The educative process

Front matter

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Preface

The following account of the Educative Process is intended to present a systematic and comprehensive view of the task that is to be accomplished by the school. It covers the field commonly included under the terms, " General Method," " Method of the Recitation," " Theory and Practice," etc.; but it deals with principles rather than with the details of device and "method." The writer is convinced that clear and definite notions of the functions of education and of the laws which govern the educative process will do much toward eliminating the waste of time and energy that is involved in the work of the school. It is not to be expected that the young teacher, even though he be equipped with the best of theory, will prosecute his work with maximal success from the very start. Skill in teaching, like skill in any other art, can come only through persistent practice, coupled with serious study and strenuous self-discipline. But self-discipline reaches up to ideals for control and guidance ; and not the least important element in the formation of effective ideals is substantial theory. Theory may well provide a light for the beginner's first steps, making

VI PREFACE

them less awkward, less incoordinate, than they would be in its absence. Even the work of the experienced teacher, although superficially efficient, may sometimes subvert one or more of the basal principles of the educative process; and it is precisely at these points that an adequate conception of principles, based on the best data that science can offer, must be added to a mastery of technique.

Consistently with this view, the principles presented in the following pages are those that the writer believes to be indispensable in the construction of effective ideals of teaching, using the term " ideals " in the sense in which it is employed in Chapters XIII and XIV of this book. Care has also been taken to utilize only those data of psychology and biology that are vouched for by reputable modern authorities in these fields. In the case of nearly every principle presented, the source from which it has been derived is indicated by title and page-references, sometimes to the monographic literature, but, wherever possible, to treatises and text-books that are available both to students of education in the normal school and university and to those engaged in the actual work of teaching who have access to a general library.

Aside from the various specific sources which are thus indicated in detail in the footnotes, the writer wishes to acknowledge an indebtedness of a more general character to the following works : Mr. L. T. Hobhouse's

PREFACE Vll

"Mind in Evolution," Professor E. B. Titchener's "Primer of Psychology" and " Outline of Psychology," and President G. Stanley Hall's illuminating paper, "The Ideal School," which foreshadowed his recently published treatise, "Adolescence."

The book has been read in manuscript by Professor M. V. O'Shea of the University of Wisconsin, and by Professors E. B. Titchener, Charles De Garmo, and G. M. Whipple of Cornell University, to each of whom the writer's gratitude is due for many valuable criticisms and suggestions. He also acknowledges the invaluable service rendered by his colleagues, Dr. Carrie Ranson Squire and Professor W. C. Ruediger, in formulating many of the principles here presented; and by his wife, Florence Winger Bagley, in the patient and helpful criticism which her sympathetic insight and psychological training enabled her to bring to the improvement of the work.

WILLIAM CHANDLER BAGLEY.

State Normal College, Dillon, Montana,

ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I

FUNCTIONS OF EDUCATION

Chapter I Page

I. Elaborate organization of educational forces makes a reduction to simpler terms desirable. 2. Educability depends on capacity of organism to profit^ by past experience. 3. Many lower forms lack this capacity, depending entirely upon instinctive adjustments. 4. Reflexes and instincts are products of heredity. 5. Higher animals can modify hereditary adjustments through 1 experience. 6. But man holds practically a unique position in requiring this modification for normal development. 7. Lower animals cannot transmit acquired characteristics. 8. Man can transmit products of experience from generation to generation. 9. Lacking this capacity, man would be far below many other animals. 10. Educability dependent upon language function. II. Tentative definition of education I

Chapter II

1. Distinction between formal and informal education; advantages and disadvantages of each. 2. The family the fundamental agency of formal education. 3. Development of apprentice system and assumption of educative function by the priesthood. 4. Evolution of the modern school. 5. School concerned with individual during the period of "infancy"; significance of infancy as a period (a) of economic dependence and (3) of organic plasticity. 6. Definition of the school as an agency ix

ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE of formal education; examples of efficiency of formal education in social evolution. 7. School controls environmental forces that operate on the child; school "studies" represent different phases of experience with the environment «... 23

Chapter III

Problem of the chapter. 2. The laws underlying educative process largely independent of ultimate aim. 3. Therefore a distinction is justified between ethical and empirical aims of education. 4. Ethical aim has certain measure of importance to the method of education. 5. Critical discussion of typical ethical aims: (a) the "bread-and-butter" aim. 6. (b) The " knowledge "aim. 7. (c) The " culture " aim. 8. (d) The " harmonious development" aim. 9. (<?) The "moral" aim. 10. (/) The "social" aim. n. Characteristics of the socially efficient individual. 12. Advantage of the social aim .... 40

CHAPTER IV The Reading of Meaning into Sense Impressions: Apperception

Function of sensation in informing mind (a) of the condition of the body and (b) of happenings in the outer world; adjustment the end toward which sensation is the means. 2. The purposeful character of sensation not obvious from the outset; tentative definition of apperception. 3. Fundamental law of apperception; illustrations. 4. Importance of strain sensations in later apperceptive processes; illustrations and testimony of authorities. 5. Direct evidence of unifying function of strain sensations: (a) pathological, (b) anatomical, (V) genetic. 6. Significance of strain sensations in educative process. 7. Summary . . 66

ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS XI

Chapter V

The Needs of the Organism as determining Apperception: Degrees of Apperception and Apperceptive Systems

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Apperception determined by (a) primitive needs, (6) acquired needs. 2. Apperception of (a) " low " or (3) " high " degree, according as it is determined by primitive or acquired needs; illustration from "apraxia." 3. Apperceptions of low degree correlated with coarse adjustments involving larger muscles; apperceptions of high degree correlated with finer adjustments involving smaller muscles; illustrations. 4. Apperceptive systems as illustrated by sensory aphasia; definition of apperceptive system; systems may be of high or low degree. 5. Genesis of apperceptive systems; both hereditary and environmental factors involved. 6. Systems of low degree most profoundly influenced by hereditary conditions. 7. Systems may be " large " or "small"; in either case may be looked upon as "condensed" experiences • .83

CHAPTER VI " Attention, Interest, and Will in the Light of Apperception

Summary of Chapters IV and V; problem of present chapter. 2„ Attention as a conscious state. 3. Differences between focal and marginal elements; function of focalization. 4. Conditions of focalization ; (a) passive attention. 5. (b) Active attention. 6. (c) Secondary passive attention. 7. Psychological distinction between work and play, as suggested by discussion of attention.

8. Relation between capacity for active attention and " will."

9. Attention a structural term, apperception a functional term, ic. Correlation between systems of apperception and marginal constituents of attentive state. II. Relation of apperception and attention to interest; distinction between primitive and acquired interests; relations of each to the educative process; biologically, work is the central feature of education. 12. Modification of doctrine of effort by recognition of organic needs and their relation to apperception; illustrations from elementary education. 13. Summary of Parts I and II . . 95

Xll ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER VII Experience functioning as Habit

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Io Experience functions (a) as habit and (£) as judgment, according as a minimum or maximum of consciousness is involved. 2. Illustration of habit. 3. Habits classed as (a) automatisms and (6) marginal habits; sensori-motor actions as a type of marginal habit. 4. Ideo-motor actions as a type of marginal habit. 5. Moral habits: («) of cleanliness, (3) of industry, (c) of "honor." 6. The function of habit; significance of habit building in the educative process; the law of habit building; illustrations from work of the school. 7. The breaking up of habits; significance of this process in education. 8. Effect of focalizing incorrect forms . . . „ <, . .115

Chapter VIII

I. Function of judgment to insure adaptation to new situations. 2. Different phases of judgment process; illustrations. 3. Definition of judgment. 4. Classes of judgment: (a) practical judgment as application of concrete experience in the solution of a situation. 5. Practical judgment involves analysis, synthesis, comparison, and abstraction. 6. Advantages and limitations of the practical judgment. 7. (£) Conceptual judgment as application of condensed experience in the solution of a situation; made possible through condensation of experiences and the formation of concepts 128

CHAPTER IX The Condensation of Experiences and the Formation of Concepts

Io Condensation not a compressing, but a selection of common ele-. ments. 2. Concept is represented by the word. 3. Typical

ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS Xlll

BAGS

classes of concepts : (a) collective, (£) individual; illustrations. 4. The concept of " self" as a type of individual concepts. 5. A concept is an apperceptive system made explicit ; the word is the focal representative of an apperceptive system; why intel~ ligent use of words is possible without attendant imagery. 6. Concept building in education; significance of the dictum: " Proceed from the concrete to the abstract and from the particular to the general." 7. The teacher must see that process of condensation in formation of the judgment is not taken for granted » 339

CHAPTER X The Organization of Experiences through Conceptual Judgments

The finished product of a conceptual judgment may further function as a condensed experience in facing new situations; this functioning still involves a judgment process- 2. Definition of reasoning as the formation of a judgment de novo, as distinguished from the application of a preformed judgment. 3. The latter process termed "intuitive" judgment. 4. Reasoning involves the reduction of an " aggregate idea." 5. Definition of logical reasoning. 6. Forms of logical reasoning : (a) induction. 7. (£) Deduction. 8. Importance of so fixing judgments in educative process that they may later function in reasoning.

9. A science is an organized group of conceptual judgments; this organization, however, fulfills the final end of adjustment.

10. Definition of philosophy; antinomy between the "practical" and the "theoretical," and its solution. 11. Significance of this distinction to education. 12. Definition of terms "fact," "law," "principle," etc., in the light of preceding discussion . 151

XIV ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter XI Page

So Judgment a focal process, consequently experience to function as judgment must be subject to recall. 2. Factors involved in recall of (a) concrete experiences: (1) recency, (2) primacy, (3) vividness, (4) frequency; significance of each to the educative process. 3. Relation of these factors to attention. 4. These four factors are also significant to the recall of condensed experience. 5. But these are inadequate to efficient functioning of {b) condensed experience; a fifth factor, organization, largely replaces them; advantages of organization over more primitive factors; results of experiments on memory.

6. Operation of the factor of organization in educative process.

7. Education must effect a compromise between the three factors: organization, vividness, and frequency. 8. Combination of two or more factors probably more effective than exclusive use of any one; experimental evidence. 9. Frequency or repetition holds unique position. 10. The concentration and correlatiou of studies as promoting organization • , . .169

Chapter XII

The functioning of the Factors of Recall as modified by the Periods of Child Development

I. Antinomy between habit and judgment in educational practice; solution of this antinomy in the light of child development. 2. Division of the elementary school into " primary," " intermediate," and "grammar" grades an implicit recognition of periods of growth. 3. Periods of child development as indicated by child study : (a) the transition period (6-8) ; physical characteristics. 4. Mental characteristics of transition period. 5. Moral characteristics. 6. (6) The formative period (8-12); physical characteristics. 7. Mental characteristics. 8. Moral characteristics. 9. (<:) The adolescent period (12-18); physical characteristics. 10. Mental characteristics. 11. Moral characteristics. 12. Summary; factors of recall to be emphasized in each period 184

ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS XV

Part V

THE SELECTION OF EXPERIENCES FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES: EDUCATIONAL VALUES

Chapter XIII

Formal versus Intrinsic Values of Experience, The Doctrine of Formal Discipline

PAGB

I. Distinction between formal and intrinsic values of educative materials; "formal disciplines" formerly supposed to develop "generalized habits." 2. But a generalized habit is a psychological absurdity. 3. Experiment also conclusively proves that specific habits are not generalized. 4. It is evident, however, that the development of certain functions influences in some manner the development of other functions. 5. While habits are always specific, they can probably be related to one another through the judgment process; hence it is an ideal that is generalized, not a specific function. 6. Examples of this process. 7. Application of this solution to the doctrine of formal discipline . . 203

CHAPTER XIV The Development of Ideals as the Chief Work of Education

I. Ideals represent an important type of condensed experience not always recognized in education. 2. Significance of ideals in social evolution and in existing human institutions. 3. The educational system or method that fails to instill effective ideals is a failure. 4. The ideal and intrinsic values of subject-matter can be harmonized. 5. Psychological characteristics of an effective ideal. 6. Educational applications . . . . 21 3

CHAPTER XV The Intrinsic Values of Different Types of Experience

I. Classification of intrinsic values. 2. (a) Utilitarian values; criterion; relatively small representation in school curricula.

XVI ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

3. Utilitarian values frequently applicable only to specific occupations. 4. (£) Conventional values; criterion; illustrated by grammar and spelling. 5. (<r) Preparatory values; criterion; illustrated by arithmetic and geography. 6. (d) Theoretical values; criterion. 7 (e) Sentimental values; criterion; significance of sentiments as higher means of pleasure. 8. Illustrations r rom literature and art 225

Chapter XVI

The Transmission of Experience in the Concretes Imitation and Objective Teaching

.1. Problem of Part VI. 2. Transmission of experience through (d) imitation; imitation one expression of a fundamental psychological law; application of imitation in educative process depends upon the principle that the child imitates that which he admires. 3. Imitation an important factor in initiating habit; illustrations. 4. Relation of imitation to apperception. 5. Summary. 6. (b*) Objective teaching; nature and function. 7. Principles governing success of objective teaching. 8. The school excursion as a type of objective teaching; rules for conduct of school excursion. 9. Museums as educative agencies; the school museum. 10. The school garden as a medium for objective teaching. 11. The laboratory and its functions. 12. The limitations of objective teaching; danger of neglecting conceptual processes 239

CHAPTER XVII The Transmission of Condensed Experience: Development and Instruction

I. Problem of the chapter; distinction between imparting of conceptual judgments by development and by instruction. 2, De-

ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS XVii velopment and instruction compared as to advantages and limitations. 3. The field of each in the educative process; many facts must be presented by method of instruction. 4. In imparting principles based on facts, the method of development is more frequently to be employed; in general, the rights of generalization and inference belong to the individual. 5. But this principle must be qualified. 6. Summary .... 256

Chapter XVIII

I. Classification of media of instruction. 2. (a) Language as the most efficient medium; reasons for efficiency of language; factors conditioning this efficiency. 3. Oral versus book instruction; advantages and limitations of each. 4. Lecture versus question-and-answer methods. 5. Relative values of different methods of book instruction : sources versus text-books. 6. (b) Graphic representation as a medium of instruction: pictures, models, maps, and diagrams; principles governing successful use of these media in the educative process. 7. The media of emotional transmission; distinction between emotional and intellectual experiences. 8. Emotional experiences function (<z) as essential ingredients of ideals, (3) as the fundamental essences of the sentiments; illustrations from teaching of art. 9. The function of art in the educative process 265

Chapter XIX

Typical Forms of Development and Instruction : («) The Inductive Development Lesson

I. Classification of school exercises as to structure. 2. The two types of development lesson: (a) inductive and (&) deductive. 3. The inductive development lesson; history and present status of the "formal steps." 4. (1) The step of preparation; function; method; time element; illustrations. 5. (1 a) The statement of the aim; function; characteristics of an effective aim; illustrations. 6. (2) The step of presentation; function; varieties; time element; illustrations. 7. (3) The step of comparison and abstraction; function; method; time element;

XV111 ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS illustrations. 8. (4) The step of generalization; function; form; time element; illustrations. 9. (5) The step of application; function; time element; illustrations. 10. The inductive development lesson is an organic unity. 1 1. All school exercises cannot be cast in this mold •••••«. 284

Chapter XX

Typical Forms of Development and Instruction: (b) The Deductive Development Lesson

Nature of the deductive development lesson; its two functions : (a) anticipation of truth, (b) explanation of facts. 2. This type of lesson has not been generally reduced to formal steps, but is frequently represented in the school. 3. Advantages of deductive development. 4. Two types of deductive lessons, corresponding to the two functions; in both types deductive lesson covers four steps: (1) the data, (2) the principles, (3) the inference, (4) the verification; illustrations of these steps in anticipatory lessons. 5. Explanatory lessons; their function; illustrations. 6. Field of application of the development lesson in the educative process .••««• 305

Chapter XXI

Typical Forms of Development and Instruction: (c) The Study and (d) the Recitation Lesson

I. Nature and varieties of the study lesson. 2. Function of the study lesson. 3. Phases of the study lesson: (1) the assignment; nature of the assignment; principles governing its efficiency; illustrations. 4. (2) The seat work; significance of seat work as a source of waste. 5. Blackboard questions for guidance in seat work. 6. Topical outlines to replace questions. 7. Development of art of outlining in pupils. ' 8. The recitation lesson; functions and varieties. 9. Distinction between question-and-answer and topical recitations; nature of (1) the question-and-answer recitation. 10. The art of questioning. 11. (2) The topical recitation; nature, functions, and development of the topical recitation . • • • • .. . .316

ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS XIX

CHAPTER XXII Typical Forms of Development and Instruction

(/) The Drill, (/) the Review, and (g) the

Examination Lessons

PAGE

I. Function of the drill lesson; its technique governed by the law of habit building. 2. Necessity of focalization in drill; illustrations from school exercises. 3. Devices to secure focalization; dangers involved in use of devices. 4. The two functions of the review lesson. 5. Organization as the keynote of the review lesson. 6. Technique of the review lesson. 7. The examination as the capstone of the review process; the essence of an examination is its formal character; organization the ultimate end of the examination 328

CHAPTER XXIII The Hygiene of the Educative Process

I. Education an artificial process; demands a readjustment to which physical structure is not naturally adapted. 2. Abnormal conditions imposed by the educative process: (a) indoor life, (Jf) fine adjustments, (c) active attention. 3. (1) The hygiene of instruction: conditions of light, temperature, ventilation, fatigue, and cheerfulness. 4. (2) Hygienic habits and ideals; duty of the school in development of these; fallacy of the dictum, "Follow nature." 5. Hygienic habits must be emphasized in the pre -adolescent period. 6. Hygienic ideals must be emphasized in the adolescent period ...... 335

Index <, 351

Part I. Functions Of Education

CHAPTER I i. As with all the activities and interests that are fostered by modern civilization, the forces of education have reached a stage of very elaborate specialization and organization. From the kindergarten to the university, each period of development is catered to by a specific kind of education, with its specific aims and ends, its specific standards and ideals, its specific methods and devices. And cutting across these planes of cleavage, which represent the varying needs of the individual at successive levels of his growth, are the almost numberless sciences and disciplines, each with its own vocabulary, its own technique, its own specific function. Not only is the teacher a specialist in education, but he is perforce a specialist in one department of education as distinguished from other departments. And not only this, but he is frequently a specialist in one narrow field of a single department as distinguished from the remaining fields.

In spite of its many advantages, this condition brings with it a very serious difficulty; for while, generally speaking, organization means efficiency, it is none the less true that organization means complexity, and that a complex structure is hard to understand. The layman sees in education a vague, undifferentiated whole; but the novitiate, as his acquaintance continues, watches this whole split up into a myriad of separate parts. For a long time he is troubled by the lack of orderly arrangement, by the seeming neglect of logical continuity and system. He sees a vast, noisy machine, the various parts of which appear to work with little reference to the needs and nature of the whole; not a coordinated system of interacting elements, but a mere aggregation of independent units.

The initial study of any complicated structure involves a similar difficulty. It required thousands of years for science to discover the order and system that govern the organic world, — to " strip the mask from things." The serious student of nature from the very first has been baffled by the multiplicity of living forms, the diversity and seeming independence of species and genera, the unceasing strife and struggle for supremacy, and the resulting waste of time and energy. Yet we now know that each of these factors has its peculiar significance in the complicated scheme of life. Where once the massing of seemingly disconnected units confused and baffled us, we see to-day the harmonious cooperation of all these factors toward a definite end. The forces that appeared to be independent are now seen to be interdependent, and what looked to be the utter neglect or absence of relation is now revealed as the very apotheosis of system and order. The organic world has been reduced to its lowest terms, and the apparent antithesis of diverse forms and forces has melted away under the new light.

In the study of the concrete problems of education, we need a guiding principle; we need a formula that will cover every case that is presented; we need to know what education means in its simplest terms. Having such a principle, we shall have a basis for interpretation, — a criterion, perhaps, for approval or condemnation. Lacking such a principle, our results will be the merest empiricisms, valuable it may be as separate facts, but totally inadequate to the needs of constructive effort. It is the purpose of this chapter to attempt the formulation of such a principle.

2. Fundamentally the possibility of education depends upon the capacity of the organism to profit by past experiences. In one way or another the facing of past situations comes to modify present and future adjustment. Education in its broadest sense means just this: acquiring experiences that will serve to modify inherited adjustments.

3. In order to understand the fundamental significance of this principle, we must know that the capacity to profit by past experience is limited to a comparatively few forms of life. In the lower animals, reaction or adjustment is fixed and uniform. It varies only with the nature of the stimulus and not with the results of previous reactions to similar stimuli, — only with the nature of the environment and not with the results of previous adjustments to similar environments. A certain situation "sets off" a certain fixed, unvarying reaction. No matter if that reaction has resulted disastrously in previous instances, the same stimulus will again initiate it; there will be no improvement in adjustment even after repeated trials. The classic instance of the moth and the flame is a case in point. The light impressions "set off" the muscular reactions that carry the moth to the flame. Its wings are scorched and it retreats, — adjustments resulting in the retreating movement having been set off by the effect of the scorching upon the nerve endings. But let the light again impinge upon the sense organs of sight, and the forward movement will again be initiated, — to be repeated, no matter how frequently the scorching may occur, until the stimulus is either withdrawn or replaced by another more compelling, or until the moth is disabled or consumed. The inborn tendencies to response are termed either reflexes or instinctive movements, according as they are simple or complex. Each follows upon its appropriate stimulus as mechanically as the ringing of an electric bell follows upon the pressing of the button.

4. Reflexes and instinctive movements must be looked upon as products of heredity. The connections in the nervous system upon which they depend are provided for in the development of the embryo just as are the connections between the limbs and the trunk or between the blood vessels and the various organs. To their genesis, too, must be applied the same explanation. How did it come about in the first place that the moth responded in one way to light impressions and in another way to impressions of scorching or pain? One might similarly ask, How did it come about that the original moth (if one may use the term) had wings and legs, a head, a thorax, and an abdomen? In the light of our present knowledge, we can only say that all these determinations of anatomical structure (and nerve structure is anatomical structure) have resulted through the operation of natural selection upon chance variations. All organisms tend to vary, — to deviate in one respect or another from the " normal " or average type. One may have a slightly longer body, another may vary slightly in coloring or markings, another in strength, another in speed, and so on. Where the variation is helpful in the struggle for life, the organism possessing it has an advantage over the organisms that lack it. Consequently the chances that the favored organism will survive and perpetuate its species are increased. Of its progeny, some are likely to vary still farther in the right direction and so on, perhaps indefinitely. If, on the other hand, the organism is a variant in an unfavorable direction, it will be placed at a disadvantage in the struggle for existence, and the chances of its elimination and the consequent cutting off of its line of descent are thereby increased. It is through this factor of "natural selection" that the origin of specific characters among organic beings can be most satisfactorily explained, and it is to this factor that one must look for an explanation of the origin and development of those connections in nerve tissue that lie at the basis of reflex and instinctive movements. 1 5. Whatever theory may be called upon to explain the origin of instinct, however, there can be no doubt that a large number of animals are entirely dependent upon instinctive reactions for adjustment to the environment.

1 It is true that the genesis of instinct presents certain difficulties to this explanation. According to the traditional view, natural selection works only upon slight variations, each of which must contribute definitely to the survival value of the organism. While it is easy to see that each slight change in the right direction may have been useful in the development, say, of the horse's hoof, it is not so easy to see how all the intermediate links could have been similarly useful in the development of a complex instinct like the nest-building instincts of some of the birds. Darwin recognized this difficulty and attempted, although not very satisfactorily, to surmount it. (See Origin of Species, vol. i, ch. viii.) Romanes {Heredity and Utility, Chicago, 1896, p. 87) prefers to discard the principle of natural selection in the case of instinct, and to look upon instinctive adjustments as inherited habits. Baldwin {Development and Evolution, New York, 1903, ch. v) disapproves of Romanes's position because it assumes the inheritance of characteristics acquired during the life of the individual. He prefers to think of the slight changes essential to the development of the full-fledged instinct as "kept alive" either by intelligence or by "imitation." This view is also open to objection, for it assumes that mind or consciousness existed prior to instinct. In fact, the explanation of instinct by the principle of natural selection seems to be an

Reaction with them is purely mechanical, the same stimulus or combination of stimuli uniformly giving rise to the same adjustment. Such animals are not able to apply experience to the improvement of adjustment, and are consequently not amenable to the influences of education. At just what point in the animal series the lower limit of educability is to be placed is still a matter of dispute, but it is generally conceded that the mammals, the birds, and at least some of the fishes are able to profit by experience in varying degrees, while the invertebrates and the primitive protozoa probably lack this capacity. Some authorities are inclined to exclude the higher invertebrates, especially the ants, bees, and wasps, from the latter class, but there is a marked tendency to look upon even the complex activities of these forms as products of pure instinct. 1 In general, then, it may be concluded

almost hopeless task so long as one maintains that anatomical structures must be developed through a long series of gradual changes. Very recently it has been discovered, however, that very pronounced variations are not entirely lost to posterity, but reappear in a definite proportion of the progeny. This discovery, if generally substantiated, will undoubtedly do much toward clearing away these difficulties. (See H. de Vries: Species and Varieties, Chicago, 1904.)