instruction are separate affairs. Subject matter then becomes a
ready-made systematized classification of the facts and principles
of the world of nature and man. Method then has for its province a
consideration of the ways in which this antecedent subject matter may
be best presented to and impressed upon the mind; or, a consideration
of the ways in which the mind may be externally brought to bear upon the
matter so as to facilitate its acquisition and possession. In theory, at
least, one might deduce from a science of the mind as something existing
by itself a complete theory of methods of learning, with no knowledge of
the subjects to which the methods are to be applied. Since many who
are actually most proficient in various branches of subject matter
are wholly innocent of these methods, this state of affairs gives
opportunity for the retort that pedagogy, as an alleged science
of methods of the mind in learning, is futile;--a mere screen for
concealing the necessity a teacher is under of profound and accurate
acquaintance with the subject in hand.

But since thinking is a directed movement of subject matter to a
completing issue, and since mind is the deliberate and intentional phase
of the process, the notion of any such split is radically false. The
fact that the material of a science is organized is evidence that it has
already been subjected to intelligence; it has been methodized, so
to say. Zoology as a systematic branch of knowledge represents crude,
scattered facts of our ordinary acquaintance with animals after
they have been subjected to careful examination, to deliberate
supplementation, and to arrangement to bring out connections which
assist observation, memory, and further inquiry. Instead of furnishing a
starting point for learning, they mark out a consummation. Method means
that arrangement of subject matter which makes it most effective in use.
Never is method something outside of the material.

How about method from the standpoint of an individual who is dealing
with subject matter? Again, it is not something external. It is simply
an effective treatment of material--efficiency meaning such treatment as
utilizes the material (puts it to a purpose) with a minimum of waste of
time and energy. We can distinguish a way of acting, and discuss it by
itself; but the way exists only as way-of-dealing-with-material. Method
is not antithetical to subject matter; it is the effective direction
of subject ma