Verbal recitation or reproduction is thus a highly important kind of reactive behavior on our impressions; and it is to be feared that, in the reaction against the old parrot-recitations as the beginning and end of instruction, the extreme value of verbal recitation as an element of complete training may nowadays be too much forgotten.

53. Importance of Self-Expression

[COLVIN, S. S., The Learning Process, pp. 31-32. Copyright, 1911, by the Macmillan Co.] (Adapted.)

Every experience is a reaction. It involves an adjustment. Educationally, this means that learning on the part of the child involves some form of self-expression. This expression need not be some response with the hands. A thought or a feeling is just as much a reaction or form of adjustment as movements of the limbs. The child should be required to do something with all his school subjects. For the child to have thoughts and feelings and not be allowed to express them is most unfortunate. The entire neurone arc should be used. Ideas and ideals should function in action.

54. Psychological and Logical

[DEWEY, John, The Child and the Curriculum, pp. 25-31. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1902.]

It may be of use to distinguish and to relate to each other the logical and the psychological aspects of experience the former standing for subject-matter in itself, the latter for it in relation to the child. A psychological statement of experience follows its actual growth; it is historic; it notes steps actually taken, the uncertain and tortuous, as well as the efficient and successful. The logical point of view, on the other hand, assumes that the development has reached a certain positive stage of fulfilment. It neglects the process and considers the outcome. It summarizes and arranges, and thus separates the achieved results from the actual steps by which they were forthcoming in the first instance. We may compare the difference between the logical and the psychological to the difference between the notes which an explorer makes in a new country, blazing a trail and finding his way along as best he may, and the finished map that is constructed after the country has been thoroughly explored.

Of what use is this formulated statement of experience? Of what use is the map?

Well, we may first tell what the map is not. The map is not a substitute for a personal experience. The map does not take the place of an actual journey. The logically formulated material of a science or branch of learning, of a study, is no substitute for the having of individual experiences. The mathematical formula for a falling body does not take the place of personal contact and immediate individual experience with the falling thing. But the map, a summary, an arranged and orderly view of previous experiences serves as a guide to future experience; it gives direction; it facilitates control; it economizes effort, preventing useless wandering, and pointing out the paths which lead most quickly and most certainly to a desired result. Through the map every new traveler may get for his own journey the benefits of the results of others' explorations without the waste of energy and loss of time involved in their wanderings-wanderings which he himself would be obliged to repeat were it not just the assistance of the objective and generalized record of their performances. That which we call a science or study puts the net product of past experience in the form which makes it most available for the future.

There is, then, nothing final about a logical rendering of experience. Its value is not contained in itself; its significance is that of standpoint, outlook, method. It intervenes between the more casual, tentative, and roundabout experiences of the past, and more controlled and orderly experiences of the future. It gives past experience in that net form which renders it most available and most significant, most fecund for future experience. The abstractions, generalizations, and classifications which it introduces all have prospective meaning.

The formulated result is then not to be opposed to the process of growth. The logical is not set over against the psychological. The surveyed and arranged result occupies a critical position in the process of growth. It marks a turning-point. It shows how we may get the benefit of past effort in controlling future endeavor. In the largest sense the logical standpoint is itself psychological; it has its meaning as a point in the development of experience, and its justification is in its functioning in the future growth which it insures.

Hence the need of reinstating into experience the subjectmatter of the studies, or branches of learning. It must be restored to the experience from which it has been abstracted. It

needs to be psychologized; turned over, translated into the immediate and individual experiencing within which it has its origin and significance.

Every study or subject thus has two aspects: one for the scientist as a scientist; the other for the teacher as a teacher. These two aspects are in no sense opposed or conflicting. But neither are they immediately identical. For the scientist, the subject-matter represents simply a given body of truth to be employed in locating new problems, instituting new researches, and carrying them through to a verified outcome. To him the subject-matter or the science is self-contained. He refers various portions of it to each other; he connects new facts with it. He is not, as a scientist, called upon to travel outside its particular bounds; if he does, it is only to get more facts of the same general sort. The problem of the teacher is a different one. As a teacher he is not concerned with adding new facts to the science he teaches; in propounding new hypotheses or in verifying them. He is concerned with the subject-matter of the science as representing a given state and phase of the development of experience. His problem is that of inducing a vital and personal experiencing. Hence, what concerns him, as teacher, is the ways in which that subject may become a part of experience; what there is in the child's present that is usable with reference to it; how such elements are to be used; how his own knowledge of the subject-matter may assist in interpreting the child's needs and doings, and determine the medium in which the child should be placed in order that his growth may be properly directed. He is concerned, not with the subjectmatter as such, but with the subject-matter as a related factor in a total and growing experience. Thus to see it is to psychologize it.

It is the failure to keep in mind the double aspect of subjectmatter which causes the curriculum and child to be set over against each other as described in our early pages. The subject-matter, just as it is for the scientist, has no direct relationship to the child's present experience. It stands outside of it. The danger here is not a merely theoretical one. We are practically threatened on all sides. Text-book and teacher vie with each other in presenting to the child the subject-matter as it stands to the specialists. Such modification and revision as it undergoes are a mere elimination of certain scientific difficulties, and the general reduction to a lower intellectual level. The material is not translated into life-terms, but is directly

offered as a substitute for, or an external annex to, the child's present life.

55. The Logical and the Psychological [DEWEY, John, Democracy and Education, pp. 256-257. 1916, by the Macmillan Co.] (Adapted.)

Copyright,

Science is the outcome of methods of observation, reflection, and testing which have been intentionally adopted to secure a solution to a problem. Science brings about certain changes in the environment. It is a controlling factor. It signifies the logical implications of any knowledge. That is, it is a form of knowledge as perfected.

Scientific knowledge or form, from the viewpoint of the learner, is an ideal to be realized, not a starting place.

The logical method assumes the presentation of subjectmatter in its perfected or scientific form. Pupils are generally introduced to the logical form by easy steps. The result is, the pupils learn science instead of the scientific way of handling matters of common experience.

The psychological method begins with the experiences of the learner and develops from them the proper ways of treating the material in a scientific way. The psychological method is claimed by Dewey to be superior to the logical. The psychological method insures understanding of what is learned and an independent ability to handle material within his grasp.

56. What Does the Psychological Order Mean? [PARKER, S. C., General Methods of Teaching in Elementary Schools, Pp. 140-141. Boston, Ginn & Co., 1922.]

Psycho-logical [order] means what? It means organization according to the mental progress of the learner. It means the order that is determined by the way in which the pupil learns most readily and effectively. It means omission of materials and ideas that children cannot comprehend at any given stage in their maturing or training, and careful choice for each stage of activities that the children can understand and master. It means adaptation of the subject matter to the capacities and interests of the pupils.

57. Psychological Value of the Recitation

[COLVIN, S. S., The Learning Process, pp. 155-156. Copyright, 1911, by the Macmillan Co.] (Adapted.)

The place of the recitation in modern teaching procedure has been called in question more than once. The fact that recall is of tremendous importance in learning has a significant bearing upon the value of the recitation in the educative process. It is a valuable method of teaching because it is a means of finding out what the pupils have learned, how well they have learned it, and so on. When skillfully conducted, it serves to recall to the child the places where his knowledge is insufficient, uncertain, or inexact. It should also motivate the pupil to relearn in the light of his previous errors. When regarded in this light, the recitation becomes a most important instrument in the hands of a teacher. The provision that the recitation makes for the child to recall what he has learned, and the opportunity it affords for the clarifying and building of ideas are very important from a psychological point of view. Material that is significant can only be assimilated by working it over through recall and by reconstructing the printed page in terms of his own thought processes.

58. Purpose of Tests and Examinations

[THORNDIKE, E. L., New Methods in Arithmetic, p. 242. Chicago, Rand, McNally & Co., 1921.]

Tests and examinations may be used for at least seven different purposes. These are:

1. To inform the teacher of the relative ability of each pupil, so that she knows who did least well, who did best, and so on, in the abilities tested.

2. To inform the pupil of his relative ability.

3. To inform the teacher of the absolute ability of each pupil so that she knows which things he can do, or how hard things he can do, or how accurately, or rapidly, or both, he can do certain things.

4. To inform the pupil of his absolute ability. Relative ability and absolute ability are used here to mean position and comparison with others, and position measured as so much advance from zero ability.

5. To spur the teacher to help her class do better work. 6. To spur the pupils to do better work.