AN EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENT.

BY WILLIAM G. RAYMOND,

Dean of the College of Applied Science and Professor of Civil Engineering, State University of Iowa.

During the past year an experiment in individual instruction has been made in the State University of Iowa. A statement of what this experiment was and some of the observed results is the purpose of this

paper.

At the beginning of the year, notices were posted asking for volunteers from among the civil engineering students of the freshman class to form a section to be taught individually. The section was limited to twenty men, and after full explanation of the plan the entire number-about one half those entering this course-applied and were admitted.

The composition of the section was peculiar, as may be inferred from the several reasons for joining the section given by those who applied. Some of these reasons were:

1. The hope of getting through the year's work earlier than the regular class to secure longer vacation employment for needed self-support.

2. Belief that the instruction would be more thorough than class-work.

3. Greater freedom in selecting hours for employment necessary for self-support.

4. Fear on the part of one or two mature men that the lapse of time between high school and college

courses had been sufficient to make satisfactory progress with regular classes doubtful.

5. Desire to offset a known lack of moral courage to study by constant supervision in the class-room during study periods.

6. Possibility of working off entrance conditions by attendance on college classes or in the local academy without program conflict.

One or two men dropped out or were dropped at an early day and their places were filled by late arrivals, making a seventh reason for selecting this method.

The ages of the men ranged from seventeen to twenty-five years.

The conduct of the section was far from what it would be under a regular system of individual instruction, because it was impossible to supply instructors who could give a half day regularly to the work. In the second semester, in particular, difficulty was experienced that reduced the efficiency of the work considerably below what it may be under favorable conditions.

Because of inadequate instructional staff, it was found necessary to abandon the original plan for doing the English work by personal consultations with the instructor, and to include the individual section with one of the regular sections.

The mathematics suffered the second semester, for, although an excellent instructor was in charge, he had other work to do and the class, freshmen be it remembered, failed to utilize the time during which they were left alone any better than any other lot of boys would have done. Besides this, two morn

ing periods weekly were used for class work in English.

Some of those who feared they would not have moral courage to study except under direction proved the correctness of their self-knowledge by failing to develop sufficient moral courage to attend class regularly. While these students were warned of the consequences, the action that would ordinarily be taken, namely, the exclusion of the student from further attendance after a maximum of unexcused absences, was not taken for two reasons: first, the class was a volunteer class, and this fact made it seem undesirable to deprive any man of the privilege of completing anything he might be able to do, however limited his attendance; and, second, it was desired to learn all that could be learned of the details to be looked out for in conducting work on this plan.

The whole class was of necessity confined to one room, no matter what subjects were being pursued. This was a distinct disadvantage, for while the greater advancement of some men in a given subject proved something of a spur to the slower ones, the earlier passing of one to manual work-as drawing-in the same room, was demoralizing, those students lacking somewhat in self-control and concentration finding altogether too much of interest in their neighor's work.

In spite of the many difficulties, the section as a whole completed the same proportion of a year's work that was done by the regular classes. Indeed, it did much more than the regular sections did, because in mathematics every man worked from two

to ten times as many problems in a given subject as the men of the regular sections worked. For instance, every man who completed the subjects solved 1000 problems in algebra, 300 in trigonometry, and 400 in analytical geometry.

Chemistry was the first subject undertaken. The theoretical work was conducted by an instructor in chemistry who was with the class from eight to twelve every morning, except that three times a week the section attended the one-hour lecture given to the regular class. Every afternoon was devoted to laboratory work in chemistry, and two to three times a week the regular students were present as well, making the laboratory too crowded for rapid work.

As soon as any student finished theoretical chemistry he devoted his mornings to algebra, having the full time of an instructor in this subject to the end of the first semester, before which time the quicker students had finished algebra and begun trigonometry, and one had almost completed the latter subject.

When laboratory chemistry was completed, the student devoted his afternoons to drawing until this was completed when he began descriptive geometry. For these two subjects the full half-day time of an instructor was available, in spite of which some men failed to reach the descriptive geometry, and over half failed to complete it; but the record in this subject for those who undertook it was distinctly better than in the regular classes.

Some things of interest, perhaps not new to the trained pedagog, were noticed.

The rule was proved that while a man may have

his special line of work, the normal man is either good, or poor, or average, in everything; the abnormal man can do one thing much better than another. The man first through in chemistry theory failed utterly to master algebra, and dropped out. The fourteenth man to finish the theory of chemistry was second in time required for algebra.

Of the two men who finished the year's work three weeks before the close of the year, one worked like a slave night and day and seemed to enjoy it, while the other was partly self-supporting, played in the band, did the equivalent of one and one sixth years of college work, and always seemed to have plenty of time.

One man, it was thought for a while, would never master descriptive geometry, and had he been in a regular class would undoubtedly have failed, because before he began to see it at all so much time had elapsed that a regular class would have been far beyond the possibility of his catching up with it. But once he had it, he went ahead by leaps and bounds, and finished well within the allotted time. Other men, fully as able as he, failed utterly in the regular classes and dropped out early in the course.

Two men had been in college during the previous year in regular classes and had failed so completely as to be required to repeat the entire year. Both these men were self-supporting. One, a faithful worker, but not quick, easily discouraged, required encouragement to keep him at work after a failure, passed the entire year's work satisfactorily except the one subject of English taken with the regular classes.