With his theory of transfer, Thorndike opposed the long-held view of transfer based on the doctrine of formal discipline. As we saw in Chapter 3, formal discipline was based faculty psychology, which contended that the human mind was made up of several powers or faculties such as reasoning, attention, judgment, and memory. It was believed that these faculties could strengthened with practice, for example, practicing reasoning made one a better reasoned. Thus, the study of mathematics and Latin were justified because they strengthened the reasoning and memory faculties. It should be obvious why this position was referred to as the “mental muscle” approach to education since it claims that faculties of the mind are strengthened with practice just as people would strengthen their biceps. This position also maintained that if students were forced to solve a number of difficult problems in school they would be able problem solvers outside of school. Thorndike (1906) felt that there was little evidence that education generalized so readily. In fact, he believed that education resulted in highly specific skills rather than general ones:
A man may be a tip-top musician but in other respects an imbecile: he may be a gifted poet, but an ignoramus in music; he may have a wonderful memory for figures and only a mediocre memory for localities, poetry or human faces; school children may reason admirably in science and be below the average in grammar: those very good in drawing may be very poor in dancing. (p.238)