THE GREATEST NEED IN RESEARCH 331 



should consult all these opinions in the hope of getting some aid in his 

 task, he would be more likely to be confused than enlightened. Take 

 the current standard literature on the feeding of children, for instance, 

 and you will find exactly opposite opinions expressed upon the most 

 vital matters by equally ' eminent authorities ' ; and you will discover 

 that we have but little on this subject which has been worked out with 

 due regard to scientific accuracy. The trouble is that a man who may 

 be an authority in some phase of the malfunctioning of the adult 

 organism, but who has made no exact studies upon the developing 

 organism, does not hesitate to dogmatize about the latter in the light 

 of his experience with the former. While doubtless he may be par- 

 tially right in his views, still what we now need is precision as a result 

 of special research in the field of human development, physical as well 

 as intellectual and moral. Here is the great necessity and the great 

 opportunity for research. 



Doubtless one, and it may be the principal, reason why research in 

 education has lagged far behind that in many other fields is because 

 the practical work of instruction has absorbed the attention and ener- 

 gies of educators. There has been so much to do in carrying out the 

 conventional educational regime that men have not had leisure to even 

 investigate the foundations of this regime. Teachers are always con- 

 fronted by situations where something must he done immediately, and 

 they are compelled to act in view of what seems traditionally best. It 

 is not permitted them to doubt the validity of the principles trans- 

 mitted to them, for to doubt is to become static, and the great public 

 demands action of a clearly obvious nature. Then naturally, of course, 

 when the teacher acts on a principle through necessity, he becomes its 

 exponent and defendant, and easily convinces himself that it is sound, 

 and in this way he helps to pass it on as truth to his associates. Here- 

 tofore there has been no body of men in education, as there has been 

 in other fields, who have been sheltered from the urgency of people of 

 utilitarian impulses and needs, and who have been given leisure to work 

 out problems without feeling that principles and rules of practical 

 value must be elaborated at once right out of hand. In physics and 

 chemistry and agriculture and medicine and. other departments there 

 are men at work who devote all their time and energies to original 

 investigation, and they are not coerced into forming hasty opinions in 

 order to gratify a public demand ; but it is quite different in education. 

 The supreme need to-day in this latter department is the development 

 of a body of investigators who will be recognized as such, and who will 

 be protected from the importunities of the practical people about them. 

 Taken as a whole, the universities, some of which make reasonably 

 liberal provision for research in the physical sciences, agriculture, medi- 

 cine and the like, make no provision whatever for research in education. 



