Knowledge Obtained Through Use of Ideas.—As already noted, the presented problem of a lesson is neither a state of complete knowledge nor a state of complete ignorance. On the other hand, its function is to provide a starting-point and guide for the calling up of a number of suitable ideas which the pupil may later relate into a single experience, constituting the new knowledge. Take, for example, a person without a knowledge of fractions, who approaches for the first time the problem of sharing as found in such a question as:

Divide $15 between John and William, giving John $3 as often as William gets $2.

In gaining control of this situation, the pupil must select the ideas $3 and $2, the knowledge that $3 and $2 = $5, and the further knowledge that $15 contains $5 three times. These various ideas will constitute data for organizing the new experience of $9 for John and $6 for William. In the same manner, when the student in grammar is first presented with the problem of interpreting the grammatical value of the word driving in the sentence, "The boy driving the horse is very noisy," he is compelled to apply to its interpretation the ideas noun, adjectival relation, and adjective, and also the ideas object, objective relation, and verb. In this way the child secures the mental elements which he may organize into the new experience, or knowledge (participle), and thus gain control of the presented word.

Interpreting Ideas Already Known.—It is to be noticed at the outset that all ideas selected to aid in the solution of the lesson problem have their origin in certain past experiences which have a bearing on the subject in hand. When presented with a strange object (guava), a person fixes his attention upon it, and thereupon is able, through his former sensation experiences, to interpret it as an unknown thing. He then begins to select, out of his experiences of former objects, ideas that bear upon the thing before him. By focusing thereon certain ideas with which he is perfectly familiar, as rind, flesh, seed, etc., he interprets the strange thing as a kind of fruit. In the same way, when the student is first presented in school with an example of the infinitive, he brings to bear upon the vague presentation various ideas already contained within his experience through his previous study of the noun and the verb. To the extent also to which he possesses and is able to recall these necessary old ideas, will he be able to adjust himself to the new and unfamiliar presented example (infinitive). It is evident, therefore, that a new presentation can have a meaning for us only as it is related to something in our past experience.

Further Examples.—The mind invariably tries to interpret new presentations in terms of old ideas. A newspaper account of a railway wreck will be intelligible to us only through the revival and reconstruction of those past experiences that are similar to the elements described in the account. The grief, disappointment, or excitement of another will be appreciated only as we have experienced similar feelings in the past. New ideas are interpreted by means of related old ideas; new feelings and acts are dependent upon and made possible by related old feelings and acts. Moreover, the meaning assigned to common objects varies with different persons and even with the same person under different circumstances. A forest would be regarded by the savage as a place to hide from the attacks of his enemies; by the hunter as a place to secure game; by the woodcutter as affording firewood; by the lumberman as yielding logs for lumber; by the naturalist as offering opportunity for observing insects and animals; by the artist as a place presenting beautiful combinations of colours. This ability of the mind to retain and use its former knowledge in meeting and interpreting new experiences is known in psychology as apperception. A more detailed study of apperception as a mental process will be made in Chapter XXVI.

THE SELECTING PROCESS

Learner's Mind Active.—A further principle of method to be deduced from the foregoing is, that the process of bringing ideas out of former experiences to bear upon a presented problem must take place within the mind of the learner himself. The new knowledge being an experience organized from elements selected out of former experiences, it follows that the learner will possess the new knowledge only in so far as he has himself gone through the process of selecting the necessary interpreting ideas out of his own former knowledge and finally organizing them into new knowledge. This need for the pupil to direct mental effort, or attention, upon the problem in order to bring upon it, out of his former knowledge, the ideas relative to the solution of the question before him, is one of the most important laws of method. From the standpoint of the teacher, this law demands that he so direct the process of learning that the pupil will clearly call up in consciousness the selected interpreting ideas as portions of his old knowledge, and further feel a connection between these and the new problem before him.

Learner's Experience Analysed.—The second stage of the learning process is found to involve also a breaking up of former experience. This appears in the fact that the various ideas which are necessary to interpret the new problem are to be selected out of larger complexes of past experience. For example, in a lesson whose problem is to account for the lack of rainfall in the Sahara desert, the pupil may have a complex of experiences regarding the position of the desert. Out of this mass of experience he must, however, select the one feature—its position in relation to the equator. In the same way, he may have a whole body of experience regarding the winds of Africa. This body must, however, be analysed, and the attention fixed upon the North-east trade-wind. Again, he may know many things about these winds, but here he selects out the single item of their coming from a land source. Again, from the complex of old knowledge which he possesses regarding the land area from which the wind blows, he must analyse out its temperature, and compare it with that of the areas toward which the wind is blowing. Thus it will be seen that, step by step, the special items of old knowledge to be used in the apperceptive process are selected out of larger masses of experience. For this reason this phase of the learning process is frequently designated as a process of analysis.

Problem as Object of Analysis.—Although the second step of the learning process has been described as a selecting of elements from past experience, it might be supposed that the various elements which the mind has been said to select from its former experiences to interpret the new problem, come in a sense from the presentation itself. Thus it is often said, in describing the present step in the learning process, that the presentation embodies a certain aggregate of experience, which the learner can master by analysing it into its component parts and recombining the analysed parts into a better known whole.

Analysis Depends upon Selection.—It is not in the above sense, however, that the term analysis is to be applied in the learning process. It is not true, for instance, when a person is presented with a strange object, say an ornithorhynchus, and realizes it in only a vague way, that any mere analysis of the object will discover for him the various characteristics which are to synthesize into a knowledge of the animal. This would imply that in analysis the mind merely breaks up a vaguely known whole in order to make of it a definitely known whole. But the learner could not discover the characteristics of such an object unless the mind attended to it with certain elements of its former experiences. Unless, for instance, the person already knew certain characteristics of both birds and animals, he could not interpret the ornithorhynchus as a bird-beaked animal. In the case of the child and the mud-turtle, also, there could have been no analysis of the problem in the way referred to, had the child not had the ideas, bug and basket, as elements of former experience. These characteristics, therefore, which enter into a definite knowledge of the object, do not come out of the object by a mere mechanical process of analysis, but are rather read into the object by the apperceptive process. That is, the learner does not get his new experience directly out of the presented materials, but builds up his new experience out of elements of his former knowledge. In other words, the learner sees in the new object, or problem, only such characteristics as his former knowledge and interest enable him to see. Thus while the learner may be said from one standpoint to analyse the new problem, this is possible only because he is able to break up, or analyse, his former experience and read certain of its elements into the new presentation. To say that the mind analyses the unknown object, or topic, in any other sense, would be to confound mental interpretation with physical analysis.

A Further Example.—The following example will further show that the learner can analyse a presented problem only to the extent that he is able to put characteristics into it by this process of analysing or selecting from his past experience. Consider how a young child gains his knowledge of a triangle. At first his control of certain sensations enables him to read into it two ideas, three-sidedness and three-angledness, and only these factors, therefore, organize themselves into his experience triangle. Nor would any amount of mere attention enable him at this stage to discover another important quality in the thing triangle. Later, however, through the growth of his geometric experience, he may be able to read another quality into a triangle, namely two-right-angledness. This new quality will then, and only then, be organized with his former knowledge into a more complete knowledge of a triangle. Here again it is seen that analysis as a learning process is really reading into a new presentation something which the mind already possesses as an element of former experience, and not gaining something at first hand out of the presented problem.

Problem Directs Selection.—It will be well to note here also that the selecting of the interpreting ideas is usually controlled by the problem with which the mind is engaged. This is indicated from the various ways in which the same object may be interpreted as the mind is confronted with different problems. The round stone, for instance, when one wishes to crack the filbert, is viewed as a hammer; when he wishes to place his paper on the ground, it becomes a weight; when he is threatened by the strange dog, it becomes a weapon of defence. In like manner the sign x suggests an unknown quantity in relation to the algebraic problem; in relation to phonics it is a double sound; in relation to numeration, the number ten. It is evident that in all these cases, what determines the meaning given to the presented object is the need, or problem, that is at the moment predominant. In the same way, any lesson problem, in so far as it is felt to be of value, forms a starting-point for calling up other ideas, and therefore starts in the learner's mind a flow of ideas which is likely to furnish the solution. Moreover, the mind has the power to measure the suitability of various ideas and select or reject them as they are felt to stand related to the problem in hand. For example, when a pupil is engaged in a study of the grammatical value of the word driving in the sentence, "The boy driving the horse is very noisy," it is quite possible that he may think of the horse at his own home, or the shouting of his father's hired man, or even perhaps the form of the word driving, if he has just been viewing it in a writing lesson. The mind is able, however, to reject these irrelevant ideas, and select only those that seem to adjust themselves to the problem in hand. The cause of this lies in the fact that the problem is at the outset at least partly understood by the learner, which fact enables him to determine whether the ideas coming forward in consciousness are related in any way to this partially known topic. Thus in the example cited, the learner knows the problem sufficiently to realize that it is a question of grammatical function, and is able, therefore, to feel the value, or suitability, of any knowledge which may be applied to it, even before he is fully aware of its ultimate relation thereto.

LAW OF PREPARATION

Control of Old Knowledge Necessary.—But notwithstanding the direction given the apperceptive process through the aim, or problem, it is evident that if the pupil is to select from his former experiences the particular elements which bear upon the problem in hand, he must have a ready and intelligent control over such former knowledge. It is too evident, however, that pupils frequently do not possess sufficient control over the old knowledge which will bear upon a presented problem. In endeavouring, for example, to grasp the relation of the exterior angle to the two interior and opposite angles, the pupil may fail because he has not a clear knowledge of the equality of angles in connection with parallel lines. For this reason teachers will often find it necessary (before bringing old knowledge to bear upon a new problem) to review the old knowledge, or experience, to be used during the apperceptive process. Thus a lesson on the participle may begin with a review of the pupils' knowledge of verbs and adjectives, a lesson on the making of the colours orange and green for painting a pumpkin with its green stem may begin with a recognition of the standard colours, red, yellow, and blue, and the writing of a capital letter with a review of certain movements.

Preparation Recalls Interpreting Ideas.—It must be noted that this review of former knowledge always implies, either that the pupil is likely to have forgotten at least partially this former knowledge, or that without such review he is not likely to recall and apply it readily when the new problem is placed before him. For this reason the teacher is usually warned that his lesson should always begin with a review of such of the pupil's old knowledge as is to be used in mastering the new experiences.

VALUE OF PREPARATION

A. Aids the Understanding.—The main advantage of this preparatory work is that it brings into clear consciousness that group of ideas and feelings best suited to give meaning to the new presentation. Without it, the pupil may not understand, or only partially understand, or entirely misunderstand the lesson. (1) He may not understand the new matter at all because he does not bring any related facts from his past experience to bear upon it. Multiplication of decimals would in all probability be a merely mechanical process if the significance of decimals and the operation of multiplying fractions were not brought to bear upon it, the pupil not understanding it at all as a rational process. (2) He may only partially understand the new matter because he does not see clearly the relation between his old ideas and the new facts, or because he does not bring to the new facts a sufficient equipment of old ideas to make them meaningful. The adverbial objective would be imperfectly understood if it were not shown that its functions are exactly parallel with those of the adverb. The pupil would have only a partial understanding of it. (3) He may entirely misunderstand the new facts because he uses wrong old experiences to give them meaning. Such was evidently the difficulty in the case of the young pupil who, after a lesson on the equator, described it as a menagerie lion running around the earth. Many of the absurd answers that a pupil gives are due to his failure to use the correct old ideas to interpret the new facts. He has misunderstood because his mind was not prepared by making the proper apperceiving ideas explicit.

B. Saves Time.—There is the further advantage of economy of time, when an adequate preparation of the mind has been made. When the appropriate ideas are definitely in the forefront of consciousness, they seize upon kindred impressions as soon as these are presented and give them meaning. On the other hand, when sufficient preparation has not been made, time must be taken during the presentation of the new problem to go back in search of those experiences necessary to make it meaningful. Frequent interruptions and consequent waste of time will be inevitable. Time will be saved by having the apperceiving ideas ready and active.

C. Provides for Review.—One of the most important values of the preparatory step is the opportunity given for the review of old ideas. These have to be revived, worked over, and reconstructed, and in consequence they become the permanent possessions of the mind. The pupil's knowledge of the functions of the adverb is reviewed when he learns the adverb phrase and adverb clause, and is still further illuminated when he comes to study the adverbial objective. Further, the apperceiving ideas become more interesting to the pupil, when he finds that he can use them in the conquest of new fields. He has a consciousness of power, which in itself is a source of satisfaction and pleasure.

PRECAUTIONS REGARDING PREPARATION

Must not be too Long.—Two precautions seem advisable in the preparatory step. The first is that too long a time should not be spent over it. There is sometimes a tendency to go back too far and drag forward ideas that are only remotely connected with the new ideas to be presented. Under such conditions much irrelevant material is likely to be introduced, and often a train of associations out of harmony with the meaning and spirit of the lesson is started. This is especially dangerous in lessons in literature and history. Only those experiences should be revived which are necessary to a clear apprehension of the ideas or a full appreciation of the emotions to be presented in the new lesson.

Must Recall Vital Ideas.—The most active, vivid, and powerful ideas in the pupil's mind are those which are closely connected with his life. This suggests the second precaution, namely, the use wherever possible of the ideas associated with his surroundings, his games, his occupations. When this is done, not only will the new knowledge have a much greater interest attached to it but it will also be much more vividly apprehended. This will be referred to further in connection with the use of illustrations in teaching.

NECESSITY OF PREPARATION

Teachers, however, are not always agreed as to the amount of time or emphasis to be given to this preparatory step. If the teacher can assure himself that a lesson is following in easy sequence upon something with which the children are undoubtedly familiar, he may, many argue, safely omit such preparatory work. Indeed it is evident that after leaving school the child will have no personal monitor to call up beforehand the ideas that he must apply in solving the problems continually presenting themselves in practical life. On the other hand, however, it is to be remembered that the young child is, at the best, feeling his way in the process of adjusting himself to new experiences. For this reason, the first work for the teacher in any lesson is to ascertain whether the pupils are in a proper attitude for the new knowledge, and, so far as is necessary, prepare their minds through the recall of such knowledge as is related to the new experiences to be presented. Although, therefore, the step of preparation is not an essential part of the learning process, since it constitutes for the pupil merely a review of knowledge acquired through previous learning processes, it may be accepted as a step in the teacher's method of controlling the learning process.

EXAMPLES OF PREPARATION

The following additional examples as to the mode and form of the step of preparation may be considered by the student-teacher:

In a lesson in phonic reading in a primary class, the preparation should consist of a review of those sounds and those words which the pupil already knows that are to be used in the new lesson. In a nature study lesson on "The Rabbit," in a Form II class, the preparation should include a recall of any observations the pupils may have made regarding the wild rabbit. They may have observed its timidity, its manner of running, what it feeds upon, where it makes its home, its colour during the winter and during the summer, the kind of tracks it makes in the snow, etc. All these facts will be useful in interpreting the new observations and in assisting the pupils to make new inferences. In a lesson in a Form III class on "Ottawa as a Commercial Centre," the preparation consists of a recall of the pupil's knowledge regarding the position of the city; the adjacent rivers, the Ottawa, Gatineau, Rideau, LiÈvre, Madawaska; the waterfalls of the Rideau and ChaudiÈre; the forests to the north and west, with their immense supplies of pine, spruce, and hemlock; and the fact that it is the Dominion capital. All these facts are necessary in inferring the causes of the importance of Ottawa. In a literature lesson in a Form III class on The Charge of the Light Brigade, the preparation would involve a recall of some deed of personal heroism with which the pupils are familiar, such as that of John Maynard, Grace Darling, or any similar one nearer home. Recall how such a deed is admired and praised, and the memory of the doer is cherished and revered. Then the teacher should tell the story of Balaklava with all the dramatic intensity he is master of, in order that the pupils may be in a proper mood to approach the study of the poem. In a grammar lesson on "The Adverbial Objective" the preparation should consist of a review of the functions of the adverb as modifying a verb, an adjective, and sometimes another adverb. Upon this knowledge alone can a rational idea of the adverbial objective be built. In an arithmetic lesson on "Multiplication of Decimals," in a Form IV class, the preparation should involve a review of the meaning of decimals, of the interconversion of decimals and fractions (for example, .05 = 5 hundredths; 27 ten-thousandths = .0027, etc.); and of the multiplication of fractions. Unless the pupil can do these operations, it is obviously impossible to make his knowledge of multiplication of decimals anything more than a merely mechanical process.

PREPARATION MERELY AIDS SELECTION

Before closing our consideration of preparation as a stage of method, it will be well again to call attention to the fact that this is not one of the four recognized stages of the learning process, but rather a subsidiary feature of the second, or apperceptive stage. In other words, actual advance is made by the pupil toward the control of a new experience, not through a review of former experience, but by an active relating of elements selected from past experience to the interpretation of the new problem.