expertness as is achieved in dealing
with them to the affairs of life beyond the schoolroom. A pupil has a
problem, but it is the problem of meeting the peculiar requirements set
by the teacher. His problem becomes that of finding out what the teacher
wants, what will satisfy the teacher in recitation and examination and
outward deportment. Relationship to subject matter is no longer direct.
The occasions and material of thought are not found in the arithmetic
or the history or geography itself, but in skillfully adapting
that material to the teacher's requirements. The pupil studies, but
unconsciously to himself the objects of his study are the conventions
and standards of the school system and school authority, not the nominal
"studies." The thinking thus evoked is artificially one-sided at the
best. At its worst, the problem of the pupil is not how to meet the
requirements of school life, but how to seem to meet them--or, how to
come near enough to meeting them to slide along without an undue amount
of friction. The type of judgment formed by these devices is not a
desirable addition to character. If these statements give too highly
colored a picture of usual school methods, the exaggeration may at least
serve to illustrate the point: the need of active pursuits, involving
the use of material to accomplish purposes, if there are to be
situations which normally generate problems occasioning thoughtful
inquiry.

II. There must be data at command to supply the considerations required
in dealing with the specific difficulty which has presented itself.
Teachers following a "developing" method sometimes tell children to
think things out for themselves as if they could spin them out of their
own heads. The material of thinking is not thoughts, but actions,
facts, events, and the relations of things. In other words, to think
effectively one must have had, or now have, experiences which will
furnish him resources for coping with the difficulty at hand. A
difficulty is an indispensable stimulus to thinking, but not all
difficulties call out thinking. Sometimes they overwhelm and submerge
and discourage. The perplexing situation must be sufficiently like
situations which have already been dealt with so that pupils will have
some control of the meanings of handling it. A large part of the art of
instruction lies in making the difficulty of new problems large enough
to challenge thought, and small enough so that, in addition to