Part 4 (1/2)

Have you eaten it all?

_Children_--No, Signora

Now let us go into the courtyard and throay the rest of the snow

Then ill put the boxes on this table to dry And to-morroill show you a pretty picture of country covered with snow Co your boxes, and when you have emptied them put them back where I told you”

I intend to repeat this lesson in another for in it to other ideas, which bear a relation to that here set forth

As everything in the physical and ether in closest union, huravely impeded by the presentment of isolated educational facts in a desultory s united by a sacred and eternal law

In the above ”model” lesson, it is claimed that only two perceptions are dealt with, those of cold and heat, and that the child has been allowed a good deal of liberty, but of a judicious kind

Noould be exceedingly difficult to li with persons placed in an environ in sties But such being the object in view, it is necessary to eliminate as far as possible all other perceptions, to arrest those two, and so to polarize attention on thees shall be obscured in the field of consciousness This would be the scientificto isolate perceptions; and it is in fact the practical method adopted by us in our education of the senses In the case of cold and heat, the child is ”prepared” by the isolation of the particular sense in question; he is placed blindfolded in a silent place, to the end that thermic stimuli alone may reach him In front of the child are placed two objects perfectly identical in all characteristics perceptible to the muscular tactile sense: of the saree of smoothness, the sas, filled with the same quantity of water, and perfectly dry on the outside The sole difference is the tes; in the hot one, the water would be at a terees centigrade After directing the child's attention to the object, his hand is drawn over the hot bag, and then over the cold one; while his hand is on the hot bag the teacher says: It is hot! While he feels the cold one he is told: It is cold And the lesson is finished It has consisted ned to ensure that as far as possible, the two sensations corresponding to these tords shall be the only ones that reach the child The other senses, sight and hearing, were protected against stimuli; and there was no perceptible difference in the objects offered to the touch save that of temperature Thus it becomes approximately probable that the child will achieve the perception of two sensations exclusively

And what about the liberty of the child, we shall be asked?

Well, we ades the liberty of the child, and for this reason we allow it to last only for a few seconds: just the time to pronounce the tords: hot, cold; but this is effected under the influence of the preparation, which by first isolating the sense makes, as it were, a darkness in the consciousness, and then projects only two iic lantern, the child receives his psychical acquisitions, or rather they are like seeds falling on a fertile soil; and it is in the subsequent free choice, and the repetition of the exercise, as in the subsequent activity, spontaneous, associative, and reproductive, that the child will be left ”free” He receives, rather than a lesson, a determinate impression of contact with the external world; it is the clear, scientific, pre-deteruishes it from the mass of indeter fros The multiplicity of such indeterminate contacts will create chaos within the mind of the child; pre-determined contacts will, on the other hand, initiate order therein, because with the help of the technique of isolation, they will begin tofrooverned by experiy

And this trend, without doubt, is in contrast to that of the past, which was governed by speculative psychology, on which the whole of the educational methods commonly in use in schools has hitherto been based

It was Herbart who used the philosophical psychology of his day as a guiding principle to reduce pedagogic rules to a system From his individual experience he believed he could deduce a universal ical basis of ist, whose methods are now, thanks to Credaro, fory at the University of Rome, and afterward Minister of Education, adopted for eleave a unique type of lesson on the four well-known periods (the formal steps): clarity, association, system, method These may be explained approximately as follows: presentation of an object and its analytical exa objects or with es (association); definition of the object deduced froments (system); new principles derived from the idea which is thus deepened, and which will lead to practical application of a uide the child's ; he ence for that of the child, but rather make the child himself think, and induce him to exercise his own activity For instance, in the association period, the master must not say: ”Look at such and such an object, and at such and such another; see how much alike they are, etc” He should ask the pupil: ”What do you see when you look around? Is there not soain, in the definition period, the master should not say: ”A bird is a vertebrate animal covered with feathers; it has two lis,” but by rapid questions, corrections, and analogies, he should induce the child to find the precise definition for himself If the mental process of Herbart's four periods is to coreat interest in the object should exist; it is interest which would keep the ed in the idea, and wouldmultilateral ideas; and hence it is necessary that ”interest” should be awakened and should persist in all instruction It is well known that a pupil of Herbart's must, to this end, supplement Herbart's four periods by a prior period, that of interest; linking all neledge to the old, ”going from the known to the unknown,” because what is absolutely new can awake no interest

”Toto those who have no interest in us, is indeed a very difficult task; and to arrest the attention hour after hour, and year after year, not of one, but of ain common with us, not even years, is indeed a superhu Yet this is the task of the teacher, or, as he would say, his ”art”: to make this assembly of children whom he has reduced to immobility by discipline follow him with their minds, understand what he says, and learn; an internal action, which he cannot govern, as he governs the position of their bodies, but which hethis interest ”The art of tuition,” says Ardigo, ”consists mainly of this: to know up to what point and in what manner one can maintain the interest of pupils The ue one fraction of the pupil's brain, but act in such anow here, now there, th, return to the principal arguor”

A much more laborious art is that which leads the child to find by means of its own mental processes, not what it would naturally find, but what the teacher desires, although he does not say what he desires; he urges on the child to associate his ideas ”spontaneously”--as the teacher associates the the child compose definitions with the exact words he hi revealed the would see trick Nevertheless, such methods have been and still are in use, and in some cases they form the sole art of the teacher

When in 1862 Tolstoy washis tours of inspection in the schools of Ger the pedagogic writings describing his school, Iasnaja Poliana, he reproduces a lesson which deserves to be recorded, although perhaps it would no longer be possible to find an example of such a lesson in any German school

IASNAJA POLIANA, 1862

Calm and confident, the professor is seated in the class-room; the instruments are ready; little tables with the letters, a book with the picture of a fish The master looks at his pupils; he knows beforehand all they are to understand; he knows of what their souls consist, and various other things he has learned in the seminary

He opens the book and shows the fish ”Dear children, what is this?” The poor children are delighted to see the fish, unless indeed they already know from other pupils hat sauce it is to be served up In any case, they answer: ”It is a fish” ”No,” replies the professor (all this is not an invention nor a satire, but an exact account of what I have seen without exception in all the best schools in Gerlish schools which have adopted this ) ”No,” says the professor ”Nohat is it you do see?” The children are silent It ed to remain seated and quiet, each one in his place, and that they are not to move ”Well, what do you see?” ”A book,” says the most stupid child in the class

Meanwhile, thetheain what it is they do see; they feel they cannot guess what the teacher wants, and that they will have to answer that this fish is not a fish, but so the name of which is unknown to theood indeed, a book And what else?” The intelligent ones guess, and say joyfully and proudly: ”Letters” ”No, no, not at all!” says the teacher, disappointed; ”you ent ones lapse into uess; they think of the teacher's spectacles, and wonder why he does not take the over the top of them: ”Come then; what is there in the book?”

All are silent ”Well, what is this thing?” ”A fish,” says a bold spirit ”Yes, a fish But is it a live fish?” ”No, it is not alive” ”Quite right Then is it dead?” ”No” ”Right

Then what is this fish?” ”A picture” ”Just so Very good!”

All the children repeat: ”It is a picture,” and they think that is all Not at all They have to say that it is a picture which represents a fish By the same method the master induces the children to say that it is a picture which represents a fish He i faculties of his pupils, and it never seems to enter his head that if it is his duty to teach children to say in these exact words, ”it is a book with a picture of a fish,” it would be e formula and make his pupils learn it by heart