Part 6 (2/2)
In such an attitude ought we to await the _miracles_ of the inner life, its expansions and also its unforeseen and surprising explosions; just as the intelligenther baby nourishrow_, and awaits the manifestations of nature: the first tooth, the first word, and finally the action by which the baby will one day rise to his feet and walk
But to ensure the psychical phenoroe must prepare the ”environment” in a definite manner, and from this environment offer the child the external means directly necessary for him
This is the _positive_ fact which my experiment has rendered concrete
Hitherto the liberty of the child has been vaguely discussed; no clearly defined limit has been established between liberty and abandonment We were told: ”Liberty has its limits,” ”Liberty”how liberty should be interpreted, and what is the intuitive _quid_ which ought to co-exist with it,” had not been determined
The establishment of such a method should open up a new path to all education
It is therefore necessary that the environment should contain the means of auto-education These means cannot be ”taken at random”; they represent the result of an experimental study which cannot be undertaken by all, because a scientific preparation is necessary for such delicate work; besides, like all experied, and exact Many years of research are required, before the means really _necessary_ for _psychical developreat question of the liberty of the pupil to the good sense or to the preparation of the reatest scientist, or the person most fitted by nature to teach, could never of hiifts, the further factor of _ti period of preparatory experiment Therefore a _science_ which has already _provided the means_ for self-education must exist beforehand To-day, he who speaks of liberty in the schools ought at the sa to a scientific apparatus--which will make such liberty possible
The scientific instrument must be constructed upon a basis of _exactitude_ Just as the lenses of the physicist are constructed in accordance with the laws of the refraction of light, so the pedagogic instrument should be based on the _psychical manifestations_ of the child
Such an instrument may be compared to a systematized ”mental test” It is not, however, established upon a basis of externalthe amount of instantaneous psychical reaction which it produces; it is, on the contrary, a stimulus which is itself deter andpermanently It is the psychical reaction, therefore, that in this case determines and establishes the systematic ”mental test” The psychical reaction which constitutes the sole basis of comparison in the determination of the tests, is a _polarization of the attention_, and _the repetition of the actions_ related to it
When a stimulus corresponds in this manner to the ”reflex personality,” it serves, not to _measure_ but to _maintain_ a lively reaction; it is therefore a stimulus to the ”internal formation”
Indeed, upon such activity, awakened and anism initiates its internal elaborations in relation to the stimuli
This does not penetrate into the ancient ay as a science that _y introduced in schools has hitherto done, but as a science that _transfor its stand as a true and real pedagogy Whereas the ancient pedagogy in all its various interpretations started from the conception of a ”receptive personality”--one, that is to say, which was to receive instructions and to be passively formed, this scientific departure starts from the conception of an _active_ personality--reflex and associative--developing itself by a series of reactions induced by systematic stiogy accordingly belongs to the series of h it is not directly based on the purely y” But the ”method,”
which informs it--nanition of new phenomena, their reproduction and utilization, undoubtedly place it a the experimental sciences
=External sti can bethan such experiments By their reatest precision, both as regards quality and quantity For instance, very seoitive attention of a child of three years old; but by increasing the diradually, we arrive at the limit of size when these objects will fix the attention; then such objects excite an activity which beco exercise becomes a factor of development The experiment is repeated with a number of children, and thus the dimensions of a series of objects are established
It is the same with colors and with every kind of _quality_ In order that a quality should be felt to such a degree as to fix the attention, a certain extension and a certain intensity of the stiree of psychical reaction shown by the child; as, for instance, the minimum chromatic extension sufficient to attract the attention to the colored tablets, etc Quality, therefore, is deter the activity it produces in a child, ill continue the exercise with the sa a pheno the characteristics of the objects, one ree of activity in the intelligence: they contain in themselves _control of error_
To h that the stimulus should call forth activity, it must also direct it The child should not only persist for a long ti mistakes All the physical or intrinsic qualities of the objects should be determined, not only by the immediate reaction of attention they provoke in the child, but also by their possession of this fundamental characteristic, the control of error, that is to say the power of evoking the effective collaboration of the highest activities (coment) For instance, one of the first objects which attract the attention of the child of three years old, the solid insets (a series of cylinders of various dimensions to be placed in or taken out of a block with corresponding holes) contains the lethe cylinders, one of these must be left out at the end of the exercise Hence a mistake is an obstacle only to be overcome by correction, for without it the exercise cannot be completed On the other hand, the correction is so easy that the childitself to the child, almost like the unexpected object of a jack-in-the-box, has ”interested” him
It is, however, noteworthy that the ”problem” thus presented is not in itself the stimulus to interest; it is not that which incites to the repetition of the act--to the progress of the child What interests the child is the sensation, not only of placing the objects but of acquiring a neer of perception, enabling hinize the difference of dimension in the cylinders, a difference which he did not at first notice The _problem_ presents itself solely in connection with the _error_, it does not accompany the normal process of development An interest stimulated merely by _curiosity_, by a ”problem,” would not be that formative interest which wells up fro up of the spiritual personality If it were only the probleht be dissipated by it, as by any other external cause which tends to _seduce_ life into false paths I lay, perhaps, excessive stress upon this point, in answer to very important objections and observations that have been ned to educate the eye to appreciate dimensions, the control of error is not ical; the child hinize differences of dimension, will see the error, provided the objects be of a certain size and attractively colored It is for this reason that the next objects contain, so to say, the control of error in their own size and in their bright colors A control of error of a totally different kind, and of a her order, is that offered by the material of the arithmetical frame, in which the control will consist in the comparison of the child's oith that of a ent effort of will on the part of the child, and places him thenceforth in the true conditions of conscious auto-education But, however slight the control of error es more and more from an external radually developing, it always depends, like all the qualities of the objects, upon the fundaed attention, and repeats the exercises
On the other hand, the experi the _quantity of the objects_ When the instrureat precision, they provoke a spontaneous exercise so coordinated and so harmonious with the facts of internal development, that at a certain point a new psychical picture, a species of higher plane in the complex development, is revealed
The child turns away spontaneously froue, but rather as if iies, and his e of development, the child turns his attention to the external world, and observes it with an order which is the order for developins spontaneously to ical comparisons which represent a veritable spontaneous acquisition of ”knowledge” This is the period henceforth to be known as the period of ”discoveries,” discoveries which evoke enthusiasm and joy in the child
This more elevated level of development is extremely fruitful in its last ascent It is essential that the child's attention should not be directed to the objects when the delicate phenoins For instance, the teacher who invites the child to continue his operations with the material at such a moment, will retard his spontaneous development and place an obstacle in his way If the enthusiashts and experience so ress has been closed Now the same error may be committed by an _excessive quantity_ of the educative material; this may dissipate the attention, render the exercises with the objects icalit Moreover, such objects are then futile, and, by their futility, ”the childto be exactly determined is: what is _necessary_ and _sufficient_ as a response to the internal needs of a life in process of developression, of _ascent_? Now in deteruided by the expression and at the same time by the activebeen occupied with these detern of absorbed attention, will, all of a sudden, begin to rise gradually and insensibly, like an aeroplane when it coround Their apparent indifference to the objects is revealed in its true essence by the intense and radiant expression of the face, which is ani nothing, but this will only be for a moment; very soon he will speak, and so will reveal what is happening within hi in a series of explorations and discoveries He is saved