undeveloped. This dearth is not caused by the absence of problem, for
indeed there is room for much improvement in the organization, the
administration, and the pedagogy of the college. Investigators of
these problems have been considerably discouraged by the facts they
have gathered. This volume is conceived in the hope of stimulating an
interest in the quality of college teaching and initiating a
scientific study of college pedagogy. The field is almost virgin, and
the need for constructive programs is acute. We therefore ask for our
effort the indulgence that is usually accorded a pioneer.

In this age of specialization of study it is evident that no college
teacher, however wide his experience and extensive his education, can
speak with authority on the teaching of all the subjects in the
college curriculum, or even of all the major ones. For this reason
this volume is the product of a cooperating authorship. The editor
devotes himself to the study of general methods of teaching that apply
to almost all subjects and to most teaching situations. In addition,
he coordinates the work of the other contributors. He realizes that
there exists among college professors an active hostility to the study
of pedagogy. The professors feel that one who knows his subject can
teach it. The contributors have been purposely selected in order to
dispel this hostility. They are, one and all, men of undisputed
scholarship who have realized the need of a mode of presentation that
will make their knowledge alive.

Books of multiple authorship often possess too wide a diversity of
viewpoints. The reader comes away with no underlying thought and no
controlling principles. To overcome this defect, so common in books of
this type, a tentative outline was formulated, setting forth a
desirable mode of treating, in the confines of one chapter, the
teaching of any subject in the college curriculum. This outline was
submitted to all contributors for critical analysis and constructive
criticism. The original plan was later modified in accordance with the
suggestions of the contributors. This final outline, which follows,
was then sent to the contributors with the full understanding that
each writer was free to make such modifications as his specialty
demanded and his judgment dictated. This outline is followed in most
of the chapters and gives the book that unifying element necessary in
any book and vital in a work of so large a cooperating auth