text is barren of suggestions to children for supplementing, because the ideas are too far apart to indicate what ought to fit in between.

The understanding ought to be more common that long lessons are by no means synonymous with hard lessons. The hardest lessons to master are those brief, colorless presentations that fail to stimulate one to see vividly and to think. Many a child who carries a geography text about with him learns most of his geography from his geographical readers, simply because the writer does not squeeze all the juice out of what he has to say in order to save space. A child can often master five pages in such a book more easily than he can one from the ordinary geography, and he will remember it longer.

tions to be

Whatever the text chosen, the recitation should be so conducted that the emphasis will fall on reflection rather than on mere reproduction. To this 8. Character end one should avoid putting mainly mem- of the quesory questions, such as, Who was it ? put. When was it? Why was it? What is said about -? Even the usual request, "Close the books," at the beginning of the recitation can often be omitted to advantage. Why should not the text-book in history and geography lie open in class, just as that in literature, if thinking is the principal object?

Questions that require supplementing can be proposed by both teacher and pupils. Now and then some topic can be assigned for review, with the understanding that the class, instead of reproducing the facts, shall occupy the time in "talking them over." The teacher can then listen, or act as critic. It is a harsh

commentary on the quality of instruction if a lesson on Italy, or on a presidential administration, or on a story, suggests no interesting conversation to a class.

Occasionally, as one feature of a lesson, a class might propose new points of view for the review of some subject. For example, if the Western states have been studied in geography, some of the various ways in which they are of interest to man might be indicated by questions, thus: What about the Indians in that region? What pleasure might a sportsman expect there? What sections would be of most interest to the sight-seer? How is the United States Government reclaiming the arid lands, and in what sections? What classes of invalids resort to the West, and to what parts? How do the fruits raised there compare with those further east in quality and appearance? How is farming differently conducted there? In what respects, if any, is the West more promising than the East to a young man starting in life?

These are such questions about the West as large classes of individuals must put to themselves in practical life; they are, then, fair questions for the pupil in school to put to himself and to answer. By thus considering the various phases of human interest in a subject, children can get many suggestions for supplementing the text.

The habit of reproducing thought in different ways will also throw different lights on the subject-matter, 4. Different and thus offer many supplementary ideas. types of For example, dramatizing is valuable in this reproduction. way. The description, in the first person, of one's experiences in crossing the desert is an illustra

tion. I once visited a Sunday-school class that was studying the life of John Paton, the noted missionary to the New Hebrides Islands. The text stated that one of the cannibal chiefs had been converted, and had asked permission to preach on Sunday to the other savages. This permission was granted; but the text did not reproduce the sermon. Thereupon several members of the class undertook, as a part of the next Sunday's lesson, to deliver such a sermon as they thought the savage might have given. Two of the boys brought hatchets on that Sunday to represent tomahawks, which they used as aids in making gestures, and their five-minute speeches showed a careful study of the whole situation. Likewise the experiences of Columbus might be dramatized, as, when asking for help from the king, or when reasoning with the wise men of Spain, or when conversing with his sailors on his first voyage to America.1

Additional suggestions will often be obtained by inquiring, "What part of this lesson, if any, would you like to represent by drawings? Or by paintings? Or by constructive work? Also, How would you do it ?"

ger of the

Much of what has been said about supplementing ideas finds only slight application to beginning reading, writing, spelling, and number work. The 6. The danreason is that these subjects, aiming so largely three R's and at mastery of symbols, call for memory and spelling to skill rather than reflection. For this very flection. reason these subjects are in many ways dangerous to proper habits of study, and the teacher needs to be on

habits of re

1 See the story of Columbus in Stevenson's Children's Classics in Dramatic Form, A Reader for the Fourth Grade.

her guard against their bad influence. They are so prominent during the first few years of school that children may form their idea of study from them alone, which they may retain and carry over to other branches. To avoid this danger, other subjects, such as literature and nature study, deserve prominent places in the curriculum from the beginning, and special care should be exercised to treat them in such that this easy kind of reflection is strongly encouraged.

a way

CHAPTER V

THE ORGANIZATION OF IDEAS, AS A THIRD FACTOR IN

STUDY

A. The different values of facts, and their grouping into "points"

Extent to

ers treat

in value.

In several branches of knowledge in the primary school it is customary for teachers to attach practically the same importance to different facts. This is the case, for instance, in spelling, where which teacha mistake counts the same, no matter what facts as equal word be misspelled. It is largely the case in writing. In beginning reading one word is treated as equal in value to any other, since in any review list every one is required. In beginning arithmetic this equality of values is emphasized by insistence upon the complete mastery of every one of the combinations in the four fundamental operations. Throughout arithmetic, moreover, failure to solve any problem is the same as the failure to solve any other, judged in the light of the marking systems in use.

The same tendency is less marked, but still evident, in many other subjects, some of them more advanced. In geography, teachers seldom recognize any inequality of value in the map questions, even though a question on the general directions of the principal mountain systems in North America be followed by a request to locate Iceland. The facts, too, are very often strung along in the text in such a manner that it is next to