Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1910-02-03

life. This great advantage in abstract thinking II
is, however, distinct hndrance In appreciation of cu
ture and art wish to our children to think
accurately and abstractly must train them as the
schools evidently training them In the drec.
ton OF verbal imagery. IT, however, we wish to de-
velop artists poets letters inventors and those
with technical skill In the various professions must
to 1t that this concrete imagery is not lost for
this loss takes place will tremendous waste and
disaster for
The experiments further showed that those children
who thought in visual terms were best able to mem.
orze material with visual that those who
thought In auditory or motor terms best able
learn material with auditory motor content This
Of course far the application OF results to
school work is concerned that the which the
child learns must be In way adapted his idea.
tiona type If the best results to be accomplished
This, perhaps is not vital fact with the average
child who has many ways, 1t may be, in which he
imagine his experience but there always In every
schoolroom numbers Of exceptional children who are
very slow to get in certain fields and who neverhe
less far from being mental detectives. To take
concrete illustration there children who have great
difficulty In learning to read and yet who often
bright in other school subjects 1t is probable that such
children have not developed the type of vebavisual
imagery The printed word fails to carry its proper
significance. Such child. obviously, must be treated
differently from the average individual. In the first
place. he be helped in his reading by being In
structed to spell and pronounce words. The method
Of showing him words and having him grasp them
visual signs will be hopeless method of procedure in
his Further, the child may be aided by q sys-
tematc attempt to strengthen his vebavisual imagery
There Is ample evidence that children can be trained
in any type of imagery and It is the business educa
ton to that those who defective in essential
type trained to this defect.
We cannot think for moment Of demanding the
sort Of thing from the child whose eyesgh is poor
that demand from the child of normal visual acuty.
1t is just foolish expect the child who defective
in certain ideational type to do the of normal
child 1t is to expect the child who Is defective
visual sensibity to accomplish the results under
the conditions that the child Of normal sensibity
accomplishes.
Another important problem which has been under
taken by the psychological laboratory university
is to discover the most advantageous conditions besides
those relating to the deational type under which
tain kinds of school material may be memorized At
the outset Of such investigation the psychologist is
confronted with the difficulty of selecting the
material for memorizing which will be sufficiently uni
form to be tried many children and the child
various times 1t is quite evident that II the
ordinary materials Of the schoolroom such the child
has had in his reading, geography and history room.
that this material will not be of the uniformity desired
1t to avoid this difficulty that the psychologist, Eb
binghaus. nearly rs ago. tried memory expert
ment in which he used for material sylables
that is certain syabes which could be
which yet had Significance; syllables for example,
like necdozhux. Here have relatively uniform
material that has for the most part little signif
Using this kind Of material, several thousand school