cepts furnishes both material and motivation for the reconstuctions which shall yield more logical notions.

(2) The doctrine exemplified in school practice.

The modern school does much to enrich the stock of psychological notions which the child brings to bear upon the more formal aspects of school study. Excursions to fields and parks to see plants, animals, and natural phenomena give the child material from which his little mind at once acquires notions both individual and general. Constructive work of various kinds furnishes still another source for such notions. The child's language notions are developed unreflectively through stories and oral reproduction and simple composition long before he studies grammar, which reconstructs these notions reflectively and makes them logical.

There is a very strong tendency at the present time in the direction of making the work of the first three grades less formal and less specialized, making it, in other words, preeminently the work of building up the background of first-hand experiences with the things which will be more systematically studied later on in the higher grades. Experiences with number, language, geography, and nature in the concrete first, technique later on, that is the watchword. Let the child drink in, under guidance and direction of the teacher, an abundance of concrete impressions, forming his own ideas, and later on concern ourselves with the task of more explicitly working them over into a more logical form. The child who comes to the study of chemistry and physics with a mind full of ideas of his own derived from first-hand experiences in domestic science and manual training is in a position to appreciate quickly the problems of the new sciences and to reconstruct his concepts in harmony with the demands of those problems.

(3) The doctrine applied to religious instruction.

There can be no better preparation for the more precise formulations of religious truths than perfect familiarity

with the concrete story material of the Old and New Testaments. Religious teachers are apt to be in too big a hurry to indoctrinate the child in the great fundamental tenets of their faith. These logical concepts are too frequently empty forms both for children and for adults of that class who are still children in type of thought. More work with concrete material calculated to build up psychological notions, while making haste more slowly, would in the long run lead to clearer-cut logical notions through having supplied sufficient basis for the process of reconstruction without which the logical notions are felt to be irrelevant and meaningless. The doctrine "from the concrete to the abstract," or better, from the psychological to the logical, if applied to the work of the Sunday School, would quickly do away with a uniform course of study for all ages from the kindergarten child to the adult of the Bible class.

(4) The doctrine applied to moral instruction.

The public school is frequently criticized of late for its failure to teach morals. Every good teacher of right ideals and habits is doing more teaching of morals in the lower grades at the present time than if a text-book were employed for the purpose. Children are taught morals in their concrete relations with one another and with their teacher all day long in the classroom. Every good teacher is constantly insisting upon right conduct and good manners. Truthfulness, kindness, cleanliness, promptness, willing obedience, regard for the rights of others, etc., are being learned in the concrete. Children's ideas are being formed along these lines unreflectively. Probably the school ought, in harmony with the idea of passing on from the psychological notion to the logical, at some point in the higher grades to begin to make the principles of morals stand out more reflectively. They ought to be brought more definitely to consciousness. But no amount of teaching morals in terms of the logical concepts can ever take the place of the work done at the present time in the lower

grades along the line of indirect teaching of morals, nor can it be done at this age so effectively in any other way.

5. THE TEST OF WHETHER A CHILD HAS A CONCEPT OR NOT IS THAT OF FUNCTION.

The concept, whether psychological or logical, is normally a tool in the service of action or of thought. Does the child have a particular concept? We often think we can tell by asking him if he understands. But telling or failing to tell is not a decisive test. Application of some sort is better. It is only a half truth, that favorite dictum of teachers: "If you know, you can tell it." If we have logical notions of things, we can of course tell what we know ; but if we have psychological notions, perhaps we cannot. Yet we may in the latter case know sufficiently well for use at the present time and under the present conditions. The child's notions are dominantly psychological. Telling is consequently no adequate test of his understanding.

Furthermore, the child may be at such a stage of development or at such an early stage of advancement in a given subject that he cannot have logical notions anyway. Overrefinement in the matter of exact description or exact definition is a failing characteristic of teachers who do not understand the mental processes of children, and also of many teachers in the first few weeks of a subject perfectly familiar to them but very strange and unfamiliar to the class. This over-refinement, instead of being conducive to clear thinking, may have in the long run just the opposite effect. 6. PROBLEMS OF ACTION ARE VERY SIGNIFICANT IN THE PROCESS OF TRAINING TO THINK.

The concept, we have emphasized, is a tool of action, as well as of thought. Even psychological concepts are used to control motor processes. In fact, they originate in the attempt to simplify the control of actions by applying to whole groups of situations the same meanings, which demand for their realization the same method of reaction.

As

that aspect of the concept which makes of it a tool for the control of action is the first to develop and the more reflective is the later, training in thinking should supply facilities for the use of the concept in dealing with the problems of action before the child is called upon to deal with more abstract and theoretic problems.

This doctrine would give manual training a fundamental and inner position in the curriculum instead of making it something tacked on from the outside as an extra or as a fad. Its position would be inner also in another respect, namely, that it would be thought of not merely in terms of a subject adapted to give motor skill, but as a subject demanded by the nature of the child to give appropriate first expression to his thought processes, and to supply the basis for the higher and more reflective processes involved in more specialized study.

CHAPTER XVIII

INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION VIEWED AS

TECHNIQUE OF THINKING

I. PURPOSE OF THIS CHAPTER.

It is the purpose of this chapter and of the following two chapters to give the psychology of induction and deduction rather than the logic. No attempt will be made to give an exhaustive treatment of the subject. For more detailed accounts of the inductive and deductive processes, the reader should consult some standard text in logic. There is no occasion for repeating here the admirable work which the logicians have done in the matter of analysis and description of these characteristic phases of the thinking process. We are concerned primarily with the problem of giving them a functional interpretation, with getting at them from their dynamic psychological side rather than the purely structural side. We shall view them as special organizations of the thinking process for the more perfect performance of its function. From this point of view, they are elaborate specializations in the technique of the thinking process.

2. RELATION OF INDUCTION AND DEDUCTION TO EACH OTHER.

The thinking process is functionally a unity falling within two limits, one the conceiving of an end, the other the realization in thought of that end through the perfection in imagination of the proper method of procedure to attain it. But this whole process is greatly facilitated by the perfection and use of the logical concept as a tool. And by logical concept we shall mean to include here every sort of reflective general notion, whether class concept, principle, or law.

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