=The Material of Instruction from Different Points of View=
95. Differences in point of view give rise to conflicting opinions
concerning not only the treatment, but also the choice of
subject-matter for instruction. If, now, first one opinion then another
wins predominance over the rest, the harmony of the purposes underlying
both learning and teaching is wanting. Not only that, but the pupils
suffer also directly through the lack of consistency where work is
begun on one plan and continued on another.
96. The teacher in charge of a given branch of study only too often
lays out his work without taking account of pedagogical considerations.
His specialty, he thinks, suffices to suggest a plan; the successive
steps in its organized content will, of course, be the proper sequence
for instruction to follow. In teaching a language, he insists that
pupils must master declensions and conjunctions in order that he
may read an author with them later. He expects them to understand
ordinary prose before he passes on to elucidate the finished style
of a poet, etc. In mathematics, he demands that pupils bring to the
subject perfect facility in common arithmetic; at a more advanced
stage they must be able to handle logarithms with ease before formulæ
requiring their use are reached, etc. In history, the first thing for
him to do is to erect a solid chronological framework to hold the
historical facts to be inserted afterward. For ancient history, he
presupposes a knowledge of ancient geography, etc. This same view which
derives the principle determining the sequence of studies from the
instruction-material itself, as though it had been unconditionally and
finally settled that such and such things _must_ be taught, asserts
itself on a larger scale in requirements for admission to higher
grades or schools. Children are to be able to read, write, and cipher
well before being allowed to enter the grammar school; promotions to
higher grades are to take place only when the goal set for the grade
immediately preceding has been reached. The good pupil, accordingly,
is one who fits into and willingly submits to these arrangements. The
natural consequence of all this is, that little heed is paid to the
condition of attention, namely, the gradual progress of interest.
97. But still another consequence ensues, occasioning a different
point of view. Pupils are commiserated on the ground that they are
overburdened. All sorts of doubts spring up as to the wisdom of
teaching the branches causing the trouble. Their future utility is
called in question. A host of instances is adduced of adults neglecting
and forgetting--forgetting without appreciable loss--that which it cost
them so much toil to learn. Of course, examples showing the opposite
to be true may also be cited, but that does not settle the question.
It cannot be denied that there are many, even among the educated, who
aspire to nothing higher than freedom from care by means of a lucrative
calling, or a life of social enjoyment, and who, accordingly, estimate
the value of their knowledge by this standard. Such a state of things
is not mended by a kind of instruction that awakens little interest,
and that in after years constitutes the dark side of reminiscences
connected with early youth.
98. What is urged in reply is, generally speaking, true: youth must be
kept busy; we cannot let children grow up wild. And their occupation
has to be serious and severe, for government (45–55) must not be weak.
But now, more than ever, doubt fastens on the choice of studies. Might
not more useful things be offered for employment?
If, by way of rejoinder, the ancient languages are commended as being
preëminently suited to give pupils diversity of work, this fact is
accounted for by the faulty methods pursued in teaching the other
subjects. With the proper method the same many-sided activity would
be called forth. For the modern languages especially, the claim is
made that they, too, are language studies involving reading, writing,
translating, and training in the forms of thought. To this argument
the unfortunate answer should not be returned, that the classical high
schools must retain their Latin and Greek because they are educating
future officials to whom the ancient languages are just as useful, nay,
indispensable, as the modern languages to other classes. For, if the
classical studies have once been degraded to the level of the useful
and necessary, the door is thrown open to those who go a step farther
still and demand to know of what use Hebrew is to the country parson,
and Greek to the practising jurist or physician.
99. Controversies like these have often been conducted as if the
_humaniora_ or humanistic studies were radically opposed to the
_realia_ and could not admit them to partnership. In reality, the
latter are at least as much a legitimate part of a complete education
as the former. The whole matter has been made worse by the practice
of some of the older generation of teachers who, in order to make the
prescribed studies more palatable, descended to all kinds of amusement
and play, instead of laying stress on abiding and growing interest. A
view that regards the end as a necessary evil to be rendered endurable
by means of sweetmeats, implies an utter confusion of ideas; and if
pupils are not given serious tasks to perform, they will not find out
what they are able to do.
We must, however, note in this connection that there are legitimate
occasions even for the sweetening of study, just as in medicine there
is a place for palliatives, notwithstanding the firm conviction
of the physician that remedies promising a radical cure deserve
the preference. Harmful and reprehensible as habitual playing with
a subject is when it usurps the place of serious and thorough
instruction, in cases where a task is not difficult, but seems so to
the pupil, it often becomes necessary to start him by a dexterous,
cheerful, almost playlike presentation of that which he is to imitate.
Superfluous prolixity and clumsiness, through the ennui alone that
they produce, cause failure in the easiest things. All this applies
especially to the teaching of younger children and to the first lessons
in a new subject, _e.g._, learning to read Greek, the beginning of
algebra, etc.
100. If, among the conflicting opinions referred to, there is any
vital point of controversy, it lies in the _a priori_ assumption that
certain subjects must be taught (96). Such an assumption educative
instruction cannot allow to be severed from the end aimed at: the
intellectual self-activity of the pupil. This, and not mere knowledge,
any more than utility, determines the point of view with regard to
the instruction-material. Experience and social intercourse are the
primary sources of the pupil’s ideas. It is with reference to these two
factors that we estimate strength or weakness in the ideas, and decide
what instruction may accomplish with comparative ease or difficulty,
at an earlier or at a later period. Good child literature turns to
these sources even while children are only just learning to read, and
gradually enlarges their range of thoughts. Not until this has been
done can the question of instruction in one or the other department of
knowledge claim consideration.
The term _educative instruction_ frequently occurs. It means,
primarily, instruction that has, in the broad sense, an ethical
bearing, or an influence upon character. It is based on the idea
that, not school discipline alone, but also school instruction in
the common branches should be of service to the child in moral and
especially in social growth. The studies help to reveal to him his
place and function in the world, they form his disposition toward men
and things, they give him insight into ethical relations. Instruction
that contains this element of moral training is therefore called
_educative instruction_ (_Erziehender Unterricht_).
101. The _realia_--natural history, geography, history--possess this
one unquestionable advantage, viz., easy association with experience
and intercourse. Partially, at least, the pupil’s spontaneous
ideas (71) may go out toward them. Properly used, collections of
plants, picture-books, maps, will contribute their share. In history,
the fondness of youth for stories is utilized. The fact that these
stories are partly taken from old books written in foreign languages,
and that these languages were once actually spoken, has often to be
mentioned in passing, before the study of these languages themselves is
taken up, nay, even after they have been begun.
It is useless to undertake a demonstration of the utility of the
_realia_. The young do not act for the sake of the more remote
ends. Pupils work when they feel they can do something; and this
consciousness of power to do must be created.
The remark that it is useless to undertake to demonstrate to the
young the ultimate utility of natural science studies leads naturally
to a distinction between interest in the studies as ultimate ends
and as immediate ends. It is suggested in this paragraph that pupils
are interested in showing their capacity to accomplish results.
It is very evident that one of the teacher’s chief anxieties must
be to awaken an interest in the studies as ends, not perhaps in
their final utility in life, but as fields in which useful work
can be done even in the immediate present. The chief category by
which to measure the pupil’s interest in the various activities
of the schoolroom is the quality of work that he can be taught to
accomplish. One need not go far to learn that children like those
studies best in which they can do the best work. This is true in
several respects. They are interested in the artistic perfection
of what they can accomplish, as in drawing, painting, writing, the
arrangement of arithmetical problems, so that the page presents a
neat appearance, and so that all the processes are plainly revealed
to the eye. They are interested in reading when they can call the
words with facility, with neatness, without stumbling, mispronouncing
or miscalling--when the tones of the voice are agreeable. The quality
of the work, however, which appeals perhaps most powerfully to the
children, is that of intellectual comprehension. In the reading class
it is a constant delight to discover the finer shades of meaning, to
express them with the voice, to detect in others any deviation from
the true thought. Reading in English is particularly susceptible
to this kind of treatment. For the English language being largely
devoid of inflections does not show through the form of the words
the finer distinctions of thought, but the mind must perceive these
from a text largely devoid of grammatical inflections. It is quite
possible, therefore, to read in such a manner as to miss all but the
most salient points of the matter presented. There is in reading an
intensive and an extensive magnitude. Our older method of teaching
reading was to devote the time to a few extracts from literary
masterpieces, which were exhausted by minute study. The more recent
tendency in elementary education is to neglect this side of reading
and to devote the time to the cursory reading, not of extracts, but
of whole masterpieces of literature. The danger of such a proceeding
is that the finer qualities of reading will be neglected for the
sake of quantitative mastery of a large amount of reading matter. A
middle course between the two would doubtless bring better results.
It would, on the one hand, secure an interest that attaches to
masterpieces as wholes, and, on the other, the literary appreciation
that comes from minute analysis both in thought and expression of the
finer distinctions of thought. In mathematical studies, the æsthetic
interest of form, or the active interest of actual performance of
problems, is not the sole or even the chief interest that should
be appealed to. But the pupil should feel that he is making a
progressive mastery of the principles of number. It is a pleasure to
apply a rule, to solve a problem neatly; but it is a still greater
pleasure to comprehend thoroughly the meaning of the rule, to grasp
and to feel its universality, so that although it is not worth while,
as Herbart suggests, to urge the ultimate function of mathematics
in the life of the world, it is quite worth while to set up those
immediate ends of interest such as appear in the activity of solving
problems, in the æsthetic appearance of the work upon paper or board
or slate, and in the comprehension of mathematical principles. These
ends are near at hand; they can be made to appeal to the pupil
through the quality of the work that the teacher demands of him.
The same is true in the natural sciences. Even though the ultimate
function of biology is an idea too remote or too complex for the
child to grasp with enthusiasm, the immediate mastery of a principle
in physics, or the discovery of a law of plant life, or of a fact in
chemistry, may be an end in which the pupil’s most intense interest
can be excited.
102. Geometry has other advantages of association, advantages we have
begun only recently to turn to account in earnest. Figures made of
wood or pasteboard, drawings, pegs, bars, flexible wires, strings, the
use of the ruler, of compasses, of the square, counted coins arranged
in long or short, in parallel or diverging series,--all these may be
offered to the eye _ad libitum_ and connected with other concrete
objects. They may be made the basis of systematic employment and
exercises, and this will be done more and more when the fact is once
grasped that concrete ideas possessing the _proper degree of strength_
constitute the surest foundation of a branch of instruction whose
success depends on the manner in which the pupil forms in his mind the
ideas of spatial relations. This is not grasped, of course, by those
who regard space once for all as a form of sense-perception common
to all minds alike. A careful study of the data of experience will
convince the practical educator that the opposite is true; for in this
respect individual differences are very marked. Pupils rarely hit upon
geometrical constructions unaided; the aptitude for drawing, that is,
for imitating the objects seen, is met with more often.
It is easy by abstraction to form arithmetical concepts out of the
apprehension of geometrical relations. To do so should not be regarded
as superfluous, not even when the pupil has already fully entered upon
his work in arithmetic.
103. To Germans the two ancient classical languages do not offer the
advantages of easy transition. On the other hand, the study of Latin,
even if only moderately advanced, prepares the soil for the most
indispensable modern foreign languages. Herein lies an argument against
beginning with French, as was often done formerly. The linking of
Latin to French will, moreover, hardly win the approval of students of
languages, since, not to mention other reasons, Gallicisms are a source
of no little danger to Latinity.
The ancient languages require long-continued labor. This fact alone
renders it advisable to begin them early. The strangeness of Latin for
Germans should not lead to the conclusion that the study of Latin
should be commenced late, but rather that during the earlier years of
boyhood it should be carried on slowly. The sounds of foreign languages
must be heard early, in order that the strangeness may wear off. Single
Latin words will be easily mastered even by a child. These may soon
be followed by short sentences consisting of two or three words. No
matter if they are forgotten again for a time. That which is said to
be forgotten is not on that account lost. The real difficulty lies in
the multitude of strange elements that accumulate in relatively long
sentences; it lies also in the many ways of connecting subordinate
clauses, in the qualifying insertions, in the order of words, and in
the structure of the period. Furthermore, we must not overlook the fact
that children are very slow to acquire the use of dependent clauses,
even in German; their speech for a long time consists merely of a
stringing together of the simplest sentences. The attempt to advance
them more rapidly in the syntactical forms of Latin than is possible in
their mother-tongue is a waste of time; and, besides, their inclination
to study is put to a very severe test.
Perhaps the most serious defect of secondary education in the United
States is its brevity. Languages are not begun until the pupil is
well on to fifteen years old. A reform most urgently needed in this
country is the extension of high school influence to the two grades
of the grammar school lying immediately below the high school. This
would enable pupils to begin foreign languages at about the age of
twelve, or two years later than they are now begun in Germany.
104. The foregoing remarks show plainly enough that in educative
instruction some subjects will be found a comparatively easy and sure
means of awakening intellectual activity, while others involve a more
strenuous effort, which, under certain circumstances, may end in
failure. The concrete studies are nearest to the pupil; mathematics
requires some apparatus to render it tangible and vivid; to get pupils
started properly in modern languages can be but a slow process. But
this difference is, after all, not fundamental enough, nor does it
affect the whole course of instruction sufficiently, to constitute a
serious pedagogical objection to the study of foreign languages, so
long as there is time to teach them. Their fruits mature later.