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consciousness of its relation to vital life interests and problems.

Simple interest is peculiarly well-suited to stimulate sensation, to energize drill exercises, and to supplement motive in times of fag and distraction. Motive, on the other hand, is an indication of a definite purpose. Under its spell pupils have a definitely established aim and proceed to select and apply materials in its realization. It is the dominant emotional stimulus of after-school days, and consequently should be initiated early in the school career of children.

When simple interest is the dominant stimulus to pupil activity, such activity is play for the child. When his activity is directed by positive motive he is at work. When he performs an act because of a negative motive the act is drudgery for him.

Since ideals and prejudices are important factors in motive and since they may or may not be in harmony with the social welfare, it is highly important that the teacher stimulate only those ideals and prejudices which are in accord with social sanction.

CHAPTER IX

MEANS OF GENERATING RESPONSIBILITY

The Meaning of Responsibility. The state has prescribed an age of responsibility. By this is meant that the individual has a free will in conducting his legal affairs. An "age of responsibility" has a more subtle and significant social meaning than this, and one fraught with greater social significance. It means that one has acquired the power of self-direction, including the twofold process of selecting aims and the specific means by which the aims can be realized. It means that one who is responsible is free to initiate endeavor and that he must take the consequences of the results of such endeavor, or lack of endeavor, at whatever cost.

The presence of a sense of responsibility, wherever and however it may be manifested, indicates that the individual has come into his own right as a social factor. It means he has cast off the last vestige of overlordship and has emerged into the full stature of psychic life.

Earmarks of Responsibility. — The psychic characteristics of such a changed condition are manifold and significant. Interests are more highly specialized than before. Selected processes are more in evidence; evaluation is a more dominant factor; and energy is more specifically directed in the laying out and execution of plans. Psychologically one has passed from the dominance of generic

values to that of specific values; from a state of dominant external influence to one of internal direction.

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The Evolution of Responsibility. A sense of responsibility is an acquired and not an inherited trait. In this respect the child is largely a victim of his environment. His institutional contacts the home, the church, and the school are by far the most influential of the environmental agencies which determine his destiny.

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The home is perhaps a more potent agency in the creation of responsibility than is the school. The church, because of its limited opportunity, is the least significant in this connection of these institutions. Herbert Spencer pointed out that one of the fundamental aims of education is adequate training in the "rearing and disciplining of offspring.' For some unaccountable reason the school has lacked either the insight or the courage, or both, to face this responsibility.

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We have seen fit to enrich the ideals, to increase the knowledge, to determine the skills of pupils, while we have refused to supply instruction and training in the high schools, which bear directly upon the home training of children. This position of the public school is analogous to that of a state which provides no educational direction for its future citizens. The position of the school in this matter is so obtuse and the results so far-reaching, that one wonders why private schools do not engage in this work. The business acumen of private educators has often led them to sense public needs before those who direct the agencies of public education. This crying need of society may give occasion for history to repeat itself. The above suggestion is an infringement upon the right 1 Education, Spencer.

of students of school administration. Our specific purpose here is to point out ways and means of conducting the classroom in order to economize the time and energy of pupils by pointing out practical ways of stimulating a positive degree of responsibility.

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Character of Teaching When Responsibility is Absent. Teaching which touches the "learning spot" before a marked sense of responsibility has been established is indeed a fine art. It involves an explicit understanding of individual characteristics, of racial tendencies, of values associated with both, of established habits and their bearing upon the learning process, and of the appropriate stimuli to use under the circumstances. In this stage of teaching the responsibility is primarily with the teacher. She may assume it, or she may shirk it and thus be a drag to the proper unfolding of the child's life. In the latter event, there may be no prick of conscience or no retribution on her part, but there will be an unnecessary impediment in the life of the child, an impediment which society is morally obligated to prevent.

As the pupil becomes more and more self-directing, teaching as a consciously directed process becomes less necessary. It behooves the teacher of children, therefore, to arouse this sense of responsibility by every means known to the profession. In the present stage of method one can scarcely hope that a discussion of this topic will exhaust the list of means, or evaluate satisfactorily the relative merit of each member in the list.

SUBJECT-MATTER: A POSITIVE MEANS

A most wholesome and far-reaching means of arousing responsibility is subject-matter itself. It is both positive

and concrete. Responsibility develops from a thorough understanding of the sequence of topics in an organization, and of their relative value. It is the type of responsibility possessed by true scientists, historians, economists, artists,

in fact by all who have mastered a particular section of the world's knowledge. It is the sort of responsibility possessed by Darwin, Koch, Pasteur, Gibbon, Macaulay, Galton, Kidd, Spencer, Franklin, and a multitude equally illustrious in their respective fields of knowledge.

Once imbued with the spirit of investigation and research, and fired with a desire for greater insight and a more thorough mastery of materials, the pupil is well on the road to independence and self-direction.

The Function of Organization. An advance towards a sense of responsibility is attained when the pupil conceives the inner relation of structure and function. Until he becomes conscious that purpose determines structure and consequently is revealed by it, he will not take pride in perfecting his own handiwork or find pleasure in scrutinizing and evaluating the handiwork of others. Teachers who do not stress order, consistency, relative values, and the intrinsic function of subject-matter have not taken advantage of their opportunity to enlarge the child's sense of responsibility.

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The Causal Factor. Once the relative value of the parts of an organization is known, it is a much easier task to recognize the causal factor. Nothing will give a keener edge to the intellect than experience in determining the causal factor of events and situations. Who has not observed the wonderful intellectual development of pupils which resulted from a brief course in physical geography, physics, botany, chemistry, economics, or sociology?

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