ctly but effectively, to think sequentially. We have
all suffered too keenly, as auditors and readers, the inconveniences
of poor organization, not to realize the worth of proper organization
of knowledge in teaching.

Organization of knowledge has become a pedagogical slogan, but its
increase in popularity has not been accompanied by increased clearness
of comprehension of its meaning. What, then, is meant by proper
organization? It must ever be borne in mind that proper organization
is a relative condition, the limits of which are determined by the
capacities of the students and the nature of the subject matter. What
is effective organization of facts in elementary history may be very
ineffective organization for students of high school or college grade.
Making due allowance for relative conditions, good organization may be
said to consist of five essential characteristics.

_Logical sequence_ is the first of these. It is apparent that the more
rational the sequence of facts, the more effective is the organization
of knowledge. Data organized on a basis of cause and effect,
similarity, contrast or any other logical relationship will help to
secure the teaching advantages we have mentioned. A search for this
simple principle in most textbooks on American or English history or
literature reveals its complete absence. A detailed mass of historical
information grouped into administrations or reigns is merely a
mechanical organization in which time, the accidental element, and
not the development of social movements, the logic of human history,
is the determining factor. In too many courses in literature the
student learns names of writers, biographical data, and literary
characteristics of the masters, but fails to see the development of
the movement of which the writer was a part. Events of history placed
in their social movements, writers in literature placed in the school
in which they belong, give the student the logical ties which bind the
knowledge to him. So, too, one often analyzes the sequence of chapters
in an advanced algebra or a trigonometry and fails to discover the
governing rationale. It must be remembered, however, that the nature
of the subject will often reduce the logical element in its
organization. Instances in language teaching may be cited as
illustrations of teaching situations where a mechanical organization
is often the only one possible because of the arbitrary character of
the subject matter