Section J. 

 MENTAL SCIENCE AND EDUCATION. 



1.— THE MOTIVATION OF SCHOOLWORK. 

 By E. A. RILEY, M.A. 



[Abstract.] 



The point of view brought forward in the paper is largely that of 

 Dr. John Dewey, formely of Chicago University. 



Science enables us to foretell in the region with which it deals. If 

 we apply this criterion to education, can we claim that there is such a 

 thing as a science of education ? Education aims at the production 

 of a certain type of individual, but cannot guarantee the outcome. 

 We shall probably never reach a stage when the result of the educative 

 process can be foretold with the certainty of a chemical reaction. Still, 

 we can even now foretell in a large way. Education has reached a 

 stage of scientific development comparable, say, to that attained by 

 meteorology. It is a science in the making. The results of many 

 sciences are being availed of by the educationist, and scientific method 

 is being applied to educational problems. 



In pre-school learning the child learns almost entirely from first- 

 hand experience. He masters a spoken language, learns a great num- 

 ber of facts about man and nature, and acquires a large range of muscular 

 skill. During this period he learns without effort almost, he learns 

 only what seems worth while, and he learns without constraint. This 

 attitude should be retained within the schoolroom, which should pro- 

 vide an environment containing all the elements to which it is desirable 

 that the pupil should be adjusted. 



Experience, it has been said, is the best of schoolmasters, but the fees 

 are heavy. I wish to insist that experience is the only true school- 

 master, and the fees are not necessarily heavy. The teachers guidance 

 keeps the fees down. The function of the school is to provide such 

 an environment as will give the necessary breadth and depth of ex- 

 perience to convert the irresponsible child into the fully responsible 

 adult. The teacher is needed because the child has not adequate 

 criteria of judgment. 



Science is an abstract of experience. There is only one way to 

 bring knowledge and the child into organic relationship, viz., to reduce 

 its abstractions once more to experience. Symbolic statement can 

 never take the place of experience. Power to reproduce the symbols 



