institutions. They knew better in Prussia, "a bleeding and lacerated
mass";[44] after Jena (1806), King Frederick William III and his
councilors, disciples of Kant, founded the University of Berlin, "to
supply the loss of territory by intellectual effort." Among the
universal poverty money was found for the Universities of Königsberg
and Breslau, and Bonn was founded in 1818. As a result of this policy,
carried on persistently and continuously by successive ministers,
aided by wise councilors, many of them the products of this policy,
such a state of things was brought about that not many years ago M.
Ferdinand Lot, one of the most distinguished educationists of France,
accorded to Germany "a supremacy in science comparable to the
supremacy of England at sea."
But this position has not been obtained merely by founding new
universities. To Germany we owe the perfecting of the methods of
teaching science.
I have shown that it was in Germany that we find the first organized
science teaching in schools. About the year 1825 that country made
another tremendous stride. Liebig demonstrated that science teaching,
to be of value, whether in the school or the university, must consist
to a greater or less extent in practical work, and the more the
better; that book work was next to useless.
Liebig, when appointed to Giessen, smarting still under the
difficulties he had had in learning chemistry without proper
appliances, induced the Darmstadt Government to build a chemical
laboratory in which the students could receive a thorough practical
training.
It will have been gathered from this reference to Liebig's system of
teaching chemistry that still another branch of applied science had
been created, which has since had a stupendous effect upon industry;
and while Liebig was working at Giessen, another important industry
was being created in England. I refer to the electric telegraph and
all its developments, foreshadowed by Galileo in his reference to the
"sympathy of magnetic needles."
Not only then in chemistry, but in all branches of science which can
be applied to the wants of man, the teaching must be practical--that
is, the student must experiment and observe for himself, and he must
himself seek new truths.
It was at last recognized that a student could no more learn science
effectively by seeing some one else perform an experiment than he
could learn to draw effectively by seeing some one else make a sketch.
Hence in the German universities the doctor's degree is based upon a
research.
Liebig's was the _fons et origo_ of all our laboratories--mechanical,
metallurgical, chemical, physical, geological, astronomical, and
biological.--_Nature._
[_To be continued._]
FOOTNOTES:
[33] An address delivered at the Royal College of Science on October
6, 1898.
[34] Greek Geometry from Thales to Euclid, p. 2. Allman.
[35] Inferno, canto iv, p. 130 _et seq._
[36] Subjects of Social Welfare, p. 206.
[37] History of the English People, vol. i, p. 198.
[38] See Histoire de l'Université de Paris. Crévier, 1791, _passim_.
[39] Enumerated in the following middle-age Latin verse:
"Lingua, tropus, ratio, numerus, tonus, angulus, astra."
[40] Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, by Rashdall, vol. ii,
p. 344.
[41] William Gilbert, of Colchester, on the Magnet. Mittelag, p. x.
[42] Novum Organum, vol. 1, p. 70. Fowler's edition, p. 255.
[43] Schools and Universities on the Continent, p. 291.
[44] University Education in England, France, and Germany, by Sir
Rowland Blennerhassett, p. 25.
SHOULD CHILDREN UNDER TEN LEARN TO READ AND WRITE?
BY PROF. G. T. W. PATRICK.
There are certain propositions about education so evidently true that
probably no parent or teacher would question them. For instance, the
best school is one in which the course of study is progressively
adapted to the mental development of the children. Again, certain
subjects are adapted to children of certain ages or stages of
development, and others are not. One would not recommend the study of
logic or of the calculus to the average child of ten, nor would the
teaching of English be wisely deferred until the age of fifteen.
Finally, if the courses of study in our present school system shall be
found to be arranged without regard to the order of mental
development, they will sooner or later be modified in accordance with
it.
Now the educational system in practice in the two or three hundred
thousand public schools in the United States is a somewhat definite
one, with a somewhat fixed order of studies through the different
years or grades. In a majority of the States children are admitted to
the schools at the age of six; in more than one third of the States
children of five are admitted. In a general way we may say that during
the first four years of school life the principal subjects occupying
the time of the children are reading, writing, and arithmetic. To be
more exact, we may cite, for instance, the city schools of
Chicago.[45] Exclusive of recesses and opening exercises, there are in
these schools thirteen hundred and fifty minutes of school work per
week. Of this time, in the first and second grades, six hundred and
seventy-five minutes are devoted to reading, seventy-five minutes to
writing, and two hundred and twenty-five minutes to mathematics.
Seventy-two per cent of the total time is therefore consumed by these
subjects. In the third grade the proportion is the same; in the fourth
grade it is somewhat more than fifty per cent. I have mentioned the
Chicago schools because this is one of those school systems where a
liberal introduction of other subjects, such as Nature study, physical
culture, singing, and oral English, has somewhat lessened the time
given to reading, writing, and arithmetic. Other cities, with few
exceptions, will be found to give more rather than less time to these
subjects. In the country schools, and indeed in a vast number of town
and city schools, practically all the time during these early years is
given to reading, writing, and arithmetic.
We must conclude, therefore, if our educational system is a rational
one, that reading, writing, and arithmetic are the subjects peculiarly
adapted to the mind of the child between the ages of five and ten. It
is worth while to inquire from the standpoint of child psychology
whether this be true. It should be observed, in the first place, that
the manner in which our educational system has grown up is no
guarantee that it rests upon a psychological basis. Our schools are
exceedingly conservative. Any innovations or radical changes are
resisted by the parents of the children even more strenuously than by
school boards, superintendents, and teachers. Notwithstanding numerous
and important minor improvements, the school system as a whole remains
unchanged. Our children of seven and eight years are learning to read
and write because our grandfathers were so doing at that age.
We can not here discuss the origin of our present school curriculum,
but, as explaining the prominence given to reading, writing, and
arithmetic, it is worthy of notice that originally the elementary
school existed to teach just these three subjects. The primitive
schoolmaster was not superior to the parents of the child, usually not
their equal, in anything except his knowledge of "letters." So the
child was sent to school for a short time to learn letters. It was not
at all the function of the school to _educate_ the child in all that
was necessary to fit him for the duties of life. Afterward, as the
scope of the school was enlarged, other subjects were added, and these
were put _after_ the original ones, and the schoolmaster, furthermore,
came rather to take the place of an educator than a mere teacher of
letters. It is conceivable, therefore, that the present accepted order
of studies in our elementary schools rests upon an accidental rather
than upon a psychological basis. It is true that modern educators have
expressly considered the subject of the order and correlation of
studies, as, for instance, in the case of the Committee of Fifteen,
and that, while recommending minor changes in the school curriculum,
they have not usually thought of questioning the position so long held
by reading, writing, and arithmetic. In the report of the committee
just referred to we find this expression: "The conclusion is reached
that learning to read and write should be the leading study of the
pupil in his first four years of school." But, again, it was not the
function of this committee to suggest sweeping changes, nor to raise
the inquiry whether the system itself rests upon a psychological
basis. Even if it did not rest upon such a basis, expressions like the
above would not be unnatural on the part of committees appointed by
bodies representing the system as a whole.
We may not, then, conclude _a priori_ that our system of primary
education is a sound one. There have indeed been other wholly
different systems giving excellent results in their time, as, for
instance, that of the ancient Greeks, where music and gymnastics, not
reading, writing, and arithmetic, were the principal subjects
occupying the time of the pupils.
Much attention has recently been given to the subjects of the
physiology and psychology of children. These studies have been
systematic, painstaking, and exact. It seems, indeed, to many people
improbable that anything very new or very remarkable should just at
this time be found out about children, and there have not been wanting
either prominent educators or psychologists who have given public
expression to warnings against the new "child study." But this, again,
is not conclusive, for students of history may recall that every
advance in science has met just such opposition--for instance,
bacteriology, organic evolution, chemistry, and astronomy.
Furthermore, when we reflect that scientific advance in this century
has ever been, and inevitably, from the simple to the complex, and,
further, that the brain of the child is the most complex thing in the
whole range of natural history which science will ever have to
attempt, it is not difficult to understand that scientific knowledge
of it with its pedagogical implications has not belonged, at any rate,
to the past. It will belong to the future, having, perhaps, its
beginnings in the present. An educational system which has not
reckoned with an accurate knowledge of the brain of the child may by
accident be a correct one, but until such reckoning is made we can not
be sure.
Our increasing knowledge of the child's mind, his muscular and nervous
system, and his special senses, points indubitably to the conclusion
that reading and writing are subjects which do not belong to the early
years of school life, but to a later period, and that other subjects
now studied later are better adapted to this early stage of
development. What is thus indicated of reading and writing may be
affirmed also of drawing and arithmetic. The reasons leading to this
conclusion can be only very briefly summarized here.
As regards reading, writing, and drawing, they involve, in the first
place, a high degree of motor specialization, which is not only
unnatural but dangerous for young children. Studies in motor ability
have shown that the order of muscular development is from the larger
and coarser to the finer and more delicate muscles. The movements of
the child are the large, free movements of the body, legs, and arms,
such as he exhibits in spontaneous play. The movements requiring fine
co-ordination, such as those of the fingers and the eyes, are the
movements of maturer life. If we reverse this order and compel the
child to hold his body, legs, and arms still, while he engages the
delicate muscles of the eyes and fingers with minute written or
printed symbols, we induce a nervous overtension, and incur the evils
incident to all violation of natural order. The increasing frequency
of nervous disorders among school children, particularly in the older
countries, is probably due in part to these circumstances. If we
consider the brain of the child of seven or eight years, our
conclusions are strengthened that he should not be engaged in reading
and writing. At this age the brain has attained almost its full
weight, and is therefore large in proportion to the body. Its
development is, however, very incomplete, particularly as regards its
associative elements--that is, the so-called association fibers and
apperception centers. Such a brain constantly produces and must expend
a large amount of nervous energy, which can not be used
centrally--that is, psychologically speaking--in comparison, analysis,
thought, reflection. It must flow out through the motor channels,
becoming muscular movement. The healthy child is therefore incessantly
active in waking hours, the action being of the vigorous kind
involving the larger members. Hence we can understand that, of all the
ways in which a young child may receive instruction, the method
through the printed book is pre-eminently the one ill fitted to him.
The evil of this method is aggravated by the fact that, before the
child can receive instruction through the book, a long time--several
years, in fact--is spent in the confining task of learning to read. It
comes about, therefore, that the child, at the very age when he should
be leading a free and expansive life, is obliged to fix his eyes upon
the narrow page of a book and decipher small printed symbols, in
themselves devoid of life and interest. With respect to writing and
learning to write the case is worse. A considerable amount of motor
specialization is involved in forming letters upon the blackboard, but
when the pencil and pen are used it becomes of an extreme kind. In the
whole life history of the man there are no movements requiring finer
co-ordination than those of writing with pencil or pen, yet our school
system requires these of the child of six or seven years, makes them,
indeed, a prominent part of elementary school life. In addition to the
motor specialization of reading and writing is the physical
confinement in the narrow seat and desk which is necessarily connected
with them. The child of six or seven has not reached the age when such
confinement is natural or safe.
The injuries which I have mentioned relate to the nervous system as a
whole. There are other injuries resulting from the reading habit in
young children which concern the eyes directly. So much has been said
and written lately about the increase of myopia and other defects of
the eye among school children, that I shall merely refer to this
subject here. Upon entering school, children are practically free from
these defects. Upon leaving school, a strikingly large percentage are
suffering from them, more, however, as yet, in European countries than
in America. The causes are many, but it is scarcely doubted that the
chief cause is found in bending over finely printed books and maps,
and fine writing, pencil work, and drawing. If pencils, pens, paper,
and books could be kept away from children until they are at least ten
years of age, and their instruction come directly from objects and
from the voice of the teacher, this evil could be greatly lessened.
If the above reasons for not teaching reading and writing to young
children were the only ones, the objections could to a certain extent
be overcome. Writing might, for instance, be practiced only on the
blackboard with large free-hand movements, and letters could be taught
from large forms upon charts. But we have to consider the questions
whether reading and writing are in themselves branches of instruction
which belong to the early years of school life, whether they may not
be acquired at a great disadvantage at this period, and whether more
time is not spent upon them than is necessary. It is a well-known
fact that a child's powers, whether physical or mental, ripen in a
certain rather definite order. There is, for instance, a certain time
in the life of the infant when the motor mechanism of the legs ripens,
before which the child can not be taught to walk, while after that
time he can not be kept from walking. Again, at the age of seven, for
instance, there is a mental readiness for some things and an
unreadiness for others. The brain is then very impressionable and
retentive, and a store of useful material, both motor and sensory, may
be permanently acquired with great economy of effort. The imagination
is active, and the child loves to listen to narration, whether
historical or mythical, which plays without effort of his will upon
his relatively small store of memory images. The powers of analysis,
comparison, and abstraction are little developed, and the child has
only a limited ability to detect mathematical or logical relations.
The power of voluntary attention is slight, and can be exerted for
only a short time. All this may be stated physiologically by saying
that the brain activity is sensory and motor, but not central. The
sensory and motor mechanism has ripened, but not the associative. The
brain is hardly more than a receiving, recording, and reacting
apparatus. It would be inaccurate, however, to express this
psychologically by saying that perception, memory, and will are the
mental powers that have ripened at the age of seven. This would be
true only if by perception we mean not apperception, which involves a
considerable development of associative readiness, but mere passive
apprehension through the senses, and if by memory we mean not
recollection, but mere retentiveness for that which interests, and if
by will we mean not volition, but only spontaneous movement and
readiness to form habits of action, including a large number of
instinctive movement psychoses, such as imitation, play, and language
in its spoken form.
Following out, then, somewhat as above, the psychology of the child,
what kind of education would be particularly adapted to his stage of
development? We ask not what _can_ the child be taught, but what
studies are for him most natural and therefore most economical. In the
first place, from the development of the senses and the perceptive
power above described, we infer that the child is ready to acquire a
knowledge of the world of objects around him through the senses of
sight, hearing, touch, temperature, taste, and smell. His education
will have to do with real things and their qualities, rather than with
symbols which stand for things. If we wish a general term for this
branch of instruction, we may call it natural science, or, to
distinguish it from science in its more mature form as the study of
laws and causes, we may call it natural history, or, more briefly,
Nature study. Although the appropriateness and economy of this study
for young children has been known and proclaimed for more than a
century, it is still in practice the study of later years, while young
children study _letters_.
In the second place, from the development of the retentive powers of
the child we infer that he is qualified to gain acquaintance not only
with the real world around him, but with the real world of the past.
We may call this history. History is now studied later by means of
text-books. It may be studied with far greater economy during earlier
years by means of direct narration by parent or teacher. It is
wonderful how eagerly a child will listen to historical narration, and
how easily he will retain it. This method of teaching history forms a
striking contrast to the perfunctory manner in which it is often
studied in the upper school grades, with the text-book "lesson,"
"recitation," and the "final examination." Upon the minds of many
young people the study of history has a deadening effect when the
history epoch is passed and the mathematical epoch has arrived. It has
already been proposed, at a conference of educators lately held in
Chicago, to extend the study of history downward into the lower
grades, a proposition fully sanctioned by psychological pedagogy. In
what I have here said about history for young people I refer not to
the philosophy of history, which comes much later in the life of the
student, but to history as a mere record of facts and events, the kind
of history which is now studied in the grammar and high schools, the
kind which many educators who would make all children philosophers are
now saying should not be studied at all.
In the third place, what studies correspond to the development of the
will in the child from five to ten? It is the habit-forming epoch. It
is the time when a large and useful store of motor memory images may
be acquired, and when permanent reflex tracts may be formed in the
spinal cord and lower brain centers. This is the time to teach the
child to do easily and habitually a large number of useful things. If
we use the term in its broadest sense, we may call this branch of
instruction morals, but it will also include, besides habits of
conduct, various bodily activities, certain manual dexterities, and
correct habits of speech, expression, and singing. But here some
restrictions must be observed. The habit-forming period begins at
birth and continues far beyond the age of ten, and the period from
five to ten is not the time for the formation of all habits. The order
of muscular development must be observed, and all dexterities
involving finely co-ordinated movements of the fingers, or strain of
the eyes, should be deferred beyond this period, or at most begun only
in the latter part of it; such, for instance, as writing, drawing,
modeling, sewing, knitting, playing upon musical instruments, and
minute mechanical work, as well, of course, as the plaiting, pricking,
stitching, weaving, and other finger work still practiced in some
kindergartens and primary schools.
We have thus seen that there are certain branches of instruction for
which the mind of the child from five to ten has ripened, and which
may therefore be taught most economically and safely during this
period. Concerning the teaching of language I shall speak presently,
but thus far we have found that from the psychological standpoint
there are at any rate three subjects which are strikingly adapted to
this period, namely, natural science, history, and morals, using these
terms with the latitude and restriction already explained. Certain
branches of Nature study and one branch of what we have called
morals--namely, manual training--have in recent years been introduced
into our best elementary city schools, and in a few schools history is
taught systematically in the lower grades by means of stories. They
have not, however, crowded out reading, writing, and arithmetic so
much as crowded into them. But if we consider the great mass of
schools in city, town, and country throughout the land, the subjects
which practically complete the elementary school curriculum--reading,
writing, arithmetic, and geography--are, with the exception of the
latter, found to be subjects which do not naturally belong to this
period at all. Mathematics in every form is a subject conspicuously
ill fitted to the child mind. It deals not with real things, but with
abstractions. When referred to concrete objects, it concerns not the
objects themselves, but their relations to each other. It involves
comparison, analysis, abstraction. It calls for a fuller development
of the association tracts and fibers of the cerebral hemispheres. The
grotesque "number forms" which so many children have, and which
originate in this period, are evidence of the necessity which the
child feels of giving some kind of bodily shape to these abstractions
which he is compelled to study. Under mathematics I do not of course
include the mere mentioning or learning a number series, such as in
the process called "counting," or the committing to memory of a
multiplication table. Furthermore, in this and in all discussions of
this kind it must be remembered that there are exceptional children in
whom the mathematical faculty, or musical faculty, or literary
faculty, develops much earlier than with the average child. If
possible, they should have instruction suited to their peculiarities.
But it is evident that, so long as children are educated in "schools,"
there must be a general plan of education, and that it can not be
based upon exceptional children.