wers.=--But, none the less, we proceed upon the
agreeable assumption that education is the process of memorizing, and so
reduce our pupils to the plane of parrots; for a parrot has a prodigious
memory. Hence, it comes to pass that, in the so-called preparation of
their lessons, the pupils con the words of the book, again and again,
and when they can repeat the words of the book we smile approval and
give a perfect grade. It matters not at all that they display no
intelligent understanding of the subject so long as they can repeat the
statements of the book. It never seems to occur to the teacher that the
pupil of the third grade might give the words of the binomial theorem
without the slightest apprehension of its meaning. We grade for the
repetition of words, not for intelligence.

=Court procedure.=--In our school practices we seem to take our cue from
court procedure and make each pupil who recites feel that he is on the
witness stand experiencing all its attendant discomforts, instead of
being a cooeperating agent in an agreeable enterprise. We suspend the
sword of Damocles above his head and demand from him such answers as
will fill the measure of our preconceived notions. He may know more of
the subject, in reality, than the teacher, but this will not avail. In
fact, this may militate against him. She demands to know what the book
says, with small concern for his own knowledge of the subject. We
proclaim loudly that we must encourage the open mind, and then by our
witness-stand ordeal forestall the possibility of open-mindedness.

=Rational methods.=--When we have learned wisdom enough, and humanity
enough, and pedagogy enough to dispense with the quasi-inquisition type
of recitation, the transition to a more rational method of examination
will be well-nigh automatic. Let it not be inferred that to inveigh
against the question-and-answer type of recitation is to advocate any
abatement of thoroughness. On the contrary, the thought is to insure
greater thoroughness, and to make evident the patent truth that
thoroughness and agreeableness are not incompatible. Experience ought to
teach us that we find it no hardship to work with supreme intensity at
any task that lures us; and, in that respect, we are but grown-up
children. We have only to generate a white-heat of interest in order to
have our pupils work with intensity. But this sort of interest does not
thrive under compulsion.

=Analysis and synthesis.=--The que