Indeed the
purpose of this study will not have been served most fully until it has
been made the subject of discussion and of criticism; and the treatment
that is recommended here will not necessarily preclude other
suggestions in the general effort to devise a solution or solutions
that are the most satisfactory.
It appears from the analysis made in Chapter VI of the pupils'
capability and fitness relative to the school failures that it is
impossible to make any definite apportionment of responsibility to the
pupils, until we have first frankly faced and made an effective
disposition of the malfunctioning and misdirection as found in the
school itself. It does not follow from this that any radical
application of surgery need be recommended, but instead, a practical
and extended course of treatment should be prescribed, which will have
due regard for the nature and location of the ills to be remedied.
Anything less than this will seem to be a mere external salve and leave
untouched the chronic source of the systematic maladjustment. It is not
assumed that a school system any more than any other institution or
machine can be operated without some loss. But the failure of the
school to make a natural born linguist pass in a subject of technical
mathematics is perhaps unfortunate only in the thing attempted and in
the uselessness of the effort.
We must take into account at the very beginning the fundamental truth
stated by Thorndike,[54] that "achievement is a measure of ability only
if the conditions are equal.
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