present accounted unsuccessful in given vocations could have been assured of success in other vocations by even the most accurate determination in advance of their mental and moral traits. It must be evident, however, that under given environmental conditions these traits are the sole influences in determining success. Conversely, if an individual's mental and moral makeup be known we should be able to forecast his success in a given activity and thus furnish him with reliable guidance, provided we have also sufficient knowledge of the qualities required for success in given directions.

It may be suggested that the elements entering into individual character and the factors determining success in various careers present complications that make it impossible to find reliable solutions for such problems as those under consideration. But while it must be admitted that the difficulties are great, it may be confidently denied that they are insurmountable.

The application of modern statistical method to the measurement of mental traits has already demonstrated the possibility of a knowledge of mental and social life, both of individuals and of groups, far more extensive and thoroughgoing than any yet attained on a large scale. Recent investigations concerning the influence of heredity, notably that of Dr. F. A. Woods, on Mental and Moral Heredity in Royalty, have made clear the preponderating influence of inheritance in determining the mental and moral attainments of individuals. The direction for safe advance seems quite clearly marked. What good reason can there be for ignoring the plain facts of biology and of psychology; for assuming that children are really as clay in the potter's hands; and for leaving to chance and the vagaries of unenlightened impulse the important function of selecting, for the mass of our boys and girls, the activity to which each will devote the main part of his life?

4. A reasonable procedure would appear to call for: first, a system of psychological tests calculated to determine the chief mental and moral traits of each pupil; second, precise study of the co-relations between specific traits in individuals and success. in typical vocations; third, the accumulation of properly recorded

data which, in subsequent generations, may serve as the basis for determining the probable tendencies due to inheritance.

If such a plan be sound, and if it is to be generally accepted, schools for the professional training of teachers must take an active part in developing its possibilities. Teachers must be

equipped to recognize, to search for, and to interpret the evidences of special aptitude in pupils. In order that teachers and school officers may be thus equipped, it is necessary that the influence of heredity upon mental and moral traits be frankly recognized, and that we find a conception of genetic psychology more vital and practical than any yet widely prevalent.

It should hardly be necessary to present arguments in support of this assumption that professional schools should take a leading part in educational research and educational experimentation. It is a curious historical paradox that the study of the educational process, in many the crowning interest of mankind, should so signally have failed to profit by the example furnished in the unparalleled success attained elsewhere by the method of science. If teaching is to be in fact as well as in name a genuine profession, the spirit of investigation, of the pursuit of new truth, should pervade every school for the training of teachers.

Nor should it be necessary to answer the oft-repeated objection that "experimenting with children" is a reprehensible practice, incompatible with the best interests of the children. Every intelligent teacher is an experimenter, in the sense that he is constantly seeking to find better means and better matter to carry out the aims of education. The person trained in the method of scientific research simply has an advantage over a person not so trained, in the directness and facility with which he is able to carry on his experiments. As Professor Dewey has aptly said, "The experimentation is for the children, not with the children." The perennial freshness of interest, the attitude of inquiry, and the open-mindedness that must inevitably characterize the professional work of a person trained to habits of scientific inquiry, are in themselves a sufficient reason for placing marked emphasis upon methods of research in all institutions for the professional training of teachers. The solution of the main problem proposed

in this discussion, therefore, constitutes a new and urgent demand upon schools for the professional training of teachers.

SUMMARY

I. School officers and teachers, though often called upon by parents and pupils for advice concerning the prospective careers of pupils, in general are as helpless as the parents themselves to give advice that may be relied upon.

2. The school as organized is not able to bring boys and girls to definite consciousness of their specific abilities such as might enable them to adjust themselves rationally rather than fortuitously to the requirements of social life. This fact is partly accountable for the relatively unsuccessful careers of the great mass of our population.

3. With proper data concerning the inheritance and the personal development of individual pupils, it would be possible for teachers and school officers to determine, with considerable accuracy, the career for which individuals are best fitted.

4. In order that this result may be attained, professional schools must equip teachers to search for, to recognize, and to interpret the evidences of special aptitude. This will necessitate a clear recognition of the influence of heredity upon mental and moral traits, and a more vital and practical view of genetic psychology than is yet widely prevalent.

THE RELATION BETWEEN THE IDEAL AND THE

PRACTICAL IN THE KINDERGARTEN

PROGRAMME

LUELLA PALMER

Kindergarten Critic Teacher, Speyer School, New York City

Every individual is living out, each moment, his own view of the relation between the ideal and the practical, between ultimate purpose and immediate necessity. Unrest comes from the constant changing of relationship necessary to growth. A quiescent state in individuals, in groups, in institutions, would show deterioration, for the elevation of the ideal with the consequent adjustment of the practical is the activity which indicates the expanding of life.

The relation between the ideal and the practical in the kindergarten programme is therefore not a static condition; yet if it is a valid relationship, it must be based upon the same principle as that relation in the world at large. In this paper it will be assumed that the relationship is one of unity, not identity, that both are aspects necessary for reality, the ideal being the power, and the practical the means, by which the potential becomes actual.

Every act which rises above the threshold of an impulsive or an instinctive action, is by its very nature ideal-practical. It implies in varying degrees that there is a purpose, that the immediate action is not left on the plane of the present, but is lifted somewhat toward the possibility of the future. Except with the pessimist, it implies the attitude which learns from the past, and which interprets by faith, believing that the future will excel the past by the help of the present.

In attempting to define the position held toward the relationship between the ideal and practical in the kindergarten programme, it will be well to seek in the past for that which will aid in leading toward the goal mapped out by far-sighted inter

preters. To Froebel we will turn, as it was not possible to have a kindergarten (to educate consciously a child of five years) until he had brought to consciousness certain educative principles. Froebel is also one of the philosophers who will point out the goal.

Froebel saw all living and consequently all education as a process of interaction. His observations led him to discern that it was carried on from the beginning of the new life to the last days. His educational aim was to bring to consciousness in the individual, the idea that strength of personality was dependent upon the degree to which interaction was carried on. It was for the purpose of encouraging a child to develop this principle in his daily living, and also to see it in perspective as fully as his few years made possible, that the kindergarten was established. This was the step in the revelation of the principle which the five-yearold child was to take.

It was Froebel who saw that interaction occurred in three different directions in the universe: between an individual and (1) a higher level, God; (2) the same level, man, and (3) a lower level, nature. It is the differing attitudes of human beings which make it possible to appreciate these different levels. There are all gradations of attitudes and so there are feelings of many different levels, but these three are different enough in degree to be designated as distinct types. The attitude toward (1) a higher level is that of worship, toward (2) the same, comradeship, toward (3) a lower, control. The first attitude involves a feeling of an ideal to be copied, an end to be attained; the third, a feeling of material to be impressed, a means to be used to gain some end; the second attitude involves a feeling of the possibility of both copying and impressing, of using as means or as end.

The kindergarten, as Froebel suggested it to us, was to show the principle of interaction working in the form in which it was found in the universe, in its three different directions. The teacher was to stand for (1) the higher level; she was to call forth the feelings of love, faith and obedience. The playmates were to stand for (2) the world of humanity, and the spirit of co-operation was to be cultivated; opportunities were to be given for each one to lead and to be led. (3) Materials were to be