t is the investigation of some subject that has been
found worthy the attention and thoughtful consideration of scholars and
authors.

=The gang element.=--The members of the group represent all strata of
society, and the group is, in consequence, a working democracy. Moving
in the same direction under a common impulse and intent upon a laudable
enterprise, race and class distinctions are considered negligible, if,
indeed, they are not entirely overlooked or forgotten. The group is, in
truth, a sublimated gang with the undesirable elements eliminated and
the potential qualities of the gang retained. The gang spirit when
impelling in right directions and toward worthy ends is to be highly
commended. In the gang, each member stimulates and reenforces the other
members, and their achievements in combination amply justify their
cooeperation. The potency of the gang spirit is well exemplified in such
enterprises as "tag day" for the benefit of charity, the sale of Red
Cross stamps, and the sale of special editions of papers. People
willingly enlist in these enterprises who would not do so but for the
element of cooeperation. We have come to recognize and write upon the
psychology of the gang, and the socialized recitation strives to utilize
these psychological principles for the advancement and advantage of the
enterprise in hand.

=Proprietary interest.=--In a cooeperative enterprise such as the one
under consideration each member of the group feels a sense of
responsibility for the success of the enterprise as a whole, and this
makes for increased effort. In the traditional recitation the pupil
feels responsibility only for that part of the lesson upon which he is
called to recite. In his thinking the enterprise belongs to the teacher,
and therefore he feels no proprietary interest. If the lesson is a
failure, he experiences no special compunction; if a success, he feels
no special elation. If the trunk with which he struggles up the stairs
is his own, he has the feeling of a victor when he reaches the top; but
since it belongs to the teacher, he feels that he has finished a
disagreeable task, takes his compensating pittance in the form of a
grade, and goes on his complacent way. The boy who digs potatoes from
his own garden thinks them larger and smoother than the ones he digs for
wages. The latter are potatoes, while the former are his potatoes.
Proprietary interest sinks its roots deep into the motives that impel to
a