vation requires great care. (2) Secondly, we are all biassed or prejudiced. Thus we may expect to see a certain thing, or want to see a certain thing. Under these circumstances, there is every chance of our seeing that thing when it is not there to see. (3) Thirdly, it is not until we have had a good deal of practice in observation that we know what to look for; in our first attempts we are 'all at sea,'-just as likely to make much of the unimportant as to single out the important things. (4) And lastly, when the object of observation is a process, something that continually changes, we may be confused and baffled by the change. If the process goes on slowly, we may grow tired of observing, and so overlook some of its stages; if it goes on quickly, we may not have time to notice them all.

39. Statistical Methods in Educational Psychology [DUNLAP, Knight, "The Experimental Methods of Psychology," Pedagogical Seminary, September, 1925, pp. 502–522.] (Abridged.)

It was not to be expected, however, that the statistical method would be so easily routed from psychology. It offers an easy method for the obtaining of "results," and the results have an impressive appearance due to the profundity of the mathematical principles involved. The fact that these principles are above the comprehension of the person doing the research, and that the results, therefore, seem to come as gifts from the gods to the humble turner of the wheel, by no means lessens the impressiveness.

For this reason, the method of correlation introduced by Pearson and improved by Yule and others, have had a great vogue in individual psychology, and coefficients of correlation are being applied, not to the solution of various and sundry problems, but applied as the solution; which is quite a different matter. Now it is true, the correlation method has very important uses, and may have such even in psychology, when applied to a collection of data which really has a Gaussian distribution or whose deviation from this distribution are such as can be corrected. But I fear that most of those who use the method would not know how to determine whether a given distribution were Gaussian or not. . . .

The difficulty in the interpretation of a coefficient of correlation is very great. . . . The difficulty is strikingly illustrated by a survey of the literature embodying it, in which almost any correlation is commonly assumed to prove not merely that there is a relation between the arrays correlated, but that the par

ticular relation the seeker hoped to find is there.

Illogical

as it may seem, the assumption appears to be that data gathered by utterly incompetent persons, sometimes under unknown conditions, sometimes under conditions actually known to be pernicious, is in some miraculous way validated, and made reliable, when the magic method of correlation is applied to it. . . .

Where any test has not been established for a given purpose by other than "correlational" methods, its application is little more than guesswork. The establishing of educational and social projects and programs on mere "coefficients" is something which psychology might view merely with compassion, were it not for the fact that such establishment is being made brazenly in the name of psychology; and the public credits the failures to the experimental psychologists who protest against the method. . . .

A coefficient of correlation is, in psychology, at the most only the beginning of research; a suggestion for a theory which may be formulated and put to experimental verification. . . .

Individual psychology, which has been carried away by the mathematical fascination, and which has made its mental measurements so largely matters of correlation, can regain its balance and justification by returning to the fold of experimental psychology and profiting by its experience, disillusionments, and achievements.

40. Historical Account of Educational Psychology [BALDWIN, B. T., "Bridging the Gap Between Our Knowledge of Child Nature and The Training of Children," The Child: His Nature and His Needs, pp. 14-16. Valparaiso, Indiana, The Children's Foundation, 1924.]

The gap between the theory and practice of child psychology has extended throughout the history of education. In some instances these two aspects of the science of child development have run parallel for long periods of time with little or nothing in common. On the other hand, child psychologists and some great teachers have consciously or unconsciously fused theory and practice into a unified attitude toward children. Herbart's psychology and methods of teaching in the nineteenth century furnish an illustration of theory and practice running parallel, but almost independently. His theoretical psychology with its intricate and arbitrary mathematical symbols was obsolete before his methods of teaching became assimilated into educational practice. The same condition may be said to hold true in a less marked degree of English education to-day, where little or no

relation exists between English child psychology and English educational practice. But in France, and particularly in America, the science of educational psychology with its vast amount of data and its systematic methods has in a very large measure determined educational practice and administration.

The outstanding contributions of recent years that have most successfully combined theory and practice in child development are those of James, Dewey, Hall, Thorndike, Binet, Stern, Bagley, and Terman. William James, in his Talks to Teachers, 1894, produced the first distinctive book in educational psychology in this country. It is as interesting as a first-class novel and the chapters on the laws of habit and will, and on what makes life significant, are classics in this field. John Dewey's School and Society, 1900, brought the earlier cultural epoch theory of Herbart, Ziller, and Rein in Germany, and the new philosophy of pragmatism directly into schoolroom practice so that pupils were taught to "make" knowledge in accordance with the theory of following the order of development of the race. This book is a description of the University of Chicago Laboratory School of the earlier days. G. Stanley Hall's Youth, 1906, gives a multiplicity of applications of the value of instinctive development in child life. E. L. Thorndike's Principles of Teaching, 1906, was the first successful attempt to bridge the wide gap that had existed between the subject matter and methods of instruction on the one hand and the development of the child on the other, with particular reference to native and acquired characteristics of children. There is a rich mingling of theory and practice on every page. Alfred Binet's The Development of Intelligence in Children, 1916, first published in the form of scales for the measure of intellectual level of children, 1905, 1908, and 1911, is the greatest single contribution to the application of psychology to the problem of measuring mental development. William Stern's Psychological Methods of Testing Intelligence, 1914, has fused theory and practice into an applied psychology. William C. Bagley's Educative Process, 1905, combined most effectively the general problems of child development into the processes involved in training and schoolwork. It was the beginning of the present-day movement that takes child psychology into the schoolroom. Following Binet's development of a scale for measuring the intelligence of children and elaborating upon Stern's concept of an intelligence quotient for designating children of different degrees of intelligence for the same chronological age, Lewis M. Terman's Measure

ment of Intelligence, 1916, is the outstanding book that successfully combines intelligence testing with schoolroom practice and schoolroom administration.

In the field of child psychology a series of books has contributed to specific phases of child growth from both the theoretical and practical points of view. Among the most used books are those by J. M. Baldwin, Claparède, Colvin, Freeman, Gates, Judd, Kirkpatrick, McCall, Norsworthy and Whitley, O'Shea, Pintner, Pyle, and Whipple.

In the field of mental deficiency, Binet, Goddard, L. S. Hollingworth, Kuhlmann, Wallin, and Fernald have combined theory and practice in public school and institutional training. In juvenile delinquency, Healy and Bronner carried the principles and practice of child psychology side by side from the laboratory into the courts of Chicago and Boston.

41. Contribution of Psychology to Education

[THORNDIKE, E. L., "The Contribution of Psychology to Education," Journal of Educational Psychology, 1910, Vol. 1, pp. 6-7.]

To an understanding of the material of education, psychology is the chief contributor.

Psychology shares with anatomy, physiology, sociology, anthropology, history and the other sciences that concern changes in man's bodily or mental nature the work of providing thinkers and workers in the field of education with knowledge of the material with which they work. Just as the science and art of agriculture depend upon chemistry and botany, so the art of education depends upon physiology and psychology.

A complete science of psychology would tell every fact about every one's intellect and character and behavior, would tell the cause of every change in human nature, would tell the result which every educational force-every act of every person that changed any other or the agent himself-would have. It would. aid us to use human beings for the world's welfare with the same surety of the result that we now have when we use falling bodies or chemical elements. In proportion as we get such a science we shall become masters of our own souls as we now are masters of heat and light. Progress toward such a science is being made.

Psychology contributes to understanding of the means of education, first, because the intellects and characters of any one's parents, teachers and friends are very important means of

educating him, and, second, because the influence of any other means, such as books, maps, or apparatus, cannot be usefully studied apart from the human nature which they are to act upon.

Psychology contributes to knowledge of methods of teaching in three ways. First, methods may be deduced outright from the laws of human nature. For instance, we may infer from psychology that the difficulty pupils have in learning to divide by a fraction is due in large measure to the habit established by all the thousands of previous divisions which they have done or seen, the habit, that is, of "division-decrease" or "number divided-result smaller than the number." We may then devise or select such a method as will reduce this interference from the old habits to a minimum without weakening the old habits in their proper functioning.

Second, methods may be chosen from actual working experience, regardless of psychology, as a starting point. Thus it is believed that in the elementary school a class of fifteen pupils for one teacher gives better results than either a class of three or a class of thirty. Thus, also it is believed that family life is better than institutional life in its effects upon character and enterprise. Thus, also, it is believed that in learning a foreign language the reading of simple discussions of simple topics is better than the translation of difficult literary masterpieces that treat subtle and complex topics. Even in such cases psychology may help by explaining why one method does succeed better and so leading the way to new insights regarding other questions not yet settled by experience.

Third, in all cases psychology, by its methods of measuring knowledge and skill, may suggest means to test and verify or refute the claims of any method. For instance, there has been a failure on the part of teachers to decide from their classroom experience whether it is better to teach the spelling of a pair of homonyms together or apart in time. But all that is required to decide the question for any given pair is for enough teachers to use both methods with enough different classes, keeping everything else except the method constant, and to measure the errors in spelling the words thereafter in the two cases. Psychology, which teaches us how to measure changes in human nature, teaches us how to decide just what the results of any method of teaching are.