The Recitation | Page 7

which we may add spelling. Without a good foundation
in these, all other knowledge will be up-hill work, if not wholly
impossible.
b. Drill must be upon correct models, and with alert interest and
attention.--Mere repetition is not enough to secure skill. What teacher
has not been driven to her wits' ends to prevent the successive lines in
the copy book from growing steadily worse as they increase in number
from the copy on down the page! Surely drill with such a result would
be long in arriving at skill. Such practice is not only wholly wasted, but
actually results in establishing false models and careless habits in the
pupil's mind. Each line must be written with correct models in mind,
and with the effort to make it better than any preceding one, if skill is to
be the outcome.
Much of the value of drill is often lost through lack of interest and
attention. The child lazily sing-songing the multiplication table may
learn to say it as he would a verse of poetry, and yet not know the
separate combinations when he needs them in problems. What he needs
is drill upon the different combinations hit-and-miss, and in simple
problems, rapidly and many times over, with sufficient variety and
spice, so that his interest and attention are always alert. A certain boy
persisted in saying "have went" instead of "have gone." Finally his
teacher said, "Johnny, you may stay to-night after school and write
'have gone' on the blackboard one hundred times. Then you will not
miss it again."
Johnny stayed after school and wrote "have gone" one hundred times as

the teacher had directed. When he had completed his task the teacher
had gone to another part of the building. Before leaving for home
Johnny politely left this note on the teacher's desk: "Dear Teacher: I
have went home." Plenty of drill, but it was not accompanied by
interest and attention, and hence left no effect.
c. Drill must not stop short of a reasonable degree of efficiency, or
skill.--Most teachers would rather test or teach than drill. Others do not
see the necessity of drill. Hence it happens that a large proportion of
our pupils are not given practice or drill enough to arrive at even a fair
degree of skill. Set ten pupils of the intermediate grades to adding up
four columns of figures averaging a footing of 100 to the column, and
you will probably have at least five different answers. And so with
many of the fundamentals in other branches as well. We too often stop
practice just short of efficiency, and thereby waste both time and effort.
d. Drill must be governed by definite aims.--Probably drilling requires
more planning and care on the part of the teacher than any other work
of the recitation. Drill applied indiscriminately wastes time and kills
interest. To study a spelling lesson over fifteen times as some teachers
require is folly. Every spelling list will contain some words which the
pupil already knows. He should put little or no drill on these, but only
on the troublesome ones. In learning and using the principal parts of
verbs it is always the few that cause the difficulty. "He done it"; "Has
the bell rang?" "Set down." These and a few other forms are the ones
which give the trouble; they should receive the drill. Likewise in
arithmetic, there are certain combinations in the tables, and certain
operations in fractions, measurements, etc., which always make trouble.
They are the "danger points," and upon these the practice should be put.
The teacher must aim, therefore, to select the difficult and the important
points and drill upon these until they are mastered, being careful not to
stop at the "half-way house," but steadily to go on until skill is obtained.
He must be resourceful in methods and devices which will relieve the
monotony of repetition; he must be persistent and patient, insisting on
the attainment of skill, but realizing that it takes time to develop it; he
must possess a good pedagogical conscience which will be satisfied

with nothing short of success in his aims.
6. A desirable balance among the three aims
The aims to be accomplished through the recitation are, then, testing,
teaching, and drilling. These three aims may, as said before, all be
carried on in the same recitation, or they may come in different
recitations, as the needs of the subject require. Not infrequently they
may alternate with each other within a few moments. In every case,
however, the teacher should have clearly in mind which one of the
three processes he is employing and why. Not that the teacher must
always stop to reason the matter out before he employs one or the other,
but that he should become