Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects. Spencer Herbert

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СКАЧАТЬ sympathy? Mark how the infant sitting on your knee thrusts into your face the toy it holds, that you too may look at it. See when it makes a creak with its wet finger on the table, how it turns and looks at you; does it again, and again looks at you; thus saying as clearly as it can – "Hear this new sound." Watch the elder children coming into the room exclaiming – "Mamma, see what a curious thing," "Mamma, look at this," "Mamma, look at that: " a habit which they would continue, did not the silly mamma tell them not to tease her. Observe that, when out with the nurse-maid, each little one runs up to her with the new flower it has gathered, to show her how pretty it is, and to get her also to say it is pretty. Listen to the eager volubility with which every urchin describes any novelty he has been to see, if only he can find some one who will attend with any interest. Does not the induction lie on the surface? Is it not clear that we must conform our course to these intellectual instincts – that we must just systematise the natural process – that we must listen to all the child has to tell us about each object; must induce it to say everything it can think of about such object; must occasionally draw its attention to facts it has not yet observed, with the view of leading it to notice them itself whenever they recur; and must go on by and by to indicate or supply new series of things for a like exhaustive examination? Note the way in which, on this method, the intelligent mother conducts her lessons. Step by step she familiarises her little boy with the names of the simpler attributes, hardness, softness, colour, taste, size: in doing which she finds him eagerly help by bringing this to show her that it is red, and the other to make her feel that it is hard, as fast as she gives him words for these properties. Each additional property, as she draws his attention to it in some fresh thing which he brings her, she takes care to mention in connection with those he already knows; so that by the natural tendency to imitate, he may get into the habit of repeating them one after another. Gradually as there occur cases in which he omits to name one or more of the properties he has become acquainted with, she introduces the practice of asking him whether there is not something more that he can tell her about the thing he has got. Probably he does not understand. After letting him puzzle awhile she tells him; perhaps laughing at him a little for his failure. A few recurrences of this and he perceives what is to be done. When next she says she knows something more about the object than he has told her, his pride is roused; he looks at it intently; he thinks over all that he has heard; and the problem being easy, presently finds it out. He is full of glee at his success, and she sympathises with him. In common with every child, he delights in the discovery of his powers. He wishes for more victories, and goes in quest of more things about which to tell her. As his faculties unfold she adds quality after quality to his list: progressing from hardness and softness to roughness and smoothness, from colour to polish, from simple bodies to composite ones – thus constantly complicating the problem as he gains competence, constantly taxing his attention and memory to a greater extent, constantly maintaining his interest by supplying him with new impressions such as his mind can assimilate, and constantly gratifying him by conquests over such small difficulties as he can master. In doing this she is manifestly but following out that spontaneous process which was going on during a still earlier period – simply aiding self-evolution; and is aiding it in the mode suggested by the boy's instinctive behaviour to her. Manifestly, too, the course she is adopting is the one best calculated to establish a habit of exhaustive observation; which is the professed aim of these lessons. To tell a child this and to show it the other, is not to teach it how to observe, but to make it a mere recipient of another's observations: a proceeding which weakens rather than strengthens its powers of self-instruction – which deprives it of the pleasures resulting from successful activity – which presents this all-attractive knowledge under the aspect of formal tuition – and which thus generates that indifference and even disgust not unfrequently felt towards these object-lessons. On the other hand, to pursue the course above described is simply to guide the intellect to its appropriate food; to join with the intellectual appetites their natural adjuncts —amour propre and the desire for sympathy; to induce by the union of all these an intensity of attention which insures perceptions both vivid and complete; and to habituate the mind from the beginning to that practice of self-help which it must ultimately follow.

      Object-lessons should not only be carried on after quite a different fashion from that commonly pursued, but should be extended to a range of things far wider, and continued to a period far later, than now. They should not be limited to the contents of the house; but should include those of the fields and the hedges, the quarry and the sea-shore. They should not cease with early childhood; but should be so kept up during youth, as insensibly to merge into the investigations of the naturalist and the man of science. Here again we have but to follow Nature's leadings. Where can be seen an intenser delight than that of children picking up new flowers and watching new insects; or hoarding pebbles and shells? And who is there but perceives that by sympathising with them they may be led on to any extent of inquiry into the qualities and structures of these things? Every botanist who has had children with him in the woods and lanes must have noticed how eagerly they joined in his pursuits, how keenly they searched out plants for him, how intently they watched while he examined them, how they overwhelmed him with questions. The consistent follower of Bacon – the "servant and interpreter of nature," will see that we ought modestly to adopt the course of culture thus indicated. Having become familiar with the simpler properties of inorganic objects, the child should by the same process be led on to an exhaustive examination of the things it picks up in its daily walks – the less complex facts they present being alone noticed at first: in plants, the colours, numbers, and forms of the petals, and shapes of the stalks and leaves; in insects, the numbers of the wings, legs, and antennæ, and their colours. As these become fully appreciated and invariably observed, further facts may be successively introduced: in the one case, the numbers of stamens and pistils, the forms of the flowers, whether radial or bilateral in symmetry, the arrangement and character of the leaves, whether opposite or alternate, stalked or sessile, smooth or hairy, serrated, toothed, or crenate; in the other, the divisions of the body, the segments of the abdomen, the markings of the wings, the number of joints in the legs, and the forms of the smaller organs – the system pursued throughout being that of making it the child's ambition to say respecting everything it finds all that can be said. Then when a fit age has been reached, the means of preserving these plants, which have become so interesting in virtue of the knowledge obtained of them, may as a great favour be supplied; and eventually, as a still greater favour, may also be supplied the apparatus needful for keeping the larvæ of our common butterflies and moths through their transformations – a practice which, as we can personally testify, yields the highest gratification; is continued with ardour for years; when joined with the formation of an entomological collection, adds immense interest to Saturday-afternoon rambles; and forms an admirable introduction to the study of physiology.

      We are quite prepared to hear from many that all this is throwing away time and energy; and that children would be much better occupied in writing their copies or learning their pence-tables, and so fitting themselves for the business of life. We regret that such crude ideas of what constitutes education, and such a narrow conception of utility, should still be prevalent. Saying nothing on the need for a systematic culture of the perceptions and the value of the practices above inculcated as subserving that need, we are prepared to defend them even on the score of the knowledge gained. If men are to be mere cits, mere porers over ledgers, with no ideas beyond their trades – if it is well that they should be as the cockney whose conception of rural pleasures extends no further than sitting in a tea-garden smoking pipes and drinking porter; or as the squire who thinks of woods as places for shooting in, of uncultivated plants as nothing but weeds, and who classifies animals into game, vermin, and stock – then indeed it is needless to learn anything that does not directly help to replenish the till and fill the larder. But if there is a more worthy aim for us than to be drudges – if there are other uses in the things around than their power to bring money – if there are higher faculties to be exercised than acquisitive and sensual ones – if the pleasures which poetry and art and science and philosophy can bring are of any moment; then is it desirable that the instinctive inclination which every child shows to observe natural beauties and investigate natural phenomena, should be encouraged. But this gross utilitarianism which is content to come into the world and quit it again without knowing what kind of a world it is or what it contains, may be met on its own ground. It will by and by be found that a knowledge of СКАЧАТЬ