The elements of general method, based on the principles of Herbart

Preface

In this revised edition of the General Method all the chapters have been considerably modified and enlarged. Especially has the treatment of Interest and Correlation been much extended.

The ** Method of the Recitation " and the " School Management," two volumes which follow this from the same publishers, will complete the group of books treating of the general principles of method.

Closely following these, the books of Special Method in Reading, Geography, Natural Science, and other studies by the same author apply these principles more definitely to the selection of materials and method of treatment in the various studies.

The Course of Study for the eight grades of the common school is worked out on the basis of the foregoing books of General and Special Method and will complete the whole series.

CHARLES A. McMURRY.

De Kalb, Illinois, August 14, 1902.

. 297 nil.

. 323

Chapter I

What is the central purpose of education ? If we include under the term " education " all the things commonly assigned to it, its many phases as represented by the great variety of teachers and pupils, the many branches of knowledge, and the various and even conflicting theories and methods in bringing up children, it is difficult to find a definition sufficiently broad and definite to compass its meaning. In fact, we shall not attempt in the beginning to make a definition. We are in search not so much of a comprehensive definition as of a central truth, a key to the situation, an aim that will simplify and brighten all the work of teachers. Keeping in view the end from the beginning, we need a central organizing principle which shall dictate for teacher and pupil the highway over which they shall travel together.

We will assume, at least, that education means the whole bringing up of a child from infancy to maturity, not simply his school training. The reason for this assumption is that home, school, companions, envi-

B I ronment, and natural endowment, working through a series of years, produce a character which should be a unit as the resultant of these different influences and growths. Again, we are compelled to assume that this aim, whatever it is, is the same for all.

Now, what will the average man, picked up at random, say to our question, What is the chief end in the education of your son ? A farmer wishes his boy to read, write, and cipher, so as to meet successfully the needs of a farmer's life. The merchant desires that his boy get a wider reach of knowledge and experience, so as to succeed in a livelier sort of business competition. A university professor would lay out a liberal course of training for his son, so as to prepare him for intellectual pursuits among scholars and people of culture. This utilitarian view, which points to success in life in the ordinary sense, is the prevailing one. We could probably sum up the wishes of a great majority of the common people by saying, "They desire to give their children, through education, a better chance in life than they themselves have had." Yet even these people, if pressed to give reasons, would admit that the purely utilitarian view is a low one, and that there is something better for every boy and girl than the mere ability to make a successful living.

Turn for a moment to the great systems of education which have held their own for centuries, and examine their aims. The Jesuits and the Humanists claim to be liberal, culture-giving, and preparatory to great things ; yet we need but to quote from the histories of education to show their narrowness and incompleteness. The training of the Jesuits was linguistic and rhetorical, and almost entirely apart from our present notion of human development. The Humanists, or Classicists, who for so many centuries have constituted the educational 61ite, belonged to the past with its glories rather than to the time in which .they really lived. Though standing in a modern age, they were almost blind to the great problems and opportunities it offered. They stood in bold contrast to the growth of the modern spirit in history, literature, and natural science. But, in spite of their predominating influence over education for centuries, there has never been the shadow of a chance for making the classics of antiquity the basis of common popular education. The modern school of Natural Scientists may be as one-sided as the Humanists in supposing that human nature is narrow enough to be compressed within the bounds of natural science studies, however broad their field may be.

But the systems of education in vogue have always lagged behind the pronounced views of educational reformers. Two hundred fifty years ago Comenius projected a plan of education for every boy and girl of the common people. His aim was to teach all men all things, from the highest truths of religion to the commonest things of daily experience. Being a man of simple and profound religious faith, religion and morality were at the foundation of his system. But even the principles of intellectual training so clearly advocated by Comenius have not yet found a ready hearing among teachers, to say nothing of his great moral rehgious purpose. Among later writers, Locke, Rousseau, and Pestalozzi have set up ideals of education that have had much influence. But Locke's "gentleman" can never be the ideal of all, because it is intrinsically aristocratic, and education has become with us broadly democratic. After all, Locke's "gentleman," with his moral basis for character, is a noble ideal and should powerfully impress teachers. The perfect human animal that Rousseau dreamed of in the Emile, is best illustrated in the noble savage, but we are not in danger in America of adopting this ideal. In spite of his merits the noblest savage falls short in several ways. Yet it is important in education to perfect the physical powers and the animal development in every child. Pestalozzi touched the hearts of even the weakest and morally frailest children, and tried to make improved physical conditions and intellectual culture contribute to heart culture, or rather to combine the two in strong moral character. He came close upon the highest aim in education and was able to illustrate his doctrine in practice. The educational reformers have gone far ahead of the schoolmasters in setting up a high aim in education.

Let us examine a few well-known definitions of education by great thinkers, and try to discover a central idea.

Plato : " The purpose of education is to give to the body and to the soul all the beauty and all the perfection of which they are capable."

John Stuart Mill : *' Education includes whatever we do for ourselves and whatever is done for us by others for the express purpose of bringing us nearer to the perfection of our nature."

Herbert Spencer : *' Education is the preparation for complete living."

Stein : " Education is the harmonious and equable evolution of the human faculties by a method based upon the nature of the mind for developing all the faculties of the soul, for stirring up and nourishing all the principles of life, while shunning all one-sided culture and taking account of the sentiments upon which the strength and worth of men depend."

Compayre : " Education is the sum of the reflective efforts by which we aid nature in the development of the physical, intellectual, and moral faculties of man in view of his perfection, his happiness, and his social destination."

These attempts to bring the task of education into a comprehensive, scientific formula are interesting and yet disappointing. They agree in giving great breadth to education. But in the attempt to be comprehensive, to omit nothing, they fail to specify that wherein the true worth of a man consists ; they fail to bring out into reHef the highest aim as an organizing idea in the complicated work of education and its relation to secondary aims.

We desire therefore to approach nearer to this problem : What is the highest aim of education ?

We will do so by inquiry into the aims and tendencies of our public schools. To an outward observer the schools of to-day confine their attention almost exclusively to the acquisition of certain forms of knowledge and to intellectual training, to the mental discipline and power that come from a varied and vigorous exercise of the faculties. The great majority of good schoolmasters stand squarely upon this platform, knowledge and mental discipUne. But they are none the less deeply conscious that this is not the highest aim of education. We scarcely need to be told that a person may be fully equipped with the best that this style of education can give, and still remain a criminal. A good and wise parent will inevitably seek for a better result in his child than mere knowledge, intellectual abiHty, and power. All good schoolmasters know that behind school studies and cares is the still greater task of developing manly and womanly character. Perhaps, however, this is too high and sacred a thing to formulate. Perhaps in the attempt to reduce it to a scientific form we should lose its spirit. Admitting that strong moral character is the noblest result of right training, is it not still incidental to the regular school work ? Perhaps it lies in the teacher and his manner of teaching subjects, and not in the subject-matter itself nor in any course of study.

This is exactly the point at which we wish to apply the lever and to lift into prominence the moral, character-building aim as the central one in education. This aim should be Hke a loadstone, attracting and subordinating all other purposes to itself. It should dominate in the choice, arrangement, and method of studies.

It is difficult at the present time to set up the moral aim as a supreme one in education, and to grasp clearly the instrumentalities by which it can be realized.

When the churches first founded the common schools in this country and in Europe, the Bible was made the basis of religious and moral training, and definite means were thus supplied for reaching the result. This is still true of many European schools. But now that our schools have been completely secularized, and the Bible banished as a text-book, we have in our school course no material of pronounced ethical content whose avowed purpose is moral culture. So far as direct moral training through instruction is concerned, we have no plan for it. Knowledge and discipline are the well-defined purposes of our schools. The personal influence and moral force of the teacher must bear whatever burden of moral culture the school is held responsible for.

There is also an instinctive feeling that direct moral teaching is apt to be formal and theoretic, unreal if not hypocritical, that morality belongs rather to conduct and to the discipline of the school than to instruction. Again, in those studies like history, reading, and literature, which possess marked moral quality, the instruction has been directed chiefly to other purposes, and therefore the moral influence of these studies has not been much utilized. Moreover, the relation of the moral aim to the other leading aims of education, such as intellectual discipline, physical training, acquired knowledge, music, art, and aesthetics, and especially to the conduct and active employments of children, has not been completely worked out. Some have the feeUng that morality is not a broad enough concept to cover the whole scheme of education. To bring all the aims into subordination to this one aim would limit its freedom and scope. We may state briefly, therefore, some of the reasons why the moral aim should be put forward as the controlling one in education.

First : The attainment of virtue, that is, the establishment of moral habits, gives us the best quality and achievement in individual character. It is acknowledged that the perfection of the individual is a chief essential to the aim of education. No matter how much we emphasize scientific knowledge and mental discipline, all admit that the attainment of ^ moral excellence is still superior to these. As Kant says, '' There is but one good thing in the world, and that is a good will." The perfection of will, however, is found only in its subjection to moral requirements in the individual. It will be generally admitted that all physical, intellectual, and aesthetic culture should culminate in this individual moral excellence.

Second : The second chief essential in the education of children is that they shall be trained for society. and for citizenship. They shall be adapted to the social and industrial life of the present. This demand is heard with much emphasis and from the highest quarters. It seems at the present time that the demand for the perfection of the individual is yielding, to a considerable extent, to the requirement for socializing or subordinating the individual to the needs of society. It is in the social order, however, that the moral virtues come chiefly into play. The highest statement of the social law is found in the golden rule, and it is the application of this everywhere that is most needed in social intercourse and in human industry. To equip a child properly for social and industrial life is to put him in possession, through education, of these moral or social virtues and sympathies. This can only be done by giving him an insight into human relations and sympathy for people in all the various conditions of society. This whole point of view, therefore, is moral in the highest degree.

Whether we look at education from the standpoint of the individual or of society as a whole, moral culture is the preeminent need in both.

Third : Moral ideas and moral education generally are subject to the same laws of growth and development as other kinds of knowledge and culture. Moral judgments, feelings, and decisions, vague and rudimentary at first in children, gradually develop through experience and culture to clearness and strength. It requires a clear advance in intelligence to perceive moral ideas, and likewise to move forward from particular examples to general moral concepts. In this respect moral enlightenment does not differ from other kinds of growth in intelligence. The sympathetic and social feelings and the sense of moral obligation also ripen gradually with the growth in intelligence. If left to themselves or to chance, these moral ideas, sympathies, and habits of judgment are easily perverted and the whole moral character wrecked. Indeed they require the most careful cultivation and direction by wise teachers and parents. No teacher or thinker would have the hardihood to deny these statements, and yet our schools have no definite plan for the cultivation of moral ideas and feelings.

Fourth : The great central studies of the school course, such as reading, literature, and history, are full to overflowing with material of the best quality upon which the moral judgments and sympathies

THE CHIEF AIM OF EDUCATION II

may be directly cultivated. These forms of biography and history and literature which are coming to be most used in the schools, are especially fruitful in those personal, concrete forms of life which reveal simple moral ideas in a striking form. The chief fact to be observed is, that these studies, already used in the school, are preeminent for their moral worth, but have not been employed chiefly to bring out this form of culture and character growth.

Fifth.: The school, however, is not limited in its sphere of opportunities to the theoretical treatment of morals, to the mere observation of moral ideas in stories, etc. It has abundant opportunity to lead over from moral judgments and sympathetic feelings to conduct. Every one concedes that it is as much the business of a teacher to look after the conduct of children as to supervise their acquisition of ideas and knowledge. The school itself is a social organization, and children cannot live in its close relationships without practising the social virtues, or else violating them. Every day moral habits are being formed in the school, and the direct experience of these relations by the children in home and ^school must be the basis also of any interpretation of moral situations in stories, history, etc. But beyond this there is an increasing and emphatic demand that our schools shall be converted more and more into social institutions, that by means of the extension of social activities in cooking, weaving, industrial occupations.

and cooperation, this social spirit shall be given freer scope. This will fit children better to understand, appreciate, and sympathize with the more intimate and complex social and industrial conditions into which the people are rapidly growing. We may even go so far as to say that the strongest and most intelligent demand made upon the school in late years is for greater socialization of its activities, and, in the last analysis, what does this mean, other than greater intellectual and moral insight, greater sympathy with our fellow-men, better social conduct, morality.'* The school therefore is not limited to the theory of morals.

Sixth : The pedagogical applications of ethics and psychology have been developed far enough to furnish the teachers with a good scheme of moral training, with a set of pedagogical principles with which the teacher can intelligently go to work to cultivate steadily and rationally the moral insight and feeling of children.

These six considerations bearing upon the value of the moral aim in education seem to justify us as teachers in pushing it to the front and in concentrating our energies upon its accomplishment.

To summarize: i. The attainment of moral excellence in conduct is the perfection of the individual.

2. Ability to fulfil the moral law in the social relations is the chief demand that society makes upon the individual.

3. Moral enlightenment and growth toward moral conduct are subject to the same laws as other forms of mental culture.

4. Several of the most important studies furnish peculiarly strong and appropriate material for moral instruction.

5. The school is not narrowed to ethical theory. As a social organization, through its activities and discipline, it furnishes also the transition from theory to practice or conduct.

6. A fairly complete and practical scheme of moral education on the basis of ethics and pedagogy is within the reach of teachers.

Let us examine further the convictions upon which the moral aim rests. Every wise and benevolent parent knows that the first and last question to ask and to answer regarding a child is, "What are his moral quahty and strength ? " Now, who is better able to judge of the true aim than thoughtful and solicitous parents ? In the second place, it is inconceivable that a conscientious teacher should close his eyes to all except the intellectual training of his pupils. It is as natural for him to touch and awaken the moral qualities as it is for birds to sing. Again, the state is more concerned to see the growth of just and virtuous citizens than in seeing the prosperity of scholars, inventors, and merchants. It is also concerned with the success of the latter, but chiefly when their knowledge, skill, and wealth are regulated by their virtues. Our country may have vast resources and great opportunities, but everything in the end depends upon the moral quality of its men and women. Undermine and corrupt this, and we all know that there is nothing to hope for. The uncorrupted stock of true patriots in our land is firmly rooted in this conviction, which is worth more to the country than cornfields and iron mines. The perpetual enticement and blandishment of worldly success so universal in our time cannot move us if we found our theory and practice upon the central doctrine of moral education. Education, therefore, in its popular untrammelled, moral sense, is the greatest concern of the state.

In projecting a general plan of popular education we are beholden to the prejudices of no man nor class of men. Not even the traditional prejudices of the great body of teachers should stand in the way of setting up the noblest ideal of education. Educational thinkers are in duty bound to free themselves from utilitarian notions and narrowness, and to adopt the best platform that children by natural birthright can stand upon. They are called upon to find the best and to apply it to as many as possible. Let it be remembered that each child has a complete growth before him. His own possibilities, and not the attainments of his parents and elders, are the things to consider.

Shall we seek to avoid responsibility for the moral aim by throwing it upon the family and the church ? But the more we probe into educational problems, the more we shall find the essential unity of all educational forces. The citadel of a child's life is his moral character, whether the home, the school, or the church build and strengthen its walls. If asked to define the relation of the school to the home, we shall quickly see that they are one in spirit and leading purpose, that instead of being separated they should be brought closer together.

In conclusion, therefore, shall we make moral character the clear and conscious aim of school education, and then subordinate school studies and discipline, mental training and conduct, to this aim } It will be a great stimulus to thousands of teachers to discover that this is the real purpose of school work, and that there are abundant means not yet used of realizing it. Having once firmly grasped this idea, they will find that there is no other having half its potency. It will put a substantial foundation under educational labors both theoretical and practical, which will make them the noblest of enterprises. Can we expect the public school to drop into such a purely subordinate function as that of intellectual training, to limit its influence to an almost mechanical action, the sharpening of the mental tools? Stated in this form, it becomes an absurdity.

Is it reasonable to suppose that the rank and file of our teachers will realize the importance of this aim in teaching, so long as it has no recognition in our pubHc system of instruction ? The moral element is largely present among educators as an instinct, but it ought to be evolved into a clear purpose with definite means of accomplishment. It is an open secret, in fact, that while our public instruction is ostensibly secular, having nothing to do directly with religion or morals, there is nothing about which good teachers are more thoughtful and anxious than about the means of moral influence. Occasionally some one from the outside attacks our pubHc schools as without morals and godless, but there is no lack of stanch defenders on moral grounds. Theoretically and even practically, to a considerable extent, we are all agreed upon the supreme value of moral education. But there is a striking inconsistency in our whole position on the school problem. While the supreme value of the moral aim will be generally admitted, it has no open recognition in our school course, either as a principal or as a subordinate aim of instruction. Moral education is not germane to the avowed purposes of the public school. If it gets in at all, it is by the back door. It is incidental, not primary. The importance of making the leading aim of education clear and conscious to teachers, is great. If their conviction on this point is not clear, they will certainly not concentrate their attention and efforts upon its realization. Again, in a businesslike education, where there are so many important and necessary results to be reached, it is veryeasy and common to put forward a subordinate aim, and to lift it into undue prominence, even allowing it to swallow up all the energies of teacher and pupils. Owing to this diversity of opinion among teachers as to the results to be reached, our public schools exhibit a chaos of conflicting ^theory and practice, and a numberless brood of hobby-riders.

How to establish the moral aim in the centre of the school course, how to subordinate and reaHze the other educational aims while keeping this chiefly in view, how to make instruction and school discipline contribute unitedly to the formation of vigorous moral character, and how to unite home, school, and other life experiences of a child in perfecting the one great aim of education — these are some of the problems whose solution will be sought in the following chapters.

It will be especially our purpose to show how school instruction can be brought into the direct service of character-building. This is the point upon which most teachers are sceptical. Not much effort has been made until recently to put the best moral materials into the school course. In one whole set of school studies, and that the most important (reading, literature, and history), the chapter on relative values will show that there is opportunity through all the grades for a vivid and direct cultivation of moral ideas and convictions. The second great series of c studies, the natural sciences, comes in to support the moral aims, while the personal example and influence of the teacher, and the common experiences and incidents of school life and conduct, give abundant occasion to apply and enforce moral ideas.

That the other justifiable aims of education, such as physical training, mental discipline, orderly habits, gentlemanly conduct, practical utility of knowledge, liberal culture, and the free development of individuality, will not be weakened by placing the moral aim in the forefront of educational motives, we are convinced.

Herbart has stated the moral aim of education at the beginning of his " Outlines of Educational Doctrine," Lange and De Garmo, pp. 7 and 8, as follows : —

" The term * virtue * expresses the whole purpose of education. Virtue is the idea of inner freedom which has developed into an abiding actuality in an individual. Whence, as inner freedom is a relation between insight and volition, a double task is at once set before the teacher. It becomes his business to make actual each of these two factors separately, in order that a later permanent relationship may result.

" But even here, at the outset, we need to bear in mind the identity of morality with the effort put forth to realize the permanent actuality of the harmony between insight and volition. To induce the pupil to make this effort is a difficult achievement ; at all events, it becomes possible only when the twofold training mentioned above is well under way. It is easy enough, by the study of the example of others, to cultivate theoretical acumen. The moral application to the pupil himself, however, can be made, with hope of success, only in so far as his inclinations and ha)Dits have taken a direction in keeping with his insight." ^

Chapter II

Being convinced that the controlling aim of education should be moral, and that all the activities and studies of the school should contribute either directly or indirectly to this aim, we shall now inquire into the relative value of different studies and their fitness to reach and satisfy this aim. As measured upon this cardinal purpose, what is the intrinsic value of each and all the school studies ? The branches of knowledge furnish the materials upon which the self-activity of the child may develop itself. The complex web of his knowledge, interests, and volitional activities can be woven in the schoolroom into a closer and firmer texture. Before entering upon such a long and uphill task as education, with its many complexities and weighty results, it is prudent to estimate not only the end in view but the best means for reaching it. Many and varied means have been offered, some trivial, others valuable. A careful measurement with some reliable standard of the materials furnished by the common school is our first task. To what extent does history contribute to our purpose } What importance have geography and arithmetic ? How do reading, natural science, and constructive activity aid a child to grow into the full stature of a man or woman ?

These questions are not new, but the answer to them has been long delayed. Since the time of Comenius, to say the least, they have seriously disturbed educators. But few have had the courage, industry, and breadth of mind of a Comenius, to sound the educational waters and to lay out a profitable chart. In spite of Comenius's labors, however, and of those of other educational reformers, be they never so energetic, practical progress toward a final answer, as registered in school courses, has been extremely slow.

Herbert Spencer says in " Education," p. 26 : — ** If there needs any further evidence of the rude, undeveloped character of our education, we have it in the fact that the comparative worths of the different kinds of knowledge have been as yet scarcely even discussed, much less discussed in a methodic way with definite results. Not only is it that no standard of relative values has yet been agreed upon, but the existence of any such standard has not been conceived in any clear manner. And not only is it that the existence of such a standard has not been clearly conceived, but the need of it seems to have been scarcely even felt. Men read books upon this topic and attend lectures upon that, decide that their children shall be instructed in these branches and not in those ; and all under the guidance of mere custom, or liking, or prejudice, without ever considering the enormous importance of determining in some rational way what things are really most worth learning. . . . Men dress their children's minds as they do their bodies, in the prevailing fashion."