But not only must the teacher know where the pupil is failing, but
also the cause of his failure. Only when we know this can we
intelligently apply the remedy for the failure. A physician friend of
mine tells me that almost any quack can prescribe successfully for
sickness if he has an expert at hand to diagnose the case and tell him
what is the matter. This is the hardest part of a physician's work and
requires the most skill. So it is with the teacher's work as well. If
we are sure that a certain boy is failing in his recitations because
he is lazy, it is not so difficult to devise a remedy to fit the case.
If we know that another is failing because the work is too advanced
for his preparation, we select a different remedy. But in every case
we must first know the cause of failure if we hope to prescribe a
remedy certain to produce a cure.

Some teachers prescribe for poorly learned lessons much after the
patent medicine method. A recent advertisement of one particular
nostrum promises the cure of any one of thirty-seven different
diseases. Surely with such a remedy as this at hand there will be no
need to diagnose a case of sickness to find out what is the trouble.
All we need to do is to take the regulation dose. And all patients
will be treated just alike whatever their ailment. This is the quack
doctor's method as it is the quack teacher's. If the teacher is
unskillful or lazy the remedy for poor recitations usually is, "Take
the same lesson for to-morrow." There is even no attempt to discover
the cause of failure and no thought put on the question of how best to
remedy the failure and prevent its recurrence.

4. _Teaching as an aim in the recitation_

While testing deals with the old,--reviewing and fixing more firmly
that which we have already learned,--teaching, by using the old, leads
on to the new. To _educate_ means to _lead out_--to lead the child out
from what he already has attained and mastered to new attainments and
new mastery. This is accomplished through teaching. It is not enough,
therefore, to employ the recitation as a time for testing the class;
the recitation is also the teacher's opportunity to teach. Teaching as
distinguished from testing becomes, therefore, one of the great aims
of the recitation.

Teaching should accomplish the following objects in the recitation:--

_a. Give the child an opportunity for self-expression._--"We learn to
do by doing," providing the doing is really ou