secondary schoolmaster's 
 sense of that phrase, but he had to know how they 
 behave in the mass. He had to know the boy generi- 
 cally. By a sort of shorthand thinking he typified 
 his pupils so as to get at a rough-and-ready set of 
 principles of class-management. Accordingly, when 
 training colleges were established for the preparation 
 of young teachers for the work of elementary schools, 
 it was only natural that they should adopt plans 
 that would, in the shortest and easiest way, qualify 
 their students to meet the new conditions of massed 
 teaching. No doubt the students had to have a 
 certain training in the academic subjects, but these 
 were considered to be of secondary importance. 
 It was felt that training-college students would soon 
 learn as much as was necessary for the purposes 
 of the elementary school curriculum. The popular 
 opinion is well represented by Dickens' grim account 
 of the training of Mr. M'Choakumchild in Hard 
 Times. But whatever happened on the side of 
 culture, there was never the least doubt in the 
 minds of the authorities about the need of develop- 
 
What underlies the New Teaching 9 
 
 ing the power of control. The real problem of 
 the college was felt to be the turning out of students 
 ready to take up a position in a huge human drill- 
 yard and hold their own there. The pretraining- 
 college view had been that if a man knew his subject 
 that was enough. Sometimes, indeed, broad-minded 
 masters added a demand for a sense of humour ; 
 but the knowledge of the subject to be taught was 
 the sine qua non. The teacher was assumed, as 
 a matter of course, to be strong enough to make his 
 boys do what they were told, but anything in the 
 way of skilful class-manipulation, or the scientific 
 preparation of subject-matter for presentation to 
 a large class, was not thought of. ___ 
 
 The result of the new methods of training was 
 that by and by it began to be noticed that there 
 was a marked difference between two groups of 
 teachers. Those in Public and secondary schools 
 were usually men of considerable attainments in 
 the subjects they taught, but, except in the extreme- 
 ly limited ranks of the heaven-born teachers, quite 
 innocent of any knowledge of method. Indeed 
 they rather prided themselves on their ignorance 
 of method, and spoke contemptuously of the petti- 
 fogging " methods " of the teachers of the elemen- 
 tary schools. These latter, in their turn, were not 
 credited with a very advanced knowledge of any 
 subject, but were acknowledged to be, generally 
 speaking, masters in the art of presenting what 
 knowledge they did possess. So strong was the 
 public opinion on this subject, that some of the 
 middle classes spoke rather bitterly of the unfair- 
 ness of their having to pay rates to support the Board 
 
io What underlies the New Teaching 
 
 Schools, while social reasons made it necessary 
 for them to send their children to schools where 
 the actual teaching was inferior to what was found 
 in the Board Schools. The upshot of the whole 
 matter was that the study of education as such began 
 to attract public attention. University professor- 
 ships in the subject were founded, and even secondary 
 and Public School men and women began to look 
 into the matter. 
 
 Leaving out of account the apparently inevitable 
 jealousies among the different grades of teachers, 
 the effect of this professional interest has been the 
 gradual development of new ideas on the subject. 
 The changes have not come entirely from the schools. 
 Some of them have been superposed from without. 
 But all of them have exercised an influence beyond 
 the range of the schools that have actually adopted 
 them. Many teachers who are too timid to adopt 
 outright any of the newer plans are greatly influenced 
 by them, and that influence is manifest in the way 
 in which they carry on their school- work. Very 
 probably this is just the way in which innovations 
 can be best introduced into school practice. What- 
 ever is done, everything depends upon the attitude 
 of the actual teacher. It is accordingly of the first 
 importance that educational reformers should be able 
 to carry the teachers with them. The thing cannot 
 be done by orders issued from above or imposed by 
 the prestige of authoritative writers on education, 
 however distinguished. Progress can be best secured 
 by persuading teachers of the superiority of the 
 newer plans. This will naturally be accomplished 
 in different degrees with different teachers. We 
 
What underlies the New Teaching n 
 
 must therefore be prepared to find no one plan 
 applied in all degrees of completeness in the schools 
 of the country. We are not to forget that in our 
 work, as elsewhere, there is the periodic rise and fall 
 of tendencies. Those who have studied the history 
 of medicine tell us that certain modes of treatment 
 rise, spread, and disappear for a time, only to repeat 
 at later periods the same process with slight modi- 
 fications. A skilful student of the history of 
 education could supply many illustrations of this 
 periodicity in the case of our craft. 
 
 It is unpleasant to think of educational movement 
 being a mere recurrent series of waves, unless we 
 can be sure that each wave rises a little higher than 
 its predecessor. In any case, we are unwilling to 
 believe that all the present innovations in education 
 are merely sporadic outbreaks of separate and 
 independent influences, based on varying and un- 
 correlated views on the big question of education 
 as a whole. As one studies the different plans 
 and methods, however, one is led to see that they 
 have a great deal more in common than one would 
 at first sight suppose. Indeed, it is extremely 
 difficult in dealing with any one of them to avoid 
 dropping into a consideration of some of the others. 
 In writing such a book as this, there is little tempta- 
 tion to fall into the water-tight-compartment line 
 of error. Inter-connections crop up at every turn. 
 The different chapters can, with difficulty, be kept 
 apart. There appears to be an underlying force 
 making for unity. If the same thought has some- 
 times to be presented under different aspects, the 
 explanation is to be found in the organic oneness 
 
12 What underlies the New Teaching 
 
 of the subject. Naturally, the enquirer wants to 
 discover whether there is an underlying general 
 principle exemplified in all the newer movements, 
 and I believe that something not unlike such a 
 guiding principle can be found. 
 
 Probably this principle is to be sought in the 
 culmination of a tendency that has been develop- 
 ing for many generations, rather than in the sudden 
 appearance of a new influence. My attention 
 to what I believe to be this dominating tendency 
 was roused in a curious way by reflection, at a very 
 immature age, on the syntax rule in my Edinburgh 
 Academy Latin Rudiments that runs : " Verbs of 
 teaching govern two accusatives, one of the person, 
 another of the thing : as Magister Latinamjohannem 
 docuit — the master taught John Latin." The essen- 
 tial difference between the old and the new teaching 
 lies in the incidence of effort on these two accusatives. 
 The old teachers laid most of the stress on Latin, 
 the new lay it on John. In both cases it is probable 
 that the teacher still drives his team tandem, 
 though of old Latin came first, while John was 
 kept in the backward region where, incidentally, 
 he was more accessible to the whip. In these days 
 John is brought into the position of prominence, 
 and certainly gets his full share of the teacher's 
 attention. 
 
 The figure, after the manner of figures, leads us 
 into difficulties. It may be legitimately maintained 
 that the teacher cannot, by any possibility, do real 
 teaching at all if he neglects either John or Latin. 
 To this a cordial assent may be given, and yet the 
 point be maintained that it is possible to vitiate 
 
What underlies the New Teaching 13 
 
 the teacher's work by an unwholesome distribution 
 of his attention. Perhaps the figure may be carried 
 farther by the suggestion that the New Teaching 
 does not put John in the front, but drives him and 
 Latin side by side. The tandem method has been 
 given up altogether, and one of the most charac- 
 teristic features of the intelligent New Teaching is 
 that the true relation between pupil and subject- 
 matter has been clearly recognised. 
 
 Those who are familiar with the history of education 
 will not be slow to point out that this change in 
 the incidence of the teacher's attention is no new 
 thing. They will almost certainly select Rousseau 
 as the chief exponent of the attitude, and probably 
 most people will agree. Admittedly in his writings 
 we are dealing with a real live child, however arti- 
 ficial and grown up he becomes in the hands of his 
 artificially inclined creator. Pompous and pedantic 
 as is the dandified little Emile, he is the best his 
 creator could produce as an example of the natural 
 child. He was undoubtedly meant to be natural. 
 Is not Rousseau's principle Education according to 
 Nature ? Further, he was regarded by his creator as 
 more important than the subjects that were taught 
 him in a more or less artificial way. Rousseau 
 can therefore be justly claimed as a precursor of the 
 new educators who fix their attention upon the 
 pupil as the centre of their interest. But it has 
 taken all the time from the publication of the Emile 
 in 1762 till now to get this attitude firmly established. 
 It was not till the other day that a term was felt 
 to be needed to indicate the change of the incidence 
 of attention 'from the subject to the pupil. We 
 
14 What underlies the New Teaching 
 
 need that term, but many of us are unwilling to pay 
 its price by incurring the odium of introducing 
 a neologism. Fortunately, however, the work has 
 already been done by one who has sinned so deeply 
 in the way of neologisms that one more or less 
 cannot in any way affect him. It is one of Dr. G. 
 Stanley Hall's flagrant defiances of pedagogic 
 decorum to use the hybrid adjective paidocentric. 
 It is regrettable ; but since the word is there, and 
 the mischief has been done, anyhow, why not use 
 the term ? Accordingly, with a subdued " Thanks " 
 to its author, let us boldly accept paidocentricism 
 as the name of what appears to have a fair claim 
 to be regarded as the underlying principle of the 
 New Teaching. 
 
 A very little reflection will show that all the newer 
 tendencies are paidocentric. Montessorianism is a 
 consistent sweeping away of everything — except 
 perhaps apparatus — that can obscure our view of 
 the living child. Everything centres in the child, 
 and the teacher, so far from being a competitor for 
 attention, is to be kept scrupulously out of the way, 
 except in so far as she is called upon by the little 
 person who occupies the focus of the limelight. 
 The Dalton Plan again asks the teacher to step 
 aside, and let the children act on their own account. 
 The Intelligence Tests put the child in the fore- 
 front : even when the investigations are carried on 
 by groups, the ultimate result is estimated by the 
 light it throws on the nature of the individual child. 
 The subject-matter of the tests is of importance 
 only in so far as it fits into the needs of the individual 
 child, who forms the ultimate unit of the teacher's 
 
What underlies the New Teaching 15 
 
 work. Supervised study, again, centralises the child. 
 The Gary Scheme deliberately builds the school 
 round the requirements of the child : these dominate 
 everything. The Play Way with all that it implies 
 is conspicuously worked out at the address of the 
 child. The Project Method is a complete surrender 
 to the child's point of view. We shall find, in fact, 
 that all we have to say about the pupil being an 
 end in himself as well as a means to the ends of others, 
 and all about the tendencies to split up the class- 
 teaching system, supply exemplifications of the 
 principle of paidocentricism. 
 
 It has become fashionable, indeed, to speak of this 
 as the children's century, though it has in fairness to 
 be admitted that the nineteenth century was before 
 us in this claim. This implies a gradual working- 
 up to a climax of interest in and respect for the 
 age of childhood. In itself this is merely one, though 
 perhaps the most important, manifestation of the 
 general tendency of the twentieth century before 
 the war to protect the relatively weak. Even after 
 the war (and in spite of the hardness it left behind) 
 it may not be quite untrue to describe the present 
 as the time of the physically weak, the time when, 
 as never before, the world is considerate of the unfit, 
 the unfortunate, the down-dog, the person who has 
 not the bodily energy to enforce claims on society. 
 However this may be, it is certainly in a very full 
 sense the time of the child. Alike by legislation, 
 by personal investigation — as in all forms of Child 
 Study and the genetic forms of psychology — and by 
 public opinion, the child is proved to have entered 
 into his kingdom, A fundamental tendency of 
 
16 What underlies the New Teaching 
 
 this kind not only exercises a potent influence in 
 general society, but bears directly upon the work 
 of our schools and school people. Thus we read : 
 
 " The tests are used to locate pupil weaknesses in order 
 that such weaknesses may be corrected. The individual 
 child thus becomes the centre and object of the work. 
 It is not school systems as such, but children that are 
 important. That we have so quickly, in the use of standard 
 tests, come to recognise that the child is the real centre and 
 the true object of consideration, is an indication that to-day, 
 as never before, the spirit of progress and service is domin- 
 ating and determining all educational effort." 1 
 
 That the tendency is to correlate pupil and subject- 
 matter, not to emphasise one at the expense of the 
 other, is shown in the French movement towards 
 what they call integral instruction. They note that 
 at the end of a long course of instruction the pupil 
 retains only a small fraction of the knowledge im- 
 parted to him, and some at least of their writers 
 appear to regard it as a practical proposition to find 
 what usually makes up this residuum, and confine 
 their instruction to that, thus saving the time and 
 labour involved in communicating all the rest of the 
 matter that normally disappears in any case. The 
 wiser integralists see what a nonsensical attitude 
 this is, and set about establishing a system in which 
 all the elements will be so correlated as to form an 
 organic whole. ' At present, instruction is largely 
 a thing of shreds and patches. Our pupils learn a 
 large number of subjects each more or less independ- 
 ently of the others, and our pupils too often see 
 
 1 Preface to How to Measure, by G. M. Wilson and K. J. 
 Hoke (1920). 
 
What underlies the New Teaching 17 
 
 little connection among them. The French critics 
 are disappointed to find that the pupils learn this, 
 that, and the other subject at different times of the 
 day, without ever troubling to find out whether 
 they have any connection with each other. A refer- 
 ence to the attitude of the teachers brings little 
 comfort, for they too do their hour's duty with the 
 class without reference to the pupil's work as a 
 whole. It is, as a distinguished French educator " 
 remarks, " a case of a fragment of an educator 
 addressing itself to a fragment of a pupil," and, he 
 might have added, " about a fragment of a subject." 
 The French are so impressed by the ultimate unity 
 of the sciences that they are tempted to seek a solu- 
 tion in a unification of the subject-matter of the 
 curriculum ; but the wiser among them realise that 
 the educational solution must be found in the educa- 
 tional process itself. What is wanted is not merely 
 that the curriculum should be so organised as to 
 present an organic unity of subject-matter, but that 
 the staff of the school should act as an educational 
 unity in its influence on the individual pupil. 
 
 A good deal of the groping of the New Education 
 is towards some means of reaching this unification 
 of the teaching forces. John Dewey's School and 
 Society presents with great clearness one aspect of 
 the movement, and the persistent tendency towards 
 socialising ■ the teaching of the school subjects shows 
 the working of the seed he sowed. The dissatisfac- 
 tion with the fragmentary nature of the current 
 
 1 Ernest Lavisse in his chapter on " Une Education 
 Manquee " in a work entitled L Education de la Democratic. 
 
 2 Cf . R. If. Weeks' Socialising the Three R's. 
 
 2 
 
1 8 What underlies the New Teaching 
 
 educational system is widespread, and is expressed 
 very emphatically even when it is accompanied 
 by positive suggestions for improvement. Take 
 the following from an appeal against the penny- 
 wise plan of having our boys and girls educated by 
 poorly or badly trained teachers. The appeal is 
 from the school to the parents : 
 
 " Because the average school works against the health 
 of our sons and daughters, we must strive all the harder 
 to upbuild that health. Because the school tends to stunt 
 the body and mind and even the soul of the child, we must 
 work all the more to expand those. Because the school 
 still depends on the old, bad stimulus of competition, we 
 must emphasise all the more the beauty of co-operation, 
 of each working for all and all for each. Because the school 
 puts most of its emphasis upon using the head, we must 
 do everything we can to provide occupation for the body 
 and the hands ..." and so on. 1 
 
 This pessimism is reflected within the profession 
 itself, and gives rise to rather revolutionary demands. 
 Mr. Caldwell Cook has no hesitation in expressing 
 very strong views on the subject : 
 
 " The educational system has, in fact, not been evolving 
 at all, it has been congealing. And now it has become 
 clogged, stuck fast. The educational system has ceased 
 to be educational. Consequently, we cannot look for 
 reform through minor adjustments. The suggested im- 
 provements of which we have heard do not go to the heart 
 of the matter. We must have an upheaval." 2 
 
 Something rather like this desired upheaval is in 
 
 1 J. P. Munroe, in The Human Factor in Education, 
 p. 30. 
 
 * The Play Way, p. 353. 
 
What underlies the New Teaching 19 
 
 sight at the present time, and might be regarded 
 as imminent but for the restraining force of an in- 
 stitution that in Britain exercises the most powerful 
 influence in favour of the policy of "no further 
 action.' ' Nobody acquainted with educational 
 affairs on this side of the Atlantic needs to be told 
 what this force is. External examinations form 
 the dead hand that tradition places upon all attempts 
 to get out of the rut of established educational 
 custom. It is difficult for anyone not actually 
 engaged in school-work to realise the handicap 
 put upon every attempt at educational reform in 
 Britain by the position of prestige granted to the 
 work of the external examiner. The testing of the 
 results of work done in school is an excellent thing 
 in its way, but it ought to be kept in its proper 
 place of subordination to the work being done. It 
 is pitiful that it should be necessary to state in plain 
 words the platitude that schools exist for the pur- 
 pose of education. In actual practice what the 
 teacher has to keep in the foreground is the exter- 
 nal examination. In spite of the incessant wail 
 against them for the best part of a century, external 
 examinations still remain in their unwarranted and 
 hurtful position as the dominant influence in educa- 
 tion of all grades. Nothing of vital importance 
 can be done in the way of reforming educational 
 methods till this incubus has been removed. We 
 shall find in the following pages that every suggestion 
 for improvement is met by the practical objection 
 — " But what about the examinations ? " 
 
 Let it be admitted at once that there is need of 
 some means of testing the results of the teacher's 
 
20 What underlies the New Teaching 
 
 work in some directions that lend themselves to this 
 form of estimating results. The highest results 
 of a teacher's work can never be tested by any formal 
 examination. Only the after lives of his pupils 
 can bear true testimony to the value of his work, 
 and even these cannot be so accurately analysed 
 as to give reliable data on which to form a judgment. 
 But it is true that his work as a mere instructor can 
 be tested in a more or less mechanical way, and in a 
 commercial nation like ours it is perhaps natural 
 that some such test should be demanded. The 
 school inspectors of the Lowe period had the police 
 function clearly in mind. They were there to see 
 that the nation got value for its money, and a 
 mechanical system of measuring results was rigidly 
 applied. The gross failure of their crude methods 
 threw the system into disrepute, and the modern 
 examination system is based on much more rational 
 principles. Even the Board of Education has set itself 
 to reduce the total amount of examination work 
 to be demanded from the pupils, and has, in fact, 
 reached the stage that only two examinations are 
 absolutely necessary for the ordinary pupil taking 
 a complete school course ending at eighteen. Still, 
 there has to be a certain amount of uniformity in 
 these two examinations. The pupils have to face 
 a test of a prescribed kind, the preparation for which 
 necessarily limits the freedom of the teachers. 
 
 No well-conducted school will object to its in- 
 struction results being tested even by an outside 
 body, so long as the test is applied with reference 
 to the actual work done in the school — that is, so 
 long as the test is subordinate to the instruction, 
 
What underlies the New Teaching 21 
 
 instead of dominating it. In Chapter IV certain 
 attempts are described by which ingenious persons 
 have sought to establish such standards as may be 
 applied on more or less generally accepted principles, 
 in a way that will leave the teachers entirely free 
 to follow whatever methods they find produce the 
 best practical — but not necessarily examinational — 
 results. 
 
 Probably the line of development will be the grad- 
 ual substitution of inspection for examination. The 
 external authorities will satisfy themselves by means 
 of inspection that the schools are working on sound 
 principles, and are teaching the subjects that meet 
 the needs of society, and then accept the pupils 
 trained in such schools as qualified either to enter 
 the universities, or to take up whatever walk in 
 life they may desire to follow, without any further 
 examination on school subjects. No doubt further 
 examinations will be necessary to satisfy employers 
 who demand special qualifications, but these will 
 be professional or industrial examinations, and will 
 leave the school course free for the teachers to develop 
 in the best way they can, without the present bar 
 to practically all serious and fundamental reform. 
 
 It does not by any means follow that when the 
 lion of external examination is removed from the 
 path there will be an immediate and overwhelming 
 rush after new methods. Those reactionary teachers 
 who find a certain satisfaction in the present exami- 
 nation system, because it provides a convenient break- 
 water against a threatened flood of innovations, need 
 have no concern. Our profession is an eminently 
 conservative one. Contentment with things as they 
 
22 What underlies the New Teaching 
 
 are is not perhaps a sine qua non in the make-up 
 of a successful teacher, but it goes a long way towards 
 securing a conventional success. Yet with the 
 removal of the barrier of the examination system 
 there can be no doubt that a very steady trend 
 towards improved methods would at once become 
 noticeable. It does no service to the cause of 
 progress to maintain that greater advances are being 
 made than is really the case. There is now a 
 Conference on New Ideals in Education, that 
 appears to be established as an annual one, which 
 is regarded as a sort of clearing-house for the 
 exchange of the various new ideas that are being 
 worked out in different parts of the country. When 
 we hear of Mr. O'NenTs school at Manchester, Mr. 
 Arrowsmith's in Lincolnshire, Mr. MacMunn'sTiptree 
 Hall Institution, not to speak of Mr. Homer Lane's 
 famous Little Commonwealth, we feel that things 
 are moving, and need the caution that Mr. MacMunn 
 gives us. He is not pleased at the progress being 
 made in experimental education, and utters a protest 
 in the very opposite sense of Mr. Cholmeley's : 
 
 " Nothing is more distressing than to hear men who should 
 know better endeavouring to represent present-day schools 
 as places filled with teachers of a changed heart and a love 
 of experiment. The author has several times been charged 
 with having underrated the improvement of method in 
 recent years. This is plainly a little innocent Jesuitry — 
 for everybody with the smallest capacity for analysis 
 and power of observation and means of meeting both 
 boys and masters, knows that experimental methods are 
 so rare as to be far from falling within the reach of a majority 
 of children." « » 
 
 * The Child's Path to Freedom, p. 40, 
 
What underlies the New Teaching 23 
 
 All the same, we can again take up Mr. Ernest 
 Young's The New Era in Education, turn over its 
 hopeful pages, and find ourselves impressed with the 
 new spirit it breathes, and with the number of places 
 in which this spirit finds it possible to realise its 
 ideals. To be sure, on investigation a large number 
 of the experiments appear to be conducted in con- 
 nection with private enterprise institutions, but 
 elementary and secondary municipal schools find 
 a place and prove that experiment is not ruled 
 out even in state-controlled schools. Indeed, it is 
 perhaps not too much to say that the present Board 
 of Education and its officials are at least as much 
 inclined for experiment as are the teachers. 
 
 The recent literature on the general subject of 
 education falls naturally into the two groups of 
 pessimism and optimism. Probably, on the whole, 
 pessimism has it. I find that I have quite a library 
 of books with such depressing titles as The Tragedy 
 of Education, The Curse of Education, Where Edu- 
 cation Fails, Fool Culture, Essays in Revolt. The 
 optimists take a less exuberant tone, though Mr. 
 William Piatt wins general praise by his bold title 
 The Joy of Education. The denunciations, however, 
 are all more or less theoretical and destructive, 
 the optimists are practical and constructive, though 
 of course they have to demolish before they can set 
 about building, for clear sites in education are rare. 
 In any case, it will be found that the movements 
 most characteristic of the present day have a dis- 
 tinctly practical turn, and are based on a philosophy 
 that is full of hope. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 THE CHILD, THE SCHOOL, AND THE WORLD 
 
 GIVEN the living child here and now present, the 
 problem is to educate him. The very men- 
 tion of this final verb exposes us to the imminent 
 danger of such a flood of definition as may overwhelm 
 us before we get well started. With a full knowledge 
 of all that can be and has been said against it, we 
 may not unwisely accept as a provisional statement 
 of the aim of education Herbert Spencer's preparation 
 for complete living. Among the practical people 
 of the English-speaking world it will be found that 
 this provides the line of least resistance. There 
 is just that degree of vagueness about the statement 
 that allows of making a beginning without leading 
 to immediate quarrelling about terms. To be sure, 
 hundreds of questions are trembling on the lips 
 of those who read the Spencer i an principle, but 
 sensible people realise that a beginning must be 
 made somewhere, and complete living is a phrase 
 comprehensive enough to satisfy the most exacting. 
 The naked elements of the case in actual life are 
 the living child, the world for which he has to be 
 prepared, and the school where the preparation is 
 to take place. To this extent the school as a social 
 institution has to be taken for granted. How far 
 
 24 
 
The Child, the School, and the World 25 
 
 its present form need be retained is a matter for 
 discussion. 
 
 As things stand, the school and the world appear 
 to be out of harmony. A very common attitude 
 towards the work of schools is well illustrated in a 
 remarkable volume by an American author setting 
 out his autobiography under the form of a search 
 for an education — a search, by the way, that does 
 not seem to have been successful. The reader of 
 The Education of Henry Adams is irritated by the 
 persistent way in which the author mixes up the 
 ideas of education and life. Systematic education 
 of all kinds is belittled, but anything in real life 
 that chances to have had an effect upon the writer's 
 character is treated with respect and referred to as 
 " accidental education." This deliberate confusion 
 goads the reader to demand a working distinction 
 between education properly so called and the educa- 
 tive influences that are brought into play by the 
 mere process of living in the world. Elsewhere 1 
 I have used the term cosmic to mark off this undeli- 
 berate but very effective " licking into shape " 
 that goes on in ordinary living. But a simpler 
 and more appropriate term, " by-education " ■ is 
 coming into use, and will be found convenient in 
 distinguishing the systematic work of the school 
 from the less formal but not less effective educational 
 influences of social intercourse of all kinds. Hitherto 
 by-education has not had the consideration it deserves 
 at the hands of those who have dealt with the sub- 
 ject. School education has up till now been treated 
 
 1 Evolution of Educational Theory, p. 31. 
 
 * Cf . David Snedden, Vocational Education, p. 8. 
 
26 The Child, the School, and the World 
 
 as a thing apart and out of all relation to the wider 
 forces that underlie by-education. For a true 
 understanding of the educational problem as a whole, 
 there must be a careful consideration of their 
 interaction. 
 
 The whole paraphernalia of public education, 
 with its elaborate system of administration and its 
 network of institutions and buildings, lead to such 
 a concentration of attention on the school that the 
 ordinary person may be forgiven if he comes to 
 regard education as confined to what goes on in 
 buildings recognised for this purpose. He i s tempted 
 to regard it as something that begins at nine or 
 nine-thirty each day and ceases at four or four- 
 thirty, with a varying interval for lunch. In many 
 cases Saturdays and Sundays are free days, in which 
 the pupils are not being educated, but merely live. 
 This vague view the plain man may perhaps accept 
 without sin ; but for the educator it is out of the 
 question. He must realise that the educative 
 process goes on relentlessly all the time that his 
 educands are awake, and, if the psycho-analysts 
 are to be believed, it does not cease even when they 
 are asleep. It is only in thought that the school 
 and the out-of-school world can be regarded as 
 independent of each other. Professional teachers 
 are entitled to draw quite a sharp distinction between 
 what goes on in school and what goes on in the out- 
 side world. Such a distinction is necessary for 
 teaching purposes ; but they will never fail to realise 
 that the two spheres form part of the same world, 
 and are so intimately connected with each other 
 that any attempt to isolate them is futile. 
 
The Child, the School, and the World 27 
 
 No doubt a certain type of teacher — fortunately 
 not at all a common one — claims a practical divorce 
 between the school and the outer world. He adopts 
 the attitude that as we go to an ironmonger's for 
 hardware, to a fishmonger's for fish, to a bookseller's 
 for books, so we go to a school for information. 
 Schools are knowledge-shops, and teachers are in- 
 formation-mongers. Their business consists in com- 
 municating a certain amount of knowledge, and their 
 duties are discharged so soon as the agreed amount 
 has been imparted. There are, no doubt, types of 
 schools where this attitude may be reasonably 
 maintained. An explicit bargain is recognised, 
 a certain amount of knowledge or skill to be im- 
 parted for a given price, and, in the popular phrase, 
 " no questions asked." Such institutions over- 
 emphasise the teaching aspect to the disadvantage 
 of the educational. It is true that educational 
 responsibility may be rejected, but educational effects 
 follow all the same. It is a case not merely of direct 
 teaching, but also of by-education. Even the in- 
 formation-mongers, however, have to admit that 
 in the last resort they cannot dissociate their school- 
 work from what goes on in the outer world, since 
 their stock of information owes its value to the use 
 that may be made of it outside school. 
 
 While the plain common sense of practical people 
 has made it possible to assume as a working hypo- 
 thesis the Spencerian view of the aim of education, 
 we cannot hope for anything like the same unanimity 
 when we suggest that, taking the widest view of 
 education, we should like to regard the promotion 
 of the self-realisation of the educand as its ultimate 
 
28 The Child, the School, and the World 
 
 goal. The truth is that the aim of education is 
 suffering very badly from over-discussion. The 
 subject has been threshed out to such an extent 
 that there appears to be almost nothing left. It 
 does not seem an unreasonable or dangerous sug- 
 gestion that the final aim of the educator is to enable 
 the educands to make of themselves the best of 
 which they are capable. To those who sternly insist 
 upon the rights of others, and hold that no man 
 liveth to himself alone and that it is selfish merely 
 to cultivate oneself, 1 we can make all the concessions 
 required, and still maintain that even in the in- 
 terests of others it is essential that our educands 
 should make the best of themselves. Society is not 
 being neglected while the units of which it is made 
 up are being improved. On the other hand, no 
 one understands more clearly than the upholder 
 of self-realisation that his ideal is unattainable 
 except in so far as the individual reacts wholesomely 
 on his fellows. Perhaps the argument most likely 
 to win acceptance of the self-realisation ideal among 
 practical people is that it is in no way antagonistic 
 to the Spencerian ideal of complete living, for 
 obviously complete living demands that the in- 
 dividual must be enabled to make the most of him- 
 self. The whole modern conception of individuality 
 is that it can be fully realised only in and through 
 a society. 
 
 Though life in school should not differ in essentials 
 from life outside it, there should be a difference in 
 the incidence of the forces concerned. In the last 
 
 1 See, for example, Dr. Edward Lyttelton's Letters on 
 Education. 
 
The Child, the School, and the World 29 
 
 resort education consists in the manipulation of the 
 experience of the educand. The school is only 
 a place where experience can be best manipulated 
 to the advantage of the pupils. As Professor W. 
 Franklin Jones puts it in his Principles of Education : 
 " The school is fundamentally an experience-giving 
 institution, and if it cannot give more vital 
 experiences than the child can get anywhere else in the 
 world, it has no valid claim upon his time." ' Dr. 
 E. C. Moore, of the University of Southern California, 
 works out this idea in greater detail in his What 
 is Education ? To this question his answer is that 
 it consists in the manipulation of the experience 
 of the educands in such a way as to lead to their 
 taking their proper place in the society in which 
 they have to live. 
 
 This manipulation of the environment is sometimes 
 opposed on moral grounds. The eminent French 
 philosopher, Emile Boutroux, strongly protested 
 against the deceptions of what he called pedagogy 
 as contrasted with education : 
 
 " Education, pure and simple, makes straight for the 
 end it has in view, employing the methods suggested by 
 ordinary good sense, tact, and affection, or taught by 
 observation and experience. Pedagogy, as interpreted by 
 its most famous representatives, mocks at these natural 
 processes and cunningly endeavours to substitute therefor 
 methods that are learned and artificial. . . . The pedagogy 
 of which I speak never proceeds along a straight path, but 
 is ever on the look-out for side-tracks. . . . Now the use 
 of these artifices is an illegitimate use." a 
 
 1 Op. cit., p. 8. 
 
 * Education and Ethics, Introduction, p. xxxii. 
 
30 The Child, the School, and the World 
 
 Monsieur Boutroux is here tilting against the 
 ingenious devices of Locke and Rousseau to get the 
 educand to follow a line of conduct desired by the 
 educator. But manipulation of the environment 
 does not necessarily imply deception in the moral 
 sense of that term. Things may be so arranged 
 that events must happen in just the order to suit 
 the needs of the educator — an order, however, that 
 would never have occurred but for his thoughtful 
 prevision. The child who is thrown into a society 
 without any preparation at once sets about co- 
 ordinating his experience in such a way as to secure 
 the best results, as he understands results. Within 
 his own narrow limits he often succeeds so well 
 as to rouse the envy of the parents of those who can 
 afford what they are sometimes constrained to call 
 the doubtful advantages of a school education. It 
 is this feeling that underlies Professor S. S. Laurie's 
 curious plea to provide for the children of the well- 
 to-do some of " the advantages of the gutter." 
 But these benefits are dearly bought in this market. 
 They can be obtained in a much less costly way in 
 a school, if only that school be so conducted as to 
 bring it into a living relation to what goes on in 
 the outside world. Any artifices the teacher can 
 utilise to bring his pupils into closer touch with the 
 realities of life should be welcomed, and Monsieur 
 Boutroux' indignation should be diverted towards 
 those schools that by keeping apart school-interests 
 and world-interests deceive their pupils about the 
 real nature of the world in which they have to live. 
 
 Quite consistent with all that has gone before 
 is the view that education is necessarily a process 
 
The Child, the School, and the World 31 
 
 of adjustment between the individual and his 
 environment. Professor O'Shea has devoted a 
 complete volume to Education as Adjustment, 
 and the whole subject has been worked out in a 
 striking book published by Dr. J. E. Adamson 
 towards the end of 192 1 under the title of The 
 Individual and the Environment. Here we have 
 the educand treated in relation to three worlds that 
 make up his complete environment : the natural 
 world, the social world, and the moral world. 
 Obviously all the natural and physical sciences 
 belong to the first, all the humanist studies to the 
 second, and all the ethical and religious to the third. 
 It is at once evident that there is a certain amount 
 of overlapping between the second and the third 
 worlds, but Dr. Adamson regards it as essential 
 to retain the threefold distinction in order to 
 emphasise the different approach the educator 
 makes to each. In the natural sciences it is a 
 matter of exploration : when we approach the social 
 world we are embarked on a voyage of discovery 
 in which we are dealing with matters of which we 
 ourselves form a part — we understand humanism 
 because we are human ; but when it comes to 
 morals we actually add something to what we 
 study. It will be seen that Dr. Adamson adopts 
 here the attitude of Kant, and regards man as a 
 creator. Without treating us to the full pomp and 
 circumstance of the categorical imperative, he gets 
 from it all the advantages it offers. 
 
 But from our present standpoint perhaps the most 
 striking position taken up by Dr. Adamson is that 
 bearing upon the influences exercised by the teacher. 
 
32 The Child, the School, and the World 
 
 " Within that mysterious synthetic activity through 
 which the individual is at once appropriating and 
 contributing to his environment, forming and being 
 formed by it, and which we are considering under 
 the conception of adjustment, the teacher has neither 
 place nor part." ■ This comes as a shock to the 
 teacher who has just been reproved by Monsieur 
 Boutroux for illegitimately exercising an excessive 
 power. Dr. Adamson proclaims that his own view 
 is not commonly held ; that, in fact, the opposite 
 view is almost universal. This does not disturb 
 him in the least, as he proceeds cheerfully to attack 
 the doctrine that the educative process is bi-polar. 
 He cannot deny that it is in a way bi-polar, but he 
 regrets that it is so, and holds that this way of regard- 
 ing the relation is unsound, and leads to evil conse- 
 quences. He is driven to " assert the altogether 
 subsidiary, ancillary, and transient personal bi- 
 polarity of teacher and pupil, or educator and 
 educand." He maintains that education supplies 
 a case of tri-polarity. " One pole should be the 
 conscious process, the centre of evolution ; the 
 second should be the fact, quality, truth, or act 
 which is the focus of attention ; and the third 
 the reflective guiding activity of the master." * 
 With this the practical teacher may find no serious 
 fault, though he may have a difficulty in seeing how 
 a fact can be a pole. He will even admit that the 
 bi-polar relation between educator and educand 
 is " highly dangerous," since it lends colour to the 
 view that the teacher-personality should dominate 
 
 1 Op. cit., p. 27. 
 
 2 Op. cit., p. 342. 
 
The Child, the School, and the World 33 
 
 the pupil-personality, whereas the adjustment to 
 environment should be carried out as much as 
 possible by the pupil's own activity and initiative. 
 We follow sympathetically Dr. Adamson's argument 
 for the non-interference of the master, and we look 
 benevolently on the picture he draws of master and 
 pupil " plodding side by side on the same road," 
 but we have within us the ineradicable conviction 
 that of the two plodders it is the master who has 
 dominated and always will dominate the situation. 
 
 The practical question that emerges with all the 
 more urgency from this excursus into current theory 
 is : What is the function of the school in the process | 
 of the educand's adjustment to the various worlds ? ' 
 Obviously, it must provide experience in dealing 
 with the content of the Adamsonian three worlds. 
 The school curriculum must provide, in an intensive 
 form, means of acquiring experience of all three. 
 An analysis of the school curriculum such as is found 
 in Mr. B. Branford's Janus and Vesta l shows that 
 in its essentials it does correspond to the threefold 
 classification, and justifies us in accepting Professor 
 Franklin Jones' principle that " The course of study 
 is a selection of those impersonal experiences of the 
 race which we believe will be most valuable to the 
 life of the child." ■ He invites us to catalogue all our 
 own experiences for a single day under the heads of 
 the various school subjects, such as Geography, 
 History, Mathematics, Physics, Languages, and 
 assures us that we shall find life a very complex 
 business, but that it will be possible to discover 
 
 1 Chapter X, p. 128, ff. 
 
 2 Principles of Education, p. 10. 
 
 3 
 
34 The Child, the School, and the World 
 
 a niche in actual experience for most of our 
 apparently abstract school subjects. 
 
 It does not follow that such a comparison of what 
 we learn in school and what we experience in life 
 should lead to a quantitative correspondence between 
 the two. Here Herbert Spencer helps us greatly 
 by the magnificent blunder he made in his appor- 
 tionment of school-time to the artistic and general 
 humane subjects. Since these occupy the leisure 
 moments of our life, he holds that they should get 
 only the spare time during the educational course. 
 There is really no fixed ratio between the amount 
 of time spent on a subject in school and its 
 importance in post-school life as judged by utilitarian 
 standards. We have to keep clearly in view the three 
 worlds for which we are preparing, and we must give 
 each its fair chance. 
 
 Teachers are too familiar with the business man's 
 demands that he should be supplied from school 
 with pupils who are ready to begin at once the 
 mechanical work of his office. This practical person 
 believes himself to be particularly modest in his 
 demands. He does not ask much : merely the ability 
 to write a decent rapid hand, to count swiftly and 
 accurately, to spell correctly, to compose an intelli- 
 gible letter, to know the commercial geography 
 of the world, and to do what he is told without 
 asking for explanations. In many cases all these 
 demands may be met by an ordinary pupil if he is 
 allowed a little time to settle down into the condi- 
 tions of real business life. But apart from the 
 actual skill required, there is need to provide for the 
 fitting into the particular environment to which 
 
The Child, the School, and the World 35 
 
 each pupil is called. The school preparation must 
 necessarily be general, and the business people 
 have to make up their mind that a certain small 
 amount of teaching work must in the last resort 
 be left to them. Some years ago the Education 
 Committee of the London County Council arranged 
 for a series of conferences with employers of various 
 types in order to get from " the masters " what they 
 really wanted from the schools. The experiment 
 was successful. No doubt rather exorbitant demands 
 were in some cases made, and there was the inevit- 
 able tendency to do more in the way of pointing 
 out defects than of suggesting remedies. But the 
 exchange of views had an excellent moral effect : 
 the employers were found to be much more sym- 
 pathetic in the mass then they had proved as 
 individual critics, the teachers on their side learning 
 some things that proved to their advantage. In 
 passing it was found that some weaknesses of human 
 nature were laid to the charge of education. 
 
 On May 28, 1919, there came into being a society 
 that could not satisfy itself with a shorter title 
 than the Association for the Advancement of Edu- 
 cation in Industry and Commerce. Even this 
 garrulous description does not remove ambiguity, 
 for suspicious folk are enquiring whether the Associ- 
 ation exists to promote industrial and commercial 
 education, or to further the general educational 
 interests of those who are engaged in industry and 
 commerce. The suspicion is supplied by Labour, 
 as is not surprising, since the Association is made up 
 of employers and their educational assistants and 
 advisers. A glance at the published aims of the 
 
36 The Child, the School, and the World 
 
 Association shows that, while all kinds of education 
 are taken into account, the bias is on those forms 
 that are usually connected in men's minds with 
 general culture. In the words of its circular, the 
 aims of the Association are — " (a) The encourage- 
 ment of definite educational work in [we take in 
 to mean in connection with] industrial and commercial 
 undertakings ; (b) the general advancement of 
 education by means of (1) the printing and circula- 
 tion of papers ; (2) investigation and research ; (3) 
 consultation with public educational authorities ; 
 
 (4) co-operation with other educational bodies ; 
 
 (5) the holding of periodical conferences." Nothing 
 could be more straightforward than this statement 
 of broad aims, and even Labour will find it hard 
 to discover traces of the cloven hoof of capitalism. 
 
 Yet Labour justly believes it necessary to hold 
 a watching brief for all educational matters. It is 
 intensely anxious about the work done in schools, 
 and is always afraid that the children will be trained 
 merely in the interests of capital so as to become 
 better cogs in the industrial wheel. A wise scrutiny 
 here is quite commendable, for acquisitive human 
 nature is very open to temptation. But there 
 is a decency to be observed in such matters, and a 
 firm hand should be kept on enthusiastic young 
 partisans who let their zeal outrun their common 
 sense, to the great disadvantage of Labour. There 
 are many things we have all to be taught quite 
 apart from our status as determined by the balance 
 in our bank-books. At a meeting of teachers in 
 London in January 1922, a lecturer dealing with the 
 sober subject, " What is the Good of Education ? " 
 
The Child, the School, and the World 37 
 
 made the modest claim that the schools at least 
 trained the pupils in habits of punctuality, regularity, 
 thoroughness, industry, and discipline. One would 
 have thought this at least a blameless list. But 
 a labour extremist is reported to have taken up 
 the matter on the spot, with the exclamation, 
 " What an appalling list of virtues ! They are the 
 very things I am trying to get the people to abandon." 
 He urged upon the teachers present to rebel — 
 he did not say against what in particular, but just 
 to rebel — in order to acquire the power of teaching 
 " the rebel virtues," which, however, he did not 
 specify. Naturally, solid Labour cannot be held 
 responsible for such views, any more than it can 
 be identified with the obscurantist opinions of a 
 very positive person in the pages of Mr. Stephen 
 Reynolds' Seems So : 
 
 " You may learn summut at school, or you may not ; 
 precious little o' it's any use ; but I reckon you learns 
 manlihood and womanlihood after you leaves school, an' 
 the sooner you begin to learn this the better. Education 
 is the biggest fraud ever forced upon us." 
 
 Between these two extreme courses Labour is 
 holding a very even keel, and seems little likely to 
 go far wrong. The Workers' Educational Associa- 
 tion is probably one of the most steadying influences 
 at present at work in the educational world. Labour 
 is fully alive to the possibilities of education : it 
 is a pity that it seems more alive to its possibilities 
 for evil than its possibilities for good. 
 
 In spite of all the successful work of Mr. Albert 
 Mansbridge and his colleagues in the W. E. A., 
 in spite of the renewed vigour of Ruskin College, 
 
38 The Child, the School, and the World 
 
 few working men have heard the name of Kant j 
 still fewer have read a line of his work either in 
 German or in English. Yet in one important par- 
 ticular the workers are Kantians to a man. When 
 Kant leaves pure metaphysics and comes to living 
 men and women, he makes an irresistible appeal 
 to the working man by maintaining that a human 
 being must always be treated as an end in himself, 
 and not as a mere means. Here working people 
 are with the philosopher heart and soul. He ex- 
 presses exactly what they want. They have always 
 resented, and with justice, the hideous synecdoche 
 that labels them as hands. But while the world 
 as a whole is with the workman in his rejection of the 
 attitude that treats him as a mere tool, he must not 
 forget that after all he is a tool. No doubt he ought 
 to be treated as an end in himself, but he is at the 
 same time a means. We all are. We must not 
 overlook the importance of the word merely. We 
 may be in the highest and truest sense ends, and yet 
 in certain connections we may be means. However 
 much soul and individuality a working man may 
 possess, he has also hands, and in the ultimate resort 
 he is in one connection a " hand." Unfortunately, 
 the word has acquired a sinister connotation, and 
 it is probably bad taste to use it in industry, but 
 we must not burke the fact that it represents a 
 truth. It happens that employers have not hit 
 upon the use of the word " head " to represent those 
 of their employees who work mainly with their 
 brains. But there would be nothing really bad in 
 an employer speaking figuratively about his " hands" 
 in the workshop, and his " heads " in the laboratory. 
 
The Child, the School, and the World 39 
 
 To be sure, the psychologist comes along and pours 
 oil on the troubled waters by assuring us that we 
 cannot separate handwork from brain work, and 
 we are only too willing to drop the callous figure of 
 the " hand." But if spirit and matter are so in- 
 separable in our nature that philosophers have 
 recently hit upon the compound word soul-body 
 to emphasise this solidarity, there is all the more 
 need to admit that we cannot educate one part of 
 ourselves without educating the whole. 
 
 Employers are doubtless right in thinking that 
 if they secure the education of the workman on the 
 personal and spiritual side they are having him 
 educated all round, and that in consequence he will 
 become a more valuable means towards their ends. 
 When we realise that we are all — employers and 
 employees alike — both means and ends, there can 
 be no objection to our being so trained that, while 
 we become more valuable to ourselves as ends, we are 
 at the same time improved as means. 
 
 So long as the employers recognise the person- 
 ality of the employee, and do their best to develop 
 that by means of education, they are entitled to any 
 by-product that may accrue. It has to be remem- 
 bered that increased mechanical skill, however 
 produced, does not harm the workman — from some 
 Labour complaints one would almost think it did — 
 so he suffers no disadvantage if his general education 
 incidentally increases his efficiency in mechanical 
 operations. On the other hand, general education 
 both enables the workman to deal more intelligently 
 with his mechanical work and to invent ways of 
 reducing the amount of the mechanical element 
 
40 The Child, the School, and the World 
 
 it involves. The old idea among callous 
 employers was that education was not only unneces- 
 sary for workmen, but was positively injurious to 
 their efficiency. What they wanted was a man who 
 could do the mechanical work and not think about 
 it. "We don't want our girls to think ; we want 
 them to do their work," was a complaint formerly 
 common among the more brutal types of foremen, 
 and even to-day it is not unfrequently heard. They 
 wanted the workmen and workwomen to be mere 
 means. The new spirit admits, even from the lowest 
 standpoint, the need to recognise the " end " in 
 every human being. From mere self-interest the 
 employers have been led to see the justice and 
 practical value of the Kantian Kingdom of Ends. 
 
 In some directions it is beginning to be recognised 
 that factories and counting-houses must take a 
 share in bridging the gulf between the generalised 
 work of the schools and the particularised work of 
 real life. Some book-keepers, for example, declare 
 that they would much rather have young people 
 come from school with no book-keeping at all than 
 with the kind they get there, for the school-learnt 
 variety only causes confusion in the stream of real 
 business, where almost every house has peculiarities 
 in its methods. Other business people, however, 
 like their school material in not quite such a raw 
 state, and want pupils to come with a knowledge 
 of at least the principles on which business and 
 industrial affairs are carried on. Accordingly, it 
 is sometimes arranged that for a month or two before 
 taking up business life pupils in a good secondary 
 school should specialise on office routine. No great 
 
The Child, the School, and the World 41 
 
 harm is done to the school course, though many 
 teachers complain with some bitterness that they 
 are thus deprived of the opportunity of putting the 
 final touches to an education that could be other- 
 wise nicely rounded off. On the other hand, many 
 head-mistresses are worried because they are not 
 permitted to add book-keeping, shorthand, and type- 
 writing in their higher departments, in order to meet 
 the needs of girls who, if they cannot get these 
 subjects at their secondary school, will have to go 
 to private academies that make a specialty of what 
 is called " commercial training.' ' 
 
 Progressive teachers are, indeed, far from having 
 neglected the view that they have to prepare at 
 the same time for the school world and for the 
 outer world. The two worlds cannot be kept apart 
 even in a boarding school, much less in a day school. 
 A secondary girls' school in London has for motto 
 Non scholce sed vitce, and does not claim anything 
 peculiar to itself in the view expressed. In truth, 
 if the school wanted to make its real meaning baldly 
 plain it would have to spoil the crispness of its motto 
 by expanding it into Non solum scholce, sed etiam 
 vitce. Whether the teachers will it or not, the school 
 almost always, in the minds of the pupils, subtends 
 a bigger angle than the world of the future or 
 the outside world of the present. To the school 
 pupil, in Wordsworthian phrase, it is the school 
 world that is too much with him. But it is possible, 
 and certainly desirable, to keep him in touch with 
 both worlds. 
 
 One of the points of contact between the two 
 worlds in the case of day schools is formed by home- 
 
42 The Child, the School, and the World 
 
 lessons. All teachers are aware of the keen interest 
 parents take in this matter. We know that home- 
 lessons are not popular with boys, and there is a 
 grave suspicion that even girls are not enthusiastic 
 about them ; but we do not sufficiently realise that 
 ordinary parents regard them with loathing. Home 
 arrangements are frequently upset by the inroads 
 the teachers make on the home leisure of the pupils. 
 Careless and indifferent parents simply do not allow 
 school demands to interfere with their convenience, 
 but even those who are keen for their children's 
 advancement would willingly cut off home-lessons 
 altogether, if they felt that they could do so without 
 serious disadvantage to the future of their children. 
 There can be no doubt but that the competitive 
 spirit does much to maintain the parental toleration 
 of home-lessons. Each father feels that if he dis- 
 courages homework for his child, the youngsters 
 from other homes will get the start as compared, 
 with his boy, and that is not to be tolerated. The 
 fear of a handicap has done much to prevent revolt 
 against the present homework system. But revolt 
 is in the air, and it sometimes gets unexpected 
 support from within the teachers' own camp. 
 In her preface to Supervised Study in English, Miss 
 A. Laura McGregor maintains that school-work 
 should be so carefully organised that — 
 
 " the day's work can be effectively accomplished within 
 the school. . . . The school must undoubtedly assume 
 responsibility for such ' avocational guidance ' as will 
 lead to the worthy use of leisure time ; but the mere assign- 
 ment of tasks is an encroachment upon it which should be 
 steadily resisted." 
 
The Child, the School, and the World 43 
 
 The suggestion here is one that meets with the 
 approval of many parents. The idea is that the 
 present school day is not too long — to put matters 
 very gently from the parents' standpoint — and could 
 be materially extended without harm to anybody^ 
 Why not, then, add the two or three hours that are 
 at present taken up with home-study to the regular 
 day's work at school ? The pupil could in that case 
 leave school at the end of each day with a clear 
 conscience and a light heart, and no longer prove 
 a nuisance to all the grown-ups at home. 
 
 To be sure, there are certain objections. The 
 long school day might prove too exacting for the 
 young people, the new plans might interfere with 
 meal-hour arrangements at home, distance from 
 school might make a late return by train at the crush 
 hours undesirable. Then there are those who warn 
 us that home-study has the very specific function 
 of encouraging independent work on the pupil's 
 own account. 
 
 These objections are not insuperable, and the line 
 of development will almost certainly be a compromise 
 by which the school day will be lengthened in some 
 measure, while the internal organisation will be so 
 modified as to make the school a much more human 
 institution than it has hitherto been. The newer 
 methods provide a clue to the path to be followed in 
 our search for a more practical form of education, 
 and one that will fit better into social requirements. 
 If it be true that we teach too much, may it not be 
 possible, by cutting down the periods for actual 
 instruction, to make room for as much preparation 
 in school as shall remove the necessity for homework? 
 
44 The Child, the School, and the World 
 
 There is a growing impression among the teachers of 
 this country — it has been for some time openly 
 expressed in the United States — that we spend far 
 too much time on the teaching of the purely pre- 
 liminary subjects. Quite a number of teachers 
 think that the three R's should not be taught in the 
 formal and systematic way at present in vogue, 
 by which they are treated as substantive parts of 
 the curriculum, but should be dealt with as tool 
 subjects that get mastered by being used. Such 
 critics say that they should be taken in the pupil's 
 stride. Others, of course, are ready to object 
 that the foundations of these subjects need 
 very careful treatment to prevent the formation 
 of almost ineradicable bad habits in phonetics, 
 in the fundamental ideas of number, in the mani- 
 pulation of the pen. The truth appears to be that, 
 making full allowance for a fairly scientific and 
 systematic treatment, these subjects could be taught 
 in a much shorter time than at present. It is plain 
 that the newer methods will certainly favour the 
 more rapid acquirement of the three R's, since they 
 are to be put into use at a much earlier stage than 
 formerly. The example of the child in the educated 
 home is significant here. He is accustomed from 
 the very beginning to use the ordinary means of 
 communication by voice, pen, and pencil. The child 
 in most poor homes treats pen, pencil, and paper as 
 things apart, things that belong to another world, 
 the world of school. 
 
 There is one feature about the teaching of these 
 instrumental subjects by themselves as separate 
 studies that is exceedingly instructive in relation 
 
The Child, the School, and the World 45 
 
 to the newer developments of the curriculum. It is 
 generally taken for granted that by devoting a 
 great deal of attention to them more rapid progress 
 will be made than if they were treated incidentally 
 as part of a much wider group of studies. Experi- 
 ence is quite against this view, as is shown by what 
 happened in the case of elementary school children 
 long before any of the newer complicated curricula 
 were thought of. At the early times reading and 
 writing were the most important of the three R's, 
 and, of the two, reading was by far the more import- 
 ant. So much was this the case that sometimes the 
 schools became little more than reading schools, 
 and when developments took place, and innovators 
 persisted in bringing in other subjects — not only 
 arithmetic, but composition and rudimentary geo- 
 graphy and history — critics were prompt with their 
 warnings that the promoters of such schools were 
 sacrificing the substance for the shadow, and by 
 seizing too much were in danger of losing what they 
 already had. In other words, reading would suffer 
 if much of the time formerly devoted to it was 
 transferred to other subjects. Actual experience 
 was far from bearing out this contention. Mr. 
 Moseley, Inspector of Schools, in his report on Dean 
 Dawes' King's Somborne School, writes : 
 
 " Here, where so many other things are taught besides 
 reading, the children are found in advance, in reading, 
 of other schools, in the majority of which scarcely anything 
 else is taught." x 
 
 And again he generalises further : 
 
 " The singular slowness with which the children of our 
 
 1 Quoted by Sir John Lubbock, Addresses, p. 71. 
 
46 The Child, the School, and the World 
 
 national schools learn to read is in some degree to be 
 attributed to the unwise concentration of the labours of 
 the school on that single subject." 
 
 It will be well not to lose sight of these references 
 in dealing with the apparently overwide distribution 
 of subjects in some of the school courses of to-day, 
 and those proposed for to-morrow. 
 
 But it does not follow that any saving that may 
 result from better methods will bring any relief 
 to the selfish parent in the way of greater freedom 
 from school influences at home. If better organisa- 
 tion on the Dalton or other plans develops interest 
 in school activities, the tendency will be all towards 
 carrying the interest of the school into the home. 
 For one of the main purposes of the newer schemes 
 is to bring the pupil's school- work into more direct 
 relation to what is going on in the out-of- school 
 world. The child's life is to be organised so that it 
 becomes a genuine unity. The school and the world 
 are to be so treated that he realises that he is living 
 in one universe, not in two. 
 
 However successful teachers may be in creating 
 this unity of conception, there will always come the 
 moment of shock that necessarily accompanies 
 the passage from the mixed- school-and- world uni- 
 verse to the universe made up of the out-of-school 
 world alone. It is futile to maintain that there 
 need be no real shock, that the passage should be so 
 prepared for and anticipated that when it comes 
 everything should go on^ with no serious break. 
 No doubt a well-regulated educational scheme 
 will minimise the perils of the passage from school 
 to what is classed as " the real world." But a shock 
 
The Child, the School, and the World 47 
 
 there must be. It is useless to appeal to Nature 
 as old Comenius used to do. Nature, he told us, 
 makes no leaps, but proceeds step by step. No 
 doubt, but she does do a gambol now and again. 
 What about our coming into the world at all : 
 is not that a bit of a leap ? We can hardly think 
 that the imago comes out of the chrysalis-state 
 without a certain amount of excitement. The 
 gradual humanising of our school courses will cer- 
 tainly minimise the trouble of passing from school 
 to life-work, but at the best the change will involve 
 an upset that educators will do well to take into 
 account. 
 
 We have seen that certain progressive teachers 
 are anxious to make such modifications towards 
 the end of the school course as shall meet this trouble 
 half-way, and that there are others who resent any 
 attempt to introduce outside practical interests 
 into the school course. There is a very general 
 opinion that the definite preparation for life-work 
 should be deferred as long as possible. To put it 
 bluntly, the principle of many writers on education 
 appears to be to discover how long a pupil can be 
 educated in general without ultimate damage to 
 his future vocation, and to keep him at general 
 education till that point has been reached. In 
 other words, how long can we afford to continue 
 the education of the pupil without coming to the 
 point about his future work ? Without doubt, 
 social prestige has often had a great deal to do 
 with the determination of the content of what is 
 called a liberal education. The long nails of the 
 Chinese aristocrat are not without their lesson to 
 
48 The Child, the School, and the World 
 
 the educational thinker, and direct him to the 
 consideration of the fallacy that assumes culture 
 and utility to be incompatible. Many people enter- 
 tain the notion that uselessness is of the essence of 
 a liberal education. We do not forget the mathe- 
 matician whose joy at the discovery of a dainty 
 little theorem was enhanced by his being able 
 to exclaim : " And, thank God, there can be no 
 use made of it ! " Last century, during one of the 
 outside attacks to which the universities are periodi- 
 cally subjected, a defence appeared in Blackwood' s 
 Magazine in which the writer soberly and with no 
 trace of humour maintained the thesis that a suffi- 
 cient justification of the ancient seats of learning 
 is to be found in the uselessness of what they 
 teach. 
 
 What underlies all this is a confusion about the 
 meaning of the liberal or free studies. These are 
 the studies of a free man, studies that are not 
 selected merely because the material needs of life 
 compel us to undertake them. But the fact that a 
 subject is capable of practical application to even 
 the lower wants of life need not degrade it to the 
 level of an illiberal study. What the advocates of 
 the useless really want to praise is a totally different 
 thing — disinterestedness. We can study mathe- 
 matics in the spirit of either a philosopher or a 
 huckster. We do or do not get the cultural value 
 of the subject according to the spirit in which we 
 approach it. A man who has mastered the higher 
 mathematics at Cambridge with no baser aim than 
 the attainment of a good degree, does not lose the 
 culture his subject has brought him when he after- 
 
The Child, the School, and the World 49 
 
 wards applies his knowledge to the lighting of a city, 
 or the draining of a swamp. How does the matter 
 stand in the case of a man who deliberately studies 
 mathematics with the deliberate ultimate purpose 
 of applying his knowledge to just such things ? 
 
 We may find help in Lord Avebury's distinction 
 between knife-and-fork studies and those others 
 that may be called, by an extension of his figure, 
 dinner-studies. The first group are obviously in- 
 strumental as compared with the second, and it 
 would appear on the surface, at any rate, that all 
 instrumental studies are really Brotwissenschaften, 
 bread-and-butter studies. But a little investiga- 
 tion convinces us that the matter is not quite so 
 simple as that. For the same subject may be either 
 a knife-and-fork study or a dinner-study according 
 to circumstances. Botany, for example, as studied 
 by a girl in the fifth or sixth form of a secondary 
 school, is a dinner subject with a good cultural 
 value ; whereas the same subject has the purely 
 knife-and-fork function of enabling a medical student 
 to get through his examinations and make a satis- 
 factory use of his materia medica. The crucial 
 question is : Can the medical student also get from 
 his studies in botany any of the culture value, or is 
 that for ever denied him because of the utilitarian 
 motive that no doubt in the first instance directs 
 him to this subject ? 
 
 It has been argued that if a student at the time 
 of undertaking the study of botany did not realise 
 that it was to be of professional utility, it might 
 possibly yield to him its culture value. But the 
 implication of this curious argument is that somehow 
 4 
 
50 The Child , the School, and the World 
 
 or other the future use to be made of the knowledge 
 acquired contaminates the study as a part of a 
 liberal education. In arguing against this view, 
 one has the unpleasant feeling of being among those 
 who sin against the light. The taint of vocational- 
 ism is thrown over any subject that forms a definite 
 and necessary part in the preparation for a specific 
 mode of earning a livelihood. For, after all the 
 discussions about the exact meaning of vocation in 
 connection with education, this fact of being con- 
 nected with the means of making a livelihood is 
 found to be the ultimate differentia. The popular 
 idea of a liberal education seems to be one in 
 which the educand studies certain subjects set for 
 him without having the least idea of making use 
 of any one of them in connection with his future 
 occupation, if that occupation is going to provide 
 him with the means of living. Yet in actual life no 
 objection is raised to the demand that an intending 
 clergyman should first obtain an arts degree as a 
 guarantee of general culture, before proceeding to 
 his theological studies. The fact that his arts 
 studies have a direct value in preparing him for his 
 future work is not regarded as detracting from 
 their culture value in his case. Why, then, should 
 the engineer's mathematics, or the medical man's 
 chemistry, be ranked differently ? 
 
 g'he truth is that all education must affect our 
 ire life either adversely or favourably, and to 
 t extent all education is vocational, as preparing 
 or the vocation of life. Existence as a country 
 gentleman, or as a leisured member of society in a 
 city, is a vocation and has to be prepared for like 
 
The Child, the School, and the World 51 
 
 any other. If some of our schools are specially 
 fitted to prepare for this state of life, they are none 
 the less vocational for that. Thomas Arnold's 
 claim that the aim of his school was to send out 
 Christian gentlemen in no way removed Rugby from 
 the list of vocational schools — it only specified the 
 kind of vocation for which it prepared. To be sure, 
 the introduction of the idea of earning a livelihood 
 involves an important technical difference. The 
 Christian gentleman may want to be a doctor or a 
 lawyer. He may even want to be an auctioneer or 
 a plumber. The practical problem is how far the 
 preparation for the two states may be combined 
 without mutual disturbance. It is pure ostrich 
 philosophy to maintain that culture demands a 
 deliberate neglect of all considerations of vocation, 
 till a good liberal education has been obtained. It 
 sounds effective to say that at school we are not 
 training an engineer, a doctor, a clergyman, or a 
 journalist, but a man. Yet the manhood of the 
 pupil is in no way compromised by giving his 
 studies such a bias as shall prove of value to him in 
 his struggle for life. It may be desirable to put 
 off the incidence of the vocational as long as possible, 
 and it may be that certain favoured groups are able 
 to defer it till school-days are entirely over. The 
 important point to be made is that whatever cultural 
 elements appear in the curriculum are not at any 
 stage contaminated either by the fact that they are 
 brought into contact with recognised vocational 
 elements or that they themselves are to be utilised 
 in vocational work at a later stage. 
 
 It may clear up matters to examine how vocational 
 
52 The Child, the School, and the World 
 
 education is at present dealt with in our schools. 
 It will be found that there are four degrees of 
 intensity in the teachers' attitude towards vocational 
 work. There are, first of all, those who timidly add 
 a three months' top-dressing at the end of what 
 they like to believe is a full cultural course. The 
 next group take the matter more seriously, and 
 introduce admittedly vocational subjects from the 
 middle of the upper school on to the end of the 
 course. In America this group goes a good deal 
 farther than in England. Not because they value 
 culture less, but because they find that the only 
 way to save the cultural is to make friends with the 
 mammon of vocationalism. The practical demands 
 of parents and employers must be met at least half- 
 way, for if this is not done then the High Schools 
 will be completely cut out by the various com- 
 mercial and craft schools that are being started all 
 over the American continent. 1 Experience, in fact, 
 is actually driving teachers who pride themselves 
 on their cultural leanings to fall in with this half- 
 and-half arrangement. Frequently, they adopt the 
 plan timidly, and soothe their consciences with the 
 suggestion that they teach the principles rather than 
 the practice of the vocations in question. 
 
 The third group will have none of these half- 
 measures. They claim that vocational education 
 must be real. All this talk about teaching the 
 principles on which vocations are carried on is 
 dismissed with contumely. Dr. David Snedden, 
 for example, cannot speak peaceably about it, and 
 in his important work on Vocational Education 
 
 1 Cf . Chap. VI in E. Davenport's Education for Efficiency. 
 
The Child, the School, and the World 53 
 
 (Macmillan Co., 1920) gives a vivid account of what 
 he thinks real vocational education must be. Of 
 the schools of compromise who content themselves 
 with principles, he says : 
 
 " The crying evil of this situation is, of course, to be 
 found in the wholesale misdirection of energy which it 
 entails. These hybrid schools do not usually give a fair, 
 or in any sense acceptable, vocational education ; they 
 seriously misguide the pupil as regards a possible career 
 and his qualifications therefor ; and often they make 
 no really worthy contributions towards the true and desir- 
 able ends of liberal or general education." 1 
 
 Vocational education, according to Dr. Snedden, 
 must be carried on under normal conditions, such as 
 obtain in ordinary life, in real workshops, genuine 
 factories, actual counting-houses. The sort of 
 thing he has in view may be gathered from his 
 requirements in the training of locomotive drivers. 
 Instead of having a few yards of railway-line 
 attached to the technical school, there should be 
 available a line of rails extending for some thirty 
 miles. As he calculates that there are no fewer 
 than two thousand separate occupations for which 
 preparation on this material scale is required, it will 
 be seen that the practical difficulties are enormous, 
 and, in fact, can be surmounted only by making 
 each occupation responsible for the training of its 
 own recruits — a reversion, in fact, to the old 
 apprenticeship system under broader and more 
 scientific conditions. 
 
 A fourth way of treating the problem may be 
 
 1 Op. cit., p. 75. 
 
54 The Child, the School, and the World 
 
 called tendencial, since it provides a training in 
 certain directions that are in keeping with the 
 natural tendencies of the pupils towards particular 
 lines of work. By cultivating these tendencies the 
 teacher prepares the pupil to take up with advan- 
 tage some line towards which his inherent gifts 
 supply a bias. Ginn & Co. publish a big book of 
 723 pages, entitled Readings in Vocational Guidance, 
 where a great mass of evidence on this subject is 
 edited by Meyer Bloomfield, the director of the 
 Vocational Bureau of Boston. It contains one 
 article in particular that has a special interest in 
 connection with the point under discussion here. 
 It is contributed by Dr. Herman Schneider, Dean of 
 the College of Engineering at the University of 
 Cincinnati. In this he has a series of dichotomies 
 of human beings according to their preferences and 
 capacities. They are divided, for example, into 
 those that prefer mental work and those that 
 prefer manual work : those who love uniformity 
 and routine and those who love continual variety : 
 indoor people and outdoor people : generalising 
 people and specialising people : people who love 
 responsibility and people who loathe it. He has 
 many more categories, but these will give an indi- 
 cation of the sort of rough classification made by 
 this director of studies for his own use in the 
 allocating of students to the particular kind of work 
 that is likely to lead to the most satisfactory results 
 in after life. We are probably not yet ripe in 
 England for the practical application of such a 
 series of categories, but we are moving in that 
 direction. Teachers are becoming increasingly inter- 
 
The Child, the School, and the World 55 
 
 ested in the future careers of their pupils, for the 
 simple reason that parents are getting more and 
 more accustomed to consult them on this matter. 
 No doubt many teachers object to the assumption 
 that they are to be held responsible for what 
 happens to the pupils once the school has been left 
 behind. If they are fond of big words, they say 
 that the parents stand in an architectonic relation 
 to the teacher, which, being interpreted, means that 
 the parents are in the position of using the finished 
 product turned out by the teacher. A natural 
 consequence of this relation is that the teacher must 
 take his orders from the parents, which, as a matter 
 of fact, he has to do, even though the parental 
 authority is delegated to certain administrative 
 officers. 
 
 With the somewhat more human relations being 
 gradually cultivated between parents and teachers, 
 it is only natural that the parent should, wherever 
 possible, consult the teacher, and ask him, as man 
 to man, what he really thinks John should do in the 
 way of choosing a vocation. The increase of this 
 demand, whether from the individual parent or 
 from the education authorities as representing the 
 parents collectively, will inevitably lead to a study 
 of the special bents and powers of the pupils not 
 merely with regard to school activities, but with 
 regard to the demands likely to be made upon them 
 in their future vocations. It is quite clear that if a 
 series of suitable categories were set up as the result 
 of careful investigation, the teachers would be put 
 in a much better position than at present for forming 
 a useful estimate of the natural bent and capacity of 
 
56 The Child, the School, and the World 
 
 their pupils. In consequence, it will become in- 
 creasingly easy to give just such a bias to the 
 pupils' studies as shall make each individual a little 
 better adapted to follow the vocation for which 
 school standards indicate that he is best fitted. 
 This tendencial treatment of vocational preparation 
 does not interfere with the fullest development of 
 the cultural side. It merely suggests a definite 
 guiding of effort into certain lines of work that while 
 cultural in themselves give a bias towards some 
 particular vocation in which the pupil is likely to 
 do his best and happiest work. 
 
 That final adjective introduces a consideration 
 that is too often lost sight of in connection with 
 vocational preparation. If the pupil is turned into 
 an occupation that is not suited to him, he may 
 earn a living right enough, but may never really 
 enjoy life in the way he might have done had he 
 been better guided. Following the Schneider 
 dichotomies, we find that human beings fall into the 
 two classes, those whose attention works best when 
 allowed to range over a wide area, and those who 
 enjoy work that demands attention to a very limited 
 area. In allocating these people to their work in 
 a great factory, if attention is paid to their pecu- 
 liarities all goes well ; if not, evil results follow. 
 Here the bluff, hearty, well-disposed employer of 
 labour on a large scale is apt to become impatient, 
 and tells the experimental educationist that all this 
 refinement is sheer waste of time. " If you were in 
 charge of a great factory like mine, my dear sir, 
 you would soon see how unnecessary all this fuss is. 
 Put your wide-attention man to a narrow-attention 
 
 I 
 
The Child, the School, and the World 57 
 
 job, and your narrow-attention man to a wide- 
 attention job, and I admit there will be a little 
 uneasiness at the beginning, but in a few months 
 things settle down and you never hear any more 
 about it." Quite so. The manager hears no more 
 about it. The misfit workman does not die. There- 
 fore all is well. No account is taken of the per- 
 manently reduced vitality of the men put at the 
 wrong sort of job. Many go through life with an 
 almost permanent headache, the direct result of a 
 vocational misfit. There is no doubt but that the 
 schools in the immediate future will have to take 1 
 up their share in setting right the method of adapting 
 individual qualities to suitable environments. 
 
 The danger-signal is raised every time that any 
 suggestion for improved school-work seems to have 
 an economic bearing. But this tendencial treatment 
 of vocational preparation can have nothing but a 
 beneficial effect upon industry, even from the finan- 
 cial standpoint. It will naturally involve some 
 correlation between the leaders of industry and the 
 teachers, which in itself will be all to the good. But 
 once the employers of labour have found out exactly 
 the qualities they desire and have passed on their 
 requirements to the teachers, the rest must be left 
 to the schools. There is no need to interfere with 
 the teachers' liberty of choice in carrying out their 
 work. Once they know what is expected of them, 
 it is the teachers' business to find means of attaining 
 the ends set before them. Nobody else can do this 
 for them. 
 
 This tendencial attitude towards vocational work 
 will probably make an effective appeal to the English 
 
58 The Child, the School, and the World 
 
 love of compromise. The notion of shaping ends 
 to meet future vocational needs will be sweetened 
 to the teachers by the fact that it is unlikely that 
 there will ever be vocational training at any stage 
 at which attendance is compulsory. Even in Amer- 
 ica there has been no suggestion of such training 
 at any school where pupils must attend. The Labour 
 Party in England is keenly alive to the dangers of 
 anything approaching vocational training, perhaps 
 excessively so. But even the Labour Party should 
 welcome the tendencial treatment of the matter, 
 since it involves a clear field for the cultural elements. 
 If culture can be combined with a bias towards 
 some line of useful occupation, we should all welcome 
 that bias. Training under these conditions would 
 be equally applicable to all, and would have no 
 tendency to turn pupils into convenient material 
 to supply more useful cogs in the industrial machine. 
 Cogs are needed, no doubt, and always will be, but 
 the turning into cogs must be a matter for post- 
 school activities. Some of the pupils, no doubt, 
 will prove to be fit for nothing but being turned 
 into cogs, but at least they will have had their 
 chance during the school course. 
 
 From the practical teacher's standpoint, the 
 conclusion of this whole matter appears to be that 
 at the earliest stages we must do everything we can 
 to make pupils feel at home in this world, without 
 encouraging a marked distinction between the school- 
 world and the out-of-school world, and only at the 
 advanced stages should we begin to feel our way 
 towards discovering special capacity for particular 
 types of vocation. The fourteen-to- eighteen period 
 
The Child, the School, and the World 59 
 
 at present devoted (in theory, at any rate) to con- 
 tinuation work is a practical indication of the lines 
 along which we are likely to settle our educational 
 training problem, for all pupils except those who 
 are fitted to undertake preparation for the higher 
 professions. In the case of these last a reconciliation 
 between the cultural and the vocational should be 
 easy to arrange without outraging the sensibilities 
 of anyone who has an acquaintance with modern 
 educational tendencies and their literature. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 STANDARDS AND MENTAL TESTS 
 
 AS a practical person the teacher wants to know 
 as much as he can about the nature of his 
 pupil, just as a plumber wants to know the qualities 
 of the lead with which he works. As the plumber 
 can learn all that he needs to know about lead without 
 studying chemistry, so many teachers believe that 
 they can find all they need to know about the 
 pupil without falling back upon psychology. Maybe 
 they are right, but in any case they admit that they 
 want to know as much as possible about their pupils, 
 and to know as accurately as they can. They feel 
 that it is not an infringement on their private judg- 
 ment to compare notes with other practical teachers, 
 but this comparison does not go very far till they 
 find themselves faced by the need for some common 
 standard. They discover that each is inclined to 
 have his own opinion and to hold to it, since there 
 is no outside standard with which opinions may be 
 compared. Up till quite recently each teacher has 
 been his own standard, since most educational 
 doctrine was mainly a matter of opinion. In other 
 words, there was nothing but a subjective standard. 
 Decisions were made according to the view of the 
 person who had the authority; He was the final 
 
 60 
 
Standards and Mental Tests 61 
 
 court, and from his decision there was no appeal. 
 In education there has always been this tendency 
 to have everything determined by individual 
 opinion. Certain educational processes are gone 
 through ; certain results follow in the lives of 
 the educands. The causal relations involved are 
 arranged by the individual observer to suit his own 
 views. According to some, the Battle of Waterloo 
 was won on the playing-fields of Eton ; according 
 to others, the Battle of Colenso was lost there. We 
 have need of some standard that is independent 
 of private opinion. 
 
 What is wanted, though the practical teacher 
 does not usually care to put it in these words, is an 
 objective standard. The plain man, and even the 
 artist, can argue about colours and maintain his own 
 view as against all comers, but now that science 
 has discovered wave-lengths, there is a standard 
 by which the colours of the rainbow can be compared, 
 and any dispute about them settled definitely beyond 
 all individual cavil. It cannot be maintained that 
 education has been as fortunate as physics. Up 
 till now the objective standard has been to seek, 
 and has not yet been found. It appears, however, 
 to have cast before it certain shadows that encourage 
 seekers to persevere. The indications carry us 
 to mathematics. Quantitative methods have been " 
 adopted of late in education, and hold out fair 
 promises of leading us to something of the nature 
 of an objective standard. It is probable that a 
 completely objective standard will never be found 
 available in any but the exact sciences, among which \ 
 education is never likely to rank. 
 
62 Standards and Mental Tests 
 
 Still, there is a great attraction in some of the 
 mathematical methods suggested. Of these the 
 most promising are the correlation formulae beginning 
 with Bravais, but more usually associated with 
 Professor Karl Pearson, who has extensively used 
 this instrument of research, as has also Professor C. E. 
 Spearman. The formulae are used to determine how 
 far the same forces are at work in different series 
 of phenomena. If, for example, we set out in tabular 
 form the amount of alcohol sold in each of the past 
 twenty years, and in another table the number of 
 railway accidents that occurred during each of these 
 years, and then proceed to compare the tables, we 
 might possibly find that as the amount of alcohol 
 increases so does the number of accidents, or that 
 as the amount of alcohol increases the number of 
 accidents diminishes, then we would have a corre- 
 lation established between the two factors alcohol 
 and accidents. If, on the other hand, there is no 
 correspondence at all between the two sets of figures, 
 we say that there is no correlation. In the first 
 case, if there is a perfect correlation — that is, if every 
 increase in the one column is marked by an exactly 
 corresponding increase in the other — we have a 
 positive correlation, marked by the sign + i. If 
 the correspondence is exact as before, but in the 
 opposite direction — that is, every rise in the one 
 column being marked by a corresponding fall in 
 the other — we have a negative correlation, indicated 
 by the symbol — i. If there is no correlation at 
 all, the symbol is zero. 
 
 The formula preferred by Professor Karl Pearson 
 is the more suitable for elaborate investigations 
 
Standards and Mental Tests 63 
 
 and where accurate data are available, but is, 
 for ordinary educational purposes, a needlessly 
 sensitive and complicated instrument, so the general 
 tendency among teachers is to accept the Spearman 
 formula, which is so simple that it is sometimes 
 spoken of as his "foot-rule." It is sufficiently accur- 
 ate for all practical purposes, and runs as follows : 
 
 M' 
 
 Here R stands for the index of correlation, Sg 
 
 for the sum of gains in a particular series of cases. 
 
 M stands for the average number of gains to be 
 
 expected in the long run if the ups and downs were 
 
 due merely to chance. It is expressed numerically 
 
 fat j 
 
 as — ? — where n stands for the number of cases 
 o 
 
 considered. All this will be found either dismally 
 familiar or desperately complicated, according to 
 the reader's intimacy with mathematics. 1 But the 
 
 1 Sometimes the non-mathematical teacher falls into 
 despair when a book of the type of Brown and Thomson's 
 Mental Measurement comes his way. But he must remem- 
 ber that our profession has now reached that stage of ad- 
 vancement that no one man or woman can venture to profess 
 the whole theory of it. We are as much entitled to claim 
 the privileges of the division of labour as the chemist, or, 
 for that matter, the mathematician himself, for even he 
 no longer dares to claim the whole of the field as his own. 
 The teacher who " has no head for mathematics " may, 
 with quite a good conscience, leave abstruse calculations 
 to those whose business it is to attend to such matters. 
 Yet his head will certainly not break under the strain of 
 applying such a simple formula as is illustrated above. 
 For those who have quite good mathematical inclinations, 
 but have not had their attention directed to the newer 
 
64 Standards and Mental Tests 
 
 application of the formula need give trouble to no 
 one. Its working is absolutely plain, as will be seen 
 from the following example. The teacher wants to 
 know whether there is a correlation between the 
 ability of the same group of boys in Latin and in 
 mathematics. Accordingly, he gets the Latin master 
 
 Boys' Names. 
 
 Rank in 
 Latin. 
 
 Rank in 
 Maths. 
 
 Gain in 
 Rank. 
 
 Amberside 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 — 
 
 Brereton . 
 
 8 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 Cowan 
 
 12 
 
 11 
 
 1 
 
 Denison . 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 — 
 
 Everton . 
 
 4 
 
 7 
 
 — 
 
 Fernleigh 
 
 11 
 
 4 
 
 7 
 
 Guthrie . 
 
 6 
 
 8 
 
 — 
 
 Humberly 
 
 7 
 
 12 
 
 — 
 
 Ilford 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 — 
 
 Jephson . 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 — 
 
 Kettering 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 Latymer • 
 
 10 
 
 9 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 13 
 
 to give them an examination and arrange them in 
 order of merit according to the results, and the 
 mathematics master to do the same thing for his 
 subject. If the two lists of merit coincide, there 
 
 quantitative methods in education, it may be worth 
 while to mention that all they want — and a good deal more 
 — will be found in H. O. Rugg's Statistical Methods Applied 
 to Education (Harrap, London). Less formidable books 
 are E. L. Thorndike's Mental and Social Measurements 
 (Teachers' College Bureau of Publications, New York) 
 and W. I. King's Elements of Statistical Method (Macmillan 
 Co., New York). Of more general interest is W. A. McCall's 
 How to Measure in Education (1922). 
 
Standards and Mental Tests 65 
 
 is perfect correlation : we have + 1 for R, and 
 there is no more to be said. But it is all but certain 
 that some who rank high on the one list will rank 
 low on the other, and the problem is to find a quanti- 
 tative statement of the amount of agreement. 
 For convenience, we take merely the first twelve 
 names on such a list, as the principle can be as well 
 illustrated by twelve as by forty. 
 Applying our formula we get : 
 
 r=i — ii_ = 5 = 5 . 
 
 144 — 1 11 ^ 
 ~~6 
 
 This gives a positive correlation of -45, which 
 shows that there is a reasonable amount of corre- 
 spondence between power to learn Latin and power 
 to learn mathematics. We must not make the 
 mistake of supposing that there have to be very high 
 figures like '98 or '87 before a satisfactory corre- 
 lation can be inferred. It will be noted that Fern- 
 leigh does a good deal to spoil the symmetry of the 
 arrangement, which illustrates the fact that to get 
 the best results of the formula it is well to have a 
 considerable number of entries. But of this its 
 inventor is well aware, and various mathematical 
 checks are arranged for, in order to minimise the 
 chances of serious error. 
 
 This formula has already been used a good deal 
 in connection with school- work generally and examin- 
 ation results in particular, and has given satisfaction. 
 But in all these newer mathematical applications 
 there is a serious source of error against which 
 practical teachers must be continually on their 
 5 
 
66 Standards and Mental Tests 
 
 guard. This is the misleading air of accuracy 
 thrown over all investigations that can be expressed 
 in mathematical terms. No doubt the mathemati- 
 cian keeps his bargain, and conscientiously and skil- 
 fully grinds out accurate results. But it is apt to 
 be forgotten that in the first instance the grist that 
 is brought to the mathematician's mill has had to 
 be prepared by plain human resources. The 
 arrangement of the boys, for example, in order of 
 merit is not worked by mathematics, but by a 
 fallible human brain. Making all allowance for 
 human frailty, the results have been sufficiently 
 accurate in the past to give practical guidance in 
 some important school matters, particularly in 
 connection with scholarship adjudication. 
 
 This leads us directly to the living child, who, 
 after all, is the raw material on which the teacher 
 works. The correlation formulae aid in getting at a 
 relative estimate of his capacities in certain direc- 
 tions, but are helpless in getting at his individual 
 qualities. The thoughtful teacher is not in the least 
 likely to underestimate the complexity of the problem 
 presented by the child here and now present. 
 No doubt we have to come to a rough-and-ready 
 estimate of the nature of each member of our class, 
 but there remains the inevitable desire for a some- 
 what more accurate gauge of qualities than can be 
 obtained by mere inspection. Here too an attempt 
 has been made to reach something like an objective 
 standard. Something must be lost in the process 
 of estimating the value of the pupil as raw material 
 for the educator. We want to know the child as a 
 whole in all his complexity, but as we recognise that 
 
Standards and Mental Tests 67 
 
 this is impossible, we set about looking for those 
 qualities or that quality that have or has a dominat- 
 ing influence on the rest. It is a difficult matter 
 to decide whether there is such a general factor at 
 all, and if so which it is. Since rank in school 
 depends upon quickness of learning, and this quick- 
 ness is commonly spoken of as intelligence, the 
 teacher naturally recognises this as the quality he 
 would have selected on his own account as the one 
 to be tested. Even under the old individual exam- 
 ination system the pupils in the elementary schools 
 were subjected to intelligence tests by the govern- 
 ment inspectors, though these resolved themselves 
 mainly into questions to discover whether the pupils 
 followed the meaning of passages selected from their 
 reading-books. We shall find that historically this 
 quality of intelligence was the first that the French 
 psychologists set about investigating from the 
 educational standpoint. 
 
 Now the practical teacher of these days is inclined 
 to be impatient of the everlasting investigations 
 into the meaning of words used in connection with 
 his craft, but he must learn to realise that he cannot 
 advance along the path of educational progress till 
 he has mastered his terms. He must, for example, 
 make up his mind about what this intelligence is. 
 It is not quite the same thing as intellect, which 
 has a much more abstract application, and is gener- 
 ally regarded as dealing with what is called pure 
 thought. Intelligence, on the other hand, is usually 
 connected with the things of ordinary life, applied 
 thought, the fitting of means to ends by the use of 
 ideas. It is sometimes described as mother wit, 
 
68 Standards and Mental Tests 
 
 the power of suiting our actions to the needs of each 
 situation in life as it arises. The dignified refer to 
 it sometimes as savoir-faire, the not so dignified 
 content themselves with gumption. To it Bergson 
 opposes instinct, in which there is a more or less 
 uniform reaction to given conditions. We are 
 gradually learning that instincts are not so rigid, 
 and not even quite so accurate in their results, as 
 we had been brought up to believe, but still the 
 difference between intelligence and instinct remains 
 practically that between adaptability and inflexi- 
 bility. 
 
 InteUjgence is thus a somewhat elusive quality, 
 a possibility rather than an actuality, a mere poten- 
 tiality. It seems almost impossible to give such 
 an account of it as shall satisfy all honest enquirers. 
 In fact, some are inclined to give up the attempt. 
 " I doubt if we shall ever be able to produce an 
 intelligent definition of intelligence." l But we 
 can perhaps get at a working knowledge of its 
 meaning by observing how it is used, and by follow- 
 ing recent psychological movements. What the 
 psychologists call the soul acts in a great variety 
 of different ways, and the old-fashioned custom 
 was to name each of these ways a faculty. This is 
 no longer done, for it is recognised that the soul is 
 one and indivisible, and not broken up into a series 
 of separate entities with such names as perception, 
 memory, judgment, imagination ; though, of course, 
 we all do perceive, remember, judge, and imagine. 
 No sooner did this faculty system get its death-blow 
 from certain psychologists than other psychologists 
 1 L. P. Jacks, From the Human End, p. 55. 
 
Standards and Mental Tests 69 
 
 set up investigations of a different kind altogether, 
 and finally produced other results from their analysis. 
 In particular, it was maintained that there is one 
 general factor that may be analysed out from the 
 special ways in which the soul acts, though it cannot 
 be really separated from them. Professor Spearman 
 labels this general factor with the letter g, and makes 
 it correspond very much to what we have described 
 as intelligence. Dr. E. Webb worked out a theory 
 in favour of a second general element that he labelled 
 w, the business of which was to attend to tenacity 
 of purpose, the exercise of effort, and matters of that 
 sort. Next, Dr. Maxwell Garnett comes along with 
 a third general factor, which he labels c, standing for 
 what is known as cleverness. At all this we have 
 to shake our heads, and wonder whether we are not 
 having the old faculties coming back again in a new 
 form, and under fresh names. It suits our present 
 purpose exceedingly well to have one general factor 
 g (with which is incorporated, as " combined " 
 newspapers say, the Webbian w, and the Garnettian 
 c), which represents a quality of the first importance 
 to us as teachers, and popularly known as intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 The teacher has no hesitation in recognising the 
 existence of this quality. He knows that he himself 
 is intelligent, and he infers that his pupils are intelli- 
 gent also. He is painfully aware that they differ 
 materially in the amount or kind of the intelligence 
 they show, and as this difference is of vital importance 
 in his work, he looks with a favourable eye on any 
 attempt to provide means of measuring intelligence. 
 The general assumption is that each individual 
 
70 Standards and Mental Tests 
 
 is born into the world with a certain provision of 
 intelligence, a provision that varies according to 
 conditions that are at present little understood. 
 This original intelligence is not fully developed at 
 birth, but gradually moves upwards towards its 
 maximum. It may be retarded by adverse cir- 
 cumstances, or favoured by good conditions ; but 
 there appears to be a maximum rate of progress 
 that cannot be exceeded, even under the best cir- 
 cumstances. In other words, a certain minimum 
 of time must elapse before the intelligence of an 
 individual can reach its maximum. The develop- 
 ment of the individual intelligence is correlated 
 to the age of that individual, as will be shown later. 
 In the meantime it has to be noted that a general 
 belief is growing that there is a fixed time in the 
 life of the individual beyond which there is no 
 further development of the intelligence. When 
 this age has been reached, there can be no further 
 increase in intelligence. 
 
 Common sense and common experience at once 
 rebel against this view, for it is quite obvious that 
 at least some people act more reasonably when they 
 reach middle age than when they were children or 
 adolescents. Of course, it may be that a man has 
 the same intelligence at forty as at fourteen, the 
 difference being merely that at the later age he is 
 infinitely more at home in his surroundings, knows 
 a great deal more, and therefore can use his intelli- 
 gence to better purpose. The startling view is 
 gaining ground that the period at which intelligence 
 ceases to develop is somewhere round about sixteen, 
 so that after a pupil has attained that age, we may 
 
Standards and Mental Tests 71 
 
 leave age out of account altogether in estimating 
 his natural intelligence. A practical result of the 
 application of this principle to the data supplied 
 by the American Army tests is that the work of the 
 whole of the United States is being carried on with 
 an intelligence no higher than that of a boy of four- 
 teen. Naturally, we on this side of the Atlantic 
 would never have dared to make such a statement. 
 But it is not so devastating as at first sight appears, 
 for a little reflection will show that so far as raw 
 intelligence is concerned, most of our daily occupa- 
 tions are well within the reach of the intelligence 
 of a boy of ten. 
 
 We may well leave the psychologists to fight out 
 their own battle about the age at which intelligence 
 reaches its maximum. What chiefly concerns us is 
 the inherent differences in the intelligences that 
 our pupils bring with them to school. Of this 
 difference teachers need no demonstration at the 
 hands of the professional psychologist. Most of 
 them realise the existence of the various grades, 
 and have acquired some skill in allocating pupils to 
 their proper place in school. Few teachers would 
 make any difficulty about arranging in order of 
 intelligence the members of any class that they 
 know well. Certainly a fair number of doubtful 
 cases would occur between pairs of individuals of 
 about equal intelligence. But if the problem is to 
 divide a class of thirty-five pupils into seven groups 
 of five, each group to be a shade lower in intelligence 
 than the one above it, there are few teachers who 
 would go seriously wrong. When the psychologist 
 comes along and offers to supply a more accurate 
 
72 Standards and Mental Tests 
 
 means of testing intelligence, teachers differ in the 
 reception they give him. 
 
 A small minority adopt a very suspicious attitude. 
 They look upon the proposed technical tests with 
 profound distrust. They regard them as the 
 invention of more or less learned psychologists who 
 may know psychology, but certainly know nothing 
 about schools ; who may know children in general, 
 but emphatically know nothing about the actual 
 children for whom professional teachers are made 
 responsible. They feel that the theoretical testers 
 hold themselves entirely aloof from the affairs of 
 real life, and live and move and have their being 
 in a dim realm of shadows, relieved only by the 
 occasional gleam of brass instruments. 
 
 A second group, also a small one, is made up of 
 credulous teachers who gladly accept with hardly 
 any investigation the suggestion of an outside test 
 by people who have no personal responsibility for 
 the children tested. There is, in the eyes of such 
 teachers, something almost magical in the new 
 tests ; they regard them with a certain awe as 
 involving mysterious and unchallengeable processes 
 that give results that cannot be gainsaid. It is 
 easy to understand the comfort it would bring to 
 an honest and painstaking, but not very clever, 
 teacher to be presented with an authorised state- 
 ment of the innate powers of each of his pupils. 
 For such a statement would prove a shield and very 
 present help in the time of trouble round about 
 examination periods. To be sure, these credulous 
 teachers will not find, and to do them justice they 
 do not expect to find, that the result of such pre- 
 
Standards and Mental Tests 73 
 
 liminary testing will always be in their favour. A 
 pupil may come to them with a very high intelligence 
 mark, and may yet make a very bad appearance 
 at examination time. Honest teachers do not 
 resent being held responsible in such cases, so long 
 as they are allowed to exercise the requisite amount 
 of authority during the school year. Given a 
 guarantee that the pupil has the necessary intelli- 
 gence, many teachers are confident that they can 
 produce good results. 
 
 Even the braggart schoolmaster Holofernes, in 
 Loves Labours Lost, feels it necessary to demand 
 good stuff to work upon : " Mehercle, if their sons 
 be ingenious, they shall want no instruction ; if 
 their daughters be capable, I will put it to them/' 
 Comenius overstates his case on the magniloquent 
 title-page of his Great Didactic when he says that it 
 sets forth " The whole Art of Teaching all Things 
 to all Men," so that " the entire Youth' of both 
 Sexes, none being excepted, shall Quickly, Pleasantly 
 and Thoroughly Become learned in the Sciences, 
 pure in Morals," and so forth. In the text, how- 
 ever, he reconsiders matters, and does make an 
 exception, as thus : " We promise then such a 
 system of education that all the young shall be 
 educated (except those to whom God has denied 
 understanding)." l The word here rendered under- 
 standing comes near enough to what we have been 
 calling intelligence to represent that quality without 
 which the teacher, like Comenius, cannot profess to 
 do satisfactory work. What depresses teachers is 
 
 1 Keatinge's translation, p. 233 (original : nisi Qui deus 
 we ntem negavit). 
 
74 Standards and Mental Tests 
 
 the presence of admittedly dull boys. Most teachers 
 dislike dull pupils professionally, much as a shoe- 
 maker hates bad leather, since he has to stand or 
 fall by what he can make out of this inferior material. 
 It is fair that a teacher should be blamed for not 
 producing good results in the case of intelligent 
 pupils ; but in the case of those others he may 
 plead in the words of Schiller that — 
 
 " Against stupidity the very gods are powerless." 
 
 It is true that discriminating inspectors may be 
 able to disentangle the absolute from the relative 
 in such a case, and realise that a boy has made 
 creditable progress in view of his innate dullness. 
 But inspectors of this type are not too common, 
 and the teacher may very gladly welcome such a 
 recognised coefficient of intelligence as will prove 
 to parents and others interested that certain pupils 
 have to be judged by a low standard. 
 
 The majority of teachers belong neither to the 
 credulous nor the unbelieving group. They are 
 willing to take whatever help the psychologist can 
 give, but claim the right to test his. testing by 
 applying their own criteria. They want to know 
 how far his results fit in with their experience. 
 They want to know in particular how the new tests 
 differ from the old examinations. 
 
 Many teachers speak of the tests as if they were 
 merely an abbreviated and somewhat more reliable 
 form of examination. When they are on their 
 guard, experienced teachers are quite willing to 
 admit that ordinary examinations, whether internal 
 or external, are far from reliable means of measuring 
 
Standards and Mental Tests 75 
 
 intelligence. Actual experience shows them — apart 
 altogether from the endless arguments about 
 "formal training" — that, generally speaking, their 
 most intelligent boys do best at examinations. 
 But they know that there are many and irritating 
 exceptions. There are very able pupils who by 
 their temperament are " bad examinees," and there 
 are dull plodders who always at examinations get 
 results above what their intelligence would seem to 
 warrant. Further, there are the accidents that go 
 so far to discredit the capacity-catching function of 
 examinations. When investigated, these accidents 
 are nearly always found to be connected with the 
 subject-matter. The candidate has or has not, as 
 the case may be, happened to have done recently 
 some particular bit of work that chances to be set 
 in the paper. 
 
 An experienced teacher is generally willing to 
 agree that the practical difference between an 
 examination and an intelligence test is that the 
 first is a means of estimating attainment, while the 
 second attempts to measure capacity. The subject- 
 matter of instruction is assumed not to enter at all 
 into an intelligence test. In point of fact, we know 
 that in preparing tests every effort is made to 
 eliminate whatever depends upon school attain- 
 ments. 
 
 The question inevitably arises : Can we separate 
 entirely capacity from attainment. It has to be 
 admitted, to begin with, that we cannot test quite 
 in vacuo ; some subject-matter or other must be 
 used in any test that we can apply. In practice, 
 the difficulty is met by selecting what is common to 
 
76 Standards and Mental Tests 
 
 the mental content of all the persons under examina- 
 tion. If the tester can satisfy himself that all 
 those to be tested possess the same knowledge of 
 the matters submitted to them, he may fairly 
 assume a general uniformity of standard in the 
 results for all practical purposes. Yet it is found 
 in actual application that because of certain previous 
 experience and certain peculiarities of disposition 
 and temperament, the same piece of knowledge has 
 different effects on different minds. It has been 
 pointed out, for example, that in the Alpha series of 
 tests for the American Army the fact that two out 
 of eight problems make a demand for arithmetical 
 ability, places women at a disadvantage, as compared 
 with men. Naturally, this does not imply any sort 
 of evaluation of the relative powers of men and 
 women, but merely that in the matter of numerical 
 calculation, for some reason or other, women test 
 lower than men. It is not our present business to 
 determine the precise degree of accuracy obtainable 
 in testing capacity, but rather to find out whether 
 we can attain such a degree of accuracy as shall 
 enable the teacher to make practical applications 
 of the testers' results. So far as our present know- 
 ledge goes, the actual position appears to be that 
 we are justified in using these results for our 
 practical guidance. But we must not expect so 
 much help as teachers formerly hoped for. A 
 writer l in The Child who was a trained teacher, 
 then a lecturer on psychology at a university, and 
 now is an inspector of schools under the Board of 
 Education, and is therefore entitled to speak from 
 1 Frank Watts, author of Abnormal Psychology. 
 
Standards and Mental Tests 77 
 
 wide and varied experience, gives us the following 
 significant statements regarding the present status 
 of these tests : 
 
 (i) The idea that innate capacity could be mea- 
 sured apart from the influences of education and 
 training has proved barren . 
 
 (ii) The attempt to construct a single reliable test 
 capable of measuring general intelligence has been 
 given up as impossible. 
 
 (iii) A series of tests will give us a rough idea of 
 the general average level of intellectual ability in a 
 subject, if such tests cover a wide enough range of 
 its most representative forms. But all average 
 measures should be distrusted in so far as they 
 obscure significant individual variation. 
 
 Perhaps the results of the rough-and-ready 
 methods of testing for ability in the American Army 
 have produced a too favourable impression on prac- 
 tical people. They served their purpose exceedingly 
 well, and as they were applied on a gigantic scale 
 — no fewer than 1,750,000 men being tested — the 
 imagination is impressed, and the conviction arises 
 that here, at least, we have conditions warranting 
 the confidence even of the suspicious. The very 
 fact that the testers confined themselves to general 
 descriptions of classes instead of expressing their 
 results in figures, gave an added sense of security. 
 Only seven classes were adopted, as follows : 
 
 A. 
 
 Very Superior. 
 
 C-. 
 
 Low Average. 
 
 B. 
 
 Superior. 
 
 D. 
 
 Inferior. 
 
 c+. 
 
 High Average. 
 
 D-. 
 
 Very Inferior, 
 
 c. 
 
 Average. 
 
 
 
78 Standards and Mental Tests 
 
 This is just the sort of thing we need in school, and, 
 in fact, many teachers use a scheme of classification 
 that is practically identical with it, though the 
 basis of the classification is more general impression 
 than specific testing. Other teachers take the view 
 that though this sevenfold classification may be 
 good enough for the practical needs of an army in 
 a hurry, it is not accurate enough for the purposes 
 of the professional educator. The lure of percent- 
 ages and of the decimal-point is very powerful, and 
 few there be who can completely resist it. The 
 American Army classification resulted in three 
 rather overcrowded groups in the middle, and a 
 fringe of small groups at the extremities. The 
 teacher wants a finer discrimination within the middle 
 groups, and hungers for a numerical coefficient. 
 Accordingly, a welcome was waiting for the formula 
 that gradually evolved in the form of the Intelligence 
 Quotient, familiarly known as IQ. 
 
 The Binet tests began with no numerical basis. 
 Their original purpose was to discover which children 
 were " defective " in the sense of needing a special 
 kind of training. The Paris authorities recognised 
 the need for separate treatment for defective children, 
 but were brought up by the practical difficulty 
 of determining which children were really defective. 
 In their need they turned to their psychologists, 
 but these had given this matter no particular atten- 
 tion. Professor Alfred Binet, however, at once 
 took the matter up, and with the aid of certain 
 teachers and others who knew school conditions 
 he gradually evolved a set of tests that he believed 
 were sufficient to determine the normal intelligence 
 
Standards and Mental Tests 79 
 
 of children at various ages, a departure of more 
 than two years from which gave indication of prob- 
 able defective status. Professor Binet's investiga- 
 tions resulted in two tables. One was called the 
 Barime d' Instruction, a sort of ready-reckoner of the 
 results of instruction which, when examined, is 
 found to be a crude approach to the sort of thing 
 that used to appear in the requirements of the 
 different standards under the Education Codes. Ex- 
 perienced teachers of mature years smile as they 
 glance at this apprentice-work of the distinguished 
 psychologist. But the second table they treat 
 with more respect, though with a certain amount 
 of distrust. It is called L'Echelle Metrique de 
 I' Intelligence. Here, again, the veteran of the ol37 
 standard system in British schools smiles when he 
 hears it claimed that " Binet was the first to utilise 
 the idea of age standards or norms in the measure^ 
 ment of intelligence." ' They know that an age 
 standard of intelligence almost forced itself upon 
 them and the parents of their children. All the 
 same, Binet systematised the application of this 
 age standard in such a way as to make it possible 
 for his successors to give a scientific turn to its 
 development, and provide a numerical basis of 
 calculation. Lewis M. Terman and his helpers at 
 Leland Stanford University, California, have taken 
 up the work that Binet left unfinished at his death, 
 and have so systematised the tests and correlated 
 them to the various ages that they have evolved 
 a scheme by which the much-desired quantitative 
 coefficient may be legitimately reached. 
 
 1 L. M. Terman, The Measurement of Intelligence, p. 40. 
 
80 Standards and Mental Tests 
 
 Professor Terman has invented a symmetrical 
 scheme of tests, each test having a time value. It 
 is found that the eleventh and the thirteenth years 
 are a little anomalous : accordingly, no tests are 
 prescribed for them. All the rest are arranged as 
 follows : 
 
 Six tests for each year from 3 to 10, each test 
 counting for two months. 
 
 Eight tests for twelfth year, each test counting for 
 three months. 
 
 Six tests for fourteenth year, each test counting 
 for four months. 
 
 Six tests for average adult, each test counting 
 for five months. 
 
 Six tests for superior adult, each test counting 
 for six months. 
 
 On the Binet scheme it was enough to find out 
 whether a particular pupil did or did not come up to 
 the standard for his years. But the above table 
 supplies a means of estimating how far short or 
 how far in advance a pupil is for his age. In other 
 words, it is possible to determine what is called 
 the mental age of a pupil. If a boy can do just the 
 tests set down for his age, then his chronological 
 age and his mental age coincide. But the tests 
 are not limited to the chronological age of the pupil. 
 He may not be able to do all the tests set against 
 his ordinary age, and yet he may be able to do one 
 or two of the tests for higher ages, and a calculation 
 is necessary to determine his mental age. The 
 starting-point is the year for which the pupil 
 
Standards and Mental Tests 81 
 
 can do all the tests. Then he gets credit for that 
 age. Next he is tested in all the ages above that, 
 getting so many months added on for each successful 
 test according to the scale. Thus a boy of twelve 
 may be found to be able to do only two of the tests 
 set for the twelfth year. But he can do all the 
 tests for the tenth year. Accordingly, he begins 
 with ten years to his credit. For the two that he 
 can do in the twelfth year he gets credit for three 
 months each, making six months for that year. He 
 can do also one of the tests for the fourteenth year, 
 and for this he is credited with four months, and 
 for doing one of the average adult tests he secures 
 an additional 5 months, making a total of 11 years, 
 3 months as his mental age. With these data his 
 IQ is easily determined, since it is the ratio between 
 the mental age and the chronological. 
 
 Mental age rrs T ... 11*25 ■ 
 
 - IQ. In this case gives 
 
 Chronological age **' 12 
 
 the IQ of -94. To avoid the decimal-point it is 
 getting customary to make the standard 100 instead 
 of bare unity, so that this boy's IQ would be 94. 
 Anything between 90 and no is regarded as 
 normal or average, between 80 and 90 as dull, 
 between 70 and 80 as dull bordering on feeble- 
 mindedness, while anything below 70 is definitely 
 feeble-minded. In the upper grades, between no 
 and 120 we have superior intelligence : 120 to 
 140 brings us to that irritating " very superior 
 intelligence/' while anything above 140 borders on, 
 and may reach to, genius. Professor Terman, by 
 a post-mortem set of tests, comes to the conclusion 
 6 
 
82 Standards and Mental Tests 
 
 that Sir Francis Galton would certainly have tested 
 at something like 200, a figure that is matched by a 
 Dundee boy who has been tested by Dr. R. R. 
 Rusk. A New York prodigy of a boy has had a 
 pamphlet written about him because of his IQ of 
 185. At Twickenham a milder prodigy came under 
 my own observation in the person of a boy who at 
 the age of 6 years and 5 months had a mental 
 age of 11 years and 7 months, which gives an IQ 
 of 180-5. An interesting feature of this case is that 
 the boy was tested again almost exactly a year 
 later. With all the necessary precautions to avoid 
 repetitions, the result was* almost exactly the same, 
 his mental age being 13 years and 8 months and his 
 chronological age 7 years and 6 months, giving an 
 IQ of 182. This steadiness of result is the more 
 remarkable that the boy had grown enormously 
 during the intervening year, at the end of which he 
 was 4 ft. 4J in. without boots. 
 
 The Terman tests have not been long enough in 
 existence yet to have established records of well- 
 conducted tests verified by repetition under suitable 
 controls, and by comparison with other means of 
 estimating the intelligence of the subjects. But 
 where verification has been possible the results 
 have been satisfactory. Professional teachers have 
 no lack of objections to the practicability of any 
 such scheme of testing, perhaps the most prominent 
 of which is the impossibility of getting a sufficient 
 number of parallel tests to prevent the subjects 
 from knowing beforehand the nature of the test, 
 which would, of course, materially diminish its 
 usefulness. Hundreds of investigators are busy 
 
Standards and Mental Tests 83 
 
 at work inventing series of parallel tests, but they 
 are finding unexpected difficulties in getting uni- 
 formity. Testing the same set of subjects within 
 a few days of each other produces different results. 
 In applying the same test where the slightest part 
 is left to the discretion of the tester, there is the 
 possibility of material differences in result. Let 
 it be admitted that we are only making a beginning 
 of what may develop into the science of mental 
 testing, but the fact remains that we have already 
 rough-and-ready means of getting rapidly at the 
 grade of intelligence of our pupils. 
 
 But even admitting that on the whole the tests 
 work smoothly, it does not follow that the results 
 can be applied directly to the classification of our 
 pupils in school. Attainment, actual knowledge, is \ 
 of the essence of the matter of placing a boy in his 
 proper class. Two boys with the same IQ are not ~* 
 of necessity fitted to enter the same class in a given 
 subject. Obviously, a great deal depends on what 
 they have already done in that subject. There 
 remains, accordingly, a place for the ordinary 
 examination which, while not perhaps so accurate 
 in determining capacity, certainly settles the 
 question whether the pupil has the knowledge or 
 skill to enter a given class with advantage. 
 
 Then, apart altogether from either intelligence or 
 attainment, there is the further element of character. 
 All the moral side remains yet to be worked up in 
 relation to the tests, and there are many who 
 bitterly resent the very idea of a scheme of moral 
 tests. The teacher is certainly entitled to make 
 moral estimates of his pupils, and to act upon 
 
84 Standards and Mental Tests 
 
 these estimates in his dealing with them, but few 
 parents would be willing that moral tests should be 
 devised and applied after the pattern of the present 
 intelligence tests, and few teachers would care 
 to undertake such work. Here we must carry on 
 by observation rather than by experiment. It has 
 to be noted that it is because of the general neglect 
 of this aspect of the subject that, according to 
 popular belief, there is such a discrepancy between 
 school record and after-school record. Without 
 doubt there is a far closer correspondence between 
 the two records than is generally supposed. The 
 attraction of striking exceptions and the neglect of 
 negative instances have here their usual blighting 
 influence on popular opinion, but the experienced 
 teacher, in watching the career of his former 
 pupils, finds that in the great majority of cases they 
 turn out pretty much as their school record would 
 have led him to expect. Where, however, the purely 
 intellectual record of a boy is low, and his after 
 success in life is great, the disturbing element is a 
 moral one. The term must not be construed as 
 necessarily implying something intrinsically meri- 
 torious. The moral qualities involved may be either 
 good or bad. It may be that when the pupil goes 
 out into the world he is stirred by fine motives to 
 make a better use of his native intelligence than he 
 did at school. But, again, it may happen that in 
 the outside world he finds a scope for acquisitive 
 and non-social qualities that were rigorously 
 repressed at school, but are found to " pay " outside. 
 The important point is for us to realise that this 
 disturbing moral element has always to be taken 
 
Standards and Mental Tests 85 
 
 into account. When teachers are asked their 
 opinion of the qualities of a pupil, they seldom even 
 try to give their answer in terms of pure intelligence. 
 They are not at all liable to the sneer directed at 
 Descartes by his critic Gassendi, who addressed 
 him in the words mens ! Even when the teacher 
 does his best to confine himself to the purely mental 
 aspect, he cannot get rid of the moral " psychic 
 fringe " that Stout would say necessarily accom- 
 panies the teacher's concept of the pupil. 
 
 Not much has yet been done in the way of whole- 
 sale application of the intelligence tests to school- 
 work. Experiments are being made by progressive 
 teachers all over England and America, but they 
 are largely in the laboratory stage. 1 Tentative 
 efforts have been made to apply at least the prin- 
 ciples of the scheme in the means taken to select 
 the most suitable candidates for state and municipal 
 scholarships. In this last use the danger of possible 
 cramming for specific tests is very great, and the 
 experimenters have had to expend an enormous 
 amount of ingenuity and labour in inventing fresh 
 tests for each occasion. 
 
 An interesting and instructive account of the 
 direct application of the. intelligence tests in a 
 county secondary school is contributed to the 
 Journal of Education for January 1922 by the 
 headmistress, Miss E. M. Hughes. The material 
 used was Terman's Group Test of Mental Ability. 
 Among the interesting results obtained was a high 
 correlation with the examination results of the 
 
 1 For further information on this point see P. B. Ballard's 
 Group Tests of Intelligence (1922). 
 
86 Standards and Mental Tests 
 
 same pupils at the Senior Cambridge grade. This 
 correlation, -58, is countered by the low correlation, 
 •21, between the test results and the teacher's 
 marks for the term. The obvious explanation of 
 the difference is to be found in what has already 
 been said about the moral element, but Miss Hughes 
 goes out of her way to explain the cause of fifty 
 special cases of extreme divergence between test 
 results and teachers' estimates. The causes she 
 assigns are : 
 
 (i) The children in question being younger than the 
 average of the form, which tends to the underestimation 
 of ability. 
 
 (ii) The children being older, leading to overestimating 
 of ability. 
 
 (iii) Indifferent health and consequent remitting of 
 homework. 
 
 (iv) Difficult home circumstances — i.e. want of time in 
 poor homes, and in very gay and pleasure-loving homes. 
 
 (v) Absorbing interest in boys. 
 
 (vi) " Swotting," together with the possession of a good 
 memory. 
 
 (vii) Newness of the child to the school and want of 
 sufficient time in which to judge her work. 
 
 All this throws into relief the simplicity of the 
 intelligence tests, as compared with the necessarily 
 complex process of getting at an estimate by general 
 impression. The spirit of Miss Hughes' testing is 
 exactly what it should be. The grim, shadowy, 
 cold-blooded, disembodied intelligence — the ghostly 
 g of the psychologists — is kept in its proper place, 
 and the girls are treated as human beings. 
 
 But all this takes it for granted that teachers / 
 should do their own testing. Are ordinary teachers 
 
Standards and Mental Tests 87 
 
 qualified to conduct intelligence tests on their own 
 account ? The psychologists are doubtful, and talk 
 sombrely of at least a year's preliminary training, 
 though the more optimistic are willing to let us off 
 with six months. Miss Hughes does not appear 
 to have heard of these forebodings, or if she has 
 she brushes them aside with the handsome explana- 
 tion that the testing is a simple matter that can 
 be easily carried out by anyone accustomed to 
 manage children. The two standpoints could be 
 easily reconciled if we were sure that both parties 
 had the same kind of testing in view. But the two 
 are not the same. Miss Hughes has evidently in 
 mind something much more of a slap-dash kind 
 than the psychologists contemplate. Her methods 
 belong rather to the American Army type than 
 to that of the elaborate individual tests that 
 the laboratory-trained psychologist has in view. 
 Teachers are almost morbidly afraid of falling from 
 grace in the matter of thoroughness, and are dis- 
 inclined to take up any method that even seems to 
 neglect this fundamental pedagogic virtue. But 
 collective tests are quite accurate enough if only 
 general conclusions are to be drawn. The Army 
 tests and their derivatives are not very far removed 
 from a satisfactory mean between pedantic refine- 
 ment and sloppy amateurishness. 
 
 Many teachers bluntly say that they cannot 
 afford the time for this technical testing. But Miss 
 Hughes explains that she and her staff did the 
 work of testing 300 pupils in the course of two days 
 set apart — of course, with official sanction — for this 
 purpose. She makes light of the labour involved, 
 
88 Standards and Mental Tests 
 
 and we gather that the effect upon her staff has not 
 been prohibitive, for we are told that the school 
 has resolved to test annually. 
 
 A less hopeful view of the value of the group 
 method of mental testing is supplied in an account 
 of an experiment by Mr. Andrew Bell, headmaster 
 of the County School, Erith, published in the Kent 
 Education Gazette for January 1922. Mr. Bell asks 
 three questions, and after giving a full account of 
 his methods, supplies answers to each. 
 
 (i) Does the Group Test offer a ready means of classifying 
 the children in the upper standards of elementary schools ? 
 
 Answer : It must be acknowledged that the experiment 
 seems to bear out the contention that the Group Test affords 
 a means of roughly grouping the children according to 
 intelligence. 
 
 (ii) Is the Group Test suitable for Scholarship children ? 
 
 Answer : In its present form the Group Test is not of 
 very great service. The candidates are not in the highest 
 standards, and the tests seem to need some modification 
 to bring them to the level required for children of the age 
 of eleven years. . . . Certainly there is no saving of time 
 in the Group Test so far as correction is concerned, although, 
 of course, the test itself can be given in little over half an 
 hour. 
 
 (iii) Could it be used as a substitute for the present 
 method of examination ? This means an oral test for all 
 candidates who gain more than 50 per cent, of the marks 
 for the written paper. 
 
 Answer : Let it be said at once that the personal contact 
 with the candidate is most desirable, and this is emphasised 
 by the experience this year with both the Oral and the Group 
 Tests results. ... So far, then, as the Scholarship 
 Examination is concerned, nothing is to be gained by 
 substituting the Group Test for any part of it, nor, indeed, 
 by adding the Group Test to it in its present form. 
 
Standards and Mental Tests 89 
 
 This is a flattening report by an unbiased investi- 
 gator on the application of the tests to a depart- 
 ment where, on first principles, one would expect 
 them to do their best work. The concluding 
 sentence is particularly discouraging. Almost all 
 experienced teachers and administrators will endorse 
 what is said about the value of the personal inter- 
 view. This is a recognition of the importance of 
 the moral elements already dealt with. But 
 perhaps Mr. Bell goes too far when he denies to the 
 tests even a subordinate place in determining the 
 claims of scholarship candidates. Even on the 
 Rhodes Scholarship basis, that takes account of 
 physical and social as well as intellectual qualities, 
 there is at least a place left for the native intelli- 
 gence, and the intelligence tests, when better 
 developed, will certainly be of great help here. 
 
 Having regard to the present state of develop- 
 ment of the tests, there arises for the plain, straight- 
 forward, conscientious teacher the problem of how 
 far he is able, and how far he ought, to take part 
 in the testing of his pupils by the new methods. 
 Modesty, no doubt, plays an important part in 
 making some of us disinclined to undertake this 
 sort of work ; but we must be careful not to let 
 our professional conservatism exercise an undue 
 influence here. A compromise that is full of hope 
 is to begin by acquiring, at any rate, a working 
 knowledge of the tests and their possibilities. No 
 teacher should be in the humiliating position of 
 not knowing what the tests are, and how they are 
 applied. P. B. Ballard's admirable little book, 
 Mental Tests, can be mastered in a week's spare 
 
go Standards and Mental Tests 
 
 time ; L. M. Terman's The Measurement of Intelli- 
 gence, and its accompanying Test Material, would 
 not demand very much more ; while the National 
 Intelligence Test (Harrap, 2s. 6d. net) may be dealt 
 with in an hour or two. Acquainted with this 
 literature, the teacher is in a position to make up 
 his mind about the value of the system, and to 
 come to a reasoned conclusion regarding his responsi- 
 bility in the matter. Even if he makes up his 
 mind that this sort of work is not for him, he will 
 be able to talk intelligently about it, and to take 
 part in any system of testing that may be imposed 
 on his school, either by the head or by some outside 
 body. For we must realise that testing is in the air, 
 and is likely to become much more common in the 
 near future, even if those critics are right who 
 maintain that it has had its day and by and by 
 will cease to be. 
 
 In actual school practice, at the moment, testing 
 has two quite distinct spheres — (i) the testing of 
 normal children ; (ii) the testing of defectives and 
 supernormal children. With regard to the first, 
 all teachers are concerned, whether they are 
 prepared or not to take an active part. With 
 regard to the second, the matter should certainly 
 be left to the specialists. This does not mean that 
 teachers who have a bent that way should not 
 themselves by and by win their way into the 
 specialist grade. Indeed, it is highly desirable that 
 as many teachers as are drawn that way should 
 be encouraged to go on. It is for the profession to 
 consider whether it is willing that a portion of its 
 field should be handed over to outside practitioners. 
 
Standards and Mental Tests 91 
 
 Even as things are, at least some teachers are 
 jealous of the intrusion of the doctors. Are we to 
 permit or encourage the intrusion of the practising 
 psychologist ? Elsewhere " I have dealt with that 
 official who appears to be hovering on the horizon, 
 and whom I have labelled the " educational 
 engineer.' ' When this official is firmly in the 
 saddle, the professional teacher may have to 
 submit to much more direction than he has had 
 in the past. The only way to save our educational 
 liberty is to make ourselves really masters of^oW 
 craft, both in theory and in practice. This advice 
 is particularly apposite with regard to the educa- 
 tional psychologist. We cannot all do testing 
 work : we have neither the time nor the skill. 
 But our professional honour demands that we 
 should make ourselves familiar with the system, 
 so that we may appreciate what is being done. 
 No doubt in the near future school inspectors of all 
 sorts will have to take a share in testing of the 
 newer type. In self-defence teachers will need to 
 master the mysteries of a process that may, on 
 occasion, put them at a disadvantage, if they do 
 not know how to deal with it. But a better motive 
 than mere defence is the professional one. We must 
 master the principles of intelligence-testing, because 
 it is an essential part of our equipment as self- 
 respecting craftsmen. 
 
 1 Evolution of Educational Theory, pp. 381-84. 
 
 [My cordial thanks are rendered to my colleague Prof. 
 T. P. Nunn for reading and criticising the MS. of this 
 chapter, on the subject of which he is an acknowledged 
 authority.] 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 SCALES OF ATTAINMENT 
 
 PAGE 27 of the 19 10 edition of Professor Binet's 
 Les Idees Modcrnes sur les Enfants presents 
 a ready-reckoner of instruction that we have seen 
 rouses the amused contempt of every experienced 
 British elementary teacher. It is not prepared by 
 M. Binet himself, but was " organised by M. Vaney 
 for the primary schools of Paris." The attainments 
 of pupils from six to eleven in reading, arithmetic, 
 and spelling are to be estimated by tests for five 
 different stages. A single arithmetical problem at 
 each stage is all that is supplied, a single scrap of 
 dictation including only twelve words is to meet 
 the needs of all ages for spelling, while reading has 
 the five stages marked by the following bare 
 descriptive terms : (i) sub-syllabic or syllabic ; (ii) 
 hesitating ; (iii) hesitating or fluent ; (iv) fluent ; 
 (v) fluent or expressive. Still, when he passes from 
 this bald and unconvincing programme to the 
 elaborate scales now provided by American educa- 
 tionists, the expert elementary teacher is hardly 
 better pleased. He is as much repelled by the 
 American complexity as by the French simplicity. 
 
 It is not that teachers are satisfied with the 
 existing rough-and-ready ways of estimating pro- 
 
 92 
 
Scales of Attainment 93 
 
 gress in school-work. They have no excessive belief 
 in examinations as at present conducted, and in 
 their hearts they know that their own impressionist 
 way of estimating their pupils' work is not quite 
 reliable. They do not need the evidence painfully 
 gathered by American investigators to prove that 
 the markings of the same bits of written work by 
 different teachers are far from agreeing with one 
 another. They long for an objective standard, but 
 they are suspicious of what is sometimes presented 
 to them as supplying their needs. The intelligence 
 tests they are inclined to accept without much 
 cavil, for they are based on more or less technical 
 psychological investigations that they feel to be 
 outside of their ordinary professional range. 
 Besides, after all, the results do not in any way 
 reflect upon their work in school. No one can 
 blame the teacher for the low IQ of his pupils. 
 
 When it comes to scales, however, a new element 
 enters, for the term is gradually limiting itself to 
 modes of estimating the results of the work done 
 in schools. It would be very convenient if the 
 term test could be definitely limited to the gradually 
 expanding series of problems and exercises that 
 have for aim the measurement of intelligence, while 
 scale is reserved for any material invented for 
 estimating the acquisition of knowledge or of skill. 
 Generally speaking, a scale implies some sort of 
 concrete standard by reference to which an actual 
 comparison may be set up. We shall find, for 
 example, that the handwriting scale consists of a 
 set of standard specimens. This sheet of specimens 
 is sometimes placed on the wall of the schoolroom, 
 
94 Scales of Attainment 
 
 and it even has a technical name, " graphometer," 
 though somehow the name is seldom used. There 
 are similar concrete scales in drawing, spelling, 
 composition. In arithmetic, however, the scales 
 consist rather in sets of problems that are stan- 
 dardised, no doubt, but are not represented by a 
 sheet that may be used for purposes of direct com- 
 parison. The same thing applies to geography, 
 history, music, where progress is estimated by a 
 series of exercises that will have to be called tests, 
 unless we can agree upon the distinction that 
 limits this term to the measurement of intelligence 
 apart from what it is exercised upon, while scale is 
 used to denote all means of measuring the acquire- 
 ment of knowledge or skill. 
 
 Since this limitation would make the scales cover 
 the ground formerly regarded as the special province 
 of external examiners, it is natural that teachers 
 should look upon them with some degree of sus- 
 picion. It is true that scales may well be used by 
 the teachers themselves as a means of estimating 
 the success of their work so as to improve it wherever 
 possible. But it cannot be denied that they may 
 be used by others with the good, old-fashioned 
 purpose of criticising the teacher's work. It is 
 natural, therefore, that they should look askance 
 at the new scales. This fact may to some extent 
 account for the other fact that almost all the 
 investigations in this department have been made 
 on the western side of the Atlantic, where the 
 scourge of examinations is not so severe. It is 
 encouraging for British teachers to learn, all the 
 same, that the movement in America has reached 
 
Scales of Attainment 95 
 
 that stage that calls for the direct co-operation of 
 the teachers themselves. Naturally, at the begin- 
 ning the matter was left largely in the hands of 
 experts in psychology and education : university 
 people and directors and superintendents of schools. 
 But now there has been sufficient progress to make 
 it possible for the ordinary intelligent teacher to 
 take a hand, and use the acquired material on his 
 own account. 
 
 The whole movement is quite a recent one, going 
 no further back than to 1864, at which date, 
 according to Professor Thorndike, the first "Scale 
 Book " in writing was prepared by the Rev. George 
 Fisher, of the Greenwich Hospital School. The 
 American founder of scales was Dr. J. M. Rice, 
 who, after a course under German psychologists, 
 came to the conclusion that none of his fellow- 
 schoolmen really knew the facts of the educational 
 situation, 
 
 " because there were no standards to serve as guides. 
 Then one day the idea flashed through my mind that the 
 way to settle the question was to try it out. For a begin- 
 ning, I decided to take spelling, and on that very day I 
 made up a list of 50 words, with the view of giving them as 
 a test to the pupils of the schools as I went on my tour 
 from town to town. I have no record of the date of the 
 inspiration, but I think it was some time in October 1894." 1 
 
 One's mind is irresistibly directed to the ruins of 
 the Capitol at Rome, but, after all, Dr. Rice is 
 entitled to take himself a little seriously, for the 
 
 1 The Seventeenth Year-book of the National Society for 
 the Study of Education, Part II, p. 11. 
 
96 Scales of Attainment 
 
 movement he began that October day is having 
 somewhat important developments. 
 
 Though in England our pioneer scale-maker did 
 not succeed in setting on foot a deliberate cult of 
 scales in the various school subjects, such scales 
 developed to some extent of themselves, during the 
 lamentable period of individual examinations held 
 to justify the payment by results. In consequence 
 of the extremely wide application of test-cards in 
 arithmetic all over the country, a sort of scale in 
 that subject evolved itself, though it was never 
 reduced to a systematic statement. Experienced 
 school inspectors in the old days could have set 
 forth with no difficulty an arithmetical scale that 
 could have held its own with the Courtis or any 
 other of the new ones. But in handwriting the 
 inspectors depended on the ordinary general impres- 
 sion, so that Professor Thorndike had an entirely 
 fresh field when he issued his first scale in 19 10, 
 which came to be known in England through being 
 incorporated in his Education : A First Book, 
 in 1912. 
 
 In the evaluation of handwriting there is much 
 more involved than is at first apparent. In the 
 charmingly direct way of our old school method 
 books the three essentials of good writing are stated 
 to be legibility, elegance, and speed. Thorndike 
 neglected the speed with which his specimens were 
 produced, and founded his decisions on the opinions 
 experts formed on a basis that included the qualities 
 of appearance and legibility. His method of pre- 
 paring his scale consisted in procuring from the 
 pupils in the three highest grades of the ordinary 
 
Scales of Attainment 97 
 
 American Public Schools one thousand specimens of 
 handwriting of all degrees of merit. In the first 
 rough classification it came about that different 
 investigators found that, without any previous 
 theorising on the matter, the papers sorted them- 
 selves out into eleven groups. Accordingly, the 
 thousand papers were sent to one after another of 
 forty persons accepted as experts in the criticism of 
 handwriting, with the request that each of them 
 should arrange the thousand specimens into eleven 
 groups. To secure accuracy, each expert did the 
 grouping two or three times, and his final result was 
 the average mark he allotted to each specimen. 
 Finally, the average of the forty different persons' 
 ranking gave the final rank of each specimen. In 
 this way a series of groups was obtained, each being 
 separated by approximately equal differences in 
 merit. Typical specimens of each group were 
 selected, and thus a scale was provided with which 
 any given piece of handwriting could be compared, 
 and as a result placed in one or other of the groups. 
 If there was no one group that seemed to be the 
 exact place for a given fresh specimen, it could be 
 placed between two of the groups, and if great 
 accuracy were aimed at, it might have a decimal 
 added. Thus a specimen that was not good enough 
 for group eight, but was nearer eight than seven, 
 might be labelled 7-6 or 77. 
 
 One obvious difficulty is that handwriting differs 
 in style and appearance apart from legibility, so in 
 each group three specimens were selected, each 
 exemplifying a different style, though all three were 
 regarded as equal in general merit. 
 
 7 
 
98 Scales of Attainment 
 
 Dr. Leonard P. Ayres, of the Russell Sage Founda- 
 tion, New York, was not pleased with a scale that 
 mixed up elegance and legibility, so he prepared one 
 of his own, based entirely upon legibility. It was 
 found easy to get a numerical coefficient of legibility 
 by discovering the time taken to read a given piece 
 of handwriting. Specimens of handwriting were 
 obtained in the form of disconnected words that did 
 not make sense. This was necessary in order that 
 reading should not depend on context, and that the 
 memory of the tester should not be called into play. 
 All manner of further precautions were taken, such 
 as repeating the reading of the first batch of papers 
 after the readers had got into the swing of the thing, 
 for at first they would probably read a little slower, 
 and the first marking would be inaccurate. Writing 
 was thus ranked according to the number of words 
 read per minute. It was found that the rate of 
 reading was 130*2 words per minute for the worst 
 writing and 209-6 for the best. Naturally, Ayres 
 arranged his scale into eight groups, according to the 
 Thorndike plan, with the three different styles in 
 each case. 
 
 The critical teacher faced with either of these 
 scales at once realises that in the ultimate resort 
 the decision lies with him. It is for him to place 
 in the appropriate group each specimen his pupils 
 provide him. He cannot escape that responsibility. 
 In the last resort, the scale itself is not objective. 
 It is the result of a series of particularly competent 
 subjective judgments so arranged as to control each 
 other and lead to a reliable average. There can be 
 no doubt but that the scale in itself is a practical 
 
Scales of Attainment 99 
 
 help to the teacher who uses it, even if in the first 
 instance and in the final application the scale 
 depends upon a subjective decision. Such scales 
 have really two functions, one the provision of a 
 standard as nearly objective as possible, the other 
 the stimulation of the critical powers of the person 
 who uses them. Not only do they serve as measur- 
 ing-rods, but, as Professor Thorndike observes, they 
 have an excellent effect upon those who apply them 
 " by creating in the minds of teachers a mental 
 standard to be used in even the most casual ratings 
 of everyday school life." 
 
 Yet all the way through, both in reaching the 
 actual paper scale and in using it as a basis of 
 estimating the merit of a particular specimen of 
 handwriting, there is a continual reference to the 
 opinion of this or that investigator. In writings on 
 the subject the phrase is constantly occurring, 
 " by So-and-So's scoring " — by Dr. Rice's scoring, 
 by Dr. Stone's scoring, by Dr. Thorndike's scoring. 
 The general effect is one of uncertainty and doubt. 
 It is true that confidence comes when such phrases 
 are used as " when a specimen is regarded by 
 impartial judges as falling exactly between n and 
 13, it may be safely marked 12." But behind this 
 is the demand for the backing of numbers, and we 
 long for a scale that can be applied by ourselves 
 with confidence that when another tester comes 
 along his scoring will exactly coincide with ours, 
 automatically and as a matter of course. 
 
 If the ordinary successful practical teacher were 
 asked which of the school subjects lends itself best 
 to scale-making, he would almost certainly choose 
 
ioo Scales of Attainment 
 
 arithmetic. There is something very alluring in the 
 definite Right or Wrong with which each attempt 
 may be labelled. There is, as a matter of fact, 
 less surprise shown at an arithmetic scale than at 
 any other. Teachers have been for long accustomed 
 to a series of problems of different degrees of difficulty 
 accepted as a standard of efficiency in this subject. 
 And yet in actual practice arithmetic is found to 
 be more than usually refractory material for scale- 
 making. When Mr. S. A. Courtis started on this 
 work, he found, to his surprise, that pupils differed 
 considerably in their ability to deal with each of the 
 four primary operations. They might be excellent 
 at addition, but weak in multiplication, and just 
 moderate at subtraction. In other words, each has 
 a different coefficient of ability for the different 
 arithmetical operations, and so far as investigations 
 as yet have gone, it would appear as if this original 
 coefficient remains practically unchanged through 
 life. In any case, it is assumed that for a scale in 
 arithmetic it is sufficient to include the four primary 
 operations, as all the rest of arithmetic is merely an 
 extension of the application of these. This, indeed, 
 is only one of the many ways in which the new con- 
 ception of arithmetic is affecting practice. The 
 subject is no longer treated as essentially a separate 
 subject, after the preliminaries are mastered, but 
 as the science or the study of the quantitative aspect 
 of human activities. 
 
 Courtis' arithmetic scales, which are at present 
 by far the most commonly used in the world, are 
 very simple and convey an impression of genial 
 familiarity to our English teachers. The crude 
 
Scales of Attainment 101 
 
 A Series have now disappeared ana their B successors 
 consist of separate groups of addition, subtraction, 
 multiplication, and division examples, the members 
 of each group being of approximately equal diffi- 
 culty. Mr. Courtis is anxious to make us realise 
 that they are " neither lesson-sheets nor examination 
 papers." They are to be used as measuring-rods, 
 and though they cannot be guaranteed to be abso- 
 lutely equal, any one of the rods may be confidently 
 used as a standard. The scales are intended to be 
 applied to all the grades, for there is no more need 
 to have a special scale for each grade than there is 
 to have a special foot-rule for measuring a particular 
 group of men. The same scale may be applied in 
 such a way that the elements of speed and accuracy 
 may come in as differentiating influences and set up 
 a standard of grading. It is admitted that the 
 Courtis scales set up a much higher demand than 
 that which would satisfy business conditions, for 
 there is nothing more surprising to the outsider 
 than the simplicity of the arithmetical processes 
 demanded in ordinary business. Certainly difficul- 
 ties of the most distracting kind occur, but these do 
 not involve the mere arithmetical processes. Teachers 
 who are harassed by the exorbitant demands of the 
 heads of counting-houses, might do worse than turn 
 to G. M. Wilson's A Survey of the Social and Business 
 Usage of Arithmetic. 1 
 
 Teachers have not been content with scales that 
 
 merely determine attainment. They want means 
 
 of discovering not only to what extent pupils go 
 
 wrong, but in what directions they go wrong, and 
 
 1 Teachers' College Bureau of Publications. 
 
102 Scales of Attainment 
 
 why. Accordingly, they seek out diagnostic scales. 
 At first the scales of Dr. Clifford Woody had not 
 this special end in view, but they gradually so 
 developed as to lend themselves to the teachers' 
 purpose, and enabled them to analyse out processes, 
 and locate the sources of error. What differentiates 
 them primarily from the Courtis scales is that they 
 are based on an increasing grade of difficulty, instead 
 of on the nearest approach to equality. The 
 Woody scales have to pay for their increased useful- 
 ness in one direction by a certain loss of exactness 
 in another. For they introduce that complication 
 that English teachers recognise as so baffling, the 
 evaluation of the processes as contrasted with the 
 actual results. An " answer " is obviously correct 
 or incorrect ; it admits of no argument. But the 
 process by which that answer has been reached 
 opens the flood-gates of controversy. Many prac- 
 tical teachers cut the knot by saying that the 
 ultimate test is accuracy ; if the answer is wrong, 
 it is of no consequence how it was attained. Most 
 teachers, however, take the more reasonable view 
 that so long as the pupil is a pupil, his methods are 
 of great importance. When he leaves school, it is, 
 no doubt, reasonable enough to maintain that the 
 only things that interest his employers are the 
 accuracy of his result and the speed with which he 
 reaches it. But in school we are still interested in 
 the process, and therefore welcome the diagnostic 
 qualities that belong to some of the scales. For 
 the primary purpose of scales, however, it is not 
 essential that we should use complicated arith- 
 metical problems, and, in fact, the more complicated 
 
Scales of Attainment 103 
 
 these become the more we pass from pure arithmetic 
 into the complex maze of life itself. 
 
 Some of the other subjects lend themselves more 
 to objective treatment. Take spelling, for example. 
 Here the good, old-fashioned way was to test pupils 
 by setting a large number of particularly difficult 
 words, and by judging the best speller to be the 
 person who succeeded with the greatest number. 
 As an absolute test, there is not much to be said 
 against it, but as a scale to be used in school- work 
 it leaves much to be desired. It is quite possible 
 to make a selection of words according to their 
 difficulty as proved by experimental methods, and 
 to use this list as a test. Each such word could be 
 supplied with a coefficient of difficulty and its 
 value as* a test rated accordingly. 
 
 Professor W. Franklin Jones has provided such a 
 list of one hundred words graded in this way, each 
 word being supplied with a figure indicating the 
 number of times it had been misspelled in the tests 
 by means of which the selection was made. The 
 top of the list is occupied by which, accompanied by 
 the figure 321. Next come their with 316 and there 
 with 296. Obviously, these two should in some 
 way or other be counted as one. It is not so much 
 that the children cannot spell either of these words, 
 as that they are so often in doubt which is which. 
 The same applies to here (278) and hear (280). But 
 all such lists contain surprises for the teacher. 
 Who, for example, would regard they as a 270 
 error word, while ache accounts for no more than 
 192, or that some could lead 270 astray, while 
 believe is content with 212 ? Supposing a pupil 
 
104 
 
 Scales of Attainment 
 
 learnt to spell correctly the list of one hundred 
 words that Professor Jones whimsically calls 
 " spelling demons," he would be in a much better 
 case than before, except in the case of the words 
 with the same sound : which suggests the prepara- 
 tion of a more extensive list that would really 
 account for all the more common sources of disaster. 
 The idea of such a list is certainly not new, but the 
 nature of the recent lists is quite different from that 
 of the lists of former times. Words are selected not 
 because of their difficulty, but of the frequency 
 with which they occur. The new principle is that 
 the words to be taught are those that are most 
 likely to be needed. Dr. Daniel Starch, for example, 
 tabulated 40,000 consecutive words, about 1,000 
 from each of forty authors in eleven current high- 
 grade magazines. This gave 5,903 different words, 
 as follows : 
 
 3,111 words occurred each once. 
 
 ,009 
 
 t$ 
 
 ,, 
 
 ,, twice. 
 
 512 
 
 ti 
 
 »> 
 
 , three times. 
 
 280 
 
 ,, 
 
 ,, 
 
 „ four times. 
 
 189 
 
 » » 
 
 , 
 
 , five times. 
 
 121 
 
 M 
 
 , 
 
 , six times. 
 
 97 
 
 ,, 
 
 M 
 
 „ seven times. 
 
 82 
 
 it 
 
 1 
 
 , eight times. 
 
 53 
 
 »» 
 
 , 
 
 , nine times. 
 
 225 
 
 »» 1 
 
 • 1 
 
 , ten to nineteen times. 
 
 224 
 
 »> 1 
 
 » 1 
 
 , twenty or more times. 1 
 
 Comparing this list with a similar one prepared 
 by Mr. Eldridge of Buffalo, Dr. Starch calculates 
 that the words occurring three or more times on 
 1 Educational Psychology, p. 328. 
 
Scales of Attainment . 105 
 
 both lists make up more than " nine-tenths of all 
 running words." By selecting all the words that 
 occur three or more times on both lists, a total of 
 2,626 words is attained, and a pupil who masters 
 this list has an adequate preparation for ordinary 
 life in the way of spelling. 
 
 The schoolroom, however, is not quite content 
 with this general guidance : it wants a more 
 detailed analysis. This is provided by Dr. Leonard 
 P. Ayres. By elaborate analyses he has reached 
 what he is convinced is the thousand most commonly 
 used words in the English language, and has had 
 them tested by 1,400,000 spellings made by 70,000 
 pupils in 84 cities of the United States. As a 
 result, he has been able to arrange his thousand 
 words into twenty-six columns, one for each letter 
 of the alphabet, and these groups are correlated to 
 the different grades of an American school, in such 
 a way that the percentage of correct spellings that 
 should be found in every average class can be 
 determined by inspection. We have, in fact, 
 reached something not very far from an objective 
 standard, so far as spelling is concerned. 1 
 
 In the matter of oral reading, there is not much 
 change in the newer tests. Suitable paragraphs 
 are prepared for the tests on separate sheets, and 
 
 1 Copies of this table may be had for five cents apiece 
 from the Russell Sage Foundation, Division of Education, 
 130 East 22nd Street, New York City. But the table is 
 not of nearly so much use to an English teacher as to an 
 American. The usages of the two countries are by no 
 means identical, and words that are the most frequently 
 used there are not always the most common here. 
 
106 Scales of Attainment 
 
 the time taken is recorded with a stop-watch. For 
 the actual testing, however, the teacher has to 
 depend on his own impressions. No doubt an 
 advance has been made in the way of classifying 
 errors. These are arranged under six headings : 
 complete mispronunciation, partial mispronuncia- 
 tion, omissions, substitutions, insertions, repetitions. 
 The scoring is elaborate, and on the whole the scheme 
 is an improvement. But it is in the testing of silent 
 reading that the newer methods get their chance. 
 The Monroe Standardised Silent Reading Tests take 
 the very simple plan of giving prepared pieces for 
 silent reading, each piece being accompanied by a 
 suitable question or tiny problem to test whether 
 the matter has been understood. The rate of 
 reading is also recorded, for it is found that there 
 is a high correlation between the rate and the 
 degree of comprehension. Generally speaking, the 
 quicker readers understand more completely. But 
 it is possible to test comprehension apart altogether 
 from speed of reading, and, in fact, in Dr. Thorn- 
 dike's scheme the pupils are allowed to read and 
 reread their pieces as often as they wish. 
 
 Dr. Starch, however, makes time an essential 
 element in his tests. Each pupil is allowed to read 
 for just thirty seconds, then he must turn over his 
 printed sheet and write on the back of it as much 
 as he can remember of what he has read. Then 
 what seems a curiously mechanical method is 
 followed in estimating the comprehension of the 
 meaning. The number of written words that 
 accurately reproduce the ideas of the original passage 
 is taken as the score made by the pupil. All the 
 
Scales of Attainment 107 
 
 words that misrepresent what the original passage 
 meant are struck out ; all words dealing with ideas 
 not in the original are also cut out. So are all 
 words that repeat ideas already expressed. Un- 
 satisfactory as this appears to be at first sight, it 
 seems to get fairly accurate results, and it has been 
 successfully applied on this side of the Atlantic. 
 
 The following table will not be of so much use 
 to English readers as to American. But a general 
 idea of its meaning may be had by treating the first 
 grade as representing the work of the seventh year 
 (i.e. from 6 to 7), the second the eighth, and so on. 
 
 Grade. 
 
 Speed of reading 
 
 Comprehension 
 
 
 (words 
 
 per second) . 
 
 (words written). 
 
 I. 
 
 
 i-5 
 
 15 
 
 II. 
 
 
 1-8 
 
 20 
 
 III. 
 
 
 2-1 
 
 24 
 
 IV. 
 
 
 2-4 
 
 28 
 
 V. 
 
 
 2-8 
 
 33 
 
 VI. 
 
 
 3*2 
 
 38 
 
 VII. 
 
 
 3'6 
 
 45 
 
 VIII. 
 
 
 4-0 
 
 5o * 
 
 It may be added for purposes of comparison that 
 the result of testing several classes of experienced 
 secondary schoolmistresses in England gave an 
 average rate per second of 6*3. 
 
 Dr. Starch has been challenged for mixing up 
 English composition with his search for an index 
 of comprehension, but replies that if written work 
 is a handicap, it applies to all the persons tested, 
 and he is very sceptical about the existence of pupils 
 who are at a distinct disadvantage in writing as 
 
 1 The Scientific Measurement of Class-room Products, 
 Chapman and Rush, p. 93. 
 
108 Scales of Attainment 
 
 compared with speaking. About this there may be 
 difference of opinion, but it at least adds zest to 
 our quest for a scale in English composition. It is 
 at this stage that we appear to get out of our 
 depth, which is a pity, for we have now reached 
 just that point at which vague personal impressions 
 have been in the past the guiding principle. Mark- 
 ing compositions, and particularly essays, has 
 always been admitted to be a matter in which the 
 personal equation counts most heavily in school- 
 work. It is because of this that many teachers 
 object to give numerical marks for composition 
 and confine themselves to a letter or a phrase. 
 An alpha, a beta, or a gamma is as far as such teachers 
 care to go. But our new scale-makers are not 
 daunted even by the perils of composition, and 
 set methodically about their work. The earliest 
 attempts of Rice, Bliss, and Courtis are summarily 
 dismissed as being so lacking in precision as not to 
 deserve further consideration, at which we cannot 
 pretend to be surprised, since these primitive 
 creatures knew no better than to use such terms as 
 excellent, good, poor, and other familiar ways of 
 expressing their general impression. 
 
 In The Teachers College Record for September 
 1912, Dr. Milo B. Hillegas produced A Scale for the 
 Measurement of Quality in English Composition by 
 Young People, which consists of ten specimen copies 
 of composition arranged in order of merit. When 
 the question is raised about the basis on which 
 merit is to be estimated, Dr. Hillegas appears to 
 get out of the corner with some address. The term 
 merit he assures us " means just that quality which 
 
Scales of Attainment 109 
 
 competent persons commonly consider as merit, 
 and the scale measures just this quality." As the 
 enquirer naturally considers himself a competent 
 person, he has the answer within himself, and Dr. 
 Hillegas departs in peace, leaving, however, a sorely 
 perplexed enquirer behind him. When he examines 
 the specimens, the teacher does not know what 
 exactly to do with them. The sample marked zero 
 is mere incoherent nonsense, but the rest do seem 
 to justify the order in which they have been placed. 
 Yet the teacher who comes to this scale with a 
 fresh composition in his hand, has his work cut out 
 to fit it into the proper group. There are so many 
 different things to consider. What is called the 
 Nassau County Supplement to the Hillegas Scale 
 does seem to have proved of assistance to the teachers 
 who used it, but, in all probability, the real benefit 
 they received was in the added interest of a new 
 method, and the attention they thus gave to the 
 elements that make up the merit of a composition. 
 
 One objection to this scale is that it gives at each 
 stage only one kind of composition, so the Public 
 Schools of Newton, Massachusetts, developed the 
 scale so that it had four distinct groups of specimens, 
 one group narrative, another descriptive, a third 
 expository, and the fourth argumentative. This 
 helped matters to some extent, but the greatest 
 improvement consists in the classification of the 
 errors to be noted and the amount of deduction to 
 be made in respect of each. On what is called the 
 Willing Composition Scale, compositions are graded 
 from two standpoints, the subject-matter and the 
 form. The material used in this scale is purely 
 
no Scales of Attainment 
 
 narrative, but the principle can be applied to all 
 forms. We have, therefore, in the first instance 
 the story- value, or the descriptive value, or the 
 expository value, or the argumentative value : then 
 in the second place the value as form. With a 
 careful analysis of the most common errors under 
 such heads as Use of Capitals, Punctuation, Syntax, 
 all the commoner errors can be compared and 
 estimated and receive a standard negative value, 
 so that the teacher may feel more confidence than 
 before that his grading will remain steady, and will 
 stand comparison with the grading of his fellows. 
 
 When we pass to drawing, we get rather a shock 
 at being presented, by Professor Thorndike, with a 
 sheet of fourteen sketches, each with its mark- value 
 plainly indicated with the usual decimal accompani- 
 ments. They range from what might pass for a 
 cell under the microscope, but is marked as quite 
 worthless, up to a very effective head in shade. 
 As the specimens have been arranged according to 
 the judgment of " about 400 artists, teachers of 
 drawing, and men expert in education in general," 
 we must accept them as they stand. It appears, 
 however, that Dr. Thorndike, with his usual clear 
 judgment, is quite aware of the limits within which 
 his artistic colleagues can be depended upon. He 
 says : "If the same judge should so rate a thousand 
 drawings, and then, putting these ratings aside, 
 rate the thousand over again, he would vary often 
 by more than half a ' merit ' from his previous 
 judgments." What, however, gives value to the 
 scale, and will please practical teachers, is the fact 
 that it stood an actual test. 
 
Scales of Attainment in 
 
 " Ten teachers measured the merit of a drawing by the 
 use of the scale, and varied only 4 points all told. Ten 
 other teachers measured the merits of the same drawing 
 without the scale. They were instructed to grade the 
 drawings from o to 17. They showed a variation of 14 
 points, or nearly four times as much variation without the 
 scale as with it." x 
 
 This system of testing has spread to practically 
 all the subjects of the school curriculum, though it 
 can hardly be said that actual scales are in existence. 
 Yet we find A Scale for Measuring Ability of Children 
 in Geography in Grades 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, called the 
 Hahn Lackey Scale. It consists mainly of questions 
 and problems, and as these bear largely on the 
 informational side of the subject, they are not so 
 valuable as they would be if they contrived to get 
 closer to what specialists are fond of calling the 
 geographical sense. 
 
 The correlation of the scales with the age of the 
 pupils, naturally leads to the establishment of 
 certain age standards corresponding to what we 
 found in the intelligence tests. Indeed, the new 
 American scales appear to have crystallised out an 
 idea that was implicit in the attitude our own 
 school inspectors felt bound to take up with regard 
 to the more or less standardised tests that they 
 carried about with them throughout the country. 
 They were hovering on the brink of discovering or 
 inventing — which you will— the " norm " that is 
 now cutting such a pretty figure in American and 
 even British educational discussions. 1 This term 
 
 1 Wilson and Hoke, How to Measure, p. 184. 
 
 2 In point of fact, several of my inspector friends during 
 the 'eighties relieved the monotony of their journeys 
 
ii2 Scales of Attainment 
 
 indicates what wide investigation proves to be, in 
 a given subject, the attainment characteristic of a 
 given age. One of the best examples is to be found 
 in the Ayres Spelling Table, where we have the 
 words so arranged that the percentage of errors in 
 each of the groups is so worked out as to give the 
 norm for each grade or age that is tested by the 
 group. So with the Courtis scales of arithmetic 
 and the various writing scales : growing experience 
 is making it increasingly possible to establish norms 
 that may be used with confidence. In fact, we are 
 gradually approaching a position in which a teacher 
 in an isolated school may be able to test his pupils 
 in such a way as to put them into the same balances 
 as their more fortunate coevals in populous centres. 
 We are only approaching : we are far from having 
 attained. So we need not yet hoist danger-signals 
 to warn against the temptations of adopting a too 
 mechanical or mathematical view* of the standing 
 of our pupils. In the meantime, our approach to 
 accuracy in measuring the products of our school- 
 work is something to rejoice over. The difficulties 
 yet to be faced will, no doubt, be sufficient to brace 
 us against the snares of an insidious simplicity that 
 might blind us to the dangers of neglecting whole- 
 some human idiosyncrasies. We must never lose 
 the individual in the type ; but the type has a 
 high value as an aid to the understanding of the 
 individual. 
 
 by calculations, that resulted in what were practically 
 norms in arithmetic for their districts. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CLASS 
 
 THERE are three terms that are always getting 
 in each other's way in the study of educational 
 questions : individuality, personality, and character. 
 The last may be conveniently marked off from the 
 other two, because it generally carries with it the 
 idea of moral evaluation. When we refer to a man's 
 character, we almost invariably have in the back- 
 ground some sort of estimate of his moral standing. 
 Individuality has a corresponding limitation on the 
 biological side. No doubt the schoolmen spent some 
 centuries in failing to discover the exact nature of 
 individuation, but the biologist has no difficulty, in 
 most cases, in saying precisely what an individual 
 is. For him it is a separate organism existing 
 independently as a self-sufficient unity. To be sure, 
 there are certain borderland cases, notably among 
 the polyzoa, but in the higher ranges of animal life, 
 which alone interest us here, there is no room for 
 doubt. When applied to human beings, however, 
 the term individuality carries with it something 
 more than the biological meaning. It is quite 
 common to make an appeal to teachers to respect 
 the individuality of their pupils ; but in this sense 
 the word personality would do as* well, and in fact 
 8 »3 
 
H4 The Psychology of the Class 
 
 is, on the whole, more frequently used. What we 
 must respect in our pupils is not the mere separate 
 existence of the young human animal, but those 
 qualities in him that make him what he is. One is 
 tempted, indeed, to regard personality as the pic- 
 turesque aspect of individuality. Teachers have to 
 admit that the most commonplace member of their 
 classes has individuality, since he is obviously a 
 self-contained unity existing by and for himself. 
 But they do not feel at all tempted to speak of his 
 individuality in this sense : it is taken for granted 
 in the same way as the individuality of the desk at 
 which he sits. No doubt we have to take account 
 of the individual qualities of our pupil, however 
 commonplace these may be. He enjoys his banal 
 self-containedness quite as much as his brilliant 
 fellow enjoys his striking personality ; but the two 
 belong to different categories all the same. 
 
 Of practical importance to the teacher is the fact, 
 which careful observation of the use of the term 
 will establish, that the term personality nearly 
 H always implies a reference to the way in which the 
 individual concerned reacts upon other individuals. 
 A man of strong personality is one who has a 
 marked influence upon his fellows. Indeed, the 
 amount of personality attributed to any individual 
 may be not unfairly estimated by the degree of 
 influence he can exert upon others. If a quantita- 
 tive scale of personality is desired, this test might 
 well be adopted to establish a standard. 
 
 The derivation of the term personality perhaps 
 gives a little help in getting at the root meaning. 
 In the old Greek and Roman theatres it was much 
 
The Psychology of the Class 115 
 
 more easy to duplicate parts than on the modern 
 stage, where so many characters are included in 
 the cast. Since it was the custom to have not 
 more than three chief actors on the stage at one 
 time, it was comparatively easy for one actor to 
 play more than one part. In order, however, to 
 prevent confusion in the minds of the spectators, 
 it was necessary that at each entrance the actor 
 should have some distinctive mark to indicate the 
 particular role he was at the moment playing. A 
 mask was the simplest device to remove all doubt. 
 Since he was wearing a mask at any rate, it was 
 found desirable to turn it to a second use in order 
 to supply another imperative need. With the huge 
 audiences that filled the ancient open-air theatres, 
 it was exceedingly difficult for even a strong human 
 voice to reach all parts of the amphitheatre. Accord- 
 ingly, the mouth of the mask was so contrived as 
 to act as a megaphone. Which was the primary 
 and more important function of the mask, let the 
 critics decide. The picturesque derivation of the 
 Latin word for a mask, persona, is said to be per 
 and sonare. This would seem to show that the 
 megaphone aspect was the more important, but for 
 the purposes of psychology the essential point is 
 the character that the actor was personating at the 
 time. Obviously, one of the most direct ways of 
 estimating the importance of a particular dramatis 
 persona was the way in which he impressed the 
 audience, thus bringing out the fundamental con- 
 nection between personality and social intercourse. 
 Another illustration of this connection is to be 
 found in the grammatical use of the term person. 
 
n6 The Psychology of the Class 
 
 The first, second, and third persons, representing 
 respectively the speaker, the hearer, and the subject 
 of discourse, give a clear indication that personality 
 is closely related to social intercourse. The / 
 demands at least a thou, even if we could altogether 
 dispense with he, she, it, they, and them. The 
 interaction that goes on among the personal pronouns 
 is symbolical of the interaction that goes on among 
 persons in their social relations. The ego cannot 
 exist by and for itself alone. In order to realise 
 itself, there must be some other person or persons 
 upon whom it may react. An ego implies an alter. 
 No doubt we can think about and analyse the ego 
 by itself. We can isolate it and reason about it. 
 But it cannot become a living, organic entity unless 
 it has other egos upon whom to act. This is a 
 rather vague and abstract way of saying that the 
 individual can realise himself only in a society. 
 We must pass from the purely individual psychology 
 of the old writers of the school of Locke, Reid, 
 Stewart, and Hamilton, to the collective psychology 
 of Bagehot, Tarde, Le Bon, Macdougall, and Trotter. 
 Our first business is to realise that the individual 
 ego changes according to the alter upon whom it 
 reacts. In the course of a day, the ego has, indeed, 
 many parts to play. The boy of fourteen is quite 
 a different person according as he is dealing with 
 his brother of eighteen, his sister of ten, his brother 
 of twelve, his father, his mother, his schoolmaster. 
 It is not that he is playing a part in the bad sense 
 of that term. He may be able to pass with credit 
 the Polonian test of being to his own self true ; and 
 yet he plays Proteus all the while. Without losing 
 
The Psychology of the Class 117 
 
 his own essential qualities, he is continually changing 
 to meet the needs of the social environment : he 
 is but a unit in the problem of social psychology. 
 Yet he is not an absolutely independent unit. His 
 position may be compared with that of the atom 
 in chemistry, as that science was understood in the 
 pre-radium day We used to be told that the 
 atom was the ultimate and irreducible unit of the 
 chemical elements, but that it could not exist 
 entirely alone. Combinations of atoms of different 
 elements made up what we were taught to call 
 molecules, and it gave the schoolboy solid satis- 
 faction to learn that a molecule of water was made 
 up of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of 
 oxygen, and that the atoms were quite satisfied 
 with this arrangement. He could not, however, 
 make up his mind to approve of the suggestion that 
 an atom of free hydrogen could not lead a satis- 
 factory life by itself, but must join with some 
 other atom, even if that other atom were also 
 hydrogen. The teacher had to drill into the 
 schoolboy mind that the essential point was that 
 atoms could not exist in isolation : they had to 
 seek other atoms in order to form molecules : mole- 
 cules were the only stable forms in which atoms 
 could be at peace. The student of psychology has 
 apparently to learn the same lesson. The egos 
 cannot exist by themselves ; they must form 
 groups corresponding to molecules. 
 
 We have no recognised word in psychology to 
 correspond to molecule in chemistry. Professor 
 J. M. Baldwin has appropriated the Latin word 
 socius, and has given it a very special signification 
 
n8 The Psychology of the Class 
 
 to suit his private ends. But there is nothing to 
 hinder us taking the term and making it mean 
 what we find more useful for our purpose. With 
 apologies to Professor Baldwin, we shall regard the 
 socius as the social molecule, made up in the first 
 instance by a combination of the ego and the alter. 
 It is true that the ego is continually changing its 
 alter, so that the social molecule is in a continual 
 state of flux. In the world of selves, each ego is 
 continually changing its mate, but always remains 
 part of a socius. This state of continuous change 
 in no way disturbs the chemical metaphor. The 
 state of affairs described is, after all, only a 
 very tame, slow, and sober parallel to the dance 
 of atoms to which imaginative chemists have 
 accustomed us. 
 
 Coming now to practical examples of this social 
 chemistry, we have to consider in unfigurative 
 language the interactions of individuals upon one 
 another in a social environment. It is a matter of 
 common experience that in ordinary life people 
 behave differently according as they have one or 
 many people to deal with at a time. It is perhaps 
 not a scientific, but it certainly is a useful, classifi- 
 cation of human beings into those who are at their 
 best d deux, and those who do not shine unless they 
 have a chance of disporting themselves at least 
 d trois. The presence of a third party often appears 
 to change entirely the social reactions of an indi- 
 vidual. A child who is quiet and well behaved 
 when in the company of a sympathetic but undemon- 
 strative uncle, often becomes rude and troublesome 
 the moment a third person appears, before whom he 
 
The Psychology of the Class 119 
 
 may assert himself. Playing to the gallery begins 
 very early in human development, certainly before 
 the actor leaves his nurse's arms. 
 
 The socius may be accepted as the social unit, but 
 complexes are soon formed, and the question rises 
 whether a new principle is involved in the wider 
 grouping of the molecules. It is generally recognised 
 that human beings in groups behave differently from 
 what they would do as individuals. Collective 
 psychology maintains that there is a collective spirit, 
 whatever may be the final decision about the separate 
 semi-independent existence of a " group mind." 
 This attitude is to be expected as the natural conse- 
 quence of what has been just said about the social 
 molecules. But a question now arises, How many 
 social units are required to produce this collective 
 feeling ? A mathematician is apt to answer bluntly, 
 Anything more than one, and there is some justifica- 
 tion for the uncompromising statement. But a 
 little investigation at the lower levels will indicate 
 that the solution of the problem is not so simple 
 as all that. Those who have made a study of the 
 principles of organising walking tours have seriously 
 debated the advantages of two, three, and four. 
 Two has many obvious advantages if proper provi- 
 sion is made for a period of separation every day 
 of the tour. Three is defended on the ground that 
 this number provides for the temporary splitting 
 up into the 2 -f- 1 combination, by which A can 
 rest himself for a while from B by joining himself 
 to C, and the others in the same way. The trouble 
 here is the danger of the 2 -f 1 combination be- 
 coming too pronounced, leading to a permanent 
 
120 The Psychology of the Class 
 
 exclusion of one of the three from any real organic 
 connection with the other two. Four is found to be 
 a dangerous number from the strong tendency to 
 break up into two pairs. The problem of the proper 
 number of guests at a dinner-table goes on similar 
 lines. Many hostesses have a strong preference for 
 six, others prefer eight. Something depends upon 
 the shape of the table, but more upon the nature 
 of the conversation desired. The table may be 
 taken as the unit, and in that case the guests will 
 be expected to keep to the same subject of conversa- 
 tion, and to avoid splitting up into conversational 
 groups. A famous dining club in London made it 
 a strict rule that the conversation should thus remain 
 a unit. The implication of this rule is that the diners 
 were to be regarded as making up a collective 
 psychological unit. 
 
 For it must be noted that a mere gathering of 
 individuals does not necessarily form a psychological 
 unit. At Charing Cross Station on a Bank Holiday 
 there are gathered together some thousands of 
 people ; but they have all their own individual 
 interests. Each is seeking out his own particular 
 ticket office, his own particular platform, his own 
 particular train, and his own particular corner seat, 
 and pays no attention to other people, beyond getting 
 out of their way. This is a mere assemblage of 
 individuals. If, however, something out of the 
 common should occur, something of general interest, 
 such as the falling of a girder from the roof, the mass 
 of people becomes inspired with a common interest, 
 perhaps with a common purpose, and we have a 
 psychological unit. Something new has come into 
 
The Psychology of the Class 121 
 
 the situation. The number of people has not altered, 
 nor has the inherent nature of , the individuals 
 intrinsically changed, but the crowd, as a whole, 
 will now behave in quite a different way from 
 what it did before. 
 
 We are not to make the mistake that we can get 
 at the nature of the change by a process of arith- 
 metic. It is not a matter of getting the average of 
 the individuals involved. The crowd spirit is 
 something quite new, and cannot be reached by 
 any process of calculation. To illustrate, we may 
 fall back upon a familiar distinction that most 
 teachers have occasion at some time or other to 
 instil into the minds of their pupils : that between 
 a mechanical mixture and a chemical compound. 
 We tell them that if we take a pile of salt, a pile of 
 sugar, a pile of pepper, and a pile of sand, and mix 
 them all together as thoroughly as we can, we have 
 a mechanical mixture of a dirty brown colour. 
 But none of the constituents is necessarily changed, 
 and if we had plenty of patience and time — or, failing 
 these, the loan of a fairy godmother — we might 
 separate out the materials into the four original 
 heaps of salt, sugar, pepper, and sand — and nobody 
 would be a bit the wiser. On the other hand, if we 
 take a colourless gas and a silvery metallic fluid and 
 put them into chemical combination, we do not get a 
 silvery gas or a colourless fluid, but a bright scarlet 
 powder, that bears no resemblance whatever to the 
 materials out of which it is compounded. So with" 
 the psychological crowd : it acts in a way that 
 appears to have no causal relation to the elements 
 pf which it is made up. People in the mass, when 
 
122 The Psychology of the Class 
 
 they have been worked up into a collective psycho- 
 logical unit, act in a way that would greatly surprise 
 the individual members of the crowd in their normal 
 condition. On a Mafeking night steady, responsible 
 and normally respectable dull men will jump upon 
 desks and throw their silk hats into the air without 
 caring whether they recover them or not, in a way 
 that would never occur to them to do if they were 
 alone. 
 
 Though collective psychology is now being studied 
 intensively, it must not be supposed that this crowd 
 or herd instinct is any new discovery. No doubt 
 the oldest primitive hunters were familiar with the 
 peculiar activities of herds of wild cattle under 
 certain stimuli. The study of the conduct of crowds 
 was surely not neglected by the Egyptian priests 
 and the wise men of other nations who depended for 
 their power on the knowledge of human activities 
 and weaknesses. Even in the educational world 
 the crowd spirit is not a discovery of yesterday. 
 David Stow, in his training system, made great use 
 of what was then called the Sympathy of Numbers. 
 The teachers of eighty years ago were familiar with 
 the phenomena of collective action, though they 
 were far from being able to supply any explanation 
 of how they were caused. It is something to have 
 a grip of the facts of the case, even if we have 
 to leave, as David Stow had to do, the explanation 
 to our successors. 
 
 In point of fact, we have not made any very great 
 progress in this matter, even at the present day ; 
 but we at least realise that there is a problem, and 
 that methods must be sought to deal with it. Though 
 
The Psychology of the Class 123 
 
 the credit for working up the psychology of collective 
 action is generally given to continental investigators, 
 it is pleasant to note that the seminal ideas came 
 from an Englishman. The monumental work of 
 Gabriel Tarde, Les Lois de V Imitation, was preceded 
 by Walter Bagehot's Physics and Politics, in which 
 he attempts to apply to social reactions the same 
 principles as are usually applied to physics. Natur- 
 ally, he was not very successful on the purely mathe- 
 matical side, but he did admirably suggestive work 
 that opened out new lines of investigation that 
 have led to very important developments. His 
 position was a little like that of Herbart in pure 
 psychology. This German psychologist maintained 
 that the mental processes are carried on in such a 
 regular and systematic way that the interaction 
 of ideas, under proper conditions of investigation, 
 should be as easily worked out as a rule-of-three 
 problem. We have not yet reached the stage 
 threatened by Titchener, when in the future a book 
 of psychology will be as full of formulae as a book of 
 physics is at present. All the same, we have reached 
 a few general principles that may be usefully applied 
 to the advancement of our knowledge of crowd 
 action. 
 
 As suggested by the title of Monsieur G. Tarde's 
 book, the force known as imitation counts for a 
 great deal in all collective reactions among animals 
 and human beings. Imitation naturally works 
 in two ways — wittingly and unwittingly. The way 
 in which we learn to speak is largely imitative. 
 The child does not at first wittingly imitate, and 
 even when witting imitation comes, the child does 
 
124 The Psychology of the Class 
 
 not know how he imitates. If a man imitates a 
 peculiar sound that he hears, he does not in the least 
 know how he produces the effect. If the matter is 
 so obscure even at the witting or deliberate stage, 
 how mysterious must it be at the unwitting or 
 merely organic stage ! 
 
 Further, we are not to limit imitation to the phy- 
 sical stage. We imitate states of mind as well as 
 movements of the body. What is vaguely called 
 sympathy is really the mental or spiritual side of 
 imitation. The derivation of the word itself suggests 
 this. A feeling along with, a putting of ourselves 
 in the place of another, is clearly a case of imitation, 
 usually in the unwitting form. We do not ordin- 
 arily say to ourselves : Go to, let us put ourselves 
 in the same attitude of spirit as this person. We 
 should be % misled by the restricted meaning of the 
 word in our English language. It must not be 
 confined to fellow-feeling in suffering. It is equally 
 applicable to joy. The German language has here 
 an advantage over ours. It has three words where 
 we are content with one. Mitgefuhl is the general 
 term meaning feeling along with another ; Mitleid 
 means the sharing of grief ; while Mitfreude provides 
 for the case of sharing joy. There is no doubt that 
 sympathy, in its various forms, is contagious or 
 infectious — it is a little difficult to. determine which 
 is the proper term here. There are, no doubt, people 
 who are relatively unsympathetic, just as there are 
 people who are immune to certain physical affections. 
 But the great mass of humanity is as open to sugges- 
 tion in relation to sympathy as they are in relation 
 to the more physical aspects of imitation. Indeed, 
 
The Psychology of the Class 125 
 
 it is doubtful whether we are able to separate quite 
 clearly the physical from the spiritual in these 
 matters. All that lies behind the Lange- James- 
 Sutherland theory may be called in evidence in 
 support of the probability that the demonstrably 
 infectious physical imitation is essentially the same 
 as the more spiritual sympathy. 
 
 In any case, mob action, with its imitative and 
 sympathetic bases, exemplifies a falling back upon 
 the primitive elements in man. An excited crowd 
 is really a collective embodiment of our primitive 
 ancestors. All the refinements of modern civilisa- 
 tion seem to fall away from the individuals who form 
 what is usually called a mob, and the same is true, 
 in varying degrees, of whatever collective units 
 we study. The titans within us seem to make 
 common cause and to dominate the situation. The 
 mystery of the unconscious in the individual becomes 
 intensified in the case of the collective unit. For 
 in the individual case there is a unifying force in the 
 consciousness, though that force is in abeyance 
 when the unconscious takes things into its own hands. 
 But in the collective unit there has never been a 
 unifying force, or, at any rate, the existence of such 
 a unifying force has not been demonstrated. As the 
 individual has developed out of the stage at which 
 everything was carried on in the realm of the un- 
 conscious, so the collective unit may be still in the 
 purely unconscious stage, waiting for the evolution 
 of a collective consciousness that may appear at a 
 later stage of social development. 
 
 In the meantime we must depend upon a more or 
 less superficial examination of external symptoms 
 
126 The Psychology of the Class 
 
 in our analysis of the interaction among individuals 
 that gives rise to collective activity. If it be true 
 that the mark of crowd activity is a reversion towards 
 the primitive, it would seem that it should be much 
 more difficult to rouse the crowd spirit in a group of 
 highly cultured people than in one made up of less 
 sophisticated folk ; and this appears to be true so 
 far as the beginnings of collective action are con- 
 cerned, though when once the crowd spirit has been 
 aroused it may go to any length even among the 
 most cultured people. There seems to be enough 
 truth in Kipling's " The colonel's lady and Judith 
 O' Grady are sisters under the skin," to justify this 
 view of crowd action, as, at any rate, a working 
 hypothesis. 
 
 What, then, is the process by which the crowd 
 works itself up to the proper pitch to throw off 
 restraints and revert to the primitive ? Two forces 
 appear to be at work — fusion and arrest. All the 
 common elements in the individuals that make up a 
 crowd tend to fuse together and thus to acquire 
 strength. On the other hand, qualities that are 
 peculiar to individuals, or are shared by com- 
 paratively small groups of individuals, are not only 
 swamped by the big imperious combination of 
 common elements, but actually tend to counteract 
 each other's activities and thus to produce arrest. 
 The common qualities not only excel in native 
 power, but they are enormously greater in number. 
 If a plain man of some intelligence cares to take two 
 sheets of paper and to write out on one of them the 
 qualities in which he resembles William Shakespeare, 
 and on another the qualities in which he differs from 
 
The Psychology of the Class 127 
 
 him, the result will be an enormous preponderance 
 of points of resemblance. The number of qualities 
 in which the plain man resembles Shakespeare is 
 almost infinitely greater than the number of qualities 
 in which he differs. It is true that the differentiating 
 points are rather important ; but, after all, quanti- 
 tatively there you are. Accordingly, in a crowd 
 the number of differences is but small compared 
 with the compact mass of agreements. 
 
 It may be said that all this applies only to the 
 grosser elements, and that when it comes to be a 
 matter of intelligence the laws of fusion and arrest 
 do not apply. To illustrate this point, the jury has 
 been taken as a typical case. In his Psychologie des 
 Foules M. Gustave le Bon tells us that in France at 
 various periods, notably before 1848, the administra- 
 tion made a point of selecting for jury service 
 members of the educated classes — schoolmasters, 
 civil servants, men of letters — but to-day they are 
 content with small shopkeepers, the heads of small 
 businesses, general employees, since " statistics 
 prove that the decisions of the two groups have 
 been identical/' One of the most distinguished 
 advocates at the Paris cour d' assises, M. Lachaud, 
 began by rejecting, when he had a weak case, from 
 the proposed jurymen all " the intelligent indi- 
 viduals," but experience afterwards taught him the 
 utter futility of this process of rejection, since the 
 verdicts remained the same, whether he made his 
 rejections or just took the jurymen as they came. 
 
 But this illustration is not quite to the point, 
 for a jury's duty does not depend upon the exercise 
 of a specially fine intellect, but rather upon the 
 
128 The Psychology of the Class 
 
 normal use of the universal of thought. Locke 
 believed that no two honest men could come to 
 different conclusions if the same matter were put 
 before them. Those whose experience shows them 
 the daily spectacle of political and other opponents 
 taking diametrically different decisions from the 
 same presented material, may smile at this as a 
 temporary falling from grace of an otherwise 
 eminently sensible Englishman. But Locke lays 
 down certain conditions without which his generalisa- 
 tion will not hold. These are : (i) All the conditions 
 of the case must be known to both. This naturally 
 does not demand that each of the men must know 
 all the facts with their implications. This would 
 involve a knowledge of the whole universe. It is 
 enough if both of the men know exactly the same 
 things, (ii) They must be free from prejudice, 
 (iii) They must give their mind to the subject. 
 Most fair-minded men will agree that Locke is right 
 in his contention, but will add that his three condi- 
 tions can never be perfectly fulfilled. Yet in a well- 
 conducted law court we approximate to Locke's 
 conditions. It is the business of the judge to see 
 that all the terms are properly understood. The 
 prosecutor and the advocate for the defence have 
 the duty of presenting all the facts. The jury have 
 been specifically selected from those who have no 
 personal bias in the case. The judge does his best 
 to keep them up to a fair standard of concentration 
 on the subject in hand. But, after all, the decision 
 the jury are called upon to make is merely what is 
 technically known in logic as a judgment — that is, 
 the decision whether one term agrees or does not 
 
The Psychology of the Class 129 
 
 agree with another. In the logical process of judg- 
 ment, the most brilliant intellect and the best stored 
 mind has no advantage over the mind of any plain 
 man who can claim the modest honour of being 
 compos mentis. It is when the process of giving a 
 verdict has been reduced to this lowest common 
 denominator of thought that collective psychology 
 ceases to operate. No doubt in real life verdicts 
 are not always obtained on this highly technical 
 plane. Human nature asserts itself in the jury-box 
 as elsewhere. But it is useful for teachers to con- 
 sider this extreme case and learn from it. 
 
 What we are accustomed to call a class is obviously 
 a collective unit, a so rt of c rowd. Among the 
 various kinds of crowds included in the psycholo- 
 gists' classification, the class ranks among the 
 homogeneous but not anonymous variety. It is, 
 indeed, one of the best examples of homogeneity. 
 The pupils are of approximately the same age, 
 belong to the same grade of society, have the same 
 traditions, the same religion, the same attitude 
 towards sport, and in particular have pretty much 
 the same mental content so far as the class work is 
 concerned, for their place in that particular class 
 has been selected for them because of their attain- 
 ments in the subject being taught. As to the non- 
 anonymity, this distinction is introduced to mark 
 off the class from a crowd where the individuals are 
 not in any way identified. So long as a class is 
 being taught as a class, there is no need to refer to 
 the individuality of any special member. But the 
 very fact that every pupil knows that he is personally 
 known to the master and to his fellows, makes the 
 9 
 
130 The Psychology of the Class 
 
 grouping different from that assembled to enjoy, 
 say, a kinematograph entertainment. Such an 
 audience is sometimes fairly homogeneous, but its 
 general mode of action is quite different from that 
 of a non-anonymous class. 
 
 We have been taking it for granted that the class 
 is a psychological unit, but it does not follow that 
 it is a psychological unit all the time. So long as 
 the class is working as a whole, as, for example, in 
 listening to an exposition by the teacher, or following 
 a demonstration on the blackboard, it forms a 
 psychological unit, even though some of the pupils 
 may not be really attending. But when the teacher 
 sets the pupils to work out a series of exercises, or 
 to prepare some memory work, the class ceases to 
 be a psychological unit, and becomes a mere group 
 of persons each attending to his own business. This 
 integration and disintegration is going on all day 
 long, the teacher being usually quite aware of the 
 alternation. But sometimes disintegration occurs 
 without the teacher willing it : sometimes, indeed, 
 without his being conscious of it. In its more 
 virulent forms, this cannot take place, except in the 
 case of a thoroughly bad disciplinarian. But a 
 modified form of disintegration may take place 
 against the teacher's will, and without his being 
 fully aware of the change. Most teachers are very 
 sensitive to such a change. Lecturers and preachers 
 of good quality know at once when they have " lost 
 grip of their audience," and most of them have 
 acquired, from experience, skill in recapturing the 
 lost collective spirit. Often the disintegration arises 
 from wandering attention on the part of the teacher 
 
The Psychology of the Class 131 
 
 himself, and the class can be pulled together by a 
 resumption of the more vigorous style that marks 
 the earnest teacher. Occasionally, the falling off 
 results from physical conditions which the teacher 
 has sometimes the power of modifying, and some- 
 times not. Quite commonly, the cause is boredom 
 as opposed to fatigue. This, again, is not difficult 
 to deal with by a, capable teacher — the introduction 
 of an interesting illustration, or a temporary change 
 of subject, is usually sufficient to meet the case. 
 The essential point for the teacher is to realise that 
 an alternation between integration and disintegra- 
 tion is essential to the wholesome working of the 
 class as a psychological unit. 
 
 A disturbing influence in the manipulation of a 
 class as a psychological unit is found in the class- 
 leader. Writers on the subject illustrate this 
 influence by referring to the leaders of the herd 
 among animals. The existence of such leaders 
 cannot be denied. Even the plain man cannot 
 observe a flock of sheep or a herd of cattle without 
 seeing the herd-leader at his work. Physical 
 strength, a fine figure, and the resulting power of 
 taking suitable action may explain the status of a 
 herd- leader, but in a class there is something more 
 subtle. Without doubt, physical strength and 
 beauty have their value in establishing leadership 
 in a class. But there are other and less patent 
 qualities. No real explanation is supplied by 
 speaking of prestige, which, after all, is merely a 
 word to indicate that the person in question has 
 established himself in a position of prominence. 
 Note that prominence is exactly the word wanted 
 
132 The Psychology of the Class 
 
 here. It does not involve anything particularly 
 noble, but merely something that distinguishes an 
 individual from the rest of the herd. Unlike most 
 other words, this term prestige appears to have taken 
 a turn upwards instead of downwards. It originally 
 was related to conjuring and other striking ways of 
 producing an effect upon onlookers, but in the way 
 words have, this particular mode of attracting 
 attention became associated with other and, in this 
 case, more dignified ways, with the result that 
 prestige has now acquired a more respectable 
 connotation, though in some directions it is still 
 used with a shade of doubtful estimation. 
 
 In any case, the leaders of a class must possess 
 prestige in some form or other. Personal qualities 
 are of the first importance, particularly in social 
 connections. But there are some types of per- 
 sonality that prefer to act from the background 
 and through other persons. Men fall, in fact, into 
 two classes with regard to the possession and the 
 exercise of power. Much the bigger class is made 
 up of those who desire to have both power and 
 the appearance of power, but among these are 
 included those who are content if they have the 
 appearance of power to a sufficient degree to impress 
 people in general. ^The essential characteristic of 
 the group is the desire to have the appearance of 
 power, whatever may happen to the reality. The 
 smaller group is made up of those who are content 
 to have the real power, and do not trouble them- 
 selves about who has the appearance of exercising 
 it. People like Francis Place, working for the 
 Reform Bill in his tailor's shop at Charing Cross, 
 
The Psychology of the Class 133 
 
 belong to this group, and in many school classes 
 there will be found to be two leaders, one the 
 ostensible leader, belonging to the first group, the 
 other the real leader, belonging to the second. 
 Very often the first leader is of motor temperament, 
 an extrovert, while the second is a sensory, an 
 introvert. 
 
 It is, of course, obvious that the teacher who 
 wishes to control hfa | c lass in the most efficient 
 way must take account of class-leaders, and use 
 them wisely for the good of the class as a whole. 
 His own position is naturally a little ambiguous. 
 In a certain sense, he is the ultimate leader of the 
 class himself. But there is a difference between 
 his leadership and that exercised by members of 
 the class. A class-leader proper is not only in the 
 class, but of the class. He must form a part of it, 
 must enter into its collective feeling, and respond 
 himself to the stimuli that move his fellows. No 
 doubt in actual experience it is sometimes found 
 that class-leaders separate themselves from this 
 oneship with their fellows, and become more or less 
 external class-leaders. In such cases, they are 
 really usurping the teacher's place. A mob leader 
 who stands sufficiently outside of the mob to use 
 that mob for his own ends, is no longer the natural 
 leader of that mob, but an outside personality who 
 makes use of the mob as an instrument. The dis- 
 tinction is quite a clear one and has practical 
 importance. But it must not be supposed that 
 there is anything radically wrong with a member 
 of a class taking up the position of an external force. 
 The only important point is that we must realise 
 
134 The Psychology of the Class 
 
 the nature of this attitude so as to meet the new 
 situation that it creates. A member of the class 
 who separates himself from his fellows must be 
 dealt with by the teacher on the plane of external 
 equality, though absolute equality may be reason- 
 ably denied. For example, the official position 
 given to prefects marks them off from what may be 
 called the natural leaders of the class. They have 
 a recognised constitutional authority which naturally 
 increases the prestige they originally enjoyed in 
 some measure, else they would not have been 
 chosen as prefects. 
 
 The manipulation of natural class-leaders is 
 different from that of those officially recognised. In 
 the second case, the relation is openly recognised : 
 the prefect is frankly acknowledged to be a sort of 
 representative of authority. He is on the side of 
 law and order, and is to be relied upon in a case of 
 difference of opinion between the master and the 
 class to take the side of the master in the last resort, 
 though, of course, he has a loyalty to his class- 
 mates, and will be expected to uphold their point 
 of view unless in so far as his seniors can show him 
 good reason against it. This was the kind of 
 leadership that the young Richard II offered to the 
 mob when their natural leader, Wat Tyler, was 
 struck down, but he did not realise that, in the 
 nature of things, he could not hope to represent 
 both parties in the social strife. In school there 
 is the fundamental proviso that the masters exist 
 primarily and indeed absolutely for nothing but 
 the good of the pupils. No doubt the ordinary 
 schoolboy feels pretty much towards his masters 
 
The Psychology of the Class 135 
 
 as the mob did towards the king. It is well, there- 
 fore, to encourage the custom of allowing forms to 
 elect their own prefects, even though it may be 
 necessary to reserve for the masters the right of 
 veto in case of any really dangerous election. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE KNELL OF CLASS-TEACHING 
 
 ONE of the most notable features of present-day 
 education is the reaction against class- 
 teaching. The class has, in the past, been largely 
 taken for granted, and its very existence tended to 
 guide teaching method into certain definite lines. 
 Many modern teachers are dissatisfied with the 
 limitations thus imposed on their freedom, and are 
 in revolt against the whole system. The wish being 
 father to the thought, there is a rumour that the 
 knell of class- teaching has been rung. The question, 
 Who tolled the bell ? produces various answers. 
 There is quite a demand for the honour, but, on the 
 whole, the evidence seems to point to Dr. Montes- 
 sori. Whoever is entitled to the honour must bear 
 the reproach of a somewhat unseemly haste. It 
 cannot be denied that certain preparations are 
 amaking for the obsequies ; but though the patient 
 is in a bad way, the corpse is hardly yet available 
 for sextonly treatment. Indeed, the death, if 
 inevitable, is likely to be a lingering one. We have 
 plenty of time to arrange about our mourning. 
 
 To begin with, we must clearly distinguish between 
 the class and class-teaching. We see no danger of 
 the class itself disappearing. It is a vigorous 
 
 136 
 
The Knell of Class-teaching 137 
 
 institution, enjoying robust health : it has solid 
 foundations in economic principles. The world 
 cannot afford to dispense with it. The education 
 of the individual is, no doubt, the ultimate purpose 
 of any national system, but no state can afford to 
 train its citizens on the plan of private tuition. 
 This would mean a life for a life : each generation 
 would have to sacrifice most of its activity to the 
 preparation of the next. The whole nation would 
 have to become private tutors — which is absurd. 
 In the past, princes and wealthy people could 
 afford to buy the whole time of certain capable 
 persons for the purpose of educating sons and 
 daughters. For a little while longer, this plan may 
 still be tolerated, but the great mass of society 
 cannot afford anything but collective instruction 
 and training, even if it could be demonstrated that 
 class-work is, in all ways, inferior to individual 
 teaching, which has certainly not yet been done. 
 In national education the class is an inevitable 
 institution. It has its roots deep in the past, and 
 there is no sign that economic conditions are likely 
 to warrant its disappearance in the future. But it 
 does not follow that it will, for all time, fulfil just 
 its present function. Those who are waiting in 
 vain for a funeral may perhaps console themselves 
 with a transformation. 
 
 For we may regard the class from two different 
 standpoints. It may be treated as a unit of teaching, 
 or as a unit of organisation. It is as a teaching-unit 
 that it is most usually regarded, and in this direction 
 lies its danger. It is in this aspect that it is so 
 generally challenged to-day. As an organisation- 
 
138 The Knell of Class-teaching 
 
 unit it is much more securely entrenched. Even 
 the Montessorians recognise the necessity for some 
 unit of organisation, and we may as well call that 
 unit a class as speak of it by any other name. The 
 question was once put to Dr. Montessori : How many 
 pupils can a Montessorian teach ? I cannot remem- 
 ber the exact words of the answer as given in the 
 typewritten report that it was my privilege to read, 
 but the substance is clear in my mind. To begin 
 with, there was the inevitable correction of the 
 terms in which the question was put. The Mon- 
 tessorians do not teach, they merely guide. We 
 must not speak of Montessorian teachers, but of 
 Montessorian directresses. Answering, however, 
 the spirit of the question if not quite the letter, Dr. 
 Montessori let it be understood that, with the aid 
 of a young attendant to look after the mere bodily 
 needs of the children, a Montessorian directress 
 might be reasonably held responsible for the 
 activities of forty- five children. I was surprised 
 at the time at the large number, for I had sup- 
 posed that the Montessorians would demand the 
 small classes that the kindergartners regard as 
 essential ; and I was rebuked by a distinguished 
 Montessorian for being surprised. I ought to have 
 realised, I was told, that there are no such things as 
 classes in the Montessorian system : that the founder 
 had abolished them : that the class was no more. 
 
 Naturally, I am totally unrepentant. How can 
 I be otherwise, when I find myself surrounded every 
 day with classes that have all the symptoms of 
 almost excessive vitality ? Yet my critic had right 
 on her side to*' this extent, that, so far as the Mon- 
 
The Knell of Class-teaching 139 
 
 tessorians are concerned, the class as a teaching-unit 
 is dead, and that the disease that brought about its 
 death is spreading into all manner of other classes 
 throughout our country. On the other hand, the 
 protest of the Montessorians against the class as a 
 teaching- unit is an admission of the need for it as 
 a unit of organisation. It is only when it is regarded 
 as a teaching-unit that the Montessorians become 
 definitely hostile. They hold that the individual 
 child is the unit, though it may be desirable for 
 economic, and perhaps even for other, reasons, to 
 group the children in what may be called a class. 
 The individuality of the children must be allowed 
 free play, and this cannot be done if they are taught 
 as that collective unit that is commonly indicated 
 by the term class. For, in Samuel Butler's words : 
 
 "... when they're cast into a lump, 
 Their talents equally must jump." 
 
 Now, practical experience shows teachers that it 
 is impossible to attain this equal jumping, so there 
 always has been a trend towards conditions that will 
 make it possible for the pupils to be treated as 
 individuals rather than as mere elements in a 
 collective unit. Sometimes a fairly satisfactory 
 solution of the difficulty was forced upon teachers 
 by what appeared to be adverse circumstances. 
 This occurred, for example, in some of the old 
 Scottish parish schools where there was but one 
 schoolmaster to a whole roomful of children, and 
 each came up in his turn to have his work examined 
 and a new lesson set. Regarded by many as a 
 mere makeshift to do the best under intolerably bad 
 
140 The Knell of Class-teaching 
 
 conditions, the plan was found to work exceedingly 
 well. The school was merely a unit of organisation, 
 and the teaching was individual. 
 
 But the value of individual instruction under 
 class organisation was not left to be discovered by 
 sheer force of circumstances. Practical teachers 
 and intelligent educationists reached the conclusion 
 that the individual must become the real unit of 
 teaching, though, for economic reasons, the class 
 could not be comfortably abolished. Thus, under 
 the title of The Laboratory Method, E. J. Swift, in 
 his The Mind in the Making (1908), describes a 
 scheme that brings out all the essentials of what 
 we shall consider later under the name of the Dalton 
 Plan. Further, my colleague in the University of 
 London, Professor T. P. Nunn, has made it a funda- 
 mental part of his philosophy of education that the 
 individual is the basis of everything. The theoretical 
 aspects are fully developed in his Education : its 
 Data and First Principles, and the practical applica- 
 tions were made in public lectures delivered by 
 Professor Nunn very early in the present century 
 which embody all the essentials of the present- 
 day plans. 
 
 But the most common way of trying to combine 
 the individual method with the collective has been 
 to secure very small classes, so that the teacher 
 may have time to deal with each pupil as a separate 
 person, which is only another way of saying that 
 the teachers obviously wanted to treat the class as, 
 in reality, a unit of organisation rather than of 
 teaching. 
 
 This consideration of the number of pupils that 
 
The Knell of Class-teaching 141 
 
 may be effectively dealt with in a class naturally 
 raises the fundamental question of the intrinsic 
 value of class- teaching as such. Both the Montes- 
 sorians who reject the collective unit of teaching 
 altogether, and the teachers who try to deal with 
 the class as an organisation-unit, while ostensibly 
 working with it as a teaching-unit, really beg the 
 question of the value of collective teaching. They 
 take it for granted that collective teaching is bad as 
 such. But under proper conditions collective teach- 
 ing has not only no evil effects, but certain definite 
 advantages. For some subjects a fairly large class, 
 so far from being a definite disadvantage, is a clear 
 gain. Wherever subj ects demand inspirational treat- 
 ment, there is no special benefit in limiting the 
 class to, say, twenty-five. In literature, in religious 
 knowledge, in art appreciation and music apprecia- 
 tion, in certain parts of history and geography, a 
 large class has some advantages over a small one. 
 No one will accuse Dr. F. H. Hay ward of any desire 
 to cut down the staffs of our schools, and yet we 
 find him actually advocating large classes for sub- 
 jects where emotional elements have an important 
 place. To be sure, he dislikes the word class as 
 used in this connection, and it must be admitted 
 that the term usually carries with it a connotation 
 not quite appropriate to the kind of work that he 
 has in view in his " appreciation lessons," and more 
 particularly in his " celebrations.'' He has in view 
 rather an audience than what is technically called a 
 class, but this does not alter the fact that his 
 audience is a teaching-unit in the sense in which we 
 have used that term. 
 
142 The Knell of Class-teaching 
 
 This recognition of a large unit for inspirational 
 purposes does not come as something new even in 
 ordinary elementary schools. Eighty years ago, in 
 his school in the Cowcaddens at Glasgow, David 
 Stow exploited his doctrine of the " sympathy of 
 numbers " by establishing a steady series of what 
 were called "gallery lessons " every day. After 
 the fashion of schools of that time there was at the 
 end of the big room a series of benches rising tier 
 upon tier behind each other and technically known 
 as " the gallery." It contained room enough for 
 three or four classes to be massed together for a 
 lesson of a more general character than was given 
 to the separate classes. The subjects were not 
 limited to religion or morals, but were always of 
 strong human interest, and were given by teachers 
 of very special powers. The results were in every 
 way satisfactory, except perhaps for the gallery 
 teachers, who were found not to last quite so long 
 as could have been wished. Their work was speci- 
 ally exhausting. During every moment of their 
 inspirational work, virtue was going out of them. 
 This does not, of course, reduce the value of the 
 system, though it may demand a strict rationing 
 of the amount of such work to be demanded from 
 any individual teacher. 
 
 It is clear from what has gone before that there is 
 real danger of confusion resulting from the different 
 senses in which the term class may be used. Not 
 only may it mean either a teaching-unit or an 
 organisation-unit, but it may mean a group that is 
 being taught hard facts, or one that meets to be 
 stimulated by contact with an impressive personality. 
 
The Knell of Class-teaching 143 
 
 A good practical distinction may be drawn between 
 those classes that must be small and those that may 
 be expanded with advantage. Whatever classes 
 are engaged in preparing for examinations must rank 
 in the first group. Such classes nearly always 
 demand a good deal of written or practical work 
 that requires to be attended to by the teacher, 
 and it is obvious that his range is limited. The 
 amount of necessary " corrections " forms an 
 excellent gauge of the workable size of a class. 
 
 In actual practice, there is a rough-and-ready 
 standard recognised by the profession : twenty-five 
 pupils for the secondary school and forty for the 
 elementary are looked upon as not very far from 
 the ideal numbers. It is true that there are those 
 who would reverse the numbers, and claim that the 
 bigger classes should be found in the secondary 
 schools, where the home circumstances of the pupils 
 are so much more favourable, and also the school 
 conditions. There is, perhaps, some justification 
 for the challenge, but as things stand at present 
 there is not likely to be a change in that direction, 
 since the more advanced work and the greater 
 amount of corrections in the secondary school make 
 greater demands on the teacher's energies. This 
 applies naturally only to the higher forms : there 
 seems no reason why there should be any difference 
 in the size of classes in a preparatory school as 
 compared with an elementary. If the present class 
 system remains in vogue, it is probable that a 
 maximum lower than forty will be fixed for elemen- 
 tary schools. But the chances are that the line of 
 development will so emphasise the organisation side 
 
144 The Knell of Class-teaching 
 
 that the numbers will be regulated on a quite 
 different basis. 
 
 With regard to the actual process of teaching, it 
 is too often taken for granted that the private coach 
 has everything in his favour, as compared with the 
 class-master. The teacher of one pupil can study 
 him in the greatest detail, and learn exactly which 
 line of approach is best for each subject or each part 
 of a subject. Exactly the right sort of illustrations 
 can be supplied, the exact line of error anticipated, 
 the really appropriate vital stimulus applied : 
 whereas in dealing with a class we must content 
 ourselves with illustrations that can appeal to only 
 a limited group at a time ; we must use stimuli that 
 fall flat in the case of quite a number of the individual 
 pupils. But the class-teacher has many compensa- 
 tions. To begin- with, there is the stimulus of 
 collective work. The two forces of imitation and 
 emulation supply, perhaps, the most powerful 
 stimuli possible, and that without using them to 
 any unwholesome extent. The very fact of having 
 to. present the same matter in different ways, in 
 order to meet the different needs of the various 
 types of mind in the class, involves, no doubt, a 
 certain strain, but the result is good, for all members 
 of the class get their benefit from it : each type of 
 boy gets his special needs attended to once, at least, 
 in each presentation. The dull boys, by sheer dint 
 of the teacher's repetition in different forms, have 
 a chance of picking up the essential point from one 
 or other of the various approaches. Even the clever 
 boys, who catch the teacher's meaning on the first 
 presentation, benefit by the following presentations 
 
The Knell of Class-teaching 145 
 
 by attaining to an enriched knowledge of what they 
 had no difficulty in understanding as a bald principle. 
 
 While, therefore, admitting all the advantages of 
 individual instruction, wherever that is available, 
 the experienced class- director will, from time to 
 time, be glad to become a collective teacher. The 
 prevailing tendency of class-teachers is to increase 
 the periods during which the class is disintegrated, 
 but never to give up the power of integrating it 
 from time to time. Even from the point of view 
 of bare economy of time, it is highly desirable that 
 the class should be integrated wherever a large 
 number of pupils show that they are making the 
 same kind of mistake. It is not quite true that a 
 teacher is wasting his time if he answers precisely 
 the same question put to him by several different 
 pupils. It may well be that each of them puts it 
 in a slightly different way ; and, in any case, the 
 value of an explanation given personally to a pupil 
 is not infrequently greater than exactly the same 
 explanation offered to a whole class. Often there is 
 just the slightest peculiarity in the way in which 
 a pupil puts his difficulty, and the skilful teacher 
 almost unconsciously puts his answer in such a way 
 as to fit into the peculiar angle presented. How 
 often the teacher hears the relieved remark from a 
 
 puzzled pupil, " Now that you put it that way " 
 
 Very much is to be learned by coming into direct 
 contact with the different ways in which pupils 
 go wrong. 
 
 All the same, the repeated integration of a class 
 during an instruction period is an economical and 
 stimulating influence that cannot be given up 
 10 
 
146 The Knell of Class-teaching 
 
 without loss of effectiveness in teaching. There 
 is still a place for the class as a teaching-unit, 
 though its future status is likely to be mainly that 
 of a unit of organisation. 
 
 Hitherto we have been working on the assumption 
 that we have only the alternative of class-teaching 
 and individual-teaching. But assuming that the 
 class is still retained as the organisation-unit, it 
 may be divided up into groups of various sizes. 
 Class- teachers in the past did not overlook the 
 possibilities of this method. During that distressing 
 period when huge classes had to be taught as collec- 
 tive units and yet the pupils had to pass examina- 
 tions as individuals, no means was overlooked by 
 which alleviation could be obtained. The funda- 
 mental principium divisionis was the chance of 
 passing the individual test at the end of the year. 
 In this way the class fell naturally into a pair of 
 very unequal groups, a big one of sure passes, and 
 a small one of doubtfuls and probable failures. The 
 teacher's interest was in inverse ratio to the size of 
 the group. He did not trouble too much with the 
 sure passes. They had to take their chance of 
 picking up all that they needed while he was taking 
 the class as a collective unit. When for individual 
 work it was divided up into the two groups, almost 
 all his attention was given to the doubtfuls. As 
 the examination approached, his attention was 
 more and more concentrated on the weaker group, 
 and the abler pupils were kept busy working out 
 " test- cards " the results of which were easily 
 checked. The effects were not altogether bad for 
 the bigger group, though for the smaller group 
 
The Knell of Class-teaching 147 
 
 that absorbed the teacher's energies the same could 
 hardly be said. The abler pupils being to a con- 
 siderable extent left to themselves were able to 
 work out their salvation in their own way. They 
 had a sufficient dose of the " wholesome neglect " 
 that would benefit some of our overtaught schools. 
 It will be seen, however, that this grouping was 
 not really an educational one at all, but merely a 
 trick in order that the teacher might concentrate 
 on that group of pupils upon whom his reputation 
 and that of the school rested ; for in those days 
 the point at issue was not what good work the 
 school did, but how much bad work it could hide. 
 True, some of the abler and more conscientious 
 teachers under the old rigime did endeavour to 
 make a compromise between duty to their better 
 pupils and duty to the school board that demanded 
 a high percentage of passes. But even the very 
 best of them could not make much of a grouping 
 according to advancement, in a crowd of eighty or 
 more pupils. Under more favourable conditions, 
 it is possible to make quite a reasonable grouping, 
 each group working along its own lines at its own 
 stage of advancement. Mr. Norman MacMunn has 
 worked out this idea for all it is worth. He dis- 
 tinguishes between the group system and the system 
 of pairs. A class of thirty may be divided up into 
 five groups of six each or six groups of five, or it 
 may be split up into fifteen pairs. Mr. MacMunn 
 seems to regard the two systems as different ; in 
 other words, there appears to be something intrin- 
 sically different between the pair as a unit and the 
 group of three, four, or five as a unit. We do not 
 
148 The Knell of Class-teaching 
 
 yet know enough about the psychology of the group 
 to be able to speak dogmatically on this subject, 
 but it does look as if there is something in Mr. 
 MacMunn's claim. It will be remembered that the 
 Jesuits had a habit of dividing up their classes in 
 this pairwise fashion, but their motive was different. 
 They set up a series of rivals, cemuli, who were 
 encouraged to keep an eye on each other and show 
 up each other's faults, and in this way stimulate 
 each other to better things. Mr. MacMunn's pairs 
 are partners, not competitors. This notion of 
 partnership is extended also to the larger groups, 
 and is in fact the contribution that he makes to the 
 newer developments of class-teaching. His scheme 
 of differential partnership introduces a principle 
 that provides stepping-stones to the Dalton Plan or 
 supplies an alternative to it. 
 
 It will be argued, as usual, that this plan of 
 mutual instruction is no new thing, and was fully 
 worked out on the monitorial system. But the 
 new scheme is a real advance on the old. It does 
 not attempt the impossible. There is no wild 
 claim that one master, by delegation of his functions, 
 can teach as many pupils as can be brought together 
 in one place. Mr. MacMunn knows too well the 
 range of the influence of one master, and realises 
 just how far he can be diluted without the class 
 suffering. He does not want his differential partner- 
 ship to increase the size of the class under a single 
 teacher. His plan is to get the most possible out 
 of that teacher, while increasing the amount of 
 positive independent work done by each pupil. 
 Everything must be done to allow the individual 
 
The Knell of Class-teaching 149 
 
 pupil to take an active part during the whole 
 lesson period. Like Dr. Montessori he has great 
 faith in the pupil's love of work, and regards it as 
 a profound blunder for teachers to believe that 
 pupils love slacking. If they do not face their 
 school-work properly, it is all the schoolmaster's 
 fault : 
 
 " The schoolmaster has innocently spent thousands of 
 years in teaching children to loaf when they wanted to work. 
 All they asked for was work in activity. The schoolmaster 
 replied : ' You must work in passivity or not at all. What 
 you call work in activity I call play. And as I know 
 everything, it is play. And if you play you shall be pun- 
 ished.' " 1 
 
 Under the ordinary class- teaching conditions, the 
 pupil's share in the conversation is strictly limited. 
 Few teachers realise how much of a lesson hour 
 they monopolise in their own talking. When 
 actual records have been kept of the relative amounts 
 of talking done by teacher and pupils during a class 
 hour, the teachers flatly declined to believe the 
 evidence of those who had stop- watched their 
 speech. When it comes to a subject like modern 
 languages, where a certain amount of practice in 
 speaking is of the essence of the bargain, the loss 
 of speaking-time under the ordinary class system is 
 immense. Mr. MacMunn supposes, not very hope- 
 fully, that most masters have realised that in a 
 class of twenty pupils studying French, if the master 
 speaks for half an hour, explaining and asking 
 questions, " a boy has only a minute and a half in 
 which to express himself." It is to remedy this 
 
 1 The Child's Path to Freedom, p. 25. 
 
150 The Knell of Class-teaching 
 
 deplorable state of affairs that Mr. MacMunn has 
 produced his Differential Partnership Books by the 
 use of which the class may be divided up into pairs, 
 and thus each boy have a fair chance of activity 
 throughout the lesson period. Part of the time each 
 boy catechises, the rest of the time he answers, but 
 he is active all the time. I confess to be a little 
 anxious about the results in such a subject as French, 
 where accent is usually allowed to subtend a very 
 big angle, but in other subjects where results are 
 more easily checked collectively, the scheme should 
 and does work extremely well. This differential 
 partnership system in fact supplies an excellent 
 illustration of how the class-unit can be satis- 
 factorily worked in with a smaller unit. There 
 can be first an integration of the class with a little 
 demonstration and general guidance, then a splitting 
 into the groups, and finally a redintegration for 
 purposes of correction and recapitulation. 
 
 There is one body of teachers that is not suffi- 
 ciently considered in connection with this splitting 
 up of classes. The one-teacher schools supply an 
 excellent field for the exercise of ingenuity in 
 dividing and combining classes. His Majesty's 
 Inspectors of Schools, who best of all know this 
 type of teachers, are full of admiration for the 
 wonderful work they do under adverse conditions. 
 Naturally we all join in this admiration, yet those 
 who see the dangers of the class system are less 
 surprised than some others at the excellent results 
 gained in such schools. It must be admitted that 
 the strain on the teachers is extreme, but the very 
 limitations imposed by the situation lead to a 
 
The Knell of Class-teaching 151 
 
 certain elasticity of interaction between teacher and 
 pupil that is all to the good. Under such con- 
 ditions an ingenious mistress has often half a dozen 
 different systems of classification at work at once. 
 By all the rules of the game her work should result 
 in chaos, but instead the individual pupils make at 
 least as much progress as they would have made 
 had they been kept rigidly to one class in a city 
 school. The moral is not that we should increase 
 the number of under-staffed schools in order that 
 children should have a greater degree of liberty at 
 the expense of overworking the teachers, but that 
 we should realise that here we have an unsought 
 demonstration of the compensation accompanying 
 a certain degree of what some tidy- minded people 
 are apt to call neglect. The single- teacher schools 
 are educational pioneers. 
 
 One great disadvantage of the class system of 
 teaching is the bias it gives towards doing everything 
 on the block system. It is remarkable, for example, 
 how seldom class- teachers give their pupils any help 
 regarding how to set about learning. Quite com- 
 monly the only help given is the bald instruction 
 issued to the whole class : ' ' For to-morrow prepare 
 the Disjunctive Pronoun, or the Gulf Stream, or 
 the Theory of Indices from page 210 to 213 inclu- 
 sive." One boy in whom I was particularly in- 
 terested will never forget his first experience in 
 map-drawing. His master's help consisted of the 
 simple sentence : ' ' Draw a map of England for 
 next Wednesday." The boy worked according to 
 his lights. These showed him that the map in his 
 atlas was divided up into little rectangles. He took 
 
152 The Knell of Class-teaching 
 
 these to be the units of construction, and worked 
 up his map rectangle by rectangle, producing as 
 the result a drawing that had some at least of the 
 qualities of a patchwork quilt. The master com- 
 plained with some vehemence that he could not 
 understand how the boy could be so stupid, and by 
 this complaint proclaimed his own professional 
 incompetence. It is the teacher's business to 
 understand such things. That is what he is for. 
 
 It is not that the teacher should accept the 
 responsibility for the actual learning done by the 
 pupil. We cannot learn for another : yet we may 
 be able to teach another how to learn. Here arises 
 a certain danger of being misunderstood. There is 
 no inconsistency in maintaining on the one hand 
 that many teachers teach too much, and in main- 
 taining on the other that teachers do not do enough 
 in the way of helping their pupils to learn. The 
 teacher who teaches too much reduces his pupil to 
 a more or less passively receptive state. There 
 must be activity on the pupil's part, otherwise there 
 can be no communication of knowledge at all. The 
 more passive the state of the pupil, the less chance 
 of his learning. Still, it may be asked whether the 
 teacher will mend matters much by talking about 
 how to learn, instead of talking about the subject- 
 matter. Teaching how to learn, however, is not 
 entirely a matter of talking. Certain things must 
 be explained, no doubt, by word of mouth, but 
 learning consists mainly in the application of 
 principles. Take such a simple matter as learning 
 by rote a piece of poetry. How seldom does the 
 pupil get any instruction about how to proceed ! 
 
The Knell of Class-teaching 153 
 
 He is told to " learn the first sixteen lines of Gray's 
 Elegy," and the matter is handed over to his own 
 resources. He can do what he pleases, so long as 
 the lines come trippingly from his lips next morning. 
 The teacher does not concern himself about what 
 method the pupil has followed, or how long the 
 preparation lasted. Now almost certainly the pupil 
 will learn the lines quatrain by quatrain, whereas 
 the teacher who is keeping an eye on the newer 
 experimental methods knows that the most 
 economical way of preparing is to learn by reading 
 over the sixteen lines consecutively — that is, to 
 learn the passage as a whole, and not as a group of 
 four separate quatrains. This is a particularly 
 good illustration as it applies to learning of all sorts. 1 
 
 There are those who would suggest that the whole 
 of the last paragraph should be recast in the past 
 tense, for they maintain that the new teacher does 
 train his pupils how to prepare their work. Pro- 
 fessor W. C. Bagley in his Craftsmanship in Teaching 
 has a chapter on " The Possibility of Training 
 Children How to Study/' in which he finds fault 
 with the tendency of most educational books of our 
 day to imply that teachers are doing very little to 
 solve troublesome problems such as this. He pro- 
 tests that "As a matter of fact, many teachers are 
 securing excellent results from their attempts to 
 teach their pupils how to study." ■ What is true of 
 
 1 It is also a particularly irritating one, as it shows the 
 poverty of the land because we all quote it, sometimes 
 giving it a name as " Steffens' Law." It is encouraging, 
 however, to find that a much bigger selection of practical 
 maxims is gradually developing in the hands of experi- 
 menters. * Op. cit., p. 149. 
 
154 The Knell of Class-teaching 
 
 America may also be true of Britain, but the 
 question remains : Is this attention to the teaching 
 of how to study a general one ? It is true that since 
 learning and teaching are correlative terms, atten- 
 tion to the one necessarily implies the acquiring of 
 some knowledge of the other. For example, those 
 interested in this subject will turn with great expecta- 
 tions to Professor S. S. Colvin's The Learning Process, 
 only to find that the matter is dealt with almost 
 entirely from the teacher's standpoint. The book 
 is excellent, and no teacher can read it without 
 profit, but it is not quite the sort of thing we are 
 here demanding. 
 
 Professor F. M. McMurry's How to Study and 
 Teaching How to Study is more to the point. Here 
 we have the subject definitely treated from our 
 present standpoint. The author does not think it 
 " necessary to collect proofs that young people do 
 not learn how to study, because teachers admit the 
 fact very generally." Indeed, he maintains that : 
 
 " All along the line teachers condole with one another 
 over this evil, college professors placing the blame on the 
 instructors in the high school, and the latter passing it 
 down to teachers in the elementary school." 1 
 
 This, indeed, is one of the very few points " on 
 which teachers and parents are well agreed." 
 Further, Professor McMurry finds an additional 
 proof of the general neglect of training pupils how 
 to study in the scarcity of literature on the subject : 
 
 " In the vast quantity of valuable educational literature 
 that has been published, careful searching reveals only two 
 
 1 Op. cit., p. 6. 
 
The Knell of Class-teaching 155 
 
 books in English and none in German on the 'Art of Study/ 
 Even these two are ordinary books on teaching with an 
 extraordinary title." 1 
 
 This was written in 1909, and since that time a 
 great deal has appeared on the subject, all justifying 
 the view that the present really is a new era in 
 education. Dr. Starch, for example, in his valuable 
 Educational Psychology , has an admirable chapter 
 on " How to Study." It is noteworthy, indeed, that 
 nearly three-quarters of the whole book are occupied 
 with a treatment of the psychology of learning. 
 
 It will be noticed that up to this point the 
 reference by other writers has always been to study- 
 ing, not learning. Professor McMurry falls back 
 upon the German distinction, according to which 
 learning is something inferior to study. Children at 
 the elementary-school stage may be said to learn in 
 Germany : it is only pupils of the secondary schools 
 and universities that may be said to study. But it 
 appears better to take the view that to learn is the 
 natural correlative of to teach. When we truly 
 teach, then our pupils inevitably learn. A corre- 
 sponding statement cannot be made about studying. 
 When we have learned something, we are, by the 
 very use of the term, assumed to have mastered it. 
 This cannot be said to be a necessary part of the 
 connotation of the verb to study. No doubt we 
 may learn a subject in a wrong way. We may have 
 learnt something by rote, for example, and therefore 
 have no just claim to know the matter of which 
 we have learnt the expression : all the same, we 
 
 1 Op. cit., p. 10. 
 
156 The Knell of Class-teaching 
 
 may be said to have mastered that part of our 
 subject in our own bad way. We have at least a 
 verbal mastery of it. But, on the other hand, if 
 we say that we have studied a subject we do not 
 necessarily claim to have reached any positive 
 knowledge or skill at all. Learning, in fact, involves 
 a reference to result as well as to process, whereas 
 studying is confined to process. A natural objection 
 may be raised to this interpretation of the word 
 learn. If it be admitted to be the correlative of 
 teach, there must be a teacher involved in all cases 
 of learning, which would seem to stultify those who 
 ask the otherwise unobjectionable question : Can 
 we teach children to learn ? But the problem 
 remains, even though the need of a teacher be 
 admitted ; for in the process of learning, the pupil 
 may be his own teacher. Indeed, progress in educa- 
 tion may be measured by the ratio which the 
 teacher- element bears to the pupil- element in the 
 experience of the educand. At the early stages the 
 external teacher- element predominates : the pupil 
 is to a large extent passive — not, of course, in actual 
 expenditure of energy, but as a guiding force. All 
 real educational progress of the individual implies 
 the quickening of the pupil's powers of not merely 
 responding to the stimulus applied by the external 
 teacher, but of supplying stimulus on his own account. 
 The advancing pupil becomes increasingly his own 
 teacher. The success of a teacher may be fairly 
 gauged by the degree in which he has made it 
 possible for his pupils to do without him. The good 
 teacher, like the good doctor, has done his best work 
 when, so far as a given case is concerned, his occupa- 
 
The Knell of Class -teaching 157 
 
 tion is gone. Teaching a pupil how to learn is 
 teaching him how to dispense with his external 
 teacher. It is fortunate for our self-respect, as well 
 as for the status of our profession, that it is extremely 
 difficult to teach young people how to learn. How- 
 ever skilful we may be, we need never fear that in 
 the limited period of an ordinary school course we 
 shall have made our services unnecessary in the 
 case of the majority of our pupils. In all but quite 
 exceptional cases we can foster to the utmost the 
 self-teaching instinct in our pupils, without any 
 danger of its acquiring such power as to be inde- 
 pendent of our help. The nature of the help may 
 change with the strengthening of the subjective 
 teacher-pole in the pupil : we become more and 
 more instruments to be used by the pupil for the 
 purpose of favouring his learning process, but we 
 are none the less important because our pupil is 
 able to make a more skilful use of our help. At the 
 earlier stages our main function should be, in fact, 
 this very process of teaching the pupil how to 
 learn, in order that as he progresses he may the 
 more profitably avail himself of what we can do 
 for him. 
 
 The whole problem of self- education is involved 
 here. We are all familiar with the incontrovertible 
 platitudes in favour of this form. None of us need 
 trouble to find fault with such saws as " All true 
 education is self- education " ; " There is no educa- 
 tion but self- education." Just as a doctor may 
 cheerfully admit that " Nature is the best physician," 
 and yet go his rounds without loss of self-respect, 
 so the teacher may accept all the praise of self- 
 
158 The Knell of Class-teaching 
 
 education, and yet feel that he has an honourable 
 and most important function in the educative 
 process. We need not here labour the distinction, 
 important as it is in other connections, between 
 self- education and self-instruction. For in both 
 processes the teacher has his function, though no 
 doubt the professional teacher feels that his special 
 function is to be found more in relation to self- 
 instruction. The self- instructed man has certain 
 advantages as compared with the man who has been 
 instructed entirely by another, and either against 
 his desire or without any helpful impulse coming 
 from within. But the man who is eager to learn and 
 has no teacher is at a clear disadvantage compared 
 with his compeer, who not only has the desire to 
 learn, but has the help of a man who can save the 
 enormous waste of energy that must take place in 
 the case of one who cannot benefit by the experience 
 of others, and must make his own. Given two men 
 of the same capacity and the same desire to acquire 
 knowledge, the one who has the help of a good 
 teacher will make much more progress in a given 
 time than the other who has not. 
 
 Accepting the simple definition of studying as 
 " learning under school conditions," Dr. Starch 
 plunges at once into an analysis of types of studying. 
 These are three : (i) the reading type, which he 
 believes to account for four-fifths of the work done 
 at the elementary school, and probably two-thirds 
 of high school and university work ; (ii) the labora- 
 tory type, which includes all sorts of manipulation 
 of apparatus, and the usual methods of observing 
 and recording. This is the type that is getting a 
 
The Knell of Class-teaching 159 
 
 somewhat new orientation, as we have seen in 
 E. J. Swift's The Mind in the Making, and, as we 
 shall see in our next chapter, in the important 
 development of Miss Parkhurst's work ; (iii) the 
 analytical or reasoning type, in which the amount 
 of reading is relatively small, but is very condensed. 
 The extra energy is not expended on apparatus or 
 external observation, but rather in reflection as in 
 philosophy and the higher mathematics. 
 
 On the practical side, Dr. Starch got a hundred 
 university students of all grades to write papers 
 for him on Difficulties and Hindrances in Studying 
 and How to Overcome them, 1 from which he draws 
 certain very useful pieces of advice, certainly the 
 most striking and useful of which is : 
 
 " If you have difficulty in overcoming inertia, just begin 
 to go through the motions of work ... sit down, take hold 
 of book, paper, pencil, or whatever may be needed, and 
 begin to write or read or figure. . . . This will automatically 
 start the mental process going relative to the work to be 
 done, and before you realise it, you will be in the midst of 
 the task, reading, thinking, and writing in an interested 
 manner concerning the problems in hand." 2 
 
 In an earlier book, How to Study Effectively (1916), 
 G. M. Whipple gives a still more detailed series of 
 concrete hints on the methods of study. One 
 result of this great attention to the subject is that 
 " how to study " has risen to the rank of a com- 
 pound adjective in educational writing. It means 
 the opposite of conventional methods that involve 
 
 1 Educational Psychology, p. 180. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 182. 
 
160 The Knell of Class-teaching 
 
 no responsibility on the part of the pupils. For 
 -example, " how-to-study directions " means direc- 
 tions that demand effort from the pupils and throw 
 responsibility upon them. A further development 
 from the how-to-study attitude is what is now 
 familiarly known as Supervised Study. The lead 
 here has been taken by Professor A. L. Hall-Quest 
 of the University of Cincinnati, who published a 
 book under that title in 1916. The point of the 
 new scheme is the organisation of school study in 
 such a way as to secure independent working by 
 the pupils without loss of the necessary guidance 
 from the teacher. Naturally it takes different forms 
 in different quarters, but the Hall-Quest variety 
 divides the long lesson period (eighty or ninety 
 minutes, but for supervised study sixty is on the 
 whole preferred) into three portions, the first 
 taking one-fifth and the two remaining two-fifths 
 each. The first part is called the review and includes 
 a resume of previous work or a preparation for what 
 is just coming. The second is given up to the 
 assignment, during which the pupils' curiosity is 
 roused but not satisfied, and indications are given 
 of how the problems raised may be dealt with. 
 The third period is devoted to silent individual 
 study. There is a private arrangement of the 
 pupils in the teacher's mind into inferior, average, 
 and superior, but the pupils are not supposed ever 
 to hear of this classification, though it is difficult to 
 see how the matter can be kept secret, since the 
 assignment of work takes a threefold form to meet 
 the varying abilities of the pupils. However, the 
 three grades are not regarded as permanent, and 
 
The Knell of Class-teaching 161 
 
 pupils can move up or down in this private grading. 
 The principle underlying the whole is that " the 
 work of the school is properly to supervise and 
 direct the individual while he teaches himself." l 
 
 Critics of the scheme object that it tends to pro- 
 duce greater dependence of the pupil upon the 
 teacher, but its scandalised supporters hasten to 
 explain that it acts in precisely the opposite direction 
 — it being always understood that the teacher's 
 directions are of the proper " how-to-study " type. 
 The plan has been tested at various centres, and on 
 the whole comes out well. Its main interest in this 
 chapter is that it supplies an example of an attempt 
 to combine the two functions of the class. It is 
 obvious that during the first three-fifths of the 
 lesson period the class is a teaching-unit, during the 
 final two-fifths it is an organisation-unit. In its 
 assignments it lays great stress on the purposive 
 element, but on the whole does not leave enough 
 freedom in the hands of the pupils to satisfy those 
 who have put on the black cap and have duly passed 
 sentence on the class as a teaching-unit. We hear 
 almost nothing of Supervised Study on this side of 
 the Atlantic. On the other hand, we hear a great 
 deal about a method that began on the other side, 
 but now seems to subtend a bigger angle here than 
 in the country of its origin, a scheme so important 
 that it certainly demands a chapter to itself. 
 
 1 A. Laura McGregor, Supervised Study in English, p. 3. 
 
 II 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 THE DALTON PLAN 
 
 PERHAPS the most dramatic and systematic 
 break away from the class teaching-unit is 
 supplied by what is widely known as the Dalton 
 Plan, because it was first tried out in the town 
 High School in Dalton, Massachusetts, by Miss 
 Helen Parkhurst. It was projected in 1919 and 
 carried out in the following year. It is sometimes 
 called the " Laboratory School " plan, and, in a 
 book published in 1922, Miss Evelyn Dewey calls 
 it the Dalton Laboratory Plan. The underlying 
 idea is that the class-rooms are now regarded as 
 workshops or laboratories where the boys and girls 
 carry out the practical work of their studies by the 
 help of all the necessary apparatus gathered 
 together there, just as the scientific apparatus is 
 gathered in an ordinary laboratory. 
 
 Put very generally, the Plan consists in throwing 
 a large amount of responsibility upon the pupils, 
 prescribing the total amount to be studied for a 
 given period, say a month, and then leaving them 
 to work out their own salvation during those four 
 weeks, on the understanding that they cover the 
 whole ground by the end of the period and are pre- 
 pared to stand a test of the thoroughness of what 
 they have done. The pupils may begin with which- 
 
 162 
 
The Dalton Plan 163 
 
 ever subject they please, and work at it as long as 
 they like. They can work some subjects more or 
 less simultaneously, or concentrate on one for a day 
 or two. The teachers thus give up teaching, and 
 become advisers who keep regular hours in certain 
 class-rooms where they can be consulted. But 
 they are not supposed to interfere with the arrange- 
 ments of the pupils, who may or may not use their 
 opportunities of consulting them. Each pupil can 
 thus go at his own pace, and follow his own inclina- 
 tions, so long as he makes the necessary progress. 
 He is put in the position of the German student 
 who in the old days before the war exercised his 
 Lernfreiheit. He was left to his own devices, and 
 could cut lectures almost as much as he liked, so 
 long as he reached the proper standard at the fateful 
 final examination. The scheme worked not very 
 badly in the case of the young men at the university, 
 but many people naturally shook their heads over 
 this daring innovation in a school. To be sure it 
 has been stated above in its baldest terms, and 
 with the strict rigour of the Plan. In actual prac- 
 tice at Dalton certain limits were set. The pupils' 
 time from 8.40 to 11.50 was quite free to follow the 
 Plan : the other school hours, however, were given 
 up to recitation in the normal American way. 
 During the free hours the pupils studied as they 
 pleased, the teachers confining themselves to the 
 following five duties : 
 
 (i) To preserve an atmosphere of study in the room, 
 (ii) To explain any detail of the assignment, 
 (iii) To give information with regard to the use of de- 
 partmental equipment. 
 
164 The Dalton Plan 
 
 (iv) To give suggestions with regard to methods of attack- 
 ing particular problems. 
 
 (v) When the need actually arises, to give full explanation 
 of a point and of its relation to the general principle of the 
 subject. 1 
 
 It is claimed that the plan works exceedingly 
 well, and that the pupils, being left to their own 
 devices, and allowed to follow the method that most 
 appeals to them, are able to make much more 
 progress with their actual studies, while at the same 
 time acquiring confidence in facing new problems 
 on their own account. Naturally at the beginning 
 there is always some confusion and lack of power of 
 correlation. Some subjects get better done than 
 others. But it is found that as things settle down 
 it becomes increasingly possible for pupils to regu- 
 late their work so as to cover the whole assignment 
 in the prescribed period.- An interesting feature is 
 that the pupils as a whole — of course, there were 
 notable exceptions — preferred to begin with the 
 more difficult and distasteful subjects. 
 
 The relation between Montessorianism and Dal- 
 tonism is of interest. There are those who would 
 put the matter very bluntly and class them plainly 
 as cause and effect. No doubt the Montessorians 
 were first in the field ; to them must be conceded 
 certain stimulating influences ; and Daltonians are 
 willing to give credit where credit is due. But the 
 Dalton Plan is not fixed and complete : it is still in 
 the melting-pot, and is taking many forms. For 
 example, Mrs. O'Brien Harris at the County 
 
 1 Evelyn Dewey, The Dalton Laboratory Plan, p. 75. 
 
The D alt on Plan 165 
 
 Secondary School, Clapton, has developed an original 
 form based upon " Houses " instead of upon classes, 
 where we have clearly the substitution of a larger 
 organisation-unit for a smaller one. The House- 
 Mistress becomes the unifying influence that mode- 
 rates among the various specialists. Mrs. O'Brien 
 Harris writes me as follows : 
 
 " Our main differences from ' Dalton ' are (i) the reten- 
 tion of class-teaching as an integral part of our work, and 
 (ii) the relief to the congestion of the time-table by arranging 
 that the number of subjects taken by a girl in any one term 
 is (except in rare cases) less than the full number which 
 she studies during the pre-matriculation period. The form 
 system practically, though not necessarily, requires the 
 full number each term. 
 
 " I think that the resemblances are more noteworthy 
 considering the different antecedents of Miss Parkhurst 
 and myself. I think we have common ground in having taken 
 Dr. Montessori's Training Course." 
 
 I have ventured to italicise the concluding words, 
 as indicating the attitude of some reformers to the 
 Founder. Elsewhere in her letter Mrs. O'Brien 
 Harris says that her scheme is her " contribution to 
 the adaptation of Montessori principles to secondary 
 school work, under present Board of Education 
 limitations.' • It is pleasant to find open-minded 
 and ingenious teachers willing to give credit for the 
 inspiration they have received from seminal writers 
 like Dr. Montessori, but it is not a profitable occupa- 
 tion to spend time allocating priority to the different 
 inventors. The Dalton Plan is really a crystallisa- 
 tion of a widely prevailing desire for greater freedom 
 for children in their school- work. I cannot do better 
 
1 66 The Dalton Plan 
 
 than quote in illustration from the brief description 
 in a leaflet that the honorary secretary of the Dalton 
 Association has been kind enough to send me : 
 
 " The Dalton Plan is a scheme of educational reorganisa- 
 tion applicable to the school work of pupils from eight to 
 eighteen years of age. It aims at giving the child freedom, 
 making the school a community where the mutual inter- 
 action of groups is possible, and it approaches the whole 
 problem of work from the pupil's point of view, giving him 
 more responsibility for, and interest in, his education. 
 
 " The form rooms become subject laboratories, wherein 
 are collected all the books and apparatus relative to the 
 particular subjects. 
 
 " The pupils are still grouped in forms for convenience' 
 sake." 
 
 The final paragraph acknowledges the retention 
 of the class as an organisation-unit, while the 
 penultimate paragraph suggests the alternative title 
 that we have seen to be the Laboratory Plan antici- 
 pated by E. J. Swift's Laboratory Plan in his The 
 Mind in the Making ten years before the Dalton 
 Plan was enunciated. 
 
 Let it not be supposed that this anticipation by 
 Swift, Nunn, and others in any way diminishes the 
 praise due to the various initiators and reformers 
 who have set the Plan in motion as a going concern. 
 Each has the merit of advancing a movement the 
 full credit for which can be attributed to no indivi- 
 dual. The spirit of personal effort and responsibility 
 was in the air at the end of last century and the 
 beginning of this, and each reformer helped in its 
 development. The value of their work will be the 
 better appreciated when we note that there was and 
 
The Dalton Plan 167 
 
 is a great body of passive resistance against the 
 new movement. There are many causes combining 
 to oppose the development of the movement to get 
 rid of the class as a teaching-unit. 
 
 No doubt the most prominent of these is the 
 general conservative attitude of our craft. Most 
 of us dislike change in our methods. The nature of 
 our whole training and our relation to society is in 
 favour of the conservative attitude. Parents and 
 the State itself do not like teachers with much 
 initiative. No doubt we are continually being 
 urged to strike out in new lines and to make our 
 personality felt. But the whole vis inertiae of 
 society acts in the contrary direction. Most parents 
 are content that things should go on in the smooth 
 way to which they have become accustomed, and 
 the alarming din made by the few progressive 
 parents must not deafen us to the fact that the 
 vast mass of the public is quite content to leave 
 things as they are. The same general remark 
 applies to our profession itself. We who persist in 
 reading all the new educational books, and in 
 attending educational conferences, are apt to get a 
 false view of the attitude of the great body of our 
 fellow-craftsmen. Most of them are quite content 
 to follow the line of least resistance, and keep to 
 their old familiar methods. 
 
 A second and a more specific cause of the wide- 
 spread passive resistance to the rejection of the 
 class as a teaching-unit is to be found in the teachers' 
 love of class- teaching as such. Many of us do not 
 sufficiently realise the attractiveness of the vigorous 
 act of teaching a class as compared with mere 
 
168 The Dalton Plan 
 
 individual instruction. Among the many disagree- 
 able qualities our friends the psycho-analysts find 
 in human beings is the love of the limelight. We 
 shall see, indeed, that one group of them make the 
 love of power and the display of power the most 
 vital driving force in life, and all of them proclaim 
 that we teachers are in danger of allowing this 
 particular desire to dominate unduly our professional 
 life. We may retaliate by maintaining that the 
 desire to instruct others is by no means confined to 
 our craft. Do we not find lying in wait for us in 
 railway compartments and other public places 
 innumerable lay persons who are eager to instruct 
 us in all manner of subjects ? Teachers, for example, 
 have no monopoly of " letters to the editor," instruct- 
 ing all whom it may concern. But when all is said, 
 there remains the depressing conviction that there 
 is a good deal of truth in the charge that we are fond 
 of instructing others, particularly when we get a 
 chance of dealing with them in the mass. There 
 can be little doubt, as we have seen, that we all 
 teach too much. This does not mean that we teach 
 too many things, that we burden our pupils' minds 
 with too much matter — though that charge too is, 
 unfortunately, sometimes justly made against us — 
 but that we do too much actual teaching. We are 
 apt to think that nothing of itself will come, but 
 we must still be — teaching. Even in private 
 coaching we are inclined to tell our pupils too much. 
 It is so much easier and pleasanter to give our pupil 
 the necessary information at once, instead of waiting 
 till he finds out things for himself in response to 
 our suggestions. But in class-teaching the tempta- 
 
The Dalton Plan 169 
 
 tion is still more powerful. Accordingly, we need 
 not be surprised that many estimable teachers look 
 askance at the Dalton Plan, and shake their heads 
 over a scheme that removes them from the lime- 
 light, and relegates them to a place in the back- 
 ground, where they have to practise self-abnegation 
 in the interests of their pupils' self-realisation. 
 
 A third reason for the unpopularity of the attack 
 upon class- teaching is a positive one, and of a much 
 more creditable kind. It carries the war into the 
 enemies' country and defends by way of attack. 
 Some teachers, while admitting the truth of the 
 various charges against the class as a teaching-unit, 
 argue that for certain purposes the collective 
 method of teaching is the only satisfactory one. All 
 that has been already said about the two aspects 
 of class- teaching — instruction and stimulation — is 
 applicable here. We cannot, of course, keep the 
 two aspects quite apart. If there is one danger 
 more Than another that we should continually keep 
 warning each other against, it is the fallacy of 
 division by which we split up our work into separate 
 compartments. Our pupils as persons are one and 
 indivisible, and so is our work. All the same, there 
 is a radical difference of treatment according to the 
 results we have in view. Some parts of our work 
 lay stress on the individual needs of our pupils, 
 others on their needs as members of society. For 
 this reason the class must always maintain its 
 position as a potential teaching-unit, though no 
 doubt this particular function will be much less 
 exercised than it has been in the past. 
 
 Accordingly, the conscientious teacher can still 
 
170 The Dalton Plan 
 
 exercise the pleasant function of class- teaching 
 without any qualms, knowing that he is thus at 
 once economising the time of his pupils and doing a 
 kind of work that cannot be so efficiently done other- 
 wise. So long as he has a sufficient amount of 
 genuine class- teaching in which he enjoys all the 
 glow of manipulating that mysterious " sympathy 
 of numbers," he will not grudge the free hours that 
 in the future may become universal in our schools 
 as the spirit of the Dalton Plan makes headway. 
 He will soon realise by actual experience, if his pro- 
 fessional insight has not been keen enough to warn 
 him beforehand, that the free hours do not mean 
 easy periods for him. Very much on the contrary, 
 for his advice must be always " on tap " for young 
 enquirers whose interest has been stimulated in the 
 way it will certainly be under the new conditions. 
 No doubt there will be at first an unpleasant feeling 
 of being at sea, and removed from all one's bearings. 
 There will arise also a certain anxiety about one's 
 own special subject, a fear that it will be to some 
 extent crowded out by others that have greater 
 inherent or utilitarian attractions. There is danger 
 of a clash of subject-interests. All this points to the 
 need of a unifying influence in organising the appli- 
 cation of the spirit of the Dalton Plan. Naturally 
 the headmaster or mistress is the final unifying 
 force, but the next in order is the house-master or 
 -mistress, for these have a wider range than the 
 class-teacher ; and though they may also be specia- 
 lists, their official status puts them in a better 
 position than usual to see their subjects in true 
 perspective in relation to the r. est of the curriculum, 
 
The Dalton Plan 171 
 
 The need for such a moderating force among the 
 claims of the various subjects is felt by all thoughtful 
 teachers, and is exemplified in the French movement 
 we have described under the name of integralism. 
 
 It is worth noting that just in so far as the 
 Dalton Plan tends to disrupt the class it tends 
 towards the promotion of the movement we have 
 seen to be known in America as socialisation. This 
 word is used in a rather peculiar way over there, 
 and does not seem to be anywhere clearly denned. 
 An analysis of the various ways in which it is used 
 results in the separation out of two popular mean- 
 ings, one general and one special. In a vague way 
 socialising education means the correlation of 
 education with the ordinary affairs of life, bringing 
 the school into direct relation with the outside 
 world. Sometimes this is spoken of as democratising 
 the schools. Dr. John Dewey's School and Society 
 did much to promote this attitude, and a well- 
 known educational magazine with the same title 
 is both effect and cause of the wide spread of this 
 attitude towards education. The moment we 
 begin to explore this aspect of socialisation we get 
 into troubled waters. Politics of all kinds, but 
 particularly economic questions, at once claim our 
 attention and lead to acrid discussions that have 
 no place in a peaceable book like this. Keeping 
 strictly to our own province, the school, we find 
 that the general aspect of socialisation appears in 
 all the efforts to make the pupil realise that he is 
 a member of a little, more or less self-governing, 
 state. On the disciplinary side we shall deal with 
 this aspect in our last chapter, and for the present 
 
172 The Dalton Plan 
 
 we shall keep to the more general meaning of the 
 term. 
 
 To a reader unaccustomed to American ter- 
 minology there is something intriguing in the title 
 of Miss Ruth Mary Weeks' Socialising the Three R's. 
 From what has been already said, it may be rightly 
 guessed that these subjects are to be taught in 
 such a way as to bring out their connection with 
 everyday life. As Miss Weeks puts it : 
 
 " Socialism goes to the root of aim and method ; infuses 
 into ground plan and trivial detail of education the spirit 
 of constructive sociology ; and sets in the heart of every 
 teacher'the question not simply ' How can I best teach this 
 child to read, write, and calculate ? ' but ' How can I best 
 fit him to survive in the world we know and also to help 
 bring- to pass the better world of which we dream ? ' " * 
 
 It is not difficult for Miss Weeks to illustrate the 
 social applications of the three R's, and of such 
 things as History, Art, Science, and Manual 
 Training, though she is particularly successful in 
 Arithmetic, which lends itself specially to such 
 treatment, as Professor T. Percy Nunn has so well 
 demonstrated in his lectures on the Arithmetic of 
 Citizenship. 
 
 The second and still more technical meaning of 
 socialisation brings the matter into direct relation 
 with our present subject. In this meaning social- 
 isation deals with the study of a subject on social 
 or co-operative lines, involving a community of 
 interest and of work. To some extent, therefore, 
 we have an overlapping with the partnership 
 
 1 Op. cit., p. 6. 
 
The Dalton Plan 173 
 
 scheme of Mr. MacMunn, but his scheme lays stress 
 on the work, whereas the socialisers give equal 
 importance to the shared interest. For example, 
 Miss A. L. McGregor tells us that : 
 
 l 
 " The object of a socialised lesson in literature is not to 
 test knowledge gained, but rather to create a deeper delight 
 in the piece of literature studied by giving the pupils a 
 chance to talk over with one another the story which 
 has now become a common possession." 1 
 
 On the other hand, in a socialised lesson on the use 
 of the dictionary, co-operative effort is as prominent 
 as community of interest. 
 
 The Daltonians are just feeling their way here. 
 The problem of co-operative study is giving them 
 great concern. While carrying on their studies 
 according to their own plans in keeping with the 
 spirit of the system, should the pupils be allowed 
 or encouraged to work in pairs or in groups ? At 
 first it would appear as if permission to work in 
 this co-operative way was really undoing the work 
 of the Plan. Pupils who had just been freed from 
 the direct control of their activities by their 
 teachers would be merely thrust into another bond- 
 age. But the cases are quite different. If partner- 
 ship is undertaken it is a purely voluntary arrange- 
 ment. The pupils will naturally seek out those 
 with whom they can work pleasantly, and there is 
 always the loophole of a dissolution, if things do 
 not go satisfactorily. Indeed, the partnership may 
 well be treated as a temporary affair, and in many 
 cases could be established ad hoc, in order to get 
 1 Supervised Study in English, p. 73. 
 
174 The Dalton Plan 
 
 over a particularly hard bit of ground. Naturally 
 these floating partnerships would fit in extremely 
 well with any applications of the Project Method, 
 for these we shall find may be easily combined with 
 the Plan. 
 
 One technical difficulty about co-operative work 
 is just its tendency to become permanent, for in 
 this case there is the danger of premature specialisa- 
 tion. If, for example, in the preparation of language 
 work one pupil specialised on looking up the 
 dictionary, while the other confined himself to con- 
 struing, a piece of translation might be completed 
 in less time than if each did both parts of the work. 
 Indeed, sq economical of time is this arrangement 
 that certain ingenious young persons in upper 
 forms have occasionally adopted it as a means to 
 ease their labours. The plan, however, usually 
 finds little favour with the conventional school- 
 master, who regards it as an illegitimate way of 
 getting at results with insufficient brain perspiration. 
 As a matter of practical school politics it ought to be 
 welcomed from every point of view, since it gives 
 just that purposeful method of dealing with 
 practical problems that is of most service in the 
 ordinary affairs of life. The Daltonians will be 
 well advised to encourage such partnership work, 
 but ought to make it a condition that there should 
 be a regular change of functions, every week. It 
 can be easily explained to the youngsters that 
 though they are right in their contention that 
 quicker results can be obtained by keeping each at 
 the kind of work he likes most and can do best, 
 yet at school our purpose is to get practice in all 
 
The Dalton Plan 175 
 
 sorts of work. It will not be hard to make the 
 construer realise that in real life he is not likely 
 to find a dictionary explorer at hand every time he 
 wants to deal with a difficult passage, and that, 
 therefore, he ought to acquire a sufficient familiarity 
 with the turning of his own dictionary pages. With 
 this limitation, the co-operative method can be 
 adopted as forming a quite consistent part of the 
 Dalton Plan, and as supplying a particularly advan- 
 tageous way of securing a wholesome form of 
 socialisation. 
 
 At present the Dalton Plan is regarded with the 
 profoundest suspicion by a vast number of teachers. 
 They see all manner of cloven feet in and around it. 
 But in spite of this it has taken a grip of the imagina- 
 tion of the profession that promises well for its 
 development. Oddly enough it would appear that 
 the Plan seems to be more popular in England than 
 in America, which is generally regarded as its native 
 place. We have seen reason to believe that it is 
 not specifically American in origin, as it has 
 developed naturally from tendencies that are quite 
 as marked on this side of the Atlantic as on the 
 other. Under whatever name it is known the pro- 
 gressive teacher will welcome the spirit implicit in 
 the Plan, and will rejoice that an English Dalton 
 Association has been formed and that it has now a 
 local habitation as well as a name. 1 
 
 But there is another side to all this, and fortun- 
 ately we are still at a stage when a warning can be 
 given without offence. In the development of 
 every method there is a danger of rigidity. Very 
 1 35 Cornwall Gardens, Kensington, London, S.W.7. 
 
176 The Dalton Plan 
 
 often the need for a new method arises out of the 
 rigidity into which an old method has fallen. 
 Those who remember the old Notes of Lessons that 
 students in training had to prepare, will realise how 
 rigid a method can be, and will recall with satis- 
 faction the relief that came with the five Herbartian 
 Steps. But very soon preparation, presentation, 
 association, generalisation, and application became 
 as stereotyped as the old Heads, Matter, Method. 
 The new classification that was to bring freedom 
 from the bonds of long custom gradually developed 
 chains of its own. It is hard to believe at the 
 present moment that the Dalton Plan could possibly 
 develop into a narrow tyranny. But this sort of 
 thing has happened before with excellent methods, 
 and may quite easily happen again, unless we are 
 on our guard. Just now everything is in a state 
 of flux ; all manner of experimentation is not only 
 permitted, but encouraged. The Plan is being 
 adopted in all degrees of completeness, from the 
 whole-hearted organisation of a huge school like 
 the Streatham County Secondary School to the 
 timid introduction of the Plan in the work of a 
 couple of classes. What it means I do not venture 
 to say, but the fact is noteworthy that the women 
 teachers have shown much more courage than the 
 men in taking the plunge into the Plan. Few, 
 indeed, even among the women have had the 
 courage to adopt the Plan, the whole Plan, and 
 nothing but the Plan. But all who have dabbled 
 in it at all, and many who have not, are looking on 
 with interest at the developments and are very 
 tolerant indeed of each other's degree of acceptance. 
 
The Dalton Plan 177 
 
 As the Plan passes more and more into a techni- 
 cally organised and officially recognised system with 
 a name terminating in -ism, there will inevitably 
 arise an orthodoxy that will tend to become 
 exclusive. At first sight it may appear absurd to 
 suppose that a system based on freedom as its 
 first principle should develop into a tyranny. But 
 human nature is amazingly ingenious in finding 
 ways of going wrong. It is not beyond its power 
 to set about compelling pupils to be free. It was a 
 wise man who said that the most difficult thing for 
 a clever teacher was to let his clever pupils be 
 clever in their own way. But a sort of parallelo- 
 gram of forces may be arranged in such a way as to 
 ensure against misapplication. By dividing the 
 responsibilities between the specialist on the one 
 hand representing the interests of the subject, and 
 the house-master on the other representing the 
 interests of the living child, a permanent interaction 
 of mutually correcting forces may be set up in such 
 a way as to secure vital activity, and thus retain the 
 school as an organism instead of allowing it to turn 
 into a machine. 
 
 There is, however, a further danger in quite a 
 different direction. Even if we are able in the 
 way suggested to secure the permanent freedom of 
 the pupil, the teacher himself is not out of danger. 
 It may well happen that in saving the liberty of 
 the pupil the master may become himself enslaved. 
 With an organised system, it is quite possible for 
 the teacher to lose his liberty. There is no par- 
 ticular need in the Dalton Plan to have special 
 mechanical appliances, but I have already seen 
 12 
 
178 The Dalton Plan 
 
 rather elaborate and certainly ingenious mark- 
 sheets for recording the progress of the Daltonian 
 pupil. They are in themselves entirely innocuous, 
 and I have before me written evidence of their 
 effectiveness in actual practice. But they are just 
 the sort of thing that might develop into an external 
 tyranny. Their very name, " Graphs," has a 
 seductive attraction that should prove a red-lamp 
 signal of possible danger. But surely it is within 
 the power of teachers thus warned in time to avoid 
 the ordinary temptation to allow an excellent 
 system and excellent materials to turn into a 
 tyranny. Let us use "Graphs" or any other 
 legitimate means to improve our methods, but let 
 us see to it that we do not purchase the freedom of 
 the pupil at the expense of the freedom of the 
 teacher. 
 
 From warnings with regard to future difficulties 
 we are sharply recalled to troubles already existing, 
 or at any rate said to exist. Interested and not 
 necessarily hostile teacher-critics are much dis- 
 turbed by certain considerations that are worthy 
 of notice, and have been very effectively dealt with 
 by Miss Rosa Bassett. 1 The first of these is the 
 fear that too much responsibility is thrown upon 
 pupils at an early age. It is suggested that the 
 young people will worry over the distribution of 
 their time, especially towards the end of the period 
 for which they have had assignments. But experi- 
 ence seems to show that after the first period or 
 two there is no more anxiety under the new system 
 than under the old. It must be remembered that 
 1 Times Educational Supplement for March 4, 1922. 
 
The Dalton Plan 179 *" 
 
 certain types of children will worry about their 
 work under whatever scheme they are placed. 
 But the Daltonians maintain that, so far from 
 being increased under the Plan, this worry is 
 diminished, because the teacher is so much more 
 closely in touch with the pupil. Justly enough we 
 are told that the pupil who is worried about responsi- 
 bility is the very person who needs such training in 
 initiative as the Plan gives. For myself, I confess 
 that I was among those who feared for the pupil an 
 excess of anxiety through the added responsibility, 
 and am accordingly glad to be assured that " under 
 any plan the heedless child who neglected her work 
 grew worried and flustered towards the end of the 
 term. Now, there are fewer who neglect their 
 work and fewer who are worried." 
 
 One recognises the voice of the severe disciplin- 
 arian in the reproachful question, " What is the 
 moral effect of allowing children to choose their 
 occupation at certain times, when in after life they 
 will have to do what is set before them at a given 
 time ? " The answer will be given in some detail 
 when dealing with drudgery in Chapter IX, but 
 Miss Bassett replies with a counter-attack, and asks 
 if the rigid time-table of class-lessons has produced 
 such a nation of people with high ideals that every- 
 thing is done from a sense of duty and discipline. 
 As the old conditions have produced such poor 
 results it is not unreasonable that we should give 
 the freer Plan a chance. This is good, but is hardly 
 so strong an argument as might be expected. The 
 Daltonians usually rely more upon the positive 
 elements in their Plan. 
 
i8o The Dalton Plan 
 
 It is only natural that those who remember their 
 own schooldays should suggest that the Plan may 
 be regarded as a boon and a blessing to shirkers. 
 But such critics surely forget that there is a 
 miniature day of judgment awaiting the shirker at 
 the end of the assignment period. While the child 
 is certainly thrown upon his own resources and 
 made responsible for the use of his time, the teacher 
 does not entirely abdicate. He may not interfere, 
 but he is not blind : he keeps an eye on his little 
 flock even while they are allowed to wander about 
 very much at their own will. But if at the end of 
 a period some youngster makes a serious breakdown, 
 arrangements are made by which his freedom for 
 the next period is curtailed, and if improvement 
 does not follow he is placed on the old rigid time- 
 table conditions. This may be said to be a con- 
 fession of the failure of the Plan, and so far as these 
 unsatisfactory pupils are concerned this must be 
 admitted. Further, the proposed way of meeting 
 the difficulty does threaten a serious complication of 
 the school organisation. But the defaulter can be 
 made to do his time-table work in the class-room 
 under the eye of the teacher, while the respectable 
 pupils are doing their free hours' work. This does 
 not interfere with the general time-table of the 
 school. Besides, the Daltonians explain that the 
 free privilege is so much valued that the number 
 who are willing to give it up for the rigid time-table 
 is exceedingly small. 
 
 It may be well to mention here that there is a 
 certain misunderstanding about freedom in con- 
 nection with both the Montessorian system and the 
 
The Dalton Plan 181 
 
 Daltonian. The freedom granted is strictly limited. 
 The popular impression is that in a Montessorian 
 school the pupils do exactly as they please. But 
 the freedom applies only to the school work. The 
 pupil may work or idle, just as he likes. No pressure 
 is put upon him. Further, he may work at what- 
 ever subject he feels inclined for at the time. He 
 can select whatever piece of apparatus strikes his 
 fancy. But he must use that piece of apparatus 
 for the purpose for which it is intended. He must 
 not play bowls with the cylinders. Further, he 
 must do nothing to interfere with the comfort of 
 his fellows. Besides, he cannot leave school at 
 will. He may lie on his back for twenty minutes 
 doing nothing but gaze at the ceiling, and nobody 
 will interfere. But if he suggests going home, 
 objections are raised. It could not have been an 
 orthodox Montessori school about which the 
 mothers complained that their children came strol- 
 ling home whenever the fancy took them. So with 
 the Dalton Plan. A reasonable amount of super- 
 vision is exercised by the teachers, though there 
 must always be left a substantial amount of genuine 
 freedom to the pupils, or the Plan is a failure. It 
 is the mark of the capable teacher that he is able 
 to find the just mean between freedom and licence. 
 Generally speaking, the Daltonians are optimistic, 
 a quality which they share with the Montessorians. 
 It is inspiriting to read Miss Bassett's remark : 
 " Let all teachers realise that children want to 
 learn." Some teachers have their doubts on this 
 subject, and perhaps they are justified by their 
 experience. But if Miss Bassett is justified by 
 
182 The Dalton Plan 
 
 hers, it means that under proper conditions children 
 do want to learn. It may be that those conditions 
 are not very pleasant for the pupils, as is illustrated 
 by the advice given by a successful headmaster to 
 a new and inexperienced assistant master in Ian 
 Hay's The Lighter Side of School Life : 
 
 " There is only one way to teach boys. Keep them in 
 order : don't let them play the fool or go to sleep : and they 
 will be so bored that they will work like niggers merely 
 to pass the time. That's education in a nutshell. Good 
 night 1 " » 
 
 Dr. Montessori is equally confident in the power 
 of ennui to drive pupils to work, though she does 
 not put the matter so brutally as the theory- 
 despising headmaster. She maintains that sooner 
 or later the child will begin to attend to something 
 or other, and she has almost infinite patience in 
 waiting for this attention. However, the directress 
 must be on the alert to take full advantage of the 
 attention when it comes, and in the meantime to 
 take every precaution that no outside matter of 
 sharper interest shall be allowed to intervene. The 
 child must attend to something, it is true, but the 
 teacher must see that he attends to the right sort 
 of thing. 
 
 While the Daltonians are optimistic, they do not 
 shut their eyes to the difficulties of the situation, 
 and one of the most prominent of these is the 
 nature of our present text-books. They are not 
 written in such a way as to suit the requirements of 
 the Plan. Text-books, in fact, fall into two great 
 1 Op.cit.,-p.6^. 
 
The Dalton Plan 183 
 
 grcups — those that are prepared from the point of 
 view of the subject-matter, and those prepared from 
 the standpoint of the pupil. They may be named, 
 if we like, the logical and the psychological type. 
 The former is much the larger class. The author 
 takes a wide view of the whole subject and asks 
 himself how he can arrange in satisfactory order 
 all the matter required for the particular stage he 
 has in view. The pupil is often considered to the 
 extent that the vocabulary is kept within his reach, 
 but no greater concession is usually made. The 
 books are written on the understanding that they 
 are to be taught rather than that they are to form 
 the material for learning. An extreme set of books 
 on the psychological side is formed by what are 
 sometimes called self-educators. Here the teacher 
 is deliberately excluded, and the writer addresses 
 himself directly to the pupil. Such books are 
 written largely in a friendly, personal style, the 
 writer making a very free use of you. The orthodox 
 text-book is severely third personal, but there has 
 grown up an intermediate group in which the 
 author does recognise the existence of the pupil as 
 a person, and occasionally addresses him. 
 
 Some of these books make fair material for the 
 Plan : but what is wanted is a series written 
 expressly from the Daltonian standpoint. The 
 matter should be arranged continuously, yet 
 supplied with breaks at reasonable intervals, and 
 there ought to be periodical big breaks, that might 
 reasonably correspond to the monthly, three- 
 weekly, or other fixed period adopted by'the school. 
 In one respect there is no difficulty in getting such 
 
184 The Dalton Plan 
 
 a series put on the market. Educational publishers 
 are very keen, and are only too willing to produce 
 what the teachers want. But the difficulty is 
 generally, and here specially, to discover what the 
 teachers really do want. They do not themselves 
 know, but are gradually feeling their way. It is 
 obviously some sort of compromise between the 
 logical and the psychological type of book that is 
 required. Whether it should be a mere outline 
 with full references to books available in the school 
 library, or a full treatment of the subject in a book 
 that is self-contained, is yet to be determined. In 
 all probability much experimenting is still necessary 
 before the proper type is evolved. In the mean- 
 time a good deal of work will probably be done 
 by guided reading in class libraries, which, however, 
 will have to be greatly enlarged. The necessity for 
 each pupil in a class having a separate text-book 
 is no longer to be taken for granted. The possi- 
 bilities of socialisation and partnership-work open 
 out new problems, the solution of which will keep 
 our live teachers happily and usefully occupied for 
 several decades. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 THE GARY CONTRIBUTION 
 
 THE architectural element is probably too grand 
 a way of naming the influence brought to 
 bear upon education by the manipulation of stone 
 and lime. Edward Thring, with his usual insight, 
 made much of " the mighty wall," and the teachers 
 under the London County Council had an unforget- 
 table illustration of the influence of building con- 
 struction when they found how long it took for the 
 Authority to work off the old schools in which the 
 class-rooms were built on the sixty-pupil basis. 
 Stone and lime have a peculiar charm for educa- 
 tional administrative authorities. A building is 
 something you can see and boast about, whereas a 
 teacher is a mere passing shade. So there is always 
 the danger of bricks and mortar subtending a bigger 
 angle in public estimation than the flesh and blood 
 of the school staffs. Everybody who is interested 
 in education wants to have as good buildings as 
 possible, and no teacher will object to be housed 
 in what the economists persistently nickname a 
 M palace," so long as the personal remuneration is 
 in keeping. At present, however, we are concerned 
 more about the influence that school buildings 
 exercise upon the organisation of school work. 
 In the examinations of students in training to be 
 185 
 
1 86 The Gary Contribution 
 
 teachers it used to be common to set questions 
 about the structure of schools, and the architectural 
 details of school buildings. But this has become 
 more or less obsolete, no doubt for the reason that 
 it is realised that these matters are not within the 
 province of the practical teacher. Formerly it was 
 taken for granted that the teacher took the whole 
 of the school world for his province, including the 
 structure within which he did his work. With the 
 increasing division of labour, school architecture 
 found its place among matters that can be relegated 
 to outsiders who know nothing about the details of 
 school management. The planning of schools is 
 now left to architects who have specialised in that 
 branch, so that the ordinary teacher has to regard 
 the school-building and the class-room in which he 
 teaches as part of the data of his professional 
 problem. 
 
 All the more important, therefore, is the lesson 
 that we have to learn from an educational experi- 
 ment that has made a great stir on both sides of the 
 Atlantic. There is a town — the Americans prefer 
 to call it a city, since it has somewhere about 
 50,000 inhabitants — built on the sand dunes at the 
 southern point of Lake Michigan, in the State of 
 Indiana. It is a mushroom town, and need not 
 trouble about its jubilee celebrations for some 
 thirty-odd years yet. It was deliberately planted 
 where it is by the United States Steel Corporation 
 for the corporation's own ends. It has developed 
 for itself an educational system of some originality. 
 The school organisation began in September 1906, 
 opening, we are told, " with one teacher occupying 
 
The Gary Contribution 187 
 
 a one-room building.' ' But the gods were kind to 
 Gary, and sent along in the following July a certain 
 William A. Wirt, who gave his mind to his work as 
 Superintendent of Schools. He is a man of ideas, 
 of " poetic insight " as some of his admirers tell 
 us. In any case he set about his work with such 
 vigour and initiative that his town soon came to 
 be the most-talked-of place among all the educational 
 centres in America. From some points of view he 
 had a most unsuitable site for his educational organ- 
 isation. In the midst of an industrial area peopled 
 to the extent of two-thirds by folk who were either 
 foreign-born or of full foreign parentage, he had 
 little encouragement to start an educational crusade. 
 On the other hand, he had no tradition to fight down ; 
 for we can assume that the solitary teacher in the 
 single room did not present an overwhelming resist- 
 ance. It is not given to every man of originality to 
 develop his schemes in such a way as to call for a 
 specific name for his work. The very fact that 
 people interested in education now talk easily 
 about " the Gary System " means much ; but the 
 fact that it is frequently referred to as " the so-called 
 Gary System " means more. A system is well on 
 its way to wide influence when it attains to the 
 adjective so-called. 
 
 Out of the volumes that have been written 
 on the subject it would appear to be hopeless to 
 select any one principle and maintain that in it is 
 to be found the quintessence of the system. But 
 we shall not go far wrong if we seek the root idea of 
 the whole development in Mr. Wirt's attack on a 
 view based upon a detail of school architecture. 
 
188 The Gary Contribution 
 
 His scheme is sometimes called one of duplication, 
 
 and his schools have been called " duplicate " schools. 
 
 The terms are somewhat misleading, and the subject 
 
 can be better approached from the human side in 
 
 Mr. Wirt's challenge of the widespread opinion 
 
 that all schools should provide a seat and a desk 
 
 for every pupil. There is something very attractive 
 
 in the schoolman's perversion of a well-known saying: 
 
 " A place for every pupil, and every pupil in his 
 
 place." At this maxim of pedagogic tidiness Mr. 
 
 Wirt tilted with all his might, maintaining that there 
 
 is no more need for a separate seat in school for 
 
 every individual pupil than there is for a separate 
 
 seat in the public park for every individual citizen. 
 
 When the pupils were engaged in playing, or in 
 
 physical exercises, or in the workshop, or in the 
 
 library, their class-rooms were empty ; and Mr. 
 
 Wirt, like Nature, abhors a vacuum, and, like Nature, 
 
 at once proceeded to fill one when he found it. His 
 
 plan was the very simple one of providing class-room 
 
 accommodation for only half the number of pupils 
 
 attending a school. He calculated that, roughly 
 
 speaking, each pupil should spend only about half 
 
 his time in class- work. To give effect to this scheme 
 
 all that seemed necessary was to count each school 
 
 as available for double the number of pupils for 
 
 whom it was originally intended, and we can easily 
 
 picture the enthusiasm with which the education 
 
 authorities in an expanding town would welcome 
 
 a superintendent bringing such a money-saving 
 
 proposition. But Mr. Wirt realised that to give his 
 
 scheme fair play it was necessary that what may be 
 
 called the public parts of a school should be increased 
 
The Gary Contribution 189 
 
 and improved, if they were to account satisfactorily 
 for half the school time of the pupils. The new 
 scheme, in fact, demanded a school specially built 
 for it. Accordingly, Mr. Wirt calculated what an 
 ordinary school in Gary would cost in order to 
 accommodate a certain number of pupils, and then 
 asked his committee to provide a sum just a little 
 less than that, and to allow him to build the school 
 in his own way. Since his scheme involved a slight 
 saving, whereas nearly every educational innovation 
 involves an increased expenditure, he was allowed 
 to proceed. The result was a school with about 
 half the usual class-room accommodation for the 
 number of pupils on the roll, but with a specially 
 large and attractive suite of rooms for general 
 purposes. The playgrounds were more than usually 
 extensive and well- equipped ; there was a swimming- 
 bath, a conservatory, work-rooms, libraries, recrea- 
 tion-rooms, laboratories, art-rooms. Other schools 
 followed with ever- increasing elaboration of the 
 general and social accommodation, till the most 
 recent buildings must be regarded as something 
 approaching very closely to the ideal. 
 
 Without doubt Mr. Wirt did his best to keep down 
 expenses in carrying on his gradually elaborating 
 schemes, but it would be against all human ex- 
 perience if his outlays could be kept within the 
 limits of his estimates, so it is likely that he looked 
 about deliberately to find fresh justifications of his 
 expenditure. Fortunately, he found them without 
 having to go too far afield : in fact, they developed 
 out of his educational plans. His abhorrence of a 
 vacuum did not die down the moment the school 
 
190 The Gary Contribution 
 
 hours were past. He was hungering to fill up 
 the schools all the time. The more his fine and 
 expensive buildings were occupied, the less his Board 
 could find fault with their cost. Arrangements 
 were made by which parents could utilise in the 
 evenings some of the recreation and other public 
 rooms of the schools, so that the community might 
 have the feeling that it was directly benefiting by 
 the improved accommodation provided for the 
 youngsters. But Mr. Wirt was not content with this 
 indirect utilisation; he wanted the buildings to be 
 occupied for longer periods by their legitimate 
 tenants, the children themselves. Accordingly, the 
 school day was gradually lengthened, and additional 
 work was put on at various out-of-regular school- 
 hours, and days, till at last an admiring critic was 
 able to write : " The schools are in session twelve 
 months a year, and for seven days a week for certain 
 features, six days a week for all features." * After 
 the cold shiver this alarming announcement must 
 have caused the enquiring teacher, he will be 
 anxious to know how this never-ending chain of 
 activity is organised. 
 
 From the lowest grades the Gary schools are worked 
 on what the Americans call the departmental system, 
 which corresponds to what is known in England as 
 the specialist system. The pupils pass from room to 
 room according to the subject they have to study at 
 any particular time. In other words, children of the 
 tenderest years haveto carry on their work on exactly 
 the same principle that is applied in our newer 
 English universities. But objectors must remember 
 1 Henry S. Curtis, Education through Play, p. 167. 
 
The Gary Contribution 191 
 
 that Mr. Wirt is dealing with American children, 
 and American children are accustomed to have 
 responsibility thrust upon them at a much earlier 
 age than ours. Still, even young Americans cannot 
 be expected to take full responsibility for their own 
 education. Their course of study is determined in 
 consultation with responsible teachers, though to 
 the child himself is left the carrying out of the pro- 
 gramme agreed upon. The departmental system is 
 by no means a new thing in America, and the special 
 contribution Gary makes here is the wholesale way 
 in which it is applied. Before Mr. Wirt's time the 
 junior parts of schools were not departmentalised. 
 
 The grip that the Gary system takes upon the 
 life of the pupil is indicated by the somewhat clumsy 
 compound adjective often applied to schools con- 
 ducted on these lines. When it is said that they 
 are " work- play-study " schools, it is claimed that 
 they make provision for all the activities that are 
 usually called work, all those that expend themselves 
 in recreation, and all those that are devoted to 
 intellectual pursuits of every sort. The school thus 
 takes possession of the whole life of the pupil, and 
 to that extent usurps the place of the home. To 
 compensate for this there is the tendency to bring 
 the home closer to the school by affording oppor- 
 tunities for the parents to utilise the school buildings. 
 
 It would be perhaps too much to say that the 
 system has a communistic basis, but it certainly 
 suggests communistic ideals. Its promoters would 
 rather express its aim as a training in citizenship, 
 and they maintain that this training demands some 
 sort of communal work. But the community is 
 
192 The Gary Contribution 
 
 not limited to the school : the unit is the town : 
 the work of the school may be brought into touch 
 with the ordinary life of the citizens, and much 
 ingenuity appears to be expended in bringing about 
 contacts. Thus some years ago we were informed 
 in an article in The New Republic that the city analyst 
 at Gary was also a teacher of chemistry in the schools, 
 and that some at least of the necessary routine 
 analyses were made in the school laboratories, by 
 the pupils. Thus the regular periodical analyses 
 of the town water were made by the pupils, and the 
 purity of the various candies sold in the town was 
 guaranteed by making the school pupils responsible 
 for the necessary tests. It is hard to say how far 
 this educational realism may go, but it certainly 
 gives us material for serious reflection. 
 
 The American teachers have shown themselves 
 on the whole suspicious of the system : it is not 
 hard to see why. They were at first inclined to 
 believe that the underlying motive for its adoption 
 was the saving of money to the ratepayers — that 
 it was, in fact, a cheap substitute for the ordinary 
 arrangement. But there was further the grim 
 prospect of a school always in session, summer and 
 winter, spring and autumn, week-day and Sunday, 
 morning, noon, and night. Even with the layman 
 the imagination reels at this prospect of ceaseless 
 education, while to the teacher is the added horror 
 that he himself is necessarily a permanent performer 
 on this never-stopping treadmill. But closer in- 
 vestigation hardly seems to bear out the description 
 of the enthusiastic critic we have quoted, and the 
 official account of the system gives a more reassuring 
 
The Gary Contribution 193 
 
 statement of the facts of the case. This account 
 itself, published in eight * separate but not very 
 large volumes, is the outcome of the steady stream 
 of adverse criticism that was for long directed at 
 the system. The Board of Education and the City 
 Superintendent of Gary asked the General Educa- 
 tion Board to make a study of the Gary schools in 
 order to have them put to the test of independent 
 investigation. In the General Account that forms 
 the first volume of the series we are told that the 
 average school day in American cities over 100,000 
 is five hours, while in cities from 25,000 to 50,000, 
 among which Gary ranks, the day is five and a 
 quarter hours. Referring to the three big typical 
 Gary schools, the Account tells us : 
 
 " The official school day at Gary is for children seven 
 hours — from 8.15 to 4.15, with sixty minutes for luncheon. 
 The lengthened school day provides the additional time 
 needed for the special branches. Meanwhile the common 
 branches continue on the whole to receive as much time at 
 Gary as elsewhere. Fifty representative cities average 5,388 
 hours of instruction in the ordinary studies as compared 
 with 5,048 at Gary, a total difference of 340 hours spread 
 over eight years. The three R's are allotted 3,904, as 
 against 4,022 in fifty cities . Gary's departure is thus almost 
 wholly in the field of the special activities ; the 2,732 
 hours gained by lengthening the school day keep the 
 children off the streets and make time for physical training, 
 shop work, drawing, and the auditorium." 2 
 
 1 The titles of the volumes are as follow : The Gary 
 Schools, a General Account ; Organisation and Administra- 
 tion ; Costs ; Industrial Work ; Household Arts ; Physical 
 Training and Play ; Science Teaching ; Measurement of 
 Class-room Products. 
 
 2 Op. cit., p. 58. 
 
 13 
 
194 The Gary Contribution 
 
 Mr. Henry S. Curtis, looking at the matter 
 entirely from the pupils' point of view, cordially 
 approves of the lengthened school day, 
 
 " because the extra hours have been taken from the idle- 
 ness and ' the street and alley time ' of the children. It 
 has thus removed the chief source of dissipation and vice, 
 and given a great positive advantage at the same time." * 
 
 All this is in itself very satisfactory, but it leaves 
 teachers uneasy. An increase of nearly two hours 
 a day is a serious matter, unless there are compen- 
 sations. The Account tells us that we should 
 remember that where there is a short school day the 
 teachers are expected to give time after school to 
 records, reports, and outside duties, making up in 
 all a six-hour day. But when we have remembered 
 this we do not forget that there is still an absolute 
 increase of one hour, and would point out that 
 there is no reason to believe that the seven-hour 
 day would not be accompanied by the same, or 
 even a slightly increased, amount of out-of-hours 
 duties. Teachers will read with much more satis- 
 faction what the A ccount has to say under the head 
 of Teaching Staff : 
 
 " There is, however, no reason why the school building 
 and the pupil should not have longer hours without equally 
 increasing the length of the teacher's day. In fact, one 
 advantage of the Gary organisation is that the day for the 
 building may be one thing, that for the pupils another, and 
 that for teachers still another. Indeed, the teacher's 
 day can be made of any length whatsoever, though of course 
 the shorter the teacher's day the more teachers are required, 
 
 1 Education through Play, p. 174. 
 
The Gary Contribution 195 
 
 and hence the larger the budget for teachers' salaries, or 
 the smaller the salary per teacher." 1 
 
 Despite the " decided movement throughout the 
 country, notably in New York and New Jersey, 
 toward lengthening the school days in cities," and 
 the corresponding tendency we have noted in 
 England, the teachers can console themselves by 
 remembering that there are such things as working 
 by shifts : that there is the possibility of a maximum 
 number of hours per day, and a maximum number 
 of weeks per year — though this last does not appeal 
 so strongly to American teachers, who are paid by 
 the month, and thus not automatically paid during 
 holidays as we are. Within this maximum it is 
 quite possible to have a much wider choice in the 
 distribution of working time than is at present 
 available under our cast-iron system from some- 
 where round about nine o'clock a.m. to somewhere 
 round about four o'clock p.m. What appears to 
 threaten an intolerable oppression may be the 
 means of bringing increased freedom. If in England 
 the tendency develops, and it becomes a matter of 
 practical politics to increase the school day in such 
 a way as to have all the school work done on the 
 premises and let the children leave for home quite 
 free from further scholastic preoccupation, it will 
 be wise for the teachers to encourage the sort of 
 extension that the Gary system seems to favour ; 
 for in this way it will be possible to meet the 
 demands of parents and the needs of the pupils, 
 without overworking the individual teacher. 
 
 1 Op. cit., p. 72. 
 
196 The Gary Contribution 
 
 It goes without saying that an extension of the 
 school day would result in greater freedom of choice 
 for the pupil. Under our present arrangements 
 the rigid school hours make it imperative that the 
 pupils should all be occupied at the same times. 
 Any demands, social or industrial, made upon the 
 pupil's time during school hours can be met only 
 by directly interfering with school work. One of 
 the chief difficulties we shall have to face, when 
 the part-time work for pupils between 14 and 18 
 comes into operation, will be the fitting in of school 
 and work time. With a more or less continuous 
 set of lessons on the Departmental plan it would 
 be possible to get in the school work of the " young 
 persons " without unduly interfering with vocational 
 duties. There could be morning courses, midday 
 courses, afternoon courses, and, more doubtfully, 
 evening courses. In this way the young persons 
 could fit themselves in with comparative ease at 
 various points where they could get most benefit 
 from the instruction actually going on, and thus 
 minimise interference with their duties at the work- 
 shop, the factory, the warehouse, or the counting- 
 house. Naturally the time-tables in such schools 
 would become very complicated, but there is no 
 reason why they should be unworkable. The late 
 H. W. Eve, when Headmaster of University College 
 School, London, used to remark with satisfaction 
 that practically every one of his five hundred boys 
 had a time-table different from that of his fellows. 
 Yet the school was well organised and worked 
 smoothly. 
 
 Naturally there would need to be a group of 
 
The Gary Contribution 197 
 
 teachers of a new type, corresponding somewhat 
 to the deans in the universities. It would be their 
 duty at the beginning of each term to fix the par- 
 ticular subjects and grades that would meet the 
 need of each pupil. It would be the business of 
 this new class of directing teachers to mediate 
 between the pupils and the specialists. Adult 
 pupils may be left to fight their own battles with 
 their specialist instructors, but children require to 
 be not only guided in their choice of subjects but 
 supervised in carrying them on. The experts who 
 looked into the affairs of the Gary schools indicate 
 that this is a line of weakness at present. It is not 
 inherent in the system, but it is one of the dangers 
 to be guarded against in its application. The 
 allocation of the work was all right, and the arrange- 
 ments for supervision were in themselves excellent, 
 but were not applied as they ought to have been. 
 Pupils changed about from class to class during 
 term, in the independent way American children 
 have, without consulting the responsible teachers. 
 The pupil's programme-card states quite precisely 
 " No dropping of class nor change of programme 
 will be permitted without the written consent of the 
 assistant superintendent." A very little office 
 work would put it out of the power of the young 
 people to take the law into their own hands in the 
 way they appear to have done. 
 
 Perhaps the dean type of supervising teacher is 
 not sufficiently prominent in the Gary scheme as 
 at present applied, but in the nature of things his 
 function is essential to the successful working of 
 the new plans. Each dean would have a definite 
 
198 The Gary Contribution 
 
 number of pupils assigned to him, and his primary 
 duty throughout the year would be to see that each 
 of them conducted his studies according to plan. 
 A reference to present practice is always reassuring 
 to English teachers, and it will not fail to occur to 
 them that this apparently new official is merely a 
 development of the titular form-master who is at 
 present a feature of our secondary schools. He 
 originates from the need of making specialism in 
 schools workable. Specialists from the very nature 
 of the case have a tendency to pay undue attention 
 to the subject-matter at the expense of the pupil 
 as a human being. As a result of the system, the 
 specialist has to deal in the course of the school 
 week with a vastly greater number of individual 
 boys than the old-fashioned form-master. In- 
 evitably, therefore, he has less knowledge of and 
 interest in individual boys than was the case under 
 the old system. To obviate this defect the natural 
 device has been adopted of supplying each form 
 with a titular master whose business it is to look 
 after the pupils in that form from the human stand- 
 point. He is to be their father confessor, to be 
 responsible for them to the outer school world, and 
 to defend them where defence is possible and 
 desirable. It is generally contrived that this form- 
 master teaches one subject with his form, usually 
 Scripture or English, but even if he does not teach 
 them at all he still binds them together into a sort 
 of schematic " form." He represents their cor- 
 porate existence, he gathers up in himself the 
 collective personality of the group. He may be a 
 specialist to others, but to his form he is merely a 
 
The Gary Contribution 199 
 
 master whose specialty is boys. He has been 
 known to call himself a specialist " in Mathematics 
 and in Form IV." As things develop, it is not 
 unlikely that mathematics will fall more and more 
 into the background, and Form IV move more and 
 more into the limelight of his attention. 
 
 It will not have escaped the reader's notice that 
 we are here gradually approaching from a new 
 starting-point one of the developments of the 
 Dalton Plan. These new teacher-deans or titular 
 form-masters would fit very well into the functions 
 of the house-master or -mistress as these offices 
 are developing in the Dalton Plan. The stone and 
 lime arrangements suggested by Mr. Wirt fulfil 
 admirably the requirements of the Dalton Plan, 
 and the fact of this convergence is an argument the 
 more that the Daltonians are on the right tack. 
 
 One disquieting feature of the report that the 
 experts made on the working of the Gary system 
 is that they do not find that in the ordinary school 
 subjects the schools quite hold their own with the 
 other schools in the country. They have emphati- 
 cally succeeded in their special aims, but somehow 
 they do not appear to have got on so well with 
 plain reading, writing, and arithmetic. To quote 
 the report : 
 
 " It must be recognised that no educational system can 
 be considered to have completely established itself until, 
 whatever else it achieves, it has also secured the fundamental 
 educational values represented by the essential tools of 
 learning. The results of testing the Gary schools do not 
 invalidate the effort to socialise education, but it is evident 
 that the Gary experiment has not yet successfully solved 
 
200 The Gary Contribution 
 
 the problems involved in the socialisation of education, in 
 so far as efficient instruction in the necessary common school 
 branches is concerned." x 
 
 But the sympathetic observer need not be greatly 
 troubled about this lapse. There are many explana- 
 tions besides the intrinsic qualities of the system. 
 There is first the preponderantly foreign nature of 
 the population : the majority, as we have noted, 
 being either foreign-born or of full foreign parentage 
 on both sides. Next there is that lack of effective 
 supervision that is not an inherent defect in the 
 system and yet has a great deal to do with just 
 such a weakness as has been noticed. The experts 
 report that " the quality of class-room instruction 
 at Gary falls short of what is necessary/' but in 
 another part of their report they give the reason. 
 It is said ■ that the meagre and formal character of 
 the class-room instruction may to some extent at 
 least be explained by the fact that the existence 
 of such a prominent system of shops and laboratories, 
 libraries and workrooms, conveys the impression 
 that there will be no difficulty in making the neces- 
 sary applications, so the class- teachers may, without 
 sin, stick rather rigidly to the formal treatment of 
 their subjects. There is further a peculiar official 
 in the Gary system whose very existence may to 
 some extent weaken the sense of responsibility in the 
 minds of class-teachers. This is what is called the 
 " application teacher." Her special concern is to 
 assist backward pupils and to place before the 
 children real problems of the type that the world 
 
 1 The Gary Schools : General Account, p. 105. 
 
 2 Op. cit., p. 102, 
 
The Gary Contribution 201 
 
 of industry, business, and citizenship will place 
 before them when they leave school. 1 
 
 The knowledge that there are such functionaries 
 on the staff is certainly likely to blunt the conscience 
 of the ordinary teacher, who will naturally concen- 
 trate on her special subject and let the appropriate 
 official see to the necessary applications. It is 
 evident in any case that the facts at Gary do not 
 witness in favour of the retention of this particular 
 functionary. It appears that in 1916 there were 
 only four application teachers on the staff, and that 
 one of these did specialist work in addition to her 
 1 ' application. ' ' The lesson of these abortive officials 
 is important. Not only do they not serve the pur- 
 pose for which they were appointed, but they tend 
 to prevent others from serving it. There may be 
 room in the school system for an application teacher 
 or teachers, but their functions should be to deal 
 with the staff, not with the pupils. The dean- 
 teachers of whom we have spoken may well include 
 this function among their others. What is wanted 
 is a deliberate influence exercised on the staff in the 
 direction of that unification of purpose demanded 
 by the integralists. 
 
 One of the most characteristic features of the Gary 
 system is the use of the auditorium. In the interests 
 of the corporate spirit, our English schools are fully 
 alive to the need for some gathering-place where the 
 whole school can meet for at least a few minutes 
 every day. Many teachers are prepared to put up 
 with a great deal of inconvenience for themselves and 
 their pupils during these few minutes, rather than 
 1 Op. cit., p. 83. 
 
202 The Gary Contribution 
 
 give up what the meeting implies. At Gary the 
 feeling after collective unity is as strong as elsewhere, 
 but the auditoria are not big enough to meet the 
 needs of a mass meeting of all the pupils. They 
 are used throughout the day by instalments. It 
 would be entirely against the Wirtian policy to have 
 a vacuum all day long in the auditorium after the 
 morning exercises. To be sure, in our English 
 schools it is rare to find a school hall vacant at any 
 period of the day ; almost invariably the, needs of the 
 school secure a little overflow class in one corner or 
 other, sometimes in one or two corners simul- 
 taneously. But this surreptitious use is deprecated, 
 and explained as being forced upon the teachers by 
 the necessities of the case. Certainly a school hall is 
 better used in this way than left to insult the spirit 
 of Wirt with a vacuum. But at Gary the auditorium 
 is used pretty constantly all day long, and that for 
 its special purpose of massed teaching and training. 
 The auditorium is really a class-room for such work 
 as can be done by very large groups. The audience 
 in the auditorium is made up of several classes 
 close enough in attainments to benefit by the mass 
 treatment. Thus a day's use of the auditorium at 
 the Froebel school, the largest at Gary, may be set 
 out in tabular form : 
 
 
 8.15 
 
 to 
 
 9.i5 
 
 9.15 
 
 to 
 
 10.15 
 
 10.15 
 
 to 
 
 11.15 
 
 CO 
 
 > 
 u 
 <u 
 
 d 
 
 I.T5 
 
 to 
 
 2.15 
 
 2.15 
 to 
 315 
 
 3-15 
 to 
 
 4i3 
 
 Number of classes 
 Number of pupils 
 Grade span 
 
 7 
 
 219 
 
 4b-6b 
 
 9 
 
 276 
 
 ia-4c 
 
 7 
 
 223 
 
 6b-u 
 
 5 
 
 135 
 
 6a-io 
 
 8 
 
 293 
 ib-3a 
 
 8 
 264 
 3C-6b 
 
The Gary Contribution 203 
 
 The resemblance to David Stow's "gallery lessons" 
 at once strikes the reader, though it must be admitted 
 that Gary works on a grander scale, and is more 
 merciful to its teachers. For no one teacher is kept 
 at the wheel for a whole day, or indeed for a whole 
 hour. For the work is so distributed that every- 
 body who has a talent for collective teaching has 
 his chance. Dr. Hayward would be in his element 
 as the organiser of the sort of general culture lessons 
 and demonstrations that are in daily progress in 
 the Gary auditoria, and Mr. Caldwell Cook would 
 find an admirable outlet for the energies of his 
 Littlemen. The fact is that sometimes the audi- 
 torium exercise suffers materially from the lack of 
 just such sustained guidance as these men could 
 supply. We are told that the value of this collective 
 work varies greatly — from dead failure to brilliant 
 success. The movement, however, is steadily to- 
 wards normal success. Teachers of special powers of 
 organisation are gradually taking the matter in 
 hand, and regulating it in such a way as to enlist 
 the services of those who excel in these activities, 
 which, be it remembered, demand a rather special 
 kind of talent. 
 
 The reporting experts tell us bluntly that they 
 cannot at this stage pronounce a final verdict on the 
 Gary auditorium, but they are quite sure that the 
 makeshift auditorium in a small school without 
 proper leadership or equipment, and as a practical 
 substitute for class work in literature and music, 
 is a failure. One point that I am surprised has not 
 attracted more attention is the possibility of big 
 advertisers taking up the auditorium- hour for their 
 
204 The Gary Contribution 
 
 own purposes, paying their way handsomely by 
 providing genuine educational material for three- 
 quarters of the hour, and making even the remaining 
 quarter that deals with their own matters instructive 
 as well as amusing to the children. Propagandists of 
 all sorts will soon begin to move in the matter. 
 The hour that at present lies in the lethargy of half- 
 somnolent art may waken up in the near future to 
 find itself the most imposing feature of the school. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE PLAY, WAY 
 
 MR. H. CALDWELLCOOK hasdeserved well of 
 his craft by publishing his attractive volume 
 under the question-raising title of The Play Way. 
 The three words exactly describe the subject dealt 
 with, but experience clearly shows that the nature 
 of the book is very generally misunderstood by those 
 who have not taken the trouble to read it. There 
 are two main lines of misunderstanding. The use 
 of school plays is now so common that it is perhaps 
 not unnatural that there is a widespread impression 
 that Mr. Caldwell Cook has written a treatise on how 
 to carry on stage work in schools on educational 
 principles. The casual reader turning over the 
 pages of the book, and noting the number of photo- 
 graphs of boys in various theatrical costumes and 
 attitudes, gets confirmation of the general impression, 
 and carries away the idea that the work follows the 
 lines of Miss H. Finlay- Johnson's The Dramatic 
 Method of Teaching. But the two books approach 
 the subject from quite different standpoints. The 
 lady recommends the dramatic representation in all 
 subjects. Naturally history and literature lend 
 themselves most readily to this treatment, but she 
 is not at all disposed to limit the method to them. 
 
 205 
 
206 The Play Way 
 
 She practically takes the whole school curriculum as 
 the province of the dramatic, and applies her method 
 all the way through. Mr. Caldwell Cook, on the 
 other hand, accepts dramatic representation as one 
 of a variety of ways in which he can get the pupils 
 to take an active part in the learning process. His 
 main concern is to get the pupils to take at least 
 their fair share in all school work, including especially 
 that part that is usually called " lessons." Dramati- 
 sation no doubt supplies an excellent means of 
 reaching this end, but it is far from being the only 
 one. The youngsters — Littlemen is the technical 
 term he uses for boys at the Perse School who are 
 under thirteen years of age — are encouraged to carry 
 on debates, give little lectures, write topical verses, 
 draw quaint imaginative maps. 
 
 The second line of misunderstanding is to regard 
 play as a diversion, a recreation, a relief from work. 
 Those who expect to find an exposition or even an 
 exemplification of the various theories of the 
 psychological nature of play ' will come away dis- 
 appointed. Mr. Caldwell Cook is almost vehement in 
 his rejection of this diversion theory. He assures 
 us " that the play methods suggested throughout 
 this book are not a relaxation or a diversion from 
 real study, but only an active way of learning." * 
 
 The fact is that in the title of the book the word 
 Play has attracted too much attention to itself at 
 the expense of the less aggressive word Way. For 
 
 1 Those who want information of this kind will find it well 
 put in Mr. Walter Wood's Children's Play and its Place 
 in Education. 
 
 1 Op. cit., p. 30. 
 
The Play Way 207 
 
 Mr. Caldwell Cook is expounding a method or way 
 in which he proposes that all learning and teaching 
 should be carried on. In this case the play is not 
 the thing; the mode of approach is what counts. 
 To say that work is to be attacked in a playful 
 spirit conveys a curious suggestion of frivolity 
 that is quite out of harmony with the tone of the 
 book. Mr. Caldwell Cook has taken to heart the 
 saying of a St. Louis schoolman quoted by Professor 
 W. C. Bagley in his Craftsmanship in Teaching: "The 
 dominant characteristic of the child's mind is 
 seriousness. The child is the most serious creature 
 in the world." l The Play Way is not a matter of 
 lowering serious work to the level of flippant enter- 
 tainment, but of introducing a joyous element 
 into the grim region of hard work. The spirit of 
 Mr. William Piatt's The Joy of Education is generally 
 praised, but many are unable to suppress the com- 
 ment that it cannot be realised in actual school work. 
 Mr. Piatt's experience in his own school is a practical 
 exemplification of the workability of his theory, and 
 Mr. Caldwell Cook supplies confirmatory evidence 
 from practice, accompanied by a more or less rea- 
 soned statement of the principles on which his 
 methods are based. The introduction of the play 
 spirit into work is often regarded with suspicion, 
 but an excellent defence may be set up based on the 
 difficulty of distinguishing between work and play. 
 The moment we look into the matter we realise 
 that while a logical distinction can be readily made 
 by declaring work to be what we must do for a 
 living, and play what ,we do because we want to 
 1 Op. tit., p. 125. 
 
208 The Play Way 
 
 do it, we feel that we are dealing with abstractions 
 and unrealities. Professor G. H. Palmer drives a 
 wedge into the distinction when he says in The Ideal 
 Teacher : " Harvard College pays me for doing 
 what I would gladly pay it for allowing me to do." ■ 
 Tom Sawyer's glorious manipulation of the painting 
 of the fence drives the wedge home and splits the 
 definition. 
 
 Yet the practical person feels that a distinction 
 does exist, and is very much afraid of anything 
 entering the educational system that will do some- 
 thing to diminish the distinction in school and to 
 that extent disqualify the pupil for his life in the 
 real world that follows school and that certainly 
 recognises a marked difference between play and 
 work. 
 
 Against Caldwell Cook and Piatt and the Neo- 
 Herbartians on the one side, there is opposed a 
 great body of practical, hard-headed, and not too 
 soft-hearted teachers who hold up for our admira- 
 tion what they complacently call "the good old 
 grind," and solemnly warn us against the snares of 
 " the primrose path." They tell us that there is 
 no need to make things interesting. In their after- 
 lives the pupils will not find the world putting itself 
 about to make things interesting for them, so it is 
 well to get them to accustom themselves betimes 
 to face the uninteresting. To all this a cheerful 
 assent may be given. It is well that our young people 
 should acquire the power of dealing with things 
 that are not intrinsically interesting. But this 
 does not mean that we ought to go out of our way 
 1 Op. cit., p. 3. 
 
The Play Way 209 
 
 to find subjects that are in themselves uninteresting 
 and dull. Yet the good-old-grinders go even so 
 far as this, and read with satisfaction what Dr. 
 Alexander Hill has to say in Spencer's Aims and 
 Practice of Teaching, where, after praising the 
 Classics as a means of developing the power of 
 sustained and orderly thinking, he goes on : 
 
 " Some part of the credit for this most desirable result 
 must be attributed to the discipline of working at a subject 
 which offers in itself no temptations to work. No advantages 
 from the schoolboy point of view are to be derived from 
 its study. It does not come near enough to his own life 
 to arouse his curiosity. His only motive for learning his 
 lesson is that his master tells him to do so ; and this, we 
 think, should always be sufficient." * 
 
 To clear up matters it should be realised that there 
 is a widespread confusion between the interesting 
 and the pleasant. What is pleasant is usually 
 interesting, but what is interesting is not necessarily 
 pleasant. It is hard to imagine a more interesting 
 place than the dentist's chair. Etymologically the 
 word interest indicates that the thing that attracts 
 us is what we are mingled in, and form a part of. 
 It concerns us. To set up interest in a matter is to 
 get into contact with it at as many points as possible. 
 To be told to learn Latin does establish a contact, 
 but a quite insufficient one. So far from removing 
 school subjects out of the range of ordinary experi- 
 ence, we ought to connect them up in every possible 
 way. This is being more and more recognised every 
 day. In our next chapter we shall see that arith- 
 metical problems are no longer of the absurd kind 
 1 Op. cit., p. 283. 
 14 
 
210 The Play Way 
 
 that used to be common, dealing with all manner 
 of improbabilities, not to say impossibilities. Geo- 
 .graphy, except when in the hands of the advanced 
 scientific group, who appear to be afraid to mention 
 a proper name in a geography lesson, deals with 
 matters that the pupils recognise as part of real 
 life. Even history is brought into touch with what 
 is going on to-day and therefore concerns us. 
 
 But the veteran good-old-grinders need not be 
 discomposed after all. The introduction of the 
 element of purpose into the work of the school 
 certainly rouses interest, but it does not dispose 
 of the need for hard work. There will always be 
 enough of the intrinsically uninteresting to supply 
 all the mental strain that is necessary. The un- 
 interesting cannot be altogether eliminated. As that 
 good-old-grinder, Professor Bain, remarks with 
 unseemly satisfaction : 
 
 " Then comes the stern conclusion that the uninteresting 
 must be faced at last ; that by no palliation or device are 
 we able to make agreeable everything that has to be 
 mastered. The age of drudgery must commence : every 
 motive that can avert it is in the end exhausted." ■ 
 
 After all, the teacher who wishes to utilise interest 
 does not seek to eliminate the uninteresting. What 
 he wants is to put it in its proper place in relation 
 to what is interesting. There has been a long and 
 tiresome discussion about the classification of the 
 various forms of attention, the point in dispute 
 being the relation between the two forces — will and 
 interest — that determine the manipulation of atten- 
 
 1 Education as a Science, p. 184. 
 
The Play Way 211 
 
 tion. The old distinction was between the voluntary 
 and the involuntary forms. The first was marked 
 by the deliberate exercise of will, the second by the 
 absence of this exercise. Naturally there arose 
 confusion, because " involuntary " might be held 
 to mean not merely without will, but against will. 
 Accordingly, the words non-voluntary and avoluntary 
 were suggested. Others introduced a new term, 
 spontaneous, and rendered confusion worse con- 
 founded. It is much simpler to get rid of the element 
 of will altogether, and reduce the classification of the 
 different aspects of attention to a twofold one, 
 adopting the sense of effort as the basis. We can 
 establish quite a satisfactory dichotomy by dividing 
 all forms of attention into two, the one marked by 
 the presence of effort and the other not. Effortful 
 and effortless attention are quite easily marked off 
 from each other, and may be named — after the 
 Latin nisus, a striving or an effort — nisic and 
 anisic respectively. The names, being entirely 
 new, are burdened with none of the misleading 
 connotation that hampers the use of the older 
 controversial terms. Besides, they permit of as 
 detailed an additional analysis as may be thought 
 necessary in the case of the nisic form, for it is obvious 
 that while attention must be either nisic or anisic, 
 the nisic kind may involve any degree of effort. 
 
 The educational importance of the distinction 
 between the two main types of attention may be 
 well illustrated by the question sometimes raised 
 about which form should be used at the earliest 
 stages. It used to be said that the teacher ought 
 to begin with the involuntary form and pass on to 
 
212 The Play Way 
 
 the voluntary. Probably the cause of this prefer- 
 ence was that voluntary attention sounds much more 
 dignified than involuntary. It obviously repre- 
 sents a higher form of mental activity, and it is 
 therefore not unnaturally regarded as forming a 
 goal. But when we adopt the division into nisic 
 and anisic, it will be found that the real progress 
 ) is from the nisic to the anisic. It surely cannot be 
 the purpose of the teacher to make his pupils pass 
 from an attention that does not demand effort to 
 an attention that does. The truth is that we are 
 continually using both forms of attention, and 
 continually passing from the one form to the other ; 
 but the greatest part of our work is carried on by the 
 anisic form. It is true that the teacher's business 
 \ is not to save his pupils from making efforts, but 
 to encourage them to make efforts. Yet it has to 
 be kept in view that he does want to train his pupils 
 to economise effort, to get full value for every effort 
 made. Nisic attention should be used only when 
 it is essential, so that the pupil's efforts may be 
 conserved and directed into the most profitable 
 channels. We shall return to this matter presently. 
 The good-old-grinders have on their side the 
 undoubted fact that drudgery has to be faced in 
 this world, and it does not seem an unreasonable 
 contention that our pupils should be made to face 
 drudgery as soon as possible. But even the reac- 
 tionaries shrink from carrying their principle to its 
 legitimate conclusion. They baulk at the suggestion 
 of drudgery-drill in schools. They do not relish 
 the idea of specifically training drudges. But if 
 they draw the line there, the question is reduced 
 
The Play Way 213 
 
 to one of degree. If drudgery is to be practised 
 not in and for itself, but as a by-product of some 
 school process, then the progressive teachers differ 
 from the reactionaries merely in the remoteness 
 of the drudgery work from the work that makes 
 it necessary and at the same time tolerable. If we 
 take the dictionary meaning of drudgery as " un- 
 interesting toil," we want to know if there is an 
 absolute point below which drudgery makes its 
 first appearance, or if there are degrees of drudgery. 
 No evidence is produced of the existence of a standard 
 degree of interest below which work becomes 
 drudgery, so we may assume that it is a matter of 
 degree, and that therefore the more interest we can 
 introduce into a given piece of work, the further 
 removed it is from drudgery. 
 
 But interest is commonly regarded as of two 
 kinds, direct and indirect. It is impossible to get 
 up direct interest in certain matters, but if we can 
 rouse a sufficient amount of indirect interest it may 
 serve our turn. In order to attain some end in 
 which we are really interested, it is often necessary 
 to undertake a good deal of uninteresting toil. 
 But the attraction of the final goal is sufficient to 
 spur us on to the " mean toil" of the dictionary 
 definition. In fact every experienced teacher is 
 familiar with the toil pupils will undertake in order 
 to attain some much-desired end. The labour we 
 delight in physics the pain of its otherwise uninterest- 
 ing accompaniments. This applies even to purely 
 school-room activities, as, for example, in the case 
 of the boy who because it became fashionable among 
 his school-mates to read upside down, started in 
 
214 The Play Way 
 
 earnest to learn to read rightside up in order to be 
 " in the movement " of reading upside down. Any 
 pupil with a fairly wide range of interests will find 
 some part of school work that it is to his advantage 
 to work up. It is the business of the teacher to 
 present matters in such a way as to facilitate this 
 passing on of indirect interest to matters that other- 
 wise would be pure drudgery . Obviously the best 
 y/ plan for rousing the initial interest is to see that 
 /\ everything undertaken by the pupil has some more 
 or less definite purpose. For this gives a meaning, 
 and therefore suggests an interest. 
 
 The pupil cannot be expected to be interested in 
 something that is merely presented to him by another 
 with the demand that he shall do a certain piece of 
 work according to the directions laid down by that 
 other. He is not sufficiently involved in the process 
 to feel that he is a real part of it. One of the most 
 marked characteristics of the New Teaching is that 
 the distribution of work between teacher and pupil 
 is better understood. We now realise that the 
 highest function of the teacher is to stimulate his 
 pupils to take their proper share in the activities 
 of the class-room. There may be learning without 
 teaching, and there may be a process that passes by 
 the name of teaching and yet is unaccompanied by 
 learning. But there is no true teaching unless it 
 brings about learning. Teaching and learning are 
 correlative processes. Unless the pupil learns because 
 of what the teacher does, there has been no real 
 teaching. As old David Stow used to bore his 
 young students by reiterating in season and out of 
 season : "A thing is not given till it is taken ; a 
 
The Play Way 215 
 
 lesson is not taught till it is learnt." There must be 
 a causal relation between the work of the teacher 
 and the learning of the pupil. The business of the 
 class-room must be carried on as a partnership, in 
 which the teacher is the directing spirit and the 
 pupil does most of the work. Naturally this does 
 not mean that under the new schemes he is to have 
 an easier time of it than before, but merely that in 
 the class-room he is to take a less prominent part 
 than under the old scheme. In order that he may 
 have to do little overt work during the lesson hour, 
 the teacher must make careful and sometimes 
 laborious preparation beforehand. 
 
 All this, it is true, can again be traced back to 
 Rousseau, whose system of negative education with 
 its principle of " wisely losing time " really involves 
 all that has now come to more or less clear con- 
 sciousness in the minds of teachers. But we have 
 only to consider what took place in actual school 
 work from Rousseau's day to ours in order to realise 
 that the present widespread recognition of this 
 principle marks a change that may fairly justify 
 the term New Teaching, particularly when we trace 
 its effects on some of our school methods. In 
 certain subjects the text-book has been dethroned 
 in favour of the pupil's note-book. In such subjects 
 as geometry, science, history, geography, the pupils 
 are now often called upon to make, from the lessons 
 given, such a set of notes as will practically serve 
 the purposes of a text-book. No doubt this plan 
 involves considerable preparation by the teachers, 
 and at first sight it would almost appear as if the 
 method involved a more prominent share than ever 
 
216 The Play Way 
 
 for the teacher in the work of the class-hour. But 
 since the preparation of the note-book is thrown 
 upon the pupils, it is clear that their responsibility 
 is greatly increased. The same principle is involved 
 in the present revolt against bookishness. The 
 claim is made that, wherever possible, pupils should 
 be made to do things rather than read about them. 
 Open-air schools, school journeys, nature study in 
 the fields, and gardening work at school are all 
 examples of this revolt against bookishness. But it 
 has to be admitted that the revolt is not always 
 intelligently conducted. There is a sense, and there 
 are circumstances, in which the New Education 
 stands in need of more book- work and not less. 
 
 The Boy Scout and Girl Guide movement exempli- 
 fies in a very wholesome way the modern combina- 
 tion of knowing and doing. For knowledge is 
 treated as of fundamental importance, since it 
 enables the boys to acquire an intelligent under- 
 standing of the processes in which they seek to 
 acquire skill. Scouting is carried out entirely on 
 the lines of the Play Way. It is essentially a game, 
 full of make-believe that at the same time is 
 harnessed to the practical in such a way as to lead 
 to serious effort in order to -attain a greatly desired 
 skill. No better illustration could be found of the 
 principle of making drudgery tolerable. For the 
 ages at which Scouting is most popular it forms an 
 admirable training for cultivating the social virtues, 
 and enabling the youngsters to get a clear practical 
 acquaintance with the duties and responsibilities of 
 citizenship, and that without the trace of any 
 political bias. Some of our fundamental social 
 
The Play Way 217 
 
 problems appear to be settled by the scouts in their 
 stride, during their periods in camp. Here indeed 
 we have the Play Way in excelsis. The boys take 
 themselves very seriously, and their life becomes for 
 the time an ordered whole, in which all the ordinary 
 social problems present themselves in a very practical 
 form that demands immediate solution. Difficulties 
 cannot be put off to a more convenient season : 
 something must be done at once. There has to be 
 a social system set up in such a way as to work. 
 There must be workers and directors of work, and 
 all their activities must be so correlated as to avoid 
 friction, and promote harmonious activity. There 
 is a tribal council, and there are seven positions of 
 importance that are open to competition to all who 
 can satisfy the council of their capacity to fill them. 
 Each such officer has the right to use a sign before 
 his tent, in keeping with his dignity. Six of these 
 officers are named as follows : (i) Keeper of the 
 Council Fire ; (ii) Beater of the Tom-Tom ; (iii) 
 Tribal Totem Keeper ; (iv) Keeper of the Legends ; 
 (vi) Tribal Medicine Man ; (vii) Herald of the 
 Council. One can readily understand the keen 
 competition for such posts, but it will be noted that 
 number v has been omitted, as I wish to call special 
 attention to it. This officer rejoices in the name of 
 the Keeper of the Garbage, and the fact that he 
 ranks with the others as the holder of a place of 
 dignity is significant. 
 
 Mr. John Hargrave, one of the most distinguished 
 Scout Masters in the country (he is well known to 
 scouts as White Fox), gives an account of the duties 
 of the Garbage Keeper in just the same detail as 
 
218 The Play Way 
 
 those of the other officers. These do not seem in 
 any way attractive, but we gather from the context ' 
 that there is no difficulty in filling the post. The 
 sign of this Keeper is a heart into which are darting 
 five streaks of lightning. The symbolism is not 
 quite clear till we are told that this is the sign of 
 health. One would have thought that here there 
 was poaching on the domain of the Medicine Man, 
 but the latter has to be content with a shield enclos- 
 ing the Geneva Cross. One admires the tact under- 
 lying this elevating symbolism, and from what I 
 can gather from Scout Masters a very serious trouble 
 is thus eased, if not removed. I am told that for 
 the complete solution of the garbage problem, the 
 military parallel has to be utilised. The fact that 
 the disposal of garbage is of first importance in a 
 real soldiers' camp reconciles the boys to this 
 disagreeable, but, in scout public opinion, not 
 undignified work. Under scout law the problem of 
 the golden dustman has been solved. 
 
 So alluring is camp life, and so full of promise 
 of health and physical strength, that Mr. Hargrave 
 would like to make it permanent. If he had his 
 way all the boys of the country would live always in 
 camp, under canvas during the summer months and 
 in huts during the winter. His scheme is not limited 
 to boys; he would extend it to young men and 
 women, and even would suggest that married men 
 and their families might do worse than join in the 
 movement, naturally under easier conditions than 
 those imposed on the youngsters. 
 
 These proposals take us out of the region of 
 1 The Great War Brings it Home, pp."i75~ff t 
 
The Play Way 219 
 
 practical education so soon as they pass beyond 
 the scout age, but are interesting as illustrating the 
 wide range of the spirit underlying the Play Way. 
 Further, the above extravagant proposals give a 
 much-needed opportunity for the good- old- grinders 
 to let off steam. For we who have leanings towards 
 the Play Way, and all that it implies, must have 
 some consideration for those who hold so staunchly 
 by the old plans. We must let them explode now 
 and again, and we must keep an open mind to take 
 note of their objections. They have a good deal to 
 say in favour of their views, and nowhere are they 
 more dangerous than when they make themselves 
 disagreeable by maintaining that this cry for 
 interest is really a pandering to the innate selfishness 
 of human nature. Instead of mortifying the flesh 
 in the time-honoured way, the primrose-pather is 
 accused of truckling to plain human selfishness. To 
 be perfectly candid, there is a sense in which the 
 charge is literally true. The boy who follows the 
 line of his interest is certainly following the line that 
 his self would dictate. If we now consult our psycho- 
 analytical friends about this self we find it such a 
 cesspool that we are unwilling to have anything to 
 do with it, and feel inclined to join the good- old- 
 grinders in doing everything we can to repress it. 
 If one reads The Beloved Ego by Dr. Wilhelm Stekel, 
 one is inclined to think that what this ego needs is 
 the firmest possible repression. But fortunately 
 we need not take our view of the nature of the ego 
 from a Vienna psychotherapist. We need not attach 
 much importance to the opinions of a man who 
 writes, seemingly in all earnestness : 
 
2 
 
 20 The Play Way 
 
 The sight of a cheerful gathering of people — chatting, 
 exchanging mutual confidences and friendly words of 
 appreciation and congratulation, apparently in pure en- 
 joyment and friendship — calls a very different vision before 
 me. I see these people as they really are : mocking, envy- 
 ing, and full of ill-will towards each other. It is the ' inner 
 man ' that I see." l 
 
 This is very depressing, but it is certainly not 
 new. The sort of thing has been done before, and 
 better done. Swift was in the field before Stekel 
 was heard of. Nor is it true. Human nature no 
 doubt stands in need of all the defence it can find, 
 but in the last resort it is not so hideous as pictures 
 of this sort would make out. Besides, in education 
 we have the comparatively untarnished ego to work 
 with. For whatever truth underlies such pictures 
 of adult life as Stekel draws, we must feel ourselves 
 as educators to some extent responsible. 
 
 But in dealing with this question of interest and 
 selfishness we are apt to be misled, as in so many 
 other matters, by the influence of words. The 
 child is certainly born into the world with a fierce 
 ego-centric bias. He regards everything from his 
 own standpoint. He is the centre of the universe. 
 Even we who have grown up cannot get away from 
 that position. However modest we may be, how- 
 ever much we may desire to keep out of the lime- 
 light, the fact remains that we must of necessity 
 look at things as if we were the centre of the universe. 
 Philosophically we are each the centre of the 
 universe, and can think only on that understanding. 
 But this does not carry with it the imputation 
 usually conveyed by the word self-ishness. We 
 1 W. Stekel, The Disguises of Love, p. i. 
 
The Play Way 221 
 
 may be ego-centric and yet treat all other egos 
 with justice and consideration. The crowd that 
 Stekel describes are not merely ego-centric, they 
 are malicious. Ego-centricism, so far from being 
 a drawback, is an advantage. It gives stability to 
 our social structure. The vigorous self-reference 
 of a child at school is really Nature's protection 
 against society in general, and the teacher in par- 
 ticular. Had we teachers our way, our pupils 
 would be all eminently pliable, and would allow 
 themselves to be turned into whatever form it 
 pleased us to impose. But provided with this 
 innate ego-centric force they offer resistance to 
 our influence and thus avoid what Mr. Edmond 
 Holmes would call the Nemesis of Docility. 
 
 No doubt the teacher can affect the pupils and 
 modify their development, but he can do it only 
 on the understanding that he respects their inner 
 nature. He can command only by obeying the 
 laws of the child's own nature. He must stoop to 
 conquer. 
 
 / When the teacher seeks to interest his pupils, he 
 is merely searching for the best way of appealing 
 Ao the laws of their nature. So far from surrender- 
 / ing his power of influencing the child, he is using 
 the only means by which he can exercise effective 
 control over the pupil's mental processes. It is by 
 manipulating interest that the good-old-grinders 
 themselves exercise whatever powers they do 
 possess. The pupil learns Latin not because he 
 wants to, but because he is interested — in the cane, 
 or in some other disagreeable consequence of neg- 
 lecting Latin. There is no question of getting rid 
 
222 The Play Way 
 
 of interest : that cannot be done. The practical 
 point is the kind of interest and the way in which 
 it is applied. It may be said that the primrose- 
 pathers have also to use coercive measures on 
 occasion, and the charge must be allowed. If we 
 cannot get a response to our appeal to one interest, 
 we must try another, even if that other be a 
 lower one. The good-old-grinder is not necessarily 
 addicted to the cane. He is severe, no doubt, but 
 he may attain his ends without falling back upon 
 the grosser form of punishment. Where he differs 
 from the primrose-pather is in the incidence of the 
 interest he arouses. In the primrose path the 
 pupil is induced to take an interest in the subject 
 itself and its applications. Those who are kept at 
 the good old grind are interested to avoid un- 
 pleasant consequences, and therefore do the work 
 required. 
 
 Ultimately, however, the two plans merge to 
 some extent, for unless nisic attention is immedi- 
 ately supported by anisic, distraction inevitably 
 follows. {Experimental psychologists tell us that 
 pure nisic attention can be sustained for only a 
 few seconds at a time. Will can direct attention 
 to this object or to that ; but unless a certain 
 amount of interest is roused in the object itself, 
 attention must immediately flag. The good-old- 
 grinder's order to attend is sufficient to direct the 
 pupil's nisic attention to the subject, say Latin ; 
 but unless an interest of some sort is roused in 
 Latin itself, the attention inevitably wanders. 
 Fortunately human beings are so constituted that 
 when the mind is firmly turned in any direction it 
 
The Play Way 223 
 
 readily finds elements that rouse some anisic 
 attention. In this way, by an excessive expenditure 
 of effort, the pupil of the good-old-grinder manages 
 to attend well enough to master the particular bit 
 of work set. But there is point in Tranio's protest, 
 M No profit grows where is no pleasure fa' en," 
 though even the primrose-pathers would hardly go 
 the length of endorsing the consequent recom- 
 mendation : "In brief, sir, study what you most 
 affect." 
 
 This advice raises the whole question of the 
 pupil's choice of subjects. The problem is whether 
 he should have a prescribed course set out before 
 him, or should be allowed to select his own subjects. 
 The matter has been put with a certain grim humour, 
 Shall education be d la carte or table d'hote ? The 
 practical answer of progressive teachers is that it 
 should be both. In order that the pupil may 
 work with zest, that he may be able to face his 
 studies in the Play Way, it is essential that he 
 should be allowed to choose subjects that really 
 appeal to him. On the other hand, in order that 
 his education may not be lopsided, he must not be 
 allowed to omit the whole of certain groups of 
 subjects. The difficulty may be met, to continue 
 the metaphor, by making education table d'hote so 
 far as the courses are concerned, but d la carte with 
 regard to the choice within each course. In this 
 way each pupil will be ensured a sufficiently wide 
 range of subjects, and yet within that range be able 
 to exercise his individual preference. | The workaday 
 puzzle that is continually facing the teacher here is 
 whether a pupil who is really bad at a subject should 
 
224 The Play Way 
 
 be allowed to drop it in favour of one at which he 
 can do satisfactory work. This seems a reasonable 
 enough concession till the point is raised that since 
 he dislikes this subject he will never look at it after 
 school days are over, and that therefore, if he is 
 to have any acquaintance with it at all, he ought 
 to be kept at it while under tutelage. By allowing 
 a choice within groups, we give the pupil the chance 
 of selecting the particular subject of a distasteful 
 group of studies that is least repellent, and of thus 
 acquiring a fairly well-balanced circle of knowledge. 
 What happens in individual lessons happens on the 
 wider scale of the whole curriculum. By forcing 
 himself to attend to a rather distasteful subject in 
 which he has little primitive interest, the pupil 
 puts himself in a position where interest will slowly 
 gather round the unattractive subject, and in the 
 end he will have a sufficient store of anisic attention 
 at his disposal to carry on his studies in this un- 
 desired branch without an altogether unjustifiable 
 outlay of effort, but he should not be called on to 
 carry an uncongenial subject to any high stage. 
 
 It may be some comfort to the good-old-grinders 
 to note that the status and application of interest 
 have undergone a change since the Herbartians 
 took it in hand. Up to the time of this philosopher, 
 interest was regarded among educators as a means. 
 Pupils had to be interested in their work in order 
 that it might be properly done. Interest in the 
 work itself was the best kind, but if that were not 
 available the next best thing was interest in some- 
 thing closely connected with the subject to be 
 studied. But Herbart raised interest to a higher 
 
The Play Way 225 
 
 place, and made it not merely a means, but an end. 
 It had to fulfil its old function as a driving force 
 in the actual process of learning, but at the same 
 time it began to attain a place as the goal towards 
 which the whole educative process was tending. 
 Many-sided interest became the ultimate aim of 
 education. The truly well-educated man is regarded 
 as the man who is sensitive to a wide circle of appeals 
 from life. These appeals may not be all towards 
 good. For many-sided interest may include evil 
 as well. The truly educated man is sensitive to all 
 the available^stimuli, good or bad, though of course 
 he responds in a different way to each stimulus 
 according to its intrinsic value, and to the bias 
 given by moral training. 
 
 This many-sided interest is cultivated indirectly 
 by working out a broad curriculum in a new way. 
 But the New Education is not content to leave 
 the cultivation of sensitiveness to the chances of 
 by-education. One of its characteristic features is 
 the Appreciation Lesson. Here we have a deliberate 
 attempt to help young people to appreciate certain 
 forms of art. Many teachers are suspicious of this 
 witting effort to make pupils enjoy artistic presen- 
 tations. They are inclined to believe that such 
 enjoyment will either come naturally from the 
 exercise of the art by the pupils themselves, or 
 will not come at all. In particular it is feared that 
 a certain element of priggishness will be introduced 
 into school work by this direct appeal to the 
 emotions of the pupils. To make pupils appreciate 
 music, teach them to play on some instrument or 
 to sing ; to make them enjoy paintings, teach them 
 15 
 
226 The Play Way 
 
 to draw and to paint. Merely to tell them to enjoy 
 this piece of music or this fine picture is to court 
 failure by an artificial approach that is likely to 
 result in aesthetic hypocrisy. But the new method 
 is not so crude as all that. The main point is not 
 so much to tell children what they should appreciate, 
 as to present to them material that is worthy of 
 their admiration, under circumstances that give the 
 worthy objects the best chance of making a success- 
 ful appeal. Instead of depending for inspiration 
 on the notes that can be drawn by their own efforts 
 from piano or violin, the pupils are brought into 
 contact with excellent performers at work. Appre- 
 ciation, thus stimulated, often works in two ways : 
 the pupils enjoy more or less passively, but they are 
 also stirred to do better as executants. But even 
 in the case of those who have neither desire nor 
 talent for execution, much has been gained when 
 they are led to appreciate the artistic expression 
 of others. 
 
 The forces of imitation and suggestion no doubt 
 count for much here as elsewhere in school work. 
 The fact that the teacher is obviously enjoying the 
 poem that he reads to the class has a great deal to 
 do with the chances that the pupils will enjoy it in 
 their turn, and that without the slightest unwhole- 
 someness in the way of hypocrisy or priggishness. 
 No doubt the pupils should be encouraged to express 
 themselves actively, as far as possible, in all the 
 available artistic directions, for, combining as it 
 does the active with the passive sides, the Appre- 
 ciation Lesson offers an excellent example of the 
 application of the Play Way. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE PROJECT METHOD 
 
 ONE of the most characteristic of modern 
 tendencies in school method is the general 
 recognition of the purposive element. There is a 
 very wide acceptance of the view that pupils should 
 always have a clear idea of why they do certain 
 things in school. No longer can a reactionary teacher 
 claim that the fact that he so wills it is a sufficient 
 reason for a pupil studying any subject or any part 
 of a subject. There is, no doubt, still a place for 
 certain " drills " in the more mechanical parts of the 
 instrumental subjects, but even those drills have 
 their purpose explained to the pupils. When it 
 comes to problems we are in a familiar region. 
 Pupils have been for long accustomed to deal with 
 practical applications of the principles they have 
 learnt. The clever boys like problems ; the dull 
 boys detest them. But neither clever nor dull boys 
 used to pay much attention to the content of the 
 problem. It was regarded as a school exercise, and 
 as something quite apart from anything having to 
 do with real life. Especially in Arithmetic were 
 problems set producing results that were laughably 
 out of keeping with the realities of life. Salmon 
 were sold at prices that roused the scorn of boys 
 
 227 
 
228 The Project Method 
 
 who knew the state of the fish-market ; walls three 
 feet thick, twenty feet high, and thirty feet long 
 could be built in a few minutes if only a sufficient 
 number of men were set out in the conditions of 
 the problem ; many things could be done exactly 
 only on the condition that a certain fraction of a 
 man could be made to do its fair share of the work. 
 The gradual introduction of the human element 
 into school work, technically known as socialisation, 
 made teachers as well as pupils critical of the 
 problems that ran counter to common sense. 1 
 
 Problems began to be set that involved some 
 little research, as well as the application of arith- 
 metical principles. A boy would be asked such a 
 question as "If you were offered £10,000 in gold 
 on condition that you carried it home with you 
 from the bank to-day, would you be any the richer 
 to-night." At such a problem the boy's eye gleams : 
 he actually wants to know. Since it was given 
 before the war, the teacher was in a position to let 
 the boys have the use of a few gold coins and a letter 
 balance. A moment or two was enough to find 
 that three sovereigns plus a half-sovereign weigh 
 almost exactly an ounce. Dividing 10,000 by 3^ — 
 for once fractions seemed to have some use — gave 
 2857-1 oz., after which a division by 16 produced 
 the result of 178-1 lb. The problem remained to 
 determine whether this was a weight within the 
 carrying power of the class. The consequent 
 
 1 Not in comic papers only, but in real, sober, irritating 
 school life teachers sometimes receive letters from trade- 
 union parents objecting to problems involving men 
 " working ten hours a day." 
 
The Project Method 229 
 
 experiments produced varying results in the case of 
 the different boys, but the depressing conclusion 
 became clear that none of them were likely to 
 become rich quickly, even if they got such a gaudy 
 offer. One result of the working out of the problem 
 was that the master raised his offer to £20,000 with 
 his next class, as the resulting doubt with some of 
 the stronger boys was unsettling, and led to endless 
 discussion and some boasting. No doubt discussion 
 is good, but it ought to be capable at this stage of 
 definite and conclusive settlement. For example, 
 the boy who made the following slip was readily 
 made to see and acknowledge his error. Though 
 he was one of the best arithmeticians in the class, 
 he showed how easy it is to go off the straight, if 
 one merely sticks to school-room tradition. Because 
 gold is measured by Troy weight he divided by 
 twelve instead of by sixteen, overlooking the fact 
 that though gold is sold by Troy weight it is 
 carried by avoirdupois. 
 
 It will be noted that the problem was a fair one, 
 and involved no " catch." No one was more sur- 
 prised than the teacher at the snare into which 
 over-ingenuity had led the clever pupil. " Which 
 would you rather have : a half-hundredweight of 
 whole sovereigns or a whole hundredweight of half- 
 sovereigns ? " is not a problem in the proper sense 
 of that word : it is a pitfall. What is wanted for 
 school purposes can be best illustrated by a plain 
 statement of a definite end to be attained, leaving 
 to the pupils the discovery of means to attain it. 
 For example, the problem may be set : " How long 
 would it take you (that is you, John Smith, or 
 
230 The Project Method 
 
 whatever your name is, not a boy in general) to 
 walk from London to Aberdeen ? " The boys at 
 once want to know the distance between the two 
 cities, and often make the blunder of finding that 
 distance by means of the scales on their maps. It 
 is necessary to make them realise that this is the 
 distance " as the crow flies," and that they are not 
 crows. By reference to the " ABC " railway time- 
 table it is found that the distance by rail is 522I- 
 miles — a somewhat longer distance than the crow- 
 flying one. The boys are induced to make a certain 
 addition even to this, on account of the greater 
 crookedness of road as compared with railway lines, 
 and come to the conclusion that 600 miles will be 
 a not unreasonable estimate of what must be walked 
 between the two cities. Then experiments have to 
 be made to discover how many miles can be walked 
 in an hour, and investigations into the number of 
 hours per day that such a rate could be kept up. 
 The boys are usually remarkably optimistic in their 
 estimate of their powers, and the teacher has to 
 recall to them their state of fatigue after a ten-, 
 fifteen-, or twenty- mile walk. In the end, a rough- 
 and-ready idea of how long the expedition would 
 take is attained, and in the process much incidental 
 information has been acquired. 
 
 It is obvious that in all such problems there 
 remains a strong element of the theoretical. The 
 pupils' interest is still largely scholastic. There is 
 not a sufficiently serviceable bridge between the 
 school world and the outside world. Even yet, 
 round the word problem there clings a fringe of the 
 scholastic, a suggestion of the intellectual rather 
 
The Project Method 231 
 
 than the practical. All the same, problems like the 
 above do indicate a stretching out towards the real 
 everyday world, and the Americans have been quick 
 to see the possibilities of developing the underlying 
 idea. They have, in fact, elaborated a new method, 
 and in order to keep it free from the taint of pure 
 intellectualism that is associated with the problem, 
 they have invented a new name, and called it the 
 Project Method. It is not that there was any special 
 lack of methods at the time when this new one was 
 floated. In fact, a careful survey of forty-two 
 text-books, covering among them such subjects as 
 mathematics, languages, science, geography, brought 
 out the fact that no fewer than fourteen methods 
 of teaching were found 
 
 " with sufficient frequency to warrant the statement that 
 they comprise those now in most common use . The methods 
 noted are : questions, topics, problems, examples, originals, 
 exercises, drills, tests, reviews, applications, illustrations, 
 demonstrations, experiments, and practicums." x 
 
 Most of these terms are intelligible to English 
 readers, but two of them may need a little elucida- 
 tion — originals and practicums. The first appears 
 to be confined to geometry, in which it stands for 
 the bald statement of a theorem, where the proof 
 and sometimes the construction is left to the pupil, 
 instead of both being supplied as was the case under 
 the Euclidean scheme. The term " original " there- 
 fore is not one that requires much consideration. 
 The "practicum" is of more importance, and is 
 one of the most recent developments in the nomen- 
 
 1 J. A. Stevenson, The Project Method of Teaching, p. 22. 
 
232 The Project Method 
 
 clature of method. I cannot find anywhere a 
 detailed definition of the term, but it is not difficult 
 to gather its meaning from its use. It appears to 
 indicate any way in which principles can be applied 
 to practical affairs. Thus, when our pupils are in 
 the lecture room getting a lesson in chemistry they 
 are acquiring principles : when they pass into the 
 laboratory, they are entering on a practicum. 
 Measuring a field, and finding the width of a river 
 by means of trigonometry, are mathematical practi- 
 cums. Translating in the History class a document 
 in mediaeval Latin may be regarded as a classical 
 practicum. Stress is laid on the usefulness of the 
 thing to be done, and on the interest it excites in 
 the pupil doing it. 
 
 If there is no available definition of " practicum," 
 there is a plethora of definitions of "project" as 
 found in an educational setting. Dr. Stevenson 
 gives a very succinct statement that may well serve 
 for a text : "A project is a problematic act carried 
 to completion in its natural setting." He points out 
 that in the project what one does is the prominent 
 thing. 1 No doubt principles are involved, but they 
 are not put in the forefront. In illustration, 
 W. W. Charters is quoted : 
 
 " In the topical organisation principles are learned first, 
 while in the project, the problems are proposed which 
 demand in the solution the development of principles by 
 the learner as needed." 
 
 Obviously a contrast is here implied between the 
 practicum and the project, in which the practicum 
 
 1 Op. cit., p. 43. 
 
The Project Method 233 
 
 ranks along with the problem as a process in which 
 the principles are first communicated or acquired 
 and then applied, while in the project the discovery 
 of the necessary principles is a condition precedent 
 to a successful tackling of a situation. But the 
 fundamental difference between the problem and 
 the project lies in the tail of Dr. Stevenson's 
 definition " in its natural setting." This takes us 
 at once beyond the school area altogether, right 
 into the outside world. It is not enough to work 
 out neat little problems in the school laboratory, 
 and bring the results to bear on the needs of the 
 home. The whole project has to be worked out 
 beyond the school walls. The situation to be 
 faced has first to be found, and then the means 
 sought by which the desired result may be achieved. 
 Now all this is very encouraging to the practical 
 person, and to employers who write letters to the 
 newspapers urging schoolmasters to teach their 
 pupils something useful, but teachers will read it 
 with lowering brows. They have been accustomed 
 to think that their business is to instil principles 
 into their pupils, and see that they learn to apply 
 them in an intelligent way. But this new scheme 
 claims that the pupils have to evolve the principles 
 for themselves, and further that this evolution is 
 to take place outside the school altogether. Those 
 whom the Americans call the " proponents " of the 
 Project Method have little comfort to offer the 
 distressed schoolmaster. Indeed they go out of 
 their way to explain that it is time that he should 
 wake up out of his philosophic slumbers and " get 
 a move on." They explain that everybody in the 
 
234 The Project Method 
 
 world but schoolmasters follow the Project Method 
 as a matter of course, but that these content them- 
 selves with theorising about and over-systematising 
 everything, so that no real progress can ever be 
 made. We are said to be content with our mill- 
 horse round, and initiative is not in us. 
 
 The teacher with open mind and humble heart 
 may be constrained to admit that perhaps there is 
 some truth in this general indictment, but all the 
 same he cannot get rid of the conviction that a 
 certain minimum of system should be introduced 
 into his teaching work. A great deal of what may 
 be called interstitial learning may go on both in 
 school hours and beyond them, but most teachers 
 feel that it is an essential part of their duty to see 
 that some sort of order dominates the whole process 
 of directing education. To this extent at least 
 they agree with the integralists, and are disinclined 
 to buy the advantages of the Project Method at 
 the price of forfeiting this minimum of system. 
 Even the proponents in their saner moments acknow- 
 ledge the necessity for this fundamental systematisa- 
 tion, for they admit that the Method should be 
 supplemented by some sort of organisation of know- 
 ledge. We are told that the systematic or logical 
 aspect has its place, and through attention to it the 
 pupil will be supplied with additional clues to aid 
 him in prosecuting his enquiries. One of the 
 dangers of the Method is that it is apt tcsget 
 principles tied up in a small number of concrete 
 examples, each valuable in itself, but the whole 
 needing expansion and generalisation if the pupil 
 is to acquire the freedom of application that true 
 
The Project Method 235 
 
 education should give. All this, it is true, is not 
 quite consistent with what we have just read 
 about the place of principles in relation to projects. 
 But with a growing organisation like this new 
 Method, we must be prepared for a certain amount 
 of inconsistency, if we compare the statements of 
 different workers in the field of exploration. After 
 all, a little inconsistency does not greatly matter. 
 The important point is that those interested in the 
 new development are thinking as they go along. 
 Dr. Stevenson quotes with approval a hopeful 
 view expressed by Mr. C. R. Mann in A Study of 
 Engineering Education ■ : 
 
 " Although the suggestion that an efficient course can 
 be constructed as a series of apparently disconnected 
 projects comes as a shock to those who have grown up with 
 logically rigorous courses, the value of the enthusiasm 
 engendered by well-chosen projects must not be overlooked. 
 Our most valuable information and training come from 
 working out projects that are really worth while ; and if 
 this method works in life, why not in school ? especially, 
 since in educational institutions it is always possible to 
 organise significant projects into a connected series that 
 leaves a well-developed conception of the whole subject 
 in the student's mind." 
 
 Mr. Mann certainly acknowledges handsomely 
 the need for a systematic view or a complete con- 
 ception of a study as a whole, yet the ordinary 
 professional teacher cannot but regard the above 
 quotation as unduly optimistic. We may admit 
 all the invigorating power of the interest roused by 
 
 1 The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Edu- 
 cation, p. 62. 
 
236 The Project Method 
 
 practical applications to things worth while. But 
 difficulties do not disappear as a result of the airy 
 rhetoric of the passage : " Why not in school ? 
 forsooth ! " The English teacher could give a 
 crushing answer in one word — Examinations. We 
 have already dealt with the devastating influence 
 of the external examination, so there is no need to 
 labour the point here. But even if we enjoyed the 
 less examination-ridden conditions of the United 
 States, our teachers would still regard with some 
 suspicion this proposed plan. The most obvious 
 objection will naturally be the disturbance of the 
 whole school organisation as far as the curriculum is 
 concerned. To be sure our English attitude towards 
 the curriculum is not so wise as it might be. It 
 has been a standard complaint for many years that 
 we are inclined to treat our subjects on what it is 
 popular to call " the water-tight compartment 
 system " under which each branch of study is kept 
 rigidly in its place on the time-table, and each 
 specialist makes a point of strictly minding his own 
 business, and of resenting interference by incursions 
 of other teachers into his domain. 
 
 To get rid of this unwholesome isolation, the 
 scheme of correlation was introduced, by which 
 each subject was deliberately brought into touch 
 with others more or less cognate, and teachers were 
 invited to co-operate with one another to organise 
 their courses in such a way that the pupils could 
 be led to see the interdependence of the various 
 subjects. The aim of the reformers was excellent, 
 and the execution sometimes resulted in success, 
 but there was a tendency to go to extremes, and 
 
The Project Method 237 
 
 sometimes the curriculum got into a state of 
 inextricable confusion. All the subjects got mixed 
 up in a general jumble. Everybody was so busy 
 correlating everything to everything else, that 
 nobody found time to deal with fresh and indepen- 
 dent matter. The inevitable reaction accordingly 
 set in with some severity, and specialists became 
 more than before determined to keep to their own 
 domain. It is significant when a writer on the 
 teaching of history, for example, feels it necessary 
 to remark that " the business of a History teacher 
 is to teach History." 
 
 This being the present state of opinion among 
 teachers, it is not remarkable that they look askance 
 at a method that would once more throw all the 
 subjects into a common pool. The Projectors, as 
 we may be permitted to call the advocates of the 
 new method, protest that, so far from weakening 
 the interest in special subjects as such, it will so 
 strengthen the interest in school work in general as 
 to lead to greater attention being paid to the 
 special subjects. Matters that are usually regarded 
 as having no practical importance apart from the 
 school, will be seen to be capable of direct and 
 useful application to outside things that are full 
 of practical interest. 
 
 The introduction of the idea of purpose into our 
 school|work is certainly to be encouraged ; if the plan 
 can justify its claim that it will not interfere with 
 the systematic work of the school, it will no doubt 
 be successful in its demand for recognition. But 
 the practical teacher cannot regard with equanimity 
 the proposal to introduce what are called big 
 
238 The Project Method 
 
 projects into the school course. He can admit the 
 value of the small project, leading, for example, to 
 a boy's undertaking to build a rabbit hutch, or to 
 instal an electric bell system into his home, and 
 he can see how the school studies may be worked 
 in to help in such a scheme. If, for example, a boy 
 forms the project of making a balloon big enough 
 to carry his weight, it is obvious that he will need 
 the help of quite a number of his school subjects 
 before he can cut out his material and provide 
 the necessary gas. Further, such schemes fit into 
 the Stevensonian definition. They can be carried 
 to completion, and that in their proper setting. 
 But when it comes to large projects such as those 
 suggested by Professor Charles A. McMurry, we 
 get a little out of our depth. He is inclined to 
 treat the project retrospectively or historically, 
 rather than as a project in the living present. The 
 Virginia Plantation was no doubt a living project 
 at one time, and so was the Salt River irrigation 
 scheme. But they are now finished with, and form 
 a part of history. To deal with them is to deal 
 with mummified projects, which after all may be no 
 bad thing. Certainly Dr. McMurry shows how 
 these can be made into excellent material for school 
 use, illustrating a great many principles that are of 
 high educational value. English teachers will 
 indeed be more likely to accept the McMurry 
 material than the Stevensonian, for the earlier 
 writer (McMurry) makes a less violent attack on 
 the established order of things. After all, mummies 
 are more amenable to treatment than living bodies, 
 and the tracing out of an old project — with the 
 
The Project Method 239 
 
 interpolation of practical problems by an intelligent 
 teacher throughout the process — can be made a 
 very effective way of giving point to school studies. 
 Indeed the basis of the McMurry scheme is the 
 big unit of study which he believes to be the best 
 corrective of our present fragmentary accumula- 
 tions of knowledge. 
 
 There is something very attractive in the idea of 
 a school staff sitting down in the common room to 
 make a plan of campaign by which each of the 
 specialists will undertake to give such a bias to 
 the presentation of his specialty as will supply just 
 the information necessary to carry on a big project 
 such as the building of the Panama Canal. But 
 difficulties at once arise. It is not at all likely that 
 the pupils will be doing during that term in each 
 subject just the sort of things that are needed for 
 the purposes of the project. No doubt arrange- 
 ments could be made in advance, for the " big unit " 
 would certainly be selected well ahead of the time 
 at which the project was to be set on foot. In this 
 way the physics curriculum could be modelled to 
 suit the coming requirements, as could also those of 
 Geography, History, Mathematics, Nature Study, 
 and others concerned. But most specialists would 
 violently resent this dictating of the order in which 
 the elements of their subject are to be presented. 
 There will arise, in fact, in an acute form, the familiar 
 quarrel between the supporters of the logical method 
 and the supporters of the psychological. The 
 ordinary specialist has a strong preference for the 
 logical form of presentation. He likes to sit down 
 and map out the order of presentation of the various 
 
240 The Project Method 
 
 points from the standpoint of clear logical sequence. 
 If he be a trained teacher, or one who has made a 
 study of the growing mind, he may feel called upon 
 to modify his neat logical arrangement to meet the 
 needs of the immature minds of his pupils. But if 
 he is asked in addition to introduce changes of order 
 so as to make it possible that a certain piece of 
 external work may be completed at a certain fixed 
 time, he is apt to get a little irritated, and he may 
 even say that his problem has passed from the 
 stage of mere difficulty to that of impossibility, 
 since he is now asked to combine in one process 
 three forces that have no organic connection with 
 each other. 
 
 At this point the Projector will be at hand to 
 point out that after all the specialist has still only 
 two fundamental forces to deal with — the logical 
 demands of the subject and the psychological 
 demands of the pupils. For the conditions imposed 
 by the project are really included in the conditions 
 that determine the psychological demands of the 
 pupils, and it is because this is so that the project 
 has any educational value. Further, the new 
 demands bring with them more than their own 
 compensation, for the pupils will now come to their 
 special subjects with highly increased interest, as 
 they expect to get certain pieces of definite informa- 
 tion of which they stand in need. Instead of 
 passively imbibing certain abstractions they eagerly 
 call for needed help. Proj ectors are fond of pointing 
 out how valueless unappliable knowledge is : " abor- 
 tive " is their favourite adjective here. The 
 characteristic of the Project Method is that it gives 
 
The Project Method 241 
 
 life to all the knowledge that it calls forth. Following 
 this method the teacher does not first impart know- 
 ledge and then seek for some way of making it 
 useful : he begins with the use and searches for the 
 knowledge. 
 
 The practical teacher, fond of system, argues that 
 this is excellent so far as it goes, but wants to know 
 what is to become of the organisation of the subject. 
 No doubt if a sufficient number of radically different 
 projects were undertaken, and a long enough period 
 spent over each, it would be possible in the ultimate 
 resort to include all the essential parts of the subject. 
 But time would fail, to cover the subject in this 
 way. Certain branches in mathematics, for example, 
 might thus never come under the pupil's notice at all. 
 
 We are here faced with the problem of the random 
 in teaching. Even in the best-regulated course of 
 instruction there is a certain range within which we 
 fall back upon the random. Our illustrations often 
 belong to this region. In giving examples of the 
 working of a general principle it is often highly 
 desirable to make your selection at random, in 
 order that you may get sufficient variety. At the 
 beginning of a piece of exposition, no doubt, it is 
 clearly necessary to have all your illustrations care- 
 fully selected and ready to be brought in at the right 
 moment. But when the position has been made 
 tolerably clear by well-selected examples, the pupil 
 should have the advantage of some taken at random. 
 In getting a pupil to work up towards a general rule, 
 no doubt the first examples should be deliberately 
 chosen so as to point in the direction we want our 
 pupil's mind to take; but at the later or testing 
 16 
 
242 The Project Method 
 
 stages, the random again comes into its own. But 
 even if we admit that there is a place for the random 
 in ordinary teaching, the orderly minded teacher 
 will find it very hard to admit that this place is 
 anywhere but at the illustrative stage. He has 
 always been told that his matter must be presented 
 in a certain definite order, any deviation from which 
 is an error. Further, he is particularly alive to the 
 danger of omissions if a subject is not approached 
 in an orderly way. To depend upon a subject being 
 taught en passant while working out a series of 
 problems, seems a tempting of providence in the 
 way of leaving gaps in the pupil's knowledge. But 
 gaps can after all be filled at a later stage if they 
 are found to be important enough to deserve filling. 
 For it has to be remembered that if in the working 
 out of quite a number of projects certain elements 
 in a particular subject have not been touched, it is 
 an indication that these omitted elements are not of 
 the first importance, though of course this conclusion 
 is not logically valid, and merely expresses a 
 probability. 
 
 The Projectors have a still better card to play by 
 indicating that there is something to be said posi- 
 tively in favour of the direct practical and apparently 
 unsystematic approach. The logical arrangement 
 of a subject is something to be reached rather than 
 something from which a process can begin : it is a 
 goal rather than a starting-point. Besides, the 
 logical conception of the subject as a whole may 
 exist in the teacher's mind, and yet be quite unsuit- 
 able for the pupil's mind, till sufficient material has 
 been acquired. The methodical and logical teacher 
 
The Project Method 243 
 
 can quite well keep account of all the gaps that are 
 left in the orderly presentation of his subject, and 
 make sure that at the appropriate moment this gap 
 shall be filled, and its content explained in relation 
 to the matter which had been picked up in the 
 irregular way involved in learning by the project 
 method. 
 
 It must be conceded that it is a big demand on 
 the patience of a tidy- minded person to ask him to 
 allow the minds of his pupils to get filled up in the 
 haphazard way that goes along with the Project 
 Method. But in the struggle between the pupil 
 and the subject for the teacher's interest and 
 sympathy, it is now generally admitted that it is 
 the pupil who ought to win. The goal of the 
 educative process is the harmonious blending of the 
 knowing mind and the known matter, and it must 
 never be forgotten that the mind is a unifying influ- 
 ence. Whatever the mind seizes it assimilates, 
 which is only another way of saying that the mind 
 makes acquired knowledge a part of itself. In a 
 literal sense it is of course impossible for what is 
 material to become mental, but there is a useful 
 practical truth wrapped up in the phrase that " fact 
 becomes faculty." This is only a graphic way of 
 saying that whatever the mind works upon it makes 
 a part of itself, and to that extent the mind is 
 slightly different from what it was before. The 
 boy who has learnt the multiplication table is to 
 that extent a different boy from what he was 
 before. Accordingly, a boy who is working out a 
 project is by that very fact changing his nature to 
 a greater or less extent. What worries the anxious 
 
244 The Project Method 
 
 and methodical teacher is whether changes produced 
 in the irregular way that accompanies the working 
 out of a project will necessarily result in an ill- 
 regulated mind. We are probably too apt to under- 
 estimate the organising tendency of the mind itself, 
 and to think there must be confusion within because 
 there has been a somewhat promiscuous presentation 
 from without. 
 
 When all is said, however, we cannot expect an 
 experienced methodical teacher to accept without 
 protest a plan that seems to cut right across the 
 ordinary curriculum. The American Projectors are 
 ready with their answers to this objection, as thus : 
 (i) it does not necessarily cut across the curriculum ; 
 (ii) if it did, so much the worse for the curriculum. 
 Without doubt our traditional course of study has got 
 stereotyped, and, further, whatever changes do take 
 place are all in the way of additions. Everybody 
 seems eager to add something to the curriculum : 
 few appear to suggest that anything should be re- 
 moved. It may not be a bad service that the 
 Projectors do by raising the whole question, and 
 demanding a re- examination from a new point of 
 view of the content of our education course. It 
 may be, as Dr. Dewey assures us, that " the child 
 and the curriculum are simply two limits which 
 define a single process," but it is hard to get practical 
 English teachers to adopt a revolutionary process 
 on the strength of such a generalisation. 
 
 Much more likely to succeed is Professor Steven- 
 son's approach from the practical side, when in the 
 last chapter of his book, 1 he shows how the method 
 1 The Project Method of Teaching, p. 192. 
 
The Project Method 245 
 
 can be actually applied to the different subjects 
 forming a part of our present curriculum. When 
 the teacher sees how a dozen real academic subjects 
 can be treated on the new plan, he is willing to look 
 seriously into the matter. Dr. Stevenson is true to 
 his own definition, and develops real projects, that 
 are both brought to completion and carried on in 
 their natural environment. It is doubtful, however, 
 whether his methods would be altogether popular 
 among English officials and business men. For the 
 subject of English is here socialised with a ven- 
 geance. It appears that in the schools where Dr. 
 Stevenson's students did their practice work in 
 1919, there was a week set apart for propaganda in 
 favour of improved English in the school. It is 
 called Better English Week. The opportunity was 
 taken of making this a project, and the children 
 were called upon to take a practical part in the 
 movement. They made personal calls on business 
 people in the town to discover what they wanted 
 from the schools in the way of preparation in 
 English, then they wrote letters broadcast to 
 officials and business people asking what qualities 
 they specially desired in young people seeking 
 appointments, and whether English bulked large in 
 their eyes. Other practical methods were adopted, 
 such as printing and exposing posters, inventing 
 " slogans " in favour of Good English, urging 
 greater attention to English, discovering the most 
 common mistakes in English (culled from both 
 teachers and pupils) and making them prominent 
 on the blackboard. English seems rather a favourite 
 subject for Project treatment across the water, for 
 
246 The Project Method 
 
 there is a whole book l published on the subject by 
 Mr. Wilbur Hatfield, in which, however, the appeal 
 is more to the private pupil than to the member of 
 a class, though it can be used by both. All manner 
 of situations are suggested in which it is necessary 
 to use English, and indications given of how to 
 carry out the individual project. Dr. Stevenson's 
 work will be found more convincing to English 
 teachers, because in his final chapter he gives 
 excellent indications how the method can be applied 
 to the existing curriculum. 
 
 American teachers, however, do not seem to be 
 in a mood to pay too much attention to the curri- 
 culum as it stands. They have the idea that after 
 all the curriculum exists for the child, not the 
 child for the curriculum. They are highly paido- 
 centric in this matter, and believe that there is 
 nothing sacrosanct about the present content of 
 school subjects. Their idea is to bring the youngsters 
 into as close touch as possible with the ordinary 
 affairs of life. Accordingly, they are more inclined 
 to plan out project schemes that will evolve a 
 curriculum than schemes that will fit into what at 
 present exists. The grip the Method has taken of 
 the imagination of the American public may be 
 estimated by the fact that there exists now a School 
 Project Series, under the editorship of Dean W. F. 
 Russell of Iowa, with three volumes already pub- 
 lished, the third being very apposite here. 2 It is 
 by Miss M. E. Wells, and has the significant title, 
 
 1 Business English Projects. 
 
 2 The other two are Projects in the Primary Grades and 
 The Redirection of High School Instruction. 
 
The Project Method 247 
 
 A Project Curriculum : dealing with the Project as 
 a Means of Organising the Curriculum of the Elemen- 
 tary School. Here we have an elaborate treatise in 
 which the author deliberately sets out to organise 
 an elementary school curriculum based on various 
 big projects. She does not accept the true Steven- 
 sonian doctrine, for her projects are not carried to 
 completion in their natural setting. They consist 
 rather of parallels to real outside life than to that 
 life itself, a sort of real life at the second remove. 
 
 Miss Wells boldly adopts the Play Way, though 
 she does not appear to be acquainted with Mr. 
 Caldwell Cook's work. Each of her major projects 
 is based on a form of play that brings the youngsters 
 into close touch with the realities of life. The 
 introductory project consists in playing at holding 
 a fair, which is quite apposite, since it appears that 
 they have an annual fair at Trenton, New Jersey, 
 where Miss Wells' Normal School is situated. The 
 other major projects are for Grade One Playing 
 Families, for Grade Two, Playing Store, for Grade 
 Three, Playing City. It is clear that here we have 
 abundant opportunity of socialising the academic 
 elements of the school course, and Miss Wells works 
 out with much ingenuity the application of the 
 various subjects to the needs of the absorbing 
 projects that make an almost irresistible appeal to 
 the three lower grades. Haying worked out in full 
 the application of the method to the first three 
 grades, Miss Wells contents herself with a general 
 outline of the work for the next three grades, and 
 then proceeds to give a very elaborate account of 
 the principles underlying the curriculum she has 
 
248 The Project Method 
 
 evolved, and to make theoretical applications to 
 possible practice. 
 
 English readers are likely to remain unconvinced 
 of the practicability of the Method as applied in 
 the higher classes in school. At the lower levels it 
 seems not unreasonable that the ordinary school 
 subjects should thus be taken in the stride of 
 problem-solving ; but when the curriculum becomes 
 more elaborate, it seems necessary to devote definite 
 attention to each subject as an organic whole. No 
 doubt we keep our subjects too rigorously apart as 
 things stand, and the proposed method will do 
 something to develop a better understanding of 
 the interrelations of the various branches of know- 
 ledge. But this advantage can be secured by a 
 very partial adoption of the Method of Projects, 
 and it is very doubtful how far we can ever accept 
 the pure Stevensonian doctrine of " natural setting." 
 No doubt the decay of bookishness will make it 
 easier to move in the direction of this Project 
 orthodoxy. In all probability it may be possible 
 to adopt one big (but not too big) project each 
 term and to carry it out on Stevensonian lines. 
 This will be enough to secure all the good the 
 Method can offer, and this concession is probably 
 as much as even our most open-minded British 
 teachers are at present likely to make. All the 
 same, it is quite evident that the Method is directly 
 in the line of current progress, and fits in very 
 comfortably with the other developments. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 PSYCHO-ANALYSIS IN EDUCATION 
 
 IN a book concerned primarily with practical 
 developments in education it is perhaps 
 necessary to justify the inclusion of a chapter on 
 psycho-analysis. But an excellent case is easily 
 made out. Not only is psycho-analysis one of the 
 most widely discussed subjects of the day, but it 
 is having a very direct bearing on educational ideas 
 and is thus exercising an influence on the work of 
 the schools. In the extensive literature on the 
 subject we find continual references to education. 
 Turning, for example, to the first book of the kind 
 that I happen to take up, Mr. J. C. Flugel's The 
 Psycho-analytic Study of the Family, I find no 
 fewer than eight references to education in the 
 index, two of them followed by the ff. that indicates 
 more than perfunctory treatment. The psycho- 
 analysts themselves evidently look to education as 
 one of the most likely departments for the exercise 
 of their functions, as the following will show : 
 
 " A new science and application of pedagogy are being 
 reared upon the data obtained by psycho-analysis, as 
 witness the masterly work of Pfister recently published 
 and made the forerunner of an important series of works 
 on pedagogy under the leadership of Meumann and Mess- 
 mer." » 
 
 1 Jelifle, The Technique of Psycho-analysis (1918), p. viii ; 
 quoted by Knight Dunlap. 
 
 249 
 
250 Psycho-analysis in Education 
 
 That the new views are taken seriously by educa- 
 tional reformers may be seen from the following 
 quotation from Mr. Norman MacMunn : 
 
 " The believers in a great extension of freedom for the 
 child owe much gratitude to the new study of psycho- 
 analysis. Not only have the evils of repression been traced 
 and relieved by the removal in the clinic of the very sup- 
 pressions which nearly all the old-time, and many of the 
 present-time, schoolmasters have considered it their duty 
 to encompass, but we are probably on the eve of discoveries 
 which will help to provide a rational analytic technique 
 which can be passed on for the use of the teacher." 1 
 
 It is not surprising that the psycho-analysts 
 should turn to education, for this is the region in 
 which all psychologies find room for hopeful applica- 
 tion. With grown-up people there is always the 
 feeling when studying psychology that it is too late 
 to make the necessary applications. " If only we 
 had known this or that fact at an earlier stage," 
 we are apt to say, " how differently we would have 
 acted ; but now it is too late." When we turn 
 to education we enter a region in which there is 
 still time for the psychologist to make practical 
 use of the knowledge he has acquired. Too late for 
 himself, his knowledge is still available for the 
 young people at the school stage. The teacher is 
 in a position to make practical use of whatever 
 psychology has to give him. There is indeed no 
 lack of material for the consideration of the practical 
 teacher in connection with the newer developments 
 of psychology. We have such books as W. Lays 
 The Child's Unconscious Mind, W, Healy's Mental 
 1 The Child's Path to Freedom, p. 16. 
 
Psycho-analysis in Education 251 
 
 Conflicts and Misconduct, E. Evans' Problem of the 
 Nervous Child, H. H. Goddard's Juvenile Delinquency, 
 all suggesting a very direct bearing on our work with 
 the young, though it must be admitted that they 
 have a strong bias towards the abnormal. But when 
 we find a group of books written deliberately at 
 the teacher's address, we feel that it is time to 
 begin to take notice. Among these is the large book 
 on The Psycho-analytic Method, published by Oskar 
 Pfister, Pastor and Seminary Teacher at Zurich. 
 While it confessedly deals with " analytic peda- 
 gogics " it is not quite so useful to the practical 
 teacher as his later volume on Psycho-analysis in 
 the Service of Education. Dr. Crichton Miller has 
 recently published a workmanlike little volume on 
 The New Psychology and the Teacher. But most 
 useful of all for the practising teacher is Mr. G. H. 
 Green's Psychanalysis in the Class-room, in which 
 we have the subject brought into direct relation with 
 everyday work by a man who is actually engaged in 
 it. In addition to all this, psycho-analysis has been 
 the subject of endless lectures up and down the 
 country and a subject of debate at all manner of 
 conferences of teachers. There is evidently a strong 
 case for inviting the attention of the practical teacher 
 to this new and apparently important development. 
 To begin with, we must note that psycho-analysis 
 is, properly speaking, a method, and as such must be 
 distinguished from the psychology on which it is 
 based. No doubt the term as commonly used is 
 made to cover both meanings, with the result 
 that there is a good deal of confusion in the dis- 
 cussions that we hear and read. For teachers the 
 
252 Psycho-analysis in Education 
 
 distinction is vital, for it is quite possible to accept 
 the psychology, and to act upon its teachings, 
 without having anything to do with the method. 
 Indeed, the intelligent practical teacher who keeps 
 abreast of educational literature, cannot but be 
 affected by the prevailing discussion of the psy- 
 chology, while in most cases he is resolute in 
 refusing to make use of the method as that is usually 
 described. 
 
 It is regrettable that there is no generally recog- 
 nised name for the psychology on which psycho- 
 analysis is founded. It is often loosely termed the 
 New Psychology ; but at the present day psychology 
 has many developments that have no connection 
 with psycho-analysis as such, and yet may fairly 
 claim the title new. Collective or group psychology, 
 for example, is quite as much entitled to the epithet 
 as is the psychology usually associated with the 
 names of Freud and Jung. Those who follow Jung 
 in his break away from the Freudian school have 
 appropriated the term Analytical Psychology, to 
 which, however, they have no just claim, since it 
 has been already pre-empted by writers who have 
 nothing to do with the psycho-analytical position. 
 G. F. Stout's well-known book with this title is 
 enough to ward off a claim for the exclusive use of 
 the adjective analytical by a succeeding school. 
 Besides, the title has been used by others, notably 
 by Lightner Witmer. Under these circumstances, 
 it is unseemly to usurp a term that after all does not 
 specifically mark off the Jungian position, while 
 it tends to perpetuate the confusion between the 
 method and the underlying principles. 
 
Psycho-analysis in Education 253 
 
 The best title, though unfortunately cumbrous, 
 is certainly the Psychology of the Unconscious, 
 for this indicates precisely the point at which the 
 psycho-analysts break away from their prede- 
 cessors. Up till recent years psychology could be 
 quite accurately described as the study of conscious- 
 ness. Of late it has become fashionable to speak 
 of it as the study of behaviour. As Professor R. S. 
 Woodworth tells us whimsically in a footnote to his 
 recently published Psychology : "First Psychology 
 lost its soul, then it lost its mind, then it lost con- 
 sciousness ; it still has behavour of a kind." 1 This 
 transition implies a new view of the whole study. 
 Hitherto teachers of the subject had a rough-and- 
 ready way of distinguishing between a physio- 
 logical fact and a psychological one : the second 
 fact always involved consciousness, the first did 
 not. The old-fashioned psychologist in fact postu- 
 lated the equation : 
 
 The psychological = the conscious. 
 
 The men who have developed the psycho-analytical 
 method regard this equation with contempt, and in 
 their writings are continually gibing at it. They 
 hold that of the non-material processes — mental, 
 spiritual, psychic, call them what you will — only 
 a minute portion are present in consciousness, and 
 that a man's actions are determined by spiritual 
 forces of which he has no direct or immediate know- 
 ledge. There is, in fact, a great region commonly 
 called by the new experts " the unconscious," some- 
 times irreverently contracted by the younger psycho- 
 
 1 Op. cit., p. 2. 
 
254 Psycho-analysis in Education 
 
 analysts into the familiar " unc," where originate 
 far more of our apparently reasoned actions than 
 is consistent with our proud claim to rank under the 
 heading homo sapiens. 
 
 The line that marks off the conscious from the 
 unconscious part of our spiritual experience may 
 be called the threshold of consciousness. This telm 
 is familiar to those who are acquainted with the 
 Herbartian terminology, and as a matter of fact 
 there is a much closer connection between the Herbar- 
 tian Psychology and the Freudian than is commonly 
 recognised. For it must not be supposed that 
 Sigmund Freud, the now well-known Vienna mental 
 specialist, was the first to make the plunge into the 
 unconscious. The way was prepared for him. It is 
 true that the pessimistic Georg von Hartmann was 
 less of a psychologist than a philosopher, and gave 
 little help in his Philosophy of the Unconscious. 
 But Herbart and Beneke did erect signposts that 
 could not fail to guide their successors into the 
 realm of the unconscious. No one can study the 
 peculiar mechanism of the ideas as they work in the 
 Herbartian scheme without noting the close connec- 
 tion between his theory and that of the Freudians, 
 though they approached the problem from the 
 medical standpoint, while he came to it from the edu- 
 cational. Even the terminology is there ready made 
 waiting for the new-comers, needing nothing but a 
 little elaboration. The fight of the ideas for a place 
 in consciousness is no doubt nothing more than a 
 figure of speech, but it represents with sufficient 
 exactness just what the psycho-analysts need for the 
 mechanism of repression and suppression. In both 
 
Psycho-analysis in Education 255 
 
 theories the point is made that only a very small 
 portion of our potential ideas have a place at any 
 time in our consciousness, and it is obvious that 
 apperception-mass is only complex writ large, and 
 without the sinister meaning Freudians now attach 
 to the term. 
 
 The Freudians are as fond of metaphors as the 
 Herbartians, and the iceberg is one of their favour- 
 ites. It is well-known that only a small portion 
 of the mass of an iceberg appears above the surface. 
 It is the submerged part that corresponds to the 
 content of the unconscious. Of the millions of 
 ideas that experience has given us the potentiality 
 of recalling to our consciousness, only a tiny fraction 
 can be present in the consciousness at any one time. 
 The remaining potential, but for the time unrealised, 
 ideas form the submerged portion of the iceberg, 
 and sometimes exercise an important but often un- 
 recognised effect on the life of the person concerned. 
 An iceberg is sometimes observed floating along in 
 the teeth of the wind. The explanation is that there 
 is a current underneath the surface running in a 
 direction contrary to that of the wind ; and since 
 the mass underneath the water is much greater than 
 that above it, the current has the advantage, and 
 causes the apparently inexplicable movement in 
 the teeth of the wind. S67we are told, people some- 
 times seem to act in a perfectly inexplicable way, 
 since we seek for the explanation among the ideas 
 in consciousness, whereas the dominant forces are 
 in the unconscious. 
 
 The figure is a useful expository device, but fails 
 in two directions. First the ratio between the 
 
256 Psycho-analysis in Education 
 
 exposed and the submerged parts is ridiculously 
 wrong. A ninth part or so of the iceberg is exposed, 
 but only a minute fraction of the total number of 
 potential ideas can appear in the consciousness at 
 the same time. A still more serious discrepancy 
 is to be found in the static nature of the relation be- 
 tween the two parts of the iceberg. The submerged 
 portion remains inert, whereas some at least of the 
 ideas that are at any given moment under the thres- 
 hold of consciousness are in a state of vigorous 
 ferment. In Herbartian phraseology certain ideas 
 are under the dynamical threshold, which means that 
 though they are at present in the unconscious, they 
 are either on their way into consciousness or have 
 just come out of it. In any case they are exercising 
 an influence on what is going on in consciousness. 
 It is this influence exercised by the content of the 
 unconscious that justifies the psycho-analysts in 
 attaching great importance to the unconscious. 
 
 They sometimes speak of the Titan within us, 
 the figure implying that as the result of previous 
 personal, and even racial, experience there exists in 
 the unconscious a mass of more or less organised 
 ideas and impulses that lead to disturbances now and 
 again within the consciousness itself, just as the 
 fabled Titans used to cause eruptions and earth- 
 quakes among the mountains that had been heaped 
 upon them to keep them out of mischief. What dis- 
 pleases the practical teacher in this figure is the 
 implication that the contents of the unconscious 
 are necessarily evil. Just as the term suggestion is 
 almost invariably used in a bad sense, though the 
 process itself may be equally well used for good and 
 
Psycho-analysis in Education 257 
 
 for evil, so there is a general assumption that the 
 things we store up in the unconscious are all unde- 
 sirable things. For their comfort, teachers should 
 realise that while the unconscious contains the 
 paid-up capital of the experience of their pupils, it 
 includes all the good as well as all the evil effects of 
 that experience. The trouble is that here, as else- 
 where, we take the good for granted, and concentrate 
 our attention on the evil, because of its troublesome 
 qualities. Since psycho-analysts themselves are 
 nearly always concerned with pathological cases, it is 
 natural that they should pay special attention to 
 the causes of abnormal states. Their books make 
 painful reading. After examining a number of 
 their cases, one gets the impression that the uncon- 
 scious of our pupils is a seething mass of corruption. 
 Even when an educational expert like Oskar Pfister 
 deals with the subject, he tends towards the gloomy 
 side, and neglects the cheerful, and, after all, the 
 normal side. 
 
 It has to be admitted that we have all animal 
 tendencies that in decent society cannot be allowed 
 to develop. We must repress them, but this repres- 
 sion is not in itself an unwholesome process, and 
 need not lead to evil consequences. We are told 
 that repression leads to suppression, and that 
 suppression may be unnatural and dangerous. The 
 Titan within us may occasionally waken up and 
 turn in his uncomfortable bed with disastrous conse- 
 quences. But is it inevitable that there should be 
 this upheaval ? Is the state of suppression neces- 
 sarily unwholesome ? Do not the great majority of 
 human beings go through life without any of these 
 17 
 
258 Psycho-analysis in Education 
 
 violent crises ? We must keep reminding ourselves 
 that it is only the exceptional that finds its way into 
 the sensational newspapers, and even into the case- 
 books of mental specialists. Besides, what is the 
 alternative to repression ? If we are not to repress, 
 are we to encourage ? Sometimes in reading psycho- 
 analytic literature one is tempted to believe that 
 a strictly limited yielding to natural impulses might 
 be the best way of maintaining the desired equili- 
 brium — leading to the policy of the safety valve, 
 and justifying the morality of sowing one's wild 
 oats. Under all this lurks the deadly danger of 
 using nature to justify our an ti- social tendencies. 
 Whatever is natural cannot be wrong, is a very 
 plausible argument that tends to smooth the way 
 of worthy but easy-going persons who want to pass 
 from the cradle to the grave along the line of least 
 resistance. Why should they struggle, and in 
 particular what should they struggle against ? 
 
 By whatever name it is known, there is an impelling 
 force within each of us, a force that we all recognise 
 though we may differ greatly in the way in which 
 we evaluate it. Under most of its names it sounds 
 wholesome enough : urge, will-to-live, elan vital, 
 horme — there is nothing to disturb us here, nothing 
 against which we must fight. It is only when the 
 Freudians come along with their libido and its 
 sinister connotation that we begin to have our 
 doubts. To be sure, they profess to rob it of its 
 baser meaning and to generalise it in the direction 
 of the force indicated by the more harmless names. 
 But when all is said the Freudians retain sex as the 
 principal element in the life urge, though it has to 
 
Psycho-analysis in Education 259 
 
 be admitted that they give a wider than usual 
 interpretation to sex in their descriptions of the 
 function of the vital force. But in the last resort it 
 is clear that sex remains the master force, and critics 
 are perhaps justified in the sarcasm they heap on 
 this obsession. Professor Knight Dunlap, of Johns 
 Hopkins University, in his Mysticism, Freudianism, 
 and Scientific Psychology, scoffs at the sex mania of 
 the Freudians, suggesting that they will no doubt 
 reduce even mathematics to a sexual basis, adding 
 in a footnote: "The expected has happened. 
 Since the above was written, Birdwood's Sex Ele- 
 ments in the First Five Books of Euclid has risen 
 above the horizon." ■ 
 
 Obviously the libido in the Freudian sense must 
 be opposed at least to the extent of moderating its 
 full force, and it may be granted at once that the 
 vital driving power, however described, demands 
 guidance and restraint in some form or other. Sex 
 itself occupies, whether we will or no, an important 
 place in all normal lives, and has therefore to be 
 taken into account, even by those who deny its 
 paramount importance. Other influences, however, 
 have also to be considered. Alfred Adler, for 
 example, regards the vital urge as taking the form 
 in most cases of love of power ; others are in favour 
 of the herd instinct and imitation as the ruling 
 forces. The important point is that whatever be 
 regarded as the ultimate source of power, it is 
 admitted that the individual can control it to the 
 extent of inhibiting its action at inconvenient 
 
 1 Op, cit., p. 45. 
 
260 Psycho-analysis in Education 
 
 moments. The problem remains of the price to be 
 paid for the exercise of this control. 
 
 W. H. R. Rivers makes a useful distinction 
 between repression and suppression. When elements 
 have been thrust out of consciousness into the 
 unconscious so that they remain permanently in 
 the unconscious they are said to be suppressed, 
 whether the ejection from consciousness has been 
 deliberate or unwitting, and whether it has been 
 caused by ourselves or by others. On the other 
 hand, the deliberate or witting ejection by ourselves 
 of elements from consciousness is repression. Thus 
 of the suppressed elements, only a portion have been 
 ejected from consciousness by repression. It is 
 highly desirable for all concerned that certain 
 elements should be repressed, and it is indeed whole- 
 \^some that each of us should have quite a large body 
 of suppressed elements. Yet there appears to be 
 always a danger that on their way to suppression 
 some elements may get dissociated from their 
 appropriate effective accompaniments, and this may 
 lead to trouble. There may arise a festering among 
 the suppressed elements that sets up unwholesome 
 reactions in experience — fears, inordinate desires, 
 unreasonable loves and hates, incapacity for certain 
 activities. In face of such troubles different 
 practitioners adopt different methods. Sigmund 
 Freud seeks for the source of trouble in some of the 
 earliest experiences of the patient. His glance is 
 always turned backward to the infantile period, 
 and generally finds some complex that owes its 
 origin to an early sex complication. Carl G. Jung, 
 on the other hand, is inclined to look for the cause 
 
Psycho-analysis in Education 261 
 
 in something connected with current affairs, and 
 looks for the trouble in the present. He finds that 
 the dreams of the patient symbolise the source of 
 the trouble, and by a correlation of the dreams with 
 the events of ordinary life he seeks to get at the 
 complex that is causing the disturbance. Alfred 
 Adler for his part is inclined to project himself into 
 the future in search of the cause of the complex. 
 He thinks that it is fear of the future that is making 
 the patient anxious. 
 
 From the teacher's standpoint there is a good 
 deal to recommend Adler' s view of the vital urge. 
 He approached the subject from the physiological 
 standpoint, and reached his psychological position 
 through the work he had done in investigating organ 
 inferiority. He emphasised the fact that when any 
 organ decays or suffers injury, the rest of the system 
 sets itself to protect the weak member, and to lighten 
 its work as much as possible. The resulting psycho- 
 logical attitude is represented by the name Adler 
 chose for his particular brand of psychology. But 
 his name " individual psychology " has not been 
 generally accepted, and the thing it represents has 
 obtained little vogue. It emphasises the love of 
 power as the characteristic of the vital urge, which, 
 however, need not be exercised in the Tamerlane 
 vein. More often it takes the form of dominating 
 others by playing upon our own weakness, using it 
 as a sort of weapon, as in the case of those who 
 tyrannise over others by the right of invalidism. Its 
 negative side is shown in the desire for security. 
 It often takes the form of a desire to escape from 
 the responsibilities of life. It leads to the desire 
 
262 Psycho-analysis in Education 
 
 to be a centre of attention, and thus a love of the 
 limelight is one of its symptoms. 
 
 Many people regard all this talk about the Slan 
 vital and the rest as intolerably abstract and vague. 
 They want a scientific statement. They want more 
 than the description of a process ; they desire a 
 knowledge of what it is that proceeds : in other 
 words, they want to know what is the subject of 
 the verb proceed in this connection. Accordingly, 
 there are those who look with hope to the work of a 
 new writer, Dr. Edward J. Kempf, of St. Elizabeth's 
 Hospital, Washington, D.C., who in the Journal of 
 Nervous and Mental Disease, August 1919 and 
 January 1920, and in Monograph 28 of the Nervous 
 and Mental Disease Series, sets out a theory of 
 dynamic mechanism. His general position is indi- 
 cated by the following statement of one of his 
 admirers : 
 
 " In order to explain the great physiological changes 
 which influence human thought and behavour and the bio- 
 logical nature of man, Kempf has developed a conception 
 of the personality based on the reflex actions of the auto- 
 nomic nervous system." 1 
 
 But when we trace this physiologist to his lair 
 we find a very difficult and not very convincing 
 terminology that does not seem in the meantime to 
 lead anywhere in particular. 
 
 After going through a great many books on 
 psycho-analysis the reader will gather, though the 
 principle is rarely stated with any definiteness, that 
 we run great danger by repressing natural tendencies, 
 
 1 Andr6 Tridon, Psycho-analysis and Behaviour, p. 332. 
 
Psycho-analysis in Education 263 
 
 unless we realise what we are doing. The psycho- 
 analysts appear to be much more interested in 
 describing symptoms than in effecting cures ; but 
 when they do turn their attention to cures they 
 appear to depend on consciousness much in the 
 same way as ordinary medical men depend on fresh 
 air. They appeal from the unconscious to the con- 
 scious, and regard it as almost axiomatic that as 
 soon as a dangerous complex has been brought 
 from the unconscious into the wholesome field of the 
 conscious its evil effects disappear. Their method 
 accordingly consists in a process of probing the 
 unconscious in such a way as to bring its dangerous 
 contents into the healing range of the conscious. 
 
 In this process the analyst has a hostile force to 
 face in the censor that the Freudian metaphor 
 supplies to the soul. This figure personifies the 
 force that keeps the elements in their proper place 
 and prevents them from escaping from the limbo 
 of the unconscious. The analyst's business is to 
 pacify this cerberus, in order to allow free passage 
 into consciousness of elements that are proving 
 deleterious and that cannot be rendered harmless 
 till they are brought to consciousness. By winning 
 the confidence of the subject and then encouraging 
 him to speak quite freely on whatever matters 
 come into his mind, following easily and without 
 effort whatever line association takes of its own 
 accord, the observer is able to elicit a certain number 
 of apparently unimportant facts that he can utilise 
 in reconstructing the past experience of the patient. 
 Occasionally there is a sharp break in the associa- 
 tion : the patient suddenly stops, or changes the 
 
264 Psycho-analysis in Education 
 
 subject abruptly. These balks so far from inter- 
 fering with the analyst's purpose are his aids. 
 They indicate a resistance, and show that the censor 
 has suddenly awaked to a sense of his duties and 
 does his best to prevent further escapes in regard 
 to the matter that happens to have aroused him. 
 The analyst, however, has had his hint, and it is 
 his business so to lull the censor that at some other 
 time the bar may be lifted and the troublesome 
 matter brought to light. 
 
 The dream is regarded as the analyst's friend, for 
 during sleep the censor is assumed to be a little off 
 his guard, and more inclined to let dangerous ideas 
 pass, if only they have the decency to disguise 
 themselves a little. That is why our dreams are 
 so fantastic. Freud's view, as everybody knows, 
 is that all our dreams are the expression of an 
 unfulfilled wish. What we cannot get in real life 
 we secure to ourselves in dreams. There is no 
 doubt an element, a strong element, of truth in 
 this view, but it does not exhaust all the possi- 
 bilities of the case, and other investigators have 
 supplementary views. It is generally admitted, 
 however, that dreams do have a more or less direct 
 connection with our waking experience, and there- 
 fore may give valuable information about our 
 mental content to anyone who has the skill to 
 analyse them. Accordingly, the interpretation of 
 dreams has taken on a scientific aspect and become 
 a regular part of the psycho-analyst's work, and 
 cautious people are not so fond of telling their 
 dreams at breakfast time as once they were. 
 
 Obviously with all the elaborate methods of the 
 
Psycho-analysis in Education 265 
 
 psycho-analyst the teacher, as such, has nothing to 
 do. Not only do they demand a technical training 
 that no practising teacher can hope to attain, but 
 they involve an expenditure of time in their appli- 
 cation that puts them for ever beyond the reach 
 of ordinary professional teachers. But certain 
 incidental applications of psycho-analysis may be 
 made by all teachers. Indeed it is not too much 
 to say that most teachers have practised a sort of 
 rudimentary psycho-analysis from time immemorial. 
 A wise old schoolmaster of my acquaintance used 
 to say that we are all psychologists more or less. 
 His remark may well be extended to psycho- 
 analysis. Every time that we set ourselves to find 
 the motive for an unintelligible act of one of our 
 pupils we are embarking on a rudimentary bit of 
 psycho-analysis. But there is all the difference in 
 the world between this easy and incidental investi- 
 gation and the serious and detailed analysis of the 
 new experts. Full analysis of this kind involves 
 the relation of doctor and patient, and ought to 
 carry with it the intelligent consent of the patient. 
 Indeed it is fortunately the case that without this 
 consent it is impossible to psycho-analyse in the 
 formal way. Even when the method is applied to 
 the detection of crime, the accused's consent is 
 necessary before a beginning can be made. All 
 the supposed criminal need do is to remain silent. 
 No doubt when full physical control of the patient 
 is obtained, physical tests may be applied that give 
 material for inferences with regard to mental states. 
 But these are of doubtful value, and are in any case 
 beyond the pale of educational investigations. 
 
266 Psycho-analysis in Education 
 
 What, then, is to be the teacher's attitude towards 
 the psychology of the unconscious ? To begin with, 
 he ought to know it. Whatever may be thought 
 about the technical application of the new form of 
 analysis, the teacher ought to be aware of what 
 has been done in the way of developing the new 
 doctrine of the unconscious. It is his business to 
 know his pupils as thoroughly as possible, and he 
 cannot afford to neglect a whole reservoir of the 
 pupil's experience. The content of the unconscious 
 is an essential part of the pupil's nature, and must 
 be known in a general way if the pupil is to be 
 intelligently handled. But a distinction must be 
 drawn between two different aspects of the uncon- 
 scious, the psychological and the biographical. The 
 teacher is entitled to find out as much as he can 
 about the unconscious of his pupils so long as his 
 interest is in the paid-up capital of experience that 
 is there to be found. The youngster's present 
 nature is what it is because of what he has experi- 
 enced, and anything that helps to make clear what 
 the result of that experience has been is a legitimate 
 subject for investigation by the teacher. On the 
 other hand, he has no right to pry into the biography 
 of the pupil. Whatever comes out naturally in 
 social intercourse may be legitimately used by the 
 teacher. But he must not go out of his way to 
 probe so as to discover biographical details that are 
 not presented to him spontaneously. It may be 
 argued, no doubt, that the teacher's relation to his 
 pupils is of a very exceptional kind, and warrants a 
 closer inquisition than is permissible to others. He 
 is in loco parentis, and exists professionally for no 
 
Psycho-analysis in Education 267 
 
 other purpose than the good of the pupil, and 
 therefore is entitled to make all sorts of investiga- 
 tion that would be illegitimate for others. 
 
 The argument is plausible, but will not carry 
 conviction so long as we are dealing with ordinary 
 wholesome children who are healthy both in body 
 and in mind, and when we come to cases that are 
 pathological we enter a field that does not belong 
 to the ordinary professional teacher. It is difficult 
 to see why anyone should psycho-analyse normal 
 children under any circumstances ; but psycho- 
 analysts seem to think that, so long as they deal 
 with only healthy children, psycho-analysis is 
 legitimate for all. Thus, in an effort to be scrupu- 
 lously careful of the children's interests Oskar 
 Pfister writes : 
 
 " Direct analysis of healthy children lies entirely in the 
 domain in which the educator alone has the responsibility. 
 This is a reason for us to be particularly cautious. We 
 have no right to try all manner of experiments on the 
 children committed to our care. The only right we have is 
 to help them to become good and capable men. My 
 reason for uttering these well-worn truths in this place 
 is that evil tongues have not hesitated to affirm that psycho- 
 analysts analyse here, there and everywhere, without 
 caring about the consequences." s 
 
 It is not clear whether healthy in this passage 
 applies only to physical condition. If it includes 
 mental as well as bodily health, there seems no 
 reason why the children should be analysed at all. 
 Psycho-analysis is surely not to be regarded as a 
 
 1 Psycho-analysis in the Service of Education, p. 157. 
 
268 Psycho-analysis in Education 
 
 matter of routine in the New Education, like 
 sounding the lungs or taking the pulse at a school 
 medical examination. 
 
 No doubt the intelligent teacher interested in his 
 pupils will from day to day learn incidentally a 
 great deal about his pupils' minds. As a matter of 
 fact he will probably learn a great deal that his 
 youngsters do not wish him to learn, for they are 
 continually " giving themselves away " in the 
 presence of a keen and sympathetic observer. The 
 kind of mistakes they make in ordinary written and 
 oral work often throws a flood of light on dark 
 places, and the teacher is entitled to all the help he 
 can get in this way. The study of Freud's Psycho- 
 pathology of Everyday Life and Drever's Psychology 
 of Everyday Life will be found useful to the teacher, 
 by training him what to expect, and how to interpret 
 the ordinary reactions of school intercourse. So 
 long as the teacher allows the light of ordinary 
 experience to play upon his pupils just as circum- 
 stances direct, he is in a perfectly safe position. 
 The trouble begins when he sets about arranging 
 circumstances so that certain revelations are likely 
 to be made. For here we have a mild form of 
 technical psycho-analysis, for which, however, the 
 professors of the new type are in no way responsible, 
 since the plan has been followed for centuries by 
 generations of teachers who had no idea that they 
 were using anything more formidable than intelligent 
 common sense, with the addition maybe of a little 
 cunning of doubtful moral standing. 
 
 The problem may become a little more definite 
 if we put the question : * Is a teacher who has made 
 
Psycho-analysis in Education 269 
 
 some study of psycho-analysis in a better position 
 for finding out what is going on in the minds of his 
 pupils than was the able and perhaps cunning teacher 
 of centuries ago ? The appropriate answer appears 
 to be an emphatic yes. Even without applying any 
 of the technical methods such as free or directed 
 association, or time reaction, the modern teacher who 
 is acquainted with this subject is in a better position 
 to study his pupils with advantage than was his 
 forerunner of the pre-psycho- analytical times. He 
 knows what sort of things to look for ; he knows that 
 the pupil may with perfect honesty give a wrong 
 reason for an action. No doubt the old school- 
 masters were fully alive to the fact that their 
 pupils could give ingenious but false reasons for their 
 actions, but what the older generation of school- 
 masters did not realise is that the pupils may them- 
 selves believe in the false reasons they assign. 
 School youngsters even in difficult positions requiring 
 explanation are not always the brazen hypocrites 
 they sometimes appear to be in the eyes of un- 
 discriminating teacher-judges. 
 
 The ordinary teacher's relation to the new methods 
 thus becomes a little clearer. He ought to study 
 the psychology of the unconscious, and even make 
 himself acquainted to some extent with the methods 
 followed by the psycho-analysts, so that he may 
 learn how to profit by his knowledge of the psychology 
 he has learnt. Then he is ready to derive every 
 legitimate advantage from whatever happens in the 
 schoolroom and the playing-field. Probably a 
 thorough study of his own experiences in relation 
 to his unconscious is one of the best ways of enabling 
 
270 Psycho-analysis in Education 
 
 the teacher to put himself in the place of his pupils, 
 and to behave intelligently towards them in conse- 
 quence. By diligent study of his own experience 
 the teacher gets the necessary knowledge without 
 having to submit his pupils to analysis which, how- 
 ever honest the teacher may be and however careful, 
 has a tendency to become morbid, and to produce 
 an unwholesome relation between teacher and pupil. 
 Having got thus far, many teachers find themselves 
 faced with the awkward problem : Should the 
 teacher have himself psycho- analysed in order that 
 he may the better understand the whole process in 
 the .interest of his pupils J To the plain, unsophis- 
 ticated teacher this question comes with a shock 
 of pained surprise. He is apt to ask : Why in the 
 world should I be psycho- analysed ? I am perfectly 
 normal, and analysis is meant for the abnormal. 
 The thorough-going psycho-analyst is ready with 
 his answer : 
 
 " I take this opportunity to emphasize the fact that there 
 is no such thing as a normal human being. Everyone is 
 abnormal in one way or another. According to Freud, 
 every child is a ' polymorphic pervert.' This tendency is 
 never altogether obliterated." * 
 
 Our reply is, so much the worse for Freud if he 
 carries his theory to this extreme length. Ordinary 
 experience shows that there are great numbers 
 of human beings who sufficiently conform to the 
 general type to be justly called normal. But even 
 if the teacher's normality is conceded, he is not yet 
 
 1 W. Stekel, Disguises of Love, p. 45. 
 
Psycho-analysis in Education 271 
 
 out of the wood, for the psycho-analyst who has set 
 himself up as the exponent of its pedagogic aspects 
 soberly sides with those who would ask for this 
 sacrifice on the teacher's part. 
 
 " According to the opinion of all competent men, it is 
 a great mistake to imagine that one can analyse thoroughly 
 before one has been analysed oneself." * 
 
 There is here the obvious loophole that the plain 
 teacher does not propose to analyse his pupils in 
 the technical way, and therefore has no need of 
 that thoroughness to which one's own analysis is 
 a condition precedent. The teacher can practise 
 the rough-and-ready analysis of which we have been 
 speaking, without the least need of having turned 
 himself into a "case " when there was nothing the 
 matter with him. There is a sinister suggestion in 
 Dr. Pfister's introduction of the technical term 
 pedanalysis. It would seem to imply that we have 
 here a new and normal way of dealing with our 
 ordinary pupils. Of course if all our pupils are 
 Freudian " polymorphic perverts," the sooner we 
 establish a psycho- analytic clinic in every school 
 the better, but we decline to accept this pessimistic 
 view. Probably the only foundation for it is the 
 undoubted fact that we all do differ from each other, 
 we all have our peculiarities. But this goes no 
 further than to admit that we all have individuality, 
 and our newer educators are exceedingly careful 
 to respect this individuality. So far from being a 
 
 1 Oskar Pfister, Psycho-analysis in the Service of Educa- 
 tion, p. 155. 
 
272 Psycho-analysis in Education 
 
 handicap, it is regarded as an asset, and there is much 
 more need of a crusade to protect the commonplace 
 pupil than to protect the pupil of marked individual- 
 ity. Pedanalysis of a plain, straightforward sort 
 may well be recommended. Child Study in modera- 
 tion is an excellent thing, and has always been carried 
 on to some extent. But the natural-history stage 
 of pedanalysis as exemplified in child study is some- 
 thing quite different from the application to children 
 of a form of analysis that properly belongs to the 
 resources of pathology, and should have no place 
 among ordinary wholesome children. 
 
 Teachers and parents have a natural objection to 
 the introduction of brass instruments into school 
 for the purpose of psychological investigation. Some 
 education authorities take up the attitude that they 
 do not object to educational experiments in their 
 schools, but lay down the condition that instruments 
 must not be used. The distinction is perhaps 
 natural : it certainly is not rational. It implies 
 that the material part of the child must be carefully 
 protected from external interference, while the 
 spiritual part is left open to assault from all sides. 
 Wise teachers are aware of certain dangers that may 
 accompany the study of mental science in their own 
 case, and they agree with the warnings that psycho- 
 logists themselves give against the introduction of 
 the psychological attitude into the school-room. 
 When Miinsterberg distinguished between the atti- 
 tude the teacher should adopt towards his pupils 
 and that the psychologist must take up towards 
 the persons he studies, he did a service to all teachers, 
 particularly to those whose consciences drive them 
 
Psycho-analysis in Education 273 
 
 to make a careful study of child nature. If this 
 be true about ordinary psychology, how much more 
 is it necessary to be on our guard against the in- 
 sidious attractions of psycho-analysis. Let us 
 cordially admit that it has its place, and a very 
 important one. Teachers are only too glad to be 
 able to hand over to the professional analysts any 
 pathological case that may occur in their practice. 
 
 The detection of pathological cases is not easy, and 
 this difficulty is one of the chief reasons why teachers 
 should know something of the principles of the new 
 method. They ought to know the sort of sym- 
 ptoms to look for in doubtful cases. The intelligence 
 tests give an indication of the possibility of actual 
 defect, and up to that indication the teacher may 
 be expected to work. But when a prima facie 
 case has been made out for the probability of defect 
 in any instance, the matter should then be handed 
 over to the specialist. The teacher has done his 
 part. So with the moral side in so far as the psycho- 
 analytic treatment is concerned. The teacher 
 finds himself richly repaid for his studies in the 
 psychology of the unconscious when he gets over 
 the natural tendency to impute wrong motives and 
 impulses to his erring youngsters. Many offences 
 that used to be put down to original sin, plus the 
 various aggravations invented by the individual, 
 are now traced to their causes, and the pupils treated 
 accordingly. But when a particularly obdurate 
 case occurs, which the teacher finds himself incap- 
 able of handling, he has now the chance of reporting 
 the case to his educational authority, or to the 
 parents when these latter are in a position to deal 
 18 
 
274 Psycho-analysis in Education 
 
 with such a serious case. No doubt in the near 
 future all education authorities will have a psycho- 
 logical expert in their service to deal with these 
 matters along with others. 
 
 While the teacher will welcome the opportunity 
 of handing over the serious responsibility of dealing 
 with mental cases that are clearly pathological, he 
 will maintain his self-respect by knowing how to 
 find out which cases need the attention of the ex- 
 perts. At the present moment there is a certain 
 resentment among some teachers on the point of 
 determining which children are mentally defective. 
 The decision here has been generally left entirely 
 in the hands of the medical officers. This is not 
 unnatural, since these men are generally well trained 
 along scientific lines. But they are often ludicrously 
 ignorant of school conditions. In determining 
 whether a child is defective or merely backward 
 there is no reason to suppose on first principles 
 that the doctor is more likely to be right than the 
 teacher. The chances are, in fact, in favour of 
 the teacher being the better qualified to judge. 
 The medical man certainly knows the bodily side 
 extremely well, but he is apt to judge from that 
 side alone, and if he ventures on some mental tests 
 he is quite as much out of his beat as is the teacher 
 who ventures a physical diagnosis. No doubt if 
 teacher and doctor have both studied intelligence 
 tests the doctor is on the whole more likely to get 
 at the root of the matter, because of his previous 
 scientific training on the biological side. 
 
 Here, as in the matter of psycho-analysis, the 
 teacher's self-respect demands that he should know 
 
Psycho-analysis in Education 275 
 
 enough about the matter to behave intelligently, 
 to report with knowledge. In the case of intelli- 
 gence tests he ought to be able to go all the way 
 and to consult with the doctor on equal terms. 
 With regard to analysis the matter is different, 
 and the teacher should be glad to hand over the 
 matter entirely into the hands of the specialist. 
 After all, he is himself a specialist in intelligence, 
 but only an outsider in the matter of psycho- 
 analysis. 
 
 In fact, as my friend Dr. R. R. Rusk, of St. 
 Andrews, is very anxious to impress on the audiences 
 to whom he lectures, teachers do extremely well if 
 they can apply their knowledge of the psychology 
 of the unconscious to their work in such a way as 
 to avoid the formation of complexes. So far from 
 resolving complexes already formed, the ordinary 
 teacher is very apt to form fresh complexes during 
 the pupil's school course. The unnecessary 
 restraints of school life, the anxieties resulting from 
 over-stimulated emulation, the strain of examina- 
 tions, the humiliations that accompany the teacher's 
 thoughtless sarcasms — all these have a tendency to 
 produce unwholesome repressions with consequent 
 complex-formation. In the poorer districts of towns 
 the children in elementary schools have often 
 additional sources of danger from their bad home 
 conditions. It is obviously greatly to the interest 
 of the pupils that the teachers should have a clear 
 idea of the possibilities of the harm that may be 
 done by sheer ignorance and misinterpretation. On 
 the other hand, the teachers must be for ever on 
 their guard against reading too much into the 
 
276 Psycho-analysis in Education 
 
 ordinary reactions of their pupils. A study of the 
 unconscious is very apt to leave traces in the way of 
 oversensibility to reactions that may possibly have 
 a meaning for psycho-analysis and just as possibly 
 not. The teacher must be as nearly normal as 
 Stekel and Freud will allow him, and must above 
 everything carry on his work in school by dealing 
 with his pupils on a wholesome hi: man footing. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 FREE DISCIPLINE 
 
 IN all that has been said about the various new 
 methods of dealing with school matters, we 
 have taken it for granted that there exists an 
 authority on the part of the teacher that enables 
 him to apply whatever plans strike him as most 
 likely to produce the effects he desires. The source 
 of this authority is often misunderstood. On very 
 many occasions I have put this question in examina- 
 tion papers for young teachers : " State, in as plain 
 and untechnical terms as you can, why it is that 
 pupils obey their teachers." Long experience has 
 taught me that there are three popular answers 
 that among them account for over 90 per cent, of 
 the papers. The first, and by far the most popular, 
 is that pupils obey because of physical force : 
 because if they do not, a worse thing may befall 
 them. The next most popular answer is given 
 more frequently by young women than by young 
 men : pupils obey their teachers because they are 
 fond of them. The third is nearly as big as the second 
 group, and is made up of those who think pupils 
 obey out of respect for the superior knowledge of the 
 teachers. Very little reflection is needed to discover 
 that the first and most popular reason is false, as it 
 is expressed by the students. No master by sheer 
 
 277 
 
278 Free Discipline 
 
 physical force could overcome a class of forty boys. 
 They could get the better of him by merely throwing 
 themselves upon him : sheer weight avoirdupois 
 would do the rest. Corporal punishment is often 
 confounded with control by mere physical force. 
 But corporal punishment can be inflicted only with 
 the consent of the culprit. Unless he consents, it 
 is not a case of punishment : it is a fight. While 
 the master could probably in physical combat 
 account for any one boy in his class, he could not do 
 the same for his class collectively. Brute force 
 may in the last resort stand behind the teacher as 
 the representative of society, but this brute force 
 is not the direct cause of the obedience he 
 commands from his pupils. 
 
 Personal liking no doubt has an important effect, 
 but the smallest experience of school work will 
 supply abundant examples of pupils who are willing 
 to obey teachers that they do not like, and ready to 
 disobey teachers whom they do like. So with the 
 respect for the teacher's learning. The pupils may 
 be as full of awe for their master's knowledge as 
 were the rustics of Sweet Auburn, but it does not 
 follow that they obey him because of that. There 
 are other kinds of knowledge for which they have a 
 much higher respect than for that at the teacher's 
 disposal. How to manipulate a motor, drive a 
 flying machine, or even work successfully a Punch 
 and Judy Show, are skills that win various ages of 
 juveniles much more effectively than the sort of 
 knowledge the schoolmaster deals in. 
 
 The real source of the teacher's authority lies 
 elsewhere, and may be found in two main directions. 
 
Free Discipline 279 
 
 First there is the nature of society. Modern social 
 life is built up on a system that includes obeying 
 teachers as a part of the nature of things. Every- 
 thing is conducted on that principle. All the 
 paraphernalia of educational administration tends 
 to buttress the authority of the teacher. The fact 
 that there is a special Government department 
 presided over by a Cabinet Minister, the existence of 
 a huge staff of highly important officials at the 
 Education Office and distributed peripatetically 
 throughout the country, of local authorities specially 
 set apart for educational administration, of numerous 
 more or less dignified educational buildings, all 
 produce the impression that the army of teachers 
 is a serious matter and the members of that army 
 are persons to be obeyed. The little boy who has 
 been threatened by nurse or parent for a long time 
 with the sudden end of disobedience that is .to 
 occur when he is sent to school, appears at the portals, 
 when the fatal day arrives, with full purpose of and 
 endeavour after independence. He'll show them, 
 he says in his ignorant pride. Within the class- 
 room he finds himself, to his own surprise, doing 
 what he is told. He explains afterwards that 
 somehow or other everybody seemed to expect him 
 to obey, and as all the rest were obeying he fell in 
 with the movement, and thus supplied a typical 
 case of the power of the social nature of things. 
 
 There is, however, still another source of power. 
 The authority of all teachers is not the same. The 
 position of prestige into which society thrusts a 
 teacher gives him every chance of securing the 
 obedience of his pupils. But all do not secure it 
 
280 Free Discipline 
 
 to the same degree. A good deal depends in the 
 last resort on the teacher's personality. We have 
 all a certain control that is innate. It may be used 
 wisely or ill, but it does not seem capable of being 
 increased in itself by anything we or others can do. 
 There are few people who are entirely without this 
 power, but those who lack it are quite incapable of 
 securing obedience, even when society does its best 
 in the way of supplying a position of advantage. 
 Training colleges can help those who have a poor 
 power of control to make the best use of the power 
 they possess, but they cannot supply this power to 
 one who is born into the world without it. They 
 cannot supply a backbone to an invertebrate. 
 
 This power of control is often spoken of as the 
 power of maintaining discipline, and under this 
 name has acquired an altogether disproportionate 
 importance in the eyes especially of the teachers of 
 elementary schools. It is important, no doubt, so 
 important that it is a sine qua non of success in 
 teaching. We cannot even begin teaching unless 
 we possess it in some degree. But the mistake lies 1 
 in giving it a positive value when it is entitled to ~ 
 only a negative one. Mr. A. C. Benson shows less 
 than his usual acumen when he writes : " The 
 power of maintaining discipline is the unum neces- 
 sarium for a teacher. If he has not got it and 
 cannot acquire it, he had better sweep a crossing/' 8 
 It is necessary, without doubt, but it is far from 
 being the only thing that is necessary. It may be 
 possessed in the highest degree by those who are 
 utterly incapable of teaching. On one occasion the 
 1 The Schoolmaster, p. 23. 
 
Free Discipline 281 
 
 headmaster of an elementary school had to be 
 present at court in a case of truancy. His second 
 master and a class-teacher happened to be ill that 
 morning, so it came about that 120 boys were left 
 in a room with no teacher. The school porter, an 
 old sergeant, became aware that something was 
 amiss, dashed upstairs, sprang upon the little plat- 
 form, and glared. There was dead silence : but 
 nothing else happened. The glaring continued for 
 eighty minutes, till the headmaster returned, but 
 that was all that went on. Mr. S. P. B. Mais writes 
 in A Public School in War Time : 
 
 " Countless men have I known who are rapidly making 
 names for themselves as successful schoolmasters, who 
 under any sane system of education would have been 
 sacked after their first day ; men who have this wonderful 
 gift of being able to keep boys in order, but beyond it 
 nothing, nothing at all — they would fail even as policemen. 
 They have no powers of direction ; they can only hold their 
 hands up and keep the traffic at bay. Successful school- 
 masters, indeed ! " 
 
 A man who can maintain control is in a position 
 to begin teaching. He has cleared the decks. But 
 teaching itself is a positive process, and the power 
 of control in itself has nothing to do with it, beyond 
 making it possible. In ordinary school phraseology 
 " a good disciplinarian means a person who can 
 easily control a class, and the discipline of a school 
 is usually understood to mean the control the staff 
 exercise over the behaviour of the pupils." In the 
 old days of payment by results, there was a special 
 grant of one shilling per head for good discipline 
 and organisation, or eighteen pence for excellent. 
 
282 Free Discipline 
 
 In practice the difference between the two was 
 determined entirely by the discipline : the 
 organisation was a mere make- weight. 
 """it is now generally agreed that in these bad old 
 days this power of control was greatly overvalued, 
 since it was very often used to produce a totally 
 unwholesome kind of discipline, of the worst Prussian 
 brand, and a group of advanced educational people 
 have now come forward with a doctrine of what 
 Lihey call " free discipline." To the question I set 
 my young teachers they would reply that the matter 
 was not of the first importance. The question that 
 really matters, they would say, is " Why should 
 pupils obey their teachers at all ? " Should they 
 not be allowed to do things in their own way, without 
 the continual interference of the teacher ? In the 
 Froebelian phrase, the teacher's function should be 
 that of benevolent superintendence : he must not 
 interfere, but ought to let the young people develop 
 according to the laws of their own nature. His 
 position is to be "a passivity, a following." In 
 what has gone before we have become gradually 
 educated up to something approaching this bold 
 claim, but the ordinary practical teacher, who is a 
 good disciplinarian, can hardly speak peaceably 
 about this demand for freedom for the child within 
 the school. The case for Free Discipline is perhaps 
 best put by Mr. Norman MacMunn in his The Child's 
 Path to Freedom. He begins his attack by quoting 
 from a Presidential address delivered to the Teachers' 
 Guild by Dr. Temple, ex- Headmaster of Rep ton : 
 
 " ' The only true liberty is through discipline,' he begins, 
 
Free Discipline 283 
 
 with a queer inversion of the conclusions of the most recent 
 psychologists. To this strange dictum — and the context 
 shows what Dr. Temple means by discipline — we might 
 well oppose Dr. Dewey's view that : 
 
 " ' The school has been so set apart, so isolated from the 
 ordinary conditions and motives of life, that the place 
 where children are sent for discipline is the one place in 
 the world where it is most difficult to get experience — the 
 mother of all discipline worth the name.' 
 
 " Dr. Temple goes on : 
 
 " ' A new-born child has practically no will. The ele- 
 mentary stages of education consist in creating will, the 
 faculty of attention, which is the essence of will.' 
 
 " Now to say that a new-born child ' has practically 
 no will ' is just as true as, and no more true than, to say 
 that it has no intellectual or artistic powers, or that it has 
 a negligible capacity to digest varied nourishment." l 
 
 Understanding discipline in the sense popularly 
 recognised in teaching, Mr. MacMunn distinguishes 
 three stages of its application. The first is that of 
 stern repression, practically based on force, whether 
 supported by consent or not : the long, dull, 
 dreary, brutal period during which the cane was the 
 first and last resort of the schoolmasters whom 
 Sou they stigmatises as the " phlebotomists." Next 
 came the second or transition period, during which 
 educators became civilised, but still could not 
 bring themselves to the pitch of allowing perfect 
 freedom to their pupils. Their influence, however, 
 was exercised in the milder form of a dominant 
 personality. This group is represented by men 
 like Arnold and Thring, against whose characters it 
 is hard to make a case. Mr. MacMunn, however, 
 is inexorable; he would sweep even such noble 
 1 Op. cti.,[p. 52. 
 
284 Free Discipline 
 
 exemplars from the path of freedom for the children. 
 These masters were good enough in their way, and 
 they certainly did admirable work in bridging 
 the gulf between the old harsh, repressive system 
 and the new freedom that is just beginning. But 
 what is wanted by the newest school of discipline 
 is freedom from all repression, even the repression 
 that comes from an overmastering personality. The 
 freedom of the pupil is to be positive, not 
 merely negative. " Negative discipline is powerless,'' 
 quotes Mr. MacMunn from Goethe, and goes on to 
 establish the claims of that form of discipline which 
 children set up among themselves when they receive 
 fall opportunity and encouragement. Most pro- 
 gressive teachers will be with him in his preference 
 for positive or constructive discipline as compared 
 with the negative and repressive form. He is 
 opposed to " don't " as the basis, and makes a very 
 effective quotation from Sir Robert Baden- Powell : 
 
 " Authorities have come along to improve the Scout Law 
 and, not recognising the active side of it, have changed it 
 to the reverse — a series of ' don'ts.' ' Don't ' of course 
 is the distinguishing feature and motto of the old-fashioned 
 system of repression, and is a red-rag to a boy. The main 
 step to success is to develop, not to repress, the child's 
 character, and at the same time, above all, not to nurse 
 him. He wants to be doing things : therefore, encourage 
 him to do them in his own way. Let him make his own 
 mistakes ; it is by these that he learns experience." * 
 
 To this I have heard a very capable old disci- 
 plinarian make the contemptuous reply that he for 
 
 1 The Child's Path to Freedom, p. r 73- 
 
Free Discipline 285 
 
 one had no objection to the little word " don't/' 
 adding complacently : " The style of the ten com- 
 mandments is good enough for me." But like the 
 good Christian he is, he got into difficulties when I 
 pointed out that the line of evolution was obviously 
 from the " Thou shalt not " of the Old Testament 
 to the "Thou shalt" of the New. When Christ 
 was asked by a hostile lawyer " Which is the great 
 commandment in the law ? " the reply included 
 none of the prohibitions, but summed up the spirit 
 of the law in the positive injunction : 
 
 " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
 and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the 
 first and great commandment. And the second is like 
 unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these 
 two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." 
 
 My veteran friend argued a little shakenly that we 
 were not yet sufficiently advanced for this doctrine^ 
 at any rate our schoolboys were not. It is some- 
 thing to have it recognised that we are at all events 
 moving in the line that evolution appears to be 
 taking, even if we have hard work yet before us to 
 convince people that we are ready for the immediate^ 
 application of the new freedom. 
 
 When it comes to the dominating influence of the 
 personality of the teacher it is hard to agree with 
 Mr. MacMunn, though it is easy to understand the 
 position that he so clearly outlines. He wants the 
 children to be perfectly free to act in their own way 
 and to develop along their own lines without any 
 external interference, even if that outside influence 
 be in itself excellent. He looks back with horror 
 
286 Free Discipline 
 
 at the long record of brutal and unintelligent repres- 
 sion in the past, and looks forward to the glorious 
 freedom that is just dawning or about to dawn, 
 and between the two he makes out a dim period of 
 transition occupied by a group of men, whom he 
 calls impressionists, who still seek to dominate, 
 though they no longer fall back upon savage repres- 
 sion, but are content to get their way by imposing 
 their personality on their pupils. He is unhappy 
 about Arnold and Thring. He likes them ■ and 
 admires them, but he does not like their getting into 
 the way between their pupils and complete freedom. 
 It is universally admitted that Arnold left his mark 
 on his pupils, and it is not a sufficient compensation, 
 in Mr. MacMunn's opinion, that the mark was a 
 good one. He wants Arnold's boys to be them- 
 selves, not a replica of their great master. But he 
 is not happy in his objections. Thring worries him 
 nearly as much. It is only after he has done honour 
 to both, that he feels at liberty to get in his blow. 
 
 " All I would point out is, that there are thousands of 
 men and women having the gifts neither of Arnolds nor 
 of Thrings who aim at the more or less complete appro- 
 priation of the souls of those whom they teach — on the 
 ground that Arnold and Thring have set them the example." 2 
 
 But he has to admit that this indirect control is 
 of a totally different kind from that exercised by 
 the pedagogues that rouse his warmest indignation. 
 There is a saying of Washington's that is popular 
 
 1 Cf. J. E. Adamson, The Individual and the Environment, 
 P- 342. 
 
 2 The Child's Path to Freedom, p. 59. 
 
Free Discipline 287 
 
 in America and is apposite here. Henry Lee had 
 written to Washington recommending that the 
 influence of Congress should be brought to bear 
 with a view to end a small rebellion, and Washington 
 replied " Influence is not government." Dr. E. 
 Ellsworth Brown uses the remark as the text on 
 which to preach an educational sermon ' recom- 
 mending the very sort of thing that Mr. MacMunn 
 resents. The implication is that education should 
 attain its ends by more or less indirect ^means, 
 whereas government would suggest just the sort of 
 direct imposition of authority that marked the age 
 before the impressionists. In point of fact we ought 
 to welcome impressionism and do all we can to get 
 men into the profession who are worthy of the title. 
 Let it be granted thatPhlebotomism is now entirely 
 out of court, and that Impressionism is still on its 
 trial. There remains the third and much- disputed 
 position that demands for the pupils the most com- 
 plete freedom conceivable, and that accordingly 
 adopts the name of Emancipationism. If this third 
 stage develops in the way its advocates would 
 desire, it would almost appear as if indeed " this 
 our craft is in danger to be set at nought," for there 
 does not seem to be any very important place left 
 for us. Mr. MacMunn as an enthusiastic emancipa- 
 tionist has reached the conclusion that the time has 
 come for Impressionism to be swallowed up in Free 
 Discipline. He is of those who would suggest as 
 the most appropriate motto for all teachers one or 
 other of the two French verbs s'effacer and se 
 blottir. But the question naturally rises : can the 
 1 Education by Influence, p. 3. 
 
288 Free Discipline 
 
 teacher at will efface himself or blot himself out ? 
 Whether he will or no he is thrust into a position 
 of prominence, and must act accordingly. Even 
 on the physical side it is by no means easy se blottir. 
 The Montessorians attack the Kindergartners on 
 the ground that the latter are always prominent in 
 the class-room, while the Montessorian directresses 
 keep modestly in the background. Defending her 
 system, a well-known London Kindergartner ad- 
 mitted that the mistress in a Kindergarten neces- 
 sarily occupied a position of prominence, because 
 of her size. She was too polite to make any reference 
 to the dimensions of directresses. But the implica- 
 tion was that literally, and from the ordinary 
 teacher's point of view also figuratively, the teacher 
 cannot efface himself. His personality will out, and 
 will influence the pupils. He may not seek to get 
 his pupils to imitate him : may indeed live in 
 dread of their imitation. But for weal or for woe, 
 there he is, set upon a pedestal. Many a teacher 
 would willingly preach in all seriousness to his pupils 
 from the whimsical text " Don't do as I do, do as I 
 tell you." But the sermon is in vain : the teacher 
 is there as a model for imitation. There is one 
 comfort for the emancipationists that they do not 
 seem sufficiently to appreciate. Imitation is affected 
 by suggestion and may therefore work both positively 
 and negatively. The contrariant disposition, of 
 which Dr. Keatinge makes so much, may operate 
 in such a way as to save the pupils from the fatal 
 subservience of which the emancipationists are so 
 much afraid. 
 
 Speaking from the experience of his own upbring- 
 
Free Discipline 289 
 
 ing, John Stuart Mill made a remark that must be 
 pleasing in the ears of the emancipationists who 
 happen to come across it : " Strong-willed parents 
 have weak-willed children.' ' Elsewhere, I have 
 already quoted a passage that cannot be too often 
 brought to the notice of teachers : it is from a 
 public eulogy on a distinguished teacher : 
 
 " His students had such implicit confidence in his know- 
 ledge, and such reverence for his opinion, that after leaving 
 him they no longer cared to think for themselves. They 
 were satisfied by the conclusions reached by a mind so much 
 superior to their own, possessing a grasp and insight 
 which they realised was so far in advance of anything they 
 could ever hope to attain." 1 
 
 What, then, are strong-willed parents to do, and 
 how is a brilliant teacher to avoid being lampooned 
 in this way after his death ? Obviously strong- 
 willed parents ought to have wills strong enough to 
 prevent them from refusing to their children the 
 chance of exercising their wills in their turn. As to 
 the brilliant scholar and thinker, it is surely possible 
 for him to talk a little less and allow his pupils to 
 talk a little more, and thus acquire the necessary 
 self-confidence. But surely he need not be called 
 upon to surrender his personality. In point of fact 
 it cannot be done, and the emancipationists ought 
 to know it. Does the chief adviser of the children 
 of Tiptree Hall seriously ask us to believe that his 
 personality does not affect his pupils ? Can anyone 
 picture Mr. Caldwell Cook as a colourless imper- 
 
 1 S. B. Sinclair, The Possibility of a Science of Education, 
 p. 18. 
 
 *9 
 
290 Free Discipline 
 
 sonality in a room full of vigorous Littlemen ? No 
 doubt Mr. MacMunn, Mr. Caldwell Cook, and Mr. 
 A. S. Neill have learnt the art of holding their 
 tongues at the proper place, and leaving their 
 youngsters the necessary opportunities to make 
 their own mistakes, but the three are as virulent 
 impressionists, every one of them, as Arnold and 
 Thring themselves. 
 
 At this stage the honest and modest teacher is 
 apt to feel awkward. He cannot help judging that 
 he is right in not attempting to suppress his per- 
 sonality, yet at the same time he cannot get away 
 from the humiliating impression that he is thrusting 
 himself forward into the limelight. He agrees with 
 Professor Palmer that the ideal teacher must have 
 a readiness to be forgotten, must have an aptitude 
 for vicariousness, must be willing to give service 
 without hope of praise or recognition : 
 
 " A teacher does not live for himself, but for his pupil 
 and for the truth which he imparts. His aim is to be a 
 colourless medium through which that truth may shine 
 on opening minds. How can he be this if he is continually- 
 interposing himself and saying, ' Instead of looking at 
 the truth, my children, look at me, and see how skilfully 
 I do my work. I thought I taught you admirably to-day. 
 I hope you thought so too ' ? " l 
 
 It goes against the grain to find fault with this 
 kindly criticism. With the moral side we may 
 cordially agree, but that " colourless medium " 
 cannot be passed unchallenged. We may empty 
 ourselves of all pride, malice, and uncharitableness ; 
 
 1 G. H. Palmer, The Ideal Teacher, p. 26. 
 
Free Discipline 291 
 
 we may even subdue some of our good qualities to 
 such a pitch as to render them innocuous to our 
 pupils, but we simply cannot get rid of all our 
 qualities, and appear fair to the front view, though 
 like the Ellewomen of Norse mythology we have 
 no backs and have our insides scooped out. We 
 must be fair in our presentation of the truth, but 
 it is beyond our power to prevent our personality 
 from tinging whatever passes from our minds to 
 the minds of our pupils. There is indeed a certain 
 danger that in presenting controversial matter we 
 may distort the truth seriously by our very deter- 
 mination to suppress our own bias. This danger has 
 always been recognised, but now its seriousness is 
 increased by what we have learnt about the uncon- 
 scious. Our conscious bias may be in one direction, 
 our unconscious in another. The only way out of 
 the maze is by doing our best to keep ourselves as 
 unbiased as is possible in our consciousness, and 
 leave it at that. All this, however, concerns the 
 subject-matter of our teaching, and is a little off 
 the track of the problem of control. 
 
 It is accordingly when we get to what is techni- 
 cally called " free discipline " that the real trouble 
 begins. Even at the command of the emancipa- 
 tionists, we cannot give up our " influence " in 
 school. The thing is impossible, even if our wills 
 consented. What, then, about government ? Can 
 we hand it over bodily to the pupils ? At the pnP~7 
 posal to give the pupils as a body the complete I 
 control of school and class, the startled experienced I 
 teacher of to-day can think of nothing better to/ 
 say than " Bolshevism." Even when the emancipa- 
 
292 Free Discipline 
 
 tionist goes on to explain that the master would still 
 be there as an interested spectator, though in the 
 background and merely, in the official phrase, " in 
 an advisory capacity/' the disconcerted teacher does 
 not quite recover his balance. He is not sure 
 whether it is possible that such things can be 
 seriously proposed by people who are apparently 
 not under restraint. The law of gravitation in the 
 school is that the master is the effective controller, 
 and nothing short of the full recognition of that 
 law will satisfy the plain, practical, successful school- 
 master. He shudders when he hears an authentic 
 tale of a teacher beginning his dealings with a class 
 by proclaiming that whatever any one of the pupils 
 does, there will be no punishment, and that each 
 one can do what seems good in his own eyes, without 
 fear of disagreeable consequences from the school 
 authorities. He is incredulous when sober and 
 apparently sane men tell him of the wonderful 
 success that has followed on such anarchic methods. 
 There is one story in particular that has a specially 
 fascinating effect on the practical schoolmaster 
 when it is quoted, as it invariably is in all discus- 
 sions on free discipline. A certain bad boy when 
 faced with this charter of liberty of action without 
 penal consequences showed his independence by 
 smashing a vase that somehow happened to be 
 handy. But when the master offered his watch as 
 the second sacrifice (I wanted to say gold watch, but 
 I must keep to the text of the story) " the boy 
 turned white, trembled from head to foot, and said 
 he could not." Several practical teachers to whom 
 I have mentioned this recorded incident have 
 
Free Discipline 293 
 
 reacted in a precisely uniform way. Each looked 
 startled, pulled out his watch, gazed at it anxiously, 
 and replaced it in silent scepticism. It is not 
 necessary to call in question the truth of this story 
 that sets teachers' teeth on edge. There is no 
 doubt that Mr. Homer Lane, Mr. Thomas Mott 
 Osborne, and Mr. Norman MacMunn have done all 
 that is claimed for them. The trouble is that the^, 
 supply of such men is rather limited. This is the 
 fatal objection to a great many educational reforms. I 
 I They often work exceedingly well in the hands of / 
 those who have originated them, and the very few 
 others who can bend the same bow may attain I 
 something like the same success ; but the great 
 mass of school work in the country must be carried 
 on by people who have no extraordinary talent, ss~" 
 any scheme suggested for general application must 
 be such as can be used by plain, everyday personali- 
 ties, inspired no doubt and aided by the example of 
 the sprinkling of supernormal teachers that the 
 profession will always possess. 
 
 Within what limits, then, is this free discipline a 
 workable plan ? On the side of mere teaching and 
 study we have found that it is both desirable and 
 possible to delegate a great deal of responsibility 
 to the pupil. The problem remains how much of 
 this delegation is desirable and possible in matters 
 of control. The natural off-hand answer is that a 
 class may be allowed to conduct its own affairs so 
 long as it behaves itself, and does reasonable things. 
 The teacher is there to see that it does not get off 
 the rails, and do foolish things. At this point the 
 emancipationists vigorously object. They say that 
 
294 Free Discipline 
 
 this is a mere travesty of freedom, and amounts to 
 no more than an invitation to the class to do what 
 the teacher wants, without the teacher having the 
 trouble to tell them what that is. The moment 
 pupils venture on an original movement they are 
 pulled up. It is a mere dancing in chains. The 
 emancipationists maintain that the real value of 
 free discipline is that the pupils have a chance to 
 go wrong in their own way, to make their own 
 mistakes, and to find the way to remedy them on 
 their own account. 
 
 But unless we are to fall back upon the intolerable 
 conditions of Tolstoi's anarchic school at Yasnaya 
 Polyana there must be some ultimate source of 
 authority, and no one is more likely to exercise 
 that authority wisely than the man or woman who 
 has devoted years of preparation and experience to 
 the acquiring of skill in using just such a control. 
 Let the teacher give the pupils as much rope as he 
 can without disaster to the class as a whole, but he 
 must retain in the last resort the power of inter- 
 vention and veto. Further, it has to be noted that 
 not all teachers have the same span of delegated 
 authority. The amount of freedom accorded to the 
 class in the way of discipline has a definite relation 
 to the qualities of the teacher concerned. Some 
 have much greater power of delegation than others. 
 No doubt under ideal conditions we could secure 
 enough men and women with the widest span, and 
 the emancipationists might then carry their theory 
 to its full limit. But as things are we must deal 
 with the staffs actually available. There is no 
 sense in asking the man with a c power of control 
 
Free Discipline 295 
 
 to give the amount of freedom that it is quite safe 
 for one with an a power to give. 
 
 Besides, the children are not being prepared for 
 a world in which they will be allowed to live out 
 their lives without restrictions. They will not only 
 experience in their future the general restraint that 
 comes from living in a society at all, but in almost 
 every case they will have to take account of the 
 authority of some person or persons placed over 
 them in a position of definite superiority. It is 
 well, then, for them to begin by learning to recog- 
 nise the authority of a man or woman whose business 
 it is to see that the school organisation is so arranged 
 as to lead to the best and freest development of the 
 pupil's character and personality. It is regrettable 
 that we teachers fall so far short of what we should 
 be in order to discharge with perfect success the 
 heavy responsibility laid upon us, but matters will 
 certainly not be improved by making us work 
 under conditions of discipline that take from us the 
 chance of bringing out the best that is in us. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Abortive knowledge, 240 
 Adams, Henry, The Education 
 
 of, 25 
 
 Adamson, J. E., 31 ff., 286 
 
 Adler, Alfred, 259, 261 
 
 Advertisers' possible educa- 
 tional activities, 204 
 
 Aemuli, 148 
 
 American Army tests, 71, 76 ff. f 
 
 Anisic attention, 211 
 Apperception-mass, 255 
 Application teachers, 200 
 Appreciation lessons, 141, 225, 
 
 226 
 Aristotle, 7 
 
 Arithmetical scales, 100 ff. 
 Arnold, T., 283, 286, 290 
 Arro\vsmith, t Mr., 22 
 Assignment, 160 
 Attainments, 75 
 Auditoria, educational use of, 
 
 201 
 Authority of teacher, 277 ff. 
 Avebury, Lord, 49 
 Ayres, L. P., 98, 105, 112 
 
 B 
 
 Baden-Powell, Sir R., 284 
 Bagehot, Walter, 116, 123 
 Bagley, W. C, 153, 207 
 Bain, Alexander, 210 
 Baldwin, J. M., 117, 118 
 Ballard, P. B., 85-, 89 
 Bassett, Rosa, 178, 179, 181 
 Bell, Andrew, 88 
 Beneke, F. E., 254 
 Benson, A. C, 280 
 
 Binet, Alfred, 78 ff., 92 
 Bi-polari ty ^ - y^ 
 iiirciwood, 259 
 Block system, 151 
 Bloomfield, Meyer, 54 
 Board Schools, 10 
 Boutroux, Emile, 29, 30, 32 
 Boy Scouts, 216 ff. 
 Branford, B., 33 
 Bravais, 62 
 Brooks, van Wyck, 1 
 Brown, E. Elles worth, 287 
 Business man, demands of, 34 
 Butler, Samuel, 139 
 By-educatioD, 25 
 
 Camp life, 218 
 
 Campagnac, Professor, 3 
 
 Capacity, 75 
 
 Celebrations, 141 
 
 Censor, the, 263-4 
 
 Chapman and Rush, 107 
 
 Character, 83, 113 
 
 "Charters, W. W., 232 
 
 Child Study, 15, 272 
 
 Children, The New, 1 
 
 Cholmeley, F. R., 2, 22 
 
 Class, The : as teaching-unit 
 and organisation-unit, 1 37 ff . ; 
 compensation of teachers 
 of, 144 ; forces opposing 
 abolition of, 167 ff. ; former 
 classification of , 146; future 
 status of, 146 ; integration 
 and disintegration of, 130 ; 
 leaders of, 131 ff. ; room 
 accommodation for, 189 ; 
 size of, 140. 
 
 297 
 
298 
 
 Index 
 
 Colourless medium theory, 290 
 Colvin, S. S., 154 
 Comenius, 73 
 Commercial training, 41 
 Commonwealth, The Little, 22 
 Communistic ideals, 191 
 Complex, 255, 260-1, 263, 275 
 Composition scales, 108 
 Consciousness as fresh-air cure, 
 
 263 
 Conservatism, 21 ; of the 
 
 teachers, 167 
 Continuous school session, 190 
 Contrariant disposition, 288 
 Converging Paths, 3 
 Cook, Caldwell, 18, 203, 205 ff., 
 
 247, 289, 290 
 Co-operation in study, 174 
 Correlation formula, 62 ff. 
 Correlation of studies, 236-7 
 Courtis, S. A., 100, 108, 112 
 Curtis, Henry S., 190, 194 
 
 Dalton Association, 166, 175 
 Dalton Plan, 4, 14, 46, 148, 
 "** 199 
 Daltonism, dangers of, 177 ff., 
 
 optimism of, 182 
 Davenport, E., 52 
 Defectives, 78, 90 
 Departmental system, 190 
 Dewey, Evelyn, 164 
 Dewey, John, 17, 171, 244, 283 
 Dichotomies, educational, 54, 
 
 56 
 Didactic, The Great, 73 
 Differential Partnership Books, 
 
 150 
 " Disciplinarian, a good," 281 
 Discipline, three stages of, 
 
 283 ff. 
 Diversion theory, 2c6 
 Docility, nemesis of, 221 
 Drawing scales, 1 10, 1 1 1 
 Dreams, 264 
 Drever, J., 268 
 Drills, 227 
 
 Drudgery, 179, 212, 216 
 Dunlap, Knight, 249, 259 ' 
 
 Education : accidental, 25 ; 
 according to nature, 13 ; 
 Act, 6 ; a la carte, and table 
 d'hdte, 223 ; a liberal, 47 ; 
 as adjustment, 31 ; Associa- 
 tion for the advancement of, 
 35, 36 ; Board of, 20, 23 ; 
 c osmic , 25 ; innovations in, 
 11; Ihe new, 1, 17, 216, 
 225, 268 
 
 Education, Curse of, 23 
 
 Education, Joy of, 4, 23 
 
 Education, New Era in, 4, 23 
 
 Education, Tragedy of, 23 
 
 Ego-centricism, 220-1 
 
 Eldridge, Mr., 104 
 
 Emancipationism, 287 
 
 Emile, 13 
 
 Ends, Kantian Kingdom of, 
 40 
 
 Essays in Revolt, 23 
 
 Evans, E., 251 
 
 Eve, H. W., 196 
 
 Examination, 74 
 
 Examinations, external, 19, 
 236 
 
 Pact and faculty. 243 
 
 Finlay- Johnson, Miss, 205 
 
 Fisher, Rev. George, 95 
 
 Flugel, J. C, 249 
 
 Fool Culture, 23 
 
 Ford, W. E., 2 
 
 F ormal Traini ng, 75 ' 
 
 Freak schools, 4 
 
 Free discipline, 282 ; limits of, 
 
 293 ff. 
 Freeman, R. Austin, 7 
 Freud, S., 252, 260, 264, 268, 
 
 270, 276 
 Froebelian discipline, 282 
 
 Gallery lessons, 142, 203 
 Galton, Sir Francis, 82 
 Garbage, the keeper of, 217 
 Garnett, Maxwell, 69 
 
Index 
 
 299 
 
 Gary : American teachers' 
 — attitude towards, 192 ; Ap- 
 plication teachers at, 200 ; 
 Dean type of supervising 
 teachers at, 199 ; City, 
 1 86 ; General A ccount of, 
 193 ; longer school day at, 
 193 ; scheme, 15 ; slack- 
 ness in supervision at, 197 ; 
 system, 187 ; teaching staff 
 at, 194 ; use of auditoria at, 
 201 ; weakness in class- 
 work at, 199 
 
 General factors, 69 
 
 Geography scales, 1 1 1 
 
 German educational system, 5 
 
 Goddard, H. H., 251 
 
 Goethe, 284 
 
 Good-old-grind, the, 208 
 
 Government in school, 291 
 
 Green, G. H., 251 
 
 Group mind, H9__ 
 
 H 
 
 Hahn Lackey scale, 11 1 
 
 Hall, G. Stanley, 14 
 
 Hall-Quest, A. L., 160 
 
 Hamilton, 116 
 
 Handwriting scales, 96 ff. 
 
 Hard Times, 8 
 
 Hargrave, John, 217-8 
 
 Hartmann, G. v., 254 
 
 Hatfield, Wilbur, 246 
 
 Hay, Ian, 182 
 
 Hayward, F. H., 141, 203 
 
 Healy, W., 250 
 
 Heraclitus, 2 
 
 Herbart, 1,23, 224, 254 ; Her- 
 
 bart and Freud, 254 
 Herbartian steps, 176 
 Hill, Alexander, 209 
 Hillegas, Milo B., 108 
 Hoke, K. J., 16 
 Holmes, Edmond, 221 
 Home study, 42 ff. 
 Horm6, 258 
 ■* Houses," 165 
 How to learn, 152 ff. 
 How to measure, 16 
 How-to-study as adjective, 159 
 Hughes, Miss E. M., 85 ff. 
 
 Iceberg metaphor, 255-6 
 ^Lmitation, dangers of, 288 
 
 Impressionists, the, 286-7 
 Individual psychology, 261 
 
 Individual study, 160 *^ 
 
 I ndividuality, in ff. 
 
 Inf ormation-mongers, 27 
 
 "^j^ ry cti o" . iatfigcaL J 6, 17 *"" 
 
 Instrumental subjects, 44 ff. 
 Instruments in experiments, 
 
 Ijitegral ism, 171 
 Integralists, 234 
 Intelligence, 67 ff., age limit 
 
 of, 70 
 Intelligence tests, 14 ; teachers' 
 
 attitude towards, 71 ff. 
 Interest, 209 
 IQ, 78, 81, 93 ; calculation of, 
 
 81 
 
 Jacks, L. P., 68 
 
 Janus and Vesta, 33 
 
 Jeliffe, 249 
 
 Jesuits, 148 
 
 Jones, W. Franklin, 29, 33, 
 
 103, 104 
 Judgment, 128 
 Jung, C. G., 252, 260 
 
 K 
 
 Kant, 31, 38 
 
 Keatinge, M. W., 73, 288 
 Kempf, E. J., 262 
 Kindergartners, 288 
 King, W. I., 64 
 Kipling, R., 126 
 Knowledge, useful, 241 
 
 Laboratory Plan, 140, 162, 166 
 Labour, educational demands 
 
 of, 36 ff., 58 
 Lachaud, M., 127 
 Lane, Homer, 22, 293 
 Lan ge- J ames- Sutherland 
 
 theory, 125 
 Latin, 12 
 
300 
 
 Index 
 
 Laurie, S S., 30 
 
 Lavisse, Ernest, 17 
 
 Lay, W., 250 
 
 Le Bon, Gustave, 116, 127 
 
 L.C.C. Education Committee, 
 
 35. 185 
 
 Lernfreiheit, 163 
 
 Libido, 258 
 
 Lime-light, love of, 168, 290 
 
 Littlemen, 203, 206 
 
 Locke, 116, 128 
 
 Logical conception of a sub- 
 ject, 242 
 
 Lubbock, Sir John, 45 
 
 Lyttelton, Edward, 28 
 
 M 
 
 McCall, W. A., 64 
 M'Choakumchild, Mr., 8 
 Macdougall, 116 
 McGregor, A. Laura, 42, 161, 
 
 173 
 MacMunn, Norman, 22, 147 ff., 
 
 173, 250, 282 ff. 
 McMurry, C. A., 238 
 McMurry, F. M., 154-5 
 Mais, S. P. B., 28 
 Mann, C. R., 235 
 Mansbridge, Albert, 37 
 Medical men and teachers, 274 
 Mental Measurement, Brown 
 
 and Thomson's, 63 
 Messmer, 249 
 
 Methods, aj quantitative, 61 
 Meumann, 249 
 Mill, J. S., 289 
 Miller, Crichton, 251 
 Minimum number in collective 
 
 unit, n8ff. 
 Montessori, Dr., 136, 138, 149, 
 
 182 
 Montessorian group, size of, 
 
 138 
 
 Montessorianism and Dalton- 
 ism, 164, 180 ; s'effacer doc- 
 trine in connection with, 
 287-8 
 
 Moral tests, 83 
 
 Moseley, Mr., 45 
 
 Moore, E. C, 29 
 
 Munroe, J. P., 18 
 Miinsterberg, H., 272 
 
 N 
 
 National Intelligence Test, 90 
 Nassau County Supplement, 
 
 109 
 Neglect, wholesome, 147 
 Neill, A. S., 290 
 Neo-Herbartians, 208 
 New Ideals, Conference on, 22 
 New Republic, The, 192 
 Newton Composition scale, 109 
 Nisic attention, 211 
 Non-anonymous group, 129 
 Normal human being, 270 
 Norms, 79, 1 11, 112 ^- 
 
 Nunn, T. P., 91, 140, 172 
 
 Obedience to teachers, reasons 
 
 for, 277 ff. 
 O'Brien Harris, Mrs., 164 ff. 
 O'Neill, Mr., 22 
 One-teacher Schools, 150 
 Originals, 231 
 Osborne, T. M., 293 
 O'Shea, Professor, 31 
 Oversensibility, 276 
 
 Paidocentricism , 14, 15, 246 
 Pairwise classification, 147 
 Palmer, G. H., 208, 290 
 Parkhurst, Helen, 159, 162 
 Partnership, method of, 173 
 Pearson, Karl, 62 
 Pedanalysis, 272 
 Perse School, the, 206 
 Personality, H3ff. ; of teacher, 
 
 280, 283' 285, 291 
 Pfister, Oskar, 249, 251, 257, 
 
 267, 271 
 Phlebotomists, 283 
 Pitfalls, 229 
 Place, Francis, 132 
 Plato, 7 
 
 Piatt, William, 23, 207, 208 
 Power of control, 280 ff. 
 
Index 
 
 301 
 
 Projectors, 237, 240, 242, 244 
 
 Project method defined, 232 ; 
 project series, 246 
 
 Psycho-analysis, teachers' atti- 
 tude towards, 270 ; versus 
 biography, 266 
 
 Ps ychological attitude, 272 ; 
 
 """expert, 274 ; method, ob- 
 j ect ions to, 244 ; practic- 
 ability of, 248 
 
 psychology, individual, 261 ; 
 
 the new, 252 
 
 R 
 
 R's, the three, 44, 45, 172 
 
 Radice, Mrs., 1 
 
 Random, the, in teaching, 
 
 241 ff. 
 Reading tests, 105 ff. 
 Record, after-school, 84 
 Reid, 116 
 
 Repression, 257, 260 
 Resistance, 264 
 Risumi and review, 160 
 Reynolds, Stephen, 37 
 Rice, J. M., 95, 99, 108 
 Rivers, W. H. R., 260 
 Rousseau, 13, 215 
 Rugg, H. O., 64 
 Rusk, R. R., 82, 275 
 Ruskin College, 37 
 Russell, W. F., 246 
 
 Scales, 93 ff. 
 Schiller, 74 
 
 Schneider, Herman, 54 
 Scholarship tests, 88 
 School and Society, 171 
 Scottish Parish Schools, 139 
 Self-education, 157 
 Selfishness, 220 
 Separate seat for each pupil, 
 
 188 
 Sex in Freudianism, 259 
 Shakespeare, 126 
 Silent-reading tests, 106 ff. 
 Sinclair, S. B., 289 
 Size of Montessorian teaching 
 
 group, 138 
 
 Snedden, David, 25, 52 
 Social Decay and Degeneration, 
 
 Socialising, 17, 172, 245 ; at 
 Gary, 199 
 
 Socius, 117, 118 
 
 Spearman, C. E., 62 ; his 
 " footrule," 63, 69 
 
 Specialists versus projectors 
 239, 240 
 
 Spelling tests, 103 ff. 
 
 Spencer, F., 209 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, 24, 27, 34 
 
 Standards, subjective, 60 ; ob- 
 jective, 61 
 
 Starch Daniel, 104, 106, 107, 
 
 155, 158. 159 
 Steffens' Law, 153 
 Stekel, Wilhelm, 219, 270, 276 
 Stevenson, J. A., 231 ff., 
 
 244-5-6 
 Stewart, 116 
 Stone-and-lime in education, 
 
 185 
 Stout, G. F., 85, 252 
 Stow, David, 122, 142, 203, 
 
 214 
 Streatham Secondary County 
 
 School, 176 
 Studying and learning, con- 
 trast between, 155 
 Study supervised, 15, 160, 161 
 Subject matter, 13 
 Suppression, 257, 260 
 Swift, E. J., 140, 159, 166 
 Sympathy, 124 ; of numbers, 
 
 122, 170 
 
 Tarde, Gabriel, 116, 123 
 Teacher versus class-leader, 133 
 Teachers and architecture, 186 
 Teaching, the New, 13, 14, 
 
 214. 21.5 
 Temple, Dr., 282-3 
 Terman, L. M., 79, 85, 90 
 Test v. scale, 93 
 Testament, from Old to New, 
 
 285 
 Text-books, two types of, 182 ; 
 
 in relation to Daltonism, 183 
 
302 
 
 Index 
 
 Thorndike, E. L., 64, 95, 96, 
 
 99. no 
 Thring, Edward, 185, 283, 286, 
 
 290 
 Titan metaphor, the, 256-7 
 Titchener, E. B., 123 
 Tolstoi, 294 
 
 Training College, 8, 9, 280 
 Tridon, A., 262 
 Tri-polarity, 32 
 Trotter, 116 
 
 U 
 
 Uselessness, the cult of, 48 
 
 Vaney, M., 92 
 Verbs of teaching, 12 
 Virtues, the rebel, 37 
 ^ocationalism, 50 ff. ; ten- 
 » dencial, 56 ff. 
 
 W 
 
 Watts, Frank, 76 
 Webb, E., 69 
 Weeks, R. M., 17, 172 
 Wells, M. E„ 246 ff. 
 Where Education Fails, 23 
 Whipple, G. M., 159 
 Willing Composition scale, 109 
 Wilson, G. M., 16, 10 1 
 Wilson and Hoke, 1 1 1 
 Wirt, William A., 188 ff. 
 Witmer, L., 252 
 Wood, Walter, 206 
 Woodworth, R. S., 253 
 Woody, Clifford, 102 
 Work "and play, 207 
 Work-play-study schools, 191 
 Workers' Educational Asso- 
 ciation, 37 
 World, the real, 46 
 
 Young, Ernest, 4, 5, 23 
 
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