years had been years of "experience," and would have been strongly urged as an important qualification had his name been under consideration for promotion or for transfer to another institution. Yet the entire hour that I spent in his class was given up to the dictation of an abstract of the text-book. This, he told me, was his usual method. The students took down the dictation, word for word, in a dull, listless way, and gave a sigh of mingled despair and relief when it came to an end. This process went on several times weekly for either one or two years. I ascertained from the instructor that he called it "hammering the facts home." He is, for aught I know, "hammering" yet, and now has some additional "experience" to his credit. So have his pupils.

No amount of psychological learning could make it impossible for the inquirer to find cases like this, and the hundreds of others of which they are typical, in the schools and colleges; but a psychological training on the part of the teacher would go far to diminish their number. Professor Royce pointed out1 several years ago that what the teacher has chiefly to gain from the study of psychology is not

1 "Is There a Science of Education?" in Educational Review, (New York, 1891), I, 15-25; 121-132.

rules of procedure, but the psychological spirit. The teacher, he adds, should be a naturalist and cultivate the habit of observing the mental life of his pupils for its own sake. In this he will follow the method common to all naturalists: "What is here in this live thing? Why does it move thus? What is it doing? What feelings does it appear to have? What type of rudimentary intelligence is it showing?" Such questions as these form the habit of watching minds, and of watching them closely. This habit is the surest road to good teaching, and its formation is the best service that psychology can render to the classroom. Until a teacher has acquired that habit and subordinated his schoolroom procedure to it, he is not teaching at all; at best he is either lecturing or hearing recitations.

Apperception

We are chiefly indebted to the students and The doctrines followers of Herbart for the present wide- of Herbart: spread interest in this country in two psycho- and interest logical doctrines of the greatest importance for all teaching-the doctrine of apperception and the doctrine of interest. The former has to do with mental assimilation, the latter with the building of character and ideals. I know of no more fruitful field for the application of both of these than the freshman year of the

college course. My observation has taught me that the work of the freshman class in college is, as a rule, very ineffective. College teachers who admit this fact are in the habit of accounting for it by alleging the difficulty of welding into a homogeneous mass the new students of different advantages, training, and mental habits. The task is more than difficult; it is impossible, and ought never to be attempted, much less encouraged. That it goes on year after year in a hundred colleges. is due to the strait-jacket system of class teaching, by which we defy the rules of God and man to the glory of what, in our professional cant, we call "sound education." If we could secure a hearing for the doctrine of apperception, all this would be changed. We should then recognize in our practise as we do in our faith that the mind is not a passive recipient of the impressions that reach it; that it reacts upon them, colors them, and makes them a part of itself in accordance with the tendency, the point of view, and the possessions that it already has. This tendency, this point of view, and these possessions differ in the case of every individual. Instead of overlooking or seeking to annul these differences, we should first understand them and then

base our teaching upon them. If the first month of freshman year were spent in carefully ascertaining the stage of development, in power and acquirement, that each pupil had reached, it would be possible so to order and adjust the work of the year as to make it useful and educative. I have known case after case in which the opposite policy of treating all upon one plane, and making the same demands upon all, has made a college course a source of positive harm; it also accounts, in greater measure than we are aware of, for the large proportion of students who fall away at the end of the freshman and sophomore years. Yet so long as college teachers know so little psychology as to cling to the old dogma of formal discipline-which adds to real value some very distinct limitations-and continue to pound away on so much mathematics to train the reasoning powers and so much Greek grammar to train something else, regardless of the content of the instruction and of all other considerations-just so long will one mind be lost or injured for every one that is saved or benefited. As Colonel Parker has so forcibly said: "We dwell on those who have been saved by our older methods, but who has counted the lost?"

The situation is not very different with respect to the doctrine of interest. We continually complain that valuable and necessary instruction given in school and in college is forgotten, that it is not retained, not extended, and not applied. The fault lies partly, no doubt, with the pupils, but largely with ourselves. We have still to learn what interest means, how it is changed from indirect to direct, and how it is built up into a permanent element of character. We are inexperienced in seeking out and seizing upon the present and temporary interests of the student, and in using them as a factor in training. It is a common thing to hear it said that since life is full of obstacles and character is strengthened by overcoming them, so the school and college course should not hesitate to compel students to do distasteful and difficult things simply because they are distasteful and difficult. I do not hesitate to say that I believe that doctrine to be profoundly immoral and its consequences calamitous. But, it is answered, you certainly would not trust to a student's whims and allow him to do or not do as he pleases. Certainly not; and that is not the alternative. The proper and scientific course is to search for the pupil's empirical and natural interests,