Page:Philosophical Review Volume 2.djvu/409

. 4.] It would be interesting to note the effects following, in this respect, upon the different methods of instruction in the primary and secondary schools. If speech is so fundamentally interwoven with thought and mental growth, the method and means of language study which emphasize conversational and written expression must be most valuable. And it may be that, even in the college course of four years, valuable auxiliary training may be had from the ‘recitation’ or oral method, as opposed to the exclusively ‘lecture’ method with only written tests.

I may add also a word of practical application on the subject of the psychology of reaction times. We have in this fact of types the explanation of the contradictory results reached by different investigators in the matter of motor reactions. Some find motor reactions shorter, as I have said above; others do not. The reason is, probably, that in some subjects the ‘sensory’ type is so pronounced that the attention can not be held on the muscular reaction without giving confusion and an abortive result. On the other hand, some persons are so clearly ‘motor’ in ordinary life that sensory reaction is, in like manner artificial, and its time correspondingly long. And