text:
Roman Breviary

The Roman Breviary (Latin: Breviarium Romanum) is a breviary of the Roman Rite in the Catholic Church. A liturgical book, it contains public or canonical prayers, hymns, the Psalms, readings, and notations for everyday use, especially by bishops, priests, and deacons in the Divine Office (i.e., at the canonical hours, the Christians' daily prayer).

The volume containing the daily hours of Catholic prayer was published as the Breviarium Romanum (Roman Breviary) from its editio princeps in 1568 under Pope Pius V until the reforms of Paul VI (1974), when it was largely supplanted by the Liturgy of the Hours.

In the course of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, Pope Pius V (r. 1566–1572) imposed the use of the Roman Breviary, mainly based on the Breviarium secundum usum Romanae Curiae, on the Latin Church of the Catholic Church. Exceptions are the Benedictines and Dominicans, who have breviaries of their own, and two surviving local use breviaries:
 * the Mozarabic Breviary, once in use throughout all Spain, but now confined to a single foundation at Toledo; it is remarkable for the number and length of its hymns, and for the fact that the majority of its collects are addressed to God the Son;
 * the Ambrosian Breviary, now confined to Milan, where it owes its retention to the attachment of the clergy and people to their traditionary usages, which they derive from St Ambrose.

Origin of name
The Latin word breviarium generally signifies "abridgement, compendium". This wider sense has often been used by Christian authors, e.g. Breviarium fidei, Breviarium in psalmos, Breviarium canonum, Breviarium regularum.

In liturgical language specifically, "breviary" (breviarium) has a special meaning, indicating a book furnishing the regulations for the celebration of Mass or the canonical Office, and may be met with under the titles Breviarium Ecclesiastici Ordinis, or Breviarium Ecclesiæ Romanæ. In the 9th century, Alcuin uses the word to designate an office abridged or simplified for the use of the laity. Prudentius of Troyes, about the same period, composed a Breviarium Psalterii. In an ancient inventory occurs Breviarium Antiphonarii, meaning "Extracts from the Antiphonary". In the Vita Aldrici occurs sicut in plenariis et breviariis Ecclesiæ ejusdem continentur. Again, in the inventories in the catalogues, such notes as these may be met with: Sunt et duo cursinarii et tres benedictionales Libri; ex his unus habet obsequium mortuorum et unus Breviarius, or, Præter Breviarium quoddam quod usque ad festivitatem S. Joannis Baptistæ retinebunt, etc. Monte Cassino in c. 1100 obtained a book titled Incipit Breviarium sive Ordo Officiorum per totam anni decursionem.

From such references, and from others of a like nature, Quesnel gathers that by the word Breviarium was at first designated a book furnishing the rubrics, a sort of Ordo. The usage of "breviary" to mean a book containing the entire canonical office appears to date from the 11th century.

Pope Gregory VII (r. 1073–1085) having abridged the order of prayers, and having simplified the Liturgy as performed at the Roman Court, this abridgment received the name of Breviary, which was suitable, since, according to the etymology of the word, it was an abridgment. The name has been extended to books which contain in one volume, or at least in one work, liturgical books of different kinds, such as the Psalter, the Antiphonary, the Responsoriary, the Lectionary, etc. In this connection it may be pointed out that in this sense the word, as it is used nowadays, is illogical; it should be named a Plenarium rather than a Breviarium, since, liturgically speaking, the word Plenarium exactly designates such books as contain several different compilations united under one cover.

Early history
The canonical hours of the Breviary owe their remote origin to the Old Covenant when God commanded the Aaronic priests to offer morning and evening sacrifices. Other inspiration may have come from David's words in the Psalms "Seven times a day I praise you" (Ps. 119:164), as well as, "the just man meditates on the law day and night" (Ps. 1:2). Regarding Daniel "Three times daily he was kneeling and offering prayers and thanks to his God" (Dan. 6:10).

In the early days of Christian worship the Sacred Scriptures furnished all that was thought necessary, containing as it did the books from which the lessons were read and the psalms that were recited. The first step in the evolution of the Breviary was the separation of the Psalter into a choir-book. At first the president of the local church (bishop) or the leader of the choir chose a particular psalm as he thought appropriate. From about the 4th century certain psalms began to be grouped together, a process that was furthered by the monastic practice of daily reciting the 150 psalms. This took so much time that the monks began to spread it over a week, dividing each day into hours, and allotting to each hour its portion of the Psalter. St Benedict in the 6th century drew up such an arrangement, probably, though not certainly, on the basis of an older Roman division which, though not so skilful, is the one in general use. Gradually there were added to these psalter choir-books additions in the form of antiphons, responses, collects or short prayers, for the use of those not skilful at improvisation and metrical compositions. Jean Beleth, a 12th-century liturgical author, gives the following list of books necessary for the right conduct of the canonical office: the Antiphonarium, the Old and New Testaments, the Passionarius (liber) and the Legendarius (dealing respectively with martyrs and saints), the Homiliarius (homilies on the Gospels), the Sermologus (collection of sermons) and the works of the Fathers, besides the Psalterium and the Collectarium. To overcome the inconvenience of using such a library the Breviary came into existence and use. Already in the 9th century Prudentius, bishop of Troyes, had in a Breviarium Psalterii made an abridgment of the Psalter for the laity, giving a few psalms for each day, and Alcuin had rendered a similar service by including a prayer for each day and some other prayers, but no lessons or homilies.

Medieval breviaries
The Breviary proper only dates from the 11th century; the earliest manuscript containing the whole canonical office is of the year 1099, and is in the Mazarin library. Gregory VII (pope 1073–1085), too, simplified the liturgy as performed at the Roman court, and gave his abridgment the name of Breviary, which thus came to denote a work which from another point of view might be called a Plenary, involving as it did the collection of several works into one. There are several extant specimens of 12th-century Breviaries, all Benedictine, but under Innocent III (pope 1198–1216) their use was extended, especially by the newly founded and active Franciscan order. These preaching friars, with the authorization of Gregory IX, adopted (with some modifications, e.g. the substitution of the "Gallican" for the "Roman" version of the Psalter) the Breviary hitherto used exclusively by the Roman court, and with it gradually swept out of Europe all the earlier partial books (Legendaries, Responsories), etc., and to some extent the local Breviaries, like that of Sarum. Finally, Nicholas III (pope 1277–1280) adopted this version both for the curia and for the basilicas of Rome, and thus made its position secure.

Before the rise of the mendicant orders (wandering friars) in the 13th century, the daily services were usually contained in a number of large volumes. The first occurrence of a single manuscript of the daily office was written by the Benedictine order at Monte Cassino in Italy in 1099. The Benedictines were not a mendicant order, but a stable, monastery-based order, and single-volume breviaries are rare from this early period.

The arrangement of the Psalms in the Rule of St. Benedict had a profound impact upon the breviaries used by secular and monastic clergy alike, until 1911 when Pope Pius X introduced his reform of the Roman Breviary. In many places, every diocese, order or ecclesiastical province maintained its own edition of the breviary.

However, mendicant friars travelled frequently and needed a shortened, or abbreviated, daily office contained in one portable book, and single-volume breviaries flourished from the thirteenth century onwards. These abbreviated volumes soon became very popular and eventually supplanted the Catholic Church's Curia office, previously said by non-monastic clergy.

Early printed editions
Before the advent of printing, breviaries were written by hand and were often richly decorated with initials and miniature illustrations telling stories in the lives of Christ or the saints, or stories from the Bible. Later printed breviaries usually have woodcut illustrations, interesting in their own right but with poor relation to the beautifully illuminated breviaries.

The beauty and value of many of the Latin Breviaries were brought to the notice of English churchmen by one of the numbers of the Oxford Tracts for the Times, since which time they have been much more studied, both for their own sake and for the light they throw upon the English Prayer-Book.

Early printed Breviaries were locally distributed and quickly worn out by daily use. As a result, surviving copies are rare; of those editions which survive at all, many are known only by a single copy.

In Scotland the only one which has survived the convulsions of the 16th century is Aberdeen Breviary, a Scottish form of the Sarum Office (the Sarum Rite was much favoured in Scotland as a kind of protest against the jurisdiction claimed by the diocese of York), revised by William Elphinstone (bishop 1483–1514), and printed at Edinburgh by Walter Chapman and Androw Myllar in 1509–1510. Four copies have been preserved of it, of which only one is complete; but it was reprinted in facsimile in 1854 for the Bannatyne Club by the munificence of the Duke of Buccleuch. It is particularly valuable for the trustworthy notices of the early history of Scotland which are embedded in the lives of the national saints. Though enjoined by royal mandate in 1501 for general use within the realm of Scotland, it was probably never widely adopted. The new Scottish Proprium sanctioned for the Catholic province of St Andrews in 1903 contains many of the old Aberdeen collects and antiphons.

The Sarum or Salisbury Breviary itself was very widely used. The first edition was printed at Venice in 1483 by Raynald de Novimagio in folio; the latest at Paris, 1556, 1557. While modern Breviaries are nearly always printed in four volumes, one for each season of the year, the editions of the Sarum never exceeded two parts.

Early modern reforms
Until the Council of Trent (1545–1563) and the Catholic Counter-Reformation, every bishop had full power to regulate the Breviary of his own diocese; and this was acted upon almost everywhere. Each monastic community, also, had one of its own. Pope Pius V (r. 1566–1572), however, while sanctioning those which could show at least 200 years of existence, made the Roman obligatory in all other places. But the influence of the Roman rite has gradually gone much beyond this, and has superseded almost all the local uses. The Roman has thus become nearly universal, with the allowance only of additional offices for saints specially venerated in each particular diocese. The Roman Breviary has undergone several revisions: The most remarkable of these is that by Francis Quignonez, cardinal of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme (1536), which, though not accepted by Rome (it was approved by Clement VII and Paul III, and permitted as a substitute for the unrevised Breviary, until Pius V in 1568 excluded it as too short and too modern, and issued a reformed edition of the old Breviary, the Breviarium Pianum or "Pian Breviary"), formed the model for the still more thorough reform made in 1549 by the Church of England, whose daily morning and evening services are but a condensation and simplification of the Breviary offices. Some parts of the prefaces at the beginning of the English Prayer-Book are free translations of those of Quignonez. The Pian Breviary was again altered by Sixtus V in 1588, who introduced the revised Vulgate, in 1602 by Clement VIII (through Baronius and Bellarmine), especially as concerns the rubrics, and by Urban VIII (1623–1644), a purist who altered the text of certain hymns.

In the 17th and 18th centuries a movement of revision took place in France, and succeeded in modifying about half the Breviaries of that country. Historically, this proceeded from the labours of Jean de Launoy (1603–1678), "le dénicheur des saints", and Louis Sébastien le Nain de Tillemont, who had shown the falsity of numerous lives of the saints; theologically it was produced by the Port Royal school, which led men to dwell more on communion with God as contrasted with the invocation of the saints. This was mainly carried out by the adoption of a rule that all antiphons and responses should be in the exact words of Scripture, which cut out the whole class of appeals to created beings. The services were at the same time simplified and shortened, and the use of the whole Psalter every week (which had become a mere theory in the Roman Breviary, owing to its frequent supersession by saints' day services) was made a reality. These reformed French Breviaries—e.g. the Paris Breviary of 1680 by Archbishop François de Harlay (1625–1695) and that of 1736 by Archbishop Charles-Gaspard-Guillaume de Vintimille du Luc (1655–1746)—show a deep knowledge of Holy Scripture, and much careful adaptation of different texts.

Later modern reforms
During the pontificate of Pius IX, a strong Ultramontane movement arose against the French breviaries of 1680 and 1736. This was inaugurated by Montalembert, but its literary advocates were chiefly Prosper Guéranger, abbot of the Benedictine monastery Solesmes, and Louis Veuillot (1813–1883) of the Univers. The movement succeeded in suppressing the breviaries, the last diocese to surrender being Orleans in 1875. The Jansenist and Gallican influence was also strongly felt in Italy and in Germany, where breviaries based on the French models were published at Cologne, Münster, Mainz and other towns. Meanwhile, under the direction of Benedict XIV (pope 1740–1758), a special congregation collected much material for an official revision, but nothing was published. In 1902, under Leo XIII, a commission under the presidency of Louis Duchesne was appointed to consider the breviary, the missal, the Roman Pontifical and the Roman Ritual.

Significant changes came in 1910 with the reform of the Roman Breviary by Pope Pius X. This revision modified the traditional psalm scheme so that, while all 150 psalms were used in the course of the week, these were said without repetition. Those assigned to the Sunday office underwent the least revision, although noticeably fewer psalms are recited at Matins, and both Lauds and Compline are slightly shorter due to psalms (or in the case of Compline the first few verses of a psalm) being removed. Pius X was probably influenced by earlier attempts to eliminate repetition in the psalter, most notably the liturgy of the Benedictine congregation of St. Maur. However, since Cardinal Quignonez's attempt to reform the Breviary employed this principle—albeit with no regard to the traditional scheme—such notions had floated around in the western Church, and can particularly be seen in the Paris Breviary.

Pope Pius XII introduced optional use of a new translation of the Psalms from the Hebrew to a more classical Latin. Most breviaries published in the late 1950s and early 1960s used this "Pian Psalter".

Pope John XXIII also revised the Breviary in 1960, introducing changes drawn up by his predecessor Pope Pius XII. The most notable alteration is the shortening of most feasts from nine to three lessons at Matins, keeping only the Scripture readings (the former lesson i, then lessons ii and iii together), followed by either the first part of the patristic reading (lesson vii) or, for most feasts, a condensed version of the former second Nocturn, which was formerly used when a feast was reduced in rank and commemorated.

Contents of the Roman Breviary
At the beginning stands the usual introductory matter, such as the tables for determining the date of Easter, the calendar, and the general rubrics. The Breviary itself is divided into four seasonal parts—winter, spring, summer, autumn—and comprises under each part:
 * 1) the Psalter;
 * 2) Proprium de Tempore (the special office of the season);
 * 3) Proprium Sanctorum (special offices of saints);
 * 4) Commune Sanctorum (general offices for saints);
 * 5) Extra Services.

These parts are often published separately.

The Psalter
This psalm book is the very backbone of the Breviary, the groundwork of the Catholic prayer-book; out of it have grown the antiphons, responsories and versicles. Until the 1911 reform, the psalms were arranged according to a disposition dating from the 8th century, as follows: Psalms 1-108, with some omissions, were recited at Matins, twelve each day from Monday to Saturday, and eighteen on Sunday. The omissions were said at Lauds, Prime and Compline. Psalms 109-147 (except 117, 118, and 142) were said at Vespers, five each day. Psalms 148-150 were always used at Lauds, and give that hour its name. The text of this Psalter is that commonly known as the Gallican. The name is misleading, for it is simply the second revision (A.D. 392) made by Jerome of the old Itala version originally used in Rome. Jerome's first revision of the Itala (A.D. 383), known as the Roman, is still used at St Peter's in Rome, but the "Gallican", thanks especially to St Gregory of Tours, who introduced it into Gaul in the 6th century, has ousted it everywhere else. The Antiphonary of Bangor proves that Ireland accepted the Gallican version in the 7th century, and the English Church did so in the 10th.

Following the 1911 reform, Matins was reduced to nine Psalms every day, with the other psalms redistributed throughout Prime, Terce, Sext, and Compline. For Sundays and special feasts Lauds and Vespers largely remained the same, Psalm 118 remained distributed at the Little Hours and Psalms 4, 90, and 130 were kept at Compline.

The Proprium de Tempore
This contains the office of the seasons of the Christian year (Advent to Trinity), a conception that only gradually grew up. There is here given the whole service for every Sunday and weekday, the proper antiphons, responsories, hymns, and especially the course of daily Scripture reading, averaging about twenty verses a day, and (roughly) arranged thus:
 * Advent: Isaiah
 * Epiphany to Septuagesima: Pauline Epistles
 * Lent: patristic homilies (Genesis on Sundays)
 * Passiontide: Jeremiah
 * Easter to Pentecost: Acts, Catholic epistles and Revelation
 * Pentecost to August: Samuel and Kings
 * August to Advent: Wisdom books, Maccabees, Prophets

The Proprium Sanctorum
This contains the lessons, psalms and liturgical formularies for saints' festivals, and depends on the days of the secular month. The readings of the second Nocturn are mainly hagiological biography, with homilies or papal documents for certain major feasts, particularly those of Jesus and Mary. Some of this material has been revised by Leo XIII, in view of archaeological and other discoveries. The third Nocturn consists of a homily on the Gospel which is read at that day's Mass. Covering a great stretch of time and space, they do for the worshipper in the field of church history what the Scripture readings do in that of biblical history.

The Commune Sanctorum
This comprises psalms, antiphons, lessons, &c., for feasts of various groups or classes (twelve in all); e.g. apostles, martyrs, confessors, virgins, and the Blessed Virgin Mary. These offices are of very ancient date, and many of them were probably in origin proper to individual saints. They contain passages of great literary beauty. The lessons read at the third nocturn are patristic homilies on the Gospels, and together form a rough summary of theological instruction.

Extra services
Here are found the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Office for the Dead (obligatory on All Souls' Day), and offices peculiar to each diocese.

Elements of the Hours
It has already been indicated, by reference to Matins, Lauds, &c., that not only each day, but each part of the day, has its own office, the day being divided into liturgical "hours." A detailed account of these will be found in the article Canonical Hours. Each of the hours of the office is composed of the same elements, and something must be said now of the nature of these constituent parts, of which mention has here and there been already made. They are: psalms (including canticles), antiphons, responsories, hymns, lessons, little chapters, versicles and collects.

Psalms
Before the 1911 reform, the multiplication of saints' festivals, with practically the same festal psalms, tended to repeat the about one-third of the Psalter, with a correspondingly rare recital of the remaining two-thirds. Following this reform, the entire Psalter is again generally recited each week, with the festal psalms restricted to only the highest-ranking feasts. As in the Greek usage and in the Benedictine, certain canticles like the Song of Moses (Exodus xv.), the Song of Hannah (1 Sam. ii.), the prayer of Habakkuk (iii.), the prayer of Hezekiah (Isaiah xxxviii.) and other similar Old Testament passages, and, from the New Testament, the Magnificat, the Benedictus and the Nunc dimittis, are admitted as psalms.

Antiphons
The antiphons are short liturgical forms, sometimes of biblical, sometimes of patristic origin, used to introduce a psalm. The term originally signified a chant by alternate choirs, but has quite lost this meaning in the Breviary.

Responsories
The responsories are similar in form to the antiphons, but come at the end of the psalm, being originally the reply of the choir or congregation to the precentor who recited the psalm.

Hymns
The hymns are short poems going back in part to the days of Prudentius, Synesius, Gregory of Nazianzus and Ambrose (4th and 5th centuries), but mainly the work of medieval authors.

Lessons
The lessons, as has been seen, are drawn variously from the Bible, the Acts of the Saints and the Fathers of the Church. In the primitive church, books afterwards excluded from the canon were often read, e.g. the letters of Clement of Rome and the Shepherd of Hermas. In later days the churches of Africa, having rich memorials of martyrdom, used them to supplement the reading of Scripture. Monastic influence accounts for the practice of adding to the reading of a biblical passage some patristic commentary or exposition. Books of homilies were compiled from the writings of SS. Augustine, Hilary, Athanasius, Isidore, Gregory the Great and others, and formed part of the library of which the Breviary was the ultimate compendium. In the lessons, as in the psalms, the order for special days breaks in upon the normal order of ferial offices and dislocates the scheme for consecutive reading. The lessons are read at Matins (which is subdivided into three nocturns).

Little chapters
The little chapters are very short lessons read at the other "hours."

Versicles
The versicles are short responsories used after the little chapters in the minor hours. They appear after the hymns in Lauds and Vespers.

Collects
The collects come at the close of the office and are short prayers summing up the supplications of the congregation. They arise out of a primitive practice on the part of the bishop (local president), examples of which are found in the Didachē (Teaching of the Apostles) and in the letters of Clement of Rome and Cyprian. With the crystallization of church order, improvisation in prayer largely gave place to set forms, and collections of prayers were made which later developed into Sacramentaries and Orationals. The collects of the Breviary are largely drawn from the Gelasian and other Sacramentaries, and they are used to sum up the dominant idea of the festival in connection with which they happen to be used.

Celebration
Before 1910, the difficulty of harmonizing the Proprium de Tempore and the Proprium Sanctorum, to which reference has been made, was only partly met in the thirty-seven chapters of general rubrics. Additional help was given by a kind of Catholic Churchman's Almanack, called the Ordo Recitandi Divini Officii, published in different countries and dioceses, and giving, under every day, minute directions for proper reading. In 1960, John XXIII simplified the rubrics governing the Breviary in order to make it easier to use.

Every cleric in Holy Orders, and many other members of religious orders, must publicly join in or privately read aloud (i.e. using the lips as well as the eyes—it takes about two hours in this way) the whole of the Breviary services allotted for each day. In large churches where they were celebrated the services were usually grouped; e.g. Matins and Lauds (about 7.30 A.M.); Prime, Terce (High Mass), Sext, and None (about 10 A.M.); Vespers and Compline (4 P.M.); and from four to eight hours (depending on the amount of music and the number of high masses) are thus spent in choir.

Lay use of the Breviary has varied throughout the Church's history. In some periods laymen did not use the Breviary as a manual of devotion to any great extent. The late Medieval period saw the recitation of certain hours of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin, which was based on the Breviary in form and content, becoming popular among those who could read, and Bishop Challoner did much to popularise the hours of Sunday Vespers and Compline (albeit in English translation) in his Garden of the Soul in the eighteenth century. The Liturgical Movement in the twentieth century saw renewed interest in the Offices of the Breviary and several popular editions were produced, containing the vernacular as well as the Latin.

The complete pre-Pius X Roman Breviary was translated into English (by the Marquess of Bute in 1879; new ed. with a trans, of the Martyrology, 1908), French and German. Bute's version is noteworthy for its inclusion of the skilful renderings of the ancient hymns by J.H. Newman, J.M. Neale and others. Several editions of the Pius X Breviary were produced during the twentieth century, including a notable edition prepared with the assistance of the sisters of Stanbrook Abbey in the 1950s. Two editions in English and Latin were produced in the following decade, which conformed to the rubrics of 1960, published by Liturgical Press and Benziger in the United States. These used the Pius XII psalter. Baronius Press's revised edition of the Liturgical Press edition uses the older Gallican psalter of St. Jerome. This edition was published and released in 2012 for pre-orders only. In 2013, the publication has resumed printing and is available on Baronius' website.

Under Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, Catholic bishops, priests, and deacons are again permitted to use the 1961 edition of the Roman Breviary, promulgated by Pope John XXIII to satisfy their obligation to recite the Divine Office every day.

Online resources
In 2008, a website containing the Divine Office (both Ordinary and Extraordinary) in various languages, i-breviary, was launched, which combines the modern and ancient breviaries with the latest computer technology.

Editions

 * 1482. Breviarium Romanum. Albi, Johann Neumeister.
 * 1494. Breviarium Romanum, Lyon, Perrinus Lathomi, Bonifacius Johannis & Johannes de Villa Veteri.
 * 1502, Breviarium secundum comunem usus Romanum, Paris, Thielman Kerver.
 * 1508. Breviarium secundum consuetudinem Romanam. Paris, Jean Philippe Jean Botcholdic, Gherard Berneuelt.
 * 1509. Brevarium secundum ritum sacronsancte Romane ecclesie, Lyon, Ettienne Baland, Martin Boillon
 * 1534. Breviarium Romanum, Paris, Yolande Bonhomme.
 * 1535. Quignonius Breviary
 * 1535.  Breviarium Romanum Ex Decreto Sancrosancti Concilii Tridentini Restitutum ... editum et recognitum iuxta editionem venetiis
 * 1536. Breviarium Romanum, nuper reformatum, in quo sacræ Scripturæ libri, probatæque Sanctorum historiæ eleganter beneque dispositæ leguntur; studio & labore Francisci Quignonii, Card. de licentia & facultate Pauli III. Pont. Max., Paris: Galliot du Pré, Jean Kerbriant, Jean Petit
 * 1537. Breviarium Romanum nuper reformatum, Paris, Yolande Bonhomme.
 * The second recension of the Quignon breviary (ed. 1908)
 * 1570. Pian Breviary (Pius V, Council of Trent)
 * 1570. Breviarium Romanum, ex decreto sacrosancti Concilii Tridentini restitutum, Pii V pontificis maximi jussu editum Rome, Paulus Manutius; Antwerp, Christophe Plantin.
 * 1629. Urban VIII
 * 1698. Breviarium Romanum, ex decreto sacrosancti Concilii Tridentini restitutum, et Clementis VIII et Urbani VIII auctoritate recognitum, cum officiis sanctorum, novissime per Summos Pontifices usque ad hanc diem concessis; in quatuor Anni Tempora divisum.
 * pars Autumnalis (1697)(1698)
 * pars Autumnalis (1719).
 * 1740.Breviarium Romanum cum Psalterium, proprio,& Officiis Sanctorum ad usum cleri Basilicae Vaticanae
 * pars Autumnalis (1740)
 * pars Aestiva (1740)
 * 1757. Breviarium Romanum, ex decreto sacrosancti Concilii Tridentini restitutum, et Clementis VIII et Urbani VIII auctoritate recognitum, novis Officiis ex Indulto Apostolico huc usque concessis auctum
 * pars Aestivus (1757)
 * 1799. Breviarium Romanum, ex decreto sacrosancti Concilii Tridentini restitutum, et Clementis VIII et Urbani VIII auctoritate recognitum, com officiis sanctorum, novissime per Summos Pontifices usque ad hanc diem concessis, in quatuor Anni Tempora divisum
 * pars Verna
 * pars Autumnalis
 * pars Hiemalis
 * 1828.
 * pars Autumnalis (1828)
 * pars Aestiva (1828)
 * 1861.
 * pars Autumnalis (1861)
 * 1888.
 * pars Verna (1888)
 * 1908: Reform of the Roman Breviary by Pope Pius X
 * The 1908 Roman Breviary in English (Pre-Pius X Psalter), Winter (part 1)
 * The 1908 Roman Breviary in English (Pre-Pius X Psalter), Spring (part 2)
 * The 1908 Roman Breviary in English (Pre-Pius X Psalter), Summer (part 3)
 * The 1908 Roman Breviary in English (Pre-Pius X Psalter), Autumn/Fall (part 4)
 * Canonical Hours according to the 1911 Breviarium Romanum without the festal propers of Common of the Saints (traditio.com)
 * 1960 (Vatican II).
 * The Roman Breviary in English and Latin: A Bilingual Edition of the Breviarium Romanum with Rubrics in English Only, Baronius Press (2011), 3 vols.
 * divinumofficinum.com
 * 1974:
 * Universalis Online Breviary

title: Roman Breviary


text:
Boomer (disambiguation)

A boomer, or baby boomer, is a child born between 1946 and 1964.

Boomer may refer to:

People

 * Boomers (Oklahoma settlers), two groups of settlers
 * Boomer (surname)
 * Boomer (nickname)

Places

 * Boomer Township, Pottawattamie County, Iowa
 * Boomer Township, Wilkes County, North Carolina
 * Boomer, Missouri
 * Boomer, West Virginia, a census-designated place
 * Boomer Lake, an artificial reservoir in Stillwater, Oklahoma
 * Boomer Island (Tasmania), Australia

Animals

 * An adult male kangaroo, nicknamed "boomer" in Australia
 * An alternate name for the mountain beaver
 * A colloquial name for the American red squirrel
 * The greater prairie chicken, a type of grouse native to North America
 * Marc Maron's cat

Comics

 * Owen Mercer, the current Captain Boomerang in the DC Comics universe, nicknamed "Boomer"
 * Rotor Walrus, a character from Sonic the Hedgehog, nicknamed "Boomer" in early issues
 * Tabitha Smith, a Marvel Comics comic book superhero, formerly called Boomer
 * Boomer, a canine character, Poncho's best friend, in Pooch Café

Video games

 * Boomers, a faction of xenophobic people in Fallout: New Vegas
 * The Boomer, a recurring Special Infected in the Left 4 Dead series
 * Boomers, heavily armored soldiers of the locust horde in the Gears of War series
 * Boomer, a character in the Skylanders video game, known for wielding explosives enthusiastically
 * Boomer, a playable clown character in the Ballz fighting game
 * Boomer, a character that appeared in Super Mario RPG
 * Boomer, a pixl in the game Super Paper Mario
 * Boomer, a canine side-kick in Far Cry 5
 * Boomer, a Bot in Rocket League

Television

 * Lieutenant Boomer, a character in the 1978 television series Battlestar Galactica
 * Sharon Valerii, a character in the 2004 television series Battlestar Galactica, call-sign "Boomer"
 * Dr. Jack "Boomer" Morrison, a character on the U.S. television show St. Elsewhere
 * Boomer, an anthropomorphic tug boat from the 1989 TV series, Tugs
 * Boomer (Bubblegum Crisis), a fictional synthetic life form in the anime series Bubblegum Crisis
 * Boomer, the blond member of the Rowdyruff Boys, a trio of villains in the animated series The Powerpuff Girls
 * Boomer Bledsoe, a member of Roger Klotz' gang in the animated series Doug
 * Boomer, the title character, a dog, in the 1980 TV series Here's Boomer
 * Boomer Parker, one of the twin protagonists of the American sitcom Pair of Kings
 * Boomer, one of the main protagonists in the TV series Redakai: Conquer the Kairu
 * Sue "Boomer" Jenkins, a character in the Australian drama series Wentworth
 * Boomers (TV series), a 2014 BBC One television comedy series

Others

 * Boomer, a woodpecker in the 1981 animated Disney film The Fox and the Hound
 * Captain Boomer, a British whaling ship captain who appears briefly in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick
 * Boomer, the redhead tomboy in Burger King Kids Club advertising
 * Boomer, a monument statue by western artist Harold T. Holden, located in Enid, Oklahoma, dedicated in 1987
 * Boomers, a tentative title for the role-playing game Rifts
 * Coach Boomer, aka Sonic Boom; the coach in the 2005 film Sky High
 * Boomer Badger, character from the National Wildlife Federation's Ranger Rick magazine

Teams

 * Australia men's national basketball team, officially nicknamed "Australian Boomers"
 * Bulleen Boomers, a basketball club based in Bulleen, a north-eastern suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
 * Calgary Boomers, a former professional soccer team in Canada
 * Melbourne Boomers, an Australian women's basketball club
 * Schaumburg Boomers, a Frontier League baseball team based in Schaumburg, Illinois

Mascots

 * Boomer (mascot), the mascot of the NBA's Indiana Pacers
 * Boomer, mascot of the Missouri State University Bears
 * Boomer, mascot of the Port Vale F.C., an association football (soccer) club
 * Boomer Baller, mascot of the Kannapolis Cannon Ballers minor league baseball team
 * Boomer the Bear, mascot of the Western Hockey League's Spokane Chiefs
 * Boomer the Bulldog, mascot for Dean College's sports teams
 * Boomer and Sooner, mascots for the University of Oklahoma's sports teams
 * Buzz and Boomer, mascots of the Canadian Football League's Winnipeg Blue Bombers

In the military

 * A ballistic missile submarine in American naval slang
 * VT-27, a US Navy training squadron nicknamed the "Boomers"

Other uses

 * The Boomers (band), a Canadian rock band from Ontario
 * Boomers! Parks, a theme park / family entertainment center chain
 * Boomer, a freeware pharmacokinetic modeling software

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Boomer (disambiguation)


text:
B. F. Skinner

Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, inventor, and social philosopher. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974.

Considering free will to be an illusion, Skinner saw human action as dependent on consequences of previous actions, a theory he would articulate as the principle of reinforcement: If the consequences to an action are bad, there is a high chance the action will not be repeated; if the consequences are good, the probability of the action being repeated becomes stronger.

Skinner developed behavior analysis, especially the philosophy of radical behaviorism, and founded the experimental analysis of behavior, a school of experimental research psychology. He also used operant conditioning to strengthen behavior, considering the rate of response to be the most effective measure of response strength. To study operant conditioning, he invented the operant conditioning chamber (aka the Skinner box), and to measure rate he invented the cumulative recorder. Using these tools, he and Charles Ferster produced Skinner's most influential experimental work, outlined in their 1957 book Schedules of Reinforcement.

Skinner was a prolific author, publishing 21 books and 180 articles. He imagined the application of his ideas to the design of a human community in his 1948 utopian novel, Walden Two, while his analysis of human behavior culminated in his 1958 work, Verbal Behavior.

Skinner, John B. Watson and Ivan Pavlov, are considered to be the pioneers of modern behaviorism. Accordingly, a June 2002 survey listed Skinner as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century.

Biography
Skinner was born in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, to Grace and William Skinner, the latter of whom was a lawyer. Skinner became an atheist after a Christian teacher tried to assuage his fear of the hell that his grandmother described. His brother Edward, two and a half years younger, died at age 16 of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Skinner's closest friend as a young boy was Raphael Miller, whom he called Doc because his father was a doctor. Doc and Skinner became friends due to their parents' religiousness and both had an interest in contraptions and gadgets. They had set up a telegraph line between their houses to send messages to each other, although they had to call each other on the telephone due to the confusing messages sent back and forth. During one summer, Doc and Skinner started an elderberry business to gather berries and sell them door to door. They found that when they picked the ripe berries, the unripe ones came off the branches too, so they built a device that was able to separate them. The device was a bent piece of metal to form a trough. They would pour water down the trough into a bucket, and the ripe berries would sink into the bucket and the unripe ones would be pushed over the edge to be thrown away.

Education
Skinner attended Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, with the intention of becoming a writer. He found himself at a social disadvantage at the college because of his intellectual attitude. He was a member of Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity.

He wrote for the school paper, but, as an atheist, he was critical of the traditional mores of his college. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts in English literature in 1926, he attended Harvard University, where he would later research and teach. While attending Harvard, a fellow student, Fred S. Keller, convinced Skinner that he could make an experimental science of the study of behavior. This led Skinner to invent a prototype for the Skinner box and to join Keller in the creation of other tools for small experiments.

After graduation, Skinner unsuccessfully tried to write a novel while he lived with his parents, a period that he later called the "Dark Years". He became disillusioned with his literary skills despite encouragement from the renowned poet Robert Frost, concluding that he had little world experience and no strong personal perspective from which to write. His encounter with John B. Watson's behaviorism led him into graduate study in psychology and to the development of his own version of behaviorism.

Later life
Skinner received a PhD from Harvard in 1931, and remained there as a researcher for some years. In 1936, he went to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis to teach. In 1945, he moved to Indiana University, where he was chair of the psychology department from 1946 to 1947, before returning to Harvard as a tenured professor in 1948. He remained at Harvard for the rest of his life. In 1973, Skinner was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto II.

In 1936, Skinner married Yvonne "Eve" Blue. The couple had two daughters, Julie (later Vargas) and Deborah (later Buzan; married Barry Buzan). Yvonne died in 1997, and is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Skinner's public exposure had increased in the 1970s, he remained active even after his retirement in 1974, until his death. In 1989, Skinner was diagnosed with leukemia and died on August 18, 1990, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Ten days before his death, he was given the lifetime achievement award by the American Psychological Association and gave a talk concerning his work.

Behaviorism
Skinner referred to his approach to the study of behavior as radical behaviorism, which originated in the early 1900s as a reaction to depth psychology and other traditional forms of psychology, which often had difficulty making predictions that could be tested experimentally. This philosophy of behavioral science assumes that behavior is a consequence of environmental histories of reinforcement (see applied behavior analysis). In his words: "The position can be stated as follows: what is felt or introspectively observed is not some nonphysical world of consciousness, mind, or mental life but the observer's own body. This does not mean, as I shall show later, that introspection is a kind of psychological research, nor does it mean (and this is the heart of the argument) that what are felt or introspectively observed are the causes of the behavior. An organism behaves as it does because of its current structure, but most of this is out of reach of introspection. At the moment we must content ourselves, as the methodological behaviorist insists, with a person's genetic and environment histories. What are introspectively observed are certain collateral products of those histories.... In this way we repair the major damage wrought by mentalism. When what a person does [is] attributed to what is going on inside him, investigation is brought to an end. Why explain the explanation? For twenty-five hundred years people have been preoccupied with feelings and mental life, but only recently has any interest been shown in a more precise analysis of the role of the environment. Ignorance of that role led in the first place to mental fictions, and it has been perpetuated by the explanatory practices to which they gave rise."

Foundations of Skinner's behaviorism
Skinner's ideas about behaviorism were largely set forth in his first book, The Behavior of Organisms (1938). Here, he gives a systematic description of the manner in which environmental variables control behavior. He distinguished two sorts of behavior which are controlled in different ways:

 * Respondent behaviors are elicited by stimuli, and may be modified through respondent conditioning, often called classical (or pavlovian) conditioning, in which a neutral stimulus is paired with an eliciting stimulus. Such behaviors may be measured by their latency or strength.
 * Operant behaviors are 'emitted', meaning that initially they are not induced by any particular stimulus. They are strengthened through operant conditioning (aka instrumental conditioning), in which the occurrence of a response yields a reinforcer. Such behaviors may be measured by their rate.

Both of these sorts of behavior had already been studied experimentally, most notably: respondents, by Ivan Pavlov; and operants, by Edward Thorndike. Skinner's account differed in some ways from earlier ones, and was one of the first accounts to bring them under one roof.

The idea that behavior is strengthened or weakened by its consequences raises several questions. Among the most commonly asked are these:

 * 1) Operant responses are strengthened by reinforcement, but where do they come from in the first place?
 * 2) Once it is in the organism's repertoire, how is a response directed or controlled?
 * 3) How can very complex and seemingly novel behaviors be explained?

1. Origin of operant behavior
Skinner's answer to the first question was very much like Darwin's answer to the question of the origin of a 'new' bodily structure, namely, variation and selection. Similarly, the behavior of an individual varies from moment to moment; a variation that is followed by reinforcement is strengthened and becomes prominent in that individual's behavioral repertoire. Shaping was Skinner's term for the gradual modification of behavior by the reinforcement of desired variations. Skinner believed that 'superstitious' behavior can arise when a response happens to be followed by reinforcement to which it is actually unrelated.

2. Control of operant behavior
The second question, "how is operant behavior controlled?" arises because, to begin with, the behavior is "emitted" without reference to any particular stimulus. Skinner answered this question by saying that a stimulus comes to control an operant if it is present when the response is reinforced and absent when it is not. For example, if lever-pressing only brings food when a light is on, a rat, or a child, will learn to press the lever only when the light is on. Skinner summarized this relationship by saying that a discriminative stimulus (e.g. light or sound) sets the occasion for the reinforcement (food) of the operant (lever-press). This three-term contingency (stimulus-response-reinforcer) is one of Skinner's most important concepts, and sets his theory apart from theories that use only pair-wise associations.

3. Explaining complex behavior
Most behavior of humans cannot easily be described in terms of individual responses reinforced one by one, and Skinner devoted a great deal of effort to the problem of behavioral complexity. Some complex behavior can be seen as a sequence of relatively simple responses, and here Skinner invoked the idea of "chaining". Chaining is based on the fact, experimentally demonstrated, that a discriminative stimulus not only sets the occasion for subsequent behavior, but it can also reinforce a behavior that precedes it. That is, a discriminative stimulus is also a "conditioned reinforcer". For example, the light that sets the occasion for lever pressing may also be used to reinforce "turning around" in the presence of a noise. This results in the sequence "noise – turn-around – light – press lever – food." Much longer chains can be built by adding more stimuli and responses.

However, Skinner recognized that a great deal of behavior, especially human behavior, cannot be accounted for by gradual shaping or the construction of response sequences. Complex behavior often appears suddenly in its final form, as when a person first finds his way to the elevator by following instructions given at the front desk. To account for such behavior, Skinner introduced the concept of rule-governed behavior. First, relatively simple behaviors come under the control of verbal stimuli: the child learns to "jump," "open the book," and so on. After a large number of responses come under such verbal control, a sequence of verbal stimuli can evoke an almost unlimited variety of complex responses.

Reinforcement
Reinforcement, a key concept of behaviorism, is the primary process that shapes and controls behavior, and occurs in two ways: positive and negative. In The Behavior of Organisms (1938), Skinner defines negative reinforcement to be synonymous with punishment, i.e. the presentation of an aversive stimulus. This definition would subsequently be re-defined in Science and Human Behavior (1953).

In what has now become the standard set of definitions, positive reinforcement is the strengthening of behavior by the occurrence of some event (e.g., praise after some behavior is performed), whereas negative reinforcement is the strengthening of behavior by the removal or avoidance of some aversive event (e.g., opening and raising an umbrella over your head on a rainy day is reinforced by the cessation of rain falling on you).

Both types of reinforcement strengthen behavior, or increase the probability of a behavior reoccurring; the difference being in whether the reinforcing event is something applied (positive reinforcement) or something removed or avoided (negative reinforcement). Punishment can be the application of an aversive stimulus/event (positive punishment or punishment by contingent stimulation) or the removal of a desirable stimulus (negative punishment or punishment by contingent withdrawal). Though punishment is often used to suppress behavior, Skinner argued that this suppression is temporary and has a number of other, often unwanted, consequences. Extinction is the absence of a rewarding stimulus, which weakens behavior.

Writing in 1981, Skinner pointed out that Darwinian natural selection is, like reinforced behavior, "selection by consequences". Though, as he said, natural selection has now "made its case," he regretted that essentially the same process, "reinforcement", was less widely accepted as underlying human behavior.

Schedules of reinforcement
Skinner recognized that behavior is typically reinforced more than once, and, together with Charles Ferster, he did an extensive analysis of the various ways in which reinforcements could be arranged over time, calling it the schedules of reinforcement.

The most notable schedules of reinforcement studied by Skinner were continuous, interval (fixed or variable), and ratio (fixed or variable). All are methods used in operant conditioning.

 * Continuous reinforcement (CRF): each time a specific action is performed the subject receives a reinforcement. This method is effective when teaching a new behavior because it quickly establishes an association between the target behavior and the reinforcer.
 * Interval schedule: based on the time intervals between reinforcements.
 * Fixed interval schedule (FI): A procedure in which reinforcements are presented at fixed time periods, provided that the appropriate response is made. This schedule yields a response rate that is low just after reinforcement and becomes rapid just before the next reinforcement is scheduled.
 * Variable interval schedule (VI): A procedure in which behavior is reinforced after scheduled but unpredictable time durations following the previous reinforcement. This schedule yields the most stable rate of responding, with the average frequency of reinforcement determining the frequency of response.
 * Ratio schedules: based on the ratio of responses to reinforcements.
 * Fixed ratio schedule (FR): A procedure in which reinforcement is delivered after a specific number of responses have been made.
 * Variable ratio schedule (VR): A procedure in which reinforcement comes after a number of responses that is randomized from one reinforcement to the next (e.g. slot machines). The lower the number of responses required, the higher the response rate tends to be. Variable ratio schedules tend to produce very rapid and steady responding rates in contrast with fixed ratio schedules where the frequency of response usually drops after the reinforcement occurs.

Token economy
"Skinnerian" principles have been used to create token economies in a number of institutions, such as psychiatric hospitals. When participants behave in desirable ways, their behavior is reinforced with tokens that can be changed for such items as candy, cigarettes, coffee, or the exclusive use of a radio or television set.

Verbal Behavior
Challenged by Alfred North Whitehead during a casual discussion while at Harvard to provide an account of a randomly provided piece of verbal behavior, Skinner set about attempting to extend his then-new functional, inductive approach to the complexity of human verbal behavior. Developed over two decades, his work appeared in the book Verbal Behavior. Although Noam Chomsky was highly critical of Verbal Behavior, he conceded that Skinner's "S-R psychology" was worth a review. (behavior analysts reject the "S-R" characterization: operant conditioning involves the emission of a response which then becomes more or less likely depending upon its consequence.)

Verbal Behavior had an uncharacteristically cool reception, partly as a result of Chomsky's review, partly because of Skinner's failure to address or rebut any of Chomsky's criticisms. Skinner's peers may have been slow to adopt the ideas presented in Verbal Behavior because of the absence of experimental evidence—unlike the empirical density that marked Skinner's experimental work.

Operant conditioning chamber
An operant conditioning chamber (also known as a "Skinner box") is a laboratory apparatus used in the experimental analysis of animal behavior. It was invented by Skinner while he was a graduate student at Harvard University. As used by Skinner, the box had a lever (for rats), or a disk in one wall (for pigeons). A press on this "manipulandum" could deliver food to the animal through an opening in the wall, and responses reinforced in this way increased in frequency. By controlling this reinforcement together with discriminative stimuli such as lights and tones, or punishments such as electric shocks, experimenters have used the operant box to study a wide variety of topics, including schedules of reinforcement, discriminative control, delayed response ("memory"), punishment, and so on. By channeling research in these directions, the operant conditioning chamber has had a huge influence on course of research in animal learning and its applications. It enabled great progress on problems that could be studied by measuring the rate, probability, or force of a simple, repeatable response. However, it discouraged the study of behavioral processes not easily conceptualized in such terms—spatial learning, in particular, which is now studied in quite different ways, for example, by the use of the water maze.

Cumulative recorder
The cumulative recorder makes a pen-and-ink record of simple repeated responses. Skinner designed it for use with the operant chamber as a convenient way to record and view the rate of responses such as a lever press or a key peck. In this device, a sheet of paper gradually unrolls over a cylinder. Each response steps a small pen across the paper, starting at one edge; when the pen reaches the other edge, it quickly resets to the initial side. The slope of the resulting ink line graphically displays the rate of the response; for example, rapid responses yield a steeply sloping line on the paper, slow responding yields a line of low slope. The cumulative recorder was a key tool used by Skinner in his analysis of behavior, and it was very widely adopted by other experimenters, gradually falling out of use with the advent of the laboratory computer and use of line graphs. Skinner's major experimental exploration of response rates, presented in his book with Charles Ferster, Schedules of Reinforcement, is full of cumulative records produced by this device.

Air crib
The air crib is an easily cleaned, temperature- and humidity-controlled box-bed intended to replace the standard infant crib. After raising one baby, Skinner felt that he could simplify the process for parents and improve the experience for children. He primarily thought of the idea to help his wife cope with the day-to-day tasks of child rearing. Skinner had some specific concerns about raising a baby in the rough environment where he lived in Minnesota. Keeping the child warm was a central priority (Faye, 2010). Though this was the main goal, it also was designed to reduce laundry, diaper rash, and cradle cap, while still allowing the baby to be more mobile and comfortable, and less prone to cry. Reportedly it had some success in these goals and was used with an estimate of 300 children who were raised in the air crib. The notorious crib was advertised commercially. Psychology Today tracked down 50 children and ran a short piece on the effects of the air crib. The reports came back positive and that these children and parents enjoyed using the crib (Epstein, 2005). One of these air cribs resides in the gallery at the Center for the History of Psychology in Akron, Ohio (Faye, 2010).

The air crib was designed with three solid walls and a safety-glass panel at the front which could be lowered to move the baby in and out of the crib. The floor was stretched canvas. Sheets were intended to be used over the canvas and were easily rolled off when soiled. Addressing Skinners' concern for temperature, a control box on top of the crib regulated temperature and humidity. Filtered air flowed through the crib from below. This crib was higher than most standard cribs, allowing easier access to the child without the need to bend over (Faye, 2010 ).

The air crib was a controversial invention. It was popularly characterized as a cruel pen, and it was often compared to Skinner's operant conditioning chamber (or "Skinner box"). An article, titled "Baby in a Box," caught the eye of many and contributed to skepticism about the device (Bjork, 1997). A picture published with the article showed the Skinners' daughter, Deborah, peering out of the crib with her hands and face pressed upon the glass. Skinner also used the term "experiment" when describing the crib, and this association with laboratory animal experimentation discouraged the crib's commercial success, although several companies attempted to produce and sell it.

In 2004, therapist Lauren Slater repeated a claim that Skinner may have used his baby daughter in some of his experiments. His outraged daughter publicly accused Slater of not making a good-faith effort to check her facts before publishing. Debora was quoted by the Guardian saying "According to Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century, my father, who was a psychologist based at Harvard from the 1950s to the 90s, "used his infant daughter, Deborah, to prove his theories by putting her for a few hours a day in a laboratory box. . . in which all her needs were controlled and shaped". But it's not true. My father did nothing of the sort."

Teaching machine

The teaching machine was a mechanical device whose purpose was to administer a curriculum of programmed learning. The machine embodies key elements of Skinner's theory of learning and had important implications for education in general and classroom instruction in particular.

In one incarnation, the machine was a box that housed a list of questions that could be viewed one at a time through a small window. (see picture.) There was also a mechanism through which the learner could respond to each question. Upon delivering a correct answer, the learner would be rewarded.

Skinner advocated the use of teaching machines for a broad range of students (e.g., preschool aged to adult) and instructional purposes (e.g., reading and music). For example, one machine that he envisioned could teach rhythm. He wrote: "A relatively simple device supplies the necessary contingencies. The student taps a rhythmic pattern in unison with the device. 'Unison' is specified very loosely at first (the student can be a little early or late at each tap) but the specifications are slowly sharpened. The process is repeated for various speeds and patterns. In another arrangement, the student echoes rhythmic patterns sounded by the machine, though not in unison, and again the specifications for an accurate reproduction are progressively sharpened. Rhythmic patterns can also be brought under the control of a printed score."The instructional potential of the teaching machine stemmed from several factors: it provided automatic, immediate and regular reinforcement without the use of aversive control; the material presented was coherent, yet varied and novel; the pace of learning could be adjusted to suit the individual. As a result, students were interested, attentive, and learned efficiently by producing the desired behavior, "learning by doing."

Teaching machines, though perhaps rudimentary, were not rigid instruments of instruction. They could be adjusted and improved based upon the students' performance. For example, if a student made many incorrect responses, the machine could be reprogrammed to provide less advanced prompts or questions—the idea being that students acquire behaviors most efficiently if they make few errors. Multiple-choice formats were not well-suited for teaching machines because they tended to increase student mistakes, and the contingencies of reinforcement were relatively uncontrolled.

Not only useful in teaching explicit skills, machines could also promote the development of a repertoire of behaviors that Skinner called self-management. Effective self-management means attending to stimuli appropriate to a task, avoiding distractions, reducing the opportunity of reward for competing behaviors, and so on. For example, machines encourage students to pay attention before receiving a reward. Skinner contrasted this with the common classroom practice of initially capturing students' attention (e.g., with a lively video) and delivering a reward (e.g., entertainment) before the students have actually performed any relevant behavior. This practice fails to reinforce correct behavior and actually counters the development of self-management.

Skinner pioneered the use of teaching machines in the classroom, especially at the primary level. Today computers run software that performs similar teaching tasks, and there has been a resurgence of interest in the topic related to the development of adaptive learning systems.

Pigeon-guided missile
During World War II, the US Navy required a weapon effective against surface ships, such as the German Bismarck class battleships. Although missile and TV technology existed, the size of the primitive guidance systems available rendered automatic guidance impractical. To solve this problem, Skinner initiated Project Pigeon, which was intended to provide a simple and effective guidance system. Skinner trained pigeons through operant conditioning to peck a camera obscura screen showing incoming targets on individual screens (Schultz-Figueroa, 2019). This system divided the nose cone of a missile into three compartments, with a pigeon placed in each. Within the ship, the three lenses projected an image of distant objects onto a screen in front of each bird. Thus, when the missile was launched from an aircraft within sight of an enemy ship, an image of the ship would appear on the screen. The screen was hinged, which connected the screens to the bomb's guidance system. This was done through four small rubber pneumatic tubes that were attached to each side of the frame, which directed a constant airflow to a pneumatic pickup system that controlled the thrusters of the bomb. Resulting in the missile being guided towards the targeted ship, through just the peck coming from the pigeon (Schultz-Figueroa, 2019).

Despite an effective demonstration, the project was abandoned, and eventually more conventional solutions, such as those based on radar, became available. Skinner complained that "our problem was no one would take us seriously." Before the project was completely abandoned it was tested extensively in the laboratory. After the United States Army ultimately denied it the United States Naval Research Laboratory picked up Skinner's Research and renamed it Project ORCON, which was a contraction of "organic" and "control". Skinner worked closely with the US Naval Research Laboratory continuously testing the pigeon's tracking capacity for guiding missiles to their intended targets. In the end, the pigeons' performance and accuracy relied on so many uncontrollable factors that Project ORCON, like Project Pigeon before it, was again discontinued. It was never used in the field.

Verbal summator
Early in his career Skinner became interested in "latent speech" and experimented with a device he called the verbal summator. This device can be thought of as an auditory version of the Rorschach inkblots. When using the device, human participants listened to incomprehensible auditory "garbage" but often read meaning into what they heard. Thus, as with the Rorschach blots, the device was intended to yield overt behavior that projected subconscious thoughts. Skinner's interest in projective testing was brief, but he later used observations with the summator in creating his theory of verbal behavior. The device also led other researchers to invent new tests such as the tautophone test, the auditory apperception test, and the Azzageddi test.

Influence on teaching
Along with psychology, education has also been influenced by Skinner's views, which are extensively presented in his book The Technology of Teaching, as well as reflected in Fred S. Keller's Personalized System of Instruction and Ogden R. Lindsley's Precision Teaching.

Skinner argued that education has two major purposes:

 * 1) to teach repertoires of both verbal and nonverbal behavior; and
 * 2) to interest students in learning.

He recommended bringing students' behavior under appropriate control by providing reinforcement only in the presence of stimuli relevant to the learning task. Because he believed that human behavior can be affected by small consequences, something as simple as "the opportunity to move forward after completing one stage of an activity" can be an effective reinforcer. Skinner was convinced that, to learn, a student must engage in behavior, and not just passively receive information.

Skinner believed that effective teaching must be based on positive reinforcement which is, he argued, more effective at changing and establishing behavior than punishment. He suggested that the main thing people learn from being punished is how to avoid punishment. For example, if a child is forced to practice playing an instrument, the child comes to associate practicing with punishment and thus develops feelings of dreadfulness and wishes to avoid practicing the instrument. This view had obvious implications for the then widespread practice of rote learning and punitive discipline in education. The use of educational activities as punishment may induce rebellious behavior such as vandalism or absence.

Because teachers are primarily responsible for modifying student behavior, Skinner argued that teachers must learn effective ways of teaching. In The Technology of Teaching (1968), Skinner has a chapter on why teachers fail: He says that teachers have not been given an in-depth understanding of teaching and learning. Without knowing the science underpinning teaching, teachers fall back on procedures that work poorly or not at all, such as:

 * using aversive techniques (which produce escape and avoidance and undesirable emotional effects);
 * relying on telling and explaining ("Unfortunately, a student does not learn simply when he is shown or told.");
 * failing to adapt learning tasks to the student's current level; and
 * failing to provide positive reinforcement frequently enough.

Skinner suggests that any age-appropriate skill can be taught. The steps are
 * 1) Clearly specify the action or performance the student is to learn.
 * 2) Break down the task into small achievable steps, going from simple to complex.
 * 3) Let the student perform each step, reinforcing correct actions.
 * 4) Adjust so that the student is always successful until finally the goal is reached.
 * 5) Shift to intermittent reinforcement to maintain the student's performance.

Contributions to social theory
Skinner is popularly known mainly for his books Walden Two (1948) and Beyond Freedom and Dignity, (for which he made the cover of Time magazine). The former describes a fictional "experimental community" in 1940s United States. The productivity and happiness of citizens in this community is far greater than in the outside world because the residents practice scientific social planning and use operant conditioning in raising their children.

Walden Two, like Thoreau's Walden, champions a lifestyle that does not support war, or foster competition and social strife. It encourages a lifestyle of minimal consumption, rich social relationships, personal happiness, satisfying work, and leisure. In 1967, Kat Kinkade and others founded the Twin Oaks Community, using Walden Two as a blueprint. The community still exists and continues to use the Planner-Manager system and other aspects of the community described in Skinner's book, though behavior modification is not a community practice.

In Beyond Freedom and Dignity, Skinner suggests that a technology of behavior could help to make a better society. We would, however, have to accept that an autonomous agent is not the driving force of our actions. Skinner offers alternatives to punishment, and challenges his readers to use science and modern technology to construct a better society.

Political views
Skinner's political writings emphasized his hopes that an effective and human science of behavioral control – a technology of human behavior – could help with problems as yet unsolved and often aggravated by advances in technology such as the atomic bomb. Indeed, one of Skinner's goals was to prevent humanity from destroying itself. He saw political activity as the use of aversive or non-aversive means to control a population. Skinner favored the use of positive reinforcement as a means of control, citing Jean-Jacques Rousseau's novel Emile: or, On Education as an example of literature that "did not fear the power of positive reinforcement."

Skinner's book, Walden Two, presents a vision of a decentralized, localized society, which applies a practical, scientific approach and behavioral expertise to deal peacefully with social problems. (For example, his views led him to oppose corporal punishment in schools, and he wrote a letter to the California Senate that helped lead it to a ban on spanking. ) Skinner's utopia is both a thought experiment and a rhetorical piece. In Walden Two, Skinner answers the problem that exists in many utopian novels – "What is the Good Life?" The book's answer is a life of friendship, health, art, a healthy balance between work and leisure, a minimum of unpleasantness, and a feeling that one has made worthwhile contributions to a society in which resources are ensured, in part, by minimizing consumption. "If the world is to save any part of its resources for the future, it must reduce not only consumption but the number of consumers." Skinner described his novel as "my New Atlantis", in reference to Bacon's utopia. "When Milton's Satan falls from heaven, he ends in hell. And what does he say to reassure himself? 'Here, at least, we shall be free.' And that, I think, is the fate of the old-fashioned liberal. He's going to be free, but he's going to find himself in hell."

Superstition' in the Pigeon" experiment
One of Skinner's experiments examined the formation of superstition in one of his favorite experimental animals, the pigeon. Skinner placed a series of hungry pigeons in a cage attached to an automatic mechanism that delivered food to the pigeon "at regular intervals with no reference whatsoever to the bird's behavior." He discovered that the pigeons associated the delivery of the food with whatever chance actions they had been performing as it was delivered, and that they subsequently continued to perform these same actions. "One bird was conditioned to turn counter-clockwise about the cage, making two or three turns between reinforcements. Another repeatedly thrust its head into one of the upper corners of the cage. A third developed a 'tossing' response, as if placing its head beneath an invisible bar and lifting it repeatedly. Two birds developed a pendulum motion of the head and body, in which the head was extended forward and swung from right to left with a sharp movement followed by a somewhat slower return."Skinner suggested that the pigeons behaved as if they were influencing the automatic mechanism with their "rituals", and that this experiment shed light on human behavior: "The experiment might be said to demonstrate a sort of superstition. The bird behaves as if there were a causal relation between its behavior and the presentation of food, although such a relation is lacking. There are many analogies in human behavior. Rituals for changing one's fortune at cards are good examples. A few accidental connections between a ritual and favorable consequences suffice to set up and maintain the behavior in spite of many unreinforced instances. The bowler who has released a ball down the alley but continues to behave as if she were controlling it by twisting and turning her arm and shoulder is another case in point. These behaviors have, of course, no real effect upon one's luck or upon a ball half way down an alley, just as in the present case the food would appear as often if the pigeon did nothing—or, more strictly speaking, did something else."Modern behavioral psychologists have disputed Skinner's "superstition" explanation for the behaviors he recorded. Subsequent research (e.g. Staddon and Simmelhag, 1971), while finding similar behavior, failed to find support for Skinner's "adventitious reinforcement" explanation for it. By looking at the timing of different behaviors within the interval, Staddon and Simmelhag were able to distinguish two classes of behavior: the terminal response, which occurred in anticipation of food, and interim responses, that occurred earlier in the interfood interval and were rarely contiguous with food. Terminal responses seem to reflect classical (as opposed to operant) conditioning, rather than adventitious reinforcement, guided by a process like that observed in 1968 by Brown and Jenkins in their "autoshaping" procedures. The causation of interim activities (such as the schedule-induced polydipsia seen in a similar situation with rats) also cannot be traced to adventitious reinforcement and its details are still obscure (Staddon, 1977).

Noam Chomsky
American linguist Noam Chomsky published a review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior in the linguistics journal Language in 1959. Chomsky argued that Skinner's attempt to use behaviorism to explain human language amounted to little more than word games. Conditioned responses could not account for a child's ability to create or understand an infinite variety of novel sentences. Chomsky's review has been credited with launching the cognitive revolution in psychology and other disciplines. Skinner, who rarely responded directly to critics, never formally replied to Chomsky's critique, but endorsed Kenneth MacCorquodale's 1972 reply.

"I read half a dozen pages, saw that it missed the point of my book, and went no further. [...] My reasons, I am afraid, show a lack of character. In the first place I should have had to read the review, and I found its tone distasteful. It was not really a review of my book but of what Chomsky took, erroneously, to be my position."

Many academics in the 1960s believed that Skinner's silence on the question meant Chomsky's criticism had been justified. But MacCorquodale wrote that Chomsky's criticism did not focus on Skinner's Verbal Behavior, but rather attacked a confusion of ideas from behavioral psychology. MacCorquodale also regretted Chomsky's aggressive tone. Furthermore, Chomsky had aimed at delivering a definitive refutation of Skinner by citing dozens of animal instinct and animal learning studies. On the one hand, he argued that the studies on animal instinct proved that animal behavior is innate, and therefore Skinner was mistaken. On the other, Chomsky's opinion of the studies on learning was that one cannot draw an analogy from animal studies to human behavior—or, that research on animal instinct refutes research on animal learning.

Chomsky also reviewed Skinner's Beyond Freedom and Dignity, using the same basic motives as his Verbal Behavior review. Among Chomsky's criticisms were that Skinner's laboratory work could not be extended to humans, that when it was extended to humans it represented "scientistic" behavior attempting to emulate science but which was not scientific, that Skinner was not a scientist because he rejected the hypothetico-deductive model of theory testing, and that Skinner had no science of behavior.

Psychodynamic psychology
Skinner has been repeatedly criticized for his supposed animosity towards Sigmund Freud, psychoanalysis, and psychodynamic psychology. Some have argued, however, that Skinner shared several of Freud's assumptions, and that he was influenced by Freudian points of view in more than one field, among them the analysis of defense mechanisms, such as repression. To study such phenomena, Skinner even designed his own projective test, the "verbal summator" described above.

J. E. R. Staddon
As understood by Skinner, ascribing dignity to individuals involves giving them credit for their actions. To say "Skinner is brilliant" means that Skinner is an originating force. If Skinner's determinist theory is right, he is merely the focus of his environment. He is not an originating force and he had no choice in saying the things he said or doing the things he did. Skinner's environment and genetics both allowed and compelled him to write his book. Similarly, the environment and genetic potentials of the advocates of freedom and dignity cause them to resist the reality that their own activities are deterministically grounded. J. E. R. Staddon has argued the compatibilist position; Skinner's determinism is not in any way contradictory to traditional notions of reward and punishment, as he believed.

Roles

 * 1936-1937 Instructor, University of Minnesota
 * 1937−1939 Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota
 * 1939−1945 Associate Professor, University of Minnesota
 * 1945−1948 Professor and chair, Indiana University
 * 1947−1948 William James Lecturer, Harvard University
 * 1948−1958 Professor, Harvard University
 * 1958−1974 Professor of Psychology, Harvard University
 * 1949−1950 President, Midwestern Psychological Association
 * 1954−1955 President, Eastern Psychological Association
 * 1966−1967 President, Pavlovian Society of North America
 * 1974−1990 Professor of Psychology and Social Relations Emeritus, Harvard University

Awards

 * 1926 AB, Hamilton College
 * 1930 MA, Harvard University
 * 1930−1931 Thayer Fellowship
 * 1931 PhD, Harvard University
 * 1931−1932 Walker Fellowship
 * 1931−1933 National Research Council Fellowship
 * 1933−1936 Junior Fellowship, Harvard Society of Fellows
 * 1942 Guggenheim Fellowship (postponed until 1944–1945)
 * 1942 Howard Crosby Warren Medal, Society of Experimental Psychologists
 * 1958 Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, American Psychological Association
 * 1958−1974 Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology, Harvard University
 * 1964−1974 Career Award, National Institute of Mental Health
 * 1966 Edward Lee Thorndike Award, American Psychological Association
 * 1968 National Medal of Science, National Science Foundation
 * 1969 Overseas Fellow in Churchill College, Cambridge
 * 1971 Gold Medal Award, American Psychological Foundation
 * 1971 Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., Foundation for Mental Retardation International award
 * 1972 Humanist of the Year, American Humanist Association
 * 1972 Creative Leadership in Education Award, New York University
 * 1972 Career Contribution Award, Massachusetts Psychological Association
 * 1978 Distinguished Contributions to Educational Research Award and Development, American Educational Research Association
 * 1978 National Association for Retarded Citizens Award
 * 1985 Award for Excellence in Psychiatry, Albert Einstein School of Medicine
 * 1985 President's Award, New York Academy of Science
 * 1990 William James Fellow Award, American Psychological Society
 * 1990 Lifetime Achievement Award, American Psychological Association
 * 1991 Outstanding Member and Distinguished Professional Achievement Award, Society for Performance Improvement
 * 1997 Scholar Hall of Fame Award, Academy of Resource and Development
 * 2011 Committee for Skeptical Inquiry Pantheon of Skeptics—Inducted

Honorary degrees
Skinner received honorary degrees from:
 * Alfred University
 * Ball State University
 * Dickinson College
 * Hamilton College
 * Harvard University
 * Hobart and William Smith Colleges
 * Johns Hopkins University
 * Keio University
 * Long Island University C. W. Post Campus
 * McGill University
 * North Carolina State University
 * Ohio Wesleyan University
 * Ripon College
 * Rockford College
 * Tufts University
 * University of Chicago
 * University of Exeter
 * University of Missouri
 * University of North Texas
 * Western Michigan University
 * University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Honorary societies
Skinner was inducted to the following honorary societies:
 * PSI CHI International Honor Society in Psychology
 * American Philosophical Society
 * American Academy of Arts and Sciences
 * United States National Academy of Sciences

title: B. F. Skinner


text:
Bill

Bill(s) may refer to:

Common meanings

 * Banknote, paper cash (especially in the United States)
 * Bill (law), a proposed law put before a legislature
 * Invoice, commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer
 * Bill, a bird or animal's beak

Places

 * Bill, Wyoming, an unincorporated community, United States

People and fictional characters

 * Bill (given name), a list of people and fictional characters
 * Bill (surname)
 * Bill (footballer, born 1978), Togolese football forward Alessandro Faria
 * Bill (footballer, born 1984), Brazilian football forward Rosimar Amâncio
 * Bill (footballer, born 1999), Brazilian forward Fabricio Rodrigues da Silva Ferreira

Fictional characters

 * Bill (Kill Bill), in the Kill Bill films
 * one of the titular duo of the Bill & Ted film series
 * A lizard in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
 * A locomotive in The Railway Series and Thomas & Friends
 * A candy store owner in the 1971 film, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
 * Bill the Cat, a Bloom County character
 * Bill Cipher, a demon in Gravity Falls
 * Bill the Pony and his previous owner Bill Ferny in the novel The Lord of the Rings
 * Bill Potts (Doctor Who), a female companion of the twelfth Doctor in Doctor Who
 * Bill Sikes, main antagonist from Oliver Twist
 * Mr. Bill, a claymation character on Saturday Night Live
 * Sour Bill, in Wreck-It Ralph
 * Bill Kerman, in the computer game Kerbal Space Program

Films

 * Bill (1981 film), a 1981 TV film starring Mickey Rooney
 * Bill: On His Own, 1983 sequel to the 1981 film
 * Bill (2015 film), an adventure-comedy film about Shakespeare from the cast of Horrible Histories
 * Bill, the Galactic Hero (film), 2014 science student fiction film based on the 1965 Harry Harrison novel
 * Meet Bill, a 2007 comedy film formerly known as Bill
 * The Bill, a long-running British police TV drama series

Albums

 * Bill (Bill Cosby album), 1973
 * Bill (Bill Anderson album), 1973
 * Bill (Tripping Daisy album), 1992
 * Bill, 2021 album by William Shatner

Songs

 * "Bill" (song), a song from the 1927 musical Show Boat
 * "Bill", a 1996 song by Peggy Scott-Adams

Printed media

 * Bill, the Galactic Hero, a 1965 science fiction novel by American writer Harry Harrison
 * Bill, the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Bottled Brains, a 1990 novel by Harry Harrison and Robert Sheckley
 * "Bill, the Ventriloquial Rooster", an 1898 sketch story by Australian writer Henry Lawson
 * "The Bill" (short story), a 2013 short story by Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai

Television

 * The Bill, a British police procedural television series
 * The Bill (Inside No. 9), an episode of the British television series Inside No. 9.

Weapons

 * Bill (weapon), a weapon similar to a halberd
 * BILL Anti-tank guided weapon, a Swedish anti-tank weapon
 * BILL 2 Anti-tank guided weapon, a Swedish anti-tank weapon

Other uses

 * Bill (United States Congress)
 * Bill the Goat, the mascot of the US Naval Academy
 * The Bill (band)
 * Tropical Storm Bill, a list of storms

title: Bill


text:
Bill Macy

Wolf Martin Garber (May 18, 1922 – October 17, 2019), known professionally as Bill Macy, was an American television, film and stage actor known for his role in the CBS television series Maude (1972–1978).

Early life
Bill Macy was born Wolf Martin Garber on May 18, 1922, in Revere, Massachusetts, the son of Mollie (née Friedopfer; 1889–1986) and Michael Garber (1884–1974), a manufacturer.

He was raised Jewish in the East Flatbush section of New York, New York. After graduating from Samuel J. Tilden High School he served in the United States Army from 1942 to 1946 with the 594th Engineer Boat and Shore Regiment, stationed in the Philippines, New Guinea and Japan.

He worked as a cab driver for a decade before being cast as Walter Matthau's understudy in Once More, with Feeling on Broadway in 1958. He portrayed a cab driver on the soap opera The Edge of Night in 1966.

Macy was an original cast member of the 1969–1972 Off-Broadway sensation Oh! Calcutta!, performing in the show from 1969 to 1971. He later appeared in the 1972 movie version of the musical. Of appearing fully nude with the rest of the cast in the stage show, he said, "The nudity didn't bother me. I'm from Brooklyn."

Macy performed on the P.D.Q. Bach album The Stoned Guest (1970).

Television
Appreciating Macy's comedic skills off Broadway, Norman Lear brought him to Hollywood, where he first got a small part as a police officer in All in the Family. He was cast in the role of Walter Findlay, the husband of the title character on the 1970s television sitcom Maude, starring Bea Arthur. The show ran for six seasons from 1972 to 1978.

Strangers on the street often called him "Mr. Maude", consoling him for having such a difficult wife. "I used to tell them that people like that really existed," Macy explained.

In 1975, Macy and Samantha Harper Macy appeared on the game show Tattletales.

In 1986, Macy was a guest on the fourth episode of L.A. Law, playing an older man whose young wife wants a music career. Also that year he guest starred in an episode of Highway to Heaven, called Cindy. Macy appeared in the television movie Perry Mason: The Case of the Murdered Madam (1987) as banker Richard Wilson. He appeared on The Facts of Life in a 1988 episode. He occasionally appeared on Seinfeld as one of the residents of the Florida retirement community where Jerry Seinfeld's parents lived. Macy made a guest appearance as a patient on Chicago Hope and as an aging gambler on the series Las Vegas. Macy's last television role occurred in a 2010 episode of Jada Pinkett Smith's series Hawthorne.

Film
Macy appeared as the jury foreman in The Producers in 1967, with the memorable sole line "We find the defendants incredibly guilty". Other memorable roles include the co-inventor of the "Opti-Grab" in the 1979 Steve Martin comedy The Jerk and as the head television writer in My Favourite Year (1982).

Other film credits included roles in Death at Love House (1976), The Late Show (1977), Serial (1980), Movers & Shakers (1985), Bad Medicine (1985), Tales from the Darkside (1985 - "Lifebomb" episode), Sibling Rivalry (1990), The Doctor (1991), Me Myself & I (1992), Analyze This (1999), Surviving Christmas (2004), The Holiday (2006), and Mr. Woodcock (2007).

Personal life
Macy met his future wife, Samantha Harper, on the set of ''Oh! Calcutta!'' in 1969. They married in 1975.

Macy died on October 17, 2019, at the age of 97; no cause was given.

title: Bill Macy