To meet these demands various modifications in our schools have been made. To meet the needs of training for the industries we have the manual training schools, industrial schools, trade schools, continuation
schools, correspondence schools, night schools, technological schools, etc. To provide the appropriate experiences for commercial life we have commercial schools, business colleges, store schools, schools of commerce, etc.
These schools have rendered invaluable service and are rapidly increasing in number, yet they do not provide either the skill or the learning which should be possessed by the employee.
_IV. Practical-theoretical Experience_
The weakness of the Haphazard and Apprenticeship methods of securing experience is twofold: (1) They cease too early. So soon as the man really enters into his occupation his education ceases. (2) They are too narrow, they fail to provide experiences that give proper perspective; they do not give adequate theoretical comprehension of the work being accomplished from day to day; they do not develop the judgment.
The weakness with the Theoretical-practical method of providing experience resembles
the weakness of the Haphazard and the Apprenticeship methods in that it ceases too early. It ceases _*before_ the individual begins his life work. It may have the special weakness of not being closely organized with the vocation for which it is assumed to be a preparation, hence of being impracticable.
The Practical-theoretical form of providing experience is based on two assumptions: The first assumption is that the practical and the theoretical should be equally emphasized; that they should be closely organized; and that the theory should be deduced from the practice. The second assumption is that the educative processes should continue so long as the man is engaged in his occupation.
A concrete illustration will make clear the difference between the four different methods of acquiring experience as given above.
During the present summer vacation I have been spending a few weeks in a boarding house. Some previous boarder had bequeathed to the house an intricate Chinese block puzzle. During this summer one lad in the house spent
eight hours in solving the puzzle. He worked by the Haphazard method, trying blindly, till he just happened to get it right. The next attempt did not take so long, but it was many days before he could solve the problem rapidly.
As soon as the lad had learned to solve the puzzle, my son watched him solve it many times, and kept trying to do it as he saw it done. My son learned to solve the puzzle in perhaps two hours by thus watching another and then trying it himself. He was employing the Apprenticeship method, and his education was accomplished in one fourth the time required by the Haphazard method.
In the boarding house was an expert mechanical engineer. He took up the task of solving the problem and was most scientific in his procedure. He figured out the principles that he thought might be involved, tried them, and immediately abandoned methods that proved unsuccessful. He was able to solve the puzzle in a half hour. Later trials were all successful and rapid. He knew just how he had solved the puzzle, and therefore
did not have to experiment or take chances on later trials. This engineer employed the Theoretical-practical method of learning.
The engineer volunteered to instruct me in the problem. I took up the blocks and began trying to unite them. As one difficulty after another arose, I was given instruction in the principle for overcoming it. No principle was presented to me till I had faced a situation demanding that particular principle. The practice and the theory went together, and so far as the instruction was concerned the practice preceded the theory step by step. I was therefore employing the Practical-theoretical method. As a result I was enabled to solve the problem in fifteen minutes. Furthermore I knew just how I had done it and could do it again and could apply the same principles to other puzzles.