584 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



attention of the practitioner to the rational, orderly study of 

 successful methods in actual use, and of the underlying reasons 

 for their success. In Prof. Laurie's pointed phrase, sound 

 theory is only sound practice " conscious of itself." In our 

 day none can justly accuse educationists of not being conscious 

 of the problems raised by their practice, and of the need for 

 an adequate basis of scientific knowledge about cognate do- 

 mains. But the growth of such conscious attention to the 

 science of education has led them to take a greater interest 

 in the work of their fellows. Hence have arisen a succession 

 of educational conferences, a growing professional literature, 

 and a mass of technical periodicals with the sum total of which 

 it is quite beyond the busy teacher to cope. It will be the 

 object of this series, therefore, to help the expert more easily 

 to make use of the literature of his subject, and to give to the 

 general reader some impression of contemporary educational 

 movements. 



• • • • 



Underlying the varied programme of the eighth annual 

 Conference of Educational Associations held in January at 

 University College, London, there seemed to run two main 

 currents of thought. 



A. Thus many of the papers group themselves naturally 

 as being motivated by the awakened interest in the help 

 which recent advances in pyschological knowledge can give 

 to education. There were, for instance, admirable papers on 

 " Mental Tests " by Prof. J. Adams and Dr. P. B. Ballard. 

 In the discussion which followed the clear and useful history 

 of the subject given by the latter, Prof. Spearman pointed out 

 how easily the teacher who knows nothing of this type of work 

 can mistake the stupidity due to some simple physical defect, 

 or remediable failure in correlation, for a sign of low intelli- 

 gence. Earlier in the conference Mr. G. F. Daniell had sug- 

 gested that a certain amount of help might be afforded by 

 psychological tests in the selection of elementary children for 

 higher forms of education. 



Other lecture-subjects grouped about a similar motive 

 were those based on the growing trend of psychological opinion 

 that the cognitive side of human personality has been unduly 

 stressed, with the consequent relative neglect of its conative 

 and affective aspects. Thus, in the first place we have the 

 claim that scope should be given to the child's hunger for 

 doing and for making things ; and hence that a due place 

 should be assigned to handicrafts and other creative activities 

 not solely nor directly concerned with knowing. Under this 

 heading we may class the set of lectures by Mr. Ben Greet and 

 others on the educational uses of the drama ; the paper by 



