Before beginning, consider the following example of an inadmissible argument: Good workmen do not complain of their tools; my pupils do not complain of their tools; therefore my pupils are good workmen. The conclusion here does not follow, because the class of "good workmen" is not said to exhaust the class of those who "do not complain of their tools" (in logical language the latter is not "distributed") and accordingly there may be some uncomplaining persons, pupils or others, who are outside the group "good workmen." The statements which follow may, for the average student, represent a scale of increasing difficulty. You will be allowed 60 minutes for this test. Try the questions in the order in which they are given, and leave those which prove too difficult. DO NOT TURN THE PAGE UNTIL TOLD TO DO SO. 1. All Romans are courageous. Cæsar is courageous. 2. Some birds are animals: some fish are animals: therefore some fish are birds. 3. A college student "goes to the bad": therefore colleges are nurseries of vice. 4. Smith loves good stories: therefore he loves good stories about himself. 5. An apple falls because of the law of gravitation. 6. You are not what I am: I am a man: therefore you are not a man. 7. Two and three are even and odd: five is two and three: therefore five is even and odd. 8. All great musicians practise every day: I practise every day therefore I am a great musician. 9. Improbable events happen almost every day: events which happen almost every day are probable events: therefore improbable events are probable events. (Dotterer.) 10. He who is most hungry eats most: he who eats least is most hungry: therefore he who eats least eats most. 11. This stove saves half the ordinary amount of fuel: therefore two such stoves would save it all. 12. It either rains or it does not rain: it does not rain: therefore it rains. 13. Is a man bald who has so many thousand hairs? No? Then, if the number of hairs be constantly diminished, is a point finally reached when he becomes bald by the subtraction of a single hair? If not that, then what? 14. How many grains are required to make a heap of sand? One, two, three, four-or how many? 15. Epimenides, the Cretan, says that all Cretans are liars. He is, therefore, himself a liar. Hence what he says is not true, and the Cretans are not liars. But if so, his statement may be accepted, and they are liars-and so on, ad infinitum. Sophism of the pseudomenos. (The Liar.) 16. The arrow can never reach its mark, since a moved body is in every instant in some one point of its track: its movement in this instant is then equal to zero: but from ever so many zeros no real magnitude arises.* 17. Achilles can never overtake the tortoise, for, since the former in every interval or subdivision of time must first reach the point from which the pursued simultaneously starts, it follows that the latter will always be in advance, though by an interval which becomes constantly smaller and approaches a minimum.* DWIGHT REASONING TEST (ABSURDITIES TEST-ALTERNATE TITLE-ILLOGIC TEST) CHARLES A. S. DWIGHT, PH.D. HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION, KEUKA COLLEGE. A. Write your last name here B. Write your first name here C. What is your age? D. Where did you prepare for college? E. How many years have you attended school? From Zeno of Elea, as stated by Windelband. Many statements made in ordinary conversation or writing are illogical, in that they contradict universally accepted "laws of thought," and others could (if there were such a word) be described as alogical, because they are loosely constructed, irrelevant, or palpably absurd, so that they seem apart from any rational discourse. A number of examples of such irrelevancies, quibbles, or (so to speak) logical nonentities are presented on the next page. State briefly in each instance whether any element of rationality appertains to the argument, wherein the contradiction, or the lack of connection, lies, or what statements are hopelessly non-rational. You will be allowed 60 minutes for this test. Distribute your time as may seem best over the questions, if possible saying something in your own words) about all. If puzzled, do not stop long over any particular statement, but pass to the next, going back, if there be time, to the baffling paragraph. DO NOT TURN THE PAGE UNTIL TOLD TO DO SO. 1. A man who sells a penknife is not necessarily an ironmonger. (Dr. S. Johnson.) 2. Have you left off beating your mother? 3. Nothing is better than wisdom: dry bread is better than nothing: therefore dry bread is better than wisdom. 4. Night must be the cause of day, for it invariably precedes it. 5. All the trees in the park cast a deep shade: this is one of them, therefore this tree casts a deep shade. 6. What a man walks he tramples on: a man walks the whole day: therefore he tramples on the day.-Aristotle. 7. He that can swim needs not despair to fly: for to swim is to fly in a grosser fluid, and to fly is to swim in a subtler fluid. 8. An authoress wrote a book to prove that to wear false hair is to tell a falsehood. 9. Every day has twenty-four hours: yet the days are longer in summer than they are in winter. 10. What you bought yesterday you ate today: you bought raw meat yesterday, therefore you ate raw meat today.— Aristotle. 11. Which has more legs, one pig or no pig? No pigfor a pig has four legs, and no pig has six legs. 12. A small boy who was reminded that he had been told to "stop making that noise" replied that he was not making that noise any more, but another just like it.-Bode. 13. Bishop Wilberforce was showing the beauties of Torquay to a young lady fresh from town, who enthusiastically exclaimed: "This is just like Switzerland!" "Exactly," replied the Bishop, "only in Switzerland there is no sea, and here there are no mountains." 14. Is virtue circular? 15. A person contended that a dress folded up tightly weighed more than a loosely folded one, and had trunks made large so as to diminish the charge for freight. 16. An Irishman charged with an offence by three witnesses who had seen him do it proposed in defence to call thirty witnesses who had not seen him do it. 17. The public are a parcel of blockheads, and all blockheads are critics, and all critics are spiders, and spiders are a set of reptiles that all the world despises.-Goldsmith. 18. Pericles said of his son's dog, Azor: "Azor rules my boy, my boy rules his mother, his mother rules me, I rule Athens, Athens rules Greece, and Greece rules the worldwherefore Azor is the ruler of the world." 19. A tribesman came to an Arab to borrow a rope. The Arab declined to give it to the man, saying that he needed it to tie his milk with. "But you don't tie milk with a rope!" pleaded the applicant. "My friend," rejoined the Arab: "when you don't want to do a thing one reason is as good as another." 20. The biting fly gets nothing by alighting on the back of the tortoise. (Ashanti proverb.) (Illustrate this by citing two examples from above list.) Shall We Employ the Direct Method in Modern Language Instruction F. D. CHEYDLEUR, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, I BORN: ROM & AST July and August the Summer Schools of the Universities of Illinois, Chicago, and Michigan L were fortunate in securing as lecturer Mr. H. E. Moore, senior language master of the Isleworth county school, London, England, a scholarly and interesting exponent of the direct method in modern language work. From the first to the last of his seven addresses on the subject it was very evident that this gentlemanly representative of the English schools, sent to America by permission of the Minister of Education, was eminently fit by temperament, training, and experience for carrying on his chosen profession and for presenting his theories and methods of instruction to others. While the reviewer must take exception to the English Master's main thesis, he wishes to state in the very beginning that he is in full sympathy with many of his ideas. If all our high school and college modern language teachers, whatever their particular brand of methodology might be, were as well equipped for their work as Mr. Moore, as resourceful, enthusiastic, interesting, inspiring, and tireless, we would need to have no fear as to the result of our instruction being sound and worth while. There can be no doubt that somewhat different goals would be attained, but they would all be on the right side of the educational balance sheet. A real teacher, while not disdaining any helpful guides, is bigger than any method and Mr. Moore is bigger than his. Readers of EDUCATION and other reviews, whether followers of this type of |