“We may conclude, then, that there is something which may be called formal discipline, and that it may be more or less general in character.  It consists in the establishment of habitual reactions that correspond to the form of situations.  These reactions foster adjustments, attitudes, and ideas that favor the successful dealing with the emergencies that arouse them.  On the other hand, both the form that we can learn to deal with more effectively, and the reactions that we associate with it, are definite.  There is no general training of the powers or faculties, so far as we can determine.”  (Henderson, 10, p. 307 f.)

“One mental function or activity improves others in so far as and because they are in part identical with it, because it contains elements common to them.  Addition improves multiplication because multiplication is largely addition; knowledge of Latin gives increased ability to learn French because many of the facts learned in the one case are needed in the other.  The study of geometry may lead a pupil to be more logical in all respects, for one element of being logical in all respects is to realize that facts can be absolutely proven and to admire and desire this certain and unquestionable sort of demonstration....” (Thorndike, ’06, pp. 243-245, passim.)

“Mental discipline is the most important thing in education, but it is specific, not general.  The ability developed by means of one subject can be transferred to another subject only in so far as the latter has elements in common with the former.  Abilities should be developed in school only by means of those elements of subject-matter and of method that are common to the most valuable phases of the outside environment.  In the high school there should also be an effort to work out general concepts of method from the specific methods used.”  (Heck, ’09, Edition of ’11, p. 198.)

“...  No study should have a place in the curriculum for which this general disciplinary characteristic is the chief recommendation.  Such advantage can probably be gotten in some degree from every study, and the intrinsic values of each study afford at present a far safer criterion of educational work than any which we can derive from the theory of formal discipline.” (Angell, ’08, p. 14.)

These writers also believe in transfer of training, but they believe the transfer to be never complete, to be in general a very small percentage of the special improvement gained and at times to be negative and to interfere with responses in other fields instead of being a help.  They also emphasize the belief that when the transfer does occur, it is for some perfectly valid reason and under certain very definite conditions.  They reject utterly the machine-like idea of the mind and its elemental faculties held by the writers first quoted.  They hold the view of mental activity which has been emphasized in the