The art of teaching school

Front matter

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 5

'|lmg.

UNITED STATES OP

Preface

The State establishes public schools for the economical education of youth, in the elementary departments of useful knowledge. These schools are supported by a general tax, and are for the use of all the people. Whenever, by systems of organization, by courses of study or by methods of instruction, their usefulness is impaired, the object of the State is defeated, and the Commonwealth suffers injury. In some portions of the United States this defeat and this injury are already experienced. This book has been written in the belief that its contents will assist those, who are laboring, as school officers, teachers and patrons, to restore the system of public education to its normal life, and to make the public schools serve the ends for which they were established.

Philadelphia, Nov. 29, 1871.

Chapter I. Page

General Principles 13

The Mind — Natural Order of Development 14

The Sources of Knowledge 16

Methods of Acquiring Knowledge 19

The Operation of the Faculties 20

The Importance of Methodical Development of

the Intellect 21

Conditions for the Process of Educating 23

Natural Process to be Encouraged 24

Public-School Education 25

Professional Training for Teachers 30

CHAPTER II. Governing Forces 32

The Uses of Discipline 35

Theory without Practice 36

Natural and Artificial Systems 38

Scope of Public-School Education 40

The Importance of the Physical Sciences 42

1* 5

Chapter III Pagb

Local Authorities 45

Duties of Local Authorities .46

schoolhouses 47

Furniture 48

The Grounds 49

City Schoolhouses 50

School-Term .".... 51

Course of Study 53

Adoption of Books 56

Salary 60

Examination and Employment of Teachers — Higher

Qualifications — Professional Certificates 63

Supervision — Out of School 68

CHAPTER IV. Visiting Patrons 74

Order of Exercises 76

The Time-Table 78

Classification 80

Forming Classes 81

Assigning Lessons 82

Graded Schools 82

CHAPTER V. The First Lesson 84

Number of Studies 91

Three Studies Enough 92

Thoroughness Necessary 93

PAGH

Highest Results Required 95

Study 96

The Object of Study 97

Utility of Knowledge 98

Study Useful for Discipline 99

Studying a Lesson 102

Uses of Recitation . 104

On Conducting Recitations 105

Forcible Illustrations 107

CHAPTER VI. National Peculiarities 109

Foreigners and English Articulation 11 1

METHODS OF TEACHING THE ALPHABET 113

THE- LETTER METHOD— Teaching from a Book— Teaching from Charts — Teaching from Blocks — Teaching on

Slates and Blackboard 113

THE WORD METHOD— Teaching from Blackboard— Teaching from Charts — Teaching from Books 121

Slates for Children 126

ORTHOGRAPHY 127

Spelling from Sight 127

Spelling from Perception — From Dictation 129

General Exercises in Spelling , 132

Pronunciation and Articulation 134

The Vocal Organs 139

The Organs of Articulation — Labials— Labio-dentals

— Lingua-dentals — Lingua-gutturals 140

TABLE OF ELEMENTS -Vowels— Subvocals— Aspirates... 141

CONTENTS.

Chapter VII Pagh

READING 145

Beginning to Read 146

The First Reading Lesson 148

Correcting Faulty Styles 150

Reading too Much 151

The Second Stage 152

Rules — Pitch — Force — Articulation — Accent — Emphasis — Inflection — Rising Inflection — Falling Inflection — Circumflex 155

General Observations 164

DECLAMATION— Selecting [Pieces— Preparation— Rehearsing 167

COMPOSITION 170

Chapter VIII. Arithmetic 171

Notation and Numeration 172

Addition 176

Subtraction 177

Multiplication 179

Division. 180

Denominate Numbers 181

Fractions — What is a Fraction? — Numerator and Denominator ? — Relations of the Numerator and Denominator to each other 183

Operations in Fractions — Reduction of Fractions —

Multiplication of Fractions — Division of Fractions 187

Proportion — A Lesson in Proportion 191

Chapter IX. Pagjt

GEOGRAPHY— The Earth's Surface 202

Day and Night 206

The Seasons 209

Races of Men 211

Maps and Books 211

Map Drawing 212

Chapter X. Botany 214

First Series of Lessons 216

Second Series of Lessons 219

Classification 222

GEOLOGY 227

scenographical geology 228

Economical Geology 231

CHAPTER XL

GRAMMAR 234

The First Lesson in Grammar 237

Second Lesson 239

Third Lesson 240

Fourth Lesson 241

Fifth Lesson 242

Sixth Lesson 243

Lessons on Verbs 244

Lessons on Nouns 248

Chapter XII. Page

ANATOMY, PHYSIOLOGY AND HYGIENE 252

Bones and Muscles 254

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY 256

CHEMISTRY 259

Chapter XIII

PENMANSHIP— Lessons on the Blackboard— The First Series of Lessons — Second Series — Third Series — Fourth Series

— Fifth Series — Sixth Series 262

DRAWING — First Series of Lessons — Second Series of Lessons — Third Series of Lessons 267

MUSIC — Pitch of Sounds — Length of Sounds — Notation by

Numerals 271

Chapter I. Education

GENERAL PRINCIPLES.

SYSTEM of education, to be of practical utility, must be so devised as to secure the harmonious development of all the human faculties, physical and spiritual. The human mind and body are so closely wedded to each other that whatever affects the one for good or evil to a corresponding degree affects the other. It is not necessary to provide an elaborate system of physical training for people so active and stirring as are those who inhabit the United States, but it is essential that a system of intellectual and moral training shall be so constructed and applied as not to obstruct the natural growth and development of the physical powers. The spirit must

2 13 rule over the body, but that rule must not be oppressive. The body must be held in natural subjection to the spirit, but if by tyranny and oppression the spirit emaciates and enfeebles the body, the effect would be to invoke feebleness and insanity upon itself. The cases in America where harm comes to the body from a too close application to study are exceedingly rare. The tyranny of fashion in dress, the late hours and demoralizing influences of social amusements, the pampering of the appetite and the youthful dissipation consequent upon social usages in good society work irreparable mischief in the young constitution ; this is very generally charged as the result of too close application to study in school. The charge is false in every sense. The demand for the relaxation of educational discipline, if granted, would enlarge the opportunities for this social demoralization, and increase the evil results of the pernicious practices to which the ill health of boys and girls is truly attributable.

THE MIND.

The faculties of the mind are comprised in three general divisions — the Intellect, the Sendbility and the Will; that is, the knowing faculties, the feeling faculties and the doing faculties. The logical order is — first, to know; second, to feel ; and third, to act. Knowledge precedes emotion ; emotion precedes action.

Nattiral Order of Development. — First in order, then, is the education of the Intellect. The Intellect is developed by the acquisition of knowledge. Knowledge is first acquired, in youth, through the Senses. The first efforts in educating, therefore, should be directed to systematize observation, and the first subjects of study are very naturally the facts in the physical sciences. The innumerable and marvelous questionings in childhood have almost always reference to things seen, felt and heard. He who attempts to teach a child to reason betrays a lamentable ignorance of the order of development of the mental powers. A child will observe, and by processes peculiarly its own will connect facts, and by the operation of Judgment will connect effects with causes, but to endeavor to exercise its mind upon abstractions would be prejudicial to healthful and logical development. From the observation of things the mind gradually rises to the observation of certain qualities belonging to the things observed. Thus Perception is developed. The association of qualities with each other or with a given object gives rise to ideas ; these ideas find expression in words ; that is, the object is first observed with close interest and attention ;

secondly, particular features or properties of the object are observed, and these features or properties are united in the mind as belonging to one object. This unity by which the object and its properties are combined stands in the mind as a representative of the thing observed as a Perception, and may be recalled from the storehouse of Memory by the operation of Recollection, though the thing itself be absent. When a new object is presented, if it in any respect resembles in form or quality the subject of a previous observation, the old is instantly called up and placed in the mind by the side of the new, and this gives rise to association and analysis ; each is analyzed to see in what respects it is like and in what it is unlike the other.

Language is first learned by observation, and in every case it is more the result of habit than of analysis. A child imitates the language of its mother; the most persistent efforts of the school-teacher will not be able to overthrow the good or bad results of the every-day practice of the household until the pupil shall have arrived at that age, and shall have attained that degree of culture, which will enable it to distinguish in social life between the correct and the incorrect use of language.

Knowledge that is acquired through the Sen-

EDUCATION. iy

ses is retained in the Memory, and Recollection is the power by which that which lies in the mind is awakened. Imagination is the power by which the mind holds up before itself the images which are called up by recollection. Understanding is the faculty by which the relations of things to each other are determined. Reason, which is higher than all of these, is the faculty through which the ultimate and universal principles are ascertained. Following this order, which is the order in which these faculties are developed, Memory must be exercised in conjunction with the Senses and Perception. It is the storehouse into which the Perceptive faculties carry all the facts obtained through the Senses. Calling up for inspection the things which are thus stored in the mind gives exercise to the Memory; holding them up to view affords exercise to the Imagination. The Understanding takes up the pictures of the Imagination, receives what Recollection has called up from the Memory, which has been stored by the operation of the Senses, and determines the relations of all the parts to each other as causes and effects. It classifies in accordance with perceived relations. It places facts together as the links in a chain. It discovers that one link hangs upon the other, and that the link which stood as cause for that below it becomes effect for that above it; thus it can follow from the lowest link to the highest, but it can never rise to the ascertaining of the origin of the separate links, or to the comprehension of the power which sustains the whole chain, which seems to hang upon nothing. It is the province of Reason to take up the work where the operations of Judgment end, and to carry the mind from facts to principles, lifting it up to the comprehension of original causation which cannot stand in the relation of effect to any cause.

THE SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE.

It will thus be observed that there are two sources of knowledge — the Senses and the Reason. Man derives knowledge through the Senses ; this is called empirical knowledge — the knowledge of experience. This includes all that we know through the Senses — seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling — and through emotional experiences. Knowledge of which reason is the source is called rational knowledge ; ideas of space, of time, of distance, the truths evolved by mathematical calculations, ideas of the absolute and the infinite, are attained through processes of reasoning, and cannot be reached by experience.

METHODS OF ACQUIRING KNOWLEDGE.

There are two methods of dealing with the products of the Senses and of the Reason. Particular phenomena may be taken up and the process be conducted so as to find the general laws, which unite these, into a harmonious system. This is called induction.

Or, a general truth may be presented, and the process will then be to find the original elements which enter into its composition ; this process is called deduction. All investigation, therefore, whether for the purpose of acquiring a knowledge of ascertained truths or for undiscovered truths, is either inductive or deductive.

The inductive process is synthetic and the deductive is analytic. By synthesis the parts are constructed into a whole ; by analysis the whole is separated into its parts. The naturalist may observe many facts in some department of nature ; he may observe the laws which govern these facts, and he may bind all of these into a system of science. This he does by the process of induction, aided by synthesis, or he may observe some general effect, some phenomenon, which stands as a result ; he seeks to discover its origin ; he divides and subdivides until he reaches simple truths. This is the process of deduction, carried on by analysis.

THE OPERATION OF THE FACULTIES.

By a series of experiments, one suggesting another, the mind proceeds in its search for truth by means of observation, and these same processes, carried on in the higher operations of scientific investigation, had their beginning in smaller and more simple processes in the mind of the child. Associated facts are always attractive to children and readily engage their attention, and it is for this reason that study is most rapid where associated facts, systematically arranged, are presented. The mind thus rises through all the parts of a science, observing at every step the logical order of combination. When knowledge comes in this connected order, its acquisition gives strength to the Memory, because the truths that are learned are so stored away in the mind that the presentation of one induces the recollection of another, and thus innumerable incidents in the range of observation call up long trains of thought. This brings in review before the mind, frequently, in moments of leisure and in the hour of play, the knowledge that was acquired through much toil and effort. Hence it is that knowledge gained through logical methods becomes food for all the faculties of the mind, affording them exercise and recreation, the free indulgence in which induces culture. It is evident, therefore, that without the development of the intellectual faculties in their natural order and in harmonious proportion, the attainment of that higher and more complete culture involving the full growth of all the faculties of the mind, which gives power and efficiency, cannot be attained.

THE IMPORTANCE OF METHODICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTELLECT.

The intellect must be developed methodically and the faculties must grow harmoniously. This development and this growth can be attained only by the proper exercise in their natural order of the knowing faculties of the mind. Antecedent to all methodical education there must be a thirst for knowledge, a desire to know. There must be a mental appetite to be gratified before mental food can be administered with profit. Precisely as the physical system is cloyed and injured by administering food when it is not wanted — that is, when there is no appetite demanding it — so all efforts at cramming the mind with mental pabulum will result in injury. The mind is in no sense a passive receptacle, a mere storehouse, in which may be lodged property and rubbish as the whim or the opportunity of the doorkeeper may permit, neither is it a blank tablet upon which any reckless scribbler may erasibly write. It is in itself an activity, a power, a being with susceptibilities ; what it receives it has the power to retain or to reject, to store away for use or to cast forth as worthless. Its capacities are increased by the exercise arising from active use, or they are contracted by habits of idleness. A desire to know is the appetite for mental food, and as the body puts forth efforts to obtain aliment for its own life, so the mind, impelled by the sense of hunger and thirst for knowledge, goes out in search of it, and everywhere nature displays rich fields laden with abundant harvests, inviting all the activities of the mind to go forth, reap, garner and enjoy.

A system of education should have for its object the guidance of the faculties of the mind in their efforts to reap in the harvest-fields of nature, so that they may first gather that which is first required, that they may store away that which is of most use, to the end that the mind may be strengthened by labor, that the act of receiving may increase the capacity to receive, and that what requires greater strength and longer continued efforts to overcome and possess, may be left to be gathered at that period of life, when the requisite strength and power of endurance shall have been gained, through a judicious system of exercise. v- A child employs its sense of hearing before its sense of seeing, and both of these senses are used before it acquires the art of articulate speech; it uses its hands and arms in playing with its toys before it can use its feet and legs to walk for them. It would be extreme folly to insist that an infant shall not play with its rattle until it is able to walk to the table and get it, or that it should not be allowed the light of day, or to be guided by the sense of hearing, until the organs of speech are developed. It is equally illogical to attempt to cultivate the Reason and Understanding at that period when only the Senses are active, or to persist in efforts to store the Memory with abstractions, which cannot be understood, and to refuse to give exercise to the Senses in acquiring knowledge by observation until it can be acquired equally well through the operation of Reason. The system of education herewith presented is constructed upon this theory. It is a natural system because it provides for the development of the faculties in their natural order.

CONDITIONS FOR THE PROCESS OF EDUCATING.

Teaching presupposes three conditions : first, a degree of knowledge and capacity on the part of the pupil ; Second, a degree of knowledge and skill on the part of the teacher ; and third, knowledge to be acquired. When a child enters school — and that is the period at which the system of education which is now under contemplation is designed to take effect — he possesses a certain amount of knowledge which has usually been acquired in an irregular way and is rarely systematically arranged as parts of theories or sciences, yet this knowledge is of great use to the pupil, and must be taken account of in efforts to lead the mind into regular habits of educating itself.

NATURAL PROCESS TO BE ENCOURAGED.

The knowledge possessed by the pupil has been acquired by observation ; the first effort of the teacher, therefore, should be to encourage and systematize observation. This will bring order to the perceptions, will utilize the stores of the Memory and will exercise that faculty. It will bring order and strength to Recollection ; it will utilize Imagination and will exercise Judgment. The nature of the mind and its natural order of development make it necessary that, in a system of education, the study of the material sciences should come first. It is entirely natural that a child should recognize differences between a rose and a geranium, between quartz and mica, before it can distinguish between A and V or and Q. It is not too much to say, therefore, that for the young pupils, mere children, who are now forced to worry and wonder over what are to them meaningless characters, or who are required to sit in idleness under what seems to them a bitter and unnecessaryrestraint, a much more profitable use would be made of school-hours if they were taught to exercise their powers of observation and memory on the natural objects that surround them. Few farmers are able to name a tenth of the varieties of grasses, herbs and shrubs found in their fields, and an equal degree of ignorance prevails as to the names and qualities of rocks and soils. Under proper methods of instruction such knowledge would be acquired by pupils who enter school at the age of six, before the end of the second year of public-school education. In public schools established for the education of the people is a proper place to begin such a needed reform. Here is a practical work to undertake, here is popular ignorance to be dispelled, here are agreeable, profitable and easy lessons to be learned.

PUBLIC-SCHOOL EDUCATION.

Public schools are established for the instruction of the millions. The education provided in these schools should be practical, the methods should be agreeable and logical, and the results, popular intelligence. The reverse of this is 3 mainly true ; the education is almost universally impractical, the methods are disagreeable and illogical, and the result, purchased at the price paid for intelligence, is popular ignorance. Ten or fifteen years of school-life are given over, to the study of illogical books, the solution of intricate problems found in school arithmetics, to the mastering of impractical methods and bungling devices, to the memorizing of useless and meaningless rules in grammar, correcting false syntax and parsing, to learning the names of places noted for the number of shoes made there or the quantity of cheese produced annually. This, coupled with the ability to read indifferently and write illegibly, in many places is all that is acquired by the majority of pupils in the public schools. This comparative uselessness of public-school education arises, not from want of intelligence on the part of the teacher, the convenience of appliances, skill in teaching or diligence in prosecuting studies, but in the most senseless and bungling methods of classification that are employed in the construction of the curriculum of studies. The facts of geology are more simple, more instructive and more useful than the facts of geography. The facts of anatomy, physiology and hygiene are more easily grasped than the facts of grammar and arithmetic, and with the exception of the fundamental rules, arithmetic should take its place behind geography, history and botany.

The utterly extravagant value attached to mathematics as a means of disciplining the mind has led to incalculable mischief in times past, and has given to the world a generation of men absolutely ignorant of the plainest and most useful facts of science. This false estimate of the utility of one branch of learning over every other is felt from the lowest primary schools through all grades up to the universities. In the higher institutions mathematics is harnessed with the classics, making a double team which annually delivers for graduation hundreds of young men whose hearts are full of vanity and whose heads are full of ignorance. These are the "educated men" who give to society the numerous deplorable failures that long since brought " education " into disrepute. These men, graduating from the best colleges, ignorant of political history and of geography, ignorant of natural history, ignorant of/ every modern language, unfortunately ignorant of all useful learning except what is useful only for discipline, and, worse than all, "deplorably ignorant of their own ignorance," — these " educated men," until within a very few years past, failing in every other pursuit in life, were teachers in public schools. They compressed the schools into their own narrowness, engrafted upon them their own barren methods, and made them failures like unto themselves — failures in this, that they consumed the school-years of the youth in forcing upon them instruction that is disagreeable and useless, and in withholding from them knowledge that would have been attractive, useful and ennobling.

" Mental arithmetic" and "higher arithmetic" should be excluded from the public schools. They are not sciences in any sense, but mere inventions brought forth by over-zealous mathematicians. Grammar might with some degree of profit, perhaps, be introduced into the schools during the last years of the course, but it is exceedingly doubtful whether any one in youth ever acquired, through grammar books, the ability to " speak and write the English language with propriety." Grammar in its true sense is a science of Language, but a science more intricate in its processes, more complex in its theories and more difficult to comprehend, than either of the physical sciences of which the facts lie at our feet on every side, which stretch out above and beneath us. Nevertheless, grammar is forced upon the pupil at a most tender age in most absurd methods, and it is held there year after year to the total exclusion of the more simple, useful and agreeable sciences, such as botany, geology, geography, chemistry, natural philosophy and astronomy.

The complicated inventions of men are studied first, while the simple and sublime creations of God are rarely studied at all in the' public schools. The children are forced to feed on husks with swine, whilst the savory meats in the Father's house that strengthen and inspire are withheld. Stones and scorpions are given to the children who cry for bread and fish. In the system of education and the methods of teaching set forth in this work the old system, so barren of good results, so fruitful in failures, is rejected, and an artificial process is supplanted by a natural and logical order. Those subjects of study which are most simple, interesting and useful are introduced first. The more difficult and unnecessary — as grammar and mathematics •^-may follow as time and circumstances may permit them to be taken up. In the plan for organizing and conducting schools as here presented, it is the purpose of the author to lead teachers, school-directors and the parents of children educated in public schools into more pleasant and practical methods of labor. This will require no additional outlay of capital, will not involve an expenditure of more time, but will rather impart a degree of pleasure and profit to school-days hitherto not experienced 3* by those who have preceded us as pupils and teachers.

PROFESSIONAL TRAINING FOR TEACHERS.

Against a continuation of a pernicious system of teaching the people at length protested. They demanded that normal schools should be established for the education of men and women in the "Art of Teaching." These institutions, now recognized in all parts of the country, are annually sending forth persons well qualified to teach, and as the number of these professional teachers increases, the system of teaching will become more logical, the education will be more effectual both in the quality of knowledge furnished and in the character of the men- and women who shall be reared under its influence. Originally preceding, but now supplementing, the work of the normal schools, are " Teachers' Institutes " in counties and districts. < These are gatherings of the teachers of a county or neighborhood at some convenient place for general instruction. In these Institutes methods of instruction are examined and criticised ; there is an interchange of views on the subject of school government, and in this way teachers learn from each other what may be of practical use to them in their labors.

In States where normal schools have not yet been established, teachers should combine for the purpose of holding Institutes during the vacation period. Expert teachers from other States may be employed, in addition to the best home talent, to instruct the teachers in the art of teaching. In these convocations the teachers are organized into classes in the several branches taught in the schools represented in the Institutes, and thus in class drills they learn by actual experience not only new truths, but also how to impart the knowledge of them to others.

The business of school teaching will be established as one of the learned professions only by enforcing a system of professional teaching, and with those educated in the art of teaching rests the responsibility of dignifying their vocation by the adoption of methods and processes, worthy of the high claims of professional dignity.

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Chapter II. Discipline

GOVERNING FORCES.

HE passions and appetites of the animal stand lowest among all the forces in the human organism. These go out in innumerable cravings, in longings for gratification. Judgment and Reason take cognizance of these cravings of the flesh, contemplating them with reference to the results if they are unrestrained. Prudential considerations here have weight ; the effect upon the body, the effect upon the social standing, the probability of concealment and other sordid considerations may determine the Judgment and Reason in arriving at a conclusion. This conclusion must, however, be carried up to the judgment-seat of Conscience. Here the sole question to be determined is one of absolute right. No other considerations can enter into the deliberations of this tribunal. Here the

'62 standard of absolute right is set up, and whatever is brought into this court is laid upon it, and if it is in harmony in every part and particular with this standard, it is approved, but not otherwise. After Conscience shall have pronounced the thing brought before it to be right or wrong, it is passed up to the Will-power, which is the human executive, for enforcement. Where the Will-power is weak, there is anarchy among the members, there is hesitation, there is indecision, there is feebleness, there is uncertainty of thought, doubtfulness in conclusion and inefficiency in action. If the Will-power is strong, the judgments of Conscience will be promptly and rigidly enforced. Harmony among all the departments or faculties of the mind will secure harmony of action. There will be wisdom to devise, righteousness to discriminate and power to enforce, and thus the animal passions will be kept in due subjection. The man whose mind is thus disciplined, being able to rule his own spirit, is "greater than he that taketh a city." A system of education must be so framed as to secure to the pupils, studying under its provisions, such harmonious and logical development as will afford data for the guidance of Judgment and Reason in the contemplation of the every-day life problems, that will be called up for legislative action ; it must give such clearness and