e to which we develop the
scientific attitude. Even those who are actuated by noble motives may,
if they trust to their emotions, to their prejudices, or to those
superstitions which are commonly accepted, engage in activities which
are positively harmful to the social group of which they are members.
Our schools should strive to encourage the spirit of inquiry and
investigation.

A large part of the work in most elementary schools and high schools
consists in having boys and girls repeat what they have heard or read.
It is true that such accumulation of facts may, in some cases, either at
the time at which they are learned, or later, be used as the basis for
thinking; but a teacher may feel satisfied that she has contributed
largely toward the development of the scientific spirit upon the part of
children only when this inquiring attitude is commonly found in her
classroom. The association of ideas which will result from an honest
attempt upon the part of boys and girls to find the solution of a real
problem will furnish the very best possible basis for the recall of the
facts or information which may be involved. The attempt to remember
pages of history or of geography, or the facts of chemistry or of
physics, however well they may be organized in the text-book, is usually
successful only until the examination period is passed. Children who
have engaged in this type of activity quite commonly show an appalling
lack of knowledge of the subjects which they have studied a very short
time after they have satisfied the examination requirement. The same
amount of energy devoted to the solution of problems in which children
may be normally interested may be expected not only to develop some
appreciation of scientific method in the fields in which they have
worked, but also to result in a control of knowledge or a memory of
facts that will last over a longer period of time.

Recitations should be places where children meet for the discussion of
problems which are vital to them. The question by the pupil should be as
common as the question by the teacher. Laboratory periods should not
consist of following directions, but rather in undertaking, in so far as
it is possible, real experiments. We may not hope that an investigating
or inquiring turn of mind encouraged in school will always be found
operating in the solution of problems which occur outside of school, but
the school which insists merely upon memory and upon followin