higher degree of control over them and of skill in their use.

A more complete statement of just what are the specific elements of technique in the thinking process and what is the function of each in facilitating that process must be postponed for future chapters. Our task for the present will be limited to the attempt to clarify, illustrate, develop, and apply the doctrine of identity of function with difference in technique as a point of view for studying the thinking process.

3. IDENTITY OF FUNCTION WITH DIFFERENCE IN TECHNIQUE.1

(1) Importance of the idea.

The idea of identity of function, with difference in technique, is one of the central and dominating thoughts of this book. If the reader wishes to grasp the argument of the succeeding chapters, he must try to get this idea as clearly in mind as possible and hold it there firmly. We shall try to clear the thought up a little more fully at this point, hoping that this will be sufficient for present purposes. In applying the doctrine as an interpretative principle in the following chapters, it will become more intelligible and its significance will be more fully appreciated. (2) Analogy from the industrial process.

What we mean by unity of function, with difference of technique, may be seen in the history of threshing grain. We have various stages of development in the evolution and perfection of this art. There is the rubbing of the grain in the hands and the blowing away of the chaff with the breath; the pounding of it with a stick and throwing of it up into the air for the wind to carry away the chaff; the

'My formulation here was suggested by a passage in Dewey's Psychology and Social Practice, pp. 9-14. He discusses mistaken identities and differences of child and adult psychology. While the terms function and technique are my own, I have applied freely his seed thought.

improvement upon the stick by the use of two sticks fastened by a thong, one stick being used for a pounder and the other for a handle, i.e., the invention of the flail, and finally this supplemented by the fanning mill; and last of all comes the threshing machine with its high degree of perfection of all the parts necessary to the process, and their organization into the most efficient machine.

Throughout we have the performance of the same function in all the stages of development from the most primitive to the most modern. In this respect they are all alike; there is identity and continuity. But on the side of technique there is wide diversity between primitive threshing and modern. The significance, however, of the elaborate technique is not in itself, but in its relation to the better performance of a function to which it is relevant. Threshing may be done without the modern threshing machine, but not so well; the function of thinking may be performed without the elaborate and highly wrought technique which characterizes the thinking of the trained adult, but such thinking can deal only with simpler situations and is not so efficient.

(3) Illustrations.

The primitive shepherd settled the question of whether all of his sheep were in the fold by identifying each one of them personally. His mental tool for solving the problem was a specific, concrete image of every one of the sheep. Observation of oriental shepherds of recent times confirms the literal truth of the Biblical figure, "He calleth his own sheep by name." In some places shepherds of the primitive type determine whether they have all their sheep or not by a process of keeping tally. Here the mind has substituted a concrete device for the separate concrete images of the individual sheep. A herder on our western plains would solve the same problem simply by counting. His mental tools are pure abstract symbols. In all these cases there is the same practical problem to be solved. The

mental function to be performed is the sar ments of technique, the mental tools, utilize that function are different. There is ident function, with difference of technique.

The Egyptians satisfied themselves that the hypothenuse of the right triangle is e sum of the squares on the other two sides. gathered from repeated practical experience proved the same truth by going throug demonstration in which the truth of the pro logically from the principle in accordance figure is constructed. In both cases we h of thinking processes, but that of the Greek organized and controlled. There is ident but difference of technique. In logical dem is a specific method of procedure for dra and checking them up so as to secure established method of procedure is an im of technique in geometrical thinking, a m were, which the mind uses for the attainn control in dealing with problems of this so 4. REASONING VIEWED AS INVOLVING HIGH

It is not our purpose in this section to g tion of the specific technique of the reasoni that we are not yet prepared. It will be We shall, however, stop a moment to point line of distinction between reasoning and thinking. This we do at this point not for cussing reasoning itself, but for the sake again the doctrine of identity of function in technique as it applies to the thinking also furnish a point of view for the discu educational ideas.

As we do not view primitive threshi threshing as functionally distinct processes,

we set thinking and reasoning over against each other as separate and distinct. Reasoning is thinking, but it is thinking characterized by a specific technique. Reasoning is a stage in the development of the thinking process in which the attainment of a specific, highly wrought, and well organized technique has reached its maximum.The reasoning of the trained scientist is not different in its essential (ie., its functional) nature from the crude thinking of the child. The difference centers in the matter of its technique and the added control which it gives to the individual over the whole thinking process. Through superiority in technique the scientist can make the thinking process bend more adequately to his own will in the solution of problems. This more highly controlled type of thinking we call reasoning.

5. THE THINKING OF CHILDREN.

(1) Fallacy of the doctrine of receptivity.

The question, "Do children think?", would seem absurd to the average parent. He would take it for granted that they do. The only reason for raising the question at this point is that educational theory and practice are sometimes shaped from the point of view that the minds of children are wholly receptive. In emphasizing the difference between children and adults (in itself a very valuable contribution of the child-study movement), it has happened that many have differentiated between child mind and adult mind so sharply as to leave the impression that thinking is a late development. This is an error which, whether it takes conscious form or only operates unconsciously to determine method, needs to be tracked down and clearly exposed.

We may consistently hold that small children (and possibly lower animals) think, while at the same time we deny that they can reason. It does not follow that because the small child cannot reason therefore he cannot think any

more than it follows that because primitiv have our modern threshing machine therefor thresh grain. The trouble in the interpr child's mind which has led to a tendency t power to think and to overestimate the receptivity is to be traced to a subtle and alm tendency to use the terms thinking and synonyms.

(2) Origin and nature of the fallacious d Much that is erroneous and vicious thought and practice has crept in through th precisely, on the one hand, in what respects ing and reasoning are identical, and, on the just what respects they are different. The a ness, with its highly specialized forms of thi analyzed. The results of this analysis ha and rightly so, as the standard of the rea Then, unconsciously identifying reasoning while ignoring their fundamental differenc of thinking (which was in reality the standar has been applied to the mind of the child. the abstract imagery, the logical concepts, a wrought mental tools, has led to the cond child cannot reason, which is right; but t covertly is made to carry with it the imp cannot think, which is wrong. With this bound up another, namely, that childhood receptivity and not of thinking, hence train filling the mind with a host of facts about think later when his reasoning powers hav (3) Reality of the child's thinking.

It is not to be denied that the period of chi marked receptivity; but it is also one of tre cance in the training of thinking. Recept form of thinking power are related facts, not But the thinking of the earlier period is of