It is far from the intention of the writer to plead that a child be robbed of early association with the book world and a real growing-up to a host of literary friends, but I feel that all this reading experience is enriched to a vast degree by a well developed imagination.

By imagination we must remember is not meant inventiveness, but ability to image mental percepts of varying character. Each time I relieve any sense experience I call upon the aid of my imagination. I read of the "bell punctuating the stillness"; I imagine myself again lying in a hospital with the occasional bell sharply cutting the quietude of the place. I sympathize with a friend, who has some poignant grief; I re-live (usually the psychologists tell us with some physical detail, such as, perhaps a husky throat) my most similar experience. I try to recall the given name of an acquaintance. I imagine it as I saw it appear in the telephone book, or as I heard her give the saleslady her address. These are three phases of the manifold uses of the imagination.

Vision, sound, all the sense experiences are included in these percepts, so that, of course, imagination with a wide range in the degree of its intensity is possessed by every one. Its clearness, however, and its variation determine the joy and usefulness which it may give to its possessor.

May I interpose a statement made by one of our psychologists: that word-imagery—a lack of ability to image many sense experionces, having only the bare word memory in its place is very common. In other words, I read a "mop of red hair flaming aureole fashion." This should call to mind a series of vivid visual images or imaginations. If I am so unfortunate as to be somewhat tied to word imagery, I see the word "aureole," and because of the fascinating grouping of letters, or more probably because no sense experience of an "aureole" has ever been mine, I see only the word. The metaphor is entirely lost to my sensibilities. Do you see that here again is a danger of introducing too early the word idea in place of the experience picture, and that this may come from too early reading? This writer, Mary Whiton Cal

kins, in speaking of the common danger of having an over-preponderance of word imagery, says: "Useful though words may be, they work us irreparable harm if they banish from the life of the imagination the warm colors, the broad spaces, liquid sounds, and subtle fragrance which might enrich and widen our experience."

This need of the training of the sense percepts is one of the cardinal precepts of Froebel, and again, in our own time, of Mme. Montessori, who makes this training so large a part of her curriculum in the Houses of Childhood. It is especially worth while to note that both educators believe in this training previous to any academic study. The writer does not, however, feel that the normal American child of middle-class parentage needs the very definite sense training to so great a degree as given in the Houses of Childhood. The environment of the American child is so full of sense stimulus that much of the sense training is gained naturally, and only needs the teaching of expressed symbols.

As to the desirability of the imaginative faculty for its usefulness in each individual life, there is almost unlimited witness. Not necessarily to be artistically creative, which so few of us can hope to achieve, but in the practical world of business, economics, statesmanship, in addition to the study of history, science and morality, we use our imaginations daily. Each time we depend upon the correctness of our memory we call upon the training given our imagination. In practically all parts of our living that set our human life apart from the animal's in interest, we gain intensity of joy through our imaginative ability.

If I have in any wise caused the reader who faces the numbers of problems of child-training to "stop, look and listen" for a moment as to just when this important crossing shall be taken, this article will have achieved its purpose. It is a marvelous comfort to those perplexed in matters of child welfare that Destiny seems to smile benignly upon any step of development undertaken with conscientious thought, so that, in after years, the progress of the individual seems to have foreordained the exact kind and place of each particular stepping-stone.

Problem of Discipline in the Project Method

of Learning

W. O. STARK, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF VISUAL EDUCATION, KANSAS STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, EMPORIA.

I

F the boy or girl can do the thing he enjoys, or enjoy the thing he is doing, he will do it with a zest and relish that creates happiness and order, instead of grief and disorder. This is but another way of saying that if the project method of learning is properly carried out, there will seldom be a problem of discipline. For example, the writer observed a class in manual training that was given a project to work out in assisting a carpenter with a piece of work. The teacher met the class, and in an informal way discussed the project. The boys were allowed to take hold of the work where they wished to. It was soon discovered that the saws were dull, and there being some in the class who liked to sharpen saws, they naturally set to work to put them in shape, others building the walk, others hanging the door. Each pupil was busy doing the part that appealed to him, and was interested in what he was doing. As a result the problem of discipline was entirely missing. The same thing was experienced with a class of junior high school pupils in developing plans and executing the work for a school garden. A boy in this class, who was sometimes a real problem, was all attention and interest. In their eagerness to accomplish the work they forgot everything outside their plans. Appeal to the interest of the boy or girl and you will, in nearly every instance, appeal to what is for the good.

The project method is not a complete solution of itself for the problem of discipline; the school officers and teachers must make, and enforce, rules and regulations beyond which the pupils must not go. With all the aforesaid desirable qualities of a teacher,

perhaps the most important has not been mentioned, that of "firmness." The pupil must respect the teacher, which he will not do if the teacher compromises his purpose. Get into the project with the pupils; it makes no difference what it is, agriculture, English, mathematics, athletics, social or personal interests. Never say, "Go on and do it," but, "Come, let us do this."

The boy or girl of the junior or senior high school cannot be successfully governed by force; the teacher must be able to place himself in the boy's position and look at the situation from the boy's point of view, meet him in a perfectly natural way, and yet retain his position as the boy's advisor and instructor.

From the teachers of Nodaway County, Missouri, where successful projects have been carried out, we hear such remarks as: "Discipline has disappeared, and no one has to be made to get his lessons." "I never have to think of discipline on a rainy day." "In the school last year the discipline was very bad. There were five or six large boys, and they never had gone to school for any purpose but to have fun and run the teacher out. The discipline has not been an item this year, and the order has been splendid."

If the teacher will vitalize the work by means of the project method, appealing to the interest of the boy, the problems of discipline will be few.

A Neglected Aspect of Education

M. B. OGLE, DEPARTMENT OF LATIN, UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT.

N the many pages of discussion which are being written concerning the relative merits for our educational system of the so-called vocational and classical curricula, all too frequently the conception of education is affected by the bias of the writer. The protagonist of vocational subjects is apt to consider as the sole aim of education practical training only, a method whereby a boy or girl may be enabled to earn a livelihood and to contribute to the material welfare of his or her community. The classicist, on the other hand, often pays too little heed to this very necessary aim of education, or else, in order to swim more comfortably with the stream of a materialistic age, endeavors to show that his favorite subjects have a practical value as great, if not greater, than those subjects which are emphasized by his opponent. The result is, therefore, that education is fast losing, if it has not already lost, those elements which are certainly fundamental,-appreciation of form and beauty, and the moral, ethical and spiritual development of man.

This is a truth to which all, I think, in moments of dispassionate thought agree. And yet, how few bear it in mind when they discuss the ways and means of education! Thus, Mr. Clapp, when he declares in his article against the classics (EDUCATION, May, 1919, pp. 531, sq.), that he got "more power for scientific observation, close analysis, just comparison, adequate correlation, and a clearer discernment of Nature's law," from the "chemical analysis of minerals" than from his "study of the classics," and maintains that his sense of beauty was enriched by his acquaintanceship with nature in her manifold forms, is concerning himself with but one end only of education, and this not, as he himself realizes, the chief end. When, however, he does touch upon the chief end, when he speaks of ethics and of "the altruistic relations