60 FREDERICK S. BREED 



the acquisition of others." " For the student of animal behavior, 

 as for the human educator, it is of importance to learn," he 

 writes, " whether one kind of training increases the efficiency 

 of similar forms of training." The question for which an answer 

 was sought in the work about to be reported is closely related 

 to the problem which Yerkes set for himself, but is concerned 

 with the more general value of training: How^ does acquired 

 ability to react perfectly to one kind of element or complex 

 affect the acquisition of ability to react to a quite different 

 element or complex? 



Among certain organisms a particular act once acquired is 

 more easily re -acquired. A particular act once acquired may 

 facilitate the acquisition of a similar act, similar meaning here 

 a relation of partial identity. Now the question naturally 

 arises. As two acts are less and less similar, what effect does the 

 acquisition of one have on the later acquisition of the other? 

 This raises the problem of formal discipline, capable, surely, 

 of solution by experiment, but not yet solved. It has been 

 suggested that there may be " two kinds or aspects of organic 

 modification in connection with training; those which constitute 

 the basis of a definite form of motor activity, and those which 

 constitute the bases or dispositions for the acquirement of 

 certain types of behavior." ' The data upon which this sugges- 

 tion is based would allow us to say nothing definite about " the 

 acquirement of certain types of behavior " not of the original 

 labyrinth form, which Yerkes used. But at that the general 

 value of training has been experimentally demonstrated, in so 

 far as different labyrinths are different objects, even different 

 objects of the same kind. Although there is a degree of generality 

 here, it is so slight that the training value involved would no 

 doubt ordinarily be classified as specific. If no two particular 

 stimuli are identical, t];ien, practically speaking, much specific 

 training has general value, which does not mean, however, that 

 this generality of value may not rest at bottom on specific 

 modifications. This must be our conclusion when we look at 

 the matter from the side of content as opposed to function, 

 stimulus as opposed to reaction. Practically, it cannot be denied 

 that in some organisms certain kinds of training do have value 

 for certain other kinds. The question awaiting answer in the 



' Yerkes, R. M.: Op. cit., p. 261. 



