pils of the words of the text-book without
any understanding of the meaning.

2. The assignment of a certain number of pages or sections to be learned
by the pupils without any preliminary preparation for the study.

3. The employment of the text-book by the teacher during the recitation
as a means of guiding him in the questions he is to ask--a confession
that he does not know what he requires the pupils to know.

=Limitation of Text-book.=--The chief limitation of the text-book method
of teaching is that the pupil makes few discoveries on his own account,
and is, therefore, not trained to think for himself. The problems being
largely solved for him by the writer, the knowledge is not valued as
highly as it would be if it came as an original discovery. We always
place a higher estimation on that knowledge which we discover for
ourselves than on that which somebody else gives us.

THE DEVELOPING METHOD

=Characteristics of the Method.=--The third, or developing, method of
directing the selecting activity of the learner, is so called because
in this method the teacher as an instructor aims to keep the child's
mind actively engaged throughout each step of the learning process. He
sees, in other words, that step by step the pupil brings forward
whatever old knowledge is necessary to the problem, and that he relates
it in a definite way to this problem. Instead of telling the pupils
directly, for instance, the teacher may question them upon certain known
facts in such a way that they are able themselves to discover the new
truth. In teaching alluvial fans, for example, the teacher would begin
questioning the pupil regarding his knowledge of river valleys,
tributary streams, the relation of the force of the tributary water to
the steepness of the side of the river valley, the presence of detritus,
etc., and thus lead the pupil to form his own conclusion as to the
collecting of detritus at the entrance to the level valley and the
probable shape of the deposit. So also in teaching the conjunctive
pronoun from such an example as:

He gave it to a boy _who_ stood near him;

the teacher brings forward, one by one, the elements of old knowledge
necessary to a full understanding of the new word, and tests at each
step whether the pupil is himself apprehending the new presentation in
terms of his former grammatical knowledge. Beginning with the clause
"who stood near him," the teacher may, by question and answer, assur