ing this plan, he could not learn to recite the selection except by incessant repetition, wherein he could make automatic the mere vocal series, so that once set a-going, he would run along a certain route, because he had followed it so often that he had worn a groove from his brain to his tongue, as it

were.

One need not hesitate to say that this is an extremely wasteful method of procedure. And it is worse than wasteful. It tends to develop a bad mental habit. An individual who has much experience of this sort is apt to reach the stage where he can deal with words only, and he may lose his feeling for the meanings behind them. His mind gets set according to a verbal pattern, which prevents him from being plastic in regard to realities.

The writer was able to make an experiment in memorizing by directing this boy in his learning the An experiment remaining stanzas of The Landing in memorizing of the Pilgrims. The first step taken was to have him read the selection as a whole, help being given him with the unusual words, so that he would not delay long over them. The purpose in this method was to develop in him a feeling for the situation in its entirety as described in the poem. Then going back, he read each stanza, and was asked to indicate the situations which it de

picted. He needed some assistance in getting the content of certain of the stanzas and particular lines in the selection; but the poem as a whole was easily within his grasp, when he was guided a little in interpreting it.

After he had gone through in this way with each stanza, indicating his understanding of the scenes described, he was asked next to talk about the situation as a unity, and he was able to do so with pleasing fullness and definiteness. As a result of this exercise, he declared he could see the waves and the coast and the Pilgrims, and the difficulties under which they made their landing, and the conditions of forest and sky when they landed. He also appreciated their trials in dealing with this new and strange world in which they were placed. He was interested in the description of the types of individuals in the party, and of their courage and heroism in the face of tremendous obstacles.

So much for the first day. The next day he was asked at the outset to begin with the first stanza, and to describe the scenes which it depicted. He could readily tell the content of that stanza in his own words. Then he was asked to note how the poet expressed each thought. The first lines seemed to him straight and orderly, containing for the most part the ordinary expressions of daily life. But it

was different with other lines, as in the one, “And the stars heard, and the sea." When asked why the poet did not say, "And the stars and the sea heard," the boy at once saw that it would not sound right. "It would not be poetry to speak in that way." This impressed him with the poetical order in which the simple thought conveyed could be best expressed. Then when he came to recite the line he experienced little difficulty. He had the content, and he also had gained the idea of the poetical form of expression.

Proceeding in this way with the remaining stanzas, the boy got a preliminary acquaintance with each one in a few minutes. Then going back and reciting two or three stanzas as a unit, because they described a situation which could be apprehended as a whole, he could in this way bind them to one another in memory. The thread which held them together in his thought was the progression of events which they narrated, and which was perfectly natural and orderly, such as he is familiar with in his daily experience. Once this matter of progression of ideas is appreciated, the remaining task of getting the details of expression is comparatively easy; but without this thread of connection being grasped, it becomes a process of remembering by main force. The only way this latter sort of memorizing can be accomplished is by establishing a purely automatic

series, in which there is no bond of natural connection, except that any given word may release the word which has followed it through a large number of repetitions.

There is so much that children should become possessed of in the schools to-day that every effort ought to be made to eliminate waste in memory work. It will not take long to impress upon children in the fourth grade that when they are memorizing a poem they must first get the situation described in each stanza, so that they can begin at the beginning and tell the story, running through the stanzas to the end. Next they must see how the poet expresses each thought developed, and thus they can fix the poet's form of expression. A method like this will not only conserve energy and time, but it will also give pupils an appreciation of the content and poetical mode of expression of the poems which they are memorizing.

CHAPTER IX

TENDENCIES OF NOVICES IN TEACHING

THE writer recently sent letters to one hundred high-school principals and superintendents of schools in the Middle West, asking them to give the results of their experience with new teachers, specifying their strong and their weak points as they had occasion to observe them in the practical work of the school-room. The opinions gained in this way were then compared with reports upon the strong and weak points of one thousand teachers made after careful inspection of class-room work by a special committee of a state university.

The principals and superintendents declared, with scarcely an exception, that the secondary-school Some typical teacher fresh from college commonly defects in falls far short of large success in his teaching teaching, mainly because he has no adequate conception of what a high school ought to accomplish. And when he begins he often lacks genuine sympathy with the kind of work the high school must do. Further, he frequently has but