Haggerty: Study in Arithmetic 



479 



cent. The upper tliree per cent of the eighth grade children equalled or 

 exceeded the scores of tlie adult clerks. 



The«:e high scores of school children represent waste effort. Until an 

 adequate control of the fundamental tools by which mental work is done 

 has been acquired, that is, until the necessary skill in the Three li's lias 

 been developed, no school ivork is of (jrcdtcr iiitportaiice; but ivhen stand- 

 ari ability has been attained, additional dc(/rees of nwchanical skill become 

 products of the least importance. It is not the function of the public 

 .school to develop professional ability at any stage, and the exceptional 

 child should neither be overtrained, just because he is capable of it. nor 

 railroaded through the grades into the complex work of the high school 

 which is of real benefit only to those of more mature tastes and develop- 

 ment. The child of meager natural ability must at least attain standard 

 in the fundamentals, even if it takes all his school time ; for these are the 

 tools by which his life work will be done. The average child will have 

 Time also for applied work designed to develop his initiative and executive 

 ability, his general knowledge, and to inspire him with worthy aims — the 

 really vital work of the school. The exceptional child will spend almost no 

 time in drill : for him the incidental di'ill of the applied work of any year 

 will so increase his mechanical skill that at the beginning of the next year 

 he will be found to be already of standard ability. Consequently his time 

 can be given wholly to motivated work in a very wide range of industrial 

 and social activitiCvS. Such use of standards will aid each child, whatever 

 his natural ability, to make a year's progress in the type of work of which 

 he is capable in a year's time. Each child will attempt only the problems 

 which represent what are for him the next steps of advance, and each 

 child will learn in the peculiar way that hest suits his personality. The 

 product will be uniform in the sense that every graduate of the school will 

 be able to perform various fundamental activities at very closely the same 

 rate and with about the same degree of accuracy, but the product will be 

 diverse in the sense that the uniform skill will have been developed in 

 very different ways, and that it will be used by different individuals for 

 very different ends. Street car conductors, mechanics, artists, poets, states- 

 men, all make use of arithmetic, and all need to do so eliiciently. The 

 engineer and the professional accountant, and certain other special types 

 of workers, it is true, need more extended training and higher degrees of 

 skill. Uniformity must, therefore, end at the point in the course of study 

 v>-here vocational guidance and specialization become effective. But .so far 

 as abilities are truly fundamental, whether in arithmetic or in other sub- 

 jects, a uniform product attained by careful development of the individual 

 is the one means by which efficiency in all school work can be made 

 possible.^ 



Dr. J. M. Rice^ conclnded from his studies in arithmetic that 

 having a definite standard and testing for results ^vas the deter- 

 mining factor in securing high scores. He held that the responsi- 

 bility for setting such standards rested upon the supervisory force 



2 Courtis, S. A. Second Annual Accounting. Bulletin Number Two (Detroit, 1913). 



3 Rice, J. M. Scientific Management in Education (New York, 1913). 



