Learning to typewrite : with a discussion of the psychology and pedagogy of skill / by William F. Book.

  • William Frederick Book
Date:
[1925]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Learning to typewrite : with a discussion of the psychology and pedagogy of skill / by William F. Book. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    30/490 page 6
    will do, and one of the chief purposes of education and training is to change human nature and conduct in certain predetermined ways, making it more nearly what we think it ought to be. Since there can be no such changes in the real sense of the Word without a response, and since all learning and education seek to change the reactions which people make, we may inquire how this final result, the animal’s response, is related to the learning process as such, and to the acquisition of the particular type of skill to be studied in detail in this book. 2. WHAT ANIMALS AND PEOPLE DO As just pointed out, one of the chief aims of modern psychology is to understand, predict, and control human conduct. Poets, dramatists, novelists, and philosophers of all times have vied with each other and exhausted their vocabularies and arts in the attempt to explain human motives and conduct. But they have failed to give us an accurate picture of all the facts, because of the vast complexity and lack of uniformity in the reactions of man. Kings and politicians of all times have lost their heads and coveted berths because they were unable rightly to predict what man’s conduct would be or to control even to a limited extent what people would do. But notwithstanding all tLis variety and complexity in the realm of human conduct it is possible to group everything which men, women, and children do into three types of response, (i) work activities, (2) enjoyment, and (3) learning re¬ sponses. In the first place, all normal animals and men, regard¬ less of their physical and mental endowments, work. They hustle to get food; they protect their mates and their young; they bring things to pass; they create
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