Read Ebook: The Philosophy of Teaching The Teacher The Pupil The School by Sands Nathaniel

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e idea that all their means of subsistence and enjoyment can only be obtained by labor; not only should their attention be called to the fact, but they should be made sensible how much skill, knowledge and labor and economy were needed for the creation of existing stores, and are needed for their maintenance in undiminished quantity; nor can this be done in any way more fitly or completely than by performing under their eyes, and causing them to take part in, the actual business of production. The well-ordered school is an industrial school, in which every industrial occupation, manufacturing or agricultural, for the carrying on of which convenience can be made, should be successively practised by the children, under the direction of skilled workers.

The farm, the factory, the shop, the counting-house and the kitchen, should each have its type in the school, and present to the minds of the children a picture of real life; while their practice would impart a skill and adaptability to the pupils which would insure their preparedness for all the vicissitudes of the most eventful life.

Can any reason be suggested for adopting a different system of instruction for girls than that which shall be determined on as best fitted for boys? We confess to our inability to perceive any--both are organisms of the same all-pervading nature--to both the most intimate knowledge of that which skill and perseverance secure, seems to be desirable for their happiness, and that of all mankind. Of the two, perhaps, the greatest knowledge is needed for the woman, FOR HERS IS THE MORE IMPORTANT AND MORE PERFECTED ORGANISM; to her is committed the performance of the chief functions of the highest act of organized beings, viz., reproduction; therefore, upon her knowledge and conduct, far more than upon that of the man, depends the future of the beings in whom she is to live again.

Another great object with the true teacher, will be so to train the judgment of his pupils as to avoid that forming of unconsidered opinion which is the parent of prejudice and a chief obstacle to progress. Trained to investigate the foundations of every fact in nature and in science, to weigh the evidences on which they are asked to receive assertions, whether of a physical, moral or social nature, they will ever have a reason for the faith that is in them; and will know how to SUSPEND JUDGMENT when the means of knowledge are insufficient.

Such pupils will not be apt to form opinions either in physical science, politics, or industrial life, without having first thoroughly examined the bases of the opinions they form and express, while the prejudices imbibed from nurses or parents, will be subjected to vigorous investigation, and either received as sound doctrine, or discarded as ill-founded and superstitious. Of how many prejudices are we not the victims, without being ourselves in the least conscious of the fact! Our political opinions, our social customs, are taken up like the fashion of a coat, without reason or reflection; and habit and association, but too often hold us captive long after reason has pronounced her condemnation; our minds have been warped from truth, and we fail to perceive our own deficiency, to recognize the mental dishonesty with which we are afflicted. All this will be averted in the case of those who in their youth are trained to a rigorous investigation of every fact presented to their minds, until the habit of truth, not merely of speaking and telling the truth, but that mental truthfulness which shrinks from accepting a falsehood for truth, and acknowledges ignorance rather than utter what is not assured--will become as much a part of the pupil's nature as is his desire for food. In short, he would be so trained as to feel as great a repugnance to plunge his mind into moral, as his body into material filth.

Again, while ever merciful and pitying to the criminal, he would be intolerant of falsehood wherever it might be found; and he would deem himself derelict in his duty, as a man and as a citizen, did he leave corruption to rot and fester in the Commonwealth, because he and others like him would not take the trouble to raise their voices against wrongdoers!

What a different aspect would not this great city of New York offer to our inspection to what it now presents, had a generation been trained in the knowledge, and practised in the observance of their duties as citizens!

Did those merchants and traders, who, in their private dealings would scorn a lie, but recognize the duty they owe as citizens and as men of truth, they would, by uniting, soon sweep away the serious discredit to our country and to Republican Institutions, the festering corruption of this city and of the State; yet it is to their supine, nay wicked tolerance of the evil that we owe the specimens of judicial corruption by which we are robbed and dishonored. Can it be said that any system of education can be sound, which shall fail to demonstrate, at least to the older pupils, their duties as citizens, to take an active, intelligent and upright interest in public affairs; that shall fail to instruct them in the principles by which their judgments should be guided, and lead them to discard every action in public affairs, which they would not approve in private life?

We must cease to live in books, in past mystifications, in useless theories, in foolish and unprofitable discussions, in ancient ideas and customs, and grasp the living present with all the richness, fullness and beauty of its life. The chemistry of nature, the work of her great laboratory, should be the study of youth as of age, instead of dead languages and the vain and foolish mythology of Greeks and Romans wherewith at present we poison the minds of the young.

"Can we take burning coals into our bosom and not be burned?" Can we suffer the impressionable minds of youth to be impregnated with the filth of the heathen poets in their imaginings of gods as disgusting as themselves, without staining the pure tablet of the mind with spots and grossness, while the children acquire a distaste for that glorious nature whose volume should be their constant study?

We have to deal with the great present, with life, not with death--to promote health, physical and moral, not to propagate infectious sickness. The present, wisely improved, leads to a happy future, and is the only road to that goal. We can not jump the present and its duties and reach the future so as to enjoy it, neither can the dead past lighten the labors of the living present. There is a past which still lives and vivifies the present, but the quaint and filthy imagery in which the ancient priests disguised from the profane--from all but the initiated--the mysteries of their lore, can be of small account to a people whose great duty is the dissemination of light and truth.

Every thing that has any relation to man's comfort and well-being, or to his happiness as a social being, that it is, and not the dead past that we should learn, and of the things that affect us most nearly we should learn first. What did the ancients know of steam, of electricity, of the material elements of nature, of her forces? And little as we know, how much of that little could be learned from a lifelong study of ancient lore? If there be aught of value in the laws of ancient Rome which has not been translated into our native tongue, let it be translated; but let not our youth waste precious years in learning to play upon an instrument which when learned can give forth no sound. But if we turn to Nature and to her grand volume, we there find all the knowledge man can acquire. From her study, too, we can learn a lesson, not perhaps among the least important, as to the limits fixed by nature to human knowledge. To know of a surety what those things are which never can be known to mortal man, is a knowledge, the want of which has driven many to puerile and superstitious practices, and many more to madness and despair.

From the great book of Nature, God's book, is to be learned the principle of justice, of love, of wisdom, of truth; and as the germ of justice is developed in the mind, the mind is brought in contact with the Great Fountain, absorbs a portion of its light, enlarges, develops, becomes stronger, assimilates to itself the essence of the great Godhead, and renders man godlike.

So with each of the other faculties of man; each draws its nourishment from its special FOUNTAIN. Wisdom, love, justice, and truth should preside; and if judgment, sympathy and conscientiousness be judiciously trained and developed, they will help to develop harmoniously all the other faculties. But to this end they, and each and all of man's faculties, must be brought into a wholesome, natural contact, each with its proper food; and by natural we mean not that contact which might peradventure happen if left uncared for, but such as the nature of the faculty demands for its development in due harmony, to produce the greatest amount of happiness to its possessor. To supply this food, to bring to each faculty its proper aliment, is the business of the true teacher. If we desire a child to be truthful, we must bring it in contact with truth, and bring it to love truth by causing its practice to inure to the child's enjoyment. If we wish it to be wise, we must bring its mind in contact with wisdom, exercise its analytical powers, and train its judgment; let it see sound judgment producing happiness; let it see how beautiful and desirable is the possession of wisdom, and the child will soon learn to seek it for its own sake.

To chastise a child for speaking that which is untrue may fill it with fear, but does not make it love truth. The love of truth and of wisdom must be cultivated as we cultivate the love of music. "Seek me early, and ye shall find me." "Knock, and it shall be opened unto you." That which the mind seeks it will find. The natural relationships are established, and it is only for us to work in harmony with, and not obstruct or interfere with them. It is the "true relationship of things" we need to learn. There is nothing in us that is not in nature. All the forces developed in man are but developments of nature; and all the forces required for his nourishment and strength exist in the bosom of Nature. Matter, light, heat, electricity are not produced by him. In nature they exist; remove any one of them and he perishes. To Nature then must we ever turn as the reservoir of nourishment and as the teacher, by the study of whose volume we learn all of wisdom that can be known of mortal man, or that can tend to his well-being; and her true relationships must be the constant object of our search. Before the knowledge of her true relationships disappear superstition and fear and mystery. The lightning's flash, the thunder's roar, the falling meteor and the sun's eclipse cease to terrify and alarm. Witches, hobgoblins and demons come no longer to trouble us; the most unusual phenomena awaken only philosophical research and curiosity. And what is true of the full-grown man is not less true of the child.

That school wherein children above the age of infancy fail to assist the teacher in his instruction, is an ill-ordered school. It is not the subject, but the teacher who is uninteresting; he scolds, worries and punishes his pupils, when he himself is the fitter subject for the lash. He awakens the sense of fear which should lie dormant, while the other faculties of his pupils slumber in spiritless inactivity.

As the object of education is to prepare children to enter successfully and happily into life, and wisely to discharge all the duties devolving upon them as they unfold into men and women, and occupy the sphere assigned to them, the simple rule for the course of instruction seems to be, that they should learn those things in the order in which they can be received by the child's mind, which most vitally affect their well-being and happiness.

As only a healthy, well-developed body can afford a home to a healthy, well-developed mind, physical culture claims early and constant attention, and should receive that careful regard to which the truth contained in the well-known aphorism: "We are fearfully and wonderfully made," entitles it. The teachings of the sciences of Pathology and of sanitary science should be judiciously and carefully elucidated, practically and theoretically; presented step by step to the mind of the child; and the child's body and mind should be carefully trained, so as to develop all its physical and mental powers in harmony. Gymnasiums for the body, conducted by men who have made themselves masters of anatomy and physiology, should be an essential feature in every school, so that ignorance and the desire to excel may not lead to putting a strain upon the system calculated materially to injure organs which need careful and judicious development. Plays, games, dancing, marching and the gymnasium all require the careful supervision of a teacher well versed in a practical knowledge of the human system, and thoroughly appreciative of the great truth, "We are fearfully and wonderfully made." But the foundation for the school as for the life career must be laid at home, and much as the teacher can do, he can never supply deficiencies resulting from the want of a well-ordered home or of a healthy home training. Never, save under necessity, should the parent yield up his sacred duty to another, at least during the tender years of childhood.

The education of the heart and of the affections, is as essential as the school education, and these can never be so well cultivated as under the influence of home. All must be developed in order to maintain the true equilibrium. The boarding-school is not the place for children to attain a sound moral development, and the sooner parents generally understand this truth, the better for their children, for themselves and for society. As well uproot the flower, or shrub or tree, and expect it to flourish, as to cut the child off from the influence of home, and the care of a loving mother, father, brother and sister, and hope that the sympathetic faculties of its mind can attain their just development.

Physical culture, heretofore neglected among us--the body being left to grow up as it may happen or chance--will form a prominent feature of training in every well-ordered school. All the muscles of the body will be in turn exercised, developed. The ancient Greeks afforded us here also a wise example, which we have signally failed to imitate.

Let us secure for our children all the advantages we can from an enlightened and natural system of education, and do all we can to perfect both mind and body. How often is the cry repeated, "Mamma, tell me a story," and mamma, tired and weary, says she is too busy, or, for the want of a better, tells over again for the hundredth time, "Little Red Riding Hood," or some other equally foolish or more injurious tale, such as Bluebeard or Cinderella. Anecdotes of great men, suitably arranged, events in history and biography, carrying with them valuable and important morals, will afford all the amusement the child desires, without developing a love for the marvellous and false, which leads it away in infancy from the simple, truthful, and natural. If children are to be taught to think naturally and truthfully, we can not begin too young, and it is the duty of parents to remember that Valentine and Orson, Cinderella, Bluebeard, and such stories, are a web of false and exaggerated statements that will, and do produce injurious effects upon the child's mind. The story of Aladdin's Lamp has made many a child desire to enjoy wealth without labor, and has exerted a most pernicious, though unsuspected, influence upon his future. Children, not less than men, seek an easy road to the objects of their desires; and while works of imagination are to be by no means discarded in mental training, such should not be selected as give false notions of the busy and industrial life into which the child is to be introduced. Even in the choice and use of the finest works of fiction, the greatest caution is necessary. The little one can hardly distinguish between a fable that amuses it, and a lie told to shield it from punishment. If it hear nothing but truth, it will know nothing but truth; and a truthful mind is a glorious thing to behold in children as in men. "An idle brain is the devil's workshop;" therefore let there be no idle brains, but let all work usefully and pleasantly. Usefully we say, for even amusement is useful. We live in a world of use, in a world of beauty, a world that can be greatly improved, and human happiness largely increased, according as we avail ourselves of the knowledge already acquired for the right teaching and training of the young, so that they may grow up and develop into happy, self-supporting men and women, diffusing happiness to all around, themselves happy in proportion to the happiness they cause.

Upon the organization and arrangement of the school largely depends the success of the educator. Two things must be borne constantly in mind. First, to create truthful and intellectual atmosphere, where wisdom, honor, and knowledge can be inhaled as with the breath, and second, to make the school cheerful and attractive in every way possible. We must get rid of the idea now generally prevailing among children, that the school is to be resorted to with regret and escaped from with pleasure.

So soon as the child will look at and become interested in pictures and toys, and will listen to tales and little stories, it can profitably be introduced in the school, the first department of which should be the Infant-school, or, as the Germans so aptly term it, the children's garden, or Kinder Garten.

Here plaiting, modelling, and building, with simple object lessons for the older infants, develop their powers of observation, and give employment and impart skill to little fingers which might else be engaged in destroying furniture or clothes, or in pilfering from the sugar-bowl. Practical familiarity with the properties of lines, angles, circles, spheres, cylinders, cubes, cones, and the conic sections will be acquired, which will give a life and reality to the geometrical studies which will occupy them in their school career. Dancing and singing will relieve the tedium of sitting, shake off the surplus energy, give rest to the body, and power, time, and tune to the voice. Models of houses, stores, workshops, kitchens, farms, and factories, which later on they will assist in making, will be a source alike of amusement and instruction.

In the children's garden no teacher should have charge of more than about twelve children, who should regard her as their mother-teacher, while she should seek to win the love and confidence of the little ones as the beginning of her work.

Each class of twelve should have their own special room, while for general purposes, such as music, drilling, gymnastic exercises, games, tableaux, and exhibitions of the magic lantern, the oxyhydrogen microscope, the stereopticon, and the like, they should assemble in a large hall. The details of arrangements will readily suggest themselves. The main feature is to have all things natural, free, pleasant, cheerful, bright, refined, and unrestrained by external forms or rigid rules, at the same time that order is secured by an easy discipline.

So deeply are we impressed with the importance and utility of the kinder garten, and with the high qualities required by the teacher of the very young, that we are more and more disposed to believe that the true order in rank and promotion among teachers should be, to speak in paradox, downwards; that is to say, the younger the children to be taught, the higher the rank and remuneration of the teacher; for not only is an extensive range of knowledge necessary to enable the teacher truthfully to answer the innumerable questions of inquisitive infancy, and to avoid giving false notions, to be afterwards with greater or less difficulty removed--always with a shock to the moral sentiment when the child discovers it has been deceived--but also a knowledge of the infant mind, a perception of the thoughts and fancies which chase one another through the infant brain, a knowledge and perceptive power which only a watchful and loving experience can acquire. An industry and a patience far beyond any needed by the teacher of more advanced pupils are also required by the highly-cultivated men and women, to whom alone the training of infant minds should be intrusted. Advanced pupils go more than half-way to meet their teacher--the infant can render no assistance to his, all has to be borne, suffered and done for him--his future habits depend mainly on those given to him in his earliest years. Yet the care of him in these important days is generally confided to ignorant nurses and to the less-skilled class of teachers.

In building the school, a pleasing style of architecture should be adopted, and the walls of the main hall should be hung with diagrams of all kinds, illustrative of natural history in its largest sense, of the sciences and of the mechanical arts, and with portraits or busts of distinguished men. The walls of the class-rooms should be decorated with diagrams and maps and figures referring to the special branches taught therein.

A large and commodious laboratory should be fitted up in the building, to enable every pupil to acquire experimentally that knowledge of chemical forces and action which books alone can never impart. A convenient observatory should afford facility for astronomical study and observation.

On the top floors or around the building should be arranged workshops, where the use of tools and machinery could be taught. The classes should assemble in the large hall, in the morning, where they might join in singing or light gymnastic exercises, or listen to some short appropriate address before betaking themselves to their class-rooms.

The teaching in these latter should be conducted, wherever practicable, upon the Socratic method, and every branch of science and of art could be thus explained. The mother unconsciously uses this method in educating or drawing out the first perceptions of infancy and early youth; and the impressions derived from this method of acquiring knowledge are the most lasting, being such as become most absolutely assimilated with the pupil's mind. The teacher would also, at frequent intervals, conduct his class into the fields and woods for the study of botany, entomology, and geology, where Nature would supply in abundance the materials, and the teacher would be the only book. Instruction in the various trades which could be conveniently practised should receive attention, the taste of the pupils being made a guide to selection.

Some portion of the teaching which goes on in school should be performed by the pupils, under the supervision of the teacher. No adult can so thoroughly enter into a child's mind as can another child; nor is this the only reason.

That is not fully known which can not be thoroughly used and applied, and knowledge can not be applied which its possessor can not himself impart. A perfect illustration of this truth is furnished us in the training of the soldier.

Upon nothing, perhaps, have the knowledge and skill of the most powerful intellects been more concentrated than upon the science and art of mutual slaughter; and in establishing the soldiers' drill, an exhaustive analysis of the means by which the desired object was to be attained has been pursued. The men whose intellects have developed that drill, have not been content to treat the soldier as a pupil only. Each recruit has in turn to teach, as well as to learn to practise what he has learned, by drilling others whom he is made temporarily to command, as well as to practise his drill under the command of his officer; for only by such means could the highest degree of efficiency be secured. The reasons which led to the adoption of this principle in the barrack apply equally to the school.

This principle of giving and receiving we also see exemplified in Nature. Animals inhale oxygen from the air and return carbonic acid, which serves to build up the structure of the plant, and the latter in its turn gives out oxygen to supply the consumption of animals.

Every day--in the middle of the day, in winter, in the summer, early in the morning, or in the evening--gymnastic training on the system of the Swedish anatomist Ling or of the German Turners would form a portion of the curriculum, for which convenient apparatus would be provided.

Music, both vocal and instrumental, would be taught to all, but only those more gifted by nature would be educated to perform solo. Nearly all persons can be trained to sing part-music pleasantly and intelligently, and to perform moderately on some instrument. The cultivation of the musical faculties harmonizes the mind, and affords a never-failing source of solace and recreation. The attempt to convert all persons into solo performers, and the hypocritical applause with which their discordant notes are indiscriminately greeted, deprives society of the pleasures which part-music well performed would afford, by encouraging all to attempt what they are pretty sure to do badly, to the exclusion of what they would be equally likely to do well.

We have reserved for the last, to enumerate what is, perhaps, the most important of all the subjects of instruction.

What! teach political economy to children? Even so. It will be conceded, that to teach the future laborers the laws by which the wages of their labor will be regulated, how high wages may be secured and low wages prevented--to teach the future capitalists the laws by which their profits will be determined, how large profits may be secured, and loss, failure, crises, and panics avoided--must be a desirable, if it be a practicable thing. Is it practicable? The experience of twenty years has proved that it is. The experiment has been tried by Mr. Wm. Ellis, the wise and noble founder of the Birkbeck schools of London, England, who not only devoted his surplus means to the endowment of true schools, but gave also his time to instruct in the principles of the science of human well-being--alike the poor children by whom his schools were attended and the children of the Queen of England. He also instructed and trained a corps of teachers, professional and volunteer, and by one of the latter a class was conducted in the winter of 1867, '68 at the Normal School of this city of some 35 to 40 teachers engaged in the practical work of teaching in our common schools, who, under his guidance, became, after a short course of some twenty or more lessons, enthusiastic advocates for the introduction of this study into the schools; for not only does it teach the conditions of industrial success, but it is also a science of morals and of ethics far more worthy of the attention it has never yet received in this or, indeed, in any country, than that which is given to what goes under the name of moral teaching and training. It is by gradual steps--by the employment of the Socratic method of instruction--with a rare use of text-books, that the most intricate problems of this science can be unfolded to pupils with such effect that a child of fourteen or fifteen years of age, who shall have passed through a course of four or five years' instruction, would put to the blush, with few exceptions, alike the members of both houses of the United States Congress and of the British Parliament.

A museum and a library would be necessary adjuncts to such a school as we have described. It would need but a few seasons to get together in the various excursions taken by pupils and teachers, quite a collection of botanical, entomological, and geological specimens. These would serve as objects for illustrating the teacher's lessons, and for examination by the pupils. The drying, preservation, and arrangement of plants, animals, and minerals, in which the pupils would assist, would serve to impart to them a skill and dexterity, which they would know how to value, and would be eager to acquire, and, together with their frequent visits to the museum, would serve to cultivate a love of nature and devotion to the study of her works.

The library, besides containing treatises on science and for reference, would be filled with books of travels, and the nobler English and foreign classics; the books would be loaned to the pupils as in ordinary circulating libraries, and a pleasant reading-room would be furnished with the better class of periodicals and newspapers.

To be deprived for a time of the right to visit the museum or reading-room, or to borrow books from the library, would be one of the severest punishments known in the school.

It is hardly necessary to say that the selection of the principal of such a school as we have indicated is among the most difficult problems of its establishment. His qualifications should be as near the perfection of manhood as can possibly be found. Invited by a large and generous salary , it is to be hoped such a teacher could be found.

Such a principal, after a fixed period of probation, should not be removable except on a very large vote of the proprietors of the school to that effect, but his office should be vacated on his attaining the age of 60 or 65 years. The selection of teachers to assist him in his duties should be left to himself. The remuneration of the assistant teachers should also be large, and should be such as not only to enable them to live in comfort, but to make ample provision for their future when the age of labor shall have passed.

The chief position in society should be assured to the principal and his assistants by the proprietors of the school.

The visits of the former to the houses of the latter should be regarded as an honor, the greatest respect and deference should be paid to them, and the pupils should be taught to look upon them with love and respect next only to that they pay their parents.

The best investment a parent can make of his wealth is in the proper education of his children. Life is not merely to be born, to grow, to eat, to drink, and breathe. Noise is not music. Life is such as we take it and make it, or rather as it is taken hold of and made for us by those to whom the care of our youthful days is intrusted.

Let us endeavor to picture to ourselves the being likely to be produced by a system of teaching and training, continued for successive generations, such as we have indicated above. Let us imagine the full development of the most complex of nature's organisms--a part of the one living organism of the Universe, the latest product of her laboratory; considered, as a part of the great Cosmos, the most perfect, yet but an integer in the whole; the ultimate development of nature's chemistry, yet forming an atom of her living unity; combining and possessing the widest relationships, even embracing therein the entire volume of that nature whose true relationships comprise all knowledge, truly "the noblest study of mankind." Let us try and draw the picture of the developed man!

Robust and supple of limb, symmetrical of shape, his muscles swelling beneath their healthy development; with head erect, conscious of his strength and skill, which he puts forth for the protection of the weak, and for the purpose of drawing from nature her bounteous stores; free from sickness or disease, in harmony with nature, at peace with his fellow-men, possessing a competent knowledge of nature's laws, and guiding his conduct to be in accord therewith, "sitting beneath his own vine and fig-tree," "blessed in all the works of his hands," and diffusing blessings and happiness around. Such is the picture of THE HEALTHY MIND IN A HEALTHY FRAME, which it is in man's power to procreate and rear!

DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION,} CORNER OF GRAND AND ELM STREETS, } NEW YORK, June 5th, 1869. }

TO MAGNUS GROSS, Esq.,

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