CORRESPONDENCE. 



211 



made an exclusive aim), and as its 

 meaning is so vague that almost any- 

 thing can be urged as a corrolary to it, 

 it may be dismissed. The first two con- 

 tentions are about concrete matters of 

 educational practice which need to be 

 thought over. If professional prepara- 

 tion is a waste of time, there is every 

 reason why we should omit it; if a pre- 

 scribed course of study is better for the 

 boys and girls, we can conscientiously 

 lessen the expense and labor of adminis- 

 tration in many schools. 



The argument on the first point is, 

 briefly, that Professor Miinsterberg's 

 teachers were good teachers and that 

 they had no notion of even the vocabu- 

 lary of educational theories. But ob- 

 viously that may not have been the 

 secret of their success. A majority of 

 the high-school teachers in New Eng- 

 land have had no professional training, 

 yet no one has observed that they are 

 superior to those of their class who 

 have. The argument is really a bare 

 assertion of an unverified guess. It is 

 the hap-hazard opinion of an eminent 

 psychologist who perchance is trying to 

 furnish evidence of his previous theory 

 that psychology does not give one 

 knowledge about teaching. It is worth 

 while to note here a certain interesting 

 aspect of human nature. Training in 

 one sphere of intellectual activity need 

 not bring ability in other spheres. The 

 habit and power of observation or rea- 

 soning acquired in connection with 

 chemistry need not make a man a good 

 observer or reasoner in politics or phi- 

 lology.- So we should not be surprised 

 that a man eminent for his scientific 

 habits as a psychologist should, on a 

 question in another field, offer imagina- 

 tive hypotheses without an attempt to 

 verify them, or to collect pertinent evi- 

 dence or to eliminate factors outside 

 those he discusses. We may be allowed 

 to feel sorry. If a scientist wishes to 

 really clear up the question of the value 

 of professional training, why does he 

 not find representatives of the classes, 

 'teachers with professional training' and 

 'teachers their equals in other respects, 



who have replaced the effort after pro- 

 fessional training by equal effort after 

 further scholarship,' and compare the 

 work of the two classes? If other fac- 

 tors enter to disturb such an investiga- 

 tion, why not carefully look at the facts 

 to ascertain their influence? Until he 

 does so his dicta will stand as mere 

 opinions. It would be a blessing if 

 scientific men would use the weight of 

 their reputations, not to bolster up their 

 after-dinner opinions about things in 

 general, but to teach the public scien- 

 tific methods of studying them. 



Apart from the danger of offering 

 pedagogy an unproved opinion as a fact, 

 it seems poor economy to leave a ques- 

 tion in such shape that only the opinion 

 of another eminent man on the opposite 

 side is required to destroy the result 

 you have attained. Precisely this has 

 occurred in the case of Professor Miin- 

 sterberg's contributions to educational 

 discussion two years ago. Another emi- 

 nent man, Professor Dewey, has recently 

 squarely denied what Professor Miin- 

 sterberg affirmed. It only remains for 

 some equally eminent German professor 

 to rise and declare that his teachers 

 were bad and that they had no pro- 

 fessional training, or that his teachers 

 were good and had it, and Professor 

 Miinsterberg's effect is neutralized. 



Professor Miinsterberg's argument 

 against the elective system is more 

 complex. He regards the elective sys- 

 tem as partly a concession to the ob- 

 vious need of fitting young people 

 earlier for their occupations in life and 

 partly an attempt to use the likes and 

 dislikes of children as a guide to what 

 is good for them. This is a very narrow 

 view. The elective system has been in 

 part the result of the progress of science 

 and the consequent conviction that the 

 scientific study of things and human af- 

 fairs should be a part of one's educa- 

 tion. The elective system furnished a 

 compromise by which such studies 

 found a place in the college and school 

 curricula. If the student is left to 

 choose among them, instead of having a 

 new prescribed course made out on the 



