Having had considerable practice in teaching children in
the various
parts of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, it may be necessary to
give a few hints on the subject of organizing an infant school. I
have generally found on opening one, that the children had no idea of
acting together. In order, therefore, to gain this object, it will be
found necessary to have recourse to what we call manual lessons ,
which consist in the children holding up their hands all at one time,
and putting them down in the same manner; throwing the right or the
left foot out; putting their hands together, or behind them; or rising
from their seats all at one time; clapping hands, which is a very good
exercise; holding up their hands and twirling the fingers; holding up
the forefinger and bringing it down on the palm, in time to some tune;
imitating the action of sawing wood, and the sound produced by the
action of the saw; doing this both ways, as it is done in the saw-pit,
with both hands, and by the carpenter with the right; imitating the
cobbler mending shoes, the carpenter plaining wood, the tailor sewing,
and any other trade which is familiar and pleasing to children.
This we do in the first instance, because it is calculated to please
the infants, and is one grand step towards order. After the first day
or two, the children will begin to act together, and to know each
other; but until this is the case, they will be frequently peevish,
and want to go home; any method, therefore, that can be taken at first
to gratify them, should be adopted; for unless this can be done, you
may be sure they will cry. Having proceeded thus far, we have then to
class them according to their capacity and age, and according as they
shew an aptitude in obeying your several commands. Those who obey them
with the greatest readiness may be classed together.
I have found it difficult, at all times, to keep up the attention of
infants, without giving them something to do; so that when they are
saying the tables in arithmetic, we always cause them to move either
their hands or feet, and sometimes to march round the school. The best
way we have yet discovered is the putting their hands one on the other
every time they speak a sentence. If they are marching they may count
one, two, three, four, five, six, &c.
Having classed them, and found that each child knows its own place
in
the school, you may select one of the cleverest of each class for a
monitor. Some of the children will learn many of the tables sooner
than the others; in this case, the teacher may avail himself of their
assistance, by causing each child to repeat what he knows in an
audible manner, the other children repeating after him, and performing
the same evolutions that he does; and by this means the rest will soon
learn. Then the master may go on with something else, taking care to
obtain as much assistance from the children as he can, for he will
find that unless he does so, he will injure his lungs, and render
himself unfit to keep up their attention, and to carry on the business
of the school.
When the children have learned to repeat several of the tables,
and the monitors to excite their several classes, and keep them in
tolerable order, they may go on with the other parts of the plan,
such as the spelling and reading, picture lessons, &c., which will
presently be described. But care must be taken that in the beginning
too much be not attempted. The first week may be spent in getting them
in order, without thinking of anything else; and I should advise
that not more than sixty children be then admitted, that they may be
reduced to order, in some measure, before any more are received, as
all that come after will quickly imitate them. I should, moreover,
advise visitors not to come for some time after a school is opened,
for several reasons; first, because the children must be allowed time
to learn, and there will be nothing worth seeing; secondly, they take
off the children's attention, and interfere with the master: and,
lastly, they may go away dissatisfied, and thereby injure the cause
which they intend to promote.
In teaching infants to sing, I have found it the best way to sing the
psalm or hymn several times in the hearing of the children, without
their attempting to do so until they have some idea of the tune;
because, if all the children are allowed to attempt, and none of them
know it, it prevents those who really wish to learn from catching the
sounds. Nothing, however, can be more ridiculous or absurd than the
attempts at singing I have heard in some schools. And here, I
would caution teachers against too much singing; and also against
introducing it at improper times. Singing takes much out of the
teacher, which will soon be felt in the chest, and cause pain and
weakness there; and, if persevered in, premature death; and with
women much sooner than men. This is another reason why one of each
sex should be employed in the work. Singing is an exhilarating and
exciting lesson; the children always like it: but even they are
injured by the injudicious management of it, and by having too much
of
it each day; or the having two or even three exciting lessons at the
same time. For example: I have seen children singing, marching, and
clapping hands at the same time; and they are prompted and led by the
teachers to do so. Here are three exciting lessons together, which
ought to be separate: the result is, a waste of energy and strength,
on the part of teacher and children, which is sometimes fatal to both.
The exciting lessons were intended to be judiciously blended with the
drier, yet necessary, studies. If the latter are neglected, and the
former only retained, no greater perversion of the plans could occur,
and a more fatal error could not be committed.
You must not expect order until your little officers are well drilled,
which may be done by collecting them together after the other children
are gone, and instructing them in what they are to do. Every monitor
should know his work, and when you have taught him this, you must
require it to be done. To get good order, you must make every monitor
answerable for the conduct of his class. It is astonishing how some
of the little fellows will strut about, big with the importance of
office. And here I must remark, it will require some caution to
prevent them from taking too much upon themselves; so prone are we,
even in our earliest years, to abuse the possession of power.
The way by which we teach the children hymns, is to let one child
stand in a place where he may be seen by the rest, with the book in
his hand; he then reads one line, and stops until all the children in
the school have repeated it, which they do simultaneously; he then
repeats another, and so on, successively, until the hymn is finished.
This method is adopted with every thing that is to be committed to
memory, so that every child in the school has an equal chance of
learning.
I have mentioned that the children should be classed: in order
to facilitate this, there should be a board fastened to the wall
perpendicularly, the same width as the seats, every fifteen feet, all
round the school; this will separate one class from another, and be
the cause of the children knowing their class the sooner. Make every
child hang his hat over where he sits, in his own class, as this will
save much trouble. "Have a place for every thing, and every thing
in
its place." This will bring the children into habits of order.
Never
do any thing for a child that he is able to do for himself; but teach
him to put his own hat and coat on, and hang them up again when
he comes to school. Teach every child to help himself as soon as
possible. If one falls down, and you know that he is able to get up
himself, never lift him up; if you do, he will always lie till you can
give him your aid. Have a slate, or a piece of paper, properly ruled,
hanging over every class; let every child's name that is in the class
be written on it, with the name of the monitor; teach the monitor the
names as soon as you can, and then he will tell you who is absent.
Have a semicircle before every lesson, and make the children keep
their toes to the mark; brass nails driven in the floor are the best,
or flat brass or iron let into the floor. When a monitor is asking
the children questions, let him place his stool in the centre of the
semicircle, and the children stand around him. Let the monitors ask
what questions they please, they will soon get fond of the process,
and their pupils will soon be equally fond of answering them. Suppose
the monitor ask. What do I sit on? Where are your toes? What do you
stand on? What is before you? What behind you? Let the monitors be
instructed in giving simple object lessons on any familiar substance,
such as a piece of wood, of stone, of iron, of paper, of bone, of
linen, &c. Let them question their class as to the qualities first,
and then the various uses to which the object is applied. These
lessons will be of incalculable benefit to the children, and give them
an early desire to inquire into the nature, qualities, and uses of
every natural object they come into contact with. We will suppose the
monitor holds in his hand a piece of leather; he first asks, "What
is
this?" The children will simultaneously exclaim, "A piece
of leather."
This being answered, he will proceed to the qualities, and will have
either from his class, or by his own help, the following answers: "It
is dry, it is smooth, it is hard, it is tough, it is pliable, it is
opaque," &c. He will then question them as to its uses, and
will ask,
"What is made from leather?" A. Boots and shoes. Q. What use
is it of
else? A. Books are bound with it; and so on through all its uses. He
will then ask them how leather is made, and give them information
which he has himself previously received from the teacher as to the
mode of tanning leather, and the various processes which it goes
through. Indeed, there is no end to the varied information which
children may thus receive from simple natural objects. At first they
will have no idea of this mode of exercising the thinking powers. But
the teacher must encourage them in it, and they will very speedily
get fond of it, and be able to give an answer immediately. It is very
pleasing to witness this. I have been much delighted at the questions
put, and still more so at the answers given. Assemble all the very
small children together as soon as you can: the first day or two they
will want to sit with their brothers or sisters, who are a little
older than themselves. But the sooner you can separate them the
better, as the elder children frequently plague the younger ones;
and I have always found that the youngest ones are the happiest by
themselves.
In all cases let teachers be careful to avoid the "parrot system,"
and
to remember that while it is necessary to infuse a certain amount of
information into the child's mind, it can only be made its own by
drawing it back again and getting its own ideas upon it--this is
called development, which is a thing universally disregarded in almost
every school I have seen; and it is a general complaint made by almost
every modern writer on education; and many have objected to the infant
system on this account, because the teachers of it were not acquainted
with its end and essence. The true infant system is a system of development;
no other system can be of lasting benefit to the country
in general, nor to the pupils in particular; the genuine infant system
is not subject to the fundamental errors so much complained of; it has
been invented for the purpose of operating upon all the faculties, and
the machine must not be condemned merely because the teachers do not
know how to work it; but every committee, and each individual in a
committee, appear to lose sight of these principles, in order to try
how much originality may be displayed, and thus utility is sacrificed
to novelty; thus we may find as many infant systems as there are days
in the year; and I have been made chargeable by certain writers for
the errors of others; but these writers have not condescended to
examine into the merits of the system for which I have been so many
years an advocate.
But enough of this: we will now suppose that the little flock are
brought by thus time into something like order; we are next to
consider the means of securing other objects. Although the following
rules for this purpose are given, it must not be supposed, that they
are presented as a model not to be departed from. If they can
be improved so much the better, but some such will be found
indispensable.
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