must understand and keep constantly in mind the nature and sequence of experiences made necessary in the nature of child life thru which the educational movement takes place. She must understand subjective method. She must also understand the sequence of these experiences made necessary in the organization of the subjects of study and practice. upon which the child is put to work. She must understand the objective method. She must grasp the principles involved in these conditions in order to know what her practice must conform to; to know what her limits are; to have a guiding line for the definition of her procedure in the class-room. The teacher must understand the fundamental principles of education in order to be independent, in order to be helpfully self-critical. However efficient she may be, however great her experience, or fortunate her instinct for the right thing to do, she is dependent upon the insight of a supervisor to know whether she is doing the right thing, or doing it in the right way, if she is not grounded in correct pedagogical insight. Without at least an elementary pedagogy she has no compass. Her art is chartless. She is navigating the sea of school-room problems hit or miss, unable to know for herself just where she is or the worth of what she is doing, except as she hails a passing friend equipped with both chart and compass. Her teaching must be blind, hesitating, faltering, feeling its way, unless she is prepared to measure the worth of what she is doing, find her distance, take her soundings, and locate the channel thru which she may safely approach. The efficient teacher will not, does not, and cannot develop her art of teaching out of the body of principles by which she is governed. Teaching is not applied pedagogy. Art grows; science is elaborated. Art is subordinate to science only in the sense that it must conform to the standards. set up by science. Each rests upon its own foundation and has its particular field and law. Art has generally preceded science in time of development. There was an art of teaching before there was a psychology, or a science of education, just as there was a literary art before there was a science of discourse. Art is born and is "long." The function of science is, not to give birth to art, but rather to determine whether it is well born and to shorten it. The admonition of Professor James in discussing the relation of psychology to teaching in his "Talk to Teachers," is timely and in point. I quote the following:

I say, moreover, that you make a great, a very great, mistake, if you think that psychology, being the science of the mind's laws, is something from which you can deduce definite programs, and schemes, and methods of instruction for immediate schoolroom use. Psychology is a science, and teaching is an art; and sciences never generate arts directly out of themselves. An intermediary inventive mind must make the application, by using its originality.

The science of logic never made a man reason rightly, and the science of ethics (if there be such a thing) never made a man behave rightly. The most such sciences can do is to help us to catch ourselves up and check ourselves, if we start to reason and behave

wrongly, and to criticise ourselves more articulately after we have made mistakes. A science only lays down lines within which the rules of art must fall-laws which the follower of the art must not transgress; but what particular thing he shall positively do within those lines is left exclusively to his own genius. One genius will do his work well and succeed in one way, while another succeeds as well quite differently; yet neither will transgress the lines.

The teacher, therefore, will understand the principles of subjective and objective method, not as something out of which she may deduce rules of practice, but as a means of better defining her methods of procedure and of testing the worth of her teaching.

It is necessary also that the teacher have a definite method or code of practice, and that she understand the nature and relation of the elements with which she must work. There are at least four: The end to be accomplished; the condition of the particular child or children to be dealt with; the instrumentalities, subjects, and devices with which they are to be dealt; and the particular teacher, with her own personality, equipment, resources, gifts, and limitations, who is to deal with the children. The thing to do is to be determined from these conditions. Given the conditions, the teacher, keeping in mind the essentials of method, must determine for herself and the particular time and place the plan or practice to be pursued. This plan must be thought out each time. Variation of any element requires a corresponding modification of plan. There is not one method of teaching reading, or number, or science, but as many methods as there are lessons to present. Each lesson requires its own method; each teacher, her method; each child, its method. The actual problem of the teacher is to move the child from where he is found to where he is wanted to be. In the movement the teacher must enjoy and exercise entire liberty in the selection and employment of ways and means, instrumentalities and devices, keeping all the time within the limits fixed by the principles involved in the process. The teacher is given a set of factors with which to work, certain limits within which to keep, and a result to obtain; otherwise she is free. She may be allopathic, homopathic, eclectic, old school, or new school, always free to do the thing set out to be done in the way which for her is best, always remembering that she herself is the vital factor.

But I am to speak especially of the dangers of method. These have been suggested already in the foregoing. First of all is the danger in our pedagogical thought and practice of confusing method of education. with method of teaching. This error occurs in two forms: (a) In attempting to deduce the art of teaching directly from the principles of education, putting under the ban all practices of the schoolroom which do not show direct lineage; (b) in setting up a particular teacher's art as possessing universal validity, and therefore serving as a criterion by which all teaching shall be measured. The former of these errors is quite common with teachers trained in one variety of normal school, and is one

to which professors of pedagogy, normal-school instructors, and supervisors are particularly liable in directing and criticising the practical work of the schoolroom. Examples of this error are the so-called psychologies of language, number, and certain phases of kindergarten work; the attempt to deduce working rules from more or less crudely elaborated generalizations from child study; the attempt to develop finished writers of English prose by a study of the philosophy of style; the organization of certain normal schools in which the training course consists of a few sample lessons given to exploit further the principles dictated in the lecture room. Another instance of this error is the frequent impatience of the critic with the practice of the class-room because he observes there appeals, devices, and methods which are not written down in his philosophy. Quoting again from James :

The art of teaching grew up in the schoolroom, out of inventiveness and sympathetic concrete observation. Even where (as in the case of Herbart) the advancer of the art was also a psychologist, the pedagogics and psychology ran side by side, and the former was not derived in any sense from the latter. The two were congruent, but neither was subordinate. And so everywhere the teaching must agree with the psychology, but need not necessarily be the only kind of teaching that would so agree; for many diverse methods of teaching may equally well agree with psychological laws.

The second error is quite common with the teacher who is not equipped with a correct philosophy of teaching, or who is enamored with. her own success. Examples of this error may be found in many textbooks compiled by teachers who have met with personal success in the use of certain methods of teaching reading, or language, or number, and who assume therefrom that their plans and programs have equal validity for all children and all teachers in all times and places. The same mistake is made by the critic who would or could not follow the program he is criticising.

Another danger in the matter of method, akin to the foregoing, is the very prevalent desire for uniformity of practice. In the state system it takes the form of uniform courses of study and state adoption of textbooks. The error consists in ignoring the variation of communities in character of population, cultural conditions, and school enconomy. In the local system it is quite likely to take the form of uniform methods of government, presentation of lessons, and assignment of instruction. The error here consists in ignoring the variations in the character of the several districts of the city, and especially variation in personality, resources, and equipment of teachers. Each school has the right to do for its pupils. that which they most need to have done, and each teacher has the right to do the things to be done in the way which she can best do them.

There is always danger in prescribing programs for teachers of veiling their personality and obstructing their recourse to common-sense. After all, the best which the teacher can give the pupil is herself-her own better insight; her truer aspiration; her juster appreciation; her superior

point of view; her personality. It is thru the world dwelling in Christ and Christ dwelling in the world that the gift of redemption is obtained. It is the fertilizing contact of mature with immature spirit that communicates the better life of the one to the other, that lifts the lower to the plane of the higher. The teacher is seen in her truest relation when, like our Savior, with down-stretched hand she projects her own noble and exalted spirit into the being of little children and raises them to her side. This is her greatest contribution, and any hedging the teacher about with fine and exacting prescription of method that hinders or prevents this touch of life upon life is hurtful and to be deplored.

In the effort to make teaching scientific rather than artistic there is also danger of getting in the way of the child. The teacher is not concerned with an inert, formless mass which she is to push and pull and batter into shape. The child is a living, organized being, filled thru and thru with a method of education implanted by a keener insight than man's. He is surcharged with impulses sufficient for his development if proper relations are provided. There is grave danger in minute definition of plans and procedures of thwarting his spontaneity, of outraging his native activities, and converting him into a passive instrument to be operated on. Overexactness causes an arrest of growth often more serious in its consequences than neglect; and overemphasis of method is quite sure to fasten the interest of the teacher upon the tools of her profession rather than on the accomplishment of her mission to the child. Teaching does not exist for its own sake. It is always an agency, of value only in facilitating a process. Function is more important than agent. In critical attention to details of method there is danger of destroying the teacher's perspective and of fixing her affection upon the art itself rather than upon the giving of growth by means of the art.

DISCUSSION

SUPERINTENDENT W. H. HATCH, Oak Park, Ill.-Method which results from a full and careful study of the child or from inherent genius may be the highest type of art, and is apparently accomplished by a fullness of knowledge in some phase. Such method will arouse a hunger for more knowledge, satisfied only by more skill.

Why do we seek normal-trained teachers? Because of the inspiration of their training, their knowledge of their relations to the child and their relations to education. This knowledge usually keeps them from failure, and directs them how to start, and finally how to work out the ideal that they have gained from their training. They can build on the foundations there given them, and method saves them while they study their work, the child, and the community.

D. B. PARKINSON, president of the Southern Illinois State Normal School. We seem to consider the subject of method similarly, but differ in the significance we give to the Genius alone will not do the work; it must be coupled with knowledge of the end to be attained. Tact is a quality that will adapt the method to the end.

term.

Mr. Millis in his paper referred to (1) inspiration, (2) suggestion, and (3) imitation,

as the factors in method; but these are not always to be relied upon. Activity needs direction, physical energies need control, and the teacher needs to be the directive force. We are unjust to young teachers in regarding them as capable only of imitation. Their originality should be valued and encouraged, tho we are all to some extent imitative.

A. W. RANKIN, inspector of graded schools for Minnesota.-Normal graduates succeed most readily because of the start given them in methodical habits, the respect for their profession, and the practice given under direction. While method avails most in primary grades, the intermediate grades need it too, and need it badly. We are not in great danger of overdoing our method work; this is the peculiar field of the normal.

MISS M. ADELAIDE HOLTON, supervisor of primary grades, Minneapolis, Minn.My first question to an applicant used to be, "From what Normal are you a graduate ?" I now reserve my question until I satisfy myself as to the woman herself, and then ask her training. No method can be broader than the personality of the woman using it. Rigidly following a fixed line of procedure makes trouble. The greatest strength of a teacher is in her own personality, if she is to be a character builder. To sacrifice interest to some cut-and-dried plans is altogether too narrow a view.

MISS ADDA P. WERTZ, Carbondale, Ill.—I deplore conditions which keep a teacher's eyes upon mode of procedure rather than upon the condition of the child, and agree with Miss Holton in her estimate of the value of the teacher's personality; but the habit of methodical procedure prevents chaos in the schoolroom, and with increase of culture and progress in the point of view it results in growth to the teacher.

SUPERINTENDENT JOHN E. RICHESON, East St. Louis, Ill.-As a superintendent, I notice the use and the abuse of method and its especial need in the intermediate grades. Love for the children will evidence itself in a knowledge of their needs. Sympathy suggests means, such as awaken interest, and if not found in the school for good it will likely be received from the street for evil. I would distinguish between method in education and method in teaching, as was done in the paper read.

SUPERINTENDENT E. H. MARK, Louisville, Ky.-A teacher is judged first by her success, second by her method. Too great reliance on a fixed method means disregard of condition and neglect of opportunity.

MYTH AND HISTORY IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS: THE USE AND LIMITS OF EACH

MISS MAY H. PRENTICE, INSTRUCTOR IN THE CITY NORMAL SCHOOL, CLEVELAND, 0.

The myth, so far as it has found its way into the elementary schools, has come usually as the handmaiden of nature study. The myths oftenest used are those which are accepted as poetical interpretations of certain natural phenomena. For this use, quite frequently an illuminative one merely, and also to point a moral-sometimes a forced one-the myth has been quite generally accepted. When the myth-story is judiciously chosen and its relation to the principal subject of thought is clear, these are real uses.

History has been firmly established in the schools of civilization since civilization reached the stage of self-consciousness, and particularly since the doctrine of evolution with all its vast implications has caused men to