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Indiana University Studies 



familiar with the idea of standards and with the Courtis Stand- 

 ards in particular. There has been an effort on the part of both 

 teachers and superintendent to bring the children up to the stand- 

 ard of ability set by Mr. Courtis. In the case of Anderson the 

 Courtis tests had not previously been used. For a number of 

 years, however, there has been very close supervision of the arith- 

 metic work throughout the grades. This supervision has aimed 

 among other things to bring each class up to a definite stage of 

 progress month by month. It has inevitably, therefore, set stand- 

 ards which, while not as objective as the Courtis standards, have 

 yet had more objective value than the aim of an individual teacher 

 or even of a single school building. Such a standard has, at least, 

 city-wide value, and when impressed on the teachers by frequent 

 teachers' meetings becomes a very definite objective aim toward 

 which to work. 



Thus in both Anderson and Bloomington there have been pres- 

 ent in the minds both of teachers and supervisory force very 

 definite aims to be accomplished by the work in arithmetic. It 

 is just possible that the presence of such a definite aim is the 

 determining thing in bringing each city up to its high score. If 

 so, it is an interesting statistical measure of the value of an ideal. 

 This interpretation agrees with the finding of Dr. J. M. Rice in 

 his study of the causes of success and failure in arithmetic. 



It may be objected that the presence of a definite aim is only 

 one of a number of causes which operate. Thus it may be pointed 

 out that in Bloomington the teachers have more than average 

 academic training, two years of college work being required. In 

 Anderson the teachers are not only given definite aims to be 

 accomplished but also detailed methods to use in reaching these 

 aims. Anderson begins work in the second school year ; Blooming- 

 ton in the third ; both give the optimal time to the subject. It 

 would be foolish to deny all value to other causes, but, detailed 

 investigation would probably show that they are not the determin- 

 ing things, both good and bad scores occurring in a somewhat 

 chaotic manner under the same conditions. It may be expected, 

 on the other hand, that the presence or absence of a definite ideal 

 to be accomplished in the fundamentals of arithmetic is determina- 

 tive in character. Scores will be low as aims are general and 

 vague or high when ideals are specific and clearcut. 



The opportunity offers for some school to make the crucial 

 experiment. If in a school system there has been little supervision 

 and each teacher has been allowed to set her own aims and reach 



