Nothing has given me greater pain than to witness the
thorough neglect
of play-ground attendance on the part of teachers and the public;
the former leave the children to themselves at the very time their
attendance is most desirable; and when, if duly watched, the children
will give them lessons. Yes! such lessons as no book can give, and
such lessons as every efficient teacher must learn, or efficiency
is out of the question. The public are too fond of hearing tasks and
memory work, and such book-learning as is taught in school, with the
singing, and the amusing indoor work, to the detriment and neglect
of the moral and physical outdoor work. Again and again, I say, the
outdoor training tells most upon the morals and the formation of
character.
The first faculties which develop themselves in childhood, are those
of observation. The infant, who is two months old, will notice a
lighted candle; immediately that sense is gratified, it seeks to
please another, that of touch, and every mother knows, if not
prevented, it will put its hand in the flame. The next effort is to
examine other objects: these it will seize if it can, and after having
examined one, it will put it aside to observe another. On its being
able to move about, it seeks objects within its reach, and wishing to
gratify the sense of taste, applies every thing to the mouth; by this
it distinguishes the bitter from the sweet, and on seeing what is
sweet a second time, will point to it and wish to obtain it, whilst
what is bitter will not be desired.
The mental part of the system should now be adverted to. Hence it
has been well remarked, "From the time that children begin to use
their hands, nature directs them to handle every thing over and
over, to look at it while they handle it, and to put it into various
positions, and at various distances from the eye. We are apt to excuse
this as a childish diversion, because they must be doing something,
and have not reason to entertain themselves in a more manly way. But
if we think more justly, we shall find that they are engaged in the
most serious and important study; and if they had all the reason of
a
philosopher, they could not be more properly employed. For it is this
childish employment that enables them to make the proper use of their
eyes. They are thereby every day acquiring habits of perception,
which are of greater importance than any thing we can teach them. The
original perceptions which nature gave them are few, and insufficient
for the purposes of life; and, therefore, she made them capable of
many more perceptions by habit. And to complete her work, she has
given them an unwearied assiduity in applying to the exercise by which
those perceptions are acquired."
Such is the education which nature gives her children, and we may add
that another part of her discipline is, that by the course of things,
children must exert all their muscular force, and employ all their
ingenuity, in order to gratify their curiosity and satisfy their
little appetites. What they desire is only to be obtained at the cost
of labour, patience, and many disappointments. By the exercise of the
body and mind necessary for satisfying their desires, they acquire
agility, strength, and dexterity in their motions, as well as
constitutional health and vigour; they learn to bear pain without
dejection, and disappointment without despondency. The education of
nature is most perfect in savages, who have no other tutor; and we see
that in the quickness of all their senses, in the agility of their
motions, in the hardiness of their constitutions, and in their ability
to bear hunger, thirst, pain, and disappointment, they commonly far
exceed civilized nations. On this account, a most ingenious writer
seems to prefer savage to social life. But it is the intention of
nature, that human education should assist to form the man, and she
has fitted us for it, by the natural principles of imitation and
belief, which discover themselves almost in infancy, as well as by
others which are of later growth.
When the education which we receive from men does not give scope to
that of nature, it is erroneous in its means and its tendency, and
enervates both the body and the mind. Nature has her way of rearing
men, as she has of healing their maladies. The art of education is to
follow her dictates, and the art of education is equally to obey her
laws. The ancient inhabitants of the Baleares followed nature in their
manner of teaching their children to be good archers, when they hung
their dinner aloft by a thread, and left them to bring it down: by
their skill in the use of the bow.
The education of nature, without any more human care than is necessary
to preserve life, makes a savage. Human education joined to that of
nature, may make a good citizen, a skilful artizan, or a well-bred
man; but a higher power is wanting in order to produce a Bacon or a
Newton.
The error of the past system (for such I hope I may venture to call
it) as to mental development was, that the inferior powers of the
mind were called into activity, in preference to its higher faculties.
The effort was to exercise the memory, and store it with information,
which, owing to the inactivity of the understanding and the judgment,
was seldom or never of use. To adopt the opinions of others was
thought quite enough, without the child being troubled to think for
itself, and to form an opinion of its own. But this is not as it should
be. Such a system is neither likely to produce great nor wise men; and
is much better adapted to parrots than children. Hence, the first thing
attempted in an infant school is, to set the children thinking, to induce
them to examine, compare, and judge, in reference to all those matters
which their dawning intellects are capable of mastering. It is of no
use to tell a child, in the first place, what it should think, this
is at once inducing mental indolence, which is but too generally prevalent
among adults; owing to this erroneous method having been adopted by
those who had the charge of their early years. Were a child left to
its own resources, to discover and judge of things exclusively by itself,
though the opposite evil would be the consequence, namely, a state of
comparative ignorance, yet I am doubtful whether it would be greater
or more lamentable than that issuing from the injudicious system of
giving children dogmas instead of problems, the opinions of others instead
of eliciting their own. In the one case we should find a mind, uninformed
and uncultivated, but of a vigorous and masculine character, grasping
the little knowledge it possessed, with the power and right of a conqueror;
in the other, a memory occupied by a useless heap of notions, without
a single opinion or idea it could call its own, and an understanding
indolent and narrow, and, from long-indulged inactivity, almost incapable
of exertion. As the fundamental principle of the system, I would therefore
say, let the children think for themselves. If they arrive
at erroneous conclusions, assist them in attaining the truth; but let
them, with such assistance, arrive at it by their own exertions. Little
good will be done, if you say to a child, That is wrong, this is right,
unless you enable it to perceive the error of the one and the truth
of the other. It is not only due to the child as a rational being that
you should act so, but it is essentially necessary to the development
of its intellectual faculties. It were not more ridiculous for a master,
in teaching arithmetic, to give his pupil the problem and answer, without
instructing him in the method of working the question, than it is for
a person to give a child results of reasoning, without showing how the
truth is arrived at. But some, perhaps, will be ready to exclaim, "Surely
the teacher should not withhold the benefit of his knowledge and experience,
the child will
have time enough to examine the merits of his information when he
grows older and be more competent to do so!" To this I answer:
in the
first place, nothing should be submitted to the child which it is not
fully competent to understand. To give the child tasks or subjects
too difficult for its mental powers, is a violation of nature; and as
foolish and detrimental as though you were to place a hundred pounds
weight on its shoulders when it is incapable of supporting ten. The
teacher's experience can only be of service to the child so far as it
is applicable to its own state; and as to postponing the period when
it is to think for itself, there is certainly no occasion for it.
Nature has provided food adapted to the powers of the infant's
stomach, and those who would rightly conduct the work of education,
should imitate her in providing its intellectual food. That this may
be done, I am attempting to shew in theory in the pages of this work;
and, that it answers equally well in practice, any one who has a
doubt, may assure himself by visiting any school conducted upon the
plan here laid down.
The charge has been brought against the system, that we are not
sufficiently anxious to teach the children to read. Now, though I may
venture to say, that under no other plan, do the children acquire a
knowledge of alphabetical characters, and the formation of words, so
soon as under the present, yet I am quite ready to concede that
I consider their learning to read a secondary object, to that of
teaching them to examine and find out the nature and properties of
things, of which words are but the signs. It is with things, and
not words merely, we wish to make our children acquainted. If they
first learn the nature and properties of an object, there is no fear
of their afterwards inquiring its name; but we too frequently find,
that having acquired names, they are indifferent to, and forgetful
of, the objects represented.
Let children see and observe an object, and be taught the name of it
at the same time, and then both are indelibly fixed on the memory.
An infant at home is perpetually running around and looking at all
things, and hearing persons speaking about them; it soon becomes
acquainted with their names and properties, and then from time to time
speaks about them. "Ah!" exclaims papa or mama, "What
an old-fashioned child that is; one would wonder where it got such notions."
A little thought and reflection would soon tell where, and this thought
properly carried out would display an important fundamental principle
in teaching the young mind.
Our first endeavour is, therefore, to excite a spirit of inquiry, to
foster that curiosity which is so natural to young children: till this
is properly done, your information will not be well received, and
it is most likely soon to be forgotten; but having once made them
inquisitive, you are more likely to tire of communicating than they
are of receiving. The skilful teacher will, indeed, rather leave them
with an appetite still craving, than satiate them by repletion. I have
frequently found the most beneficial results arise from the sudden
cessation of a lesson or a lecture on an interesting topic. The
children have looked for its renewal with the utmost impatience,
pondering over what they had already heard, and anticipating what was
yet to come with the greatest interest. Give a child a task, and
you impose a burthen on him, permit him to learn something, and you
confer a favour.
Having excited a spirit of inquiry, the next endeavour is to direct
it
to proper objects. These, of course, will be things which relate to
the senses of the child; the nature and properties of bodies, which
may be ascertained by the application of those senses, &c. Having
induced it to examine for itself, you are now to elicit its ideas of
each object respectively; and having taught it to use its reason
and judgment freely, and to express its own notions fearlessly and
candidly, you are to attempt the correction of what is erroneous, by
putting forth your own views in as simple a way as possible: not so
as
to induce the child to give up its own opinions and adopt yours, but
in such a way as to direct it to the attainment of truth; to induce
a
comparison between its thoughts and yours, and thus to discover its
own error.
The powers of observation will speedily be improved under such a
course of instruction, and in all the subsequent stages of existence,
will not fail to constitute an independent and shrewd observer. But
some may think we are straining the child's faculties by the plan
recommended, overstepping nature's laws, and that the result must be
detrimental to the child, both in mind and body. So far, however, is
this from being true, that we have taken nature for our guide. We
deprecate strongly, most strongly, that unnatural system, which
gives children tasks so far beyond their powers, and for which their
infantile faculties are not qualified; we would lead them on in the
path which nature has marked out step by step taking care that one
thing should be thoroughly mastered before another is attempted.
The mental powers of children are far stronger than is generally
supposed. No one who looks back to his early childhood, can fail of
recollecting, that, at times, his thoughts would even then reach
the very limits of human thought. All the powers of mind that are
exercised in after-life display themselves in infancy, and therefore
they all ought to be quietly and easily brought into exercise. This
maybe done by any object, even a toy. Were we to tie up several of
our members so as to prevent their use, and at the same time exercise
strongly those at liberty, bodily distortion must result. If we, in
teaching, exercise the memory alone, and that merely with a knowledge
of words and not of things, an absolute mental distortion must result,
and the higher powers of reflection, judgment, and reason will remain
weak, feeble, and deficient from want of exercise. When all the powers
of the mind are brought out into harmonious action, the acquirement
of knowledge be comes pleasurable. Knowledge is the proper aliment to
expand and enlarge the mind, as natural food is for the growth of
the body; and when such as is proper to the age and character of the
recipient is selected, the one will be received with as much pleasure
as the other. As the due exercise of every bodily power causes it to
become strong, healthy, and vigorous, so the right and proper use of
every mental faculty will, in the end, occasion it to become active,
free, and powerful.
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