CHAPTER XII 

 EDUCABILITY: METHODS OF LEARNING 



NEARLY all of the experiments described in earlier chap- 

 ters have revealed facts concerning the educability of the 

 dancer. In order to supplement the knowledge of this sub- 

 ject thus incidentally gained and to discover the principles of 

 educability, the specially devised experiments whose results 

 appear in this and succeeding chapters were arranged and 

 carried out with a large number of mice. In the work on the 

 modifiability of behavior I have attempted to determine (i) by 

 what methods the dancer is capable of profiting by experience, 

 (2) the degree of rapidity of learning, (3) the permanency of 

 changes wrought in behavior, (4) the effect of one kind of train- 

 ing upon others, (5) the relation of re-training to training, and 

 (6) the relation of all these matters to age, sex, and individuality. 



As it is obvious that knowledge of these subjects is a 

 necessary condition for the intelligent appreciation of the 

 capacities of an animal, as well as of the choice of methods by 

 which it may be trained advantageously, perhaps it is not too 

 much to expect that this investigation of the nature and con- 

 ditions of educability in the dancing mouse may give us some 

 new insight into the significance of certain aspects of human 

 education and may serve to suggest ways in which we may 

 measure and increase the efficiency of our educational methods. 



Merely for the sake of convenience of description I shall 

 classify the methods which have been employed as problem 

 methods, labyrinth methods, and discrimination methods. 

 That these names are not wholly appropriate is suggested by 



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