Class L 5 /(TO f Book Copyrights?. COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT, The Catholic University Pedagogical Series VOLUME III TEACHERS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY PEDAGOGICAL SERIES Will include text-books, teachers manuals, and popular treatises on the various aspects of Catholic Education NOW READY Vol. I. The Making and the Unmaking of a Dullard By Thomas Edward Shields Vol. II. The Education of Our Girls By Thomas Edward Shields Vol. III. Teachers Manual of Primary Methods By Thomas Edward Shields IN PREPARATION Vol. IV. The Education of the Laity in the Middle Ages By Patrick J. McCormick Vol. V. Elements of the History of Education By Patrick J. McCormick Vol. VI. Education in Ancient Times By William Turner Vol. VII. The Philosophy of Education By Thomas Edward Shields Vol. VIII. The Psychology of Education By Thomas Edward Shields Vol. IX. The Science and Art of Study By Thomas Edward Shields Vol. X. Education in Medieval Times By Patrick J. McCormick Vol. XL Education in Modern Times By Edward A. Pace Teachers Manual of Primary Methods By Thomas Edward Shields, Ph. D., LL. D. Professor of Psychology and Education in The Catholic University of America WASHINGTON. D. C. THE CATHOLIC EDUCATION PRESS 1912 iJmprtmatut ^ v?V ►& JAMES CARDINAL GIBBONS Archbishop of Baltimore Copyright, 1912, By T. E. Shields gCI.A3U>358 Sir the Alumnae irf the Sisters College of the dathfllu: Mnf uerstty tA Amerfta Whose joy it is to spend them- selves in bringing to the children of this generation the blessed privilege of hearing from the lips of the Master the gracious invitation, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God" Ihls bank is loumgly fcfcfcatefr PREFACE The social and economic changes of the last few dec- ades have weakened the home and placed a new burden upon the school. In the industrial home of the past the child received a sensory-motor training which formed the basis of his education. The school was called upon to add the formal elements only. In the olden days the child was called upon to contribute through his industry in many home occupations to the support of the family ; to-day, he is deprived, for the most part, of the oppor- tunity to grow in usefulness and independence. The school must meet these new needs of the children: and the burden in this respect falls heaviest on the primary grades. The food material for the minds and hearts of the children that was formerly supplied by the home must now be furnished in the school. Old methods no longer suffice. The scientific achievements which have so profoundly changed the adult world must also be made to furnish forth the means whereby the school will be enabled to adjust the child to his new environment. It is a mistake to suppose that the teacher is the only factor in the educative process affected by these changes. Her methods must be transformed so as to meet the present needs, but it is still more important that the text-book which is placed in the hands of the children should conform strictly to the same requirements of method. The teacher should be able to look to the text^ book for the proper sequence in the materials to be presented no less than for the proper method of pre- 8 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PKIMAKY METHODS senting each new truth. During the past few decades much has been written and said concerning primary methods, but little of this found expression in primary text-books. The teachers in our Catholic schools through- out the land frequently complain of the quality of the text-books which they are obliged to use. It has often been pointed out that whereas purely secular subjects were presented in attractive form, the truths of religion were reduced to unintelligible theological formulae and presented to the children in the unattractive garb of the catechism. When, a few years ago, the Department of Education was established in the Catholic University, it was felt by those placed in charge of it that the most important work which it should undertake was a revision of primary text-books so as to render them both scientific and Catho- lic, and a revision of primary methods which would render our work fruitful in placing religion in the heart of the curriculum and in giving to it the preponderating influence which it should have in the developing minds and hearts of Catholic children. The Catholic Education Series of primary text-books was first undertaken. The first four volumes of this series have already been issued. The remaining volumes are in preparation. To derive the full benefit from the use of these books the teachers have felt the need of a manual of method which would set forth the principles of method involved and the aims which the authors of these primary text-books sought to attain. The present volume is an answer to requests frequently expressed by the primary teachers who have been using the Catho- lic Education Series with good results, but who feel that PREFACE 9 much more might be achieved through a better under- standing of the methods involved. In the preparation of this manual it has seemed best not to confine the text to the rules of method. A dis- cussion, more or less lengthy, of the principles involved it is believed will prove helpful to the teacher. Use was freely made, consequently, of material previously pub- lished elsewhere. Our grateful achnowledgments are due to Kev. P. J. McCormick for permission to make use of extracts from his article on The Building of the Child's Vocabulary, and to Miss Dunlap and Sister Ignatia, Saint-Mary-of- the- Woods, Vigo County, Indiana, for the dramatic sketches which they wrote in illustration of our method. Our thanks are especially due to Sister Ignatia for her work in preparing the blackboard and chart material which is suggested for the preliminary work of the first grade. Thomas Edward Shields. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAETI Beginnings chapter I The Adjustment of the Child to His School Environment Preparation for First Grade 22 Children from the Kindergarten 23 Children from Preliminary Grade 24 Children withont Previous School Experience. _ 24 Method of Adjustment 25 From Home to School.. 27 Visiting 28 Gifts 28 School Possessions 29 Love 30 Authority 30 Eeligion 31 chapter n The Adjustment of the Child to His Physical Environ- ment Mental Continuity 33 Health 34 Sensory-Motor Training 34 Action Drills 35 Action Games 35 Ehythmic Work 35 Busy Work 36 12 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS CHAPTER III Teaching the Children to Co-operate The Functions of Play 37 Motor Expression 38 Joyousness 39 CHAPTER IV The Imparting of Suitable Thought Material Story Telling 41 Correlation 42 chapter v The Child's Spoken Vocabulary Home Preparation 43 Correcting Errors 44 Enlarging the Spoken Vocabulary 45 CHAPTER VI The Child's Written Vocabulary The Word and the Thought . 47 From Script to Print 48 The Child's First Book 49 CHAPTER VII The Child's First Day in School Program for the First Day 52 Introduction by the Principal 53 TABLE OF CONTENTS 13 Program for the First Day — continued. Greeting Game 56 Assignment of Places 57 Story 60 Sleeping Game and Surprise 60 Seat Work 61 Concert Eecitation 63 Good-bye Song 63 Prayer, etc. 64 Afternoon Program 64 CHAPTEK VIII Sense Training in the First Grade The Milkweed Lesson 68 A Fruit Lesson 70 Sense Training 70 Assimilation 71 Imagination 71 Eesults 72 Sensory-Motor Drills 74 Drawing 75 PART II Primaey Text-books chapter IX Teacher and Text-book Selection of the Text-book 78 Knowledge of the Text-book 80 14 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PEIMABY METHODS Knowledge of the Text-book — continued. Correct Use of Text-book 80 Unity of Method 81 Eemedying Defects 83 chaptee x Functions of Primary Text-books Thought Material 84 Form 86 Sequence 87 Germinal Truths 87 Time 88 Word Selection 88 Fundamental Truths 89 A Histological Analogy 89 Principle Involved 91 Transition Stages 91 Correlation 93 Name of First Book 94 The Principle of Correlation r 95 Curriculum 96 Eeligion and Secular Knowledge 97 Exclusion of Religion 98 Segregation of Religion 100 Religion and Other School Subjects 101 Instinctive Basis 104 Transforming Instincts 105 Five-fold Social Inheritance 105 Vocabulary Building 107 TABLE OF CONTENTS 15 PAET III The Catholic Education Sebies of Pbimaby Text-books chapteb xi Religion, First Book Part I, Love _ 114 Nature Study 114 Domestic Study 115 Eeligious Lesson 115 Songs 118 Part II, Nutrition 119 Part III, Protection from Danger 120 Part IV, Eemedy 120 Part V, Models for Imitation 121 CHAPTEB XII Religion, Second Book Part I, The Eeward of Obedience 124 Nature Study, a, b, c, d, e 124 Domestic Study, a, b, c 130 Eeligious Lesson, a, b, c, d, e, f 131 Part II, The First End of Obedience— Private Wor- ship 134 Nature Study, a, b, c, d, e 134 Domestic Study, a 138 Eeligious Lesson 139 Part III, The Second End of Obedience— Public Worship 139 16 TEACHEKS MANUAL OP PRIMARY METHODS Part IV, God's Law is for Our Good 141 Nature Study 141 Domestic Study . 141 Eeligious Lesson 142 Part V, Perfect Obedience 143 Nature Study, a 143 Domestic Study 144 Eeligious Lesson . 144 Part VI, The Disobedience of Our First Parents 145 Nature Study : 145 Domestic Study 145 Eeligious Lesson 146 Part VII, Eedemption 146 The Water Lily and the Minnow 146 The Way to Heaven 147 CHAPTER XIII Religion, Third Book Part I, The Church >— 151 Faith, Hope and Charity 153 The Ark, the Flood, and the Eainbow :— 153 The Call of Abraham___ 154 Joseph is Betrayed by His Brothers 154 Part II, Sacrifice 156 Early Sacrifices 156 Abraham's Obedience 157 The Paschal Lamb 157 The Lamb of God 157 The New Commandment 158 Jesus Prays in the Garden 158 TABLE OF CONTENTS 17 Part III, The Holy Eucharist 158 Part IV, God With Us 159 Across the Red Sea 160 Mount Sinai 160 The Building of the Tabernacle 160 Sacrifices in the Tabernacle 160 The Temple 161 The Upper Eoom 162 The First Christians 162 The Catacombs 162 CHAPTER XIV Third Reader Part I, Conscience 166 The Coward and His Wife 166 Lessons for Life 168 Bird Thoughts 169 The Pea Blossom 170 The Magic King. 170 To Whom Shall We Give Thanks? 171 The Camel 171 The Meeting in the Desert 172 Part II, Courage 173 The Owl and the Pussy Cat 173 The Ugly Duckling 174 The Little Hero of Haarlem 176 Moses in the Bulrushes 177 William Tell 178 Queen Esther 179 18 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PBIMAKY METHODS Part III, God and Neighbor 179 Daniel 180 St. Peter 180 The Christian Slave 180 PAET IV Thought and Language chaptee xv Method of Thought Development Memory 185 Eepetition '. 185 Memorizing Forms 186 Memorizing the Catechism : 187 Memorizing Thought 188 The Shepherd Idea 189 The Mother Idea 190 Derivative Attitudes 191 Development of Details 192 The Idea of Sin 193 Motor Tendencies 193 Inhibition 194 Germinal Thought '. 195 First Phase of Development 195 Final Stage of Development 196 Correlation 196 Heredity 197 Supplementary Work 198 Aim 199 Qualities of the Text-book 199 The Author 199 TABLE OF CONTENTS 19 Supplementary Work — continued. The Teacher 201 Oral Work 201 The Fairy Tale 202 Supplementary Eeading 203 Dramatizing 204 Play and Work 205 For Physical Culture 205 Building a Nest 206 For Emotional Culture 206 A Welcome to Jesus 207 June Time 208 The Bescue 209 The Storm at Sea 209 The Child His Own Dramatist 210 Silver Brook 211 CHAPTER XVI Defective Methods in Primary Reading Changed Conditions 217 Unity of Method . 218 Eeaders 219 Word Consciousness 221 The Alphabet Method 224 The Phonic Method 225 The Word Method 226 CHAPTER XVII The Context Method of Reading Wrong Methods ; 231 Eemedies 236 20 TEACHEBS MANUAL OF PEIMABY METHODS Aim in Primary Beading 239 Protest From Secondary Schools 241 Silent Beading 242 Preparing Text-books 243 CHAPTEB XVIII Teaching the Child to Spell The Oral Method 246 Function of Written Word 248 Spelling Book 249 The Blackboard 250 Visualizing , 251 The Text-book 254 Classifying the Children 255 Spelling Drills 256 CHAPTEB XIX Preparation for the Child's First Reader 260 CHAPTEB XX Modified Word List for First Book 269 CHAPTEB XXI Word List for First Book 275 CHAPTEB XXII Word List for Second Book 294 PART I BEGINNINGS The teacher of the first primary grade occupies a very difficult position and one that requires many qualifica- tions for the successful discharge of the duties which it imposes. She must have the heart of a mother and mother-love must go out from her so generously that the little ones may forget for the time being that they are not in their own homes. She must have infinite patience and a mind that is capable of discerning great things in little beginnings. She must not expect to find old heads on young shoulders, but must perseveringly plant in the fertile soil of the child's mind and heart the seeds of Christian virtue, many of which will not reach maturity or bear fruit until the years of adult life have been reached. She must have a definite view of the things that are to be accomplished during the first days in school and she must not yield to the temptation, as some fond mothers do, of neglecting the present while she dreams of the great things that the children will one day achieve. St. Francis de Sales, writing to an over-ardent soul, gives advice which every primary teacher might well take to heart. He says: "It is necessary, in order to travel well, for us to attend to the accomplishment of that part of the journey which is immediately before us, to get over the first day's ground, and not amuse our- selves with desiring to accomplish the last day's journey when our business is to make an end of the first." CHAPTER I THE ADJUSTMENT OF THE CHILD TO THE SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT The child passes with ease from room to room or from grade to grade; the changes of environment which he meets in the ordinary school promotion are not sufficient to present any serious difficulty. But the case is usually otherwise with the children who enter the first grade. Some of them, and at times a large majority of them, have little or no experience outside of the home. In the cities, of course, they have seen people passing in the street and they have probably had neighboring chil- dren as playmates, but they are wholly unaccustomed to take their places in the ranks of the ordered numbers that make up a school population, nor are they accus- tomed to submit to other authority than that exercised by their parents or some other member of the home group under the direct supervision of the parents. To transfer the child from the home to the school without shock is the first problem to be encountered by the teacher of the first grade; it is a problem which pre- sents many grave difficulties and upon its successful solution the child 's welfare and his progress intellectually and morally depend to a much larger extent than is com- monly recognized. Preparation foe the First Grade Children applying for admission to the first grade may be divided into three groups, in the first of which are found those who have attended kindergarten, in the ADJUSTMENT TO SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT 23 second those who have been trained in a preliminary grade, and in the third those who come directly from home without any previous school experience. Children from the Kindergarten. The advantages of a good kindergarten training are obvious. It accustoms the children to be away from home for several hours each day, and it familiarizes them with the school building and its appurtenances as well as with teachers and play- mates. It thus helps in no small measure to bridge over the chasm which would otherwise exist for the child be- tween the home and the school. In a well-conducted kin- dergarten the social side of the child's nature is devel- oped to some extent. The children are taught to co- operate in many ways : they learn to sing together and to move and act in groups; they learn to measure their actions and the expenditure of their energy by external standards ; they co-operate at times in the attainment of common objects and in the performance of simple social functions ; their spoken vocabulary is enlarged and perfected; and, what is in the judgment of many edu- cators the most conspicuous advantage of kindergarten training, they learn to use their muscles to some purpose and to co-ordinate the activities of eye and hand in the performance of many actions and in the construction of many simple objects. But however desirable the kindergarten may be, we must reconcile ourselves to the fact that it is at present beyond the reach of multitudes of our children, and these unfortunate little ones must be dealt with in the first grade. Private kindergartens conducted without refer- ence to the work of the school, while they may amuse the children, are believed by many to be a detriment 24 TEACHEBS MANUAL OF PBIMABY METHODS rather than a help, since they omit the central feature of the work, namely, the adjusting of the pupil to his school environment. However, it is obvious that the absence of a proper kindergarten training increases the work to be done in the first grade and in many ways renders the task of the teacher more difficult. It should be added, however, that the presence of even half a dozen well-trained kindergarten children in this grade suffices to supply suitable leadership to the others. This will materially lighten the task of the teacher, especially dur- ing the first weeks of the school year. Children from Preliminary Grade. The second group of children who enter the primary grade are those who have had a year 's preliminary training. In parts of New England where it is still customary to count nine grades in the elementary school, this preliminary year is known as the first grade and the children are admitted to it at the age of five. What is elsewhere known as the first grade corresponds to the second grade of these schools. In St. Paul, where the kindergarten system prevails, there are only eight grades and the children admitted to the first grade are supposed to be six years of age and to have passed through the kindergarten. In Minne- apolis, similarly, there are only eight grades. There is no kindergarten, but children five years old are admitted to a preliminary grade known as B. First. Children Without Previous School Experience. The children of the third group enter the first grade at the age of six years without having had the advantage of a training either in a kindergarten or in a preliminary grade. These children have the maturity characteristic of their years. They have usually received less formal ADJUSTMENT TO SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT 25 training than the children in the previous groups but their individuality and initiative are likely to be more pro- nounced. They are more timid, however, in their new surroundings, less capable of expressing themselves be- fore strangers ; and they have usually a less varied mental content than the children of the same age who have had a year's training in school. It must not be supposed, how- ever, that the development of these children was arrested during the year in which their companions attended school. What they have learned at home and on the streets they have learned intensely and their minds will frequently be found to possess the native vigor of unmolested growth, which will show to good advantage after the transition from home to school has been successfully made. Their apperception masses may be more limited in scope but they are usually more fecund. Method of Adjustment If the children applying for admittance to the first grade room belonged exclusively to any one of these three groups, we could shape the first work of the grade with direct reference to their condition. But, since it is usual to have the three groups represented in the first grade, it will be necessary for the teacher so to adjust her methods and her work that the needs of all the chil- dren may be met. Where this is neglected, the phenomenon of retardation will manifest itself in the room and at the end of the year a greater or less number of children will have failed to reach the stage of development requisite for promotion to the second grade. Experience also shows the unwisdom of segregating these three groups 26 TEACHERS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS and dealing with them separately in the first grade work. JWe must allow the children to be helpful to each other. The members of each group have something to learn from the members of the other groups, and the tactful teacher will here avail herself to the full of the benefits to be derived from the play of the imitative instinct. The children having a year's preliminary school experience might be able to use a text-book from the very first day in the primary room. But the children without such ex- perience would be retarded by this procedure. The wise teacher will, accordingly, avoid the use of a book for a time and will supply the needs of all the pupils through the use of blackboard and chart until such time as they are ready to use their first book. The length of this preliminary period in which no book is used will naturally vary in accordance with the needs of the children. Where the great majority of the children have had a preliminary year in school, five or six weeks will be sufficient time in which to prepare the class for their first book. But where the balance is the other way, it would be wise to devote four or five months to the preliminary work. The chief things to be accomplished for the children during the period of their preliminary preparation, whether this extend over six weeks or over half a school year, may be summed up under the following five heads : 1) to give the children a realization of the school as an enlarged and specialized home; 2) to develop the individual child's power of adjusting himself to his physical environment ; 3) to teach the children to co-operate with each other and with their teacher ; 4) to enlarge the children's spoken vocabulary; 5) to develop a limited written vocabulary selected with direct reference to their first book. ADJUSTMENT TO SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT 27 From Home to School. The unity and continuity of the child's unfolding mental life demand that the transi- tion from home to school be made with as little shock to the child as possible. Every available means should be employed to bridge over the chasm which too frequently separates the school from the home. The home is the only world known to the child during the pre-school period of his existence. In all his mental attitudes, from the dawn of his conscious life to the moment of his ad- vent in the school, he leans upon the members of the home group. Nothing has any value in his eyes until it is brought into the home circle, and nothing is understood until it is taken up by the apperception masses that are derived wholly from home experiences. Hence, the com- petent primary teacher will seek out effective means of bringing the home into the the school and of bringing the school into the homes of the children. At all stages in the educational process the co-operation of the home and the school is desirable, but at no other stage is it so neces- sary as during the first days of the child's school life. To enlarge the child's mental horizon and to render him self- helpful and self-reliant, are among the functions of the school. But it must not be forgotten that these qualities cannot be "developed in the child if the continuity of his mental life is broken. His instincts and his early home experiences constitute the nucleus of his growing mental life. Only such elements as are incorporated into this growing nucleus can ever live in his mind; all else must remain foreign and dead, a mere memory-load at best. It is for this reason that stress is here laid upon making the transition from home to school as gradual as possible. The competent teacher will find in the local situation many suggestions that will prove helpful in the 28 TEACHERS MANUAL. OF PRIMARY METHODS difficult task of transplanting the child into the school. The few suggestions here offered should be considered in the light of examples rather than as a summary of what may be accomplished in this direction : Visiting. The mother or some other responsible mem- ber of the home group should, whenever possible, accom- pany the child to the school on the first day and present him to the teacher. This visit should be followed, at comparatively brief intervals, by other visits of the parents or guardians to the child's class. In this way the child is made to feel that the members of the home group are interested in all that he does in school and they thus continue, in a diminished degree, to be his standard of reference while he is acquiring new standards and new interests. Advantages distinct from the foregoing, but similar to them in many ways, may be derived from the teacher's visits to the children in their homes. The teacher's first visit to the child in his home environment makes her, in a measure, a member of the home group and gives the child a feeling of confidence in her judgments just because it gives him a realization that she under- stands all those things that have hitherto made up his world. And in this the child's thought is not far from the truth. The teacher will gain in insight and in sympa- thy for the children almost as much as the children gain in other ways from her visit. Moreover, through this interchange of visits between parents and teachers much may be accomplished in the securing of a closer co- operation between the home and the school in the work of developing the children. Gifts. Among all primitive peoples gifts are a token of friendship and they are used as a means of uniting ADJUSTMENT TO SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT 29 various social groups. This practice would seem to have an instinctive basis in the child 's life. At all events, it is deep-rooted and potent in its effects. The wise parent will, consequently, teach the children, particularly the lit- tle ones in the first grade, to take such gifts as flowers, fruits, sweets, etc., to their teacher. And one of the first occupations of the children in school should be the making of things for home inspection and for gifts to the mem- bers of the home circle. School Possessions. It has often been observed that when a man buys a home he takes root in the place and develops a new interest in his neighbors, and seeks to pro- mote the prosperity of the entire community. This is a legitimate outgrowth of the property instinct which may be observed even among the higher animals. This in- stinct holds no inconsiderable place in the child 's life and it should be utilized by the teacher in making him feel at home in the school. Hence the child should be given a seat and a desk as soon as possible. These possessions will constitute for him his home in the new social en- vironment and here he should accumulate as his own the tools and instruments which he is learning to use in his school work. It is a mistake of the gravest nature, and one that leads to socialism and anarchy as its legitimate fruits, to have everything in the room belong to the school and to have nothing in it which belongs to the child. The instinct of individual ownership is the root of many of the noblest virtues of individual life and of many of the fundamental social institutions. Here we can only hint at a few of these, such as neatness, care in the perform- ance of the tasks of every-day life, a sense of personal responsibility, a sense of honesty and integrity in dealing with others. These and similar virtues are the result 30 TEACHERS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS of this instinct, properly directed and modified; and home itself may be numbered among the first social in- stitutions to spring from this apparently selfish instinct. Love. Parental love is the dominant element in the life of a normal child during the first years of his existence and, consequently, the child is not transferred in reality to the school until this love between parent and child is transferred, in due measure, to the relationship between teacher and child. As a rule, the hearts of the children are easily won. Should difficulty in the matter appear, it may almost invariably be traced to the teacher. If the teacher really loves the children as a mother should, she will rarely meet with any grave obstacle in win- ning their hearts. She should never forget that she stands in the primary room as the representative of the mother and that unless she loves the children she is as much out of place there as a mother who does not love her children would be in the home, and to all right-minded people she is just as great a monster. On the other hand, where the bond of love between the child and the teacher is strong and wholesome, the school rapidly becomes a veritable home for the child, and within its sacred pre- cincts he will grow naturally in knowledge and in love. Authority. The school is supported by society that it may prepare worthy citizens of the State, and this im- plies primarily citizens with an abiding respect for au- thority and deep-seated habits of obedience to all legiti- mate laws and obligations. For the child, home is the well-spring of authority. Here nature forms him to obe- dience and reverence. It is a reverence and obedience so bound up with love that it has in it the power of call- ing forth the noblest elements in his nature. This ADJUSTMENT TO SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT 31 attitude must be enlarged until it embraces the authority represented in the school, for it is only in this way that the child may learn to bow in obedience without losing freedom, courage and manliness. The school must main- tain its discipline, but if it does this by an appeal to brute force it inflicts lasting injury upon the children and plants in their hearts the seeds of rebellion and of anarchy. Religion. Eeligion, above all things else, binds the home and the school together and makes of them parts of a larger whole. Just as in our travels the sun, the moon, and the stars accompany us and make us realize that there are bonds which bind together the most distant lands, and as the Catholic who on his journey in foreign lands enters a Catholic church and assists at Mass realizes that he is in his Father 's home, and for the time being ceases to think of color and race, national bounda- ries and intervening oceans, so the properly taught child on entering school brings with him God, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, his Guardian Angel, and all the inhabitants of the spiritual world. When he joins his companions in prayer on his first morning in school, he is more conscious of the tie that binds the home and the school together than he is of the great distances that in so many respects sepa- rate for him the home from the school. Of course he does not reason about this, nor meditate upon likenesses and differences ; he is simply conscious that his spiritual world has remained unchanged, while all that is material and visible in his environment is shifting and taking on new forms. Thus the religious element in the child's life is rendered more explicit and so gains in strength. And this is as it should be, for religion is not only the most important element in the child's education, but it also fur- nishes the most potent means of transplanting the child 32 TEACHERS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS without shock from the home to the school. The teacher in the Catholic school, accordingly, will not fail to take advantage of this side of the child's nature to make him feel at home in the school, as those teachers do who lay the chief emphasis on the secular elements in the child's education. CHAPTER II THE ADJUSTMENT OF THE CHILD TO HIS PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT The child spends the first five or six years of his con- scious life in the home exploring his physical environ- ment and learning how to adjust himself to it. During those early years he has accomplished tasks as difficult as any that he will be called upon to perform in any sim- ilar period of time. He has learned how to stand erect and how to walk. He has learned how to talk and has probably acquired a relatively large oral vocabulary. He has learned to do many things with his hands and, through imitating the actions and the attitudes of the people around him, he has learned to interpret looks, ges- tures, and actions of many kinds. Mental Continuity If the continuity of the child's mental life is to be pre- served, his early occupations in school must be closely related to his previous home occupations. What was be- gun in the home must be continued and completed in the school, while new occupations are gradually introduced as modifications of the old. His first weeks in school will, consequently, be occupied in large measure in the perfect- ing of his adjustments tofhis physical environment, which was the chief occupation of the earlier home days. This is demanded in order to bridge over the chasm between the home and the school and it is also demanded for many other grave reasons. 34 teachers manual of primary methods Health To preserve the child's health, it is necessary to de- velop his heart and lungs and muscles. He must not be allowed to sit still during long stretches of time. All of the first year, and particularly the first few weeks, should be full of action. His mind must be given as complete a control as possible over his body. His muscles must be brought under the control of his will. In this way only may he hope to gain freedom and grace of move- ment, which are no less desirable from a hygienic view- point than from practical and aesthetic ones. Sensory-Motor Training The sensory-motor reaction is the first element to be developed in the child's conscious life and its importance throughout the entire developmental process can scarcely be over-estimated. It lies at the base of all other modes of expression and even cognition itself does not proceed far in advance of it. The constant relation between im- pression and expression, between cognition and action, has been stressed in all the leading works in modern psychology. If any teacher feels inclined to question the body of expert authority on this subject, and to doubt the advisability of making the child 's first days in school pre- dominantly days of action instead of days of passivity, or receptivity, he need only turn to the Gospels, where he will learn that only those who are faithful over a few things will be placed over many, that the fig tree which does not bear fruit is cast into the fire, and that those who enter the kingdom do the will of the Father instead of contenting himself with saying Lord, Lord. Before loading the child's memory with truths to be assimilated, ADJUSTMENT TO PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT 35 it is highly important that he be given freedom in his movements and accuracy in their co-ordination. It is also well that he be given some measure of skill in handling instruments and in dealing with materials. All of this is generally admitted to-day, and, as a consequence, the primary room instead of being a quiet, sad place, where little children fear to move lest they should disturb a nervous teacher or break in upon the profound trains of thought whereby their young companions are learning to master the A B C's, presents a joyous, active scene, where the children under the law of imitation learn from each other more than they learn from the teacher and where they learn by doing rather than by hearing. Action Drills A great many exercises have been suggested for the first grade and a variety of exercises is indeed highly desirable. In this way symmetry is preserved and the interest of the children is more readily held ; but if good results are to be hoped for, the work should be carefully planned for the attainment of definite ends. The follow- ing exercises should be regarded as suggestive and typi- cal; they are not meant as a comprehensive list. Action games. Action games involving flying, running, hopping, skipping, and dancing, give healthful exercise to the larger muscles. They give freedom and grace to bodily movements and when properly conducted, minister to the child's health by developing his heart and lungs as well as his voluntary muscles. These games should also be made the basis of his language work. Rhythmic work. Ehythm is one of the most far-reaching laws in the world. Everywhere, from the rhythm of the 36 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PEIMAEY METHODS planet in its elliptical orbit to the furthermost bounds of the realm of thought, the law of rhythm holds supreme sway. Action and reaction are equal and opposite. Every observer of child-life has noticed that rhythmic movement is the joy of the child. Indeed, it is chiefly through rhythmic movement that the child gains control of his voluntary muscles. Everything in his physical be- ing is under the law of rhythm : his respiration, the beat- ing of his heart, the nutritive rhythms of his tissues, and the longer rhythms of his vegetative functions. Even in adult life, the most thoroughly trained groups of mus- cles in the body are still difficult to manage without the aid of rhythm. A soldier can march twelve miles with fife and drum with the same expenditure of energy that would be required to march seven miles without music. What wonder, then, that rhythm should be called upon to aid the young child in gaining control of his muscular movements. In dancing, rhythm gives grace of move- ment and ready control of the larger muscles, while in blackboard exercises, such as drawing and writing, the movement of the whole body to some simple tune serves to remove all stiffness and cramp from the hand and wrist. Busy work. Such occupations as cutting and folding paper, work with the sand table, clay modeling, drawing, and painting in water colors, serve to give precision to the hand and to co-ordinate its movements with the eye. These exercises have many educative values besides those here pointed out. They must necessarily receive atten- tion as the child passes up through the school. They in- terest us here only in so far as they help to lay the founda- tion of the child >s adjustment to his physical environ- ment. CHAPTER III Teaching the Childken to Co-opeeate The child begins his existence in total dependence upon his parents and he must learn to be self -helpful before proceeding to help others. In other words, in his devel- opment the individual side of his nature must precede the social side. Children must have learned to do things separately before they can do them jointly. This, by the way, is true not only of children but also of adults; moreover, it holds in all walks of life. While it is true that man attains his highest level and tastes his highest joys as a social being, it does not cease to be true that the roots of his being, from which flow all the sap and energy of life, are to be found on the individual side of his nature. This fundamental truth seems to be overlooked by the anarchist and the extreme socialist. But while this is all true, and in recognition of its truth, it is conceded that the child's school work should begin with the individual side of his nature, it is equally true that the process of educa- tion should not end there. The Functions of Play It should be remembered, however, that the process of individual development is not completed before the process of social development sets in. One precedes the other, it is true, somewhat in order of time and very de- cidedly in order of nature; nevertheless, both processes take place simultaneously throughout all the years of 38 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS school life, the individual development merely main- taining its priority in the two parallel lines. Man is essentially a social being and he mnst learn to co-operate with his fellow man in the attainment of all the higher ends of life. This co-operation began, in fact, in the pre-school period of the child 's existence and it must be continued and perfected in the school. There are few who would be willing to controvert this truth to- day. It is being embodied in the work of the primary grades in such exercises as singing, marching, dramatic games, and co-operative industry. These exercises are so familiar and so varied that we need not pause to dwell upon them. They are obviously and of necessity closely connected with the exercises mentioned in the preceding sections. The same ends in the adjustment of the pupil to his physical environment are attained, with the addi- tion of the social elements which give buoyancy and joy to what might otherwise drag and lose interest for the child. Motor Expression. Zest is a large factor in the good results to be attained through these exercises. Man's social proclivities and the glory of his intellectual achieve- ments should not blind us to the fact that he has not ceased to be an animal, nor to the further fact that the animal side of his nature still calls imperatively for the old forms of response to feeling and to sense-impression. This demand for motor expression is particularly urgent during the years of physical development, and the strength of heart and brain, of muscle and lung, in the adult depends, in large measure, upon the running games of childhood. TEACHING THE CHILDREN TO CO-OPERATE 39 No formal exercise, however, performed in obedience to disciplinarians, can ever minister efficiently to the growing framework of life. When the motor-response is the natural terminus of an impulse arising in sense im- pressions, the stream of vital energy flowing through channels prearranged by ages of inheritance tends to build up the organism symmetrically and to preserve bal- ance between the functions of the various organs. The artificial training of the motor side of the child, however necessary under abnormal conditions, can rarely be sub- stituted for the natural process without permanent in- jury to him. When exercise is indulged in as a task, the motor activities cease to be the natural expression of the sensory impulse; and the organs called into play, not by the impulses of surging life, but by the command of the will, are restricted, in large measure, to those which are directly employed in the execution of the voluntary command. The other organs that would have functioned concomitantly under normal conditions and that conse- quently would have developed symmetrically, remain un- exercised and undeveloped. Joyousness. The spirit of joyousness should pervade the primary classroom and the elements of play should hold a large and important place in it ; but play is not and should not be made the center of the school life, nor the most important element in it, nor should we make the mistake of supposing that it is the only source of the child's joy. The highest joys he shall taste in after years, and even in these early years, are derived from success- ful achievement, and his sweetest moments are those that register in his consciousness duties well done. To pre- serve its zest, for the child or for the man, anything 40 TEACHEES MANUAL. OF PRIMARY METHODS must be used with renunciation. Even play, when over- indulged in, fails to yield the child the expected meed of joy. Play is intended by nature to develop the social ele- ment in the child and through the social element to lift his faculties as an individual to a higher plane. Play, however, is but the initial stage ; its function is to prepare the way for the serious aspects of living, and when it lingers on unduly, it defeats the purpose for which it was designed by nature. CHAPTER IV THE IMPARTING OF SUITABLE THOUGHT MATERIAL While the child's eye and hand are busy with many things, and while he learns to use all of his muscles and grows from day to day in physical health and strength, his mind must not be starved. Nor will it suffice to keep him busy with the trivial and with the mechanical de- tails of his physical adjustment. He must grow, day by day, towards an understanding of the great fundamental truths that will later on serve him in adjusting himself to God and to his fellow man. He has, as yet, little or no ability to derive food material for himself from nature and still less power to derive nutriment for mind and heart from books. Stoey Telling During the first year in school, the child's mind must be fed largely through his ear. The primary teacher must be par excellence a good story teller, and she should use her gift to such purpose that the child's mental content will grow from day to day in richness and in vigor. As the mind's appetite grows by what it feeds upon, the child will come, little by little, to feel the pressure of soul- hunger driving him on to master the instrumentalities of thought-getting. He will thus be led by an inward impulse to overcome the difficulties of learning to read and of gaining control of scientific technique. The 42 TEACHERS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS thought material given to a child must not be determined by the mere fact that it may interest him for the moment. The aim should be to implant in his mind germinal truths which, as they unfold, will lead him into the ever- widen- ing fields of his five-fold spiritual inheritance. Correlation The child needs frequent change of occupation. The period should never be longer than twenty minutes during the first year, and a period of from five to ten minutes will usually be found more serviceable. But the mistake should not be made on that account of plunging the child into disconnected and uncoordinated occupations. The result of such procedure would be the arrest of mental development, the destruction of attention and a discon- nected, scatter-brained character, — faults which it is very difficult to remedy at a later stage of the educative process. The successful teacher of the first primary grade must know how, in the midst of apparent diversity, to preserve the closest possible coordination and the strictest unity in the thought-material which she is supplying to her class. She must lay the foundations of Letters and Science, of Aesthetics, Institutions and Eeligion, as well as secure the physical well-being of the child. But these aims should never be separated in the successive occupations of the child; the change must always be a change of emphasis and of point of view, preserving all the while the unity which is so imperatively demanded by the in- choate and extremely limited apperception masses of the child. CHAPTER V THE CHILD'S SPOKEN VOCABULAEY In the early days in the first grade, the teacher should devote more time and attention to developing and per- fecting the child's command of spoken language than to the delicate and difficult task of laying the foundations of written langauge. Home Pkepaeation In exceptional cases the child of six has learned to read at home, but most of the children entering the first grade are acquainted with language only in its spoken form. Moreover, there will usually be found a great diversity among the children in the extent and perfection of their spoken vocabulary no less than in their use of grammatical forms. Children who have spent all their early days in association with people of culture whose native tongue is English, frequently possess a good com- mand of their mother-tongue in its spoken form before they reach the age of six. But the rank and file of our children are not so fortunate in their surround- ings. Their spoken vocabulary is often quite limited in range and full of imperfections, and their grammar re- flects, with the same certainty, the crudities of home life and the imperfections in speech which naturally char- acterize the homes of our foreign population, especially where English is spoken with difficulty. Nevertheless, it is with this vocabulary that the children must begin their 44 TEACHERS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS school work, and the teacher who would succeed must meet them where they are and lead them by gentle, uncon- scious steps, to better ways. Correcting Errors The child's spoken vocabulary constitutes a bond be- tween the home and the school and it should not be disturbed until the child has learned to feel quite at home in his new suroundings. After a few days the teacher may correct imperfections in pronunciation and mistakes in the use of words, but in this she should pro- ceed with great care. The children must not be humiliated or made self-conscious, and above all there must be no implied correction of the home standards. Nothing must be said or done that would appear to the child as a re- flection upon the knowledge of the home group, whose authority has been his sole reliance. The teacher must, indeed, win the child 's confidence and lead him to respect her authority in all matters dealt with in the school, but this must not be done by sacrificing his respect for home authority. On the contrary, she must clothe herself in all things with the parental authority and should speak to the child as one delegated by the home. In the primary grades, the negative method should be avoided with scrupulous care ; this is particularly true of the initial stages of the work, for, in addition to the usual danger of the method, there is here the added danger of injuring fundamental elements in the child's character and of weakening his respect for parental authority. If the teacher uses language correctly herself, and if she insists upon the child's using it correctly, there will be SPOKEN VOCABULARY 45 no need to call the attention of the school to his mistakes in pronunciation and in the use of words. These mis- takes, if left unemphasized, will disappear rapidly. When English is the native language of the child, the teacher need not be seriously concerned with the task of increasing his spoken vocabulary. This will grow naturally and without apparent effort on her part. But, as there are always some less fortunate children in the room, and sometimes they are in the majority, the work of developing spoken language should be undertaken with great care and pursued with system. Enlarging the Spoken Vocabulary The task of developing the child's spoken language may be divided into two parts : the first of these consists in perfecting the child's enunciation and pronunciation and in correcting erroneous grammatical forms ; the sec- ond consists in adding new elements. If the first task is undertaken quietly and unobtrusively, progress will be sure and rapid. The children, at this age, are under the complete sway of the law of imitation, and if they hear from the teacher distinct utterance, cor- rect pronunciation, pleasing emphasis, and a sweet, well- modulated voice, the improvement in their language will be observable from day to day. The teacher's work will be greatly aided if there is present in the class a fairly good proportion of children who come from homes of culture. The second portion of the work has to do with enlarg- ing the child's spoken vocabulary and with giving him mastery over more complex forms of speech. In this the 46 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PKIMAEY METHODS teacher should be guided by the book which is first to be put into the child's hands. During the first year, at least, the child should have an easy and perfect control, in their spoken form, of the words and phrases which he is about to meet in his written work. CHAPTER VI THE CHILD'S WEITTEN VOCABULAEY Three principles should guide the teacher in the selec- tion of the words and phrases which she uses in laying the foundation of the child's knowledge of written lan- guage: 1) The words should be associated with the most vivid portions of the child's apperception masses. This is rendered necessary in order to establish in his mind the habit of holding the thing signified in the focus of consciousness and of allowing the symbol or word to function in the indirect field of mental vision. This will be dealt with more fully in the chapter on the context method of reading. 2) In the first stages of acquiring the power of written language the new written words should, as far as possible, be action words. Mental im- pressions in children are rendered permanent with dif- ficulty unless they are associated with the functioning of the motor areas of the brain. 3) Time and energy will be saved by selecting the words and phrases taught to the child during the preliminary period in school from those employed in the first book which he is to use. Unity and continuity of mental life will thus be secured and interest will be deepened and concentrated. The Woed and the Thought The child's written vocabulary acquired in the first grade should lie well within the limits of his spoken vocabulary. It should contain at least seven or eight hundred well-chosen words. By this, however, we do not wish to be understood as advocating the practice of 48 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS making the children memorize these words and drilling them frequently on their spelling. All this might be accomplished for the child and still we might find him without that control of a written vocabulary which may legitimately be expected of him at the end of his first year in school. jWe want the child to think in written symbols with the same ease with which he thinks in spoken language. The only difference between the two sets of word memories at the end of the first year should be one of extent. After the child has learned to recognize a few words and a few simple sentences, he should be taught to write them first on the blackboard, and after a time to write them on paper at his desk. Children at the age of six learn most things through imitation and it is in this way that they learn to write. They observe the movements of the teacher's hand and arm and try to imitate them, but apart altogether from the voluntary effort at imitation, the mental picture of the motions, which reaches the brain through the eye, tends to realize itself in the child 's action. There is no question whatever about the fact that a visual image which finds a pathway to reproduction through the motor center is thereby deepened and strengthened. Con- sequently, while the child is being taught through these various means to write and to spell, he is at the same time perfecting the visual imagery which will enable him to read with ease. From Script to Print In stamping the words on the child's visual memory, recourse is frequently had during the first few weeks in school to desk work with pegs, colored and uncolored WKITTEN VOCABULAEY 49 sticks, seeds, the dissected alphabet, etc. Such exercises, when indulged in with moderation, and in a supple- mentary role, prove helpful; but they should not con- stitute the main reliance of the teacher in the difficult task of teaching the children to take their first steps in the art of writing. After a small working vocabulary in script form has been acquired through the use of these various devices, the children should be taught the same words in sentences in printed form by means of suitable charts. The stories that have been developed on the blackboard should be printed on cardboard slips and placed on the chalk-ledge of the board underneath the written forms. This will enable the children to compare the written and the script forms and aid them in making the requisite transition before recourse is had to the book. The Child's Fikst Book It is important that care be exercised in selecting the right words and stories to prepare the child for the use of his first book, hence a later chapter in this manual is devoted to setting forth the materials to be used on blackboard and chart during the weeks or months that precede the use of the first book. Of course, the book must be determined beforehand, since on it must depend, in large measure, the choice of material selected, and in this instance we naturally chose Eeligion, First Book. But there are other factors besides the first book to be taken into consideration in preparing the material if we are to achieve the highest success. The spoken vo- cabulary of the children, their home environment, and 50 TEACHERS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS their previous experience, will all be taken into account by the efficient teacher in her selection of the words and phrases which she employs in her blackboard and chart work. But even for her, the material offered in this book will prove helpful, since it shows what words must be developed before the book is attempted. Words other than these may, indeed, be employed where the local circumstances demand, and they may be made very serv- iceable in these early exercises ; but if success in the use of the series of readers is looked for, its requirements in vocabulary building in this preliminary stage must be complied with. In the preparation of the readers, great care was exercised in the vocabulary used. In the first stories there will be found a large percentage of action words, and the other words used are taken from the most familiar portions of the average child's mental content. When, in consequence, the vocabulary used during this preliminary period is chosen with reference to these re- quirements, it is at the same time brought into con- formity with the other principles cited above. CHAPTER VII THE CHILD'S FIEST DAY IN SCHOOL The child's education, in reality, begins with the dawn of his conscious life and it is quite advanced when, in his sixth year, he makes his first momentous journey from home to school to begin there the work of his formal edu- cation in a new environment, under the eyes of a number of strange children, in an institution that is wholly un- familiar and with a teacher who is a stranger to him. It is not probable that the child will ever again be called upon to submit to so sudden and so radical a change in all those things that affect the deeper currents of his life here and that determine his eternal destiny hereafter. So radical, in fact, is this change that we are accustomed to think of the child's first day in school as the beginning of a new mode of life and we habitually speak of it as the date on which his education began. The difficulty and importance attaching to the child's transition from the home to the school are, in themselves, sufficient reasons for demanding in the first grade teacher the highest degree of pedagogical skill, but in addition to this she must help the child to make a beginning along several new lines of activity. Were one of these to be dealt with at a time, the matter would be sufficiently difficult ; but when they must all be dealt with at the same time, the difficulty is greatly increased. It must be taken for granted that the teacher to whom this important work is entrusted is prepared by training and experience to deal with the situation. Nevertheless, 52 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS a concrete sketch of the child's first day in school is pre- sented here, not indeed that the teacher is expected to follow it literally, but that it may serve the purpose of illustrating the bearing of certain educational principles on the various exercises which engage the attention of the children when they begin their work in school. The day's work outlined in the program supposes that at least a majority of the children have attended the kindergarten department of the school during the pre- ceding school year. When all the children come directly from home without having had the advantage of kinder- garten training, modifications will have to be made. The work of registering pupils and interviewing parents will take longer and will consequently delay the introduction by the Principal. It will also probably be wise to attempt fewer exercises on the first day when the children are en- tirely without training along co-operative lines and when the strangeness of their environment is likely to inhibit their tendency to express themselves in any way. Every teacher who has had experience in dealing with the first grade knows that it is difficult if not quite impossible to carry out a rigid program on the opening day of school ; nevertheless, a definite program has its value as an ideal. Program for the First Day Morning Introduction by the Principal 9 — 9:20 Greeting Game 9:20 — 9:40 Assignment of Places 9:40 — 9:55 Action Game 9:55 — 10 Story— 10—10:15 FIEST DAY IN SCHOOL 53 Eecess, out-doors 10:15 — 10:30 Sleeping Game, Surprise 10:30 — 10:40 Seat Work 10 :40— 10 :55 Concert Eecitation 10 :55— 11 :15 Good-Bye Song 11 :15— 11 :20 Prayer 11 :20— 11 :25 Dismissal 11 :25— 11 :30 Afternoon Individual Welcome 1:15 — 1:25 Finding Seats 1:25—1:30 Prayer 1:30—1:35 Talk 1:35—1:45 Finger Song 1:45—1:50 Music Lesson 1:50 — 2:05 Action Game 2 :05— 2 :10 Seat Work 2:30—2:45 Sleeping Game 2:45 — 2:50 Sense Training 2:50—3:05 Seat Work 3:05—3:20 Good-Night Song 3:20—3:25 Prayer 3:25—3:30 Dismissal 3:30 Introduction by the Principal. However fragmentary and disconnected this program may seem on its face, the teacher will readily bring out the unity in it by making the various exercises tend to accomplish a single object. The main object on the first morning in school is to make the children feel at home as soon as possible; hence the teacher should at once assign them to places and she should be careful to keep them interested and busy so that they may forget the strangeness of the environ- ment. Prayer and action, it is to be hoped, call upon familiar apperception masses in all the children. 54 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PEIMABY METHODS One of the chief benefits of the kindergarten is the help which it affords in the difficult task of bridging over the chasm between the home and the school. This end is best attained when the kindergarten is conducted as a department of the school, in which case it must be co- ordinated with the work of the first grade. In this way the children become familiar with the school and its population and they also learn to look upon the Principal as the embodiment of authority. During the last weeks of their sojourn in the kindergarten their attention should be constantly turned towards the first grade room and their ambition to enter it should be aroused in every way possible. They should also be visited from time to time by the first grade teacher, who in this way learns what they can do best, what songs they like best to sing, what games they take chief delight in, etc. The primary teacher should take advantage of all this to get them started in the work of the first grade without unnecessary strain. The children should be led gradually to realize that teachers are not following their own caprices but are obeying a higher authority, which for them is vested in the Principal or Pastor as the case may be; hence, it would be well that the Principal or Pastor should bring the children from the kindergarten to the first grade and formally introduce them to their teacher and start them in their new field of work. In the meanwhile the primary teacher should prepare the class of the preceding year to accompany the Principal to the next higher grade. As the Principal, with the kindergarten children following her, enters the room, the former primary grade pupils should relinquish their seats to the newcomers and stand FIRST DAY IN SCHOOL 55 aside while they listen to the Principal 's talk and wait for her to accompany them to the next room. Of course the Principal's talk to the children should be spontaneous and it should be drawn from local cir- cumstances and from her acquaintance with the children 's work in the kindergarten, but it should contain the fol- lowing three items, clothed in language and imagery suited to the capacity of the little ones: 1) The high standard which the first grade room has always main- tained should call forth the best efforts of the children during the coming year. They must not allow themselves to be outdone by their predecessors. 2) The teacher is the Principal's representative and the Principal will hold her responsible for the children, and will look forward to hearing as pleasant things concerning their conduct and application during the present year as she heard from their teacher in the kindergarten during the past year. 3) The work of the primary grade is the foundation of the work in all the grades and it must be well done for the sake of the entire school. Of course the children cannot be expected to grasp the full significance of these elementary truths; neverthe- less, if they are properly presented, they make a lasting impression on the minds of the little ones on this first morning in the primary room. The excitement and the pleasurable emotional tension generated by the circum- stances will tend to make these lessons sink deep into the budding minds of the little ones. A few simple words of the Principal's introduction will serve to make the children realize their growing participation in the social activity of this new institution — the school. They should help to develop the social side of the child's nature and 56 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PEIMAEY METHODS bring him some little way toward a rational obedience to authority as vested in his superiors. When the kindergarten is not co-ordinated with the work of the first grade, it is apt to unfit the children for the more severe drills of this grade. Such a kinder- garten has very little to commend it. It is better to have no training than to have training in the wrong direction, and any direction in a child's training is wrong that does not lead by the straightest path to the work that he is next to undertake. Too frequently kindergartens, particularly private kindergartens, seem to keep no other end in view than that of amusing the children and teaching them aimless games and plays. It will not do to say that such plays make the children graceful, that they keep them inter- ested and happy and consequently that they minister to the child's well-being. Play is intended by nature not as an end in itself, but as a means to an end, and when this has been lost sight of in the kindergarten and the children have been formed in habits of play undertaken without any serious occupations in view, an injury has been in- flicted on them and it is not easy to lift them into a health- ful school attitude. When the children about to enter the first grade have not had a kindergarten training in the school, the Prin- cipal 's talk will be somewhat more difficult and it will scarcely be productive of results such as we here hope for ; nevertheless, it will accomplish something. Greeting Game. After the Principal has left the room, taking with her the children who are promoted to the next grade, the teacher should take hold of the class without hesitation or delay and should deal with the children as FIEST DAY IN SCHOOL 57 one having authority. Delay is dangerous. Too much talking on the part of the teacher is demoralizing. Action is the thing needed ; it is the one thing that the children understand and the aim should be to keep them active until their interest is aroused and until correct habits of work are formed. They must not be given time to sit still and study the teacher until after they have grown to know her and to respond naturally to her directions. A greeting game, well planned and well carried out, is an excellent way in which to deal with the situation. The children should be told that their parents and friends, as well as strangers, are likely to visit them and they must all know how to receive them and to greet them properly. One child is selected to play the role of visitor and he is told to go out of the room and knock at the door. When he has done this, the teacher opens the door and greets him as Mr. . Bringing him to the front of the room she presents him to the class, whereupon all the children are taught to rise and return the salutation. This process is repeated, several different children taking their turn in the role of visitor while the teacher en- deavors to have the class rise, bow and salute in chorus. Soft, low, sweet voices are held up for admiration. In this way the children's thoughts linger with the home group for a time. Their interest is maintained while they are being taught in a practical way the proper use of their voices, the beauty of good manners, and the value of concert work. This exercise might well conclude with one of the pretty good-morning songs to be found in any kindergarten manual. Assignment of Places. The third exercise in the pro- gram is the assignment of places. The children should 58 TEACHEES MANUAL OP PBIMAKY METHODS be made to feel at home in the school, and an important step in the accomplishment of this end is taken when we assign to each child a desk and a seat that are to be his own during his sojourn in the room. The property in- stinct is here appealed to and the child's individuality is allowed to assert itself. As the days go by, he should gradually be made to feel his responsibility for these school possessions by keeping not only his desk but its immediate environment clean and tasteful. This practice will nourish the roots of many social virtues, such as honesty, order, neatness, etc. The analogy between the rows of desks and the aisles separating them to houses and streets is obvious and is not without its value to the children. Each child may easily be led to give the name of the street on which he lives and the number of his house. This leads the chil- dren into conversation with the teacher and removes the first shyness. Moreover, since the talk is about the child's home, it forms a sort of personal link between the teacher and the home group. The children will be interested in finding names for the streets of their new homes and numbers for their new houses. The children enter readily into the spirit of this game and for a little while, at least, they will delight in thinking of their new homes with their numbers and street names. Of course this game should not be indulged in after the first few days. In this simple exercise there is foreshadowed for the child the community life of a city and the responsibility of each householder towards the city at large for the condition of his premises and his sidewalk. To be ceaselessly active during his waking hours is the normal condition of the child of six; he has not PIRST DAY IN SCHOOL 59 yet outgrown that infantile condition in which every sen- sation and every perception tends to pass over without delay into action. In school he must learn to think, but this is a slow process, which, in the beginning, is so closely linked with the motor side of his life that thought without action is difficult and fatiguing to him. In the early stages of the process he must be given frequent rest, which he will find most naturally in the free play of his muscles. Hence the action game which constitutes the next exercise on the program. It should be borne in mind that the child in this stage of his development learns almost exclusively through imitation and that his whole being responds readily and joyously to the call for rhythmic motion. These considerations should determine the character of the actions to be employed. The children should be taught to stand in the aisles beside their desks, erect and alert. One row at a time should be asked to follow the teacher's lead in playing the games. After the chil- dren have been told what to do, the teacher should run around the room imitating the movements of a bird's wings with her arms, while singing some simple bird song in three-four time, such as the Brown Birds Are Flying. The children should imitate her movements without attempting to join in the song. She might next sing a running song in two-four time, such as The Squir- rel Song, acting the part of leader as before. Finally, she might sing a song in four-four time, such as the Soldier Boy, while she marches around the room with the children following her. Before each of these exercises the teacher should stimulate the imaginations of the children by suggesting 60 TEACHEKS MANUAL. OF PRIMARY METHODS in a few appropriate words that they play bird, or squir- rel, or soldier, as the case may be. Of course, she takes the part of the mother bird, the mother squirrel, and the captain. As these games are repeated on suc- cessive days, they should be gradually developed. New details should be added each day and new situations should occasionally be suggested. New games should be added at frequent intervals, both for the sake of keeping up the children's interest and because of the important role which these action games play in building up the chil- dren's oral and written vocabularies. Story. The interval between the action games and the recess may be profitably rilled out with a short story about birds, such as that of the Morning Glory and the Eobins. The little morning glory that lives by the lilac bush is consumed with curiosity to see what the robins, who are building a nest in the bush so far above her head, are doing. A good little girl comes to the rescue by giving the morning glory a string on which she climbs up to the top of the fence and finally reaches a position on the lilac bush where she can look into the robin 's nest that is now the home of four little robins. If this in- terval and an occasional morning talk, which after the first day should take the place on the program of the Prin- cipal 's introduction, be used to good advantage, the chil- dren's imaginations will be prepared for the nature study work which forms so important a part of Eeligion, First Book. Sleeping Game and Surprise. When the children re- assemble after the out-door recess, they are likely to be full of excitement. They should be quieted down before their attention is turned to school exercises. This may FIEST DAY IN SCHOOL 61 readily be accomplished through a sleeping game. In this the children are led to picture themselves as birds going to sleep with their heads under their wings. They should be told that they are not to wake up until the cuckoo calls them and that while they are asleep a fairy will bring something to each one of them. The teacher sings a lullaby, while she places a tray of colored pegs on each desk, and then wakes the children with a cuckoo call. This exercise of the imagination will usually be found effective in emptying the children's minds of the distracting thoughts engendered by the recess. It will also call up pleasurable feelings in the children, which is the proper solvent for the assimilation of their mental food. Seat Work. The seat work which follows this exercise presents many problems for solution. The work of the kindergarten must be taken as the starting point and the children must be led towards independence in their actions. In the kindergarten the teacher worked with the children whenever exercises in outlining were at- tempted. In the first grade the teacher should put on the board a simple outline of some familiar object, such as a house, and accompany it by an appropriate story. If the outline of a house is chosen, she should tell the children that it is a picture of their house. If the sketch is as diagrammatic as it should be, each child will see in it the picture of his own house, and this he should proceed to outline on his desk, making use of the colored pegs, which were given to him in the previous game. During this exercise she should pass from desk to desk, giving encouragement to all the children and help to 62 TEACHEBS MANUAL OF PEIMAKY METHODS those who may need it. She should exercise great care, however, not to give unnecessary help. This exercise forms a transition between the out- lining as it is usually conducted in the kindergarten and the reproduction of forms from models, which should characterize the work of the first grade ; it contains an ap- peal to the child's constructive instinct; it develops the co-ordination of hand and eye to some extent and pre- pares in this way for later work in drawing and writing. There is obviously less difficulty in outlining a letter or a form with pegs than there is in doing so with a crayon. Corrections in the form are also more readily made in this way and the cramped position of the fingers which usually results from the child's first strained efforts to write is here avoided, while the form is being developed in his imagination and in his memory. After this has been accomplished, learning to write or to draw will be comparatively easy. The selection of a house as the subject of the outline work has a value of its own. It carries the child's thoughts back to his home and brings to him some of the ease generated by the home atmosphere in which he lives in imagination while making the sketch. Moreover, his memory clothes the meager outline on the blackboard with color and definiteness borrowed from the vivid ap- perception masses linked in his mind with the picture of his home. This in itself is no small factor in the suc- cessful issue of the work. Finally, in this exercise the children take a decided step towards independence of the teacher and this is one of the most important and the most difficult results to be achieved. It has just been said that the exercise should be the natural outgrowth of FIRST DAY IN SCHOOL 63 the work done in the kindergarten, and this holds true even in cases where not more than a small percentage of the children come from the kindergarten, for in such cases the others are helped through the play of the imita- tive instinct. But where practically none of the children have had previous experience in outlining, the first few exercises should partake of the character of the kinder- garten work. Concert Recitation. After fifteen minutes of desk work, such as that described above, the children are in need of rest, which they will find in concert recitation. Some rhyme that they may have learned in the kinder- garten or at home, such as Two Little Black Birds, or any of the Mother Goose rhymes, will answer. After a few minutes ' training in concert recitation, they should be taught to dramatize the rhyme. This dramatization de- velops the children's power to co-operate and it plays an important role in unfolding to them, during the early stages of their school work, the meaning of language, par- ticularly of written language. In addition to this the dramatization develops grace of movement and calls into play various muscles, while the rhythm and motion re- move from the children's mind the suggestion of work and generate in them pleasurable feeling. Good-bye Song. The children are now in the right attitude of mind and body for the good-bye song. This should not be chosen at random; it has an important function to perform for the child and this quite apart from vocal culture. There are many available songs for this exercise in the current kindergarten song books, as, for example, 64 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS 1 i 'Tis time to go, how soon it comes, We lay our work aside, And hasten to our happy homes, Where joy and peace abide. With footsteps light and voices gay, We're going home, so now good-day.' ' It is scarcely necessary to call attention to the good that may be accomplished by a song like this in properly relating the ideas of home and school to each other in the minds of the children. Prayer, etc. When, at the close of the song, the chil- dren kneel in prayer, each is in spirit already by his mother's knee and the ideas of the earthly and the heav- enly home are linked together in little minds that are filled with joyous anticipation. Afternoon Program. The similarity of the afternoon program to that of the forenoon renders extended com- ment unnecessary. It is well that the teacher should greet each child as he enters the room and shake hands with him before sending him to his seat. After the children have found their seats and the opening prayer has been said, the teacher's talk may with profit include such topics as the home preparation for school. Something may be said of the members of the home group who take part in it, of the delight of clean hands, etc. This exercise should be followed by a motion song containing some home idea, such, for example, as the Finger Family : This is the mother so kind and dear, This is the father with hearty cheer, This is the brother so straight and tall, This is the sister who plays with her doll, And this is the baby, the pet of all. Behold the good family, great and small. FIRST DAY IN SCHOOL 65 Such a song as this forms the natural preparation for the music lesson, in which the first end to be attained is the uniting of the several voices in a single tone. This may be followed by such exercises as the call, the ding- dong, and the echo, where the imagination of the child is called upon to help in these first endeavors to build the scale. Five minutes devoted to action games similar to those of the forenoon session lead to another period of seat work, which may consist of a repetition of the forenoon's work, or a rug pattern may be substituted for the outline of the house. The suggestion may be given to the children that they are making these rugs for their mothers, thus helping to blend the home and the school in the child's consciousness. After the recess and the usual sleeping game, the children may be given an exer- cise in sense training in which the sense of touch and the muscle sense should form the foundation of the work. This exercise calls forth individual action, hence the teacher must use some ingenuity to hold the interest of the entire class during the period. The drill should move rapidly. One child at a time may be blindfolded while a second child places in his hand various objects, such as familiar toys, balls, pencils, fruit, etc., and the teacher should ask the blindfolded child to name each object. The children should be taught to run to and from their seats ; this serves the double purpose of furnishing valu- able physical exercise and a pleasing variation in what may easily become a monotonous drill. When the chil- dren grow accustomed to this work, several groups may be kept moving at the same time. 66 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PEIMAEY METHODS In the seat work which constitutes the next exercise on the program, the children may be given triangles of colored paper out of which they should be taught to make borders from patterns given to them on the black- board. Their natural delight in color and the ease with which they can do this work are among the reasons which may be assigned for placing this exercise at the end of the day's work at a time when the child may be growing tired. Moreover, it will leave a pleasant impression with the child which will serve to lighten his footsteps on the way to school the following morning. A suitable good night song, such as the following, will help to strengthen the pleasurable associations with the idea of school in the minds of all the children: Jesus, gentle Shepherd, hear me, Bless thy little lamb to-night. Through the darkness be thou near me, Keep me safe till morning light. Prayer should, of course, conclude the exercises of the day. Neither reading, writing nor spelling have found place in the program Suggested for the child's first day in school. The reasons for these omissions are obvious. The first thing to be accomplished for the child is to make him feel at home in his new surroundings, and written language, in any of its aspects, is foreign to his home experience and presents too few points of con- tact with his mental content to render it a desirable exercise for him on his first day in school. It must be the teacher's first endeavor to quicken into activity the men- FIEST DAY IN SCHOOL 67 tal content which the child has previously gained through his activity in the home. After he has grown sufficiently familiar with the school environment to give him freedom in the use of his faculties, the work of teaching reading and writing should be taken up. A beginning in a small way may usually be made on the third or fourth day. In fact, the first day's program must be modified in many ways before the end of the first week. Such items as the principal 's talk, the greeting game and the assignment of places should be dropped after the first morning, while reading, writing, drawing, spelling, and dramatic games must soon find place on the program. Moreover, where the class consists of forty pupils or over, it will be found expedient, at an early date, to divide the chil- dren into two groups. While one of these groups is occupied at the blackboard with drawing, reading, spell- ing, etc., the other group will be doing seat work. CHAPTER VIII SENSE TRAINING IN THE FIRST GRADE In another chapter the thought material suitable to the work of the primary grades will be dealt with. While the child is quietly growing into a knowledge of written language his mind must not be allowed to starve. Dur- ing these years, more than in any of the subsequent years of his life, his growing mental life demands great fundamental truths, but his limitations make it neces- sary that these truths be presented to him in a form suited to his undeveloped powers. Above all, his atten- tion must not be allowed to center upon the trival things around him, much less upon the sterile instrumentalities and forms of thought. Of him, more than of his elders, it is true that the letter killeth. His senses must be quickened to perceive the beauties of nature and the details of her marvellous adjustments, and he must be taught to see both himself and the Creator mirrored in the phenomena that hold his senses captive and de- light his imagination. The resourcefulness of the primary teacher is in constant requisition. She must be ever ready to make use of the materials which the school and the environment of the children afford. The Milkweed Lesson In the late Fall, for example, the Milkweed Lesson may be given in the first grade. The teacher should provide herself with colored pictures of the milkweed SENSE TEAINING 69 in blossom and of the milkweed bearing its ripe pods, and she should possess one or more of the ripe pods. She should then proceed to question the children and seek to draw from them the names of any objects of particular interest they may have recently acquired in their homes. Some of the children will mention their toys, others will speak of their dolls or of their living pets, but when, as usually happens, some one of the children tells about a new baby in his home, everything else fades into insignificance for the time being. The child should then be led to tell about the baby and how he is dressed in long white clothes and laid in a cradle. Then the teacher shows the children the picture of the milkweed in blossom and the picture of the milkweed bearing its pods. She shows them the milkweed babies in their cradle, and suggests that there are so many of them in the cradle that they can't grow, and the children are questioned as to what will happen to them. If necessary, the teacher helps them to the answer that they are scat- tered by the wind. The child that makes the discovery is asked to play the part of the wind and with his breath he blows the winged seeds about the room. The children are told of how they fall in the dust and are covered up by the rain and warmed by the sunbeams until they grow into milkweeds, like their mother. This lesson will form the remote preparation for the story of The Three Little Milk- weed Sisters which they will study in the beginning of the second grade. It awakens the children's interest in the milkweeds and causes them to notice their growth by the wayside or in vacant lots during the following spring. It prepares their minds also for the reception of many biological truths, such as the dispersion of 70 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PEIMAKY METHODS the winged seeds by the wind, etc., and it offers oppor- tunity for word drills in a vocabulary which they are building up in preparation for the first lesson of their book. A Fbuit Lesson A little later a fruit lesson should be given which may be conducted as follows: Sense Training. On the teacher's desk there is a covered basket of fruit containing some such collection as apples, pears, lemons, oranges and grapes. The chil- dren should be lined up with their hands behind them while the teacher allows each child to touch the various fruits and name them to the class. When the correct name is given, the teacher should praise the child. The fruit is then placed in the hand of each child and he is allowed to exercise upon the various specimens the muscle sense and the sense of pressure as well as the sense of touch and he is required to name the fruits before being allowed to look at them. The fruit is then divided and given to the children to eat. Children accustomed to eat these fruits will usually be found to possess mental pictures of them in which the gustatory and the visual elements predominate and in which the other sensory elements are but vaguely represented. The exercise here referred to is calculated to remedy this defect and to bring out and strengthen the other sensory elements. They will thereafter possess mental images of these fruits that are rich in detail and strong in their tendency to enter into com- bination with other cognitive elements that are already SENSE TKAINING 71 in the mind or that may enter it subsequently. The value of exercises conducted along these lines was pointed out many years ago by Dr. Seguin, and through their employment great advances have been made dur- ing the last two or three decades throughout Germany and England in rescuing from their unfortunate condi- tion multitudes of children that would otherwise be re- tarded, and eliminated from the school in a few years. During the past few years some beginnings of a similar good work have been made in this country. When such exercises are properly conducted and re- peated a few times, all the sensory qualities found in the perception of the fruits will be so strengthened that any one of them may, on occasion, become the dominant element in the representation of the several fruits. The value of these sense representations as units in the up- building of mental structures is correspondingly en- hanced. Assimilation. The exercise, of course, should not end with the endeavor to develop the sensory images. The children should be led to utilize these images at once in many other ways. After they have eaten the fruit the teacher should endeavor to ascertain how many of them have seen these fruits grow. She should lead them to tell all they know about fruit trees and orchards and grape vines. The differences between trees and vines should be brought out and illustrated with colored crayons on the blackboard or by means of colored pictures. Imagination. The children may then be called to the blackboard and shown the picture of an apple tree with a green apple hanging to one of its topmost branches. Under the tree there should be a picture of a child look- 72 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS ing up at the apple. When the children have all recog- nized the pictured apple, the teacher should write the word apple on the blackboard and explain to the children that it stands for the apple just as the picture on the board stands for the apple. And the same procedure should be followed in developing other words, such as tree, apple-tree, stem, leaves, sun, etc. The imaginations of the children are exercised in sym- pathy with the child who is trying to get the apple from the tree. She is supposed to call upon her friend, the little bird sitting on the branch of the tree. He comes to her aid and the teacher now sketches the bird endeavor- ing to release the apple by picking at its stem. He fails in his efforts to release the apple because the stem is too hard for his little bill to cut. The stem of an apple is passed around to the children so that they may see how hard it is. After this the child appeals to another one of her friends, the sun, which is also sketched on the board by the teacher. The children are asked how the sun is going to help the child; and after they have puzzled over the matter and exercised their imaginations on it for a minute or two, the teacher, with red chalk, illustrates the effect of the sun's rays in ripening the apple. Finally, the child calls upon the wind to come to her aid. This is a signal for a drill in physical culture. Some of the children play the part of the wind and find exercise for their lungs, while the other children, with swaying arms and bodies, imitate the movements of the tree under the strong breeze until the apple is supposed to be shaken from the branch. Results. It does not tax one's imagination to see how this lesson prepares the minds of the children for several SENSE TRAINING 73 stories in First Book in which the apple tree figures so prominently, and particularly for the story of May's birthday, in the Second Book. It does not anticipate these lessons or take from them any of their novelty, but it develops sense imagery and imagination as well as the necessary vocabulary. Omitting for the present the consideration of the motor element in this lesson, it will readily be seen that in the first exercise the children's percepts of the various fruits are developed. Sensory elements that heretofore have been present in a vague way in their consciousness are brought out and strengthened. Direct experience in the case of several subordinate sensations is substituted for memory pictures. In the second exercise, the strengthened percepts are correlated with other cognitive elements previously ac- quired by the children; their summer vacations in the country are recalled; their experiences in plucking fruit from the trees and vines are revived ; the likenesses and differences between the various fruits are developed and some knowledge is acquired of their various modes of growth. In the third exercise, the imagination of the children is called into play and new combinations of the previous mental contents are secured. Their information con- cerning processes in nature, such as the effects of the sun's rays and of the wind on the ripening fruits, is enlarged. Written names for the apple, for some of its parts, and for other objects associated with it in their minds are developed and linked to primary percepts. Thus, in a single brief period, the children, acting in obedience to natural laws, enlarge their stores of actual information and improve the quality of some of the in- 74 TEACHERS MANUAL* OF PRIMARY METHODS formation which they previously possessed. They build up new thought combinations and become acquainted, to some extent at least, with the play of certain natural forces in their environment. The pleasurable affective state which is maintained throughout the lesson keeps their minds constantly active and in a receptive attitude. Their imagination, as well as their senses, is exercised in a healthy manner and trained to act along right lines. In addition to all this, they make the acquaintance of several written words and improve their use of spoken language, besides getting an exercise in physical culture which is calculated to impart strength to their muscles and grace to their movements. Sensory Motor Drills. The individual laboratory method so generally employed at present in secondary and technical education, as well as the experimental methods of the investigator in the fields of natural science, rests on the same fundamental principles as does the method of primary work here outlined. In each case, the endeavor is to confine perception to its primary func- tion, to substitute direct sensory experience wherever possible for recall images and to give a vivid mental picture of the phenomena in question, before attempting to build up in the mind the formulae through the aid of which such phenomena may be manipulated in working out larger results. Sensory drills must be varied from day to day. From the very nature of the case, they do not readily bear repetition. The aim of the teacher in the first grade should be to secure freedom and reasonable accuracy in the larger bodily movements. The sand table may be used with good results, among which may be numbered SENSE TKAINING 75 the children's preparation for modeling, an exercise which should be taken np systematically in the second grade. Cutting and folding paper and other simple ex- ercises in construction tend to secure the same results. The motor training involved will also prove helpful in teaching the children to draw and to write. Deawing Drawing and penmanship will receive a fuller treat- ment elsewhere, but the development which is demanded by these arts springs from a foundation of sensory motor training which must be laid in the first year at school. The first step should be the attainment of control over the larger bodily movements. The attention of the child must not be allowed to rest upon the movement of his wrist or fingers until the correct movement of the arm has been established; hence, in his first work at the blackboard, all his fingers should be locked on a crayon so as to use its side on the board instead of its point; in this way' all digital movements are shut out and the arm alone is brought into play. The movement should be a large one; circles or flowing curves should be at- tempted before straight lines. In these early muscular exercises, rhythm is a very important factor and should not be neglected by the teacher. Some simple music should help the child at the blackboard. At this time ambidextrous movements may be established by most chil- dren with ease ; particularly where the drawing is being done rhythmically. The exercise has several values apart from that of drawing. It helps to give the mind control over the movements of the left hand, and this will prove 76 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PEIMAKY METHODS valuable later on in training for instrumental music, as well as in other ways. These rhythmic exercises have a high value in their effect upon the subsequent musical training. Time and rhythm are so fundamental in music that unless they are organized in the child's body as well as in his mind, he is likely to be at a disadvantage when he begins his formal study of music. PART II PRIMARY TEXT-BOOKS While it is true that the primary teacher is not often called upon to write text-books, nevertheless, it is a mat- ter of no little importance that she should understand the principles embodied in the text-book which she is called upon to use. If method should govern her work, it is obviously more important that method should govern the structure of the text-book which is to be placed in the hands of the children ; hence we present here a discussion of the methods and aims of the series of primary text- books which we have prepared for our Catholic schools. CHAPTER IX TEACHER AND TEXT-BOOK The teacher is, of course, the most important factor in any schoolroom ; if she is a failure, the rest matters little. This is true throughout the whole educational system, but it is probably true in a larger measure in the primary grade than elsewhere, for there the children are least able to help themselves. From this, however, it must not be concluded that the text-book is an unimpor- tant matter in the primary grades. It has its own func- tion to perform and when it is vicious or when it is con- structed along wrong lines, it will inflict injuries that even the best teachers will be unable to remedy. Any study of the primary grades or the methods to be em- ployed in them would, consequently, be seriously deficient unless it took into account the nature and functions of the text-books to be used. Selection of the Text-book The primary teacher does not often have a voice in selecting the text-books to be used. From one point of view this seems unfair ; since she will be held responsible for the results achieved, it would appear but proper that she should be allowed the choice of the means. The work- man should be allowed to select his tools; and the text- book is one of the most important tools to be placed at the disposal of the primary teacher. However, there is another side to the case. Children move from school to TEACHER AND TEXT-BOOK 79 school and as a consequence no little hardship would be experienced were they required to meet each new teach- er 's choice in the matter of text-books. The economics of the situation has helped to bring about the adoption of uniform text-books throughout the school system of the city or the diocese. Again, there must be continuity in the child's work as he passes from grade to grade, and this would be ren- dered difficult if not impossible if each teacher were per- mitted to choose her text-book without reference to the work of the other grades. There is another reason for withholding the selection of the text-book from the teacher, that deserves more consideration than it has hitherto received. The results achieved by the school must depend in large measure upon the nature of the text-books used ; and this whether we consider the thought-material which is supplied or the method in which it is presented. The selection of a text- book, therefore, is a matter of supreme importance and it calls for the highest pedagogical skill available and for the wisdom that results from ripe scholarship and wide experience. In the determination of the text-books to be used, the teachers of a city or of a diocese might well be consulted in their corporate capacity; but in a matter of such importance, expert skill whenever obtain- able should be brought to bear upon the problem. And those upon whom the responsibility rests should not be content with a bald selection of one or another text -book. A careful analysis should be presented of the various text-books competing in the field and careful reasoning should bear out the choice determined upon. 80 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PEIMARY METHODS Much attention has frequently been given to the selec tion of histories, geographies, etc., for the higher grades, but it has not infrequently happened that the primary text-books were determined upon without study and solely in view of the prices at which the books could be furnished. A difference of a cent or two a volume fre- quently determined the choice, as if the conviction was entertained that it made little or no difference so long as the book was a first or a second reader; whereas, there is no stage in the child's development in which he is more dependent upon the text-book or in which its qualities affect him more intimately in mind and character. Knowledge of the Text-book The construction of a text-book for the use of little children appears to be a simple matter and the thought- less have so regarded it. Is the print large and clear? Are the pictures such as would interest the little ones? Are there pictures of children and toys, and is there a goodly sprinkling of brilliantly colored chromos? Two minutes suffices to find the answers to these questions. But the knowledge of a text-book of which we speak, is quite a different matter and may well challenge the closest attention of the most profound student of pedagogy. Correct Use of Text-Booh. The teacher must know her text-book thoroughly if she is to achieve good results through its use. The finest instrument in the hands of a bungler is of little value. The teacher should have a clear grasp of the aims of the text-book and of the means by which the author sought to attain them. If she is de- TEACHEE AND TEXT-BOOK 81 ficient in this regard, she cannot use the book properly and may succeed in doing no inconsiderable harm to the child-mind that during this stage depends upon her so completely. Unity of Method. The teacher must follow a clearly de- fined method if she is to achieve satisfactory results. In like manner, any text-book worth while must be built in accordance with a definite method. Now, it is of the high- est importance that there be the closest agreement be- tween the method embodied in the text-book and that fol- lowed by the teacher. Where this is not the case, even though the divergent methods be each thoroughly good in its way, the conflict is likely to defeat both the teacher and the text-book. It is another instance of a house divided against itself. The best of teachers will labor in vain to secure a well-knit and systematically developed mental content in the children of the first grade, if she is compelled to use a first reader constructed solely for the purpose of word drills. A book in which the thought is wholly lacking in unity, in which the selections are un- related to each other in all except size of type and triviality of theme, can scarcely fail to leave with the child an abiding impression that books are sterile things as far as content is concerned ; and it tends to produce in him a habit of looking at the words and of neglecting the thoughts. A similar result is achieved through the use of primary books constructed on the erroneous assumption that phonics is the proper means through which the child may secure a mastery of the printed vocabulary. The aim in all the phonic work which undertakes to develop in the child the power of word getting is to relate the new word forms with the old. The thought element is not included directly in the process. 82 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS The legitimate result of this method is the production of what is known, in adults, as the proof-reader habit — a habit in which the mind is occupied in looking at the word form to the exclusion, for the time being, of the word thought. The former method aims at engraving the words on the visual area of the brain through frequent repetition; the latter aims at achieving a similar result through the much more facile process of associating the word forms with those already established in the child's mind. Any result that might be hoped for from the legiti- mate use of either of these text -books would certainly be defeated if the teacher employed the former text-book for phonic drills, or the phonic text-book for word drills. Both of these methods are in flagrant conflict with the psychology of education. The thought is more important for the child than the word. The word is but a means to an end, and it should be the chief concern of the primary teacher to build up orderly thought-complexes in the minds of the children. Of course words must be learned, but the word forms must be kept in their proper place and that is as a means to an end. The aim must be to drop them as soon as possible into the indirect field of mental vision where they will continue to function subconsciously by calling the associated thought up into the focus of consciousness in the mind of the reader or where, as in the mind of the speaker or the writer, it may function in governing the motor areas involved in expression. A primary book to achieve this end must be constructed on lines which would render it worse than useless in the hands of a teacher who insists upon using the phonic method in word getting. From word to word is the motto in phonetic work ; from thought to word is the only per- TEACHEK AND TEXT-BOOK 83 missible pathway in the context method. The Catholic Education Series was constructed on the context method and it should not be used by teachers who insist upon following the word method or the phonic method in teach- ing primary reading. As this manual, however, is in- tended primarily for teachers using this series of ele- mentary text-books, the method advocated in its pages is the context method; and, since the teacher must thor- oughly understand the text-books in order to use them for the attainment of the high results which they are calcu- lated to attain, an analysis of these books will be pre- sented here. Remedying Defects. Among the reasons which should lead every primary teacher to make a close study of the text-book which she is asked to use, may be mentioned that of discovering the defects of the book. Such dis- covery should lead to two valuable results: first, if the teacher knows the defects, she may be able to remedy them, to some extent at least; and secondly, by writing to the author and calling his attention to the defects in question, she will be able to render a service to all the children who are using the text-book. Finally, a knowl- edge of the available text-books will enable the primary teacher so to place the matter before those in authority as to secure the selection of the best books. Frequently those in a position to pass upon this question finally, de- pend wholly upon the representations of primary teachers in reaching a decision. CHAPTER X THE FUNCTIONS OF PEIMAEY TEXT-BOOKS A good text-book in any part of the field of education must be constructed with definite ends in view. These ends will differ in accordance with the phase of mental development with which it is supposed to deal, and in ac- cordance with the nature of the subject-matter of which it treats. Primary text-books designed for use in our Catholic schools should perform the three following func- tions: 1) they should present the proper thought mate- rial; 2) they should present the material in the correct sequence; 3) they should present it in a form suited to the child's power of assimilation. Thought Material The determination of the thought material to be pre- sented to the child during the three years ' primary work in which the foundations of his mental life are being laid, in which the most enduring habits of his life are being formed, and in which his ideals are being built up, is a matter of the utmost moment. In the Social and Indus- trial Science Series of primary text-books, the thought material is taken wholly from the life and times of Pleis- tocene Man, the theory being that the thought material suitable to the child of six is such as might be supposed to have nourished the minds of tree-dwelling ancestors of man. In the second year the material takes its coloring from the life of the cave-dwellers, etc. The result of such a choice of material is unavoidably the production of the crudest form of materialism in the children. The PEIMARY TEXT-BOOKS 85 thought material in the Eskimo stories and in many of the primary readers which are in present use in our pub- lic schools is drawn largely from animal life. There is nothing in these books that points heavenward ; they are lacking in idealism. They are consistent in schools where the belief is entertained that man is only a beast, albeit the most highly developed of beasts. Some of the primary books which pass for Catholic books are scarcely better. In one primary reader in wide use in our Catholic schools at present, there are only four abortive attempts at introducing the religious element. As far as the thought material goes, apart from these few pages, it is quite as pagan as anything to be found in the non-Christian schools. The struggle for existence and survival of the fittest occupies the first place in the first reader, and the subsequent sketches are concerned chiefly about animals and self. The only redeeming fea- ture about the book is, that the content, while in itself of an objectionable character misses doing its full measure of harm through its want of organization. The book is evidently intended merely for word drills. To the mind of the author, the thought must have been a negligible quan- tity. The Christian ideal of education demands that the child begin his education on the highest plane attained by his parents under the guidance of Divine Eevelation and with the help of Divine grace. It insists that the core of the child's mental life shall be organized out of the great fundamental truths of the Christian religion. ' Our Holy Father, Pope Pius X, has emphasized this view by insisting that the children be prepared at so early a date for the reception of the Holy Eucharist. 86 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PEIMAEY METHODS Much of the work of the primary grades is of neces- sity devoted to the instrumentalities of thought. The child must be taught his alphabet ; he must learn to read and write and spell : and these are such big undertakings that we sometimes lose sight of the fact that the child in the primary grade, no less than the advanced pupil, soon tires of drills. He is in need of mental food suited to his capacity, and unless this be supplied to him his mind and heart cannot develop normally. Disconnected fragments do not meet his needs, for he has not within himself large resources nor has he as yet achieved the power to build up a unified fabric out of the divergent elements that are too frequently offered to him. Our selection of the thought material for the Catholic Education Series of primary text-books indicates sufficiently what, in our judgment, should be the thought material presented. There will be found the home idea leading up to the heavenly home. There will also be found love, obedience, sacrifice, the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, etc. In fact, in the first grade all the great truths that the child is to grow into a full comprehension of later on, must be planted in his mind in a germinal form ; and not content with planting the seeds of these mighty truths, the teacher and the text-book must adopt the necessary means to make them germinate and unfold with the development of the child's mind. Foem At the age of six the child has little or no power to deal with abstract conceptions and formal definitions. Of course he can be made to memorize words whose meaning PRIMARY TEXT-BOOKS 87 wholly escapes him, but in this case an injury is being done to him. It is not sufficient, therefore, that the right material be presented to a child, it must also be presented in the right form. It must be concrete; the truths must be put in a setting that will appeal to the imagination and that will at the same time easily detach itself from the thought. Parables, fairy tales, etc., fur- nish the best available means of implanting these truths. But it is scarcely necessary to add that in the first grade this work should, for the most part, be done orally. As far as the text-book goes, it should proceed along these lines. Again, an examination of the Catholic Education Series of primary text-books will sufficiently illustrate our meaning. Sequence Correct sequence in the presentation of truths is one of the indispensable conditions of their assimilation. When a mere memory load is the result desired, or when we are presenting truths to mature minds, either the logical or the chronological sequence may serve our purpose; but when we aim at securing the assimilation of truths by un- developed minds, none but the psychological sequence will prove fruitful. In fact, this is but one application of the principle discussed above: namely, that truths should be presented in a form suited to the capacity of the pupil. If this be done at each successive stage of the pupil's development, we have the psychological sequence. Germinal Truths. A germinal truth, in a setting which is comparatively free from detail and which calls the imagination into play, is best suited to the developmental phases of early childhood. As the mind approaches ma- 88 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS turity, it demands more and more detail, fuller illustra- tion, exact formulation, and convincing proof. The lim- ited apperceptive power of the child-mind demands a strict observance of the psychological sequence in the order in which the different truths are presented. The truths first presented should be such as will assist in the apperception of the subsequent truth. If this sequence is not observed, it is difficult to avoid the mere memory load and it is quite impossible to render the truths in question functional either in the acquisition of subsequent knowl- edge, or in the shaping of the child's character to Chris- tian ideals. Time. Correct sequence alone, however, will not suf- fice. Sufficient time must be given to let the truth be as- similated and rendered fecund. It is the part of wisdom to make haste slowly. One truth that is thoroughly mas- tered and rendered functional in the child's mind is of more value in shaping his life and in his subsequent mental development than any number of memorized formulae. Word Selection. These principles hold as true in the child's acquisition of written language as they do in his thought development. The right word, presented to the child in a way that he can comprehend it, and the render- ing of this word, once acquired, functional in the acquisi- tion of subsequent words, is the natural and economic mode of procedure. Selecting the first written vocab- ulary according to the length of the words or the number of syllables which they may contain, is a process that finds no justification in psychology. A big word may be easier for a child to learn than a little one. Its suitable- ness must be determined on other grounds. PBIMAEY TEXT-BOOKS 89 Fundamental Truths. The same reasoning applies to the thought material given to the child. Some teachers and the writers of certain text-books seem to have la- bored under the conviction that great truths are wholly unsuited to little minds. They talk to him about his toys and his clothes and his pets and childish things instead of things suitable for the child mind. Such truths as the Creation, the Trinity, the Incarnation, Grace and Eedemption, seem at first sight to be so far removed from the content of the child mind as to preclude the possibility of their being assimilated or rendered func- tional by it. Indeed, these truths seem to be beyond the reach of all but mature minds of the highest order of intelligence, and even to these they remain mysteries. It will be found, however, that the child 's mind will read- ily lay hold of these truths in the measure of its capacity, provided they be given to him in the right form and in the correct sequence. A Histological Analogy. The problem confronting us in teaching great fundamental truths to little children has many points of resemblance to that which confronts the histologist in preparing a section of animal tissue for examination under his miscroscope. The key to the solu- tion in the one case as in the other is found in the proper sequence. Neither problem is difficult, once we have de- cided where to begin, what sequence to follow, and where we wish the process to terminate. If we examine the histologist J s problem a little more closely, we shall find that the tissue to be examined consists of some twenty- five per cent of solid matter, built up into an elaborate structure of exquisite delicacy, the interstices of which are filled with the water of organization. The tissue as 90 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PEIMABY METHODS a whole is opaque and before it can be examined under the microscope, a section of about one-ten-thousandth of an inch in thickness must be cut from it and mounted on glass in a transparent medium. In cutting the section from the tissue, none of the delicate structures must be disturbed. The relative positions of all its parts must be preserved intact; otherwise, the section, when mounted, will be valueless. To do this successfully, the water in the tissue must be replaced by paraffin, which will support the delicate structures and keep them in position while the section is being mounted. But how is this exchange of the water for the wax to be effected! The dimensions of the cavi- ties in the tissue are such as to preclude all mechanical appliances. Moreover, the water is held in the tissue by a molecular force which is not readily overcome. The water cannot be removed to make room for the wax, nor will the water and the wax blend so that both may be present in the tissue at the same time. The first step towards the solution of this problem consists in finding a substance that will readily blend with the water in the tissues, a substance which will not injure the delicate structures that it is desired to examine. Now, there are many substances which will blend with water. Which one of these shall we select! Sulphuric acid, for example, will readily blend with water, but it would attack and destroy the tissue. Pure alcohol has a strong affinity for water, but if the fresh tissue be placed in it, the osmotic currents set up will be so violent as to destroy all the delicate structures. This defect, however, is easily over- come. The histologist places the tissue in a dilute solu- PKIMABY TEXT-BOOKS 91 tion of alcohol in water and then passes it up through a graded series of 30%, 50%, 75% to 95% alcohol. Principle Involved. The first part of the problem has now been solved. The water of organization in the tissue has been replaced by alcohol, but we are apparently no better off than when we started, for alcohol will not sup- port the structures while they are being cut, and neither will it blend with wax. Nevertheless, progress has been made. We are nearer to the solution of our problem and, moreover, we have learned how one substance may be made to replace another in the minute interstices of the tissue. With this knowledge to guide us, it will be comparatively easy to find another substance that will replace the alcohol in the tissue. Bergamot, cedar oil, or any other essential oil will serve our purpose. They may easily be made to replace the alcohol, nor will they injure the tissue. Moreover, the oil and alcohol blend so gently that a graded series of oils will not be needed. But when the essential oil has completely replaced the alcohol, we do not seem to be any nearer the desired goal, for the oil will not support the tissue while it is being cut and mounted. In this respect it is in no wise superior to the water or to the alcohol. But oil will blend with melted wax or paraffin, and if the oil-saturated tissue be placed in a vessel of melted paraffin, the paraffin will gradually take the place of the essential oil, and when the paraffin is cooled, it will support every element of the tissue while it is being cut and mounted. Transition Stages. Looking back over the processes through which the histologist has found the solution of his problem, it will be observed that the essential oil, while it readily blends with paraffin, will not blend with 92 TEACHEKS MANUAL. OF PBIMABY METHODS water, so it was necessary to find a medium which would readily blend with both the oil and the water. Such a medium was found in alcohol. Or if we approach the matter from the opposite direction, alcohol blends with the water of organization in the tissue, but alcohol will not blend with paraffin, and so it was necessary to employ an essential oil to bridge the chasm between the irreconcilable elements, water and wax. In the procedure outlined above, we have a picture of what takes place in all developmental processes, whether mental or organic. An insect's egg, for example, first becomes a grub. The grub is then converted into a pupa from which it finally emerges as a moth. Life does not build its final structures directly; the final stage of every living organism is attained through a longer or shorter series of reconstructions, and what is true of the temple of life, is equally true of thought, the dweller within the temple. Up to the twelfth or fourteenth year the child-mind passes through a series of reconstructions in which the truths that have been acquired in one stage, are worked over and presented in a new light and with new correlations in the subsequent phase. The ultimate truth is seldom or never attained directly. In so far as the teacher undertakes to guide the men- tal development of her pupils, she should select the truths to be presented, with direct reference to the de- velopmental process. She must seek in every case the truths that will readily blend with the content of the child's consciousness and that will at the same time so modify it that the truth to be subsequently presented may be readily assimilated. She must begin by appealing PKIMAEY TEXT-BOOKS 93 to the child's instincts and lead him step by step to the clear formulation of the great truths on which Christian civilization rests. COKEELATION One of the most important functions of a primary text- book is the help which it gives the teacher in correlating the various truths presented to the child. The use of separate text-books by the child for the various subjects taught in the first or second grade is a grave mistake. Unity is the child's most urgent need at this period of his development, and the very fact that the subject is presented through the medium of a different text-book helps to keep the subject-matter from blending and ren- ders it almost impossible for the teacher to secure proper correlation. Beading and spelling, aesthetics, institu- tions and religion, natural science and physical culture, should all be so intimately blended in the work of the first two grades that it is extremely unadvisable to divide up the matter among separate text-books. The want of correlation and properly developed unity is the source of much of the evil that is prevalent to-day in our pri- mary class-rooms. The child's first book should not be a picture book, a song book, a reader, a speller, a nature study book, or a catechism, nor should he be given such books as aids to his mental development. What his con- dition demands is a single book in which all these things are included, and not merely included between the covers and arranged one after the other, but in which the ger- minal truths from these various fields are blended and organized into a single symmetrical and developing body of knowledge. 94 TEACHERS MANUAL, OF PRIMARY METHODS The preparation of a primary text-book is consequently a matter of extreme difficulty. It demands of its author a wide academic knowledge together with high peda- gogical skill; for without such an equipment it would be wholly impossible to select the right material and to organize it properly for the child of six. An examination of the primary text-books in current use reveals at once the lamentable conditions prevailing, owing to the fact that those who undertook to prepare primary text-books lacked the requisite mental equipment. Name of First Booh. In our Catholic schools the fail- ure to secure proper co-ordination is attended with conse- quences graver far than in the public school, owing to the fact that our schools were called into being for the sole purpose of securing the proper correlation of religion with the other subjects of the curriculum. It is scarcely necessary to add that this is wholly impossible where religious instruction is conveyed through a catechism to the children of the primary grades. This tends to isolate religion from all the growing life of the child and to produce the very evil which it was sought to remedy by the erection and maintenance of Catholic schools. Ee- ligion should, of course, be taught to the child from the very first day in school. Moreover, the great central truths of religion should form the nucleus of the child's developing mind and heart. Everything else that we teach him should be presented in its relation to religion. Hence, the name of the child's first book should not be a reader, which connotes a drill book in calling words and sentences, nor should it be a nature study book, which serves to make natural science the ruling principle of the budding life before us. Religion being the central PEIMAEY TEXT-BOOKS 95 and the dominant element in the instruction which should be given to the children in these primary grades, might well lend its name to the book if it is to have any other name than A Child's First Book or A Child's Second Book. The Principle of Correlation. Owing to the growth of the biological sciences, and under the influence of the doctrine of evolution, the principle of correlation has recently taken on a new meaning. Its connotation has ceased to be wholly morphological ; it has, in fact, become predominantly physiological. The principle of correla- tion as it is now currently accepted in the field of educa- tion demands that each new thought element be related to the previous content of the mind, not along structural lines alone, but in a relationship of reciprocal activity. In the name of this principle, the teacher insists that each new thought element taken into the mind shall be so re- lated to the previous mental content as to shed its light upon every item of previously assimilated knowledge, and that in turn it shall be illumined and rendered intelligible by the light which falls upon it from each truth that holds a place in the structure of the growing mind. In the development of the mind as in the development of organic life, the old teleology is reversed : the organ is now commonly regarded as the result of function instead of its antecedent. And so in the field of education, we no longer rest content with mere erudition. We are dis- satisfied with methods of education, the highest aim of which is properly to ticket items of information and sys- tematically to store them in the memory for future use. The mind, we are told, is developed by each new truth that functions in it; whereas, those truths that are not func- 96 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PEIMAEY METHODS tional, however valuable they may be in the adult, im- pede development and menace the health of the child- mind. A demonstration of the truth of the principle of corre- lation is scarcely necessary to-day. In theory, at least, little or no objection to it will be encountered. Of course, the principle has not always found its way into the school- room; but this fact forms no exception to the rela- tion which too frequently exists between theory and prac- tice in matters educational. Owing to the prevalence of stereotyped methods and of the reliance which teachers habitually place upon them while their minds remain im- pervious to educational principles, we frequently find practice lagging lamentably behind the demands of prin- ciples which have gained world-wide acceptance. All this, however, should not prevent us from employing every available means to bring our practice into conformity with principle, and in the matter of the principle of cor- relation, the primary text-book should be of the highest assistance. Curriculum. The principle of correlation should find a three-fold application in every school. It should enter into the structure of the curriculum ; it should govern the organization of the materials in each subject; and it should find a clear embodiment in the text-books used. No branch of knowledge can be successfully mastered as an isolated system of truth. The results of such attempts are invariably non-functional memory-loads which impede rather than promote mental development. Physics without mathematics would be incomprehensible, and mathematics apart from its application in astron- mony and in the other sciences, would lose most of its PEIMABY TEXT-BOOKS 97 value. What value would attach to geography if studied apart from history and economics? And who would undertake to teach history to students who knew nothing of geography? In the construction of the curriculum the various branches must be correlated at every step, otherwise failure will be the inevitable result. Religion and Secular Knowledge. In the light of this truth, what may be expected of a curriculum in which all the secular branches are presented in their mutual cor- relations and from which is completely excluded religion, the element which should be the center of the entire sys- tem of truth that is being unfolded in the growing mind ? Both religion and the secular branches must inevitably sutler by this enforced estrangement; and religion will naturally suffer most, since it remains unsupported, whereas the secular subjects support each other to no inconsiderable extent, even though religion, which should give unity and meaning to them, be excluded. Owing to the divergence of creed and the conflict among the various denominations, the teaching of religion has been banished from our public schools. It was believed by many that the public schools might, without detri- ment to the interests of church or state, confine their efforts to the teaching of the secular branches and leave religious instruction to the home and to the Sunday School. The policy of separation was not at first ani- mated by any hostility to religion. Had the men who were chiefly responsible for carrying it into effect had an adequate comprehension of the Principle of Correlation as we now understand it, it is safe to say that they would not have consented to its violation in a matter of such paramount importance. 98 TEACHERS MANUAL. OF PRIMARY METHODS Exclusion of Religion. Horace Mann was eloquent in his protest against the charge that he was driving Chris- tianity out of the schools, and he pointed to the history of the older civilizations as illustration of the truth that no nation can long endure without religion. He was fully aware "that Greece fell when her gods became allegories ; that Eome grew rotten when her people lost faith; that, in every one of the dead nations, faith was the soul of the people, and putrefaction followed its departure. ' ' The good intentions of the Father of the Public Schools, however, were not sufficient to prevent the disastrous con- sequences of banishing religious instruction from the position which belonged to it at the center of the curric- ulum. Half a century of this mistaken policy has suf- ficed to empty the churches, to undermine the home, to destroy marriage, to produce an unprecedented increase in juvenile crime, and, what is perhaps more menacing to society than any of these, to place in the highest posi- tions in our school system men who openly teach that religion is founded upon fable, and that the normal result of its teaching is slavery and mental paralysis, men who would have us believe that religion is only an instinct and an instinct at that which must not under any circum- stances be allowed to develop into a reason system of belief, and into a code of morals resting upon super- natural religion, or to develop an attitude of mind which would look to divine sanctions for natural and super- natural law. The Lord commended the unjust steward for as much as he had done wisely and acted consistently. And so we must at least give the French infidels credit for know- ing what they were about when they initiated and sue- PEIMAEY TEXT-BOOKS 99 cessfully carried into effect the policy of separating the teaching of religion from the teaching of secular subjects in the laicization of the schools of France. Protestant denominations are at last beginning to recognize the mis- take that was made in this country, and they are now en- deavoring to retrace their steps. From the beginning the Lutherans withdrew themselves from de-Christian- ized public schools; the Episcopalians, in many places, are beginning to support their own schools. The Catholic hierarchy of the United States realized this truth from the beginning. In 1840, when the battle for state support of denominational schools was being fought in New York, Bishop Hughes insisted that the at- tempt to teach morality without religion must inevitably result in practical infidelity, and that the tendency of the public schools, as they were actually conducted, was to draw away the mind of the Catholic child from the religion of his parents. He based his claim for state sup- port of Catholic schools on the fact that in the Catholic schools the children received the same education in secu- lar branches which they would get in the state schools and that together with morality the principles of religion were inculcated, which must inevitably "make the rising- generation better citizens, more upright in their inter- course with their fellow men, more mindful of the sacred relations of the marriage state, and more attentive to their social duties.' ' In the fight which he carried on so gallantly against the religious prejudices of his day, Bishop Hughes offered a compromise which has actually been tried in more than one city of this country during the last half century. To meet the constitutional objection against appropriating 100 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PEIMAKY METHODS public funds for the support of any religious organiza- tion, Bishop Hughes based the claim of Catholics in this matter on their rights as citizens and professed a willing- ness to exclude from the curriculum of the Catholic schools the positive and explicit teaching of the Catholic faith during the regular school hours. This compromise, however, was not accepted and the Catholic Church throughout the country faced the situation bravely and built the magnificent system of parochial schools of which the Catholics of America have such good reason to be proud and to which the vigorous life of the American Church is chiefly due. As we look at it now, we see that an all-wise Providence used the malice and the hatred of the enemies of the Church to defeat a compromise which must inevitably have led to the sapping of the founda- tions of the faith of her children. The Segregating of Religion. Those responsible for our Catholic schools should exercise great care that the boon for which Catholics have made so many sacrifices and for which the leaders in the cause of Catholic educa- tion have fought so manfully, be not lost through the mistaken policy of imitating our opponents. When Moses was up on Mount Sinai receiving the law from the hands of Jehovah, his brother Aaron, consenting to the impor- tunity of the multitude, burned incense to a golden calf made out of the offerings of the children of Israel. And time and again Divine wrath was called down upon this stubborn people because of their tendency to imitate the nations round about by worshiping in high places. The fatuous policy that is sometimes followed in Catholic schools of copying the curriculum of the de-Christian- ized school and adding to this a half hour's religious in- PBIMARY TEXT-BOOKS 101 struction each day, can scarcely fail to destroy effectively the roots of Catholic faith in the lives of children en- trusted to these schools by confiding parents. Religion and Other School Subjects. It is not sufficient that religion be taught in the same building and by the same teachers that impart the instruction in the secular subjects. The high moral character of the teacher must, of course, always be productive of good results in the minds of the children, but this, it should be remembered, is true of a teacher in the public school no less than of a religious teacher in our Catholic schools. The religious garb, standing as it does for a life devoted to the public welfare, must always be a reminder to the children of the unselfish devotion to God and country which should char- acterize the citizen and the child of the Church. All of this is good, as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough; it does not, in any great measure, surpass the plan of teaching religion in the home and in the churches upon which Horace Mann and his followers relied for the preservation of Protestant Christianity, and which has been demonstrated to be such a tremendous failure. The efficient teaching of religion demands much more than catechetical instruction, however ably given, at stated times, but unrelated to the other branches of the curriculum. Religion to be effectively taught, must be interwoven with every item of knowledge presented to the child, and it must be the animating principle of every pre- cept which he is taught to obey. Without thorough cor- relation with the other subjects of the curriculum, religion can never take its proper place in the developing life of the child. Without this, it remains a mere garment to be 102 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS donned on Sunday and laid aside on Monday morning when the real business of life is taken up. The proper correlation of religion with the other sub- jects of the curriculum does not imply that religion should not be taught as a separate study when the right stage of mental development for the systematic teaching of separate branches is reached, but it does require that in the early phases of the child's development, such as those usually found in the first and the second grade, the teach- ing of religion be so intimately interwoven with every truth that is presented to the child as to leave little room for separate formal religious instruction. All the vascular bundles of the tree run for a time in a single trunk before they diverge into separate branches, and so all the branches of the school curriculum, includ- ing religion, should run together during the early de- velopmental stages of the child-mind. This close corre- lation is demanded by the vital unity of the child's mind; and where it does not obtain, the mind is injured and the branch of knowledge that is taught as a separate system fails to be animated by the life-giving currents of mental energy. The gardener knows that where a branch is grafted into a native stem, preparation must be made to secure the continuity of the vascular bundles, so that the life-giving sap may flow from the root and stem into the engrafted branch. And, in like manner, when super- natural religion is to be engrafted upon the native stem of fallen human nature, the channels for natural impulse must deliver the life-giving energy to the supernatural life which was born of water and the Holy Ghost. The intimate blending of things separated by polar dis- tances occupies a conspicuous place in Catholic theology. PEIMARY TEXT-BOOKS 103 It looks out upon us from the Incarnation; it is present on the Cross, where infinite power and human weakness seem to dissolve into each other; it lies at the heart of the old mystery that has ever confronted the philosopher who would reconcile the supreme dominion of God with the freedom of the creature. The Catholic should, there- fore, find nothing strange in the insistence that, in the early years of childhood, religion should be taught in intimate association with every item of knowledge that is imparted in our primary grades. It must be evident, however, that if the principle of correlation is to be given its due place in the primary class room, it must be em- bodied adequately in the text-book used. Where this is not the case, the best efforts of the teacher will prove futile ; she will be able, at best, to drag religion into les- sons which have been so organized as to leave no room for it. In this way more harm than good often results, be- cause it tends to make religion an intruder and a usurper which every normally-constituted child will grow to dis- like. In the first and second grades there should not be a separate book for religious instruction. The reasons for this are many, but the main reason is the impossibility of securing proper correlation by this procedure. In the book which the child uses, religion should be the center of a correlation which not only secures unity among the items of knowledge being imparted from day to day, but which takes into account the condition of the child when he enters the primary room, and extends its unifying in- fluence to the whole conscious content built up of instinct and experience during the six years of conscious life that have preceded the work of this grade. Point of view and 104 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PEIMAEY METHODS emphasis, rather than subject matter, should separate the branches taught in the primary room. The variety which the child craves may thus be obtained while the meager supply of the apperception masses is used to its fullest extent in assimilating the germinal truths of the various lines of his social inheritance. Instinctive Basis. The child comes into the world with a definite body of instinctive tendencies ; and as his brain develops, a greater or less number of additional instincts make their appearance. Among all these instincts five are of paramount importance to the teacher whose privilege it is to introduce the child to the school. These instincts, which are shared by the higher animals, are thoroughly selfish in their aim, and if the work of educa- tion were confined to their development along native lines, as the prophets of materialistic education would have us do, the highest results of the work of education would be a race of splendid animals, equipped with the ape and tiger methods of the ' ' struggle for existence. ' ' The aim of a Christian teacher, however, is to transform these in- stincts into their opposites; he undertakes to make un- selfishness replace the instinctive selfishness of the child ; to lift the child from the biological to the ethical plane ; to make social inheritance conform to and control physical inheritance: in a word, to engraft supernatural virtues upon the native stem of fallen human nature. The five fundamental instincts which determine the infant's attitude toward his parents are: 1) reliance upon his parents for love; 2) reliance upon his parents for nourishment; 3) reliance upon his parents for pro- tection; 4) reliance upon his parents for remedy; 5) PEIMABY TEXT-BOOKS 105 reliance upon his parents for the models of his imitative activity. Acting under the impulses of these five instincts, the child demands everything and gives nothing. It does not concern him what it may cost his parents to love him, to feed him, to clothe him and to guard him from danger, to rescue him from accident and disease, and to set him an example at all times that will turn his feet towards the Kingdom of Heaven. In a word, the child, so far as he is shaped by instinct, is absolutely selfish. Transforming Instincts. The first task of the Chris- tian educator should be the transformation of these tendencies into their opposites; everything else that he may accomplish for the child counts for little except in so far as it helps to bring about the transformation of in- stincts into virtues which are the bases of Christianity in the individual soul. He must teach the child to love as well as to demand love, to give as well as to take, to protect the weak, to help the needy, and to edify others by leading an upright life. Moreover, the child must be taught to lift up his eyes to his Heavenly Father and to develop towards Him the five-fold attitude which he maintains towards his parents. He must count upon His love, ask for daily bread, beg for protection against temptation and deliverance from evil, and he must keep his eyes turned toward Him as the model for his imitative activities. The Five-fold Social Inheritance. Apart from the op- erations of divine grace, the means at the teacher's dis- posal for the accomplishment of this wonderful transfor- mation, are the child's social inheritance which it is cus- tomary to speak of as at least five-fold. These inheri- 106 TEACHEBS MANUAL OF PEIMABY METHODS tances are: 1) Science: The child must learn to adjust himself to the physical world in which he lives ; 2) Letters : The child must learn through the oral and written speech of men the results of the experience of the race under the divine precepts which were given to guide man's steps through the darkness; 3) Institutions: All the higher aims of life are attainable only through human institu- tions, such as home, church, school, state, etc., and the child must learn to adjust himself to these institutions; 4) Aesthetics : If the child is to rise above the level of the brute, above the dominance of physical appetite, his soul must be taught to respond to beauty in all its forms; 5) Eeligion : If he is to attain his high destiny as a child of God, he must learn to know God, to love Him and to serve Him. We may consider these five aspects of a child's social inheritance successively, but in the actual work of the primary grade they are inseparable. We may emphasize each of these elements in turn, and in this way separate them from one another, but in the actual lessons of the class-room they must be interwoven in the close unity of the developing child-mind. In looking into natural phenomena, the child must be taught to see the face of his Heavenly Father; he must hear the voice of God in the speech of men ; he must see reflected in the family circle and in the actions of the nesting birds his own relation- ship to God ; and he must thrill to the beauty of God as he discerns it in the glowing sunset or feels it in the fragrance of the flowers. In a word, he must see God and feel Him in all things and find in Him the center of unity for the world at large and for his own life. In this PRIMARY TEXT-BOOKS 107 way only can the mind of the child develop normally as a social and ethical being and as a child of God. The plan of this work mnst be the soul of the child's first book, which the teacher should not only be able to turn to for help, but should look to for guidance. The ma- terial should be arranged so as to meet the mental con- tent of the child at the beginning of the course and its development must be such as to follow and control the unfolding life of the child. The teacher, in the first grade especially, must, through stories and dramatic games, contribute very largely to the mental food of the child, but all of this additional material should be organized around the central core supplied by the text-book. Vocabulary Building The methods of primary reading will be dealt with in another chapter. In considering the text-books for the primary grades, we cannot overlook the fact that they must be employed by the teacher in the difficult task of acquainting the child with written language and in giving him fluency in reading whether for the purpose of thought-getting or for correct oral expression. The ruling principle for method must be the same as that used in thought-building. There must be unity and con- tinuity. The vocabulary already acquired must function in building up all additions thereto. This end may be ac- complished in two ways. We may build up a unified sys- tem of word forms and teach the child to recognize the new word from its embodiment of previously acquired elements and from its resemblance to words previously mastered. This is the principle that lies at the basis of 108 TEACHEBS MANUAL OF PEIMAKY METHODS various phonic methods which have within recent years wrought such havoc with the cognitive faculties of the generation of pupils who are now in the beginning of adult life. Unity of mental life must be preserved, but this unity must be in the realm of thought and not in the extrinsic and subsidiary mental thing, language, written or oral. The sentences in the text-book must be so con- structed that by the aid of a limited written vocabulary, built up during a few months of exercise with blackboard and chart, as outlined elsewhere in this book, the child may be able to determine from the sense what the new written word must be, and the word should be repeated in sentences of this character until even the poorest visual- izers in the school will have grown familiar with it. This means, that on each page of a primary book there must be five or six per cent of new words and a similar percentage of words used in varying contexts for the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth time. It may be, indeed, that in exceptional cases this procdure should be continued up to the fifteenth or sixteenth time. In other cases it may well be that five or six repetitions will meet the needs of the class. The vocabulary used in the primary book must consequently be employed with the greatest care if the results here indicated are to be achieved. While each story must contain at least fifty per cent of words that are thoroughly familiar to the pupils and not more than five per cent of new words, there must also be a definite percentage varying from two to five per cent used for the second, third, or fourth time, etc. It will be found practical to increase the num- ber of known words in most cases to eighty per cent. If PRIMARY TEXT-BOOKS 109 this plan is followed systematically from story to story, it is possible at the end of the second year to have given the children a mastery of a large and well-selected vocab- ulary which will make it possible for them to read with ease the New Testament and many of the choicest classics. Where the training is carried along the same lines through the third year, the children will be found further advanced in their power of reading, spelling, thought- getting, etc., than is now the case with children in the higher grammar grades. Spelling should, of course, be taught with the help of the same book ; the method to be followed will be set forth in a later chapter. PART III THE CATHOLIC EDUCATION SERIES OF PRIMARY TEXT-BOOKS To get good results from the use of the text-book the teacher must have mastered it thoroughly. If gradations were permissible in this principle, we should say that it is more true of the primary text-book than of any other. In the advanced text-book the author has room to bring out in detail the truth which he seeks to impart; but in the primary text-book we are dealing chiefly with ger- minal elements in the various lines of truth, germinal elements in which structure is scarcely discernible and in which, nevertheless, must be contained the whole or- ganized body of knowledge which it is hoped to place under the control of the adult. The teacher should be able to discern in the seed, the fully unfolded organism. It is only when she does this that she is able to co-operate efficiently in securing the normal development of the elements in question. The lessons in the Catholic Education Series of primary text- books are clear and simple enough in themselves and the intelligent primary teacher who gives sufficient study to the matter will not find it difficult to arrive at a knowl- edge of what the authors have attempted to achieve through their use. To aid the teacher in preparing her- self to use the text-books, it has seemed well to include in this manual a brief analysis of each of the stories, and to point out the connection of one with the other. Much additional information on this subject may be CATHOLIC EDUCATION SEEIES 111 gained by the teacher from the perusal of a series of articles written in the Catholic University Bulletin nnder the heading ' ' Educational Notes ' ' during the years 1908- 1910, and also in a series of articles under the heading " Teaching of Religion" in the Salesianum, 1910-11. Several articles in The Catholic Educational Review bear on the same subject. CHAPTER XI BELIGION, FIEST BOOK The use of Eeligion, First Book, as a reader presup- poses the mastery by the child of a written vocabulary of words which are given at the close of this volume. The blackboard and chart work necessary for the proper development of this vocabulary is discussed in a subse- quent chapter. If the book is properly used, at the end of the year the children of the class will have mastered a written vocabulary of eight hundred words. All the stories in the book are told with considerable fullness by the series of pictures which illustrate the text. The scenes which the child, through his own experience, can clothe with color, are given in sepia ; the pictures of New Testament scenes in which our Lord is present, are in color. This arrangement was demanded, first, be- cause the children could not verify the scenes from their own experience; and, secondly, because it is desirable to throw the emphasis of the child's delight upon those scenes in which our Lord is present and which are asso- ciated with the fundamental truths of religion. The central thought and the dominant feeling de- veloped in each part find expression at its close in two songs set to music suitable for the children of the first grade ; it is not intended, however, that the children should be able to read the music. The songs should be taught as rote songs, and later on when the children are able to read music, they will return to them with pleasure and, through singing them, secure a renewal of the KELIGION, FIKST BOOK 113 mental attitude generated by the study of these early lessons in school. Moreover, the eye will have grown familiar with the musical notation, and their knowledge of the songs will help them in the attainment of the power to read music. The thought material of the book has been selected with a view to the child's instincts and to his five-fold spiritual inheritance. Home, as the first social institu- tion, is dwelt on throughout the book. The foundations of scientific culture are laid in the first part of each of the five chapters. The religious truths dwelt upon in- clude the Lord's Prayer, the first half of the Creed, the two-fold commandment of the New Law, the end for which we were created, temptation and its dangers, the mystery of the Nativity, and some knowledge of the Holy Family, and of the public life and miracles of our Lord. Each chapter in the book is divided into the following four parts. First, a nature study which is at the same time the basis of the parable illustrating the social and religious lessons that are to follow in the subsequent stories of the chapter. It is intended that the nature study should be dramatized by the children. Second, a home scene related to the previous nature study. This is to be lived out; not played. Its purpose is to give the child a keener appreciation of parental love and the various blessings which it brings, and as a result to trans- form the child's selfishness and develop generous im- pulses. Third, a religious lesson which is in itself one of the great fundamental truths of religion and which is reflected both in the preceding nature study and in the social study. The main thoughts in the series of religious lessons are closely correlated, and through these 114 TEACHERS MANUAL, OF PRIMARY METHODS religious lessons, as well as in other ways, all the material of the book is gathered up into close unity. Fourth, two songs in which the three preceding parts are summed up. Some times each song includes the entire lesson so that one song is in reality a repetition of the other, merely giving change of phrase and rhythm. At other times, each song covers but a part of the field so that the two songs are complementary. Part I. Love Nature Study. The aim of this nature study is to develop in the consciousness of the child the essential ele- ments of home in their simplest form; father, mother, little ones, the courage and self-sacrifice of the parents in flying long distances and braving the chilly days of spring in order to build a home for the little ones that God is going to give them, their mutual love and co- operation in building the home and in feeding and caring for the little ones. Love is the dominant element through- out. The lesson culminates in the bird's evening prayer with a hint of direct application by the picture of little Samuel at prayer. The home idea is in every story in the lesson and hence the thought and the vocabulary per- tain to the child's most vivid apperception masses. Moreover, the stories are largely action stories, which lend themselves readily to dramatization; and with one exception the action pertains to the parent bird, so that in the dramatizations the children are led to assume parental attitudes and in this way unselfishness and generous parental love are awakened in their hearts. As a nature study, it is the proper entry for the child to RELIGION, FIRST BOOK 115 the world of life, for from the lowest form of life to the highest the preservation and continuity of the race is the central theme and in adopting this method of ap- proach the child's sympathies are appealed to, his in- sight is quickened, and his imagination is cultivated. As a setting for a parable, it constitutes the best possible preparation for the domestic study which follows. Domestic Study. This contains two parts: i. e., The Nest of Mother's Arms and Father's Welcome Home. In the former there is a detailed comparison between the child's home and the home of the robins, which must result in intensifying the child's appreciation of home. It is calculated to awaken in his heart a deeper response to mother love together with feelings of gratitude. In the father's welcome home, hints are given to the chil- dren and to their parents of a line of action which would help to purify the home and keep it sweet and wholesome for the children while at the same time it would develop the children's characters along right lines. Religious Lesson. This lesson is long, so it is divided into six parts. In "The Home of Jesus" the two previous lessons are recapitulated and they are made the means of introducing the child to our Saviour. The idea of home is seized upon and made the means of giving the children a realization that Jesus is more than man, that He is above man as man is above the birds, since His home is in Heaven. It then proceeds to de- clare the divinity of Jesus, since His Father lives in Heaven, and the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Eedemption are indicated in the story, ' ' He came to Show us the Way There." By presenting Jesus to the chil- dren in this way, moreover, all the love and apprecia- 116 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS tion which is in their hearts for their father and mother and home, a love which has been quickened into new life by the two preceding stories, is here brought to Jesus as the child's welcome. For a justification of this procedure, turn to the parable of the lilies. Behold the lilies of the field, how they toil not, and neither do they spin, and yet not Solomon in all his glory was arrayed as one of these. Here we have a nature study as presented by Our Lord, when He would teach His simple-minded followers the same fundamental lesson that we are here endeavoring to impress upon the child's mind and heart. And the domestic study which immediately follows in the parable is, And which of you if your son should ask you for bread would reach him a stone, and if he should ask you for a fish would reach him a serpent? The third part of the parable is, And if you being evil know how to give good things to your children, how much more your Father in Heaven will give good things to them that love Him. Each part of the First and Second Books is constructed on the same lines as the parable of the lilies. No other mode of teaching will meet the demands of child-psy- chology, but the fact that this was Christ's method gives to it a higher sanction for our religious teachers than any science could furnish. Our Lord adhered to this method throughout His teaching. He taught them in parables, we are told by the Evangelist, and without parables he did not teach them. But after His disciples had been trained during some years, He spoke to them in more direct phrase; "But to you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God." But it should be noted that the lesson which follows this phrase con- BELIGION, FIEST BOOK 117 sists chiefly in an exposition of the parable, as in the case of the sower who went out to sow his seed. The second story of the religious lesson proceeds at once to develop in the mind of the child the central truth concerning Jesus. The Divine Sonship and the Creation are not only placed before the child in the six sentences with which the lesson begins, but the child's tendency to imitate is utilized to produce in him the right attitude of mind and heart towards Jesus and towards His Father, the Creator of all those things which the child has learned to know and to love. The child is accordingly led to put himself in the place of the birds in the trees and the flowers as they welcome Jesus. The next step in the movement of this lesson is to lead the children unconsciously to accept Jesus, instead of lowly creatures, for their model; and in sympathy with Him they are taught to love the sunbeams and the breezes, the sky and the stars, the birds and the flowers, the sheep and their shepherd, and with Him they learn to love most those who work for others and who are kind and gentle. In "A Secret' ' the children are taught the great com- mand which Jesus taught to the children of men, love of neighbor flowing from love of God crowns life with perfection and fills it with joy and sweetness. In "The Tired Teacher' ' there is a return to the home idea in all the lessons that went before. The associations of mother and child, of trees and grass and birds and flowers and play, are all gathered up and brought to Jesus; for such is the complex unity demanded by the unfolding mental life of the child. In addition to this, the children are taught by the example of the friends of 118 TEACHEBS MANUAL OF PBIMABY METHODS Jesus to be solicitous for the comfort of those who minister to them, and the teachers are taught by the ex- ample of Jesus never to be too tired or too busy to min- ister to their charges. "Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not" is the joy and the con- solation of every Catholic primary teacher. "The Little Children' ' is intended to deepen the per- sonal love of the children for Jesus. Their vivid imagi- nations make this scene almost as real as if they were climbing up on Our Saviour's knee and putting their arms around Him. The foundation is here laid for that intimate union between the child and Jesus which is so soon to be consummated in the Holy Eucharist. Finally, in "A Sweet Lesson," Jesus teaches them what they must do to earn Heaven. He teaches them to work and to obey and to pray. The Our Father is the fitting culmination of this lesson, and even if some of the words are long and difficult, the thoughts are not foreign to the child. This and the following lessons of this book will help the child to a fair understanding of most of its petitions. Songs. "It is Love" sums up this part of the book. The first stanza recalls the central theme of the nature study ; the second stanza is devoted to the domestic study; the third stanza traces the sources of the love in the heart of the birds and in mother's heart; and the fourth stanza expresses that personal bond of love which has sprung up between the little hearts and the heart of Jesus. It is no longer indirect, a mere inference from the love of birds and of parents. The child has already tasted the sweetness of the love of Jesus and has listened to the saving words of grace and prayer from His lips. RELIGION, FIEST BOOK 119 Paet II. Nutrition This part is constructed along lines that are identical with the preceding, hence a detailed interpretation does not seem called for. Father bird and mother bird feed their babies. Ceaseless labor in this task is traced back to the love for their little ones which fills their hearts. As a nature study, it enlarges the nature study of part one. Through its dramatization the children are prepared for the domestic study which follows. In The Two Mothers there is a repetition of the lessons of parental love which were taught in The Nest of Mother 's Arms and the whole gamut of love is brought out. In a Family Breakfast, the idea of prayer is inculcated, and in it the whole family are united. The contrast of the children's home with the home of the robin is repeated and the superiority of father's and mother's love to the transient love of the robin is shown. This lesson is repeated in another key in ' ' Feeding her Birds." The labor and providence of parental love is brought out and something of the complexity of the family group is developed. The idea of brothers and sisters is brought in, as well, as the idea of renunciation and brotherly love. The Eeligious lesson in this part was determined by Our Lord himself when He fed the multitudes and when He employed this miracle on the following day to teach his followers the mystery of the Holy Eucharist. The songs with which this part terminates are comple- mentary. The first sums up our reasons for gratitude, the second teaches the children to give thanks. 120 TEACHEBS MANUAL. OF PRIMARY METHODS Part III. Protection From Danger In Part I the children were taught to love the Heavenly Father. In Part II they were taught to ask Him for their daily bread. In Part III they are given some reali- zation of temptation and of the means of escape which Jesus has provided for all who love and obey Him. The nature study will be found to contain a resume of the two preceding nature studies and a futher develop- ment of the theme. The fledglings are here seen to leave the nest for the first time. The mother's brooding care is shown in the picture of the first venture. The parent birds continue to provide for the little ones. And in the rescue, the heroism of the mother, who is ever ready to sacrifice her life for her little ones, is developed. The domestic study is little more than a repetition of the preceding nature study. The timidity of the child when the little chick is placed in her hand, the rapid growth of familiarity, with the consequent danger from which she finds a refuge in her mother's arms, is in itself a parable which the teacher will readily understand but into which the child must not look too closely. The religious theme shows that our safety in the midst of all danger is to be found in Christ. So long as we keep our eyes on Him all is well, no matter how the waves threaten or the storm rages; but the moment we look away from him and begin to rely on our own powei s, disaster is upon us. Part IV. Eemedy The nature study here brings out the fact that Ee- demption is scarcely known in the world of animal life. KELIGION, FIRST BOOK 121 The weak and the wounded are left by the wayside to die. Eedemption springs from the miracle of God's love for man. He has imparted something of it to earthly parents, and He gave a splendid illustration of it in His frequent miracles of healing the sick and raising the dead to life. Pabt V. Models foe Imitation This part resumes all that went before and gathering up all that the child has been able to learn of the perfec- tion of home it bids him look to the Holy Family for his model and find in the Nativity the supremely in- teresting instance of a home on earth lifted to something of the perfection of the heavenly home toward which we are all striving. And the child is reminded that if he hopes to reach this home he must take Jesus as his model, and that, if he learns to be like the Child Jesus as He grew in wisdom and in grace before God and man, he may entertain a certain hope that he will share His heavenly home with Him in the future. CHAPTER XII EELIGION, SECOND BOOK Eeligion, Second book, presupposes a mastery on the part of the children of a vocabulary of eight hundred words. This vocabulary, at the end of the year, if the book is properly used, will reach eighteen hundred and fifty words. The pictures employed in this book, as in the case of Eeligion, First Book, illustrate the subject-matter of the text; but the children are not so completely dependent upon the pictures, since they can, to a much larger extent, gather the thought from the printed page. With few exceptions, the pictures are reproductions of master- pieces. Through the use of the pictures in the First and Second Books, the children make the acquaintance of such painters as Pinturicchio, Eaphael, Madame Le Brun, Hofmann, Elizabeth Gardner, Millet, Murillo, Plockhorst, Deitrich, Walter Firle, Landseer, Dvorak, Kaulbach, Titian, Corot, Allonge, Munier, Ghirlandajo, Portaels, Eubens, Eenouf, Bradford, Hobbema, Mengel- berg, Dore, Eembrandt, Molitor, Bouguereau, and Eich- ter. The stories are not written around the pictures, but the pictures naturally grow out of the text. In this way they help the children's imagination to visualize the scenes described. The children's taste is formed along right lines, and, without conscious effort, they are laying the foundations of an art culture that will at a later date save them from the gross materialism of our day. The aesthetic faculty is developed, instead of being demoral- RELIGION, SECOND BOOK 123 ized by wretched drawings that are supposed to be good enough for children, and by color daubs, sometimes ap- proaching in atrocity the work of the Sunday supplement. In these books the best art of the printer is used to secure results that will cultivate the aesthetic faculty of the children. The songs in this book are intended to serve the same functions as in First Book. A comparison of these two books will reveal the gradual development of complexity in the subject matter as we pass up from the first to the second grade work. Each of the studies branches out into several stories. Two new features in the second book can hardly fail to attract the attention of the teacher. First, the introduction of the child to standard Catholic literature through the use of brief poems which grow out of the subject-matter of the text, from which they derive their interpretation for the child. Secondly, the addition of questions at the end of each study. The central aim of the Second Book is to teach the child obedience to law as distinct from obedience to individ- uals. The book is divided into seven parts. The first part presents the reward of obedience and culminates in the mystery of the Annunciation, in which God bestows upon Mary the greatest gift that He could bestow upon a creature. Part two develops the first end of obedience, private worship, culminating in the adoration of the shepherds. The third part deals with the second end of obedience, culminating in the ceremonial worship of the Magi. The remainder of the book deals with the Second Table of the Law. In part four it is shown that God's law is for our good and that disobedience to God's law 124 TEACHERS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS leads to death. Part five presents the ideal of perfect obedience, culminating in the Finding in the Temple, in which the Child Jesus is seen obeying the will of His Heavenly Father ; then at the call of earthly constituted authority He goes down and is obedient to Joseph and Mary. Part six deals with the disobedience of our first parents and its consequences. Part seven presents to the child the idea of Eedemption, culminating in the story of the Good Shepherd. Part I. The Eeward of Obedience The children 's minds are to be prepared for the mys- tery of the Annunciation ; that is, the article of the Creed "Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost.' ' But there are many other things to be achieved at the same time. The children are to be taught through well-chosen examples the nature and the beauty of obedience, the aim being not to leave this knowledge a mere speculative posses- sion, but to secure its fecundity in the lives of the children. The obedience in question is obedience to God chiefly, obedience to His great command to love God and love one another. Virtue and sin are contrasted in such a way as to lead the children to love the one and to hate the other. The moral virtues are to be strengthened and devotion to Mary is to be inculcated. Nature Study. This nature study aims at teaching the children several fundamental lessons in biology, such as the mode of dispersion of winged seeds, the difference be- tween cultivated flowers and wild flowers, the habitat of the milkweed, the time of its blossoming, the nature of the blossoms, and its fertilization by the butterflies, the KELIGION, SECOND BOOK 125 habitat of the goldfinches, of the thistle and the elder bushes, as well as introducing the children to the golden- rod, and some cultivated plants. This is, indeed, a large quantity of information on natural science to be imparted at one time to little children in the beginning of the sec- ond grade. Of course it will take several days to deal with the matter. The lesson is divided for convenience into two stories : The Three Little Milkweed Sisters and the Queen of the Butterflies. Four brief poems are in- troduced into the lesson, two from the pen of Father Tabb, one from James Whitcomb Riley, and one anony- mous selection. Nine appropriate questions are added, together with directions for dramatizing, drawing and modeling. a) The Three Little Milkweed Sisters. This story aims at presenting the two chief sources of a child's sins; greed and vanity, and at contrasting with these, self- respect and charity. The endeavor is made to lead the children to sympathize with the virtuous sister and to hate sin and its consequences. The lesson contains many illustrations of the method of thought develop- ment. The three little milkweed sisters first give ex- pression to discontent with their surroundings. They then formulate the desires growing out of their discon- tent. This is followed by their seizing the first oppor- tunity offered to realize their desires, whereas, in the fourth place, the results are depicted. Fluffy expresses this sequence as follows : 1) "It's a poky old place and no one ever comes to see us;" 2) "I want a home among the flowers where the sun shines all day and where every one will come to see us." 3) "This suited Fluffy, and she pushed right in among the flowers. "4) " She found Fluffy 126 TEACHERS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS in the best part of the bed stealing the sunshine from the violets and the pansies — she pnlled her ont of the bed and threw her over the fence to die. ' ' This final stage in the development of the thonght occurs in the second story, which is, in reality, one with the first and is di- vided only for convenience. A similar development will be observed in the case of Flossie and Flitter. b) The Queen of the Butterflies. The development of the story of Fluffy and Flitter is comparatively brief. The child in imagination is led to despise them and to sympathize with the just punishment which overtook them, "for the wages of sin is death.' ' The chief em- phasis falls on the story of Flossie, who is to serve as a model to suggest many virtues to the child, such as hon- esty, self-respect, diligence, and charity. The moral is lightly touched, as it should always be in dealing with young children. As soon as the desired effect of the lesson is attained, the children's imaginations should be filled with ideals which will serve to lead them heaven- ward. The scientific truths in these stories are taught incidentally; they are so woven into the story which holds the children's interest that they are assimilated without effort. The moral lesson which serves as the basis of the parable holds the child 's interest throughout. Flossie suffers hardship. She is cold and hungry, yet she works hard and the result is a life of joy and useful- ness. She is strong and has abundance when her less fortunate companions are dying of hunger and thirst. She does not gloat over this, however, nor even advert to it, but utilizes the good things which she has acquired through her labor to give rest and food and drink to the butterflies, and for this she received her reward. BELIGION, SECOND BOOK 127 It should be observed, however, that she does not do these things for the sake of the reward. She is unconscious of any mercenary motives; she is obeying the injunctions of the law of love. "I was hungry and you gave me to eat. ' ' The only desire that she is credited with apart from those which spring from self-respect, is the desire for little ones for whom she may spend herself. c) Poems. The first little poem is a description of the butterflies and a comparison of them with the flowers. This can scarcely fail to interest the children. It is true that it contains several unfamiliar words, but the chil- dren's delight in tracing out the picture in the poem and in following the analogy will, with a little ingenuity on the part of the teacher, render it comparatively easy to teach. Preserved specimens of butterflies, if none other are at hand, may be used, and the likeness to a pansy, or to other available flowers, should be pointed out to the children. The practice of developing analogies is very useful and it belongs pre-eminently to this stage of mental development. If the work is well done here, it will add greatly to the pleasure and the profit of literature later on. "For the world is full of roses" is so simple and sweet that no difficulty whatever will be experienced in teaching it to the children. It carries the mind of the children back to the first part of the First Book and secures a repetition of the sentiment which first drew the hearts of the little ones to Jesus. "I know blue modest violets ' ' presents another analogy which the chil- dren will grasp at once and rejoice in. At the same time the little poem revives in the children 's minds the idea of Creation and enlarges it somewhat. "Phantoms" is valuable chiefly for its analogy, but it also calls to mind 128 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PKIMAEY METHODS the idea of the Guardian Angel and the functions of angels in general as ministers of God. These little poems might well be memorized by the children after they are thor- oughly understood. The story gives meaning to them, as it should, but this meaning may well be developed and enriched by the aid of appropriate object lessons. d) Questions. Throughout this book the questions are asked for the purpose of making the children think and answer in their own words, hence the answers are not given with the questions. Of course it is not meant that the teacher shall confine her questions to the few here given. The questions given are, in fact, intended chiefly as suggestions for the kind of questions that should be asked. The first question in this group calls to the children's experience out of school. If the milkweed lesson was given at the beginning of the first grade work, as was suggested in a previous chapter, the children will have noticed the milkweed growing and blossoming; they will have watched the ripening pods, and they will now be glad to tell all they have learned about the milkweed in answer to the teacher's questions. This is the first step in any real study worthy of the name. Its function is analogous to the "forecast," as discussed in the Art of Study. Such questions call up all the knowledge of the subject that the child possesses and organizes it with reference to further development. The second question calls for the exercise of judgment. The answer will be found partly in the children's observation and partly in the stories which they have just read. The teacher should develop this thought by means of many other questions analogous to this. The third question calls for experiment. If they RELIGION, SECOND BOOK 129 have not broken a growing milkweed and observed its sap, the teacher should endeavor to have them do so. The fourth question calls out both experiment and the literature of the subject as contained in the stories. The fifth question deals wholly with the literature of the sub- ject. The remaining seven questions are intended to aid the children in making the application of the lessons taught to their own lives. It is an exercise of their ethical judgment ; it also serves to develop their imagination and their histrionic ability by leading them to imagine them- selves as possessed of the feelings and living out the actions of others that they may read about. e) Action Work. After the exercises suggested by the questions, the children will be ready to dramatize the story. It is a mistake to attempt dramatization until the stories have been pretty well learned, but at the proper stage few things will help more to complete the assimilation of the knowledge gained and to render it functional in the subsequent life of the children than a well-conducted dramatization of the story. After the dramatization the children should be led to use the ma- terial of the stories for drawing and modeling. The two suggestions given for this work ought to be so cor- related with the subject-matter of the children's study that one will help the other. Vivid and fecund mental pictures are of the greatest assistance in drawing and modeling. Indeed, good work is never possible unless it is preceded by a mental content of this character. When the children are being exercised on new matter, the drawing and modeling will be poor, there will be little joy in the exercise, and vicious habits will easily take root. 130 TEACHERS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS Domestic Study. The aim of this study is to teach the children how to celebrate birthdays in such a manner as to derive mental and spiritual benefit. The idea of the patron saint is introduced, which in this instance is Our Lady. The story is divided into two parts and includes one poem. a) May's Birthday. In thought and vocabulary this story serves to prepare the children for the story of the Annunciation in the religious lesson which follows. Com- pare the first paragraph of this story with the first para- graph of the Annunciation. There is a hint given as to the father 's and mother 's duty in the matter of the proper education of their children. The day is begun by father and child assisting at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The child attends to her pets and shares her joy and her good things with her playmates. The father takes part with the children at the proper time and teaches them to remember the absent ones and particularly those who are sick, thus developing in the children's consciousness a practical knowledge of one of the seven corporal works of mercy. Incidentally, the good old Catholic custom of dedicating little girls to the Blessed Virgin and of having them wear the Blessed Virgin's colors is introduced. The mother 's wisdom is shown by mingling in the child 's anticipations the thought of the Blessed Virgin's birth- day, and the proper preparation for this feast elevates and sanctifies what might otherwise easily degenerate into a little pagan orgy of selfishness and sweetmeats. The father's prayer in the morning and the children's prayer in the evening for a little baby brother for May is intended to cultivate in the children the habit of re- garding babies as gifts from heaven. And finally in KELIGION, SECOND BOOK 131 Kaulbach's To Earthly Home, with accompanying text, the children are prepared for the coming of the Holy Ghost to Mary bearing with him the Child Jesus. b) Poem. "A Bunch of Boses" serves to acquaint the children with Father Tabb's writings; it holds the children's thoughts and fills them with delight in the pic- ture of a little baby playing with its fingers and toes. c) Questions. The first two questions are intended to fix in the children *s minds the idea of the Nativity of Our Blessed Lady and the date on which it is celebrated by the Church. The children, unaided, may not be able to answer the third question and it is to be hoped that they may ask their mothers about it, which may be pro- ductive of good results in the restoration of the beautiful Catholic custom of dedicating children to Our Blessed Lady. The remaining four questions are intended to act as a sort of examination of conscience both for the chil- dren and for their parents. The objective work indicated is intended here also to aid the children in rendering fecund the best thoughts contained in the lesson. Religious Lesson. This lesson contains four stories, three of which are calculated to develop the virtue of filial obedience as well as the obedience of children and parents to Our Heavenly Father. It also serves to give the children an outline of Our Lord's genealogy and to further develop the shepherd idea. In the boy shepherd, David, a type of Our Saviour is brought out and the chil- dren are prepared for some of the leading characteristics of the Eedeemer. a) King David. David's fidelity and self-forgetful- ness in tending to his sheep is calculated to prepare the minds of the children for the story of the Good Shepherd. 132 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PEIMAEY METHODS He has no thought of himself or of the danger involved when he strangles the lion and rescues the lamb. More- over, the grief of the mother of the little lamb is upper- most in David's consciousness. The strength that en- abled him to accomplish this feat, like that which enabled him to slay the giant, was given to him by God because of the simplicity and purity of his motives. He obeyed God 's call whether it came to him from the danger to the lamb or directly from God Himself. Incidentally, it gives the children a picture of Bethlehem as the city of David and thus prepares them for the scene of our Lord 's birth. b) Mary's Parents. This story gives the children a picture of the home of Mary's childhood; it shows them the virtues of industry and charity animating her parents and the reward that God bestowed upon them in recog- nition of their obedience to Him by entrusting to their care the most perfect little girl that ever came into the world. c) Mary's Childhood. This story is the culmination of the lesson in obedience, showing as it does the child Mary living a life of perfect obedience to the will of God and to her earthly parents as God's representatives. There is only one further illustration to be adduced in this direction, and that is the obedience shown by the Child Jesus in the Finding in the Temple. d) The Annunication. The thought and the vocabu- lary have been so developed in the children's minds that they are able to read this story with an understanding suitable to their years. It is given for the most part in the words and phrases of the New Testament. It ends in the development of the Hail Mary. RELIGION, SECOND BOOK 133 e) Poems. This study contains three poems. The quatrain with which the story begins is a bit of simple description that presents no difficulties to the children and may readily be committed to memory. Its simple rhythm will delight them and serve to recall the story of the Boy Shepherd and it is to be hoped that it will later serve to call up the picture of the Good Shep- herd. The triplet at the end of the story of Mary's child- hood is a motif which will help to make the children aim steadily at perfection. The Flowers by Eobert Louis Stevenson at the end of the story of the Annunciation is intended to take the children's thoughts away from the mystery of the Annunciation and to relax them. This poem, however, presents a large number of new words, but these, it will be seen, are chiefly names of flowers, and they may in consequence be taught to the children easily where the flowers enumerated can be had. When this is not possible, it would be well to omit the poem altogether and to pass at once to the next poem, u An Angel Bright, ' ' written especially for this lesson. There are very few new words in it, and in thought it is a resume of the pre- ceding lesson. f) Questions. The questions here mark a step in ad- vance over those in the preceding lessons. They call for a connected story from the children, not from their own experience, but from the text. The answers to most of the questions are given in the text, but they must dis- cover these answers for themselves. For the rest, the questions are similar to those that have already been dis- cussed. They serve the same purpose here that the re- view questions do in the art of study ; they link the newly acquired knowledge with that previously attained and 134 TEACHEBS MANUAL OF PBIMABY METHODS make practical application of the truths in question to their own lives and conduct. Paet II — The Fibst End of Obedience — Pbivate Wobship This lesson is a preparation for Christmas. It cul- minates in the adoration of the shepherds. It aims to bring out the idea of prayer and its necessity. It deals with the relation of the creature to the Creator and with the necessity resting upon all creatures to strive for the attainment of the end for which they were brought into the world. Nature Study. This lesson presents a study of the forest. It is divided into three parts for the convenience of the little ones, while a close unity is maintained throughout. The pine and the poplar, the oak and the elm, are studied, as are also their relationships to each other and the influence which they exert upon climate as well as the relationship of plant to animal. a) Little Fir's Bream. The personification of the trees appeals to the child, who, at this age, is fond of personifying all things. At a moment's notice, the healthy child of six or seven can turn himself into a bird or a bee, a flower or a zephyr, or even into a locomotive or a fire-engine. This is nature 's way, in fact, of leading him to her heart and teaching him many of her great fundamental laws. The dream idea also appeals to the child and prepares him for a further step in personifica- tion, which is taken in the next story. b) The Fairy's Visit. There has been no little mis- understanding among primary teachers of late, concern- BELIGION, SECOND BOOK 135 ing the use of fairy tales for children. It is objected on the one ha"nd that they are untrue and hence not suitable material for the child, since they would tend to weaken his confidence in the things that are told to him, besides teaching him to lie. Again, it is objected that many fairy tales present actions and attitudes that are repulsive and hence that they would lessen the delicacy of the child's moral sense, and it is maintained by these objectors that the lives of the saints may be made to furnish much better material for the exercise of the children's imaginations. All this and much more may be true of the abuse of fairy tales, but that should not lead us to discard their legiti- mate use. The teacher, however, should have a clear knowledge of certain criteria in the matter so that she may not err in her selection of fairy tales or in her mode of presenting them. In the first place, the fairy should always be reserved for the personification of nature in some of her aspects, whereas the angel is the messenger of the supernatural and bears his message direct from God. Secondly, the fairy tale must be such as will reach the child's intelli- gence and at the same time not mislead him into accepting it as an historical narrative of an actual personage. The child should always be made to realize that the fairy is only a personification of nature, a creation of the imagi- nation. In the fairy story here presented the children cannot fail to see the relationship between Little Fir's dream and the fairy which is only the dream endowed with personality and with a voice. The child is made to realize from the first paragraph that Little Fir is again in dreamland. He proves to himself that it is not a dream, but the proof will not convince any normal child ; 136 TEACHERS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS he will see through its purpose at once and delight in it. The time of the fairy's visit is late in the night, long after the other trees have gone to sleep. The only assur- ance he has that he is awake is, that there is a full moon and that he can see as plain as day. But the children are likely to know from personal experience that there is a full moon in dreamland and that you can see there as plain as day. Once the children get this attitude towards the fairy, they are prepared for his subsequent visits in whatever form he may choose to take. The fairies are beings that the children can control and play with as they will. This is well illustrated in Mrs. Meynell's charming little volume "The Children." Speaking of a four-year-old child whom the nurse had tried to frighten into silence by threatening that the man with two heads would catch him if he did not stop making a noise, she goes on to tell of the mother 's finding the child i ' cowering with laughter, not with dread, lest the man with two heads should see or overhear. The man with two heads had become his play, and so was perhaps bringing about his sleep by gentler means than the nurse had intended." The moral that the fairy teaches is unobjectionable and lays the foundation of the child's vocation. In the three little Milkweed Sisters the children learned that pride nat- urally leads to sin and death. In this lesson they are led to analyze pride into three of its most prevalent forms, the pride of ancestry, of vanity, and of undue reliance upon self, and the fairy points out that pride in each of these forms leads to destruction. The Little Fir is dis- couraged at this, but takes heart when the fairy tells him that she has found a way to life and happiness in obedi- RELIGION, SECOND BOOK 137 ence to natural law, the theme which occupies the next story. c) Mother Nature. The lesson here is that life and happiness can be attained only through obedience to God's law as written in the constitution of the creature. It is not what we want, but what God wants of us that will lead us onward and upward to the fulfillment of our high destiny. If we are faithful in obedience to natural law, we may confidently expect that in due time God will lead us to the higher levels of supernatural life. Insistence is also laid upon promptness and love as essential quali- ties of obedience. d) The Poems. "And Nature, the old nurse/ ' by Longfellow, is introduced into this lesson, as it sums up the theme admirably. Its vocabulary is not difficult, al- though it presents a number of words that the children will meet for the first time. The thought, however, is so fully in their possession after a study of the stories, that it will help them to acquire the new words. "I saw you toss the kites on high," by Stevenson, is illustrated both by the story and by the splendid picture of Corot, the Storm in the Trees. It will be found well worth while for the teacher to help the children to master the vocabu- lary in both of these poems, even if special preparation has to be made on the blackboard. Stevenson's poem has special value in this place as it calls to the children's minds the Omnipresence of God, which takes as its symbol the invisible wind with its power. e) Scripture Text. A Scripture text instead of a poem is introduced at the end of the Fairy's visit. It is in- tended that this text should be memorized by the children. It gives the proper form to the central truth of the lesson 138 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PBIMAEY METHODS and the thought is of course the highest poetry even if the form lacks the rhyme and measure that the children so dearly love. Domestic Study. The story deals with the children's celebration of Christmas Eve. Little Fir typifies the soul called to a higher vocation. He had been faithful over a few things and he was placed over many. He is made the bearer of gifts from the Christ Child to the children of men. The sacrifice implied in cutting him down suggests the breaking of home ties by those who are called to the religious life and to be the bearers of graces to the souls of others. The children in their dream catch something of the message but they cannot under- stand it. The law of sacrifice is beyond unaided human nature. They are sent upstairs to listen to the story of the Holy Night but even that does not bring comprehen- sion to them any more than the actual occurrence two thousand years ago brought comprehension of the mys- teries of sacrifice and redemption to the Children of Israel. It requires the gift of grace from heaven to bring understanding and faith. "Amen, amen, I say unto you; you cannot come unto me unless it be given to you by my Father who is in Heaven.' ' An understanding of the meaning of Little Fir's sacrifice comes to the children only in answer to their prayer. This answer is contained in the two brief passages from the New Testament which are given for the children to memorize. a) Poems. The little poems from Father Tabb and from Lowell touch on the element of charity and sacrifice embodied in the practice of almsgiving, while the poem by Mary Duncan is a form of child's prayer. BELIGION, SECOND BOOK 139 Religious Lesson. This is the story of the Holy Night as the shepherds lived it. It points out the quality of mind and heart that God picks out for His favors. It points out the obedience of the shepherds and calls at- tention to their offerings of prayer and sacrifice. It is intended to help to correct the children's standard of values while showing them that it is not money or fine clothes that make us worthy of favors from heaven. It also makes in the children's minds a beginning of the preparation necessary for an understanding of the Mes- sianic expectation. It begins to teach the great lesson of the preparation that was necessary for the coming of Christ into the world and into the individual soul. Paet III — The Second End of Obedience — Public Wobship This part is dealt with very briefly, as the full develop- ment of this theme belongs to a later stage in the child 's development. An understanding of it demands a fuller knowledge of social life. Until the child shall have a com- prehension of society as a unit, he cannot grasp the mean- ing or necessity of public worship. But the integrity of the story of the Christ Child demands that it be touched upon here and that the germ that will later on unfold and bear fruit be implanted. The three parts of this les- son, nature study, domestic study and religious study, are taken from the Biblical narrative ; they are not distinctly separated, nevertheless their outlines may be easily traced. The Lamps of Heaven may be regarded as a nature study. The children having learned the doctrine of Cre- 140 TEACHEES MANUAL OE PRIMARY METHODS ation in the first part of the first book, and having had this truth presented to them repeatedly in diverse forms, are now ready and eager to see how older people look at the matter. They need confirmation to make them quite sure that there is nothing of a fairy tale about this wonderful story of Heaven and of Jesus. They are per- mitted here to look out upon the world through the eyes of the Wise Men and to see God in all things. They also learn that it is the part of wisdom to love and obey God and to thank Him for all His blessings. The setting which is the nature study proper, is a lesson in geog- raphy, and the first, in some respects, that has been taught to the children. They are told of Persia and given a description of the country, of its rivers and mountains, of its fauna and flora, and of the occupations of the people. But it is all done so quietly that the children are not conscious that they are being taught history and geography. The Promised Star is a domestic study in which sin is dealt with as a disturbing factor and one that inspires pity and fear. The Wise Men are again presented as models who obey God and who see Him in the heavens and see peace flowing from the obedience to God exhibited by the heavenly bodies in their movements. The Wise Men pray to God and seek to know His will in all things, for which they receive their reward in the appearance of the star. The third part is the story of the visit of the Magi told in the words of the Gospel. Two of Father Tabb's poems are introduced for the children to memorize. The first has but little connection with the story, except that it deals with the star and RELIGION, SECOND BOOK 141 seeks to awaken the child's interest by its quaint conceit. The second poem points the religious lesson that the clean of heart are near God and reminds one of Our Saviour's statement, "Unless ye become as one of these.' ' Part IV — God's Law is for Our Good The most important part of this lesson is that devoted to sin, which finds its culmination in the slaughter of the innocents. It will be dealt with more fully in a subse- quent chapter on thought development in the primary grade. Nature Study. The nature study deals with autumn and with the preparation of plants and animals for the coming of winter. Providence covers up the roots of the plants with leaves and snow, and instinct in the squirrels and the gophers drives them on to lay up their stores of food with renewed energy. The fairy warning the robins to fly south is nothing more than this instinct of the birds personified. It teaches the children the habits of the birds and incidentally disapproves of the laziness of Bob White and the bravado of the sparrow. The les- son gives such a suggestive picture of the flight of the Child Jesus into Egypt that no intervening social study is required. It also teaches acts of virtue, such as neigh- borliness, and warning and help in time of need, so that the theme need not be developed in the social study. Domestic Study. In the story of Bock Ledge Light, which is here made the domestic study, obedience is the central theme. The promptness of the father 's obedience in filling and cleaning the lamps every morning for twenty years and the child's desire to fulfill the father's duty are 142 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PEIMAEY METHODS the chief lessons taught. The light sending out its faith- ful beams typifies the Church established by Our Saviour for the salvation of the world. Natural knowledge, like the moon and stars, is frequently hidden from men and fails to give its light; but the Church, though carried on by frail and erring human beings, through Divine power, is made to shed its saving beams upon the troubled waters of human life amid all the darkness and storms of human passion. Had it not been for her father 's fidelity in preparing the lamp in the morning, Nellie would not have been able to light it. Forgetful of her own fear and even forgetful of her father's need, she was con- cerned only that the lamp might shed its beams to save the passing strangers from the rocks. The lesson is summed up in an appropriate Scripture text. Religious Lesson. The religious lesson deals with two separate but related themes. First as God's Providence commanding the flight into Egypt ; second the lessons of obedience taught by Joseph and Mary as they carry out the instructions of the angel without hesitation or delay. The devotion of Joseph to Mary and the Child Jesus is also set forth. The beautiful poem, Little Jesus, by Francis Thomp- son, is utilized here to prepare the children for the story that is to follow. In ' ' The Holy Innocents ' ' the malice of sin is developed. Each of the seven capital sins that is dwelt upon is per- sonified and the child is given some realization of how these fundamental tendencies are directed against God and would destroy the Prince of Peace if they could. The gruesome side of the slaughter of the innocents is not dwelt upon, and the story rests with the five little martyrs RELIGION, SECOND BOOK 143 crowned in heaven as the first who were privileged to suffer for Christ. Part V — Perfect Obedience This lesson develops the idea that perfect obedience consists in being always engaged in doing what we believe to be right and to be the will of God, while we stand ready at any moment to yield obedience to legitimately con- stituted authority, even when such obedience would take us away from the doing of what seems very good to us. It also brings out the fact that such perfect obedience leads to conquest over nature. Nature Study. The story of Silver Brook deals with the various forms of water: the vapor rising from the ocean and forming clouds, the formation of snow and ice, and the melting of these by the sun, the brook return- ing to the ocean and on its way furnishing drink to the thirsty flowers and animals and help to man's weary muscles. The parable contained in it is easily traced. The ocean typifies eternity from which creative energy calls man forth. The south winds that carry the clouds over the green valleys and over the hills are the influences of Divine grace, whereas the north winds that imprison drops of water as snow crystals, are typical of sin. The rabbit and the squirrel that would detain Silver Brook after his release through redeeming grace typify the ma- terialists and agnostics who refuse to man a higher origin or a higher destiny than clay. Silver Brook, with his ever-recurring song, home to the ocean, home, typifies the soul ever striving to return to the bosom of God and yet neglecting no opportunity to give help to the needy. As 144 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PEIMAKY METHODS it is torn by the rocks in its journey down the mountain- side, it gives us a picture of the contrition that must rend the soul of the sinner before it can be healed by divine grace. This is followed by a brief peace and then by obstacles, some of them coming up out of the past to block the way to heaven. But these will be overcome by courage and perseverance as the brook digs a way for itself around the rocks, after which it glides down through the valley of peace that always follows difficulties over- come. a) Poems. The poem "It is the mountain to the sea" from Father Tabb, gives the key to the story, and the fern song at the end brings out the fact that divine grace comes to us through our fellow man, God thus choosing to make us depend one upon another even for gifts of the supernatural order. Domestic Study. The domestic study here is a page from the history of the United States. It puts before the children in the right light George Washington as a boy. The incident told here is substantially true, and the way in which it prepares for the Finding in the Temple is too obvious to need comment. The lesson leads to the for- mulation of the Fourth Commandment in the words of Exodus. The poem from the pen of Father Eyan empha- sizes charity and co-operation as well as hospitality, but the central thought, of course, is reverence and obedience to parental wishes even when the parent is no longer present to enforce his commands. The Religious Lesson. The religious lesson here is a brief resume of the life of Christ, beginning with the return from Egypt, resting briefly on the scene in the Finding in the Temple, and closing with the miracles of KELIGION, SECOND BOOK 145 Jesus, including the raising of the daughter of Jairus from the dead. Paet VI — The Disobedience of Ouk Fikst Pakents The aim in this part of the book is to teach the children the doctrine of original sin. Their minds have been gradually prepared for the scene of the first great dis- obedience. The Slaughter of the Innocents was intended especially to give the children such an aversion for sin and such an understanding of its malice that their sym- pathies would be on the right side in witnessing the first great tragedy of the race. The three parts of this lesson are traceable, though not distinctly marked. Nature Study. The story of the Creation is the culmi- nation of many lessons that have been given during the two preceding years. It gathers up all things in the child 's world and teaches him explicitly, in the words of Holy Writ, their source. At the end of the story of the Creation, the Third Commandment is given and should be memorized by the children. Questions in this, as in many of the preceding lessons, form an exhaustive cate- chism. They are much more searching than the usual catechism questions, but the children are required to find the answers for themselves from the text, the exact formulation being given in a comparatively few instances. Domestic Study. The Garden of Eden furnishes an ideal picture of home and the relations that should exist between man and wife as well as between the family and Almighty God. Just as the story of the Creation gathers up the nature studies and expresses the central truth in the words of Holy Writ, so the Garden of Eden gathers up into unity all the preceding studies of home life. 146 TEACHEKS MANUAL OP PRIMARY METHODS Religious Lesson. The Flaming Sword presents the whole drama of temptation, of disobedience and its con- sequences, but it also contains hope and helpfulness. The children may be led to see that it was the mercy of God that sent Adam and Eve out of the Garden, for in their fallen condition no torture would have been greater than to have been in the presence of God. After the children are made to realize as far as possible the magnitude of the calamity that has overtaken our First Parents, they are led at once to the contemplation of the great mercy of God that moved Him to follow these poor sinners out into the world of darkness and to give them laws and commandments by which they might find their way back to life. He also planted in their hearts the hope of a Redeemer to come, which was needed to sustain them in the midst of the many trials that overtook them. Part VII. Redemption This part constitutes the final stage of the transition in the form of a lesson, from that of the parable with its three phases, nature study, domestic study and religious lesson, to that about to be employed in Religion, Third Book. The Water Lily and the Minnoiv. Munkittrick 's poem at the beginning of this story forms an excellent forecast. The gnarled unlovely root stands for human nature ; the slender gold-green shoot is Mary ; the pale bloom is Christ. The hope of the Redeemer was the vision that thrilled the root. This story connects up immediately with Silver Brook. The south side of the pond is typical of the un- sullied nature of childhood ; the north side with its black KELIGION, SECOND BOOK 147 mud suggests sin. The sunfish and the perch here repre- sent animal nature, or the materialist, if you will; they play the role in this story that the squirrel and the rabbit played in Silver Brook. The long waiting for the Mes- siah is reflected by- the discouraged root. The story may be taken to typify the human race in its tragedy of sin and the glory of the Eesurrection, or it may be taken for the story of the individual soul that has strayed away from God until it is finally found by grace and brought back again to life. The sunbeam touching the brown head of the lily presents another picture of the Holy Ghost in the mystery of the Incarnation. The Way to Heaven. Instead of the usual domestic study, Our Lord is introduced here in His role of Teacher, in which He presents to the children four lessons, that of the Good Samaritan, the Forgiveness of Sin, the Prodigal Son and the Good Shepherd. CHAPTER XIII RELIGION, THIRD BOOK The children who have completed the work outlined for the second grade have command of a large vocabulary and have organized thought material which will enable them in the third grade to do work that is seldom at- tempted before the fourth or fifth grade; moreover, the four parts of each chapter ; viz, Nature Study, Domestic Study, Religious Lesson and Songs, have each grown so complex that it seems advisable in the third grade to give a separate volume to each of these lines of development. In the preparation of the First and the Second Books the center of unity was placed in the religious lessons ; the domestitc study and nature study were both chosen with reference to the religious lesson in question. In addition to this central unity in the religious lesson, the nature study lessons were related to each other as far as might be, and the same is true of the domestic study and of the music. The study of the books will reveal an orderly progress in each of these lines of development, as one passes from the first part of the first book to the end of the second book. During the first two grades the chil- dren 's minds were being prepared gradually to deal with these four lines of work as separate branches. In the third grade a separate book is devoted to each of these lines of development, and the unity in each book is strictly preserved, nevertheless, the four books are related to each other in a manner similar to the four parts of each chapter in the first and second book ; consequently RELIGION, THIRD BOOK 149 the books are not to be taken up successively but simul- taneously. The first Nature Study book, chapter by chapter, will form the proper preparation for the suc- cessive lessons in the third reader and both of these will serve as a preparation for the corresponding part of Eeligion, Third Book, while the music reader intended for this grade will give expression to the thought ma- terial that is being progressively organized in the other three books which are in the hands of the third grade children. In the case of the books for the third grade, as in the studies in the first two books, the religious theme is first determined, and this controls, in a measure, the development of the themes in the Nature Study book and in the Third Eeader; for this reason, Eeligion, Third Book, will here be studied in the first place. The religious theme during the first two grades dealt with the child's relationship to home, to his earthly parents and to Jesus. During the second year he is led to an understanding of law as the embodiment of God's will and of the necessity that lies upon all creatures of obeying God whether His will be revealed directly or through legitimately constituted authority. He is also given an understanding of sin and its consequences cul- minating in the sin of our First Parents. In the third grade, therefore, the children are ready to take up the study of Eedemption which, accordingly, forms the theme of Eeligion, Third Book. Eeligion, Third Book, deals with the relationship of man to God, whereas the third reader, intended as its companion study, presents the relationships of man to man with God back of them. 150 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PBIMABY METHODS The parable, with its three parts, forms the basis of the method of thought presentation in the work of the first and second grades and this movement of thought should still be utilized by the proper correlation of the chapters of the three books which are being studied at the same time ; but there is need in the religious lesson itself of a developing movement, and this is secured by the arrange- ment of the materials selected. Eeligion, Third Book, is, in reality, a brief and thor- oughly organized Bible History which, instead of follow- ing the chronological order as presented in the Old and New Testaments, seeks to organize material in such a way that the child may comprehend it ; so the matter is di- vided into four lines which form the four parts of the book. In each of these parts there will be found the gradual development of the type and prophecy as con- tained in the Old Testament, together with its realization in the New. Without some separation such as this, the complexity of the subject matter is so great that the child's mind is in danger of becoming confused and of losing its grasp on the theme. The four parts of Eeligion, Third Book, are: 1) The Church, 2) Sacrifice, 3) The Holy Eucharist, 4) God With Us. The same care has been exercised in the selection of pictures with a view both of illustrating the text and of developing the children's artistic taste. The colored pic- tures have been omitted because all the pictures in the book deal with religious themes and there is not the same necessity of marking the contrast and emphasizing the delight as there was in the earlier books. It would be well, of course, if all these pictures could be presented in good color work but that would add so materially to the RELIGION, THIRD BOOK 151 cost of the book as to make the plan seem unadvisable in the preparation of the books intended for the children of the poor as well as of those more fortunately situated. The works of the following painters are represented in Eeligion, Third Book: Durer, Eaphael, Dore, Schopin, Hofmann, Zimmerman, Guido Eeni, Rembrandt, Stuer- boudt, Murillo, Plockhorst, Holbein, Munkacsy, Ciseri, Titian, Correggio, Furst, Da Vinci, Sampson, and Bart- lett. The language, both in vocabulary and phrase, is taken from our English Bible which has played so large a role in the formation of the English language. The book will prove invaluable, therefore, from the effect that it is bound to have upon the child's taste in reading as well as upon his control of language and his power of ex- pression. The masters of the English language, even when they are unfortunate enough to have lost their faith, still exhibit plainly in their writings their indebted- ness in the matter of style to the English Bible. The poems in Eeligion, Third Book, are related to the text in the same manner as those that were employed in the former books, but an additional principle appears in their selection; they are chosen not only so that their meaning may be developed from the prose text, but so as to prepare the children for the hymns employed in the Church's liturgy; many of the longer poems, espe- cially, are English translations of liturgical hymns. Part I. The Church The first part of the Mass deals with the preparation for the coming of Christ; the Gospel presents the ful- filment; while the Collect is a prayer for the application 152 TEACHERS MANUAL OP PRIMARY METHODS of redeeming grace to the individual soul. In like man- ner, the theme which this part of Eeligion, Third Book, undertakes to unfold to the child's mind embraces prep- aration, fulfilment, and application of the principle of salvation through authority. The theme reaches its culmination in the transmission of the keys and is in- dicated in outline as a three-fold phase. The prophetic phase is given in the words of Isaias, "And I will lay the keys of the house of David upon his shoulder: and he shall open and none shall shut: and he shall shut, and none shall open. ,, The fulfilment is given from the Gospel of St. Matthew in these words: "And I will give to thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in Heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in Heaven. ' ' The third phase, application, is given in the Collect for the feast of SS Peter and Paul: "0 God, who in- trusting to Blessed Peter, thy Apostle, the keys of the Kingdom of Heavon, didst bestow upon him the power of binding and of loosing, grant that with the help of his intercession, we may be set free from the bonds of our sins." This three-fold phase will be found in the development of each part of Religion, Third Book, but that is not sufficient; each lesson must have these three phases in it. If it is to have its proper effect on the life of the child, there must be preparation, presentation and application. The first of these phases is given in each chapter by means of a story, sometimes divided into two or three parts, of some great event recorded in the Scriptures; this is followed by a lesson entitled "Thoughts for Us" RELIGION, THIRD BOOK 153 in which the central truths of the lesson are brought out more distinctly and presented in such a way that the pupil may not only grasp its meaning as part of the general theme, but may find in it hints for his own life. The application is explicitly made in the questions which follow "Thoughts for Us." Faith, Hope and Charity. This lesson is a resume of the latter part of Book Two; it retells the story of the Fall of our First Parents, but it emphasizes particularly the means of salvation through the three theological virtues, Faith, Hope and Charity; it makes a beginning by planting the germs of the ideas of contrition and confession. The "Thoughts for Us" point out the Church as the means of salvation, and the necessity of Faith, Hope and Charity, with the suggestion that these acts be learned and recited daily. The questions indicate to the children many applications of the truths learned in the lesson. The Ark, the Flood, and the Rainbow. These three stories tell of the dealings of God with Noe, of the build- ing of the ark, of Noe's faith and obedience, and the result ; they show forth the principle of salvation through authority ; for those who believed and obeyed were saved from the destructive flood. In the "Thoughts for Us" the meaning of this lesson is developed, and the children are shown how the ark is a type of the church which Christ founded to save men from the flood of sin. The questions here, as in all the other lessons, make the application; they are searching and much more complete than the set of questions usually given in the catechism and the children's powers of thought-getting and thought-expressing are developed 154 TEACHERS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS through the exercise of finding and formulating the cor- rect answers from the text of the story. The Call of Abraham. The poem, written specially for this study by Eev. Charles L. O'Donnell, C. S. C, ex- presses the central thought, Vocation. The germs of this thought were implanted in the children's consciousness by the story of Little Fir in the Second Book. Here the theme becomes explicit. The faith and obedience of Abraham stand out so strikingly that it will not be diffi- cult for the teacher to show the parallel between Abra- ham's action and that of the faithful child or youth who seeks only to know what God wants of him in order to follow that call even where it leads them, as in the case of religious vocation, to break home ties, and to go into foreign lands, if need be, to carry the light of faith to those who walk in darkness. In ' ' Thoughts for Us ' ' the parallel between Abraham obeying the call of God and the Wise Men following the star is brought out, and at- tention is called to the fact that if God does not always seem to answer our prayers immediately it is for our good that He should delay and our faith and trust in Him must not diminish on that account. Joseph is Betrayed by His Brothers. The story of Joseph is divided into four parts, each of which is followed by the usual presentation and application. These stories appeal to the children and are utilized here not only for the development of the type of our Saviour, which is the main line of thought, but they are also used for the development of many useful lessons, such as the meaning and function of prophecy, the danger of favorit- ism, the evil consequences of jealousy, the reward of courage and fidelity, the beauty of returning good for KELIGION, THIBD BOOK 155 evil ; and finally, in the way Joseph forgave his brothers, the children may be taught the necessity of contrition and confession in order to obtain pardon for transgressions. The doctrine of vicarious atonement is likewise prepared for by the conduct of Juda in offering himself as a sub- stitute for his brother Benjamin in order to save his father from suffering. In this instance there is a splendid type of our Saviour dying on the cross to atone to God for our sins and to save us from the punishment which we have deserved by our sins. The story of Joseph is followed by a brief outline of the history of the children of Israel in their Egyptian captivity and in their deliverance; of the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai ; and of the infidelity of later generations in the Promised Land : these lead to an account of the founding of the Church by our Saviour, culminating in the descent of the Holy Ghost. The "Thoughts for Us" following this lesson contains a re- capitulation of the entire part, thus gathering into one place the evidence for the need of authority in the work of salvation and for the necessity that we are all under of being members of the Church and of obeying her commands. Thus is completed the teaching of the Apostles' Creed which was begun in the first part of the First Book. If comparison be instituted between the questions that have been employed in the Second Book and in this part of the Third Book with the questions usually given in the cate- chism, covering the same material, it will be found that the questions here given are far more searching and the knowledge they call for is more complete. Moreover, the children answer these questions from the fullness of understanding, whereas with the very best endeavor 156 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PEIMAEY METHODS it is well-nigh impossible to give such an understanding of the matter to the children through the aid of the cate- chism, which deals wholly with abstract formulations. Unless the matter is presented connectedly and in con- crete form, the children cannot understand it. This is along the same line as that insisted upon by Saint Augus- tine in his De Catechizandis Rudibus. Little by little, however, the children are being given the exact formula- tion, but they understand the matter first and then mem- orize the formulae with ease. This method was followed by the Fathers and by all the leading schools of modern catechists as well. The readers of this volume should consult the Spirago Method by Archbishop Messmer ; they will find there that the Archbishop insists strongly upon giving the children comprehension of the matter before requiring them to memorize the form. Paet II. Sacbifice It is admittedly difficult to give the children any ade- quate concept of sacrifice or of its necessity ; nevertheless the notion should be implanted; for if the idea and meaning of sacrifice in general have not been allowed to grow up and mature in the minds of the children, it will not be possible to teach them the story of the Crucifixion as it should be taught. Early Sacrifices, This lesson begins by pointing out to the children the four ends for which sacrifice should be offered and then it tells the story of the sacrifice of Cain and Abel, so as to bring out the qualities of soul necessary in order to render our sacrifices ac- ceptable. In the "Thoughts for Us" the children are led BELIGION, THIKD BOOK 157 to see how they are to assist at Mass by joining with the priest in offering it up in adoration, thanksgiving, petition and atonement. They are shown how these pur- poses should animate our daily prayers. Something is taught also of the different kinds of sacrifice which ob- tained in the Old Law and the children's attention is called to the ways in which these early sacrifices typified the sacrifice which our Saviour was to make later on. Abraham's Obedience. In this story the type of the sacrifice on Calvary is brought out vividly, and special emphasis is laid on the love of God the Father, which is implied in permitting His only Son to be sacrificed on the cross for our sakes. The children are also shown how the act of disobedience of our First Parents was reversed by Abraham, and how, in consequence, his de- scendants were made the Chosen People of God and the progenitors of our Saviour ; the ideas of obedience and of vocation are also developed. The Paschal Lamb. In this story there is given a brief outline of the plagues of Egypt and of the deliverance of the Chosen People. The Paschal Lamb as the type of Christ is dwelt upon ; and the lesson it foreshadows of our salvation through the blood of the Lamb of God, from the death which we deserve for our sins, forms the imme- diate preparation for the story of the Passion. The Lamb of God. Two brief sketches of Our Lord's life are given for the preparation of the Sacrifice of Calvary. The story of Jesus' baptism by John in the Jordan and His triumphal entry into Jerusalem is given in the first of these. Emphasis is laid upon the necessity of prep- aration for the reception of divine grace. John's mis- sion is utilized to show the kind of preparation that is 158 TEACHERS MANUAL OP PKIMAKY METHODS necessary, and the triumphal entry into Jerusalem is employed as a warning that external pomp and show give ns no guarantee that we are in a condition to receive divine favors. The New Commandment. Advantage is taken of the Last Supper to teach the children the commandment of love as set forth in the Gospel according to Saint John and the way in which it forms a transition link between the Paschal Lamb and Calvary is not lost sight of. Jesus Prays in the Garden. This forms the beginning of the story of the Passion, which is broken up into four parts in order to draw from the narrative wholesome lessons for the children and to give a proper opportunity to allow the Passion in its several parts, and as a whole, to sink into their minds and hearts in a way that will render the thoughts of the Passion and death of our Lord helpful to each of them in his subsequent struggles with temptation and sin. The story ends with an account of the Eesurrection and with the appearance of Christ to His disciples at Emmaus. Part III. The Holy Eucharist It is very difficult to present the doctrine of the Holy Eucharist to the children in a way that will appeal to their intelligence; argument and discussion are useless. It is only through an exercise of faith that they can be- lieve. When our Lord presented this truth to the multi- tude that followed Him around the lake after they had partaken of the miraculous loaves and fishes, they were unable to comprehend it; so our Lord said to them, "Amen, amen, I say unto you, you cannot come unto RELIGION, THIRD BOOK 159 Me unless it be given to you by My Father in Heaven. ' ' In spite of this fact, onr Lord did not fail to use every means to bring home to them the meaning of the sublime doctrine which He taught. He made use of the striking miracle of the loaves and the fishes to whet their appe- tite; He recalled to their minds the type of the Blessed Eucharist set forth in the Old Testament: "Your fathers did eat manna in the desert ;" and, by dint of repetition, He left no room whatever to doubt His meaning. Guided by our Lord's method, we present the doctrine to the children, employing the Old Testament types and prophecies, such as the sacrifice of Melchise- dech, the Manna, the Loaves of Propitiation, the Unleav- ened Bread and the Prophecies — particularly that of Isaias. Use is also made, in large measure, of the liturgical hymns such as the Lauda Sion, the Pange Lingua and Verbum Supermini Prodiens together with the Mystery of Mysteries by Father Faber and The Raven Builds Her Nest, by Mrs. Alexander. The doctrine of the Blessed Eucharist is best given to the children in these great hymns which will help them to retain a doctrine that quite transcends the grasp of human reason. The available literature on this theme is so abundant that it was not deemed necessary to treat the matter exten- sively here; the aim was to furnish a mere outline that might be enriched and rounded out from other sources by the teachers. Part IV. God With Us The object of this part is two-fold. It is to bring home to the children the consciousness of God's abiding pres- 160 TEACHEES MANUAL. OF PEIMAEY METHODS ence through the Holy Ghost as the soul of the Church, and through the sacramental presence of Jesus Christ on our altars. Across The Red Sea. In this lesson is told in more detail the story of Jehovah redeeming His people from the slavery of Egypt. He appears to Moses in the burn- ing bush and at each step in the procedure He directs Moses what to do in His name. Finally He takes up His abiding presence with the children of men in the cloud by day and in the pillar of fire by night. This part is closely allied to the first part of Beligion, Third Book. Salvation is shown to be given through authority in both cases. God dwells in the world and with His people, but He speaks to the multitude only through the mouths of His chosen servants, Noe, Abraham, Joseph, and Jesus Christ and His successors the Popes as the visible heads of His Church. Mount Sinai. The children of Israel were loaded with the spoils of Egypt which, through divine order, they took with them into the desert. God commands them to contribute the best of all they possess in goods and in skill to the building of a tabernacle to Him, thus teaching them generosity and self-sacrifice. The Building of the Tabernacle. The ordinances of the Mosaic law also give opportunity to enforce the truth that divine worship and all that pertains to it should be regulated by divine authority and not by the caprice of the individual. Sacrifices in the Tabernacle. Not only does God de- mand of them the best of all that He had given to them when coming out of Egypt, but He commands that for- ever afterwards they offer sacrifices in the tabernacle RELIGION, THIRD BOOK 161 through the hands of the priests, and that the first fruits be offered and tithes be given for the support of the Le- vites, who should devote themselves exclusively to the services of the temple. The Temple. This story enforces the same lessons as those that went before. While the children wander in the desert, the tabernacle suffices as the home of Jehovah ; but when they come into the Promised Land and grow in wealth under the prosperous reigns of David and Solomon, a temple must be erected to God in keeping with the means of the people. The opportunity should not be lost to show the children by means of these lessons the obligation of every Christian to give to God of the abundance or of the meagerness which he may possess. The teacher should realize that it is only when we make sacrifices and contribute of our possessions to any cause that we remain faithful to it. Faith always flourishes while people are eagerly striving to build up churches and other institutions of religion, but no sooner are these completed and endowed, than the people who are no longer called upon to make sacrifices for God or His church, forget God and persecute the Church and tear down their edifices. It is not merely to make the work of money-getting for the parish and for the general purposes of the Church easier for the priest that these truths should be taught ; the faith and salvation of the children demand this teach- ing as much as they demand any other teaching of re- ligion. Salvation is not to be had without sacrifice, and however unpleasant this may be to a selfish and luxurious people, the teacher of religion must not shirk his duty in requiring sacrifice. There is no more conspicuous lesson 162 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PBIMABY METHODS taught by the Mosaic dispensation than this, nor did the law make the burden light or in any other way seek to minimize its importance. The Upper Room. In this story the children are taught the passing of the old rites and the inaugurating of the new. The upper room replaces the temple as the first place of worship of the followers of Jesus. The First Christians. In this lesson the courage of the Apostles after the Descent of the Holy Ghost is shown. It also contains an account of the conversion of St. Paul. The effects of the Holy Ghost are thus shown both in illuminating the mind and in strengthening the will. The Catacombs. The book closes with a glimpse of the life of the early Christians in the catacombs. This and the preceding sketches are intended to make the transition from the Third to the Fourth book of Religion, which will deal with the teaching of the Church through her liturgical forms. CHAPTER XIV THIRD READER This book forms the continuation of the domestic studies of the First and Second books ; its aim is to teach the children the relations that should exist between man and man with God and a properly instructed conscience governing them. The Third Book on Religion presents the relationship of man to God, but as St. John says, if any man says he loves God and loves not his neigh- bor, he is a liar and the truth is not in him; for if he does not love his neighbor, whom he sees, how can he love God whom he does not see? Our Saviour in His teaching always linked these two commandments with each other: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God and thy neighbor as thyself. If you love me, keep my command- ments. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. The child's relationship to institutional life begins in the home and it is carried one step further when he is taught to relate himself properly to the school group. The Third Reader aims at laying the foundation of the social life of the Christian and of making clear the great fundamental principles which must govern man's social activity in every walk of life. The Third and the Fourth Reader, taken together, are intended to prepare the chil- dren for an intelligent study of history and literature. In the curriculum which we are building up for our Catholic schools, the fourth reader will be replaced in the fifth and sixth grades by a literature reader and an 164 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PBIMARY METHODS outline history of the world; the former of these will be followed by grammar, the latter by one year's work in the history of the United States, which in turn will be succeeded in the eighth grade by a study of the civil government of the United States. The thirty-one sepia illustrations used in this book are by painters of repute, among whom are the following: Eaphael, Scheffer, Conti, Burne-Jones, Frere, Guido Eeni, Beyschlag, Gardner, Ruysdael, Delaroche, Auguste Bonheur, Long, Reviere, Dore, Murillo, Andrea del Sarto, Gabriel Max, David Neal, Henner, Sodoma, and Giulio Romano. The context of Religion, Third Book, is drawn in large measure from the Bible, and the words and phrases have a biblical flavor. The hymns are chiefly liturgical. In the Third Reader the aim has been to adapt existing literature to the child's needs, making as few changes as circumstances will permit; the work, however, is not, and from the nature of the case cannot be, a mere col- lection of specimen chapters from different writers; Organic unity must be preserved, and while this would be much more readily accomplished by writing the book throughout, it has seemed best to acquaint the children with the diversity of style employed by good English writers; in consequence, the attempt has been made to find the material that with the least possible change will contribute best to the results sought to be obtained. Of the thirty-three poems presented, live are selected from unknown authors, the remainder being from the follow- ing pens : Father Tabb, Thomas Hood, Charles Kingsley, Charles Mackay, Mary Howitt, Cardinal Newman, Ed- ward Lear, George Macdonald, Isaac Watts, Longfellow, THIRD READER 165 William Collins, Walter Scott, Elizabeth Carew, Bichard Trench, St. Hilary (translated by Judge Donahoe), Sister Genevieve Todd, St. Ambrose (Donahoe), Father Eyan, St. Bernard (Donahoe), Father Faber, St. Bonaventure (Donahoe). Many of the prose selections are well known, but they exist in so many forms that no attempt has been made to trace authorship. This seemed wise, particularly in view of the fact that many liberties had to be taken with the stories to fit the thought and the language to the chil- dren's capacity and to the lessons which the book, as a whole, is calculated to teach. The Third Eeader is divided into three parts. The first aims at giving an idea of conscience and its function in human society. The second deals with courage and the role that this virtue must play in the upbuilding of civil so- ciety ; this part of the book aims also at the cultivation of patriotism. The third part deals with the bond of neigh- borly love as sanctioned by Almighty God, but its main aim is to set in their right relationships the bond which binds man to his fellow man and the bond which binds man to God ; consequently it deals with the visible church and its relations to civil society. The name reader is unfortunate as it suggests the old- fashioned reader designed as a drillbook in elocution or in calling words; whereas, the central purpose of this book is to properly develop the social side of the child's nature and to prepare him for the part that he must one day play as a member of civil society and as a mem- ber of the visible Church. It was only because a more appropriate name did not suggest itself that the title reader was chosen, but it should not be forgotten by the 166 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PEIMAKY METHODS teacher that while this book is to be used as a reader its main purpose is to be attained through the proper de- velopment of the thought outline given. Part I. Conscience This part aims at developing the fundamental social virtues that are brought into play alike in man's civil and religious associations; it is also intended as a prep- aration for the first part of Eeligion, Third Book, and unless this is kept in mind by the teacher, she will at times lose the key to its meaning. The Coward and His Wife. This is one of the great fundamental stories that is represented in the literature of many nations. It is in reality the story of the fall of man, as that story repeats itself generation after genera- tion among the children of all nations. It has appeared in many forms. In substance it is identical with the Greek story of Tantalus. Of its many versions, that presented by Laboulaye, under the title of the Fairy Crawfish, was found to be best for our purpose and was accordingly selected. The story had to be adapted to suit our present purposes; the relationship to Adam and Eve and their fall had to be made somewhat more pointed; the language in places had to be simplified and, in some instances, the moral had to be slightly changed. The name Coward and His Wife was adopted to suggest the necessity of courage in all our social intercourse, and in particular to preserve our conscience unsullied; for the moral courage that enables one to obey his conscience is higher than that which enables him to face physical danger. The name Bobo was chosen to indicate the folly THIED BEADEE 167 of yielding to the demands of others against one's con- science. And one who adopts such a line of conduct is worthy of the name Bobo (fool). Zan is the name given to the coward's wife in memory of her illustrious proto- type Zantippe, who is known throughout the centuries for her abusive treatment of poor old Socrates. The story speaks for itself and scarcely needs to have the moral pointed, nor do we think it well for a teacher to make the lesson much plainer than it is in the text. It is bad policy to deprive the children of the opportunity to find things out for themselves ; we should rather direct their attention to the deeper currents of thought and allow them to experience the full joy of discovery, than to do all the thinking for them and leave them nothing but the memory to work with. As was said above, the lesson is intended as a prepara- tion for the first part of Eeligion, Third Book. There is one point in the story as told in Genesis that is likely to puzzle the child. God declared to Adam that on the day on which he would eat the forbidden fruit he would die ; now it is hard for the child to see how this sentence is carried out, and consequently he finds some difficulty in clearing up the veracity of God. The truth is, that God *s mercy intervened and prevented sin from carrying out its deadly results to their legitimate conclusion, as was done in the case of the sin of the angels who were cast out of heaven without mercy. The story of the Coward and His Wife carries this drama to its legitimate con- clusion and the children are allowed to see the tragedy played out to the death. This will serve a useful pur- pose in giving them some appreciation of the love and mercy of God which intervened in the case of our 168 TEACHERS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS First Parents and in our own case. The story follows the account of the scene in the Garden, given at the end of the Second Book. It enlarges upon it and prepares the children to understand and to appreciate, to some ex- tent at least, the work of redemption, which the Third Book in Eeligion undertakes to present to them. Lessons For Life. This story and each subsequent story in the book is followed by Lessons For Life. This exercise in thought development, if properly carried out, will be of incalculable value to the pupils. These lessons consist, first, of a set of principles which have been illus- trated in the preceding story or in some other story that the children have already studied; secondly, of a search for the various embodiments of the principle; thirdly, of a number of questions which are intended to stimulate comparative studies to find likenesses and differences. The Lessons For Life, that follow the first story, may be taken as a sample for those that succeed: "We cannot long enjoy what we do not earn ; gratitude does not live long in selfish hearts ; the more some people get the more they want ; only the coward does wrong because some one wants him to do so. Find these four truths in the story of the Coward and His Wife. ' ' The children who have done the work indicated in the second grade will find delight in this hunt, and they will learn by it to recognize a thought no matter how variously it may be presented, and this is the first requisite for a profitable study of literature. It will also serve to free the thought from its concrete setting, a step which is not easy and yet one which must be taken before the child can hope to express a thought in his own words. THIRD READER 169 The questions which follow are more detailed ; the first two "How is Zan like Eve? and How is Bobo like Adam, may be answered by the least bright children in the class, thus giving everyone something to do that lies within his power; moreover, such questions serve to sharpen the children's wits in discerning likenesses and differences. Such questions also serve to bring home to the children the truths that these great lessons contained in the Sacred Scriptures may be applied to our own lives. The final question "What did God give to Adam and Eve after their sin, which Bobo and Zan did not have?" is intended to turn the children's attention back to the Garden of Eden and awaken in them the desire to read more care- fully so as to be able to answer this question. The net result will be a heightened appreciation of the mercy shown by Almighty God, which is one of the main ends sought to be accomplished by this story. Bird Thoughts, This little poem will help the children to make the transition from the story of the Coward and His Wife to Hans Andersen's Pea Blossom. In addi- tion, it is full of imagination ; it recalls to the children the lessons concerning birds and their nest building in the First Book and to not a few children at the age of eight, the central thought of the poem will be brought home with a sense of delight. They have been growing from day to day and they are just beginning to realize the limitations of their mental world; they are catching a glimpse of great world-wide truths and they are prob- ably more keenly conscious of limitations than they are of positive knowledge. The only consolation they have in this state of mind is, that they are not alone and that probably there are others worse off than they are. 170 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PBIMAEY METHODS The Pea Blossom. The chief reason for introducing this story here is to develop the thought of hope and to show its necessity for life; without it, Adam and Eve would have perished, and whenever it goes out in the stress and storm of life the end is at hand. As long as we keep our hope firm, we can work miracles and accom- plish the impossible every hour. With it Peter walked on the waters ; when he let go of it for a brief instant, he sank. With it, the ravages of disease are checked and battles are won against overwhelming odds; without it, cowardice lays hold of us and courage is impossible. The Magic Ring. This story has also been told in many literatures. It was translated into English by Miss Mulock and the French name Prince Cheri was trans- formed by some thoughtless editor into Prince Cherry. A better translation of the title, however, obtains at pres- ent and the story is found in current primary literature as Prince Darling. The story, as it appears here, is modi- fied in several respects, and liberty was taken even with the name in order to lay particular stress upon the funda- mental thought which concerns us in this part of our work — Conscience, for which the Magic Eing is but an- other name. There are many things mirrored in this story which are not intended for children's eyes, indeed the story in its original form is much better suited to adults than to children; this may account for the emasculated form in which the story is usually presented. The adult will see, of course, that it was not marriage that the wicked young king proposed to the maid in the woods, but this need not be placed within the child's reach. In like man- ner, the palace of pleasure which appears in a later THIRD READER 171 part of the story need not reveal its sinister meaning to the children ; all that it should stand for to them is selfish- ness and greed and the misery and wretchedness to which these qualities lead. The story serves to bring home the necessity of justice and mercy and a clean conscience for the well-being of everyone and particularly for those who are placed in responsible positions over others. The moral lessons to be developed out of this story are many and important; some of them are set forth in the Lessons for Life: "A good man always helps those who are in need ; a brave man is always merciful to those who suffer ; a noble man returns good for evil ; a happy man loves God and his neighbor; wicked people lead their companions into sin and suffering; only the good are ever really happy; every bad action makes us worse; every good action makes us better ; when we are wicked those who punish us are our best friends.' ' Find these truths in the story of the Magic Eing and in the Miller of the Dee. This sufficiently indicates the scope of the story and the purpose for which it is here introduced. To Whom Shall We Give Thanks? This poem will serve the purpose of bringing the child's thoughts back to God and of impressing the lesson once more upon his mind that everything around him in this wonderful world owes its origin, directly or indirectly, to God, and that all things should work together to accomplish the great pur- poses of the Creator. The Camel. This poem is intended to prepare the chil- dren for the lesson that is to follow and to carry their minds back to the story of the Wise Men and their camels crossing the desert. It has value besides its function as 172 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PKIMABY METHODS a connecting link. It is a pleasing story of desert life and of the camel and his ways. The Meeting in the Desert. The purpose of this lesson is to teach the children the necessity of quiet thoughtful- ness; the necessity of withdrawing from the noise and tumult of the busy world in order to be near God ; to hear the voice of conscience, and to distinguish what it says. Cardinal Newman's poem, which ushers in the story, con- tains this motif. The story itself is adapted from Ben Hur. Many changes had to be made in the phrasing to make it suit its present purpose. The language had to be simplified and the sentiment somewhat altered. It shows the futility of all man 's efforts to improve the condition of his fellow man or to build up enduring human institutions, unless the spirit of God enlightens the conscience, strengthens the will, and guides the work. It also brings out vividly the necessity of a Eedeemer, not only to open the gates of Heaven to man's soul hereafter, but to free him from wretchedness and suffering in this world. The lessons which the story seeks to inculcate form the best index to the purpose which led to the embodiment of the selection as the closing chapter of the first part of the book. They are given in the Lessons for Life as follows: "Only those who are properly prepared hear the voice of God when He calls; the highest wisdom is to seek to know what God wants of us and to obey His call joyously; without faith, hope and charity, we cannot come to God or worship Him as He desires to be wor- shipped; unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it." THIED READER 173 The way in which the subject-matter is linked with the other stories that have been previously studied by the children in the First and Second Books and in the Third Book in Religion, is sufficiently shown by the remainder of this exercise: "Find these truths in the story of the Meeting in the Desert and in Lead, Kindly Light. What story in Religion, Second Book, does the meeting in the desert call to mind? What did the Wise Men do when they reached Jerusalem? What did they do when they found the Infant Jesus? Can you name any others who were prepared for the coming of Jesus and who recog- nized Him when they saw Him? What miracle occurred after the Descent of the Holy Ghost that was like the one that took place in the tent in the desert? This part of the book reaches a fitting climax in Lead, Kindly Light, which the children might well commit to memory at this time if they have not already done so. Part II. Courage The development of courage is not an easy matter. It is the habit of too many teachers and parents to regard it as innate. They seem to think that, while it is possi- ble to destroy courage in a child, it is quite a hopeless task to build it up. This is a mistaken notion ; courage, like other virtues, needs to be cultivated, and if the task is undertaken with intelligence, it will not be found un- usually difficult. The beginnings should be made at a much earlier period than that with which we are now dealing. The work here presupposes courage and aims at a further development of it. The Owl and the Pussy Cat. This nonsense rhyme is introduced here to lower the tension generated by the 174 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PEIMABY METHODS preceding selections. The Meeting in the Desert and Lead, Kindly Light take the child to a high level, where he will find the air too rarefied for comfort. His mind must be relaxed before starting out in another di- rection; and "A little nonsense now and then is relished by the best of men. ' ' The Ugly Duckling. Children who have been brought up too tenderly are likely to be over-sensitive, to be cow- ardly in the presence of pain or deprivation of any kind, "Mamma's darling' ' has much to unlearn before he is fit to take his place with men in the give-and-take which make up life. His imagination needs to be developed and he must be taught, by mingling with his fellows, that the whole world is not centered about him and his needs. Jerome K. Jerome puts the matter very well : ' ' There is a mean between basking through life with the smiling contentment of the alligator and shivering through it with the aggressive sensitiveness of the llama, deter- mined to die at every cross word. To bear it as a man, we must feel it as a man. * * * We whimper and whine at every pain. In old strong days men faced real dangers, real troubles, every hour; they had no time to cry. Death and disaster stood ever at the door. Men were contemptuous of them. Now in each smug, pro- tected villa we set to work to make wounds out of scratches. Every headache becomes an agony, every heartache a tragedy. It took a murdered father, a drowned sweetheart, a dishonored mother, a ghost, and a slaughtered prime minister to produce the emotions in Hamlet that a modern minor poet obtains from a chorus girl's frown, and a temporary slump on the stock ex- change. Like Mrs. Gummidge, we feel it more. The THIED EEADEE 175 lighter and easier life gets, the more seriously we go out to meet it. The boatmen of Ulysses faced the thunder and the sunshine with frolic welcome. We modern sail- ors have grown more sensitive. The sunshine scorches us ; the rain chills us. We meet both with loud self-pity. ' ' The complaint is generally made that our homes to-day are so soft that the children are really spoiled before they go to school ; and the school discipline has been softened proportionately. The man teacher has given place to the woman. Physical punishment has been banished by law and the teachers seem bent on making nice little ladies of all the boys. It is needless to say that such treatment will not only fail to develop courage in the boys; it is evidently intended to destroy, root and branch, whatever courage the child inherited. We complain of the rough- ness of boys when left to themselves at play: they fight and in many other ways indulge in tempers and con- duct that the mother and the lady teacher strive to pre- vent. Nevertheless, experience in a boy's boarding school is good for a boy ; it may make him fit to live with ; whereas the boy who has had private tutors or lady teachers exclusively may— well, it is not safe to say what he may do. The Ugly Duckling should prove helpful in our en- deavors to remedy some of the evils to which we have just referred. If the lesson is well taught, it will im- plant in the souls of the children a number of principles which will stand them in good stead in their journey out into the unprotected world where they shall have to meet men who are not interested in them and learn to take their place as one of the struggling throng. They must become acquainted with suffering and injustice, and the sooner they begin the task the better it will be for them. 176 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PEIMAKY METHODS The Lessons for Life attempt to bring out a few of these principles, but the teacher will be able to add many other lessons which must be determined in view of the actual needs of the children. The little poem to the angel guardian at the close of this story is intended to recall the need we all feel of call- ing upon God for help. To have true Christian courage, we must learn the lesson St. Paul teaches: Of myself I can do nothing, but I can do all things in Him that strengthens me. The Little Hero of Haarlem. This story sets forth some of the difficulties of the physical environment which courage and perseverance have served to overcome. It also constitutes a lesson in geography that is valuable as a germ for future development. But the central thought in the story is that in civil society we depend on one another for safety. Organized society in which there is a division of labor is necessary to secure protection against dangers from physical nature no less than from armed foes. It is also necessary to secure from nature those gifts of flowers and fruits which she will yield under proper conditions. There are many incidental things taught in this lesson which have values not to be neg- lected. Little Hans was instructed by his father in the mean- ing and value of his daily work, and courage and patriot- ism were developed in his soul by the heroic stories told to him by his old blind friend. It was while making an effort to give pleasure to his mother that the opportunity to save his people came to him. In the trial, the boy ever kept the common good uppermost in his mind. He never THIRD READER 177 let it be displaced by his personal interest or his per- sonal fears or pains. The personification of the sea and the play of the child's imagination made his suffering keener, but imagination and sensitiveness are qualities that invariably go with heroism. From this lesson the children should learn that heroism is a quality that does not spring suddenly into existence ; it grows out of acts of self-forgetfulness and thought- fulness for others. Moses in the Bulrushes. In the story of the Ugly Duck- ling the children are taught to meet hardship at the hands of their fellow mortals. In the Little Hero of Haarlem they are taught how to overcome the difficulties of physical nature through the channels of organized society. In the story of Moses in the Bulrushes the chil- dren are allowed to see that God does not withdraw from the affairs of men ; He watches over the deeds of nations as well as of individuals and punishes cruelty and sin in the one no less than in the other. God always hears the cry of the oppressed and comes to their aid in the hour of need. These truths are admirably illustrated in the treatment which the Egyptians meted out to the Children of Israel and in the way that God punished them for it. The lesson also shows that when God wishes to attain a result, He frequently takes the poorest and the weakest human agency for the purpose, lest sve should be de- ceived and trace the result not to God but to a human source. In the story of Moses in the Bulrushes the chil- dren are shown how God took a poor helpless baby, con- demned to death by the laws of a powerful and cruel nation, and not only rescued him but made him the in- strument for the deliverance of his people and the pun- 178 TEACHERS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS ishment of the wicked Pharaoh, who had decreed his death. William Tell. The story of William Tell forms a fit- ting sequel to that of Moses in the Bulrushes. It is nearer to the children and they will understand it better. Moreover, the children's sympathy will go out to little Walter who shared the honors with his father. Cruelty and oppression here overreached themselves and, as usual, brought down just punishment from Heaven. The children should learn from these lessons that justice will prevail. The story is frequently told in such a way as to lead the children to lose sight of the Providence of God, but a slight adjustment of the motive brings the story back to the truth. "He placed the second arrow in the bow, and with a prayer to God to guide it in its flight, he shot it with unerring aim," in spite of the fact that the sun was in his eyes and of the further fact that his enemies deemed the feat a hopelessly impossible one. The principles given at the close of the story may easily be rendered functional through the proper teach- ing of the story itself and through other similar bits of literature. "God always defends those who put their trust in Him. Cruelty and injustice always return in the end on the head of the tyrant. It is better to die in a just cause than to do wicked things for fear of evil men." Of course reliance must not be had on a single lesson for the development of any one of these principles. Accordingly, the Lessons for Life send the children hunt- ing for these principles in other stories, for it continues : "Find these truths in the story of William Tell. Which of these truths do you find in the story of the Seven Black THIBD HEADER 179 Imps? Which of them is illustrated in the story of the Coward and His Wife? Which of them is to be found in the stories of the Little Hero of Haarlem and of Rock Ledge Light 1 Which of these truths is illustrated in the story of Joseph ?" This exercise, if properly carried out, will gather up the fruits of the two previous years ' work and utilize it for the mastery of the principles which are here formulated for the first time. The thought, in this way, is integrated at every step and each new truth acquired is made to shed its light upon the whole pre- vious content of the mind. Besides, this constant prac- tice of hunting out truths expressed in different ways and in different incidents cannot fail to give the pupil power to see the deeper truths beneath the surface of what he reads and of what he experiences in the daily life around him. Queen Esther. The story of Queen Esther teaches the same lessons together with some others. It will serve to give the children a realization that real heroism is not confined to manly breasts. Queen Esther took her life in her hands and braved death in order to save her peo- ple. Her courage sustained her in a keen battle of wits with a shrewd courtier and in the end gave her the vic- tory. The many lessons which this story has told to suc- cessive generations of men ever since the days of the Babylonian captivity are so legible that neither teacher nor children can miss them. Part III. God and Neighbor Man is organized in civil society for the attainment of things of this earth, and God likewise organizes man into 180 TEACHEBS MANUAL OP PRIMARY METHODS a spiritual society for the attainment of higher ends. These two societies should never come into conflict, but when civil society forgets its legitimate sphere and, en- tering into the spiritual realm, undertakes to deny God's right to rule, then man must make his choice. He cannot serve two masters and he must choose God in preference to man. It was this choice that nailed Christ to the cross ; it was this same choice that glutted the beasts of the arena with the blood of martyrs. The lesson needs to be taught to each generation of men. Daniel. The story of Daniel in the Lions' Den illus- trates the courage required at times to defy human au- thority in obedience to God's command. The chief les- sons in the story have been repeated in many of the stories of this series of books. It is introduced here to show the universality of the struggle. It obtained in the olden times; it was the great struggle of Christianity with paganism, and the battle is being fought out again on a modern arena. St. Peter. The figure of St. Peter standing before the judges and defying them recalls at once the story of Daniel and serves to show the eternal sameness of God and of human nature. The Christian Slave. This and the subsequent selec- tions are intended to develop for the children vivid pic- tures of early Christian life with its purity of motive, its courage, its endurance, its tenderness, and its reverence for the dead. The Lessons for Life bring out many of the funda- mental Christian virtues which find illustration in these stories. And above all they place before the children sev- eral types of Christian heroes, such as Syra, the Chris- THIRD HEADER 181 tion slave ; St. Agnes, the child of wealth and high social standing; the three sisters who devote their lives to the common good ; St. Pancratius, the first hero of the Blessed Sacrament; and St. Sebastian, the soldier and Chris- tian hero. It is well that the children should learn to admire such heroes as William Tell, George Washington, and the little hero of Haarlem, but we must not fail to balance these with such heroes as St. Pancratius, St. Se- bastian or St. Peter. The purpose of this work is to lay the broad foundations in the souls of the children for civil and religious society, and it will not do to neglect proper balance. To hold up in a light that would attract the boy, military heroes, such as Napoleon, Caesar and Alexander, whose moral characters are not always unassailable, and to present the saints in a way that would repel him, can- not fail of producing such unbalanced developments as have served time and again to lead the hosts against Holy Mother Church. PART IV THO UGHT AND LANGUA GE Throughout the entire educative process a clear line of distinction should be drawn between thought accumula- tion and thought development ; the former leads to erudi- tion, the latter is an integral part of education. In the adult world of to-day there is no more pathetic figure than the so-called walking encyclopedia ; he is not wanted anywhere; his stores of knowledge are not accurate enough to be relied upon either in productive scholar- ship or in the applied sciences. Moreover, no matter how prodigious may be the memory loads carried by these poor victims of mistaken educational methods, the item of information actually wanted is frequently missing, and substitutes are not desirable. A few dollars invested in encyclopedias and digests give infinitely better results; they are humbler, more convenient of access, and less ex- pensive to maintain. On the other hand, from the failure of mere erudition to accomplish the ends of education, one should not be betrayed into the opposite extreme of supposing that truth is superfluous and unnecessary in the work of edu- cation, as the compilers of some primary text-books and some primary teachers seem to think. At no time in the educative process can the truth as food material for the mind be neglected or relegated to a place of secondary importance. In the struggle for existence that is going on to-day throughout the civilized world, more knowledge is required than ever before. More knowledge is re- THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE 183 quired, in fact, than could be stored as a body of isolated facts, in the most capacious memory. What is demanded from the first day in school to the last is, that the thought furnished to the child-mind shall be incorporated therein as an integral part of its living functional structure. Success in this achievement must be the aim of teacher and text-book alike — all else is secondary thereto and for the most part but means to this end. If we teach the child to read, it is that he may have access to the thoughts of men in the past and in the present ; that he may slake his thirst for knowledge at the pure fountains of thought that well up from the genius of the race, no less than at the stream of Divine Revela- tion. If we teach him to write and to spell, it is only that he may convey his thoughts to others. If we bring him into the laboratories of science and teach him the technique of the investigator, it is only that he may ac- quire a knowledge of nature's laws. Always and every- where thought-getting and thought-giving is the aim. The first criterion, consequently, that must be applied to any proposed primary method is, what effect it will have on the child's thought-getting power; if the result is unfavorable, no other commendation of the method de- serves attention. If the ultimate aim of all our striving is not furthered or if it is even defeated by a proposed method that may yield brilliant reuslts in the production of some educational bi-product, the method in question has no claim to our attention; for what doth it profit a man to gain the whole world if he lose his own soul ? Methods of teaching reading, writing, spelling, etc., while their direct aim is the cultivation of power over the mechanism of thought-getting or thought-expression, also 184 TEACHEBS MANUAL OF PBIMAEY METHODS have an important beating on the child's processes of thought-getting and thought-development, and such bear- ing must be our first concern. Many primary methods, thoughtlessly employed in the schools of the United States during the past few decades, have wrought incalculable harm by their injurious effects on the thought-getting processes of the children. It may be laid down as a general rule that any method which tends to lift words or other external forms of thought into the focus of consciousness and establish them there, is injurious. The mechanism of thought in all its forms should function normally in the indirect field of mental vision, thus leaving the mind unhampered and unob- structed in its process of thought-getting and thought- developing. It will not avail that the method in ques- tion succeeds in developing rapidly and thoroughly words or other thought forms, if in order to do this they have monopolized faculties that they should serve. In the study of primary methods that of thought- getting and thought-development must be assigned the first place. This has not heretofore been the case in many of our schools. Even a cursory examination of current primary text-books will show this. But until this mat- ter is set right, and the importance which belongs to it is attached to the process of thought-getting, little progress can be made in our educational work. CHAPTER XV METHODS OF THOUGHT DEVELOPMENT To teach the child to think is not so difficult a task as it is some times supposed to be. If the work is under- taken with intelligence, the young mind will readily re- spond, but nature, even in a child, rebels at the cram- ming process which has often been misunderstood for thought-getting. We shall here consider four elements of the problem. 1) the functions of memory, 2) the thought development in the text-books, 3) collateral reading, 4) dramatization. Memory Memory has a two-fold function. First, to retain thought for future use in the form in which it is found : in this respect it might be compared to the first stomach of the ruminant, where the fodder is accumulated to await the animal 's leisure to chew its cud. The second function is to hold truth up to the intellect while it is being assim- ilated or lifted into the living structures of the mind. In both of these functions repetition plays an important part, but the manner of the repetition differs. Repetition. It is just as true to-day as it was when the adage gained currency that repetitio est mater studio rum. The principle of repetition is appealed to in support of methods that are paralyzing in their effect upon the mind, and it may be appealed to with equal confidence in sup- port of the best that educational methods have to offer. 186 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS Whatever may be said of the power of certain highly gifted minds to retain that which they once lay hold of, it will not be questioned by any one having experience in the matter that repetition is indispensable to the child in his attempts to master either the thought or the words in which the thought is expressed. This statement is pre-eminently true of the work in the primary grades ; it is only by dint of frequent repeti- tion that we can teach the children anything. So far there is general agreement, but when it is a question of the manner in which this repetition should take place, there may be found the widest divergence of opinion and of practice. Memorizing Forms. When the aim is erudition, the exact form will be committed to memory by frequent repetition. This method prevails in China and it has held sway for long centuries among the Hindoos. And while it does not find many champions among our modern edu- cational thinkers, it still prevails to no small extent in many of our class-rooms. The method of studying the text literally still finds an honorable place in many schools. The following is quoted from a pedagogical text- book which issued from the press in a revised form within the present decade: "The teacher should tell the pupils that the best way to study a lesson, is, not to read it again and again, from one end to the other, but rather to adopt the following method: 1) To read the whole text with great attention, two or three times, to grasp its general meaning and plan; 2) To memorize one or two lines, i. e., a portion in which an idea is developed; 3) When these are well known, to learn others and to unite them to the previous lines ; 4) When in this manner a whole sen- THOUGHT DEVELOPMENT 187 tence is retained, to repeat it several times without look- ing at the book, and then to go on to another sentence and study in the same way. Children should not be per- mitted to study aloud in the class-rooms. Doubtless they would learn more quickly by articulating the words than by merely looking at them, but to preserve order they must be required to study without being heard." Memorizing the Catechism. The memory method de- scribed above has grown out of centuries of experience. It might be seen in full force in the schools of China which are just passing out under the pressure of modern progress. The aim is frankly erudition; the child is re- quired to memorize not only the thought but the exact form in which the thought is expressed. This method is retained in the teaching of certain subjects in some schools which have long since discontinued its use in many of the branches taught. Thus it is not uncommon to find religion taught in this way. The answers in the catechism are committed to memory by dint of frequent repetition. The emphasis is laid on the exact wording; whether the thought is mastered or not is considered of secondary importance. The saddest thing about the prac- tice is that many of the teachers who insist upon it confi- dently expect, not the sterile memory loads of the erudite, but the vital, fecund knowledge that expresses itself in a robust Christian character. Again, there are many teach- ers of English who fondly rely for results in the produc- tion of future writers on the practice of committing tc memory choice literary selections. Others, forgetful 01 ignorant of the true meaning and function of memory, feel that this important faculty can be adequately culti- vated in no other way than by constant exercise in mem- 188 TEAOHEBS MANUAL OF PBIMABY METHODS orizing literally certain texts. For such as these, the only remedy available is to be found in a careful study of psychology. Memorizing Thought. When the aim of education is to render functional whatever knowledge may be acquired in a developing mind, the method of repetition will be found to differ markedly from that described above. The thought must be repeated again and again, it is true, but each time it must be presented in a more developed form and it must be related to other apperception masses that have grown up in the interval. It may be well to emphasize here the fact that by the development of a thought is not meant mere additions to the thought laid on, as it were, from the outside. This method is sometimes attempted, but like many another compromise it has the merits of neither the erudition system of memory nor the development system. Devel- opment means essentially reconstruction; it means ren- dering explicit what was previously implicit; it means making functional that which was latent. In mental life it means a new point of view, new correlations and a more advanced stage of functioning. There should be close co-operation between the teacher and the text-book in all points of method, but nowhere else, perhaps, is this agreement more necessary than in the method of thought development. The teacher who studies the Catholic Education Series of primary text- books can scarcely fail to observe the manner in which the method of thought development is embodied in them. The Questions, the Thoughts for Us, and the Lessons for Life constantly direct the attention of teacher and pupil to this aspect of the books. THOUGHT DEVELOPMENT 189 Out of the many important thoughts that are closely interwoven in the texts of this series of books, we shall select two for the purpose of illustration. The Shephekd Idea The Shepherd Idea was selected here as an illustra- tion of the method of thought development employed in the Catholic Educational Series of Primary Text-Books because of its simplicity and because the thought is in a manner tangential to the theme developed. A second illustration will be given dealing with a central thought. The children in our primary class-rooms, for the most part, have no actual knowledge of sheep or shepherds; the experience of most of the children is remote from shepherd life. Nevertheless, it is important that Catholic children be put into possession of the shepherd idea with something of its fullness and power, because of the use which our Saviour made of it both in His preaching and in the founding of His Church. The Shepherd Idea is first presented in Eeligion, First Book, page 20, where this passage occurs: "Jesus loves the sunbeams and the breezes. He loves the sky and the stars. He loves the birds and the flowers. He loves the sheep and their shepherd. He loves all who work for others. No one is so kind and gentle as Jesus. ' ' The set- ting of this passage is full of love and sweetness. The birds and the flowers and all nature, as far as the children understand it, are welcoming Jesus, and this speaks of His answering love for them because they are creatures of His Heavenly Father. Among the things that Christ loves is mentioned the sheep and their shepherd, and 190 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS immediately after this, mention is made that He loves all who work for others. The causal connective is omitted here, first, because the children are not prepared for so long an utterance, and secondly, because they are not ready for the complexity of sentence. But the placing together of the two ideas serves the purpose, and this practice is quite in keeping with the mental development of many children of six. The Mother Idea. After the germ of this thought has been thus planted in the children's consciousness at the beginning of the first grade, there is no further mention made of it during the remainder of the year. On the sur- face, this might appear to be a violation of the principle of repetition, but in reality it is not so, for our concern must be to develop the ideas first and later on we may readily add the name. Now the Shepherd Idea is inti- mately related to the Mother Idea. The shepherd's love for his sheep has many striking characteristics of motherly love ; it possesses the same tenderness, the same watchfulness, the same self-sacrifice, and it calls forth the same heroism when occasion requires ; hence it is im- portant that the idea of mother love be strengthened in the child's mind before we proceed further in the matter of developing the modification of that love which we shall call Shepherd Love. Our Saviour taught His followers to clothe God with the attributes of Father; He never referred to Himself as the Father, but as the Shepherd. He sometimes goes further and points to His love for His followers in the quality of mother love, as when, weeping over Jerusalem, He said "How often would I have gathered you under My wing even as a hen gathereth her chickens.' ' THOUGHT DEVELOPMENT 191 Derivative Attitudes. The work of the first year was de- voted, as far as thought-development is concerned, to the transformation of the home instincts into the home vir- tues, and it did not seem wise to call attention at that time to any of the analogies or derivatives of the funda- mental attitudes that we were there concerned with. When we reach the second grade, however, circumstances are different. The children are ready to enter upon a higher phase of development; their attitudes towards other social groups than the home must be built up, and, if development be the law, the home attitude must form the basis of this social unfolding of the children's natures. Here, then, are the time and place for the further elab- oration of the Shepherd Idea. Accordingly, we find it introduced in the first part of the Second Book. The Shepherd Idea is not found in the Nature Study which is dominated by the Mother Thought. It is the Mother Milkweed that holds the center of the field, and her cradle full of milkweed babies forms the climax. It is the song of the Mother Bird that is listened to. In May's Birthday, the social study that follows, mother is again the central thought. In this way the mind is pre- pared for the development of the Shepherd Idea which forms the opening part of the religious theme. In the story of David, the transition from the Mother Love to the Shepherd Love is so natural that it is ac- complished without attracting special notice. The qua- train with which the story begins is redolent with mother love: Flocks of quiet sheep are feeding, Little lambs are playing near, And the watchful shepherd leading Keeps them safe from harm and fear. 192 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PKIMARY METHODS This relationship is gradually brought out and strength- ened as the story proceeds; as for instance: "David never forgot them, he took them to the brook to drink and went with them to the pasture. When the little lambs were sick, he took them in his arms and fed them and carried them home. David loved his sheep very much and they loved him. They followed him wherever he went and came when he called them." This passage is again a description of the mother 's loving care for her little ones. The closing sentences will carry the adult mind to that other scene in which our Lord describes Himself in almost the same words. In the incident that follows, the heroism of mother love and its tendency to self-forgetfulness and self-sacrifice is the dominant tone. "David heard the lambs cry and ran after the lion. He caught him by the neck and killed him. Then he took the poor little lamb in his arms and soothed it and brought it back to its mother. ' ' The thought of one familiar with the Gospel will not fail to pass over to the words of Christ, in which He describes Himself as the Good Shepherd. Development of Details. The Shepherd Idea is again repeated in the religious lesson of the subsequent chapter where the shepherds and their life is made the chief part of the theme. The idea of the shepherd is repeated, but repeated in such a way as to secure development and detail. "The angels did not find those humble people dressed in fine clothes nor living in fine houses. They passed by the palaces of Jerusalem and came to the hills near Bethlehem where David had tended his father's sheep." Here the previous lesson is recalled, but the character of the shepherd, his clothing and habit, as well THOUGHT DEVELOPMENT 193 as his standing before God, are brought out. The follow- ing passage calls up other portions of the previous lesson : "In that same country they found shepherds who, like King David, tended their flocks with loving care. They took them to the brook to drink and to the green pas- tures to eat. They watched over them by night and pro- tected them from the wolves and the lions." Thus the old lesson is made the basis of a story recorded in the Gospel, a story which cannot fail to have developed the children's love and admiration for the shepherd and, what is of far more importance for our purpose, it will enable them to enter into the spirit and purpose of our Lord's description of Himself as the Good Shepherd, with which the work of the second grade closes. It will enable them to gain some realization of the meaning of the scene in which our Saviour delivers to St. Peter the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and clothes him and his successors forever with the attitude towards us of the shepherd towards his flock, and with the authority to guide and to govern. The Idea of Sin The primary teacher is confronted with no more dif- ficult task and scarcely with a more important one than that of developing in the children a correct knowledge of sin and a right attitude towards it. Motor Tendencies. It is a well-known fact in Psy- chology that every thought tends to realize itself in action. It is true, that ideas differ widely from each other in their dynamogenetic content ; abstract ideas have less of this tendency than concrete images, and mental pictures of action or motion are more potent than pic- 194 TEACHERS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS tures of stationary objects. Again, a picture that calls up instinctive tendency or habitual action is more likely to find motor expression than one that is wholly unrelated to tendency or experience. Inhibition. In developing in the child's consciousness the idea of sin, it is therefore a matter of the utmost im- portance that we proceed in such a manner as to safe- guard him from the danger of reducing his growing knowledge to practice. We must not sully the child's soul with sinful ideas and hope to prevent these ideas from realizing themselves in action through threats of hell or of other forms of punishment. By such procedure we may, indeed, make some progress towards establish- ing effective inhibitions, but that does not justify us in planting in the child's soul an idea that needs to be in- hibited. It was against such practices that our Lord uttered the warning: It were better that you had never been born or that a mill stone were hanged about your neck and that you were drowned in the depths of the sea than that you should scandalize one of these little ones. The end sought in developing the idea of sin in the child's consciousness is in many respects diametrically opposite to that which we attempted to realize in develop- ing the Shepherd Idea. We wanted the Shepherd Idea to lay hold of the child's imagination and his emotions, and of all the love that is in his heart, and to direct these towards deeds of gentleness, and to a proper attitude of love and respect for Christ and for the Church. In de- veloping the idea of sin, on the other hand, our chief con- cern is to prevent the idea from realizing itself in action. The matter must therefore be so presented as to stimu- late mind and heart and action in an opposite direction. THOUGHT DEVELOPMENT 195 The example set for a child's imitation should be close to him and detailed, and the mental picture which we expect him to realize in action must be concrete and as vivid as possible. The opposite must be our procedure in the present instance. Germinal Thought. In Eeligion, First Book, a be- ginning was made by picturing to the children the tempta- tion of curiosity and the dangers to which it may lead. Curiosity tempted the idle Little Eobins to explore the nearby bush and they would have lost their lives by yielding to the temptation were it not for the watchful- ness of mother-love. Similarly, May, who is timid when the chick is first placed in her hands, rapidly grows familiar with birdlings and thereby gets into trouble with the gander. St. Peter, in the subsequent religious les- son, nearly loses his life through the curiosity that tempted him to take his eyes away from our Saviour and rest them on the troubled waters. Nothing further in the matter of developing the idea of sin is attempted in the first grade. First Phase of Development. In the story of the Three Little Milkweed Sisters, with which Eeligion, Sec- ond Book, begins, there is taken up an analysis of two of the sources of sin; namely, pride and greed; but the matter is handled in such a way that the children's sym- pathy goes out to Flossie, who serves as a model of imi- tation, while the sinful sisters are presented in such a way as to call forth the children's dislike, and the theft into which each of these sinful tendencies betrays the unfortunate little Milkweeds is punished by death, while 196 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PKIMAEY METHODS the punishment and the manner of its infliction hold the sympathy of the children. In the story of Little Fir, the idea of sin is further elaborated, but in this instance as in the preceding one, every precaution is taken to prevent the sinful action described from creeping into the children's lives. In the story of the Promised Star the matter is brought closer to the children. They are told of the wicked men in the streets of Babylon, who were filling the city with noise and disorder ; but at the same time they are led to look down on these men from the vantage ground of the Wise Men, and they are made to feel that such disorderly conduct can call forth only pity or contempt from anyone who is worthy of their respect. In the story of the Flight into Egypt they see sin in its true color and shrink from it. It is sin endeavoring to kill the Prince of Peace, the Babe of Bethlehem, who has already won all their love. Final Stage of Development. In the story of the Holy Innocents this line of development reaches its climax. The children are shown the seven capital sins in their true colors ; these sins, hideous in themselves, egg on the wicked old man, who is made to inspire the children with fear and dread, to destroy the child Jesus, and the result is his own misery and untimely death. At every step in this sketch care is taken to win away the children's sympathy from Herod, and care is also taken to paint sin in its true color and to give it a proper background. With this preparation the children are taken to the Garden of Eden where they are allowed to study the first great sin which plunged the world in such grief and suffering. Correlation. In the brief sketch which we have given above, we have touched on a process of development in the THOUGHT DEVELOPMENT 197 minds and hearts of the children, which occupied more than a year. No single line of development can be car- ried forward by itself ; the various lines blend and inter- lace at every step ; hence, an adequate concept of the way in which the idea of sin is developed in the children's minds cannot be had without studying the text as a whole. The story of the Holy Innocents, for example, is preceded immediately by the beautiful poem Little Jesus from the pen of Francis Thompson. This poem will so fill the hearts of the children with love for the Child Jesus that they cannot help hating those who sought His life. Heredity, It has often been said that children are more prone to evil than to good, and one would naturally be led to expect as much, for, under the law of heredity, every child tends to revert to primitive type. Were we to look at the child's relationship to the law of imitation alone, we would expect him to imitate a good action quite as readily as an evil one. That he does not do so we must attribute to the fact that imitation is not alone in the field ; heredity has priority and through heredity the sins of the father are visited on the son to the seventh genera- tion. Judging from the results, we would sometimes be inclined to think that evil tendencies must go still further back so strongly are they rooted. This situation makes it imperative that the children be shielded from evil example until such time as good tendencies have been highly developed through frequent imitation of worthy models. We should win the children by the presentation of the beautiful, and only when right tendencies are strongly marked can we afford to let the shadow of evil fall across their souls. If the matter is dealt with prop- erly, it will be found possible to develop in the children's 19 S TEACHEBS MANUAL OF PBIilABY METHODS minds a knowledge of sin under such conditions that they will turn from it with a shudder of dislike. If it be asked why deal with the matter at all until the children have grown up, and until they have sense enough to know the difference between good and evil, the answer must be, first, that some people, although they attain the years of four score and ten fail to reach the vantage ground here spoken of, and again, it will not be possible to understand the Christian dispensation without having some understanding of sin. "Without this, atonement would be meaningless, and all the work of redemption would remain a sealed book. For these and other reasons which will occur at once to the teacher, we must deal with the matter of sin as rapidly and as thoroughly as circum- stances will permit, but the belief is here expressed that we must make haste slowly in this matter more than in anything else that we are called upon to teach children. SUPPLEMENTARY WoBK During the first few months of the first grade the teacher, not the text-book, must supply the child with appropriate thought-material. Through question, con- versation, and appropriate story she must organize more thoroughly the thought-material which the children al- ready possess and she must minister day by day to its further development. She has many other offices to per- form for the children during the same time. Some of these are discussed in other chapters. She must seek to perfect the children's pronunciation; she must develop their power of easy, unconscious self-expression ; she must correct their grammar and their enunciation; she must THOUGHT DEVELOPMENT 199 minister to their health and try to secure in the children erect carriage., muscular power and easy, graceful move- ment. But in the midst of these various occupations there should run a definite plan of thought-development. The children are unable to read for themselves in those early school days, and so they must depend upon the teacher wholly for the food which their minds crave and which they need quite as imperatively as for their physical growth they need an abundant supply of suitable food. Aim. It is needless to say that this thought-material must not be selected with a view to the child's present interest only. Everything that is done for a child must be tested by at least two criteria : how will it meet the child's present interest and capacity: does it lead by the most direct path to the mental and moral stature that is the goal of all our efforts in a Catholic school! Qualities of the Text-Book. To lay down the lines along which the process of mental development should be conducted is the first duty of the text-book or series of text-books which is employed in the school. If this feature of the book is out of harmony with our ideals, then, no matter what else may be said in their favor, they should be excluded from the school. To map out the complex and in- terlacing lines of thought-development along which the child mind should proceed, to give to each its correct em- phasis, not to anticipate nor lag behind in any vitally im- portant matter, to determine the form suited to each stage of the child's mental unfolding. — all this is too laborious a task and requires too high a skill in psychology and too wide a range of knowledge in character building and academic content to make it safe to entrust it to the un- aided efforts of the primary teacher. 200 TEACHERS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS It is only right and proper that the author of a text- book which is to go into the hands of generations of the little ones of the fold of Christ should bring to the task adequate preparation and give to it sufficient time and thought to insure against grave errors. Moreover, the text-book should call forth comment and criticism from the philosopher, and the psychologist, from the profes- sional educator, from bishop, pastor and principal, as well as from the rank and file of the teachers who may use the book. It should, accordingly, express the wisdom of the many rather than the intelligence of the one. The authorship of the primary text-books used in our schools is, therefore, a matter of the highest importance. The Author, The author should be known ; his qualifi- cations and his position should stand as a guarantee for his work; he should know Catholic ideals and Catholic theology, not in a superficial way but thoroughly and inti- mately; otherwise he cannot give to Catholic doctrines and practices the proper place in the unfolding mind of the child. His qualifications as a psychologist and an edu- cator should give us assurance that he is not bringing a tyro 's skill to bear upon a task which concerns the moral, religious and intellectual life of the multitudes of our children who congregate in our classrooms to be formed in the image of Jesus Christ. The text-book should be tested carefully and conscien- tiously by competent teachers who are prepared to act in sympathy with its ideals and to co-operate with its methods. It should be carefully scrutinized by all who are interested in the intellectual and religious welfare of the children. If errors be found in it, attention should THOUGHT DEVELOPMENT 201 be called to them and correction secured, or measures should be taken to procure a more worthy text-book. The Teacher. The text-book in all phases of educa- tion is important, but nowhere does it begin to have the importance that attaches to it in the primary grades. As the pupil approaches maturity of mind, he should grow increasingly independent of both text-book and teacher. But in the early stages of development, such as are rep- resented in the primary grades, the principle of author- ity is dominant and both teacher and pupil should depend on the text-book for guidance. If the teacher declares her independence of the book and its methods, she de- stroys unity and undermines authority; two evils which cannot be compensated for by any fancied excellence of lines of development which the individual teacher may elect to follow. Oral Work. All the oral work which precedes the use of the child's first book should be determined with refer- ence to the book. It must form an adequate preparation for the thought-material presented in the book no less than for the vocabulary and phrase employed in it. Hence this work, while for the time being it occupies the center of the field, may rightly be called supplementary. As the children learn to read, the story telling and oral work should gradually give place to supplementary read- ing, but in the one case as in the other, the developmental phases of thought presented in the text-book should be the governing influence. The business of supplementary work of all kinds is to supplement ; it should prepare for the thought and the language of the text-book ; its effect should be to heighten the interest in the central theme; it must never lead in a divergent direction. To set up 202 TEACHEBS MANUAL OF PEIMAEY METHODS other lines of interest in competition will necessarily weaken the work in hand and may succeed in defeating it completely. Great care should be expended in securing symmetry in the text-book. Each line of thought must be given its proportionate place in the developing whole and no less care should be exercised in determining the supple- mentary work. It would be well, of course, if the teacher possessed a guide in this matter, for it often happens that she finds herself compelled to use matter that she clearly perceives is not in line with the thought or the plan of the text-book through sheer inability to find suitable material. Child story literature is abundant at present, but it has not been developed with any distinct view to Christian aims. Much of it might be made to render good service if it were properly edited and the right sequence and correlation indicated. The Fairy Tale. The story of King Tantalus, as told in the Golden Porch, is a splendid presentation of the story of the Fall of Man, but its effect in the third grade, where the Catholic Education Series is employed, would be to undermine the children's faith and to make them look at the account of the scenes in the Garden of Eden as given in Religion, Second Book and Third Book, as myths, whereas, the same theme as presented in the beginning of the Third Reader has quite the opposite effect. The children's attention, in the story of the Coward and his Wife, is fastened on modern life and they readily com- prehend the lesson and discard the setting. Again, in the preparation of this series of primary books, care was exercised to keep virtue in the fore- ground, to present it in bright, attractive form that sug- THOUGHT DEVELOPMENT 203 gests imitative activity, and as the thought of sin gradu- ally grows, care was taken to keep its face veiled, to con- fine it to a secondary role and to make it unlovable so that it might repel instead of attract. The children's imitative tendency is appealed to long enough and with sufficient effectiveness to build up strong habits of thought and action in the right direction before subject- ing their inherited tendency towards evil to the test. All this care, however, might easily be rendered fruitless by an injudicious teacher who should elect to tell the children in the first grade stories of wrong conduct and sinful actions in some fairy tale. The children would undoubt- edly be interested; they love "bluggy" stories, and naughty conduct has a great charm for the mischief- loving child of Adam. By indulging these tendencies, however, the aim maintained throughout these books in the development of the proper attitude towards sin would be in a large measure defeated. Supplementary Reading. When the children, as hap- pens sometimes in the second grade, attain sufficient abil- ity to read for themselves, it will not do to give them work along a line that is wholly foreign to the text-book. The Eskimo Stories, for example, form consistent supple- mentary reading for the second book of the Social and Industrial Science Series. It pictures Eskimo life on a close par with the gross bestiality of the Cave Dwellers. If the end we had in view were the bestializing of the children, such text-books and supplementary readers as these would be entirely in place. But it is inconceivable that any intelligent teacher in our Catholic schools could permit the use of such books by the little ones entrusted to her care. 204 teachees manual of pkimaey methods Deamatizing It would be hard to over-estimate the value of drama- tization in the primary grades. This truth, however, is so well recognized that it is scarcely necessary to dwell on it here. Children at the age of six are still under the dominance of imitation and they understand but little of anything that does not find expression in their activities. They are, in consequence, natural dramatists. At a much earlier period we find the child in the nursery turning himself into all sorts of possible and impossible things. He is a baby being put to bed by an older sister who has for him a new interest in her role of mother. He is a choo-choo car, a horse pulling a cart, a fire-engine, or anything else that arrests his attention and engraves its picture upon his sensory areas. When he comes to school for the first time, therefore, the teacher does not have to make a beginning in dra- matics : it is one of his chief avenues for the acquisition of knowledge and for self-expression, and in both of these capacities the teacher should continue to use it for some time. When he begins to use his first book, he should dramatize the nature studies at least, and a drama- tization of the religious lesson will often prove helpful. Care should be taken, however, not to turn everything into play. It would be well that all the domestic studies should be acted out in real life at home. These stories were written with that end in view and the teacher would do well to co-operate with the text in this matter. The religious lessons, of course, should be lived out also and should be treated as most serious affairs. But the chil- dren's imaginations may be stimulated and they may THOUGHT DEVELOPMENT 205 learn to catch the real inward meaning better by drama- tizing certain of the scenes, and in so doing they are laying the foundation for an intimate comprehension of the liturgy which will be explicitly developed in the fourth and fifth grades. As the children pass up through the grades they will become more and more independent of dramatization, but this exercise will never wholly lose its value for them. It is to be hoped that some one equipped for the task will prepare a number of plays or little dramas that might be used with profit in the higher grammar grades. They would be welcome in our schools and might easily be made very serviceable. Play and Work. The natural tendencies of the child make it necessary for him to play out the thing first, but no sooner has he done this than he begins to crave for opportunity to test his new knowledge in the world of reality and earnestness. Too much play does not appeal to the child : it destroys his appetite for it and takes away his pleasure in it, and, moreover, it tends to unfit him for serious occupations in a busy world of labor and of strife. We give here a few outlines for dramatizations which have been developed by primary teachers using these books. They are intended merely as suggestions. They might easily be improved upon and of course their num- ber should be indefinitely increased. For Physical Culture. The first dramatization em- ployed during the period preliminary to the use of Eelig- ion, First Book, should be largely exercises in physical culture, for the dominant feature of the work of these early days should be the adjusting of the child to his physical environment. The children should be kept active 206 TEACHERS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS during a great portion of the time for reasons that have been set forth elsewhere. We should not, however, lose sight of the principle of co-ordination and hence these physical culture exercises, while introduced for the pur- pose of physical culture, should also serve to prepare proper apperception masses for the reception of the thought-material contained in the first chapters of the child's first book. The following outline will illustrate this two-fold purpose and may suggest to the teacher other exercises for the accomplishment of the same ends : Building a Nest. Play that you are the wind and scatter little bits of straw, leaves, dry grass, twigs and feathers over the fields and roads of the school room (this may well be put in the first person and the teacher should lead in the work; this would be particularly true if it were the first of similar exercises to be indulged in). Fly to your nests like father robin does (run on tip- toe, and imitate the movement of wings with your arms). (The children are to be arranged in their seats in six rows across the room.) Eow 1 will be wind fairies this morning and scatter all over the roads (aisles between the seats) and fields (open spaces) of the school room bits of grass, leaves, feathers, etc. (skipping and waving of arms). Row 2 will be robins and gather up these bits and make a nest out of them (a branch for the purpose should be provided) ; rows 3, 4, 5 and 8 will be sparrows, blue birds, etc., and fly around the room to see the nest. (As this exercise is performed on successive days, row 3 takes the place of row 1, etc.) For Emotional Culture. The transition from actions to the feelings associated with them is easily made. To give proper expression to a sentiment is one of the ways THOUGHT DEVELOPMENT 207 of calling it up into consciousness. If the teacher will assume the attitude of anger, she may readily perceive the effect upon her consciousness. The liturgy of the Catholic Church takes advantage of this in insisting upon appropriate bodily attitudes for the expression of relig- ious feelings and emotions. The congregation stand at the Gospel like soldiers at attention, expressing by their attitude their willingness to obey promptly the words of the Master; they kneel in adoration and strike their breasts in contrition, etc. It is, therefore, in keeping that the children should be prepared from an early day to take part naturally in the worship of the Church. The following exercise is intended as an immediate prepara- tion for the religious lesson, a Welcome to Jesus, in the first part of the first book. A Welcome to Jesus. Place a statue of our Lord in the front of the room where all the children can see it. Let the children in row 1 be roses and lilies and kneel across the front of the room a foot and half or two feet apart, their heads bowed and their hands joined; let the children in row 2 be sunbeams and raindrops and skip in and out among the flowers, touching them lightly on the heads as they pass. The flowers, at this, raise their heads and look at the statue; raise their hands sideways and rise to a standing position. Let the children in row 3 be trees and stand a little behind the flowers with their hands clasped high before their faces ; let them sway gently to and fro, as the trees might be supposed to do in a light breeze. Let the children in rows 4, 5 and 6 be birds ; let them fly in and out among the trees, chirping and flapping their wings. 208 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS The physical culture exercise is here the dominant ele- ment, but while it provides for graceful movements and for imitation of the things around them, it also leads towards devotional expression, something of the rever- ence which the thought of Jesus inspires will be present and will help to subdue the action and to produce graceful movements. In this way the religious element, from the very first, is given its proper place as a controlling center, influencing imagination, subduing action and controlling speech. June Time. Let the children in rows 1 and 2 be the brook ; 1 facing the front of the room and 2 the back, each child clasps hands with the one in front of her, running lightly on tiptoe up and down the aisles and showing how the little brook ran in and out through the fields. Let the children in row 3 be sunbeams and those in row 4 be shadows. These children should skip softly around the room in imitation of the play of light and shadow over the meadows. The children in rows 5 and 6 should play the part of baby robin and one by one leave the home nest and go to the front of the room, while the teacher might well play the role of mother robin. This exercise is in- tended to accompany the nature study in the third part of Eeligion, First Book. It will, accordingly, fall in spring days and the exercise will be in keeping with the season. It is physical exercise, correlated with the culti- vation of poetic imagination, and helps to put the children in the right attitude towards nature, towards the flowers and the birds, the running brook, and the play of sun- shine and shadow over the buttercup-laden meadows. It is such training as this, even though it lacked the teacher's guiding hand, to which we are indebted for a Shakespeare, THOUGHT DEVELOPMENT 209 a Wordsworth and many another sweet songster, who would be so sorely missed in the world to-day. The Rescue. Choose from among the children Mr. Robin, Mrs. Robin, four Baby Robins, and a cat. Let Mrs. Robin be busy feeding one baby; the other babies are hopping about; two baby robins hop away to the bush. The cat, hiding in the bush, creeps slowly round until he almost reaches the babies. As soon as the babies notice him they cry out "Save us, save us." Mr. and Mrs. Robin fly to their aid singing "cheer up." The father robin scolds the cat, who steals away, while the mother robin soothes and quiets the babies. In this exer- cise physical culture is carried over into drama, more conspicuously than in any of the preceding stories, and the effort is made to keep close to the story in the text- book and drive home its lesson. The Storm at Sea. Let the children in row 1 be wind fairies ; let those in row 2 be storm fairies. Let the chil- dren in rows 3, 4, 5 and 6 be the friends of Jesus in the boat. The wind fairies run lightly and slowly up and down the aisles waving their arms gently, while the chil- dren in rows 3, 4, 5 and 6 make the rowing movements in their seats. The wind fairies run faster and the storm fairies join them, waving their arms more forcefully, whereupon rows 3, 4, 5 and 6 stand up and row harder, bending their bodies at the waist. At a given signal, the wind and the storm fairies run softly to their seats and the rowers sit down. These exercises are intended, among other things, to help the children to visualize scenes de- scribed in oral or written language, and this help is needed at a time when there is such great danger that the children will fasten their attention on the word forms 210 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PEIMAEY METHODS and fail totally to enter into the thing signified, a calamity which would serve to sterilize most of onr efforts and to leave the children in a condition almost as helpless as the poor innocent victims of phonic methods who, at the end of their primary year, can call words glibly, and read sentences with a fatal fluency, while their minds starve for the thought-material which should have gone into the formation of mind and character. The Child His Own Dramatist. In the early stages of teaching dramatizing, as in the early stages of teaching anything else, the child depends wholly upon the teacher. Authority is the only evidence he knows, but it is pre- cisely the aim of education to lead the child from com- plete dependence to complete independence. No teacher worthy of the name, will rest content with the children's merely doing what they are told in detail, and saying what is put in their mouths to say. Initiative and orig- inality should belong not alone to the adult but to the child, due proportion, of course, being preserved. Now, the primary grades are the seeding time, and the harvest of adult life will depend very largely upon the seeds that are planted and upon the way they are warmed into life. The children in the second grade at the latest, should be led to make a beginning in the dramatization of the subject-matter supplied to them by the text-book and by their supplementary reading. It has already been said that dramatization is an instinct and one that has a rather vigorous if unculitivated development during in- fancy, but the things the child dramatizes in this early phase, are the actions which he sees and hears ; it is quite another matter to be able to body forth the scenes that THOUGHT DEVELOPMENT 211 he has witnessed only through the printed page, or the oral story. Miss Dunlap contributed the following pages on this subject to The Catholic Educational Review. We repro- duce them here in the belief that they will stimulate many of our teachers to study the matter a little more closely than heretofore, and that they will give us in a short time a series of little dramas that will prove helpful in our second and third grades : Silver Brook. Oftentimes a teacher of one of the lower grades finds her class in reading come to a sorry pass. The children read haltingly a limited number of simple stories. They are tired of these stories, they dislike them, and yet the teacher knows they have not the ability to go on to new and harder lessons. Then must be sought a device to invest the old stories with new interest. Select a brief reading lesson which contains a dialogue between two or three characters. For instance one might take the story of ' ' Silver Brook, ' ' on page 110 in the Sec- ond Eeader of the "Beligion" series. Treat as a unit the first part of the lesson which contains the conversa- tion between the brook, the rabbit, and the squirrel. The teacher must first choose a good reader from her class to read the lesson through the statement that Silver Brook "leaped from rock to rock down the mountainside." Then the teacher asks, "Who speaks first in this lesson V Child. The rabbit. Teacher (writing "Babbit" upon the blackboard). What are the exact words the rabbit says 1 Child. What are you in such a hurry for? asked the rabbit. Stop a while and play with us. 212 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PBIMAKY METHODS Teacher. Oh, no ! I want the exact words the rabbit says and no others. Child (after a struggle). What are yon in snch a hurry for ? Stop a while and play with us. (Teacher writes these words of the rabbit next to the word "Babbit.") Teacher. Who speaks next ? Child. Silver Brook. The teacher thus continues to cull the words of the dia- logue from the narrative page until she reaches Silver Brook's good-bye. Then she may suggest to the children : "Don't you suppose the rabbit and the squirrel said good- bye to the brook? What did the rabbit say?" Every class has an inventive child who can supply, l ' Good-bye, Silver Brook. I wish I could go with you, ' ' or something better. Teacher. What did the squirrel say? Child (imagining). Good-bye, little brook. Come again some day. The dialogue then stands thus upon the blackboard: Babbit. What are you in such a hurry for? Stop a while and play with us. Silver Brook. I cannot stop. I have been away a long time and I must hurry home. Squirrel. You can't fool us. You are running away now just as fast as you can. I saw you coming out of your home in the ice cave up in the mountain this morning. Silver Brook. Yes, I came out of the ice cave this morning, but my home is in the great wide ocean. There the waves roll in freedom and the ships spread their white wings and fly before the wind. All beautiful things come from my home and they must all go back to it. Babbit. If your home is so beautiful why did you leave it? Silver Brook. That's a long story. One day the sun- beams coaxed me to go with them up into the clouds. Then the south wind carried me away over the land, over the lakes and rivers, up into the mountains. There the north wind caught me and turned me into snow crystals THOUGHT DEVELOPMENT 213 and I could not move all winter. Yesterday, the sunbeams found me and set me free. Good-bye, my little friends, I must hurry home. Eabbit. Good-bye, Silver Brook. I wish I could go with you. Squirrel. Good-bye, little brook. Come again some day. Now, the dramatization completed, the teacher should have the children shut their books. She selects Johnny for the rabbit, Tommy for the squirrel, and Susie for the brook. The three children then read the dialogue from the blackboard. Then the teacher selects another group of three, and then another group of three, reading the dialogue several times from the blackboard. Next the teacher must make her most important selec- tion of three children with the dramatic instinct to really act the parts. Let Silver Brook skip around the room singing the little song "The Stream" on page 131 if the class already knows it. If the child is too self-conscious to sing alone, let the whole class sing the song while the brook skips. Let the rabbit and the squirrel hop from different corners of the room, rabbit and squirrel wise. It will not be necessary for the teacher to demonstrate the motion. The child knows how. Brook skipping, rabbit and squirrel hopping, let the three little actors come to a standstill in front of the class and hold their conversation. The parley over, they may skip and hop away to their seats. Now, erase the dialogue from the blackboard and let the children read it from the books, a different reader for every character. The teacher must train them to omit ' ' asked the rabbit, ' ' and ' ' said Silver Brook. ' ' 214 TEACHEBS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS As a final step the teacher may have the lesson read in its entirety just as it is printed in the book, and it is probable that with the impetus of the interest which the dramatization has given the first part of the story, the latter part will likewise be read with spirit. Now the children may be left to themselves with their books to make a written exercise of the lesson. The teacher should write ' l Rabbit, ' ' " Squirrel, ' ' and ' ' Silver Brook" upon the blackboard and let the children fill out the dialogue upon their papers. Written above is the whole elaborate process of the first lesson of the series which is to make the child "his own dramatist. ' ' It will be necessary for the teacher to write out the whole dialogue of other stories for several days before she feels sure that every child in her class is strong enough to make his own dialogue from a new lesson. When that day arrives, the teacher may write the names of the characters on the blackboard and leave the chil- dren to their own devices. There are several lessons in the Second "Religion" volume which are excellent for this work. "The Three Little Milkweed Sisters ' ' may fly around the schoolroom on their tiptoes waving their arms the while. "The Fairy's Visit" to the little fir contains a good dialogue. The Third Reader of the "Catholic Educational Series" also offers good material. The story of "The Coward and His Wife" may be taken in fragments. Let the children work out the dialogue between Bobo and the crawfish and again between Bobo and Zan. Again, the adaptation from Cardinal Wiseman's "Fabiola" contains conversations between Fabiola and Syra and between Fabiola and St. Agnes which are good THOUGHT DEVELOPMENT 215 for the written dialogue but have not so good an acting quality. The story of "William Tell," however, has spirited dialogues between William Tell and the soldier, Tell and Gessler, and Tell and his son. Here, indeed, is a story which is good for careful dramatization and act- ing in its entirety. CHAPTER XVI DEFECTIVE METHODS OF PRIMARY READING In the transition through which we are passing from a condition of society in which the home was the indus- trial as well as the social unit, many of the old land- marks are being swept away. The home is being weak- ened in many ways; the adult members of the home group are less closely united in interest and occupation, and it may be less firmly held in the bonds of love. But the children are the ones to suffer most. A large portion of their education was obtained in the home in the old days from their participation in the life of the home and in its varied occupations. To-day, the school is called upon to do for the children what the school was never before expected to do. It is not surprising that in the changes and readjustments called for in' the work of the school mistakes would be made. It is none the less to be regretted, however, that these mistakes should prove injurious to the mind and character of the little ones. A consideration of primary methods of reading under the present circumstances must take into account the changed conditions in the home life of the children, the method employed in the text-book as well as that used by the teachers having charge of the work. Moreover, the method must be brought into harmony with the findings of science and it must be tested not alone with reference to immediate results, but in view of the lasting effects which its employment is likely to have upon the mental life of the pupil. pbimary beading 217 Changed Conditions In the old days, when the duties and responsibilities of the industrial home developed the character of the child and built up vigorous apperception masses from constant contact with an objective world, any method, however formal, might be employed in the school to teach him the art of reading. Under those circumstances alphabet and phonic methods frequently failed to destroy the child's interest in reality. A few hours drill a day was pitted against the rest of the child's life. And so the child's interest in the things of an objective world remained dominant and the strength of character which he developed in an environment filled with real struggles frequently proved sufficient to carry him through the dullest and dryest drills of the alphabet method and, where this failed, the birch was called into requisition as an efficient supplement. To-day all this is changed ; the teacher is not allowed to use coercive methods on ' ' Mama 's Darling ' ' ; not only is the birch relegated to the lumber room, but every semblance of coercion must be banished in deference to the softer methods used in the home. Obviously these changes in the child's home environment must be reck- oned with in the school. Methods which succeeded under the old conditions may well prove inadequate in the present situation. One thing is clear ; if coercion, which was necessary under old conditions, is removed at present, its place must be supplied by an increased interest in the objects of study, otherwise, the work of education will fail. And secondly, if the sense-training given in the homes of a former generation is no longer to be had in 218 TEACHERS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS the homes of our children, it must be supplied in the school in some way, else the work of education will be directed towards form without content, and the result will be hopeless inefficiency in the pupils, when, on leaving school, they are confronted with real situations. In the old days the most incompetent teacher in the school was assigned to the baby class and the efficiency of the teacher was recognized by promoting her to a higher grade. Academic content, rather than profes- sional training, was the standard by which a teacher's value was rated, and in this fact may be found the reason for assigning the poorest teacher to the lowest class. Anyone was supposed to be able to make the children recite their a, b, c's and to hear them spell their words of one or two syllables, but to-day all this is changed. The fact is now generally recognized that a successful pri- mary teacher is not easily obtained, and that the highest professional training is needed in the lowest grades. Unity of Method In the teaching of reading, as in the teaching of other subjects, the teacher and the text-book which she is compelled to use should harmonize. Good results can hardly be expected when the method employed by the teacher is counteracted by an opposite method in the child's text-book. Clearly, if the teacher's methods are faulty, they should be corrected, or she should be removed from the school. This is particularly true in the primary grades where, admittedly, so much depends on method. In like manner, when the method employed in the text-book is faulty it should be corrected, or the text- PRIMABY READING 219 book should be eliminated from the school. The teacher who insists on teaching primary reading by the phonic method, should employ primary readers constructed on the principles of the phonic method, else she need not hope for success. The Catholic Education Series of pri- mary text-books was constructed with the explicit pur- pose of preventing the development of those things which are the central aim of the phonic method, hence, their use, as the basis of teaching the phonic method, must necessarily prove a failure. Readers The name "Reader" applied to the books used by the children in the first and second grades is either a mis- nomer, perpetuating an ancient error, such as is perpetu- ated by the phrases " sunrise' ' and " sunset,' ' or else it implies the embodiment of a principle in the books which is in open conflict with current doctrines in psychology and in linguistic science. An examination of the primers and first readers that were in general use a few decades ago, and which may still be found in some of our schools, reveals the fact that the name " reader" is not under- stood as a misnomer. These books were constructed on the principle that the child should be rendered familiar with the letters of the alphabet and with their varied combinations in syllables, words and sentences before any attempt should be made to give him thought ma- terial through the instrumentality of written language. In these books the child's interest was directed exclusively to the verbal series. The real series was entirely ban- ished from his consciousness, or it was relegated to a sub- ordinate place. 220 TEACHEBS MANUAL OF PBIMABY METHODS In response to the demands of science, a new type of primary book is being produced to-day in which the thought element predominates from the first, and in which the attempt is consistently made to teach the art of read- ing as a means to an end. On the basis of this funda- mental principle we may divide current primary books into two groups and, moreover, the first factor in our decision concerning the availability of a primary book must be our attitude towards this fundamental principle. Why do we teach our children to read? It is possible to answer this question in two ways. We teach them to read because, as adults, the art of reading will prove a valuable asset in the struggle for existence. It may en- able John to earn his living as a proof-reader, and for this purpose the more vividly he realizes the form of words and sentences, the more readily will he detect mis- pelled words, broken or inverted type, etc., but every time his attention wanders from the words to the thought back of them he is liable to pass over unchallenged some error in typography. If, therefore, the end we have in view in teaching children to read is that they may, on leaving school, become proof-readers, we shall be acting quite consistently in holding their attention to the form of words instead of to the meaning that lies back of the printed page. But, if our purpose in teaching the art of reading is to enable both the boy and the man to profit by the wisdom that is enshrined in our literature, then our aim must be to render the thought element as vivid as possible and every intrusion of the verbal element upon consciousness must be regarded as a defect. Now, the percentage of children who are destined to become proof-readers is so PRIMARY READING 221 small as to be practically a negligible quantity and we may leave them out of consideration for the present. In teaching the art of reading, therefore, the goal of our ambition must be to enable the reader to grasp the thought back of the printed page as strongly, as quickly and with as little expenditure of mental energy as may be, and this goal, once having been decided upon, must determine the means to be employed. Word Consciousness It is a well-known psychological fact that of two alter- nate mental states the one first to be established tends to maintain its position at the center of consciousness and to banish the other to the indirect field of mental vision. The conclusion is obvious. It is a grave mistake so to direct the child's attention to the written forms that word consciousness may result. The inevitable effect of such procedure is to develop in the pupil the proof-reader habit of looking at words instead of through them at the thoughts. Pupils that have been taught in this manner leave school with a screen built up between their minds and the thoughts that were bequeathed to them in the literature of the world. It should not be necessary to invoke authority in a mat- ter that so plainly appeals to intelligence, but the prin- ciple at stake is so fundamental, and the consequences of its violation are so disastrous, that it may not be out of place to invite the attention of the teacher to the position taken on the matter by other educators. The dean of the school of pedagogy of New York University, writing in the Atlantic Journal of Education, January, 1909, says : "The habit of unconsciousness of the page in reading 222 TEACHERS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS makes for speed and for thoroughness in grasping the thought. All needless consciousness of the page robs the mind of just so much power to grasp the thought * * * Words are like window panes — they are things to look through, not things to look at. The more invisible they are, the more perfectly will they serve their purpose. Any method in teaching a child to read which makes him needlessly conscious of words, which fosters in him the habit of needlessly scrutinizing them, or of analyzing them needlessly into their component letters or sounds, develops the proof-reader habit of mind, and may make the progress of reading a needlessly conscious one all through life. The child must, of course, scrutinize new words sufficiently to remember them, but any analysis or inspection of words beyond what is necessary for this purpose is unquestionably bad * * * Everything which in later life should be done unconsciously, should be taught in the school unconsciously or with a minimum degree of consciousness. It is bad doctrine to say that such processes should be raised to consciousness and then be made unconscious by practice. The difficulty is that in most people such processes never become unconscious. The child learns to pronounce and to speak his mother tongue mainly by unconscious imitation, and he speaks it unconsciously; the adult learns to speak a foreign language by a process that is keenly conscious and he is seldom able to speak it without watching his speech * * * ' ' Illustrations from school and from life might be multiplied indefinitely to show how important it is to teach unconsciously, so far as possible, what must in life be done unconsciously. Beading is one of these PRIMARY READING 223 things. The phonic and alphabet methods, used at the beginning, are likely to lead to a wholly unnecessary de- gree of word-consciousness in reading. The fact that they give the child early the power of finding out the pronunciation of new words by himself, does not neces- sarily recommend them. If they develop the habit of looking at words instead of through them, this result would show not in the primary grades, but in the middle and upper grades of the elementary schools where it is attributed to other causes.' ' Here we have one phase of the failure of the elemen- tary school traced back to a hitherto unsuspected source in the primary grades. If this contention be correct, the methods of teaching reading employed by the primary teacher and embodied in the primary text-books may give us the solution of the old puzzle: Why do the chil- dren lose interest in school before they reach the seventh grade, and why are they so anxious to escape from school even when such escape means entering the field of hard manual labor! When the children's interest rests in the verbal series, where it centers around the combination of letters into syllables, and of syllables into words, it may be pre- served during the first two or three years of school life, but by the end of that time this source of interest is likely to be exhausted and the sources of enduring in- terest in the thought material have in such cases not only been neglected, but they have been positively ex- cluded from the child's mind by the screen built up through the habit of looking at the words instead of through them. Again, among the indictments often brought against the primary schools of our day is fre- 224 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS quently included the charge that the children are unable to think for themselves or to take the thought from the printed page and clothe it in their own words. This failure would also find its explanation in the employ- ment in the primary grades of text-books and methods which aim solely at the development of word conscious- ness. Phonic and alphabet methods run counter to several other truths of psychology that have been thoroughly established. These methods assume that the right way to proceed in teaching the children to read is to develop in their minds first the power to recognize letters, words and sentences. In a word, they aim at teaching the child to read first and then hope that he may be able to find the thought back of the printed page, whereas the whole current of modern scientific thought runs in the opposite direction. The biologist tells us that in race history organs were developed through successful func- tioning and practical men have always held the same truth which they expressed in such axioms as Fabricando fit faber. No amount of preliminary instruction added to finger exercises and drills on the scales would make a musician, and so it is contended, that the child should learn to read by reading and not by the study of alpha- bets, syllables and key-words. The Alphabet Method This method runs counter to the principles just de- scribed and to other principles of scarcely less impor- tance. If the method was employed in the past without producing pernicious results, the reason for this is to be sought in the home conditions of the past which PRIMARY READING 225 no longer obtain and also in the great amount of time that was formerly devoted to spelling drills, time which can no longer be afforded, owing to the new demands that are being made upon the school. The alphabet method began with the ultimate elements of our analysis of written language and of these fragments it sought to build up letters into words and words into sentences, but it made no appeal to the interest attaching to the subject matter. The child learned his alphabet and his monosyllabic and polysyllabic words solely through the application of voluntary attention, intensified by the hope of reward or the stimulus of fear. A great deal has been written and said against this method and in its worst form it has in fact passed out of use. The child, instead of learning language by combining its elements into larger and still larger units, proceeds in just the opposite direction. He begins with the utterance and the words gradually detach themselves as separate entities, owing to the fact that they are found in varied positions and in various utterances. The Phonic Method This method possesses certain apparent advantages over the alphabet method, and it is these advantages that have given it vogue with the present generation of primary teachers. It interests the children. The key method offers an interesting and at times a somewhat exciting game to the children. The ultimate result is a rapid progress in the child's ability to find the pronuncia- tion of new words. It is not surprising, therefore, that the phonic method should have been eagerly substituted 226 TEACHEBS MANUAL OF PBIMABY METHODS for the dry and uninteresting alphabet drill of the old school. Nevertheless, it should have been obvious to anyone acquainted with psychology that, if the child be introduced to the art of reading through any form of the phonic method, the result will be an intensification of word consciousness, the evil which we are trying to avoid. In this word consciousness, interest will rest in the process of combining word elements instead of rest- ing with the thought. The more the children's interest is centered on the word forms, the more disastrous will be the consequences, and the phonic method arouses interest where the alphabet method has no power of appeal. The Word Method The word method, or the sentence method, as it is some times called, escapes many of the accusations brought against the alphabet and the phonic methods. It conforms to the demands of psychology in presenting the whole before the parts. The utterance is the natural unit of language and it should function for the child as a whole. The written utterance should convey to him a thought, or a permission to act, or it should be the means of conveying his thought to others. The dry and unin- teresting drills which in the alphabet or phonic meth- ods precede the functioning of the utterance as a whole, is entirely absent in this method. The child's power of written language, like his lungs, yields results from the very first. The organ is perfected by functioning, instead of being perfected through years of dry drills in which the child had to be sustained by the hope that some time PBIMAEY BEADING 227 in the future his labor would yield him pleasurable and profitable returns. It is quite possible, however, to use the word method in such a way as to defeat the legitimate purposes of the art of reading. This is the case, for instance, when the thought is fragmentary and lacking in interest for the child and the sentences are used for mere drills. But the word method, properly applied, may prove most effi- cient in laying for the child the foundations of the art of reading. A long step toward this desired result is taken when the content selected is of the right kind. The word method is essentially a beginner's method. It should be employed in the blackboard and chart work which precede the use of the child's first book. This method relies upon repetition chiefly, for the production of the permanent visual image. Association with the motor area of the brain is called into play and this deepens the sensory image. But when all is said that can be said in favor of the word method, it will be admitted that progress by its use is slow. Whether intentional or not, a second principle soon begins to be operative in the word method; that is, the principle of association. This gradually gains in effect- iveness and by the time the child is ready for the first book it is the dominant element, and repetition is relied upon for the acquisition of new word images only in a secondary capacity. The method is then more properly termed the context method. Time and labor will accord- ingly be economized if, in the selection of our thought material, we preserve continuity and if, in our selection of words, we make the fullest possible use of the words which the children already possess, to bring home to them 228 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PBIMARY METHODS the meaning of the words which they are in the process of acquiring. When the story is so told that the child knows from the portion of it which he has already learned what the new thought must be, and when he knows so many of the words in the sentence that were the strange word replaced by a blank, the child would supply the right word or its equivalent, association or context becomes the child's teacher. In this way words are presented again and again in contexts which tell the child what the word is which is as yet incompletely stamped upon the visual area of his brain. The association in this method is always between the word and the thought, whereas in the phonic and the alphabet methods it is always between word and word. The thought system is here built up in continuity. Frag- mentary or isolated thoughts are not employed. Stress is particularly laid upon preserving the unity while securing the development of the thought system, whereas the word relationships to each other are merely incidental. The word method must be employed in the beginning of the first grade work, but it should give place as rapidly as possible to the context method. Each primary teacher should be able to select her material and her vocabulary for these first steps in written language, nevertheless, we append to this volume a set of exercises which are cal- culated to lead by a direct route to the context method of reading and to Eeligion, First Book. There is a fatal weakness, however, attending all such attempts of a text- book or manual to usurp the function of the teacher. These sentences should, in the first place, be drawn spon- taneously from the lives of the children and the situation in the room at the time of the exercises. No rigid set of PBIMAEY BEADING 229 sentences for blackboard and chart work can ever be de- vised that will quite fit into any first grade room. The set which is prepared for these books may, however, stimulate the teacher to develop sentences freely. In any case, they will serve to show the vocabularies that should be developed before taking up Eeligion, First Book, and they will also indicate in a general way the order in which this vocabulary may be profitably de- veloped. CHAPTER XVII THE CONTEXT METHOD OF BEADING The context method of reading, as its name indicates, rests on the fundamental principle that the context should declare to the child the new or unfamiliar word. If a blank were substituted for the word, the child should be able to supply the word or its equivalent. In this way he is taught to seek the thought first and always to find the word from the thought. The text used in the primary grades for teaching by the context method must be constructed especially for the purpose. New words must be introduced judiciously in stories which are not only composed of familiar words but whose thought ma- terial is interesting to the children and in keeping with their previous knowledge. The thought material must, moreover, be continuous, so that what has been previously read may show the child what to expect. Association is the fundamental psychological law ap- pealed to. But unlike the phonic method, the association is of ideas, not of words. The method is in harmony with all that has been said in the chapter on thought de- velopment. Its appeal is to continuity and unity in the unfolding mind of the child. It proceeds from the known to the unknown, from the whole to the part, from the im- plicit to the explicit, from the latent to the functional, thus squaring with fundamental life principles as re- vealed in the biological and psychological sciences. context method 231 Wrong Methods The work in the primary grades has not heretofore re- ceived the attention that it deserves from psychologists and educators. It has been left, in large measure, to the guidance of young women with limited academic and professional training. All that was demanded of the primary teacher was, that she keep the children interested and that at the end of the year she send them up into the higher grade with a reasonable ability to call words. The thought development was supposed to belong to a later stage. The consequences of this neglect of primary work by those competent to deal with it are very serious. The worst results are not apparent in the primary grades. The effect on the minds of the children of these erroneous methods employed at the beginning of the educative process does not show to full advantage until the higher grades of the grammar school and the high school have been reached. The far-reaching evil effects of mistaken primary methods will be borne in upon any one who keeps abreast of our current educational literature. Complaints from entrance examining boards to high schools and to colleges in all parts of the country empha- size the fact that the children are unable to spell or to write their mother-tongue grammatically. The percent- age of failure among the eighth grade pupils to add or subtract, to multiply, to divide or to spell, was so great as to cause a reconstruction of the curriculum in many cities. Educational periodicals frequently publish long lists of absurd answers from the pupils in the eighth grade and high school to prove that the children fail to grasp the meaning of what they read. Of course it will 232 TEACHEBS MANUAL OF PEIMAKY METHODS always be possible to pick from the school population thoughtless children who will give absurd answers to the simplest questions, but those who are familiar with school work know that we are here dealing with general con- ditions. The existence of these abnormal conditions to- day is generally recognized and relief is eagerly sought, but before a remedy can be found the causes of the trouble must be understood. In the meanwhile remedies are necessarily directed to symptoms instead of to the disease. There are doubtless many contributory causes to the evil, such as the laxer discipline of these days, unfavor- able home conditions, the excitement of the streets, mov- ing pictures, the comic supplement to the Sunday papers, etc., but the root of the evil will be found in the methods employed in teaching reading and spelling in the primary grades. Many lines of evidence lead to this conclusion. It is generally accepted that more than ninety per cent of our successful men along all lines of scholarship and of effective thinking received their elementary education in the country district schools, and of these the great major- ity learned to read at home where phonics and the mod- ern methods of teaching primary reading were unknown. Teachers of long experience in our city schools assert that in the overwhelming majority of cases the thought- ful readers in the higher grades of the grammar school were the children who learned to read before coming to school. The explanation is not hard to find. These chil- dren learned to read by reading for content. Theirs was silent, not oral, reading ; the thought, not the words, occu- pied the center of their consciousness and new words and phrases revealed their meaning to them through the con- CONTEXT METHOD 233 text. When, later on, they attended school the formal drills were unable to displace the habits of thought which were already established in their minds. Phonic drills and language drills of various kinds are in their proper place when they are used to perfect that which has al- ready taken root in the mind of the child, but when they are used as the basic elements in the child's development, the results cannot fail to be disastrous. The chief cause of the inability of the high school pupils to grasp the thought in what they read and to ex- press it in their own language, lies in the fact that train- ing in oral reading is still regarded by the great majority of parents and teachers as the chief staple of the primary grades. The end sought by these teachers is the quick recognition and proper pronunciation of words. What the words may mean to the child is too frequently lost sight of. It is taken for granted that when the chidren pass up into the higher grades the words will reveal their hidden meanings to them. It was quite natural, therefore, that phonic methods, key methods, or any other methods which proved efficient in giving the child the power to find words for himself and to pronounce them correctly, were eagerly seized upon by our primary teachers. And if the end sought, namely, the quick recognition and proper pronunciation of words, be granted as correct, but little fault is to be found with several of these methods. Indeed, the meth- ods succeeded so well and the immediate results were so brilliant that the evil was concealed from the teachers. It was only when these pupils reached the higher grades and exhibited an appalling lack of mental grasp on the content of what they read that any question was raised 234 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PKIMABY METHODS as to the correctness of their early training, and even at the present hour multitudes of primary teachers are wholly oblivious of the fact that by focussing the child's mind on words to the neglect of the thought during the first two or three years of his school life they set up habits of thinking which are likely permanently to impair his mental power. Whatever may be said concerning the onomatopoetic origin of language, it remains true that for the average child there is no natural connection between the thought and the word which designates it, and yet these two men- tal entities must be linked together in such an insepar- able union that whenever one of them is called into con- sciousness the other will function with it. The association here is one that is produced by the method of simultaneity, but it should be remembered that when one of these elements is in the focus of conscious- ness the other remains in the indirect field of mental vision. For the man who thinks clearly on any subject the words must remain in the indirect field, that is, they must be subconscious or semi-conscious only. If they are brought into the focus of consciousness they either expel the thought element or obscure it. The case of the philologist is only an apparent excep- tion, for with him words are the object as well as the means of thought. When the children are taught new words in the so- called families, such as bat, cat, hat, mat, rat, they learn to associate groups of words from mere accidental resem- blances. This practice must not be confounded with word families in the philological sense, with which children in the primary grades have no concern. These phonic CONTEXT METHOD 235 groups ignore all relationship between the thought ele- ments. The association structures built up are purely on the verbal side. One or two years' continuance in work of this kind when the child's mind is most plastic, is sufficient to es- tablish a mental attitude of always looking at words and associating them with each other instead of looking at the thought elements and their congruities or incongrui- ties ; and this is precisely what has happened on a large scale in our primary grades, and it is there that we must look for the cause of the general failure to develop thoughtful readers. While admitting that effective oral reading is an ac- complishment that is far too rare at present among the graduates of our elementary schools, there are few, I be- lieve, who would dispute the fact that our main purpose in teaching the children to read is to enable them to ob- tain for themselves the rich inheritance which is trans- mitted through written language. To-day a thousand adults read in order to master the content of the written page, to the one who reads aloud and attempts to inter- pret the thoughts of the printed page to an audience. Now, it is clearly the business of the school to develop in the child the habits and powers of mind which we wish him to exercise when he reaches maturity. It is so obviously a waste of time, or worse, to teach the children during their first three or four years in school to look at words and at their likenesses and differ- ences instead of at the thoughts which the words should reveal to them, and then to expect them to reverse this process and suddenly become conscious of and interested in the thought elements, that one naturally asks the ques- 236 TEACHERS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS tion why such methods retain their hold in onr elementary schools. The answer is not far to seek. The mere mechanical process of oral reading is so easy to test, it makes such a ready appeal to inspectors and parents, that the more ohscnre powers of the child's mind are easily neglected. It is generally assumed, moreover, that if the children pronounce the words readily they grasp the thought. Many of these children are drilled in reading for eight years and yet a majority of them will pass alike over that which is intelligible to them and that which is not, unconscious of any difference. They do not realize that there is any obscurity. They read words only. Their powers of reason and apperception are dor- mant. What wonder that children trained in this way acquire a life-long distaste for literature. For the first few years the phonic drills are in themselves interesting. The child finds amusement in his word keys and his "Chinese puz- zles," but when the novelty wears off, the work of the school-room is all drudgery and he seeks to escape from it as soon as circumstances permit. Eemedies What is the remedy? Simply to follow the natural order. When the average child of six enters school he is in possession of a large vocabulary and he employs lan- guage with some ease. If the home group uses good lan- guage, the child will use good language and he will use it readily. It is language of the ear, however, and not of the eye, and in learning to read he should learn to use the language of the eye with the same ease and with the same CONTEXT METHOD 237 power and, we may add, to do this lie must learn it in the same way; that is, by context. The child did not begin by memorizing words and then seeking opportunities to employ them. Words came to him in context and their meaning was revealed to him by the context. When the meaning, from having appeared in various contexts, had grown sufficiently clear and strong to arise spontaneously in consciousness, he used the words to express his own thoughts and desires. And so, if we would teach him to read in such a way that reading may help to develop his mind instead of hampering it, we must abolish the practice of having the child study new words and memorize them. After he has grown familiar with them in the written context, it will be time enough to drill him in spelling and pronuncia- tion. We must not tempt him into the foolish habit of building up a vocabulary from a dictionary instead of from the context of correctly written pages. Of course this means that our primary text-books must be written in the light of these principles and it means also that our primary teachers must employ new methods which will recognize the natural relationship of means to ends between the words and the thoughts for which they stand. Our primary text-books should be constructed with a clear realization that the child's interest must be captured and held continuously by the thought which is presented. New words must be introduced in such a way that the context will proclaim them to the child; conse- quently the vocabulary must be chosen from the most vital portion of the child's spoken language, and the thought elements must make a strong and clear appeal to his experience and to his observation. 238 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PKIMAEY METHODS It will not do, however, to mistake for this childish thoughts or the baby talk of the nursery. The thought given to the child must not be a fragment, a leaf or a bit of bark, it must be a germinal thought that will take deep root in his consciousness and imperatively demand room for growth and demand related truth for its food. Less than this in our primary text-books will not meet our present needs. If our purpose is to develop in the child a deep relig- ious sense that will grow with his growth and will make the man a son of God, then the thought materials given to the child must be the seeds of truth which the Saviour of men brought into the world. If we wish the child to grow into a man, strong in his love of wife and child and home, and willing to sacrifice his life if need be for the good of f ellowmen and for the safety and prosperity of the nation, we must plant the seeds of these social virtues in the heart of the child. If we wish the child to grow into a man of science whose deep insight into nature and whose reverence for nature 's laws will make him master of the physical world, while rendering him an humble worshipper at the feet of the Creator, we must lead the steps of the child into the sanctuary of the physical world and open his eyes to the light of heaven that glistens in the dewdrop and flashes in the lightning. If we wish the man to thrill to high ideals and to live in a world above sordid and material wealth, we must fill the child's soul with the beauty of earth and sky and teach him to find the peace and rest of heaven in his home. CONTEXT METHOD 239 But the best text-books in the world will accomplish little unless the teacher breathes into them a soul. Her method must be in harmony with the method embodied in the text-book which she places in the child's hands. No matter what care may have been expended in choosing the right germinal thoughts for the child-mind and in de- veloping them progressively, no matter how rigorously the requirements of the context method may be kept in view by the writer of the book, but little may be hoped for without the sympathetic co-operation of the teacher. She must realize that the fruit is not to be gathered on the day of the planting and that she must look to the future man and woman for the best reward of her efforts for the child. She must learn to value other things more than the glib enunciation of words and rest content only when the hearts and souls of the children committed to her care are growing towards righteousness and giving prom- ise of good and abundant fruit in due season. The teacher's questions from the beginning should be so framed as not to permit of memorized answers, but should cause the children to look beneath the surface of the lesson which they have learned to read and to find there the hidden treasure. Step by step the text should give the children opportunity to compare thoughts that are closely related and to find similar thoughts in diverse settings. When the children are drilled in this way in the primary grades, their hunger and thirst for truth will grow with their years and their delight in the best that literature affords will be with them a permanent posses- sion. Aim in Primary Beading It has been cleverly said that all we have done in the art of writing and printing is no more than the continu- 240 TEACHERS MANUAL, OF PRIMARY METHODS ance of a gradual process of substituting a suggestion for a complete picture on the actual writing tablet. Where the hand of the writer formerly made the picture the hand now simply, as it were, gives the number of the picture in the catalogue. The brain does the rest. The printed word brings the idea into the focus of conscious- ness by directing the mind to supply the ideograph — a signalling process apparently, and one the mind is slow to learn. Once acquired, however, and by systematic training become a habit, it is swifter in operation than the muscular movement of the eye. Training the youthful mind in this habit — the art of reading — is fraught with many difficulties. So it was in the days of Quintilian and Plutarch, and the multitude of theories and methods since ingeniously devised has not banished the problems. The past few decades have been most fruitful in studies and investigations bearing di- rectly on the subject, yet educators admit that they are confronted to-day with a generation of pupils who as readers do not justify the great efforts expended on their training. They cannot read well. They have failed to acquire that habit of mind essential to good reading, of producing the picture called for by the number, of sup- plying the idea suggested by its symbol, the word. A certain degree of proficiency in reading has been very generally obtained, but as a writer of wide expe- rience in our public schools has recently said: "The as- sumption is so general that if children call the words glibly, they of course grasp the thought that efficient in- vestigation is too seldom made as to the reality and vigor of the grip. They are drilled in reading from six to four- teen, yet it is safe to say that a majority, if not a large CONTEXT METHOD 241 majority, will pass alike over that which is intelligible to them, and that which is not, unconscious of any differ- ence." He quotes a superintendent of schools as say- ing: "The defect results from an insane dependence for both the development of thought, and the communication of intelligence directly upon words as though when we give a child new words we furnish him with ideas. There lies the great mistake that pervades American public- school work — and a greater is not possible in educational affairs, nor one more pregnant with injury and loss. The teaching in a majority of our schools is the teaching of words alone, irrespective of ideas. ' ' Were the methods employed in our parish schools for the teaching of reading and similar subjects distinctly un- like those in vogue in the public schools we might look there for different results. Can the same indictment be preferred against them? Protest From Secondary Schools The higher institutions which receive pupils from pub- lic and private schools are leading voices in the general protest. In high school, academy, and college, the teach- ers claim that the children sent to them cannot properly read the texts placed in their hands. "Not only do they not comprehend the language of their books, but they do not know that they do not comprehend it. ' ' Although they are in many instances calling words unhesitatingly and pronouncing them correctly, when tested on the final issue of grasping the sense they are found wanting. They ex- hibit their talents very much like the so-called "best spellers, ' ' who knew words only to spell them, who, never 242 TEACHERS MANUAL. OF PRIMARY METHODS understanding the meaning of many words they so fault- lessly built up and tore down, could not afterward intel- ligently use them. Both the reader and the speller have, in short, attained proficiency in that which is at best only a means to an end. Of the essential elements in oral reading such as call- ing the words, grasping the thought, and expressing it, it is safe to say that the more important have been greatly undervalued. Indeed they have often been entirely neglected, but of such distorted reading one should scarcely speak. The initial exercise of telling the words, even with those scientifically guided, has been esteemed of paramount importance. Through the general prac- tice of oral reading and neglect of any other, through the methods most widely adopted in recent years, both an- alytical and synthetical, the teacher's attention has been centered on the word, and her main effort has been pre- cisely to give the child power in discerning and telling words. The tests of her work required no higher stand- ard of excellence than that furnished by oral reading, save where, happily, reproduction was introduced to search beneath the fluent rendition of a lesson for some evidence of grasping thought. Silent Eeading The teacher was consequently urged to get results in word knowledge as soon as possible without being as- sured of a corresponding progress in thought develop- ment. With oral reading in the place of honor, silent reading, a salutary practice for getting thought, became a lost art ; and the other safeguarding elements demanded CONTEXT METHOD 243 by the very nature of reading itself, perceiving the sense and expressing it, were lost to view. The text-books, furthermore, were not so constructed as to counteract the effects of this procedure. They rather encouraged it, the primers and first books particularly. With few creditable exceptions they were lessons in words ; they did not aim to express thought even when the words were known by the child ; they sought chiefly as the end of drill and exer- cise the quick and sure recognition of words. Pkepabing Text-Books It is curious to note how some of the books used in our schools were prepared, and particularly, in regard to the introduction of new words. Size, sound, appearance and arbitrary standards seem to have dictated the choice rather than consideration of the usefulness or meaning of words to the child. Were these books the real embodi- ment of any one reliable method, or the combination of some devices notable for their services in the past, one would be milder in criticism, but they lack method, and some openly disavow it. Others claim to be eclectic — taking advantage of all that has gone before, and leaving the teacher very much liberty to choose and to eliminate so as to meet the requirements of her peculiar circum- stances. Very few, one regrets to say, are models of method. It is only natural in the face of these unsatisfactory conditions to fall back on the fundamental principles of reading in order to learn what is to be done for the future efficiency of its teaching. Methods are of value only in the light of these principles, and however good they may be as aids, once their shortcomings are realized, some- 244 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS thing more must be discovered to arrive at the end in view. Colonel Parker, who delighted to tell that the phonic method originated before the Eef ormation because it was described by Valentine Ikelsamer, a contemporary of Lnther, denned reading as getting thought by means of written or printed words; and to embrace oral reading, he added that it was the getting and giving of thought by means of words so arranged. Whether the word, the sen- tence, the script, the phonic, the look and say method, or any other were adopted, he maintained that the child should first get the thought, the idea or the sense of what he read before being allowed to speak. The idea must always be acquired before the word can be. * * * The word itself should be subordinate and secondary in in- terest to the child, to the idea that excites the mind. * * * The word is to be learned consciously as a whole, and any attempt to analyze or synthesize it hinders the act of as- sociation by absorbing the attention. * * * All through the education of the child this rule should be carefully followed, viz. : Never allow a child to give a thought until he gets it. * * * So he offered his well-known sugges- tions for the learning of words by association with ob- jects, blackboard drawings, pictures, conversations and stories. If the product of the methods in use to-day is the super- ficial and thoughtless reader, then another attempt at solving the problem which aims chiefly at getting thought, and teaching words by means of context, is most needed. The Catholic Education Series of primary text-books was prepared especially to meet the requirements of the context method. CHAPTER XVIII TEACHING THE CHILD TO SPELL We teach children to spell in order that they may be able to write correctly. Oral spelling has no real value apart from the aid which it may lend to correct writing, and hence at first sight it would seem to be difficult to justify it, since it is a roundabout way of accomplishing the end which we have in view. However, the process of learning to spell is not so simple as this might seem to indicate. When the child of six enters school he usually possesses a large spoken vocabulary which is more or less accu- rately developed in accordance with the language spoken in his home environment, whereas he seldom possesses any written language. In other words, his center of hear- ing in the temporal lobe of the brain has been enriched by a large number of well-developed word memories which function in controlling his organs of speech and in lead- ing him into an understanding of what the people around him are thinking and saying. The school undertakes to develop similar word mem- ories in the visual area of the occipital lobe and the prac- tical question which confronts the teacher in the primary grades is, how to proceed in this new line of brain de- velopment. Shall she follow the lines in the development of the visual area which have been followed with such success in the development of the auditory area? That is, shall the child be taught the meaning of the written word from its relationship to the thing signified and 246 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PEIMABY METHODS ignore for the time being the existence of the auditory word memories which he already possesses? Or shall she proceed from the oral vocabulary to build up the relationships between the oral and the visual words, translating the one into the other, and resting content with this indirect connection between the written word and the concept for which it stands? Or shall both methods be employed simultaneously? This is merely stating our questions in psychological terminology ; but this statement is valuable to the teacher because it reveals to some extent the physiological basis of the process involved in learning to spell, and at the same time it seems to point the way to a satisfactory answer to many questions which are continually arising concerning the work of teaching spelling. The Oeal Method One would expect that better immediate results might be looked for from the oral method, in so far as it borrows the large oral vocabulary which the child possesses for the foundation of written language; but, on the other hand, such a procedure might be expected to yield very poor final results since the foundation laid is not strong or abiding and, above all, since it is not direct. If the teacher has no other interest in the matter than to exhibit at the end of the year the number of words which the chil- dren are able to spell correctly, she will naturally turn to the oral method as the sole one to be employed or at least as a valuable auxiliary. Whether or not such a procedure would result in a permanent impairment of the future man's power clearly and easily to grasp the thoughts SPELLING 247 lying back of the printed page, does not concern such a teacher. On the other hand, where the real interests of the child control the work of education, the axiom is likely to be festina lente. Put in secure foundations; use only such methods as will tend to secure the best final results. The teacher who takes this view of the matter will be likely to lay chief emphasis on the visual method of teaching spelling and to use the oral method, if at all, in a second- ' ary capacity. She will find many reasons for pursuing this course among the considerations which make for the context method of reading. Our aim in teaching the child to read should be to en- able the man to think clearly and connectedly the thoughts presented by the written page. The written words serve their real function when they call up into the focus of consciousness the chain of thought while they themselves remain in the indirect field of vision. The less conscious we are of the word and the more vividly conscious of the thing the better. Above all, the relationship of thought to thought, in which the processes of judgment and rea- son consist, must not be enfeebled or obscured by the in- trusion upon the field of mental vision of resemblances and relationships between the groups of words used as a means for bringing the thought complexes into conscious- ness. It is considerations such as these which lead to a reali- zation of the incalculable injury which is being done to the minds of our children by the abuse of phonic methods ; and whenever the phonic method is used to facilitate the child 's finding or calling new words it is an abuse. The phonic method has its real value in connection with the 248 TEACHERS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS speech center; its function is to perfect pronunciation and it should not be allowed to intrude itself into the process of developing in the brain of the child visual im- ages of words. It will readily be understood that a similar objection may be urged against the oral method of teaching spell- ing. In so far as the oral method may aid in pronunci- ation and syllabication it is valuable; but these are sec- ondary considerations in view of the main end to be attained in teaching spelling, which is correct writing, a process that depends mainly upon the clearness of the visual word image and associated muscle memories. Function of the Written Word The processes involved in reading, writing and spell- ing are most intimately related, and our methods of de- veloping and perfecting them should also be closely re- lated. The most important part of the work consists in developing in the child's mind a clear, strong image of the thing signified and an adequate word image which, in all the subsequent work of the mind, may serve as a means of calling up the image of the thing, while the word image itself remains subconscious. Four distinct elements are involved in this process: 1. The development of a thought or of a mental image of some objective reality. 2. The development in the visual area of a written word which has been adopted as a sym- bol of the thought in question. 3. The linking together of these two images. 4. The relative strength of the two images so as to secure the easy possession of the focus of consciousness by the thought and the automatic and sub- conscious functioning of the word-picture. SPELLING 249 If we are to succeed in the work here outlined, we must begin with the development of the thought and when this is strong and clear in the mind of the child, we should develop the word and link it to the thought. In each sub- sequent recurrence of this dual image the one first de- veloped will tend to be the stronger and accordingly will maintain its place at the center of the field of vision. This tendency will be further strengthened by the development of the relationships in the thought system. If, however, this process be reversed and the words be developed before the concepts for which they stand, the words will tend to maintain their place at the center of consciousness and to banish into obscurity the thought signified ; and this tendency will be further strengthened by the development of the system of word relationships, such as that involved in current phonic methods. The net result will be a mind dominated by words and word rela- tionships and yet starved in the matter of real mental food. From this it may also be inferred that the practice of teaching children to spell words the meanings, of which are unknown to them, must lead to pernicious results ; and this inference is abundantly justified by experience. The Spelling Book It is considerations such as these which have led to the abandonment of the formal spelling-book, at least in the elementary grades. It may be laid down as a safe rule that the child should never be called upon to spell a word until its meaning is vividly present to him. In the early part of the process the thought should be emphasized and the word must not be adverted to unnecessarily until such 250 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PEIMAEY METHODS time as the thought image is secure in its possession of the focus of consciousness. Then, and not until then, should the child 's attention be directed to the form of the word, to its correct pronunciation and to its accurate spelling. The spelling drill should follow the reading lesson; it must not be allowed to precede it. And when I say it must follow the reading lesson, I mean that the word must have occurred with sufficient frequency in the read- ing lesson in different contexts to develop and perfect the meaning of the word in the child's consciousness. After this we may safely proceed with the work of de- veloping the word image, and in this we need spelling and phonetic drills ; but even then spelling drills may be given with the greatest profit when the words are used in appropriate sentences which should be dictated by the teacher. The Blackboaed The first lessons in spelling, like the first lessons in reading, should be given on the blackboard. The teacher should write the utterance on the board and demonstrate its meaning and then the children in turn should be al- lowed to do the thing signified. When a reasonable num- ber of such utterances have been developed in this way, the child, after doing the thing signified, should turn his back to the blackboard and tell the class what is written upon it. Finally, he should be led to reproduce the utterance in writing. In this way the right sequence is developed between the thought and the mental image of its written form. Little by little, words which appear in various utterances tend to isolate themselves from the rest of the utterances in the child's mind and thus he SPELLING 251 gradually gains a consciousness of words as separate en- tities, and it is not until then that the drill in spelling should begin. Similarly, the written characters from ap- pearing in various complexes tend to isolate themselves and then the child should be taught to name them and to learn his alphabet in its proper sequence. During the first phase of the child 's work in school no book should be placed in his hands. The blackboard and the chart are the proper media for instruction in reading, writing, spelling, drawing, etc. There can be no question as to the use of a spelling-book at this stage of the work. The attention of the children and all the available energy of the teacher will be required at this time for the devel- opment of a limited written vocabulary and of a few pri- mary apperception masses. The words and phrases used in these elementary reading lessons are the only ones which any practical teacher will attempt to use in the ac- companying drills in writing and spelling. When ques- tions concerning the use of a spelling-book or the oral and written methods of teaching spelling are raised, reference is usually had to the later phases of the work, that is, from the second grade onward. We shall take the work of the second grade as typical of a method of teaching spelling which should be em- ployed in connection with the context method of reading, The latter half of the first year 's work represents a tran- sition phase from the blackboard and chart work as out- lined above to the method which we are here discussing. Visualizing Before taking up the details of this method, however, we must invite the attention of the reader to the well- 252 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PEIMAEY METHODS known fact that children differ widely in their power of visualizing. This difference is due in part to physiolog- ical conditions which result in varying rates of develop- ment in the cortical areas, particularly in the newest por- tions of the brain, the temporal and the occipital lobes, which are the centers of hearing and seeing respectively. This difference may be traced to a variety of causes, such as heredity, the nutritive and hygienic conditions which prevailed during infancy, the stimulation of the environ- ment, previous training, etc. Elsewhere we shall discuss the causes and remedies for these conditions. All that it is necessary to bear in mind for our present purpose is the fact that whatever be the cause, the children in the second grade differ widely in their power of visualizing the words which we wish to teach them to read and to spell correctly. It might also be well to warn the teacher of the danger and injustice which lie in the habit of classifying poor visualizers with dull and backward children and of re- garding good visualizers as bright children. Abundant evidence is at hand to show that children with limited power of visualization may have splendid powers in other directions. When such children are properly handled, they frequently attain a very high development not only in these other directions but even in visualizing power. Many a promising child has been thoroughly discouraged through the teacher's misunderstanding of this subject. It would, indeed, be interesting to know what proportion of our laggards owe their unhappy condition to the un- pardonable blundering of teachers in the primary grades with reference to this very matter. SPELLING 253 Nowhere else does the prevalent procrustean method of a rigid system of grading show to poorer advantage than in the primary grades. The children differ widely from each other on entering school. They differ in age, in heredity, in nationality ; they differ because of the di- verse family customs and the physical environment to which they were subjected. To put fifty of these children into a room and treat them in the selfsame manner, in the hope of developing them normally along mental lines, comes pretty near reaching the climax of absurdity. Each child should be treated according to his needs. But we are told that no teacher can spare the time to deal with each child individually and hence that she is com- pelled to assume in her work what she knows to be untrue ; namely, that the children are alike and all need the same treatment. Until this state of affairs can be remedied, all talk of scientific methods in* the primary grades is illu- sory. There is a growing consciousness of the incongru- ity of the situation, which has led to various attempts at developing individual methods. If time cannot be spared by the teacher to deal with each child according to his individual needs, may it not be possible for her to divide the class of fifty children into several groups on the basis of their aptitude for the work at hand 1 If this does not go the whole length of the individual method, it escapes the excesses of the simul- taneous method, of which complaint is made. The methods of teaching reading and spelling which we are here advocating aim at a nearer approach to the child's capacity than is possible in the methods in current use. They also aim at utilizing, as far as possible, the imitative tendency and the mutual helpfulness of the chil- 254 TEACHBES MANUAL OF PKIMAEY METHODS dren. The method of teaching reading was dealt with elsewhere. A brief outline of the method of teaching spelling follows : The Text-Book The text-book should be constructed along the lines of the method to be employed by the teacher. Where the context method is to be employed in teaching the child to read, continuity of thought should characterize the read- ers in the elementary grades. This is necessary if the thought development is to dominate the accompanying word development. Moreover, since the thought more or less determines the language, it is necessary to preserve continuity so that we may constantly re-employ the words previously learned, with a small percentage of new words, which the child will readily get from the context. Where the first and second books are made up of selections deal- ing with isolated themes, there is sudden transition to new vocabularies, and lack of interest, both of which impede the child 's progress The continuous story enables the child to anticipate what is coming and thus min- isters to his growing self-reliance, while his thought and his vocabulary unfold naturally in accordance with the laws of organic development. The primary books of the Catholic Education Series have been written to meet the demands of the context method of reading and of the present method of spelling. At the end of this volume will be found the word lists for each story in Religion, First and Second Books, under numbers which indicate whether the words in question are used in the corresponding story for the first, second, SPELLING 255 third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, or tenth time. After the word has been used for the tenth time it ceases to be listed, as the children are all supposed to be able to spell it and pronounce it correctly. The teacher should write the appropriate numbers under the corresponding words in her copy of the reader. The words which remain without numbers under them are such as have been used more than ten times : these words should be known by all the children.* The words with ' ' 10 ' ' under them will form suitable drills for the poorest visualizers, whereas words with 5 or 6 under them may be found suitable for the best visualizers in the room. But before the teacher can proceed intelligently with her drills, she must classify her children according to their various visualizing powers. Classifying the Childeen For the purpose of illustration we shall suppose that the teacher is about to take over a class towards the end of the first year or the beginning of the second. If the previous work has been well done, she will find that all the children, with the possible exception of those that are abnormal or atypical, are able to write and read cor- rectly sentences composed of words which have no num- bers under them ; that is, of words that have been used more than ten times in the preceding stories. The teacher should then dictate a number of sentences employing all the "10" words in the reading lesson, to- gether with words used more than ten times, and she *The number ten is chosen empirically and may be varied to suit the class. 256 TEACHEKS MANUAL OF PKIMAEY METHODS should write "10" opposite the names of the children who evince a difficulty in spelling or pronouncing correctly any of the "10" words. These children are the poorest visualizers in the room. The remainder of the children should then be required to write sentences in which all the "9" words are used together with words used more than nine times. And children manifesting difficulty in writing and reading these sentences will be indicated in the register by the "9." This process should be repeated with the " 8 " words, with the " 7 " words, and so on, until even the best visualizers in the school begin to show dif- ficulty in writing or pronouncing the words. Let us suppose that this limit is reached in dealing with the "5" words. This would give us six groups classified according to the children's power of spelling and pronouncing words. Each of these groups will read- ily fall into two, depending upon whether the difficulty appears in visualizing or in vocalizing. For the sake of simplicity, we shall at present ignore this difference and consider only the six groups indicated. Spelling Drills The teacher is now in possession of an item of knowl- edge concerning her children which will enable her to proceed with some regard to their varied capacities. After the reading lesson, the "5" children will be drilled on "5" words, both as to pronunciation and as to spell- ing. The words, of course, must always be given in sen- tences composed of words none of which has been used less than five times. The teacher will next turn to the "6" children and drill them on the "6" words, that is, SPELLING 257 on words which have appeared for the sixth time in the context and which have been nsed for one drill with the number five children. Similarly, the number seven chil- dren will be called upon to reproduce words which have appeared for the seventh time in the context of the lesson and which they have witnessed in two word drills. And so on down through the class. All the children learn the same words; they all make an approximately equal effort in the learning, but those who need least help get least help and those who need most help get most help. Each group receives accord- ing to the measure of its need. And since the principle underlying the classification of the children is known only to the teacher, the children are unaware of the pres- ence in the room of any " bright children' ' or of any "dull children. ' ' If the teacher finds from day to day that the work is too easy for a given child, she moves him up a num- ber ; if she finds the work too difficult for any child, she moves him down a number. In fact, the teacher keeps her class in tune, as a musician would his instrument, and at the end of the year none but really defective children will have failed to make their grade. Retardation and elimi- nation, the two-fold curse of the public school system of this country, will be practically unknown where the scien- tific methods here outlined are employed. The method of teaching spelling which we are here advocating must not be confounded with that which a recent writer on the subject designates as the "incidental" method. When the child first meets a word, high cortical tension in the visual area is called into play to fix the word in the visual memory. At each subsequent recurrence of the word a lessened attention and a lessened energy are re- 258 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PEIMABY METHODS quired. Finally, the process becomes automatic and the nerve tension required may fall below the threshold of consciousness. After this it becomes increasingly diffi- cult to correct the memory-pictures which govern the pro- nunciation and the spelling of the word. It is highly im- portant, therefore, to perfect the memory-images before the process becomes automatic, If the attention of the child is called to the spelling and the pronunciation of a word the first time it occurs, the result is bad, because the attention is called to the detail before the substance of the word has taken form in the brain ; it would be like endeavoring to paint a house before the house was built. On the other hand, to defer perfecting the spelling and pronunciation of a word until such time as they have be- come automatic, is to render the task needlessly difficult. If a "10" child be exercised on a "5" word, we sin in the former way ; whereas, if a " 5 " child be exercised on a "10" word, we sin in the latter way. The teacher must determine empirically the period at which it is advisable to drill each child in the spelling and pronuncia- tion of the words which he is in the process of mastering. If one should desire to ascertain how unscientific are the prevalent methods employed in the primary class- room, nothing further would be necessary than to ask a teacher to classify the children in her room according to their visualizing power, or to point out in the text which the children were required to read, the words which occur for the first, second, third, or tenth time, or ask her to state how many drills were had in the class on any of these words. The teacher usually proceeds blindly and by a hit or miss method she calls upon a child to pro- nounce or spell a given word without knowing his visual- SPELLING 259 izing power or the stage of development which he has reached in regard to the word in question. What wonder that the results are disappointing ! She calls upon a child without knowing whether his visualizing index is five or ten and requires him to spell a word without knowing in the least whether it is the fifth or the twentieth time that the word has occurred in his work. The new words are sometimes set forth at the begin- ning of the lesson and the teacher endeavors to have the children master their spelling and pronunciation before they have learned the meaning, thus reversing the natural order ; and yet we complain that our children in the eighth grade are unable to think, that they are unable to para- phrase a paragraph, that they are unable to spell accu- rately or to read fluently. If a spelling book be used, it must be one constructed out of the words employed in the child's reader and these words must be so arranged as to permit the teacher to give to her children each day the drills which they require in accordance with their varied powers of visualization. Moreover, as the words should not be given alone but in sentences, it would appear that the reader is the proper medium for the teaching of spelling in the first and sec- ond grades. When we cease endeavoring to make the children learn to spell a great many words which they will probably never use and the meaning of which they do not know, we shall find the requisite time in which to teach them to spell correctly the words which they will use in expressing their thoughts in writing. CHAPTER XIX PEEPAEATION FOE THE CHILD'S FIEST EEADEE Eeligion, First Book, is intended to present in the proper sequence the thought material for the work of the first grade. It contains the beginnings of science and of aesthetics, the fundamental concepts of religion and of the child's social relationships, and it is at the same time written so as to serve as the child 's first reader in accord- ance with the principles of the context method of reading and spelling. The first four functions of this book have been dealt with elsewhere. We are here concerned with it solely in its capacity as a first reader, and as such it pre- supposes a certain development of written language. The aim of the context method is to lead the child through a context of known words to a percentage of un- known words. The unknown words should be so used that were they removed the children would be able to fill in the blanks with the correct words or with synonyms. It is accordingly evident that the context method is not available for the first steps in written language. It can- not be employed with success until a small vocabulary of properly chosen words is thoroughly mastered by the children. Moreover, the context method implies that the children have a strong grasp of the thought expressed and a familiarity with its oral expression. A period of from six weeks to five months should be devoted to work with the blackboard and chart before the children are allowed to use the first book, and even after PBEPAEATION FOB THE CHILD 's FIRST READER 261 the first book is taken up by the children, the blackboard and chart work should continue to be used in a diminish- ing degree throughout the remainder of the first year. Similarly, while the work of the preliminary period must be conducted through the help of the sensory motor re- action and the direct sensory expression, the principle of the context method should gradually be brought into play. This method will occupy a subordinate place at first, and should gradually grow in importance until, when the first book is reached, it should dominate the work of teaching reading and spelling. Action words should constitute the first exercises in written language. Eun, hop, skip, jump, dance, fly, etc., written on the board by the teacher, should act as the sig- nals to release the children's activities. Genetic psychology furnishes the reasons for this choice of the words which are to be first engraven upon the visual areas of the child 's brain. It is as true to-day as it was in the days of Aristotle or of St. Thomas that there is nothing in the intellect but what was previously in the senses. We must not make the mistake, however, of sup- posing that the sensory element is the primary unit of mental life. A nerve current flowing in to the brain over sensory tracts tends to flow out into action over appro- priate motor pathways, and it is to this motor element that we are chiefly indebted for the permanency of the first sensory elements developed in any corticle area. After the sensory motor association has been thor- oughly built up, other elements may be established through association with these primary images. Thus, after the child has thoroughly mastered the written word run through repeated recognition and performance of the 262 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PKIMAKY METHODS action, he may be taught the nouns door, windoiv, etc., through such sentences as Run to the door, Run to the window, etc. Later on, modifying words may be acquired through association with words which are thoroughly es- tablished. At a very early date other associations begin to assert themselves. The thought expressed in known words calls for a completion in the unknown word and the child thus passes from the thought to the appropriate written word on the principle of the context method. Again, the sim- ilarity in form of the new word to words already known will aid the child in finding the correct synonym among the group of words that may be suggested by the context. Lifting this latter principle into the central place is the mistake made in the prevalent phonic methods. The method here outlined begins with the utterance, which may consist of a single word, such as run, or of many words expressing a simple thought or action. Its aim is not the development primarily of a single word as such but of a symbol for a complete thought or action. From their appearance in various connections in the ut- terances which the children are learning, words gradually isolate themselves as separate entities and are recognized by the child as such. This stage should be reached be- fore the leading role is assigned to the context method. A book such as Eeligion, First Book, constructed on the principles of the context method, presupposes a definite vocabulary which must be developed on blackboard and chart before it can be successfully used. A competent teacher who is versed in the principles of psychology in- volved and who has thoroughly mastered the thought and PREPARATION FOR THE CHILD 's FIRST READER 263 the vocabulary of the first book, should be able without undue difficulty to make the proper selections of words and thought material for the preliminary work of the first grade. But other teachers who are not thus equipped, will need some guidance to avoid needless waste of time and energy, and every teacher will probably benefit by some suggestions in the matter. Care must be taken, however, to avoid rigidity. The circumstances of the children are never alike in two primary rooms and the teacher who would succeed must draw the thought ma- terial from that which is most thoroughly organized in the minds of the children whom she would instruct. And in like manner, while the presuppositions of the first book in the matter of vocabulary must be reckoned with, the vo- cabulary of the children must also be taken into account and must be taken into account in the first place, for here as elsewhere the process of education must be from the known to the unknown. The first story in Religion, First Book, "Looking for Breakfast,' ' contains a total of 42 words. Curve No. 1, page 291, exhibits in terms of percentage the repe- tition of the words used in the story. Thus it will be seen that 59% of the words are used only once, 31% are used twice, 7% are used three times, and 2y 2 % are used for the fourth time. To render this story available for a drill in the context method, not more than 5% to 10% of the new words should be used for the first time. More than half the words should be thoroughly known, and the words from five to fifty per cent should be in various stages of development in the minds of the children. More- over, the new physical adjustments required for holding the book and the disturbing elements of beginning a new 264 TEACHERS MANUAL OF PEIMAEY METHODS form of exercise tend to prevent the child's mind from working normally, hence it is better that all the words of this story should be thoroughly mastered before the book is put into the children's hands. The first exercise with the book will then be so delightful to the children that their faith in themselves and in the book will grow rap- idly. The second story, "Building a Nest," contains eighty words and were there no other drills than those implied in reading the first story, the percentage curve No. 2 would exhibit the relationship of known to unknown elements in the words. 42% of the words appear in this lesson for the first time, 321/2 % of words used for the second time, 12%% for the third time, 7%% for the fourth time, 5% for the fifth time, 3%% for the sixth time, 2y 2 % for the seventh time, 1%% for the eighth time, 1% for the ninth time and 1%% f° r the tenth time. To render this lesson suitable for the children, blackboard and chart exercises should have changed the form of this curve into that represented in curve No. 2 R, page 270, where it will be seen that 50% of the words have been used more than ten times and are supposed to be thoroughly known to the children. 5% appear for the first time, 5% for the second time, etc., up to the tenth time. The words selected for complete development are: the, grass, Mr. and, Mrs., Robin, are, here, they, looking, for, to, is, come, nest, tree. The words, apple, robins, home, and had, ap- pear in this lesson for the first time and the child should be taught to get them through the principles of the con- text method. Of these four words, two appear again and for the second time in this lesson, viz., home, and robin, whereas, the words away, and spring, are to be used once PKEPAEATION FOB THE CHILD 's FIKST KEADEK 265 in chart sentences in the work of preparation for this les- son. Spring appears again in this story as a number three word. The other three words, flowers, of, and their, have been previously used twice in chart sentences. Spring and flowers reappear as four words in this story. The other two four words, this and came, have been used three times in the charts. Came is used again as a five word while made, with and see, have appeared four times in the charts. With and see are repeated as six words, while last and up are introduced here after having ap- peared five times in the charts. By a similar procedure, 5% each of seven, eight, nine, and ten words is obtained. Curve No. 19, page 292, shows the percentage of words in the story "Breakfast on the Gr as s" without any altera- tions having been made through blackboard and chart ex- ercises. This lesson as it stands might be employed as suitable reading matter on the context principle. The same might be said of lessons represented by curves 23 to 29 of this book. However, some preparation will facili- tate matters, and such preparation will almost inevitably be made through the blackboard and chart exercises that have been performed before the children reach the latter part of the First Book. The effect of the work with blackboard and chart which should precede and accompany Eeligion, First Book, will transform the curves and vocabularies throughout First and Second Books. In the preparation, through the use of blackboard and chart, for the child's first book a certain number of words should be made perfectly clear to the children; others should be partly developed, through blackboard and chart, allowing the remaining development to take place 266 TEACHERS MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS through the use of the book itself. During the prelim- inary period, adequate preparation should be made for the first eleven stories, which complete the first part of Eeligion, First Book. For this, the following words should be completely developed on blackboard and chart. The letters at the head of each column stand for the story where the words appear for the first time. Thus (a) stands for Looking for Breakfast; (b) Building a Nest, etc. (a) here are Mr. and Mrs. Robin looking for breakfast thing on the grass . give three hops chirps look around begin again good morning you your (b) to is a came nest tree (c) branch mother sang wings (d) bird birds little her songs sleep loves them breezes (e) gather welcome climb him (f) sing show Jesus Heaven where (g) fly build nests wave roses lilies open trees fills stars sky sheep (b) follow flower hear face learn glad secret joy grows (i) play pick go (3) clap hands put (k) say bread wait The following words should be partially, but not com- pletely, developed through the use of blackboard and chart. Number nine will be used as the index of words that are almost but not quite fully developed through the use of blackboard and chart; number eight will in- dicate words still less developed, while number one will be used to indicate words that have appeared only once in the chart. The letters at the head of the column are PREPARATION FOR THE CHILD 's FIRST READER 267 used, as above, to indicate the story in which the word appears. (b) building (9) March (9) snow (9) if (8) laughed (8) went (8) sun (7) said (7) I (7) peeped (6) then (6) were (6) last (5) up (5) made (4) with (4) see (4) came (3) this (3) flowers (2) of (2) their (2) away (1) spring (1) (c) day's (9) lonely (9) robin's (9) asleep (8) cozy (8) prayer (8) warm (7) done (7) evening (7) sings (6) does (7) beside (7) be (5) mother's (5) worked (5) it (4) has (4) not (3) when (3) that (2) in (2) baby (1) at (1) he (1) (d) bird's (9) half (9) softest (9) so (8) takes (8) rocked (7) sweeter (7) than (6) better (5) much (5) by (3) that (2) in (2) as (1) she (1) (e) ask (9) these (9) father's (9) just (8) stories (8) knee (8) how (7) did (7) children (4) has (4) thing (4) from (3) tell (2) all (2) over (2) (f) way (9) lives (9) more (9) lived (7) have (6) earth (3) there (2) us (2) Nazareth (1) (g) others (8) gives (7) makes (6) strong ( 6 ) kind (5) gentle (5) smells (4) sends (4) teaching (4) shepherd (4) fills (3) sunbeams air (1) 00 teaches (3) forbid (2) sunshine (2) fathers (2) no (1) (1) U) smiles (9) crowd (8) heart (8) sweetness (9) giving (8) which (9) blessing (8) wherever (8) calls (7) voice (8) picked (7) or (7) head (6) goes (7) stay (6) another (7) always (6) ever (4) brought (3) (i) teacher (9) taught (9) shines (9) brightly (9) sweetly (9) after (9) rest (8) sitting (8) trouble (7) green (6) mothers (6) let (5) unto (5) until (4) hears (4) resting (4) me (3) friends (3) talks (4) blesses (4) near (4) places (3) Jesus' (2) curly (1) (k) lesson (9) lead (9) forgive (8) must (7) daily (6) art (6) trespasses (5) hallowed (5) temptation (3) trespass (3) Kingdom (3) amen (2) evil (2) deliver (2) With the blackboard and chart preparation, such as that outlined above, the children should be ready for the first part of Eeligion, First Book; and without any fur- ther blackboard and chart drills they should be able to read the stories intelligently and get the new words through the context method. Preparation along similar 268 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS lines, but in a rapidly diminishing extent, should be made for the subsequent stories of the book. A detailed out- line for this work will be issued in a booklet to accompany the charts. After the blackboard and chart preparation outlined above has been made, the word lists for the first eleven stories will be changed from those given on page 275 to that given on page 271, and the percentage curves will be changed from the form given in the first eleven curves to those bearing corresponding numbers with the addi- tion of the letter E. Thus curve No. 1 represents the per- centage of known and unknown words in Building a Nest. Curve No. 1 E. shows that all of the words have been thoroughly developed on blackboard and chart. Curve No. 2 has been changed by the preliminary blackboard work into the form given in the curve No. 2 E., etc. CHAPTER XX. MODIFIED WORD LIST FOR FIRST BOOK In the percentage curves there will be found one hun- dred vertical lines, each indicating 1% of the total num- ber of words used in the corresponding story. The per- centages are read from left to right. The heavy black vertical line indicates 50% ; each 10% is marked by a line somewhat less heavy, while the lines marking each 5% are a little more pronounced than those indicating the intervening percentages. This arrangement is in- tended to help the eye in determining values. The horizontal lines in these curves indicate the num- ber of times that the words in question have been used. These lines are to be counted from the top downward. The heavy line running in the horizontal spaces from the top lefthand corner downward and to the right, indicates the percentage of words used in the corresponding story for the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth time. Thus in Curve 2 R the black line running in the first space crosses five vertical spaces, and indicates that 5% of the words used in this story are used for the first time. The line continues in the second horizontal space from the fifth to the tenth line, indicating that 5% of the total words are used for the second time. The area shown at the top and to the right of this curve shows the facility as compared with the difficulty indicated by the area below and to the left of this line. An examination of the curve will show that the ratio of known to unknown words is approximately 3 to 1. 270 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PEIMABY METHODS The numbers printed in the center of the curves run con- secutively from 1 to 79 and indicate the number of the story or lesson in the First and Second Books. The num- ber followed by "B" indicates the condition of the word list of the corresponding story after adequate prepara- tion has been made through blackboard and chart. The pages noted on the curves refer to the pages of the books covered by the matter represented in the curves. BUILDING A NEST pp. 10-11. Total words, 80. New words, 4. Known words, 40 1 3 5 7 9 apple robins home had flowers of their spring made with see came peeped up then were said if laughed went 2 4 6 8 10 away robins spring home flowers spring this came last with up see peeped sun said I laughed building March snow THE BOBIN'S PBAYEB Total words, 57. New words, 3. Known words, 26 1 3 5 7 9 father under want home robins he it his their sings does beside asleep cozy prayer 2 4 6 8 10 baby at he not mother when he mother's work warm done evening day's lonely robin's prayer MODIFIED WOKD LIST FOR FIRST BOOK 271 THE NEST OF MOTHER'S ARMS Total words, 93. arms beautiful sweet ones love under arms as she it as that in 4 home robins by 5 home New words, 5. spring flowers of not 6 better of his not much 7 mother's but be than of 8 rocked but sweeter mother's sings does Known words, 45. rocked sings but so takes 10 softest bird's half but so FATHER'S WELCOME HOME Total words, 64. New words, 3. 5 7 happy tell every all day over 2 4 father he ones tell every from want over love children has tell thing home their thing see home his much 8 his how did Known words, 29. 9 just stories knee 10 ask these father's THE HOME OF JESUS Total words, 78. New words, 4. Known words, 36. pretty happy in we rather robins was there it our us from 2 4 he when happy it 6 sweet love beautiful father with Nazareth earth came 7 9 better came their have home of than his 8 10 home of then lived home way lives more he in 272 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS A WELCOME TO JESUS Total words, 128. New words, 6. Known words, 77 1 3 5 7 9 because because father he how hearts sweet smells father their big sunshine sends makes he boat rain love strong with one 4 teaching 8 others who shepherd 10 2 sweet 6 their all with his because fills father father how hearts teaches flowers he of no as from gives their sunbeams kind work he air gentle A SECRET Total words , 64. New words, 3. Known words, 29 1 3 5 7 9 people every this from gives into we fills when whenever like one ever 8 then voice 2 hearts beautiful 6 10 one our made or lives who 4 when goes sweetness our it another which we love with brought in THE TIEED TEACHER Total words, 116. New words, 6. Known words, 61. 1 tired 5 7 9 tired long all made then long 3 until flowers sun some under hears children work while away resting not rest says forbid friends green sitting very fathers 6 mothers 10 2 4 children 8 teacher day one tell flowers ago people there let when taught was every unto from shines big me children brightly pretty friends not trouble sweetly after MODIFIED WOBD LIST FOB FIBST BOOK 273 THE LITTLE CHILDREN Total words, 124. New words, 6. Known word 1 3 5 7 9 tells Jesus' one love children girl she as in flowers hand very talks head father can arms blesses stay crowd about want near always heart boy tells 6 8 giving 2 4 blessing resting makes 10 very that has much want happy this he children tells beautiful all calls sitting about places as picked knee curly head stories smiles A SWEET LESSON Total words, 136. New words, 7. Known words, (1) 5% (3) 4% (5) 7% (7) 5% (9) 5% will who sweet all love parents day earth ever be do thy tells as done take amen teaches us in against evil us this not thy deliver our daily from name (4) 4% we that every art forgive (2) 5% tells (8) 6% (10) while our (6) 5% love father same us all work can trespass ever stay then into kingdom earth in be will temptation us as it take our us lesson thy trespasses hallowed one must lead forgive 274 TEACHEES MANUAL OF PRIMARY METHODS TEN MODIFIED CURVES REPRESENTING THE FIRST TEN STORIES OF RELIGION, FIRST ROOK 1 ffl "rrr r mm i n