PREFACE

THE Method of the Recitation has sprung out of school-room work, and is designed to be a practical application of the principles of method to the various problems of class-room instruction. It is an effort to bring together and to organize the various principles that control skilful teaching.

It is based fundamentally upon the inductivedeductive thought movement in acquiring and using knowledge.

This organized plan of laying out recitation work was first projected by the thinkers of the Herbart school in Germany. For more than thirty years they have been developing and applying it under the title "The Formal Steps of Instruction" (Die formalen Stufen des Unterrichts). Formerly Dr. T. Ziller at Leipzig was a leader in the movement, and more recently Dr. W. Rein at Jena. They worked out their theory and applied it with proficiency to a large variety of topics in different studies, thus showing the flexibility of leading principles under various forms of application.

The Method of the Recitation is based upon the principles of teaching which were expounded and illustrated in the work of Herbart, Ziller, and Rein. At the same time, the authors hope to have shown in the body of the work that we have to do here with principles recognized by teachers in every land, and that there is no thoughtless imitation of foreign methods and devices. While our debt to German thinkers for an organization of fundamental ideas is great, the entire discussion, as here presented, springs out of American conditions; its illustrative materials are drawn exclusively from lessons commonly taught in our schools. In fact, the whole book, while strongly influenced by Herbart's principles, is the outgrowth of several years' continuous work with classes of children in all the grades of the common school.

The Method of the Recitation may be regarded as Part II of the broad subject of Method of which the "General Method," published earlier, is Part I. The latter book is a discussion of the leading principles of education as they bear on the school curriculum, and is designed to be preliminary to the definite treatment of recitation work.

The final test of the value of any such effort to organize the recitation must be found in the worth of the actual lessons worked out in accordance with

its principles. Two chapters, II and XI, are given up to such typical lessons. Each topic or lesson unity treated requires several or even many recitation periods for its completion.

The authors have divided the work nearly equally between them, Chapters I, II, except the illustration "In unity is strength," Chapters IX, X, XI, and XIII, except the parable of the tares, being written by C. A. McMurry. Chapters III, IV, V, VI, VII, and VIII, Chapters XII and XIV by F. M. McMurry. The present edition has been completely revised and supplied with marginal topics for better use as a text-book. Considerable additions have been made to the original edition and some changes made in the division and arrangement of chapters.