the introductory course of a course in philosophy, it is usually restricted to one Length of semester, with three hours of class work per week. When psychology is an independent subject in the curriculum, a two-semester course is usually provided, since it is the feeling of psychologists that this amount of time is needed in order to make the student really at home in the subject, and to realize for him the values that are looked for from psychology. Often there is a break between the two semesters of such a course, the second being devoted to advanced or social or applied psychology. Sometimes, on the other hand, the two-semester course is treated as a unit, the various topics being distributed over the year; this latter procedure is probably the one that finds most favor with psychologists. Still, good results can be obtained with the semester course supplemented by other courses. advanced courses in The most frequent advanced course is one in experimental Content of psychology. This is taken by only a small fraction of those who have taken the introductory course, partly be- psychology cause the laboratory work attached to the experimental course demands considerable time from the student, partly because students are not encouraged to not encouraged to go into the laboratory unless they have a pretty serious interest in the subject. For a student who has it in him to become somewhat of an "insider" in psychology, no course is the equal of the laboratory course, supplemented by judicious readings in the original sources or in advanced treatises. Next in frequency to the experimental course stands that in applied psychology, since the recent applications of psychology to business, industry, vocational guidance, law, and medicine appeal to a considerable number of college students. Other courses which appear not infrequently in college curricula are those in social, abnormal, and animal psychology. No precise order is necessary in the taking of these courses, and it is not customary to make any yond the introductory course prerequisite for the others. ROBERT S. WOODWORTH Columbia University be BIBLIOGRAPHY Many of the textbooks contain, in their prefaces, important suggestions toward the teaching of the subject. There are also frequent articles in the psychological journals on apparatus for demonstrations and class or laboratory experiments. 1. Report of the Committee of the American Psychological Association on the Teaching of Psychology. Psychological Monographs, No. 51, 1910. 2. American Psychological Association, Report of the Committee on the Academic Status of Psychology, 1915: "The Academic Status of Psychology in the Normal Schools." 66 3. Same Committee, 1916: A Survey of Psychological Investigations with Reference to Differentiations between Psychological Experiments and Mental Tests." Concerned with the availability of mental tests as material for the experimental course. 4. Courses in Psychology for the Students' Army Training Corps. Psychological Bulletin, 1918, 15, 129-136. See also the Outlines of parts of the course in the same journal, pages 137–167, 177-206; and a note on the success of the courses by Edgar S. Brightman, in the Bulletin for 1919, pages 24-26. XVII THE TEACHING OF EDUCATION A. TEACHING THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN THE HERE are three main kinds of educational value; viz., practical, cultural, and disciplinary. These three types of educational value probably originated in the order in which they are here mentioned. In early educational periods, all values are practical, or utilitarian. With the growth of social classes, some values become cultural; viz., those pursued by the upper classes. The disciplinary values are recognized when studies cease to have the practical and cultural values. By the "educational value" of a subject we mean, of course, the service which the pursuit of that subject renders. Any one subject will naturally have all three values, but no two subjects will have the same values mixed in the same proportion. The practical value of a subject depends on the use in life to which it can be put, especially its use in making a living. The cultural value of a subject depends largely on the enjoyment it contributes to life. While culture does not make a living, it makes it worth while that a living should be made. The disciplinary value of a subject depends on the amount of mental training that subject affords. Such mental training is available in fur. ther pursuit of the same, or a similar, subject. It is the fashion of educational thinking in our day to put greatest stress on the practical values, less on the cultural, and least on the disciplinary. There is no denying the reality of each type of value. Kinds of educational values Meaning of values educational education Now, what is the value of the history of education? Value of the There are no experimental studies as yet, nor scientific history of measurements, upon which to base an answer. The poor best we can do is to express an opinion. This opinion is Its cultural value Its practical value based on the views of others and on the writer's experience in teaching the history of education ten years in a liberal college (Dartmouth) and ten years in a professional graduate school (New York University). On this basis I should say that the aim of the history of education, at least as recorded in existing texts, is first cultural, then practical, and last disciplinary. Texts yet to be written for the use of teachers in training may shift the places of the cultural and the practical. This new type of text will give the history, not of educational epochs in chronological succession, but of modern educational problems in their origin and development.1 As cultural, the history of education is the record of the efforts of society to project its own ideals into the future through shaping the young and plastic generation. There comes into this purview the successive social organizations, their ideals, and the methods utilized in embodying these ideals in young lives. Interpretations of the nature of social progress, the contribution of education to such progress, and the goal of human progress, naturally arise for discussion, and the history of education well taught as the effort of man to improve himself is both informing and inspiring. This is the cultural value of the history of education. The sense of the meaning and value of human life is enhanced. As President Faunce says, "A college of arts and sciences which has no place for the study of student life past and present, no serious consideration of the great schools which have largely created civilization, is a curiously one-sided and illiberal institution." 2 As practical, the history of education, even when taught 1" A New Method in the History of Education," School Review Monographs, No. 3. H. H. Horne. 2 Quoted in School and Society, Vol. 5, page 23, from President Faunce's annual report. Recent articles on the cultural value of courses in education are: J. M. Mecklin, "The Problem of the Training of the Secondary Teacher," School and Society, Vol. 4, pages 64-67. H. E. Townsend, "The Cultural Value of Courses in Education," School and Society, Vol. 4, pages 175-176. from the customary general texts, throws some light on such everyday school matters as educational organization, the best methods of teaching, the right principles of education for women, how to manage classes, and the art of administering education. History cannot give the final answer to such questions, but it makes a contribution to the final answer in reporting the results of racial experience and in assisting students to understand present problems in the light of their past. The history of education has a prac tical value, but it is not alone the source of guidance. plinary value As disciplinary, the history of education shows the value Its disciof all historical study. The appeal is mainly to the memory and the judgment. The teaching is inadequate, if the appeal is only to the memory. The judgment must also be requisitioned in comparing, estimating, generalizing, and applying. Memory is indispensable in retaining the knowledge of the historical facts, and judgment is utilized in seeing the meaning of these facts. With all studies in general, history shares in training perceptive, associative, and effortful activities. Training in history is commonly supposed also to make one conservative, in contrast with training in science, which is supposed to make one progressive. But this result is not necessary, being dependent upon one's attitude toward the past. If past events are viewed as a lapse from an ideal, the study of history makes one conservative and skeptical about progress. If, on the other hand, the past is viewed as progress toward an ideal, the study of history makes one progressive, and expectant of the best that is yet to be. But, even so, familiarity with the past breeds criticism of quick expedients whereby humanity is at last to arrive. On the whole, the disciplinary value of the history of education is attained as an incident of its cultural and practical values. We are no longer trying to discipline the mind by memorizing lists of names and dates, though they be such euphonious names as those of the native American Indian tribes, but we are striving to understand man's past and present efforts at conscious self-improvement. |