tion. I once visited a Sunday-school class that was studying the life of John Paton, the noted missionary to the New Hebrides Islands. The text stated that one of the cannibal chiefs had been converted, and had asked permission to preach on Sunday to the other savages. This permission was granted; but the text did not reproduce the sermon. Thereupon several members of the class undertook, as a part of the next Sunday's lesson, to deliver such a sermon as they thought the savage might have given. Two of the boys brought hatchets on that Sunday to represent tomahawks, which they used as aids in making gestures, and their five-minute speeches showed a careful study of the whole situation. Likewise the experiences of Columbus might be dramatized, as, when asking for help from the king, or when reasoning with the wise men of Spain, or when conversing with his sailors on his first voyage to America.1

Additional suggestions will often be obtained by inquiring, "What part of this lesson, if any, would you like to represent by drawings? Or by paintings? Or by constructive work? Also, How would you do it?"

ger of the

Much of what has been said about supplementing ideas finds only slight application to beginning reading, writing, spelling, and number work. The 6. The danreason is that these subjects, aiming so largely three R's and at mastery of symbols, call for memory and spelling to skill rather than reflection. For this very flection. reason these subjects are in many ways dangerous to proper habits of study, and the teacher needs to be on

habits of re

1 See the story of Columbus in Stevenson's Children's Classics in Dramatic Form, A Reader for the Fourth Grade.

her guard against their bad influence. They are so prominent during the first few years of school that children may form their idea of study from them alone, which they may retain and carry over to other branches. To avoid this danger, other subjects, such as literature and nature study, deserve prominent places in the curriculum from the beginning, and special care should be exercised to treat them in such a way that this easy kind of reflection is strongly encouraged.

CHAPTER V

THE ORGANIZATION OF IDEAS, AS A THIRD FACTOR IN

STUDY

A. The different values of facts, and their grouping

Extent to

ers treat

in value.

In several branches of knowledge in the primary school it is customary for teachers to attach practically the same importance to different facts. This is the case, for instance, in spelling, where which teacha mistake counts the same, no matter what facts as equal word be misspelled. It is largely the case in writing. In beginning reading one word is treated as equal in value to any other, since in any review list every one is required. In beginning arithmetic this equality of values is emphasized by insistence upon the complete mastery of every one of the combinations in the four fundamental operations. Throughout arithmetic, moreover, failure to solve any problem is the same as the failure to solve any other, judged in the light of the marking systems in use.

The same tendency is less marked, but still evident, in many other subjects, some of them more advanced. In geography, teachers seldom recognize any inequality of value in the map questions, even though a question on the general directions of the principal mountain systems in North America be followed by a request to locate Iceland. The facts, too, are very often strung along in the text in such a manner that it is next to

impossible to distinguish values. Here is an example from a well-known text: "Worcester is a great railroad center, and is noted for the manufacture of engines and machinery. At Cambridge is located Harvard University, the oldest and one of the largest in the country. Fall River, Lowell, and New Bedford are the great centers of cotton manufacture; Lawrence, of both cotton and wool; Lynn, Brockton, and Haverhill make millions of boots and shoes; and at Springfield is a United States arsenal, where firearms are made. Holyoke has large paper mills. Gloucester is a great fishing port. Salem has large tanneries." How does this differ from a spelling list, so far as equality of

values is concerned?

In nature study all have witnessed the typical lesson where some object, such as a flowering twig, for example, is placed in the hands of every pupil and each one is requested to tell something that he sees. Anything that is offered is gratefully accepted. While this particular kind of study is fortunately disappearing, the common tendency to regard all facts alike is still clearly shown in the case of the topic, cat, discussed on page 40.

In literature, failures are very often condemned alike, whether they pertain to the meanings of words, of sentences, of references, or of whole chapters.

Until very recently at least, even in universities, it has been common to assign lessons in history textbooks by pages, and to require that they be recited in the order of the text. The teacher, or professor even, in such cases has shown admirable ability to place the burden of the work upon the students by assigning to himself the single onerous task of announcing who

shall "begin" and who shall "go on." What recognition is there of varying values of facts in such teaching?

Not all of such instruction is avoidable or even undesirable; but it is so common that it has a very important effect on method of study.

The effect of

such teach

So long as facts are treated as approx- ing on method imately equal in worth, the learner is bound of study. to picture the field of knowledge as a comparatively level plain composed of a vast aggregation of independent bits. In spelling, writing, and beginning reading it is so many hundreds or thousands of words; in beginning arithmetic it is the various combinations in the four fundamental operations; in geography it is a long list of statements; in history it is an endless lot of facts as they happen to come on the page; in literature it is sentence after sentence.

One can get possession of this field, not by taking the strategic positions, for under the assumption of equality there are none, - but rather by advancing over it slowly, mastering one bit at a time. Thus the words in beginning reading, writing, and spelling are learned and reproduced in all orders, proving them to be independent little entities. In geography and history, when the facts are not wormed out of the pupil by questions, he sees the page before him by his mind's eye, a fact frequently revealed by the movement of his eyes while reciting, and attempts to recall each paragraph or statement in its order. In literature he masters his difficulties sentence by sentence, a method most clearly shown in the case of our greatest classic, the Bible, which is almost universally studied and quoted by verses.