ABSTRACT
Burrhus Frederic Skinner, born in 1904, grew up in the little town of Susquehanna in Pennsylvania, not very far from border to the state of New York. His father was a lawyer who became the General Counsel in a big coal company. The paternal grandfather had emigrated to United States from England. Teaching is the expediting of learning. Students learn without teaching but the teacher arranges conditions under which they learn more rapidly and effectively. After college graduation Skinner was strongly determined to become a writer. In his autobiography he reproduces letter in which his father tries to persuade him to abandon this potential career which would not give any 'butter on the bread'. Skinner has himself reported how he got interested in the application of his psychological principles to education. The concept of programmed instruction launched by Skinner in the 1950s was based upon the principles of operant conditioning, which Skinner had developed over a period of two decades.
