Principles of education practically applied

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PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. — The Application op the Principles op Psychology to

the Work op Teaching 1

Chapter I

THE APPLICATION OF THE PELNCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY TO THE WOEK OF TEACHING-.

This subject will be treated under three divisions : I. Temperaments.

II. Educational Psychology.

III. Educatimial Principles and their Application.

It is assumed that the teacher must learn what to do, how to do, when to do, and when to leave off. Owing to the nature of his work, he deals chiefly with mind and its manifestations as made known through the body, and hence he is supposed to be familiar with the elements of psychology, and not unacquainted with the theory and art of teaching. Thus qualified, his success as a teacher hinges entirely upon the right application of the educational forces he uses in imparting instruction and in arousing self-activity in the minds of the learners. This gives a double phase to education — instruction and culture. The foregoing implies upon the part of the teacher a working knowledge of the human mind in general, its laws of growth, modes of action,

2 PKINCIPLES OF EDUCATION PEACTICALLY APPLIED.

and methods of culture ; also, an intimate acquaintance with the physiologic, hygienic, and mental conditions of those to be taught, and the nature, influence, and limits of the means employed in conveying knowledge and awakening thought. The teacher, it is admitted, may be well read in psychology as an abstract science, and capable of talking intelligently upon any special department thereof, and yet fail in teaching, because of inability to adjust and to adapt his educational psychology to the capacity of his pupils. Owing to this fact, many intelligent and conscientious teachers, having worked earnestly and industriously, are puzzled in trying to understand why their efforts are so unproductive of substantial results. Perhaps some light may be thrown on this mystery.

As a class, teachers do not study child-mind understanding^. They begin the subject at the wrong end. What psychology the most of them know has been learned from books, and to nearly all of them it is a nebulous mass at best. Much of it, when put into the plainest language, needs to be translated or diluted before they know what it means. Eight heartily do they " wish that writers on psychology would mix more organized common-sense with their metaphysics, and convey their ideas in simple words that common people can understand." Doubtless this is the reason why so many teachers have associated an intangible something — difficult to grasp and harder to retain — with the words " mental philosophy, psychology, and metaphysics." Turning away in disgust from a subject that yields so little, they fall back on experience and observation, and thus virtually deny that the scattered facts in methods of culture are susceptible of classification, and that any general principles may be deduced therefrom. From such premises, indeed, it is not strange that they fail to discover any relation between psychological principles and their application to living children ; and, moreover, they are apt to look with distrust upon any statement affirming that such a relationship exists, and that it can be discovered and applied in teaching. Being unable to harmonize bookish psychology with the facts before them, they depart on divergent lines of thought and action in their school- work. Against nature, their pupils are mentally and physically forced so far as the educational machinery can crush and form them into the same molds. Instead of intelligent work, it is educational mechanism. Both teachers and school-officers need awakening on this subject. Child-mind must be studied in the children themselves. The child is the starting-point. Here the teacher must begin as an intelligent, patient observer, and watch carefully the unfolding of every faculty, its laws of growth and methods of culture. Books and lectures are helps not to be disparaged, yet they are not the only sources of knowledge. For instance, the boy who studies geology only from books may pick up some general notions in regard to that science, but put him out among the rocks and he is lost, helpless, and confused ; and so it is in studying mind, divorced from living people. Naked mind we are not familiar with, and do not know how to treat it.

Let us attend, however, to a more practical phase of this subject, and one, too, that is neglected in nearly all the training-schools of this country, and yet it is, in my

4c PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION PRACTICALLY APPLIED.

opinion, one of the most essential qualifications that the teacher can possess, namely, a critical knowledge of

I. The Human Temperaments.

The brain is the organ, or instrument, that the mind uses in acquiring or in imparting knowledge ; in other words, it is the organ of the mind, and the mind is manifested through the brain. Now, the human mind is so constituted that it groups objects that are alike together, and separates those that are unlike. This is the natural method, and it lies at the foundation of all logical classification, as well as all progress in the various fields of human thought. A law that is so universal in its nature and so comprehensive in its details, and is alike applicable to individuals, species, genera, classes, and kingdoms, should not be neglected in the grand work of human culture. To give a more practical direction to these suggestions, let us consider briefly the object of our solicitude, the child, composed, according to the teachings of physiology, of three systems, consisting of ten apparatuses, forming thirty-nine different organs. This is the child as a material organism. This organism can exist only by complying with certain well-known conditions, and these are conditions of growth, which are proper food, clothing and shelter, exercise, rest, and sleep. For purposes of classification according to their functions, the three systems are the blood-producing, blood-circulating, and the nervous system.

At a glance, an experienced physiologist can tell which of these systems predominates in any particular person that may come before him or be accurately described to him ; or he can balance with nice discrimination the relations that these systems bear to one another. Such knowledge is acquired by observation, experience, and reflection. In the art of healing, this knowledge is an essential element. Experienced stockmen will select from a large* drove of cattle or horses those animals having peculiar qualities and dispositions. Those judges of animal nature seldom or never make mistakes. Vast differences exist in the fiber and structure of the various kinds of wood that lumber-men well understand. They know what strain or pressure each kind will sustain, and what weight it will support. Should the teacher's knowledge of those committed to his care be any the less accurate ? Should it not be more so ? True ; but how can this precise knowledge be acquired ? Answer : By the teachers' studying the temperaments of living people closely, carefully, and intelligently, until they can tell instantly the prevailing temperament or combination of temperaments of any child. Temperament determines the prevailing bias of disposition, whether natural or acquired, and upon it depends the sum total of our inclinations and prevailing tendencies. The temperaments are formed by the proportion of those elements that enter into the bodily structure, causing the diversities in shape, form, and mental characteristics that we observe; and whether we employ the words "lymphatic, sanguine, bilious, and nervous," or " vital, motive, and mental," to denote the bodily constitution of individuals, these terms correspond to those real distinctions which prompt the possessor to move or act in a certain direction. The mind is a unit ; it manifests its activity in various directions. A distinct kind of mind activity is called a faculty of the mind ; conse- 2 quently, there are as many faculties of the mind as it has distinct kinds of activity. In like manner, the body is one organism, constructed npon temperamental conditions. The manner of their combination produces tendencies either to mental activity or to sluggishness, causing all those variations in human nature that we observe. When the intellect, sensibility, or will prevails, there is found a corresponding temperamental development which exerts a controlling influence, and shapes and colors the whole character of the possessor. He lives and acts in harmony with his nature. Teachers furnished with eyes, ears, good sense, and an inclination to study, can tell what tendencies prevail in the pupils they are called upon to teach. This is justly regarded as the key to eminent success.

The child in whom the nervous temperament predominates certainly requires different incentives, both in instruction and management, from the one whose strongest temperament is the bilious or sanguine, or a combination of them. It is not claimed that studying the temperaments is the same as studying mind; but the channels along which the mind's activity and intensity manifest themselves are legitimate subjects of investigation. Furthermore, the teacher who first prepares himself by a thorough working knowledge of the temperamental conditions of childhood is better equipped for discerning character and the various modes of treatment applicable to it than the one ignorant of these truths. Of all persons, the teacher should be the most deeply versed in the philosophy of the human mind. He should be familiar with mind in its higher as well as in its simpler forms. Mind in childhood, in

PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY IN TEACHING. f

its most elementary forms, lie should know. A word or a smile to one child may be more repellant or attractive than a whipping or a valuable gift to another. A teacher who is a correct judge of human nature knows how to adapt instruction to the capacity of learners. From the very first day that the child of a highlywrought nervous organization enters school, the intelligent teacher feels a deep solicitude for him, and advises much out-door recreation and frequent rests from study, early bedtime and refreshing sleep. The sturdy boy, having a compact organization, capacious lung power, and good digestion, needs to work off his superabundant energy in various directions. The school-house may be either a prison or a palace to him, depending upon how he is put into it and kept there. And just here we are brought face to face with one of the most serious questions connected with American civilization, namely, whether we are not developing too highly, in the school children of this country, the nervous system, and dwarfing the growth of the blood-producing and the blood-circulating systems. Information collected from numerous sources points in that direction, particularly in our cities and towns. As it is beyond the limits of the present discussion to pursue this phase of the subject further, reference to it in this connection serves the purpose of indicating the vast issues involved in the subject of education, and as influencing the physical characteristics of our people. This is a serious question that educators must meet.

ISTot only should the teacher be able to tell at sight what temperament predominates in any particular child, but also what temperament prevails in his own organiza-

8 PKINCIPLES OF EDUCATION PEACTICALLY APPLIED.

tion, and its combining ratios with the other temperaments. Knowing himself, he can institute a series of comparisons between himself and others, and possibly this may be the means of correcting some of his own faults. It is a well-established fact that the temperamental condition of a person may be somewhat modified in a series of years. The teacher, by vigilant effort, is able in time to tame the young barbarian into an intelligent, refined, and cul tured gentleman. Nervous children, if placed under a calm, quiet, self-possessed teacher, one that does not fret and worry and fidget, will become steady ; he will teach them to avoid many excitants that would otherwise strain their nerves to the highest pitch* The teacher who can not adapt himself to his pupils^ and who fails to acquire a firm grasp on their affections by holding in check the vicious tendencies and unfolding the better ones, will not succeed in making them useful and honorable members of society.

II. Educational Psychology.

Education is not a matter of chance. It is an orderly development of man's powers, that furnishes his mind with knowledge, and gives him skill to use it. All growth proceeds in accordance with some regular plan of development. This plan is the law. Ail plants and animals grow according to laws governing their lives. They grow under certain conditions, and, if these conditions are not supplied, death ensues. Law is written everywhere and in the plainest characters. Proper soil, heat, moisture, and light, the plant must have, or it withers and dies. The wild bird, imprisoned in the cage, frets and struggles and dies— dies trying to free itself. Plant-life symbolizes human growth and culture ; jet the educational lif e of the child as far transcends that of the mere plant as human intelligence rises in grandeur above the life-principle imbedded in the kernel of grain. Education as a science is based upon fundamental principles, which express the laws of human life and its development. The highest interpretation that we can give to this conception is the perfection of the individual for the duties of life.

The child is the central figure in all educational systems. His powers are multiplex, and his possibilities infinite ; the former may be unfolded in their natural order by the skillful teacher, while he can only direct the latter by inspiring to lofty endeavor. Thus the teacher is the molder, builder, and architect of his own school. As his conception of education grows and expands daily, so will his workmanship become more perfect and symmetrical. Such high trusts demand consummate skill, rare tact, cultivated taste, and unerring judgment. Earnest, diligent, enthusiastic, and soulinspiring, the true teacher is always a learner. All possibilities of the race he recognizes as latent in the child. When the child is charged, can the teacher draw out the sparks % This human machine may contain a concentration of pointed and startling traits of character transmitted for a dozen generations. Herein lies another difficult question, and one which embarrasses thousands of teachers. No account is taken of hereditary tendencies. Presuming that the ponderous school-mill will grind out about the same quantity and quality, of flour however great the variety may be in the grain furnished, teachers are too frequently forgetful that blind forces, working upon sensitive minds, may blight and mildew the fairest hopes and the brightest prospects — may cause the most active minds to stagnate. Teachers at the beginning of school should acquaint themselves with all the essential factors and tendencies of each pupil. Such information simplifies school management, and effectually disposes of " that very peculiar boy " who rules the household and is so annoying to his teacher. In possession of such facts, the teacher would enter upon his work intelligently. There may be twenty different factors in a pupil's nature that the teacher ought to know, but, being ignorant of them, a system of guesswork is adopted, with the usual well-known results !

It is no unusual thing in " school-keeping," as it is called, to find the " keeper " ignorant of the nature, habits, associations, and dispositions of the pupils attending his school. Every child is a problem to be studied , interpreted, and understood aright. A mere lad is not qualified to preside as judge in our civil or criminal courts to mete out justice to the people. The judge is a man learned, or supposed to be learned, in the law. The minister, whose calling is a high and sacred one, must keep abreast of those vital issues which bear directly upon man's present and future happiness. How much more important, then, is it that the teacher should have that professional knowledge that study and experience only can give ! The teacher, owing to the relation that he sustains to his pupils, is judge, physician, minister, and teacher, all centered in one individual. These sacred trusts are committed to his keeping. Should he cease to improve or to grow in knowledge and wisdom, they will perish in his hands. To stand still is death ; only growth is life.

PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY IN TEACHING. H

III. Educational Principles.

1. To grow is a law of our being.

2. The mind is self-active.

3. Body and mind are interdependent, and must be studied together.

4. The teacher must know the nature of childhood and the laws of human development.

5. The teacher should understand the order in which the faculties of the human mind are unfolded.

6. This knowledge can be acquired by studying body and mind and their phenomena.

7. Education is a growth, and is effected by thought and the expression of thought.

8. In teaching, the matter and the method must be adapted to the capacity of the learner.

9. The teacher must know the subject-matter to be taught, and its relations to other subjects.

10. Attention on the part of the learner is the condition of acquiring knowledge.

11. In teaching, the learner must pass by easy steps from the known to the unknown.

12. The concrete phase of a subject should precede the abstract, and the objective should precede the subjective.

13. Only one thing should be taught at a time, and the learner's understanding should be thoroughly reached.

14. All intellectual progress depends upon the learner's ability to discern agreements and differences.

15. The teacher stimulates and directs the learner, but all education comes from the learner's voluntary effort.

18. " The highest perfection of the individual is the true object of education."

The foregoing principles are based npon the science of human development. Some of them refer to the learner, others to the teacher, and others again to learner and teacher. Those referring to methods may be employed in teaching any of the common or higher branches, and at any stage of the learner's progress. Ko restrictions are imposed on any of them save the limits of the teacher's ingenuity to devise illustrations. Educational principles are guide-posts that say : " This way, sir ! " When the teacher departs from them he travels over rough and thorny roads, and is kept retracing his steps, hardly making any progress. When the blind lead the blind, there is no one to watch for the ditch, and, when they tumble into it, there is no hand near to help them out. The word " struggling " well represents most of the work in our schools. Struggling teachers, struggling children — all stragglers! How we long to lift them out and set them traveling on smooth roads and face foremost ! Struggling with words, rules, tables, and definitions, appears to be the end and glory for which school children live and surfer.

Some illustrations will now be adduced from methods of teaching arithmetic. The following are selected from an arithmetic just published, and will serve the purpose of illustrating one phase of this subject. The pupil is directed to copy and complete the following and other exercises :

such exercises possess some genuine merit, yet they make a very thin mental diet. Let ns take the equation 4 + 2 = % and examine it. Putting four and two together is one act of the mind — a synthesis — and so of the other expressions of like form. Again 5 «— 2 = % involves an additional element — analysis—and is one step in advance. When once the child has learned that four and two are six, a thousand repetitions will give him no new information, and it is a waste of time to keep him employed in that manner. Suppose, however, that we put this equation under another form and less restricted, the figure " 6 " may then assume a new meaning. Suppose we request the class to find all the numbers by adding two at a time that will make "6" At once they are set thinking, and each one must think for himself. The number " 6 " is broken to pieces, the parts examined, and put together again. Genuine sparks of thought fly about the number " 6 " as the little hands are raised in token of results. Here are the results in full, using integers only:

Operation.— 4 + 2 = 6, 3 + 3 = 6, 5 + 1 = 6, 6 + = 6. The child sees " 6 " under all these forms. Having drilled on a few numbers, the work may be extended by adding three numbers at a time to make " 6."

Such exercises may be indefinitely extended, followed immediately by taking numbers together and apart. Given 4 + % — ? = 6. Here the missing numbers are to be supplied, or as many of them as time will permit.

4 + 4 - 2 = 6.

4+5-3 = 6.

4 + 6-4 = 6. etc.

By a slight change we have ? + ? — ? + 2 = 6, and again the learner may start in pursuit of results. It is now evident that these and similar exercises may be extended till the signs of multiplication and division are employed, and fractional numbers are used with the same facility as integers. Such exercises require clear, concise, intelligent thought-work, and stand in striking contrast to dull mechanical drudgery: that only stagnates and does not educate.

Again, a class is to learn the " Table of Long Measure." How shall they learn it ? Committing the " table " to memory by repeating it over and over till all " can say it," is the universal method. This method is an outrage, an insult, an irreparable injury to the children. It violates every educational principle, except one prevalent in China. To verify a table is the rational manner of learning it. Each pupil should be provided with a foot-ruler, and set to work measuring such objects in the school-room as the teacher may designate. The arbitrary length, the inch, is marked off, and from it the learner gets his first definite conception of measured distance. Counting the inches in a foot, the unit of measure is fixed in his mind. In measuring, care must be taken that it is done correctly. By short steps the learner goes from the foot to the yard, from the yard to the rod, and, by reversing the steps, back again to inches. Having measured different objects in the school-room, a wider field of objects may be selected about the school-grounds. Pertinent questions by- the teacher, addressed to the pupils as the work progresses, will fix the facts firmly in each mind. In every act of measurement the pupil uses analysis and synthesis — reduction ascending and reduction descending. Mentally, he passes rapidly up and down the scale. The foot-ruler is to be followed by using the yard-stick and tape-line in measuring objects of considerable length. Such practical work cultivates the eye, hand, observation, attention, judgment, and reason, and the pupil retains what he learns.

As another exercise, " Wine Measure " may be presented. The school should be furnished with a gill, a pint, a quart, and a gallon measure ; also with a bucket of water, or a bushel or two of sand. Everything in readiness, a member of the class will dip up a gill of whatever is to be measured and empty it into the pint cup, and repeat till this vessel is filled, and it in turn emptied into the quart cup, the class noting particularly the number of gills in a pint, and also in a quart. Now the gill, pint, or quart measure may be used to fill the gallon vessel or to empty it. The children, keeping account of the gills, pints, and quarts in a gallon, understand every step in the process, and know the why and wherefore. The table means something, and they can explain the meaning. Doing is the way to knowing, and this is the fact emphasized. What is true of these two " tables " is correspondingly true of other tables of weights and measures. Thousands of children can repeat glibly " Avoirdupois Weight," yet they can not weigh a pound of butter on the scales.

Shall we not bridge this great chasm between school work and the practical duties of life %

The world's great teachers are most valuable to us, not on account of the discoveries they have made, but on account of the power they have given us to get knowledge for ourselves, and the mental activity they inspire. Hence one of the great objects in teaching is to put the learner in such a position that he must get knowledge for himself, and follow his own inclination doing so ; yet his efforts should be directed by the teacher. To keep abreast of his work, the teacher is required to analyze his subjects and frequently to reconstruct them, and to devote his attention to the learner's mind. Thoroughly conversant with his subjects and well grounded in the principles of human nature, he is properly qualified to impart instruction and to manage children successfully. He is able also to trace the proper connection of what he teaches and how he teaches with the fundamental operations of the human mind as related to the body and acting through the nerves, muscles, and special senses. Intellectual acts he distinguishes as belonging to two classes — the perception of agreements and the perception of differences, supplemented by memory, or the power to hold in the mind what has once been perceived. The power of observing differences is, perhaps, more important in an educational sense than that of noting agreements, although they are the complements of each other. Differences strike us everywhere. By differences persons and things are separated and regarded as distinct. Complete knowledge unites in thought what an object is, by separating it from what it is not. Agreements form classes, and individual objects picked out of classes make differences. The unskillful teacher relies almost entirely upon teaching agreements and neglecting differences. Such instruction is one-sided, narrow, and superficial.

Certain operations of the mind take place in the acquisition of knowledge. The several steps in the process are so clearly established that all thinking persons accept them. Analyzing a mental operation by which an object of thought is reached and fixed in the mind, the steps appear as follow :

1. Attention; 2. Abstraction; 3. Analysis; 4. Synthesis; 5. Comparison; 6. Identification; 7. Discrimination; 8. Classification.

To obtain these results, it is the teacher's duty to stick closely to the point under consideration. Instead of spading around in the neighborhood of any particular topic, he digs it up root and branch, and holds it before the minds of his class till they grasp it with a power that never relaxes. By appropriation and assimilation it becomes their own.

Another important distinction, but most unfortunately lost sight of in teaching, is in not distinguishing sharply between thought and the expression of thought. Thought naturally precedes expression. Thought appears to spring up instantly in the mind, while the expression is of slower growth. Ideas go before words. Words symbolize ideas, that others may grasp the thought they are intended to express. Therefore, education is composed of two complementary parts — thought and the expression of thought. It is important in all cases for the teacher to know whether any difficulty that a pupil may have in learning is owing to an error in thought or to a defect in expression. If an error exist in thought, it can not be corrected by correcting the language. The source of error is deeper than any verbal distinction, hence the necessity for deciding correctly to which the error belongs. A learner may use language well, apparently, yet be incapable of thinking either correctly or vigorously. No amount of language drill will ca«use him to improve his forms of thought, and neither will thought-work always improve or cultivate the power of expressing ideas clearly, forcibly, and elegantly. Dimness of thought, or failure to grasp an idea firmly and to hold it tenaciously, may be the weak point in the pupil's mind. To remove dimness of thought, repeated explanations and demonstrations are necessary. Defects in expression are remedied by constant and careful practice in the choice of language, which should be a prominent feature of every recitation. The uppermost question in actual school work is the form of thought and how to express it. The ability to do stalwart thinking is one of the lost arts in most schools. The general drift is setting strongly to memorizing. Memorizing rules, definitions, " beautiful sentiments," and a vast amount of gilt-edged rubbish and padding, that have no educational significance, except as clogs to thought and leaden feet to progress. Awkwardly the boy may express his ideas, and with difficulty make himself understood ; yet this awkward boy may think well, and in time acquire an easy, natural, and graceful style of expression. Rob him of his thoughts, and his language betrays his ignorance. Education rests upon the thought-basis as its pivotal center.

PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY EST TEACHING. 19

Thought has life, activity, growth in it. Memory is the form of education minus the soul. It is the receiving vault in which thought is imprisoned, and then starved to death.

Chapter II. School Management

In discussing school management we aim to ascertain the best methods of conducting all the affairs of a school. The particular points to be considered are, first, the school-house; secondly, the organization of classes ; thirdly, the movements of classes ; and fourthly, the daily programme of exercises.

The construction of a school-building may aid the teacher very materially in the management of the school, or it may be so inconvenient and so poorly adapted to school purposes as to subvert many things that should be accomplished in school work.