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is an admirable organ for the development of the student's power of reasoning. But to give the student this training it is not necessary to keep him in the dark as to what he is to learn. The Socratic method is still unexIcelled in the discussion of a text and of lectures in which propositions are clearly laid down and explained. The theorem in geometry is first stated, and then the student is conducted step by step through the reasoning leading to that conclusion. Should not the student of economics have presented to him in a similar way the idea or principle, and then be required to follow the reasoning upon which it is based? Then, through questions and problems,— the more the better, if time permits of their thorough discussion and solution, the student may be exercised in the interpretation of the principles, and by illustrations drawn from history and contemporary conditions may be shown the various applications of the principle to practical problems. To get and hold the student's interest, to fascinate him with the subject, is equal in importance to the method, for without interest good results are impossible.1

1 To a former student of mine and now a successful teacher, Dean J. R. Turner of New York University, I am indebted for the suggestion of the following practical rules, a few among many possible, which should be helpful to younger teachers:

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(a) Keep the student expecting a surprise, afraid to relax attention for fear of missing something.

(b) By Socratic method lead him into error, then have him (under cross fire and criticism of class) reason his way out. (c) Make fallacious argument, then call for criticism giving distinction to him who renders best judgment.

(d) Set tasks and have members of class compete in intellectual contests.

(e) Make sure that each principle learned is seen in its relationship to practical affairs.

(f) Enliven each dry principle with an anecdote or illustra-
tion to elucidate it, for principles devoid of interesting
features cannot secure attention and so will not be re-
membered.

(g) Accompany the discussion with charts and board work to
visualize facts and questions to stimulate thought.
(h) Ask questions and so handle the class discussions that a

Tests of teaching results

It must be confessed that no exact objective measure of the efficiency of teaching methods in economics has been found. At best we have certain imperfect indices, among which are the formal examination, the student's own opinion at the close of the course, and the student's revised opinion after leaving college.

The primary purpose of the traditional examination is not to test the relative' merits of the different methods of teaching, but to test the relative merits of the various students in a class, whatever be the method of teaching. Every teacher knows that high or low average marks in an entire class are evidences rather of the standard that he is setting than it is of the merits of his teaching methods,though in some cases he is able to compare the results obtained after using two different methods of exposition for the same subject. But, as was indicated above, such a difference may result from his own temperament and may point only to the method that he can best use, not to the best absolutely considered. Moreover, the teacher may make the average marks high or low merely by varying the form and content of the examination papers or the strictness of his markings.

Each ideal and method of teaching has its corresponding type of examination. Descriptive and concrete courses lend themselves naturally to memory tests; theoretical courses lend themselves to problems and reasoning. A high type of question is one whose proper answer necessitates knowledge of the facts acquired in the course together with an interpretation of the principles and their application to new problems. Memory tests serve to mark off "the sheep from the goats as regards attention and

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few will not do all the talking, that foreign subject matter is not introduced, that a consistent and logical development of thought is strictly adhered to.

(i) The last few minutes of the period might well be devoted to the assignment for the next meeting. The best manner of assignment must depend upon the nature of task, the advancement of the student, the purpose in view.

faithful work; reasoning tests serve to give a motive for disciplinary study and to measure its results. It may perhaps seem easier to test the results of the student's work in memory subjects; but even as to that we know that there are various types of memory and how much less significant are marks obtained by "the cramming process" than are equally good marks obtained as a result of regular attention to daily tasks.

The students' revised and matured judgment of the value of their various college studies generally differ, often greatly, from their judgments while taking or just after completing the courses. Yet even years afterward can man judge rightly in his own case just what has been the relative usefulness to him of the different elements of his complex college training, or of the different methods employed? But the evidence that comes from the most successful alumni to the college teacher in economics is increasingly to the effect that the college work they have come to value most is that which "teaches the student to think." Our judgments in this matter are influenced by the larger educational philosophy that we hold. Each will have his standard of spiritual values.

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tions in economics

affecting

the teach

ing of the

subject

The moot questions in the teaching of the subject have, Moot quesperhaps, been sufficiently indicated, but we may here add a word as to the bearings which certain moot questions 1 An interesting study made by the department of education of Harvard University of the teaching methods and results in the department of economics was referred to in President Lowell's report. According to the answers of the alumni their work in economics is now valued mainly for its civic and disciplinary results (these do not seem to have been further distinguished). In the introductory course reading was ranked first, class work next, and lectures least, in value. In the advanced courses the lecture was ranked higher and class work lower, but that may be because the lecture plays a more important rôle there than in the lower classes. Answers regarding such matters are at most significant as indicating the relative importance of the various methods as they have actually been employed in the particular institution, and have little validity in reference to the work and methods of other teachers working under other conditions, and with students having different life aims.

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in the theory of the subject may have on the methods of teaching. The fundamental theory of economics has, since the days of Adam Smith, been undergoing a process of continuous transition, but the broader concepts never have been more in dispute than in the last quarter century in America. The possibility of such diversity of opinion in the fundamentals among the leading exponents of the subject argues strongly that economics is still a philosophy a general attitude of mind and system of opinion — rather than a positive science. At best it is a "becoming science which never can cease entirely to have a speculative, or philosophic character. This is not the place to go into details of matters in controversy. Suffice it to say that in rivalry to the older school—which is variously designated Ricardian, Orthodox, English, or classical - newer ideas have been developed, dating from the work of the Austrian economists, of Jevons, and of J. B. Clark in the last decades of the nineteenth century. The older school had sought the explanation of value and the theory of distribution in objective factors, partly in the chemical qualities of the soil, partly in labor, partly in the costs (or outlays) of the employing class. The psychological factor in value had been almost eliminated from this older treatment of value and price, or at best was imperfectly recognized under the name of "utility." The newer school made the psychological element primary in the positive treatment of economic principles, and launched a negative criticism against the older terms and ideas that effectively exposed their unsoundness considered separately and their inconsistency as a system of economic thought. Both the negative criticisms and the proposed amendments taken one by one gained wide acceptance among economists. But when it came to embodying them in a general theory of economics, many economists have balked.1 Most of the

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1 The typical attitude of many economists is expressed about as follows: It is one thing to give assent to refinements when they are used in the discussion of some single point of theory, and it is quite another thing to accept them when one sees how, in their

American texts in economics and much of our teaching show disastrous effects of this confusion and irresolution. The newer concepts, guardedly admitted to have some validity, appear again and again in the troubled discussions of recent textbook writers, which usually end with a rejection, "on the whole," of the logical implications of these newer concepts. Many teachers thus have lost their grip on any coördinating theory of distribution. They no longer have any general economic philosophy. The old Ricardian cock-sureness had its pedagogic merits. Without faith, teaching perishes. The complaints of growing difficulty in the teaching of the introductory course seem to have come particularly from teachers that are in this unhappy state of mind. They declare that it is impossible longer to interest students successfully in a general theoretical course, and they are experimenting with all kinds of substitutes-de-nicotinized tobacco and Kaffee Hagfrom which poisonous theory has been extracted. At the same time, economics "with a punch in it," economics with a back bone," is being taught by strong young teachers of the new faith more successfully, perhaps, than economics has ever been taught in the past. This greater question of the teacher's conception of economics dominates all the minor questions of method. Economics cannot be taught as an integrated course in principles by teachers without theoretical training and conceptions; in such hands its treatment is best limited to the descriptive phases of concrete special problems,― valuable, indeed, as a background and basis, but never rising to the plane upon

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combined effect, they would carry us away from "the old familiar moorings."

Such a view, it need not be urged, reflects an unscientific state of mind. The real cause of the rejection of the ideas probably is the shrinking of over-busy men, in middle life, and absorbed in teaching and in special problems, from the intellectual task of restudying the fundamentals and revising many of their earlier formed opinions to say nothing of rewriting many of their old lectures and manuscripts.

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