Heck, W. H. Mental Discipline and Educational Values. John Lane Company. A summary of the arguments for and against formal discipline with a very strong bias against.
Judd, C. H. Psychology of High-School Subjects. Ginn and Company. Especially the chapter which deals with formal discipline, with an affirmative statement of what such discipline means.
McMurry, C. A. Conflicting Principles in Teaching. Houghton Mifflin Company. An interesting and balanced summary of the general principles discussed in this chapter and other principles of like type.
[CHAPTER XII]
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
Adaptation of Curriculum to Individual Pupils
A number of times in the last few chapters the discussion has been brought to the point of recognizing the importance of individual differences. The teacher cannot determine merely from a knowledge of history what history is suitable for a given type of pupils. In the elective system of the high school and of the college there is a liberal recognition of the principle that instruction must be adapted to individuals, both in content and method. The present chapter will be given over to a treatment of some of the individual differences among pupils which are of dominant significance in formulating the curriculum.
Low Grades of Intelligence
The most striking example of individual deviation from the average grade of intelligence is to be found in the cases of those unfortunates who continue throughout life to be deficient because they have underdeveloped nervous systems. As a result of heredity or pathological conditions in early childhood a certain number of persons, conservatively estimated as two in every thousand, are permanently subnormal. These cases vary in degree. The lowest grade defectives, known as idiots, are defined in the Report of the British Royal Commission on the Feeble-minded as persons “so deeply defective in mind from birth or from early age that they are unable to guard themselves against common physical dangers.” The less defective are classed as imbeciles, feeble-minded, and morons, each class representing a further approach toward normality.
The lower grades of defectives are so dependent on the care of others that they do not reach the school at all, but the higher grades either escape detection until they try to learn reading and arithmetic or through the persistence of parents are brought to school in the hope that their defectiveness may be temporary. Some of the highest grades succeed in learning enough so that they pass out of the first grade. They do not master reading, but they learn to repeat the words sufficiently to deceive the teacher with the appearance of having recognized the printed symbols.
Differentiated Courses
As soon as a defective child is discovered, it is advantageous for him and for the other pupils in the school that he be given some form of special training. In most cases it is more than useless to try to give him the ordinary school courses. He cannot learn to read well enough to enable him to get information from books. He can, on the other hand, acquire some of the simple arts of self-support. It would be better for all concerned to give up the effort to teach such a child reading.