principles to new situations. Arithmetic, literature, history, geography, and most of the other subjects are rich in this sort of opportunity. There are times when the teacher should assign work peculiarly suited to develop this phase of thinking, and allow time in the recitation period for consideration of worthy contributions by the class. Testing the hypotheses is a significant factor in the solution of a problem. In other words, this step consists in making actually real what has been only theoretically real. In the case of the door bell it involves tightening the wires at the posts, adjusting the automatic breaker until it works freely, and testing the strength of the current. In the squaring of a polynomial it consists in actually performing the operations suggested by the rule. It is important that these processes be as skillful as possible. Speed and accuracy at this stage in problem solving are indispensable. They are attainable only through an enormous amount of drill. This drill should be lively and usually at regular periods. It has been demonstrated by experimentation that students who have been drilled upon the fundamental operations in arithmetic make higher grades on examinations involving thought processes than do those who have not been so drilled. This is due to the fact that those who are skilled in the mechanical processes have mental energy released for the thought processes, which otherwise would be utilized. It is relatively easy to build houses, span streams, eliminate trusts, provide prohibition, and irrigate vast areas of arid land upon paper. It is more difficult to do these things in reality. The acid test of the mastery of a principle is in its application. Verification in the truest sense means such an application. It involves the application of principles to the bank discount with which the local bank has to deal and to the denominate numbers involved in the household problems the several children of the class have to face. In its practical aspect verification means the application of the theories acquired to concrete situations. Teachers who are more than imitators, who teach as they do because of a consciousness of the value of principles involved, will recognize that there is yet an abundant opportunity to make verification explicit. The waste here is just as marked as in the inductive process. Practical results are needed as much here as there. It is not enough to demand of pupils that they solve problems. It is quite as important that they solve them with as little expenditure of energy and time as possible. The problem should be set so as to arouse a felt difficulty; to stimulate a diligent examination of data; to provide feasible tentative hypotheses; to insure a searching test of the hypotheses; and to impel a comprehensive verification of the dominant one. When all of these steps have been considered carefully, one may rest assured that the problem is solved satisfactorily. CHAPTER VII HABIT FORMATION Scope of Habit. The relative amount of habit in the performance of one's work, indeed, in the enjoyment of one's leisure, is greater than he is apt to suspect. From the moment one awakens in the morning until he falls asleep at night, he is constantly exercising this significant form of control. The major portion of life's activities arising, dressing, starting the fire, eating, discussing the incidents of daily life, walking to and from the car, doing the chores on the farm, in fact, the hundred-and-one other details of office or shop or farm, are mainly automatisms which require little or no reflection or reflective guidance on the part of him who performs them. With the advancement of civilization comes an increase in the complexity of the social structure. The social organism becomes highly differentiated and specialized, requiring delicacy of adjustment on the part of the individuals who constitute it. Along broad lines the individual's adjustments to the social organism of which he is a part may be grouped into two main classes: those which have to do with an adequate understanding, appreciation, and adaptation of the individual to the social organism of which he is a part; and those which have to do with the special adaptations he must make in the particular vocation he has elected. The second class of adjustments does not necessarily require a higher degree of skill than does the first. The particular acts of the painter, plumber, typist, cabinetmaker, weaver, or telegrapher require no more skill than is required in the art of verbal expression, in determining numerical relations, and in conforming to the various conventions which in general weld the various parts of the social structure together. To assume that more skill is required to control a paint brush than to control the "mother tongue" adequately; to set type than to prepare the selection being set up; to "click off" on a telegraph instrument the status of the world's markets than to determine the changed condition of those markets, is absurd. These two classes of skill are different yet both are highly important. It is not true that one is inferior to the other. Both are essential. It is not our purpose to enter into a discussion of the relative importance of these two classes of adjustment. It is certain that the first class should not receive less consideration as society becomes more highly differentiated. With the breaking down of the apprentice system, the curtailing of the responsibilities of the home, the awakening consciousness of the fact that adjustments of the first class aid the professions more than they aid the trades, there is a growing conviction that the school is not giving sufficient consideration to preparation for the trades. It is pretty certain, however, that the public school will always give first consideration to the establishment of the controls which underlie the broader social adjustments. It will insist upon a basic general education to safeguard the whole of society before it provides training in vocational skill. Doubtless there should be training for both forms of preparation at the same time. RELATION OF HABITS TO EFFICIENCY Correct Habits Conserve Energy. — In a discussion on a method of teaching one is more concerned in the relation of habit to efficiency than he is in the general characteristics of habit. The conservation of energy is a vital factor in efficiency. In all activities in which habit has not become specific, energy lacks definite control and positive guidance, and consequently is subject to great waste. One who is not skilled in threading a needle will utilize excessive energy in performing the task. Skating, dancing, horseback riding, controlling and directing a new machine, playing a new game, in fact performing any new and unfamiliar activity exhausts the novice, while one skilled in the performances of these acts will experience little or no fatigue. Correct Habits Release Energy. Not only do adequate habits reduce the useless expenditure of energy but they release and thereby allow of a redistribution and concentration of energy at the most strategic points. If one is riding a bicycle for the first time it is probable that his mental energy is so consumed in controlling the front wheel in order to maintain an upright position that he has little or no energy left to reflect upon how to dodge the hole in the road which he suddenly approaches. One who has reduced the upright control of a bicycle to habit will have all of his energy free to reflect upon the various possible ways of dodging the hole mentioned. One dancing or skating for the first time will find him |