ON FORMAL TRAINING. 305 



applicability : active or deliberate transfer is far more effective and 

 frequent than passive, automatic, or unintentional transfer. This seems 

 especially true where the common element is an element of method rather 

 than of material, an ideal rather than a piece of information. Accordingly, 

 when practice in reasoning about physical sciences improves the child's 

 power to reason in biological sciences, this occurs not because his 

 reasoning faculty as such has been strengthened, but because the habits 

 and general notions of procedure which he has learnt in the first field are 

 again consciously brought into play in the second field. Merely to 

 practise a child in accuracy of scientific reasoning by quietly correcting 

 his errors and merely repeating the exercises will not of itself produce 

 any generalised power of reasoning logically ; but if incidentally the child 

 is encouraged to form an ideal of accuracy in reasoning, and to study its 

 implications, he may try to live up to that ideal in every department 

 of life. 



It follows, therefore, that what chiefly assists the spread of training 

 is not the mere perception of facts, but the perception of relations between 

 facts : and this is something more than mere mechanical association. 

 ' There comes first an unconscious employment of certain principles or 

 ideals. These gradually become clearer and more definitely outlined. 

 They are recognised by their owner and named, and thereby gain 

 tremendously in effectiveness and in transfer-power. This recognition 

 must, however, await the slow growth of the idea to be recognised. The 

 teacher cannot put the words into the pupil's mouth — or rather, unfor- 

 tunately, he can do so, but if he does it too early he will give mere words. 

 ... In general, the rule appears to be that any teaching which makes 

 the pupil more conscious of how successful results are obtained is likely 

 to assist transfer.' ^ 



The practical corollary is obvious. Teachers should arrange the-work 

 of their pupils and their own mode of teaching so as to lead their pupils 

 to recognise clearly the methods by which efficient work is done. Further, 

 it follows that the intelligent child, who can perceive relations spontane- 

 ously, who can generalise his methods and re-apply them on his own 

 initiative, is likely to show a wider transfer than the dull child. With 

 the dull the teacher can hope to do little more than implant specific 

 memories and specific habits that will be definitely useful in and for 

 themselves, and, so far as possible, impress upon the child how these 

 memories and these habits may subsequently be applied. 



Note. — Prof. Godfrey Thomson has read this paper and is in general agreement with 

 the statement it contains. 



Some Practical Applications. 



By Prof. F. A. Cavenagh, M.A. 



The educational implications of the foregoing paper are clear. We can. 

 no longer retain any school subject solely on the ground that it provides 

 ' mental discipline,' nor should we speak of the ' educative value ' of a 

 ■mbject. Educative value exists not in the subject per se, but in the way 



* Thomson, ibid., p. 143. 

 1929 X 



