Practical Education. Maria Edgeworth

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СКАЧАТЬ than prudence in the affairs of men, is founded upon the common observation, that men of the best abilities cannot frequently recollect, in urgent circumstances, what they have said or done; the things occur to them perhaps a moment after they are past. The fact seems to be, that they could not, in the proper moment, command their attention; but this we should attribute to the want of prudence in their early education. Thus, Bayle's argument does not, in this point of view, prove any thing in favour of fortune. Those who can best command their attention, in the greatest variety of circumstances, have the most useful abilities; without this command of mind, men of genius, as they are called, are helpless beings; with it, persons of inferior capacity become valuable. Addison trembled and doubted, and doubted and trembled, when he was to write a common official paper; and it is said, that he was absolutely obliged to resign his place, because he could not decide in time whether he should write a that or a which. No business could have been transacted by such an imbecile minister.

      To substitute voluntary for associated attention, we may withdraw some of the usually associated circumstances, and increase the excitement; and we may afterwards accustom the pupil to act from the hope of distant pleasures. Unless children can be actuated by the view of future distant advantage, they cannot be capable of long continued application. We shall endeavour to explain how the value of distant pleasures can be increased, and made to act with sufficient force upon the mind, when we hereafter speak of judgment and of imagination.

      It has been observed, that persons of wit and judgment have perhaps originally the same powers, and that the difference in their characters arises from their habits of attention, and the different class of objects to which they have turned their thoughts. The manner in which we are first taught to observe, and to reason, must in the first years of life decide these habits. There are two methods of teaching; one which ascends from particular facts to general principles, the other which descends from the general principles to particular facts; one which builds up, another which takes to pieces; the synthetic and the analytic method. The words analysis and synthesis are frequently misapplied, and it is difficult to write or to speak long about these methods without confounding them: in learning or in teaching, we often use them alternately. We first observe particulars; then form some general idea of classification; then descend again to new particulars, to observe whether they correspond with our principle.

      Children acquire knowledge, and their attention alternates from particular to general ideas, exactly in the same manner. It has been remarked, that men who have begun by forming suppositions, are inclined to adapt and to compress their consequent observations to the measure of their theories; they have been negligent in collecting facts, and have not condescended to try experiments. This disposition of mind, during a long period of time, retarded improvement, and knowledge was confined to a few peremptory maxims and exclusive principles. The necessity of collecting facts, and of trying experiments, was at length perceived; and in all the sciences this mode has lately prevailed: consequently, we have now on many subjects a treasure of accumulated facts. We are, in educating children, to put them in possession of all this knowledge; and a judicious preceptor will wish to know, not only how these facts can be crammed speedily into his pupil's memory, but what order of presenting them will be most advantageous to the understanding; he will desire to cultivate his pupil's faculties, that he may acquire new facts, and make new observations after all the old facts have been arranged in his mind.

      By a judicious arrangement of past experiments, and by the rejection of what are useless, an able instructer can show, in a small compass, what it has cost the labour of ages to accumulate; he may teach in a few hours what the most ingenious pupil, left to his own random efforts, could not have learned in many years. It would take up as much time to go over all the steps which have been made in any science, as it originally cost the first discoverers. Simply to repeat all the fruitless experiments which have been made in chemistry, for instance, would probably employ the longest life that ever was devoted to science; nor would the individual have got one step forwarder; he would die, and with him his recapitulated knowledge; neither he nor the world would be the better for it. It is our business to save children all this useless labour, and all this waste of the power of attention. A pupil, who is properly instructed, with the same quantity of attention, learns, perhaps, a hundred times as much in the same time, as he could acquire under the tuition of a learned preceptor ignorant in the art of teaching.

      The analytic and synthetic methods of instruction will both be found useful when judiciously employed. Where the enumeration of particulars fatigues the attention, we should, in teaching any science, begin by stating the general principles, and afterwards produce only the facts essential to their illustration and proof. But wherever we have not accumulated a sufficient number of facts to be accurately certain of any general principle, we must, however tedious the task, enumerate all the facts that are known, and warn the pupil of the imperfect state of the science. All the facts must, in this case, be stored up with scrupulous accuracy; we cannot determine which are unimportant, and which may prove essentially useful: this can be decided only by future experiments. By thus stating honestly to our pupils the extent of our ignorance, as well as the extent of our knowledge; by thus directing attention to the imperfections of science, rather than to the study of theories, we shall avoid the just reproaches which have been thrown upon the dogmatic vanity of learned preceptors.

"For as knowledges are now," says Bacon, "there is a kind of contract of errour between the deliverer and receiver; for he that delivereth knowledge, desireth to deliver it in such a form as may be best believed, and not as may be best examined; and he that receiveth knowledge, desireth rather present satisfaction than expectant inquiry; and so rather not to doubt, than not to err; glory making the author not to lay open his weakness, and sloth making the disciple not to know his strength."[32]

[13] V. Preface to Berthollet's Chemical Nomenclature.

[14] V. Condillac's "Art de Penser."

[15] Major Cartwright. See his Journal, &c.

[16] V. Chapter on Mechanics.

[17] V. Adela and Theodore.

[18] Chapter on Tasks.

[19] Zoonomia, vol. i. page 435.

[20] Cicero.

[21] Lucian.

[22] "And lends his little soul at every stroke." Virg.

[23] V. Chapter II. on Tasks.

[24] Apercues.

[25] Deinology.

[26] V. Condillac Art de Penser.

[27] Mr. Owen.

[28] Mr. Erskine—The Star.

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