Education of the American Medical Association and the Association of American Medical Colleges, two voluntary organizations within the medical profession, which have neither legal nor coercive authority over schools, licensing boards or individual teachers or students. Organizations quite similar to these two have exercised in a smaller degree an elevating influence on corresponding forms of professional education during the last two decades. Legislation by the states now regulates more or less effectively the practice, and hence the education to practice, of the last five of the six tabulated professions, and in some degree also the quasi-professions of accountancy, nursing, etc.

Several specific examples are here given to illustrate the progress just described and the present state of certain forms of professional education. The law school of Harvard College required no previous course of study in 1857; male students, 19 years of age and of good moral character, were eligible for admission. Not until 1870 was the course extended to two years; in 1877 it was raised to three years; since 1899 only graduates of approved colleges are eligible for admission. Yet in 1916 this law school had 791 students, more than any other law school in the country except certain evening schools in Chicago and in Washington, D. C. By 1916 all but 20 of the 124 law schools reporting to the Bureau of Education prescribed three-year courses and only one remained on the one-year basis; all but 26 maintained a standard year of at least 35 weeks. The requirements for admission, until after 1870, were merely a knowledge of English and the common branches; by 1880 they were made the completion of a four-years' high school course; at the present time nearly all the better schools require the completion of at least two years of work in a college of liberal arts. Though the content of the work of these two years is not prescribed, students are urged to choose such subjects as history, politics, English literature, logic, philosophy, economics and public speaking.

The professional curriculum in law is usually quite closely prescribed during at least the first year, including contracts, torts, personal property, real property, domestic relations and criminal law; for the remainder of the course a varying degree of freedom is accorded the student. The methods of instruction have been remodeled along with the changes just noted; the original lecture system was succeeded by the textbook system, and this in turn by the "case system," in which the student makes analytical studies of actual cases decided in courts, discusses these cases in the classroom, and passes examinations on them and upon lectures dealing with the principle involved. The degree of bachelor of laws (LL.B.) is generally conferred upon the completion of the regular course; certain schools, e.g., the universities of Chicago, Michigan and Yale, confer instead the degree of doctor of law (J.D. or J.U.D.) upon those graduates who entered with an A.B. or B.S. degree from an approved college. For a fourth or graduate year the degree of master of laws (M.L.) is sometimes given.

Medical education has undergone even more striking evolution than law. The early medical schools were usually connected with colleges, but, beginning in the early 19th century, came a

period of about 75 years when the independent proprietary medical school flourished, to the grave detriment of the profession. In about a century 437 medical schools appeared in the United States and Canada, of which 162 were in operation in 1906 when the campaign for improvement began to prosper. The famous Flexner report on "Medical Education in the United States and Canada," published in 1910 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, is a landmark in both medical and professional education in North America. Concerning the majority of these numerous schools the report states:

Nothing was really essential but professors. The laboratory movement is comparatively recent. no investment was therefore involved. dissections in time supplied a skeleton

Little or Occasional in whole or in part

and a box of old bones. Other equipment there was practically none. The teaching was, except for a little anatomy, wholly didactic. The schools were essentially private ventures, money-making in spirit and object. Many of the schools had no clinical facilities whatever. The schools had two sessions of 16 to 20 weeks each; the course was ungraded and the two classes met together. The student had two chances to hear set of lectures and for the privilege paid two sets of fees. State boards were not yet in existence. The school diploma was itself a license to practice.

one

From this chaotic and almost standardless condition, medical education moved up in 25 years so that the best American schools are quite the equal of the best European schools. The universities have resumed actual and vigorous control; graded courses of medical studies, adequately based on two years of college training, including chemistry, physics and zoology, and covering four school years of approximately nine months each, are the rule. Six medical schools have already taken still more advanced ground by requiring before graduation the satisfactory completion of a fifth year to be spent in an approved hospital or in other acceptable clinical work- Minnesota, Stanford, Rush, California, Northwestern and Vermont, and six State boards have established a requirement of one year's internship for licensure to practice. Numerous full-time salaried teachers have replaced the volunteer practitionerlecturer, even in important clinical chairs. Great laboratories for instruction and research, supplemented by extensive hospitals for clinical teaching, have been built at enormous expense, sometimes by individual gifts, as in universities like Harvard, Cornell, Washington and Leland Stanford Jr., and sometimes by State or municipal appropriations, as in universities like Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa and Cincinnati, thus setting the highest standards now known in the profession. The degree of doctor of medicine (M.D.) is almost invariably conferred upon graduates. A special degree in public health (Dr.P.H. or Gr.P.H.) is given by several institutions, e.g., Michigan, Harvard and California.

Such progress meant inevitably the death of many weak and scandalous schools; by 1917 the roster of medical schools showed 96 names, of which 29 were integral parts of State universities. Proprietary, profiteering schools clearly could not live when the amount spent annually on each student in 82 schools for which an estimate was made in 1917 was $419, and the corresponding return from the student in fees was about $150, the fees ranging from $25 in Oklahoma to $275 in Columbia.

Out of 48 schools of dentistry only 12 are independent institutions. The dental curriculum covers three years of professional work. based upon four years of high school, and leads to the degree of doctor of dental surgery (D.D.S.). A movement to raise the course to four years, comparable with medicine, has attained considerable momentum with the cordial support of the leaders of the profession. Tuition fees range from $60 to $200, averaging about $150.

The schools of theology represent a wide variety of standards, from the "full salvation" school (in Kentucky) to the great group of seminaries about the Catholic University of America, the Union Theological Seminary of New York, Princeton Theological Seminary, or Boston University School of Theology, all of which as a rule require a bachelor's degree or its equivalent for admission and a threeyears course for graduation. The degree usually conferred is bachelor of divinity (B.D.) or bachelor of sacred theology (S.T.B.). The theological schools reporting to the bureau of education in 1900 and 1916 are summarized in the accompanying table. The attendance of 11,291 in 1916 included 760 women, but these figures do not include the considerable number of students in semi-professional Bible schools and institutes for training evangelists, missionaries and other church workers. Theological schools in 1916 were located in 32 States, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois having each more than 15. By denominations the distributions of 1900 and 1916 were:

All but 15 of the 71 schools of pharmacy have university or college connection. Admission requirements to the two-years course are two to four years of high school; to the fouryears course, usually the full high school course of four years. The former leads to the title of graduate in pharmacy (Ph.G.) or pharmaceutical chemist (Ph.C.), the latter to bachelor of science in pharmacy (B.S. in Phar.)

One of the chief reasons for the rapid development of veterinary medicine is found in the great demand by the Federal government for inspectors of food animals and by the farmers for the prevention or cure of swine and cattle diseases. Nine of the 22 veterinary schools are connected with state agricultural colleges. The course of four years is generally based on a high school education and leads to the degree of doctor of veterinary medicine (D.V.M.). The largest schools are those of Iowa, Cornell, Ohio, and Kansas City.

The training of teachers for the elementary schools does not fall under the heading of professional education, but the last decade has seen a gradual standardization of really pro

fessional training of teachers, comparable with the other professions in scope and severity of requirements. Few of the normal schools and colleges of education do more than incorporate into the regular undergraduate curriculum considerable courses in psychology, history of education, educational organization, and practice teaching in neighboring schools, or in collegecontrolled or laboratory schools as at the Universities of Wisconsin, Missouri and Minnesota. The better institutions limit the specialized studies in education to the last two years. Teachers College of Columbia University, which has been a graduate school since 1914, and the education divisions of graduate schools like those of Chicago, Harvard and California, are the best examples of professional courses in education, though they may not, with the exception of the first, be known technically as professional schools. The volume and significance of the researches of this group of institutions augur well for the further development of the profession.

Illustrative of the newer type of professional schools which require more than a fouryears high school course for admission, are the Graduate School of Business Administration of Harvard University, the richly endowed New York School of Philanthropy, the Tuck School of Administration and Finance of Dartmouth College and the Yale School of Forestry.

So enormously expensive has the maintenance of professional education of all kinds become, that it must more and more depend upon tax-support or upon generous endowment, and less and less upon student fees and the free services of lawyers, doctors and dentists. No first class professional school can be content with mere teaching; it must engage in investigations of new conditions and new problems, in medicine, theology and education as well as in journalism, chemistry and social service, in the strenuous endeavor to master alike the social and natural forces which affect human welfare. Hence the graduate professional school and the research institution or endowment are new integral parts of professional education at the present time. Examples of these are the Graduate School of Business Administration of Harvard, medical endowments for research in cancer at Columbia and Harvard and in urology at Johns Hopkins, the Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research at Minnesota, the Veterinary Investigation Department of Iowa State College, the Engineering Experiment Station of the University of Illinois, and the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research and School of Specific Industries of the University of Pittsburgh.

and

To meet these multiplying and mounting needs of professional education, men states have poured out during the last two decades a veritable stream of gifts and appropriations as evidence of approval of the soundness and progressiveness of the management of such schools. In 1917 the University of Chicago received nearly $5,500,000 for its medical schools. Vanderbilt, Washington, Johns Hopkins and Yale have each recently received $1,000,000 or more for medical work; Pennsylvania received more than $1,000,000 for dentistry; the Pulitzer donations to Columbia for journalism were $2,000,000. The endowments

of eight theological schools are above $1,000,000 each, three passing $2,000,000 and one (Princeton). passing $3,000,000, while the grounds, buildings and library of the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church are reported at more than $2,000,000. The building and library of the law school of the University of Chicago are estimated at $500,000, and the properties of the Harvard Law School (including $600,000 of endowment) at $2,000,000.

Bibliography.- Annual Reports of the United States Commissioner of Education; United States Bureau of Education (Bulletin, 1913, No. 4, G. E. MacLean, "Present Standards of Higher Education in the United States"); Annual Educational Numbers of the Journal of the American Medical Association (in reprints); Annual Reports of the Conferences of the Council on Medical Education; Annual Reports of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; Bulletins of the same: Flexner, "Medical Education in the United States and Canada" (No. 4, 1910); Redlich, "The Case Method in American Law Schools" (No. 8, 1914); Annual Reports of the Meetings of the Religious Education Society.

KENDRIC C. BABCOCK, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Illinois.

EDUCATION, Psychology of. In some branches of the subject, educational psychology is differentiated clearly from the general science of psychology, while in other branches the two subjects overlap. The investigation of the laws of memory, of learning, of the determinants of attention or of individual differences in endowment, has been carried on by psychologists whose interest is in the theoretical development of the science, as well as by those whose interest is in the application of psychology to education. But even in such cases, in which there is an overlapping in subject matter, the aim of the educational psychologist, which is to discover how mental growth may most effectively be promoted, usually causes him to emphasize different questions than those upon which the pure psychologist dwells. Certain branches of educational psychology, such as the psychology of learning to read, write and spell, or the construction of tests of proficiency in the school subjects, or the technique of tests of intelligence or maturity, belong wholly to this field.

The education of the child is the product of the sum of the external influences which are brought to bear upon him, and of the reactions which he makes to these influences. The study of these reactions and of their laws is the scientific foundation for rules of practice in attempting to guide and modify them. In so far as these reactions are mental their study constitutes the subject matter of educational psychology.

The differences in the child's interests and capacities as he advances from babyhood to maturity are important factors in his reactions. For the treatment of this phase of educational psychology, see the article on CHILD PSY

CHOLOGY.

Principles of Learning. In the second place the child's reactions are governed by the laws of learning,- both those which are gen

The

eral in their application and those which depend upon the child's stage of development: effect of practice upon skill or excellence of performance has been studied in the case of a variety of types of learning. One of the earliest and most valuable studies was made upon the growth of ability in the telegraphic language. A number of studies have been made of the somewhat allied process of typewriting. Some light has been thrown on human learning by studies of the behavior of animals in escaping from a cage or learning to find their v way through a maze. In the field of sensory discrimination and the development of perception a number of studies have been made - as, for example, in learning to discriminate between tones or colors, to overcome illusions, to apprehend and draw unusual figures. The progress in learning a foreign language has been traced. Numerous studies have been made of associative learning and memorizing. Memorizing has been investigated to discover the best mode of presentation, the best way of dividing material

e.g., into large or small parts, the effect of the learner's attitude, the permanence of memory under various conditions, etc. Finally the process of problem solving, as in the solution of puzzles, has been subjected to analysis.⠀

One of the characteristic features of the study of learning is the construction of the practice curves, which represents graphically the rate of progress at different stages. The form of some practice curves indicates a rapid progress in the early stages, followed by a gradually decreasing rate until progress almost ceases. In other cases, however, the progress is nearly uniform while it lasts; while in a few the progress is slow at the beginning and more rapid later on. The difference may perhaps be explained by the varying ease with which old habits may be adapted to the new task.

There are various sorts of fluctuations in the curve of progress, some of short duration and some lasting over weeks or even months. A cessation in progress over a number of practice periods has been termed a plateau. Plateaus have been found to exist in several forms of learning. A number of explanations have been suggested. The earliest was that the learner develops first certain simple habits and later more complex ones, and that while he is perfecting the simpler habits as a preparation for the complex habits no apparent progress is made. Another explanation is that the learner either spurts and hence makes errors and becomes confused, or becomes lazy and fails to push ahead.

The extent to which practice or learning produces not simply special habits or ability but also general habits, attitudes, abilities or ideas which are operative in other fields than the one in which the training has taken place has been the subject of many experiments and much debate. It is now generally agreed that there is some transfer of the effects of practice, but the amount, the nature and conditions under which it occurs and the importance of transfer are matters of considerable divergence of opinion.

Among the factors which influence the rate of progress is the distribution of the practice time. In the case of the rather simple types of learning in reference to which this has been studied rather short periods of 10 to 15 minutes

a

have proved favorable, but it is unsafe to apply this rule very widely.

The importance of mental fatigue in hindering progress in learning or in impairing mental work has been variously estimated. A distinction must be made between true mental fatigue, as represented by an actual falling off in ability to do mental work, and the mere feeling of weariness, which may or may not indicate real reduction in ability. What has often been thought to be mental fatigue may be merely loss of interest or suggestion. But the modicum of true mental fatigue which remains when this illusory fatigue is allowed for, probably hinders learning and interferes with the more difficult mental operations.

Learning in the School Subjects.-The third branch into which education psychology may be divided deals with the processes of learning which are characteristic of the school subjects. Important studies have been made of reading which reveal the nature of the behavior of the eye and of the perception of reading matter. The eyes are shown to move along each line of print intermittently, the words being perceived during the pauses only. The pauses vary in number and duration according to the subject matter, the size of print and arrangement of the lines, and the training and individuality of the reader. It is probable that the increase in the scope of perception during a reading pause and the consequent reduction in the number of pauses is a close correlate of efficiency. The most important fact about perception in reading is that it is by word wholes or groups of words. Some attention to the letters must be given in the early stages of learning, but the letters are soon subordinated by their organization into words. A factor in this organization is the association of printed with spoken words, and even in silent reading there is a more or less distinct accompaniment of inner speech.

The writing movement has been studied chiefly by making records of the movements of the fingers, hand and arm as they contribute to the total movement as it appears at the pen point, and by measuring the speed of the pen movement and the pressure which it exerts. The fingers, hand, forearm and upper arm unite in various ways in different individuals to form a very complex and difficult movement co-ordination. Some diversity among individuals is desirable. Changes in pressure and in the speed of the stroke accompany the production of the particular letter forms. The speed changes determine the rhythm of writing, which is closely related to ease and good form.

In the field of number some work has been done, particularly with the early stages of learning. The child gets his abstract idea of number through such concrete experiences as counting, measurement and manipulating grouped objects, and there has been a good deal of discussion of the relative advantage of these experiences. Among other subjects of discussion are imagery types and their bearing on number operations, the nature of the mental process in calculation and the amount and conditions of improvement in reckoning. Little study has been made of the mental process in solving complex problems.

The problem of spelling has been attacked

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from several angles, to determine, for example, the relative advantages of the drill method and the incidental method of learning, the best method of presentation of spelling words, the advantage of class study in comparison with individual study, etc. Elaborate studies have also been made of adult writing vocabularies in order to discover what words should be taught.

Studies of drawing have been directed chiefly toward the development of drawing ability and interest in the child. They have shown that the young child uses drawing as a language to express his ideas with a great deal of freedom, and have led to the acceptance of much crudity in his early work, in the knowledge that greater faithfulness of representation will come later.

There has been discussion of the psychology of other subjects, such as language and literature, history, geography and science, but little experimental investigation.

Tests in the School Subjects.- Besides experiments which are designed to discover the nature of the learning process in school subjects there have been in the past few years for the most part since 1910-many attempts to devise standard methods or tests to make possible comparable measurement of the proficiency of children in the school subjects. These tests in some cases are made by the help of "scales" or series of specimens of pupils' products in the subject in question, graded so as to represent regularly ascending degrees of excellence, with which the products to be graded may be compared. Of this sort are several handwriting scales, a scale for judging English composition and a scale for drawing. Such scales do not by any means eliminate judgment in grading, and it is found necessary to give graders training before their scoring is uniform or comparable to the scoring of other grades; but it is possible by the use of such scales to obtain more accurate comparisons of the work of different groups of pupils than without them. The handwriting scales have proved the most successful on account of the greater ease with which excellence can be defined in handwriting than in such subjects as composition or drawing.

The other type of test consists of a series of tasks which are carefully selected so as to represent essential phases of a subject of study, and which elicit responses from the pupils which can be definitely and objectively graded. The units which enter into such a test are carefully graded by preliminary application. Sometimes they are made of as nearly equal difficulty and sometimes of progressive difficulty. The latter arrangement is desirable when pupils of a wide range of ability are to be tested. Tests of this general nature have been used chiefly in the subjects of arithmetic, reading, spelling and algebra, while beginnings have been made in some of the other subjects.

Among the questions which are being vigorously attacked by the use of tests are individual differences in the attainment of pupils in their mastery of the school subjects and the accompanying large overlapping in the ability of pupils of different ages and school grades, the large variation in the results obtained in different classes, schools or school systems, the causes of these variations and the relation of