culture. In the kindergarten language and lit erature are hardly differentiated; number and nature are one. Language and number are simply expressions; humanity and nature are one. As we go higher up the grades the formal and the formative become separated in view and integrated in review. So, too, the humanistic elements in both aspects become separated from the naturalistic. In the high school and college the various forms and aspects of the curriculum are found in each study. In the university all studies become aspects of the one specialty. They interest us almost altogether in relation to our chief interest, and that interest is formal and formative, humanistic and naturalistic. II. METHOD. We have already discussed method to some extent when commenting on the "view and review." Let us now discuss some of the ordinary pedagogical maxims of method from the standpoint of ethology. Perhaps the reader will thus be somewhat prepared to judge whether child study has made any contributions to the ethological aspects of methodology. We all know the current maxims: "from the known to the unknown;" "from the simple to the complex;" "from the concrete to the abstract;" etc. Have we any ethological principle that will furnish us with a central law of method, deduced from the general law of development? Unfortunately the maxim coming nearest to this principle we are looking for is ordinarily expressed in a way exactly the reverse of the true one,-"from the particular to the general." The law of development is "from the general to the particular," or rather "from the generic to the specific." One might have hoped that child study would have made use of such a principle, written as it is in our very members. Another form of its expression is "from the fundamental to the accessory." In the physiological development, for instance, the big fundamental muscles develop before the fine accessory ones; so with the brain centers corre sponding to these muscles. A young child's movements are from the center to the periphery. In fact, this principle is but a form of Spencer's formula of evolution. Popular educational writers have confounded the particular with the concrete. The child's interest is first concrete rather than abstract. His most vivid and valuable experience is sensational and perceptual, but out of the mass of things his experience deals with, he selects the most significant,-the most generic. Thus in the moral sphere the child has an appreciation of the Golden Rule long before it understands casuistry. An uncommon amount of stupidity is here attributed to the child by some people. We teach it to discriminate its neighbors from aliens and then wonder why it should ask, "Who is my neighbor?" The child's sociality is generic; so is its ethicality, but the principle, "generic to specific," is modified by the principle, "concrete to abstract." The concrete is the known, the experienced. The child's catholic friendliness is modified by its timidity toward strange persons. Its guiding instinct of sociality is made partly subordinate to its selfpreservative emotion of fear. If men had never been militant and hostile in the past, perhaps the child would never show timidity. Let us illustrate this principle with another fact drawn from the social experience of the child. One of the very first things he learns in the home and the school is the law of the division of labor; true, he does not formulate it self-consciously, as do the physiologists and the economists, but he intuits it generically and concretely in terms of the most significantly interesting experiences of himself and others. Thus our deepest principle of method would be from the concrete-generic to the abstract-specific. Being interpreted, this means differentiation and integration. We differentiate in the specific and integrate in the abstract. Let us briefly apply this to the course of study. In the earliest language work we would start with the sentence, because it is the most generic form of language. The sentences used must be drawn from the child's most familiar experience, because we wish to concrete the generic. Thus the child's first language exercises are typical. The pedagogically typical ought always to be concrete-generic. In number work we start with the principle of ratio, or measuring, but we use the most concrete experience of the child to typify generic number relations. We do not strive to interest the child in the objects as such, but to exercise its number-faculty concretely and generically. In the literature-history work we start with the most generically human stories which involve the most profound social and ethical relations, yet in the most concrete manner possible. Such are the best of the folk-lore stories and such ideas about reward, punishment, etc., have very stimulating stories as Rudyard Kipling's jungle little value for us in guiding them. The sobooks. The most generic ethical and social called science of ethics does not help us in disrelations when expressed in an æsthetical and cipline except in so far as it formulates our concrete way are unobtrusive and healthful. experience. Personal magnetism is as dangerIn choosing the first nature-study material we ous as it is helpful in controlling young characstrive to help the child to rationalize his en ters. The emotion of love is an expansive movevironment. We teach him the typical; we do ment of the character and has no disciplinary not start him with "specific" leaves, but with value unless guided by worthy insights and "generic" plants. We do not give the child motives. Appeals to the child's social instincts "abstract" information about vegetable physi- are insufficient and sociality is treated as a ology, but concretely picture the doings of the thing apart from æsthetical and moral insap in terms of the child's actual experience. stincts. Ethology would found discipline on a We teach the widest possible generalization if knowledge of the child's whole instinctive nawe can give it in a sufficiently concrete way. ture and its healthy, progressive development. For instance, the all-inclusive law of gravita- Analysis of the characters around us in the tion we teach with sensational and imaginative light of the law of development shows us that material. The child studies plants, animals, the social or gregarious instincts precede the earth, and man in their most intimate correla æsthetical or ideal instincts, and that these in tion, not philosophically, not self-consciously, turn precede our ethical instincts. Of course, but naively. Nature study is fairy-land. As the æsthetical and ethical are partly implicit in the child grows his scientific knowledge be- the social, but in our earliest discipline we apcomes more specific and more abstract. If he peal rather to social interests, later to æstheti becomes a man of science he becomes equally cal interests (the sense of honor), lastly to the interested in specific details and in the abstract differentiated ethical instincts. Of course, the statement of laws. Neither the teacher's opin- ethical instincts include their predecessors, and ions nor the child's spontaneous interests are a of course we remember our ethical reactions if safe guide in methodology. We do not seek our disposition happens to be ethical. When primarily to please the child or to satisfy the we come to the explicit use of ethical principles teacher's sense of consistency, but to produce we need to know that the essence of ethicality generic and concrete character results; for the lies in the sense of equity or justice. The law best characters are generic-concrete,-God in precedes the gospel and the gospel is of no the flesh. Our methods must come from chil- avail unless it fulfills the law. When a teacher dren, and the law of the child's members is the consciously strives to have the sense of equity law of our own members. We are not educating in herself and others incarnated in the reactions strange animals of another species, but human of duty, charity, and goodness, there will be beings, whose development is essentially the more hope for truer discipline than when a mere same as our own. The child must progres- sentimental love tries to drown the child's sense sively become more like unto the typical "little of justice in a sea of feeling. The elements that child," and at the same time progressively put enter into conscience have thus far been left to away childish things. Strange it is that neither the preacher and the philosopher, but it is the Spencer, the evolutionist, nor Herbart, the phi- parent and the teacher that need most to know losopher of character, nor the students of chil- the æsthetical religious and philosophical roots dren who are so eager to relate the child to nat- of our moral reason. Child study cannot claim ure, strange it is that none of them apply the the allegiance of the working teacher unless it law of development in any deep way to the prin- helps her to develop the growing child by addciples of method. They use psychology, they ing to her intuitive and rational knowledge of use metaphysics, they use experience, but they curriculum, method, and discipline. have no science of character based upon the laws of life, physical and mental. III. DISCIPLINE. In default of ethological study sane human experience is still almost the only safe guide in managing children. Children's supposed In a future paper we shall try to discuss the current methods of child study to inquire how far child study is ethological, to set forth somewhat more plainly the methods and some of the results of ethology. THOS. P. BAILEY, JR., Berkeley, Cal. University of California. SEX DIFFERENCES Sex Differences That Have Been Brought rapidly until nineteen, and Some hold that even if the same curriculum is used, it is better to separate the sexes during the period of rapid growth that marks the early teens of both sexes. It is claimed that the differences in the rate of devel opment, in the kind of ability, and in aims, make such a separation desirable. If this discussion is ever disposed of, it will be that the matter in hand is so perfectly understood that no one can question the wisdom of the decision. Child study is doing what it can toward the discovery of the principles that underlie child nature,-that are the foundation of human nature. A comparison of the studies which have been made by specialists in child study may not settle the question of the best education for the boy and for the girl, but it cannot fail to be very suggestive and to throw some light on the nature with which the teacher has to deal. In gathering the data together, one is impressed by the local character of much of it. A test on memory in Colorado, on imagination in California, and so on. Much of the work is with too few experiments to make the conclusions drawn very trustworthy. Keeping these limitations in mind, one will find that the work done so far shows very decided trends,-that there are lines of divergence that mark the boy nature and the girl nature. Physical differences. At birth the boy has a slight advantage over the girl, both in height and in weight. The proportional increase is about the same until six. From six to nine years of age the boys gain slightly more than the girls. At ten the girls begin to gain more rapidly than the boys, until at twelve the girls are in the advance,† and remain in the lead until about fifteen. At this age the boys grow very rapidly, pass beyond the girls, and continue to grow after the girls have completed their growth. The girls make their greatest growth during their twelfth year, averaging two and a half inches. The boys make their greatest gain in the fifteenth year. As noted above, the period of growth i much longer in boys. The boys continue grow *Theme for Department of Pedagogy, University of Nebraska. +J A. Hancock. "The Growth of the Human Body." William Townsend, "Growth of St Louis Children." Bowditch, "The Growth of Children." 257 more slowly until twenty-five, or even later. Many girls have completed their growth at fifteen, although some increase in height slowly until past twenty.* During this period of growth, the boys are heavier, excepting between twelve and thirteen, when the girls are slightly heavier. In the age of rapid growth and bodily change, the girls are from one to two years ahead of the boys.* In a record kept of the growth of two boys and one girl, the greatest gain is found to have been made by the girl. From thirteen to fourteen she grew four inches. The next highest is three and seven-eights inches, made by one of the boys in his fifteenth year. This is very much like the results given by the averages of statistics, except that the absolute gain is much greater. Mr. W. T. Porter finds that the absolute gain of height, standing and sitting, of span of arms, girth of chest, and strength of lungs, is greatest in girls at thirteen, and in boys at fifteen.† In considering the bodily development in these more obvious measurements, one has much more data upon which to draw than is to be found in any other line of this investigation. The observation here has been wide enough, and considered with sufficient care, to make the results reliable. Differences in brain. A comparison of the sexes in the growth of the brain is interesting to the teacher. The data for this work is, for the most part, that compiled by Vierordt. The results can hardly be said to be reliable, as the number of observations are too few to form a basis of generalization. The results, in the main, are as follows: At birth the female brain is heavier. The greatest absolute weight of the brain, for girls, is at ten, for boys, at fifteen. This has been made the basis for more speculation than the facts would warrant. As mentioned above, the cases tabulated are too few for "the view that in a given individual, the brain, at this period, ades." From the first year on, the absolute is heavier than it is during the next two decWeight of the male brain is greater than that of the female. The relative weight is slightly greater for the female. This may or may not *J. A. Hancock. "The Growth of the Human Body." Townsend, "Growth of St. Louis Children." William +W. T Porter, "Growth of St. Louis Children." See also, Wm. Burnham, "A Study in Adolescence." See Donaldson, "The Growth of the Brain." possess any significance. There is not time to between the longer period of rapid physical dediscuss that matter here. In all the observations made along the line of physical development, it is plain that there is great change taking place in the body at the time of puberty. The greatest changes occur, in girls, between twelve and fourteen; in boys, about two years later. A further study will develop the fact that there are corresponding growth and changes in the moral and mental nature. * One result of careful systematic study is that we often find the popular idea to be right the reverse of the fact. Child study seems to show that boys are more nervous than girls. Studies in the Clark University laboratory prove that girls can stand more study than boys." A careful record shows that, in one school at least, the boys are more nervous than the girls, in all the grades above the first. Personal observation leads me to include the first also. Boys seem to have more of an overplus of energy than girls, or else it manifests itself in more pronounced ways. This is probably the reason why, in more than three-fourths of the rooms, as reported in the above study, the deportment of the girls was better than that of the boys. Mental Differences. One of the most systematic series yet made was that taken by J. Allen Gilbert, on the mental and physical development of school children. In these tests about one hundred children of each age were taken. Boys and girls show marked differences in some of the experiments. According to his results, the boys are more sensitive to weight than the girls. Their rate of tapping is higher and they suffer less from fatigue than do the girls., In simple reaction time the boys are ahead. They are slightly in advance in reaction with discrimination, but vary little in discrimination, considering the advantage they have in simple reaction time. In all his tests, Dr. Gilbert found the boys superior to the girls. Besides the difference in accuracy, rapidity, etc., other sex differences appear. The girls make little gain after thirteen, while the boys continue to gain until about seventeen. From this there would seem to be some connection *J. A. Hancock, "A Study in Motor Ability." +J. D. Simpkins, "Observations Made in the School of St. Marys, O." For a full discussion of these experiments see" Researches on the Mental and Physical Development of School Children," by J. Allen Gilbert. velopment and the mental development of boys, as compared with girls. In nearly all tests the girls fall off at about seven, begin to gain again until thirteen, when they again lose power. The boys suffer a similar loss at six or seven, with a second period of loss at fourteen. This early period of loss of power in both boys and girls has been noted by many careful workers in child study. Some attribute it to disturbances caused by the cutting of the permanent teeth, and other changes that take place in the physical organism at this age. The later loss of power is without doubt due to puberty. All loss from this cause is from one to two years earlier in girls than in boys. Sense differences. tions differences in sense discriminavery complete. As remarked above, Obboys are more sensitive in muscle sense. servations on color range of children and adults* does not seem to sustain the prevalent idea that girls have a better eye for color than boys. In a study on sex in children,† Prof. Barnes finds that more girls than boys select red as their choice in a group of colors; while more boys than girls select blue. This agrees with the results of similar experiments in the University of Nebraska psychological laboratory. In these experiments, the preference of women for red, and that of men for blue, was well marked. Emotional differences. Generally girls express their emotions more fully than boys. From data very carefully collittle difference in the crying of boys and girls, lected and collated, it seems that there is very as infants. As they grow older the difference the reflexes are alike to begin with, man sooner "It seems that while becomes very marked. learns to inhibit his reflexes, and lives more in an intellectual life, while woman continues more in the fundamental emotional part of her nature. For this reason woman's powers of feeling and emotion become keener and truer than those of man, as well as more stable."‡ Girls fear more things than boys, and the number of things they fear increases up to eighteen; while boys' fears begin to decrease at *G. W A. nckev, "Comparative Observations on the Indirect Color Range of Children, Adults, and Adu.ts Trained in Color." + Earl Barnes, "Sex in Children " IG. W. A. Luckey, "Laughing and Crying. fifteen.* It seems to me that this difference in the age can be accounted for by environment. As a girl grows older, she finds that there are things to be feared of which she had never dreamed. No similar revelation comes to a boy of the same age. Out of one hundred and twenty cases of blushing (a sign of emotion) observed and commented upon, thirty-six were by males, and eighty-four by females.† Boys are, generally speaking, more cruel than girls. A classified study has been made of several hundred cases of cruelty in the form of teasing and bullying. In nearly every instance, in each group, the tormentor is a boy. Occasionally a girl appears as a teaser, but almost never in the more brutal forms of bullying. Boys seem to be more of savag in the savage stage, longer tha ay Boys are also less inclined to merciful than girls.§ Memory. In a study on the memory of children, it was found that the boys reached their maximum of memory power in the second year of the high school. As a whole the girls remembered 4% more of the story used as a test. There was no decline in memory power for the girls during the later high school years. This experiment seems to afford a foundation for the idea that girls have more language faculty than boys, since the drudgery of acquiring a language is mainly in the memorizing demanded. In a In a special test of historic memory a girl leads. As the number tested was very limited, the results are of value merely as suggestion, or as confirming other observers. Reasoning. Mathematics is considered, usually, a good test of reasoning faculties. In a study based on 10,518 papers, and observations covering several years, it was found that 63.6% of the young men passed in mathematics, as against 57.2% of young women.** (These observations were made in a normal school.) The young women stand higher in algebra, the young men in arithmetic and (slightly) in geometry. *G. Stanley Hall, "A Study on Fears." †G. E. Partridge "Blushing." Frederick L. Burk, "Teasing and Bullying." Margaret E. Schallenberger, "A Study in Children's Rights." John C. Shaw, "Memory in School Children." Anna Koch'er. “Special Study on the Historic Memory of Children In "Study in Historic Method," p. 81. **David E. Smith, "Sex in Mathematics." In Durango, Colorado, a series of problems was prepared especially to test the school children's ability to reason.* It was found that, taken as a whole, the girls made more failures than the boys. The curve for the girls was more regular than for the boys, showing that the average girl's progress is more steady than the average boy's. At fifteen there was little difference. Historic sense. Under the direction of Mrs. Mary SheldonBarnes, some very interesting work has been done, testing children in historic sense, memory, interest, etc. No marked sex differences were noted. The boys seem to care more about know ing the who, when, and where; the girls, the why. In imaginative inference the boys excel. They are also slightly superior in making critical inference. Association. As a result of a test on several hundred school children on rapidity of reading lists of words, pictures, colors, and other symbols, it was found that girls excelled in rapidity of association from printed symbols. On the other hand, those wherein the boys as decidedly excel are associations from the less conventional pictorial symbols.‡ Lines of interest. The most interesting work in child study, and the one that is, perhaps, the most significant, is the study of children's interests. That which interests a child gives the best starting point for the teacher; while to know what he longs to have and be, is to have the key to his character, and puts one in a position to influence the child and to plan for him. A child out of school learns the things that interest him most. Hence a study of what children know when they enter school is of great value and should form the basis of a plan for the work of the primary years. Such studies bring out some sex differences that are sustained by widely separated observ ers. In the Berlin tests seventy-five concepts were used. The girls were found to be more ig norant of three-fourths of them than the boys. "The easy and more widely diffused concepts *J. A. Hancock, "Children's Ability to Reason." + Mary Sheldon-Barnes, "Study in Historic Method." R C. Bentley, "A Study of the Time of Perception as Affected by the Kind of Symbol." For this subject see G. Stanley Hall, "Contents of Children's Minds." |