Meaning of Method.—In the last Chapter it was seen that, in relation to the child, education involves a gaining of control over experiences. It has been seen further, that the child gains control of new experience whenever he goes through a process of learning involving the four steps of problem, selecting activity, relating activity, and expression. Finally it has been decided that the teacher in his capacity as an instructor, by presenting children with suitable problems, may in a sense direct their selecting and relating activities and thus exercise a certain control over their learning processes. To the teacher, therefore, method will mean an ability to control the learning process in such a way that the children shall, in their turn, gain an adequate control over the new experience forming the subject-matter of any learning process. Thus a detailed study by student-teachers of the various steps of the learning process, with a view to gaining knowledge and skill relative to directing pupils in their learning, constitutes for such teachers a study of General Method.

Subdivisions of Method.—For the student-teacher, the study of general method will involve a detailed investigation of how the child is to gain control of social experiences as outlined above, and how the teacher may bring about the same through instruction.

Tn such an investigation, he must examine in detail the various steps of the educative process to discover:

1. How the knowledge, or social experience, contained in the school curriculum should be presented to the child. This will involve an adequate study of the first step of the learning process—the problem.

2. How the mind, or consciousness, of the child reacts during the learning process upon the presented materials in gaining control of this knowledge. This will embrace a study of the second and third steps of the process—the selecting and relating activities.

3. How the child is to acquire facility in using a new experience, or in applying it to direct his conduct. This involves a particular study of the fourth step of the process—the law of expression.

4. How the teacher may use any outside agencies, as maps, globes, specimens, experiments, etc., to assist in directing the learning process. This involves a study of various classes of educational instrumentalities.

5. How the principles of general method are to be adapted to the different modes by which the learner may gain new experience, or knowledge. This will involve a study of the different kinds of lessons, or a knowledge of lesson types.

METHOD IMPLIES KNOWLEDGE OF MIND

Before we proceed to such a detailed study of the educative process as a process of teaching, it should be noted that the existence of a general method is possible only provided that the growth of conscious control takes place in the mind of the child in a systematic and orderly manner. All children, for instance, must be supposed to respond in the same general way in the learning process when they are confronted with the same problem. Without this they could not secure from the same lesson the same experiences and the same relative measure of control over these experiences. But if our conscious acts are so uniform that the teacher may expect from all of his pupils like responses and like states of experience under similar stimulations, then a knowledge on the part of the teacher of the orderly modes in which the mind works will be essential to an adequate control of the process of learning. Now a full and systematic account of mind and its activities is set forth in the Science of Psychology. As the Science of Consciousness, or Experience, psychology explains the processes by which all experience is built up, or organized, in consciousness. Thus psychology constitutes a basic science for educational method. It is essential, therefore, that the teacher should have some knowledge of the leading principles of this science. For this reason, frequent reference will be made, in the study of general method, to underlying principles of psychology. The more detailed examination of these principles and of their application to educational method will, however, be postponed to a later part of the text. Each of the four important steps of the learning process will now be treated in order, beginning in the next Chapter with the problem.