have learned to sing a few songs through very skilled prolonged teaching. However, instead of minimizing the importance of individual differences in the capacity for learning to sing, such examples merely emphasize the great influence and importance of such differences.

Illustrated by children from same family. - Another objection that is often cited in an effort to refute the importance of such differences in capacity is the statement that "the monotones had unfavorable home influences" and that the teaching did not begin at a sufficiently early age." In order to secure evidence concerning these statements it is merely necessary to make observations in families where both monotones and singers exist among the children of the same family. The following is a typical example from a family which I have been observing for some years.

Monotones and sweet singers in the same family. -- Two of the children in this family, a girl of six and a girl of ten, are radically opposite in singing ability. The six-year-old is a sweet singer; that is, without instruction she easily picks up songs, and sings happily and correctly at her play much. of the time. The ten-year-old, on the other hand, is a nearmonotone; that is, she learns songs with great difficulty even under instruction and seldom sings one through correctly.

Same opportunities. Both of the children have had the same home and school influences as far as their ages permit, the monotone, being the older, having had more musical opportunities. They have both heard piano and phonograph music in the home and, as they grew old enough, had the common singing experiences of the Sunday school, kindergarten, and primary grades. The monotone has been taking piano lessons for two years.

Parental differences.-The same differences as are found between these children appear between the parents.

Musical mother.—The mother has very fine musical perception. She has always whistled and sung for fun, can easily

sing any part in chorus singing, remembers a song when she has heard it only a few times, and can play it "by ear on the piano with proper improvising of accompaniment. Father, grandmother, and great-grandmother were mono-The father, on the other hand, is a monotone. Like his monotone daughter, he has great difficulty in singing songs correctly. His mother was a monotone, and his mother's mother was a monotone.

tones.

Father's stepmother a musician. -The father's mother, however, died when he was a baby, and, at the age of two, he acquired a stepmother who was a musician,—pianist and singer. Unlike the stepmother of the storybooks, she was very kind to the boy, who liked her very much. Moreover, she brought much music into the home, but the little boy failed to learn to sing more than a few airs. However, he now remembers fairly well a few songs which he learned in his teens, such as, "Hail, Hail, the Gang's all here” and "Two little Girls in Blue."

Father ranks high in most other capacities.-The father's lack of capacity for singing is highly specialized. In almost every other capacity he takes high rank, being an efficient business man, executive and public speaker, and an expert in bowling, tennis, golf, and rifle shooting.

General facts about individual differences suggested by the example. — This little family story of individual differences in the capacity for learning to sing suggests a number of general facts about individual differences in capacities as follows:

1. The differences may be inborn or native, not merely due to education. In this case the evidence indicates rather conclusively that they are inherited.

2. With the same opportunities, children with different native capacities may learn very differently, achieve very different degrees of skill. The amount of teaching that is needed to teach one child to sing only one song indifferently might suffice to teach another child to sing ten songs well.

3. However, a person who possesses only a very small native capacity for a certain activity may still acquire some skill in that line if given sufficient practice, as shown by the father's learning a few songs.

4. The specific skill acquired from such teaching may persist a long time, as shown by the father's ability to sing a few songs which he learned in adolescence.

5. A lack of capacity may be specialized, so that a person who cannot learn easily in some line may easily become an expert in others.

School treatment of monotones. Not denied promotion. Let us now turn to the school and find what is done about monotones in the singing classes. In the first place we find that lack of ability to sing correctly is never made a basis of promotion or nonpromotion in the ordinary school. Probably the reason for this is recognition of the fact that a person may be unable to sing and still be a very useful and happy member of society; for example, the father mentioned above, while he cannot sing, is a very efficient and useful person and also has much fun through participation in many sports and through wide reading.

Placed near piano or excused from singing. — In the singing classes in school the monotones are often placed near the piano or near the teacher in recognition of their peculiar needs. It would probably be wise to excuse the most extreme cases from the singing classes altogether, for two reasons; first, in order that they might spend their own time in a more profitable manner, and, second, in order to avoid handicapping the children of moderate musical capacity who cannot sing correctly when seated near a monotone.

Contrast with required skill in fundamentals in reading, writing, and arithmetic; these socially necessary. — Let us now compare the treatment of monotones in school with the provisions for individual differences in drill lessons in reading, handwriting, and arithmetic. A very strong

contrast appears, owing to the difference in the social utility of the activities in question. As indicated above, a person may be very useful, efficient, and happy and not be able to

From an investigation by J. H. Smith described on page 275

sing. But a person who cannot read, write, or cipher at fair speed and with fair accuracy has his chances for usefulness and efficiency very much curtailed in modern society.

Much individual attention given in these fundamentals.— Consequently, as we indicated in the chapter on drill, we

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find the most careful attention being given to individual pupils who have difficulty in attaining the standard scores in reading, writing, and arithmetic that are socially desirable. With skilled diagnosis of each pupil's difficulties, skilled analysis of his internal responses, and skilled suggestions for improvement, many of the slow pupils can acquire the desired skill.

In

Examples of individual diagnosis and assistance. our chapter on drill (page 253) we gave one example of the child who had difficulty in adding 9 because he had to stop

7

and work it out as 9 +2 +2 +2 +1=16. The teacher discovered the child's difficulty with this particular combination and practiced him until he thought 16 automatically when he to be added.

saw

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Another example is described by J. H. Smith, who, in teaching arithmetic in the upper grades of The University of Chicago Elementary School, carried on tests of individual pupils to determine their special difficulties, and then remedied these by appropriate individual training.

The children were tested individually with printed sheets of problems. Each pupil was asked to think "out loud" while doing his written work on the test problems so that the teacher could find the errors in his inner responses. The teacher made note of these errors and later entered memoranda of them on the pupil's test paper. A sample of a pupil's paper with memoranda entered by the teacher is shown on page 274. In commenting on the individual needs of the pupil who wrote this sample paper, Smith says:

This individual test showed the pupil to be very weak in subtraction. Note that he missed 3 out of the 10 easy subtractions at the beginning of the test. The example in long division showed an incomplete understanding of that process, but even if he had understood the division process, he would have been unable to