North America100Africa4
Europe73South America3
Asia13Australia1
England100Italy32
France80Turkey30
Germany70Austria-Hungary24
Russia35Spain22

A Study of the Mistakes of Pupils

It is not merely the remoter needs of adult life which should be taken into account in determining the content of courses of study. Pupils in schools have certain urgent needs which should be met. A study was carried on in the schools of Kansas City, Missouri, which dealt with the needs of pupils in grammar. Teachers observed and noted the mistakes of pupils, and collected a body of written material which was carefully analyzed. The urgent needs of pupils were readily discovered and were found to be comparatively few. The following quotations give the gist of the matter:

Table M, which is based upon the oral and written errors of the children of the community, displays the items to be included in a course of study for the elementary grades. It assumes that all types of error were found and reported. That this assumption is absolutely correct is not probable. That it is approximately correct seems reasonably certain. To verify its accuracy further other studies would need to be made in Kansas City.

As the present course of study in grammar in the sixth and in the seventh grades of the Kansas City schools was materially simplified in the 1913-1914 session, it is now one of the simplest in the United States. Notwithstanding this fact, many items would be omitted from it upon the basis of Table K. These are included in Table L. The pages refer to “Grammar and Composition with Practical English,” by Robins, Row, and Scott (Row, Peterson & Company, Chicago), the text now in use in the sixth and seventh grades.

TABLE M

Omissions from and Additions to the Present Elementary Course of Study in Grammar in Kansas City

Omissions:

Additions:

The first, second, and third of the omissions affect punctuation; the first and second, the exclamation point; and the third, the comma. The exclamation point is used at the end of the exclamatory sentence and after interjections to express an intensity of feeling greater than that expressed by the period, and it is doubtful if children have the nicety of experience to understand the difference. If the point is absent, its omission cannot be counted as an error because the reader has no way of knowing how intense is the feeling that accompanied the sentence. Strangely enough, the children used the appositive hardly at all. Instead of saying, “Bill, the bandit, killed a deer,” they seem to prefer to say, “Bill was a bandit, and he killed a deer.”

To the omissions, tabulated in Table M, should be added such sentences for analysis and parsing as are given to children solely because they involve subtle points in grammar. This is true because the errors made by children seem to occur in the commoner and more easily classified constructions, as may be seen by an examination of Table I.

POSTSCRIPT

The content of the course of study in elementary grammar in the Kansas City schools is not dealt with here. The problem is simply and solely to find out what the course of study would be if it were based upon the errors of the children. The problem of the content of the course of study requires such serious consideration that it can be determined only by practical experience and opinion aided by other scientifically conditioned studies.[66]

Prerequisites for Higher Courses

The problem of finding what is the best progression of studies within the curriculum is an important problem on which we have at the present time relatively little information. President Lowell of Harvard University collected some statistics on this matter which can be briefly summarized in three quotations from his article:

Harvard University is singularly rich in material for determining the relation of college studies to the work of the professional schools, because nowhere in the world have so large a body of undergraduates been so free, for so long a period, as in Harvard College to study whatever they chose, and to make any combination of courses they pleased. With the exception of one required course in English, and sometimes one in another modern language, the election of courses has been almost wholly free for a quarter of a century, and in fact the variety of combinations made has been almost limitless. Moreover, the Law and Medical Schools have contained a large number of graduates of Harvard College, and this is essential for a fair comparison of the results....

The statistics here presented cover, therefore, only bachelors of arts of Harvard College who graduated afterwards from the Harvard Law and Medical Schools, and they comprise only men who took twelve courses, or nearly three years’ work, in the college....

If, therefore, one can draw any inference from figures so small, the case of mathematics is singular. Unless some other element enters into the problem, such as an unusually high standard in the department, or an unusually vigorous intellectual appetite on the part of students who elect the subject, the result may be supposed to indicate, so far as it goes, that mathematics, altho rarely selected for the purpose, is a particularly good preparation for the study of law; perhaps because the methods of thought in the two subjects are more nearly akin than is commonly supposed.

Leaving aside this possibly exceptional case, the conclusions to be derived from the facts presented in this paper would seem to be that, as a preparation for the study of law or medicine, it makes comparatively little difference what subject is mainly pursued in college, but that it makes a great difference with what intensity the subject is pursued—or, to put the same proposition in a more technical form, familiarity with the subject-matter, which can be transferred little, if at all, is of small importance in a college education, as compared with mental processes that are capable of being transferred widely, or with the moral qualities of diligence, perseverance, and intensity of application which can be transferred indefinitely. The practical deduction is that in the administration of our colleges, and, indeed, in all our general education, as distinguished from direct vocational or professional training, we have laid too much stress on the subject, too little on the excellence of the work and on the rank attained.[67]