[Transcriber’s Notes:
This e-text contains a translation of Herbart’s “Umriss pädagogischer
Vorlesungen”, the main text of which is divided into numbered
paragraphs. The numbers in the Index are references to these
paragraphs. De Garmo’s annotations are indented in this e-text by two
spaces. Herbart’s own annotations have the run-in heading “Note” and
are indented by four spaces.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and small-capped text by =equal
signs=.]
OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE
[Illustration: Publisher’s logo]
OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE
BY
JOHN FREDERICK HERBART
_TRANSLATED BY_
ALEXIS F. LANGE, =Ph.D.=
=Associate Professor of English and Scandinavian Philology, and
Dean of the Faculty of the College of Letters,
University of California=
_ANNOTATED BY_
CHARLES DE GARMO, =Ph.D.=
=Professor of the Science and Art of Education,
Cornell University=
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., =Ltd.=
1904
_All rights reserved_
=Copyright=, 1901,
=By= THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1901. Reprinted
June, 1904.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
PREFACE
The reasons for translating and annotating Herbart’s “Outlines” are,
first, to present to the English-speaking public Herbart’s latest, and
also his most complete, work on education; and, second, to note to some
extent at least the advances made in educational thought since Herbart
laid down his pen.
Herbart’s educational writings are distinguished by two marked
characteristics: 1, their helpfulness in actual teaching; and 2, their
systematic completeness. The thoughtful reader can see the bearing
of each part upon all the others; the purposes of education are so
completely correlated with the means, that, whether the topic under
discussion be apperception or interest or methods of teaching or school
government or moral training or the presentation of a particular study,
the reader is never at a loss to see the relation of this part to the
whole.
The eminent practicability of Herbart’s thought depends upon his
psychological point of view, which is always that of concrete
experience. The moment one tries to apply rational psychology to actual
teaching, one begins to rise into the clouds, to become vague or,
at least, general. The reason for this is that rational psychology
deals with unchangeable presuppositions of mind. We may conform our
work to these standards, but we cannot modify them, any more than we
can a law of nature. But when we have to deal with an apperceiving
content, we feel at home, for over this we have some control. We can
build up moral maxims, we can establish permanent interests, we can
reveal the unfolding of whole developments of thought and effort, we
can fix the time order of studies and parts of studies; in short, we
can apply our pedagogical insight with some degree of success to actual
school problems. Though empirical psychology has in the last fifty
years had as rapid a development as any other department of science,
it has never departed essentially from the direction fixed by Herbart.
New methods have indeed been applied, but the leading motive has
remained empirical; it has had small tendency to drift toward rational
psychology. This fact makes Herbart’s educational thought, so far as
psychological bearing is concerned, seem as fresh and modern as when it
was first recorded.
In one important respect, however, Herbart’s system needs modernizing.
It is in relating education to conditions of society as it now exists.
German society has never been that of English-speaking countries; much
less does German society of the early part of the nineteenth century
correspond to Anglo-Saxon society at the beginning of the twentieth.
Indeed, even had there been correspondence before, there would be
divergence now. It is one of the main purposes of the annotation,
therefore, to point out the social implications of various parts of the
“Outlines.”
The annotation has made no attempt to improve Herbart’s prophetic
vision concerning many important matters, or to elucidate self-evident
propositions, or to supplement observations already complete, true, and
apt.
Especial attention is called to the exactness and illuminating
character of Herbart’s diagnosis of mental weaknesses and disorders
in children, together with his suggestions as to proper treatment.
Students of child-study, moreover, will find in this work not only
encouragement in their work, but also assistance in determining what is
worth studying in the child. The reader is constantly reminded of the
fact that, when written by a master, no book is newer than an old one.
=Cornell University=,
January, 1901.
CONTENTS
PAGE
=Introduction= 1
PART I
_THE DOUBLE BASIS OF PEDAGOGICS_
CHAPTER
I. The Ethical Basis 7
II. The Psychological Basis 15
PART II
_OUTLINES OF GENERAL PEDAGOGICS_
SECTION I. GOVERNMENT OF CHILDREN
I. Theoretical Aspects 30
II. Practical Aspects 33
SECTION II. INSTRUCTION
I. The Relation of Instruction to Government and Training 39
II. The Aim of Instruction 44
III. The Conditions of Many-sidedness 51
IV. The Conditions Determining Interest 60
V. The Main Kinds of Interest 76
VI. The Material of Instruction from Different Points of View 93
VII. The Process of Instruction 105
VIII. Remarks on the Plan of Instruction as a Whole 134
SECTION III. TRAINING
I. The Relation of Training to Government and to Instruction 140
II. The Aim of Training 143
III. Differentiation of Character 146
IV. Differentiation of Morality 151
V. Helps in Training 154
VI. General Method of Training 160
SECTION IV. SYNOPSIS OF GENERAL PEDAGOGICS FROM THE POINT
OF VIEW OF AGE
I. The First Three Years 198
II. The Ages from Four to Eight 201
III. Boyhood 209
IV. Youth 216
PART III
_SPECIAL APPLICATIONS OF PEDAGOGICS_
SECTION I. REMARKS ON THE TEACHINGS OF PARTICULAR BRANCHES
OF STUDY
I. Religion 219
II. History 223
III. Mathematics and Nature Study 241
IV. Geography 263
V. The Mother-tongue 269
VI. Greek and Latin 275
VII. Further Specification of Didactics 289
SECTION II. THE FAULTS OF PUPILS AND THEIR TREATMENT
I. General Differentiation 292
II. The Sources of Moral Weakness 301
III. The Effects of Training 308
IV. Special Faults 312
SECTION III. REMARKS ON THE ORGANIZATION OF EDUCATION
I. Home Education 317
II. Concerning Schools 321
OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL DOCTRINE
INTRODUCTION
1. The plasticity, or educability, of the pupil is the fundamental
postulate of pedagogics.
The concept plasticity, or capacity for being moulded, extends far
beyond the confines of pedagogics. It takes in even the primary
components of matter. It has been traced as far as the elementary
substances entering into the chemical changes of organic bodies. Signs
of plasticity of will are found in the souls of the higher animals.
Only man, however, exhibits plasticity of will in the direction of
moral conduct.
Had not the youthful mind the capacity to receive culture, education
would be impossible. This educability of the young has rarely if
ever been questioned in actual practice. Much philosophical strife,
however, has raged about the various conceptions of =WILL=, and
the consequent possibility of teaching virtue, or of training
the moral character. The extremes have been _fatalism_, or the
determination of conduct by means of forces lying entirely outside
the power of the individual; and _absolute caprice of will_, or the
determination of conduct entirely by the individual himself without
regard to outside influences. The doctrine of fatalism makes moral
education mechanical; that of volitional caprice makes it futile.
Educational theory must therefore assume a middle ground, in which
the self-activity of the individual and the moulding influence of
education are both recognized.
2. Pedagogics as a science is based on ethics and psychology. The
former points out the goal of education; the latter the way, the means,
and the obstacles.
This relationship involves the dependence of pedagogics on experience,
inasmuch as ethics includes application to experience, while psychology
has its starting-point, not in metaphysics alone, but in experience
correctly interpreted by metaphysics. But an exclusively empirical
knowledge of man will not suffice for pedagogics. It is the less
adequate in any age the greater the instability of morals, customs, and
opinions; for, as the new gains on the old, generalizations from former
observations cease to hold true.
In order to accept the statement that ethics points out the goal of
education, we must conceive of ethics in a broad way. At some periods
in the history of the world, the development of purely individual, or
subjective, character would have been thought a worthy and adequate
conception of the final purpose of education. Other-worldliness was
the ruling ideal. At present, however, we regard that man as most
fit for the world to come who best performs all his functions in the
world that now is. Ethics must therefore be conceived to embrace an
estimation of the value of a man’s conduct in every department of
life. Not only must it estimate the worth of pious feeling, but it
must embrace a consideration of every action in its relation to the
actor’s social, economic, and political environment. A man having
a praiseworthy character must be a good citizen of state, nation,
and community; he must be public-spirited, law-abiding, given to
honest dealing. Every child should be trained to be a useful member
of civilization as it now exists. Piety alone is insufficient; it
must be accompanied by honesty, industry, patriotism, public spirit.
Non-social, or purely individualistic, conceptions of character as
the goal of education must give way to those social ideals through
which alone the highest welfare of both individual and community
are to be conserved. Without such conceptions an industrial state,
such as now exists, becomes a human jungle in which men enter upon
a fiercer struggle than do the beasts of the real jungle. Social
coöperation is essential when we wish to transform a struggle of
mutual destruction into one of mutual helpfulness.
3. Philosophical systems, involving either fatalism or its opposite,
pure caprice of will, are logically shut out from pedagogics, because
the notion of plasticity, implying as it does a transition from the
indeterminate to the determinate, cannot by such systems be brought in
without inconsistency.
Common sense overcomes the logical difficulties of even the worst
systems. Herbart’s remark has, therefore, no practical significance.
The philosophy of Spinoza might easily be described by an opponent
as “fatalistic,” since it leaves no room for special providences in
the physical universe; yet Professor Paulsen, who holds substantially
to Spinoza’s view, is one of the most eminent promoters of the
theory of education in the university of Berlin. Herbart thought
Kant’s doctrine of transcendental will one of absolute volitional
caprice, yet the followers of Kant have been among the most energetic
promoters of mental and moral training. Herbart thinks he sees in
this remark a chance to put his philosophical opponents out of court,
to the benefit of his own system. If one philosopher develops a
system of “fatalism” and another one of “absolute free will,” the one
may be charged with making education impossible and the other with
making it futile. In either case, since we know that education is
neither impossible nor futile, the presumption is that both systems
are defective. This paragraph and others like it are mere indirect
methods of defending Herbart’s system of philosophy: they have no
real significance for the theory of education itself.
4. On the other hand, the assumption of unlimited plasticity is
equally inadmissible; it is for psychology to guard against this
error. The educability of the child is, to begin with, limited by his
individuality. Then, too, the possibility of determining and moulding
him at will through education is lessened by time and circumstances.
Lastly, the established character of the adult develops by an inner
process which in time passes beyond the reach of the educator.
5. Education seems thus to find a barrier, first, in the order of
nature, and later in the pupil’s own will. The difficulty is indeed
a real one, if the limitations of education are overlooked: hence
an apparent confirmation of fatalism as well as of the doctrine of
absolute free will.
Modern scientific evolutionary study of anthropology and history
tends to confirm the hasty thinker in the idea that the circumstances
of the environment completely determine the character and destiny
of men, since their debt to the moulding influences of society and
physical surroundings becomes more and more apparent; yet however
powerful the environment may prove to be in fixing the direction of
mental growth in the race, it cannot rightly be conceived as creating
the growing forces. All the sunshine and warmth in the world will
not cause a pebble to sprout; so no external influences whatever
can develop mind where there is none to develop. The exigencies
of Herbart’s metaphysics drove him into a crusade against Kant’s
doctrine of innate freedom, or transcendental will; all the freedom
that Herbart would admit was that psychological freedom which is
acquired through instruction and training. The quarrel belongs to
eighteenth-century metaphysics, not to modern psychology, nor to
education; for however potentially free an infant may be, nobody
thinks of making it responsible, except so far as growing experience
gives it insight and volitional strength.
=Note.=--Many thinkers fluctuate constantly between these two
erroneous extremes. When looking historically at mankind as
a whole, they arrive at fatalism, as does Gumplowicz in his
“Outlines of Sociology.” Teacher and pupil alike seem to them to
be in the current of a mighty stream, not swimming,--that is,
self-active,--which would be the correct view, but carried along
without wills of their own. They arrive, on the other hand, at the
idea of a perfectly free will, when they contemplate the individual
and see him resist external influences, the aims of the teacher
very often included. Here they fail to comprehend the nature of
will, and sacrifice the concept of natural law for that of will.
Young teachers can hardly avoid sharing this uncertainty, favored
as it is by the philosophies of the day; much is gained, however,
when they are able to observe fluctuations of their own views
without falling into either extreme.
6. The power of education must be neither over- nor under-estimated.
The educator should, indeed, try to see how much may be done; but
he must always expect that the outcome will warn him to confine his
attempts within reasonable bounds. In order not to neglect anything
essential, he needs to keep in view the practical bearings of the
whole theory of ideas; in order to understand and interpret correctly
the data furnished by observation of the child, the teacher must make
constant use of psychology.
7. In scientific study concepts are separated which in practice must
always be kept united. The work of education is continuous. With an
eye to every consideration at once, the educator must always endeavor
to connect what is to come with what has gone before. Hence a mode of
treatment which, following the several periods of school life, simply
enumerates the things to be done in sequence, is inadequate in a work
on pedagogics. In an appendix this method will serve to facilitate
a bird’s-eye view; the discussion of general principles, arranged
according to fundamental ideas, must needs precede. But our very first
task will necessarily consist in dealing, at least briefly, with the
ethical and the psychological basis of pedagogics.
PART I
_THE DOUBLE BASIS OF PEDAGOGICS_
CHAPTER I
=The Ethical Basis=
8. The term _virtue_ expresses the whole purpose of education. Virtue
is the idea of inner freedom which has developed into an abiding
actuality in an individual. Whence, as inner freedom is a relation
between insight and volition, a double task is at once set before the
teacher. It becomes his business to make actual each of these factors
separately, in order that later a permanent relationship may result.
Insight is conceived as the perception of what is right or wrong.
This perception is founded on the spontaneous, or intuitive, feeling
that arises in the mind when certain elementary will-relations are
presented to the intelligence. The unperverted mind has a natural
antipathy to strife, malevolence, injustice, selfishness; it has a
corresponding approval of harmony, good-will, justice, benevolence.
These feelings arise, naturally, only when the appropriate ideas are
present. Insight, therefore, is a state of feeling or disposition
arising from knowledge, or ideas.
When volition has come into permanent accord with educated insight,
virtue has been attained. Conscience approves every virtuous
act; it disapproves every deviation from virtue. Inner freedom,
therefore, is marked by approving conscience; lack of it, by accusing
conscience. The development of virtuous character is not so easy,
however, as might appear from these simple statements, for virtue
has a shifting, not to say a developing character. Elementary as the
fundamental ethical ideas may be when presented in the home or in
the kindergarten, they are not elementary when met with in modern
civilization. At times virtue has been of a military character, as
in Sparta and Rome; at other times it has been ecclesiastical, as in
the Middle Ages. At the present time, in addition to all that it has
ever been from a purely Christian character, it is civil, social,
industrial. Virtue in a modern city has a content quite different
from that in a pioneer mining camp. Furthermore, virtue is uneven in
its development. The race has, for instance, been trained long and
hard to respect unprotected property, so that we may fairly say such
respect has become instinctive; yet when unprotected property comes
into new relations to the individual, as in the case of borrowed
books, we may find only a rudimentary conscience. What scholar is not
a sufferer from this form of unripe virtue?
9. But even here at the outset we need to bear in mind the identity of
morality with the effort put forth to realize the permanent actuality
of the harmony between insight and volition. To induce the pupil to
make this effort is a difficult achievement; at all events, it becomes
possible only when the twofold training mentioned above is well
under way. It is easy enough, by a study of the example of others,
to cultivate theoretical acumen; the moral application to the pupil
himself, however, can be made, with hope of success, only in so far as
his inclinations and habits have taken a direction in keeping with his
insight. If such is not the case, there is danger lest the pupil, after
all, knowingly subordinate his correct theoretical judgment to mere
prudence. It is thus that evil in the strict sense originates.
It is helpful to give the pupil abundant opportunity to pass judgment
upon the moral quality of actions not his own. The best opportunities
are at first the most impersonal ones, for where the child himself is
immediately concerned, the quality of his judgment may be impaired
by intense personal feelings, such as fear of blame or punishment.
Literature furnishes the earliest and most copious examples; later,
history may be helpful, though there is great danger of taking
partial or mistaken views as to the moral quality of historical
deeds. A selection of literature is an artistic whole. All the
relations can be easily perceived, but any given historical event is
likely to be a small section of a whole too vast for the youthful
mind to comprehend. It is for this reason that caution is needed when
passing judgment upon historical facts.
To encourage the child to pass judgment in these impersonal cases
is to sharpen his natural perceptions of right and wrong, and
to influence his disposition favorably. One who has been led
to condemn cruelty to animals in this way is likely to be more
thoughtful himself, and less disposed wantonly to inflict pain. But
every resource of authority and persuasion, as well as appeal to
sensibility and conscience, must be employed to make virtuous action
habitual, and to prevent the generation of evil.
10. Of the remaining practical or ethical concepts, the idea of
perfection points to health of body and mind; it implies a high regard
for both, and their systematic cultivation.
Perfection here means _completeness of efficiency_, rather than
acquisition of holiness. An efficient will is strong, vigorous,
decided; it is self-consistent in the pursuit of leading purposes,
not vacillating or incoherent. Still, the idea of moral perfection is
not a remote one, for, in order to be thoroughly efficient, a will
must be in substantial accord with the ethical order of a rational
society. All its deviations from established law and custom will be
for their improvement, not for the destruction of what is good in
them.
11. The idea of good-will counsels the educator to ward off temptation
to ill-will as long as such temptation might prove dangerous. It is
essential, on the other hand, to imbue the pupil with a feeling of
respect for good-will.
Good-will is one of the three concrete virtues lying at the basis of
social order. It is both _passive_, as in _laissez faire_ attitudes
of mind, and _active_ as in thoroughgoing civic, business, and social
coöperation. School training must seek to impress the mind with
respect for the active rather than the passive type of good-will.
So, too, must it ward off the dangers both of passive and active
ill-will, as manifested, in covetousness, malice, malevolence, envy,
treachery, stinginess, cruelty, hard-heartedness. How these ends may
be attained, will be considered later.
12. The idea of justice demands that the pupil abstain from
contention. It demands, furthermore, reflection on strife, so that
respect for justice may strike deep root.
No idea appeals more strongly to the unperverted youthful mind than
that of justice or fair play; even the gentlest natures become
indignant at manifestations of injustice. The basis of the idea is,
in the thought of our author, our natural displeasure in contention
over that which, in the nature of the case, only one person can
have. Primarily, it concerns property rights, but secondarily it may
extend to other relations in which two or more wills are at issue.
Justice in the acquisition, possession, and disposition of wealth is
the theme of the greater part of every judicial system. The idea of
justice is the second of the three concrete moral virtues necessary
for civilized society.
13. The idea of equity is especially involved in cases where the pupil
has merited punishment as requital for the intentional infliction of
pain. Here the degree of punishment must be carefully ascertained and
acknowledged as just.
=Note.=--This kind of punishment should not be confounded with
educative punishment--so called, _i.e._, punishment through natural
consequences.
The third concrete moral idea is that of _equity_, or _requital_. It
arises when existing will-relations are altered either for good or
bad. The natural demand is that the requital shall be adequate to the
deed. Lack of requital for good deeds we call ingratitude, one of the
most hateful of human failings. In savagery and barbarism private
vengeance is the normal method of requiting injuries. Remnants of
this system still exist in the duel, and in the fierce vendettas of
some sparsely settled regions. Civilization demands that requital
for evil deeds shall be remanded to the executors of established
law. Only in this way is society saved from destructive broils. In
this respect, as in so many others, the school is the miniature of
the institutional world. The teacher is, to a considerable extent,
lawgiver, judge, and executive. Not a small part of his moral
influence upon his pupils depends upon the justice of his requitals
for violated law. Good-will, justice or rights, and requital are the
three fundamental concrete moral ideas upon which sound character,
both individual and national, is based. The remaining two are that
of inner freedom and that of efficiency. Though formal in character,
_i.e._, devoid of positive content, they are equally important with
the more concrete conceptions.
14. Where a number of pupils are assembled there arises, naturally,
on a small scale, a system of laws and rewards. This system, and the
demands which in the world at large spring from the same ideas, must be
brought into accord.
The school is a miniature world, to be regulated by the same system
of moral ideas as that which obtains in society. Compare 182, 310.
15. The concept of an administrative system has great significance for
pedagogics, since every pupil, whatever his rank or social status,
must be trained for coöperation in the social whole to fit him for
usefulness. This requirement may assume very many different forms.
16. Of the system of civilization only the aspect of general culture,
not that of special training, must be emphasized at this point.
=Note.=--The principles of practical philosophy which have just
been briefly indicated are at the same time the starting-points of
ethical insight for the pupils. If the resolve to direct the will
accordingly be added, and if the pupil obeys this resolve, such
obedience constitutes morality. Quite distinct from this is the
obedience yielded, be the motive fear or affection, to the person
of the teacher, so long as that higher obedience is not securely
established.
17. For the business of education, the idea of perfection, while it
does not rise into excessive prominence, stands out above all others
on account of its uninterrupted application. The teacher discovers in
the as yet undeveloped human being a force which requires his incessant
attention to intensify, to direct, and to concentrate.
=Note.=--The maxim _perfice te_ is neither so universal as Wolff
asserted, as though it were the sole fundamental principle
of ethics, nor so objectionable as Kant represents it to be.
Perfection, quantitatively regarded (_Vollkommenheit_--the state of
having _come_ to _fulness_), is the first urgent task wherever man
shows himself lower, smaller, weaker, more narrowly limited, than
he might be. Growth, in every sense of the word, is the natural
destiny of the child, and the primary condition of whatever else of
worth may be expected of him in later life. The principle _perfice
te_ was deprived of its true meaning by the attempt to define by
it the whole of virtue--a blunder, since no single practical idea
ever exhausts the contents of that term. Quite different is the
import of the next remark, which applies solely to the practice of
pedagogy.
18. The constant presence of the idea of perfection easily introduces
a false feature into moral education in the strict sense. The pupil
may get an erroneous impression as to the relative importance of the
lessons, practice, and performance demanded of him, and so be betrayed
into the belief that he is essentially perfect when these demands are
satisfied.
19. For this reason alone, if others were wanting, it is necessary to
combine moral education proper, which in everyday life lays stress
continually on correct self-determination, with religious training.
The notion that something really worthy has been achieved needs to be
tempered by humility. Conversely, religious education has need of the
moral also to forestall cant and hypocrisy, which are only too apt to
appear where morality has not already secured a firm foothold through
earnest self-questioning and self-criticism with a view to improvement.
Finally, inasmuch as moral training must be put off until after insight
and right habits have been acquired, religious education, too, should
not be begun too early; nor should it be needlessly delayed.
It is well known what obstacles confront the American teacher who
desires to give a religious basis to moral character. For a full
discussion of the subject viewed from numerous standpoints, the
reader is referred to “Principles of Religious Education,” Longmans,
Green & Co., New York, 1900. This book is a series of lectures by
prominent school men and others.
CHAPTER II
=The Psychological Basis=
20. It is an error, indeed, to look upon the human soul as an aggregate
of all sorts of faculties; but this error only becomes worse when, as
is usually done, the statement is added that faculties are after all
at bottom one and the same active principle. The traditional terms
should rather be employed to distinguish mental phenomena that present
themselves to experience as successively predominant. In this way we
get the leading features of soul-life, which reminds us sufficiently of
psychology for our immediate purpose.
21. The stage of predominant sense-activity is followed by that of
memory in the sense of exact reproduction of series of percepts
previously formed. Traces of higher activities are as yet absent. The
only thing to be noted is that the series, unless rendered long by
frequent repetition, are generally short; necessarily so, since while
forming they are exposed to continual disturbances caused by great
sensitiveness to new impressions.
22. Even very young children betray at play and in speech that form of
self-activity ascribed to imagination.
The most insignificant toys, provided they are movable, occasion
changes and combinations of percepts, attended even with strong
emotion, that astonish the mature observer, and perhaps excite anxiety
lest some of these motley fancies should become fixed ideas. No evil
after effects are to be feared, however, so long as the emotional
excitement does not threaten health, and passes over quickly. A strong
play impulse is, on the contrary, a promising sign, especially when it
manifests itself energetically, though late, in weak children.
23. Soon there follows a time when the observation of external objects
prompts the child to ask innumerable questions. Here that activity
which is called power of judgment begins to stir in conjunction
with reasoning. The child now strives to subsume what is new under
conceptions already in his mind, and to affix their symbols, the
familiar words. He is still far, withal, from being able to follow an
abstract train of thought, to employ periodic sentences, and to conduct
himself rationally throughout. The slightest occasions will prove him
a child still.
24. In the meantime, the child manifests, besides the physical feelings
of pleasure and pain, affection for one person and aversion to another;
furthermore, a seemingly strong will, together with a violent spirit
of contradiction, unless this is suppressed in time.
25. On the other hand, the ethical judgment as a rule shows itself at
first very seldom and transiently--a foreshadowing of the difficulty
of securing for it later, in spite of obstinacy and selfishness, the
function of control, on which control depend both morality and the
higher sense of art.
26. The boy asks fewer questions, but tries all the more to handle
and shape things. He is gaining knowledge by himself and acquiring
dexterity. Gradually his respect for his elders increases; he fears
their censure and stands in awe of their superiority. At the same time
he attaches himself more closely to other boys of the same age. From
now on it becomes more difficult to observe him. The teacher who has no
previous knowledge of boys who have reached this age, may long deceive
himself in regard to them and will seldom obtain complete frankness.
This reserve is indicative of more or less self-determination, which is
commonly attributed to pure reason.
27. The names for the mental faculties acquire renewed importance with
the beginning of systematic instruction. Their import, however, shows a
marked difference. Now memory is relied on for the acquisition, without
additions or omissions, of prescribed series, the order being fixed
or not, as the case may be; usually there is a slight connection with
older ideas. Imagination is called for to lay hold of the objects
of distant lands and ages. The understanding is expected to derive
general notions from a limited number of particulars, to name and to
connect them. The development of the ethical judgment teachers rarely
wait for; obedience to commands is demanded. Obedience of this kind
depends chiefly on the ease with which antecedent ideas are revived and
connected in response to, but not beyond, a given stimulus. In extreme
cases the fear of punishment effectively takes the place of all other
motives. But often not even the usual memory-work can be successfully
exacted through fear, much less obedience without oversight.
28. Many pupils reveal a curious contrast. In their own sphere they
display a good memory, a lively imagination, keen understanding; by the
teacher they are credited with little of all these. They rule perhaps
over their playmates because of their superior intelligence, or possess
at least the respect of the latter, while in their classes they show
only incapacity. Such experiences suggest the difficulty of making
instruction take proper hold of the inner growth of the pupil. It is
evident, at the same time, that what is customarily ascribed to the
action of the various mental faculties takes place in certain groups of
ideas.
29. The grown man has one group of ideas for his church, another for
his work at home, a third for society, and so on. These groups, though
partially interacting and mutually determinant, are far from being
connected at every point. This is true as early as boyhood. The boy
has one set of ideas for his school, another for the family circle,
still another for the playground, etc. This fact explains better than
intentional reserve the observation that a boy is one being at home or
at school and quite another among strangers.
30. Each body of ideas is made up of complications of ideas, which, if
the union is perfect, come and go in consciousness as undivided wholes,
and of series, together with their interlacings, whose members unfold
successively, one by one, provided they are not checked. The closer the
union of parts within these complications and series, the more absolute
the laws according to which ideas act in consciousness, the stronger
is the resistance against everything opposing their movement; hence
the difficulty of acting upon them through instruction. They admit,
however, of additions and recombinations, and so may in the course of
time undergo essential changes; up to a certain point they even change
of themselves if repeatedly called into consciousness by dissimilar
occasions, _e.g._, by the frequent delivery of the same lecture before
different audiences.
The general notions of things are complexes or complications of their
attributes. Other examples of complexes important to instruction are
furnished by logical concepts and words. But since words of several
languages may be perfectly complicated or bound together with the
same concept, without being just as intimately connected with one
another, it should be noted that when the object or concept comes up at
different times, it will be joined now with this and next with another
language. Yet the repeated perception of the object is not quite the
same perception as before, although earlier ideas mostly coalesce so
fully with later homogeneous ideas that the difference makes itself
felt but little.
31. The inner structure of groups of ideas becomes discernible in a
measure when thoughts are bodied forth in speech. Its most general
aspect is disclosed in the construction of a period. Conjunctions
particularly are important in that they, without denoting a content
of their own, serve as hints to the listener. They point out to him
the connection, the antitheses, the positiveness, or the uncertainty
of the speaker’s utterances; for the meanings of conjunctions can be
traced back to the series-form, to negation and certitude. It should
be noted that want and refusal are related to negation; expectation,
together with hope and fear, to uncertainty, so that the consideration
of thought masses must also include emotional states. Children possess
the structure of thought just as they experience the emotional states,
long before they know how to embody the same in words with the help
of conjunctions. Certain conjunctions, such as, to be sure, although,
on the contrary, either--or, neither--nor, etc., are not adopted by
children until late.
32. Of equal importance with the inner organization of the pupil’s
ideas are, for the teacher, the degree of ease or difficulty with which
a given mass of ideas is called into consciousness, and its relatively
long or brief persistence in consciousness. Here we are face to face
with the conditions of efficient instruction and training. The most
necessary statements relative to this subject will be made under the
head of interest and character-building.
33. The capacity for education, therefore, is determined not by the
relationship in which various originally distinct mental faculties
stand to one another, but by the relations of ideas already acquired to
one another, and to the physical organism. Every pupil must be studied
with reference to both.
=Note.=--In the minds of those whose early training has been in
the hands of several persons, whose early life has, perhaps, even
been spent in different households or has been tossed about by
changes of fortune, there are usually formed thought masses that
are heterogeneous and poorly correlated. Nor is it easy to win the
single-hearted devotion of such boys. They cherish secret wishes,
they feel contrasts, the nature of which it is difficult to get at,
and soon strike out in directions which education can frequently
not encourage. Far more susceptible of educative influences are
pupils that have been, for a long time, under the guidance of only
one person,--of the mother especially,--who has had their full
confidence. It now remains to base their further training on what
already exists and to refrain from demanding sudden leaps.
34. Now, in order to gain an adequate knowledge of each pupil’s
capacity for education, observation is necessary--observation both of
his thought masses and of his physical nature. The study of the latter
includes that of temperament, especially with reference to emotional
susceptibility. With some, fear is the first natural impulse, with
others, anger; some laugh and cry easily, others do not. In some cases
a very slight stimulus suffices to excite the vascular system. We need
to note furthermore:--
(1) The games of pupils. Do they in a thoroughly childlike manner still
play with any object that comes to hand? Do they intentionally change
their games to suit a varying preference? Can distinct objects of
persistent desire be discovered?
(2) Their mental capacity and processes as shown in their studies. Is
the pupil able to grasp long or only short series? Does he make many or
few slips in the recitation? Do his lessons find a spontaneous echo in
his play?
(3) Their depth and consistency. Are their utterances superficial, or
do they come from the depths of the soul? A comparative study of words
and actions will gradually answer this question.
Such observations will take account also of the rhythm of the pupil’s
mental life as well as of the character of his store of thoughts. The
insight thus obtained determines the matter and method of instruction.
The reader will not fail to notice that much of modern child study
is anticipated in the foregoing paragraphs. Further important
contributions to the same subject are made in paragraphs 294–329.
35. Instruction in the sense of mere information-giving contains no
guarantee whatever that it will materially counteract faults and
influence existing groups of ideas that are independent of the imparted
information. But it is these ideas that education must reach; for the
kind and extent of assistance that instruction may render to conduct
depend upon the hold it has upon them.
Facts, at least, must serve as material for methodical treatment,
otherwise they do not enlarge even the scope of mental activity. They
rise in value when they become instinct with life and acquire mobility
so as to enrich the imagination. But their ethical effect always
remains questionable so long as they do not help to correct or modify
the ethical judgment, or desire and action, or both.
This point calls for a few additional distinctions. Generally speaking,
rudeness decreases in proportion to the expansion of the mental horizon
by instruction. The mere diffusion of desires over the enlarged
thought area causes them to lose something of their one-sided energy.
Moreover, if instruction presents ethical subjects of some kind in
a comprehensible way, the pupil’s disposition undergoes a refining
process so that it at least approximates a correct estimate of the
will, that is, the creation of ethical ideas.
Such favorable results are, however, apt to be outweighed by the harm
done when mere knowledge becomes the chief aim of ambition.
36. In order that instruction may act on the pupil’s ideas and
disposition, every avenue of approach should be thrown open. The mere
fact that we can never know with certainty, beforehand, what will
influence the pupil most, warns us against one-sidedness of instruction.
Ideas spring from two main sources,--experience and social intercourse.
Knowledge of nature--incomplete and crude--is derived from the former;
the later furnishes the sentiments entertained toward our fellow-men,
which, far from being praiseworthy, are on the contrary often very
reprehensible. To improve these is the more urgent task; but neither
ought we to neglect the knowledge of nature. If we do, we may expect
error, fantastical notions, and eccentricities of every description.
37. Hence, we have two main branches of instruction,--the historical
and the scientific. The former embraces not only history proper, but
language study as well; the latter includes, besides natural science,
mathematics.
“Historical” must be interpreted to include all human sciences,
such as history, literature, languages, æsthetics, and political,
economic, and social science. “Scientific” may include applied
as well as pure science, and then we add all forms of industrial
training to the curriculum. Other divisions of the subject-matter
of instruction are often helpful. Thus one may speak of the human
sciences, the natural sciences, and the economic sciences. The
economic sciences include those activities where man and nature
interact. Dr. Wm. T. Harris speaks of five coördinate groups of
subjects, corresponding to what he calls the “five windows of the
soul.”
38. Other reasons aside, the need alone of counteracting selfishness
renders it necessary for every school that undertakes the education of
the whole man to place human conditions and relations in the foreground
of instruction. This humanistic aim should underlie the studies of the
historical subjects, and only with reference to this aim may they be
allowed to preponderate.
An interesting attempt to realize the aim here demanded is found in
Professor John Dewey’s “School and Society,”[1] which is in effect a
description of what he is working out in his practice or experimental
school in connection with his department in the University of Chicago.
“If the aim of historical instruction is to enable the child to
appreciate the values of social life, to see in imagination the
forces which favor and let men’s effective coöperations with one
another, to understand the sorts of character that help on and that
hold back, the essential thing in its presentation is to make it
moving, dynamic. History must be presented not as an accumulation
of results or effects, a mere statement of what has happened, but
as a forceful, acting thing. The motives, that is, the motors, must
stand out. To study history is not to amass information, but to use
information in constructing a vivid picture of how and why men did
thus and so: achieved their successes and came to their failures.”[2]
=Note.=--This view does not shut out the other held in regard to
Gymnasia, namely, that their business is to preserve and perpetuate
a knowledge of classical antiquity; the latter aim must be made
congruent with the former.
[1] Dewey, “The School and Society,” University of Chicago Press, 1899.
[2] Dewey, “The Aim of History in Elementary Education,” Elementary
School Record, No. 8, University of Chicago Press, 1900.
39. Mathematical studies, from elementary arithmetic to higher
mathematics, are to be linked to the pupil’s knowledge of nature,
and so to his experience, in order to gain admission into his sphere
of thought. Instruction in mathematics, however thorough, fails
pedagogically when the ideas generated form an isolated group. They are
usually soon forgotten, or, if retained, contribute but little toward
personal worth.
It may be added that the leading practical motive in the teaching of
arithmetic has been economic, the cost of things forming the chief
reliance for problems. Only those parts of nature study that involve
important quantitative relations are fitted for correlation with
mathematics. Biology, for instance, which is _qualitative_, since it
deals with life, is a poor support for mathematics; but physics is a
good one.
40. In general, it will always remain a matter of uncertainty whether
and how instruction will be received and mentally elaborated. To
diminish this uncertainty, if for no other reasons, there is need of
constant endeavor to put the pupil in a frame of mind suitable for
instruction. This task falls within the province of training.
41. But even apart from reference to instruction, training must seek
to ward off violent desires and to prevent the injurious outbursts of
emotion. We may grant that after the days of school life are over,
individual traits will always break forth again in this respect; but
experiences, too, follow, and in connection with these the after-effect
of education comes to light in proportion as education has been more
or less successful. It shows itself in the nature and the amount
of self-knowledge through which the adult strives to restrain his
native faults. Seeming exceptions are in most cases accounted for by
impressions produced in very early youth and long concealed.
As soon as a person attains freedom of action, he usually endeavors
to achieve the life which in his earlier years seemed most desirable.
Hence training and instruction have each to be directed against the
springing up of illusive longings and toward a true picture of the
blessings and burdens of various social classes and professions.
What modifications of individuality training may accomplish, is brought
about less by restrictions, which cannot be permanent, than by inducing
an early development of the higher impulses whereby they attain
predominance.
42. The larger portion of the restrictions necessary during the
period of education falls under another head, that of government. The
question of completeness of education aside, children no less than
adults need to experience the constraint imposed on every one by human
society: they, too, must be kept within bounds. This function the
state delegates to the family, to guardians, and to the schools. Now
the purpose of government refers to present order; that of training to
the future character of the adult. The underlying points of view are
accordingly so different that a distinction must necessarily be made in
a system of pedagogics between training and government.
43. In matters of government, too, much depends on how keenly its
disciplinary measures are felt. Only good training can insure the right
kind of sensibility. A gentle rebuke may prove more effective than
blows. The first thing to do, of course, when unruly children create
disorder, is to govern, to restore order; but government and training
should, if possible, go together. The distinction between these two
concepts serves to aid the reflection of the teacher, who ought to know
what he is about, rather than to suggest a perceptible separation in
practice.
44. In the following pages, general pedagogics, which is followed
necessarily by observations of a more special nature, will be
discussed under the three main heads,--government, instruction,
training. What needs to be said concerning government as the primary
condition of education will be disposed of first. Next comes the theory
of instruction and didactics. The last place is reserved for training;
for an enduring effect could not be expected from it, if it were
severed from instruction. For this reason the teacher must always keep
the latter in view when he fixes his attention on methods of training,
which in actual practice always work hand in hand with instruction. The
other customary form of treatment, that according to age, while not
adapted to the exposition of principles, finds its proper place in the
chapter leading over to the discussion of special topics.
PART II
_OUTLINES OF GENERAL PEDAGOGICS_
SECTION I
GOVERNMENT OF CHILDREN
CHAPTER I
=Theoretical Aspects=
45. We assume at the outset the existence of all the care and nurture
requisite for physical growth and well-being; a bringing up that shall
be as free from pampering as from dangerous hardening. There must be
no actual want to lead a child astray, nor undue indulgence to create
unnecessary demands. How much hardening it is safe to risk will depend
in each case on the child’s constitution.
46. The foundation of government consists in keeping children employed.
No account is taken as yet of the prospective gain to mental culture;
the time is to be fully occupied, at all events, even if the immediate
purpose be merely the avoidance of disorder. This purpose, however,
involves the requirement of ample provision, according to the ages of
pupils, for the need of physical activity, that the cause of natural
restlessness may be removed. This need is more urgent with some
than with others; there are children that seem ungovernable because
compelled to sit still.
47. Other things being equal, self-chosen occupations deserve the
preference; but it rarely happens that children know how to keep
themselves busy sufficiently and continuously. Specific tasks, not to
be abandoned until completed, assure order much better than random
playing, which is apt to end in ennui. It is desirable that adults
possessing the requisite patience assist children, if not always, at
least frequently, in their games; that they explain pictures, tell
stories, have them retold, etc. With advancing maturity, a steadily
increasing proportion of the occupations assumes the character of
instruction or of exercises growing out of it; this work should be
properly balanced by recreations.
48. Next in order comes supervision, and with it numerous commands and
prohibitions. Under this head several things must be considered.
In the first place this: Whether under certain circumstances one might
withdraw a command or permit what has once been forbidden. It is
ill-advised to give an order more sweeping than the execution is meant
to be; and it weakens government to yield to the entreaties, the tears,
or, worse still, the impetuous insistence of children.
Also this question: Whether it is possible to make sure of obedience.
Where children are not kept busy and are left without oversight, the
issue becomes doubtful.
The difficulty grows at a rapid rate with an increase in numbers. This
is true especially of larger educational institutions, but, on account
of the coming and going of pupils, applies in a measure also to common
day schools.
49. The usual solution is greater strictness of supervision. But this
involves the risk of utter failure to receive voluntary obedience, and
of inciting a match game in shrewdness.
As to voluntary obedience, much depends on the ratio of restraint to
the freedom that still remains. Ordinarily, youth submits readily
enough to many restrictions, provided such restrictions bear upon
specific fixed points, and leave elbow room for independent action.
In the work of supervision the teacher will find it hard to rely on
himself entirely, particularly if he has charge of classes only at
stated times. Others must assist him; he himself will have to resort
occasionally to surprises. Supervision is always an evil when coupled
with unnecessary distrust. It is essential, therefore, to make those
who do not merit distrust understand that the measures adopted are not
directed against them.
CHAPTER II
=Practical Aspects=
50. Since supervision is not to be vigorous to the point of ever felt
pressure, child government, to be effective, requires both gentle
and severe measures. In general, this effectiveness results from the
natural superiority of the adult, a fact of which teachers sometimes
need to be reminded. Whatever the plan of supervision, there must be
coupled with it an adequate mode of disciplinary procedure. A record
should be kept in schools, not for the law-abiding pupils, but for
those guilty of repeated acts of disobedience. These remarks do not
thus far include any reference to marks and records pertaining to
education proper; they are confined to what is popularly, but loosely,
called discipline, that is, the training of pupils to conform to the
system of order that obtains in the school.
Home training seldom requires such bookkeeping; but even here it may
at times be useful. Of course, the individual child knows in any case
that some one is keeping an eye on his actions, but the fact becomes
more deeply impressed upon his memory if the reproofs incurred by him
are recorded.
51. It would be in vain to attempt to banish entirely the corporal
punishments usually administered after fruitless reprimands; but use
should be made of them so sparingly that they be feared rather than
actually inflicted.
Recollection of the rod does not hurt a boy. Nor is there any harm in
his present conviction that a flogging is henceforth as much beyond
the range of possibility as his meriting such treatment. But it would,
no doubt, be injurious to actually violate his self-respect by a blow,
however little he might mind the physical pain. And pernicious in the
highest degree, although, nevertheless, not quite obsolete yet, is the
practice of continuing to beat children already hardened to blows.
Brutish insensibility is the consequence, and the hope is almost vain
that even a long period of now unavoidable indulgence will restore a
normal state of feeling.
There is less objection to making use, for a few hours, of hunger as
a corrective. Here only an act of deprivation takes place, not one
involving a direct insult.
Curtailment of freedom is the most commonly employed form of
punishment; justly so, provided it be properly adjusted to the offence.
Moreover, it admits of the most varied gradations from standing in a
corner to confinement in a dark room, perhaps even with hands tied
together behind the back. Only, for several serious reasons, this
punishment must not be of long duration. A whole hour is more than
enough unless there is careful supervision. Besides, the place must be
chosen judiciously.
Solitary confinement, especially in a dark room, is seldom if ever
resorted to in American public schools. For remarks upon the social
basis of modern school punishments, see 55.
52. Corrections of such severity, as removal from home or expulsion
from an institution, are to be administered only in extreme cases; for
what is to become of the expelled pupil? A burden to another school?
And in case the transfer implies the same freedom, the old disorderly
conduct will usually be resumed. Such pupils must, therefore, be placed
under very strict supervision and given new occupations. We must trust
to the new environment to obliterate gradually the old vitiated circle
of thought.
53. It is a well-known fact that authority and love are surer means
of securing order than harsh measures are. But authority cannot be
created by every one at will. It implies obvious superiority in mind,
in knowledge, in physique, in external circumstances. Love can, indeed,
be gained in the course of time by a complaisant manner--the love of
well-disposed pupils; but just where government becomes most necessary,
complaisance has to cease. Love must not be purchased at the expense
of weak indulgence; it is of value only when united with the necessary
severity.
54. In early childhood and with healthy children, government is, on
the whole, easy. It continues to be easy after they have once formed
habits of obedience. But it should not be interrupted. Even if children
have been left to themselves or in charge of strangers only a few days,
the change is noticeable. It requires an effort to tighten the reins
again--something not to be done too suddenly.
Where boys have been allowed to run wild, the attempt to bring them
back to orderly conduct reveals the differences of individuality. Some
are easily made to return to appropriate work by kindness combined with
a moderate measure of forbearance, others have sense enough to fear
threats and to avoid penalties; but we may unfortunately also expect to
find a few whose sole thought is to escape from supervision, however
unpleasant for them the consequences may be.
Where home ties are wanting, this spirit may develop even during
boyhood with ominous rapidity; during adolescence the difficulty of
checking it may grow to be insuperable.
55. As a rule, it is reasonable to assume that youth will try to break
through restraints as soon as these are felt. A sufficient amount of
satisfying activity, together with uniform firmness of the lines of
restraint, will, indeed, soon put an end to persistent attempts of
this kind; yet they will be repeated from time to time. As boys grow
older there is a change of pursuits; now the restraining boundaries
must gradually be enlarged. The question now is whether education has
progressed sufficiently far to make government less indispensable.
Moreover, the choice of work comes to be determined by the prospects
opening before the young man, according to his rank and means, together
with his native capabilities and acquired knowledge. To encourage
such pursuits as being appropriate for him, and, on the other hand,
to reduce mere hobbies and diversions to harmless proportions, still
remains the function of government. In any case government should not
be wholly surrendered too early, least of all when the environment is
such as to justify apprehension of temptation.
Though American teachers are perhaps not accustomed to emphasize the
distinction between government for order and training for character,
the difference, nevertheless, exists, often in an exaggerated form.
Just as fever is looked upon as the measure of functional disturbance
in the body, so disorder in the schoolroom is looked upon as the
measure of the teacher’s failure. As fever is the universal symptom
of disease, so disorder is the index of failure. The diagnosis may
err in either case as to what the seat of the difficulty really is,
but that something is wrong is plain to all. The fact that the public
usually gauge a teacher’s efficiency by the order he keeps has led
in the past to an exaggerated emphasis upon school discipline. The
means for securing good order have greatly changed since Herbart’s
time. A growing sense of social solidarity in the community, together
with the all but universal employment of women as teachers in the
elementary grades, has transferred the basis of discipline from
the teacher to the community. It is social pressure in and out of
the school that is the main reliance for regularity, punctuality,
and order. Herbart wonders what will become of the bad boy if he is
expelled. The modern answer is, he will be sent to the reform school
or to the truant school. The teacher still stands as of old at the
point of contact between the institution and the individual; nor can
he entirely escape the heat generated at times by such contact, but,
after all, it is society that now supplies the pressure formerly
exerted by will and birch. The teacher is now more of a mediator
between the pupil and the organized community, than an avenger of
broken law.
SECTION II
INSTRUCTION
CHAPTER I
=The Relation of Instruction to Government and Training=
56. Instruction furnishes a part of those occupations which lie at the
basis of government; how large a part depends on circumstances.
Children must be kept employed at all events, because idleness leads to
misbehavior and lawlessness. Now if the employment consists of useful
labor, say in the workshop or on the farm, so much the better. Better
still, if the work teaches the child something that will contribute
to his further education. But not all employment is instruction; and
in cases where the mere government of children is a difficult matter,
lessons are not always the most adequate employment. Many a growing boy
will be taught orderly conduct much sooner when placed with a mechanic
or merchant or farmer than in school. The scope of government is wider
than that of instruction.
Teachers of manual training everywhere testify to the quieting effect
of directed physical labor upon stormy spirits. Even a truant school
or a school for incorrigibles becomes an attractive place to the
inmates when adequate provision is made for the exercise of the motor
powers. Most children can be controlled through mental occupation,
but there are some to whom motor activity is indispensable. That a
judicious apportionment of sensory and motor activity would favorably
affect the development of all children is not to be questioned.
57. Instruction and training have this in common, that each makes for
education and hence for the future, while government provides for the
present. A distinction should, however, be made here. Instruction is
far from being always educative or pedagogical. Where acquisition of
wealth and external success or strong personal preference supply the
motives for study, no heed is paid to the question: What will be the
gain or loss to character? One actuated by such motives sets out, such
as he is, to learn one thing or another, no matter whether for good or
bad or for indifferent ends; to him the best teacher is he who imparts
_tuto, cito, jucunde_, the proficiency desired. Instruction of this
kind is excluded from our discussion; we are concerned here only with
instruction that educates in the moral sense of the term.
58. Man’s worth does not, it is true, lie in his knowing, but in his
willing. But there is no such thing as an independent faculty of
will. Volition has its roots in thought; not, indeed, in the details
one knows, but certainly in the combinations and total effect of
the acquired ideas. The same reason, therefore, which in psychology
accounts for considering the formation of ideas first, and then desire
and volition, necessitates a corresponding order in pedagogics: first
the theory of instruction, then that of training.
=Note.=--Formerly, strange to say, no distinction was made between
government and training, although it is obvious that the immediate
present demands attention more urgently than does the future.
Still less was instruction given its true place. The greater or
smaller amount of knowledge, regarded as a matter of secondary
importance in comparison with personal culture, was taken up last.
The treatment of education as the development of character preceded
that of instruction, just as though the former could be realized
without the latter. During the last decades, however, a demand
has arisen for greater activity on the part of schools, primarily
the higher schools. Humanistic studies are to bestow humanity, or
culture. It has come to be understood that the human being is more
easily approached from the side of knowledge than from the side of
moral sentiments and disposition. Furthermore, examinations might
be set on the former, but not on the latter. Now the time for
instruction was found to be too limited--a want that the old Latin
schools had felt but little. This led to discussions as to the
relative amount due each branch of study. We shall treat chiefly
of the correlation of studies, for whatever remains isolated is of
little significance.
59. In educative teaching, the mental activity incited by it is all
important. This activity instruction is to increase, not to lessen; to
ennoble, not to debase.
=Note.=--A diminution of mental activity ensues, when, because
of much study and of sitting--especially at all sorts of written
work, often useless--physical growth is interfered with in a way
sooner or later to the injury of health. Hence the encouragement
given in recent years to gymnastic exercises, which may, however,
become too violent. Deterioration sets in when knowledge is
made subservient to ostentation and external advantages--the
objectionable feature of many public examinations. Schools ought
not to be called upon to display all they accomplish. By such
methods instruction not only works against its own true end, but
also conflicts with training, whose aim for the whole future of the
pupil is--_mens sana in corpore sano_.
60. If all mental activity were of only one kind, the subject-matter
of instruction would be of no consequence. But we need not go beyond
experience to see that the opposite is true, that there is a great
diversity of intellectual endowment. Yet while instruction must thus be
differentiated, it should not be made so special as to cultivate only
the more prominent gifts; otherwise the pupil’s less vigorous mental
functions would be wholly neglected and perhaps suppressed. Instruction
must rather be manifold, and its manifoldness being the same for many
pupils in so far as it may help to correct inequalities in mental
tendencies.
Not only is subject-matter to be varied on account of mental
diversity, but also for social reasons as well. For an enlargement of
this theme, see the annotation to paragraph 65.
61. What is to be taught and learned is, accordingly, not left for
caprice and conventionality to decide. In this respect instruction
differs in a striking manner from government, for which, if only
idleness is prevented, it hardly matters what work children are given
to do.
=Note.=--Children are sent to school from many homes simply because
they are in the way and their parents do not wish them to be idle.
The school is regarded as an institution whose chief function is to
govern, but which incidentally also imparts useful knowledge. Here
there is a lack of insight into the nature of true mental culture;
teachers, on the contrary, sometimes forget that they are giving
pupils work, and that work should not exceed reasonable limits.