Our schools are troubled with a multiplication of studies, each in turn having its own multiplication of materials and principles. Our teachers find their tasks made heavier in that they have come to deal with pupils individually and not merely in mass. Unless these steps in advance are to end in distraction, some clew of unity, some principle that makes for simplification, must be found. This book represents the conviction that the needed steadying and centralizing factor is found in adopting as the end of endeavor that attitude of mind, that habit of thought, which we call scientific. This scientific attitude of mind might, conceivably, be quite irrelevant to teaching children and youth. But this book also represents the conviction that such is not the case; that the native and unspoiled attitude of childhood, marked by ardent curiosity, fertile imagination, and love of experimental inquiry, is near, very near, to the attitude of the scientific mind. If these pages assist any to appreciate this kinship and to consider seriously how its recognition in educational practice would make for individual happiness and the reduction of social waste, the book will amply have served its purpose.
It is hardly necessary to enumerate the authors to whom I am indebted. My fundamental indebtedness is to my wife, by whom the ideas of this book were inspired, and through whose work in connection with the Laboratory School, existing in Chicago between 1896 and 1903, the ideas attained such concreteness as comes from embodiment and testing in practice. It is a pleasure, also, to acknowledge indebtedness to the intelligence and sympathy of those who coöperated as teachers and supervisors in the conduct of that school, and especially to Mrs. Ella Flagg Young, then a colleague in the University, and now Superintendent of the Schools of Chicago.
New York City, December, 1909. CONTENTS PART I THE PROBLEM OF TRAINING THOUGHT CHAPTER PAGE I.
What is Thought?
1 II.
The Need for Training Thought
14 III.
Natural Resources in the Training of Thought
29 IV.
School Conditions and the Training of Thought
45 V.
The Means and End of Mental Training: the Psychological and the Logical
56 PART II LOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS VI.
The Analysis of a Complete Act of Thought
68 VII.
Systematic Inference: Induction and Deduction
79 VIII.
Judgment: The Interpretation of Facts
101 IX.
Meaning: or Conceptions and Understanding
116 X.
Concrete and Abstract Thinking
135 XI.
Empirical and Scientific Thinking
145 PART III THE TRAINING OF THOUGHT XII.
Activity and the Training of Thought
157 XIII.
Language and the Training of Thought
170 XIV.
Observation and Information in the Training of Mind
188 XV.
The Recitation and the Training of Thought
201 XVI.
Some General Conclusions
214 HOW WE THINK PART ONE: THE PROBLEM OF
TRAINING THOUGHT CHAPTER ONE
WHAT IS THOUGHT?
§ 1. Varied Senses of the Term
Four senses of thought, from the wider to the limited
No words are oftener on our lips than thinking and thought. So profuse and varied, indeed, is our use of these words that it is not easy to define just what we mean by them. The aim of this chapter is to find a single consistent meaning. Assistance may be had by considering some typical ways in which the terms are employed. In the first place thought is used broadly, not to say loosely. Everything that comes to mind, that "goes through our heads," is called a thought. To think of a thing is just to be conscious of it in any way whatsoever. Second, the term is restricted by excluding whatever is directly presented; we think (or think of) only such things as we do not directly see, hear, smell, or taste. Then, third, the meaning is further limited to beliefs that rest upon some kind of evidence or testimony. Of this third type, two kinds—or, rather, two degrees—must be discriminated. In some cases, a belief is accepted with slight or almost no attempt to state the grounds that support it. In other cases, the ground or basis for a belief is deliberately sought and its adequacy to support the belief examined. This process is called reflective thought; it alone is truly educative in value, and it forms, accordingly, the principal subject of this volume. We shall now briefly describe each of the four senses.
Chance and idle thinking
I. In its loosest sense, thinking signifies everything that, as we say, is "in our heads" or that "goes through our minds." He who offers "a penny for your thoughts" does not expect to drive any great bargain. In calling the objects of his demand thoughts, he does not intend to ascribe to them dignity, consecutiveness, or truth. Any idle fancy, trivial recollection, or flitting impression will satisfy his demand. Daydreaming, building of castles in the air,
