ourage the class in self-expression
and independence in thinking.

There are three great purposes to be accomplished through the
recitation: _testing_, _teaching_, and _drilling_. These three aims
may all be accomplished at times in the same recitation, may even
alternate with each other in successive questions, but they are
nevertheless wholly distinct from each other, and require different
methods for their accomplishment. The skillful teacher will have one
or the other of these three aims before him either consciously or
unconsciously at each moment of the recitation, and will know when he
changes from one to the other and for what reason. Let us proceed to
consider each of these aims somewhat more in detail.

3. _Testing as an aim in the recitation_

Testing deals with ground already covered, with matter already
learned, or with powers already developed. It concerns itself with the
old, instead of progressing into the new. It seeks to find out what
the child knows or what he can do of that which he has already been
over in his work. Of course every new lesson or task attempted is in
some measure a test of all that has preceded it, but testing needs to
be much more definite and specific than this.

The testing discussed here must not be confused with what we sometimes
call "tests," but which really are examinations, given at more or less
infrequent intervals. Testing may and should be carried on in the
regular daily recitations by questions and answers either oral or
written, bearing on matter previously assigned; by discussions of
topics of the lesson assigned; or by requiring new work involving the
knowledge or power gained in the past work which is being tested. The
following are some of the principal things which we should test in the
recitation:--

_a. The preparation of the lesson assigned._--The preparation of every
lesson assigned should be tested in some definite way. This is of the
utmost importance, especially in all elementary grades. We are all so
constituted mentally that we have a tendency to grow careless in
assigned tasks if their performance is not strictly required of us. No
matter how careful may be the assignment of the lesson, and no matter
how much the teacher may urge upon the class at the time of the
assignment that they prepare the lesson well, the pupils must be held
responsible for this preparation day by day, without fail, if we are
to insure their mastery of it.

Nor is it enou