The task of the common elementary and secondary school is to develop universally young people’s personalities. Universality in education necessarily implies the pupils’ training for further independent study, so that the student who has finished the secondary school could by himself elaborate at least such scientific texts which are written for the general public and study without assistance some special manuals.
The essential component and main aim of any creative work with a didactic text is the thinking upon and the apperception of its theme. Therefore the process of a p perception serves the author as canon for his analysis of the complex ability working, independently and creatively with the text of a manual. From the analysis of this analytical as well as synthetical work, altogether six groups of abilities and practices result, which the student who has completely finished the secondary school ought to comand reliably. These are the abilities and practices of reading and graphic, of oral and written expression and of practical usage of scientific and professional knowledge.
As the elementary school has to prepare its pupils for work and study on higher degrees (standards) it has to develop the fundamental bases of these abilities in such measure as the age of the pupils of the first five school-years in suitable for. The leading place among these learning abilities belongs to the reading abilities. That is a'.so why on the analysis of the basic reading aptitude »to read correctly and with understanding « the autlior demonstrates which part of the reading abilities the elementary school ought to develop. Iheso are as follows: 1. to read with fully conccntrated attention, 2. to grasp the
meanings of the words and word-groups read, 3. to understand and comprehend correctly the contents and extent of each thought, 4. to get the correlations of the phrases, 5. to discern the main thoughts and ideas of the text, 6. to know the characteristics and functions of the people acting in the text and of the topics and events described therein. Through the analysis of each of these abilities the author arrives at the perception of their dependences and at the outline of the principles for their successive lormalion and development.