genuine sense. When a teacher says to her pupil, "You must do the work yourself", the latter is apt to think this means learning by heart a process which has been initiated by some one else. If the teacher could in any way make certain that the pupil would receive in his home expert guidance in taking the initiative in his work, then there would be a distinct advantage in having some tasks done there, because the parent could give his child individual attention.

It ought to be possible to impress upon sixth-grade pupils, say, the value of doing most of the original work in any process themselves, seeking assistance only by way of guidance. And there is a fundamental difference between guiding and helping, as these words are ordinarily interpreted. In guiding an individual, one simply causes him to consider the situation before him so that he may see how he ought to move. In the hands of a skilful guide, the novice is led to consider all the conditions involved in making up his mind what he ought to do, whether in arithmetic, in geography, or in anything else. If he is attacking a new situation, he must be stimulated to call up all he has experienced that bears upon it. His inclination will be not to do this. If he would do it spontaneously, there would be no need for teachers, of course. The tendency of the untrained person in a new situation is to become confused.

Not until he has had long training in using his experience will he gain such momentum that he can, without any guidance whatever, employ it effectively so that he can solve his own problems. A welltrained college graduate ought to be able to do this on all occasions. A well-trained high-school pupil should be able to do it in most of the situations in which he finds himself in the high school. An eighth-grade pupil should be completely self-helpful in respect to much that he studies-practically everything in reading, very much in geography, most of arithmetic, and everything in spelling. The pupil in the first grade is, of course, the least able to use his experience so as to solve new problems. But no matter what point he has reached in his educational development, skilful teaching can lead him to take the initiative in most of what should be taught him.

CHAPTER VI

TEACHING PUPILS TO EXECUTE

In the preceding chapters we were occupied with a discussion of the teaching of subjects dealing with matters of content, or perhaps with ideas, as distinguished from forms, or the means of expressing thought. When we were considering the method of presenting content studies to pupils, we were interested wholly in the development of thinking ability; but now that we must give attention to the acquisition of form subjects, we will need to inquire how pupils can most readily and economically gain facility in the use of technique in spelling, in penmanship, in singing, and so on. The attainment of clear thinking should be the end kept in view in teaching history, science, geography, and the like; but automatic execution must be the goal to be aimed at in the teaching of all symbolic or technical subjects. The functions of the content vs. the technical subjects are essentially different in human life, and they ought to be taught differently in the schools.

Let us first glance at the teaching of spelling,

which is a good example of a technical subject in Spelling as a typical which the aim must be to technical subject acquire automatic facility in execution. It is probable that no subject in the curriculum is so much discussed in our times as spelling. Newspaper writers are constantly complaining of the inability of graduates of common schools to spell ordinary words correctly. These writers lay emphasis upon spelling as the most essential thing in the school. Of course, bad spelling is easily detected. One can not express himself in writing at all without revealing his ability or the lack of it in this regard; and this is one reason why deficiencies in this subject are so readily detected by laymen.

Recently a pupil in the fourth grade in a good school, as schools go, brought to his home a list of words to be learned for his spelling lesson. Here is the list: Honest, farmer, fence, potato, summer, cultivate, generally, harvest, threshing, company. These words were taken by the teacher from the selection which the pupils had in their reading lesson that morning. It is her practice to have the spelling lessons depend upon the reading, geography, and language lessons. She says that in this way she can select words which the pupils understand; and she is an ardent advocate of the theory that the child

should be able to spell anything he can read. She believes, too, that if a pupil can spell a word he will be able to read it the more readily, so that the spelling will help the reading if the two be developed together.

test

See, now, how one's educational theories may often persist in spite of obvious facts indicating A practical quite contrary principles. The pupil referred to above was asked by his teacher on the day he was given the agricultural spelling list to write a little essay on some experience he had had on the way to or from school. When he proceeded to his task, he declared he could not write anything. "What shall I say?" showed the vacuity of his mind. The teacher had to "develop" the notion that on the way to school he had seen several birds, and she instructed him to tell something about them. So, after much wriggling in his seat, and gazing around to see what his classmates were doing, he finally produced the following: "On the stret (street) to school I saw sevn burds tha (they) were robins I tryed to cetch (catch) them but tha flu (flew) away tha were going sowth (south) for winter."

The teacher had in her career handled a great many "essays" similar to the specimen given, but