TO
THE MEMORY OF
RUTH ELINOR STETTER
A GOOD TEACHER
PREFACE
This book has proceeded haltingly, as must be evident in many places, for it attempts to explore and describe a field that is not well illuminated. The actual examination of those mental functions which are relatively dissociated from general intelligence has not been carried far by experimentalists. However, the problems have been sufficiently formulated, and enough evidence has been secured, to warrant attempts at gleaning implications for education, even now.
Mine is the comparatively humble task of bringing together in an ordered presentation the works of original investigators, in such a way that they will be available for application. The appeal of the data is above all to educators, but also, of course, to those who deal in any office with human beings.
The chief difficulty in organizing the subject has been to delimit it, as regards the psychology of the elementary school subjects on the one hand, and mental measurement on the other. It is not the purpose to cover either of these fields in the present volume. Yet so closely are they related to the study of special aptitudes in school children that it will be scarcely possible to obtain the very clearest view of what is here written without additional knowledge of these matters.
It will be observed, also, that there has been no attempt here to teach introductory psychology. It is assumed that readers of this volume will be acquainted with the vocabulary of elementary psychology. The time has definitely passed when it was either feasible or desirable to present all topics in a single volume. Those who would learn what modern educational psychology has to teach now expect, first of all, to equip themselves by study of a general introductory text.
The lists of references are selected, not complete. To present complete bibliographies of all works bearing immediately or remotely upon every topic treated would cumber the volume inexcusably. References have been selected for these lists because they are historically indispensable, because they contain information of fundamental importance, or because they summarize much previous work. I believe that the selection is such that from the books and articles listed it will be possible for the student who wishes to do so, to construct the complete bibliography and history of each topic, up to the present time.