rely
different. Fancy the contrast between the case of a girl brought up for
fifteen years in a household of refinement and in a companionship of
gentility, and the case of a boy who during the same years has been the
pal of bullies on street corners. Surely stimuli that are to promote
proper reaction in these two cases will have to be suited to the person
in question.

Then, too, the teacher must realize that one child may come from a home
of faith, confidence, and contentment; whereas, another may come from a
home of agitation, doubt, and suspicion. One may have been taught to
pray--another may have been led to disbelieve. One may have been
stimulated to read over sacred books--another may have been left to
peruse cheap, sensational detective stories. To succeed in reaching the
hearts of a group of such boys and girls, a teacher surely ought to be
aware of individual differences and ought to be fortified with a wealth
of material so that the appeal may be as varied as possible. To quote
from Thorndike's _Principles of Education_:

"A teacher has to choose what is for the greatest good of the
greatest number. He cannot expect to drive forty children abreast
along the highroad of education." "Yet the differences in children
should not blind us to their likenesses." "We need general principles
and their sagacious application to individual problems."

"The worst error of teachers with respect to individual differences
is to neglect them, to form one set of fixed habits for dealing with
all children, to teach 'the child instead of countless different
living individuals.' To realize the varieties of human nature, the
nature and amount of mental differences, is to be protected against
many fallacies of teaching."

Our treatment of individual differences was well summed up in the
following paper by B.H. Jacobsen, a member of the B.Y.U.
Teacher-Training class:

_The Significance of Individual Differences in Teaching_

"Individual instruction in our religious organizations as in the
public schools is under present condition impracticable. We are
compelled to teach in groups or classes of somewhat varying size.
Consequently, it is of prime importance for the teacher, in trying to
apply that fundamental principle of pedagogy--an understanding of the
being to be taught--to know first what characteristics and
tendencies, whether native or acquired, are known to a large