230 
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. [Sess. 
XVII. — The Analytical Study of the Mechanism of Writing. 
By James Drever, M.A., B.Sc. Communicated by Dr Alexander 
Morgan. 
(MS. received March 16, 1914. Read June 1 , 1914.) 
In the new and rapidly developing experimental science known as Ex- 
perimented Padagogik ” in Germany, “ Pedagogie experimental ” in 
France, and “ Experimental Pedagogy ” or “ Experimental Education” in 
this country and in America, two well-marked and not entirely consistent 
tendencies have been hitherto manifest. On the one hand, there has been 
a tendency, more particularly in Germany, to develop the work in the 
new field on the lines of experimental psychology, and to employ almost 
exclusively the apparatus and methods of that science. On the other hand, 
there has been a tendency, to a very marked extent in this country and in 
America, to endeavour to carry on experimental work entirely without the 
aid of exact and elaborate apparatus, eschewing, even regarding as “ tabu,” 
the methods of the psychological laboratory. Both tendencies are perhaps 
more or less inevitable, and both to a certain extent may be said to have 
been justified by results. Nevertheless, there are certain obvious dangers 
and defects inherent in both, and the whole situation is itself dangerous 
for the new science. 
If we commit ourselves too exclusively to the employment of psycho- 
logical apparatus and the method of the psychological laboratory, there 
is danger of our experimental education becoming merely a branch of 
experimental psychology, which might involve in the first place the 
neglect of certain fields of study, in which such methods and apparatus are 
quite inapplicable, and, in the second place, a dangerous warping of our 
attitude, aim, and evaluation, consequent upon our psychological view- 
point and our restricted field. If, again, we endeavour to carry on our 
experimental work as far as possible without the use of exact and elaborate 
apparatus, no objection can be made to the thing in itself, but the tempta- 
tion is strong to avoid such detailed and fine analytical work as demands 
the use of precise measuring apparatus, and more or less elaborate recording 
apparatus, which in the long run is almost bound to lead to our science 
becoming exceedingly unscientific, by our contenting ourselves with experi- 
mental investigations of the kind that any teacher can carry out in 
any schoolroom, and then deluding ourselves with the idea that elaborate 
and complex statistical treatment of our results will give them scientific 
