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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIV. No. 1387 



metliod is not sufficient to attain the ideal. 

 As a corollary to arousing interest on the 

 part of children comes the proposition that 

 " the best way to get the child to learn a 

 thing is to make it want to learn that thing." 

 These fundamentals of the progressive method 

 of education in the earlier grades are at- 

 tacked along four lines. They include (1) 

 competitive games in which there is some op- 

 portunity for action, (2) the abandonment of 

 the formal recitation, (3) a more flexible pro- 

 gram, (4) correlation of book knowledge with 

 the daily life of the child. 



It is well understood that not only is pri- 

 mary education in an experimental stage but 

 judging from the numerous attempts to ele- 

 vate the standards of medical education, cer- 

 tainly this branch of technical training is also 

 passing through a period of experiment. When 

 one considers the reports presented before the 

 Council on Medical Education in the spring 

 of 1920 it becomes apparent that the same is 

 true of the various subjects included in the 

 medical curriculum. The question naturally 

 arises as to how far the fundamental prin- 

 ciples of progressive education may be ap- 

 plied to the subject of medicine as a whole 

 or to any of its individual branches. The 

 present cormnunication deals only with the 

 application to the course in pathology. 



The principle of competition has been ap- 

 plied over years in the assignment of grades 

 for work. In the minds of most teachers this 

 is insufficient and often leads simply to in- 

 tensive narrow work toward the attainment of 

 high grades. Many students recognize in 

 themselves a certain limitation of intellectual 

 power and are not stimulated in any sense by 

 the apportionment of grades. They recog- 

 nize that all too often the students with high- 

 est grades are not necessarily the best prac- 

 titioners or investigators. The same applies 

 in the posting of excellent drawings or notes. 

 Competition in actual practical work in pathol- 

 ogy may, however, serve a useful purpose. In 

 our own courses this is attempted by com- 

 parative eSorts in actual work. Students are 

 required to demonstrate to their classmates 

 the fresh organs from recent autopsies. In 



certain instances they demonstrate microscop- 

 ical preparations and the same principle is 

 applied in the reporting of experiments. No 

 grades are assigned for these efforts, but in- 

 stead the attempt is made to stimulate the 

 student's pride in his own attempts. 



The abandonment of the formal recitation 

 has met in our hands with the greatest suc- 

 cess. Even with the utmost informality there 

 was constantly before the student in ordinary 

 recitations the desire to make a good impres- 

 sion on his teacher. It must be recognized, 

 however, that in technical training there is in 

 every subject a considerable content value and 

 in the particular subject under consideration 

 not only is this true but the aim of the teacher 

 must be to stimulate the student to thinking 

 logically in terms of medicine. Extremely 

 successful in our work has been, under the 

 stimulus of Mr. Cobb's article, the introduc- 

 tion of recitations conducted by the students. 

 In the subject of special pathology this in- 

 cludes review recitations of the embryology, 

 morphology, and physiology of organs and sys- 

 tems followed by similar recitations in path- 

 ologic disturbances. In adapting the method, 

 the students elect for each recitation a director 

 who is given sufficient time to prepare for 

 this task. The students are requested to se- 

 lect their directors rather from the point of 

 view of organizing ability and clearness and 

 rapidity of thought than from the point of 

 view merely of high class standing. This has 

 resulted in a marked elevation of the stan- 

 dards of recitation. The results are shown in 

 a greater cooperative spirit on the part of all 

 concerned, a greater seriousness of purpose 

 and attention and what appears to be a clearer 

 understanding of the difficulties which each 

 class faces. N"aturally, such recitations must 

 be closely supervised because of the necessity 

 for maintaining accuracy. It might be ob- 

 jected that such a method leaves no room for 

 the stimulation of the student's imagination. 

 In practise, however, it is found that many 

 questions brought up in the course of these 

 informal discussions serve admirably in ex- 

 citing speculation as to origins, process, re- 

 sults and relations of disease. Furthermore, 



