Essays On Education And Kindred Subjects (Fiscle Part- 11) - Herbert Spencer (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud txt) 📗
- Author: Herbert Spencer
Book online «Essays On Education And Kindred Subjects (Fiscle Part- 11) - Herbert Spencer (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud txt) 📗». Author Herbert Spencer
Not Only That The Physician Depends On It For The Correctness Of His
Diagnosis, And That To The Engineer It Is So Important That Some Years
In The Workshop Are Prescribed For Him; But We May See That The
Philosopher, Also, Is Fundamentally One Who _Observes_ Relationships Of
Things Which Others Had Overlooked, And That The Poet, Too, Is One Who
Part 1 Chapter 2 (Intellectual Education) Pg 25Sees_ The Fine Facts In Nature Which All Recognise When Pointed Out,
But Did Not Before Remark. Nothing Requires More To Be Insisted On Than
That Vivid And Complete Impressions Are All-Essential. No Sound Fabric
Of Wisdom Can Be Woven Out Of A Rotten Raw-Material.
While The Old Method Of Presenting Truths In The Abstract Has Been
Falling Out Of Use, There Has Been A Corresponding Adoption Of The New
Method Of Presenting Them In The Concrete. The Rudimentary Facts Of
Exact Science Are Now Being Learnt By Direct Intuition, As Textures, And
Tastes, And Colours Are Learnt. Employing The Ball-Frame For First
Lessons In Arithmetic Exemplifies This. It Is Well Illustrated, Too, In
Professor De Morgan's Mode Of Explaining The Decimal Notation. M.
Marcel, Rightly Repudiating The Old System Of Tables, Teaches Weights
And Measures By Referring To The Actual Yard And Foot, Pound And Ounce,
Gallon And Quart; And Lets The Discovery Of Their Relationships Be
Experimental. The Use Of Geographical Models And Models Of The Regular
Bodies, Etc., As Introductory To Geography And Geometry Respectively,
Are Facts Of The Same Class. Manifestly, A Common Trait Of These Methods
Is, That They Carry Each Child's Mind Through A Process Like That Which
The Mind Of Humanity At Large Has Gone Through. The Truths Of Number, Of
Form, Of Relationship In Position, Were All Originally Drawn From
Objects; And To Present These Truths To The Child In The Concrete Is To
Let Him Learn Them As The Race Learnt Them. By And By, Perhaps, It Will
Be Seen That He Cannot Possibly Learn Them In Any Other Way; For That If
He Is Made To Repeat Them As Abstractions, The Abstractions Can Have No
Meaning For Him, Until He Finds That They Are Simply Statements Of What
He Intuitively Discerns.
But Of All The Changes Taking Place, The Most Significant Is The Growing
Desire To Make The Acquirement Of Knowledge Pleasurable Rather Than
Painful--A Desire Based On The More Or Less Distinct Perception, That At
Each Age The Intellectual Action Which A Child Likes Is A Healthful One
For It; And Conversely. There Is A Spreading Opinion That The Rise Of An
Appetite For Any Kind Of Information Implies That The Unfolding Mind Has
Become Fit To Assimilate It, And Needs It For Purposes Of Growth; And
That, On The Other Hand, The Disgust Felt Towards Such Information Is A
Sign Either That It Is Prematurely Presented, Or That It Is Presented In
An Indigestible Form. Hence The Efforts To Make Early Education Amusing,
And All Education Interesting. Hence The Lectures On The Value Of Play.
Hence The Defence Of Nursery Rhymes And Fairy Tales. Daily We More And
More Conform Our Plans To Juvenile Opinion. Does The Child Like This Or
That Kind Of Teaching?--Does He Take To It? We Constantly Ask. "His
Natural Desire Of Variety Should Be Indulged," Says M. Marcel; "And The
Gratification Of His Curiosity Should Be Combined With His Improvement."
"Lessons," He Again Remarks, "Should Cease Before The Child Evinces
Symptoms Of Weariness." And So With Later Education. Short Breaks During
School-Hours, Excursions Into The Country, Amusing Lectures, Choral
Songs--In These And Many Like Traits The Change May Be Discerned.
Asceticism Is Disappearing Out Of Education As Out Of Life; And The
Usual Test Of Political Legislation--Its Tendency To Promote
Happiness--Is Beginning To Be, In A Great Degree, The Test Of
Legislation For The School And The Nursery.
What Now Is The Common Characteristic Of These Several Changes? Is It
Not An Increasing Conformity To The Methods Of Nature? The
Relinquishment Of Early Forcing, Against Which Nature Rebels, And The
Leaving Of The First Years For Exercise Of The Limbs And Senses, Show
This. The Superseding Of Rote-Learnt Lessons By Lessons Orally And
Experimentally Given, Like Those Of The Field And Play-Ground, Shows
This. The Disuse Of Rule-Teaching, And The Adoption Of Teaching By
Principles--That Is, The Leaving Of Generalisations Until There Are
Particulars To Base Them On--Show This. The System Of Object-Lessons
Shows This. The Teaching Of The Rudiments Of Science In The Concrete
Instead Of The Abstract, Shows This. And Above All, This Tendency Is
Shown In The Variously-Directed Efforts To Present Knowledge In
Attractive Forms, And So To Make The Acquirement Of It Pleasurable. For,
As It Is The Order Of Nature In All Creatures That The Gratification
Accompanying The Fulfilment Of Needful Functions Serves As A Stimulus To
Their Fulfilment--As, During The Self-Education Of The Young Child, The
Delight Taken In The Biting Of Corals And The Pulling To Pieces Of Toys,
Becomes The Prompter To Actions Which Teach It The Properties Of Matter;
It Follows That, In Choosing The Succession Of Subjects And The Modes Of
Instruction Which Most Interest The Pupil, We Are Fulfilling Nature's
Behests, And Adjusting Our Proceedings To The Laws Of Life.
Thus, Then, We Are On The Highway Towards The Doctrine Long Ago
Enunciated By Pestalozzi, That Alike In Its Order And Its Methods,
Education Must Conform To The Natural Process Of Mental Evolution--That
There Is A Certain Sequence In Which The Faculties Spontaneously
Develop, And A Certain Kind Of Knowledge Which Each Requires During Its
Development; And That It Is For Us To Ascertain This Sequence, And
Supply This Knowledge. All The Improvements Above Alluded To Are Partial
Applications Of This General Principle. A Nebulous Perception Of It Now
Prevails Among Teachers; And It Is Daily More Insisted On In Educational
Works. "The Method Of Nature Is The Archetype Of All Methods," Says M.
Marcel. "The Vital Principle In The Pursuit Is To Enable The Pupil
Rightly To Instruct Himself," Writes Mr. Wyse. The More Science
Familiarises Us With The Constitution Of Things, The More Do We See In
Them An Inherent Self-Sufficingness. A Higher Knowledge Tends
Continually To Limit Our Interference With The Processes Of Life. As In
Medicine The Old "Heroic Treatment" Has Given Place To Mild Treatment,
And Often No Treatment Save A Normal Regimen--As We Have Found That It
Is Not Needful To Mould The Bodies Of Babes By Bandaging Them In
Papoose-Fashion Or Otherwise--As In Gaols It Is Being Discovered That No
Cunningly-Devised Discipline Of Ours Is So Efficient In Producing
Reformation As The Natural Discipline Of Self-Maintenance By Productive
Labour; So In Education, We Are Finding That Success Is To Be Achieved
Only By Making Our Measures Subservient To That Spontaneous Unfolding
Which All Minds Go Through In Their Progress To Maturity.
Of Course, This Fundamental Principle Of Tuition, That The Arrangement
Of Matter And Method Must Correspond With The Order Of Evolution And
Mode Of Activity Of The Faculties--A Principle So Obviously True, That
Once Stated It Seems Almost Self-Evident--Has Never Been Wholly
Disregarded. Teachers Have Unavoidably Made Their School-Courses
Coincide With It In Some Degree, For The Simple Reason That Education Is
Possible Only On That Condition. Boys Were Never Taught The
Rule-Of-Three Until After They Had Learnt Addition. They Were Not Set To
Write Exercises Before They Had Got Into Their Copybooks. Conic Sections
Have Always Been Preceded By Euclid. But The Error Of The Old Methods
Consists In This, That They Do Not Recognise In Detail What They Are
Obliged To Recognise In General. Yet The Principle Applies Throughout.
If From The Time When A Child Is Able To Conceive Two Things As Related
Part 1 Chapter 2 (Intellectual Education) Pg 26In Position, Years Must Elapse Before It Can Form A True Concept Of The
Earth, As A Sphere Made Up Of Land And Sea, Covered With Mountains,
Forests, Rivers, And Cities, Revolving On Its Axis, And Sweeping Round
The Sun--If It Gets From The One Concept To The Other By Degrees--If The
Intermediate Concepts Which It Forms Are Consecutively Larger And More
Complicated; Is It Not Manifest That There Is A General Succession
Through Which Alone It Can Pass; That Each Larger Concept Is Made By The
Combination Of Smaller Ones, And Presupposes Them; And That To Present
Any Of These Compound Concepts Before The Child Is In Possession Of Its
Constituent Ones, Is Only Less Absurd Than To Present The Final Concept
Of The Series Before The Initial One? In The Mastering Of Every Subject
Some Course Of Increasingly Complex Ideas Has To Be Gone Through. The
Evolution Of The Corresponding Faculties Consists In The Assimilation Of
These; Which, In Any True Sense, Is Impossible Without They Are Put Into
The Mind In The Normal Order. And When This Order Is Not Followed, The
Result Is, That They Are Received With Apathy Or Disgust; And That
Unless The Pupil Is Intelligent Enough Eventually To Fill Up The Gaps
Himself, They Lie In His Memory As Dead Facts, Capable Of Being Turned
To Little Or No Use.
"But Why Trouble Ourselves About Any _Curriculum_ At All?" It May Be
Asked. "If It Be True That The Mind Like The Body Has A Predetermined
Course Of Evolution--If It Unfolds Spontaneously--If Its Successive
Desires For This Or That Kind Of Information Arise When These Are
Severally Required For Its Nutrition--If There Thus Exists In Itself A
Prompter To The Right Species Of Activity At The Right Time; Why
Interfere In Any Way? Why Not Leave Children _Wholly_ To The Discipline
Of Nature?--Why Not Remain Quite Passive And Let Them Get Knowledge As
They Best Can?--Why Not Be Consistent Throughout?" This Is An
Awkward-Looking Question. Plausibly Implying As It Does, That A System
Of Complete _Laissez-Faire_ Is The Logical Outcome Of The Doctrines Set
Forth, It Seems To Furnish A Disproof Of Them By _Reductio Ad Absurdum_.
In Truth, However, They Do Not, When Rightly Understood, Commit Us To
Any Such Untenable Position. A Glance At The Physical Analogies Will
Clearly Show This. It Is A General Law Of Life That The More Complex The
Organism To Be Produced, The Longer The Period During Which It Is
Dependent On A Parent Organism For Food And Protection. The Difference
Between The Minute, Rapidly-Formed, And Self-Moving Spore Of A Conferva,
And The Slowly-Developed Seed Of A Tree, With Its Multiplied Envelopes
And Large Stock Of Nutriment Laid By To Nourish The Germ During Its
First Stages Of Growth, Illustrates This Law In Its Application To The
Vegetal World. Among Animals We May Trace It In A Series Of Contrasts
From The Monad Whose Spontaneously-Divided Halves Are As Self-Sufficing
The Moment After Their Separation As Was The Original Whole; Up To Man,
Whose Offspring Not Only Passes Through A Protracted Gestation, And
Subsequently Long Depends On The Breast For Sustenance; But After That
Must Have Its Food Artificially Administered; Must, When It Has Learned
To Feed Itself, Continue To Have Bread, Clothing, And Shelter Provided;
And Does Not Acquire The Power Of Complete Self-Support Until A Time
Varying From Fifteen To Twenty Years After Its Birth. Now This Law
Applies To The Mind As To The Body. For Mental Pabulum Also, Every
Higher Creature, And Especially Man, Is At First Dependent On Adult Aid.
Lacking The Ability To Move About, The Babe Is Almost As Powerless
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