PRINCIPLES DETERMINING METHOD. 177 



classification from those which are of minor importance, 

 development work is invaluable. Care is necessary, 

 however. Too often the questioning is so done that 

 the child is shut in between two walls, as it were, com- 

 pelled to go where the teacher wishes him to go by 

 being led to bump his head, first against one wall and 

 then against the other. He has followed a line of 

 thought, it is true, but not his ; he has not made it his 

 own. He has simply bumped along, driven by or be- 

 tween the questions of the teacher. 



This excessive use of questions illustrates an abuse, 

 rather than a proper use, of the development method. 

 But it is much too prevalent. 



In general, the fewer and broader, and at the same 

 time the clearer apd sharper, the questions, the better 

 the results, in getting pupils to think for themselves. 



The teacher who leads her pupils to relate their ideas 

 for themselves, to follow out a line of thought for them- 

 selves, will be much more successful in impressing ideas, 

 and in developing the power and habit of logical think- 

 ing, than the teacher who compels her pupils to follow 

 closely her own line of thought. 



The next law which must determine method is the 

 law of unity, an expression for the tendency of the 

 mind to relate and group and unify all its ideas. 



In apperception, the combining of new percepts with 

 the concepts already in the mind, we have the first step 

 of the mind in the process of unifying. Sequence, the 

 uniting of ideas in a series, illustrates an extension of 



