University of Virginia Library

IV. Practical-theoretical Experience

The weakness of the Haphazard and Apprenticeship methods of securing experience is twofold: (1) They cease too early. So soon as the man really enters into his occupation his education ceases. (2) They are too narrow, they fail to provide experiences that give proper perspective; they do not give adequate theoretical comprehension of the work being accomplished from day to day; they do not develop the judgment.

The weakness with the Theoretical-practical method of providing experience resembles

the weakness of the Haphazard and the Apprenticeship methods in that it ceases too early. It ceases before the individual begins his life work. It may have the special weakness of not being closely organized with the vocation for which it is assumed to be a preparation, hence of being impracticable.

The Practical-theoretical form of providing experience is based on two assumptions: The first assumption is that the practical and the theoretical should be equally emphasized; that they should be closely organized; and that the theory should be deduced from the practice. The second assumption is that the educative processes should continue so long as the man is engaged in his occupation.

A concrete illustration will make clear the difference between the four different methods of acquiring experience as given above.

During the present summer vacation I have been spending a few weeks in a boarding house. Some previous boarder had bequeathed to the house an intricate Chinese block puzzle. During this summer one lad in the house spent

eight hours in solving the puzzle. He worked by the Haphazard method, trying blindly, till he just happened to get it right. The next attempt did not take so long, but it was many days before he could solve the problem rapidly.

As soon as the lad had learned to solve the puzzle, my son watched him solve it many times, and kept trying to do it as he saw it done. My son learned to solve the puzzle in perhaps two hours by thus watching another and then trying it himself. He was employing the Apprenticeship method, and his education was accomplished in one fourth the time required by the Haphazard method.

In the boarding house was an expert mechanical engineer. He took up the task of solving the problem and was most scientific in his procedure. He figured out the principles that he thought might be involved, tried them, and immediately abandoned methods that proved unsuccessful. He was able to solve the puzzle in a half hour. Later trials were all successful and rapid. He knew just how he had solved the puzzle, and therefore

did not have to experiment or take chances on later trials. This engineer employed the Theoretical-practical method of learning.

The engineer volunteered to instruct me in the problem. I took up the blocks and began trying to unite them. As one difficulty after another arose, I was given instruction in the principle for overcoming it. No principle was presented to me till I had faced a situation demanding that particular principle. The practice and the theory went together, and so far as the instruction was concerned the practice preceded the theory step by step. I was therefore employing the Practical-theoretical method. As a result I was enabled to solve the problem in fifteen minutes. Furthermore I knew just how I had done it and could do it again and could apply the same principles to other puzzles.

A comparison of these results is most instructive. The lad who went at it blindly by the Haphazard method required eight hours and even then did not analyze out the principles that would help him solve later problems.

My son, who employed the Apprenticeship method, accomplished his task in two hours but discovered no principles. His work was blindly mechanical. The engineer worked according to the Theoretical-practical method, completed his task in thirty minutes, and understood perfectly what he had done. By employing the Practical-theoretical method I was enabled to accomplish the task in fifteen minutes and to understand also how it was done.

Whether I have in mind my own development or that of my employees, if I am seeking to utilize the Practical-theoretical method of capitalizing experience, I am confronted with two problems: (1) How shall I secure or provide the requisite practical experiences? (2) How shall I secure or provide the appropriate theoretical interpretation of such experiences?

During recent years in the educational, industrial, and commercial world serious attempts have been made to answer these two questions, and the results are most significant.

The College of Engineering of the University of Cincinnati believes that it has solved the problem for certain fields of activity by "coöperative courses." In these courses the students spend one week in some manufacturing plant and the next week in the college. This weekly alternation of practical and theoretical is kept up for six years. The number of students in the college and the number of workers in the manufacturing plant is kept constant by dividing each group of students into two sections which alternate with each other, so that when one section is at the college the other is at the shop. The college teaches the principles that are necessary for understanding and solving the problems arising from week to week in the shop. As the Dean of the college expresses it, "It aims to teach the theory underlying the work, to teach the intent of the work, to give such cultural subjects as will tend to make him a more intelligent civic unit." It is thought that such coöperative courses could be arranged by schools of different ranks of advancement and

that the students could spend their alternate weeks in almost any class of industrial or commercial institution of importance.

One of the most conspicuous attempts to provide Practical-theoretical experiences of an educative sort is that of the General Electric Company of West Lynn, Massachusetts. This institution has provided a corps of instructors and rooms devoted exclusively to instruction within the plant itself. The theoretical instruction is assumed to be perfectly coördinated with the practical. In fact the young apprentice spends much of his time almost daily in constructing commercial articles and under the same conditions that will confront him in later years. His theoretical instruction is thus planned to help him to accomplish his practical task more quickly, perfectly, and with more perfect understanding. The training is so broad that the graduate is prepared to become an industrial foreman in any mechanical establishment.

The John Wanamaker Commercial Institute of Philadelphia is a school conducted

within the store and for the benefit of the employees of the store. In this school theoretical instruction is given that is designed to give the principles underlying commercial life. The results are said to be most gratifying both to the employer and the employees.

The Practical-theoretical form of education is not limited to the apprentice or to the new employee but is equally valuable to the expert, the oldest employees, and the employer. This fact is taken advantage of most wisely by the National Cash Register Company. This company provides instruction suited to the needs of all its salesmen, whether they are new and inexperienced or whether they are the oldest, most efficient salesmen. By means of letters, books, demonstrations, and conventions the salesmen are constantly provided with educative experiences and are kept from the narrowness and lack of progress so characteristic of men in the commercial life after they have become thoroughly established and relatively efficient in their work.

In keeping with this modern tendency to

supplement practical experience with theoretical interpretation, we find a very pronounced increase in the utilization of all agencies that interpret and enrich the daily toil. Men who are fully employed (e.g. journeymen and salesmen) have realized the necessity of some form of theoretical instruction to enable them to profit by their daily practical experience. This fact is almost pathetically demonstrated by the multitudes who are seeking for such instruction through correspondence and evening schools. Every progressive engineer, teacher, physician, and lawyer keeps abreast of the best thought of the day by means of frequent conventions, conferences, books, and periodicals. The experience secured from such agencies is essential to progress; only by such agencies can he learn the latest and most perfect interpretation of the experience of his professional life. Likewise the non-professional man engaged in commerce or industry finds the modern world to be so complex that mere practical experience is no longer adequate to enable him to meet the demands made upon him. The theoretical training of his youth (even though it include the college and the technical school) is totally inadequate to interpret for him the new relationships which arise from day to day. He needs a theory that grows out of his practical experience and that enables him to understand and to improve upon his practical work. The most common means for providing him with such experience he finds in his conventions and informal conferences with his peers and in his trade journals and technical books.

There is no warfare between theory and practice. The most valuable experience demands both, and the methods of procuring the most valuable experience in business and industry demand that the theory should supplement the practice and not precede it. The environment most conducive to securing and utilizing the most valuable experience is in the work-a-day world. But this is the very environment in which men become engulfed in the practical and neglect the theoretical. To the extent to which men thus neglect the

theoretical do they lower themselves and class themselves with mere machines, and so hasten the day when they shall be discarded. Whether we be apprentices or experts, employees or employers, we are all in a similar condition. In every case advance is dependent upon the proper utilization of practical and theoretical experiences—upon the practical experience which is adequately interpreted.