LB 1055 >i^^- ■^::'-^' 4^' ■;i;-v^>>: -:?^;^' >v->^ '■-i^^^''-^ '^'^^: ■j^ 'S^>>- ■r- -i: 'r^.^ ^r:<;; 5>i ■h«!:i^5&i:> X <^ y • « *^ .^V" «^ * o « o ' c.^ O^ K^^°-*> 'bV v %. "^ f° ' ' ' .-^^ TEACHING HOOL-CHILDREN TO THINK / ^ at the Meeting of the New York Society of Pedagogy, May 25, 1889 GEORGE B. NEWCOMB, Ph.D. •ssor of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy in the College of the City of New York r PUBLISHED FOR THE SOCIETY NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY LRiOSS COPTBIGHT, 1889, Bt the new YORK SOCIETY OF PEDAGOGY. \ 3v ^ TEACHING SCHOOL-CHILDREN TO THINK. The faith of the American people in their system of common-school instruction is evidenced by the vigor and keenness with which its methods and results are often criticised, hardly less than by the liberality of the expendi- tures for popular education. Of these criticisms none is more frequently urged than one which alleges, in substance, that the children of our public schools are not sufficiently " taught to think." One critic, for example, deploring the attention given to mem- orizing, would prefer " anything that sets the inner wheels of thought at work ; that compels the children to reason and work out things for themselves." Another notices " too much imitation," and thinks too much time is given to storing up facts, instead of developing the reasoning powers. It is indeed a danger incident to the instruction of children gathered together in any considerable number, that the methods used may insensibly become too mechani- cal; that the drilling of classes may interfere with the natural unfolding of individual minds ; the acquisition of a certain stock of the subject-matter of knowledge being se- cured at the expense of the development of independent mental power, of intellectual efficiency. In a vast and complicated system of popular education the necessity for system and effectual co-operation in the parts of the organi- zation naturally increases the difficulty noticed. A Hindoo proverb runs that " every undertaking is involved in its 2 TEACHING SCHOOL-CHILDREN TO THINK. faults, as a fire in its smoke " ; and it is not likely that any. attainable improvement, either in theories or methods, would carry our great educational undertakings to a point of success where certain faults, incidental to their magni- tude and complexity, would not at all be apparent. But those actively engaged in teaching in the public schools, as are the members of this Society, are most ready to recognize the fact that much is yet attainable in the way of improving our educational theories and methods. The topic set forth in the title of this paper opens only too broad an outlook for inquiry. It has been selected, how- ever, as appropriate for an initial discussion in the newly- formed "Society of Pedagogy." Two important lines of inquiry are suggested by our topic. The first is. What is that capacity and exercise of mind which is indicated by the terms " thought " and " thinking " ; and in what sense or within what limits, if any, should the development of "thought" be a prominent aim in the training of school- children ? The next inquiry would involve the considera- tion of ways and means for the development of rational intelligence in the pupil. Its full treatment would require nothing less than a systematic discussion of courses of study, which, of course, could not be attempted within the limits of this paper. We shall, therefore, aim under that head only to enunciate broad principles, or to make helpful suggestions, without entering into details of pedagogic method except by way of occasional illustration. The first inquiry is of fundamental importance. The term thought^ as commonly used, having a vague connota- tion, it is needful to indicate precisely what is here meant by thinking as a form of mental activity, and to consider how far the activity described is to be expected or desired in the case of children of the school age. The faculty or activity to be considered is that which TEACHINa SCHOOL-CHILDREN TO THINK. 3 is described, poetically, as " Eeason, the power of large dis- course, looking before and after " ; prosaically and collo- quially, as the ability "to put two and two together"; psychologically, as the capacity to form and apply general conceptions. By writers on psychology the term " thought " is frequently "used for conception or the grasp of the general or universal in knowledge." Thought, in its fully developed stage, includes all those subtle processes of mediate knowledge, in the use of which the human creature rises superior to sense, and is capable of philosophy, sci- ence, and inventions. But, if its full psychological connotation be given to the term " thought," there is an obvious incongruity be- tween the powers of the child of from six to twelve years of age, and the proposed task of " Training to Think." (Especially is this the case if one has failed to note a dis- tinction between the conscious and the unconscious em- ployment of inference and other logical processes.) There is obviously a sense in which teaching the young pupil to think would, if it were practicable, involve an inversion of the natural order of mental development, viz., from sense, through memory and imagination, to reasoning. The history of pedagogic philosophy and practice af- fords, indeed, illustrations of extreme views in opposite directions in regard to the culture of the rational powers in early years. Educational reformers, from the Eenais- sance onward, protested, as with one voice, against the barren routine of memorizing which had become the gen- eral mental discipline for school-children ; but this protest was often made from extreme reactionary points of view, now in the interest of the education of the senses only, again with an exaggerated emphasis on the training of the reasoning powers. The dreary maxim of an ancient writer, that " the ele- 4 TEACHING SCHOOL-CHILDREN TO THINK. ments of learning demand only memory," had been prac- tically accepted, and the memory of children was regarded as a pack-horse to receive burdens which could be utilized only in later years. It was with no less justice than bitter- ness that Montaigne complained of the education of his period, that " we labor only at filling the memory and leave the understanding and the conscience void." The natural impulse of return from a discipline of words to the knowl- edge of the things themselves, especially favored education of the perceptions. Such a thinker, however, as the idealist metaphysician Malebranche, setting no limits to the innate powers of the mind, found no reason why the loftiest abstractions should not be taught to children. Locke carries so far the revolt against the traditional method as to discard all set endeavors to train memory. While recog- nizing very fully the claims of the senses, he advocates also " reasoning with children " in what seems, indeed, a moderate and sensible degree ; * yet the recommendation excites the ire of Rousseau, who recognizes nothing in the child's mind but the faculties of sense, and declares he " would as soon require that a child be five feet high as that he reason at the age of eight." Yet for the observa- tion which Eousseau would inculcate in childhood, there was needed something of that rational element which Locke's pedagogy aimed to develop. There have been numerous examples in educational practice of attempts to tax the young mind with subjects beyond its powers, and of the employment of educational methods which, so far as successful, would involve a forced * Thus Locke remarks in recommending reasoning with children* about conduct : " They understand it as early as they do language and, if I misobserve not, they love to be treated as rational creatures sooner than is imagined." — Of Education^ % 81. TEACHING SCHOOL-CHILDREN TO THINK. 6 development of the reflective processes. The training to which James Mill, in conformity with Bentham's con- ceptions of education, subjected his gifted son, would prove a failure in the case of most children, since the presenta- tion of ideas for which the mind is not ready can generally produce only barren memory-work. True, a John Stuart Mill appeared to prove the rule by exception. The higher mathematics formed a considerable part of his childish studies ; logic entered into his intellectual diet at twelve, and at thirteen he was making a kind of treatise on politi- cal economy and abstracting Ricardo.* But, in his auto- biography, Mr. J. S. Mill records with a certain regret that " the course of my intellectual cultivation had made precocious and premature analysis the inveterate habit of my mind." There are sporadic examples of the meta- physically-inclined child : such a one startled a parent by abruptly inquiring, " How do you know anything is there where you see it?" Such premature buddings of the philosophic consciousness are, however, not to be fostered. The " Record" of A. B. Alcott's school, by Miss Peabody, furnishes some remarkable instances of apparent success in training children to introspective effort — a success partly to be explained by the practical interest in the ethical issues raised, partly due to the special genius and enthusiasm of the teacher. There has, however, been no noticeable tendency in recent pedagogy to force the child's attention upon the abstractions of mental and moral philosophy, whatever may have been the case as regards the abstractions of sci- ence. If any recently held theory of teaching has erred in the direction of excessive demands ujDon the reflective or reasoning powers, it has been one which aimed to * Bain's " J. S. Mill," pp. 7, 8. 6 TEACHING SCHOOL-CHILDREN TO THINK. secure conscious analysis and reasoned demonstration by the child of every process gone through in arithmetic, grammar, etc.* A distinguished American educator, sketching the course of educational tendencies in this country, f observed that there had been at one period "an oscillation from the prescriptive extreme to the ratiocina- tive ; from learning things and facts without their causes and reasons to the extreme in which nothing should be taught without all its grounds." In the ordinary studies there may be an undue effort at direct training of the logical powers. An error is made in seeking to anticipate the development of the logical method of thought ; even a more frequent error is that of treating highly abstract con- cepts as if they were simple, because their names are in com- mon use. Thus, in an account of observations made by him upon deaf-mute children, Preyer observes that " notlmig, leing dead, space, are concepts of a high order for them." There is evidently a practicable mean between the training which forces the development of reflective power, and one which would limit the child's education to mem- ory, or to sense and memory culture. It is certain that the juvenile mind is not to be treated as a mere knowledge-box, to be packed with intellectual supplies which may be brought out and assimilated as the journey of life develops at once the appetite and the capacity. Nor, on the other hand, is the child a "little Des- cartes," to accept nothing which he has not for himself * An American educational writer remarks, " It is a mistake to spend a large amount of time and effort in requiring young children formally to explain the rationale of their intellectual processes." f Dr. W. T. Harris, in " Report of St. Louis Public Schools, 1871." TEACHING SCHOOL-CHILDREN TO THINK. 7 proved ; nor is lie to be nourished intellectually by ab- struse trains of thought, of which in fact he can not gen- erally comprehend even the terms. Yet long before " Reasoning," strictly so called, is de- veloped, there is Rationality ; the exercise of intelligence in unifying the scattered particulars of sense; in corre- lating facts and lighting up one fact by another. In fact, rationality is all alive in the child's mind, in the curiosity that so often vainly asks the reason why, and often dies down into indifference and apathy because the once-eager inquirer found no aid or encouragement in his efforts to " read the riddle of the world." The rational, the relation-giving faculty, is by no means confined to highly abstract ideas and processes. There is an abundance of satisfaction for this faculty not only within the reach of the child's powers, but eagerly desired and sought for — from the first exhibition of that curiosity which, however crude and intermittent, testifies to a real interest in the relation of parts and wholes, and the behavior of things toward one another. While children evince unmistakably a dislike for re- mote abstractions, and possess a low degree of abstractive power, it is an error to regard them as incapable of gen- eral thought and rational connecting, even at very early periods. The child which at first "played like a cat, being amused with color, form, and movement," has soon its attention arrested by the connections and relations of things, and begins to try in a fitful and puzzled way to make them out for itself. It makes crude and often futile attempts at rational sjnithesis ; tentative and feeble "guesses at truth"; to abstract and generalize after a primitive fashion the child is only too ready. He appears often eager to name, to classify ; to reduce, as it were, the irritating multiplicity and conflict of his sensations into 8 TEACHING SCHOOL-CHILDREN TO THINK. some sort of harmony of apprehension. *'It is some- thmg ! " he declares, grasping at once the summum genus of generahzation, when he lacks ability to place an im- pression with any precision. The category of resemblance is used freely and vaguely ; progress in knowledge is made through a rapid and rough synthesis, which is analyzed and corrected by means of closer acquaintance with objects.* Rosmini, in his " Method in Education," f has devoted much attention to the child's mode of thinking, enforcing his view with interesting illustrations. "It is certain," he declares, " that the more ideas are general, the more congenial and familiar they are to the human mind, pro- vided they express only immediate abstractions — that is, such as denote a common element in the sensible things perceived by us. The case would be changed if the ab- stractions were such as are formed by the mind upon pre- vious abstractions, and which we have termed abstractions from abstractions." Thus the child " could never under- stand the meaning of the words laio^ justice^ etc." The abstractions which can be used are those which are not too far removed from the concrete. Scientific knowledge must, therefore, come to the young pupil more or less immersed in sense. For example, says Rosmini, J " the child forms his conceptions of a plant from seeing it growing in the ground, from its green color, from the common form of plants, from the cool, damp feeling of the leaves, etc. This is not and can not be expected to be the conception of the philosopher." Our author goes * However vague the child's concept may be, however deficient in exactness and true logical generality, it can yet represent " intel- lection " — the search after truth. t Cf. pp. 120, 121, etc. Jib., pp. 123, 124. TEACHING SCHOOL-CHILDREN TO THINK. 9 on to compare the specific abstraction of a plant as made by the philosopher with that in the mind of the little pupil, and concludes that " it would be a blunder to clas- sify plants for him by seeding and germination. He does not want a classification of that which germinates, but of that which is planted in the ground mid grows."*^ The instruction of children in science must be given, then, in a form modified to meet the limitations of their mental development. In conformity with this principle, a course of study in the natural sciences in the St. Louis Public Schools was spirally arranged, so as to cover sub- stantially the same ground at three successive periods, with an increasing abstractness as well as fullness of treatment as the age of the learner advanced. Children are readily interested in the facts and phenomena of science, but to grasp subtle and abstruse relations and to give protracted attention to reasoned processes of thought is as difficult for them in scientific subjects as in any others. That the reasoning powers should not be stimulated too early, affords no ground for failure to recognize the demands of the child's rationality, within the natural limits of its exercise, or for postponing a development and extension of reason which should go forward in graduated advance, in connection with that culture of the senses and the memory which necessarily predominates in children's education. Distinctly should we recognize the principle, so well stated by M. Compayre, that "all the faculties awaken at the same time in the human intelligence, but they do not advance at the same pace." Hence, the object-lessons given to young children should not be desultory presentations of isolated facts, but so arranged as to facilitate the growing apprehension of Nature as an organized system. The acquisition of infor- mation should not be pushed on at a rate which so taxes 10 TEACHIXG SCHOOL-CHILDREN TO THIXIC memory as to suppress or leave no room for the instinctive efforts of mind to make out sigjiificance in the connection of objects, events, ideas. While all can not be compre- hended or explained, the natural curiosity concerning rela- tions, causes, and reasons, should find at least enough satis- faction to keep it awake and expectant, and the child should be encouraged in seeking to form its own ideas from its own experience.* (The new methods in primary train- ing, properly administered, are admirably calculated to pro- mote this original mental effort.) As reason strengthens, the analysis of ideas which the study of language involves naturally aids its development, and the study of grammar and of arithmetical problems, in the upper gi-ades of the common schools, is properly prop^deutical to that express culture of the logical power and elaboration by reasoning of the ideas abeady acquired, which especially belongs to the high-school or more advanced stage of education. If the distinction be sufficiently emphasized between the primitive and more advanced steps in the development of " thought," and especially between the simple exercise of rationality and the consciously elaborated train of rea- soning, few will question that children should be " taught to think " or reason. Xor will the claim that rationality should be developed in its degree at every step of educa- tion, be regarded as inconsistent with the now generally accepted pedagogic maxim that the years spent in the common school should be especially devoted to training * In regard to ans^vering the questions of young children, Preyer writes : " I have from the beginning given to my boy, to the best of my knowledge, invariably, an answer to his questions intelligible to him and not contrary to truth; and have noticed that, in conse- quence, at a later period, in the fifth and especially in the seventh year, the questions prove to be more and more intelligent, because the previous answers are retained." — " The Mind of the Child," p. 218. TEACHING SCHOOL-CHILDREN TO THINK. 11 in observation, memory, and imagination, since the rational culture of these powers is now generally insisted on. Thus, Prof. W. T. Hams, writing of education in observa- tion, remarks that observation " is only taught by leading the pupil to tliiiik^ since the process is one of analysis and classification and of tracing causal relations." Indeed, without educing some insight, some revision of sense by thought, how can one teach in a living way either to observe or to remember? It is but "looking without seeing," if one does not see things somewhat in their place, relation, significance ; and, so seen, they recall themselves by the strongest — that is to say the rational — laws of association. In dealing with the second branch of our topic, namely, how to awaken, stimulate, or aid the development of thought in the minds of children, time forbids me to un- dertake more than the presentation and illustration of cer- tain important general principles, which I hope to treat in a way to suggest thought and elicit discussion. First, negatively, it is of great importance that the teacher should not allow, should constantly be on the watch against, habits of thoughtless or irrational mental action, if a paradoxical expression may be permitted. There is a frequent fusion of ideas and images in the pujDil's mind which is the opposite of thought ; a synthesis which is non- intellectual. The teacher is often bafiQed in his efforts by this simulation of thinking in the child's mind — a merely accidental jumble of ideas, names, images, which, substi- tuting itself for mental action proper, actually hinders genuine thought from emerging. This is a case of auto- matic association. Locke, in his " Essay," points out the misleading effects of a " tying together of ideas," which is " wholly owing to chance or custom," and advises educators " diligently to watch, and carefully to prevent, the undue 12 TEACHING SCHOOL-CHILDREN TO THINK. connection of ideas in the minds of young people." It is Locke, also, who is fond of reminding us, as in his " Educa- tion," that " children love to be busy " ; and in this fact lies a reason why so many odd and persistent irrational connec- tions of ideas are formed in their minds. When reason is not at work, the contents of the mind will, as it were, form their own accidental combinations. Again, when the mind, being not awake nor disposed to exert itself, is called upon to answer, an association by contiguity takes the place of in- tellectual action, nervous and muscular associations even respond, with results such as are often brought to view in " crammed " examinations. How else, for example, account for this kaleidoscopic jumble brought out, by a question in an examination on the Scriptures, by her Majesty's In- spector of Schools ? — " Write an account of the good Samaritan." "A certain man went down from Jerslem to Jeriker and he fell among thawns, and the thawns sprang up and choked him. Where- upon he gave tuppins to the hoast and said tak care on him and put him on his hone hass. And he past by on the hother side." — {Lori- don Times.) When reason is out of the way, mechanical association steps in and works mischief. Generally, howevef, there does occur a mixture of lucidity with the accidental unrea- son. Take as an example of this the case of the young man of Nantucket. Unable to think of an effective device for a ring designed for his intended, he consulted his father, who suggested "When this you see, remember me." Follow- ing this advice, semi-reasonably, the young man presented a ring inscribed " When this you see, remember father " ! Such absurdities in alleged mental action are worth our attending to, for what they suggest as to the ways in which true mental action is interfered with, and intel- lectual development hindered. TEACHING SCHOOL-CHILDREN TO THINK. 13 To counteract the tendency to irrational association, tlie evils must be understood and watched against. But, after all, they are largely symptomatic of defective train- ing, and the remedy is chiefly of a positive character. The mischief occurs mainly because the rational povrers are not awake and interested. To quote Locke again, " Knowledge is grateful to the understanding, as light to the eyes " ; but minds which are not enlightened and nourished, will act in an idle and mechanical fashion. When knowledge is habitually set before the mind in a scrappy manner ; when what is received is not organized and quickened as part of a growing whole, then the reason is not fed; it falls asleep; the mind becomes inert or frivolous, taking in its daily lessons as a task of words or intermittently apprehended ideas, and giving them out again quite undigested. Excessive " cramming," by habituating the learner to a divorce between words and ideas or objects, tends to develop irrationality in the learning process, and to con- tribute to a result which has been stigmatized as "The Artificial Production of Stupidity in Schools." Discoursing of these difficulties and the proper mode of treating them, we have already come in sight of a most important principle in the positive work of training pu- pils to think. It is that the different subject-matters of instruction are to be presented in such a manner as to secure unity of impression, and preserve a certain conti- nuity of thought on the part of the learner. In other words, there must be not only in the prescribed plan of studies, but in that general perspective and that articu- lation of parts which is furnished only by the art of the living teacher, a logical method which will encourage the pupil's mind to rational activity, by constantly affording new insight into the unity and correlation of facts ; con- 14 TEACHING SCHOOL-CHILDREN TO THINK. stantly gratifying tliat " pervading sense of order " which, as Lotze observes, "is the essential feature of human thought." "What wearies children," remarks Madame Necker, " is to make them jump over intermediate parts." Frag- mentary presentations of facts or ideas reflect the universe rather as chaos than cosmos, and discourage, or at least fail to assist, the child in incorporating what is offered into the organic life of his own mind. Things which lie on the mind as disjecta membra oi knowledge, with no perceptible bond of connection, do not become domesticated, do not enter into and strengthen the rational power ; only as facts are received in their relation to a whole does there arise an intellectual " correspond- ence between the organism and its environment." There occur, of course, many practical difficulties in an attempt to co-ordinate branches of study, to avoid abrupt transi- tions, to bridge gaps, etc. ; but the main point, after all, is to secure such unity of conception and aim in the teach- er's mind as to inspire and give confidence to the pupil. Such a book as one recently published, on " How to Study Geography" (written by Francis TV. Parker), is helpful not merely as regards modes of instruction in this subject, but as illustrating in a broad way Jacotot's peda- gogic maxim, that one hooh contains all hooks, or that all is in all. The knowledge of structure and climate being made the basis of all geographical instruction, the author gives exercises and suggestions which illustrate how the teach- ing of geography may be made quickening to thought, and the means of instruction in almost every branch of knowledge. Thus physical, economic, and political feat- ures are explained genetically, and in their interrelations ; as for example, how rivers rise and run, and in due order TEACHING SCHOOL-CHILDREN TO THINK. 15 how, where, and why cities rise and grow along them. (Note the contrast with the inverted order of conception prevailing in the school-boy's mind, who, in his composi- tion, remarked on the providential beneficence evinced in the fact that great rivers generally were found in the neighborhood of great cities !) Natural and moral facts are set forth in their geographical connections, and other branches of study are usefully employed in prosecuting this : it is pointed out, for instance, how the measurement and comparison of geographical distances may furnish a large variety of practical, and, consequently, especially in- teresting exercises in arithmetic. This method of teach- ing geography will indicate a general direction in which our new education is aiming, viz., to lead the pupil to form a habit of looking for the relation of every fact to the whole. In proportion as this aim is carried out, all subjects of study lead into and light up one another. Whatever topic be the starting-point, the aim is one, viz., not the communication of scraps of information, but the forming in the pupil's mind of a growing conception of life and the universe; a growing body of harmonized knowledge, in which each new item falls into its place, and is accepted with satisfaction as a sensible addition to the mind. Thus the mind will be kept alive and ex- pectant by the sense of a gradually increasing correspond- ence between itself and the universe. Knowledge will compose one world-picture in which the experience of the race is gradually becoming reflected in the unfolding mind. Unity of conception in the teacher's mind will cer- tainly tend to insure unity of impression in the learner's ; so far as this can be secured it will do away with that weariness which is produced in the learner's mind, by being abruptly summoned from one to another tract of knowledge without any natural transition. Instead of 16 TEACHING SCHOOL-CHILDREN TO THINK. occasioning an interruption, the change from one subject to another should increase interest, as presenting a new aspect of that unity amid diversity which is always grate- ful to our intelligence. Books and explanations, however, are not all that is necessary to teach children to think, and especially to think for themselves. For, essentially self -active though thought is, we may take a distinction even between thinking and thinking for one's self. We find an apparent ability to follow a train of thought in minds which do not readily take an initiative. We can not be satisfied, however, with a merely docile and sheep-like intelligence, which knows how to trace the footsteps of an intellectual guide, but not how to shape any course for itself. A good educator seeks in a measure to efface himself and bring his charge to intellectual independence, and how this may be done is next to be considered. The teacher has to contend against that acquiescent and imitative disposition in the pupil which is often due to his dread of " the trouble of initia- tion — the throes of originality." It is difficult either to keep or to delineate the safe middle way between an undue predominance of the teacher's personality and a deficiency in that influence which the teaching intelligence should exert upon the taught. Not wisely shall we too literally accept Kousseau's laissez-faire educational policy, as marked out for his Emile, who, as a boy, is left mostly to nature, with a tutor in the rear to be called on in case of difficulty. Much is to be expected from the new movement to connect the study of words with things, and to keep up in the school-room a greatly needed connection with the realities of the ex- ternal world. Yet there is ground to apprehend that too much is sometimes expected from the mere presentation of tangible facts, and that, in the emphasis laid upon the TEACHING SCHOOL-CHILDREN TO THINK. 17 efficiency of apparatus for teacliing through the senses, we may overlook the indispensable importance of that illuminating and kindling power which can emanate from the teaching intelligence. Wise was the Talmudic saying that " no man hath quickened his own soul." The thought of living teachers awakens dormant powers of thought. President Gar- field held that such intellectual influence as that of Mark Hopkins was a more potent educational force than any material aids which money could secure to a college. There is certainly nothing which can compensate for the absence of a living, working, and earnest intelligence in the teacher. As an example and an inspiration the teacher must lead the way if his disciples are to make daily progress in intelligence. An inert mind, even one which, well furnished at the start, has ceased to make ad- vances, lacks that incitive power which unconsciously radiates as it were from a mind nourished with fresh acquisitions, and glowing with healthy exercise. The teacher who is content to be a mere policeman of the school-room, can secure certain mechanical results ; but if his pupils learn to think, they will not owe it to him. The desk of the pedagogue ought never to be a refuge for the sleepy-head ! The child so much needs to feel a vital current from that source, acting on him as the living world might when he comes face to face with its urgencies and necessities ; brushing away the mists of reverie as they arise, enforcing watchful scrutinies, and a discriminative and selecting attention. Yet, while the teacher's mission is work, it is always to be remembered that he can not do the pupil's work for him ; and he may not forget that the object of his action upon the latter's mind is to awaken a reaction. 18 TEACHIXG SCHOOL-CHILDREN TO THINK. The child needs to be encouraged to put forth its own thoughts and sentiments. Since older people often lack the " courage of their convictions," why wonder if children often hesitate to give utterance or even to allow play to the genuine movement of their own minds in regard to the matters presented to them. Childhood has so many strange words to learn the meaning of, and so many state- ments to accept on authority, that it may naturally enough fall into a habit of accepting without question what is furnished to it, and repress the action of its own intelli- gence. This abnormal result of educational discipline is re- marked by Preyer, who finds the child even before lan- guage an original investigator, and describes him as one who "has not been prematurely artificialized by training and by suppression of his own states of mind; who learns of himself to think, just as he learns of himself to see and hear." * Uneducated people leading a secluded life sometimes manifest an originality of mind which may also be due to the absence of repression. Thoreau teUs of an ignorant woodsman whom he watched with interest becatise he .oc- casionally observed that the man was " thinking for himself and expressing his own opinion; a phenomenon so rare that I wotild any day walk ten miles to observe it." This woodsman " took his own view always, or would not pre- tend to see." It is this amiable " pretending to see," when one is in reality but falling in with the views of others, which does much intellectual harm. By all means should originality be encouraged. Even to let alone judiciously is a part of the wisdom needed in training the forming mind. As slowness of perception in children may be due * " The DeTelopment of the Intellect." TEACHING SCHOOLh^^ILDREX TO THES'K 19 to an awkwardness in effecting the necessarr co-ordination of the different nervous centers employed, so tardiness of thought may have its physical basis and natural explana- tion. The mind may then be artificialized by being forced into action which it is not ready for ; benumbed by the necessity, it may respond in a merely mechanical and imitative way. A certain amount of liberty is desirable, that the mind may take its own gait or unfold in its own way. For developing the independent or self -helping activity of intelligence, the new pedagogy offers methods not lack- ing in ingenuity or variety. Justly is great emphasis laid on the educational principle which Kant expressed in the maxim, " The best way to comprehend is to do." This principle was always, indeed, recognized in the importance assigned to original composition as an intellectual dis- cipline. An effort to express that which has been received is the most efficient means of acquainting one's self with one's own powers of thought, since " Thonghts disentangle, passing o'er the Kps ; Speech spreads those beauteous images abroad. Which else lie furled and clouded in the souL" To promote intellectual activity, expression must con- stantly react upon impression. But it is especially in the methods now being intro- duced into our schools, under the title of " Mantial Train- ing," that opportunity is afforded for action, and for the manifestation and culture of individuality. These methods, indeed, present more than one as]:»ect of utility. They are fitted to assist in keeping up a living relation between the school-room and the outward world, between books and the actions and facts which words describe. They not only elicit the interest of the pupil — an interest which may 20 TEACHING SCHOOL-CHILDREN TO THINK. by association be carried over to school- room pursuits less attractive to the senses — but it is also easily seen by one who watches the efforts of a roomful of children engaged in construction with colored papers, or in molding in clay, that each one is doing his own work in his own way. This spectacle offers a refreshing contrast to that mechan- ical drill in concert-exercises which once used to be re- garded by many as a notable feature in a well-regulated school. And what is here said of the interest excited by these methods, leads to the further consideration of the important principle that it is not through the intellect alone that pupils are to be awakened to think. The feel- ings also when awake must be enlisted in behalf of studies, and where dormant called into action. In seeking to engage an indifferent mind in study, one naturally endeavors first to connect the subject with some existing interest. In fact, so far as the conditions admit of it, the teacher should begin with the pupil where he finds him — i. e., where his heart is. He should connect the train of ideas he wishes to arouse with some utility the boy's mind is alive to, or some sentiment to which he is susceptible. A precocious child in Mr. Alcott's school, be- ing asked what a schoolmate should do who was thought- less and could not command his attention, exclaimed, " Then he should set his heart to work ! " The heart must be enlisted to secure the best head- work. How to do this is a question the answer to which may vary according to the circumstances. Tolstoi, in his experiments at common-school teaching in Russia, found that the school-children were more readily interested in social than in physical facts; they found difficulty in writing compositions about the most familiar objects of sense, but could talk or write freely about what occurred in their daily intercourse with other children. It TEACHING SCHOOL-CHILDREN TO THINK. 21 may be that the moral world is often much closer to the child's thought and feeling than the physical. Is the development of the moral nature of the child sufficiently kept in view in our American public-school teaching ? Is it not in danger of being lost sight of often, in the haste for intellectual results which can be recorded and tabulated? The problem, How to teach ethics in schools in an in- teresting and profitable way, is, to my mind, one which can not be solved apart from a consideration of the entire aim and system in education. The question seems to present little difficulty when the school itself is regarded as existing not merely to teach how to read or cipher, but, far more broadly, how to live ! Such a purpose cherished will not only insure moral teach- ing, but unify, elevate, and inspire all its efforts at instruc- tion. With this aim in view, the school will naturally present in its instruction such a picture of the physical and moral universe as will show to the novice somewhat how things really go on in the world. But it will not only set forth the work of man upon nature, his struggles for self-preservation in agriculture and the various forms of industry; it will also depict his efforts for something better, for self-development on ideal lines, as these efforts are put forth in art, literature, science, religion. The study of man's dwelling-place, and of the rudiments of the arts by which he has made it habitable, gains a uni- versal interest when it is made to center around the prog- ress of the race toward higher modes and standards of life, physical, intellectual, and moral. To make the young pupil acquainted with the best aspects of human experi- ence, the highest efforts of man to ennoble himself and improve his surroundings, is an aim which may well inspire the teacher, and impart life and interest to all his instruc- 22 TEACHING SCHOOL-CHILDREN TO THINK. tions. The pupil who feels that by book and teacher he is being made acquainted with the world he lives in, and the life that is lived to most purpose in it, will not be de- ficient in motives for independent intellectual exertion. But this branch of our subject, if treated according to its suggestiveness, would soon outrun the due limits of this address. I^or within such limits could we undertake to elaborate any one aspect of this very fruitful topic. SULLY'S TWO GREAT WORKS. Outlines of Psychology, with Special Reference to the Theory of Education. A Text-Book for Colleges. By James Sully, A.M., Ex- aminer for the Moral Sciences Tripos in the University of Cambridge, etc., etc. *' A book that has been long wanted by all who are engaged in the business of teaching and desire to master its principles. In the first place, it is an elaborate treatise on the human mind, of independent merit as representing the latest and best work of all schools of psjcho- ^gical inquiry. But of equal importance, and what will be prized as a new and most desirable feature of a work on mental science, are the educational applications that are made throughout in separate text and type, so that, with the exphcation of mental phenomena, there comes at once the application to the art of education." Crown 8vo. Price, $3.00. Teacher's Hand-Book of Psychology. On the Basis of "Outlines of Psychology." By James Sully, M. A. A practical exposition of the elements of Mental Science, with spe- cial appUcations to the Art of Teaching, designed for the use of Schools, Teachers, Reading Circles, and Students generally. This book is not a mere abridgment of the author's '* Outlines," but has been mainly re- written for a more direct educational purpose, and is essentially a new work. It has been heretofore announced as " Elements of Psychology." NOTE. — No American abridgments or editions of Mr. Sully^s toorks tre authorized except those published by the undersigned. 12mo, 414 pages. Price, $1.50. D. APPLETON & CO., Publishebs, New York, Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco. EDUCATION IN RELATION TO MANUAL INDUSTRY. By Arthur Mac Arthur, LL. D. 12mo. Cloth, $1.50. "Mr, MacArthur's able treatise is designed to adapt to the usual methods of instruction a eyatem of rudimental science and manual art. He describes the grogress of industrial education in France, Belgium, Russia, Germany, and Great ritain, and the establishment of their professional schools. The technical schools of the United States are next reviewed, Mr, MacArthur is anxious that the State governments should take up the subject, and enable every girl and boy to receive a practical education which would fit them for use in this world. This valuable book sliould be carefully read and meditated upon. The discusBion is of high importance,"— PAi/ade/i^Aia Fublic Ledger. "The importance of this book can not be too greatly urged. It gives a statistical account of the industries of various countries, the number of workmen and workwomen, and the degree of perfection attained. America is behind in native production, and, when we read of the importation of foreign workmen in simple manufacture such as glass, it is a stimulus for young men to train them- selves early as is done in foreign countries. The necessity of training-schools and the value and dignity of trades are made evident in this work. It is particu- larly helpful to women, as it mentions the variety of employments which they can practice, and gives the success already reached by them. It serves as a hiS' tory and encyclopaedia of facts relating to industries, and is very well written."— Boston Globe. "The advocates of industrial education in schools will find a very complete manual of the whole subject in Mr. MacArthur's hook..'''— Springfield Bepublican. " A sensible and much-needed plea for the establishment of schools for indus- try by the state, supported by the practical illustration of what has been accom- plished for the good of the state by such schools in foreign countries. Great Britain has never regretted the step she took when, recognizing at the Ci^stal Palace Exhibition her inferiority in industrial art-work, she at once established the South Kensington Museum, with its annexed art-schools, at a cost of six mill- ion dollars."- The Critic. " The aim of the book is succinctly stated, as it ought to be, in the preface : 'What is industrial education ? What are its merits and objects, and, above all, what power does it possess of ministering to some useful purpose in the practical arts of life?' These are questions about which we are deeply concerned in thig country, and the author has essayed to answer them, not by an abstract discus- sion of technical in?tmction, bat by giving a full and accurate account of the experiments in industrial trainin