The Recitation | Page 6

model to the children at all times.
But it is chiefly in the recitation that the mental stimulus is given. The
teacher who is lifeless and uninspiring in the teaching of the recitation
cannot but fail to inspire his school to a strong mental growth, whatever
else he may accomplish.
Most pupils have powers far in excess of those they are using. They
only need to be inspired, to be wakened up mentally by a teacher whose
mind is alive and growing. They need to be made hungry for education,
and this can be accomplished only by a teacher who is himself full of
enthusiasm. Inspiration is caught, not taught.
e. Lead pupils into good habits of study.--It is probably not too much to
say that one third or one half of the pupil's time is lost in school
because of not knowing how to study. Over and over pupils say to the
teacher, "I didn't know how to get this." Many times children labor hard
over a lesson without mastering it, simply because they do not know
how to pick out and classify its principal points. They work on what is
to them a mere jumble, because they lack the power of analysis or have
never been taught its use.
Very early in school life the pupil should be taught to look for and
make a list of the principal points in the lesson. If the lesson starts with
a Roman numeral I, the child should be taught to look for II and III,
and to see how they are related to I. An Arabic 1 usually means that 2,
and perhaps 3 and 4 are to follow; the letter a at the head of a paragraph
should start the pupil to looking for b, c, etc. And if the text does not
contain such numbering or lettering, the pupil should be led to search
for the main divisions and topics of the lesson for himself.

Of course these principles will not apply to spelling lessons, mere lists
of sentences to be analyzed or problems to be solved, but they do apply
to almost every other type of lesson. The best time to teach the child to
make the kind of analysis suggested is when we are assigning the
lesson. We can then go over the text with the class, helping them to
select the chief points of the lesson until they themselves have learned
this method of study.
5. Drill as an aim in the recitation
There is a great difference between merely knowing a thing and
knowing it so well that we can use it easily and with skill. Perhaps all
of us know the alphabet backwards; yet if the order of the dictionary
were reversed so that it would run from Z to A, we would for a time
lack the skill we now have in quickly finding any desired words in the
dictionary.
Certain fundamentals in our education need to be so well learned that
they are practically automatic, and can hence be skillfully performed
without thought or attention. We must know our spelling in this way, so
that we do not have to stop and think how to spell each word. In the
same manner we must know the mechanics of reading, that is, the
recognition and pronunciation of words, the meaning of punctuation
marks, etc.; and similarly multiplication and the other fundamental
operations in arithmetic. Pupils should come to know these things so
well that they are as automatic as speech, or as walking, eating, or any
other of the many acts which "do themselves." If this degree of skill is
not reached, it means halting and inefficient work in all these lines
farther on. Many are the children who are crippled in their work in
history, geography, and other studies because they cannot read well
enough to understand the text. Many are struggling along in the more
advanced parts of the arithmetic, unable to master it because they are
deficient in the fundamentals, because they lack skill. And many are
wasting time trying to analyze sentences when they cannot recognize
the different parts of speech.
Skill is efficiency in doing. It is always a growth, and never comes to
us ready-made. To be sure, some pupils can develop skill much faster

than others, but the point is, that skill has to be developed. Skill is the
result of repetition, or practice, that is, of drill.
The following principles should guide in the use of drill in the
recitation:
a. Drill should be employed wherever a high degree of skill is
required.--This applies to what have been called the "tools of
knowledge," or those things which are necessary in order to secure all
other knowledge. Such are the "three R's," reading, (w)riting, and
(a)rithmetic, to