ng of the ideas
entering into the new knowledge. In like manner, a child whose only
motive is to fill paper with various coloured crayon may accidentally
discover, while engaged on this problem, that red and yellow will
combine to make orange, or that yellow and blue will combine to make
green. Here also the child gains valuable experience quite
spontaneously, that is, without its constituting a motive, or problem,
calling for adjustment.

=Learning without Motive.=--In the light of the above, a question
suggests itself in relation to the lesson problem, or motive. Granting
that a regular school recitation must contain some valuable problem for
which the learning process is to furnish a solution, and granting that
the teacher must be fully conscious both of the problem and of its mode
of solution, the question might yet be asked whether a problem is to be
realized by the child as a felt need at the beginning of the lesson. For
example, if the teacher wishes his pupils to learn how to compose the
secondary colour purple, might he have them blend in a purely arbitrary
way, red and blue, and finally ask them to note the result? Or again, if
he wishes the pupils to learn the construction of a paper-box or
fire-place, would he not be justified in directing them to make certain
folds, to do certain cutting, and to join together the various sections
in a certain way, and then asking them to note the result? If such a
course is permissible, it would seem that, so far at least as the
learner is concerned, he may gain control of valuable experience, or
knowledge, without the presence of a problem, or motive, to give the
learning process value and direction.

=Problem Aids Control.=--It is true that in cases like the above, the
child may gain the required knowledge. The cause for this is, no doubt,
that the physical activity demanded of the pupil constitutes indirectly
a motive for attending sufficiently to gain the knowledge. But in many
cases no such conditions might exist. It is important, therefore, to
have the pupil as far as possible realize at the outset a definite
motive for each lesson. The advantage consists in the fact that the
motive gives a value to the ideas which enter into the new knowledge,
even before they are fully incorporated into a new experience. For
example, if in a lesson in geometrical drawing, the teacher, instead of
having the child set out with the problem of drawing a pair of parallel
lines, merely