for principles which explain things. The period of adolescence, corresponding to the age of high school and early college education, should be one in which greater stress is laid upon the development of principles in their more abstract and general form. While this is being done, thinking may be led to assume the form of more consciously recognized inductive and deductive methods, and the technique of these processes may be finally perfected. The more abstract organization of knowledge into systems under the control of abstract principles makes possible and appropriate the more highly organized, more abstract, and more perfect forms of the thinking process. Here the goal should be more definitely held in mind as that of the finished product.

(3) Inductive method is not complete without deduction. Much stress has been laid in recent years upon inductive methods of teaching. Our discussion of the inductive process has shown that induction is incomplete without deduction. So it must be with an inductive method of teaching, it is incomplete without its appropriate phase of application. From this point of view, the ideal method of teaching is spoken of as the inductive-deductive method. The idea of peninsula, trade center, etc., when once developed, must be applied in as many different kinds of exercises as possible. Only thus can these ideas themselves become perfectly clear. The principle in arithmetic must be applied frequently and in situations that are not identical, if it is to be mastered. So with any principle or law in physics, economics, or any other sphere of thought. This doctrine is doubtless so familiar to the reader that it needs no further emphasis at this point.

(4) Type studies give the opportunity to provide in school work for much of the dynamic aspect of the inductive process.

We know that most of the generalizations which lie at the basis of our sciences and of the scientific treatment of

all the subjects of the curriculum have been arrived at as the result of long and tedious investigations, in many cases covering years or even centuries. The complete inductive process is one that we can by no means expect to reproduce in the schoolroom. Who would undertake to reëstablish the law of gravitation as a problem of original induction? But if the child does not go through with the stress and strain of struggling with the obdurate facts of the problem, has he not lost the dynamic character of the inductive process? Has it not become artificial and imitative?

It is evident that for school purposes there must be some compromise between the full inductive process and the mechanical process of teaching mere brute fact. May not the child go through enough of the inductive process to give vitality to his grasp of principles, to give a real appreciation of their value and significance? In the attainment of every important principle, there are certain critical points in the inductive process. The chief problems center at these critical points. The teacher, knowing in advance what these critical points are upon which the induction depends, may skilfully lead the child up to the point of facing these critical problems, both negative and positive. Squarely confronted by these critical aspects of the problem, even if he has to be told many of the facts relative to the solution, yet there remains much that is dynamic.

1

Mr. McMurry has so fully worked out the doctrine of type study and illustrated it so abundantly in his book, The Method of the Recitation, that any extended amplification of the doctrine here would be repetition of his work. Hence, only enough will be given to suggest to those who are unfamiliar with the doctrine something of what we mean by it. Take the case of developing the idea of trade center for example, which Mr. McMurry discusses in detail. Minneapolis, Chicago, Pittsburg, and Birming1 Chapters X and XI.

ham, Alabama, are good types. Minneapolis is studied in detail. But there is danger of some peculiar characteristic which stands out strongly, like the great waterfalls, being seized upon as essential when it is not. In the study of Chicago, which has no waterfall, this characteristic is eliminated. If commerce in wheat has been seized upon as an essential characteristic of trade center, then in the study of Pittsburg, whose chief industries center in the coal and iron trades, the idea of wheat as an essential drops out. If the idea of waterways has been seized upon as essential, then in the study of Birmingham that idea drops out. At the same time the common core of meanings is being emphasized through repetition in the variety of situations.

In the concrete and detailed study of a series of cities, like these, the processes of observation, or study of fact, of comparison, abstraction, and generalization have sufficient scope and free play to be genuine and vital, and the process of induction is not reduced to a mere form. By selection of material in which both the positive and the negative aspects of the problem are emphasized and accentuated, the possibility of arriving at the general principle within reasonable limits of time is assured. But at the same time there is left a pretty wide field for the activity of the child's own mind to function in the arriving at conclusions through a proper series of inductive "steps."

Mr. McMurry illustrates the use of types in the inductive teaching of principles of history, of morals, and of nature study, as well as geography. The principle is the same, but the practice requires more skill in some subjects than in others. The method is certainly very suggestive in relation to the problem of how to shorten inductive procedure and yet retain its dynamic character in the process of instruction.

CHAPTER XXI

JUDGMENT AS AN ELEMENT OF TECHNIQUE IN THINKING

1. DEFINITION.

Judgment is that act of the mind by which we interpret some problematic experience by referring it to some idea derived from past experience. (Adapted from Welton.1)

Judgment brings an idea to bear upon experience. It is an activity, a mental process. Judgment and proposition are not identical terms; proposition expresses the result of a judgment. Judgment is sometimes defined as a comparison between two concepts. Such a definition is the outcome of the analysis of the finished product,—the proposi

An analysis of the proposition shows two concepts related as subject and predicate. On the basis of this analysis, it is supposed that the mind compared these two concepts and then asserted a relation between them. Such a conception of judgment ignores the dynamic aspect of the process. It often happens that what we have to deal with is an experience which is problematic. It can hardly be said that there are two concepts to start with. But when the judging activity has succeeded in evaluating and interpreting this experience by the aid of a concept, the outcome is expressed in a proposition which indicates a relation between two concepts, one of which is subject and the other predicate.

2. ILLUSTRATION AND EXPLANATION.

If I am busily at work with tools and suddenly discover that my finger is bleeding and evidently has been bleeding for some time, I am confronted with a problematic expe'Welton, The Logical Bases of Education, pp. 63, 73.

rience. How is the bleeding to be explained? I examine the nature of the wound. I look over my tools for indications of the cause of the wound. I find nothing in my examination of the tools that seems to be relative to the nature of the wound. I examine the wound more carefully, and finally I find in the bottom of it a splinter of wood. At once the situation clears up. I now remember that I experienced a little discomfort in quickly running my finger over a rough edge. Yes, I hurt myself on the rough edge of a board. That is my judgment. Indeed, it is only the culmination of a whole series of judgments. As for example,-I have cut my finger; I did not cut it with my saw; I did not cut it with my knife; perhaps I cut it with the rough edge of a board; I find a splinter in my finger; I remember that the rough edge of that board did not feel comfortable; I hurt myself on the rough edge of the board.

Now can any one say that judgment in this situation was a comparison of two concepts? That would presuppose two concepts given in the first place. Rather here is a problematic situation to be interpreted, and we must find the concept to apply to it which is capable of interpreting it. The whole process of tension and strain, including all the intensity of thinking, from the time that the situation is felt to be problematic until it is adequately interpreted, is judgment proper. But the judgment as an activity of applying to the problematic situation an idea derived from past experience may involve within itself many processes of judgment which deal with phases of the situation. It may involve within itself also perception, or further observation, memory, imagination, and thinking.

Judgment is a process of evaluating a problematic situation. It does not necessarily presuppose two concepts as given. A part of the judging process is finding the right concept to apply to interpret the problematic situation. The clarification of the situation brings out two concepts in