November 28, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



761 



1. In the first place it is desirable that 

 the public should be accustomed to the dis- 

 cussion of educational problems in terms 

 adapted to the description of the activities 

 of human beings. "With the more general 

 acceptance of the biological view of the 

 subject and the consequent elevation of the 

 teacher from pedagogue to become an ad- 

 viser and director in all questions relating 

 to the art of living successfully, there would 

 be increased appreciation of the honor and 

 dignity of this profession, and greater pos- 

 sibility of obtaining financial recompense in 

 proportion to the value of service rendered 

 to the community. 



2. There should be as rapid an extension 

 as possible of special classes and schools for 

 those whose capacity to adjust at the higher 

 levels of activity is impaired. Provision 

 should also be made, not only for the cases 

 of imperfect intellectual adaptation, but for 

 those in whom the emotional life abnormally 

 dominates reason. 



3. The insistence in schools, as well as in 

 the higher institutions of learning, upon the 

 cardinal principle that the acquisition of 

 good habits, and not of information, should 

 be the final test of a successful education. 

 Think of the remarkable gain to our civili- 

 zation if children were taught fewer sub- 

 jects, but were given assistance in acquir- 

 ing good postural habits, were taught to 

 breathe deeply, to speak without a nasal 

 twang, to eat slowly, and were not allowed 

 to imitate the nervous habits of parents or 

 teachera, or to crystallize into permanent 

 form the undesirable reactions induced by 

 fatigue or protracted study in poorly venti- 

 lated rooms. Good as well as bad habits 

 are generally cumulative. Training the eye 

 to see, the ear to hear, and the hands to 

 perform the coordinated movements essen- 

 tial in the manual arts will lead to the 

 formation of many of the mental mechan- 

 isms characteristic of the man of culture. 



Greater freedom from prejudice of creed 

 and race, more rapid progress in the search 

 for truth, would result if care were taken 

 in the homes and schools to prevent the 

 formation of those habit-reactions which 

 give an abnormal degree of fixity to ideas 

 and produces a state of mind described as 

 stereophronesis.^ The prophylactic treat- 

 ment consists in an avoidance of intense 

 emotional reactions, the cultivation of sense- 

 perceptions, and the capacity to obey the 

 three cardinal impulses essential for 

 genuine temperance reform, "Stop, Look, 

 Listen. ' ' 



If attention should be placed upon the 

 importance of habit-formation and directed 

 away from futile academic discussion relat- 

 ing to the introduction of this or that varia- 

 tion in the curriculum of study, a great 

 saving of time to students and teachers, > 

 and of money to the nation, would be the 

 result. The American university to-day, in 

 certain aspects, suggests a hospital to which 

 students are sent in large numbers with the 

 double purpose of correcting the bad mental 

 habits acquired in homes or schools and of 

 inoculating the undergraduates with the 

 germs of culture. 



The task is an impossible one and entails 

 an enormous annual sacrifice of the best 

 brains of the nation. Habits of work and 

 the mental trends leading to the develop- 

 ment of intellectual interests are formed 

 during the school period and not later. If 

 students were trained at home and at school 

 to acquire good habits of work, they should 

 pass directly from the high school to real 

 university work, so that much work of the 

 college could be readily eliminated. This 

 change would at once set free the men now 

 in our universities who, under the present 

 archaic system, have become slaves to teach- 



3 Thig term was suggested by Professor Edward 

 Capps as descriptive of the meehanisms underlying 

 the ' ' idee fixe. ' ' 



