ABSTRACT
Learning and the school are held to belong together, and yet the most superficial consideration will show that only a small fraction of the activities we acquire is due to the agency of the school. Reading and addition of numbers gradually become more economical physical processes, and with this diminution of physical activity there comes a correspondingly increased elasticity of application. The teacher in the public elementary or secondary school, faced with the handling of large classes and the administration of an imposed scheme, is restricted in the freedom of choice of incentive. The situations which we have so far discussed in regard to animal learning have been of the type requiring a form of learning known as trial and error. The understanding of the role of relations and of the growing intricacy of the pattern of stimulus and response is the key by which many problems of learning in school and out of it can be best interpreted.
