You have heard so many discussions and read so many treatises concerning the sequence of topics, the correlation of studies, and the like, that you perhaps shrink from re-examining a minute inventory of all school work and reconsidering its best possible arrangement as a system or hierarchy of connections to be formed, each with the interests of all the others in view. It must, indeed, be admitted that the work is long and also tedious, unless one has a scientific interest in minute matters of educational efficiency and in principles whereby to adjudicate them. It is, however, important, for economy in educational achievement means that we form the most desirable connections in the most useful order. And it is needed; for, in spite of the very great advance of the past hundred years, textbooks and courses of study still follow mere traditional customs or the order which happens to appeal to some individual expositor.

I may illustrate this need in the simple case of the bonds between printed words and their meanings that should be formed before, or at the time that, certain work in arithmetic is to be done. It is obvious that to follow printed directions and to solve printed problems a pupil needs to be able to read the directions and problems—that is, to have formed the bonds leading from the sight of certain words and phrases to their meanings. What I propose to show is that even the best of our modern arithmetical textbooks presuppose, at stage after stage, "word-meaning" connections which, at that stage, have not been and should not have been formed; and that, on the other hand, they and the textbooks in reading fail to form in early grades certain connections which would enormously facilitate the arithmetical learning for these grades.

I shall first read you a list of words all of which occur within the first fifty pages of one or more of four elementary beginning arithmetics intended for pupils in Grade II (or Grade III at the latest). I submit that the majority of the children in question will not have formed the connections in question and should not be expected to have done so, and that to make achievement in arithmetic hang on knowledge of these words as a prerequisite is a monstrous offense against rational organization of learning. The words beginning with "c" are:

These four books show in the first fifty pages at least four hundred words which not half of the children at the middle of Grade II can read or should be expected to read. For example, in one or more of the four may be found a galaxy of seventy proper names which these children must master before they can understand their problems.

I submit that so long as such offenses come in our best textbooks a scrutiny of the order of formation of bonds in school work is no empty psychological amusement, but a vital concern for educational policy.

On the other hand, consider the bonds between these words and their meanings:

How much, how many, count, with, together, add, sum, difference, take away, is left, are left, once, twice, two times, three times, four times, half of, some, all, in all, any, not any, equal, part, whole, greater, less, longer, shorter, cost, buy, bought, sell, sold, measure.

The existence and sure action of connections between these words and their meanings must precede or accompany early work in arithmetic, if it is to be efficient, yet few books or courses of study in arithmetic provide for their formation save hit-or-miss; and surely the primers and first and second readers do not. The four books in arithmetic which I examined actually avoid forming these bonds. The word "difference," for example, occurs only once in twenty pages, the pupils' time being spent in getting acquainted with such words as

Two of the four do not use the word "sum" in these fifty pages, yet find room for Samuel, Susan, Susie, swimming, syllable, syrup, soldiers, sparrows, strips, stripes, and so on.

Bear in mind that the textbook writers who thus leave unformed important facilitating connections, and burden the beginners of arithmetic with the task of learning to read the names of rare food products, strange vehicles, and the Adele, Byron, Dorothy, Esther series, are from our best-that without such a deliberate warning to consider the place of every connection in the hierarchy as I have given not one of us would have done better. Bear in mind also that textbooks in elementary geography show a similar state of affairs.

A psychologist examining the connections made by the school subjects with a view to their arrangement in an optimum order finds many of these chances for sure improvement and also many problematic cases where, it appears, experimentation has a fair probability of showing ways to increase school achievement. Any few of these problems for investigation will serve as illustrations. Consider, for example, teaching certain facts about pints and quarts, feet and yards, cents, dimes, and dollars, very early as an introduction to and confirmation of knowledge of our system of decimal notation and of the processes of "carrying" in addition and "borrowing" in subtraction. The later decimal-system habits would undoubtedly then be more intelligent and less productive of interference. Whether this gain would be outbalanced by other losses can best be discovered by experiment. Or consider, for example, teaching the metric system as an

introduction to, instead of as a consequence of, decimal fractions. This change may seem preposterous, but I venture to remind you that doing just this in the case of United States money is one of the most successful features of the arrangement of modern textbooks.

Or consider teaching much of United States history first in the reverse chronological order from aeroplanes to automobiles, to the electric trolley, to the steam railroad, to the stagecoach; from the building of the schoolhouse to the settlement of the town, to pioneer days, to the Pilgrims; from the discovery of America by Isidore Strauss to the discovery by Columbus-reviewing and expanding and co-ordinating later in a direct chronological account. As romance or panorama, history begins with centuries back, but as a science, it may perhaps best begin at home, and with facts near and verifiable, as we have found it profitable for geography to do.

Or consider the order of acquaintance with the words in a foreign language. The commonest bonds found among words are those binding words to their opposites (good-bad, father-son, boy-girl, hot-cold, up-down, and the like), yet I have searched a score of Latin, French, and German language books without finding any systematic use of this fact. Again the wordmeaning connections of most help in facilitating reading are with the relational words, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs, prepositions, pronouns, and directive adverbs. Yet these words are very rarely given early or extensive or ingenious treatment. Indeed, I do not find much recognition of any principles of economical arrangement of vocabularies save the utterly obvious one that words not fitting the grammatical and translational exercises are kept out, and the common words or words used in the "first five books of Caesar" or the like are worked in. Yet the maximum of achievement demands that there should be a reason for every word taught and for teaching it at just that time and no other.

Such problems as these in mental mechanics-problems in choosing, ordering, and manipulating the mind's connections-are now the growingpoint of experimental education. By skilful analysis of human learning into the millions of elementary connections between situation and response which constitute it and by experimental study of the ways in which these connections are best formed, preserved, organized, and used, the psychologist hopes to get both comprehension and control of the foundations of educational achievement.

The foundations of educational achievement are these connections or bonds or habits of response, but these habits themselves lead us back farther to the unlearned, original capacities and tendencies of man. Human beings, as you well know, are not indifferent clay to be molded at will by the teacher's art. They are themselves active forces to help or hinder. They inherit as a human birthright instincts and interests of which education from the start and thruout must take account. Educational achievement

is small or great in proportion as it neglects these natural untaught tendencies in man or utilizes them to further his ideal aims. And educational science needs as its basal equipment an exact and adequate inventory of the original nature of man as a species and of the idiosyncrasies of individual

men.

No choice of the habits of thought or action to be formed by schools is sound which gives technique irrespective of needs felt by the pupil, or adds knowledge without any motive for its use, or tries to cultivate artificial virtues in disregard of the crude forms of courage, kindliness, zeal, and helpfulness which nature already affords.

No arrangement of the mind's connections is economical which fails to use the inborn organizing power of curiosity, the problem-attitude, and the desire to test and verify or refute by eyes and hands.

No manipulation of bonds in learning is efficient which disregards the pupil's own sense of sociability, kindness, and achievement during the learning process. The original proclivities of the human animal are as real as its laws of learning and condition these thruout. Every habit is formed in the service of some instinctive interest.

The inborn interests of man in movement, novelty, color, life, the behavior of other human beings, sociability, cheerfulness, notice, approval, mastery, and self-activity are not ultimate aims of education, nor is their presence a guaranty that school work is well directed and efficient. But we double achievement if we get them on our side and we enrich life enormously at little cost if we turn these fundamental passions into line with higher nature and the common good.

I hold no brief in favor of avoiding in schools anything necessary for human welfare, either because it is hard or because it is disliked. I find many of the tendencies born in man to be archaic, useless, immoral, adaptations to such a life as man lived in the woods a hundred thousand years ago, when affection had not spread beyond the family, or justice beyond the tribe, or science beyond the needs of tomorrow, and when truth was only the undisputed and goodness only the unrebuked. That the natural is the good is a superstition which psychology cannot tolerate. Still less, however, can psychology tolerate the superstition that there can be any foundation for educational achievement other than the best that human nature itself affords. Truth is only what the best in human intellect accepts; goodness is only what the best in human nature craves. We mean by the rational, ideal, and impersonal aims of education only the nobler inborn human interests purified of their crude accompaniments and broadened to harmonize with the common good. We must not find too much fault with human nature; for ultimately it is all we have! Its best elements are the best the world has or ever will have.

What psychology offers education today is thus a matter-of-fact view of human nature as a set of original unlearned connections or tendencies to

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respond, which we redirect and to which we add by arranging the situations of life so that new and better connections are formed. The efficiency with which we do this work will depend on our knowledge of man's inborn equipment, our wisdom in choosing and arranging the connections to be formed, and our justice and ingenuity in maneuvering these forces of instinct and habit for human betterment. A flawless architecture of human affairs will not be attained until every possible response of every variety of human being to every situation of life is thus understood and controlled by human reason in the interest of human welfare. However, each minute addition of scientific knowledge of man's nature means one more stone (or at least one molecule of cement!) of wise placing in the foundation for education's building.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON ECONOMY OF TIME IN EDUCATION

H. B. WILSON, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, TOPEKA, KANS., CHAIRMAN

In its report of progress one year ago, your committee indicated that the largest result of its labors by that date consisted in securing the cooperation of a number of investigators, each undertaking some study with a view to a future report on some significant phase of the general problem of economy of time in public-school education.

Undoubtedly, the most significant thing which occurred during the past year in relation to this general problem was the publication of the report by the Committee of the National Council of the National Education Association on Economy of Time in Education by President James H. Baker, chairman, together with the other members of his committee. This report, as is well known, resulted from the persistent efforts of President Baker since the meeting of 1903 and represents the labors of President Baker and the other members of his committee, working since 1908. As a result of their efforts and upon their advice, two co-operating committees have been created within the past three years-one from the National Association of State Universities and the other from this department.

The work of President Baker's committee is of significant value in that the attention of educators thruout the country has been constantly kept upon this problem of such consequence during this period of wonderful educational reconstruction, and in that, resulting from their work, there has developed a large amount of co-operative thinking, practicing, and testing, and in that the printed report sets forth clearly and succinctly the fundamental principles which should consciously guide in a constructive way in the further work upon this problem, and in that they proposed in closing their report the following divisions and distribution of the time consumed in the period of general and special education: