what we learn in school, and the other half we are unable to use."

Attaining Maximum Results.-Peace of mind is an essential factor in doing good work. It is desirable to avoid all worry and excitement. Experimentation has shown that anything which is done during a state of worry or excitement can be done better when happiness and contentment exist. The happy child learns. Quiet, even-tempered, constant effort accomplishes the most. The excitement of war or danger is not needed in order to produce the best work. The football player who gets excited never accomplishes as much as his better behaved team mate who controls his emotions, saves his energy, and thinks about the next play. So it is with children and teachers.

Proper distribution of work is necessary for greatest economy in learning. Continuous work produces fatigue, reduces satisfaction, and tends to over-stimulate feelings and emotions. Change and rest periods are necessary, and these must come before the feelings, emotions, and tempers of children are disturbed. It has been found that a proper distribution of work, according to the ages of children, increases the amount of work that they can do. There is very little danger from overwork. A certain amount of mental work is healthful. Emotionality is not a measure of interest, and excitement is not a measure of devotion. Peaceful absorption is the proper feeling for one to have in order to achieve. It is possible to over-stimulate the child and thus cause him to expend more nervous energy than he has at his command. This leads to repugnance, sleepiness, and ennui. A little change in the nature of play mixed with the work will guard against this. A real teacher is not afraid of telling a goou story and having the children enjoy a hearty laugh. To be able to do that effectively, the teacher should prepare something to be used to put the children in a proper state of mind for their work. One hears college students condemning an instructor who reads his lectures and who never smiles. Perhaps he doesn't smile, because he is fearful that, if he should lay aside his coat of dignity, he might reach the level of his students. How much better students like the teacher who is not fearful of losing his apparent cloak of pretended dignity but gets down to the level of his students and builds upon what they know and leads them into unknown fields of knowledge and skill!

It has been stated that there is very little danger from overwork. The best practical rule in regard to this seems to be to

make sure of ample exercise and sleep, to divide the balance of times reasonably between duties and pleasures of life, and to give work its proper assignment of time and effort.

Teachers should know subject-matter, understand the child and how he learns, and they should be able to recognize the variations between individuals. They should know that one method will work for one child and not for another. Efficiency in anything which one does is often interfered with by the method used. Teachers who constantly study their pupils learn what their differences are and become familiar with their likes and dislikes. Thus they are able to make use of a child's original source of abilities, his acquired information, and his skill. While teachers cannot add to the active endowment of the child, they can take what he has and use it to the best advantage. To do this, teachers must know what they want the child to become and how he is to become it. Improvement of the mental efficiency of children rests largely in the hands of teachers, and the greatest factor in methods of procedure to attain such improvement is interest in children and in their work.

30. Repetition versus Motivation

[THORNDIKE, E. L., The New Methods in Arithmetic, p. 57. Chicago, Rand, McNally & Co., 1921.]

The older methods trusted largely to mere frequency of connection-that is, to mere repetition-to form habits of arithmetical knowledge and skill. Pupils said their tables over and over. They heard and saw 7 + 9 16, 6 X 8 48, and the like again and again, hour after hour and day after day. Yet scores of such repetitions did not form the bonds perfectly. A girl who learned to connect the names of forty-five children in her class with their faces infallibly in a few weeks from casual incidental training did not learn to connect the forty-five addition combinations, 1+1 to 9+9, with their answers in the systematic drills of twice that time. A boy who in two months of vacation, learned from a few experiences of each, to know a thousand houses, turns of paths, flowers, fishes, boys, uses of tools, personal peculiarities, slang expressions, swear words, and the like, without effort, seemed utterly incapable of learning his multiplication and division tables in a school year.

Something besides repetition is evidently at work, something which we may call interest or motive or satisfyingness. Those books, or connections which satisfy some want or craving of the

learner are formed from very few repetitions. The psychologist states two laws for the formation of mental connections:

The Law of Exercise is that, other things being equal, use strengthens, and disuse weakens mental connections.

The Law of Effect is that, other things being equal, connections accompanied or followed by satisfying states of affairs are strengthened, whereas connections accompanied or followed by annoying states of affairs are weakened.

31. Acquiring Control in Handwriting

[FREEMAN, F. N., The Teaching of Handwriting, p. 25. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1914.]

The elimination of useless movements, or the selection of appropriate ones, is one of the fundamental processes in motor learning. A practical question which may be raised concerning it is whether the result can best be reached by emphasizing the movements which are to be selected or those which are to be eliminated. In general it is much better to fix attention on the movements which are to be made, and allow the superfluous movements to drop out of themselves. It is a familiar fact that the bicycle rider avoids the ditch best by keeping his attention on the path. The nervous energy is automatically withdrawn from the channels leading to the muscles not concerned, when the nervous channels to the appropriate muscles become more open. Directions should be positive, then, rather than negative. The pupil should be shown what to do rather than what not to do. The only exception to this rule appears when the pupil has fallen into bad habits which need to be broken up. Then it may be necessary to call attention to the thing to be avoided.

32. Attention upon Result or upon Movement in Motor Learning

[PARKER, S. C., Methods of Teaching in High Schools, p. 119. Boston, Ginn & Co., 1920.]

Ordinarily the learner's attention should be centered on the objective result of the movement, not on the movement itself. An elaborate analysis of the movements in terms of the anatomy and operation of the parts of the body concerned is generally a waste of time and often prevents the attaining of the best results. Musical technique and pronunciation furnish good examples. Occasionally explicit attention to the character of the movement seems to be helpful.

33. Mental Economy in Motor Learning

[FREEMAN, F. N., How Children Learn, pp. 297-298. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1917.] (Adapted.)

Most golf players are aware of the fact that a poor stroke may have more serious consequences than the beginner realizes. The idea that he has made a poor stroke tends to persist, and the resulting worry or fear that he will make more poor strokes leads him to a whole series of other poor strokes, which seriously prevent a good score. Had he completely forgotten the poor stroke, he would have fared much better. To have his mind preoccupied with the making of a good score, after encountering considerable success, will also interfere with his efficiency in playing the game. The knowledge that he is about to make an unusually good score may cause his game to go to pieces completely. The general principle derived from observations of this kind, is that, in order to play well it is imperative that the player give attention to the thing that he is doing at that time, rather than be preoccupied with any remote considerations whether they be pleasant or unpleasant. Travers, one time open golf champion of the United States, says: "There is one thing that has helped me more in the match play than any other factor, and that is to play each shot by itself to forget what has gone and think only of the shot immediately before you."

34. Plateaus in Learning

[THOMSON, Godfrey H., Instinct, Intelligence and Character: An educational Psychology, 1925, pp. 254-256. New York, Longmans, Green & Co.]

Two new points attract attention in a survey of the literature of acquired skill. One is the existence of plateaus on curves of learning, the other the much greater permanence of skill over knowledge. Once a man has learned to swim, to skate, to cycle, he possesses the art for life. He may feel a trifle clumsy for a few minutes when he has not skated for ten years, but there is no question of beginning to learn again. Very little practice brings him quickly to his former skill, and beyond. Most probably this is because the neurone connections involved are on a

comparatively low level, and not so far removed from instincts and reflexes as are those concerned in recalling a poem or a series of facts or an argument. Indeed, some of them, as those involved in swimming, were perchance once innate.

Though less likely, it is, however, possible that the greater permanence of skill is due to the greater amount of over-learning. In a poem, a new verse is a new verse, and can be learned without deepening the memory of the earlier verses. A new part of a skilled action, however, usually demands for its practice or for its very existence that earlier and simpler movements be repeated and thereby made more certain. I cannot practice tossing three balls in the air without practicing tossing up one ball. I cannot learn to rattle off -tion or -able on the typewriter without practicing striking t or a, or without practicing moving the spacer or the line changer. And so certain fundamental motions get a tremendous amount of practice beyond their immediate needs, and may form the scaffolding which persists so obstinately in the face of neglect.

"Plateaus" are flat places in the curve of improvement, periods during which little or no advance is made, though practice be continued with unflagging perseverance; after which there is again improvement, as though paths in the brain were gradually perfected, and then suddenly thrown open: as though canals were being dug, into which after much weary spade work the water rushes and communication is established.

In part such plateaus may be due to the nature of the task, which requires in the first place certain simple acts which are learned rapidly, but then have to be practiced a considerable time before the next stage of combining them into complex acts can be attacked. Thus in reading telegraphic dots and dashes, the separate letters have to be mastered, then syllables and words come to be recognized as wholes, then phrases and sentences. There would thus be three curves of improvement, separated by plateaus, during which reorganization without advance went on.

Instead, or in addition, it may be that plateaus are due to boredom, and then a sudden fresh access of energy and interest, due to a holiday, or a new aim, or a threat of dismissal, or realization that some one else is improving. All these things may occur unconsciously. When plateaus occur with pupils or with ourselves we should not be unduly disappointed nor give up heart. The teacher should try to call attention to the new problem, if the case is anything like the passing from words