ABSTRACT

One thing which all civilized people share is the desire to construct methods of education which will allow every individual to develop both physically and mentally to the extent of his potentialities. It is also true that our basic convictions about the nature of growth and development will influence our educational theories and methods. The "Maturationists" contended that development during infancy was dependent upon the ripening processes inherent in the nerve tissue and was, therefore unaffected by practice or exercise. If organic, the ailment could be identified with a specific lesion in the nerve tissue; if functional, the etiology was presumably to be found in the personal experiences of the patient. Additional histological evidence indicated that the first area of the cerebral cortex to show cellular differentiation was the motor area.