and the benefits and information supplied are merely incidental and useless. (2) In the second place, the information is not detailed enough to be of the best use as a guide to vocational effort. (3) In the third place, the aptitudes revealed are too limited in number to serve as a basis of study of important correlations. For example: What relation exists between the early success in elementary subjects and the later success in handling more advanced subjects? Or what relation exists between high-school averages and the averages in the various years of the college? Or what is the relation between honors received in college and recognition in later life in such volumes as Who's Who? Or what is the relation between school standing and salary-earning in later life? CONCLUSION The tendencies in education to evaluate abilities and disabilities of children offer great promise in education. Psychology at last is to find application in the revelation of behavior. Individual responses are to have recognized meaning. They are to be measured and weighed in the light of the stimuli that produced them. When sufficient evidence is accumulated to justify a reasonable conclusion, a life interest will be established that will give to the individual reasonable expectation of efficient service and satisfactory employment. We must recognize that education has not done enough for any pupil if it finally fails to reveal to him his particular capacities and aptitudes. It is none the less the duty of the school to develop his social endowments, temperament, mentality, and vitality to their full capacities. It is not unreasonable for the pupil at the end of his school career to demand a charted record of his abilities and disabilities as revealed through his continuous school career. Certainly such a chart, after due allowance is made for inaccuracy of judgment, would be more valuable than a transcript of inaccurate grades and a Latin diploma that he cannot read. But society has a higher right than the individual to demand this information for each pupil. It is to the interest of society that men and women be as well adapted to life careers as possible and, consequently, that as few as possible be ill-adapted to vocational activities. Again, the accumulated results of the intensive observations of individuals give us important information relating to groups. Individual diagnosis of mentality offers untold possibilities for the sociologist. We may reasonably expect increased interest in the aspect of education under discussion. An important beginning has already been made. Many studies will be made and many devices will be invented looking to a more definite formulation of a system for accurately determining the latent possibilities of individual life. What is now only an ill-defined program will in time become an important applied science. The achievements of the early years of this century in this important aspect of education give the assurance of the fulfillment of a prophecy made by an earnest inquirer in this particular field: "The nineteenth century witnessed an extraordinary increase in our knowledge of the material world, and in our power to make it subservient to our ends: the twentieth century will probably witness a corresponding increase in our knowledge of human nature, and in our power to use it for our welfare." TOPICS FOR REPORT AND INVESTIGATION 1. Modification of standard curriculum necessary to give conscious direction to study of abilities and disabilities. 2. Information cards-data and form-for term reports on abilities and disabilities. 3. Methods of checking up the abilities and disabilities of the abnormal child. The subnormal child. 4. Element of variability likely to appear in the transition (a) from the first to the second grade; (b) from the first year to the last year of the high school; (c) from the high school to the college. 5. Classification of abilities on the basis of vocational requirements. FURTHER READINGS Bloomfield, M. The Vocational Guidance of Youth. Houghton Mifflin Co. Brewster, Edwin Tenney. Vocational Guidance for the Professions. Rand McNally & Co. Bronner, Augusta F. The Psychology of Special Abilities and Disabilities. Little, Brour & Co. Dickinson, Marguerite Stockman. Rand McNally & Co. Vocational Training for Girls Hollingsworth, H. L. Vocational Psychology. D. Appleton & Co. Hollingsworth and Poffenberger, Applied Psychology. D. Appleton & Co. Jastrow, J. Character and Temperament. D. Appleton & Co. lor. Rand McNally & Co. -The Teacher as a Counse Schneider, H. "Selecting Young Men for Particular Jobs," Bulletin 7, National Association of Corporation Schools. Thorndike, E. L. Educational Psychology, Vol. III, Part 2; also Mental and Social Measurements. Wells, F. L. Mental Adjustments. D. Appleton & Co. Whitley, M. T. Tests for Individual Differences. Science Press. CHAPTER X EDUCATION AND PRAGMATISM PRAGMATISM has been brought to the aid of most of the philosophies of life. The affiliations of pragmatism have been an interesting theme for many of the philosophers of recent times. Pragmatism has been brought to the defense of religion.1 Its relation to, and influence on, rationalism and idealism have been ably discussed by Professor Caldwell.2 Most of the other formulated philosophical concepts have been associated in recent years with pragmatism. This is not surprising in view of the claims of pragmatism. It has promised much as a means of removing "speculative remoteness" and uncertain implications from many questions of deep human concern. In the light of its promises and the possibilities of its method, it is rather surprising that pragmatism has not been associated with education and the pragmatic test applied to educational theory. Two questions arise at once with reference to the application of pragmatism to educational policies: (1) Has education a pragmatic basis? (2) Has education been consciously influenced by the pragmatic movement in philosophy? Before we answer the first question we must refer briefly to the meaning of pragmatism as presented by its leading advocates in recent philosophical literature. Pragmatism comprehends both (1) a method and (2) a 1 James, The Varieties of Religious Experience; Pratt, What Is Pragmatism? chapter v, "Pragmatism and Religion." 2 Caldwell, Pragmatism and Idealism. genetic theory of truth. "Pragmatism," according to Professor Dewey, "is a temper of mind, an attitude; it is also a theory of the nature of ideas and truth; and finally it is a theory about reality." James is careful to keep the idea of method and the idea of the theory of knowledge distinct in presenting his conception of pragmatism. He says: "The pragmatic method is primarily a method of settling metaphysical disputes that otherwise might be interminable."2 James follows this statement with the following suggestion with reference to its application to a practical problem: "The pragmatic method in such cases is to try to interpret each notion by tracing its respective practical consequences. What difference would it practically make to anyone if this notion rather than that notion were true?" The advocates lay great stress on the "attitude of orientation," which James explains as "the attitude of looking away from first things, principles, categories, supposed necessities, and looking toward last things, fruits, consequences, facts."4 This statement is strictly in accord with the ideas of Mr. C. S. Pierce, who was the first to use the word "pragmatism." He expresses the idea in these words: "Consider what effects which might conceivably have practical bearings we consider the object of our conception to have. Then our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the objects."" The pragmatic philosophers will lay emphasis on two words "practical" and 'consequences." Popini is quoted by Pratt as saying that the "meaning of theories consists uniquely in the consequences which those who 1"What Does Pragmatism Mean by Practical?" Jour. of Phil., v, 85. 2 William James, Pragmatism, p. 45. 8 William James, Pragmatism, p. 45. 4 Ibid., p. 54. 5"How to Make Our Ideas Clear," Popular Science Monthly, XII, 283. |