LIPPINCOTT’S
EDUCATIONAL SERIES
EDITED BY
MARTIN G. BRUMBAUGH, PH.D. LL.D.
PROFESSOR OF PEDAGOGY, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA, AND COMMISSIONER
OF EDUCATION FOR PUERTO RICO
[Illustration]
VOLUME I
Lippincott Educational Series
EDITED BY DR. M. G. BRUMBAUGH
Professor of Pedagogy, University of Pennsylvania
VOLUME I
Thinking and Learning to Think
By NATHAN C. SCHAEFFER, Ph.D., LL.D., Superintendent of Public
Instruction for the State of Pennsylvania. 351 pages. Cloth, $1.25.
VOLUME II
Two Centuries of Pennsylvania History
By ISAAC SHARPLESS, President of Haverford College. 385 pages.
Illustrated. Cloth, $1.25.
VOLUME III
Kemp’s History of Education
By DR. E. L. KEMP, Principal of East Stroudsburg Normal School. 385
pages. Cloth, $1.25.
VOLUME IV
Kant’s Educational Theory
By EDWARD FRANKLIN BUCKNER, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy and Education
in the University of Alabama. 309 pages. Cloth, $1.25.
_LIPPINCOTT’S EDUCATIONAL SERIES_
THINKING
AND
LEARNING TO THINK
BY
NATHAN C. SCHAEFFER, PH.D., LL.D.
SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION FOR
THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
[Illustration]
PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1906
COPYRIGHT, 1900
BY
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY,
PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A.
EDITOR’S PREFACE
The progress of educational thought during the closing years of this
century has been marvellous. Professional schools have created a demand
for professional teaching by giving an increasing group of skilled
instructors to our schools. This professional activity has caused our
leading cities to provide training-schools, as integral parts of the city
system of education. Finally, our great universities have established
departments of pedagogy for the higher training in education. As a
result, the leading positions in higher schools and in supervision are
more and more demanding professionally trained leaders.
In this auspicious awakening for professional leadership there has
come an increasing demand for standard treatises upon the fundamental
problems of education. Treatises upon the history, methods, principles,
and systems of education have appeared with astonishing frequency.
That many of these are commercial treatises—made to sell—is doubtless
true. There is always a great temptation to profit by an active demand.
Well-disposed but not always widely trained and broadly cultured
teachers, who have achieved a local success with a method that owed its
virtue to the personality of its author and not to its intrinsic worth,
have been tempted into authorship. The wiser and nobler minds in the
profession wait. The days of unrest and experimentation, breeding discord
and confusion, have in part passed away, and the time has come when the
products of all this divergent activity may be put to the test of clear
analysis and adequate experience. This is especially true in the domains
of historic and philosophic inquiry. In experimental activity, touching
the problems of psychic life as related to its sensorium, much has been
done in a tentative way. Much must yet be done to produce results of
enduring significance.
This series of educational treatises is projected to give inquiring
minds the best thought of our present professional life. Fundamental
problems in education will be exhibited in the series from time to time
by thoroughly trained leaders of extended experience. Teachers may
confidently accept these as authoritative discussions of the cardinal
questions of their profession.
The highest endowment of the human spirit on the intellectual side is the
power to think. Learning to think is an essential process and end in all
school work. Thinking is the intellect’s regal activity. In a vague way,
all teaching appeals to the thought-activity of the pupil; but vagueness
in teaching is as pernicious as it is common. To exhibit the value,
scope, and process of thought is of inestimable service to the teacher.
It gives specific direction to teaching processes, and saves the child
from a thousand fanciful expedients.
In the craze of the passing decade for novelty in teaching, there
has resulted an undue emphasis upon forms of so-called expressional
activity. It has been, in many quarters, forgotten that education is
noblest when it produces reflective activity. The power to analyze and
synthetize thought-complexes is the most fruitful endowment of the
intellectual life. Expression without adequate reflection is productive
of superficiality.
We have been living a life of educational expedients. The path of
educational advance is strewn with countless cast-off practices which
once claimed attention largely because of the feeling among too many
that the newest theory is the best. There has come, let us hope, the
more rational resolve to test all new and loudly heralded theories by
fundamental laws of mental activity. To emphasize the significance of
this reaction, and to afford helpful criteria of educational processes,
this volume will be found most stimulating, suggestive, and sensible.
For the purposes of the teacher thinking may be distinguished as follows:
(_a_) _Clear thinking_, by which one is to understand thinking the thing,
and not some other thing in its stead. Much thinking is not clear. The
power of recall is not fully developed. The mind acts, but is not able
to assert confidently the accuracy of what it acts upon. Much needless
criticism is heaped upon schools because pupils cannot spell correctly,
solve problems accurately, recite a lesson in history or in geography
properly,—in short, because the pupil’s knowledge is not clear. The first
step in all true teaching is the step that makes clear to the pupil the
thing he is to think.
(_b_) _Distinct thinking_, by which one is to understand thinking the
thing in its relations. This phase of thinking is sometimes called
apperception. It is the second, and not the first step in thinking.
There is no value in teaching relations until the things to be related
are first clearly apprehended. Perception must precede apperception. The
pupil in the elementary school has been well taught if he has been taught
to think clearly and distinctly.
(_c_) _Adequate thinking_, by which one is to understand thinking the
thing in its essential parts. This is the analytic form of thought. The
child at first cannot think adequately. His mind thinks things as wholes.
He has not the power to think the whole and its parts, as parts of the
whole, simultaneously. He must rise to adequate thinking only after clear
and distinct thinking have become habits of mind. The fuller phase of
this activity, by which these analyzed parts are synthetically wrought
into an organic unity, is the process of concept-making,—the essential
prerequisite of all high orders of thought. This power every teacher
should possess. It is his surplus of knowledge, the possession of which
makes him easily master in the teaching process.
(_d_) _Exhaustive thinking_, by which one is to understand thinking the
thing in its causes. This is the highest form of thinking the thing. It
gives perspective to thought-processes, and eliminates all accidental
and misleading elements from the categories of thought. To achieve this,
one must specialize. The teaching of the future must be more and more
intensive in scope. The day of the encyclopædist is gone. The teacher of
to-morrow must be a teacher who knows one order of truth exhaustively,
and who possesses the skill to incite in others a permanent enthusiasm
for that order of truth. Scientific progress is conditioned by such
teaching.
The author has brought to this discussion the matured convictions of
broad training in American and European systems of schools, and a wide
and successful experience in teaching pupils and directing systems of
education. The discussion takes on the modest but stimulating style of
the public speaker. The author has for many years been among our foremost
lecturers upon education. The temper of the discussion is moderate and
constructive. There will be found here no wild excess, no straining after
fanciful effect, no advocacy of sensational and ephemeral methods; nor
is there a trace of pessimistic and destructive criticism of the earnest
teachers who are conscious of limitations and are reaching hopefully for
help. On the contrary, the discussion is full of real sympathy, founded
upon personal experience with teaching in all its phases, and abounds in
stimulating suggestion.
M. G. B.
October 1, 1900.
PREFACE
For a number of years it has been the author’s duty as well as privilege
to lecture at county institutes on the difficult art of teaching pupils
to think. This led to the request that the lectures be thrown into
permanent form for publication. The lecturer who never publishes has
no pet theories to defend; he can change his views as often as he sees
fit; yet, in spite of this advantage, he cannot always escape or ignore
the art of printing. One who gives his thoughts to the public without
the use of manuscript and under the limitations of extemporaneous
speech, made necessary by the large audiences which gather at teachers’
institutes, especially in Pennsylvania, runs the risk of being misquoted
and misunderstood; he pays the penalty of being reported in fragmentary
if not distorted forms. This ultimately drives him, in justice to himself
and others, to write out his theories on education and to give them to
his coworkers in print.
Portions of these lectures were delivered at the annual meeting of the
superintendents of New England, before the State teachers’ associations
of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Florida, before the Connecticut
Council of Education, before the summer schools held under the auspices
of the Ohio State University and the University of Wisconsin, and at
several of the meetings of the National Educational Association. The
favorable hearing accorded on these occasions induces the hope that
the lectures will be kindly received by many who teach outside of
Pennsylvania, and by some who give instruction in our higher institutions
of learning.
Although no one can hope, on so difficult a theme, to say much that will
be entirely satisfactory to leading educators, surely no apology is
needed from any one who, after spending his best years in educational
work, attempts to contribute his mite towards the solution of any of the
problems which confront the teacher.
It is assumed that there is a body of educational doctrine well
established in the minds of teachers, and that on many school questions
we have advanced beyond the border line of first discovery. Those who
assert that our educational practice is radically wrong and in need
of thorough reformation should hasten to clarify their own views and
ideas, to substitute constructive for destructive criticism, and to
give definite shape to their reforms; otherwise a whole generation will
grow to maturity and the reformers themselves will pass away before
any of their reforms will have been accomplished. To give teachers the
feeling that what they are doing is all wrong, and to leave them without
anything better in place of what is condemned, robs them of joy in their
work, makes them victims of worry and neurasthenia, and unfits them for
the care of children. It is hoped that these lectures will be found to
suggest a better way whenever criticism is bestowed upon existing methods
of instruction.
No attempt is made to ridicule the arm-chair psychologists, or the
advocates of child study, or those patient and painstaking workers who
are honestly seeking to establish the facts of mind through experiments
in the laboratory. He who has carefully reflected upon the art of making
pupils think will not hesitate to admit that thus far he has received
more light from the standard psychology than from the labors of those
who claim to be the exponents of the new psychology. The latter can
hardly write or talk without using the terms coined by the older
students of mind; this shows their indebtedness to those who taught and
speculated before laboratories of psychology were established. Sometimes
the experiments have only served to test and give a reason for what was
already accepted. Often they have brought to our knowledge facts of mind
which could never have been discovered by the method of introspection. In
either case the experiments have resulted in clear gain. Let the facts of
brain and mind, of nervous and mental action, of human growth, maturity,
and decay be gathered, questioned, tested, and classified; let their
bearing upon educational practice be set forth in the clearest possible
light: every resulting step of progress and reform will be hailed with
delight by all who have no pet theories to defend.
The lecturer is limited by time, by the kind of audience which he
addresses, and by circumstances largely beyond his control. These
limitations drop out when he reduces his thoughts to writing, and a
rearrangement at many points becomes possible as well as desirable. The
expedients for relieving the strain of attention and winning back the
listless can be omitted; and omissions that become necessary through the
exigencies of the programme must be supplied for the sake of logical
sequence. Moreover, the aims which those who engage the lecturer set
before him frequently require a modification of the line of discussion,
so that a course of lectures on a specific theme cannot always follow the
same order of treatment, although substantially the same in content and
scope. Hence the division into chapters has been adopted as preferable
to the original sequence of lectures. Nevertheless, the style of the
rostrum has not been altogether eliminated, because when oral discourse
is thrown into new forms, and the phraseology is changed for the sake of
publication, the loss in vividness, directness, and simplicity is greater
than the gain in diction and fulness of statement.
Lecturing, as well as book-making, has its peculiar temptations. The
lecturer must interest his hearers in order to hold them; he is tempted
to play to the galleries, and to omit what is beyond the comprehension
of the average audience. The book-maker, on the other hand, is tempted
to display his learning, to make a show of depth and erudition. The
student of pedagogy is supposed to be in search of profound wisdom.
Those who write for him often dive so deep that their style becomes
muddy. Unfortunately, some of the best treatises on education have been
written in the style of the philosopher and wrought out on the plane of
the university professor, although intended for undergraduates at normal
schools, and for teachers whose meagre salaries do not enable them to
pursue courses of study at institutions of higher learning. The lucid
style of Spencer’s treatise on “Education” has done much to counteract
this tendency. Yet many of the authors of our treatises on pedagogy seem
to be haunted by a feeling similar to that of the German professor, who,
on reading the opening chapters of a new book, and finding them to be
intelligible to his colleagues, exclaimed, “Then I must rewrite these
chapters; otherwise nobody will read my book through.”
Huxley has well described the penalty which must be paid by those who
speak or write for the purpose of being understood. These are his words:
“At the same time it must be admitted that the popularization of
science, whether by lecture or essay, has its drawbacks. Success in this
department has its perils for those who succeed. The ‘people who fail’
take their revenge, as we have recently had occasion to observe, by
ignoring all the rest of a man’s work and glibly labelling him a mere
popularizer. If the falsehood were not too glaring, they would say the
same of Faraday and Helmholtz and Kelvin.”
One who can never hope to rival the style of Spencer and Huxley and those
to whom the latter refers, will nevertheless do well to emulate their
skill in making difficult things plain to people who are not specialists
or experts. He who writes for the teachers in our public schools should
put aside his ambition to be considered erudite or profound, and endeavor
above all things to be understood. Vague theories are apt to beget a bad
conscience in those who teach and to destroy the joy which every one has
a right to feel while doing honest and faithful work. Hence the writer
offers no apology for heaping illustration upon illustration in the
effort to make his meaning plain to those whom he aims to help.
There is at present great need for clear thinking and luminous
presentation of facts on the part of all who write on education for
the people or for teachers in our public schools. By a process similar
to that by which the mediæval imagination swelled the murder of the
innocents at Bethlehem into a slaughter of thousands of children (there
cannot have been many male children two years old and under in a small
Judean village), the harm which some pupils suffer is magnified into
a national crime at the feet of American parents; the evils which
result from “Bob White” societies, from children’s parties, from church
sociables for young boys and girls, are all ascribed to the school
curriculum; and reforms in home study are proposed which never fail to
provoke a smile on the face of a healthy boy.
The hygienic conditions of the average school are quite equal to those
of the average home. The health of many children improves during their
attendance at school. The pupils who are born with a sound mind in a
sound body, who get healthful diet, enough sleep, and treatment from
their elders which is not calculated to make them nervous or unhappy,
show none of the illness from overwork, the dulness of brain from
fatigue, and the exhaustion of nervous energy which are made to furnish
the narrow basis of fact for vague and broad generalizations. The haze
in which those who must furnish the printer a given amount of copy in a
given time are apt to envelop whatever they write has an effect like that
of misty air upon the size of visible objects. Travellers who have come
into a cloud while ascending a mountain report that a small wood-pile
then looks like a barn, a cow seems larger than an elephant, men appear
as giants, and the surrounding heights assume threatening proportions.
As soon as sunlight clears the atmosphere, objects are again seen in
their true dimensions. The moment the light of common sense penetrates
the haze and mist and fog and cloud which are used to heighten the
effect of essays upon school work, the need of radical reform seems
far less urgent; and teachers, instead of wasting their time in worry
and uncertainty, begin with cheerful heart to impart that which modern
civilization requires every child to know as a condition of bread-winning
and complete living.
There is, of course, a worse fault than obscurity of style,—namely,
dearth of ideas. The danger to which the lecturer is always exposed, that
of losing his hearers and failing to be recalled (their minds may leave
while they are bodily present), spurs to effort in two directions. Either
he will try to say something worth listening to, or he will strive to
entertain by amusing stories and incidents. If he be conscious of a lack
of talent for humor, he will try to stuff his lectures full of sense. If
the lectures here published lack in this respect, the writer is willing
to acknowledge failure.
In preparing a course of lectures it is proper to bear in mind the
difference between the lecturer, the orator, the poet, and the
philosopher. The philosopher investigates ideas and truths, explores
their essence and relations, and unfolds them in their deepest unity and
in their greatest possible compass. When this has been done throughout
the whole domain of thought, his mission is accomplished. The poet seeks
to clothe his ideas in beautiful forms. When the idea is perfectly suited
to the form and the form to the idea, his mission is accomplished. The
orator aims to move the will; he quotes authorities, uses ideas, appeals
to the feelings, and subordinates everything to the one end of gaining a
verdict, winning a vote, or getting a response in the conduct of those
whom he addresses. The lecturer seeks to impart information. He aims
to get a response in the thinking of those whom he addresses. He tries
to reach the intellect rather than the will. Beautiful language and
exhaustive treatment are not essential parts of his mission. It is his
province to elucidate the theme under consideration, to guide the efforts
and inquiries of those who come to him for instruction, to direct them
to the sources of information, and to furnish such incentives as he can
towards independent study and investigation.
Since the data for pedagogy are derived mainly from kindred fields of
investigation, the lecturer on the science and art of education has
frequent occasion to cite authorities and to utilize the labors and
conclusions of the men eminent in the sciences which throw light upon
the growth of the child, more especially upon the development of mind
and character. The most original writers quote very little, and those
who are anxious to establish a reputation for originality refrain from
quoting others. It is the business of the lecturer to lead the hearer to
the sources of information. When anything has been so well said that he
cannot improve upon the form of statement it is proper that he should
quote the language, carefully giving the source whence it is derived.
Without doubt, when the genius appears who will do for pedagogy what
Aristotle did for logic and Euclid for geometry, he will so polish every
gem he gets from others and give it a setting so unique and appropriate
that the world will recognize the touch of the master and acknowledge the
contribution as peculiarly his own handiwork. In painting and sculpture
we look to the past for the greatest works of art. In music the century
now closing has rivalled, if not surpassed, its predecessors. In the
science and art of education the greatest achievements belong to the
future. It is currently reported and sometimes believed that when the
president of a celebrated university was asked why he had transferred a
certain professor from the department of geology to that of pedagogy, he
replied, “I thought the fellow would do less harm in that department.” If
the story is not a myth, he probably meant less harm to the reputation
of the university. When in our day a course in geology or logic or
geometry is announced, one can foretell the ground that will be covered.
No such prediction can be made with reference to a course of lectures
on teaching. The prophet is yet to come who will fix the scope of the
science of education and give it something like definite and abiding
shape.
This volume is not designed to supplant systematic treatises on
psychology and logic. Its aim is to throw light upon one important phase
of the art of teaching. If it contributes but two mites to the treasury
of information on the science and art of education, the labor bestowed
upon it has not been in vain. Should any critic hint that two mites are
all one has to give, it may be said in reply that it is better to give
something than to give nothing at all, and that according to Holy Writ
the smallest contributions are not to be despised if made in the right
spirit. And it may add to the critic’s stock of ideas to be informed
that a small English weight, called mite, outweighs very many of the
current criticisms upon modern education, that of this small weight it
takes twenty to make a grain, and that to a faithful teacher a tenth of a
grain of helpful suggestion is worth more than many tons of destructive
criticism.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I.—MAKE THE PUPILS THINK 21
II.—THINKING IN THINGS AND IN SYMBOLS 35
III.—THE MATERIALS OF THOUGHT 47
IV.—BASAL CONCEPTS AS THOUGHT-MATERIAL 63
V.—THE INSTRUMENTS OF THOUGHT 85
VI.—TECHNICAL TERMS AS INSTRUMENTS OF THOUGHT 99
VII.—THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE 111
VIII.—THE STIMULUS TO THINKING 123
IX.—THE RIGHT USE OF BOOKS 137
X.—OBSERVATION AND THINKING 155
XI.—THE MEMORY AND THINKING 167
XII.—IMAGING AND THINKING 191
XIII.—THE STREAM OF THOUGHT 209
XIV.—THE STREAM OF THOUGHT IN LISTENING AND READING 223
XV.—THE STREAM OF THOUGHT IN WRITING, SPEAKING, AND ORAL
READING 239
XVI.—KINDS OF THINKING 255
XVII.—THINKING AND KNOWING 269
XVIII.—THINKING AND FEELING 289
XIX.—THINKING AND WILLING 303
XX.—THINKING AND DOING 317
XXI.—THINKING IN THE ARTS 331
XXII.—THINKING AND THE HIGHER LIFE 341
I
MAKE THE PUPILS THINK
The value of a thought cannot be told.
BAILEY.
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; he
who dares not is a slave.
BYRON.
Reason is the glory of human nature, and one of the chief
eminences whereby we are raised above the beasts in this lower
world.
WATTS.
Man is not the prince of creatures,
But in reason. Fail that, he is worse
Than horse, or dog, or beast of wilderness.
FIELD.
Man is a thinking being, whether he will or no. All he can do
is to turn his thoughts the best way.
SIR W. TEMPLE.
I
MAKE THE PUPILS THINK
[Sidenote: A test of teaching.]
For the purpose of testing the quality of gold alloy jewellers formerly
used a fine-grained dark stone, called the touchstone. In the eyes of an
educator good instruction is more precious than pure gold. The touchstone
by which he tests the quality of instruction, so as to distinguish
genuine teaching from its counterfeit, rote teaching, is thinking. The
schoolmaster who teaches by rote is satisfied if the pupils repeat his
words or those of the book; the true teacher sees to it that the pupils
think the thoughts which the words convey.
[Sidenote: Thring’s practice.]
Thring, who, next to Arnold, was perhaps the greatest teacher England
ever had, laid much stress upon thinking. Sometimes he would startle a
dull lad, in the midst of an exercise, by asking, “What have you got
sticking up between your shoulders?” “My head,” was the reply. “How does
it differ from a turnip?” And by questioning he would elicit the answer,
“The head thinks; the turnip does not.”
[Sidenote: Views of others.]
So important is thinking in all teaching that at the World’s Educational
Congress, in 1893, one educator after another rose in his place to
emphasize the maxim, “Make the pupils think.” One of the most advanced of
the reformers shouted in almost frantic tones, “Yes, make even the very
babies think.” After the wise men had returned to their homes, a Chicago
periodical raised the query, “How can you stop a pupil from thinking?”
And the conclusion it announced was that neither the teacher behind
the desk nor the tyrant upon his throne can stop a pupil from thinking.
Evidently, if that which sticks up between a boy’s shoulders is a head
and not a turnip, if the pupil is rational and not an imbecile or an
idiot, he does some thinking for himself; and the maxim, “Make the pupils
think,” requires further analysis before it can be helpful in the art of
teaching.
[Sidenote: Thinking for one’s self. Relying on others.]
We who teach are very apt to overestimate thinking in our own line
of work and to undervalue thinking outside of the school. There is,
perhaps, as much good thought in a lady’s bonnet as in the solution of
a quadratic equation. A sewing-machine embodies as much genuine thought
as the demonstration of a geometrical theorem. The construction of a
locomotive or a railway bridge displays as much effective thinking as
Hegel’s “Philosophy of History,” or Kant’s “Critique of the Pure Reason.”
Most men think very well in doing their own kind of work; in many other
spheres of activity they must let other people think for them. When the
professor of astronomy discusses a problem connected with his science, he
thinks for himself; but when he buys a piece of land, he gets a lawyer to
think for him in the examination of the title and the preparation of the
deed. The lawyer thinks for himself in the court-house; but when he goes
home to dine, he expects his wife, or the cook, to have done the thinking
for him in the preparation of the dinner. Grover Cleveland had the
reputation of thinking for himself: many a politician found out that this
reputation was founded on fact; but when the ex-President is sick, or has
the toothache, he is willing to let a physician or a dentist think for
him. In like manner, a pupil may think very well upon the play-ground;
but if the teacher, whose very name indicates the function of guiding,
fails to guide the pupil aright, the latter may become a mere parrot in
the class-room. What, then, is involved in making a pupil think?
[Sidenote: Thinking defined.]
The difficulty in answering this question is increased by the diversity
of meanings of the word _thinking_. The teacher who is not clear in his
use of the term may employ exercises calculated to develop one kind of
mental activity, and then accuse the pupils of dulness because they do
not show facility in some other intellectual process. When a text-book on
mental science defines the intellect as the power by which we think, the
term _thinking_ is used to designate every form of intellectual activity.
The Century Dictionary defines thinking as an exercise of the cognitive
faculties in any way not involving outward observation, or the passive
reception of ideas from other minds. The logician defines thinking as the
process of comparing two ideas through their relation to a third. Many
exercises of the school are supposed to cultivate thinking in the last
sense of the word, when in reality they cultivate thinking only in the
widest acceptation of the term.
[Sidenote: A faulty exercise.]
The writer saw a normal school principal conduct an exercise in thinking,
as the latter called it. Turning to one of the pupils, he said, “Charley,
will you please think of something?” As soon as the boy raised his hand
the principal asked, “Does it belong to the animal, the vegetable, or
the mineral kingdom?” Then turning to the other members of the class,
he said, “Who of you can think of the vegetable in Charley’s mind?” The
names of at least forty different vegetables were given and spelled and
written upon the black-board. At last a pupil succeeded in naming what
was in Charley’s mind. Then there was a look of triumph upon the faces
of the principal and the class, as much as to say, “Isn’t that splendid
thinking?” At least one person felt like burying his face in his hands
for very shame; for here was resurrected from the dead an old exercise
of philanthropinism which was buried more than a hundred years ago. What
should one call that kind of mental activity? _Guessing._ That is all it
is. The exercise tended to beget a habit very difficult to break up after
it has been formed.
[Sidenote: A better plan.]
Far better was an exercise which the writer witnessed in a graded school.
The teacher had called the class in the second reader. As soon as all
the pupils were seated she said, “You may read the first paragraph.”
Instead of reading orally, the class became so quiet that one might have
heard a pin drop. After most of the hands were raised she called upon
one pupil to tell what the paragraph said. The second paragraph was read
and the substance of it stated in the pupil’s own words. An omission was
supplied by another pupil; an incorrect phrase was modified by giving
the correct words for conveying the thought. In the course of the lesson
it became necessary to clarify the ideas of some. This was accomplished
by a few pertinent questions which made the pupils think for themselves.
After the entire lesson had been read in this way she dismissed the
class without assigning a lesson. Every member of the class went to
his seat, took out his slate, and began to write out the lesson in his
own language. The interest and pleasure depicted on their faces showed
that it was not a task but a joy to express thought by the pencil. The
teacher had given them something to think about; she had taught them to
express their thoughts in spoken and written language; her questions had
stimulated their thinking, and when, later in the day, the lesson in oral
reading was given, the vocal utterance showed that every pupil understood
what he was reading. There was no parrot-like utterance of vocables,
but an expression of thought based upon a thorough understanding and
appreciation of what was read. The silent reading was an exercise in
thought-getting and thought-begetting, the language lesson upon the slate
was an exercise in active thinking through written words, and the oral
expression furnished a test by which the teacher could ascertain what she
had accomplished in getting her pupils to think.
[Sidenote: A suggestive reply.]
The first thing necessary in making the pupil think is best shown by
relating another incident. The catalogue of a well-known school announced
that the teachers were aiming to get their pupils to read Latin at
sight and to think in more tongues than one. A captious superintendent
wrote to the principal, saying, “I envy you. How do you do it? We would
be satisfied if we could make pupils think in English.” The reply was
equally sharp and suggestive: “You ask how we make pupils think. I
answer, By giving them something to think about. If you ask how we
make them think in more tongues than one, I answer, By giving them, in
addition to the materials of thought, the instruments of thought as found
in two or more languages.”
[Sidenote: The first essential.]
The first step in training a pupil to think is to furnish him proper
materials of thought, to develop in his mind the concepts which lie at
the basis of a branch of study, and which must be analyzed, compared,
and combined in new forms during the prosecution of that study. Just as
little as a boy can draw fish from an empty pond, so little can he draw
ideas, thoughts, and conclusions from an empty head. If the fundamental
ideas are not carefully developed when the study of a new science is
begun, all subsequent thinking on the part of the pupil is necessarily
hazy, uncertain, unsatisfactory. How can a pupil compare two ideas or
concepts and join them in a correct judgment if there is nothing in his
mind except the technical terms by which the scientist denotes these
ideas? The idea of number lies at the basis of arithmetic. How often are
beginners expected to think in figures without having a clear idea of
what figures denote! What teacher has not seen children wrestling with
fractions who had no idea of a fraction save that of two figures, one
above the other, with a line between them! How many of our arithmetics
are full of problems involving business transactions of which the pupil
cannot possibly have an adequate idea! Not having clear ideas of the
things to be compared, how can the learner form clear and accurate
judgments and conclusions?
[Sidenote: Proper thought-material.]
So essential to correct thinking is the development of the concepts and
ideas which lie at the basis of each science, that we may designate the
giving to the pupil of something to think about as the first and most
important step in the solution of the educational problem before us. In
other words, the furnishing of the proper materials of thought is the
first step in teaching others to think. The force and the validity of
this proposition are easily seen if we reflect upon the essential oneness
of the manifold diversities of thinking as they appear at school and in
subsequent years.
[Sidenote: Thinking in the professions.]
It is universally conceded that education should be a preparation for
life. The thinking at school should be an adumbration of the thinking
beyond the school. The possession of enough data, or thought-materials,
for reaching trustworthy conclusions, which is the indispensable
requisite of successful thinking at school, is likewise a necessary
requisite of successful thinking in practical life. It behooves us to
inquire into the nature and foundation of the thinking of men in the
professions, and in other vocations, for the purpose of gaining further
light upon the problem before us. Let us, then, inquire into the nature
and foundation of the thinking of men eminent in a profession or
prominent in some other vocation. The professional man may have less
native ability, less general knowledge, less culture and education, less
mental power than the client whom he advises or the patient for whom he
prescribes; and yet his inferences and conclusions are accepted as more
trustworthy than those of men outside of the given profession, because
he has a knowledge of facts and data which they do not possess. If he be
a physician, special training and professional experience have taught
him how to observe the symptoms of different diseases; how to eliminate
sources of doubt and error; how to reach a correct diagnosis of difficult
cases, and how to apply the proper remedies. If he be a lawyer, he has
been taught how to examine court records; how to detect and guard against
flaws in legal documents; how to find and interpret the law in specific
cases; how to protect the life and property of his client. The judge on
the bench is learned in the law, though he may be ignorant of science,
literature, agriculture, commerce, and manufactures. He is aided in
arriving at correct conclusions by thought-materials which are not in the
possession of laymen.
[Sidenote: The thinking of experts.]
[Sidenote: Teaching not a trade.]
How does the thinking of an expert differ from that of other men? Not so
much in the processes of thought as in the data upon which he reasons.
An ordinary witness may testify as to matters of fact; the expert is
supposed to possess extensive knowledge and superior discrimination in a
particular branch of learning or practice; hence he may be a witness in
matters as to which ordinary observers cannot form just conclusions, and
he is held liable for negligence in case he injures another from want of
proper qualifications or proper use of the thought-materials necessary
to form trustworthy conclusions. From this point of view we can see new
force and beauty in the remark of Fitch that teaching is the noblest of
the professions, but the sorriest of trades. The aim of a trade is to
make something that will sell; its ultimate aim is money, a livelihood.
Teaching and the other professions, although they cannot be sundered from
money-making, have a nobler aim. This arises out of the thought-materials
with which they deal. If a teacher’s mind does not busy itself with
these, he sinks to the level of a tradesman. A very keen observer said of
the head of a large boarding-school, that he had learned his trade from
the principal of a large normal school under whom he had been trained.
The remark, if true, was severe, but significant. It was an intimation
that the substance of the thinking of these two men was business rather
than education; that their conversation about the quality of the beef and
mutton served, about the loaves of bread, the pounds of butter, and the
bushels of potatoes consumed each week, indicated that they were thinking
more of the stomach and the purse than of the things of the mind; that
their aim was a large attendance and a large cash-balance at the end
of the year rather than the mental growth and professional preparation
of their students. Their thinking was efficient and trustworthy in
the domain in which it was exercised. It partook of the nature of
trade-thinking, and lacked professional quality because it did not
concern itself with problems of mental growth and moral training, with
the proper sequence of studies, with the educational value of different
kinds of knowledge, and with the best methods of economizing the time and
effort of their students.
[Sidenote: Mysteries.]
In several aspects teaching is like a trade. Every art has its mysteries,
with which those who practise it must be familiar if they would succeed.
Teaching is no exception; and if the annual institute or the school of
pedagogy fails to clarify these mysteries by putting the teachers in
possession of materials for thought and of methods of applying knowledge
to beget thinking which are not within the ken of the average parent
and the general public, then failure must be written over the outcome.
A mystery is a lesson to be learned. A scrutiny of the mysteries which
characterize every trade and every art will serve not merely to emphasize
the necessity for furnishing proper thought-materials, but will be
helpful also in paving the way for the consideration of another essential
in training pupils to think. Let us view them in the concrete.
[Sidenote: Examples.]
A machinist, who was also a skilled mechanic, was compelled by
circumstances to quit his trade and to accept a position as janitor.
One day the pipe leading from the sink to the sewer was clogged. The
teacher, in conjunction with a carpenter, worked a long time to fix it,
but in vain. The janitor was called, who in a few moments overcame the
difficulty by the application of a principle in natural philosophy on
which the teacher could have talked learnedly, although he knew not how
to apply it in the given case. The janitor related how the foreman in a
foundry was baffled in the effort to bore a hole through a piece of iron
until a workman, trained under a foreign master, suggested the purchase
of two things at a drug-store by means of which the hole was easily
bored. When the druggist asked about the use that was to be made of these
chemicals, he was told that the use was one of the mysteries of the
machinist’s trade.
Next, the carpenter fixed the mortise lock of a door which needed
attention, and the others lauded the skill with which he handled his
tools and applied his knowledge. Before the three separated, the
janitor’s son came with a word which he could not find in his lexicon.
With the aid of chalk and black-board and grammar, the teacher showed
how to dig out the roots of a Greek verb and what beautiful changes occur
in its conjugation. The turn had come for the tradesmen to admire the
mysterious skill and power of the teacher.
In applying the principle of natural philosophy, the janitor made skilful
use of one or two tools which the teacher and the carpenter had never
seen. He could express thought through the tools of his own handicraft,
in ways that they could not. Each one of the three men knew the tools
and the mysteries of his own vocation. During the entire scene there was
not a logical flaw in the thinking of any one of them. Probably there
was little difference in their native ability; certainly none in the
fundamental nature of their thought-processes. The practical difference
resulted from the data at their command and from the tools they were
using to express the thoughts peculiar to their several vocations.
[Sidenote: Man, the tool-user.]
[Sidenote: Instruments of thought the second essential.]
The power to use tools, instruments, and machinery lifts man above the
brute creation. There is labor-saving machinery in thinking as well
as in manual labor. The more perfect the tools with which we work the
greater the results we can achieve without waste of effort. In thinking
as well as in working we must use the best tools in order to attain the
greatest facility and efficiency. Yonder are two wheat-fields. In one
of them a giant is wielding the sickle of our forefathers; in the other
a youth, not yet out of his teens, is at work. At the close of the day
the work of the giant will not bear comparison with that of the lad,
because the latter was sitting upon a self-binder. They had the same
material to work upon, yet, in spite of his superior strength, the giant
could not cope with his weaker though better-equipped competitor. In
like manner, the youth who has mastered the algebraic equation, or the
symbols and formulas of chemistry, is in many respects the superior of a
much brighter man who is not in possession of these tools or instruments
of thought. A boy of average capacity who goes through a good high
school thereby acquires certain fundamental ideas and the accompanying
instruments of thought by which he is enabled to solve problems entirely
beyond the power of a much brighter boy who never studies beyond the
grammar grade.
[Sidenote: Confusion in thought and practice.]
The instruments of thought are generally spoken of as symbols, whilst
the materials of thought are the things for which the symbols stand. In
thinking, the mind may employ the ideas which correspond to the things
in the external world; or it may employ the symbols by which science
indicates things that have been definitely fixed or quantified. Failure
to distinguish the sign from the thing signified, the symbol from its
reality, leads to confusion in thought and to the most disastrous results
in mental development. Loss of appetite for knowledge must inevitably
result from methods of teaching by which the pupil is expected to learn
the sounds of the letters from their names, or musical sounds from the
notation on the staff, or the ideas of number from the arabic notation,
or a knowledge of flowers from the technical terms of a text-book, or
a knowledge of chemical elements and substances from the definitions,
descriptions, and formulas of a scientific treatise. The symbol is
indispensable in advanced thinking; but to expect the learner to get the
fundamental ideas of a science from words, symbols, and definitions is
evidence that the teacher does not understand the nature of thinking. It
may, therefore, be helpful to set forth clearly the important distinction
between thinking in things and thinking in symbols; to point out their
relative value in mental development; and to fix their place in a
rational system of education.
II
THINKING IN THINGS AND IN SYMBOLS
The rote system, like other systems of its age, made more of
forms and symbols than of the things symbolized. To repeat
the words correctly was everything, to understand the meaning
nothing; and thus the spirit was sacrificed to the letter.
HERBERT SPENCER.
Words are men’s daughters, but God’s sons are things.
JOHNSON.
For words are wise men’s counters,—they do but reckon by
them,—but they are the money of fools.
HOBBES.
It is only by the help of language (or some other equivalent
set of signs) that we can think in the strict sense of the
word; that is to say, consider things under their general or
common aspects.
SULLY.
II
THINKING IN THINGS AND IN SYMBOLS
[Sidenote: Lesson in geography.]
[Sidenote: Two kinds of thinking.]