The new method of education

Front matter

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Introduction

INTRODUCTION

In 1852 the author was a student in Harvard College, and while working under the direction of Professor Louis Agassiz he became interested in the " new" or scientific method of education. From that time, during nearly forty years, he labored as student and teacher to understand that method better, and to put it into practice in the school room.

The purpose of this book is to state in brief what the author believes to be the principles of the new method of education and to give some idea by examples as to how those principles were applied in his own school.

The last one hundred pages of the book consist of school documents which have been reprinted in order to show through what difi&culties the new method of education has been obliged to force its way to the small measure of success it has achieved in our public schools.

People are satisfied with the old ways long after better ways have been discovered and demonstrated, not only in the domain of education, but in every field where progress is possible. As an illustration, the story of the locomotive may be told in a few words.

About the middle of the seventeenth century several men from European Universities and Scientific Soci-

XXII INTRODUCTION

eties combined their efforts to utilize the invention of Hero, made eighteen hundred years before. As Hero could turn a wheel rapidly by steam-power, these men believed that by study and experiment steam could be made to move a system of wheels and machinery and accomplish work. Their success was sufficient to encourage others to take up the work in the eighteenth century, among them James Watt, whose great genius and persistent work for many years gave to the world the modern steam-engine which is to-day doing the work of millions of men.

In the early part of the last century another great genius, George Stephenson of England, added to the work of Watt, and in thirty years of wonderful success, the engine became a powerful locomotive, moving trains of cars from city to city. People who wished to travel could sit comfortably as in any house and travel further in one hour than they had ever been able to go in a long, tedious day. But there was only one in ten thousand who wanted any help from Stephen.son. He was hindered in every way and derided by the best people of England for years after he had proved to himself that the power for a locomotive was in his engine.

Part I General Principles Historical Sketch

GENERAL PRINCIPLES

There are two, and only two, methods of education in the world — the scientific method and the literary method. All variations are easily classified in one or the other of these two methods. The basis of the scientific method, often called the new education, is all nature and all art. The basis of the literary method is books. Books constitute a very important branch 6f art ; hence books are included for all they are worth, in the scientific method. But wherever books are made the basis of education, civilization remains nearly stationary. This has been the condition of China for centuries, and of South America from the earliest European settlements. Books can never yield that kind of knowledge which has transformed European and American civilization during the last two hundred years.

How did this broad wave of mental force which has given us all modern civilization, originate ? What are the principles on which it depends, and what are the laws of its progress ?

The men who accomplished this work prepared themselves for it by reading a volume ever open to us all, a book in which the letters are suns and worlds, the forces which build the elements into living forms, and all the varied phenomena of nature. They were such men as Newton, Morse and Watt, and they worked mainly according to the method of the Arabian schools of the seventh to the tenth centuries.

The principles of this method, the scientific method, are few and simple, and so in harmony with the laws of human development, that the youngest child in our schools is delighted in their daily use, and ascends the hill of science and sound learning without weariness, finding every lesson as interesting and healthful as play itself. In accord with these principles the human race has made all its progress.

In the following six or eight pages the attempt is made to suggest in a few instances the application of these principles to the mental development of the child and to the development of the race from barbarism.

The objects which are the most essential to our well-being are those which are the most interesting : the rising and setting sun, the revolving stars and planets, a million species of living things, plant and animal, gems innumerable "of purest ray serene." These objects all remind us that we inhabit a world of cause and effect — a world in which eternal and* unchanging laws encircle us, and reign supreme. Since we live in a realm of law, how shall we study and comprehend it ?

We must go down into principles — into nature, and proceed at every step in accordance with the nature of the child. Through the years between infancy and the school age, the child shows us in a decided way the direction in which nature impels him and guides his activities, and hence, the direction in which we ought to help him to go. To the child, the sky, the great blue dome which bends over the landscape, is a real canopy directly over his playgrounds. Here he is delighted all day long in every object of sense — in every novelty of sound, color and form, in every bird, beast and insect, in the beautiful forms and colors of plants and flowers, in the moving clouds ; and even the solid earth and sand and pebbles he treads upon — all are objects of interest, objects of study, and of wonder. Here in the realities of the world, so near at hand, are the perfect lessons for intellectual and moral culture, infinite in number and variety, created and perpetually renewed by Infinite Wisdom, for infinite good.

Something of every science and art should be learned by children as soon as they can put it to use. This is the best, if not the only way of making facts permanent and always available. It is the child's nature to observe, and as soon as he can talk he wants to tell every detail of his observation and experience. This oral report seems to be an essential part of his life. He continually brings the words he has learned into use, and this gives him complete success in expressing his ideas in words. In school the child must soon begin to widen and improve his method by recording the results of observation in writing and drawing. This very soon interests him even more than his oral method, which will still be useful to him.

All nature is a unit, and the science of nature is only one science. The division of science into a dozen branches is right in the advanced stages of education, but in primar}^ and grammar schools it is absurd, and fatal to progress. In all grades below the high school all studies are to be correlated, and learned as one subject. Children are always interested in this work, and they make easy and rapid progress in the arts of reading, spelling, writing, composition, punctution, drawing, and use of capitals, as well as in every branch of science.

Whatever a child learns in school should be organized for his immediate use. Each lesson must involve principles which can be used, and will be used in the child's free activities, in school and out of school. So far as it goes a child's education must always be complete. From the beginning it must be a little system of philosophy for the child's use : and it must be so pleasing and attractive to him, that he will always want to extend and widen it. The government of such a school is very easy ; for children do not get out of order when their work is more interesting than pla3^

The basis of a child's education must be his own observation, and not the observation of another who has written a book or a reading lesson for him. He wants original ideas, not second-hand ideas. He is not satisfied with the shadows of ideas which come through words. By oral instruction and reading he may derive interesting and useful information, but information is not education, it is not intellectual power, without which all education is radically defective. True education comes mainly through the inductive method. Every child, in the freedom of nature, intuitively educates himself in this method. He correlates and organizes impressions of all kinds through all the years preceding the school age, and he enters school with his education well begun. He has learned something of every branch of science, and at the same time has learned a language more thoroughly and in less time than the schools have yet been able to teach one. He has learned more of his environment than he will ever learn in school in the same length of time. The reason for his wonderful advance in education in these years of early childhood, is because his method has been natural instead of artificial.

All the great branches of learning should be introduced during the first week of school, not by separate lessons in each, but all combined in nature study. As all parts of the world are interwoven with each other, so are all branches of science intimately connected, and must be presented to the child as a single subject. The time for children to learn the spelling, meaning, and use of words is when they have occasion to use them to express their own original ideas. The same may be said of grammar, arithmetic, and all other branches to be studied before the age of twelve. True education from the first is a many-sided unit, and each side is kept bright by constant use.

Among the popular criticisms upon our schools, there have been complaints of too many branches of study ; but really there is but one subject in the true method. It is natural for children to play ; but in play they do many different things in a single game. They use the sense of sight, the sense of hearing ; they walk, run, jump, talk, laugh and sing. Children's play is made up of many parts, just as a lesson in school has, or ought to have, many parts or kinds of activity.

In the true methods of school work, the teacher must observe the law of nature or his work will be a failure. He must do nothing for the child that the child can do for himself. General information may be derived from books and oral instruction, but these can never give intellectual and moral power, which are the essential elements of true education. Until the child educates himself by his own efforts, wisely guided by the teacher, he will be very poorly educated.

The study of nature in our schools awakens the child into intellectual life, and establishes in him the love of the beautiful, the true and the good. It enables the teacher to organize all branches of study into one symmetrical science, in which each branch helps to give meaning and interest to all the others. It converts the unnatural and wearing drudgery of the school room into the most delightful and healthful work both for the teacher and the pupils. It gives us health and strength by alluring us into the pure air and varied scenery of the open landscape, for the observation of natural objects and phenomena, and the collection of material for study.

The study of nature enlivens the imagination and awakens the latent energies of the child, — adds strength to his body, variety', activity and vigor to his mind. Besides saving the child from artificial stupidity so commonly produced by the arbitrary methods of the old education, it enables him to learn more in reading, writing, arithmetic and spelling in one week, than he can learn in a month in the common method.

In our search for true methods in education we lO THE NEW METHOD

find perfect models in nature's method of educating the human race in its first steps in civilization. Nature does absolutely nothing for man that he can possibly do for himself ; but the infinite sources of light and truth, with all their beauties and harmonies, are ever all about him, to educate him, to elevate his thoughts and help him to attain to wisdom.

There was a time when our ancestors saw nothing around them but wild nature. There was no art. There were no tools of any kind to assist the savage in making a beginning in art. He had within him the germ of all art — the germ of all science; but without the stimulus of environment that germ could no more expand and raise him out of his savage state, than the acorn can become the stately oak without the light and heat of the sun.

The awakening of man's dormant faculties into activity is and always has been the one condition of his improvement. Nature's laboratories were in full operation preparing for the coming of man long ages before his advent. Although the primitive man was ignorant of everything over head, around him, and under foot, the crust of the earth was a great storehouse of perfect material for the architect, the sculptor, the painter, the blacksmith, the coppersmith and the goldsmith.

Just as long as man remained ignorant of the

OF EDUCATION I I

properties of these things, and other products of nature, he was to remain a naked savage, sharing the world equally with the wild and hungry beasts that howled around him. He was at liberty to wait a thousand years, or a thousand centuries. Houses to protect him by night from the lion and the tiger, and from the cold storm, would not spring up out of the ground for him. Nor would clothing or needles and thread, nor tools for the architect grow on trees. Nature had done all that ought to be done, and could wait for man to join his work with hers. Then, and not till then, could the arts have even the rudest beginning. This was the one condition of progress, and is to-day the one condition of progressive civilization.

In the la.st analysis, man's observation in nature, or what we call nature study, is the sure and only foundation and source of all civilization, the source of all science, all art. The savage who first observed that rocks are brittle, and can be broken down to a cutting edge, was the father of all sculptors. His stone hatchet, so useful at that time, is of no value now except as a curiosity and a help in the study of archaeology. We can hardly realize how rude were the beginnings of all man's grandest achievements.

Architecture is one of the oldest and mo.st important of the arts. Through innumerable little improvemeuts at long intervals, it has reached a good degree of excellence, and it is improving faster than ever.

The barbarian who built the first house finished it in one day. With a modern axe he could have done it in one hour ; but his axe was only a sharp stone, and he used his hand and arm for the handle.

The primitive house had a ridge-pole, and that is the only part of it that has come down to our time. Each end of the pole rested on the branch of a tree, and for the walls of the house small evergreen trees stood leaning toward each other and the pole. The builder was well pleased with his house and thought it was" perfect. But on a cold morning a month later the children were found covered with snow which had sifted through in the high wind. This set the architect to thinking how to improve his house and keep his family dry and warm. At last the way to do it dawned upon him, and soon he was bringing hemlock boughs to weave thick into the walls. For a while the house was again thought to be perfect. But on a very cold day a fire was needed, and the dry resinous boughs were soon in flames.

The next plan was a fire-proof house. Rocks were piled one upon another for the walls ; but open spaces between them let in the cold air and snow. A happy thought the next rainy day resulted in plastering the house with mud. Soon as the mud was dry it crumbled away and left the walls as they were before.

After some Study and experimenting with mud from several places a sample was found which contained a little clay mixed with the sand, and this became so hard and firm on drying that it lasted a long time.

These little occasional improvements of many kinds continued for centuries, slowly improving the house, increasing the cost, and making the architect's work more complex.

Thus it has been with every branch of art and science from the rudest beginning, and thus it will continue, for every branch is progressive.

HISTORICAL SKETCH

The most wonderful of all civilizatious that have yet appeared in the world is that of Greece. The Greeks not only originated nearly all branches of science and art on which modern civilization rests, but they discovered the methods which have made real progress in education possible. More than two thousand years ago the science of education was the culmination of their glory. At that time the school-masters were considered the true luminaries of the world, and they were honored above all other men. Only the brightest intellects, the most learned, the wisest and best men could become teachers.

About six hundred years before Christ the philosophy of the Greeks was becoming more philosophic. Each generation was correcting the errors of the past, and civilization was reaching a higher standard. Three men of learning and genius, vSolon, the Lawgiver, Thales and Pythagoras, philosophers and teachers, appeared at the same time. They gave their energies to the cause of education and philanthropy. The disciples of these wise men became the teachers of Socrates ; Socrates was the teacher of Plato ; Plato was the teacher of Aristotle ; Aristotle was the teacher of Alexander the Great, and the first to illustrate all the principles of the new education.

I 6 THE NEW METHOD

With Solon, Thales, and Pythagoras, came the dawn of Greek science, which culminated in Theophrastus, Aristotle, Archimedes and the Athenian and Alexandrian schools. Thus, three hundred years of unparalleled progress had established in Athens, and in Alexandria, the educational methods found in the best schools of Europe and America at the present time. In many things the noted Greek teachers all differed ; but all agreed that real philosophy comes to ns through the diligent search after wisdom in the book of nature ; and that all men ought to reflect in their lives the image of that order and harmony by which the universe is sustained and regulated.

Theophrastus was the first scientific writer upon botany and mineralogy that the world ever produced. He wrote five volumes upon minerals, and ten upon plants.

Aristotle was the father of zoology. He wrote fifty volumes upon the animal kingdom. Archimedes and Euclid were the greatest of ancient mathematicians, and have never been excelled. Pythagoras, Apollonius, Hipparchus, and Aristarchus explained the solar system as we understand it to-day. But their wisdom was completely smothered in Europe by the long dark ages.

Aristotle was born B. C. 384. He was a pupil of Plato for twenty years in the great school at Athens, and then had charge of the same school. He soon

OF KDUCATION 1 7

received a letter from Philip, the King of Macedon, as follows : "Be informed, O Aristotle, that I have a son, and that I am thankful, not so much for his birth, as that he was born in the same age with you ; for if you will undertake the charge of his education, I assure myself that he will become worthy of his father, and of the kingdom which he will inherit."

Philip's son was Alexander the Great. Alexander was soon with Aristotle, and remained with him eight years, when he ascended the throne at twenty years of age. During these years Alexander fully appreciated his advantages and made remarkable attainments in all directions. He saw so much to admire in Aristotle's methods that he became, from that time, an enthusiastic patron of learning ; and his first act on the throne was to furnish Aristotle with material and all necessary appliances for the illustration of his methods in the school at Athens. To accomplish this without delay, Alexander sent several thousand learned men to all parts of the known world to collect material for the illustration of every science. But to make a model school at Athens was only the beginning of Alexander's influence upon education. Ambitious as a conquerer of nations, he was still more ambitious in making a better civilization for all men.

It was Alexander's ambition to conquer all nations, and combine all nations into one empire whose institutions should all be permeated by the learning and

I 8 THE NEW METHOD

wisdom of Greece. He was maturing a might}' scheme for collecting all knowledge, for the increase of knowledge, and its diffusion throughout the world. The first move toward carrying out this plan was to invade and overthrow the rich and populous Persian empire. Persia had an area half as large as Europe, and next to Greece, was the most learned and cultured part of the world. It included all that remained of the older civilizations of Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, Chaldea, and Mesopotamia. The largest armies ever led to battle had been the Persian armies under Xerxes and Darius for the invasion of Greece.

In the spring of 334 B.C., Alexander, with an army of only 40,000 men, crossed the Hellespont, and entered the Persian empire. Slowly he moved toward Egypt, conquered every city on the way, and defeated the army of Darius numbering 700,000 men. While in Egypt he founded the city of Alexandria, which he designed for the educational metropolis of the world. Soon after this Alexander renewed his march toward other great cities of Persia. After crossing the Euphrates he again defeated the army of Darius, numbering a million men. The gates of many opulent cities, with all their treasures, were now open to the Greeks. Thence, the victorious army marched easterly to the Ganges river, conquered all that remained of Persia, invaded India, defeated King Porus, and took possession of thirty cities of India.

Of all military campaigns, this was the most remarkable, both in its purposes and its results. To thousands of learned Greeks the march through Persia was much more than a military campaign. It was a thorough scientific study of the country through which they marched. At times it was like a grand excursion for sightseeing, recreation, and scientific observation, over a large, rich and populous country, abounding in the wonderful in nature and art.

As soon as Alexander had conquered Egypt and the better half of Asia, he prepared to continue his march to the shores of the Pacific and take possession of all Asia in a single campaign. But his army had left their homes eight years before, and refused to march any farther except toward their native land.

Alexander yielded to the wishes of his faithful warriors and soon returned to Babylon, which he intended to make the capital of the prospective new empire. In the midst of great plans for the reconstruction of his vast dominions, the completion of his educational plans, and the future conquest of the rest of the world, capie Alexander's death, in the thirtythird year of his age.

The result of Alexander's conquests in Asia and Africa we are to consider only in its educational influence. But the grandest movement in education that the world has ever seen had already been formulated. Alexander had made Ptolemy the governor of

Egypt, to have control of the educational interests of the world. On the death of Alexander, Ptolemy became king of Egypt. For carrying out the plan of Alexander, Ptolemy had in his treasury $400,000,000 in gold and silver.

The magnificence of the buildings reared for the Alexandi-ian school I will not attempt to describe. They were built by the greatest architects of Greece, and adorned by the greatest sculptors the world has ever known. Surrounding these buildings were botanical gardens, filled with the living representatives of the flora of all nations ; zoological gardens representing the living forms of the land and the sea ; great temples filled with paintings, sculpture, and every art of the known world. Still more important than these was the library of 700,000 volumes, by far the largest library of antiquity. In short everything was done that could help to make a school for the collection of all knowledge, for the increase of knowledge by scientific investigation, and the diffusion of knowledge throughout the world. Under the reign of the Ptolemies the Alexandrian school ^continued about three hundred years, until Egypt became a Roman province. During this time it had reached its greatest excellence. The students were from all parts of the world, and the average number for three centuries had been twelve thousand.

Under Roman dominion the school was not kept

Ol'^ EDUCATION 21

up to the high statidaid of its illustrious founders, or the luxury and indolence of the l\a.si had taken the place of the love of learning. Rut the methods of that school had been carried by its patrons to various parts of the world, and had taken root in many a school in Arabia and Persia and in Europe. But the long dark ages, that followed the downfall of the Roman empire, blotted out of all Europe nearly every trace of the intellectual light that had originated in the Greek civilization. But in Asia, where Alexander a thousand years before had collected the gold to establish the great school, the science of the Greeks had been kept alive, and under its influence the Arabians and Syrians became a progressive people. Before the ninth century they had excelled in learning all the nations of the world at that time, and they held that position for many centuries.

Although Alexandria was partly destroyed, and what Caesar had left of the great library was burned, the ultimate effect of the Arabian wars of conquest in the seventh century was to stimulate intellectual activity, and greatly accelerate the progress of sound learning. For the conquering armies, after they had well-nigh destroyed the results of Greek learning and culture, as they saw the ruined palaces, adorned with every art, as they thought of the half million rare books which they had destroyed, they became more thoughtful, and repented of their wanton destruction of the very source of all the splendor of the ruins that surrounded them. They soon began to cultivate the civilization of the conquered people, and restore to the world what they had destroyed. Books were collected at great expense from all sources, and translated into Arabic. Schools and colleges sprang up, and learning revived in every part of the great empire.

In the early part of the eighth century a Spanish noble requested Musa, the governor of Egypt, to send a military force to Spain to correct the tyranny of King Roderic, the usurper. Seven thousand men led by the brave general Tarik soon landed at Gibraltar, and in two years had taken nearly all Spain. Tarik established in Spain the best known civilization, giving all Europe the means of rising above the thraldom of ignorance and barbarism, and eventually bringing the dark ages to a close. From time to time thousands of the cultured families of western Asia and northern Africa were attracted to Spain bj^ the genial climate, beautiful scenery, and fertile soil. Schools, colleges and universities were founded in the Alexandrian methods. A high civilization sprang up and flourished for nearly eight centuries. It became the best civilization in the world at that time. It held that position until Europe had founded, on the Arabian models, learned societies and academies in every capital and large city.

The most enlightened artisans of Asia were induced to settle in Spain and introduce the arts of civilized life. The improved productive arts soon brought the comforts, conveniences and necessities of life within the reach of all. The decorative arts furnished ornaments and elegance in dress and furniture. Spain became the garden and market place of Europe. The neat, polite and well-dressed people made a striking contrast with merchants from France, Germany and England, dressed in sheepskin or the untanned hides of other animals.

The wealth, learning, elegance and refinement of Spain, nearly equaled that of the best parts of Europe at the present time. Cordova, the capital of Andalusia in the tenth century, had a population of a million. They had a library of 600,000 volumes. Seville, Toledo, Grenada and sixty other cities and towns each had a large library, some of them rivaling that of Cordova.

Here, after a precarious existence for centuries, was the beginning in Europe of that modernized Greek civilization which was to spread over the entire continent. One man in ten thousand saw the promise of better days for Europe from this source, and sent his sons to the Cordovan schools. Every student on returning home became the nucleus of a secret society for the promotion of learning. Men of worthy motives and independent judgment began to increase in all the populous centres. But there was no safety for such men till the seventeenth century. Still the work went on with increasing numbers and greater boldness. Learned societies were established on a larger scale, and more openly. The intellectual element had become uncontrollable.