farming, and scientific agriculture to achieve an even greater development.

b. What Thinking Involves. Thinking depends, then, upon the same factors as are necessary in correct studying. This really means that thinking and studying are synonymous: clear and accurate first impressions, organization by analysis, and later reorganization by association so far as demanded by the problem. Thinking is essentially a new organization of knowledge with additional facts sought for if needed. There can be no thinking without something to think with, a store of knowledge. Herein, to repeat, lies the fuller significance of supplementary reading, observation, and experimentation in every subject of the program of studies. Obviously, memorizing has its important place, but it is only one step in the development of thinking. The ultimate habit of reflecting, weighing, and judging or seeing an issue and a need from several available angles aims at safety, wisdom, economy, and progress in social efficiency.

10. Application. In laboratory subjects there is a constant application of studying by the performing of experiments, making of furniture and dresses, drawing, modeling, farming, etc. There is comparatively little difficulty in finding motivation and vital reality in these courses. But the case is different with the abstract subjects, such as language, history, mathematics. What application is available here? The answer to this question is attempted in Part II. Suffice to anticipate by saying that application is considered from two angles:

a. Doing as a Process of Learning. The common aphorism Learn by doing" is no longer in need of defense. One finds the truth of this saying illustrated in practically every

school of the land. What the pupil does for himself under proper guidance creates skill and confidence. It establishes proper nerve connections and fixes habits. Supervised study stresses this fact with the accompanying caution that doing must not be impulsive, impatient, or wholly independent. It is correct doing that counts. In the learning process there are inevitably, as Book has shown, subtle errors creeping in, the correction of which retards progress and causes at times heavy discouragement. Unavoidable as many of these errors doubtless are, even under the best of conditions, earnest effort on the part of the teacher must be put forth to forestall as many of the pupil's mistakes as possible. True as it is that doing strengthens impressions and thereby facilitates memorizing, the even greater truth is that first impressions must be accurate and the application of them as correct as possible the first time.

b. Doing as a Test of Learning. Application as a test of learning differs from the one preceding in the amount of proficiency available. The ability to drive a car, make a table, cultivate a good crop, sew a beautiful dress is the result of constant application and eventually establishes the end of learning. To understand the far-removed ultimate causes of the present European war; to be able to describe mountain scenery, narrate an incident, argue a moot question; to be skillful in measurements, in computation, etc., are tests of learning which in and of themselves augment further skill. Examinations with preliminary reviews are, therefore, helpful and necessary, when they test not merely details but the pupil's ability to handle the material in a practical and even original manner. The test of language is translation and reading; the test of mathematics, solving problems; the

test of literature, not so much detailed historical knowledge as appreciation of the best and the ability to judge or criticize a piece of literature.

GENERAL SUMMARY

The machinery of studying considered in these two chapters on Methods of Work indicates a complex skill in the handling of textbooks, summaries, underscoring, outlining, notebooks, reports, supplementary reading, memorizing, and thinking with the constant checking of progress by careful application. These are fruitful topics, essential to democracy's high school, fundamental not only in formal school work, but in private studying at any time. If the pupil becomes skillful in the use of these tools, he will be able to undertake new tasks alone and also to evolve methods of work which for him are peculiarly successful. After all, each individual must eventually fashion his own method of working, but he can do so more quickly and with less need of frequent revisions if he has a general conception of what should be involved in studying.

PART II

CHAPTER IX.

SUPERVISING THE STUDY OF ENGLISH COMPOSITION

It is generally believed among school people that no subject in the high school presents so many serious problems as does English. Perhaps no subject is so frequently attacked by reformers and by foes of education. The efficiency of higher education is tested very largely by the graduates' ability to spell, to write a letter or report, and to converse or speak in public with ease and force. Pupils themselves are not enthusiastic about the studying of their mother tongue. J. C. Brown and J. A. Minnick found that English is among the subjects high school pupils prefer to drop either because they dislike it or because they deem it useless. Whatever the reasons may be for the present unrest in the English courses (and some of the reasons are quite apparent) no one will deny that English must remain in some respects the most important subject of the high school program, and that for this reason its teachers and friends must devise methods aiming at a soundly practical as well as cultural plan of development and study.

1 "A Study of the Preferences of Secondary School Pupils for the Various Subjects and of the Ranking of the Various Subjects on the Basis of Utility as Judged by the Pupils," Educational Administration and Supervision, Vol. I, No. 8, October, 1915, pp. 527–545.

English, however, is made up of five or six problems, namely, grammar, written composition, spelling, oral composition, public speaking, and literature which includes oral reading. Each of these will now be discussed from the pupil's point of view as well as the teacher's in supervising study.

I. GRAMMAR

Should the pupil be required to study formal grammar in high school? May it not be true that much of the dislike toward English is due to the unbalanced emphasis on this particular phase of the course? These are two common questions. Advocates of formal grammar argue that by this study the pupil is trained in accurate thinking and correct speaking. By habitually attending to the niceties of form, he grows to like and to speak with ease the English of educated people. In this way the pupil is able to counteract the influences of an environment wherein the correct form of English is habitually disregarded and even scorned. Doubtless the mark of a truly educated man and woman is their easy observance of grammatical form. "He don't," "I done it," "It is me," "He done it good," etc., are marks of inferiority and often bar the users of them from desirable employment and social connections.

It is doubtful, however, if the study of formal grammar in high school will serve the end desired. Imitation is a powerful counterforce. Pupils may speak correctly in the school, but on the street or at home fall into the habits of their associates. Before reaching high school the pupil should have been thoroughly drilled in correct speaking. This is the period when habits of correct speech are most easily formed, not