In all this matter of transfer it must be borne in mind that a very slight amount of transfer of some of these more general responses may be of tremendous value educationally, provided it is over a very wide field.  If a boy’s study of high school science made him at all more scientific in his attitude towards such life situations as politics, morals, city sanitation, and the like, it would be of much more value than the particular habit formed.  If a girl’s work in home economics resulted in but a slight transfer of vital interest to the actual problems of home-making, it would mean much to the homes of America.  If a boy’s training in connection with the athletics of his school fosters in him an ideal of fair play which influences him at all in his dealings with men in business, with his family, with himself, the training would have been worth while.  To discount training simply because the transfer is slight is manifestly unfair.  The kind of responses which transfer are quite as important as the amount of the transfer.

The idea that every subject will furnish the same amount of discipline provided they are equally well taught is evidently false.  Every school subject must now be weighed from two points of view,—­first, as to the worth of the particular facts, responses, habits, which it forms, and second, as to the opportunity it offers for the formation of connections which are of general application.  The training which educators are sure of is the particular training offered by the subject; the general training is more problematic.  Hence no subject should be retained in our present curriculum whose only value is a claim to disciplinary training.  Such general training as the subject affords could probably be gained from some other subject whose content is also valuable.  Just because a subject is difficult, or is distasteful, is no sign that its pursuit will result in disciplinary training.  In fact, the psychology of play and drudgery make it apparent that the presence of annoyance, of distaste, will lessen the disciplinary value.  Only those subjects and activities which are characterized by the play spirit can offer true educational development.  The more the play spirit enters in, the greater the possibility of securing not only special training, but general discipline as well.  Thorndike sums up the present attitude towards special subjects by saying, “An impartial inventory of the facts in the ordinary pupil of ten to eighteen would find the general training from English composition greater than that from formal logic, the training from physics and chemistry greater than that from geometry, and the training from a year’s study of the laws and institutions of the Romans greater than that from equal study of their language.  The grammatical studies which have been considered the chief depositories of disciplinary magic would be found in general inferior to scientific treatments of human nature as a whole.  The superiority for discipline of pure overapplied science would be referred in large measure to the fact that pure science could be so widely applied.  The disciplinary value of geometry would appear to be due, not to the simplicity of its conditions, but to the rigor of its proofs; the greatest disciplinary value of Latin would appear in the case, not of those who disliked it and found it hard, but of those to whom it was a charming game.”