XVII.—The Analytical Study of the Mechanism of Writing

Abstract

In the new and rapidly developing experimental science known as “Experimentelle Pädagogik” in Germany, “Pédagogie expérimentale” in France, and “Experimental Pedagogy” or “Experimental Education” in this country and in America, two well-marked and not entirely consistent tendencies have been hitherto manifest. On the one hand, there has been a tendency, more particularly in Germany, to develop the work in the new field on the lines of experimental psychology, and to employ almost exclusively the apparatus and methods of that science. On the other hand, there has been a tendency, to a very marked extent in this country and in America, to endeavour to carry on experimental work entirely without the aid of exact and elaborate apparatus, eschewing, even regarding as “tabu,” the methods of the psychological laboratory. Both tendencies are perhaps more or less inevitable, and both to a certain extent may be said to have been justified by results. Nevertheless, there are certain obvious dangers and defects inherent in both, and the whole situation is itself dangerous for the new science.