Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/78

66 stand pre-eminently above any other series yet published. The little book exemplifies most thoroughly the principle of apperception. Its exercises are very carefully graded. The steps are for the most part just difficult enough, so that the pupil is able, by using the ideas he has already gained, and the power he has acquired in gaining those ideas, to solve the next step. The book is based upon the heuristic or inventive method of teaching, and is a remarkable example of this. These factors unquestionably contribute much to the delight which pupils find in this study. But these factors, valuable as they are, are not sufficient to account for the command which pupils possess over the knowledge gained and their power to revive that knowledge and use it, as well as to find interest in it long after they have passed their examinations and have laid the study aside. There is another potent factor assisting these. The exercises call into use a very important part of the motor side. The pupil is continually busy with his hands as he brings into requisition ruler, compasses, pencil, pen, etc. The hands and the eye work in harmonious conjunction, and thus important motor elements become constituent parts of the notions and judgments acquired. An augmented power of perception, and consequently greater stimulation, results, and because of this the pupil produces forms which would not be produced if he studied printed diagrams and tried to build these up in imagination. Accordingly, his judgments of the relations of lines, angles, surfaces, planes, solids, and areas are multiplied to an enormous extent.

The last application I shall point out is in a branch of study where the employment of the motor side would be least thought of, and where it would lessen the burdens of pupils and preclude the discomfiture of teachers. The branch of study referred to is that of modern languages. Books are the repositories of knowledge, we have been told, but that is no reason why the pupil should begin and end his acquirement of a modern language by closely adhering to the pages of a text-book. I trust the reader will not misinterpret me. I do not wish to abolish text-books. I would not, however, by their use hold the child down to one narrow avenue of acquirement. The printed page is greatly like a photograph—it gives but one point of view. It must, however, be conceded in this connection that there are a few, a very small percentage, of those who enter upon the study of a foreign language that apparently get on easily with acquirement from the printed page. Most teachers of the languages doubtless belong to this class, but that is no reason why the method by which they learned should hold sway. The fact is that a large majority of students do find this way of acquirement very hard, and many become discouraged and give up effort. I think it will be conceded that the