Kitabı oku: «A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education», sayfa 13

The rule for the parent or teacher in mastering these exercises is the same in all; it consists simply in forming the question in such a manner, as that the word, the clause, or the whole proposition, shall be required to make the answer. Sufficient explanation and examples of all this will be found in the Note.¹³

The uniform results of many experiments, have established the importance of this exercise as an instrument in communicating knowledge to the ignorant, whether young or old. We shall shortly advert to a few of the circumstances connected with these experiments, for the purpose of satisfactorily establishing this.

In an experiment made in May 1828, under the direction of the Very Rev. Dr Baird, Principal of the University of Edinburgh, before the Lord Provost, and several of the Professors and Clergymen of that city, nine adult criminals, "taken without regard to their abilities," and who, in the opinion of Governor Rose, "formed a fair average of the usual prisoners," were, in the space of three successive weeks, exercised in whole for eighteen or twenty hours. They were at the end of that time minutely examined in the Chapel of the County Jail, in the presence of the Right Honourable and Reverend Professors and Gentlemen, who formed Principal Baird's committee; and their Report of the experiment and its effects bears, that "the result of this important experiment was, in every point, satisfactory. Not only had much religious knowledge been acquired by the pupils, and that of the most substantial, and certainly the least evanescent kind; but it appeared to have been acquired with ease, and even with satisfaction – a circumstance of material importance in every case, but especially in that of adult prisoners." "The examination evidently brought out only a specimen of their knowledge, and did by no means comprise all that had been acquired by them; but, even though it had constituted the whole amount of their information, the fact that such a treasure had been amassed in three weeks is in itself astonishing. The writer of this Minute was not acquainted with the extent of their acquirements when Mr Gall commenced his operations; but judging from the examination, and from his knowledge of the contents of the books taught, he has no hesitation in averring, that the answers which they gave, arose entirely from information communicated by them. And when he reflects that their answers, being clothed in their own words, guaranteed the fact, that it was the ideas upon which they had seized, and that their knowledge participated in no degree of rote, the conviction to his mind is irresistible, that the universal application of the Lesson System to Prison Discipline, and to adults every where, would be followed by effects incalculably precious to the individuals themselves, and to the improving of society in general."

The efficiency of this exercise in communicating knowledge, was equally conspicuous in another experiment, conducted under the eye of the Principal, Professors, and Clergymen of Aberdeen, in July 1828. The persons on whom this experiment was made, were children taken from the lower classes of society, carefully selected on two several days, by a committee of clergymen appointed for the purpose, from the various schools in the city. These children were all carefully and individually examined in private by the committee, and were chosen from among their companions, not on account of their natural abilities, or educational acquirements, but specially and simply on account of their ignorance. The precautions taken by the Rev. and learned examinators, to secure accuracy in their ultimate decision, were at once judicious and complete; and were intended to enable them to say with confidence at the close of the experiment, that the results, whatever they might be, were really the effects of the exercise and discipline to which the children during it had been subjected, and were in no respect due to the previous capacity or the attainments of the children.

To secure this important preliminary object, therefore, the sub-committee of clergymen above alluded to was appointed, as soon as the experiment was determined upon, with instructions to collect a class of the most ignorant children they could find, attending the several schools, and who it was thought would be, of course, most incapacitated for receiving instruction. This sub-committee, consisting of the Rev. John Murray, the Rev. Abercromby L. Gordon, and the Rev. David Simpson, in their previous Report, say, "We, on two several days, met with the children which were collected from the various schools, and examined them individually, and apart from each other; avoiding every appearance of formality, and endeavouring to draw them into familiar conversation, that we might correctly ascertain the state of their religious knowledge on the three following points, which we considered to be the best criterion by which to judge of their understanding of the other less important points in the gospel scheme of salvation. – These points were, 1. Our connection, as sinners, with Adam; 2. Our connection with Christ as the Saviour; 3. The means by which we become interested in the salvation of Christ. On minutely examining each child on these points, one by one, and endeavouring, by varied and familiar language and cross-questioning, without confusing their ideas, to ascertain the knowledge which they possessed on these first principles, we accurately, and at the time, minuted the result, distinguishing those points which they understood, and those which they did not. From this list we afterwards selected twenty-two names, of children who appeared from the list, to be the most ignorant, by not having any marks of approval on any one of these points on which they were examined; – although delicacy to the children, as well as to their parents and teachers, prevented us from stating to them, that this was the principle by which we had been regulated in our selection. From these twenty-two children, Mr Gall has made up his class of ten, for this experiment, which he proposes shall continue for eight days, occupying two hours each day; and having thus chosen that class of pupils which appeared to us the most ignorant, we have, in justice to Mr Gall and this system of teaching, stated the fact, leaving the examinators to make what allowance they may on this account think proper, in determining on the failure or success of this very important and interesting experiment."

This was the state of the children's knowledge and capacity when the experiment began; and the following was found to be the state of these same children's knowledge when examined publicly in the East Church, before the Very Rev. Principal, Professors, and Clergymen of the city, and a large congregation of the citizens, eight days afterwards.

The children were first interrogated minutely on the doctrines of the gospel, which had been previously arranged in a list under sixteen different heads, embodying all the leading doctrinal points in the Confession of Faith and Shorter Catechism, a copy of which was handed to the Very Rev. Principal Jack, who presided. The Report of the Experiment, prepared by their Committee, goes on to say, that "After being examined generally and satisfactorily on each of these heads, the chairman, by means of a list of the names with which he was furnished, called up some of them individually, who were carefully examined, and shewed, by their answers, that they severally understood the nature of the above doctrines, and their mutual relation to each other.

"They were then examined on the Old Testament History, from the account of the death of Moses, downwards, to that of the revolt of the Ten Tribes in the reign of Rehoboam. Here they distinctly stated and described all the leading circumstances of the narrative comprised in the 'First Step,' whose brief but comprehensive outline they appeared, in various instances, to have filled up at home, by reading in their Bibles the corresponding chapters. They were next examined in the same way, on several sections of the New Testament," with which they had also acquired an extensive practical knowledge, besides some useful information in Civil History, Biography, and Natural Philosophy, on all which they were closely and extensively examined.

In another experiment, undertaken at the request, and under the sanction, of the Sunday School Union of London, the efficiency of this exercise, as a successful imitation of Nature in communicating knowledge, was also satisfactorily ascertained. We shall at present advert only to one feature of it, as being more immediately connected with the present branch of our subject, that of communicating knowledge to the most ignorant and depraved.

The Report of this Experiment, drawn up by the Secretaries of that Institution, records, that "it had been requested, that, if possible, children should be procured, somewhat resembling the heathen, (or persons in a savage state,) whose intellectual and moral attainments were bounded only by their knowledge of natural objects, and whose feelings and obligations were of course regulated principally by coercion and fear of punishment."

Two gentlemen of the Committee, accordingly, undertook the search, and at last procured from the streets three children, a boy and two girls of the ages, so far as could be ascertained, (for they themselves could not tell,) of seven, nine, and eleven years, whom we shall designate G, H, and I. These children had no knowledge of letters; knew no more than the name of God, and that he was in the skies, but could not tell any thing about him, or what he had done. They knew not who made the sun, nor the world, nor themselves. They had no idea of a soul, or that they should live after death. One had a confused idea of the name of Jesus, as connected with prayers; which, however, she did not understand, but had never heard of Adam, Noah, or Abraham. When asked if they knew any thing of Moses, one on them (viz. I,) instantly recollected the name; but when examined, it was found that she only referred to a cant term usually bestowed upon the old-clothesmen of London. They had no idea of a Saviour; knew nothing of heaven or hell; had never heard of Christ, and knew not whether the name belonged to a man or a woman. The boy, (H,) when strictly interrogated on this point, and asked, whether he indeed knew nothing at all of Jesus Christ, thinking his veracity called in question, replied with much earnestness, and in a manner that showed the rude state of his mind, "No; upon my soul, I do not!"

This class, after eleven days' teaching, conducted in public, and in the presence of numbers of teachers, during one hour daily, were publicly examined in the Poultry Chapel, by a number of clergymen, before the Committee of the Sunday School Union, and a numerous congregation. The Report goes on to say, that the children of this class "were examined, minutely and individually, on the great leading doctrines of Christianity. The enumeration and illustrations of the several doctrines were given with a simplicity, and in a language, peculiarly their own; which clearly proved the value of that part of the Lesson System which enjoins the dealing with the ideas, rather than with the words; and which shewed, that they had acquired a clear knowledge of the several truths. They were also examined on some parts of the Old Testament History," with which, during that short period, they had been made thoroughly acquainted.

These facts of themselves, and they could be enlarged to almost any extent, clearly prove the power and the value of this exercise in communicating knowledge to the young. And, as we have seen that its efficiency consists entirely in its close imitation of the process of Nature in accomplishing the same object, we are the better warranted to press upon the minds of all who are interested in education and the art of teaching, the importance of keeping strictly to Nature, so far as we can trace her operations; as it is by doing so alone that we are sure of success. It may no doubt be said, that there are other ways of communicating knowledge to the young, besides the catechetical exercise; and therefore the necessity of adopting it is neither so necessary nor so urgent. To this it may be answered, that there have been other plans adopted, in urgent cases, for the nourishment of the body, besides the common mode of eating and digesting food; but all such plans are unnatural, and are of course but momentary and inadequate; – this, therefore, would form no argument for depriving children of their food. But even this argument is not parallel; for, although it has been found that partial nourishment may be conveyed to the blood otherwise than by the stomach, it has not yet been ascertained that any idea can enter the mind, except by this act of "reiteration." Unless, therefore, something definite can be brought forward, which will secure the performance of this act, different from the catechetical exercise, or the several modifications of it, that exercise ought to be considered as a necessary agent in every attempt of the teacher to communicate knowledge.

But this admission in a philosophical question is much more than is at all necessary for our present purpose. It is in every view of the case sufficient to shew, that knowledge cannot be imparted without voluntary active thought upon the ideas communicated, or what we have termed, "reiteration;" – and if this be once admitted, and if it can be shewn that the catechetical exercise produces this result more certainly, and more powerfully, than any other mode of instruction yet known, then nothing but prejudice will lead to the neglect of this, or will give the preference to another. And it is a remarkable fact, that on investigation it will be found, that almost every useful exercise introduced into schools within the last thirty years, owes its efficiency to the presence, more or less, of the principles which we have been explaining, as embodied in the catechetical exercise.¹⁴

CHAP. IV
On the Means by which Nature may be imitated in Exercising the Principle of Individuation

While it appears to be a law of Nature, that there can be no accumulation of knowledge without the act of reiteration, yet there are other principles which she brings into operation in connection with it, by which the amount of the various branches of knowledge received is greatly increased, and the knowledge itself more easily comprehended, and more permanently retained upon the memory.

The first of these principles, which we have before alluded to and described, is that of "individuation;" that principle by which an infant or child is induced to concentrate the powers of its mind upon a new object, and that to the exclusion for the time of every other, till it has become acquainted with it.

In a former chapter we found, that as long as a child remains solely under the guidance of Nature, it will not allow its attention to be distracted by different unknown objects at the same time; but whenever it selects one for examination, it invariably for the time abandons the consideration of every other. The consequence of this is, that infants, with all their physical and mental imbecility, acquire more real knowledge under the tuition of Nature in one year, than children who are double their age usually gain by the imperfect and unnatural exercises of unreformed schools in three or four. The cause of this is easily detected, and may be illustrated by the analogy of any one of the senses. The eye, for example, like the mind, must not only see the object, but it must look upon it – examine it – before the child can either become acquainted with it at the time, or remember it afterwards. But if unknown objects are made rapidly to flit past the eye of the child, so that this cannot be done before there is time to fix the attention upon any of them, the labour of the exhibitor is not only lost, but the sight of the child is impaired; – the eye itself is injured, and is less able, for some time afterwards, to look steadily upon any other object, even when that object is stationary. Such is the injury and the confusion created in the mind of a child when it is hurried forward from object to object, or from truth to truth, before the mind has had leisure to lay hold of them, or to concentrate its powers upon the ideas they suggest. The labour of the teacher in that case is not only lost, and the child harassed and irritated, but the powers of the mind, instead of being brightened and strengthened, are bewildered and mystified, and must therefore be weakened in a corresponding degree.

The method to be adopted therefore for the imitation of Nature in the working of this principle, will consist in bringing forward, for the consideration of the child, every new letter, or word, or truth, or object, by itself. When presented separately and alone, there is no distraction of mind – no confusion of ideas; the child is allowed to consider it well before learning it, so that he will know something of its form or its nature, and will remember it again when it is either presented to his notice alone, or when it is grouped with others. His idea of the object or truth may be indistinct and faint at first, but it is correct so far as it goes; and the ideas which he retains concerning it, are obviously much more extensive, than if the mind at its first presentation had been disturbed or bewildered by the addition of something else.

His idea of the object or the truth, after being repeatedly considered, may still be very inadequate, but it will now be distinct; and it is the want of this precision in the pupil's mind that so frequently deceives teachers, and confuses and obstructs the future advance of the scholars. When a child hears, or reads a passage, the teacher, who understands it himself, too often takes it for granted that the child as he proceeds is reiterating the ideas as well as himself, and is of course master of the subject. But this is not always the case; and wherever the child has not succeeded in doing so, all that follows in that lesson is usually to the child the cause of confusion and difficulty. He finds himself at a stand; and however far he may in these circumstances be dragged forward, he has not advanced a step, and he must at some future period, – and the sooner the better, – return again to the same point, and proceed anew under serious disadvantages.

In almost every stage of a child's education, the neglect of this principle is seriously and painfully felt. It is the cause of acute mental suffering to well affected and zealous pupils; and it is the chief origin of all the heartlessness, and idleness, and apathy, which are found to pervade and regulate the conduct of those that are less active. A careful appliance of this principle of individuation, therefore, is always of importance in education; but it ought never to be forgotten, that it is more peculiarly valuable and necessary at the commencement, than at any other period of a child's progress in learning. We shall advert to a few of the methods by which it may be applied in ordinary school education, in contrast with some instances in which it is neglected.

In teaching the alphabet to children, the principle of individuation is indispensable; and its neglect has been productive of serious and permanent mischief. A child of good capacity, by a proper attention to this principle, will, with pleasure and ease, learn the names and forms of the letters, with the labour of only a few hours;¹⁵ while, by neglecting the principle, the same child would, after years of irritation and weariness, be still found ignorant of its alphabet. The overlooking of the principle at this period has done an immense deal of injury to the cause of education. It has, at the very starting post in the race of improvement, quenched and destroyed all the real, as well as the imaginary delights of learning and knowledge. It has given the tyro such an erroneous but overwhelming impression of the difficulties and miseries which he must endure in his future advance, that the disgust then created has often so interwoven itself with his every feeling, that education has during life appeared to him the natural and necessary enemy to every kind of enjoyment.

It used to be common, and the practice may still we believe be found lingering among some of the lovers of antiquity, to make a child commence at the letter A, and proceed along the alphabet without stopping till he arrived at Z; and this lesson not unfrequently included both the alphabets of capitals and small letters. Now the cruelty of such an exercise with a child will at once be apparent, if we shall only change its form. If a teacher were to read over to an infant twice a-day a whole page or paragraph without stopping of Cæsar or Cicero in Latin, and demand that on hearing it he shall learn it, we could at once judge of the difficulty, and the feelings of a volatile mind chained to the constant and daily repetition of such a task; and if this exercise were termed its "education," we can easily conceive the amount of affection that the child would learn to cherish towards it. Now this is really no exaggerated illustration of the matter in hand, for in both cases the principle of individuation, so carefully guarded and enforced by Nature, is equally outraged; and it is only where, by some means or other, a remedy for the evil accidentally occurs, that the result in the case of the alphabet, is not exactly the same as it would have been in the case of the classics above supposed. The writer once saw in a Sunday school, where the children were taught twice each Sabbath, a class in which some of the children had attended for upwards of two years, and were still in their alphabet; and if the same mode had been pursued, there is little doubt that they would have been in it yet.

The remedy for this evil is obvious. Instead of confounding the eye and the mind of the child, by rapidly parading twenty-six, or fifty-four forms, continuously and without intermission before the pupil, the letters ought to be presented to the child singly, or at most by two at a time; and these two should be rendered familiar, both in name and in form, before another character is introduced. When a few of the more conspicuous letters have become familiar, another is to be brought forward, and the child may be made to amuse himself, by picking out from a page of a book, all the letters he has learned, naming them, and if necessary describing them to a companion or a sub-monitor as they occur. Or he may be set down by himself, with a waste leaf from an old book, or pamphlet, or newspaper, to prick with a pin the new letter or letters last taught him; or, as an introduction to his writing, he may be made to score them gently with ink from a fine tipped pen. In these exercises, and all others which are in their nature similar, the principle of individuation is acknowledged and acted upon; and therefore it is, that a child will, by their means, acquire an acquaintance with the letters in an exceedingly short time, and, which is of still greater importance, without irritation or trouble. These methods may sometimes be rendered yet more effective, by the teacher applying the catechetical exercise to this comparatively dry and rather forbidding part of a child's education. It proceeds upon the principle of describing each letter, and attaching its name to the description, such as "round o," "spectacle g," "top dotted i," &c. as in the "Classified Alphabet." The teacher has thus an opportunity of exercising the child's imagination, as well as its memory, and making a monotonous, and comparatively unintellectual exercise, one of considerable variety and amusement.

In teaching the alphabet to adults, whose minds are capable of appreciating and applying the principle of analysis, the "Classified Alphabet" should invariably be used. By this means their memory, in endeavouring to recall the form and name of any particular letter, instead of having to search through the whole twenty-six, has never to think of more than the four or five which compose its class, – a circumstance which makes the alphabet much more easily acquired by the adult than by a child. But even here, the principle of individuation must not be lost sight of; each letter in the class must be separately learned, and each class must be familiar, before another is taught.

The principle of individuation continues to be equally necessary in teaching children to combine the letters in the formation of words; and when it is attended to, and when the only real use of letters, as the mere symbols of sound, is understood by the pupil, a smart child may be taught to read in a few minutes. This is not a theory, but a fact, – evidenced in the experience of many, and in the presence of thousands. Nor is it necessary that the words which are taught, should consist only of two or three letters; if the word be familiar to the child in speech, it becomes instantly known, when divided and taught in parts or syllables; and when once it is learned by the sounds of the letters, though these sounds merely approximate to the pronunciation of the word, it is sufficient to give a hint of what the word is, and when once it is known, it will not likely be again forgotten. By this means, the child is never puzzled except by entirely new words; and by knowing the use of the letters in their sounds, he receives a key by which at least to guess at them, which the sense of the subject greatly assists; so that one day, or even one hour, is sometimes, and we have no doubt will soon be generally, sufficient to overcome the hitherto forbidding and harassing drudgery of learning to read.

In teaching children their first lessons, it is of great importance that the main design of reading should be clearly understood, and attended to. As writing, philosophically considered, is nothing more than an artificial substitute for speaking, so reading is nothing more than an artificial substitute for hearing, and is subject to all the laws which regulate that act. Now one of the chief laws impressed by Nature on the act of hearing the speech of others, is the very remarkable one formerly alluded to, namely, the exclusive occupation of the mind with the ideas communicated, to the entire exclusion of the words, which are merely the means by which the ideas are conveyed. The words are no doubt heard, but they are never thought of; – for if they were, the mind would instantly become distracted, and the ideas would be lost. This law equally applies to the act of reading; and every one feels, that perfection in this art is never attained, till the mind is exclusively occupied with the ideas in the book, and never in any case with the words which convey them. But in learning to read, the difficulty of decyphering the words, tends to interfere with this law, and this must be guarded against. The remedy simply is, to allow the child time to overcome this first difficulty, by repeatedly, if necessary, reading the sentence till he can read it perfectly; and then, before leaving it, to discipline the mind to the perception of the ideas it contains, now that the child can read it well.

The catechetical exercise, as in the "First Class Book on the Lesson System," will almost always accomplish the object here pointed out; and the value of the exercise it recommends will be best understood and appreciated, by observing the evils which invariably follow its neglect. For if the child be allowed to read on and on, while the difficulty of decyphering the words in the book remains, the ideas will be left behind, the attention will be fatigued, and at last exhausted. The child will continue to read without understanding; and the habit thus acquired of reading the words, without perceiving the ideas at all, will soon be established and confirmed. Custom has robbed this relict of a former age of much of its repulsiveness; but it is not the less hurtful on that account. Were we to run a parallel with it in any other matter, its true nature and deformity would at once appear. For example, were we to suppose ourselves listening to an imperative message from a superior, by a messenger with whose language we were but partially acquainted, we would not allow him to proceed with his communication from beginning to end, while the very first sentence he uttered, had not been understood, and the mind was unprepared for that which was to follow. We would stop him at the close of the very first sentence, and would master the meaning of that, before we would advance with him another step; and then we would make him proceed at such a pace as we could keep up with him. If he left us again behind, there would be but one remedy. He must return and repeat the sentence where he left us, till we had comprehended his master's meaning; and if he refused to do this, he could not conscientiously say to him on his return, that he had delivered his message. By following this plan, and adopting this branch of the natural principle of individuation in such a case, two benefits would arise. We would first become perfectly acquainted with the will and message of our superior; and next, we would, at the close of the exercise, be so much more familiar with the language in which it was delivered, as that it would require less effort on a future occasion, to comprehend the meaning of the same speaker. If this method had not been adopted, and the message had been given entire and without a pause, it might have been rehearsed in our hearing a hundred times, but the meaning would neither have been mastered, nor would our knowledge of the language have been in the least improved.

The application of this principle of individuation in the early stages of a child's learning to read, suggests the propriety also of making some preparation for his reading every new lesson in succession. We have seen that it is chiefly the new words in a lesson that create difficulty, and prevent the operation of that important law in Nature which induces the mind at once to lay hold of the ideas. To obviate this distraction of mind therefore beforehand, the new words which are to occur in the lesson should be selected, and made familiar to the child previously, and by themselves; – he should be taught to read them easily by the combination of their letters, and clearly to understand their meaning, in precisely the same shade in which they are used in the lesson he is to read. When this is done, the lesson will be read with ease and with profit; – while, without this, the difficulty will be much greater, if not beyond his powers. In accordance with this plan, the "First Class Book," before referred to, has been constructed, and its efficiency on that account is greatly increased.