The theory of the school

Front matter

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

THE THEORY

THE SCHOOL

Preface

Originality, except in certain features, is not claimed for the theory as set forth in the following pages.

The work is in part written by the author, and to a degree, arranged and coni})iled, the thought as a whole being in a certain sense the joint product of a study of some of the leading works on education, experience in teaching, supervising, and preparing students for work in the common schools.

There is no claim to fullness of treatment. The book contains merely an outline that may form the basis for a discussion of the theory of the school.

Theory of The School.

CHAPTER

THE SUBJECT OF EDUCATION.

INFERENCES.

Ariadne furnished him with a sword, with which to encounter the Minotaur, and with a clew of thread by which he might find his way out of the labyrinth.— Bulfinch's Ag-e of Fable.

That mind is the real subject of education, is the fundamental thought of the theory of the school. The mind is a spiritual organism endowed with three distinct capacities — the capacities of knowing, of feeling and of willing. This organism, with its several functions, is the subject of the educational process.

1. Consideration and definition of organism.

2. Illustrations.

That which is distinctively human in a child or man is the emotional and volitional nature. This is the true life of a human being. This truer or higher Hfe, as distinguished from the bodily and the intellectual is provided with two instruments or servants — the intellect and the body.

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More specifically, then, mind as emotion and will is the subject of education in the higher sense, and bod}^ and intellect in the lower or instrumental sense.

1. Distinguish and give examples of acts of intellect, sensibility and will.

2. Show the organic relation of such acts.

Education confers upon the mind no absolutely new capacities. All the powers that are found in the mind at maturity existed, then, in embryo in the mind at birth. Before the mind can apply itself successfully to the varied problems of active life it requires, like the body, a period of preparation. But a period of preparation is, impliedly, a time of development. It may be stated, then, that the subject of education is a spiritual being, the essential principle of which is growth. Growth then becomes the fundamental principle of education, and the two marked stages of mind are:

1. Development or training.

2. Use.

That mind, with these two distinct stages is the subject of education, is the most significant truth that the teacher will encounter. If he absorbs this thought so as to make it a part of his very being, he is possessed at once of the sword of Ariadne.

Several things are manifest, obviously :

1. That knowledge, i. e., the different branches of study is not the subject of education.

2. That a course of study by pages is inconsistent with the true theory of education.

3. That real education is self-education; the child

THE THEORY OF THE SCHOOL.

being his own educator under the guidance of the teacher, who is merely a formal educator having both a negative and positive function.

The negative function consists in removing impediments, so as to allow free scope to the child's self-development. The positive function is to stimulate the child to the exercise of his powers, to furnish materials and occasions for their exercise, and to maintain and train the action of the mental powers.

4. That the subject of education is thought, since to think is the function of the mind.

5. That the essence of education lies in determining the best method of furnishing the faculties of the mind with material for exercise, of awakening and exercising the dormant faculties, of giving them strength and of training them into higher life.

6. That education is a life-long process, the exercise-ground of mind being the institutions known as the family, school, church, business society, and state.

7. That the family and the school form the exercise-ground of mind during its period of development and the other institutions during the period of use.

While all teachers who have studied mind understand it to be an organism, and know and base their work upon the thouglit that the intellect is the avenue to the the sensibilities, that other truth, that the heart is also the avenue to the intellect is either not known, or but little acted upon if known. To make this essential thought, that the heart is the real avenue to the intellect, a vital part of one's teaching character, is the only guar-

THE THEORY OP THE SCHOOL.

antee of success in dealing with mind, as otherwise the intellect may remain closed to all efforts to address it.

If mind as an organism is the subject of education, this inter-relation of sensibilities and intellect must be understood and acted upon.

But to present mind as the subject of education is not sufficiently definite, since mind may be viewed in several ways :

1. Mind may be understood as the "universal substrate of all things."

2. Mind in general, as presented in w^orks on mental science.

3. Mind as embodied in the teacher.

4. The minds of the pupils.

The question becomes pertinent, In which of these views is mind the subject of education?

No doubt the general answer would be mind in neither of the first three senses is the. subject, although that answer would by no means satisfy all, that systems of schools, studies, metho.ds, and means, have not frequently been adapted to mind in general, or to the teacher's own, instead of to the pupils' minds. Is it to be accepted, however, that the minds of the pupils form the subject of the educational process? If so, in what sense? "The minds of the pupils" is a very comprehensive term. In a school of thirty pupils what does it mean ?

It means in one case a young John Stuart Mill, in mind.

It means in another case a mind from the depths, the

THE THEORY OP THE SCHOOL.

very opposite of the perfection of child-nature found in the first.

It means in a third case the average child-mind from the average home.

Again, it means a boy who has had generations of vice and ignorance behind him.

In another instance it means some child from a home of idleness and frivoRty.

It means, perhaps, some child from the environment of stupidity and stunted life.

It may mean a child with years of wrong methods behind him.

In that room, beside the quick, intelligent child may sit a dull, contented nature, satisfied with dullness, neither wanting to know nor ashamed of not knowing. Each mind is different from the others. Each has its idiocracy, its special traits. The degrees of capacity are different. The degrees of apathy are different. The causes of apathy are different. All of these are included in "The minds of the pupils."

What, then, is the subject in teaching?

The best minds of the pupils? Then the average and the poorest are wronged.

The average minds of the school? Then the best and the worst are deprived of their due.

The poorest minds that are found in the room? This would be manifest injustice to the others.

Is not the fundamental truth this — that each particular mind with its special traits and idiosyncracies is the true subject of the educating process — the subject to which teacher, methods, and means, are to be adapted?

The individual mind, tlien, with its two stages of development and use, is the subject of education in its full sense.

The teacher who is thoroughly imbued with this thought is possessed of both the sword and the thread of Ariadne.

If the individual minds are the subject, several inferences present themselves :

1. The teaclier must study mind.

2. That the sources of the study of mind are three: a. From books, Porter, Hopkins, Hickok, Carpenter,

etc., giving a knowledge of mind in general — the true basis for a study of the individual minds.

. h. The acts and phenomena of the teacher's own mind, to which he always has immediate access.

6'. The activity of the pupils' minds, to which he always has mediate access through their outward acts and words.

The two cardinal truths which need, more than any others, to be impressed upon the mind of each teacher are, first, that each individual mind under his charge is the true subject of his educational efforts; second, that he cannot obtain the best results in teaching, indeed, that he cannot be a real teacher, unless he understands the mind. with which he must deal. What kind of a blacksmith is he who does not understand iron? What kind of a foreman in a wool factory is a person who cannot judge of wool? What kind of a teacher is that one who cannot judge of mind and mind action?

It is true that there are teachers endowed with the power of sympathizing so earnestly with children, that in their case this sympathy does the work of knowledge, or rather it is knowledge unconsciously exercising the power proverbially attributed to it. The intense interest they feel in their work almost instinctively leads them to adopt the right way of doing it. They are artists without knowing that they are artists. They are acting upon the principle that the feelings are the avenue to the intellect, that interest is the basis of attention, and attention the basis of intellectual power, without being conscious of it. But considering the large number of teachers, such examples are rare, and as a general proposition it will be found to be true that the only truly efficient director of moral and intellectual action is the one who understands the true nature of the mind he is guiding. It is this knowledge that makes teaching a psychological art. One who does not possess it is attempting to guide an organism of exquisite capabilities which he does not comprehend. The fact that there is so large a number of persons in positions as school trustees and as teachers without understanding even the most fundamental facts concerning the minds with which their work has to do, explains the courses of study by pages, the telling, cramming, the endless explaining, the unnecessary assisting, the rote-learning, the frequent examinations that are mere tests of memory, and not of power, the fierce struggle for per cents by teachers for their rooms and by pupils for themselves, and all that kind of work which regards mere knowledire to be the subject of education, and which enfeebles and deadens the native powers of the child. True teaching has but little in common with that system of telling and cramming which so generally usurps its name, and which results not merely in comparatively empty minds, but in closed minds, minds indifferent and stolid as to education and its value. Un teachable minds is the usual result of the work of those who do not understand the subject of their work.

3. If each individual mind is the teacher's subject the third inference is obvious — that the number of pupils under the charge of one teacher should be small enough for the teacher to become thoroughly acquainted with the capacities and defects of each mind, while it should not be too small to deprive the pupils of the advantage which comes from the contact of mind with various different minds.

It may, perhaps, be safely held that the suitable number of pupils for a teacher vibrates between tw^enty and thirty, owing to the teacher's penetration in comprehending character and its needs. It is a serious, not to say an irreparable injury to a community, when a school board, under the idea that it is a stroke of economy, and a gain to the people, place one hundred children in charge of two teachers at an annual expense to the taxpayers of one thousand dollars, instead of employing to educate them, four teachers, with twenty-five to a room at an annual expense of two thousand dollars.

If it is true, as is held, that numbers higher than about thirty shut off attention to individual minds, thp: theory of the school. 13

then a little reflection makes it obvious that the second procedure would be far more economical to the community.

In the first place, the attempt of the teacher to deal with fifty children makes it impossible to give that attention to the peculiar nature and needs of each child that the parent has a right to demand when he hands him over to the care of the schools and pays for that care. The problem is to reach and teach the mind of each child. Anything other than this would be manifest injustice to some families of those represented by the fifty children. With fifty children one teacher cannot understand their individual minds and needs well enough to teach to each mind each branch of study well and neglect no one of them, and this is not taking into account the subject of discipline and moral culture, which is very much complicated by numbers. The teacher has neitfier the knowledge of the minds nor the time to adapt herself and her work to each mind, and she is, therefore, compelled to address the minds as a mass, to pour out knowledge before them and let those who can, adapt themselves to it, and the others remain without even this kind of help. The result is an attempt to inform to a given extent, each month, and not to educate, because to educate requires that each mind shall be understood. In this way but little interest is aroused in the pupils, and the process of cramming is received at first with protest, then with indifference, and at last the hundred pupils of the two teachers pass out of school, none of them educated in the sense that education is development; some few, those who needed it least, well instructed perhaps; others but fairly instructed ; and still others, perhaps fifty out of the hundred, and they the ones who needed training most, with little or nothing in the way of intellectual and moral power, and worse than this, indifferent to education and its value, the effect of the schools having been to make them contented in their ignorance and lack of power.

The question naturally arises. In which case has the school board done most good to the community? Which course would be true economy? Would the community have been richer in having expended only one thousand dollars, and in having received the children back into the active walks of life as above described, which is no untrue picture, or in having spent two thousand dollars, tlius insuring a sufficient number of teachers to give individual attention to the needs of the children, and receiving them at last from the scliools with their moral and intellectual powers well trained, with minds active, skilful and capable; with new longings, and new capacities for satisfying those longings; with minds as receptive and skilled as each individual case is capable of being made ? Which is worth most to a neighborhood, one thousand dollars or one hundred children morally and intellectually strong?

If individual minds are the subject of education is it not a proper inference that school boards should see to it that the number in charge of each teacher is small enough to enable the teacher to read each mind and then adapt herself and her work to each mind ?

4. If it be admitted that the individual mind is the subject of the teacher's work, then a fourth inference is that the teacher should remain long enough with the pupils to be able to see into their peculiarities of disposition and environment. This can not be well accomplished in six months, nor in one year, and the thought that arises is that the teachers of the country schools should not be changed so often, and that the teachers in the city schools should be promoted with their classes. Viewing this principle alone — that time gives the teacher the opportunity to know the minds of the pupils — the thought would be that the pupil should have but one teacher during school life. But another principle — that the pupil's mind gains greater breadth and power by coming into contact with different minds — seems to require variety in teachers. With the two principles in consideration it may be held that there should be two or three changes of teachers during the school course. It is obvious, of course, that if the teacher is inefficient, the sooner a change is made the better ; on the supposition, however, that the school boards and superintendents do not compHcate the selection of teachers by geographical family, and other arbitrary considerations, but make moral and intellectual fitness the sole test — a supposition which in a work on theory may be permitted—a greater length of time with a given class than is now allowed would be a gain, inasmuch as it would necessarily result in the teacher's gaining a more intimate acquaintance with the individual minds of the pupils.

5. It is also seen that if individual mind with its peculiarities is the subject, the regular studies of the course should not be so many as to engross all the time and strength of the pupils; enough extra studies being provided to satisfy their various natures and peculiarities. This requirement is met, to a certain degree by the general lessons, readings, and conversations of the lower grades, and by the elective studies in the higher schools.

Mind being the real subject in education, the importance of its study, as before suggested, at once becomes manifest. The study of mind in general, as presented in Porter, Hickok, Carpenter, and others, will give the teacher a comprehensive knowledge of the various faculties, their order of development and inter-dependence, the laws of their action, their processes and products — knowledge of great advantage to the educator. But many object, and truly, that they have neither time nor opportunity for such studies.

Mind and its action are, however, accessible to these. As was before observed, each teacher has direct access to the phenomena of his own mind and indirect access to the minds of his pupils through their actions and words.

Systematic, patient study in these two lines will make plain many things concerning the mental faculties and their growth.

The intelligent observer will see among other things that the imagination and the spontaneous memory are active in the early years, and that the j^ower to learn through the logical faculty is but feeble. It will appear that the power of eontinuous attention is not possessed, should not be expected, needs to be developed; that the power to observe, usually supposed to be acute in the child when he enters school, is by the third or fourth year of school, practically dormant. A brief notice of what these mental facts imply is due. Neglect in observing mind action has led to neglect in the cultivation of the imagination. It is, however, a faculty worthy of cultivation, and necessary alike to the intellectual, and to the moral education. This, while fully recognized in the kindergarten, lias not been, in general, in the schools. Its central principle — the imagination creates no new material's a con firm nti on, in one sense of Jacotot's paradox "Tout est dans tout" (All is in all.) This faculty gives to the child the unknown in or from the known. It furnishes knowledge otherwise unattainable; it gives life, interest, and authority to the action of the understanding by the rich illustration which it suggests; and by its power of setting before the child scenes of other lands and distant times, past or future, it provides nourishment for the moral nature. It is, moreover, a constant source of liap|)iness through the pleasant images with which it fills the min-i. Observation is limited to very narrow boundaries of space and time; to whatever extent the child passes these it must be on the wings of the imagination. Accordingly, as already implied, descriptions of natural scenery, and scenes from life, real or ideal, are the field in which this mode of intelligence is to be exercised, and both are very rich in materials. It is clear at once that the instruments available for the cultivation of this faculty are two — language and ^pictorial illustration. All these facts are obvious to the teacher who watches his own mind and the minds of children, and they suggest a problem, and indicate a line of work for the teacher's own improvement. Tiie problem is, what is the method of using language, and pictorial illustration in the cultivation of the imagination? The line of work is the mastery of description and narration as language forms for expressing and conveying thought.

The spontaneous memory, the form to be observed in childhood, like a sponge, absorbs everything that comes in contact with it. Unlike the power afterwards acquired of fixing in mind by conscious effort, whatever is judged worthy of being retained, it is a natural power by which the child receives and stores up, with little or no effort, whatever comes before the mind, whether it is worthy to be held or not. The fact that the child possesses this power in a high degree is of great significance in early education. It shows that the early years are pre-eminently years for gathering materials for thought, and it furnishes also the ground for judicious selection and an organized series of impressions. It has been said, however, by Lord Lytton that to attempt to systematize the child's impressions, at least in his most tender years, is to proceed as the man who thought that his bees would produce more honey, if instead of wandering from flower to flower, they were shut up in the hive and furnished with flowers.

The bees, however, are not endowed with an unguided power of selection which causes them to take honey

THE thp:oky of the school. 19 from every flower, be it poisonous or otherwise, as the spontaneous memory of the child drinks in alike the good and bad, to have a marked influence on character not yet formed. Moreover, while the bees are possessed of a natural and fully developed power of selection, and the man who was to furnish them with flow^ers had no power of selection in that respect; in the case of children their power of selection and arrangement is undeveloped, but that of their educator is supposed to be developed and matured.

That the child possesses the power of spontaneous memory, drinking in and retaining all kinds of impressions seems to establish three thoughts in regard to early education : First, that there should be a systematic selection and organization of the impressions that he is to receive. This is admirably accomplished in the kindergarten. Second, that the first work in the primary schools should l)e to supplement the work already done in the kindergarten, or to partially fill its place if the child has not been under its influence, by opening to him as materials for thought; in connection with all necessary work, all that wliicli will inspirit and interest; all that whicli is wonderl'ul, weird, [)icturesque, beautiful, and noble, in connection with humanity, nature and art, and at the same time within his mental range; as, when he studies direction, connect with it some beautiful poem or song on sunset, or some pathetic narration of noble deeds in Arctic regions; some attractive description of that icy wonderland, and its inhabitants with their queer homes and customs. Thus in every phase of work during these early years, so that this attractive, and also useful fund, may be stored by their active memories and render lighter in both senses, and more interesting all the work of future years. In education, a great deal depends upon the first impressions of the work. The third thought is that in all phases of education, inaccuracies of pronunciation, of sentence construction, of facts, etc., should be rigidly excluded, as their tendency is to sink into the mind and remain there.

The undeveloped state in the child, of the power to reason, except in the presence of things, determines that in his early stages, and in the beginning of many kinds of work in more advanced stages, he is not to learn by any abstract logical process. The teacher, it is true, is to have clearly in mind a logical line of work and adhere to it, but his actual teaching will lie fragmentary, changing apparently, and full of illustrations as required by the needs of individual minds.

The real subject is the individual mind, and the problem is how to call forth interest and active thought without making too* great a demand upon the logical faculty. To accomplish this two things are required, one negative and the other positive. The first is, that as a general rule, no attempt should be made to present to the mind, at any given time, that which is not needed and can not be used at that time, under the thought that it may be useful hereafter. Usually, that which is presented under such conditions does not arouse interest and thought, but becomes useless encumbrance. Nothing should be taught which is not needed and capable of being used at the time, and which is not the best and most easy way of meeting the want.

"Wouldst thou possess thy heritage, essay

By use to render it thine own!

What we emjiloy not but impedes our way.

That which the hour creates that can it use alone."

—Goethe's Faust,

The second requirement is that all early work and in general the beginning stages of advanced work, should be as before intimated, presented to the senses, or 'pictured out' to the mind. The child under such circumstances is able to reason, to think; but his thinking will be in the presence of things, and his power of abstract thinking, when it does come will be a natural development from his sensuous thinking. The usual mistake is to thrust an abstract process of learning upon the child by requiring him to think in the presence of nothing, or of mere word§. 'Picture out' to the body's eye or to the mind's eye, is the first principle of early teaching if individual minds are to be made the real subject.

The general directions under this point are:

1. See; examine what you see; lastly, answer.

2. Make no attempt to remember anything you can not put before the eye, or picture to the mind's eye. Memory is not visible or mental sight; think in shape. Examples may tend to set forth these thoughts more clearly.

The pupil is asked to describe an apple. The usual tendency is to close the eyes and evolve the answer from the inner consciousness; but the mind's development as it is, and as it is to be, requires that the pupil should picture to himself the thing to be described in as many aspects as possible, one by one, compare it with things most like it; and then present the peculiar points that make it different from other things. The process is :

1. Picture an apple. Put one before the senses if possible; if not picture it in th^ mind.

2. Analyze, i. e., note its shape, color, texture, parts — pips, core, skin, juice, etc.

3. Compare with other things.

All these things are seen, as soon as the apple is seen, and intelligent sight gives the description required. The untrained mind begins to try to remember what it knows about an apple. The requirement may be to describe a field. This should bring forth the condition at a particular time. The untrained child would evolve from his inner consciousness. If the work is done according to the principle under discussion the process would be somewhat as follows: —

1. See or picture to the mind the field : as, time of year — autumn; time of day — afternoon; kind of day — clouds and sun; stubble; ground broken and uneven; bounded by hills on one side; trees, small lake, cattle; direction of view — west.

2. Reflect upon these elements.

3. Describe.

Again, the pupil may be asked to state the meaning of 'when.' According to the thought being considered, the first thing to be done is to see it in its relations. This may be done by constructinoj sentences that picture out the two meanings of "when," thus:

"When Ft. Sumter was fired upon, compromise was at an end."

"When he was in the army, he wrote for the press."

The word in the first sentence means the exact moment, but in the second it means at various indeterminate times. It thus appears that the sight of two well-selected sentences in which "when" occurs reveals, that either a particular moment is meant, or any time in a given period, two very different thoughts.

9 is I of what number? may be asked.

The absence in the child of the power to reason abstractly determines what in regard to such work? John Stuart Mill says : " The fundamental truths of the science of number all rest upon the evidence of the senses ; they are proved by showing to our eyes, that any given number of objects — ten balls, for example — may by separation and re-arrangement, exhibit all the different sets of numbers, the sum of which is equal to ten.

All improved methods of teaching arithmetic to children proceed upon a knowledge of this fact. All who wish to carry the chikVs mind along with them in learning arithmetic — all who wish to teach numbers and not mere cyphers — now teach it through the evidence of the senses."